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

[Sondrelk]

Hey, that didn't stop them from making that heritage questline and going through the whole heritage armor variant and tattoo downgrade debacle!

In all seriousness, the Velen questline has had me thinking about how uneven the overall writing of Dragonflight has been. Not that it's a brand new feeling, but it feels very pronounced this time around. I'll get into it later.

There are presumably several writing teams working simultaneously on different stuff. And my guess is that hte less important a plot is the easier it is for the writers to really flex their writing muscles on it. Whereas a big overarching plotline has too many considerations to really feel natural.

[Shadowferal]

There are presumably several writing teams working simultaneously on different stuff. And my guess is that hte less important a plot is the easier it is for the writers to really flex their writing muscles on it. Whereas a big overarching plotline has too many considerations to really feel natural.

Lol...writers...you're kidding?
They've given up on anything remotely resembling quality. Why would they start now?

[Nymrohd]

I'd love a spellblade support spec for mage
Melee spec
Enchant your weapons and debuff enemies
Things like mass barrier
Mass double hero
Time magic debuff to store and double damage

The gish (fighter/mage) is a classic and extremely popular fantasy archetype that has remained unfullfilled in WoW. Mechanically multiple specs absolutely cover it (Enhancement, Frost DK are the most obvious) but thematically it is so different that it just doesn't work. That said, they have not used that archetype for WoW NPCs at a major scale; sure there are spellblades but they are not faction leaders etc. So similar to bard, it is common in fantasy but not that common in WoW.

[Sondrelk]

Lol...writers...you're kidding?

Do you just assume quest text is magicked out of the ether?

[Shadowferal]

The gish (fighter/mage) is a classic and extremely popular fantasy archetype that has remained unfullfilled in WoW. Mechanically multiple specs absolutely cover it (Enhancement, Frost DK are the most obvious) but thematically it is so different that it just doesn't work.

I'd add "paladin" to that as well.

I've toyed with the "spellblade" myself. But it's still a wip

- - - Updated - - -

Do you just assume quest text is magicked out of the ether?

No.
Much of it is formatted to me. Easy enough for anyone with an ability to construct a sentence. After doing enough of that, it's just a matter of typing....which is just...work. No heart, where a real writer lives for the narrative.

[Villager720]

I could see that being a big selling point in 11.0, similar to how the Talent and Profession revamps were big selling points in Dragonflight.
Maybe just a few changes like different coloured effects for priests, or different tooltips for Tauren paladins, etc.

If we’re revamping Azeroth, really leaning into all the distinct lore elements for class/race combos would feel really good.

[Woggmer]

And how would elements be shown differently from how they are a major factor in this expansion? Is the world revamp specifically for Deepholm and Vashj'ir?

It's more like the elemental parts are part the background rather than the focus. The prediction was on the idea that 10.0 and 11.0 would be more of a two-parter expansion set that is similar to Cata. The first half being focused on dragons with 10.0 while 11.0 focused on the elemental side.

We haven't dealt a major blow to the primalists as they are still around, most of 10.1's focus was on the Sundered Flame, 10.1.5 was on the Infinite Dragonflight as they try to bring in Murozond, and 10.2 we'll be dealing with Fyrakk and the Druids of the Flame.

If we don't deal with Iridikron or the Primalists directly in 10.3, then 11.0 will be more focused on the elemental aspect.
If we do deal with them in 10.3, then 11.0 will probably be elemental focused.

(And even then, Cata's revamp wasn't entirely focused on just Elemental Unrest or Deathwing's destruction, it also focused on these wild growths and jungles springing up in desolate locations like the Southern Barrens, Desolace, that one forest area in the Blasted Lands, and even showing the restoration of the West Plaguelands. So we could see something similar with 11.0 where Fyrakk's interference with the Dream is causing it to bleed into the real world.)

[FenixAU]

Now it's officially hype season.

Not until someone mentions Vol-de-Tort.

And with that done.. let the hype season truly begin.

[Cheezits]

Blizzard's refusal to delve into Primalist lore, get the Earthen Ring involved in DF (to any major extent) and now have an ELEMENTAL LORD fight us without any backstory why definitely points to that story being continued and not wrapped up.

Also withholding Magatha and Thrall seems intentional.

[Marlamin]

Not until someone mentions Vol-de-Tort.

And with that done.. let the hype season truly begin.

Oh, now you've really done it.

[Cheezits]

Hey, that didn't stop them from making that heritage questline and going through the whole heritage armor variant and tattoo downgrade debacle!

In all seriousness, the Velen questline has had me thinking about how uneven the overall writing of Dragonflight has been. Not that it's a brand new feeling, but it feels very pronounced this time around. I'll get into it later.

