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

[Eldryth]

Because actually my first assumption would be that in this context opulent might refer to Elven stuff. Opulence is costly and luxurious, but it is usually the classy and traditional sort of costly and luxurious. Opulent furniture is usually antique/vintage or classic, filigree and gold leaf, marble, elaborate area rugs, etc.. All of which is super Quel'thalas.

Suramar is what I'd think of if I hear opulent. But Silvermoon does fit it as well, and the Nightborne and Blood Elves have already been mixing a lot, so I could see it being used for both of them.

It's definitely not a word I'd use to describe anything Goblin-related though. Even their best stuff seems more like flashy, expensive junk.

[Marlamin]

@Marlamin able to peek at anything interesting in the 11.1.5 build?

There is no public build yet, so not yet.

[huth]

I believe they already said the current plan is one (well, "two") houses per warband.

I don't recall it actually saying anything about that. Just that houses will be per Warband, nothing about how many you can have.

[Viridiel]

There's also those updated, HD wall-mounted hunting trophies from a while back that people were assuming was some indication of Kalimdor/EK revamp. Did those get used for anything?

At least some of them were used at the anniversary event area, from memory. But there's no way they were created specifically for that, and there's already an indication that they'll be used for housing since the teaser featured a hunting trophy.

[Hitei]

I don't recall it actually saying anything about that. Just that houses will be per Warband, nothing about how many you can have.

I just assumed that the shared amongst warband line implied it'd be collective. I do think you'd quickly run into issues if you were able to make it per character, since neighborhoods are persistent, you'd either have each alt requiring a separate plot, or each house in a neighborhood would change design every time someone swapped between alts.

Thinking about it though, my guess would be that the solution will be that you can have up to X (4? 5?) plots and can maybe set per character in a warband what house they are assigned to, similar to how in 11.1 you can have several character select screen camps with different groups.

There has to be some limiting factor so that people like me with account cap aren't just taking up 50-60 plots across an account, and so that there aren't just a bunch of empty default houses from people starting housing on an alt and then never logging onto that alt for 5 years.

[Pyrophax]

Speaking of which, what do you think about the Housing art, Enter? With the Human neighborhood and Orc neighborhood concepts? The human one looks amazing imo lmaooo

Love the typical medieval fantasy architecture of Stormwind and its people.

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What would be changed so soon? One of their pillars literally states that housing is an ever evolving feature with its own roadmap.

With the roadmap in mind, I'm gonna assume we'll likely see Elven Neighborhoods in Midnight.

I think Silvermoon neighbourhood will be story-locked in Midnight. At 12.0 we liberate some place, removing initial dangers from Silvermoon and then we get our place in 12.0.5 or 12.0.7

[Daniri]

There has to be some limiting factor so that people like me with account cap aren't just taking up 50-60 plots across an account, and so that there aren't just a bunch of empty default houses from people starting housing on an alt and then never logging onto that alt for 5 years.

I have no idea of what technical burden it might incur...but they should increases the account cap up to 100 and let me buy as many plots as I want.

There's always gold as a limiter. Their promise of making housing affordable can just apply to your first house, scaling up the costs higher and higher the more you acquire. I still wouldn't like that, but if the technical considerations are really that important, not that many people are going to want to go broke for immersion.

Also, look at that Durotar concept art for the housing zone. They did a great job visualizing it; there's at least a dozen spot I'd want to try building on. They're really going to have me destroy what I've built up if I want to try out the coast instead of the valley?

[Joshuaj]

I think Silvermoon neighbourhood will be story-locked in Midnight. At 12.0 we liberate some place, removing initial dangers from Silvermoon and then we get our place in 12.0.5 or 12.0.7

I can see that, yeah. I do hope we get a Night Elf Neighborhood in Midnight as well.

[Scyth]

I would also love to be able to have a house anywhere in MoP. The Asian theme is my favourite and if I can have a house there that I can also decorate to look more Asian than I'd probably spend a lot of time on housing lol

Very curious how the servers will handle housing release though, can imagine a lot of problems.

[Lady Atia]

I just assumed that the shared amongst warband line implied it'd be collective. I do think you'd quickly run into issues if you were able to make it per character, since neighborhoods are persistent, you'd either have each alt requiring a separate plot, or each house in a neighborhood would change design every time someone swapped between alts.

Thinking about it though, my guess would be that the solution will be that you can have up to X (4? 5?) plots and can maybe set per character in a warband what house they are assigned to, similar to how in 11.1 you can have several character select screen camps with different groups.

