Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Nymrohd]

Can't wait for Tuesday so the AR thing can be put to a rest one way or another.

Also, I remember sending feedback for Void Elves to get black hair soon after they launched. It's something so tiny, but I was so annoyed about it and then they *finally* add it like what, 2-3 years later? lmao

It's really why the community behaves in such a negative way to the wishes of any person in it. We get things added eventually but at a glacial pace so any person getting what they want means the rest will now have to wait for even more years.

[Lorca]

How would it fit, from a lore perspective, being able to choose red eyes and “undead” skin for Blood Elves or Night Elves? Thinking about creating a new character and questing through the starting areas for said races… wouldn’t it be a bit weird? But well, we already got sand Trolls, I guess?

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Feels like so much drama and "painful speculation" just would not be happening if they did customization passes more often, and actually checked with the community to see if they're nailing it.

But I'm probably a weird outlier because I mostly play worgen, void elves (not high elves), male night elves, and tauren now, and all those races have some major issues. (ex: worgen / tauren need mane colours separate to the fur, and more colours in general, male nelf needs their posture fixed, void elves need actual void eyes, ect ect.)

I'm just seriously hoping they see the backlash about it, how excited people are about the potentials going on, and realize that yeah, maybe they should do another round. Heck, the AR's aren't even "done" yet. Poor Dark Irons got nothing, but a ton of potential. (Blue fire?)

I feel you. Playing a lot my Kul'Tirans characters lately (my Alliance main is a Kul'Tiran actually) and Dark Irons and yeah, the small number of options for those two races is a bit painful... 8')

I think Taurens in general are in a good spot at the moment, but Worgens could get some love for sure!

[wowrefugee]

Hah you're too hopeful.

Nothing happens and people will still hope for a later reveal.

Unfortunately I have seen that - people saying "no its not 9.2.5, its with pre orders!" So I can only hope pre-orders drop the same day.

(to be clear I am one of those people expecting an allied race lmao. But if it's not in Tuesdays patch, I dont expect it at all.)

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How would it fit, from a lore perspective, being able to choose red eyes and “undead” skin for Blood Elves or Night Elves? Thinking about creating a new character and questing through the starting areas for said races… wouldn’t it be a bit weird? But well, we already got sand Trolls, I guess?

This was what I was thinking too.

We have plenty of 'subraces' or tribes like you've mentioned (sandtrolls, wildhammer), but I feel like a customization that makes an alive race "unalive" is a jump too far. Even DKs get different starting areas.

Even more so for Night Elves. At least Blood Elves they have the starting zone go into the ghostlands which involve the kinship between belf and forsaken, but it'd still be really iffy and weird.

[Nymrohd]

Also think the original purpose of the Maw was to imprison souls that were a threat to the Shadowlands. So the Arbiter would send some directly down there, not even giving them a chance at Revendreth (which is what Pelagos is changing, which is stupid tbh since if a super powerful soul arrives in the Shadowlands with a plan to fuck shit up, it will)

[Sondrelk]

Unfortunately I have seen that - people saying "no its not 9.2.5, its with pre orders!" So I can only hope pre-orders drop the same day.

(to be clear I am one of those people expecting an allied race lmao. But if it's not in Tuesdays patch, I dont expect it at all.)

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This was what I was thinking too.

We have plenty of 'subraces' or tribes like you've mentioned (sandtrolls, wildhammer), but I feel like a customization that makes an alive race "unalive" is a jump too far. Even DKs get different starting areas.

Even more so for Night Elves. At least Blood Elves they have the starting zone go into the ghostlands which involve the kinship between belf and forsaken, but it'd still be really iffy and weird.

Exiles reach is the canon starting experience for most races, so whether undead Nelves fit into Teldrassil is about as relevant to the story as Zandalari trolls running around in Outland.

[huth]

I think the Maw existed BEFORE Zovaal. So the torture thing is a natural function, Zovaal just used Domination to take control of what naturally happened there.

It only exists because of Zovaal. Without him, there'd be next to nothing there, just some very bored souls. It has no "natural function" beyond being where the souls naturally gravitate. Torture was all Zovaal's work. Don't complain about lore you don't even know.

That literally makes no sense. There is no point to punishing the souls unlike Revendreth they aren't doing anything after. It's a massive waste of resources. There is no opposing afterlife of permanent arbitrary reward. It was a "hell" knockoff and a ridiculously illogical one per the rest of the story.

