Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Catastrophy349]

I have a question for everyone.

If Elune is an Eternal One of the Gardens of Life, did she still create the Prime Naaru? Is it just going to be that Khadgar's theory was wrong and the Tears worked on Xe'ra's core for some other reason?

I'm not really answering your question and instead using your quote to ask an additional question: What if the next expansion has nothing to do with Dragons and is about Elune, Tyrande as a major focus, and some other stuff? Yay or nay? I know a lot of folks here want the dragons!

[LordKharon]

Got the news a bit late (playing GW2 preparing for the new expansion later this month)... 9.2.5 is officially a thing now. Does anyone still believe in 10.0 in 2022?
Personally i dont see it. 9.2.5 will probably release early summer. 10.0 beta after that, then 6+ month of beta with big christmas break, so 10.0 ready for release in spring 2023... so long away

[Jokubas]

I'm not really answering your question and instead using your quote to ask an additional question: What if the next expansion has nothing to do with Dragons and is about Elune, Tyrande as a major focus, and some other stuff? Yay or nay? I know a lot of folks here want the dragons!

It's a theory I've presented before. I think it's notable that Elune had dialogue for the first time ever this expansion, her identity as an Eternal One of the Gardens of Life is now established, and the infiltration of Life is the only one in the Dreadlord book we don't know what it's referring to.

And speaking of the Dreadlords, them clearly having plans beyond the Shadowlands and mostly getting away alive in this expansion (even stealing Denathrius out from under us), makes them a major loose end to me on their own.

[Darkarath]

Got the news a bit late (playing GW2 preparing for the new expansion later this month)... 9.2.5 is officially a thing now. Does anyone still believe in 10.0 in 2022?
Personally i dont see it. 9.2.5 will probably release early summer. 10.0 beta after that, then 6+ month of beta with big christmas break, so 10.0 ready for release in spring 2023... so long away

It depends. Maybe 10.0 is not a typical expansion. They can change the format and release earlier something different and build upon that.

[Catastrophy349]

It's a theory I've presented before. I think it's notable that Elune had dialogue for the first time ever this expansion, her identity as an Eternal One of the Gardens of Life is now established, and the infiltration of Life is the only one in the Dreadlord book we don't know what it's referring to.

And speaking of the Dreadlords, them clearly having plans beyond the Shadowlands and mostly getting away alive in this expansion (even stealing Denathrius out from under us), makes them a major loose end to me on their own.

Good points you bring up. Elune FINALLY making her appearance has to have some significance. Denathrius getting away, again, more significance. As for the Dreadlords, we will be fighting Mal'ganis and his partner (but we don't know what will happen since it's not on PTR). Maybe they will get away, maybe there will be some interesting dialogue/RP during the fight encounter. Could be cool.

[Teriz]

I've given up on "South Seas." Most of those places were visited in some form or another via BFA. I know a lot of folks (well, mostly Teriz) talk about an Undermine expansion. But I think if you asked Blizz, they'd say that story is closed as of THE MOTHERLODE!.

I find this to be a strange argument considering that people believe that we're still going to have an Emerald Dream expansion after we dealt extensively with the Emerald Dream in Legion. We hung out in the Dreamgrove, transversed the Emerald Dreamway, and dealt directly with the Emerald Nightmare. I'd think that story is definitely closed, yet people are still stating that it's going to be in the upcoming expansion.

Meanwhile, we think Undermine's story is "finished" because of a dungeon called MotherLODE that had nothing to do with the lore behind Undermine....

[guro-tchai]

I have a question for everyone.

If Elune is an Eternal One of the Gardens of Life, did she still create the Prime Naaru? Is it just going to be that Khadgar's theory was wrong and the Tears worked on Xe'ra's core for some other reason?

well, she's an 'upstart goddess'. she's on a trip to collect all powers - and maybe she's so useless because she has been trapped in the process.

[micwini]

World of Warcraft: The Cosmonauts of Elunor

Only thing missing is a logo.

- - - Updated - - -

[QUOTE=Catastrophy349;53579064]

With the amount of zones they are doing right now, linear. Leveling story in Legion and BFA was incoherent. It was slightly better in BFA because the 3 zones on both sides culminated into 1 questline. I still it lacks some oof moments. I found SL leveling better than BFA and Legion the first time around. Not so much for repeats tho. I'd like a world revamp where we use a lot more zones to level in. That makes for a bit more room so you could start in 1 zone, then do 3 in any order after, then 2 in any order after, then 1 to culminate or something. The same way as you'd have bosses in raidwings.

- - - Updated - - -

I would love to see a linear storyline. However, at the end of it, I would like to see a zone similar to Suramar that we unlock more and more over time with new stories, etc. Lots of stuff to do. A culmination of the leveling zones so to speak. The Maw sucked!

I agree, zones like Suramar and Ilse of Thunder were great for that reason.

[Jokubas]

Good points you bring up. Elune FINALLY making her appearance has to have some significance. Denathrius getting away, again, more significance. As for the Dreadlords, we will be fighting Mal'ganis and his partner (but we don't know what will happen since it's not on PTR). Maybe they will get away, maybe there will be some interesting dialogue/RP during the fight encounter. Could be cool.

