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

[Santandame]

A patch zone can take place in another world/dimension, people aren't going to ragequit over that. Considering that we are going into a split pocket dimension of life magic to defend a giant tree, we're already "cosmic".

Emerald Nightmare, Argus, Nya'lotha, etc.

I understand that. Of course we’ve seen the likes of Draenor, Argus etc. I’m talking more about expansions that take place firmly in a completely cosmic setting, like @Cosmicpreds seems convinced we’re going to get with every other post. “Gardens of Life”, “Domain of Order” etc as firm expansion settings.

I have no doubt we will see the likes of K’aresh, Nathreza, a return to Outland etc etc etc as points of interest in future expansions. But the Zereth’s and by extension these places such as “the Domain of Life” and the “Domain of Order” (are these even legit places?) don’t seem like they’ll be revisited or visited anytime soon.

- - - Updated - - -

It's not gonna be connected to Zereth Vitae. I need you to quit shitting on me for saying we may see small HINTS at Cosmic stuff for future narrative plots (Cause I know this is an expansion about Dragons, but 10.2 is also continuing plotlines from Shadowlands) in a realistic way (I.E us going further into the Dream and likely seeing Elune's area), only for you to make mention of the fact that the Dream is somehow linked with Zereth Vitae. Ya know? One of the forbidden workshops of the First Ones, which are nearly impossible to get to?

I don't think you or others realize just how crazy and rare it was for us to even go to Zereth Mortis, much less other Zereths...

That's not something which will happen casually, and if it does, it's final patch content for other Cosmic related plotlines.

Also, why do you think the Dream we'll explore will be the same one we're used to? We're not gonna explore the Dreamway or the same part of the Dream we've seen before. We're going far deeper into the Dream's heart, I'm pretty sure.

Yeah, sure.

[Well Done Steak]

https://www.wowhead.com/news/new-dar...breaker-334132


More void hints

[micwini]

https://www.wowhead.com/news/new-dar...breaker-334132


More void hints

Already posted days ago and discussed multiple times.

[Dracullus]

What's your 11.0 wishlist in general? My would be:

1) Professions changes. I remember at some point early DF Ion said they will address issue of people "stuck" in their professions cause they have rare old patterns. I doubt there will be big changes for 10.2, but I hope next expansion we will finally move towards fully account wide professions.

With current knowledge system there is no risk of being 'one man army', they can limit points you get during early expac and later it doesn't matter. Hell, it would be even better, cause you would HAVE to cooperate with people early expac, now it depends how many alts you can stomach.

Obviously there should be also option to refund all points, but there is easy solution with just gold cost. People won't switch up constantly and break market if they have to pay more and more gold each time they reset points.

2). Fully account-wide transmog. You can use only armor/weapons for your class, but you can learn everything no matter restrictions. You don't have to redo quests on different class. You could buy 'wrong' piece of armor from profession quartermaster to learn it's transmog. No more doing content 4x times for completionist (which, at least in my case, usually leads to doing it once and forgeting about rest for years anyway).

3) Something like dragonriding, but for ground and aquatic mobs.

4) Hard revamp for part of old world. Zones build for scratch and big like DF ones. Imo we need 3 expacs (north EK, south EK, Kalimdor) to do justice for old world (it doesn't have to be back-to-back expansions). They would serve as 'new' continents, intro experience will be Exile's Reach -> DF.

If not this, at least more 'civilized' continent, something like Kul Tiras. And set in Azeroth, too early for another cosmic voyage.

5) War mode revamped into 'Heroic world' - way harder enemies, PVP, no flying (here new ground mount system come into use), unique rewards, challenges like leveling 1-max without switching it off.

6) Housing - that would be system for many years and expansions. If 11.0 is Lordareon, we could have: Undead, Belf, Gilnean houses/accessories. For southern EK: Human, Dwarf/Gnome, Goblin. For Kalimdor: Nelf, Draenei, Orc/Troll, Tauren. And obviously new themes for new or returned cultures in the future.

