Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Sondrelk]

I mean I still believe there's another embargo with info which consists of more customizations and the allied race and the future of Allied Races. But, IDK. Again, this expansion hinges on the World Content Team doing an insane job since there's not additional content seemingly in other departments.

I worry a lot about the post-launch state of community feedback if the World Content Team does not accomplish their role well and what direction the game might take with that feedback.

Honestly, I still believe that they are going to emulate the Legion post-launch timeline but at the same time I worry about the situation with employees leaving after the product is shipped. It will be interesting to see what shape the post-launch environment takes this time around. Again, hopefully they can actually accomplish a great post-launch content schedule due to the bare nature of the base product.

Surely the expansion hinges on whether Blizzard manages to revitalize the talent and profession system.
Seems to me like this is another Legion where it will live or die on its improvements rather than grand innovations.

[Ersula]

Do you seriously think month of no Dragonflight news after reveal + big interview campaign is sign that something is delayed? Why people always act like it's their first expansion? Not to mention there is still one SL patch to go that is focus right now.

Considering the Dragonflight reveal was already 5 months later than it should have been? Yes.

That and the media coverage of Overwatch 2 has been unanimously "Why wasn't this just a patch?" the hypetrain has been derailed, the conductor has been arrested & the passengers are suing for damages.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Surely the expansion hinges on whether Blizzard manages to revitalize the talent and profession system.
Seems to me like this is another Legion where it will live or die on its improvements rather than grand innovations.

I mean I think the Talent System is fine and I hope it stays that way and the development team focuses their efforts on putting game content into the game rather working knobs on number tuning that at the end of the day is not visible to the enduser in the slightest. Talent System is fine as what the Class Team tunes but keep it that way alongside abilities.

I think the fact that the Profession Revamp is basically just the Second Associate Game Directors weird pet project, again I think he fails to understand why Armorsmithing, Weaponsmithing and Different Scale Leatherworking was fun. The whole idea of putting those things into a talent tree rather than out in the world for exploration and training is again failure of understanding the genre of the game. (although the narrative of "simplicity above all" has been very key to why Modern WoW became a instanced queue-based game) But, again I am happy that it is at least returning in a capacity even if it just happens to be with a button press on a talent tree.

Again, I don't really believe the Profession Revamp is anything but a resource hog. They can't revitalize the Profession System due to the Massive Influx of Gold from the Warlords of Draenor expansion and they also have set it up to be the fastest way to gear out new characters for new players in which those players will be incentivized to get the gold from WoW Tokens and also get the reagents from Reagent boosts. Again, I am happy that he got the opportunity to finally do it properly rather than the WoD Style revamp.

But, again I don't see much value in it as again the era of Professions mattering on the player character is over due to the lack of Server Identity and due to the Cross-Realm nature of Modern World of Warcraft. You can't really stand out as a crafter due to the structure of the game and the server infrastructure changes that has taken place over the past few decades.


Again, I think the main key focus for them should be on a good post-launch content lineup that feels fresh with new additions while it also comes in on a 77 day timeline per content patch. The other important note for me is the World Content Team and seeing what is the outcome of their work and to see how the community reacts to them and whether that can go down into a negativity spiral about the necessity of Borrowed Power and other systems again.

[Dracullus]

Because it's still a month wait for what the developers said would be a quick turnover.
Usually this is mitigated because we have more info to go on with Blizzcon, as well as the last patch of the relevant expansion being around the corner.

The fact that Ion said, and then confirmed that the expansion is very far along, as well as stating that they want to give us more info as soon as possible does make it weird that they have not said anything yet.

Ion said they want to share talent trees before Alpha. It's not like they will shower you with something new every week because there is no Blizzcon. And Blizzard didn't said anything specific beside "it's far along" which means nothing specific. Most of us expect Q1 2023 for release day. So far everything we have (9.2.5 progress, 10.0 vendor build) looks like fit for this schedule.

Beside tress (I hope trees for all 12 existing classes), next step is testing. And for that we need 9.2.5 done. They won't make "zone x preview" blue posts or "dractyr preview" weeks before it's available on Alpha.

[rhorle]

The fact that the developers are non committal is not some sort of logical decision made with good intentions it has a purpose and intent of which you've relayed to me just now by making the "you new or what" argument as if I don't fucking know how this company operates.

So you know how the company operates but still manufacture outrage over the way they've always operated. I'm also pretty sure no one has bought an expansion just because it has had 3 raid tiers or the promise of 3 raid tiers. It also is a poor metric because Blizzard has done "non-tier" raids a few different times when they felt like it.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

So you know how the company operates but still manufacture outrage over the way they've always operated. I'm also pretty sure no one has bought an expansion just because it has had 3 raid tiers or the promise of 3 raid tiers. It also is a poor metric because Blizzard has done "non-tier" raids a few different times when they felt like it.

