Dragon Isles: what would their purpose actually be?

[Hobbidaggy]

There is a lot of buzz around people wanting to see the Dragon Isles and speculation that they would be used to rebuild or empower the dragonflights. Although nothing is really known for certain about them what are people expecting from these lands?

Would they be the mysterious caves that the dragons lived in during the war of the ancient book series? Broken off after the sundering and formed into islands off the coast still hidden from the world?

The area doesn’t necessarily hold any keys however as to how we might empower the flights again as the blue flight already had their new leader chosen and empowered without the use of these islands.

[MrLachyG]

didn't they give up a lot of their power at the end of Cata? so restoring the power to protect against future threats would be beneficial

[Val the Moofia Boss]

There is a lot of buzz around people wanting to see the Dragon Isles and speculation that they would be used to rebuild or empower the dragonflights. Although nothing is really known for certain about them what are people expecting from these lands?

I'm expecting nothing. There is literally no lore pointing towards any "Dragon Isles". If implemented it'd just be new lore pulled out of thin air, like Suramar or the Broken Isles or Mechagon and so on.

TBH I think people are really reaching with the Dragon Isles. Seriously there is nothing about it. It was just the name of some zone they threw out before they realized they already had enough content and didn't really need to spend more time adding more zones. Hellfire Peninsula and the Emerald Dream got some actual prototype maps and the Dragon Isles didn't, which speaks for itself.

didn't they give up a lot of their power at the end of Cata? so restoring the power to protect against future threats would be beneficial

And render render yet another "sacrifice" meaningless? Just like with the Night Elves' sacrifice in WC3 being rendered meaningless by WoD's asspull "demons only die in the Twisting Nether?". Uh huh.

Truthfully, I don't really care about the dragons in Warcraft. I think they're really boring. The only interesting dragon characters were Krasus (RIP) and Kalecgos. I was hoping to see Kalecgos and Jaina actually become a thing but apparently Blizzard had decided to forget that he exists at all. The Netherwing Dragonflight in Outland were cool, but again, forgotten.

[Triceron]

I'm expecting nothing. There is literally no lore pointing towards any "Dragon Isles". If implemented it'd just be new lore pulled out of thin air, like Suramar or the Broken Isles or Mechagon and so on.

TBH I think people are really reaching with the Dragon Isles. Seriously there is nothing about it. It was just the name of some zone they threw out before they realized they already had enough content and didn't really need to spend more time adding more zones. Hellfire Peninsula and the Emerald Dream got some actual prototype maps and the Dragon Isles didn't, which speaks for itself.



And render render yet another "sacrifice" meaningless? Just like with the Night Elves' sacrifice in WC3 being rendered meaningless by WoD's asspull "demons only die in the Twisting Nether?". Uh huh.

Truthfully, I don't really care about the dragons in Warcraft. I think they're really boring. The only interesting dragon characters were Krasus (RIP) and Kalecgos. I was hoping to see Kalecgos and Jaina actually become a thing but apparently Blizzard had decided to forget that he exists at all. The Netherwing Dragonflight in Outland were cool, but again, forgotten.

Sacrifices snd deaths serve the purpose of drama in the here and now, period. Nothing lasts forever in this fictional world, not even the death of the Aspects. Anything can be brought back or re-empowered, snd its because this whole series is built on the rule of cool over any sensible tangible history where sacrifices actually end up permanent.

And if you don't really care about dragons, then Dragon Isles lore isn't gonna change anything for you. Its not like Shadowlands gave us a new outlook on how Death is cool when it wasn't before. It's mostly more of the same, a lot of cool lore as expected and plenty of lore that was completely fucked up. Same as every expansion. Dragon Isles would be no different.

Its more 'Blizzard lore', whatever that means to people. The reasons practically don't even matter really. Look at where Azerite went in BFA from a macguffin to an afterthought. Dragon Isles is going to have a new macguffin that becomes immediately forgettable by the expansion that follows.

[catalystical]

Except the whole Dragon trope was done plenty in Wrath and settled with Cata.

Shadowlands and Bfa showed revisiting tropes can get tiring and boring quickly. Not to mention a ton of people will call every attempt at fleshing out backstories a "retcon". Will there be enough for a whole expansion? Probably not. Maybe there's enough to be a patch area. But it'll be lucky to come back as something like an intro scenario. Or both, like the Broken Isle in Legion.

