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

[Hitei]

Unrelated.

We are talking about zones, not villains.

DF teased the Emerald Dream and delivered.

SL teased a First One zone and delivered.

BfA teased N'zoth and delivered (not in a new zone, though).

Legion teased Argus and delivered.

WoD teased Tanaan and delivered. Not really a tease in this case, to be fair, as we knew that it was coming from the beginning.

The rest of the expansions did not really have new zones in the same way as we have them today.

Unrelated? It's the exact same situation.

DF had Iridikron walk into a Void portal to go meet the Harbinger. Did DF end in a Void zone and the Harbinger?

DF was an expansion that was about fighting Primalists and ended with fighting Primalists.
SL was an expansion about fighting Mawsworn that ended with fighting Mawsworn.
BfA was an expansion that had Azshara and N'zoths forces as an ever growing threat, that ended with fighting N'zoth.
Legion was an expansion about fighting the Legion that ended with fighting the Legion on their homeworld.
WoD was an expansion about fighting the orcs, with Gul'dan as an ever growing threat that ended with fighting the Orcs and Gul'dan's forces.


TWW is an expansion about Khaz Algar and enemy forces being empowered by black blood, it ends.... with us fighting unrelated Ethereal on their home planet on the other side of the galaxy?

Like your entire theory here is ignoring that the root thing and black blood HAS BEEN BEING TEASED THIS ENTIRE EXPANSION. That is the Emerald Dream. There's a giant hole in the continent map, do you know what's next to it? Not Ethereals. Roots leading to an entrance that does not let you pass. That is the First Ones. There is a whole quest line dealing with the blood and then it is brought back in the second tier with even more importance. That is your N'zoth.

K'aresh and the Ethereals are your DF Xal'atath. They are your Legion Naga appearance. They are your BfA Bwonsamdi teasing that he works for someone and Sylvanas muttering about everyone serving Death. Note that in every one of the those expansions, we moved past those plotbeats and continued on the obvious trajectory we'd been following that expansion, rather than taking a hard 90 degree turn.

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They said we would know where we would be going next by the end of 11.1. storyline.

As pointed out before: They also said we'd know who the final boss of DF was by the end of the first tier. And everyone was very sure it totally must be Iridikron. Y'know. this guy:



Weird, that doesn't look like Emerald Dream.

[Enrif]

what if the 11.2 raid is us dealing with etherals in the root lands to try and get the dark heart back and after we kill the final boss xal'atah beats us through the portal to K'aresh and closes it leaving us to wonder what happens

then pivoting into xal beating back the etherals and reclaiming the heart leading to the etherals seeking us out to help stop our common enemy giving us etherals as a new race in midnight with xal returning to lead or set in motion the void invasion with the dark heart or w/e

this would be kind of a repeat of amridrassil. but instead of nature and fire, it would be nature and void. I think this would not be a good point to repeat.

[Super Dickmann]

I wouldn't discount this being a BFA situation where the ending has at best tertiary relation to the starting premise, especially given the undoubted heavy rewrites to slot the story into the Worldsoul saga. The assets and the preview say as much. The preponderance of story - from the starting cinematics, as @Hitei mentioned, to both raids up to now are heavily related to forces digging underground and loosing the Black Blood and are tied together by Orweyna and the haronir reacting to them. Xal'atath's plot is about feeding and utilizing this underground blood.

However, the Dark Heart and the Black Blood aren't especially related and the ethereal subplot also has no relation to the Rootlands. This plus the datamined icons point to the K'aresh raid and TWW going the way of the other expansion about Azeroth calling you about your car's extended warranty in having its end story hijacked by a purple alternate world truncating a much hyped location.

[Enrif]

Yes. Exactly. 11.2 will be the climax of the story. What has the story been so far?

