Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Why? You could partition off subzones for maxlevel content with baddies, or even better, with Phasing, larger areas could be under siege or in control of the baddies, or previously hostile territory could be claimed, either for the levelling content, or for weekly changes to what a zone's made up of.

However, yes, after how people reacted to the Vale and Uldum being meaningfully reused, I know that this would not be well-received by people that can never be pleased.

Heck the Invasion system from Legion, BFA, and Vale/Uldum could be used so only certain areas of the Revamp have max level content at a time.

This week Northern Kalimdor has World Quests for level 70s, next week maybe it's Lordaeron. Stick a bunch of tentacles and/or a Xenedar in the sky for justification, boom.

[huth]

I mean, assuming a revamp similar to Cata, there'd be lowlevel content as well as highlevel content, providing a good distinction between fledgling adventurer and seasoned world&dimension-travelling hero. Not that there can't be overlap.

Frankly, i'd expect an assumption like that is just going to leave you disappointed. They're not going to do a revamp on that scale again, because it simply takes too many resources for something people are barely going to look at.

You're kinda working off the assumption that Blizzard is sitting on infinite resources and just needs to decide to do it, there.

[Gigantique]

You don't think Warcraft is extensively inspired by Dungeons & Dragons? Do you think Warcraft Moon Goddess Elune might have been inspired by D&D Moon Goddess Selune? The D&D stuff isn't even the theorycrafting, that's the stuff directly stated in Chronicles. The separating of the Emerald Dream & creation of the Elemental Planes is synonymous with The Sundering (the Toril one, not the Azeroth one)

The Winter Queen directly states the point of Ardenweald is to cycle energy back into the natural world of Azeroth & the other planets. And as far as we know only World Souls have life on them. That says to me they're pretty invested in nurturing Azeroth's World Soul.

Uh, yes they were? Did you miss the whole story of Eonar & Aggrimar cultivating Gorgrond & starting to build structures? Draenor is just younger than Azeroth & they were interrupted building up Draenor's protection when Sargeras started to attack Azeroth. That's not theory, that's right there in game lore.

I'm fairly sure Draenor didn't have a World Soul, and that it was mentioned in Chronicles that Aggramar intervened in its development DESPITE finding the planet without one. Might be wrong tho, it's been a while.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I'm fairly sure Draenor didn't have a World Soul, and that it was mentioned in Chronicles that Aggramar intervened in its development DESPITE finding the planet without one. Might be wrong tho, it's been a while.

Yes you are correct, Draenor never had a world soul.

[Lahis]

I'm fairly sure Draenor didn't have a World Soul, and that it was mentioned in Chronicles that Aggramar intervened in its development DESPITE finding the planet without one. Might be wrong tho, it's been a while.

Draenor didn't have a World Sould, but it had too much Spirit for a world without one, causing plantlife grow berserk. Aggramar interfered to stop the planet from being overwhelmed by the Evergrowth.

[huth]

I'm fairly sure Draenor didn't have a World Soul, and that it was mentioned in Chronicles that Aggramar intervened in its development DESPITE finding the planet without one. Might be wrong tho, it's been a while.

Yes, Ersula got it completely wrong. I don't remember Eonar being involved, either, nor would they normally build big defenses for them. Azeroth was a special case where they built those after it got attacked already.

It's not like they found a whole lot of World Souls anyway. We only know about 3 outside of the Pantheon itself, one that Sargeras cleaved in half because of Void corruption, Azeroth and Argus.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I just remember that she wrote her OC as the hero in the novelization of Curst of Strahd (which is now hanging out in Revendreth in wow) and since then other D&D writers sent her OC to hell where he must languish forever on a giant painspike (Descent into Avernus)

After she blew up both Rhonin and Krasus, that sounds kinda poetic.

[Nathanyel]

Heck the Invasion system from Legion, BFA, and Vale/Uldum could be used so only certain areas of the Revamp have max level content at a time.

This week Northern Kalimdor has World Quests for level 70s, next week maybe it's Lordaeron. Stick a bunch of tentacles and/or a Xenedar in the sky for justification, boom.

