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

[Nymrohd]

God was it ever. The Broken Shore patch was the second time ever I unsubbed from the game (first was WoD burning me the hell out).

I just used that patch to prep all the alts needed to get all the Mage Tower mogs.

My biggest disappointment with legion is still that they did not use that middle patch to make it clear how the Legion was a threat to the entirety of Azeroth. Instead of focusing on the Broken Shore, we should have had the pre-expansion Legion invasions be the focus. I mean we learn from missions that it rained infernals on Thunder Bluff while we were farming shards from the Paraxis so we can get a Tower run going on.

[Sondrelk]

I just used that patch to prep all the alts needed to get all the Mage Tower mogs.

My biggest disappointment with legion is still that they did not use that middle patch to make it clear how the Legion was a threat to the entirety of Azeroth. Instead of focusing on the Broken Shore, we should have had the pre-expansion Legion invasions be the focus. I mean we learn from missions that it rained infernals on Thunder Bluff while we were farming shards from the Paraxis so we can get a Tower run going on.

Legion is definitely an expansion that is lesser in hindsight. Knowing how much content we would start to get in future expansions. The Broken Shore is the kind of content that would fill a 0.7 patch nowadays, like Forbidden Reach or Siren Isle. But back then it was good enough to warrant a full major patch.

[Nymrohd]

Legion is definitely an expansion that is lesser in hindsight. Knowing how much content we would start to get in future expansions. The Broken Shore is the kind of content that would fill a 0.7 patch nowadays, like Forbidden Reach or Siren Isle. But back then it was good enough to warrant a full major patch.

I think Legion was just so crazily frontloaded that it rode on that all the way to Argus which was also beefy

[JDBlou]

Legion is definitely an expansion that is lesser in hindsight. Knowing how much content we would start to get in future expansions. The Broken Shore is the kind of content that would fill a 0.7 patch nowadays, like Forbidden Reach or Siren Isle. But back then it was good enough to warrant a full major patch.

I'd rather see it as the opposite. We've come such a long way with developer planning and content delivery that what would've been a .1 or .2 is now just a .0.5 or 0.7 patch.

[Sondrelk]

I think Legion was just so crazily frontloaded that it rode on that all the way to Argus which was also beefy

It's focus on Classes went well, all the way until Broken Shore as well. When the need for 12 unique questlines meant they didnt have time for an actual questline for the zone. And instead just had 8 different "find ten chests" type quests, which really brought the whole thing down. Especially when the patch was screaming for a storyline exploring Kil'jaeden, and really leaning into the raid itself like what we got with the Nighthold Insurrection storyline.

[Nymrohd]

Btw this expansion seems to have a serious issue with lag. I don't remember anything similar happening in the last few expansions to what happened early on in Isle of Dorn during the play or what happens every time someone does the World Boss in Undermine. Is it just poor optimization?

[Sondrelk]

I'd rather see it as the opposite. We've come such a long way with developer planning and content delivery that what would've been a .1 or .2 is now just a .0.5 or 0.7 patch.

Either way. There is definitely a lot of missed opportunities in Legion that could have been avoided, even just with it swapping places with BfA in terms of development.

[Nymrohd]

I'd rather see it as the opposite. We've come such a long way with developer planning and content delivery that what would've been a .1 or .2 is now just a .0.5 or 0.7 patch.

I don't think it is really so much the planning as much as it is a much, much larger team

[allegrian]

https://x.com/AlterTimeSK/status/1900933189939421610

Probably just creating hype, but in a recent interview, when asked about his favourite expansion, Ion says Legion, but that he hopes to change before the WSS is over.

Is he talking about Midnight or TLT?

Probably TWW /s

[Ersula]

Legion is definitely an expansion that is lesser in hindsight. Knowing how much content we would start to get in future expansions. The Broken Shore is the kind of content that would fill a 0.7 patch nowadays, like Forbidden Reach or Siren Isle. But back then it was good enough to warrant a full major patch.

I hope people understand they just put non seasonal content into a minor patch now, so there are more patches overall. If you compare 10.2 to 7.2, we got more patches but not more content. If Dragonflight was like Legion, we would have had Time Rifts & the Megadungeon in 10.2 instead of between seasons, and if Legion were like Dragonflight, class mounts & Broken Shore zone questing would have come out between Nighthold & Tomb instead of in 7.2 - Don't act like Dragonflight had more content than legion... it didn't. Trial of Valor, Kerazhan megadungeon, Mage Tower, microholidays, Invasions, if Forbidden reach counts as a new zone then the 7.1 update of Suramar does too.

It's cadence of updates is an improvement but its not a groundbreaking change.

Also Siren's Isle might be the most irrelevant zone ever made? In 2 or three weeks its going to be way less relevant than FR & ZK were by the end of the expansion - and way less cosmetics to farm.

