Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[The Stormbringer]

:P
https://i.imgur.com/EYE2qTI.gif

Very cool and very well done! Thanks for confirming what some of us suspected all along.

[Hitei]

:P

Appreciated!

[AOL Instant Messenger]

WoW players are goldfish. They can't handle shit.

I'll actually concede there, given that people are still convinced that Le Big Funni Retcon Man Mal'Ganis was retconned into being all dungeon bosses evar!!! because of a sequence of teensy-tiny references in the form of briefly transforming into dungeon bosses, something which has existed in several other encounters.

Nevertheless, even assuming it may be true, I figure it may be worthwhile to assume that consumers are intelligent. Perhaps I simply don't have enough of a complete disregard for the intelligence of an audience to be a modern writer.

[Teriz]

I was thinking as a class idea, not as a concept—I suppose I should've also specified "absurd" rather than "stupid". Again, as I've said ad nauseum, I'm all for it, but it basically confirms nor denies nothing.

Well that's problematic too, because we have Goblins and Gnomes running around in giant robot armor in the game. Don't see why making that playable would be absurd.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Well that's problematic too, because we have Goblins and Gnomes running around in giant robot armor in the game. Don't see why making that playable would be absurd.

I figure it's mostly putting them front-and-center. I also find the aesthetics a little hard to reconcile with other extant classes, and as aforementioned, I don't see any class being added unless it really fits the theme. Unless we get a shocking swerve Undermine expansion out of nowhere or maybe a very specific world revamp, I don't know why we'd get Tinker.

[Revamp Man]

Ok so the mount hint we have for the next expansion is the red cat
It’s definitely a wonderland reference
Has ties to Blood elves
I’m not going to reach about the colors beyond scarlet crusade
So my theory

The final patch did cause screwy things on Azeroth and our return is like Alice returning in through the looking glass. The schroedinger’s cat mount is because the world didn’t know if we were dead or alive. The scarlet crusade will be there and have support in the time we’ve been gone. Gonna say there will be a dragon because of the wonderland tie so a dragon which would be the black dragon behind the scarlet crusade. The red queen could be seen as the head of the scarlet and the white queen would be Calia. The blood elf connection could be due to Alleria and her void issues and the unfinished story threads of “will the blood elves go back to the alliance?” From MoP


I can’t let myself believe in galakaros because that name is too dumb and even if Jericho supports it he was caught last leak season bullshitting about a dragon expansion with a new AP system then being hunted down by blizzard legal. Also we got told DH wasn’t launched until legion because they want to match the theme…how does tinker match dragon?

I don’t use the steamscale because it wasn’t the last mount. I don’t use the zodiac mounts. The dragon bundle is a possible hint but has no previously established pattern unlike the others.

[Teriz]

Every time a new class was added as feature of an expansion, it fitted thematically into the expansion: Dks to Wrath, Monks to Mop, DHs to legion.
The thing about tinkers, what would be the theme of the xpack they're part of? Arthas was a death knight, Illidan is a demon hunter, so it makes sense for a hero class to be like them. Even monks who are not a hero class, fit will to Pandaren culture, martial arts, zen meditation etc. Many great Pandaren were/are monks.

Underground expansion to heal the world soul and discover the hidden wonders within Azeroth. Jumping-off point being Undermine and a reclaimed Gnomeregan.

I don't see any of this in any of the proposed leaks. Who are the great lore characters that are tinkers that are equal in importance and coolness to Arthas and Illidan?

They don't need to be as important as Arthas or Illidan, they just need to be as important and cool as Chen. Gazlowe and Mekkatorque are about equal level of importance and coolness as Chen Stormstout, so we're good.

It just doesen't make any sense. Tinkers are just not cool enough to be a selling point to an xpack.

