Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Dracullus]

I mean isn't Lordaeron like... massive? Western + Easter Plaguelands, Tirisfal, Silverpine Forest and if they add the Blood Elf zones (which would make a lot of sense) it's already a pretty impressive area that might be covered, isn't it? They could add Gilneas et voila, massive "continent".

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...Map-Comparison

EK is big, but not that big. BfA is not there, can't find thread with it, but it was around 15M^2 put together. It's enough for expanded/reimagined northern part of EK+Blood Elf areas.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

So after all that datamining where we all at today? Personally, more I think on it the more I feel I'm right back where I akways end up.

Old World Revamp (mostly just HD graphics and scrubbing out dead faction leaders except the obvious NElves and Undead)
The plot is just Blizzard Steals Shadowbringers (I briefly waffled on that but the Scarlet Crusade/Prince brought me back to it)
I can't tell you where the new zones will be but it won't be phased lordaeron.

[Teriz]

So after all that datamining where we all at today? Personally, more I think on it the more I feel I'm right back where I akways end up.

Old World Revamp (mostly just HD graphics and scrubbing out dead faction leaders except the obvious NElves and Undead)
The plot is just Blizzard Steals Shadowbringers (I briefly waffled on that but the Scarlet Crusade/Prince brought me back to it)
I can't tell you where the new zones will be but it won't be phased lordaeron.

We can simply use the "Save the Date" map that Blizzard released with the April 19th announcement:



I'm going to assume that the next new landmass will be in one of those circled areas, with the area between Kalimdor, Maelstrom, and Pandaria being the most likely location due to land distribution.

[The Stormbringer]

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

The Dream™ would be that yes, this is a preview of what's to come for the expansion. Racial events that'll be happening for not one or two people, but everyone. Little quest chains scattered across the world, letting us know what's going on with people today, giving us thematic and fun rewards along with the experience. The best way to do that would involve zone revamps, or at least zone updates if not full graphical and quest revamps.

- - - Updated - - -

We can simply use the "Save the Date" map that Blizzard released with the April 19th announcement:



I'm going to assume that the next new landmass will be in one of those circled areas, with the area between Kalimdor, Maelstrom, and Pandaria being the most likely location due to land distribution.

Personally I'm kind of torn with all these landmasses popping up where before it was just empty water. It makes it feel like we're extremely unaware of what's out there, despite the fact that a lot of these places have existed for a very long time, and consequentially should have been on maps before now.

That's kind of why I like how FF14 does their world map. There's just a mass of clouds obscuring all the areas that haven't been explored, and then the clouds disappear when new areas are discovered. At least, I think that's how they do it.

[AngerFork]

So after all that datamining where we all at today? Personally, more I think on it the more I feel I'm right back where I akways end up.

Old World Revamp (mostly just HD graphics and scrubbing out dead faction leaders except the obvious NElves and Undead)
The plot is just Blizzard Steals Shadowbringers (I briefly waffled on that but the Scarlet Crusade/Prince brought me back to it)
I can't tell you where the new zones will be but it won't be phased lordaeron.

- Still very much on the World Revamp for 11.0 rather than 10.0 train after that, especially with the minor shifts in the SW & Org map. No reason to do that if you are just going to replace those maps in a few months. We might get a few changes, especially around leadership.

- Related to those new areas, I'm very much stumped as to what could go in those new spots, especially in SW. Doesn't look like a great spot for a new class representative, and most new races would likely be centered more around the embassies.

- I'm a bit less on the Dragon Isles train, given the seeming lack of dragon lore and/or assistance in the quests we've seen.

- Starting to think the Lightforged Undead option may be more of a likely scenario with the encrypted Tirisfal map. As it's unlikely that it was encrypted simply for a week to hide the results of Epilogue: Judgement, I feel that the encryption must be to hide something from 10.0 which could well point to an Allied Race. Either way, I think the Light is going to be a major part of 10.0, whatever it is.

- The Khadgar/Jaina dialogue worries me, kind of wondering if he may die soon.

[Teriz]

Sorry, I really don’t follow your logic here. New zones are not features. They’re new content. And a revamped Lordaeron would be exactly that. I mean you even listed Draenor which is just Outland B.C. - they could do the same to Lordaeron, it could be completely altered after the Scourge has been purged and cities and places rebuilt etc.

