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

[huth]

Domesticated bananas originate from New Guinea, so I assume that Tel'Abim is tropical. If we are to assume the culture from the history of domesticated bananas and the likely climate of Tel'Abim, I imagine that the best cultural analogue for a civilization on Tel'Abim would be some kind of Pacific Island civilization, as the Zandalari are already a blend of African and Mesoamerican cultures.

For what it's worth, having it be Azeroth's New Guinea equivalent would be perfectly appropriate.

[Ersula]

The logic makes little sense anyway. The cup is clearly using the current world architecture. The later it releases, the less likely a revamp would be.

Not if an old world revamp includes populating the existing zones with new mobs & textures & leaving the topography the same.

[huth]

Not if an old world revamp includes populating the existing zones with new mobs & textures & leaving the topography the same.

But in that case it coming later just means nothing. It doesn't become more likely, regardless of how the revamp is done.

And replacing models for trees or placing new buildings would also affect the routes. The way they build terrain has significantly changed since Cataclysm, too.

[Revamp Man]

im waiting for MoP TW raid because i want my ToT

[Palapop]

im waiting for MoP TW raid because i want my ToT

I think MSV would be better "TW" raid because of how lore was interpreted there. And raid is shorter than TOT.

[Revamp Man]

I think MSV would be better "TW" raid because of how lore was interpreted there. And raid is shorter than TOT.

I'm just basing it off the past
Each TW raid has been mid tier and a fan favorite
ToT fits both and length can't be a restriction based again on the past

Would be interesting to do elegon again lol

[micwini]

Here's some ideas I could see for zones:


Durotar - No longer primarily a barren wasteland. Life has seeped into the zone from the North, with forests similar to Ashenvale permeating around Orgrimmar. The Botani, having taken over the Northern Barrens have invaded the zone from the east, bringing their own jungle styled ecosystem with them. Durotar is now a zone teeming with life, but from different eco based systems at war with each other, reflecting the savageness of Draenor. The zone will be a mix of Gorgrond, Tanaan Jungle and a small elven style forest in the North.

Northern Barrens - The Botani have completely taken over the Northern Barrens. It is now a lush jungle full of life, and savage terrain.

Southern Barrens - Alternatively, the Breakers have taken over the Southern Barrens, terraforming much of the zone into dangerous ravines, canyons and a rocky landscape. The border of Northern and Southern Barrens is home to a never ending war between the Botani and Breakers.

Stonetalon Mountains - The Night Elves have regrown the forest in the wake of the Venture Co's destruction. The zone range truly reflects a forested mountain range now. The Saberon that fled Draenor make their home here, as well as a group of Arakkoa.

Desolace - Life continues to flourish in the zone, thanks to the Cenarion Circle's efforts. The northern half the zone is completely teeming with life and jungles. In The Maruuk Centaur have made their way over from the Dragon Isles to establish relations with their long lost centaur relatives. Further south in the zone, corrupted Arakkoa make their home. The Naga have vanished from the coastline. Instead, Dread Admiral Nightsquall sends a contingent of his pirate fleet to scour the ruins for an unknown purpose.

Feralas - The Highborne have repopulated Dire Maul. The Woodpaw Gnolls have learned the magic of Decay from Decatriarch Wratheye, who intends to unite the Gnoll clans under her banner. The Gnoll's lead attacks on Dire Maul, with the southern half of the zone becoming a decayed, blighted forest.

Tanaris - Gadgetztan has expanded, taking up the majority of the zone, with the meat of the zone taking place within the corrupt city. Trade Princes, crime families, syndicate members etc can be found here. Dread Admiral Nightsquall's pirates have a huge presence in the city, and are docked in the harbour.

Winterspring - Mazthoril has been expanded into a major Blue Dragon settlement. Vyranoth having escaped the events of Dragonflight relatively unscathed has destroyed Everlook and creates an Ice Palace in its place. Here she leads the remnants of the Primalists.

Cool ideas, but IMO, too much draenor seeping over

- - - Updated - - -

No we didn't, the aesthetic of the Void in Aberrus is very much brand new.

The color scheme is very new as its predominantly toned cold blue with minimal purple accentuation, while the previous depictions of the void where entirely dark puple and black.
It also has this almost liquid looking cracked glass thing going on, with a very obvious bright super nova/dying star/energy beam looking theme.

It isn't. Devourers in SL used the same color scheme, especially noticable in their portals. Bright light blue center and getting dark blue/black on the edges. Devourers might be cosmic void creatures.

[Hellspawn]

The Moon/Sun theme of the Wardens may also be tied to the Dream, but that's an old aspect of Night Elf Culture. However the Sun/Solar part of Night Elves has not been a very notable part of their aesthetic until very recently, so it may be a sign that they are changing their culture a bit.

There is no Sun/Solar lore with the Night Elfs, that's Tauren stuff and maybe a bit Blood Elf stuff as well.

