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

[Eurhetemec]

Tbf, I never liked the centaurs either haha. Although I thought they did it in order to prevent over population or some shit?

Explicitly it is, yes.

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Aren’t the wild hunts just an always up version of these quest? with multiple stages each where you kill various animals ending with a big version.

No, because they're about hunting for an actual reason - either to prevent overpopulation or provide food (or both) - not for the sake of gratuitous cruelty and greed, which is what Nesingwary was specifically about. The Nesingwary quests are surprisingly well-written in the sense that Nesingwary always comes across as a very creepy psycho.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

No, because they're about hunting for an actual reason - either to prevent overpopulation or provide food (or both) - not for the sake of gratuitous cruelty and greed, which is what Nesingwary was specifically about. The Nesingwary quests are surprisingly well-written in the sense that Nesingwary always comes across as a very creepy psycho.

I mean some of the stages are for food or population but there is also just flat out trophy hunting which is what the big mobs tend to be and they even give hunting trophy’s for you to turn in.

Nesingwary May be worse as he doesn’t have the good part mixed in but we are still very much hunting for greed.

[Xilurm]

I don't trust you on this, in fact I know you're wrong.

There's a reason trash like that was written out - it's because it's offputting and fucked-seeming to most players, especially casual ones, and whilst one or two quests like that is probably not making anyone feel grossed out and stop playing, bunches of them (which MoP has) is.

Reminds me of that one time I saw a video on youtube claiming WoW was being made by the devil because at the Night Elf starting zone you're forced to do quests where you gotta prune to local wildlife.

Either way, MoP wasn't even the worst. The previous expansion pretty much all had that. Classic was insane by giving you 30 of each species to kill iirc.

[Eurhetemec]

I mean some of the stages are for food or population but there is also just flat out trophy hunting which is what the big mobs tend to be and they even give hunting trophy’s for you to turn in.

Nesingwary May be worse as he doesn’t have the good part mixed in but we are still very much hunting for greed.

It's all about context and tone, isn't it? If you're killing a bunch of weak NPCs and they're named and dressed as enemy soldiers and screaming that they're attacking and stuff it's cool. If you're killing a bunch of weak NPCs and they're named and dressed civilians and saying "don't kill me!" and stuff, it's not so cool.

It's the same with hunting. The Nesingwary stuff makes you feel dirty, if you're a person capable of feeling things (several posters here are proud to claim they are not, so we can exclude them), because it's just financial greed and cruelty. The centaur stuff is more reasonable because of the way it's couched - even with what you're calling trophy hunting, the implication is that it's necessary and the animals will still be eaten etc. So people don't feel like shits doing it.

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Either way, MoP wasn't even the worst. The previous expansion pretty much all had that. Classic was insane by giving you 30 of each species to kill iirc.

Cataclysm was much worse than MoP on every level yeah. It's the worst-written WoW expansion by far. Vanilla was pretty insane but to be fair they were in a learning process on a lot of levels.

[Xilurm]

Aren’t the wild hunts just an always up version of these quest? with multiple stages each where you kill various animals ending with a big version.

Not to mention the amount of just flat out murdering we've done during the years. We're Azeroth's biggest killing machine.

[Eurhetemec]

Not to mention the amount of just flat out murdering we've done during the years. We're Azeroth's biggest killing machine.

We definitely are - but in most expansions and most quests Blizzard is good at giving it context which makes it seem okay.

Players aren't usually deep thinkers. They're not going to elaborately consider every quest or whatever. But context and vibes totally do matter. And Nesingwary and some other MoP stuff has absolutely rancid vibes, whereas other MoP stuff doesn't. Cataclysm was the absolute peak of "rancid vibes", probably because a totally rancid and gross creeper was in charge of WoW at the time (Afrasiabi), and the culture inside Blizzard back then feels very cokehead (I know of, as a friend-of-a-friend admittedly, a composer who stopped working with them because they were such cokehead fucks at the time). MoP is a hell of an improvement, clearly there was some internal pushback after Cataclysm caused WoW to suffer a massive population drop (from dozens of different dumb ideas, to be clear, not just rancid quests). WoD was an improvement again, and I'd argue Legion was an improvement on that. Pretty much every WoW expansion since has been well-written, quest-wise (at least relatively so). SL had dumb-as-fuck overarching lore, but the quests themselves were fine.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

It's the same with hunting. The Nesingwary stuff makes you feel dirty, if you're a person capable of feeling things (several posters here are proud to claim they are not, so we can exclude them), because it's just financial greed and cruelty. The centaur stuff is more reasonable because of the way it's couched - even with what you're calling trophy hunting, the implication is that it's necessary and the animals will still be eaten etc. So people don't feel like shits doing it.

