Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[TheFirstOnes]

You do realise that both final and ultimate mean "last" not super-powerful or anything? Zovaal is clearly only a final boss in the scope of the Shadowlands expansion and the Sepulcher raid. Outside of that, he's not.

Final isn't a statement about power, but about where in the story it shows up. So if say he is one of the final bosses of the game, you're either saying the game ends with him, or that he'll be showing up again in the future.

I mean, he is among the most powerful outside of the First Ones and Azeroth rn…

But like you said, he isn’t among the final bosses at all. Hell he is but the starting point of a new age for WoW. Sargeras May return and face us at Zereth Ordos at the Clocktower of the First Ones or something like that lol

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Or the Demons took bodies from Zereth Ordos or even Zereth Tumult and became a chaos God esc thing, but like the Chaos Gods, they are at war with eachother or have multiples layered realms within the Nether, one transcending the other through a high outer range/expanse

[Raetary]

I completely agree with this. Keeping the mystery of how death works in a fictional fantasy setup is I believe very important.

Indeed, Mystery is a vital component to lore and world building and its essential to long running fantasy universes like warcraft.
Revealing and overexplaining as much as they did in Shadowlands, pretty much kills any intrigue that particular theme had or could've had.

[Revamp Man]

I agree its fake, but its very creative.

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Honestly, I think he knew he was getting fired soon, or that people were onto him so he intentionally ruined her character.

He was still on board during 9.1 development

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As i said before, this logo has a total disconnect between the title and the imagery (which is all over the place, to boot). None of the others do that.

Shadowlands totally does that
We had no clue those flowing robes were in any way connected

[uzira]

Im SO excited to find out what the next xpac will be. I NEED an announcement

[Fahrad Wagner]

Im SO excited to find out what the next xpac will be. I NEED an announcement

Hopefully next month!

[Wadrak]

Indeed, Mystery is a vital component to lore and world building and its essential to long running fantasy universes like warcraft.
Revealing and overexplaining as much as they did in Shadowlands, pretty much kills any intrigue that particular theme had or could've had.

Sure but this is 8th expansion ... its really advanced in story now ... you need to start revealing more secrets to keep players interested.

But also it was about basics, like enemy type - Undead. They are big part of warcraft and we didn't face them since WotLK, so they needed a story to bring them back.

So Shadowlands is advanced land of the Undead.

Maybe they should done it in different way, only show us parts of the afterlife.

[Makabreska]

Sure but this is 8th expansion ... its really advanced in story now ... you need to start revealing more secrets to keep players interested.

But also it was about basics, like enemy type - Undead. They are big part of warcraft and we didn't face them since WotLK, so they needed a story to bring them back.

So Shadowlands is advanced land of the Undead.

Maybe they should done it in different way, only show us parts of the afterlife.

The problem that comes with advanced story of 8th expansion is exhaustion. Stakes and powers keep escalating, setting becomes more and more otherworldly and reveals become more and more ass-pully. And they did do a "secret reveal" with Jailer being the mastermind, and we all know how it ended.

[Le Conceptuel]

Sure but this is 8th expansion ... its really advanced in story now ... you need to start revealing more secrets to keep players interested.

But also it was about basics, like enemy type - Undead. They are big part of warcraft and we didn't face them since WotLK, so they needed a story to bring them back.

So Shadowlands is advanced land of the Undead.

Maybe they should done it in different way, only show us parts of the afterlife.

They could have also simply set it in the Shadowlands as we knew them from previous lore, being a dark reflection of the overworld—I imagined a dark Northrend back in BfA, which would have certain "realms" converging around it, like Helheim off the coast, and Thros merging with Grizzly Hills. Alternatively, we could've fought undead in Azjol-Nerub. There's plenty more things to do than a fairly poorly-executed afterlife story that doesn't really reflect what an afterlife is very well.

[Edward Wu]

Towelliee if you're reading this, can you give more of an explanation on what you meant by different for 10.0?

None of the leaks feel like they are going in the direction you said it was, aka a truly different experience.

[Le Conceptuel]

Towelliee if you're reading this, can you give more of an explanation on what you meant by different for 10.0?

None of the leaks feel like they are going in the direction you said it was, aka a truly different experience.

Would it be wise to feed this guy?

[Hitei]

Would it be wise to feed this guy?

No, but people still do, everytime.

[Makabreska]

Would it be wise to feed this guy?

Also is it wise to assume that all those burner account, "a WoW dev in my guild said" leaks from the leak spam hold any value?

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No, but people still do, everytime.

While saying that they hate the guy and that everyone should ignore him.

[Le Conceptuel]

Also is it wise to assume that all those burner account, "a WoW dev in my guild said" leaks from the leak spam hold any value?

