Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Hitei]

considering they repeatedly stress it was a genocide and that night elf numbers were decimated and there were 'far too few' left, I'd say yeah, way more unforgivable than a bit of serial killing

A tree with a crapton of civilians on it. But hey, details.

I don't know why people still bother responding to someone who has unironically used the argument "the elves were too old, so burning them alive wasn't murder, it was just assisted euthanasia" multiple times.

[ChairmanKaga]

That mount was Void, not Twilight.

I thought it was from Twilight eggs left near Nzoth to soak up voidy goodness. I also forgot the Storm drakes from Broken Isles. If nothing else I wouldn't mind seeing some of these groups expanded upon in Dragonflight. The "engineered" flights like Chromatic and Twilight maybe even Netherwing. It would be interesting to see them trying to become more than what they were created for by Deathwing etc.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

A tree with a crapton of civilians on it. But hey, details.

Honestly, I actually do think the whole "tree-burning" thing isn't the frontline for me—for me the real issue was that after the victims of the genocide died, they were also sent to hell to have some of their souls obliterated. I consider that to be arguably worse than murder since it destroys the consciousness of the entity, whereas an entity that is allowed to remain in a normal, functional afterlife is conscious forever. I think that the whole genocide bit frankly pales relative to then proceeding to remove the opportunity of your victims to go to a proper afterlife.

Essentially, the consciousness is the most important part of an entity—if an entity weren't conscious, murder would be completely excusable because there is no one for it to harm. Even diminished intelligence by virtue of an inherently more primitive brain and lack of a soul can justify killing and even eating animals, which further emphasizes the role of consciousness in determining the value of a living thing. Consequently, if the reason to prevent murder is to defend the consciousness from forced removal from its current state of being, then destroying the consciousness itself would have to be an even greater transgression since it's destroying the thing that even murder only would remove from this world or otherwise upset.

[Ersula]

considering they repeatedly stress it was a genocide and that night elf numbers were decimated and there were 'far too few' left, I'd say yeah, way more unforgivable than a bit of serial killing

But this isn't a matter of forgiveness, it's specifically that Maiev is who's shoulder Tyrande goes to for comfort: The other murderer of night elves. The visual hypocrisy of her making that ugly, hateful face to Sylvanas while standing next to the one person who has "darnassian mass murder 2nd place" award.

It's silly.

[Ferlion]

All I'm hearing is there's a lot of problems with WoW's writing but fans who want spoilers datamining spoilers isn't one of them.

Lol. Maiev came to the Shadowlands for Tyrande's "emotional support". Her f*cking husband didn't even do that.

I said what I said: I think they're both a symptom of the same mentality: That they'll reveal all the relevant information at the very last moment it matters & that will somehow improve the experience for the audience but that just isn't true. Being cagey with story details is hurting the experience, not improving it.

Hiding as much of the story behind encryption as possible, giving the Jailer a motivation the moment he dies & hiding all of Sylvanas' characterization in a book both all have the same underlying writing philosophy fueling those decisions & I think it's a bad one.

In defense of Marlamin... I actually somewhat agree with him. I'm not happy with Blizzard and their treatment with lore, but I also think that spoils or not, they are received differently than when playing the game.

I think that with spoilers or PTR lore stuff, things are actively looked at through a certain lens that turns the conversation into an echo chamber of negativity that then alters the context of a scene when you first play through it.

[Vakir]

I said what I said: I think they're both a symptom of the same mentality: That they'll reveal all the relevant information at the very last moment it matters & that will somehow improve the experience for the audience but that just isn't true. Being cagey with story details is hurting the experience, not improving it.

Giving the Jailer a motivation the moment he dies & hiding all of Sylvanas' characterization in a book both have the same underlying writing philosophy fueling those decisions & I think it's a bad one.

But that's not even tangentially related to the problem with datamining. That's a problem with storytelling quality and structure.

The Jailer giving his motivation when he dies is a function of the story's structure being awful. The Jailer gives his motivation as he dies whether we get the cutscene 6 weeks early via datamining or the moment he dies via the cutscene playing. Either way is bad, and either way is a story dead-end and unsatisfying. But that's because the story sucks.

My point is that there are SOME very niche situations where the story might not be as poor, which is a rarity in SL as a whole, but it's still influenced by getting it early datamined.

Same with Sylvanas' characterization. If someone we were able to get all of Sylvanas' lines for 9.0 through 9.2, all at once, magically despite not being recorded, the very moment the damn Alpha dropped, it wouldn't change that the answer would still be "read the book." It's completely irrelevant to the discussion.

So they're deeply unrelated problems. You said what you said, but only so much by the virtue that your fingers happened to hit the keys and you continued to not think about what you were saying with no actual consequences - due to a lack of any intellectual shame or self-awareness.

