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

[Daniri]

Hard to do that in 20+ years game story. You slowly run out of different factions and at one point people would have enough of those mysterious beings and would want to know more about them.

It's hard if you want to do the "Epic Storytelling" approach and burn through your biggest mysteries and villains as quickly as possible. Not as hard if you took a slower pace and told more down to earth stories.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Compare dragons from Classic through Cata to DF's dragons and there is a massive difference.

Classic dragon “I’m in love with a ghost”

TBC dragon “I’m in love with the sun well”

Wrath dragon “I don’t want to fight my brother but he’s being mean”

Cata dragon “ I don’t want to fight my brother but he’s being mean X2”

Difference doesn’t seem that massive.

[Teriz]

fortunately I talked about theme, and not about content (even if I cited the DH for Illidan)

And Thrall fits an earth-based underground themed expansion.

You extrapolate way too much

Gul'dan represents Sargeras and the Burning Legion, so the theme was pretty obvious
for the tinker, this doesn't confirm anything at all before the reveal

Not necessarily. The only thing Gul’Dan represents for sure is demonic stuff, and we had expansions with demons without sargareas or a BL invasion.

Illidan’s return on the other hand is definite BL invasion and definite DH class.

personally I wouldn't bet my money on a streamer who apparently has nothing really concrete in his history but you are free to believe it!

Again, we’re just speculating here, but there is multiple points of evidence supporting Blizzard going for an undermine expansion.

[Santandame]

Classic dragon “I’m in love with a ghost”

TBC dragon “I’m in love with the sun well”

Wrath dragon “I don’t want to fight my brother but he’s being mean”

Cata dragon “ I don’t want to fight my brother but he’s being mean X2”

Difference doesn’t seem that massive.

“Classic dragon - I’m in love with a ghost”

That didn’t happen until Cataclysm. Our only dealings with dragons in classic were those that were world bosses or dungeon/raid bosses. Chromie being the outlier. They still possessed an air of superiority, mystery and ferocity about them there. The change in how they were presented happened during Wrath.

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And Thrall fits an earth-based underground themed expansion.




Not necessarily. The only thing Gul’Dan represents for sure is demonic stuff, and we had expansions with demons without sargareas or a BL invasion.

Illidan’s return on the other hand is definite BL invasion and definite DH class.




Again, we’re just speculating here, but there is multiple points of evidence supporting Blizzard going for an undermine expansion.

Gul’dan isn’t indicative of the Legion? Mate, come on. This is next level reaching even for you.

Our two major Legion expansions (WoD and Legion) Gul’dan was a major antagonist of. The only other prominent Legion expansion(moreso an Illidari expansion) was TBC and Gul’dan literally couldn’t be apart of it because he was dead. Even then, Blizzard still found ways of including him in some form.

[milkmustache]

And Thrall fits an earth-based underground themed expansion.

Again, we’re just speculating here, but there is multiple points of evidence supporting Blizzard going for an undermine expansion.

I just think this is the furthest of stretches. There are soooo many themes that come before "underground" with Thrall.

I know it's speculation, but there isn't a whole ton of indication that Blizzard would do an "undermine expansion". I mean, this entire subject came up from a comment Towellie made on stream, which is the strongest evidence as of yet.

Even with "No pirates.", there's far more evidence of a seafaring expansion, more evidence of an Other Side of Azeroth and Titan expansion, and even more evidence for a revamp expansion (which I know, can be a feature amongst the rest).

I really, really think Undermine would be awesome. I really hope they add it in the future. This is just a hell of stretch to make it a reality.

[Teriz]

“
Gul’dan isn’t indicative of the Legion? Mate, come on. This is next level reaching even for you.

I didn’t say he wasn’t. I said it’s more ambiguous than Illidan being on the promo. You have to remember the context that key art was released in back in 2015. At the time, Gul’Dan was a villain in WoD, and we didn’t know where he escaped to after the end of HFC.

[Santandame]

I just think this is the furthest of stretches. There are soooo many themes that come before "underground" with Thrall.

I know it's speculation, but there isn't a whole ton of indication that Blizzard would do an "undermine expansion". I mean, this entire subject came up from a comment Towellie made on stream, which is the strongest evidence as of yet.

Even with "No pirates.", there's far more evidence of a seafaring expansion, more evidence of an Other Side of Azeroth and Titan expansion, and even more evidence for a revamp expansion (which I know, can be a feature amongst the rest).

I really, really think Undermine would be awesome. I really hope they add it in the future. This is just a hell of stretch to make it a reality.

Yeah, I’m struggling to follow Teriz on this. He was previously dead set on next expansion being a Lightbound / w Yrel invasion with his belief that Thrall on the key art indicated that (not sure how). Now he’s jumped ship on it being an underground/Undermine expansion next, with somehow Thrall being on the key art indicative of that - that being an even bigger stretch than him being indicative of Yrel.

