Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Makabreska]

Next expansion they will chill a bit with cosmic forces, but one after that - you can bet it will be there again. Void/Light expansion is a given really and it won't be about Goldshire.

Dunno man, I think Goldshire Inn has potential.

[Nyel]

I'm assuming he misspoke in that the game is not at its most profitable atm because of sub numbers alone. Which is likely true, as there's no way the game has the most subs it ever had.

This, thank you. Some people don't seem to understand the most obvious (shortened) references.

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I don't think Galakrond is anything other than speculation right now, since he is Death + Dragon, and Death and Dragons are current speculation topics.

Isn't everything speculation at this point? From world revamp to Dragon Isles to Galakrond, there's just nothing that screams "likely". As others have pointed out, we could easily head towards another MoP or WoD which no one was expecting.

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Surprised to not see a single one leak the Retail Survey with Player Housing. I guess Retail players are either too loyal or too few got the Survey who want to leak.

Just hearsay of the questions in it, but nothing else.

I really don't think housing is as big as some want it to be. It would be a total fluff feature. The question is: does WoW need fluff features? In what kind of state are pet battles right now?

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At this point when are we thinking 10.0 will be announced?

Guess it really depends on how much more corporate bs comes out in the next months. If the entire Kotick thing didn't happen in November, I think we still could have gotten something at the Game Awards.

If we're hit by the next shocking revelation in January or February, I don't expect them to announce anything. Sure, at some point they gotta make an announcement, but I think they will wait for a time when there is no recent bad news.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Dunno man, I think Goldshire Inn has potential.

Too many kinks to explore, not worth it.

[Johnjohn]

They are going to have to pull a Hail Mary. I think they are going to pull their trump card Arthas out for 10.0. Not sure what the theme or location will be, but I bet Arthas is involved.

[Raetary]

They are going to have to pull a Hail Mary. I think they are going to pull their trump card Arthas out for 10.0. Not sure what the theme or location will be, but I bet Arthas is involved.

They are already involving Arthas, he's part of the Anduin fight.

[Zexaniro]

I'm going to love it when all the people expecting le back to Azeroth good times world revamp get absolutely none of that and instead we get another cosmic crapshoot expansion in who-knows-where, for Danuser's 2.0 ride of fuckshittery.

There are definitely more than a few holdouts in the community trying to plug their ears to the sinking of Blizzard recently, holding out hope for 10.0 saving the game. I think this will break them, and it'll be funny.

going to another shadowlands 2.0 type world would truly be the nail in the coffin. I wouldn't totally put it out of the question after the 9.2 announcement debacle, another huge misstep isn't out of the question at this point

[Makabreska]

They are going to have to pull a Hail Mary. I think they are going to pull their trump card Arthas out for 10.0. Not sure what the theme or location will be, but I bet Arthas is involved.

Arthas is already here, his spirit was used to empower Anduins Runeblade. That's it.

[Gaidax]

They are going to have to pull a Hail Mary. I think they are going to pull their trump card Arthas out for 10.0. Not sure what the theme or location will be, but I bet Arthas is involved.

All they need to do is another good meaty expansion like Legion and then keep pumping meaty updates every 6 months. Which is, of course, a big task, but they most certainly can pull it out.

They pulled out WOD reversal with Legion, they most certainly can do it again.

They don't need Arthas, shmarthas or whatever for that - vast majority of WoW players don't even give two shits about these things - they just want a good game that keeps them busy with content and frequent updates.

It can be a frikkin' World of Warcraft: Beaches of The Coconut Island for all I care, as long as it has good content and major content updates every 6 months proper. Heck look at MoP - pretty much self-contained expansion with brand new lore and a joke race living in happy fields that actually rocked. They can do that, minus last tier lasting 12 months.

[Relapses]

They pulled out WOD reversal with Legion, they most certainly can do it again.

They don't need Arthas, shmarthas or whatever for that - vast majority of WoW players don't even give two shits about these things - they just want a good game that keeps them busy with content and frequent updates.

This is a good point -- there was a pretty long content drought before Legion but I think a lot of that had to do with Blizzard making damned sure they had content already in the pipeline once the expansion launched. If we're witnessing the same phenomena here then it can definitely be a good thing. I still don't like the feeling of an expansion being left out to dry mid-development but unspecified global disasters do be like that sometimes.

[Gaidax]

This is a good point -- there was a pretty long content drought before Legion but I think a lot of that had to do with Blizzard making damned sure they had content already in the pipeline once the expansion launched. If we're witnessing the same phenomena here then it can definitely be a good thing. I still don't like the feeling of an expansion being left out to dry mid-development but unspecified global disasters do be like that sometimes.

There is no doubt their plans got giga scuffed with C19.

I hope they will do enough preparation to ensure next expansion will have meaty content updates every 6 months, because this is no.1 thing people really need in WoW.

Much of the current issue is because people are getting bored out of their minds with these 8 month long patches AND 9.1 being very thin on content aside from expected raid/dungeon.

[Edward Wu]

They pulled out WOD reversal with Legion, they most certainly can do it again.

Why, beyond just "because it's Blizzard"?

I don't think people understand that there are only 2 things that make a company: the culture and the personnel. Both of which have taken massive hits since Legion came out. Don't know if you know this, but Ion wasn't Game Director of WoW until after Legion came out. The brainstorming of Legion was spearheaded by Tom Chilton, who I personally think is a far superior game designer compared to Ion.

