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

[micwini]

Let’s look at hallowfall.

What Grows in the Dark, male lead.

The last mage, male lead.

The Priory, first half male second half female.

Crushing Depths, fish lead.

Striking Steel, female lead.

An Orphan's Dilemma, female lead.

Fishing is Good for the Soul, male lead.

Lost in the Darkness, female lead.

Bringing Light to Velhan's Claim, male lead.

Might have missed a quest line or two with the wiki not having info on them all but out of the 9 side quest lines I knew to check 4 are male lead, 4 are female lead or have a female take over like the priory, and one is a fish.

The balance is pretty even for hallowfall atleast.

What Grows in the Dark, male lead. -> was the last escapee -> cowardice

The last mage, male lead. -> Dies through incompetence

The Priory, first half male second half female. -> Male turns bad guy

Crushing Depths, fish lead. -> Fish (GREAT questline)

Striking Steel, female lead. -> 2 female leads actually one being general. They also need to mention multiple times both their male partners died. Can't have them alive ofc.

An Orphan's Dilemma, female lead.-> yes

Fishing is Good for the Soul, male lead. ->Yes. It's like 3 quests tho

Lost in the Darkness, female lead. -> Yes, but also very short questline tho.

Bringing Light to Velhan's Claim, male lead. -> male redeeming incompetent behavior. Although questline is quite good

We also have memories in the sky which is also a female lead (just some fetch quest tho)

And there is the dude on the farm with a love letter -> male, but reversed gender roles.


Like I said. The gender distribution is not the problem, it is that everything ends up the same. It's all 'men weak/bad, women strong/good'.
It's very samey, just like DF where every sidequest love couple was gay for some reason.

It's stupid to lay awake about it at night. However, some critique is heavily warranted when all questlines have this same underlying trend.


Also going to stop here. You're a reasonable chap, but a lot of others aren't when it comes to these topics.

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TBF, Gazlowe and Thrall have yet to be featured prominently in this expansion, yet they're considered major characters due to the short stories.

An Undermine patch would facilitate their presence.

I think undermine is guaranteed almost. Lots of new assets for goblins and also the EZ-mine node is a dead giveaway.

[Sondrelk]

Let’s look at hallowfall.

What Grows in the Dark, male lead.

The last mage, male lead.

The Priory, first half male second half female.

Crushing Depths, fish lead.

Striking Steel, female lead.

An Orphan's Dilemma, female lead.

Fishing is Good for the Soul, male lead.

Lost in the Darkness, female lead.

Bringing Light to Velhan's Claim, male lead.

Might have missed a quest line or two with the wiki not having info on them all but out of the 9 side quest lines I knew to check 4 are male lead, 4 are female lead or have a female take over like the priory, and one is a fish.

The balance is pretty even for hallowfall atleast.

I would just ignore the people saying this. Even if every single character swapped gender they would still complain about having to follow female Anduin, or listening to annoyingly quirky female Dagran. Pointing out how absurd it is that the leader of the Earthen is a female, and how two of the three main NPCs in Azj'Kahet is female.

[Nymrohd]

I mean you also get plenty of less than competent or corrupt female characters. From Ansurek herself who very much seems irredeemable to Steelstrike who prioritizes protocol over saving lives, is the Lawful Neutral foil to Faerin's Neutral Good, then is consistently the one lacking faith where Faerin has it.

Meanwhile the most heroic person so far was Baelgrim.

For me the question is if they get a decent arc. Faerin is getting one but the VA could be better. Baelgrim had a solid arc. Adelgonn doesn't have any arc while Merrix does a much better job at telling the same story. Brinthe has a solidly constructed story while Lufsela, well I've made my opinion there known. Steelstrike is more of a foil to Faerin than a proper character on her own while the nerubians are all decently done imo.

As for existing characters, I can't say Anduin's arc has had any emotional impact for me and I am more likely to facepalm over Alleria's lack of any sense than sympathize with her. Never liked Magni. Moira was OK and Dagran has been a solid hit for me (I'd have preferred to do the delves with Dagran tbh)

[Xilurm]

I don't care because the writing is good. Faerin isn't annoying like Taelia and is actually a decent character. I like her VA too. Didn't think she'd sound like that after seeing her in the CGI trailer.

[micwini]

I mean you also get plenty of less than competent or corrupt female characters. From Ansurek herself who very much seems irredeemable to Steelstrike who prioritizes protocol over saving lives, is the Lawful Neutral foil to Faerin's Neutral Good, then is consistently the one lacking faith where Faerin has it.

