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

[Nymrohd]

Idk, I think the new zones look really good. Best looking zones since BFA for myself personally.

I have to agree, I don't vibe with ringing deeps that much but the other three look gorgeous and the capital seems like a great place to hang out. Though I might just have my HS on Hallowfall if I can afford it, as a human paladin that place was built for us.

[Chickat]

I can honestly see Undermine being a patch during TWW and if Tinkers don't come with that the door has essentially closed for them, for some weird reason also people are saying they feel these last 3 expansions will be the last before Blizz decide to move onto a WoW2, whats made people feel this as I'm sure Mr Metzen said that they want to do 10 more years of content after these 3 expansions.

Teriz would surely hate it just being a patch zones, but I could see a bad faction of Goblins drilling too deep and hurting azeroth, so we have to go to Undermine to stop them or something. Id rather Undermine be a full expansion launch zone too. Not sure about continent.

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I'm very excited about the trilogy/World Soul saga, extremely happy Metzen is back, excited for TWW overall, a little disappointed a large revamp is not happening at the time and confused on what Midnight is actually going to revamp in EK (if it's just Quel'Thalas, that might get old quick, even by building it from scratch to make it a much larger map) and The Last Titan in Northrend (are they going to redo the whole continent or just swap textures and doodads?). Somewhat concerned as to what will happen to WoW after 13.0 too, will we continue onto 14.0 with a new saga? will we have a soft reboot? or will we have a new game entirely?

Many many many questions remain, but overall I'm excited and I thought that was an epic announcement (even though I've found the deepdive panel to be quite light, and I miss that we're not having art-dedicated panels anymore, those were always my favourite). Also I'm not mad at the Earthen AR, they're cool, but I think they should have been an Alliance AR and Horde should have gotten their own. That and I really hope those humanoid Nerubians become playable too (the same way I hope Tuskarrs will be by the end of DF... one can dream)!

Out of the three Midnight is the expansion I'm the most excited about (can you imagine? me being excited about a Void expansion?) so they must me doing something right

Also even though we didn't get our World Revamp (YET), I'm very happy for the people who were rooting for an underground expansion! It's going to be a nice theme to explore and I'm glad that at least some of us got (almost) exactly what they were asking for!

I imagine they will revamp Northrend much like they took the skeleton of Outland to make WoD. Place the base of Northrend with everything removed. Edit the mountains down some and rebuild them with modern mountain tech. Change borders somewhat. For example, did NR melt any after Cata? Is Sholazar a tiny underwater zone now, or just gone? I do think our capital city will be a revamped Wyrmrest Temple with multiple levels. I think that could be cool. I wouldnt want Dal 3.0 unless they land it somewhere and remake the whole thing.

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I think that after the Worldsoul saga WoW will start anew with the following changes:

- All content is still available through CoT or a similar system.

- All achievements are under a tab of Old Content.

- All collectibles are under a tab of Old Collectibles and just usable in old zones.

- 14.0 is a soft reboot. Not a world revamp but just another expansion continent under a completely new map, with a timeskip of probably at least 50 years.

- From 14.0 on, they could revisit any zone as they would be completely different because of the time skip and because chances are that Azeroth is born in the Final Titan expansion. This will be an event of similar consequences as the destruction of the World Stone in Diablo 2, so everything would go to shit basically.

They have already stated that they will do more WoW expansions after the Worldsoul saga so a soft reboot would be inevitable.

Anyway, I have to say that after the Deep Dive I feel much better about the game. Ion just explain things in a way that make them look much better, at least to my eyes.

Still a bit dissapointed with shorter expansions and with paying more for less content. Still a bit dissapointed with no world revamp. But with WoW I know that my money would always be well spent as I play way too much.

BTW I think that within 11.0 we will visit Harrowsden (Iridikron's lair), as it is an underground zone that fits the theme and would contain a raid in which we will end Iridikron.

I think they will save Iridikron for 13.0. His lair is underground in Northrend, and he wants to kill the titans. Makes sense for him to just chill a bit imo.

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I remember how a lot of people was saying that the "allied races" concept was definitely dead after BfA, and that we wouldn't ever see allied races again... but now the Earthens are coming into the picture under the "allied races" name, so... I guess (hope, mostly) that we get more allied races on the next expansion, and at the same time I am thinking that now we have real chances of getting some of the DF races as allied races before this expansion ends!

