Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Teriz]

Noo... you are just using an exageration

you can be bulky without being obnoxiously large, you know there is a middle ground between that and ugly skinny right?

You do know that Drakonoids are way bigger than Orcs and Humans right? Again, you're looking at Draenei/Tauren sized.

ORcs and humans are bulky, period

Not as bulky as Draenei or Tauren, and they wouldn't be as big and bulky as a Drakonoid.

Yeah sure, can back up that statement?

The majority of Tauren players are Druids. Further, Tauren were originally the only Horde race that could roll Druids from Vanilla to Cataclysm, giving them a built up population advantage over the other bulkies.

normal to humanoid dragons,a s we could see with drgonspawns and drakonids.

Both ugly af. Again, if you think players are going to fall over themselves to play big ugly races you are delusional. It would be a waste of development time and an expansion feature.

no one wanted/expected they to do actual dragons besides you witht he Hots nonsense

Blizzard counts as no one? They clearly wanted it too. Good move on their part, they probably just created the most popular future class in WoW.

Now tell me how and why the visage can't be any other race and you play with the Gecko?

We went over this; There's no point in using developer time and resources to give this option to every single race when 99% of the player base is just going to be an Elf or Human anyway.

[Sondrelk]

Glad she asked about player housing. I'm not a diehard fan of it, but I did think that would be the big feature that would 'complete' the expansion.

Ion's answer isn't super satisfying. He says its a big feature and the work required would need it to span multiple expansions...... so why would they not start now? lol.

She also asked why archaeology is being canned yet again, and he basically says all the resources are on the gathering/crafting professions. Not satisfied with that, considering they ignored it in Shadowlands, but whatever.

I think the issue with player housing is that it would take several expansion. But also that the upfront amount of work would be massive.

You would need a special instanced area, connectivity, asset placement tools, ensuring no clipping would occur.
And all that before they can even begin with stuff like integrating house rewards into other content like reputations or raids.

I think there is also the question of why make it now. You wouldn't want to move house all the time, and you certainly wouldn't want the house to be tied to a specific expansion, so I imagine they are waiting for a world revamp expansion of some kind to integrate housing.

- - - Updated - - -

Now I have a stupid question. With the dragon flying, if you're a dragon person, do you shift back to your human form or are you a dragon on a dragon( and if you have a dragon pet,) with a dragon?

Dracthyr can do the new flying mechanics without a mount, so there is that.

[Dracullus]

I think the biggest "?" right now are the preorder edition rewards.

First time taking that long, or they wait for new big PTR build to add something there.

SL was literally only time WoW expansion was available for preorder on reveal day. I guess 9.2.5 will have some rewards and they wait for patch.

[Teriz]

Hmmm, at around the 15:38 mark of Hazelnutty's interview with Ion - he says that if your a Dracthyr riding your dragon, you'll be in visage form. So does that mean that the Dracthyr form can't ride mounts period without being in visage?

That makes sense. That's how druids operate.

[Lady Atia]

Evoker class color is teal

https://twitter.com/WarcraftDevs/sta...02127607214080

Oh it's "Sons of Horus Green" - love it!!

[ercarp]

Oh it's "Sons of Horus Green" - love it!!

Yeah, the color is alright. Although I have no doubt someone will write an essay about why it should have been a completely different color instead.

[Cheezits]

So I didn’t see it mentioned but IGN confirmed that they will continue to deal with the Horde Council and Turalyon’s leadership in the expansion.

How?

[Ersula]

My guess is pre-orders will coincide with release of 9.2.5.

What's the current expectation on when that patch will release? This month, next?

That seems like what they're doing but the main question is "why?" BFA & Shadowlands both had pre-order bonuses implemented in two waves. And the first wave is already in the live version of the game.

9.2.5 isn't set to release until June or later. Ybarra's comments about May is what I talk about when I criticize the conscious corporatization of WoW services. They're tiering out the pre-order simply because they've embraced time-gating as being integral to their business model to an almost religious level.

So I didn’t see it mentioned but IGN confirmed that they will continue to deal with the Horde Council and Turalyon’s leadership in the expansion.

How?

Same as always. Lip service until a later expansion.

[Keyalios]

Oh it's "Sons of Horus Green" - love it!!

