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

[Hitei]

My guess is they'll make a completely new Quel'thalas for however much of it is part of Midnight and connect that to the EK map, while providing some alternate means to access the BC Quel'thalas.

The comments made suggest they don't want to completely remake it, they want it to feel like the same place just fresh. Like, Draenor Nagrand, despite being the closest zone to its original, still feels like a totally different zone.

I think the changes will be largely in the the texturing, polygon count, etc. Maybe some terrain touch ups, like in Cata where they fixed rivers to not be so impossible to get out of when you fall in, and made hills make a bit more sense, etc. I expect expansions will be on the ZA side or filling out the north of SMC, but most of Eversong and Ghostlands will remain as is but nicer.

I really think Cata is what people should be expecting. Like go take a look at Vanilla WPL/Trisifal/Silverpine, and Cata WPL/Tirisfal/Silverpine, and expect that.

[Zardas]

Here's something I got to thinking tonight - just how much should we expect the Quel'thalas area to be altered? I don't just mean for story purposes (and to make them larger zones in general), but also for skyriding purposes.

A lot of the old world (and I'll include the TBC zones in that too) are remarkably flat, which wouldn't really be good with skyriding. Even the Isle of Dorn itself, which I would say is probably the flattest of the four zones in TWW, still has a good amount of terrain variation.

Northrend won't have much an issue with that as it does slope from north to south as is and has some extreme variation already.

But just got me thinking how they may do stuff in Eversong and Ghostlands.

My hope would :

Eversong + Ghostlands merged into one zone
Isle of Quel'Danas massively expanded
Two new zones, possibly in Karesh

Seems to me that it would be a shame if a whole expansion was just zone revamp.

[Makabreska]

My hope would :

Eversong + Ghostlands merged into one zone
Isle of Quel'Danas massively expanded
Two new zones, possibly in Karesh

Seems to me that it would be a shame if a whole expansion was just zone revamp.

I would prefer Ghostalands to stay haunted and separate, ruined western Silvermoon turned into zone and any other-worldly places left for content patches.

[Darkarath]

Btw anyone else experiencing this bug? Almost every time I do a Skyriding race, if I reset it and try again, I can start the race with 1 or even 2 seconds left on the countdown (which is quite the generous head start to get your gold

I had this issue many times while getting gold in all races. My advice, if that happens, reset the race again, because it is a loading issue, and the game gives you those 1, 2 or 3 seconds of advantage because the countdown started while you were still in the loading screen.

To summarize my point, those seconds that seems extra are not such, as they have been already taken from your timer.

[huth]

The comments made suggest they don't want to completely remake it, they want it to feel like the same place just fresh. Like, Draenor Nagrand, despite being the closest zone to its original, still feels like a totally different zone.

I think the changes will be largely in the the texturing, polygon count, etc. Maybe some terrain touch ups, like in Cata where they fixed rivers to not be so impossible to get out of when you fall in, and made hills make a bit more sense, etc. I expect expansions will be on the ZA side or filling out the north of SMC, but most of Eversong and Ghostlands will remain as is but nicer.

I really think Cata is what people should be expecting. Like go take a look at Vanilla WPL/Trisifal/Silverpine, and Cata WPL/Tirisfal/Silverpine, and expect that.

Those aren't mutually exclusive. Draenor Nagrand is still a completely seperate zone from Outland Nagrand. Though i do think more extensive changes are necessary this time.

I'm not talking completely new as in wildly different in style. Just that they start over from an empty slate and rebuild it from there.

[Cheezits]

West Silvermoon being ruined still would be ridiculous even for WoW lore.

I would like the zones, if it's 4 again, to be Eversong combined with Ghostlands, Lordaeron (Tirisfal and the Plaguelands), Zul'Aman and then an underwater zone with Kobyss and Naga. Then Quel'danas and Karesh are dealt with in patches.

[Dracullus]

I both don't want to and can't see MD going into Plaguelands territory. Focusing on Quel'Thalas - which have to be build from 0 anyway - will save them a lot of headaches since it's behind loading screen anyway. Also we already can have Undead zone with Ghostlands.

And I don't want it for simple reason: I hope for separate Northern and Southern EK expansions in the future - it will be easy to divide them on Arathi/Westlands bridge. So they would build Northern EK on Quel'Thalas instance (no more loading screen between them) and go south.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

I wonder if they are going to make Eversong Woods, Ghostlands, and maybe even Eastern/Western Plaguelands bigger for 'Midnight' and going forward? Seems like the perfect time to start revamping old world zones to match the size and assets quality of recent expansions.

