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

[AOL Instant Messenger]

If we're talking about races now, I'm on team Naga. They'd likely be suitable for the next expansion and people have wanted them for some time. The only real impediment to them becoming a race after the Mechagnomes and Dracthyr is working with mounts, and I honestly don't think that's going to be an issue because they could just ride sidesaddle. There's pretty much nothing that would realistically impede them at this point and they'd absolutely be suitable to a number of potential expansion themes. While I'm not certain at all that we'll get them, I am confident they're very much within the realm of possibility.

[Jastall]

I have to disagree. BFA, while easily worse for the setting, was also massively more entertaining to discuss. Every patch spawned new and more powerful memes as the plot grew more and more retarded on its trainwreck course to its conclusion. SL on the other hand, while also great to take the piss out of, was slow and laborious and inevitable. The True Potential of Humans, Morally Gray Sylvanas, Baine's achey tauren heart, Sadfang and Memeboi's story and so on are eternal. SL only has the Bald Man retcons and cosmic gobbleygook which the writers were too afraid to push to its actually interesting conclusion, but not half-assed enough to not piss everyone off.

SL was bad from start to finish in a predictable, even standard way, with all its worst elements frontloaded and obvious. BFA on the other hand grew exponentially worse and therefore more entertaining with each patch.

DF is mostly just there.

To be quite honest while I of course didn't predict every curveball in the expansion's trainwreck of a story, I did foresee most of the main plot points the moment Sylvanas burned the tree; evil Warchief plot redux, Saurfang is the new Vol'jin but dies, Jaina learns the virtues of peace and cooperation, NEs get laughed at as usual, sad Horde gets no punishment because playable faction, Azshara as patch content and N'zoth as the final boss. The segway into Shadowlands felt out of nowhere to me but hey, I got most of the beats right. It's why I gave up on trying to take the "faction war" expansion seriously before it began. It was always going to be a farce the moment they turned Sylvanas eeeeeevil.

By contrast I was a lot more wrong about Dragonflight, as I was sure the Incarnates were filler for the filler god and Murozond would be the final boss. I'm actually happy to be wrong this time around, they're likely the best new main villains we've had in a while, which is hardly a high bar to clear but still. All the other good ones like Azshara and Denathrius were dispatched fairly quickly after becoming relevant.

[Sondrelk]

Hey guys, do y'all think the HD additions are for a world revamp? Or do y'all think they're things for the backside of Azeroth?

Well given quite a lot of them only really make sense in established settlements it would be weird to find them on the backside of Azeroth. Why would there be a full contingent of Human houses for instance. Or why would there be Silver moon lampposts?

[Cheezits]

Alliance- Jinyu (hinted at in 10.0 files, "Jin'yu 2.0 Player Tester)

Alliance- Krokuul Broken (implied at end of Man'ari Questline)

Horde- Ogres (possibly hinted by Moonkin Rework)

Horde- ???????

What if it's Sethrak? Horde tied, and it could match with Jinyu who likely would be a one-body race. I feel like they would finally reveal Female Ogres here and Female Krokuul are probably a simple model.

Ultimate fanservice race deployment for the 20 Year Anniversary. Two one-body races to save on costs and also they make sense (no snaketits or fishtits)

[Sondrelk]

Alliance- Jinyu (hinted at in 10.0 files, "Jin'yu 2.0 Player Tester)

Alliance- Krokuul Broken (implied at end of Man'ari Questline)

Horde- Ogres (possibly hinted by Moonkin Rework)

Horde- ???????

What if it's Sethrak? Horde tied, and it could match with Jinyu who likely would be a one-body race. I feel like they would finally reveal Female Ogres here and Female Krokuul are probably a simple model.

Ultimate fanservice race deployment for the 20 Year Anniversary.

Sethrak is probably difficult to justify. They are only in one zone in BfA, and didn't even have much relevance there. Though most importantly they have a very weird body shape to make work with gear.

The more likely Horde race is either Mok'nathal given Rexxar has a fully fleshed out model based on the Kul Tiran rig. Or they could get Mogu, given they are similarly based on an already playable rig with the Draenei.

[Cheezits]

Sethrak is probably difficult to justify. They are only in one zone in BfA, and didn't even have much relevance there. Though most importantly they have a very weird body shape to make work with gear.

The more likely Horde race is either Mok'nathal given Rexxar has a fully fleshed out model based on the Kul Tiran rig. Or they could get Mogu, given they are similarly based on an already playable rig with the Draenei.

I think Mogu are unlikely unless they change their rig. Jinyu are already cutting it as they used to be Night Elf rig, but unless they change their animations entirely that would be 3 races reusing Alliance racial rigs. People would only give Broken a pass because they are scrunkly Eredar in canon.

Sethrak are incredibly popular for a Horde race pick, moreso than Moks I would argue. I think the 4th pick for Horde is a weird spot as the Horde is mostly complete feeling without any major "gaps" besides Ogres or huge surprises like Gnolls, Quillboar, or the fabled Horde Human (never happening imo, and no I am not counting Forsaken)

Also I don't think any of the 4 are going to double up on theming. So no two Ogre races, Pandaria races, etc.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Alliance- Jinyu (hinted at in 10.0 files, "Jin'yu 2.0 Player Tester)

I was unaware of this new addition. That's definitely a bit of a smoking gun. Is there anything it could be for other than a playable race?

- - - Updated - - -

The more likely Horde race is either Mok'nathal given Rexxar has a fully fleshed out model based on the Kul Tiran rig.

