Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Raetary]

How about making a main hub for the Forsaken and the Night Elfs the next big place for each faction in the next Expansion.

Yes please.

I want Nordrassil expanded and turned into a proper city hub.
The Forsaken can do the same with Andorhal or Strat.

[Sondrelk]

They're not going to revamp Azeroth. They literally just added a new starting zone for all races. It would be stupid to then revamp Elwynn Forest, Dun Morogh, etc. literally in the following expansion. At best you'll get single zone revamps like Arathi Highlands, Darkshore, Tirisfal Glades, Teldrassil, Silithus.

The fact that they revamped the opening is honestly a good indication that they should revamp all the other levelling.

While we are currently pretty good with narrative flow the next expansion will be horrible. Going from nobody on Exile's reach to slowly accruing fame in Kul Tiras/Zandalar is enough of a story that being put in the spearhead of an critical mission to infiltrate the Maw makes sense.
It would however be difficult to buy narratively that the up and coming recruit from Exile's reach would be immediately sent to Icecrown to partake in said critical mission.

A revamped world that adds evergreen levelling for 50-60 expansion levelling to fit into makes all the sense.
BfA is generic enough in that sense that a new player can slowly accrue enough general knowledge to understand what happens once they get to the current expansion levelling and get deeper into the lore, but even that has problems. Evergreen 10-50 levelling could help immensely in that regard.
Design the world as superzones essentially. For isntance by saying that all the zones related to Forsaken are one and tell one coherent story about the Forsaken and Scourge. One collection of zones with all the dwarf stuff, one with all the human stuff, one with all the Orc stuff etc.
Then you can simply create content wherever after that since the players should have enough of a basis to work from when it comes to deeper lore.


tl;dr: Exile's reach is good because it is a (mostly) time agnostic zone that easies players into content while also giving a believable springboard for more important stories. And while BfA currently takes the place as the canon continuation SL would not, and while BfA could continue taking this place it would be far better to create dedicated 1+-50 levelling zones similar to how Exile's reach works for 1-10.

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They should at least update Orgrimmar and Stormwind.

Hopefully we get an expansion that really lets SW and Org be the faction hubs they were always meant to be. There is so much room for content there that is never used simply because we never really have an in-story reason to go back.
They work nice as purely utilitarian hubs what with convenient AH and the portal rooms, but they should be used more often for actual content.

[Varodoc]

The fact that they revamped the opening is honestly a good indication that they should revamp all the other levelling.

So then why even create Exile's Reach in the first place, if it'll become outdated literally in the next expansion?

[Sondrelk]

So then why even create Exile's Reach in the first place, if it'll become outdated literally in the next expansion?

Exile's rech is the tutorial, not the entire levelling.

All a potential revamp would need to skip is the old tutorial areas. Northshire abbey and whatever the other introductory areas were.

Exile's reach is 1-10, and while BfA is perfectly serviceable as 10-50 it was not designed to be, and should not be considered evergreen content in that regard. And if we assume Blizzard wants to continue giving new players a springboard that places all players in an even playing field like what they said they wanted when they made BfA the canon 10-50 with Chromie time being for experienced players only I believe we can conclusively state that SL does not work nearly as well for new players as a 10-50 levelling continent.

[DeltrusDisc]

That's the thing though. The SL is starved and additionally more numerous, whereas the Classic playerbade us smaller and able to wait longer..

Regardless I still doubt that TBC will be a sensation like Classic was, much less hold the initial playerbase better.
After all, who is TBC made for exactly? It's the first expansion for sure, but WotLK is the one where wow awareness peaked, so I imagine that most players that miss it are those that already play Classic, which is most definitely smaller than the SL playerbase.


The long and short of it still is that SL is simply more important as a revenue base. Classic is a museum piece by admission of even the developers. Why in the world should Blizzard prioritize that playerbade over their main one?

