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

[Merryck]

If any of them are "Order robots" it won't have depth, especially if you're not going to even allow for things like the physics that govern the formation of storms to be an example of "Order". It'll just be "Fascism" on one side and "Family" on the other.

You're not wrong but this is where we seem to be going with this story.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Its just funny when you consider the tone of Dragonflight and then you realize the implications possibly in TLT and you go "Oh.. Well, that's interesting.".

Free will is bad when programmed beings are bugged with it, I guess. Cool.

I just feel like if Aman'thul is the big bad and Azeroth is a woman. Yeah, well how do you write that one in California? It just feels so anathema to empowerment messaging.

At least, the World Soul is dealt with I guess. But, outside of that it is strangely just super bizarre considering the company trying to excise the "past".

[Merryck]

Keepers can use the Light because of their faith in the Titans and their cause. I thought that was obvious.

[Eurhetemec]

If any of them are "Order robots" it won't have depth, especially if you're not going to even allow for things like the physics that govern the formation of storms to be an example of "Order". It'll just be "Fascism" on one side and "Family" on the other.

To be fair no story which has ever done "Order robots" as a plotline has really had any depth because the nature of the subject matter rather precludes depth. And it's not even an uncommon thing to see in fantasy. Even truly great fantasy writers like Michael Moorcock struggled give "Order vs Chaos" much depth or interest, particularly the Order side, who are huge yawn, and he's the guy whose works inspired that concept in D&D and Warhammer and thus WoW which took it from those. Order particularly tends to be extremely boring in all of those (I guess Modrons are kind of fun).

The best attempt I've seen has probably been, and I hate to say, Age of Sigmar and the Sigmarines (or whatever their real name is), where they're "Order robots" in a sense, but they're actually people who are fighting for Order, and get reborn when they die, but every time they die they lose a little bit of themselves and become more of an "Order robot".

In 30+ years of reading fantasy that's the closest I can think of to an interesting take on "Order robots". So if WoW does a less than stellar job here at least it'll be in good company. It'd be better if they didn't do that plotline, but unfortunately given the media Metzen likes, I suspect he's strongly in favour of such a plotline (though ultimately wouldn't be writing it).

[Viridiel]

So why aren't they trying to use Death, Disorder or Shadow?

Odyn has kinda used Death with the Eye of the Jailer and Helya stuff (and the Val'kyr), but definitely nowhere near to the extent of the other forces. There's every possibility that Death is involved in the titans' machines, since their constructs have souls.

I think there's a good chance that they do actually use all of the cosmic forces, but when combined with Order some of them come out unrecognisable. Eonar and her keepers have never used Life magic that I'm aware of, just Nature magic. "Nature" is about a specific set of rules that define the way of things within a specific area of habitation, definitely the Ordered form of Life.

And for Light, I think you might've hit the nail on the head with Ordered Light being Time magic or at least a specific variation of it. They flip-flop on whether the titans' constructs' Light abilities are Holy or Arcane, but they're probably rightfully Divine. There's also the fact that the Naaru use warp magic to travel FTL, so it absolutely doesn't make sense for Time to be a purely Order construct unless the Naaru steal everything from Order.

Personally I think Norgannon weaves together Order and Disorder magic to get his spectral magic. I would expect Order + Shadow to result in gravity or spatial magic, like Algalon's black holes (which deal Shadow damage), and I'm actually quite surprised that none of the titans seem to have that as their schtick. Maybe they banned it because of the specific threat the Void represents, or perhaps there was a titan who wielded that magic and they died.

The question is does Aman'thul control the Light, or is he being manipulated by it? The Light is by far the quietest force despite its ubiquity, and either way might explain why. Personally I think Aman'thul is being manipulated by the Light, and that's why he wants to maintain the one true timeline despite the existence of timelines being the result of Order. The Order way of handling timelines would be to establish a set number of timelines with specific rules and domains of influence (colonise the timelines, don't collapse them). The Light is the force obsessed with a single truthful future, in opposition to the Shadow's infinite futures.

Alternatively, it's always possible that it isn't actually Aman'thul who wants there to be a single, true timeline, but that due to his manipulation of the Light, the Light was able to intercept his orders and manipulate the keepers.

[Polybius]

Its just funny when you consider the tone of Dragonflight and then you realize the implications possibly in TLT and you go "Oh.. Well, that's interesting.".

Free will is bad when programmed beings are bugged with it, I guess. Cool.

I just feel like if Aman'thul is the big bad and Azeroth is a woman. Yeah, well how do you write that one in California? It just feels so anathema to empowerment messaging.

At least, the World Soul is dealt with I guess. But, outside of that it is strangely just super bizarre considering the company trying to excise the "past".

The same way Illidan was written to break from Xera’s binding light. Or Sylvanas breaking the cycle, but SL wasn’t communicated well.

more on topic: These allegories are as old as time, even Plato wrote one. Though instead of constructs or AI in WoW running rampant it’s organic life.

It was established in Ulduar that the Titans didn’t have mortals’ interests in mind. Sargeras alone was proof they weren’t infallible.

[Nymrohd]

Hope we get some PTR update today.

[Santandame]

Tyr? Sure. Odyn? Bwahahaha. No.

And where is Odyn connected to the Light? That his ability do holy damage doesn't mean he has a Light connection.

“That his ability does holy damage doesn’t mean he has a Light connection.”

What a perplexing thing to say.

[Eurhetemec]

“That his ability does holy damage doesn’t mean he has a Light connection.”

What a perplexing thing to say.

I'm not a real lore expert, but aren't there some beings/characters in the game who do Holy damage without being in any real way "servants of the Light" or the like, i.e. it's just a force they can command/draw on? Or is that not the case?