[Xilurm]

Classic dragon “I’m in love with a ghost”

TBC dragon “I’m in love with the sun well”

Wrath dragon “I don’t want to fight my brother but he’s being mean”

Cata dragon “ I don’t want to fight my brother but he’s being mean X2”

Difference doesn’t seem that massive.

But there's a difference in how they present themselves. DF has so many of them being silly and cutesy and stuff.

[Santandame]

Let’s be totally honest we all know deep down whether want to admit it or not that next expansion is Avaloren or the other side of Azeroth with no more than 5 zones at max.

[Ersula]

I wonder if Blizzard is going to expand support post-Augvoker. People speculated that they could add support specs to existing classes, but would Blizzard add a new class with a support spec in 11.0 right after Evokers? Perhaps a new class with a support spec for Mages, Hunters, and Shaman and a 4th role for group content.

I think they'll conceptualize Support as a spectrum. Shadow Priests, Frost Mages, Survival Hunter, Feral druid, etc will probably fill the same current niche but may get more supportive damage buffs.

That being said the Bard Class is definitely coming in 11.0 or 12.0

[Lorgar Aurelian]

“Classic dragon - I’m in love with a ghost”

That didn’t happen until Cataclysm. Our only dealings with dragons in classic were those that were world bosses or dungeon/raid bosses. Chromie being the outlier. They still possessed an air of superiority, mystery and ferocity about them there. The change in how they were presented happened during Wrath.

Damn you right, that ruins my almost matching lines.

Though I’d say the change happened in tbc not wrath when we got a whole manga about how Kal was trying to bang the sun well in human form.

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But there's a difference in how they present themselves. DF has so many of them being silly and cutesy and stuff.

That’s because there are so many more dragons then we ever had in the past, like not counting evil dragons we have had like what 25-30 named dragons in all of Classic-cata?

When your expanding to try and show the whole of dragon kind and not just a couple dozen you need to give them varied personality’s or they become one note.

[username993720]

Everyone is humans. Just a different shade. Take the recent Night Elf heritage quest for example. Lysander, a 20 year old male night elf who we're stuck with, who talks about his feelings. They have tons of races to choose from to tell a story like this, but instead they choose the race that lives for thousands of years. It's literally a human with a different size ears and different shade of skin at this point. Not to mention the preachy "tradition changing" lesson that felt so forced throughout this quest.

I swear, it's the same writer who wrote Pelagos and Talia. Has to be. No, Talia. I don't give a shit about your stupid gryphon. "Omg so relatable, woooow." That's not how you make a character interesting. Show me them doing something cool either through actions or dialogue and I'll care then. And then you can explain their whole damn backstory.

I've already told someone else. That guy looks like a hipster, not a Highborne:

[milkmustache]

Let’s be totally honest we all know deep down whether want to admit it or not that next expansion is Avaloren or the other side of Azeroth with no more than 5 zones at max.

I'm leaning this way with a colonization aspect to it. Not sure about the 5 zones max thing, but it tracks.

[Sondrelk]

“Classic dragon - I’m in love with a ghost”

That didn’t happen until Cataclysm. Our only dealings with dragons in classic were those that were world bosses or dungeon/raid bosses. Chromie being the outlier. They still possessed an air of superiority, mystery and ferocity about them there. The change in how they were presented happened during Wrath.

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Gul’dan isn’t indicative of the Legion? Mate, come on. This is next level reaching even for you.

Our two major Legion expansions (WoD and Legion) Gul’dan was a major antagonist of. The only other prominent Legion expansion(moreso an Illidari expansion) was TBC and Gul’dan literally couldn’t be apart of it because he was dead. Even then, Blizzard still found ways of including him in some form.

Not that Dragons weren't more aloof back in Vanilla, but even at their most aloof it always felt more like the Bronze Dragons simply didn't like people coming into their cool cave than it did them thinking us insignificant.

You also seem to be generalizing a bit overall. Dragons came in all kinds back then. Some liked gold and dank caves. Some liked humans and wanted to help us.
If your argument is that we have lost the nuance of dragons in that we don't see many outright antagonistic dragons then sure, but that doesn't seem to be it.

The only thing they seem to have truly lost is the mystery. Them having a society was always hinted at, even if not to the same degree they have in the Dragon Isles.

[Cheezits]

Yeah if next expansion is just Mists 2 and a brand new island again, but with factions, I may have to check out until the revamp. What a lame anniversary.

[Sondrelk]

I think they'll conceptualize Support as a spectrum. Shadow Priests, Frost Mages, Survival Hunter, Feral druid, etc will probably fill the same current niche but may get more supportive damage buffs.

