Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Archmage Xaxxas]

I find it a bit disingenuous to say that the Shadowlands logo was believable and plausible from the get go.
...
I’m too lazy.

Well since you're throwing around big words like disingenuous, I'm not too lazy:

You'll see here my only trepidation around the Shadowlands/Bastion leak was actually the "ENTER THE SHADOWLANDS! MEET THE NOBLE KYRIAN" etc font. I felt that them using the same front from BfA's ads/posters could be a lead into thinking it was fake.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...1#post51766972

Then you can see how I'm highlighting that even the SL logo is better than the BfA logo, and again only doubting that font from the vertical ad, and actually implying the high quality of the logo could also lend itself as a possibility towards being faked. ala talented tumblr artists etc.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...1#post51765512

But hey! Let's quote YOU instead, with things like this, that totally contradict the points you're trying to make now:

This is something I agree with. They look very similar.

The next problem of the leak is the similarity to FFXIVs Shadowbringers. It has exactly the same vibe to it, being called Shadow... yet the expansion is centered around an abundance of light and brighter color schemes.

That Shadowlands leak works as a mock up of Shadowbringers and some kind of joke leak, Blizzard wouldn’t put out something as similar to FFXIVs recent expansion like that.

or this could apply to EoD eh?

Look at all the fan made expansion concepts. Yes, there are people that would spend 5, 10 or 20 hours making things like that.

[huth]

Wow expansion names are not exactly a perfect font of endless creativity either. We had one called Wrath of the Lich King, and another called Mists of Pandaria, neither of which made much sense beyond the Lich King and Pandaria parts of their titles.
Empire of Dragons is pretty much about the same. It sounds cool enough, it flows well in conversation, and it emphasises the dragon part.

They still had a clear connection to WoW, though. Empire of Dragons is the height of generic fantasy title.

[Makabreska]

Wouldn't this "logo marketing" thing only be really valid if it's all they give us? But instead we always get an overall reveal that presents features and sets the tone. So this logo-selling-expac thingy is vastly overstated. Besides, now many people really stare at it for more than 5 sec, when it's pattern has been the same for 17y?

[Catastrophy349]

I'm not working for Blizzard in any way but I was lucky enough to be shown the new expansion announcement trailer and I got a few infos about some features that were shown in the video. Here's what I saw :

It begins with a shot of the Maelstrom and Wrathion explaining that Azeroth has been suffering for ages and always had protectors in the aspects. While he speaks, we are shown some images of the last few expansions starting with destroyed Silithus, then azerite wounds and Icecrown's shattered sky.
He then rants about how dragons have failed their duty as guardians of Azeroth, leading the mortals to do their job. He then claims that the dragons always had the tools to fix the issues on Azeroth, but were too scared to end up like him, hinting as another dragon (the effect of the video wants you to think Deathwing but it's actually Galakrond as revealed by the end of the trailer).

The Dragon Isles then appears on the world map, above the Eastern Kingdom with the infamous "New continent : Dragon Isles". Wrathion continues his speech, saying that forgotten powers lies sealed by secrets on the Island. While he speaks, we get some panoramics of the dragon isles and a better view at its creatures.

First we are shown a forest with clear white trees with orange / red leaves. It really has an Eversong vibe but in HD, with more flowers and the structures doesn't match the elves style. Most of the creatures here are known. We are shown red dragons walking in colored flowerfields, HD hawkstriders (the BE mount, not dragonhawk) and some HD gnolls wearing dragon bones armor (I actually loved them they don't look as silly as the vanilla/warcraft 3 gnolls). Some Ardenwealdlike butterflies with flower as wings and a few beasts we already know with a new skin such as shoveltusk or ents. A clip also featured creatures ressembling the mage tower druid form but were in a much greener environment. So I guess those were red and green dragon places (didn't asked).

Then there is this snowy crystal filled area looking with pools of mana / crystals. I really had a winter Aszuna/Suramar vibe here but with more weird / complex form and magical structures like in the Nexus. There's also a lot of translucent shape, half summoned looking with arcane looking colors. None of the creatures here are known to my knowledge. There was a big ugly manalfiend (like a mix of the second boss of Nighthold and abominations), some tiny crystal robots and small goofy froglike dudes with googles (they are not an allied race).

Last thing showed is a big desert with large dust beams going up as if time was reversed and falling down between some known structures (a human town hall from WoD and a big HD forsaken ship lost in the middle of the desert). Then we're shown some ghostly / infinite looking places (like the void-touched ground in 8.3 or the mawtouched area in the Maw) with some really gorgeous looking animals seemingly corrupted by the infinite dragonflight.
While all of these landscapes are shown, Wrathion keeps talking lore stuff, saying there are unexplored land of mysteries. I don't remember the exact words, but he talks about the power falling on the wrong hands. We are then shown some cultist who are not the Twilight Hammer, but actually the Wyrmcult from Blade's Edge and Sabellian is their leader (but you won't notice it on the trailer tho he has his own model. He just looks like Wrathion but older with orange clothes and greyed hairs).

