Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Lady Atia]

Let me put it this way then. Imagine we are looking at a Legion 2.0 situation where we go to loads of old zones getting updates on zones.
Which zones are more likely to be reused? Northrend, or the Shadowlands?

Broken Shore is relevant, Nightborne are close to it, same with Highmountain.
Kul Tiras and Zandalar are relevant, we have importabt characters that are from there, the fleets of the Alliance and Horde come from there.

The Shadowlands will likely never be relevant again. So why have we spent so much time on it? Why couldn't we have spent time in Northrend learning what the deal with Yogg-Saron was? Or what the Nerubians are up to?
Both those plot points are much more likely to be relevant in the future.

I'm quite sure we will revisit the Shadowlands in a future "full cosmic war" expansion. I doubt we will never see any of these characters again, especially *if* we get access to covenant allied races down the line.

[Makabreska]

Let me put it this way then. Imagine we are looking at a Legion 2.0 situation where we go to loads of old zones getting updates on zones.
Which zones are more likely to be reused? Northrend, or the Shadowlands?

Broken Shore is relevant, Nightborne are close to it, same with Highmountain.
Kul Tiras and Zandalar are relevant, we have importabt characters that are from there, the fleets of the Alliance and Horde come from there.

The Shadowlands will likely never be relevant again. So why have we spent so much time on it? Why couldn't we have spent time in Northrend learning what the deal with Yogg-Saron was? Or what the Nerubians are up to?
Both those plot points are much more likely to be relevant in the future.

Again, creating new continent in a different plane of existence allowed Blizz to introduce completetly new environments with new flora, new fauna, new sentient races and their politics, completely new stories. It is really not hard to grasp that this thing is so much more attractive and marketable to players than Northrend 2.0. Blizz gets it, I get it, you don't. Because you want revamp just too much.

[Nyel]

Again, creating new continent in a different plane of existence allowed Blizz to introduce completetly new environments with new flora, new fauna, new sentient races and their politics, completely new stories. It is really not hard to grasp that this thing is so much more attractive and marketable to players than Northrend 2.0. Blizz gets it, I get it, you don't. Because you want revamp just too much.

Uhm, where exactly did they achieve this in Shadowlands?

New environments, new flora, new fauna - where? Revendreth and Maldraxxus definitely not. You could argue about Ardenweald and Bastion, but not even then these zones or their wildlife is something completely out of the blue or new for WoW. It’s definitely not.

There’s a difference between beautiful looking and aesthetically well designed zones (which are all of the Shadowlands zones minus Maldraxxus and Maw) and something innovative, new or fresh.

Heck, I think Mists of Pandaria achieved basically the same you want to attribute to Shadowlands and it solely did so by just giving us the Asian vibe that wasn’t in the game before.

[Raetary]

The argument about otherworldlyness is laughable when Bastion is the only zone that has any semblance of it.

None of the other zones are particularly alien or out of the ordinary.
So they might as well have sticked to Northrend.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Tbh if Alexstrasza gets a new model it would be Asses of Galakros

Genius

[Syegfryed]

The biggest mistake of SL, other than things out of its control like Covid, will always be how it decided to be set solely in the Shadowlands. Not primarily, not partially, but solely in the Shadowlands.

We could have set the expansion in Northrend with brief forays into the Shadowlands, leaving the mystery more or less intact and getting more focus on characters we know and care about.

There is such giant problems and mistakes in shadowlands to pin down that i rly can't say what is the big or smaller.

[Harbour]

Tbf, i would never step my foot on Shadowlands once it become legacy leveling content. The zones mostly suck, especially without flying. It has the pinnacle of "theme park zone" vibe.
Hope, 10.0 zones would be more open and less tryhard-designed.

[huth]

I don't know where you got the idea that Azeroth being an old god was ever part of any hypothesis, as that shit has been obvious since at least vanilla (Uldaman, AQ, etc.).
And there is zero evidence regardless of what hypothesis is taken as likely; that's the point of a hypothesis about fiction.

Which leaves us with the similarity of name and concept between Azatoth and Azeroth, leading to this particular hypothesis about her awakening being cataclysmic.

That's not how hypotheses work. If there's no evidence, no hypothesis is more or less likely. Similarities in name are not evidence, even in stories. An author may even make names similar precisely to mislead you. Azeroth as a name has been around since before the whole story even remotely got to these proportions and Titans where introduced to it, aka WarCraft: Orcs and Humans.

You're supporting a conjecture based on nothing whatsoever. That's not even enough for a hypothesis.

