Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Sondrelk]

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.

The problems with the writing really all stem from BfA, the lack of Jailer foreshadowing notwithstanding.
BfA came out at the tail-end, and by that consequence was likely written in the middle of the "Mystery Box" writing craze that died an ignoble death once GoT Season 8 and Star Wars 8 came out, when everyone realized that you cannot always expect to write yourself out of a hole you have made if you never considered how this would work to begin with.

BfA started with the whole Teldrassil thing, and if we (I think quite rightly) assume that this was done solely for the promotional materials, then everything fall,s into place.
Blizzard didnt properly think the logistics of this event through, not in-game, nor on a meta level. It seemed to have been intended as Theramore 2.0, just with even more opportunities for players to get invested. However because it's a character action that's wildly reprehensible the story essentially ended up falling in on itself when any morally grey undertone couldnt quite support the whole "Horde are willing participants in genocide, and don't seem interested in doing anything about it."
On a Meta level however the problem becomes how do you reconcile the player engagement into player satisfaction and catharsis? In the end nothing could quite live up to all that buildup.

In the end everything ended up being pinned on Sylvanas, which is narratively unsatisfactory, but also probably the only reasonable option the writers had left at that point. Logically the story should have ended with the Horde being forcibly dismantled, but this is clearly impossible in an MMO.
This problem ended up being carried over into SL, where Blizzard tried their damndest to finally rid themselves of the stench of BfA, but because there was nothing the story really had to sink it's teeth into the probably figured Sylvanas was the only marketable character, and they didnt seem interested in rocking the boat by taking a firm stance on whether she was reprehensible or not, which ended up with this weak ending.

SL was in many ways doomed from the start, since just like BfA, the story hinges on Sylvanas, and nothing could pick up the pieces her shattered character left after Legion and BfA.

[Jokubas]

You know, for all the drama over Sylvanas' shift over the years, I think Maiev still has the record for most inconsistent and extreme character arc.

She starts out in Frozen Throne as a well-meaning person who becomes increasingly zealous in her hunt for Illidan, to the point of leaving Tyrande for dead.

Then the RPG books say she died unmourned in the hunt, which may have been anticlimactic, but was narratively consistent with the idea of a zealot who burned every bridge for the sake of increasingly irrelevant justice.

Burning Crusade decides to use her again (an early step in the eventual mass-decanonizing of the RPG books), and suddenly treats her hunt as 100% justified for the first time ever, and basically lets her take the heroic victory in the raid.

Then she's back to being a zealot, willing to kill innocents in order to make her point about night elf society.

Then Legion swings back again, treating her somewhat as a desperate ally in a desperate time, in practice she plays out mostly like a straightforward hero and reliable friend.

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.

That's actually a good point. In the last couple of expansions, spoilers haven't even mattered because there's nothing really to spoil. I mean, we're having to get a novel to get Sylvanas' motivations, and the Jailer didn't get his until the ending cutscene (which could be a big spoiler, but at least is the sort of thing they've been regularly encrypting for awhile).

Unfortunately Warcraft isn't the only place I've been seeing this sort of storytelling. It seems like it's one of those trends of "I've heard something is good so I'll do it too." Honestly, for as much praise as things like "unreliable narrator" or "ambiguous, unresolved endings" get, I think they're a lot more like time travel than anyone wants to admit. In other words, in the right hands, with a story built with them in mind from the beginning, yes, they can lead to amazing stories. If not done absolutely perfectly, however, they just make an incoherent or simply unsatisfying mess that is nearly impossible to be invested in. There's rarely an in-between for such narrative concepts.

Warcraft isn't the right kind of story for that sort of ambiguous storytelling to be worth the gamble. It's heroic fantasy, and it's best when it's straightforward. That doesn't mean you can't have twists, but I think Shadowlands is proof that keeping character motivations secret until the last minute, or even beyond the last minute in the case of a novel, just leaves a story no one is excited about, not one they find enticingly mysterious.

I hope in the future that less spoiling from the datamining can mean less hiding the plot in the actual plot.

[Khaza-R]

I would love to see Dragonsworn actualized as wild class with a single spec that encompasses all 5 flights. Capable of every role (but not at once).

It could function in a way there they channel up to 3 flights at once to give a ton of combos for different playstyles rather than having dictated specs. Primary -> Secondary -> Tertiary flights they drawn power from and adapt their playstyle accordingly.

[Jokubas]

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.

This is why a lot of Shadowlands bothers me. There's a lot of casual "well this soul is gone forever now" that no one seems to really treat with any weight. The fact that it's even possible to begin with is a huge existential issue for me about the Warcraft universe now, but the casual way in which it's treated just makes it worse. At best it's treated like death was before the Shadowlands, but that just highlights how strange the Shadowlands is as an afterlife to begin with.

