Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Syegfryed]

Ah, seems like people are going for the strawman route here, implying we are saying Wod was Good.

Stating that WoD was better than shadowlands don't make WoD good.

They are both trash, shadowlands is just way worse

You can ignore most everything in Shadowlands.

You can't rly do that with the major remake of warcraft afterlife and cosmology in general.

Wod was a clownfesta about killing orcs in another dimension while exploring draenor before exploding, as much they butchered stuff there it doesn't change a thing in our reality because is "alternate universe" like marvel BS, The only thing "major" was learning the legion goes across universes, but that we can ignore and focus on Gul'dan coming here to start Legion.

But shadowlands don't just butcher characters and retroactively insert the Janitor as big bad behind the scourge, everything we knew about afterlife, religions and universal forces were wrong, like we knew those so called "gods" were 3d prints, the afterlife is just another reality, there is no afterlife for 90% of the races religions, the taurens don't go to the "spiritual afterlife" or go to meet their ancestors, they get a brainwash and become blue humans.

And now we learn everything is divided and there is a bigger enemy, so we have to wait and see again.

[Super Dickmann]

You can't rly do that with the major remake of warcraft afterlife and cosmology in general.

Yes, you can, it's what Chronicle did and the universe survived having the force of 'Death' represented by 'Undead' have every single undead be the product of demonic magic or the Old Gods who previously scared the Titans actually be the pimples of some other tools outside reality until then. The cosmology in WoW is far less important than the pound for pound on the ground plot. Warlords is much better than Shadowlands' story wise, I've made that case myself in this very thread, but Shadowlands as some mythically bad story that'll have an effect on the plot going forward is presentist nonsense.

The most relevant harm Shadowlands made to the actual plot going forward is it being such a mess in content release and PR that Blizzard pulled the plug on factions, consigning the medium through which we experience the setting to a blandness death spiral. The most relevant benefit may be that it was so soundly panned for its plot about the Bland Gang fighting ghosts in space that the writers might nevertheless return to on the ground stories as a way to regain favor.

[The Stormbringer]

??? He just explicitly explained his motive. He found the check and balance system of the six/seven cosmic forces implemented by the First Ones to be flawed and unsustainable, and so he was going to rewrite the universe into a monolithic autocracy where he, as the ruler of death, had complete control of everything.

That's... one interpretation. The other is that it's the Lich King writ large. The Lich King wanted to conquer all of Azeroth so he could unite it against the Burning Legion. The Jailer wants to unite all of the universe (Order, Chaos, Life, Death, Light, Void) under his banner so he can fight off some mysterious seventh force that threatens everything.

How he figured this out, we don't know. What he actually did to get thrown into the Maw, we don't know. How exactly ZM and Azerite Juice will rewrite reality, we don't know. What the mysterious seventh force is, we don't know. Why the Jailer never fucking told anyone any of this, we don't know.

There's a LOT of shit we don't know, and it's absolutely ridiculous. We have the barest scraps of an idea of why he did this, and we're just... supposed to be okay with that?

[Revamp Man]

Do you guys still think the BIG BIG BAD Jailer talked about are Void Lords?
Accroding to Enclyclopedia (yes, not exactly canon, but not everything in is wrong) both Light and Void took the part into the cosmic creation. They are the parts of it.
And Jailer said that COSMOS divided has no chance against whats come.
Void and Light are parts of that divided cosmos.

I think the BIG BIG BAD isnt Void or Light, its something outside the BIG SIX forces.

And i also think that its NOT gonna become the main focus of 10.0. Its gonna be THE reason for Void/Light stuff to become the focus in 10.0. Like, we need to deal with them first so we can prepare themselve for what is come (in 11.0 or forward).

The cosmic map shows each force with an opposite except for reality

The big bad is the Nothing from never ending story

[Syegfryed]

Yes, you can, it's what Chronicle did and the universe survived having the force of 'Death' represented by 'Undead' have every single undead be the product of demonic magic or the Old Gods who previously scared the Titans actually be the pimples of some other tools outside reality until then. The cosmology in WoW is far less important than the pound for pound on the ground plot. Warlords is much better than Shadowlands' story wise, I've made that case myself in this very thread, but Shadowlands as some mythically bad story that'll have an effect on the plot going forward is presentist nonsense.

