Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[huth]

I forget who it was that made this point, but I heard it somewhere recently how:

We should be careful not to stifle the ideas Micro-classes/new specs the same way we used to stifle the ideas of new Races behind 'expected features.' if that makes sense.

But what holdups would this remove? Blizzard would, necessarily, still have to create 4 entirely new classes. All microclasses remove is the extra specs.

That'd be more like if Allied Races had no customisation options, but still each got a new unique starting zone.

[Nymrohd]

You won't spend more time waiting to make a group than you spend waiting to join a group.

Not at all true for tanks or dps who are FOTM. As a tank I usually just get to pick out of 4/5 groups most of the time.

[Scaleface]

Welcome.

At start sorry for translation stuff as someone noticed I am not native US/GB/ENG/etc - here is wall of text >>
(sorry no formatting xd)

First of all, I would like to thank you all for participating in the fun. Where did this idea come from?
In fact, it's a bit thanks to "theredshirtguy" who pointed out how I provide information by giving only tips, but also unfortunately thanks to a few toxic people who jumped at me on the forum and in private. I thought then, why is everybody always stabbing like this? We just keep reading some strange offensive things to different people. Even in SPECULATION thread.
I thought that these 3 days must pass faster - so what could better pass the time than having fun together?

Then, I wasn't sure how you would react to it, and did there would be more insults at me, etc. But deep down I believed that there was hope for a good time - and I'm not talking about laughing "at someone", but having fun together - which, I hope - worked pretty well.
A pleasant surprise for me was the response of many people who, even after solving the puzzle, wrote that "even if it was a fake, I had a great time - we missed it and I counted on it" - me too. And huge respect to You for this.

And now, YES - The mystery has been solved.

Word about the puzzle itself - you have DREKTHAR in the picture, right?
A trained eye will notice that the letters of his name are mixed with 3 additional letters - in a different order, completely random. Yes, there were over 300 combinations, but I had to fit it in the picture to make it quite legible, as well as someone noticed. Well, the 3 letters that appear in the name appear in every combination - and the 3 additional letters either repeat or appear in different places. The simplest solution is 3 letters in the order in which they appear in the name + what comes after them. And so we come to the point that EKA should be replaced with the possibility from the key.
How do you know this combination is true? Here comes "code is not everything", so why not check the file?
At this point, a person appears to us who said that he reviewed a file. What do we have in there? Boy, it's dragons!

But not only - "flightrising" which as someone mentioned is a players' website, ok. If someone noticed there was a code in the metadata - which only matched one dragon on this page. When you click on any dragon, its ID appears in the address bar of the site - this was to lead to the replacement of the ID which is in the metadata (earlier there was layer "Dracthyr and it was my mistake, so the post was edited with the correct file with the identifier: )) and this is how it appears: DRACTHYR.
If You ask for a model, hmmm - imagine hybrid of dh (meta model), and maybe worgen if we talk about animation, but with wings and in few different dragonflights... I mean - colors...

Interesting fact: one of the developers (I have to say that he is not related to me or anyone I know) himself pasted a picture from this site with some dragons not so long ago at twitter and some of You also noticed this. In this way, you all linked the facts together.
BTW. I didn't know that site before I started to look on google for some "Dracthyr" and found this, then I was like "wtf! The developer may have given birth to his idea here!" - Because, why not? Sounds legit specially that he posted image of dragons clan before.



I think everyone or most of You can say that he/she had a nice Friday evening and Saturday. In two days we will know if it's true :P (But You need to know, it is not a troll).
I want also add a few words from myself to possible Blizzard employees, because I know they are reading it - that's what we miss, we - gamers.
It may sound a bit sentimental on my part, but I hear all around me from players I know from vanilla - how much (not so much game) authors' approach has changed.
I remember times when GM was able to openly joke with players during a raid (who doesn't know youtube video when GM turns raiders into different creatures?), And it was not his duty - they could just do that. Have fun with us.

