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

[Raetary]

She looks horrible on the art, Gazlowe looks like a square and I don't know what the hell's going on with Thrall and Alleria. It reminds me of the Windrunner comic with how uncanny they look.

It's stylized, some may like that or not, but to proclaim it horrible and equate it to the Three Sisters comic is quite an overreaction.

[guro-tchai]

Didnt we know that about her eye color already?

apparently this was mentioned in Tides of Darkness. i'm not sure whether back in 2007 this was due to blind copying of blood elf ingame models or a deliberate decision. in any case, she has blue eyes elsewhere, including prior to her infusion with void.

[Pyrophax]

Where's that from? Will he proclaim himself Rand ar'Ator, the Dragon Reborn?

Car'a'Carn to you, Chief among the cheifs.

[Santandame]

People seriously underestimate how much Scourge there will be in Midnight.

Is it because of recency bias? PTSD from Shadowlands? Or something else?

But are people not aware that the entire southern kingdom is firmly held by the Scourge? They even have a huge fortress in the region called Deatholme. Then there is also the Death Scar, a massive scar bisecting the entire kingdom and infested with Undead.

I don't know if people are somehow traumatized (lol) by Shadowlands to forget about the Scourge, but it's clear that the Scourge will be a B-plot of the expansion. Just because the Lich King is destroyed doesn't mean they'll remain mindless forever and it actually makes so much sense to involve Drathir in Midnight.

1) The Void Elves found Telogrus Rift because they were studying Drathir's research of the Void. He was a necromancer with great forbidden knowledge of the Void.

2) The original traitor who allowed the Scourge to bypass the Ban'dinoriel and lay waste to Quel'Thalas.

3) He is a Lich in all but name, having been resurrected multiple times.

Expect to see Drathir and the Scourge in Midnight as B-plot.

I expect to see Deatholme as a dungeon in Midnight with Stratholme as the 12.1 raid.

This is a general dungeon list I could see for Midnight:

- Deatholme
- Sanctum of the Sun or Sanctum of the Moon
- Duskwither Spire
- Falthrien Academy
- Sunfury Spire
- Telogrus Rift
- Troll dungeon which isn’t Zul’aman
- Naga dungeon

With the raids as Sunwell, Stratholme and K’aresh with Scarlet Monastery as the megadungeon.

[BaumanKing]

Alleria had green eyes? her and Turalyon had time for dating in Silvermoon before the expedition to Draenor? does anything except bitching about their traumas even exist in this world?
although re last point, Arathor's infinitely better than Taelia.

Yes, her eyes were emerald in ToD and BtDP. But this story is bizarre in its contradictions. Why would Arator, a paladin of the Silver Hand and the son of two renowned heroes of the Alliance, live in Silvermoon? Turalyon's Hammer constellation is visible in the sky of Draenor, not Azeroth. And how could Turalyon and Alleria be on a date before the expedition if she didn't talk to him after their one night stand during the Second War.

[Jolly Roger]

do not trust the eyes of green
-void whispers

the void is trying to isolate her so it can turn her into the vessel it needs

[Kiivar86]

do not trust the eyes of green
-void whispers

the void is trying to isolate her so it can turn her into the vessel it needs

She doesn't exactly strike me as a "vassal of life" though.

[Sondrelk]

I expect to see Deatholme as a dungeon in Midnight with Stratholme as the 12.1 raid.

This is a general dungeon list I could see for Midnight:

- Deatholme
- Sanctum of the Sun or Sanctum of the Moon
- Duskwither Spire
- Falthrien Academy
- Sunfury Spire
- Telogrus Rift
- Troll dungeon which isn’t Zul’aman
- Naga dungeon

With the raids as Sunwell, Stratholme and K’aresh with Scarlet Monastery as the megadungeon.

Bit too many Belf raids there for my taste. As I have said before, I expect Midnight to take place in most of Northern EK, and I wouldnt be surprised if we get a Scholomance remake, or a reclamation of Undercity dungeon.

[Polybius]

This conversation is weird as hell. It's your first testing build? Not only more obvious things were cut, but stuff like Thal'Dranath WAS ON REVEAL PANEL. Also I see people talking about Ardenweald raid weapons if you need 1:1 example for some reason.

And stop implying agenda into other people posts. I'm not even against Undermine. I'm just asking to not calling things confirmed when they aren't confirmed, cause if we keep doing it word "confirmed" will lost it's meaning.

Adding to this, neither Rootlands nor Undermine have been confirmed nor denied.

Both SL and WoD had internal team issues, prompting them to scrap Shattrath and Korthia/Ardenweald as raids. If it’s scrapped as a raid we’re still getting Undermine in some form or another, same for Rootlands.

[Santandame]

Bit too many Belf raids there for my taste. As I have said before, I expect Midnight to take place in most of Northern EK, and I wouldnt be surprised if we get a Scholomance remake, or a reclamation of Undercity dungeon.

