Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[therewillbedragons]

https: i.imgur.com RygruSc.png

alright y'all, i drew a beautiful map from memory for you. please don't nft it.

a - players arrive here after intro scenario
b - grove that is the source of power green dragons + wrathion are using to heal land. players turn in their AP here. there is a dungeon here where players defend the grove against waves of enemies, black morass style.
c - main town
d - XL wyrmrest tower with torghast boss rush style choose your next room scenario
e - caverns of time style place where first raid happens. starts outdoors and moves inside for second half. infinite dragonflight are the enemies.
f - zul'farrak style outdoor troll dungeon.
g - mountain with nexus/oculus style structure built on it. will be a dungeon.
h - giant scar that runs from edge of town, across tower, into blue zone. neterstorm/twilight looking stuff.

didn't get a good luck at red dragon zone. its separated from the main landmass.

don't know what's in the big island off east cost.

see my previous post for overall summary of expansion

[The Stormbringer]

Regarding music, can we all at least agree that the "Music Industry" as a whole needs to burn in a fire? The amount of greed is monumentally staggering, and the artists usually only get a tiny cut at best. No way in hell do the companies who help produce and distribute music deserve that much of it. Plus you've got all the DMCA shit where they'll steal all the money you make from videos online if you have a five second clip of one of their songs...

[masilya111]

WoW has good general themes and zone musics, but there is no boss songs.

The Illidan fight in BC was the first boss music (Black Temple - Illidan). I love it. It is very classical (because Russel Brower composed it IIRC) and it captured danger very well. There's not much choir and I prefer it that way. Sometimes choir can be too over the top for me. It's used parsimoniously in WoW so I enjoy it in the game.
I do miss however the latin choir for how epic it sounds. We used to hear in WarIII and the first music composed for WoW for promotional material, trailers and the cinematics from WarIII (Call to Arms, seasons of war, cinematic suite...).

[Osmeric]

My issue with the Jailer is that, given the state of the game, I want him to win.

[Nyel]

In short, the storytelling in Shadowlands is akin to reading solely the final chapter of a book.

Maybe I'm on the contrary here, but I think the Shadowlands story in 9.0 was better than what they developed it into in 9.1 and 9.2. So the story became subsequently worse instead of better.

[micwini]

https: i.imgur.com RygruSc.png

alright y'all, i drew a beautiful map from memory for you. please don't nft it.

a - players arrive here after intro scenario
b - grove that is the source of power green dragons + wrathion are using to heal land. players turn in their AP here. there is a dungeon here where players defend the grove against waves of enemies, black morass style.
c - main town
d - XL wyrmrest tower with torghast boss rush style choose your next room scenario
e - caverns of time style place where first raid happens. starts outdoors and moves inside for second half. infinite dragonflight are the enemies.
f - zul'farrak style outdoor troll dungeon.
g - mountain with nexus/oculus style structure built on it. will be a dungeon.
h - giant scar that runs from edge of town, across tower, into blue zone. neterstorm/twilight looking stuff.

didn't get a good luck at red dragon zone. its separated from the main landmass.

don't know what's in the big island off east cost.

see my previous post for overall summary of expansion

ahahahahahahaha. First "leak" I see someone using paint. Kudos mate.

[Raetary]

snip

Since you predicted CFP functionality and i like your consistency, i shall put my trust in you.

Do not disappoint me.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I think the Campaign System has failed and they need to reevaluate everything in the next expansion. If they do another Campaign System with the same problems as we have now "3 weeks with burst lore info and then 6-8 month dry spells" its a really horrible way to tell a story and it also really shouldn't be the case with how vast Warcraft as a universe is.

(I genuinely think the reliance of the Zovaal Cinematic this expansion being good is extremely bad for the company and they should consider figuring out a different strategy because if the Zovaal Cinematic is bad then they've just created the motherlode of meltdowns and if they do the obvious fan pandering stuff then they gain the "WOW IS SAVED!1!1" narrative.)

They should use Renown for their Weekly retention instead of the Campaign and either scrap story entirely or find a new strategy that doesn't involve telling the story in such a destructive manner.

Then again their writing chops are pathetic and the way they write dialogue, emotes and events for the campaigns its just so blatantly obvious that they need better resources and also better access to the game in a capacity where they can actually do their job.

Also they really need to not make footnotes of the lore extremely important for people to understand the lore. But, that's another issue entirely and it will play out during the final Cinematic I bet.

[Shadochi]

Question; what does Taylor Swift have to do with it?

If you @ Shadochi three times in the mirror tonight you will know the answer.

This sounds like fun! @Shadochi

Yes, we must summon @Shadochi

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Is he in the UK?

Sailor Twyft reporting for duty.

Taytay is basically the embodiment of the hype thread with people spamming the thread with taylor hype gifs during announcement/when we get new alpha/beta builds.

