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

[Throren]

Being the aspect of Storms while being an ice dragon, guess this has nothing to do with the elemental power.

Storm doesnt necesarily mean Lightning/thunderstorm

Snow/Ice Storms exist
you could argue a Tidal wave is a type of "water storm"
When volcanoes erupt or there's a forest fire you can have quite literal fire storms

I think the title is just to show she represents elemental dragons in general
"The Primal Aspect" or something like that could have been a cool title too

[Chickat]

So have I missed anything in the last 2 weeks? Doubt it, but.

[Alanar]

A lot of NPCs now have gossip text but I cannot say I found anything important. Seems they also connected it to the Dreamway but I have to copy my druid to confirm so later. And at least half a dozen cosmetic mogs were added around the map as treasures.

Apparently Gilneas is populated as well so I'm heading there next. Archive seems bugged. Gilneas seems to have a new phase (named 10.2.5 Eastern Kingdoms - Gilneas). Lvl 70 unknown npcs and PH boxes galore. But yeah it seems the city will be reclaimed in its entirety. No new models or anything though.

Gilneas ALSO gets a portal to SW

Not on the ptr atm, but I would like to know/see more on Gilneas. Very cool to hear the city is starting to get more npcs and such. Looking forward for any pictures.

Its such a nice place.

[Nymrohd]

Not on the ptr atm, but I would like to know/see more on Gilneas. Very cool to hear the city is starting to get more npcs and such. Looking forward for any pictures.

Its such a nice place.

It is a nice place but when you go to Bel'ameth and then to Gilneas, the visual comparison is just painful

[Lady Atia]

It is a nice place but when you go to Bel'ameth and then to Gilneas, the visual comparison is just painful

So, Gilneas is literally just using the cataclysm zone but with new npc's? Guess it's better than nothing, but I really rather would take a propper world revamp over that haha.

[Scyth]

https://twitter.com/Portergauge/stat...001518/photo/1

Vyranoth is Aspect of 'Storms'.

Fitting I guess but I was definitely expecting something more Elemental-related I think. Does make sense for her though.

[Alanar]

It is a nice place but when you go to Bel'ameth and then to Gilneas, the visual comparison is just painful

I like the style of Gilneas more. The newer zones obviously look better quality, but still. More interrsted in Gilneas then I ever was for the night elves and their stuff. I personally wasnt expecting a full revamp either tho.

Just looking forward for any updates, something I just didnt really had with Amirdrassil.

[Cherry123]

I hope we get a cinematic for the return of Gilneas, nice to see Greymane family, the only characters who aren't a plot black hole.

[Alanar]

So, Gilneas is literally just using the cataclysm zone but with new npc's? Guess it's better than nothing, but I really rather would take a propper world revamp over that haha.

Just wondering, were people really expecting a full revamp of the city? It didnt even cross me personally as of expectations.

[Jastall]

Just wondering, were people really expecting a full revamp of the city? It didnt even cross me personally as of expectations.

Yeah, I dunno as well. Gilneas is my favorite Cataclysm location aesthetically and I have no problem with the place not being revamped. It looks good enough as it is.

[Nymrohd]

Just wondering, were people really expecting a full revamp of the city? It didnt even cross me personally as of expectations.

Honestly I didn't expect it either. We have had a ton of datamined new buildings but none were Gilneas themed. It is just that when you are exploring an area you are looking at things close up. And I went from Bel'ameth directly to Gilneas and the difference in texture quality is quite stark. It doesn't help that Gilneas had very few building interiors and those it does are so very cramped.

[Super Dickmann]

Honestly I didn't expect it either. We have had a ton of datamined new buildings but none were Gilneas themed. It is just that when you are exploring an area you are looking at things close up. And I went from Bel'ameth directly to Gilneas and the difference in texture quality is quite stark. It doesn't help that Gilneas had very few building interiors and those it does are so very cramped.

Gilneas is the Lordaeron equivalent, it's a reuse of pre-established assets, not the tithe to a fanbase that Bel'ameth represents. It should be treated equivalent to the SL Lordaeron questline, with the same results.

