Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Myrrh]

I'm drawing a blank here, did Shadowlands or its pre-patch ever have a known black dragonflight story that was scrapped in the development process?

Was looking back on the Zandalari/Kul'tiran hints in Azuna from Legion launch, turns out the SL pre-patch added some seemingly unusued dragonkin typically associated with the black dragonflight:

Obsidian Deprivator & Molten Scaleburner, using the Maloriak/'dragonman' models.
Two 'Fire Dragons' which use the Atramedes and Nightbane models.
Smoldering Monstrosity using the weird dragon-zombie-abomination model.

There were also two enthralled stormdrake mobs that were added, they could be entirely unrelated though.

Not that this would tell us much since I assume they were never actually added to the game itself - no location data or anything in Wowhead/WoWDB. Just interesting since we know that they can get cute with in-game hints as early as the launch of the previous expansion.

[Revamp Man]

So the dragon isles according to the expedition stuff is something Wrathion looked for but black dragons weren’t telling him about it

This means black dragons are coming from the dragon isles and still exist. We also know that they like messing with humans and getting roles with power. If we take this into account and the scarlet crusade saying “we have the true heir so join us” then we can assume a black dragon is involved.

Now let’s humor the Empire of Dragons logo leak
It uses void colors and has a big crack in the planet presumably from the weapon ( I truly hope that they don’t do the whole “the jailer has a connection with Azeroth because of the sword” crap) and the dragons have a link to old gods.

Corrupted black dragons and the void flight
The twilight hammer that still exists
The existence of azerite that boosts magic
The rift between the realm of death and our world that happens to be close to the bodies of Chromatus and Galakrond.
The creation of the infinite flight which also has a link to the old gods because of the hour of twilight

All are good storylines for zones that lead to dungeons and raids for example: a dungeon where we try to stop the resurrection of Chromatus only to fail and he ports out to later become a raid boss. Galakrond ravages the land around him and becomes a world boss. Raid to empower new aspects but this time with the power of Azeroth instead of the pantheon.

The class is already taken care of just empower Wrathion’s guards/spys and the story can be they gathered relics to gain the power of the flights without having to gain their trust. The ones we meet could be trying to find the relics like the one we meet in Neltharion’s lair during the essence quest is looking for a way to gain black dragon power.

Now just toss in the void flight being the main antagonists and have them trying to revive an old god or they work for the final Old God which we can assume is Xal’atath based on her story of “my brothers tore me apart” and with the heroes distracted by the SL events she can start rebuilding or the twilight cult can work on summoning one of the gods we killed or all of them.

[Makabreska]

Kay, they changed dougle leggo requirement. You have to complete campaign now to get it, so week 5.

[ExiHext]

Kay, they changed dougle leggo requirement. You have to complete campaign now to get it, so week 5.

Or for those of us that made their legendary in the belt slot because tier sets it's still revered with Enlightened. But I guess that will be around the same time.

[Revamp Man]

Kay, they changed dougle leggo requirement. You have to complete campaign now to get it, so week 5.

I would say they did it to slow players down but it gets treated like a conspiracy theory

[ExiHext]

I would say they did it to slow players down but it gets treated like a conspiracy theory

They even admit that they did it.

[huth]

saying Jailer was book 1

Which they didn't. They said it was the end of a book, not of the first one.

[huth]

Why be pedantic? You know that's what I meant.

Because other people will copy it and perpetuate the error. Also, no, i can't be sure you just accidentally miswrote.

[Cherry123]

I hope for the announcement 9.2 trailer with Arthas. On the PTR, no one reacts to his presence at all

[Shadochi]

Or for those of us that made their legendary in the belt slot because tier sets it's still revered with Enlightened. But I guess that will be around the same time.

I would say they did it to slow players down but it gets treated like a conspiracy theory

They even admit that they did it.

Huh, you can still get the legendary recipe in 28 days or less (which lines up with the story chapter release or earlier). So the story chapter is more for those people that do not want to grind it out. What they did is add an additional avenue to get it from. The one from rep is still account wide and can be crafted in any slot.

As for the belt slot, yeah it sucks but you had since november to recraft your legendary as we've known the extra one was gonna be in the belt. Heck even if you started now the Soul Cinders and ashes shouldn't take more than 2-3h to farm. Tbh the only alternative would've been to add it in the quest as "choose between X and Y slot from it" and give to options. Could work I guess but would make it a bit different of an impact.

