Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[DiscipleofCazicThule]

There are true points in the post, but some bullshit in the post as well.

Oooh. I hope the living world part isn't bullshit. That seemed like the best part to me.

[Trazzle]

Fact is we have two races engrossed in tech/engineering, yes mech/tech stuff fits in WoW.

We’ve only recently seen the barest hint of true bards/musicians existing in WoW with various non named NPC in shadowlands, jay the bard in BFA (contest winner from blizzcon I believe) prior to that… an old guitar hero April fools? ETC?

[Vakir]

See, I think Jay the Bard (the character and actual human, but speaking of the former now) is dope as hell. I just see his bard-ing as the kind of thing he does as his gig.

It's a cooler idea (to me) to think about a weary hunter or warrior or something kicking up their feet at a tavern and playing a diddy to soothe fellow adventurers after a day of slaying than just "this is my combat purpose." It's like how being, say, a leather worker could be PART of the fantasy of a character that's heavily involved in nature or hunting. It enhances the already existing concepts we have rather than it being requirement for another.

It works better as a separate concept in something like 14 or D&D due to how they've presented those classes/jobs for a long period of time.

This is 100% personal preference to me and how I view WoW, though. I'm bigger on the smaller scale stuff trying to bring us back to being adventurers and...generally when Blizzard tries to add something new, they feel the need to go B I G.

[Teriz]

When I explain how it works mechanically, you say it doesn't work conceptually. When I explain how it works conceptually you say it doesn't work mechanically. You just keep pointing at specific Warcraft NPC with an instrument & saying "that isn't warcraft" but then pointing to a dude in a mech suit & saying "That is warcraft"

Well the “dude in a mech suit” has the exact same pedigree as the previous class inclusions. The concept has loads of unique abilities, we can attach it to a major lore hero, and we can even place the concept in a location for a future expansion. Again, we don’t have any of that for Bards.

For example, give me some unique Bard abilities from Blizzard themselves that this class could use. Demon Hunters had metamorphosis, Death Knights had Animate Dead, Monks had Storm Earth Fire. What do Bards have?

[DiscipleofCazicThule]

Well the “dude in a mech suit” has the exact same pedigree as the previous class inclusions. The concept has loads of unique abilities, we can attach it to a major lore hero, and we can even place the concept in a location for a future expansion. Again, we don’t have any of that for Bards.

For example, give me some unique Bard abilities from Blizzard themselves that this class could use. Demon Hunters had metamorphosis, Death Knights had Animate Dead, Monks had Storm Earth Fire. What do Bards have?

The power...to move you.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Oooh. I hope the living world part isn't bullshit. That seemed like the best part to me.

I'm thinking that Living World, Tinkers, or Accords are the most likely things to be close to reality—I figure the setting and specifics are what someone made up. It's likely that someone made it up but got a lot of things right.

We also already know that cross-faction play will likely be there.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

The last thing I wanna do is quest back in Azeroth and hear whispers from Azeroth's world-soul every now and then. Living world and all...


YOU WON'T TRICK ME... N'ZOTH.

[Ersula]

Fact is we have two races engrossed in tech/engineering, yes mech/tech stuff fits in WoW.

We’ve only recently seen the barest hint of true bards/musicians existing in WoW with various non named NPC in shadowlands, jay the bard in BFA (contest winner from blizzcon I believe) prior to that… an old guitar hero April fools? ETC?

You can't say that without also pointing out the devs have repeatedly told people asking for tinkers they should be happy with Engineering existing.

For example, give me some unique Bard abilities from Blizzard themselves that this class could use. Demon Hunters had metamorphosis, Death Knights had Animate Dead, Monks had Storm Earth Fire. What do Bards have?

By that logic there will never be a new class ever again because they've already used all the iconic warcraft abilties. Ironically, another Necrolord assault NPC has "Robo-goblin" but with the Tinker motif removed: He undulates between an unstoppable slime monster & a potion-throwing alchemist. And even Tinkers "iconic abilities" are just volley & metamorphosis with different names.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

The last thing I wanna do is quest back in Azeroth and hear whispers from Azeroth's world-soul every now and then. Living world and all...


YOU WON'T TRICK ME... N'ZOTH.

I maintain my previous hopes that Azeroth is a little bit sinister—not because she's corrupted, just because she has learned beyond a shadow of a doubt that war and violence solves everything and is probably extremely traumatized and inclined to violence.

[Teriz]

You can't say that without also pointing out the devs have repeatedly told people asking for tinkers they should be happy with Engineering existing.

Where did the devs say this?

[Izalla]

Actually, if we want to be pedantic, the entire final showdown of the expansion took place there. So it could be interpreted as foreshadowing that the Hour of Twilight, and Deathwing's strongest attack, was going to take place in Northrend.

Kinda, but it only came into play at the end of the expac and only inside instanced content. There were no changes to Northrend and if Northrend being impacted by the Cataclysm had been more important during 4.0 this could have been valid.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

You can't say that without also pointing out the devs have repeatedly told people asking for tinkers they should be happy with Engineering existing.

I honestly doubt it will be either Tinker or Bards, but I will be happy to be wrong—there is some precedent for Tinker, and I wouldn't be too shocked if it becomes a thing. Still, it is redundant, and they'll have to resolve that redundancy somehow. I'm personally hoping for Dragon stuff, or just plain Artificers instead of Tinkers.

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Kinda, but it only came into play at the end of the expac and only inside instanced content. There were no changes to Northrend and if Northrend being impacted by the Cataclysm had been more important during 4.0 this could have been valid.

I like the deep reading they had, but frankly Occam's Razor says that they probably just meant it to demonstrate damage to the world.

