Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Vakir]

True enough—I only am talking about the writers when I say that. Also, don't neglect the music team. Shadowlands has a pretty decent OST, and the Janitor's leitmotif is the one thing I like about him.

I like the whimsy of the ZM Leitmotif too. You can hear some musical foreshadowing of Anduin getting dominated in the Maw OST, there's definitely the presence of some of his theme but with the last note or two warped or key changed.

Yeah - sound, art, and raids are the main place they have little to no issues.

[micwini]

i was watching the OW2 update, posted today. They said the pvp will be testable this week and a new hero is gonna be available Sojourn. There was a leak ( ashes of something ) saying that OW2 would have be testable mid march with new heros , one of them being sojorun. Am i wrong?

The new hero being Sojourn has been known since OW2 was announced. Also the pvp testing will start late april, not mid march.

[Soulwind]

I don't see why the enemies we fight should always be considered as villains. Sometimes we fight them because there is no other option, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are evil. The Horde and the Alliance fight all the time and yet none of these factions is villainous. It just so happens that Illidan, Kael and co. weren't playable faction, so they were destined to lose that conflict.

Problem being, we were fighting both the Burning Legion and the guys fighting against the Burning Legion. They just wanted some known faces to put in raids, and back then that meant they had to be the boss. What little story there was to justify a dungeon or raid, was an afterthought.

Nowadays at least they plan ahead. They don't do it well, and they abruptly change the course of the story, but they don't just throw Thrall away as boss only to realize that they kind of want him back for something else afterwards.

[Vakir]

The bigger issue is that the TBC villain motivations outside Kil'jaeden didn't align with their prior personalities or actions at all.

Say what you want about the whitewashing of Illidan, outside of the bullshit Xe'ra was spewing and rightly died for, them reworking everything he did for the goal they retconned to in Legion aligned far more with the character we knew than him being a crazy and more importantly bland dictator.

Kael and Vashj in Shadowlands are both similarly constructed as giant hail Marys.

It's a toss-up. TBC depicts several characters the absolute worst possible way with tons of off screen alteration, BFA irreconcilably harms both factions and wastes a decade of buildup from N'Zoth, and SL has completely tone deaf understanding of what constitutes justice, fucks with the cosmology and existing beloved stories extensively, and spends waaay too much time with certain characters.

They're all good bad dogs stories, Brent.

[Sondrelk]

I'm completely with you here. I'm really struggling to understand where the hate is coming from. Everytime I chat someone that doesn't like the expansion, their arguments fall onto themselves.

What I gather is that this is just the expansion where people expect a lot more feelings to come out of it and a lot more epicness out the events that unfold.

They cry about the writing being shit but it's not, it's just not groundbreaking but it's always been either at this level (mop, legion, wrath) or way below (classic, bc, cata, wod, bfa). If anything this expansion expanded on a closed mythology and reopened doors to tell new stories with a feeling of unknown and thirst to understand the new forces and how they work together.

The way I see it is that there are 2 main problems with Shadowlands that kinda bring it down.
One being that it's just not terribly interesting. Sylvanas is massively overplayed, and the Jailer is as generic a villain as they come. And while it's technically competent enough, this also means it loses out on the Trainwreck aspect that made BfA interesting.
Secondly are the long droughts and lack of a 9.2 midpoint patch. Meaning we end up with systems that get stretched far beyond their intended lifespan.

These two problems feed into eachother as well annoyingly. The story is kinda boring, but spend 6 months waiting and it becomes nigh-excrutiating. And with the story being boring and not interesting to follow you don't have much reason incentive to interract with it either in-game or on forums.

[Kiria]

The new hero being Sojourn has been known since OW2 was announced. Also the pvp testing will start late april, not mid march.

Hate to break it to them aswell as it's already mid march xD

[Dioporco]

Such a pity Empire of Dragons was debunked, that logo was great. Props to @bagina and thanks for the update.

Why pity? Is better to be not hyped until 19 april so we cant get more disappointed with the real product.

