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

[micwini]

Having been on team world revamp since WoD/Legion, I feel like this time it's going to be it for sure.

[Raetary]

With that said, I still believe that nearly all zones, after the leveling experience, should be made and scaled for level cap and endgame activities, such as World Quests, Rares, Community Events, Invasions, Campaign Quests, Treasures, Secrets, Collectables, and everything that level cap zones have these days, even if Blizzard decides to set up a rotation.

Well yes, that's the entire idea of a new revamp.

To utilize the features and tech they have available now so that the mistakes of Catacylsm don't get repeated.

[cocomen2]

"Kids" - teenagers - not being into MMORPGs doesn't feel quite right, when I can walk into any local gaming or anime convention and see XIV cosplay and fan merch everywhere. That game is extremely popular with younger players

LoL, you compared FFXIV with your regular MMO's? while it basically arcade-fetish-fest, add housing and make every model in WoW sexy, then we gonna talk, there big difference between people sexually attracted to Vulpera than to Ahri, same goes for a Dwarfs = in WoW it most not popular pick while in Lineage 2 dwarf females on 3rd spot from a top, google difference between WoW f.Dwarf and L2 f.Dwarf, even that ugly ff14 Elin race are more popular than shitload of WoW races, Blood Elfs or Riot = way of the WoW.

But as long WoW remains raid-lobby-jerker, their playerbase gonna dwine, 90% of players hate M+ and raids so deal with it.

[Jiastanna]

Those uber cinematics you are talking about aren't as easy to create compared to the cutscenes we sometimes see and well don't have the player character in them either. I also feel like people are ignoring some of the character moment for Ebyssian, Wrathion, Sabellian

I know, still didn´t keep them from making those. It might be easier doing those, but I can hardly take Sylvanas in some of them seriously, because of the standard talk emote she is doing.

Ebyssians story has nice moments, but they also use some of those "uber cinematics" as well, contributing to emotional moments, because the standard models cannot express emotions very well.

[micwini]

Just throwing some stuff out there, what I would love to see in a revamp
11.0: World revamp: Both EK and Kalimdor revamped (including cata zones). Including remade level experience to better lead in new players + zones used for content at max level. For leveling: Ground mounts only, but with a new system akin to dragonriding. Dragonriding type flying at max level. You can choose which zones to level in for your 70-80 journey.

Raid: Stratholme
Last boss: High General XXXX of the Scarlet Crusade

11.1: New zone: Tel'Abim
Raid: The Dread fleet
Last boss: Dread Admiral Nightsquall

11.2: Revamped Northrend
Raid: Blue Dragonflight prison
Last boss: Chromatus

11.3: Revamped Vashj'ir
Raid: Abyssal Maw
Last boss: Queen Aszhara

[Makabreska]

Although I've to say that I strongly disagree with a World Revamp targeting mostly the leveling experience, Nixxiom made a great video that talks mostly about it, and how the current experience droves away new players.

Fuck sake. These retarded clickbaits is the exact reason I don't click on vids like this.

[Nymrohd]

I'd say if WoW wanted to engage new players, finding ways to make its vast library of content evergreen through timewalking with visual updates where needed would be the goal. That way new players would have so much content they could do and if it is changed to the modern paradigm it would be much easier to just drop in and play without having constant repetition. A revamp is far more so targeted to veteran players who want to see the world's progression.

[Darkarath]

I'd say if WoW wanted to engage new players, finding ways to make its vast library of content evergreen through timewalking with visual updates where needed would be the goal. That way new players would have so much content they could do and if it is changed to the modern paradigm it would be much easier to just drop in and play without having constant repetition. A revamp is far more so targeted to veteran players who want to see the world's progression.

I think that this approach would be quite ineffective to bring new players to WoW. Hell, new players would not even understand the concept of Timewalking itself. The main problems of the game to bring new players would remain:

- Too big.
- Too late to catch up with the game.
- Too complex.
- Too old.
- Too expensive (subscription model).
- Too many addons needed to play.
- Not casual enough.
- Not enough focus on single player content.
- Limited to PC.

[Raetary]

To expand on what i said in my previous post.

The shelved legacy content wouldn't be just be sitting in the game files either, they could expand Timewalking to be its own pillar of optional endgame content.

Imagine caverns of time, but its a massive Timewalking hub where each corridor leads to a dungeon, raid or even zone, all portals rotate on a (bi/tri) weekly basis and we get various daily and weekly quests to run old raids and dungeons, even revisit old zones and redo old questlines for rewards and repuation.

[Chickat]

Yeah, I also think that is what we will get. Which is why I hate the idea of a revamp expansion. Because making textures nicer looking isn't enough to make helping the same NPCs fight the same enemy groups in mostly the same zones (for the third time in a 20 year progression) not sound like absolute torture.

