Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Nyel]

Still waiting to see where and when Muezhala and Helya come back...

[Hitei]

That's probably the most obvious sign that something got cut. I thought it would take the Jailer at least two patches to get the sigils but he got every single one in the very same patch that plot was introduced in and then we just instantly recreate them lol.

Not really a sign at all tbqh. Blizzard has always frontloaded expansion pacing. You spend an entire leveling experience in Wrath fighting a war to push back the scourge in every zone, then have a party ostensibly because ICC is so dangerous and difficult, after which you just casually walk in the front door because apparently all that needed to be done was get some cavalry over to the entrance.

Cata had an entire leveling experience and parts of two continents about dealing with the Twilight's Hammer and the impending threat of Deathwing, only for us to go on a quick trip to get the Dragon Soul, have Deathwing decide "alright, I'm gonna blow up the planet now", and then be killed all in the span of like 24 hours.

Legion was arguably the most carefully and deliberately paced expansion we've ever seen, and it had a leveling and campaign experience that went through a whole huge ordeal to fight back against the invading Legion and attempt to close their portal beam, after which Illidan was like "nah, lol" and threw a crystal in the air so we could waltz in the Legion's front door and start attacking their high command.

Pretty weird people are so sure that there must have been a whole elaborate thing necessary for us to reproduce the keys to waltz in the First Ones' front door when we have everyone who made them in the first place.

--

Also I'd just like to point out that the whole "battle of Ardenweald was meant to be the next raid!!!" thing is total bullshit. The Legendary torghast armor sets were literally labeled "MAW RAID" in the alpha builds of Shadowlands, every part of of the initial campaigns builds to and points at Torghast, and Ardenweald is by far the most irrelevant zone to the ongoing campaign. Even the Jailer's forces barely care about it and there's absolutely nothing to build to a huge battle there, especially not with Sylvanas' whose entire early storyline is "she's holed up in Torghast torturing our allies and working on something"

[Syegfryed]

Shadowlands cut by 50%
9.1 the raid was originally Ardenweald and the final boss was Sylvanas.
9.2 Torghast raid where Anduin was the final boss
9.3 Zereth Mortis and and the final boss the jailer

Imagine how much story they had to redraw in this expansion.

Im sure it would not end up any better, it would prob end up worse actually.

But yeah this expansion def was cut like wod, imo, for the best.

[therumblings]

Legion was arguably the most carefully and deliberately paced expansion we've ever seen

Man do I really miss the 77 day cycle

[Syegfryed]

Still waiting to see where and when Muezhala and Helya come back...

are you serious?

[Harbour]

How would an Ardenweald raid even make sense.

That one was the most "finished" zone in terms of plot development.

i guess it would have the whole Drust+Mwehzala+Bwonsamdi+Ardenweald bosses.

[Super Dickmann]

That's probably the most obvious sign that something got cut. I thought it would take the Jailer at least two patches to get the sigils but he got every single one in the very same patch that plot was introduced in and then we just instantly recreate them lol.

The most obvious sign of it being cut is that the sigils are never mentioned in the entirety of 9.0. Not once. You know what is mentioned though? The lock on the Maw in Ardenweald that the Winter Queen makes very obvious notice of during your leveling experience yet is dealt with offhandedly in the next patch. The reason the sigils are such non-entities and why having the power of the other Covenants both is quickly reversed and has zero impact on the Jailer's moveset is because they were just a hastily added in contrivance to make up for the loss of a raid that had the double benefit of allowing you to wrap up every zone story in the process.

It's likely that unlike WoD SL had its cut made very early once the pandemic cut into their development cycle which is why the plot we got is, while rushed, fairly coherent and moves from Point A to Point B without too much incident.

[Hitei]

The most obvious sign of it being cut is that the sigils are never mentioned in the entirety of 9.0. Not once. You know what is mentioned though? The lock on the Maw in Ardenweald that the Winter Queen makes very obvious notice of during your leveling experience yet is dealt with offhandedly in the next patch. The reason the sigils are such non-entities and why having the power of the other Covenants both is quickly reversed and has zero impact on the Jailer's moveset is because they were just a hastily added in contrivance to make up for the loss of a raid that had the double benefit of allowing you to wrap up every zone story in the process.

Sanctum isn't about the sigils though, so this logic doesn't really add up.

[Sondrelk]

The most obvious sign of it being cut is that the sigils are never mentioned in the entirety of 9.0. Not once. You know what is mentioned though? The lock on the Maw in Ardenweald that the Winter Queen makes very obvious notice of during your leveling experience yet is dealt with offhandedly in the next patch. The reason the sigils are such non-entities and why having the power of the other Covenants both is quickly reversed and has zero impact on the Jailer's moveset is because they were just a hastily added in contrivance to make up for the loss of a raid that had the double benefit of allowing you to wrap up every zone story in the process.

It's likely that unlike WoD SL had its cut made very early once the pandemic cut into their development cycle which is why the plot we got is, while rushed, fairly coherent and moves from Point A to Point B without too much incident.

The similarities between the plot of WoD and SL is uncanny when you think about the similar pacing issues. Both had a fairly strong beginning middle and end in the sense that you had a solid setup, decent twist, and finally a climactic finale. But both have what feels like a chunk missing in the middle that made the descent into the final patch more natural.
In SL it's how we move at a breakneck speed from meeting the Jailer, the Jailer "winning" and then us stopping the Jailer without a break in the middle to actually learn about what he is doing and why.
And in WoD it's how the Iron Horde goes from continent spanning ultimate force to alone and desperate, within a single patch, and barely even that.

