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

[Viridiel]

the dungeon is really interesting, its apparently built ontop of the old "temple of k"aresh" whatever that means, theres also some pretty big islands off the map that you can walk around on, i assume were gonna come around to some of them in questing maybe? I'm taking screen shots rn

I'm very interested in these wastelanders who use fate-based magic. It's hardly new, but Shadowlands codified fate as something uniquely within the realm of Death. Their powers also seem to be soul-based. On the other side of the spectrum, the K'areshi used magical ribbons imbued with Life magic. It seems like the worship of the Great Cycle predates the brokers' presence in the Shadowlands, which kind of makes sense -- why did they go there to begin with? It makes me wonder if yet another group of K'areshi are somewhere in the Realm of Life. Maybe the temple will have more clues.

Can anybody confirm that the eco-domes other than Al'dani (or any other structures on K'aresh) also have the Zereth Mortis design motifs? The only way I can make sense of that is if the K'areshi somehow made their way to Zereth Mortis long before Firim. Notably, Firim did belong to cartel Al...

[Scyth]

I found the tier sets to be a bit disappointing but the raid weapons and open world gear are 10/10 honestly. The agility polearm from the first boss looks amazing!

[Merryck]

Seems I was right about K'aresh being destroyed "hundreds of millennia" ago. An insane amount of time.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

*2015 during DRAENOR IS FREE!* "The story will get better in the next expansion!"
*2017 during Death Knights stabbing their paladin comrades, the glorification of Illidan and the wasting of Argus* "Well at least the story will get better in the next expansion!"
*2019 during Darkshore was the Night Elves' revenge, You are All Nothing, Alliance white peace, no Nyalotha and DBZ laser beam* "The bad story right now is okay. It was sacrificed so we could get to the REAL story that has been built up about the Shadowlands!"
*2021 during the Sylvanas apologism, butchering of all racial religions, destruction of tension and mystique in the setting, The Jailer Was Behind Everything™* "Don't worry guys, the current story sucks but it will get better next year!"
*2023 with cucked Wrathion, big bad quitting halfway through, every faction leader inexplicably teleporting to Amirdrassil, Malfurion and Genn put into retirement homes in favor of new girls nobody cares about, glossing over the liberation of Gilneas* "DON'T WORRY GUYS, IT's ALL GOING TO BE BETTER NEXT YEAR! The storytelling is definitively going to improve!"
*2025 with more deposed leaders, Mary Sue amputee OCs, big bad constantly smirking and waltzing off and is never fought, neutering of the goblins, abandonment of the underground theme* "it's okay if the current experience was sacrificed, it was all to get to next years' stuff and it will have been totally worth it!"

What causes this?

[Wyrt]

We abandon the underground theme because there was nothing interesting underground.

[Timester]

This is huge:

The Soul Hunters
Adarus, now a demon hunter brimming with barely-contained abyssal power, seeks to devour the void energy surrounding Manaforge Omega. His deadly allies, Ilyssa Darksorrow and Velaryn Bloodwrath, have joined Adarus in pursuit of larger prey. Together, they will destroy all who oppose them, leaving nothing but chaos in their wake.

It seems that the Ethereals can Voidify fel creatures.

[Darkarath]

Having seen all the new PTR info from last night, it only helps to solidify my opinion that most of TWW's patch content has been created with a single request from Metzen: "Just get us to Midnight. Buy us enough time to get to Midnight.'

I hope sacrificing what would've been the original vision for TWW ends up being worth it in the end!

The patch looks great, but it doesn't scream "this is where our hearts and minds are at right now," and in fact it feels like Midnight is probably soaking up a lot of resources from this expansion.

I have to disagree.

TWW has been and it would probably be remembered as a fairly unique expansion.

I guess that you could say that Blizzard has utilized past assets in a smart way in TWW with the Siren Isle or Tazavesh. But that's good ¡¡ I hope that they do it more often when it makes sense.

But I don't see any sacrifice in TWW.

11.1 is one of the most unique patches ever and 11.2 seems to be following that route. Just for the incredible amount of headaches that a raid boss like Dimensius would have caused, or the amount of effort and experimentation that having two versions of K'aresh implies, I can see that there is a lot of love in 11.2. Minor patches had testing problems, but for being minor patches they were ok. It never cease to amaze me how players keep forgetting that practically yesterday minor patches brought almost nothing.

