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

[Cheezits]

I really don't think Arator has ever had enough characterization to be complaining about him being young when he should be older. The real complaint is he's another generic protagonist- and that should be it, not "HE SHOULD ACT 50 IN HUMAN YEARS!!!"

[milkmustache]

I really don't think Arator has ever had enough characterization to be complaining about him being young when he should be older. The real complaint is he's another generic protagonist- and that should be it, not "HE SHOULD ACT 50 IN HUMAN YEARS!!!"

I think both can be true, as the writing has a tendency to infantalize the characters.

[Viridiel]

Midnight has less quests than ever with the story being incredibly short
Most of the dungeons and now delves are almost entirely reusing the open world
Less and less cutscenes with most of them just being characters talking without a lot of animation

I take your point in comparing recent expansions to older expansions, but BfA and Legion are extreme outliers when it comes to quest numbers due to split faction questing and class order halls respectively. The vast majority of split faction questing is the exact same quest being offered by a different NPC. Midnight also has twice as many campaign quests as TWW (and more than DF) with far more character and lore impact after the conscious decision was made to shift worldbuilding back to the campaign.

I'm not really sure what your point is regarding open-world equivalents of dungeons and delves. Half of the dungeons in BfA had open-world equivalents, but only a third of the new dungeons and delves in Midnight do. TWW was similar to BfA, although obviously none of the delves were open-world (hard to compare to BfA when those didn't exist. But roleplayers etc. actually love having the open-world equivalents so I'm not really sure why it's a negative. It's obviously not reusing content since they've specifically built those areas for those dungeons.

It's impossible to speak to the quality of cutscenes in Midnight when over 3/4 of them are still unavailable, but it certainly feels like there are far more than previous expansions and very few of them are dialogue only. Not that I think dialogue-only cutscenes are bad -- they're a cornerstone of RPGs.

Midnight is a huge improvement over TWW and DF. I don't know how you could say it has less content than ever unless you haven't actually played it.

[allegrian]

So far midnight looks like just a bunch of extra patches to TWW with the same vibes and questing structure, with only housing as the real new thing, which is so detached from the expansion itself that doesn't really feel like one of the expansion core features, more like a general wow feature (like transmog).

As I don't really have much nostalgia for TBC elves and trolls, I'm not really excited about it, and the story I've seen from alpha/beta looks quite bad. I also hate Haranir stealing night elf themes.

I don't see "the world soul saga" anywhere, I just see the "following Xalatath and her mcguffin around saga" since basically TWW after 2 base patch zones. Will TLT also be about her and the dark heart?

Give me titans and actual world soul lore please. Is the whole premise of the trilogy a lie to timegate the real story in TLT, cut and pasted from the original TWW concept?.

[Cheezits]

Give me titans and actual world soul lore please. Is the whole premise of the trilogy a lie to timegate the real story in TLT, cut and pasted from the original TWW concept?.

It's not a "lie" but yes, everything points to the original end of TWW being "woah Azeroth is not a titan and they stole her and forcefed her magic to be a titan go free her!" with a potential fight against both Xal AND Tyr. This reveal is instead happening in TLT and the primary villain is going to be Odyn and/or Aman'thul most likely.

They expanded it likely to beef up that confrontation and also not make it Tyr because factory reset Tyr was a silly plot. I also will take it because we would never see Eastern Kingdoms or Kalimdor ever again under the original plotline, just more new shit.

[Viridiel]

Honestly, I think he’ll be worse than Anduin if this characterization sticks, since Anduin’s values and personality are at least mostly consistent and he’s not as inexplicably stupid, and he’s never done anything nearly as egregious as inserting himself into a centuries-long race war at the narrative expense of members of another race that are actually meaningfully engaged in said race war.

His characterisation already shifts by Voidstorm (due to a single conversation with his mother...). I think his role as the token sceptic (which, yes, reads as though he was lobotomised at age 12) is mostly over after Eversong and his campaign, but he'll continue to serve as the Golden child who will be proven to have been correct in spirit even though the story makes it clear that he was overreacting and misunderstanding all along. I'm sure Turalyon is actually going to have a redemption rather than being villain-batted, but it'll come at the cost of relying on the pure, childlike love of the 30-year-old Redeemer.

