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

[Makorus]

Dimensius's broken world visuals were shown to me on Discord, and it's literally Dimensius blowing up a planet and throwing its fragments at us. Like, it shows the planet being destroyed and everything...

Us battling Sargeras in TLT is DEFINITELY possible.

You can't just say that and then show nothing.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

So the events of the past 30 years, however grim, represent a footnote in their history. Cultures that old certainly bounce back.

Well, for one, that's not always true—a disastrous enough couple years can absolutely shatter old empires, even if the timespan is ludicrous and fantastic. I'm also inclined to note that while I'd rather have it otherwise, Blizzard has effectively established that millennia doesn't really mean anything on Azeroth. Fantasy writers typically don't understand scale, and the fact that the War of the Ancients is many times older than Sumer has historically never seemed to stop the elves from responding to events on an analogous timeframe to humans. I don't see why the reasonable thing should suddenly start being applied here when it's only disastrous for the narrative and cultural identity of these different races when it's been ignored in cases where it would be good to acknowledge it.

The problem is that Blizzard needs a unified elven population to avoid being stuck in a perpetual situation of uncertainty and confusion regarding the size of their population, and the issue with offshoots like Void Elves being treated as equals to Blood Elves in terms of gameplay and lore despite being way fewer.

Blizzard has never handled populations well at all. They could definitely stand to clarify more going forward, but I don't exactly see why making the races distinct color palettes in an indistinct Thalassian megaculture would do anything to remedy that other than giving the sense that the culture itself is larger. It wouldn't solve the population problem of individual subraces, it would just make those subraces less distinct and ruin all of their identities.

To put it bluntly, it's not ideal that the bulk of the population is Horde while writing the future story for their people.

Simple question here: why? If it's for the sake of consistent aesthetic identity, I'd typically agree, but it's no more ideal that factions become so vestigial that you can have a race exist in a state of continuous unity while its demographics have nominally different allegiances. If you want a good solution to the Horde identity problem, irreversibly get rid of the execrable council idea and return the blood elves to existing as allies of convenience at arm's length with the rest of the Horde.

I agree that the Thalassian elves should have their identities strengthened rather than combined, but are people really suggesting that their cultures would become completely combined together rather than them just becoming closer politically to the point that they can live alongside each other without trying to kill each other?

Homogenization is an established and recurring problem in late-stage Warcraft. Given something as theoretically heterogeneous as political factions evidently can't exist anymore without some level of cultural convergence, I highly doubt what's nominally the same race being kept in one place and united into a harmonious political body won't result in an outcome of homogenization. Blandification is entirely and irrevocably tied to intra- and interfactional homogenization, and opening the door to that almost irreversibly kills identity under current precedent.

That said, we're talking in the land of "ought" instead of "is" already, so I'm not going to dwell on making my arguments reliant on the incompetence of Blizzard, since it irritates me to no end when some people (Aucald, I'm talking about Aucald any time the faction war comes up) use that as an argument. The question I'm left with there is why, exactly, is it a good idea to merge them even if it can be executed more competently than we can expect with current precedent?

This partial explanation, at least, doesn't convince me:

I think high elves being allowed back into Quel'thalas could only serve to strengthen their identity. They need something new that sets them apart from blood and void elves, and they need a place where they can actually settle and develop a culture rather than playing second fiddle in a human kingdom. I'd probably rather them set up somewhere else, but maybe this is just the first step.

No, there's far more room to make them distinct and interesting to deliberately run with and explore the enclave angle. The high elves, already defined in part by their willingness to put aside their existing cultural loyalties to instead remain with their human allies, aren't going to be innately dragged down by existing as a homeless cultural enclave. Were the high elves integrated into Silvermoon, you have no real direction to go other than "slightly more foresty, blue elves"—their exile, factional allegiances, and hatred of fel magic or parasitism are the underlying justifications of the schism in the first place. Ever since TBC ended, the anti-fel, anti-parasitism angle has been comparatively diminished because the blood elves have largely cast off those aspects of their identity.

A homeless cultural enclave growing increasingly different from their source culture has a lot more wiggle room for development than "the other, blue elves who briefly split from us", and their identity being largely based on opposing the reigning power in Silvermoon is also far from a dead end. The old high elf thread showcased a lot of good ideas as to how the high elves could become more culturally distinct that were precedented strongly on their exile from Silvermoon and status as a rogue people that oppose Silvermoon.