I remember openly talking about the development of the game, there was contact between players and developers. Unfortunately, the current Blizzard is not what it used to be for a long time. This "leak" is not a manifesto (although you can argue that, everyone has their own opinion), more a desire to pay attention to what we miss ..
Be more open-minded, don't be afraid to confront players about your ideas (don't you have mobile phones?). Maybe then we will avoid production beta tests at the cost of players, especially those who do raids will understand what I mean (Thanks US for testing each tier <3). We and you spent many years in this universe, some of us all our youth - appreciate it, and please! do not only think about cutting off coupons (as on Tuesday, 19th).

For my part - I think that everyone will be happy on Tuesday (1st finally new UI! 2nd after seeying changes in talent system I think that some devs play a lot in POE or just missing a WOTLK times :>).
Even if the names are changed at the last minute ;-) But I sincerely doubt it.
Best wishes community. If by some miracle I get banned here, what's wrong is not me - There was no intention of trolling here, only fun together - based on facts
10.0 as I said to myself will be my last adventure here, buuut see You in 11.0 speculation thread..

Aaaand to sum up a "SPECULATION" You can simply rewind to previous posts.

PS1. thank you to people who obviously had knowledge similar to mine (I can see it after they commented in this thread) that they let others play a riddle
PS2. About the past - yes, Legion and D4 info was from Insider, like now. IN BFA/SL there was no too much info and I have been trolled a bit). In some way I am just a random player like You, but with some contacts inside ;-)

Ouhh, I think i described all the things

"One more thing:" I almost forgot. Did You tried to make a character named Evoker? "That name is restriced" Interesting, but for example Dracthyr can be reserved.. Soo at least the race name can be a bait to troll a press & leaks ;-)
@Alomain @ercarp @Fahrad Wagner @Ferlion @Gifdwarf @hipolnalrt @justMaku (500iq brain to check a file meta <3 ) @Wangming @Yunravel - and many others which I should check all the last 50 pages to write xD thanks and have a nice adventure in 10.x

[Sondrelk]

The theme of the spec is pretty good. Trapper and gadgeteer go together. The only wrong part is the name survival.

Then why is it called Survival, and not something more appropriate like Coked-up Madman?

The trapper and gadgeteer thing is marginally similar to eachother. But they have basically no interplay that makes sense, not with eachother and not with the actual spear aspect.
Where is the ability that throws all your traps around you? Or that deploys a barricade. Or indeed, to bring it back to the name. Why does it only have a single 2 minute cooldown heal, and one 3 minute cooldown movement speed buff? This is the spec that should have grappling hooks, flat movement speed buffs, self-heals up the ass, pseudo-death grip. Make it a class that really makes it feel like you are someone who uses every available resource to their advantage.

[Leowyld]

@Scaleface Well... I was one of the ones who did say Drakthar, instead of Dracthyr. Even if my reasoning for getting there wasn't what was actually used for the puzzle. Heh.

Edit P.S.: And I will be thoroughly impressed if you end up being correct... because this Evoker/Drakthyr thing is a giant longshot. And if you're not correct... well, I have a pretty solid memory. :P

[Buliwyf the Omen]

Oh shit, I found a new leaked image:

[Jodmos]

Oh shit, I found a new leaked image:

Whoever did that was slacking as they didn't include all the allied races.

On saying that, I think another vertical yellow neutral column with the dragons beside the horde/alliance allied races would look better.

[Alanar]

I forget who it was that made this point, but I heard it somewhere recently how:

We should be careful not to stifle the ideas Micro-classes/new specs the same way we used to stifle the ideas of new Races behind 'expected features.' if that makes sense.


Allied Races were the means of adding a TON of new races, but NONE of the hold-ups we all grew to expect, like New Starting Zones.

If Blizzard was beholdened to giving all 8 Allied Races an in-depth starting zone like Pandaren, we'd just never have got Allied Races. We'd have at best got maybe 2 of them added, and had the zones to go along with them.

We used to be lucky to get 1 or 2 new races every 2-4 years, and BFA broke that tradition and shoveled out 8 in 2 years time.


