Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[AngerFork]

Bad impulse control. I held off on SL but knew i’d play it no matter how bad it was so I bought it, but this was a month before actual release.

Wonder how they’re going to bait into purchasing this time. Datamined mount (emerald dragon?) and an unknown outfit are the clues we have.

I'm guessing it'll once again be split into three tiers of purchasing with the Emerald Dragon mount being a part of the 2nd & 3rd tier. We'll probably also get a toy, a pet, & I still think a new race or class is likely for pre-orders.

[The Stormbringer]

Northrend is a region-continent and nobody ever said that


Undermine is just saying Stormwind

When people say "Undermine", it's understood that they mean the entire island of Kezan, which is almost certainly comparable to say, Kul Tiras on the surface alone, not including the underground portions.

[Polybius]

Precisely. Some people complain "I don't want to go back to running errands and picking up poop for nobody NPCs". Ummm, you already were regardless if it was Legion or Shadowlands.

May as well spare us from the heavily disconnected lore and settings.

This was so glaringly obvious in Maldraxxus. I gave Ardenweald a pass because of Emerald Dream and nature spirits, but Maldraxxus was Plaguelands+Zangarmarsh. Nothing in it was unique to Shadowlands.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

I don't see why not;



https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Undermine

Knowing (gnoing?) Gnomes and Goblins, it's likely that the Goblins are jealous of the transit system more than the glass tunnels—it is actually a funny possibility that it could be revealed that the Gnomes made the Tram to one-up the Goblins' underwater tunnels by making them bigger, better, and faster, and then the Goblins will have a questline trying to one-up the Deeprun Tram.

[Makorus]

Anima is perhaps a bad example, but you get what I mean. There were conduits, soulbinds, all that crap that you had to farm out.

You hardly hard to farm Soulbinds, and Conduits were just another drop. Might as well complain about any kind of gear.

[Teriz]

Knowing (gnoing?) Gnomes and Goblins, it's likely that the Goblins are jealous of the transit system more than the glass tunnels—it is actually a funny possibility that it could be revealed that the Gnomes made the Tram to one-up the Goblins' underwater tunnels by making them bigger, better, and faster, and then the Goblins will have a questline trying to one-up the Deeprun Tram.

See, stuff like that is what makes me want a Goblin/Gnome expansion. It's just so lighthearted and fun without the heavy angsty overtones.

Just like Mists of Pandaria. MoP was very needed and a welcome change of pace after TBC, WotLK, and Cataclysm. We sort of need that now.

[Grimbold21]

I don't see why not;



https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Undermine

Likely because during any of the major wars that affected the Eastern Kingdoms - primarily the Second war -,none of the Alliance Kingdoms made any incursions towards the Goblin homeland, and as far as I know any knowledge of such place would be limited to non-existent.

So to go on later and claim that the act of digging underground tunnels is smth the Goblins came up with is ludicrous. The tram between SW and IF was built cause Magni wanted to speed things up between the two kingdoms after the war, and he turned to the gnomes for that.

To then assert that the gnomes - themselves engineering experts - had found out how to build them from the goblins, somehow during the war, would be a lore ass-pull perfectly in line with Blizzard's writing.

[Iain]

Maraudon is also untapped potential. It was the very first instance added in the very first 1.1 patch. It's old, but there's a certain beauty if you squint. I can entirely imagine a lush cavernous elemental zone like that, only now with much more epic and sophisticated art direction.

[Teriz]

Likely because during any of the major wars that affected the Eastern Kingdoms - primarily the Second war -,none of the Alliance Kingdoms made any incursions towards the Goblin homeland, and as far as I know any knowledge of such place would be limited to non-existent.

So to go on later and claim that the act of digging underground tunnels is smth the Goblins came up with is ludicrous. The tram between SW and IF was built cause Magni wanted to speed things up between the two kingdoms after the war, and he turned to the gnomes for that.

To then assert that the gnomes - themselves engineering experts - had found out how to build them from the goblins, somehow during the war, would be a lore ass-pull perfectly in line with Blizzard's writing.

No, I'm saying that Blizzard probably got the idea for the tram from descriptions of Undermine. I wasn't talking about lore, I was more talking about concepts that Blizzard utilized in the creation of WoW. Undermine was originally going to be a continent in Vanilla. I could see Blizzard taking a concept originally meant for Undermine, and moving it over for Dwarves and Gnomes.

