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

[Sondrelk]

C'thun being revived by the Azerite shower he got, and he decides that the sword is the best stronghold for his body this time, so he starts burrowing inside it instead of the planet, with his big eye being where the big "energy ball" was before. Basically, the sword itself becomes a monument to him, where he watches over his new city/empire.

Imagine all of Silithus and Ahn'qiraj being reworked into one large, spiraling temple city, with the sword at its center and C'thun living in it, watching over it all. Now that would make an OG feel like a big deal again, just by a visual point of view, and actually give a feel of "constantly being watched" while playing there - because you actually are being watched.
Would be a pretty sick endgame zone imho in the spirit of Suramar: you fight yourself through the outer reaches of the city while leveling, and then the inner core+sword are a raid.



Granted, it would be veeeeeery similar to Sauron in the LotR movies lawl, but...basically everything Blizzard does is ripped from somewhere, so might as well go all out with it.

Man that would be cool. And reminds me of an idea I had for a desert zone way back.

[Magistrate]

C'thun being revived by the Azerite shower he got, and he decides that the sword is the best stronghold for his body this time, so he starts burrowing inside it instead of the planet, with his big eye being where the big "energy ball" was before. Basically, the sword itself becomes a monument to him, where he watches over his new city/empire.

Imagine all of Silithus and Ahn'qiraj being reworked into one large, spiraling temple city, with the sword at its center and C'thun living in it, watching over it all. Now that would make an OG feel like a big deal again, just by a visual point of view, and actually give a feel of "constantly being watched" while playing there - because you actually are being watched.
Would be a pretty sick endgame zone imho in the spirit of Suramar: you fight yourself through the outer reaches of the city while leveling, and then the inner core+sword are a raid.

Granted, it would be veeeeeery similar to Sauron in the LotR movies lawl, but...basically everything Blizzard does is ripped from somewhere, so might as well go all out with it.

Ok this is the first time I've ever seen someone mention this and this honestly sounds awesome. Props.

[Murlocos]

That sounds even worse than the first option given that an expansion set in an entirely unrelated realm wholly disconnected from Azeroth and preexisting lore comes with the caveat that it can't irrevocably destroy the setting like a terribly-handled expansion on Azeroth can. See: Shadowlands and BfA, where the consequences of the latter effectively left an entire faction thematically-crippled for the foreseeable future.

That's why I've been saying for a while now that while SL is funnier to poke apart and laugh at all the strained attempts to connect it to the rest of the mythos, everything with the Jailer and THE SIGILS and FRACTALS and so on, BfA was enormously destructive to the actual setting itself. They just gave up!

C'thun being revived by the Azerite shower he got, and he decides that the sword is the best stronghold for his body this time, so he starts burrowing inside it instead of the planet, with his big eye being where the big "energy ball" was before. Basically, the sword itself becomes a monument to him, where he watches over his new city/empire.

This is awesome.

[Super Dickmann]

Definitely fun to imagine how that would come about. Using precedent from Exploring Kalimdor, I figure it'll be the goblins' fault: "long-nosed greedy race uses multiculturalism to distort a faction" sounds like something that wouldn't usually fly, but doesn't seem too outlandish after someone seriously thought to publish the well-poisoning thing.

My original concept for Mists 3.0 was Gallywix being a thinly veiled caricature of the once and future US president and turning Ironforge into a parking lot. Sadly, his eviction made it impossible. Maybe Bob can poach Ironforge instead as part of a dwarf-elf feud.

Also @Houle 's idea for the sword is top notch.

[Cheezits]

Forgot to mention, but it's very funny how the Forsaken Lordaeron quest takes place right after Shadowlands, but the Forsaken Heritage quest takes place two seconds after that quest... despite it being FIVE YEARS LATER.

The timeskip clearly isn't relevant to DF, so why did Danuser even bother to implement it? Wouldn't it make more sense for Amirdrassil to bloom and Iridikron to come back five years later, AFTER DF??

