Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Makorus]

All I hope is that they add Ogres as a playable race

Copium overload, but please Blizzard.

[Dracullus]

Yeah thal'dranath was an early idea in Legion that eventually got merged into the Broken Shore.


TLDR: Plans change

I think it could be relict from 1 year expansions idea that failed in WoD and Argus was for 8.0 in first sketch.

[Fahrad Wagner]

All I hope is that they add Ogres as a playable race

Copium overload, but please Blizzard.

Give us Ogres and Furbolgs thank yewwwwww!

[Jokubas]

The night elf supporter in me would love to see the night elves reclaim some of their old holdings, and Eldre'thalas is a grand location to retake (and the local ogres aren't much of a threat). The ogre fan in me says that Dire Maul is already basically a Gorian city, and I almost wonder if the Gorian architecture was based on Dire Maul (in real life, not in-universe of course). I would love it refurbished as a Stonemaul Ogre capital (the local ogres could still be kicked out, I'm fine with that). Somewhere in between of those two halves of me, I consider that Eldre'thalas was a highborne place and may not be best to represent the night elves going forward even if I didn't think it was a good place for the ogres.

[Shadochi]

I think it could be relict from 1 year expansions idea that failed in WoD and Argus was for 8.0 in first sketch.

I see this 1 year expansion cycle mentioned a lot but not much to support it, especially since people mention it almost every expac.

WoD content was cut and delayed even during alpha/beta, not because they wanted 1 year expansions, and all of the flow changed. WoD development was a mess of delays, and in turn they couldn't get Tanaan jungle ready for 6.0 but instead had to move it to 6.2 (IIRC it was supposed to be the 6.0 max level zone).

For Legion and Taldranath there is nothing that points towards what you say and that 8.0 was going to be Argus since Legion wasn't missing any patches AND none of the patches were delayed even by 1 week (release every 11 weeks IIRC). So there is nothing to support the 1 year expansion cycle for either of these except fan speculation.

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The night elf supporter in me would love to see the night elves reclaim some of their old holdings, and Eldre'thalas is a grand location to retake (and the local ogres aren't much of a threat). The ogre fan in me says that Dire Maul is already basically a Gorian city, and I almost wonder if the Gorian architecture was based on Dire Maul (in real life, not in-universe of course). I would love it refurbished as a Stonemaul Ogre capital (the local ogres could still be kicked out, I'm fine with that). Somewhere in between of those two halves of me, I consider that Eldre'thalas was a highborne place and may not be best to represent the night elves going forward even if I didn't think it was a good place for the ogres.

Counter-point for an in-lore explanation. Maybe the Ogres decided to inhabit elven ruins because it reminded them a bit of home (also since elven architectures had large doorways and stuff so not much modification needed).

[Jokubas]

I see this 1 year expansion cycle mentioned a lot but not much to support it, especially since people mention it almost every expac.

Yeah, a lot of things for Warlords of Draenor took longer than usual. It may have had less patches, but it doesn't seem like that was because they were trying to make a quick expansion. A lot of behind the scenes things coincided and it seems like the expansion was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Roughly two years per expansion has never actually been broken.

[Fahrad Wagner]

The night elf supporter in me would love to see the night elves reclaim some of their old holdings, and Eldre'thalas is a grand location to retake (and the local ogres aren't much of a threat). The ogre fan in me says that Dire Maul is already basically a Gorian city, and I almost wonder if the Gorian architecture was based on Dire Maul (in real life, not in-universe of course). I would love it refurbished as a Stonemaul Ogre capital (the local ogres could still be kicked out, I'm fine with that). Somewhere in between of those two halves of me, I consider that Eldre'thalas was a highborne place and may not be best to represent the night elves going forward even if I didn't think it was a good place for the ogres.

I agree, to me Eldre'Thalas is now associated with the Shen'dralar and the ogres more than it is to the Kaldorei. Such a shame that awesome places like this are completely left aside lorewise...

[Darkarath]

It is really necessary to add more races? Feels to me that with each race added the story suffers. I would prefer less races with more development. When was the last time that some real race development happened? Night Elves being massacred?

It would be so interesting to see how the many and varied factions of Horde and Alliance develop their relationships, how they get along, how they do projects together other than war...