[Teriz]

I honestly doubt it will be either Tinker or Bards, but I will be happy to be wrong—there is some precedent for Tinker, and I wouldn't be too shocked if it becomes a thing. Still, it is redundant, and they'll have to resolve that redundancy somehow. I'm personally hoping for Dragon stuff, or just plain Artificers instead of Tinkers.

I believe Blizzard would go the Monk route and incorporate the WC3 and HotS concept into a more generalized technology class, along with a general name like “Mechanic” or “Machinist”. Just like Brewmaster was reserved for the tanking spec, and wasn’t used for the entirety of the class.

Hence why Ybarra might have laughed at the name during the stream. It probably isn’t the name they’re using for a technology-based class.

[Grimbold21]

I find it more curious that Tinker is being passed around as some deep rooted wish by the playerbase, when it's, at best, a niche.

And you're still shooting yourself in the foot by adding a new class and leaving the existing roster as is.

The nonsensical notion that it's near impossible to balance existing classes, ergo might as well add more onto the pile is what's led us to be here in the first place.

It's like the ridiculous analogy someone posted a while back: if your fleet of police cars is down, then you still need new cars. Except this is counterproductive, all you're doing is adding another car that will eventually join the pile of broken down vehicles.

But Blizzard being Blizzard, and part of the playerbase measuring their commitment to the game by whether blizzard adds another class or not, it's easy for them to repackage the existent panoply of spells with some originality here and there into a new class, rather than go through the hard work of investing into the 30 smth specs we have now.

[Vakir]

I maintain my previous hopes that Azeroth is a little bit sinister—not because she's corrupted, just because she has learned beyond a shadow of a doubt that war and violence solves everything and is probably extremely traumatized and inclined to violence.

Anduin did say that we come from a violent land in the White Tiger quest line. Maybe he was more right than he thought.

[Teriz]

I find it more curious that Tinker is being passed around as some deep rooted wish by the playerbase, when it's, at best, a niche.

I think the fact that people who leak future expansions continuously drops that concept into their leaks regardless of expansion theme shows that it is a deep rooted ask by the userbase. There’s a reason so many YouTube streamers make a face or take a drink when the concept pops up.

[Grimbold21]

I think the fact that people who leak future expansions continuously drops that concept into their leaks regardless of expansion theme shows that it is a deep rooted ask by the userbase. There’s a reason so many YouTube streamers make a face or take a drink when the concept pops up.

I think you're reading what you want into that. Your bias towards Tinkers leads you to establish connections that aren't possibly there.

You see leaks with Tinkers because mmo-champ, in great part due to your own actions, is plagued with such discussions. Also, people watch different content creators, and I dont see any of mine rambling on about Tinkers.

And the fact that you go ahead and dig up what you think is the groundwork to establish class A or B has no bearing on whether or not it'll come to pass.

Much in the same way that as much as I'm interesting in Shamans having a 4th and tanking spec, with the primary (and only) reason for that being the vanilla talent tree that allowed for that, there won't be one.

[DiscipleofCazicThule]

That's what I'm thinking too, plus some of the things like the extra Overwatch heroes and the app. Perhaps to leak without being so blatant about it. Hopefully when we get .5's PTR, it will shed some light on what's to come.

[huth]

When I explain how it works mechanically, you say it doesn't work conceptually. When I explain how it works conceptually you say it doesn't work mechanically. You just keep pointing at specific Warcraft NPC with an instrument & saying "that isn't warcraft" but then pointing to a dude in a mech suit & saying "That is warcraft"

+Russel, Swan, Grenja and the various other Bard NPCs might not have been in Warcraft 3 but they're still heroic figures in this setting. Or that the face of the expansion even needs to be that class. Hell, we have so many classless important characters they could just make them into bard retroactively. I'm sure Wrathion & Lilian Voss have some musical talent, in fact both their voice actors have recorded albums.
+Broken Isles had no direct connection to Demon Hunters until they put Vault of the Wardens there on a whim
+They have given these NPCs unique abilities including Dissonant Chord & Encore of Torment
+You say that they need a relevant play style as if Tinkers have that established already, or that they haven't completely resesigned Monks & Death Knights several times

Don't forget that we just went through a zone where music and language played a major role.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

I believe Blizzard would go the Monk route and incorporate the WC3 and HotS concept into a more generalized technology class, along with a general name like “Mechanic” or “Machinist”. Just like Brewmaster was reserved for the tanking spec, and wasn’t used for the entirety of the class.

Hence why Ybarra might have laughed at the name during the stream. It probably isn’t the name they’re using for a technology-based class.

Admittedly, it's kind of hard to glean anything from that. He could have been laughing because he thought it was a stupid idea, he could've been laughing because it was on-point. I don't think it would be anything in-between, though. I do like the thought of technology classes, but I figure it's unlikely that it's going to happen—I figure it was the former. Still, can't confirm nor deny, so I'll keep my hopes up.

My real hope is for a Dragon class, though—a proper Dragon class, not some dinky little Dragonsworn, as unequivocally dumb as that desire is for me to have.

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I think the fact that people who leak future expansions continuously drops that concept into their leaks regardless of expansion theme shows that it is a deep rooted ask by the userbase. There’s a reason so many YouTube streamers make a face or take a drink when the concept pops up.

I think it's not quite the single-greatest desire of the userbase. I think it's just kind of a funny recurring theme since people can't think of much else that would stand alone as a class. It may appear on a lot of wishlists, but I don't think it's the absolute be-all end-all. Still, I suppose there could be some market for it. I'd prefer Artificers, though.