Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Osmeric]

I agree. I've always been frustrated how Blizzard ALWAYS leaves us with cliffhangers. Theres never any closure or ending to anything, its just a convoluted mess that keeps on going. At this point, I am starting to lose interest in the warcraft lore and i've been a big fan for many years.

The lore at the start of SL, such as it was, didn't create any engagement with me. I didn't care what was happening or who it was happening to. If anything, it was just annoying.

Since I didn't have any commitment to the story or setting, and because I was annoyed with the gameplay, all that kept me around was people I had played with, and that ran dry in just a few weeks. You don't need WoW to keep in touch with people.

[TheFirstOnes]

“Argus is a First One”

Not this shit again…

[draugril]

The best part is I am sure Blizzard has convinced themselves that the events of WC3 through to Legion is this legendary buildup considering how often Zovaal meta-references having a secret hand in everything. I hate how harmless Zovaal is. For a brutal anti-god of death and misery he doesn't do very much. Zovaal should have murdered all the B-tier characters that Blizzard doesn't know what to do with, at least that would have set a good stage. Baine would be perfect cannon fodder for something like this, now there's a character with lots of sentimental value that we would actually care about if killed brutally.

Honestly, they should have killed off everyone that was "abducted." Dude is essentially Satan in concept. If he wanted to capture people in the afterlife... why physically abduct them? Just kill them and snag their souls. Hell, they could have killed us to go along with them. It's an afterlife expansion, but it's treated just the same as Outland or Argus. Just another place.

Sure, we could save a few of them, eventually... but not everyone. Give us actual stakes.

[Sondrelk]

Honestly, they should have killed off everyone that was "abducted." Dude is essentially Satan in concept. If he wanted to capture people in the afterlife... why physically abduct them? Just kill them and snag their souls. Hell, they could have killed us to go along with them. It's an afterlife expansion, but it's treated just the same as Outland or Argus. Just another place.

Sure, we could save a few of them, eventually... but not everyone. Give us actual stakes.

Yeah actually, why didnt Blizzard do that? It's essentially the same opening except with more imminent danger. Just have Sylvanas, the Jailer, or even just some minion of his jump through the veil and crush us. Then we wake up in the Maw and we have to do essentially the same plot except we now have more pressing stakes rather than going for a rescue operation that is immediately botched.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I agree. I've always been frustrated how Blizzard ALWAYS leaves us with cliffhangers. Theres never any closure or ending to anything, its just a convoluted mess that keeps on going. At this point, I am starting to lose interest in the warcraft lore and i've been a big fan for many years.

Its not a convoluted mess. Lore before the chronicoles, yeah it could act that way considering how un orderly it was. Also in past expansions threats just popped up. In BC after Kil'Jaeden the Lich King wakes up, no reason, just that Arthas decides to wake up. After Arthas is defeated Deathwing is somewhere and he decides its Cataclysm time. At the end of Cata at least its explained(One of the airships) crashes onto Pandaria and thats how we find out about it. Much more fluid then


"Oh this thing happened again."

Mist's ending (The trial) helped lead into Draenor and for all of WoD's flaws the story did naturally lead to Legion(Gul'dan being sent to Azeroth). And well we know the rest. Also cliffhangers aren't really bad, just a tad annoying because we want to know more. I'm not gonna flail Blizz for a cliffhanger since most expansions(And well how the story flows in general) end with one.

[draugril]

Yeah actually, why didnt Blizzard do that? It's essentially the same opening except with more imminent danger. Just have Sylvanas, the Jailer, or even just some minion of his jump through the veil and crush us. Then we wake up in the Maw and we have to do essentially the same plot except we now have more pressing stakes rather than going for a rescue operation that is immediately botched.

And if they really wanted to get clever with it, they could have killed these people off over the course of the preceding patches or even expansions. Kill off those characters that we enjoy and give us a gut punch, then float the possibility of bringing them back when we ourselves are killed.

But that would require planning ahead and plotting out the narrative years in advance beyond the broad strokes.

