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

[milkmustache]

Classic? Seems like she's clarifiying they don't intend to remove the cata era versions of the zones when they update Azeroth they way they did in Catalcysm. A new version of old Teldrassil doesn't make sense, and if they really wanted to that's what Seasonal Classic is for.

Unless they plan on giving Night Elves a new worldtree every other expansion which would be so gd stupid.

I think she is referring to Teldrassil the zone opposed to Teldrassil the world tree, and the idea of a night elf starting out in this shady purpled forest, just as they did in Vanilla (and Cata).

The current process for a brand new character on a fresh account is Exile's Reach > BFA (DF as of late summer), which I suppose is fine in terms of tech/gameplay, but there is no ability to create a bond with your race or understand the depth of their existence in the world. The only opportunity a new player gets to do that is to go back and make an alt after doing Exile's Reach, which is unlikely for them to do at the time.

So I think the idea of abandoning Exile's Reach, where let's face it we see virtually zero race and faction lore, it's just the same characters reskinned for Horde and Alliance, and rebuilding racial starting zones as almost a sequel to the heritage quests can be incredibly beneficial for strengthening the worldbuilding with races that has started to dissapate, and I think that general idea is what Holly says the team is aware of and looking into.

[Hitei]

Unlike Legion it is not the end of a saga, but a beginning of one. In fact I'd be extremely surprised if they didn't make TWW the levelling experience starting with Midnight.

When it was first confirmed they used the expression "going forward", which doesn't really make sense used in place of "just for the next expansion". The fact that it's the start of a saga doesn't change that a new player would have absolutely no idea what is going on if dropped directly into it.

[Ersula]

I think she is referring to Teldrassil the zone opposed to Teldrassil the world tree, and the idea of a night elf starting out in this shady purpled forest, just as they did in Vanilla (and Cata).

You can still do that. We don't need 3 versions of the Night Elf starting zone. And we don't need 3 versions of starting zone in retail.

[milkmustache]

When it was first confirmed they used the expression "going forward", which doesn't really make sense used in place of "just for the next expansion". The fact that it's the start of a saga doesn't change that a new player would have absolutely no idea what is going on if dropped directly into it.

I think this sorta doubles down with Midnight though. If they start in easy peasy Dragonflight and then immediately drop into (what seems like it will be) an all out war against the Void in a massive elven kingdom, there's still a lot of questions.

Bringing TWW as the leveling experience at least leads in many story ties including Xal'atath, Alleria and Anduin who will all be main focuses on top of additional lore about our war with the Void.

- - - Updated - - -

You can still do that. We don't need 3 versions of the Night Elf starting zone. And we don't need 3 versions of starting zone in retail.

Not as a brand new player you can't. I'm referring to day one, new account, first ever character you have to do Exile's Reach before all else.

You're right, you can return and redo the Cata starting zone, but that's not Vanilla. Night Elves are just the example being used. The same can be said for dwarves, or tauren. A new player making a tauren is just making a giant bull because it's cool, they won't know about Mulgore and the nature of their culture.

Making racial starting zones that maybe also work as racial campaigns that can be used as leveling I think can alleviate issues of lack of racial identity that is seriously missing.

[Hitei]

I think this sorta doubles down with Midnight though. If they start in easy peasy Dragonflight and then immediately drop into (what seems like it will be) an all out war against the Void in a massive elven kingdom, there's still a lot of questions.

Bringing TWW as the leveling experience at least leads in many story ties including Xal'atath, Alleria and Anduin who will all be main focuses on top of additional lore about our war with the Void.

You're just frontloading the plunge. TWW doesn't do any better a job at explaining those three characters anywhere near enough, so in your hypothetical they are just getting thrown off the cliff immediately after Exile's Reach. Imagine finishing ER and then the game is like "oh btw, Titans and Earthen and Void and World Souls' coreway to the center of the planet, help former-jailer's-DK-sadAnduin-once-king-of-stormwind working with Void-infused-Alleria-maybe-evil-whispers-with-shadowmummy-friend fighting Old God forces, the floating magic city is destroyed."

If they are sent to DF first, they can at least get a feel for systems, the game, the sort of quests that happen, etc. as they go 10-70, and then get dropped into Midnight, which is at least vaguely comprehensible as just simply being "the evil shadow guys are invading the Elf kingdom".

Better for them to have a grasp on things for 70 levels and then confused for the last 10, than have a grasp on things for 10 levels and then get thrown into the middle of the ocean for the next 70.

[allegrian]

DF is super bad for new players. The story has no focus nor direction and touches too many old lore stuff that's not explained to the player, like Aspects, titans, Deathwing, time travel stuff touching but not explaining old lore, and the burning of teldrassil as amirdrassil is the conclusion to that.

On the other hand, a new player going through the alliance BFA gets to learn about kul tiras, a new kingdom of humans in a pretty self contained story that doesn't require much previous lore knowledge.

