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

[Nymrohd]

Without duality, there's no reason for being. (Which imo again plays into the Yrel delusion for what in fact is another form of nihilism)

I have no idea what you are trying to say.

[Ielenia]

Which is why they need at least one of their products to have something major to sell. I am hoping for WoW to have big news.

Except... they got nothing. We are getting a new WoW expansion, that's for (almost) sure, but I doubt it'd be such a grand announcement to make Blizzcon as a whole worth it. Heroes of the Storm is in zombie mode, Overwatch is in the sewer equivalent of the public's perception, and Hearthstone, while still alive, it doesn't have anywhere near the pull as WoW (and until last year, OW) have.

So unless they announce a new IP, or at least a new game (Starcraft 3?), I doubt this Blizzcon being anywhere near as successful as the ones pre-Covid.

[Super Dickmann]

See, I don't think Order wants perfection. Aggramar did not order Draenor. He just made sure it had potential to move forward and not collapse on itself. The way the Pantheon acted on Azeroth is not indicative of their overall directive. They just discovered a new member of the family. They know how they were born. They wanted to make things perfect just like any one of us would for a newborn.

I mean, you don't really preserve stasis when you find the need to place doomsday devices on every world you order and have your client race of space ghosts hang around ready to pull the trigger and glass the world in question should it start smelling funny. That assumes both a high possibility of failure and not much emotional attachment to that failure.

[Nymrohd]

Except... they got nothing. We are getting a new WoW expansion, that's for (almost) sure, but I doubt it'd be such a grand announcement to make Blizzcon as a whole worth it. Heroes of the Storm is in zombie mode, Overwatch is in the sewer equivalent of the public's perception, and Hearthstone, while still alive, it doesn't have anywhere near the pull as WoW (and until last year, OW) have.

So unless they announce a new IP, or at least a new game (Starcraft 3?), I doubt this Blizzcon being anywhere near as successful as the ones pre-Covid.

And even a new IP is not worth much. The Survival game could have an amazing cinematic. WC3 Refunded had a cool cinematic. OW2 PvE mode WAS PLAYABLE. A cinematic for a new IP means nothing. It's not ES6 coming in the next decade; that is a known unknown and ES games always took forever anyway.
Nah their only good selling points would be something major for WoW which I don't think it happening and maybe a D4 expansion.

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I mean, you don't really preserve stasis when you find the need to place doomsday devices on every world you order and have your client race of space ghosts hang around ready to pull the trigger and glass the world in question should it start smelling funny. That assumes both a high possibility of failure and not much emotional attachment to that failure.

Very much. The Titans are just OK with revisiting later and trying again. They have no illusion that their design is perfect. But then again, Titans are aligned with Order but imo they are NOT OF ORDER itself.

[Dancaris]

To make perfect...needs a perceived imperfection.

Not to Titans and forces of Order. Constant perfection is the way of their life.

[Ielenia]

And even a new IP is not worth much. The Survival game could have an amazing cinematic. WC3 Refunded had a cool cinematic. OW2 PvE mode WAS PLAYABLE. A cinematic for a new IP means nothing. It's not ES6 coming in the next decade; that is a known unknown and ES games always took forever anyway.
Nah their only good selling points would be something major for WoW which I don't think it happening and maybe a D4 expansion.

If they actually present some gameplay video of this hypothetical new game/IP, then I'd be interested, otherwise I'd be very skeptical.

[Super Dickmann]

But then again, Titans are aligned with Order but imo they are NOT OF ORDER itself.

I will say that DF has been a badly needed course correction to Chronicle and Legion's takes on the Titans, but yeah, it only further brings into focus how, notwithstanding the mistake of the cosmic force wheel existing in the first place the Titans representing Order given their variance in portfolio and modus operandi doesn't really gel and is even more at odds after SL's takes.

[Shadowferal]

I have no idea what you are trying to say.

It's about the "polarity principle" how there always needs to be two polarities (at least. My personal philosophy questions certain aspects); that is constantly vying against the other. You can't "go forward" without impetus, or "imblance" in the desired direction. Perfectly" balanced is perfect serenity...a pond without a ripple.
It's likely that Yrel's notion of perfection is thusly flawed since it's based upon her own perception.

Not to Titans and forces of Order. Constant perfection is the way of their life.

