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

[Murlocos]

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.

I hope many don't disagree with the idea of toning things down again and telling more meaningful and relatable stories is the best direction to go in once this trilogy is finished. The last thing I'd want is for this to be a jumping off point where Azeroth and its defining elements are almost or entirely abandoned.

I know I'm late to the faction talk here, but my fear that I feel is increasingly justified is that their poor handling of faction conflict in BfA and even MoP will lead to them just disintegrating the factions altogether and not filling that gaping hole with anything else. Not just throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but torching the whole house. They've poisoned so many wells now that they've conditioned the audience into demanding something new (and the replacement has not been up to par), instead of fixing the damn wells.

We have enough examples from recent expansions that execution is their Achilles heel, not scope or concept in and of themselves. They've taken very large scale, universe-level threats and made them utterly dull and boring. They've created relatively low level and self-contained stories like Drustvar and made them highlights of the entire game.

Personally, I don't enjoy the cosmic storyline because I feel like it's been primarily executed as characters arguing over flimsily defined metaphysics without giving the average player a proper reason to care. My fear is that Blizzard wants to adopt it as the main focus of the story because they look back at what they themselves wrote in BfA and go "but if we wrote about the factions again, we'd have to do a genocidal struggle for existence, no way!" and they go back to characters screaming about capital letter Concepts. I don't think power creep is as necessary for believability as some people make it out to be.

I want a world where the factions show up as the major players in the world that they are and operate more akin to their vanilla dynamics: loose conglomeration of races with their own dealings and agendas, but generally united in the name of good. Remind people of the WC3/vanilla Horde and not one that just consists of nervous Sylvanas/Forsaken apologetics and shove the war crimes villain bat into a closet instead of giving the Alliance a concussion with it.

This isn't saying that every villain needs to be kobolds and murlocs, that's reductionist as all hell. It's just worth analyzing the difference in execution between something like the Cult of the Damned and the Primalists. Antagonists and conflicts that feel more grounded than abstract battles for cosmic dominance. They can make smaller scale stories work and they have in the past, but if the excuse for them not even trying is "they will write it badly", then that just makes someone wonder why they're even here.

This is half me rambling without coffee and agreeing with your general points, not meant to be any kind of rebuttal FWIW.

[Vakir]

@Murlocos

I agree with most of this!

I don't trust the modern team to tell faction stories competently, particularly a faction war. However, I do think after a softish reboot with some time passage that there's an easier way to reintroduce some of that without the baggage of the last 10 years or so.

The actual presentation of Vanilla was bad, but I think the general idea was right - have outlying skirmishes by specific groups lore-canon with how BGs integrate into the broader scope of the world but without the full fledged war that ends up consuming the plot and also makes other characters grab the idiot ball for dear life to make it happen.

In real life, when wars happen, alliances are extremely complicated and tested, and usually we don't see the 100% cohesion we do with factions in WoW unless groups are fully annexed or something.

It should be complex, even if a Warchief position returned. Mists worked marginally better because the individual Horde outgroups had their own personal reasons to rebel unlike SL where Sylvanas had majority support (lol) until she said something stupid (lmao) and then suddenly everyone was unilaterally on board with one dude and also let a human give a eulogy in their capital (rofl, even).

Tenuous cold/"warm" wars are just way more interesting without directly opposing a main plot.

For smaller stories, even with kobolds and quillboar, there are actually ways to make that cool. Giant candle elemental coming in TWW? Fuck yeah!

Hell, I'm one of the people that would've loved the Mongrel Horde concept they had instead of Warlords. I imagine...like, a cobbled piece of shit war machine made by a bunch of quillboars AND IT SOMEHOW WORKS and is actually dangerous (a la 40K Ork magical thinking/psychic powers) and it tickles me.

A new Cult of the Damned? Yes, please! Damn shame Kel'Thuzad was ruined because he had far and away the most charisma and could've been a returning big bad without the Lich King baggage if they hadn't made him a Zovaal lackey. But the undead for another 20 years? Why not do something different from the usual? I swear they haven't had very unique designs since Naxxramas to me. ICC and a lot of Maldraxxus was kind of a bust outside Festergut/Rotface.

Let's get silly again. Not necessarily humorous or lighthearted but broad and creative. Go fucking nuts with the old stuff.

[Reive]

https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com...vember-13-2023

10.2.5 announcement this week. let's hope they don't postpone it again

[Sondrelk]

https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com...vember-13-2023

10.2.5 announcement this week. let's hope they don't postpone it again

Sure hope so. I am really curious to see what 10.2.5 and beyond is likely to look like now that 10.2 is a clear departure from how 10.1 and it's minor patches did events.

Are we going back to the Dragon Isles proper? Staying in the Emerald Dream for a bit longer? Going to Silithus? So many possibilities.

[Dracullus]

Sure hope so. I am really curious to see what 10.2.5 and beyond is likely to look like now that 10.2 is a clear departure from how 10.1 and it's minor patches did events.

Are we going back to the Dragon Isles proper? Staying in the Emerald Dream for a bit longer? Going to Silithus? So many possibilities.

Last patch (10.2.9/10.3) is likely Season 4, I expect 10.2.7 just like other X.7 patches to be quick catch up for next season, so imo 10.2.5 will be finally timewalking patch. Nice bonus would be brawler's guild, expanding timewalking feature (for example to open world) and some extra stuff exclusive to BfA (PVP warfronts?).

