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

[AOL Instant Messenger]

I can already see her doing something stupid and reignite the faction war at the worst moment

Let's be forward here: Geya'rah is the last hope for the Horde to ever have an identity again, while Yrel is the last hope for the Alliance unless Turalyon learns to grow a pair and start objecting to people murdering his patron angels. I love them both, and those two exporting their conflict to Azeroth would be the absolute best thing for the narrative going forward.

Well guess what, Metzen stated that the Light will be the main ally of Midnight, so either Geya'rah concedes that she doesn't have any right to complain, or she'll be in the Dungeon Encounter journal very soon.

Inconceivable, really. To think they'd actually stop humping the "it's a TWEEEST" bit and allow the ontologically-good cosmic force to be ontologically-good!—it's a surprising step up.

[Varodoc]

Let's be forward here: Geya'rah is the last hope for the Horde to ever have an identity again, while Yrel is the last hope for the Alliance unless Turalyon learns to grow a pair and start objecting to people murdering his patron angels. I love them both, and those two exporting their conflict to Azeroth would be the absolute best thing for the narrative going forward.



Inconceivable, really. To think they'd actually stop humping the "it's a TWEEEST" bit and allow the ontologically-good cosmic force to be ontologically-good!—it's a surprising step up.

No it doesn't, it's a stupid narrative, because the MU Lightforged have literally done nothing wrong to Geya'rah.

At least Garrosh had the "Lumber" excuse, as flimsy and pathetic as it was, to wage war on the Night Elves. Geya'rah has no logical reason to hate the MU Lightforged. Turalyon and his followers have done nothing to Geya'rah, and at this point, she should be smart enough to understand the differences between timelines.

Clearly Our Lightforged are not as ruthless as the AU Lightforged. This is a forced and inconsistent narrative. The hate towards Turalyon and the Lightforged, as per usual, is vastly-unwarranted. They really haven't done anything wrong.

Either way, as I've been saying for years, if Geya'rah doesn't change, she's Garrosh 3.0.

[allegrian]

They should just ignore AU stuff and characters, use TBC maghar instead.

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No it doesn't, it's a stupid narrative, because the MU Lightforged have literally done nothing wrong to Geya'rah.

At least Garrosh had the "Lumber" excuse, as flimsy and pathetic as it was, to wage war on the Night Elves. Geya'rah has no logical reason to hate the MU Lightforged. Turalyon and his followers have done nothing to Geya'rah, and at this point, she should be smart enough to understand the differences between timelines.

Clearly Our Lightforged are not as ruthless as the AU Lightforged. This is a forced and inconsistent narrative. The hate towards Turalyon and the Lightforged, as per usual, is vastly-unwarranted. They really haven't done anything wrong.

Either way, as I've been saying for years, if Geya'rah doesn't change, she's Garrosh 3.0.

It's just bad writing, blizzard doesn't care as much as you (and many others) do.

[Varodoc]

They should just ignore AU stuff and characters, use TBC maghar instead.

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It's just bad writing, blizzard doesn't care as much as you (and many others) do.

Actually, I'm trying to protect the Horde leadership.

We all know what happens when a Horde leader (typically a Mag'har) acts irrationally antagonistic towards the Alliance, don't we?

[Samin]

Let's be forward here: Geya'rah is the last hope for the Horde to ever have an identity again, while Yrel is the last hope for the Alliance unless Turalyon learns to grow a pair and start objecting to people murdering his patron angels. I love them both, and those two exporting their conflict to Azeroth would be the absolute best thing for the narrative going forward.

Faction war is a conceptual dead end. It's also rooted in archaic gameplay mechanics that have room in WoW anymore. Maybe they can do a Season of Bloodshed for Classic, exploring gameplay and lore of a continued faction war, it might still make sense there. Retail needs to move on.

Doesn't mean these conflicts shouldn't happen, but not in a "turn this into a faction war" way.

