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

[Revamp Man]

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.
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.

The only thing we 100% know for sure when it comes to Titans and how they are made is what came from the thousand years war. Argus had memories of before time (which means before any ordering of reality) and sought out heat then a planet formed around him.

No titan tech was used to bring the first titan to life and he had no knowledge of the first ones because according to current lore the Titans believe themselves to be the creators.

We know Order magic transforms beings.
We also know that multiple members of the pantheon have ties to other forces which gives the possibility that world souls aren't themselves Titans but instead like the blank slates from transformers that could turn either autobot or decepticon.

Einar could have been originally a life aligned world soul

[Xilurm]

And maybe she's a prisoner for a good reason.

The Primal Incarnates are batshit insane monsters and deserving of prison, so maybe Titans are still the good guys and it's Azeroth who is actually the threat.

Well I'm not saying she is or she isn't. Just find it funny that people are in denial about whole thing. The logos are very specific.

[Merryck]

Oh and a funny coincidence. The new wild god, Q'onzu.

One of his questions to the player:

What imprisons, but also protects?

The right answer ends up being: Stasis.

Foreshadowing, much?

So, Azeroth is imprisoned, but it's for her own protection. Perhaps she was put into stasis the moment before her birth. Perhaps she was going to be born as a Void Titan, and the Titans needed to buy time in order to cleanse her.

[Ersula]

Big news is 3 minor patches next year before 11.0, Fated will have no raid affix

Huh? The raid Affix was the only reason to repeat the content.

“They should know what to look forward to in 2024."

Then they probably should have covered some of that at blizzcon. I'm shocked that a powerpoint presentation & the shortest cinematic ever was the extent of retail footage they had to offer.

“So it's really just more, let's bring all three raids back in rotation. Let's bring all of the Dragonflight dungeons back as a Dragonflight seasonal Mythic Plus pool and close out the season that way.”

Everything Ion says is shockingly bad idea. My guild really liked the new affixes. Why are we being nostalgic for content we just had less than a year ago? The theme for season 4 being "nothing new" makes me think he has to be trolling.

So, Azeroth is imprisoned, but it's for her own protection. Perhaps she was put into stasis the moment before her birth. Perhaps she was going to be born as a Void Titan, and the Titans needed to buy time in order to cleanse her.

That would be wild considering the Titans spent 100,000 years doing nothing.

[Xilurm]

So, Azeroth is imprisoned, but it's for her own protection. Perhaps she was put into stasis the moment before her birth. Perhaps she was going to be born as a Void Titan, and the Titans needed to buy time in order to cleanse her.

Or perhaps the Titans aren't as good as we thought.

[Worldshaper]

Yeah.

I remain open minded as to what the Titans' intentions were.

Did they place her in stasis to protect her and keep her in check, like parents grounding and unruly child?

Did they simply imprison her because Old God corruption was too extensive, or because they wanted to force-feed her with Order magic?

Is she neither imprisoned nor put in stasis, and is the logo referring to future events?

Is the logo merely referring to Iridikron, possibly a major antagonist in 13.0?

Who knows. But I lean towards the first one, because that just seems to line up so well with contemporary Titan lore.

[Cheezits]

I'm still going to guess that it's not "Titans/Keeper bad" and more "SOME of them are liars because reasons" with maaaaybe a couple "some of them have selfish intentions and need to be put down" (Odyn, maybe Aman'thul)

Ironically if Aman'thul is the big big bad then he could even be what Zovaal was prepping against.

[Worldshaper]

So, Azeroth is imprisoned, but it's for her own protection. Perhaps she was put into stasis the moment before her birth. Perhaps she was going to be born as a Void Titan, and the Titans needed to buy time in order to cleanse her.

Yeah, I think she's put in stasis to be more precise. Some form of it, anyway. She dreams, and through the dreams is able to commune. But she can't wake up. She just persists through the ages. She can bleed and she can heal, but not awaken.

So the Titans wanted to keep it that way for the time being, while the Old Gods want to finish what they had begun and awaken her as a Void thingie.

I'm sure we will continue exploring questions of: "is it right?" and the nature of free will in the story ahead, as suggested by Alexstrasza and her dealings with rebels and Vyranoth in 11.0.

[Ersula]

3. Titans find out Azeroth is too far gone, decide to put her in stasis while they figure out what to do. She's not allowed to wake up and become Voidy.

Congratulations, you just rendered every prior Sargeras & Old god plot irrelevant. Turns out Azeroth was already corrupted the whole time. Enjoy Classic.

Ironically if Aman'thul is the big big bad then he could even be what Zovaal was prepping against.

This is like "somehow palpatine returned" but worse.

[Chickat]

I say it while actively farming bloody tokens >_>

Edit: To keep this post kinda on topic.

The only time in the history of the game I was surprised by a lore developments were the end of Tomb of Sargeras and Argus. I about shit my pants when I saw that cinematic for the first time and the Sword too.

And when Sylvanas broke the crown shattering the sky. I dont think many people saw that coming tbh.

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The real wild part is gonna be when the tree materializes into the middle of the ruins of Lordaeron.

Nobody expects the Emerald Inquisition.

