Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Vaedan]

Wait does that mean she bypassed Kyrians and their duties? Weren't they supposed to get the souls in to Shadowlands from our reality? Or do Night Elf souls have a special ''ARDENWEALD ONLY'' stamp?

I'm so confused.

Kyrians just ferry souls to Shadowlands. It was Arbiter who decided which afterlife are you suited towards. I wouldn't say all night elves are automaticaly candidates for Ardenweald, but given their cultural focus on druidism and safekeeping of the wilds, quite a chunk of them will probably end up there, if they do not turn into wisps and stay on Azeroth.

The problem is, Elune deciding not saving night elves in order to help Ardeanwealds stability, and in that stability of the whole Cycle of Life and Death could be actually interesting and if handled well, you might make night elves "chosen" race which plays vital part in their sacrifice. It could be good. Problem is, we are shown this "Sophie's choice" decision without proper development, stamped in the middle of Korthia campaign, without any previous build up of Life-Death dynamics Ardenwealds is supposed to be about.

I guess it might be their initial goal with this storyline, but rushing it to its end definitely does not do great justice to the overall storytelling from BfA onwards.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

It seems 9.1 is the great BfA face turn. First Sylvanas and now Elune herself seems to heavily imply that the choices in BfA were really just for shock value and to hamfistedly place Sylvanas in a position where she joins the Jailer.

I am not that mad at Elune intending to send the Nelf souls to the Maw to stave off the drought. It does kinda make sense in a mysterious ways kind of way, and the souls would likely be content knowing they are sent on a mission by their goddess to save nature, and furthermore being able to spend eternity with their loved ones tending to nature.

I just really question how Elune is aware of the drought being a thing and possibly about to destroy Ardwnweald, but not how the drought came to be.
With no more dialogue I guess we are left to assume Elune simply assumed there were not any nature aligned souls that had died, which seems questionable at best.


The writing really is a vacous black hole at this point. BfA was pretty damn terrible, and while I can kinda respect the idea of retconning the worst decisions I really don't think the correct choice was then to turn around and make the entire thing entirely pointless.

A better writing team would have taken Teldrassil, and even taken Elune and Sylvanas, and ran with it to tell a big narrative about how "This is why we don't need cosmic entities interfereing in our world anymore."

Instead Blizz seems to be using all of that to just handwave and justify Teldrassil, an event that should have been a major narrative reset for the entire franchise.

[Cosmic Janitor]

She didn't kill them, but did not intervene during BfA so the souls could fix Ardenweald draught. But ofc she didn't know they will be sent to the Maw. Either way it paints Elune as a cold bitch. Not really shitting on that story part like many others. This could be easily described as a tough choice, if she deemed that Aerdenweald well-being is more important.

The thing is, she did intervene and put all the nelfs to sleep. If she has that power she could have put a few troops to sleep as well and stop it.
There is also a bunch wrong here, she clearly just send them to oribos, how exactly did she ensure that they would even reach ardenweald? Is the whole freedom of choice thing just bullshit and she branded their souls with a "to ardenweald" mark? Because otherwise they might have gone to any one of the infinite realms, which makes the mathmatics of the situation seem less and less favorable, considering that nelfs are not part of the wild god circle and shouldn't go there by default.

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It could be good. Problem is, we are shown this "Sophie's choice" decision without proper development, stamped in the middle of Korthia campaign, without any previous build up of Life-Death dynamics Ardenwealds is supposed to be about.

I mean let's be honest here, Ardenweald is actually the afterlife for bugs, everyone else is just there as food, at least if go by relevancy and representation.

[Lady Atia]

The thing is, she did intervene and put all the nelfs to sleep. If she has that power she could have put a few troops to sleep as well and stop it.
There is also a bunch wrong here, she clearly just send them to oribos, how exactly did she ensure that they would even reach ardenweald? Is the whole freedom of choice thing just bullshit and she branded their souls with a "to ardenweald" mark? Because otherwise they might have gone to any one of the infinite realms, which makes the mathmatics of the situation seem less and less favorable, considering that nelfs are not part of the wild god circle and shouldn't go there by default.

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I mean let's be honest here, Ardenweald is actually the afterlife for bugs, everyone else is just there as food, at least if go by relevancy and representation.

Well, she did send Ysera directly to Ardenweald afterall.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Well, she did send Ysera directly to Ardenweald afterall.