There has to be some limiting factor so that people like me with account cap aren't just taking up 50-60 plots across an account, and so that there aren't just a bunch of empty default houses from people starting housing on an alt and then never logging onto that alt for 5 years.

Why would you need more than one house per zone anyways (especially when the whole thing releases and you are still starting to collect stuff to put inside)? They are slowly rolling out more zones and from the look of it, you will be able to get a house in each zone.

On top of that, TWW warband changes basically made it so that you have a huge dr on using your alts for anything not power related - they did it with timewarped badges and now the love tokens. No way they are creating Housing so that we altoholics can create hundreds of Houses in the first two zones. Everything you can do with 50 characters, you will be able to do with just 2 aswell.

Last but not least, allowing people to create a bunch of houses with them not even seeing use goes directly against the social pillar thing. They want you to be in your house in your neighberhood, and focus on that. It's basically "meaningful choice" but done right as it's not related to power, and also doesn't prevent you from collecting stuff (as opposed to the initial covenant design that locked you into the mounts/transmogs from just one).

[Hitei]

I wonder if the housing explanation came out now because we're actually deceptively close to Midnight's pseudo announcement/reveal.

They seemed to be shooting for 18 month cadence, and even the roadmap reinforces that (11.2.7 in late autumn and presumably a 12.0 at the start of spring?). Every expansion since MoP has launched 290-390 days from announcement and we're already firmly in that window (260 days to Feb 2026). I suppose they could break the trend and not talk about it until right before it goes into testing. Similarly, if they do their normal ~120ish days of testing cycle, even a release date as late as march would start testing in November, and testing is usually about 255 days from announcement... with us currently being at 267 from March 2026.

Obviously all arbitrary numbers. They could decide to completely eschew their usual cycle pacing, just sit on it, and do the big content reveal like a month before testing starts.

Though I think that monetiziation means that they'll still want to keep a good bit of time between pre-orders being made available (only gonna happen when they do a deep dive of Midnight and likely to include guaranteed testing access) and testing start. Us already knowing what Midnight is makes it simultaneously more and less likely they'd do an early reveal (more because we already know so there's not much point in trying to keep hush hush--like they're already talking about its features, less because if we already know there's no real need to elaborate on the specifics until fairly late).

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tl;dr: I think there's a non-zero chance we might get Midnight reveal right on the heels of 11.1 coming out in a few weeks. Kinda wild. Normally we'd actually already have gotten a fair number of fake leaks by now. Actually... is it time for a new thread? We've quite literally been speculating about a 12.0 feature now since the cata client's housing data.

[Lady Atia]

I wonder if the housing explanation came out now because we're actually deceptively close to Midnight's pseudo announcement/reveal.

They seemed to be shooting for 18 month cadence, and even the roadmap reinforces that (11.2.7 in late autumn and presumably a 12.0 at the start of spring?). Every expansion since MoP has launched 290-390 days from announcement and we're already firmly in that window (260 days to Feb 2026). I suppose they could break the trend and not talk about it until right before it goes into testing. Similarly, if they do their normal ~120ish days of testing cycle, even a release date as late as march would start testing in November, and testing is usually about 255 days from announcement... with us currently being at 267 from March 2026.

Obviously all arbitrary numbers. They could decide to completely eschew their usual cycle pacing, just sit on it, and do the big content reveal like a month before testing starts.

Though I think that monetiziation means that they'll still want to keep a good bit of time between pre-orders being made available (only gonna happen when they do a deep dive of Midnight and likely to include guaranteed testing access) and testing start. Us already knowing what Midnight is makes it simultaneously more and less likely they'd do an early reveal (more because we already know so there's not much point in trying to keep hush hush--like they're already talking about its features, less because if we already know there's no real need to elaborate on the specifics until fairly late).

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tl;dr: I think there's a non-zero chance we might get Midnight reveal right on the heels of 11.1 coming out in a few weeks. Kinda wild. Normally we'd actually already have gotten a fair number of fake leaks by now. Actually... is it time for a new thread? We've quite literally been speculating about a 12.0 feature now since the cata client's housing data.

The midnight reveal was on the roadmap. It's not anytime soon^^

And the housing news were already scheduled for the beginning of 2025, so we are right on track.

[Hitei]

The midnight reveal was on the roadmap. It's not anytime soon^^

Was it? Dunno how I missed that.

