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

[AOL Instant Messenger]

The naaru don't talk. They communicate telepathically.

As for pure sound, I suggested that to be their form in the Plane of Light. I see no value in going into the plane of Light. We could perhaps visit Zereth Lumen down the line but why go to the plane?

Ideally, the further away from any Zereths we are in the future, the better. I'd rather not have more of those big (narrative; the actual aesthetics are nice enough) uglies staining the lore.

[Nymrohd]

Ideally, the further away from any Zereths we are in the future, the better. I'd rather not have more of those big (narrative; the actual aesthetics are nice enough) uglies staining the lore.

Honestly I could see way, way down the line an expansion that takes place IN the Zereths. Instead of having them as expansion zones, make an expansion out of the five left (maybe adding Zereth Mortis+ Sepulcher as a sixth zone)

[Darkarath]

Honestly I could see way, way down the line an expansion that takes place IN the Zereths. Instead of having them as expansion zones, make an expansion out of the five left (maybe adding Zereth Mortis+ Sepulcher as a sixth zone)

Please no. God no. Do you want to kill the franchise?

Maaaaaybe in a few years when almost no one remembers SL we can have one of them as a patch zone.

BTW I watched the Bellular video about world revamp that everybody is bitching about and is just an ok video. It does not bring anything new, but interesting, nonetheless.

I find quite curious that every new asset / building has the exact same sizes than the old ones. I do not know how to take that. Might be something about the sizes of races, might imply that they are just doing a visual revamp (which as I have previously stated, does not make much sense to me), or might imply a phased revamp (which again, I do not think that It would work well, but hell, is better than no revamp).

[Nymrohd]

Please no. God no. Do you want to kill the franchise?

Maaaaaybe in a few years when almost no one remembers SL we can have one of them as a patch zone.

What do you think "way down the line" means?

- - - Updated - - -

I find quite curious that every new asset / building has the exact same sizes than the old ones. I do not know how to take that. Might be something about the sizes of races, might imply that they are just doing a visual revamp (which as I have previously stated, does not make much sense to me), or might imply a phased revamp (which again, I do not think that It would work well, but hell, is better than no revamp).

We talked about it with @Marlamin in this thread. If the world objects are spatially identical you could theoretically just replace them in the overworld via batch process. Just do a visual update. The terrain needs to be repainted but you could potentially replace buildings and other objects, maybe even trees by just replacing the object files.

The way I see it the big issue with a visual update is NOT the visual update. If you change the terrain even a little, every NPC, their routes, quests and quest objectives, anything is now suddenly tied to the wrong spot. If you can maintain the coordinates for the active zone areas though, you do the replacement and you are done.
And one hopeful detail; old world border areas are UNUSED. They have no quests, no mobs. You can smooth out the terrain without disturbing NPC routes or quest flows. You probably would need to add something there but that's it. And consider Dragonflight; we move between zone borders constantly.

[GabrielKnight]

Light, please, free me from the Blue Dragonflight chain, it never ends. It's the worst garbage I've seen in my life. I'm right now forced to drink tea and listen to kazoo music like in some shitty, generic chinese game. The fact that people is saying it's the best writing in a decade it's making my head spin.

[8bithamster]

Not among Dragons. Among Aspects. And it's not just about love and affection, or even banging. It's about breeding. Laying eggs. It's weird.

But what you just said is also kind of exactly why this is so weird. "[...] is simply normal among [...]" is a rational way of approaching fantasy. It's the only way you make sense of something like Game of Thrones, which is full of misogyny, slavery, etc. It's common for the people you're observing, and because of this, it's acceptable to see it happen. It's OK to write stories about it. But for the Blizzard team, almost nothing has been acceptable as of late. They're replacing women with fruits in paintings, for heaven's sake. So why is this particular thing accepted?

If it's about eggs or breeding, it's not polyamory though. Far from it.

[Nymrohd]

If it's about eggs or breeding, it's not polyamory though. Far from it.

I think it depends. Alex seemed to have a loving relationship with her Consorts but Krasus was clearly her prime consort. Malygos was insane so we cannot really judge his relations but what we saw of him and Sindragosa is markedly different from his relation with Saragosa. Nozdormu only seems to have Soridormi and clearly cares for her as did Ysera for Eranikus. So I think with the exception of Alex, the rest had a Prime consort who is/was their partner in life and other partners were secondary. Which indeed is NOT polyamory.

- - - Updated - - -

BTW I watched the Bellular video about world revamp that everybody is bitching about and is just an ok video. It does not bring anything new, but interesting, nonetheless.

Yeah I don't know how much reddit has the same discussions we have but I often feel our discussions are just farmed for content . . .

[huth]

Light, please, free me from the Blue Dragonflight chain, it never ends. It's the worst garbage I've seen in my life. I'm right now forced to drink tea and listen to kazoo music like in some shitty, generic chinese game. The fact that people is saying it's the best writing in a decade it's making my head spin.

So don't do it? It's just story. You're not missing out on anything.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

Light, please, free me from the Blue Dragonflight chain, it never ends. It's the worst garbage I've seen in my life. I'm right now forced to drink tea and listen to kazoo music like in some shitty, generic chinese game. The fact that people is saying it's the best writing in a decade it's making my head spin.

