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

[Seasz]

Where's all this Undermine talk coming from?

[Luck4]

Where's all this Undermine talk coming from?

Toweliee

Hopefully, it's just a set of zones.

[Cheezits]

Where's all this Undermine talk coming from?

Towellie teasing underground zones today

Don't forget that Crystal/"Magni" Dwarves were teased on here by Scaleface's friend, before we'd ever heard of Khaz Algar

[Swnem]

You misunderstand. It doesn't resemble the Maw, being trapped underground for 2 years for someone that hates being in tight enclosed spaces would feel every bit as torturous as going through the Maw for 2 years was.

That makes no sense. The maw was only closed in theory and we were able to get out since day 1.
The torturous part was the design where you had limited time there at the start.
Sorry, but i cannot agree that we can't have a different setting to pander to a few people that feel irrationally claustrofobic in a game.
Maybe we can't go inside buildings anymore. People might feel claustrophobic. That is ridiculous.
Also,i very much doubt all zones would be underground in such an expansion.

[Cheezits]

He also posted this right before.



https://twitter.com/towelthetank/sta...03278878789953

If not Undermine, maybe a "Delves" feature for WoW? Randomly generated caves?

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Toweliee

Hopefully, it's just a set of zones.

Out of curiosity, how reliable has he actually been in the past? I know he has some insider knowledge, but what is the actual extent of it?

[justwatching]

Out of curiosity, how reliable has he actually been in the past? I know he has some insider knowledge, but what is the actual extent of it?

Not very. All the times I remember "leaks" from him turned out to be either exaggerations or completely manufactured. He doesnt even get dates for Patch announcements etc. right.

Maybe occasionally he hears some stuff idk but most of it seems like educated guesses at best. Also ofc he never hears anything negative and its all just amazing and the greatest game ever etc.

[Hitei]

Out of curiosity, how reliable has he actually been in the past? I know he has some insider knowledge, but what is the actual extent of it?

He's only ever been sometimes reliable about patch/PTR/alpha start dates. He doesn't have a 100% track record on that, and the only other thing he ever does is basically just imply he knows things or has seen things without talking about what the things are. Shit like "there's gonna be a lot of changes" or "I think people will like it".

I genuinely don't know why people treat him as a source for upcoming information. By the time he actually hints at a date (often a couple weeks prior), the entire community has it already dialed in to likely be +-1 week of that date, and because he is high profile and sometimes works with Blizzard, he is even more stringently not allowed to talk about whatever insider knowledge he might sometimes get.

This underground/water thing would be the first time he's ever provided information on the order of spoiling the theme/location of upcoming content.

[Woggmer]

You misunderstand. It doesn't resemble the Maw, being trapped underground for 2 years for someone that hates being in tight enclosed spaces would feel every bit as torturous as going through the Maw for 2 years was.

I think we'll be fine.. if people can handle going inside Mechagon, then they can probably handle something like the Undermine.

[Worldshaper]

He's only ever been sometimes reliable about patch/PTR/alpha start dates. He doesn't have a 100% track record on that, and the only other thing he ever does is basically just imply he knows things or has seen things without talking about what the things are. Shit like "there's gonna be a lot of changes" or "I think people will like it".

I genuinely don't know why people treat him as a source for upcoming information. By the time he actually hints at a date (often a couple weeks prior), the entire community has it already dialed in to likely be +-1 week of that date, and because he is high profile and sometimes works with Blizzard, he is even more stringently not allowed to talk about whatever insider knowledge he might sometimes get.

This underground/water thing would be the first time he's ever provided information on the order of spoiling the theme/location of upcoming content.

Controlled leak? Probably not. But I could see Blizzard wanting to slightly adjust our course in our speculation.

Mike already said no pirates, they put the lil fish mount in the Emerald Dream, and they made a post slightly making fun of our ideas.

Not only that, but you could interpret Ion's interview as preemptive damage control. "We hear you, we know you want a world revamp, and it will come at some point", so people don't freak out at BlizzCon when they see... caves.

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Isn't the 5th Old God in chronicles kinda depicted as a squidface with leaves around it?

What if "her heart is a crater, and we have filled it" means that Old God in particular has sort of embedded itself around Azeroth's world-soul.

Maybe Sargeras killed it when he pierced the world with his sword. And now "a dark heart left broken awaits the taking" means the Harbinger wants to claim its power, or resurrect it.

