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

[bruxx]

ED just didn't feel... Alien? enough. I remember the unfinished content from Vanilla looking way more unique, whereas when we finally go there, I had to actively remind myself that I am no longer in the dragon isles.

[Makorus]

ED just didn't feel... Alien? enough. I remember the unfinished content from Vanilla looking way more unique, whereas when we finally go there, I had to actively remind myself that I am no longer in the dragon isles.

I feel like that's the bigger problem, and probably had to do with the fact that they were going to re-integrate that zone into Azeroth.

I mean, it makes sense, the Emerald Dream is not one distinct place, it's a realm, and we got to visit the bit that hard Amidrassil in it, but still.

Once again, Blizzard blundered by naming the zone rather than the zone itself, just like with Nazjatar (which isn't really Nazjatar).

[milkmustache]

Which is why I didn't like it. The Emerald Dream as a place was wasted.

Completely agreed. I usually tend to be cautious when approaching the "This doesn't feel like Warcraft" conversation, because I think it tends to be a crutch for people looking to push other opinions, but I think the Amirdrassil patch really hammered in how uncanny things felt in Shadowlands/Dragonflight.

Zones in the past have felt like theme parks because of their level design, but Amirdrassil felt like a theme park because of its tone. A lot of the cutscenes felt similar to the videos they show you in line at Universal or Disney World with actor's from the associated movie pretending like they're on a mission with you. There were no fangs to it (pun literally intended). It all felt safe, like you knew you had the safety bar locked in over you, and you're just going through the motions of it all. You were being shown an idyllic version of the Dream with a little bit of danger from outside invaders.

I get it, that's the point of the ordered area of the Dream, but I still think it was a mistake. There should have been some danger to it, true unkempt life that we have to exist amongst while we try to protect the growing sapling from evil. Even more to that, the dangers of the Incarnate of fire coming into burn everything would've been much more intimidating if it were a true thicket.

But tonally it was so off. It even lacked the whimsey of Ardenweald, which felt far better in tone and execution. I dunno. I had a lot of issues with Amirdrassil, and I think it really soured Dragonflight for me. I think The War Within did a great job of course correction. The Ringing Deeps really sticks out to me as a zone that is incredibly aware of it's tonality.

[Skritt]

So it's true that in 11.2 is revelead that Xal was mortal and his own world was destroyed by Dimensius too? I didn't read that in any quest, but maybe I'm blind xd. Tbh Big if true, but boring asfuk. For now Xalathat it's still a mistery void entity that is older than karesh destruction and who knows what really is in reality...

[Joshuaj]

ED just didn't feel... Alien? enough. I remember the unfinished content from Vanilla looking way more unique, whereas when we finally go there, I had to actively remind myself that I am no longer in the dragon isles.

It's an ordered part of a greater realm. It's not supposed to be wild or alien, that's the literal point.

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Completely agreed. I usually tend to be cautious when approaching the "This doesn't feel like Warcraft" conversation, because I think it tends to be a crutch for people looking to push other opinions, but I think the Amirdrassil patch really hammered in how uncanny things felt in Shadowlands/Dragonflight.

Zones in the past have felt like theme parks because of their level design, but Amirdrassil felt like a theme park because of its tone. A lot of the cutscenes felt similar to the videos they show you in line at Universal or Disney World with actor's from the associated movie pretending like they're on a mission with you. There were no fangs to it (pun literally intended). It all felt safe, like you knew you had the safety bar locked in over you, and you're just going through the motions of it all. You were being shown an idyllic version of the Dream with a little bit of danger from outside invaders.

I get it, that's the point of the ordered area of the Dream, but I still think it was a mistake. There should have been some danger to it, true unkempt life that we have to exist amongst while we try to protect the growing sapling from evil. Even more to that, the dangers of the Incarnate of fire coming into burn everything would've been much more intimidating if it were a true thicket.

But tonally it was so off. It even lacked the whimsey of Ardenweald, which felt far better in tone and execution. I dunno. I had a lot of issues with Amirdrassil, and I think it really soured Dragonflight for me. I think The War Within did a great job of course correction. The Ringing Deeps really sticks out to me as a zone that is incredibly aware of it's tonality.

Ardenweald wasn't ordered by the Titans. Azeroth's reflection within the Emerald Dream was.