[micwini]

Surprised this one wasn't posted yet. They say it's from some discord group.

Where was this originally posted?

[Varodoc]

This leak "Empire of Dragons" and the Void colour its logo uses doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Anyone who is not naive has already figured out that N'Zoth is not dead yet, so it makes sense that the Empire of Dragons would be an Old God expansion and thus use a purple colour, which is associated with the realm of the Void and the Old Gods.

As for why N'Zoth would be interested in messing with dragons again, I do not know specifically what he'd be looking for in the Dragon Isles (that's yet to be revealed), but there is a clear precedent. N'Zoth is the nemesis of the dragons in the WC universe. No other being has caused as much trouble and chaos in the realm of dragons as N'Zoth. The God of the Deep, he was the one who corrupted and enslaved Deathwing and his flight to his will. Through Deathwing, he was the one who attempted to subjugate all other dragons and usher in the Hour of Twilight, and through Deathwing and his children, he was the one who experimented with artificial broods of dragons. Recently, in BfA, N'Zoth corrupted Vexiona, the first of a new Void-infused brood of dragons. N'Zoth was even in control of the Infinite Dragonflight, as they worked to help N'Zoth usher in the Hour of Twilight. The machinations of the Old God are directly stated to be behind the creation of Murozond.

In Cataclysm, it was revealed that the ancient purpose of the Dragon Aspects was to stop N'Zoth and the coming of the Hour of Twilight. Once N'Zoth's champion was destroyed and the Hour of Twilight averted, the Dragon Aspects gave up their ancient power. Their purpose was to defeat N'Zoth and the Hour of Twilight because the Old God was their greatest nemesis.

So really it's hardly surprising that the logo of the Dragon expansion would have the typical colour associated with the Void. The Old God N'Zoth has always been the secret villain of every Dragon-related storyline.

[Darkarath]

I am amazed to read so many different opinions about the Empire of Dragons logo, if we are not sure about its falsehood, could It be the real thing?

The name is way more interesting than the generic The Dragon Isles, maybe I fanfic a little about what It could mean later...

[Shadochi]

Damn I just remembered something I hoped for SL when they announced it but it didn't happen.
I was hoping for us to visit various smaller instanced afterlives for some content like we did in Legion (Invasion Points/Rifts) or BfA (Island Expeditions). I just like that feeling of having various small zones for content added (would be cool if they also included them with a short questline in regular world, easy reuse of content but I digress).
The closest we had was Torghast.

Hope they bring something like this back in whatever 10.0 is.

[therumblings]

Remember that with Shadowlands, leaking a logo has happened before, so there is a chance it could be real, however I'm leaning on the side of it being fake.

[NikolaiShade]

Empire of Dragons logo is pretty cool, but we've seen good fakes in the past.

It does lend credence, though, to my theory that the next expansion will be about Old Gods, Dragons and Azeroth.

Her heart is a crater, and we have filled it.

Wouldn't surprise me if the events of 9.2 expose the inside of the planet, and all we find is darkness. Then we need the powers of the Dragons to stop it.

Playing the devil's advocate here (not the pinball one): dragons and void would be really cool themes (void could open up interesting class options), but I'm starting to suspect we are in for a disappointment, 10.0 could very well be about the Emerald Dream, Life and mending Azeroth with a side of Elune (just to bore the hell out of me).

Edit: before SL was announced we were all pretty much sure 9.0 would be about death, let's just say shadowlands is not the death xpackmany were expecting, so a something unexpected is not impossible

[Foolicious]

Edit: before SL was announced we were all pretty much sure 9.0 would be about death, let's just say shadowlands is not the death xpackmany were expecting, so a something unexpected is not impossible

Bfa and shadowland predictions where mostly right in the general theme. I didn't pay much attention to it before then but i guess legion should have been a easy guess too.
Bfa was the speculated south seas expansion with zaldalari, kul tiras and naga but instead of a tropical setting with lots of small islands we got zaldalar, kul tiras and island expeditions.
Shadowlands was expected to be some kind of return of the lich king with a revamped northrend. No one was expecting they rewrite the shadowlands from a grey filter to an actual afterlive with titan like beings as rulers though.

So i guess its not to far off to think the expected dragon expansion with a void "twist" could be a real contender.

[Darkarath]

Empire of Dragons has a lot of potential:

- Wrathion knows about the existence of the Dragon Isles, yet the other flights do not share any information about them, WHY?

