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

[Xilurm]

And what is the og WoW vibe? Heavy metal Death stuff? Demon invasions?

Also, how is it too wholesome and cutesy? Cause we saved Nozdormu from a horrible fate? Because the Blue Dragonflight now has a proper future? Because the Black Dragonflight actually has a proper future now?

The general surface vibe of Dragonflight is cutesy. There's no doubt about that. Funny you mention those quests though, in one of them we were guided by Chromie which has the borderline anime girl behaviour, and in the other, while it was a very good quest, there were stuff like "10k year old dragon taking a dip in the hotsprings and acting like they still have new stuff to learn in life".

[Worldshaper]

In Azeroth:
- Emerald Dream
- Undermine
- The South Seas
- Avaloren / The other side of the planet

Outside:
- Nathreza
- Karesh
- The other planets explored in the Legion invasion portals
- More planets referenced in SL

The worlds you listed are unlikely to be visited except as patch content, and that's me being generous. Draenor and arguably Argus are the only two non-Azeroth worlds that have any relevance in the lore. The rest are just background fodder.

The Emerald Dream is being explored, as decided by Blizzard, in 10.2.

The South Seas and Undermine are arguably one and the same, unless they do the hollow earth expansion we've been discussing. I'm not sure they'd want to do that at this point. Do I want it? Yes. Does Blizzard want to create an expansion out of scraps? Maybe.

The other side of Azeroth and/or Avaloren (whether they're the same or not) is pretty much it for upcoming potential. I do think it's possible they let us explore the entire backside of Azeroth for multiple expansions. But does that hold the necessary appeal for lapsed old school players?

[Nebron]

A green, mountainous zone with lava sections where we try to restore Black and Red Dragnoflights, repel Primalists attack and take down giants that hunt dragons for sport. A green plains when we unite centaur clans and deal with the one that betrays them. A mostly snowy region when we restore Blue Dragonflight, fight with Primalists and deal with gnolls harassing walrus people. A capital region, where we have to deal with infiltrators and betrayers, literally moving through the corpses left from their attacks. A huge cavern with mole people, but also fire giants and a raid, where fucked up experiments were commenced. We also had an elemental caves raid, and dungeons. NONE of this shit "too wholesome and cutesy".

You were complaining about Niffen/Chromie. Is this why you have this wrong assumption? If DF is wholesome and cutesy, then wtf is MoP to you, with Pandaren fixation on food, drink and having a good time.

Yup. And on top of that, wasn't the 'wholesome and cutesy' theme an actual purpose of this expansion and not just an accidental side-effect? Maybe I'm reaching here, but I always believed that the main musical theme for an expansion foreshadowed it's general idea and, more or less, it added up in the previous ones. Believe it or not, but Dragonflight's music is simply uplifting, joyful and adventure, which to me suggests nothing else, but the chill direction for it's story. It seems to me it was an obvious take on that story from the moment I've seen the cinematic.

[Dracullus]

I said in the past decade.

2004 - 2014 was great imo.

2015 or thereabouts and on, i.e. when the Legion was dealt with, has been mediocre.

Oh yeah, Classic and TBC, perfect lore xD. Hell even Wrath had so many stupid bits and just used good setup from RTS - even SL was more cohesive narrative compared to: Arthas as saturday morning villain -> killing aspect of magic for some reason -> killing old god for some reason -> tournament (????) -> killing Lich King.

[Reive]

The Dracthyr? You mean Neltharions secret military armada? Yeah, that's totally not Warcraft. Idc if they look goofy, we have GNOMES IN WOW BRO!!!

they look like furry (scalie) shit taken from deviantart. nothing about them screams warcraft lmao. also too much focus on emberthal and her feelings

NPCs talk overexaggerated. This isn't new.

compare the dialogues between dragonflight and vanilla wow. it's night and day

NPCs talking about their feelings is fine, cause it explicitly shows how time has changed people and scenarios as a whole. Kalecgos wants to be a better leader for his people, Ebyssian is the middle man and wishes to be a good leader for Wrathion, Sabellian, and Emberthal + the Dracthyr, Alexstrasza and Vyranoth are tryna be diplomatic in things, Nozdormu was in a literal depression and Chromie + the Heroes of Azeroth sparked a new flame of hope within him, and Merithra is gaining motherly advice by Ysera on how to become a proper leader for the Green Dragonflight. No shit it's touchy.

there is no balance between cool and touching (something mop had).

