Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Makorus]

We will reach Renown 80 in four weeks.

So 9.1 will be out in 5 weeks.

[Makabreska]

Shouldn't we get any story progression as well? Sylvi interrogation at least?

[Sondrelk]

Seems like the systems needed to properly change covenants and keep the rewards are not added yet. The mounts do still say that it requires either being a member, or having completed Renown 80 with said covenant, so I think it is a safe bet to assume that is how the system will work.
Oddly though cosmetics from different covenants simply do not show up at all. Transmog not showing up in the sets tab is one thing, but for some reason it is simply not currently possible to search for Tauralus mounts as a Kyrian for example.

Also small change I noticed. Instead of Soulkeeper upgrades, Renown now instead gives 500 anima. I didnt check whether this is the case when you use the item to get to Renown 40 immediately, but I wouldnt assume it works that way. 1000 anima doesnt seem like that big a deal anyways, it's a single run through Korthia.

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Shouldn't we get any story progression as well? Sylvi interrogation at least?

Doesnt seem like it. Though on the other hand if there was I imagine the writers would want to ensure we don't see it, and since it would likely only be a couple voicelines and maybe a small cutscene I cannot imagine they would have a problem hiding it anyways.

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We will reach Renown 80 in four weeks.

So 9.1 will be out in 5 weeks.

Or 4 weeks, impossible to tell really.
It could be that Blizzard releases the patch quickly, or they keep it in the oven for a bit longer. From what I have seen on the PTR I think it could go either way at this point.

[Marlamin]

Anyone else got a Pre release download on retail wow or just me? Could that hint 9.1.5 being closer than expected maybe?

This is a side-effect of how data is shared between branches as well as the background download for 9.1.0 still being active (probably accidentally). Every time there's a PTR update (or classic for that matter), retail WoW will pick up indexes and stuff regardless of it actually needing the files only used for PTR.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Shouldn't we get any story progression as well? Sylvi interrogation at least?

I mean I speculated something like that a few weeks ago, but I very much doubt it's going to happen now.

[AngerFork]

Considering whats going on, its not really shocking and removing an image of a woman with boobs hanging out but distorted..... its not that big of a loss.

Some of them aren't that big, but some of these absolutely change the lore and/or don't fit. Changing from Twin Consorts to Twin Empyreans very much changes the who & why behind their lore, not to mention that it somewhat comes out of nowhere compared to what they meant to Lei Shen beforehand. Changing the lore of a boss is not really that big of a loss perhaps, but it is also not nothing & can absolutely change the lore of the game if done enough.

Even something as eyeroll-worthy of changing the picture of a woman to a bowl of fruit is still concerning. The initial image was one of beauty, likely commissioned by a former person of power for a loved one. It tells somewhat a story of love & power. But the bowl of fruit...that's a painting you could likely find in a hotel lobby. What story would something like that have in the World of Warcraft?

It comes across as censorship & virtue signaling IMO.

This is a side-effect of how data is shared between branches as well as the background download for 9.1.0 still being active (probably accidentally). Every time there's a PTR update (or classic for that matter), retail WoW will pick up indexes and stuff regardless of it actually needing the files only used for PTR.

That's actually really cool to know. It makes sense that they'd keep the indexes the same across versions while not pushing up the full code updates until the changes were ready.

[Osmeric]

They're not doing this to please WoW players. It is all PR stunt to make them look good to the outside investors.

Or, to look better in a trial over creating a hostile work environment.

[Yarathir]

"Genocidal stone chinese-inspired totalitarian emperor has sex trophies."
"This is bad because in real life we don't approve of sex trophies. The genocidal stone chinese-inspired totalitarian emperor part can stay, though."

Shit, almost like the point was he was a bad guy and that WoW isn't real life and that something happening in WoW doesn't mean approving of it in real life. Or does Blizzard want to argue that we should consider use of biological weapons morally just? If so, that's a really brave stance to take, but I imagine that's not quite it.

