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

[Super Dickmann]

They are right, lack of Horde is inexcusable especially after being sidelined expansion after expansion with a bunch of characters and races not getting even something as a vendor NPC. We're all gonna follow after Anduin, Alleria, Magni e.t.c. and if we're lucky, we get to spend a single quest with Thrall whilst he attempts to "find himself in the Horde" (he has done this for 4 expansions in a row).

Implying Thrall's role won't consist of helping Anduin through his quarter-life crisis so he doesn't get his grubby green mitts on any actually relevant plot point.

[Cheezits]

The lack of Horde in TWW does point to Midnight Lordaeron being Forsakenpalooza, which will create the funniest reaction on twitteroth.

[Plehnard]

Broken are one of the most iconic races since W3 and Velen already established connection with the Cheftain Hatuun and broken on Argus.

Another thing - They're badass, not ugly.

I know many just like playing with their shiny, pretty barbie dolls, but to me personally it's the most basic b thing and having only "pretty cleaky clean" races is boring, especially another variatons of offshot elves/something.

The same was said about Kul'Tirans and the only reason some got played was that there racials were great for some classes. And now? They are less then a percent in the player base. I don't care who you find cool or iconic or that you don't like "barbie" characters.
The reality is the wide majority of players want beautiful, cute or brutal looking characters and broken are neither.
Broken are just a worse version of draenei and even those are only in 4th place played on alliance side.
Last working wow census had Kul'Tirans (fat humans) and Mechagnomes (Disfigured Gnomes) under 1% of player base. Alliance doesn't need another fringe race nobody wants to play.

We should get tuskarr too.

I agree on this one.

[Ersula]

The lack of Horde in TWW does point to Midnight Lordaeron being Forsakenpalooza, which will create the funniest reaction on twitteroth.

I'm the forsaken stan & even I don't believe they're going to make them important to the plot. People suddenly shifted from "Silvermoon will be made neutral" to "Of course Midnight will be horde focused" as soon as we brought up the lack of participation from horde characters in this storyline.

[Super Dickmann]

I'm the forsaken stan & even I don't believe they're going to make them important to the plot. People suddenly shifted from "Silvermoon will be made neutral" to "Of course Midnight will be horde focused" as soon as we brought up the lack of participation from horde characters in this storyline.

This is true. Midnight will be an elf-fest, with perhaps a Forsaken side-camp as a Tranquilien shoutout and the majority of the plot centering around Alleria and the interchangeable high/blood elves. I hope to be wrong but sincerely doubt it.

[allegrian]

I'd argue them starring in a third faction would have been far more interesting than forcing everyone in the red or blue blobs, but vanilla itself already showed the genie was out of the bottle on that one, and TBC completely killed the idea of cohesive faction aesthetics and identity by adding Blood Elves to the Horde so that they would have a pretty race to play with. It makes sense from a player demographics point of view but I still don't have to like it, and would far have preferred 3-4 factions to the current mess.

It's why Horde getting dwarves doesn't stress me in the slightest. They've had classic elves for close to 20 years now, who cares.

Yeah the horde theme and story in wow is a mess between the villain bats and the magic, aristocratic elves being there with the tribal brutes. I have a hard time playing horde for that reason as someone who cares about lore and inmersion, the horde just doesn't make much sense in wow now and have barely any interesting characters left.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

snip

I disagree, but i don't have to compensate myself in the game by playing a pretty doll so i wouldn't know.. just a joke, calm down

Bring broken to the alliance! If they will add them, then we can do some raids together, i might even show you some cool Broken mogs.

[Khaza-R]

The lack of Horde in TWW does point to Midnight Lordaeron being Forsakenpalooza, which will create the funniest reaction on twitteroth.