Up until the drought, Anima was so ubiquitious that "wasting" it was a non-issue. The souls also go to that place automatically if not sorted by the Arbiter, so there was no effort involved into sending them there; quite the opposite, the Arbiter simply needed to not send them anywhere else.

[Lahis]

The Maw never made sense in the first place. If souls were too irredeemable for Revendreth they should just be destroyed and reduced into anima. There's no point to dumping the super worst souls into one place.

Maybe Maw originally were the Arbiter's realm. A waiting room of sorts where souls waited to be judged by Zovaal. Only after Zovaal's fall and imprisonment it was turned into the hellscape it is today. Would alos explain why every soul automatically goes there unless the Arbiter catches them in Oribos.

[Blayze]

Except no, the purpose was to punish them forever for being such horrible souls. It did make sense and that anima would be very minimal at best.

I thought it was the other way around, that the more you'd done in life (including sins and atrocities), the more anima the venthyr could extract from you.

[pacotaco]

That literally makes no sense. There is no point to punishing the souls unlike Revendreth they aren't doing anything after. It's a massive waste of resources. There is no opposing afterlife of permanent arbitrary reward. It was a "hell" knockoff and a ridiculously illogical one per the rest of the story.

The Maw is the soul-dumpster. If a soul is so irredimable that it can't have any purpouse, then it can't serve any function in the afterlife and they throw it away.

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I thought it was the other way around, that the more you'd done in life (including sins and atrocities), the more anima the venthyr could extract from you.

Not really, Revendreth is a recycling plant. Souls unfit for a place go there to get "fixed". Once fixed, they send it back to the place they should go in the 1st place or they're added to the venthyr files.
If they can't "fix" them, they throw them to The Maw.

[therumblings]

I thought it was the other way around, that the more you'd done in life (including sins and atrocities), the more anima the venthyr could extract from you.

This is correct, anima is generated by "great" souls, which could do good or evil, according to Blizzard.

[pacotaco]

Maybe Maw originally were the Arbiter's realm. A waiting room of sorts where souls waited to be judged by Zovaal. Only after Zovaal's fall and imprisonment it was turned into the hellscape it is today. Would alos explain why every soul automatically goes there unless the Arbiter catches them in Oribos.

No, but I always assumed what ou say: Torghast was the "original Oribos". Then they made it a prison for Zovaal, and they hijacked the soul-flow putting a new Oribos in the middle.

[therumblings]

No, but I always assumed what ou say: Torghast was the "original Oribos". Then they made it a prison for Zovaal, and they hijacked the soul-flow putting a new Oribos in the middle.

I thought this was going to be the case but the 9.2 end cinematic made it very clear Zovaal was always in the current Oribos, unless of course the current Oribos was just a piece of the older one.

[pacotaco]

This is correct, anima is generated by "great" souls, which could do good or evil, according to Blizzard.

I got the notion that it's really hard to extract forcelly the anima of a soul and most of the time is not worth it.
Venthyr get it when souls voluntarily give it away in the process of attoning for their sins.

[therumblings]

I got the notion that it's really hard to extract forcelly the anima of a soul and most of the time is not worth it.
Venthyr get it when souls voluntarily give it away in the process of attoning for their sins.

Well, it's sort of a paradox I think. A soul that has more anima in Revendreth probably did a lot more bad things than a soul that has less anima, so it would be harder to extract it from the more prideful/stronger soul, like Garrosh. Though most of them probably eventually submit, they do have eternity after all.

[pacotaco]

I thought this was going to be the case but the 9.2 end cinematic made it very clear Zovaal was always in the current Oribos, unless of course the current Oribos was just a piece of the older one.

We only see flashes of him being judged on what it seems the Arbiter room in Oribos. Maybe Oribos had another purpose before. Maybe was there when they extracted his core and activated the Arbiter. Or maybe the flow goes to Torghast because still goes to where the true Arbiter wants by default, and only the artifical Arbiter was blocking him from doing that.

[therumblings]

We only see flashes of him being judged on what it seems the Arbiter room in Oribos. Maybe Oribos had another purpose before.

I hope so, the Jailer's current model doesn't fit at all with Oribos lol. Torghast being the original would have been cool, potentially still possible I guess.

[pacotaco]

I hope so, the Jailer's current model doesn't fit at all with Oribos lol. Torghast being the original would have been cool, potentially still possible I guess.