Did everyone fall asleep these last few years or? Cause how did y'all miss this?

[Harpymeat]

ah the age old "your ideas ruin the game", how original. You know people can have different opinions of what would make the game better, and just because you don't like them or don't understand them, doesn't mean it ruins anything.

Your new player-friendly idea is to make everyone have to loot full sets of plate, mail, leather and cloth each if they roll e.g. Druid and want to try all 4 specs; likewise, 3 sets for Paladin, Monk, and Shaman. Mage, Warlock, Rogue are the only classes that wouldn’t need to build more than one armor set to touch all of their specs.

You want Warrior, Pal, and DK dps specs to wear leather. You want Sham and Evoker dps specs to wear cloth. Hopefully you at least recognize Blizz would have to completely raze defensives and mobilities in order to balance this bizarre fantasy of yours. Gameplay would become unrecognizable immediately.

[milkmustache]

Ardenweald wasn't ordered by the Titans. Azeroth's reflection within the Emerald Dream was.

Did everyone fall asleep these last few years or? Cause how did y'all miss this?

I mean just read the post before responding. I acknowledged this. My opinion is that it was the wrong approach.

[Thros]

Which is why there will be a future Emerald Dream expansion or a patch that would tackle what that one green dragon saw after passing the barrier of the ordered dream and seeing alien-like life and creeping powers equal to that of the titans, which would be the life lords.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

ED just didn't feel... Alien? enough. I remember the unfinished content from Vanilla looking way more unique, whereas when we finally go there, I had to actively remind myself that I am no longer in the dragon isles.

That's exactly my issue with it. You look at the cut content and concept art from vanilla and there's this very (fittingly) dreamlike surreality to it. That isn't there with the Legion and DF ED.

[Wangming]

It's an ordered part of a greater realm. It's not supposed to be wild or alien, that's the literal point.

Ardenweald wasn't ordered by the Titans. Azeroth's reflection within the Emerald Dream was.

Did everyone fall asleep these last few years or? Cause how did y'all miss this?

The literal point is that before Shadowlands, Zereth and First Ones and all that crap The Emereald Dream was understood to be two things.
1) As a Blueprint, a sort of first draft for Azeroth
2) A reflection of how it would look had intelligent life not evolved.

I guarantee you that a first draft by actual aliens would look....well, Alien. Even if ordered by Titans. Since the titans aren't native to Azeroth.
And a realm without civilizations taming the wilderness should by definition be untamed.

At best you can say, based on the very nature of the Emerald Dream, is that mortal dreamers can temporarily change the dream arround them by dreaming up changes.

[Khaza-R]

I feel like WoW just doesn't do a good job with surreal and abstract places

Ny'alotha was cool but missed the mark for me. Same goes for the Dream in DF. If its something they could do right then I would love for them to explore it more. But tends to be underwhelming based off what we've seen so far.

[Super Dickmann]

But tonally it was so off. It even lacked the whimsey of Ardenweald, which felt far better in tone and execution. I dunno. I had a lot of issues with Amirdrassil, and I think it really soured Dragonflight for me. I think The War Within did a great job of course correction. The Ringing Deeps really sticks out to me as a zone that is incredibly aware of it's tonality.

If I had to rate night elf druidic forest zones like I'd rate different skin infections, I'd say Ardenweald is the better executed of the recent couple and if I had to go a step further, the best in the last half-dozen expansions if not more. The permanent night, blue aesthetic and spiral visual theme work better and even the whimsy is used much better, as actually has a point. From twee grub-tending, to actually being used for thematic purpose, i.e the joy of (un)life they're meant to represent being part of the reasoning they use to convince the Winter Queen to drop her cold calculus and raise Ysera, to being put in its context against opposing forces. The groves where these twee forest critters get eaten by what are basically wild animals and in particular the questline where every friendly npc is possessed and got to kill each other by the Drust. Also the bit where Moonberry finds that a funny way to punish the prankster goblin recolors is to turn them to frogs and feed them alive to cranes legitimately cracked me up and is probably the most fae-like Blizzard have actually managed to go with any of their spins on the concept.

