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

[Vakir]

"The Arbiter's role was to sort people to the afterlife they're meant to go to, not to "rule.""

Weird say to oversimplify this considering the Eternal Ones have meetings at the Crucible and basically "answer" to the Arbiter, as well as the fact that the Eternal Ones are the rulers of Death.

But your statement was "he rules over the Shadowlands at the precipice of Death." The wording and stating he has to be the oldest implied you're placing him as the sole ruler, or at least first among equals, despite that there's nothing to indicate that's the intention.

They "answer" to the Arbiter in so much as the Arbiter is the one carrying the judgments of the Death Sorting Hat, but when we put Pelegos into that exact same role, there's nothing about it that's indicative that he's suddenly on a pedestal above any of the other Eternal Ones based on how they interact with him. That is purely your bias. It's treated, if anything, as a service.

Again, if it was a total elevated dictatorship, Zovaal's legacy wouldn't be treated as a traitor and he wouldn't have been imprisoned in the first place. It's like Neltharion. They're of great significance, obviously strong, but there's nothing to dictate that they're explicitly the most important. It's just fanboying on your part.

Then there's also the fact that Steve says there's "other" sections of the Shadowlands but we're only exposed to the 4 most significant ones, which is a whole other mind-bending can of worms when you consider we run into basically none of them for the convenience of having a simplified 4-5 zone structure. This has always been laughable to me. "The INFINITE AFTERLIFE of ALL REALITIES...here, you get angels, fae, vampires, and undead. Now fuck off."

[Vakir]

I never implied he was the sole ruler, but I did imply that he would hold a very similar position to Aman'Thul, in that he's the top of the rulers of Death, and he's prolly the oldest one.

You didn't imply it, you stated it.

That's our point - there's nothing to reflect it beyond pure speculation and it's entirely founded on being the only existing fan of the character.

[Vakir]

And sure, I stated it. Who cares?

Then don't say "implied." Words have meaning.

And yes, you need something confirmed for it to be more than speculation. That's how canon works. Don't say there's "no reason" for something to be the case if there are legitimate reasons, don't say you implied something if you're asserting it directly, and don't backpedal when people call you on generalized assumptions.

I'd say this is like arguing with a wall, but walls generally aren't this unpleasant.

[Vakir]

Vakir, quick question, who do you think would more-so fit the "Aman'Thul" of the Shadowlands vibes?

I'd argue there doesn't need to be a 1:1 of every single role for every single group/faction in the context of Warcraft's story. The fact that everything has to be this weird just-so parity is a narrative shortcut and lacks any and all fucking imagination.

Unfortunately, the facts are that we now have the lingering, obnoxious idea of a Pantheon existing for every single cosmic force made by omnipotent creators via 3D printers - but that doesn't mean every single aspect of them needs to have some kind of perfect mirror.

In any event, if there was an Aman'Thul, it still wouldn't be the Jailer. When SL was current, Danuser did say that there would be some parallels between the Order and Death pantheon - and Zovaal is explicitly from the reveal meant to be Sargeras, who even prior to his fall was not the leader of the Titans, but their champion.

This is part of the problem with SL's lore as a whole and really this entire central argument. Sargeras has never been a deep character and a lot of his motivations existed solely in external texts, but we at least got a general sense of his prior history and demeanor.

Conversely, I know absolutely fuck all about Zovaal pre-Jailer beyond his explicit job title. I don't know if, prior to his ambition, he did his job as Arbiter effectively. I don't know what his interaction with the other Death Pantheon characters was like beyond their reaction to his rebellion. Literally all we know is Grey Man Bad.

So it's completely worthless whether he even is or isn't "the leader," my problem is inevitably using it as a shorthand as conveying some kind of sense of importance granted to something that doesn't actually matter. Or to put it another way - stop "respecting the power," speculated or otherwise, of something fictional and underwritten. It is fan-wank story poison.

[Worldshaper]

I backed you with this, like, 30 pages ago.