At the very least they've made him a tabula rasa by undoing any intellectual development in Legion, so there's always time for a hard shift. Maybe if we're lucky he'll end up sailing across the sea to find the ancient empire of Light-wielding half-elves and by the time we see him again he'll be a very different character.

[Skildar]

Because it's still against a core identity of the Forsaken as being explicitly undead and explicitly connected to a kingdom that otherwise fell.

Humans looking different on a purely aesthetic level doesn't change that they're humans and have had a fundamentally different experience than the people living there.

You're right that we've played the Forsaken to play the Undead for a long time. But this civilisation has to evolve, it was introduced as the people who broke free from the Lich King's command and rebelled, allied themselves to the Horde in order to defeat their old master. It's been a long time since that purpose uniting this band lost its meaning.

Blizzard needs to define something more on the rubbles of these people led by a council barely fleshed out with a pseudo-Queen risen by the Light. Callia's previous mission was to reunite the living and the dead of Lordaeron, there is still something to be done there in my opinion. But it won't be enough to give a purpose for the Forsaken, something that will reinforce their identity and give them a strong appeal. But it could make a good first step then they could make sense of how the dead used alchemy and prosthetics for their body and "improve" their fellow living families. They could become the Haven of free spirited experiments that don't fall into the gags and jokes that the Goblins and Gnomes are but the Equivalent to what the Blood Elves stood for before shunning the Void Elves.

The BE were researching and pushing the boundaries of magic exploration, had to create fel cristals to hide themselves from the Legion, etc. The forsaken could represent that in some form. Still using abominations and braindead skeletons, experiment on Red Dawn force but instead of rotting crops, they could participate efficiently in the war efforts and balance death with life by growing oversized pumpkins and eggplants, whatever brings back the fantasy of the undead and the Forsaken back to a point where you're wondering:

" Why the hell am I still playing this character whose race has a definite countdown on the people and whose Leader betrayed them (twice) to finally make the useless light princess part of the leading troup... I'm gonna play Pandaren or Vulpera, at least it's clear what I'm getting into..."

[Bozzoltank]

I wonder if we're getting the roadmap of 2026 soon! 2024 was released in December, and 2025 in November.

[justwatching]

Probably shortly after 11.2.7.

[Ersula]

I wonder if we're getting the roadmap of 2026 soon! 2024 was released in December, and 2025 in November.

I'm a little worried about the future of content roadmaps because for 2023 & 2024 they updated it every quarter. We only got one version of the 2025 roadmap (if you don't include them updating the housing icon)

[Scyth]

Midnight is a huge improvement over TWW and DF. I don't know how you could say it has less content than ever unless you haven't actually played it.

People just need something to complain about constantly, no idea how it's not exhausting for them.

I see the complaint that delves/dungeons are re-using the open world, but I don't see that as a bad thing. I actually like a lot of the delves/dungeons that are set in Silvermoon. Much better than the underground ones in TWW imo.

[Count Zero]

So far midnight looks like just a bunch of extra patches to TWW with the same vibes and questing structure, with only housing as the real new thing, which is so detached from the expansion itself that doesn't really feel like one of the expansion core features, more like a general wow feature (like transmog).

As I don't really have much nostalgia for TBC elves and trolls, I'm not really excited about it, and the story I've seen from alpha/beta looks quite bad. I also hate Haranir stealing night elf themes.

I don't see "the world soul saga" anywhere, I just see the "following Xalatath and her mcguffin around saga" since basically TWW after 2 base patch zones. Will TLT also be about her and the dark heart?

Give me titans and actual world soul lore please. Is the whole premise of the trilogy a lie to timegate the real story in TLT, cut and pasted from the original TWW concept?.

I'm not looking forward to Midnight (due to how the addon/encounter changes are being handled), but I don't think that a lack of expansion-distinct features is inherently bad. Delves and hero talents could be considered game features more than TWW features.

