1.21: Thoughts and speculations thread (January update)

I did this last year and have been wanting to do it again, so here it is. I'll be updating it as things are revealed.

Spoiler: October 2021

Spoiler: Image 1

It's quite obvious that this is Aldorei. I'm assuming this is going to tie in with a rework of Aldorei's secret part 2 like people have speculated

Spoiler: Image 2

This is stated to be Galleon's Graveyard. Looks like I was right that it'd get reworked in 1.21. Ocean update?

Spoiler: Image 3

Chonk redbeard.
(this time featuring an actual beard)

Spoiler: Stated feature: Galleon's graveyard rework + story mode

Galleon's graveyard is getting reworked, and THANK GOD. This dungeon has BY FAR the WORST BOSS in the ENTIRE GAME. Judging from the new redbeard design, they are completely reworking the boss. He does have a cannon on his shoulder but I'm hoping it's decorative.

As for quest mode, that's awesome. I'm assuming every single dungeon in the game is getting a slight rework this update to help it tie-in further with its unlock quest, which is really cool. I'd also assume that this will make the regular dungeons more akin to the corrupted counterparts.

Spoiler: Thoughts on october reveal

Wow, they basically gave confirmation on what every image is and confirmed a dungeon rework which is big for a monthly reveal. I have to wonder if the clock mystery is being pushed back to 1.21, though.

Spoiler: November 2021

(sorry for being late)

Spoiler: Image 1

blue
This is an out-of-context image that supposedly relates to the theme of this update. Every single block in the image is blue (the azure bluet is a blue flower used in vanilla minecraft to get light blue dye) which makes me think some of these:
This is part of a building in a new area
This is a new area in general with a blue theme (rol expansion?)
Not actually something we will see in the game but instead a hint that the update will have an ocean theme
Blue ??? meteor (??? rework?)

Spoiler: Image 2

Thesead rework
This is really nice, but I have something to point out:
The old observatory got reworked. That wasn't being used anymore and there was no point in updating it.
I haven't seen a SINGLE PERSON pointing that out because the only thing people are saying about the new Thesead is "eo style bad"
This is further evidence that a second ??? rework is coming in 1.21
(the telescope in thesead was used alongside one in the gert camp and one in aldorei for the original version of ???, but is no longer used. It may be used in a reworked ??? in 1.21)
I would also like to point out that the Aldorei telescope was (i think) reworked in 1.20 and left ingame as well (i believe it was reworked because the scope does not match the others and there is no image inside it)

Spoiler: Image 3

Guild towers, here's what they probably each are:
1: Corkus
2: Gylia Plains
3: COTL
4: Sky Islands

Spoiler: Image 4

Some loot caves in Corkus
A few of them look incomplete and the 2nd one reminds me of Hypixel Skyblock for some reason

There's also some prof stuff but not a single person cares and because of this I won't include those, especially considering we are told in the thread what those changes are

Spoiler: Thoughts on November reveals

Thesead: Really nice, I had hoped that this town would get reworked at some point. It has sparked a debate about the "EO style", a debate that I am honestly sick of. There's nothing wrong with the build style, it's great. I know it adds less build diversity but to be fair there barely WAS build diversity to begin with. Everything feels a lot more magical now than it did before. Comments on that aside, I do really like this design and I question how people even compare it to EO when the two are completely different. Considering that Aldorei was also updated, some of this update could be a Gavel Reborn Part 2 with more gavel cities being reworked (olux, gelibord, llevigar, ahmsord to name some, though I think llevigar will likely remain the same.). If the "Gavel Reborn part 2" theory is correct, that would mean the Clock Mystery is most likely included with the update. Unless the clock mystery is already in the game, but I doubt that very much.
Guild towers: Very epic, I had hoped that more designs would be added. Not really much to say beside that
Corkus caves: ok
(please also add more corkus discoveries thanks)

Spoiler: January 2022

Somehow I was late to this one by like 3 days but here it is

Spoiler: Image 1

BIRDS!!!! YES!!!!
I really hope we get environmental birds in this update, that'd be so nice.

Anyway, this is about COTL changes. One of the flags for "The Lost" is next to the nest which makes me think those birds may be guarding one of the lost travellers who they've taken to it, which would mean The Lost is getting remade (please also remake The Canyon Guides thanks)

The Bantisu Air Temple is visible in the background but it doesn't appear to have recieved any updates (yet)

Spoiler: Image 2

R.I.P Kandon Beda, to be fair nobody really cared anyway.
Anyway, Kandon Beda has been transformed into a military base. The description of this sort of implies that it was once a town canonically.
Since it's a military base behind the Colossus, I'm thinking they'll add a quest for the Colossus in 1.21.
1.21 seems like it's mostly finishing touches for 1.20 so far with Aldorei, COTL, Thesead and this being redone. Excited to explore this update.

Spoiler: Image 3

More flower related things... I'm thinking there's going to be some sort of questline about flowers in this update. Perhaps a rework of Death Whistle?
This also looks like somewhere in the Silent Expanse with all the obsidian and chorus fruits, which is interesting because there's a tree that looks right out of the Light Forest. Maybe it's a corrupted area of the Realm of Light?

