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

[Reive]

the only interesting thing this week was the 10.2.5 announcement and they removed it. boring boring boring

[Marlamin]

the only interesting thing this week was the 10.2.5 announcement and they removed it. boring boring boring

To be fair, the 10.2 deployment appears to have taken far more effort on their end than they had expected so 10.2.5 PTR might have just been pushed to next week due to that, maybe they'll mention it during the WoWCast tomorrow. I'm still keeping an eye out this week regardless, things do be brewing.

[Ersula]

Yeah no, I'm sure they will tie the Nelves into Midnight somehow but Amirdrassil wouldn't be part of the Quelthalas zone because it's too far away.

Is it? Technically Quel'thalas is built upon the remnants of the Highborne empire post-Sundering & that includes every island & ruin between the Sunwell & Suramar. And Amirdrassil is directly north of that whole region.

It's as if Quel'thalas is the Mediterranean & Amirdrassil is Rome.

[Marlamin]

Is it? Technically Quel'thalas is built upon the remnants of the Highborne empire post-Sundering & that includes every island & ruin between the Sunwell & Suramar. And Amirdrassil is directly north of that whole region.

It would be really cool if we could just dragonride from Amirdrassil to Quel'thalas. Maybe one day.

[Reive]

To be fair, the 10.2 deployment appears to have taken far more effort on their end than they had expected so 10.2.5 PTR might have just been pushed to next week due to that, maybe they'll mention it during the WoWCast tomorrow. I'm still keeping an eye out this week regardless, things do be brewing.

the 10.2 release was also full of bugs despite the ptr. idk what's going on with them. they seem to be struggling

[Cheezits]

Ah, okay. That might be it, then.

Because for the life of me, I just can't see how Amirdrassil just popping into the Ohn'ahran plains will make it feel remotely like an appropriate home for the Night Elves.

Green hills.
Wind-swept cliffs.
A general theme that invokes memories of Nagrand, Desolace, etc.

The home of the Night Elves needs forests, and preferrably enchanted ones. Not just a single tree.

Hopefully, Amirdrassil just ends up being a fancy cottage that lets you teleport to various nature-themed zones like the Emerald Dream, Ashenvale, etc., or it has a single portal in its midst that leads to a Night Elf-exclusive little instance which is a wild forest no one else can reach.

It's pretty logical, now that we see the Saga, that the reason the tree is in the Dragon Isles despite all the complaints is because Kalimdor isn't going to be touched by the devs or story for 3+ expansions and they didn't want to postpone the tree or plant it somewhere irrelevant.

When Kalimdor comes back they will probably add a Nelf city or area to it, but maybe not. Still think Hyjal will be important.

[Ersula]

It would be really cool if we could just dragonride from Amirdrassil to Quel'thalas. Maybe one day.

That's why I'm a little bummed the Incarnates didn't cause another sundering-like event. They could have just redrawn the maps entirely. The Original Azeroth is a completely unknown geography considering the Titans were just scooping up landmasses & hiding them in pocket dimensions. Knowing that I was expecting Vyranoth to unlock the elemental planes, helheim, Thros, etc. the same way the Dragon Isles were.

[Revamp Man]

Any recent theories about that big revealation about Titans from Metzen announcement?
Grab tin-foiled hats, we come to speculation time!
Can it be that Titans are not Order aligned from start, its just Aman'Thul is infusing them with Order magic? Like other titans, aside Norgannon are not seems order-aligned.
Khaz - is more fire/earth elemental being than Order being.
Eonar - more Life above everything.
Golganneth - Air/Water elemental being.
Aggrammar and Sargeras - they like warriors than Order. Maybe Spirit-ones?
Or even Sargeras is Fel World Soul from the start. But was turned into Order being. And his "corruption" is like returning to his "roots"?
Aggramar can be Light aligned from the start. It can explain why Tyr is Light-based, or Light-using.

Could it be that Titans are not some Pantheon of Order, and just be most powerfull beings in material Universe, and Order via Aman'Thul just usurb others to Order reign?

I mean they did imprison azeroth

[RahEndymion]

<tinfoil>

Metzen returned little over a year ago. Everybody realised his ideas were better, and the narrative they had intended for the next few years blew.

They abandoned a lot of the stuff being set up early in Dragonflight, and instead honed in on the future Void and Titans story arcs. Dumped a few books in the Forbidden Reach and the Emerald Dream to build things up a little bit in terms of Khaz Algar, the Harbinger, etc.

Hastily duct taped together some of Fyrakk's storyline as the main antagonist of Dragonflight, before pivoting to War Within.

Rest of Dragonflight lets us dabble with Tyr's storyline, level new Paladins, Shamans and maybe Druids, and finally go nuts in the final season before pre-patch begins in late summer.

That's why we're getting seemingly two filler expansions in a row with Dragonflight and War Within. They needed to buy time and properly set up the big Void confrontation.

</tinfoil>

That would actually makes a lot of sense.

It's a shame to see the dragons effectively get the N'zoth/black empire treatment though. As much as I've enjoyed most of Dragonflight, I think I would have preferred to see the individual flights get a little more of the spotlight in the major content patches at the least.

How do you suppose they are going to go from end of Amirdrasil raid to 11.0 without any major content patches story wise?

[Nymrohd]

Next week as the announcement disappeared from today. What's odd is that they said PTR was this week at Blizzcon, so why did they decide to change it? Did they forget it would spoil the raid?

Could be something completely different, maybe one of the vendors found a major bug in some graphic update they were planning and it would fry our gpus if it went up.

[Polybius]

Because that's how you get a messed-up abomination like BfA that stiched up together 3 different expansion settings (South Seas + Nazjatar + Ny'alotha) and ended up rushing all three of them.

