Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Lahis]

Too hard to read?

I have dark mode through chrome and it looks nice on darker backgrounds.

I was only doing it to differentiate between blizzards quotes and my thoughts.

I use dark mode on my devices but it doesn't force it over the forum theme. You should always assume people are seeing the forums through their default theme.

[Ersula]

Not mr. Ion confirming what I said about Drakthyr: They can't be melee classes because they're too big: Bigger than Tauren.

[Nymrohd]

Thats what I was thinking.


Guessing there are 4 major reps, with 2-4 other minor reps. Hoping they have some kind of tiller/angler/cloud serpent rep. I love fun reps like those for cosmetics only.

Tillers, the farm and the cooking specializations as a combo in MoP were one of the best casual experiences in WoW imo. So many moving parts all of them interacting with each other, decent thematics with good cosmetic but also meaningful profession rewards that mattered for progression.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

When you have some more time and read new info and you see something about elves.. Damn,

I hope it will just end up as customization option if it will happen. too much of BE reskins.

[Nymrohd]

THe thing is, even with Darkfallen you still cannot play a Dark Ranger unless the new talent tree will give hunters things like Black Arrow (with the skeletal minion spawn on death) as an option.

[rhorle]

Not mr. Ion confirming what I said about Drakthyr: They can't be melee classes because they're too big: Bigger than Tauren.

Was there another interview today besides the Twitter space one? Because I didn't hear him talk about size as a reason why they can't be a tank or melee spec. It was about them having cast times and being at the core a caster spec. Or did they talk about another time outside of the tank talk?

[KainneAbsolute]

I won't be surprised that the Dracthyr zone expands and reveals labs with more Dracthyr, but this time they have their memories, and they are evil/selfish intentions.

[Nymrohd]

M+ Blackrock depths is fine. Don't even care, While you're at it have a M+ Deadmines.

Can you imagine the poison sequence in M+? The rage.

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I won't be surprised that the Dracthyr zone expands and reveals labs with more Dracthyr, but this time they have their memories, and they are evil/selfish intentions.

No point making a new model if you never get to use it as a mob.

[Chickat]

https://imgur.com/a/3334JoK

Really hard to read. Just bold the text in my opinion.

My bad. Im going to go back and fix them. Should I delete the posts and repost them so people can see them?

[Nymrohd]

My bad. Im going to go back and fix them. Should I delete the posts and repost them so people can see them?

Nah just edit them. I'd also agree bold would work best, though you can always try to do actual quotes or simply add quotation marks. But yeah no light color works with the default skin.

[Chickat]

The expansion is quite far along, Alpha is coming soon. This was exciting to see. Going to be looking at all the bullet points. I ended up writing a lot, so I'm going to break it up into two posts so my response is more readable. Im also happy that I was right about them doing something with the Drakthyr zone too. They never did anything else with the Demon Hunter zone, and IMO it was a missed opportunity. It could have been a sister zone to the Broken shore.

Nearly everything except obtaining gear should be account wide. So account wide reps?

Having to improve your Dragonriding skill on multiple characters wouldn't be a satisfying experience. Great to hear. It will make me want to engage with the system 100 times more if I know I don't have to do it on my alts.

The goal is to be alt friendly from the start, not something that is added in future updates. Great to hear. Usually they start fixing the expansion around the .1.5 to .2.5 patches so if there are no big issues like that at launch, they cant focus all their time on more content.

No suffering for months and then adjusting for feedback, they know people will be playing alts from week one. Same as above but great to hear.

It'll be fun to see how the dragons react to you, even Alexstrasza didn't know that you existed. How does that work? The island is apparently off the coast, but dragons fly, and pretty fast. I have a hard time believing nobody knew.

The Dracthyr starting zone will be used for more than just a starting zone. Everyone will eventually experience it. Already mentioned at the start of this post, but great to hear. If this is the case, we can count the expansions zones as 5 zones. Guessing the Drak zone will be max level content at some point. It might be smaller like Broken shore, but that's ok.

There are some "Major Factions" that we'll encounter, with a clearer and more elegant reward progression. So does this mean non reknown factions? I didn't get to listen in live. What is the context here? I speculated that there would be more than the 4 big mega factions, but not sure if that's clarification or not.

There are no current plans for a mission table. Unpopular opinion, but I liked the mission table. Not a deal breaker for me, but sad to see it go.

Quoting my first post. Is this easier to read? Ill change the color in the future too, but it will take to long to delete all the color code from every line.