There definitely has to be a strong undead sub-plot given the Scourge should be a big part of TLT. Hopefully over the course of two expansions we can see some proper set up to some new antagonists and story for the Forsaken

[Ersula]

Yeah the horde theme and story in wow is a mess between the villain bats and the magic, aristocratic elves being there with the tribal brutes. I have a hard time playing horde for that reason as someone who cares about lore and inmersion, the horde just doesn't make much sense in wow now and have barely any interesting characters left.

I can't take this line of logic seriously when Night Elves have all the same cultural values as Trolls & Tauren; they even worship the same gods. It's just this quasi-racist real world logic where castles are valid forms of civilization & straw huts are not.

Though it does remind me when the Warhammer MMO was in development they teased this feature where the racial alliances would change periodically, in real time affecting world pvp. Unfortunately they couldn't commit to that.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

I just find it strange we don't do races that are more generally involved in the setting, instead going for races that are very briefly important.

Prevalent WoW races that aren't playable include: Broken, Moknathal, murloc, tuskaar, mogu, naga, tolvir, gnolls, kobolds, furblog, centaur

Expansion featured races that are playable and only relevant because they were made playable: Nightborne, Mechagnomes, Earthen, Vulpera, Highmountain Tauren
Goddamn we almost got Quillboar & they make hairy elves instead.

I find this annoying too, by end of saga we might get to few more races that we've never seen and were only established for one expansion or just major patch.

Bunch of "whos?" might be added, because probably new developers working on these races don't care about any of the older ones, but their new work.

[allegrian]

I can't take this line of logic seriously when Night Elves have all the same cultural values as Trolls & Tauren; they even worship the same gods. It's just this quasi-racist real world logic where castles are valid forms of civilization & straw huts are not.

I'm not saying straw huts are not valid, I mean that Blood Elves and Nightborne dont fit with orcs/trolls/Tauren at all and are basically opposed themes. BE are a borrowed alliance theme, the same way alliance highmountain tauren would have been a horde theme in the alliance that made little sense. Night elves and undead were their own faction in W3 so yeah they are a bit different than their core faction but they still can work fine together. And the night elves worship elune above the ancients, those are more of a druid thing. Night elves are not a tribal race and they are not a (not evil) monster race, which were the main horde themes in W3 and vanilla.

I'm not saying that the tribal horde is not valid, I mean that the weird mix they did with them and blood elves alongside bad writing, 2-3 time villain batting and killing its main characters made me feel uninterested in playing the horde seriously given my lore and inmersion preferences. I like the horde in vanilla and W3, it's just sad for me what they did with them in wow.

[Cheezits]

There definitely has to be a strong undead sub-plot given the Scourge should be a big part of TLT. Hopefully over the course of two expansions we can see some proper set up to some new antagonists and story for the Forsaken

The Scourge/Undead really are the least predictable plotline for the entire expansion. They seem completely irrelevant to the saga story.

[Khaza-R]

The Scourge/Undead really are the least predictable plotline for the entire expansion. They seem completely irrelevant to the saga story.

I disagree. Blizzard always diversifies the story of every expansion to reduce theme fatigue. You can pretty much guarantee undead will be added as a minor story to deviate from the otherwise elf-heavy story in Midnight.

[Nymrohd]

This is true. Midnight will be an elf-fest, with perhaps a Forsaken side-camp as a Tranquilien shoutout and the majority of the plot centering around Alleria and the interchangeable high/blood elves. I hope to be wrong but sincerely doubt it.

I mean, if it's not, it would be weird. I am not excited for it (I am for the architecture!) but I don't think there is anything wrong with a Quel'thalas focused expansion to be an elf-fest. It would be like having Draenor with no orcs and draenei.

[allegrian]

Bring broken to the alliance! If they will add them, then we can do some raids together, i might even show you some cool Broken mogs.

I don't get the hype about broken, they're just old, ugly and decayed draenei. But most people I see asking about them are horde mains who are used to the undead model I guess (and who don't really care about the alliance getting cool races).

