Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Eggroll]

I hope (in vain of course) that we finally get proper female nelf models - and nelf paladins!

And when is Brawler's Guild coming back???

[Nyel]

That would probably only be for an actual important announcement like the 10.0 trailer or confirmation for WotLK Classic.
For a 9.2 date announcement I think just the teaser leading to the announcement is plenty.

Absolutely, but for that you don't need Mike. Heck, you don't even need Ion for that. A simple forum post is enough.

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Has it been said anywhere that the announcement this week will be done live? I dont remember so probably blue/blog posts, which don't require an announcement of an announcement

We have some exciting things to announce, and I’ll be sharing more next week.

That's as vague as it can be.

[AngerFork]

What exactly can be done though? Its a planet-sized sword. I doubt even the strongest mortals on the planet could do something about it.

Only real concept I can see happening is it gets used by Azeroth whenever she awakens.

If we do get a timeskip or revamp, I'd love to see what sort of influence it might have on Silithus after a while and/or whether whatever nature it adds overtakes it.

For instance, if Silithus were to get greenery like Un'goro has I could see some vines climbing up the sword.

[username993720]

You stated that you thought it was a bow earlier in the thread.

Probably someone else.
But, since you mentioned it, there are clearly bows and arrows on that logo.
And, interpretation would be to say it hints at Dark Rangers or Priestesses of the Moon.

Against a completely unrelated foe thousands of years before the events of the next expansion.

Again, doesn't matter. They're on good relations.

We have titan facilities all over Azeroth, further our base of operations in BFA (Chamber of Heart) was a titan facility alongside a titan robot named Mother.

And you want to repeat that again?

Why would anyone in the Horde care about Elune or Night Elves?

Tauren, Shadowmoon Orcs, Lun'alai Zandalari.

[Ersula]

He was literally the main antagonist of an expansion that did not, in fact, entirely revolve around a character who only appeared in any capacity near the end of the expansion.

Thrall's short absence from the story was both planned & the entire purpose of Garrosh's storyline: Thrall's failure to craft him into his successor. If you had to choose a character that the entire *franchise* of warcraft revolves around, Thrall would be a valid answer.

Thrall's alive. Garrosh is dead. Deal with it.

[Edward Wu]

Just had a thought: I really want Timewalking Mega Dungeons. Now that we have Timewalking Raids, I don't see why not. Bring back Karazhan, Mechagon, and Tazavesh as Timewalking features.

[Ersula]

Tauren, Shadowmoon Orcs, Lun'alai Zandalari.

It's a stretch to say the moon goddess those people worship can, at least on a cosmic level, be considered the same thing as Elune, but I have noticed how conspicuous the Horde is ignored from this. Isn't Elune still the most popular religion for Nightborne?

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Just had a thought: I really want Timewalking Mega Dungeons.

Does anyone else find mega dungeons super annoying? IE the pattern of adding them, then converting them to normal dungeons? I've never had a positive experience in one past 2007

[Darkarath]

Thrall's short absence from the story was both planned & the entire purpose of Garrosh's storyline: Thrall's failure to craft him into his successor. If you had to choose a character that the entire *franchise* of warcraft revolves around, Thrall would be a valid answer.

Thrall's alive. Garrosh is dead. Deal with it.

PLOT TWIST: when a soul escape his jailers in the Shadowlands, its teleported to Zereth Mortis for further analysis. Given the chaotic current state of Zereth Mortis, Garrosh managed to wander freely, and in the final cinematic of 9.2, he will kill Thrall, finally achieving his revenge.

Could happen. He might even become Arthas' buddy.

[Vasoka]

Towelliee said that xpac reveal may drop as early as one hour from now. Trust our lord and savior.

[Edward Wu]

Towelliee said that xpac reveal may drop as early as one hour from now. Trust our lord and savior.

It's extremely unlikely but it would be hilarious if they just unceremoniously drop the full expansion preview video and fully trust word of mouth hype from then on.

[Raetary]

Towelliee said that xpac reveal may drop as early as one hour from now. Trust our lord and savior.

Lul, yeah sure.
An unnanounced expansion reveal.

I bet they'll do it via a tweeting a gif of a dev just scrolling through a word document containing expansion info, written in comic sans.

