Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Zulggun]

Btw, was the Jailer actually a robot? Wtf is that about?

Didn't you see prototype pantheon fight? They all have been made like this.

[Makorus]

Btw, was the Jailer actually a robot? Wtf is that about?

I mean, there's literally a boss fight in the raid explaining that.

[Nyel]

You are way over dramatizing this. Like you got some RL harm.

LOL I was just waiting for you, Hitei and Aeluron stepping into this thread and telling us what a masterpiece this cinematic is. It's outright terrible. There is nothing good about this.

[Hitei]

LOL I was just waiting for you, Hitei and Aeluron stepping into this thread and telling us what a masterpiece this cinematic is. It's outright terrible. There is nothing good about this.

No one said it was a masterpiece, but I'm not surprised your strategy was to start desperately throwing out strawmen before a discussion even began.

[Raetary]

Btw, was the Jailer actually a robot? Wtf is that about?

The Pantheon members are all First Ones constructs.

The raid even has a boss encounter where we fight their prototypes.

[Gloriandus]

Foreshadowlands

[Le Conceptuel]

Btw, was the Jailer actually a robot? Wtf is that about?

He was reoriginated to the mechanical blueprint, vaguely similar to how some Tol'Vir were made stone again. It seems to have something to do with the anima being drained from him.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Realistically, when you're dealing with forces that aren't binary good-and-evil systems, then a system built on conflict isn't a bad one. It would just be a physical equivalent of Hegel's philosophy, with the underlying sublation that results from every conflict being better than the preceding non-sublated concepts.

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I'm honestly hoping that we get to side with Turalyon. I never got the weird "Light bad" stuff they're trying to shove down our throats—oh noes! The very embodiment of good and benevolence might be using slightly extreme methods against the Axis-esque faction of imperialistic war criminals on some backwater time-warped planet? Clearly, they must the bad guyerinos!

I kinda get where they were going with "light is bad m'kay" at least in its Legion interpretation. Light is basically a force built on conformity in pursuit of an "almighty good." In essence, the Light (as a cosmic force not as a spell type to be clear) is like the Crusades we see all too often appended to their factions. You get a bunch of faithful, organize them into a grand Army of the Light, and set them off to exterminate the enemy of the week. Enemy of the week being either anything with an eye toward unmaking the Physical Cosmos (The Legion and the Void Lords) or even non-believers (Y'rel's Crusade).

As for the matter of Hegel's Philosophy, I think that largely holds true. Death and Life are in a very natural stasis, Order and Disorder are kept in check via their constant conflict. I think where the idea of "Put the 6 forces into conflict and they will stay in check" fails is with the Light and the Void. And that's because both forces have something of a corruptive element. They don't just fight each other and don't keep each other in check. Both are actively trying to convert the Physical Cosmos over to their side and then use that fact to obliterate the other forces. Essentially they're both what the Jailer wanted to make Death into.

And therein may be our next major threat. The Jailer didn't unbalance the cosmos, it was always unbalanced because of the constant conflict leading to the Light-Void axis going entirely off the rails. Zovaal didn't start the fire, he was just trying to get the Shadowlands to participate in the arms race that the Light and Void had already started.

[Makabreska]

LOL I was just waiting for you, Hitei and Aeluron stepping into this thread and telling us what a masterpiece this cinematic is. It's outright terrible. There is nothing good about this.

And I was just waiting for you to go from 0% to 100% with your usual, "LOL if you are not agreeing with what I say then you must love it!". We get it, you shat on SL for it entirety and now you are doing victory laps with your theatrics.

[Makorus]

LOL I was just waiting for you, Hitei and Aeluron stepping into this thread and telling us what a masterpiece this cinematic is. It's outright terrible. There is nothing good about this.

I mean, the worst offence of the cinematic is that it might as well not exist because it doesn't really offer much other than some backstory. The cinematic not existing wouldn't make a single difference to the overall story of the raid, bar maybe the portal closing (even though that probably wont matter).

It's disappointing. It's deflating. But I honestly don't see how you can describe it as "outright terrible".

[Khaza-R]

That was a lot more underwhelming then I imagined.

Also, how was ICC an engine to extract anima from Azeroth if the Lich King was never controlled by Zovaal?

[Kiivar86]

Ok, I watched it. It's f*ckn terrible. Like honestly. lol

I had zero expectations. Like zero. But this is even worse than everything I could have imagined. Does this even deserver to be called "cinematic"?