Meanwhile the most heroic person so far was Baelgrim.

For me the question is if they get a decent arc. Faerin is getting one but the VA could be better. Baelgrim had a solid arc. Adelgonn doesn't have any arc while Merrix does a much better job at telling the same story. Brinthe has a solidly constructed story while Lufsela, well I've made my opinion there known. Steelstrike is more of a foil to Faerin than a proper character on her own while the nerubians are all decently done imo.

As for existing characters, I can't say Anduin's arc has had any emotional impact for me and I am more likely to facepalm over Alleria's lack of any sense than sympathize with her. Never liked Magni. Moira was OK and Dagran has been a solid hit for me (I'd have preferred to do the delves with Dagran tbh)

Baelgrim was great. It was easily predictable that he wouldn't lsurvive tho, because it was a cool male character.
That's the biggest issue. Because everything is written in the same way, it gets really predictable who lives or dies.
The only surprise during questing was the JC lady dying.

[Raetary]

It's nice that the team is being creative, but i don't think i'll ever step a single toe into the Dawnbreaker dungeon on mythic and above.
Most disorienting experience i've ever had in the game.

A shame really, as i really love every other dungeon.

[Nightshade711]

I don't care because the writing is good. Faerin isn't annoying like Taelia and is actually a decent character. I like her VA too. Didn't think she'd sound like that after seeing her in the CGI trailer.

Same tbh, I was expecting her to sound a bit more rough/battle hardened if that makes sense.

[Skytotem]

Alternatively, geographically they are a lot closer to each other than the map would made you think, because they are both deep underground.

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I mean most men you mentioned don't really do anything. Also: It is very apparent if you have done all the side quests.
Wow has always had plenty of badass women characters, but almost every side story is strong woman character leading or taking over from a dude. The balance is way off.

I think it's best if people do all side quests and stuff before judging. It's also always the same type of character, which is getting stale.
The jewelcrafter woman was actually a breath of fresh air in all of this. Great questline.
And it is still quite often 'man bad -> must be replaced by woman'.

Variety is king, which is what they're failing at right now.

I'd also like to see Anduin get some pushback in the sense that his desire to do good and help might not always work and yield the opposite result instead.


I think the biggest issue here is lack of variety and bad writing.

Nonsense. i left out magni and jaina leaves early on too

This is just the same phenomena where when there's an equal number of men and women in a room, men perceive there to be way more women than there are.

[Xilurm]

I wonder if they'll create some kind of harbor at the isle of Dorn that takes you to SW and Orgrimmar. Maybe Kul Tiras for Alliance?

There's so many details in the world that they didn't need to add. Like the airships in Hallowfall that take you all over the zone and have stops in each hub. Or the little webbed boats you can take in the city of threads that take you up if you're down on the ground.

And all this even though we have a flying mount available from the get go.

[Nymrohd]

Nonsense. i left out magni and jaina leaves early on too

This is just the same phenomena where when there's an equal number of men and women in a room, men perceive there to be way more women than there are.

I mean there absolutely are more women than men in key positions in the story in TWW. And it probably is intentional.
The question is, why is that an issue? Does the game lack male characters in general? Nope, it would take years to reach parity. And if you cannot really immerse in the story because the story has more women than men I don't have any advice to offer. There is always Anduin, Dagran and Magni after all, it's not like there are no heroic and effective men in the story. Heck Anduin stays behind to let everyone else escape and then pretty much sets up our alliance with the Vizier that Alleria promptly tries to blow up. And Dagran is consistently heroic, intelligent and empathetic in every scene he appears on.

[huth]

The last mage, male lead. -> Dies through incompetence

The incompetence of General Steelstrike, that is. Funny how you fail to mention that part.

[Nymrohd]

The incompetence of General Steelstrike, that is. Funny how you fail to mention that part.

To be fair, Steelstrike is mostly there to prop up Faerin so it's a wash.

[Xilurm]

The last mage quest was tragic. The Arathi were so close to having a way home and it was taken away from them. Honestly didn't even think of his gender.

[micwini]

The incompetence of General Steelstrike, that is. Funny how you fail to mention that part.

She is incompetent at cooking, which again fits the trend they're having. Unless you mean something else.
She's also there to make Faerin look better. It is obvious that these 2 character were meant to be one and the same, but it changed somewhere in development I guess.

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The last mage quest was tragic. The Arathi were so close to having a way home and it was taken away from them. Honestly didn't even think of his gender.