The thing about the cross-faction instances dragon leak the other day gave me pause, but in general I've actually been losing confidence in a dragon expansion being next. Shadowlands has a few subplots not directly related to Zovaal's plan, but none of them relate to the dragons. We have a dragon in Exile's Reach and Ysera in Ardenwealed, but the former is resolved in its own zone and the latter is tied to the Winter Queen and Tyrande's arc, not its own thing.

[micwini]

Got the news a bit late (playing GW2 preparing for the new expansion later this month)... 9.2.5 is officially a thing now. Does anyone still believe in 10.0 in 2022?
Personally i dont see it. 9.2.5 will probably release early summer. 10.0 beta after that, then 6+ month of beta with big christmas break, so 10.0 ready for release in spring 2023... so long away

Haven't believed in 10.0 in 2022 for a long time now. Beta usually takes 6-8 months. It's februari and we havent even gotten an announcement of the announcement yet

[Soulwind]

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but...

[Sondrelk]

I really am hoping for a lower stakes, Azeroth-centric expansion, ideally with a world revamp to just mostly bum around in old zones helping farmers remove gophers and whatnot.
Mostly though I am hoping we are returning to the Legion style of patch cadence. Not just the clockwork regularity of a new patch every 11 weeks, but also how the raids didnt open before the .5 patch, which meant we had a smoother release of content where the raid came once you were bored with the zones, and a new zone came when you were bored with the raid, and so on and so on.
Releasing both the zone and raid all at once just means you have two or three weeks of loads of content, then 4-5 months of very little new.

All that being said. Shadowlands has been hit so bad by the droughts that I think even a shitty expansion like BfA would be considered great if it at least managed a full 3 major patches and 4 minor patches spread mostly evenly over the expansions lifecycle.

[micwini]

Any sights on the new build? Its getting laterino.

[Marlamin]

Any sights on the new build? Its getting laterino.

Still several hours left in the day, of which the next 3-4 are usual build hours.

[Catastrophy349]

I really am hoping for a lower stakes, Azeroth-centric expansion, ideally with a world revamp to just mostly bum around in old zones helping farmers remove gophers and whatnot.
Mostly though I am hoping we are returning to the Legion style of patch cadence. Not just the clockwork regularity of a new patch every 11 weeks, but also how the raids didnt open before the .5 patch, which meant we had a smoother release of content where the raid came once you were bored with the zones, and a new zone came when you were bored with the raid, and so on and so on.
Releasing both the zone and raid all at once just means you have two or three weeks of loads of content, then 4-5 months of very little new.

All that being said. Shadowlands has been hit so bad by the droughts that I think even a shitty expansion like BfA would be considered great if it at least managed a full 3 major patches and 4 minor patches spread mostly evenly over the expansions lifecycle.

Yeah, I was watching Bellular's new video today and he doesn't even care if the next expac (10.0) is like a solid 7.5/8 out of 10.0. As long as it's good enough. Just can't have another SL.

[Shadochi]

Haven't believed in 10.0 in 2022 for a long time now. Beta usually takes 6-8 months. It's februari and we havent even gotten an announcement of the announcement yet

That is because of the usual slow staggered release of content in alpha and beta. We at the moment have no indicaton how far along development is compared to previous expansion in January/February.

[Catastrophy349]

Any sights on the new build? Its getting laterino.

Only things we know are:
1). Zorbrix tweeted out that a new build should go LIVE tonight
2). PTR is down

[micwini]

That is because of the usual slow staggered release of content in alpha and beta. We at the moment have no indicaton how far along development is compared to previous expansion in January/February.

True. However I reckon they will still need to phase it out like normal because they want to have focused testing. I don't see why the beta for 10.0 would be shorter than any other expac before it. Especially since SL was so slow to release its patches.

[Catastrophy349]

That is because of the usual slow staggered release of content in alpha and beta. We at the moment have no indicaton how far along development is compared to previous expansion in January/February.

It's funny you say that. So many people are saying, "10.0 will come out by the fall. 10.0 will be out by the end of the year. 10.0 won't release until early 2023, or summer 2023, or 2024." At the end of the day, we just don't know how far along they are in development. For all we know, they've been working their butts off and have a decent amount done, or could be the complete opposite.

Personally, I could care less how much they show us at this point. I wouldn't even mind a "teaser" and nothing more until they have more to show. Just tell us it's coming, give us something to look forward to, and most of all, it would create A TON of speculation/HYPE through the forums, twitter, YouTube, Twitch, Reddit, etc. 10.0 info will be on fire!

[Shadochi]

True. However I reckon they will still need to phase it out like normal because they want to have focused testing. I don't see why the beta for 10.0 would be shorter than any other expac before it. Especially since SL was so slow to release its patches.

Yes I agree that it will be gradually phased, however if what I mentioned is the case the gradual releases could fit into a smaller window and not wait for weeks for development to finish on something to release it. 2-3 weeks of testing for 1 leveling zone seems too much, increase the number of beta access and have the leveling zones release over a 1-1.5 month period etc.