[Sondrelk]

The best part is I am sure Blizzard has convinced themselves that the events of WC3 through to Legion is this legendary buildup considering how often Zovaal meta-references having a secret hand in everything. I hate how harmless Zovaal is. For a brutal anti-god of death and misery he doesn't do very much. Zovaal should have murdered all the B-tier characters that Blizzard doesn't know what to do with, at least that would have set a good stage. Baine would be perfect cannon fodder for something like this, now there's a character with lots of sentimental value that we would actually care about if killed brutally.

Zovaal is in the same weird position N'zoth was in, he is getting an ending that feels like it has decided to skip a whole bunch of crucial steps. The major diference between them was that N'zoth had all the buildup, but none of the presence, whereas Zovaal has the presence with none of the buildup.
Not that going to Ny'alotha for an entire expansion would have worked much better than going to the Shadowlands, but imagine if this expansion was N'zoth or Old God focused instead. When we eventually go to whatever Zereth Mortis equivalent to stop N'zoth it would probably feel earned and like a big payoff to a long running plotline.

[Khaza-R]

Zovaal is in the same weird position N'zoth was in, he is getting an ending that feels like it has decided to skip a whole bunch of crucial steps. The major diference between them was that N'zoth had all the buildup, but none of the presence, whereas Zovaal has the presence with none of the buildup.
Not that going to Ny'alotha for an entire expansion would have worked much better than going to the Shadowlands, but imagine if this expansion was N'zoth or Old God focused instead. When we eventually go to whatever Zereth Mortis equivalent to stop N'zoth it would probably feel earned and like a big payoff to a long running plotline.

Which is pretty ironic given they said they rushed wrapping up the Old God story so they could jump into this cosmic forces arc.

Imagine hastily finishing a story that's been built up since Vanilla just so you could try to force this story through a single expansion with less patch cycles than most of its predecessors.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Zovaal is in the same weird position N'zoth was in, he is getting an ending that feels like it has decided to skip a whole bunch of crucial steps. The major diference between them was that N'zoth had all the buildup, but none of the presence, whereas Zovaal has the presence with none of the buildup.
Not that going to Ny'alotha for an entire expansion would have worked much better than going to the Shadowlands, but imagine if this expansion was N'zoth or Old God focused instead. When we eventually go to whatever Zereth Mortis equivalent to stop N'zoth it would probably feel earned and like a big payoff to a long running plotline.

N'Zoth, Zovaal, hell even Sargeras ultimately I'd say were all victims to the fact Blizz likes to just throw villains at us with no explanation, no clear motive, and a raftload of retcons to make them seem important and say "hate them."

Blizz doesn't like to do the actual seeding of their characters, and I don't mean something on the scale of, say, 10 years of buildup. They just refuse to actually show us why we should care. And considering Zovaal especially has had an entire expansion for Blizz to expand on him and make him interesting and has failed at every turn to, that's on them at this point. A better writing team could throw a new villain at us in the 10th hour and make us care enough about their character that the climax feels justified.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Zovaal is in the same weird position N'zoth was in, he is getting an ending that feels like it has decided to skip a whole bunch of crucial steps. The major diference between them was that N'zoth had all the buildup, but none of the presence, whereas Zovaal has the presence with none of the buildup.
Not that going to Ny'alotha for an entire expansion would have worked much better than going to the Shadowlands, but imagine if this expansion was N'zoth or Old God focused instead. When we eventually go to whatever Zereth Mortis equivalent to stop N'zoth it would probably feel earned and like a big payoff to a long running plotline.

If by build up you mean other events are related to what he's doing then yeah that is build up which Zovaal has the same thing only he's probably more recent(BFA recent). Not being directly involved(Showing up).

[shoc]

And if they really wanted to get clever with it, they could have killed these people off over the course of the preceding patches or even expansions. Kill off those characters that we enjoy and give us a gut punch, then float the possibility of bringing them back when we ourselves are killed.

But that would require planning ahead and plotting out the narrative years in advance beyond the broad strokes.

