Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Rae888]

Maybe if the Light invades through the Sunwell as suggested previously in this thread?

I imagined it more like Baedril with rogue undead overwhelming the city now that they aren’t under anyone’s control. I think there is some dialogue even in current 9.2 content that could be interpreted as foreshadowing for it.

[Fahrad Wagner]

On the Dragonflight leak, Balor, Uldaz and Kezan zones that would be part of your daily grind that are all over the map . . .
Blizzard supposedly understood that disjointed zones like back in Cata don't work. Then they did Shadowlands were zones are even more disjointed than ever. And the thing is, Blizzard doesn't really care about our feedback because they prefer using metrics. And I guarantee you that those metrics have been extremely unflattering to disjointed zone design? How many times in Shadowlands did you take a flight path from one zone to the other, tabbed out and did not tab back, leaving your character to AFK and eventually DC at the flight path? They know it happens.
This is the thing with BfA and Shadowlands, they have been designed, far more than anything else in WoW, to WASTE our time. Not to engage us with gameplay, just to waste our time. With BfA it was with numerous World Quests that were UTTER TRASH, horrible collect ten bear asses quests in a world suffering from a pandemic off assless bears. Shadowlands made those world quests even more common, added them in a daily variety as well, removed the fast "kill this rare" world quests that everyone prefered to do and added insane travel times as well.

If they have learned nothing from all this even though the metrics must be visible and design an expac with disjointed zones then we have far bigger issues than WoW halflings displacing gnome Goldshire hookers as the loli du jour.

Omg not the loli du jour :’) :’)

[Nymrohd]

I don't buy it at all. It all seems too convenient to assume the dates just changed because of scheduling, much less by so long, and the whole Balor thing really feels like people are just seeing an irrelevant and poorly-constructed detail and connecting something better to it. I think it's a matter of setting yourselves up for high expectations and far more in the way of cleverness than the original leaker intended—they likely just looked at the "Lore Locations" page on Wowpedia and saw Balor, then decided to run with it without really bothering to look into it too thoroughly.

Perhaps I'm just a little too nosy about these things, but so much of that leak simply doesn't sit right, especially the whole idea of four single-specialization classes, which really is completely unbelievable from a design perspective.

I also don't see why Silvermoon would be a hostile city. That seems completely nonsensical—Lor'Themar isn't the type of person to get villain batted, and I don't really see any good reason why the Blood Elves would abruptly betray the Horde. Maybe there's some kind of coup and Rommath or someone unsavory takes over, but even then I don't see how that could feasibly happen or become an important plot point, especially since it would involve assuming that the whole city could suddenly become entirely hostile to the Horde overnight. There's very little in the way of sensible lore reasons that I could produce for why Silvermoon would ever become hostile.

If Turalyon (who has shown in every way that he is not a zealot) has so much of the community convinced that he will go Light Nazi, so can Liadrin. What if Liadrin and Salandria invite the Light Crusade through the Sunwell, a massive pool of Light-attuned arcane energy and then they install Yrel as a dictator. Lor'themar gets to skip town (probably Thalyssra saves his ass, she seems to like it) and we get a Suramar-like experience adventuring in Eastern Light Berlin. The Blood Elves end up needing help from both the Horde and Alliance and at the end of the fight to take back Silvermoon, Alleria fucks things up trying to close the portal and makes a portal to the Void instead.
Extra points if both the Light and the Void fight over whatever power sources Wrathion (and Merithra) would like to use to get the Aspects back to full power. Salandria is send to the Dragon Isles to fetch it and gets some dragon genocide on, explaining the Bronze flight wanting to murder her as a baby.
Heck it could be that what Wrathion wants to use to become a real Aspect IS the Sunwell. So he goes to loot that and in his way fucks the Sunwell up into a Voidwell. Some Blood Elves turn crazy, we raid the area to get to the Voidwell so Alleria can close it and that's how the velves get accepted back to Sillymoon.

See, I can come with any number of plots that would make sense.

[Wangming]

Omg not the loli du jour :’) :’)

I have a new favorite phrase now.

[Lady Atia]

Damn it.

I really like this idea.

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That... could work. A sort of hybrid system, where there are still race/class restrictions but within those restrictions you can have multiple classes per character (with some exceptions, like DK+Paladin being a no, etc)

Then over time they could loosen those restrictions.

