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

[Varodoc]

The entire storyline surrounding Ysera, Malfurion, and Merithra reeks of changes behind the scenes.

Why DF loading screen shows Ysera if Merithra was always supposed to be the new "Main" Green Dragon?

Yet why did Ysera do nothing if Blizzard was willing to sacrifice Malfurion to bring her back?

And why did they create such a sad, sentimental, heartfelt farewell scene between Malfurion and Tyrande if they are just going to bring him back before the expansion is even over in the first place?

And here I thought Shadowlands was Afrasiabi's fault and Danuser and his team are tooootally good writers.

[milkmustache]

The entire storyline surrounding Ysera, Malfurion, and Merithra reeks of changes behind the scenes.

Why DF loading screen shows Ysera if Merithra was always supposed to be the new "Main" Green Dragon?

Yet why did Ysera do nothing if Blizzard was willing to sacrifice Malfurion to bring her back?

And why did they create such a sad, sentimental, heartfelt farewell scene between Malfurion and Tyrande if they are just going to bring him back before the expansion is even over in the first place?

And here I thought Shadowlands was Afrasiabi's fault and Danuser and his team are tooootally good writers.

Yep, right on all points. Makes me nervous for parts of TWW. Where are the loose ends gonna appear there?

Luckily the Malfurion/Tyrande/Ysera situation is pretty minor. It's tied to the ending arc of the expansion, but still relatively minor compared to some other issues in the past.

[Varodoc]

Yep, right on all points. Makes me nervous for parts of TWW. Where are the loose ends gonna appear there?

Luckily the Malfurion/Tyrande/Ysera situation is pretty minor. It's tied to the ending arc of the expansion, but still relatively minor compared to some other issues in the past.

The Malfurion/Tyrande/Ysera storyline might be minor compared to Sylvanas and Jailer, but it's still proof that basically nothing's change with this new writing team. They still change their minds midway through an expansion and clearly don't have a plan from beginning to end.

I mean, they hyped up Raszageth as the main villain of the expansion (they even give her a CGI/live action model) only to get rid of her in the very first raid. At least Denathrius was not presented as the main villain of the expansion.

The Worldsoul saga will avoid these writing issues as Blizzard, under Metzen's leadership, clearly has a vision set in stone from beginning to end this time.

[milkmustache]

I mean, they hyped up Raszageth as the main villain of the expansion only to get rid of her in the very first raid. At least Denathrius was not presented as the main villain of the expansion.

This reminds me: Vakthros. This looked like it'd play a huge part, and Raszageth even seemed to imply such, yet here we are. A big nothing area of Azure Span.

[Eldryth]

Yet why did Ysera do nothing if Blizzard was willing to sacrifice Malfurion to bring her back?

This is one of the big reasons I suspect there was a major patch cut from Dragonflight. They made such a big deal about Ysera coming back temporarily to help, but she ended up doing nothing except channeling a shield for a bit and motivating Merithra. Instead we got Alexstrasza and Vyranoth taking the lead in a patch focused on the Emerald Dream and Green Dragonflight, while the Reds as a whole were ignored for the entire expansion.

It feels like there should have been one more patch there- with Ysera and Merithra taking Alexstrasza and Vyranoth's place in 10.2, followed by a 10.3 focused on the Red Dragonflight (probably facing Iridikron- it seemed like they were building him up as the final boss early on, and I suspect Dragonflight changed because Metzen wanted to save him for the Saga when he came back just after launch).

[Super Dickmann]

It looks like Malfurion is back from Ardenweald. I wonder if there was an abandoned storyline reasoning for his slumber in the weald, or if it was just a case of him being simply too powerful to have involved in the Fyrakk storyline. I still find the Ysera plotline really odd this expansion, seemed like they changed their mind on what to do with her early on.

The original storyline was likely some variant of Ysera coaching her daughter to take up her reins, her last dialogue suggests as much, while Malf took a possibly indefinite timeout, both due to power issues and because he's had nothing to do or any role that made sense for the entire course of the game and his only good MMO moments were parts of A Good War and thirty seconds of a Darkshore cinematic. However, they backtracked on this due to player complaints and so the whole thing got shelved and went nowhere.

[Valysar]

Blue news on Friday, maybe 10.2.6 reveal, who knows

[doledippers]

Blue news on Friday, maybe 10.2.6 reveal, who knows

im still coping , surprise announcement sometime this week

[Dracullus]

Blue news on Friday, maybe 10.2.6 reveal, who knows

Blue news is recap from whole week on Friday. Patch revel is "In development" article. Unless something change, looks like no reveal this week.

[Nibelheimy]

This team decided not to mention anywhere in game that Fyrakk is Alexstraza's cousin, not even in the ending quest lines or cinematic after his defeat. Are they that piss poor they thought it wouldn't be important to mention, or was it added to the book last minute to try and make him seem more like a proper end boss?

