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

[Sondrelk]

How is it a mystery box when the product is upfront? Zovaal was a mystery box because what he was aiming to do and why and who he even was was unexplained until literally the last cutscene of his own expansion, which also didn't explain shit, mind. He didn't even exist before it. 'Remake reality' 'What is to come' and so on.

Xal, on the other hand is extremely transparent, she's six expansions old now and completely congruent from start to finish. Since BFA she is meant to be a sexy evil elf lady with a dark power who wants to destroy the thing we're meeant to defend over the expansion. Instead of staying in the background like the Bald Man always one step ahead in some vague plan, her plan is clear from the beginning and she takes setbacks and wins throughout it over the story.

You can argue she's not very deep - and she isn't, or that she's by no means the best antagonist of the franchise - far from it, Gul'dan, Garrosh, WC3 Arthas, etc. But what she isn't is a repeat of the Bald Man in either function or form.

There is the mystery of what precisely Xal'atath is, and how she came to serve Dimensius. As it stands, removed from her sexy elf persona, she is just something Void that showed up to be evil.

Now, whether that backstory is more complicated than "Spawned from the Void" is another matter. But the writers are treating her actions as if they are internally justified by some backstory we are not privy to. Which in many ways makes her lesser than someone like Dimensius, who for all his faults is treated strictly as a cosmic force of nature who we simply have to deal with.

[Super Dickmann]

There is the mystery of what precisely Xal'atath is, and how she came to serve Dimensius. As it stands, removed from her sexy elf persona, she is just something Void that showed up to be evil.

Now, whether that backstory is more complicated than "Spawned from the Void" is another matter. But the writers are treating her actions as if they are internally justified by some backstory we are not privy to. Which in many ways makes her lesser than someone like Dimensius, who for all his faults is treated strictly as a cosmic force of nature who we simply have to deal with.

Are they? Or is this projection from back when Sylvanas was the sexy elf lady of choice and, due to her pedigree in the franchise and complete lack of transparency had her goal played for mystery?

No effort is made to humanize or justify Xal'atath. When she is on our side, she's pure evil, and our main character (Alleria) tells us not to trust her and is ultimately right about it, when she kills Locus-Walker. She was likely meant to be the Fifth Old God and right now she's likely conceptualized as the Silver Surfer, but in either case, she remains a villain and her goal is the same.

[Reive]

It reroutes the core concepts and storylines of the expansion to a zone which ultimately is the reason for the outcomes in the final raid of the Base expansion and which ultimately ends the base concept of the expansion.

Again, I do not find it impressive but considering how hard we're struggling at this point it may be this was the only thing they could do at this point in time. I find it pretty cynical because it showcases that all recognition of the potentiality of the concept has gone out the window and when you consider The Last Titan that issue becomes far far worse in that expansion considering how much is proposed to be in it if you just take a sheet of paper and start writing down everything.

maybe i'm missing/misunderstanding something, but isn't the base concept of the expansion the clash between light and void? quel'thalas was truly never the actual focus of the expansion

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

maybe i'm missing/misunderstanding something, but isn't the base concept of the expansion the clash between light and void? quel'thalas was truly never the actual focus of the expansion

Well, that ambiguity helps their case and so I just throw my hands up in the air and go "Sure, good job Blizzard. You played us for fools as per usual." if you read the context of everyone after Midnights reveal its pretty obvious people didn't take it as that though.

[Sondrelk]

maybe i'm missing/misunderstanding something, but isn't the base concept of the expansion the clash between light and void? quel'thalas was truly never the actual focus of the expansion

It is, which is why it's strange that the Voidstorm seemingly starts us off with the climactic endgame Void location.
Imagine starting Legion off with Argus as a launch zone, and then returning to the Broken Isles in Patch content.
There is a definite way to do it, and personally, I do find the direction they are taking the story interesting. But it is still a strange way for the story to unfold. Even more so when TWW has already been the Underground expansion where we moved closer to the World Soul. It's like the launch patch of Midnight is in itself the expansion meant to lead into TWW, rather than the other way around.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Of course, I think its totally possible for a character like Xal'atath to exist "as is" its' just in the context of what else has transpired prior in this franchise that I do find the skeleton of her character to be quite suspicious in that it just seems we're just repeating and never learning how to do this better or do something completely differently. I see and understand the pre-existing character argument I have no retort against it beyond that I go "Ehh, sure I guess".

Again maybe this is all meant to be like a "in-joke" about hyperspeculation obsession and she just unceremoniously dies, who knows. I genuinely do not know what they're doing and that is kind of in of itself quite fascinating. A meta level mysterybox if you will.

