Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Sondrelk]

The seventh force won't be Azeroth, the way its spoken of points to it being malevolent.

Remember the little statuette from Korthia, talking about how the seventh desires for what the six hold onto. The Jailer's whole "cosmos divided cannot withstand what is to come" points to it too. Plus I mean he was drawing from Azeroth at the time. He knows, seemingly, what is coming. If Azeroth was this seventh force, he would've just pointed at it/her instead.

Azerite is just one part of "reality", which is the big theme with Firims journal.
He spends ages researching the Shadowlands and constantly seems confused by reality since it just seems like a meaningless bit of busywork between life and death, or light and void and similar.
At the end he has this grand revelation that seems to imply he realized that reality isn't a curious byproduct of the six cosmic forces, but rather might have been the intended result. A conflux of many different forces coming together to form one whole.

There was this whole book that I mentioned where a big deal was made of Azeroth and it's link to the Zereths. Which is what confused Firim since he assumed reality to be insignificant.

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Didn't we get one yesterday?

We did, the tiniest and most insignificant of builds. Think it only added some mechanics associated with Season 4 raids.

I don't think it's unthinkable that Blizzard is holding back on the PTR revelations until the 10.0 announcement. Especially since this will likely also have more info on 9.2.5.

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I really hope they don't do something as stupid as Azeroth = A zereth

They have already all but stated it in the Shadowlands lore book, so might be too late for that.

[Ersula]

I seriously doubt about revamp now. Imo it would be only landmass of expac and I can't imagine Dragonflight without Dragon Isles as full continent.

Unless whole revamp will be just changing textures and models without touching quests. In that case sure why not.

Revamping assets & quests but not the geography would already mean a revamp that takes way less time than Cataclysm: Also they already have multiple versions of entire zones in the game, so unlike Cata, a new old world revamp wouldn't get rid of the cataclsym era versions of zones. It would be more like phasing.

It would be more impactful if they didn't create new leveling zones, instead you come back from Shadowlands to see how the world has changed: Make the new Kalimdor & Eastern Kingdoms the 60-70 content. The game is just begging for the world to actually show the huge changes that happened between Cata & Shadowlands.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Didn't we get one yesterday?

Yeah, the size of my pinky

[Skildar]

Azeroth, which sounds similar to Zereth.
It's not in-game, but there was the Shadowlands lore book that was released a good while back that pontificated on whether Zereth meant cornerstone or keystone. As in, where the zereths created first or last, and if Azeroth was similarly a Zereth like Zereth Mortis and the others.
Or indeed if the six cosmic ones were created first as cornerstones (since Zereth Mortis is the foundation of the Shadowlands) and Azeroth was created last as the keystone.

fun things I've completely missed. I didn't even acknowledged before that Azeroth is closed to zereth, I guess because in french they pronounce it "zeress", just like korthia is pronounced "korsiah" while Azeroth is pronounced Azerote

[Nightshade711]

Azeroth, which sounds similar to Zereth.
It's not in-game, but there was the Shadowlands lore book that was released a good while back that pontificated on whether Zereth meant cornerstone or keystone. As in, where the zereths created first or last, and if Azeroth was similarly a Zereth like Zereth Mortis and the others.
Or indeed if the six cosmic ones were created first as cornerstones (since Zereth Mortis is the foundation of the Shadowlands) and Azeroth was created last as the keystone.

This is a nice throwback to all those theories about Azeroth being an old god or corrupted Titan by the time she wakes up

Because all of the old gods name wise are very close to Lovecraft.
C’thun: Cthulhu
Yogg’Saron: Yog’sathoth
N’zoth: Zoth-ommog (and Nyarlathotep with Nyalotha)

Etc.

But then we have Azeroth
Which sounds a lot like Azathoth

[Kiivar86]

I saw this on reddit the other day, apparently Blizzard has a job posting for a Warcraft Associate Lore Historian. Good sign I suppose?

Azerite is just one part of "reality", which is the big theme with Firims journal.
He spends ages researching the Shadowlands and constantly seems confused by reality since it just seems like a meaningless bit of busywork between life and death, or light and void and similar.
At the end he has this grand revelation that seems to imply he realized that reality isn't a curious byproduct of the six cosmic forces, but rather might have been the intended result. A conflux of many different forces coming together to form one whole.

There was this whole book that I mentioned where a big deal was made of Azeroth and it's link to the Zereths. Which is what confused Firim since he assumed reality to be insignificant.

