Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Alanar]

Vagueness is good for world-building. Not for the main narrative. And certainly not for the motives of your central characters.

I 100% agree. Maybe I didn't say it very well, but I was talking about arcs and naratives from characters ye. Sylvanas being the prime example, quickly followed by the Jailer.

When you build mystery in the background, it expands your world. When your main story is a complete mystery, it just results in people not being able to get invested.

This is it really, the problem is they don't really do enough of that worldbuilding. Where are the small tidbits and introductions to new things to get us interested? I don't remember we got real hints or trails this expansion that would peak our interest in whats OUT there.. besides maybe the cosmic stuff, which wasn't really that interesting and that is mainly because of shadowlands. Pre- shadowlands a lot of stuff was still mysterious in a way. I don't think they tackled it very well and left people guessing for way to long. BFA prepped us with this stuff, who knew..

[draugril]

I 100% agree.

This is it really, the problem is they don't really do enough of that worldbuilding. Where are the small tidbits and introductions to new things to get us interested? I don't remember we got real hints or trails this expansion that would peak our interest in whats OUT there.. besides maybe the cosmic stuff, which wasn't received that well so far.

Shadowlands was an inversion of good storytelling.

The personal stories of our characters, they kept mysterious and disjointed, whereas the cosmic nature of the universe, they expounded upon ad nauseum. They shrunk the scope of their universe by detailing the mechanics of the universe and simultaneously failed to tell a good story because they treat character development as some sort of J.J. Abrams mystery box reveal instead of the bread and butter of the narrative.

[Alanar]

Shadowlands was an inversion of good storytelling.

The personal stories of our characters, they kept mysterious and disjointed, whereas the cosmic nature of the universe, they expounded upon ad nauseum. They shrunk the scope of their universe by detailing the mechanics of the universe and simultaneously failed to tell a good story because they treat character development as some sort of J.J. Abrams mystery box reveal instead of the bread and butter of the narrative.

It felt like we were constantly missing pieces of the main narrative, more then it should. But when this happens like you said to the main narrative and also on top of that does that to our main characters it indeed becomes a disjointed mess and it ends up in stuff that just don't make much sense. It's especially sad when previous arcs or stories were brought in, ruining that at the same as well. It's honestly just a really sad story in the end for us players. People who played since the warcraft 3 days and seeing how things unfold like that and (more, lawsuit etcetc).. it feels weird this time and because of that I am not excited about the next patch for the first time.

Maybe it's because of the scope and what they are trying to tell this time around. It was weird how we as players factor in and went to Bolvar like that. The first part of our journey was just off to me. The shadowlands is a big deal to all those who know about it and is effectelive also our afterlive. So its a pretty big story, it's just that the execution and making sure that the Jailer is a very, very big dude. The dude who fooled all previous villains. I mean think about that.

[Pheraz]

People say there's no such thing as a wrong opinion, but I'd say they're wrong because this dogshit take of yours is clearly what I'd call a TRASH AND WORTHLESS OPINION.
+ ur old, get over it.

WoW has some great soundtracks, but the quality has quite clearly not been the same since MoP.

FF14's soundtracks from Heavensward and forward all have depth and meaning to them, you'd understand this if you played the damn game.
Imagine thinking your opinion matters when you've not even put time into something.

Sorry but what the hell are you talking about?
Sure azerite was horrible and corruption too but the music was top notch as was the zone/level design in BFA.
Also age is no argument for anything except being faster on the olympics. There are enough idiotic people in every age. I know enough old people that are stupid, uneducated or just plain slow thinking as I know younger people.
So please, no matter what discussion you want to be part of, just take this age argument into your trash argument corner and think about anything else.

Holy smokes. Rarely read such strange and just bad posts in a row

[draugril]

Maybe it's because of the scope and what they are trying to tell this time around.

That's precisely it. A villain of the scope of the Jailer is not an expansion villain. He needs to be a franchise villain. The first seeds needed to be planted well before we ever encountered him. He should have been directly referenced during WotLK, with hints here and there over the coming years to tie him into things like the Dreadlords and the Burning Legion and the like. Shadowlands should have been the confirmation of years of fan theories. A catharsis for the playerbase, rather than an overwhelming info dump of retcons.