Vyranoth calls him brother (a term for a fellow incarnate) so I wouldn't be surprised if players who don't read forums/don't read that book think that she's actually more biologically related to him than Alex is. They'd have no reason to think Alexstraza has anything to do with him other than their war.

They literally shelved Malfurion for the emerald dream patch and that's it. What a travesty.

[milkmustache]

This is one of the big reasons I suspect there was a major patch cut from Dragonflight. They made such a big deal about Ysera coming back temporarily to help, but she ended up doing nothing except channeling a shield for a bit and motivating Merithra. Instead we got Alexstrasza and Vyranoth taking the lead in a patch focused on the Emerald Dream and Green Dragonflight, while the Reds as a whole were ignored for the entire expansion.

It feels like there should have been one more patch there- with Ysera and Merithra taking Alexstrasza and Vyranoth's place in 10.2, followed by a 10.3 focused on the Red Dragonflight (probably facing Iridikron- it seemed like they were building him up as the final boss early on, and I suspect Dragonflight changed because Metzen wanted to save him for the Saga when he came back just after launch).

You're totally right, the red dragonflight is completely absent for the entirity of this expansion aside from some deep in thought dialogue from Alexstrazsa.

However, if Iridikron's current arc/usage is a Metzen idea, then it seems to be a good omen for the World Soul Saga, because I think it's a brilliant usage. Iridikron hardly cared about the Dragonflights, even if his fellow incarnates did. His eyes were on the bigger prize the entire time, the Titans. To have him killed off without being able to confront them would've been a real waste of his character. Instead it seems we're being given at least a more nuanced and interesting view on the esotercism presented in the story.

I just hope they don't kill him off in TWW and let him last until The Last Titan where we can hopefully see him kill one of them. Villains in this story deserve a bit more of a fallout from their actions, which this could be.

[Cheezits]

They shelved Malfurion because they wanted 10.2 to still be a dragon patch, not a Nelf patch, and have admitted they didn't know how to equally balance Tyrande and Malfurion.

[Valysar]

This team decided not to mention anywhere in game that Fyrakk is Alexstraza's cousin, not even in the ending quest lines or cinematic after his defeat. Are they that piss poor they thought it wouldn't be important to mention, or was it added to the book last minute to try and make him seem more like a proper end boss?

Vyranoth calls him brother (a term for a fellow incarnate) so I wouldn't be surprised if players who don't read forums/don't read that book think that she's actually more biologically related to him than Alex is. They'd have no reason to think Alexstraza has anything to do with him other than their war.

They literally shelved Malfurion for the emerald dream patch and that's it. What a travesty.

They waited the 10.2 to reunite Alex and Ysera (only to say goodbye...), so at this point, I guess they don't care anymore

[Murlocos]

Everything surrounding Ysera in Dragonflight is emblematic of the problems with their decision making. Someone on the team wanted to bring her back, nobody wanted to say no to the idea, so a strained narrative was created to justify it with mythological analogies being invoked that had zero relevance to the story being told. The players naturally reacted with confusion because no sizeable audience neither expected nor wanted Ysera to come back, and the team comes to a crossroads: they've committed to a bad idea and thrown it out into the public, and now they either have to keep with it all the way or walk it back.

What follows is them attempting to do both, and so the whole ordeal ends up having no real purpose as the characters do nothing before leaving. Its presence is an active drag on the story as it only distracts the audience with questions that the team did not intend to be asked. These questions often end up being very surface level and very obvious questions that the team should have had answers for before the content was even available for public testing, but instead they appear to be figuring it out at about the same pace as the players.

The chief problem is that, in most cases, they seem to be approaching storytelling with a mindset of "I want to tell this story", they grab a handful of characters for it without a second thought, and try to make it work. They're not asking how a certain character would react to a particular scenario, why a character would be willing to do a certain action, etc. The writers view the world and characters as a set of disconnected tools to tell whatever story they come up with on the spot while the audience is still viewing them as actual places and people with their own personalities and agendas with stories that can be more naturally spun from those elements.

I'd like to think that this gets better with the Worldsoul Saga, but one of the glaring problems is just how often they are coming up with bad ideas and apparently not able to recognize them.

This team decided not to mention anywhere in game that Fyrakk is Alexstraza's cousin, not even in the ending quest lines or cinematic after his defeat. Are they that piss poor they thought it wouldn't be important to mention, or was it added to the book last minute to try and make him seem more like a proper end boss?

WoW's always had a problem with story content being shoved into books, probably at its worst around Cata and MoP, but Sylvanas and War of the Scaleborn feel more like them figuring out the story they actually want to tell at the end of the expansion and then publishing it. They're so disconnected from the game they might as well be considered take twos.

[Sondrelk]

The original storyline was likely some variant of Ysera coaching her daughter to take up her reins, her last dialogue suggests as much, while Malf took a possibly indefinite timeout, both due to power issues and because he's had nothing to do or any role that made sense for the entire course of the game and his only good MMO moments were parts of A Good War and thirty seconds of a Darkshore cinematic. However, they backtracked on this due to player complaints and so the whole thing got shelved and went nowhere.