It would make sense, in the way of explaining why The Maw is inescapable except by First One's methods. Only that door can override Zovaal's command because is a failsafe.
Also, the more I think about all of it, the more fishy all looks:

* Zovaal goes rogue and is punished.
- Doesn't seem weird that the less warrior-like one of the 5 is the one taking action?
- Why none of the other even know about what Zovaal try to fight?
- Why the Prelate, being the best strategist in the universe, know nothing about it?

* The Primus then creates uses domination magic to imprison Zovaal in The Maw. I could get that if they kill him, Zereth Mortis just creates a new copy, but...
- Why domination magic seems terribly close to Automa language?
- Why the Primus looks like he does not know how it works? A kind of magic that allegedly he created?

* The Primus hides his sigil and goes to visit Zovaal. He creates a series of tests in case he goes missing.
- Why did he go in the first place?
- Why did he was suspicious to the point of hiding his sigil?

* Zovaal somehow gets free and uses domination magic to imprison the Primus.
- Why neither of them explain how?
- How the best strategist in the universe is caught by surprise by his prisoner, with his very own magic?

* SL happens, we go to ZM, but the Primus says the EO are prohibited from doing it. Let's asume for a moment that it's true.
- If Zovaal never was there before (and him going to Korthia to get the info about it, to then try to chain Zereth Mortis to his Sanctum), what he did in the first place that granted him eternal imprisonment?
- Isn't Zovaal going there enough to override that command to stop him?

My take?
- Zovaal tried to go there in the first place and they stopped him.
- Then, the Primus knew about the problem and stated to make a plan.
- He sugested to create Oribos and a new Arbiter to replace Torghast and Zovaal.
- He secretly went to ZM and learned about the FO language, and created domination magic based on it.
- He used it on Zovaal to make him his puppet.
- He then puts all things in motion, making Denathrius think that Zovaal is the one with the plan.
- He then goes to Torghast and switches places with Zovaal to redirect possible suspicions, and he sends him in his path.
- When we arrive, we follow exactly what he planed to unite all Shadowland realms, defeat Denathrius, get him free and enable Zovaal to finish his plan.
- He then offers a solution to counter the magic he himself created so we defeat Zovaal.
- Everything is fixed.

[Syegfryed]

Things rly have slowed down for a while, hype is rly low, mine is zero

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Honestly it does really feel like we've been stuck for a while. I'm hoping that the encrypted content for 9.2.5 does at least move the needle into some more embargoes being lifted and hopefully with preorders another round of interviews, twitter space and other stuff.

Unless we're in the darkest timeline and the next embargo isn't until Gamescom.

The fact we didn't get a Blizzcon Update this week like the previous two years doesn't paint the best picture, but at the same time I didn't really have any expectations of it this year around due to the company drama of the last year.

At least, my speculation is that the Dragonflight Release Date and the reveal of Dragonflight: Red will be at Gamescom. Preorder should be coming up this next week or the week after 9.2.5 release with news embargoes being lifted again.

[AngerFork]

Unfortunately I have seen that - people saying "no its not 9.2.5, its with pre orders!" So I can only hope pre-orders drop the same day.

(to be clear I am one of those people expecting an allied race lmao. But if it's not in Tuesdays patch, I dont expect it at all.)

I'm still very split on whether we'll actually get an Allied Race or the like as a pre-order bonus, but I tend to agree that if anything is coming it'll happen on Tuesday. In theory, that's when we should see the encrypted splash screen with the info to come. If that splash screen comes out & we don't have pre-orders or a new race (especially if the encrypted quests are opened), then that more or less ends it for me.

Maybe Maw originally were the Arbiter's realm. A waiting room of sorts where souls waited to be judged by Zovaal. Only after Zovaal's fall and imprisonment it was turned into the hellscape it is today. Would alos explain why every soul automatically goes there unless the Arbiter catches them in Oribos.

I've long had a bit of a theory that for the main realms of the Shadowlands at least (not all, but the ones with a covenant leader) are in some form manifestations or actualizations of their leaders. As Ardenweald weakens without proper anima, so does the Winter Queen's power. If true, one has to wonder about how Revendreth is going to fare without Denathrius in place.

In any case, that would absolutely make sense if the Maw were the Arbiter's realm. Zovaal would've been trapped via domination magic in his own realm which would've been twisted by his pain & struggle. Over time, it became less of a waiting purgatory & more of a true hellscape to match his new desires, ambitions, & emotions.

Of course, I also believe that the Primus was meant to be the initial Jailer until Blizz cut bait to move on from Shadowlands, so my opinions may not be the most sound.