Drachthyr are Luna Wolves Primaris confirmed. Hopefully they don’t get censured.

[Alexjimithing]

So I didn’t see it mentioned but IGN confirmed that they will continue to deal with the Horde Council and Turalyon’s leadership in the expansion.

How?

I think there’s a decent chance Lordaeron/Quelthalas end up being patch zones

[Valysar]

Why would they wait 9.2.5 to open up pre-orders when deluxe editions rewards are already IG ?

[Marlamin]

Why would they wait 9.2.5 to open up pre-orders when deluxe editions rewards are already IG ?

The, possibly literally, million dollar question!

[Ersula]

Even if like 4 of those get scrapped/delayed for post-launch/next season, that's still more than any content patch that I remember, and that was just 1 of your points.

Your completely uncritical optimism is not an argument. Especially not towards the game's inability to innovate.

[Izalla]

They've also said one of the zones is very inspired on Grizzly Hills. With Tuskarr back as well, it definitely seems like they're going for the Northrend nostalgia (and will likely end up using all these assets for a future Northrend revamp).

Hell one of of the times they panned across the tuksarr village I was like shit that looks like like an updated version of their settlements in Northrend!

Northrend was so impressive to me for its time but even just being able to do things like wind blowing the snow around they have been doing since Frostfire Ridge makes things look so much more immersive and cooold.

I might need to buy the yak(that's the transmog one right?) after all because I get second hand chills running around cold places in games if my character is not dressed warmly hahah

[Sondrelk]

Why would they wait 9.2.5 to open up pre-orders when deluxe editions rewards are already IG ?

Might be something tied to the rewards that don't work properly. The SL mount had a small quest attached for instance. Not unthinkable that the Dragonflight one has something similar.

[Marlamin]

Your completely uncritical optimism is not an argument. Especially not towards the game's inability to innovate.

Never said the game was innovating, and, if scrapping 4 dungeons is optimism, I worry about you.

Hell one of of the times they panned across the tuksarr village I was like shit that looks like like an updated version of their settlements in Northrend!

Northrend was so impressive to me for its time but even just being able to do things like wind blowing the snow around they have been doing since Frostfire Ridge makes things look so much more immersive and cooold.

I might need to buy the yak(that's the transmog one right?) after all because I get second hand chills running around cold places in games if my character is not dressed warmly hahah

Yeah, the resemblance is uncanny -- and probably intentionally so. Very curious to see more of screenshots of the zones as we get closer to alpha.

[Berkilak]

Well, i guess we just have different opinions on that, because i don't really see these limitation as the basis of a few nitpicks. :P

That's fair.

I think the thought process went like this:

We want playable dragons.
But aren't dragons are too big for raids?
Let's brainstorm ways to get around that size.
Let's make humanoid dragons as a class.
What sets that class apart?
We could think of a unique ranged DPS and healer concepts.
We don't have the resources to pursue a melee DPS or tank spec without a strong vision for it.
Focus down on what we have: unique, draconic spellcasters.
How can we play to that identity visually?
A slim, svelte, winged, draconic silhouette.

And we have the result. I'm fine with it. They didn't approach this from the perspective of trying to give us playable Drakonids. And they didn't. I'm not going to fault them for that.

[Lady Atia]

That seems like what they're doing but the main question is "why?" BFA & Shadowlands both had pre-order bonuses implemented in two waves. And the first wave is already in the live version of the game.

9.2.5 isn't set to release until June or later. Ybarra's comments about May is what I talk about when I criticize the conscious corporatization of WoW services. They're tiering out the pre-order simply because they've embraced time-gating as being integral to their business model to an almost religious level.
Same as always. Lip service until a later expansion.

I'm quite sure we didn't got pre-orders yesterday because they don't want to commit to a release date again, just remember what happened with Shadowlands.

[huth]

Ion's answer isn't super satisfying. He says its a big feature and the work required would need it to span multiple expansions...... so why would they not start now? lol.

Think about it another way: The fact that he can say that so easily and confidently means they've did a closer examination of the effort required, which means they gave it some more serious consideration.

[Cheezits]

The rewards are in, except for one rumored one (AR). The release date shouldn’t be a question as they can just say 2023.

I assume it has to do with the AR. Maybe it’s not ready to take a picture of???