I don't begrudge you for hoping. I would love it if 10.0 was great just as much as you would, but I don't think it's realistic at all. I do not feel a sense of passion from devs like Ion and outright hostility from others like Danuser. Ion these days just comes off as indifferent, which is extremely concerning.

[Bsirk]

Surprised to not see a single one leak the Retail Survey with Player Housing. I guess Retail players are either too loyal or too few got the Survey who want to leak.

Just hearsay of the questions in it, but nothing else.

I just took the survey actually. Mine was focused more towards Diablo IV imo.

[Makorus]

Why, beyond just "because it's Blizzard"?

I don't think people understand that there are only 2 things that make a company: the culture and the personnel. Both of which have taken massive hits since Legion came out. Don't know if you know this, but Ion wasn't Game Director of WoW until after Legion came out. The brainstorming of Legion was spearheaded by Tom Chilton, who I personally think is a far superior game designer compared to Ion.

I don't begrudge you for hoping. I would love it if 10.0 was great just as much as you would, but I don't think it's realistic at all. I do not feel a sense of passion from devs like Ion and outright hostility from others like Danuser. Ion these days just comes off as indifferent, which is extremely concerning.

Bullshit.

People act like all decisions by Blizzard are made by a singular person every time. He was Assistant Game Director in 2015, and became the actual Game Director in 2016. He had a big say in things, and actually was responsible for a lot of big changes, like Multistrike, even before he was the de-facto Game Director.

Legion was a dogshit expansion at launch, with probably the most ass-backwards design decisions, and the expansion got saved by the later patches. It was Ion that saved it, not Chilton.

[BaumanKing]

A war between two lovers of sorts.

An expansion about a cosmic love story? Sounds interesting, but I don't think most people need stories like this in Warcraft.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Bullshit.

People act like all decisions by Blizzard are made by a singular person every time. He was Assistant Game Director in 2015, and became the actual Game Director in 2016. He had a big say in things, and actually was responsible for a lot of big changes, like Multistrike, even before he was the de-facto Game Director.

Legion was a dogshit expansion at launch, with probably the most ass-backwards design decisions, and the expansion got saved by the later patches. It was Ion that saved it, not Chilton.

Yeah Legion had people upset about the AP Grind, the legendaries(Legiondaries as they were called). I'm not saying Ion is bad though, its hard to tell who decided what.

[Edward Wu]

Bullshit.

People act like all decisions by Blizzard are made by a singular person every time. He was Assistant Game Director in 2015, and became the actual Game Director in 2016. He had a big say in things, and actually was responsible for a lot of big changes, like Multistrike, even before he was the de-facto Game Director.

Legion was a dogshit expansion at launch, with probably the most ass-backwards design decisions, and the expansion got saved by the later patches. It was Ion that saved it, not Chilton.

Curious that you'd bring up a mechanic that's been scrapped as some kind of evidence of Ion's design prowess, lol.

[Sondrelk]

The thing about Legion is that what made it great was the content, but more importantly that it was a fresh take on WoW after a disastrous one.
It did things adequate, but more importantly didn't do anything disastrous like BfA with its awful plot turns, or SL being severely hamstrung by delays.

SL should have been something similar to Legion. The lore is not great, and the plot is kinda boring, but it's not leagues worse than Legion like BfA was, and the way the expansion is set up with a more distinct line between what is and what isn't important for raids is close to what Legion did in making the overworked worth a damn.


The only thing I am able to confidently state is "better" than BfA and Legion is the nebulous concept that it was more "fun" in that it incentivized overworld content to a greater degree.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

The thing about Legion is that what made it great was the content, but more importantly that it was a fresh take on WoW after a disastrous one.
It did things adequate, but more importantly didn't do anything disastrous like BfA with its awful plot turns, or SL being severely hamstrung by delays.

SL should have been something similar to Legion. The lore is not great, and the plot is kinda boring, but it's not leagues worse than Legion like BfA was, and the way the expansion is set up with a more distinct line between what is and what isn't important for raids is close to what Legion did in making the overworked worth a damn.


The only thing I am able to confidently state is "better" than BfA and Legion is the nebulous concept that it was more "fun" in that it incentivized overworld content to a greater degree.

C19 is a big factor in all of this. If any expansion faced that, it would be hated. I'm not sure if the delays will go away, I have no idea how insync Blizzard is remotely.

[Dracullus]

Legion was combination of fresh ideas (some good, some bad, as always), long wait after very barren expansion and culmination of story that started Warcraft for many (most?) people. And proof that Blizzard shouldn't give a shit about min-maxers (9.0 kinda proves it too, but in other way).

Despite fact that 7.0 was objectively worse design that any patch after it, hype was real. Cause it's better when hardcores complain doing Maw of Souls 24/7 or RNG legos then casuals complaining there is 200 item level ceiling and leaving game.

[Sondrelk]

C19 is a big factor in all of this. If any expansion faced that, it would be hated. I'm not sure if the delays will go away, I have no idea how insync Blizzard is remotely.

Legion is a good example. Imagine being stuck in Emerald Nightmare for months with its awful Legiondary drops, getting the Suramar stuff and Nighthold long after it was needed, and then being stuck in that raid with only small amounts of extra content outside before getting 7.2 as a weak ending to the whole thing.
It would have been awful, and just like in SL would have magnified every single flaw from sheer boredom as you are stuck with miniscule amounts of content.