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

[milkmustache]

The updated Icebreaker just works too good. God its gonna hurt when there is no revamp

[Nymrohd]

If you want to be a pedant, you can make the case that Mists was also a three-tier expansion, but Mists had two and a half intro raids, and both ToT and SoO were more extensive than the DF raids.

Cata was also three tiers. The thing is even WoD will have more raid encounters than DF if Amirdrassil is the last raid.
And honestly, I think both Vault and Aberrus were mediocre. Hoping Amirdrassil is good. Imo every single expansion had at least one raid that was better than the ones we got in DF

[Super Dickmann]

Cata was also three tiers. The thing is even WoD will have more raid encounters than DF if Amirdrassil is the last raid.

In DF's defense, even if the worst comes to pass, Cata's raids were also (Besides parts of Firelands) pretty shit, whereas DF's are mostly just okay.

[Sondrelk]

Needs a triumphant roar. Because not even expansion boundaries is enough to quell the sounds coming from atop the seat of the aspects.

[Luck4]

For future reference, this is the OG image to use from 2015 (with over 35k troll views) https://imgur.com/XCHUYUi

I'll remember that.

10 pages in 16 hours?

In another 3 weeks, you'll see 20 new pages every 12 hours.

[Murlocos]

Patch cadence being a positive for Dragonflight goes out the window if we're dealing with another 10-12 month drought. I think Fated is going to be less appealing this time around; the M+ changes are now part of the regular season, and it doesn't have the fresh cross-faction buzz. If they genuinely view it as a .3 replacement, then I'd assume they're very disconnected from the playerbase in a lot of other ways as well.

A world revamp is not guaranteed success by any means, but it reflects a desire for something fresh. The last decade of the game has been haunted by the shadow of WoD's failure and the subsequent chasing after Legion's success. Cadence is going to end up being a secondary concern to whether the current team can design something truly new and compelling, or if we're riding Legion's template to the grave because they failed with BfA and SL.

[Raetary]

Needs a triumphant roar. Because not even expansion boundaries is enough to quell the sounds coming from atop the seat of the aspects.

[Nightshade711]

For future reference, this is the OG image to use from 2015 (with over 35k troll views) https://imgur.com/XCHUYUi

Back when fake leaks actually had a modicum of effort put into them.
Now it’s just all AI generated/ChatGPT slop.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

I'm fairly confident Blizzard haven't suffered a concussion and aren't retarded enough to risk the press of indefinite three raid expansions. It'd be like making the playable race of their post-Shadowlands expansion stick-thin scaley bait with no prior hype or lore.

Oh shit.

With there being a number of factors that make it seem increasingly likely, I honestly have to wonder why they're doing it. The notion that Dragonflight is a purely transitory expansion makes some sense, especially if we're getting a character like Fyrakk as the final boss, and it's really the only reason I could realistically imagine for why a relatively well-received expansion would get a treatment previously exclusively given to expansions that were pretty highly panned and hemorrhaged subscribers.

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Back when fake leaks actually had a modicum of effort put into them.
Now it’s just all AI generated/ChatGPT slop.

I'm hoping we get more high-quality fakes as time goes on. I'm banking on someone like Theramore giving us something good.

[micwini]

Patch cadence being a positive for Dragonflight goes out the window if we're dealing with another 10-12 month drought. I think Fated is going to be less appealing this time around; the M+ changes are now part of the regular season, and it doesn't have the fresh cross-faction buzz. If they genuinely view it as a .3 replacement, then I'd assume they're very disconnected from the playerbase in a lot of other ways as well.

A world revamp is not guaranteed success by any means, but it reflects a desire for something fresh. The last decade of the game has been haunted by the shadow of WoD's failure and the subsequent chasing after Legion's success. Cadence is going to end up being a secondary concern to whether the current team can design something truly new and compelling, or if we're riding Legion's template to the grave because they failed with BfA and SL.

I don't see BFA as a failure. I see BFA as Legion but without the extra dev time from a half assed expansion. BFA was only really bad at the start, but became solid from 8.2 onwards.

[Luck4]

Cata was also three tiers. The thing is even WoD will have more raid encounters than DF if Amirdrassil is the last raid.

