Battle for Azeroth Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[GoodUsername55]

Well, there's no indication that those would be anywhere near Suramar level, but it sure would be great.

Look at tiragarde sound videos and pictures, boralus is massive.



It looks like it takes up a huge portion of the zone, maybe more.

[huth]

You can't check what I suggest you checked? OK.

You suggested i use unfounded reasoning and anecdotal evidence based on correlation with no reliable evidence of causative relations. Which is just as worthless as your unbacked claims.

[GoodUsername55]

Another quite interesting thing i discovered, is Drustvar's map is off.



Seems like the ingame map only shows roughly half of it, including a chunk of tiragarde, and it doesn't look unexplored.

[Deleted]

Aaaaand another small (~70 MB) PTR build (WOW-25549patch7.3.2_PTR)

[Marlamin]

Aaaaand another small (~70 MB) PTR build (WOW-25549patch7.3.2_PTR)

Honestly, hotfix builds like that shouldn't be even mentioned anymore. I've refrained from doing so since they've become so frequent. Some people might see it as something hypeworthy while it's something that now happens all the time.

[Deleted]

True !
At least next week is going to be interesting with Antorus / 7.3.5 though

[huth]

Honestly, hotfix builds like that shouldn't be even mentioned anymore. I've refrained from doing so since they've become so frequent. Some people might see it as something hypeworthy while it's something that now happens all the time.

I think they're just using the PTR for deployment tests at this point.

[GoodUsername55]

Damn i saw the PTR update and got excited again... it's definitely coming this tuesday.

[rda]

You suggested i use unfounded reasoning and anecdotal evidence based on correlation with no reliable evidence of causative relations. Which is just as worthless as your unbacked claims.

I suggested something else, that's just you piling up nonsense upon nonsense in an attempt to sound smart.

Since I have a spare minute, I will show you how completely stupid your position is.

You posit that since Blizzard didn't, I don't know, share numbers of players tabulated by how many complained about what aspect of the game, that we don't know anything about what aspects of the game generally evoke complaints? You think that makes you judicious and careful? Nah, that makes you stupid. Players aren't playing this game sitting in closed tubes, they are talking and saying things about the game. This happens on forums / reddit / youtube and in all other places. The complaints are there and more important complaints are generally more visible than less important ones. Your suggestion that we don't know what the major issues with the expansion are is just you closing your eyes to the information that readily shows what they are. And if you want to say the usual bla bla bla about how not all players go to the forums, ask someone to explain to you how polls work.

Same for the rest of your nonsense. "We don't know anything because Blizzard didn't say anything about it" is just a lazy non-starter.

[Marlamin]

I think they're just using the PTR for deployment tests at this point.

Seeing the live version of the build hits within an hour after the PTR build, probably yeah.

[Lyvefire]

One at launch, not one for the entire expansion.

I highly doubt they would create an entirely new instanced gameplay system, rewards, revamp areas, etc., only to implement a single one that people will stop doing as soon as they get that transmog gear.

Normally i'd be with you. In this case however, we have a dev going out of their way to be very guarded with their comments and we know the first one predominantly reuses Garrisons assets. That screams "cut and run if it doesn't work" to me. I'm not trying to doubt them but you're kidding yourself if you believe every feature Blizzard adds is there for good. Even way back in Cata they dropped Path of the Titans. Pandaria had challenge modes (which later got refined into the much more successful Mythic+!) and Scenarios (which are the basis for island hopping now). Hell Wod literally only added Garrisons as its one feature and they got a major rethink for Legion and preliminary interviews suggest they may be gone for BfA.

Personal conjecture here but I reckon they're being really tentative here. There's a lot that needs to go right for Warfronts to work.
- The teamwork needs to work even in a pug scenario: Is every role meaningful? Is afking warded against? Hell is it even fun?
- Asset creation is expensive: I theorize Stromgarde is a testing bed. The assets are reused Garrison stuff for now so its a light investment but if it does then they will likely face a lot of pressure to theme future ones appropriately. For example, the most obvious second one, Ashenvale, will need them to invest heavily in Night Elf building assets at the minimum.
- (The big one) Can the AI perform at the level they claim it can?: This will make or break both Warfronts and Island hopping. They claim they have crazy new ai that lets the npcs provide legitimate challenge outside of just throwing a raid boss tag on them. I am EXTREMELY skeptical of this. Complex ai is extremely hard to do, doubly so in a mmorpg where everyone puts their heads together to work stuff out. This is the lynchpin of the whole concept. If the Ai falls over then so do warfronts.