If that thing is deep underground somewhere on Kalimdor, it could explain why those Earthen got affected by a sort of Primal "Curse of Flesh" at Khaz Algar. It's the Old God of... Life?

Either way, I could definitely see a secret civilisation living down there. Maybe it's even Avaloren. Heretics. Technologically advanced. Heavy weaponry. Kajamite?

[Hitei]

Controlled leak? Probably not. But I could see Blizzard wanting to slightly adjust our course in our speculation.

Mike already said no pirates, they put the lil fish mount in the Emerald Dream, and they made a post slightly making fun of our ideas.

Not only that, but you could interpret Ion's interview as preemptive damage control. "We hear you, we know you want a world revamp, and it will come at some point", so people don't freak out at BlizzCon when they see... caves.

People have been sure a revamp was going to happen for like four expansions now. I don't see why they'd bother going out of their way to damage control this particular instance.

[justwatching]

Controlled leak? Probably not. But I could see Blizzard wanting to slightly adjust our course in our speculation.

Mike already said no pirates, they put the lil fish mount in the Emerald Dream, and they made a post slightly making fun of our ideas.

Not only that, but you could interpret Ion's interview as preemptive damage control. "We hear you, we know you want a world revamp, and it will come at some point", so people don't freak out at BlizzCon when they see... caves.

Yeah I'm not sure that damage control is going to help...thematically I cant possibly see this recapturing lapsed players. They need something along the lines of Legion or WoD(thematically) thats very core "Warcraft" and that everyone can kind of resonate with.

[Nibelheimy]

Although I was mostly expecting Khaz Algar for a 10.3 patch. I could see a potential expac with Khaz Algar and Undermine as respective faction zones.

I really don't believe blizzard is incapable of making a journey to the centre of the earth expansion without it feeling claustrophobic. There is a great deal of possible biomes and environments to draw from. Nerubian kingdoms, goblin and dwarven styled capital cities, peaceful underground lakes and waterfalls, fungal biomes. My only issue is why the hell wouldn't Neltharion had investigated these zones prior, and if he did, that themeing in my eyes is done and dusted for now with forbidden reach and 10.1. Although an expansion racing Iridikron to the centre of the planet to Uldaz, possibly a titan made machine as close to the world soul as possible, would make sense.

The whole phobia topic is honestly ridiculous. I've lost count of the amount of people requesting less spiders in the game because their phobias stop them from exploring areas with spider mobs over the years, alas we still get spiders.

Let's remove flying. Imagine having a phobia of flying or heights and being forced to play dragonflight where the entire premise of the expansion was flying. That's just cruel. What a torturous prison those players are trapped in for 2 years right?

As terrible as it is for people with life altering phobias to go about certain activities, you just wouldn't play the game. Subnautica is a great example. I have pretty bad thalassaphobia, subnautica has been the scariest gaming experience of my life. A friend gave me that game and I sat down with sorround sound headphones and scared the shit out of myself everytime I went down under the water, I had to stop multiple times mid playthrough to stand outside and calm myself down, it was exhilarating, it was terrifying, but it allowed me to experience and find moments of beauty in the things I am most terrified of. It was a gaming experience I will probably always remember.

I adored Vashir, and Nazjatar was a shred of the zone it absolutely could of been, and deserved to be. Sometimes it's okay to have mildly uncomfortable situations in a gaming experience, sometimes it's beneficial. Hollow knight made me uncomfortable, that's another amazing gaming experience. Coincidentally completely underground.

My friend has a extreme fear of bugs to the point bug noises and appearances in films and audio can make her physically throw up. I recommended hollow knight. Pushing that fear boundary is giving them an adrenaline fuelled experience and they're loving it, and if they decide they can't handle that? They're an adult and can grow up and stop playing. It's that simple.

[Woggmer]

I’m sure the usual people will roll their eyes, but it’s a very real possibility. There’s more than enough lore there to support an expansion, and Blizzard stated that it was something they wanted to do, but didn’t have the resources to pull it off at the time. There’s also Gallywix running around as a potential low-level antagonist and a potential need for another support class if Blizzard is going in the direction it appears to be going with support.

I'd have to agree, despite being joke races, goblins and gnomes have something that most of the other races have lost to time.... PERSONALITY.