That's a really terrible comparison. Draenor was COMPLETELY different than Outland. Shadowmoon Valley for example was a literal hellscape in TBC, but was a lush moonlit forestland in WoD. They're not going to completely remake Lodraeon on that level. Hell, they're not even going to move the Undead out of Trisfall or give Lordaeron back to the Alliance.

I know this sounds harsh, but nobody cares about Gnomes. Or Goblins.

It’s not my opinion. I think both races should have their own stories expanded. But the overall playerbase just actively dislikes them, Gnomes more than Goblins even. Just look at the Mechagnomes disaster as AR. A gigantic flop.

That's quite the take when Mechagon is brought into the equation, which was generally well-received by the playerbase. Some even preferring it to Nazajatar and Azshara content.

That said, Mechagnomes are an AR disaster because like Goblins and Gnomes, there's no class that really fits them. Kind of bizarre to have a race of cyborgs and they can only roll medieval RPG classes.

[Kiria]

That's a really terrible comparison. Draenor was COMPLETELY different than Outland. Shadowmoon Valley for example was a literal hellscape in TBC, but was a lush moonlit forestland in WoD. They're not going to completely remake Lodraeon on that level. Hell, they're not even going to move the Undead out of Trisfall or give Lordaeron back to the Alliance.




That's quite the take when Mechagon is brought into the equation, which was generally well-received by the playerbase. Some even preferring it to Nazajatar and Azshara content.

That said, Mechagnomes are an AR disaster because like Goblins and Gnomes, there's no class that really fits them. Kind of bizarre to have a race of cyborgs and they can only roll medieval RPG classes.

Gnomes and goblins are not popular enough to warrant their own class,it would be an extremely huge risk for devs to take a chance on them, they need to impress people not give them a class for extremely underplayed races that have proven not to be popular.

They'd be better of designing blademaster for orcs and moon priestesses for nelves.

[Teriz]

Gnomes and goblins are not popular enough to warrant their own class,it would be an extremely huge risk for devs to take a chance on them, they need to impress people not give them a class for extremely underplayed races that have proven not to be popular.

It's doubtful that Blizzard would base future class popularity on current race populations. Your argument here is that the only people interested in the class are currently playing Goblin and Gnome characters. That makes little sense. In reality, future players of the class would also be people currently playing other classes (especially the G&G Hunter players) and potential players currently not playing WoW, since the class would bring a new archetype into the game.

Anecdotal example; My current main is a Draenei Shaman.

[Kiria]

It's doubtful that Blizzard would base future class popularity on current race populations. Your argument here is that the only people interested in the class are currently playing Goblin and Gnome characters. That makes little sense. In reality, future players of the class would also be people currently playing other classes (especially the G&G Hunter players) and potential players currently not playing WoW, since the class would bring a new archetype into the game.

Anecdotal example; My current main is a Draenei Shaman.

You're grasping at straws because you have no proof these people exist, you only speak for yourself.

[Teriz]

You're grasping at straws because you have no proof these people exist, you only speak for yourself.

The multiple polls we have on this site where the Tinker either wins out, or is near the top of the poll is quite a bit of proof. If your argument was accurate, a class based on the least played races should be the least desired class concept.

Anyway, there's no need to get into a tit-for-tat over this. The concept's viability wasn't really the point of the conversation here.

[Kiria]

The multiple polls we have on this site where the Tinker either wins out, or is near the top of the poll is quite a bit of proof. If your argument was accurate, a class based on the least played races should be the least desired class concept.

In minority areas like fansites, it's false information and iirc Tinkers didn't win the last poll on this forum, again grasping at straws.

[Varx]

Gnomes and goblins are not popular enough to warrant their own class,it would be an extremely huge risk for devs to take a chance on them, they need to impress people not give them a class for extremely underplayed races that have proven not to be popular.

They'd be better of designing blademaster for orcs and moon priestesses for nelves.

Who cares if gnomes and gobs are underplayed.

Pandaren didn't even exist as playable races before they decided to make a class around their little bit of lore before mop.