The problem is: the current raid design sucks, and participation is very low compared to M+ dungeons, that's why they're focusing a lot more on World Events and outdoor content.

I don't know if you guys noticed, but we never had this amount of outdoor content that Dragonflight gave us in previous expansions.

Blizzard is focusing on the content that most people do: Solo Content.

Aberrus didn't even have a pre-rendered cinematic at the end.

Hopefully, there will be some changes for raids in 11.0, because raiding nowadays is not as fun as it used to be.

[Izalla]

Again the light bound are both the light forged who show up with Xe’ra after we leave and the Draenei who fled argus and we helped in Wod.

The light forged would know more about how they make war then the standard Draenei who spent most of the time fleeing instead of fighting.

Can I get a source on this? Because I've never noticed anything that confirms there is an alternate Xe'ra or that she went to alternate Draenor. The naaru Yrel follows seems to not actually be named yet (not saying it isn't her, just that I've never seen it confirmed). Yrel doesn't seem to actually have physically joined the Army of the Light, but rather is building up her contribution to it by converting all of Draenor.

[Cheezits]

With there being a number of factors that make it seem increasingly likely, I honestly have to wonder why they're doing it. The notion that Dragonflight is a purely transitory expansion makes some sense, especially if we're getting a character like Fyrakk as the final boss, and it's really the only reason I could realistically imagine for why a relatively well-received expansion would get a treatment previously exclusively given to expansions that were pretty highly panned and hemorrhaged subscribers.

I think it because the reason that the shorter expansions were short each time it was for a different reason.

WOD- Failed development, gave up

SL- Hate towards setting, story, company and systems (and/or was planned to be short)

DF- Test to see if they can change how expansions are delivered and/or planned to be short

WOD wasn't despised before it was cut, it was hated BECAUSE it was cut. Even if you believe SL was cut because it was hated it doesn't explain why DF "gets cut" when its not hated. There's just a different reason each time, and DF being intentionally shorter explains why the content cadence and minor patch sizes are improved.

tl;dr They probably planned on DF being shorter regardless of whether or not it was liked, and it being liked isn't changing that it's just three raids. DF could be the new normal, or explicitly shorter to transition to whatever 11.0 (normal size) is.

[Sondrelk]

I don't see BFA as a failure. I see BFA as Legion but without the extra dev time from a half assed expansion. BFA was only really bad at the start, but became solid from 8.2 onwards.

I wouldn't say BfA lacked dev attention so much as it lacked thought put into the systems.
Maybe the issues would have been smoothed out with another 6 months of effective dev time, maybe not.
One could perhaps argue that BfA tried to recapture the Legion genie by having loads of new toys for the players to find, and that they didn't have enough time for all of these.

The story in BfA I don't think would have been fixed by more time though. A faction war expansion predicated on such a shocking moment would never work. If nothing else solely because you cannot have one faction lose in a realistic way.

[ChronoSul]

The problem is: the current raid design sucks, and participation is very low compared to M+ dungeons, that's why they're focusing a lot more on World Events and outdoor content.

I don't know if you guys noticed, but we never had this amount of outdoor content that Dragonflight gave us in previous expansions.

Blizzard is focusing on the content that most people do: Solo Content.

Aberrus didn't even have a pre-rendered cinematic at the end.

Hopefully, there will be some changes for raids in 11.0, because raiding nowadays is not as fun as it used to be.

Also worth mentioning Raids never really had a huge player base compared to just causal content. Remember that back in Cata they introduced LFR because raids werent popular and we might just be seeing the natural progression of that idea where less raid content but more causal content

[Sondrelk]

I think it because the reason that the shorter expansions were short each time it was for a different reason.

WOD- Failed development, gave up

SL- Hate towards setting, story, company and systems (and/or was planned to be short)

DF- Test to see if they can change how expansions are delivered and/or planned to be short

WOD wasn't despised before it was cut, it was hated BECAUSE it was cut. Even if you believe SL was cut because it was hated it doesn't explain why DF "gets cut" when its not hated. There's just a different reason each time, and DF being intentionally shorter explains why the content cadence and minor patch sizes are improved.

tl;dr They probably planned on DF being shorter regardless of whether or not it was liked, and it being liked isn't changing that it's just three raids. DF could be the new normal, or explicitly shorter to transition to whatever 11.0 (normal size) is.