That's an opinion. There are a lot of players who enjoy technology-themed classes, and WoW does not have a technology class in its lineup. That addition could draw in new or former players.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Ok so the mount hint we have for the next expansion is the red cat
It’s definitely a wonderland reference
Has ties to Blood elves
I’m not going to reach about the colors beyond scarlet crusade
So my theory

The final patch did cause screwy things on Azeroth and our return is like Alice returning in through the looking glass. The schroedinger’s cat mount is because the world didn’t know if we were dead or alive. The scarlet crusade will be there and have support in the time we’ve been gone. Gonna say there will be a dragon because of the wonderland tie so a dragon which would be the black dragon behind the scarlet crusade. The red queen could be seen as the head of the scarlet and the white queen would be Calia. The blood elf connection could be due to Alleria and her void issues and the unfinished story threads of “will the blood elves go back to the alliance?” From MoP


I can’t let myself believe in galakaros because that name is too dumb and even if Jericho supports it he was caught last leak season bullshitting about a dragon expansion with a new AP system then being hunted down by blizzard legal. Also we got told DH wasn’t launched until legion because they want to match the theme…how does tinker match dragon?

I don’t use the steamscale because it wasn’t the last mount. I don’t use the zodiac mounts. The dragon bundle is a possible hint but has no previously established pattern unlike the others.

I think you're reading too deep into it. I'm not a fan of "the door is just red lol" interpretations, but I do think this might be a little closer than they were suggesting. They didn't subtly, carefully foreshadow an expansion with something that has figurative or metaphorical ties to the existing themes—they released mounts that seemed nonsensical at first but became immediately retroactively obvious when connected with a zone's aesthetic.

[Teriz]

I figure it's mostly putting them front-and-center. I also find the aesthetics a little hard to reconcile with other extant classes, and as aforementioned, I don't see any class being added unless it really fits the theme. Unless we get a shocking swerve Undermine expansion out of nowhere or maybe a very specific world revamp, I don't know why we'd get Tinker.

I don't know why an expansion with Undermine would be shocking. The world soul is underground, and it was attacked at the end of the current expansion. There's also links between Goblins and Black Dragons, so even a dragon-based expansion could pull in Undermine.

[Flotib]

Someone posted this on 4chan without explanation. He stated that he work at Blizzard. Probably fake btw

[Teriz]

That's amazing. Great work!

Someone posted this on 4chan without explanation. He stated that he work at Blizzard. Probably fake btw

He's about 5 hours too late.

[Hitei]

Someone posted this on 4chan without explanation. He stated that he work at Blizzard. Probably fake btw

Probably should have attempted this BEFORE we had the logo confirmed fanmade.

Also, lmao that is very obviously just the dragon isles concept art copy pasted into the background, would not bother reverse image searching even if it wasn't already debunked by the logo.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Like I'm not saying that the story now is good actually, I don't think it's that bad personally but then again I've never considered the Warcraft story to be all that great in the first place. They definitely have some amazing storytelling but the story itself I don't think has ever been anything special. BFA and SL to me are them recognizing that it's always been tropes and trying to break that mold while at the same time trying to appease the players that think anything that takes more than one questline to understand all of the story is bad storytelling.

I just think that super online lore obssesed nerds aren't actually good at giving alternate story ideas that work better than what is already there. Both because it's always so convoluted that you have to ask why it's complicated for complicated sake and also becauae Warcraft just isn't set up for that sort of story.

If you look at the widely accepted best stories in the franchise they're almost always just fully derivative not original ar all stories with a Warcraft skin. That's why Blizz should just go back to that because clearly them trying to tell a story over multiple expansions and patches isn't something the playerbase can handle especially when it's not a story that's particularly better than anything they've done in the past.

I definitely agree with the idea that Blizzard is going a little too far out-of-bounds with how they're trying to subvert the tropes so much, but I frankly don't think they're doing it as much as you're suggesting. The only things that have been interesting in this expansion are the Denathrius retcon and the geometry theme (which only really makes since if you like philosophy of religion or theology—people who aren't part of a certain religious clique may have trouble understanding it), and the rest has been fairly banal—the attempt at moral philosophy with Sylvanas is pretty mind-numbingly bad, given that we already had Blizzard do a very good (for the standards of something so cheesy) moral conundrum plot with Arthas' Culling of Stratholme.

Still, being trope-y doesn't mean it has to be bad. Again, Culling of Stratholme was a very good use of a very traditional storyline. I also would say they did their best to avert some tropes, even if it was just trading one reference for another—"Look! King Arthur is actually Elric of Melnibone!" is still a very fun twist on it. "Thanos ... but ... Thanos" isn't so interesting—no villains before now were just robotic MacGuffin-seekers. I really think a good, interesting plot could be done with this—even a subtle one. We've, again, seen subtlety before in the Culling of Stratholme. We've seen Cosmic Horror done adequately with Ulduar. I don't think that the plot is that inherently bad, nor do I think viewers wouldn't get it. I honestly think players would fully understand something that makes them think a little bit more about what's going on. Again, we've seen plenty of interesting and sincere debates on the Culling of Stratholme.

