Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Merryck]

Brokers were a mistake. They really should have just been Ethereals race wise, with "Broker" being their faction/title.

Shadowlands was a mistake. It's beating a dead horse, but so much of the lore is just unnecessary and messes with so much of the other lore. The First Ones above all were a mistake. I hate them so much. They should've just been Titans or never mentioned at all.

[Luck4]

Maybe a bit off topic but I'd love if they re-created that image for Dragonflight. Especially now that we have a proper Demon Hunter.

That would be cool, this was one of the first pics I saw from Warcraft back in 2005, years before jumped in, and I still think it's one of the best screenshots ever made.

Btw, the Night Elf guy is clearly a Demon Hunter, that one definitely took a while to arrive.

[Niwes]

I would kill for Blizzard to add an expansion without levels. It's been a core issue of their expansion design philosophy since BC and getting rid of it would be monumental to fixing the game.

ok, so the existence or non-existence of the first 10 hours of a 3 years lifespan xpac is monumental game fixing ? mmmkkk…

lets say, instead of leveling, they design the xpac like the chromie way, when playing an alt in SL. lets say you start collecting renown, AP or whatever and level your soulbinds or Azerite System or whatever bar you fill, instead of leveling your character and fill his xp bar. and this is better ? this is monumental game fixing ?

hmm….

[ercarp]

Now that we're near the end of the leak season what do you guys think:

1. Dragonflight is a mainland expansion with Dragon Isles being the central continent;
2. Dragonflight is a revamp expansion like Cataclysm, and Dragon Isles is just a zone like Twilight Highlands;
3. Dragonflight is something new, maybe a mix of the two options above;
4. Dragonflight is not the next expansion!

Personally, I'm hoping for option 2... for obvious reasons.

Number 1. I don't see them doing any significant revamping in 10.0. A revamp expansion will make the most sense after we've killed the Void Lords and closed off the whole Cosmic Saga.

[Luck4]

It might have been mentioned earlier, but given Wrathion's history, I wonder if the singular "Dragonflight" means that he will, whether they like it or not, merge the flights into one flight, as this is how he feels victory can only be achieved. Perhaps Wrathion will orchestrate the release/reincarnation of Chromatus to force the flights to join together, and his desire for power turns him into, well, his dear old dad, and we get Blackwing 2: Draconic Boogaloo.

I mean, do we really need another Deathwing? I think that Nozdormu going crazy and the Infinite Dragonflight plot is a lot more interesting since we can have many time-travel DG's/Raids portraying good moments from the lore.

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Number 1. I don't see them doing any significant revamping in 10.0. A revamp expansion will make the most sense after we've killed the Void Lords and closed off the whole Cosmic Saga.

I think the Cosmic Saga will take 10+ years, and solely because they seem to be planning a back and forth in that theme, like cosmic-Azeroth-cosmic...

Tbh, I'm not even sure if they'll be able to finish it.

[TheFirstOnes]

Time is a construct of Order.

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Number 1. I don't see them doing any significant revamping in 10.0. A revamp expansion will make the most sense after we've killed the Void Lords and closed off the whole Cosmic Saga.

Unless they went all in on Dragonflight, I agree with 1 tbh. I do think Undermine and whatnot is possible also, but overall? Yeah, dunno about a WHOLE ASS WORLD REVAMP? Maybe a Quel'thalas/Northern EK revamp, along with some Kalimdor updates, but that's it. Everything else is a slow process from there lol.

Also, Void Lords won't close off the Cosmic Saga, and even then, we still got like 3-5 more expansion ideas till then lol.

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The dragons were given their powers by the titans, aka order, to keep...order on azeroth.

Sorry but that's just false. 10.0, if dragonflight, isn't life.

Also the emerald dream was created by eonar, who is a titan.

There is a lot more blending of the cosmic powers than simply each expansion focusing on one cosmic power.

Shadowlands is essentially the equivalent of an emerald dream expansion (if we had ever been so lucky), it's one fraction of death. We still don't quite know how other cosmic beings deaths work, excluding fel.

It feels like blizzard kinda screwed with the lore in that sense, it's shown on the chart, as shadowlands being the opposite of the emerald dream, but then made the "pantheon of death" equivalent of the titans, when they have shown really no such power, nor did the jailer.

The jailer had to get the pantheon out of the way for a reason, the titan++ comments were silly, and nothing the eternal ones did has been particularly noteworthy or significant compared to the titans.

