Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Raetary]

Interesting. The Obsidian Sanctum, Ruby Sanctum, being part of the dragon isles never occured to me.

It would be a ridiculous revelation, making all the set up of a "long lost dragon homeland" and Wrathions passion project completely pointless.

[Ersula]

Yes, they go this entire time talking archly and without contractions of course, about how Anduin will tell them how to resist being dominated without ever once asking the Primus, who invented domination magic and is on the phone at all times. You expect this to work out fine and it's just the plot being retarded as ever, but instead, he doesn't know shit, exactly as a rational person would expect and they go to the Primus to ask him to tell them, which of course he does, since it's his whole field:

Seems like they were trying to cover up plot holes as they were writing it. They've been implying unlike the weapons, rune magic & necromancy, which Zovaal got from the Primus, the domination magic was all his: Oops except how does that explain the helm? Uh uh Zovaal's power is solely in memories, because he used to be the Arbiter, Domination magic belongs to the Primus. Then why didn't they ask him about it ages ago? No reason we just got to level up our peeboop robot. (I'll give the, if he got the secrets of domination from the Primus, how did he 'dominate' the Primus in the first place, plot hole a pass)


And don't get me started on what they're supposed to do if the next arbiter goes evil too.

[Verdugo]

And who thought adding a weird ass looking lens flair was a good idea?

Are we sure its not coffee stain from someone putting their mug on it?

[Super Dickmann]

In that context, I can KINDA buy it as "While you were locked up, you see any actual object used or some kind incantation that led to him Dominating you? Did he say anything sensitive about it?" moreso than "Do you have the secret cure, Good Wonderful Sir?"

Still a goofy line.

It's obviously not Danuser's intent, given his preferences, but this whole clownshow works a lot better if it's just Sylvanas contriving some bullshit to give an excuse not to have the lady who's brother she MC'd kill her on the spot:

Sylvanas: Anduin may be the key. If we can save him from--
Jaina: You dare speak of freeing him after all you have done?
Uther: Sylvanas held the mourneblade that bound him. Her presence may help free Anduin from the Jailer's grasp.

"You totally need me guys, cause you need Anduin to not be MC'd, right? "

@Varodoc is also right. I defy you to read Sylvanas's lines in the raid and, without knowing they're from her, guess who they're coming from. Melting into the Hivemind is a one-way street. She may have survived in body, but she died in spirit and will now be telling us about love and peace before being punted into turbo hell to save wiggly ghosts.

@Sondrelk

I do think he works vastly better as a character in SL than BFA, in as much as I actually find him enjoyable in his SL scenes whereas I've written a manifesto's worth on how much of a pox he was in BFA. This is largely because he is actually not moping or making poor decisions that others pay the price for and nobody acknowledges but directly suffers personally. It's why 10.0, if it doesn't make the wise move of shelving him and the rest for a very long time, has its success with him hinge on how much they can continue carrying this forward. A lack of personal accountability and cost is the first part of what made Anduin such a narrative nuisance, the other being the lockstep alignment with him that all characters we're meant to like and reality itself do to ensure he's fine.

@Ersula

The Bald Man's powers have always come from him repurposing the Primus's methods. "He's turned his chains into a weapon, etc." But your core point is true. They are going the Highlander 2 route of having the characters point out their own stupidity but its the plot that's making them stupid so there's no points to be gained.

[Ersula]

We knew the Afrasiabi era was going to be rough when the first thing he gave us as head writer was "Brown Eyes Sylvanas"

[Deln]

We knew the Afrasiabi era was going to be rough when the first thing he gave us as head writer was "Brown Eyes Sylvanas"

this just in, Nicole Kidman to play Silvanus in next wow movie!

[Rendruth]

f lic.kr/p/2n4HHK1

[Vakir]

The Alex Afrasiabi that was also Creative Director in WoD and Legion as well, plus didn't draw that?

People shouldn't give more power to a name than necessary when they aren't the sole reason behind the inconsistencies with a character the whole team trashed.

[Ersula]

f lic.kr/p/2n4HHK1

Warlords of Draenor 2

[Ansi]

He probably meant "secret" in the sense that they haven't been tested at all or even seen on PTR.

exactly

could also be tied to storytelling

[Ersula]

The Alex Afrasiabi that was also Creative Director in WoD and Legion as well, plus didn't draw that?

