Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Nymrohd]

Oh, cool. Did you know which order the size of the continents go?

I'm just going to go with the rough idea that each zone will be equivalent to:

Red - Borean + Sholozar
Green - Howling + Grizzly
Blue - Zul Drak + Storm Peaks
Bronze - Dragonblight + Icecrown
Dracthyr - Wintergrasp + Crystalsong

Each with a bit more added on too.

Seems like extremely large zones. The 4 doesn't bother me. A double zone in the style of the Blue/Azure zone? Don't mind if I do.

This one was current at Legion
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...Map-Comparison
I think BfA probably is about large as WoD with Mechagon and Naz'jatar

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If Dragon Isles are as big as Blizzard says, it will be a huge place, and we'll likely see a lot more of it used in endgame compared to Northrend.

Something to note is that these days elevations can actually be used for gameplay. Up until MoP, most of the terrain used for elevation in WoW was simply map extrusions upward. They didn't really have ledges or structure on them. Starting with MoP but more clearly from Legion and after, mountains are no longer empty terrain; they can be places you adventure. I think the intent with Dragonriding is to build up on exploration. Before this element, exploration achievements were really mostly for collectors, requiring a lot of platforming (in a game that is very poorly designed for platform gameplay) and use of gliders and toys. With Dragonriding exploration is effectively progression. So the map will be designed to have areas that are temporarily inaccessible, not to fill in the space and hide easter eggs but so as to be made accessible organically (instead of binary by unlocking flight like TBC, Wrath and MoP did)

By this I mean to say, the map is likely to be used to a much greater extent than it was with Northrend. But also, far less will be accessible at launch unless you push the limits of what Dragonriding can do. This is interesting as well. In the past we have managed to get past Blizzard's intended map space by creative use of movement abilities. In an expac that will feature crafting as almost a pillar, people who manage to access areas early get much better access to gathering materials. Exploration will be a competitive thing in DF.

[Wangming]

Kyrestia herself states it in a quest:
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Voices_of_the_Eternal

But that's not the cool anti-hero plan he shared with them. That is the megalomaniac dickwad plan.

Please compare:

"hey guys, I know a way to reshape the cosmos so that instead of a tool I'm an omnipotent god"

to

"Hey guys, there is something extra-cosmic coming your way, to fuck as up. Join me in rewriting the cosmos into one that can actually withstand the threat."

Like, there is not even a hint of him telling his full plan to anyone. Maybe Denathrius, but only him. Not the rest of the Eternal Ones, not Sylvanas, not Anduin, nobody. It is as if his justification was only figured out at the last minute.

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I'm just very curious about the Dragon Isles and how big the zones will be.

Very big. It is said to be one of the largest continents they have ever made. And yet, they have like half the zone number of Northrend. That suggests massive zones.

[Nymrohd]

Like, there is not even a hint of him telling his full plan to anyone. Maybe Denathrius, but only him. Not the rest of the Eternal Ones, not Sylvanas, not Anduin, nobody. It is as if his justification was only figured out at the last minute.

And while we did not really interact with Zovaal that much, we interacted with Denathrius extensively. There could easily have been hints there of a greater plan. If anything the plan presented by Denathrius is about dividing, infilitrating and conquering the other six forces, not in any way unifying or protecting them.

[Wangming]

And while we did not really interact with Zovaal that much, we interacted with Denathrius extensively. There could easily have been hints there of a greater plan. If anything the plan presented by Denathrius is about dividing, infilitrating and conquering the other six forces, not in any way unifying or protecting them.

Exactly. Thing is, even by being essentially just a henchman charged with stirring up trouble, he was a much more memorable villain. he had a much better design, and a clear reason to dislike him besides his deem voice and spiked armor.

[JDBlou]

And while we did not really interact with Zovaal that much, we interacted with Denathrius extensively. There could easily have been hints there of a greater plan. If anything the plan presented by Denathrius is about dividing, infilitrating and conquering the other six forces, not in any way unifying or protecting them.

The "implication" (because it's not explicit at all) is that Zovaal tells his allies what they want to hear to get them on his side. He tells Denathrius they'll make Death the greatest cosmic force to get him to work for him, he tells Sylvanas he'll fix the afterlife system because that'll get her on his side
Side note: I don't think it's discussed in the novel how Sylvanas ends up going straight to the Maw (my pet theory is that the Jailer's val'kyr intercepted her soul like Devos did with Arthas) so she could more easily be manipulated into serving him instead of going to Revendreth because at that juncture Sylvanas could definitely still be redeemed by the Venthyr, like worse people went there and got a shot at redemption. Unless but seems really unlikely the Arbiter actually got to judge Sylvanas, which is a massive gamble on the Jailer's part because he wouldn't know that Sylvanas goes to the Maw ahead of time.

