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

[Makorus]

Wow, I think this might be one of the worst comparisons I have ever seen. I feel the need to congratulate you for coming up with this post.

Imagine comparing the Old Gods to "random Infernals", hilarious.

That's right, Infernals are probably harder to take care off than the Old Gods.

[Ersula]

I have always been confused about the "there doesn't need to be a reason for POC humans" argument. No, I guess there doesn't HAVE to be, but there is definitely some lore potential there that would help flesh out the universe. Much more than the weird "they came from Stranglethorn lol" ideas that have been toyed with by Traveler.

I also don't think that encouraging a lore explanation makes you racist. Maybe DEMANDING one, sure, but imo it would be cool if there were islands and areas of Azeroth where asian and black humans came from.

It also doesn't have to be "black people come from wow africa asian people come from wow asia" if people are scared of that. Pandaria already nipped the latter in the bud unless the new scare is WoW Japan (people seem insistent this will never happen because China but idk)

You know how most titan-forged in Northrend are made from black rock? And then most that come from the main landmasses are light-colored rock? There you go.

[Makabreska]

Ok, raid testing starts this week.

3-4 bosses tested instead of normal 2 each evening. They speed things up.

[FossilFree]

Race is actually a meaningless pseudoscientific concept irl. It's no different than other 19th century quackery like phrenology, where the shape of your skull somehow dictates your behavior. In fact, the idea of "race" comes directly from phrenology (which is now seen in the same way as astrology, palm reading, tarot, etc.). However, genetic tests show humans just don't fit into neat little boxes that are perfectly separated from each other, with no overlap, where everyone inside a box is exactly the same.

We as a species are actually much more closely related than other species, due to a population bottleneck where we nearly went extinct roughly 50,000 years ago. Having a different body shape or color is next to meaningless when genes say that is your distant cousin. Think of it like this, if a redhead is born into a family of brunettes, is the redhead child a different "race" from their siblings? They technically fit the requirements of a "race," as they have a set of physical traits that are different from others but are shared among redheads. Now expand that idea out across billions of people and across time. Or for another example, how blood type B has origins in Asia. Is every European with type B or AB blood actually an Asian instead of European? At what point do we decide that this is all arbitrary, nitpicking nonsense? We are all just a bunch of mutts in the end. Really, science should cleave nature at its faultlines, not chop it up into boxes of our choosing.

Ethnicities are a reality, but those are a culturally-based social construct centered around language, art, music, religion, etc., not some sort of separate species.

[Merryck]

Do the Harronir have any connection to Elune?

[huth]

Really, science should cleave nature at its faultlines, not chop it up into boxes of our choosing.

At a certain point, you don't really have a choice if you don't want ridiculously oversized boxes. But there's only one box for Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

[Eldryth]

Do the Harronir have any connection to Elune?

I don't know, but if the roots are from Elun'ahir like I expect, then there's at least some indirect connection (since the roots they protect were given to Eonar by Elune).

[Teriz]

Interesting, per those notes it would be about the size of Ringing Deeps (Earthenworks), which is the smallest zone (20).

If this stays the same then I would think it's not going to be a major focus (megadungeon area) and we may get a bigger Undermine.

The fact that Gazlowe is a major character and we have an incoming “Goblin Raid” all but confirms it.

[Jolly Roger]

Arguably Timewalking and the scaling technology it implemented.

an evergreen system that still has complaints with scaling

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Off the top of my head? A new spec (augmentation), the Trading Post, cross faction instance play?

hero talents
cross server guilds
transferrable currency

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Ok, raid testing starts this week.

3-4 bosses tested instead of normal 2 each evening. They speed things up.

this testing cycle is speeding everything up

[mcsch]

I would rather Xal report directly to the Void Lords than be associated with the Black Empire.

In fact I would love a Black Empire splitting off from and fighting the Void Lords sort of story.

100%. The only acceptable outcome, is a direct link to the voidlords, at least Dimensius. If Blizzard do otherwise, it will be a completely AFK. But some apprehension is already there, looking at the trailer where Xal'atath says “Worldsoul will be MINE”. I don't like that “mine”, as if she's not fulfilling a mission but pursuing her personal goals, and that's very disturbing for the narrative. I hope Blizzard just didn't put much effort into the text for a regular announcement.

