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

[Joshuaj]

Avatar of Sargeras was already used in Tomb of Sargeras, which we destroyed. I don't think it would make sense to face that again. though that never stopped Blizzard from recycling old bosses

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There is a weird subset of people who want to paint Arator all blue, because his parents are "alliance" heros, though they forget that Silvermoon was part of the alliance when these two became heros, and wasn't hostile to the alliance for a long time of Arators upbringing. It is a really weird ignorance of Silvermoons past with the alliance, just so they feel justified with blood elves in the horde. These are more weird people than people who want tinkers or high elves.

We faced but a fallen husk. We never actually faced Sargeras in a proper avatar form.

[Kiivar86]

It is however a set piece location that players will absolutely resonate with, in an expansion that was (rightly or wrongly) billed as the long awaited world revamp expansion.
Ending the expansion with only two of the launch zones being known locations we are actually returning to is a bit of a buzzkill for those that want a world revamp in any form. And really, seems about as weak as you could go without needing to even say revamp at all.

That's more on those that wrongly assumed the expansion was a world revamp in the first place. Unless I'm either missing something or really forgetting something, that wasn't what the expansion was billed as at all. It was advertised as a return to Quel'thalas. Some folk just ran with an assumption, as some do with everything.

And it still doesn't change that Stratholme has been revisited several times over already.

[Enrif]

That's more on those that wrongly assumed the expansion was a world revamp in the first place. Unless I'm either missing something or really forgetting something, that wasn't what the expansion was billed as at all. It was advertised as a return to Quel'thalas. Some folk just ran with an assumption, as some do with everything.

And it still doesn't change that Stratholme has been revisited several times over already.

they ran specifically on the "we return to the old world, the fabled lands of Quel'thals". Completely blanking out the Quel'thalas, and thinking "returning to the old world" meant world revamp.

[Nymrohd]

I am not really that excited about instanced Stratholme in any form. I'd be excited about uninstanced Stratholme but I do not expect to see that. Why? Because of the High Elf base were Stratholme's port would have been. I care about the Eastweald in total which can allow for world building, not about a ruin that's constantly on fire. It would make for a fine adventure in a different type of game but for an open world game, I care about open world areas.

[Cheezits]

If the expansion is about returning to Quel'thalas it's a one patch expansion.

[Hearthfinder]

I'm reading The Silmarillion for the first time in years, and it's pretty funny how much inspiration Metzen must've taken from it.

Existence begins with song in harmony, which then becomes discordant. Sounds pretty much like Chronicles describing the Light and the Void, and all the musical themes found in the Priest class.

The Valar = The Titans
The Maiar = The Keepers
Eä = The Great Dark Beyond
The Void = The Twisting Nether
The Secret Fire = The Worldsoul
Arda = Azeroth
Aman = Kalimdor
Middle-Earth = The Eastern Kingdoms
Manwë = Aman'Thul
Melkor = Sargeras
Sauron = Kil'jaeden
The Witch-King of Angmar = The Lich King

And so on...

There's even a similarity between how Azeroth's worldsoul and the secret fire give living beings independent thought, separate from Eru / Ilúvatar (God, essentially).

I wonder how much of this stuff still inspires Metzen, as we head into TLT.

And if there's an Azeroth equivalent of a creator god like Ilúvatar.

[Ersula]

If the expansion is about returning to Quel'thalas it's a one patch expansion.

That's why I was pointing out the lore has never been deliberate about where "quel'thalas" exactly begins. Its usually referred to the entire forest region of northern Eastern Kingdoms. The most modern definition would be where the Thalassian Pass is located, but in Warcraft 3 it is much larger (though that's how most maps from that game work.) They even described Nathanos' home as being in the forests of Quel'thalas, but that's nestled in the area that became the plaguelands, complete with other Farstrider Lodges. I'm sure at some point the elves thought of the Hinterlands as Quel'thalas.

So I think we'll be getting a good amount of Lordaeron content in Midnight.

