Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Wangming]

The climax of the inciting incident of BFA took place within five quests involving no dungeon or raid content and culminated with the villain exiting the stage and the plot pivoting to a completely different track. The only way you can even know what the villain was trying to accomplish is if you take the optional, discouraged approach available only to one faction.

If you told this to somebody totally unfamiliar with WoW, they would think you are trolling. And then all that was followed up by SL.

[Dracullus]

World Boss loot also works

Good to know. Looks like doing just world boss and weekly quest regularly will give you tier in few months. I like to have a way to "finish" my alts that doesn't engage with organized content or PVP. In 9.1/9.2 they finally nailed casual progression for solo content, strange if tier creation (that for sure will transfer to 10.0 in some form or another) would ignore that playstyle.

[Super Dickmann]

If you told this to somebody totally unfamiliar with WoW, they would think you are trolling. And then all that was followed up by SL.

I've never seen anything like it. BFA offloads its own climax to a sequel and decides it's actually going to be about something else instead. And both the Sylvanas and N'zoth plots are at best only tangentially related to azerite, which was meant to be the introductory hook but ends up being written out of its own expansion. As an appreciator of bad narratives, SL's failure because of incoherent, pointless retcons and bad characterization is a much more boring kind of failure than BFA.

[Hyrja]

9.4 HYPU. what a day

[Revamp Man]

Most likely outcome would be to ignore them completely.
Deathknights never got the missing 6 sets and demonhunter missed out on 20 or so tier sets? I don't think they would bother adding artifact or tier set skins for a new class. This also "solves" the mage tower for now. they simply don't get a set.
Thorgast shouldn't be a problem either when the class won't be playable in shadowlands. It doesn't scale so next expansion you probably don't even need the abilities to rush to the end.
Legion could be solved by khadgar asking you where you want to go and maybe tweaking the exp from quests a bit to compensate.

It has to be a hero class

[Lady Atia]

I've never seen anything like it. BFA offloads its own climax to a sequel and decides it's actually going to be about something else instead. And both the Sylvanas and N'zoth plots are at best only tangentially related to azerite, which was meant to be the introductory hook but ends up being written out of its own expansion. As an appreciator of bad narratives, SL's failure because of incoherent, pointless retcons and bad characterization is a much more boring kind of failure than BFA.

To be fair the Warcampaign was the main focus of the marketing and one raid, but besides that the real main focus of BfA was always an Old Gods Expansion. And yes, they could have easily made two Expansions out of it but I guess they decided that they would want a propper void/light planes expansion instead of one focused on "just" Ny'Alotha.

And no, Shadowlands is 10000000000000 times better than Afrasiabis BfA shitshow. You may dislike the setting and the pacing was aweful thanks to the content draught but Sylvanas' story arc (in Shadowlands, not in BfA ...) was awesome and the epilogue chapter was the best ending of any Expansion so far.

[Wangming]

I've never seen anything like it. BFA offloads its own climax to a sequel and decides it's actually going to be about something else instead. And both the Sylvanas and N'zoth plots are at best only tangentially related to azerite, which was meant to be the introductory hook but ends up being written out of its own expansion. As an appreciator of bad narratives, SL's failure because of incoherent, pointless retcons and bad characterization is a much more boring kind of failure than BFA.

It gets better. the followup to the Sylvanas plotline reveals the big bad behind him and forces the player to try to stop it with no info on his plan or method just scary armor and a deep voice indicating he is a villain. The story that follows Sylvanas had a split soul and combined Sylvanas is not evil, so we should not be too mad at her. The main villain turns out to be preparing against an even bigger threat, but only bothered to mention it vaguely after we struck the final blow. How Sylvanas allied with this clown is explained in a novel published after the end of the expansion. Wooh.

[Sondrelk]

I've never seen anything like it. BFA offloads its own climax to a sequel and decides it's actually going to be about something else instead. And both the Sylvanas and N'zoth plots are at best only tangentially related to azerite, which was meant to be the introductory hook but ends up being written out of its own expansion. As an appreciator of bad narratives, SL's failure because of incoherent, pointless retcons and bad characterization is a much more boring kind of failure than BFA.

