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

[Hitei]

Why do people keep using this example when it doesn't count. Dalaran was always a neutral city.

No, it was quite firmly Alliance aligned and actively being attacked by the Horde in Vanilla. Nothing about it was neutral until Wrath launched and suddenly the Kirin Tor apparently did not care at all about the fact that their survivors had been being slaughtered by the Forsaken and Horde forces of Tarren Mill.

[Xilurm]

No, it was quite firmly Alliance aligned and actively being attacked by the Horde in Vanilla. Nothing about it was neutral until Wrath launched and suddenly the Kirin Tor apparently did not care at all about the fact that their survivors had been being slaughtered by the Forsaken and Horde forces of Tarren Mill.

Dalaran was a city in Vanilla? With vendors and banks and filled with NPC's?

[Hitei]

Dalaran was a city in Vanilla? With vendors and banks and filled with NPC's?

Ah, yes. "umm locations only count if they have the minimum number of vendors!!!!" A masterful deflection. Surely this will distract from you being objectively wrong about its neutrality.

As you may know, the town of Ambermill remains a source of human opposition, mainly through the support they receive from the wizards of Dalaran.

I don't know what their plan is, but for them to show interest in a backwater village like Ambermill indicates that it must have some greater importance.

They've been shipping crates by the wagon from Hillsbrad. Many of those supplies end up at a small camp north of Pyrewood Village. Retrieve the contents of a crate and return them to me.

The wizards of Dalaran constructed a vast, magical dome around the heart of their city. Some believe it was for protection from the violence of these times, while others say they merely wanted solitude, to study and plot.

I don't care what the reason was. I do care that the ruined outskirts of their city, outside the dome, may hide valuable magical treasures.

But the area is patrolled by the wizards and their elemental slaves.

So hunt them, and return when their numbers are sufficiently reduced.

DaLaRaN wAs ALwAyS NeUtRal!

[Xilurm]

Ah, yes. "umm locations only count if they have the minimum number of vendors!!!!" A masterful deflection. Surely this will distract from you being objectively wrong about its neutrality.





DaLaRaN wAs ALwAyS NeUtRal!

Nobody cares if it's not shown in-game!

You think it matters that "Silvermoon is a Horde city" when 2/3 of it are neutral now? It's going to stay like this for decades anyway. It doesn't matter what the lore says if it's not shown in-game because that is what the players experience.

I don't care if Dalaran was an alliance city in the past, or ever. As a player I've only ever experienced it myself as a neutral city. I've walked around it with my characters as a neutral city. And you did too. It doesn't matter at all how much you use your imagination to fill in the blanks, that doesn't change the facts. This isn't a book, it's a video game. Show don't tell is a pretty big deal and Blizzard sucks at it, by choice usually.

So no, comparing Stormwind getting a neutral area to Dalaran isn't fair at all. The former we've been experiencing since 2004, the latter we've just heard about.

[Elronas16]

New concept art for Blood Elf house exteriors.



This looks a lot better than the style they went for with the actual city. It's a little more refined, like it should have been. Although size and scale are a bit vague.

Silvermoon should've absolutely had some residential areas with buildings like these, if done by a competent team of world builders and level designers. Perhaps a 'commoners' area around Falconwing Square with the smaller houses on the top row and a high-end/nobles area with the taller towers from the bottom row around the Royal Exchange. If only..

[Joshuaj]

I think souls ending up in Death has nothing to do with the Titans and nothing to do with the First Ones. It is the metaphysics of the cosmology in its primordial state, before it was ordered. The First Ones were not said to have created the Six Forces, just to have restructured them. They still are what they are.
I think @Hitei is right. Sure the "World Souls are not actually Order aligned" seems obvious to us in this thread but we are a tiny part of the player base with much more knowledge of the lore than average (or the average dev it seems) and vastly more knowledge than e.g. faction leaders like Anduin and Thrall and everyone else surprised by the Radiant Song. A cornerstone of Warcraft narrative is that everyone is a MORON. That will be enough of a mystery for most players and NPCs in Warcraft, no need to complicate it further.