I still think the seventh force isn't Azeroth. Its something malevolent coming for the other forces, hence why the Jailer did what he did.

But maybe there's an eighth thing out there like some think too.

[Ersula]

Azeroth, which sounds similar to Zereth.
It's not in-game, but there was the Shadowlands lore book that was released a good while back that pontificated on whether Zereth meant cornerstone or keystone. As in, where the zereths created first or last, and if Azeroth was similarly a Zereth like Zereth Mortis and the others.
Or indeed if the six cosmic ones were created first as cornerstones (since Zereth Mortis is the foundation of the Shadowlands) and Azeroth was created last as the keystone.

If you're trying to suggest some sort of connection between Azeroth & the Zareths you'd have to explain why the First Ones & their automa ignored Azeroth for 99% of the cosmic universe's timeline. You'd think they might give a shit that Old Gods ruled it for a million years.

[ro9ue]

Which sounds a lot like Azathoth

The being which all of reality exists in their dream. "Reality's End"... attacks Azeroth. Checks out.

[Marlamin]

I don't think it's unthinkable that Blizzard is holding back on the PTR revelations until the 10.0 announcement.

I'm guessing most of said "revelations" are already in, but encrypted.

[Cosmic Janitor]

At this rate, it'll turn out to be mortality or something.

Given the effects of azerite I would have guessed something more like evolution or igenuity, maybe something like the spark of creativity. Mortality feels a bit trivial given the realms of life and death.

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They have already all but stated it in the Shadowlands lore book, so might be too late for that.

The lorebook ceased to be relevant for the future the moment the artist closed the PDF before sending it to the printer. At best it could be a hint of what is to come, it certainly won't stop blizzard to do something else entirely and disregard whatever is written in there. That everything is now conveyed via an unreliable "narrator" just excasserbates this and makes it rather blatant.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

I saw this on reddit the other day, apparently Blizzard has a job posting for a Warcraft Associate Lore Historian. Good sign I suppose?



I still think the seventh force isn't Azeroth. Its something malevolent coming for the other forces, hence why the Jailer did what he did.

But maybe there's an eighth thing out there like some think too.

That's a shocker. I'm surprised they're bothering to remember old lore again. I suppose one too many retcons and a few too much in the department of forgotten lore has finally warranted a response.

[uikolertekopoku]

Things to come… we will find out that…

Sargeras received orders from a „Disorder God or Phanteon“ it will be revealed that this wasnt his
„Burning Crusade“


The First Ones creation intened to create perfect Universe but a fallen First One is responsible for the mess we face.

Later it turns out that The Fallen First One was actually manipulated by the „Force outside our understanding „

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That's a shocker. I'm surprised they're bothering to remember old lore again. I suppose one too many retcons and a few too much in the department of forgotten lore has finally warranted a response.

No it has nothing to do with protecting the Old Lore.

Due the big mess and never ending expanding threats twisting lore and retcons.

They need a whole Team to understand what was actually changed or retconed and what is actually canon.

Its like lying all the time, sooner or later you beleive it or you just dont remeber where your location is in your constructed world

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Things to come… we will find out that…

Sargeras received orders from a „Disorder God or Phanteon“ it will be revealed that this wasnt his
„Burning Crusade“


The First Ones creation intened to create perfect Universe but a fallen First One is responsible for the mess we face.

Later it turns out that The Fallen First One was actually manipulated by the „Force outside our understanding „

As little faith as I have in the lore, I doubt it's that bad. I highly doubt we're going to find out Sargeras was being manipulated, nor that we'll find out the rogue First One was. I imagine that we may face Disorder-based villain that Sargeras had locked away somewhere, though, as well as meet a potential rogue First One responsible for a malignant exterior force. I maintain that the "seventh force" is the ideological sublation (i.e. Hegel) of all other forces, which I actually think would be very interesting, and that "what is to come" is a massive Cosmic War—keep in mind Zovaal is a control freak and unreliable narrator. The "flawed" design to him is probably the existence of multiple Cosmic Forces at all to permit the conflict, not realizing at all that the underlying Hegelian sublation between every force is necessary for reality to function.

Eesh, this would be a very cool story in any other medium or by any other writers, wouldn't it?

No it has nothing to do with protecting the Old Lore.

Due the big mess and never ending expanding threats twisting lore and retcons.

They need a whole Team to understand what was actually changed or retconed and what is actually canon.

