Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Sondrelk]

No thanks, I don't want itty bitty updates but often. The major content patches aren't the problem.

Not small updates, but rather specialized updates.
Instead of a major patch needing a zone, raid, cosmetics, story, etc. You could have one patch that is just a load of story stuff, then later a patch that is just a meaty raid, then another with a big zone filled with world quests and such.

I could be wrong, but I think this would have meant a smoother stream of content as each individual piece doesn't necessarily need to be combined with others. The team responsible for a new raid doesn't need to necessarily concern itself with whether a new zone is ready for instance.

Of course, with how WoW is currently structured this would probably just end up dividing a larger patch into smaller individual patches, but if WoW had managed to break away from the structures narrative and instead have smaller more localized threats then I think it would have been ideal.

But it's not like this would be likely to happen regardless, so it's kind of s moot point. It would require restructuring the entire dev team, both writers and coders.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I think there's multiple things that don't have a direct explanation that could be seen as a vague leak:
- Survivor class
- Galakrond's Fall map
- World Tree 2 map
- Hearthstone Tavern
- New human buildings
- 9.0 seamless teleporting experiments (between maps, not the Torghast stuff)
- Professions land map
- JasonTest Kalimdor map
- Emerald drake mount

Which of these ends up being nothing/something else/a dev experiment/an actual sign remains to be seen, but there's a lot of this stuff and likely even more we missed/discarded.

This might be related but I remember... was it Muffinus or someone else. Anyways, some wow dev mentioned something "Ambitious" in relation to Professions. Something to note

You what?

Nelves regrowing a new tree would be groan worthy.

As opposed to what....not having a home? They need to have a city of their own since they are without one since BFA.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I think there's multiple things that don't have a direct explanation that could be seen as a vague leak:
- Survivor class
- Galakrond's Fall map
- World Tree 2 map
- Hearthstone Tavern
- New human buildings
- 9.0 seamless teleporting experiments (between maps, not the Torghast stuff)
- Professions land map
- JasonTest Kalimdor map
- Emerald drake mount

Which of these ends up being nothing/something else/a dev experiment/an actual sign remains to be seen, but there's a lot of this stuff and likely even more we missed/discarded.

What exactly is the Hearthstone Tavern? Never heard about that. Everything else I've heard about though and seeing a Professions Land Map is not strange considering it has become more and more pressing matter during the last few expansions.

[Marlamin]

You what?

Nelves regrowing a new tree would be groan worthy.

There was a "World Tree 2" map in the game's map database file until 9.2 which renamed it to the most inconspicuous word in the game: "UNUSED".

Well I think I can safely say the next expansion won't be about Hearthstone.

Rest of those, good point.

The Hearthstone Tavern will always have a place in my heart and I will keep bringing it up (as well as the scrapped buddy cop scenario) anywhere I can.

What exactly is the Hearthstone Tavern? Never heard about that. Everything else I've heard about though and seeing a Professions Land Map is not strange considering it has become more and more pressing matter during the last few expansions.

It is my favorite unused model in the game, super cozy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upEcN-RnYnk It also has links to the new human buildings in sharing many of the textures.

[Le Conceptuel]

Well I think I can safely say the next expansion won't be about Hearthstone.

Rest of those, good point.

All of these could lean either way, except the World Tree one. That one sounds interesting—I'm not in the loop on that, so I would usually dismiss it along the lines of things like the Nordrassil in the cinematic (which I never really bought—it really could just be a quick construct to make the zone look better). However, this sounds more relevant by virtue of being an actual map, and the name in particular does sound pretty difficult to dismiss.

