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

[Cheezits]

Of course another adventure expac right after DF would be boring as hell. It doesn't really matter if next expac will be on fresh or reused continent - theme is most important. Although I would prefer too see more "civilized" area this time, and after Kul Tiras I don't think we have much of that left unexplored.

I actually hadn't considered that but I would say that's a good argument for why 11.0 won't be solely a "backside of Azeroth" expansion. Because we JUST had that "wow cool new thing lets explore" theme, and unless the idea is to completely replace the factions with the Explorers Guild it would be too repetitive. (The item labeled "Frontier" is my one fear that they will straight up just do it again though... NEW FRONTIER!!!!!! GO EXPLORE FOR DA EXPEDITION!!!!)

I can see it both being backside and old world, but not just backside.

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That's how WoW's been ever since the start, though. The one time we went back to do stuff in EK or Kalimdor was the two warfronts in BfA, just the start of the quests in Legion, and in Cata when they were revamped. TBC? You ignored EK and Kalimdor once you hit 60. Wrath? You did nothing in either of them, except for one quest that sent you to an inaccessible part of Un'goro. We've sent more time in the world with that blue dragonflight quest alone than we ever did in Wrath.

Except due to old-school leveling, you still spent a long time in the vanilla areas. And then Wrath directly continued many Vanilla plots that TBC didn't touch on, so they were connected in that way.

[Ersula]

To be fair to MoP, I think that giant year long gap before WoD wasn’t part of the plan. As has been obvious since alpha/beta, WoD had something to very wrong during development that left us with … half an expansion.
I think they fully expected WoD to come out potentially 6 months prior to when it actually did, hence them spamming content in MoP.

It seems like the charge that Legion needed to be this big project that revitalized the brand and correspond to the movie coming out, they ditched the Shattrath raid tier.

Either way, over the years, a giant content drought is something they've learned to avoid. They don't want it & they know fans don't like it. So barring some natural disaster, there will probably be another raid teir in late may.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

That's how WoW's been ever since the start, though. The one time we went back to do stuff in EK or Kalimdor was the two warfronts in BfA, just the start of the quests in Legion, and in Cata when they were revamped. TBC? You ignored EK and Kalimdor once you hit 60. Wrath? You did nothing in either of them, except for one quest that sent you to an inaccessible part of Un'goro. We've sent more time in the world with that blue dragonflight quest alone than we ever did in Wrath.

"Go and save this new island or something else" has been every single Warcraft expansion, with the exception of Cata (and even that was basically "Go to these 5 new areas that you couldn't access previously because their various gates are now blown open")

I mean yeah, that's why i said im tired of it for now, you even pretty much summed why im tired of it.

WoW team could do something different, at least i think so - but i might be in minority of thinking they can/should do something different next time, it's just my opinion.

[Shadowferal]

I'm pretty sure that the reason for some discontent is that the Isles are entirely disconnected from the rest of Azeroth besides some races being Azeroth races. If you replaced the Dragons with a new flying race of Crocodiles it would still work, the only thing that really tethers the isles to older lore is the Dream and Tyr/keepers.

DF doesn't feel like "World of Warcraft."
That in itself lends to a feeling of "something missing."
Cheap superficial spectacle can't replace a well-written story.

[Cheezits]

DF doesn't feel like "World of Warcraft."
That in itself lends to a feeling of "something missing."
Cheap superficial spectacle can't replace a well-written story.

Sure, but care to elaborate why it doesn't feel like that?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Sure, but care to elaborate why it doesn't feel like that?

At worst the lack of the Blue and Red factions is certainly noticeable but "It doesn't feel like Warcraft" is a very lazy argument

[Catastrophy349]

I guess it depends on your perspective. If by “not feeling like Warcraft” is due to the lack of “Humans vs. Orcs” feeling, then I would say go play another game because that ship has sailed. However, if you feel that way due to the lack of “Horde/Alliance” faction involvement, then I would have to agree.

Saw Turalyon on Alliance for 10 seconds during pre-patch and haven’t really seen ANY of the Horde Council. Best we got were the “NPC/leaders” during the Baine Questline.

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Dragonflight “feeling/being” different is fine. I just really hope the story picks up (more than it started in 10.1.5) for the remainder of DF.

[Scyth]

At worst the lack of the Blue and Red factions is certainly noticeable but "It doesn't feel like Warcraft" is a very lazy argument

I'd say that's one of the best things about DF but to each their own

[Cheezits]

No factions for four years is a bit much. I hope it's because something big is planned for them and not a sign of how the setting will play out from now on.

Maybe the faction stuff is really tied to the Nelf Tree, and that's the one thing holding it up? Like the Horde help them fight off the Primalists attacking Amirdrassil and that finally buries the hatchet?

[Shadowferal]

Sure, but care to elaborate why it doesn't feel like that?