After that, the usual title cards and fast sequences happens :

•The first one is the draconic bond. From what I was said, it will be covenant 2.0 fused with Heart of Azeroth's essences (trailer show all 5 dragons flight like they did with covenant) but instead of choosing just one, you will choose the order you unlock them (and unlock your campaign). Each one of them will bring their cosmetic and abilities (borrowed power) but you will have to choose one main dragonflight between each flights that will give you more power and a new active ability you will be able to swap freely. It will work like azerite essences where you can choose a few spell who are the same for every classes, but each spell will have a special effect based on the dragonflight empowering it.
•New class / race combos (night elf paladin and normal orc priest were featured in the trailer).
•Level cap raised to 70
•New mount customization. They displayed a dragon with different saddle, armor and with its color changing.
•New character customization with a bulky forest troll (in HD) and broken draeneis (both were males in the trailer but they will have female variant. Can't wait for female bulky troll).
•New glyph system but it's actually just a transmog table for spells.
•New "Temporal Anomaly" feature. It's the Island Exploration / Torghast of the expansion. Didn't had much details, outside of it being randomly generated content bringing you to various places and eras of Warcraft. It should bring multiples types of gameplay, and not just a dungeon crawling experience like Torghast. You might end up in the middle of a battlefield against two random armies and choose a side to gain a bonus for your run, or simply hunt with NPC adventurers for Hogger.
•New dungeons, raids, monsters and battlegrounds. The usual stuff.

Wrathion then concludes, saying it is now our duty to save our world, and to make sure the mortals will ensure Azeroth's security. When he's talking, there's a view of a big hole in Dragonblight. It is indedd Galakrond's fall. I'm pretty sure Blizzard will go with something like "It was a 4d chess where someone played the forces of death to claim Galakrond's soul".

And title card to the expansion : World of Warcraft : Age of the Mortals.

That's it. Video was about 4 minutes long which is the longest for an expansion trailer. No new races and no new classes but from what I was told most of the features we know will be improved. Also timewalking will leave the weekly event rotation to become its own league with different dungeons each season. Expect interviews in the coming weeks for 8.2 and a big announcement in a month...

This "leak" is very cool because it is told very differently. We get the perspective of someone who saw the "10.0 expansion trailer" instead of the typical 3 pages of text with story elements, or very minimal effort into the features. My issues with this leak lie with the contents (seems rather small/dull). I would be very disappointed if this is real due to, in my opinion, feeling that 10.0 needs to be HUGE for both Blizzard and the community.

I know many will say that this "leaker" has awful grammar and punctuation; however, reading this from a non-bias perspective, this person could simply have seen the video and told us their thoughts (does not matter at all whether or not they have good grammar skills or not).

For the record, I do NOT believe this "leak" to be true.

[Holdodlig]

Empire of dragons logo is too low res to be real imho. It's a "clear" image but when you look at other logos they have a really high res.

[micwini]

I'm not working for Blizzard in any way but I was lucky enough to be shown the new expansion announcement trailer and I got a few infos about some features that were shown in the video. Here's what I saw :

It begins with a shot of the Maelstrom and Wrathion explaining that Azeroth has been suffering for ages and always had protectors in the aspects. While he speaks, we are shown some images of the last few expansions starting with destroyed Silithus, then azerite wounds and Icecrown's shattered sky.
He then rants about how dragons have failed their duty as guardians of Azeroth, leading the mortals to do their job. He then claims that the dragons always had the tools to fix the issues on Azeroth, but were too scared to end up like him, hinting as another dragon (the effect of the video wants you to think Deathwing but it's actually Galakrond as revealed by the end of the trailer).

The Dragon Isles then appears on the world map, above the Eastern Kingdom with the infamous "New continent : Dragon Isles". Wrathion continues his speech, saying that forgotten powers lies sealed by secrets on the Island. While he speaks, we get some panoramics of the dragon isles and a better view at its creatures.

First we are shown a forest with clear white trees with orange / red leaves. It really has an Eversong vibe but in HD, with more flowers and the structures doesn't match the elves style. Most of the creatures here are known. We are shown red dragons walking in colored flowerfields, HD hawkstriders (the BE mount, not dragonhawk) and some HD gnolls wearing dragon bones armor (I actually loved them they don't look as silly as the vanilla/warcraft 3 gnolls). Some Ardenwealdlike butterflies with flower as wings and a few beasts we already know with a new skin such as shoveltusk or ents. A clip also featured creatures ressembling the mage tower druid form but were in a much greener environment. So I guess those were red and green dragon places (didn't asked).