[Super Dickmann]

Sanctum isn't about the sigils though, so this logic doesn't really add up.

Yes, Sanctum works the same way no matter how the Maw is unlocked, ditto the plot beat with the Arbiter. The Arbiter core doesn't have to be a sigil for the Bald Man to aim to reclaim the incomplete part of himself. What the sigils do is allow an easy way to cap off the zone storylines in a way that the Ardenweald lock doesn't.

@Sondrelk

Shadowlands is mostly just badly paced but the story still moves from Point A to Point B. There are no orphaned plot beats. The sigils and their replacement all happen within one patch. There's no situation like when Grom threatens you with pushback, the scene shows you his army and the NPCs tell you he's a big dude who'll wreck you only for him to be coup'd five seconds later in a cinematic. It's better put together than the actually complete BFA because there's none of that nonsense where a confrontation at Thunder Bluff is hyped up only for this to never come up again in 8.2.5. The main Shadowlands victims are the characters who do have their arc shown unlike Grom but with absolutely all meat cut out leaving you with bare bones.

[Nyel]

are you serious?

Sure, because they will return.

[Makorus]

Sure, because they will return.

Bwonsamdi absolutely, he is a fanfavourite.

Helya? They essentially killed her off. No way she will appear again

[Dragon ANX]

Man do I really miss the 77 day cycle

That pace was really amazing

[Nyel]

Bwonsamdi absolutely, he is a fanfavourite.

Helya? They essentially killed her off. No way she will appear again

The Primus banished Helya from the Maw, back to Helheim.

Doesn't sound like she's dead?

[Raetary]

Bwonsamdi absolutely, he is a fanfavourite.

Helya? They essentially killed her off. No way she will appear again

They didn't, they just shoved her back into Helheim.

[Makorus]

The Primus banished Helya from the Maw, back to Helheim.

Doesn't sound like she's dead?

They didn't, they just shoved her back into Helheim.

She's *essentially* dead. We are done with Death-related content. No one cares about Helya. This was her expansion to shine. They are not gonna bring her back.

[therumblings]

She's *essentially* dead. We are done with Death-related content. No one cares about Helya. This was her expansion to shine. They are not gonna bring her back.

That makes absolutely no sense. They brought Illidan back after he was already killed and had a second Burning Legion themed expasnion, why would they keep Helya in Helheim forever and never mention her again? Seems randomly biased.

[Raetary]

She's *essentially* dead. We are done with Death-related content. No one cares about Helya. This was her expansion to shine. They are not gonna bring her back.

They are absolutely gonna bring her back, that's the whole point of banishing her back to Helheim isntead of just making us cut her into pieces.

[Hitei]

Yes, Sanctum works the same way no matter how the Maw is unlocked, ditto the plot beat with the Arbiter. The Arbiter core doesn't have to be a sigil for the Bald Man to aim to reclaim the incomplete part of himself. What the sigils do is allow an easy way to cap off the zone storylines in a way that the Ardenweald lock doesn't.

Right but your contention here is that Ardenweald was intended to be a raid coming before Sanctum right? When what you are using as evidence is literally a single mention (that likely would have been removed if they had changed plans early on), and every other part of all four campaigns involves pushing further into the maw and Torghast, everything about Sylvanas and anduin involves Torghast, and even alpha assets point at the next raid after Nathria being maw-based.

Ardenweald lock is no more difficult than the sigils were. It also doesn't really make any sense as a main arc within the context of the story. The Jailer isn't looking for someone with nature powers that might be able to slip into Ardenweald, he's looking for someone who can sneak into Bastion. Both the Bastion and Maldraxxus efforts of the jailer are in destabilizing Bastion. Revendreth is self-contained, and then Ardenweald is a complete afterthought. Like, effectively all four covenant campaigns, the entire main Bolvar/Oribos line, the Jailer/Sylvanas/Anduin line--basically the whole expansion-- is pointing at either Bastion as the initial "shit is going down" location or Torghast.

Rather than "they managed to completely scrub absolutely everything that pointed towards a planned Battle of Ardenweald besides the one lock line, It makes much more sense that Ardenweald is the hasty contrivance, they just needed some arbitrary thing that is the primary engine for keeping the maw locked up to be tampered with at some point--they didn't write a whole big raid and storyline about it, it was just a McGuffin (like your sigil claim) that could be attacked at any point in a campaign. It wasn't intended to be the next raid, the maw was. Which is why nothing, even Ardenweald's own quest lines, places much importance on the connection. They decided since Maldraxxus and Revendreth are already in enemy hands, and Bastion is already the primary focus of the sigils, they'd toss the "lock" reference at the remaining zone, with every intention of having it dealt with in some scenario/campaign step.

If sigil content was cut and not just poorly paced like all expansions are (when have the good forces NOT "quickly reversed" into being offensive?) What was cut was probably some side content between 9.1 (SoD/Korthia) and 9.3 (Zereth Mortis) with a secondary threat and more elaborate sigil reforging.

She's *essentially* dead. We are done with Death-related content. No one cares about Helya. This was her expansion to shine. They are not gonna bring her back.

She could be full on, flat out dead and it still wouldn't matter all that much. You just had Vashj, Kael and KT come back after 12-13 years of being dead, I dunno why you'd assume Helya getting sent back home is somehow the last we'll ever see of her.

[Makorus]

That makes absolutely no sense. They brought Illidan back after he was already killed and had a second Burning Legion themed expasnion, why would they keep Helya in Helheim forever and never mention her again? Seems randomly biased.

Are you saying that Helya has the same popularity as Illidan? Sure, in 10 years time, when they make another Death themed expansion, she might come back as a leveling dungeon boss.