[Hitei]

But that's not the cool anti-hero plan he shared with them. That is the megalomaniac dickwad plan.

Please compare:

"hey guys, I know a way to reshape the cosmos so that instead of a tool I'm an omnipotent god"

to

"Hey guys, there is something extra-cosmic coming your way, to fuck as up. Join me in rewriting the cosmos into one that can actually withstand the threat."

There's nothing to suggest he didn't explain his entire plan to him. They rejected his idea because even stepping foot on Zereth Mortis is taboo to them ("forbidden knowledge"), let alone going there, hijacking the First Ones' technology and destroying their pattern, the thing the other Eternal Ones consider absolute truth, and rewriting it with his own version where they control all of reality.

He was never justified from their point of view. Hell, he's not really justified from any point of view, since his whole worldview is seemingly founded on the idea that the First Ones were incompetent and their designs weren't going to hold up, when apparently the First Ones knew their own design so well they knew that he was going to attempt to fuck it up and left safeguards so that he could be dealt with when it became necessary.

He's not an anti-hero. In any sense. He's an upstart who thought he knew better than the people who built the entire universe and figured he could run things better if he destroyed the universe and made his own version. Hard to be an anti-hero when your plan is "destroy everything in existence and replace them with the version I like".

[JDBlou]

Exactly. Thing is, even by being essentially just a henchman charged with stirring up trouble, he was a much more memorable villain. he had a much better design, and a clear reason to dislike him besides his deem voice and spiked armor.

That's because he's a far cry from the usual booming deep voice Warcraft villain (Deathwing, Arthas ,Grommash ,Illidan ,Kel'thuzad, N'zoth) so the change of pace is memorable.
That's why Fish N'zoth is the best voice for him and should have kept it, it was a better fit for the most subtle and insidious Old God, the one who won through cunning not brute force and it was a real shame they just turned up the decibels and lost all the nuance.

[Super Dickmann]

As for why he rebelled the idea is he thought it was "unfair". And honestly, I just don't agree. I don't agree it is unfair to be asked to give up your previous experience in order to be an objective and unbiased psychopomp. You can always choose not to ascend and just spend eternity in paradise.
And this thing about people being divided from their loved ones; we see so much mobility between the realms. The only reason it doesn't exist early on is the anima drought having shut down most infrastructure. People seem to travel around all the time. And we don't even know where most of the people are; there obviously are other realms..

The Bald Man didn't rebel because of the unfairness of the death sorting system. He never gave a shit about it and he never mentions it to his peers when he's warning them or when he's doing his cliche evil gloating. He rebelled against his job because reality was 'flawed'. Not in some kind of moralistic sense, but descriptively because instead of having one unified power there were six competing powers the imbalance of which would wreck the world. And because they were set up in competing dualistic pairs, cosmic collapse was inevitable, like Rygelon says in the raid. Ergo, he plans to hijack the Zereths and make a new one where all powers are united under himself as the common denominator.

The whole spiel about the unfairness of the afterlives, whether true or not is just spin to get Sylvanas on side because he can't physically act on Azeroth otherwise. The book makes it fairly clear that he considers people to be irrelevant, leading repetitive pointless lives. He has however seen countless come and go so and so he knows what makes them tic, hence why his pitch to Sylvanas and Devos is all about their personal psychoses and to Denathrius is all about his own power. Telling everyone that you care deeply about their individual lives and free will and want to secure it through your plan is a more compelling pitch than telling them you actually think the Demiurges of the setting have their efforts doomed to a 404 Error at some stage and you think you can make it work indefinitely instead.

Of course, the character in the game is not written abysmally only in so far as he isn't written at all, so this comes through mostly in the book and the ample side docs from Firim and other bosses.

[Nymrohd]

That's because he's a far cry from the usual booming deep voice Warcraft villain (Deathwing, Arthas ,Grommash ,Illidan ,Kel'thuzad, N'zoth) so the change of pace is memorable.
That's why Fish N'zoth is the best voice for him and should have kept it, it was a better fit for the most subtle and insidious Old God, the one who won through cunning not brute force and it was a real shame they just turned up the decibels and lost all the nuance.

Honestly Denathrius is nearly queer-coded as a villain. He is a flamboyant ruler of a decadent society.

[JDBlou]

Honestly Denathrius is nearly queer-coded as a villain. He is a flamboyant ruler of a decadent society.