I do still truly enjoy the way they framed her character in the Threads of Destiny and of course I was all onboard until the Beledar confrontation with Alleria where it just feels like they had to justify the existence of Undermine in a manner that just defanged her character completely but I digress thats' just my personal opinion. it did however add a interesting dynamic in that Xal'atath being frustrated and angered may have consequences or decisions that may be quite interesting down the line and for that I do think there's a lot of playspace they got with that side of a bad writing exercise.

In many ways, Threads of Destiny does showcase that they can frame things correctly and actually do this in a manner that can enhance the existing story, character and the product. So like I'm still holding out we have a great marketing campaign for Midnight prior to launch.

[Nymrohd]

My only logical issue with Xal is the idiocy "I've planned for this over thousands of years". Otherwise she is very consistent. Still boring as fuck. Still held back by the fact that the voice actor is not willing to commit (or is directed not to) and can't give us an iconic cackle or something. Imagine if she had an Ursula cackle, it would just work so well.

[Raetary]

What does their actually being gay characters represented have to do with the tonal shift of Warcraft?

Wows cozycore tonal shift is a means for the company to save face and protect their corporate image.
LGBT inclusion is here just another crux for them to do so.

As such, wows queer rep is the equivalent of a pride ad for hand creme during june.
It's meaningless and surface level, or badly caricatured, it just exists so they can tick the corporate box, stick a rainbow on it and lavender tax it by a whooping 99c.

Pelagos is so bland and inoffensive, that it ironically borders on being offensive.
Shaw and Flynns romance only exists in books as of rn, their romance is barely even alluded to in-game.
The profession dudes were just a flamboyant caricature, and not in the campy entertaining way, but in the "this is what my 70 year old grandmother thinks gay couples sound like" sort of way.

The most meaningful and overt queer rep we got was the Night Warrior horse couple in Ardenweald, but even they lack substance and became irrelevant as quickly as they showed up.

BG3s queer rep is fantastic because they do quite frankly the complete and utter opposite of what Blizzard is doing.
They treat their characters with dignity and give them actual well written personalities with their own needs and desires, flaws ans strengths.
Karlach, Astarion, Minthara and Halsin are also all unabashedly queer, Isobel and Aylin are divinely lesbian badasses.
There's also the litany of openly queer side characters, who are either minor or just fodder but are treated with just as much care and actually add something to the world.

[milkmustache]

Now that Turalyon has been confirmed to not be villain-batted (for now) or retconned, and is actually sympathetic, the biggest MSQ (so not Arcantina bullshit lol) issue for people seems to be Arator being a generic woobie protag and stilted exposition dialog for noobs. I think the dislike for Midnight's writing is overblown other than people not getting over the main cast being more neutral/chill characters instead of 9 Garroshes.

I think the issue is more that there's not 1 Garrosh and I don't mean that literally, as much as I'd love to see that psycho back. Of course we don't have 9 of them, we don't even have one of them. Even when someone with a slightly different approach or line of morals and beliefs enters the story, they're pushed to a raid tier, as we are a little worried about with Zul'jan.

[COBRAstriker]

Yet, now, when the game actually brings up 90% of these things and has him actually exhibit conviction, human emotion and involvement, now there's uproar that he doesn't correspond to a characterization that was terrible and out of place in the first place.

I think that it's less about that and more to the fact that Turalyon is one of the last few remaining masculine, hero warrior type of character left. I mean, who else IS there? The main fear here is that as soon as a character starts behaving like he does, which is contrary to the doctrine of Anduinism, they either get killed off, retired or emasculated. I wouldn't be surprised if at the end of 12.0, given the context of the Army of the Light actually losing, he becomes another woe is me character who will need multiple therapy sessions to 'rediscover' himself. That is, if he survives

[Reive]

Well, that ambiguity helps their case and so I just throw my hands up in the air and go "Sure, good job Blizzard. You played us for fools as per usual." if you read the context of everyone after Midnights reveal its pretty obvious people didn't take it as that though.

i mean, i get that. i also feel like the plot of the sunwell is being resolved too quickly, but did people really expect a whole expansion of belf fanservice? returning to quel'thalas always felt like a convenient way to move the story forward without having to introduce another random continent.

It is, which is why it's strange that the Voidstorm seemingly starts us off with the climactic endgame Void location.
Imagine starting Legion off with Argus as a launch zone, and then returning to the Broken Isles in Patch content.
There is a definite way to do it, and personally, I do find the direction they are taking the story interesting. But it is still a strange way for the story to unfold. Even more so when TWW has already been the Underground expansion where we moved closer to the World Soul. It's like the launch patch of Midnight is in itself the expansion meant to lead into TWW, rather than the other way around.

it's not that weird when you remember that the worldsoul saga was originally supposed to be a big ass underground expansion. reaching the worldcore and confronting the titans was always going to be our endgame. everything else is just filler.