You can always go back to afk valddrakken queue simulator, you don't have to do it.

[Makabreska]

Light, please, free me from the Blue Dragonflight chain, it never ends. It's the worst garbage I've seen in my life. I'm right now forced to drink tea and listen to kazoo music like in some shitty, generic chinese game. The fact that people is saying it's the best writing in a decade it's making my head spin.

You want back that 30 sec of your life you spent on that tea drinking moment?

[Zodiark]

You've got a solid point, I did love Mechagon even though it felt like Kul Tiras, same with TI and QD.

As for flying... you're right, in a small zone it could create issues with rares. Forbidden Reach isn't that small but dragonriding makes zones at the same time bigger and smaller due to how fast (but awesome and immersive) it is to travel around! I wonder how they'd make it work in an underground zone. Massive hollow cavern similar to Deepholme perhaps?

So far Dragonriding seems quite hampered by the underground cavern systems. In the open world you can cheat a bit by flying very high and then glide down to regain vigor. Since 10.1 I swear they did a ninja nerf of Dragonriding somehow. Before the patch you could quickly tap the acceleration forward button and fly almost entirely through the Creche on the Forbidden Reach. Afterwards it seems to dismount you much faster indoors. Also during the beginning of the expansion I could fly back and forth across the whole dragon isles while in midair and never loose much vigor. Now, seems like I run out of gas a lot sooner.

Speculating on future flight issues moving forward from what I've read in the datamines looks like there are going to be two types of flying. I think it's called static and dynamic. Static being the old form of flying and dynamic being Dragonriding. While I don't hate Dragonriding I would like to have the option to use other mounts and to switch back and forth between the two options.

That said lets see where the upcoming Kalimdor Dragon races lead us to!

- - - Updated - - -

You want back that 30 sec of your life you spent on that tea drinking moment?

I mean I kinda feel like that about the whole Bronze Dragonflight thing with Nozdormu and Chromie.

[Nymrohd]

So far Dragonriding seems quite hampered by the underground cavern systems.

The issue is that Zaralek has a relatively low ceiling and has very minor elevation differences. Imagine if e.g. Glimerogg and its waterfalls were much higher than most of the zone and the cavern opened up more significantly.
It also really failed to take advantage of the 3D space; they could have added points of interest in stalactites; imagine if the Gaze of Neltharion and Drekazera were hanging from the ceiling instead of being at ground level. Vashj'ir a decade ago had a vastly more creative use of 3D space than Dragon Isles did so far.

[micwini]

The issue is that Zaralek has a relatively low ceiling and has very minor elevation differences. Imagine if e.g. Glimerogg and its waterfalls were much higher than most of the zone and the cavern opened up more significantly.
It also really failed to take advantage of the 3D space; they could have added points of interest in stalactites; imagine if the Gaze of Neltharion and Drekazera were hanging from the ceiling instead of being at ground level. Vashj'ir a decade ago had a vastly more creative use of 3D space than Dragon Isles did so far.

Agreed. There is some small pockets in the ceiling where you can land, but they are unused.

[GabrielKnight]

So don't do it? It's just story. You're not missing out on anything.

I kinda want those crests to be honest. I won't do it on my alts tho, that's for sure. Way too much time wasted on basically crappy fetch quests with zero challenge involved.

I mean I kinda feel like that about the whole Bronze Dragonflight thing with Nozdormu and Chromie.

Yeah, they're on par on sillyness. On a side note, I though the voice acting overall was awful, except maybe for Azuregos, the only guy who I actually knew who he was.

[Nymrohd]

Agreed. There is some small pockets in the ceiling where you can land, but they are unused.

I am increasingly convinced that the engine simply cannot handle multiple events on the same z coordinate. Because their level designers are quite good and I don't see why they would be so restrained with making use of verticality. Both this and interior areas outside instanced content are so scarcely used (and interior areas replicate the same area dozens of times in each xpac) that it must be an engine limitation.

- - - Updated - - -

I mean I kinda feel like that about the whole Bronze Dragonflight thing with Nozdormu and Chromie.

With the Bronze flight quests, the quests themselves are reasonably serious. It's just Chromie and the voice acting that pulls you out of the fantasy instantly. And from the few things available in 10.1.5 the VA has gone camp to the wall only it doesn't seem to work for her nearly as well as for other characters perhaps because there is no threat to it; it just sounds childlike.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Crazy how the term "Warcraft" is basically an ironic name, more so showcasing just how bad War is and whatnot.

Is that a good thing for the franchise?

[Sondrelk]

I am increasingly convinced that the engine simply cannot handle multiple events on the same z coordinate. Because their level designers are quite good and I don't see why they would be so restrained with making use of verticality. Both this and interior areas outside instanced content are so scarcely used (and interior areas replicate the same area dozens of times in each xpac) that it must be an engine limitation.

- - - Updated - - -



With the Bronze flight quests, the quests themselves are reasonably serious. It's just Chromie and the voice acting that pulls you out of the fantasy instantly. And from the few things available in 10.1.5 the VA has gone camp to the wall only it doesn't seem to work for her nearly as well as for other characters perhaps because there is no threat to it; it just sounds childlike.