I know a lot of people including myself who didn't play Vanilla Classic but are really excited to play TBC Classic now. /shrug

[Cosmic Janitor]

There is more to a potential world revamp than a lot of people wanting it. For one there are loads of stories that are either ongoing or hinted at specifically for EK and Kalimdor, like whatever happened to the Botani that escaped with teh Mag'har, or the ongoing question of Forsaken and Human Lordaeron refugees and who will end up in those lands.

Secondly and perhaps more importantly there is a finite amount of potential expansion continents that have been seeded enough to warrant a full expansion. And while it is in theory possible to seed new areas indefinitely you would eventually have to go back to the Azeroth players know to reground them in the narrative, otherwise the story just becomes increasingly nonsensical.

If we talk about seeded content, then a random micro plot hook for botani is probably one of the last reasons to revamp an old zone and make a new expansion out of it - even if we include all the others you mentioned. All of those hooks can also be resolved over time in the way they started in BfA; so selectively overhauling zones. There is no need to turn it into a full revamp.

I'm not even saying that it's impossible and can't happen, there just aren't any real hints that it will next expansion. I personally would like to return back to Azeroth as well, but I just can't pretend like this is already in the cards. It could, but so could a bunch of other things, including new random islands and landmasses to explore.

PS: We already jumped the shark, we fight the literal afterlife of the story right now. Turning this into Dragonball WoW GT would hardly matter at this point as any semblance of sense has long left the chat.

[Sondrelk]

If we talk about seeded content, then a random micro plot hook for botani is probably one of the last reasons to revamp an old zone and make a new expansion out of it - even if we include all the others you mentioned. All of those hooks can also be resolved over time in the way they started in BfA; so selectively overhauling zones. There is no need to turn it into a full revamp.

I'm not even saying that it's impossible and can't happen, there just aren't any real hints that it will next expansion. I personally would like to return back to Azeroth as well, but I just can't pretend like this is already in the cards. It could, but so could a bunch of other things, including new random islands and landmasses to explore.

PS: We already jumped the shark, we fight the literal afterlife of the story right now. Turning this into Dragonball WoW GT would hardly matter at this point as any semblance of sense has long left the chat.

Dragon isles is the only area that is currently properly seeded and has relevant characters we know and potential plot threads to explore. After that we have to go to either areas we have already been to, areas that are more likely to be patch zones/raids or areas that are completely made up after this point.

Of those going back to old areas are the most likely as it not only gives nostalgia points, but is also easier to make from a development standpoint, and easier to write for.
And while many of the plot hooks are small they are also relevant, not to mention numerous enough to create entire expansions on their own.
Consider for instance the plot hooks of rebellious Dark iron Dwarves ressurecting Ragnaros, a micro hook but enough for an entire patch. Then you have the hook of Tyralyon wanting to retake former Lordaeron lands. The hook of whatever happened to the Plaguelands and Stratholme. The hook of Forsaken wanting to live in their former lands. And the plot hook of generally just seeing these areas again.
Combine enough small plot hooks together and you have enough for an entire expansion. And that is just for the Eastern Kingdom. For Kalimdor you have the mentioned Botani, the Nelves, the Brone Dragonflight and the sword in Silithus.

[Varodoc]

Exile's rech is the tutorial, not the entire levelling.

All a potential revamp would need to skip is the old tutorial areas. Northshire abbey and whatever the other introductory areas were.

Exile's reach is 1-10, and while BfA is perfectly serviceable as 10-50 it was not designed to be, and should not be considered evergreen content in that regard. And if we assume Blizzard wants to continue giving new players a springboard that places all players in an even playing field like what they said they wanted when they made BfA the canon 10-50 with Chromie time being for experienced players only I believe we can conclusively state that SL does not work nearly as well for new players as a 10-50 levelling continent.

It's not going to happen. If they were interested in a world revamp they would have done it in BfA when Sargeras literally stabbed the planet.

How people can think that modern Blizzard, the same modern Blizzard that didn't even make a zone for Ny'alotha, would revamp 40+ zones while creating 5 or so new expansion zones is beyond me...

