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

[AOL Instant Messenger]

The best course of action would be to:
A.) Solidify the Titans as the real "First Ones" in the Game's Universe.
B.) Turn the Shadowlands into the Titan's own abandoned pet project.
C.) Make the creation of Dreadlords something the Titans never knew.
D.) Emerald Dream is Elunes domain, but something happened to her.

This was how I imagined it back at the end of SL at least. Just don't bother creating a new tier of celestial beings above the Titans, and instead just make the Titans more important than before.
Sure, we have seen and interracted wiht the Titans before, but it's not like that was a constant thing. We could easily keep it just as mysterious by playing it up when the Titans inevitably disappear again. The red star is still in the Skies of Azeroth, and once it disappears it should have some ramifications for the plot.

Honestly, the first two bits aren't much better than what we have now. I prefer the titans as exceedingly-advanced aliens with a drive to order the material universe; the only reason why I think they and the First Ones are redundant is because the First Ones manifest nigh-identically, not because they're conceptually similar on a fundamental level. More prominently, the idea behind the First Ones is itself terrible because it cheapens the other Cosmic Forces. Upping the titans beyond their current ken into the same position wouldn't mitigate the problem in the least.

Yep, you're right. Sadly, this is the case and the most you can do is hope that they don't reflexively kowtow to these nonsense demands out of a fear that if they don't, they'll be "courting outrage again."

WoW Twitter and its consequences.

[AngerFork]

https://twitter.com/TheRedShirtGuy/s...80318764806186

This is such a non-issue. Holy shit...

What drives me crazy about things like this is that changing this won't do a thing in the long run. If Blizz does indeed change this, then the trolls will just go back to the old hat they were using. If Blizz takes out that hat as well, those trolls will just find another one to use, then another beyond that.

Chasing the willingness of trolls to use/ruin any symbol they can is a game you can never hope to win. This is where Blizz actually spending out for a properly sized customer service team to help with issues like this would be really nice. Yet, that's not the Blizz we have these days.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

It's sad that these terminally online people, the twitter and reddit crowd, seem to be the very people with the ear of the dev's now days.

Personally, I don't think there's a single good thing that has come from needlessly conflating things in a fictional universe with real life evil. Specially when it's as asinine as 'vague white coloured triangular head piece is similar to vague white coloured triangular head piece worn by racists in one country'.

Hopefully this just blows under the rug and 10.2.2 doesn't come complete with the removal of everything that could be mistaken for something bad by somebody both drunk and partially sighted.

This will serve as something of a test for just how ridiculous Blizzard's concessions to Twitter will get. We've already had a number, but this would solidly be the most egregious case because there's quite literally nothing at all to be upset about here. The last piece that was said to look like a Klan robe at least had some actual similarity, and the Alexstrasza rape thing was naturally a hot-button topic. This is an absolute non-issue, and it will serve to distinguish between Blizzard being merely generally deferential to Twitter and it being absolutely deferential.

[AngerFork]

Probably but I think they're likely to try and avoid the assumption that every cosmic force has a specific 'domain' in the vein of shadowlands. In the 2020 cosmology chart it seemed to suggest Shadowlands was more akin to the Dream than it was to something like the Twisting Nether or the Void.

It's a bit confusing because the chart sort of implies that if there is a 'Domain of Life' then there is also a 'Domain of Death' that is more than part of the Shadowlands. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing really.

It would be cathartic if we learned that the Shadowlands are not the true afterlife, or the true realm of death.

One of the things I've long wondered is what the true nature of a soul is in Azeroth. We know that beings that pass go to the Shadowlands where the Arbiter sends them to a specific afterlife. Yet, we've also seen that the soul of a being can be removed & separated while still keeping them around. Uther was able to go to the Shadowlands even though his soul was around.

What if souls on Azeroth are built of all of the cosmic forces which are then split amongst the various forces once they die? That is, we've seen the anima portion of Ursoc fade away, but might there also be a portion of him that is in the 'Domain of Life' as well, just in a different form?

[AOL Instant Messenger]

What drives me crazy about things like this is that changing this won't do a thing in the long run. If Blizz does indeed change this, then the trolls will just go back to the old hat they were using. If Blizz takes out that hat as well, those trolls will just find another one to use, then another beyond that.

That, or they just will find a new shtick. There's plenty of offensive or racist shticks they could use.