You say that there's not much going as far as we know, but TWW's main plot has been about Black Blood. Even before announcement, one of our two initial teases of the expansion was the story of how the roots got there. The launch cinematic for TWW has more time dedicated to Orweyna than the Nerubians who form 1/3 of its primary races (and are the first tier). In that same cinematic, when the Nerubians show up near the end, what are they doing? Shady things with Black Blood and Old God remains. Our intro to the expansion was a video about Xal'atath getting the Nerubians on board with transforming themselves with it, and they are shouting about ascension on the shores of the Isle of Dorn and in Hallowfall where they are attacking the Arathi and Earthen, we have to go past the extremely huge set pieces of giant roots (next to a suspicious large open area) to get down into Azj-kahet, where a significant plot point is the Black Blood at multiple points in the campaign, and in one of its dungeons, and its raid, and that Black Blood (and Harronir) returned as a core plot point of Undermine.

Please, do that same thing, but now about Arathi and Hallowfall.

[Super Dickmann]

this would be kind of a repeat of amridrassil. but instead of nature and fire, it would be nature and void. I think this would not be a good point to repeat.

We had three successive expansions about people grabbing the world soul in some alternate world. And twice it was a giant blue man associated with death doing it. Blizzard are no strangers to repeating themselves.

[Nymrohd]

An ethereal raid is a raid with ethereals as the main enemies. Does not have to be K'aresh. It could be Rootlands with a big Void Portal on one edge of the zone and Shadowguard invading the planet's core with maybe a dungeon and/or delves in the Void; not K'aresh, K'aresh remnants to our knowledge is under control of trader consortiums, not the Shadowguard and not the Void.

[Enrif]

BfA teased N'zoth and delivered (not in a new zone, though).

BfA also teased Azshra and we got her and the Nazjatar zone and raid

[Super Dickmann]

An ethereal raid is a raid with ethereals as the main enemies. Does not have to be K'aresh. It could be Rootlands with a big Void Portal on one edge of the zone and Shadowguard invading the planet's core with maybe a dungeon and/or delves in the Void; not K'aresh, K'aresh remnants to our knowledge is under control of trader consortiums, not the Shadowguard and not the Void.

The ethereal homeworld is a big planet inhabited by many ethereals.

[Darkarath]

]As pointed out before: They also said we'd know who the final boss of DF was by the end of the first tier. And everyone was very sure it totally must be Iridikron. Y'know. this guy:



Weird, that doesn't look like Emerald Dream.

I was with you until 11.1.

The evidence is there. Unless Ion is blatantly lying, K'aresh is next.

The Black Blood has been a theme of TWW, but the Rootlands? Barely mentioned. And the Black Blood seems fairly controlled in 11.1.5. We dealed with the Goblins and with the Nerubians. Xal'athat will probably be crazy finding a way to get the Dark Heart back. I do not see how flooding the Rootlands with Black Blood will help her getting it back.

[Nymrohd]

The ethereal homeworld is a big planet inhabited by many ethereals.

Is it? It's probably a couple broken zones under ecodomes drifting in space.

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I was with you until 11.1.

The evidence is there. Unless Ion is blatantly lying, K'aresh is next.

The Black Blood has been a theme of TWW, but the Rootlands? Barely mentioned. And the Black Blood seems fairly controlled in 11.1.5. We dealed with the Goblins and with the Nerubians. Xal'athat will probably be crazy finding a way to get the Dark Heart back. I do not see how flooding the Rootlands with Black Blood will help her getting back the Dark Heart.

We saw an Ethereal and a Void Portal. The Void is next. Why does it have to be K'aresh? I am not saying it is not probable but let's not decide it is a fact.

Also the Black Blood is controlled??? We got an entire area in the Ringing Deeps that looks like Nyalotha. We have contained what we found but we have in no way controlled the Black Blood. We have not even found its source yet

[Lahis]

Is it? It's probably a couple broken zones under ecodomes drifting in space.

We just got a visual of it. It is broken up yes, but the several broken shards floating above the void core still have a planet's curvature to them. There are several continent's worth of space available.

I'm sure they can fit a Shadowguard patch zone and a raid in there.

[Enrif]

We had three successive expansions about people grabbing the world soul in some alternate world. And twice it was a giant blue man associated with death doing it. Blizzard are no strangers to repeating themselves.

Sargeras, N'zoth and Zovall? only one of them is blue. Also, the themes of the raids were "fel", "old gods", "death", very different each time. Amirdrassils them is "emerlad dream" technically, but it wouldn't be different enough to "roots". On the other hand if the final raid is themed for "ehtereals" or "void" it would be different. And then for Midnight the last raid could be a curveball too and be "light/holy" themed instead of "void" depending on where the story is going.