That would have been awesome. How I would have rewritten the Shadowlands plot: First, Anduin is abducted by the Jailer, and taken into the Maw. We go to the top of Icecrown to rescue Anduin but it's too late, he has already been dominated and turned into a Death Knight. We have an epic battle on top of Icecrown against Anduin the Lich King but to no avail, he effortlessly murders everyone - Jaina, Baine, Bolvar, Thrall, and our player character. It is like the red wedding of Warcraft, made worse by all of these characters essentially being his family. There will be a moment where the Jailer releases his control over him after he's just murdered his best friends just to torture him psychologically. Because that would be a truly evil thing for a malevolent god to do.

Anyways, we die and wake up in hell, the Maw basically. Your character gets dragged through the experience of being a prisoner of the Maw. Showcasing all of its oppressive and brutal methods, the worst torture imaginable. It is supposed to be the bottom of the barrel hell of the Warcraft universe after all. But because we are boss motherfuckers we break out of hell, rescue the friends, and break out of the most unbreakable prison in existence. Forget about being the prophesized 'maw walker' you're just a crazy son of a bitch who Houdini'd himself out of hell. Think about all the prison break movie references!!

And then the expansion would proceed as it does. The Jailer could be rightfully pissed off at you specifically because you're the one thing that escaped his grip. Which has to be quite the bruise on a giant evil ego. The Jailer is way too cool and calm and collected all the time. He would be cooler if he was constantly losing his shit.

[Varodoc]

N'Zoth, Zovaal, hell even Sargeras ultimately I'd say were all victims to the fact Blizz likes to just throw villains at us with no explanation, no clear motive, and a raftload of retcons to make them seem important and say "hate them."

Blizz doesn't like to do the actual seeding of their characters, and I don't mean something on the scale of, say, 10 years of buildup. They just refuse to actually show us why we should care. And considering Zovaal especially has had an entire expansion for Blizz to expand on him and make him interesting and has failed at every turn to, that's on them at this point. A better writing team could throw a new villain at us in the 10th hour and make us care enough about their character that the climax feels justified.

Agreed about the Janitor and sort of Sargeras (he just showed up at the end of Legion, said "No", and left). Disagreed about N'Zoth.

N'Zoth's build-up was done extremely well, which is why Blizzard got such a huge backlash with that travesty collectively known as the "Ny'alotha raid".

People were talking and speculating about N'Zoth since like 2010, since he was the only remaining Old God (that we knew of, then Chronicles confirmed this) and he was the orchestrator of Cataclysm. He was indeed the master behind Deathwing, who infused him with power and ordered him to invade the mortal world. The main villains of the expansion (Elementals, Naga, Twilight's Hammer, Faceless Ones) were all taking orders from him. He was the secret puppet master controlling everyone and everything from the shadows, but unlike the Janitor, this was actually good, because we knew since Classic that these ancient creatures known as "Old Gods" existed and that they were behind the corruption of Neltharion, Azshara, etc. etc. etc.

So actually N'Zoth did have 10 years of build-up. Cataclysm-End of BfA was almost precisely 10 years. And I would say that N'Zoth was EVEN MORE built-up BEFORE the Chronicles were released, since at that point it was stated that even Sargeras would beg for a quick death if he had to face the Old Gods. The Old Gods were the ultimate evil of the WC universe, before the Chronicles retconned them into minions of the real ultimate evil, the so-called Void Lords.

Meanwhile in BfA literally no one knew who the Janitor was, because he was made up. Which is why no one will care about the Janitor once he dies.

[Lamoth]

Where the hell that 10 years of build up requirement came from?

Could you point me to the troves of games and other media that have it?

Did Archimonde had 10 years of build up before appearing in Warcraft 3?

I mean that's beyond stupid, calling WoW out on continuity when in really it probably has one of the best ones ever.

Get off your hate horse and look at it realistically, all of Warcraft 3 campaigns combined have less story and buildup then just the leveling campaign of Shadowlands.

[Luck4]

It's an afterlife expansion, but it's treated just the same as Outland or Argus. Just another place.