- Could it be that different Dragons had different points of view? The dragons we know support the Titans view, while the ones in the Dragon Isles might feel superior to the other races of Azeroth and wanted to conquer them, but ''our'' dragons threatened them to take part in the war if they attempt something like that; might be that now they feel strong enough to try, or they are just corrupted by some Old God.

- Of course, these dragons would be different to the ones we know. A more humanoid form of dragons, with very big dragons at their service. And of course, a faction of these new humanoid dragons will not share the Empire vision, and will support us, giving Blizzard the chance to implement a neutral dragon race.

- Even the way in which these humanoid dragons treat bigger dragons could be used as the cause of the rupture with the dragons we know. Maybe they wanted to enslave them, and hence why the Dragon Isles are forbidden and not talked about anywhere.

- The pre-event expansion could feature dragon invasions through Azeroth.

- Hopefully this expansion will also bring a revamp to old zones, which is something really needed to bring new stories to the world and to make ALL Azeroth relevant and evergreen. WoW as it is today, with only the new zones being relevant, has to go, a new approach has to be taken. They could use the end of 9.2 as a justification for the revamp, they can even tie this presumably desastrous event as the reason why the Empire Dragon now feels strong enough to enslave the other races.

- BTW, if the Dragon Isles are not floating in the sky I will be dissapointed.

Also, please port WoW to consoles :P

[Sondrelk]

I am amazed to read so many different opinions about the Empire of Dragons logo, if we are not sure about its falsehood, could It be the real thing?

The name is way more interesting than the generic The Dragon Isles, maybe I fanfic a little about what It could mean later...

Normally I would say it's definitely fake. But since there isn't an actual known announcement date there isn't any way to know for sure whether this is a leak from the real announcement.

I am going to say it's fake though, on the basis that previous leaks have either been from press materials, websites being available by mistake, or explainable as convention center workers catching a glimpse of the announcement rehearsal.

Seeing as there isn't going to be a physical location for the announcement, any leak has to either come from press kits or websites being available by mistake.
It isn't impossible this logo is from a press kit, but I feel that is a long shot.

- - - Updated - - -

Leaks are difficult to judge this time around since they are usually more likely to closer we get to a known announcement. Since we don't have one this time we cannot judge whether it's too early for the real leak or not.

- - - Updated - - -

Damn I just remembered something I hoped for SL when they announced it but it didn't happen.
I was hoping for us to visit various smaller instanced afterlives for some content like we did in Legion (Invasion Points/Rifts) or BfA (Island Expeditions). I just like that feeling of having various small zones for content added (would be cool if they also included them with a short questline in regular world, easy reuse of content but I digress).
The closest we had was Torghast.

Hope they bring something like this back in whatever 10.0 is.

I remember when I imagined Torghast would have different biomed on each floor to really make things different.
Instead of everything being the same jail aesthetic maybe some areas were jungles and such.
Would have made torghast a bit more varied if nothing else.

[Amstrup]

Did no1 post this yet? from 4chan.
https://pastebin.com/TMyXtPMc

Gonna just cover some basic stuff that people probably want to know about 10.0
I don't care if you don't believe it, I'm not going to provide any proof.

>Level cap
70 duh.

>Pre patch event
Infinite Dragon flight invasion. Basically a kind of lazy combination of the Shadowlands and Legion pre patch. Portals open up in Kalimdor and EK, Infinite dragons spawn and summon old raid and dungeon bosses. A bronze dragon in Orgrimmar and Stormwind will teleport you to the current active portal. The leaders of each dragon flight meet at Wyrmrest temple but Kalecgos is absent and Stellagosa is taking his place. Its not explicitly stated but why he's missing but they'll probably throw some note or hint later trying to explain it. The real reason hes missing is for gameplay reasons for the new class. Nozdormu is with Soridormi whose worried about Nozzykins because hes going senile and starting to change into Moruzond.

The conclusion of the event is the dragonflight leaders trying to come up with a way to cure Nozdormu before he turns into Moruzond. Which despite having like


>New Class Dragonsworn

During SL development on a Necromancer class was discussed but the team didn't wanna do a new pet class unless they could rework the pet system all together but there wasn't enough resources to do it. 4th specs for existing classes were also suggested, didn't go anywhere but seemed like something people wanted to make, it was implied they'd be released in batches of 2-3 if they did ever decide to do it.