Well to be fair, we have seen f.e. Zeliek aswell as Lightforged DK's so in theory, they could make that work if they say lorewise, some DK's are able to tap back into their old lives. For example, a DK who was a hunter in their former life wouldn't unlearn to tame beasts (especially if they are undead ones) so you can kinda make it work in lore. And even if we would only get the micro-classes as 4th specs that would work quite well as all of them seem to be something that anyone could learn on top of their original class. Bolvar for example could be seen as a DK with a Dragonknight spec. Minstrel and Tinker are both something anyone could be trained any time, much like a combat profession. The Sylvanas book even gave us Lirath who is a Minstrel but later tried to be a hunter too (and failed). And last but not least Chronomancers have already a lore with the Timewalkers faction - mortals who helped defend the timeways after the aspects did loose their powers. And you don't even have to keep them connected to the bronze dragons - Elisande f.e. could be seen as a Mage with a Chronomancer spec.

[Fahrad Wagner]

If Turalyon (who has shown in every way that he is not a zealot) has so much of the community convinced that he will go Light Nazi, so can Liadrin. What if Liadrin and Salandria invite the Light Crusade through the Sunwell, a massive pool of Light-attuned arcane energy and then they install Yrel as a dictator. Lor'themar gets to skip town (probably Thalyssra saves his ass, she seems to like it) and we get a Suramar-like experience adventuring in Eastern Light Berlin. The Blood Elves end up needing help from both the Horde and Alliance and at the end of the fight to take back Silvermoon, Alleria fucks things up trying to close the portal and makes a portal to the Light instead.
Extra points if both the Light and the Void fight over whatever power sources Wrathion (and Merithra) would like to use to get the Aspects back to full power. Salandria is send to the Dragon Isles to fetch it and gets some dragon genocide on, explaining the Bronze flight wanting to murder her as a baby.
Heck it could be that what Wrathion wants to use to become a real Aspect IS the Sunwell. So he goes to loot that and in his way fucks the Sunwell up into a Voidwell. Some Blood Elves turn crazy, we raid the area to get to the Voidwell so Alleria can close it and that's how the velves get accepted back to Sillymoon.

See, I can come with any number of plots that would make sense.

That, or desperate to save Silvermoon from the Scourge the BE summon the Army of Light through the portal… but after destroying the Scourge it decides it’s not going anywhere and takes over SM?

[Nymrohd]

Funny thing is while you say the name is highly predictable, there was no other leak with this name.
The classes? Well the concet sounds weird, but Blizzard doesn't shy away from weird stuff. If I told you you would get new races using existing animation rigs that you need to grind out reputation for on another character before you can unlock them for character creation and they don't even give you a proper starting experience, you would think I'm off my meds. But that's what Allied Races are.

I think that's why there is no other leak with that name. People especially in this leak season really went for some god awful names for their leaks. Still my best leak but Ashes of Galakaros? By the Light, why not Galakros? Explosion of Dragons? EoA (not even explained, just an acronym, thank you)?

[Fahrad Wagner]

I think that's why there is no other leak with that name. People especially in this leak season really went for some god awful names for their leaks. Still my best leak but Ashes of Galakaros? By the Light, why not Galakros? Explosion of Dragons? EoA (not even explained, just an acronym, thank you)?

Explosion of Dragons is just iconic at this point

[Baedril]

--snip--
This is the thing with BfA and Shadowlands, they have been designed, far more than anything else in WoW, to WASTE our time. Not to engage us with gameplay, just to waste our time. With BfA it was with numerous World Quests that were UTTER TRASH, horrible collect ten bear asses quests in a world suffering from a pandemic off assless bears. Shadowlands made those world quests even more common, added them in a daily variety as well, removed the fast "kill this rare" world quests that everyone prefered to do and added insane travel times as well.

At least Zereth Mortis already showed much better WQs than anything 9.0 had, no more 17 step World Quests that bait you into think it's a quick WQ and then you get to step 9 purely on a sunk cost fallacy. I think the 'worst' offender in Zereth Mortis was a two step world quest in the desert area where you had to kill spiders to get bait for a worm, and then a second step where you threw the bait on elites so that the worm would eat them - and that took five minutes total, completely fine. If they just keep up these WQ design improvements to 10.0 I'll be happy.

