Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[guro-tchai]

tbh I don't like the idea of doing 5 zones based exclusively on different dragonflights because imo it would be too generic and unconnected with the rest of Azeroth. shadowlands, but with dragons instead of reincarnated dead.

besides, we've seen the map and the globe of the world many times. where could you hide an entire archipelago? in classic alpha they were right above Lordaeron.
what if they were floating and hidden in the clouds, like Dalaran, but also giant? they could even stay in the same place, next to Quel'thalas. and that would be the reason to revamp northern EK - it would be part of the expansion launch progression campaign, leveling (if they don't cut it).
Eversong, extended Ghostlands (with that small zone with a tower north to the Eastern Plaguelands), Amani mountains and the Dragon isles (2-3 locations floating to the west of the known area) could be the next continent. renewed Silvermoon as the new, neutral capital - and that would fit with the cross-faction PvE (which is already discussed, and i think even teased in one of their twitter posts).

we still don't know where does the path of titans end. it goes into the sea south of Dragonblight, passes by the Strand of Ancients and then nothing. what if it led to an uld-something, another bullshit power storage which was ripped out of the earth and made to fly to protect it from the rising kaldorei empire way before the Sundering? Galakrond might ally the twilights and try to seize it for the usual villain goal.

- if the DI are next to Quel'thalas, that could explain why most of them choose a highborne humanoid form, making it just a convenient way to blend in with the locals if they frequently visited Silvermoon due to proximity.

- if the expansion revamps Quel'thalas, we might get an amani (and maybe even drakkari as they share body shapes) allied race or extension to the base troll race. something something, dumping old hatreds, peace, reconciliation - to be expected from the current lore team.

- I'm still not sure what was Deathwing's goal in the Dragon Soul raid. is the Wyrmrest temple a power source by itself, or is it a mechanism of hiding/shielding the DI? I'm unaware if it's the former.

- getting a new, flyable Quel'thalas without costing us a raid tier would be nice.

[Zulggun]

Been running Jailers gauntlet on the PTR, its honestly really fun.
A boss rush mode suits the game far better than running floors, should've been in-game from the start.

Hopefully this design is gonna stick around.

How does that work exactly?

[Ersula]

If you search for anything related to ff14 6.0 on twitter, almost all of them are highly rated. You won’t see anyone criticizing it.

I mean, this is not a good sign

I've ventured into ffxiv the past few weeks & while there are definitely areas of the game that are better than Wow, its only marginally so. The game has been virtually unplayable (Welcome aboard new players, you're not allowed to make a new character on a north american server during the early access week because of server congestion but you're still going to praise this launch being better than Blizzard somehow) for a week. Many of their favorite "unique" features, are from wow. Today they're giving out free game time because of the server problems, & all the content creators are praising them because "Blizzard would never do that" (Blizzard does do that)

I'm saying the FF14 community is a bit delusional: And you literally get ostracized if you criticize the story. Honestly the "fandom" of WoW is far healthier.

- - - Updated - - -

Probably because FFXIV doesnt even attempt to reconcile it. WoW does, which means that whenver they have to swap between "Player, the renowned hero" and "Player, the random adventurer" it ends up feeling very off.

Its a subtle difference that I like. You, as a player, and your friends are warriors of light. On your own unique journey. There are also canonical warriors of light, fighting a very specific evil, but there are tons of evil forces attacking this world so there needs to be lots of warriors of light & you even get to see side stories featuring other, distinct warriors of light, that you act as a "helper" during.

It's a lot better than YOU ARE THE MAWWALKER but now there are OTHER MAWWALKERS somehow.

[Sondrelk]

I've ventured into ffxiv the past few weeks & while there are definitely areas of the game that are better than Wow, its only marginally so. The game has been virtually unplayable (Welcome aboard new players, you're not allowed to make a new character on a north american server during the early access week because of server congestion but you're still going to praise this launch being better than Blizzard somehow) for a week. Many of their favorite "unique" features, are from wow. Today they're giving out free game time because of the server problems, & all the content creators are praising them because "Blizzard would never do that" (Blizzard does do that)

I'm saying the FF14 community is a bit delusional: And you literally get ostracized if you criticize the story. Honestly the "fandom" of WoW is far healthier.

- - - Updated - - -


Its a subtle difference that I like. You, as a player, and your friends are warriors of light. On your own unique journey. There are also canonical warriors of light, fighting a very specific evil, but there are tons of evil forces attacking this world so there needs to be lots of warriors of light & you even get to see side stories featuring other, distinct warriors of light, that you act as a "helper" during.

It's a lot better than YOU ARE THE MAWWALKER but now there are OTHER MAWWALKERS somehow.

Last time I checked there did seem to be definite moments of "Player, the chosen one" in FFXIV. The dragon themed one where the main player got the super special dragon eye or whatever.

I will confess I don't pay too much attention, but whenever I check it does seem like FFXIV mostly goes full steam on making the player character the important one, or at least playing second fiddle to the real main NPC, which isnt really that different from how WoW sometimes does it.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Guys, we're winning. Zovaal forgot about the prophecy about his defeat that was written in his own realm!

