Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Hitei]

Ouch. Again, subscribing to the White Man's Burden is not a good look.

What part of calling Greeks, a group of Mediterranean descendants of near-middle-easterners, better than Romans, another group Mediterranean descendants from the exact same fucking region of near-middle-easterners, who copied a bunch of technology, sociopolitical/theological organization, trade and academic knowledge from the Greeks, is "subscribing to the White Man's Burden"?

[Nymrohd]

I'm not sure if you can say the entire idea of an impish cavedweller originates from the same racist caricature, while I do think you have to take that into consideration. Because you can't say that about goblins but ignore that when JRR Tolkien was so up-front about "Dwarves? I based them on jewish people. The Dwarves are jews" and that's the origin point of most of our high fantasy tropes.

And modern generations can try to reinterpret past fantasy tropes. Dwarves have had so many different cultural interpretations outside of Tolkien. A Forgotten Realms Shield Dwarf is not a Dragon Age Dwarf is not an Eberron Mror Dwarf (heck the last is a banker but still manages to escape the racist undertones). We know Blizzard can do better because they did something very significant in fantasy fiction with their treatment of orcs. Other races were just added for flavor early on though and they were not examined nearly enough. Then the writers who introduced them in WoW just did a poor and shallow job. And we know they can do much better, just look at e.g. the Nightborne.

Beyond the graphical updates the other big reason I want a World Revamp is so they can reexamine their world and build it better. Yes there are issues with the way Goblins and others are presented but those issues can be fixed.

[Berkilak]

What part of calling Greeks, a group of Mediterranean descendants of near-middle-easterners, better than Romans, another group Mediterranean descendants from the exact same fucking region of near-middle-easterners, who copied a bunch of technology, sociopolitical/theological organization, trade and academic knowledge from the Greeks, is "subscribing to the White Man's Burden"?

Calling any group "better" than another is at the core of why that poem was and is so roundly condemned.

[Nymrohd]

I mean the ultimate endpoint for this is Mass Genocide on all sides. There's no redemption here other than to kill everyone and annihilate humanity for all its violations that it has committed on the stupid premise of race, religion and ethnicity, sexuality being wrong in unintelligent cretins.

I just find this whole thing funny like what is the endgoal beyond mass murder? Does that make the world better? No it doesn't, brother.

I absolutely find this topic frankly insane. Associating Goblins and Dwarves with Jewish stereotypes as if the Developers themselves didn't just the concept which origin point may be flawed to create something in-universe that they wanted to add since it is fantasy themed.

Again, the whole associating WoW content with Real Life Politics has just been a lesson in fragrant stupidity. There's nothing here that is of value beyond the thinly veiled threat that Blizzard Employees are all nazis and racists.

Eh, nazis is a massive escalation from racists. And people very often are racists because much of what makes us racists is subconscious and ingrained. I don't know, maybe for younger people it is easy but I still find that I edit myself frequently when I figure out that something I say is racist.
We just want people to try and do better. It is really not that hard or taxing.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

This topic frustrates me because it means that at the end all fiction will be padded and safe. Warcraft 3 already portrayed the franchise as a wholly anti-racist themed franchise and has continued to do so in World of Warcraft and again we've seen that development go into Cross Faction being a main part of the product now.

The game is already trying to push itself into a corner where the only storyline that can happen is tea parties and cutesy stuff or weird creepy monsters coming to do the big scary thing that we need to vanquish. Which fair enough, but that will become stale quickly. Again, I just don't see this ending well either way. It will only lead to less and less interesting narrative content. The franchise is already extremely progressive with its core theme of anti racism and cooperation with groups of individuals who don't always see eye to eye.

Why throw that connective tissue for even safer stories that can't even have good lessons and progressive thought. I don't know, again this whole thing is baffling to me.

I don't even disagree on the Authorship or Historian level of the discussion. He's a fucking moron and definitely malicious. The Zekhan thing is also just 100% bad.

But the poisoning of Well thing (which isn't even true since it was about environmental poisoning from the Venture Co. and the issues of it for the Horde. But, anyways queue the Mulgore quests to seemingly make the association stick)

to start the whole "Oh Goblins are problematic in World of Warcraft" topic was always just certain individuals going all the way while they still had red meat in the water to try and erase Goblins from the game and make the game safer for consumption by people who already see everything as problematic anyways.

No rational human being looks at the Goblins in WoW since Classic and go "WOW THATS A ANTISEMITIC STEREOTYPE THAT HAS EXISTED IN EUROPE FOR CENTURIES, THIS IS PROBLEMATIC AND NEEDS IMMEDIATE NUCLEAR OPTION OF REMOVAL IMMEDIATELY". Same goes with every other races in the game when your immediate concern upon looking at them is the stereotype issues that each of them have.