It's not "constant" if it's achieved. At which point it's all about maintaining stasis.

[Santandame]

How do people see Avaloren going down once we go there?

Will it be a Greco-Roman inspired land?

Camelot inspired with WoW’s take on King Arthur, Excalibur, Holy Grail, Merlin, Morgan Le Fay?

A strictly advanced civilisation with a huge focus on titan architecture?

A wild, unkept wilderness?

Do you all see Khaz Algar being here or do you think that’s elsewhere? Under the Eastern Kingdoms?

Completely new races here that we’ve never been exposed to? Or much of the same we’ve already had.

The idea of Avaloren is one of the most exciting we’ve had in a while.

I think Avaloren would be the perfect opportunity to introduce a WoW variant of the Altmer from Elder Scrolls. Not necessarily an Elvish race, but a race of highly advanced beings, that are a lot more advanced and powerful than the current playable races, of which they look down on and seek to impose their laws and religion upon them.

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If BlizzCon is back this year, it's because they have important things to announce.

We must take into account very important parameters for this BlizzCon: It is the great return of the convention in physics since the Covid. In the meantime, there have been a lot of problems at Blizzard with the scandals and the recent disappointing revelations for OW2. So it's time for them to restore their image and they know very well that they must not miss out.

Regarding World of Warcraft, the year 2024 will introduce the 20 years of the game and the 30 years of the Warcraft franchise. It is also a golden opportunity to mark the occasion.

That said, we should expect:

1) The next WoW expansion (I predict either Avaloren/Tel'Abim or an old world revamp)
2) Things about OW2 (heroes, maps, modes,...)
3) Same for D4 (new class, etc.)
4) Same for HS (extension,...)
5) Arclight Rumble mobile game release date
6) Highly probable announcement of survival game in development (Odyssey)
7) Any other surprises? (Rebirth of StarCraft?...)

Otherwise they wouldn't make their comeback in physics after so many years if they had nothing to show for it.

I see the announcement of Classic+ being here, and treated like a huge deal.

I would love an old world revamp in the style of what I outlined in an earlier post. Sadly, I don’t see it happening. I think both Tel’Abim or Avaloren are what’s likely, and I’d be happy with either.

[LemonDemonGirl]

I want to see a place in Avaloren inspired by Japanese culture. Things such as Samurai, Kitsune, Kami (who are actually Loa, but Avalorenian trolls call them Kami) and Yokai.
Kitsune could be the Japanese version of Worgen or Pandaren. They could get a humanoid form racial that could actually be USED during combat, but doing so would make the much weaker. (This sounds really dumb, I'm not good at designing fake player races, I'm sorry)

[CopyX1982]

Don't get spooked by the mods. This thread is for shooting the shit, expansion speculation is just a pretext. It's not like this is some bustling hub.

for talking about current and future content, not back-&-forth about the light and void & bloody Yrel, there's a whole lore sub-forum for the constant bickering/debating on that sort of thing.

If there is any evidence, at all, a leak, or something in the game files, that points to light/void being the next expac or, I dunno, a new model for Yrel in the game-flies then sure, debate away. as it stands, there's as much chance its pirate-y than voidlight, & I don't see 10 pages of people arguing about whether or not the Bloodsail Buccaneers are good, or evil, or greedy.

That said, if the next expansion is light & void themed, those Scarlet Crusade items though. Loved the lore behind them. especially light's wrath.

[Revamp Man]

I think they will probably try to do both, what you're referring to with the scarlet crusade: a cosmic light vs void expansion using forces on azeroth. Was there a hint that iridikron is making a deal with the light? I heard that somewhere, can't remember though. Void seems to make more sense but idk.

he made a deal with the void
alex said he struck terrible bargains
the whispers saying "he draws his powers from the earth, from our earth"

[Lahis]

I want to see a place in Avaloren inspired by Japanese culture. Things such as Samurai, Kitsune, Kami (who are actually Loa, but Avalorenian trolls call them Kami) and Yokai.
Kitsune could be the Japanese version of Worgen or Pandaren. They could get a humanoid form racial that could actually be USED during combat, but doing so would make the much weaker. (This sounds really dumb, I'm not good at designing fake player races, I'm sorry)

The place is named after Avalon so it couldn't be further away from Japan.

