Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[gaymer77]

10.0: It will be an expansion about Light and Void, as Blizzard already said at last Blizzcon that they find this concept very interesting. Alleria, Turalyon, Calia, and Yrel will obviously be main characters of this expansion. I am also 99.9% sure that Alleria will be the poster girl of this expansion, simply because Windrunner girls sell videogames (the 0.1% has Calia or Yrel as poster girls instead). That's as far as my main theorycrafting for 10.0 goes.

I would not play that whole expansion if ANY of that came to be. I can't stand Yrel. She annoyed the fuck out of me when I was playing my Alliance characters in WOD because of how much she was shoved down your throat. Then when we got Mag'har and saw what she and the rest of the Draenei did over on AU Draenor I hated her even more. Calia needs to just die die and be gone. She has no right to try and lead the Forsaken in any capacity and that's the direction Blizzard is taking her. The other two had their time in the spotlight in Legion so they don't need it again. Then there's the whole problem of yet ANOTHER expansion where Horde players are forced to side with Alliance leaders/figures for the whole damn expansion. No, not again or ever!

[Varodoc]

I would not play that whole expansion if ANY of that came to be. I can't stand Yrel. She annoyed the fuck out of me when I was playing my Alliance characters in WOD because of how much she was shoved down your throat. Then when we got Mag'har and saw what she and the rest of the Draenei did over on AU Draenor I hated her even more. Calia needs to just die die and be gone. She has no right to try and lead the Forsaken in any capacity and that's the direction Blizzard is taking her. The other two had their time in the spotlight in Legion so they don't need it again. Then there's the whole problem of yet ANOTHER expansion where Horde players are forced to side with Alliance leaders/figures for the whole damn expansion. No, not again or ever!

Lol, if you think Alleria and Turalyon already had their spotlight, you're fighting a losing battle. Perhaps you don't realize that these characters first appeared in WARCRAFT 2, they are amongst the oldest characters in the entire franchise, and they have been hyped up since WoW. There's no way that their spotlight in WoW amounts to spotlight in the final patch of Legion.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Lol, if you think Alleria and Turalyon already had their spotlight, you're fighting a losing battle. Perhaps you don't realize that these characters first appeared in WARCRAFT 2, they are amongst the oldest characters in the entire franchise, and they have been hyped up since WoW. There's no way that their spotlight in WoW amounts to spotlight in the final patch of Legion.

Yeah, agreed, Turalyon and Alleria aren't going anywhere. They're too relevant, and will definitely be central in a Void VS Light clash expansion, especially since they represent opposite forces but... have been together since forever.

I expect Turalyon to go cray-cray with the light soon enough. "The golden one claims a vacant throne. The crown of light will bring only darkness."

[RemasteredClassic]

This below is the actual idea leak for systems for 10.0, they are currently prototype/poc testing all these below.
None of it is final.

- Retail becomes the central game version where players convene. Retail achievements are linked to classic game versions, so any achievement that only exists on a classic version will be added to the retail version upon completion. This would help keep classic versions alive and consolidate all players on retail.

- All previous WoW expansions are planned for release on a single layered server per expansion per server type per region for better management and consolidation of players - all phases of a given expansion are released within one year giving players one new-old-expansion every year.

- Retail gives quests to complete achievements on classic versions for a remastered version of the classic gear sets/mounts...etc. Instead of scaling old content to max level on retail, this is the approach that is likely to be chosen. Old gear sets obtainable only from the BMAH remain exclusive to it and won’t compete with the new high quality remakes of the same gear designs.

- Clone Party: Create 4 clones of yourself while zoned in to a normal dungeon, allowing you to solo normal dungeons. Only possible inside normal dungeons while alone, available to levels 20 to 60. Requires physically going to the entrance portal. Same clearing speed as a 5 man, and loot limited to a single player. Advantage: Solo level via normal dungeons, disadvantage: takes time to go from one dungeon entrance to another, difficult to solo certain bosses on certain DPS classes without pots even if the Clones generate more threat than the player. Clones are controlled similar to hunter pets.

- Player controlled world boss: Can summon and control any boss from a current raid anywhere in the world. Boss summon-item drops from instanced raid bosses. Auto de-spawn in 30 minutes if not killed before then. Drops normal loot. Super rare drop, limited number per server per month.

- Player made boss arenas: Server-wide boss selection voting system. Select bosses from previous raids and create your own 5-boss 40 man raid similar to anniversary event. Old loot tables but scale to player level a la TimeWalking. Event happens once a month. For players level 10 to 60.

- Rock Party: Music instrument toys - no cooldown, can be played solo using a learnable, collectible list of tunes or as part of a band if groupped. A player can trigger other player's instruments causing them to play in sync when in group, out of combat, not spammable. Only the player and the group/raid they are in can hear the music.

