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

[Joshuaj]

There's no doubt that tons of people like retail WoW, but this game was also a cultural phenomenon that wildly, catastrophically fell off after WoTLK in terms of player numbers. We really don't know how well War Within is doing because the big falloffs usually happen in the first big patch and they are hard to read.

What I am saying is that if someone might be interested in MMOs, they are going to try WoW, and a significant portion of them are going to say "Guess MMOs aren't for me" because WoW is so bad at new player experience and so bad at being an MMO. It's kind of a black hole that sucks and obliterates the genre.

Tbf here, people left after Wrath cause they defeated the Lich King.

Also, fair enough on the new player experience. However, it failing as an MMO? Not quite sure about this, especially since Blizzard is very clearly trying to do things for the social experience of WoW.

[Osmeric]

The real irony here is that the devs themselves credit the game's ongoing success with its willingness to evolve.

https://www.videogamer.com/features/...ess-to-evolve/

It turns out that what people mean when they say that "retail is stale," is actually that devs haven't listened to their super-specific, super idealistic suggestions on how the game should be developed. The game is successful in spite of them, and that makes them all the more inclined to seek validation for their (often terrible) opinions about how the game should be designed.

No, it means that success being due to being willing to evolve doesn't imply that any evolution leads to success. It's quite possible to evolve the game in a bad direction.

It's like when players complain about some problem, it doesn't mean that *anything* that developers do to fix that problem will be acceptable to the players. It's the difference between "necessary" and "sufficient".

[Hitei]

There's no doubt that tons of people like retail WoW, but this game was also a cultural phenomenon that wildly, catastrophically fell off after WoTLK in terms of player numbers. We really don't know how well War Within is doing because the big falloffs usually happen in the first big patch and they are hard to read.

What I am saying is that if someone might be interested in MMOs, they are going to try WoW, and a significant portion of them are going to say "Guess MMOs aren't for me" because WoW is so bad at new player experience and so bad at being an MMO. It's kind of a black hole that sucks and obliterates the genre.

The genre isn't dead because of WoW. It's dead because no part of its core identity is popular in modern gaming spaces. Just like RTS and 4X games are all but dead. People want quick join, bite-sized, actiony gameplay where consequences are significant but not persistent. They want progression to just be unlocking cosmetics, not incrementally improving character power, and they especially don't want to do things like read quests.

[Relapses]

No, it means that success being due to being willing to evolve doesn't imply that any evolution leads to success. It's quite possible to evolve the game in a bad direction.

I prefer to think of the game's resilience as evidence of it evolving in the right direction. This seems far more likely than what cynics on forums often write off as sunk cost fallacy.

It's like when players complain about some problem, it doesn't mean that *anything* that developers do to fix that problem will be acceptable to the players. It's the difference between "necessary" and "sufficient".

Acknowledgement by the developers that the problem exists is the first step. We may not all agree on whether the proposed solution is necessary or sufficient but we can mostly agree that leaving things as they are isn't going to mysteriously improve the situation.

[Cheezits]

If WoW can recover from Cata, Mists, WoD, BFA and SL player falloff it is not going to die ever. Get over it. That leaked presentation really broke people.

"This is allowing the team to "plant more seeds" story-wise that only pay off in the next expansion or the following one."

This makes me think Siren Isle was all about teasing something with Vrykul in TLT, but no idea what. Maybe the Kul Tirans became Vrykul somehow?

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

That PCGamer article is something else.

I've never seen something like that in all my years following this game, its just a whole lot of "What reality do you live in?".

[Timester]

Why are we still debating WoW's "perfect storm"?

That's why Everquest and WoW are still stable nowadays and all the other died, because both games caught the perfect storm (and both legacy and evolution ARE part of the perfect storm moment).

[NineSpine]

Tbf here, people left after Wrath cause they defeated the Lich King.

Also, fair enough on the new player experience. However, it failing as an MMO? Not quite sure about this, especially since Blizzard is very clearly trying to do things for the social experience of WoW.