Inevitable they decided to work on Dragonsworn for 10.0


Available to all races, wears Mail. Starting zone has you helping representatives of each of the 5 Dragon flights. You learn that Kalecgos has gone missing from Wrathion. He refuses to elaborate because he is a chad. After some tutorial quests to teach you how your new flavor of the month overpower class works you 'pledge' yourself to one of the 4 dragonflight leaders. This has little effect on you and just gives you a relevant title, the NPC will have some additional dialogue for you during main story quests in the xpac, and some other minor flavor stuff.

4 Specs are

Life-Binder, a healer that uses fire to burn away injuries, allies healed will have fire leap to nearby enemies buffing the healer so they can combo into larger heals by siphoning the fire on enemies and using it back on their allies.

Destroyer, a Damage dealer that uses Earth and Fire. as you repeatedly deal damage with the same ability they power up a bit and the rocks look more molten. there's some Overheat mechanic that causes you to start taking damage if you stand still and keep casting for too long. You can't use your defensive or healing abilities if you're overheating either, but that's still being discussed by devs because they think it might be too punishing.

Awakened, Nature based damage class. They use stuff you'd expect a druid to use, but purely for offense. They have attacks that use Vines, Mushrooms, Carnivorous and Poisonous plants. They can gain a passive buff from one of the shrines in the emerald dream dedicated to one of the wild gods, similar to Zandalari's racial. There's shrines for Malorne, Cenarius, Ursoc+Ursol, Ashamanne, Avianna, and some others I don't remember the names of. Only buff I got to try was the Boar one that gave me a refreshing thorns buff that would damage enemies that attacked me and heal me for a small amount.

Timeless, A Tank spec that uses sand and time magic. They can stockpile damage they take kind of like monks and rewind it. They can leave behind a sand duplicate that will taunt but it has such low health that I'm not sure what it's purpose is. They have a work-in-progress rewind mobility that's supposed to, when pressed once start quickly retracing all your movements over the last 2 minutes but sped up, and when pressed again will stop and let you move from there, but it's been extremely buggy. They have an AOE defensive that throws out a circle of sand and when pressed again all allies in the circle will gain a damage absorb that heals when it expires.

Blue Dragon's were left out because they couldn't come up with a spec for them that didn't feel like a mage. and as you can see from the 4 specs that did make the cut, they all already overlap with existing classes a little bit. My descriptions probably arn't that great but when playing them they really don't feel the same as any existing specs. they just share a lot of the same base concepts and themes, gameplay is diffrent enough to be unique and they're all pretty fun to play imo.



>New Zones

*The Dragon Isles

- Cardinal Veil - The northern most zone of the Isles. The new hub city of Dragonshire is here, when you first get here It's abandoned, but the Dragonflights quickly repopulate it with their Dragonkin and Drakonids. Later on even some Nether and Storm drakes show up. A path runs through the middle of the city running north to south. The path north leads to a broken bridge out to sea that supposedly once led to Wyrmrest temple. But with how often islands like to move around on Azeroth it must not have lasted very long. Dragonshire itself is surrounded by a crimson Forrest called the Winewoods, which a new rabbit-like race live. The quests here are basically an introduction to the Isles, the history of the island, the various races that now inhabit the island, and why/how the island was lost in the first place.

- Ebonglade - The Westernmost zone of the Isles. A surprisingly colorful swampland with a Volcano situated in the center. Unsurprisingly, trying to traverse a zone will pools of water and lava can be very annoying. Eventually you'll get the ability to walk on water and lava while In this zone making it significantly less horrible to traverse. A totally not suspicious and probably not Deathwing's 7th secret lair Dragon head shaped entrance sticks out of the side of the Volcano, but you can't reach it without the ability to fly. Which obviously you can't do yet because of the very magically chaotic winds that you are too incompetent to fly through yet. Wrathion shows up to visit some shrines and talk about his daddy issues. Out off the coast half sunk in the ocean is a structure very similar to the one in the attached picture that most people are familiar with by now. A race of little two legged dragon dudes called the Dracolites live here.

