Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Firefox72]

Nothing would make me happier than seeing the Ghostlands, Eversong Woods and Silvermoon be modernized and integrated into the main map.

[TheFirstOnes]

The logo in the leak is black/dark grey.

Which doesn't refute the cinematic leak, as they could mean it just reflects the same way some quartz crystal would

Looks...Chromatic too. Like a certain Chromatic Tiamat we've yet to face.

I WANNA FIGHT A FUCKING TIAMAT PLEEEAAASSSEEE!!!!

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Nothing would make me happier than seeing the Ghostlands, Eversong Woods and Silvermoon be modernized and integrated into the main map.

Speaking my fucking language bro. Also, FFXIV has their "newfound ADVENTURE" in 6.1, have WoW try something similar with the Dragon Isles and Azeroth adventures/updates. We deserve a smaller expansion after battling Archimonde in WoD, battling the BURNING LEGION, defeating Azshara/N'Zoth, and slaying an all knowing Death God within the Heart of Eternity itself at the origin of the Machine of the Cosmic Power of Death.

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At this rate, I'll take fantasy Dragon Adventures and Tiamat slaying ANY DAY OF THE FUCKING WEEK!!! Also, would be nice to explore the 2-3 unknown Titan facilities we've yet to see. Maybe one of them is underground within the Undermine.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

How does a cinematic of Alexstrasza flying around a bunch of zones changing convey anything about "Dragonflight" to the audience?

Well, it is called "Dragonflight" and features a Dragon flying. /s

[TheFirstOnes]

I'd rather finish that at the very least before exploring the Titan's origin at the Plane of Order and going to Zereth Ordos, at the very least.

[Ersula]

People have made it clear that they prefer World-building over Generic Moustache Twirling villain of the month.

That cinematic is sufficient to generate more hype and less outrage than Suevanas vs. Bolvar did.

The Shadowlands cinematic was extremely well received before the basement dweller demographic voiced their opinion.

Also calling Sylvanas a mary sue but not Bolvar is cute. Clearly they didn't treat Mister "Varian Placeholder" Fordragon with the respect he deserved.

[Varodoc]

The Shadowlands cinematic was extremely well received before the basement dweller demographic voiced their opinion.

Also calling Sylvanas a mary sue but not Bolvar is cute. Clearly they didn't treat Mister "Varian Placeholder" Fordragon with the respect he deserved.

I sense projection in your words, it's alright don't worry I understand.

[Sondrelk]

The logo in the leak is black/dark grey.

Which doesn't refute the cinematic leak, as they could mean it just reflects the same way some quartz crystal would

You know? That would look kinda awesome as a logo. I always thought the possible Dragonflight logo looked a bit bland, but have it with a chromatic shine and I think it would look pretty damn cool.

[Calfredd]

I sense projection in your words, it's alright don't worry I understand.

No that's a mirror you're talking into.

[Makabreska]

This is NOT a singleplayer game, this game should not follow characters as main protagonists, fuck the leaders sucking up all the screen time, we need to go back in focusing on our characters and races.

Unfortunately, we have always been in the background. Illidan? Killed by Akama and Maiev. LK? Tirion saved us and shattered Frostmourn. Derpwing? Thrall and Aspects. Garrosh? Vol'jin rebellion. Archibald? Grom + Dadghar + Yrel etc. etc. We were always in the background, and that's because it is universally easier to focus on more or less established NPC's than nameless player characters. Like, how do you even put our characters in cut-scenes? How should they look? What should they say and do? We got NPC focused cut-scenes for decades. Wrathgate, anyone? Your complain is really damn bizarre.

[Wangming]

"i only saw the cinematic once and i know all the lines in it"

yeah fam, i dunno, i call bs, it is also very bad, there is nothing on it, the cinematics always have a "zumba", something to give hype, even mop had the fight with the orc and the human against the pandaren. Plus, not tyrande again jesus, don't make her the next sylvanus.

The fuck do you mean Tyrande again? She was never shown in a cinematic. Sylvanas was in the last three, but thankfully no more. Beside him the only recognizable characters are Illidan in TBC (I guess that vindicator could be Maraad but not necessarily), Arthas is WotLK, Deathwing in Cata, Chen in MoP, Garrosh, Gul'dan, Mannoroth and Grom in WoD, Varian in Legion, Anduin, Genn, Saurfang and Zappy boy in BfA and The Bolvar in SL. Shit, I don't think we had night elves on screen since the first two trailers. Humans, orcs and undead are the frequent races.

Yes, I did re-watch all of them just now.