[Revamp Man]

This. I really don't get why people are hating on Shadowlands lore just because it's something new and fresh. Yes, they totally should have teased it with breadcrumbs through Legion and BfA, similiar to what they did with N'Zoth. But besides that it's still awesome and I like to see more of the cosmic planes (but than again, I also liked the opportunity to literally raid the circles of hell in D&D).

For me it’s mostly because the lore relies on retcons for literally everything

Uther being there requires his soul to be in no less than 3 pieces and for him to have given into hate for arthas when in wrath he was kinda chill about it.

All souls get judged by the arbiter except ones bwonsamdi can steal or ones that are “touched by valor”

The eternal ones are stronger than Titans but we killed one and the other was almost killed by Anduin.

The covenants are enemies for some reason even though the eternal ones are close.

The dreadlords serve the jailer and went to every cosmic force and then gave frostmourne and the helmet to Sargeras who had it put on Azeroth which led to the lich king and Sylvanas who went for revenge and died in ice crown where she made the deal with the jailer but she also goes and makes a deal with helya so her people will never die but then burns the tree because she is sending the souls to the maw but we were told it was a strategic choice because she realized the alliance wouldn’t surrender.

The jailer needed all the sigils but needed the maw walker to get the NecroLord sigil even though he had their leader and spies in his forces. Not to mention the moment he started taking them we could have immediately made more.

The fractured souls don’t make sense because when frostmourne is shattered all the souls are released.

And then Uther says the jailer is cunning and deceptive but the dude literally told Sylvanas exactly what he was going to do and she waited until after he won to do anything

[Ersula]

snip

This. Except the Jailer just presented this bad system & said he wanted to fix it: Yeah she had no reason to trust him, but also there's no alternative. The helya stuff makes no sense, unless she was trying to get herself some agency by ensnaring Eyir. But what is interesting is when you learn the Valkyr were always working for the Jailer it makes sense Sylvanas is in a terrible situation (Which someone, Anduin, acknowledges exactly 1 time in game) where she wanted to die, these chicken women will raise her whether she wants it or not & she has to just hope that the Jailer's new reality isn't just one of pure subjugation, which he says isn't, until the moment of victory, he reveals that was his intention all along. For years she was just living with this crap situation: Warning people won't do any good. And if she disobeys she gets tortured in the maw forever.

It'd be a good plot....if the story didn't treat Sylvanas like she made all these bad decisions. She literally had no choice for any of this, but the story establishes it, ignores it as a mitigating factor. Instead opting for some weird split-personality magic realism contrivance you'd see in a third-rate genre tv show.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

The fractured souls don’t make sense because when frostmourne is shattered all the souls are released.

Not all souls are fractured and obviously the Jailer took some of the souls that he wanted since well he was connected to Frostmourne. Not hard to follow.

The Illidan fight in BC was the first boss music (Black Temple - Illidan). I love it. It is very classical (because Russel Brower composed it IIRC) and it captured danger very well. There's not much choir and I prefer it that way. Sometimes choir can be too over the top for me. It's used parsimoniously in WoW so I enjoy it in the game.
I do miss however the latin choir for how epic it sounds. We used to hear in WarIII and the first music composed for WoW for promotional material, trailers and the cinematics from WarIII (Call to Arms, seasons of war, cinematic suite...).

Sylvanas's fight music is pretty decent. Not that I expect oscar worthy stuff.

[draugril]

Maybe I'm on the contrary here, but I think the Shadowlands story in 9.0 was better than what they developed it into in 9.1 and 9.2. So the story became subsequently worse instead of better.

Eh. It was an excessive exercise in world building. No real story there outside of the barest of bones to move us from set piece to set piece. So there was potential there, if they wanted to actually tell a story now that they’ve established the setting. Instead, it’s just more world building for the sake of it, which makes all the prior setup pointless in retrospect.

There’s a story, here. But it’s being told as an encyclopedia entry rather than an actual character-driven narrative.

[Revamp Man]

Not all souls are fractured and obviously the Jailer took some of the souls that he wanted since well he was connected to Frostmourne. Not hard to follow..

Why keep the soul of a random paladin and elf?

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I think the World Building is great beyond the whole Sci-Fi Artificial Universe thing. The problem is that a Rebellion Against God storyline is not taking place and instead Danuser has decided to award the title of slaying the Jailor to be the most blatant "Haha, you're a moron for not comprehending the meaning of the title" while also creating a backup Zovaal-button for later on when they want to reset the Universe.

Again,I just think Danuser didn't tell the story at all. The World Building is there and the themes and concepts are interesting, but it is not told to the general audience at all and well it doesn't help that the World Building isn't shown to the general audience either. So you have the problem of both telling and showing the basic of the Expansion. (Who knew Mystery Boxes couldn't be excessively used?) Even then, I would argue that the in-game story + canon books tells a really weird story that 99.99% of the audience are not interested in and I don't know how they rectify that.