But it seems that they do not care anymore, they would just keep adding new ones, which is cool, I know, but is sad that they would just be added and forgotten forever.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Page 1000! We made it folks!

[Shadochi]

Page 1000! We made it folks!

U mean 500? /s i am in the 20 gang too

[Fahrad Wagner]

U mean 500? /s i am in the 20 gang too

Pfffffffff you threw off my groove.

[Catastrophy349]

Now that we’ve reached page 1000, let’s start a new topic conversation. Someone start!

[Fahrad Wagner]

Now that we’ve reached page 1000, let’s start a new topic conversation. Someone start!

If the next expansion is indeed a dragon expansion, do you guys think each flight will have its dedicated zone or not?

[Darkarath]

If the next expansion is indeed a dragon expansion, do you guys think each flight will have its dedicated zone or not?

Hopefully not. It seem so obvious and boring... They already have different sanctums in Dragonblight. Is not that enough?

[Shadochi]

Now that we’ve reached page 1000, let’s start a new topic conversation. Someone start!

Do you want a return of "microzones"? By this I mean the small zones with mostly reused assets that we saw in Legion (used for some class quests(priest, dk mount quests), invasion points in Argus) and in BfA (mostly used for Island Expeditions, 12 released and couple that never released IIRC).

I was kinda disappointed we didn't get to see any in SL. Was hoping to explore some smaller afterlives in those. I generally love this type of stuff since it adds variety to the everyday content.

[Jokubas]

For Legion and Taldranath there is nothing that points towards what you say and that 8.0 was going to be Argus since Legion wasn't missing any patches AND none of the patches were delayed even by 1 week (release every 11 weeks IIRC). So there is nothing to support the 1 year expansion cycle for either of these except fan speculation.

Argus was a popular fan idea for an expansion and I think it was in part because, well, if an island could become an expansion, surely a whole world we'd never been to would be at least one expansion if not more, but as far as I know there's been no evidence that was the plan.

If you really think about it, too, it's extremely difficult to make into a proper expansion. An expansion has to have a variety of things. New rep factions, a variety in zones, multiple quest hubs, enough content for another batch of leveling, that sort of thing. But if Argus was done justice as the homeworld of the Burning Legion, where would we find friendly rep factions, variety in a fel-dominated world, or any sort of friendly hubs?

They could do it. Even as just three zones, Argus had a faction of hiding Broken, Mac'Aree as a less-corrupted zone, and a friendly staging area in each zone, but that was a stretch as it is. If that was stretched into an entire expansion, it would have had to have been completely watered down to the point of defeating its threat and draw as the Legion's homeworld.

The other alternative would be to do an entirely unique kind of expansion and treat every zone more like the pre-9.1 version of the Maw in Shadowlands, but I don't think anyone would have actually enjoyed that in the long run. Challenging leveling is one thing, but a whole expansion of that would burn most people out fast.

Counter-point for an in-lore explanation. Maybe the Ogres decided to inhabit elven ruins because it reminded them a bit of home (also since elven architectures had large doorways and stuff so not much modification needed).

Yeah, it's a neat retroactive explanation for why they settled there beyond it just being available ruins. It gives a lot of character to the zone when it's otherwise not very deep.

[Dracullus]

I see this 1 year expansion cycle mentioned a lot but not much to support it, especially since people mention it almost every expac.

It was common topic before WoD landed. And I bet it sounded like obvious thing to do from suits POV, since sub count skyrocket every expac and start droping after in both Cata and MoP.

I don't think devs ever straight up talk about 1 year plan, but I remember around Legion reveal some dev mention that they can't speed up some steps of expac production by throwing more people at it.

[Catastrophy349]

Honestly, I don’t know. I feel like the community/leakers created the whole “Dragon Isles will have a zone for each flight” scenario. While it would be cool, there’s no precedent for this happening. Only thing I want from the 10.0 cinematic/trailer is to be WOWed while watching it. I don’t want to feel like, “Aww, really? That’s it?”

[therumblings]

Page 1000 at last! Hopefully expansion reveal soon.

[Shadochi]

If the next expansion is indeed a dragon expansion, do you guys think each flight will have its dedicated zone or not?

I want blue dragon zone to be inspired by Coldarra and the Nexus