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

[Vakir]

Oh, I'm in agreement. It's just unfortunate how long since the ship has sailed.

[Super Dickmann]

Lordaeron was indeed primarily a human kingdom but there were elves and dwarves that lived their entire lives in it; they had their homes and businesses in Stratholme and Capital City and probably served in Lordaeron's armies.

It's not presented this way in the RTS, let alone in the game. The priests, the first high elves you get, are envoys from Quel'thalas, the sorceresses from Dalaran. The dwarves are allies and later in TFT, they're presented as being sent by Khaz Modan as envoys of the kingdom to achieve such aims. Could Lordaeron have such minority populations? Possibly, but it's only inference and in any case they'd be a distinct minority before a primarily human and a human (in the most general sense) clash between its two successor states, the Scarlets and the Forsaken. The odd man out are the Argent Crusade which are demographic nonsense by dint of their role in the plot, which is to allow non-human paladins to engage with a human paladin plot.

To note, I entirely agree with you that they aren't fit for purposes in this story, the enemy should be Forsaken in an Alliance-only questline and if there's Horde involvement it'd be Belmont et al secretly supporting what would be written off publicly as deadenders.

[Nymrohd]

To note, I entirely agree with you that they aren't fit for purposes in this story, the enemy should be Forsaken in an Alliance-only questline and if there's Horde involvement it'd be Belmont et al secretly supporting what would be written off publicly as deadenders.

I'd be OK with the Horde being able to interact with the questline by helping hunt down Sylvanas loyalists if we had gotten such a plot. Or maybe getting something more unique like introducing Hagatha in Warcraft (together with Baku and the Shudderwock) or having something else come out of the Blackwood (Drust would fit like a glove) or even having the Blackhowl show up.
But having the Scarlet Crusade be the antagonist makes the questline as much a Forsaken quest as an Alliance quest.

[Ersula]

Lordaeron was indeed primarily a human kingdom but there were elves and dwarves that lived their entire lives in it; they had their homes and businesses in Stratholme and Capital City and probably served in Lordaeron's armies.

Yes, and the Monestary has dwarf & high elf statues in it, but just because they like very specific races doesn't mean they aren't racist or supposedly villains. The devs built Scarlet Monestary as a place both factions would be ransacking afterall. If I'm not mistaken, the whole "Infiltrated by a dreadlord" wasn't a thing during vanilla: It was something the devs came up with later.

[huth]

Do we have any evidence they ever learned of that? They probably consider it propaganda by the Argent Dawn against them.

Or they'll rationalise it as him only having taken over very shortly before his "death". People will go to very great lenths to uphold their world view.

And it's not like some random adventurers could possibly threaten the Grandmaster. Clearly, such a feat could only be pulled of by a cunning Dreadlord who the adventurers then killed while he was weakened from his grand battle.

[Super Dickmann]

I'd be OK with the Horde being able to interact with the questline by helping hunt down Sylvanas loyalists if we had gotten such a plot. Or maybe getting something more unique like introducing Hagatha in Warcraft or having something else come out of the Blackwood (Drust would fit like a glove) or even having the Blackhowl show up.
But having the Scarlet Crusade be the antagonist makes the questline as much a Forsaken quest as an Alliance quest.

I prefer the live version of the questline to any questline where Forsaken go after Sylvanas Loyalists. There is no viable quest where Forsaken killing other Forsaken for maintaining the gains of conquest are good. The Forsaken took Gilneas, any quest where they kill their own to hand it back is all the worst parts of BFA rolled into one. A handwave after they've already lost it to the Scarlets is ok, just dull.

[Ersula]

I prefer the live version of the questline to any questline where Forsaken go after Sylvanas Loyalists. There is no viable quest where Forsaken killing other Forsaken for maintaining the gains of conquest are good. The Forsaken took Gilneas, any quest where they kill their own to hand it back is all the worst parts of BFA rolled into one. A handwave after they've already lost it to the Scarlets is ok, just dull.

I prefer this as well. It's clear lilian & calia want to make amends with the alliance. It's the same situation with the tree where some fans feel that specific forsaken characters aren't allowed to do that or want that.

Like when DnD said they were going to stop utilizing races that were objectively evil and that still gets a lot of pushback. But it's pretty indicative of a bad world view if you need one side of a conflict to be cartoonishly evil. Seems like people want an entire culture to be objectively evil because they don't want to think about narrative or moral implications, but that they as an audience want to be treated to feats of extreme violence with a clear conscience. I'm sure something will start the faction war again in the future but until then they're portraying a time of peace pretty well.

