Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

So I decided to poke onto the PTR and check out the new Void Elf customizations and I was flying around a lot of the post-Cata expansions.

I forgot just how good the WoD and after zones look... from above. Though I remember how annoying the Legion and after zones are to navigate on the ground. Something broke with Blizzard's zone design in Legion I feel like. Like in the name of a more linear and cinematic zone flow they got rid of the traveling aspect of the game entirely. Everything's a stone's throw away from everything else, roads aren't always safe or even existant. It's like the zones are designed around you being carried place to play by an NPC, not you going there yourself now.

Also dipped back into Stormwind and it reminded me of just how direly the old world is in need of... something, anything, to prune the number of entirely useless NPCs that exist as pre-expansion flavor and then were never delt with. It's flush with Night Elf refugees, Allied Race representatives, NPCs that I don't even remember what their purpose was. It doesn't feel like a lived-in city anymore, it feels perpetually stuck in 8.0 waiting for the story to continue. Night Elves to get a home, Worgen to get a home, new stories for some of the NPCs standing in the middle of the road to go off and do. The Old World's been revamped and then battered so many times that the entire thing feels chronally out of sync with itself at every turn. Which, if anything, is a factor of Blizzard's constant desire to do things and then abandon them, rather than resolve or continue them forward. You can't layer more Stuff :tm: on top of the Old World anymore, it's too overcrowded. You have to either give up on your big pre-expansion zone destruction, or you have to pull the Old World forward into the present properly.

[rainhard]

That was also the time where the vastly increased rare encounters, treasures, little details, achievements and references so i am guessing they traded the size and openess for detail and fullness.

[micwini]

So I decided to poke onto the PTR and check out the new Void Elf customizations and I was flying around a lot of the post-Cata expansions.

I forgot just how good the WoD and after zones look... from above. Though I remember how annoying the Legion and after zones are to navigate on the ground. Something broke with Blizzard's zone design in Legion I feel like. Like in the name of a more linear and cinematic zone flow they got rid of the traveling aspect of the game entirely. Everything's a stone's throw away from everything else, roads aren't always safe or even existant. It's like the zones are designed around you being carried place to play by an NPC, not you going there yourself now.

Also dipped back into Stormwind and it reminded me of just how direly the old world is in need of... something, anything, to prune the number of entirely useless NPCs that exist as pre-expansion flavor and then were never delt with. It's flush with Night Elf refugees, Allied Race representatives, NPCs that I don't even remember what their purpose was. It doesn't feel like a lived-in city anymore, it feels perpetually stuck in 8.0 waiting for the story to continue. Night Elves to get a home, Worgen to get a home, new stories for some of the NPCs standing in the middle of the road to go off and do. The Old World's been revamped and then battered so many times that the entire thing feels chronally out of sync with itself at every turn. Which, if anything, is a factor of Blizzard's constant desire to do things and then abandon them, rather than resolve or continue them forward. You can't layer more Stuff :tm: on top of the Old World anymore, it's too overcrowded. You have to either give up on your big pre-expansion zone destruction, or you have to pull the Old World forward into the present properly.

I think they instantly fixed this in BFA, where zones like Voldun and stormsong have a lot of wide empty space with not much going on. Legion was cramped indeed.

[shoc]

Dissolving the Alliance and Horde would be a total blow to people who have Faction-related tattoos IRL. For this reason it will never happen. There's a guy out there with a shoulder to shoulder Horde symbol back tattoo who would be too deeply affected by such a decision.

[Raetary]

Dissolving the Alliance and Horde would be a total blow to people who have Faction-related tattoos IRL. For this reason it will never happen. There's a guy out there with a shoulder to shoulder Horde symbol back tattoo who would be too deeply affected by such a decision.

I very much doubt Blizzard gives a fuck about random peoples tattoo choices when designing the game.

[Varodoc]

Dissolving the Alliance and Horde would be a total blow to people who have Faction-related tattoos IRL. For this reason it will never happen. There's a guy out there with a shoulder to shoulder Horde symbol back tattoo who would be too deeply affected by such a decision.

Good, their fault for ruining their skin with an ugly tattoo. And I can assure you, they'll regret getting a tattoo with or without faction removal.

Now imagine all the people who named their kids Daenerys or Khaleesi, that's even worse.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Ah yes, game design by appeasing overly invested mental patients of some fantasy tribal war. That sounds like the best descision.

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

"Why do you have a tattoo of Frostmourne!? Don't you know it was destroyed!?"

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Ah yes, game design by appeasing overly invested mental patients of some fantasy tribal war. That sounds like the best descision.

If that's the only way they can keep the game running, maybe they need to have a long hard look in the mirror and think about what's wrong with WoW.

[Polyxo]

Still baffled that we are still arguing about Cross-Faction grouping when we had this cinematic.

Cross Faction stuff was the safest bet ever after 8.3, and yet we are still sitting here speculating about it.

