Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Arcinatoss]

zovaal should've been a mawjob

[Bsirk]

I'll be on spring break (teacher life) during the announcement (so thankful). Looking forward to the HYPE before and on the announcement day as well as the days that follow (hopefully positive energy after the announcement and not negative). I really wanted to be WOWed (pun intended).

I really hope so! I am perfectly fine with everything everyone has mentioned in head canon or fake leaks to be exactly that...fake.

[Le Conceptuel]

What makes Void Elves and to a lesser extent Lightforged (who @Varodoc also had an Yrel RP account for of course) so execrable as a plot point is that because they're a player race, and an Alliance player race no less, they definitionally limit the scope of the cosmic powers and make them mundane and ineffective. The nanosecond they became playable the Void and the Light became less interesting and impactful than they were before. This is not even just because of how they're presented, though their presentation is atrocious. Void Elves are just regular elves but purple because they're vessels for playing a High Elf, with the fact that they're constantly whispered by the primal forces of endless potential futures. Lightforged are just draenei with a better aesthetic, not even showing any of the effect a society consisting exclusively of ancient military veterans in a total war against Satan for 25k years, who also happen to be linked to the primal force of communitarian thinking. It's not even how neutered they are with their leaders and all of them being completely okay with each other in the same faction and being buddies or how the Lightforged don't care when a literal demon blasts their god figure in front of their eyes, despite the void and the Light being opposed on a cosmic level.

No, those things are all terrible but are at theoretically fixable with better writing and retcons, but the most terrible part of them is that by purely by existing and being playable, which is irreversible, they cap these cosmic powers at the lowest level. Void and Light transformation of mortals, even at their most total extent, don't actually change people all that much. Nothing that is done can keep someone who's partly composed of those forces from living a mundane life or even of raiding representatives of the Light and Void whom they are involved with. When we one day raid the throne of God, Lightforged will be helping kill it. When we eventually raid the Void Lords, Void Elves will have zero issue participating. Because of this, those cosmic powers are characterized as limp and weak fashion statements, more irrelevant than fucking mortal faction allegiance in deciding the limits of one's available actions. For all the complaints SL gets about cosmic plots, playable void elves and Lightforged are incurable narrative tumors that've done more to damage both the mundane verisimilitude of the setting and the future cosmic plots by their existence and playability than any other addition to the franchise in the past 4 years.

Personally, I do think that the Lightforged are a dramatically wasted investment—it would've been fun to explore what happens when an army of cosmic Vietnam Veterans have to settle down on some irrelevant mudball alongside their now-nearly-extinct race. I always figured it was odd that an army raised on entirely justified black-and-white morality managed to not commit any war crimes aside from suggested brainwashing or execution of PoWs. I figure that the equivalent of 40k's Space Marines popping up on a primitive medieval/renaissance-era (frankly colonial-era by this juncture) with a highly-internalized "deus vult" mindset would lead to a lot of interesting plot points about the population as a whole trying to readjust to civilian life or causing serious changes in the lifestyle of the Alliance (what better way to radicalize a Scarlet revival than being approved of by verifiable agents of the Light itself?)

I did actually have some fun with this on a roleplay server before I temporarily dropped due to this entire excruciating expansion experience, playing the role of a young Lightforged military brat born and raised on the Xenedar, who had no comprehension of a non-military lifestyle. Perhaps, in that connection, it ought've been the radicalized, younger members of the Lightforged raised at war that were playable, as opposed to the ancient, wizened 25k+-year old hardened veterans. It also would've given a better explanation for why you start out at such a relatively low level (though I figure some allied races are more inclined to be boosted lorewise, anyways) and provided a reason for the Lightforged to still be fighting. While some of the Lightforged could've been out defending the cosmos and the planet in particular from other alien forces, the younger military brats who are too young or useless for actual combat could've been loosed on Azeroth instead (I frankly think "the younger ones" should've also been canonically the case for most of the Draenei since TBC–having a player race whose older member could be nearly as old as the ordering of Azeroth was a mistake, I think). There are a lot of very interesting things to explore with a coterie of bulging-eyed fanatics who have only known war all their life going from a proper Just Cause war to a (nominally) grayscale environment with the same desire to "KILL! PURGE! PURIFY!" all their enemies as they had before and several heapings of PTSD from growing up in an environment where the average death toll and subsequent soul-consumption of all your childhood friends likely peaks ~50%.