[Sondrelk]

I hope people understand they just put non seasonal content into a minor patch now, so there are more patches overall. If you compare 10.2 to 7.2, we got more patches but not more content. If Dragonflight was like Legion, we would have had Time Rifts & the Megadungeon in 10.2 instead of between seasons, and if Legion were like Dragonflight, class mounts & Broken Shore zone questing would have come out between Nighthold & Tomb instead of in 7.2 - Don't act like Dragonflight had more content than legion... it didn't. Trial of Valor, Kerazhan megadungeon, Mage Tower, microholidays, Invasions, if Forbidden reach counts as a new zone then the 7.1 update of Suramar does too.

It's cadence of updates is an improvement but its not a groundbreaking change.

Also Siren's Isle might be the most irrelevant zone ever made? In 2 or three weeks its going to be way less relevant than FR & ZK were by the end of the expansion - and way less cosmetics to farm.

Not content then. But new locations for each area. Had Legion been made now, then there would have been more areas added for each new event. Whatever the elf island was going to be called would have been added in order to have a more substantial area for the major patch. Stuff like that.

[Xilurm]

Btw this expansion seems to have a serious issue with lag. I don't remember anything similar happening in the last few expansions to what happened early on in Isle of Dorn during the play or what happens every time someone does the World Boss in Undermine. Is it just poor optimization?

The world boss lag in Undermine can be pretty annoying. I thought it was just me at first.

[Sondrelk]

The world boss lag in Undermine can be pretty annoying. I thought it was just me at first.

Undermine is one of those zones that are just uniquely suited to be laggy. Small and cramped, with lots and lots and lots of detail.

And of course the world boss. Which might be the laggiest world boss since the Mantid Queen in the updates version of Vale of Eternal Blossoms.

[allegrian]

- The whole point of 10.0 is activating the Aspects stones to regain their powers. Abandoned plot

- Heavily teased Blue Dragonflight prison in Azure Span. Abandoned plot

- Aberrus' final raid encounter is in a voidy room with huge chains and no character makes a comment about it. Abandoned plot

- Malfurion changes places with Ysera for reasons, supposedly to come with new powers of Death (teased by Danuser) Abandoned plot

- Whole point of the expansion if bringing back Tyr for... Nothing. Abandoned plot

- Iridikron teased as the main baddy of the expansion just to dissapear mid-expansion after an still unexplained connection with the Infinite Dragonflight. Abandoned plot

- The reasons behind the Dracthyr's stasis are not explained in game, but in the book. Abandoned plot

- Vyranoth changing sides in a 10 minute pathetic questline for reasons. Abandoned plot

- This might be a more personal one, but for my, even with the mega-dungeon, the Infinite Dragonflight and Murozond plot was mostly abandoned. Murozond was heavily teased and we just see him 3 seconds and then re-wind time. Abandoned plot

It is very clear IMO that DF story was drastically changed to fit into the WSS, and the consequences were noted in the game experience (even if the Primal Incarnates are very cool).



Good point. I completely agree

I feel something similar happenned with TWW, which was partially done before shifting to the WSS. The whole earthen coreway, arathi and nerubian plot feels unimportant, rushed and abandoned while trying to focus on Xalatath and her mcguffin. The haranir and their rootlands seems kinda abandoned as well. What do the alliance and horde armies actually do? Why are we still in dornogal?

How would you describe TWW's main plot? It's a mess.

[milkmustache]

I hope they never do "area infected by glowing bad stuff" ever again. It was barely in classic and I really like how its barely in TWW.

I hated the primalist areas.

I've been half jokingly referring to it as a power rangers effect on things. I think it extends past just area with glowy effect; they've been doing this sort of color coded thing a lot. With the dragonflights... sure, it makes sense (without bringing up my issues on the design approach to the flights in DF), but it feels the most egregious in Undermine. I know that there has always been some colors associated with some of the Cartels, but the solid single color paint on metal being swapped out for each cartel is maybe the laziest approach to this. I don't mind recoloring armor sets a la Zaralek, etc., but at least those had a lot more variation than the 11.1 color themes. Everything else in this patch knocks it out of the park for me, but this one thing sticks out in a way that bothers me a lot.

[Xilurm]

I feel something similar happenned with TWW, which was partially done before shifting to the WSS. The whole earthen coreway, arathi and nerubian plot feels unimportant, rushed and abandoned while trying to focus on Xalatath and her mcguffin. The haranir and their rootlands seems kinda abandoned as well. What do the alliance and horde armies actually do? Why are we still in dornogal?

How would you describe TWW's main plot? It's a mess.