Tbh, I think that if they only updated 25% of the quests in the game, they would also update rares, and add world events to the map to spice things up too.

I have a feeling every party is going to end up feeling a bit meh if its announced. Its cool to see it happen, but I dont think they will be able to go far enough. Then the people that dont want a revamp at all are also going to be annoyed.

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Even at its height, WoW peaked at 14M concurrent players while being available in markets that comprise >2B people. I'd argue MMOs never really got out of niche to begin with. Video games as a whole only really became mainstream relatively recently, historically speaking. Pong turned 50 last year.

Wasnt it 12m players?

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Changing minds is fine, just that they conveniently changed their mind to whatever changes Blizz made even though they would criticize others' people suggestions that led to Blizz's changes. Then they will magically support after the changes are made.

0 chars

Well I cant speak for everyone, but I do think the MoP system got a little stale by like BFA. Still better than the vanilla talent trees, but.

[Hyde]

Me manifesting my class that uses origami, calligraphy and paintings as their skills:

I personally want a lore walker to be the bard type of class in WoW.

I imagine lore-walker would use tome, quill and ink and harness their powers through origami/scrolls/calligraphy/paintings that come to life/sigils and leylines to fight enemies or heal their allies.

Mod Edit: Don't use giant fonts in this fashion.

[Luck4]

Fuck sake. These retarded clickbaits is the exact reason I don't click on vids like this.

Yeah, the titles are 100% lies most of the time.

[Worldshaper]

Me manifesting my class that uses origami, calligraphy and paintings as their skills:

I personally want a lore walker to be the bard type of class in WoW.

I imagine lore-walker would use tome, quill and ink and harness their powers through origami/scrolls/calligraphy/paintings that come to life/sigils and leylines to fight enemies or heal their allies.

Not opposed, but I feel like Lorewalking would do better as a 2ndary Proff to replace Archaeology. A way to visit past content and "collect" lore through texts, items, doing legacy content, exploration, etc. It might be a little too big for a 2ndary Proff so perhaps it should be a system to its own.

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Afrasiabi on the Old Gods in 2018:

"I would say that we should consider them dead. But! As with all things in World of Warcraft and in general in the Warcraft universe, death is not always final. Therefore, if there is the coming of the Old Gods, or some precursor of the Old Gods appear from the eternal darkness, from the Void, for example, if there is any way or opportunity to return them, I imagine that this may well happen."

[Fahrad Wagner]

Having been on team world revamp since WoD/Legion, I feel like this time it's going to be it for sure.

Same... it feels like this is now or never!

[Sondrelk]

Same... it feels like this is now or never!

It's definitely the best possible time they could ever have. From a gameplay standpoint it's the perfect continuation of Dragonflight revamping base systems of the game. Narratively it makes sense that we would actually see the consequences of the timeskip. And on a purely meta perspective there is no better time for a world revamp than a major anniversary like this.
I somehow doubt WoW will manage to get to it's 30th anniversary without reusing content. The backside of Azeroth is the only area left for a plausible location area that can easily accomodate an expansion, and also be somewhat known to players beforehand. 3 more expansion beyond that seems like a stretch to make new stuff.

[Kiria]

Same... it feels like this is now or never!

Please accept me as apart of your following, WoW needs a massive shake up and a revamp is definitely needed imho.

[Hugnomo]

Same... it feels like this is now or never!

We're in the endgame now buahahah

[Khaza-R]

I wonder if 11.0 is a revamp of Kalimdor and/or Eastern Kingdoms, will subsequent expansions do the same for Outland, Northrend and Pandaria ?

Unlikely. WoW shifted world building outside of Azeroth. Into planes and other cosmic nonsense.

That could change. But currently there is no reason to revisit these places. There's simply a void of lore as far as they are concerned.

[Mecheon]

Azeroth is starting to run out of room for new areas. There is always the possibility of the islands of the South Seas or even Avaloren beyond the Forbidden Sea, but after that? Where would we go?

Ancient Kalimdor, backside of Azeroth, fixing up Outland/accidentally merging Draenor in with Outland, still a few places before we get to off-planet stuff. Even then we have a few grounded ones in the moons and the Ethereal's homeworld before going completely crazy with like, other Titan planets

I'm still skeptical on revamp. Not that it won't be good (It'd be good and nice), but I just suspect we're going to have another Cataclysm. You have to incorporate the levelling experience into things otherwise you're going to have a weird disconnect where we have two Stormwinds and two Orgrimmars, one for high level and another for low level. Plus, well, even at their reduced sizes, I do think EK and Kalimdor are too big to serve as zones full of endgame activities. EPL was a chore enough for Alliance back in the day, heading up there for dailies is not going to be any better in this day or age

[Chickat]

I'd argue that a revamp doesn't actually make for much of a newcomer experience at all.