[ChairmanKaga]

Saying just "reindeer" implies you ride the reindeer

rein·​deer | \ ˈrān-ˌdir \ plural reindeer.

[jzhbee]

See, stuff like that is what makes me want a Goblin/Gnome expansion. It's just so lighthearted and fun without the heavy angsty overtones.

Just like Mists of Pandaria. MoP was very needed and a welcome change of pace after TBC, WotLK, and Cataclysm. We sort of need that now.

"Fun and lighthearted", just like the storylines of the Mogu previously enslaving the Pandaren, ruling with an iron fist, and those Slavers have recently started to come back. The sha, void corruptions of negative emotions, infecting people and forcing them to attack their own people against their own will. A brutal tyrant from across the seas coming to pillage their land (dramatically defacing one of the most sacred areas in the entire island). The Divine Bell incident, causing a literal race war against the Blood Elves in Dalaran, etc. etc. Very lighthearted. Just pure adventure. No political tension, no sir.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

"Fun and lighthearted", just like the storylines of the Mogu previously enslaving the Pandaren, ruling with an iron fist, and those Slavers have recently started to come back. The sha, void corruptions of negative emotions, infecting people and forcing them to attack their own people against their own will. A brutal tyrant from across the seas coming to pillage their land (dramatically defacing one of the most sacred areas in the entire island). The Divine Bell incident, causing a literal race war against the Blood Elves in Dalaran, etc. etc. Very lighthearted. Just pure adventure. No political tension, no sir.

I think he's talking about the bulk of the concept or the concept in itself, not the entirety of the expansion. The actual plot would obviously be something fittingly dark or dramatic—I personally do prefer darker plots, actually, so long as they're sensible and not mind-numbingly stupid (see: Shadowlands).

[Varx]

You know, every single race has at least 1 or more classes that heavily align with that race's values, culture and lore that let's players emerse in such fantasies or be like certain lore figures

Human: mages, warriors, paladins, DKs

Dwarves: hunters, shamans

Nelves: druids, hunters, hell even mages(highborn), DH

Draenie: priests, paladins

Worgen: druids, warriors

KT humans: shaman, druids, priests, mages

Velvet: mages, warlocks, priests, hunters

LFD: paladins, priests

DID: sam as regular dwarves

Orcs: warriors, shamans, warlocks

Troll: hunter, shaman

Taurean: druids, shaman, hunters

Forsaken: death knights, rogues, hunters

Blood elves: hunter, mage, warlock

Pandaren: Monk

Maghar: warrior, shaman

Zanda: shaman, priest

NB: mages, warlocks

HMT: see taurean

Vulpera: rogues, hunters

Now obviously combos not included here are viable as well but there's just something about those that resonate well given the lore.of.each race and significant lore figures.

Now can you say mechagnomes, gnomes, and gobs have the same? Nearly every single significant lore gnome, gob, and MG is a tinker. This is partly why their pop numbers are low.

Not a single player for those races can truly play as what those races embody, mechanical inginuity.

Tinkers are the last archetype wow needs to feel complete when it comes to playable classes. No other class can fill in that void.

[draugril]

Not to turn this into an Undermine thread... but executed properly an Undermine zone or even continent could prove absolutely brilliant and still very diverse, especially if mixed up with other tropical islands such as Plunder Isle and Tel'Abim OR with other underground zones. I think it should not be dismissed as expansion material and be considered boring as so very little exists about it which means the art team could go super creative. If you take the Broken Isles for example, I wasn't excited ONE BIT about that, and I ended up loving it and Suramar is still one of my favourite zones to this day. Wait and see I guess! But it's true that Undermine is one of the last untouched bits of lore from the older days, along with Tel'Abim, Plunder Isle and the whole Nerubian Kingdom. If I'm forgetting one feel free to add it!

Mixing in the original domain of Neltharion before his fall with Undermine would be a fantastic concept, as well. Where do Goblins originate? Why have they been working with Deathwing since, seemingly, time immemorial? Might he have created the race entirely, and the Goblins we know today are what they evolved into once they were functionally abandoned? Lots of potential here.

(Edit: And yes, I know that Chronicle lazily explained goblins as a Mimiron side project, but I find that to be completely uninteresting. Goblins shouldn't be a footnote in Gnome lore.)