As soon as he figured it out, he was marked for death. Otherwise they could have just all teleported out of there.
As I started the quests, I thought we'd work with him over the patches to figure out a way to get them all out, because initially they did a lot of telling how it is hard to TP somewhere you haven't been before so they couldn't just have asked Jaina or something.

[Xilurm]

She is incompetent at cooking, which again fits the trend they're having. Unless you mean something else.
She's also there to make Faerin look better. It is obvious that these 2 character were meant to be one and the same, but it changed somewhere in development I guess.

She always retreats and abandons people in need when someone attacks.

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I thought we'd work with him over the patches to figure out a way to get them all out, because initially they did a lot of telling how it is hard to TP somewhere you haven't been before so they couldn't just have asked Jaina or something.

Now that we have reinforcements they can just take a few of them to SW and set out with a ship to the Empire so they can then go and retrieve them.

[micwini]

She always retreats and abandons people in need when someone attacks.

Isn't that just typical general stuff? You sacrifice the few to save the many.
I'd say putting everything at risk and saving a few is not the best call to constantly make as a general. You need to think bigger picture as a good leader.
They're just holding out until they can get back home or get relieved when we get there, so I think it is a sound strategy to play defensively here.

Btw: Gen. Steelstrike is one of the few new characters I like. Also cool that name changes from "General Steelstrike" to "Veleasia Steelstrike" after you did the quests.

[Nibelheimy]

Still taking my sweet time through the campaign and side quests and reached the final zone. Surprise to me so far that isle of dorn is my least favourite zone, they're all just that good. Don't get the ringing Deeps complaints at all. I really really enjoyed it and it was the one I was worried about not liking.

Although I'm already sold on Faerin dying at this point, not this expansion or the next. But if she leads a little rag tag crew of adventurers to Avaloren next saga, a really good opening cinematic would be her getting executed by the king and we start as prisoners. Just my mini lil prediction which is way, waaay in advance.

[Cheezits]

Merrix is probably my favorite new character but the Arathi portal mage and the cat burglar in Azj Kahet come very close.

Just a good cast of supporting characters while the main cast, despite only Faerin and Brinthe being new, are decent to great. Orwenya also had more depth than I expected.

If anything I wish the Severed Threads had a representative in the main party. Their plot is very good but it's very self-contained and they barely interact with the main cast. Big "we don't matter after the first raid and second patch" vibes.

[huth]

Isn't that just typical general stuff? You sacrifice the few to save the many.

From a strategic perspective, Steelstrike's behaviour is sensible and Faerin is a hothead who got lucky to have competent support in those situations.

The Arathi really don't have the reserves to go on risky maneuvers.

The last Mage is a different thing, since that was literally the only instance of a limited resource they had available.

Although I'm already sold on Faerin dying at this point, not this expansion or the next. But if she leads a little rag tag crew of adventurers to Avaloren next saga, a really good opening cinematic would be her getting executed by the king and we start as prisoners. Just my mini lil prediction which is way, waaay in advance.

I could see her declining the opportunity to go back in favour of exploring the rest of the world. I don't think she cares about the Empire much anymore.
General Steelstrike would seem like a better fit for something like this, with the reasons for her punishment being some combination of failure at her task, claims of insubordination and supposed treason.

Mostly i just hope they keep Avaloren on the backburner until after TLT, giving us bits and pieces of information for worldbuilding but no real major involvement, then exploring it more in-depth preferably over multiple expansions.

[micwini]

From a strategic perspective, Steelstrike's behaviour is sensible and Faerin is a hothead who got lucky to have competent support in those situations.

The Arathi really don't have the reserves to go on risky maneuvers.

The last Mage is a different thing, since that was literally the only instance of a limited resource they had available.



I could see her declining the opportunity to go back in favour of exploring the rest of the world. I don't think she cares about the Empire much anymore.
General Steelstrike would seem like a better fit for something like this, with the reasons for her punishment being some combination of failure at her task, claims of insubordination and supposed treason.

Mostly i just hope they keep Avaloren on the backburner until after TLT, giving us bits and pieces of information for worldbuilding but no real major involvement, then exploring it more in-depth preferably over multiple expansions.

Yeah they should keep letting Avaloren cook for a bit, even after TLT. Lets say they do it first thing after TLT, then what's next? They don't have anything and I think people are getting tired of constantly new continents we've never heard from. I think they should do a lot of seeding.

It just goes to show how they've wasted so many expansion worthy areas as patch content. Nazjatar being the most prominent example.