[Kiivar86]

I'm happy to see more dungeons added to timewalking, particularly Grimrail Depot and Forge of Souls. Those were both favorites of mine.

[Lady Atia]

"Genocidal stone chinese-inspired totalitarian emperor has sex trophies."
"This is bad because in real life we don't approve of sex trophies. The genocidal stone chinese-inspired totalitarian emperor part can stay, though."

Shit, almost like the point was he was a bad guy and that WoW isn't real life and that something happening in WoW doesn't mean approving of it in real life. Or does Blizzard want to argue that we should consider use of biological weapons morally just? If so, that's a really brave stance to take, but I imagine that's not quite it.

I think the problem is that the dungeon journal (which wouldn't be written from Lei Shen's perspective, but lets say ours or the lorewalkers or so) called them trophies. So whoever wrote that piece of lore seemingly thought from his perspective that it's ok to objectify women. Their title was ok in my eyes, but the description was always problematic. Besides that, the "only two known female mogu" part was weird too, I'm so glad they did retcon this. I remember people speculating that Lei Shen literally created them for his own pleasure using Titan technology. Which ones again, objectifies them - they were literally sex robots.

That said, I really hope they don't change the Black Temple and Nighthold parts, aswell as the Succubus ...

[Raetary]

I don't remember anyone ever portraying Lei Shen as someone excusable let alone good, so idk what people are on about the story "excusing owning sex trophies" and what not.

The existence of bigotry in a story is not a problem, what matters is what the writer decides to do with the bigotry.

If you have a racist character, and the story portrays the character as justified and endorses that position then we have a problem.
If the story doesn't do that, but portrays the racism for what it is, then what exactly is the problem?

[Lady Atia]

I don't remember anyone ever portraying Lei Shen as someone excusable let alone good, so idk what people are on about the story "excusing owning sex trophies" and what not.

The existence of bigotry in a story is not a problem, what matters is what the writer decides to do with the bigotry.

If you have a racist character, and the story portrays the character as justified and endorses that position then we have a problem.
If the story doesn't do that, but portrays the racism for what it is, then what exactly is the problem?

Well, one could argue that said story element may normalize objectifying women for people who aren't smart enough to realize that Lei Shen was a "genocidal stone chinese-inspired totalitarian emperor"(or worse, think it's a good thing). And it's not like we helped them out of their slavery (which would have been an interesting quest line) .... we literally killed them because they were loyal to Lei Shen and seemingly fine with their situation as sex toy "trophies".

[Yarathir]

I think the problem is that the dungeon journal (which wouldn't be written from Lei Shen's perspective, but lets say ours or the lorewalkers or so) called them trophies. So whoever wrote that piece of lore seemingly thought from his perspective that it's ok to objectify women. Their title was ok in my eyes, but the description was always problematic. Besides that, the "only two known female mogu" part was weird too, I'm so glad they did retcon this. I remember people speculating that Lei Shen literally created them for his own pleasure using Titan technology. Which ones again, objectifies them - they were literally sex robots.

That said, I really hope they don't change the Black Temple and Nighthold parts, aswell as the Succubus ...

But here's my question: what part of Lei Shen or Throne of Thunder or the entire lore surrounding Mogu do we actually approve of societally?

I would think none of it, including the trophies part. Just as I hope nobody thinks Sylvanas' actions are morally acceptable.

[Makabreska]

But here's my question: what part of Lei Shen or Throne of Thunder or the entire lore surrounding Mogu do we actually approve of societally?

I would think none of it, including the trophies part. Just as I hope nobody thinks Sylvanas' actions are morally acceptable.

The only good thing I member about him were his reforms: unifying language, currency etc. to create efficient empire.

[Lady Atia]

But here's my question: what part of Lei Shen or Throne of Thunder or the entire lore surrounding Mogu do we actually approve of societally?

I would think none of it, including the trophies part. Just as I hope nobody thinks Sylvanas' actions are morally acceptable.