If we apply this to classes and the desired spec/class fantasies players have in mind these days,

we could either -HOPE- Blizz adds the 1 or 2 classes you/I want over someone else's desired class over a span of the next 2-6 years,
or maybe it's time to give Class/Spec fantasies the Allied Race treatment and hand out a multitude of flavors during the course of 1 expansion.


I agree there's a big difference between a Class/Spec and a Race in terms of development, but nevertheless AR's added 8 sets of Racials that could've been integrated into a Class anyway, so I think there's -some- comparison to be made.

You make a fair point here imo.

The conxept of allied races is efficient and microclasses aka cosmetic and abillities that replace excisting ones, would also be an extremely ez way to give fans some options that might never see a full on class. I do see the comparisons and therefor its not a super farfetched idea.

[ahgsfds]

Welcome.

At start sorry for translation stuff as someone noticed I am not native US/GB/ENG/etc - here is wall of text >>
(sorry no formatting xd)

First of all, I would like to thank you all for participating in the fun. Where did this idea come from?
In fact, it's a bit thanks to "theredshirtguy" who pointed out how I provide information by giving only tips, but also unfortunately thanks to a few toxic people who jumped at me on the forum and in private. I thought then, why is everybody always stabbing like this? We just keep reading some strange offensive things to different people. Even in SPECULATION thread.
I thought that these 3 days must pass faster - so what could better pass the time than having fun together?

Then, I wasn't sure how you would react to it, and did there would be more insults at me, etc. But deep down I believed that there was hope for a good time - and I'm not talking about laughing "at someone", but having fun together - which, I hope - worked pretty well.
A pleasant surprise for me was the response of many people who, even after solving the puzzle, wrote that "even if it was a fake, I had a great time - we missed it and I counted on it" - me too. And huge respect to You for this.

And now, YES - The mystery has been solved.

Word about the puzzle itself - you have DREKTHAR in the picture, right?
A trained eye will notice that the letters of his name are mixed with 3 additional letters - in a different order, completely random. Yes, there were over 300 combinations, but I had to fit it in the picture to make it quite legible, as well as someone noticed. Well, the 3 letters that appear in the name appear in every combination - and the 3 additional letters either repeat or appear in different places. The simplest solution is 3 letters in the order in which they appear in the name + what comes after them. And so we come to the point that EKA should be replaced with the possibility from the key.
How do you know this combination is true? Here comes "code is not everything", so why not check the file?
At this point, a person appears to us who said that he reviewed a file. What do we have in there? Boy, it's dragons!

But not only - "flightrising" which as someone mentioned is a players' website, ok. If someone noticed there was a code in the metadata - which only matched one dragon on this page. When you click on any dragon, its ID appears in the address bar of the site - this was to lead to the replacement of the ID which is in the metadata (earlier there was layer "Dracthyr and it was my mistake, so the post was edited with the correct file with the identifier: )) and this is how it appears: DRACTHYR.
If You ask for a model, hmmm - imagine hybrid of dh (meta model), and maybe worgen if we talk about animation, but with wings and in few different dragonflights... I mean - colors...

Interesting fact: one of the developers (I have to say that he is not related to me or anyone I know) himself pasted a picture from this site with some dragons not so long ago at twitter and some of You also noticed this. In this way, you all linked the facts together.
BTW. I didn't know that site before I started to look on google for some "Dracthyr" and found this, then I was like "wtf! The developer may have given birth to his idea here!" - Because, why not? Sounds legit specially that he posted image of dragons clan before.



I think everyone or most of You can say that he/she had a nice Friday evening and Saturday. In two days we will know if it's true :P (But You need to know, it is not a troll).
I want also add a few words from myself to possible Blizzard employees, because I know they are reading it - that's what we miss, we - gamers.
It may sound a bit sentimental on my part, but I hear all around me from players I know from vanilla - how much (not so much game) authors' approach has changed.
I remember times when GM was able to openly joke with players during a raid (who doesn't know youtube video when GM turns raiders into different creatures?), And it was not his duty - they could just do that. Have fun with us.

