Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Avikur]

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.

Shadowlands:

Pre patch PTR release date: August 12th 2020
Pre patch release date: October 13th 2020

BFA:

Pre patch PTR release date: 14th June 2018
Pre patch release date: 17th July 2018

Legion:

Pre patch PTR release date: 14th June 2016
Pre patch release date: 19th July 2016


I wouldn't expect the DF pre patch on the PTR before the middle to end of September if the leaked dates are real.

[Khaza-R]

Would be odd to update buildings and have higher texture stuff next to lower texture stuff though?

That's already the case with many NPC models. Its rather jarring to see an HD gnoll now next to the very dated textures in Westfall.

But that said, if they were planning on slowly updating the old world you would think they would go for the skybox first. Since that's probably one of the lowest efforts ways they could dramatically make the old world look better.

[Makabreska]

Replace buildings around the world.... without updating the zone as a whole.

Wonderful idea, the zones sure are gonna look fine with HD buildings sitting next to ancient polygon trees and environment textures that consist of exactly 5 pixels.

This already happens every time they upgrade NPC models. Go check Maraudon after DF releases. Or when they updated Arathi/Hillsbrad buildings.

[Hyrja]

Shadowlands:

Pre patch PTR release date: August 12th 2020
Pre patch release date: October 13th 2020

BFA:

Pre patch PTR release date: 14th June 2018
Pre patch release date: 17th July 2018

Legion:

Pre patch PTR release date: 14th June 2016
Pre patch release date: 19th July 2016


I wouldn't expect the DF pre patch on the PTR before the middle to end of September if the leaked dates are real.

Could be any week before mid september too

[rainhard]

World revamp meme will never die!

That is because it is not a meme but a certain future, next expansion actually for sure too.

[Makabreska]

That is because it is not a meme but a certain future, next expansion actually for sure too.

Actually for sure 100% this time definitely no doubt guaranteed as foretold?

[Dracullus]

Shit, leak got very credible just in few hours. Now I really want to know how they will deal with Season 1 if release is Nov 28th. I see 4 options (listed from least to most likely):

1) Move everything to January - very unlikely, but you know we thought 2022 release will be impossible as well. But I think 5+ weeks with just M0 would kill whole hype pretty fast.

2) Raid coming 13th December, Mythic 20th. I know they don't want to repeat Sepulcher sitution, but it's likely race will last more than 5 days. If affects like ~200 people at most, but still would be shitty thing to do from Blizzard.

3) Mythic difficulty coming on 13th December along Normal/Heroic, on 20th only first wing LFR. That would be my favourite solution, don't raid Mythic so I don't know how these guys react - still looks like better alternative than Christmas raiding though.

4) Imo most likely - we will have just 1 week of no season, raid coming 6th, mythic 13th. In this case expect many "do you neeeeed??" in mythic dungeons on first week.

But still, it's strange they would corner themselves so much with this date. Looks like there is no room for delay. Even slightest delay could cause 2023 release and missing Christmas season.

World revamp meme will never die!

Yep, this will be main thing during 11.0 speculation, especially since (presumably) next expansion will launch around 20th anniversary.

[Nymrohd]

Yep, this will be main thing during 11.0 speculation, especially since (presumably) next expansion will launch around 20th anniversary.

Honestly for me, it will die if it's not in 11.0

[Kiivar86]

If nothing else, it is amusing to me to see world revamp people go "this is it, this is the expansion for it" time and again.

Broken clock and all that jazz, I suppose.

[MightyWarrior]

I agree, the game will die without a world revamp in 11.0.

This shits getting ooooold

[therumblings]

The longer we wait, the higher chance a world revamp is likely to happen. The game is getting older and while the new player experience is pretty good, so much of the old world is outdated and as time marches on it becomes much more obvious.

[enigma77]

where build reeeeeeeeeeeee

[Aedruid]

The look of the Dracthyr ruined all good will I had for a dragon themed expansion. All "badass-ness" just went out the window when they were introduced. A talent calculator that has me spec into things I already currently have as a Feral Druid is boring. Meh, I'm the fence. I might just play classic WoW for a little bit longer and retire. I'm not a fan of Disney/Pixar graphics. Just not my cup of tee.

[Dracullus]

Honestly for me, it will die if it's not in 11.0

Depends what you mean by revamp. Many people expect something like Cata revamp, so whole leveling 1-X in new areas. So de facto WoW II.