[Makabreska]

I don't know why people still bother responding to someone who has unironically used the argument "the elves were too old, so burning them alive wasn't murder, it was just assisted euthanasia" multiple times.

Oh, just like in political threads, we wait for said person to loose it at some point. Also, bullshit should be opposed.

[Ferlion]

I'd also like to add in that I think the conversation of spoilers has ultimately changed in the last few expansions. Blizzard has actively changed how they tell a story and seem to be very big on "We are going to tease something without ever giving a solid answer".. BFA and Shadowlands especially that has seemed unbearable.

I personally think this is a massive mistake. Blizzard intentionally tried to hide everything for this story as a "Will she/won't she" and "look how interesting and mysterious this story is" but it ultimately just made people angry.

It's very odd dealing with a story in WoW where spoilers actually matter.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

But this isn't a matter of forgiveness, it's specifically that Maiev is who's shoulder Tyrande goes to for comfort: The other murderer of night elves. The visual hypocrisy of her making that ugly, hateful face to Sylvanas while standing next to the one person who has "darnassian mass murder 2nd place" award.

It's silly.

Genocide is clearly morally-equivalent to ~20 murders tops. Strong comparison there.

[deviantcultist]

You mean more than the main dragon groups?
I don’t see that happening simply because of the story but I’m also biased and want the fake Talonguard to be a thing

Dragons in fantasy, especially WoW, come in many flavors. I'd like to see something that resembles Void/Twilight, Elune/Moon or Deathwing/Wrathion kind of dragon class or at least have the spec/option to play into that.

Instead, I'm concerned they are going to make a purely Red Dragonflight class that comes across as the most basic flavor of dragon you can find in any type of fantasy. Maybe except for the "healing flames" aspect, but seriously, that's not enough depth.

[Ersula]

Genocide is clearly morally-equivalent to ~20 murders tops. Strong comparison there.

I'm sorry, you're right. Maiev merely attempted genocide buy trying to assassinate the entire Darnassian ruling order, including Tyrande & Malfurion themselves, while working for a different genocidal maniac. Not comparable at all. It totally makes sense that they're best friends now. /s

[Vakir]

I'd also like to add in that I think the conversation of spoilers has ultimately changed in the last few expansions. Blizzard has actively changed how they tell a story and seem to be very big on "We are going to tease something without ever giving a solid answer".. BFA and Shadowlands especially that has seemed unbearable.

I personally think this is a massive mistake. Blizzard intentionally tried to hide everything for this story as a "Will she/won't she" and "look how interesting and mysterious this story is" but it ultimately just made people angry.

It's very odd dealing with a story in WoW where spoilers actually matter.

No disagreement there at all.

I think if they ever DO get to a point where there's satisfying questions, answers, characterization, etc. it would just make things as a whole suffer in retrospect.

If you were told going into EW "By the way, everything stems from a bird loli at the edge of the universe made from someone with clinical depression and we're going to go there on a starship powered by friendly summons" it would sound really fucking stupid without actually getting there authentically.

[Jokubas]

They tried to*, it didn't go very well as a lot of stuff was still datamined.

I've been meaning to say, sometimes the only thing worse than everything being spoiled, is when just the wrong things are spoiled and nothing else.

It happens a lot, that the most controversial plot points or quotes get datamined while the context that makes them understandable is still encrypted.

Of course the immediate instinct might be to say "well the fanbase needs to overreact less to things we don't have the full context for", but sometimes it's good to be able to react to these things when they're still on PTR rather than live. I mean, it may be a small thing, but one that comes to mind is Khadgar saying he's never been to another world before on Argus when his trip to Draenor is one of his most defining character moments. It's nice to be able to give feedback on something like that before it's live. It's less nice when it looks like your favorite character might be getting horribly derailed, because the context was hidden when the action wasn't. ;P

[Vakir]

I mean, it may be a small thing, but one that comes to mind is Khadgar saying he's never been to another world before on Argus when his trip to Draenor is one of his most defining character moments. It's nice to be able to give feedback on something like that before it's live. It's less nice when it looks like your favorite character might be getting horribly derailed, because the context was hidden when the action wasn't. ;P

That's a good example where I'd say that, while it helps to minimize the damage from time to time, they deserve to deal with the highest extent of damage to their clout and confidence from their player base so the solution instead of being "whoopsie " is "Well, we should probably know very significant and key things about own fucking characters next time."

That being said, something like that is gonna be experienced in the PTR anyway because we need to actually test the world content. So obviously not everything is gonna be hideable, sadly.

But I'd consider that a pretty big detail. This isn't Khadgar's age being off by 2, it's a major event in his life his primary experiences are based off of. It would be like Jaina having sea sickness from never being on a boat.

[Ersula]

It's very odd dealing with a story in WoW where spoilers actually matter.