[Skildar]

I don't get it, why can't they make new players start with the latest expansion - The War Within? oO' That would be so much easier to get into the game...

[Dwarfbeater]

DF is super bad for new players. The story has no focus nor direction and touches too many old lore stuff that's not explained to the player, like Aspects, titans, Deathwing, time travel stuff touching but not explaining old lore, and the burning of teldrassil as amirdrassil is the conclusion to that.

On the other hand, a new player going through the alliance BFA gets to learn about kul tiras, a new kingdom of humans in a pretty self contained story that doesn't require much previous lore knowledge.

Since when is Kul tiras a new kingdom of humans?.....

[Hitei]

DF is super bad for new players. The story has no focus nor direction and touches too many old lore stuff that's not explained to the player, like Aspects, titans, Deathwing, time travel stuff touching but not explaining old lore, and the burning of teldrassil as amirdrassil is the conclusion to that.

None of this is particularly front and center. Teldrassil and Amirdrassil's storyline are buried behind max level quests and a patch zone. Deathwing's story is, besides a brief mention in Waking Shores, buried behind a patch zone. The titans are simply mentioned as the thing the aspects work for, and the aspects are simply the leader of the dragons.

DF is very, very straightfoward.

You get recruited to explore an island to help the dragons. You show up and fight elementals, some giants who are old enemies of the dragons, and a group calling themselves primalists who also hate the dragons. All of these are self-contained and explained in the questing. You finish that and go help the self-contained centaurs also fight the primalists, and then also the green dragons. Then you go to Azure span, and help a group of mages fight the primalists, and some walrus people fight gnoll monsters. And then at the end you help time-travelling dragons.

It requires nearly zero foreknowledge. Almost the entirety of the conflicts involved in the DF leveling process are DF specific and DF original. The "old lore stuff" is distant background explored later in max level quests, raid tiers, and patch zones that a new player won't touch, because they'll hit 70 and get redirected to current stuff.

[Izalla]

I don't get it, why can't they make new player start with the latest expansion? oO' That would be so much easier to get into the game...

Because that does not get most people into the game. Unlike jaded long time players claim, for most people picking up a game expecting to have an adventure in a new world, the "real game" does not begin at max level. Dumping new players with no connection to the world or characters into the newest content is a great way to overwhelm them and make sure they don't keep playing. Starting off on a small scale focusing on your local problems and immersing you in your race's culture, home, and story helps people dip their toe in and get curious about the bigger world after they've got a sense of who they are (as their new character).

That is what Holly is referring to. When you start out your journey as "new night elf exploring Teldrassil" instead of "random adventurer with zero context who is then suddenly a war hero epic god-like being with all these friends and enemies you've never heard of before", it's much easier to connect to your character and thus the game itself.

But for people who aren't absurdly literal, it's obvious her Teldrassil comment was an example of her personal journey starting a character, and how they aim to deliver that same FEELING and experience in future. It was not a comment about how future new players will use Chromie time to do Cata Era Teldrassil as someone else suggested. >.>

[Khaza-R]

TWW -> MN -> TLT somewhat gives me Vanilla -> TBC -> WotLK vibes.

I could see them fitting that into a more cohesive new player experience. Especially since they're all going to share the same evergreen systems. Its easier to build an introductory experience into that rather than something already outdated like DF will be.

[Cheezits]

I had a feeling that we were getting updated starting zones ever since it was stated that Decatriarch Wratheye wanted to attack Amirdrassil.

The plotline doesn't really line up with this saga, but it definitely sounds like a starting zone plotlibe for new night elves that start in Bel'ameth.

[allegrian]

Since when is Kul tiras a new kingdom of humans?.....

New to the player, and to the wow story as it's the first time we get there.

[Skildar]

Because that does not get most people into the game. Unlike jaded long time players claim, for most people picking up a game expecting to have an adventure in a new world, the "real game" does not begin at max level. Dumping new players with no connection to the world or characters into the newest content is a great way to overwhelm them and make sure they don't keep playing. Starting off on a small scale focusing on your local problems and immersing you in your race's culture, home, and story helps people dip their toe in and get curious about the bigger world after they've got a sense of who they are (as their new character).

That is what Holly is referring to. When you start out your journey as "new night elf exploring Teldrassil" instead of "random adventurer with zero context who is then suddenly a war hero epic god-like being with all these friends and enemies you've never heard of before", it's much easier to connect to your character and thus the game itself.

But for people who aren't absurdly literal, it's obvious her Teldrassil comment was an example of her personal journey starting a character, and how they aim to deliver that same FEELING and experience in future. It was not a comment about how future new players will use Chromie time to do Cata Era Teldrassil as someone else suggested. >.>

I'm having a hard time following your train of thought. But what you first describe as "dumping players into the newest content etc." is exactly what is happening regardless, except it's one of the newest instead of the newest.