[Alanar]

That's precisely it. A villain of the scope of the Jailer is not an expansion villain. He needs to be a franchise villain. The first seeds needed to be planted well before we ever encountered him. He should have been directly referenced during WotLK, with hints here and there over the coming years to tie him into things like the Dreadlords and the Burning Legion and the like. Shadowlands should have been the confirmation of years of fan theories. A catharsis for the playerbase, rather than an overwhelming info dump of retcons.

I couldn't have said it any better, I think this is exactly why it just didn't work. Sargaras worked because he has been in the background for years, seeds were planted long ago and we even knew hes name. The jailer as powerfull and important he may be, was simply just unknown to us, throwing him in and making him THE guy behind everything, besides the first ones just didn't make much sense and still feels cheap to this day. There was just no good buildup. That is why he feels like a character who was made up yesterday and that sucks when it's the villain who's behind every other plot almost.

The moment Sylvanas was made warchief, there should have been very clear hints that there was SOME ONE behind her, doing some things. We should have had a better explanation on many things, for example why Nathanos looked different and her whole persona somewhow shifted without the need of a book in general. Hell, whole off BFA would have been better. We should have known beforehand that Sylvanas had some kind of aura or powers when she faced Saurfang. Atleast it would help players to somewhat understand how she became so powerfull slowly over time. Why didn't we get an ingame scenario or flashback explaining to us beforehand why we should care about the jailer and what hes plans are in ssome shape or form. We were so left in the dark, that we just gave up caring. .
The dreadlord story was the only good part of it, but their alliances with death also kinda came out of nowhere, but that one worked a little better. Probably because we knew the dreadlords and they had this shroud over them everytime we faced them and Denathrius just ended up being pretty cool.

[draugril]

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

[Baedril]

I couldn't have said it any better. I think this is exactly why it just didn't work. Sargaras worked because he has been in te backround for years, seeds were planted long ago and we even knew hes name. The jailer as powerfull and mighty as he is, was just unknown to us, throwing him in and making him THE guy behind everything, besides the first ones just didn't make much sense and still feels cheap to this day. Why didn't we get an ingame scenario or flashback explaining to us why we should care about this guy and what hes plans are. The dreadlord story was the only good part of it, but their alliances with death also kinda came out of nowhere, but that one worked a little better. Probably because we knew the dreadlords and they had this shroud over them everytime we faced them and Denathrius just ended up being pretty cool.

I'll never understand why they just throw away their main ~hidden~ villains like this, when they got rid of Sargeras they didn't think "oh let's create a new big villain that we keep in the background", which they could've 100% used n'zoth for with all the scheming he's done over the years, or even introduced the jailer for. Nope, we just go immediately kill the next villain we meet! I think the Jailer could've been great, if we just didn't meet him in the literal opening scenario of the expansion.

[Makorus]

I'll never understand why they just throw away their main ~hidden~ villains like this, when they got rid of Sargeras they didn't think "oh let's create a new big villain that we keep in the background", which they could've 100% used n'zoth for with all the scheming he's done over the years, or even introduced the jailer for. Nope, we just go immediately kill the next villain we meet! I think the Jailer could've been great, if we just didn't meet him in the literal opening scenario of the expansion.

I mean, that's literally what they did with Sylvanas.

[Alanar]

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

That's one way to put it.

[Lahis]

This. That song is god awful. And who in his right mind would want lyrics during a boss fight? That's super immersion breaking haha.

Best boss musics have lyrics.

Better yet, the song ramps up during the fight. It starts with instrumentals, phase 2 adds lyrics and in the last phase the chorus is blasting at full force.

[Alanar]

I'll never understand why they just throw away their main ~hidden~ villains like this, when they got rid of Sargeras they didn't think "oh let's create a new big villain that we keep in the background", which they could've 100% used n'zoth for with all the scheming he's done over the years, or even introduced the jailer for. Nope, we just go immediately kill the next villain we meet! I think the Jailer could've been great, if we just didn't meet him in the literal opening scenario of the expansion.