[Trumpcat]

Gameplay wise at best they may be the new main zones of an expansion at worst they can be an underwhelming patch zone with dailies and 15 minutes of story content.
As for lore, it will definitely involve Wrathion and everything else is up in the air for speculation.

We expected a lot of Nazjatar and Azshara, quite much seeing it as an expansion itself, but they became one patch content washing away hopes and potential. The Dragon Isles have far less (any) lore associated with them compared to Nazjatar, so nothing but wild guesses and sarcastic comments can happen here.

I'm expecting nothing. There is literally no lore pointing towards any "Dragon Isles". If implemented it'd just be new lore pulled out of thin air, like Suramar or the Broken Isles or Mechagon and so on...

Not sure when Mechagon came to be, but Broken Isles and the Tomb of Sargeras were there since Warcraft 2 which I distinctively remember playing, also in War 3. While they expanded on it, it was definitely not pulled out of thin air, but one of the major parts of lore in the franchise.

From this point forward anything they do with the story can be only remotely connected to previous mentions, unresolved plot threads, a location from an old Warcraft map (like Balor), a name thrown into a sketch from 1995 or the like since pretty much all past big lore was already developed (and often wasted). This also reminds me how Crestfall was wasted as a location in the Island Expeditions.

[VinceVega]

Dragon Isles and Dragons as a whole are ratehr boring in wow. As someone else mentioned Kalecgos was interesting.

Rest... meh.

The Isles themselve shave been mentioned but thats it. There is nothing. They have to pull something out of their ass again to give us a reason why we go there and help them with whatever is going to destroy the world this time around.

I think the whole thing started with concept art form one of the expansions no? It got mentioned now ingame once at least.
I get, that we need new zones but i rather have the do a reverse cata this time around. Maybe build up the story a bit for once before suddenly finding a ne continent we have never seen before for some reason even from space...

[Ihavewaffles]

Obviously u could have different zones, like every zone isn't nightborne in broken isles.
Can have a zone for the dark trolls for example.

[Hobbidaggy]

didn't they give up a lot of their power at the end of Cata? so restoring the power to protect against future threats would be beneficial

Only problem here is that Tyr was the one to begin channeling the Titans power into the dragons to make them Aspects (Dawn of the Aspects series) and there was nothing here that said a special zone was needed to do this. The watchers channeled the Titans and transformed the protodragons into today’s dragons.

[TheRevenantHero]

I'm expecting nothing. There is literally no lore pointing towards any "Dragon Isles". If implemented it'd just be new lore pulled out of thin air, like Suramar or the Broken Isles or Mechagon and so on.

TBH I think people are really reaching with the Dragon Isles. Seriously there is nothing about it. It was just the name of some zone they threw out before they realized they already had enough content and didn't really need to spend more time adding more zones. Hellfire Peninsula and the Emerald Dream got some actual prototype maps and the Dragon Isles didn't, which speaks for itself.



And render render yet another "sacrifice" meaningless? Just like with the Night Elves' sacrifice in WC3 being rendered meaningless by WoD's asspull "demons only die in the Twisting Nether?". Uh huh.

Truthfully, I don't really care about the dragons in Warcraft. I think they're really boring. The only interesting dragon characters were Krasus (RIP) and Kalecgos. I was hoping to see Kalecgos and Jaina actually become a thing but apparently Blizzard had decided to forget that he exists at all. The Netherwing Dragonflight in Outland were cool, but again, forgotten.

You are super wrong about no lore pointing towards Dragon Isles. They were mentioned in BfA with it being said Wrathion is searching for them. so the Dragon Isles definitely exist in canon lore.

[Hobbidaggy]

You are super wrong about no lore pointing towards Dragon Isles. They were mentioned in BfA with it being said Wrathion is searching for them. so the Dragon Isles definitely exist in canon lore.

It’s true they do exist in cannon lore but the isles themselves have no lore. The idea they are there to rebuild and empower the flights seems very inaccurate to the concept of how the flights were created and the concept of the isles seems to conflict with Dragonblight and the sanctums and the pocket zones around Dragonblight as well. The flights were given their aspect powers in Dragonblight after the defeat of Galakrond so the isles just don’t seem to really have a purpose that I can think of

[Sondrelk]

We know Dragonblight is dragon headquarters because that is where the aspects defeated Galakrond, but we don't know for sure where the aspects were empowered, nor do we know for sure where Proto-dragons originated.

