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

[Lahis]

I'm pretty sure Azshara will look quite different when we see her again.

She'll gain her legs back, so whoever has been making the Xal'atath cutscenes can have a feet-off betweeen Azshara and Xal.

[leothar]

What are the chances we get any 11.2 info this week?

[Darkarath]

What are the chances we get any 11.2 info this week?

It's looking bad.

Unless something crazy happens today, most likely scenario is a teaser on sunday's event, followed by a WoW Cast next week (IMO).

I believe that they usually make an announcement if something is coming up. We have nothing yet.

[Samin]

Alternative scenario if we don't get K'aresh.

11.2 - Rise of Ny'alotha

- Plunge into the depths of the Undersea.

- Discover a forgotten and hidden realm. The realm of eternal sleep, where time seemingly stands still.

- Explore the Sunken City of Ny'alotha, or what remains of it after the Titans' crusade.

- Discover ancient artifacts, relics from a bygone era.

- Stop the corruption of the roots of Elun'ahir from the Black Blood, and sever the Void's tether to the Emerald Dream for good.

- Unearth the dark schemes of N'Zoth -- and his plans to return.

- Encounter the mysterious Ethereals in the final raid of The War Within, and learn of their intentions for our worldsoul.

And I saw people saying leak season will be boring becaues we know the expansions names and themes ahead of time. But if we can get some insane bangers like this just for a patch speculation, I'm confident once people set their minds to it, we will get enough "surprise twist" leaks we can have fun with. I expect lots of (conceptionally) Undermine-inspired thematic detours to squeeze in whatever fan favorite or personal obsession needs fitting into the fakes.

[Hitei]

And I saw people saying leak season will be boring becaues we know the expansions names and themes ahead of time.

In their defense, by this point in 11.0's cycle we already had about a half a dozen "leaks" and in 10.0's more than a dozen. I don't think I've seen a single claimed one yet for Midnight or the patches? Though as before, there hasn't really been a modern expansion that's leaked more than a couple weeks out from announcement.

[Marlamin]

In their defense, by this point in 11.0's cycle we already had about a half a dozen "leaks" and in 10.0's more than a dozen. I don't think I've seen a single claimed one yet for Midnight or the patches? Though as before, there hasn't really been a modern expansion that's leaked more than a couple weeks out from announcement.

I've seen some attempts but all of them have been easily debunkable through stuff that's already been (largely) publicly found.

[Joshuaj]

Makes a lot more sense to deal with Azshara in Midnight. We'll finally turn her into sushi. Or calamari I guess. I'm hungry.

Lemme kill Azshara and lemme beat up Dimensius!

Then, after Dimensius, I'm coming for both the Titans and Iridikron!

[Hitei]

I've seen some attempts but all of them have been easily debunkable through stuff that's already been (largely) publicly found.

Really? For Midnight or just patch stuff?

On an unrelated note, I'm kinda shocked we never ended up getting a dev blog post about housing after the playtest event. I guess they just conisdered the interviews and stuff to be enough of an information dump?

[Marlamin]

Really? For Midnight or just patch stuff?

Both, but they rarely get any traction for obvious reasons. Mostly patch stuff.

On an unrelated note, I'm kinda shocked we never ended up getting a dev blog post about housing after the playtest event. I guess they just conisdered the interviews and stuff to be enough of an information dump?

Yeah, how Blizzard handled that event is definitely unusual. I guess Preach was right in saying it wasn't the usual kind of press event given there was no Blizzard info dump to coincide with it.

[Lahis]

- Xbox owns the IP so in case the patch has a wide appeal in the audience tuning in to Xbox Showcase, it makes sense to show it.

A patch is not big enough announcement for these general gaming shows. Full expansion (launch date) reveal is smallest thing Xbox would put into the big summer/december showcase.

[Darkarath]

The game is in a pretty poor state right now, and they need positive news to turn the conversation around.

[Dracullus]

Move on, that's just people with 5 minutes attention span. "We are starving for news" = there was no big news this week. "Game is in poor state" = more than 2 weeks from new season passed. I don't know how these people survived 2010s playing this game honestly.

[Cheezits]

One minor patch being badly received =/= game is in a bad state.

[Cheezits]

But given the current state of the story I'm not very confident they could pull this off. Sure, Alleria and Turalyon are both legendary but they barely resemble what people rememeber from back in the day and I don't think they could turn that around with a single trailer.

If it's the Sons of Lothar arranging for an invasion of Ka'resh I think it absolutely could be a worthy cinematic, especially as Ethereals are pretty iconic to the older fanbase.