[Vasoka]

It's Towelliee, mate. That means it's 100% true legit and indisputable. Trust the plan.

[pacotaco]

I totally agree here. Every main raid in Legion felt very impactful and build up towards the upcoming raid. Not counting Emerald Nightmare, because that was a hit and miss, but the others were excellent.

Nighthold, in itself already one of the top raids in WoW, was a perfect build up towards Tomb of Sargeras. Tomb of Sargeras continued the storyline and culminated in what leads us to Argus. It was just a very well-executed build up towards the grand finale.

That wasn't the case in BfA at all, due to various reasons: Uldir felt very detached from everything, BoD - while being a great raid - had the faction-theme and didn't fit into the overarching narrative. Eternal Palace was an okay raid, but the ending felt very, very weak in comparison to the Legion build up of upcoming raids.

Shadowlands felt samey. Castle Nathria wasn't really part of the overarching narrative at all (although Denathrius was connected to the Jailer). Sanctum was okayish I guess, but the ending wasn't very climactic either.

I find it so weird that they seem to have found the pinnacle of WoWs modern design in Legion and then just abandoned basically every good aspect of it in the following expansions.

BFA suffered from the split in content: if you only played one faction, you missed a lot of context for half the dungeons/raids.
- Uldir was the culmination of Zandalar story: Zul trying to do a coup-de-etat so he can get G'huun's favor, blood trolls in Nazmir revering G'huun as a loa and trying to release it, the Sethrak traitors releasing the C'Thraxxy so it can destroy the last seal of G'huun's prison.
- Kul'Tiras story is more fragmented in that aspect, as the common thead is just the unification of all houses, and the Crucible of Storms is just the finale of the Stormsong Valley story.

Part of it repeat on SL with covenants stories being almost stand-alone, so we don't understand almost anything of the motivations of the ones we don't pick up, nor we get to know who certain characters are.

Castle Nathria was a Jailers foothold ooutside the Maw, and we had to take it out before going to Jailer's territory.

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But why is the hype train going away from the Dragon Isles?

Doing a World Tour first?

[micwini]

Amazing work sir

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Thrall's short absence from the story was both planned & the entire purpose of Garrosh's storyline: Thrall's failure to craft him into his successor. If you had to choose a character that the entire *franchise* of warcraft revolves around, Thrall would be a valid answer.

Thrall's alive. Garrosh is dead. Deal with it.

So, you're essentially saying we had two expansions that were only meant to develop a character who would shortly thereafter be all but retired for Legion, the most plot-critical expansion thus far, and the character who prominently featured as the cause of the conflict in both started these plots from a Doylist perspective specifically to give development to Thrall.

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Just had a thought: I really want Timewalking Mega Dungeons. Now that we have Timewalking Raids, I don't see why not. Bring back Karazhan, Mechagon, and Tazavesh as Timewalking features.

That would be interesting. All of those were very good and generally well-received, so there is reason for it.

[Varx]

just Missing Tinkers and it'd be perfect

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Towelliee said that xpac reveal may drop as early as one hour from now. Trust our lord and savior.

I wonder how he'll pivot if it doesn't happen.

[Vasoka]

I wonder how he'll pivot if it doesn't happen.

I mean, like he usually does.

[draugril]

So, you're essentially saying we had two expansions that were only meant to develop a character who would shortly thereafter be all but retired for Legion, the most plot-critical expansion thus far, and the character who prominently featured as the cause of the conflict in both started these plots from a Doylist perspective specifically to give development to Thrall.

Yes. Entirely correct.

Blizzard isn't great at writing longform narratives. They do not plan in advance outside of generalities. Sequences of events aren't even written in stone. They may as well assign a number to their top twenty characters and roll a D20 a few times to see who gets focus each expansion, rather than follow any kind of internal logic.

[pacotaco]

Yeah, but the point remains. I am curious about Garrosh whereabouts. He is dead, so... where the hell is he? Where are you teleported when you escape from your Shadowlands realm? Back to your native planet? (which would be Outland, BTW, I can see Garrosh making another Iron Horde there and invading Azeroth again).

Errrr, did you miss the part in Sanctum of Domination where Garrosh is kept and an entire raid boss fight mechanics work around him milking Garrosh anima, then, Garrosh being freed and obliterate himself to destroy the raid boss, leaving only dust in the ground?