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

[Houle]

Not sure I follow.

Timeline:

- Elune possibly first deity on Azeroth.
- Old Gods rule.
- Titans arrive.
- Freya shapes the Dream, plants G'Hanir etc.
- Elune takes a branch off G'Hanir and gifts to Eonar.
- Eonar plants Elun'Ahir, possibly on top of Y'Shaarj.
- Aman'Thul rips Elun'Ahir out, and maybe Y'Shaarj with it.
- Well of Eternity is formed. Becomes unintended font of life and source of immense power. Titans try to control it. Shaping of Azeroth.
- Titans disappear. Elune bathes in the well, Night Elves evolve, and life blossoms on Azeroth.
- Later, Well of Eternity explodes, but Illidan kept some water for a second well. Alex plants an acorn from the recently destroyed G'Hanir to grow Nordrassil on top of it.
- The well formerly known as Well of Eternity is now the Maelstrom, a super powerful link between planes of existence, while Night Elves live on Mount Hyjal instead.
- Xal'atath who's been chilling below the sea for ages befriends the naga. Learns all the secrets. Forms plans with Azshara. The idea is to topple their ancient enemy (the Titans) and unleash their shackles on Azeroth. The key lies in the Depths of the world, where the roots of Elun'Ahir dug deep, and the worldsoul is kept in stasis.

Why and how exactly would Eonar plant a tree on top of Y'shaarj tho lol. Thats a bit of a ridiculous idea

[Woggmer]

That is true though. It was a cool moment. The buildup was pretty good, and the questoine where you had to scramble to save civilians before passing out from smoke inhalation and having to escape was pretty fantastic as a questline.
All the stuff after however was pretty shit. How it made the Horde inarguably evil in a way that stretched belief as a player faction. How it made Sylvanas into the WoW equivalent of Hitler, and the ramifications this in turn had on Shadowlands. How the story had to drag the corpse of the storyline around for years before finally having a decent ending at the end of DF.

A storyline can be good on its own, while at the same time causing irreparable damage to the greater narrative.

And the biggest issue is again, they dumped the storyline in favor of the N'zoth plot which came out of nowhere in relation to the Faction War story. And what ended up happening was that it not only pissed off the fans of the Faction-War story, but ruined all chances of any possible Old God expansion so even the fans of the Old God story felt robbed of the potential.

They should've sticked to one or the other, or if they were going to start it off as a War Story turned into the Old God plot.. then N'zoth should've been the one that was influencing everything in order to speed up his arrival.

But if they wanted to stick to the Faction War story, they should've had the Night Elves unleash a full scale retaliation against the Horde and even showcase just how deadly of a force the Night Warriors were meant to be.
(Instead, they just turned them into a pointless customization option for them and did nothing with that story.)

[Woggmer]

Why and how exactly would Eonar plant a tree on top of Y'shaarj tho lol. Thats a bit of a ridiculous idea

I think it's more like the argument was meant to be that Y'shaarj corrupted Elun'Ahir or became one with it, but Aman'thul pulled Y'shaarj/Elun'Ahir out, but the roots were still left intact. I think that's the point they were trying to get across...

But yeah, Eonar putting the tree on top of Y'shaarj would honestly be a very dumb move.

[Merryck]

The Draenei heritage armor quest line should have nothing to do with alternate Draenor ... That would be such a waste.

[allegrian]

The burning of Teldrassil was a major and world changing event that was an interesting development if what came after made sense. It set up Sylvannas and Horde as major villains that did more damage than any wow villain since Arthas (whose biggest damage inflicted was prior to WoW, in W3) or Deathwing, whose damage was more environmental than genocidal. So we now have the most damaging villain in the game, Sylvannas, but just after that we kind of forget the event to go to KT/Zandalar, then have some war stuff + darkshore and we just change our focus to azshara and nzoth.

Sylvannas should have been bfa's final boss, or at least Shadowlands, but she just ended up being a nipple man pawn with an unsatisfying conclusion where we don't even get to beat her, she just becomes "good" again.

If any new or old villain from an expansion started doing damage of the level of Teldrassil, we would be all eager to kill that villain as the final boss. But we get new villains that accomplish nothing (DF) or have the horde/Sylvannas do horrible stuff with no payback possible (Gilneas, Teldrassil).

