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

[Worldshaper]

Maybe?

The Beledar is an interdimensional vessel, containing 5 naaru. These are the 5 naaru that communicated with Mereldar through visions, teaching her about the Light. The reason being that one day, her people would need to free the Beledar from the clutches of the Void and fight in defense of this world.

Their increasing shift to the Void is part of a natural cycle, but probably spurred on by everything going on around them. Black Blood and so on. (Five lanterns, now darkened.)

The mural of Azj-Kahet is prophetic and depicts a possible future in which the Beledar is completely darkened, and where the ascended Nerubians worship at the feet of a God.

That God is Xal'atath, the Ascended.

Perhaps once the Dark Heart's hunger has been sated, she intends to use it on herself which is "the awakening". The rise of a new God on Azeroth, one which consume the world.

[Sondrelk]

Why is Karesh better in Midnight than now? It is not Argus. It is not a Void stronghold. We don't know what the Argus equivalent of Void is.

It's not Argus one to one, true. But in terms of raising the stakes it's pretty similar. An entire planet almost completely under the control of an antagonistic force.

K'aresh is better in Midnight for the same reason Argus was better in Legion than it would have been in WoD. It probably could have worked. But you don't want to have the big showstopper zone BEFORE the part where you have to fight off the big invasion.

I would rather K'aresh feel like there are stakes involved, and that we are in a dangerous place. Rather than either losing and knowing we will just come back again in a year. Or just having a neutered Ethereal zone with no big reason to go there.

[milkmustache]

Maybe?

The Beledar is an interdimensional vessel, containing 5 naaru. These are the 5 naaru that communicated with Mereldar through visions, teaching her about the Light. The reason being that one day, her people would need to free the Beledar from the clutches of the Void and fight in defense of this world.

Their increasing shift to the Void is part of a natural cycle, but probably spurred on by everything going on around them. Black Blood and so on. (Five lanterns, now darkened.)

The mural of Azj-Kahet is prophetic and depicts a possible future in which the Beledar is completely darkened, and where the ascended Nerubians worship at the feet of a God.

That God is Xal'atath, the Ascended.

Perhaps once the Dark Heart's hunger has been sated, she intends to use it on herself which is "the awakening". The rise of a new God on Azeroth, one which consume the world.

Usually not on board with some of your theories, but this would be a ton of fun. I like the thought behind this a lot!

[Worldshaper]

Usually not on board with some of your theories, but this would be a ton of fun. I like the thought behind this a lot!

DW, neither am I. I just have fun with it.

[Cheezits]

It's not Argus one to one, true. But in terms of raising the stakes it's pretty similar. An entire planet almost completely under the control of an antagonistic force.

K'aresh is better in Midnight for the same reason Argus was better in Legion than it would have been in WoD. It probably could have worked. But you don't want to have the big showstopper zone BEFORE the part where you have to fight off the big invasion.

I would rather K'aresh feel like there are stakes involved, and that we are in a dangerous place. Rather than either losing and knowing we will just come back again in a year. Or just having a neutered Ethereal zone with no big reason to go there.

I feel like this would be circumvented by K'aresh hinting at a Void Fortress we don't know of yet, and then building it up there and through Midnight before we go there to settle up with Dimensius. He doesn't seem like the type to just hide in the ruins of K'aresh.

[milkmustache]

It's not Argus one to one, true. But in terms of raising the stakes it's pretty similar. An entire planet almost completely under the control of an antagonistic force.

K'aresh is better in Midnight for the same reason Argus was better in Legion than it would have been in WoD. It probably could have worked. But you don't want to have the big showstopper zone BEFORE the part where you have to fight off the big invasion.

I would rather K'aresh feel like there are stakes involved, and that we are in a dangerous place. Rather than either losing and knowing we will just come back again in a year. Or just having a neutered Ethereal zone with no big reason to go there.

I personally see K'aresh as a warning rather than a stronghold, though. Argus was the final battleground against the Legion, it always would be. It's similar to K'aresh in the sense that it was a planet destroyed by said cosmic power, but instead of sticking around and making it their fortress, The Void consumed K'aresh and moved onwards.

Going to Argus in WoD wouldn't have made sense because we were both unprepared to battle the Legion, but also unaware of their impending invasion.