[Nymrohd]

Gilneas is the Lordaeron equivalent, it's a reuse of pre-established assets, not the tithe to a fanbase that Bel'ameth represents. It should be treated equivalent to the SL Lordaeron questline, with the same results.

Honestly I felt that the Forsaken Wrath and Cata assets were already exceptional. I like the style of the Gilnean assets but they don't stand up to close inspection.

[Super Dickmann]

Honestly I felt that the Forsaken Wrath and Cata assets were already exceptional. I like the style of the Gilnean assets but they don't stand up to close inspection.

The Forsaken assets still check out to this day, even if I've a bug bear about how the Darkshore stuff wasn't really reused since and the current Forsaken don't fully adopt the updated Cata-Forsaken aesthetic that BFA had going. But Lordaeron as such is just the scenario map with a few tents whereas Brill is just the Underhold + Darkshore assets reused. Gilneas suffers from being a setpiece first, lacking reusable buildings and the worgen in general being a fairly sidelined race. I think you could get away with using some Drustvar assets in Gilneas.

[Nymrohd]

The Forsaken assets still check out to this day, even if I've a bug bear about how the Darkshore stuff wasn't really reused since and the current Forsaken don't fully adopt the updated Cata-Forsaken aesthetic that BFA had going. But Lordaeron as such is just the scenario map with a few tents whereas Brill is just the Underhold + Darkshore assets reused. Gilneas suffers from being a setpiece first, lacking reusable buildings and the worgen in general being a fairly sidelined race. I think you could get away with using some Drustvar assets in Gilneas.

Most of the city doesn't even have buildings you can enter. It's just textures with very few buildings. I honestly never really considered what they'd do with reclaiming Gilneas but I cannot say I am impressed. I know a lot of people wanted to get Gilneas City but there isn't much of a city to get. There are two large buildings in it, one is the Cathedral whose interior is tiny, far smaller than any other Cathedral and the other is not even open.
The only "good" building in Gilneas imo is Greymane Manor but even that is tiny (and I cannot help to compare it to Waycrest which is in a similar style.

[Super Dickmann]

Most of the city doesn't even have buildings you can enter. It's just textures with very few buildings. I honestly never really considered what they'd do with reclaiming Gilneas but I cannot say I am impressed. I know a lot of people wanted to get Gilneas City but there isn't much of a city to get. There are two large buildings in it, one is the Cathedral whose interior is tiny, far smaller than any other Cathedral and the other is not even open.
The only "good" building in Gilneas imo is Greymane Manor but even that is tiny (and I cannot help to compare it to Waycrest which is in a similar style.

The main problem with the Gilneas reclamation isn't even that it took too long but that it simultaneously didn't take long enough. The Gilneas reclamation is explicitly a worgen revenge story vs. the Forsaken. No neutral baddie could've cut it. No Forsaken support would be good (and rightly so). Placing it in DF, the soft restoration expansion all about recovering from the BFA-induced damage means that it couldn't have that conflict-inducing edge, but had to work with a neutral baddie to deliver softer benefits. Ideally, Gilneas would be accompaneied by minor asset reworks, as things like lighthouses, buildings, all but the Cathedral, the safehouse and a few inn-copypastas were only meant to be viewed during the worgen 1-5.

[Nathanyel]

Storm doesnt necesarily mean Lightning/thunderstorm

Snow/Ice Storms exist
you could argue a Tidal wave is a type of "water storm"
When volcanoes erupt or there's a forest fire you can have quite literal fire storms

Or just look at the Elemental Storm events of 10.0.5

[Woggmer]

Just wondering, were people really expecting a full revamp of the city? It didnt even cross me personally as of expectations.

Honestly? Not really. I was more hoping that it'd be an actual major city hub area or at least make it an updated starting area.
(Since the original Cata starting point only makes sense in the context of those who played Classic to Wrath.. but now we're kinda so far ahead in the story that there aren't a lot of hostile worgen factions anymore except for the Nightbane Pack but they're all the way out in Duskwood.)

As for new assets... I think what it has still holds up somewhat. It's not as bad off as other zones (like Feralas, where it still uses polygon trees. [and Devs really put in a portal to Feralas in Bel'ameth.])