Shadowlands is far more consequential in its lore compared to Warlords of Draenor. While Warlords of Draenor was a black hole, its' implications weren't fully manifested until the Mag'har Scenario. But, it did plant the seeds for the revelations to come in Shadowlands. Shadowlands however is beyond a black hole, its' a TON 618 sized hole of just insanity and literally not a single theorist wants to explain the lore because they will literally be crucified for expressing the lore as told with the material in-game and the canon books.

[Ersula]

Why keep the soul of a random paladin and elf?

As demonstrated, apparently so they will behave badly.

But then you have to ask, if their judgement is adled in this way, why are they responsible for their actions? And then also, why give them such a good perspective when they're doing it? This contrivance both undos the entirety of Sylvanas' characterization since she was under weird soul magic influence since Warcraft 3, but also all of Devos' points, the things that convinced Uther, were good points. That never gets awknowledged.

Did the Jailer hope Uther just might turn into a homicidal maniac or was he just lucky that the Archon would be so stupid to ignore all the signs of his manipulation for millennia?

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Some of you should read the Grimoire to have your heads pop off. It complicates the whole Afterlife Judgment situation to the nth degree.

Not to speak of the whole Gavel of the First Arbiter sending you to a "Afterlife" you truly deserve.

Honestly, I still don't get why they just had to overcomplicate that beyond the whole "SEE THE MAW WASN'T SUPER HELL BECAUSE IT WAS A KINGDOM IN THE PAST" and they could've done that in a much easier to make logical sense.

[Ersula]

My writer's room theory is that they had to have the Jailer convincing Sylvanas the afterlife was broken in WoTLK, but it not actually being broken until we killed Argus, created this situation where they needed the soul gem thing for any of this to make sense. That he had part of her soul in his possession in the maw is the only way any of this works. Even if it throws ALL the characterization up to this point into a big blender.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I mean this Universe has a worse problem with the Waystone because it means that the First Ones deliberately created a flawed system and also put in a failsafe via the Fatescribe Prophecy to make sure that Zovaals' rebellion failed. (This gets more overcomplicated if the flavor text on the HoA/Worldkiller Iris is tied to the Prophecy. If it is then that means Void planned this all along to win over their mortal enemy of Death. Anyways lmao enjoy that fuckery rabbit hole)

Not to speak of the overcomplication when it comes to the Void potentially showing up in the Zovaal Cinematic which at that point, have fun. (not to speak of the massive flavor text pandering going on right now beyond the Worldkiller Iris to indulge the Horny Void community)

Again, it all goes to the most nerdy batshit theory of Simulation Theory and I don't think that the general audience will enjoy knowing that the fictional universe they've loved since children is literally just a science experiment for greater beings.

Unless Danuser and his Team plans to literally create a ridiculous Gurren Lagann style + Rebellion Against God Narrative which doesn't seem to be the case as he's decided to go with the whole "The Fracturing" concept of the Universe as being a potential back up plan to Fortnite the entire Warcraft Universe if thing continues to go south for the game.

It doesn't matter though. I think this expansion has basically done irreparably damage to the canon for anyone but the smallest of percentiles of the fanbase who do indulge in this madness. I am enjoying this solely because I think it is fascinating to see how much control and influence Danuser has taken and how much he is free to do whatever he wants without any reprimanding or criticism while continuously not explaining any of it in a shown manner and instead just telling us that this is the new canon of the universe.

[AngerFork]

I think the Campaign System has failed and they need to reevaluate everything in the next expansion. If they do another Campaign System with the same problems as we have now "3 weeks with burst lore info and then 6-8 month dry spells" its a really horrible way to tell a story and it also really shouldn't be the case with how vast Warcraft as a universe is.

I'd argue this is less about the campaign system itself & has more to do with the slow pace of content we've had. If we had the Legion 77-day content release window, a 9-chapter weekly campaign would finish with two weeks remaining to catch up before we move onto the next bit of the story. But if they can't keep a steady content cadence, I agree.

My writer's room theory is that they had to have the Jailer convincing Sylvanas the afterlife was broken in WoTLK, but it not actually being broken until we killed Argus, created this situation where they needed the soul gem thing for any of this to make sense. That he had part of her soul in his possession in the maw is the only way any of this works. Even if it throws ALL the characterization up to this point into a big blender.

What gets me is this whole thing that the system had to be physically broken as opposed to systemically broken. I really liked the arguments about it being systemic...the titans form you a certain way to follow specific instructions, you can't control what corrupts you, then you are judged based on your actions that may not have been in your control. That totally made sense for Sylvanas & why she'd see the system as broken. After all, she had no control over losing a part of her soul & then being forced to serve Arthas against her will. Her likely afterlife destination likely changed from Ardenweald to Revendreth or the Maw due to what others did to her...so if she had simply portaled to Oribos, shot the Arbiter with an arrow, & portaled out, I totally would've understood & it would've felt real.

But no, we have to have this Argus-forced death hit because we just had to overdo everything.