If they can make a "joke race" like Pandarens and expand their lore to where they aren't much of a joke anymore, why not the same for Goblins? (Gnomes already have some pretty depressing lore... literally 70% of their population in Gnomergan was decimated due to troggs and radiation and the ones that survived turned into Leper Gnomes driven to madness. Granted I don't like mechagnomes as an Allied Race (you can just slap those mechanical limbs on a regular gnome and you wouldn't miss anything)...but the concept of a Mechagnome is actually cool and probably only time WoW ever actually dives into the concept of transhumanism.)

[Palapop]

This is THE ONLY "cave" zones I accept.

F*CK OFF WITH ZARALEK-TYPE OF STUFF!

It was beyond disgusting to do stuff with disney-moles.

Felt like some random Asian mmo made for children under the age of 8.

[Makabreska]

This is THE ONLY "cave" zones I accept.

F*CK OFF WITH ZARALEK-TYPE OF STUFF!

It was beyond disgusting to do stuff with disney-moles.

Felt like some random Asian mmo made for children under the age of 8.

Weird, Zaralek seems very similar to this:



Are you simply having an issue with Niffen? WoW has wolf people, panda people, snake people, cow people, badger people, turtle people and so much more, but it seems that mole people is just too much.

[Worldshaper]

People have been sure a revamp was going to happen for like four expansions now. I don't see why they'd bother going out of their way to damage control this particular instance.

You gotta admit it's been even more taken for granted this time around, with the anniversary and all the datamined assets.

I've been arguing for a revamp for years, but it's only now it has really gotten traction outside of these threads imo.

[Hitei]

You gotta admit it's been even more taken for granted this time around, with the anniversary and all the datamined assets.

I've been arguing for a revamp for years, but it's only now it has really gotten traction outside of these threads imo.

Not really though? People were absolutely 100% convinced before BfA that 8.0 was going to be some sort of revamp, and many of the leaks were dumb Lordaeron revamp leaks. People were pretty sure about a Lich Queen Northrend revamp prior to SL, and even more sure, because of all the datamined assets, and dev comments acknowledging that people wanted something more traditionally fantasy that 10.0 was going to be a revamp.

Opinions don't seem to be any more consolidated this time around. Something new shows up (see: nautical assets) and people jump on the Southsea/otherside of the world nautical expansion train, then a week later we get something else (updated city assets) and people jump on the revamp train.

Doesn't make much sense from Blizzard's pov to bother trying to change optics, especially when Blizzard are the ones putting out those suggestive assets in the first place. Especially doesn't make sense to do it through a secondary channel, like telling a content creator to talk about the actual theme.

They could have just 11.0 folder'd some random mushroom model or rock and people would have jumped immediately on that thing.

[Worldshaper]

Not really though? People were absolutely 100% convinced before BfA that 8.0 was going to be some sort of revamp, and many of the leaks were dumb Lordaeron revamp leaks. People were pretty sure about a Lich Queen Northrend revamp prior to SL, and even more sure, because of all the datamined assets, and dev comments acknowledging that people wanted something more traditionally fantasy that 10.0 was going to be a revamp.

Opinions don't seem to be any more consolidated this time around. Something new shows up (see: nautical assets) and people jump on the Southsea/otherside of the world nautical expansion train, then a week later we get something else (updated city assets) and people jump on the revamp train.

Doesn't make much sense from Blizzard's pov to bother trying to change optics, especially when Blizzard are the ones putting out those suggestive assets in the first place. Especially doesn't make sense to do it through a secondary channel, like telling a content creator to talk about the actual theme.

They could have just 11.0 folder'd some random mushroom model or rock and people would have jumped immediately on that thing.

Yeah, you might be right. Good points.

[Palapop]

Weird, Zaralek seems very similar to this:



Are you simply having an issue with Niffen? WoW has wolf people, panda people, snake people, cow people, badger people, turtle people and so much more, but it seems that mole people is just too much.

Nope. Not at all.
Did you even play campaign in wc3?

Know the aesthetics of the place?


Also, I dont mind the MODEL of the mole people... but how their CHARACTERS and VOICES are done is.... beyond disgusting.
I always turn sound off when I enter that place.

They sound like teenage kids before their voice starts snapping.


All other beast-humanoids you mentioned have 100000x better writing and sound acting.

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Also... the only cavernous zones I can stand (but actually like as well) are Wailing Caverns and Maraudon.

Hmmm... dunno if BRD would fit into the same category, but I like the aesthetics of Blackrock mountain too.

Sadly, we wont see that epic design anytime soon with these devs

Especially the Maraudon. That place YELLS "adventoure, explorstion, danger" to you once you enter the instance.