Chronicle cosmology chart didn't affect how the playable races perceive and see the cosmology, is more flufy for players to see how things are places in a more D&D great wheel chart of planes, is more visual and explicative to us, players, than to the races of the universe.

Shadowlands rework on the afterlife direct affect how the playable races perceive their own afterlife, their religion and what they knew so far, and everything is straight up wrong, no gods, no actual afterlife, you just got to another world to work.

You can tyr to ignore everything shadowlands did, but the moment a quest or a character talk about religion, afterlife, or anything related, you will know he is straight up wrong, even invoking spirits to talk or fight will be a massive nose turning point cause even that would be hardly to believe after our trip in shadowlands, like the classic Uther spirit talking to us, but he was in the shadowlands but also in the janitor pocket or whatever.

The most relevant harm Shadowlands made to the actual plot going forward is it being such a mess in content release and PR that Blizzard pulled the plug on factions, consigning the medium through which we experience the setting to a blandness death spiral. The most relevant benefit may be that it was so soundly panned for its plot about the Bland Gang fighting ghosts in space that the writers might nevertheless return to on the ground stories as a way to regain favor.

That is another point to consider and you can't ignore yeah, and just like fucking up the horde in BfA, is something you can't go back.

[Super Dickmann]

Chronicle cosmology chart didn't affect how the playable races perceive and see the cosmology, is more flufy for players to see how things are places in a more D&D great wheel chart of planes, is more visual and explicative to us, players, than to the races of the universe.

Shadowlands rework on the afterlife direct affect how the playable races perceive their own afterlife, their religion and what they knew so far, and everything is straight up wrong, no gods, no actual afterlife, you just got to another world to work.

You can tyr to ignore everything shadowlands did, but the moment a quest or a character talk about religion, afterlife, or anything related, you will know he is straight up wrong, even invoking spirits to talk or fight will be a massive nose turning point cause even that would be hardly to believe after our trip in shadowlands, like the classic Uther spirit talking to us, but he was in the shadowlands but also in the janitor pocket or whatever.

The orcish Nagrand afterlife was based on a spaceship piloted by a jigsaw piece crashlanding there and luring spirits in as part of its lifecycle. Paladins themselves have their powers received not by an ineffable divine but by said jigsaw pieces. None of these things have any pertinence going forward. Shadowlands will have less, if anything, because the story is shit and never spends even a second tackling any of the consequences of the races learning what it is the afterlife entails because it's more interested in its shambolic soap opera plot.

It's closest to the Infinite Legion or Thrall's Dragon Soul stint with alternate universes, because these things are large, stupid and have large consequences on paper, but in practice do not matter because they do not come up. It's not that Shadowlands is easy to work around because it's good, it's easy to work around because it's incredibly self-contained and the writers who don't even care to resolve where all the hundreds of Legion ships that we see invade from Argus to Azeroth went or the literal sword in the planet will not adjust their writing to take into account complex societal recontextualization of the afterlife.

That is another point to consider and you can't ignore yeah, and just like fucking up the horde in BfA, is something you can't go back.

Which is why it's the single worst long term trend. You'll notice it's also the one that's been getting the most support. No one talks about actually good villains like KJ, nobody will be talking about the Bald Man when the plot has literally anything else to discuss. But the consequences of the Unifaction will be with us for good.

[username993720]

Sure, but I don't care about Fel or any of its users, so why would I mention them? I lack an incentive.

*facepalm*

I dont think you are reading my post.. who says repeating that content is what we want to see? Your death theme was on Northrend, burning legion was outland, but went on, on Argus. These stories just wernt finnished. We had a reason to look for our enemy. Nothrend isnt shadowlands... my dude.

We haven't been to the Emerald Dream either, just bits and pieces of it.

Emerald dream as explained multiple timea now had its major threat being dealt with. Every one can make up shit why he/she wants to go there. Doesnt mean everyone else thinks the same way or want the same thing. You probably havent read it, but.. like N zoth and the black empire of nazjatar and the dream as well. Have all been speculated to death. When you visit it once its cool cus reason. The second time will obviously not have the same effect. And as it stands the ED doesnt really have much beef left.. hence I said building it up would be a start.