Also, we've all deduced Sylvanas will appear more throughout the expansion. They deliberately mentioned a "mysterious apothecary" storyline related to Windrunner Spire in the deep dive yet that questline hasn't been playable in the Alpha? That's clearly Sylvanas in disguise, yeah? More Forsaken content incoming.

[Pyrophax]

Let's kill everyone and start with just OC. Heck nuke Azeroth, we can move to a new planet.

Well, I could totally see Azeroth destruction as planet, when World Sould hatches. Make lands as continents floating in Great Dark. Quel'Thalas saved on separate rock, EK cracks by 3 pieces. Kalimdor into 3 or 4 additional ones.
We do timeskip for like 10 years, then Med'an and Medivh comes into play and start stitching lands one after another into one land again. Reason to make changes to Old World. Quel'thalas+Northrend are first masses, then we add another one after one.

[Cheezits]

Also, we've all deduced Sylvanas will appear more throughout the expansion. They deliberately mentioned a "mysterious apothecary" storyline related to Windrunner Spire in the deep dive yet that questline hasn't been playable in the Alpha? That's clearly Sylvanas in disguise, yeah? More Forsaken content incoming.

It isn't. That questline is not very important, it's actually helping an apothecary do some kind of necromantic ritual so she can talk to her dead wife, who is a banshee.

That being said, it's a good point that the expansion intro has Alleria, Vereesa and Sylvanas. Currently the latter two are not very important unless they are a big part of the endgame campaign. So the themes of the other two patches may tie into Vereesa and Sylvanas.

[Makorus]

If the expansion is about returning to Quel'thalas it's a one patch expansion.

The expansion is not "about" returning to Quel'thalas, and nobody has ever said that.

What is it with people misconstruing what is being said?

[Vakir]

Metzen just said that's how things go with Midnight in the inciting incident, not that it's the entire story of the expansion. The Last Titan may not take place entirely on Northrend even though he said we'd return to Ulduar and see the resurgence of the Titans. The patch zones could be a lot of other weird swerves like K'aresh.

[milkmustache]

I've been seeing a lot of talk about Zul'jan and the collective groan at the obvious telegraphing of villain baiting, especially in the context of an Atal'Utek raid. People who have played the Alpha seem to like his character because he has a bit more of an edge to him in ways that may have been absent in others, and so the notion that it's just to push him towards either a raid boss villain, or the hot head who inevitably bows down to a more steady approach style leader isn't landing well with them.

Although I did see one additional thought brought up — could the divide in personality between Zul'jan and Zul'jarra be Ji an Aysa situation? Are they laying the ground work for Zul'jarra and her sphere to join the Alliance and Zul'jan and his to join the Horde? I'm not completely convinced this is the case, but it's an interesting framework.

[Sondrelk]

they ran specifically on the "we return to the old world, the fabled lands of Quel'thals". Completely blanking out the Quel'thalas, and thinking "returning to the old world" meant world revamp.

"Return to the old world" is still wording that anyone can see implies a world revamp. Otherwise there isn't a point in specifying that its old.

Currently. Two of the four zones are known areas. Only one is actually a zone we are properly returning to. And the other two are completely new areas, where even then, only one of those being somewhere we have even heard of before.

[Nymrohd]

I've been seeing a lot of talk about Zul'jan and the collective groan at the obvious telegraphing of villain baiting, especially in the context of an Atal'Utek raid. People who have played the Alpha seem to like his character because he has a bit more of an edge to him in ways that may have been absent in others, and so the notion that it's just to push him towards either a raid boss villain, or the hot head who inevitably bows down to a more steady approach style leader isn't landing well with them.

Although I did see one additional thought brought up — could the divide in personality between Zul'jan and Zul'jarra be Ji an Aysa situation? Are they laying the ground work for Zul'jarra and her sphere to join the Alliance and Zul'jan and his to join the Horde? I'm not completely convinced this is the case, but it's an interesting framework.

Only that kind of divide would make no sense because the Horde is probably a more conservative force than the Alliance at this point.

[Enrif]

"Return to the old world" is still wording that anyone can see implies a world revamp. Otherwise there isn't a point in specifying that its old.