[Nymrohd]

I can't take this line of logic seriously when Night Elves have all the same cultural values as Trolls & Tauren; they even worship the same gods. It's just this quasi-racist real world logic where castles are valid forms of civilization & straw huts are not.

Though it does remind me when the Warhammer MMO was in development they teased this feature where the racial alliances would change periodically, in real time affecting world pvp. Unfortunately they couldn't commit to that.

Why does it have to be straw huts though? Draenor wasn't just huts. neither was Highmountain. The Orc/Troll/Tauren tribal core of the Horde can still create advanced civilizations. They just have very different aesthetics. Dazar'alor has a very distinct aesthetic but there is no mistaking it for elf or human.

[Super Dickmann]

I mean, if it's not, it would be weird. I am not excited for it (I am for the architecture!) but I don't think there is anything wrong with a Quel'thalas focused expansion to be an elf-fest. It would be like having Draenor with no orcs and draenei.

Oh, of course, the concept means it must be an elf fest and that's fine enough for what it is. My main issues as it's coming up relates to how much of a bore the blood elves in general have been post-TBC and the whole 'uniting the elven tribes' business possibly turning even thiis into a night elf-athon. Oh, and whatever they do with the Amani. Visually, I'm sure they'll knock it out of the park.

[allegrian]

This is true. Midnight will be an elf-fest, with perhaps a Forsaken side-camp as a Tranquilien shoutout and the majority of the plot centering around Alleria and the interchangeable high/blood elves. I hope to be wrong but sincerely doubt it.

The amani trolls will probably be a big part of midnight. I wonder if night elves will be part of that "elf tribe unification" as they're the most different to the rest and have less ties with them, unlike Thalysra after the marriage.

[Ersula]

I'm not saying straw huts are not valid, I mean that Blood Elves and Nightborne dont fit with orcs/trolls/Tauren at all and are basically opposed themes. BE are a borrowed alliance theme, the same way alliance highmountain tauren would have been a horde theme in the alliance that made little sense. Night elves and undead were their own faction in W3 so yeah they are a bit different than their core faction but they still can work fine together. And the night elves worship elune above the ancients, those are more of a druid thing. Night elves are not a tribal race and they are not a (not evil) monster race, which were the main horde themes in W3 and vanilla.

I'm not saying that the tribal horde is not valid, I mean that the weird mix they did with them and blood elves alongside bad writing, 2-3 time villain batting and killing its main characters made me feel uninterested in playing the horde seriously given my lore and inmersion preferences. I like the horde in vanilla and W3, it's just sad for me what they did with them in wow.

They made a logical progression by the Forsaken being the humans of Lordaeron. Otherwise by your own logic, the Draenei should have joined the horde because they're tribal. You saying Night Elves are druidic not tribal as if that doesn't also describe Tauren is a contradiction in your logic.

You also seem to be forgetting the High Elves turning on the alliance was also a major storyline of Warcraft 3

[allegrian]

They made a logical progression by the Forsaken being the humans of Lordaeron. Otherwise by your own logic, the Draenei should have joined the horde because they're tribal. You saying Night Elves are druidic not tribal as if that doesn't also describe Tauren is a contradiction in your logic.

You also seem to be forgetting the High Elves turning on the alliance was also a major storyline of Warcraft 3

I said that BE don't fit the hore theme, the lore reason is not important. And I didn't say they should have joined the alliance instead. In any case, the humans that wronged them were from lordaeron, not stormwind, who ironically became forsaken and also horde. It wouldn't have been hard to create a story where they go back to the stormwind alliance instead of the horde. And the Draenei are not tribal at all lol, they are the super civilisation from outer space that travelled to azeroth with a spaceship, you can't get further away from tribal than that.

Night elves and Tauren could fit toghether nicely as their own faction, but on their own tauren fit the W3 horde more, and night elves the vanilla alliance even if they have differences, like tauren being all peace talk vs the other 3 horde races being pro war/killing.