You can easily set that "B plot" stuff with Scourge remnants and Scarlet Crusade in Quel'Thalas.

An expansion with only Quel'Thalas will 10000% have better lore than an expansion with both Quel'Thalas and Lordaeron.

A part of me thinks Lordaeron will be somewhat involved since the Light’s forces are scattered throughout. They have the Scarlet Crusade, Tyr’s hand, and Calia. I’m sure there’ll be inner conflict.

Midnight isn’t just the void, but I also don’t think it’ll lean hard into Light v Void. That will probably be the central plot point for post-Worldsoul (with Void Lords remaining a threat).

[Ersula]

How do you suppose they are going to go from end of Amirdrasil raid to 11.0 without any major content patches story wise?

The Dawn of the Infinite cutscene was really exciting because my takeaway was "cool, we have a direct narrative line to the end of this expansion. Iridikron summons the Harbinger. We fight the Harbinger & Iridirkon because the Titans can't come because they're busy with Sargeras" but then this is my least favorite narrative convention, the "actually we're not going to resolve this now even though we could. We're going to resolve this several years from now" is what they're actually doing. In that sense the World Soul Saga is really 4 expansions long, including Dragonflight.

The most dangerous thing is give your fans several years to headcanon better endings to your storyline. They're making the same mistake Steven Moffat did writing Doctor Who & Sherlock.

I mean they did imprison azeroth

Only in the sense an egg is a prison for a chicken. Though I do suspect it's more like Azeroth is a tree & the Titans want to turn it into a chair, metaphorically. Like, a planet is a world soul's natural state: And the First ones extracted them & turned them into the Titans/eternal ones.

[Paula Deen]

100% agree. SL had a very questionable theme and travel ideas and system horror in the first two patches but even if I was annoyed by sylvanas pretending to play 5d chess I actually really wanted to know what happens next. dF story is so incredibly boring and weird and scattered and friendship is magic that I totally lost interest in "the end". Fyrakk is okay. But that's it.

I mean no offense, but man what a take.

- - - Updated - - -

To be fair, the 10.2 deployment appears to have taken far more effort on their end than they had expected

Speaking of, I really do wanna know what exactly happened. The Blue Post mentioned some TPS issues.

It would be really cool if we could just dragonride from Amirdrassil to Quel'thalas. Maybe one day.

Weren't you the one who pointed out, probably a thousand pages back now idk....that the current Engine, even with the current loading tech, can't support the entire game on "One Map"? Or did I misunderstand? Or are you just saying its a dream...it is a nice dream.

[Marlamin]

Weren't you the one who pointed out, probably a thousand pages back now idk....that the current Engine, even with the current loading tech, can't support the entire game on "One Map"? Or did I misunderstand? Or are you just saying its a dream...it is a nice dream.

Yeah, right now it does not and technically it probably never will, but given their advances in seamless teleporting, maybe it'll functionally have that in the future.

[Nymrohd]

Weren't you the one who pointed out, probably a thousand pages back now idk....that the current Engine, even with the current loading tech, can't support the entire game on "One Map"? Or did I misunderstand? Or are you just saying its a dream...it is a nice dream.

Seamless transition (like with Zaralek) in the sea should be possible

[Ersula]

I mean no offense, but man what a take.

Would you rather we still be dealing with the Jailer? If Shadowlands was written like Dragonflight we'd be in part 1 of the "Unmaking" Saga.

Seamless transition (like with Zaralek) in the sea should be possible

This is what I was thinking. The difference is the horizon but they could think of a way to simulate that.

[Reive]

I mean no offense, but man what a take.

weird but i agree with him. the only reason why the story of dragonflight is "better" is because it's essentially a filler. shadowlands was more harmful to the lore of the game but was more interesting. no one cares about the deviantart dragons and their feelings

[Paula Deen]

Would you rather we still be dealing with the Jailer? If Shadowlands was written like Dragonflight we'd be in part 1 of the "Unmaking" Saga.

You are still following up on SL. The Jailer let out a lil deathrattle like he is in Stormlight Archive and we still don't know what it means.

Expansions have epilogues. Dragonflight is gonna have one. Need I remind you, and the person I originally quoted that SL didn't have one until Fated Raids dropped? Jailer sucked. Sylvanas sucked. First Ones being elaborated on will suck.

weird but i agree with him. the only reason why the story of dragonflight is "better" is because it's essentially a filler. shadowlands was more harmful to the lore of the game but was more interesting. no one cares about the deviantart dragons with depression

I mean...I do care because it allows them to add more dragons to the game. If you recall they were kinda out the door after Cata.

[Sondrelk]

Ah, okay. That might be it, then.

Because for the life of me, I just can't see how Amirdrassil just popping into the Ohn'ahran plains will make it feel remotely like an appropriate home for the Night Elves.

Green hills.
Wind-swept cliffs.
A general theme that invokes memories of Nagrand, Desolace, etc.

The home of the Night Elves needs forests, and preferrably enchanted ones. Not just a single tree.

Hopefully, Amirdrassil just ends up being a fancy cottage that lets you teleport to various nature-themed zones like the Emerald Dream, Ashenvale, etc., or it has a single portal in its midst that leads to a Night Elf-exclusive little instance which is a wild forest no one else can reach.

Honestly, doesnt even need to be a Nelf exclusive zone. You could just make the portals Nelf or Alliance exclusive. Maybe with some phased NPCs that make it more of a Nelf capital. There is plenty of space in the middle after all.

[Reive]

I mean...I do care because it allows them to add more dragons to the game. If you recall they were kinda out the door after Cata.

I also liked the aspects, but not like this. in dragonflight they don't act and almost don't look like dragons