[Jastall]

The Turalyon discourse has been some of the dumbest stuff to come out of this, but its main thing is a symptom of chronic bad writing in WoW in general. Legion Turalyon is a terribly written character - he's the human leader of a race and force that's 25 times as old at him at earliest, stuck in a total war for a thousand years, yet is still milquetoast and vascillating. He doesn't care about a demon killing the archangel he's followed so long two seconds after the deed is done. Despite being cosmically infused with divine power, he has no strong feelings about his wife running off to follow the exact opposite. He most definitely shows nothing of the characterization of Tides of Darkness that people pretend to be up in arms about now. Yet, now, when the game actually brings up 90% of these things and has him actually exhibit conviction, human emotion and involvement, now there's uproar that he doesn't correspond to a characterization that was terrible and out of place in the first place. It's similar to how TBC Blood Elf writing, some of the most damaging race writing in the entire history of the game by far, is now being defended from its own expression in Midnight.

Time means that bad writing is gradually grandfathered in and ends up being defended by the same people who in all other cases would rightly give it shit.

@Foreign Exchange Ztudent

As you've been told a million times, there is no obfuscation regarding Xal'atath's character and even less some hankering to reveal a mystery box. When introduced she tells you in the intro that she's a representative of the Void and wants to eat the world soul. Now, two years later, she opens a big void hole to go after the world soul. She's completely straightforward. There is no twist. She's evil and wants to do the thing she's said she wants to do since Legion (only one would remain to consume the world).

It's the Star Wars Prequel Effect to me. Give bad writing enough time and all of a sudden it was good, actually, especially when there's memes or "charm" involved so you don't actually have to defend the substance, only the idea. Just gesture at something else that's perceived as bad and it's all the defense your pet writing requires. Apparently changing the exact movement of characters at the Battle at Blackrock Mountain is more damaging to the characters involved than the guy previously characterized as a rigidly principled Light user not caring one bit about his wife hungrily seeking out every scrap of the power opposed to the Light, and some half demon with a fairly poor track record when it comes to freedom exploding a proverbial archangel in his face in the name of freedom.

I don't generally think the whole Lightblinded thing is well written. It should lean more on the idea that the Light becomes stronger/more manifest as the Void does in opposition, rather than incarnation # 719560 of "color makes people go bad" except the color is yellow instead of green or purple. But Turalyon doesn't seem out of bounds. His son is another matter, and predictably enough his wife is a lost cause because lolWindrunner but of the three obvious main characters of the expansion he's the only one handled with the barest amount of nuance. They could always swerve and make him a raid boss but I doubt that, his fate is probably to die defending his family because Windrunner drama is something the writers can't get enough of for whatever reason.

[Viridiel]

Do we think the Elemental Lords would join Iridikron, or stand against him? Smolderon was an easy win for Fyrakk considering his goal was just to burn everything down, but the other Lords are pretty nuanced and I'm not sure they would all side with Iridikron even if a major part of his goal is to free them. I doubt we're going to have another expansion with a major focus on Iridikron and the Primalists without major inclusion of the Elemental Plane and the Elemental Lords, especially if it's in the "titan expansion".

[Vakir]

@Super Dickmann

You're correct about the messaging and everything being done prior, I just meant the execution itself has become a lot more washed out and unexciting, which does damage the ability for the intention to slip under the radar as less disliked despite it being the same. All the shiny newness of WoW as an institution meant that people could look past that the Sunwell Plateau conclusion should have singlehandedly killed like 60% of the faction beef and 100% of the Blood Elf beef by way of a 30,000 year old goat messiah channeling a fragment of a literal angel.

Also, like 98% of the player base didn't see it, and of the 2% that did, a bunch of them likely don't play anymore or weren't around.

There's absolutely some nostalgia at work in downplaying past problems for some, and I agree with @Jastall regarding the prequel comparison, but I also take every opportunity I can to scream from the hilltops about my problems with 2.0 through 4.3 and how specifically TBC and Wrath hurt some of my favorites.

But even when it isn't movements made at the insistence of destroying the factional conflict, I'd argue that some of the problems we have now are grandfathered in from that time even when it was pro-faction conflict. Garrosh was great eventually, but I'd argue that the amount of characters damaged or chucked out the window in service to slamming Garrosh and Varian action figures against each other (which only eventually happened in a damn book) meant that after that arc, there weren't a ton of existing characters to be interested in that weren't ruined except those dragged in from WC2 to take part in a conflict that ended up an almost literal repeat of what we already did in the RTS trilogy. It was hard to care anymore about characters popular in WC3 or even Vanilla because they were sacrificed at the altar of the polar opposite of BFA onward's peacenik circlejerk, and I think said circlejerk may have been a huge misinterpretation of that same reaction.