I agree but other then the quest where they say they will take recourses we then we also get stuff like this.

Rude Awakening

Waken and hunt Khuumog.
Khuumog defeated
Scout Tomul says: A wild creature stalks this land. Come, join the hunt. Prove your skill!

Otter Devastation

Find and hunt Zagdech.
Zagdech defeated
Scout Tomul says: Ah, the hunt is upon us! This target will test your mettle, two-foot. Are you prepared?

So the centaurs seems to be playing
Both ends of hunting, looking out for the ecosystem but also getting in abunch of hunting just for the sake of it like Nesingwary.

[Xilurm]

No, because they're about hunting for an actual reason - either to prevent overpopulation or provide food (or both) - not for the sake of gratuitous cruelty and greed, which is what Nesingwary was specifically about. The Nesingwary quests are surprisingly well-written in the sense that Nesingwary always comes across as a very creepy psycho.

You should see him in DF.

[Zardas]

Being an edgelord is not big or cool.

Killing innocent people in a game is being a edgelord now ?

[Xilurm]

It's the same with hunting. The Nesingwary stuff makes you feel dirty, if you're a person capable of feeling things (several posters here are proud to claim they are not, so we can exclude them), because it's just financial greed and cruelty. The centaur stuff is more reasonable because of the way it's couched - even with what you're calling trophy hunting, the implication is that it's necessary and the animals will still be eaten etc. So people don't feel like shits doing it.

/rolleyes

That's just assuming things. I'm perfectly capable of feelings things. Probably more so than most people here who couldn't care less about other players. Hell, I only ever got infracted 1 time on purpose here and that's because I called someone a fucktard for shrugging at animal abuse over on the gen-ot forums.

The thing is, these quests are extremely boring. They are the most un-engaging quests in this game that I can think off. Just shut your brain off and grind type of thing.

[Murlocos]

This isn't really on-topic anymore, but either way if we're talking egregious vibes and context I'm not sure how you can suggest anything but Shadowlands, where every being you kill that isn't some construct spawned from the Shadowlands itself is explicitly described to have its soul permanently destroyed. Kill someone in a joke quest anywhere else in the game and decide you want to really ruminate over your actions; well, maybe they're resting peacefully in whatever afterlife is out there. Kill someone in a joke quest in the Shadowlands; their soul is unambiguously deleted from existence. Bleak!

[Ersula]

This isn't really on-topic anymore, but either way if we're talking egregious vibes and context I'm not sure how you can suggest anything but Shadowlands, where every being you kill that isn't some construct spawned from the Shadowlands itself is explicitly described to have its soul permanently destroyed.

Where do they state that? In Maldraxxus, it's "explicitly" stated if you get killed your soul is simply shed from your shadowlands body; that body itself being a congestion of anima. Your soul simply hangs around, going nowhere, until your soul is repurposed: Example, the Fleshworks storylines.

For all we know a soul isn't even destroyed if its completely depleted of anima & the anima only allows a nascent soul to be seen outside of a body.

[Khaza-R]

I can't imagine how unfun of a person you are to be unable to disconnect a video game with real life.

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Where do they state that? In Maldraxxus, it's "explicitly" stated if you get killed your soul is simply shed from your shadowlands body; that body itself being a congestion of anima. Your soul simply hangs around, going nowhere, until your soul is repurposed: Example, the Fleshworks storylines.

For all we know a soul isn't even destroyed if its completely depleted of anima & the anima only allows a nascent soul to be seen outside of a body.

Probably just a plot point they intended to explore but never got too. But the fact they depicted Life and Death as an ouroboros consuming one another could point that the Shadowlands and new life were ultimately linked somehow.

[Murlocos]

Where do they state that? In Maldraxxus, it's "explicitly" stated if you get killed your soul is simply shed from your shadowlands body; that body itself being a congestion of anima. Your soul simply hangs around, going nowhere, until your soul is repurposed: Example, the Fleshworks storylines.

For all we know a soul isn't even destroyed if its completely depleted of anima & the anima only allows a nascent soul to be seen outside of a body.

https://youtu.be/xHFYGcRVX_A?si=NAjGm5StLamB8BtH&t=742

If you're a soul, you were once alive, and you're now dead and you're a Kyrian and you die.. you died. That's your true death as it were. There's no more beyond after that.