My problem is what they consider a spoiler. Actually giving us insight into these characters innermost ideas over the last 4 years would have vastly improved the experience. But we didn't have that because "spoilers."

[Mace]

I've been meaning to say, sometimes the only thing worse than everything being spoiled, is when just the wrong things are spoiled and nothing else.

It happens a lot, that the most controversial plot points or quotes get datamined while the context that makes them understandable is still encrypted.

Of course the immediate instinct might be to say "well the fanbase needs to overreact less to things we don't have the full context for", but sometimes it's good to be able to react to these things when they're still on PTR rather than live. I mean, it may be a small thing, but one that comes to mind is Khadgar saying he's never been to another world before on Argus when his trip to Draenor is one of his most defining character moments. It's nice to be able to give feedback on something like that before it's live. It's less nice when it looks like your favorite character might be getting horribly derailed, because the context was hidden when the action wasn't. ;P

Ofc fanbase needs to overreact, that's the main function. 101 Marketing and PR and execs can't make decisions in media projects without fan over reaction.

They intentionally do things to provoke and evoke fan over reaction. They just hope it would work to boost their product.

Doesn't always does it, aye Afrisiabi?!

[Vakir]

I don't know that EW is the best example because the final boss did turn out to be kind of stupid on a base level. It works incredibly well on a meta level because the final boss is actually despair and giving up so the WoL as hope is literally fighting its antithesis but I dont think the actual bullet point version would be much worse or better than what actually happened.

Id go with Infinity War. There was a complete leak but it sounded so very dumb as just a list and that list and seeing it play out are two very different takes on the story.

Fair point. I threw out EW because it's the primary competitor. You do need to swallow a lot of absolute nonsense to enjoy basically any FF game, though.

IW is a great example, as is Endgame. People getting a full summary of the latter would think it was disappointing, but it works better with the details and the context and the emotional resonance of actually experiencing it.

[Revamp Man]

Dragons in fantasy, especially WoW, come in many flavors. I'd like to see something that resembles Void/Twilight, Elune/Moon or Deathwing/Wrathion kind of dragon class or at least have the spec/option to play into that.

Instead, I'm concerned they are going to make a purely Red Dragonflight class that comes across as the most basic flavor of dragon you can find in any type of fantasy. Maybe except for the "healing flames" aspect, but seriously, that's not enough depth.

I see a Dragonsworn with the five main flights
Red/green for a heal spec
Bronze for tank
Black and blue for dps specs or merge the two and have a stance system

[deviantcultist]

I see a Dragonsworn with the five main flights
Red/green for a heal spec
Bronze for tank
Black and blue for dps specs or merge the two and have a stance system

I'm not sure they will dilute the class so much. It will probably be that the Dragonsworn class will be the product of a newly formed and possibly uniform Dragonflight.

We also need to think. Why now? Every class that has been added has an answer to that.

[Murlocos]

I'd also like to add in that I think the conversation of spoilers has ultimately changed in the last few expansions. Blizzard has actively changed how they tell a story and seem to be very big on "We are going to tease something without ever giving a solid answer".. BFA and Shadowlands especially that has seemed unbearable.

I personally think this is a massive mistake. Blizzard intentionally tried to hide everything for this story as a "Will she/won't she" and "look how interesting and mysterious this story is" but it ultimately just made people angry.

It's very odd dealing with a story in WoW where spoilers actually matter.

I would go so far as to say this is the largest problem with the storytelling right now. It feels like the story is constantly trying to present new mystery boxes to the player while the story itself feels nonsensical and unsatisfying, the writers tease and prod the players with "Just wait for the payoff, wait until you see what's coming!" Then when we eventually reach that payoff, it's usually very underwhelming and quickly swept aside to tease the next mystery. This does not play out well when your story is largely disliked by readers. It's even more so frustrating because the constant stringing along of these plot threads makes it impossible to write any kind of satisfying conclusion to them. The pacing of the story has become utterly breakneck with no time to rest after a triumphant victory for even a moment. Hell, Legion's ending has about five seconds of triumphant music before cutting to the sword in Silithus, and that was defeating the biggest bad of the whole series!

On top of that, the material of the story itself feels like it's taking a hard shift, not coincidentally after Danuser took over as lead writer partway through Legion. The neutering of faction and racial identity, one of the hallmarks of Warcraft, in BfA was a natural setup for the completely divorced cosmological focus and setting in SL. The threats of the Jailer to "unmake reality" don't feel grounded in anything, and the patches just furthered the escalation with everything about a force beyond the cosmos and the First Ones and so on. I really do not think Warcraft plays well with this not only as the primary focus but overtaking the original feel of the setting to boot. I am worried this is less a misstep and moreso the story that the new writers want to tell but are using an established setting that's inappropriate for it.