Don’t get me wrong. I would love for Midnight to be a full Eastern Kingdoms revamp including Hillsbrad, Alterac, Gilneas, Silverpine, Tirisfal and the Plaguelands but I’m keeping my expectations tempered. Even just Quel’Thalas and the Plaguelands & Tirisfal would be great but I’m choosing to keep my hopes reserved.

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Adding to this, neither Rootlands nor Undermine have been confirmed nor denied.

Both SL and WoD had internal team issues, prompting them to scrap Shattrath and Korthia/Ardenweald as raids. If it’s scrapped as a raid we’re still getting Undermine in some form or another, same for Rootlands.

I don’t think Undermine is likely to be scrapped as Gazlowe is still receiving a fair bit of promotion.

[Kathranis]

People seriously underestimate how much Scourge there will be in Midnight.

Is it because of recency bias? PTSD from Shadowlands? Or something else?

But are people not aware that the entire southern kingdom is firmly held by the Scourge? They even have a huge fortress in the region called Deatholme. Then there is also the Death Scar, a massive scar bisecting the entire kingdom and infested with Undead.

Have you not played the blood elf heritage questlines?

After the war in the Shadowlands the san'layn took control of the Scourge in the Ghostlands and occupied Deatholme, but were driven out by the blood knights.

I do expect that Dar'Khan will return, but it will be as a servant of the Void. He's the one who first discovered the Telogrus Rift, after all.

I'm not saying we won't have some linger Scourge influence in the Dead Scar region and Northrend, fwiw.

In fact, my hope is actually that the dreadlords infiltrate Azeroth during Midnight and that Kael'thas and Vashj are sent to pursue them, and that they remain a secondary antagonist during Midnight and The Last Titan while Denathrius waits for his opportunity to make his move.

Frankly, I want to see Xal'atath, Azshara, Denathrius, and Iridikron team up as a sort of evil league of super villains, with Denathrius being the villain who survives and outplays the others.

[Makorus]

This conversation is weird as hell. It's your first testing build? Not only more obvious things were cut, but stuff like Thal'Dranath WAS ON REVEAL PANEL. Also I see people talking about Ardenweald raid weapons if you need 1:1 example for some reason.

And stop implying agenda into other people posts. I'm not even against Undermine. I'm just asking to not calling things confirmed when they aren't confirmed, cause if we keep doing it word "confirmed" will lost it's meaning.

Uh-huh, just like emeralddreamoutdoor, and Kultirasquest, and the references to Embers of Neltharion, and the third evoker spec.

Stuff like that never means anything until it finally happens and everyone acts surprised. There's uprezzed goblin zeppelins, goblin presence in Ringing Deeps, a focus on Gazlowe, icon names referencing a goblin raid, but I am sure it means nothing

[Cheezits]

Uh-huh, just like emeralddreamoutdoor, and Kultirasquest, and the references to Embers of Neltharion, and the third evoker spec.

Stuff like that never means anything until it finally happens and everyone acts surprised. There's uprezzed goblin zeppelins, goblin presence in Ringing Deeps, a focus on Gazlowe, icon names referencing a goblin raid, but I am sure it means nothing

There's also some uprezzed goblin assets in the goblin hub area in the Deeps, which is very telling.

If anything it's silly that there isn't also a Gnome presence, but maybe that's being saved for TLT (airfield) and they are just dripfeeding it?

[Santandame]

There's also some uprezzed goblin assets in the goblin hub area in the Deeps, which is very telling.

If anything it's silly that there isn't also a Gnome presence, but maybe that's being saved for TLT (airfield) and they are just dripfeeding it?

I don’t think a Gnome presence is needed. 11.1 is likely to be the Horde focused patch where launch seems to be Alliance favoured. Keep Undermine focused on the Goblins with support from Thrall as they get little else. It should be a really fun C-plot story to break up the more serious storylines of the expansion.

Gnomes will have a presence in The Last Titan for sure. There’s the Borean Tundra, Storm Peaks and Ulduar all of which should have a fair bit of Gnome content as well as the predicted technology based class.

[Nymrohd]

I don’t think a Gnome presence is needed. 11.1 is likely to be the Horde focused patch where launch seems to be Alliance favoured. Keep Undermine focused on the Goblins with support from Thrall as they get little else. It should be a really fun C-plot story to break up the more serious storylines of the expansion.

Gnomes will have a presence in The Last Titan for sure. There’s the Borean Tundra, Storm Peaks and Ulduar all of which should have a fair bit of Gnome content as well as the predicted technology based class.

I assume all the keepers will have to take a stance so we should be seeing some gnome and Mimiron interaction. Sad how he has interacted more with Brann than any gnome

[Jolly Roger]

She doesn't exactly strike me as a "vassal of life" though.

take every line from whispers as its own statement

shes gonna get taken over by xal

[Soeroah]

But why are you predicting Avaloren for patch content for TWW, and even Midnight? It doesn’t seem like an immediate point of interest for either.

I hadn't considered Avaloren for TWW until I heard there's an Arathi mage in Hallowfall trying to learn how to make a portal back home. It's possible that's setting up something in a future expansion, but it sounds typical of Blizzard to do something like that to set up a patch zone within the same expansion, which makes me worry Avaloren is going to be a patch since right now it's more likely to be in the new TWW frontier than either of Midnight or Northrend, them being on the other sides of the known planet from the almost-as-far-west-as-we-can-get Isle of Dorn.