Going to K'aresh in TWW can work because we've been chasing Xal'atath, the Harbinger of the Void around for a while now, fully aware she is plotting an action against our Worldsoul with the Void. Following the Dark Heart to K'aresh can be our character's idea of the only thing we can do to stop her. Being on K'aresh, seeing what destruction from the Void can do to a planet does raise the stakes because we are looking at the fate of Azeroth if we were to fail... which we will in 11.2.

[Khaza-R]

I am honestly not convinced it is. What does make sense is shelving the Worldcore finale until TLT, and making 12.0 into Void themed Legion, rather than what it looked like might have been next, which was backside of Azeroth with the Arathi.

K'aresh makes perfect sense as the big payoff in Midnight after being properly teased a full expansion in advance. Not unceremoniously dumped at us half a year after we had a five second teaser about it. Only to then move on to a significantly less spectacular Void themed expansion, right as everyone is good and tired of Void stuff.

I am all for the devs having changed stuff. But going to K'aresh in TWW isn't a minor change. It's a complete tonal shift.

Understandable but I don't really see how it can be a better fit for Midnight when all we know is that it has 1. Elves, 2. Quel'thalas, 3. Void invasion, 4. Sunwell

Lets remember that a lot of people hated that Argus was tacked on to Legion because thought it was going to be its own expansion one day. Player speculations/expectations and what Blizzard does are frequently not in sync.

[Dvalin]

I personally see K'aresh as a warning rather than a stronghold, though. Argus was the final battleground against the Legion, it always would be. It's similar to K'aresh in the sense that it was a planet destroyed by said cosmic power, but instead of sticking around and making it their fortress, The Void consumed K'aresh and moved onwards.

Going to Argus in WoD wouldn't have made sense because we were both unprepared to battle the Legion, but also unaware of their impending invasion.

Going to K'aresh in TWW can work because we've been chasing Xal'atath, the Harbinger of the Void around for a while now, fully aware she is plotting an action against our Worldsoul with the Void. Following the Dark Heart to K'aresh can be our character's idea of the only thing we can do to stop her. Being on K'aresh, seeing what destruction from the Void can do to a planet does raise the stakes because we are looking at the fate of Azeroth if we were to fail... which we will in 11.2.

That's an interesting take you and others are raising. I can get behind that. And seeing how the core of Ka'resh seems to be eaten, well, that makes it thematic, still (war WITHIN). The Worldsoul's prison (with maybe some Rootlands around it) could then be a patch-zone for TLT, for example.
@Khaza-R I don't know. Expansions centred around Azeroth are generally better than us travelling to whole new planets. Outland worked because of the Warcraft strategy games, but we knew next to nothing about Argus. Shadowlands had some ties to Azeroth and older lore, but also struggled with connectivity. So, a whole new planet as expansion, like Argus, wouldn't have been such a good decision as you might think.

[Joshuaj]

I personally see K'aresh as a warning rather than a stronghold, though. Argus was the final battleground against the Legion, it always would be. It's similar to K'aresh in the sense that it was a planet destroyed by said cosmic power, but instead of sticking around and making it their fortress, The Void consumed K'aresh and moved onwards.

Going to Argus in WoD wouldn't have made sense because we were both unprepared to battle the Legion, but also unaware of their impending invasion.

Going to K'aresh in TWW can work because we've been chasing Xal'atath, the Harbinger of the Void around for a while now, fully aware she is plotting an action against our Worldsoul with the Void. Following the Dark Heart to K'aresh can be our character's idea of the only thing we can do to stop her. Being on K'aresh, seeing what destruction from the Void can do to a planet does raise the stakes because we are looking at the fate of Azeroth if we were to fail... which we will in 11.2.

I mean, this would be fine ngl.

[Cheezits]

Also, I assume Midnight will have a Legion-like quality of expanding the enemy force. The cosmic void so far is literally just voidwalkers, those funky wraiths from WOD, and that's it. We NEED to expand their culture and see what's going on there.

K'aresh is a world with its own culture. It would be great to go there, recruit K'areshi, and then find out where the Void beings hail from to get a sense of what they've got going on.

As we saw with Shadowlands, regardless of how people took it- you can expand on a magic culture that was literally just "monochrome azeroth plus ghosts"

[Dvalin]

Also, I assume Midnight will have a Legion-like quality of expanding the enemy force. The cosmic void so far is literally just voidwalkers, those funky wraiths from WOD, and that's it. We NEED to expand their culture and see what's going on there.