[Worldshaper]

nah the writing was just bad. bfa and shadowlands had great concepts/themes but they were executed horribly. also, n'zoth and azshara deserved their own expansion

But that's part of what I'm saying. The story of WoW hasn't made the Warcraft universe, or Azeroth, more interesting since we dealt with the Legion.

They've rushed through cool concepts like Nazjatar and the Black Empire. They've given us Val'sharah 2.0 as the Emerald Dream. They've ruined Arthas' legacy with Shadowlands (and Uther's, and Sylvanas', and...). They've burned down Teldrassil and made a mess of the Undercity. Numerous great characters and leaders are gone for no reason other than shock value.

Let's not even begin to discuss how they ruined the Night Elves.

[Reive]

Yup. And on top of that, wasn't the 'wholesome and cutesy' theme an actual purpose of this expansion and not just an accidental side-effect? Maybe I'm reaching here, but I always believed that the main musical theme for an expansion foreshadowed it's general idea and, more or less, it added up in the previous ones. Believe it or not, but Dragonflight's music is simply uplifting, joyful and adventure, which to me suggests nothing else, but the chill direction for it's story. It seems to me it was an obvious take on that story from the moment I've seen the cinematic.

the purpose of dragonflight was to lower the scale of things and make us adventurers again, but it should have done that in a "warcraft way". blizzard's approach was too extreme

[Worldshaper]

2004-2014 was sloppy as shit, and it took current expacs to course correct some of the shit that occurred from there.

Legion made Illidan into a proper anti-hero again, Shadowlands fixed the stupid asf "there must always be a Lich King" ending from Wrath, Dragonflight quite literally fixed the shitty Cataclysm ending, etc.

Look at this guy, cheering for Danuser and dissing Metzen's work on the night we're all celebrating Metzen's return. So much edge.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh yeah, Classic and TBC, perfect lore xD. Hell even Wrath had so many stupid bits and just used good setup from RTS - even SL was more cohesive narrative compared to: Arthas as saturday morning villain -> killing aspect of magic for some reason -> killing old god for some reason -> tournament (????) -> killing Lich King.

I'm not sure what's wrong about that narrative. You didn't really specify what it was.

[Cheezits]

Look at this guy, cheering for Danuser and dissing Metzen's work on the night we're all celebrating Metzen's return. So much edge.

I'm fairly sure most of what they listed (especially There must always be a Lich King and all of Cata Thrall) are historically pretty clowned on. Metzen is a great creator but even some of his stories suck.

[Worldshaper]

I'm fairly sure most of what they listed (especially There must always be a Lich King and all of Cata Thrall) are historically pretty clowned on. Metzen is a great creator but even some of his stories suck.

And yet, WoW was a cultural phenomenon and everybody played back then. Whereas these days, all we do is moan about whatever it is we're given, from the endless stalling of the story to the non-stop breaking down of all the myth and charm of the universe. Everything's a damn machine on a blueprint these days.

[Reive]

But that's part of what I'm saying. The story of WoW hasn't made the Warcraft universe, or Azeroth, more interesting since we dealt with the Legion.

They've rushed through cool concepts like Nazjatar and the Black Empire. They've given us Val'sharah 2.0 as the Emerald Dream. They've ruined Arthas' legacy with Shadowlands (and Uther's, and Sylvanas', and...). They've burned down Teldrassil and made a mess of the Undercity. Numerous great characters and leaders are gone for no reason other than shock value.

Let's not even begin to discuss how they ruined the Night Elves.

yeah. too many concepts were either rushed or delivered poorly. fixing retail's story will take a lot of work.

[Reive]

My blud, we quite literally had a patch where we fought twisted experiments of Neltharion, and now the Night Elves' future is on the line for 10.2

idk might be the writing, but they failed to give those things the right relevance or make them interesting.

