Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Nyel]

We're getting quarterly results today as well. Who knows, maybe they're not looking good either.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Well shit, J. Allen Brack leaves.

After some shareholders started to whet their soulless lawyer-shaped knives it was obvious that JAB would wouldn't keep his seat at Blizzard for much longer. The moment he butchered their first press release was when it was over, especially after it kept snowballing from that point on to the point that even their stock dipped a bit. Him being part of the old crew that watched Afrasiabi for over a decade doesn't help much either. Now it remains to be seen how all of this will play out in the future.

Edit: At least first glance they didn't try to put some former Trump wannabe-GeStaPo at the helm and went for people that have at least worked on a game before. I expected worse for his replacement, tbh.

[Osmeric]

We're getting quarterly results today as well. Who knows, maybe they're not looking good either.

This was my thought. If Kotick has to bring bad news to the investors, it helps if he has a severed head to placate them with.

[Kereberus]

Would the shareholders meeting give us a hint about 9.2 or 10.0?

[Nyel]

Would the shareholders meeting give us a hint about 9.2 or 10.0?

Sometimes it contains phrases like "bla bla will release later this year" or stuff like that, but at the last shareholder meeting they didn't announce the TBC Classic launch at all, just to announce it a few days later with a blue post.

And with no official word about 9.2 yet I very much doubt they'll mention it in the report.

[Dracullus]

Would the shareholders meeting give us a hint about 9.2 or 10.0?

Nope, it's about past, not future. And it's for April-June period, April/May were dead months, but June was both TBC and 9.1 - many people who hated it still checked out patch and all you need for Blizz is to log in once.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Would the shareholders meeting give us a hint about 9.2 or 10.0?

I doubt it, they might reafirm that they are working to get back on track with their release schedule or at best they might admit that this all might have delayed it a couple of weeks. I doubt strongly that we'll be seeing concrete release dates, even just rough estimates by quarter.

[Osmeric]

I doubt it, they might reafirm that they are working to get back on track with their release schedule or they at best they might admit that this all might have delayed it a couple of weeks. I doubt we'll be seeing concrete release dates or ever quarter prognoses.

Now would be a great time for them to trot out bad news they've been sugarcoating, though. They have a scapegoat who has just conveniently decided to "pursue personal opportunities elsewhere".

[Dracullus]

They basically gave Blizzard leadership to people outside Blizzard. Acti must be really paranoid with who was involved or ignored harassment. Or everyone with executive position was ignoring it...

[Osmeric]

They basically gave Blizzard leadership to people outside Blizzard. Acti must be really paranoid with who was involved or ignored harassment. Or everyone with executive position was ignoring it...

Blizzard is also the sick studio (notice they're calling it a studio!) in A-B, just from the basic point of delivering games that grow revenue.

[Varodoc]

All I gather from this is:

Phew, at least Shadowlands ends with 9.2, I couldn't have asked for a better pick to get the WoD treatment.

Because let's be real these people are not going to do 9.3 with all this mess

[Dracullus]

All I gather from this is:

Phew, at least Shadowlands ends with 9.2, I couldn't have asked for a better pick to get the WoD treatment.

Because let's be real these people are not going to do 9.3 with all this mess

If 9.3 was planned month ago, it will still release, it's not like they suddenly will speed up 10.0 production cause drama. If anything, last few months should force them to reflect what they exactly want to do in 10.0, since Legion foundation simply doesn't work anymore.

Blizzard is also the sick studio (notice they're calling it a studio!) in A-B, just from the basic point of delivering games that grow revenue.

And how they should call it? It's a studio.

[Makabreska]

All I gather from this is:

Phew, at least Shadowlands ends with 9.2, I couldn't have asked for a better pick to get the WoD treatment.

Because let's be real these people are not going to do 9.3 with all this mess

How many patches SL will have was decided long time ago, and sudden change of Blizz leadership wont produce any visible WoW results for some time, if any.

[Sarethion]

It'd very naive to not expect some if not a lot of people to revisit Legion/BfA/Shadowlands with a new class, and if and when they do then it's going to feel raw and unfinished if a lot of the expansion's elements are missing.