7) In general not halfassing any potential account wide features like we often see in Dragonflight. Go full in, and if you think some people may enjoy repeating this specific piece of content, make it repeatable, even on main.

8) Keep up patch structure. In previous post few days ago I wrote how more or less I see 2nd part of DF. I realize that devs don't have unlimited resources and I'm all for more content heavy 1st part and more relaxed 2nd part. It's important expac is bombarded with content early on, but doing it constantly results in burnout.

[Well Done Steak]

Same here, the Titans have shown Nozdormu that he will become Murozond, so he won't fight it and just let it happen, because the timeline where Murozond happens is prefered by them to the one where he does not happend. What Iridikron did was basically to reduce the future to two paths - one where Murozond happens (but Iridikron does not get what he's after) and one where he does not happen (but Iridikron gets his prize). From what I understand, Chromie basically has yanked us out of the True Timeline to save Nozdormu, but this means that - although it seems like a short term victory - we (or at least the Titans) get fucked in the end.

I suppose the deal Iridikron made with the Infinite was to create a situation where at least one of them is guaranteed to get what they want, and they both just betted on what Chromie is going to do?

As awesome as this sounds, if murozond is part of the true timeline, shouldn't Nozzy know this, thus allow the transformation to happen

[Nymrohd]

As awesome as this sounds, if murozond is part of the true timeline, shouldn't Nozzy know this, thus allow the transformation to happen

Can he know this? Nozdormu seems to be blind to events affected by the Void/Infinites

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

What are you on about?

We face Fate Manipulation guys a lot. Hell, Roh'kalo straight up manipulates our fates and destiny's during out fight against him, and we still beat him. Changing Fate isn't really an achievement.

- - - Updated - - -

Hell, Legion has a lot of implications of us defying destiny and inevitability. Grand Magistrix Elisande is a prime example of that.

I love the fact that you think I don't know these things. Now how did we do it then? Because that's the crux of the problem and again outlines a completely different timeline for the entirety of World of Warcraft if the answer is well our "Player Characters" has Plot Armor.

Okay? But none of these are stated by the Narrative Team to canonically matter. As it currently stands there is no actual "Plot Armor" because there is no actual evidence of it.

This is why I just find this funny, its all in the arena of insane lunatics like us who are going to have shouting matches about something that has no canonicity from the Narrative Team and the Lead Narrative Designer.

But, unfortunately our Lead Narrative Designer has us consider that it is canon which again creates a highly volatile and toxic environment with just outright stupendous arguments about something that again the Narrative Team has never come forth with actual explanations on.


Fate Manipulation is not canon because again our Narrative Lead and our Narrative Team has never outlined it in any book whether it is Chronicles or otherwise.

It is why the whole Megadungeon Cinematic is a problem because what it is showing and telling the audience is throwing a schism into wider audience appeal because the subject matter that is is specifiying is so inclined towards the insane (That's us).

Feel free to correct me with a passage in the Chronicles, Grimoire if there is canonicity I never picked up the Grimoire because I was tuned out and the only thing that interested me in SL was the Fatescribes, Prophecy of Shadowlands and how N'zoth used it to his advantage.

[Well Done Steak]

Can he know this? Nozdormu seems to be blind to events affected by the Void/Infinites

Well he should from when he had his aspect powers.

[Nymrohd]

Well he should from when he had his aspect powers.

Honestly, giving a few characters effective omniscience is just idiotic writing. I just blame Metzen and anyone else involved back then for making the case for it in the first place.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

The Grimoire and the Chronicle aren't the only sources of WoW lore.

Maybe defying fate is simply the result of us Players not being required to lose, as the plot requires that we don't? Maybe our unique choices have something to do with it? Idk...

But it's clear that the events are canon. The devs not outright confirming it doesn't mean a damn thing.

Yeah but then the ending will be bad no matter what, right? Like that's why I just am so non interested in this entire storylines' ending. Sure, the storyline itself is ... Something else and worth keeping an eye on just to see the Narrative Team stumble through it but thats' about it.