Survivor, conversely, I think we could infer to be simply a construct from an early version of the old version of Exile's Reach. It does seem odd for Blizzard to consider such a system, given how weighty class is in the game, but I figure that it could be sufficient to presume such. However, if it isn't just for Exile's Reach as an artifact, I haven't the slightest clue what it could be as a class. It simply seems too vague—every other class released in WoW has some kind of existing basis in the lore, whereas we already have "Survival" Hunters, so a "Survivor" seems pretty well and classified through specialization. It seems difficult to extrapolate much from it. If it were simply for testing a new class that hasn't been fully fleshed-out, or even is meant to simply be a testing ground for class-neutral abilities and whathaveyou, it would be awkward to actively name it something instead of simply, say, "TestClass01" or "Generic".

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

It is my favorite unused model in the game, super cozy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upEcN-RnYnk It also has links to the new human buildings in sharing many of the textures.

Wow, that's pretty! I'm surprised I missed out on that.

[Le Conceptuel]

There was a "World Tree 2" map in the game's map database file until 9.2 which renamed it to the most inconspicuous word in the game: "UNUSED".



The Hearthstone Tavern will always have a place in my heart and I will keep bringing it up (as well as the scrapped buddy cop scenario) anywhere I can.



It is my favorite unused model in the game, super cozy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upEcN-RnYnk It also has links to the new human buildings in sharing many of the textures.

I do have to wonder what it was for, precisely. Maybe just a silly quest along the lines of the Brawler's Guild or Mail quests, but it could be something more weighty than that—I'm not sure why it would be Hearthstone-themed in particular, though.

[WheresT]

You also forgot the updated Westfall texture from BFA and the unused/barely used updated Nelf buildings from BFA (they updated the inn so well it now has a running stream in it.. yet only appears in the background in Darkshore ruins).

There is enough Dragon stuff, revamp stuff and EK/Kalimdor plotlines floating around to say Cata 2 is a go. Not to mention the smaller expansion (SL, nothing obviously scrapped like WoD so they probably planned it this time) precluding a large one.

[Marlamin]

Survivor, conversely, I think we could infer to be simply a construct from an early version of the old version of Exile's Reach.

This is still my leading explanation for Survivor, but it does seem to be something not everyone knows about so might have been a singular dev messing around with as well as the scrapped in-game class choice system. It's still there, though, hence why I mentioned it.

[WheresT]

I do have to wonder what it was for, precisely. Maybe just a silly quest along the lines of the Brawler's Guild or Mail quests, but it could be something more weighty than that—I'm not sure why it would be Hearthstone-themed in particular, though.

My money is on being able to actually play Hearthstone or connect to the game within WoW.

[Marlamin]

You also forgot the updated Westfall texture from BFA and the unused/barely used updated Nelf buildings from BFA (they updated the inn so well it now has a running stream in it.. yet only appears in the background in Darkshore ruins).

Forgot about the Westfall texture, but so did Blizzard so I don't feel that bad about it. Fair point on the night elf buildings.

[Jokubas]

Eh it's about as dumb as it always is.

Yeah, and that always has me torn about "leak season."

I used to look forward to the leaks because, early on, I only ran into one or two, and one of them was legitimate. The reason I originally came to MMOChampion was because the Cataclysm leak was reposted on the official forums from here, and after dismissing the real Wrath of the Lich King leak back in the day (I thought Death Knight being called a Hero Class meant that it was a faker who didn't know what a Hero Class was, I was too young to consider that Blizzard could just change the definition) I adapted and immediately pegged the MMOChampion Cataclysm leak as the real one (it originated somewhere else, but that's as far back as I followed the trail). At some point (honestly, around that same time, I think), it seems like that reputation caught on and people starting trying to exploit it by making their own "leaks" to trick people.

That made it a lot less fun because you weren't getting a real scoop. Since it only seemed to get worse every expansion cycle from then on, however, I tried to roll with it. These days I try to have fun with them by saving them and then comparing them to the real thing later on. It's fun to see the ones that try really hard to convince you they're real after you can compare them directly. It's also fun to sometimes see ones that ended up close by coincidence but clearly didn't know. Then there are things like an early Legion one which boiled down to "a friend of a friend told me about this thing he saw" that, in hindsight, I think actually was real, but the third hand information part of it was so honest that it meant the information was corrupted telephone game-style.