Vanilla and TBC were pretty much like that Moon Knight meme: "Random bullshit, go!" Also it is funny to watch now and see how far they've come. In Vanilla the Orc was like some dumb caveman flailing a club and screaming. Now contrast that with WoD. TBC gets a pass due to the badass Illidan narration but is also kinda odd cause we weren't shown anything about the titular burning crusade. Like I guess those were demons maybe-Maraad killed, but Idunno.

Wrath was....interesting. The music was beautiful and the ironic narration makes it very memorable. Still nothing really happens besides Arthas raises a frostwyrm. The whole thing is very somber and there really is no action. It has the most "Hey, it's a famous lore character" feel to it.

The cata trailer is probably the one I watched the least. I mean it does its job. It shows the villain and the actual Cataclysm. Still the edgyness feels too tryhard to me. But the huge tidal wave washing over the goblin statue was cool. There is a lot of water in WoW Cinematics. This is something I've only noticed now.

Now Mop is another interesting one. Admittedly there are parts where it tries to be funny. That isn't something we are used to in WoW cinematics, beside maybe the polymorph scene in TBC. But I do feel like this trailer is criminally underrated. The symbolism is great as it tells you a lot about the plot with just a fight scene. The Horde and the Alliance fight it out wherever they go and they don't care if they vandalize statues in the process. Fighting is everything. Meanwhile the Pandaren work to have them stop the constant war. Also this trailer has the best narration.

WoD had hands down the best cinematic. Despite only showing orcs at a time where people were arleady sick of them was hype as fuck. And it gave us more than one iconic lines to meme. It also tells us it is a time travel expansion without directly telling us or showing the act of timetravel. Times change indeed.

Legion was odd to watch now in hindsight considering it has Varian and Sylvanas fighting together. Definitely not amonf my favorite cinematics, but it established the scope and severity of the invasion pretty well. Also nods back to MoP and the question: What is worth fighting for. Peace apparently.

BfA is weird because compared to the utter disappointment the expansion was, the trailer was super well made. it was aslo very misleading as it made it very ambiguos who the good guys are. And it also showed a Sylvanas who cares for the Horde. If only things stayed that way. If only the Battle of Lordaeron happened before the Battle of Teldrasssil.

The Shadowlands trailer was garbage. I mean sure the graphics quality was top notch and I liked how they were teasing Sylvanas becomming a Lich Queen before pulling the rug from under us at the last moment. But another Sylvanas trailer was tiresome, how she beat Bolvar without suffering a single hit was insulting and there were barely any Shadowlands in it.

I don't believe the trailer breakdown is legit for reasons already mentioned, but it being non-action isn't necessarily bad. We had two trailers with no fighting before. And it being a reverse of the Catacylsm trailer is a clever touch. So I could see the real one being something like this.

[Sharby]

The Shadowlands cinematic was extremely well received before the basement dweller demographic voiced their opinion.

I didn't like the SL cinematic was because we saw Sylvanas being bad and evil and it was clear (most) people were supposed to dislike her, not to mention she suffered virtually zero meaningful setbacks during BFA and always appeared to be one step ahead of everyone (including us.) Then in this cinematic she just waltzes into ICC giving yet another monologue and destroys Bolvar.

Which, even if he wasn't as strong as Arthas, the association with the Lich King has always been a super strong entity due to the LK having his own expansion and being the last boss of it. So for him to fold over and get his helm broken by a character already disliked by most was a terrible combo.

The payoff was supposed to be seeing the helm get broken and the sky shattering above Icecrown. But most people didn't know what it meant or the significance of it so it fell flat.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Nothing would make me happier than seeing the Ghostlands, Eversong Woods and Silvermoon be modernized and integrated into the main map.

It would be an absolute treat that's for sure!

[ercarp]

Whoever made the fake Chromatus leak must be pretty ecstatic right now because Bellular basically did a full 20-minute analysis of it.



When he breaks it down like that, it sounds about 5% more believable, but I'm still not buying into it.

[Zankai27]

I hated the SL cinematic from the start because it was immediately obvious she was going to steamroll Bolvar and he wasn’t going to do anything to actually set her back. Haven’t watched it again since. Ugh.

[Soulwind]

Unfortunately, we have always been in the background. Illidan? Killed by Akama and Maiev. LK? Tirion saved us and shattered Frostmourn. Derpwing? Thrall and Aspects. Garrosh? Vol'jin rebellion. Archibald? Grom + Dadghar + Yrel etc. etc. We were always in the background, and that's because it is universally easier to focus on more or less established NPC's than nameless player characters. Like, how do you even put our characters in cut-scenes? How should they look? What should they say and do? Your complain is really damn bizarre.

Well, sure, but it goes a bit beyond that.

