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

[Jaggler]

The order is different than the one from the Chronicle, but it's fundamentally the same information. So i doubt that'd be super interesting.

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Not quite, Light and Void are barely out of frame on the left and right side. You can see part of the border of their circles. In the Chronicle chart, they'd be clearly visible at the top and bottom and the visible ones would be farther apart. Still, there's absolutely nothing new on it, just the known entities.

To me they just look like the rings of the "Water" and "Air" circles legt and right in the chart but in the end it doesn't really matter. it's not like there is anything to read into that.

[Joshuaj]

In regards to the Arcana Card,

it's just a zoomed inl, lightly edited version of the cosmology chart. Light and Void would be off-screen at the top and bottom respectively. It probably would look really busy and cramped if they included them

Nah. Light and Shadow are left and right, not up and down.

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To me they just look like the rings of the "Water" and "Air" circles legt and right in the chart but in the end it doesn't really matter. it's not like there is anything to read into that.

You literally can't see much of the last 2 circles at all outside of the edges of them. And besides, why would Air and Water be connected to the other 4 cosmic powers?

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Ahh, yes. I recall so much about the Covenants. Man, I love the... uh... fairy ones. And the Bargain Bin Scourge. And the—snore.

Yep. I too love the Night Fae, the Necrolords, the Kyrian, and the Venthyr. They're really cool and they represent different aspects of Death in WoW.

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No one was looking for "best written." But you were paying for something "well written." And here we are with Shadowlands.

No one is saying Shadowlands is "well written" but you can't deny it had a lot of cool things setting-wise.

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Give me a single post-2014 WoW storyline anywhere near as good as Arthas' story.



While people label post-Legion Anduin as "Manduin", I honestly think he was more proactive and genuinely heroic in MoP.

Illidan's storyline in Legion. Velen and KJs final convo in Legion. Literally all of Anduin's story so far.

:/

[milkmustache]

The worst thing about Shadowlands is how frequently it raises these sort of conversations that go absolutely nowhere but argument.

Do we think Lightforged Gorehowl is anything, or just a prop with Netease? It's poignant and on the nose for the next few expansions, but could just be a brief homage. Is it possible that the Beledar has some relation to the Lightforged and Yrel? Will we see anything happen with it this expansion or will it be a Vakthros?

[Houle]

He also had an old concept design where he looked like Hades from Greek Myth, and while I do love that a ton, I think it would've given away the "first Arbiter" twist too easily.

Ehh, i think the "twist" was actually far, far more obvious with the new model. The Arbiter had a big orb in its chest, he had a round hole. Ive seen people theorize that he was the Arbiter bc of that pretty much ever since his model was datamined. So in theory it was more fitting i suppose.

Illidan's storyline in Legion. Velen and KJs final convo in Legion. Literally all of Anduin's story so far.

:/

Illidan in Legion had pretty much one good point - when he told the golden windchime to beat it. Besides that, it was stuffed full of retcons and turned Illidan, who was previously one of the very few actually "morally grey" characters (besides TBC for obvious reasons) into the average edgy antihero.

The convo between Kil'jaeden and Velen was pretty good for Warcraft standards ngl

Anduins story was almost completely boring until Legion, and then pretty average from there on.

Arthas' story is literally just a generic "Fallen Hero" story, with no nuance whatsoever. There were like 3-4 identical stories coming out that exact same year.

It may not have been innovative, but it was simple and effective, instead of trying so hard to be convoluted and mysterious (but still just remaining mostly boring) like much of the newer lore. It wasnt overly deep or complex, but it was fun. The newer lore often tries to go both grander in scale and more mystery-box-style, but is mostly just boring, bc an MMORPG like WoW is just not a very good medium for that. And the constant retcons almost every new xpac every few years also dont help ofc.

And yeah, I like the schlock, and I think the storytelling has been consistently adequate, but people need to take their rose-tinted glasses and see that the quality of the writing has in no way dropped significantly.

Lawl.
Again, it mightve never been the pinnacle of fantasy writing, but if you are seriously trying to say that BfA and SL are not significantly worse than WC3, then man, you might need to drop the recency-bias.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Do we think Lightforged Gorehowl is anything, or just a prop with Netease?

Just a cool high fantasy design.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

The idea that depth or complexity is the problem is also wrong, see Elden Ring or Morrowind. No, the issue is that the stories are simply not communicated in an interesting or evocative way and the elements underlying them vary from poor execution of excellent ideas at best to terrible execution of terrible ideas at worst.

Mystery is also not the problem; we need mystery. Master's Glaive before Cataclysm was an example of a good mystery. Whispering Forest was a good mystery. The old gods, prior to being totally demystified in Chronicles, were a mystery. The problem is that most of WoW's current mysteries are forced and are mainly matters of the narrative as opposed to natural results of good and compelling worldbuilding. Having major outlying mysteries in the lore is desirable, having the main villain's motive and personality being a mystery is not.

[micwini]

The idea that depth or complexity is the problem is also wrong, see Elden Ring or Morrowind. No, the issue is that the stories are simply not communicated in an interesting or evocative way and the elements underlying them vary from poor execution of excellent ideas at best to terrible execution of terrible ideas at worst.

