Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Soulwind]

By all means, let's discuss how genes work for stone golems who got cursed by tentacle monsters and became fleshy.

Anduin being Arthas' child would throw several stories under the bus in favor of some misguided fanservice. While it's not beyond Blizzard, it is certainly not something anyone should be rooting for.

[huth]

Anduin's hair doesn't have to be darker to many any point. Blonde hair is a recessive gene, and we haven't seen any other Blonde characters in the Wrynn line of succession.

Actually, we do. Llane, Varian's father.

[Kiivar86]

Seeing as I'm blond and blue eyed and born to parents who are both dark brown haired and eyed, Anduin being blond doesn't strike me as overly strange and indicative of his father not being Varian.

Also almost all my relatives are equally dark, with only one (paternal uncle) having a non-brown or black hair (in his case, redhead)

[Polybius]

I hold my skepticism, but will say it's a fun read.

I especially like the Anduin being Arthas and Jaina's lovechild thing. Not something I ever see Blizzard ever actually doing, totally in the realm of fan service like the whole Anduin/Wrathion shipping, but still a cool twist to consider in that respect.

I like the outlines of what raids could have been too. Would've been neat to consider.

Also like the jab at Tinkers.

That part makes me question the validity of the post. They’ve spent years working at Blizz but it’s a forum craze to them? Nevermind Monks and Demon Hunters that had their own big following as well. I’ve seen all three get their series of threads well before MoP. Dragonsworn is fairly new but became popular around Legion.

There are other sentences where you can question their credit, they’re giving an overview of the game and not of their role.

[Triceron]

That part makes me question the validity of the post. They’ve spent years working at Blizz but it’s a forum craze, nevermind Monks and Demon Hunters that has their own craze building up as well. I’ve seen all three get their series of threads well before MoP.

There are other sentences where you can question their credit, they’re giving an overview of the game and not of their role.

I think their talk of sub numbers is most damning. It's like fan confirmation bias more than anything. Parroting what people want to hear. I kind of doubt any 'grunt' working there would actually have data on the numbers of subs played.

[Polybius]

If we're talking about Tinkers, it's mostly a craze here.

It gets the same amount of niche talk as Necromancers and Bards elsewhere. Like, Reddit doesn't even recognize the concept any greater than anything else. Tinkers are mostly a MMO-C thing as far as I'm aware, and even the polls here get an average of like 30% pick out of ~300 people polled.

The first time I saw it namedropped was on the official forums. I mean any new class thread can be regarded as niche, it is its own topic loaded with speculation. But these classes have always been talked about in said threads, even in outside circles from people that have never been to MMOC, they base it off class rpg archetypes.

addendum: class archetypes, Warcraft npc units, and unplayable lore figures

- - - Updated - - -

Bagh, nvm then. I just saw your edits and was going to say the same. Doubt they’d even spend as much time on forums. I imagine they have someone filtering all the bad apples.

[Chickat]

"Players who tell Tal-Inara that they have been to Zereth Mortis before and have already met Pocopoc will now receive the Enlightened reputation they would miss out on by skipping those quests."

This is a great change.

Blizzard seem to be listening. They do at the end of every expansion, but they are listening more then usual. Maybe next expansion will be another Legion.

[Shadochi]

"Players who tell Tal-Inara that they have been to Zereth Mortis before and have already met Pocopoc will now receive the Enlightened reputation they would miss out on by skipping those quests."

This is a great change.

Blizzard seem to be listening. They do at the end of every expansion, but they are listening more then usual. Maybe next expansion will be another Legion.

tbh stuff like this has been going on for half a year. It started with 9.1.5 which was basically the whole patch of stuff like that.
But with 9.2 they started more actively listening to that stuff during development and with hotfixes instead of just the next patch.
It happened with flying a couple times during 9.2 development IIRC and to be honest what they did with ZM story is probably the best to both reach their goal of giving flying after completing stuff in zones and players wanting to fly in latest zones without grinding rep. Legendaries also saw something like that with the 265 version being part of the questline and not requiring rep. The rep distribution in content as well.