And for good measure from Danuser himself, translated from a German interview for what it's worth.

What happens when a dead person dies in the shadowlands? Is it over for that soul? Does it become anima automatically? What's happening for our own characters?

The stakes for souls in the Shadowlands are very real. For example, in the Afterlives: Ardenweald cinematic, we saw Ursoc's spirit be lost forever. The same is true of souls that die in battle or that are sundered by the Jailer in the Maw.

Maldraxxus has its own thing going on with the skeleton war, I don't think it's worth trying to reconcile with everything else as is the norm for Shadowlands stuff. I just think it's another funny instance where the writers don't realize that the Shadowlands comes off substantially bleaker than they probably intended it to be, even when everything is working properly.

[Ersula]

Probably just a plot point they intended to explore but never got too. But the fact they depicted Life and Death as an ouroboros consuming one another could point that the Shadowlands and new life were ultimately linked somehow.

That was the point of Ardenweald. Ardenweald was specifically designed to funnel anima that ends up in the shadowlands back into the world of the living (The great spiral.) Revendreth targetted the powerful, to drain souls who had become bloated with anima. While Bastion & Maldraxxus was just there to protect the shadowlands from extraplanar threats.

The shadowlands is a recycling system.

Maldraxxus has its own thing going on with the skeleton war, I don't think it's worth trying to reconcile with everything else as is the norm for Shadowlands stuff. I just think it's another funny instance where the writers don't realize that the Shadowlands comes off substantially bleaker than they probably intended it to be, even when everything is working properly.

What happens when a dead person dies in the shadowlands? Is it over for that soul? Does it become anima automatically? What's happening for our own characters?

The stakes for souls in the Shadowlands are very real. For example, in the Afterlives: Ardenweald cinematic, we saw Ursoc's spirit be lost forever. The same is true of souls that die in battle or that are sundered by the Jailer in the Maw.

Only because the Winterqueen drained Ursoc completely dry of anima. And "lost forever" might not mean complete oblivion, for all we know it just means beyond the reach of the Eternals. That could just mean the original canon is true & a soul completely drained of anima returns to the twisting nether. Ursoc even returned in his baby form after the end of Shadowlands.

Lets not rely on individual comments from Danuser considering he constantly contradicts himself. The above is a ridiculous comment considering Loa are elected to die & be reborn over & over, forever. Seems like while Kyrians simply become one with Bastion & don't believe in post-life-resurrection the Necrolords do it all the time.

[Makabreska]

Where build!

[Murlocos]

The shadowlands is a recycling system.Only because the Winterqueen drained Ursoc completely dry of anima. And "lost forever" might not mean complete oblivion, for all we know it just means beyond the reach of the Eternals. That could just mean the original canon is true & a soul completely drained of anima returns to the twisting nether.

In the first interview they immediately say afterwards that there's no sort of nested Shadowlands, no Afterlife 2. That's word of God until they choose to say otherwise. But hey, Chronicle 4 in a month so this can of worms is probably not going to be closed for long.

[Ersula]

In the first interview they immediately say afterwards that there's no sort of nested Shadowlands, no Afterlife 2. That's word of God until they choose to say otherwise. But hey, Chronicle 4 in a month so this can of worms is probably not going to be closed for long.

You're inferring the wrong information because theres dozens of quests in Maldraxxus where you remake bodies for people who get killed in the shadowlands.

[Super Dickmann]

In the first interview they immediately say afterwards that there's no sort of nested Shadowlands, no Afterlife 2. That's word of God until they choose to say otherwise. But hey, Chronicle 4 in a month so this can of worms is probably not going to be closed for long.

I remain morbidly curious about how they'll handle it in this upcoming Chronicle, given what a mess it is. The whole 'slip and your soul is perma destroyed' bit is hilarious, especially given that the two afterlives that work best, Maw aside, Maldraxxus and Ardenweald are a lot more sensible in this, with the latter just being a recycling station for gods with perma death being a necessity and the former being by far the most interesting one in a place where no one really dies so everyone is recycled into becoming stronger and stronger as part of its permanent arena. Mind, Maldraxxus would be even better if all the Scourge 'memberberry appearances were cut.

[Murlocos]

Yeah, Maldraxxus contradicts with the rest of the zones in the expansion as I said earlier. Not my problem, ask Danuser why that is.