The titans were shown to order entire beings and races into existence, able to kill an old god by plucking them out of a planet, to destroy worlds easily, and at no cost to them, where as the winter queen had to sacrifice part of her own essence to....save a single soul.

Here's an idea, how about we don't talk about a Realm of Order/Life till we actually get to it? This expansion is going to lead into either the Plane of Life or the Plane of Order expac. Simple. I think Life is next, THEN Order, but that's just me.

And you need to stop basing everything on the WoW Cosmos on 1 chart, and on some damn Chronicle book. Grimoire and Chronicle only show small parts of the bigger truth regarding the Cosmos. The Emerald Dream wasn't even made by Eonar, never was, not even in the fucking Chronicle, which the Dream was implied to have been made from something greater REGARDLESS.

[SniperCT]

ok, so the existence or non-existence of the first 10 hours of a 3 years lifespan xpac is monumental game fixing ? mmmkkk…

lets say, instead of leveling, they design the xpac like the chromie way, when playing an alt in SL. lets say you start collecting renown, AP or whatever and level your soulbinds or Azerite System or whatever bar you fill, instead of leveling your character and fill his xp bar. and this is better ? this is monumental game fixing ?

hmm….

ESO has never raised the level cap. But each expansion comes chock full of end game content because advancement is through champion points. For example, I have 2 level 50s. Every time I gain a CP on one of those characters, both get it, AND all my alts below 50 get it. I'm free to spend it on each alt however I wish.

It's REALLY nice.

eta: It also, quite honestly, handles level scaling and content scaling way better than WoW does. From level 1-50 every zone scales to you. You can level in any zone, through any expack in any order, just happens naturally.

[Bsirk]

Number 1. I don't see them doing any significant revamping in 10.0. A revamp expansion will make the most sense after we've killed the Void Lords and closed off the whole Cosmic Saga.

Heck, WoW 2.0 would make sense after we've dealt with the void lords. lol

[Wangming]

Good luck, it's pretty much 50/50 if the mods will slap you with an infraction for Forbidden Topics. I tried to show off a proof of concept on a private sandbox, of how they could use the tech introduced in Ashran/Garrisons to use seemless loading screen-less transitions between instances to bring over Ghostlands/Eversong to the main continent without having to completely remake those zones and redo all the questlines, triggers, coordinates for quests and NPC pathing, etc. and got a nice vacation from the site, even though I don't host anything.

That's a shame because that actually sounds interesting.

[Fahrad Wagner]

ESO has never raised the level cap. But each expansion comes chock full of end game content because advancement is through champion points. For example, I have 2 level 50s. Every time I gain a CP on one of those characters, both get it, AND all my alts below 50 get it. I'm free to spend it on each alt however I wish.

It's REALLY nice.

eta: It also, quite honestly, handles level scaling and content scaling way better than WoW does. From level 1-50 every zone scales to you. You can level in any zone, through any expack in any order, just happens naturally.

Not gonna lie: this sounds like a much better system, and also more player-friendly.

[Makorus]

Heck, WoW 2.0 would make sense after we've dealt with the void lords. lol

WoW 2 is never gonna happen. What would that even accomplish that couldn't be done through an expansion?

Fracturing the player base is probably not what you want to do.

[Wangming]

Heck, WoW 2.0 would make sense after we've dealt with the void lords. lol

And what would it be about? The old guard is dead, all well established threats are dead, the map is uncovered. Yes, new stuff can be invented but so far they were never as popular as the old ones. The grounded stories with old characters against villains we know well.

WoW 2.0 Ideally would be like Pokemon where every generation essentially tells the same story. The gameplay gets more polished, the graphic gets better but otherwise all of it is familiar and reassuring.

[SniperCT]

Not gonna lie: this sounds like a much better system, and also more player-friendly.

It's super great for alts too. Like as you get more CP and spend them, you get more powerful obviously. So if you have a main with a lot of CP, your low level alt can also spend that CP, making them a lot more powerful, so leveling goes easier. (plus revisiting older content is easier when you have high CP, which happens a lot because of frequent in game events that send you into older zones to do stuff, which is something I think WoW needs too)

[Wangming]

WoW 2 is never gonna happen. What would that even accomplish that couldn't be done through an expansion?

Fracturing the player base is probably not what you want to do.

There are three official versions of the game, so I think they aren't listening.

[SniperCT]

And what would it be about? The old guard is dead, all well established threats are dead, the map is uncovered. Yes, new stuff can be invented but so far they were never as popular as the old ones. The grounded stories with old characters against villains we know well.

