Blizzard released this roadmap today, which shows a lot of potential content for the year ahead. There’s some interesting things here that can be speculated about, which should be pretty exciting. First is 10.2.6, which we seem to have no info on other than this skull & crossbones flag. Pirate content has been speculated on throughout the expansion, which we will probably be getting then. Maybe perhaps we will be getting content relating to other speculations as well.
10.2.7, titled Dark Heart, has something called Harbinger Quests. The title of the patch and quests seems to hint at something involving Xal’atath, the Harbinger Of The Void. This could be the first involvement of The War Within storyline, setting up for the next expansion. If pirates come before this, maybe perhaps we will see Azshara in either of these patches. That might be a link between patches.
The War Within prepatch comes not long after, which has world events. Every expansion has had a prepatch event, and TWW seems to continue that. The question now is, what will it be? I think that every expansion other than this has had obvious prepatch events that could be predicted. It looks to be that we have until September for the next expansion story to be set.
It… doesn’t look like the Dark Talons and Obsidian Warders will get their (already paper thin) story wrapped up, does it ? About formally joining the factions and all that ? Unless it’s to fall under the “Dragonflight epilogues” category ?
Ngl, they can’t just like, leave it at that. They’re supposed to be our new core race and we barely got to hang out and connect with them. Emberthal got much more development and screentime than them smh
It’ll definitely be interesting to see what surprise they’re holding on to for 10.2.6.
While the skull + crossbones suggests something pirate related, and with Captain Nightsquall being mentioned throughout DF it’s entirely possible… It could also just be some dark event is going to take place that sets up whatever they’ve got planned for these “Harbinger Quests”.
I do agree with the idea that the Harbinger stuff will be related to Xal and we’ll see increasing amounts of Void trickling into Azeroth.
Timerunning Pandamonium sounds interesting. They’ve been talking about expanding on Timewalking and bringing it to the open world for several interviews, so I’m curious to see if Timerunning will be that and how it’ll involve the new alliance between the Bronze and Infinite flights.
Excited to see the Heritage Quests for Draenei and Darkspear as well.
Kind of disappointed there was no confirmation on whether we’ll get new races for Paladin, Shaman, or Druid.
Most likely this is a consequence of neutrality and their desire to bring down faction barriers. Likely the earthen will get similar treatment, with a major neutral character to embody the earthen story like Emberthal did the drakthyr.
It looks like “WoW: The War Within” will be released sometime between July and September 2024. Which likely means “WoW: Midnight” won’t be out until 2026, and 2028 for “WoW: The Last Titan”. Though iirc, there was something about releasing “an expansion a year”, compressing that so this new “World Soul” arc will be wrapped up by 2027.
A long wait, but that is a lot of time to do some positives and set up new plots. Hopefully including important plot details in the game rather than relegating them to books or comics (looking at you, William King’s Illidan book and Christie Golden’s Sylvanas book)
10.2.5 - January TWW Open Alpha Tests - Febuary 10.2.6 - March 10.2.7 - May TWW Beta Tests - June 11.0.1 (Prepatch) - July TWW Launch - September 11.0.5 - November
Since the Outland Dragonriding races are listed as coming with 10.2.5 and the in-game calendar has it starting on January 11th, I’m guessing that 10.2.5 will release on the 9th.
I wonder if the Bloodwake will ever be a thing. It sounds cool. Some of the Island Expedition stuff has borne fruit, over time.
I wonder how it would take form.
It could be something Evergreen, recycled every season, some Naval incursions across the globe in coastal settlements.
Or it could be a zone in the sea entirely made of ships, where we go ship to ship across a massive armada that sprawls the sea - with flight paths on the larger ships.
Having the Bloodwake show up and wreak havoc would be a reasonable distraction, which would showcase seafaring/pirate activity. And also lead to more lore, if they are part of something bigger.
The Harbinger speaks of a primal power that seeks the end of Order. Such rage can be bent to serve our ends.
A hunger lost to the ages will be reclaimed.
A dark heart left broken awaits the taking.
When these things come to pass, the Harbinger will fulfill the final prophecy and complete the awakening.
Only then shall our Queen return to reign over sea and sky and earth. We must make ready.
Rise, rise! Soon all that was hidden will be revealed.
We got the Forbidding Reach Zone in 10.0.5 and Amirdrassil in 10.2.5 so the Sunken City and Drowned God showing up in 10.2.6 or 10.2.7 is easy to imagine.
If the Drowned God is the Earthmother(remember the Murlocs in Nazjatar use Necrotic Death-aligned Orbs of the Drowned and Il’gynoth mentions a Blind Queen wielding a staff of Bone calling doom from the deep) then Xal’atath(who used to be an Eye attached to a Dagger and has a Moon Symbol on her face) is reviving her mother now earlier than expected.
That means whatever is hanging above Hallowfall isn’t the Earthmother nor is the World Soul.
I would say Uu’nat stole the title since he was the first void aligned enemy that used the Harbringer title iirc. In his case it was the Harbringer of the Void. Za’qul, a raid later would have Harbringer of Ny’alotha.