Currently. Two of the four zones are known areas. Only one is actually a zone we are properly returning to. And the other two are completely new areas, where even then, only one of those being somewhere we have even heard of before.

it is no interpreatitiopns to read into "we return to the old world, the fabled lands of Quel'thals" as "we return to the old world, the fabled lands of Quel'thals" or easier: we return to the old world of Quel'thalas. Which we do. Zul'aman was the only thing we could be sure are tied to it, as it is so closly related. The rest of the EK would have been a surprise if they add them to that too. And as we see, they didn't.
Though i think people would have been happier if the four zones were split just between Quel'thalas and Zul'aman, and with the addition of the Isle of Fangs it could have been easy to make it 2-2 for zones. But alas, we get Haranar and Voidstorm instead.

[Makorus]

I've been seeing a lot of talk about Zul'jan and the collective groan at the obvious telegraphing of villain baiting, especially in the context of an Atal'Utek raid. People who have played the Alpha seem to like his character because he has a bit more of an edge to him in ways that may have been absent in others, and so the notion that it's just to push him towards either a raid boss villain, or the hot head who inevitably bows down to a more steady approach style leader isn't landing well with them.

Although I did see one additional thought brought up — could the divide in personality between Zul'jan and Zul'jarra be Ji an Aysa situation? Are they laying the ground work for Zul'jarra and her sphere to join the Alliance and Zul'jan and his to join the Horde? I'm not completely convinced this is the case, but it's an interesting framework.

The Zul'aman questline ends with him staring off at Atal'utek while having a villain monologue just to tell us to forget about it for now.

He will be a boss.

[Sondrelk]

Only that kind of divide would make no sense because the Horde is probably a more conservative force than the Alliance at this point.

The divide is still very much that the Horde gets the aggressive representatives, and the Alliance gets the defensive ones. As seen as recently as DF, where the Horde aligned Dracthyr were the assault squads, and the Alliance aligned ones were the support and defence squads.
The Horde getting Zul'jan would make sense on that basis at least.

Though then again. Maybe Zul'jan goes to the Alliance be because his hair is blue. Which would also make perfect sense in this context.

[milkmustache]

The Zul'aman questline ends with him staring off at Atal'utek while having a villain monologue just to tell us to forget about it for now.

He will be a boss.

Yea, this was partly what I was referring to. If this is the route they go, I'll be pretty disappointed. God forbid we have a character who has a different approach then everyone else. Blizzard is addicted to writing a somewhat decent character and then immediately burning them.

[rainhard]

Yea, this was partly what I was referring to. If this is the route they go, I'll be pretty disappointed. God forbid we have a character who has a different approach then everyone else. Blizzard is addicted to writing a somewhat decent character and then immediately burning them.

Something something the brighest flames burn the fastest, especially in an mmo lol.

[Cheezits]

I think the Zul'aman storyline actually has the biggest potential of all the launch stories. There are some interesting things like (spoilers where appropriate):

- The main zone antagonists, the Twilight Blade are completely dealt with in leveling, opening up room for something more interesting with Ula'tek. I think this heavily implies he won't just be a Cthraxi and is more likely to be a demon, or something weird like Hakkar.
- Zul'jan and Zul'jarra have the differing views going on, and potential villainbatting for the latter, but it's a genuine point of contention about being mad the Loa abandoned them after TBC antics- one of the few mortals to not kiss Loa/Wild God ass, for once
- Ula'tek has Bwonsamdi looking shrines/effects + the "poison" rivers that look suspiciously like Fel blood. We could be seeing our first bout of "Fel Trolls" which I don't think has happened before? And the Bwonsamdi stuff points to this being a full on troll story with the different tribes linking up to deal with a threat.

Voidstorm seems to be dealt with at launch, as does Silvermoon more or less. Harandar has some cool lore but it looks strongly like its meant to set up TLT with the introductory concept of "Azeroth was stolen/yanked by accident". So that really leaves ZA for future Midnight stuff and there is a lot of cool stuff they can do with a full on Throne of Thunder Fel patch.

There just needs to be a little something extra on the side.

Oh wait- what if the Amani are green because of Ul'atek, like Orcs? Pointing to fel once more.