I mean I was talking about Major Content Patches, but again you're off in your own lane which is fine. It's just very obvious that you're operating in bad faith.

Again, the problem for me is I can't attack the argument on the consumers decision of buying a World of Warcraft expansion. There's no real info on what motivates people to masochistically return every 2 years for the same realization that the company is awful to you and has no interest in maintaining its' product and have standards about it while operating in a market which it can't really compete in which is the short session based instanced queue game that it has become.

Fundamentally, I still believe that a portion of consumers want to have assurance that they are buying what has traditionally been associated with the product outside of when the company has cold shouldered the consumers by cutting the game short during difficult periods (WoD, Shadowlands).

But again, I don't know and there's no data on what keeps people coming back to buying a product that has no actual blurb about what the product consists of at launch and over its life span and how this is 100% totally acceptable.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

We don't need to overanalyze the lack of a third raid tier. I wanted one yes and it is legit disappointing but I don't need to turn into crazy cynicism over it. Just be patient, find something else to do until we get more news.

[rhorle]

I mean I was talking about Major Content Patches, but again you're off in your own lane which is fine. It's just very obvious that you're operating in bad faith.

Blizzard has never confirmed the amount of major content patches though. It just usually followed 3 post launch raid tiers with story elements mixed in between or nothing. I'm not operating in bad faith here. You are. Because you are trying anything you can think of time to be negative about things. Including some high level philosophy about consumer rights when you choose to partake in a product that has never met those ideals.

It is even better how you say you can't attack the argument when your entire argument was that not knowing about how many content patches is anti-consumer. So I guess you don't know what is and is not anti-consumer if you don't even know what "traditions" motivates WoW players, right?

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I mean I still believe there's more embargoes ahead of us that will illuminate and have huge positives for the product.

Blizzard has never confirmed the amount of major content patches though. It just usually followed 3 post launch raid tiers with story elements mixed in between or nothing. I'm not operating in bad faith here. You are. Because you are trying anything you can think of time to be negative about things. Including some high level philosophy about consumer rights when you choose to partake in a product that has never met those ideals.

It is even better how you say you can't attack the argument when your entire argument was that not knowing about how many content patches is anti-consumer. So I guess you don't know what is and is not anti-consumer if you don't even know what "traditions" motivates WoW players, right?

Again, Blizzard is doing so under the belief that people like you will defend the decision of not providing answers to the consumer on what they are buying. Well, I mean you just confirmed that the product was never going to partake in the consumerist ideals which means again that the developer is not operating at the best interest of the consumer and again you being bothered enough to come here with your unfettered capitalist takes about how having any standards is bad because consumers are willingly walking to the slaughterhouse while the suits laugh and take the money to the bank.

On the second part, fundamentally I don't know what motivates consumers to return to the product of World of Warcraft in its current anti-consumer state nor why people continue to engage $60-$80 + sub fee with it. I don't really care too much that people do it, I just find it odd considering how bad faith the company is operating in. (Especially with the current Game Director consistently lying and consistently throwing out ideas that Dragonflight isn't a on the backfoot expansion trying to find some steady foundation after 2 bad expansions in a row and instead is "far along" and "soon ready for testing" with a Q1 release date that beggars on belief with the timeline and structure they're working around internally.)

I don't really think its' a got'cha like you believe it to be. I definitely know what is anti-consumer, I just don't know what motivates the audience to continue consuming a product in which they don't even know what it consists of. Again, I don't really think thats as problematic as you make it out to be. I can have two thoughts that differ from another beyond becoming an attack vector for you to dissect so you can put a gold star on your chest.

Regardless, you bore me and your defense of a billion dollar company of which not only bothers consumers but also employees is just again not really that interesting to me.

[Makabreska]

I don't really think its' a got'cha like you believe it to be. I definitely know what is anti-consumer, I just don't know what motivates the audience to continue consuming a product in which they don't even know what it consists of. Again, I don't really think thats as problematic as you make it out to be. I can have two thoughts that differ from another beyond becoming an attack vector for you to dissect so you can put a gold star on your chest.

Regardless, you bore me and your defense of a billion dollar company of which not only bothers consumers but also employees is just again not really that interesting to me.

This hilarious and morally "superior" take would maybe hold some ground, if not for the fact it comes from the guy who repeatedly said in the past that he can't wait for WoW to fail and to see people burned.

[Khaza-R]

Because it's still a month wait for what the developers said would be a quick turnover.
Usually this is mitigated because we have more info to go on with Blizzcon, as well as the last patch of the relevant expansion being around the corner.