It looks decent at least and like I said I did kinda like the other leaders showing up (especially Denathrius basically taunting him or whatever it was). But yeah, as I kept saying, don't expect much. We got at best a "I was just holding them back" sort of thing.

And the Firims diary that starts appearing after the raid also goes a bit more into it.

Yup that too. I'm actually quite curious what this seventh force could be. Definitely doesn't seem benevolent.

Foreshadowlands

Ok that legit made me laugh.

[Futhark]

What retcon lol

The pre-fight cinematic showed that The Soul Forges from ICC were actual engines made to draw power from Azeroth's core. It also showed the Frozen Throne is a conduit to channel that energy into the Maw through the tear that the Helm of Domination opened. All these factors build on things we are familiar with. It gives purpose to things we were exposed to when we didn't know their original purpose. It is great storytelling.

The end cinematic just keeps introducing things and never tells us anything. It does not give purpose to anything, expect to get us to "stay tuned".

[Rezzyk]

So I think part of my issue is.. if you guys aren't aware, there is another Sylvanas cinematic in the campaign this week. So she has (at least) two dedicated to her this patch (2.5 with Anduin's), and they are both longer than what we got for the end-of-expansion boss fight. I don't really understand what's going on with the storytelling.

[Nyel]

I mean, the worst offence of the cinematic is that it might as well not exist because it doesn't really offer much other than some backstory. The cinematic not existing wouldn't make a single difference to the overall story of the raid, bar maybe the portal closing (even though that probably wont matter).

It's disappointing. It's deflating. But I honestly don't see how you can describe it as "outright terrible".

It might as well not exist is exactly why it's outright terrible. It does nothing for the expansion. It leaves the Jailer the same villain without personality, ambition, goals, backstory. It's empty and devoid of information. As you said, it's excistence adds nothing to the expansion.

[Kiivar86]

So I think part of my issue is.. if you guys aren't aware, there is another Sylvanas cinematic in the campaign this week. So she has (at least) two dedicated to her this patch (2.5 with Anduin's), and they are both longer than what we got for the end-of-expansion boss fight. I don't really understand what's going on with the storytelling.

Personally at this point, I don't care, so long as this is the last we see of her for at least a decade. Give her all the cinematics, so long as its the last we fucking see of her.

[Raetary]

That was a lot more underwhelming then I imagined.

Also, how was ICC an engine to extract anima from Azeroth if the Lich King was never controlled by Zovaal?

They were never outright dominated, but Zovaal did very much had influence over them.

He probably just kept nudging Arthas' mind until he built it.

[Makorus]

The pre-fight cinematic showed that The Soul Forges from ICC were actual engines made to draw power from Azeroth's core. It also showed the Frozen Throne is a conduit to channel that energy into the Maw through the tear that the Helm of Domination opened. All these factors build on things we are familiar with. It gives purpose to things we were exposed to when we didn't know their original purpose. It is great storytelling.

The end cinematic just keeps introducing things and never tells us anything. It does not give purpose to anything, expect to get us to "stay tuned".

I mean, it's hardly a retcon. The Soul Forges themselves never really had a purpose. Nothing got re-contextualized, and the cinematic never states that this is the singular purpose of the Forges or ICC.

And yes, that's what a cliffhanger is. Every end cinematic since Cata has done that.

[Nyel]

I don't really understand what's going on with the storytelling.

Don't worry, Blizzard's writers do neither.

[Archmage Xaxxas]

Why exactly does he start dissolving? Because we hit him a bunch?
ICC reverting with a wave of a hand is a bit much.
Zovaal should not have looked half-dominated in the flashback. They just took the nasty bits off of the final version.

Those three things aside, actually I am pretty well pleased with what we got.

I deeply hoped to see a Zovaal banishment flashback. - Check
I wanted to see him have a little Gul'dan death style grimace "Thiss cannot bee!" - Check (laughed pretty hard how close my hopes were on this one. Itch scratched.)
I hoped to know how ICC could be reverted. - Check (though not too up on how easy it was. makes sense I suppose.)

Even got a hint at what's to come. Get ready for "A Cosmos United!" ... Eventually?

Digging the train of thought that his final line refers to the 7th force, and not the Void. Alleria and Locus Walker have already shown we're supposed to harness the Void.