I imagine much of this would be less of an issue if Chromie dragon form sounded more imposing. Having a full-on male dragon voice might be a bit weird, but at least have it be deeper like what is the case for all the other dragons.

[Nymrohd]

I imagine much of this would be less of an issue if Chromie dragon form sounded more imposing. Having a full-on male dragon voice might be a bit weird, but at least have it be deeper like what is the case for all the other dragons.

Or they could have kept Chromie for light hearted content where she works best and actually used Anachronos and Soridormi for the more serious stuff.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Or they could have kept Chromie for light hearted content where she works best and actually used Anachronos and Soridormi for the more serious stuff.

This. Chromie IMO just doesn't make me feel good as the future of the Bronze Dragonflight. No offense to the voice actress of Chromie, she's playing a role.

You want back that 30 sec of your life you spent on that tea drinking moment?

He needs more WAR!!!!!!!!!!! AND RAWR moments. /sarcasm

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Where Were You When Nozdormurozond Tore?

It was in the year(s) 41 ADP and 21,357 BDP that the timeline split and merged again; the catalyst for this event was the retroactive chronomorphosis of the Bronze Aspect Nozdormu into his counterpart, Murozond. This produced the ongoing catastrophe—at the time unknown to the Dragon Isles expeditionaries on account of the atypical chronological stability there—currently afflicting the primary continents of the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. Due to the retroactive nature of the transformation and its implicit refutation of the absolute timeline, wave function collapse was precluded and the distinction between the timelines fractured in their entirety. For a number of days, incomprehensible madness reigned supreme: every possible outcome of every event occurred in simultaneity, even those which were mutually-contradictory. The dead lived again, as they never died, and expressed horror at the prospect that they had been originally slated to die: for example, Un-Warchief Garrosh Hellscream believed himself to have never fallen, yet also recounted with perfect clarity the initial detonation of his oversoul and the gradual constitution of its successor through the convergence of other iterations.

The following testimonies have shed some (L)ight on these happenings:

High Exarch Yrel, Voice of the Naaru:

"I do not remember where I was, as I do not think I was in one place when it happened. I remember only a sense of terrible fright among all my brothers and sisters, and the state of confusion that followed the reunification of every incarnation of Draenor. What occurred then was beyond description, as though the Void had stretched beyond itself for one, terrifying moment, and swallowed all of time into a state of incomparable singularity. It was only after a couple of days of madness beyond description that the Light reasserted itself, and we found ourselves in concrete reality once again. In the aftermath, the layout of our world changed dramatically: I remember wandering, lost and confused, for ages until I finally found my temple again. It become one with another structure. Though it was horrible for all of us—well, the morbidly-curious were excited—to behold what lay in Tanaan Jungle, it was perhaps worse for us who coexisted with other iterations of ourselves too distinct for reunification: both incarnations of Almonen enjoyed talking to one another, but I will never forget the look on Exarch Akama's face, as much as I wish to forget the face of the other Akama.

Still, I believe this figured into the plan of the Light. I remember the Light Mother undertook to preserve us long before now, and told us that we were on the cusp of accomplishing something glorious. I think our scholars in theocosmology know exactly what happened, and why, yet I fear they somewhat exceed my understanding. The Naaru know even more precisely what happened than they do."

Magister Umbric, Research Director of the Project at Telogrus Rift:

"Hrm? What are you talking about? Oh, yes; I was where I always was. The convergence did not bother me very much, given that I was already quite prepared for it. Such is the nature of our inquiry, after all. This is the precise nature of the Void. Some nonsense about parachronology. It's really not my area of expertise. I would suggest you go ask some of the Locus Researchers. They would know far better than I do the precise workings of what happened. Did seem to bother poor Alleria quite profoundly, however. She was deeply perturbed, and absconded in short order to collect herself. I think there was also a more profound impact on those of us outside of Telogrus, as well. I figure that the blending of selves was not already prepared by immersion in the Void. We suffered a number of casualties, but they were generally limited to the exceptionally weak-willed. I warned Alleria quite plainly not to bother with suffusing all those rangers, but she refused to listen."

Murozond, Aspect of Parachronology:

"Where was I? What kind of idiotic inquiry is that? I was wallowing in the liminal reaches of quasi-existence, in a state of tormented, paratemporal envy; all my sufferings undoubtedly occurring in simultaneity to my counterpart inappreciatively indulging in his gift of concrete, material existence, awaiting the inevitable revelation of his true nature, and that of the oncoming Hour of Twilight. I expect nothing more than condemnation from you lot, but understand that my undertaking was one any of you would pursue under my circumstances. Do you not know the suffering of your countless other selves that never were? Do you feel no desire to escape the boundaries of binary modes of existence? Besides, it is only on account of my intervention that my detested counterpart shall be preserved. On account of my preemptive manifestation, the Timeless One has been safely returned to his placid isle of ignorance; an isle on which he shall wait for whatever—undoubtedly anticlimactic—demise now awaits him. I hold out hope that he falls as Galakrond did."