-Tempestrial Wastes - The eastern zone is an australia outback inspired zone where the rabbit people originate from. It used to have hot days and cold nights but after Sargeras's sword hit Silithus something caused a temporal anonmaly here and most of the Leppuns moved elsewhere, but a few still live here because they're masochists I guess. The skybox here is really cool, time is out of whack so the day/night cycle happens way faster. I think it stays daytime for one hour then nighttime for one hour. During the day its covered in sand, during the night it's covered in snow. There's a small titan facility dungeon here that the Infinite have taken over and made a little home base. They were able to find the Dragon Isles because of the time anomoly the place caused when it malfunctioned.

-Cobalt Cove - The southern zone. Originally intended as a pretty generic beach, it's now the most alien looking of the zones. Ethereal have found their way here somehow and have torn the place up soaking up the massive amounts of energy under the Dragon Isles. Chunks land float in the air with chains attached to them holding them to the ground below. Massive cracks in the ground everywhere with water pouring in from the ocean. The Ethereal are currently fighting with Nuerubians that they accidently woke up while trying to siphon energy.

- Uldest - In the very center of the four zones is a massive tower similar looking to Wyrmrest temple but leans much more heavily into the more recent titan designs that have been used. This titan facility has something to do with how the island was lost, how the aspects were made, the origins of dragons as a whole, and a bunch of other lore shit that I honestly stopped reading because my adderall was wearing off when I played through it and I just couldn't care. basically its the first raid teir. Infinite dragonflight have found their way inside and are fucking shit up. It's supposed to be important later for story stuff about empowering the aspects again and helping stop Moruzond despite us already killing him. The writings not great. I don't know why you would expect it to make any sense after the last two expansions. Everything looks cool as long as you pretend lore isn't a thing.

*The Emerald Dream - This is where you'll be heading once you hit max level. By far the largest zone, similar to Vashj'ir it's made up of 4 sub zones that mimic the 4 zones of the dragon isles, playing in to the 'blueprint' theme. You can fly here after the first few quests here. You can only access one zone at first and unlock the others with a reputation grind that unlocks more story, but for once, the reputation isn't time gated and you can do It all at once if you wanna no life it.

*Northern Lordaeron - at the time of writing this this zone is unfinished and just a mostly flat area with some hills and some beaches to the north. Its attached to the eastern kingdoms map north of Tirisfal I know this is some vanilla concept thing but I have no clue what the plan, if any is for this area.

*Placeholder islands - A copy of east & west Plaugelands exists in the south west corner of the map, and a copy of Eversong woods and Ghostlands exists in the north east corner. Haven't heard any info on why these exist. You could fly to them from the dragon isles if there wasn't fatigue.

>Systems and Misc.

After fully exploring the Dragon Isles, you get to pick a Covena... I mean Dragon Flight to join. You gather, you guessed it Aspect Power to power to help restore power to the Aspects, with Stellagosa and Soridormi taking the places of Kalecgos and Nozdormu. Wrathion's plan of forming an Aspect harem is completed.

Each flight has the cosmetic stuff you'd expect bought with a separate currency, but this time you can actually freely swap between the aspects at anytime. The Aspects also act as this expansions equivalent of soul binds. which currently looks pretty much identical to SLs soulbind system, but might change to at least appear to not be copy pasted.

Reputations - Once you get exalted in a faction your alts will get a passive 20% more rep with that faction. You can purchase tabards at friendly and will get reputation from dungeons while wearing them. using the Tmog appearance of a tabard count's as actually wearing it but the appearance will override the actually equipped tabard, so you can't farm two reps at once.

Flight master Whistle - This returns, but now a dragon based on your current chosen aspect comes to pick you up. cute.

Allied races - Currently Dracolites for Alliance (the two legged lizardy dragons) and Leppuns for Horde (rabbit-kangaroo hybrid lookin humanoids) are planned as allied races in a future patch. Hope you're happy furries. A few people internally have been trying to get Mogu and Jinyu added during this xpac since it was planned for BFA but scrapped.

There's discussions about wanting to explore alternate reality versions of major lore characters via having the infinite bring them to our Azeroth. I.E. A Galakrond that defeated the aspects, An Arthas that succesfully turned everyone and fought the burning legion. A Garrosh that claimed all of Azeroth for the Horde, A Varian that destroyed the Horde, Etc.

Current release date goal is October but we all know that's not fucking happening. Wont stop the crunch time meta tho.

Expansions name was originally gonna be Dawn of the Aspects after the novel but was changed after someone pointed out DoA stood for Dead on Arrival.

There's a few other cool things to look forward to but I'm not willing to mention them because all of this info is known by enough people internally that it can't be traced back to me personally.