Based on Wrathion we can assume the Dragon isles is a mythical location to draginkind, so my money would be on their birthplace as the original Proto-dragons. They are after all quite a weird animal to begin with, so there might be some mystery to unravel based on their origin.

[nnelson54]

I'm expecting nothing. There is literally no lore pointing towards any "Dragon Isles". If implemented it'd just be new lore pulled out of thin air, like Suramar or the Broken Isles or Mechagon and so on.

The Broken Isles have been a thing since WCII and Wrathion is looking for the Dragon Isles in BfA.

[Athorha]

Could see an infinite dragonflight presence trying to convert it to their version of the caverns of time. Or maybe it actually ends up being vice versa *insert plottwist about the demons being in cahoots with murozond*

[Raetary]

Seriously there is nothing about it.

There was also nothing about Pandaria, Broken Isles and Shadowlands.

Pandaria was built around a single joke character.
The Broken isles where pretty much empty, with only a single point of interest on there (Tomb).
And the Shadowlands had 1 paragraph of description in the chronicles.

Yet oh, look at that!
3 whole expansions made from scratch.

In other words, so long as the idea for it exists, it is a potential expansion theme.
The fact that there is pretty much *nothing* about the isles, only increases their potential.

OT: If it were up to me, i'd make them be the ancient birthplace of all (proto)dragonkind, that got splintered off during the sundering and ended up around a titan facility.
Make the facility malfunction, and *poof* gravity fucks up and they start floating. (since that's what everyone seems to want them to do, including me)

The titan facility, of course, could be anything that Blizzard deems important.
Since its the dragons we are talking about, i wouldn't mind it leading into Azeroths soul chamber.

Have the Infinites and Void forces (Twilight's Hammer/Xal'atath) be the primary antagonists.
Could even involve the chromatic dragonflight in some way.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

There was also nothing about Pandaria, Broken Isles and Shadowlands.

I bought into Pandaria because the magical mists cloaking the continent from afar made it feel plausible. But they couldn't pull that trick twice. It makes no sense why no ships travelling across the ocean never noticed the humongous Val'sharah tree, the mountains of Highmountain/Stormheim, or the huge glowing Suramar shield. The Broken Isles should have been thoroughly mapped and well known long before we ever went there, just as well known as Zandalar or Kul'tiras were.

- - - Updated - - -

Now that I think about it, there is still one well known place we've never been to yet: Undermine.

[Raetary]

I bought into Pandaria because the magical mists cloaking the continent from afar made it feel plausible. But they couldn't pull that trick twice.

They don't need to.

Azeroth has a whole ocean on its 'backside' that we know is barely explored.
Put the isles in the forbidding sea.

There you go, problem is solved.
The reason as to why no one had found them yet, is that no one even properly ventured into the very sea that contained them.

[confety]

I remember seeing them in cocept art near the sea north of stratholme, with an "Alextrasza" label on it, probably they were going to be used as the red dragonflight home, but wasnt it moved in cataclysm to twilight highlands?

They could just implement it as a secondary zone in a future expansion like mechagon or the oondasta isle with its own storyline outside the expansion's theme, i think wrathion talked about them ingame at some point.

[TheRevenantHero]

I bought into Pandaria because the magical mists cloaking the continent from afar made it feel plausible. But they couldn't pull that trick twice. It makes no sense why no ships travelling across the ocean never noticed the humongous Val'sharah tree, the mountains of Highmountain/Stormheim, or the huge glowing Suramar shield. The Broken Isles should have been thoroughly mapped and well known long before we ever went there, just as well known as Zandalar or Kul'tiras were.

- - - Updated - - -

Now that I think about it, there is still one well known place we've never been to yet: Undermine.

Don't mention The U place or you'll summon him. We also haven't explored much of Azjol-Nerub, which I think could be a cool expansion. I'd also like to go to banana islands.

[Syegfryed]

what you mean what purpose? the purpose to have fun and be cool? it is dragons, everyone loves it, they can safely do an entire expansion revolving around dragons and everyone would appreciate as there is so much stuff to do without spoiling with bullshit like they did with BfA.

Without much pretension or tryign to be the next "masterpiece" of writing, they can do something more "on the ground" and enjoyable.

Hell, Cromatus is right there to be our Tiamat and they still are focusing on the twilight dragonflight.