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

[Worldshaper]

Edit:

Also I didn't say they should abandon Kalimdor. But I think there would be much more room for interesting conflict and good old savagery if we saw some radical group of Night Elf terrorise the Horde in Ashenvale, instead of Tyrande and the regular army being involved. They couldn't do that without causing another war, and now that Sylvanas is out and a bunch of nice people are in charge of the Horde, I fail to see how the Alliance would want to continue waging war over Ashenvale.

Just bring in those SoD Night Elves and everything works out.

[Khaza-R]

The fixation on Darnassus is weird in these discussions. Yes, Teldrassil was new, and it's strange that they decided to make a capitol there. The rest of Kalimdor is not. They should not just abandon their homes in Ashenvale, Hyjal, Darkshore, Felwood, etc. Much of those lands need to be healed, but they were spread all throughout their forests, and Ashenvale and Hyjal are both intact now.

Also, I'm not sure they actually ever moved away from Hyjal. Did they ever even have an actual capitol there (or anywhere for that matter between the War of the Ancients and WoW)? I always saw it more as a Druidic holy place, and thought that they had more of a nomadic society without a set capitol, until they needed a set capitol for WoW (much like how Tauren were nomads but settled in Thunder Bluff so they could have a city).

WarCraft III was pretty clear that Ashenvale was their primary home. Part of it was corrupted by the Legion and became Felwood. But otherwise it never really made sense they abandoned it for Teldrassil. Unfortunatley just something they did to shoehorn the Horde vs Alliance narrative.

[Ersula]

Just bring in those SoD Night Elves and everything works out.

They were featured in the Cataclysm book. It was pretty much the Wardens until Legion so we're cool now.

[Jolly Roger]

Not until Argus was killed. As soon as she was warchief her plan was "Kalimdor for the Horde."

Plus if Greymane had let her have Helya's Lantern Teldrassil never would have burned but you're not ready for that conversation.

teldrassil wouldnt have burned if she wasnt triggered by the word hope

but storywise she started serving the jailer in legion

[Bluespiderman57]

teldrassil wouldnt have burned if she wasnt triggered by the word hope

but storywise she started serving the jailer in legion

I mean, even beyond that, she had been manipulated by the jailer since the end of Wrath.

[Jolly Roger]

I mean, even beyond that, she had been manipulated by the jailer since the end of Wrath.

yeah but it wasnt until she was named warchief that she thought "hes right about everything" then served him doing things like going full Arthas before saying "yeah i served you all this time but i will never serve"

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Disregarding this whole Horde Vs Alliance parity discussion, I do think it's a big bait and switch to have Thrall featured so heavily in the marketing material only to be sidelined 20 minutes into the first zone.

Really? You don't get to slay with him all the way down through the underground and into the evil spider kingdom?



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And who's gonna play a broken? Serious question. Why implement another race that only a minimal fraction of player would even dare to touch?

While I agree that I don't find the Broken appealing, the game is 20 years old. Veteran players have long since emotionally invested into the current crop of races that are mostly just variations of humanoids. People aren't going to abandon their characters they are already invested in to switch to another slight variation of humanoid. Potential new customers who aren't already playing WoW might not be interested in playing the current crop of mostly humanoid races. The game has to diversify and start catering to niches now to get people to play new racial fantasies that weren't already covered, and to attract new players who might not be interested by the current playable races. We can already see Blizzard beginning to branch out with the Dracthyr, so I'd expect future races (as in new rigs and animations, not reskins like allied races) would continue along that line of being really different.

[Nymrohd]

Imo a race looking ugly is secondary. What is more important is how mogs look. Broken are hunched over so they will distort mogs badly.

[CrossNgen]

Really? You don't get to slay with him all the way down through the underground and into the evil spider kingdom?

The leaked cinematic strings suggest not, but who knows? Maybe when the final zone gets into it's testing period we'll be able to shed more light on the situation.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

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

I think the issue is that Akama are visually not prominent in this franchise. People who played during TBC might have seen Akama in Black Temple, but it's been so long that people have probably forgotten about that and a large percentage of retail players don't go that far back. And then ofcourse there is Argus where you fought with them for 10 minutes and then moved on to the next area, and they didn't get a close up cinematic showing their faces like Akama did with the 17 year old Black Temple trailer.



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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).

It baffles me that Thrall doesn't have his shit together. He was given his life's purpose by Doomhammer in Lord of the Clans: to redeem and lead the Horde and make it better. Then he appoints Garrosh as Warchief and runs off to do shaman stuff by himself when he could have continued leading the Horde AND tried to save the world, working with other experts like Hamuul Runetotem or Drek'thar. The Horde leaders wanted him to take back the reins after Garrosh, but he says nope and goes into early retirement, deserting the Horde. Dude, you are the only one who can fix this mess and make the Horde better! Why are you deserting?

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Honestly, all of the allied races are a novelty. Most people won't play a specific allied race. But people do try them & the people who really wanted them are made very happy.

