Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Ersula]

Would make sense if we are getting 10.0 this year. Wouldn't want 9.2.5 and 10.0 Alpha to be tested concurrently, especially considering 9.2.5 will have content that is important to test in a realistic environment.

They have almost always tested a final minor patch of one expansion & the alpha to the next expansion simultaneously. Just a perk of making the Beta & PTR different clients.

My Allied Race sense is tingling because we're mirroring 7.3 & 7.3.5: They'd only be rushing out 9.2.5 if there's an additional pre-order bonus coming with it & if that's the case they would also need to announce the Expansion pre-order before 9.2.5 can be datamined.

[username993720]

Which is why I believe that 10.0 is going to have every feature imaginable; New Races, New Classes, New connected continent (on Azeroth), Revamped Talents, unpruned abilities, Housing, patches on a regular schedule, etc.

New races? You said you don't believe they would add any more races.
Connected continent? Let me guess... Undermine?

[Ersula]

Why?

Because the devs have repeatedly told the audience, directly & indirectly, that Dark Rangers are just undead Hunters. This element is unambiguous: Dark Rangers just aren't unique enough to warrant their own class: But they're more coy about the addition of an undead elf race. Seems to suggest its something they've been planning on adding, but say, not until Sylvanas' big arc(tm) is concluded?

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New races? You said you don't believe they would add any more races.
Connected continent? Let me guess... Undermine?

Yeah there's no reason to think we can't get a new class AND new allied races. Remember Pandaria?

[Teriz]

New races? You said you don't believe they would add any more races.

I don't believe they would, but after giving it some more thought, they probably should. At the VERY LEAST they should remove requirements for allied races. I personally know people who have never unlocked any of them because they don't want to go through the process of unlocking them. Personally, i felt that putting Kul'tirans and Zandalari behind the allied race wall was a cheap tactic. Those races at the very least should have been available from expansion purchase alone.

Connected continent? Let me guess... Undermine?

Or Dragon Isles. The Broken Isles were connected.

[Ersula]

I don't believe they would, but after giving it some more thought, they probably should. At the VERY LEAST they should remove requirements for allied races. I personally know people who have never unlocked any of them because they don't want to go through the process of unlocking them. Personally, i felt that putting Kul'tirans and Zandalari behind the allied race wall was a cheap tactic. Those races at the very least should have been available from expansion purchase alone.

Waiting for 8.1 did feel pretty cheap but if playing the game is too much for people maybe wow just isn't for them. Even now its just one questline to complete. The Kul'tirans & Zandalari questline is longer but they're also more unique. Their rigging & animations are cribbed from each other rather than an existing race. Plus this concept is to make sure the core races still make up a majority of the playerbase.

[Gimlix]

Because the devs have repeatedly told the audience, directly & indirectly, that Dark Rangers are just undead Hunters. This element is unambiguous: Dark Rangers just aren't unique enough to warrant their own class: But they're more coy about the addition of an undead elf race. Seems to suggest its something they've been planning on adding, but say, not until Sylvanas' big arc(tm) is concluded?

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Yeah there's no reason to think we can't get a new class AND new allied races. Remember Pandaria?

Sadly Pandaria was a whole different level development and league on any WoW expansion and i doubt they still got it in them to make stuff like that.
Especially considering most of those devs are long gone. Another legion is possible, but Pandaria, i hope but i doubt.

[Raetary]

I want a new class, preferably ranged with healer spec.

As for races, as much as i would love more of them i'd prefer if they stick to the 24(!) we have right now and just keep on expanding their customization options.

[Nightshade711]

Because the devs have repeatedly told the audience, directly & indirectly, that Dark Rangers are just undead Hunters. This element is unambiguous: Dark Rangers just aren't unique enough to warrant their own class: But they're more coy about the addition of an undead elf race. Seems to suggest its something they've been planning on adding, but say, not until Sylvanas' big arc(tm) is concluded?

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Yeah there's no reason to think we can't get a new class AND new allied races. Remember Pandaria?

