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

[Santandame]

You're a bit confused here, so let me go a bit more in depth;

For years people speculated that we would get a "South Seas" expansion where Kul'Tiras, Zalandar, Azshara, and N'Zoth would be the main selling points. In such an expansion, notions of ship to ship battles, pirates, and other stuff was inevitably brought up and considered. When we got to BFA all of those elements were in place, but clearly things were dialed back in multiple areas due to either technical constraints or simply thematic limitations. In short, the notion that Blizzard dev team didn't look at an expansion involving Azshara, N'Zoth, Jaina, Kul'tiras and general island hopping and couldn't come up with the notion of more pirate stuff is laughable. They obviously DID, which is why we got what we got in Kul'tiras and Island Expeditions. The issue is that a pirate theme is a highly limited theme that simply isn't going to carry an entire expansion. We KNOW this because it couldn't even carry the Kul'tiras portion of BFA.

Let's look at your WotLK example; No Northrend wasn't a completely undead land, but that's the point because as a storyteller you don't want a completely undead land. You want a land that is partially alive and partially undead to generate a conflict and give the heroes a foothold and stake in that conflict. That said, WotLK is clearly an "undead" expansion because the main character and antagonist is undead, and themes of undeath permeate the entire expansion, from the Vrykul to the Nerubians, to the blue dragons, to the Ice trolls, they're all fighting the undead at various levels and that makes the narrative interesting. Us dredging through nothing but undead in Northrend would be BORING, which is why the expansions are set up the way you outlined above. In fact your post doesn't disprove my point, it supports my point.

Consider Blizzard does a pirate expansion. What else is there? Are we going to venture to a new landmass where people are seafarers making their livelihood from the sea and dropping continuous pirate/sailor puns? Are we dragging Azshara and Nazjatar into it again? Are we propping up an N'Zoth stand in? Are we going to encounter another titan construct like Mother that is going to help us in our fight? Are we going to hop around on various islands looking for treasure?

Does all that sound familiar? It should.

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Well they would because she also appears (multiple times) in Hearthstone and HotS. That's what we would call a franchise character. She also is relevant to the Mag'har allied race, and they came to WoW about 4 years ago.

But it doesn’t support your point. You literally said that Blizzard had to include Drust, witches, N’Zoth, Zandalar and Mechagon alongside Kul Tiras so it wouldn’t be boring. Which is literally the norm for every single expansion, just like your Northrend example there.

You can’t just so fragrantly cherry pick to suit you. I think the only person here getting confused is you. Or you’re just being purposefully difficult.

[Cheezits]

What’s going on in Eastern Plaguelands today?

What IS going on in Eastern Plaguelands today?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

What IS going on in Eastern Plaguelands today?

Who knows, but.... I could see some Argent Crusade/Forsaken tensions and stuff like that.

[Cheezits]

Who knows, but.... I could see some Argent Crusade/Forsaken tensions and stuff like that.

Its probably a Secrets of Azeroth thing, but it's funny out of context.

https://www.bluetracker.gg/wow/topic...d-of-warcraft/

[Raetary]

What’s going on in Eastern Plaguelands today?

The dwarf has awoken from his hibernation.

It's time to bring forth the annual hype train.

[Ersula]

My point is that Blizzard isn't going to create an entire expansion over a feature like ship-to-ship battles. If history has told us anything, stuff like that typically gets left on the cutting-room floor like vehicle battles in WotLK.

If your point is now "Blizzard will create an expansion based on any motif they feel like" I would consider that a concession, because that definitely wasn't your point when you started.

Sounds like what we experienced in Kul'tiras.....

So exactly less than one half of that expansion? It's been 2 whole expansions; they can revisit those motifs.

The difference is that the Yrel threat is an active, massive, world-ending threat that is mainly contained by her not being able to reach Azeroth. Alleria seeking to capture the sunwell is not. It also should be noted that WoD began because of a Bronze drake working with Wrathion, and we're dealing with Bronze and infinite drakes messing with the timelines currently in DF.

Alleria has a compulsion to go near the sunwell, which releases horrible shadow monsters when she does.

Yrel isn't just on another planet, she's in another timeline, which by what Chromie describes, the Bronze's entire job is to tie off those timelines so they stop existing entirely. Right after we rescued those Mag'har surely, a bronze dragon assassinated Garrosh the moment he entered the timestream, eliminating the entire AU timeline. We're not even sure Yrel still exists at this moment. So I think Alleria is a bit more relevant.

But I will say a Yrel from our timeline, who was somehow on the Justicar instead of the Exodar when it left Argus, would be a solid villain for a light based antagonist. Turalyon & Alleria could also have their Garrosh moment from a similar storyline. Or they could be the rational light/void alterative...but I feel like they should use Calia for that, simply because she's a terrible character who badly needs a reason to exist in the story at all, and that would be it.

[Cheezits]

The dwarf has awoken from his hibernation.

It's time to bring forth the annual hype train.

Pretty crazy that we're little over two months out from an expansion reveal.

[Hitei]

Pretty crazy that we're little over two months out from an expansion reveal.

And only seven and a half weeks from an actual leak.

[Cheezits]

And only seven and a half weeks from an actual leak.

