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

[Makorus]

I assumed it was like the MoP paid beta access which happened in waves.

It's in their best interest to get as many people into Beta as possible.

Dungeon testing was nigh impossible in Alpha apparently.

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I really hope Undermine(?) comes soon. It is the one thing post-launch I am looking forward to in TWW, outside of a swerve with surprise Qiraji appearing.

Rootlands sounds way too similar to Dream/Everbloom, I'm not a huge fan of the Harronir, and I am not very excited about Underground Silithus unless it has said Qiraji party. I of course am assuming that Rootlands is not the last patch when it very well could be.

Also, they are introducing the Undersea in this expansion so on names alone I think the Goblin patch will probably be Undermine.

I still don't think this Rootlands thing is happening, at least not in TWW. Undermine is 100% coming, everything lines up perfectly.

[Dracullus]

Wait, the paid beta access is IMMEDIATE? Did the epic edition sell that badly that they can afford to do that?

Lol, totally dude. You will see how "badly" epic sold on early access day. Blizzard can fuck up many, many things, making money is never one of them.

[Raetary]

I still don't think this Rootlands thing is happening, at least not in TWW. Undermine is 100% coming, everything lines up perfectly.

The Rootlands have a name, have a very obvious location (the giant open space on the map that the roots are coming out of) and the roots are already narratively tied to the Old God blood.

Lets not pull another Amirdrassil pls.
When it looks like a duck, mentioned to be a duck and is conveniontly placed exactly where you would expect a duck to be, then it is in fact a duck.

[Nymrohd]

Lol, totally dude. You will see how "badly" epic sold on early access day. Blizzard can fuck up many, many things, making money is never one of them.

I am not going "Wow is doomed" and for a regular in this thread it is asinine to imply that I of all people am doing that. I am just surprised that they'd do such a massive beta wave so I was wondering if it's not that massive after all and that is why they can afford it. There is a global cost of living crisis right now so people picking the cheap pre-order instead of the epic one would not be that crazy.

[Hitei]

Lol, totally dude. You will see how "badly" epic sold on early access day. Blizzard can fuck up many, many things, making money is never one of them.

That beta access is immediate is a very strong indication that not all that many people have bothered buying the Epic edition so far. If it had a huge amount of people behind it, they'd want to split it into waves as was done with MoP.

[Makabreska]

I am not going "Wow is doomed" and for a regular in this thread it is asinine to imply that I of all people am doing that. I am just surprised that they'd do such a massive beta wave so I was wondering if it's not that massive after all and that is why they can afford it. There is a global cost of living crisis right now so people picking the cheap pre-order instead of the epic one would not be that crazy.

Well, over 1 million players bought D4 early access. I don't think it will be any different in TWW, especially considering much bigger pressure to not be left behind.

[Nymrohd]

Well, over 1 million players bought D4 early access. I don't think it will be any different in TWW, especially considering much bigger pressure to not be left behind.

Crazy then that they are doing what will be close to an open beta then!

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That beta access is immediate is a very strong indication that not all that many people have bothered buying the Epic edition so far. If it had a huge amount of people behind it, they'd want to split it into waves as was done with MoP.

Or they have strong indication that a lot of people might have beta access but won't end up using it?

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Breaking them up so they can engage in conflict is the only reason to do so. The only reason to have faction collapse is to enable politics. In a world state with zero politics where everyone's part of the Greater Anduinic Mass, the only thing better than having two identical factions is having one.

I just don't agree. I think you can have thematic blocks of races which help you right a story that is engaging to the greater number of players; by telegraphing such blocks you built in narrative inclusion by using a smaller roster of characters which is what they prefer to do; e.g. in such a paradigm Alleria would not be just an Alliance character, she would be a Highborne culture character.

[Dracullus]

I am not going "Wow is doomed" and for a regular in this thread it is asinine to imply that I of all people am doing that. I am just surprised that they'd do such a massive beta wave so I was wondering if it's not that massive after all and that is why they can afford it. There is a global cost of living crisis right now so people picking the cheap pre-order instead of the epic one would not be that crazy.

One small problem in your theory - nothing suggested Beta invites will be staggered. I even argued here how staggering something you paid for in 2020s would be PR disaster.

Paid beta/early acccess is just Blizzard adjusting WoW to shitty industry standards (which they help creating with Diablo 4).

[Hitei]

Crazy then that they are doing what will be close to an open beta then!

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Or they have strong indication that a lot of people might have beta access but won't end up using it?

It should be well documented that I, of all people, do not subscribe to doomposting "omg wow is dead".

Suppose that ultimate pre-order and day one sales are 3-3.5 million (this is in line with previous expansions people are excited about). Now suppose that say, only a third of those have already pre-ordered this early (1M) and that of those, a third are Epic, i.e. 300,000.