WoD sure, but SL was cut short due to Covid, and if DF is cut short it will more likely be because they are planning something big for 11.0.

This isn't the first time Blizzard will have cut a raid tier, and I doubt they are dumb enough to gamble on the small amount of goodwill they built up being enough to placate the playerbase if the next expansion isn't looking amazing from the start.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

tl;dr They probably planned on DF being shorter regardless of whether or not it was liked, and it being liked isn't changing that it's just three raids. DF could be the new normal, or explicitly shorter to transition to whatever 11.0 (normal size) is.

The latter seems much more sensible, whereas the former seems a bit like a bit of an iffy decision that could invite a bit of controversy and thus would be a bit of a questionable decision in the wake of Shadowlands and the reputation failure that came from it.

WOD wasn't despised before it was cut, it was hated BECAUSE it was cut. Even if you believe SL was cut because it was hated it doesn't explain why DF "gets cut" when its not hated. There's just a different reason each time, and DF being intentionally shorter explains why the content cadence and minor patch sizes are improved.

I think I did fail to account for the other problem, which is troubled development. We know that was a problem for both WoD and Shadowlands, whereas there aren't as many indications of that being the case for Dragonflight. It may just be less egregious and more well-concealed this time, but if it really has been cut short, it absolutely would have to be because the expansion's always been intended to be a transitory expansion that's shorter than the others. I can see—somewhat—what you mean with the patch cadence and larger volume of content in minor patches, but the former already worked with the three-patch Legion; admittedly, however, one can attribute that to WoD before it being cut short.

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This isn't the first time Blizzard will have cut a raid tier, and I doubt they are dumb enough to gamble on the small amount of goodwill they built up being enough to placate the playerbase if the next expansion isn't looking amazing from the start.

That's my best guess. They'd have to be ridiculously confident in whatever comes next or have made a very terrible mistake to deviate from prior precedent this significantly.

[Worldshaper]

Just a thought, do you guys think the Void Elf / Telogrus Rift music is inspired by the Ethereals and K'aresh?

It sounds mildly sort of... Oriental or Arabic or something. Almost out of Aladdin, but more ominous.

I wonder how they would pull off a K'aresh patch or expansion. They've already brought a planet to Azeroth (Argus), so that's not very original anymore.

Could K'aresh be in another dimension, sort of ... on Azeroth? I wouldn't like it if we just took another spaceship there. It doesn't fit that theme.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Can I get a source on this? Because I've never noticed anything that confirms there is an alternate Xe'ra or that she went to alternate Draenor. The naaru Yrel follows seems to not actually be named yet (not saying it isn't her, just that I've never seen it confirmed).

The main justification is that there's a mention of a Light Mother in Yrel's sermon book, which does seem pretty convincing.

Yrel doesn't seem to actually have physically joined the Army of the Light, but rather is building up her contribution to it by converting all of Draenor.

I think this is plausible. It's worth noting that the sermon doesn't mention anything about the Light Mother being physically-present, just that she's somewhere and sent visions to Yrel. It's possible that she's trying to recruit to bolster the forces of the Army of the Light from the Light or elsewhere.

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Just a thought, do you guys think the Void Elf / Telogrus Rift music is inspired by the Ethereals and K'aresh?

It sounds mildly sort of... Oriental or Arabic or something. Almost out of Aladdin, but more ominous.

That's plausible. The void elves have a pretty significant connection to the ethereals, given that it was an ethereal that effectively led to the creation of the race.

Could K'aresh be in another dimension, sort of ... on Azeroth? I wouldn't like it if we just took another spaceship there. It doesn't fit that theme.

Don't really see something like that happening. Could see it being that K'aresh is reached through a portal, though. Maybe the Sunwell explodes? Alternatively, one way of doing it that's more distinct from the Dark Portal or Felstorm would be to have a massive portal storm of numerous smaller rifts open for a Void invasion.

[Fahrad Wagner]

@Arafal Can we get the tuskarr soup chef too?