Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Nymrohd]

So to discuss a different topic.
How would everyone feel about Tuskarr and Gnolls becoming new ARs. We have found some Gnolls who are at least decently able to not be rabid, and Tuskarr of course can seemingly already wear regular player armor.

Would you want these two as AR? And more importantly which factions do you think they will end up in?
Personally feel like Gnolls would go to Alliance given the Hogger connection, but equally this could be a good reason to have them be Horde. Not sure about reasons for Tuskarr to join either though. I guess shamanistic connections for Horde, and being similar to Kul Tirans culturally for Alliance.

Honestly I just want to play a cool Gnoll doing fun Gnoll stuff.

We did have a friendly Gnoll female in the Traveler comic as well. Would be nice to know a bit more about either of them before.

THey did make them a lot more player-friendly in appearance and I assume that mogs would work for Gnolls like they do for Worgen (badly).

The Tuskar are interesting. I thought they die if you move them to warm climates? They have their fans, their racial mount is adorable and we will probably get significant world building when it comes to their culture (we already had a decent amount of information tbh).

Honestly I hate the forced faction connection that comes with ARs. Just make them neutral and let them choose a faction. Pepper a few NPCs on either side in the future so people who choose them feel represented. That said I cannot see a gnoll walking in Stormwind making sense. It would be like a quillboar walking in Orgrimmar. So if it had to be that pair, I'd say Alliance for Tuskar and Gnolls for Horde? Still would prefer both for both.

[Darkarath]

So to discuss a different topic.
How would everyone feel about Tuskarr and Gnolls becoming new ARs. We have found some Gnolls who are at least decently able to not be rabid, and Tuskarr of course can seemingly already wear regular player armor.

Would you want these two as AR? And more importantly which factions do you think they will end up in?
Personally feel like Gnolls would go to Alliance given the Hogger connection, but equally this could be a good reason to have them be Horde. Not sure about reasons for Tuskarr to join either though. I guess shamanistic connections for Horde, and being similar to Kul Tirans culturally for Alliance.

Honestly I just want to play a cool Gnoll doing fun Gnoll stuff.

Gnolls and Tuskar, and probably most of Allied Races that they become playable from now on (if they ever add more), should be neutral, especially with cross faction content and cross faction guilds soon enough.

The problem that I have with Allied Races is that ok, I get it, its cool to have more options, but none of these races (or the original ones) are being developed at all. More playable races means more damage to the lore IMO, but Blizzard clearly do not give a damn about Warcraft lore, so they might do It.

Although historical neutral races like Murlocs, Gnolls, Tuskarr, etc. should stay that way IMO. They should never be playable. I mean, we have commited genocide against them multiple times, I cannot see why they would join us (not against the Tuskarr though).

[Sondrelk]

We did have a friendly Gnoll female in the Traveler comic as well. Would be nice to know a bit more about either of them before.

THey did make them a lot more player-friendly in appearance and I assume that mogs would work for Gnolls like they do for Worgen (badly).

The Tuskar are interesting. I thought they die if you move them to warm climates? They have their fans, their racial mount is adorable and we will probably get significant world building when it comes to their culture (we already had a decent amount of information tbh).

Honestly I hate the forced faction connection that comes with ARs. Just make them neutral and let them choose a faction. Pepper a few NPCs on either side in the future so people who choose them feel represented. That said I cannot see a gnoll walking in Stormwind making sense. It would be like a quillboar walking in Orgrimmar. So if it had to be that pair, I'd say Alliance for Tuskar and Gnolls for Horde? Still would prefer both for both.

Gnolls walking around Stor Wind wouldn't necessarily make less sense than Dracthyr or Death Knights walking around. Worgen as well were considered a beast with no redeeming qualities until Cata.

Just make a clear distinction that the gnolls we play are more civilized than the ones we kill in Elwynn. We don't have any issues with the humans in Storm wind despite the cutpurses and bandits being just as big a problem for travellers.

[Super Dickmann]

I just find it weird that a genius like Kil'jaeden would not know he had an entire race of double/triple agents working for them and would not have researched what they were doing. It's not like the Eredar are not accomplished necromancers (Auchenai necromancy certainly seems far more advanced than what Scourge necromancers do tbh)

Of course they could have known and like you say, not cared. Their plans were just not incompatible.

And yeah always felt that if anything, the Legion was the worst thing that could have happened for the realms of Death. Death must have starved for anima compared to each peak gains long before the Arbiter got BSOD because the Legion was destroying souls (and thus potential anima) at a massive scale and Death barely did anything against them.