[Xilurm]

Hmm, but Thalassian is "of Quel'Thalas". A nationality.

It would kind of be like saying "Stormwindian" or "Gilnean". Not opposed to it, but it breaks with convention a bit.

In my opinion it would be for the best if they landed on a few core races:

- Human
- Dwarf
- Orc
- Tauren
- Troll

Etc.

Once you've selected one of those, you're presented with a "sub-race" choice (could be based on culture, politics, magical affliction, and so on).

Finally, you select faction (Horde or Alliance for now, but ideally more options in the future).

1. I choose Dwarf.

2. I choose Wildhammer.

3. I choose Alliance.

I hope they go back to having a more fantasy like UI for character creation. Just because we're in 2025 doesn't mean everything has to be slick and modern. It had a more fantasy/medieval feel to it in 2004 but that had nothing to do with the year, it was centered on the theme of the game.

[Khaza-R]

The reason the Worgen reclamation and Forsaken beef squashing storyline was shit was because it was given to a B team on a dimestore budget, which was probably stretched even thinner by the Saga model. Same reason Arathi story is undercooked. Not enough time in the oven.

The Infinite one doesn't actually feel like an ending- especially with what we know about the story shift that happened (Murozond being heavily connected to Amanthul and likely going crazy from the conspiracy)

If High, Blood and Void reunite it will likely be a good story as it is the meat and potatoes of the core launch experience. Not something shat out for a minor patch.

I don't know if I agree. They were just bad stories. Terrible world building. Terrible characterizations. Cheap, one dimensional villains.

People kind of forgave the Gilneas one because they got something out of it in the end. But its just as bad, if not worse, than the Arathi story. They were obviously written by the same person or team. And I can only hope they touch as little stuff in the future as possible.

[Nymrohd]

I hope they go back to having a more fantasy like UI for character creation. Just because we're in 2025 doesn't mean everything has to be slick and modern. It had a more fantasy/medieval feel to it in 2004 but that had nothing to do with the year, it was centered on the theme of the game.

The game is played on the PC so I don't understand why the UI looks ready for mobile.

[milkmustache]

I hope they go back to having a more fantasy like UI for character creation. Just because we're in 2025 doesn't mean everything has to be slick and modern. It had a more fantasy/medieval feel to it in 2004 but that had nothing to do with the year, it was centered on the theme of the game.

Minimalism in modern design is a hellscape. I completel agree with you, the UI is functional now, but it's too clean stylistically. In that same vein, as someone else mentioned earlier, I truly hope we'll return to traditional login screens for Midnight. It'd be a real shame if we get a new version of TWW's screen.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

The game is played on the PC so I don't understand why the UI looks ready for mobile.

My hottake is that feedback loops have something to do with it. Corporations saw Apple succeed with it in the old days, imitated it, other companies kept imitating other companies and it gradually spiraled out of control to corpos jacking off modern minimalism even though nobody really likes its current form. Monkey see, monkey do, other monkeys see, other monkeys do and reinforce the cycle.

[Harpymeat]

Except that would be a reunion not a reunification.

Looking forward to seeing this bizarre semantic cope amount to nothing in the Gamescon reveals. Zero reason beyond the hyperspecific fixation of very, very, very few people to collapse the races.

[Xilurm]

The game is played on the PC so I don't understand why the UI looks ready for mobile.

They probably looked at the most popular online games at the time. This came with DF and from what I understand the new team was still adapting to the new direction of WoW. The menu icons in-game didn't even have any colour to them, until people complained enough for that to be changed.

[Nymrohd]

My hottake is that feedback loops have something to do with it. Corporations saw Apple succeed with it in the old days, imitated it, other companies kept imitating other companies and it gradually spiraled out of control to corpos jacking off modern minimalism even though nobody really likes its current form. Monkey see, monkey do, other monkeys see, other monkeys do and reinforce the cycle.

It is my assumption as well. It's just people deciding "this is how we do UI now". And it makes sense for what it was designed for; small screen need minimalist UI. But gaming PCs are not played on small screens and the UI should work with the theme. Older RPGs used to have custom, themed UI artwork as did WoW originally

[kecnee]

Hi newer member here,

Just because I saw a few posts about the whole Elf unification thing I'd like to throw a thought into the ring.