Don't forget how SL is barely even a continuation of the Sylvanas plot in BfA given how different Sylvanas acts, and how loose the actual connection between the two expansions are outside her.
You needed to play Night Fae to even get anywhere close to a resolution to the Teldrassil plotline, and even that plotline just kinda slowly rubs out of steam before it gets around to actually giving an explanation.

What even did the Teldrassil plotline resolve with? The whole mystery with Elune letting the Nelves die for a purpose doesn't actually end up anywhere.
Eline didn't let Sylvanas get killed because she was needed to rescue the Nelf souls, so that is something I guess. But Elune learns about the Jailer only after stopping Tyrande killing Sylvanas, so the timeline doesn't add up at all.

[Santandame]

I feel like the Tinker Leaker write up is actually moreso evidence pointing towards Tinker for 10.0 than against.

[Nymrohd]

Eline didn't let Sylvanas get killed because she was needed to rescue the Nelf souls, so that is something I guess.

That never really makes sense either. During the Covenant assaults, multiple Covenants (at the very least the Necrolords and the Venthyr) have quests about saving souls. The Maw Walkers save hundreds if not thousands of souls by themselves with Night Fae Maw Walkers saving scores of Night Elven souls. With everyone have free access to the Maw, the Covenants can save the damned souls far faster than Sylvanas ever could and given they need the anima, some of them will focus on doing exactly that.

[KayRule]

Wow, can't believe they confirmed Tinker. Wonder how Dark Ranger fans are dealing. Hope too many of them don't kill themselves.

[Sondrelk]

To be fair the Warcampaign was the main focus of the marketing and one raid, but besides that the real main focus of BfA was always an Old Gods Expansion. And yes, they could have easily made two Expansions out of it but I guess they decided that they would want a propper void/light planes expansion instead of one focused on "just" Ny'Alotha.

And no, Shadowlands is 10000000000000 times better than Afrasiabis BfA shitshow. You may dislike the setting and the pacing was aweful thanks to the content draught but Sylvanas' story arc (in Shadowlands, not in BfA ...) was awesome and the epilogue chapter was the best ending of any Expansion so far.

BfA was only ab Old God expansion all along because that is what the plot ended on. There is an equally valid version where the plot ended with more faction war related stuff and the Old God plotlines were just more buildup to a dedicated Old God expansion.

Besides, the problem with BfA isn't really that it was actually an Old God expansion all along. Pretty much everyone assumed it would be given MoP had the same twist.
The problem with BfA is that there is no narrative link between faction war and Old Gods.

MoP weaved the old gods into the faction war by making it more conceptual. The Alliance and Horde was fighting because of rampant emotions that escalated out of control when Garrosh bombed Theramore.
This plotline then became an Old God plotline by having Y'sharrj literally being a negative emotion amplifier, and by the end we learned that pride in the factions had awakened Y'sharrj.

When we then killed Garrosh/Y'sharrj we thereby got a conclusion to both the faction war in the form of Garrosh, and the Old God stuff with Y'sharrj, and neither felt like an add-on to the other, it all blended together into one cohesive plotline.

BfA is just two vastly different plotlines with absolutely no link between them, and a bit over halfway into the expansion one of those plotlines just disappears and the expansion as a whole does a hard pivot to Old Gods, abandoning pretty much everything from the beginning.

[Wangming]

What even did the Teldrassil plotline resolve with? The whole mystery with Elune letting the Nelves die for a purpose doesn't actually end up anywhere.
Eline didn't let Sylvanas get killed because she was needed to rescue the Nelf souls, so that is something I guess. But Elune learns about the Jailer only after stopping Tyrande killing Sylvanas, so the timeline doesn't add up at all.

