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

[Alanar]

I am dying on this hill. Quel'thalas = Isle of Dorn.

The rest of the expansion will probably be off-world. There will be a giant Void rift that their forces are pouring out of, and after you manage to secure Quel'thalas as part of the first zone/dungeon, the next zone will be you going through that rift to the Void's staging ground, probably on the remnants of K'aresh, and fighting to destabilize them there.

Like Isle of Dorn, Quel'thalas once secure will have our city, Silvermoon, and once we 'dive' to the K'aresh side, just like going into the underground in TWW, you'll have secondary factions and regions. Replace the Arathi and friendly nerubians with Ethereals, etc.

We know from interviews that they are viewing the updates to the old world in story relevant places as piecemeal and a "coat of paint"



It's clear from TWW that this new expansion style doesn't mean they're cutting corners in terms of zone development and what not, which means that most of Midnight is going to be new, fresh and exciting zones. They are going to want most of the zones you deal with to be completely fresh places to explore, not the equivalent of Arathi Highlands' updates.

That trailer is going to roll, you're gonna get "updated zone: Quel'thalas" and then the next shot is gonna be the camera zooming through a big void portal and it's gonna be "new zone: <hard to pronounce Ethereal name>" and be purple deserts and Ethereal cities.

This makes the most sense so far imo.

It all started with the whole "this will happen" type comments about silvermoon. You get one line of info from chris and right now we appearntly know everything already according to some. Filled in completely. Its rediculous.

We have had many instances were we jumped in to other areas and something like an instanced zone like argus, as a next stop for the story feels more likely. Sure chris said Quel'thalad, but that doesnt mean we hust stay there the whole expansion. It will have multiple patches, with side stories etc. I mean cmon people.

People will be heavily dissappointed with what we will be getting in Midnight. I am pretty sure of it looking at what people expect.

[Raetary]

Eversong + Ghostlands are roughly the size of the Ringing Deeps/Waking Shore, so "slightly larger" is adequate.

However what it doesn't lack in area, it lacks in height.
The place is as vertical as a crepe and desperately needs some reworks around its mountains and hillsides.

That said, Blizzard isn't going to set an expansion inside a single zone with the total size of 1 DF zone.
So we will have to get additional zones surrounding it that are approrpiately sized.

[Makabreska]

Hope we wont be raiding Zul'Aman for a third time. But on the other hand, troll raid meme would be back!

[Auxis]

Hope we wont be raiding Zul'Aman for a third time. But on the other hand, troll raid meme would be back!

Plot twist, we go to the Void and raid Null'Aman.

[huth]

Fair enough, actually, that's a good point. That solves the problem of "You can't just make it bigger", I guess.

Especially since there's a single point of access from EPL. They can essentially scale it to whatever they want. Though i doubt they'll scale it to lore size, since i'd prefer being able to get places without having to spend two days realtime travelling.

[Makorus]

Us using the Sunwell (or Voidwell, I suppose) as a teleport to K'aresh/Void World would be amazing and probably best case scenario, but with the way they teased the expansion, I doubt it. They put so much emphasis on Quel'thalas, but it might be patch content.

[Darkarath]

Like this:

[IMG][/IMG]

Hahahaha love your map, and I agree with most of what you have added. Still, everything that you have there will be just one current zone. As other people have mentioned, they will have to add more zones.

After careful consideration, I think that given the importance of the Arathi in TWW, and by extension the increasing importance of the Light, which will obviously be heavily present in both Midnight and TLT, we should not discard the revamp of some zones south of Quel'thalas.

Sorry to be a bore about this, but it makes so much sense. We have the Arathi, we have just reconquered Gilneas, we have an ever increasing presence of the Scarlet Crusade, we have yet to recover the Undercity for good for the Forsaken... And it is very obvious that Quel'thalas by itself is extremely tiny by current standards.

So what about this?

[Raetary]

Us using the Sunwell (or Voidwell, I suppose) as a teleport to K'aresh/Void World would be amazing and probably best case scenario, but with the way they teased the expansion, I doubt it. They put so much emphasis on Quel'thalas, but it might be patch content.

That's actually exactly what i expect.

