Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Ersula]

It seems like dataminers mostly don't care. Shit is either encrypted, or missing filenames so it is impossible to get any info.

What happened to Ybarra saying there would be a ton of new DF info in May? May is half over & all they announced was Arclight Rumble.

You know that people who would only log in because they read about a new thing on wowhead will still do that, just as the same time as everyone else explores the new stuff? Yes, the news draught sucks right now, but it's still better than the old way in the end. The old "everything is dataminable on the PTR" stance was like you could play with your birthday presents you get in advance, just dumb.

Then why have a PTR at all? Its supposed to be a cost effective testing method & you're only going to get people to do that for you because of the "birthday presents" principal.

It makes no sense to design your development strategy based on people who go out of their way to look for spoilers then get mad about it: Those people are the very definition of a vocal minority.

They've put major quest lines on the splash page before. I'm not insisting anything is typical because this is the first time they are heavily encrypting things. However that still doesn't mean that the splash page is confirmed or has to be pre-order stuff.

Not *encrypted* questlines.

[rhorle]

Not *encrypted* questlines.

Right. Which can explain why the splash page is encrypted because the major quest that would appear there is also encrypted. I'm not sure what is hard to understand about that.

[Ersula]

Right. Which can explain why the splash page is encrypted because the major quest that would appear there is also encrypted. I'm not sure what is hard to understand about that.

I didn't say it was hard to understand. I said it was unusual. And stupid.

[rhorle]

I didn't say it was hard to understand. I said it was unusual. And stupid.

It is hardly stupid. Blizzard doesn't want things to be spoiled so they are encrypting anything that could possible mention what they want to be hidden. Calling it stupid just makes you come across as angry because you can't know story details before hand.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Not knowing story spoilers is a good thing. It won't be easy going forward but its better this way. If your argument is "But we can't keep Blizz in check then" Not really true either since you can do it before and afterwards but even then complaining for its own sake is stupid and a waste of energy and sounds miserable. I want DF Asap but I have to wait and accept that.

At least no known date is known yet instead of "Oh its coming out x"


*Months later*

"Actually its delayed"

[Lady Atia]

What happened to Ybarra saying there would be a ton of new DF info in May? May is half over & all they announced was Arclight Rumble.

Then why have a PTR at all? Its supposed to be a cost effective testing method & you're only going to get people to do that for you because of the "birthday presents" principal.

It makes no sense to design your development strategy based on people who go out of their way to look for spoilers then get mad about it: Those people are the very definition of a vocal minority.

Not *encrypted* questlines.

The PTR is for testing bugs and stuff, not for you to play the game months before it actually comes out. Maybe it wasn't in the past, but that's what it will be in the future.

Oh, and playing PTR for story always felt miserable anyways, because you know it's not the real game. All it did was take the surprise away while also giving you the feeling of playing a card game with faked cards.

[wowrefugee]

Due to that DF pricing survey that mentions an armor transmog, I’m more inclined to believe the encrypted armor set is for the pre order.

[SloidVoid]

How are Darkfallen supposed to become playable if their numbers are so small and their not growing?
At least with something like Void Elves they are actively shown has getting new followers.
We don't see any new Darkfallen being created right now.

[Hyrja]

What happened to Ybarra saying there would be a ton of new DF info in May? May is half over & all they announced was Arclight Rumble.

Then why have a PTR at all? Its supposed to be a cost effective testing method & you're only going to get people to do that for you because of the "birthday presents" principal.

It makes no sense to design your development strategy based on people who go out of their way to look for spoilers then get mad about it: Those people are the very definition of a vocal minority.

Not *encrypted* questlines.

"may is half over" still 18 days to go so plenty of time

[Ersula]

The PTR is for testing bugs and stuff, not for you to play the game months before it actually comes out. Maybe it wasn't in the past, but that's what it will be in the future.

Oh, and playing PTR for story always felt miserable anyways, because you know it's not the real game. All it did was take the surprise away while also giving you the feeling of playing a card game with faked cards.

You know what's bugged sometimes? Quests. And if "faked cards" bother you the solution is not "complicated encryption initiatives" it's "minding your own business"

How are Darkfallen supposed to become playable if their numbers are so small and their not growing?
At least with something like Void Elves they are actively shown has getting new followers.
We don't see any new Darkfallen being created right now.

Vorath was raising new undead in the ghostlands & Calia has a naaru that makes people undead for some reason. Any kind of acquisition quest would surely deal with that topic.

[wowrefugee]

How are Darkfallen supposed to become playable if their numbers are so small and their not growing?
At least with something like Void Elves they are actively shown has getting new followers.
We don't see any new Darkfallen being created right now.

We do, actually.

https://ptr.wowhead.com/quest=54944/...-rangers-pupil

> She's been training an apprentice dark ranger, a lad named Prelus. Newly raised, she said

Newly raised. And this is the quest thats been updated for 9.2.5

[rhorle]

How are Darkfallen supposed to become playable if their numbers are so small and their not growing?
At least with something like Void Elves they are actively shown has getting new followers.
We don't see any new Darkfallen being created right now.

Simple. After being rescued from the maw they get "returned" to life/undeath somehow. Or they could just create them in the Shadowlands and have them step through a portal with out being made undead in the traditional sense we know.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

How are Darkfallen supposed to become playable if their numbers are so small and their not growing?
At least with something like Void Elves they are actively shown has getting new followers.
We don't see any new Darkfallen being created right now.

The number of dark fallen could actually be rather large, far striders were the core of the high elf military so there could in theory be tons of them depending on how hard the spell arthas made was for lesser undead to cast and how badly he wanted to stick it to Sylvanas, they could just say the majority of far striders were raised.

Same goes with the night elfs they could just say a lot more died and were raised then the handful we see in the current quest.

