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

[Dancaris]

Kalimdor



I think more about just like that. We have 3 (2 starter zones + leveling one - Barrens) zones for Horde, 3 zones for Alliance (2 starter zones + leveling one - Ashenvale) and Sand zone and forest zone for patch content. Ungoro and Winterspring as mini-patch zones.
And remove much of mountains. I undertand that it was placed for separating zones, but come on, its not aged well.

To add some EK stuff - my vision on EK.
EK
Harder one to me. We have 5 starter zones (BE, forsaken, gilnean and SW, Dun-Morogh), 3 leveing zones (Arathi+Alterak+Hinterlands, Blackrock and Blasted Lands+Swamps) and Stranglethorn Vale, Plaguelands and Northeron as patch zones.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Speaking as someone who could stomach but wouldn't prefer it: I do not think that most of the playerbase would enjoy an expansion with nowhere new to explore.

I understand your point, but I'm highly doubtful that would actually be the case. Obviously, neither of us have the requisite information to say for sure, but I think there is a certain appeal to seeing the current status of something you've already seen before, especially in a long-running game like WoW. In a newer game, I could see continuously revisiting the same thing to potentially be fairly dull, but it's been a great deal of time since we last visited Kalimdor or the Eastern Kingdoms outside of some small slices.

If we're to cite personal opinions, I am personally uncertain whether I would enjoy visiting Avaloren (or the landmass that hosts it) or revisiting Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms more, but I believe there's a great deal of value to the latter that could certainly justify an expansion's worth of content.

My preferred notion, however, is of a limited revamp, such as one focused on Lordaeron. I am personally inclined to support that particular idea because it would give us a limited number of zones that could be more thoroughly fleshed-out, which will likely be in a state very different to the state they were in last we saw them. I think this could mitigate the bulk of your objections because the change will be far more significant and profound than most other locations, and because the updates to the relevant zones would exceed the potentially-limited scope of a revamp.

[Nibelheimy]

While I understand the dangers of a world revamp as a expansion, I don't really fully consider cataclysm one.

In some zones Cataclysm was literally destroying zones people had loved for years, I'm not surprised a lot of people dropped off. Especially after time. It's like what they did with Vale of Eternal Blossoms. God I hated those initial changes, and I hated the old god infested (but not really) zones at the end of BFA.

If they do a revamp it'll be framed as rediscovery of the classic continent with a full revamp, not just and HD update IMHO. They can put Ziridormi in an updated CoT to change back I guess.

[Mecheon]

How many biomes and how many stories does Azure Span tell?

The Azure Span is the Azure Span though. It has the overall zonewide aesthetic of "Cold mountainous forest". Yeah, lots of biomes, but there's an overall general aesthetic that tells you "You're in Azure Span", as compared to similar places like Grizzly Hills

Each zone has its invidiual language. Even with the split, you can tell northern and southern Barrens are the one thing, simply because the visual language of the Barrens is consistent between the two.

Kalimdor

I think more about just like that. We have 3 (2 starter zones + leveling one - Barrens) zones for Horde, 3 zones for Alliance (2 starter zones + leveling one - Ashenvale) and Sand zone and forest zone for patch content. Ungoro and Winterspring as mini-patch zones.
And remove much of mountains. I undertand that it was placed for separating zones, but come on, its not aged well.

So, firstly, you've destroyed any hope of backwards compatibility with the Cata zones for a start.

Secondly, what is the advantage from doing this? You've merged together multiple starting zones with high end stuff so its clearly not to help new people. What's the point of breaking the game's history and links by merging in stuff in these ways, breaking people's historic memories of these places? Everyone knows there's tons of complaints about Thounsand Needle's being flooded, I absolutely guarantee you there'd be exactly as many for making Silithus and Feralas, places that don't even touch in the game, part of the same area

These mountains are known to people. If you remove them, particularly well known ones like "Those cliffs between the Barrens and Ashenvale that you can scale to get to Grom's memorial" or "That really tall unnamed mountain between Silithus and Ferals that really should be expanded upon", people are going to notice and are going to question the spirit of this revamp at play and if its true to the history. A lot of the first things people did in Cata's revamp is go and find historic caves and the like we could see but not ever, and go poke around in them

Most of the max level content we get in a new expansion is just leveling content that is upscaled. Almost every world quest is part of that, half the dungeons are leveling dungeons, events are often tied to the stories of the leveling experience. What exactly would be keeping them in the post-Legion World Quests and Events paradigm from doing the same? There absolutely are issues with revamp concepts but this is just not one of them.

