Battle for Azeroth Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[rda]

"Warfronts are LFR."

wat?

Also what is the problem here? What new features did Legion really get that were publicly announced? Demon Hunters, New Honor system, Artifacts and Class Order Halls.

Against: Plundering Isles, Battlefronts and Allied Races.

However, Class Order halls were pretty much just the Garrison system remade for different classes.

Did you miss talks about warfronts?

Do you remember the old TBC raid in Mount Hyjal? The last boss was Archimonde who was throwing you into the air. Bosses 3 and 4 have the raid first defending the orc camp and then the boss marches on and you kill it. Remember? Imagine the LFR for that raid for bosses 3 and 4. That's your warfront. It's not you fighting another player or the AI on some RTS field by moving small units, no, it's just you queueing for a "warfront", getting put into a raid with some randoms, and then fighting a long encounter with adds and finally the boss. That's it. Yes, you can fight not by fighting, but, say, by collecting lumber. And the raid leader will be able to choose some gimmicks like catapults or better walls to use that lumber on. No, none of that is going to add much. Because in a big random group none of these decisions can be big, else a single person would be able to abuse the rest of the raid. Whatever happens, you will kill your boss in 20 minutes or so. A third of the raid will be able to AFK through it.

When they started talking about warfronts, people immediately thought "PVP" and that was appealing. It turned out that's PVE and as such, it is just LFR by another name.

Regarding comparing BFA to Legion: it has long been my point that they are reducing the amount of development effort across the board, it goes lower and lower with every expansion. MoP had way more than WoD and Legion. BFA seems to have even less than Legion. Etc.

[Deleted]

Regarding comparing BFA to Legion: it has long been my point that they are reducing the amount of development effort across the board, it goes lower and lower with every expansion. MoP had way more than WoD and Legion. BFA seems to have even less than Legion. Etc.

Less innovation, yes.
Less development effort? hahahahaha.

Which makes sense because, you know, WoW belongs to a genre that allows only so much innovation before they might as well call it anything but WoW.
They're improving on the systems we have, which is ideal imo.
People have played this game for just raiding, dungeons, and bgs/arenas, whoms rewards allowed for vanity collections to be a thing.
Mythic+ is one of the most praised systems that was implemented recently, and they're just dungeons with some affixes and increased numbers.

Every addition in recent history has just been an improvement over an older system. This has been the norm since BC.

But who am I kidding. You're an individual whoms signature is a link to his opinion on BfA,
You're complaining for the sake of complaining.

[rda]

Less innovation, yes.
Less development effort? hahahahaha.

I guess you think your hahahahaha is an argument. It's not and none of what you said even tries to substantiate it.

[Deleted]

I guess you think your hahahahaha is an argument. It's not and none of what you said even tries to substantiate it.

Hahahaha indicates something is funny, in this case I'm laughing at the joke that is your uneducated opinion, which is based mostly on salt and not on evidence.

The Legion patch cycle is more than enough evidence to sustain mine rightfully laughing at you.
Everything I just posted explains why there is less innovation, and why it doesn't mean less development effort.

You on the other hand just say 'development effort is less with every expansion, just look at the previous one', my word what a substantial argument to your educated opinion!
Get of your high horse, your pathetic attempts at playing high and mighty are getting tiresome.

[SunspotAnims]

It's rather fascinating that the thread is already solidly back to its default idle mode that consists of talk about subraces (only now that's called allied races).

It's also rather fascinating that these allied races - which are one of the smallest features you can think of from how they are doing them (no big quest lines, no associated zones, etc) - managed to win one of the polls for the most awaited feature of BFA. (!)

Both of the things above are a perfect illustration of just how little BFA contains.

I don't understand how you find it fascinating. We're on a WoW fan forum where discussions of lore implications can go on for hours on end and then repeat the next day. The majority of recent discussions on the forum have been focused on allied races for two reasons, the first being that allied race information, including introductory quests and models, have been datamined on the 7.3.5 PTR, so there's more concrete information on them to discuss. The second reason, basically an extension of the first, is that these forums in general are able to discuss and speculate lore ad nauseam, and new information on how allied races join their factions, how major characters interact, etc. is naturally going to spark a lot of lore discussion, enough to drown out most other topics. There's nothing wrong with it, lore discussions can be fun and that's partially the purpose of any fan forum anyway.