There's no good ending here for the narrative. N'zoth and the Void loses because of something they already knows based on the manipulation of Fate they did to get rid of Zovaal.

I just find this laughable, we may as well be discussing whether ghosts are real or not. It's frankly embarassing and well I mean the whole "tree" debacle next patch just again makes it seem completely incompetent.

Taking everything into account within the game, you get a completely different storyline that fits the Megadungeon Finale but again the size of that audience is so small that I don't find it serves the Product well anymore.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

If you want my opinion on how the narrative will end:

I think it'll end with the Heroes of Azeroth uniting the Cosmic Forces (as well as Azeroth), and leading the United Cosmos against this 7th pattern.

Seems about right, if you consider the running narrative of WoW is that unity through free will > division and endless strife.

I don't know anymore, I do agree with the second part though. . Considering how Free Will essentially did screw up everything for the First Ones and The Pantheon of Order

Obviously again more hypothetical questions like did the Old Gods have "free will" and they actually do believe the Gift of Flesh (CoF) was a gift.

So yeah, I mean I like the story currently and its directions but I also recognize that I don't know how they can solve the whole "Void won" problem without it looking worse than Ny'alotha to the general audience.

I mean Free Will in the Warcraft Universe seems to have been a bug rather than a feature. Sooo, yeah whatever that means.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

As far as Nozdormu fate and the void goes they should really just have it so without his aspect powers he’s only gotten glimpses that were easily block able and once we use the flight stones he sees what ever it is the void is planning all at once and he just can’t deal with it turning into Murozond on the spot before disappearing in the time ways and we have to sort out the bronzes in the after math.

That way they can bring him back and even have us work with Murozond as we’re now in the “true end times” which he was trying to avoid in cata.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

How did free will screw the First Ones over? They don't care about the whole Cosmic ordeals with the Forces lol

Well, I mean "screwed over" in the sense that their perfect creation was flawed and hence worthless to them.

Also, all the Forces have a desire or need or something. None of what they do is based on "free will", but more so based on what they believe to be "right" in a sense.

Mortals are blessed with free will however, and they are able to choose and/or wield whatever power they desire.

Well, this all depends if the Forces were programmed in such a manner to have desires.

Could ascertain the Cosmic Forces were all programmed by the Creators to operate in a certain way to in the end cause chaos while making it seem like this was all actual just random occurrence like a bit flip that caused the free will proble for the cosmos.

I don't really know and I fall on either side of the argument because again most people don't have this conversation in the first place.

[Helothar]

I wouldn’t hold as much hope out as you seem to be in regards to seeing a focus on the cosmic realms again.

When/if we see the Dream in 10.2, you can bet it will be sold to us in the classic, traditional way we’ve seen the Dream in the WoW lifespan; with very little mentioning or drawing parallel to its links with say Zereth Vitae.

Blizzard have outright said as recently as the end of Shadowlands, that they hear our criticisms with the story going cosmic and that they’ll focus on a return to roots. They’ve been very good at taking that on board from what we’ve seen. They aren’t going to pursue returning to a setting and theme that the majority of the player base clearly aren’t keen on, any time soon, if at all.

See, to me, this is sad, I hated almost all of SL, but the only zone I really liked was Zereth Mortis. Because it was a breath of fresh air! I love cosmic stuff and I'd love to see a Void/Light expansion with cosmic roots. Disorder expansions (BC and Legion) were also pretty cosmic (Outland is itself a journey through space to another planet and in Legion we got Argus reached via a draenei spaceship)--and I LOVED them. But gosh I hate Dragonflight so much and the direction the game is going because of whiners. The cringe stories, the boring aesthetics, the unpleasant music, everything. I just want this cliché dragon fantasy nightmare to be finally over and not hear the word "dragon" anymore. I'm happy that most of the players love it, though--it means the hard work of the developers was worth it.