[Nymrohd]

You're correct about the messaging and everything being done prior, I just meant the execution itself has become a lot more washed out and unexciting, which does damage the ability for the intention to slip under the radar as less disliked despite it being the same. All the shiny newness of WoW as an institution meant that people could look past that the Sunwell Plateau conclusion should have singlehandedly killed like 60% of the faction beef and 100% of the Blood Elf beef by way of a 30,000 year old goat messiah channeling a fragment of a literal angel.

People who were not there probably have no idea how popular Blood Knight RP was during TBC and it followed the lore. That SWP ending just destroyed so many people's characters. Because Blood Elves were just dark in TBC. Draining an angel, destroying Light monuments, mind controlling dissidents; it was just as metal as Forsaken but beautiful and glam at the same time.

[Vakir]

People who were not there probably have no idea how popular Blood Knight RP was during TBC and it followed the lore. That SWP ending just destroyed so many people's characters.

"Actually fucking interesting characters? That's a paddlin'."

[Jastall]

@Super Dickmann

You're correct about the messaging and everything being done prior, I just meant the execution itself has become a lot more washed out and unexciting, which does damage the ability for the intention to slip under the radar as less disliked despite it being the same. All the shiny newness of WoW as an institution meant that people could look past that the Sunwell Plateau conclusion should have singlehandedly killed like 60% of the faction beef and 100% of the Blood Elf beef by way of a 30,000 year old goat messiah channeling a fragment of a literal angel.

Also, like 98% of the player base didn't see it, and of the 2% that did, a bunch of them likely don't play anymore or weren't around.

There's absolutely some nostalgia at work in downplaying past problems for some, and I agree with @Jastall regarding the prequel comparison, but I also take every opportunity I can to scream from the hilltops about my problems with 2.0 through 4.3 and how specifically TBC and Wrath hurt some of my favorites.

But even when it isn't movements made at the insistence of destroying the factional conflict, I'd argue that some of the problems we have now are grandfathered in from that time even when it was pro-faction conflict. Garrosh was great eventually, but I'd argue that the amount of characters damaged or chucked out the window in service to slamming Garrosh and Varian action figures against each other (which only eventually happened in a damn book) meant that after that arc, there weren't a ton of existing characters to be interested in that weren't ruined except those dragged in from WC2 to take part in a conflict that ended up an almost literal repeat of what we already did in the RTS trilogy. It was hard to care anymore about characters popular in WC3 or even Vanilla because they were sacrificed at the altar of the polar opposite of BFA onward's peacenik circlejerk, and I think said circlejerk may have been a huge misinterpretation of that same reaction.

Garrosh did a ton of damage to the setting and characters, I'd argue, especially the Horde. He was fine in TBC, but as soon as Wrath came other characters started to be diminished to put him in the limelight. Cata is where this peaked; Vol'jin became an idiot that threatened him openly, Thrall was emasculated into some penitent sadsack hating his own race despite this absolutely not being the case beforehand, the only Tauren character of note that wasn't a villain was outright killed in a book, and the Alliance lost to him left right and center in general, all to push him as a character that promoted the faction war, when his portrayal on how skilled and intelligent he was varied wildly from source to source and they already were planning to serve him to the playerbase as raid boss fodder- and this was before Mists and the sheer comedy of making him Orc Hitler and subsequent fallout of the faction war taking a lot of the Horde's personality down with it. Now, it wasn't as bad as when Blizzard did the exact same thing again with Sylvanas, but that doesn't mean it was anywhere near good writing. It was about as bad as TBC villain batting an entire cast of characters (all of which has been variously retconned or walked away from since then, rarely enough), and subsequently making the setting's only remaining interesting elves into generic High Elf fare in the same expansion they were introduced in.

Varian also did his part, what with the whole "teaching a 10k+ years old soldier how to do soldier things" and other assorted issues, but he wasn't nearly as bad when it came to making the plot about him and his arc was more nuanced than, again, literally becoming Hitler.

It all comes back to my belief that the factions should almost never have been part of the A plot. They're good as B plot world building for flavor; it's fine if a sidequest out of the way has Forsaken task you with eating 10 babies to see if that kills them, or another has Dwarves playing as imperialists mining out ore from under people or what have you. Taking Midnight as an example, it's good to have racial conflicts and tensions as part of the narrative even if not the focus. All this is necessary.