Ye, he could've been great if we knew about him at least since Legion. Hes opening gig was also kinda hilarious and made fun of pretty much instantly. Don't forget: NoThInG EsCapes THE MAW!!!! ---> portal Oribos. He also threw baine of the tower and hes still alive! way to go! There was never really a sense of danger when he was around or when you heard something about him.

Damn, lets not start about N'zoth or Azshara... the only good thing left of those 2 is that Azshara is a least alive and brewing.
There is some talk about N'zoth still being alive, but honestly hes shime, hes mystery and hes magic is just gone. That is also one way to do it, N'Zoth had a decent build up, but the name dropp sadly took to long, but ended in a horrible execution and a wasted opportunity to have the black empire, the walking city and that whole gig to be fleshed out. The mystery there is also gone and I don't care about it anymore as I did more before that. Shame.

[Raetary]

NoThInG EsCapes THE MAW!!!! ---> portal Oribos

A portal that he, conveniently for us, completely ignores for some reason.

[RoshuanEU]

Best boss musics have lyrics.

Better yet, the song ramps up during the fight. It starts with instrumentals, phase 2 adds lyrics and in the last phase the chorus is blasting at full force.

With all these discussions about that music in FFXIV, people forget this gem of a song. I absolutely love it:




And this one right here (which is instrumental) is good too:



That being said, I love WoW music too. And to mind comes the theme from Legion:

[Makorus]

A portal that he, conveniently for us, completely ignores for some reason.

I mean, the game explicitly states that the waystone has been dormant since forever, and that for some reason our presence activates it.

It's literally only Maw Walkers (i.e players) that can use it.


About the music discussion:

Lyrics in boss music can make it better, but FFXIV more often than not completely misses the mark and just sounds cringy and embarassing. The example that started the argument is actually a very good case of that because it's just laughably bad.

[Alanar]

A portal that he, conveniently for us, completely ignores for some reason.

I mean..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4epEptpwtpA
Start bit at: 2min

You probably seen him, but this says everything. The neck grabbing was also on point and had me lol for real.

[Raetary]

I mean, the game explicitly states that the waystone has been dormant since forever, and that for some reason our presence activates it.

It's literally only Maw Walkers (i.e players) that can use it.

Ok.

So?
It's an ancient piece of teleportation tech that we, the one person who's able to utterly obliterate the Jailers plans, can use to get out of the maw whenever we please.
Instead of safeguarding it so we are trapped in the maw if we enter it, he just leaves it unattented in the open space.

[NikolaiShade]

That's precisely it. A villain of the scope of the Jailer is not an expansion villain. He needs to be a franchise villain. The first seeds needed to be planted well before we ever encountered him. He should have been directly referenced during WotLK, with hints here and there over the coming years to tie him into things like the Dreadlords and the Burning Legion and the like. Shadowlands should have been the confirmation of years of fan theories. A catharsis for the playerbase, rather than an overwhelming info dump of retcons.

Honestly, the same (more or less) plot of SL and even the Jailer's plan, in some form and shape, could have been presented as the Dreadlords masterplan. Blizzard could have gone away with it presenting all inconsistencies as simply different covert agents pursuing the same goal with different methods, Sylvanas could have been decieved by some undercover Dreadlord posing as an agent of free will from the realm of death, and finally all the "Jaina is a Dreadlord" theories could have been come to fruition (partially) with the final reveal about the Dreadlords being behind almost all of WoW history.
On one hand you have an already estabilished group of enemies known for their cunning plans, beloved protagonists of many fan theories (something Blizzard akwnoledged see HotS Dreadlord Jaina), on the other you have the Jailer, a newly introduced enemy you are selling as the real baddie behind even Sargeras.

[Dhomeli]

Today is the day.

It’s beautiful.

On-topic - I assumed this week was a bust since for so many expansions patch announcements were consistently 14+ days before.

But when someone pointed out they announced 9.1 release on June 17, only 12 days before its release on June 29, maybe today will be the day?

https://www.bluetracker.gg/wow/topic...-live-june-29/

[Lahis]

That being said, I love WoW music too. And to mind comes the theme from Legion:

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