[Sondrelk]

Again, creating new continent in a different plane of existence allowed Blizz to introduce completetly new environments with new flora, new fauna, new sentient races and their politics, completely new stories. It is really not hard to grasp that this thing is so much more attractive and marketable to players than Northrend 2.0. Blizz gets it, I get it, you don't. Because you want revamp just too much.

They could have done exactly the same in Northrend, just have the Shadowlands come to us instead of us going to the Shadowlands.
Maldraxxus is just the Plaguelands aesthetic with a green tint. Ardenweald is a blue version of the Emerald Dream.
While Revendreth and Bastion do not have s direct analogue it isn't exactly like they brought much beyond the aesthetic anyways, the Venthyr are just vampire high society, and Bastion is just a vaguely "holy" afterlife.

The Maldraxxus aesthetic could be a complished with Azjol-Nerub and friendly scourge (aka Ebon Blade). Ardenweald could be easily replaced with Emerald Dream stuff, Revendreth could be replaced with the already established San'layn, and Bastion would honestly be better if we never got to see it and instead just heard about it.

Have the souls of the Shadowlands invade Azeroth changing the zones slightly, then leave the Maw as the only part of the Shadowlands we actually see, the rest being vaguely alluded to by NPCs.
This would keep the Shadowlands mysterious, and let players wonder what is actually supposed to happen after you die, the only thing we know for sure being that there are different areas, and that souls are not normally supposed to go to the Maw.

- - - Updated - - -

There are things that couldnt be done in Northrend for sure. But if we are discounting being extremely literal and demanding the Ember Court set in Revendreth, then what exactly are we missing?
Would the game suffer immensely if we instead had the Vrykul Feast set in Howling Fjord where we get quests to invite Tuskarr instead?

[Fahrad Wagner]

They could have done exactly the same in Northrend, just have the Shadowlands come to us instead of us going to the Shadowlands.
Maldraxxus is just the Plaguelands aesthetic with a green tint. Ardenweald is a blue version of the Emerald Dream.
While Revendreth and Bastion do not have s direct analogue it isn't exactly like they brought much beyond the aesthetic anyways, the Venthyr are just vampire high society, and Bastion is just a vaguely "holy" afterlife.

The Maldraxxus aesthetic could be a complished with Azjol-Nerub and friendly scourge (aka Ebon Blade). Ardenweald could be easily replaced with Emerald Dream stuff, Revendreth could be replaced with the already established San'layn, and Bastion would honestly be better if we never got to see it and instead just heard about it.

Have the souls of the Shadowlands invade Azeroth changing the zones slightly, then leave the Maw as the only part of the Shadowlands we actually see, the rest being vaguely alluded to by NPCs.
This would keep the Shadowlands mysterious, and let players wonder what is actually supposed to happen after you die, the only thing we know for sure being that there are different areas, and that souls are not normally supposed to go to the Maw.

- - - Updated - - -

There are things that couldnt be done in Northrend for sure. But if we are discounting being extremely literal and demanding the Ember Court set in Revendreth, then what exactly are we missing?
Would the game suffer immensely if we instead had the Vrykul Feast set in Howling Fjord where we get quests to invite Tuskarr instead?

This 100%. The Shadowlands were much more alluring with their aura of mystery still on. Now that it's gone... it's lost part of its charm, even more so since this answers the question of Death in the Warcraft universe.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

This is getting out of hand.

[Fahrad Wagner]

This is getting out of hand.

What is dear?

[Makabreska]

What is dear?

Childhood obesity in USA, of course.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Childhood obesity in USA, of course.

Ah, absolutely.

[Sondrelk]

I tend to find that even with the bad expansions, some form of nostalgia eventually shows up. When we're a few years beyond Shadowlands, its zones are mostly empty, and there isn't any pressure to level up to 60 and join the Shadowlands grind, then I could see myself enjoying the occasional, slow foray into one of its zones.

Shadowlands is probably the meatiest we are ever going to see in regards to legacy content. For a new player starting in 10.0 or later Shadowlands will be an absolute cornucopia of cosmetics. Everything from rares, unique themed armor and titles are available, and for the most part all easily accessible within a single currency system.

Once we get to the end of the expansion and the anima grind becomes even easier the cosmetics grind should be extremely easy and varied with only a few exceptions.

[Ersula]

This 100%. The Shadowlands were much more alluring with their aura of mystery still on. Now that it's gone... it's lost part of its charm, even more so since this answers the question of Death in the Warcraft universe.