But of course I'd expect you to disregard my explanation as to why the forums are focused on allied races and ask me why I think people are more hyped for the less development, less gameplay intensive feature and not for the other, more playable features. My answer, once again, urges you to look at where you are posting. A fan forum where posters like to discuss WoW as much as and sometimes more so than they like playing it. As Yarathir said, most people here love aesthetics, and allied races are the most aesthetically-driven feature of the expansion. With as little as we know about the other features, it's easy to just appreciate allied races for how they look without even needing to play them. The other parts of the expansion, the islands, warfronts, general questing, and other system-driven content are much harder to appreciate (or criticize) without actually playing them, and since we can't currently play them, and have no footage of them being played, there isn't much to say about them at the moment. I like the idea of islands and warfronts, and am personally more hyped for them than allied races, but even with that said there's nothing I can currently do or say about them that hasn't already been said, and even then my opinion on them is likely to change in some fashion once they can be played.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Less development effort. Ummm wat?

[SunspotAnims]

Get of your high horse, your pathetic attempts at playing high and mighty are getting tiresome.

And woefully predictable, at that.

[rda]

Hahahaha indicates something is funny, in this case I'm laughing at the joke that is your uneducated opinion, which is based mostly on salt and not on evidence.

I explained why I said that the amount of development effort is decreasing in detail several times. If you didn't see my posts, fine, but they exist. If you want to substantiate your "hahahaha", you are welcome. You say you have shown why what they are doing is not less development effort and I have a hard time seeing where. "They're improving on the systems we have" - here??? "Mythic+ is one of the most praised systems that was implemented recently, and they're just dungeons with some affixes and increased numbers" - here??? You are posting a black thing and are calling it white.

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Less development effort. Ummm wat?

Less development effort is less development effort. Less developers x worse developers x less hours.

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I don't understand how you find it fascinating. We're on a WoW fan forum where discussions of lore implications can go on for hours on end and then repeat the next day. ...

It's all fine regarding the lore and the thread talking about the allied races for a long time before (and so obviously continuing to talk about them once there was some news regarding them). My point is different: if BFA had something big and interesting, we'd have been discussing mostly that. Imagine if they revamped class roles from tank-healer-dps to something else. We'd been all over this, the forums would have went insane. Imagine if they told that they are reverting changes to PVP and are adding solo queue. The PVP forums would have died in ecstasy. Imagine if they said they will introduce a third faction and tell the reason. You yourself, and other folks which you say are into lore, would have created a mountain of threads so huge, the forum would explode. But no, what we have is some visuals that already exist in the game that you obtain after several quests. Yeah, fine, thanks, that's something, but the level of effort is small, the effect is similarly small, the talks and the threads are similarly scarce (I am saying the allied races are the most discussed topic, I am not saying it's a very hot topic, the activity is pretty meh), and it all is just a testament to how uninteresting BFA looks. *That's* my point. (Again, no issues with folks liking allied races, they are a good feature, gz and all, continue discussing it, whatever. My point is different.)

[plz delete account]

I explained why I said that the amount of development effort is decreasing in detail several times. If you didn't see my posts, fine, but they exist. If you want to substantiate your "hahahaha", you are welcome. You say you have shown why what they are doing is not less development effort and I have a hard time seeing where. "They're improving on the systems we have" - here??? "Mythic+ is one of the most praised systems that was implemented recently, and they're just dungeons with some affixes and increased numbers" - here??? You are posting a black thing and are calling it white.

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Less development effort is less development effort. Less developers x worse developers x less hours.