She clearly didn't with the nelf souls though. That also just means she branded them to bypass the systems usual process, meaning she invalidated their personalities and personal choices during their life times because she deemed feeding ardenweald to be more important. Either way it's not a pretty picture if you follow the cinematic up with "Tyrande must choose", which was already undermined by her taking away her chance at vengence when she fought Sylvanas and switched her powers off - enabling Zovaal to complete his ridiculous plan in the first place.

[Makabreska]

The thing is, she did intervene and put all the nelfs to sleep. If she has that power she could have put a few troops to sleep as well and stop it.
There is also a bunch wrong here, she clearly just send them to oribos, how exactly did she ensure that they would even reach ardenweald? Is the whole freedom of choice thing just bullshit and she branded their souls with a "to ardenweald" mark? Because otherwise they might have gone to any one of the infinite realms, which makes the mathmatics of the situation seem less and less favorable, considering that nelfs are not part of the wild god circle and shouldn't go there by default

Well, she didn't stop it, because Arden needed souls. Cold AF, but she decided it had to be done. And I dunno about them being defaulted there. Maybe their connection to nature would make them go there? Or maybe Elune has the power to bypass it?

[Revamp Man]

Sure. But still, some people started saying it was all her.

Nah but her neglect caused it

[huth]

She didn't kill them, but did not intervene during BfA so the souls could fix Ardenweald draught. But ofc she didn't know they will be sent to the Maw. Either way it paints Elune as a cold bitch. Not really shitting on that story part like many others. This could be easily described as a tough choice, if she deemed that Aerdenweald well-being is more important.

Frankly, by my understanding she merely didn't make them Wisps. They would have died anyway, Elune isn't exactly known for large scale Divine Interventions.

So people are massively overplaying both her role and the amount of cruelty she meant to inflict here.

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Well, she didn't stop it, because Arden needed souls. Cold AF, but she decided it had to be done. And I dunno about them being defaulted there. Maybe their connection to nature would make them go there? Or maybe Elune has the power to bypass it?

It'd only be cold if she had no reaction to it. Based on the Cutscene, she was not happy about doing it, but felt that saving Ardendweald was the bigger issue at the moment.

It's a trolley problem situation. She could only choose between bad outcomes.

[Progenitor Aquarius]

Well, she did send Ysera directly to Ardenweald afterall.

That means Arbiter was still working back then.

[huth]

That means Arbiter was still working back then.

And for a while after, since Ursoc also made it to Ardenweald.

[Dracullus]

And for a while after, since Ursoc also made it to Ardenweald.

At this point, if it's caused by us, only likely event is Argus death. And now also Nathrezim call Argus a 'pawn'.

[Kayze]

Why would you want to toggle store mounts instead of outright remove them? Most of them are plausible and fit in with the other wacky mounts obtainable through gameplay anyway. That last part made no sense.

Because people paid for them? They can have them on if they really want them but I'd rather not have ridiculous mounts visible on my client. Weird point you're trying to make here.

Please tell me on this plush animal where the evil evil store mounts did hurt you.

Please tell me why you NEED to show off your paid crap to others? Like wow, you spent a whole $25 on some visual flare. What next? A $25k Rolex to show how cool you are? Can't you just buy this stuff for yourself and not to desperately "show off"? The toggle would be local, clientside, and wouldn't disable it for other players.

That hide the mount thing reminds me of the few times I've seen some people, particularly when transmog became a thing, demand an option to toggle off everyone else's transmog.

Sorry but you'll have to deal with that.

Store mounts are not really the same to any of the transmog stuff, you know where you choose ingame item appearances with some restrictions. And no, no one has to deal with it technically but Blizzard won't make the toggle because people paid money to "look cool" despite actually looking like a tool. Ability to toggle it off would probably decrease sales.

[Lady Atia]

Because people paid for them? They can have them on if they really want them but I'd rather not have ridiculous mounts visible on my client. Weird point you're trying to make here.



Please tell me why you NEED to show off your paid crap to others? Like wow, you spent a whole $25 on some visual flare. What next? A $25k Rolex to show how cool you are? Can't you just buy this stuff for yourself and not to desperately "show off"? The toggle would be local, clientside, and wouldn't disable it for other players.



Store mounts are not really the same to any of the transmog stuff, you know where you choose ingame item appearances with some restrictions. And no, no one has to deal with it technically but Blizzard won't make the toggle because people paid money to "look cool" despite actually looking like a tool. Ability to toggle it off would probably decrease sales.

