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

[Khaza-R]

So, the whispers that Sabellian, Wrathion, and Ebyssian were hearing the moment they stepped into Zaralek; were they the Echo of Neltharion reaching out from within Aberrus, or something else?

Could be a bit of both.

The Sarkareth cape whispers to you. And judging by the name it seems very Void God related.

[Raetary]

So phasing then

Sorry, i wasn't thinking straight when i read your post.
The second line went entirely over my head.

But yea, phasing.

However i don't want them to plant Zidormi in every single zone.
I want a full revamp and i want them to phase the whole continent instead, and have the old stuff still be available but out of the way.

[Nymrohd]

Sorry, i wasn't thinking straight when i read your post.
The second line went entirely over my head.

But yea, phasing.

However i don't want them to plant Zidormi in every single zone.
I want a full revamp and i want them to phase the whole continent instead, and have the old stuff still be available but out of the way.

Honestly I think we should just get an item or spell to shift you between timelines

[Dracullus]

So phasing then

No, just making new continents, something like Outland and Draenor. Old continent would be put behind Caverns of Time portal or something like that - it won't be canon experience for new players anyway. Phasing limits them, if they build continent from 0 we could have bigger zones with modern style and there would be no rush to revamp whole continent in single patch.

[micwini]

TBF, Cataclysm kind of screwed the pooch early on with its super-hard dungeons and horrible design that punished healers. Thankfully, DF hasn’t had any major pitfalls like that.

The dungeons weren't hard, they were a return to form after they had been easy for so long. They were not hard, but it was the first time they had difficulty with dungeon finder. It would be queueing an LFR group into a normal/hc raid.

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Do ppl want a full revamp or would a few zones with ziidormi phasing work?
Personally I like the phasing because it doesn't remove anything which was the complaint in cata

Yes I think the cata version should remain available. I am always against removing content. If they are doing that, they could add the classic version of EK and Kalimdor back too, cuz why not.

[micwini]

The worst part about the cata questing is the huge amount of in your face badly aged pop culture references. They have their place in the game, but having every other questline being a meme sucks.

[Nymrohd]

The worst part about the cata questing is the huge amount of in your face badly aged pop culture references. They have their place in the game, but having every other questline being a meme sucks.

Heck most of them were badly aged for back in Cata.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Heck most of them were badly aged for back in Cata.

Memes are fine in small/minimal doses. Spamming them and/making them full zones and such....is just a waste.

[Teriz]

I hated CSI Miami. I hated it even more after Cataclysm.

[Nymrohd]

Memes are fine in small/minimal doses. Spamming them and/making them full zones and such....is just a waste.

Modern warcraft has a much more streamlined questing experience with a main storyline plus sidequests. You can do memes at sidequests now and it won't matter. Sadly back in Cata a storyline would span the entire zone with very few exceptions

ESO does this exact same thing having a main storyline across the zone while also having multiple fairly large sidequests in adjoining areas; it also finishes main zone storylines with some form of celebration and every sidequest you complete adds more characters to the finale and even gives you some small update on how the NPCs are moving forward. Usually at least one or two of the sidequests will feature a humorous story. Would love if Blizzard adopted that stance for WoW.

[Murlocos]

I don't want to downplay how much effort went into it, but my primary issue with the Cata revamp is how inconsistent it was. The amount of effort that went into each zone both on geographical and questing levels, as well as their stories was so all over the place that I struggle to call it a full revamp. And yeah, Cata being the expansion where the narrative team and the quest designers just seemingly wanted to take the piss out of the story and throw in a bunch of silly references and jokes drag it down even further. The human zones are a perfect example of how messy it all is:

Elwynn: Aside from minor QoL changes to have you run back and forth across the zone less, it's basically just the vanilla version. Same geography, same quests, same enemies, the plot hasn't actually advanced at all from vanilla.
Westfall: Major changes across the board, questing is totally different and reflects the post-Wrath world. There are joke characters, but the overall story is serious.
Redridge: The meme bridge is fixed, but aside from that it's just a remix of the vanilla version. You're fighting the exact same enemies as before as if they were never dealt with, and the second half of the zone devolves into entire chunks of the Rambo script being copy-pasted. Calling it a Rambo reference downplays how lazy they got.
Duskwood: Geography is unchanged, questing and storylines are more or less the same aside from some updated worgen story.

