Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Nyel]

Gardens of Life:
- Level 70 cap
- Profession revamp
- Cross-faction PvE and PvP
- Eternal Maze
- New class: Lifewarden
- Flying at launch
- New realm: Gardens of Life

The Jailer has disrupted the eternal cycle and the Gardens of Life are in chaos. Elune calls the night elf souls sent to Ardenweald and Tyrande to her side. An'she calls the newly awakened Vol'jin to him. A new class introduced themed after these two major characters new paths: The Lifewarden. Mail user with ranged/healer/tank specs. Ranged/healer uses bow and tank uses warglaives. Flying is at launch and zones are designed with it in mind. The Eternal Maze is a new rogue-like experience that has no loading screens that generates content as you move through the mist seamlessly in this living world.All faction restrictions lifted from Raiding, Mythic+ and PvP and can now be done with the opposing faction and guilds can now have members from both factions.

This sounds like Shadowlands 2.0, so no thank you.

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I dont think "Flying at launch" could be used as a selling point.

Well, not as one of the main features for sure, but flying at launch will make a lot of players happy. Everything they did to flying after MoP was just horrible.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Necromancers are only as disruptive to """the great cycle""" as their individual wills. Bwonsamdi actively practices necromancy and he isn't disrupting the cycle, he is actively enforcing it, really the entirety of Ardenweald is about bringing the dead back to life as part of the cycle. The Necrolords constantly practice necromancy, originally in an effort to protect the Shadowlands, with zero problem. "disturbing the great cycle" is just arbitrary bullshit drummed up under the pretense that necromancy = bad because it's not what X faction likes, but that doesn't really make any sense for Shadowlands, an entire expansion about doing shit with the souls of the dead, using them for energy, etc.

You can see how little Necromancy is dIstUrbinG tHe CycLe in how little even Oribos' forces give a shit about the Ebon Blade being their primary liaison. It's really just the Kyrian doing typical Kyrian shit, and in the fact that the Arbiter, when working, had zero problem doing stuff like sending Kel'thuzad to serve among the Necrolords and Primus' runework involved a bunch of necromantic forging of souls into weapons and shit, it's clear necromancy isn't disturbing anything unless deliberately used to do so.

Bwonsamdi is a shadowlands inhabitant, that is quite different from your usual necromancer. He is not running around making undead armies, he is a soul collector that brings souls to the shadowlands, essentialy a rogue kyrian/reaper that is allowed to operate for some arcane reason.
You also ignore that necrolords practice it in the afterlife where it doesn't affect the cycle at all. The souls there have already reached their final destination, the giant trash heap that is maldraxxus. The munchkins in Oribos only care about polishing the giant ueseless machine that they worship, they have no clue about anything other than preaching about it. They only cared about the whole maw-touched thing a bit iirc, but unlike the 4 covenants only because no one ever returned.

Us enslaving souls to have them run around on Azeroth is quite different, as we'd be taking souls out of the cycle. They probably aren't too happy with warlocks either, but Blizzard probably forgot about the warlock's use of soulshards or couldn't be arsed to add some flavor dialogue about sacrificing some to the fel either. They clearly don't like the legion doing it.

Edit: I guess they could create a completely new order of necromancers that unlike all the scourge ones try to go with an approach closer to the one in DA:I and it's all about giving fallen warriors another chance to fight. Maybe if the summoned undead were really just the corpse without the soul, so essentially fully controlled meat puppets and not the usual possessed corpses.

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I’ve been suspecting 10.0 would really focus on EK and Kalimdor for the nostalgia and this feels like more evidence.
They keep slowing updating a lot of the older assets like animals and mobs, and now it looks like they’ve begun doing buildings as well. It’d be such a monumental task to bring the graphics for two whole continents up to modern standards, so spacing some of that out in chunks over multiple expansions seems like a sound strategy.

Who can say though!

I wish they would start touching some of the trees, especially the horrible ones in Ashenvale.

[TheFirstOnes]

Holy fuck. Woke up with 9 pings. My god. Okay people, chill. 1 sec.