Orweyna was with us during the Undermine campaign so the rootlands aren't abandoned at all. The coreway is just an aspect of the world. They don't need to go all the way with it. We've yet to see what the armies will do though.

As far as TWW's plot goes, it's one of the most well paced and detail packed stories of the entire game imo.

[Viridiel]

I feel something similar happenned with TWW, which was partially done before shifting to the WSS. The whole earthen coreway, arathi and nerubian plot feels unimportant, rushed and abandoned while trying to focus on Xalatath and her mcguffin. The haranir and their rootlands seems kinda abandoned as well. What do the alliance and horde armies actually do? Why are we still in dornogal?

How would you describe TWW's main plot? It's a mess.

The Nerubian plot is the only one I'm actually worried about. The others are very likely to be addressed either before the expansion ends or in future expansions (TLT for the earthen stuff, perhaps Midnight or after the saga for the Arathi), or are just vaguely bad writing but not particularly concerning (lack of development regarding the armies we brought, Anduin's story seemingly resolving very quickly and non-impactfully). I'm sure we'll have some sort of continuation of the Nerubian plot in TLT, but we really needed some development to happen in Azj-Kahet and it needed to happen a while ago. I don't always love zones being updated mid-expansion, especially if we can't access the older version, but Azj-Kahet really needed to be changed to recognise the major shift in leadership and culture following the defeat of the queen. Shouldn't there be a full-scale civil war between the Sureki and the rest of the Nerubians? I doubt Nightfall is going to address that satisfactorily.

[allegrian]

Orweyna was with us during the Undermine campaign so the rootlands aren't abandoned at all. The coreway is just an aspect of the world. They don't need to go all the way with it. We've yet to see what the armies will do though.

As far as TWW's plot goes, it's one of the most well paced and detail packed stories of the entire game imo.

TWW has very good world building and side quest writing, but the main plot itself is all over the place and has no focus. It feels like a xalatath-powered monster of the week kid show with no main goal besides just reacting to whatever xalatath does next.

- - - Updated - - -

The Nerubian plot is the only one I'm actually worried about. The others are very likely to be addressed either before the expansion ends or in future expansions (TLT for the earthen stuff, perhaps Midnight or after the saga for the Arathi), or are just vaguely bad writing but not particularly concerning (lack of development regarding the armies we brought, Anduin's story seemingly resolving very quickly and non-impactfully). I'm sure we'll have some sort of continuation of the Nerubian plot in TLT, but we really needed some development to happen in Azj-Kahet and it needed to happen a while ago. I don't always love zones being updated mid-expansion, especially if we can't access the older version, but Azj-Kahet really needed to be changed to recognise the major shift in leadership and culture following the defeat of the queen. Shouldn't there be a full-scale civil war between the Sureki and the rest of the Nerubians? I doubt Nightfall is going to address that satisfactorily.

Azj-Kahet feels completely abandoned both lore and gameplay-wise. Queen ansurek was turned into a simple xalatath pawn and did absolutely nothing besides showing up 1 second in Dalaran, which was destroyed completely by xalatath and she wouldn't have needed the nerubians at all.

The city itself felt like a failed attempt to a Suramar 2.0, where rep npc sell items to help you go thorugh the city and avoid guards... while you can just turbo fly through it. It may have been designed with no flying in mind, and it should have had a longer reputation based questline.

You can even see anubazal dying in a reputation quest while he appears on the raid, it makes no sense and feels rushed.

[Foolicious]

Queen ansurek was turned into a simple xalatath pawn and did absolutely nothing besides showing up 1 second in Dalaran, which was destroyed completely by xalatath and she wouldn't have needed the nerubians at all.

Thats the point, isn't it? Ansurek was played by xalatath. There never was a grand plan involving the nerubians. They were supposed to wage war and die. And with ansurek as a young and naive queen they did.
Xal didn't need the nerubians to destroy dalaran. She gave us a scapegoat to go after.

[Hitei]

Azj-Kahet feels completely abandoned both lore and gameplay-wise. Queen ansurek was turned into a simple xalatath pawn and did absolutely nothing besides showing up 1 second in Dalaran, which was destroyed completely by xalatath and she wouldn't have needed the nerubians at all.

The city itself felt like a failed attempt to a Suramar 2.0, where rep npc sell items to help you go thorugh the city and avoid guards... while you can just turbo fly through it. It may have been designed with no flying in mind, and it should have had a longer reputation based questline.

You can even see anubazal dying in a reputation quest while he appears on the raid, it makes no sense and feels rushed.

What? Ansurek was never not a pawn, that was the entire point of her short before the expansion even launched. Xal didn't bring in the Nerubians to destroy Dalaran, she had them attack as a distraction so she'd have time uninterrupted to siphon Dalaran's magic into the Heart. The Anub'azal quest takes place after the raid.