The problem with the allied races is that aside from Vulpera, they are not new races. They're just more customization options for preexisting races. People who didn't like night elves before aren't going to switch to this new slight variation of night elves now. Vulpera are the only allied race I see a lot of, because it actually offers something new in the game that people didn't have before: cute small fox furries. People who wanted that but weren't served previously now have that option. Allied races need to be like that: actually new stuff to serve people who weren't being served previously, not just more customization options for existing races people have already formulated an opinion on. We need, say, Jinyu (fish samurai) reusing the night elf skeleton, not yet another troll or elf customization.

[Ramz]

Disregarding this whole Horde Vs Alliance parity discussion, I do think it's a big bait and switch to have Thrall featured so heavily in the marketing material only to be sidelined 20 minutes into the first zone.

So exactly how Shadowlands played out. Thrall and Baine sitting on their bums doing nothing through entire expansion. And it is a bait and switch. This game is based on 2 factions, and therefore it should at least attempt to give similar amount of story for both of them. And I don't see "do anything Alliance tells you to do" as a compelling story.
And Blizzard was able to provide separate questing experience in the past. So it's not like they cannot do it, it's that they don't bother to do it anymore. And story suffers becuase of that.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Why does everyone always forget about the Army of the Light? Am I genuinely the only one who paid attention to what Metzen was saying, didn't tunnel-vision on Elves, and noticed that Metzen mentioned the "forces of the Light" too?

I know, right? I've brought up old Anduin leading the Army of the Light in the final battle against the Shadow several times, and people keep crying "it's an old Legion comic! It's going to be retconned!"



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I feel like people are putting way too much emphasis on twitter.

People bitching on twitter got the Alexstraza time travel questline removed in this very expansion. It happened once, it could happen again.

[Raetary]

People bitching on twitter got the Alexstraza time travel questline removed in this very expansion. It happened once, it could happen again.

"Questline"
It was a single daily quest that was being freshly tested on the PTR.

And people were complaining about it across every platform.
Including in this very thread.

That said, changing the quest text on a random daily that they just shipped onto the PTR, is not even remotely the same as drastically changing major plotlines.
So idk why you are even bringing this up.

[Civciv]

Imo a race looking ugly is secondary. What is more important is how mogs look. Broken are hunched over so they will distort mogs badly.

male orcs? male trolls? male undeads?

[Ersula]

yeah but it wasnt until she was named warchief that she thought "hes right about everything" then served him doing things like going full Arthas before saying "yeah i served you all this time but i will never serve"

She was named Warchief at the beginning of Legion. She didn't start working for the Jailer until Antorus, at the end of Legion.

Another thing - They're badass, not ugly.

Designing Draenei in Warcraft 3: Look at this little backwards swamp gremlin I made

Designing Draenei in World of Warcraft: Tieflings

[allegrian]

I know, right? I've brought up old Anduin leading the Army of the Light in the final battle against the Shadow several times, and people keep crying "it's an old Legion comic! It's going to be retconned!"



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People bitching on twitter got the Alexstraza time travel questline removed in this very expansion. It happened once, it could happen again.

nah this is getting retconned/ignored for sure. They didn't plan the story 1 expansion in advance, they are not going to do it like 10 expansions prior. Blizzard is afraid of setting hard lore (like chronicles) as it doesn't give them the flexibility to do whatever they want so they just say it's from the titan's pov. They will probably say this comic was from an alternative reality like time rifts in DF.

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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.

We should get tuskarr too.

Broken were improved with draenei and LF, if they ever become playable they shouldn't be much more than a draenei skin like eredar.

[Khaza-R]

She was named Warchief at the beginning of Legion. She didn't start working for the Jailer until Antorus, at the end of Legion.

She joins him after Vol'jin dies. It was part of his prophecy to her. After she sees it fulfilled she decides to make a pact with him.

[Nightshade711]

I know, right? I've brought up old Anduin leading the Army of the Light in the final battle against the Shadow several times, and people keep crying "it's an old Legion comic! It's going to be retconned!"

I could see it.
Metzen was still around when that comic was made. I could see him picking up old threads that he set up that were likely planned to be abandoned.

[Woggmer]

WarCraft III was pretty clear that Ashenvale was their primary home. Part of it was corrupted by the Legion and became Felwood. But otherwise it never really made sense they abandoned it for Teldrassil. Unfortunatley just something they did to shoehorn the Horde vs Alliance narrative.

I don't think it was to shoehorn the Horde v Alliance stuff, but rather more of a design choice. Ashenvale is a BIG zone and a contested territory because of the Horde lumber mill from Warcraft 3. There wasn't much of a Horde vs Alliance narrative as much as it was Arch Druid Fandral Staghelm being one of the worst leaders to the Alliance, that he basically took Malfurion's role and had the Night Elves stay in Darnassus because it was all HIS idea.

If you really think about it, everything that people didn't like about the Night Elves going from Warcraft 3 to WoW could all be pointed towards Fandral Staghelm.

[Jolly Roger]

She was named Warchief at the beginning of Legion. She didn't start working for the Jailer until Antorus, at the end of Legion.Designing Draenei in Warcraft 3: Look at this little backwards swamp gremlin I made

Designing Draenei in World of Warcraft: Tieflings

debatable but thats because blizz cant keep their character motivations straight or write them clearly

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I could see it.
Metzen was still around when that comic was made. I could see him picking up old threads that he set up that were likely planned to be abandoned.

next thing you know that is Anduin's son
Varian ll