I think that it is a huge stretch to say that millions of people (most of which had never played WC3) were having a blast and then killed the Lich King and decided to stop having fun.

WoW is technically classified as an MMO, but you have to imagine what someone unfamiliar with MMOs is going to picture in their mind when they think "massively multiplayer role playing game". They are going to imagine a living world, something like the RPGs they may be familiar with but in this shared online space. That's not what retail WoW is about at all. WoW is a game hyper-fixated on repeatable, scaling, multi-difficulty content where you grind out minor gear upgrades to hit up the next difficulty with and you focus on issues like performance and throughput. There's nothing wrong with enjoying it, but it does not come anywhere close to fulfilling the broad promise of what an "MMORPG" can be.

If I tell someone "Would you like to play an MMORPG" I just don't think what comes to their mind if getting yelled at in an instanced dungeon for having the wrong talents or not knowing the right order to play their abilities in. They are thinking "What if Skyrim was populated with other people". WoW is a wildly different experience from that.

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Why are we still debating WoW's "perfect storm"?

That's why Everquest and WoW are still stable nowadays and all the other died, because both games caught the perfect storm (and both legacy and evolution ARE part of the perfect storm moment).

What is more popular: Everquest's new content or their progression servers?

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The genre isn't dead because of WoW. It's dead because no part of its core identity is popular in modern gaming spaces. Just like RTS and 4X games are all but dead. People want quick join, bite-sized, actiony gameplay where consequences are significant but not persistent. They want progression to just be unlocking cosmetics, not incrementally improving character power, and they especially don't want to do things like read quests.

The two biggest games of the last few years were Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3, which are both the complete opposite of what you described. "4X games are all but dead" - Civ 7 is in the top 10 sellers on Steam in the last week, and we know its console sales are even stronger. You are wildly out of touch. Stardew Valley is the most played single player game on the steam charts and you are talking about how nobody wants to read.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

I am in the camp of believing kaja'mite is a variation of Azerite. It's too on the nose, between the two, to not having a direction connection.

[Hitei]

The two biggest games of the last few years were Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3, which are both the complete opposite of what you described. "4X games are all but dead" - Civ 7 is in the top 10 sellers on Steam in the last week, and we know its console sales are even stronger. You are wildly out of touch. Stardew Valley is the most played single player game on the steam charts and you are talking about how nobody wants to read.

Civ 7, the flagship game of 4X genre, only managing to hold in the top 10 sellers (on steam) its release week, with no other notable releases that week, and failing to even crest 100k players is not the counter-argument you think it is. It hit half the peak Civ 6 did 10 years ago, which was already not a huge game. Yes, Elden Ring and BG3 did well. That doesn't change what most people are playing, which is match-based quickplay content. You having to qualify shit with things like "for single player games on Steam" should be a red flag. Stardew did well. It's not Among Us, or Fortnite, or Pokemon Go.

You are making statements about cultural impact but then ignoring that the culture has simply shifted. People don't give a shit about 4X. They barely care about MMOs. Not because of something WoW did, but because modern players are not easily entertained by the slow grinding and tedium that the genre was originally built on.

[Cheezits]

...okay if they are making tiny red panda people AND big red panda mounts of the same species (Meeksi) now, are they going to be a part of the Rootlands? Possibly an Asian/Pandaren theme?

I'm getting Khajit vibes from them being so many variations but all sentient. And they have a lot of color variations.

[Joshuaj]

That PCGamer article is something else.

I've never seen something like that in all my years following this game, its just a whole lot of "What reality do you live in?".

Elaborate. You talking about the one where they say WoW is successful cause they're adapting to modern stuff?

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I am in the camp of believing kaja'mite is a variation of Azerite. It's too on the nose, between the two, to not having a direction connection.

Been in that camp. Welcome to the club.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Elaborate. You talking about the one where they say WoW is successful cause they're adapting to modern stuff?

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/world-...lly-energized/

Different one, it certainly is very paradoxical outside of the byline of the article by the writer.