[Raetary]

Eversong + Ghostlands equals a modern zone in size.
Ignoring verticality, its area is even bigger than some of them.

So idk why people are thinking they'll increase the kingdoms base size rather than simply build on top of it.

This is what i foresee:

Quel'thalas as the main body.
Amani Highlands to the east.
Forsaken/Human + Arathi (cause Renilash) zone to the southwest.

Then potentially a Naga zone in the sea to the west.

Isle of Quel'danas is a wild card, it can be a smaller endgame zone from the get go, or patch content.

Raid 1 is either a Troll or Naga raid, raid 2 is the Sunwell and raid 3 is a final showdown with Dimensius +/- Xal'atath on Ka'resh.

[Worldshaper]

The Scarlet Crusade storyline will probably continue in Midnight, serving as a bridge between Hallowfall in TWW and Avaloren in TLT. I bet the Emperor will send reinforcements to bolster the Scarlets, and they'll threaten Silvermoon (and the Undercity) from the west of Quel'thalas, above Stratholme.

In the east, there's a dense and ancient forest, much older than Quel'thalas and home of the Amani. I picture a dark pinetree forest with misty vales and large lakes. Perhaps a bit like Finland? The forest trolls have crude temples dotting the treeline, and villages where they dance around the bonfire at night. In recent years their numbers have replenished, and a mysterious ally has given them new power. They're even bringing back Zul'jin, with their eyes set on reclaiming their ancient lands where Silvernoon now stands.

Quel'thalas itself should be somewhat restored by now, with lush and green forests, thriving towns and cities, and a newfound determination to rebuild. However, strange things are happening with the Sunwell recently.

The 4th zone is either just K'aresh, or some Queen Azshara type of deal. I doubt underwater, but perhaps something new that mixes the Naga theme with the Void. Maybe it's an archipelago off the coast of Lordaeron, or perhaps Quel'danas is turned into a voidy hellscape from whence the Void assaults the Sunwell. Could be a neat contrast in the backdrop of Silvermoon's shiny rooftops.

[Golden Yak]

Y'all are painting some pictures. And I like 'em.

I almost think I would prefer a true rebuild of Quel'thalas rather than just updating existing regions though, as a testbed for complete overhauls for other parts of the world. Expand Ghostlands and Eversong into DF-sized regions, make Zul'aman one as well. That bit north of Stratholme would make a good spot for either an Arathi Empire landing or a naga incursion (or both). Silvermoon City itself could be rebuilt into an expansive element, giving the city an overhaul with modern tech and aesthetics to really make it spectacular.

Patch zones could be Isle of Quel'Danas and Remnants of K'aresh. The Sunwell/Voidwell can be the second season raid, maybe with Azshara arriving to try and claim it. K'aresh can contain some major Void stronghold with a Void Lord as the final big bad of the expansion, poised to invade.

[Bwgmon]

The comments made suggest they don't want to completely remake it, they want it to feel like the same place just fresh. Like, Draenor Nagrand, despite being the closest zone to its original, still feels like a totally different zone.

I think the changes will be largely in the the texturing, polygon count, etc. Maybe some terrain touch ups, like in Cata where they fixed rivers to not be so impossible to get out of when you fall in, and made hills make a bit more sense, etc. I expect expansions will be on the ZA side or filling out the north of SMC, but most of Eversong and Ghostlands will remain as is but nicer.

I really think Cata is what people should be expecting. Like go take a look at Vanilla WPL/Trisifal/Silverpine, and Cata WPL/Tirisfal/Silverpine, and expect that.

I strongly doubt they'd be able to get away with leaving the space the same size, especially considering they'll most likely adapt it to allow flight/skyriding. They'd have a very hard time making a passable Silvermoon fit in the current map's space without the smoke and mirrors, and the community would lose their shit if the expansion's entire landmass was small enough to be traversed in ~20 seconds.

[Sondrelk]

I strongly doubt they'd be able to get away with leaving the space the same size, especially considering they'll most likely adapt it to allow flight/skyriding. They'd have a very hard time making a passable Silvermoon fit in the current map's space without the smoke and mirrors, and the community would lose their shit if the expansion's entire landmass was small enough to be traversed in ~20 seconds.