That being said the Bard Class is definitely coming in 11.0 or 12.0

Bard still seems like a stretch to me. I cannot think of any big WoW heroes that embody the Bard theme, especially not in a way that evokes the DnD Bard that I think people imagine.
Even Evokers are more about stretching the definition of a Dragon in order to make them playable than it is about Evokers having a long and stories history in WoW.

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Yeah if next expansion is just Mists 2 and a brand new island again, but with factions, I may have to check out until the revamp. What a lame anniversary.

This is honestly the strongest argument for a world revamp to me.
What a way to kill the anniversary buzz. New continent that players have only heard about in a hidden book in a dungeon I doubt many players ran more than once or twice.
A continent filled with people we have no idea about, and never heard about until whenever the announcement is.

The most interesting but about it currently is the idea that the Scarlet Crusade is there. And even that is just made up by players to extract the slimmest chance of engagement.

Blizzard has had years to plan this anniversary, and I doubt they would just let it fizzle out with an idea based on a meme.

[milkmustache]

This is honestly the strongest argument for a world revamp to me.
What a way to kill the anniversary buzz. New continent that players have only heard about in a hidden book in a dungeon I doubt many players ran more than once or twice.
A continent filled with people we have no idea about, and never heard about until whenever the announcement is.

The most interesting but about it currently is the idea that the Scarlet Crusade is there. And even that is just made up by players to extract the slimmest chance of engagement.

Blizzard has had years to plan this anniversary, and I doubt they would just let it fizzle out with an idea based on a meme.

Ding ding ding. I agree wholeheartedly, but god I'm nervous we're wrong lol

[Teriz]

I just think this is the furthest of stretches. There are soooo many themes that come before "underground" with Thrall.

Such as?

I know it's speculation, but there isn't a whole ton of indication that Blizzard would do an "undermine expansion". I mean, this entire subject came up from a comment Towellie made on stream, which is the strongest evidence as of yet.

Well that and Zalarek Caverns where Blizzard stated that it could lead to future underground content. There was also the Mecha Kobold thing for Blizzard's mobile game which is pretty left field, yet fits into an Undermine theme which is underground and tech-based. Gallywix is still also on the loose, and Thrall does work within a concept of us going underground. The RAF gear from earlier this year was decidedly Goblin-based for some reason. Finally, Towellie also put out a picture showing people in a cave, and stated that a revamp isn't happening.

In short there is evidence, and I always veer on the side of concise expansion concepts instead of nebulous expansion concepts that don't really have a solid foundation beyond the force of the cosmos that we'll supposedly be up against.

Even with "No pirates.", there's far more evidence of a seafaring expansion, more evidence of an Other Side of Azeroth and Titan expansion, and even more evidence for a revamp expansion (which I know, can be a feature amongst the rest).

I really, really think Undermine would be awesome. I really hope they add it in the future. This is just a hell of stretch to make it a reality.

The thing is, any evidence for something in the south seas could be applied to Undermine, since it is also in the south seas.

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Yeah, I’m struggling to follow Teriz on this. He was previously dead set on next expansion being a Lightbound / w Yrel invasion with his belief that Thrall on the key art indicated that (not sure how). Now he’s jumped ship on it being an underground/Undermine expansion next, with somehow Thrall being on the key art indicative of that - that being an even bigger stretch than him being indicative of Yrel.

The Yrel expansion is still a possibility as well. I don't completely shut off an expansion possibility simply because another one arises.

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I think they'll conceptualize Support as a spectrum. Shadow Priests, Frost Mages, Survival Hunter, Feral druid, etc will probably fill the same current niche but may get more supportive damage buffs.

That being said the Bard Class is definitely coming in 11.0 or 12.0

Blizzard already said that they're not going to use existing specs for support. Any support specs will be new specs.

Also Bards don't really fit any future expansion concept that I'm aware of.

[micwini]

Didn't someone say Towellie has called expacs wrong in the future? I know he got the timing right for a 10.2 announcement, but I wouldn't put a ton of stock in what he has to say.

I think I'd read this more as WoW 2 is not happening, which doesn't rule out a revamp. I've never considered world revamp = WoW 2/Azeroth Reborn.

He got the timing for the 10.2 announcement wrong.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

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.

That seems fair. I definitely remember that he was treated as a little unreliable in the past, and I did get the hint that this was a departure from his usual method. There's a pretty significant gap in getting information about something as simple and relevant to a prominent streamer as patch dates and getting information about the next expansion. I also do recall that he was a little reliant on Barnum statements, especially leading up to Dragonflight; on top of that, even if it did prove to be the case that he knew, it would be unreliable because such vague statements can be taken as nothing more than opinion, with no inherently useful information attached to them.