The levelling zones gotta draw people in and keep them inspired. You need something to keep people hooked long enough to hit that endgame. Plus, to keep the hype up and get the various Youtubers and streamers out there to create content for you. That's why datamining's tolerated, its basically just free advertising.

In simpler terms: You gotta have something fancy for the "look at the New Content To Buy The Expansion" trailer shots

That was 13 years ago...

That was also at WoW coming out of Wrath. The period when WoW was at its highest, its most popular. Why wouldn't we compare it to the expansion that dragged it down from its lofty heights?

[Dancaris]

So, firstly, you've destroyed any hope of backwards compatibility with the Cata zones for a start.

We dont need backwards compatibility IMO, just ensure that no content will be cut (mog, pets, toys and mounts).
Secondly - It is a point of rewamp - make old world better, not HDed old one. Remove unnecessary mountains, not all of them. We really dont need mountains between Barrens and Swamps, we dont need mountains between Darkshore and Felwood (we dont need felwood ina first place, but alas). But we need Hyjal Mountain, we need Stonetalom and we need Uldum ones, plus Ungoro - its necessarity is canon. Other that that - I dont think so.
Make whole, comprehensive stories about Kalimdor, not Deathwing, not Nzoth or some other BIG BAD VILLIAN. Some quillboar necromancer that lasts from Durotar to Barrens and we kill him in Uldum. Some Satyrs that you find in Darkshore, then you go to Ashenvale for him and meet at Feralas with demons. Centaurs, rogue taurens, Elven ruins, Plains and Hills of central Kalimdor. Pirates of Tanaris and Barrens.

And for a record - in my view - with modern tech - there is no high end zones, all them are equal. Just some of them let some races start in it.

[Mecheon]

We dont need backwards compatibility IMO, just ensure that no content will be cut (mog, pets, toys and mounts).
Secondly - It is a point of rewamp - make old world better, not HDed old one. Remove unnecessary mountains, not all of them. We really dont need mountains between Barrens and Swamps, we dont need mountains between Darkshore and Felwood (we dont need felwood ina first place, but alas). But we need Hyjal Mountain, we need Stonetalom and we need Uldum ones, plus Ungoro - its necessarity is canon. Other that that - I dont think so.
Make whole, comprehensive stories about Kalimdor, not Deathwing, not Nzoth or some other BIG BAD VILLIAN. Some quillboar necromancer that lasts from Durotar to Barrens and we kill him in Uldum. Some Satyrs that you find in Darkshore, then you go to Ashenvale for him and meet at Feralas with demons. Centaurs, rogue taurens, Elven ruins, Plains and Hills of central Kalimdor. Pirates of Tanaris and Barrens.

And for a record - in my view - with modern tech - there is no high end zones, all them are equal. Just some of them let some races start in it.

We have tons of achievements, we have active zones from BfA that are tied into that whole thing, we have the Dragonflight races just being included next patch. You need backwards compatibility

There are no mountains between Dakrshore and Felwood. What there is though is a cliff, because Felwood sits massive vertically above Darkshore and people have known this for years. Its why Hyjal's so tall, Darkshore's the shoreline, Felwood's a more alpine part of the forest as you climb the mountain making your way to Hyjal's summit. That's part of the World of Warcraft, part of how this game and world have been presented ever since.. If you remove the massive cliffs between the two, you're not respecting. You're making a tiny mount Hyjal that isn't so massive you can see the thing looking out from Orgrimmar, which we can do today. These are part of the world as we know it, changing them up is disrespecting the world's history

Frankly if anything, Felwood and Darkshore need more differntiation between them, to let Hyjal be even taller and more mountanous. And we absolutely need Felwood. That's basically the Satyr home turf, it was in WC3 as its own very specific thing, its the place thte Timbermaw Furbolg rep occurs. Felwood alone is more important to Warcraft than like, half the zones in southern Kalimdor.