Who's going to win: Prophecy vs Unwinnable Odds. It's a new fresh take on the Immovable Object vs The Unstoppable Force!

I am so hyped for Zovaal's Raid Cinematic to figure it out!

[Sondrelk]

[IMG]

Guys, we're winning. Zovaal forgot about the prophecy about his defeat that was written in his own realm!

Who's going to win: Prophecy vs Unwinnable Odds. It's a new fresh take on the Immovable Object vs The Unstoppable Force!

I am so hyped for Zovaal's Raid Cinematic to figure it out!

Will be interesting to see what Zovaal thinks about this prophecy. If I were to guess then this prophecy would itself be why Zovaal thinks the cycle is broken. He went insane after realizing his betrayal, return and subsequent attempts at conquering the universe was all planned by the First Ones.

[Raetary]

How does that work exactly?

It's 8 floors of back to back boss battles.
When you enter you get 3 anima powers immediately, you get anima power upon killing the boss and one guaranteed epic anima power at the end of each floor.
More often than not you'll have floors where you have to face multiple bosses at once.
After each floor you also get 200 phantasma to spend on the broker vendor.


The gauntlet uses the old Torghast system, so no score and you can go at your pace.
It's quick and very fun.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Will be interesting to see what Zovaal thinks about this prophecy. If I were to guess then this prophecy would itself be why Zovaal thinks the cycle is broken. He went insane after realizing his betrayal, return and subsequent attempts at conquering the universe was all planned by the First Ones.

The issue is that he was surprised about the Waystones being activated by us indicating he did not know about the Prophecy at all. Perhaps that was the hint from the Introduction we should've heeded and not the "Anduin will be used as a tool to open the Sepulcher and retrieve what was in it due to his pure heart" theory.

I don't know, it'd be very lame if Zovaal just did not know about the prophecy at all and he basically orchestrated all the events in Reality without the knowledge that he would lose in the end due to the Fatescribes writing this into motion.

Also the whole kidnapping of the Fatescribe indicates that he needed to figure out why we could activate the Waystones but apparently he still doesn't know about the Prophecy? Very confusing, indeed.

Unless, Roh-kalo actually succeeded in Jailor's mission of rescribing the Fate of the Shadowlands and Zovaal figured it out after the Waystones activated by our hand.

God this lore is too COSMIC CHESS at this point.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Will be interesting to see what Zovaal thinks about this prophecy. If I were to guess then this prophecy would itself be why Zovaal thinks the cycle is broken. He went insane after realizing his betrayal, return and subsequent attempts at conquering the universe was all planned by the First Ones.

Need a source for this. AND well the last time talk of prophices happened a Naaru got blown up.

[Sondrelk]

Need a source for this. AND well the last time talk of prophices happened a Naaru got blown up.

The waystonjes we use in the Maw and alter Zereth Mortis were placed there to be found by us speifically so we could use them to save the Shadowlands. Secondly we have the Pantheon prototypes which were too extreme, which indicates a level of predetermination in their actions.
We don't see a Zovaal prototype, which is likely because of the redundancy given he fight proper Zovaal in the same raid, but which is still fascinating for the plot.

Combining this all together could be taken as Zovaal being designed to go insane and attempt to kill everything, which would be a fascinating take on the plot. Even more so if Zovaal knows about his predestined turn to evil.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

So did Roh-Kalo succeed in changing the Prophecy or did he fail due to us stopping him at the time?

[UndedoKoleda]

Found this post on Reddit, made me laugh out loud.

be a first one

create zovaal

foresee zovaal will threaten the shadowlands

don't destroy, recreate, or just never create him in the first place

instead put down fast travel waypoints for mortals eons in the future to fix the problem

allow the creation of the maw and the untold suffering of millions in the process

Even WoW's gods are letting crappy systems go live and relying on the playerbase to fix them.

Jokes aside, the question now is, was all that "there is a prophecy" branch in Shadowlands' story really needed? I mean, will they expand on it, making it a major factor in everything that has happened so far or is about to happen, or did they just decide to throw it in "because prophecies are a must in fantasy"?

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Jokes aside, the question now is, was all that "there is a prophecy" branch in Shadowlands' story really needed? I mean, will they expand on it, making it a major factor in everything that has happened so far or is about to happen, or did they just decide to throw it in "because prophecies are a must in fantasy"?

Zovaal had no info on the Prophecy until we interacted with the Waystone, Zovaal then learned about the Prophecy and figured he would need to kidnap a Fatescribe. He got the Nathrezim to kidnap Roh-Kalo to rewrite the Prophecy in his favor. But, it is uncertain if Roh-Kalo succeeded or was defeated by us before he succeeded.

The Shadowlands narrative has had Free Will + Determinism as it's core theme.
"If you're not under control over your actions are you still liable"
"If everything that you will do has been written by a Fatescribe in Shadowlands, do you really have any determinism?" = This is actually a problem, but most people won't realize after Shadowlands about this whole Fatescribe nonsense. Also it has serious RED ALARM problems with a lot of cool characters in the Warcraft Universe. Although Illidan sorta acts as a counter to this being too problematic? (Again, who the hell knows.)