This is one of the small-but-not-small things that give me hope for the future of player feedback.

[NextExpacGuess]

What reddit and MMO-champion think 10.0 will be
* Tinker class, a dragonkin race, and player housing + carpentry/woodworking professions
* Dragon Isles (5 zones) and an old world revamp
* Main enemy: The Void
* Primary protagonists: Sylvanas, Anduin, Nathanos, Alleria, Wrathion
* Later patches revamp Northrend and Pandaria
* Release date: Q3 2022

What 4chan thinks 10.0 will be
* New gender/pronoun options, removal of boobs, 20% of NPCs become transgender
* 1 new zone (either Dragon Isles or Lifelands)
* Main enemy: The Light and Void
* Primary protagonists: Sylvanas, Anduin, Pelagos, Chromie, Shaw, Flynn
* There are no patches, game shuts down one week later and everyone gets a month free of FFXIV
* Release date: Q4 2024

What I think 10.0 will be
* New race/class combos, some kind of mythic+ raid system, battle royale PvP zone
* 4-5 new zones scattered across Azeroth like Cataclysm (likely including the Dragon Isles, possibly some underground)
* Main enemy: The First Ones
* Primary protagonists: Medivh, Khadgar, Alexstrasza, Wrathion, Azeroth, Anduin, Thrall, Xal'atath, Azshara
* Later patches take us to the First Ones dimension
* Release date: Q1 2023

[Ersula]

Scrambling to rewrite everything would be a clear explanation for alot including why the rendered cinematics of the style of BfA vanished after the Sylvanas Bolvar one.

MoP had 1. WoD had 1. Legion had 1. BFA had 2. Shadowlands had 1.

If anything, the production of Shadowlands is just evidence that Covid happened.

[Polybius]

What reddit and MMO-champion think 10.0 will be
* Tinker class, a dragonkin race, and player housing + carpentry/woodworking professions
* Dragon Isles (5 zones) and an old world revamp
* Main enemy: The Void
* Primary protagonists: Sylvanas, Anduin, Nathanos, Alleria, Wrathion
* Later patches revamp Northrend and Pandaria
* Release date: Q3 2022

What 4chan thinks 10.0 will be
* New gender/pronoun options, removal of boobs, 20% of NPCs become transgender
* 1 new zone (either Dragon Isles or Lifelands)
* Main enemy: The Light and Void
* Primary protagonists: Sylvanas, Anduin, Pelagos, Chromie, Shaw, Flynn
* There are no patches, game shuts down one week later and everyone gets a month free of FFXIV
* Release date: Q4 2024

What I think 10.0 will be
* New race/class combos, some kind of mythic+ raid system, battle royale PvP zone
* 4-5 new zones scattered across Azeroth like Cataclysm (likely including the Dragon Isles, possibly some underground)
* Main enemy: The First Ones
* Primary protagonists: Medivh, Khadgar, Alexstrasza, Wrathion, Azeroth, Anduin, Thrall, Xal'atath, Azshara
* Later patches take us to the First Ones dimension
* Release date: Q1 2023

Very based but lol. Captured the ambience well.

[Chickat]

The vassal of life disguises treachery. Beware the eyes of green
Seems like the theory about the Primus as main Villain may be true....

The golden one claims a vacant throne. The crown of light will bring only darkness+
Primus made the crown...

Vassal of life could be a few different people. I'm not sure which of these have green eyes.

1. Ysera
2. Alexstrasza
3. Elune
4. Eonar
5. Freya.

The Golden one could be a couple people.

1. Most obvious is Turalyon.
2. A stretch, but could be the new Arbiter.
3. My pet theory is Calia Menethil.

[Zankai27]

Which is why it's kinda pointless to state. So one has to assume they say it just to get those reading it into the right mindset of accepting hte leaks by saying something that those reading will assume is true to begin with.