While they’re numbers aren’t growing they could easily out number void elfs at current.

[Marlamin]

There is also at least one new encrypted armor set on the PTR. Could be a new preorder bonus, could be an AR armor. Actually could Marlamin or a dataminer tell us if it is tied to the preorder items?

I'm not datamining encrypted content anymore nor supporting that in my tools, also haven't really been keeping up with 9.2.5 (and am currently dealing with COVID so taking it easy in general), I know some who frequent this thread have been digging around 9.2.5 and found some mildly interesting stuff, but that's up to them to share (or not).

And, while I'm on the subject of that, I think if dataminers held off on datamining encrypted/purposely hidden content, which has largely been the case in 9.2.5, Blizzard would also stop trying to make datamining hard in general, which affects way more than just being able to find spoilers early or not. I gave Blizz some details on the ways we've been finding things around/in encrypted content, so maybe that'll help in the long term, we'll see how that ends up going or if it'll actually affect anything.

[Cheezits]

I'm not datamining encrypted content anymore nor supporting that in my tools, also haven't really been keeping up with 9.2.5 (and am currently dealing with COVID so taking it easy in general), I know some who frequent this thread have been digging around 9.2.5 and found some mildly interesting stuff, but that's up to them to share (or not).

And, while I'm on the subject of that, I think if dataminers held off on datamining encrypted/purposely hidden content, which has largely been the case in 9.2.5, Blizzard would also stop trying to make datamining hard in general, which affects way more than just being able to find spoilers early or not. I gave Blizz some details on the ways we've been finding things around/in encrypted content, so maybe that'll help in the long term, we'll see how that ends up going or if it'll actually affect anything.

So... are you suggesting people SHOULD datamine more to keep Blizzard on their toes, or are you advocating for people to stop doing it?

- - - Updated - - -

Vorath was raising new undead in the ghostlands & Calia has a naaru that makes people undead for some reason. Any kind of acquisition quest would surely deal with that topic.

Saara the Naaru is likely the only way new Forsaken are made in Lore, IF that is something that "has to happen" (I really never thought the Forsaken was a race that needed to "reproduce" in the first place, they have to die eventually). Arthas and The Nine are double dead and they have always been the way the Forsaken were raised in the past, in Vanilla and Cata respectively.

What her endgame is is up in the air, but she and Faol (and Anduin, who may or may not be needed) can use their powers together to raise undead.

[Marlamin]

So... are you suggesting people SHOULD datamine more to keep Blizzard on their toes, or are you advocating for people to stop doing it?

Datamining is fine and needed for many projects (e.g. DBM and many others) to keep existing, but datamining encrypted content (something I've done a lot, with the last stuff being the signs around the pre-order bundle, or the Tirisfal/Calia stuff I tweeted about) with the goal of finding spoilers only makes things worse for all the other datamining usecases. I wrote a bit about this subject (and the relation to story spoilers/the "keeping Blizzard on their toes argument") in my recent Community Council thread here (so I don't have to repeat everything again every discussion).

TL;DR (with the above context): Datamining good, datamining spoilers bad

[bruxx]

This week has been pretty dry on teasers man, I was hoping for that Dracthyr customization blog that they mentioned forever ago now.

[Cheezits]

Datamining is fine and needed for many projects (e.g. DBM and many others) to keep existing, but datamining encrypted content (something I've done a lot, with the last stuff being the signs around the pre-order bundle, or the Tirisfal/Calia stuff I tweeted about) with the goal of finding spoilers only makes things worse for all the other datamining usecases. I wrote a bit about this subject (and the relation to story spoilers/the "keeping Blizzard on their toes argument") in my recent Community Council thread here (so I don't have to repeat everything again every discussion).

TL;DR (with the above context): Datamining good, datamining spoilers bad

That makes sense. I definitely think this 9.2.5 encryption is a test and despite the rumblings on an AR or something similar a lot of people don't seem to be in the loop, so whatever it is SHOULD be a surprise to a lot of people.

Though I find it bizarre they refuse to encrypt the Dark Ranger questline that has been around for so long, unless it is a purposeful tease/they literally can't encrypt it because of some spaghetti code.

- - - Updated - - -

This week has been pretty dry on teasers man, I was hoping for that Dracthyr customization blog that they mentioned forever ago now.

Probably didn't want any interference with the end of TBC Classic.

[Marlamin]

Though I find it bizarre they refuse to encrypt the Dark Ranger questline that has been around for so long, unless it is a purposeful tease/they literally can't encrypt it because of some spaghetti code.

Quests alone don't actually need that much encryption (outside of maybe voice overs or other related assets and a few unsaying database references) since most of the information is serverside. If a quest is however available on PTR (even if it cant be picked up, necessarily), it can be seen by scans (something e.g. Wowhead employs to keep their DB up to date). The same goes for NPCs.

As for the AR/class rumor, I haven't looked into he legitimacy/likeliness of it but if they manage to pull it off it'll either be largely based around hotfixes (since there's currently no encrypted races in the database files) or something they'll add in late/in release builds -- which would be a first for actually adding this much new content. That's pretty exciting and terrifying at the same time!

[TriHard]

I highly doubt this would ever happen but seeing as the Evoker is a lazy two spec class like the demon hunter and it has no black dragonflight spells whatsoever, it would be dope as fuck if they added it another 2 spec dragon class later on in the expansion that is solely based on the black dragonflight and more akin to some of the Dragonsworn concepts we've seen from Teriz.
Either that or have the end of Wrathion's story unlock a third spec for the Evoker.

If Wrathion is there to discover what to do with his flight, I think that would be a dope conclusion to his story in the upcoming expansion. I can only think of one MMO that I played in the past that launched a new class during patch content instead of an expansion launch and that was FF14's patch 2.4 when they released the Rogue / Ninja.