[Chickat]

I'm still 10 pages behind. I'm going to sleep. I'll catch up tomorrow.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

If Turalyon (who has shown in every way that he is not a zealot) has so much of the community convinced that he will go Light Nazi, so can Liadrin. What if Liadrin and Salandria invite the Light Crusade through the Sunwell, a massive pool of Light-attuned arcane energy and then they install Yrel as a dictator. Lor'themar gets to skip town (probably Thalyssra saves his ass, she seems to like it) and we get a Suramar-like experience adventuring in Eastern Light Berlin. The Blood Elves end up needing help from both the Horde and Alliance and at the end of the fight to take back Silvermoon, Alleria fucks things up trying to close the portal and makes a portal to the Void instead.
Extra points if both the Light and the Void fight over whatever power sources Wrathion (and Merithra) would like to use to get the Aspects back to full power. Salandria is send to the Dragon Isles to fetch it and gets some dragon genocide on, explaining the Bronze flight wanting to murder her as a baby.
Heck it could be that what Wrathion wants to use to become a real Aspect IS the Sunwell. So he goes to loot that and in his way fucks the Sunwell up into a Voidwell. Some Blood Elves turn crazy, we raid the area to get to the Voidwell so Alleria can close it and that's how the velves get accepted back to Sillymoon.

See, I can come with any number of plots that would make sense.

I could feasibly get some of these. It still doesn't excuse the completely wrong description of what a Warden is or the completely-wrong schedule, though. This requires way too much suspension of disbelief for me to buy. I think we could rather spend our time speculating on something more interesting rather than a leak that is otherwise-easily disproven.

And, even then, I don't think that an overnight totalitarian dictatorship is exactly the same as the long-term effects of a new dictator who is generally well-liked and well-respected by his faction who took over completely legally by any means. You don't have a coup and magically see a fully-active Suramar-style environment where everything is after you overnight.

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Or the Suramar comparison just means it’s a huge-ass city zone, and only the left ruins are actually hostile? And we’re questing in the safe side too to prevent a coup from happening?

That's fair enough, but it seems odd to make a comparison to Suramar at all whilst also ignoring its most prominent and important features. The only comparison at all to Suramar in this case is "big city with lots of quests".

[Nymrohd]

That, or desperate to save Silvermoon from the Scourge the BE summon the Army of Light through the portal… but after destroying the Scourge it decides it’s not going anywhere and takes over SM?

Honestly however the Light comes to Azeroth, I really wish that at least early on, people accept it enthusiastically. And then maybe new threats arise and the Light faction gains more power (only for us to find later on that they instigated those threats). I think the narrative of a population (and individual characters) being willing to surrender freedom for safety is always a very compelling story (and I'd actually like to see a storyline in the game were we actually are forced to interact with civilians were the answer is different to killing everything and taking their stuff).

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Also, just because I'm seriously skeptical, here's a full list of my opinions on the different bits in the leak and some of my grievances.

TLDR
Main enemy is Chromatus, though lots of minor stories all about.

This one I can buy. Chromatus is 100% a fine villain who we've left behind for later use. He doesn't have much personality in the books, but a teensy bit does shine through of a sardonic nature that could be exploited to make him a bit more like a somewhat more serious and bombastic Denathrius or Azshara. If a bit of personality-retconning were involved, he could be a good villain, and if not, that's par for the course for Blizzard anyway. I buy this wholeheartedly.

6 disconnected zones

Right off the bat, we know that Blizzard has held that Cataclysm's zone design was a mistake precisely because the zones were totally disconnected. This directly contradicts developer statements.[/QUOTE]

(2 of them being revamps).

I can see this. Although I doubt we'll see totally disconnected zones again, I do think it is possible the expansion could be half-Dragon Isles, half-Lordaeron and Quel'Thalas. This isn't too hard to believe.

4 new micro classes (1 spec each) instead of one full new class.

No. You would have to be insane to buy this. It is a waste of resources for terrible payoff. You wouldn't get nearly as much utility out of these classes, would get far more to do in the way of, say, tier set design and whathaveyou. It would be a complete waste of time and resources. Also, we've never had a class that wasn't explicitly a major selling point that was connected strongly to the themes of the expansion.

"Look! We have four half-baked classes" won't sell as much as "look at the cool new, singular, consistent thing we have that we can easily put on the front of a box to advertise the theme of the expansion!" Death Knights, Monks and Demon Hunters are a blatant advertisement of the themes of the expansion that fit into the world and the lore very easily whilst also bringing something permanent and interesting from the expansion that absolutely and strongly sells their place in the world. None of these classes do that.

Class ‘skins’ for some preexisting classes.

I could see this, but I doubt it'll just be some kind of drop-down menu. It would have to be something like Allied Races with an actual questline or prerequisites.