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And my other post.



Unlikely, but possible, to go back to use Classic dungeons for Mythic+. They don't hold up with visuals or mechanics. The team probably draws the line at Mists of Pandaria onwards. Anything older would need significant reworking. Thats pretty interesting. Imagine if they break up BRD into 2-3 dungeons and make m+ versions. That could be fun IMO.

The Art team has added an amazing array of customizations for both forms. There's a blog post in the works by the artists to talk through the options in more detail. Im super happy to see this. Between this and the promised talent tree previews it gives me some hope for more dev communication. More dev watercoolers and artcraft posts pls blizz.

The team won't close the door on a third spec, but tank is unlikely. Previous Hero classes have had Tank options, so that's pretty well covered. Sounds like a no to me, but I hope they add a spec to both Demon Hunter and Evoker in the future. I would want another ranged dps spec for evoker instead of tank or mdps but that's just me. Id love to see a Bow wielding fel ranger spec for Demon Hunters.

Shadowlands is a challenging story concept for new players. A good way to say bad haha.

Long term, convivence is paramount, so the team let people unlock flying after some amount of time in the expansion. A dev already said no to this, so either they were wrong or blizzard is listening to feedback that quickly. Either way is great. Im a fan of no flying at launch. If Dragonriding is good people will still use it some when flying is released. If not, people will just fly. Either way, the system should stand on its own, and I'm glad they arent holding back convenience just to prop their system up as they have done so many times in the past.

In the first or second leveling zone, first day of the expansion, you gain the trust of a dragon companion that you can call upon. They initially have limited stamina and experience. So is this a young dragon that doesn't know how to fly well? Maybe they don't trust us at first so they don't listen well? It doesn't really matter I suppose, but I wonder if there is a reason why they cant fly properly from day 1?

The Dragonriding we have seen in the videos so far will be fairly early in the experience. It won't start out lame and have you work to make it feel good. Glad to hear that. I was sure that what we were shown was maxed out dragonriding. If not, it means we will be able to go even faster and do even more tricks. I was afraid it would just be a glider at the start, but doesn't look that way. Sounds fun!

Long term, allowing Dragonriding outside of Dragon Isles is a possibility. In the near term, this is an expansion specific feature, taking place in an environment built for it. Player feedback is key. Makes a lot of sense. They don't want to work on making it work outside the Dragon Isles if players end up hating it.

Cross-faction guilds could happen, but there are a significant number of technical challenges. This is cool to see too.

The team didn't carry forward most of the Shadowlands systems. There is gear, outdoor progression, and universal currencies that help to further your power progression. I smell valor? Anyone else? Might also mean the content will have to be more interesting if they cant use Artifact power to prop it up. Hopefully we see some innovation.

Tuskarr would be too powerful as an Allied Race! What context was this said under? Did it sound like they could be hinting at it being a future race, or was it obvious they were serious about no Tuskarr?


Overall fantastic interview. IM happy to see most of the changes and responses. Im starting to feel positive and hopeful for this expansion. I never felt negative, but just kinda whelmed overall. Im optimistic for the future. They just need to deliver on listening to feedback in the beta.

[Lady Atia]

Good morning everyone - last nights build looks super promising, let's go over it!

Mythic+ Season 4 Keystone Affix is now called Disguised.

Looks like we will get a Nathrezim Affix this time?

Dungeon Teleports have been added for Grimrail Depot, Iron Docks, Operation: Mechagon and Return to Karazhan.

As expected! I did push to 20 last season for the ports but didn't bother this one because I can do Tazavesh next season anyways. Good addition!

All Covenant Sanctum feature achievements are now visible and count towards your character’s total achievement points, regardless of which covenant your character currently belongs to. Nonetheless, all characters must belong to a Covenant to earn that Covenant’s specific achievements.

Finally - my OCD was pissed at the weird differences in achievement points between my characters so it's great they finally fixed that, although it may appear to be a minor thing for most people.