[Woggmer]

The Draenei heritage armor quest line should have nothing to do with alternate Draenor ... That would be such a waste.

I don't think it does, from what I heard based on some of the leaks and datamining that it would be on Outland near Auchindoun and not AU Draenor. Especially since Velen is involved based on a screenshot taken.

[huth]

Not sure, but why would she plant it anywhere else in particular. Like, how do you choose a suitable location for a tree the size of a skyscraper?

Because planting it on top of an Old God is really, really stupid? See the World Tree in Northrend for how that goes. Vordrassil was meant to help ressurect Ursoc. Saronite wasn't even a consideration. No idea where you got that from.

None of the trees were planted to subdue Old God corruption.

Besides, the Titans kicking the Old Gods out is pretty much the first they do after arriving at Azeroth. And Y'Shaarj is the first one to go. So Eonar pretty much simply wouldn't have had time to do that.

[Viridiel]

So Bellular just released a pretty interesting video about the Tomb of Sargeras. In it, he mentions Titan watchers called Eonic Defenders, and speculates that the former Temple of Elune might have roots of Elun'Ahir underneath of it.

That would then explain why this place has been sought by Old Gods and Guardians alike over the millennia.

Azj-Kahet has giant roots as well, beneath the Isle of Dorn.

Could it be that my theory about Elun'Ahir is right? That the tree once stood right where the Well of Eternity and later the Maelstrom ended up.

I'm a big fan of the idea that the Well of Eternity is the crater of Elun'Ahir and that the story of Y'shaarj's defeat at the hands of the titans isn't exactly accurate, but I'm not sure of the connection here. Suramar isn't very close to the Well of Eternity at all, so there shouldn't be anything particularly special about that location with regard to the tree. But we know that the Tomb of Sargeras is built on an area of great power called K'tanth that N'zoth and Y'shaarj fought over. The reason why the Well of Eternity works so well as the former location of Elun'Ahir is because of the line that life sprung about everywhere its roots reached, and we've been told that life sprung about everywhere the waters of the Well of Eternity pooled. So if that's really just two ways of saying the same thing, then K'tanth would be a confluence of Life energy like Un'goro and Sholazar, which doesn't tell us anything about the location of the actual crater.

I think it's very likely that K'tanth is in fact an area where the roots of Elun'Ahir converged to create a particularly concentrated area of Life, it just does nothing to support theories about the location of the tree unless the roots didn't travel very far and areas like Un'goro and Sholazar have nothing to do with it, which strikes one of the strongest points for the theory.

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Because planting it on top of an Old God is really, really stupid? See the World Tree in Northrend for how that goes. Vordrassil was meant to help ressurect Ursoc. Saronite wasn't even a consideration. No idea where you got that from.

None of the trees were planted to subdue Old God corruption.

Besides, the Titans kicking the Old Gods out is pretty much the first they do after arriving at Azeroth. And Y'Shaarj is the first one to go. So Eonar pretty much simply wouldn't have had time to do that.

Fandral planted Andrassil to stop the spread of saronite. He's just an idiot.

The furbolg who set up shop in the remains of Andrassil/Vordrassil decided to resurrect Ursoc. Its planting had nothing to do with that.

Notably the story of Elun'Ahir explicitly says that Eonar planted Elun'Ahir to fight back against the Old Gods, so planting it on top of Y'shaarj isn't a stretch at all if she thought it had the power to contain Shadow magic. It seems stupid to us now but so was pulling an Old God out of the planet and almost killing it when the titans supposedly were already pretty familiar with Old Gods.

[Nathanyel]

The burning of Teldrassil was a major and world changing event that was an interesting development if what came after made sense. It set up Sylvannas and Horde as major villains

Still baffles me that people have less issue with undoing the Horde's progress since WC3, throwing it back into a simplicistic villain role, than with "that wide-ranging conflict between Order, Chaos and Void? Turns out Death had a hand in it as well".

[Super Dickmann]

Nobbel thinks Teldrassil genocide was a cool moment in wow, what is going on lol.

Burning the tree was a cool visual, the Horde burning the tree rather than a cop-out was also the better choice. What it was in service for and how it was handled was the issue. Sylvanas has no association with night elves or the tree, the long time Horde opponent of the night elves have always been the orcs. But even in the story we got where the entire point of the scene was to show us how Sylvanas is like Pol Pot with a boob job, the fact that no opposition followed and the entire thing up to that point was done by the Horde, including the actual torching meant there was no way to sensibly make everyone be friends at the end.

