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

[Sondrelk]

Yeah, at that scale it does make sense it wouldn't be very seamless. It sounds like they just made a design choice to go for an entirely separate experience, which is fine I guess. I was envisioning smaller neighborhoods personally, so not like the 50-plot zones that are this spread out.

I am starting to wonder whether the decision to have 50-plot neighborhoods came from the need to make it a separate instanced zone. If it was just a handful of plots, then they probably could have put it somewhere in Durotar or Elwynn quite easily. But if they needed to make it an instanced zone, then having it be small would probably just look weird and incongrous.

Would also explain why they ahve not confirmed other neighborhoods. As I have said before, places like Bel'ameth makes perfect sense for housing given it is completely empty outside the handful of NPCs.
But if it is a completely new zone, then they need to make it from the ground up, which is probably moer effort than it's worth at this time.

[Cheezits]

Would also explain why they ahve not confirmed other neighborhoods. As I have said before, places like Bel'ameth makes perfect sense for housing given it is completely empty outside the handful of NPCs.
But if it is a completely new zone, then they need to make it from the ground up, which is probably moer effort than it's worth at this time.

I would not be surprised if only the first two hoods are very big, as they are the default and premier ones.

The supposed Undermine one and Bel'ameth would be smaller and more contained, but would work well all the same.

[Illuminance]

2x loading screens to get in your house feels like a letdown in 2025, especially with all the tech they've been developing. To get into your house, you'll have to probably travel to the neighborhood via hearthstone (or summoning stone? which was mentioned in Tali's video), and then a second loading screen almost immediately to walk inside.

It's similarly jank when I go to Stormwind to go to Boralus to go to Ironforge, just non-stop loading screens. This is a byproduct of their ridiculous and outdated teleport system where you have to have 20 years of experience to know the actual shortest route to each place in the game (portal rooms? toys? mages? tram? some random necklace?), rather than fast travel or marking locations to teleport to later.

At the bare minimum, I feel like they could play some kind of animation instead of the original loading screen or use the "air lock" style that was mentioned for DF/TWW. Maybe your client takes over once you get to a canopy of trees and the assets load as you fly over the forest. I don't know. It's a solvable problem with some effort on their end.

Black Desert's housing pops in assets when you open the door which is awkward in its own way, but much less disruptive than a loading screen. They also allow transparency in and out of windows, which is something I think Blizz is underrating -- the ability to see out into the neighborhood and likewise people can look in and see you if you have the windows open. They're relying a little too much on Wildstar and FFXIV's instanced housing to get to the point of non-functional windows. In the same vein, I'll add that the mismatch between exterior and interior sizes is going to be silly, but that mismatch is as big as you want to make it I guess.

One thing that they didn't address at all is how you secure an actual housing plot. Some plots will be more desirable to some (or all) players, so how do you handle that situation when everyone's "dream house" is waterfront? Going to be interesting to see how that's sorted out.

[Sondrelk]

I would not be surprised if only the first two hoods are very big, as they are the default and premier ones.

The supposed Undermine one and Bel'ameth would be smaller and more contained, but would work well all the same.

That was my first guess way back when. But now I am not so sure. If the 50-player limit is less about socializing, and more about the developers needing to justify having a large zone because of required loading screens, then smaller more intimate neighborhoods don't really make sense. Might as well make big zones again, and then fill them with players.

[Samin]

How often would you even really fly into your neighborhood over just using your House Hearthstone anyway? It would be a neat gimmick, but I'm not sure if it's worth the headache in the end.

[Sondrelk]

How often would you even really fly into your neighborhood over just using your House Hearthstone anyway? It would be a neat gimmick, but I'm not sure if it's worth the headache in the end.

If it was as we first thought, then flying into the neighborhood would make perfect sense for more RP oriented players.
With the changes now, I don't see why you would not use it. Unless there is more to be revealed about how the instancing works.

[Illuminance]

How often would you even really fly into your neighborhood over just using your House Hearthstone anyway? It would be a neat gimmick, but I'm not sure if it's worth the headache in the end.

I think this is a fair point. I guess the room for improvement would be not having all 50 houses in the neighborhood involve loading screens in/out, but that's not going to happen with their "Tardis" style design.

[Sondrelk]

I think this is a fair point. I guess the room for improvement would be not having all 50 houses in the neighborhood involve loading screens in/out, but that's not going to happen with their "Tardis" style design.

I am carefully optimistic that loading screens to get into the houses will be minimal, and possibly a rare occurence. Similar to how loading into Zaralek or Ringing Deeps don't usually have them unless you play on an older computer or have bad connection.

