Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Sondrelk]

Maybe we overestimate the power of ion in this team.
He said several things that will not happen yet happened.
Maybe the line where he said we're not gonna see a world revamp on the scale of cataclysm would also not happen was also made less true by other people voting for a world revamp inside the team?

Could also be something only technically true.

Like a world revamp could mean only cursory changes to zones, and no actual new zones and big changes like what cata had.

[Cosmic Janitor]

If we get revamps I would expect them to be at least on the level of the warfront zones tbh. Cata often just changed the layout but not the fidelity, if they really were to make old zones the playground for the next expansion they'd have to severly pretty them up, especially old trees, buildings, caves, etc.

[Pheraz]

Could also be something only technically true.

Like a world revamp could mean only cursory changes to zones, and no actual new zones and big changes like what cata had.

Hm, cataclysms story is spread across many zones and within many subzones and quests. If they do a "make everything with modern models/textures" would they seriously take the world as it is ? I think it is rather "all in or do not touch" for each zone. Maybe they remake several zones fully, but not the whole planet. Like Arathi and Darkshore. With a time-drake-npc
Edit: but I hope for a total remake of the whole azeroth

[Sondrelk]

Hm, cataclysms story is spread across many zones and within many subzones and quests. If they do a "make everything with modern models/textures" would they seriously take the world as it is ? I think it is rather "all in or do not touch" for each zone. Maybe they remake several zones fully, but not the whole planet. Like Arathi and Darkshore. With a time-drake-npc
Edit: but I hope for a total remake of the whole azeroth

My ideal would be a total revamp of at least one continent, making the zones less insular, and also avoiding the main issue of Cata where very little of the endgame actually took place in the newly revamped zones.

A new levelling should be very much possible as well if we assume that unlike Cata Blizzard wont make every single zone its own levelling, but rather pick maybe a couple of zones and have the entirety of the new 10-50 levelling take palce in those zones, leaving the rest either with nothing new in preparation for future updates, or endgame zones.

An example would be a EK revamp that has 10-50 levelling take place in the Forsaken and Human zones, endgame take place in the plaguelands and surrounding areas, with patch content in Stranglethorn and other miscallenous areas of EK.

[Nyel]

An entire world revamp only make sense if the entire world is scaling and every zone has world quests available for max level players.

A world revamp where max level players only get a handful of new zones while two dozens of other zones get revamped and have no worth for max level players makes absolutely no sense. This would be the Cataclysm problem again then.

I really don’t see why they cannot make everything scale to your level, other games can easily do it as well. This half-assed scaling for specific expansions makes barely sense anyway as it’s completely disconnected from any overarching storyline.

[AliceCattx]

One thing that's been on my mind about a potential world revamp, and those revamped zones becoming the 'current content zones', is how Blizzard will handle flying in those zones in line with their decisions to timegate flying until later a patch or several patches later. How do you guys think they'd approach that? Since it's zones we can already fly in.

[draugril]

Good point. This sort of sends his credibility crashing. I was maintaining something almost analogous to suspension of disbelief until now, but that is pretty condemning for his point.

Counterpoint: A lot of industry insiders will use a generic term for those within their industry when speaking to an external audience. The mining industry, for example, might have Surface Miners, Underground Captains, Process Plant Operators and Mobile Maintenance Welders. Any one of these might be referred to as a "Miner" to external parties while only two of them are directly involved in by definition mining tasks, and only one actually has "Miner" in their title. The analogous term for the video game development industry is "developer." I've seen artists and QA and even community managers referred to as "developers" because that is simply shorthand for "has a position in the video game development industry." This isn't much of a smoking gun.

That being said, there are reasons to dismiss it. Firstly, the lack of a new class, I personally find hard to believe, but that might be my own personal bias creeping in. Secondly, the existence of a housing system at all. I do not believe that Blizzard sees players philosophically as homesteaders. We're Luke Skywalker, not Owen Lars. I fully believe that housing will never be a feature of WoW because of this. Lastly, and perhaps most obviously, it is the willingness to post at all. No one in a coveted video game development job is going to roll the dice on getting blacklisted for violating an NDA. Period. Full stop.

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My ideal would be a total revamp of at least one continent, making the zones less insular, and also avoiding the main issue of Cata where very little of the endgame actually took place in the newly revamped zones.

I wouldn't mind at all if they took a retroactive ESO approach and simply began telling smaller stories within a few zones, each patch starting a new narrative with a few more updated areas.

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One thing that's been on my mind about a potential world revamp, and those revamped zones becoming the 'current content zones', is how Blizzard will handle flying in those zones in line with their decisions to timegate flying until later a patch or several patches later. How do you guys think they'd approach that? Since it's zones we can already fly in.

That's a definite strike against a world revamp. That's why I'm interested in a Dragon Isles expansion wherein flight is simply a part of the experience, if not something that is actively taken advantage of.

[Lady Atia]

Counterpoint: A lot of industry insiders will use a generic term for those within their industry when speaking to an external audience. The mining industry, for example, might have Surface Miners, Underground Captains, Process Plant Operators and Mobile Maintenance Welders. Any one of these might be referred to as a "Miner" to external parties while only two of them are directly involved in by definition mining tasks, and only one actually has "Miner" in their title. The analogous term for the video game development industry is "developer." I've seen artists and QA and even community managers referred to as "developers" because that is simply shorthand for "has a position in the video game development industry." This isn't much of a smoking gun.

That being said, there are reasons to dismiss it. Firstly, the lack of a new class, I personally find hard to believe, but that might be my own personal bias creeping in. Secondly, the existence of a housing system at all. I do not believe that Blizzard sees players philosophically as homesteaders. We're Luke Skywalker, not Owen Lars. I fully believe that housing will never be a feature of WoW because of this. Lastly, and perhaps most obviously, it is the willingness to post at all. No one in a coveted video game development job is going to roll the dice on getting blacklisted for violating an NDA. Period. Full stop.