The Burning then, doesn't work in any version where the end point is the idea of everyone holding hands in a drum circle. It can be used to make faction tensions untenable, a Rubicon point after which shaking hands will never make sense, as indeed it still doesn't. It works in a story beat that's similar gameplay-wise, but very different in story implications, which is faction collapse, wherein the inability for the factions to get along has them fully cede to neutral organisations in world content, ala Legion, while the racial/group conflict goes on as a B-plot, also ala Legion. This has all the gameplay benefits, opens more stories and coheres better logically, while having the added benefit of avoiding the current status quo where every baddie's threat level makes zero sense in view of the fact that the entire united world of peaceniks should be acting against them (but doesn't). No united world of peaceniks, no problem.

BFA's problem was never the stated premise, nor even the hype moments - the Kalimdor and Lordaeron conflicts have been brewing for yonks. It's that it its stated premise isn't its actual premise. BFA wasn't about the tree, or the factiions and it isn't about Azshara or the Old Gods either, it's about eliminating the factions and turning everyone into copy-paste clones while closing the book on every outstanding Azeroth plot so we can go for ghosts in space as friends. So we did. And it sucked.

[UndedoKoleda]

Nobbel thinks Teldrassil genocide was a cool moment in wow, what is going on lol.

Dunno if it was cool, but the absolute denial among some posters here, was funny as hell.

Among my favorite theories were that:
- Tyrande herself did it in spite, just to not let the Horde have it.
- Genn did it, as a false-flag operation to start an all-out war.
- Jaina did it. Because she is a Dreadlord, or something.
- Some separatists in a night-elven civil war did it.
- An evil rogue faction/cult within the Horde did it, to discredit the Horde leadership.
- Someone disguised as Sylvanas did it.
- Sylvanas did it, but she was mind-controlled!
- Sylvanas did it "by accident", by sparking the newly appeared gasoline Azerite, without knowing what it was.

[Eldryth]

The Burning of Teldrassil was an attempt to make a "WoW version" of the Red Wedding.

The difference is that the Red Wedding was foreshadowed in advance, while the Burning of Teldrassil was a literal asspull out of nowhere.

Therein we see one of the major differences between (successful) Boomer writing and (failed) Millennial writing. Set-up; Foreshadowing; The ability to lay the hints of an event well before it actually happens.

The Burning of Teldrassil is literally out of nowhere with absolutely 0 foreshadowing before-hand. That is not how you write a storyline.

I doubt BFA was even being planned at the time, but the burning of Teldrassil was talked about in a book six years before it happened. Back in Tides of War, when Theramore was destroyed and Jaina wanted to destroy Theramore in retaliation, she predicted that the Horde would eventually just invade again if they're not destroyed and questioned if Dalaran would continue to stay out of it even as the Horde burned Teldrassil.

Of course, nobody paid any attention to it at the time because it seemed like she was just raving and the book portrayed Jaina as being in the wrong. But in retrospect, she predicted the whole premise of BFA even before Mists released.

[Varodoc]

I doubt BFA was even being planned at the time, but the burning of Teldrassil was talked about in a book six years before it happened. Back in Tides of War, when Theramore was destroyed and Jaina wanted to destroy Theramore in retaliation, she predicted that the Horde would eventually just invade again if they're not destroyed and questioned if Dalaran would continue to stay out of it even as the Horde burned Teldrassil.

Of course, nobody paid any attention to it at the time because it seemed like she was just raving and the book portrayed Jaina as being in the wrong. But in retrospect, she predicted the whole premise of BFA even before Mists released.

That is not foreshadowing for the Burning of Teldrassil.

You cannot possibly believe that Blizzard writers, under a completely different lead at the time (Kosak), planned the Burning of Teldrassil 5 years in advance, before MOP/WoD/Legion. Blizzard doesn't plan that far ahead.

Foreshadowing =/= Coincidence

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If you want an example of actually foreshadowing, one that was superbly-written, look no further than the Old God plotline in Legion-BfA.

Every single piece of the Old God storyline from the Emerald Nightmare in Legion up to and including the ending cinematic of the Eternal Palace in Bfa was masterfully-written. Perfect foreshadowing, perfect storyline, with many clues and hints before-hand.