The main cosmic story is ending (Titans vs Void- see Sargeras) but definitely not the main storyline considering they are building up a possibly evil kingdom of Light that will be revealed around the time the Light is no longer bound by the Void and Titans to do what it wants.

Light and Life with a heavy Elune focus will definitely be the next big arc.

Here is at least the Empire of Light on the backside of Azeroth, through which the arc of Light itself will unfold. Beyond that as you rightly mentioned, Elune and Life. For good measure, we have the development of each cosmic force and their potential general war. Given the pace, that's enough for another 10-15 expansions.

When explaining what is going on to the people of Hallowfall, Alleria directly says Xal isn't an Old God, and in-fact she's much older than the Black Empire itself. For all we know, she is a Void Lord. Which would be in-line with what we know about the Void Lords & what Xal says in the Launch Date cinematic.

She is most likely not a voildlord, as there are references to her subordination before Dimensius. I think she is one runk lower than the Voidlords.

[Lahis]

That would also work and would be pretty cool, though I can hear the screams from boomers already when a black and asian vrykul are retconned into Northrend.

They just need to make Vrykul (and Earthen) to come with various different stone colors and say that their curse-of-fleshed skincolors mimic their original stone coloration. Most earthly mineral colors do sit somewhat neatly next to human skin tones.

[Santandame]

hero talents
cross server guilds
transferrable currency

Ok? You've just listed three random features from TWW and made them in response to a question you asked me. What point are you actually trying to make?

[Nymrohd]

So in the side quest "Educate Yourself" you learn how Azj'Kahet was founded. The Fatespinner Anub'izek (a nerubian prophet) predicted that in the future the nerubian kingdom would fall to the forces of Death and she sought to distance herself from the Black Empire, taking nerubians with her to found a new kingdom far from Azjol'Nerub. So Azj'Kahet was meant to be separate from the Black Empire which is the exact opposite of what Ansurek is doing, explaining why many of the older nerubians consider it a travesty that they are infusing themselves with the void and consider it devolution instead of evolution.

Azj'kahet really feels like Suramar but with spiders and is really well done. It does lack the desperation the NPCs felt in Suramar though; I think the threat of being forced to use the Black Blood should be more imminent from the very start. Part of what made Suramar good was that the oppression was inescapable until you fixed the Arcan'dor (and immediately as soon as you fixed that, you had to save multiple people imprisoned so they'd be forced to go Wretched) and really solid questlines surrounding that (plus being introduced to the concept in a superb way with the Azsuna questline). While you are seeing a culture being erased by fascism and a power mad dictator in Ansurek which is a solid story to tell, the only place so far I've seen it feel oppressive was in one questline in the Silken Ward and the resolution there was near immediate so it never got heavy.

I don't know, I think it should be much darker.

[Santandame]

So in the side quest "Educate Yourself" you learn how Azj'Kahet was founded. The Fatespinner Anub'izek (a nerubian prophet) predicted that in the future the nerubian kingdom would fall to the forces of Death and she sought to distance herself from the Black Empire, taking nerubians with her to found a new kingdom far from Azjol'Nerub. So Azj'Kahet was meant to be separate from the Black Empire which is the exact opposite of what Ansurek is doing, explaining why many of the older nerubians consider it a travesty that they are infusing themselves with the void and consider it devolution instead of evolution.

Azj'kahet really feels like Suramar but with spiders and is really well done. It does lack the desperation the NPCs felt in Suramar though; I think the threat of being forced to use the Black Blood should be more imminent from the very start.

Feels like there’s some setup there then for the possibility of the Nerubians as a future race.

Is the city itself comparable to Suramar City in terms of scope and size?

[Nymrohd]

Feels like there’s some setup there then for the possibility of the Nerubians as a future race.

Is the city itself comparable to Suramar City in terms of scope and size?

I think it is a bit smaller but the scope is similar; there are multiple districts, adjoining facilities that are connected or very close to the city and ofc almost every location has two or more levels; in the hanging city and on the cave floor (with sometimes overhanging shelves and or underwater levels or smaller caverns in the cave floor). Sadly the masquerade doesn't seem to be working properly; the Ascended mobs never seem to detect you.