What isn't necessary are big ass world wars that drag every character in a faction in a red or blue blob and has even racial tensions subsumed by the big factional characters that drive such a story forward, hogging even more spotlight than the average Anduin does as they go along and force everyone else into this train ride that, due to the nature of this being an MMORPG not written by very skilled writers, inevitably crashes and burns when the solution has to be peace, and the only way to that peace is to remove the over the top, mustache twirling warmongers and all things associated with them.

[Scyth]

Do we think the Elemental Lords would join Iridikron, or stand against him? Smolderon was an easy win for Fyrakk considering his goal was just to burn everything down, but the other Lords are pretty nuanced and I'm not sure they would all side with Iridikron even if a major part of his goal is to free them. I doubt we're going to have another expansion with a major focus on Iridikron and the Primalists without major inclusion of the Elemental Plane and the Elemental Lords, especially if it's in the "titan expansion".

I really hope so, but given we didn't see them at all in DF, I'm fully expecting to be disappointed.
Doubt they would all side with Iridikron though, Neptulon at least I could see not going along with his plan.

That said, I'm still in the camp that believes Iridikron will end up being our Legion Illidan.

[Sondrelk]

Do we think the Elemental Lords would join Iridikron, or stand against him? Smolderon was an easy win for Fyrakk considering his goal was just to burn everything down, but the other Lords are pretty nuanced and I'm not sure they would all side with Iridikron even if a major part of his goal is to free them. I doubt we're going to have another expansion with a major focus on Iridikron and the Primalists without major inclusion of the Elemental Plane and the Elemental Lords, especially if it's in the "titan expansion".

I cannot see it happening, realistically. Even ignoring how it's a complete retread of Cataclysm, the elemental lord's don't seem like they would want to join him. Either because world conquest isn't something they seem into (Neptulon), or because it would mean allting with Iridikron (Fyrakk, assuming he actually became Firelord).

What I could see happening though is an Elemental civil war of sorts. Where Iridikron allies with powerful elementals hoping to dethrone the existing ones. Though even then, Iridikron seems the type to prefer using dragons in that case.

[Vakir]

@Jastall

God damn, you have no idea how gratifying all of that is to read.

Don't get me wrong, I am thoroughly with you Dickmann on the need to have some form of continued faction conflict and turmoil and tension. But the problem is that the overfocus we got meant that the characters that didn't align with it looked stupid, weak, and ineffectual.

So characters inevitable to survive a narrative that requires everyone to get along eventually are doomed to be the leftovers that looked pathetic to make way for the drama bombs with a face.

So that's still a part of how we got here. We can't like Thrall, he's an Uncle Throm, and even before we learned he was starving and dehydrating his people for Reasons, he was wagging his finger at Garrosh for doing things he's killed people for less while treating him as if he's a teenager rather than older than him. I still do not understand the Gallywix appointment and I hate it. Cairne is dead. Vol'jin did absolutely nothing. Sylvanas is a character that could only have subsisted in the shadows of her race plot and was doomed to be fucked over the moment she became the central focus without losing her edge. Saurfang said some of the dopest, coldest shit ever to Garrosh and then IMMEDIATELY LEFT because his warrior son from the war culture died in war, because 5k cleave numbers are inconvenient to Garrosh.

Bolvar is a character now. No wait sorry he's "dead." Jaina is now a weeping hormonal mess about Arthas and when she isn't doing that, she doesn't exist until it's time for her to recreate that 30 Rock bit about nuking Iran because she's on her period. We can't possibly make a character that already made clearly defined decisions with agency have a meaningful change without the most absurd 180 possible. Why do anything with the other dwarves in the A plot when we can just bring back Muradin and make him one of the other 10 characters that want Arthas dead but play absolutely no role in it. It allows us to sideline him after and it means we can relegate the others to a book conflict so some asshole who just came back gets to dictate their council. But his son likes it, so it's fine. I'm so fucking proud of my king.

Even Anduin is part of the outcome of this history. Golden did a lot of his work within the Shattering, but he was otherwise a tabula rasa that could have gone anywhere, and the reason he was a soft peacenik was to be a contrast to the scarred dual wielding anime rival character that was his daddy. If they didn't go scorched earth in their attempt to immediately flip the status quo to "war in Warcraft" all at once through the most heavy handed two players to insert as possible, there wouldn't have been the need to course correct Varian so explicitly and utterly in Mists, and Anduin could have been a more dynamic and flexible character not defined by the false dichotomy of "giant unstable warmonger racist or superhero."

So we get left with the characters that didn't die and now we hate all these losers. Was it worth it?