[Nymrohd]

I mean, this is the size the zones should be but they'll never be scaled up Housing looks very ambitious and I expect players will be able to do amazing stuff with this, especially when it comes to RP and social events.

[Cheezits]

I mean, this is the size the zones should be but they'll never be scaled up Housing looks very ambitious and I expect players will be able to do amazing stuff with this, especially when it comes to RP and social events.

Honestly if they are making all these HD zone assets they probably will, it's just a matter of when.

[Joshuaj]

I will say this: I hope they don't make it to where Mansions are ONLY Elven in design. I hope you genuinely can have a Human Mansion, a Human Small House, a Human Medium House, and/or a Human Large House for the exterior look.

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I mean, this is the size the zones should be but they'll never be scaled up Housing looks very ambitious and I expect players will be able to do amazing stuff with this, especially when it comes to RP and social events.

Seems like you can make camping areas in the Neighborhoods, which is cool.

[Marlamin]

Love this screenshot from the MMORPG.com article. Kinda silly but also kinda cool.

[Ochinko]

I didnt watch all the videos but did stop at one part of preachs video (06:05) where you can see the etheral with the void heart thingy looking at some twisty void energy in the distance. Is that pretty much the next major content or was that from some current quest I skipped?

[Marlamin]

I didnt watch all the videos but did stop at one part of preachs video (06:05) where you can see the etheral with the void heart thingy looking at some twisty void energy in the distance. Is that pretty much the next major content or was that from some current quest I skipped?

That was the end tease at the end of the Undermine epilogue.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I didnt watch all the videos but did stop at one part of preachs video (06:05) where you can see the etheral with the void heart thingy looking at some twisty void energy in the distance. Is that pretty much the next major content or was that from some current quest I skipped?

Could be or it could not be, we don't really know. It is possible that it was a reveal for Midnight and not for the next Major patch.

[Joshuaj]

Love this screenshot from the MMORPG.com article. Kinda silly but also kinda cool.

Based off the exterior stuff we've seen, do you think those 2 will be the only Human options? Or do you think there will be a proper mansion house option or a larger or slightly not as big house option?

Cause I hope those aren't the only Human housing options to choose from

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Also hope we can have different colored houses, like from the concept art. Ik all of this is still early on, so we'll see.

[Marlamin]

Based off the exterior stuff we've seen, do you think those 2 will be the only Human options? Or do you think there will be a proper mansion house option or a larger or slightly not as big house option?

Cause I hope those aren't the only Human housing options to choose from

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Also hope we can have different colored houses, like from the concept art. Ik all of this is still early on, so we'll see.

I don't know if they're going to have the building pieces be separate models too so that you can just end up building large exteriors too, but for visual and performance reasons I can imagine them having only limited exteriors with limited decor amounts compared to the freedom you get on the interiors.

One of the creators did mention seeing various different colors of roofs and such, so there's that. Just don't know to what extent that customization goes. Hopefully something they talk about in the blog post.

[Darkarath]

Hmmm minute 05:12 of Preach and Dratnos interview, Preach says ''So we know that Ethereals are coming, we got that cutscene'' and Jay Hwang says ''Yep'' while nodding.

Good job Preach ¡¡ You got him ¡¡

We did not need a confirmation at this point, but... K'aresh is definitively coming.

[Marlamin]

Hmmm minute 05:12 of Preach and Dratnos interview, Preach says ''So we know that Ethereals are coming, we got that cutscene'' and Jay Hwang says ''Yep'' while nodding.

Good job Preach ¡¡ You got him ¡¡

We did not need a confirmation at this point, but... K'aresh is definitively coming.

I mean, we already knew there was an Ethereal raid coming, so it's not much in terms of confirmation that we didn't already have. But for the less chronically hype-thread visitor I'm sure this comes as news.

[Joshuaj]

I don't know if they're going to have the building pieces be separate models too so that you can just end up building large exteriors too, but for visual and performance reasons I can imagine them having only limited exteriors with limited decor amounts compared to the freedom you get on the interiors.

One of the creators did mention seeing various different colors of roofs and such, so there's that. Just don't know to what extent that customization goes. Hopefully something they talk about in the blog post.

Like I said before, I think there are going to be set housing models that can be built up on (Like you can add fences, and other things), but not completely changed (Like a house IRL).

But I do hope they have a Mansion house model and maybe another house model ontop of it. I don't want what was shown to be the ONLY Human housing options exterior-wise.

Also, multi-colored roofs? WOOHOO!