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One of the things I've long wondered is what the true nature of a soul is in Azeroth. We know that beings that pass go to the Shadowlands where the Arbiter sends them to a specific afterlife. Yet, we've also seen that the soul of a being can be removed & separated while still keeping them around. Uther was able to go to the Shadowlands even though his soul was around.

That was already clarified as being a product of Frostmourne fuckery: they came up with some nonsense about it dividing the soul, and Uther in particular evidently saw some intervention from the Light that led to one of the halves being ushered into Bastion and another half lingering on Azeroth from inside Frostmourne.

[Mecheon]

I checked further, and apparently it's a case of "le poc people say its bad therefore it's bad and the people acting incredulous at such a dumb, reaching claim proves that the hat is bad and courts toxic evil booboo stinky people"

Just the usual twitter nonsense by terminally online people.

From what I see, it seems to be folks using the old Cata set to harass people, and people worried about this being used for the same

Which frankly should have been a "Blizzard actually hire moderation to ban people for harassing people" situation so it never came up in the first place, but as the requested solution is just 'make it a bit more blue' I honestly can't get worked up over this. Hardly Twitter outrage so much as "Blizzard hasn't done anything against serial harassers" which is, yeah, a known and ongoing

[huth]

What drives me crazy about things like this is that changing this won't do a thing in the long run. If Blizz does indeed change this, then the trolls will just go back to the old hat they were using. If Blizz takes out that hat as well, those trolls will just find another one to use, then another beyond that.

Chasing the willingness of trolls to use/ruin any symbol they can is a game you can never hope to win. This is where Blizz actually spending out for a properly sized customer service team to help with issues like this would be really nice. Yet, that's not the Blizz we have these days.

It's based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what the trolls are actually doing. Nothing is done to impede that, they're just sloppily painting over the old graffiti and then make pikachu faces when the trolls just spray new ones on the paintjob.

[Yarathir]

WoW Twitter and its consequences.

Aye. Exactly that.

What drives me crazy about things like this is that changing this won't do a thing in the long run. If Blizz does indeed change this, then the trolls will just go back to the old hat they were using. If Blizz takes out that hat as well, those trolls will just find another one to use, then another beyond that.

Chasing the willingness of trolls to use/ruin any symbol they can is a game you can never hope to win. This is where Blizz actually spending out for a properly sized customer service team to help with issues like this would be really nice. Yet, that's not the Blizz we have these days.

Regardless of anything else, getting rid of any design that may potentially somehow at some point in time in some place be used by "bad bad doo doo stinky meanies" is lunacy and I'm not sure how we've arrived at the point where it's even a conversation.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

"Blizzard hasn't done anything against serial harassers" which is, yeah, a known and ongoing

That much is perfectly true. Blizzard's complete negligence on that front has been astounding. Laying off the bulk of your customer support will invariably be disastrous.

[Revamp Man]

Morchie wants payback for us thwarting the Infinite's plans in the mini dungeon? An infinite drake views an advantage from a Yrel invasion? They're evil d-bags? Blizzard could create any BS reason they want. The point is that the Infinite Dragonflight has the means and the desire to pull something like that story-wise.

You should do the recently released quests

[AOL Instant Messenger]

You should do the recently released quests

Sadly, Blizzard isn't seeming to go a way that's conducive to a continuous Infinite threat, but it would be ideal if there were a bit of untrustworthiness to the black-and-silver wan culminating in a parachronological paradigm shift.

[Revamp Man]

Sadly, Blizzard isn't seeming to go a way that's conducive to a continuous Infinite threat, but it would be ideal if there were a bit of untrustworthiness to the black-and-silver wan culminating in a parachronological paradigm shift.

I think currently it I'd building up to nozdormu eventually screwing with the timelines just because he wants to and then he falls to moruzond

[Cheezits]

The Aspects moving away from the Titans + the Bronze allying with some of the Infinite = HUGE increase in chances of Murozond.

However I think this Murozond may end up good, or at least one of them will.

[Teriz]

You should do the recently released quests

With Eternus and her sister?

Converting one Infinite Dragon isn't converting all of them.

[huth]

Regardless of anything else, getting rid of any design that may potentially somehow at some point in time in some place be used by "bad bad doo doo stinky meanies" is lunacy and I'm not sure how we've arrived at the point where it's even a conversation.

The end result of that is just people getting angry that everybody is streaking anyway.

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With Eternus and her sister?

Converting one Infinite Dragon isn't converting all of them.