- Residential Quarters: A whole continent dedicated to player housing. Non-instanced housing is 90% of the land, 10% is instanced housing. Introduced together with "furnishing" and "wood working" crafting/gathering professions.

- Mobile App PVP Pet Battles: Only allows PVP battles, pet dungeons would still need to be played within WoW client. Allows leveling alts on the go!

- Horizontal Leveling: Renown-like, build-your-own-talent tree like systems permanently used at level 60, no XP based leveling beyond 60. Resets every expansion. Old expansions become playable from 10 to 60 and include a condensed 50 to 60 expansion specific end-game events and bosses, similar to the new player levels 1 to 10 experience.

- 1 vs 1 NPC-assisted PVP BG Maps: Create and command your own NPC army and battle another player and their army in new BG maps suited to this mode.

- Mercenary Mode (PVE/PVP): Become a mercenary of the opposite faction and spy on or play together with your "frenemies". Can be switched off while in enemy cities, allowing for sudden, sporadic world pvp fights on faction capitals. Brings WAR back into the World of Warcraft player experience. Only players who fight back and get flagged or manually flag themselves are affected making it a choice. Faster respawn time on important NPC's such as auctionneers, quest givers, trainers...etc

- Hybrid races: what your toon would look like as a son/daughter of an inter-marriage between same faction races. Rexxar is a great example.

- No more XP leveling past 60. They can simply introduce elite levels that would be reflected on the player's info page when you inspect a player, it would show how many expansions that player has experienced at max level. Yes, progression is a big part of an RPG, but it doesn't necessarily NEED to have player XP levels increasing every expansion as there are a thousand ways to progress. ESO is a good example of such an MMORPG.

- Tinker class or 4th specs or primary/secondary specs
- 4th/3rd specs release gradually throughout the expansion
- choose a primary and a secondary spec to create a unique fourth spec includes pvp talents as part of the 4th PVE spec active everywhere, not just in PvP.
- old world / dungeons / raids revamp including new gear textures

[Fahrad Wagner]

*snip*

Not a leak, it is not how it works pal.

[Cæli]

I'm glad some of the folks here aren't designers in wow

I think 10.0 will be about the void, and that it might be the last wow expansion, I think it'll be economically more interesting for them to milk every old expansions in cycles with a bit of marketing, than just doing new expansions from scratch, it'll become increasingly less profitable and that's just the way it is

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I'm glad some of the folks here aren't designers in wow

I think 10.0 will be about the void, and that it might be the last wow expansion, I think it'll be economically more interesting for them to milk every old expansions in cycles with a bit of marketing, than just doing new expansions from scratch, it'll become increasingly less profitable and that's just the way it is

People say this and look what happens, it won't be the last expansion and arm chair finance advise isn't really good either.

[LemonDemonGirl]

WoW makes so much money (and is very, very well known), I don't think its likely to 'end' any time soon. If soo, they'll probably make a WoW 2

[Cæli]

People say this and look what happens, it won't be the last expansion and arm chair finance advise isn't really good either.

it will eventually happen at some point, blizzard is a company and don't just do games for fun, and 10.0 + void + classic concept + all time low retail popularity + ... just feels to me that we'll start to see the end of wow content in a few years (not the end of servers, wow will forever be profitable and there will forever be enough players in the world to have a few bgs running per day)

maybe wow 2? I don't know, but tom chilton has to work on something, he was moved from wow years ago, classic could have been an experiment to see if multiple mmo games cannibalize each others, answer is no, people play just as much, but there's more people. they CAN make a wow with a new lore that happens 1000 years in the future with a gorillion new characters and stories like in wc3, to appeal to those who would never play wow 1 otherwise

this has to do with the survival of the company long term. if they don't release another big game like wow, will they be able to retain this level of profit ? probably not. so they have to take risks like for overwatch, but push it further

it would also explain why so many older designers leave: they feel that wow 1 is nearing completion, and they're not keen on making everything again but different in a wow 2. they leave that for a younger generation and they also maybe feel that they couldn't pull it off which would impact their future income. too risky for them.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

it will eventually happen at some point, blizzard is a company and don't just do games for fun, and 10.0 + void + classic concept + all time low retail popularity + ... just feels to me that we'll start to see the end of wow content in a few years (not the end of servers, wow will forever be profitable and there will forever be enough players in the world to have a few bgs running per day)

maybe wow 2? I don't know, but tom chilton has to work on something, he was moved from wow years ago, classic could have been an experiment to see if multiple mmo games cannibalize each others, answer is no, people play just as much, but there's more people. they CAN make a wow with a new lore that happens 1000 years in the future with a gorillion new characters and stories like in wc3, to appeal to those who would never play wow 1 otherwise

this has to do with the survival of the company long term. if they don't release another big game like wow, will they be able to retain this level of profit ? probably not. so they have to take risks like for overwatch, but push it further

it would also explain why so many older designers leave: they feel that wow 1 is nearing completion, and they're not keen on making everything again but different in a wow 2. they leave that for a younger generation and they also maybe feel that they couldn't pull it off which would impact their future income. too risky for them.