It would certainly explain a whole bunch of weird zigzagging on Ysera if we assume that it's all down to using her and Malfurion as plot devices.

Ysera didn't leave immediately in SL because they wanted that big moment of her returning in DF.
Then they had Malfurion take her place solely to remove Malfurion from the picture.
Once Ysera was set to return, the backlash against not making her daughter the new aspect got loud enough they scrapped all the stuff with her in DF, which they didn't replace with anything since why bother.

I imagine they also scrapped a bunch of stuff once it became clear this would be a shorter expansion. The developers probably assumed they had more time for small events, which never manifested when the Bronze Dragonflight stuff took up so much time in the middle of the expansion.

- - - Updated - - -

This reminds me: Vakthros. This looked like it'd play a huge part, and Raszageth even seemed to imply such, yet here we are. A big nothing area of Azure Span.

Wasn't it confirmed somewhere it was supposed to be the lead-in to the raid? Some endgame questline would see it destroyed or deactivated, which would lead to Razsageth flying to the raid, and Kalecgos and Khadgar following after.

What I am more curious about though is the Oathstones plotline. It seemed to be leading somewhere, and then it just disappeared after the pre-raid quest, never to be mentioned again.

- - - Updated - - -

This is one of the big reasons I suspect there was a major patch cut from Dragonflight. They made such a big deal about Ysera coming back temporarily to help, but she ended up doing nothing except channeling a shield for a bit and motivating Merithra. Instead we got Alexstrasza and Vyranoth taking the lead in a patch focused on the Emerald Dream and Green Dragonflight, while the Reds as a whole were ignored for the entire expansion.

It feels like there should have been one more patch there- with Ysera and Merithra taking Alexstrasza and Vyranoth's place in 10.2, followed by a 10.3 focused on the Red Dragonflight (probably facing Iridikron- it seemed like they were building him up as the final boss early on, and I suspect Dragonflight changed because Metzen wanted to save him for the Saga when he came back just after launch).

DF doesn't really feel like it's missing a major patch like SL. But rather that it lacked a large amount of filler quests that would explain a bunch of stuff, and flesh out motivations.
Vyranoth going straight from Primalist ally, directly to being friends with Alexstrasza again. That one definitely felt like it was missing at least a patch of her being a free agent before joining us.

A Titan themed patch to bring in all the various plot points wouldn't have gone amiss. Though that one definitely feels like it might have been shelved in favor of putting all their eggs into the Last Titan basket.

[Varodoc]

Vakthros in the Azure Span reeks of cut content.

I mean, literally the first shot we get of the Dragon Isles is Vakthros, clearly they wanted it to play some kind of major role:




And do you really want to tell me that it's just a coincidence that the area around Vakthros eerily looks like an Old God silhouette?




Vakthros can join Azjol-Nerub, Abyssal Maw, and Shattrath City in the list of scrapped raids.

[Valysar]

The reclaiming of Gilneas gives a fox mount

[elbleuet]

The reclaiming of Gilneas gives a fox mount

Mind giving us a screenshot ?

[Valysar]

Mind giving us a screenshot ?

I just saw the icon on a stream, sorry
(and I'm from EU so can"t check IG )

[Sondrelk]

WoW's always had a problem with story content being shoved into books, probably at its worst around Cata and MoP, but Sylvanas and War of the Scaleborn feel more like them figuring out the story they actually want to tell at the end of the expansion and then publishing it. They're so disconnected from the game they might as well be considered take twos.

I imagine this is more to do with when the book comes out. It being at the tail end of the expansion definitely gives the writers noe time to ruminate on the various failings of the expansion. But the books have always felt like an idealized version of the story they ACTUALLY wanted to tell.

Before the Storm, and to some extent A Good War, does the same for BfA. Telling a story of the Hordes failings as a nation, and gives context to actions that are sorely lacking in the game. Painting a picture of a morally complex war created by one person for nebulous reasons, and perpetuated by the naive.

- - - Updated - - -

Vakthros in the Azure Span reeks of cut content.

I mean, literally the first shot we get of the Dragon Isles is Vakthros, clearly they wanted it to play some kind of major role:

[IMG]


And do you really want to tell me that it's just a coincidence that the area around Vakthros eerily looks like an Old God silhouette?

[IMG]


Vakthros can join Azjol-Nerub, Abyssal Maw, and Shattrath City in the list of scrapped raids.

I stand by Occam's razor in this case. It was going to be the intro to the raid. It got scrapped for whatever reason. And the writers didn't know what to do with it beyond just keeping the quests already associated with it.

Now why exactly they would scrap that part of the story is anyone's guess. On a cursory glance it really doesn't make sense for any reason beyond miscommunication between the world designers and the writers, but who knows.