In general though, I don't care much for the "leaks". I still enjoy speculation, but I'd rather have things like Kul Tiras armor textures as the basis. ;P

[WheresT]

Forgot about the Westfall texture, but so did Blizzard so I don't feel that bad about it. Fair point on the night elf buildings.

Is it still in the files??

[Le Conceptuel]

My money is on being able to actually play Hearthstone or connect to the game within WoW.

That could be interesting, but it would be a weird decision. Then again, this is the company who tried Twitter integration, so I'm not surprised that they may try something weird and seemingly-superfluous like that.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Yeah, and that always has me torn about "leak season."

I used to look forward to the leaks because, early on, I only ran into one or two, and one of them was legitimate. The reason I originally came to MMOChampion was because the Cataclysm leak was reposted on the official forums from here, and after dismissing the real Wrath of the Lich King leak back in the day I adapted and immediately pegged the MMOChampion Cataclysm leak as the real one (it originated somewhere else, but that's as far back as I followed the trail). At some point (honestly, around that same time, I think), it seems like that reputation caught on and people starting trying to exploit it by making their own "leaks" to trick people.

That made it a lot less fun because you weren't getting a real scoop. Since it only seemed to get worse every expansion cycle from then on, however, I tried to roll with it. These days I try to have fun with them by saving them and then comparing them to the real thing later on. It's fun to see the ones that try really hard to convince you they're real after you can compare them directly. It's also fun to sometimes see ones that ended up close by coincidence but clearly didn't know. Then there are things like an early Legion one which boiled down to "a friend of a friend told me about this thing he saw" that, in hindsight, I think actually was real, but the third hand information part of it was so honest that it meant the information was corrupted telephone game-style.

In general though, I don't care much for the "leaks". I still enjoy speculation, but I'd rather have things like Kul Tiras armor textures as the basis. ;P

I definitely noticed with the last leak cycle Blizz got better at not leaving "accidental" clues and as such the leaks got a lot more boring to me. It wasn't multiple interpretations of something we knew for a fact, it was just scrolling down a fanfiction site and seeing everyone's headcanons and AUs.

[Le Conceptuel]

Forgot about the Westfall texture, but so did Blizzard so I don't feel that bad about it. Fair point on the night elf buildings.

Those I'd think are cut Warfronts, though it does seem odd that they'd choose Westfall of all places, or add Night Elf buildings, which implies another Night Elf warfront, which is very superfluous. It sounds like something to prod at, at least, given that it's something that doesn't make sense if you take the most logical explanation.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Oh I just realized. Could World Tree 2 have been related to that HD Nordrassil that people noticed in some Shadowlands cinematic?

[WheresT]

That could be interesting, but it would be a weird decision. Then again, this is the company who tried Twitter integration, so I'm not surprised that they may try something weird and seemingly-superfluous like that.

It doesn’t seem superfluous to me, it seems similar to the Golden Saucer. People want more chill stuff to do in WoW so they can “live” in the game, Hearthstone accessible in the game itself sounds like it would fit that niche.


And probably come out faster than housing.

[Marlamin]

Is it still in the files??

All of them are, yes.

Oh I just realized. Could World Tree 2 have been related to that HD Nordrassil that people noticed in some Shadowlands cinematic?

Very possible, but those cinematics are usually done outside of the game engine so unless they wanted it to appear in-game at some point it wouldn't really have a place in the client.

[Le Conceptuel]

Oh I just realized. Could World Tree 2 have been related to that HD Nordrassil that people noticed in some Shadowlands cinematic?

That's wholly possible, but it is a cinematic asset—I honestly maintain that it was probably just a single scene for the cinematic, and I wouldn't take it as absolute proof of anything regarding a Hyjal revamp. However, I would definitely hope it indicates a world revamp—as in the spirit of the Sylvanas cinematic background, which look very much like a world revamp would to me.