If the leaks are wrong, then we're not firing that cannon after all?

Community General Discussion
1

I’ve been thinking a lot about the 2 shadowlands leaks. The 2nd leak corroborated the first and they both had convincing images.

First leak was easily faked with a background in graphics design, an extensive knowledge of game lore, a digital projector, and a cellphone to take the picture.

Not hard for someone to do that, and I said so myself at the time.

But the 2nd leak, that screenshot is top gun high quality bait if that’s fake.

Go look at any high quality photoshops, theres a really popular user on reddit who posts these all the time they just released a trick or treat one on the wow subreddit. There are never any shadows. They are standing there, clearly high graphics quality which has been further enhanced in image editing software, but they never add shadows on the ground.

Do you know why? Because adding realistic shadows on the ground in photoshop is very very hard to do and takes a very large amount of time.

Look at the screenshot in the 2nd leak. New art assets. Old art assets. Filters. Shadows. Water effects. It all looks like real in game stuff that would just take such a RIDICULOUS amount of skill and time to make in photoshop.

The shadows and the water (water effects and reflections on the water) are just so high quality it doesn’t look like a photoshop. People who do photoshops for a living don’t even add shadows and water reflections like that.

Plus the screenshot could be a year old now. And the info they had was probably them filling in a lot of blanks based on their personal lore knowledge and watching taliesin and evitel and bellular videos and stuff.

Stormwind raid? Horrific visions stormwind.

Or

Sylvanas takes stormwind somehow after we defeat N’zoth, as he too will serve death as Sylvanas schemed. Surprise! Another raid? Because we aren’t really getting new zones or new art assets in 8.3 it’s mostly recycled stuff with new filters and particle effects.

Now I’m very skeptical that we would get 2 raids. Nyalotha is already 12 bosses, a very large raid in its own right hat could keep players busy for months and months farming heroic and later mythic gear. Dumping a stormwind raid an a stormwind battleground on top of that seems a bit weird.

Or

It’s not a conventional end game raid, it’s a pre-patch event type of thing to transition into World of Warcraft: Shadowlands.

A pre-patch event that could see Sylvanas capture stormwind, that cannon? It’s getting fired just like we were told it would get fired before BfA ended.

That wipes out the Stormwind cathedral. Our holy places burn. Our thrones run red.

Bolvar shows up out of nowhere and kills Lorthemar, who was JUST set up in a budding romance with Thalyssra. Poor guy may as well be dating Beth on the Walking Dead right now.

The Horde sees him die and rallies to Sylvanas’ side, we all fight and die, Nathanos loses his head. Anduin and Sylvanas kill each other, and the pre-patch event ends and Shadowlands begins.

It just seems weird that we have the cannon, we have the leaks, we have the 8.2.5 dialogue, everything has been pointing to Shadowlands.

What was weird about the leaks was Tinkers. But again Gallywix and Mekkatorque having a cinematic at blizzcon setting up travel to the new expansion zones and tinkers was foretold. Weird to have necromancers everywhere in island expeditions for almost 2 years and then a shadowlands death/old gods expansion without playable necromancers but who am I to judge…

I just think it’s too early to start celebrating the leaks being dead and fake and gone. Trust me I would love to have playable necromancers and the leaks to be wrong, but it’s not over yet.

The cannon. Why did he say we were firing the cannon before BfA was done?

The stormwind ending? Helyas fleet at the stormwind harbor?

It’s just too convenient to wrap up BfA with Nyalotha and Nzoth dead and its all over in one patch.

N’zoth plans everything out. That’s his thing. He is the corrupter, not the fighter. I think we could still see that screenshot happen at the end of BfA after the Nyalotha raid. Too early to celebrate the leaks being completely wrong yet.

2

They have data mined post-N’Zoth raid conversations between characters that were supposedly killed off in the leak and their conversations were not to the effect of “Wow, these shadowlands sure are grimdark, let’s see what’s next!”. They were standard boiler plate “We sure triumphed, but at what cost”-style converations. It is clear that the leaks were misinterpreting the visions of N’Zoth, hallucinations of horrible outcomes, as actual storyline events. Either that or blizz changed their mind and went with “all a dream, no major deaths”.