(Also, imagine backing the Zereth and First Ones lore and taking it at face value. Almost nobody is going to eat this stuff up in 5-10 years considering how much of a joke it is now. It'll quietly die like Med'an.)

I must've missed it or something.

So the TWW logo is a shattered world, sort of sand coloured, with a large crack in it that might signify the Wound or the fissure at Sector AR-938. Perhaps it just signifies division. Its Titan prison ring around it is also a bit broken.

The Midnight logo looks more like a swirly, purple, Void thingie behind glass that shatters. A bit reminiscent of perhaps Xal'atath's eyes or the Sunwell if infused by the Void's energies. It also has a Titan prison ring around it that's a bit broken.

Finally, TLT is a Titan Prison with the extra ring around it, and it looks fully intact.

"This world is a prison." - Sylvanas Windrunner.

Azeroth's worldsoul is almost corrupted by the Void, and therefore put into stasis, a form of protective imprisonment by the Titans.

When the Shard crashed into Hallowfall, that's when it all started. It infused Azeroth with the spark of Life.

The worldsoul is figuratively the Earth Mother. Her children are Elune and the Winter Queen, each protecting the cycle of Life and Death on Azeroth ever since that fateful day when the Shard crashed. That's where the Tauren myth got its inspiration from, anyhow.

The War Within is the battle for a lot of characters, including the worldsoul, to discover their true nature.

Midnight is the culmination of the worldsoul's corruption, as we the heroes of Azeroth stand with the Light to banish the Shadow.

The Last Titan reveals the scope of this plot to imprison Azeroth to us, and we find out that the Titans maybe didn't have the worldsoul's own wellbeing in mind, but rather their own agenda.

Elune has been trying to free the worldsoul for an eternity. She has done all she could to spread Life on the world, building a coalition of heroes over many millennia that would eventually be able to liberate her from her prison, as well as the clutches of the Void.

That's why the World Trees have been targeted by all sorts of forces.

Sargeras peered into Azeroth's soul in a vision, when he found himself inside the world's core. He knows what she is, and also wants her freed. His methods are just a little... unorthodox. In TLT, he will probably be the final Titan left standing, doing one final sort of heroic deed to liberate the worldsoul.

[Vakir]

Wouldn't their champion be the Primus?

This is my problem, dude.

It doesn't need to be a 1:1.

The Primus was also a bunch of other things including a master smith a la Khaz'goroth. There's so much that's purely utilitarian about their function in SL for the story that it doesn't matter.

[Vakir]

Sure, it's not a 1 for 1. But the Primus, and by extension the Necrolords, are primarily tasked with protecting the Shadowlands from outside threats. They're the defenders, the military guys, etc first and foremost.

You're missing the point completely? Yes, there are purposes and roles for any given group. But that doesn't mean there's a sovereign "leader" or eldest by default, and it doesn't mean there's a perfect parity between any given characters in between-pantheons.

If they do that, it means that the world, their characters, and any future interactions with any other force-based groups are going to just be homogeneous and boring.

If they're going to just lay out that there are actual creators and everything is just a bland series of 6 printer zones, the least they can do is make them somewhat different in terms of hierarchy and structure. To insist there has to be some kind of exact overlap is...I'm trying to think of a less inflammatory feeling term than "autistic," but that seriously does boil it down.

Sargeras peered into Azeroth's soul in a vision, when he found himself inside the world's core. He knows what she is, and also wants her freed. His methods are just a little... unorthodox. In TLT, he will probably be the final Titan left standing, doing one final sort of heroic deed to liberate the worldsoul.

Dunno how canon and Doylist we can treat shop pages, but it did say for the Sargeras shirt at the last live Blizzcon (so I believe pre-SL) that his final act to stab was a spiteful gesture.

Easily retconned or ignored, though. We also know he wanted to wed Azeroth, basically. I guess age of consent is different with living planets? Ooof.