There are high and low end zones. People can walk out the front of Orgrimmar and Stormwind, ignoring all the quests, and just going to wander. That's just, how the game is built. You can't take zones built for 60 levels of exploration and go "They're now endgame!"

Your quillboar necromancer is literately just another big bad villain with all of the re-occurences of Skovald. People want good stories that tie into areas, not pointless long spanning epics for the sake of long spanning epics. They tried long-spanning epic last expansion with the Jailer. It didn't work.

Welcome to the fun issue of doing a world revamp. You need to keep the world true to what it is. This includes dumb things like "There's a cactus patch where it goes from Tanaris down into Un'goro"

[Makabreska]

Curious point of view here. Do you really think they only have one team working on one aspect of the game at a time? Once again, are you a developer at Blizzard to advance you on this subject?

Anyone can pretty much say anything without arguments or sources.

Oh, but we do have sources. They literally said that they barely managed to release DF on time. Do you really think they can pull off both proper endgame and a proper revamp?

- - - Updated - - -

Did the devs actually say they messed up with the Cata revamp? Why did they think that?

They said that the revamp consumed too much time and resources, making end game content weaker.

[Lady Atia]

Oh, but we do have sources. They literally said that they barely managed to release DF on time. Do you really think they can pull off both proper endgame and a proper revamp?

- - - Updated - - -



They said that the revamp consumed too much time and resources, making end game content weaker.

Which was a weak excuse anyways - endgame content was good for that time, atleast the first two raid tiers. Problem was that Dragonsoul was a copy paste piece of trash and really weak for a last raid. And they also skipped two planned raids - Abysal Maw (which again was just copy paste trash instead of a propper water elemental raid so it's not really a loss) and War of the Ancients (which would have been awesome).

[Makabreska]

Which was a weak excuse anyways - endgame content was good for that time, atleast the first two raid tiers. Problem was that Dragonsoul was a copy paste piece of trash and really weak for a last raid. And they also skipped two planned raids - Abysal Maw (which again was just copy paste trash instead of a propper water elemental raid so it's not really a loss) and War of the Ancients (which would have been awesome).

Well, maybe this copy-paste and skipped content were the result of revamp consuming this many resources? Scrapping two raids is not something you see everyday. First and second tier were okay, becasue they were most likely made far in advance, but when DS was being created, they got behind due to revamp and had to already work on MoP. Kinda weird to move from very nicely crafted Firelands to suddenly re-used Dragonblight. And let's not forget that it was in Firelands when they suddenly announced a new raid philosophy of having much less bosses inside, it's like they were running short on time and resources. Dungeons released also mostly used already existing stuff. There is so many evidences of cutting corners in later Cata development.

You kinda reinforced that theory with your post that end-game suffered due to revamp.

[Xilurm]

Why would the Cata revamp affect resources that are for content two years after that? Surely they have a different budget for patch content, especially the very final patch.

[Makabreska]

Why would the Cata revamp affect resources that are for content two years after that? Surely they have a different budget for patch content, especially the very final patch.

They create stuff way in advance. What other excuse would be there for a sudden drop in raid quality between Firelands and DS (with less bosses in each)? And for two out of three Hour of Twilight dungeons using purely already existing zones (and Rise of Zandalari revamping old dungeons)? And for Cata to suddenly have only 3 raid tiers?

[Dracullus]

I wouldn't be surprised if we see "Next in development" post in this week schedule, it's small patch after all and I think they want fit both 10.1.7 and 10.2 before Blizzcon.

[Lady Atia]

They create stuff way in advance. What other excuse would be there for a sudden drop in raid quality between Firelands and DS (with less bosses in each)? And for two out of three Hour of Twilight dungeons using purely already existing zones (and Rise of Zandalari revamping old dungeons)? And for Cata to suddenly have only 3 raid tiers?