I struggle to remember much anything from the Emerald Dream despite doing it more recently, except the Druid of the Flame bits and that Fyrakk was entertaining as a Saturday morning cartoon villain. It, like Dragonflight in general was the nadir for playing it safe and making every sidequest be twee and it was also very boring. The peak of twee-ness remains the kelfin in Rise of Azshara, absolutely fucking insufferable from start to finish and unlike the faeries in Ardenweald the worst that happens to them is some getting squid stuck on their brains and even then it's not the soul corruption and agonizing death that the Drust are but just a slap on the wrist you save them from.

[Makorus]

The literal point is that before Shadowlands, Zereth and First Ones and all that crap The Emereald Dream was understood to be two things.
1) As a Blueprint, a sort of first draft for Azeroth
2) A reflection of how it would look had intelligent life not evolved.

I guarantee you that a first draft by actual aliens would look....well, Alien. Even if ordered by Titans. Since the titans aren't native to Azeroth.
And a realm without civilizations taming the wilderness should by definition be untamed.

At best you can say, based on the very nature of the Emerald Dream, is that mortal dreamers can temporarily change the dream arround them by dreaming up changes.

I mean, yeah, you are right, but at the same time:

The Emerald Dream also has multiple layers, described by Cenarius as different testing versions of Azeroth.[9] These layers were created because the titans invested a great deal of work in perfecting their design of Azeroth, and so, the finished design of the planet was the product of many previous flawed or unfinished models.[4] Each layer represents an abandoned segment or idea that the titans tried and ultimately discarded. Malfurion observed that it looks like neither the mortal plane nor the Emerald Dream. He saw that one mountain peak lacked its northern face, while another peak looked as if someone had started molding it like clay but had lost interest. These older layers were normally uninhabited, invisible[9] and incomplete, therefore limited in scope, relative to the finalized Dream. But they could be accessed by any who knew how to navigate them.[9]

The layer Amirdrassil was on was close to completion, so it would hardly be "unfinished" or alien. It didn't feel like the Emerald Dream, because it was literally as ordered as anything in the dream can. The story Blizzard wanted to tell needed the tree to cross over into the real world, so they set the zone in the Emerald Dream.

All Blizzard has to do was call the zone "Amirdrassil" rather than "Emerald Dream", and it wouldn't have felt as awkward and clickbait-y, but it's easier to make headlines by calling it that.

[milkmustache]

Snipped, read post

I could not agree more. You summed why Ardenweald works so well.

The Druid of the Flame sort of played ED's Drust role, and god was it horribly done. "Oh yeah, well.. this area that was green? It's now red and on fire. Stay away! >: )" The single side quest of the siblings was good. Fyrakk had some moments of being a decent villain, but the execution was just lacking teeth.

[Wangming]

I feel like WoW just doesn't do a good job with surreal and abstract places

Ny'alotha was cool but missed the mark for me. Same goes for the Dream in DF. If its something they could do right then I would love for them to explore it more. But tends to be underwhelming based off what we've seen so far.

Ny'alotha was just Egypt with black paint. I get it, Nyarlathotep is the Black Pharao. Also Ancient Egypt is so ancient there were archaeologists in ancient egypt trying to excavate stuff from even ancienter Egypt.

But it is such a low hanging fruit for a Lovecraftian realm.
Besides, it should be unnatural and unsettling. Black Pyramids and lava flows don't really do it no more. It should have been a sort of mix of Duskwood and Stormsong Valley.

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I mean, yeah, you are right, but at the same time:



The layer Amirdrassil was on was close to completion, so it would hardly be "unfinished" or alien. It didn't feel like the Emerald Dream, because it was literally as ordered as anything in the dream can. The story Blizzard wanted to tell needed the tree to cross over into the real world, so they set the zone in the Emerald Dream.

All Blizzard has to do was call the zone "Amirdrassil" rather than "Emerald Dream", and it wouldn't have felt as awkward and clickbait-y, but it's easier to make headlines by calling it that.

That is fair, I suppose. But it also means that people who imagine the ED as wild, untamed and alien aren't wrong.

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The actual fucking gospel

YES! Thank you! Oh all of this.

Quite a few people ask why people hate on DF when it wasn't that bad. That's the point. It wasn't much anything really. It was safe, toned down and boring. Those don't leave and impression. They don't inspire. They don't engage you to talk about it.
For all its flaws Battle for Azeroth ran the entire gauntlet from Pure awesome to infuriuatingly bad. That leaves a mark.