[Super Dickmann]

Is it? It's probably a couple broken zones under ecodomes drifting in space.

We are grading on a curve here. I'd say its ethereal density is significantly above any other location. That and the Shadowguard taking over the remains also gives us the requisite friendly ethereals who were ousted and must participate in the mandatory rebellion plotline.

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Sargeras, N'zoth and Zovall? only one of them is blue. Also, the themes of the raids were "fel", "old gods", "death", very different each time. Amirdrassils them is "emerlad dream" technically, but it wouldn't be different enough to "roots". On the other hand if the final raid is themed for "ehtereals" or "void" it would be different. And then for Midnight the last raid could be a curveball too and be "light/holy" themed instead of "void" depending on where the story is going.

Argus, N'zoth and the Jailer. All three involved us fighting them in some titan (or pseudo-titan location) while they were in the process of either fondling the world soul or moving forward with fondling the world soul right after the curtains closed. They were visually distinct enough and the overall threat they represented at least nominally varied enough that it wasn't an issue. Similarly, Amirdrassil as a lush green world tree with elaborate architecture does not have to correlate with say, a Deeproot Depths or Great Hollow-style internal root system and a flaming purple and orange dragon and his army of Firelands throwbacks are sufficiently distinct both from corrupted hedgehog people, the chiefly pink and purple black blood and the blue and black ethereals.

[Nymrohd]

We are grading on a curve here. I'd say its ethereal density is significantly above any other location. That and the Shadowguard taking over the remains also gives us the requisite friendly ethereals who were ousted and must participate in the mandatory rebellion plotline.

I wish we got a 100% unfriendly zone again. I loved that about Vashj'ir. It was unwelcoming, every "safe" space had to be hidden and still felt less than safe and everything around wanted to kill us.

[Hitei]

I was with you until 11.1.

The evidence is there. Unless Ion is blatantly lying, K'aresh is next.

The Black Blood has been a theme of TWW, but the Rootlands? Barely mentioned. And the Black Blood seems fairly controlled in 11.1.5. We dealed with the Goblins and with the Nerubians. Xal'athat will probably be crazy finding a way to get the Dark Heart back. I do not see how flooding the Rootlands with Black Blood will help her getting back the Dark Heart.

Because she doesn't have the Dark Heart. So what are her practical options right now? Go off to K'aresh to start a whole separate new conflict against the Ethereals and possibly Dimensius to try and get it back, or all-in on the thing she's been actively using this whole time and still has access to.

I do not think K'aresh is a fundamental impossibility, despite it making absolutely zero sense for them to use the single biggest void set piece before the expansion entirely about fighting the Void, but there's just nothing in the development to point in that direction, including in our most recent looks. We just got the 11.1.5 PTR today, and what does it have? Us reliving Horrific Visions so that we can better understand and fight against the visions of the Black Blood. Us helping the Arathi against the last of the Nerubian group who used that blood.

If they cut the Orweyna plotline, why make her and the blood a part of Undermine instead of just having Xal'atath/the Dark Heart generically empower the goblins? Why still be going on about the blood in 11.1.5, with no Ethereals in sight, rather than shift that plot to be just about the Void?

It's literally just this 2 second tease that is almost shot for shot exactly what we got in Dawn of the Infinite for World Soul teasing.

[Eldryth]

I just thought of something- remember those coins that just appeared in our Adventurer's Journals, leading to this?

Perhaps that came from Azir's faction of Ethereals. The description of the coin at the end sounds a lot like Ethereal magic, and there was another "Shadescrawled" item further back tied to another mysterious Ethereal who was observing us for a mysterious master.

Basically, there were Ethereal agents gathering information on us- Azeroth's heroes- without interfering since BFA at the very least. I suspect that they might finally be following up on those hints.

also, hedgehogs and the haranir both have quillons (like we got matching mounts for niffen and kobolds). There could be something here. Perhaps in 11.1.7. we go to the rootlands as a side zone similar to siren isle.