[Raetary]

would revamp 40+ zones while creating 5 or so new expansion zones is beyond me..

We don't.

People expect them to NOT go the cata route and actually USE the revamped zone rather the shoehorn people into 4-5 brand new zones.

[Sondrelk]

It's not going to happen. If they were interested in a world revamp they would have done it in BfA when Sargeras literally stabbed the planet.

How people can think that modern Blizzard, the same modern Blizzard that didn't even make a zone for Ny'alotha, would revamp 40+ zones while creating 5 or so new expansion zones is beyond me...

Because it is relatively easy, it is overdue, and it is what a large portion of the playerbase wants.

Blizzard has zones upon zones in the EK and Kalimdor that are just sitting there ripe for storytelling not doing anything that players are begging Blizzard to reuse.
It makes all the sense for Blizzard to do something with them? As it stands they are just as relevant as the Dragon Isles are, except they already have the zones.

If you were in Blizzards shoes and you have the option between making a completely new zone from scratch likely requiring new assets that some players want, or remaking old zones with reused assets for far more acclaim, which one would you go for?

[Varodoc]

Because it is relatively easy, it is overdue, and it is what a large portion of the playerbase wants.

Blizzard has zones upon zones in the EK and Kalimdor that are just sitting there ripe for storytelling not doing anything that players are begging Blizzard to reuse.
It makes all the sense for Blizzard to do something with them? As it stands they are just as relevant as the Dragon Isles are, except they already have the zones.

If you were in Blizzards shoes and you have the option between making a completely new zone from scratch likely requiring new assets that some players want, or remaking old zones with reused assets for far more acclaim, which one would you go for?

Show me those Post-Cataclysm assets they could use to revamp the dwarf zones, or the forsaken zones, or the night elf zones (then you'd be complaining that they reused the same 3 houses everywhere because they literally only created like 3 house models for the night elves in Legion).

In fact I truly hope they don't revamp the world like they did with Arathi, turning Stromgarde into a glorified Garrison was garbage. That's not interesting, either do a world revamp and come up with something new or don't even bother, I'm not interested in watching Blizzard's skills at copy-pasting assets from previous expansions.

Yes, in an ideal world it would be amazing if Blizzard could update the world to affect the current lore, just like how it would be amazing if Blizzard paid me to play their game, of course everyone would agree that a revamped Azeroth would be interesting to see, but it won't happen. So to answer your question:

If you were in Blizzards shoes and you have the option between making a completely new zone from scratch likely requiring new assets that some players want, or remaking old zones with reused assets for far more acclaim, which one would you go for?

I'd choose the former, because A) I'd have to create new assets for dwarves, forsaken, etc. anyway (basically any race that aren't the draenei, human, and orcs who got tons of new assets in WoD), and B) It's easier to write 5 new stories rather than 40 new stories.

And that's what Blizzard chose. That's why they didn't revamp the world when Sargeras stabbed it, but instead created 2 new continents and revamped a bunch of zones by adding world quests and updating some textures.

[Sondrelk]

Show me those Post-Cataclysm assets they could use to revamp the dwarf zones, or the forsaken zones, or the night elf zones (then you'd be complaining that they reused the same 3 houses everywhere because they literally only created like 3 house models for the night elves in Legion).

In fact I truly hope they don't revamp the world like they did with Arathi, turning Stromgarde into a glorified Garrison was garbage.

Yes, in an ideal world it would be amazing if Blizzard could update the world to affect the current lore, just like how it would be amazing if Blizzard paid me to play their game, of course everyone would agree that a revamped Azeroth would be interesting to see, but it won't happen. So to answer your question:


I'd choose the former, because A) I'd have to create new assets for dwarves, forsaken, etc. anyway (basically any race that aren't the draenei, human, and orcs who got tons of new assets in WoD), and B) It's easier to write 5 new stories rather than 40 new stories.