Of course, I figure that the extent of the connection, as you said, is a little bit objectionable. Perhaps it would've also been better to specify that the Lightforged are what happens when a little bit of Light gets inside of you in a physical as opposed to possessive (such as with Paladins) sense. It wouldn't make the connection inexorable, but would also make it clear exactly the scope of the powers at play. The same could've gone for the Void Elves, since we already know Blood Elves like to drink up any kind of malignant magical mystery without questioning "will this drive me insane and mutate my body beyond recognition"?

For the Void Elves, I frankly think the biggest mistake was making them just be normal Elves with a new coat of paint and a wholly-nominal "tell-don't-show" struggle with the inner voices that only demonstrates itself once as a passing set piece that is immediately resolved in Telogrus Rift. Rather than being wholly infused with the Void, the Void Elves could've simply been slightly grazed by it, only sucking up a very minute amount of Void from a corrupted arcane source. Even then, they could've been withered and weathered by the experience—they could've been skinnier, looked more like normal High Elves but with stars and tentacles in their hair and deep, dark bags under their eyes from their loss of sleep. Rather than being outright Void entities, they could simply be representative of what even passing influence of the Void does to you—not many would actually use the Void, they'd merely be passively and lightly made worse-off for it.

As for raiding everything, I think it was definitely a mistake to start raiding anything but the objectively evil (i.e. Burning Legion) factions on a Cosmic Scale (as opposed to a local scale, where grayscale moral conflicts like the Defias are very fun and interesting). Trying to make it shades of grey only opens up new questions, like "why are these Paladins and Priests storming the mostly-benevolent bastion of the holiest force in the universe because they brainwashed one (1) evil, world-eating lunatic and turned him into a functioning citizen of society?"—perhaps if they were to start supplanting covenants or faction systems I could see it make sense, with this instead being a new avenue for PvP, but it still leave the inexpungable question of "who the fuck are we going to raid" other than jumping back and forth from using our vast cosmic powers to eradicate Goblins to fighting only the most vague and imperceptible enemies. In this respect, I agree with you wholeheartedly. It was a horrendous decision to start going too high-up, because now there is the question of "why are we fighting these guys?"—in some cases, it makes a lot of sense. A Death Knight fighting Zovaal is reasonable, as is a Warlock fighting Sargeras, as those people are threats or malefactors to them. For a Lightforged, who is both wholly devoted to the Light and has only ever been benefited by it, it seems odd for "free will" or "protect the crazy evil lunatics from the horrible evil colonizing force that wants to (checks notes) make them good people" to be enough to potentially get them to turn on the Light (no pun intended). There are plenty of good, effective antagonists they could've stuck with instead of villain-batting the Light. Even Life has reason for a Druid to cull it a bit on a physical, but not metaphysical, level—perhaps in that connection, if we only ever fought the residue of a Cosmic Force instead of directly killing its overseers like we do now, it could've been more interesting and given more room for intraforce conflict. Still, the Light is one that will confuse me if they ever go through with it—Order, Life, Death, Void, and Fel all have reasons for their practitioners to turn on their other practitioners. Defense against Titan constructs gone rogue or simply doing their job without relent, overgrowth or parasites, struggles against malicious users of necromancy, and the Burning Legion all justify intraforce war, but unless there's going to suddenly be a full-on holy war between the Xe'Raites and the A'dalists, I don't see what could justify fighting the Light for Lightforged, Paladins, Priests etc.

also had an Yrel RP account for of course

Also, are you serious? Is this just an inference derived from similar behavior from another account, or did he actually just used to simp for Yrel instead? At what point can we assume coom?

[Super Dickmann]

Also, are you serious? Is this just an inference derived from similar behavior from another account, or did he actually just used to simp for Yrel instead? At what point can we assume coom?

Generally agreed with your thoughts re: recontextualizing LF/Velves as being only slightly exposed as a way to salvage it, but yes, there was an Yrel account in very early BFA that was doing the same shtick except with the Lightforged instead of void elves. Account has since been deleted, but you can find a post from the Yrel poster, who's Varodoc, over here.

