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

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Don't get the Moon thing, like are we expecting a Temple of Elune on the moon filled with Elunarians or something who are tens of thousand years old. Moon Elves? Like, I don't know chief.

I mean it'd be cool if the Moons were hollow and actually just Titan facilities in case of catastrophic failure of concealing Azeroth in her prison but I jut have never felt the need to walk around in a deserted location in the vast loneliness while sniffing moondust.

[Rigzik]

[milkmustache]

People have said the same about a lot of places. Nazjatar, Argus, K'aresh, the Emerald Dream, etc. I don't think anything is off the table really.

Whatever they have planned for after the saga might not involve the other side of Azeroth.

I think the difference with those areas vs Avaloren is that we have a general idea of what they already consisted of and the risk of aesthetic fatigue that could come with it. The Arathi Empire is just one part of what Avaloren could bring, it's a pretty blank canvas they have the ability to paint however they please. I just think it'd be a wasted opportunity as a patch, unless it was a small portion to follow upon later.

Honestly, I think this wasn't a good expansion for ethereals to come back into the limelight. I'd rather they have gotten more prominence in Midnight while TWW kept to Azeroth. Making Midnight a TBC nostalgia expansion would've been a nice move, I think.

This is a dumb argument from myself, but K'aresh totally feels far more Broker than it does Ethereal lol. I still expect to see a lot of Ethereals in Midnight.

--

This is an unrelated point, but the darkening of K'aresh from Dimensius made me think... Beledar's shifting was totally tech testing for changing darkness over Quel'thalas similar to Zaralek Caverns being a test tech for underground zones.

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This 100%, entire planets like Argus and K'aresh have been reduced to content patches, but an island named Avaloren is somehow more glorious and worthy of its own expansion? Big doubt. After Blizzard neutered Nazjatar, anything is at play.

It's less thatn Avaloren is "worthy", but that Avaloren has the potential to be anything. I'm not arguing that it's more worthy than Argus, K'aresh, Nazjatar or the Dream of having an expansion, but Blizzard has given us their reasons for why they didn't give those zones a full expansion and it unfortunately makes some sense. We can't pretend that WoD > Legion didn't have an oversaturation of the Legion aesthetic.

It is completely within reason that Avaloren is 12.1 or 12.2, we visit the Arathi Empire, have a raid on their main city with the Emperor as the final boss and that's that, but we'll almost certainly be returning to this conversation in 2-3 years to add Avaloren to this list of wasted potential patches and I have to feel that Blizzard was entirely aware of this discourse when they started to worldbuild the Arathi.

[Raetary]

Now this is juicy.

It's great to finally have a explanation for Lunar and Solar magic.

[micwini]

https://news.blizzard.com/en-gb/arti...nly-neighborly

HOUSING BLOG

[Khaza-R]

I think the difference with those areas vs Avaloren is that we have a general idea of what they already consisted of and the risk of aesthetic fatigue that could come with it. The Arathi Empire is just one part of what Avaloren could bring, it's a pretty blank canvas they have the ability to paint however they please. I just think it'd be a wasted opportunity as a patch, unless it was a small portion to follow upon later.

And I think that's probably the biggest thing it has going for it. They can essentially make it anything they want at this point.

I don't think fatigue is a strong reason. Look at TBC and SL. They probably had the most diverse themese of an expansion between zones. They seem to strongly prefer more grounded settings and then get more fantasical from there as the expansion progresses. I think starting somewhere really high fantasy brings the challenge of "how do we up the stakes from here?"

My only doubt about Avaloren is that they said the Worldsoul Saga would set up the next 20 years of WarCraft. Granted you can interpret that a lot of different ways. But we don't really need a whole saga to set up Avalorn.

[Hitei]

To create (and maintain) a Private Neighborhood, there’s a minimum number of players (not characters) who must be in the Guild or Charter as well as (eventually) a minimum number of players who must live in the Neighborhood. This is due to technical concerns around server and database performance as Neighborhoods are significantly more complicated than a simple instance.

I told you dorks so.

[Kiivar86]

The endeavor stuff sounds neat, and a good way to bring variety too.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Honestly, the Housing System is the biggest W of all time. Literally, they are avoiding all the pitfalls. Honestly surprising considering what company we're dealing with.

[Hitei]

Initial scale guesses based on the B-roll they gave the content creators a couple months back seem accurate, the neighborhoods look absolutely massive.

[Khaza-R]

I guess if there was any doubt you can see blood elf exteriors in the Azshara biome pic

[Kiivar86]

Initial scale guesses based on the B-roll they gave the content creators a couple months back seem accurate, the neighborhoods look absolutely massive.

Based on the Alliance ones alone, yeah. Elwynn look, Duskwood look, and then that cliff with the waterfall. God damn that's a large scale.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I just hope we do get a Early Access in case they need some stress testing, it just feels like a technical marvel that its this big and so focused on both Inside and Outside customization with 50 plots on top of visitors.

This is like awe-inspiring technologically considering what they're working with.

[Timester]

This 100%, entire planets like Argus and K'aresh have been reduced to content patches, but an island named Avaloren is somehow more glorious and worthy of its own expansion? Big doubt. After Blizzard neutered Nazjatar, anything is at play.

Even Undermine. Kezan was heavily speculated to be an entire expansion for years and years and yet they deliver Undermine as a patch and a detour of the major plot.

[Darkarath]

Housing looks so incredible.

Midnight would be insanely successful just by this feature.

Also they look so huge ¡¡ Endeavors? Such a big win. Very good of them to let us contribute doing literally anything ¡¡ Smart ¡¡

Good fucking job Blizzard.

[Hitei]

Based on the Alliance ones alone, yeah. Elwynn look, Duskwood look, and then that cliff with the waterfall. God damn that's a large scale.

There's also a significant Westfall portion and that's all without the more "downtowny" area in any of the shots so far besides the maybe mock-up scripted one with all the NPCs wandering around.

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Even Undermine. Kezan was heavily speculated to be an entire expansion for years and years and yet they deliver Undermine as a patch and a detour of the major plot.

I mean, it was only heavily speculated to "be an entire expansion" by a very, very specific group of people obsessed with Undermine (and things from Undermine). Anyone thinking reasonably understood that Goblins were never going to be the main theme of an expansion or continent. Undermine was very obviously only ever going to be one zone on a continent, a neutral hub, or a raid/megadungeon.

[Edoll]

We know Quel’thalas is too small to host an expansion as is and while it could easily be expanded what if it’s just one or two zones?

Blizzard could pull a BFA and have two distinct landmasses again; Quel’thalas and Avaloren.

I feel this would be a waste of potential for both zones, but when has Blizzard followed through on potential lately?

[Hitei]

I just hope we do get a Early Access in case they need some stress testing, it just feels like a technical marvel that its this big and so focused on both Inside and Outside customization with 50 plots on top of visitors.

This is like awe-inspiring technologically considering what they're working with.

It'll be tested long before EA either on PTR if it's an 11.2.x feature or in 12.0 alpha/beta if they feel it's too significant an inclusion to tie to minor patch.

[13last]

Maybe I'm in the minority but I wish buildings/structures could be intertwined between horde/alliance or let us pick different textures.

But housing looks incredible I'm really excited for it.

[Marlamin]

Welp, everything about this feature still looks great. Can't wait to mess with it.