So, if anyone was to be compared with the Primus, it would arguably be Sargeras overall.

You ninja-edited this in.

I mean, it's more about role in the story than it is in terms of general structure.

Yeah, the Primus is taking the same function Sargeras did in the Pantheon's created roles, but in terms of the actual story, Zovaal's filling the same role as Sargeras. A betrayer character with his own ambition for the sake of some vague defense of the cosmos due to a nebulous threat that made him rebel against his intended charge and, as a result, made him a direct enemy of his kin.

But as said, it's not a 1:1.

Stop looking at it as their rankings in a machine that isn't even real and look more at their roles in the storytelling.

[Chickat]

Which doesn't actually explain why or how it seeded life on Azeroth. Chronicles itself establish Life & Light are two unrelated things. How did a shard of light seed life on any worlds? Or are we supposed to take a scientific angle to this creation myth? Was the Shard covered in terrestrial bacterias?
Well, considering the amount of actual game footage they showed was about an eighth of what it was for Legion's reveal...

DF zones are no smaller than both bfa continents combined. DF zones are actually only a few % smaller than Northrend, and with the patch zones added, it firmly puts them at the largest amount of land ever added to WoW. BFA zones had very little content aside from faction assaults which are not much larger in scale than a single event from DF like Dreamsurges. Nazjatar and Zaralek are similar in scale and scope whether you admit it or not. 10.2 and the Dream is an actual zone instead of 2 zone takovers like in bfa so actual content.

The only real thing BFA has on DF is raid bosses. I will give you the Warfront rare farm areas, but they were pretty terrible content and offered mostly just cosmetics.

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Still, delves alone suggest we get more content than we got in DF

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I liked almost all of the content in BfA and did when it was current too. My issue was Azerite and certain elements of the story (not all, BfA also had some amazing storytelling like e.g. Jaina up until the end of the second raid when Anduin's presence somehow lobotomizes her) and to a lesser extent, Corruptions (on one hand, I loved the power fantasy on the other I felt they relied too heavily on procs when designing them).

That said, I feel TWW will have more content than DF by virtue of the delves alone.

Delves theoretically are a big enough feature to take on both Islands AND Warfronts combined and win feature V 2 feature if they turn out how blizzard said.

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I still feel BfA is the most ambitious expansion. Warfronts and AI mobs for Islands (and the Arathi AI bg) are all innovations.
Delves will be interesting. I really wonder how Brann's behaviour will be managed and if he will be escort quest from hell or not.

WoD, Legion, and BFA are all very ambitious. MoP too. Even SL was.

DF is definitely less ambitious, but purposely so. They wanted to fix the core game, and its much better for it. That doesn't mean I think it had less dev time. It clearly had an equal or greater amount of dem time by the fact that the team expanded so fast.

[Nymrohd]

DF is definitely less ambitious, but purposely so. They wanted to fix the core game, and its much better for it. That doesn't mean I think it had less dev time. It clearly had an equal or greater amount of dem time by the fact that the team expanded so fast.

Entirely possible much of work time was expended on training to make it possible to have three teams running at once instead of actual game development.

[Chickat]

The delineation between content and systems is nebulous, but I'd consider stuff like Warfronts and Island Expeditions 'content' compared to Azerite being more of a system. Warfronts ultimately just dump you gear at the end, after all. It was a whole bunch of pain points amplifying each other as you did content that wasn't very enjoyable to engage with systems that proved to be headaches.

BfA had a lot going on that was conceptually interesting but fell apart in practice with minimal testing; we saw that with Azerite armor, and I'll always be a high key Warfront hater in every respect in being utterly baffled how they only got worse going from Stromgarde to Darkshore. Then SL came out and had glaring conceptual problems or repeated mistakes that they seemed to think they could solve by just believing hard enough. DF and TWW (so far) have lacked those kinds of headaches, I'm just looking for some actual meat now.

You want Legion or BFA scope with DF ideals and core game feel.