I would love to see Dragonsworn actualized as wild class with a single spec that encompasses all 5 flights. Capable of every role (but not at once).

It could function in a way there they channel up to 3 flights at once to give a ton of combos for different playstyles rather than having dictated specs. Primary -> Secondary -> Tertiary flights they drawn power from and adapt their playstyle accordingly.

I'm still very torn about the idea of a dragon class. A chromatic single spec could be cool, but with all the dragon lore built up over the years, I do think that finding a way to do one spec for each of the flights would be amazing for roleplayers. On the other hand, there's already so much overlap between half the flights and existing classes, even that feels weirdly redundant to me. I still prefer the idea of a sort of "race template", where a dragon character is picking an existing race for their humanoid form, and an existing class out of any of the classes, and then simply gets access to dragon-specific customization features.

[Nymrohd]

BfA started with the whole Teldrassil thing, and if we (I think quite rightly) assume that this was done solely for the promotional materials, then everything fall,s into place.

The sad thing is, there were so many ways you could have had Teldrassil happen and still keep things reasonable. I could go about how I'd do it but the community, trying to figure out what might happen, came with so many alternatives that could have made sense and allowed a narrative exit out of this without villain batting an entire faction (and then having to act as if nothing happened).

- - - Updated - - -

This is why a lot of Shadowlands bothers me. There's a lot of casual "well this soul is gone forever now" that no one seems to really treat with any weight. The fact that it's even possible to begin with is a huge existential issue for me about the Warcraft universe now, but the casual way in which it's treated just makes it worse. At best it's treated like death was before the Shadowlands, but that just highlights how strange the Shadowlands is as an afterlife to begin with.

It's especially egregious given that this was a common example of how the Legion was so monstrous. The fact that the Legion powered its war machine by sacrificing people and literally burning their souls for fuel fed into the nihilism of it all. In Shadowlands things just happen. During the zone questlines, there is enough investment for us to feel sad. Yet in the overarching story, things are so superficial that those details just slip through.

[Khaza-R]

I'm still very torn about the idea of a dragon class. A chromatic single spec could be cool, but with all the dragon lore built up over the years, I do think that finding a way to do one spec for each of the flights would be amazing for roleplayers. On the other hand, there's already so much overlap between half the flights and existing classes, even that feels weirdly redundant to me. I still prefer the idea of a sort of "race template", where a dragon character is picking an existing race for their humanoid form, and an existing class out of any of the classes, and then simply gets access to dragon-specific customization features.

Kind of why I would prefer it be something unique. Nothing against concepts with each flight having its own spec but as you said, a lot of them are redundant probably other than bronze and black.

I totally get people wanting the class fantasy. I don't see why a dragon class couldn't implore heavy racial aesthetics like DHs do. I'm guessing the story arc of Dragonflight is going to be unity over division anyway.

[Catastrophy349]

It bothers me that people want, yet again, more melee dps/tank classes. Literally every single new class we got (DK/Monk/DH) had a melee dps/tank spec. How about a ranged dps ONLY class or a ranged dps and healer ONLY class.

[Zankai27]

Kind of why I would prefer it be something unique. Nothing against concepts with each flight having its own spec but as you said, a lot of them are redundant probably other than bronze and black.

I totally get people wanting the class fantasy. I don't see why a dragon class couldn't implore heavy racial aesthetics like DHs do. I'm guessing the story arc of Dragonflight is going to be unity over division anyway.

Not to shill for myself, but I came up with a concept (in my sig) for a Dragonsworn that leans *towards specific flight inspiration for 3 specs, but still utilizes tools and abilities from all of them. And then a 4th spec with more of a Chromatic angle and Dragoon inspiration

It bothers me that people want, yet again, more melee dps/tank classes. Literally every single new class we got (DK/Monk/DH) had a melee dps/tank spec. How about a ranged dps ONLY class or a ranged dps and healer ONLY class.

While my Dragonsworn isn’t strictly that, and has tank/healer/spell DPS/melee DPS, I’m quite proud of my spell DPS spec if you haven’t taken a look

[Jokubas]

Kind of why I would prefer it be something unique. Nothing against concepts with each flight having its own spec but as you said, a lot of them are redundant probably other than bronze and black.

I totally get people wanting the class fantasy. I don't see why a dragon class couldn't implore heavy racial aesthetics like DHs do. I'm guessing the story arc of Dragonflight is going to be unity over division anyway.

