Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Sentynel]

It looks like they're setting it up that way. The leveling system doesn't need an extra 10 levels just for them to squish it down again in a few expansions. Why would they continue to add new levels when one of their goals was to make leveling faster?

"few expansions" lol.

It took 15 years to get to the point of a squish. We're good for the next 15 years with increasing levels again.

[therumblings]

"few expansions" lol.

It took 15 years to get to the point of a squish. We're good for the next 15 years with increasing levels again.

in 6 years 30 more levels will be added, I'd rather not shit on the work they did by taking 5 levels to get one spell again.

[Sondrelk]

"few expansions" lol.

It took 15 years to get to the point of a squish. We're good for the next 15 years with increasing levels again.

Well yes, but what would be the point? Levels flow much better when it's only 60. Adding 10 more levels to to what is currently the 10-50 bracket will just dilute the abilities gained, and the only benefit gained would be that players who are level 60 can still pretend like this somehow matters.

It's the same thing with the number squish for stats and damage. Yes, there isnt a technical limitation, and the game could abolutely handle slightly bigger numbers, but having fewer makes everything easier to digest and comprehend at a glance.

The big question isnt why we should squish. But why we shouldnt have a squish each expansion? There are so many aspects of an expansion that becomes pointless anyways, no reason to keep the numbers of all things as the only worthwhile thing from it that needs to be kept around.

[Calfredd]

Notice how after EoD leak was confirmed fake and we got nothing substantial left, the new "leaks" spawned look aimless, chaotic and instantly fake detectable. Im pretty sure we wont get any actual leaks up till last couple days before April 19th.

Doesn't the real leak show up like a week before the official announcement anyway? So it feels like Leak Season is always a waste of everybody's time until that point.

[therumblings]

Doesn't the real leak show up like a week before the official announcement anyway? So it feels like Leak Season is always a waste of everybody's time until that point.

It sort of is, but the Shadowlands-10.0 leak season was especially long because we had absolutely no idea when the expansion would be announced, so it felt like half of the entire expansion was nothing but leak season.

[Sondrelk]

Doesn't the real leak show up like a week before the official announcement anyway? So it feels like Leak Season is always a waste of everybody's time until that point.

The real leak has always shown up a few hours or so before the actual presentation, and also seems like bulletpoints taken straight form the presentation. A real leak would almost never mention details of the BfA Vol'jin spiritual quest, but is more likely to mention how Vol'jin is being carried around in an urn for instance.

The explanation I think fits best is that Blizzard needs to have a test run of the presentation in the convention center before the actual presentation, so they quickly check all the videos and slides, and have someone possibly briefly summarize what will be said for each slide.
Then you have a grunt worker in the convention center with much less reason to care about an NDA compared to an actual worker at Blizzard, who memorizes bulletpoints, and maybe takes a sneaky photo.
Then during lunch break or during a trip to the toilet they go to 4chan or Reddit or whatever to leak things.

[Dracullus]

"few expansions" lol.

It took 15 years to get to the point of a squish. We're good for the next 15 years with increasing levels again.

Problem existed for years. First time they tried to deal with it was Cata revamp. Still many potential new players bounced from game pretty quickly after they make unfortunate decision to make Belf/Draenei. Many more haven't really went so far, perspective of 90-100-110 levels was discouraging enough.

Another solution was character boost, but that was asking new player to buy current expansion at start just to throw him in totally unknown environment. Sadly they didn't come with 9.0 changes before that, there would be no reason to introduce boost, but know it's too profitable for them to resign from this.

[therumblings]

Problem existed for years. First time they tried to deal with it was Cata revamp. Still many potential new players bounced from game pretty quickly after they make unfortunate decision to make Belf/Draenei. Many more haven't really went so far, perspective of 90-100-110 levels was discouraging enough.

Another solution was character boost, but that was asking new player to buy current expansion at start just to throw him in totally unknown environment. Sadly they didn't come with 9.0 changes before that, there would be no reason to introduce boost, but know it's too profitable for them to resign from this.

I'm kinda fine with the one time boost for buying an expansion, but just being able to buy max levels feels shitty.