We can expect some british/central European style titan stuff on there. Odyn said it was island of rebels so we'll get somewhat different take on titanforged, but still titanforged.

[Gurahk]

I'd like some mesopotamian titan architecture and titan constructs. I think that'd look pretty cool.

[Super Dickmann]

That said, if the next expansion is light & void themed, those Scarlet Crusade items though. Loved the lore behind them. especially light's wrath.

If you need a figleaf, those Scarlet items posted a while back are the go-to, but the reality is that it's currently mid-dry spell while we wait for more info to come out on the 10.1.5 patch. When there's something meaty to speculate on the thread is more directly on topic, but until that point, even speculation based on loose evidence like left-over plot threads is as good as anything. If anything, we've actually got less to go on after 10.1.5 showed up since it seems to stick a fork in the Infinite based time travel anniversary expansion.

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I'd like some mesopotamian titan architecture and titan constructs. I think that'd look pretty cool.

This I can get behind. We got greco-roman Elysian fields with Bastion fairly recently. Fantasy classic has been covered by Dragonflight. Time to pivot.

[Nymrohd]

I'd like some mesopotamian titan architecture and titan constructs. I think that'd look pretty cool.

Early on I speculated that since Odyn's pantheon is clearly Norse and Ra's is clearly Egyptian, Innaria could either be Japanese (Inari, less likely since Inari isn't a major deity in that pantheon) or more likely Mesopotamian (Inanna)

[Lorgar Aurelian]

for talking about current and future content, not back-&-forth about the light and void & bloody Yrel, there's a whole lore sub-forum for the constant bickering/debating on that sort of thing.

If there is any evidence, at all, a leak, or something in the game files, that points to light/void being the next expac or, I dunno, a new model for Yrel in the game-flies then sure, debate away. as it stands, there's as much chance its pirate-y than voidlight, & I don't see 10 pages of people arguing about whether or not the Bloodsail Buccaneers are good, or evil, or greedy.

That said, if the next expansion is light & void themed, those Scarlet Crusade items though. Loved the lore behind them. especially light's wrath.

You don’t see ten pages of pirates because people care less about Pirates then the light and void and the return of the AU following a big bronze/infinite mega dungeon.

If you want to speculate about pirates go for it if others don’t find that interesting and want to speculate about something else tough.

[AngerFork]

If BlizzCon is back this year, it's because they have important things to announce.

We must take into account very important parameters for this BlizzCon: It is the great return of the convention in physics since the Covid. In the meantime, there have been a lot of problems at Blizzard with the scandals and the recent disappointing revelations for OW2. So it's time for them to restore their image and they know very well that they must not miss out.

Regarding World of Warcraft, the year 2024 will introduce the 20 years of the game and the 30 years of the Warcraft franchise. It is also a golden opportunity to mark the occasion.

That said, we should expect:

1) The next WoW expansion (I predict either Avaloren/Tel'Abim or an old world revamp)
2) Things about OW2 (heroes, maps, modes,...)
3) Same for D4 (new class, etc.)
4) Same for HS (extension,...)
5) Arclight Rumble mobile game release date
6) Highly probable announcement of survival game in development (Odyssey)
7) Any other surprises? (Rebirth of StarCraft?...)

Otherwise they wouldn't make their comeback in physics after so many years if they had nothing to show for it.

This list sounds pretty accurate to me. I'm still predicting we'll get an announcement of a partial Azeroth Revamp expansion for WoW to celebrate the 20th Anniversary. Beyond that, we'll probably have a new Hearthstone expansion because the one thing that game needs more of is new cards that antiquate old decks which force another round of deck rebuilding, thus increasing the floor for people returning to the game. Probably another set of new heroes for OW2 and a new class for D4. I'd love to see that survival game announcement if such a thing comes.

Really, I think the biggest question for me is whether Microsoft owns Blizzard at that point or not. If they do, I could see lots of collaboration with the XBox team coming up at Blizzcon as well as more Activision integration. If not, I suspect it'll be limited to Blizz games.

How do people see Avaloren going down once we go there?

Will it be a Greco-Roman inspired land?

Camelot inspired with WoW’s take on King Arthur, Excalibur, Holy Grail, Merlin, Morgan Le Fay?

A strictly advanced civilisation with a huge focus on titan architecture?

A wild, unkept wilderness?