Mystery is also not the problem; we need mystery. Master's Glaive before Cataclysm was an example of a good mystery. Whispering Forest was a good mystery. WoW's current mysteries are forced and mainly matters of the narrative as opposed to worldbuilding. The old gods, prior to being totally demystified in Chronicles, were a mystery. Having major outlying mysteries in the lore is desirable, having the main villain's motive and personality being a mystery is not.

Complexity and depth is only a problem because the writers are inept.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Complexity and depth is only a problem because the writers are inept.

Yes, that's what I'm trying to sell, though I might be reluctant to make judgments of character like "the writers are inept" in lieu of less character-focused statements like "the writing is inept".

[Cheezits]

A lightforged gorehowl just being a wacky coincidence is very funny. Come on.

[Houle]

Mystery is also not the problem; we need mystery. Master's Glaive before Cataclysm was an example of a good mystery. Whispering Forest was a good mystery. The old gods, prior to being totally demystified in Chronicles, were a mystery. The problem is that most of WoW's current mysteries are forced and are mainly matters of the narrative as opposed to natural results of good and compelling worldbuilding. Having major outlying mysteries in the lore is desirable, having the main villain's motive and personality being a mystery is not.

Yeah thats what i meant with "mystery box"-style. Its not natural world-building mystery, its forced mystery for the sake of dangling it in front of the audiences face to keep them engaged. Its pretty often the sign of bad writing - if you cant find ways to keep the audience engaged naturally, just keep a few major plot points secret for no real reason so they want to find out what it is and keep consuming your product.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Its not natural world-building mystery, its forced mystery for the sake of dangling it in front of the audiences face to keep them engaged

I see, then you're very right about that.

[milkmustache]

A lightforged gorehowl just being a wacky coincidence is very funny. Come on.

I want to believe, but I think it's just as probable that it's a cool marketing image as it is hint at a Lightbound Garrosh. This replacing the old broken Gorehowl that was removed when the partnership dissolved is symbolic, yada yada.

I think the biggest part of it is that I'm not too sure the Lightbound are poised to stay in WoD or Mag'har scenario. I think we'll be seeing them very soon.

Please oh please give us back Garrosh.

Mystery is also not the problem; we need mystery. Master's Glaive before Cataclysm was an example of a good mystery. Whispering Forest was a good mystery. The old gods, prior to being totally demystified in Chronicles, were a mystery. The problem is that most of WoW's current mysteries are forced and are mainly matters of the narrative as opposed to natural results of good and compelling worldbuilding. Having major outlying mysteries in the lore is desirable, having the main villain's motive and personality being a mystery is not.

I think WoW's best current mystery is Elune. I love not really knowing what she is, but knowing she has a lot of sway with the higher powers we know.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

I think WoW's best current mystery is Elune. I love not really knowing what she is, but knowing she has a lot of sway with the higher powers we know.

Correction: was. We now know she was 3d printed in the factory associated with a vaguely-defined Pokemon type just like the other personality-deprived shells that make up the cosmic pantheons.

[Jolly Roger]

That appears to me like the scene at the end of Sanctum where he drops the pretense and reveals to Sylv that he duped her this whole time.

See the pillars from the Arbiter's room in the corner.

he never duped her
thats why that scene makes no sense

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Idk if you're implying Anduin or Faerin as the true heir, but that would be an insane turn to have Anduin go take over the Arathi empire. Not in a bad way at all, just very interesting lol.

But to add onto the Arthurian idea of Avaloren, Faerin's "A DRAGON?! You're just casually friends with a legendary beast known to scour lands and grant wishes?" feels like something in that realm.

i think if the arathi empire are just super into the light and only see it as like a great crusade then having Anduin the peace master go in and become the new ruler makes sense.

theres also the scarlet crusade angle

[Zardas]

Correction: was. We now know she was 3d printed in the factory associated with a vaguely-defined Pokemon type just like the other personality-deprived shells that make up the cosmic pantheons.

Source for that ? Because most clues point towards her being part of the pantheon of life, and we know for sure that she is not an Eternal.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Source for that ? Because most clues point towards her being part of the pantheon of life, and we know for sure that she is not an Eternal.

It’s pretty much the the winter queen calling her sister, I believe.

Though after DF with the incarnates not being related in any way but using sister and brother the winter queen doing the same thing could mean nothing.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Source for that ? Because most clues point towards her being part of the pantheon of life, and we know for sure that she is not an Eternal.

Implicitly, the pantheon of life and the pantheon of death — especially given they're parallels — would both be made of Zerethbots. She'd be from another Zereth, but a Zereth nonetheless.

[Golden Yak]

The implication with all of the Zereths being connected was that each one is the heart of one of the cosmic realms, and therefore likely to be the birthplace of all the cosmic pantheons. It's all First Ones tech bullshit. They built the Zereths and the gods that each oversee a cosmic power. It's all part of one interconnected design.

Unless Blizzard decides that it's not, which they could.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

then having Anduin the peace master go in and become the new ruler makes sense.

Yes, let's have the golden child liberate another race from the chains of being too interesting.

[Zardas]

Implicitly, the pantheon of life and the pantheon of death — especially given they're parallels — would both be made of Zerethbots. She'd be from another Zereth, but a Zereth nonetheless.

First that's just a supposition. And second how do you have so much knowledge about how the Zereth of life functions ? Seems to me that you just have one point of data and use it to draw conclusion about the whole set.