We start the expansion by defending Quel'thalas from the invasion, we eventually fight our way onto Quel'danas and the Sunwell, then in 12.2 or whenever we use it and jump over to Ka'resh or whatever portion of the Void Xal/Dimensius is invading from to end the invasion.

[Varodoc]

Mainland Quel'Thalas = Broken Isles = Launch

Quel'Danas = Tomb of Sargeras = First Patch

K'aresh = Argus = Final Patch

You know what people need to do more often nowadays? Apply Occam's Razor. That's what people need to do more often.

- - - Updated - - -

The levelling zones:

Ghostlands (first zone)

Zul Aman (second zone)

Eversong Woods (third zone)

Silvermoon (fourth zone)

It's amazing how easy this all is once you apply Occam's razor and swallow weird and far-fetched fanasies.

[Sondrelk]

So what about this?

This is how I would see it as well. Plaguelands for a Scourge B-story. Lordaron and Gilneas for a bit of narrative tidying up regarding the Forsaken and such, as well as more foreshadowing for Avaloren. Arathi for a bit of variety and easy content given Arathi Highlands is updated, and the Dwarf stuff has gotten a visual upgrade in TWW. And Quel'thalas for the endgame stuff.

Dragonflight was about going to the Dragon Isles and learning about Dragon stuff. That didnt mean we lack time to faff about with Centaurs and Tuskarr. Or that there couldnt be a sizeable Djaradin presence as a narrative punching bag for variety.

- - - Updated - - -

Mainland Quel'Thalas = Broken Isles = Launch

Quel'Danas = Tomb of Sargeras = First Patch

K'aresh = Argus = Final Patch

You know what people need to do more often nowadays? Apply Occam's Razor. That's what people need to do more often.

- - - Updated - - -

The levelling zones:

Ghostlands (first zone)

Zul Aman (second zone)

Eversong Woods (third zone)

Silvermoon (fourth zone)

It's amazing how easy this all is once you apply Occam's razor and swallow weird and far-fetched fanasies.

Far fetched fantasies like reusing existing zones coincidentally the same size as the Dragon Isles, and with a convenient cutoff. Compared to the very obvious and likely outcome of two and a half TBC zones being given a makeover to make them the same size as four or five modern zones?
Obviously, so easy to see which is the likely outcome.

[Varodoc]

Far fetched fantasies like reusing existing zones coincidentally the same size as the Dragon Isles, and with a convenient cutoff. Compared to the very obvious and likely outcome of two and a half TBC zones being given a makeover to make them the same size as four or five modern zones?
Obviously, so easy to see which is the likely outcome.

No. Far-fetched and weird fantasies like an expansion of which we only know two things about, Quel'Thalas and Sunwell, having only one zone in Quel'Thalas.

[Sondrelk]

No. Far-fetched and weird fantasies like an expansion of which we only know two things about, Quel'Thalas and Sunwell, having only one zone in Quel'Thalas.

Why? Dragon Isles isnt all Dragon themed as I pointed out.
One giant Elf zone is more than enough to get across the theme of Elves as the dominant A-plot. There are elf ruins in the Hinterlands, and elf lodges all over the place. The Plaguelands have a connection ot the Elves through Arthas attacking the Sunwell. And the Forsaken are a close ally of the Belves through Sylvanas allying with them, and later becoming a pariah. The trolls are already agreed to be a definite given Zul'Aman, so I don't see why Jintha'alor is such a hard sell.

The only parts that are not linking back to Elves in this map would be Dwarves and the Scarlet Crusade. Dwarves are only in the Hinterlands, and are also a continuation of TWW. And the Scarlet Crusade are both a continuation of the Hallowfall theme, as well as a likely link into future content in Avaloren.

[Varodoc]

Why? Dragon Isles isnt all Dragon themed as I pointed out.

Irrelevant, all the zones are themed after one or more Dragonflight:

- Waking Shores: Red and Black

- Ohn'aran Plains: Green

- Azure Span: Blue

- Thaldrazus: Bronze

- Forbidden Reach: Dracthyr

- Zaralek: Black

- Emerald Dream: Green

Literally every single zone in this expansion is indeed connected to the Dragons.