[Dracullus]

I'm kinda fine with the one time boost for buying an expansion, but just being able to buy max levels feels shitty.

Funny enough, right now boost is more needed in classic than retail (of course one time only). Even current boost don't really ruin anybody's experience, I just say game since 9.0 would be perfectly fine without any form of level boost.

[Hitei]

Exile’s Reach originally was going to be about Lightbound ogres from Highmaul invading Azeroth rather than necromancers.

Well, not much reason to read past this. Since the entire point of Exile's Reach is to be a totally self-contained starting experience that isn't tied to any time point or any ongoing narrative.

[Grimbold21]

Oh boy. This is good! http://boards.4channel.org/v/thread/...dowlands-leaks

No tinkers and the next expac not being anything related to what people think it is.

Oh boy, this would be wonderful.

[Kiria]

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.

I actually like this route, I would definitely start a new character just to lvl up through it all.

Just an entire new levelling experience would be fantastic, especially if they reworked all the classes... honestly a soft reboot I would be absolutely perfectly fine with.

[Dracullus]

Revamping world piece by piece is for sure way to do it without involving extra resources, but removing XP from other zones would be just ridicolous. Forcing first character to do 'proper' route is enough.

But something tells me that if we will see revamp in 10.0 or later expac, it will be something they were working on much longer than typical expansion and will be full EK/Kalimdor. Old world could be put behind caverns of time portal... or just be removed to make instant need for Cataclysm Classic.

[Shadochi]

Notice how after EoD leak was confirmed fake and we got nothing substantial left, the new "leaks" spawned look aimless, chaotic and instantly fake detectable. Im pretty sure we wont get any actual leaks up till last couple days before April 19th.

Someone should make a new HD logo so that the leaks can go off of that while a chosen group of people know its fake and this anything related is fake.

As for when a leak might happen, if any. Thats the thing, while most leaks have been close to expansion release when more people get info, that doesn't have to always be the case.

[mutsuk]

The only real leak:
— No real wildly known title yet, internally known as "the new beginnings"

— No full world revamp, but some zones and many sub-zones are revamped or updated since many events and world quest-like content happening all over the world. Showcase revamped locations are Lordraeron and Tanaris.

— Dragon Isles are endgame zone, very reminiscent of shrines in Dragonblight

— No new races, AR or classes at the start. Instead we get slight class revamp, manly focused on specs which are much softer now and many of which are merged and/or expended. Showcase is Mage which have frost and fire combined while arcane expanded to accommodate buff/debuff and other support stuff; and Warrior which have arms and prot combined while fury I'd completely reworked.

— Talents also reworked and present much more significant choices for your playstyle.

— More emphasis on diverse and fun gear and also craft professions.

— demo/alpha targeted briefly after announcement with Tanaris and only couple of classes available.

[TomatoBisque]

The only real leak:
— No real wildly known title yet

noperino, blizzard devs know the title

[Khaza-R]

noperino, blizzard devs know the title

Yup.

And basically being a month away from the announcement its very likely the title has been shared with 3rd party vendors for merchandising at this point. A "real" leak is very likely to come out soon.

[Ersula]

I actually like this route, I would definitely start a new character just to lvl up through it all.

Just an entire new levelling experience would be fantastic, especially if they reworked all the classes... honestly a soft reboot I would be absolutely perfectly fine with.

The Lightbound expansion leak is actually insane because it's proposing that they would do a massive revamp of the leveling experience in 9.0 just to massively revamp it AGAIN in 10.0

- - - Updated - - -

BFA had way more than 2.

Okay you got me there. I forgot most of those because I was extremely checked out from the story of BFA. But there is a simple explanation for not getting as many of those in Shadowlands: The guy & his studio that does their fully rendered cinematics was busy making Arcane during Shadowlands production. So instead we got more in-game model cinematics from Terron Gregory this expansion.

[Nyel]

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.

Even if it's fake, this is the way I would like to see WoW embrace and progress in the future. It would be a brave decision, but that's something WoW desperately needs.

[Edlarel]

The real leak

Turns out this year the real leak was the friends we made along the way.