WoW 2.0 Ideally would be like Pokemon where every generation essentially tells the same story. The gameplay gets more polished, the graphic gets better but otherwise all of it is familiar and reassuring.

I once had an idea where we come back from argus/shadowlands/draenor/whereever and ... a thousand years have passed. New alliances have been formed, most of the people we knew are gone(except long lived elves and drae and the like). To the world, all the champions and some lore characters (like Jaina and Thrall or whatever) disappeared one day.

And then we all return, weakened, but when we're needed most.

Give a lot of chance to really mess around with things and do a kind of reset.

Could even make it a prestige system. Hit level 100, do the storyline, get reset to level 1 and level through the new wow 2.0 content to the end game. Using chromie time to revisit the old world and etc.

[Makabreska]

There are three official versions of the game, so I think they aren't listening.

I mean, WoW 2 would simply be an upgrade to WoW 1 and would slowly assimilate players, just like with Overwatch. But there is no need for WoW 2 really, the only thing it would bring that expac cannot is some technical stuff like new engine.

[Wangming]

I mean, WoW 2 would simply be an upgrade to WoW 1 and would slowly assimilate players, just like with Overwatch. But there is no need for WoW 2 really, the only thing it would bring that expac cannot is some technical stuff like new engine.

Yeah pretty much. You can't get rid of bags with WoW. You can't change combat from tab targeting to action in WoW. You only get to do that in WoW 2.

[Das Thora]

I mean, WoW 2 would simply be an upgrade to WoW 1 and would slowly assimilate players, just like with Overwatch. But there is no need for WoW 2 really, the only thing it would bring that expac cannot is some technical stuff like new engine.

There's a few reasons I'd want a WoW 2 that are entirely personal/subjective.
1. Reboot lore and world. Can do right on characters like Kael'thas, Garrosh, my boy Malygos. And... don't make entire zones just memes (Uldum, Westfall, etc).
2. Could ... not add certain joke allied races added in BFA (4 at the top of my head -- allied races were train wreck imo).
3. Make each zone (and city!) bigger, IE zoom in on the world map. Could make the base game JUST set in the southern half of the Eastern Kingdoms and build out.

[Nymrohd]

Not gonna lie: this sounds like a much better system, and also more player-friendly.

Well there are two additional factors in play.

Hitting max level with a character in ESO means nothing. Characters in ESO need to level up their skills independently of their level which can be a fairly time consuming process. And learning all the necessary passives to be optimal as well as additional skills you may want to swap in your bar (with the idea we are making a character with just a single built) or really learning any professions (which are very important for ESO, both since you chain chug pots and since you largely upgrade your own gear) requires skill points. These also don't come from leveling, they come from doing the story quests, dungeons, exploration (via the skyshards). So a new alt can take far more time to get to a decent level than in WoW. You CAN ofc buy skyshard unlocks so you don't have to spend hours finding them.

And yes, the Champion system is account wide. It also has an extremely high cap that is impossible for new players to grind to. And yes, the most powerful skills are slotted so you only need to max about twelve of them. But besides the slottable passives, there are dozens of other passives that everyone can have constantly active, many of which are tied to player power. You still need to get to about 900/3600 just to have your first choice of slottables maxed and nearly double that to have desired passives maxed as well. Simply playing the game doesn't really give you enough xp to catch up. Your best bet by far is to stack up +xp% gear and consumables and grind, grind, grind. The gear and most of the consumables are available in game (though the consumables cost an arm and a leg to make). You can ofc buy those consumables from the store as well . . .

If you did want to play multiple playstyles ofc, you'd want far more skill points and champion points so you have flexibility. A recent patch did effectively add Dual Talents to ESO. You can change pretty much everything. But you can only do it in your house unless you buy a very expensive follower. And two builds are actually nothing for ESO. You need radically different builds to be effective in any challenging solo content, for dungeons, for trials, for PvP in Cyrodiil, for PvP in battlegrounds, heck you want different builds to do gathering, hunt for treasures or focus on the Justice system (i.e. be a thief or assassin). You can have more than Dual Talents ofc . . . if you pay.

[Skildar]

when you do an increase to a version it is because you want to do away with some retroactive work or break some existing system that you cannot do on existing.

So you should picture removing continents, races, classes, etc.

I don't want that and think there are doing fine with it now, so we clearly don't need a wow 2 right now.