Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Yossarian]

I miss when the had open expanses (was it last in WoD we saw this?)

Thanks you for pointing this out

It's something I really, really miss in WoW, you loose immersion if everywhere is just a quest hub

[guro-tchai]

"dedicated scourge zone, that btw, retcon the scourge being NERUBIAN, based, with undeads who don't look like the undeads we had, with a distorted honor system, cause, the strong is what matters.

Isn't like the scourge is based around ice with the lich king and the main aprt being you know, in the land of ice, and the scourge from wtlk is revolved around that.

it's not just that, Maldraxxus as a whole feels like a parody. we pet dogs and chimeras, participate in running competitions around an arena and praise abomination athletes.
Scourge tortured real humans and used them in death to mass-slaughter half of a continent. unlike in SL, there's a reason for the plague to exist and be distinct from other types of WMD. Maldraxxus just uses the existing style and removes the substance from it.

[ercarp]

I'm actually hyped for this. Imagine the density, all the wonderlands to explore! We'd be in for 2-3 expansions at least

Based on the demographics of Azeroth during that time, those expansions would be pretty troll-centric.

[Nyel]

Based on the demographics of Azeroth during that time, those expansions would be pretty troll-centric.

To be fair, trolls have one of the most intriguing and fleshed out lore in Warcraft. No race comes close, not even the lore of the Elves. So absolutely, an expansion so troll-focused wouldn't work, but it would be hella amazing.

Zul Gurub, Zul Aman, Zul Drak, Zul Farrak, Throne of Thunder, Zandalar - there is so much excellent troll related content in the game and troll raids often are highlights.

[Syegfryed]

it's not just that, Maldraxxus as a whole feels like a parody. we pet dogs and chimeras, participate in running competitions around an arena and praise abomination athletes.
Scourge tortured real humans and used them in death to mass-slaughter half of a continent. unlike in SL, there's a reason for the plague to exist and be distinct from other types of WMD. Maldraxxus just uses the existing style and removes the substance from it.

Thats a great way to put shadowlands, a parody of warcraft.

blue-man group is a parody of the alliance paladins, Ardenwald is a parody of night elves and the emerald dream, the Maw is a parody of itself as "no one EVER escape the maw" so we immediately escape some quests later.

[Revamp Man]

Last time they thought outside the box we got WoD. And that turned out... less than great.

I mean personally I think the content was good

The problem was the garrison system as a whole and the drought. I still don’t understand why 6.2 had the ship yard when it was just a mission table that you needed the other mission table to use. There was supposed to be secondary stat flasks but mid development they realized they hated fun.

[loras]

it's not just that, Maldraxxus as a whole feels like a parody. we pet dogs and chimeras, participate in running competitions around an arena and praise abomination athletes.
Scourge tortured real humans and used them in death to mass-slaughter half of a continent. unlike in SL, there's a reason for the plague to exist and be distinct from other types of WMD. Maldraxxus just uses the existing style and removes the substance from it.

This, Maldraxxus was easily the worst themed zone of Shadowlands imo. Also necromancers in the realm of the dead, like wat.

- - - Updated - - -

To be fair, trolls have one of the most intriguing and fleshed out lore in Warcraft. No race comes close, not even the lore of the Elves. So absolutely, an expansion so troll-focused wouldn't work, but it would be hella amazing.

Zul Gurub, Zul Aman, Zul Drak, Zul Farrak, Throne of Thunder, Zandalar - there is so much excellent troll related content in the game and troll raids often are highlights.

Also trolls are awesome.
And keep in mind you can just add in proto elves, titan stuff and other proto races. Also tauren and such were likely already around, though probably more bestial.

[NikolaiShade]

Thats a great way to put shadowlands, a parody of warcraft.

blue-man group is a parody of the alliance paladins, Ardenwald is a parody of night elves and the emerald dream, the Maw is a parody of itself as "no one EVER escape the maw" so we immediately escape some quests later.

Honestly I didn't want to comment on this but anyway...

The Problem with Maldraxxus is of cosmological nature, allow me to explain: Bastion can be compared to the Elysium Field of greek mythology (Elysian Hold anyone?) so we can presume is where "good" souls go; Ravendreth is camparable to Purgatory where not so evil souls go to "cleanse" themselves of their sins; the Maw is Hell, Tartarus or whatever you want to call it, so "unredeemable" souls go here; Ardenweald is a sort of antechamber to return to nature, cycle of life and seasons (Winter Queen); then we get Maldraxxus. It's a bad retcon of the Nerubian influence on the Scourge, doesn't cover any classical afterlife function and has a strong dissonance between the theme and the feel (cool-looking undead monsters and you play with fetch with them, come on).