[Chickat]

Revamp is happening in front of your eyes. I said multiple times that Cata styled revamp is pointless after 9.0 leveling changes and only viable way is old world returning as "new" expac continents.

Imo next Saga should have similar ratio - 1 expac in Avaloren and 2 somewhere in the old world. Not only it makes old world more relevant in lore, but also exploring new lands will be more exciting because it wont happen as often as now

Ion admitted in an interview that a cata style revamp might be necessary one day. You might be right, but I wont write off the possibility of one.

[allegrian]

Thrall looks super derpy in the short stories cover lol

[Chickat]

Eh, it depends on how they implement Midnight. It having to adhere to old zone sizes/boundaries might put a damper on it for me.

What would be cool is if they revamp continents in 2-3 xpac chunks and connect them when a continent is finished. Although that would take forever. With midnight done they will already have 1/3 of the continent. I could see them doing the other 2/3 in a large xpac. Especially if they keep the current zone ideas. Quel'thalas is being expanded because it was always smaller and less finished in game compared to other areas.


And tbh, they used a lot of existing OL skeleton and shaped it for Draenor with a team half the size of the current one. I could see them making a similarly sized Kalimdor with modern graphics using existing zone boundaries but cleaning them up and making the mountains look more natural. Turn 15 zones or whatever there are into 6 or 7. They totally have the numbers to do that now, and they will get even more practice with Northrend and even Midnight to a much lesser extent.

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Yeah, I agree with this. If we did not get the revamp for the 20th anniversary we are not getting it at all. At least not in a Cataclysm way. Which is fine, really. With the size of current zones, they can easily revamp all Kalimdor and all the Eastern Kingdoms in 4 expansions, maybe in 3 if we count patch zones, by grouping them together.

I wonder what zones Midnight will have and how they will implement them in the map and in the world itself, as they will be so much bigger than the rest of the continent, that it might be a weird contrast going from the old part of the continent to the new one. Think that a current expansion zone could easily have The Eversong Woods, The Ghostlands, and the Eastern Plaguelands together. Hell, Midnight could easily revamp the north part of the Eastern Kingdoms just in 12.0, while adding K'aresh or wherever we are going next in the patches. I doubt that they will do that, though, but at the same time, what zones are we getting, then? If K'aresh is coming, IMO it will clearly be the final zone of the expansion. It seems rather difficult to make just one zone from The Eversong Woods, one zone from The Ghostlands, and a new zone from the Amani part of the map? And we will be still missing one zone.

Midnight revamping Lordaeron as patch content would be really cool.

My guess is that we will have 1 brand new zone, 1 massively expanded zone and 2 existing revamped zones in Midnight.

Eversong Woods, Ghostlands, Zul'aman, and some new zone not seen before to flesh it out, or Sunwell could be its own zone and expanded in size. It would have to look different though. We need 4 unique looking zones.

1.Magical yellow Forrest zone.
2.Spooky Forrest zone.
3. Troll zone like Zuldrak but expanded.
4. Mountainous zone for variety perhaps? A desert would add variety but I cant see one fitting there.

Im fairly confident in 1-3 but 4 is up in the air.

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I did not forget about the Isle of Quel'Danas, which is minuscule. My guess is that it will be a part of The Eversong Woods zone. Maybe they could make it work as the 12.1 patch zone, adding several Void themed landmasses around, I guess, because the isle by itself is really small.

I also thought about the possibility of having Silvermoon as a zone by itself, similar to Suramar. But again, if Midnight has only the zones that you mentioned, there is not much variety there, right? Especially within the zones themselves.

Guess that they might add an underwater zone? Azshara has to show up for Midnight.



Hope never dies

They could split off a part of Western Eversong and massively expand the beach. 1/3 the zone underwater. 1/3 beach, and 1/3 mountains and trees leading down to the beaches. The EverReef.

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I'm just saying, you guys are gonna be disappointed a year and a half from now, when we're watching a feature trailer and Quel'thalas is a new zone only slightly bigger than its old area attached onto EK, with the rest of Lordaeron untouched save for maybe, maybe if you're really lucky, a fixed Stratholme since the coastal region of a slightly larger Quel'thalas will run into the "Northern Lordaeron" section that currently backs the city.

Azshara and a large Naga zone rising off the coast surrounding Quel'danas is more likely than Lordaeron somehow secretly being a thing that they just refused to mention at all, especially when they were so clear about downplaying the idea of a "revamp" at Blizzcon.

I think you are right, but Lordaeron is still a good candidate for a large patch zone. Or part of it. Maybe just the Eastwield as its Lordaeron but never been shown in game.



But being unrealistic, Stratholme for the alliance and Silvermoon for the Horde would be cool.

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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.

Maybe, I could buy that, but I think Quel'thalas will be at least 2 zones with 2 zones on Ka'resh. Eversong and Ghostlands. Ghostlands being half Zul'aman.