Oh yeah, look at that, slated for late summer. Kinda shocked they didn't want more buffer room on pre-ordering.

[Jaggler]

Was it? Dunno how I missed that.

Oh yeah, look at that, slated for late summer. Kinda shocked they didn't want more buffer room on pre-ordering.

Judging from the Roadmap it's revealed in 6-9 months. They basically have a whole season + pre-patchtime worth of pre-ordering time. Seems fine to me.

[Dracullus]

Was it? Dunno how I missed that.

Oh yeah, look at that, slated for late summer. Kinda shocked they didn't want more buffer room on pre-ordering.

Imo it's pretty obvious Midnight reveal will be on next Gamescom late August. I hope for Legion reveal style 1h event.

And about preordering.. oh boy. Early housing alone will make it most preordered expac easily. Add on top of that beta access and 3 day headstart. Nah, no need for earlier pre-order start, especially since all these bonuses won't be up until late 2025.

[Hitei]

Judging from the Roadmap it's revealed in 6-9 months. They basically have a whole season + pre-patchtime worth of pre-ordering time. Seems fine to me.

Testing should start in the fall, was the oddity. Like TWW was announced in November, Alpha started in April and beta started in June. This time we're looking at an August/September announcement and then probably beta 1-2 months later instead of ~5. Since one of the upsell features on the expansion will be "you get into beta" I just found it weird they'd not space that more to draw out the anticipation for sales.

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Imo it's pretty obvious Midnight reveal will be on next Gamescom late August. I hope for Legion reveal style 1h event.

And about preordering.. oh boy. Early housing alone will make it most preordered expac easily. Add on top of that beta access and 3 day headstart. Nah, no need for earlier pre-order start, especially since all these bonuses won't be up until late 2025.

I dunno. Housing doesn't actually seem like a huge pre-order draw. Because like... it's not going anywhere. With something like a race or class you want to do it early so you can level and do professions and get gear and whatever. But your house isn't something that needs to be set for expansion launch, so much as it's a constantly ongoing thing, like transmog or a mount.

If pre-order was "hey you can get this mount early, but everyone is going to get it anyway at launch by default" would that really be a huge selling point?

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Man, I hope they don't like... upsell priority plot registration. Imagine if plots are first come first serve and the Epic edition is 3 days early access again, jesus.

[Lady Atia]

Testing should start in the fall, was the oddity. Like TWW was announced in November, Alpha started in April and beta started in June. This time we're looking at an August/September announcement and then probably beta 1-2 months later instead of ~5. Since one of the upsell features on the expansion will be "you get into beta" I just found it weird they'd not space that more to draw out the anticipation for sales.

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I dunno. Housing doesn't actually seem like a huge pre-order draw. Because like... it's not going anywhere. With something like a race or class you want to do it early so you can level and do professions and get gear and whatever. But your house isn't something that needs to be set for expansion launch, so much as it's a constantly ongoing thing, like transmog or a mount.

If pre-order was "hey you can get this mount early, but everyone is going to get it anyway at launch by default" would that really be a huge selling point?

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Man, I hope they don't like... upsell priority plot registration. Imagine if plots are first come first serve and the Epic edition is 3 days early access again, jesus.

Plots won't be first come first serve, that's the whole reasoning behind (private) neighborhoods.

[Hitei]

Plots won't be first come first serve, that's the whole reasoning behind (private) neighborhoods.

Nah, the reasoning behind private neighborhoods is so that you can create guild neighborhoods or a neighborhood with all your friends.

[Lady Atia]

Nah, the reasoning behind private neighborhoods is so that you can create guild neighborhoods or a neighborhood with all your friends.

Yeah but with private neighborhoods you won't run into an issue regarding plots anyways, if the people in your guild/community aren't assholes.

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Also, we know you can move from your neighborhood, that alone basically makes it clear that you will have one house / zone only.

[Enteroctopus Magnificus]

Also, we know you can move from your neighborhood, that alone basically makes it clear that you will have one house / zone only.

You won't have just one house for the whole account, it's stupid and goes against the notion of RP and the warband. There are dozens of races in WoW. Think for two minutes about what you're saying. What's more, in what has been datamined you can see that there are “savehouse” commands. In the article they talk about houses in the plural as follows:

Your houses are also shared amongst your Warband with your different characters being able to come and go as you see fit.

Of course we'll have several houses, I don't know how you came to that conclusion.