Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[huth]

Lately? They had them since at least WotLK (don't know if they were shown ingame earlier).
While not SW, the Alliance does have spaceships(Draenei and Army of Light). And one is under the command of the Step-in ruler of Stormwind while Anduin is being dominated by Zovaal. So while not stationed in Stormwind, yes they do have a spaceship.

Sure, but then you also have to consider Ironforge, Gnomeregan and so on, and the whole "medieval" idea just goes right out the window anyway. For that matter, the Airships are probably Dwarf/Gnome cooperation only crewed by Humans.

Stormwind by itself is closest to Renaissance. The rest is mostly more advanced, with the two Elf factions going a completely different path technologically, relying much more on magitech. Kul Tiras is obviously built off the Hanseatic League, though with some WoW-specific influences. (I'm fairly certain i didn't see any widespread octopus imagery last time i was in Hamburg...)

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Well kinda makes sense to keep the spaceship in space than on the ground. Probably cheaper to keep it in orbit than relaunch...

It doesn't look like it's meant to land, either.

[Makabreska]

Or they could have been “I did this because I wanted to”

Not really any better reason. And besides that, people already treated is as such when she got triggered by Delaryn in the cinematic and her order seemed to by made on a whim. Any other explanation flew under the radar.

[Dracullus]

That it was done to create a shocking moment is clear. There is afterall as I said no narrative payoff for the event happening, and probably never will be. The story would have worked just as well if the dead Sylvanas condemned to superhell were just the regular soldiers of the Alliance and Horde.
The best reason to have that event happen in regards to serving the story is that it makes Sylvanas come across like especially evil, which is the part that really drags the story down.

I read some more of the backstory to this speculation though, and it sounds like the grudge more specifically came across by making Sylvanas especially evil, which the story really didnt need.

Whole plot would work with one small change - Sylvanas went to Maw after suicide (even better if she was judged by Arbiter to go straight there) and got offer she's couldn't refuse from Jailer. So she either stay in super hell or be revived and help Jailer break everything (not just pretend to, because if she got destroyed she will be back in Maw). SoD would end with us beating Sylvanas and Jailer returning her missing part of soul cause he thinks she's useless at this point. Notice how I didn't change any events before or after 9.1.

Making Sylvanas first believing that Jailer could be positive change and changing mind 2 seconds after he won was most stupid thing that turned people on SL story. Not places/characters with weak connection to existing lore, not even Jailer being boring villain, but this stupid arrow shot after raid. What is even more funny, it's still last big lore event we experienced before another 8 months drought. Yeah, these four 9.2 cinamatics have almost impossible task to acomplish.

[Sondrelk]

Let's be honest here, 2 minutes to evacuate an entire city is a pretty ridiculous proposal. You'd probably need a few hours.

Given the size of Teldrassil in lore it would probably take a day or two at the very least. Even discounting how there were only something like 2 portals for one person at a time to go through at a time they were both in the middle of Darnassus, the time needed to even get the word out to the more outlying areas for them to start moving towards Darnassus would take hours at best, not to even get into how long it would take for them to walk there.

[Osmeric]

Conway's Law states that an organization creates software that will resemble the organization. So, it should be no surprise if WoW over time more closely resembles a shitstorm.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Given the size of Teldrassil in lore it would probably take a day or two at the very least. Even discounting how there were only something like 2 portals for one person at a time to go through at a time they were both in the middle of Darnassus, the time needed to even get the word out to the more outlying areas for them to start moving towards Darnassus would take hours at best, not to even get into how long it would take for them to walk there.

With out any portals sure but with them it can become pretty damn fast.

[Super Dickmann]

I'm eargerly waiting to experience Zereth Mortis, its zone, the main quest, side quests and the many little lore pieces that we will encounter throughout the zone before I can make a real comment on its value and what we can seriously expect.

For now, the aesthetic seems fine, no mind breaking visuals but maybe this isn't the right place for such. This place is supposed to be a test bed, an experiment center for crafting realities and mechanics behind life and death related to it. They bring personality programming, fate and other topics into this design, which is already quite a lot to take in for some players (and we see it first hand amongst the mmo-c community). Having some impressive visuals that make you loose some of your marks as well would maybe be too disturbing and players would not enjoy the experience.

I'll potentially revise my judgment when I'll have the chance to experience it on live (I don't want to spoil myself too much for now) but from what I've seen, the fauna sell it well enough for me without feeling like titan creations.

On the note of who might make an appearance in the future, i'm quite convinced that both Ysera and the Winter Queen will also show their faces once we get closer to Elune and her responsibilities.

As said I think the actual ideas regarding fate and the idea of a test bed of reality is both fairly interesting and not really all that far removed from previous elements like the Titan testing sites or the whole abysmal "Aspects were fated to stop Deathwing because he was made an Aspect" bit. I also have no real visual complaint regarding the zone as such, what I do think is that both visually and in terms of ideas, it's holding itself back like the writers are afraid of committing to it, which handicaps the material. People who would never like it are still stuck with it while those who might be into it don't get the full value.

Of the Eternal Ones I figure the Winter Queen is the likeliest to appear again after Denathrius due to Elune. I doubt we'll see much more of the Arbiter, Archon or Primus and we'll also not be seeing much of the Jailer given his reception as a baddie. I won't shed much tears on that last front.

@Sondrelk

There's something to be said about playing more with the skybox and especially with the lush area and the palette of the desert. A bit more artificiality and leaning into the fractal design in the way the cliffs are identical hexagonal shapes would've done a lot for the visuals and not have required much effort. The actual story commitment issue would require a lot more finagling but is really the culmination of their general indecision about what kind of baddie they want and how much they want to lean into their cosmic ideas. I have to wonder how much of a false positive is being sent in terms of SL reception in the same sense that BFA was seen as a failure of a character-driven narrative instead of the real reason that it was poorly constructed tripe SL might seriously have most of the flak be directed at its weird ideas instead of the failure of execution and the screentime occupied by nothing characters.