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It's all fine regarding the lore and the thread talking about the allied races for a long time before (and so obviously continuing to talk about them once there was some news regarding them). My point is different: if BFA had something big and interesting, we'd have been discussing mostly that. Imagine if they revamped class roles from tank-healer-dps to something else. We'd been all over this, the forums would have went insane. Imagine if they told that they are reverting changes to PVP and are adding solo queue. The PVP forums would have died in ecstasy. Imagine if they said they will introduce a third faction and tell the reason. You yourself, and other folks which you say are into lore, would have created a mountain of threads so huge, the forum would explode. But no, what we have is some visuals that already exist in the game that you obtain after several quests. Yeah, fine, thanks, that's something, but the level of effort is small, the effect is similarly small, the talks and the threads are similarly scarce (I am saying the allied races are the most discussed topic, I am not saying it's a very hot topic, the activity is pretty meh), and it all is just a testament to how uninteresting BFA looks. *That's* my point. (Again, no issues with folks liking allied races, they are a good feature, gz and all, continue discussing it, whatever. My point is different.)

rda, you are contradicting points you JUST made.
Your argument is invalid.

[rda]

rda, you are contradicting points you JUST made.
Your argument is invalid.

What my point I am contradicting and how?

[SunspotAnims]

It's all fine regarding the lore and the thread talking about the allied races for a long time before (and so obviously continuing to talk about them once there was some news regarding them). My point is different: if BFA had something big and interesting, we'd have been discussing mostly that. Imagine if they revamped class roles from tank-healer-dps to something else. We'd been all over this, the forums would have went insane. Imagine if they told that they are reverting changes to PVP and are adding solo queue. The PVP forums would have died in ecstasy. Imagine if they said they will introduce a third faction and tell the reason. You yourself, and other folks which you say are into lore, would have created a mountain of threads so huge, the forum would explode. But no, what we have is some visuals that already exist in the game that you obtain after several quests. Yeah, fine, thanks, that's something, but the level of effort is small, the effect is similarly small, the talks and the threads are similarly scarce (I am saying the allied races are the most discussed topic, I am not saying it's a very hot topic, the activity is pretty meh), and it all is just a testament to how uninteresting BFA looks. *That's* my point. (Again, no issues with folks liking allied races, they are a good feature, gz and all, continue discussing it, whatever. My point is different.)

Okay, but I'm led to wonder is such a feature, one that doesn't use lore or aesthetics to generate hype, but can still generate mountains of hype without even yet being playable exists. Cataclysm's world rework is the only such thing that comes to mind as fitting that criteria, and even then the world rework hype was somewhat lore-dependent. The expectation of something on that scale every expansion would be cool but it's not what we have or had, nor would it be easy to make the case that compounding full game-changing additions or alterations every 2-3 years would make WoW a better game instead of expanding the things that work and improving the systems that make WoW the game it is. That's a discussion for another time.

And, to be frank, I could see "an expansion with TWO continents!", "advanced AI!", and "PvE battlegrounds!" as angles that could be pushed in a similar way, but it's just more effective to push allied races, because they've been requested in some way or another for years.

[Mekkle]

Can you all just stop replying to rda? every time he has something to say it disrupts the thread for about about 3 pages with nothing but defending his own opinions while crapping on others.

[rda]

Okay, but I'm led to wonder is such a feature, one that doesn't use lore or aesthetics to generate hype, but can still generate mountains of hype without even yet being playable exists. Cataclysm's world rework is the only such thing that comes to mind as fitting that criteria, and even then the world rework was somewhat lore-dependent. The expectation of something on that scale every expansion would be cool but it's not what we have or had, nor would it be easy to make the case that compounding full game-changing additions or alterations every 2-3 years would make WoW a better game instead of expanding the things that work and improving the systems that make WoW the game it is. That's a discussion for another time.

And, to be frank, I could see "an expansion with TWO continents!", "advanced AI!", and "PvE battlegrounds!" as angles that could be pushed in a similar way for past expansions, but it's just more effective to push allied races, because they've been requested in some way or another for years.

There were other big and daring features talked about widely, one example was garrisons.

In general, it's 2017, there was plenty of technical progress (and I know what I am talking about with it applying to software) and we are totally in position of getting things *BIGGER* in ambition than that world revamp was in Cata. We aren't getting such things and are hardly getting anything ambitious at all simply because they are reducing the effort they are spending on the game. Sadly.

