Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Ielenia]

9.2 has that, that's true. But not 9.0/9.1.

Because 9.0 and 9.1 are not the end of the story? Why would those patches be the end of the story?

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Cliff hangers are only good if you already feel satisfied before they happen. It's like eating a cupcake but only getting to eat the sprinkles, but the baker says "I know you want the whole cupcake, but you're gonna have to wait 6 months for that, but I promise you, it's a really good cupcake". I want to eat the whole cupcake, then if the baker says, "I'm working on some new pastries, I'll make sure to set some aside for you when they are done!".

WoWs x.0 stories are incomplete, it's an episode of a tv show every 6 months, the cliffhangers shadowlands lost their effect because the story just didn't pull people in, and the cliffhangers didn't feel worth being excited over.

It's no different than a TV series. Each episode either ends with a "to be continued" or sets up something for the next episodes.

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Hints of future content don't need to be canon.

Yeah. Yeah, they do need to be canon. Otherwise, what's stopping us from saying, for example, that the Game of Thrones books are hints of future content for WoW? Or for something more in-house, why not Diablo? Call of Duty? Candy Crush?

[PhillyCheese]

What Teldrassil map change? Hadn't seen that.

Edit: Ersula and Teriz debating - hide your kids and wife. We are witnessing the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object.

If we get Varodoc in, the sheer force may give us Dragonsworn and Tinkers in Cata2 with 8 new allied races and playable dragons. And somehow, finally, ogres.

On the front page information for 9.2.5, you can see some alteration was made to Teldrassils map name or something similar.

So far is the only thing in Kalimdor.

[Teriz]

1.) That's not absolutely necessary.
2.) Which is good for you because they 100% absolutely aren't making a Tinker-themed expansion
3.) I don't think Hero classes are going to be a thing anymore because they've effectively taken away everything about them they can. They no longer start at a boosted level (compared to allied races) and there are no longer requirements to make them.

This conversation has illustrated how frustrating making a new class would be so I'd bet on just getting new specs. I imagine Tinker could be a Rogue tank spec.

Or hey, I'd love it if they gave the crafting professions an associated combat spec. Elective specs could be 10.0's equivalent to covenants. The BFA Tailoring questline involved weaving Time Magic. Alchemist was already a Warcraft 3 hero class. Etc.

1. It was necessary for WotLK, MoP, and Legion. Why wouldn't it be necessary going forward?

2. It doesn't need to be a Tinker expansion, it just needs to be an expansion involving Undermine, which is a possibility.

3. I didn't say hero classes, I said lore heroes. WoW's class system is based on prominent lore characters and the heroes of Warcraft, which are Warcraft's franchise characters. It should be self-evident why it would be smart for a company to create playable classes based on major WoW characters.

Actually making a new class based on the remaining two WC3 heroes is very easy. If you take the abilities from WC3 Tinker and Alchemist, the abilities from Gazlowe HotS, and the abilities from the Goblin and Gnome characters on the Island Expedition teams, you already have a skeleton of a class.

[Lady Atia]

Tinkers do have some connections to Dragons and Cata, though I think it’s more likely it would be because technology would advance in updated zones. And also the bronze being the best important flight which is near Tanaris.

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The chamber didn’t really add lore though, same as how Jailer making an azerite shield doesn’t have big implications.

Yes and that's good. Having lore locked behind mythic only was always super shit.

[PhillyCheese]

Nevermind I can’t find the Teldrassil mention, can someone back me up that it was there?

[Ersula]

When they say "this year," this was in 2021.

It's possible Ion, the one delivering the quote, is wrong, but he also said 9.1 is the first time that development was done entirely from home, and in June 2020 development was still underway on launch content.

You're reading a press-release for 9.1 - He's not talking about it from the developer's perspective. He's talking about it from the player's prospective. Do you think Ion was going to start talking about the Jailer & the Arbiter in the press-release for Nazjatar? Do you think the writing, voice acting, & gimmicks for a patch just magically manifests the day it hits the PTR?