What happened with her is probably not feasible with the majority of them anyway. And she had at least a willingness to talk in the first place.

But understanding your enemies motivations is definitely important, too.

[Makabreska]

I mean, the Void's always been this. There's just a much higher emphasis on it now due to the Old Gods not really being a thing anymore on Azeroth.

Not really. A dominant Void motifs always were Old Gods with their tentacles, eyestalks, fleshy masses, madness and purple everywhere. We ditched almost all of this currently. Now we have an empty, navy blue space, silent stars, and some shapeless energy that attacks us. Whispers is the main thing that remained. During Sark fight an instakill is not going mad or getting smacked by a tentacle, but getting ejected into a space void. So like for the first time ever the Void is about actual void.

I really prefer this version.

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With Eternus and her sister?

Converting one Infinite Dragon isn't converting all of them.

No, but it is an obvious paving the way to truce and teaming up to some extent. We literally had the same thing with Sundered Flame 5 min ago, when Alex began with understanding their motives. There she was made to understand that suddenly coming back after millennia like nothing happened and taking over was crappy thing to do, and now Infinites are realising that trying to forcibly "fix" history can be counterproductive and dangerous.

[Chickat]

I think you're spot on with this honestly. That would be my preferred outcome. I wouldn't mind there being a precursor or even parallel group of non-titan 'first ones' but it does sort of grate that both groups are attempting to fill the same roll for what appears to be no good reason.



This is pretty much my assumption too. The 'first ones' created the Shadowlands and engineered them to be work in the way they do rather than the true and standard functioning of the original or wider true realm of death. I think this allows a lot more interesting future story telling than just 'This is death now' and perhaps a somewhat more interesting characterization of the first ones.

Rather than gods I think it makes more sense to view both the first ones and titans as more similar to aliens or just sentient beings from elsewhere. I know they are described as the pantheon of order and death (although I cant remember if that is just fancannon or actually written as such) but I think the concept of multiple cosmic 'pantheons' in each domain doesn't really hold and somewhat cheapens the concept of a godly pantheon or precursor species in the first place.

Personally, I think that the Titans/First Ones are their most interesting when viewed as an ancient immortal(for titans at least) race of beings with a specific agenda rather than some all powerful creator species.

Interested to see how this could actually impact future lore and what direction people think the dev's will actually take things?

My theory is that something happened to the first ones and they flung their souls into planets with a spell to be reborn in XXXXXX years. Maybe the Titans dont know they were first ones and lost their memory. Or maybe the Titans are an offshoot of first ones, or even rebellious children of the first ones.

I think it makes it more interesting if the Titans are related to the first ones in some way.

[Teriz]

No, but it is an obvious paving the way to truce and teaming up to some extent. We literally had the same thing with Sundered Flame 5 min ago, when Alex began with understanding their motives. There she was made to understand that suddenly coming back after millennia like nothing happened and taking over was crappy thing to do, and now Infinites are realising that trying to forcibly "fix" history can be counterproductive and dangerous.

Eternus is one infinite though, and she was a special case because she was willing to meet with Nozdormu and Chromie. She herself said its going to take time to make others feel the way she does, and some (like Morchie) will probably never convert. In that time frame, all it takes is one infinite to make moves to screw with the timeline and negatively impact us. Heck, one of the bronze dragons could also do it if they feel that the ends justify the means. Kairoz being a prime example.

[Makabreska]

Eternus is one infinite though, and she was a special case because she was willing to meet with Nozdormu and Chromie. She herself said its going to take time to make others feel the way she does, and some (like Morchie) will probably never convert. In that time frame, all it takes is one infinite to make moves to screw with the timeline and negatively impact us. Heck, one of the bronze dragons could also do it if they feel that the ends justify the means. Kairoz being a prime example.

And all it takes is one not convinced Sundered Flame/Dark Iron to do something bad and jeopardize entire alliance. Of course there will be some Infinites who wont join forces, just like we had rebel Dark Irons (who tried to resurrect Rag) and Sundered Flames. But these alliances still stand. Blizz would not implement Eternus character with her quest lines and call Murozond threat to be over for any foreseeable future, if they didn't want to set up the unification. It is really in our face.

[DiscipleofCazicThule]

This hat thing seems like a huge nothing burger. It'll rile up the people on Twitter too much and those that use "Woke" unironically for a couple days then fade away. It's really not that serious y'all. I doubt RSG has much pull at Blizzard anymore anyway.