[Marlamin]

Hope we get some PTR update today.

There was a build on the dev endpoint yesterday, so a PTR build is probably at least planned for today if nothing comes up.

[Sondrelk]

So now that a Fated Season is going to happen at the end of the expansion. What do people want out of it?
Yu have the obvious stuff like all the raids and new dungeon pool and whatnot. Not to mention misc. rewards for completing all of it. But what more than that would make the Fated season more than just a victory lap of the PvE circuit at the tail end, and more something to actually look forward to?

Personally it would be Timewalking raids being expanded to encompass more raids and more difficulties. Not to mention Timewalking in general being a broader theme.
Basically, instead of just looking at Dragonfoight, bring back old content as well? All mobs in Pandaria scale to max level, and you do content there to gain more rewards for instance.

[Dracullus]

So now that a Fated Season is going to happen at the end of the expansion. What do people want out of it?
Yu have the obvious stuff like all the raids and new dungeon pool and whatnot. Not to mention misc. rewards for completing all of it. But what more than that would make the Fated season more than just a victory lap of the PvE circuit at the tail end, and more something to actually look forward to?

Personally it would be Timewalking raids being expanded to encompass more raids and more difficulties. Not to mention Timewalking in general being a broader theme.
Basically, instead of just looking at Dragonfoight, bring back old content as well? All mobs in Pandaria scale to max level, and you do content there to gain more rewards for instance.

It all depends from length. If it's 12 weeks again, they pretty much nailed it during SL with one exception - world content. So all they have to do is update all world events to award S4 entry gear. Also bringing core 8 DF dungeons for half season is good idea, cause they are very underplayed compared to all dungeons since Cata (as even MoP/WoD had challenge modes).

From full 5-6 month S4 (which I doubt will happen since they talked about Alpha in Spring), I would expect new story, new world events, 'new' dungeons without repetitions from S1/S2 and most important - new sets, both visually and mechanically.

So TLR - short S4 at end of expac should be just victory lap, something that people with less time or taking break before next expac won't really miss.

[Well Done Steak]

God I wish they would just announce their plans to eventually open up all classes to races.

This Tyr guard quest line has been a fucking massive tease to paladin players with no pay off.

Same thing with a god damn ED patch that allows every NPC and their grandma access to the ED, yet no more druid combos.

Like wtf man

[Santandame]

I'm not a real lore expert, but aren't there some beings/characters in the game who do Holy damage without being in any real way "servants of the Light" or the like, i.e. it's just a force they can command/draw on? Or is that not the case?

Even having a force to draw on implies a connection. If you can draw upon a certain magic or magical force, then you have a connection to it. Doesn’t mean they have to be a servant.

[Ersula]

God I wish they would just announce their plans to eventually open up all classes to races.

This Tyr guard quest line has been a fucking massive tease to paladin players with no pay off.

Same thing with a god damn ED patch that allows every NPC and their grandma access to the ED, yet no more druid combos.

Like wtf man

This is why I hate the "stay tuned to see what happens next" approach to storytelling. "Lots more story is on its way before Dragonflight" could mean anything. I'm expecting more about Tyr because nothing else is set up but the achievement text implies this story is over: Simultaneously telling us it's over and also not over. In order for anticipation to have any kind of effect you need to have at least a little idea of what's coming.

[Merryck]

What do you mean "except Eonar"? And they're not robotic...

- - - Updated - - -



Isn't that a contradictory statement in of itself?

The portrayal of Aman'Thul in that dramatic retelling was awfully robotic. I don't want that for the rest of the Pantheon. And the reason I say "except Eonar" is because it's already obvious the writers favour her.

[Sondrelk]

It all depends from length. If it's 12 weeks again, they pretty much nailed it during SL with one exception - world content. So all they have to do is update all world events to award S4 entry gear. Also bringing core 8 DF dungeons for half season is good idea, cause they are very underplayed compared to all dungeons since Cata (as even MoP/WoD had challenge modes).

From full 5-6 month S4 (which I doubt will happen since they talked about Alpha in Spring), I would expect new story, new world events, 'new' dungeons without repetitions from S1/S2 and most important - new sets, both visually and mechanically.

So TLR - short S4 at end of expac should be just victory lap, something that people with less time or taking break before next expac won't really miss.

Old DF open world content is definitely somehting they could focus on for this Fated Season. Though honestly, I feel like they have been pretty good about keeping it relevant in general, which ironically makes it less exciting for Fated Season.

One option at least is completely new content in the open world version of Amirdrassil. After Fyrakk becomes available on LFR the relevant quest should open for everyone, even without raiding, so having content there is absolutely on the table.
Definitely more of a long-shot, but content in Gilneas would also be lovely. No idea what that would look like, but it's a slim possibility. Same with content in Silithus, though I suspect that would just be a quick questline where we join Anduin and Thrall in talking to Magni.

[Nymrohd]

Still hoping for a new build before I go to sleep

[Marlamin]

Still hoping for a new build before I go to sleep

PTR realms got updated a few hours ago, so a build should appear in the next few hours.

[huth]

I'm not a real lore expert, but aren't there some beings/characters in the game who do Holy damage without being in any real way "servants of the Light" or the like, i.e. it's just a force they can command/draw on? Or is that not the case?

Yes. It's a common mistake many people make to equate damage types with lore magic types.

Even having a force to draw on implies a connection. If you can draw upon a certain magic or magical force, then you have a connection to it. Doesn’t mean they have to be a servant.

Except it doesn't show what force he's drawing on. Damage schools are not magical forces you're drawing on. They're just for game mechanics.