[Khaza-R]

A big big SUPPOSEDLY Afrisabi had some vendetta involving Sylvanas which involved Teldrassil(Cause I guess it was in response to Garrosh or something). Again very alleged from one of the voice actors(Alleria windrunner's voice actress for HS).

This is actually an old theory. And it was supposedly between Dave Kosak and Alex Afrasiabi. Supposedly Afrasiabi was mad because they turned Garrosh into a villain. So he got revenge by making Sylvanas (supposedly a pet character of Kosak's) into a villain.

Its pretty easily disproven though because there's interview of Alex saying he and Metzen were behind turning Garrosh into a villain and they envisioned that path from him very shortly after TBC.

So I am going to say this is just another version of that fake rumor.

[Raetary]

Wrathion just got a new half-draconic form as one of his 3 portraits as a new hero in Hearthstone's Mercs.
Could be nothing, could be something juicy for a Dragon-focused expansion, like for instance his new combat form for cinematics/fights if he's a main character in 10.0.

Considering he grew a whole wing, to me it looks like he's just mid transformation and not in a 'half draconic form'.

[Skildar]

Conway's Law states that an organization creates software that will resemble the organization. So, it should be no surprise if WoW over time more closely resembles a shitstorm.

This is taken way out of context.... It's the software architecture that will resemble the organization. Therefore, to our eyes nothing transpires from the software that we can attribute to bad communication and/or organization structure.

Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure.

[Marlamin]

Wrathion just got a new half-draconic form as one of his 3 portraits as a new hero in Hearthstone's Mercs.
Could be nothing, could be something juicy for a Dragon-focused expansion, like for instance his new combat form for cinematics/fights if he's a main character in 10.0.

Other than the fact they picked Wrathion, Hearthstone has always had known characters in various shapes or forms, so not sure it's a direct sign of anything.

Also, I couldn't bare to look at that low-res pic so here's the full art for his 4 variants (differing sizes because Hearthstone).




(Please remove images when quoting the post, thanks!)

[Alanar]

Sci-fi in warcraft is fine, when it makes sense and align with the races/factions

shadowlands is a clown fest, mixing scifi with something that was supposed to be "spooky" or in a spiritual level, was a fucking miss. Shadowlands definetly do not feel like warcraft, at all, it just borrow the name and the characters.



what are you talking about, people liked mechagon

Not everyone, I didnt like it for example. Multiple reasons tho.. gnomes suck.. small area and boring lore.
Nazjatar was more exciting for me at the time.

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Other than the fact they picked Wrathion, Hearthstone has always had known characters in various shapes or forms, so not sure it's a direct sign of anything.

Also, I couldn't bare to look at that low-res pic so here's the full art for his 4 variants (differing sizes because Hearthstone).

Doesnt strike me as drakonoid form... more likes hes transforming into a drake and they tried to show that.

[Raetary]

So pretty much just mid transformation.

[Rootsbum]

In 9.2, is there any hint of Elune being created? If shes the sister of the Winter queen, she should have a prototype as well?

[Revamp Man]

Not really any better reason. And besides that, people already treated is as such when she got triggered by Delaryn in the cinematic and her order seemed to by made on a whim. Any other explanation flew under the radar.

The other explanation was in the book because they couldn’t have her shown as an angry child triggered by the word Hope.

Then we couldn’t have her doing all these evil things on her own so she worked for the jailer until he said all shall serve and she decided she will never serve…even though she did that constantly

But then we couldn’t have her being Arthas 2.0 so it’s now “her soul was touched and manipulated by the jailer”

Then it was “She has always been manipulated by the jailer”

[Sondrelk]

With out any portals sure but with them it can become pretty damn fast.

Portals in the world of Azeroth are not trivial to make. And they were already busy trying to evacuate everyone by having a rotation of a couple of mages constantly keeping a portal open.

[Varx]

Been thinking more and more about a possible dragon race like last week's leak.

If it happens, wouldn't it be better, customization wise, to have them be chromatic dragons instead. This way players can customize their dragon form to fit which ever dragonflight they like best.

Lore wise it'd be simple

Back in dragon soul we got an idea of what a pure and perfect chromatic dragon would look like in the form of the heat of the aspects. Not the purple imperfect versions that nefarion created.

I can see wrathion recruiting willing dragon volunteers from all flights to become vessels of the power that hold the essence of all the dragonflights by using the draconic essences gathered during 8.3 to upgrade the heart of azeroth.

These new chromatic dragons would then take up the teachings of mortals and become one of the playable classes.

Now we'd be able to have all sorts of draconic customization options instead of just the black dragonflights.

[Hugnomo]

Blizzard just posted a statement from Ybarra that talked about changes to the company culture/policies to achieve it. Also talking about more news next week.

[Shadochi]

Blizzard just posted a statement from Ybarra that talked about changes to the company culture/policies to achieve it. Also talking about more news next week.

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/bliz...erything-we-do
For people interested

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Tbh if anything for WoW is to come next week then it's the 9.2 release date. With 9.2 being close by I don't see them spilling the beans intentionally about 10.0. Better to wait a couple weeks and not have to maneuver around talking about the conclusion of SL, if it is in any way connected

[Syegfryed]

Not everyone, I didnt like it for example. Multiple reasons tho.. gnomes suck.. small area and boring lore.
Nazjatar was more exciting for me at the time. .

yeah, you didn't like gnomes, thats fine, just like people don't like elf areas.

mechagon was a fun sandbox place, it got old quickly, but so dnd nazjatar. both places became much better with flying.