Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[TS26]

I hope launch on 28th wouldn't mean only 1 week of no season, I like this period when you gear through Mythic 0. Imo in that case they could just launch Mythic on same week that Normal and Heroic.

pretty sure each exp had 1/2 weeks of no seasons

[Auxis]

The "tech" is a single while or if function.

They don't wanna do it because they want people to use the drake mounts.

But there is no CD on Dragon Riding, while there is a CD on Soaring.
So if a Dracthyr finishes doing something before the CD finishes, they will have to mount up on Dragon Riding to effectively get anywhere, right?

[micwini]

But there is no CD on Dragon Riding, while there is a CD on Soaring.
So if a Dracthyr finishes doing something before the CD finishes, they will have to mount up on Dragon Riding to effectively get anywhere, right?

Isnt the soar CD only outside Dragon Ilses or am I mistaken.

[Raetary]

But there is no CD on Dragon Riding, while there is a CD on Soaring.
So if a Dracthyr finishes doing something before the CD finishes, they will have to mount up on Dragon Riding to effectively get anywhere, right?

Of course, but we are talking about a company that used pet battles and old raids as a justification for reducing Soars max speed.

They clearly just don't like the idea of Soar being a viable Drake alternative.

[Dracullus]

pretty sure each exp had 1/2 weeks of no seasons

Used to be 3 in WoD/Legion/BfA, in SL down to 2 (not sure it's because date was so pushed or by design). Point is, Mythic raid must launch on or before 13th December, I don't think Blizzard want to be Grinch for mythic raiders. Also I don't think they would do 4+ weeks without raid, especially since DF has no mandatory grinds.

[Nymrohd]

If DF is in 3 months then no reason to think Beta isn't coming next week or the week after.

there is no reason to think otherwise regardless. We were told the Alpha will have 6 phases, we are at phase 5 and should be entering phase 6 today. All zones have been made available which is the point when previous Alphas transitioned to beta. I expect we will get monk and every zone open simultaneously today and beta in the week after together with DH.

[boyzma]

Seems completely believable to me, I always thought they'd follow the DF launch time very similarly with SL. 3 months to go!

But, wait. Blizzard has said pre-patch would be 2 weeks...this makes it a little over a month.....I dunno.

[micwini]

But, wait. Blizzard has said pre-patch would be 2 weeks...this makes it a little over a month.....I dunno.

Prepatch is almost always around a month. Can't recall them saying this one is 2 weeks.

[Sondrelk]

Prepatch is almost always around a month. Can't recall them saying this one is 2 weeks.

They said the event specifically is two weeks, but that is only the time-limited event, not actually how early we get the 10.0 patch before the expansion content becomes available.

[Lady Atia]

But, wait. Blizzard has said pre-patch would be 2 weeks...this makes it a little over a month.....I dunno.

Iirc they said the event would be two weeks, it kinda makes sense to have the basic pre-patch changes (talent trees, dracthyr, new race/calss combos) before that to iron out potential bugs etc.

[micwini]

They said the event specifically is two weeks, but that is only the time-limited event, not actually how early we get the 10.0 patch before the expansion content becomes available.

AAh so its phased again, like for SL

[Zakaryy]

They said the event specifically is two weeks, but that is only the time-limited event, not actually how early we get the 10.0 patch before the expansion content becomes available.

Thats the event, not the prepatch.
Prepatch is always around a month or so long, and the event always starts a week or two into the prepatch.

[AngerFork]

Has this been discussed here yet?

This all looks believable to me, timelines all seem to match what I would expect. 10/25 is the start of another cycle of fated raids, which would fit perfect with the new class. The only real surprise I see here is the 11/28 release date which would likely put some of the prepatch event during Thanksgiving week...though it's not unheard of for such things to happen.

"Change freeze on launch day" is a bit of a surprise. I'd think they'd want change freezes to happen a bit sooner just in case of last minute bugs or the like, so you aren't melding in new branches with the fixes that'll likey be needed. It's also surprising that they'd have a different Monitoring/Change Management setup for COD global launches vs. WoW global launches. Also a bit weird that they'd have only Blizz products on here aside from COD, not sure why that would be different.