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Gardens of Life:
- Level 70 cap
- Profession revamp
- Cross-faction PvE and PvP
- Eternal Maze
- New class: Lifewarden
- Flying at launch
- New realm: Gardens of Life

The Jailer has disrupted the eternal cycle and the Gardens of Life are in chaos. Elune calls the night elf souls sent to Ardenweald and Tyrande to her side. An'she calls the newly awakened Vol'jin to him. A new class introduced themed after these two major characters new paths: The Lifewarden. Mail user with ranged/healer/tank specs. Ranged/healer uses bow and tank uses warglaives. Flying is at launch and zones are designed with it in mind. The Eternal Maze is a new rogue-like experience that has no loading screens that generates content as you move through the mist seamlessly in this living world.All faction restrictions lifted from Raiding, Mythic+ and PvP and can now be done with the opposing faction and guilds can now have members from both factions.

C...can we just...SQUEEZE this plot in, please? Meaning, can this basically be a part of 9.2, along with Zereth Mortis?

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I would hate forcing the Cosmic Realms into multiple expansions, that's just milking the game at this rate, especially when you realize the Void whispers from BFA and Legion imply "Death leads into Light and Shadow", which also could just mean we'll maybe get the Gardens of Life, but it'll be like 1 part of it, and that'll be used to finish up the plotline between Elune and the WQ.

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People kinda need to be reminded that the Covenant sigils are restored, sure, but their plotlines aren't done. The WQ and Elune are together again, and the balance between Life and Death is assured, yet there's still a Dreadlord infiltrating the Realms of Life, and this bond could definitely lead into the Pantheons of Life and Death teaming up at Zereth Mortis. Hell, Baine could even meet "An'she's" true self. Reminder that Baine still exists in SL, btw.

The Dreadlord plot could also work cause it'll give the forces of Life a reason to team up with us against Zovaal. Imagine the WQ and Elune battling against the Mawsworn together in a scenario at the Realms of Life, that'd be sick.

And just a reminder, IF we do get the Gardens of Life in WoW, it'll likely just be a singular zone or something like that, and that zone would be the head seat of the Realm. Seems fair, since I really don't want to milk WoW so much, as to where EVERY Cosmic Realm needs to be explored in its variety. The game's called World of WARcraft, sure exploration exists, but it's exploration that makes SENSE. Exploring cosmic realms for the sake of it just doesn't work, and it doesn't feel like the forces of Life have a "Zovaal/Sargeras" esc figure on their hands.

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Besides, Elune and the Forces of Life SHOULD have specific beef with Zovaal, after the shit he pulled with the Night Elven souls. I also mention the Gardens of Life, cause Elune and the WQ specifically state that their jobs are to guide the souls of the Night Elves onto their spring, AKA into the Dream (Tho, this prolly means the realms of Life as a WHOLE, but still). All of this is enough to finish up the Ardenweald portion of SL's story, and it can connect Life's role in the Cosmic Side of things perfectly without us having to waste an entire expansion going there. Can also give us the Gardens of Life without taking away from Death's role in the expac (Which is the MAIN part of SL).

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Holy fuck. Woke up with 9 pings. My god. Okay people, chill. 1 sec.

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C...can we just...SQUEEZE this plot in, please? Meaning, can this basically be a part of 9.2, along with Zereth Mortis?

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I would hate forcing the Cosmic Realms into multiple expansions, that's just milking the game at this rate, especially when you realize the Void whispers from BFA and Legion imply "Death leads into Light and Shadow", which also could just mean we'll maybe get the Gardens of Life, but it'll be like 1 part of it, and that'll be used to finish up the plotline between Elune and the WQ.

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People kinda need to be reminded that the Covenant sigils are restored, sure, but their plotlines aren't done. The WQ and Elune are together again, and the balance between Life and Death is assured, yet there's still a Dreadlord infiltrating the Realms of Life, and this bond could definitely lead into the Pantheons of Life and Death teaming up at Zereth Mortis. Hell, Baine could even meet "An'she's" true self. Reminder that Baine still exists in SL, btw.

The Dreadlord plot could also work cause it'll give the forces of Life a reason to team up with us against Zovaal. Imagine the WQ and Elune battling against the Mawsworn together in a scenario at the Realms of Life, that'd be sick.

And just a reminder, IF we do get the Gardens of Life in WoW, it'll likely just be a singular zone or something like that, and that zone would be the head seat of the Realm. Seems fair, since I really don't want to milk WoW so much, as to where EVERY Cosmic Realm needs to be explored in its variety. The game's called World of WARcraft, sure exploration exists, but it's exploration that makes SENSE. Exploring cosmic realms for the sake of it just doesn't work, and it doesn't feel like the forces of Life have a "Zovaal/Sargeras" esc figure on their hands.

I suppose since Life and Death are kinda in a relationship where both need the other to function correctly, it'd make sense for the "Lifelands" to eventually make some kind of appearance, even if it's just in the form of a few characters and not like zones or anything.