Legion already feels that way with the Artifact Weapon being a glorified gem holder and I haven't seen anyone have a problem with that.

[Cosmic Janitor]

How many patches SL will have was decided long time ago, and sudden change of Blizz leadership wont produce any visible WoW results for some time, if any.

Oh come on, we've seen what happned earlier this year with how far along Korthia was (or not to be precise given the anemic showing at blizzconline. Blizzard is not preproducing tonns of content right now. If they planned 2 they could easily cut and merge it down to 1. Other game studios have stamped out whole games with the debris of past projects in half a year, Blizzard can do the same.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Well shit, J. Allen Brack leaves.

Not to derive the thread, but I think it is a good thing. The apologetic/disgusted tone of his statement was really off compared to those videos from Blizzcon. It sounded like someone who knew he fucked up, but was trying to save his skin in the process under the cover of a tolerant and apologetic message. Although I genuinely believe he came to realise there was an issue... I also believe he was a part of the said issue, for closing his eyes or ignoring Afriasiabi's behaviour for years.

I think new blood is what Blizzard's management needs at the moment.

That being said, I truly believe 9.2 will be the end of Shadowlands, and that an 9.3 patch is highly unlikely. And if that is the case, I also believe it will be a good thing: better to have a strong ending with 9.2 than a lukewarm one stretched over to 9.3 imo!

But maybe all of this is wishful thinking, time will tell...

[Sentynel]

There were no systems such as those when DHs were introduced. At most they had to give Nefarian a special interaction with them. Now they would have to give the new class a class hall and new covenant spells, otherwise it wouldn't be "Blizzard quality" or what's left of it.

It'd very naive to not expect some if not a lot of people to revisit Legion/BfA/Shadowlands with a new class, and if and when they do then it's going to feel raw and unfinished if a lot of the expansion's elements are missing.

Either way this is what I think. I'm seeing Blizzard trying something along the lines of elite specializations like GW2 did, as opposed to introducing a new class. That would solve some of the awkward interactions with Legion and Shadowlands, at least.

A potential new class doesn't need to have Legion Order Halls.

DK's didn't have anything added after their introduction. (bar the S4 set)
Monks didn't have anything added after their introduction.
DH's didn't have anything added after their introduction.

Seeing the pattern here?

[Fahrad Wagner]

A potential new class doesn't need to have Legion Order Halls.

DK's didn't have anything added after their introduction. (bar the S4 set)
Monks didn't have anything added after their introduction.
DH's didn't have anything added after their introduction.

Seeing the pattern here?

Exactly. It would be a reduced experience, but it would work nonetheless-

[Fiercelord]

I don't think there won't be a 9.3, not because of recent events, because they must have already started working on it storywise. I'm only afraid that it will turn out to be a 8.3 style patch again - a patch with only the new raid being a new "zone" while something else is re-used.

The reason I think this is because they were already working on 9.2 the moment 9.1 PTR went out (at least I hope). I'm talking about art and story design team who must have already finished the plans for 9.2 and are already working on 9.3 designs. I don't know how it works, but before they made 6.2 back in WoD, they must have decided that it's the last patch for the expansion before they started working on it so they wanted to make sure the story plays out like that. In this case, if they decided to make 9.2 the last patch, they must have made that decision a few months ago, not recently.

[AngerFork]

There were no systems such as those when DHs were introduced. At most they had to give Nefarian a special interaction with them. Now they would have to give the new class a class hall and new covenant spells, otherwise it wouldn't be "Blizzard quality" or what's left of it.

It'd very naive to not expect some if not a lot of people to revisit Legion/BfA/Shadowlands with a new class, and if and when they do then it's going to feel raw and unfinished if a lot of the expansion's elements are missing.

None of that is too hard to do. For the covenent spells, you could just create a generic set of spells for the new classes, similar to how the new Horde races get generic quest text/images during the Lorewalker Cho intro quest chain. It might not be exciting, but Blizz doesn't tend to go back and do massive updates to old content as is.

I imagine that most Legion Order Halls would be set up in either whatever the starting zone for the new class would be, or it could just be a generic one set up in Dalaran just for new classes with a smaller/easier storyline. The spec Artifact Weapons would be a great way to build out the lore of a new class.