[Sondrelk]

That's why I've been saying for a while now that while SL is funnier to poke apart and laugh at all the strained attempts to connect it to the rest of the mythos, everything with the Jailer and THE SIGILS and FRACTALS and so on, BfA was enormously destructive to the actual setting itself. They just gave up!

Habe to disagree. SL was just boring to me. BfA was equal parts baffling and infuriating.
Why does the Alliance just not immediately siege Orgrimmar with their superior navy? Why is the Horde not immediately disintegrating? Is Thalyssra actually alright with the genocide of the Nelves because Tyrande was slightly more sceptical?

[Super Dickmann]

Forgot to mention, but it's very funny how the Forsaken Lordaeron quest takes place right after Shadowlands, but the Forsaken Heritage quest takes place two seconds after that quest... despite it being FIVE YEARS LATER.

The timeskip clearly isn't relevant to DF, so why did Danuser even bother to implement it? Wouldn't it make more sense for Amirdrassil to bloom and Iridikron to come back five years later, AFTER DF??

The Forsaken heritage quest can take place at any point after the Council pops up. By dint of how it's the most basic possible Forsaken template questline it's functionally timeless at least until Blizzard breaks the glass and the council are physically liquidated to make way for Sylvanas or Calia purifies the three legacy Forsaken characters.

[Sondrelk]

Forgot to mention, but it's very funny how the Forsaken Lordaeron quest takes place right after Shadowlands, but the Forsaken Heritage quest takes place two seconds after that quest... despite it being FIVE YEARS LATER.

The timeskip clearly isn't relevant to DF, so why did Danuser even bother to implement it? Wouldn't it make more sense for Amirdrassil to bloom and Iridikron to come back five years later, AFTER DF??

It would. But like so much, having a time skip is a nice bit of promotional excitement. Players have expectations, and that sells.

Being generous I guess they wanted to set up the time skip right away so that they didn't haveto consider it later.

[Cheezits]

The Forsaken heritage quest can take place at any point after the Council pops up. By dint of how it's the most basic possible Forsaken template questline it's functionally timeless at least until Blizzard breaks the glass and the council are physically liquidated to make way for Sylvanas or Calia purifies the three legacy Forsaken characters.

I think it will be dated by the Scarlets because there's some secret foreshadowing of a female commander that one of the new names escapes to. So there's something else going on there and we will probably kill the remainders either in quests or new continents.

Some of these heritage quests arent going to mesh well with a revamp, to the point that I think they may make the quests optional and do them more like the AR heritage.

[Murlocos]

Habe to disagree. SL was just boring to me. BfA was equal parts baffling and infuriating.
Why does the Alliance just not immediately siege Orgrimmar with their superior navy? Why is the Horde not immediately disintegrating? Is Thalyssra actually alright with the genocide of the Nelves because Tyrande was slightly more sceptical?

I think the comedy of SL is amplified for me because BfA is ultimately just a setup for it. It's like a reverse WoD-Legion: the expansion that takes place on Azeroth and really advances the plot and state of the world ends up being sacrificed to segue into an expansion on another world/realm/whatever where not much of note really happens in the actual plot.

[Zers Editor]

I think it will be dated by the Scarlets because there's some secret foreshadowing of a female commander that one of the new names escapes to.

That's Calia's daughter. No contest.

[Woggmer]

Would be nice to see Ahn'qiraj being given a makeover. At least partially because I am curious whether they will make it a Titan facility, or an Old God one. The ziggurats and what not seem to be a feature of both Titan Uldum, and Ny'alotha.

I would say a Titan facility, C'thun is just gone and I don't think Blizz may try to bring him back. It could result in the idea of... "what happens when they unleash Order on an Old God creation?"

[Cheezits]

That's Calia's daughter. No contest.

That was my takeaway too.

[Sondrelk]

I think the comedy of SL is amplified for me because BfA is ultimately just a setup for it. It's like a reverse WoD-Legion: the expansion that takes place on Azeroth and really advances the plot and state of the world ends up being sacrificed to segue into an expansion on another world/realm/whatever where not much of note really happens in the actual plot.

I can definitely agree that SL is made funnier and worse by considering it patch 8.4 of BfA. Just the final bit of horrible to cap off BfA and it's cavalcade of awful.