[Ersula]

Faction war is a conceptual dead end. It's also rooted in archaic gameplay mechanics that have room in WoW anymore. Maybe they can do a Season of Bloodshed for Classic, it might still make sense there. Retail needs to move on.

Doesn't mean these conflicts shouldn't happen, but not in a "turn this into a faction war" way.

The biggest problem with the faction war is making content that's only for one faction rather than everyone, but with warbands & as we get more iterations of Remix, players are going to get tons of alts; which solves that problem. They just need to get over the idea that in order to create war-based drama you need to have a singular villain pushing that conflict. Blame game of thrones.

[Khaza-R]

Faction war is a conceptual dead end. It's also rooted in archaic gameplay mechanics that have room in WoW anymore. Maybe they can do a Season of Bloodshed for Classic, exploring gameplay and lore of a continued faction war, it might still make sense there. Retail needs to move on.

Doesn't mean these conflicts shouldn't happen, but not in a "turn this into a faction war" way.

I agree the faction divide is something the game can't afford to do anymore. But I also wouldn't be suprised if the faction theme returns as its become much of the brand identity for WarCraft.

Looking at DF it felt overly generic in a lot of places. I imagine there will be some course correction to that in WSS. Although I doubt it will be a flat out return of a full blown faction war. But we do know this series is suppose to set the stage for the future of WarCraft. So its entirely possible we will see the seeds of faction conflicts re-envisioned in the next few expansions.

[milkmustache]

The biggest problem with the faction war is making content that's only for one faction rather than everyone, but with warbands & as we get more iterations of Remix, players are going to get tons of alts; which solves that problem. They just need to get over the idea that in order to create war-based drama you need to have a singular villain pushing that conflict. Blame game of thrones.

I'll be honest, I haven't even considered this until now. You're totally right, they're enabling the players to go alt crazy which may open the door for faction based questing again. I don't know if it will ever be all out war or just tensions, but the more alts someone has, the more pick-a-side content they can create.

I also agree with the singular villain comment, although I feel that Cataclysm and early MoP had the best iteration of it, Varian and Garrosh butting heads hard. I wish they'd introduce small infighting amongst and across factions just to keep tensions high.

I'm going to don my ASOIAF stan hat for a moment and rally behind your cause, blaming Game of Thrones for thatt mindset is maybe not solely responsible but extremely responsible for it's horrid rendition of a nuanced story.

[Murlocos]

I wish that 'faction war' wasn't thrown out so often when what is usually meant is 'faction identity', or the factions existing at all as entities acting on their own self-interest. We already have plenty of zones in the game where there's little to no neutral questing but the quests have nothing to do with the factions fighting each other. Faction content does not have to automatically equal a genocidal race war where the Horde has to depose their evil warchief and the Alliance sighs and sobs about how cruel the world is.

It's nice to entertain the notion that complete removal of the factions would lead to more interesting development of the individual nations, but the reality is that Blizzard can decide to either develop quests for one group of people or like 14 different groups and we've already seen what the obvious choice is there. Nothing is perfect, but it's easier to understand why an orc would have more interest in the small problems of a blood elf settlement than of a human or night elf town and vice versa.

We were already willing to suspend our disbelief and engage with content in vanilla or TBC where there'd be small skirmishes and you'd kill members of the opposite faction, understanding that these were conflicts that strained relationships but did not kickstart all-out war. It doesn't have to be BfA style kill 200 civilians in funny vehicle quest, bonus 35 azerite if you don't wash the blood off your hands.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Faction war is a conceptual dead end. It's also rooted in archaic gameplay mechanics that have room in WoW anymore. Maybe they can do a Season of Bloodshed for Classic, exploring gameplay and lore of a continued faction war, it might still make sense there. Retail needs to move on.

Doesn't mean these conflicts shouldn't happen, but not in a "turn this into a faction war" way.

It's a conceptual dead end in the same way as Link is a conceptual dead end for Legend of Zelda. It's a non-negotiable and fundamental part of the story. If this were something meant to wrap up, then it could end. Unfortunately, this is a setting meant to be perpetuated, so the faction war has to stay because that's part of the heart of what WoW is.

