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

[Worldshaper]

I'm really doubting there's going to be a multi-decade time skip after TWW, but it would be cool.

Super spitball, but maybe there's some time travel shenanigans?

Notice how they call the Arathi humans a "tribe" in the War Within marketing? Well, humans were sort of divided into "tribes" way back before the first kingdom of Arathor was formed. This was around 3 000 years ago, when they fought the Amani trolls. Then they allied with Quel'thalas to defeat the Amani.

The description also says they've fought the nerubians for centuries, so less than 1 000 years presumably. Nerubians are from Northrend, and "centuries" ago they were probably still free after breaking with the Old Gods, and before the Lich King.

Xal'atath was going around (as a blade) the Eastern Kingdoms for ages, and was involved with many events in its history. Maybe something happened a few thousand years ago in Arathi, which caused a bunch of Arathi humans to end up near the nerubian empire much later. They established a foothold and settled under the light of the crystal, but then things soured?

What could that event have been?

Either way, their connection with Quel'thalas and time travel might be something that pushes the plot into Midnight?

[kavikor]

Also I do find it funny a lot of people (mainly on twitter) complaining about a “another dwarf” wouldn’t bat an eye and would probably celebrate and cheer if we got a 5th elf (or 6th if you count male evoker visage)

ive seen a few people with this opinion lol

[Varodoc]

Next 2 years on these forums: Team Ethereal vs Team Naga arguing over why their favorite race is THE ONE that objectively makes sense.

Ethereals >>>>> Naga

Naga would just be Dracthyr 2.0.

Rest assured that you will NEVER get transmog on Playable Naga.

As such, the logical choice is Playable Ethereal.

[kavikor]

Honestly of the whole announcement, the only thing meh to me is the Hero Talents... the list they showed is really underwhelming. I got my hopes up when I heard Far Seer, Dark Ranger, Keeper of the Grove. Thought they were going to cover all the old WC3 stuff + some long asked for stuff.

The fuck is Fatebound? Where is Necromancer? Tinker? Spellbreaker? Shadow Hunter? BLADEMASTER? HELLO?

No we got.... Slayer..... Deathstalker?


I wanted these to be more cosmetic/spell FX. It's all boring numerical passives and mechanics.

Let down on this one, sorry.

Deathstalker is a lore class.

Its what the Forsaken call their assassins/scouts/etc

[Vakir]

Tbf, I think that's easy to hand wave away after the Dawn of the Infinites. Unless I'm mistaken we've now deviated from the "true timeline" so old prophecies might be out the window.

Right, either way, it's not a given.

You know who is getting super old? Me, waiting for the same features for two decades to be added to this game.

It's a meta commentary! /s

[kavikor]

See here is my issue. Half the time when Blizzard introduces a race, I don't actually get an archetype I want for that race because of the class system. The obvious example is gnomes; I'd absolutely play a tinker gnome if I had that but alas. But for me it is even a problem with more versatile races; my favourite flavour of "high elf" is the bladesinger, i.e. warcraft's spellbreaker and spellblade. But I don't get to play it in WoW do I? Look at trolls, their thematic classes are witch doctor, hydromancer, shadow hunter, loa priest. NONE of them are playable. Sure you have Forsaken but you cannot be an Apothecary or a Necromancer. They add Kul Tirans but can you play a Tidepriest? Not really. They add Zandalari but can I be a priest of the Loa? Nope. Heck even the druids they did add do not use the forms common among the loa but some random dinocat and bear (and they did not even bother to create some new Loa who use those forms). They are adding Earthen but will we get to play Runecasters? Nope. Void Elves at least get shadow priests but then we get the team in BfA and they have a voidstalker and a void knight and maybe the former could be a subtlety rogue but what is the latter?

So yeah, new races rarely excite me. Because if I do get them, it's not like I will be able to play the archetypes of their NPCs. MAYBE I'll get a facsimile. So I stick to my human paladin, my orc shaman, my night elf druid because those DO fit their archetypes perfectly.