They're not at all all derivative—the Triumvirate was interesting and not very similar to anything we've ever seen before, Arthas still took good advantage of the storylines we've had before, War of the Ancients etc.—the lore is based on cheesy tropes, but that doesn't mean it's entirely derivative. You're thinking of this too cynically. There have been good plots befor and it's not wrong to expect something more.

[Revamp Man]

I think you're reading too deep into it. I'm not a fan of "the door is just red lol" interpretations, but I do think this might be a little closer than they were suggesting. They didn't subtly, carefully foreshadow an expansion with something that has figurative or metaphorical ties to the existing themes—they released mounts that seemed nonsensical at first but became immediately retroactively obvious when connected with a zone's aesthetic.

sylverian dreamer
No way that tied to shadowlands and it’s flavor mentions the dream

When we got the zones it did make sense but we also have to keep in mind devs are more often trying to make cheeky references nowadays. The main thing that made me see wonderland was the red queen and white queen

[Skildar]

Someone posted this on 4chan without explanation. He stated that he work at Blizzard. Probably fake btw
--snip--

love the bad timing XD

[Teriz]

I don’t use the steamscale because it wasn’t the last mount.

You kind of have to use the Steamscale because like the Sylverian Dreamer it was a 6 month promotion AND Blizzard released its companion pet in Shadowlands which was also a mechanical dragon using the same skin. Also both dragon mechs had distinctly dragon lore, and they sort of merge the huge Goblin/Gnome thematic hints in BFA with the draconic hints in BFA.

[Revamp Man]

Unless we have confirmation the new scarlet leader pushing the false heir is a guy

- - - Updated - - -

You kind of have to use the Steamscale because like the Sylverian Dreamer it was a 6 month promotion AND Blizzard released its companion pet in Shadowlands which was also a mechanical dragon using the same skin. Also both dragon mechs had distinctly dragon lore, and they sort of merge the huge Goblin/Gnome thematic hints in BFA with the draconic hints in BFA.

We don’t have to because it wasn’t the last release
The sylverian dreamer was the expansion mount so it added to the pattern

- - - Updated - - -

love the bad timing XD

But what if the guy that claimed to make it in photoshop saw it on 4chan and came in to try and debunk it because they are a blizzard plant???? FOR THE SCALE GUARD!!!!!!!!

[Teriz]

We don’t have to because it wasn’t the last release
The sylverian dreamer was the expansion mount so it added to the pattern

What was the last release? Also the Sylverian Dreamer was added long before Shadowands was announced, the Steamscale Incinerator was added long AFTER Shadowlands was announced.

Also what does it being the last release have anything to do with anything?

[AOL Instant Messenger]

That's amazing. Great work!



He's about 5 hours too late.

Also, it probably would have been debunkable just from the fact he directly copy/pasted the original Dragon Isles concept art – which is seemingly unrelated to this idea – into the frame.

[Hitei]

sylverian dreamer
No way that tied to shadowlands and it’s flavor mentions the dream

When we got the zones it did make sense but we also have to keep in mind devs are more often trying to make cheeky references nowadays. The main thing that made me see wonderland was the red queen and white queen

It's always going to be very difficult to gauge an expansion as a whole on a mount. That said, you can successfully guess bits. Sylverian dreamer is tied into the druidic/night aesthetic, and sylverian reinforces that with the wood/forest aspect--and we got a zone that was heavily tied into those things. You might not get Broken Isles and Legion from the runesaber, but saber + arcane did evoke highborne (Arcane using Night Elves), and we got 1-1.5 zones of that.

Based on the fox-cat, I feel really confident in guessing that one of the new zones in the next expansion will be a Vermillion Redoubt/Eversong Woods style, autumnal forest. It will be very magical, like the summer/fall palette version of Ashenvale or Moonglade. Lots of little sprites and weird magical creatures like the foxcat, the phoenix birds used for the skyblazer, etc.