The Warcraft franchise is built on RTS roots in which heroes went to battle surrounded by armies. We are the armies, not the heroes. They have tried giving the player more protagonism by giving us artifact weapons and having the main characters recognize us as almost equals, but ultimately all of that falls apart when the next expansion launches and we go back to killing boars.

The genre absolutely doesn't help, as it's very difficult, if not impossible to build stories that can make a gnome, a tauren or any race that is or will be (see: allied races playing through their unlock quests, somehow being treated as outsiders) playable in the game to be the main hero. Or having millions of main heroes fight in groups of 10-30 against individual bosses only for each of them to see themselves win at the end in a cutscene.

So they shouldn't try to have their cake and eat it, and stick to us being the random adventurer who occasionally gets to meet someone much more powerful than them or shoot an ancient artifact that we came across but don't own. If, during questing, we get told of something awesome a hero did, we can play as them with vehicle controls, and keep the story and gameplay without losing focus of who we are, and more importantly, who we are not, in this world.

[Syegfryed]

1. I don't see how the game being Single or Multiplayer makes a difference. There is no way to focus on our characters because or the sheer variety of PC's that exist. The only reason XIV gets away with it is because they basically said fuck it to every other PC except one.

Um what? the game focused on us and the world before they starting oing to heavy on characters storylines, game did just fine with more enjoyable stories than Ilidan chosen one and Sylvanus hero of the shadowlands

The only cinematic that didn't have a central character was Vanilla (BC kinda?) Even the MoP one which was the closest to what you're asking for still centered on Chen in the end.

im not talking about cinematic, im talking about the game and stories, i said i dont want Tyrande to be the next sylvanus showing up in every cinematic to be the "new protagonist" we all know how bad this end up to be.

Cinematics which help the viewer gain emotional resonance with the character being shown i.e WotLK/Legion are usually the best ones.

Legion was not nearly the best one, and WtLk show the villain we are supposed to fight.

The cinematics are too short to really do any meaningful storytelling, my concern is Blizzard creating a cinematic that is fun to watch.

Becayse they are too short they don't count for ya, got it

MMOs are a bad medium to tell stories in anyways, so I don't see the point in limiting the game's art just to work with it. To me it is Gameplay > Art > Story as far as my priorities for WoW.

MMo are good to tell stories for MMO, it was still good until a few expansions ago, and is good when its limited to zones and leveling, the problem is they trying to make singleplayer storylines following NPCs as main protagonists, thats why Sylvanus and shadowlands story overall was crap.

[ercarp]

I hated the SL cinematic from the start because it was immediately obvious she was going to steamroll Bolvar and he wasn’t going to do anything to actually set her back. Haven’t watched it again since. Ugh.

Yeah, that's definitely a cinematic you only need to see once (and arguably even that's one too many times). I haven't gone back to rewatch it either.

[Zankai27]

Cinematic transcript leaks have also never been right in the entire history of the game. But it’s fun to talk about

[ercarp]

2. I think whoever probably faked it made the mistake of looking at that leaked art print and deciding that Alexstrasza would be the main character. I don't think that's certain at all. I think that if the prints were real, they're likely just one of five versions (each depicting a different Aspect). Wrathion is more likely to feature in the cinematic.

This is basically how I feel about it as well. For an expansion called "Dragonflight", I'm fully expecting to see at least all of the Aspects represented in the cinematic in one way or another, not just Alexstrasza flying around while giving some kind of pretentious speech.

[Syegfryed]

Unfortunately, we have always been in the background. Illidan? Killed by Akama and Maiev. LK? Tirion saved us and shattered Frostmourn. Derpwing? Thrall and Aspects. Garrosh? Vol'jin rebellion. Archibald? Grom + Dadghar + Yrel etc. etc. We were always in the background, and that's because it is universally easier to focus on more or less established NPC's than nameless player characters. Like, how do you even put our characters in cut-scenes? How should they look? What should they say and do? We got NPC focused cut-scenes for decades. Wrathgate, anyone? Your complain is really damn bizarre.

You are confusing on what im saying, i said they should stop treating the NPCs as main protagonists of the game, they are sidecharacters just like we are, they show up, to their thing and thats it. How many times do you see akama and tirion sucking up the story that spawn 3 expansions to a "grand finale"? Even thrall got tossed aside.

They keep focusing on the same characters as protagonists, this is bad, period, if you want make more night elf, make more characters, make then do somehing pos-teldrasil, worldbuilding over focusing on tyrande again, she got her time in shadowlands.

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The fuck do you mean Tyrande again?

She is showing up since LEgion, give a rest already, there is other night elves characters to show off if they rly need focus more on elves, not like they do.