The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[micwini]

There are many possibilities to be honest. But I think most of us agree we are looking at last 3 traditional expansions for 2004 game. Something that probably Blizzard imagined as Sargeras/Burning Legion expansion when they started WoW.

What's after that? I think at least level squish and totally down to the earth chapter, most likely in new EK/Kalimdor. But I start to believe it won't be 14.0, but true WoW 2 with new engine and hard reset.

That's why I doubt these will be some short 1 year expacs. I think Blizzard thought about many expansions in advance for 2 reasons:

a) lore - now we will feel we are experiencing really important events, underground expansion alone would have "sigh, another continent" reaction
b) buy themself time, making WoW 2 won't take 2 years, more like 5-6 at least.

If I have to guess right now:
1) The War Within - October 2024
2) Blizzcon 2024 - TWW patches
3) Blizzcon 2025 - MD features reveal
4) Midnight - April 2026
5) Blizzcon 2026 - TLT features reveal
6) The Last Titan - October 2027
7) Blizzcon 2027 - TLT patches, teasing end of WoW
8) Patch 13.2 and final raid of World of Warcraft - November 2028, 25th anniversary.
9) Blizzcon right after that, with World of Warcraft 2 reveal.
10) Around 2030 - WoW 2 release.

Oof, I got carried away.

Mostly cool, but I don't see them rushing out 3 expansions just so people can wait 3 years for WoW 2.

I feel like the last expansion is going to have every single character coming together for a final showdown. Endgame style.

[Supertoster]

I feel like the last expansion is going to have every single character coming together for a final showdown. Endgame style.

The Last Titan sounds exactly like that.
I mean, these 3 expansions already look like a conclusion of all majory storylines: Light, Void, Titans and Worldsoul. And they already involve core alive character like Thrall and Anduin. The Last Titan looks like endgame, when the true nature of Azeroth will be revealed. What will left after that?

[Marlamin]

Hmmm, the War Within features overview trailer implies that we won't get expanded flying to other mounts before War Within, but the fact this answer wasn't "yes" does make it appear we'll get old world dynamic flying before 11.0, but maybe without the switch for now? Also very curious how they'll be handling this. Dynamic Flight is my favorite thing to come out of Dragonflight, so I can't wait to see what they have to say in the deep dive panel tonight.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

Only the arathi zone reminds me vaguely of revendreth, and even that is a stretch. So not really, no, not in terms of gameplay features either. BFA was a trainwreck in terms of systems. Shadowlands had the whole ripcord fiasco. This doesn't have any of these burdens, looks like. DF fixed that part of the game dev mindset

if these are hyped up to be these 'big 3' expansions, i think they should give more bang for their buck. there's no new groundbreaking features unless you count account wide rep..

[Fentawow]

Lots of dooming going on here.

I don’t know how people get we are getting patches for xpacs. They said they like current pace of content and the last two have kept the 2 year cycle for content that would fill 18 months really well. When they say shorter I assume they mean like 18 months per xpac and current patch count and cadence until proven otherwise.

With the main overarching story of a saga someone set it makes it easier to develop the subplots as there is a lot more structure to the story than having to develop a standalone main story per expansion in my opinion. Stuff like the books outlining the storming sea and hinting about avaloren etc is going to occur and build up some stuff for after this saga so we should hopefully have even time on 4.5-5 years for the expansion of new story arcs that actually make sense.

Until they say they are cutting major patch content going to annual expansions I think we need to assume otherwise and if they did that I would fully expect them to drop the sub and put it on game pass. Which somewhat counteracts it if you play any games besides just wow.

Delves as an endgame progression system that rewards gear not to mythic raid quality is a huge change for those who don’t do m+ and raid.

The interview on wowwiki says no new support specs planned for “launch” but it was well received. To me this hints we will get more and most of us had it as a shoe in so I wouldn’t be surprised to see more content like specs added throughout an expansion.

In DF when they absorbed the studio Holinka said they had a larger pvp staff looking at maps etc we are getting a new BG and I wouldn’t be shocked if they spent some time developing this out more as we are seeing solo queue rbgs as a likely in WW.

Honestly I think yesterday was a huge win and we need to wait for the deep dive and more information to come out over the coming months to actually have a educated take that isn’t just I think they are going to do x from a reveal session which said nothing of the sort so far.