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I wouldn't mind at all if they took a retroactive ESO approach and simply began telling smaller stories within a few zones, each patch starting a new narrative with a few more updated areas.

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That's a definite strike against a world revamp. That's why I'm interested in a Dragon Isles expansion wherein flight is simply a part of the experience, if not something that is actively taken advantage of.

I'm quite sure a world revamp will be similiar to WoD and Draenor/Outlands. They will just move the old cataclysm versions of Kalimdor/EK into the Caverns of Time this time to avoid the removing of content, but besides that the 10.0 versions of the old continents will be new so they can introduce them without flying and adding it later on. Also helps with blocking some of the zones of for future patches.

[draugril]

I'm quite sure a world revamp will be similiar to WoD and Draenor/Outlands. They will just move the old cataclysm versions of Kalimdor/EK into the Caverns of Time this time to avoid the removing of content, but besides that the 10.0 versions of the old continents will be new so they can introduce them without flying and adding it later on. Also helps with blocking some of the zones of for future patches.

That's a pretty huge ask. I don't see that happening with the same team that's been putting out the formulaic, paint-by-numbers expansions that modern WoW has received.

[Raetary]

One thing that's been on my mind about a potential world revamp, and those revamped zones becoming the 'current content zones', is how Blizzard will handle flying in those zones in line with their decisions to timegate flying until later a patch or several patches later. How do you guys think they'd approach that? Since it's zones we can already fly in.

I don't think they'd timegate flying for a revamp.

I'd imagine they could prevent flying in certain zones/areas with Mechagon-esque mechanics to keep us on the ground.
But removing flying altogether for zones that we can already fly in would probably cause a ton of backlash that they'd rather avoid.

[Gaidax]

this mobufuki dude is fake

He refers to lecraft as a senior developer but lecraft's job was senior designer. Someone actually in this line of work would understand the difference--typically developer here is referring to someone who actually does the coding. He's not the guy responsible for gameplay decisions if he's a developer

it doesn't make sense for someone who works at blizzard to make this sort of mistake because to them this distinction would actually matter

Even without this, it's pretty obviously just some another bored dude LARPing as Blizzard insider in MMOC forums. We had more than enough of those over the years.

[draugril]

Even without this, it's pretty obviously just some another bored dude LARPing as Blizzard insider in MMOC forums. We had more than enough of those over the years.

A person might risk a job. No one risks a career.

[Sondrelk]

A person might risk a job. No one risks a career.

Especially not if said person also wants to claim that working at Blizzard is a dream job.

There is a good reason the better leaks that attempt this try to make the person leaking it sound like they have stopped caring entirely.

[draugril]

Especially not if said person also wants to claim that working at Blizzard is a dream job.

There is a good reason the better leaks that attempt this try to make the person leaking it sound like they have stopped caring entirely.

Even then, if you don't care about your current gig, you don't risk the next by doing something that would get you blacklisted by the industry.

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I don't think they'd timegate flying for a revamp.

I'd imagine they could prevent flying in certain zones/areas with Mechagon-esque mechanics to keep us on the ground.
But removing flying altogether for zones that we can already fly in would probably cause a ton of backlash that they'd rather avoid.

When has that ever stopped them from making obviously bad decisions?

[Veya30]

I hope the revamp is coming

Or it could be the level 60 boost starter gear



Wasn’t awakenings a leak from around legion?? Props on fixing up the logo though


The fate of eternity sounds like a final SL patch and I’m doubtful that it ends at 9.2 but it looks real enough

I can't remember off the top of my head, but the new book just released by Blizzard, the broker author mentions a cartel going to 3 different areas within the Shadowlands to find information about the Sepulcher. Korthia, which we have in game right now and two more; he also mentions the Zereth Mortis zone, which is mentioned in game after the 9.1 campaign finishes.

If they decide to not adhere to the 2 year expansion cadence due to current events; then we could see a 9.2 containing those two zones leading up to the Sepulcher and 9.3 being Mortis.

Also interesting; the broker mentions that the tear above Icecrown won't remain forever. Could be Zovaal had it shattered to access something; maybe 9.3 will lead us back to Azeroth. Maybe this Zereth Mortis is located somewhere on Azeroth; don't know though.

[Dracullus]

Well, we can put "we're back to normal schedule after 9.1" to bullshit cathegory. 2 months after patch.. I think even 6.2 PTR came sooner.

[Raetary]

When has that ever stopped them from making obviously bad decisions?

It didn't.
But i would imagine they'd wanna be a bit more careful with future design decisions due to the recent events and state of the game.

[Dracullus]

It didn't.
But i would imagine they'd wanna be a bit more careful with future design decisions due to the recent events and state of the game.

Bad decision was opening can of worms with flying in TBC. Now every decision is "bad" cause there is flying and no-flying camp (+ people that like current system or don't give a shit of course).

[Soon-TM]

It didn't.
But i would imagine they'd wanna be a bit more careful with future design decisions due to the recent events and state of the game.

Even if they wanted to be 'more careful', I don't think they could actually manage to do so. Ion & co. are too set in their ways, and I don't see what could they do differently in 10.0, if BfA and SL are any precedent.

[Sondrelk]

Bad decision was opening can of worms with flying in TBC. Now every decision is "bad" cause there is flying and no-flying camp (+ people that like current system or don't give a shit of course).

The best decision at this point would be to revamp flying entirely. Though doing so in a way that appeases both camps would be difficult.