I do hope they don’t go the allied race route for next xpac’s race.
I want an actual new core race with a mostly unique skeleton and animations.
Most, if not all allied races are currently just customization options for core races that’ve been given their own racials
Even the Kul Tirans aren’t that unique. They’re a fat upright Orc skeleton with a vrykul skin wrapped around, with the abs removed.

[Ersula]

Sadly Pandaria was a whole different level development and league on any WoW expansion and i doubt they still got it in them to make stuff like that.
Especially considering most of those devs are long gone. Another legion is possible, but Pandaria, i hope but i doubt.

What is this based on? I wouldn't call MoP an exceptionally big expansion nor was it the height of WoW's popularity.

[Teriz]

Waiting for 8.1 did feel pretty cheap but if playing the game is too much for people maybe wow just isn't for them. Even now its just one questline to complete. The Kul'tirans & Zandalari questline is longer but they're also more unique. Their rigging & animations are cribbed from each other rather than an existing race. Plus this concept is to make sure the core races still make up a majority of the playerbase.

The point is that in the past we simply got the new races when we purchased the expansion. Blood Elves, Draenei, Goblins, Worgen, and Pandaren didn't require us to be max-level and go through entire zones and jump through multiple hoops to obtain them. The requirements for Kul'tirans and Zandalari in BFA were ridiculous in comparison to previous new race inclusions. Again, not an issue if you wanted Vulpera or LF Draenei, but for the two new expansion races? Just a really dirty underhanded tactic that really limited access to some players.

[Grimbold21]

We're still pretty much running the same talent system since WoD, which while good, definitely needs some improvements.
.

Tell that to everyone endorsing a philosophy that essentially excused Blizzard from making permanent choices with the talents trees, and instead exported that towards external and temporary systems with choices of the same nature.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I mean as bad as the next expansion might end up, they have WotLK coming which will be massive and make up for that.

And I am 100% sure they will have some expensive and overpriced special bundles, even more than the TBC Deluxe (which, to my shame, I did buy).

I fear classic wrath will be plagued by the same issues as its original incarnation, namely that it has massive hype initially, but the base offering is rather substandard and people quickly dropped out. It then peaks once massively during ulduar, completely crashes during AT and it's trash tier raid and then has a somewhat decent slow burn towards the end. While wrath was the expansion in which the game peaked, it was also the expansion where its momentum reversed; if we are objective about the graph. It was the expansion that no longer could keep people around and let's be real here, classic is pretty much the epitome of raid-logging anyway, since the game has been solved 15 years ago. This already became even more apparent during BC and Wrath will show this even stronger, since they made it alot more accessible than vanilla and BC. Edit: Not to mention this time alot more people did Naxx compared to "the olden days" where it was pretty much still a mystery to many, even by the end of sunwell.

[Gimlix]

What is this based on? I wouldn't call MoP an exceptionally big expansion nor was it the height of WoW's popularity.

The fact MoP was the only expansion to stop WoW decline by around 8M active users. Not only that this expansion had more features combined then last 3-4 expansions.
Not only that they were top tier features. Timeless Isle is still the best end game isle they created to this day.
Not only that Isle of Thunder was proper made zone that even made time gating felt like fun. due the fact all the realm had to join in to unlock it.
200 man Oondasta.

New Class, New Race, Challenge Mode Dungeons, flex raiding, Farm, Pet Battles, Scenarios, Brawlers Guild, Proving Grounds, BMAH, World bosses return, Best Raids since ages since MoP. (ToT, SoO) and the list goes on.

Only people who says that MoP was shit haven't played the expansion at all, it was beloven till the end. (Hated at first then loved) only thing people complained on was the amount of dailies 5.0 had.

WOTLK Being most popular doesnt mean it was the best or the most favourited? Hell if you look at graphs the decline started mid WOTLK and only reason it bounced back to 12M was because Cataclysm was announced. But hey WOTLK best expansion right?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

If they're going to add a race, well Furbolgs. /shrug over Wotlk classic

[Zantera]

I mean as bad as the next expansion might end up, they have WotLK coming which will be massive and make up for that.

