Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Reive]

Seems like they want to soften the impact of shadowlands on the lore without retconning it. Idk, that's a weird hill to die on. Shadowlands has created so many issues with the lore that trying to fix them takes way more time and effort than straight up making the expansion non canon.

Also, i can't trust danuser because he doesn't seem to have a clear design in mind. Hearing him trying to give an explanation to his own writing was kinda sad tbh. I truly wish he'd step away from his position.

[Cheezits]

Seems like they want to soften the impact of shadowlands on the lore without retconning it. Idk, that's a weird hill to die on. Shadowlands has created so many issues with the lore that trying to fix them takes way more time and effort than straight up making the expansion non canon.

Also, i can't trust danuser because he doesn't seem to have a clear design in mind. Hearing him trying to give an explanation to his own writing was kinda sad tbh. I truly wish he'd step away from his position.

Retconning an expansion would be a horrible idea, it would set precedent that the fanbase can straight up veto stories they dont like. Its much better to pull a WoD and salvage some concepts from it people actually liked (Nathrezim/Denathrius) while mostly ignoring it instead of saying it didn't happen because the will of the people made it so.

If anything, if its still seen as super cancerous story killer in the years to come, they may pull a Legion where they straight up rewrite it (because TBC Illidan was stupid).

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Seems like they want to soften the impact of shadowlands on the lore without retconning it. Idk, that's a weird hill to die on. Shadowlands has created so many issues with the lore that trying to fix them takes way more time and effort than straight up making the expansion non canon.

Also, i can't trust danuser because he doesn't seem to have a clear design in mind. Hearing him trying to give an explanation to his own writing was kinda sad tbh. I truly wish he'd step away from his position.

I'd rather have him then what came before him. But this forum is known to have a Danuser hate boner so w/e. Completely retconning a expansion because loud people on the internet demand it just makes it look like the players have the story hostile.

[Reive]

Retconning an expansion would be a horrible idea, it would set precedent that the fanbase can straight up veto stories they dont like. Its much better to pull a WoD and salvage some concepts from it people actually liked (Nathrezim/Denathrius) while mostly ignoring it instead of saying it didn't happen because the will of the people made it so.

If anything, if its still seen as super cancerous story killer in the years to come, they may pull a Legion where they straight up rewrite it (because TBC Illidan was stupid).

But wod and tbc weren't as dangeruos for the lore as shadowlands is. Shadowlands has touched every bit of lore and left a stain on it. All the cultures don't mean anything anymore, death is pointless and without actual weight now that anyone can come and go from the shadowlands, characters like elune, arthas, sargeras and sylvanas have been ruined.

Seriously, retconning this expansion would have been the best thing.

[Gurahk]

I'd rather have him then what came before him. But this forum is known to have a Danuser hate boner so w/e. Completely retconning a expansion because loud people on the internet demand it just makes it look like the players have the story hostile.

I know who you mean, but at this point I'd rather have his way of story telling (not the awful person behind those stories mind you)
WoW stories in the past were cliches and kind of mediocre, but they worked really well for the tone of the game.

[Reive]

Definitely doesn't feel like it at all, what?

Everything is the same imo

Nobbel showed in the video evidence of danuser going against what was established already. The true maw walker? Just the brokers doing their thing. The first ones' prophecy? Just a bunch of tips/hints. Free will reigns supreme.

I'm talking about these kind of walkbacks

[Aeluron Lightsong]

But wod and tbc weren't as dangeruos for the lore as shadowlands is. Shadowlands has touched every bit of lore and left a stain on it. All the cultures don't mean anything anymore, death is pointless and without actual weight now that anyone can come and go from the shadowlands, characters like elune, arthas, sargeras and sylvanas have been ruined.

Seriously, retconning this expansion would have been the best thing.

No it would not, its just bitter fanfiction. You would have to get rid of a lot of character development for individuals let alone Anduin being missing. Arthas's soul somehow being where it is, and many other things. The people asking for a total ret-con aren't really thinking of all the consequences involved for doing that.

I know who you mean, but at this point I'd rather have his way of story telling (not the awful person behind those stories mind you)
WoW stories in the past were cliches and kind of mediocre, but they worked really well for the tone of the game.

Not buying it, I don't consider Wow's story mediocre but whatever.

[Catastrophy349]

https://twitter.com/Unshackled_Fury/...MZqm1nnvli-XkQ Looking forward to the other part of the interview being released tomorrow (we got the write up of the interview, but apparently, there is more regarding patch cadence, the next patch, etc.!

[Cheezits]

But wod and tbc weren't as dangeruos for the lore as shadowlands is. Shadowlands has touched every bit of lore and left a stain on it. All the cultures don't mean anything anymore, death is pointless and without actual weight now that anyone can come and go from the shadowlands, characters like elune, arthas, sargeras and sylvanas have been ruined.

Seriously, retconning this expansion would have been the best thing.

