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

[huth]

That is not true.
The main selling point for Midnight so far is a return to Quel'thalas.

Housing is a feature in addition to the content we are receiving, in the same vein as Plunderstorm or Remix is.
It just happens to be released during whatever phase of development Midnight is in, in early winter 2025.

Calling something the "main selling feature" that wasn't even part of the original announcement is pretty silly.

[Eldryth]

Anyway, i would sell an arm and a leg for playable Ethereals.

Incorporeal space mummies are the shit, and i doubt Blizzard doesn't recognize it.
They are already setup for more narrative significance, they are visually and aesthetically interesting, they are in desperate need for some more lore and fit perfectly into upcoming developments, and they are more or less ever present in the game thanks to transmog.

And they are humanoid on top of that.

It'd be a really wasted opportunity if they don't end up playable.

I completely agree. They've been the race I want most ever since Burning Crusade- long before there was any meaningful Void Ethereal presence, so I have no idea where that narrative that people only want it for edgy Void stuff comes from. I mean, I've said before that if we get a Void class in Midnight then I hope it'll be based on those Void Ethereals, but even if that happens, it would be the Ethereal theme making the Void appealing to me, not the other way around. I'd be just as happy if we just got Ethereals as a race.

And between K'aresh and Dimensius being set up as incredibly important to the current story arc during the Harbinger questline, and the Shadowguard apparently being set up as prominent enemies, they're becoming extremely relevant.

They've got an amazing aesthetic, a cool culture, cool arcane technology... As long as they get decent models, I'd probably change every character I can to Ethereal.

[Mecheon]

I cannot imagine a reality where they're not, to be honest. They seem relatively easy to translate to a playable race and they're heavily involved in the upcoming stories.

I haven't dragged the model out to poke around with, but the ones we've seen on the preview aren't player compatible at the moment

Haranir are still the only "Suspicious player compatible model added before being made available"

[FossilFree]

Ethereal active racial idea:

Unwrapped
2 min cd
Shed your wrappings to become an arcane elemental for 8 seconds, increasing damage done by 5-20%, cycling by 5% every 1 second (like Incanter's Flow). Increases dodge chance by 100% for the duration.

[rainhard]

Ethereal active racial idea:

Unwrapped
2 min cd
Shed your wrappings to become an arcane elemental for 8 seconds, increasing damage done by 5-20%, cycling by 5% every 1 second (like Incanter's Flow). Increases dodge chance by 100% for the duration.

*Disabled in instanced pvp*

[Sondrelk]

Ethereal active racial idea:

Unwrapped
2 min cd
Shed your wrappings to become an arcane elemental for 8 seconds, increasing damage done by 5-20%, cycling by 5% every 1 second (like Incanter's Flow). Increases dodge chance by 100% for the duration.

Yeah, that is way too good. More likely it would either be on a 5 minute cool down with a maximum of 10% extra damage, or staying at 2 minutes cycling between 1-4% extra damage.

Not sure what I would go for though. Most of the best ideas are already taken by Void Elves.

[Cheezits]

If you check the dressing room animations, there are a suite of "Fly" animations that show the ethereal hovering around like the old "phase" animations. Maybe they will have a flying racial?

[Joshuaj]

Literally anyone who's serious about lore wouldn't give a fuck about Ethereal for a race, same other meme requests such as Ogres, Murlocs, the list goes on.

There's only a big clamour for them because of the teenage edgelord void tint, if you put them in the same attire as an Ethereal in Mana Tombs no one would care for it.

The Ethereals are some of the coolest races in WoW what???

[Sondrelk]

If you check the dressing room animations, there are a suite of "Fly" animations that show the ethereal hovering around like the old "phase" animations. Maybe they will have a flying racial?

I could see a movement racial of some kind that lets them hover. Maybe something as simple as "Hover and gain 10% movement speed for 10 seconds. 2 minute cool down". Or possibly a flavour racial to let them hover in the air rather than stay on the ground.

[milkmustache]

Calling something the "main selling feature" that wasn't even part of the original announcement is pretty silly.

To be completely fair, the original announcement of Midnight was little more than a plot logline, but I see your point. I don't think housing is a main selling feature of Midnight, but it's certainly a large one. It being developed by Proletariat and also most likely being an expansion/setting agnostic feature leads me to believe that it has been in the works, but it'll just be ready for Midnight. I.E., if it were done before TWW, it'd have been a part of TWW-- it has nothing tying it directly to Midnight.

I think people are forgetting that we know quite little about Midnight and most likely won't until next Summer, maybe Gamescon. The only thing we know is the brief description that Metzen gave at Blizzcon and that Housing will be available slightly prior to expansion launch.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Roadmap shows around the time period for Gamescom, so a Gamescom Reveal for Midnight makes sense and it also probably is to try and make the moment of Midnights' reveal be like Legions' which was also revealed at Gamescom.

I expect Midnight to be the big push for the Team and as such I think there's more that awaits than just Housing, a setting that connects with players again and a narrative that moves forward and adds some eventful happenings back into it.

I think anything and everything is in play at this point, Blizzard has a lot of cards they can pull out. I think its wrong to assume they won't continue to delight and surprise us considering everything that happened in Dragonflight that was unexpected.

[KainneAbsolute]

If we are facing the void and obtain housing, then having playable ethereals makes a lot of sense.

1. They know the experience of losing their planet to the hands of the Void Lords.

2. They are specialists of storage and appeareance systems. Maybe there is a reason in game on why we can change the appeareance of our houses and enjoying greater space despite having a small plot of land

[Rootsbum]

There are so many allied races/ new races I feel like ive missed out on not being playable after all lol

Being able to be an etheral would so make up for it.