[micwini]

Such a pity Empire of Dragons was debunked, that logo was great. Props to @bagina and thanks for the update.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...1#post53567553

PepeLaugh

[Shadochi]

So right now the most probable leak might as well be Corgis Unleashed

[Nyel]

Why pity? Is better to be not hyped until 19 april so we cant get more disappointed with the real product.

I liked the logo and the implication of an Empire build and ruled by Dragons.

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...1#post53567553

PepeLaugh

I never tried to hide how much I believe this leak and I'm happy to admit that I was wrong (although I wish I weren't).

[unbound]

II'm really struggling to understand where the hate is coming from. Everytime I chat someone that doesn't like the expansion, their arguments fall onto themselves.

Because it is an entirely boring expansion.

Every time you chat with someone who doesn't like the expansion, their arguments aren't compelling to you because you enjoy the expansion. Your lack of ability in understanding others point of view doesn't mean that they are wrong; it simply means that you refuse to accept their rationale. Don't worry, this is a common phenomena where you want to defend your choice as being the only correct choice. We see it all the time in Apple vs Microsoft vs Google, or Ford vs Chevy vs Toyota, or LG vs Samsung vs Vizio, etc, etc, etc. You made a choice based on your values...time that you recognize that others have their own set of values that are just as relevant as your own.

As for Lady Atia's nonsense, BC raiding wasn't remotely as bad as portrayed. I personally led a raiding guild back in those days, and we picked up all kinds of people that we taught to raid...many of whom moved on to more serious raiding guilds. Not everyone raided in BC because there was plenty to do with twice as many dungeons (just one element) as well as many new things introduced (none of which was clicking on a table and waiting hours later for a result). Those that wanted to raid absolutely could.

In my experience over the past nearly 2 decades, the vast majority of players really aren't very deep into the lore. Pointing out lore as the primary issue is a strawman argument overall, but it becomes laughable when people start hating on lore of old expansions that had over 5x as many active players as today.

Players want something to do. SL has been the continuation of lax development. Covenants are interesting but didn't add much content. We have the same lazy 8 dungeons and 3 raids as the last 3 expansions. While some love M+, it also causes burnout of seeing the same 8 dungeons over and over and over and over again, but have to race through it...about as fun as running around the track in elementary school all year long was to most people.

[huth]

The way I see it, it's like old mythology: the lands of the dead are literal lands of the world. Mortals could physicaly go, but they are forbiden (hence Cerberus). This is sort of the same.
Wwe also see other Forces opening portals to the Shadowlands, so it doesn't seem to be even hard to do.

Wouldn't say "not hard", but not so prohibitively expensive as to not be worthwhile. Obviously, you can't just open up portals willy-nilly or the Kyrians wouldn't be needed, but it's easy enough in either direction that a standing army was considered necessary.

[Lady Atia]

Because it is an entirely boring expansion.

Every time you chat with someone who doesn't like the expansion, their arguments aren't compelling to you because you enjoy the expansion. Your lack of ability in understanding others point of view doesn't mean that they are wrong; it simply means that you refuse to accept their rationale. Don't worry, this is a common phenomena where you want to defend your choice as being the only correct choice. We see it all the time in Apple vs Microsoft vs Google, or Ford vs Chevy vs Toyota, or LG vs Samsung vs Vizio, etc, etc, etc. You made a choice based on your values...time that you recognize that others have their own set of values that are just as relevant as your own.

As for Lady Atia's nonsense, BC raiding wasn't remotely as bad as portrayed. I personally led a raiding guild back in those days, and we picked up all kinds of people that we taught to raid...many of whom moved on to more serious raiding guilds. Not everyone raided in BC because there was plenty to do with twice as many dungeons (just one element) as well as many new things introduced (none of which was clicking on a table and waiting hours later for a result). Those that wanted to raid absolutely could.

If you think that guild hopping during TBC was a good thing than I can't help you anymore. People tend to remember it fondly because it was the first Expansion, but compared to any other Expansion it was just bad, sorry.

[Alanar]

More like the opposite, pretty much everything got debunked.

- - - Updated - - -



Pretty much:

Funny how you can see even more its far from titan or mech related. So much time wasted into these stupid discussion...
I am glad its debunked.

