Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Three Faced Goddess]

It seemed like a given, but then after the reveal of the Dracthyr....

They're showing they're not ruling out class archetypes for being too similar to existing classes, quite the opposite in fact. Yeah, Undead Elves have been in the horde since vanilla, while never playing a huge role, they've been around for a long time. AND them adding story routes like Saa'ra and Varoth showing that there's more where they came from. But no: Evokers now show that they might put them on the back burner FOR YEARS because now adding Darkfallen-only Dark Rangers as a real class suddenly becomes an option.

Dracthyr is effectively the death of "Class identity" & the rise of all kinds of class & race combinations only marginally different from ones we already have. I don't hate this idea but I'd like to play a mini-sylvanas soon please.

I've wanted Dark Rangers for over a decade now, I hope one day I'll either get my wish or Blizzard will finally conclusively tell me no.

[Ersula]

At this point 98% of what they type is just dooming bait.

I didn't say that's a bad thing. It's fine. But it is certianly a change in their philosophy. Mechanically Dracthyr are unique, but in terms of aesthetics & motif? Fire & Ice & Nature? What are their tier sets going to look like? Cause Fire, Ice & Dragons were Mage's whole iconography until now. Previously they said Dark Rangers are two close conceptually to Hunters but that idea has gone out of the window.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Wait, so... "small changes to EK and Kalimdor"... does this mean we aren't getting the full revamp they said we'd get?

Probably small specific changes that isn't a full one and I don't expect one either.

[Three Faced Goddess]

Huh, haven't even considered that.

The AR is probably just Darkfallen for both factions, but keeping Darfallen on the horde and getting a Starrande AR for the alliance would also be great.

That'd be a double win. Thank you for making me want something else that I'll probably never live to see.

[Cheezits]

Maybe Forsaken will be building a new town on the coast of EK that both factions use to get to Dragon Isles? That would explain why there are getting a small update at all instead of just waiting until after the expansion.

The biggest and most HD boat Horde has right now is the Forsaken boat they added on BFA, and they use it in Exiles Reach, so they probably will use it again here

Don't know what the Kalimdor changes works be unless it's Hyjal being updated with nelves.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Won’t people just go to a website and find a build and just use that instead of experimenting with the talent trees?
We’re sure that this will happen. We’re also sure that people will make fun and distinct builds that work for their own style of playing the game.

Blizzard finally. FINALLY. Understands what we've been saying for years.

The same players who looked up cookie cutter builds pre-MoP are still looking up cookie cutter builds now. Those are not the players talents should have been designed around. They should be designed for those of us who actually wanted the customization experience.

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It's probably the SW/ORG updates. Probably an area where we can modify our dragon outside of the Dragon Isles hence the stable.

Maybe some Drakthyr mill around there.

[DeltrusDisc]

Probably small specific changes that isn't a full one and I don't expect one either.

Honestly kinda disappointed.

I really liked the Cata revamp and the zones need a damned uplift/update. Some battles are LONG done and over with... show it, please.

[boyzma]

Honestly kinda disappointed.

I really liked the Cata revamp and the zones need a damned uplift/update. Some battles are LONG done and over with... show it, please.

When did Blizzard ever say they were going to fully revamp anything....except years ago

[Cheezits]

Honestly kinda disappointed.

I really liked the Cata revamp and the zones need a damned uplift/update. Some battles are LONG done and over with... show it, please.

They are working on it. It may just take another five years.

[rhorle]

Why would you not google it before making this comment? He's right, Darkfallen are San'layn. They're vampires blood elves from Wrath, not Dark Rangers. Although I guess Blizz could combine the two.

San'layn are Darkfallen but not all Darkfallen are San'layn. While it was originally used to refer to elves Arthas raised it has been kept as a "name" by the Forsaken for specific groups of their ranks. There is also a few that are not Forsaken as they decided to not officially join after Sylvanas made them Dark Rangers.

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Darkfallen

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Honestly kinda disappointed.

I really liked the Cata revamp and the zones need a damned uplift/update. Some battles are LONG done and over with... show it, please.

They've been showing it... slowly, and not in the zones that actually needed it.

For some reason every zone they pluck out of Cataclysm, HD-ify, and then invade by Orcs or Undead are the zones that aren't still literally burning in the immediate aftermath of Deathwing showing up.

Those are the zones that most need a revamp, and by now the quests have aged so badly that a lot of zones need those redone too in a lot of zones.

Hell Silverpine starts with the Dead Evil Ex-Warchief calling the Paying Pennance in the Maw Evil Ex-Warchief a Bitch (well that was censored but point still stands) because the latter isn't respecting the former's post of Warchief.

Of course none of this matters because Blizz was able to sweep the problems under a Chromie-shaped rug.

[rhorle]

Fairly sure they retconned that in the sylvanas novel so that Darkfallen refers to all undead elves, not just San'layn.

The novel doesn't make it clear if it is all undead elves but it is all elves raised by Arthas and later Sylvanas/Forsaken.

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I didn't say that's a bad thing. It's fine. But it is certianly a change in their philosophy. Mechanically Dracthyr are unique, but in terms of aesthetics & motif? Fire & Ice & Nature? What are their tier sets going to look like? Cause Fire, Ice & Dragons were Mage's whole iconography until now. Previously they said Dark Rangers are two close conceptually to Hunters but that idea has gone out of the window.