In a way I actually think they need a bit of time to settle into the various existing systems to create more synergy between everything - gameplay, systems + rewards, story. Dragonflight felt great regarding systems+rewards, nothing felt disjointed or even conflicting at times like how it has in TWW. Gameplay feels great in TWW, there are fun systems/activities, but very little feels cohesive.

There are story beats I'm curious about for Midnight. Prey system sounds great. Those and a refined/focused interplay of systems/rewards (does anyone remember Dastardly Duos? Did it contribute to anything else, or vice versa?) would be a fine xpac, imo.

If I weren't dreading the UI and accessibility changes I'd be hyped for Midnight. As of now I'm waiting until prepatch to decide.

[Zardas]

People just need something to complain about constantly, no idea how it's not exhausting for them.

I see the complaint that delves/dungeons are re-using the open world, but I don't see that as a bad thing. I actually like a lot of the delves/dungeons that are set in Silvermoon. Much better than the underground ones in TWW imo.

I feel like having an open world instance kinda diminishes the sens of adventures that you can get crawling through it. When the dungeon is a cave or some fortress inaccessible in the open world, you are progressively discovering what lies beyond each turn, getting to the last room is somewhat of exciting in itself because this is the only way to get to this point. Meanwhile, with open world dungeons, what sens of danger is there ? Yeah, you got to the end, but that's a place that you could get to by just flying.

[Vakir]

" Why the hell am I still playing this character whose race has a definite countdown on the people and whose Leader betrayed them (twice) to finally make the useless light princess part of the leading troup... I'm gonna play Pandaren or Vulpera, at least it's clear what I'm getting into..."

I mean, I'm with you that the light princess is dog water, but Lordaeron humans is cutting off her nose to spite everyone's face. It's still a violation of the fantasy of playing an undead character in an undead society.

Dickmann's idea about necromancy induced transhumanism is dope and that's why they'll never do it.

(Don't look at me, I wanted to play as one of Illidan's group or the Forsaken with neither involved with the factions back in 2003 who wouldn't be tethered to all of this :/ )

Regarding discussion of the gameplay end of Midnight, it's a solid loop with a lot there to do and I like most of the reworks. I think the story and universe as a whole has people soured to ignore that, but my enjoyment of WoW has always been rejecting of its story short comings and substituting my own at the worst times.

[milkmustache]

Regarding discussion of the gameplay end of Midnight, it's a solid loop with a lot there to do and I like most of the reworks. I think the story and universe as a whole has people soured to ignore that, but my enjoyment of WoW has always been rejecting of its story short comings and substituting my own at the worst times.

This is an apt point. My frustrations from the story arise because the game is in such a great place everywhere else. We're thiiiis close to it being perfect.

[Ersula]

I mean, I'm with you that the light princess is dog water, but Lordaeron humans is cutting off her nose to spite everyone's face. It's still a violation of the fantasy of playing an undead character in an undead society.

Dickmann's idea about necromancy induced transhumanism is dope and that's why they'll never do it.

(Don't look at me, I wanted to play as one of Illidan's group or the Forsaken with neither involved with the factions back in 2003 who wouldn't be tethered to all of this :/ )

I suspect they wanted to ape the vibe of the Orzhov from Magic the Gathering with Calia & the regime change but now we've gone through
several writing regime changes that now nobody has any idea what they wanted to do. I wouldn't bet against Sylvanas just coming back & riding the loyalist storyline for any future Forsaken storyline. Make Calia a powerless figurehead; it'd be funny.

[Vakir]

This is an apt point. My frustrations from the story arise because the game is in such a great place everywhere else. We're thiiiis close to it being perfect.

Yeah. And I can't remember any time WoW's story didn't have a fly in the soup, even if obviously we're dealing with a very large and blonde mohawk'd fly right now. Even Mists had a very, very ungraceful execution of Jaina's 180 (I always think of the "Oh no, my period. Let's nuke England!" bit from 30 Rock) and unsatisfying conclusion for both factions, and Legion had the entire Xe'ra glazing Illidan questline before the great Argus payoff, a couple of Legion-unrelated filler zones, poor representation for some race/class combos in order halls, etc.