Keep in mind that they now have different teams working on different content - Dragonflight f.e. added one for open world content. So in theory, a revamp of EK/Kalimdor (with Northrend as patch content since we alredy have it's assets thanks to the Dragon Isles) wouldn't take ressources from open world/raid/dungeon content anymore (if that ever was the case - again, I think cata's problem was that most people were sent to work on MoP since HQ decided to make shorter Expansions. You also see this kinda with MoP - ToT was an awesome raid with it's own mini zone and than you had Battlefield Barrens and SoO which again re-used half of it's raid and the corrupted vale was just the old zone with sha sploosh and some rares. Timeless Isle was cool though!)

[Darkarath]

Does someone remember if 10.1 was announced before 10.0.7?

Really excited to see what happens to Nozdormu and to get information about 10.1.7 (ping system seems interesting), but 10.2 has to be an awesome patch. They know that 10.1, while a good patch overall (IMO), was not enough.

[Dancaris]

We have tons of achievements, we have active zones from BfA that are tied into that whole thing, we have the Dragonflight races just being included next patch. You need backwards compatibility

There are no mountains between Dakrshore and Felwood. What there is though is a cliff, because Felwood sits massive vertically above Darkshore and people have known this for years. Its why Hyjal's so tall, Darkshore's the shoreline, Felwood's a more alpine part of the forest as you climb the mountain making your way to Hyjal's summit. That's part of the World of Warcraft, part of how this game and world have been presented ever since.. If you remove the massive cliffs between the two, you're not respecting. You're making a tiny mount Hyjal that isn't so massive you can see the thing looking out from Orgrimmar, which we can do today. These are part of the world as we know it, changing them up is disrespecting the world's history

Frankly if anything, Felwood and Darkshore need more differntiation between them, to let Hyjal be even taller and more mountanous. And we absolutely need Felwood. That's basically the Satyr home turf, it was in WC3 as its own very specific thing, its the place thte Timbermaw Furbolg rep occurs. Felwood alone is more important to Warcraft than like, half the zones in southern Kalimdor.


There are high and low end zones. People can walk out the front of Orgrimmar and Stormwind, ignoring all the quests, and just going to wander. That's just, how the game is built. You can't take zones built for 60 levels of exploration and go "They're now endgame!"

Your quillboar necromancer is literately just another big bad villain with all of the re-occurences of Skovald. People want good stories that tie into areas, not pointless long spanning epics for the sake of long spanning epics. They tried long-spanning epic last expansion with the Jailer. It didn't work.

Welcome to the fun issue of doing a world revamp. You need to keep the world true to what it is. This includes dumb things like "There's a cactus patch where it goes from Tanaris down into Un'goro"

While I agree with some takes - I really dont see why should we keep some zones just for keeping it. Why not change things that not usable anymore? When was last time any meaningfull things coming from Felwood, or Redridge, or even Ungoro? Cata with last revamp? Why not make world bigger, better and more modern?
Why not make Hyjal as it was, in WC3 - LARGE tree atop mountain, not some leafs and giant cliff? Why not heal Felwood and make it home for NE? Deal with Satyrs, deal with goblins? And furborgs are not going anywhere, you know? We can expand their lore with current tech and new tribes?
Like that
or just like that or even that

you're not respecting

Respecting what, original 2003 year engine? Why not make better Kalimdor, and not keeping it just for some old memories?
Remove if necessary some quest chains, add more to ensure living world, not archaeological museum.

[Murlocos]

Does someone remember if 10.1 was announced before 10.0.7?

Really excited to see what happens to Nozdormu and to get information about 10.1.7 (ping system seems interesting), but 10.2 has to be an awesome patch. They know that 10.1, while a good patch overall (IMO), was not enough.

Yeah, 10.1 got revealed about two weeks before 10.0.7's release date. I'm expecting 10.1.7 to be leaner than the last .7, based on all the feedback that the Reach was dumped way too quickly. It makes more sense for .5 patches to be meatier while .7 patches are more systems focused, given there's a new impending major patch at that point.