Player housing.
Carpenter and Logger professions.

Plausible. I could see player housing eventually happening as a Hail Mary, and Carpentery and Logging would make some sense in connection to this, giving one of the few reasons a new profession would ever be added a good reason to exist.

Dalaran capitol city.

Maybe, assuming a strong connection to Lordaeron. I would normally say it's completely impossible for us to have the same city three times, but in the instance of a connection to Lordaeron it is the only neutral city that could exist there, and if the Dragon Isles are flying near Lordearon, it does give us a feasible access point to both.

No level cap increase.

Unclear. Too little data at this rate to confirm or deny. We don't have much in the way of understanding of the long-term plans—it could be that the Shadowlands squish was just to reduce the numbers so there's an easier time working with them and revamping leveling experiences. I don't think there's enough in the way of info to confirm or deny this.

Rewards from Shadowlands just get scaled down. Everything in 10.0 is max level content (level 60) with no level squish, so there is no need to level if you already have max level characters. Progression is just endgame progression.

I really can't see Blizzard doing an expansion with no leveling experience when most players usually just play an expansion, level, and then unsubscribe until the next one's out. This is really infeasible, unwieldy, and poor design.

Dragon Isles. Technically its own continent though it’s just one zone split into multiple maps. Floating islands between the Broken Isles and Northrend.

Feasible. Matches lore location from original design maps. I don't buy them making a faux-continent like this, though. Maybe if it were a mini-continent like Argus that can't really be considered a full continent I would buy it, but the exact description seems awkward and questionable.

Lordaeron. Revamped Tirisfal/Plaguelands. Scarlet/Light focus.

I believe it.

Quel’thalas. Revamped Eversong/Ghostlands. Silvermoon is a hostile city like Suramar.

New information heavily suggests the former. I've pointed out the issues with the latter.

Undermine. City-zone beneath Kezan. Criminals and Uncrowned story. Fully underground.

No. We're not getting Undermine. We have no reason to go there, much less in a Dragon-focused expansion in Lordaeron. Cheap fan-baiting.

Balor. Halfling race dealing with primordial fel enemies (think proto-demons, like what the Shadowlands creatures are to undead).

No. This makes no sense. It's a random island that sort of appeared in a passing mention in the Warcraft II manual, we're not going to suddenly find an undiscovered race and "proto-demons" there. We also already know that Demons are the "proto-demons". They came into existence with the clash at the beginning of history and/or have been retroactively made in a factory. Not all of them are corrupted mortals.

Uldaz. Second fully underground zone ever on Azeroth. Titan/Elune story here.

Feasibly, but all Uld- zones except for Uldum have been instanced thus far. I don't see why we'd get an Elune plot in a fully-underground questing zone.

Dragon Knight. Only one tank spec. Uses two-handed weapons, fire, plate armor and shouts.

There are no "Dragon Knights" in lore. Why would Blizzard waste precious resources on something that doesn't exist in lore at all and has no basis?

Tinker class. Only one damage-dealer spec. Uses guns, mail armor, gadgets and mech suits.

Maybe, save for the "one specialization" thing.

Minstrel class. Only one healer spec. Uses leather, lutes, violins and panflutes.
Chronomancer class. Only one healer spec. Uses cloth, time magic, and sand magic.

1. Two classes that can only heal, one of which has no basis in lore and wouldn't sell an expansion easily. No.
2. Why isn't this a Mage specialization or class skin?

Dark Ranger skin for Hunters. Dark spell effects. Tames undead instead of animals.
Necromancer skin for Warlocks. Plagues instead of curses. Summons undead instead of demons.
Nightmare skin for Druids. Corrupted spell effects and animal forms. Can unlock wildly different forms (that play the same as normal druids) like snakes and spiders.

Maybe.

Dragonsworn skin for Shamans. Draconic spell effects and forms.

Why Shamans? Even assuming this is true, why would there be two Dragon-themed classes? What's the difference between a Dragon Knight and a Dragonsworn? This is superfluous.

Warden skin for Demon Hunters. Uses arcane and holy magic instead of fel.

1. Wardens have never used holy magic, and have only ever used very minimal arcane magic (blink).
2. Why are Wardens a Demon Hunter skin? They have nothing in common with them other than "agile edgy Elves".
3. Wardens already share several abilities with Rogues, so why not just make them a class skin for Rogues? In fact, why would we even need a class skin for this when you can functionally experience a Warden minus Avatar of Vengeance if you just gave Rogues a transmog with a weapon?
4. Let's assume that the Avatar of Vengeance takes care of metamorphosis. How are the heavily-armored, very much wingless Wardens going to double-jump or glide? Their capes?