Expectations and environment were absolutely a lot different when this content was being made, but I think these days there's more appetite for total change. We don't need to see Hogger get fought outside Westbrook Garrison again or having to fight the same elite orc and gnoll enemies in Redridge. A lot of the changed zones were just remixes rather than actually advancing the storyline there.

[Nymrohd]

Btw is this PTR particularly slow moving?

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I don't want to downplay how much effort went into it, but my primary issue with the Cata revamp is how inconsistent it was. The amount of effort that went into each zone both on geographical and questing levels, as well as their stories was so all over the place that I struggle to call it a full revamp. And yeah, Cata being the expansion where the narrative team and the quest designers just seemingly wanted to take the piss out of the story and throw in a bunch of silly references and jokes drag it down even further. The human zones are a perfect example of how messy it all is:

Elwynn: Aside from minor QoL changes to have you run back and forth across the zone less, it's basically just the vanilla version. Same geography, same quests, same enemies, the plot hasn't actually advanced at all from vanilla.
Westfall: Major changes across the board, questing is totally different and reflects the post-Wrath world. There are joke characters, but the overall story is serious.
Redridge: The meme bridge is fixed, but aside from that it's just a remix of the vanilla version. You're fighting the exact same enemies as before as if they were never dealt with, and the second half of the zone devolves into entire chunks of the Rambo script being copy-pasted. Calling it a Rambo reference downplays how lazy they got.
Duskwood: Geography is unchanged, questing and storylines are more or less the same aside from some updated worgen story.

Expectations and environment were absolutely a lot different when this content was being made, but I think these days there's more appetite for total change. We don't need to see Hogger get fought outside Westbrook Garrison again or having to fight the same elite orc and gnoll enemies in Redridge. A lot of the changed zones were just remixes rather than actually advancing the storyline there.

And let's face it, a massive difference in quality between Horde and Alliance questing. Cata Horde got some of the best zone storylines WoW has ever had.

[Varodoc]

With Dragonriding in the Old World, the Old World Revamp is now all but guaranteed, as I predicted.

Blizzard never updated Quel'Thalas and Draenei isles in Cataclysm, now they can rectify that mistake.

In Quel'Thalas, we will see the continuation of the conflict of ideology and methods between the Ren'dorei/Quel'dorei and the Sin'dorei.

In the Kingdom of Stormwind, we will see how the kingdom has been flourishing and prospering under Regent Turalyon's reign.

[Chickat]

You know I'd like to say so much more about this BUT this is ENTIRELY a lore discussion and not a future content discussion.

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Really they are going into Blizzcon with the Overwatch 2 disaster over their heads. And it absolutely is a disaster and they lied to our faces about it when they launched OW2 telling us it would have PvE when they had already decided the version of PvE promised would be killed.

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. I'll say it again, the next expac is likely to release during the 20th/30th anniversary. Part of me will always hope for Revamp which imo is the only thing BIG enough to show that the franchise has decades forward except for maybe Housing. But if it is not Revamp and it is just another "4-5 zones, 8 dungeons, 1 raid with 8-10 bosses" they don't need a convention for that.

HS just is not likely to have anything else than more of the same. HotS is dead. The Survival game is likely still way off. Arclight Rumble might be fun but the Blizzcon crowd is not the target audience. So they have WoW and Diablo 4. It IS possible that we get a Diablo 4 expansion reveal

I definitely think the Survival game is far along enough to at least show something. Even if its 3 years away, they have shown stuff that far off before.

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World revamp has the chance of crashing and burning harder than anything else if they lose the manpower to deliver it mid development.

Meh expansion is just meh expansion.

Meh EK and Kalimdor is meh game forever.