Well, for Sylvanas they clearly went the Daenerys route - she thinks she does the right things but her actions are wrong. (hey, they both burned a city to the ground!) But I would believe her if she would say she just did it to "break the weel".

And I think there are enough people outside who would proudly declare Lei Shen's work as thunder king a good for the people of Pandaria .... just because you and I don't doesn't mean no one does, sadly. And we don't need to give those people something else to approve of ...

[Yarathir]

The only good thing I about him I member were his reforms: unifying language, currency etc. to create efficient empire.

That's more than I did. The one thing I appreciated about him is that although he was awful, he was fairly well built up in a short period of time. But I always thought he was a bad guy doing bad things, and thought the same of most of the mogu considering a vast majority of them were on the mogu supremacy boat.

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Well, for Sylvanas they clearly went the Daenerys route - she thinks she does the right things but her actions are wrong. (hey, they both burned a city to the ground!) But I would believe her if she would say she just did it to "break the weel".

And I think there are enough people outside who would proudly declare Lei Shen's work as thunder king a good for the people of Pandaria .... just because you and I don't doesn't mean no one does, sadly. And we don't need to give those people something else to approve of ...

But let's be fair, at that point, you may as well remove literally every other theme because it could inspire people or give people the wrong idea. This is not a slippery slope, this is just me saying that the line of distinction is arbitrary.

And yeah, I find it real hilarious that Blizzard is pushing for this stuff to be removed or altered not to accidentally "normalize" harmful notions and ideas, but we have an actual omnicidal zombie woman that uses/used biological weapons, burned thousands if not more alive, made deals with pretty much 3 separate bad guys and tried to enslave a Titan Keeper that is on the verge of possibly being redeemed because of some contrived plot nonsense.

[Hitei]

And yeah, I find it real hilarious that Blizzard is pushing for this stuff to be removed or altered not to accidentally "normalize" harmful notions and ideas, but we have an actual omnicidal zombie woman that uses/used biological weapons, burned thousands if not more alive, made deals with pretty much 3 separate bad guys and tried to enslave a Titan Keeper that is on the verge of possibly being redeemed because of some contrived plot nonsense.

But even if Sylvanas is redeemed, that would be a direct indication that she had done wrong beforehand. The problem with consorts is that they aren't wrong at all, the game outright glorifies them as something making Lei Shen even more wealthy and powerful.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

My only concern with this "boiling the frog" is that it is causing unnecessary amounts of drama and will completely overshadow any game issue going forward since Blizzard do not want to explain themselves and instead continue to overcorrect while staying silent leading to a consistent cycle of worrying about what is next to come.

I don't think this is healthy. I'd rather they'd be honest about what they want to change "narratively" and what they want to change "in-game" wise. Because it would make it much easier to accept things. But as it currently stands we're just going to see new weekly builds where this problem of overreaction continues.

I have no issues if they want to bubblewrap the World of Warcraft to only be about Genocide with everything else being not allowed. Although bubblewrapping WoW at this point is a marvellous task in of itself. I think it is pretty comical at this point since we're talking about a game with an almost 3 decade worth of narrative which is not politically correct in the slightest.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Yes, but Lei Shen is not an actual person. Calling women "trophies" is something that was written by the writers because they thought they were so clever. It is the most literal version of objectifying women.

This actually gave me an idea, afrasiabi is I think on record of doing most of sylvanas’s writing I wonder if them removing the garrosh line and changing the twin consort lore could be because he’s the one who wrote them and they want to take out some of his questionable work.

[Cosmic Janitor]

This actually gave me an idea, afrasiabi is I think on record of doing most of sylvanas’s writing I wonder if them removing the garrosh line and changing the twin consort lore could be because he’s the one who wrote them and they want to take out some of his questionable work.

The garrosh line was removed ages ago. If they had planned to do anything about him they would have probably started by killing off his NPCs.