The events the leak describes are more in line with the beginning of an expansion to set up a new zone then the end of one. We are introduced to a new zone and must wait a year to explore it after we purchase a new expansion? No way.

3

ok you are still under the impression that the leak was using current up to date information and that the screenshot was taken very recently.

The leaks are both very old information that was in the early development phase.

History has shown me that when characters randomly start hooking up like this, people are going to die. Soon. Happens all the time. Gives the death a much bigger impact, a metaphorical gut punch because you just got emotionally invested in the character, right?

And the cannon. We had the guy who just replaced Mike Moirhiem tell us we are firing that cannon before BfA ended.

What if like I said, it’s not a raid and that part of the leak was changed.

What if the leak was describing post 8.3 events, like a pre-patch event to kick off the new expansion? The War of Thorns saw us testing new stuff for BfA and ended with a world tree getting burned down when it was full of non-combatant civilians still in the process of an emergency evacuation.

What if the BfA pre-patch sees Sylvanas take Stormwind, or at least blow a significant part of it up. That would explain why the Horde and Alliance are both at stormwind, why Bolvar would show up and kill Lorthemar, why we would all die, and then Helya would ferry us to the Shadowlands to fight N’zoth and the other Old gods who have been corrupting the shadowlands through the emerald dream in their diabolical grand scheme to corrupt the very spiritual force of Azeroth, through it’s deep connections to the emerald dream and the shadowlands.

Everyone is just soooo eager to write off the leaks but you have to stop and think here… Why did we get told we were firing that cannon?

Why did Ion only say the words “Black Empire” ONCE in the entire 18 minute content preview? Why was the content preview so short compared to 8.2’s content preview?

Question everything.

4

…Why? The whole rallying to Sylvanas sides continues to make no sense.

The factions are at peace. The factions also both will see Sylvanas commanding Azshara to kill the player character. (“Let none of the heroes escape”)

What you’re suggesting is that they team up to kill a big bad, then a new big bad shows up from nowhere, and they just decide to…split up and fight one another in the middle of the attack? Why?

It’s hard to even know if the player character knows Bolvar is the Lich King, since it’s supposed to be a secret. So you have no tie between Bolvar and the Alliance. Besides, we visit the Lich King as a neutral entity in the Vol’jin quest.

Why would Bolvar doing anything would split up the factions again, when all points to the opposite?

That leak made no sense then, and continues to make no sense now.

1 Like
5

What a letdown. I’ve always wanted to see that sucker fire.

6

Nyalotha on shadowlands map might be not raid, but just entrance to the zone like dark portal. Still possible

7

Ok so the Fourth War is over.

Sylvanas has lost control of the Horde.

Horde and Alliance are at peace now. We fight and defeat N’zoth.

Everything seems to be going well. Lorthemar and Thalyssra hook up, Calia and Derek hook up, Shaw and Valeera hook up, maybe Anduin tries to hook up with Taelia but we finally learn that she IS in fact the raven-haired beauty that stole Flynn’s heart and made him quite pirating and clean up his act and become the right hand man of the Harbourmaster who happened to be the father figure of the woman he loves.

The plot threads are there.

We don’t get everyone hooking up like this unless we are going to start seeing deaths coming.

Maybe we are seeing so many possible romances to throw us all off and make it hard to predict who will die… unless we already had a leak confirm certain things that will come to pass, just not in the way the leak originally described.

The cannon was confirmed to be fired. It’s pointed right at Stormwind. Stormwind is Sylvanas’ goal.

Having part of Stormwind blown up and captured would rally the Horde AND Alliance together at stormwind to fight sylvanas.

Then during that confrontation we see a death gate open up and Bolvar steps out and declares his Loyalty to the Alliance. He kills Loverboy Lorthremar and Thalyssra goes into a rage and attacks him and the Alliance. The Alliance attack back.

Major characters are dying left and right. It’s a complete plot twister mayhem. Then finally at the end of this pre-patch instanced/ raid-like event whatever they do with it, we see Sylvanas and Anduin mortally wound each other and we are all dead.