Continued Order Hall stories, though only a select few and you pick them like Covenants. There are no gameplay differences between them, just different campaigns, mounts, mogs and companions. The Silver Hand, Uncrowned, Kirin Tor, Valarjar, and Black Harvest. You are not considered the leader of the order.

Maybe. It's hard to imagine a retcon of our position in the Orders, but I could sort of see it. I can't see picking a certain Order Hall for some classes, though. Why would a Warlock join the Silver Hand, or a Paladin or Warrior the Black Harvest or Uncrowned? I can see some overlap, but not much.[/QUOTE]

Expansion announcement February 28th. Announcement for the announcement planned for the 18th. Goal is to release Q1 2023.

Objectively disproven. I doubt we'd see a schedule slip worth nearly two months.

[Wangming]

Explosion of Dragons is just iconic at this point

It's this season's Wrath of The Bolvar.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Honestly however the Light comes to Azeroth, I really wish that at least early on, people accept it enthusiastically. And then maybe new threats arise and the Light faction gains more power (only for us to find later on that they instigated those threats). I think the narrative of a population (and individual characters) being willing to surrender freedom for safety is always a very compelling story (and I'd actually like to see a storyline in the game were we actually are forced to interact with civilians were the answer is different to killing everything and taking their stuff).

I particularly agree with this. And this would work very well in the EK as most of its inhabitants worship the light

[Nymrohd]

I could feasibly get some of these. It still doesn't excuse the completely wrong description of what a Warden is or the completely-wrong schedule, though. This requires way too much suspension of disbelief for me to buy. I think we could rather spend our time speculating on something more interesting rather than a leak that is otherwise-easily disproven.

And, even then, I don't think that an overnight totalitarian dictatorship is exactly the same as the long-term effects of a new dictator who is generally well-liked and well-respected by his faction who took over completely legally by any means. You don't have a coup and magically see a fully-active Suramar-style environment where everything is after you overnight.

Oh I think the Dragonflight leak is bogus as well. I am just saying that you can easily get to Silvermoon being a hostile questing area.
And yeah, I would have had the dictatorship happen slowly. Maybe the Dragons are presented as a threat in x.0 The Farstriders fail to contain it but the Shining Crusaders save the civilians and win the day. Then the Farstriders somehow fail against a minor scourge attack that destroys a small village in x.1 People lose trust in them. In x.1.5 we have Lor'themar ousted from the city by popular demand and replaced by Yrel or Liadrin. In x.2 we start adventuring in a hostile fascist Silvermoon and in x.3 it is the final raid of the xpac. Silvermoon proper gets a full revamp and turns friendly by x.3.5 while the raid happens in Quel'danas which gets blown up into the next xpac entry area.

[Fahrad Wagner]

It's this season's Wrath of The Bolvar.

It truly is!

[Nachtigal]

That’s precisely because it’s an asspull and it draws heavily on existing mythology that I think it’s real, but that’s just me

Hey off-topic in regards to what I've quoted.. I saw you mention something quite a few pages back regarding the shield malganis drops being this expansions suramar cloak. What is the cloak youre referring to so I can look at it? Just curious

[Fahrad Wagner]

Also, just because I'm seriously skeptical, here's a full list of my opinions on the different bits in the leak and some of my grievances.

This one I can buy. Chromatus is 100% a fine villain who we've left behind for later use. He doesn't have much personality in the books, but a teensy bit does shine through of a sardonic nature that could be exploited to make him a bit more like a somewhat more serious and bombastic Denathrius or Azshara. If a bit of personality-retconning were involved, he could be a good villain, and if not, that's par for the course for Blizzard anyway. I buy this wholeheartedly.

Right off the bat, we know that Blizzard has held that Cataclysm's zone design was a mistake precisely because the zones were totally disconnected. This directly contradicts developer statements.

I can see this. Although I doubt we'll see totally disconnected zones again, I do think it is possible the expansion could be half-Dragon Isles, half-Lordaeron and Quel'Thalas. This isn't too hard to believe.

No. You would have to be insane to buy this. It is a waste of resources for terrible payoff. You wouldn't get nearly as much utility out of these classes, would get far more to do in the way of, say, tier set design and whathaveyou. It would be a complete waste of time and resources. Also, we've never had a class that wasn't explicitly a major selling point that was connected strongly to the themes of the expansion.