Me too, but I dont think we will ever get that again for the simple fact that they dont want to make one off features anymore.

We will get 1-2 new features every expansion from now on. Any more with their evergreen mindset and the game will be bloated fast. You dont need more than 1 or 2 new ever green features every expansion either imo. Id rather have 1 mythic+ or World Quest, or Delve every expansion than 3 Torghasts or Islands, or Warfronts etc. I can see where people get the feature light thoughts from, but people forget that every evergreen feature from past expansions are still in TWW.

Every ever green feature they keep takes dev time from new features. Add 3 or 4 more evergreen things on the scale of M+ or Delves etc and they will have no dev time to make all of those plus new things each expansion. Just because a feature is a known quantity doesn't mean its free to develop.

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Entirely possible much of work time was expended on training to make it possible to have three teams running at once instead of actual game development.

True. That was their excuse for WoD and then we got Legion. They were probably training the 2-300 people they got between SL and DF so the actual xpac dev time was spent on core game upgrades. By the time the patches started rolling out most were up to speed, and now they have 3 confirmed WoW teams for the first time ever.

Team A is expansion making 1 team.
Team B is Patch making Team for current expansion.
Team C is expansion making team 2, working on expansion 2-3 years away. Prob smaller in scale.

Team A moves on to help Team C for a bit, and before Expansion 2 releases, Team C moves onto expansion 3.

It remains to be seen if that model will work, or if it will cause issues, but im willing to give them a try.

I'm worried the disconnect from the 2 diff expansion teams will have alternating expansions with different feels, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing I guess.

[Nymrohd]

True. That was their excuse for WoD and then we got Legion. They were probably training the 2-300 people they got between SL and DF so the actual xpac dev time was spent on core game upgrades. By the time the patches started rolling out most were up to speed, and now they have 3 confirmed WoW teams for the first time ever.

Team A is expansion making 1 team.
Team B is Patch making Team for current expansion.
Team C is expansion making team 2, working on expansion 2-3 years away. Prob smaller in scale.

Team A moves on to help Team C for a bit, and before Expansion 2 releases, Team C moves onto expansion 3.

It remains to be seen if that model will work, or if it will cause issues, but im willing to give them a try.

I'm worried the disconnect from the 2 diff expansion teams will have alternating expansions with different feels, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing I guess.

Honestly for me the biggest improvement is not even base systems. Half the specs were disasters on release and I think the crafting system is textbook overdesigned. What makes me somewhat hopeful is that at least as far as gameplay is concerned they are extremely responsive. Two expacs in a row their biggest failure by far was responding to feedback. The mvp posters took the time to dissect the azerite system and show all the glaring issues with it and were completely ignored. Same with the covenant restrictions (though in that case we did have the issue of shills completely drowning out the constructive feedback).

[huth]

Dunno how canon and Doylist we can treat shop pages, but it did say for the Sargeras shirt at the last live Blizzcon (so I believe pre-SL) that his final act to stab was a spiteful gesture.

Easily retconned or ignored, though. We also know he wanted to wed Azeroth, basically. I guess age of consent is different with living planets? Ooof.

Let's not forget that we already know that he doesn't want to free her out of altruism or anything; he wants her to be his. If anything, he was an obsessive stalker with an army. Spiteful stabbing is perfectly expected in that context.

[Raetary]

Chronicles itself establish Life & Light are two unrelated things.

The cosmology of the chronicles establishes the complete opposite.

The Light and the Void were the 2 universal forces that composed existence, before their clash created the universe and the other forces with it.
Light was a creational force, so of course it would seed Life whereever it fell.

Life, Light, and everything else being completely unrelated to one another was not a thing until they rewrote the cosmology in SL to relativize everything.

[Jolly Roger]

Let's not forget that we already know that he doesn't want to free her out of altruism or anything; he wants her to be his. If anything, he was an obsessive stalker with an army. Spiteful stabbing is perfectly expected in that context.

or he was stabbing the prison keeping her from waking up

[Murlocos]

Peak WoW discourse has returned with the canonization of A team/B team posting, now with the unprecedented third faction of the C team.