Like how the Legion (Disorder) and Titans (Order) both shared Legion.



On which note, if that is the relationship then that'd also lead into Light and Void sharing an expansion. But that would also mean that we've got something of a pattern here.

Order/Disorder Expansion > Azeroth Iterlude > Death/Life Expansion > Azeroth Interlude 2? > Light/Void Expansion?

Especially so if the whole "the next expansion was teased in the last expansion" trend holds true and it's Dragon Isles next.

[TheFirstOnes]

I suppose since Life and Death are kinda in a relationship where both need the other to function correctly, it'd make sense for the "Lifelands" to eventually make some kind of appearance, even if it's just in the form of a few characters and not like zones or anything.

Like how the Legion (Disorder) and Titans (Order) both shared Legion.



On which note, if that is the relationship then that'd also lead into Light and Void sharing an expansion. But that would also mean that we've got something of a pattern here.

Order/Disorder Expansion > Azeroth Iterlude > Death/Life Expansion > Azeroth Interlude 2? > Light/Void Expansion?

Especially so if the whole "the next expansion was teased in the last expansion" trend holds true and it's Dragon Isles next.

Am I the only one that thinks we're gonna just jump into the Light/Void plot next expac, or that maybe Light and Shadow will be the plot of 2 whole expacs, and not just 1?

Only reason BFA "exists" is so that we could finish up the Old God plotline, and bring the Faction Conflict to a sustaining "halt". And if SL seems to imply anything, the end of the Sepulcher conflict + Turalyon's "reign" at SW could prove costly, and may just bring the Light and Void to our very doorsteps.

Imagine if, by the end of the Sepulcher raid (Cause I'm pretty sure that's going to be the final raid of SL), reality goes through a massive tear, and while the Shadowlands may be saved, we basically brought the Void Lords into our very doorsteps. That would be cool. I still think my Expansion speculation's going to happen, btw. As much as people hate to think it, this is the same company that forced 3 expansion plots into 1 with BFA, and gave us ARGUS in Legion.

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At most, next expac will give us the Light plot, with the Shadow plot being part 2.

At minimum, Light and Shadow is going to be a 1 expac thing. And I have the perfect name for it:

World of Warcraft: The Great War

[Sondrelk]

This sounds like Shadowlands 2.0, so no thank you.

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Well, not as one of the main features for sure, but flying at launch will make a lot of players happy. Everything they did to flying after MoP was just horrible.

Adding flying at launch would make a lot of players happy in the same uncomplicated way it would make a lot of players happy if the drop rate for gear was increased by 500%, or if everything that required anima to buy was free.
Just because some players want it doesn't mean it's a good idea for the game.

Removing flying is one of the best decisions Blizzard has made in recent expansions. It's what finally allowed them room to make world content better.

The current incarnation of flying is horrible for the game. And the idea that you can design zones around it really doesn't work. At best it just means that you have zone like Storm Peaks where stuff is just placed high up in the air, or that quest areas are on plateaus.
Designing zones around it makes as much sense as saying to can design raids around being unkillable.

[TheFirstOnes]

Okay, quick theory, what if THIS was the start of Zovaal's interest in Anduin? I mean, it'd make perfect sense, honestly.

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Holy shit, imagine if the future stuff in the "Son of the Wolf" comic was the potential Zovaal saw in Anduin, hence why he chose him to be his "vessel". Blizzard did call it a "potential" future for the King, and Zovaal wanted Anduin first thing during the SL stuff.

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The Maw Cinematic here between him and Anduin would later confirm his assumption.

[Nyel]

Adding flying at launch would make a lot of players happy in the same uncomplicated way it would make a lot of players happy if the drop rate for gear was increased by 500%, or if everything that required anima to buy was free.
Just because some players want it doesn't mean it's a good idea for the game.

Removing flying is one of the best decisions Blizzard has made in recent expansions. It's what finally allowed them room to make world content better.

The current incarnation of flying is horrible for the game. And the idea that you can design zones around it really doesn't work. At best it just means that you have zone like Storm Peaks where stuff is just placed high up in the air, or that quest areas are on plateaus.
Designing zones around it makes as much sense as saying to can design raids around being unkillable.

It didn't make world content better, it made it more tedious. Especially in the case of Revendreth (or to an extent Maldraxxus) this could easily be witnessed. Revendreth without flying was horrible to traverse.