They will definitely make the space slightly bigger by adding in some areas on the east coast or in the mountains. Alongside stuff like Isle of Quel'danas being a part of the zone.
But even with all of that there still isn't really enough you can do to justify Ghostlands and Eversong being more than a single modern zone. Something will have to be added that isn't just Quel'danas, and I think that something will be a revamped Northern EK.æ

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Y'all are painting some pictures. And I like 'em.

I almost think I would prefer a true rebuild of Quel'thalas rather than just updating existing regions though, as a testbed for complete overhauls for other parts of the world. Expand Ghostlands and Eversong into DF-sized regions, make Zul'aman one as well. That bit north of Stratholme would make a good spot for either an Arathi Empire landing or a naga incursion (or both). Silvermoon City itself could be rebuilt into an expansive element, giving the city an overhaul with modern tech and aesthetics to really make it spectacular.

Patch zones could be Isle of Quel'Danas and Remnants of K'aresh. The Sunwell/Voidwell can be the second season raid, maybe with Azshara arriving to try and claim it. K'aresh can contain some major Void stronghold with a Void Lord as the final big bad of the expansion, poised to invade.

A whole lot of this just strikes me as trying to justify scaling up the Blood Elf zones when you could have just used existing zones.

A bit of added stuff makes sense. Expanded Zul'aman and surrounding areas for instance. But undead stuff is also available if you just expand further down into the Plaguelands, where both Stratholme and Scholomance are.
You could add more stuff for the Scarlet Crusade/Arathi plotline. Or alternatively you could just expand into Lordaeron and reuse Scarlet Monastery, as well as the whole deal with the Forsaken.
Go a tiny bit further down and you get Strom, which should logically be important to the Arathi.
Zul'Aman exists, yes. But if you want a big chunk of Troll lore you can also go into the Hinterlands with the giant troll city, as well as the world tree that could be used for Elf storylines. There are also the Wild hammer Dwarves there, for which we just got a massive amount of assets for.

Every expansion needs their B and C list enemies that you fight during levelling to give some variety. The Gnolls, Centaur, and Tuskarr in DF for instance. Or the Kobold in TWW.
None of them are important in the grand scheme, but you need them so the entire expansion isn't just one singular theme.

[Nymrohd]

On the older Azeroth maps the Hills of Maisara look as big as Quel'thalas if not bigger. I think having the Eastweald (WPL, EPL and the Bay of Stratholme area), Quel'thalas (Ghostlands and Eversong but without Silvermoon), Hills of Maisara (a large zone to the east of Quel'thalas) and then a fourth zone that combines Silvermoon and Isle of Quel'Danas would work. I still think there is a big issue with verticality; skyriding simply doesn't work as well if you cannot at least occasionally take advantage of large differences in elevation (it still works but you need to pay a bit attention and build altitude while flying). The Amani area could be made somewhat higher than it is supposed to be in lore and Silvermoon/IQD can have really high towers.

Btw as an idea; maybe Silvermoon is NOT the expansion Capital. Stratholme could be the capital instead and Silvermoon could be occupied/corrupted by Void or a battleground between Void and the Arathi empire or even under Naga control. Perhaps the entire Silvermoon/IQD area could even be phased INSIDE the Void (corrupted Sunwell would have drawn the surrounding areas into the Void) and used as a way to add an additional Void zone as a patch zone. That way in 12.2.5 they drop the phasing and you get access to Silvermoon in the proper map with some event to restore it and 12.2.7 having a complete version of Silvermoon available to everyone but like Bel'ameth.

[Zardas]

I wonder if they are going to make Eversong Woods, Ghostlands, and maybe even Eastern/Western Plaguelands bigger for 'Midnight' and going forward? Seems like the perfect time to start revamping old world zones to match the size and assets quality of recent expansions.

Eversong Woods and Ghostlands are in another instance, so they may increase their size, but I have a hard time seeing how they could do it for the Plaguelands. Either they put it in an instance along with eversong and ghostlands (in which case, where would the portal be placed ?), or they don't and the map of the eastern kingdoms would have a weird giant protuberance on its northern part.

Also, if they increase the size, how would they handle placing Zidormi to go back to the previous version of the zones ?

[Lahis]

No, it doesn't. Not in any way that actually matters. In particular because the data type is a floating point value, not an integer.

Why on earth would you store HP and damage values in floating points instead of integers?

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Don't forget about Uldaz. The Coreway has to lead somewhere.

Has anyone tried of The Infinite Hand effect works in Dornogal or in the Coreway?