[Auxis]

Storm doesnt necesarily mean Lightning/thunderstorm

Snow/Ice Storms exist
you could argue a Tidal wave is a type of "water storm"
When volcanoes erupt or there's a forest fire you can have quite literal fire storms

I think the title is just to show she represents elemental dragons in general
"The Primal Aspect" or something like that could have been a cool title too

It's also interesting that we now have an Aspect of similar title/domain to another Titan.
Alex/Merithra - Eonar
Neltharion - Khaz'goroth
Kalecgos - Norgannon
Nozdormu - Aman'thul
Vyranoth - Golganeth (the Stormer is his title iirc).

Highly doubt the tree's blessing has anything to do with awakening some non existent titan power in Vyranoth and that would go completely against her character, but it's an interesting parallel.
And that leaves Aggramar - Tyr, and Sageras having absolutely no connection to the keepers or Aspects (one could argue he gave his power to Illidan in a similar fashion that the Titans did to the keepers/aspects).

[Reinhart11]

So after watching BlizzCon and letting it all sink in for quite a while, my cup of tea:

The Announcement Cinematic:
In my opinion it wasn’t well balanced. I prefer a cinematic that balances out emotion, epic moments, actions. I also prefer showing instead of telling. For example, i like both the Frostfire Ridge and Shadowmoon Valley ingame cinematics from WoD a lot. They had everything in it a good cinematic needs. Emotional scenes, epic scenes, action, great music in the right moment.
I haven’t played WoW since before the end of BfA, but i watched the cinematics of Dragonflight and i have to say, a lot of them, especially with the supposed heroes/good guys in them, are sadly a snoozefest. I’m not logging into WoW to experience depressed characters left and right and their therapy sessions, that aren’t even well written. Its just not appealing to me in the way they portray it. It creates no connection for me, on the contrary, it lessens my connection to and the appeal of the whole game.
So in my opinion that cinematic would have worked as a story cinematic. It reminded me of the Sadfang cinematics(which wasn’t a good thing at all either for me).

Delves:
I like it, i would prefer proper difficulty settings. Normal, Heroic, Mythic(+), which players can choose from. No timer is really good in my opinion. Loot in a Mythic/Mythic+ Delve for example should be a few itemlevel beneath compared to Mythic+ Dungeon runs. Or on the same level. I would be fine with both. If they don’t have proper rewards i think they might fall flat.
I hope they will improve the delves into a evergreen system, something like „Expeditions“, no longer restricted to Islands or in the case of Delves, deep places. They can be anywhere, somewhere on a magical/elemental plane, on another planet, in space, on the highest mountain on Azeroth, in the deepest ocean, in some titan/demon/old god complex, in a jungle, on an island, in a little village/town/ major city.
Having story heavy expeditions playing out in settlements would be nice and also gives them a reason to update these places. I really don’t get why they never use cities for content. It can be in a separate phase if necessary.

Companion:
I don’t like this iteration. I’m played a Maghar Orc Blackrock warrior, Blood Elf warlock, Zandalari shaman and Orc shaman as my mains. I would have preferred a character from the Reliquary to accompany me instead of Brann Bronzebeard. Same as i would not like it to have Aggra for example accompanying my Alliance toons. Breaks my immersion(not to mention that Brann can become quite annoying quickly in my opinion)and i’m not a fan at all of the Unifaction.

What i would have preferred here ist the option to create my own companion. Everything i need for it is already in the game. I can choose his faction, race, name, look etc. Simply because i would have enjoyed a Blackrock Shaman as a companion for my Blackrock warrior much more compared to Brann Bronzebeard for example.

Warbands:
Not much to say about it. Its fine i guess. Nice QoL changes, that should been put much earlier into the game. Its overglorified. Not sure how this counts as a major feature.
Big minus for keeping the transmog restrictions between different armor types up and going. No good argument i can see for that, its nonsensical. Removing that would have been a big win.