Also - Blizzard, it's finally time for some serious profession knowledge catch up, at least for people who maxed at least 1 profession.

[Ersula]

Who says the Light did that? Why can't the Titans just be wrong there?

If Chronicles is not just biased, but just plain inaccurate we all need to stop citing it entirely.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

If Chronicles is not just biased, but just plain inaccurate we all need to stop citing it entirely.

It is just plain inaccurate in some places like say wrymrest temple being wrong with what we get from the scaleborn book changing it.

The problem is al of wow lore works this way so if stop citing it we might as well stop citing any and all lore sources as new things always take precedent over old making any and every thing inaccurate when blizzard wants it to be.

[Vakir]

The whole Watsonian thing already was frustrating as shit when Chronicle stated everything in third person regardless, even before you pull interview clips of Chris saying it was meant to be a bible.

[Walrusking]

I hope they don't blueball us this thursday like they did last week...

[Cheezits]

Sure hope so. I am really curious to see what 10.2.5 and beyond is likely to look like now that 10.2 is a clear departure from how 10.1 and it's minor patches did events.

Are we going back to the Dragon Isles proper? Staying in the Emerald Dream for a bit longer? Going to Silithus? So many possibilities.

It's probably going to be the Tree as a zone, or something to do with Vakthros. But I think 10.2.9 or whatever is prepatch may involve Silithus.

[Lady Atia]

It's probably going to be the Tree as a zone, or something to do with Vakthros. But I think 10.2.9 or whatever is prepatch may involve Silithus.

I would also expect the druid of the flames redemption arc. Iirc we already datamined them as a faction in 10.2.

[Murlocos]

The whole Watsonian thing already was frustrating as shit when Chronicle stated everything in third person regardless, even before you pull interview clips of Chris saying it was meant to be a bible.

Or the fact that it refers to 'the world of Warcraft' several times. All part of the plan, all building up to Aman'thul dropping the game title at the end of TLT as was planned in 2019.

[Vakir]

Or the fact that it refers to 'the world of Warcraft' several times. All part of the plan, all building up to Aman'thul dropping the game title at the end of TLT as was planned in 2019.

I am legit waiting for a character to somehow work in "a world of war, crafted in the blood of our forebears" or something similar so I can officially just lie down in the dirt and let ants consume my flesh.

I forgot it says that in Chronicle.

No. NO.

[Walrusking]

TLT Final cutscene, Azeroth is born and approaches the Pantheon.
"What am I, some kind of World of Warcraft?"

[Villager720]

I hope they don't blueball us this thursday like they did last week...

I suspect the raid not having launched with its subsequent story cinematics gave them pause regarding content in 10.2.5.

[micwini]

Sure hope so. I am really curious to see what 10.2.5 and beyond is likely to look like now that 10.2 is a clear departure from how 10.1 and it's minor patches did events.

Are we going back to the Dragon Isles proper? Staying in the Emerald Dream for a bit longer? Going to Silithus? So many possibilities.

Silithus? No way bro.

[Vakir]

It will never not be funny to me to see the Bronze Dragonflight retcon in the Dragon Lore book (No not the prequel) and realize they just went "Oh for fucks sake Aman'thuls omniscience. Quick, lets just make it so its like the Void and how they don't know even though you know how nonsensical that makes it lmao."

This saga is going to be a bomb.

This one is new to me. Explain away. Any new inconsistency is a source of both consternation and joy.

[Nymrohd]

It will never not be funny to me to see the Bronze Dragonflight retcon in the Dragon Lore book (No not the prequel) and realize they just went "Oh for fucks sake Aman'thuls omniscience. Quick, lets just make it so its like the Void and how they don't know even though you know how nonsensical that makes it lmao."

This saga is going to be a bomb.

I assume that for Order, the future is not about "The one true path" like it is for the Light and it is more about determinism. The way I understand the difference between the Light and Order is that the Light is about defining the cosmos, about creating Truth and then safeguarding it; it is about stasis because this is what works the best with the concept of conviction. Meanwhile Order is more about creating complex self-reinforcing rules and structures; it is why we see the Titans built civilizations. Order has no certainty in itself like the Light does.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Apparently the tidbit is in the prequel, either way. I don't take it too seriously considering the Dragonflight Codex keeps the old canon of protecting the true timeline as outlined by Aman'thul still which again does not work if they were altering the powers of Aman'thul.

I mean who knows though, I don't know and well we are going Koenigsegg Speed during this Saga so it will all be a blur in the end, anyways.

The only positive from a narrative perspective is the end of the "World Soul Black Hole Problem" which has essentially trapped the story of Warcraft in a perpetual cycle of non stop Cosmic focus only for them to in 14.0 announce the Cosmic War Saga with Medivh returning and everyone screaming in agonizing cacophonic terror.

[Hitei]

Apparently the tidbit is in the prequel, either way. I don't take it too seriously considering the Dragonflight Codex keeps the old canon of protecting the true timeline as outlined by Aman'thul still which again does not work if they were altering the powers of Aman'thul.

I mean who knows though, I don't know and well we are going Koenigsegg Speed during this Saga so it will all be a blur in the end, anyways.

When has Aman'thul ever been omniscient? Even in his limited storyline there's tons of crap he didn't know about.