You can look back at Legion-BfA and see all the clues that were spread around the story about the "diamond king", "her heart", "the circle of stars", "the last prison", and so on.

Had Blizzard stuck the landing with Ny'alotha, BfA would have the best storyline we've ever had. The build-up to N'Zoth's liberation was perfect and masterfully-done.

Unfortunately N'Zoth had to share the expansion with Sourfang and Sylvanas who hogged all the screentime in cinematics, all to please the faction fanatics who flaunt their irl Horde tattoos on Reddit.

[Lahis]

That is not foreshadowing for the Burning of Teldrassil.

You cannot possibly believe that Blizzard writers, under a completely different lead at the time (Kosak), planned the Burning of Teldrassil 5 years in advance, before MOP/WoD/Legion. Blizzard doesn't plan that far ahead.

Foreshadowing =/= Coincidence

Burning of Teldrassil is such an ultimate evil and unlikely to happen hyperbole that it was used in that book to show how hard Theramore hit Jaina and how deep it sank her mentally.

[Varodoc]

Burning of Teldrassil is such an ultimate evil and unlikely to happen hyperbole that it was used in that book to show how hard Theramore hit Jaina and how deep it sank her mentally.

It's possible that Blizzard throughout its history was toying around with the idea of burning a World Tree. I suspect that they might have toyed with the idea of the Legion succeeding at Teldrassil where they failed at Nordrassil.

But it is literally not foreshadowing.

Is this foreshadowing for the Burning of Teldrassil? Is this foreshadowing for Fyrakk trying to burn Amirdrassil? Hilarious.





The Burning of Teldrassil was literally not foreshadowed. It was literally a bait and switch done at the end because Delaryn made Sylvanas salty. The entire plan up to that point until Delaryn trash-talked was to hold Teldrassil hostage.

[Auxis]

So, what's MMO-Champs current consensus on what 10.2.6 is?

For the 10.2.6 patch for Dragonflight, we created what we think is a unique event inspired by past musings from the community. We can say that it is open to anyone with a WoW subscription if they want to participate (Classic or Dragonflight players). That's all we’re going say. Sorry, not sorry? Our goal is to continue to keep it secret— and keep it safe. The speculation is great! We watched the reaction to the surprises in Season of Discovery and thought we’d try a similar, but different, approach for Dragonflight.

To me it sounds like something that any player can participate in (Classic or Retail), but given the flag only appears on the Retail roadmap and is not indicated in Classic (either in visual form or as a patch number for Classic): I think its something for the old world of Retail - that way anyone with an active sub can access it regardless of whether they own DF or not.

Onto the actual content: Holly mentions 'past musings' in the above quote. What really is there that the community has been vocal about? The only thing I can think that has been talked about a lot is player housing. Is there anything else that's been vocalised by the community?

[milkmustache]

So, what's MMO-Champs current consensus on what 10.2.6 is?



To me it sounds like something that any player can participate in (Classic or Retail), but given the flag only appears on the Retail roadmap and is not indicated in Classic (either in visual form or as a patch number for Classic): I think its something for the old world of Retail - that way anyone with an active sub can access it regardless of whether they own DF or not.

Onto the actual content: Holly mentions 'past musings' in the above quote. What really is there that the community has been vocal about? The only thing I can think that has been talked about a lot is player housing. Is there anything else that's been vocalised by the community?

It seems that most think it's some form of large scale event in the old world, most likely a further realized version of Secrets of Azeroth from a few patches ago. A lot think it'll be either Stranglethorn related or possibly a new Plunder Isle sort of thing. Realistically, we have no idea. Pirates, chicken, trees are our only hints from devs tweeting emojis.

[doledippers]

idk if anyone noticed but looks like blizzard just restocked the dragonflight collectors editions on the gear store, kinda interesting. cant remember if theyve ever done that before

[Kiivar86]

The Draenei heritage armor quest line should have nothing to do with alternate Draenor ... That would be such a waste.

From what little has been datamined, it shouldn't deal with AU-Draenor much. There do seem to be Vigilants though which I am happy to see being brought over (or retconned into always existing).

[milkmustache]

From what little has been datamined, it shouldn't deal with AU-Draenor much. There do seem to be Vigilants though which I am happy to see being brought over (or retconned into always existing).

There's already been some stuff datamined for the Draenei heritage?? Where are you seeing this?