But hey Zovaal is probably peak failing upwards vibes.

There isn't anything in the Legion necromancy line-up that works off the scale of what Dreadlords have made it, be it runeblades, Apocalypse or the Blade, so it makes sense they'd be given more dibs on handling Argus than the Eredar. There's also the question of how much the Auchenai are actually using Void, given the naaru working as soul magnets are the reason the place works.

That said, the only time the Dreadlords work outside the bounds of the Legion before the SL retcon, notwithstanding swaying Sargeras in the first place is in TFT, where they fail spectacularly. Since it's a retcon, we never actually see any of this, but as far as retcons go, it slots fairly neatly in KJ believing he could put them to work without cost to himself as he effectively does at all times. He also doesn't trust them more than he can throw them, tasking Illidan with going after the Lich King after the Legion loses in Hyjal instead of the Dreadlords still active in the Scourge, despite controlling the Lich King being their whole job, which only makes more sense post-SL.

That the Legion screwed over the Bald Man is stated obliquely in BFA and is pretty implicit afterwards since souls end up there, so while the above is just conjecture that lines up well, it's a case where anything except the extremely specific set of events that lead to the PCs killing Argus would've ruined the Bald Man's plan and ended up in Sargeras's victory. The story could've made this even smoother by any number of ways, from retroactively explaining the ease with which we crash into Antorus with Lothraxion and the Dreadlords coordinating so the Legion never nabbed the ship and Antorus's defenses were sabotaged, to having the Bald Man literally adjust fate to make it happen with his weird machine or, the simplest of all, have the entire Argus plan of breaking the Arbiter be a reserve option in case the Legion lot to still keep them on the winning side with all the rest being posturing to say that, no, really, they always meant to do that. But it at best implies some of these things, so here we are.

[Nymrohd]

Gnolls walking around Stor Wind wouldn't necessarily make less sense than Dracthyr or Death Knights walking around. Worgen as well were considered a beast with no redeeming qualities until Cata.

Just make a clear distinction that the gnolls we play are more civilized than the ones we kill in Elwynn. We don't have any issues with the humans in Storm wind despite the cutpurses and bandits being just as big a problem for travellers.

The issue is, are we sure that every quest the Alliance or Horde gives has a proper excuse for killing gnolls other than them being gnolls? I would hope it does but sadly in RPGs it may not be so.

[Sondrelk]

Gnolls and Tuskar, and probably most of Allied Races that they become playable from now on (if they ever add more), should be neutral, especially with cross faction content and cross faction guilds soon enough.

The problem that I have with Allied Races is that ok, I get it, its cool to have more options, but none of these races (or the original ones) are being developed at all. More playable races means more damage to the lore IMO, but Blizzard clearly do not give a damn about Warcraft lore, so they might do It.

Although historical neutral races like Murlocs, Gnolls, Tuskarr, etc. should stay that way IMO. They should never be playable. I mean, we have commited genocide against them multiple times, I cannot see why they would join us (not against the Tuskarr though).

A neutral AR would probably be the easiest solution. Just completely sidestep the issue of which factions gets which AR.

That being said, I do feel like I used to read that Tuskarr was a better fit for Horde, at least back in WotLK. Though that could also be because they were not compared to Gnolls.

[Nymrohd]

have the entire Argus plan of breaking the Arbiter be a reserve option in case the Legion lot to still keep them on the winning side with all the rest being posturing to say that, no, really, they always meant to do that. But it at best implies some of these things, so here we are.

One thing Shadowlands' cosmological shift has shown which probably was true in the Chronicle and even before is the futility of Sargeras' plan. I mean sure, you kill everything then there is nothing for the Void Lords to eat or use to manifest. Doesn't kill them. Doesn't really change anything for any of the six forces. And the interplay between Void and Light in the Nether would eventually create MORE matter whatever Sargeras did; he'd be in clean up duty for eternity. There was no way to reset the world; he could hardly travel it given how vast it was let alone control it. So he is not just a nihilist, he is also a moron. And that goes for Kil'jaeden too. I felt that it was implied that KJ did not do everything just for power but because he somehow agreed that Sargeras plan was right (or at least that stopping him was futile). Yet if he had ever bothered to really break one of those Nathrezim double agents in some private lab and get the information he needed, he might have found that there was an actual path to success, to a reality without the Void. Because Zovaal at least lucked into the sepulcher that would have allowed him to reset the laws of creation, which is exactly what Sargeras needed.