I didn't say hero classes, I said lore heroes. WoW's class system is based on prominent lore characters and the heroes of Warcraft, which are Warcraft's franchise characters. It should be self-evident why it would be smart for a company to create playable classes based on major WoW characters.

Considering they've been trying really hard to distance those lore heroes from player classes? Yeah. At least with these current developers. Anduin is a "priest" who fights with a sword & plate armor. Tyrande is a "priest" who has animal companions and a glave. Sylvanas is a "hunter" with void form. That tells me they consciously avoid wanting players to feel like their major plot characters.

[Teriz]

Yeah. Yeah, they do need to be canon. Otherwise, what's stopping us from saying, for example, that the Game of Thrones books are hints of future content for WoW? Or for something more in-house, why not Diablo? Call of Duty? Candy Crush?

Yeah, they don't. It should be rather obvious to any observer what a WoW hint would be and just a general reference to pop culture.

For example, the Stormwind Skychaseer/Orgrimmar Interceptor mounts are definitely not canon, but were an obvious hint for Battle for Azeroth.

[guro-tchai]

after reading through all that, tinkers need to be added just to make this forum seethe. hopefully, with the void elves option.

btw i've seen somewhere that a pronoun choice might be coming. if such a small text variable is under development, surely they wouldn't mind giving the players an ability to specify their race - changing 'troll' to 'Darkspear troll' or 'Sandfury troll'. skin's already in-game.
or 'void' to 'high', for example.

[Teriz]

Considering they've been trying really hard to distance those lore heroes from player classes? Yeah. At least with these current developers. Anduin is a "priest" who fights with a sword & plate armor. Tyrande is a "priest" who has animal companions and a glave. Sylvanas is a "hunter" with void form. That tells me they consciously avoid wanting players to feel like their major plot characters.

You're talking about the same developers who brought Illidan back so that we could get Demon Hunters and a Burning Legion expansion, and loaded up Sylvanas and Gazlowe with HotS abilities in WoW.

After said "loading up" those developers then proceed to give Rogues and (especially) Hunters Sylvanas' abilities to collect for the sole purpose of wanting players to feel like major plot characters.

[Vakir]

It's no different than a TV series. Each episode either ends with a "to be continued" or sets up something for the next episodes.

Not all serialized storytelling works that way. Some do self-contained stories that eventually merge into a broader myth arc. Some have satisfying resolutions that ask for more from the audience because they want more in that universe or with those characters.

The notion that everything has to be a mystery box with some form of escalation at every curtain close is bunk and a blight on modern storytelling. You gave the MCU as an example, but even Endgame has no post credits sequence outside of a hammer tribute, and even the better individual pieces usually have a self-contained conclusion that can link to the broader overlap.

You're reading a press-release for 9.1 - He's not talking about it from the developer's perspective. He's talking about it from the player's prospective. Do you think Ion was going to start talking about the Jailer & the Arbiter in the press-release for Nazjatar? Do you think the writing, voice acting, & gimmicks for a patch just magically manifests the day it hits the PTR?

It was from an interview, not a press release, and it was talking about development timelines. He said they were finalizing individual narrative beats well into after Alex got shit canned. You have nothing as usual.

[Ersula]

You're talking about the same developers who brought Illidan back so that we could get Demon Hunters and a Burning Legion expansion, and loaded up Sylvanas and Gazlowe with HotS abilities in WoW.

That's correct, Mister "Elite Tauren Chieftan's bardic abilities will never be a part of WoW"

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It was from an interview, not a press release, and it was talking about development timelines. He said they were finalizing individual narrative beats well into after Alex got shit canned. You have nothing as usual.

Press is Press. He absolutely did not say that. Ion hasn't commented on the firings at all.

[Polybius]

after reading through all that, tinkers need to be added just to make this forum seethe. hopefully, with the void elves option.

btw i've seen somewhere that a pronoun choice might be coming. if such a small text variable is under development, surely they wouldn't mind giving the players an ability to specify their race - changing 'troll' to 'Darkspear troll' or 'Sandfury troll'. skin's already in-game.
or 'void' to 'high', for example.