I can understand not liking the character relevations of sargeras/sylvanas/elune but arthas is literally the same, he did nothing in SL. He deserved to die.

And there are more afterlives that weren't shown and can be correct for races, so the "death cultures are fake/ruined" argument is BS. It's a videogame with limited development time, so just because we didn't go to Shamanworld or Pandadeathland doesn't mean they aren't there, and they aren't deconfirmed until its said so.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I can understand not liking the character relevations of sargeras/sylvanas/elune but arthas is literally the same, he did nothing in SL. He deserved to die.

And there are more afterlives that weren't shown and can be correct for races, so the "death cultures are fake/ruined" argument is BS. It's a videogame with limited development time, so just because we didn't go to Shamanworld or Pandadeathland doesn't mean they aren't there, and they aren't deconfirmed until its said so.

I agree with what you said minus the Arthas part. "Deserved to die" Dude got a worse fate then Sylvanas and she didn't have the luxary of having her entire soul dominated by a mourneblade and then get used as an energy source for another Mourneblade, not to mention Arthas was never truly judged for his crimes. Thats not me asking for a ret-con btw, if anything I think this makes Arthas's story more tragic and awful.

[Xilurm]

I'd rather have him then what came before him. But this forum is known to have a Danuser hate boner so w/e. Completely retconning a expansion because loud people on the internet demand it just makes it look like the players have the story hostile.

I know who you mean, but at this point I'd rather have his way of story telling (not the awful person behind those stories mind you)
WoW stories in the past were cliches and kind of mediocre, but they worked really well for the tone of the game.

People need to learn to differentiate between the stories and the people who write them. You could have the same storytelling as Afrasiabi's from someone else, or Danuser's storytelling from someone else.

On the other hand if Danuser ever left that wouldn't mean Afrasiabi would come back, so I don't understand why even mention the guy. It's the same thing with Harry Potter too. It's so annoying at this point. Makes me feel bad for liking something solely because of said person behind it. People make you feel like you're bad for liking something just because the person behind it decided to be an idiot.

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Seriously, retconning this expansion would have been the best thing.

It's a multi million dollar project. You don't just make these kinds of decisions lightly. And what about the people who were ok with it? Or just went with the flow but still invested themselves into this game. That's two years and then you're being told "well you know the last two years don't count lol thanks for your money btw". Just imagine that.

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The hell is happening with this thread?

[Gurahk]

Just looked at that interview.. Man are these question looked at before-hand? Because Danuser had no idea how to answer any of that lmao.
Nobbel asked some good questions, those answers however were extremely weak.

[Xilurm]

Just looked at that interview.. Man are these question looked at before-hand? Because Danuser had no idea how to answer any of that lmao.
Nobbel asked some good questions, those answers however were extremely weak.

They are.

Watching this I felt like Danuser didn't really wanna be there.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I think both of you are looking for something that isn't there.

[Darkarath]

I think that Nobbel did a good job with ONLY 30 minutes. Pretty sure they felt like 10 minutes for Nobbel. Danuser though... I can understand that he only gives the interviewer 30 minutes because he has a lot of knowledge of WoW, and in a lore interview tough questions are going to be asked, and if he makes a mistake something BIG could be spoiled. But precisely for that you should respect the interviewer and the lore nerds like myself who are going to watch the interview, and give good answers that get to the point, not wasting our time saying a lot of nothing. Danuser looked like a politician, he gets a question and answers something vague with no real meat, while avoiding any kind of self-criticism.

This attitude worries me, especially for the answers he gave about:

- Sylvanas motivations: instead of saying that they try to find the right medium to show some of her development he should have said: "Massive fuck up on our part, we apologize, next time we will try to put everything in the game and be loyal to how that character was".

- The Jailer: instead of trying to justify that Death has touched Azeroth as other cosmic forces have done, he should have said: "He was a terrible villain, a failure, and we damaged previous well established lore and diminished its importance. We apologize. We will never do something so stupid again".

That would have given me hope, which I still have, as I really enjoyed how the Dracthyr zone has worked at a Lore level, establishing new characters and telling something interesting while doing It. But that was just an hour of content, we will have to see how that works out in DF.

Danuser did not really give any interesting information, the highlights being things that we already knew:

- Primalists have a point but they did bad shit too (obviously as we are going to kill them all).

- Expansion is more grounded and focuses on the Aspects regaining their powers.

- Cosmic forces are established thanks to Shadowlands and will inspire future content.

- Gilneas revamp is coming. I hope that it comes as a world revamp, but sadly I do not think that this will be the case. In fact, I would not be surprised if we get it in DF.

- Oh he also basically said that he does not have any idea about making past content better paced, just said "Chromie time this, Chromie time that". He even asked for player feedback on the matter because clearly he does not know what to do. Bah.

I really do not buy Danuser at all, he does not seem to have the necessary skills to make Warcraft story and narrative shine again. I hope that he proves me wrong.