My only gripe with WoW races are;
Either they are skinny with small legs, or shaped like a dorito with skinny legs and no ass.
Ironic, many of the less proportionate races have more realistic bodies (talking about the males):
- Gnomes; shoulder, arms, legs and torso have similar muscles
-dwarf: even more proportionate muscles all over
-Zandalari: Perfect, except the tiny head and troll-toe-thingy
-Goblins: Long arms and weird feet. Butthey also look like they didnt just work out shoulders snd back.
Tauren: Perfect
KT human: Except huge belly; well rounded (no pun) build

Forsaken im OK with since they, well; are zombies
NightBorne just feel better overall than NightElf, exept they look malnourished; But thats at least lore-appropriate.

Belf-model is the most realistic we have, but the animations/stance is way too «blood elf».
Love my belf being arrogant and flamboyant, but for example my dracthyr; a dragon waking up from a slumber walking out of stasis with hes sassy friends is immersion-breaking for me lol.
Void elves as well: Theese bad boys who said «ACAB!» should have another kind of vibe.

Hoping for the Harranir being playable too, as they look so sturdy and strong. Messed around with modelswapping ingame and they look amazing in all armor

(Looking at you; Shadowland covenants, sethrak, arakkoa, ogres, saber-beastmen teasing me on my druid in WoD. And Kalecgos laughing at my dracthyr warriors visage form being yet another bloodelf)

Etherals is such a cool concept, and I would love to play one.
Im a sucker for races with beastforms that dont reflect their humanoid part due to it being less anoying thinking about «but I dont want my humanoid to look like this» lol.
Worgen is OK since I dont have to think about my human form snd «this is a beast man».
Druids char I dont have to think that mutch about humanoid form (since i never heal).
Dracthyr, despite long neck and booring visage-model is also cool.

Etheral being just energy wrapped in cloth as a form that resembles a humanoid does the same for me. So cool.

Oh god random post.

Im just really passionate about races, customisation and being able to go balls deep with your fantasy and feeling connected to your character.
-Thats also why, even tough I dont care about housing,Im excited for thoose who want it. its a nice step towards Blizzard putting effort into this.
They created this fantastic immersive world snd people are really passionate about their characters.
Transmog and customisation is one of the top things people do. 40 year old men grinding for hours to play Barbie with their Blood Elf paladins.

They should really let their passion show more on the avatars we choose

That was my TED-talk for today

[Limayria]

The latter, the TBC models had bandages that hovered over the "skin" in a way that would clip with armor if they were made into a player race. Now they are mostly just a texture.

Between that change, the customizations and especially the two body types, I really feel this will be a new race. They seem to have NPC armor but the fact they "nerfed" the design a little (like nightborne) smells like a concious choice. Their posture is also less exaggerated.

I also just realized the fact that they have a blue energy customization choice... did they ever look blue before? I feel like that may be a subtle confirmation that they and brokers are actually the same species, just with different ways they present themselves.

I've had a theory for a while that when k'aresh went boom, there were some people in the "know" and built some way to protect themselves from the void energy, but still got a full blast of arcane energy. These became Brokers.

Then there were people who had no idea about either and got hit by both energies, these became etherals


Probably some potential for flash back stuff of K'aresh being kinda magitech cyberpunk styled with the rich and powerful trying to save themselves potentially after selling our their planet to the void in exchange for something

[FossilFree]

Yeah, that is way too good. More likely it would either be on a 5 minute cool down with a maximum of 10% extra damage, or staying at 2 minutes cycling between 1-4% extra damage.

Not sure what I would go for though. Most of the best ideas are already taken by Void Elves.

It probably would need better tuned numbers, but I really like the idea of them being able to show their pure energy forms as a cooldown.

[Raetary]

I've had a theory for a while that when k'aresh went boom, there were some people in the "know" and built some way to protect themselves from the void energy, but still got a full blast of arcane energy. These became Brokers.

Then there were people who had no idea about either and got hit by both energies, these became etherals

Ignoring that the K'areshi building magic barriers, and preventing the Void from obliterating them but not the Arcane is canon lore as of now, the Brokers consist of Anima and not the Arcane.

It's explicitly the Ethereals that are arcane creatures, with the Void Ethereals being the outliers that stem primarily from the obsessive revanchism of the Ethereum and then the Shadowguard.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Not sure what I would go for though. Most of the best ideas are already taken by Void Elves.

A summonable fence, maybe? I don't think any race has a mobile vendor. Given that Traveler's Tundra Mammoth isn't really a novelty anymore, I think on-demand repairs and vending accessible only to one person seems pretty fair.

[Cheezits]

I'd be more willing to believe that Brokers are Kareshi that knowingly let themselves die and be sent to the Shadowlands to set up some kind of operation, though how they slipped past the Robo Arbiter I don't know.

Or its an Eredar situation and they are similar race/the same race as Kareshi that just got blown up as opposed to shielding/being torn to Arcane.

[bruxx]

I'd be more willing to believe that Brokers are Kareshi that knowingly let themselves die and be sent to the Shadowlands to set up some kind of operation, though how they slipped past the Robo Arbiter I don't know.

Or its an Eredar situation and they are similar race/the same race as Kareshi that just got blown up as opposed to shielding/being torn to Arcane.

I like the idea of then being another kareshi race/nation that maybe was already into necromancy or w/e and ensured they'd stay a united front after death

[Supertoster]

People are too quick to jump on playable Ethereals bandwagon.
Keep in mind, that blizz regularly update ald models if they:
1) are very outdated (BC era in case of Ethereals)
2) will be used a lot in future content

Ethereals will definitely be used a lot in Void-based expansion, which Midnight is. So blizz adds enough of customization for them to increase NPC diversity.
New model still does not support player armor, nor it uses all player animations.