Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Factcheckerr]

Yrel and the Lightbound are not demons and elementals though. They're literally aliens from another world.

Demons are quite literally aliens from multiple worlds... just from worlds in another dimension.

[draugril]

Sure, but they do that via new locations I've never been to before. Despite my desire for more tech in WoW, I still wanted to see Kul'tiras, Pandaria, and Northrend. I don't care about Lordaeron, I've been there, I've quested there, I don't care about that location. I'm sure I'm not alone in that feeling.

I'm sure you're not alone. But there are also others who feel the inverse. Those places that we've been? Where we've quested? Where we're invested? Those are the places I care about. Those are the places I want to revisit and watch evolve. I don't care about the Shadowlands or Pandaria or Gingledoof - the proper-noun-du-jour just doesn't interest me. I might as well be playing a different game entirely if we throw out virtually the entire setting every two years.

[Teriz]

Demons are quite literally aliens from multiple worlds... just from worlds in another dimension.

If you want to get literal in extremely pedantic terms, sure. However, there's a difference between an army of demons getting pulled into Azeroth by a crazed Warlock, and a bunch of blue people invading Azeroth in literal spaceships.

[Factcheckerr]

Also arguing in the Lights Judgement thread (doubt it's real, but we will get something similar) made me realize: there must be a specific reason that the deluxe edition only has the Green Dragonflight and not a "choose your own flight" mount.

The end of Shadowlands makes Lifelands unlikely as do dev comments. Could it be because there's an anti-Cataclysm theme with rebirth instead of destruction?

[draugril]

Also arguing in the Lights Judgement thread (doubt it's real, but we will get something similar) made me realize: there must be a specific reason that the deluxe edition only has the Green Dragonflight and not a "choose your own flight" mount.

I recall the idea being thrown around that the new artifact/azerite/covenant system would be developing your own dragon companion/mount to your preference. I still think that's a great idea.

[Teriz]

I'm sure you're not alone. But there are also others who feel the inverse. Those places that we've been? Where we've quested? Where we're invested? Those are the places I care about. Those are the places I want to revisit and watch evolve. I don't care about the Shadowlands or Pandaria or Gingledoof - the proper-noun-du-jour just doesn't interest me. I might as well be playing a different game entirely if we throw out virtually the entire setting every two years.

As I said, I have no problem with the old world getting some updates. I just don't believe it should be THE expansion feature of the next expansion, since updating a few old zones would be a laughable expansion feature. I'm not really worried that it is either, since they wouldn't telegraph this on that level in 9.2.5.

[Lahis]

Gonna have to disagree. Playable humans could have come from just about anywhere with a human nation, that was the point. The backstory of player characters is left vague, allowing players to fill in the gaps. Certainly you would be right to say Stormwind was the only major human nation we had access to at the time of Vanilla WoW, but that's no longer the case. And personally, I find it annoying that "Human = Stormwind" is pushed so hard. Back in the day, humans had different flags, colors, and styles to go along with their nations! It made them interesting and unique rather than just a single cultural blob of white stone, silvery armor, and blue paint.

Single cultural blob per race makes it easier to write based on stereotypes.

[Shadochi]

Well glad to see that at least Sylvanas' judgement seems appropriate

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I am once again hopeful for more race identity with the addition of new race items for Dark Iron Dwarves and Blood Elves

[therumblings]

I am once again hopeful for more race identity with the addition of new race items for Dark Iron Dwarves and Blood Elves

I'm hoping that's just a tease of what's to come in 10.0, rather than a one off thing.

[Holdodlig]

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...-EoA-10-0-LEAK

Unless we actually see them bring the customizations for 9.2.5 (or a dev note about this I might have missed) I'm still not totally convinced.

[draugril]

Well glad to see that at least Sylvanas' judgement seems appropriate

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I am once again hopeful for more race identity with the addition of new race items for Dark Iron Dwarves and Blood Elves

I have the feeling that these were simply assets that exist already because of some passionate overdevelopment that didn't fit neatly into certain boxes and were "cut" for this reason or another, but now they're adding them to help pad out the drought and justify their existence in the first place. At least, that's my feeling on this more than a trend for racial flavour additions.

But like you say... we can hope.

[Santandame]

Also arguing in the Lights Judgement thread (doubt it's real, but we will get something similar) made me realize: there must be a specific reason that the deluxe edition only has the Green Dragonflight and not a "choose your own flight" mount.

The end of Shadowlands makes Lifelands unlikely as do dev comments. Could it be because there's an anti-Cataclysm theme with rebirth instead of destruction?

It is almost definitely going to be a world revamp/rebirth expansion. The WoW twitter account pretty much alluded to this several months ago, with a post captioned along the lines of ''Dreaming of the future'' or something along those lines with pictures of zones revamped during the Cataclysm that actually had life bloom there as opposed to being ruined; for example, the parts of Desolace that had turne green.

Of course, some people argued that this meant a Lifelands expansion; but it was clear as day what was really inferred.

[Sondrelk]

I have the feeling that these were simply assets that exist already because of some passionate overdevelopment that didn't fit neatly into certain boxes and were "cut" for this reason or another, but now they're adding them to help pad out the drought and justify their existence in the first place. At least, that's my feeling on this more than a trend for racial flavour additions.

But like you say... we can hope.

The weapons were used by NPCs though, so it's not like they were completely unused, just annoyingly unavailable like a whole lot of NPC specific weapons.

And yeah, a long drought would be awful, but if it means we get stuff like DI Dwarf weapons or unused armor recolors then I will happily take it.