There is plenty of potential. Trading has been unexplored. Professions have been pretty much unexplored. Housing was barely touched. Families of characters (your alts help your main bloodline or whatever) have been unexplored. Player factions have been unexplored. PVP has been killed instead of being made into the engine that propels the game forward - that ALONE could have created the phenomenon larger than WoW ever was. Who knows how many other things that I can't bring here simply because there is no established term yet and they need a half-page of an explanation have been unexplored. Nah, we are just getting zones with quests + instances + raids and new things deteriorated to the level of some new models unlocked by completing a short questline...

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Can you all just stop replying to rda? every time he has something to say it disrupts the thread for about about 3 pages with nothing but defending his own opinions while crapping on others.

Sometimes I also admit that I have been wrong. When I am shown that I am wrong or I see that myself, that is. This happened once in this thread, I think.

[Deleted]

So, can we expect 7.3.5. to go live in January, immediately followed by the BfA alpha/beta?

[Nathanyel]

Can you all just stop replying to rda? every time he has something to say it disrupts the thread for about about 3 pages with nothing but defending his own opinions while crapping on others.

I stopped doing that quite a while ago, I basically only reply to others' discussions.

[Ningjinq]

So, can we expect 7.3.5. to go live in January, immediately followed by the BfA alpha/beta?

Imo we’ll get Alpha/beta in January but 7.3.5 launch in February.

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I think there’s a slight chance we could get a hint at their release timetable on Thursday when they announce their Esport plans for 2018. Particularly the PVE (mythic dungeon invitational most likely) side of it. Particularly because I imagine that whenever they have a M+ competition in BFA, you’ll need to qualify in BFA dungeons. (I believe for arenas people can qualify in the previous xpac)

For instance, PvP at its base doesn’t really change much xpac to xpac. (Has rogue/Mage/Druid ever not been a thing?) M+ might. We don’t know what changes they may do to affixes and things like Brez stacking.

[Soulwind]

I think there’s a slight chance we could get a hint at their release timetable on Thursday when they announce their Esport plans for 2018. Particularly the PVE (mythic dungeon invitational most likely) side of it. Particularly because I imagine that whenever they have a M+ competition in BFA, you’ll need to qualify in BFA dungeons. (I believe for arenas people can qualify in the previous xpac)

For instance, PvP at its base doesn’t really change much xpac to xpac. M+ might. We don’t know what changes they may do to affixes and things like Brez stacking.

I wonder how will the squish affect the current content. Although I imagine it's the one thing they're really testing about the squish.

Last time they did one, they didn't have speedrunning with rankings.

[Ningjinq]

From an Esports side of things, I imagine they won’t run anything during pre-patch.

Outside of that, all other rankings are player created, and they won’t care about that. (Just like they don’t for raiding rankings during prepatch)

Though I do wonder just what they will do with keystones during pre-patch. I have to imagine they will refine the affixes further. Adding new ones and removing old ones if just to spice things up. Would that apply to Legion dungeons or BFA dungeons?

Will there even be keystones during pre-patch?

[Soulwind]

From an Esports side of things, I imagine they won’t run anything during pre-patch.

Outside of that, all other rankings are player created, and they won’t care about that. (Just like they don’t for raiding rankings during prepatch)

Though I do wonder just what they will do with keystones during pre-patch. I have to imagine they will refine the affixes further. Adding new ones and removing old ones if just to spice things up. Would that apply to Legion dungeons or BFA dungeons?

Will there even be keystones during pre-patch?

They may disable Mythic+ completely until 120 in 8.0. It'll be a month or so, it's not too bad.

But I was talking about 7.3.5, which is where the squish is.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

The High Elf fanbase is pretty annoying and persistent in their desire to have more boring versions of Blood Elves with blue eyes.

It is your right to feel annoyed, so you do you. I will say that the people that keep referring to High Elves as blue eyed Blood Elves just don't have a worthwhile opinion about the issue what so ever, and I don't understand why they keep inserting themselves in the conversation when they just don't/aren't willing to understand why people want high elves.