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

[Darkarath]

Ion's quote in a recent interview about his favourite expansion:

​​​​​​​"It's always a tricky question, right? It's like, it's like asking who your favorite kid is [laughs]. Yeah, I think Midnight really has the potential to be our best expansion ever. And it's not just a canned PR statement; I think the energy and passion the team has put into this one are really special. I can't wait for people to experience the full stakes of the story and to see millions of people unleashed upon housing and all the rest. So yeah, I think before that, my high-water mark is probably Legion. Okay, also bias there, because that was like my first expansion as a game director, but my favorite, I think this one can top it."

I find interesting that he's making an statement like this one. He knows perfectly that such high hopes for Midnight coming for him would hype the community quite a bit... and also make us ready to shit on him to no end if something goes wrong.

For me is just another hint of what Midnight would bring. I'd said it again, we'll be surprised by Midnight's content, in a good way.

[Limayria]

Ion's quote in a recent interview about his favourite expansion:



I find interesting that he's making an statement like this one. He knows perfectly that such high hopes for Midnight coming for him would hype the community quite a bit... and also make us ready to shit on him to no end if something goes wrong.

For me is just another hint of what Midnight would bring. I'd said it again, we'll be surprised by Midnight's content, in a good way.

tbh after playing on beta I completely agree about the potential, especially how nice the addon changes make the game feel. Also the zone design is awesome Poi's feel traversable enough that its not a huge effort to get around on foot and the skyriding changes make moving between pois seamless. Silvermoon is also incredible in exploring the verticality of the city

[Alanar]

If a character says "i planned something" its a zovaal vibe. WoW players at it again.

Listen... i know me calling out wow players is getting old, but so is their stupid, fake criticism towards this game. You don't like Xal? Thats totally fine and up to you, but she literally has nothing to do with Zovaal.

Not Zovaal exclusive, but it comes down to all the same lines we know by now. , that frankly also became humerous and no one is taking it seriously anymore. With Xal its the combination of lorebreaking ammount of years that is just rediculous and also having similar lines and cliches. I mean 100k years, really?

With Xal having many similarities to previous villains, I think the criticism is absolutely fair.

[Nymrohd]

Ion's quote in a recent interview about his favourite expansion:



I find interesting that he's making an statement like this one. He knows perfectly that such high hopes for Midnight coming for him would hype the community quite a bit... and also make us ready to shit on him to no end if something goes wrong.

For me is just another hint of what Midnight would bring. I'd said it again, we'll be surprised by Midnight's content, in a good way.

Or he has given up on the story and is also excited about Housing

[Xilurm]

Or he has given up on the story and is also excited about Housing

Did he ever care? He was a hardcore raider and that's the reason he was even hired in the first place. Most raiders I've seen don't really care about the story in this game. WoW is also not really that well known for its narrative, and the devs themselves give you MANY ways of skipping it. You can go through the entire game without reading a single quest or know anything about anything in the universe of this game.

[Nymrohd]

Did he ever care? He was a hardcore raider and that's the reason he was even hired in the first place. Most raiders I've seen don't really care about the story in this game. WoW is also not really that well known for its narrative, and the devs themselves give you MANY ways of skipping it. You can go through the entire game without reading a single quest or know anything about anything in the universe of this game.

Yup, maybe he is excited about the raids!

[Elronas16]

Ion's quote in a recent interview about his favourite expansion:



I find interesting that he's making an statement like this one. He knows perfectly that such high hopes for Midnight coming for him would hype the community quite a bit... and also make us ready to shit on him to no end if something goes wrong.

For me is just another hint of what Midnight would bring. I'd said it again, we'll be surprised by Midnight's content, in a good way.

The bulk of an expansion comes at launch, and this is nowhere near Legion in terms of... well pretty much anything. From zones, to story, to cosmetics, to systems and dungeons. Raids are yet to be tested but still.

Legion was not perfect by any means but if we take that as the benchmark for what a modern WoW expansion can be as a 10/10, then Midnight is no more than a 4/10 for its initial patch. And that's being generous due to how robust the housing system is.

I find the line about 'energy and passion' particularly baffling but alas.

[Limayria]

The bulk of an expansion comes at launch, and this is nowhere near Legion in terms of... well pretty much anything. From zones, to story, to cosmetics, to systems and dungeons. Raids are yet to be tested but still.

Legion was not perfect by any means but if we take that as the benchmark for what a modern WoW expansion can be as a 10/10, then Midnight is no more than a 4/10 for its initial patch. And that's being generous due to how robust the housing system is.

I find the line about 'energy and passion' particularly baffling but alas.

Legion at launch was fucking awful, punishing you for playing more than one spec, much less wanting to check out other characters, legiondary rng was atrocious with some classes being extremely unfun to play with out their specific legendary drops that were 100% rng and you'd get soft locked after getting 4 drops so if u didn't get what you wanted in the first four you were incentived to make a new character etc people hated no flying, one of the major pieces of content was time gated questing which was also deeply unpopular

[Lahis]

Blizzard has literally come out and talked about how adding new races, especially with new body shapes is a huge ongoing commitment of dev resources, so yes we literally are sacrificing dev time and resources that could have been spent on touching up existing races by adding things like earthen with their 1 billion customizations, or dracthyr visage forms which are just humans/male blood elves with modern customization. Did any of this get back ported? Fucking of course not because that wouldn't be "fair" or what ever

Dracthyr and Earthen added zero new overhead to the upkeep process. They already had to fit all future gear on Blood elf males, human females and dwarves.