[Hitei]

Uh, yes it does?

We'll know exactly what we need to change for those threats not to appear. For example, the Legion only returned because of the events set in motion by Garrosh.

The Legion returned because they were always going to return. Stopping Garrosh doesn't suddenly make the Burning Legion and Sargeras disappear. It just means they'll use some other opportunity to do the same thing. It just means that Archimonde himself will figure out a way onto the planet and trigger the invasion himself.

There's nothing to change to stop the Scourge invasions besides going to Northrend and doing WotLK slightly earier. There's nothing to do about Deathwing besides forcibly breaking into Deepholme and challenging him prior to the Cataclysm.

That's the entire problem with this idea, you're not actually generating new journeys, you're just repackaging existing ones. And even putting that aside, as said above:

what we need to change for those threats not to appear

Why are you bothering to reset and bring them back then? Just leave them defeated and move on.

[Well Done Steak]

You know, Yrel coming to us could be an excuse to update eversong, ghostlands, bloodmist and azuremist.

The draenie zones could be updated with a lightbound story and the belves with AU paladin garrosh acting as a horde ambassador for the lightbound.

Easy update too... They can all remain instanced.

The isles are isles so they need a boat ride anyway.

Eversong can be so that blizzard removes the invisible wall behind stratholm and EPL and replace it with a magical mist that ports you In front of the quel thalas gate.

The Mist can be spinned as their new magical protection

[Reive]

Amirdrassil is the main focus of 10.2, what do you mean???

do you see people hyped for it?

[meroes]

Here's how I know Metzen wasn't in on DF. The dracthyr wouldn't have looked like Jar Jar Binks

[Hitei]

do you see people hyped for it?

Yes. We have literally had dozens of pages of discussion about it, and where it is going, and what it is going to end up as, and what the Night Elves are going to do re: building on or near it.

[Worldshaper]

The Legion returned because they were always going to return. Stopping Garrosh doesn't suddenly make the Burning Legion and Sargeras disappear. It just means they'll use some other opportunity to do the same thing. It just means that Archimonde himself will figure out a way onto the planet and trigger the invasion himself.

There's nothing to change to stop the Scourge invasions besides going to Northrend and doing WotLK slightly earier. There's nothing to do about Deathwing besides forcibly breaking into Deepholme and challenging him prior to the Cataclysm.

That's the entire problem with this idea, you're not actually generating new journeys, you're just repackaging existing ones. And even putting that aside, as said above:


Why are you bothering to reset and bring them back then? Just leave them defeated and move on.

I mean, the point is that the Void wins in this timeline. So even if we defeated all those external threats, we were still headed for armageddon. The idea here is that yeah, the Lich King sucked. Sargeras sucked. But we beat them once. The Void, we weren't able to. So our only hope was to go back, despite all of it.

[Nebron]

the purpose of dragonflight was to lower the scale of things and make us adventurers again, but it should have done that in a "warcraft way". blizzard's approach was too extreme

Yeah, but on the other hand to say that Dragonflight is 'wholesome and cutesy' is an overstatement imo. I'd rather blame it on Dragonflight being filled with half measures an so far, unmet conclusions. We'll see what 10.2 has to offer and if there's any continuation afterwards, but so far, Tyr's story is purposeless, Iridikron story is nowhere to be seen or he just serves as "see what comes next", Vyranoth making a snap decision without any significant build-up, Nozdormu and Murozond having no meaningful influence on the story apart from the MacGuffin void artefact that is in Iridkron's possesion.
There are simply too many parallel storylines that aspire to be grand and well resolved, but end-up being an obstruction to main story development.

The execution is just lacking in my opinion.

[pacotaco]

Danuser specifically wrote those new lines for a reason....

The tree may not be corrupted, but nzoth pretty much confirms that the void will use it SOMEHOW to their benefit.

With many eyes, they will see again. They will drink, and be uplifted.
Deeper, deeper its roots will reach. Welcoming our embrace.
Her dreams sing beneath the surface. Our dreams. Our song.

If I had to guess, he's talking about Alexstrasza. Too many things hinting at her ending somehow corrupted.