They are called NIGHT Elf for a reason. In the past they were weaker during the night but idk if thats still canon (nobody seems to care).

Maybe it is a new addition for the future for them? Doesn't make a lot of sense to me to give them this sun aspect but writers at Blizz may think its cooooooooooool!

[Nymrohd]

A revamp just sounds so disappointing. I hope they at least double the zone scale or something.

Grab 2-3 zones, merge them into one. Modern zones tend to have multiple biomes anyway, older zones did not. Why do you need Dun Morogh, Loch Modan and Wetlands? Just have a Khaz Modan zone. What's the difference between Searing Gorge and Burning Steppes? Just join them as Blackrock Mountain (maybe throw Badlands in). There are many ways to reasonably combine multiple zones into larger zones that work with modern scale.

[Darkarath]

The Diablo 4 launch has taken away attention from WoW, which is understandable, but I hope to see something new in the PTR this week, especially about the dungeon.

It is my understanding that Iridikron is taking Galakrond's Decay essence, so I guess that he is after the Elemental's essences? He might go to the Elemental realms to get the Elemental Lords essences to power himself. Its just so weird that the Elemental Lords are not present in this expansion.

Fyrakk has already been powered up by Shadowflame, Iridikron too, it seems, so... what is going to empower Vyranoth? I cannot see anything in the Emerald Dream that would help her. A Life essence, maybe?

[micwini]

The Diablo 4 launch has taken away attention from WoW, which is understandable, but I hope to see something new in the PTR this week, especially about the dungeon.

It is my understanding that Iridikron is taking Galakrond's Decay essence, so I guess that he is after the Elemental's essences? He might go to the Elemental realms to get the Elemental Lords essences to power himself. Its just so weird that the Elemental Lords are not present in this expansion.

Fyrakk has already been powered up by Shadowflame, Iridikron too, it seems, so... what is going to empower Vyranoth? I cannot see anything in the Emerald Dream that would help her. A Life essence, maybe?

Ice is water and you know what they say about water.
Water is life.

[Sondrelk]

Grab 2-3 zones, merge them into one. Modern zones tend to have multiple biomes anyway, older zones did not. Why do you need Dun Morogh, Loch Modan and Wetlands? Just have a Khaz Modan zone. What's the difference between Searing Gorge and Burning Steppes? Just join them as Blackrock Mountain (maybe throw Badlands in). There are many ways to reasonably combine multiple zones into larger zones that work with modern scale.

Same thing i have said many times before. That should also make it easier to figure out what reputations to link to each zone, and have a concise storyline for each.

If anything an issue could be that you have too many zones that need to be combined. Having to make effectively half of Northern EK into one zone to accommodate all the Forsaken/Undead/Scourge storylines. Or the Dwarf stuff seemingly spanning half the continent.

[Nymrohd]

Same thing i have said many times before. That should also make it easier to figure out what reputations to link to each zone, and have a concise storyline for each.

If anything an issue could be that you have too many zones that need to be combined. Having to make effectively half of Northern EK into one zone to accommodate all the Forsaken/Undead/Scourge storylines. Or the Dwarf stuff seemingly spanning half the continent.

Eh you can still split things a fair bit.
You don't need all of Khaz Modan in one zone. You could make it two or three zones (Twilight Highlands could stay a zone as it is, especially if you add Grim Batol). Azeroth would be two or three zones as well (Kingdom of Stormwind with Elwynn, Westfall, Redridge and Duskwood, Stranglethorn with both the zones and an overland Zul Gurub for questing, and Swamp of Sorrows with the Swamp + Blasted Lands and Deadwind).

Lordaeron is more interesting. You could add Tol Barad to Gilneas (you could add the Channel Islands like Crestfall, Havenswood and maybe Zul'dare and use the new tech to allow seamless transition to Kul Tiras, maybe showing it on the horizon in some static form.) Technically you could add part of Silverpine if we'd be splitting zones. Hillsbrad and Tirisfal belong together for sure and I think joining Arathi and Hinterlands and changing the mountains between them and towards the sea would absolutely work. The two Plaguelands plus opening Stratholme bay and thus adding the Northern subzone (which would connect Scarlet Monastery with Hearthglen and Stratholme and thus allow for an Argent Dawn/Living of Lordaeron area which has so much plot potential). Then we have Quel'thalas which could be a single zone or they could add a Hills of Mashiara zone to give the Forest trolls some more lore (and maybe even a new raid; the corpse of Kithix is directly beneath Zul'aman).

Also have to say, while Khaz Modan and Azeroth stayed fairly consistent to earlier maps, Lordaeron and Kalimdor were MASSIVELY changed through development. One of the weirdest choices imo was that the way they placed Silverpine. On all pre WoW maps, the Lordamere drains into the sea westward with Dalaran positioned right at the channel; the Gilneas peninsula is much more prominent and has a very different shape. I assume it would have broken the zone flow for the Forsaken far too much since they wanted to give them Silverpine (even though half of Silverpine is part of Gilneas). As for Kalimdor, original Kalimdor was far smaller.