Yep, and due to Phasing, only maxlevel players are affected. Still effort to design etc., but the general systems are already in place.

[Kiivar86]

I just remember that she wrote her OC as the hero in the novelization of Curst of Strahd (which is now hanging out in Revendreth in wow) and since then other D&D writers sent her OC to hell where he must languish forever on a giant painspike (Descent into Avernus)

Hm, as someone who's DMing a Descent into Avernus game right now (still near the start, in Baldur's Gate), I'll be sure to pay attention to this when we get there.

so the book is mostly 9.0 as i thought

https://twitter.com/ChristieGolden/s...78160297447424

Tweet's been deleted, btw.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Yep, and due to Phasing, only maxlevel players are affected. Still effort to design etc., but the general systems are already in place.

Nice idea but I feel like players would just whine about more more world quests to grind.

[Luck4]

Frankly, i'd expect an assumption like that is just going to leave you disappointed. They're not going to do a revamp on that scale again, because it simply takes too many resources for something people are barely going to look at.

You're kinda working off the assumption that Blizzard is sitting on infinite resources and just needs to decide to do it, there.

I think this time we don't need "low-level content" like in Catacllsym, all content is low-level content through "Chromie Time", so the revamp will be current content for both high and low-level players at some point. Also, there's no need to wipe out Cataclysm zones, they can be toggled on-off with "Chromie Time" as well.

About resources, Blizzard doesn't need to make so many quests for every zone as they did for Cataclysm, something that was already said to be the more complex part of the development. Quests unlike art assets are unique, you can't copy-paste quests. Boralus is a perfect example of that, the city is large and cool but there are copy-pastes everywhere, you can't do that with quests. What made Cataclysm so taxing was replacing and changing nearly every Vanilla quest in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms.

- - - Updated - - -

We also shouldn't forget the giant scope of BFA. They managed to make 10 dungeons and 1 mega-dungeon, 5 raids, 8 zones including 2 cities and changed/reformulated another 3, made 11 islands, and revamped from scratch 2 battlegrounds. While I agree that a revamp for both Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms at the same time is hard to believe, a single one of them is completely plausible.

If we're not getting a revamp now, we're probably not going to get it, and cosmic expansions aren't going to either attract new players or will keep the old crowd engaged for much longer. Azeroth is old and so is the lore, for how much longer can this game survive avoiding its roots? The lore is stagnant because the world is also stagnant. You can't progress time if the time is not passing. I mean, more time has passed in IRL than in this virtual world, so how can the lore not become stagnant?

If Blizzard doesn't wanna revamp the world ever again to refresh the lore, the graphics, the setting, then we're gonna need WoW 2, because this game will not survive for much longer without making at least a single soft reboot.

[huth]

I think this time we don't need "low-level content" like in Catacllsym, all content is low-level content through "Chromie Time", so the revamp will be current content for both high and low-level players at some point. Also, there's no need to wipe out Cataclysm zones, they can be toggled on-off with "Chromie Time" as well.

About resources, Blizzard doesn't need to make so many quests for every zone as they did for Cataclysm, something that was already said to be the more complex part of the development. Quests unlike art assets are unique, you can't copy-paste quests.

Complexity isn't time investment. Time is the limited resource there. I'd also rather disagree with you on that last part. Quite a few WQs are just copy-pastes of regular quests, and i doubt making a kill x y or go to z quest is particularly hard to do with their tools.

What made Cataclysm taxing wasn't the quests. It was redesigning every single zone. The quests were just a small part of that.

[Ersula]

This might be a little off topic, but as a testament to how checked out the WoW team is: A SoM realm is named "Obsidian Edge". Obsidian Edge is a League of Legends item. The item in Wow is named "Obsidian-Edged Blade"

[Luck4]

I'd also rather disagree with you on that last part. Quite a few WQs are just copy-pastes of regular quests, and i doubt making a kill x y or go to z quest is particularly hard to do with their tools.