[Teriz]

Mixing in the original domain of Neltharion before his fall with Undermine would be a fantastic concept, as well. Where do Goblins originate? Why have they been working with Deathwing since, seemingly, time immemorial? Might he have created the race entirely, and the Goblins we know today are what they evolved into once they were functionally abandoned? Lots of potential here.

(Edit: And yes, I know that Chronicle lazily explained goblins as a Mimiron side project, but I find that to be completely uninteresting. Goblins shouldn't be a footnote in Gnome lore.)

Yeah, if you explore Goblin lore, it’s surprising how much interaction with the Black Dragonflight has occurred. Given the nature of Wrathion’s character, and the fact that he’s a black dragon, some interaction with Undermine is a no-brainer.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I think this needs to be said, even with "cosmic" stuff it all boils down to doing menial tasks for lowly NPCs like collecting slimes. It was no different in Shadowlands. Blizzard shouldn't do cosmic stuff because they never actually reach the "cosmic" part, the scope is always so small. They always turn it into circus with the trite shit that just trivializes the supposed "cosmic" threats.

Part of that is the fact that Blizz never builds into the cosmic shit. It's always "collect 10 bear asses, okay now go kill the physical manifestation of Death."

Like of course the cosmic shit in BFA and Shadowlands fell flat, you pulled it out of your ass one day and then threw it in the trash 1 year later.

[draugril]

Part of that is the fact that Blizz never builds into the cosmic shit. It's always "collect 10 bear asses, okay now go kill the physical manifestation of Death."

Like of course the cosmic shit in BFA and Shadowlands fell flat, you pulled it out of your ass one day and then threw it in the trash 1 year later.

Our entry into the Shadowlands is a great example. So Sylvanas breaks the Helm of Domination, shatters the sky, and presumably flies into the Maw... fair enough. Do we need to follow her? Of course. At this point, we should have had to explore how we're going to follow her. What are the ground rules? What obstacles need to be overcome? Why could we not travel there before now, and what do we need to do to do so? Explore the nature of the Shadowlands through natural storytelling instead of exposition dumps. But what did they do? We simply winged it and knew precisely how to follow her because the writers knew how and imparted that knowledge to us.

This is the kind of stuff that piles up and turns people off. Small examples of poor storytelling practices that people pick up on subconsciously.

[Kiivar86]

rein·​deer | \ ˈrān-ˌdir \ plural reindeer.

Yeah.

And again, where do you see the word SLEIGH?

The guy said Reindeer. Singular or plural, he didn't mention the SLEIGH. That is a HUGE thing to miss.

He didn't say Reindeer with sleigh. He didn't say Reindeer pulling the sleigh. He said Reindeer. That's all.

The boss drops the updated Reindeer mount.

That's it. Do you see any mention of sleigh in that?

[Revamp Man]

Most? I look at the list of the leak and the only things I see "confirmed" are:

-Khadgar is back
-Winter Veil mount

That's it.

I feel like I'm missing something. What else in this "leak" is confirmed? I'm just not seeing it. Especially when the only two things I can even see as matching are damned easy guesses.



Yes, and? Again, the "leak" says reindeer mount, not sleigh. That's a pretty big thing to miss. Saying just "reindeer" implies you ride the reindeer, not the sleigh (and seeing as Winter Veil has the Holly item that lets you transform your mount into a reindeer which you ride, that's highly likely what the "leaker" was going with).

heritage weapons are being added

[Fahrad Wagner]

Yeah.

And again, where do you see the word SLEIGH?

The guy said Reindeer. Singular or plural, he didn't mention the SLEIGH. That is a HUGE thing to miss.

He didn't say Reindeer with sleigh. He didn't say Reindeer pulling the sleigh. He said Reindeer. That's all.



That's it. Do you see any mention of sleigh in that?

Joining in the nonsense bubble here, because it doesn't mention sleigh, doesn't mean this statement is incorrect. As the mount is a SLEIGH pulled by REINDEER, it is technically BOTH a sleigh AND a reindeer mount. A reindeer mount does not necessarily imply that you are riding the reindeer, but rather that the mount involves a reindeer. This is specific to the context here, are reindeer are often seen as pulling Santa's sleigh. If tomorrow somebody starts talking of a husky/huskies mount, I'm gonna imagine a sleigh pulled by huskies, not my character riding a husky.