[Skildar]

It was an artistic choice. Sylvanas and Valeera's expressions being in the BFA plot match those of the reader consuming the BFA plot. It's a way to make them more relatable. It has even more resonance when you remember that this same comic is one of the first allusions to SL.

Be careful, I'm reading more and more comments stating that BfA was a good expansion. We're getting dangerously close to the point where we're starting to forget how terrifying it was.

[fear]

Has this been discussed here yet?

That will be very easy to tell if it's real as expansion ptr's are normally up for 2ish months which would mean it would need to be put up very soon. Probably close to the same time as beta starting which should be in the next 1-2 weeks from what they said.

[Nymrohd]

Be careful, I'm reading more and more comments stating that BfA was a good expansion. We're getting dangerously close to the point where we're starting to forget how terrifying it was.

Hey BfA had possibly the biggest trainwreck of a story, started with completely broken systems, wasted themes that could have served a full expansion, failed to properly iterate on two new systems that both had solid potential. Yet I still enjoyed playing it more than Shadowlands.

[Sondrelk]

Be careful, I'm reading more and more comments stating that BfA was a good expansion. We're getting dangerously close to the point where we're starting to forget how terrifying it was.

Well obviously, we are about to be a full expansion removed from it. Same thing happened with WoD. Everyone was in agreement it was awful early Legion, then opinions shifted slowly during the course of Legion until by the time we reached BfA it had transformed from "WoD is the worst" to "WoD was amazing actually".

Same thing will happen to SL come this time in two years. Barely anyone will even mention once controversial topics like "Semi-permanent Covenants", or "Poorly balanced raids", and noone will remember the long droughts, thats for sure.
Instead everyone will likely be reminiscing about how unique the expansion was, how good it was at giving rewards from Open World content. The wealth of rewards to be gained from various activities in the Covenants, multiplied by 4 even.

This time in two years SL will be the little expansion that was actually amazing except a few niggling little problems, not the mess only saved from the bottom two by virtue of WoD objectively having almost nothing to do, and BfA being a plot suicide with a side of botched gameplay systems.

[Teriz]

Has this been discussed here yet?

Seems legit. Prepatch has been announced for the 30th.

[Xilurm]

there is no reason to think otherwise regardless. We were told the Alpha will have 6 phases, we are at phase 5 and should be entering phase 6 today. All zones have been made available which is the point when previous Alphas transitioned to beta. I expect we will get monk and every zone open simultaneously today and beta in the week after together with DH.

TBH the announcement of the phases did include a + sign on Phase 6. So that's why I'm thinking that.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...w-live/1278547

Phase 2 Zone Experience: The Forbidden Reach
Phase 3 Zone Experiences: The Forbidden Reach and Waking Shores
Phase 4 Zone Experiences: The Forbidden Reach and Thaldraszus
Phase 5 Zone Experiences: The Forbidden Reach and Ohn’ahran Plain
Phase 6+ All zones are expected to be playable

[Nymrohd]

Well obviously, we are about to be a full expansion removed from it. Same thing happened with WoD. Everyone was in agreement it was awful early Legion, then opinions shifted slowly during the course of Legion until by the time we reached BfA it had transformed from "WoD is the worst" to "WoD was amazing actually".

Same thing will happen to SL come this time in two years. Barely anyone will even mention once controversial topics like "Semi-permanent Covenants", or "Poorly balanced raids", and noone will remember the long droughts, thats for sure.
Instead everyone will likely be reminiscing about how unique the expansion was, how good it was at giving rewards from Open World content. The wealth of rewards to be gained from various activities in the Covenants, multiplied by 4 even.

This time in two years SL will be the little expansion that was actually amazing except a few niggling little problems, not the mess only saved from the bottom two by virtue of WoD objectively having almost nothing to do, and BfA being a plot suicide with a side of botched gameplay systems.

I don't think people went with WoD was amazing. What I did see was that "Well WoD is not the worst expansion anymore" (it is). Or that WoD had some great parts to it (it did). BfA also has some things that were great imo (the zones themselves, the Essence system and personally I'd say War Mode). And I am sure Shadowlands has some solid parts too? (maybe with some time I'll see them!)