Its like lying all the time, sooner or later you beleive it or you just dont remeber where your location is in your constructed world

I figure it's more about both—they're trying to salvage their retcons and are likely realizing the extent of the criticism they're getting for retconning old lore so haphazardly. There are some examples where I think it's deliberate, like Zovaal, but there's also some cases where they clearly made a mistake—namely, Scourge architecture coming from Maldraxxus instead of the Nerubians.

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Given the effects of azerite I would have guessed something more like evolution or igenuity, maybe something like the spark of creativity. Mortality feels a bit trivial given the realms of life and death.

That's a very good guess—I maintain sublation as likely, though, since ingenuity and creativity seem to be shared between the Arcane and Light. In my mind, it's everything working together that's the seventh force—not quite in the sense of al of them combined, but more the results of their interactions and the way in which each force interacting with another changes the given force. Think of Hegelian Dialectics (abstract, negative, concrete, aufhaben)

[Bsirk]

Would an existing ui port into a new engine well?

Maybe they are taking forever because they are porting WoW to UE5? UE5 WoW would make it a lot easier to port to consoles. I mean the chance is less than 1%, but what if?

Don't you dare give me that hope!!

[Marlamin]

Don't you dare give me that hope!!

This isn't realistic in the slightest, so don't worry about that.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Don't you dare give me that hope!!

We regret to inform you Blizzard did not in fact hire that man.

[ChronoSul]

Dragon Isles could just be a portal to the moon. Where dragons are really from for all we know.

At this point I would be pretty surprised if they end up just being some islands in the middle of the current map. Even if are just generic islands, they aren't bound by the same placement constraints for them like they were with Broken Isles, Kul Tiras and Zandalar. I have no idea why they wouldn't move them to the otherside of Azeroth.

U joke about a moon expansion but I think that would be a really fun idea they could get really weird with but I doubt it will ever happen.

[uikolertekopoku]

[Cosmic Janitor]

That's a very good guess—I maintain sublation as likely, though, since ingenuity and creativity seem to be shared between the Arcane and Light. In my mind, it's everything working together that's the seventh force—not quite in the sense of al of them combined, but more the results of their interactions and the way in which each force interacting with another changes the given force. Think of Hegelian Dialectics (abstract, negative, concrete, aufhaben)

Well azerite does have properties of all 6 (or at least 5) forces. It can violently explode since it's volatile like chaos/fel, it can be highly structures like order (crystals and stuff), it can create life (animate the earth), I guess it can kill in various ways and it lights the place up. It's really only void where I have a hard time coming up with a parallel at all, though death is also kinda weak and the connection to the darker classes in BfA was rather flimsy at best when it came to the azerite class skills.

Btw, I'm not sure I would ascribe creativity (etc). to arcane and light. Arcane is more themed after general knowledge and light seems to me more about devotion and ironically also order. The void with the endless whispers and showing all the possibilities seems me more in the ballpark of creativity.

I'm 50/50 on sublation, as I'm not sure I would trust Blizzard to go that far into philosophy (or use it properly). But I can see where you are coming from in regards to the ramblings about the 7th force.

[Nymrohd]

U joke about a moon expansion but I think that would be a really fun idea they could get really weird with but I doubt it will ever happen.

Heck a moon is a small enough place that it can all be covered in one expansion. Only issue would be the curvature I wonder if it is even possible for the engine to simulate a sphere by having a self-contained plane (i.e. once you travel enough in one direction you warp at the opposite end of the plane.)

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Well azerite does have properties of all 6 (or at least 5) forces. It can violently explode since it's volatile like chaos/fel, it can be highly structures like order (crystals and stuff), it can create life (animate the earth), I guess it can kill in various ways and it lights the place up. It's really only void where I have a hard time coming up with a parallel at all, though death is also kinda weak and the connection to the darker classes in BfA was rather flimsy at best when it came to the azerite class skills.

Btw, I'm not sure I would ascribe creativity (etc). to arcane and light. Arcane is more themed after general knowledge and light seems to me more about devotion and ironically also order. The void with the endless whispers and showing all the possibilities seems me more in the ballpark of creativity.

I'm 50/50 on sublation, as I'm not sure I would trust Blizzard to go that far into philosophy (or use it properly). But I can see where you are coming from in regards to the ramblings about the 7th force.

Azerite also makes people imagine myriad of possibilities realized which is a trait of the void.