They have all the necessary assets to recreate Nelf areas from Ardenweald and Legion. They have loads of Human and Orc assets from WoD. Tauren assets from Legion, Gnome and to some extent Goblin assets from BfA, same with Troll assets. Draenei assets they also have from Legion.
Yes they likely still need Dwarf and Forsaken assets, but noone is saying they should go completely without new assets, but rather that they have a world revamp players want and loads of assets that would fit it.

Also noone is saying 40 stories. Giving each zone its own story wasnt even necessarily true in Cata. You just need around 5-6 stories and decide on where the borders of each story goes.
As I mentioned before, you don't need distinct stories for Dun Murough, the Wetlands, the Badlands and the zones around Blackrock Mountain. Just create one long story starting in Dum Murough about Dwarves that organically becomes one about stopping rebel DI Dwarves. Suddenly you have combined something like 6 or 7 zones into one convenient package that can share reputations and what have you. Do the same with areas like Feralas and Desolace. Just keep combining zones that are similar in what story that fits and you can easily compress 40 odd stories into those mentioned 5-6 well-developed stories with room for dedicated patch zones, "unused" zones for unique events or even just the odd zone like Silithus which doesnt need much content at all.

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On to a different topic though. The new book seems to heavily imply that Uther did in fact fail to stop Arthas, and by proxy possibly failed Arthas as a mentor by failing to show him compassion despite his outward appearance.

Uther in the book specifically has a prophetic dream of sorts where he has to stop a dragon by showing compassion instead of violence, because the dragon is actually help captive against its will forced to kill its foes.

[Pheraz]

They have all the necessary assets to recreate Nelf areas from Ardenweald and Legion. They have loads of Human and Orc assets from WoD. Tauren assets from Legion, Gnome and to some extent Goblin assets from BfA, same with Troll assets. Draenei assets they also have from Legion.
Yes they likely still need Dwarf and Forsaken assets, but noone is saying they should go completely without new assets, but rather that they have a world revamp players want and loads of assets that would fit it.

Also noone is saying 40 stories. Giving each zone its own story wasnt even necessarily true in Cata. You just need around 5-6 stories and decide on where the borders of each story goes.
As I mentioned before, you don't need distinct stories for Dun Murough, the Wetlands, the Badlands and the zones around Blackrock Mountain. Just create one long story starting in Dum Murough about Dwarves that organically becomes one about stopping rebel DI Dwarves. Suddenly you have combined something like 6 or 7 zones into one convenient package that can share reputations and what have you. Do the same with areas like Feralas and Desolace. Just keep combining zones that are similar in what story that fits and you can easily compress 40 odd stories into those mentioned 5-6 well-developed stories with room for dedicated patch zones, "unused" zones for unique events or even just the odd zone like Silithus which doesnt need much content at all.

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On to a different topic though. The new book seems to heavily imply that Uther did in fact fail to stop Arthas, and by proxy possibly failed Arthas as a mentor by failing to show him compassion despite his outward appearance.

Uther in the book specifically has a prophetic dream of sorts where he has to stop a dragon by showing compassion instead of violence, because the dragon is actually help captive against its will forced to kill its foes.

The most recent night elf assets come from Bfa. Just fly through darkshore when it's alliance controlled. There are many new buildings and a new harbour

[Sondrelk]

The most recent night elf assets come from Bfa. Just fly through darkshore when it's alliance controlled. There are many new buildings and a new harbour

Yeah I completely forgot about those.

Point is there are loads of assets, and even if some are still needed for the full package we are close enough that the question of recreating the entire world because of a lack of assets is a non-issue.

[Revamp Man]

That is dogma in your thinking that makes 9.3 for you almost impossible (cause yeah, releasing 9.3 and 10.0 in 2022 is almost impossible). But answer this questions:

1. What's more important (for money people in Acti-Blizz): year of expac release or time gap between expansion?
2. Does WoW sales/hype around it suffer when it doesn't release in hot time before Christmas? Or rather it's similar no matter it's August or November?
3. It's possible for SL (with 9.3) to be same or, hell, shorter than BfA? Would that be even hard?