If we're also getting ogres, Mok'nathal would be a bit redundant, no?

[Hitei]

Sethrak is probably difficult to justify. They are only in one zone in BfA, and didn't even have much relevance there. Though most importantly they have a very weird body shape to make work with gear.

The more likely Horde race is either Mok'nathal given Rexxar has a fully fleshed out model based on the Kul Tiran rig. Or they could get Mogu, given they are similarly based on an already playable rig with the Draenei.

Sethrak work fine with gear. They just have long necks and small heads.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

I think if they would add ogres then the other race would be vrykuls - 2 giant races.

[Cheezits]

I was unaware of this new addition. That's definitely a bit of a smoking gun. Is there anything it could be for other than a playable race?
[

I really doubt it could be anything else. It was in 10.0 and snuck by Wowhead, unless they were asked not to cover it.

Though the "Jin'yu" name is odd unless there's a lore reason, or they are being goofy and just changing their name from Jinyu to Jin'yu.

- - - Updated - - -

Sethrak work fine with gear. They just have long necks and small heads.

I think if they are in they will just have headgear hidden. Same with Jinyu.

[Raetary]

I think if they are in they will just have headgear hidden. Same with Jinyu.

Why would Jinyu have their helmets hidden?

The fin on their heads would just be hidden and covered when enabling a helmet, just like with hair on every other race.

[Samin]

In the case of a world revamp, what should the expansion content be? I mean where do we level to 80 and what will be the driving story in those zones?

Altough a full world revamp really seems like a lot of work for...what? In the age of Chromie time the entirety of the old world or even just one entire continent seems overkill. On the other hand, I'm not sure how I feel about just having a handful of "expansion relevant" zones updated while the rest stays in Cata-time - but that seems like the most realistic option for a post-cata old world update.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

I really doubt it could be anything else. It was in 10.0 and snuck by Wowhead, unless they were asked not to cover it.

Though the "Jin'yu" name is odd unless there's a lore reason, or they are being goofy and just changing their name from Jinyu to Jin'yu.

Nobody really cares about consistency with internal files like this, so there are often little differences or peculiarities with names in internal files (e.g. Warcraft III's Sylvanas model was called Sylvanus, though I suppose that might've just been a holdover from a beta name).

[Hitei]

Well given quite a lot of them only really make sense in established settlements it would be weird to find them on the backside of Azeroth. Why would there be a full contingent of Human houses for instance. Or why would there be Silver moon lampposts?

Same reason there's Horde fortresses in Northrend and Gilnean lampposts in val'sharah.

It's not like people can't go somewhere and build stuff in their established style. The original Jade Forest intro for MoP had the Alliance mid-construction on regular human buildings. A bunch of the new assets have a more temporary/slapdash look to them, roped-together instead of more permanently constructed, like they're new. And given DF's timeskip precedent, it'd be easy for us to show up on the backside a couple years after the Alliance and horde have started frontiering on a new continent.

[Revamp Man]

That's Calia's daughter. No contest.

In the pamphlets they say they have her son so it's a false heir

Taelia is her daughter

[Sondrelk]

In the case of a world revamp, what should the expansion content be? I mean where do we level to 80 and what will be the driving story in those zones?

Altough a full world revamp really seems like a lot of work for...what? In the age of Chromie time the entirety of the old world or even just one entire continent seems overkill. On the other hand, I'm not sure how I feel about just having a handful of "expansion relevant" zones updated while the rest stays in Cata-time - but that seems like the most realistic option for a post-cata old world update.

Well the way I would see it go is that all zones are updated, but not all of them are relevant to max level. Some zones like Elwynn and Dun Murogh might be low level zones. Beyond that I imagine not every zone will have a full set of quests like now, but rather that some zones bleed into each other and effectively share a campaign.
Large areas will probably only be relevant at max level or for specific activities as well.

Then once you are at max level each zone will probably have world quests, but likely not that many. Maybe even just one or two per zone so players are not overwhelmed by choice.

[Raetary]

Taelia is her daughter

After SL that only makes sense if both Calia and Bolvar got hit with a some form of selective amnesia to not remember each other.

[Sondrelk]

In the pamphlets they say they have her son so it's a false heir

Taelia is her daughter

Yeah, I would still be shocked if this doesn't end up being true.
Sure there are inconsistencies in how Calia and Bolvar act, but nothing that cannot be handwaved away with "didn't know what to say", or "it wasn't the right time to tell you".
It just makes til much sense to have Talia be the heir to Lordaeron, and therefore a fitting match for Anduin to marry given they are a similar age and easy to make work romantically.

[Hitei]

I really doubt it could be anything else. It was in 10.0 and snuck by Wowhead, unless they were asked not to cover it.

Though the "Jin'yu" name is odd unless there's a lore reason, or they are being goofy and just changing their name from Jinyu to Jin'yu.

- - - Updated - - -



I think if they are in they will just have headgear hidden. Same with Jinyu.

What I meant was that there's not any reason to hide gear. They are similar to the Worgen in construction, just with a big tail (doesn't matter for armor) and a long neck (shouldn't interfere with anything but some helms that have to be adjusted much like they do on Tauren).

[Sondrelk]

After SL that only makes sense if both Calia and Bolvar got hit with a some form of selective amnesia to not remember each other.

Or they just don't acknowledge how it doesn't make sense in that one specific instance, and instead focuses on how it makes sense everywhere else.

As I have said before, it wouldn't be the first time Blizzard has had characters act weirdly in regards to who they should want to talk to at what time.