And we still have Legion Remix and the new Plunderstorm kind of event coming ¡¡

Honestly TWW has been a banger. Where do I have to sign to have all coming expansions being this good?

[Makorus]

This is huge:

The Soul Hunters
Adarus, now a demon hunter brimming with barely-contained abyssal power, seeks to devour the void energy surrounding Manaforge Omega. His deadly allies, Ilyssa Darksorrow and Velaryn Bloodwrath, have joined Adarus in pursuit of larger prey. Together, they will destroy all who oppose them, leaving nothing but chaos in their wake.

There actually is a questline where we actively help him absorb the void power and help him transform into a Void Hunter.

Honestly, this feels too involved to just be filler boss fluff, especially because this is an optional boss. We'll see, I guess.

There is an icon labelled "INV_112_Ability_DemonHunter_MetamorphasisVoid" which is not actually used during the fight.

[Timester]

There actually is a questline where we actively help him absorb the void power and help him transform into a Void Hunter.

Honestly, this feels too involved to just be filler boss fluff, especially because this is an optional boss. We'll see, I guess.

There is another part that mention Ethereals souls are in the Twisting Nether. Why though, that's oddly specific for an afterlife.

[Darkarath]

There is another part that mention Ethereals souls are in the Twisting Nether. Why though, that's oddly specific for an afterlife.

VERY interesting bit of information.

Those souls go there because K'aresh wasn't touched by the Titans or the First Ones?

Or it has something to do with what Locus Walker and Xal'athat did to the Ethereals? Did they free them from the Machine of Death system?

[Ochinko]

You can "feel" the change of direction in the TWW content for sure, but its not a bad thing and still works without being weird.

Overall TWW has been pretty well received.

Only thing that really bothers me and I'm mad about is us getting Earthen instead of ascended nerubians / ethereals. Such wasted potential.

Also whats up with the tier design team, they've been slacking for years now. Everything looks so bland and as per usual only priest and warlock are decent.

[Merryck]

There actually is a questline where we actively help him absorb the void power and help him transform into a Void Hunter.

Honestly, this feels too involved to just be filler boss fluff, especially because this is an optional boss. We'll see, I guess.

There is an icon labelled "INV_112_Ability_DemonHunter_MetamorphasisVoid" which is not actually used during the fight.

I heard a Void Elf demon hunter was involved.

[Timester]

VERY interesting bit of information.

Those souls go there because K'aresh wasn't touched by the Titans or the First Ones?

Or it has something to do with what Locus Walker and Xal'athat did to the Ethereals? Did they free them from the Machine of Death system?

And more, how did the Brokers traveled an entire city so easily into the Shadowlands if they are not dead and their afterlife is not there?

[Nymrohd]

We abandon the underground theme because there was nothing interesting underground.

But . . . there was?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

TWW had concept art for many more zone ideas besides the three we got. And yet they chose to give us K'aresh as a zone instead.

[Raetary]

Damn, they really did cut the World Tree.

On one hand, cool to see K'aresh so soon, on the other, i find it weird that they pivoted away from journeying to the World Core.
I'd much rather they stayed consistent and saved the Ethereals for Midnight, but alas.

[Wyrt]

But . . . there was?

Nah, this expansion has been super boring, but 11.2 is looking interesting finally.

[KyleEverett]

Nah, this expansion has been super boring, but 11.2 is looking interesting finally.

I disagree but everyone wants something different. I wanted to see the story of the Earthen, Arathi, and Haranir continue vs going off world again. It's not gonna be better than Argus.

[Xelyth]

I haven't bothered linking them but there's actually a ton of less story impactful Xal voicelines in the patch. After the truce she seems to just hang around haunting you while you do the campaign, commenting on things, giving you instructions, talking to third parties you meet up with, mocking Locus-walker's failures, etc.

Where do you manage to listen to all of these? I have been trying to also find the newly added ones from 11.1 but could not find them the usual way in the wowhead database. Any tips would be appreciated as I like to collect all of her quotes to listen to. Haha.

Definitely looking forward to listening to her remarks regarding Locus Walker and K'aresh.

[Nymrohd]

Nah, this expansion has been super boring, but 11.2 is looking interesting finally.

I also found the expansion's story to be super boring (Saved by solid systems and content) but that doesn't mean there are no interesting themes to be found underground. But whatever, it is what it is and we've had a few months already to get used to it since the raid reveal.