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No it doesn't, it's a stupid narrative, because the MU Lightforged have literally done nothing wrong to Geya'rah.

At least Garrosh had the "Lumber" excuse, as flimsy and pathetic as it was, to wage war on the Night Elves. Geya'rah has no logical reason to hate the MU Lightforged. Turalyon and his followers have done nothing to Geya'rah, and at this point, she should be smart enough to understand the differences between timelines.

It's called international realism. It's not a matter of intelligence, it's a matter of rationality—despite the common parlance conflating them, to those in the know rational actors can be pretty stupid. Geya'rah sees something she has a precedent of posing a security threat, Geya'rah smash.

Clearly Our Lightforged are not as ruthless as the AU Lightforged. This is a forced and inconsistent narrative. The hate towards Turalyon and the Lightforged, as per usual, is vastly-unwarranted. They really haven't done anything wrong.

Correct. The Lightforged are one of my favorite races, if not my favorite, so I can certainly agree with you on that.

In fact, as far as I'm concerned, it's likely that the Lightbound's malfeasance is at least partly overstated because the only source we have for what happened there is the semi-substantiated testimony of the orcish equivalent of a wehraboo. Unfortunately, the characters are under no obligation to be correct in their assessment of them if it makes for a better story.

I hate to break it to you, but good writing isn't about wanking the faction/race you like and making everyone slobber 24/7 about how cool some infallible good guys are isn't going to get you anywhere.

Either way, as I've been saying for years, if Geya'rah doesn't change, she's Garrosh 3.0.

She's Garrosh 2.0, not Garrosh 3.0, because Sylvanas wasn't Garrosh 2.0. Garrosh was an interesting character who had potential and was in a position that suited who he was, namely in that he was an orc in an orcish office leading the faction mainly spearheaded by orcs, while Sylvanas was an elf in an office meant for orcs and whose entire role in the Horde was that of a cultural outlier unfit to be grouped with the rest except behind closed doors. Unlike Sylvanas' inconsistent and inexplicable string of decisions, Garrosh's expansionism was also led by the pursuit of securing more territory for the sake of a strategic advantage, and all his decisions were a coherent expression of that. While Thrall started it with his allying with the forsaken, Garrosh was Azeroth's first proper codifier of international realism, with all the good, the bad, and the stupid that entails.

[Cheezits]

The Geyarah beef is justified, though she isn't a very smart character. Her small group of force is saved from certain death/corruption, thrown into MU Azeroth, and immediately gets steamrolled by the Alliance. But only because she signed up with the Horde. She then doubles her losses by siding with Sylvanas during the second Siege of Orgimmar.

The people complaining about the lack of Talanji don't realize that she is being kept in a bottle with Vol'jin (and Vereesa) to be used in Midnight with, for whatever reason, zero appearances in the meantime. Geyarah makes sense to use her as they want Orcs to do something, and Midnight will be pretty much every other old Horde race. Then who knows who will get the focus for TLT?

Also... maybe they are bringing her because the Rootlands will be directly tied to the Everbloom and Botani?

Is there any particular reason nobody is streaming or posting about the max level campaign?

[Alanar]

Those are somewhat annoying but the worst are the ones where you're playing as the sniper and shooting mobs. No one at Blizzard apparently thought about how a fixed perspective can make it really hard to see mobs because the damn trees are in the way.
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I actually meant exactly that haha. The girl, the dwarf.. all of them had their own little quest, that are just terrible.
Horde has the orc, undead etc.

Before you can even start, you have to wait and listen to their tactics etc.

[Khaza-R]

I actually meant exactly that haha. The girl, the dwarf.. all of them had their own little quest, that are just terrible.
Horde has the orc, undead etc.

Before you can even start, you have to wait and listen to their tactics etc.

To each their own. I actually thought these were different and fun.

At least better than the 2939729398th kill or fetch quest.