- - - Updated - - -



Yeah that was some premium bullshit as well. Noone who worked for Blizzard, or indeed anyone who even play the game and isnt already hating Tinkers would understand why playerss want them, or expect them to be in the game. Battle for Daar'alor literally had High Tinker Mekkatorque in a giant mechsuit. Pretending like tinker are not a tried and tested part of WoW by this point is just being willfully ignorant, they have literally been a part of the game since Warcraft.

The little contact I have with people on the dev team (who have no part in class design) think Tinkers are fucking awesome. And...yeah? Like, how would a bunch of actual nerds *not* think playing something like Mekkatorque sounds fucking awesome? The fact that some people think Blizzard thinks the idea is as stupid as they do is laughable.

MoP had 1. WoD had 1. Legion had 1. BFA had 2. Shadowlands had 1.

If anything, the production of Shadowlands is just evidence that Covid happened.

BFA had way more than 2.

-Main Cinematic

-Old Soldier

-Saurfang and Anduin

-Saurfang and Thrall

-Saurfang and Sylvanas

Shadowlands just had

-Main Cinematic

-Pre-launch sizzle reel "Beyond the Veil"

That's it so far

[Alanar]

People are just obsessed with them and will never let them go. It's one of those things.

Like how we literally went to the Emerald Dream, to its most important place, it's actual heart and source, and defeated its primary antagonist, but for some reason people are very sure there's an Emerald Dream expansion right around the corner.

I guess it helps that Void vs Light is an expected future thematic, and the only two standing forces of the Light we have with the potential to immediately be villainous without much change to lore are the Scarlets, and Yrel's Lightbound. And since people are also expecting a return to Azeroth and low end threats, the Scarlets appear the optimal choice, given their old Vanilla-y status.

Tell that to username. I said the same thing couple pages back.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

What reddit and MMO-champion think 10.0 will be
* Tinker class, a dragonkin race, and player housing + carpentry/woodworking professions
* Dragon Isles (5 zones) and an old world revamp
* Main enemy: The Void
* Primary protagonists: Sylvanas, Anduin, Nathanos, Alleria, Wrathion
* Later patches revamp Northrend and Pandaria
* Release date: Q3 2022

What 4chan thinks 10.0 will be
* New gender/pronoun options, removal of boobs, 20% of NPCs become transgender
* 1 new zone (either Dragon Isles or Lifelands)
* Main enemy: The Light and Void
* Primary protagonists: Sylvanas, Anduin, Pelagos, Chromie, Shaw, Flynn
* There are no patches, game shuts down one week later and everyone gets a month free of FFXIV
* Release date: Q4 2024

What I think 10.0 will be
* New race/class combos, some kind of mythic+ raid system, battle royale PvP zone
* 4-5 new zones scattered across Azeroth like Cataclysm (likely including the Dragon Isles, possibly some underground)
* Main enemy: The First Ones
* Primary protagonists: Medivh, Khadgar, Alexstrasza, Wrathion, Azeroth, Anduin, Thrall, Xal'atath, Azshara
* Later patches take us to the First Ones dimension
* Release date: Q1 2023

I appreciate you for making a burner to post a guess, mystery user.

[Chickat]

I really don't think they would create the first ones with all this mystery just to burn them down 1 expansion later.l

[Vakir]

I really don't want to think we're dealing with the First Ones because it means another fucking cosmic omega++ level threat and I am so very tired.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Vassal of life could be a few different people. I'm not sure which of these have green eyes.

1. Ysera
2. Alexstrasza
3. Elune
4. Eonar
5. Freya.

The Golden one could be a couple people.

1. Most obvious is Turalyon.
2. A stretch, but could be the new Arbiter.
3. My pet theory is Calia Menethil.

The thing with any of the Old God's whispers is that they are all just plot hooks that might never come to pass. They aren't really hints per se, more so just a cool idea someone had at the time. Of course, some of them might always been intended as set ups for plots, and some will be followed through depending what they wanna do, but I really thing the whispers thing just allow to throw a bunch of stuff to the wall and see what sticks

But I really don't think most of them are even set on stone, and some of them might come true but not as originally intended. Other, just dropped completely with really no fault, since they were rather clever at writing in the idea that the void sees all the possible futures, so whatever whisper that doesn't come through -a dropped plot hook- will be seen as a future that just didn't come to pass.