Then there is this snowy crystal filled area looking with pools of mana / crystals. I really had a winter Aszuna/Suramar vibe here but with more weird / complex form and magical structures like in the Nexus. There's also a lot of translucent shape, half summoned looking with arcane looking colors. None of the creatures here are known to my knowledge. There was a big ugly manalfiend (like a mix of the second boss of Nighthold and abominations), some tiny crystal robots and small goofy froglike dudes with googles (they are not an allied race).

Last thing showed is a big desert with large dust beams going up as if time was reversed and falling down between some known structures (a human town hall from WoD and a big HD forsaken ship lost in the middle of the desert). Then we're shown some ghostly / infinite looking places (like the void-touched ground in 8.3 or the mawtouched area in the Maw) with some really gorgeous looking animals seemingly corrupted by the infinite dragonflight.
While all of these landscapes are shown, Wrathion keeps talking lore stuff, saying there are unexplored land of mysteries. I don't remember the exact words, but he talks about the power falling on the wrong hands. We are then shown some cultist who are not the Twilight Hammer, but actually the Wyrmcult from Blade's Edge and Sabellian is their leader (but you won't notice it on the trailer tho he has his own model. He just looks like Wrathion but older with orange clothes and greyed hairs).

After that, the usual title cards and fast sequences happens :

•The first one is the draconic bond. From what I was said, it will be covenant 2.0 fused with Heart of Azeroth's essences (trailer show all 5 dragons flight like they did with covenant) but instead of choosing just one, you will choose the order you unlock them (and unlock your campaign). Each one of them will bring their cosmetic and abilities (borrowed power) but you will have to choose one main dragonflight between each flights that will give you more power and a new active ability you will be able to swap freely. It will work like azerite essences where you can choose a few spell who are the same for every classes, but each spell will have a special effect based on the dragonflight empowering it.
•New class / race combos (night elf paladin and normal orc priest were featured in the trailer).
•Level cap raised to 70
•New mount customization. They displayed a dragon with different saddle, armor and with its color changing.
•New character customization with a bulky forest troll (in HD) and broken draeneis (both were males in the trailer but they will have female variant. Can't wait for female bulky troll).
•New glyph system but it's actually just a transmog table for spells.
•New "Temporal Anomaly" feature. It's the Island Exploration / Torghast of the expansion. Didn't had much details, outside of it being randomly generated content bringing you to various places and eras of Warcraft. It should bring multiples types of gameplay, and not just a dungeon crawling experience like Torghast. You might end up in the middle of a battlefield against two random armies and choose a side to gain a bonus for your run, or simply hunt with NPC adventurers for Hogger.
•New dungeons, raids, monsters and battlegrounds. The usual stuff.

Wrathion then concludes, saying it is now our duty to save our world, and to make sure the mortals will ensure Azeroth's security. When he's talking, there's a view of a big hole in Dragonblight. It is indedd Galakrond's fall. I'm pretty sure Blizzard will go with something like "It was a 4d chess where someone played the forces of death to claim Galakrond's soul".

And title card to the expansion : World of Warcraft : Age of the Mortals.

That's it. Video was about 4 minutes long which is the longest for an expansion trailer. No new races and no new classes but from what I was told most of the features we know will be improved. Also timewalking will leave the weekly event rotation to become its own league with different dungeons each season. Expect interviews in the coming weeks for 8.2 and a big announcement in a month...

Yesyesyesyesyesyes.... sees the title: "lol no". rip

[Gloriandus]

Blizzard is not gonna use a shoddily cut out, low-res image of a logo concept for their media.

Yeah, at least make the effort and create a logo without the backlit title which looks like captured mid animation.

Oh boy...


THIS argument...

Well, I've never felt so insulted. Blue respond plz.

[Makabreska]

Jeebus guys, learn 2 snip!

[Raetary]

World of Warcraft : Age of the Mortals.

"Lets take one of Alexstraszas quotes, butcher it by adding a pointless article, and use it as the title"

[Archmage Xaxxas]

And title card to the expansion : World of Warcraft : Age of the Mortals.

I too, just farmed Dragon Soul yesterday. *thumbs up*

[Kiivar86]

They still had a clear connection to WoW, though. Empire of Dragons is the height of generic fantasy title.

Cataclysm didn't.

[Teriz]

Again;



Why is everyone having a hard time connecting the void to dragons?

[KOUNTERPARTS]

"Lets take one of Alexstraszas quotes, butcher it by adding a pointless article, and use it as the title"

Exactly my thought. Biggest red flag on the play of this leak.