These question are not to prove/disprove 9.3, but to show you that "they CANNOT delay 10.0 until 2023" is nonsense.



At some point I believed 10.0 is revamp, but more I think about it, less it makes sense. We are for sure going towards some big Light vs. Void expansion and Azeroth awakening, Legion style "end of the world" expansion. Think about it - BfA is similar to MoP (duh) and SL is similar to WoD (external threat, we're going to alien world to stop enemy before he reach us).

That collide with revamp. Revamped EK/Kalmidor should be more pristine, after story reset, some time jump. On reveal WORLD must be most important thing, not crazy Turalyon and Yrel.

As for 10.0, well, Dragon Isles are obvious for Legion style expansion. We don't really have more big Azeroth places hinted in lore (as I said in some previous post, they can invent anything, but it has to be mentioned before in lore to not feel as alien place), Tel'Abim wouldn't really fit.

They also recently learned that releasing an expansion mid holidays is a bad idea because they get free exposure from the world first race and now they have their own events as well

9.3 does have space if we take into account the fact the pandemic slowed everything

As for the world revamp just use the zidormii stuff they have been and you avoid most issues and then you can use certain zones easily and it makes sense with the slow texture improvements and some zone changes

Remember when they were cleaning up karazhan and we were told “oh it’s just an interns side hobby” then we got the dungeon

[Pheraz]

Yeah I completely forgot about those.

Point is there are loads of assets, and even if some are still needed for the full package we are close enough that the question of recreating the entire world because of a lack of assets is a non-issue.

Yes

The minimum they could do is to replace all old models, assets and armour with new ones. Leave all quests and so on as they are. This would be lame but still something. And on top of this many zones time changed ala darkshore style

[Dracullus]

I saw great post on icy-veins where someone draw potential class cloaks and it came to me - class cloaks would be PERFECT reward for next Mage Tower. They require less resources than set (we would need 12 cloaks with recolor for each spec), but everyone and their mothers would want to get it at least on main And they would be even more unique than Artifact transmog.

If Blizzard would do Mage Tower in 9.2 with these cloaks and say in front it's exclusive reward for SL, well, that would probably resolve content drought problem for rest of expac.

[TheFirstOnes]

Me, already on the Pantheon's of Death and Life teaming up against Zovaal train: *Eats Popcorn*

[Sondrelk]

I saw great post on icy-veins where someone draw potential class cloaks and it came to me - class cloaks would be PERFECT reward for next Mage Tower. They require less resources than set (we would need 12 cloaks with recolor for each spec), but everyone and their mothers would want to get it at least on main And they would be even more unique than Artifact transmog.

If Blizzard would do Mage Tower in 9.2 with these cloaks and say in front it's exclusive reward for SL, well, that would probably resolve content drought problem for rest of expac.

The Mage tower alone was not really what made the end of Legion drought so bearable, it was that combined with all classes having a unique questline and mount that could be gathered, class specific sets that could be farmed and also generally all the weird power scaling systems like Artifacts, Legiondaries and Netherlight crucible being easy enough to get the most out of that most players got everything they needed to complete the Mage tower challenges simply by casual play on alts.

mage tower challenges were good and all, but it still needed more stuff around it to prop it up.

[huth]

The Mage tower alone was not really what made the end of Legion drought so bearable, it was that combined with all classes having a unique questline and mount that could be gathered, class specific sets that could be farmed and also generally all the weird power scaling systems like Artifacts, Legiondaries and Netherlight crucible being easy enough to get the most out of that most players got everything they needed to complete the Mage tower challenges simply by casual play on alts.

mage tower challenges were good and all, but it still needed more stuff around it to prop it up.

Frankly, i believe the mage tower is much better remembered than it deserves because it essentially ended when you were at the highest point; you'd finally managed to beat the challenge and gotten your reward. Did anybody really go back after that?