My own theory is that the "At the hour of her third death-" line is indeed about Alleria -introduced the same expansion, and Alleria got given that line about "feeling like she has died twice" but I also think they might make it fit Aszhara with how BfA played out for her, but I 100% think "The golden one" is about Turalyon, as it was set up in 8.3, and then made true in SL.

[LightboundExpansion]

10.0 is a soft reboot called Lightbound. Lordaeron is the main setting with a new leveling experience. It is its own continent so old Lordaeron still exists. New Lordaeron has a different shape since the zones aren’t 1:1. The New Lordaeron has been built up in a way that mixes both the Cataclysm revamp and the way Draenor was built off of Outland. The foundation for 10.0 has been worked on since after Legion, which is why people have datamined so many human related architecture over the years. It was originally going to be 9.0 with Shadowlands being the following expansion but some delays when working on Lordaeron in 2017 led to Shadowlands being made first. Lightbound was originally supposed to help build up the Jailor, the Shadowlands, and the mystery of the First Ones. Exile’s Reach originally was going to be about Lightbound ogres from Highmaul invading Azeroth rather than necromancers.

No other zones offer experience anymore. There is a leveling phase and a max level phase. Level 60 characters have things to do in all zones except for Exile’s Reach which was added in Shadowlands. Player cities in brackets.

01-10: Exile’s Reach
01-10: Arathor (Stormgarde)
01-10: Ebon Enclave (New Avalon)
10-20: Hillsbrad Foothills
10-20: The Channel Islands
20-30: Silverpine Forest
20-30: Zul’Dare
30-40: Alterac Mountains (Alterac)
30-40: Eastern Highlands (Hammerfall)
40-45: The Hinterlands (Aerie Peak)
40-45: Scarlet Coast
45-50: Gilneas (Gilneas)
45-50: Crushridge
50-53: Eastweald (Stratholme)
52-55: Tol Barad
54-57: The Ghostlands
56-59: Sunwell Isle
58-60: Zul’Aman
60-60: The Dragon Isles
60-60: Lordaeron
60-60: Quel’thalas

Level squish to 50. The original goal was to squish the levels back to 10 so even old players would have to level through all of Lordaeron's story, but now that Shadowlands brought in a squish already it's believed there would be a very negative response to going even further next time. The total level squishing and Chromie time was never intended to be a permanent change but instead a temporary band-aid while the new leveling system was worked on. Similarly old profession recipes and their related resources are becoming cosmetic only, making Lordaeron the only viable place for gameplay-enhancing profession work.

There are new dungeons from 15-60 (all with heroic and mythic level 60 versions). It's not yet decided whether old dungeons will be available to new players yet or if only the new dungeons will reward experience and gear.

Main story is focused on the Lightbound; a coalition of Yrel’s orc and draenei forces, Calia Menethil’s ‘new’ forsaken, Turalyon’s Alliance (which has conquered Silvermoon with the help of Liadrin), and the Scarlet Brotherhood. They are all working to drain Azeroth’s world soul to empower Xe’ra. The first raid is in a rebuilt holy Lordaeron City.

3 new neutral races; Dracona, Amani Trolls, Alteracis.

Classes and professions getting completely reworked. There are now no limits on how many professions you can have per character and progress is shared across all characters. Some classes are being merged making 5-6 spec classes with some shared traits and abilities. The number is being lowered from 12 to 8 classes. A few new specs for the classes that were not merged with another.

Cross faction guilds and grouping. No city, town, or quest in Lordaeron is faction locked. Previous expansion content is still faction locked.

New battleground set in Kul Tiras. Sides are auto-balanced and not Horde vs. Alliance. Previous battlegrounds are so far unchanged.

[Makorus]

Levelsquish back to 50 with 60 as the max is the most smooth-brain take.