NEW Fates of the Shadowlands Raids Complete all three Fated raids in Shadowlands Season 4.
Reward: Mount Reward: Jigglesworth Sr.
NEW Heroic: Fates of the Shadowlands Raids Complete all three Fated raids on Heroic difficulty in Shadowlands Season 4.
Reward: Title Reward: Hero of Fate
NEW Mythic: Fates of the Shadowlands Raids Complete all three Fated raids on Mythic difficulty in Shadowlands Season 4.
Reward: Shadowlands Raid Teleports

I wasn't really hyped for Raid+ but the rewards are awesome, and I really hope they keep this structure for any future seasons. PvP always gets FOMO stuff, and having a mount for normal, a title for heroic and teleport for mythic seems super fair. Similiar to the +20 rewards for M+ pushers - nice to have, but you aren't really missing out on anything if you aren't getting (all of) them. Also yay, Slime Saaaaaber! <3

The latest Patch 9.2.5 build includes an interesting addition datamined within the global strings, indicating that players will be prompted to accept a social contract before playing the game. Not unlike a terms of service agreement, it appears to specify what types of behavior are not tolerated within the game, requiring them to either accept the terms or exit the game.

The text begins with a greeting, welcoming the player to the World of Warcraft and remind them that the game is made up of real people playing the game, who may come from different backgrounds and cultures, before going on to list behavior which will not be tolerated within the game. These terms include untolerated behavior, including harassment, threats, abusive and derogatory language, spamming, advertising, and other disruptive behaviors, as well as hate speech, or negative comments regarding other player's identity - including their race, gender, or abilities.

A really good change, and I hope they enforce this ingame. Let's build a good game community together and fight against toxicity in and out of Azeroth.

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@Chickat please stop using that blue font, would be nice if you could edit your posts too. You can't really read anything of that on the phone. Just don't use blue. Why not using either bold, or you know, the quote function?

[Chickat]

Good morning everyone - last nights build looks super promising, let's go over it!


Looks like we will get a Nathrezim Affix this time?


As expected! I did push to 20 last season for the ports but didn't bother this one because I can do Tazavesh next season anyways. Good addition!


Finally - my OCD was pissed at the weird differences in achievement points between my characters so it's great they finally fixed that, although it may appear to be a minor thing for most people.


I wasn't really hyped for Raid+ but the rewards are awesome, and I really hope they keep this structure for any future seasons. PvP always gets FOMO stuff so it's just fair, and having a mount for normal, a title for heroic and teleport for mythic seems super fair. Similiar to the +20 rewards for M+ - nice to have, but you aren't really missing out on anything if you aren't getting (all of) them. Also yay, Slime Saaaaaber! <3


A really good change, and I hope they enforce this ingame. Let's build a good game community together and fight against toxicity in and out of Azeroth.

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@Chickat please stop using that blue font, would be nice if you could edit your posts too. You can't really read anything of that on the phone. Just don't use blue. Why not using either bold, or you know, the quote function?

I made the font bold and bigger, but I'm not going to go back and edit the color. It would take a while to delete all of the color string text. I will not be using the color in the future, but I'm not going to change it as I already typed it all up. My apologies.

[Lady Atia]

Tuskarr would be too powerful as an Allied Race! What context was this said under? Did it sound like they could be hinting at it being a future race, or was it obvious they were serious about no Tuskarr?

It was a joke answer because the host loves Tuskarr and it's basically a meme that he fights for their inclusion as race. That said, I'm quite sure they are aware that people want more allied races and 9.2.5 hints at Darkfallen so we may get them as patch content which honestly, makes sense. Allowing you to unlock a new race during content draughts will do wonders to keep people interested. I just hope they think about increasing/lifting the character limit if they keep introducing new races down the line!

[Therougetitan]

It was a joke answer because the host loves Tuskarr and it's basically a meme that he fights for their inclusion as race. That said, I'm quite sure they are aware that people want more allied races and 9.2.5 hints at Darkfallen so we may get them as patch content which honestly, makes sense. Allowing you to unlock a new race during content draughts will do wonders to keep people interested. I just hope they think about increasing/lifting the character limit if they keep introducing new races down the line!

It wasn't due to it being the hosts race as it is due to leaks. There was a leak that had dracthyr in it before the expac announcement that listed Tuskarr as an allied race with CE prepurchase however there was no prepurchase available yet. However, given that dracthyr did indeed happen and that tuskarr are in the expac has caused speculation on if the allied race part will come true or not.

[Sondrelk]

It was a joke answer because the host loves Tuskarr and it's basically a meme that he fights for their inclusion as race. That said, I'm quite sure they are aware that people want more allied races and 9.2.5 hints at Darkfallen so we may get them as patch content which honestly, makes sense. Allowing you to unlock a new race during content draughts will do wonders to keep people interested. I just hope they think about increasing/lifting the character limit if they keep introducing new races down the line!

I took it as Tuskarr being considered for an AR, but not in the near future. Not at launch, at definitely not during the pre-patch.