- - - Updated - - -

Wait a second...


...Age of the Mortals


...Wrath of the Bolvar


... !

[Catastrophy349]

Exactly my thought. Biggest red flag on the play of this leak.

TONS of red flags. However, I really like the fact that this person talked about a "trailer" they saw.

[Holdodlig]

Again;



Why is everyone having a hard time connecting the void to dragons?

You can connect dragon to everything, just like elf or troll

[Hitei]

Again though, this is pretty blatantly applying a double standard.
The name Shadowlands being related to death is fine, but so is Empire of Dragons being related to dragons.
If Empire of Dragons ends up being real and we have voidflight dragons and some old god leanings then the logo will make perfect sense. Noone would sit here and argue that it clearly doesn't fit since dragons are not perfectly analogous to void because by that point the theme and link would be obvious.

It's not a double standard, what are you even talking about?

If you hand a bunch of pictures of logos to someone who has never played wow ever, and knows nothing about lore, and you black out the names entirely and ask them to guess on the theme for each expansion, they are going to look at the Shadowlands logo and see skulls and ghostly light and go "skeletons? ghosts?"

It's not about "can I make up some elaborate excuse for why it might make sense, it's about basic, entry level marketing and design. You do not want your audience to have to invent a reason. You do not want them to have to know what a "Voidflight Dragon" looks like to understand that the logo frame is made up of Dragons. I don't need to have touched Shadowlands, or ever seen any part of it, to know that it's an expansion about death.

The Oribos theme is not copper and skulls. It's orange/blue with geometric shapes. And the Maw theme is not copper and skulls either, it's gunmetal grey and spikes. The SL logo doesn't actually fit the theme of Shadowlands terribly well outside the name and the skulls, but despite that we accept it because we kinda get what it's going for.

The Orbios theme is copper accented pseudo-celtic geometric patterns made of ribbon-y shapes. The maw theme is gunmetal grey and spikes with skulls. The Logo is a combination of the two. I do not even know what you are trying to argue here, this just seems like a weird Strawman, because the whole point is that you don't need to know about either zone theme to still get the basic idea that skulls and spirit light = DEATH expansion. It pulls its colors and shapes from things in Shadowlands, but it still recognizable on a basic interpretive level.

There is no reason to assume the Empire of Dragons logo wouldn't work on the same logic.

It literally does not. Because your explanation for EoD here is that they pulled colors and shapes from things in EoD, and then completely forgot to include that basic recognizability allowing for simple interpretation.

No it isn't heavily themed on dragons, but neither was the BfA logo themed heavily on either faction war nor old gods.

Hello? Yes it was. Did you even read my post? It is a war expansion that takes place largely in the seas, with a logo that is armored and has a water background.

The EoD logo is well made, looks interesting, and has a strong theme. Whether it fits the expansion would be impossible to say without knowing what the expansion actually is.
Could absolutely have nothing to do with the void, in which case the logo is a bit weird. Or it could have loads to do with void, or a specific dragonflight, or look that way because the developers literally had no idea how to make a dragon themed logo and just decided to go for a more void themed one and don't stress too much about

It is mediocrely made and has NO THEME AT ALL. Which is why, in this very same post, one sentence later you are saying "It could be X, or could totally not be X, or it could be Y, or it could be that the devs had no idea how to make a logo and just made a bunch of random shapes with void colors." I don't understand how you can very clearly understand and even type out the problem here: that it totally lacks any concrete, discernable theme to the point of potentially being the devs not understanding design and just doing whatever--and somehow also claim it's totally got a strong theme and there's no problem.

[Makabreska]

You can connect dragon to everything, just like elf or troll

I mean, Void Dragons have been a thing since at least Cata. Not exactly same thing, but close enough.

[Jokubas]

And title card to the expansion : World of Warcraft : Age of the Mortals.

This "leak" is a good example of an expansion that doesn't really have anything I'm personally hoping for, but has enough little things to be exciting to me anyway. If we don't get ogres or a new class, I hope we at least get something like this.

[Teriz]

You can connect dragon to everything, just like elf or troll

Yeah, but that type of dragon was introduced at the tail end of BFA, right after the fight with N’zoth.

[Archmage Xaxxas]

Yeah, but that type of dragon was introduced at the tail end of BFA, right after the fight with N’zoth.

The model, sure.

I've been fighting Twilight Drakes since Wrath and Cata though, simply with a retextured 2004 drake model instead of a 2019 unique Boss-Fight model turned mount.

edit: I honestly don't think anyone is struggling to relate void and dragons, it's more than people fatigued from it considering the recent depiction you just linked.

We'd like some Dragons without Void, if possible. Ergo, they/we don't -want- to relate them so that EoD is 'backed up.'