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

[milkmustache]

Where is the Narrative Bridge for druids besides "we went into the dream"?

Shamans have a bridge with Vyranoth being an ally. Paladins have a bridge with the Tyrs Guard. But other than a tease of Pandaren Druids, there isn't a "RECRUITING NOW" bridge with the druids.

You're not wrong, but that's still more than Warlocks and Rogues got, which makes their retreading on race/class combos needing narrative pull an interesting comment.

[Ersula]

Where is the Narrative Bridge for druids besides "we went into the dream"?

Shamans have a bridge with Vyranoth being an ally. Paladins have a bridge with the Tyrs Guard. But other than a tease of Pandaren Druids, there isn't a "RECRUITING NOW" bridge with the druids.

The lady referencing the Pandaren child becoming a powerful druid also says almost all children travel to the dream at some point during their childhood. So that racial barrier is gone. All we need is Cenarius or any of the other wild gods say "I will train new druids" & we're there. Hell, I think that's the entire reason Qon'zu exists.

Then all the Primalist Shaman need is a formal ending of hostilities with the Dragonflights/Alliance/Horde.

That also goes into the anti-climactic ending of Dragonflight. The conflict from the beginning was with the Primalists: Even if they help us stop Fyrakk, how is that the end of that story? They still hate us. Nothing has changed.

I'm becoming frustrated with these responses every time they ask about race class combos. Like all we got left realistically are shaman, druids, and paladins.

Dh need an entire new intro and evokers need a way to justify using evoker spells without wings and tails.

The latter two can take their time.

The former 3 already have the story hooks as you said, so all they need is artists to make the totems, chargers, and forms needed.

I didn't say DH or Evokers. They made it clear they only intend the non-hero-classes to be available to everyone.

And because Drakthyr is tied to a Hero Class that makes it a bit of an exception.

[Hitei]

Where is the Narrative Bridge for druids besides "we went into the dream"?

Shamans have a bridge with Vyranoth being an ally. Paladins have a bridge with the Tyrs Guard. But other than a tease of Pandaren Druids, there isn't a "RECRUITING NOW" bridge with the druids.

It's weird you'd consider Vyranoth being an ally an in for shamans when both factions have had druid allies for decades. Is Vyranoth somehow injecting not only her own elemental energy, but also somehow fire, earth and wind into new shaman players? Cause primalists are only a handful of races and if she's just training new shamans in the elements, there's nothing happening that couldn't have happened with druids 15 years ago.

[Lady Atia]

I'm becoming frustrated with these responses every time they ask about race class combos. Like all we got left realistically are shaman, druids, and paladins.

Dh need an entire new intro and evokers need a way to justify using evoker spells without wings and tails.

The latter two can take their time.

The former 3 already have the story hooks as you said, so all they need is artists to make the totems, chargers, and forms needed.

Are they being worked on or not, fucking give a straight answer ffs.

DH's can just get the same style of intro that allied races dk's have.

[Cheezits]

Actually I anticipate DKs to get opened up to Dracthyr for whatever reason, as Earthen seemingly can be them as well. So there may be yet another round of DKs sprouting up in lore.

[Nymrohd]

It's weird you'd consider Vyranoth being an ally an in for shamans when both factions have had druid allies for decades. Is Vyranoth somehow injecting not only her own elemental energy, but also somehow fire, earth and wind into new shaman players? Cause primalists are only a handful of races and if she's just training new shamans in the elements, there's nothing happening that couldn't have happened with druids 15 years ago.

I'd assume the idea is not so much that new people are trained but rather that you are a primalist who defects.

As for druids, given how many turned Druids of the Flame and that we slaughtered quite a few of those, maybe that is the reason why more need to be trained.

[Murlocos]

It's bizarre to me that we're looking for homogenous justifications to add new race/class combos when they solved this issue in 2010 and even did it again this year: just create new lore. The Sunwalkers were a good addition. Orc priests this year were initially bland and flavorless, then they went back and revamped them to have a cool connection to Oshu'gun and Mag'har lore. We see it with the Thornweavers and the Kul Tiran worship of the sea, with the harvest witches of Gilneas... this is a solved problem!

Does anyone actually want the excuse of them adding 10-12 or whatever new paladin and shaman races and every single one of them have the same background of "I was with the Primalists, I'm in the Tyr's Guard", knowing that they can and have done better than this? Write cool new lore about Stormwind human druids, or undead shaman, or goblin paladins, and so on. Adding every class to every race can help to make them feel different from one another rather than everyone feeling like a reskinned human or elf. It's all in the execution.

You might say that only loreheads care about this, and you might be right even though that finding excuses for them to do the absolute bare minimum isn't the most sensible defense for a consumer to take up the mantle of. But most of the discussion when it comes to druids in particular is what new forms a new race might get, and if they go and give druids to everyone but all their forms are just existing ones, that's textbook snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

[micwini]

wasnt there supposed to be a 10.2.5 preview today?