K'aresh is a world with its own culture. It would be great to go there, recruit K'areshi, and then find out where the Void beings hail from to get a sense of what they've got going on.

As we saw with Shadowlands, regardless of how people took it- you can expand on a magic culture that was literally just "monochrome azeroth plus ghosts"

I wouldn't worry about enemy-variation, regarding the Void, too. I bet we'll indeed see quite a few more (strange) creatures and entities.

[Cheezits]

I wouldn't worry about enemy-variation, regarding the Void, too. I bet we'll indeed see quite a few more (strange) creatures and entities.

Will we? People fucking HATED Shadowlands and they used every single death-related thing they could to expand the death lore. Vrykul. Val'kyr. Cult of the Damned. Nathrezim. Wild Gods.

Void is barely associated with anything we know now, and after people didn't like the OC takes in SL, even if they were tied to existing things in Warcraft, I think we may not actually get much expansion of the Void. But I would like if they did.

- - - Updated - - -

By the way, the lorewalker quest for Xal reaffirms that she and N'zoth made a bargain. In the followup book you get, they state that the bargain is mysterious and we don't know what it was.

So, if we're being real- he went into the dagger, and the bargain was that she brought the dagger to him (so that whoever killed him, Azshara or Wrathion, would suck him into it). What the fuck else could it be?

[Joshuaj]

Will we? People fucking HATED Shadowlands and they used every single death-related thing they could to expand the death lore. Vrykul. Val'kyr. Cult of the Damned. Nathrezim. Wild Gods.

Void is barely associated with anything we know now, and after people didn't like the OC takes in SL, even if they were tied to existing things in Warcraft, I think we may not actually get much expansion of the Void. But I would like if they did.

- - - Updated - - -

By the way, the lorewalker quest for Xal reaffirms that she and N'zoth made a bargain. In the followup book you get, they state that the bargain is mysterious and we don't know what it was.

So, if we're being real- he went into the dagger, and the bargain was that she brought the dagger to him (so that whoever killed him, Azshara or Wrathion, would suck him into it). What the fuck else could it be?

I want new high fantasy creatures in Midnight. Fuck what people in the WoW fanbase think. They quite literally don't even know what they want, and that's been displayed multiple times these last 20 years.

This is the expansion with a full on Light Vs Shadow battle. Give me cool new Light and Shadow stuff.

[Merryck]

Y'all aren't ready for the big pay off for Midnight being going to the moon ... or, a moon. And finally meeting Elune.

[Zardas]

Really hoping that they learned from their mistakes and won't waste Karesh for 11.2. Give us our "Journey to the center of the Earth" patch with Azerith-dinosaurs damit !
Save Karesh for 12.0. If Midnight ends up just being revamped zones, it would be incredibely underwhelming.

[Nightshade711]

Y'all aren't ready for the big pay off for Midnight being going to the moon ... or, a moon. And finally meeting Elune.

Inb4 Elune is a Void Lord.

[Kathranis]

Y'all aren't ready for the big pay off for Midnight being going to the moon ... or, a moon. And finally meeting Elune.

If we ever go to the moon, it better be a Titan construct made from the piece of Azeroth that Y'Shaarj ruled and still have his corpse sealed in it, along with a huge chunk of the Black Empire that evolved in isolation.

[Limayria]

I want new high fantasy creatures in Midnight. Fuck what people in the WoW fanbase think. They quite literally don't even know what they want, and that's been displayed multiple times these last 20 years.

This is the expansion with a full on Light Vs Shadow battle. Give me cool new Light and Shadow stuff.

Rabbits please, specifically i'd love a k'areshi Al-Mi'raj (unicorn bunny) creature

[Joshuaj]

If we ever go to the moon, it better be a Titan construct made from the piece of Azeroth that Y'Shaarj ruled and still have his corpse sealed in it, along with a huge chunk of the Black Empire that evolved in isolation.

Wait...Midnight ending on one of Azeroth's Moons would be sick ngl.

[Cheezits]

If we ever get a legit rabbit race (not Vermin) it will be tied to the moon, because Warcraft loves its real world folklore. In this case, Japanese.

Though I can see them getting tied to Vermin in some roundabout way because Pandaria is so filled with Life/Spirit.