Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[horizon nowhere]

Morning everyone

Seems we've descended into a rather odd topic whilst I was at work... Perhaps best to get back to the speculation of the thread rather than the back and forth about the past!

If Alpha comes out tomorrow is the usual expectation that we would see a public-facing build today or could it all be under wraps fully until Alpha?

I'm gonna go with encrypted until tomorrow when this nda/embargo is probably up but I would love to be wrong!

[Albertillo]

Nothing in particular, 2 screenshots from alpha leaked (1st is a Dracthyr in human form in the main city, the other one is a hunter in a new zone, possibly Azure Span) both showing the new UI. There's a debate whether NDA has been broken by someone who got early access vs. Blizzard purposeful, controlled leak to keep the hype up - my money in on the latter.

Apart from that, some hype and expectations. And some politics obviously...

Thank you very much！Didn't know about the screenshots! I'll look for them!

[Nymrohd]

The thing is, the influencers and streamers cannot in any way convey the amount of information that datamining will. If they are not doing a public build soon after then it's effectively just an extra round of interviews. Seems like a half-decent replacement for the Blizzcon experience of actually playing demos of the game on the convention floor.

Which is fine. We will still get a lot more information. But it would also mean there is little reason to get a public build soon after and would probably mean either no public alpha and straight to beta sometime in August.

[Catastrophy349]

Dismiss? We know the Dragons Isles are huge. They are larger than Northrend and Northrend had tons of dead space and was still huge. Modern wow does not do dead space. Even if an area is not constantly active, there will still be a reason for it to be there; an easter egg, a treasure, a small event. We know it was designed to interact with dragon riding and we know there is a separate team doing world content. If it doesn't have a lot of it I would be surprised in a very bad way.

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I get what you are saying but we don't really learn much from that screenshot. For one thing, the UI should be modular. Standard practice would also mean that the base UI should be reasonably close to what we currently have so the transition is less jarring. I share your hope that much of what is widely done with weak auras now will be available through the modules that make up the new UI system. But I still don't think a screenshot allows us to make any judgments or really furthers speculation. All we get from it is that there will be effectively be an option to filter or collapse the buff bar.

That’s my point. I’ve been the one preaching and reiterating on the whole “I’ve watched all interviews, there’s an entire team working on outdoor content.” I was asking what kinds of content could they create? Dragonriding is certainly going to take form in some way (so excited for that), but what else?

[Nymrohd]

That’s my point. I’ve been the one preaching and reiterating on the whole “I’ve watched all interviews, there’s an entire team working on outdoor content.” I was asking what kinds of content could they create? Dragonriding is certainly going to take form in some way (so excited for that), but what else?

We don't know much about the story tbh which really limits what we can predict. We could have small elemental invasions taking over areas of the world that you need to beat back. We can have profession related events like with Legion fishing and MoP cooking. We could have something like a lot of world bosses instead of just one per week which spawn more randomly, have enough health so people can travel from the capital and still get to them and drop important professional reagents. We could have larger events like rebuilding specific locations in different zones by defending them from attacks, contributing profession crafts and gathering supplies.

[Nyel]

Well, they just would have to look at Guild Wars 2 and its event system which they made even bigger in later expansions. Map meta events would work really well in WoW. Besides that? Hardly anything they can do. They won't reinvent the wheel.

[Polybius]

Late to the party but it looks like the health bar hasn’t changed yet on the new UI. Wonder what options we’ll get for scaling and transparency, and if we’ll be able to move the quest grid. UI resets were always troublesome.

[Catastrophy349]

I would love to see world building events. Think of how the zones changed in previous expansions as we progressed story quests. Heck, think of Quel’Danas in TBC. Those quests we did as a server, all around the isle, and it changed the way buildings looked, NPCs, etc. (I never played MoP patch 5.1/5.2 was there something similar for the Horde/Alliance invading??)

[Makorus]

Well, they just would have to look at Guild Wars 2 and its event system which they made even bigger in later expansions. Map meta events would work really well in WoW. Besides that? Hardly anything they can do. They won't reinvent the wheel.

I'd want anything but a job simulator WoW. Having to have a timetable to play WoW effectively sounds like a nightmare.

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I would love to see world building events. Think of how the zones changed in previous expansions as we progressed story quests. Heck, think of Quel’Danas in TBC. Those quests we did as a server, all around the isle, and it changed the way buildings looked, NPCs, etc. (I never played MoP patch 5.1/5.2 was there something similar for the Horde/Alliance invading??)

I love games with "Building up your own base over a long period of time" so I would love something like that. Molten Front did it really well for example.

[Lahis]

Looks like the shitty third world politics of USA are lowering the chances of Alpha anytime soon.

[gcsmith]

Looks like the shitty third world politics of USA are lowering the chances of Alpha anytime soon.

"The 400$ isn't enough to stop them being held accountable by the law." Well... I'm curious what ABK is meant to do to protect their employees from the law other than move their employees out of a state?

[Vasoka]

Looks like the shitty third world politics of USA are lowering the chances of Alpha anytime soon.

These creatures revolt me deeply.

[Catastrophy349]

I’d prefer to keep this out of our discussion.

[ZyntosAran]

Looks like the shitty third world politics of USA are lowering the chances of Alpha anytime soon.

smh - murica. (related to the whole situation, not the walkout, which i am definitely supporting)

Anyway. Last time I checked, the 21. July was not inbetween today and the 14. July, which is supposidly the start of the alpha.

[gcsmith]

I’d prefer to keep this out of our discussion.

Thats fair, and if the Alpha goes up this week, nothing stops it being active during the walk out.

[Makorus]

Good. I'd rather have more unions than an Alpha.

[Catastrophy349]

It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it because I think that it’s not important. It is. However, this channel really should focus on 10.0 speculation.

[Wonderment2]

Good. I'd rather have more unions than an Alpha.

Agreed but Catastrophy349 makes a good point.

This isn't the thread for very good political news.

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Personally I hope the large zones alllows for some "Cloud Serpent Riders" style areas I really enjoyed that in MoP.

Idk like you slowly improve your standing with some Centaur Dragonslayers. Maybe get a Centaur mount that talks to you? Complains about you being to heavy if your a Tauren etc.

[Hyrja]

It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it because I think that it’s not important. It is. However, this channel really should focus on 10.0 speculation.

"channel" and "chat" dude ur not on twitch lol.

[Catastrophy349]

Taking ALL bets for what happens today?

-More “leaks”
-Evoker blog
-Dragonriding blog
-Talents
-Alpha announcement
-Datamining

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"channel" and "chat" dude ur not on twitch lol.

That’s what you took away from what I said? Using the word “channel” instead of “forum” or “thread”? At 7:47 a.m. while typing on my phone?