[Xilurm]

- Sylvanas motivations: instead of saying that they try to find the right medium to show some of her development he should have said: "Massive fuck up on our part, we apologize, next time we will try to put everything in the game and be loyal to how that character was".

- The Jailer: instead of trying to justify that Death has touched Azeroth as other cosmic forces have done, he should have said: "He was a terrible villain, a failure, and we damaged previous well established lore and diminished its importance. We apologize. We will never do something so stupid again".

Lol. The only thing you'll ever get from an employee of a multi billion dollar company is "we are listening". They can't go anywhere below that. You're asking for something that can't possibly happen.

[Darkarath]

Lol. The only thing you'll ever get from an employee of a multi billion dollar company is "we are listening". They can't go anywhere below that. You're asking for something that can't possibly happen.

I know that they cannot say what I wrote. But the same things in other words would be nice.

[Le Conceptuel]

- Sylvanas motivations: instead of saying that they try to find the right medium to show some of her development he should have said: "Massive fuck up on our part, we apologize, next time we will try to put everything in the game and be loyal to how that character was".

- The Jailer: instead of trying to justify that Death has touched Azeroth as other cosmic forces have done, he should have said: "He was a terrible villain, a failure, and we damaged previous well established lore and diminished its importance. We apologize. We will never do something so stupid again".

That would have given me hope, which I still have, as I really enjoyed how the Dracthyr zone has worked at a Lore level, establishing new characters and telling something interesting while doing It. But that was just an hour of content, we will have to see how that works out in DF.

I can't blame Danuser entirely—I'd imagine that the powers that be would slit his throat if he dared admit fault, even in spite of the likelihood that the public would be significantly less chilly to a clear admission of failure.

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I agree with what you said minus the Arthas part. "Deserved to die" Dude got a worse fate then Sylvanas and she didn't have the luxary of having her entire soul dominated by a mourneblade and then get used as an energy source for another Mourneblade, not to mention Arthas was never truly judged for his crimes. Thats not me asking for a ret-con btw, if anything I think this makes Arthas's story more tragic and awful.

I do find it kind of ridiculous that Sylvanas was dubbed worthy of redemption after the pretty extraordinary shit she pulled. Honestly, I would consider it acceptable for everything she did short of what fuels the primary plot point of Shadowlands—in condemning everybody to the Maw, Sylvanas has gone far beyond anything Arthas ever did in magnitude and scale. She's effectively condemned countless people to a hellish existence of eternal torment or absolute spiritual annihilation. In a setting in which the existence of some kind of afterlife is generally a guaranteed fact, knowingly sending souls to be obliterated exceeds murder of any degree of depravity or on any scale because it destroys the very existence of the individual rather than simply ending their participation in the physical world. If Sylvanas stopped at burning Teldrassil, she'd still have some potential chance to be sensibly redeemed, but elevating her crimes to such an extraordinary and heinous degree seems to preclude redemption.

Arthas, conversely, only really committed the crimes of mass genocide and postmorten slavery at worst. On its face, these crimes are the worst anybody could feasibly commit short of obliterating the soul, but Arthas' crimes are inferior to Sylvanas' on account of the postmorten slavery's reversibility and the genocide ending at physical destruction. The existence of the undead resumes, even if in an unpleasant state, and there is hope for a reversal of their state. Sylvanas exposing souls to absolute destruction already exceeds the unpleasantness of being undead and deprived of free will, and is further compounded by absolute and permanent irreversibility.

[Darkarath]

I can't blame Danuser entirely—I'd imagine that the powers that be would slit his throat if he dared admit fault, even in spite of the likelihood that the public would be significantly less chilly to a clear admission of failure.

That he admits failure is not as important as his attitude and about how he talks about the game.

I can agree or not with Ion but I LOVE how he generally shares his views regarding WoW. He explains things very well, gives valid points, and you can see that he loves WoW.

Danuser is all over the place. He does not explain anything. He seems to like to leave loose ends on purpose so that we can have our own version of stuff. I guess that some might enjoy this approach but I despise it.

I do not know since when he is in charge of the story. But in BfA they have rushed Azshara and N'zoth. Both could have lead their own expansions easily. In Shadowlands they shit over all previous lore, diminishing its importance as everything was the Jailer plans or the First Ones designs.

This could be seen as a "Fuck all that the previous persons in charge did, I am doing my own thing". I hope that this is not Danuser's aim.

[Le Conceptuel]

This could be seen as a "Fuck all that the previous persons in charge did, I am doing my own thing". I hope that this is not Danuser's aim.

This is halfway it, I think. I'm not going to jump to the assumption of malice for everything, but I do think he has some kind of intention to "one-up" everything that the previous writers did. He's building on the shoulders of giants and twenty years of lore, so I'm not surprised at all—he has to create something pretty iconic to live up to it. Unfortunately, he has no grasp of nuance or character, so he just tries to up the stakes to substitute for the complete lack of depth or character in anything he writes.