Honestly, it doesn't make much sense for them to be allied anyways, except for the fact that you need to unlock them. So I guess??

Kinda weird having an allied neutral race imo.

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I have to agree, I don't vibe with ringing deeps that much but the other three look gorgeous and the capital seems like a great place to hang out. Though I might just have my HS on Hallowfall if I can afford it, as a human paladin that place was built for us.

Ringing Deeps is my 2nd fav zone atm. Hallowfall is best though, yes. Ret Belf main.

Ringing Deeps speaks to me because I love Mines and Dwarves. Its just cool seeing all the minecrarts etc.

[huth]

I think they could probably cram enough into Quel'Thalas to get an expansion out of it - there's all that terrain that was never developed. Plus if the Void is making an incursion, we'll hopefully get to actually visit that realm. Lots of potential for extradimensional goodness.

And I hope a return to Northrend will involve delving into the underworld there, if War Within proves the concept can work on a large scale. The new nerubian zone is nice, but I also want Azjol-Nerub itself to be expanded.

For a future saga... well, if we come into conflict with the Titans, it could mean that Sargeras uses the opportunity to get free. There's also potential grief from the cosmic powers of Life, Disorder, and... well, let's face it, the First Ones.

Do keep in mind that at lore size, Quel'thalas would be (considerably) larger than the in-game Dragon Isles. So they could easily blow it up 4-8 times and it'd still be scaled down.

And Silvermoon was a full-sized capital with half of it being an uninhabitable ruin. There's definitely more than enough room for an expansion "continent".


As i said before, if they went by lore size, we could get an entire expansion set in Elwynn and still have plenty of room to move around. The world really is scaled down that much, with factors ranging from 1/80 to 1/100 of the real size being common.

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Ringing Deeps speaks to me because I love Mines and Dwarves. Its just cool seeing all the minecrarts etc.

I wonder, will they be Dwarves and digging holes?

[rainhard]

I think people forget how weak the Xenedar is, all it did in Antorus was make tiny holes.

Did you just how reinforced that door was? it had like 5 layers of top demon steel and it melted it into nothing, it has crazy focus laser that should be enough to purge a bug kingdom.

[huth]

Did you just how reinforced that door was? it had like 5 layers of top demon steel and it melted it into nothing, it has crazy focus laser that should be enough to purge a bug kingdom.

That's the Vindikaar with the triumvirate powerup. Not the Xenedar.

The Vindikaar also casually just sits around in artillery fire while the Xenedar got downed immediately after coming out of hiding.

[Varodoc]

My thoughts about the Old Gods and what role they could play in the Worldsoul saga.

Even though Blizzard made a big deal at Blizzcon that we destroyed the Old Gods, it is shown many times that the Old Gods can still haunt Azeroth in a sort of "Spirit" form.

In a pre-WotLK comic, the spirit of C'Thun was controlling Cho'gall and the Twilight's Hammer from the shadows to revive himself, and even transformed Cho'gall into the monstrous behemoth he is in Cataclysm.

In MoP, we had the whole Sha storyline and the whispers of the Dark Heart that were the leftover influence of Y'Shaarj on the world of the living after the Titans killed him.

In Legion, whispers of Yogg-Saron were still heard in Ulduar when the Legion broke the facility. In Exploring Azeroth: Northrend, which takes place post-Shadowlands, the Brother Bronzebeards confirm that the influence, presence, and whispers of Yogg-Saron can still be felt in Ulduar, Whisper Gulch, and other places where he once held power.

N'Zoth is 100000% inside the Blade of the Black Empire.

Do I expect an Old God expansion? No, that dream is dead.

Do I expect the Worldsoul saga to not have any Old God cameos? Absolutely Not. Old Gods have been present in the WoW storyline since the very beginning, how can they just be ignored in the climactic conclusion of the first chapter of the setting?

So, even though the Old Gods have been destroyed, their spirits likely remained tethered in some way to the living world. We've always been told that they exist outside the cycle of life and death, and Yogg-Saron even styled himself as "God of Death". So, some Old God cameos I imagine will happen:

- C'Thun cameo in TWW. I think the Old God blood that the Nerubians are mining is C'Thun's, since he's probably the closest to Khaz Algar. I think we will see vestiges of C'Thun's power and possibly even an avatar down the line.