[Nymrohd]

I prefer the live version of the questline to any questline where Forsaken go after Sylvanas Loyalists. There is no viable quest where Forsaken killing other Forsaken for maintaining the gains of conquest are good. The Forsaken took Gilneas, any quest where they kill their own to hand it back is all the worst parts of BFA rolled into one. A handwave after they've already lost it to the Scarlets is ok, just dull.

I mean it has no live version yet. And Forsaken have been killing other undead since forever. Sylvanas loyalists are very likely a threat to the Council.

[Ersula]

I mean it has no live version yet. And Forsaken have been killing other undead since forever. Sylvanas loyalists are very likely a threat to the Council.

By the end of the Heritage armor quest, Sylvanas made her intentions clear to her loyalists. Not to mention the council as a whole are all on different points of the Sylvanas lover-hater spectrum.

[Super Dickmann]

I mean it has no live version yet. And Forsaken have been killing other undead since forever. Sylvanas loyalists are very likely a threat to the Council.

You know which version I mean. Sylvanas loyalists are the Forsaken identity, the Council are a barnacle over it and the successes of both the SL Forsaken epilogue and the heritage questlines are where they've made the friction between the primary Forsaken identity and the writers' Unifaction paradigm that informs all writing as unintrusive as possible. Having a Forsaken-focused questline center around killing Forsaken for defending a holding that you yourself as the player helped seize wastes all of that effort.

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Like when DnD said they were going to stop utilizing races that were objectively evil and that still gets a lot of pushback. But it's pretty indicative of a bad world view if you need one side of a conflict to be cartoonishly evil. Seems like people want an entire culture to be objectively evil because they don't want to think about narrative or moral implications, but that they as an audience want to be treated to feats of extreme violence with a clear conscience. I'm sure something will start the faction war again in the future but until then they're portraying a time of peace pretty well.

There's an overcaution to DF's writing in general, even when it's good, as the orcish questline is for example. The writing isn't actively hostile to its foundations in the way BFA is, in favor of sanding off the edges instead and trying to please everyone. The practical result is that it has never been as bad as SL or BFA, but it's also been limp more often than not because friction and conflict are intrinsic to the franchise. The choice to have it be Scarlets is evocative of this. Were the Gilneas reclamation in BFA Lilian or Sadfang would be giving quests to kill Sylvanas loyalists while slipping a line about how Calia is here to heal the people of Lordaeron, but because it's in DF, Calia is instead an additional element to what is looking to be a bland and inoffensive questline that nevertheless fails to satisfy worgen fans, who rightly want a quest where they fight the guys who took Gilneas from them in the first place.

[Nymrohd]

I don't see why it has to be Alliance-only, just entirely Worgen themed. The Forsaken questline at the end of SL did let you play it as Alliance but it was still Forsaken themed in its entirety; you interacted with Forsaken NPCs and every theme had to do with the Forsaken story. It could be that the Horde player will just be tagging along and every friendly NPC in the questline will be a Worgen or Worgen-aligned but it is still disappointing that the enemy will be the Scarlet Crusade with which the Worgen have no real history and which is primarily a Forsaken antagonist. There were many options for what to use. Heck it could have simply been some form of Scourge that moved there during the Shadowland storyline. I am sure we can come up with so many ideas that would be closer to the Worgen theme and not primarily Horde-themed.

I assume they are building a greater Scarlet Crusade plot. Maybe it will somehow link to Hallowfall.

[Skildar]

Honestly healing Lordaeron at the end of Shadowlands was a mistake, it gave the horde the green card to go crazy anytime they want when the whole questchain about removing the plague could and should have been used for Gilneas which would have been a greater meaningful pardon. The roles would have been reversed compared to Cataclysm and Forsaken could have develop a whole new objective and prospect, moving the story forward.

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I assume they are building a greater Scarlet Crusade plot. Maybe it will somehow link to Hallowfall.

Chances are they were toying with ideas of what human kingdom or group we could find hiding all along under our feet and considered the scarlet crusade for a time before changing it to Arathi and are now just usnig whatever material they came up with concerning the scarlet crusade for small questchains

[Scyth]

OK I expected Primordial wave to look like . . . a wave? Not like discount Elemental Blast? And Shifting Power needs work, the original one gives you a much better idea of the range it hits.

Idk why but this is exactly what I expected it to look like lol Shifting Power definitely nees to look wider though.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

OK I expected Primordial wave to look like . . . a wave? Not like discount Elemental Blast? And Shifting Power needs work, the original one gives you a much better idea of the range it hits.