I'd kill for a Keebler Elf adjective.

[Teriz]

That's correct, Mister "Elite Tauren Chieftan's bardic abilities will never be a part of WoW"

Which they won't, because ETC isn't a legitimate lore character. He's a spoof of a rock band made up of Blizzard employees and of the Tauren Chieftain hero from WC3. When he leads us in a raid, or helps us slay a dragon, then he'll be considered for contention.

[PhillyCheese]

I do think people are crazy when they say that they changed Sylvanas’s fate: the soul split existed early because of Uther, and the only reason the “Maw time” thing exists is for Sylvanas’s punishment.

There’s a chance they condensed a Thros patch but people were actually crazy/low IQ if they thought Sylvanas would get Kerrigan’d.

The problem isn’t that villains don’t get punished in WoW, it’s that it takes four IRL years to do so.

[Vakir]

Press is Press. He absolutely did not say that. Ion hasn't commented on the firings at all.

But not a press release.

He didn't say any names, but it requires a basic examination of the timeline to know. To say things "came together" only at the end of the prior year and early in the next means way after June. Moreover, of course nothing magically poofs onto the PTR, but the gap was absolutely mental and based on their wording, decisions on narrative beats were decided outright later.

But the biggest thing is, again, how can this all be the grand plan of one man...when the same narrative being pushed is that he was intending to have her be a generic psycho as a dig at Kosack and her arc in SL runs entirely contrary to that.

[Ielenia]

[QUOTE=Teriz;53663292]Yeah, they don't. It should be rather obvious to any observer what a WoW hint would be and just a general reference to pop culture.

For example, the Stormwind Skychaseer/Orgrimmar Interceptor mounts are definitely not canon, but were an obvious hint for Battle for Azeroth.

First off: the skychaser and interceptors were literally released during the Blizzcon event that revealed BfA.
Second: they are canon. The skychaser, for example, was built by engineer Cogspinner. By an engineer, fancy that...

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it doesn't take 6 months between episodes though, and what you get in an x.0 is hardly equivalent to a tv show season, its not satisfying or worth being invested in, and that's a huge reason why people are dissatisfied with the story right now, its not a good way to tell a story, it doesn't communicate the plot well.

Because TV shows are usually have an entire season recorded in one go, basically, while games like this are released as they are ready. When an expansion launched, you don't get all content patches in one go. You get one at a time as they're being produced.

[Lady Atia]

Yeah, they don't. It should be rather obvious to any observer what a WoW hint would be and just a general reference to pop culture.

For example, the Stormwind Skychaseer/Orgrimmar Interceptor mounts are definitely not canon, but were an obvious hint for Battle for Azeroth.

Actually, that one goblin during the Battle for Darkshore is using the Orgrimmar Interceptor mount.

[Teriz]

[QUOTE=Ielenia;53663329]

First off: the skychaser and interceptors were literally released during the Blizzcon event that revealed BfA.
Second: they are canon. The skychaser, for example, was built by engineer Cogspinner. By an engineer, fancy that...

False, they were released in September of 2017. BFA wasn't announced until November 2017.

As you can see from this press release, the mounts became available as soon as they were announced in September;

https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/top...r-interceptor/

Also, the actual Skychaser and Interceptor are canon. The little miniature ships where your body takes up half the vessel are obviously not canon.

[Ielenia]

False, they were released in September of 2017. BFA wasn't announced until November 2017.

Misspoke. They were released for the Blizzcon. They were literally given to you if you bought the Blizzcon ticket.

Also, the actual Skychaser and Interceptor are canon. The little miniature ships where your body takes up half the vessel are obviously not canon.

Why wouldn't they be?

[therumblings]

Those mounts are obviously canon, like @Lady Atia said they are used in game during the Battle of Darkshore.