- Yogg-Saron cameo in TLT. I cannot imagine a Ulduar revamp that doesn't feature some cameo to Yogg-Saron. I expect to see vestiges of his power and influence and an avatar for him too.

How I imagine these avatars to look like? Like the Onyxia avatar/memory from the Human heritage questline or the Neltharion echo from Aberrus. Just have a raid encounter in the revamped Ulduar that is a ghostly memento of Yogg-Saron or Sara, for instance.

- N'Zoth is the major one. I expect him to return in the form of the Blade of the Black Empire and serve as a dark helper of the protagonist, like Xal'atath was in Legion. An ironic reversal of the roles, where Xal'atath is the one in power, and N'Zoth is the one shackled to a blade. I expect him to return in TWW and help the player for his own ends; to get his revenge on Xal'atath for making deals with Azshara (who betrayed him), and to get closer to the World Soul of Azeroth. If Azshara returns as the final villain of the Quel'Thalas storyline, I expect N'Zoth to also return in the Blade to help us defeat Azshara as revenge for her betrayal.

At the end of the Worldsoul saga, N'Zoth in the Blade of the Black Empire can either be destroyed for good or go missing and Blizzard can keep N'Zoth-in-the-blade as an open thread for an eventual "WoW 2" part of the storyline.

[Teriz]

Teriz would surely hate it just being a patch zones, but I could see a bad faction of Goblins drilling too deep and hurting azeroth, so we have to go to Undermine to stop them or something. Id rather Undermine be a full expansion launch zone too. Not sure about continent.

Interestingly, there's always the chance we could see a mechanical class mid-expansion. They released Augmentation mid-expansion, what if they also released a Mechanic class mid-expansion to coincide with an Undermine patch?

Obviously the more likely scenario is in 13.0 with the Titan expansion. I could see an Artificer class dropping at that point.

[Jekyll]

I remember how a lot of people was saying that the "allied races" concept was definitely dead after BfA, and that we wouldn't ever see allied races again... but now the Earthens are coming into the picture under the "allied races" name, so... I guess (hope, mostly) that we get more allied races on the next expansion, and at the same time I am thinking that now we have real chances of getting some of the DF races as allied races before this expansion ends!

I just hope the Earthens isn't the only Allied Race in Warthin.

[Sondrelk]

-snip-

I am pretty confident that N'zoth would have changed the blade to give him more autonomy while inside it.
We have also not been told by he wanted the blade to begin with, or specifically why he wanted the blade to be given to Sylvanas. We were shown Nathanos used it to get to Nazjatar, but I don't think this is a good enough reason for N'zoth to make such a big deal about it.

My guess will be that N'zoth recognized that he had no chance against the players while shackled to his giant form, and so decided to put his spirit into the blade, allowing him to really do what he does best as a schemer.

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I find it hard to buy N'zoth being fully aligned with the Void Lords, simply because of the consistent theme of Void beings shifting allegiances at the drop of a hat.

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Interestingly, there's always the chance we could see a mechanical class mid-expansion. They released Augmentation mid-expansion, what if they also released a Mechanic class mid-expansion to coincide with an Undermine patch?

Obviously the more likely scenario is in 13.0 with the Titan expansion. I could see an Artificer class dropping at that point.

Why would Undermine be a part of TWW? The only thing linking them thematically is that they are underground.

Even assuming a B plot that isn't fully about the Earthen I would be much more willing to bet on a raid in Hallowfall.

[huth]

I find it hard to buy N'zoth being fully aligned with the Void Lords, simply because of the consistent theme of Void beings shifting allegiances at the drop of a hat.

There's also that the Void Lord's plan is essentially predicated on all the Old Gods dying, even the "successfull" one. I imagine the OG aren't to thrilled about that part and were probably dragging their tentacles the whole time.