But they figured a martial arts class would fit in wow and cover an archetype that wasnt covered yet.

Same with Tinkers, gnomes and and gobs don't need to be the only race that can be them. We already see how popular engineering is so playing a tech based class would be super popular.

The setting doesn't even need to be all gnomes and gobs either to introduce it anyway

I've already came up with a reasonable way a dragon isles expansion can have Tinkers too.

Imagine tinker orcs, forsaken, dwarves, draenie, belves, humans to name a few.

You SERIOUSLY think that shit wouldn't be popular?? Lol come on take off your bias glasses.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

- Still very much on the World Revamp for 11.0 rather than 10.0 train after that, especially with the minor shifts in the SW & Org map. No reason to do that if you are just going to replace those maps in a few months. We might get a few changes, especially around leadership.

- Related to those new areas, I'm very much stumped as to what could go in those new spots, especially in SW. Doesn't look like a great spot for a new class representative, and most new races would likely be centered more around the embassies.

- I'm a bit less on the Dragon Isles train, given the seeming lack of dragon lore and/or assistance in the quests we've seen.

- Starting to think the Lightforged Undead option may be more of a likely scenario with the encrypted Tirisfal map. As it's unlikely that it was encrypted simply for a week to hide the results of Epilogue: Judgement, I feel that the encryption must be to hide something from 10.0 which could well point to an Allied Race. Either way, I think the Light is going to be a major part of 10.0, whatever it is.

- The Khadgar/Jaina dialogue worries me, kind of wondering if he may die soon.

While true they've done some map tinkering now, if there is no world revamp then I have to once again ask the question "Why are we looking at a 2023 launch?" If this was an entirely cut and dry (and bad) BFA/SL clone why can't they shit it out by the end of the year?

There's something bigger going on under the surface of this expansion that's pushing back its date far enough that Blizz felt the need to do essentially an extra Season out of the blue.

But yeah that random stable in Stormwind is weird to me, too. One thing I noticed going down the front page is an encrypted mount(?) that uses Harvest Golem sounds. It could be that stable is related to something that's happening in Westfall as the counter-balance to what the Horde's doing in Lordaeron. Then we have everything kinda balanced out, Dark Irons - Blood Elves (heritage weapons), Tirisfall - Westfall (story progression).

[AngerFork]

Gnomes and goblins are not popular enough to warrant their own class,it would be an extremely huge risk for devs to take a chance on them, they need to impress people not give them a class for extremely underplayed races that have proven not to be popular.

They'd be better of designing blademaster for orcs and moon priestesses for nelves.

Gotta disagree. You are talking about setting up a class specific to one race that would be faction exclusive, both of which would seem to be limited in specs. Even with cross faction becoming a thing, that's a far greater risk than adding in a class that has been in the game since WC3, is related to in-game displayed technology seen through most expansions of WoW, and something that multiple races can use with their own take on it. Not to mention the benefits Tinkers would seemingly have story-wise over something like Blademasters or Moon Priestesses.

While true they've done some map tinkering now, if there is no world revamp then I have to once again ask the question "Why are we looking at a 2023 launch?" If this was an entirely cut and dry (and bad) BFA/SL clone why can't they shit it out by the end of the year?

There's something bigger going on under the surface of this expansion that's pushing back its date far enough that Blizz felt the need to do essentially an extra Season out of the blue.

But yeah that random stable in Stormwind is weird to me, too. One thing I noticed going down the front page is an encrypted mount(?) that uses Harvest Golem sounds. It could be that stable is related to something that's happening in Westfall as the counter-balance to what the Horde's doing in Lordaeron. Then we have everything kinda balanced out, Dark Irons - Blood Elves (heritage weapons), Tirisfall - Westfall (story progression).

Tis a fair question. I'd argue the reason for the 2023 launch could be explained in part by being behind from Shadowlands as well as trying to add in more pieces to make the new expansion great. A revamp could be there, but I could absolutely see that delay being a part of adding in some candy while simultaneously listening more to feedback.

I didn't see that encrypted mount, but that is also really interesting to hear about.

[Varx]

Less than a month to go.

We've been mocked left and right, even have people putting some of my previous posts in there sigs sarcastically.