The fact that Ion said, and then confirmed that the expansion is very far along, as well as stating that they want to give us more info as soon as possible does make it weird that they have not said anything yet.

Probably waiting until Q3 to drop the beta info and pre-order to smooth out their lull in the fiscal year. At least that's the impression that I got since it was missing from the announcement.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

This hilarious and morally "superior" take would maybe hold some ground, if not for the fact it comes from the guy who repeatedly said in the past that he can't wait for WoW to fail and to see people burned.

I mean, I find it funny you can't separate the company and the game from the employees who work trying to chase this insane idea of a Q1 release. But, fine. You got me, Makabreska. Kudos.

[Makabreska]

I mean, I find it funny you can't separate the company and the game from the employees who work trying to chase this insane idea of a Q1 release. But, fine. You got me, Makabreska. Kudos.

No probs, man. You kept this low key WoW bashing for some time. Back then it was "aw geeez guys, X patch/expansion looks really bad, off course I hope it wont be, but it looks reeeeaaaalyyy bad can't wait to see it fail". Now it's "this thing is anti-consumer!" and sudden moral grandstanding.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

No probs, man. You kept this low key WoW bashing for some time. Back then it was "aw geeez guys, X patch/expansion looks really bad, off course I hope it wont be, but it reeeeaaaalyyy looks bad can't wait to see it fail". Now it's "this thing is anti-consumer!" and sudden moral grandstanding.

Its pointless to argue against such people, let it go or block them.

[rhorle]

Again, Blizzard is doing so under the belief that people like you will defend the decision of not providing answers to the consumer on what they are buying.

So the same thing they have done for going on 18 years now. Why is it that you are even discussing a game that is so against your views? You keep saying you don't know what motivates consumers but apparently know what belief Blizzard is doing things under. Strange right? It is almost as if you've concocted this elaborate story in your head just to justify hating pretty much everything they do.

Just like when you got upset about having less zone count even though the zones themselves are bigger. Because of some magical precedent of zone count and quantity being better then quality.

[Makabreska]

Just like when you got upset about having less zone count even though the zones themselves are bigger. Because of some magical precedent of zone count and quantity being better then quality.

And it turned out he was wrong even there, since Dracthyr starting zone will have max lvl content.

[Ersula]

Probably waiting until Q3 to drop the beta info and pre-order to smooth out their lull in the fiscal year. At least that's the impression that I got since it was missing from the announcement.

"opting out" of making any money in Q2 isn't "smoothing out their fiscal year" the exact opposite actually.

[Dracullus]

I mean I still believe there's more embargoes ahead of us that will illuminate and have huge positives for the product.

You won't have any info if there will be 3 or 4 regular seasons. Or at least it isn't expected. We can only tell from experience, if patches will drag too long, there won't be 10.3. But that's stuff post launch.

My perfect (within reason) expac would be that:

0) Pre-patch, 1 week changes + 2 week event = 3 weeks
1) Launch = 2 weeks
2) Season 1, 10 boss raid, DF dungeons 1-4 + 4 MoP dungeons = 10 weeks
3) 10.1 - Evoker zone turned into max level stuff, in general content typical to X.1 patches, big catch ups for S1 = 10 weeks (it's still S1)
4) 10.1.5 - BfA timewalking, brawler's guild, Troll/Draenei heritage, Season 2 - 9 boss raid, DF dungeons 5-8 + 4 WoD dungeons = 10 weeks
5) 10.2 - new big zone like ZM (season 2 catch up), new 8 boss megadungeon = 10 weeks
6) 10.2.5 - Timewalking raid, some evergreen content, Orc/Human heritage, Season 3 - 9 boss raid, DF dungeons 1-2 + DF 9-10 (megadungeon) + 4 Legion dungeons = 10 weeks
7) 10.3 - Revamped Azeroth zone (Dragonblight?), solo challenge for every spec = 10 weeks
8) 10.3.2 - Undead/Nelf heritage, Season 4 - 12 boss raid, DF dungeons 3-6 + 4 BfA dungeons = 10 weeks
9) 10.3.5 - Epilogue questline, Pandaren heritage, new battleground, 2 new (allied or not) races = 10 weeks
10) Season 5 (implemented in 10.3.5, it's already during 11.0 Alpha/Beta) - 'fated raids', DF dungeons 7-10 + 4 SL dungeons = 20 weeks.

Total: 105 weeks = 2 full years. Looks busy, but this is exact amount of content we saw in BfA and Legion. Not to mention they don't have to invent new system every patch, at least during this expansion. Also they could make HD version of some old set for 1-2 seasons like they did in 7.2.