[huth]

It's a conceptual dead end in the same way as Link is a conceptual dead end for Legend of Zelda. It's a non-negotiable and fundamental part of the story. If this were something meant to wrap up, then it could end. Unfortunately, this is a setting meant to be perpetuated, so the faction war has to stay because that's part of the heart of what WoW is.

DF says otherwise. And SL too, for that matter. You're confusing what you want the game to be with what it actually is.

Link isn't as non-negotiable as you think, either.

[Gurahk]

They should just ignore AU stuff and characters, use TBC maghar instead.

Literally how? The character introduction is recruiting them from Draenor, their identity is that they're from AU Draenor, how in the hell should they "ignore" that?
I've yet to see an actual reason why they should've gone with the TBC Mag'har, because they're essentially just brown orcs, with nothing really seperating them from the ones on Azeroth. Draenor orcs atleast allows them to utilize concepts like a more industrialized (which they slightly touched upon in BfA) force within the Horde, with all the technology they brought from Draenor.

[milkmustache]

Also... maybe they are bringing her because the Rootlands will be directly tied to the Everbloom and Botani?

I mean, this definitely has to be it. It's confirmed to be a genesaur in the Ringing Deeps, so there's something happening with the Rootlands that is gonna need someone with Botani experience to serve as a plot vehicle.

[Ersula]

DF says otherwise. And SL too, for that matter. You're confusing what you want the game to be with what it actually is.

Do you mean like how everyone is lovey-dovey & passing around the peace pipe but then you get flashes of deeply seeded hatred? Like, occasionally we are still getting night elves going "the only good horde is a dead horde" or say, the only alliance leaders who actually wanted peace was Anduin & Jaina (for the moment) is that what you mean?

[allegrian]

Literally how? The character introduction is recruiting them from Draenor, their identity is that they're from AU Draenor, how in the hell should they "ignore" that?
I've yet to see an actual reason why they should've gone with the TBC Mag'har, because they're essentially just brown orcs, with nothing really seperating them from the ones on Azeroth. Draenor orcs atleast allows them to utilize concepts like a more industrialized (which they slightly touched upon in BfA) force within the Horde, with all the technology they brought from Draenor.

The industrialized stuff comes from goblins anyway, and MoP orcs had that (SoG) no need of AU maghar for that. AU is lazy writing with no stakes, we have MU maghar which at least are part of the main warcraft story, and the most famous maghar orc (Garrosh), is from MU outland.

[Lahis]

Ah I see, then that is an error of the Wowhead Modelviewer.
Well, I stand by my point, there are kilts in addition to robes, you can do a lot with belts that have 3D elements, and I noticed the Plunderlord's Waistcoat (sic) chestpiece has some 3D bits covering the sides of the hips.
All I'm saying is, if you mog your Mechagnome with just white pants, then that's on you. I deem races with limited transmog options as bold experiments - if we complain about this, we'll never get Naga or even Ethereals.

The Plunderlord set is actually really good showcase on how Tmog behaves on Mechagnomes. 3D bits that are attached to chest or belt will show up even if they cover up legs, because techincally they're part of the chest/belt slot (3D bist on sleeves don't show up for obvious reasons). 3D bits that come with leg slot, which includes all longcoats etc. won't show up at all on Mechagnomes.

[Eeram]

What makes it all the more obnoxious is that she's now been on Azeroth for almost 10 years.

BfA started in the Year 33, and the Mag'har questline took place in that year. TWW likely takes place in Year 42, so that's almost 10 years since Geya'rah came to Azeroth.

What have Turalyon and the Lightforged done in the last 10 years? Hm... Pretty much nothing. Yet that is still not enough to convince Geya'rah?

Well guess what, Metzen stated that the Light will be the main ally of Midnight, so either Geya'rah concedes that she doesn't have any right to complain, or she'll be in the Dungeon Encounter journal very soon.

I’m not arguing this point but can you show me where metzan says that.
Is it explicitly the light will be the main ally of the heroes?
Is there anychance the light is the main ally of the antagonist? Whoever they may be in midnight?