One giant Elf zone is more than enough to get across the theme of Elves as the dominant A-plot.

Uhm, No, it's not, because zones are self-contained storylines. An "A-plot" cannot have only one zone to its name, because that would make it a self-contained storyline, therefore a B-plot. An A-plot can be called such only if encompasses multiple zones.

The only parts that are not linking back to Elves in this map would be Dwarves and the Scarlet Crusade.

Which is enough to discredit your concept.

Again, Occam's razor. Metzen talked about "Quel'Thalas and "Sunwell", so clearly the Hinterlands or Tirisfal Glades are not on the radar.

Either way I'm tired of this. You can choose to set yourself up for disappointment, have it your way.

TeamWorldRevamp clearly doesn't want to learn their lesson.

[Darkarath]

No. Far-fetched and weird fantasies like an expansion of which we only know two things about, Quel'Thalas and Sunwell, having only one zone in Quel'Thalas.

Friendly remainder that Legion did not have a single Legion themed zone until the Broken Shore and Argus were released. The same can be applied to any expansion. All expansions have an overarching theme that might appear more or less in all zones, but it is clear that they want variety art-wise and story-wise. It has been like this forever.

If Midnight have the zones that you say that it will have, we would get:

- Eversong Woods (blood elf themed).
- Ghostlands (blood elf themed and some forsaken presence).
- Silvermoon (blood elf themed).
- Zul'aman (troll themed and some blood elf presence).
- Quel'Danas (blood elf themed and some Void presence).
- K'aresh (Void themed).

Can you see a recurring pattern here? Blizzard learned their lesson with WoD. And even WoD was significantly more varied than what you are proposing.

[Vakir]

Imagine hearing "slightly bigger" and believing that 1/4 of an area the size of the Waking Shore will sustain one dynamic flying zone.

It's not going to exclusively be the elf show even if it is the A plot, because Blizzard usually has a pretty diverse tile set and group of cultures to pull from. In the same way that Isle of Dorn and Ringing Deeps is a fraction of the story and it's not just The Dwarf Show.

People are probably due to be upset in Last Titan as well where there's almost no way that Northrend is going to be the overwhelming majority. Metzen is telling us how these stories start.

[Varodoc]

Friendly remainder that Legion did not have a single Legion themed zone until the Broken Shore and Argus were released.

The Midnight counterpart of the Legion are not the Elves, it's the Void.

Ghostlands (blood elf themed and some forsaken presence).

Blood elf themed? Take a look at Ghostlands in-game. It's all ruins, Scourge presence, Night Elves, and Amani. The Blood Elves only have a few tents in Tranquilien.

Quel'Danas (blood elf themed and some Void presence).

There were also Naga there.

The end result will be only two zones fully-Blood elf themed (Eversong and Silvermoon), which is less than the Legion zones that were fully-Night Elf themed (3; Val'sharah, Azsuna, and Suramar).

But if the problem is "Too many Blood Elves" (which I do not disagree with), there are many ways to work around it.

[Raetary]

I expect something like this:

[Varodoc]

You will never get another Cataclysm-style revamp btw.

[Ersula]

No. Far-fetched and weird fantasies like an expansion of which we only know two things about, Quel'Thalas and Sunwell, having only one zone in Quel'Thalas.

This is true in that trying to predict what patch content the devs will think up will always lead to disappointment, but I don't think the Tirisfal region is out of the question as they've never been clear exactly where Quel'thalas' boarder is. The forest itself was always a matter of contention. With any Human structures east of stratholme were built after the fall of Silvermoon.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

It’s funny how absolutely wrong you are. That book was written pre-expansion, and so things are always subject to change. Just because it came out in conjunction with the expansion it doesn’t mean it “came after”. Whatever happens and is referred to in-game is a lot more current than stuff that was written over a year before hand.

Things are always subject to change I’ve pointed this out like 3 times already that they could change the prisons to be Titan involved. But as of now the canon is that the dragons made with no input from the titans and no input from the keepers with the only involvement any Titan forged had was of labour following the dragons orders.

You may not like how wow canon works but it’s worked that way for 20 years and your dislike doesn’t change that war of the scaleborn is the most recent release on the subject and thus is the canon state of things.