[Varodoc]

Generally agreed with your thoughts re: recontextualizing LF/Velves as being only slightly exposed as a way to salvage it, but yes, there was an Yrel account in very early BFA that was doing the same shtick except with the Lightforged instead of void elves. Account has since been deleted, but you can find a post from the Yrel poster, who's Varodoc, over here.

I mean, he/she/they/them are right.

Yrel controls Draenor so marrying her isn't a bad political move

[Super Dickmann]

I mean, he/she/they/them are right.

Yrel controls Draenor so marrying her isn't a bad political move

I'm sure that poster, who's a totally different person, is strikingly handsome too. But as we know, Anduin is gay, so he's not getting a piece of Goat Jihadi ass.

[Le Conceptuel]

I'm sure that poster, who's a totally different person, is strikingly handsome too. But as we know, Anduin is gay, so he's not getting a piece of Goat Jihadi ass.

In his defense, Anduin canonically has a thing for Draenei females. Obviously, he's bisexual and he'll get it from Wrathion and Yrel at the same time.

[Bomba the Shaman]

I wonder if Blizz has the balls to make 'wrathduin' canon.

[Super Dickmann]

In his defense, Anduin canonically has a thing for Draenei females. Obviously, he's bisexual and he'll get it from Wrathion and Yrel at the same time.

Appropriately for an insufferable Gary Stu Anduin has exquisite taste.

[Le Conceptuel]

Appropriately for an insufferable Gary Stu Anduin has exquisite taste.

My question is if he will bear the child of Wrathion, or if Yrel will bear his child.

[Raetary]

Fetishization of cosmic planes and planetary fetuses, Goat jihadist ass, princelings with draconic fantasies

What has this thread come to?

[Le Conceptuel]

Fetishization of cosmic planes and planetary fetuses, Goat jihadist ass, princelings with draconic fantasies

What has this thread come to?

You only now ask this question?

[Neotart]

Looking forward to the teaser

[Raetary]

I wonder if Blizz has the balls to make 'wrathduin' canon.

They already decided Shaw and Flynn are gonna be the token couple.

Bigger characters like Anduin just have too much exposure to be queer, it would be harder to censor for the hyper conservative countries.

[Le Conceptuel]

They already decided Shaw and Flynn are gonna be the token couple.

Bigger characters like Anduin just have too much exposure to be queer, it would be harder to censor for the hyper conservative countries.

Put Anduin in a hijab. Easy.

[Super Dickmann]

Put Anduin in a hijab. Easy.

Anduin has already taught the world's infidels the one true way, inshallah.

[Varodoc]

Reminder that the Ren'dorei were omitted from Patch 8.3 (patch of the Old God where Anduin was desperately looking for help to resist the whispers) so that Blizzard could deliver more Wranduin developments for the audience.

[Le Conceptuel]

Reminder that the Ren'dorei were omitted from Patch 8.3 (patch of the Old God where Anduin was desperately looking for help to resist the whispers) so that Blizzard could deliver more Wranduin developments for the audience.

So it's confirmed!

[Sondrelk]

They already decided Shaw and Flynn are gonna be the token couple.

Bigger characters like Anduin just have too much exposure to be queer, it would be harder to censor for the hyper conservative countries.

And also Anduin has expressed genuine attraction to females, both a Dwarf girl and an admitted kink for Draenei ladies. So at best he would be bi, which in writing tends to be the poor mans gay.

And of course he has a much more likely and hinted at relationship with Talia.

[Teriz]

I'll be on spring break (teacher life) during the announcement (so thankful). Looking forward to the HYPE before and on the announcement day as well as the days that follow (hopefully positive energy after the announcement and not negative). I really wanted to be WOWed (pun intended).

I think Blizzard's best option is to do a left-field expansion that no one expects. Much like how we dealt with Deathwing and the cataclysm, pretty much the end of reality, and then we ended up in Pandaria for the next expansion.

We need something along those lines to realign everything. Sort of like a "breather" from the craziness that we've experienced the last 4 expansions. Yeah, people will heckle and bemoan such an expansion when it launches, but as it keeps moving people will settle in and enjoy the ride.