People shouldn't give more power to a name than necessary when they aren't the sole reason behind the inconsistencies with a character the whole team trashed.

He approved it. So he gets responsibility. And he wasn't the top of the story food chain in Legion: Stockton & Chilton are credited as brainstoming the "Garrosh/Legion Era." BFA was all Afrasiabi's brainchild.

[Raetary]

We knew the Afrasiabi era was going to be rough when the first thing he gave us as head writer was "Brown Eyes Sylvanas"

I doubt the writing even mentioned her eyes.

It's just an artistic decision which looks weird in context.
Probably for the sake of having her look more human, which was quite unnecessary imo.

[Vakir]

He approved it. So he gets responsibility. And he wasn't the top of the story food chain in Legion: Stockton & Chilton are credited as brainstoming the "Garrosh/Legion Era." BFA was all Afrasiabi's brainchild.

Nah, it's just a convenient way to escape from bad quality for simps. Sorry. Also, he's still directly credited as Creative Director, and I trust that more than you. Which is a low bar.

Stop giving so much power and influence to an abuser. It's toxic to allow them so much credit. How could you. I am literally shaking rn, smh.

Also hilarious to believe that a franchise like Warcraft that has almost always put so little stock into story and continuity would actually have their directors look at every product. This was 100% the work of a bunch of hyper-crammed artists given extremely unfair deadlines. The sole quality metric was "does it look cool?" because that is the only metric Blizzard has known since sometime in 2003.

[Ansi]

A year ago they actually planned to release the Sylvanas book on the 22th of February. That’s patch day. Is everything going accordingly to plan?

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/ne...r-pre-purchase

[Vakir]

A year ago they actually planned to release the Sylvanas book on the 22th of February. That’s patch day. Is everything going accordingly to plan?

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/ne...r-pre-purchase

Nah, that's the second revision. It was originally November of 2021. Probably a coincidence.

[Palapop]

Is anyone excited about seeing Arthas in 9.2 cinematic (after Anduins defeat)?

[Vakir]

Is anyone excited about seeing Arthas in 9.2 cinematic (after Anduins defeat)?

I'm more terrified than excited, frankly. Let the damn corpse be unbeaten for once. If he even shows outside the encounter.

[Ersula]

Nah, it's just a convenient way to escape from bad quality for simps. Sorry. Also, he's still directly credited as Creative Director, and I trust that more than you. Which is a low bar.

Well tell this guy, he thinks Afasiabi was actually writing scripts:

I doubt the writing even mentioned her eyes.

I said head writer just because that's not an actual title at Blizzard, and expansions always have multiple Creative Directors but for a video game a lot of those never even touch the story. The biggest tell is Danuser describing himself as super-low on the story totem pole, as "loremaster' effectively an editor working on quests & cutscenes but has suddenly been credited in interviews as "In-Charge of the story" since Afrasiabi was fired: Despite his job title never changing.

- - - Updated - - -

Is anyone excited about seeing Arthas in 9.2 cinematic (after Anduins defeat)?

I'm excited to laugh really hard if he doesn't appear in it. I know we fight him but knowing this is blizzard there's no guarentee he'll be in the cutscene.

[Vakir]

Well tell this guy, he thinks Afasiabi was actually writing scripts.

Better than hiding one's head in the sand on someone's title in two other games based on hearsay?

But yeah. Blizzard's art or even most of their overall content pipeline isn't actually verified all that often by their higher ups unless it's probably very specific instances. I'm still reminded of the whole kerfuffle over Ysera's eye status in Cataclysm that necessitated a beta thread on it. To say nothing of map inconsistencies and just various assets overall. And of course, our friend Falstad, who I'm certain is dead.

[Sondrelk]

Is anyone excited about seeing Arthas in 9.2 cinematic (after Anduins defeat)?

More intrigued than excited, but generally I am quite positive towards his return. The Uther/Arthas storyline in SL has mostly been done pretty damn good from the start, and even if that meant an absence of Arthas outside flashbacks, that still shows a level of restraint on the side of the writers to not overexpose Arthas.