[Lahis]

What's even weirder is the fact it's been over a month now and we haven't gotten any news on the talent preview that they claimed they wanted us to see as soon as possible. Why wait this long to show them if beta is right around the corner?

Never trust a Blizzard Soon.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

So the same thing they have done for going on 18 years now. Why is it that you are even discussing a game that is so against your views? You keep saying you don't know what motivates consumers but apparently know what belief Blizzard is doing things under. Strange right? It is almost as if you've concocted this elaborate story in your head just to justify hating pretty much everything they do.

Just like when you got upset about having less zone count even though the zones themselves are bigger. Because of some magical precedent of zone count and quantity being better then quality.

I mean it was never right for Blizzard to operate like this in the first place. It was allowed due to the good faith and the fact that the MMORPG genre was very new for the mainstream so new content wasn't exactly something that was seen as anything but a "Oh, hey new content" and a form of excitement for the more hardcore to be interested in.

Again, fundamentally I am really annoyed that I gave you this attack vector because you've now used it twice to belittle my mental faculties and again I kind of should've known that you would go hard in on the idea that I can't have a view of the anti-consumerist behavior of Blizzard and also be confused about the consumers continuous decision of partaking in a companies anti-consumerist behavior in which they are buying a product which they have no idea what will consist of in the current state of the product.
(I mean, it was fine for 18 years as you say. So yeah, I don't disagree on that point of view. But, the problem is the perspective of it and again you can use the WoD argument as well. But again, I think the way the lack of 3 Major Content Patches for Shadowlands happened was sleazy as the community manifested the "Cut & Run" scenario and Blizzard neglected the players until they got the mandate to make it acceptable passage of the Shadowlands expansion.)


Also again, I think the argument on the zone thing was tied to number of zones based on expansion. There's some edge cases here, but the thing I wanted to point out on that subject was that you can be assured of the quantity of the content in-game and you can't be assured of the quality of the content in-game from the developers. (also again Quantity is actually quantifiable but Quality is not as you can't really decipher that without knowledge on in-dev) That was the main point I wanted to come out of that argument rather than the math issue where people don't get that 5 is more than 4 (Hey, the new Drac'thyr Starting Zone is used for Post-Launch Content woohoo).

You won't have any info if there will be 3 or 4 regular seasons. Or at least it isn't expected. We can only tell from experience, if patches will drag too long, there won't be 10.3. But that's stuff post launch.

My perfect (within reason) expac would be that:

0) Pre-patch, 1 week changes + 2 week event = 3 weeks
1) Launch = 2 weeks
2) Season 1, 10 boss raid, DF dungeons 1-4 + 4 MoP dungeons = 10 weeks
3) 10.1 - Evoker zone turned into max level stuff, in general content typical to X.1 patches, big catch ups for S1 = 10 weeks (it's still S1)
4) 10.1.5 - BfA timewalking, brawler's guild, Troll/Draenei heritage, Season 2 - 9 boss raid, DF dungeons 5-8 + 4 WoD dungeons = 10 weeks
5) 10.2 - new big zone like ZM (season 2 catch up), new 8 boss megadungeon = 10 weeks
6) 10.2.5 - Timewalking raid, some evergreen content, Orc/Human heritage, Season 3 - 9 boss raid, DF dungeons 1-2 + DF 9-10 (megadungeon) + 4 Legion dungeons = 10 weeks
7) 10.3 - Revamped Azeroth zone (Dragonblight?), solo challenge for every spec = 10 weeks
8) 10.3.2 - Undead/Nelf heritage, Season 4 - 12 boss raid, DF dungeons 3-6 + 4 BfA dungeons = 10 weeks
9) 10.3.5 - Epilogue questline, Pandaren heritage, new battleground, 2 new (allied or not) races = 10 weeks
10) Season 5 (implemented in 10.3.5, it's already during 11.0 Alpha/Beta) - 'fated raids', DF dungeons 7-10 + 4 SL dungeons = 20 weeks.

Total: 105 weeks = 2 full years. Looks busy, but this is exact amount of content we saw in BfA and Legion. Not to mention they don't have to invent new system every patch, at least during this expansion. Also they could make HD version of some old set for 1-2 seasons like they did in 7.2.

I mean certainly interesting and I mean it could become tighter without the system bloat and if they could get back to a 77 day schedule from Legion with planing and delivery of post-launch content being a tight ship. (No idea how the schedule would look like and somehow it might be unreasonable due to the whacky nature of Seasons in Legion) I wonder how it would look then. But, again I am still hopeful that it will look good post-launch I mean they've got so much opportunity to catch up on post-launch.