[Joshuaj]

...okay if they are making tiny red panda people AND big red panda mounts of the same species (Meeksi) now, are they going to be a part of the Rootlands? Possibly an Asian/Pandaren theme?

I'm getting Khajit vibes from them being so many variations but all sentient. And they have a lot of color variations.

Depends, have we seen more of that Life cat yet? It was introduced as a mount during SL, and it was never elaborated upon.

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https://www.pcgamer.com/games/world-...lly-energized/

Different one, it certainly is very paradoxical outside of the byline of the article by the writer.

Paradoxical how? Seems very fitting imo.

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""If we had a story that had to be resolved in a single expansion, and we only have a couple of major [content updates] to do it, then, honestly, I don't think we'd be able to do justice to a place like Undermine and its government culture, because we'd have to just keep brushing ahead with the story.""

This is a fair statement. Have you seen Shadowlands?

[Timester]

The two biggest games of the last few years were Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3, which are both the complete opposite of what you described. "4X games are all but dead" - Civ 7 is in the top 10 sellers on Steam in the last week, and we know its console sales are even stronger. You are wildly out of touch. Stardew Valley is the most played single player game on the steam charts and you are talking about how nobody wants to read.

Because it's THE 4X game, it's the exact same phenomena as WoW with MMOs. Residual evidence, Civilization was on the the first PC games I ever played and partly responsible of I'm a History teacher nowadays, the legacy and evolution are still part of the perfect storm that made it a sucessful brand even today. Hitei is correct here.

Even this same patch, Blizzard went directly to nostalgia and legacy, by using Undermine.

[milkmustache]

The inclusion of Zuldazar/Kaja'Coast and Gutterville should be a standard for patches moving forward. The continued worldbuilding and usage of past zones is an absolutely incredible way to make the world feel more lively. It feels great to return to Zuldazar even for weeklies or a quick quest chain, because we can see that part of the world moving forward.

[Khaza-R]

I am in the camp of believing kaja'mite is a variation of Azerite. It's too on the nose, between the two, to not having a direction connection.

I originally thought it was going to be more like Saronite but yeah, seems to be Azerite related.

I wonder if the green color is anything more meaningful than it being an obvious play on Mountain Dew. Life and Fel are green. But it being Fel influenced seems more in-line with goblins chaotic nature. Maybe something disorder related mixing with Azerite nullifies the destruction properites of fel energy and brings out its more positive attributes.

[Timester]

Kaja'mite being Azeroth related also fits with the "free will" plot. It was the Kaja'mite that permitted the goblins to understand, gain inteligence and become free from the Zandalari slavery after all.

[Khaza-R]

The inclusion of Zuldazar/Kaja'Coast and Gutterville should be a standard for patches moving forward. The continued worldbuilding and usage of past zones is an absolutely incredible way to make the world feel more lively. It feels great to return to Zuldazar even for weeklies or a quick quest chain, because we can see that part of the world moving forward.

Agreed. Its nice to feel like the expansions don't have to be so isolated in storytelling.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

""If we had a story that had to be resolved in a single expansion, and we only have a couple of major [content updates] to do it, then, honestly, I don't think we'd be able to do justice to a place like Undermine and its government culture, because we'd have to just keep brushing ahead with the story.""

This is a fair statement. Have you seen Shadowlands?

Everything they are saying is completely incoherent with the fact they removed a Major Patch, changed the game structure of the game and reduced the development timeline for a already stressed development team with a narrative team that can barely hang on or is existant.

Yet this is how they operate in a interview while the elephant in the room is ignored completely creating a complete dismissal of actual reality which in turn makes this interview completely incoherent and batshit insane.

I mean, I find it moreso comedic that they think any of their answers make coherent sense. Its' just nonsense.

The inclusion of Zuldazar/Kaja'Coast and Gutterville should be a standard for patches moving forward. The continued worldbuilding and usage of past zones is an absolutely incredible way to make the world feel more lively. It feels great to return to Zuldazar even for weeklies or a quick quest chain, because we can see that part of the world moving forward.

This is really cool though and I approve of it, very much.