Spoiler: Image 4

This is part of the Galleons Graveyard rework. Argus is one of the pirates in Marston's crew who betrayed Marston to help raise Redbeard and become one of his crewmates, so this is either part of a rework for Redbeard's Booty or one of the story segments for inside the dungeon.

I would like to see the characters from the dungeon quests become more involved in the dungeons themself, so this has some good potential

Spoiler: Images 5 and 6

Here's a miniboss called the "Megalodon" which, if you somehow didn't know, is a real prehistoric shark species. Not much to say here.


Here's one of the new dungeon modifiers for Galleons Graveyard. Modifiers seem to have a limit number of uses (per day?) so maybe they will give better rewards than regular runs

Another thing I find interesting is the modifier itself. We know that the ship is wrecked on the surface now, but if it's been hit by a storm... maybe it's on the move?
Shipwrecks can still be hit by storms though so probably not

Spoiler: Video 1

The video clearly depicts the transformation sequence from The Bigger Picture so that's confirmed to be getting reworked.

Spoiler: New Character

This new character here seems to fit the whole flower motif from the teasers of this update, which makes them probably relevant to that.

As for their name? When you right click the image, click "Open in new tab" and look at the URL, you can see that the image is called "Felf_pose.png". The F in Felf is capitalised, implying that to be a name. So for now, we can call this character "Felf"

EDIT: i am wrong
if you save image as it is just "elf_pose.png" and the F is part of the URL. We at least know their race. I will still refer to this character as "Felf" as I think it to be a good temporary name.

Spoiler: Thoughts on January reveals

Overall some very cool reveals. I'm really excited to see where this whole flower thing goes and to learn who this elf is.

 

we lost the keys to clock mystery somewhere in the timeline. still looking for them!

 

i'd at least like to see an updated version of legendary island in 1.21

also where eo teleport scrolls

 

what would be cool is if they removed lari and ava and replaced them with Lak'al and Ak'al

 

Only if they make Ba ,kal a waifu

 

Besides GG, I like what they are doing with Aldorei to make it look better. This also makes me think about if Part 2 of Aldorei's quest is going to be changed and how it will play out.

 

I'd like Salted to add the Ultimate Discovery of Corkus Island and Corrupted Galleon's Graveyard Dungeon.
Please Salted.

 

CGG is almost 100% coming, 1.19 released CUR alongside a rework of UR and I'm noticing a pattern
As for a Corkus ultimate, we can only hope

 

If they're adding more discoveries to Corkus there should really be one in the mecha Yahya fight, feels like the perfect place to hide a secret, especially a LI lore secret. I want to know what Doctor Legendary is a doctor of after all...

Calling it now, he's actually a doctor of fine arts or theology or something.

 

I agree
But instead of an update just add smth that makes yahabot not take like 10 minutes and a majority of the run
Or just remove him straight up

 

I think it's more likely that GG is being updated for CGG, not saying 1.21 can't be an ocean update but I wouldn't say this is really evidence for that.

Realistically, based on all the focus in this post about dungeons I think a large part of this update is just going to be fixing dungeons since basically half of them are either extremely broken and have softlocks in at least a few places, are extremely inconsistent or are just not interesting. This might be overly optimistic, but hopefully they're giving DS, IP, UC, GG and their corrupted versions the SST treatment.

________________________________

LI really needs some QOL changes, maybe having passes you can spend bronze and silver tokens on to skip those floors (chambers?) would be really nice, it would certainly make grinding for lots of the items much less of a pain in the ass. Also, they should just make the medallion cost 64 diamonds, it's stupid that it still says 128 and at this point it makes more sense for it to be 64 anyways.

Dr LI fight would be so much cooler if it was like the Eye but I think I'm reaching now...

 

the news thread states specifically it's just GG this update that's getting this overhaul

 

"This update, we’ve decided to take a more in-depth look at dungeons as a whole"
"This might be overly optimistic"

I'm not hoping for the new GG features, if I was asking for that I would have said the "GG Treatment" instead of the "SST Treatment". I want the broken dungeons to be not broken anymore, that really shouldn't be considered asking a lot.

 

In my opinion its probably gavel rework 2 electric boogaloo

 

Considering how it's Galleon's Graveyard specifically that's getting an update, and that this update will be rework-themed, it may be an Ocean rework. We know that every update adds SDs to one (or more) areas, so maybe we'll get ocean SDs. That or jungle SDs

 

They mentioned that the update would be more rework-focused with a bit of new content. It definitely isn't Fruma, though an Ocean or even a Jungle rework would be reasonable.

 

It makes sense that they want to focus on revamps still as there's enough things in the game that need adding/changing before they put their focus on a huge new area like Fruma.
I'm hoping that after this update we'll get Fruma for 1.22 and maybe we'll just get version 2.0 after that?! The map will be done, and hopefully the next 3 updates can wrap up the main story too.

 

I did see on the "GM Server Best Moments Thread" what appeared to be a rework of Jofash Docks a few months ago, but never mentioned it

For all I know, though, that's just an area near the Galleon's Graveyard, as it was also similar to the current GG entrance

 

Reminds me of this meme I made

 

If I were a GM I'd intentionally put fake shit in the background and then once people get adjusted to it being fake i'd start sprinkling real stuff in