Edit: also wow to console was pretty much confirmed and if they can grow the player base substantially and revenue I would expect more devs and a reasonable ability to push some evergreen stuff that they just aren’t staffed to be able to do on top of the core stuff

- - - Updated - - -

What would be a a feature you are looking for? Borrowed power people scream about and most of the things they could add have been added to poor reception and taken away.

If we ignore player housing which won’t be added anytime soon for many reasons

[Nymrohd]

There are many possibilities to be honest. But I think most of us agree we are looking at last 3 traditional expansions for 2004 game. Something that probably Blizzard imagined as Sargeras/Burning Legion expansion when they started WoW.

What's after that? I think at least level squish and totally down to the earth chapter, most likely in new EK/Kalimdor. But I start to believe it won't be 14.0, but true WoW 2 with new engine and hard reset.

That's why I doubt these will be some short 1 year expacs. I think Blizzard thought about many expansions in advance for 2 reasons:

a) lore - now we will feel we are experiencing really important events, underground expansion alone would have "sigh, another continent" reaction
b) buy themself time, making WoW 2 won't take 2 years, more like 5-6 at least.

If I have to guess right now:
1) The War Within - October 2024
2) Blizzcon 2024 - TWW patches
3) Blizzcon 2025 - MD features reveal
4) Midnight - April 2026
5) Blizzcon 2026 - TLT features reveal
6) The Last Titan - October 2027
7) Blizzcon 2027 - TLT patches, teasing end of WoW
8) Patch 13.2 and final raid of World of Warcraft - November 2028, 25th anniversary.
9) Blizzcon right after that, with World of Warcraft 2 reveal.
10) Around 2030 - WoW 2 release.

Oof, I got carried away.

I got carried away more
This is a two tier and Fated Season version
07-11-23 10.2
16-01-24 10.2.5
12-03-24 10.2.7
07-05-24 10.2.9 Fated Season, 5 rotations
20-08-24 11.0 Pre-Patch
10-09-24 11.0 Launch
19-11-24 11.0.5
14-01-25 11.0.7
11-03-25 11.1
20-05-25 11.1.5
15-07-25 11.1.7
09-09-25 11.1.9 Fated Season, 5 rotations
18-11-25 12.0 Pre-Patch
09-12-25 12.0 Launch
17-02-26 12.0.5
14-04-26 12.07
09-06-26 12.1
18-08-26 12.1.5
13-10-26 12.1.7
08-12-26 12.1.9 Fated Season, 5 rotations
16-02-27 13.0 Pre-Patch
09-03-27 13.0 Launch

[Rathwell]

I feel like the last expansion is going to have every single character coming together for a final showdown. Endgame style.

Takes place in Northrend, too.

I'm sure they'll think of a reason to bring back Arthas (soft retcon of the Shadowlands ending?) and Illidan, who of course makes sense to bring back. Then all of a sudden you got your franchise's two most popular lore characters back together in Northrend after 20 years for the last hurrah

[Walrusking]

12.0 and 13.0 leak season is gonna be boring.

[Murlocos]

I need to see the deep dive panel to process my thoughts more, but I'm not getting this "they're selling patches as expansions" sentiment at all, unless your stance was that 10.0 was also a glorified patch, and hell, you can still find a load of comments on the SL features trailer of people thinking it looks too lightweight. I hope they show off more of Delves today, because a new core endgame pillar is what I was hoping for, and I'll happily take the first new BG in what will have been almost 8 years by the time it's out.

[micwini]

Hmmm, the War Within features overview trailer implies that we won't get expanded flying to other mounts before War Within, but the fact this answer wasn't "yes" does make it appear we'll get old world dynamic flying before 11.0, but maybe without the switch for now? Also very curious how they'll be handling this. Dynamic Flight is my favorite thing to come out of Dragonflight, so I can't wait to see what they have to say in the deep dive panel tonight.

Im guessing everything we have acquired during DF will be made baseline? Either way, he says we'll see later today in the DEEP DIVE

[Samin]

12.0 and 13.0 leak season is gonna be boring.

There are still systems and story details that can be speculated on. Like for Midnight we will get all kinds of interpretations of how Quel'thalas will look and how far the void incursion goes and people may even once again speculate over an entire EK revamp. Tinkers too, obviously.

I'm honestly not too worried just because we know the name and a one sentence story pitch.

[Wangming]

Khaz Algar is the collective name for the entire continent, I think.

Perhaps. But the very fact that we are not ure kinda suggests that "going to Khaz Algar" is not what the hyped part of the expansion is.