Shamans also share fire and water (ice) with mages and have done just fine. You are just looking for some excuse to be negative about it. Tier set will be just fine as they always have. Lol.

[Pheraz]

Why BFA still? just why?

Because BFA has a perfect starting experience, is atmosphericly very close to exile's reach and thematically more grounded than SL. No Azerite crap so I can't see many people disagreed on this decision. Kind of hardcore to trash their latest xpac until then though but maybe they are upset with the thematic result themselves. Sad for ZM though, because this zone is absolute top tier. But not for the rest. Especially this horrible maw intro. Can you imagine people going from exile's reach to the maw?

[Ersula]

Maybe Forsaken will be building a new town on the coast of EK that both factions use to get to Dragon Isles? That would explain why there are getting a small update at all instead of just waiting until after the expansion.

The biggest and most HD boat Horde has right now is the Forsaken boat they added on BFA, and they use it in Exiles Reach, so they probably will use it again here

The Night elves are likely setting up shop somewhere in Kalimdor: We've already found the new Tirisfal map in 9.2.5 that shows Brill, post-Battle-for-Lordaeron in various states of construction. This is likely what they were referring to.

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Shamans also share fire and water (ice) with mages and have done just fine. You are just looking for some excuse to be negative about it. Tier set will be just fine as they always have. Lol.

Are you sure about that? Because much like the 9.2 tier sets, if you say you can say what classes the 10.0 tier previews correspond to, with any kind of certainty, you're a liar.

Personally I like that they'll have to incorporate entirely new motifs to make the sets stand out, and that before Tuesday I'd say Tinker & Bard had the best chance of becoming a class because they had a more unique vibe for a class archetype but that idea is gone. Dark Rangers, Necromancers, Blood Mages, Paladins but goth... nothing of off the table now.

[wowrefugee]

https://warcraft.blizzplanet.com/blo...-and-tina-wang


Blizzplanet interview transcript got updated

Some things that stick out

-

and that was one of the things with the Dracthyr that we’re excited about is with their Visage Form. Some people ask like: “Oh, why can’t I be like a gnome Dracthyr,” for instance; but truly, this makes it so that we can put so many options within this single class; and that’s why we wanted to do it. Just like give all of these options. We have way more options in terms of how many.

- heritage armor wasn’t in shadowlands because The Lore didn’t allow for individual race stories
- don’t know if they will be in dragonflight (lol)

- likely won’t get new race/class combos like night elf Paladin because they want to focus on Dracthy Evokers (lol)



The heritage armor quote is especially annoying. You’re telling me Shadowlands didn’t have an opening for a night elf heritage story, really?

[Murlocos]

I only see a world revamp happening as a partial (at least at launch) affair and all content strictly for endgame purposes, nothing for the earlier leveling brackets. They've intentionally built Exile's Reach and stripped away parts of BfA to make it as generic of a plot as possible. Cataclysm leveling zones are filled with references to Wrath having just happened and the Cataclysm having just happened, for BfA they tried taking out any references to the aftermath of Legion. The issue is that you don't actually get a real conclusion to the overarching plot so you'd go from wrapping up the leveling stories of BfA to Sylvanas (and presumably Anduin) suddenly being gone and yoinked away to go chase after Sylvanas in the afterlife suddenly.

That aside, expecting a Cata-tier revamp at this point in the game's life is just unreasonable in my eyes. The game was 6 years old when Cataclysm came out; it's been 12 years since that. Unless DF seriously rights the ship and Microsoft sees fit to allocate more resources to a then-19 or 20 year old game at that point, the current team doesn't seem capable of an expansion on that level of scope and ambition within a normal expansion cycle. And executive eyes are probably more focused on getting Diablo IV out the door and looking into why a massive cashcow like Overwatch became so mismanaged.

[Trumpwonumad]

Red shirt guy posted this on twitter

Okay, so
@Gurzog
showed me a 4chan post from April 16th that lists every detail about Dragonflight. It gets everything right, but has two additional points.

-Murozond is the main villain
-Pre-ordering the expansion unlocks a new allied race (not dracthyr, something else)

Sooooo.... Darkfallen?

Oh, it also says the release is Q1 2023 and there's a "dragonflight covenant" which might be dragon riding since it's not mentioned otherwise and it is about you choosing a dragon to ally with (just not a flight).“

[rhorle]

Are you sure about that? Because much like the 9.2 tier sets, if you say you can say what classes the 10.0 tier previews correspond to, with any kind of certainty, you're a liar.

Don't move the goal posts. My comments were not about predicting tier sets but simply how classes that share fire still can have distinct tier sets. We also already know what classes have what tier sets because Blizzard labeled them in the concept art. So I wouldn't even be a liar if I said with certainty lol.

[Ersula]

Don't move the goal posts. My comments were not about predicting tier sets but simply how classes that share fire still can have distinct tier sets. We also already know what classes have what tier sets because Blizzard labeled them in the concept art. So I wouldn't even be a liar if I said with certainty lol.

lol they literally added the labels today because nobody could tell the classes apart yesterday

But I'm not saying any of that is a bad thing: You just want to argue.

And executive eyes are probably more focused on getting Diablo IV out the door and looking into why a massive cashcow like Overwatch became so mismanaged.

??? For all we know Diablo 4 is coming out after Dragonflight & World of Warcraft makes more money than the Diablo Franchise.

[Syegfryed]

I dunno if it was posted early, but damn, those "humanoids" are fugly, just give me a base tauren and im set.