There's just so many ways it can be done I honestly can't guess how it'll turn out, which is why I didn't mark any of them on the bingo card guesses last night. I mean, while I think there's a good chance we'll get some way to have playable draconic characters next expansion, the question of how to execute it might even get Blizzard to compromise. I wouldn't even be surprised to see it done entirely through some sort of Dragon Covenant system, and just be a little more robust than the Shadowlands ones in that way.

It bothers me that people want, yet again, more melee dps/tank classes. Literally every single new class we got (DK/Monk/DH) had a melee dps/tank spec. How about a ranged dps ONLY class or a ranged dps and healer ONLY class.

Well for me, I want classes based on their flavor, not their mechanics. I mean, I still want them to have a fun playstyle, but I want Spell Breaker, for instance, because I want Spell Breaker, not because I want it to be melee DPS/Tank, but if that's how it turns out I'm not going to care.

[Hitei]

I would love to see Dragonsworn actualized as wild class with a single spec that encompasses all 5 flights. Capable of every role (but not at once).

It could function in a way there they channel up to 3 flights at once to give a ton of combos for different playstyles rather than having dictated specs. Primary -> Secondary -> Tertiary flights they drawn power from and adapt their playstyle accordingly.

This sounds like a balancing nightmare, and I have to imagine that even if you could get all.. 125? combinations reasonably close, you'd run into the same issue as release DKs and covenants, where even though theoretically the specs can do the different roles, community discourse basically just comes down to: "Black > Green > Bronze will provide you with the most comprehensive defensive toolkit, so that is ideal for tanking".

[Nymrohd]

Kind of why I would prefer it be something unique. Nothing against concepts with each flight having its own spec but as you said, a lot of them are redundant probably other than bronze and black.

I totally get people wanting the class fantasy. I don't see why a dragon class couldn't implore heavy racial aesthetics like DHs do. I'm guessing the story arc of Dragonflight is going to be unity over division anyway.

I think it makes sense to me for it not to be a dragon class but to just be a dragon. Probably because I am a TTRPG player first and foremost and that's how it has been done in tabletop in the past; just made it a class of its own. I could see Draconid as a race but I just don't know why it would ever join either faction.

[Zankai27]

This sounds like a balancing nightmare, and I have to imagine that even if you could get all.. 125? combinations reasonably close, you'd run into the same issue as release DKs and covenants, where even though theoretically the specs can do the different roles, community discourse basically just comes down to: "Black > Green > Bronze will provide you with the most comprehensive defensive toolkit, so that is ideal for tanking".

So when I was trying to work out a concept for my Chromatic melee spec, I first had an insane idea to make it a melee/phys ranged hybrid. After realizing that was a nightmare, I thought:

“What if using certain Flights moves would combine them into a new move?”

Ex: Black = “Stalactite” into Green = “Dream Venom” turns both buttons into “Caustic Mire” or something before it’s used.

After trying to actually get that to work, I gave up and settled for a simpler rotation system because that’s just too much damn work and it’d be hella confusing for players.

Less is more, in class design.

[Ferlion]

The problems with the writing really all stem from BfA, the lack of Jailer foreshadowing notwithstanding.
BfA came out at the tail-end, and by that consequence was likely written in the middle of the "Mystery Box" writing craze that died an ignoble death once GoT Season 8 and Star Wars 8 came out, when everyone realized that you cannot always expect to write yourself out of a hole you have made if you never considered how this would work to begin with.

BfA started with the whole Teldrassil thing, and if we (I think quite rightly) assume that this was done solely for the promotional materials, then everything fall,s into place.
Blizzard didnt properly think the logistics of this event through, not in-game, nor on a meta level. It seemed to have been intended as Theramore 2.0, just with even more opportunities for players to get invested. However because it's a character action that's wildly reprehensible the story essentially ended up falling in on itself when any morally grey undertone couldnt quite support the whole "Horde are willing participants in genocide, and don't seem interested in doing anything about it."
On a Meta level however the problem becomes how do you reconcile the player engagement into player satisfaction and catharsis? In the end nothing could quite live up to all that buildup.

In the end everything ended up being pinned on Sylvanas, which is narratively unsatisfactory, but also probably the only reasonable option the writers had left at that point. Logically the story should have ended with the Horde being forcibly dismantled, but this is clearly impossible in an MMO.
This problem ended up being carried over into SL, where Blizzard tried their damndest to finally rid themselves of the stench of BfA, but because there was nothing the story really had to sink it's teeth into the probably figured Sylvanas was the only marketable character, and they didnt seem interested in rocking the boat by taking a firm stance on whether she was reprehensible or not, which ended up with this weak ending.