A...are we still confused as to what the First Ones actually are? Cause if we look at Firim's notes again + Chronicle IV's description of them, they didn't come before or after the forces, they ARE the forces.

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New concept art for Blood Elf house exteriors.



This looks a lot better than the style they went for with the actual city. It's a little more refined, like it should have been. Although size and scale are a bit vague.

Silvermoon should've absolutely had some residential areas with buildings like these, if done by a competent team of world builders and level designers. Perhaps a 'commoners' area around Falconwing Square with the smaller houses on the top row and a high-end/nobles area with the taller towers from the bottom row around the Royal Exchange. If only..

I'm so serious, this looks very similar to the current stuff we have now, just in housing form.

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The title of "Silvermoon housing district" interests me though. Is it just unique wording or does it potentially imply a future Elven-based Neighborhood?

[Ochinko]

This is actually quite hilarious trying to pretend that Dalaran "wasnt real" in vanilla as an alliance city.

The lengths some people on this forum go to in order to try and make their point.

A...are we still confused as to what the First Ones actually are? Cause if we look at Firim's notes again + Chronicle IV's description of them, they didn't come before or after the forces, they ARE the forces.

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I'm so serious, this looks very similar to the current stuff we have now, just in housing form.

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The title of "Silvermoon housing district" interests me though. Is it just unique wording or does it potentially imply a future Elven-based Neighborhood?

Would be cool if they made a Silvermoon housing neighborhood but usable with both factions.

[Joshuaj]

Christ on a unicycle, it's only dismantling if you've tied your entire WoW speculation self-worth to championing the narrative genius of the first ones. A nothing-burger of flavourless, hard sci fi mystery box all-knowing Forerunners who built a universe on fractals, created waystones for Maw-walkers to escape SuperHell but somehow failed to foresee one of their own creations turning against them? It's unintelligent intelligent design; aggressively boring.

To be fair, WoW is troperific, but the First Ones are utterly unengaging for the Warcraft flavour when compared to the Titans who were the exact same thing with a modicum of pizazz. What makes the First Ones so unimpeachable that they can't be recontextualised like the rest of Shadowlands? It'd not be the most egregious retcon WoW has performed when the Jailer's 10 billion IQ 5D million year game of speed-chess exists

The First Ones-brand school cafeteria apple juice is frankly not worth the squeeze.



I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's certainly better than the First Ones current status as Math-Gods of the Known and Unknown Universe. And pivoting back to the titans feels exactly like the response to public opinion they would take.

Not to sound rude, but this entire argument is based off a what-if + your emotions regarding the First Ones. It low-key doesn't work here.

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Also, yeah, the Jailer's existence did recontextualize some things, but let's not act like his existence completely retconned things like Arthas's actions, or KJ creating the Lich King, cause those things still occurred on their own accord.

[Sondrelk]

The title of "Silvermoon housing district" interests me though. Is it just unique wording or does it potentially imply a future Elven-based Neighborhood?

Would probably be a mistake for Blizzard to add a new full district right away. I am going to go by the assumption that it's just new houses for the areas we already have.

[Joshuaj]

Yeah of course it doesn't. But Hitei was replying to a comment about Stormwind.

Considering the fact Midnight is about Elven unity, and considering the fact something unique happens in the post-Quel'danas story that I know about, the neutrality (mostly) of Silvermoon makes sense.

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Would probably be a mistake for Blizzard to add a new full district right away. I am going to go by the assumption that it's just new houses for the areas we already have.

Yeah, that's 100% the case anyways. I just read the initial wording and imagined another possibility, though ik it ain't happening (or at least, not yet...)

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This is actually quite hilarious trying to pretend that Dalaran "wasnt real" in vanilla as an alliance city.

The lengths some people on this forum go to in order to try and make their point.





Would be cool if they made a Silvermoon housing neighborhood but usable with both factions.

You mean that as in "we can use the exteriors of both factions", yeah? Cause your Alliance guy can vibe in the Horde Neighborhood just fine, you just can't make an Alliance exterior in it.