Hero Talents:
Interesting, i like it as long as those talents are not just percentage increases to certain abilities but truly change how some abilities work or add additional effects to some. Or even better, beloved abilities from older expansions that players miss who fit certain Hero Talent trees.
Class fantasy is hyped up by some of the naming choices. But it increases also expectations. There seem to be some visual adjustments based on the video with the Mountain Thane, but probably not the stuff many players expect reading names like Farseer, Keeper of the Grove, San’layn, Sentinel etc.

In regards to my Warrior and Warlock: i’m intrigued by the Colossus. I miss the fantasy of the big strong „unstoppable“ juggernaut, very tanky, either because of physiology or because the character is clad in (magical)plate armor from head to tow, for my Arms warrior. Like Doomhammer, WoD Blackhand, Ogre or Tauren Chieftain. After MoP, Arms was very squishy and reminded me much more of blademasters only, which i did not find fitting for my Blackrock warrior. Not sure yet what to think about the the Warlock options. Need more details.
What Hero Talents would have needed as a feature to be awesome is an evergreen cosmetic feature to accompany them. Like Cosmetic Glyphs, which allow to give your spells another color or even some other animation. Or that turns you into another form, like a true Keeper of the Grove or a Dryad. Or gives warlocks unique forms of Metamorphasis.
Overall this new feature has potential but might fall very short if they botch it.

Allied Race:
I’m happy for Dwarf fans, i like Dwarves in general, even though i don’t play Dwarves(although i would play Dark Iron in a heart beat, just couldn’t be bothered to unlock them in BfA).
Earthen on their own just come across as quite lazy and i don’t have any connection and thus no interest for them. I’m not sure how much effort they had to put into playable Earthen, i guess they might be more or less the same as Dark Iron, or maybe Dark Iron and Highmountain combined. Still, quite disappointing compared to BfA.
I really don’t understand why they could not at least put in a second or third Allied Race. Like Jinyu/Ankoan for Alliance, Mogu for Horde, Earthen as neutral. Would have looked much better.
You can easily spin a story where the waterspeaker of the Jinyu hear the voice of the world soul, the Ankoans, living in especially deep places of the oceans, might even know entrances into Azeroths „Inner Earth“/“Underworld“. Mogu are also a no brainer. Its literally stated that the powerful Mogu Necrolords were disturbed out of their slumber in unknown number during the End of Legion/BfA Island Expeditions, because of Sargeras attack, ruling and awakening Mogu Clans deep beneath the earth from their crypts. Now we are deep beneath the Earth. Mogu are also titan forged, very warlike, Lei Shen wanted to literally continue the work of the Titans. The Mogu would fit the conflict in The War Within perfectly. Not to mention a Mogu would fit perfectly with the Stormbringer hero talents probably, a character i would have created really quickly. Both Jinyu/Ankoan and Mogu are based on the models of Night Elves and Draenei, so fitting the armor shouldn’t be that much of a problem i guess.
At current BlizzCon Maria Hilton and Kristy Moret were literally asked how AI has been integrated into the Blizzard pipeline and they said, they have used machine learning to refit helmets to all character races, because thats a huge tedious task for an individual character artist.
Overall, only anouncing Earthen as an Allied race was a big disappointment for me, not because of the Earthen, but because they were on their own.
I also had to think about Wildhammer and Dragonmaw Allied Races, which would have fit Dragonflight in so many ways perfectly. So apparently the developers can be bothered to create the Earthen race, which are 25% bigger than other playable Dwarves, but they couldn’t be bothered to implement Wildhammer properly, make them slightly larger and thinner, still based on the Dwarven model. Disappointing. Dragonmaw are a low effort Allied race as well because most assets would already be in the game.
All in all, after not buying/playing Shadowlands and Dragonflight, i probably won’t buy and play The War Within either. Not enough features in it that i’m truly interested enough to invest time and money in WoW again.
Much of the stuff i care the most about just isn’t present in this announcement:
No races i really want to play, especially Naga(i’m waiting for my favourite race to be playable since fucking TFT and even in the RTS they disappointed me), Mogu, Ogre, Saberon, even Gnolls. Absolutely nothing on this front.
No new race/sub-group customizations. WoW still lacks behind big time in my opinion. Not sure if they’re out of ideas here, it seems like it. Which would be bad. Not a thing on that front.
No class specific customizations. I am really not sure why they haven’t bothered to do these properly, either as normal customization you can choose when creating a character or/and as quest rewards. Huge waste of potential. Combined with an evergreen cosmetic system you could make a lot of Warcraft 3/RPG hero classes a reality, visually.
No race campaigns, something i really would like for the game. The races in WoW get story wise way too little attention. Race campaigns would be also the far superior option to class halls, the problem of tauren sunwalker in a human church building(just one example of many) and all that could be avoided, not to mention that these could be used for building up a much broader cast of characters for all races as well.
I would have liked the return of Warfronts in an improved version. The Warfronts don’t have to be faction war specific. They could portray all kinds of battles:

-Man’ari Eredar/Legion vs Void somewhere in space(„B-b-but our characters are the good heroes! I don’t want to play villains!!!REEEE“ I am pretty sure there are more than enough pragmatic/all kind of evil characters among champions and veterans of Azeroth, all kinds of alignments like in DnD are possible) on a distant planet
-the different elementals battling each other(out of this one you could literally get how many battles based on fire, water, air and earth, not even counting Decay and Spirit, which should be elemental forces(yes i know the World Soul consumed a lot of the Spirit elemental magic, Elemental Lords of Spirit and of Decay would still be entertaining) on the elemental planes
-battle between Qiraji and Tolvir between Uldum and Silithus
-Primalists vs Titankeeper/Titanforged, Night Elves vs Satyr, Centaur vs Tauren, Stormwind vs Defias or Gnolls
-battles at sea between fleets, Zandalari vs Kul Tiras or Naga or Pirates
-battle between Scourge Remnants against the Brotherhood of Light, either in Eastweald/Plaguelands or in Northrend
-a three way battle/warfront in a Hearthstone Gadgetzan brought to WoW
There are so many great examples of battles and fights you could portray through Warfronts. Warfronts are an absolute no brainer if properly invested, implemented and supported in a franchise and world that is all about war. The several tier of race and faction specific armor sets and weapons you get would be another big bonus. And they fit the specific races. On top that, Blizzard could even use the Advanced AI from Island Expeditions in improved Warfronts, so that Turalyon and Eitrigg for example as well as the lesser heroes, commanders, officers are active on the map and not just standing around in the same place all the time.
Advanced AI used for important named characters in world events, quests and for world bosses would be great as well, make them smarter, active, maybe even have NPC factions try to achieve certain goals on the map, in the regions they are active.
In regards to PvP(as i mostly play PvP and care for the story, PvE is way too repetitive for my taste and i think dungeons and raids are cancer for the story because the villains have to be especially retarded to let their armies get destroyed/killed piece meal) i’m still waiting for the option to be able to aquire old elite PvP sets if i have the necessary rating in rated PvP. I can farm all the old Mythic sets, but many or all the great Elite PvP sets are out of reach for returning and new players. Not sure how this makes any sense whatsoever. Dead content. What a waste.

So overall, this BlizzCon couldn’t even really whelm me in regards to WoW. The Season of Discovery for WoW Classic sounds more interesting compared to the stuff they announced for Retail, but that won’t me bring back either.
Also, shame on you Blizzard for still not working on a new proper RTS title like Warcraft 4. The RTS campaigns would be perfect vehicles to tell many stories, do great cinematics, build up new characters. We are mostly confined to a certain place in WoW, be it Outland, Northrend, Pandaria, Broken Isles and such. But the rest of the World of Azeroth doesn’t stand still in the meantime. Things should happen there. And the RTS campaigns could tell and show these stories fine in my opinion. But even in that regard, nothing. Nothing in general for the Warcraft IP, like an animated tv series(think Clone Wars, Castlevania, Arcane) which could work so well for Warcraft. Okay, Warcraft Rumble. It looks fun, the trailer even got a good laugh out of me, but i don’t play games on a phone. So yeah, what a bummer in that regard as well. Maybe next BlizzCon if they use the Microsoft money well and if any ambition and vision is left at Blizzard when it comes to the Warcraft IP.

PS: For christ sake, please hire competent writer who have at least mastered entry writing classes on a at least decent university.