[Izalla]

So in the side quest "Educate Yourself" you learn how Azj'Kahet was founded. The Fatespinner Anub'izek (a nerubian prophet) predicted that in the future the nerubian kingdom would fall to the forces of Death and she sought to distance herself from the Black Empire, taking nerubians with her to found a new kingdom far from Azjol'Nerub. So Azj'Kahet was meant to be separate from the Black Empire which is the exact opposite of what Ansurek is doing, explaining why many of the older nerubians consider it a travesty that they are infusing themselves with the void and consider it devolution instead of evolution.

Azj'kahet really feels like Suramar but with spiders and is really well done. It does lack the desperation the NPCs felt in Suramar though; I think the threat of being forced to use the Black Blood should be more imminent from the very start. Part of what made Suramar good was that the oppression was inescapable until you fixed the Arcan'dor (and immediately as soon as you fixed that, you had to save multiple people imprisoned so they'd be forced to go Wretched) and really solid questlines surrounding that (plus being introduced to the concept in a superb way with the Azsuna questline). While you are seeing a culture being erased by fascism and a power mad dictator in Ansurek which is a solid story to tell, the only place so far I've seen it feel oppressive was in one questline in the Silken Ward and the resolution there was near immediate so it never got heavy.

I don't know, I think it should be much darker.

If they are trying to tell a Suramar style story again with a group that fled their old territory/kingdom, I guess that works better than using the Qiraji. Though I still think it is far enough away from Silithus that the Qiraji would have worked just fine, and I think I would have preferred that. Maybe they will bring Qiraji in later as the sword itself becomes more relevant.

[Cheezits]

It's definitely not Suramar 2.0 exactly as the stakes aren't as high, but it's still a nice questing area.

I agree that Qiraji make way more sense but cynically they will reuse all the nerubians for Northrend. Hopefully we still get Qiraji in Silithus.

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Feels like there’s some setup there then for the possibility of the Nerubians as a future race.

Is the city itself comparable to Suramar City in terms of scope and size?

There's only going to be a Nerubian AR if they make some kind of plotline where the Ascended seek forgiveness and reintegration into society after the queen dies. The Ascended are our only way we are ever getting them playable animation-wise.

[Nymrohd]

The Nerubians have by lore been the only aqir civilization that stopped worshipping the Old Gods. The Mantid and the Qiraji clearly remained bound to their gods.
But they could have easily done exactly the same thing they did with the Kaheti using Qiraji instead; the Twin Emperors were trapped in Ahn'Qiraj so the Qiraji that remained outside the Wall descending deeper into the earth and forming a new society that is not bound to C'thun would be a believable storyline imo. Perhaps an iconoclast among them created a new kingdom under the premise that C'thun failed them (since he and the Emperors got trapped).

I also wish that Xal'atath had used the Pale. It would have allowed for a Horde theme (maybe even a way to tie in Thrall; the Pale are Void Shaman after all). Imagine if she had found a small hive of Pale stranded since Cho'Gall was guided to Silithus by them, speaking with one voice as a chorus, completely immersed in C'thun's Blood and they were her ally (and a cool raid boss). The Pale was an excellent concept from WoD and the Chronicle and it has been criminally underused. Plus gangly grey-white insane orcs are creepy as hell.

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It's definitely not Suramar 2.0 exactly as the stakes aren't as high, but it's still a nice questing area.

Yeah I think this was the missed opportunity. The stakes SHOULD have been as high. Imagine if Ansurek and Xal'atath had found a way to infect everyone with the Black Blood. The Ascended are immersed in it to gain their new forms but Xal could MC ANY of the nerubians in that scenario so they need to remain completely hidden.

[Khaza-R]

Qiraji kind of got shafted in Cataclysm when the zone never got updated outside of bringing AQ into the overworld. Then they got shafted again in BfA when they got sidelined in favor of the Aqir. Unlike Nerubians and Mantid who got some slight lore tidbits in the IEs they got nothing.

They're really overdue for some type of new lore but to be honest, I am not sure we will see them of the silithid again.

[Nymrohd]

Qiraji kind of got shafted in Cataclysm when the zone never got updated outside of bringing AQ into the overworld. Then they got shafted again in BfA when they got sidelined in favor of the Aqir. Unlike Nerubians and Mantid who got some slight lore tidbits in the IEs they got nothing.

They're really overdue for some type of new lore but to be honest, I am not sure we will see them of the silithid again.

They got shafted by the idiocy that was Uldum. It was the perfect place to do world building for them along the tol'vir