That's because the WQ is the same quest, but toggled for max level, they can't make a quest in Maldraxxus and copy it to Ardenweald, they can't move it to another location.

What made Cataclysm taxing wasn't the quests. It was redesigning every single zone. The quests were just a small part of that.

What do you mean by redesigning every single zone? I mean, like I said we don't need many quests like in Cataclysm for every zone, 3D assets such as creatures/buildings/trees are all being added since Legion, the only part missing is terrain that might take a while, but not as much as 3D assets or quests. Also, the zone concept is already done they only need to revamp it. It's not like making something from scratch and trying to figure out how it should look and/or play out.

[Makorus]

I mean, you don't need a world revamp to tell a story centered in the old world.

Phasing during story quests is completely viable. Phasing after a certain quest is completed is completely viable.

Implying that an entire world and zone revamp is necessary to have content set in Azeroth, or know how Azeroth zones have been playing out in the last years is stupid.

Sure, there are some things like the Barrens crater which you can't just phase away, or the Plaguelands, or whatever, but for a majority of the zones, you don't need a full revamp if you want content set there.

8.3 proved that.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Tweet's been deleted, btw.

Weird, why did she delete it? She was just lamenting that she didn't know anything about it since she isn't part of the WoW team. Certainly less delete worthy than her excellence shtick she had a few months ago.

[Hellspawn]

Weird, why did she delete it? She was just lamenting that she didn't know anything about it since she isn't part of the WoW team. Certainly less delete worthy than her excellence shtick she had a few months ago.

because people misunderstood what she was talking about:
https://twitter.com/ChristieGolden/s...416890368?s=20

[Sondrelk]

I mean, you don't need a world revamp to tell a story centered in the old world.

Phasing during story quests is completely viable. Phasing after a certain quest is completed is completely viable.

Implying that an entire world and zone revamp is necessary to have content set in Azeroth, or know how Azeroth zones have been playing out in the last years is stupid.

Sure, there are some things like the Barrens crater which you can't just phase away, or the Plaguelands, or whatever, but for a majority of the zones, you don't need a full revamp if you want content set there.

8.3 proved that.

No you don't need a full revamp, but it absolutely helps. 8.3 is also hardly the best judge of zones, seeing as Uldum was probably the zone in Cata with the least amount of reused assets, and MoP being the expansion that really solidified the current artstyle.

A full revamp isnt strictly needed, but a zone we are expected to spend a lot of time in should at least get some cosmetic touchups. As I have said many times before, Darkshore is a fantastic judge of how to revamp a zone. Spend a bit of time on low-effort high-impact stuff like grass textures, swap what assets you can, and then make a couple of changes in areas that are especially important.

[Makorus]

No you don't need a full revamp, but it absolutely helps. 8.3 is also hardly the best judge of zones, seeing as Uldum was probably the zone in Cata with the least amount of reused assets, and MoP being the expansion that really solidified the current artstyle.

A full revamp isnt strictly needed, but a zone we are expected to spend a lot of time in should at least get some cosmetic touchups. As I have said many times before, Darkshore is a fantastic judge of how to revamp a zone. Spend a bit of time on low-effort high-impact stuff like grass textures, swap what assets you can, and then make a couple of changes in areas that are especially important.

I mean, yeah, update all the assets and all that, but we don't need the kind of revamp that Cata got, with every zone getting changed completely essentially

[Sondrelk]

I mean, yeah, update all the assets and all that, but we don't need the kind of revamp that Cata got, with every zone getting changed completely essentially

Cata was also revamped not just graphically, but also to allow flying, which meant having to patch up all mountains you normally wouldnt see, and generally make it so you couldnt realistically glitch under the scenery anywhere.
Updating the zones graphically was hardly the most intensive task when compared to actually needing to more or less remake the entirety of EK and Kalimdor.

Besides, what Cata did wrong most of all, was remaking the world, and also making 5 large zones from scratch, more if you count Kezan and the Lost Isles, in addition to obviously updating Hyjal to almost an entirely new zone compared to the version that existed previously.