- - - Updated - - -

A neutral AR would probably be the easiest solution. Just completely sidestep the issue of which factions gets which AR.

That being said, I do feel like I used to read that Tuskarr was a better fit for Horde, at least back in WotLK. Though that could also be because they were not compared to Gnolls.

I mean back then when you heard Horde you thought Orcs and Trolls so a shamanic race made sense. These days the Horde probably has a much larger population of urban races (Blood Elves, Nightborne, Zandalari) than it does of shamanic clan based races. A Tuskar is probably a better fit next to a Night Elf than it is next to a Nightborne.

[Sondrelk]

The issue is, are we sure that every quest the Alliance or Horde gives has a proper excuse for killing gnolls other than them being gnolls? I would hope it does but sadly in RPGs it may not be so.

Pretty sure the reason is implicitly that they kill travellers and are a general nuisance, same as most things we kill.

Really is should be a simple question of whether the friendly gnolls are willing to help us stop the bad ones which is evidently the case with the gnolls we meet.

[Super Dickmann]

One thing Shadowlands' cosmological shift has shown which probably was true in the Chronicle and even before is the futility of Sargeras' plan. I mean sure, you kill everything then there is nothing for the Void Lords to eat or use to manifest. Doesn't kill them. Doesn't really change anything for any of the six forces. And the interplay between Void and Light in the Nether would eventually create MORE matter whatever Sargeras did; he'd be in clean up duty for eternity. There was no way to reset the world; he could hardly travel it given how vast it was let alone control it. So he is not just a nihilist, he is also a moron. And that goes for Kil'jaeden too. I felt that it was implied that KJ did not do everything just for power but because he somehow agreed that Sargeras plan was right (or at least that stopping him was futile). Yet if he had ever bothered to really break one of those Nathrezim double agents in some private lab and get the information he needed, he might have found that there was an actual path to success, to a reality without the Void. Because Zovaal at least lucked into the sepulcher that would have allowed him to reset the laws of creation, which is exactly what Sargeras needed.

To give credit to Sarg, the only life he really needed to get rid of for sure were the world souls and since Mists we've been told that Azeroth is the biggest and last one. The Void Lords need her or another world soul to manifest, and the only ones left will either be part of his new Pantheon or dead. At that point, while he wouldn't make a new world and would be stuck at eternal clean-up, he wouldn't be alone and only world souls really need his personal attention, the other Titans'd be able to head off with their own warbands and he can shack up with his new wife Azeroth in a nice corner of the galaxy. He had by that point overpowered most of the cosmos after all. A world where everyone who dies is either a demon and so immortal and not going through the correct channels or burnt for fuel is one that starves the Shadowlands, making the Bald Man a non-factor. The Light's Army he's already defeated, and all the Titans would be up with him. That leaves what, Elune? Dude would never get the fresh start he was after, but the rest of his plan would go fairly well.

On the last point, it's unclear how much they actually know about how the Bald Man would go about his plan, but this is yet another aspect where the story could badly have used more juice. We could've been shown the Legion attack instead of being told in a random Maldraxxus grave site or whatever.

[Nymrohd]

To give credit to Sarg, the only life he really needed to get rid of for sure were the world souls and since Mists we've been told that Azeroth is the biggest and last one.

We've been told that by people who clearly don't know better. The Pantheon did not seem to know about Argus. The Legion has been traveling across the cosmos for aeons and without dimensional portals they clearly cannot get that far easily so chances that they missed something should not be small. We see from Etraeus and other sources that there are plenty of Void controlled planets. So yeah we have every reason to believe there is no Void Lord incarnate in Reality but if Blizzard decides to present us with a new World Soul, I would not call that a retcon.

At any point a new World Soul could be created after all. In some distant corner of the cosmos, make itself a nice little planet, away from the Void Lords poop flinging path and born into some new Titan.

- - - Updated - - -

On the last point, it's unclear how much they actually know about how the Bald Man would go about his plan, but this is yet another aspect where the story could badly have used more juice. We could've been shown the Legion attack instead of being told in a random Maldraxxus grave site or whatever.