[Neoplanet]

12.0 and 13.0 leak season is gonna be boring.

well , we can have only the title and region , so we can have leaks trying to guess class/race , mechanics and story

[Nymrohd]

I need to see the deep dive panel to process my thoughts more, but I'm not getting this "they're selling patches as expansions" sentiment at all, unless your stance was that 10.0 was also a glorified patch, and hell, you can still find a load of comments on the SL features trailer of people thinking it looks too lightweight. I hope they show off more of Delves today, because a new core endgame pillar is what I was hoping for, and I'll happily take the first new BG in what will have been almost 8 years by the time it's out.

Really, almost every part of an expansion is frontloaded. Most of the story, world building and dungeons are always at release. The only thing that is released mostly in patches is raids. Shorter expansions essentially means ONE thing. Less raids.

[Makabreska]

Really, almost every part of an expansion is frontloaded. Most of the story, world building and dungeons are always at release. The only thing that is released mostly in patches is raids. Shorter expansions essentially means ONE thing. Less raids.

War Within has all the features of a full expansion, but I'm a LITTLE worried about next two, simply because it was said we will be going back to old zones in each. Does it mean no new continents? Or maybe some new zones and some fully revamped old ones?

[Wangming]

So now that we know about the basic plot points about the saga....Do we give points to Scaleface? I mean he did guess that Light vs Void would be important based on the twitter posts. And in the Worldsoul Saga we might be getting exactly that in three ways.
- The void is attacking. At least definitely in the first two chapters. And Midnight is very specifically about Light vs the Void
- The team we have for the first chapter has Anduin (who might say he no longer has light, but we are for sure not buying it) and Alleria a VOID elf
- The internal conflict inside Alleria who probably doesn't want to succumb to the void
Hey in fact there might be a fourth one depending on what force the singing voice is alligned with. The voice inside Alleria vs the voice inside everyone else.

[Zers Editor]

I got carried away more
This is a two tier and Fated Season version
07-11-23 10.2
16-01-24 10.2.5
12-03-24 10.2.7
07-05-24 10.2.9 Fated Season, 5 rotations
20-08-24 11.0 Pre-Patch
10-09-24 11.0 Launch
19-11-24 11.0.5
14-01-25 11.0.7
11-03-25 11.1
20-05-25 11.1.5
15-07-25 11.1.7
09-09-25 11.1.9 Fated Season, 5 rotations
18-11-25 12.0 Pre-Patch
09-12-25 12.0 Launch
17-02-26 12.0.5
14-04-26 12.07
09-06-26 12.1
18-08-26 12.1.5
13-10-26 12.1.7
08-12-26 12.1.9 Fated Season, 5 rotations
16-02-27 13.0 Pre-Patch
09-03-27 13.0 Launch

That's believable enough.

[Neoplanet]

while reading the warcraft wiki Q&A i think i see somethin interesting

"Class customization. Tauren demon hunters?
In an ideal world it'd be great to see all classes on all races. But def top of mind. The goal of class/race combinations is to let people express themselves, and adding more classes is coming, but nothing to announce."

then say we can have new class combinations , but not they will not anounced for now

but after some questions this is asked

"Class-race options?
Earthen can be all classes but druids, demon hunters, evokers. Also 20-25% bigger than other playable dwarves. First time Horde have a dwarf."

so we can confirm paladins and shamans for everyone and all classes except druid and DH for dracthyr will happen until the expansion releases ?

[Nightshade711]

So now that we know about the basic plot points about the saga....Do we give points to Scaleface? I mean he did guess that Light vs Void would be important based on the twitter posts. And in the Worldsoul Saga we might be getting exactly that in three ways.
- The void is attacking. At least definitely in the first two chapters. And Midnight is very specifically about Light vs the Void
- The team we have for the first chapter has Anduin (who might say he no longer has light, but we are for sure not buying it) and Alleria a VOID elf
- The internal conflict inside Alleria who probably doesn't want to succumb to the void
Hey in fact there might be a fourth one depending on what force the singing voice is alligned with. The voice inside Alleria vs the voice inside everyone else.

I’ll have to find it but I coulda sworn I do remember him saying something about underground, light vs void, and titans.

[Samin]

War Within has all the features of a full expansion, but I'm a LITTLE worried about next two, simply because it was said we will be going back to old zones in each. Does it mean no new continents? Or maybe some new zones and some fully revamped old ones?

I kind of expect The Last Titan being a Northrend revamp. I doubt Midnight will take place entirely in Quel'thalas. It would be prime opportunity for the fan favorite K'aresh or maybe we go to the moon.