[Foolicious]

The Diablo 4 launch has taken away attention from WoW, which is understandable, but I hope to see something new in the PTR this week, especially about the dungeon.

It is my understanding that Iridikron is taking Galakrond's Decay essence, so I guess that he is after the Elemental's essences? He might go to the Elemental realms to get the Elemental Lords essences to power himself. Its just so weird that the Elemental Lords are not present in this expansion.

Fyrakk has already been powered up by Shadowflame, Iridikron too, it seems, so... what is going to empower Vyranoth? I cannot see anything in the Emerald Dream that would help her. A Life essence, maybe?

I feel like Vyranoth will get empowered by galakronds decay. I think Iridikron is well aware of the dangers of shadowflame and decay and is willing to loose his kind if they wreak some havoc and distract us from pursuing him. With an artifact that apparently can absorb elemental powers from a corpse he can still go back and claim all for himself once the other incarnates are defeated or of no need for him anymore.
Ice and Decay are also a great enemies in an emerald dream patch.

[Nymrohd]

I feel like Vyranoth will get empowered by galakronds decay. I think Iridikron is well aware of the dangers of shadowflame and decay and is willing to loose his kind if they wreak some havoc and distract us from pursuing him. With an artifact that apparently can absorb elemental powers from a corpse he can still go back and claim all for himself once the other incarnates are defeated or of no need for him anymore.
Ice and Decay are also a great enemies in an emerald dream patch.

Vyranoth doesn't seem like an idiot though. He'd have to FORCE decay on her. I think Iridikron has found some demon soul prototype.
They could absolutely retcon how the Dragon Soul was created btw. Maybe even the original one was not forged by Neltharion (just the chain made by his goblins) and instead has always been a Black Empire artifact (maybe one that was used to subdue the Elements). And maybe there is more than one of them. Or maybe Neltharion created the Dragon Soul by studying something Iridikron originally used.

[Hitei]

Grab 2-3 zones, merge them into one. Modern zones tend to have multiple biomes anyway, older zones did not. Why do you need Dun Morogh, Loch Modan and Wetlands? Just have a Khaz Modan zone. What's the difference between Searing Gorge and Burning Steppes? Just join them as Blackrock Mountain (maybe throw Badlands in). There are many ways to reasonably combine multiple zones into larger zones that work with modern scale.

The problem wasn't "single vanilla zones are small" though. Khaz Modan is still just Khaz Modan. The problem is that unless you either massively increase scale such that it feels like a whole new zone, or wildly disrupt the zone from its original version such that it is essentially a new zone (Thousand Needles, Silithus, the non-Nagrand WoD zones), what you are left with is just a nicer looking version of the same zone that has been around for twenty years that players have gone through and 'explored' to such a thorough degree that the hope of spatially interesting places to be in a new expansion is lost.

My point is that if you load up 11.0 and it drops you off in Elwynn, and it's all pretty and HD, you'll have like a good half a week to week where it's really neat to see an old zone in new zone quality... and then that's going to really sharply fall off. Because you already know the zone very well. It's not like 2.0.3 where you go through the Dark Portal for the first time and you're in a crazy weird place where you have no idea where anything is. It's not like the first time you land in Jade Forest or step into Azure Span and you have rivers that you don't know where they lead to or from and hills you're not sure what's on the other side of, and around that grove of trees is a beautiful vista where you see a whole subarea you've never seen before and beyond it another entire zone you've never set foot in.

It's just Elwynn, with Goldshire and Crystal Lake and down that same path you've seen a billion times you know for a fact is Westfall and Sentinel Hill and the other way is Redridge and Lakeshire and it's all stuff that's been already explored for two decades. It needs to feel like an actually new place to explore, not like a place you know like the back of your hand but now it's in HD.

[Nymrohd]

It's just Elwynn, with Goldshire and Crystal Lake and down that same path you've seen a billion times you know for a fact is Westfall and Sentinel Hill and the other way is Redridge and Lakeshire and it's all stuff that's been already explored for two decades. It needs to feel like an actually new place to explore, not like a place you know like the back of your hand but now it's in HD.

I understand that. The wonder of exploration will be missing. The idea is to replace it with nostalgia and familiarity. Obviously adding evergreen features that make the area something that can be useful at all levels instead of just a visual upgrade.
I am not sure it is worthwhile. It IS worthwhile to me but I never expect games to be designed around what I want. It would depend on the devs actually creating evergreen content. Imo it would be FAR safer for them to create the evergreen model for a larger world and testing it with timewalking zones in more modern expansions first before committing to something like a revamp.

