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

[Auxis]

Something I just realized about the dialogue between Anduin and Faerin that was posted yesterday:

Faerin says, in response to Anduin revealing he's friends with a dragon, that there are dragons in her homeland who appear to not be as friendly as the dragons we are used to. Presuming these dragons are descendants of the green dragon who flew through the storm, I wonder why these particular dragons aren't at least neutral like the ones we are used to? She (the dragon) was an imbued dragon iirc, as she spoke to Tyr about what was to the east (or west, unsure what direction it was); and the only aggressive imbued dragons we've met are basically corrupt or purposely antagonistic.

[Nymrohd]

Something I just realized about the dialogue between Anduin and Faerin that was posted yesterday:

Faerin says, in response to Anduin revealing he's friends with a dragon, that there are dragons in her homeland who appear to not be as friendly as the dragons we are used to. Presuming these dragons are descendants of the green dragon who flew through the storm, I wonder why these particular dragons aren't at least neutral like the ones we are used to? She (the dragon) was an imbued dragon iirc, as she spoke to Tyr about what was to the east (or west, unsure what direction it was); and the only aggressive imbued dragons we've met are basically corrupt or purposely antagonistic.

Or it could be that they have legends of aggressive dragons. I mean, how would a dragon even grant a wish? None of them have reality altering powers. But if you only have heard of them from stories, maybe that has become thematic to them in the local mythology.

[Auxis]

Or it could be that they have legends of aggressive dragons. I mean, how would a dragon even grant a wish? None of them have reality altering powers. But if you only have heard of them from stories, maybe that has become thematic to them in the local mythology.

Fair point. I honestly thought she described them as more present as opposed to a past tense thing, so I went back and checked.

[Nymrohd]

Fair point. I honestly thought she described them as more present as opposed to a past tense thing, so I went back and checked.

I'd say from a gameplay perspective it makes more sense for there to be dragons since that is an additional npc type to encounter when we get there.

Heck why just Green dragons? Maybe blacks also went there after the Sundering. After all, who would know? And Black dragons could get there from underground

[Auxis]

I'd say from a gameplay perspective it makes more sense for there to be dragons since that is an additional npc type to encounter when we get there.

Agreed; it sounds like your standard fantastic-medieval kingdom with added steam-punk stuff (if Hallowfall is any indication), and dragons are pretty centric to those types of stories.

[Makorus]

Something I just realized about the dialogue between Anduin and Faerin that was posted yesterday:

Faerin says, in response to Anduin revealing he's friends with a dragon, that there are dragons in her homeland who appear to not be as friendly as the dragons we are used to. Presuming these dragons are descendants of the green dragon who flew through the storm, I wonder why these particular dragons aren't at least neutral like the ones we are used to? She (the dragon) was an imbued dragon iirc, as she spoke to Tyr about what was to the east (or west, unsure what direction it was); and the only aggressive imbued dragons we've met are basically corrupt or purposely antagonistic.

You have to remember that the Empire is an inherently xenophobic and antagonistic force, so you have to look at any claims from that perspective.

Maybe the dragons over there are aggressive because the Empire antagonised them to begin with.

[Scyth]

Unpopular opinion, while Fyrrak is obviously as two dimensional as it gets, I actually have a soft spot for him, mostly due to his raid encounter dialogue. He's such an asshole and gets deeply, guttingly personal and petty, especially with Alex and Merithra. I kinda like it. Only other character that really seems that directly unpleasant was Nathanos. I wouldn't hate him staying Fire Lord.

I loved him as a character in general. He was a cheeky asshole, can't hate that lol I do also hope he ends up being the new Firelord, would be very fitting for him.

Nathanos on the other hand can do one, hate him with a passion

[Nymrohd]

You have to remember that the Empire is an inherently xenophobic and antagonistic force, so you have to look at any claims from that perspective.

Maybe the dragons over there are aggressive because the Empire antagonised them to begin with.

Most likely. There need to be allies for us there. 4 renown faction so dragons can be one, some form of rebellion is an other. Add a cute oppressed animal race and an existing race with a new spin and we have ourselves an xpac.

[Samin]

Or it could be that they have legends of aggressive dragons. I mean, how would a dragon even grant a wish? None of them have reality altering powers. But if you only have heard of them from stories, maybe that has become thematic to them in the local mythology.

How is magic not reality altering power? It would depend on the wish.

But regardless I agree that it's still ambiguous if the Empire knows dragons only from legend or as (living) legends.

[Makorus]

Yup - they lack AdvFly animations in the viewer, and it likely needs some scaling adjustments, but otherwise she looks perfect.



I feel like a semi-sentient paper plate would be better than Smolderon. I mean, I guess it's better than Ragnaros for the third time?

Unpopular opinion, while Fyrrak is obviously as two dimensional as it gets, I actually have a soft spot for him, mostly due to his raid encounter dialogue. He's such an asshole and gets deeply, guttingly personal and petty, especially with Alex and Merithra. I kinda like it. Only other character that really seems that directly unpleasant was Nathanos. I wouldn't hate him staying Fire Lord.

I fucking love Fyrakk. Not everyone needs to be an insanely deep character. Some characters are just inherently insane and want to murder stuff, and get stronger to murder more stuff.

From his first appearance, to his last, he was shown as rash and just in it to kill stuff. The development he got in the 10.2 cinematic was actually really really good, because it showed him having a bit of "little brother" syndrome where he seems insecure because his siblings think he is just a stupid idiot who can't do anything, so he tries to prove them wrong by burning down a World Tree. It's a nice little bow on a simplistic character.