I mean look at Zovaal, he was never given a fighting chance. Even after his millenia of manipulations, the Fatescribes scribed that he would be defeated by mere mortals invading the Shadowlands no matter if he was unbeatable and fully empowered again. Apparently, Zovaal only realized that something was off by our interaction with the First Ones waystones probably due to the fact that he HATES The First Ones and it couldn't be a good sign when mere mortals interacted with the Waystones.

[UndedoKoleda]

Zovaal had no info on the Prophecy until we interacted with the Waystone, Zovaal then learned about the Prophecy and figured he would need to kidnap a Fatescribe. He got the Nathrezim to kidnap Roh-Kalo to rewrite the Prophecy in his favor. But, it is uncertain if Roh-Kalo succeeded or was defeated by us before he succeeded.

The Shadowlands narrative has had Free Will + Determinism as it's core theme.
"If you're not under control over your actions are you still liable"
"If everything that you will do has been written by a Fatescribe in Shadowlands, do you really have any determinism?" = This is actually a problem, but most people won't realize after Shadowlands about this whole Fatescribe nonsense.

I mean look at Zovaal, he was never given a fighting chance. Even after his millenia of manipulations, the Fatescribes scribed that he would be defeated by mere mortals invading the Shadowlands no matter if he was unbeatable and fully empowered again.

I just hope that they won't leave this Prophecy storyline just hanging there, like the entire "what broke the Machine of Death" fiasco. Maybe the prophecy wasn't about Zovaal in particular, maybe it was just about mortals coming to the Shadowlands in order to save it or something. Even though it'd be weird if that's the case- "The mortals will need our help in order to save the Shadowlands! Lets throw them few fast-travel points and call it a day."

By the way, if anyone went through the intro on the PTR, is it explained how the brokers ended up there without having the five Sigils?

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I just hope that they won't leave this Prophecy storyline just hanging there, like the entire "what broke the Machine of Death" fiasco. Maybe the prophecy wasn't about Zovaal in particular, maybe it was just about mortals coming to the Shadowlands in order to save it or something. Even though it'd be weird if that's the case- "The mortals will need our help in order to save the Shadowlands! Lets throw them few fast-travel points and call it a day."

By the way, if anyone went through the intro on the PTR, is it explained how the brokers ended up there without having the five Sigils?

I mean either way, "Saving Shadowlands" and being the Salvation of the "Fate of the Shadowlands" is us winning against Zovaal. The First Ones did not need to come to Zereth Mortis because Fatescribes would solve any existential risk to the Shadowlands.

No clue, it is most likely that Firim managed to manipulate the Fractals just like how Zovaal did the same with his portal to Zereth Mortis once fully empowered. Although there is certainly some questions about the other ones though those too are referenced as going missing in the same circumstances.

[Ersula]

So did Roh-Kalo succeed in changing the Prophecy or did he fail due to us stopping him at the time?

How to tell if your plot is overly-complicated to the point of extreme stupidity in one simple step.

[KainneAbsolute]

Mortals and Gods think it is a prophecy.

They are wrong. It is the GrAnD dEsiGn!!!!!

There can be no prophecy if the first ones programmed all creation with a single purpose: put challenges to improve mortals. The worst part is the Old Gods are dumb because it does not matter to look into infinite possibilities when the purpose supersedes everything.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

How to tell if your plot is overly-complicated to the point of extreme stupidity in one simple step.

I mean Zovaal is empowered, it makes no sense to me that he would be at the Sepulcher unless the prophecy was rewritten in his favor. He would wait it out if the odds were not in his favor.

There's some Meta analysis here too with the whole Narrative Team being defeated by Zovaal as he rewrites his own fate away from the hands of the both the Fatescribes and the Writers. Again, the whole focus on N'zoth not winning and them basically creating this weird meta scenario where Zovaal wins without them writing it. (Sounds insane, but I would not be surprised considering how deep this rabbit hole goes at this point)

Again The One Book (Book One/ Book you get the jist stop got'chaing about it) comes to an end not because of the Writers but because of Zovaals' actions. (This is pretentious, I know. But writers)

[Arcinatoss]

#FireDanuser

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I will say that the fact I just figured out the whole Waystone, Prophecy, Fatescribe and Roh-Kalo's kidnapping connection after seeing the reddit post trashing the lore again. I still think the genius here is too complex and high IQ for people to appreciate. It's also creating a necessity for a Universe Reset because the Fatescribes are just as damaging as the Prototype Pantheon in creating nihilism about the characters in the universe.

Again, Danuser's writing is at way above the level of current demographics of the playerbase to grasp and even for lore theorycrafters this is becoming way way out of touch with the initial Puzzleboxes. They basically raised the floor of knowledge required for the narrative to be perceived as "good" by such an extent that lore theorycrafters are having trouble connecting all the dots of the narrative together to make sense of it.

(Then again we're still missing the Yogg-Saron connection and it has been a necessity for that one to exist for the events of Shadowlands to take place and Danuser has refused to acknowledge it.)

Also again I hate that Danuser has now basically obfuscated what is going to be the events of Zovaal's Raid Cinematic because it all hinges on if the Prophecy is rewritten or not now.