Which is why they had to replace that mystique with the First Ones. And those of you thinking we're going to immediately seek them out & study their machinations, perhaps someone with a forum handle that references them, really don't understand their purpose in the story.

[ExiHext]

Shadowlands is probably the meatiest we are ever going to see in regards to legacy content. For a new player starting in 10.0 or later Shadowlands will be an absolute cornucopia of cosmetics. Everything from rares, unique themed armor and titles are available, and for the most part all easily accessible within a single currency system.

Once we get to the end of the expansion and the anima grind becomes even easier the cosmetics grind should be extremely easy and varied with only a few exceptions.

I'm really curious how they gonna treat all the covenant stuff next expac. What about the class and signature abilities? Do they stay and only work in SL? Do they take them away? My guess: all gets scrapped. Are there any signature abilities that are mandatory to access something? Like venthyr teleport for example? Can't think of something for kyrian except the dungeon goliaths and I guess they will become irrelevant.

[Sharby]

I have to admit, the idea of Azeroth being a giant loli with some kind of Fifth Element-esque crap bores me to tears. I rather detest the idea of Azeroth just turning out to be a petulant and fetishistic "le innocent" character—that, and a mix of that personality and power teeters on the edge of Mary Sue-dom even by the standards of the Le Big Destined Heroine Who Will Totally Defeat the Void. I much prefer the idea of her being a cruel and militant war goddess—it does make sense, given what's happened on her surface. I always pictured her as being a highly concise, calculating figure who – if she ever spoke directly to the player – would be very sinister in nature, her requests communicated by wordless and context-less emergence of quest objectives which ought to be extrapolated to be her commands.

My particular fantasy was always that you'd be fighting some kind of enemy of Azeroth and, when you finally get to hear what Magni was hyping up as a beautiful sequence of imagery or a "song", it's only communicated to the player in a very subtle way to convey Azeroth's real personality—you'd just get the objective "procure incendiaries".

I think that would be cool actually, was thinking about it last night. It would be cool to see her frustrations and anger over being the victim of countless assaults start to manifest in different ways. But if they took this route she would still have to pivot towards lawful good. But I think they can achieve both with careful writing.


That being said it would feel kinda crappy if she was mean to us (the PC,) considering how many times we've stuck our necks out for her.


Maybe the "grounded" expansion could just be us doing janitorial work accross Azeroth while she calms down after so many conflicts and regains her strength. Could even have Magni return to the earth 'cause he's no longer needed and we just get glimpses of communication with her sporadically so we don't get another expansion of him talking so much.

[Lady Atia]

They could have done exactly the same in Northrend, just have the Shadowlands come to us instead of us going to the Shadowlands.
Maldraxxus is just the Plaguelands aesthetic with a green tint. Ardenweald is a blue version of the Emerald Dream.
While Revendreth and Bastion do not have s direct analogue it isn't exactly like they brought much beyond the aesthetic anyways, the Venthyr are just vampire high society, and Bastion is just a vaguely "holy" afterlife.

The Maldraxxus aesthetic could be a complished with Azjol-Nerub and friendly scourge (aka Ebon Blade). Ardenweald could be easily replaced with Emerald Dream stuff, Revendreth could be replaced with the already established San'layn, and Bastion would honestly be better if we never got to see it and instead just heard about it.

Have the souls of the Shadowlands invade Azeroth changing the zones slightly, then leave the Maw as the only part of the Shadowlands we actually see, the rest being vaguely alluded to by NPCs.
This would keep the Shadowlands mysterious, and let players wonder what is actually supposed to happen after you die, the only thing we know for sure being that there are different areas, and that souls are not normally supposed to go to the Maw.

- - - Updated - - -

There are things that couldnt be done in Northrend for sure. But if we are discounting being extremely literal and demanding the Ember Court set in Revendreth, then what exactly are we missing?
Would the game suffer immensely if we instead had the Vrykul Feast set in Howling Fjord where we get quests to invite Tuskarr instead?

All of that would be horrible. No thanks, I like it to actually see the Shadowlands, no need to "keep them mysterious", that's super boring. WoW's strength was always to show us, not to imply ...

[Nyel]

All of that would be horrible. No thanks, I like it to actually see the Shadowlands, no need to "keep them mysterious", that's super boring. WoW's strength was always to show us, not to imply ...

Sargeras as a threat worked for 25 years before we got to see him and he was still a household villain - due to his abscence - wasn’t he?