[Pyrophax]

My thoughts about Midnight unification of elves - they will merge all of them in last patch of 12.0
Maybe as 3 faction, but not as gameplay faction, rather lorewise one.
Blood elves will be neutral (leave Horde but remain friendly), VE and NE too (again, neutral, but Alliance friendly).
Shame, but I see that coming. Whole faction of elves will be neutral to Alliance and Horde (still orcs are not welcome in NE lands, but not death sentance and humans and VE are not welcome in Quel'Thalas). Draenei will come neutral too.
And after 13.0 - timeskip or world rewamp bc titan shit - all neutral to anybody, H and A will be same factions as Cenation Circle and Earthen Ring.

[Puupi]

They changed the LFR release schedule completely. It used to be that EVERY wing had a week gap. This time they are releasing most of the raid and only timegating Fyrakk. As for why, I assume so FnF guilds who progress on Normal actually have a chance to get to Fyrakk before it becomes available to LFR. It is still a few weeks earlier than LFR would have usually gotten the entire raid.

No, it's a financial decision.

People sub for the new content. There are 4 wings in the raid. Now they are spreading it over 5 weeks so that those LFR andies need to sub for another month to experience the full raid.

[Nymrohd]

No, it's a financial decision.

People sub for the new content. There are 4 wings in the raid. Now they are spreading it over 5 weeks so that those LFR andies need to sub for another month to experience the full raid.

It used to take 7 weeks you know. Also 5 weeks very much fall in a single 30 day sub. Sub on launch day or later, do the final wing on release.

[Lahis]

Just noticed the thread got a new name!



Not since they introduced the First Ones.

The Void got demoted to the same lvl of importance as any of the other forces.

Well since First Ones are just Super Titans, they can introduce Über Voids after Midnight.

[Puupi]

It used to take 7 weeks you know. Also 5 weeks very much fall in a single 30 day sub. Sub on launch day or later, do the final wing on release.

5 weeks or 7 weeks is irrelevant as they both are within 2 months of sub. 5 weeks is 35 days, WoW sub is 30 days. Technically it's possible to hit that window if you sub in the last two days of the first week of the patch, then you can do the final wing on its release day.

But that's not how people operate.

Nevertheless, all timegating is based on financial decisions because it's a subscription game.

[Sondrelk]

5 weeks or 7 weeks is irrelevant as they both are within 2 months of sub. 5 weeks is 35 days, WoW sub is 30 days. Technically it's possible to hit that window if you sub in the last two days of the first week of the patch, then you can do the final wing on its release day.

But that's not how people operate.

Nevertheless, all timegating is based on financial decisions because it's a subscription game.

No. If you choose any day of the week after the reset you will have four weeks and a bit from a 30 day sub. Plenty of time to get in five weekly clears.

Starting your sub at weekly reset you will have gone through four whole weeks, and started your fifth after 28 days, leaving two more days of the fifth week.

[Eldryth]

Hmph, no one was with me when I said we were getting an underground expansion.

Nobody was with you on Undermine. I, for one, would still be against that- I could deal with a single zone for it, but more than that would get annoying fast unless Blizzard completely changes Goblin culture. It's the only setting that comes to mind that I'd seriously consider skipping entirely.

Fortunately, they had better ideas for an underground expansion, and I'm looking forward to every single zone.

[Teriz]

Why would Undermine be a part of TWW? The only thing linking them thematically is that they are underground.

Even assuming a B plot that isn't fully about the Earthen I would be much more willing to bet on a raid in Hallowfall.

There is a rumored void creature beneath Undermine called Rakalaz. That could lead to something down the road. There’s also The War, but that’s probably more Titan involved.

[Nymrohd]

No. If you choose any day of the week after the reset you will have four weeks and a bit from a 30 day sub. Plenty of time to get in five weekly clears.

Starting your sub at weekly reset you will have gone through four whole weeks, and started your fifth after 28 days, leaving two more days of the fifth week.

Not to mention you can just sub after it is all out.

[Teriz]

Nobody was with you on Undermine. I, for one, would still be against that- I could deal with a single zone for it, but more than that would get annoying fast unless Blizzard completely changes Goblin culture. It's the only setting that comes to mind that I'd seriously consider skipping entirely.

Fortunately, they had better ideas for an underground expansion, and I'm looking forward to every single zone.

I like the new zones as well, especially Hallowfall. I just think it’s funny how all those arguments about an underground expansion being claustrophobic or too much like Zalarek have all suddenly evaporated.