I think more about revisiting EK or Kalimdor which is much, much more feasible. We even had sorta kinda something like that in WoD.

The longer we wait, the higher chance a world revamp is likely to happen. The game is getting older and while the new player experience is pretty good, so much of the old world is outdated and as time marches on it becomes much more obvious.

You got that "revamp" with SL. Currently ALL content older than BfA with few exceptions (DK starting zone, dunno why older races can't pick Bolvar intro) is "archiva" content that new player won't even see before endgame.

Sure, they can refresh textures from time to time like when they have some resources to spare, but pointless to change old content itself. I bet that if Cata would come today, old world wouldn't be erased, but kept as side stuff as well.

[Marlamin]

Depends what you mean by revamp. Many people expect something like Cata revamp, so whole leveling 1-X in new areas. So de facto WoW II.

I think more about revisiting EK or Kalimdor which is much, much more feasible. We even had sorta kinda something like that in WoD.

I don't think Northrend is out of the question either, there's a lot of assets in Dragonflight that are basically just uprezzed Northrend assets. And with WotLK Classic being a thing there's not a lot of reason to keep Northrend as it is now around either.

[therumblings]

I bet that if Cata would come today, old world wouldn't be erased, but kept as side stuff as well.

I don't see them ever doing another Cata style revamp especially one that destroys the old stuff, I just want the old zones to be up to 2022 standards. Having the classic world as an option in Chromie time would be great but it's probably not worth the work at this point.

[Valysar]

Servers down yet?

Yes they are offline

[Lahis]

So the leaked schedule has been double confirmed now. The image in the previous post has been nuked from the internet.

And WotLK Classic prepatch has been confirmed for August 30th, just as the leaked schedule said.

[AngerFork]

Shit, leak got very credible just in few hours. Now I really want to know how they will deal with Season 1 if release is Nov 28th. I see 4 options (listed from least to most likely):

1) Move everything to January - very unlikely, but you know we thought 2022 release will be impossible as well. But I think 5+ weeks with just M0 would kill whole hype pretty fast.

2) Raid coming 13th December, Mythic 20th. I know they don't want to repeat Sepulcher sitution, but it's likely race will last more than 5 days. If affects like ~200 people at most, but still would be shitty thing to do from Blizzard.

3) Mythic difficulty coming on 13th December along Normal/Heroic, on 20th only first wing LFR. That would be my favourite solution, don't raid Mythic so I don't know how these guys react - still looks like better alternative than Christmas raiding though.

4) Imo most likely - we will have just 1 week of no season, raid coming 6th, mythic 13th. In this case expect many "do you neeeeed??" in mythic dungeons on first week.

But still, it's strange they would corner themselves so much with this date. Looks like there is no room for delay. Even slightest delay could cause 2023 release and missing Christmas season.

I don't know, this feels like they get a lot of room to move with these dates at least as far as releasing in 2022. If they don't hit 11/28, they still have 3 more pre-holiday weeks they can hit for the expansion to launch before it is into 2023. Any delay in start time & we probably are looking at scenario #1 you listed, it's otherwise just too narrow of a window to hit. If they can hit that date, I wouldn't be surprised to see Scenario #3 play out, possibly even with LFR being passed over until January or just released alongside everything else with the understanding that LFR 2 will take an extra week or two due to the holidays. Mythic over the holidays can definitely be a bit of a pain & they won't want to have all hands on deck bug-fixing in late December.

The longer we wait, the higher chance a world revamp is likely to happen. The game is getting older and while the new player experience is pretty good, so much of the old world is outdated and as time marches on it becomes much more obvious.

Agreed, and I still think 11.0 seems like a likely time for it to occur. 20th Anniversary of WoW, first expansion under Microsoft, plus probably a lot of the current crew at Blizzard kind of want to remove the influence of some of the earlier dev team after the recent controversies. A revamp allows everyone a fresh reset, especially if there has been any sort of underlying secretive engine reworks or the like under the surface.

[Gaidax]

I highly doubt DF will release Nov 29, maybe it's actually a plan - but I don't see how they gonna sort all the trees and stuff out for prepatch in 2 months from now, especially given they have to add 2 more classes, let alone all this NYI everywhere.

I bet they will do it like in Shlands with delay.