Wave should really be a wave of fire given that it only really interacts with lava burst/flame shock outside of the new tier set.

Having it be multi elements just feels weird when it doesn’t interact with any earth or ice spells.

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If I'm not mistaken, the whole "Infiltrated by a dreadlord" wasn't a thing during vanilla: It was something the devs came up with later.

It was a thing in vanilla with Dathrohan in strath being Balnazzar.

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/The..._Crashing_Down

[Chickat]

The Valentines Trading post will bankrupt me.

If you think thats bad, imagine if they add housing decorations too.

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Remember that they are working on TWW at the same time as Midnight, so that could explain the Dynamic Ground mount.

But how would people react to that? Would you not be able to fly anymore? If you can fly, why would people dynamic ground ride? They cant make ground mounts as fast as flying mounts. it would be impossible to control. Max I could see is 3 or 400% speed on the ground. I think it would be cool if they had fun dynamic 300 up to 300% mount speed ground mounts with different abilities, but only for the first tier. The .1 patch should bring Pathfinder. But most people would be mad.

[Vakir]

But how would people react to that? Would you not be able to fly anymore? If you can fly, why would people dynamic ground ride? They cant make ground mounts as fast as flying mounts. it would be impossible to control. Max I could see is 3 or 400% speed on the ground. I think it would be cool if they had fun dynamic 300 up to 300% mount speed ground mounts with different abilities, but only for the first tier. The .1 patch should bring Pathfinder. But most people would be mad.

Maybe certain areas will be flightless temporarily until you unlock them? Rather than entire zones. Giving some interesting ramps, climbing options, etc. for interesting mobility without requiring it later. GW2 does this with certain jumping puzzles for example.

Does KINDA mean a waste of a lot of dev time for a short period. Maybe mounts for inside locations with narrow corridors/low ceilings that aren't flight efficient?

As far as TWW, they said you'll get classic flying through finishing the story pretty quick on launch with no silly requirements at the panel.

[Super Dickmann]

I don't see why it has to be Alliance-only, just entirely Worgen themed. The Forsaken questline at the end of SL did let you play it as Alliance but it was still Forsaken themed in its entirety; you interacted with Forsaken NPCs and every theme had to do with the Forsaken story. It could be that the Horde player will just be tagging along and every friendly NPC in the questline will be a Worgen or Worgen-aligned but it is still disappointing that the enemy will be the Scarlet Crusade with which the Worgen have no real history and which is primarily a Forsaken antagonist. There were many options for what to use. Heck it could have simply been some form of Scourge that moved there during the Shadowland storyline. I am sure we can come up with so many ideas that would be closer to the Worgen theme and not primarily Horde-themed.

A soft faction-exclusive story, like Lordaeron or the Man'ari questline would fill the same gist where it's entirely about one race and faction and there's just a figleaf for others to be able to experience it is fine. This might stil be how this goes really, with Calia giving you a permission slip to go do Genn's bitchwork. Personally I'd cut these "go undercover and help the other faction" quests in their entirety and replace them with the Caverns of Time/Dazar'alor approach of having some dickhead go "By the way, X happened" and have you replay it illusion'd up but that's neither here nor there.

That said, I don't think there's any neutral opponent that works, though plague beasts or dragon cult or what have you would be less clearly transplanted from a Forsaken story. At the end of the day, the hurdle this quest can't beat is that the worgen antagonist are the Horde in general and the Forsaken in particular. The only one to even come close are other worgen, and after the worst heritage quest of all time all about how the worgen shouldn't carry on, having the reclamation also be about killing your own guys would be a terrible choice. The Unifaction paradigm dooms this to be limp unless the focus is entirely on restoring the kingdom as such instead of fighting a specific baddie, which doesn't seem to be the case.

As for the Scarlets, re: @Skildar I don't think the Arathi are a replacement for them so much as they'll be brought together for when we go to the presumable kingdom the Hallowfall expedition came from.

[Nymrohd]

3.) What else changes to talk about a 180° change? I mean, crafting stays the same. Dungeons stay the same. Raids stay the same. Raids will still give the best loot. World content will only provide gear up to heroic raiding gear level, as it already does in Dragonflight from world questing.

World quests give Explorer loot. This is below Adventurer, Veteran, Champion and Hero (Hero being the Heroic raiding gear level). It is possible to get full Veteran loot through world activites slowly and with crests update it so it matched NORMAL raiding gear. Beyond that you can maybe get a few pieces of Champion gear and if you upgrade ALL your Veteran loot to max, you will be able to very slowly gain Wyrm crests to upgrade the Champion gear to low level Heroic raiding gear. So far the only form of Champion gear I've seen outside instanced content is that helmet I got from Renown. I assume you can get vault gear from heroic dungeons that is champion level (simply because you could in 10.1 by doing 5 heroics) but then again that stops being world content.