Edit: btw the purpose of Maldraxxus in the SL is to host, harbor and train worthy "fighting" souls to train them in some sort of great Army of the Afterlife, basically the whole norse afterlife in a nutshell, something they already used with Odyn and the Halls of Valor.

[niilokin]

I always thought of necromancy as something that would be antagonistic to the realm of death, something that is a transgression and mockery towards both life and death as it abuses them mercilessly. That's why it always made sense for the Burning Legion be the sole creator of the Lich King and Scourge.

[Super Dickmann]

Honestly I didn't want to comment on this but anyway...

The Problem with Maldraxxus is of cosmological nature, allow me to explain: Bastion can be compared to the Elysium Field of greek mythology (Elysian Hold anyone?) so we can presume is where "good" souls go; Ravendreth is camparable to Purgatory where not so evil souls go to "cleanse" themselves of their sins; the Maw is Hell, Tartarus or whatever you want to call it, so "unredeemable" souls go here; Ardenweald is a sort of antechamber to return to nature, cycle of life and seasons (Winter Queen); then we get Maldraxxus. It's a bad retcon of the Nerubian influence on the Scourge, doesn't cover any classical afterlife function and has a strong dissonance between the theme and the feel (cool-looking undead monsters and you play with fetch with them, come on).

Maldraxxus suffered from the unnecessary Scourge retread elements that have zero explanation. You've an overlap between two competing concepts, one of the fleshy undead landscape where the remains of past battles and the giant dead body you're on is part of this warrior culture and then the WC3 Scourge aesthetic that makes zero sense. Why do the Liches look Egypt-inspired, why do the necropoli look like the ones we've seen up to now? Hell, why are there necropoli at all? It's not how the zone's organic appearance is modeled and it doesn't even have an in-story explanation. It's shallow pandering.

That said, it's by far the most creative zone conceptually and I like it for the same reason it pisses a lot of people in this thread off and that it's the only one that actually does something inventive with the idea of being an afterlife and how things there wouldn't be the same if transposed to real life. On Maldraxxus, everything is undead in the sense that its soul and the physical body it inhabits are detached and its purpose is to hold off invasions against forces that are just as inhuman like the Void and the Legion. And in fighting these things no matter what horrific bullshit you cook up, it has no moral implications because your side doesn't really die on their own and the enemy invaders are all various abominations and demons. Hence being able to dedicate yourself to making plagues, since biological/chemical warfare is fine where you're at and they're effective and why nobody takes anything going on very seriously. Why would they? Death is a slap on the wrist, the worst thing that can happen to you is that your current body gets destroyed so you have to inhabit another one.

But take all of the above and apply it to the living world and suddenly you're talking something very different. Stitching dudes up in Maldraxxus is no big deal, they can stay fully aware and even be buddies and their souls are detached already so they don't feel too much, the Constructs Margrave refers to himself in the plural for this reason. Stitch dudes up in reality though and it's horrific torture that they feel every bit of because they don't just respawn and raise them into undeath and this isn't their natural state as someone who's already passed, they suffer from the detachment of their spirit while being trapped in a rotting form that they feel every bit of. Even other realms of the Shadowlands fit into the same bit, since you go from the Constructs themselves, who're having a ball, to the kyrian and stewards and the like who've had eyes and tongues they don't get back torn out or piled in mass graves. It's an intentional bit of dissonance that even comes up in some of the side books on how this makes Maldraxxus massively fucked up every time they go on the offensive since all that that's a laugh in its own ecosystem turns into a war crime fiesta when actual living people are involved.

[Edward Wu]

Thats a great way to put shadowlands, a parody of warcraft.

blue-man group is a parody of the alliance paladins, Ardenwald is a parody of night elves and the emerald dream, the Maw is a parody of itself as "no one EVER escape the maw" so we immediately escape some quests later.

I'm still waiting for them to reveal that the Jailer never existed and this was just another attempt to dominate us by the Void through Yogg'Saron, God of Death. The real Shadowlands are something else entirely.

[Syegfryed]

Honestly I didn't want to comment on this but anyway...

The Problem with Maldraxxus is of cosmological nature, allow me to explain: Bastion can be compared to the Elysium Field of greek mythology (Elysian Hold anyone?) so we can presume is where "good" souls go; Ravendreth is camparable to Purgatory where not so evil souls go to "cleanse" themselves of their sins; the Maw is Hell, Tartarus or whatever you want to call it, so "unredeemable" souls go here; Ardenweald is a sort of antechamber to return to nature, cycle of life and seasons (Winter Queen); then we get Maldraxxus. It's a bad retcon of the Nerubian influence on the Scourge, doesn't cover any classical afterlife function and has a strong dissonance between the theme and the feel (cool-looking undead monsters and you play with fetch with them, come on).