[Cheezits]

Not sure what reality you gives live in (no offense), but the expansion's post-launch content has been widely criticised lately.

While I would have to admit a lot of people were positive when Undermine initially launched, that was a period of like 2-3 weeks at most. Before and after it's been a lukewarm reception at best, mixed with some pretty damning criticism of both the quality of content, but also the story, bugs, and timegating.

Considering most of your posts are just "I disagree", I respond with the fact that I disagree with your post.

[Hitei]

A trailer like this could easily find its way to the Xbox stage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATg67eE7uL0

This cutscene would be completely incomprehensible to 95% of people watching an xbox presentation, what are you even talking about?

[Bwgmon]

In their defense, by this point in 11.0's cycle we already had about a half a dozen "leaks" and in 10.0's more than a dozen. I don't think I've seen a single claimed one yet for Midnight or the patches? Though as before, there hasn't really been a modern expansion that's leaked more than a couple weeks out from announcement.

And these "leaks" have mostly been... I don't know, kind of boring? Like it feels like all of them have been some combination of "Ny'alotha's back! In pog form!" and "There was a map called Rootlands in the Alpha, therefore it's going to be a zone with roots."

[Sondrelk]

Considering the last Showcase was a second trailer that no one expected in CGI and the fact that Bastion was probably the best marketing moment of the games' history. I don't know, I just think because of the scope of what 11.2 could be none of them really fit a large scale marketing endeavour to gain back lapsed players and or new audiences through a mainstream reveal.

I just feel like 11.2 doesn't have anything mainstream penetrative. Most likely it will be that it gets' revealed on a random day in the next following weeks.

It really doesnt. Nothing realistic could be a big enough hype moment to warrant the casual viewer getting excited. Even ignoring K'aresh not making sense narratively and assuming 11.2 is that. Who outside dedicated lore nerds would even know the first thing about what it is?

The only thing that could be a big hype moment is a big housing showcase or something massive related to Midnight like showcasing revamped zones.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

It really doesnt. Nothing realistic could be a big enough hype moment to warrant the casual viewer getting excited. Even ignoring K'aresh not making sense narratively and assuming 11.2 is that. Who outside dedicated lore nerds would even know the first thing about what it is?

The only thing that could be a big hype moment is a big housing showcase or something massive related to Midnight like showcasing revamped zones.

Yeah, I don't feel confident in anything. The only thing that irks me is that the vibes of the development of The War Within and the revelations provided does sort of build this up to be a marketing extravaganza but again I don't think anything will transpire based on the context of the fact that The War Withins final Major Patch is of any relevance to their future jackpot wins of Midnight launch and Blizzcon 2026.

Its' hard to guage though, if they want to do marketing spend already and prepare for Gamescom/August Reveal of Midnight its' possible but there's no actual reasonable idea of what they would show before the ending screen of See the Reveal of World of Warcraft: Midnight later this year/August/Gamescom.

[Hitei]

I am obviously referring to its style and use of famous characters, with the dramatic reveal of Argus at the end. Not its place in the ongoing story of Legion.

Seeing somebody like Illidan (known to 99% of the Warcraft community, as well as a significant chunk of the gaming community overall) do something badass would instantly generate interest, prompting people to google the newest patch.

However, if it's like... Faerin Lothar or Orweyna just doing their thing, it wouldn't have the same effect. (Nothing against those two characters in particular.)

It's not about the place in the ongoing story of Legion. You could cut out the entire incomprehensible KJ/Vele aspect, and just have Illidan ripping open a portal to Argus, and people are going to half-watch that and go "I don't have any idea what that trailer was about, that was that demon guy from WC3 right?"

Putting aside that Arthas and (to a much, much lower degree) Illidan are really the only two warcraft characters that are reliably immediately recognizable to people who don't play the game(s), a character doing a "cool" thing you have absolutely zero context for or understanding of does not invite interest, it just confuses. People just zone out until the next trailer. Trailers for ongoing live service games tend to be feature trailers, gameplay trailers, or date announcements not story and character ones. Because that is what draws interest for the people who play the thing (the majority of your target audience) and what is able to be parsed for people who do not play the game.

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"New race-class combinations! A new area with 800 quests"
Oh, okay cool. I don't play that game but that seems like a big update.

"Brandonwelf Higglydorber is going to use the Soul Scepter to open the gate to Fortress of Lost Nightmares and unleash the Eternal Dragon!"
...What?