When i think about it a bit more, there are technical downsides to letting new players dive directly into the current expansion (TWW in our case). People that just use the try out until lvl 20 and those who don't pay the latest expansion would have to go chromie time in a different expansion. Anyway the game direly needs a cleaner starting experience that exudes love for the races and factions you get to play.

[allegrian]

I don't get it, why can't they make new players start with the latest expansion - The War Within? oO' That would be so much easier to get into the game...

Because that requires buying the latest expansion. A new player starts with a free trial and then they can level up to 60 with a suscription, then they have to buy the latest expansion.

To make room for that, new expansions should be made free or they would make new players pay for it upfront wich wouldn't attract as many.

[Xilurm]

DF is super bad for new players. The story has no focus nor direction and touches too many old lore stuff that's not explained to the player, like Aspects, titans, Deathwing, time travel stuff touching but not explaining old lore, and the burning of teldrassil as amirdrassil is the conclusion to that.

On the other hand, a new player going through the alliance BFA gets to learn about kul tiras, a new kingdom of humans in a pretty self contained story that doesn't require much previous lore knowledge.

Like vanilla did. To this day the levelling progression before the level squish and chromie time was the best.

[allegrian]

None of this is particularly front and center. Teldrassil and Amirdrassil's storyline are buried behind max level quests and a patch zone. Deathwing's story is, besides a brief mention in Waking Shores, buried behind a patch zone. The titans are simply mentioned as the thing the aspects work for, and the aspects are simply the leader of the dragons.

DF is very, very straightfoward.

You get recruited to explore an island to help the dragons. You show up and fight elementals, some giants who are old enemies of the dragons, and a group calling themselves primalists who also hate the dragons. All of these are self-contained and explained in the questing. You finish that and go help the self-contained centaurs also fight the primalists, and then also the green dragons. Then you go to Azure span, and help a group of mages fight the primalists, and some walrus people fight gnoll monsters. And then at the end you help time-travelling dragons.

It requires nearly zero foreknowledge. Almost the entirety of the conflicts involved in the DF leveling process are DF specific and DF original. The "old lore stuff" is distant background explored later in max level quests, raid tiers, and patch zones that a new player won't touch, because they'll hit 70 and get redirected to current stuff.

The patch zones are turned into leveling zones and a new player will probably end up picking the breadcrumb quests that bring them there anyway. I hope blizz makes those quests appear one after the other and not have all of them at the same time in valdrakken as it is now when you hit 70 with an alt.

[milkmustache]

The patch zones are turned into leveling zones and a new player will probably end up picking the breadcrumb quests that bring them there anyway. I hope blizz makes those quests appear one after the other and not have all of them at the same time in valdrakken as it is now when you hit 70 with an alt.

They're already doing an update to that with Warbands. If you've completed it within your Warband, it will be a greyed out quest marker instead of the standard.

I think they should do post expansion cleanup and just make it all a single campaign track for the level up.

[allegrian]

Like vanilla did. To this day the levelling progression before the level squish and chromie time was the best.

Vanilla, depending on race/faction, was pretty straight forward story-wise and it made sure to introduce you to everything, you didn't feel like you started the netflix series on its 10th season with no previous knowledge. If you play human you learn the story of the defias and the mistery of the missing king, then you learn about the dark irons and their stuff with ragnaros. On night elf lands you learn more about the faction conflict and druidy stuff.

The story in vanilla was not like wow stories from wod onwards, they were worldbuilding stories and not character/hero stories. DF is a hero story where the heroes are the aspects, wrathion, tyrande and so on, with the incarnates as the main villains. It's disjointed as each zone features different and unrelated stories and characters that require previous lore knowledge. Kul tiras on itself is a pretty straight forward adventure in a human kingdom facing pirates, cultists and witches, where the major characters are all new besides Jaina, who doesn't appear after the intro until the postgame stuff that new players won't see before DF anyway.

[Xilurm]

Vanilla, depending on race/faction, was pretty straight forward story-wise and it made sure to introduce you to everything, you didn't feel like you started the netflix series on its 10th season with no previous knowledge. If you play human you learn the story of the defias and the mistery of the missing king, then you learn about the dark irons and their stuff with ragnaros. On night elf lands you learn more about the faction conflict and druidy stuff.

The story in vanilla was not like wow stories from wod onwards, they were worldbuilding stories and not character/hero stories. DF is a hero story where the heroes are the aspects, wrathion, tyrande and so on, with the incarnates as the main villains. It's disjointed as each zone features different and unrelated stories and characters that require previous lore knowledge. Kul tiras on itself is a pretty straight forward adventure in a human kingdom facing pirates, cultists and witches, where the major characters are all new besides Jaina, who doesn't appear after the intro until the postgame stuff that new players won't see before DF anyway.

Unfortunately any expansion after Vanilla feels like that imo. BFA feels like that for me a lot.