Anyways this topic goes nowhere. White Savior problem with Lor'themar at least has SERIOUS merits. The Goblin thing is bonkers at this point. It has never been a serious talking point to me. It is just clearly someone who wants to bite off more than they can chew in their crusade of moral absolutism regardless of the context of their implementation into the product instead they assume the author, company or creators are malicious aligned at all costs to feel justified in their batshit crazy views and values.

Also the book is just bad and the company should feel bad, either way.

[boyzma]

What amazes me is how people can go on and on and on page upon page .....about a troll who was taught how to read. Oh dear god no! Really? It's a game.

[Ilir]

So they're doing another community interview pass this week. 100% end of week or next week we get alpha and/or pre-order. They're building the hype up.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

So they're doing another community interview pass this week. 100% end of week or next week we get alpha and/or pre-order. They're building the hype up.

Boy, am I ready for Post-launch to be a wasteland again as everyone fell for the bait and preordered based on the good faith built up over these next weeks with good communication.

[Khaza-R]

So they're doing another community interview pass this week. 100% end of week or next week we get alpha and/or pre-order. They're building the hype up.

That would be kind of strange though. Why not announce the pre-order 2 weeks ago when hype was at its zenith.

I wouldn't be surprised if the pre-order won't come out until 9.2.5

[Ilir]

Boy, am I ready for Post-launch to be a wasteland again as everyone fell for the bait and preordered based on the good faith built up over these next weeks with good communication.

I always pre-order 5 of the deluxe ones

[Makabreska]

Boy, am I ready for Post-launch to be a wasteland again as everyone fell for the bait and preordered based on the good faith built up over these next weeks with good communication.

Oh hey, I see you're back to your original signposting. But a week ago you said expansion looks good, soooooo you ok mate?

[rhorle]

They have now established that the visage forms are not actually disguises but are instead an alternate form they can transform into.

Dracthyr are not Dragons so it stands to reason that their ability to shapeshift functions differently. Right?

[Sondrelk]

Dracthyr are not Dragons so it stands to reason that their ability to shapeshift functions differently. Right?

Dracthyr are humanoid/Dragon hybrids. Their Dragon form is their base form, but they are also able to transform into humanoids, presumably because of the same magic other dragons use.

[Shadochi]

Dracthyr are humanoid/Dragon hybrids. Their Dragon form is their base form, but they are also able to transform into humanoids, presumably because of the same magic other dragons use.

I wouldn't call it Dragon Form/Humanoid Form. Since they aren't actual dragons, and both forms are humanoid. Better would be to call it True Form and Visage Form.

But at the end of the day, Dracthyr aren't actual dragons.

[rainhard]

Dracthyr are humanoid/Dragon hybrids. Their Dragon form is their base form, but they are also able to transform into humanoids, presumably because of the same magic other dragons use.

Didn't Danuser in todays interview say that it's not exactly transforming into whatever humanoid they want and more into taking the form of their inner mortal part/form and this is why it is limited to 1/2 forms and i guess that is also why they look scaly in their visage forms too unlike the rest of the dragons who choose the extend of their visible draconic nature.

[Alexjimithing]

e: Nevermind not worth debating this anymore.

[huth]

Didn't Danuser in todays interview say that it's not exactly transforming into whatever humanoid they want and more into taking the form of their inner mortal part/form and this is why it is limited to 1/2 forms and i guess that is also why they look scaly in their visage forms too unlike the rest of the dragons who choose the extend of their visible draconic nature.

Another way to view it is that they aren't "true" dragons in their draconic form (being created as a mix of humanoids and dragons), and that translates to no longer being true humanoids in their visage, either.

[rhorle]

Dracthyr are humanoid/Dragon hybrids. Their Dragon form is their base form, but they are also able to transform into humanoids, presumably because of the same magic other dragons use.

Right. So they are not Dragons and their Visage form can function differently from actual Dragons.

[Shadochi]

Didn't Danuser in todays interview say that it's not exactly transforming into whatever humanoid they want and more into taking the form of their inner mortal part/form and this is why it is limited to 1/2 forms and i guess that is also why they look scaly in their visage forms too unlike the rest of the dragons who choose the extend of their visible draconic nature.

I wonder based on that if the Dracthyr gender will be changeable in Barber shop

[Le Conceptuel]

As much as the last book sucked, I am hyped that the Northrend book is written from a Dwarf perspective cause we hardly ever get anything with them involved it feels like.

Is there anybody who doesn't like Dwarves?