Do you all see Khaz Algar being here or do you think that’s elsewhere? Under the Eastern Kingdoms?

Completely new races here that we’ve never been exposed to? Or much of the same we’ve already had.

The idea of Avaloren is one of the most exciting we’ve had in a while.

I think Avaloren would be the perfect opportunity to introduce a WoW variant of the Altmer from Elder Scrolls. Not necessarily an Elvish race, but a race of highly advanced beings, that are a lot more advanced and powerful than the current playable races, of which they look down on and seek to impose their laws and religion upon them.

When I think of Avaloren, my first thoughts turn towards how we heard about it: an entry for Odyn about failed Titan Keeper expeditions to the continent. That tells me that the one thing we should not expect to see there is Titan architecture. If heretics from the Titans went there, they would have almost certainly been corrupted by whatever force was there before.

Looking at the Warcraft cosmology chart, the other cosmic forces besides Order (which would've worked with the Titans) are Light, Shadow, Disorder, Life, and Death. We've already seen the realm of death and how it connects to Azeroth in the Shadowlands. We also have seen how Life is connected with Azeroth with the Emerald Dream. We have not fully seen how Light, Shadow, or Disorder would be connected with Azeroth, though we do have Shadow creatures in the Old Gods. If there were an actual connection to Disorder on Azeroth (a land or a race or whatnot), one has to imagine the Legion would've tried working with them this whole time. Perhaps it's due to the lack of a Disorder foothold on Azeroth that the Legion tried to invade so often.

That leaves us with Light and Shadow, though we tend to see Shadow more as the Void. Well...funny thing about Light and Shadow, the cycle of the Na'aru shows us that one tends to become the other. They are two sides of the same coin, but two sides which cannot see each other. But both sides are patient. The Light sees a singular path and will wait eons to see that path come to fruition. The Shadow is more than happy to wait as long as it needs to, for in the end it consumes all.

What does this mean for Avaloren? To me, that means that it is likely a foothold of Light. Given how the Old Gods were running rampant during the days of the Black Empire feuding with the elements, the Light would appear to be the most likely force to have a foothold we don't know about. There's a lot that a Light-based place could be, but I suspect it will involve tall architecture with lots of golden designs. Something like a Camelot could be appropriate here or perhaps something akin to the Crystarium from FFXIV, but I see Light being the base style behind the design choices.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

I'd like some mesopotamian titan architecture and titan constructs. I think that'd look pretty cool.

It's definitely a good spot to tread some new ground, and we don't really have anything analogous to Mesopotamia in WoW. If it's like it seems to be and is roughly equivalent to the original "Ulduar" continent from early concept maps of WoW, modeling it off of the earliest real-world civilizations on Earth would be suitable. Going off the name, I could also see a Gaelic/Celtic theming being both suitable and fairly fun to play around with, especially since it would allow the expansion to ride on the coattails of Elden Ring a bit. Another potential approach could be to theme it around either the Roman conquest of Britain or the conflict between Rome and the Early Catholic Church, with the Titans and Titan proxies being themed around the Roman Empire and the heretics either having a Celtic or Roman Catholic theme depending on what precisely they're worshiping instead of the Titans.

Another cool idea would be to make the place have a Middle Eastern theme overall, with the Scarlet Crusade and/or Alliance forming a crusader-themed Order-State there.

[Nymrohd]

It's definitely a good spot to tread some new ground, and we don't really have anything analogous to Mesopotamia in WoW. If it's like it seems to be and is roughly equivalent to the original "Ulduar" continent from early concept maps of WoW, modeling it off of the earliest real-world civilizations on Earth would be suitable. Going off the name, I could also see a Gaelic/Celtic theming being both suitable and fairly fun to play around with, especially since it would allow the expansion to ride on the coattails of Elden Ring a bit. Another potential approach could be to theme it around either the Roman conquest of Britain or the conflict between Rome and the Early Catholic Church, with the Titans and Titan proxies being themed around the Roman Empire and the heretics either having a Celtic or Roman Catholic theme depending on what precisely they're worshiping instead of the Titans.

I expect Mesopotamian style ruins from the abandoned Titan facilities and beyond that something that matches Avalon which would be classic fantasy fare. That said, Black Empire very much is Mesopotamian influenced; their ziggurats and pyramids very much had that style.