Even if we assume that 80%+ of people are not going to touch beta, do you think Blizzard wants to dump 50,000 players into a couple realms at once?

Each epic edition sold is effectively a beta key if they are immediate access. I really, really can't see Blizzard wanting to send out hundreds of thousands of beta keys at once. They made it conditional and didn't announce what the access would look like until now because they wanted to be able to delay access into waves if there were just too many people to let in at once.

Now they are not only making it immediate access, but also advertising that it includes immediate access in an effort to make the edition look more lucrative, i.e. attempting to sell more immediate access beta keys


It is very safe to assume that not that many people have bought the edition. This doesn't mean that the game is dying, or that TWW isn't going to sell well, or even that people won't ultimately upgrade because of the pressure of EA. It just means not many people have paid into the edition right now.

[Ersula]

That beta access is immediate is a very strong indication that not all that many people have bothered buying the Epic edition so far. If it had a huge amount of people behind it, they'd want to split it into waves as was done with MoP.

WoW had nearly twice as many subs at the time of MoP's launch as it does the post-legion average. Not to mention the epic edition was overpriced by design. Plus the way server capacity works is way different. WoW can handle hundreds of thousands of people playing the beta at once.

I think people are reading too much into it.

[Super Dickmann]

I just don't agree. I think you can have thematic blocks of races which help you right a story that is engaging to the greater number of players; by telegraphing such blocks you built in narrative inclusion by using a smaller roster of characters which is what they prefer to do; e.g. in such a paradigm Alleria would not be just an Alliance character, she would be a Highborne culture character.

This doesn't translate to how characters are actually perceived because these unstated blocks already exist. It's the issue with the current state of affairs. One can gab their ear off about how Thrall was the 'World' Shaman, or how the Dream concerns all of us and that's why helping Night Elves is really a neutral state of affairs or that Khadgar and Alleria are talking about peace now, but that doesn't change the basic arithmetic. The biggest shaman and the Warchief of the Horde is someone who Horde players will care more about. If you don't care about Night Elves, no amount of them fighting universal baddies or being sad will change that you're in three expansions straight of doing their bitchwork in their magical forest, with their npcs with their aesthetic. A dwarf, or an undead or an orc does not gel. No product positioning of Alleria will make her any less a premier WC2 Alliance character, and no coat of red paint over the current blood elves makes them less thematically Alliance, because of the basic fact that they're an established holy kingdom of magical elves who're against dark powers and have no real troubles.

[Hitei]

WoW had nearly twice as many subs at the time of MoP's launch as it does the post-legion average. Not to mention the epic edition was overpriced by design. I think people are reading too much into it.

Again. MoP sold fewer pre-orders than any other expansion since Cata besides DF.

[Grazrug]

Maybe he actually isn't that key? Or a goofy gobbo would not fit here? I dunno.

Literally No one but muh honor dude bros care about Gazlowe. Gallywix is the real cool Goblin character.

[Ersula]

Again. MoP sold fewer pre-orders than any other expansion since Cata besides DF.

Cool. How many people pre-ordering TWW actually bought the nearly 100 dollar version? And what fraction of those people did it for beta access & not the cosmetic items? Because thats the figure you're actually comparing.

[Hitei]

Cool. How many people pre-ordering TWW actually bought the nearly 100 dollar version?

Few? Hello? That is my entire point. What are you even talking about.

[Makabreska]

Again. MoP sold fewer pre-orders than any other expansion since Cata besides DF.

You know that there was Annual Pass? You didn't have to pre-order to get guaranteed beta access.

[Nymrohd]

Literally No one but muh honor dude bros care about Gazlowe. Gallywix is the real cool Goblin character.

Gazlowe is the actual Horde goblin dating back to the RTS games.

[Xilurm]

Do you think we'll get a release date with Beta launch? Regardless the Beta is early in June, they should be announcing a release date in June if they plan on releasing in August.

And that's because they announce expansion release dates 2 months before said date.

[Lahis]

So when we have Earthen Dwarves and new Human faction it's full Alliance, but expansion literally set in Quel'Thalas and Amani (also with chance of Forsaken themes if they keep Ghostlands) is totally neutral. Got it.

Well 2 of the 3 Thalassian groups are aligned to Alliance.

[Hitei]

You know that there was Annual Pass? You didn't have to pre-order to get guaranteed beta access.

Yeah, I suppose that's true. I guess then you'd have to guess what is more likely, people buying annual pass or pre-ordering. The rest of the point still stands though, if there were a significant number of epic pre-orders, they wouldn't be making it immediate access and advertising to try and get even more people who want into beta to buy into immediate access.