[Elronas16]

Legion at launch was fucking awful, punishing you for playing more than one spec, much less wanting to check out other characters, legiondary rng was atrocious with some classes being extremely unfun to play with out their specific legendary drops that were 100% rng and you'd get soft locked after getting 4 drops so if u didn't get what you wanted in the first four you were incentived to make a new character etc people hated no flying, one of the major pieces of content was time gated questing which was also deeply unpopular

Not everyone plays this way and treats the game like a job. Me and my friends had the most memorable WoW experience playing through Legion Launch patch and 7.1. Funnily enough this is when I played the most alts because I wanted to experience their halls and weapons and stories.

And while these were valid issues for a considerable amount of players (as I already stated, it was far from perfect) you could gloss over them and enjoy the fantastic zones, the grand and engaging story which was at least right in tone if not as much in narrative and the abundance of world content and fantasy created for each class.

Midnight's end game progression is still up in the air for how it will play out. But what does it offer besides that? Sure, there's the housing system which is where most of the credit for this expansion goes to, but it's kind of its own separate thing and has little to do with Midnight itself. What you're left with is the worst land mass ever released at expansion launch, and a story about Xal's 100.000 years plan and Arathor's existential crisis.

The fact that you didn't get your spreadsheet optimal legendary does not negate how exceptional most other things in Legion were.

[Rootsbum]

Lord, this is such a toxic, shitty attitude. They don't need to "sacrifice" anything in order to add more customizations.

At this point I would rather have them skip adapting older heads slots, focus on cool customization, and only make newer headsslots from latest expansion fit the model.
I can really see it being that hard to scale the oversized shoulder pieces, the stretched pixel robes (hello kt human and pandaren lol) and the rest.
I'm so sick of elf_animations on every race. At least swap the casting and stances. It's so lazy.

Someone suggested making a contest for players to create customisations and poll. Wish we had that kinda community stuff. That's the only thing I'm looking forward to with housing: community.

I will never recover from that ONE helm dracthyr could use but it was patched out. It was the sprite darter shop-set. It looked so cool

[Xilurm]

Lord, this is such a toxic, shitty attitude. They don't need to "sacrifice" anything in order to add more customizations.

That's not how budget and resources work. Instead of making an allied race over the course of two expansions, they could've given the core races more customisation. It's the reason why Haranir got the best customisation out of all the races right now.

[Nymrohd]

That's not how budget and resources work. Instead of making an allied race over the course of two expansions, they could've given the core races more customisation. It's the reason why Haranir got the best customisation out of all the races right now.

Imagine if Haranir were just a Night Elf variant instead and Night Elves could just get all their customization They effectively are already in lore.

[Alanar]

I don't think the moon solves anything and honestly with how dumb our Patches are at this point them thinking going to the fucking moon is a KPI boost makes me disintegrate into static.

Exactly, the moon will do nothing . It will probably look stupid as hell to even travel there. Honestly we dont even need to go there in general. No purpose what so ever.

[Nymrohd]

I also don't get the excitement about visiting the moon. We have no plot or lore hooks leading there.

[bardicbass616]

I also don't get the excitement about visiting the moon. We have no plot or lore hooks leading there.

Because we have a moon deity and we went to the moon in FFXIV Shadowbringers and ESO everyone assumes we’re going to the moon in WoW. I don’t think it’s a good idea for this game.

[Joshuaj]

"The Jailor has super compelling reasons for everything"

"Can I see them?"

"They're SUPER compelling"

This is what you dick ride for my guy, zovaal had potential especially if the shadowlands were set up from the start to have been imperalized by the titans, with the mawsworn yelling at us about opposing the titans vision, but us being misled to see the mawsworn as simply being against the covenants. But they fumbled it completely

Never mind that Zovaal is one of the least charismatic villains ever, not just in wow but in anything. He's literally just Sargey 2 with the same exact "for the greater good" mentality and goals. But he lacks any charm or connection like we'd have had with the OG Big man himself

We at least have personal interactions with Xal and get to hang out while she and Alleria have weird sexually charged flirting time together

I talk about the potential of whatever this "7th" is, and I expressed my joy seeing Zovaal's design and power. I did this exact same thing with N'Zoth and Ny'alotha, Xal'atath and the Voidspire, etc.

However, if the story sucks or isn't compelling enough for me to care, then I'll express it. I don't care much about Xal'atath, and I care even less about Zovaal.

Wanna try again?

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Because we have a moon deity and we went to the moon in FFXIV Shadowbringers and ESO everyone assumes we’re going to the moon in WoW. I don’t think it’s a good idea for this game.

You don't think it's a good idea for WoW, a story that's VERY used to cosmic travel (possibly even more-so than FFXIV), to explore one of its main settings celestial bodies? Seriously?

- - - Updated - - -

I also don't get the excitement about visiting the moon. We have no plot or lore hooks leading there.

I mean, at max, maybe they could connect the celestial bodies of Azeroth to the Worldcore plot, as well as maybe provide us with some more Elune, Titan, and maybe Light connections, but that's it.

[Alanar]

Real talk I think we're going to learn what xal's true origins are originally

They should have done this already period.

We lack any sort of motivation or backround that we jist need to have to understand whats going on. The mystery thing is not interresting anymore. They wasted this card with their previous villain. Its weird how they do this twice in a row now in the first place. Odd choice, but what ever.
I feel like its to late and what ever comes out of the end its just not going to be satisfying. If we would have known her plan more or beforehand abit more, we could have been on our edge if she manages to succeed or not.

[Nymrohd]

Because we have a moon deity and we went to the moon in FFXIV Shadowbringers and ESO everyone assumes we’re going to the moon in WoW. I don’t think it’s a good idea for this game.

Build the lore, add plot hooks and then we can go to the moon.

[Alanar]

Build the lore, add plot hooks and then we can go to the moon.

Or we just dont go there.