I think if they were to "Unify" the Thalassian elves with a gameplay feature I think it would be possible blizzard would be looking at a feature similar to GW2 character creation features (god forbid they "steal" ideas again =p)

What i mean is when creating a character you have the basis of the race, in this case Thalassian elves and then you can pick the background, That being the starting zone(maybe) and the racials (maybe some cosmetics aswell) and maybe even faction (technically making them neutral)

I think for the UI a system like that might be a upgrade, making the UI a lil sleeker and it might not be the hardest to put in place. You click elf > Then choose between BElf, VElf and throw in Helf for fun > Class > Then done. It might even make sense for some of the other races too such as Mgnomes and Gnomes or Tauren and Moose tauren.

[Makorus]

Looking forward to seeing this bizarre semantic cope amount to nothing in the Gamescon reveals. Zero reason beyond the hyperspecific fixation of very, very, very few people to collapse the races.

Also because it would be an interesting storytelling idea rather than have three different races that are all just different colours of the same concept (and also, literally the exact same race).

Pop Quiz: What makes High Elves, Blood Elves and Void Elves different other than what magic they got addicted to.

Right now, after Midnight, Void Elves might as well get completely shelved, just like High Elves were since Blood Elves were introduced.

[whoisqnx]

Dimensius's broken world visuals were shown to me on Discord, and it's literally Dimensius blowing up a planet and throwing its fragments at us. Like, it shows the planet being destroyed and everything...

Us battling Sargeras in TLT is DEFINITELY possible.

Bro really posted about the coolest thing lately and didnt provide a vid or something. Come on lol!

[Cheezits]

Yeah a customization revamp is probably the most likely thing to me besides Ethereal reveal.

[Joshuaj]

You can't just say that and then show nothing.

I'll make an imgur. 1 sec

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Bro really posted about the coolest thing lately and didnt provide a vid or something. Come on lol!

That's the point. I wanted this type of response so the evidence hits harder.

- - - Updated - - -

https://imgur.com/a/GOfO3OG

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Dimensius's Broken World ability effects! ^

A World appears, he destroys it, and then he throws the planets fragments at us.

[whoisqnx]

I'll make an imgur. 1 sec

- - - Updated - - -



That's the point. I wanted this type of response so the evidence hits harder.

- - - Updated - - -

https://imgur.com/a/GOfO3OG

- - - Updated - - -

Dimensius's Broken World ability effects! ^

A World appears, he destroys it, and then he throws the planets fragments at us.

Thats honestly pretty cool and it will be even better in motion

[Joshuaj]

Thats honestly pretty cool and it will be even better in motion

I never wanna hear people say we can't fight planet destroyers again...

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We've been doing this shit for the longest time now, the fact people need to be shown threats destroying planets to finally get the picture is mind boggling to me.

[Makorus]

Thats honestly pretty cool and it will be even better in motion

I actually managed to find it in the files

https://i.imgur.com/MkcvAy0.mp4

[Ersula]

Yeah a customization revamp is probably the most likely thing to me besides Ethereal reveal.

Maybe new customization options. But people keep saying we need a CC revamp this even though it just happened.

Wrath of the Lich King added new hairstyles, that weren't available in character creations (barbershop only. Wrath classic omitted this)
Cataclysm redesigned the UI only slightly, making room for more races & more than six class options, and the addition of thumbnails showing customization options
Warlords of Draenor updated the character models but the UI remained the same.
Shadowlands had the biggest Character creation overhall.... both updating the UI and a ton of customization options, many over the course of the expansion, and that was only 2 expansions ago.

People were really making "Here's what we want in a customization revamp," videos literally during Shadowlands when they had just updated the character customization system. Essentially in 18 years we got one minor and one major update to the system, I think we're going to be waiting a lot longer for another revamp.

[Joshuaj]

I actually managed to find it in the files

https://i.imgur.com/MkcvAy0.mp4

Legendary!

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So, it seems the planet blows up, and Dimensius grabs fragments of that planet and chucks them at the players (Hence why the other fragments look different from the ones in the initial planet exploding animation)