I'd say the 180 has more to do with them actually listening to feedback. They have been reasonably responsive to feedback from late SL forward. Many of the gameplay issues in BfA and SL (and arguably even Legion) were caused because they completely ignored all feedback (and WoW betas have a ton of constructive feedback written by posters who write respectfully and in detail and predicted the issues with Legiondaries, Azerite Armor and the Covenants to the minute detail).

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That said, I don't think there's any neutral opponent that works, though plague beasts or dragon cult or what have you would be less clearly transplanted from a Forsaken story. At the end of the day, the hurdle this quest can't beat is that the worgen antagonist are the Horde in general and the Forsaken in particular. The only one to even come close are other worgen, and after the worst heritage quest of all time all about how the worgen shouldn't carry on, having the reclamation also be about killing your own guys would be a terrible choice. The Unifaction paradigm dooms this to be limp unless the focus is entirely on restoring the kingdom as such instead of fighting a specific baddie, which doesn't seem to be the case.

I'd say the true antagonist of the Gilneans was not ever even in the game, Ralaar. He created the Wolf Cult, destabilized the Kingdom with the Starlight Slasher murders and opened the way for the Forsaken. Having some of his allies take over Gilneas because they were freed during either the Legion or the current events in the dream would work.

[Super Dickmann]

I'd say the true antagonist of the Gilneans was not ever even in the game, Ralaar. He created the Wolf Cult, destabilized the Kingdom with the Starlight Slasher murders and opened the way for the Forsaken. Having some of his allies take over Gilneas because they were freed during either the Legion or the current events in the dream would work.

Ralaar (or an associate) would've been good for the heritage questline in place of having it be about Tess's self-insert fanfiction, but that heritage questline is also the one edge Scarlets have over other choices. The reason the worgen heritage is uniquely bad is because while it isn't just a random generic questline for the race, the Forsaken one is, or a side-story like the tauren or goblin one, the way it engages with the themes and identity of the race is to do away with them. The premise of the heritage questline which should be all about why you should like playing a worgen is that you shouldn't be a worgen and the worgen should not carry on as a race. It's a Gilneas heritage, but not a worgen one, but Gilneans are just dapper humans in hats, that they're also werewolves is the additional fun part.

By having their opponents be Scarlets, i.e humans who's previous other fight is with another type of cursed human who come around to seeing it as a blessing, you can reinforce why the worgen curse is also a benefit. While a Wolf Cult antagonist would nix the overlap with the Horde and make it more thematically tied with Gilneas, having the primary foe of what'll likely be the most relevant worgen questline for another half decade be other worgen would just further drive the point home.

[Lady Atia]

Preach just had an interview with Ion Hazzikostas. I would like to comment on the topic of their talk, which is about a "180° degree change".

Is there really a 180° change in means of progress?

My concerns:

1.) They make renown account wide. While they probably move gearing to delves, which probably become a replacement for any kind of progress renown ever gave. Which even could be slower than renown, as delves only give vault loot and not much more.
2.) Delves are not really revolutionary. They are extended world quests, where you get put into a (probably instanced) part of the open world to complete tasks, where i wonder how a typical progression works. Will delves have levels like mythic+? Will they simply scale to your gear? How useful is gearing progression to them?
3.) What else changes to talk about a 180° change? I mean, crafting stays the same. Dungeons stay the same. Raids stay the same. Raids will still give the best loot. World content will only provide gear up to heroic raiding gear level, as it already does in Dragonflight from world questing.
4.) There is not really any change in the mindset of blizzard to gatekeep the progress of raiders and mythic+ players. There is no 180° change towards anything like parallel gearing progression where you may get the best gear for your gameplay. There simply is a relabeling and a moving of progress from components to others, which blizzard always sold as "big changes".

I am not really convinced about their 180°-change. It sounds more like a typical relabeling and to keep existing systems where it is simply about generally keeping the reward structure in place. Blizzards biggest mistake is to not be able to overcome their gate keeping mentality, so you could have systems like crafting and world content be as rewarding as minority gameplay like premade group raids or high level mythic+ dungeons.

You are aware that crafting pretty much is on par with mythic raid loot already? And it's not like mythic+ up to 21 is anything hard to do, and aspect crests drop on even lower ones. Heck, I usually run 18-20 keys this week, and it's the first one of the season.