[LemonDemonGirl]

- The fake Shadowlands map leak that Asmongold and Pyromancer were championing.

Honestly that was no worse than what we ended up getting

[Mecheon]

While I agree with some takes - I really dont see why should we keep some zones just for keeping it. Why not change things that not usable anymore? When was last time any meaningfull things coming from Felwood, or Redridge, or even Ungoro? Cata with last revamp? Why not make world bigger, better and more modern?
Why not make Hyjal as it was, in WC3 - LARGE tree atop mountain, not some leafs and giant cliff? Why not heal Felwood and make it home for NE? Deal with Satyrs, deal with goblins? And furborgs are not going anywhere, you know? We can expand their lore with current tech and new tribes?
Like that
or just like that or even that

Respecting what, original 2003 year engine? Why not make better Kalimdor, and not keeping it just for some old memories?
Remove if necessary some quest chains, add more to ensure living world, not archaeological museum.

Its the World of Warcraft. The world of Azeroth. Isn't the whole point of a revamp to inspire that? To revisit these old places done up well? Not remove them?

Felwood is where Illidan took the skull of Gul'dan and became his powerful half-demon self. Its a blight on Ashenvale (as its part of Ashenvale, not Darkshore) that is the scars of the elves former wars against the Legion. Plus like, its infamous in vanilla for being the place to go to farm consumables. Plus the Timbermaw were the first Furbolg faction. New tribes, who cares? The Timbermaw were there first, guarding the gates to Winterspring and Moonglade
Un'goro is a historically weird zone, a lush crater with tons of pulp vibes in the middle of a desert, and is not only linked to a similar place up north in Sholazar with the Waygates, but was the site of a now destroyed World Tree if the whole Emerald Nightmare raid is anything to go by, and that's before even looking at the absolute tons of titan technology burried under it
Redridge is the borderlands, the last outpost of humanity before the northern volcanic wastes. A powerful natural chokepoint and a small town nestled right close to potential destruction if anything should rush down that way. Which was the whole Cata quest for here.

We keep these realms around because its Azeroth, the World of Warcraft. You've said it yourself, its a living realm. These are parts of the realm and world of Azeroth, we can't just ditch entire zones, especially ones so important. Making the world bigger, sure, why not. You run into my other issues. But removing places? Absolutely not. Its the World of Warcraft, not the "A few nice zones I guess" of Warcraft

[KurtMash]

I think that a revamp is very much necessary at this point. Sure, getting new continents may be cool for the old players, but the playerbase is shrinking. Dragonflight managed to figure out how to retain the playerbase. As of right now, Blizzard is pulling out all the stops to bring players back, with free gear for returning characters and a semi-permanent 50% discount for Dragonflight. But guess what? The "old" playerbase are adults now. They have jobs and families. No matter what Blizz does, they will slowly lose them to the "real world". So the priority for Blizzard right now is to recruit new players. The young blood. Zoomers, who need a reason to care about this world, as they did not grow up with Warcraft 3, nor did they experience the time when WoW was the coolest thing ever.
And what Blizz has for them to offer right now is just plain bad.

REASONS FOR THE REVAMP

* BfA being the default expansion makes absolutely no sense from the perspective of a new player. New players do not get to experience the WORLD of Warcraft, they do not understand the locations, races, or history of the world. From the point of view of a new player, we start with Horde and Aliance being a collection of random races that hate and kill each other for no clear reason, then they collect blue crystals until you hit lvl 60, and suddenly the bad grey lady is gone and everyone is friends again in Dragonflight. This is an absolutely terrible narrative experience.

* Adding dragonriding to Azeroth is nice, but it will show even more strongly how dated the old world is. The zones are comparatively small and flat, with ridiculous mountain ranges between them (ridiculous in both their shape, detail, and execution). Flying on a dragon through the old world, we will be jumping between zones and biomes every few seconds. In vanilla, the old world felt like a WORLD because you were slow and on foot, with narrow corridors between zones forcing you to maneuver around the map, extending the travel time even further. You had a much shorter draw distance, so the zones felt endless. That's why it felt massive. These days, it's no longer the case; the world feels tiny, you can see Mount Hyjal and Gorribal from half a continent away. Honestly, it's kind of ridiculous and immersion-breaking.

