Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[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.

[Kiivar86]

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.

Kind of amusing to say that given that the last time the Demons invaded, many of them did invade in literal spaceships.

[Factcheckerr]

Kind of amusing to say that given that the last time the Demons invaded, many of them did invade in literal spaceships.

The implication is that Legion was not a grounded expansion, which I think many people would disagree with and is many players (especially new players) favorite expansion setting wise.

Its a fantasy island and then there are demons. It would be the exact same thing with Yrel in Lordaeron: not the visual focal point, even if she's on the box.

[Teriz]

Kind of amusing to say that given that the last time the Demons invaded, many of them did invade in literal spaceships.

Sure, but that's because of the Eradar, not because of demons in of themselves. Blizzard obviously upped the ante of demons relation with technology when we got to WoW and their general retcon of Draenei overall.

[Factcheckerr]

Sure, but that's because of the Eradar, not because of demons in of themselves. Blizzard obviously upped the ante of demons relation with technology when we got to WoW and their general retcon of Draenei overall.

The demon ships are more based on Mo'arg technology, aren't they? They don't resemble the crystal ships of the Eredar at all.

[Teriz]

The implication is that Legion was not a grounded expansion, which I think many people would disagree with and is many players (especially new players) favorite expansion setting wise.

Its a fantasy island and then there are demons. It would be the exact same thing with Yrel in Lordaeron: not the visual focal point, even if she's on the box.

No, the implication is that demons are a perennial threat in Warcraft, so some of them rolling with spaceships is actually not a huge deal, because we're still dealing with demons. There's a vast difference between that and an alien force rolling into Azeroth with robots, spaceships, lasers, and alien tech. You simply cannot compare the two. Demons are a more grounded threat in Warcraft than Yrel and the lightbound, that's simply the facts.

[Raetary]

"Aliens with paceships and lasers are a more grounded threat than aliens with spaceships and lasers"

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

We definitely do NOT need a big bad for 10.0

[TomatoBisque]

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



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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.

It's not a hangup, the "grounded fantasy" meme is just silly. People want to go back to Azeroth and more familiar things but don't understand their own feelings

You can't say the game should go back to a "classic medieval aesthetic" when there have been canon spaceships since TBC, eldritch monsters since WC3, and gunpowder/steam-based technology since even before that. Warcraft has always been a mishmash of stuff that the creative team thought was cool, it's only "classic medieval" at a cursory glance.

And that's the issue with Shadowlands writing, not it being too scifi/cosmic. Just about everything introduced was brand new that we'd never even gotten a hint of before: The zones and the life (death?) in them were all things that had nothing familiar in them. We didn't even get familiar characters for most of the leveling campaign--only Maldraxxus had them play major parts (Uther made a small cameo and Ysera was more of a plot device/macguffin than a character). Other expansions didn't have this issue because either the zones or the races or the characters involved were familiar. Sure, we've never seen anything like the Drust before BFA, but it was in Kul Tiras which is something we DO know existed so it feels more connected to the rest of the world. MoP had the same issue but to a lesser extent where it was too unfamiliar, Pandarens weren't well established enough as being canon vs. not before the expansion hit and it hurt it a lot as a result

So what I'm saying is a lightbound invasion with spaceships and robots would be fine because it is connected to previous lore (and also because robots and spaceships have been in the series forever), it feels familiar. We know about Yrel and the Naaru and Turalyon. It builds off preestablished lore so people are better able to emotionally connect to it.

[Factcheckerr]

It's not a hangup, the "grounded fantasy" meme is just silly. People want to go back to Azeroth and more familiar things but don't understand their own feelings

You can't say the game should go back to a "classic medieval aesthetic" when there have been canon spaceships since TBC, eldritch monsters since WC3, and gunpowder/steam-based technology since even before that. Warcraft has always been a mishmash of stuff that the creative team thought was cool, it's only "classic medieval" at a cursory glance.

And that's the issue with Shadowlands writing, not it being too scifi/cosmic. Just about everything introduced was brand new that we'd never even gotten a hint of before: The zones and the life (death?) in them were all things that had nothing familiar in them. We didn't even get familiar characters for most of the leveling campaign--only Maldraxxus had them play major parts (Uther made a small cameo and Ysera was more of a plot device/macguffin than a character). Other expansions didn't have this issue because either the zones or the races or the characters involved were familiar. Sure, we've never seen anything like the Drust before BFA, but it was in Kul Tiras which is something we DO know existed so it feels more connected to the rest of the world. MoP had the same issue but to a lesser extent where it was too unfamiliar, Pandarens weren't well established enough as being canon vs. not before the expansion hit and it hurt it a lot as a result

So what I'm saying is a lightbound invasion with spaceships and robots would be fine because it is connected to previous lore, it feels familiar. We know about Yrel and the Naaru and Turalyon. It builds off preestablished lore so people are better able to emotionally connect to it.

They tried to make the zones based off stuff from Warcraft (Spirit Healers, Nathrezim, Scourge/Cult of the Damned and Fae stuff) but didn't do it enough. They aren't going to ever get that weird again.

The fact that Revendreth is inspired by Nathrezim, but they don't appear until first patch, is ballsy creatively but doesn't work for most people considering how many people didn't get that they were connected at launch. Same as how people STILL don't understand why Kul Tirans are big and the Drust Vrykul connection: they need an NPC to stare at the screen and say it.

[Teriz]

"Aliens with paceships and lasers are a more grounded threat than aliens with spaceships and lasers"

The Burning Legion is more grounded than the Lightbound.

That said, I wouldn't consider Legion a grounded expansion either.