"Look! We have four half-baked classes" won't sell as much as "look at the cool new, singular, consistent thing we have that we can easily put on the front of a box to advertise the theme of the expansion!" Death Knights, Monks and Demon Hunters are a blatant advertisement of the themes of the expansion that fit into the world and the lore very easily whilst also bringing something permanent and interesting from the expansion that absolutely and strongly sells their place in the world. None of these classes do that.

I could see this, but I doubt it'll just be some kind of drop-down menu. It would have to be something like Allied Races with an actual questline or prerequisites.

Plausible. I could see player housing eventually happening as a Hail Mary, and Carpentery and Logging would make some sense in connection to this, giving one of the few reasons a new profession would ever be added a good reason to exist.

Maybe, assuming a strong connection to Lordaeron. I would normally say it's completely impossible for us to have the same city three times, but in the instance of a connection to Lordaeron it is the only neutral city that could exist there, and if the Dragon Isles are flying near Lordearon, it does give us a feasible access point to both.

Unclear. Too little data at this rate to confirm or deny. We don't have much in the way of understanding of the long-term plans—it could be that the Shadowlands squish was just to reduce the numbers so there's an easier time working with them and revamping leveling experiences. I don't think there's enough in the way of info to confirm or deny this.

I really can't see Blizzard doing an expansion with no leveling experience when most players usually just play an expansion, level, and then unsubscribe until the next one's out. This is really infeasible, unwieldy, and poor design.

Feasible. Matches lore location from original design maps. I don't buy them making a faux-continent like this, though. Maybe if it were a mini-continent like Argus that can't really be considered a full continent I would buy it, but the exact description seems awkward and questionable.

I believe it.

New information heavily suggests the former. I've pointed out the issues with the latter.

No. We're not getting Undermine. We have no reason to go there, much less in a Dragon-focused expansion in Lordaeron. Cheap fan-baiting.

No. This makes no sense. It's a random island that sort of appeared in a passing mention in the Warcraft II manual, we're not going to suddenly find an undiscovered race and "proto-demons" there. We also already know that Demons are the "proto-demons". They came into existence with the clash at the beginning of history and/or have been retroactively made in a factory. Not all of them are corrupted mortals.

Feasibly, but all Uld- zones except for Uldum have been instanced thus far. I don't see why we'd get an Elune plot in a fully-underground questing zone.

There are no "Dragon Knights" in lore. Why would Blizzard waste precious resources on something that doesn't exist in lore at all and has no basis?

Maybe, save for the "one specialization" thing.

1. Two classes that can only heal, one of which has no basis in lore and wouldn't sell an expansion easily. No.
2. Why isn't this a Mage specialization or class skin?

Maybe.

Why Shamans? Even assuming this is true, why would there be two Dragon-themed classes? What's the difference between a Dragon Knight and a Dragonsworn? This is superfluous.

1. Wardens have never used holy magic, and have only ever used very minimal arcane magic (blink).
2. Why are Wardens a Demon Hunter skin? They have nothing in common with them other than "agile edgy Elves".
3. Wardens already share several abilities with Rogues, so why not just make them a class skin for Rogues? In fact, why would we even need a class skin for this when you can functionally experience a Warden minus Avatar of Vengeance if you just gave Rogues a transmog with a weapon?
4. Let's assume that the Avatar of Vengeance takes care of metamorphosis. How are the heavily-armored, very much wingless Wardens going to double-jump or glide? Their capes?

Maybe. It's hard to imagine a retcon of our position in the Orders, but I could sort of see it. I can't see picking a certain Order Hall for some classes, though. Why would a Warlock join the Silver Hand, or a Paladin or Warrior the Black Harvest or Uncrowned? I can see some overlap, but not much.

Objectively disproven. I doubt we'd see a schedule slip worth nearly two months.

I agree with most of the above, you’ve made a compelling case against that leak I must admit Although I mainly disagree with two points: micro-classes, as I think they could be real and I am not thrown off by the idea, and Undermine as I could see it in a Dragon expansion because of goblins and their ties to Deathwing, the rest of your points make a lot of sense (especially things such as Warden being a DH skin)

[Revamp Man]

Maybe if the Light invades through the Sunwell as suggested previously in this thread?

i dont see the light doing that

the whisper about a shining surface hiding shadows seems like it would be the void which just got dragon allies in BfA