[Triceron]

That's it. We're not going to the Dragon Isles. We're not going to the Undermine. We're not even going to one of the moons. We're going to the sun!

Suns of Sundaria confirmed

[Soulwind]

Suns of Sundaria confirmed

The cover art will feature Zao Sunseeker, the hero we were all rooting for.

[therewillbedragons]

For what it's worth (nothing), I still think it will be dragons and I suspect that we will sadly not be getting a new class.

All classes so far have representation in the source games (e.g. WCIII), and there isn't much left to pull from. Classes are always themed to the expansion, and if it's dragons then I don't see any viable classes in the source material. They could create something new of course, but I just don't think Blizz has it in them at this current time to dedicate the resources needed for building a new class from the ground up.

SL does not feel like a WoD situation where they abandoned the expansion early to work on the next one, rather they just fell behind on SL due to a number of well known factors and (maybe) did cut some content. If stuff was cut though, I would guess it was more of a "we don't have the time/resources to do this now" and not a "we are going to MOVE resources from this to the next thing we're working on". I fear that the perfect storm of issues Blizz has been dealing with that put a damper on SL is going to affect the next expansion in the exact same way.

I do hope I'm wrong because 10.0 is a big number and it should have something huge and exciting to go along with it.

[Triceron]

The cover art will feature Zao Sunseeker, the hero we were all rooting for.

For the glory of Zao!

[ZyntosAran]

For what it's worth (nothing), I still think it will be dragons and I suspect that we will sadly not be getting a new class.

All classes so far have representation in the source games (e.g. WCIII), and there isn't much left to pull from. Classes are always themed to the expansion, and if it's dragons then I don't see any viable classes in the source material. They could create something new of course, but I just don't think Blizz has it in them at this current time to dedicate the resources needed for building a new class from the ground up.

SL does not feel like a WoD situation where they abandoned the expansion early to work on the next one, rather they just fell behind on SL due to a number of well known factors and (maybe) did cut some content. If stuff was cut though, I would guess it was more of a "we don't have the time/resources to do this now" and not a "we are going to MOVE resources from this to the next thing we're working on". I fear that the perfect storm of issues Blizz has been dealing with that put a damper on SL is going to affect the next expansion in the exact same way.

I do hope I'm wrong because 10.0 is a big number and it should have something huge and exciting to go along with it.

I am afraid they kinda have to deliver a new class as basically everyone expects them to. Unless they will provide new specs or rework a lot of stuff (combat rework, class system rework or whatever i dont know, 10.0 might be a huge thing)

[Skildar]

Because it is an entirely boring expansion.

Every time you chat with someone who doesn't like the expansion, their arguments aren't compelling to you because you enjoy the expansion. Your lack of ability in understanding others point of view doesn't mean that they are wrong; it simply means that you refuse to accept their rationale. Don't worry, this is a common phenomena where you want to defend your choice as being the only correct choice. We see it all the time in Apple vs Microsoft vs Google, or Ford vs Chevy vs Toyota, or LG vs Samsung vs Vizio, etc, etc, etc. You made a choice based on your values...time that you recognize that others have their own set of values that are just as relevant as your own.

As for Lady Atia's nonsense, BC raiding wasn't remotely as bad as portrayed. I personally led a raiding guild back in those days, and we picked up all kinds of people that we taught to raid...many of whom moved on to more serious raiding guilds. Not everyone raided in BC because there was plenty to do with twice as many dungeons (just one element) as well as many new things introduced (none of which was clicking on a table and waiting hours later for a result). Those that wanted to raid absolutely could.

In my experience over the past nearly 2 decades, the vast majority of players really aren't very deep into the lore. Pointing out lore as the primary issue is a strawman argument overall, but it becomes laughable when people start hating on lore of old expansions that had over 5x as many active players as today.

Players want something to do. SL has been the continuation of lax development. Covenants are interesting but didn't add much content. We have the same lazy 8 dungeons and 3 raids as the last 3 expansions. While some love M+, it also causes burnout of seeing the same 8 dungeons over and over and over and over again, but have to race through it...about as fun as running around the track in elementary school all year long was to most people.

attacking someone based on nothing but supposition and being condescending isn't a great suit