Because the mounts look cool? Seriously, if you think anyone uses a mount "to show of" you have some real issues. These are just pixxels. Stop getting offended from other peoples fun, thanks.

[Sondrelk]

A better writing team would have taken Teldrassil, and even taken Elune and Sylvanas, and ran with it to tell a big narrative about how "This is why we don't need cosmic entities interfereing in our world anymore."

Instead Blizz seems to be using all of that to just handwave and justify Teldrassil, an event that should have been a major narrative reset for the entire franchise.

I wouldnt go as far as to say that, I just really heavily dislike how Blizzard took what was built up as a massive plotpoint in BfA on why Elune would not help the Nelves and make it essentially a thing where it all boiled down to a misunderstanding.

Elune likely didnt want to intervene in what she must have assumed was a simple mortal war, and not integral to the droughtin Ardenweald. But that is a horrible handwaving that just reinforces the view that Blizzard didnt actually plan anything big with the reveal. Sylvanas was just evil because she needed to be a credible antagonist in 9.0. Elune didnt intervne because of a silly misunderstanding.

This hsould have been a massive reveal that could have explained everything and made all the pieces fall in place. And instead we are left with the bitter taste of sloppy retconning.

[Nyel]

I have no idea what they are doing to the lore in Shadowlands, everything just seems so absurd and out of the blue and makes basically no sense for anyone with more than two braincells. There's not no coherence or cohesiveness to the story anymore, you read new lore and you're just astounded by how silly it is. This just adds insult to injury. I'm just waiting for the big reveal that the Jailer indeed is not our enemy but our friend and ally that's coming soon. Because you know, all he did was for the better and to actually save us. *sigh*

[Hellspawn]

Elune likely didnt want to intervene in what she must have assumed was a simple mortal war, and not integral to the droughtin Ardenweald.

Elune intervened in mortal wars before, even during the war of thornes. So for some reason she... could not do something about the burning itself.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Elune intervened in mortal wars before, even during the war of thornes. So for some reason she... could not do something about the burning itself.

I mean it wouldn't even have been neccessary to do something about the burning. If she can put tens of thousands of nelfs to sleep in a few seconds she could have just done the same to a bunch of orcs manning the catapults. It's not like the Horde had the overwhelming victory there, a few more minutes could have saved thousands of her worshippers. But then again, the horde invented intercontinental catapults, she probably thought they deserved to win.

[Makabreska]

Elune intervened in mortal wars before, even during the war of thornes. So for some reason she... could not do something about the burning itself.

???

We know why she didn't do anything. So the souls could fix the draught. Did people not watch the cinematic?

[huth]

???

We know why she didn't do anything. So the souls could fix the draught. Did people not watch the cinematic?

Trolley Problem. She thought this was the rail with only one person. Turns out it was the rail with the switch that opens a gate to hell under all 6.

[Dracullus]

I watched recent Preach video and honestly I'm pissed. He put narration that Blizzard actively destroy game for people like him (mythic raiders). Blizzard did terrible mistake in Shadowlands.. but it was LISTENING to people like Preach.

Who told Torghast has amazing gameplay (and in Alpha you climbed like 70 floors, not 5)? Who told that "loot should matter" will be amazing? Who was against ANY grind for power outside raids? Who praised 8.3 world content design? (Hell, Preach even praised early WoD, but that's ancient times).

During Alpha/Beta streamers like him complained about 1 thing: covenant choice. In 9.0 conduict power. In 9.1 shards of dominations. Later Many people will disagree with me, but compared main SL issues (gear/power wall and making activities outside organized stuff pointless or cosmetic only) - these are laughable at best.

Not to mention driving this already crazy community nuts with speculations from ass like 9.0 coming in 2021 (before Covid exploded) or 9.1 coming "earliest" in August after watching just clips from Blizzconline. I know, I know, many of these falls on people that treat streamers like authority.

I hope it will be lesson for Blizzard (or anyone running WoW in the future in case current Blizz won't survive) - never listen to people with narrow view if you discuss main game. You will lose many of main crowd and tryhards will burn out sooner or later anyway. Go crazy like you did in Legion, don't try to polish game until there is nothing left.

(And funny thing, Preach is/was still WoW influencer that was 1000x more constructive that regular drama queen like Asmon or Bellurar, so I still respect him even after this rant.)