Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[The Stormbringer]

Yeah, same here. I don't think there's an inherent need to actually go through the entire questing/story again. There was that questline that never made it off PTR where we show some Shadowlands denizens around Azeroth. Just sprinkling in some stuff like that would be a neat way to at least make things feel like they're still connected and part of a living world ( ).

I'd appreciate it if they also improved the landscapes, not just the buildings and various doodads. The Arathi Highlands we saw in the battlefront was WAAAAY better than the Arathi Highlands we have (had?) in-game. I'd love to see a similar upgrade for everywhere, really.

[Lady Atia]

I mean they kind of tried to evaporate any storylines about Return to Northrend after Bolvar was turned into the Good guy and well the whole Lich King is now just Bolvar without a helm since the helm is on Pelagos's head.

They also kind of evaporated the storyline that the rebuilt helm was supposed to help against the rampaging of the scourge too. Well, at least that played out well with the San'layn return in the Blood Elf Quests in 9.2.5.

They literally seeded a potential return to Northrend via 9.2.5:



And I think the blood knight heritage quest also mentions them contacting the ebon blade and warning them about scourge leaders being active and independent.

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I'd appreciate it if they also improved the landscapes, not just the buildings and various doodads. The Arathi Highlands we saw in the battlefront was WAAAAY better than the Arathi Highlands we have (had?) in-game. I'd love to see a similar upgrade for everywhere, really.

Well, after Darkshore and Arathi I think that's a given. They already should have alot of the landscapes done between the last few expansions. For example Kun Lai / Drustvar could be used for Alterac, some of the firey maw assets can be used for Blackrock etc.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Honestly I worry a lot about all of the Azeroth story treads cause the mishmash clash of Dragonflight post-launch content being tied to Azeroth lore is a potential worry for me. Again, I just hope the story sticks to Dragonflight for the post-content and then move onto a cosmos story away from Azeroth as Ion told us with his "tick-tock" expansion plan for the team.

Again, I worry a lot about the potential of a Legion or BFA again where the Narrative Team turbos' through stories without care. Things need to take time and fully develop, it cannot continue like this.

[Lady Atia]

Honestly I worry a lot about all of the Azeroth story treads cause the mishmash clash of Dragonflight post-launch content being tied to Azeroth lore is a potential worry for me. Again, I just hope the story sticks to Dragonflight for the post-content and then move onto a cosmos story away from Azeroth as Ion told us with his "tick-tock" expansion plan for the team.

Again, I worry a lot about the potential of a Legion or BFA again where the Narrative Team turbos' through stories without care. Things need to take time and fully develop, it cannot continue like this.

Weren't both Legion and BFA done by Afrasiabi? I wouldn't worry about the upcoming lore if the 9.2.5. quests are anything to go by. <3

[micwini]

What are we thinking, more talent previews today?

[Lady Atia]

What are we thinking, more talent previews today?

I surely hope so! Give me mage, hunter and paladin. *drools*

[Gurahk]

Weren't both Legion and BFA done by Afrasiabi? I wouldn't worry about the upcoming lore if the 9.2.5. quests are anything to go by. <3

People like the lore of Legion, people don't like the lore of Shadowlands, even 9.2.5.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

People like the lore of Legion, people don't like the lore of Shadowlands, even 9.2.5.

Seems pretty skewed, people are more positive to 9.2.5 lore stuff then anything else so... yeah I dunno who you are looking at. Also people moaned about Legion to, same with BFA and SL and onwards what else is new.

[Blayze]

https://twitter.com/MrGMYT/status/1532112416028430336

I still wonder what the fuck is being planned out on the Classic side. Seems they are moving to offering a Classic WoW product that will start with Wrath and going on from there.

Apparently they are taking away TBC and perhaps Classic will go away too. Consolidation makes sense due to the Pandora's Box problem.

It is odd to have the coincidence of Northrend assets being altered though considering Wrath+.

Then again maybe the famous Northrend: Global Warming expansion is 11.0.

IDK I am definitely intensely curious on what is going on with the asset situation.

I hope at some point they sell an offline/official private server version of the game for one more payday from the nostalgia crowd.

[Raetary]

yeah I dunno who you are looking at.

The last 2 years.

[Gurahk]

Seems pretty skewed, people are more positive to 9.2.5 lore stuff then anything else so... yeah I dunno who you are looking at. Also people moaned about Legion to, same with BFA and SL and onwards what else is new.

No I'm pretty sure most people felt satisfied with Legion, yes there were complaints during that time, but not to the extent that we have now.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

The last 2 years.

MMO-Champion isn't the entire playerbase.

No I'm pretty sure most people felt satisfied with Legion, yes there were complaints during that time, but not to the extent that we have now.

Fel fatigue, Artifact power whining so on and so forth.

[Lady Atia]

No I'm pretty sure most people felt satisfied with Legion, yes there were complaints during that time, but not to the extent that we have now.

Legion suffered the same problems Cataclysm did - both had a really good start but the end felt rushed. Whole Argus could have been it's own Expansion instead of the lame patch we got for it.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Weren't both Legion and BFA done by Afrasiabi? I wouldn't worry about the upcoming lore if the 9.2.5. quests are anything to go by. <3

I mean The Jailor was based on Thanos and they didn't execute on that idea. (Instead forced like 2 reset buttons for the narrative later down the line with the Galactus Villain, The Pattern possibly breaking apart.)