I remember openly talking about the development of the game, there was contact between players and developers. Unfortunately, the current Blizzard is not what it used to be for a long time. This "leak" is not a manifesto (although you can argue that, everyone has their own opinion), more a desire to pay attention to what we miss ..
Be more open-minded, don't be afraid to confront players about your ideas (don't you have mobile phones?). Maybe then we will avoid production beta tests at the cost of players, especially those who do raids will understand what I mean (Thanks US for testing each tier <3). We and you spent many years in this universe, some of us all our youth - appreciate it, and please! do not only think about cutting off coupons (as on Tuesday, 19th).

For my part - I think that everyone will be happy on Tuesday (1st finally new UI! 2nd after seeying changes in talent system I think that some devs play a lot in POE or just missing a WOTLK times :>).
Even if the names are changed at the last minute ;-) But I sincerely doubt it.
Best wishes community. If by some miracle I get banned here, what's wrong is not me - There was no intention of trolling here, only fun together - based on facts
10.0 as I said to myself will be my last adventure here, buuut see You in 11.0 speculation thread..

Aaaand to sum up a "SPECULATION" You can simply rewind to previous posts.

PS1. thank you to people who obviously had knowledge similar to mine (I can see it after they commented in this thread) that they let others play a riddle
PS2. About the past - yes, Legion and D4 info was from Insider, like now. IN BFA/SL there was no too much info and I have been trolled a bit). In some way I am just a random player like You, but with some contacts inside ;-)

Ouhh, I think i described all the things

"One more thing:" I almost forgot. Did You tried to make a character named Evoker? "That name is restriced" Interesting, but for example Dracthyr can be reserved.. Soo at least the race name can be a bait to troll a press & leaks ;-)
@Alomain @ercarp @Ferlion @Gifdwarf @hipolnalrt @justMaku (500iq brain to check a file meta <3 ) @Wangming @Yunravel - and many others which I should check all the last 50 pages to write xD thanks and have a nice adventure in 10.x

Hello there Scaleface

Thanks for then fun we had! We did leak a few truths, a few fakes, but we all had fun. Thanks to all other posters with some knowledge of the new expansions, ones I know and ones I do not know. It was fun to play together with you.

Now let's all wait for the 19 april stream, I hope it will be great (again, no red cap tho, maybe red shirt?). Maybe someone from Blizzard's marketing thing will learn a bit from our posts and how to interact with WoW community. They struggle at this nowadays, don't they? I play this game since patch 1.6. I did start my mage ages ago and I do remember TBC leaks, old name of this website (anyone remembers World of Raids?) and I do still love playing Warcraft. Thanks to you guys, WoW community. Everywhere I did play there was someone to do small talk in raid /1 chat, do some funny things in capital cities or just hang out around.

With new expansion on our doorstep I hope for a better future!

Thanks folks, see ya next time.

ps. Champions! dragons need yer help

- - - Updated - - -

Oh shit, I found a new leaked image:

Thicc

all I have to say, would play 2/10
also, close enough

[Nightshade711]

Oh shit, I found a new leaked image:

Nah this was just a fan concept image from BfA

[ercarp]

Welcome.

At start sorry for translation stuff as someone noticed I am not native US/GB/ENG/etc - here is wall of text >>
(sorry no formatting xd)

First of all, I would like to thank you all for participating in the fun. Where did this idea come from?
In fact, it's a bit thanks to "theredshirtguy" who pointed out how I provide information by giving only tips, but also unfortunately thanks to a few toxic people who jumped at me on the forum and in private. I thought then, why is everybody always stabbing like this? We just keep reading some strange offensive things to different people. Even in SPECULATION thread.
I thought that these 3 days must pass faster - so what could better pass the time than having fun together?

Then, I wasn't sure how you would react to it, and did there would be more insults at me, etc. But deep down I believed that there was hope for a good time - and I'm not talking about laughing "at someone", but having fun together - which, I hope - worked pretty well.
A pleasant surprise for me was the response of many people who, even after solving the puzzle, wrote that "even if it was a fake, I had a great time - we missed it and I counted on it" - me too. And huge respect to You for this.