Xavius? Barely a pawn... you can't tell me he's the Big Bad of the Life cosmic force.
N'zoth, Azshara and the Black Empire have nothing to do with the Dream, so i don't know why you even bring them up.

You provided nothing, but couple of vague reason why you want to go there. I still say ED sounds really bland and boring. I also dont like your concept, so no reason to get excited either.

Dude, you liking it has nothing to do with its porbability. I don't need to provide you with anything. If you can't see Blizzard coming up with an ED expansion, like they did with Shadowlands, that's your problem. As it stands, the Emerald Dream and the Life cosmic force have not been throroughly explored.

This conversation doesnt lead anywhere, I also told you i am not into circle jerk conversation, which is whats happening now. You are also quick to judge for no reason. I am not onto that.

The only argument you have provided so far is "i don't like it. I think it's boring". Which is not much of an argument to begin with.

[Atriel]

I dunno, I think you might be able to ignore most of Shadowlands once it's done. Demystifying death is definitely a blow to the writing, but things like Sylvanas being stuck in the Maw instead of obliterated is hardly going to be worth considering uness they bring her back, same with Pelagos being the Arbiter.

We will definitely see the Shadowlands cast again eventually. You have to remember that the Jailer was trying to unify the cosmic forces together to avoid some potential destruction or collapse of everything (albeit in his own Thanos-like my-way-or-the-highway methods).

I think that the next few expansions will have the heroes of Azeroth delving into each cosmic plane, helping deal with their respective issues, and achieving this unity and balance that was alluded to, but in an amicable way. We already have the Death realm on our side with the Covenants and Pelagos as Arbiter. When we need their assistance in the balance, they will be back.

My personal hope is something more grounded for 10.0, hopefully the expansion can fix a lot of issues the game has currently, maybe revamp Azeroth a bit before going back to a cosmic theme.

[micwini]

But as we can see
That doesn’t matter

apparently not! Thank god. It would have sucked so much if the SL ending would have revealed or hinted at what is next.

[Valysar]

Let's hope that the real ending cinematic of SL is in 9.2.5 ...
(am I too optimistic ?)

[Yossarian]

Let's hope that the real ending cinematic of SL is in 9.2.5 ...

let's hope they listen MORE

gameplaywise, they certainly improved, 9.2 PTR was very openminded to players suggestions
lorewise, they are getting a lot of backlash for this dull final cinematic of a dull expansion, "well, that was fucking lame" will become iconic for Shadowlands

they MUST use 9.2.5 to address the mess they did
personally I feel so let down by 9.2 (even the announcement back in november) that my expectations for 10.0 are way lower than before, I feel a lot less excited for "what is to come"

[pacotaco]

If there is a secret cosmic power and he wasn't just afraid of imbalance, I'm already starting to wonder if that secret power is the true, true allegiance of the dreadlords. It would be a good excuse to bring Denathrius back, and his line in this flashback could be read as "it's a shame you want to tear down my master" as much as "I'm totally not going to help you while you're imprisoned, wink wink."

The awkward part to me is that we see the Azerite beam shoot from Icecrown into Torghast and then uses the glow to cut to the interior of the Sepulcher. Visually, that's communicating that Zovaal is in Torghast, which is probably just editing for the sake of the annoyingly short time most cutscenes have, but does make me wonder if Torghast's role in the expansion got moved around.

I think Torghast acts as a hijack Oribos, channeling the anima of Azeroth to the Sepulcre.

Also, it's fun how some people stil thinking on SL as a normal euclidean 3D space. It's not: In ICC we see Torghast upside-down in a hole in the sky, then we go to Oribos where we see anima going through from above (above of what?) and going down. But then we jump down to the Maw falling from above, and we see the anima flow reaching the Maw sideways (the Gorgoa River) and Torghats in the distance with a hole in the sky.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

A rather silly observation, but I noticed this and can't quite get over it. It seems implicit that some things changed during the development of Shadowlands, and the plot development has definitely taken turns internally since the end of, say, Legion—so, in that connection, what of this?



This was originally going to be a model for what some presumed to be an artificial Titan (possibly the original plan for Argus, or an artificial body for him to inhabit)—doesn't it look familiar? Admittedly, this is a loose connection, since it is untextured and there is very little to glean from the features that is reliable. The model for Zovaal also did undergo several changes since early development, so this is all very much conjecture, or even arguably very baseless.