Still hoping for something more exciting in the future, can't accept the fact that the game might not be for me anymore and I want to re-sub so bad
But realistically, I'm absolutely Team No Cosmic Stuff Anytime Soon if it comes to predictions--be it a patch in DF or the next Xpac.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

7) In general not halfassing any potential account wide features like we often see in Dragonflight. Go full in, and if you think some people may enjoy repeating this specific piece of content, make it repeatable, even on main.

8) Keep up patch structure. In previous post few days ago I wrote how more or less I see 2nd part of DF. I realize that devs don't have unlimited resources and I'm all for more content heavy 1st part and more relaxed 2nd part. It's important expac is bombarded with content early on, but doing it constantly results in burnout.

Well for starters as I've already said, having the world quests not be stuck on every 3 days would be an improvement. Nobody has to do them if they don't want to. The events are nice and I don't want them removed but IMO the world quests daily are fine the way they were Pre the change in DF.

Patch structure umm I'd probably just tweak it to and thats controversial but. Their MoP strategy was just fine IMO. The .1 patches don't have to have a raid in them right awway, smaller story stuff is fine. The Mini patches, I dunno I wasn't particularly asking for them persay. a .2 raid like the incoming Emerald Dream and a .3 the end content tier and worse case scenario fated raids if development takes longer then usual/ shennigans in the real world.


I don't have any features I super desire aside from Housing but if they're going to do it, it has to be very expansive very big a lot of variety so on and so forth and obviously no player power connection.

[Dracullus]

Their MoP strategy was just fine IMO.

Excuse me? MoP strategy was awful, releasing everything first 12 months and then 14 months of nothing. If they add more smaller patches to extend raids before SoO, then it would be solid patch plan.

[Santandame]

Just merge some elements of Dragonflight(talents, dragonriding) with the core structure of Legion (patch cadence, mage tower, an artifact system, plenty of cosmetics, class/race content) and you’ll have close to the perfect expansion. That’s how I’d like to see an expansion formatted.

If I’m totally honest, I’d be perfectly happy with a carbon copy of Legion design, just with new content to reflect the new expansion story.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Excuse me? MoP strategy was awful, releasing everything first 12 months and then 14 months of nothing. If they add more smaller patches to extend raids before SoO, then it would be solid patch plan.

You're talking about the end of the patch. Yeah it was long but so was roughly Legion to BFA as well. I'm not entirely convinced by these mini patches. They have some stuff in them but it just feels weird and truthfully aren't going to hold people for too long. Now if the Time rifts were 10.1 that might of been better so it would of gotten more dev time. I hate to say it but the way they are functioning isn't great even if the idea itself is fine.

[Chickat]

With all the banter about Karesh I have another idea to rally against.

Thrall on the Blizzcon Poster. His home? Outland.
Ecodome Models. Where did we see em last? Outland.
Worst performing Classic Realms? Burning Crusade, home of Outland.
Dying for a remake but not nearly as difficult as the Classic Zones? Outland.

Just a pitch, but Iridikron made a dark bargain with a void being known as the harbinger. This being is ushering it's masters to us. We know from the Old God's they still have to travel through the nether.

So what if Iridikron teams up with the Harbinger to attempt to bring the void lords to Azeroth and in order to do that they do what the Burning Legion did, Invade through a world closer to their own to get to us sooner. They Invade Outland to make use of the Dark Portal.

Edit: Add to this. You could even have it be that they used the remnants of Karesh, a moonlike wasteland, to pull Outland to them so we have new zones to explore and places to see.

Double Edit: Lordy imagine the scenes from Argus, Macaree, specifically, or whatever it's called now, with the ruined world floating in the sky box, but imagine Outland just shaped like that. The horizon bending towards you with Zangarmarsh visible arching it's way towards the portal slightly.

Triple Edit: Context for the Double Edit.

With an interesting plot im totally game for that.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Honestly I just want to see us avoid any drama before Blizzcon in regards to the Roadmap and what not, whatever happens at Blizzcon I can swallow even if it literally "Everything: The Expansion". As long as they at least try to make it as hype and cool as possible it will be fine like Legion even if Narratively its very much duct tape and cardboard holding everything together.