Yeah, I can see this idea. I'm excited for Earthern and play Shammy/Warr so Mountain Thane and just... elements and everything kinda lined up

[ercarp]

Super spitball, but maybe there's some time travel shenanigans?

Well, they seem to have some kind of Naaru crystal/spaceship stuck in their cave's ceiling. Maybe it's a timeship...

[Arenis]

*moved to other topic*

[Revamp Man]

And still Holly said 10.2 is the last raid of the expansion.

They also called 10.1.7 a major content update

[Vakir]

Why are people hoping and expecting time travel shenanigans to just riff off Endwalker even more?

[Gigantique]

Night elves too; the night elves include ancient Highborne among them

Yeah I just left Nelves/Nightborne out of it since it's about Quel'thalas specifically so might be referring to the act of uniting the natives of that region together again.

Nelves, Nightborne and Highborne might help them but they have their own homes so my guess is that the uniting part would be between the three factions of Quel'thalas.

Which is what they should have used instead of tribes imo. Factions.

[ercarp]

Why are people hoping and expecting time travel shenanigans to just riff off Endwalker even more?

I didn't even know Endwalker had time travel shenanigans because I don't play FFXIV.

I'm hoping for time travel shenanigans because time travel shenanigans are cool.

[Revamp Man]

So this year blizzcon seemed more of a let down but apparently some of that can be contributed to the venue and security company

[Vakir]

I'm hoping for time travel shenanigans because time travel shenanigans are cool.

They've definitely had no poor consequences for WoW's lore.

[kavikor]

Why are people hoping and expecting time travel shenanigans to just riff off Endwalker even more?

How is War Within close to Endwalker

[PotHockets]

They've definitely had no poor consequences for WoW's lore.

And? Time Travel has also been awesome in WoW. Like the Caverns of Time stuff is always recieved really well. People like bronze shenanigans. Just because WoD turned into a train wreck doesn't mean it always will be.

[vintage79]

Why are people hoping and expecting time travel shenanigans to just riff off Endwalker even more?

well, how about the Sunwell ending ending as the cradle of Kel'thuzad's remains/and Silvermoon as a whole being destroyed in the tying of the warcraft story?

yea 'we go back to the old world'

time travel af

[ercarp]

They've definitely had no poor consequences for WoW's lore.

WoD wasn't bad because it was a time travel expansion. It was bad for pretty much every reason except that one.

Basically everything they've ever done with time travel outside of WoD (remember Caverns of Time?) has been extremely well received by the player base.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

So this year blizzcon seemed more of a let down but apparently some of that can be contributed to the venue and security company

What's the story here?

[Worldshaper]

Well, they seem to have some kind of Naaru crystal/spaceship stuck in their cave's ceiling. Maybe it's a timeship...

Sure, why not. Perhaps it's a Light/Void item of some kind, which Xal'atath wanted to use to turn Light into Shadow at the Sunwell. But as she took it across time and space, it swept across the Arathi Highlands and a bunch of humans got swept along for the ride. Then it crashed into Hallowfall (basically means holy fall), leaving the humans stranded.

Then, Xal'atath recruited the nerubians into her service, who lived nearby, and since then the "children of the first flesh toil below" to defeat the Arathi and unearth that Light/Shadow artifact. Perhaps that's even the "dark heart left broken" that awaits the taking, and is key to her carrying out an awakening?

So like... we help the Arathi tribe fight the Nerubians, to try and protect the Hallowed artifact. But we fail and Xal'atath is able to take it to Quel'thalas anyway, where she uses it on the Sunwell to turn day into an endless night on Azeroth. We muster our forces in Midnight, bringing Void Elves and Blood Elves (among others) together to combine their knowledge of the Void and the Light to protect the Sunwell. We put up a worthy resistance, but still fail.

The awakening continues, taking us to The Last Titan, in which the Titans arrive and Azeroth temporarily becomes corrupted and wakes up. After winning the day and beating the Void, we get our world revamp.

Heck, maybe the crystal thingie is the heart of a dead god or something. Elune maybe, or a First One.