Thanks for coming back to clear everything up, and big props to the gigabrains that actually cracked this riddle because I was kind of lost. But I did try!

And it is as you said, even if this is all fake, stuff like this creates discussion and is still a fun way to kill time. Makes the wait so much more bearable.

Personally I still stand by this being nothing more than a troll as I don't think any of the written leaks this year have been correct so far. But if I'm wrong, it's my own words I have to eat.

[Izalla]

New Survival is so much better. It actually has a class fantasy now.

I do somewhat miss Cata survival where it was dot class but MoP/WoD survival sucked and deserved to die.

I don't dislike new survival, I just preferred it to be a ranged spec. I had three hunters at the time, one of each spec, and none of them involved being a melee character in my idea or intentions for them. My survival hunter is my draenei (first character ever, my Izalla) and I kinda worked in the idea that if she picked up surviving on Draenor after the orcs attacked and destroyed their civilization that maybe she didn't have the means to learn to use a bow but she could pick up a stick and stab things. I still wasn't very happy about the change and just had two marksman hunters for a while because I didn't want to give up my bow.

[Raetary]

Huh, Evoker really is a restricted name.

[ercarp]

Huh, Evoker really is a restricted name.

Are other classes restricted names though?

[Therougetitan]

Evoker being restricted might be coincidence (it could still be it though). Consider that no player has the name evoker means it has been restricted for 18 years and they probably did not plan things this far down. Again, not to say it could be evoker or not but name restriction may be coincidence.

[Raetary]

Are other classes restricted names though?

Yep, all of them are.

Except for dhs and dks, but those are capitalized 2 word classes anyway.

[Marlamin]

"One more thing:" I almost forgot. Did You tried to make a character named Evoker? "That name is restriced"

Just to zoom in on that specifically, that's been a blocked term since Vanilla/TBC or so together with a whole other ton of class-like names. Nothing super special.

[ercarp]

Just to zoom in on that specifically, that's been a blocked term since Vanilla/TBC or so together with a whole other ton of class-like names. Nothing super special.

Probably nothing then. All of these seem like the kind of names you would see on NPCs. Maybe Blizzard restricted them so players don't trick other players into thinking they're NPCs?

EDIT: Or this is a giant list of all classes and professions Blizzard is planning to add over the years, kek. They actually have Necromancer and Tinkerer on the list. But there's also Axeman!

[D4NNYB0Y]

I'm firmly in the camp that the Dragonflight leak is fake, and the leaker just had some lucky guesses based on community wishlists, previous fake leaks, and information already publicly available.

Microclasses are a nightmare from a development standpoint: classes are more than just thematics or subspecs. This leak implies that Blizzard is going to dedicate resources to create 4 classes with 4 sets of core abilities, unique mechanics differentiating them from all other classes and specs, unique animations, unique art assets, additional itemization, additional balance complexity, additional raid composition and design complexity, additional dungeon composition and design complexity, additional PVP composition and design complexity, 4 additional raid sets to design per tier, and establishing lore characters for 2 of the 4 specs.

Implementing them into the game also divides the playerbase into even more sub-communities and creates the expectation that these classes will be supported for the life cycle of the game. Not to mention that none of them have anything do to with each other thematically and likely only 1 of them will have any ties to the overall expansion theme.

Are those problems insurmountable? Of course not. Are they realistically worth committing the resources to solve? I don't think so. This would take so many more resources to implement than a single new class. I would compare this to the concept of "bad revenue" in business. Essentially spending $1000 to make $100. The return on investment for the resource expenditure is not worth it.

I think you guys should temper your expectations on this one. It's not realistic. The class we received last had just 2 specs and is iconic to the franchise. With the exception of Tinker and arguably Chronomancer, these microclasses have very little established lore. Minstrels/Bards for example are almost non-existent in the IP.

On an unrelated note I think Blizzard deeply regrets setting the expectation that each subspec is essentially supported as its own class from a design standpoint. That's a separate discussion though.

[Nightshade711]

Huh, Evoker really is a restricted name.

Tinkerer is also a restricted name
Tinker confirmed