Despite what your comparison suggests, gear drops never were drastically changed from 100% drop at launch to 1% drop later on or whatever - but removing flying up until months into an expansion just became a thing to stretch out content, increase travel times and to make the game less comfortable - something that clearly didn't work out as planned and that's why they slowly but steadily changed their course on this topic (as we see in 9.1.5). Set requirements for flying, but don't delay it for months or even longer. Flying is an integral part of the game for 14 years.

(I really don't want to start a discussion about this topic here, has been discussed ad nauseam already)

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[video=youtube;-BJPAgk1vKY]Okay, quick theory, what if THIS was the start of Zovaal's interest in Anduin? I mean, it'd make perfect sense, honestly.

Holy shit, imagine if the future stuff in the "Son of the Wolf" comic was the potential Zovaal saw in Anduin, hence why he chose him to be his "vessel". Blizzard did call it a "potential" future for the King, and Zovaal wanted Anduin first thing during the SL stuff.

A lot of credit for you as a fan linking this together, but I'm not sure if the recent writers are capable of this or even remembered it back from Legion. Most of them might not even have worked for Blizzard back then.

[TheFirstOnes]

Yeah, I doubt they themselves thought of shit this far in, either. GRANTED, we do have some stuff from 7.0 implying they did in fact start to think some of this Zovaal stuff through, but none of it was truly set in stone, yet.

[Alanar]

You people moaning about the world but the Shadowlands IS part of that "World of Warcraft" The game isn't being butchered by being slightly more cosmic. We broke that rule way when the Orcs were space aliens. This criticism is hollow.


Much like any franchise it evolves and while some things stay the same but there's way more to it then just Humans VS Orcs. The disconnect you feel is self made, not Blizzard.

I already explained to you why it wouldnt be a good idea to continue with it.. sure everything they make in wow is part of it. Doesnt mean its good.

Right now it looks like you are turning a blind eye to what is happening. Reconnecting to players is important at this point.

[Teriz]

Yeah me too. Sometimes I lose hope of ever seeing them implemented in any fashion. I didn't want one of my favorite characters ruined (for me) by Shadowlands either, but it happened. I'd like a more grounded expansion too, but I don't believe that Blizzard (I could be wrong) would put such a heavy focus on two of the least popular races in the game. After the void lords we still have Sargeras to deal with as well as Azshara and Chromatus. Knowing Blizzard they'll invent some new threat that almost no one will care about. We're just about out of interesting big bads and big threats based on WC-WCIII. Blizzard probably shouldn't have plowed through all of their iconic antagonists like they did. Sorry, I'm being so cynical. Not in a good place with the Warcraft franchise right now.

Yeah, the issue with Necromancers or Dark Rangers moving forward is that Blizzard made it rather clear that new classes have to match the story and setting of the expansion they're released in. In other words, in order to have a Necromancer class, you would have to have an expansion about death and necromancy. In order to have Dark Rangers, we would have to have a story revolving around Sylvanas. We pretty much have both with Shadowlands, and there's no Necromancer or DR class. I also highly doubt we're going to have another expansion with this theme any time soon.

As for Undermine, remember that Trolls aren't very popular population wise either, but they still introduced the continent of Zandalar in BFA. That said, I still feel that Gnome and Goblin populations are limited due to a lack of classes that really match their racial themes. Consider that prominent Gnomes and Goblins fight inside robots, and we see this constantly. Player Gnomes and Goblins cannot do this.

[NikolaiShade]

Yeah, the issue with Necromancers or Dark Rangers moving forward is that Blizzard made it rather clear that new classes have to match the story and setting of the expansion they're released in. In other words, in order to have a Necromancer class, you would have to have an expansion about death and necromancy. In order to have Dark Rangers, we would have to have a story revolving around Sylvanas. We pretty much have both with Shadowlands, and there's no Necromancer or DR class. I also highly doubt we're going to have another expansion with this theme any time soon.

As for Undermine, remember that Trolls aren't very popular population wise either, but they still introduced the continent of Zandalar in BFA. That said, I still feel that Gnome and Goblin populations are limited due to a lack of classes that really match their racial themes. Consider that prominent Gnomes and Goblins fight inside robots, and we see this constantly. Player Gnomes and Goblins cannot do this.