[Ochinko]

I thought of it more in a way of its a BE housing neighborhood with only BE houses but both alliance and horde can be there. Kinda like a merger of both existing neighborhoods.

[Joshuaj]

I thought of it more in a way of its a BE housing neighborhood with only BE houses but both alliance and horde can be there. Kinda like a merger of both existing neighborhoods.

Not sure why they'd do that, since the Horde and Alliance Neighborhoods aren't gonna be permanently limited to Human and Orc exteriors lol.

[Nymrohd]

This looks a lot better than the style they went for with the actual city. It's a little more refined, like it should have been. Although size and scale are a bit vague.

Silvermoon should've absolutely had some residential areas with buildings like these, if done by a competent team of world builders and level designers. Perhaps a 'commoners' area around Falconwing Square with the smaller houses on the top row and a high-end/nobles area with the taller towers from the bottom row around the Royal Exchange. If only..

See the difference is in execution not concept. The decorative elements are there in Midnight Silvermoon. But everything is done thick in a style very similar to Valdrakken instead of fairly thin and slightly more ornate than in TBC Silvermoon; that's the main issue with the art direction there. Well, that and Murder Row being a boulevard that can fit six carriages

[Elronas16]

I'm so serious, this looks very similar to the current stuff we have now, just in housing form.

Similar, but not the same. There is a clear difference between the style in the concept art above and the one they used for the buildings in and around Silvermoon in game.





Everything is wider, bulkier, exaggeratedly ornate which gives an overall very kitsch look, instead of elegant and imposing.

I'm curious to see if the actual housing assets will look like the concept art or more of what's already in game.

[Joshuaj]

Similar, but not the same. There is a clear difference between the style in the concept art above and the one they used for the buildings in and around Silvermoon in game.





Everything is wider, bulkier, exaggeratedly ornate which gives an overall very kitsch look, instead of elegant and imposing.

I'm curious to see if the actual housing assets will look like the concept art or more of what's already in game.

It's no different to how modern WoW Human buildings look Vs the Human houses in the Alliance neighborhood.

[Elronas16]

See the difference is in execution not concept. The decorative elements are there in Midnight Silvermoon. But everything is done thick in a style very similar to Valdrakken instead of fairly thin and slightly more ornate than in TBC Silvermoon; that's the main issue with the art direction there. Well, that and Murder Row being a boulevard that can fit six carriages

Execution is definitely questionable and plays a role in it as well, but I don't think it's just that. Just look and compare the shapes of the pillars and columns, the ornamentation and patterns, the rooftops. Quite different design language.

[Joshuaj]

I mean, think of it this way, the concept art seems to be executed well in the final product, based off previews and datamining at least.

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If something did change though, from the datamining, it appears the stained glass ain't as tall in the concept, and the doors aren't as grand looking. Maybe they'll be utilized but they simply aren't displayed in the datamining yet? Idk.

[Jaggler]

This is actually quite hilarious trying to pretend that Dalaran "wasnt real" in vanilla as an alliance city.

The lengths some people on this forum go to in order to try and make their point.





Would be cool if they made a Silvermoon housing neighborhood but usable with both factions.

Don't really see why a Silvermoon Neighborhood would be neutral. Would make more sense to pair it with an Alliance Night Elf neighborhood to pair it with the exteriors available to both factions.

[Lady Atia]

Not sure why they'd do that, since the Horde and Alliance Neighborhoods aren't gonna be permanently limited to Human and Orc exteriors lol.

Yeah, but I would imagine the Silvermoon Neighborhood to be more like a city compared to the villages we have now.

Although, I'm still a bit salty that none of these neighborhood are available in the overworld. Or is there a weird space in new Silvermoon-City that could be used for a small neighborhood?

[Nymrohd]

Don't really see why a Silvermoon Neighborhood would be neutral. Would make more sense to pair it with an Alliance Night Elf neighborhood to pair it with the exteriors available to both factions.

Unless they really make Quel'thalas belong to both factions by the end of the story then yeah, it should be matched with an Alliance neighbourhood