As much as I'm worried that they won't have time to do Haranir-related info justice in a minor patch, it's looking more and more like that's going to be the case. Or saved for another expansion, but if we're already seeing cosmetics tied to them, that doesn't really seem likely.

I guess I have to hope that 11.1.7 has plenty of lore like Dawn of the Infinite then, because a society worshipping the Worldsoul itself, living in the roots of a World Tree that caused a conflict between Eonar and Aman'thul, seems like a great opportunity to give us big revelations about some of the Saga's big mysteries.

I guess it'd pretty much have to be story-heavy though if they're planning to tackle everything they're teasing in TWW. Maybe they'll even address the Black Blood then. It's not like we're just suddenly going to jump straight from here to K'aresh without any further story about how and why we get there (probably Orwenya getting another vision leading us there at the very least).

[Super Dickmann]

I wish we got a 100% unfriendly zone again. I loved that about Vashj'ir. It was unwelcoming, every "safe" space had to be hidden and still felt less than safe and everything around wanted to kill us.

Same, even Argus had to have the Legion be unable to fully establish command of its own homeworld so that we might have some natives and I've spewed enough invective about the Unshackled that I won't repeat myself. I'm so inured to it at this point that I found Azj'kahet actually very refreshing, in as much as we are helping what amounts to a palace coup and subversion effort and there's no nerubian to nerubian fighting going on or open warfare.

[Nymrohd]

Same, even Argus had to have the Legion be unable to fully establish command of its own homeworld so that we might have some natives and I've spewed enough invective about the Unshackled that I won't repeat myself. I'm so inured to it at this point that I found Azj'kahet actually very refreshing, in as much as we are helping what amounts to a palace coup and subversion effort and there's no nerubian to nerubian fighting going on or open warfare.

Azj'kahet was a great premise, it was just very underbaked because proper gameplay there would not work with flight and with the current game base throwing a tantrum the moment World PvE content cannot be done by a deaf, blind, one-armed mentally disabled monkey. It needed a proper max level campaign instead of spending half of it world building a culture we will never meet again after this xpac.

As for Argus, it was such a poor way to tell the story. Still enjoyed it because the gameplay at that point in Legion was superb.

[Holdodlig]

Deviating subject but do you think WoW will have its first cross licence promotion outside of Blizzard ? We've had turtle shells in the 11.1 datas and now we have a sai, a nunchaku and a katana which are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' iconic weapons.

[Enrif]

As much as I'm worried that they won't have time to do Haranir-related info justice in a minor patch, it's looking more and more like that's going to be the case. Or saved for another expansion, but if we're already seeing cosmetics tied to them, that doesn't really seem likely.

I guess I have to hope that 11.1.7 has plenty of lore like Dawn of the Infinite then, because a society worshipping the Worldsoul itself, living in the roots of a World Tree that caused a conflict between Eonar and Aman'thul, seems like a great opportunity to give us big revelations about some of the Saga's big mysteries.

I guess it'd pretty much have to be story-heavy though if they're planning to tackle everything they're teasing in TWW. Maybe they'll even address the Black Blood then. It's not like we're just suddenly going to jump straight from here to K'aresh without any further story about how and why we get there (probably Orwenya getting another vision leading us there at the very least).

Given the current informations about 11.1.5. that somehow repeats the ongoing "nerubians attack the arathi" thing from the start of the expansion, i can only guess that 11.1.5 will deal heavily with the blood and perhaps continue also Orwenyas story a bit. It is mentioned in the texts for 11.1.5 and the horrific vision that it is to prepare us for the black blood. Which then could lead into 11.1.7. rootlands to get the black blood cleansed or removed. After that, the story can pivot to the ethereals for 11.2.0., it can still continue a bit of the rootlands, but the focus would shift towards the dark heart, Xal, the ethereals in some way or form.

Though... black blood and mind altering visions... hmm, i guess that could be also a way to pivot into different things.

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Deviating subject but do you think WoW will have its first cross licence promotion outside of Blizzard ? We've had turtle shells in the 11.1 datas and now we have a sai, a nunchaku and a katana which are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' iconic weapons.

i thought these weapons were meant to go with the chen transmog