This is one of the major reasons why I dislike Shadowlands: "this is the afterlife, but you need to remember about it all the time, otherwise, you wouldn't believe it".

They could've fixed it easily by just removing the fauna in Shadowlands. The absence of beasts running around would've created a weird feeling that something is missing, remembering us that we're not in a mortal realm.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Where the hell that 10 years of build up requirement came from?

Could you point me to the troves of games and other media that have it?

Did Archimonde had 10 years of build up before appearing in Warcraft 3?

I mean that's beyond stupid, calling WoW out on continuity when in really it probably has one of the best ones ever.

Get off your hate horse and look at it realistically, all of Warcraft 3 campaigns combined have less story and buildup then just the leveling campaign of Shadowlands.

I would not expect to have an unbiased and logical debate on this topic with the person in question.

[Hitei]

And if they really wanted to get clever with it, they could have killed these people off over the course of the preceding patches or even expansions. Kill off those characters that we enjoy and give us a gut punch, then float the possibility of bringing them back when we ourselves are killed.

But that would require planning ahead and plotting out the narrative years in advance beyond the broad strokes.

Yeah actually, why didnt Blizzard do that? It's essentially the same opening except with more imminent danger. Just have Sylvanas, the Jailer, or even just some minion of his jump through the veil and crush us. Then we wake up in the Maw and we have to do essentially the same plot except we now have more pressing stakes rather than going for a rescue operation that is immediately botched.

How is that any more pressing? Then there's zero need to save anyone at all because they're already regular dead, like Uther, Alexandros, KT, Draka, Vashj, Kael, etc. And the player is in the exact same situation except now it doesn't make any sense for them to make it back to Azeroth because they are just actually dead and belong in the Shadowlands. Which makes the whole fighting against Sylvanas thing sort of nonsense, because you are also hoping for the system to break so that you can be allowed to go back instead of being sent where you belong. Then, additionally, you have the question of why Sylvanas even needed to do this whole thing if there was just a method of escaping your assigned role in the Shadowlands and going back to Azeroth.

I swear, you dorks complain about the writing and then come up with ideas that make even less sense, are even more convoluted, and rely even more on cheap cliched writing.

The best part is I am sure Blizzard has convinced themselves that the events of WC3 through to Legion is this legendary buildup considering how often Zovaal meta-references having a secret hand in everything. I hate how harmless Zovaal is. For a brutal anti-god of death and misery he doesn't do very much. Zovaal should have murdered all the B-tier characters that Blizzard doesn't know what to do with, at least that would have set a good stage. Baine would be perfect cannon fodder for something like this, now there's a character with lots of sentimental value that we would actually care about if killed brutally.

If you kill off a bunch of characters for cheap drama, congrats, you now have a bunch of roles that need to be filled that you have to show either C list characters into or come up with some random character to take that spot, and simultaneously removed interest in the plot because the characters people know and are invested in (positively or negatively) now don't exist and it's harder to care about the new ones.

You are literally taking the biggest problem with Zovaal and trying to fix it by applying that exact same problem to dozens of other characters in the story.

[shoc]

How is that any more pressing? Then there's zero need to save anyone at all because they're already regular dead, like Uther, Alexandros, KT, Draka, Vashj, Kael, etc. And the player is in the exact same situation except now it doesn't make any sense for them to make it back to Azeroth because they are just actually dead and belong in the Shadowlands. Which makes the whole fighting against Sylvanas thing sort of nonsense, because you are also hoping for the system to break so that you can be allowed to go back instead of being sent where you belong. Then, additionally, you have the question of why Sylvanas even needed to do this whole thing if there was just a method of escaping your assigned role in the Shadowlands and going back to Azeroth.

I swear, you dorks complain about the writing and then come up with ideas that make even less sense, are even more convoluted, and rely even more on cheap cliched writing.



If you kill off a bunch of characters for cheap drama, congrats, you now have a bunch of roles that need to be filled that you have to show either C list characters into or come up with some random character to take that spot, and simultaneously removed interest in the plot because the characters people know and are invested in (positively or negatively) now don't exist and it's harder to care about the new ones.