SL was in many ways doomed from the start, since just like BfA, the story hinges on Sylvanas, and nothing could pick up the pieces her shattered character left after Legion and BfA.

Teldrassil is an interesting one because Blizzard finally just pulled the trigger on it. They've been trying to destroy Teldrassil, or at least Darnassus, since pre-Cataclysm. It almost happened in MoP.

[Nymrohd]

Teldrassil is an interesting one because Blizzard finally just pulled the trigger on it. They've been trying to destroy Teldrassil, or at least Darnassus, since pre-Cataclysm. It almost happened in MoP.

Honestly I think they might have wanted to destroy Teldrassil because it is unsalvageable when it comes to a revamp. If they want to revamp the world at some point (hopefully now) while keeping the original geography (so mostly retexturing, replacing doodads with HD versions and perhaps sculpting territory that is not used) Teldrassil just cannot be saved. It was far too ambitious for what they could do with the engine at the time and it would just have to be replaced completely with a different concept.

- - - Updated - - -

This sounds like a balancing nightmare, and I have to imagine that even if you could get all.. 125? combinations reasonably close, you'd run into the same issue as release DKs and covenants, where even though theoretically the specs can do the different roles, community discourse basically just comes down to: "Black > Green > Bronze will provide you with the most comprehensive defensive toolkit, so that is ideal for tanking".

What if you are chromatic though and you can switch colors but with a cooldown? It would create a two-tier tactic choice throughout the fight where you'd have to choose WHEN to switch so you could utilize an ability of a different flight, knowing you'd be locked in that flight for some of the encounter.

[Jokubas]

Teldrassil is an interesting one because Blizzard finally just pulled the trigger on it. They've been trying to destroy Teldrassil, or at least Darnassus, since pre-Cataclysm. It almost happened in MoP.

I am crossing my fingers so hard that they let it stay destroyed.

I'm really curious as to what the thought process behind Teldrassil/Darnassus was from a development point of view, because it's always been super weird lore-wise. Before World of Warcraft, the night elves were implied to live around Hyjal and I think one source even cited Moonglade as their capital? Growing another World Tree overnight is already a little weird when Nordrassil was supposed to be healing and shouldn't take any less time to return to normal than a whole new tree, but uprooting their entire civilization and moving it off the mainland to this new place is just really, really strange, and that's not even getting into the ambiguity of the night elf language being called Darnassian (sure, realistically a shared root is more than possible, but in a meta sense it feels like it was designed by someone who just assumed their massive capital tree was ancient and not no more than four years old).

I would much prefer the night elves have a proper mainland capital, and then maybe the ashes of Teldrassil can be visited in a new Kalidar zone. If they can ever match the concept art of Teldrassil in game, just do it on Nordrassil.

[Raetary]

Eh, a simple chromatic dragon class with multiple specs for each flight power would be better for everyone involved, than some weird single spec stance thing on a cooldown.

- - - Updated - - -

Teldrassil is an interesting one because Blizzard finally just pulled the trigger on it. They've been trying to destroy Teldrassil, or at least Darnassus, since pre-Cataclysm. It almost happened in MoP.

Can you blame them?
While the concept and fantasy of it is great, it's just a big ugly stump in execution.

[Catastrophy349]

Can't believe how close we are getting! Almost there! This week is going to be so HYPE and lots of speculation. Then, the Monday before is going to be so interesting. Tuesday the 19th is going to be a fun day. So excited for everyone to see what's coming next!

[Raetary]

If they do really want to revitalize Teldrassil, they'll probably do it by instancing the zone and keep the 2D background image in Darkshore.

[Jokubas]

Can't believe how close we are getting! Almost there! This week is going to be so HYPE and lots of speculation. Then, the Monday before is going to be so interesting. Tuesday the 19th is going to be a fun day. So excited for everyone to see what's coming next!

Right now I'm really torn between wanting something new to talk about, like a bigger leak than just the name, but also thinking that maybe I should just walk away for a bit because I kinda hate to get it spoiled this close. It's just that things are in a kind of lull for me in real life right now so these last couple of weeks are taking forever. I'm fairly optimistic though. I'm planning on having fun with the day even if I end up hating the announcement.

[Master Factician]

I'm actually hoping their new experimental gameplay team was founded based on some sort of idea they'll hopefully start exploring in 10.0 that isn't borrowed power for a single expansion. It's obviously a big "dose of hopium" but I hope that Blizzard has finally figured out that borrowed power (and by extension garrison systems) is something they've gotten away with a few too many times now.

Every person on Twitter I've seen mentioning being on that team is, or was on the Classic WoW team. Could be a coincidence? Maybe they had less work to do on WoTLK so were offered a place on this team? Idk.