[Nymrohd]

What I'd do with K'aresh is focus on what the Ethereals are known for. Trade.

I'd have K'aresh itself be one zone. Akin to Argus it would be plates of land floating in space since the planet was destroyed after all. The playable zone would be a very large city with Ecodomes in the skybox. You'll be able to fly but get out of the Ecodome and you die super fast. The "Capital" for the expansion would just be a safe space somewhere central in the city with all the services concentrated, maybe with double or triple inns and banks. Then the rest of the expansion zones would be on other planets where the ethereals have trading outposts and we travel there through ethereal portals. So the ethereals and their themes would be all over the expac. As for a reason, could be so many things we want that cannot be found on Azeroth. Maybe we need to find out what happens once the soul wakes up and how to survive that. Maybe some villain actually manages to shut us out of their plan and we need to find the right magic to bypass it. Maybe Azshara takes the World Soul somehow and we are chasing after her across the cosmos.
As for zone cohesion Blizzard clearly doesn't care that much. We had Cata and yet we still got Shadowlands. The Dream has a complete chokepoint of an entrance with a portal that is not even close to Valdrakken (at least Zaralek could be accessed super fast from Valdrakken)

[Super Dickmann]

I think the comedy of SL is amplified for me because BfA is ultimately just a setup for it. It's like a reverse WoD-Legion: the expansion that takes place on Azeroth and really advances the plot and state of the world ends up being sacrificed to segue into an expansion on another world/realm/whatever where not much of note really happens in the actual plot.

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.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

I have to disagree. BFA, while easily worse for the setting, was also massively more entertaining to discuss. Every patch spawned new and more interesting memes. SL on the other hand, while also great to take the piss out of, was slow, 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.

That's about right, I think. I'd frame it as that Battle for Azeroth had the benefit of being far more extravagant in how awful it was, while Shadowlands was just a plain slog. It's the difference between, say, The Room and Sia's Music in terms of awfulness. While the former is worse on most levels, it can be enjoyed without leaving a bad taste in your mouth, while the latter is just unpleasant to watch altogether. Plus, the tribalistic nature of BfA's execution meant there was more room for investment: there's a reason for you to care about what happens there, and a connection that allows the entertainment to reach its fullest form, while Shadowlands was completely disconnected from anything anybody had any reason to pay attention to.

[Raetary]

That's Calia's daughter. No contest.

If that's the case, i wonder what happened to boy that they pretended was Calias child then.

Why push a lie when you have the actual heir already in your leadership?

[Murlocos]

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.

That's fair, I won't contest that. Sondrelk described my mentality where it's hard for me to split both of them apart given how limply BfA ends and tells you to go buy SL to see what happens next. It's all the post-Metzen, post-Neilson, post-Kosak stuff.

If DF does end up going with a non-conclusion where most of its story beats just sort of end with no fanfare or last second weak subversions, I think we just have to accept this is how Danuser the master does things.

[Sondrelk]

That's about right, I think. I'd frame it as that Battle for Azeroth had the benefit of being far more extravagant in how awful it was, while Shadowlands was just a plain slog. It's the difference between, say, The Room and Sia's Music in terms of awfulness. While the former is worse on most levels, it can be enjoyed without leaving a bad taste in your mouth, while the latter is just unpleasant to watch altogether. Plus, the tribalistic nature of BfA's execution meant there was more room for investment: there's a reason for you to care about what happens there, and a connection that allows the entertainment to reach its fullest form, while Shadowlands was completely disconnected from anything anybody had any reason to pay attention to.

I would argue that what made BfA truly awful was how far it fell.
That expansion had everything going for it. One of the most effective openings. A strong visual theme with the ships. Interesting areas that players were excited for with Kul Tiras and Zandalar.
SL meanwhile was never that interesting to start with. Sure you had the actual shadowlands which were mildly interesting to start with, but the Jailer wasn't an interesting villain. And Sylvanas was already so schizophrenic in writing coming from BfA that the best the writers could have done is not show her at all, and just let her die with some dignity remaining.