I think you vastly overestimate how long Wow can last, even EQ is still doing stuff. This idea that 10.0 is the last expansion is just nonsense.

[Newname1234567890]

Patch 1 Speculation. Helya Raid based in a afterlife based around drowning with ghost pirates etc I

[ro9ue]

I tried to shelter myself from most of the beta stuff so I can go into the expansion pretty fresh. I have some thoughts but I'll contribute after I get caught up this week.

[Sondrelk]

I don't think 10.0 will necessarily be the last WoW expansion, but it is true that WoW cannot realistically go on forever if it wants to continue being a good MMO (even if its players claim it is terrible) at some point it will hit a wall.

I always imagined that Blizzard will eventually stop development for WoW and start development for WoW 2 with fancy new graphics and mechanics that don't have to consider years upon years of caked upon mechanics.

Even with that though WoW would need to stop being massively profitable to develop for, and after ceasing development they would need to wait for WoW nostalgia to kick in before announcing WoW 2.0, otherwise players will just start questioning why it isnt simply a new expansion, especially since it will likely not carry over anything from WoW except maybe name and a legacy achievement or two.

[TheFirstOnes]

10.0 is NOT going to be the last expansion. It'll likely be about the Light/Shadow conflict, sure...

But the First Ones also exist.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I don't think 10.0 will necessarily be the last WoW expansion, but it is true that WoW cannot realistically go on forever if it wants to continue being a good MMO (even if its players claim it is terrible) at some point it will hit a wall.

I always imagined that Blizzard will eventually stop development for WoW and start development for WoW 2 with fancy new graphics and mechanics that don't have to consider years upon years of caked upon mechanics.

Even with that though WoW would need to stop being massively profitable to develop for, and after ceasing development they would need to wait for WoW nostalgia to kick in before announcing WoW 2.0, otherwise players will just start questioning why it isnt simply a new expansion, especially since it will likely not carry over anything from WoW except maybe name and a legacy achievement or two.

We'll probably see whats out there next to the First ones or the equiv above each cosmic force.

Oh god, please don't tell me we're going to have to fight the First Ones

Not what I meant I more meant there might be more people that has dealings or just been involved with said cosmic force or area of the cosmic chart(Like Elune might be above..whereever they want to put her.

[LemonDemonGirl]

Oh god, please don't tell me we're going to have to fight the First Ones. It'll be like in some Final Fantasy games where you often have to fight Gods lol

[gaymer77]

Not a leak, it is not how it works pal.

EXACTLY!!!

This below is the actual idea leak for systems for 10.0, they are currently prototype/poc testing all these below.
None of it is final.

I'm sorry but your "leak" of stuff being "tested" is utter bullshit. Not one of those things is even being considered by Blizzard. And your assertion that achievements between Classic and Retail will intermingle is beyond stupid. Classics has no achievements what so ever. None! Zilch!!! Achievements weren't introduced until several expansions later and even in the current version of Classic there still is no achievements to be earned.

[Varodoc]

Yeah, agreed, Turalyon and Alleria aren't going anywhere. They're too relevant, and will definitely be central in a Void VS Light clash expansion, especially since they represent opposite forces but... have been together since forever.

I expect Turalyon to go cray-cray with the light soon enough. "The golden one claims a vacant throne. The crown of light will bring only darkness."

I'll have to disagree, I really hope Turalyon doesn't turn into a villain, mainly because Blizzard is terrible at writing morally grey villains.

Both Alleria and Turalyon deserve a happy ending with their child Arator. They have suffered so much. I don't want any of them to die.

[Shakzor]

Oh god, please don't tell me we're going to have to fight the First Ones. It'll be like in some Final Fantasy games where you often have to fight Gods lol

I mean... we fought Argus, who was... was it the core of a planet, like Azeroth is? And some (corrupted) Titans by now.

[Fahrad Wagner]

I'll have to disagree, I really hope Turalyon doesn't turn into a villain, mainly because Blizzard is terrible at writing morally grey villains.

Both Alleria and Turalyon deserve a happy ending with their child Arator. They have suffered so much. I don't want any of them to die.

I don't think he will turn into a villain or die anytime soon, but I think he will follow the Light a bit too far, believing he is doing what is right, until the point where he is brainwashed and we have to save him or something. So yeah, I think he will be a temporary villain / misleaded hero, call it what you want!