I really don't understand Blizzard. That whole story arc was the perfect setup for some kind of crossfaction stuff, yet they squandered it.

I'm for cross-faction stuff. I think it needs to be introduced the right way though. I think part of it could be the way we deal with the narrative for the next expansion. I think Blizzard could do well to adopt some of Marvel's 'odd couple' storytelling, pairing up notable heroes across factions in interesting ways during questing.

[AngerFork]

Still baffled that we are still arguing about Cross-Faction grouping when we had this cinematic.

Cross Faction stuff was the safest bet ever after 8.3, and yet we are still sitting here speculating about it.

I really don't understand Blizzard. That whole story arc was the perfect setup for some kind of crossfaction stuff, yet they squandered it.

Things like this are what makes me wonder if cross-faction play was planned for the end of BfA, then called off for whatever reason. It's hard for me to see a company pulling out a cinematic like that in an expansion that was largely billed as the expansion to finally settle the faction conflict once and for all...and then for the result to be a return to the status quo. Could be something technical, could be a desire to do another faction conflict with Tyraleon in 10.0, or possibly even something as simple as chickening out at the last minute...either way, it feels weird to have that cinematic followed up by basically nothing.

Dissolving the Alliance and Horde would be a total blow to people who have Faction-related tattoos IRL. For this reason it will never happen. There's a guy out there with a shoulder to shoulder Horde symbol back tattoo who would be too deeply affected by such a decision.

The thing about people with those Faction-related tattoos is that there is likely also someone who has Alliance tattoos as well that feels forced to play Horde because of the high-end raiding/M+ exodus. In their case, Blizz has essentially forced them to pay to run away from their faction in order to play their choice of content. Blizz has to consider those people as well.

[TaliaKirana]

While I am all for cross-faction grouping for PVE, story-wise Shadowlands was too soon after the faction war of BfA for it. Time for some of the open wounds to scar over was needed. I think they likely are planning the cross-faction grouping for next expansion.

[therumblings]

While I am all for cross-faction grouping for PVE, story-wise Shadowlands was too soon after the faction war of BfA for it. Time for some of the open wounds to scar over was needed. I think they likely are planning the cross-faction grouping for next expansion.

Actually yeah, this kinda makes sense. With the Teldrassil/Sylvanas story mostly coming to an end with Shadowlands, I can see why they waited an extra xpac.

[Nyel]

In this thread right now I feel like it's 2017 again where we've been talking about

a) world revamp
b) removal of factions / unification

as well. Four years later, the same tenor.

[Hitei]

People have talked a lot about allied races, but if WoD race revamp = "a race" and Allied Races as a whole = "a race" than the pattern of every other expansion being a new race has held pretty constant and 10.0 should be a new race expansion.

Ogres for Horde finally? Probably? Maybe.

[Lady Atia]

People have talked a lot about allied races, but if WoD race revamp = "a race" and Allied Races as a whole = "a race" than the pattern of every other expansion being a new race has held pretty constant and 10.0 should be a new race expansion.

Ogres for Horde finally? Probably? Maybe.

Or they could give us the Covenants as pre-order bonus, similiar to the first four back with the end of Legion. Add more customizations, a world revamp aswell as maybe class skins and you don't need more core features for 10.0.

I wouldn't mind Ogres/Broken but the Covenant races would be much cooler imo. Let me play as spirit healer, thanks!

[Rootsbum]

I wonder if we will see some stuff added for the KT humans soon. Feels weird leaving them behind, at least the male ones

[Alanar]

I wonder if we will see some stuff added for the KT humans soon. Feels weird leaving them behind, at least the male ones

I am sure they will in the next batch of updates, including mechagnomes stuff like that.

I dont play one myself, but I have seen multiple requests for skinny model. This would be cool if they added this, but I would not get your hopes up for it tho

- - - Updated - - -

Or they could give us the Covenants as pre-order bonus, similiar to the first four back with the end of Legion. Add more customizations, a world revamp aswell as maybe class skins and you don't need more core features for 10.0.

I wouldn't mind Ogres/Broken but the Covenant races would be much cooler imo. Let me play as spirit healer, thanks!

I would play a Venthyr!

[Hitei]

Or they could give us the Covenants as pre-order bonus, similiar to the first four back with the end of Legion. Add more customizations, a world revamp aswell as maybe class skins and you don't need more core features for 10.0.

I wouldn't mind Ogres/Broken but the Covenant races would be much cooler imo. Let me play as spirit healer, thanks!

You wouldn't be a spirit healer though, you'd be a blue human. Allied Races as a replacement for a race in BfA was predicated on them releasing a ton of them (10 total). Really not sure 4 would cut it, especially when two of those four are honestly kinda trash.

[therumblings]

You wouldn't be a spirit healer though, you'd be a blue human.

If blizzard wont let playable Kyrians have wings, then they might as well not make them playable.