[Eurhetemec]

Reused night elf skeleton with lots of options, which was datamined. I truly hope they dont add this race. Its beyond boring and to out of the blue for people to really care. I will speculate it will end up being less played, because its to Alien and has no further connections to the warcraft we know. I really dont care about them at all. They feel like a wannabe Avatar ripoff and frankly just uninteresting. I feel the same way about Dracthyr for example. Same artists btw.

You say you feel the same way about the Dracthyr - but the problem is, the Dracthyr may well be pretty popular, especially when they get more classes, which is real soon now. So your reasoning that because you don't like the Dracthyr, no-one else does, and the same will apply to the Haronir, seems deeply faulty.

Not really, we have seen tons of/enough request threads for these races in the past. The activity on the forums has been a steady decline and looks more like people are simply tired of asking after 20 years. I am one of those as well. Pandaren were likely at the same if not less requested then Ogres/arrakoa or Vrykul. People needed heavy convincing at the time that this wasnt more then a meme race from warcraft 3. Even when MoP came along the same skeptical concerns were pressent.

Goblins were also a race horde players wanted to play, pandaren was a bc race if we have to believe blizz. The story probably didnt work as well as they thought. We got pandaren anyway, so ogres are not that far off. You can see the ogre model or skeleton/animations have been updated with the moonkin form. Allied races are to random to really see such a pattern. Some races are more unique then others and some have their own animationa and some dont. I agree Ogres dont fit this and deserve to be their own "new" race option in the character select screen. I feel the same way for Arrakoa and Vrykul, but they could end up in either really if they wanted to.

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I also remember this. People spend a lot of time creating long threads with pictures to convince blizz. But they ignore most of that and for some reason like to add random races like Vulpera better. It goes against the wishes of the community. People are simply tired and stopped caring.

If Blizzard followed the "wishes of the community" re: races, every dumb meme beast-race possible would have been added to the game immediately, with Hozen leading the charge, Tuskarr would have had an entire expansion dedicated solely to them, and we'd have dozens of mostly animal-person races all played by like 1% of player base each, with 70% of the playerbase playing elves and humans (and some orcs/dwarves/tauren/draenei). But what you're describing as the "wishes of the community" is actually just same handful of axe-grinders on the forums that it always has been. And if we look at the races that they've "demanded" that actually were added - they're all barely played! Where bizarre additions that Blizzard came up with, which they hate, like Void Elves, are heavily played.

The reality is, if your metric is "will people actually play it", like you're saying, virtually everything you're suggesting with the exception of Vrykul is a straight-up fail. Unless a race is human-y or elf-y and cool-looking, it's going to be unlocked by a huge number of people, and played by a very small number of people.

And that's the real purpose of races - to give people something to unlock. The reason Blizzard don't go with the meme races you guys are so keen on is that they don't really fit as the kind of adventurers the players are. Even Vulpera are kind of the edge of what fits. Haronir potentially fit (though I suspect very late in the expansion), and it doesn't really even matter if all that many people play them, so long as a lot of people engage with the content to unlock them, and are excited about it. Plus, they're a Druid race - we can't pretend people won't be excited, even if they just have a few new forms which are all basically bat-themed.

[Nymrohd]

I assume Dracthyr numbers will probably be decent by virtue of Evokers being consistently OP since released, worse than even DKs back in Wrath.

[Sondrelk]

I assume Dracthyr numbers will probably be decent by virtue of Evokers being consistently OP since released, worse than even DKs back in Wrath.

Dracthyr numbers will be inflated by Augmentation if nothing else. The fact that it's the only spec in the game that offers the support DPS playstyle makes it appealing even if it wasn't also the ideal M+ spec.

Next patch I also imagine a lot of Alliance players specifically swapping to Dracthyr for their class. The mastery racial is going to be top tier for any spec that needs mastery, and with being able to stick to Visage form you get to play what is in effect a Human female/Belf male with vastly more options for cosmetics.

Maybe one day we will get the improvements to transmog that makes people want to play Dracthyr because they look cool on their own merits. But until then I imagine it's mostly going to be because of Visage form.

[Nymrohd]

Dracthyr numbers will be inflated by Augmentation if nothing else. The fact that it's the only spec in the game that offers the support DPS playstyle makes it appealing even if it wasn't also the ideal M+ spec.

Preservation is also extremely strong consistently. Heck I'd say in the current season, all the Evoker specs are S or A tier.