And I am 100% sure they will have some expensive and overpriced special bundles, even more than the TBC Deluxe (which, to my shame, I did buy).

I think Wotlk Classic will have hype initially but I think it will die down pretty fast and expose a lot of people to the glaring problems with that expansion, 2 of the worst raid tiers of all time. Naxx will be especially bad now considering a lot of people who played Classic actually got to do Naxx (which wasn't necessarily the case in original Wotlk) so people will have to spend months doing a boring raid they already did before. Ulduar and ICC will probably bring some hype but you also got the god awful Trial of the Crusader sandwiched in between.

[Teriz]

The fact MoP was the only expansion to stop WoW decline by around 8M active users. Not only that this expansion had more features combined then last 3-4 expansions.
Not only that they were top tier features. Timeless Isle is still the best end game isle they created to this day.
Not only that Isle of Thunder was proper made zone that even made time gating felt like fun. due the fact all the realm had to join in to unlock it.
200 man Oondasta.

New Class, New Race, Challenge Mode Dungeons, flex raiding, Farm, Pet Battles, Scenarios, Brawlers Guild, Proving Grounds, BMAH, World bosses return, Best Raids since ages since MoP. (ToT, SoO) and the list goes on.

Only people who says that MoP was shit haven't played the expansion at all, it was beloven till the end. (Hated at first then loved) only thing people complained on was the amount of dailies 5.0 had.

WOTLK Being most popular doesnt mean it was the best or the most favourited? Hell if you look at graphs the decline started mid WOTLK and only reason it bounced back to 12M was because Cataclysm was announced. But hey WOTLK best expansion right?

No lies detected. MoP was really a fantastic expansion. You had morons ridiculing it at first, but over time, people loved it. The love for MoP only intensified during and after the dumpster fire that WoD became, and has gotten really strong after BFA and Shadowlands.

WoW needs a MoP-style expansion, period.

[Sondrelk]

I think Wotlk Classic will have hype initially but I think it will die down pretty fast and expose a lot of people to the glaring problems with that expansion, 2 of the worst raid tiers of all time. Naxx will be especially bad now considering a lot of people who played Classic actually got to do Naxx (which wasn't necessarily the case in original Wotlk) so people will have to spend months doing a boring raid they already did before. Ulduar and ICC will probably bring some hype but you also got the god awful Trial of the Crusader sandwiched in between.

Don't forget the most important part, that being that you can still play most of the salient parts of WotLK perfectly fine today. You miss out on specific talent builds and the Undercity attack scenario, but other than that WotLK is still perfectly preserved to this day, even more so than TBC which at least was still trying to preserve some of the old mentality where raids were only the ending to the game.
WotLK meanwhile is the game that cemented the raid or die mentality that starved the open world for years until Legion brought some of it back.

[therewillbedragons]

My Dragon Senses are tingling this week!

[Cosmic Janitor]

I think the chance that they drop the next expansion announcement in the week in which we get so see the end of SL is miniscule at best. Your senses are probably fried from all the BS leaks here .

[Sondrelk]

No lies detected. MoP was really a fantastic expansion. You had morons ridiculing it at first, but over time, people loved it. The love for MoP only intensified during and after the dumpster fire that WoD became, and has gotten really strong after BFA and Shadowlands.

WoW needs a MoP-style expansion, period.

An expansion with massive timegating grinds and a horribly maligned system that players were shoehorned into? Or maybe the part where the talent system took a massive step away from its RPG roots into being more of an action game?

MoP did lots of stuff really well. But it's hardly the perfect specimen with only minor niggles players make it out to be. The problems were massive.


It's easy to forget, but SL is pretty damn good if you try to forget the droughts and focus squarely on how each individual patch worked.
You start out with loads of stuff to do in the open world, a solid intro raid, and a currency system that is almost completely skippable for anyone that doesn't care about cosmetics combined with the buyable cosmetics being varied and high quality.

Torghast is annoying if you don't play one of the few fun specs, and the covenants should have probably been much less restrictive. But discounting the drought they would have been fairly tame all things considered, especially when considering a more stable patch cadence would have made the complaints obsolete long before we got to this point.