Cue the screenshot. Cue the leak. Cue the Shadowlands.

I’m just saying the signs are there. The plot threads are there. The hints are there. The set up is still there. It’s still possible to see that screenshot come to pass.

8

Again, this makes no sense.

A know enemy of both factions show up, declares allegiance to the Alliance, and everyone involved just…accepts it?

Besides, Sylvanas is majorly powered up now. They’re not gonna have Anduin be doing anything to her. They stabilished in game that she is very, very, very powerful and has unknow magic.

The signs really aren’t there. The Shadowlands leak had 100% wrong information.

The Dragon Isles leak had some stuff right. That one is better to be looked into.

9

Bolvar has a very deep connection to both Anduin and Taelia.

He is Taelias real father and Anduin’s surrogate father. Him stepping out of a death gate and impaling Lorthemar on his sword dramatically out of nowhere could absolutely happen.

This is not a neutral cosmic entity who doesn’t care about the affairs of mortals. This is Bolvar Fordragon, betrayed by the Horde, them roasted alive by the Red Dragonflight, then martyrs himself by putting the helm of domination on his head to control the vast undead Scourge army that could literally overrun and destroy the entire world.

Bolvar Fordragon is a man. A man with incredible power now. Who has been sitting on that throne by himself festering his hatred for the Horde that betrayed him and ruined his life and the dragonflights that horribly burned and disfigured him.

Perhaps he still remembers his daughter, and the young boy Anduin who he helped raise. It would not be a stretch of the imagination at all for him to still feel loyal to his daughter and Anduin.

10

Could be the pre-launch event? No idea.

11

I have been implying and referring to the leak as possible pre-patch events the entire time lol.

The leak could absolutely be describing pre-patch events. Major plot twitsts and character deaths that lead us into the next expansion: shadowlands!

many of the specific details of the leak could be completely wrong now, having been made up by the leaker trying to fill in the blanks or by blizzard changing things around, which they literally do allllll the time.

12

No, that makes no sense, because nowhere it was stabilished that “Bolvar” kept his Bolvar identity, when the Lich King is always a merge of two people.

And Ner’zhul mindset is much closer to Sylvanas’ than with any one else. “Life makes you weak” and all that.

13

I know alot of people think the Shadowlands leak was real. It being on 4chan should be the dead give away.

14

That cannon wasn’t a leak though.
IIRC that was confirmed by Blizzard directly

15

the cannon was directly confirmed by Afrasiabi. He is the new president of Blizzard and he is one of the senior devs who make WoW and he is in charge of the story of the game.

So when the guy in charge of the story of WoW says we are absolutely firing that cannon before BfA is over, you should probably believe him.

16

Stormwind falls to N’zoth and we use the cannon as a salt the earth move, or of course we could use the cannon against N’zoth himself, this is after all the first time an old god is fully formed, we don’t know how big he actually is.

17

Do you really love the lamp or are you just saying that?

18

Maybe it’s shot in one of the raid bosses, creating a gap into N’zoth’s carapace so we go in.

19

that’s actually a legit cool idea for it to be used in the last raid, I like you’re thinking. Could give us the window we need to stab N’zoth’s heart with the blade of the black empire, fulfilling Azshara’s “supposed” plan, but knowing N’zoth, that was probably his plan the whole time and N’zoth wanted us to stab him in the heart with the blade… so he could go to the shadowlands and corrupt the spirit of the world soul through the shadowlands and corrupt the very soul of the titan Azeroth and become one with Azerother, fully corrupting it with his essence.

20

I don’t know if it goes as far as that, but I’m also bothered by the whole stuff with Xal’atath.

Remember that it was N’zoth that released Xal’atath from the blade and demanded the blade to be left to him. Then, the player character, compelled by a force, delivers it to Sylvanas, which then deals with Azshara, who always wanted to betray N’zoth.

If it’s not his plan, he will just be the dumbest villain yet. “Hey guys, I just gave Azshara the one artifact capable of trapping me! And I did give it to Azshara after releasing the thing being kept in it, so now you have room there to trap me!”.

I mean…