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10.2.5 and tree talk is getting boring here's my prediction for midnight

Quel Danas is the final leveling zone, it is now a lot bigger and is now all void coloured and the Sunwell acts as the ice crown of this expansion the final raid where we face off against Xhal

Eversong looks the same but is graphically updated and is now under Naga control

Ghostlands are graphically updated and has void necromancers and nerubians

zulaman is a full-on zone with trolls allied with the void

the area behind Strathholme is now a hub until we reclaim Silvermoon

12.0 raid is troll-focused

12.1 we get a new underground Naga zone and a battle for Silvermoon raid that starts in the Naga caverns and we work our way up to Silvermoon black temple style

12.2 we travel to Karesh and enter the Queldanas raid through the portal created in the Sunwell that is connected to Karesh

That actually sounds really cool imo.

[Nymrohd]

Or maybe the Titans arrive, find the world soul is significantly corrupted and THEN they imprison Azeroth during TLT because they think that if she wakes up, she will be a Void Titan.

Which makes perfect sense.

[Daniri]

Christ Metzen: And there, you will uncover a vast conspiracy, one that stretches throughout the history of the world. One that will challenge everything you know about the titans, their intentions and the true nature of Azeroth itself.

Azeroth is not an unborn Titan. She's a prisoner.

This wouldn't challenge what I think I know about the Titans, their intentions or the nature of Azeroth. It would be directly in line with the narrative they've been going with ever since the Chronicle was hamfistedly retconned.

[flan1337]

has anyone mentioned the Mr GM interview - they said we will get updates every 8 weeks leading up to the next xpack which doesn't add up to only being 10.2.5 - .7 hmm... could we still get a 10.3 with no raid? We know that we have to go into the nighthold maybe 10.3 will be a fated raid of the nighthold

[Chickat]

Yeah-- wasn't the Lightforged Warlock just a single NPC's dialogue? There seems to be a whole lot more of narrative bridging available for Druids & Paladins (and I guess also contextually Shamans). There's something a little different in the messaging here than there has been recently, I'm curious for 10.2.5.



I'm a 13.0 Iridikron's lair supporter; I think it'd be an incredible villain arc for Iridikron to have used the Void just to lure the Titans back to Azeroth. He could care less what they do with Azeroth, I think he just wants to kill a Titan.

Yep.

IMO, Final boss of 11.0 is Xal who may or may not die leading to Midnight.
A prominent but not necessarily final boss of Midnight is Azshara.
Final boss of Titan is either a titan or Iridikron, but Iridi definitely survives till 13.0.

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

Demon hunters for all make sense as a 13.0 thing because Sargeras is coming back then. IMO.

[Ersula]

has anyone mentioned the Mr GM interview - they said we will get updates every 8 weeks leading up to the next xpack which doesn't add up to only being 10.2.5 - .7 hmm... could we still get a 10.3 with no raid? We know that we have to go into the nighthold maybe 10.3 will be a fated raid of the nighthold

That would actually be dope. But they've introduced raids in minor patches too. 10.2.6, 10.2.7, 10.2.8, 10.2.9... It's not like 2 point 5 and 2 point 7 or 10 point 3 are their only options.

[flan1337]

That would actually be dope. But they've introduced raids in minor patches too. 10.2.6, 10.2.7, 10.2.8, 10.2.9... It's not like 2 point 5 and 2 point 7 or 10 point 3 are their only options.

yeah patch numbers confuse me haha but we now know we should expect 3-4? patches before the next xpack.

[Ersula]

Yep.

IMO, Final boss of 11.0 is Xal who may or may not die leading to Midnight.
A prominent but not necessarily final boss of Midnight is Azshara.
Final boss of Titan is either a titan or Iridikron, but Iridi definitely survives till 13.0.

I hate this because unlike Xal, or Azshara, or Denathrius.... Iridikron does not have enough personality to be....the longest persistent antagonist we've ever had. These long-term stories never end well, just look at game of thrones: GRRM doesn't even want to finish writing it.

[Xilurm]

This wouldn't challenge what I think I know about the Titans, their intentions or the nature of Azeroth. It would be directly in line with the narrative they've been going with ever since the Chronicle was hamfistedly retconned.

Yeah but it is somehow ignored. Even with all the "Titans are assholes" narrative that DF is going with.

[Chickat]

Sylvanas was referring to the cycle of life and death when she said the world was a prison for the record. I doubt she knows shit about the world soul, and I dearly hope she's not relevant to this saga.

Oh there's at least a 50% chance shes back in 12.0 since its her homeland. I imagine she will receive a hostile/icy reception, but by the end is welcome back in Silvermoon as her defense of her homeland has her redeemed in the blood elves eyes. She will never be a leader of the horde or even undead again, but a prominent ranger hero for elves.

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Because it was framed that the Titans might have nefarious intent for the world soul and the logo for the Final Titan depicted the same rings that imprisoned the Incarnates. I'm not a fan of it either, but that seems to be the direction we're going.

You want them to be good guys? I think they are far more interesting as lawful neutral. Or even Lawful Evil in certain situations. Each titan has their own personality so I can see it varying.

Eonar will be Lawful good, while Amanthul is Lawful Evil in the end.

[Kiivar86]

Like I said, Iridikron is likely the main antagonist there..

Yeah that's what I'm suspecting. I'm happy it seems like he'll stick around a long while.

I also have to admit I started working up some really crackpot ideas about Iridikron for a moment earlier (maybe he's the last titan actually, etc) but that was just me being silly at work for a moment and...well, I dunno, I do expect some twist at least.

Also safe bet his den Harrowdeep is an area in revamped Northrend, or maybe even an instance/raid. Though it is kinda interesting to me that it may be in Storm Peaks (from what I saw, its north of where Wyrmrest would be and was based at the tallest mountain or somesuch) which is so heavily Titan-aligned after the Titans came. Very curious.