The upcoming long term villain The Jailor warned us about is a Galactus type villain.

The Narrative Team is hyper obsessed with Marvel just like the old devs were obsessed with The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I mean the entire 9.2 storyline was setting up a completely different cosmos lore structure than what people previously thought beyond the most crackpot lore theorists and us crackpot lore theorists never thought they would go in this direction due to the absurdity and how hard it is to explain to laymen.

Steve Danuser has already confirmed that the ending of Dragonflight will be epic and if "epic" relates to Murozond it could mean that something completely clusterfuck chaosy happens during the Murozond encounter adding another 3rd reset button if they want to.

But, again I think the most likeliest scenario for Dragonflight is Dragon Island for Base Product and then Dragon Island 10.1 which turns into going somewhere else in 10.2 due to the events of 10.1 and then in 10.3 it goes all whacko crazy NASCAR mode like usually where we're all wondering why this happened to us for the 3rd time.

I do not see this narrative team sitting stil on the Dragon Isles. They will try and run at the speed of light no matter the consequences for the product.

[Lady Atia]

I mean The Jailor was based on Thanos and they didn't execute on that idea. (Instead forced like 2 reset buttons for the narrative later down the line with the Galactus Villain, The Pattern possibly breaking apart.)

The upcoming long term villain The Jailor warned us about is a Galactus type villain.

The Narrative Team is hyper obsessed with Marvel just like the old devs were obsessed with The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I mean the entire 9.2 storyline was setting up a completely different cosmos lore structure than what people previously thought beyond the most crackpot lore theorists and us crackpot lore theorists never thought they would go in this direction due to the absurdity and how hard it is to explain to laymen.

Steve Danuser has already confirmed that the ending of Dragonflight will be epic and if "epic" relates to Murozond it could mean that something completely clusterfuck chaosy happens during the Murozond encounter adding another 3rd reset button if they want to.

But, again I think the most likeliest scenario for Dragonflight is Dragon Island for Base Product and then Dragon Island 10.1 which turns into going somewhere else in 10.2 due to the events of 10.1 and then in 10.3 it goes all whacko crazy NASCAR mode like usually where we're all wondering why this happened to us for the 3rd time.

I do not see this narrative team sitting stil on the Dragon Isles. They will try and run at the speed of light no matter the consequences for the product.

Well, I absolutely love marvel's MCU so I can't see any issues with that.

[Gurahk]

Legion suffered the same problems Cataclysm did - both had a really good start but the end felt rushed. Whole Argus could have been it's own Expansion instead of the lame patch we got for it.

Legion's end is not at all comparable to the end of Cataclysm. Most people disliked the ending of cataclysm due to the lack of new assets, you had a raid which just takes place in WotLK and the bosses were not the greatest.
The Burning Legion arc had been going on for two expansions now, having another expansion would just be absurd.
7.3 itself was great, 3 zones and a conclusion to a saga that most people felt satisfied with. Hell, the only controversial story point was the "chosen one" which got resolved in Argus.

[Alanar]

Well, I absolutely love marvel's MCU so I can't see any issues with that.

Maybe you dont, but not everyone loves mcu, so some may not like it. But isnt that how it always works.

Besides there are people now, that dont even know what lord of the rings is.. its shocking I know.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

It was what some people wanted though, they felt Argus could of been an entire expansion. Again the borrowed power stuff was still coming into effect as well and so on. It wasn't all happy day in Legion at least around here. I was satisfied but satisfaction here is rare or almost like a female dwarf.

[Khaza-R]

Honestly I worry a lot about all of the Azeroth story treads cause the mishmash clash of Dragonflight post-launch content being tied to Azeroth lore is a potential worry for me. Again, I just hope the story sticks to Dragonflight for the post-content and then move onto a cosmos story away from Azeroth as Ion told us with his "tick-tock" expansion plan for the team.

Again, I worry a lot about the potential of a Legion or BFA again where the Narrative Team turbos' through stories without care. Things need to take time and fully develop, it cannot continue like this.

I would say there's a very, very small chance the DF story is self-contained and doesn't go somewhere outlandish by the last chapter. But I think we will have to see.

It was very much a hallmark of Afrasiabi to mask his lower quality writing by making things bombastic. This sort of required throwing a ton at the plot in the same way a unrefined chef throws too many things on plate to mask their lack of technical skill. So that's basically IMO why we burned through so much story in a short period of time while he was at the helm.

By contrast, I don't see Danuser and his team repeating this. I think the real issue is that they don't know how to properly develop a plot and think they can write these overly complex narratives without focusing on the basics first. So instead of the story in DF just being bad, it runs the risk of being both bad and boring.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I mean I just think Galactus is boring from a Comic Book standpoint. An all consuming entity that does it because they have to is so damn hard to make interesting. They could make the Galactus Level Devourer extremely alien looking and go full in on the creep factor with him not even talking but I mean we already tried that with Zovaal. So I don't know, I am hopeful the Devourer plot is on the backburner for a few expansions though.

I am interested in seeing how MCU does him but again the MCU has the time and the place to develop Galactus unlike World of Warcraft where it is all about whether the Production Pipeline can allow the story to unfold or not and if it doesn't they just cut it even if it costs the reputation of the game and the fans happiness.