I'd say I distrust them as much as I generally distrust Towellie. Perhaps he has extra leverage, but we don't need him coming here again.

[jeezusisacasual]

The overall problem in my eyes with the narrative is how it is presented and appears to be missing large sections. Its the same problem in a way with WoD in which they could have created large sections devoted to previous lore heroes / Villains but skipped all the meat, if say you got to see more important players in the story get discussed and showcased in shadowlands would have added more overall.

The other problem with the shadowlands is how long it takes to get around or from Oribos, BFA and Legion did this right with extremely large hub cities, people dont want to linger around they want to do the check list stuff in a quick orderly fashion and move onto the things they actually enjoy. Portals should have shopped with the first .5 patch even 9.1 to avoid the long ass flying times. This entire experience appears to me they have not learned a single lesson in the 17 years they have made this game.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

The overall problem in my eyes with the narrative is how it is presented and appears to be missing large sections. Its the same problem in a way with WoD in which they could have created large sections devoted to previous lore heroes / Villains but skipped all the meat, if say you got to see more important players in the story get discussed and showcased in shadowlands would have added more overall.

The other problem with the shadowlands is how long it takes to get around or from Oribos, BFA and Legion did this right with extremely large hub cities, people dont want to linger around they want to do the check list stuff in a quick orderly fashion and move onto the things they actually enjoy. Portals should have shopped with the first .5 patch even 9.1 to avoid the long ass flying times. This entire experience appears to me they have not learned a single lesson in the 17 years they have made this game.

Time between zones isn't that bad at all, its very minor. Of course they learned, don't be ridiculous and no I am not gonna say Boralus Harbor is better then Oribos cause frankly I don't. Also Legion reusing Dalaran I'd say is the easier route to and someone might accuse them of being lazy but I'm not going to go there.

Truthfully I rather have a new hub then reusing an old one IMO.

[bruxx]

The overall problem in my eyes with the narrative is how it is presented and appears to be missing large sections. Its the same problem in a way with WoD in which they could have created large sections devoted to previous lore heroes / Villains but skipped all the meat, if say you got to see more important players in the story get discussed and showcased in shadowlands would have added more overall.

The other problem with the shadowlands is how long it takes to get around or from Oribos, BFA and Legion did this right with extremely large hub cities, people dont want to linger around they want to do the check list stuff in a quick orderly fashion and move onto the things they actually enjoy. Portals should have shopped with the first .5 patch even 9.1 to avoid the long ass flying times. This entire experience appears to me they have not learned a single lesson in the 17 years they have made this game.

I have to agree, the minute long forced PF is about the worst design one could come up with. Spectacular for zone intro on the first quest that sends you there, but that should be the only time it happens.
Back in BfA/Legion, I really enjoyed flying circles around the continents just gathering herbs and travelling around, but this time around I just didn't care enough to switch between zones, or to constantly rotate around the same place.

[Revamp Man]

Or alternatively, the expansion will have a heavy void/light theme to go alongside it's useage of dragons.
Consider for instance an expansion where we go to the Dragon Isles and learn more about the Old Gods, the Void, and the eternal battle between them. Nozdormu turning into Murozond was afterall because of the Old Gods, so they would likely have to be relevant again if the Infinite Dragonflight returns.
Wrathion might be wanting to become the Earth Warder like Deathwing used to be, and in that position he would likely be interested in how to defend against cosmic forces like the Light and Void.
And of course there are the Void Dragons we saw in 8.3 that are still likely somewhat relevant.

It would undoubtedly be a weird disconnect to have such a heavy Void themed logo over what will likely be a whole lot of dragons, but then again it might also be exactly what Blizzard would have done with an expansion. Having something with 5 different colors to represent the five different flights would probably look weird, and something more firey might look too similar to the Cata logo.
This logo would be entirely distinct from the rest, which is probably important to someone.

There is the twilight flight which is purple

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

It will be different*. (* In some capacity there will be a difference between Shadowlands and 10.0)

[huth]

Shadowlands totally does that
We had no clue those flowing robes were in any way connected

Because we didn't know anything about the Shadowlands at all. It would have been kinda hard to do something we could have connected with no prior knowledge. There is still a clear connection between the logo and the title.

On the other hand, we do know dragons. The logo has no dragon connections whatsoever. If it was about a void expansion it would make sense. For dragons? It doesn't.

[Ersula]

The logo has no dragon connections whatsoever. If it was about a void expansion it would make sense. For dragons? It doesn't.

The logo says the word "dragons" actually.

Are you guys really thinking the expansion is just going to be about Dragons & nothing else? The Dragonflight were created specifically to ward off void corruption.