But come the 19th we'll see who honks the loudest. We tried to tell ya.

Can't wait to see how fast those sigs are removed.

[Local Ardenweald Faerie]

Personally I'm kind of torn with all these landmasses popping up where before it was just empty water. It makes it feel like we're extremely unaware of what's out there, despite the fact that a lot of these places have existed for a very long time, and consequentially should have been on maps before now.

That's kind of why I like how FF14 does their world map. There's just a mass of clouds obscuring all the areas that haven't been explored, and then the clouds disappear when new areas are discovered. At least, I think that's how they do it.

The thing is with FFXIV, all of those obscured, clouded landmasses are KNOWN and have been EXPLORED, and even those that weren't on the map at all like the Far East in Stormblood were name dropped in quests and what not long before the expansion comes out. It's like, "hey, these places are known, but we're clouding them out because we (the devs) are still working on the map geometry so the change won't be jarring". Hopefully I'm making some sense.

With WoW, all of the new landmasses save Northrend since it was on the map since Classic just pop out of no where with no explanation. It's jarring.

[Kiria]

Who cares if gnomes and gobs are underplayed.

Pandaren didn't even exist as playable races before they decided to make a class around their little bit of lore before mop.

But they figured a martial arts class would fit in wow and cover an archetype that wasnt covered yet.

Same with Tinkers, gnomes and and gobs don't need to be the only race that can be them. We already see how popular engineering is so playing a tech based class would be super popular.

The setting doesn't even need to be all gnomes and gobs either to introduce it anyway

I've already came up with a reasonable way a dragon isles expansion can have Tinkers too.

Imagine tinker orcs, forsaken, dwarves, draenie, belves, humans to name a few.

You SERIOUSLY think that shit wouldn't be popular?? Lol come on take off your bias glasses.

Don't get mad because I speak the truth, you use pandas as an example but you know just as well they're down there on the least played race card and the pretty much dragged the monk class down there with them.

I don't think that's a risk the devs want to take but then we will see come April and I'll just say "told you so." I'll even pm you if it helps alleviate the embarrassment.

In 27 days we will know what's true.

[Kiivar86]

I'm still betting on something out of left field. Dragons maybe (likely) but I dunno if Dragon Isles, I'm not feeling that but I'll admit could be.

But I'm expecting something surprising.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Gotta disagree. You are talking about setting up a class specific to one race that would be faction exclusive, both of which would seem to be limited in specs. Even with cross faction becoming a thing, that's a far greater risk than adding in a class that has been in the game since WC3, is related to in-game displayed technology seen through most expansions of WoW, and something that multiple races can use with their own take on it. Not to mention the benefits Tinkers would seemingly have story-wise over something like Blademasters or Moon Priestesses.


Tis a fair question. I'd argue the reason for the 2023 launch could be explained in part by being behind from Shadowlands as well as trying to add in more pieces to make the new expansion great. A revamp could be there, but I could absolutely see that delay being a part of adding in some candy while simultaneously listening more to feedback.

I didn't see that encrypted mount, but that is also really interesting to hear about.

I mean they're absolutely behind from the Pandemic and the Lawsuits for sure, but wasn't that why they definitely cut a raid and abandoned the entire plot thread about the Lifelands? Now after doing that to get the expansion out faster they're about-facing and having a season, which means they'd have had enough time for the raid, after all? You don't get to that level of delayed off just work from home. You get to that level of delay because you're working on something big from home.



And yeah there was also a map or something with Westfall back in BFA IIRC. Led to a lot of speculation about a "Defias Uprising" as a result of how badly the war was going, I think some folks even speculated on a Westfall Warfront. If Blizz is potentially doubling back to the unused Scarlet storyline maybe they're also doubling back to the unused Westfall storyline.

It also gives me this feeling in my jibblies that this all feels very Operation Gnomeregan/Zalazane's Fall.

[choi gnome]

dragon isel secret to mortals dont want mortal on them
dragons lose power need mortals anyhway

black = build back and acceptense, onixia warlock
red = focus alex
green = find infiltrator, senario
bronze = big infinite patch 10.2
blue = angry mistreeted, fight good vs evil blue dragons and future
chromie story reveel

10.3 sorry no dont know