It will probably end up being: I won't let Tyrande kill her on the off chance I made an oopsy, or some shit. I'm also concerned about how weak Tyrande is as the Night Warrior. It was a cool questline back in BfA, but with her newfound powers all she really did was...ask Malfurion's help to take down a single Valkyre. Meanwhile as we learn in S, other Night Warriors soloed Old Gods.

- - - Updated - - -

Wow, can't believe they confirmed Tinker. Wonder how Dark Ranger fans are dealing. Hope too many of them don't kill themselves.

Dark Rangers are undead, so that would actually help.

[Raetary]

Elune saved Sylvanas so she could save the souls stuck in the Maw before she even found out Souls where being sucked into the Maw in the first place.

[Super Dickmann]

And no, Shadowlands is 10000000000000 times better than Afrasiabis BfA shitshow. You may dislike the setting and the pacing was aweful thanks to the content draught but Sylvanas' story arc (in Shadowlands, not in BfA ...) was awesome and the epilogue chapter was the best ending of any Expansion so far.

@Wangming @Sondrelk

Shadowlands is a more pedestrian kind of bad. The plot moves from Point A to Point B. It is hinted to us with Sylvanas telling us she's sending souls to hell in BFA, begins with us being introduced to the Bald Man, who rules hell, and ends with us defeating the Bald Man and solving the hell problem. It has a beginning, middle and end. The actual characterization of the people involved is at best incoherent and at worst nonexistent and the pacing is a complete mess with middle chapters being cut out and characters like Ve'nari popping up and then vanishing, but it does tell the story it started with. Even the plot being reliant on side materials to be comprehensible is a WoW classic dating back to the whole of Sunwell being based around the character drama of people from a tie-in manga.

BFA is unique as far as bad WoW stories go both in that its beginning has no causal relation to its end and in that if you read side materials like BTS you're actually more poorly equipped to understand the plot than if you didn't. If you don't read War Crimes, you don't know how Garrosh went from prison to going back in time, but Garrosh still went back in time. If you do read Before the Storm, you are privy to Sylvanas's internal thoughts that mention both her interest in taking over Stormwind and her total disinterest in sending people to hell, and if you take these two things aboard her actions in the expansion make even less sense than they would if you pretend it doesn't exist.

[Nymrohd]

@Wangming @Sondrelk

Shadowlands is a more pedestrian kind of bad. The plot moves from Point A to Point B. It is hinted to us with Sylvanas telling us she's sending souls to hell in BFA, begins with us being introduced to the Bald Man, who rules hell, and ends with us defeating the Bald Man and solving the hell problem. It has a beginning, middle and end. The actual characterization of the people involved is at best incoherent and at worst nonexistent and the pacing is a complete mess with middle chapters being cut out and characters like Ve'nari popping up and then vanishing, but it does tell the story it started with. Even the plot being reliant on side materials to be comprehensible is a WoW classic dating back to the whole of Sunwell being based around the character drama of people from a tie-in manga.

BFA is unique as far as bad WoW stories go both in that its beginning has no causal relation to its end and in that if you read side materials like BTS you're actually more poorly equipped to understand the plot than if you didn't. If you don't read War Crimes, you don't know how Garrosh went from prison to going back in time, but Garrosh still went back in time. If you do read Before the Storm, you are privy to Sylvanas's internal thoughts that mention both her interest in taking over Stormwind and her total disinterest in sending people to hell, and if you take these two things aboard her actions in the expansion make even less sense than they would if you pretend it doesn't exist.

I think the difference is that on a macro level, Shadowlands damages the world building of WoW. BfA damages the characters of WoW. You can recycle character concepts far easier than you can recycle core concepts.

[Super Dickmann]

I think the difference is that on a macro level, Shadowlands damages the world building of WoW. BfA damages the characters of WoW. You can recycle character concepts far easier than you can recycle core concepts.