[Cheezits]

Something I just realized about the dialogue between Anduin and Faerin that was posted yesterday:

Faerin says, in response to Anduin revealing he's friends with a dragon, that there are dragons in her homeland who appear to not be as friendly as the dragons we are used to. Presuming these dragons are descendants of the green dragon who flew through the storm, I wonder why these particular dragons aren't at least neutral like the ones we are used to? She (the dragon) was an imbued dragon iirc, as she spoke to Tyr about what was to the east (or west, unsure what direction it was); and the only aggressive imbued dragons we've met are basically corrupt or purposely antagonistic.

She also said that the dragons grant wishes. AFAIK this is a new behavior.

[allegrian]

I'm down for another take on dragons in WoW. Dragonflight is proof that wow's take on dragons is super boring and focuses too much on them being shape shifting elves. At least in vanilla they felt menacing.

[Xilurm]

It could just be some myth though. Or the dragon has some artifact that creates things? I doubt that the dragons actually grant wishes.

Don't take everything TOO literal.

[Ersula]

She also said that the dragons grant wishes. AFAIK this is a new behavior.

Emerald is the flight that has power over dreams. Manifesting a dream isn't that hard.

[Nathanyel]

Yeah I really hope they do this with Thalassian Elves. They start off in a revamped area in QT and then they can join the Sin'dorei (Horde) or the Quel'dorei (Alliance), or RP as a neutral party.

Absolutely a proponent of this. BE and VE would be merged into a neutral Thalassian Elves race and from that, you can select a subrace: [Thal'dorei,] Sin'dorei and Ren'dorei, which mostly determine the racials, but also access to some customizations: obviously the current VE-exclusive stuff would require being a Ren'dorei, and then the other subrace(s) would need specific ones, too, for example golden and/or fel-green eyes could be unavailable for Ren'dorei, but more is needed in that regard.
Obviously, this enables Alliance-side High/Blood Elves, and Horde-side Void Elves (Midnight has to address why they're allowed near the Sunwell again - it's likely only Alleria that's truly dangerous, but there exists a definite mistrust towards all Void users - ignoring Shadow Priests or Void-themed weapons/gear for gameplay reasons, of course)

Similarly, Kaldorei and Shal'dorei could be merged into a neutral "Darnassian" (needs new name) race. Alliance-side Nightborne are easy, especially with rude Tyrande not being the Kaldorei leader anymore, but the most obvious hindrance is that this allows Horde-aligned Night Elves - but with factions such as the Moonguard (neutral) or the Eldre'thalas mages (only rejoined the Night Elves 'recently') that weren't as involved in the H/A conflict, plus the already 7 ingame years of peace as of TWW, it is easy to justify individuals that adventure with a Horde-majority group, or even partake on the Horde side in the re-enactments that Battlegrounds are.

(You might've noticed I played fast and loose with the "Elven" and the English/localized race names, a nice side feature of this change could be that you could choose either e.g. "Kaldorei" or "Night Elf" as your displayed race name - and other players could disable that globally to only see English/localized names, of course)

I doubt there'll ever be a true conflict between Horde and Alliance again, so I see no long-term issues with making these races neutral, available on both factions. The factions will stay, but mostly for reasons of legacy gameplay and spaghetti code.

I'm fine with [the Earthen] wanting to learn about the factions this way, but the fact that joining one means you will inevitably be involved in violent confrontation with the other, at least by accessory, makes the "not politically affiliated" part seem crazy. In practice, you're either a spy or a sympathizer; you have to be one or the other.

First, to copy from a few lines up: I doubt there'll ever be a true conflict between Horde and Alliance again.
Second, the Earthen members of the factions could just refuse to take part.
Third, since there is no Earthen subfaction that allies with the factions unlike with Pandaren and Dracthyr, each player Earthen is just some individual, not bound by the views of their race/order/etc. as a whole, so they could in fact choose to fight for Faction A against their brethren in Faction B.

Personally I hope that at the end of the trilogy, factions are just removed. They have removed any point to them, just go all the way.

Hot take: WoW only had two enemy factions because that was what many MMOs at the time had. At least removing the faction barriers would take the world back to a state of the world more akin to the one after WC3.

There is no good Horde NPC left after so many massacres on our old cast. That's why Blizzard is forced to take one time questgivers from wotlk now.

How can you call yourself a Horde fan and then talk about Gorgonna like that?

[AOL Instant Messenger]

I doubt there'll ever be a true conflict between Horde and Alliance again, so I see no long-term issues with making these races neutral, available on both factions. The factions will stay, but mostly for reasons of legacy gameplay and spaghetti code.

Why, yes, I would love to see faction identity butchered further until the core conflict of the story is reduced to a pair of identical duds differentiated only by color and semantics.

[Raetary]

They added the various MoP world drop/quest sets to the appearance tab.

[Nymrohd]

Hot take: WoW only had two enemy factions because that was what many MMOs at the time had. At least removing the faction barriers would take the world back to a state of the world more akin to the one after WC3.

How can you call yourself a Horde fan and then talk about Gorgonna like that?

Imagine if it had 4 or 5 factions. Cross play from day one. What a different world it'd be.
And Grazrug is not a Horde fan, he is a WC2 Horde fan.

- - - Updated - - -

Why, yes, I would love to see faction identity butchered further until the core conflict of the story is reduced to a pair of identical duds differentiated only by color and semantics.

It's already there. Remove it altogether. Maybe then you can develop racial identity and cultures without shackling them to factions they never fit on to begin with.

[Cheezits]

Keep Velf as its own thing. Helf and Belf should be the split. No weird powers, they sound the same, it's literally just politics. They can share paladin mounts with different colors as well.

[Ersula]

Hot take: WoW only had two enemy factions because that was what many MMOs at the time had. At least removing the faction barriers would take the world back to a state of the world more akin to the one after WC3.

Only Everquest 2 had two factions. It's other contemporaries were Dark Age of Camelot (3 player factions) and Anarchy Online (3 player factions)