[Vakir]

Let's not forget that we already know that he doesn't want to free her out of altruism or anything; he wants her to be his. If anything, he was an obsessive stalker with an army. Spiteful stabbing is perfectly expected in that context.

Yup. "If I can't have you, then..."

I think it's a combination. He was attempting to stop the likelihood of the Void getting its clutches on her out of his creepy idealization and controlling. We're likely gonna avert the Void in Midnight only to have the Titans attempt to impose Order on her themselves, with Sargeras being broken out inevitably. Enemy or not, he has to, since they'll no longer be holding him at the Seat.

If they keep the 7th Force dreck, salvage it by having it be Azeroth herself. If they keep Chronicle Vol. 1 as a Watsonian depiction of the Titan perspective, that actually also works - they characterize themselves in it as the default state of a grown World Soul, but in reality, they just happened to be the temporary victors that wrote the history books - Azeroth is what we make of Her and there's no one central, overarching, correct philosophy. This would explain the prison logo. It's not so much that it's current - it's what the Titans are GOING to do to her. And we've been here before with Algalon - follow the intended path or be purged.

That's the next 20 years, a return to making the world the protagonist again and taking the Classic/Cataclysm approach to 14.0 before jumping off into new directions with existing plot threads and establishing smaller story threads.

I think that'd be a cool direction and a satisfying conclusion. I know many would disagree, though.

[Ersula]

The cosmology of the chronicles establishes the complete opposite.

The Light and the Void were the 2 universal forces that composed existence, before their clash created the universe and the other forces with it.
Light was a creational force, so of course it would seed Life whereever it fell.

Life, Light, and everything else being completely unrelated to one another was not a thing until they rewrote the cosmology in SL to relativize everything.

If you were following the conversation, my question was why The First Ones would have The Light Domain in-charge of seeding life on planets. Seems like that would be the Life domain's job.

[Vakir]

The whole Light Void clash to create primordial life is now in question as authentic anyway because of how they have presented Chronicle moving forward.

If it was a real irrefutable canon text, it would now read, "There were once super awesome first gods that were the most powerful and bestest and made all the things. Everything! With awesome patterns and careful designs but somehow not order aligned, for reasons. One was named Danuu'sayr and he was bald and particularly smart and handsome. He had a hot big-titty undead elf girlfriend named..." And it would just keep going.

[Cheezits]

I can see there being some kind of Light and Life beef. Maybe Elune is some kind of cross-goddess that bridges them, but that isn't normal?

I still think the "Light has made a bargain with them enemy of all" is Light and Titans, which explains why so many keepers and constructs casually use holy energy.

[Vakir]

I can see there being some kind of Light and Life beef. Maybe Elune is some kind of cross-goddess that bridges them, but that isn't normal?

I still think the "Light has made a bargain with them enemy of all" is Light and Titans, which explains why so many keepers and constructs casually use holy energy.

That'd certainly explain why despite supplementary materials characterizing independent forces, they sure seem to be interchangeable when it's convenient for the writing.

Light is characterized by inherent rigidity, sure, to contrast the Void "all possibilities," but the Xe'ra stuff sure gave off strong Order vibes in terms of ethos. It wasn't always like that. Imagine being given a memorial quest for dying in Wrath by your developer friends and it turns out you're eternally bound to weirdly dogmatic wind chimes.

The Infinites are characterized, especially in DF, as being the products of embracing other possibilities rather than a deterministic perspective, outside of the endgame of a sole perfect future. Surely that means those that oppose preservation of a single outcome are Void associated? Nope!

Untethered choice and possibility in both above examples is characterized as lower-case C "chaotic" but is any of it aligned even mildly with Chaos energy/magic? Nope! For reasons!

It's always bugged me. Maybe a planned 3 game lineup can marginally fix it.