BFA nuked the core of the playable factions, the vessels through which we experience the entire game and which recur past episodic expansions. One expansion later, whether someone is getting their nipples tweaked by vampires in hell will be peripheral, but all the Horde institutions will still be destroyed and its characters will still be copy-pasted clones. It's why it will always be the worst expansion in terms of consequences by an absurd margin. The only reason people discuss the Bald Man is the same reason why people were for months on end apocalyptically assmad about infinite Burning Legions, namely that there's nothing else to talk about because the plot is in an off-world cul de sac. SL's story and setting are significantly worse than WoD's, their effect more notable, but still moot because they're now out of the way.

[Soulwind]

There's no need to argue which of the two expansions is worse, they came back to back, we can consider it a single package of suckage.

We may even get an expansion to this package soon!

[KayRule]

The plans for the end of BfA had a hard pivot sometime after Blizzcon. We were originally supposed to get Maw of N'zoth, an addition to the Nazjatar zone after he was freed, and Plunder Isle as the second outdoor zone, paralleling Nazjatar/Mechagon.

The rough draft of the map was shipped accidently, and we can see from it's location, and the ending tease of the Blizzcon video, the camera pans into the waters behind Eternal Palace at the exact space that Maw of N'zoth would rise up. This also tracks with original mentions at Blizzcon that we would see something similar to the arrival of Argus at the end of the raid - something that didn't happen.

Plunder Isle's location on the Zandalar map is actually easy to find, there's a bunch of non-fatigue water out past the world border invisible wall and it's directly between the skeletal Zandalari gold hoarders and the Broken Isles shipwreck isle. The map name was datamined very very early, along with Maw of N'zoth, Nazjatar and JunkerGnomeIsle (the internal name for Mechagon, as seen in it's loading screen filename and phase data).

For some reason, they decided to quickly wrap of Sylvanas story, and then give us a completely different 8.3, relying largely on existing zones and assets. I don't know if they felt the need to shift more resources and manpower to Shadowlands or what, but it's a large reason why the Old Gods stuff builds to a soft crescendo in 8.2, and instead of exploding massively onto the scene, N'zoth physically imposing himself on the world and becoming a apparent threat, we instead get vague mentions that he's free and see people have "visions" of him, while we do world quests in old zones.

[Wangming]

@Wangming @Sondrelk

Shadowlands is a more pedestrian kind of bad. The plot moves from Point A to Point B. It is hinted to us with Sylvanas telling us she's sending souls to hell in BFA, begins with us being introduced to the Bald Man, who rules hell, and ends with us defeating the Bald Man and solving the hell problem. It has a beginning, middle and end. The actual characterization of the people involved is at best incoherent and at worst nonexistent and the pacing is a complete mess with middle chapters being cut out and characters like Ve'nari popping up and then vanishing, but it does tell the story it started with. Even the plot being reliant on side materials to be comprehensible is a WoW classic dating back to the whole of Sunwell being based around the character drama of people from a tie-in manga.

BFA is unique as far as bad WoW stories go both in that its beginning has no causal relation to its end and in that if you read side materials like BTS you're actually more poorly equipped to understand the plot than if you didn't. If you don't read War Crimes, you don't know how Garrosh went from prison to going back in time, but Garrosh still went back in time. If you do read Before the Storm, you are privy to Sylvanas's internal thoughts that mention both her interest in taking over Stormwind and her total disinterest in sending people to hell, and if you take these two things aboard her actions in the expansion make even less sense than they would if you pretend it doesn't exist.

To paraphrase Atia: Shadowlands is fine if you ignore the pacing issues, the twists that are just as asspully as they are predictable, the barely characterized villain and how crucial details can only be found outside the game. This means that it isn't fine, it is extremely low quality, but can be considered your average Blizzard story.
BfA was a complete incoherent mess and now amount of external material makes it any less confusing.

The main problem with the story of Shadowlands (beside everything to do with the Jailer) is that we all get into it with the expectation of finally learning what's the deal with Sylvanas. But that is told in the novel, not the game. Overall I would say BfA had more and better content, but a far worse story. Like, nothing is worse than the BfA story.