You are literally taking the biggest problem with Zovaal and trying to fix it by applying that exact same problem to dozens of other characters in the story.

It's not like they are really dead. They are in the Shadowlands with you. Baine goes to Ardenweald, Jaina becomes Kyrian to hang with Uther. Thrall goes Necrolord to be with his Mom, and it's like they never died at all.

[Sondrelk]

How is that any more pressing? Then there's zero need to save anyone at all because they're already regular dead, like Uther, Alexandros, KT, Draka, Vashj, Kael, etc. And the player is in the exact same situation except now it doesn't make any sense for them to make it back to Azeroth because they are just actually dead and belong in the Shadowlands. Which makes the whole fighting against Sylvanas thing sort of nonsense, because you are also hoping for the system to break so that you can be allowed to go back instead of being sent where you belong. Then, additionally, you have the question of why Sylvanas even needed to do this whole thing if there was just a method of escaping your assigned role in the Shadowlands and going back to Azeroth.

I swear, you dorks complain about the writing and then come up with ideas that make even less sense, are even more convoluted, and rely even more on cheap cliched writing.



If you kill off a bunch of characters for cheap drama, congrats, you now have a bunch of roles that need to be filled that you have to show either C list characters into or come up with some random character to take that spot, and simultaneously removed interest in the plot because the characters people know and are invested in (positively or negatively) now don't exist and it's harder to care about the new ones.

You are literally taking the biggest problem with Zovaal and trying to fix it by applying that exact same problem to dozens of other characters in the story.

I suppose that is a fair point regarding gaining a whole lot of baggage that needs to be resolved in return for what is truthfully the same outcome.

- - - Updated - - -

Where the hell that 10 years of build up requirement came from?

Could you point me to the troves of games and other media that have it?

Did Archimonde had 10 years of build up before appearing in Warcraft 3?

I mean that's beyond stupid, calling WoW out on continuity when in really it probably has one of the best ones ever.

Get off your hate horse and look at it realistically, all of Warcraft 3 campaigns combined have less story and buildup then just the leveling campaign of Shadowlands.

Noone is demanding that lore buildup exceeds the length of the game. But asking that a villain that is touted as the ultimate final evil have more direct buildup than the expansion he is going to be defeated seems reasonable

It's not like there needed to be a whole lot. A few references in Legion to the flow of souls and something being hidden in the Shadowlands. Some dialogue in BfA where Sylvanas mentions a grand design requiring a large amount of souls, as well as some undisclosed entity we eventually learn is called the Jailer.
A few choice lines and references could have built up an implicit understanding that there was someone or something in the Shadowlands pulling strings behind the scenes.

More than jumping into Shadowlands and learning about a never before mentioned villain, who were behind events that were previously understood to happen for other reasons.
Sylvanas burning Teldrassil was understood in BfA to be because she threw a hissyfit and decided to be a bitch, not that she had some grand plan that demanded burning the tree with civilians inside.


Shadowlands generally comes across like it was envisioned halfway through writing BfA.
Key characters act inconsistently to prior depictions. Intentions are constantly changing. And characters and plotpoints are thrown in like we are meant to come up with our own lore that preceded it.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Shadowlands generally comes across like it was envisioned halfway through writing BfA.
Key characters act inconsistently to prior depictions. Intentions are constantly changing. And characters and plotpoints are thrown in like we are meant to come up with our own lore that preceded it.

Intentions changing? No shit they change when presented with new information. Zovaal is the source of Teldrassil's burning, the Lich King and well as pointed out by Danuser the "first book of Warcraft" as in the plotlines of the Scourge, Lich King all come from him.

If anything the Shadowlands wasn't explored enough or rather what we've explored is nice but doesn't feel as much as it could of been(More afterlives to look at).

[frogboi10]

can they retcon this stupid excuse of an expansion and make us wake up after the end of 9.2 raid in front of Nzoth?