* Most of the old world is stuck 15 years ago in a very specific time. Nothing ever gets resolved, you jump through time when going between zones. You are in the ruins of Undercity with a big battle scar going through the Tirisfal Glades, the next second, you are in Cataclysm-era Silverpine Forest, and a few moments later, you teleport to BC-era Silvermoon. It is a total narrative mess.

PROBLEMS WITH THE REVAMP

* Of course, a legit revamp of the old world would be a massive undertaking. Yes, they managed to revamp the world in Cataclysm, but this was much smaller in scope than what is needed right now. We need new assets, maps, terrain, quests, basically everything. The world needs to be rebuilt from the ground up to hold up to today's standards. A half-assed revamp in the style of Cataclysm will not do in 2023, it would be just a waste of resources. You cannot base the endgame around the old world if the old world is not up to the standards of Dragonflight. You cannot awe the new players if the old world is not up to the standards of Dragonflight. It's all or nothing, and I don't think Blizz can, in the long term, afford "nothing".

* I think Blizz knows all that, and they have been working on the big revamp for quite some time now. It is a much bigger task than a single "normal" expansion, and they may even have a separate team dedicated to the revamp that works in parallel with the regular "current/next" expansion teams. Keep in mind that they've been getting more and more people for quite some time now. We have been seeing small signs of a revamp all over the place for quite some time now.

MY VISION

So how do I imagine the world revamp?
* The old world is rebuilt from the ground up, with all the same zones (or perhaps some more where it would make sense?). The topology is rebuilt to be more believable: the zones are bigger and no longer homogeneous in their feel, mountain ranges are integrated into the zones so they become part of the world instead of simply "zone walls", there are more passages between zones through the mountains, and the transitions between the zones are made much more natural.

* Bonus points if you add the South Seas islands to the mix and place both Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms on one map, allowing you to travel (perhaps slowly) between all of the zones / continents on a boat. Is it necessary? No. Would it be cool and make the world feel more like a real place? Definitely.

* The leveling up experience is once again part of the game. The new players are forced to level through the old world, visiting many zones and getting to understand the world. Then, once they have a max level character, they can level their subsequent characters through Chromie time just like today, so they are not forced to repeat the "long leveling" more than once.

* The leveling experience would not necessarily make use of the full zones; some parts of the zones could be delegated to purely max level content. This could perhaps help with the travel time, which would be longer should the zones be enlarged.

* The "cata world" becomes instanced and available through Chromie.

* As for the max level characters, instead of a new continent with a few new zones, we get the entirety of the old world to play through at max level. Instead of four zones with their specific campaigns, we get several campaigns that span multiple zones.
- We could have a campaign about the tentative peace between the Undead and the Worgen, retaking the Gilneas and rebuilding the Undercity.
- We could have a campaign about whatever happens with the Plaguelands and the Scarlet Crusade.
- We could have a campaign about the politics of the dwarfs now that Dagran is of age.
- We could have a campaign about the return of Anduin and the politics of Stormwind.
- We could have a campaign about rebuilding the night elf civilization.
- We could have a campaign about the unrest within the Horde, where some are unhappy about the truce with the Alliance.
- We could have a campaign about the effects of Gorribal on the surrounding areas.
- We could have a campaign about the pirates that spans from Tanaris, through the South Seas islands to the Stranglethorn.
...and these are just some examples. This way, the endgame leveling experience is actually about the WORLD of Warcraft, and we get to tie up all the unresolved plots in the old world.

* The world would also get the Dragonflight treatment in terms of the endgame gameplay with factions and events, world quests, etc.

Sure, this might not be what everyone wants, but I believe this is very much what the game needs if it wants to stay relevant and attract new players. A soft reset of sorts. A way to relive vanilla within the modern framework.

[Worldshaper]

Holy moly, that new 6 month sub reward is pretty.

Also, seems a bit fishy to make such a detailed custom model just for a promotion, eh?