[Hitei]

I understand that. The wonder of exploration will be missing. The idea is to replace it with nostalgia and familiarity. Obviously adding evergreen features that make the area something that can be useful at all levels instead of just a visual upgrade.
I am not sure it is worthwhile. It IS worthwhile to me but I never expect games to be designed around what I want. It would depend on the devs actually creating evergreen content. Imo it would be FAR safer for them to create the evergreen model for a larger world and testing it with timewalking zones in more modern expansions first before committing to something like a revamp.

But I feel like that's sort of speaking to the problem. Extra content features is fine for like, a patch based return to zone, like Battlefield: Barrens (putting aside that the example in question was god awful). I do not think it has the draw to support an expansion itself, especially when that is the expansion and patches. I honestly feel like even someone like you, who is drawn to the idea of that, would get into 11.0 and in record time be bored. Look at how slow these very threads have been relative to older expansions, simply because the last two expansions we haven't really had any idea what zones we're going to end up seeing in patches, and then imagine a world where the answer is "there's no added zones in any of the patches this expansion, we're just gonna add neat features in the updated zones you've been in for months (that you've also been familiar with for decades).

Genuine question: How long do you think that an updated Elwynn (Elwynn, Westfall, Duskwood, Redridge) would keep you entertained? Features aside, how long do you think poking around those zones doing stuff would feel exciting to you? A few days? A week? Two? As someone who spent the better part of a year in Vanilla RPing in Stormwind and the surrounding area, I think that within a month at the absolute best, you'd be sick of those zones and desperately hoping that Blizzard changed their minds and 11.1 is Tel'abim or Azjol-Nerub so that you can be playing somewhere new. That's without even getting into the narrative fatigue side of things, because fighting gnolls and murlocs is going to make you hate being stuck there even more.

I can't see a pure revamp working out unless either Elwynn's region now dwarfs Azure Span, or the entire region is scorched into a desert by Light Invasion.

[Sondrelk]

But I feel like that's sort of speaking to the problem. Extra content features is fine for like, a patch based return to zone, like Battlefield: Barrens (putting aside that the example in question was god awful). I do not think it has the draw to support an expansion itself, especially when that is the expansion and patches. I honestly feel like even someone like you, who is drawn to the idea of that, would get into 11.0 and in record time be bored. Look at how slow these very threads have been relative to older expansions, simply because the last two expansions we haven't really had any idea what zones we're going to end up seeing in patches, and then imagine a world where the answer is "there's no added zones in any of the patches this expansion, we're just gonna add neat features in the updated zones you've been in for months (that you've also been familiar with for decades).

Genuine question: How long do you think that an updated Elwynn (Elwynn, Westfall, Duskwood, Redridge) would keep you entertained? Features aside, how long do you think poking around those zones doing stuff would feel exciting to you? A few days? A week? Two? As someone who spent the better part of a year in Vanilla RPing in Stormwind and the surrounding area, I think that within a month at the absolute best, you'd be sick of those zones and desperately hoping that Blizzard changed their minds and 11.1 is Tel'abim or Azjol-Nerub so that you can be playing somewhere new. That's without even getting into the narrative fatigue side of things, because fighting gnolls and murlocs is going to make you hate being stuck there even more.

I can't see a pure revamp working out unless either Elwynn's region now dwarfs Azure Span, or the entire region is scorched into a desert by Light Invasion.

How is the familiarity of old zones made fresh any markedly different from new zones though? I feel like you are splitting hairs on when exactly the zone goes from new and exciting, to just a zone you are already intimately familiar with.
Are you looking at Thaldraszus or the Waking Shore currently, and still being amazed at how new it is?

If the old zones are copied over wholesale then that is one thing, but I feel even a small amount of updates would make exploring the old world feel fresh. At the very least make it feel fresh for about the same amount of time a completely new zone does.

My argument on this is also that for each player that wants a new zone, that I am sure there is another that absolutely loves Feralas, or Tirisfal. The nostalgia of old zones are just as potent a draw as completely new zones that may or may not be all that great.

[Revamp Man]

The Diablo 4 launch has taken away attention from WoW, which is understandable, but I hope to see something new in the PTR this week, especially about the dungeon.

It is my understanding that Iridikron is taking Galakrond's Decay essence, so I guess that he is after the Elemental's essences? He might go to the Elemental realms to get the Elemental Lords essences to power himself. Its just so weird that the Elemental Lords are not present in this expansion.

Fyrakk has already been powered up by Shadowflame, Iridikron too, it seems, so... what is going to empower Vyranoth? I cannot see anything in the Emerald Dream that would help her. A Life essence, maybe?

She'll likely get powered up by the essence of the new world tree

Iridikron I don't think was powered up before the dungeon he's just that strong.

We will likely kill Iridikron this expansion but I'm gonna say the others live through to 11.0