IF they manage to solve all of these problems then we may have a kickass feature that sees many a Warfront strewn throughout Azeroth.
If not....well be glad Stromgarde got something after Cata screwed it royally.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Normally i'd be with you. In this case however, we have a dev going out of their way to be very guarded with their comments and we know the first one predominantly reuses Garrisons assets. That screams "cut and run if it doesn't work" to me. I'm not trying to doubt them but you're kidding yourself if you believe every feature Blizzard adds is there for good. Even way back in Cata they dropped Path of the Titans. Pandaria had challenge modes (which later got refined into the much more successful Mythic+!) and Scenarios (which are the basis for island hopping now). Hell Wod literally only added Garrisons as its one feature and they got a major rethink for Legion and preliminary interviews suggest they may be gone for BfA.

Personal conjecture here but I reckon they're being really tentative here. There's a lot that needs to go right for Warfronts to work.
- The teamwork needs to work even in a pug scenario: Is every role meaningful? Is afking warded against? Hell is it even fun?
- Asset creation is expensive: I theorize Stromgarde is a testing bed. The assets are reused Garrison stuff for now so its a light investment but if it does then they will likely face a lot of pressure to theme future ones appropriately. For example, the most obvious second one, Ashenvale, will need them to invest heavily in Night Elf building assets at the minimum.
- (The big one) Can the AI perform at the level they claim it can?: This will make or break both Warfronts and Island hopping. They claim they have crazy new ai that lets the npcs provide legitimate challenge outside of just throwing a raid boss tag on them. I am EXTREMELY skeptical of this. Complex ai is extremely hard to do, doubly so in a mmorpg where everyone puts their heads together to work stuff out. This is the lynchpin of the whole concept. If the Ai falls over then so do warfronts.

IF they manage to solve all of these problems then we may have a kickass feature that sees many a Warfront strewn throughout Azeroth.
If not....well be glad Stromgarde got something after Cata screwed it royally.

Path of a Titans was unique in it's being cancelled, not the same as challenge modes, when they announced them it stayed in game until Warlords, so if anything they kept their word. Same with Garrisons,(You can argue weather it was a success but the feature was there).

[Fahrad Wagner]

Another quite interesting thing i discovered, is Drustvar's map is off.



Seems like the ingame map only shows roughly half of it, including a chunk of tiragarde, and it doesn't look unexplored.

Here's to hoping that missing chunk will make it or will be on a separate map.

[GoodUsername55]

Here's to hoping that missing chunk will make it or will be on a separate map.

Red shirt guy speculated the zones may further be split like they did in MoP. They either will do that, or the map simply is unfinished.

I hope it doesn't end up like moonglade, where the map itself looks nothing like how it looks on the world map, particularly the coast.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Red shirt guy speculated the zones may further be split like they did in MoP. They either will do that, or the map simply is unfinished.

I hope it doesn't end up like moonglade, where the map itself looks nothing like how it looks on the world map, particularly the coast.

What's wrong with Moonglade?

[Seramore]

99% sure that it's either a subzone or unfinished. There's a road leading to the left area of the zone at the top left.

[GoodUsername55]

What's wrong with Moonglade?

Map doesn't look as accurate compared to the world map. One of the few zones that has wierd borders.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Look at tiragarde sound videos and pictures, boralus is massive.

https://raiderscdnv2-herr1437987216.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/tiragarde-sound-1.jpg[/IMG]

It looks like it takes up a huge portion of the zone, maybe more.

https://i.gyazo.com/a7107899d9a8a8c147cab97e8e33cd42.png[/IMG]

Another quite interesting thing i discovered, is Drustvar's map is off.

https://i.gyazo.com/a11aaa4e886ed7c7deae3b0cc214dc22.png[/IMG]

Seems like the ingame map only shows roughly half of it, including a chunk of tiragarde, and it doesn't look unexplored.

https://i.gyazo.com/ec46d301581550b0167debd7f96b00f2.png[/IMG]

Odds are the maps we saw at Blizzcon were small area maps. They did that in the Cata blizzcon as well, only showing us the area we could play in.


As for Boralus being huge, that's a double edged sword. Knowing Blizz, 3/4 of that city will be full of enemies to fight for some reason.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Map doesn't look as accurate compared to the world map. One of the few zones that has wierd borders.

I see, yeah it's true it has a northern coast on the world map, which isn't true at all IG.

[GoodUsername55]

Odds are the maps we saw at Blizzcon were small area maps. They did that in the Cata blizzcon as well, only showing us the area we could play in.


As for Boralus being huge, that's a double edged sword. Knowing Blizz, 3/4 of that city will be full of enemies to fight for some reason.

Nazmir had a full map at blizzcon tho