I suspect they wanted to ape the vibe of the Orzhov from Magic the Gathering with Calia & the regime change but now we've gone through
several writing regime changes that now nobody has any idea what they wanted to do. I wouldn't bet against Sylvanas just coming back & riding the loyalist storyline for any future Forsaken storyline. Make Calia a powerless figurehead; it'd be funny.

As much as I'd love to have Calia's head as a golden lava lamp, it would be fun to just have her impotently flailing around.

Sylvanas has so much baggage. I think they're terrified of using her outside of a "big story" role a la the 11.2.7 stuff. She's also very similar to Illidan as a "break glass" popularity character.

My only opposition at this point, besides that they'll inevitably drag her corpse through bad writing again if they bring her back full-time, is that it's almost contractually obligated for her to say some variant of "I'M VERY SORRY FOR WHAT I DID" every other line ad nauseam at this point and it's very on the nose and tiring.

[Sondrelk]

I suspect they wanted to ape the vibe of the Orzhov from Magic the Gathering with Calia & the regime change but now we've gone through
several writing regime changes that now nobody has any idea what they wanted to do. I wouldn't bet against Sylvanas just coming back & riding the loyalist storyline for any future Forsaken storyline. Make Calia a powerless figurehead; it'd be funny.

Making Sylvanas return would be a massive mistake.
But having a charismatic Forsaken leader do much of the same stuff Sylvanas used to do (i.e. horribly evil stuff) ostensibly for the betterment of the Forsaken would be a fun idea.
Would actually make Calia serve a purpose. As she would be the reasonable face of the Forsaken, as the new character maintains the edge that made the Forsaken such interesting morally ambiguous characters back in the day.

Would also make it easier to have both the good Forsaken, and also the evil ones that like sending innocent captives to die in horrific plague based experiments.

[Ersula]

Sylvanas has so much baggage. I think they're terrified of using her outside of a "big story" role a la the 11.2.7 stuff. She's also very similar to Illidan as a "break glass" popularity character.

My only opposition at this point, besides that they'll inevitably drag her corpse through bad writing again if they bring her back full-time, is that it's almost contractually obligated for her to say some variant of "I'M VERY SORRY FOR WHAT I DID" every other line ad nauseam at this point and it's very on the nose and tiring.

Metzen would probably want to refirm the status quo from when he was in charge. Bring back Sylvanas, the character Forsaken fans actually liked, but never officially make her the leader of anything. Setting her up as this Charon/Persephone character is good, but Forsaken being defined as her simps is accurate to them & the people who play them.

[Vakir]

@Sondrelk I like that on paper, my only issue is the same I always have with these kinds of groups - it's only a matter of time before they enforce some schism that requires us to remove the "evil" one and puts us back at square 1, or stretches believability to have them present in the first place without eventually asking "How the actual hell are these people still trusted in the Undercity?"

But for what it's worth, I've always felt Garrosh, for example, was a missed opportunity to be kept around on a sort of "we unleash this guy as the nuclear option" anti-hero/anti-villain leash, similar to this idea to have multiple opposed perspectives in a racial group.

They'd need to be very careful to kind of tread that line, but Blizzard tends to use a hammer where they should be wielding a scalpel. It beats what we've had so far, though, to be sure.

Metzen would probably want to refirm the status quo from when he was in charge. Bring back Sylvanas, the character Forsaken fans actually liked, but never officially make her the leader of anything. Setting her up as this Charon/Persephone character is good, but Forsaken being defined as her simps is accurate to them & the people who play them.

To be fair, some of that shift was already happening to some extent even prior to his departure.

Golden's still contracted to Blizzard from time to time, and she is transparently the one responsible for Calia pushing, even if Roux was the one who wrote the book where it got much, much worse.

IDK how many Forsaken fans that did like Sylvanas, still do. But it's one of those weird areas where everyone played those characters for different reasons.