Big problem with those greek aesthetics is how they didn't click, or connected with the warcraft thematic we already had, they didn't a good job to connect the elements of those new afterlives with the races we play, Blue-man group rly, isn't like elysius with all the brainwash shenanigans. The throw away dead characters didn't help at all. Draka was completely nonsensical to be in the nonsensical maldraxxus.

We actually didn't saw any afterlife in shadowlands that was talked about in those years of warcraft, no human/light afterlife, no spirits/ancestors afterlife, only the maw who was actually hinted as eternal damation, but they made it a joke anyway.

[Hellspawn]

Based on the demographics of Azeroth during that time, those expansions would be pretty troll-centric.

That's why we probably play it a bit later during Kaldorei Empire times

[Syegfryed]

I'm still waiting for them to reveal that the Jailer never existed and this was just another attempt to dominate us by the Void through Yogg'Saron, God of Death. The real Shadowlands are something else entirely.

Man, i remember those times we all theorize about Yog and the God of death thing, that was a good villain, even if he was a side-raid character, making him somehow connected to the second war(or him pretending to be) was some good shit

[NikolaiShade]

Big problem with those greek aesthetics is how they didn't click, or connected with the warcraft thematic we already had, they didn't a good job to connect the elements of those new afterlives with the races we play, Blue-man group rly, isn't like elysius with all the brainwash shenanigans. The throw away dead characters didn't help at all. Draka was completely nonsensical to be in the nonsensical maldraxxus.

We actually didn't saw any afterlife in shadowlands that was talked about in those years of warcraft, no human/light afterlife, no spirits/ancestors afterlife, only the maw who was actually hinted as eternal damation, but they made it a joke anyway.

Unfortunately they went for the "one serves all" route about afterlives, an easy way out could have been to just straight out say there are multiple sfterlives and the Shadowlands are just one of them (the one more heavily connected to Death as a cosmic force), then whatever theme you want to go for can be easily justified as the SL are a new and "alien" plane of existance.

Btw the Bastion aesthetics are more middle-eastern than greek, so there is even more confusion.

Edit: the brainwash thing could be inspired by the river Lethe, in greek mythology souls had to drink its waters to forget their previous lives before reincarnation

Edit 2: so basically you have a greek zone (Bastion), a gothic zone (Revendreth), an irsh folklore zone (Ardenweald) and a black metal undead zone (Maldraxxus)... someone played darts here using random themes as targets.

[guro-tchai]

We actually didn't saw any afterlife in shadowlands that was talked about in those years of warcraft, no human/light afterlife, no spirits/ancestors afterlife, only the maw who was actually hinted as eternal damation, but they made it a joke anyway.

that's another sin of this expansion. afterlife is an aspect of faith, which is supposed to be a unique part of a culture. by universalizing afterlives, they dissolve a big part of every people's culture.
what will they turn into plastic next?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Based on the demographics of Azeroth during that time, those expansions would be pretty troll-centric.

And I doubt thats a good idea either and it wouldn't last 2-3 expansions.

[TomatoBisque]

Shadowlands is not Warcrafty because it is not based on Warcraft 2/3.

Except Maldraxxus bad because no frost even though the only frost related units in WC3 were Frost Wyrms (which were frost because they were Blue Dragons, not because of anything to do with necromancy) and Liches. In that sense, Maldraxxus is perfectly based on WC3 because all the frost imagery involved with the Scourge has more to do with Ner'zhul landing at the northern pole and Kil'jaeden choosing to put him in a block of ice. They don't do shit with frost when they're ravaging Lordaeron and Quel'thalas

Reminder that Arthas having any frost powers is a pure WoW retcon/change, but that was before people decided/realized blizzard doesn't care about their lore as much as angry internet nerds do

and yes I know you're taking the piss out of those people

[Syegfryed]

Reminder that Arthas having any frost powers is a pure WoW retcon/change, but that was before people decided/realized blizzard doesn't care about their lore as much as angry internet nerds do

Indeed, Arthas having the Frostmourne was pure a wow retcon/change

[AOL Instant Messenger]

I think we should. They definitely went back to their source with Shadowlands on how to expand and redefine the universe rules, forces and our understanding of it all.

I simply doubt Blizzard writers have the capacity for much profundity. Talking about complex philosophical concepts like the Watchmaker proof is pretty advanced, but I don't know if they'll execute it well.