[Explicit Teemo Nudes]

Double bonus points if it is a CM and not a developer. Wonder who will be the new voice for Survival Guides now.

All that is currently known is that it'll be a woman.

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Taelia had potentional after BfA to turn into an interesting character, but no, they turned her into a whining bitch kid.
Instead of whining at her dad all throughout SL about how he left her, she should be proud that HER father was the hero of the world that deciced to take on the role as the new lich king, because someone had to step up and do it.
It would make more sense for her to have those thoughts as she is a paladin, and paladins are all about that.
Also: could he even contact her as Bolvar? Wasn't the helmet too strong?

https://youtu.be/wssFUEP4sJ0

[Shadochi]

I have the feeling that these were simply assets that exist already because of some passionate overdevelopment that didn't fit neatly into certain boxes and were "cut" for this reason or another, but now they're adding them to help pad out the drought and justify their existence in the first place. At least, that's my feeling on this more than a trend for racial flavour additions.

But like you say... we can hope.

Not sure about the Dark Iron stuff, but the Blood Elf stuff has been added before.

[Factcheckerr]

All that is currently known is that it'll be a woman.

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Taelia had potentional after BfA to turn into an interesting character, but no, they turned her into a whining bitch kid.
Instead of whining at her dad all throughout SL about how he left her, she should be proud that HER father was the hero of the world that deciced to take on the role as the new lich king, because someone had to step up and do it.
It would make more sense for her to have those thoughts as she is a paladin, and paladins are all about that.
Also: could he even contact her as Bolvar? Wasn't the helmet too strong?

https://youtu.be/wssFUEP4sJ0

For what it's worth, there is an additional "sit and listen" dialog added in 9.2.5 where Taelia basically apologizes to Bolvar for whining.

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Not sure about the Dark Iron stuff, but the Blood Elf stuff has been added before.

The Hawkstrider is new, the armor technically is not but is now accessible to the 99% of players who didn't get elite PVP in Legion. They will probably also add an arsenal for the new guard weapons they added in BFA.

Also, I think the Hawkstrider is the old model because they will be adding a new Hawkstrider model that everyone can get... but not for a year.

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The weapons were used by NPCs though, so it's not like they were completely unused, just annoyingly unavailable like a whole lot of NPC specific weapons.

And yeah, a long drought would be awful, but if it means we get stuff like DI Dwarf weapons or unused armor recolors then I will happily take it.

If there is a world revamp portion of the next expansion I am almost 100% sure it is added in an early prepatch to tide over the long wait. Maybe they will release it in halves: world revamp in late 2022, endgame content in 2023.

[TomatoBisque]

Grounded expansion with more classic medieval aesthetic in the zones, but also with a threat level appropriate for modern WoW (aliens). Legion was elf fantasy with invading aliens, this would be human fantasy + aliens. It also features WoW's most popular races, Humans and High/Void/Blood Elves, and possibly heavily requested revamps for big zones like Quel'thalas and Gilneas. Those alone are more requested than Dragons.

To answer your point about why Yrel would be in Lordaeron: main invasion point. Same reason as how Demons had a focal point with Tomb.

TIL grounded fantasy with classic medieval aesthetic can involve taking a spaceship to an alien planet

[draugril]

If there is a world revamp portion of the next expansion I am almost 100% sure it is added in an early prepatch to tide over the long wait. Maybe they will release it in halves: world revamp in late 2022, endgame content in 2023.

Some of the most fun I've had outside raiding with WoW was leveling a few new characters with the new class/race combinations with friends right before Cataclysm officially released.

[Teriz]

TIL grounded fantasy with classic medieval aesthetic can involve taking a spaceship to an alien planet

Thank you. The idea that a "grounded expansion" is going to have Aliens invading in trans-dimensional spaceships is absurd.

[Factcheckerr]

Reposting from another thread: Arathi's skybox extends into Hillsbrad, Hinterlands (with a bug) and Wetlands. Maybe a point towards "zone merges".

So, something interesting about this leak is that it mentions zones being merged together. As people have said this leak is very possibly just built around the datamined stuff from yesterday pointing to Lordaeron... but what I haven't seen talked about much is the fact that the skybox in parts of Lordaeron around Arathi got changed. On both Live and PTR, there is a HD skybox that appears in most of Wetlands, Arathi, most of Hillsbrad and Hinterlands. In Hinterlands its bugged and the clouds appear above a vanilla-style neon red sky, but its the same clouds as the other three zones. You can go check it yourself... this may have been in the game since BFA (if Arathi revamp had a new skybox but it's interesting that the skybox "bleeds over" into three other zones but disappears when you go to other zones like Tirisfal.

This leak mentions that Hinterlands and Arathi are combined, which would explain the skybox persisting, but Hillsbrad is part of another zone (Gilneas) and Wetlands aren't mentioned at all. Even if this leak is fake I think there is going to be some kind of zone merge based on that persisting skybox unifying four old world zones.

And even if we get Dragon Isles, Lordaeron can still be involved as they were right next to each other in the old draft: they were smack in the middle between the Plaguelands and Northrend.

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Thank you. The idea that a "grounded expansion" is going to have Aliens invading in trans-dimensional spaceships is absurd.

Considering every expansion from here on out is likely going to feature void creatures, light creatures, elementals or demons, this feels like a hangup on them having a spaceship.

After Shadowlands, that IS grounded for Warcraft. The only thing less so is an expansion featuring only the Scarlets, Venture Co, Scourge, Syndicate, Gnolls, Kobolds etc which is never ever going to happen.