Nevertheless, it does make me wonder what the original plan was for this giant Titan body. Of course, it could simply be that this body was used during Zovaal's redesign as a potential reference, so it may not be relevant at all.

[Sharby]

People calling WoD good lmao.

This thread has jumped the shark.

WoD Class Design/Raid Design was fantastic imo, the levelling experience was pretty good too.

The reason why WoD flopped so hard was that it was gutted content-wise and had virtually nothing to do outside of raid.

Blackrock Foundry still remains the best raid they've released to date (imo.) Also despite how unbalanced it might've been, the tier-sets/class trinkets were super cool too.

I feel like everyone that was a consistent raider would always have a fond opinion of WoD.

[Frood]

A rather silly observation, but I noticed this and can't quite get over it. It seems implicit that some things changed during the development of Shadowlands, and the plot development has definitely taken turns internally since the end of, say, Legion—so, in that connection, what of this?



This was originally going to be a model for what some presumed to be an artificial Titan (possibly the original plan for Argus, or an artificial body for him to inhabit)—doesn't it look familiar? Admittedly, this is a loose connection, since it is untextured and there is very little to glean from the features that is reliable. The model for Zovaal also did undergo several changes since early development, so this is all very much conjecture, or even arguably very baseless.

Nevertheless, it does make me wonder what the original plan was for this giant Titan body. Of course, it could simply be that this body was used during Zovaal's redesign as a potential reference, so it may not be relevant at all.

It's entirely possible that this titan experiment went on to serve as the inspiration for Zovaal. Blizzard seems to have a habit of scrapping ideas, either repurposing them or simply saving the concept for more appropriate stories that they seem to come up with along the way. For example, the Legion announcement trailer actually used the concept of a mirrored/upside-down tower. This was abandoned until it was reintroduced two expansions later as Torghast.



Combining this with your observations regarding the titan model, one could posit that Shadowlands as a story was probably conceived around the time of the Legion launch.

[Sondrelk]

A rather silly observation, but I noticed this and can't quite get over it. It seems implicit that some things changed during the development of Shadowlands, and the plot development has definitely taken turns internally since the end of, say, Legion—so, in that connection, what of this?



This was originally going to be a model for what some presumed to be an artificial Titan (possibly the original plan for Argus, or an artificial body for him to inhabit)—doesn't it look familiar? Admittedly, this is a loose connection, since it is untextured and there is very little to glean from the features that is reliable. The model for Zovaal also did undergo several changes since early development, so this is all very much conjecture, or even arguably very baseless.

Nevertheless, it does make me wonder what the original plan was for this giant Titan body. Of course, it could simply be that this body was used during Zovaal's redesign as a potential reference, so it may not be relevant at all.

Pretty sure the idea was just to have some windwo dressing for the Antorus raid with not much thought put into it. Maybe it's an artificial body for Sargeras, maybe it's one for Argus. Maybe it's Argus' actual lifeless body that Sargeras was going to inhabit. Difficult to say for sure without knowing much more than that.

[Kiivar86]

Gul'dan's plan for Illidan was to use him as a host body for Sargeras, right? So they were looking to do a host body thing in the first place.

Could be that, yeah.

[Divada]

This was originally going to be a model for what some presumed to be an artificial Titan (possibly the original plan for Argus, or an artificial body for him to inhabit)Nevertheless, it does make me wonder what the original plan was for this giant Titan body.

From what I remember I think the original encounter designers wanted the final boss fight to be huge in scale, with the Titan towering over the players. But the team couldn't get it to work/or didn't think it would end up being any fun so scrapped it.

[Polybius]

Breaking News: People are now trying to say that WoD had good writing to put Shadowlands down.

What's next, WoD actually had excellent content outside of raiding and Shadowlands is way way worse than it?

The writing started out strong but they clearly skipped huge steps. SL made the exact mistake, as if they abandoned it to work on the next story.

Hopefully this is a good sign since we got Legion after WoD.

[Bsirk]

Just some tin foil thoughts running through my head this morning. Since the Winter Queen and Elune are "sisters", does that mean that Elune is also a robot? Hmm.