I have a feeling that whatever is on the box is actually pretty generic/revampy and it will cause some confusion if it leaks.

[Lolites]

You have to use general seafarers because pirates are not a broad enough thematic to base an expansion on. Heck, Blizzard couldn't even base an expansion on general seafarers like the kul'tirans, which is why they had to stuff Mechagon and Zandalar into the expansion as well.

they build whole expansion around joke character from w3... they DEFINITELY can build pirate expansion if they want
theres literally NOTHING suggesting they originaly wanted BFA to be "pirate expansion"...

[Sondrelk]

Pretty crazy that we're little over two months out from an expansion reveal.

The fact that this is Blizzards one chance at the biggest hype reveal in years should make it interesting.
DF is pretty good and well received. There is nothing specific binding us to any definite future expansion so far like there was with Dragons or Shadowlands.
And of course, this is the 20th anniversary. If there is a Blizzcon to be excited for, it's this one.

[huth]

Yes we do, wot? And it's clearly not relevant if it's something that seemingly wants to claim our design.

Which would make it part of the cosmology.

[Sondrelk]

they build whole expansion around joke character from w3... they DEFINITELY can build pirate expansion if they want
theres literally NOTHING suggesting they originaly wanted BFA to be "pirate expansion"...

They didn't create an entire expansion around Chen. They extrapolated somewhere he would logically have come from, and then made an expansion around that.

We wouldn't get an expansion based around Pirates just because Nightsquall is important. We would be getting an expansion extrapolated from whatever place he found that made him rich.
Pirates would be the thing that kick-starts the exploration at most, and possibly not even that. Pirates could just be a generic force like the Djaradin are in DF. Someone to give us a baseline sense of urgency in whatever new place we find. Quickly relegated to side characters next to the real threat.

[Catastrophy349]

The fact that this is Blizzards one chance at the biggest hype reveal in years should make it interesting.
DF is pretty good and well received. There is nothing specific binding us to any definite future expansion so far like there was with Dragons or Shadowlands.
And of course, this is the 20th anniversary. If there is a Blizzcon to be excited for, it's this one.

I don't want to become a "conspiracy theorist" or go off on a tangent, but to further your point(s):

1). 20th Anniversary (World of Warcraft)
2). 30th Anniversary (Warcraft)
3). FIRST Blizzcon (in-person) since 2019 (Shadowlands reveal)
4). 10th expansion (10.0 may have been the first double digit expansion, but 11.0 is the 10th expansion)
5). Dragonflight set up A LOT for 11.0 to be successful (UI revamp, Profession revamp, Talent revamp, Flying revamp, Graphical revamp, Reputation revamp with Renown (kind of since, you know, SL had it first), tons of new stories being set, etc.)

[huth]

They didn't create an entire expansion around Chen. They extrapolated somewhere he would logically have come from, and then made an expansion around that.

We wouldn't get an expansion based around Pirates just because Nightsquall is important. We would be getting an expansion extrapolated from whatever place he found that made him rich.
Pirates would be the thing that kick-starts the exploration at most, and possibly not even that. Pirates could just be a generic force like the Djaradin are in DF. Someone to give us a baseline sense of urgency in whatever new place we find. Quickly relegated to side characters next to the real threat.

That's missing what the discussion is about and is really just what you want them to do, not whether they could.

[Palapop]

We don't actually kill Gul'dan either, he dies durign a cutscene. The HP number literally means nothing.

Liyerally means a lot.
Illidan, Garrosh, Sylvanas would like to have a word about it.

[huth]

Our Cosmology is the Cosmic Chart. The 7th power doesn't apply to it.

No, the cosmology is everything. The chart was merely the then-current state of things and was explicitly from the view of a limited narrator.

[Raetary]

I've been saying this since end of BFA- N'zoth is still alive. Fight ends on 2.5% or 0.5% (or was it 1%?) on Mythic.

That b!tch is still alive.

Did you miss the part where we obliterate him with a dragonball blast?

HP numbers mean nothing, they are completely arbitrary.
Especially in the case of N'zoth, Sylvanas and similar where the encounter is overtaken and ended by the narrative.

It doesn't matter whether the encounter ends at 1%, or 43.59%, the outcome is the exact same.

[Catastrophy349]

Who is ready to get on to that 10.2 PTR and rip open that Adventure Journal to see the new raid?

[Nightshade711]

You honestly believe that Nightsquall is some massive threat being set up throughout Dragonflight and earlier? If he appears at all, it's probably going to be some mini-dungeon boss. Also you believing that Nightsquall has more ability to move units and interest than Yrel is laughable. Yrel is a pretty major WC character while we don't even know what Nightsquall looks like.

Azshara/Xalatath/Void, and even Ethereals to an extent is what they’ve been setting up. Again, it’d be terrible writing to just avoid all of that just for the sake of subverting expectations/flipping the script.
Nightsquall & pirates will likely be a first raid type of thing, or the backdrop behind it all. Maybe

Yrel isn’t a “pretty major WC character”… if somebody hasn’t played WoD they won’t know who she is.
Which is why she isn’t going to happen at all.
She was only brought back for 30 seconds because blizzard wanted to bring in brown orcs