The tattoo downgrade is the only one that I don't understand, I really don't get why they can't just have both options.

The heritage not being what people wanted and the armor tint aren't on Blizzard, save for their hyper focus on keeping secrets and "hype culture" instead of communicating. The blue tint is likely tied to a revamp or new Nelf city and instead of just saying "yeah you'll get that" they had to be bullied into it.

Even then... they NEVER officially communicated anything about the blue tint until it was used accidentally (?) on the blizzard page.

[Dracullus]

I looked at that wow team tweet. A lot of Kalimdor references, just saying.

Do you just assume quest text is magicked out of the ether?

Just ignore it, dude is typical wannabe writer xD.

[Xilurm]

It's gonna be quite annoying if they make the blue tint available to everyone for no damn reason.

[Holdodlig]

I looked at that wow team tweet. A lot of Kalimdor references, just saying.



Just ignore it, dude is typical wannabe writer xD.

Wouldn't be surprising if they revamped 1 continent at a time. if they increases the size of it.

[Cheezits]

It's gonna be quite annoying if they make the blue tint available to everyone for no damn reason.

Why would they? Heritage is coded to certain player models.

It's probably a reward for Nelves saving Amir'drassil and getting Elune's blessing, considering it's spammed all over the Dream zone's NPCs.

[Nymrohd]

I'd add "paladin" to that as well.

The paladin, templar, holy warrior, knight, crusader is an entirely different archetype of a heavily armored warrior using holy magic. It is separate to the light or medium armor gish that blends swordplay with mostly elemental evocation as ranged and aoe options or as ways to imbue their weapons. There are many other related archetypes as well.

[Sondrelk]

Wouldn't be surprising if they revamped 1 continent at a time. if they increases the size of it.

I don't see why they need to increase the size of the continents though. If the issue is individual zones feeling too small then just remove the mountain boundaries between zones where it makes sense.

[Well Done Steak]

The Thanos in me wants everything balanced as all things should be. So we need a clothie, mail, and plate class to have 4 for each type across the board.

I think bard for cloth, mech pilot (tinker) for mail, and battle-mage for plate would just about cover it and cover the most popular missing archetypes for wow.

I say mech pilot because I believe in order for engineering to coexist with a tinker-esq class it needs to focus on piloting a mech.

Enh and fdk don't really cover the battle mage archetype since they don't manipulate arcane magic, arcane is what puts the mage in battle mage, teleporting across the battle field, conjuring floating magic weapons, buffing themselves and allies, etc.

I see 4 specs for it already, two handed fire spec, duel wield frost /fire spec, frost tanking spec, and an arcane 1 hander / off hand weapon melee support spec.

[Murlocos]

There are presumably several writing teams working simultaneously on different stuff. And my guess is that hte less important a plot is the easier it is for the writers to really flex their writing muscles on it. Whereas a big overarching plotline has too many considerations to really feel natural.

Yeah, that about sums it up. Writing quality has never been even across the game, but it feels particularly pronounced this time around. In lieu of something generic like "love and care", stuff like the orc heritage questline, blue dragonflight quests, and even the Velen questline feel like they were handled by designers that are really into what they're writing, and that enthusiasm doesn't go unnoticed. It's a passion for the world and setting that's in need of it right now.

That gets contrasted with the night elf heritage questline, which felt like an obligation compared to the passion project that was the orc heritage. Or take the race/class combos; someone went out of their way to write the Lok'osh lore for orc priests after negative feedback to the original characters. That felt right at home with orc culture and integrated seamlessly, it was great stuff. Then you contrast that with the Tyr's Guard storyline in 10.1.7, which has some distractingly wooden writing and comes off like an uninspired homogenization so all races can be paladins with as little effort as possible. It feels like that orc priest feedback was listened to, but not learned from.

The main story is its own can of worms, but I wish that there was a more even standard of quality to all this. It can be frustrating to see something get nailed, to think "Blizzard understands, they get it!" only to realize that was one quest designer doing it and that level of quality may not be followed up by who comes next. The player doesn't see any of that, they just see the writing ping pong between "thoughtful and well-integrated into the Warcraft setting" and "low effort approach that just wants to check the boxes it was given" with no rhyme or reason. Never knowing what to expect is frustrating.

[Alanar]

The explicit tease of the Broken make me think that a Character Creation Screen rehaul is due. Because three Draenei options on the screen is to look crazy (and I think they are too different to be barber shop).

Also, really hoping for new HD backgrounds for characters.

I have proposed the idea of clans/tribe in the character creation screen so many times its not even funny.

The whole character screen we got in sl was utter shit, it removed more then it should. You barely get any info there if you roll a new one.

With all new options coming in, it would be way cooler they would get a place where you are able to select that option, where else then the character select screen.