I've expressed this position before but: by necessity a revamp of this sort is targeted at veteran players. When you make EPL and WPL into a hilly green zone with ongoing farming efforts; that is only exciting for veteran players. It's made interesting because a veteran player knows the history of the area, they (obviously, assumptions) saw it fall in WC3, they saw the argents struggle to hold the line in Vanilla, they saw the fall of the Scourge in Wrath, the beginnings of recovery and healing in Cata, and that green zone represents a payoff for a 20 year plotline.

A new player just sees a generic fantasy forest zone. You can tell them it used to be a plagued hellscape, but they're just gonna take it as "oh, that's neat."

A veteran player sees Auberdine destroyed, or the bridge in Redridge complete, or Thousand Needles entirely flooded and it has deep meaning. A new one just sees ruins they have no connection to, a normal stone bridge and a weird long lake.

The solution for this presents even more problems. Because you have an uphill battle trying to impart the history and context of a location or race or NPC to a newplayer, in a way that doesn't feel like painful overexplaining for every existing player, who are still 95% of who is going to be doing those quests.

I agree that individual starter zones indicate racial identity more, but that's also (and this being good or bad is an entire debate in itself) not the direction that characters and narrative have been moving in. The Alliance and horde are no longer loose associations of largely independent racial groups that stick to their own and firmly embrace established traditions and racial identity. They are increasingly a cohesive society of culturally mobile individuals: A 2004 female night elf was (lorewise) presented as probably a priestess or some martial variety of sentinel, or exceptionally, a newly trained druid where males typically held that role. A 2023 female night elf might be someone more like Elise Starseeker, an explorer's league gal through and through, who dresses more like a dwarf and is, despite being a druid, more interested in cataloging and charting ancient troll ruins than typical night elf things.

Those racial groups don't really exist in the same fashion in the modern setting the way they did in Vanilla or Cata. Tauren are still Tauren, but they're also now two culturally distinct groups the HM associated and Bloodhoof, they're also Cenarion members, and Sunwalkers and members of the Earthen Ring. Even without getting into the arcane using tauren mages or piratey tauren rogues, they have a much larger and more difficult to gloss cultural distribution compared to when in 2004 they just needed to be plains hunters with typical indigenous-resembling ceremonies and rituals.

I think that's why they went with Exiles'. Because the idea they want to move forward with is that your character is an individual with their own agenda and context rather than just a sort of stamp generated by a preconceived racial identity and it's traditional values and identity.

We need a revamp not because the storys are old and tired, but because the content is dated now and the game is too ugly for new players. I agree a new player isnt going to care about an updated story but they will absolutely care about updated graphics and game mechanics.

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I am sure FFXIV's demo still skews to the 28-34 range. Even if its slightly younger than WoW.

Traditional MMOs with a sub are dinosaurs. F2P "Open world ARPGs" are slowly supplanting them and more popular with younger gamers. Which is fully what I expect Riot's MMO to be.

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In the context of speculating a new expansion, its sort of irrelevant either way. A revamp can both be rewardingly nostalgic and new player-friendly simultaneously. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Ive been opposed to it for years, but I think its time for WoW to drop the mandatory sub. Keep the sub plus lots of goodies, extra traders tender, perks etc for players that play alot, but make the game f2p for most. Then expand the cash shop to the levels of GW2 or other similar games.

Maybe it doesnt make financial sense to do that yet, but at a certain point they will probably have to to attract players back.

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Absolutely true. IMO WoWs base has always been Warcraft 1-3, especially WarIII for obvious reasons. Without that story, WoW wouldn´t have those 20 year old plotlines people could connect to. Therefore Blizz is in dire need of a new base to build Warcrafts universe on. They have been terrible at telling a cohesive storyline through expansions, often pushing central elements to books outside the game. I don´t see many other ways to get a new playerbase that cares for Warcrafts universe other than creating a bigger singleplayer experience with a decent storyline in multiple arcs, e.g. WarIV in the style of Starcraft IIs campaign. If they are not fond of RTS (which is very much niche today too), then resort to another genre. But it has to be a singleplayer experience with a focus on telling a cohesive and coherent story with multiple heros and baddies. Even Hearthstone is often better at creating such characters than WoW lately.

But WoW also has to return to the MoP-BfA way of telling a story through cinematics and ingame cinematics. The Shadowlands cutscenes often feel very generic and unrefined for obvious reasons. But DF is missing in that departement as well. WoD, Legion and BfA were best at that. There are a lot of very good ingame cinematics in those. Some of them really hit hard too: Varians death, AU Velens sacrifice... Also BfA with many real cinematics of Saurfang. I miss those things in DF.

Im fairly sure DF has the most high quality ingame cut scenes ever, and a large number of nice pre rendered ones too. Imo bad take. I think DF is the best wow cut scenes have ever been.