And I love him for it. And it's a stupid bit of copium but I hope we see him maybe teaming up with Azshara, two disaster pansexuals just destroying the player base in a raid with magic and sass.

[Lahis]

I don't get why we're getting into the topic of basic math. If you chopped the zones up into more zones that would mean more zones, yes. Chopping up a Megazone that has themed biomes into more zones would mean more zones.

The point here is the precedent it sets. WoW is already suffering from extreme reduction in content to the player and as such Zone count going to an alarming number of 4 for a continent is extremely alarming as this will set precedent for the next expansions going forward.

The issue here is the principle idea that them telling us that a selling point of the expansion is 4 Megazones is alarming as it means they might intend to keep this trend of zone design in which they say "Hang on, you wanted Megazones. Well, our compromise is that we only create continents with 4 Megazones going forward and nothing more.".

Does the zone count matter if the actual area is larger than bunch of smaller zones combined?

[Varodoc]

And I love him for it. And it's a stupid bit of copium but I hope we see him maybe teaming up with Azshara, two disaster pansexuals just destroying the player base in a raid with magic and sass.

More like the ultimate team-up of clueless pawns, the pawn of N'Zoth and the pawn of Zovaal!

[JDBlou]

More like the ultimate team-up of clueless pawns, the pawn of N'Zoth and the pawn of Zovaal!

Denathrius was only around for a single patch and has a better personality than Alleria, so sush.

Also last I checked Azshara was still alive and kicking, while your beloved N'zoth got kamekamehad into oblivion.

[Varodoc]

Denathrius was only around for a single patch and has a better personality than Alleria, so sush.

It doesn't change the fact that in the end he was just a pawn for Zovaal. He was used as a tool to funnel all anima into the Maw and then thrown away once he outlived his usefulness. The Janitor, during one of the many insightful monologues he had, even dissed Denathrius, saying that he fulfilled his purpose. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At least Alleria is no one's pawn.

[Lahis]

Lei Shen is one of the best villains of WoW. He was not teased in any way before we landed in Pandaria. The issue with Zovaal was not that he was not established in lore ahead of time, it was that his screen time during Shadowlands was poorly used to no effect.

Well Lei Shen himself didn't have much screentime either, but he was characterized theough the current and past mogu empires so his presence had more impact than Jailer's did.

[JDBlou]

It doesn't change the fact that in the end he was just a pawn for Zovaal. He was used as a tool to funnel all anima into the Maw and then thrown away once he outlived his usefulness. The Janitor, during one of the many insightful monologues he had, even dissed Denathrius, saying that he fulfilled his purpose. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At least Alleria is no one's pawn.

Cool, that's a fallacious argument by the way, because I didn't discuss being a pawn, I was talking about their personalities or lack thereof. You didn't address the personality at all.

[Lahis]

Curious. Is there a map or anything equivalent out there that shows an actual size comparison of the continents in game?

Or anyone knowledgeable on the matter know which of the added continents in TBC onwards are the biggest going to smallest?

I'm just very curious about the Dragon Isles and how big the zones will be.

Here is some calculations about continent sizes up to Legion: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...Map-Comparison

[Therougetitan]

It doesn't change the fact that in the end he was just a pawn for Zovaal. He was used as a tool to funnel all anima into the Maw and then thrown away once he outlived his usefulness. The Janitor, during one of the many insightful monologues he had, even dissed Denathrius, saying that he fulfilled his purpose. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At least Alleria is no one's pawn.

Alleria is Afrasiabi's pawn. Void elves are his way of saying fuck high elf fans and when he was finally gone they started adding in high elf options.

[Nymrohd]

Well Lei Shen himself didn't have much screentime either, but he was characterized theough the current and past mogu empires so his presence had more impact than Jailer's did.

Yeah as I said in the follow up, it doesn't take much to make a decent villain. Give them some lore, a cool design and if possible a piece of good media like Lei Shen got with the 5.2 trailer or Azshara got with Azshara's short before BfA. And you definitely don't need to be building up to that villain for years.

[JDBlou]

Yeah as I said in the follow up, it doesn't take much to make a decent villain. Give them some lore, a cool design and if possible a piece of good media like Lei Shen got with the 5.2 trailer or Azshara got with Azshara's short before BfA. And you definitely don't need to be building up to that villain for years.

It's crazy how much the ToT trailer does for the Thunder King as a character. The dread in Cho's voice while he recites the poem, and its content tells you that he could be a pretty cool villain. Flash with a bit of substance compared to Lich King 2.0 without the appeal.