[Makorus]

Ny'alotha was just Egypt with black paint. I get it, Nyarlathotep is the Black Pharao. Also Ancient Egypt is so ancient there were archaeologists in ancient egypt trying to excavate stuff from even ancienter Egypt.

But it is such a low hanging fruit for a Lovecraftian realm.
Besides, it should be unnatural and unsettling. Black Pyramids and lava flows don't really do it no more. It should have been a sort of mix of Duskwood and Stormsong Valley.

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That is fair, I suppose. But it also means that people who imagine the ED as wild, untamed and alien aren't wrong.

Oh, definitely.

The problem with things like "Nazjatar" or "Nyalotha" or "Emerald Dream" is that they are more than the zone, however, by naming them that, you are really creating this perception that everything looks like that.

Calling it "Nazjatar Outskirts", "The Waking City" (without including Nyalotha) or "Amirdrassil" would have maybe less of a clickbait-hype effect, however it 1.) keeps expectations lower and 2.) means you can revisit those concepts without it getting awkward.

[milkmustache]

Quite a few people ask why people hate on DF when it wasn't that bad. That's the point. It wasn't much anything really. It was safe, toned down and boring. Those don't leave and impression. They don't inspire. They don't engage you to talk about it.
For all its flaws Battle for Azeroth ran the entire gauntlet from Pure awesome to infuriuatingly bad. That leaves a mark.

After all my arguing about how I disliked Amirdrassil, etc., I will admit, WoW may have needed the safety of Dragonflight. Not only did it presumably inspire the Worldsoul Saga, but Dragonflight's non story elements with UI, systems, etc., really set a phenomenal standard for the game now.

So while I may not be a big fan of the way the story played out or the feel of the expansion, the team obviously used it to make greater strides.

[Tartys]

So, since Dimensius and Locus Walker will be dead in few days... any idea what Xala's grand plan is and what she wants to do with the Dark Heart?
The usual lust for power/destruction and some "redesigning the order of things"?

[Wangming]

After all my arguing about how I disliked Amirdrassil, etc., I will admit, WoW may have needed the safety of Dragonflight. Not only did it presumably inspire the Worldsoul Saga, but Dragonflight's non story elements with UI, systems, etc., really set a phenomenal standard for the game now.

So while I may not be a big fan of the way the story played out or the feel of the expansion, the team obviously used it to make greater strides.

No argument there, the system updates were necessary. Just like how all the things WoD changed were necessary.
That and the setting and story being lukewarm and unmemorable aren't mututally exclusive.

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So, since Dimensius and Locus Walker will be dead in few days... any idea what Xala's grand plan is and what she wants to do with the Dark Heart?
The usual lust for power/destruction and some "redesigning the order of things"?

That kinda depends on how Blizzard wants to structure the World Soul Saga and who they intend to be the overarching villain.

Or more simply put: It depends on wether the Sunwell is the goal or just another means to an end.

I have two guesses/theories

The Sunwell's energy is needed for a ritual. Like moving QT to the Unseeming.

or

When in the Unseeming/Black Empire/Ny'alotha/Feetland/whatever, the Sunwell's power is intended to empower said realm, perhaps even merging it permanently with Azeroth.

I refuse to entertain the idea that she is just those typical boring villains who want unlimited power so that they can cause unlimited destruction and kill everyone they could potentially rule over.

[Joshuaj]

The literal point is that before Shadowlands, Zereth and First Ones and all that crap The Emereald Dream was understood to be two things.
1) As a Blueprint, a sort of first draft for Azeroth
2) A reflection of how it would look had intelligent life not evolved.

I guarantee you that a first draft by actual aliens would look....well, Alien. Even if ordered by Titans. Since the titans aren't native to Azeroth.
And a realm without civilizations taming the wilderness should by definition be untamed.

At best you can say, based on the very nature of the Emerald Dream, is that mortal dreamers can temporarily change the dream arround them by dreaming up changes.

Tbf here, much of Azeroth pre-Sundering (and somewhat post-Sundering) looks how the Titans intended it to. Native or not, this is a planet heavily "shaped" by Order.