[Nymrohd]

You know it used to be that if they made the trouble to make females of a race, I expected it to be a potential playable race. But perhaps they realised how problematic it is that they can spend time making architecture and mounts and everything but couldn't bother making a female model.

I think we will know early in datamining if the new Tuskar models are NPC models or PC models.

[Lady Atia]

It wasn't due to it being the hosts race as it is due to leaks. There was a leak that had dracthyr in it before the expac announcement that listed Tuskarr as an allied race with CE prepurchase however there was no prepurchase available yet. However, given that dracthyr did indeed happen and that tuskarr are in the expac has caused speculation on if the allied race part will come true or not.

Well, we have a allied race length lament of the highborne paired with the encrypted tirisfal stuff and steve's no-answer about dark rangers, I think the leaked allied race may be indeed darkfallen, basically as post-epilogue for Shadowlands. Imagine if they would give us an heritage armour inspired by Sylvanas' latest model <3

And if Tuskarr are patch content, it's obvious why Ion would also dance around that question. They won't announce anything like that so far in advance. For Tuskarr - I think it's interesting that they also meet up with some Inuit people to get them right. Of course you could do this with any race, but imo it's another point for possible future playable Tuskarr. (Not that I would main one, but maybe an alt for fishing would be fun!)

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You know it used to be that if they made the trouble to make females of a race, I expected it to be a potential playable race. But perhaps they realised how problematic it is that they can spend time making architecture and mounts and everything but couldn't bother making a female model.

I think we will know early in datamining if the new Tuskar models are NPC models or PC models.

Yeah honestly we need more female models for any npc race. Not having them just sends the message that women are not important to put into the game, which sucks. Bring on the gnoll girls too please!

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You know it used to be that if they made the trouble to make females of a race, I expected it to be a potential playable race. But perhaps they realised how problematic it is that they can spend time making architecture and mounts and everything but couldn't bother making a female model.

I think we will know early in datamining if the new Tuskar models are NPC models or PC models.

From the previews, it seems like they can wear armour/hats unlike f.e. the new Gnolls which seem to be "classic npc models".

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Oh, also regarding the solo shuffle rewards:

How will ranked Solo Shuffle work? Is it actually happening?
It would be good to clarify that when we’re talking about Solo Queue Rated PvP in 10.0, we are talking specifically about Rated Solo Shuffle. The feature will function in the same way it does as the brawl, with 6 rounds and rotating teams, queueable in the ranked Arena queueing tab. The team is working through some of the intricacies of rewards in the game mode as we want it to have it’s own prestigious reward, although players will certaintly be able to attain Elite gear – more info to come in the future.

I just hope they will also allow us to get the viscious mounts through it. While I would prefer a rated bg solo queue, this would be a big step in the right direction!

[Hellspawn]

most likely. we've got elves of every one of the six major powers, but NEs are not Life-infused enough. when the Ardenweald seed gets planted, i expect a heritage armor scenario with new nature-related customization options like horns, green eyes etc.
besides, their whole culture was built around preventing the next invasion of the Burning Legion. now that it's gone, their new purpose will just be copypasted from Night Fae - guarding the cycle, whatever that means.

I would be suprised if they also add customizations to the night elfs with the heritage quest. Night Elfs have been protectors of Nature before, so even with the burning legion gone that does not really change. But sure they could ald the cycle on top of that.

Personally I could see them to introduce reincarnation and maybe make all Nelfs that died on Teldrassil (We know that Elune has still plans for the souls) into some nature creature... Dryards... or some new kind of Azeroth Dryard on two legs (based on Ardenweald Satyr).

Technical Night Elfs already have horn customizations but you have to play a Demon Hunter to use them. (Merithra, Yseras daughter, uses DH horns in her Night Elf visage)

[Nymrohd]

I would be suprised if they also add customizations to the night elfs with the heritage quest. Night Elfs have been protectors of Nature before, so even with the burning legion gone that does not really change. But sure they could ald the cycle on top of that.

Personally I could see them to introduce reincarnation and maybe make all Nelfs that died on Teldrassil (We know that Elune has still plans for the souls) into some nature creature... Dryards... or some new kind of Azeroth Dryard on two legs (based on Ardenweald Satyr).

Technical Night Elfs already have horn customizations but you have to play a Demon Hunter to use them. (Merithra, Yseras daughter, uses DH horns in her Night Elf visage)

They could add further nature customizations like antlers though to be fair, night elves have among the best customization options right now.