Familiarity.
I compared earlier between MoP and DF, but a difference was a connection to what we had earlier. Familiar ingame characters that were also in the zones, hobnobbing with the newer. And of course the writing was far superior...and who didn't like "story time with Lorewalker Cho?" Everything that was new suddenly added to an overall familiarity that became positive. And to me, it was because of that connection to the old that was maintained ingame.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

Like it or not, factions are still the staple of wow and i think it would be awesome to see faction content again without them being hostile to each other.

A cinematic like the legion one where horde and alliance fights together with an enemy would be crazy, but this time without them breaking up again and fighting with each other in the end.

[Nymrohd]

I only wonder why they stopped with the Legion patch cycle of releasing the raids with the minor patch. I thought it made it easier for new patch areas to matter for all players, and the raids being offset didn't negatively impact actual time spent in a raid.

Plus I felt it made more sense with the story; you had time with the area before the raid which is supposed to be the end of that area's story.

[Woggmer]

Familiarity.
I compared earlier between MoP and DF, but a difference was a connection to what we had earlier. Familiar ingame characters that were also in the zones, hobnobbing with the newer. And of course the writing was far superior...and who didn't like "story time with Lorewalker Cho?" Everything that was new suddenly added to an overall familiarity that became positive. And to me, it was because of that connection to the old that was maintained ingame.

This actually rings true. We know the Djaradin but we don't know their full origins . We don't know the connection between the Centaurs of DF and the ones on Kalimdor and whatever Blizzard can come up with is that "They're not the same, trust us." Obviously they're "different" but they're so different from each other that the Centaurs on Kalimdor didn't get model updates...

[Teriz]

My money is on an alliance civil war next expansion.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

MoP was not "famillar" it was incredibly different, so different that people moaned that it didn't feel like Warcraft(Oh that again). It had elements that we were famillar with(We did get to see Titan related stuff but outside the two factions it was a very foriegn place).


And f off with the Alliance inner conflict stuff. Just throwing the Horde's past two times of inner conflict onto the other faction is lazy and dumb.

Edit: My bluntness for it is only cause I'm tired of people suggesting it when there's far better things to do with it.

[Cheezits]

My money is on an alliance civil war next expansion.

We're definitely going to get a hint of that with the Man'ari questline, if so. Turalyon's/Stormwind's reaction to them joining the Alliance (if that's the case) will be VERY telling.

That questline (and to an extent the Nelf one, both in heritage and the overall Amirdrassil plot) has the potential to set the stage hard for what's to come in 11.0.

[micwini]

You must have a really poor memory.

Just like I told the other guy: Don't flame and instead come up with arguments to support your claim. All the UI issues, Profession issues, quest bugs, etc. it was insane. Im talking purely about that. Launch was smooth lagwise, but man I've never recalled an expansion where my chat box (base UI) would resize after everytime I relogged or /reloaded. Just to give an example.

[Cheezits]

And f off with the Alliance inner conflict stuff. Just throwing the Horde's past two times of inner conflict onto the other faction is lazy and dumb.

There's nothing wrong with Alliance conflict, it just needs to be done well. I think some leaders being understandably concerned about Velen letting ex-Legion members into his city is an interesting premise. It's probably the most interesting Alliance development since Void Elves, which still hasn't paid off.

Considering EVERYTHING Blizz has done since BFA, I really really really doubt we will see any retreads of how Garrosh/Sylvanas was handled.

[huth]

Just like I told the other guy: Don't flame and instead come up with arguments to support your claim. All the UI issues, Profession issues, quest bugs, etc. it was insane. Im talking purely about that. Launch was smooth lagwise, but man I've never recalled an expansion where my chat box (base UI) would resize after everytime I relogged or /reloaded. Just to give an example.

Which is nothing compared to what we had to deal with in earlier expansions. DF was comparatively pretty smooth.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

There's nothing wrong with Alliance conflict, it just needs to be done well. I think some leaders being understandably concerned about Velen letting ex-Legion members into his city is an interesting premise. It's probably the most interesting Alliance development since Void Elves, which still hasn't paid off.

Considering EVERYTHING Blizz has done since BFA, I really really really doubt we will see any retreads of how Garrosh/Sylvanas was handled.

We don't need Alliance conflict, it never needed it. It just needed development and not lazy things like reusing the same idea the Horde had to go through for two expansions. No more factions fighting itself. And furthermore Void Elves weren't really an "interesting development aside from Alleria's unique new storyline with the Void. Which didn't really get touched upon except maybe her comment the whispers increasing despite N'zoth's "death."


Personally I'd rather have just Alliance development against other forces that isn't themselves(Inner conflict) or specifically the Horde. If for some reason it was a random Titan Keeper in Arathi Highlands going rogue and the Alliance had to deal with it, I'd be fine with a small questline with that but thats an example.

Which is nothing compared to what we had to deal with in earlier expansions. DF was comparatively pretty smooth.

WoD's server issues seem to be a thing at the time(I didn't see any issues about it either). Except maybe one big content mentioning something about it.