Sorry if I'm mistaken but iirc they said a necromancer class wouldn't fit shadowlands but could be implemented after (basically they said nothing but I thought it was usefull to point it out).
Anyway if we consider Blizzard said they would not introduce a new class in SL due to the unpruning and how hard at work on it the class designers were I don't think we will get a new class anytime soon, unfortunately

[Lady Atia]

You need to know the basics of what you are doing in an area and how thing there generally work. This is why Blizzard made a mistake by going to the Shadowlands to begin with, the story should have stayed in Northrend, leaving the more cosmic afterlife stuff to be vaguely implied instead of flat out told.
We didnt need to know exactly how the armies of Maldraxxus function, what their army structure is and what the zone looks like. It would have been far more interesting if we are just told that the Shadowlands is protected by a vast army of souls that looks similar to the Scourge. Or that the mushrooms that are seen with the plague of undeath come from Maldraxxus.
Hearing about the Kyrian just raises further questions. Each soul left on Azeroth is another question raised. The idea that the Val'kyr are based on winged humanoids whose job it is to ferry dead souls to the Shadowlands is explanation enough.

By going to the Shadowlands we are left with too many questions that cannot realistically be answered in the time we have, so instead we are left with that horrible in-between where we know too much to have a sense of mystique, and we don't know enough to stop asking questions.

Staying as grounded as possible and then using cosmic stuff as a spice on top is much easier, and tends to work much better.

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We were also only on Argus for a short while, both narratively and in real time. The game didnt need to stretch out content and could instead just focus on the most important bits and leave the rest unsaid.
If the expansion had taken place entirely on Argus then we would have been obliged to more explanations on what happened to the elements, or whether there are different biomes. Or why the Krokuul still exist when the demons have had milennia to simply nuke whatever areas they suspect they might be hiding.

No you are just flat out wrong. The strength of WoW was always to show us the stuff, not "vaguely imply". No one cares for that, it's boring. I want to see, not get "vaguely told". Just because you hate on Shadowlands doesn't make the lore bad lmao.

[Varodoc]

Imagine treating "flying at launch" as a feature when it should be the norm, there's no reason to not give flying at launch that isn't greed (to force people to stay subbed).

[Nyel]

No you are just flat out wrong. The strength of WoW was always to show us the stuff, not "vaguely imply". No one cares for that, it's boring. I want to see, not get "vaguely told". Just because you hate on Shadowlands doesn't make the lore bad lmao.

That lore doesn't make sense makes it bad and that's the case with most of the stuff in Shadowlands.

[ParanoiD84]

That lore doesn't make sense makes it bad and that's the case with most of the stuff in Shadowlands.

Dont forget thanos and the stones i mean sigils, we can only hope the next villan is not a lazy copy paste.

[Marlamin]

Did anyone notice this btw?

It's not fan-made. It's officially in blizzard files. Is it just for "nothing better to do", or is it part of "something bigger"?

Yeah, we've posted about it here and there since they were added back in 9.0.1 (and 9.1), I recently renamed the models and we've been talking about them a bit more due to the whole drought thing, so that's why it is picking up steam again. There's no way to be sure if it's part of something larger or just another revamp because they could (like Uther's Shrine), there are some more things connected to these models that tie it in with other new things like the Hearthstone Tavern but I don't think anyone has really bothered looking at it very deeply yet. Maybe when 9.2 comes around!

[Hitei]

Imagine treating "flying at launch" as a feature when it should be the norm, there's no reason to not give flying at launch that isn't greed (to force people to stay subbed).

Flying is trash and they should have just stayed firm on removing it permanently in WoD. It adds literally nothing to the game beyond allowing players to completely skip playing.

[Teriz]

Sorry if I'm mistaken but iirc they said a necromancer class wouldn't fit shadowlands but could be implemented after (basically they said nothing but I thought it was usefull to point it out).
Anyway if we consider Blizzard said they would not introduce a new class in SL due to the unpruning and how hard at work on it the class designers were I don't think we will get a new class anytime soon, unfortunately

Do you have a link to either of those discussions?

Here is the link to a developer saying that future classes must match the themes of the expansion they're introduced in;

https://massivelyop.com/2019/11/04/b...d-a-new-class/

[Sondrelk]

Really what Blizzard should do is revamp flying to actually be a mechanic that can be balanced. As of now it's a flip switch where it either removing gameplay, or itself not useable.

If flying got revamped to something that actually took some level of skill to do right, not to mention being difficult to accurately land or take off from just anywhere then it could be balanced.

I still have a dream of a version of flying where thing like flying from Stormheim to the top of Highmountain without touching the ground is a skill that is somewhat impressive, and not just a case of not falling asleep while autorunning in a straight line with flying.