Battle for Azeroth Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Well the Cata event was the world(Or certain areas, I can't remember no more ><) shaking. very cool and well immersive if well a bit jarring(But in a good way).

[Marlamin]

How's everyone this beautiful morning?

I know I am late, but I didn't know this and that is pretty damn neat. It is pretty impressive as a concept especially when you look down from the Highmountain Summit. That entire thing being one mesh is impressive. Do you happen to have any idea on how exactly it works? If its just one mesh I assume that means each continent has one mesh rather than the entire game?

It's one mesh per ADT (terrain tile). One tile is 533x533 in-game yards. Terrain texture is a 512x512 texture like this with the normal texture being this.

[RoshuanEU]

I guess I have a completely different idea of summer.

In more positive and very off topic news, are you happy with the new TS song? There was a new one coming, right?

[rda]

It's one mesh per ADT (terrain tile). One tile is 533x533 in-game yards. Terrain texture is a 512x512 texture like this with the normal texture being this.

For Paula: ...which is nothing terribly exciting in and of itself. What is impressive is a *change* from one way to degrade geometry / textures with distance to another, better one (which allows painting to noticeably farther distances in the same number of cycles, allowing players to see more for free). Such changes are fairly dangerous and laborious and that they implemented one, successfully, shows that they still have the resources / willpower to do something significant for WoW, at least occasionally. It also shows that the engine is in fairly good shape and not a collection of old spaghetti that everybody is afraid to approach out of fear of breaking something - but the last bit we already knew from earlier so at least for me it is not a surprise (but it is good to have a reinforcement anyway I suppose).

Regarding the morning, it is good.

In the spirit of avoiding unnecessary negativity, here is the success criteria of the next expansion for me: they should fix PVP. I am not asking for much - very succinctly, I'd be fine with two changes - (a) get back to honor / conquest gearing model, and (b) add solo queue for everything / make everything rated (these two things are deeply connected). PVP has been killed dead in Legion. I want it back.

In this vein, I am going to be judging the announcement of the next expansion on Blizzcon (or whenever / wherever they are going to make it) with a very simple criteria: does the slide with the main bullet list of expansion features contain an item related to PVP or not. If the list is going to contain such an item, I am going to wait patiently for it. If not, well...

[Marlamin]

Regarding the morning, it is good.

It might or might not get a little more interesting very soon!

[Marlamin]

That doesn't actually say much, yet it's building hype, and I don't even know what I'm supposed to be hyped about! BUT NOW I'M GETTING HYPED!

Well, I did say little.

[Sarethion]

wrong the Alliance between humans, ne and dwarfs existed in the rts.

At this point you just must be trolling. Either that or you just know nothing about RTS lore.

[Deleted]

Well, I did say little.

Don't play with our feelings, Parrot!

[Marlamin]

I was talking about this.

A little context to this: my current theory on why this happened is that Blizzard filtered out two keywords from this interface file list "Zandalari" and "KulTiras", in doing so they also removed references to things that are currently in use like (all) the mentioned Zandalari files. This doesn't really matter much for the game itself since this list is only used when extracting items Interface for add-on developers but it's pretty damn interesting nonetheless! One could assume that these terms could be related to the upcoming expansion.

[Marlamin]

World of Warcraft: The Return of the Rise of the Zandalari Empire, Part 2 confirmed!

[Shadochi]

I was talking about this.

A little context to this: my current theory on why this happened is that Blizzard filtered out two keywords from this interface file list "Zandalari" and "KulTiras", in doing so they also removed references to things that are currently in use like (all) the mentioned Zandalari files. This doesn't really matter much for the game itself since this list is only used when extracting items Interface for add-on developers but it's pretty damn interesting nonetheless! One could assume that these terms could be related to the upcoming expansion.

So the files are still there but just have been removed from a listfile?
If so, are they completely inaccessible to us at the moment or is there still a way to get to them?(without randomly looking at files in a CASC explorer)

[Sarethion]

Question: why would Blizzard remove these items from the list?

[Arbs]

There are no brakes on the hype train, Marlamin. There's only two settings: excitement, and disappointment.

All we need next is Bibi to pop in the thread, post the Hamster Train than it is full steams ahead.

[LeftyDPS]

I was talking about this.

A little context to this: my current theory on why this happened is that Blizzard filtered out two keywords from this interface file list "Zandalari" and "KulTiras", in doing so they also removed references to things that are currently in use like (all) the mentioned Zandalari files. This doesn't really matter much for the game itself since this list is only used when extracting items Interface for add-on developers but it's pretty damn interesting nonetheless! One could assume that these terms could be related to the upcoming expansion.

I think this is evidence that they have been working on something south seas based, but not that it is definitely the next expansion.

It could be they added these and planned to announce at gamescon but pulled the idea at the last minute due to internal issues, they released them in the client too early and want to stop all the speculation, or they were working on something for this as the next expansion but they have either overhauled it or shelved the idea to go with something else (they have done this before)

[Marlamin]

So the files are still there but just have been removed from a listfile?
If so, are they completely inaccessible to us at the moment or is there still a way to get to them?(without randomly looking at files in a CASC explorer)

They're only removed from the in-game asset extraction list. We can still access them through community tools.

[RoshuanEU]

They're only removed from the in-game asset extraction list. We can still access them through community tools.

Would that mean that you wouldn't see updates to the mentioned files through regular means? I have no idea how it works now, but I can imagine that updates to file in the in-game asset extraction list are more easily noticable than those that are not, even though they are accessible still through community tools. Can you elaborate if this is the case or how it works. I know very little about the file system, the update system and how data miners work. I read the explanation about the CASC system and that was very interesting

[Rae888]

It's possible they intended these removals to be found and the Zandalar part is misdirection, similar to when the goblin/worgen halloween masks were found and they then added murloc/ogre/etc. in the next build. All the Zandalar ones refer to things that are already in the live game (well, except maybe the weapons?)

[Lahis]

World of Warcraft: The Return of the Rise of the Zandalari Empire, Part 2 confirmed!

World of Warcraft: Da Voodoo Shuffle

There be trolls, mon!

[ATZenith]

How to not prove the what the next expansion is: Remove the files that sparked this discussion.

I feel like they should have left the files. Now I feel like the next expansion 100% will have something to do with that city

[rda]

I was talking about this.

A little context to this: my current theory on why this happened is that Blizzard filtered out two keywords from this interface file list "Zandalari" and "KulTiras", in doing so they also removed references to things that are currently in use like (all) the mentioned Zandalari files.

Seems very possible.

Good catch. :-)

I guess this is one more reinforcement that the new expansion (a) will contain a troll story - maybe a traditional mid-expansion side story, maybe something more mainstream, and (b) will contain something from Kul Tiras - if not the zones per se, then a scenario or something like that.