[Nymrohd]

It's bizarre to me that we're looking for homogenous justifications to add new race/class combos when they solved this issue in 2010 and even did it again this year: just create new lore. The Sunwalkers were a good addition. Orc priests this year were initially bland and flavorless, then they went back and revamped them to have a cool connection to Oshu'gun and Mag'har lore. We see it with the Thornweavers and the Kul Tiran worship of the sea, with the harvest witches of Gilneas... this is a solved problem!

Does anyone actually want the excuse of them adding 10-12 or whatever new paladin and shaman races and every single one of them have the same background of "I was with the Primalists, I'm in the Tyr's Guard", knowing that they can and have done better than this? Write cool new lore about Stormwind human druids, or undead shaman, or goblin paladins, and so on. Adding every class to every race can help to make them feel different from one another rather than everyone feeling like a reskinned human or elf. It's all in the execution.

You might say that only loreheads care about this, and you might be right even though that finding excuses for them to do the absolute bare minimum isn't the most sensible defense for a consumer to take up the mantle of. But most of the discussion when it comes to druids in particular is what new forms a new race might get, and if they go and give druids to everyone but all their forms are just existing ones, that's textbook snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

yet with both DKs and warlocks they chose to go for a single reason for universal access. With priests they did add NPCs to explain things.

[Throren]

bummed the 10.2.5 preview seems to be cancelled for today, odd considering a blizz employee on twitter a few days ago mentioned it and the PTR - so I wonder what happened

[Daniri]

yet with both DKs and warlocks they chose to go for a single reason for universal access. With priests they did add NPCs to explain things.

Do you think DKs are cooler now than they were in 2002?

[Merryck]

Better be a juicy ass Q&A. I want 2 hours of questions and answers from Ion Hazzikostas.

[Xilurm]

Are there only 4 chapters of the campaign unlocked this week or something?

[Murlocos]

yet with both DKs and warlocks they chose to go for a single reason for universal access. With priests they did add NPCs to explain things.

DKs and warlocks have more universal origins or appeals compared to the other three classes, which all have a heavy emphasis on faith which manifests itself differently across cultures and has been reflected even going all the way back to vanilla, such as priests having racial skills. Even with warlocks, they did put some effort into making class trainers that had some racial flavor to them. Zandalari paladins have their own unique lore and aren't just trolls that decided to follow the Light after meeting the blood elves.

[Auxis]

The 'What's Next' article is coming out today, yeah?
What time does it usually drop?

[Ersula]

DKs and warlocks have more universal origins or appeals compared to the other three classes, which all have a heavy emphasis on faith which manifests itself differently across cultures and has been reflected even going all the way back to vanilla, such as priests having racial skills. Even with warlocks, they did put some effort into making class trainers that had some racial flavor to them. Zandalari paladins have their own unique lore and aren't just trolls that decided to follow the Light after meeting the blood elves.

They added Warlocks NPCs too, they're just in the Demon Customization questline.

Though does anyone else regard the Demon Customization update bittersweetly? All I think about is them removing the eyeball demon options. Shouldn't our warlock be a little more varied in theme? Or is this like Tier sets where every other appearance is just a reiteration of the same idea? For example, the tiny stoneborne & nature sprites use the imp model. Can't we have a fey or vampyric warlock, like in D&D? After we dealt with Sargeras I expected Warlock & Demon Hunter's theming to be less demonic & more cosmic.

[Murlocos]

The 'What's Next' article is coming out today, yeah?
What time does it usually drop?

It got quietly removed from the news earlier today. It usually releases around 10 AM PST.

They added Warlocks NPCs too, they're just in the Demon Customization questline.

Though does anyone else regard the Demon Customization update bittersweetly? All I think about is them removing the eyeball demon options. Shouldn't our warlock be a little more varied in theme? Or is this like Tier sets where every other appearance is just a reiteration of the same idea? For example, the tiny stoneborne & nature sprites use the imp model. Can't we have a fey or vampyric warlock, like in D&D? After we dealt with Sargeras I expected Warlock & Demon Hunter's theming to be less demonic & more cosmic.

More fleshed out spell customization is such a no brainer that I almost refuse to believe their "PvP readability" argument against it isn't covering for technical or scope issues, because PvP readability has been dead and rotting for so long that you can't even read the corpse anymore. I'd sooner believe them getting rid of the Observer was some weird personal vendetta from a dev.

[Dracullus]

In MrGM interview they confirmed 8 weeks patches, what is more interesting also said it will be this way until next expansion. Personally I expected slow down around Alpha launch.

[Ersula]

In MrGM interview they confirmed 8 weeks patches, what is more interesting also said it will be this way until next expansion. Personally I expected slow down around Alpha launch.

So 10.2.5 mid January? 10.2.7 mid march? ...10.2.9 mid may? 11.0 in August?

Perhaps an extended pre-patch event, like world-wide Legion Invasions. Considering the Dragonflight Beta was only two months they felt cofortable releasing 10.0 even though DF content was still going through rigorous testing.

[Merryck]

In MrGM interview they confirmed 8 weeks patches, what is more interesting also said it will be this way until next expansion. Personally I expected slow down around Alpha launch.

That's absurd. We are probably 8 months from the prepatch. 3 patches between now and then?