WoW needs big risks now more than ever. They wont win people over by having more of the same. I think the risk that its bad is worth it.

[Marlamin]

Btw is this PTR particularly slow moving?

Seems to be pretty bleeding-edge compared to what we usually get (which the kalimdor cup feedback blue post implying the same), so it might feel a bit slower but there's definitely a bunch of stuff being worked that aren't ready for testing just yet.

[Nymrohd]

Seems to be pretty bleeding-edge compared to what we usually get (which the kalimdor cup feedback blue post implying the same), so it might feel a bit slower but there's definitely a bunch of stuff being worked that aren't ready for testing just yet.

Yeah I expected it to be slow especially because of Augmentation but the dragonriding absolutely could have contributed to this. And the rifts seem to be fairly major if just because of the variety.

[Khaza-R]

I don't want to downplay how much effort went into it, but my primary issue with the Cata revamp is how inconsistent it was. The amount of effort that went into each zone both on geographical and questing levels, as well as their stories was so all over the place that I struggle to call it a full revamp. And yeah, Cata being the expansion where the narrative team and the quest designers just seemingly wanted to take the piss out of the story and throw in a bunch of silly references and jokes drag it down even further. The human zones are a perfect example of how messy it all is:

Elwynn: Aside from minor QoL changes to have you run back and forth across the zone less, it's basically just the vanilla version. Same geography, same quests, same enemies, the plot hasn't actually advanced at all from vanilla.
Westfall: Major changes across the board, questing is totally different and reflects the post-Wrath world. There are joke characters, but the overall story is serious.
Redridge: The meme bridge is fixed, but aside from that it's just a remix of the vanilla version. You're fighting the exact same enemies as before as if they were never dealt with, and the second half of the zone devolves into entire chunks of the Rambo script being copy-pasted. Calling it a Rambo reference downplays how lazy they got.
Duskwood: Geography is unchanged, questing and storylines are more or less the same aside from some updated worgen story.

Expectations and environment were absolutely a lot different when this content was being made, but I think these days there's more appetite for total change. We don't need to see Hogger get fought outside Westbrook Garrison again or having to fight the same elite orc and gnoll enemies in Redridge. A lot of the changed zones were just remixes rather than actually advancing the storyline there.

The idea behind Cataclysm was noble but as an endeavor it was a total failure.

Some zones advanced drastically, while others as you mentioned were just a re-telling of the vanilla storyline. Advancing the story was a fine idea but it required continual commitment. Haphazardly adding conflict to many zones and then never resolving it was a terrible idea in retrospect.

[Darkarath]

I really do not understand why people think that Dragonriding in old continents equals world revamp. IMO it guarantees that the world revamp will not happen, or that if it happens, it would be in a new map.

Is Outland getting revamped because it will have Dragonriding? No.

Why they would bother to do new races if they are going to revamp the zones? They would have to do new ones because there would be terrain changes that would affect the old ones. We could argue that they would do even more races for the new revamped zones, but I think that if that were to be the case they would just wait and do one set of races.

Draenor was made from scratch because they learned their lesson with Cataclysm. It is better to do something from zero. In such a way, you are not limited by past constrains (the amount of regions, their size, old quests that get messed up by phasing, confusion in general for players...). Blizzard will not erase old content again. In fact, they are reintroducing old content, as we have seen with Zul'Gurub and Naxxramas.

[Luck4]

When all is said and done Dragonflight will be remembered as one of WoW's best expansions. Haters be damned!

I already think Dragonflight is on par with WOTLK, LEGION, and MOP, but I'm waiting for it to be finished to praise it.

We never know when Blizzard will screw things up.

[Makabreska]

I really do not understand why people think that Dragonriding in old continents equals world revamp. IMO it guarantees that the world revamp will not happen, or that if it happens, it would be in a new map.

Cuz they keep saying that you need to change the old zones to accommodate DRing, conveniently forgetting that Dragon Isles have this big ass flat place called Ohn'ahran Plains, and you can DR there no probs.