I still don't know how Zovaal himself had any idea what he'd find in the Sepulcher. The entire point of the story was that it was hidden. He never managed to get inside originally. He did not have agents there before he got there. Maybe Roh-Kalo knew or he found the information in Korthia but that means his plan only actually had an end goal in the last few months. So how he knew there was machinery to reset the cosmos, knew how it worked and subverted Arthas to create the Soul Forge back in Icecrown to power it up that would properly interface with the First Ones' tech . . . I am drawing a blank here.

[Super Dickmann]

We've been told that by people who clearly don't know better. The Pantheon did not seem to know about Argus. The Legion has been traveling across the cosmos for aeons and without dimensional portals they clearly cannot get that far easily so chances that they missed something should not be small. We see from Etraeus and other sources that there are plenty of Void controlled planets. So yeah we have every reason to believe there is no Void Lord incarnate in Reality but if Blizzard decides to present us with a new World Soul, I would not call that a retcon.

At any point a new World Soul could be created after all. In some distant corner of the cosmos, make itself a nice little planet, away from the Void Lords poop flinging path and born into some new Titan.

I wouldn't consider a new world soul a retcon either, but we know the Legion is fairly widespread in the cosmos and their opponent would be chucking space tumors at random, and with his Pantheon around he'd not need to be everywhere at once. It's not foolproof, but in terms of a technical success, it's not that hard.

I still don't know how Zovaal himself had any idea what he'd find in the Sepulcher. The entire point of the story was that it was hidden. He never managed to get inside originally. He did not have agents there before he got there. Maybe Roh-Kalo knew or he found the information in Korthia but that means his plan only actually had an end goal in the last few months. So how he knew there was machinery to reset the cosmos, knew how it worked and subverted Arthas to create the Soul Forge back in Icecrown to power it up that would properly interface with the First Ones' tech . . . I am drawing a blank here.

He and the other Eternal Ones know that the Sepulcher was where they and their plot coupons were made and they're prohibited to enter, per the Primus. There's also stuff from them scattered across the Shadowlands to examine and even a rando Broker like Firim could hear about the concept and eventually hit the right mark and being the WoW Devil gives him a lot more resources than an Ethereal lookalike. He doesn't need to know how exactly things inside it work, since he has universal control magic on whatever he might find which is how he ends up interacting with the automa anyway. Having a machine built to harness the strongest (and only) world soul, which we know that other forces e.g. the Void Lords can use to manifest and reshape reality past what the Titans can do, would give him a power source no matter what he finds. It's not exactly brightly telegraphed, but the reasoning is there, the dude is just such a non-character the only way to piece together where he's coming from is by reference to other characters.

The entire Soul Forge bit is at once visually cool and complete nonsense in how little the narrative bothers to explain it. It reeks of cut content.

[Nymrohd]

The entire Soul Forge bit is at once visually cool and complete nonsense in how little the narrative bothers to explain it. It reeks of cut content.

Kind of wish it had been used. Really the Soul Forge was a cool concept that made no sense during ICC and perhaps the only thing that points to them having some vague idea about a Lich King-related villain using the World Soul in the future which would have been some solid planning on their part. I really find it hard to believe they actually DID plan that ofc.

Also I now have this idea of how it might have been if instead of being blandness incarnate, Zovaal had been themed after James Brown like Bronjahm was, with a Superbad based cover as his theme song. We need a villain with a deep v-neck!

[huth]

We've been told that by people who clearly don't know better. The Pantheon did not seem to know about Argus. The Legion has been traveling across the cosmos for aeons and without dimensional portals they clearly cannot get that far easily so chances that they missed something should not be small. We see from Etraeus and other sources that there are plenty of Void controlled planets. So yeah we have every reason to believe there is no Void Lord incarnate in Reality but if Blizzard decides to present us with a new World Soul, I would not call that a retcon.

At any point a new World Soul could be created after all. In some distant corner of the cosmos, make itself a nice little planet, away from the Void Lords poop flinging path and born into some new Titan.

Frankly, anybody who remotely knows anything about space would have guessed something like this. Even if they destroyed a planet every minute since they arrived at Argus, they'd not have finished a single galaxy yet out of an entire universe and we know anybody who puts up a fight took considerably longer than that, and even those that didn't tended to take longer. Sargeras' plan never made sense to begin with.

The Titan plan feels like it was actually his main goal, since it seems slightly more sensible. Wouldn't put it past him to vastly overestimate their capabilities and still not quite get just how big the mission is.


Zovaal makes far more sense if you look at him as a serial opportunist, not a cunning long-term planner. Throw everything at the wall, see what sticks, then build from there. Rinse, repeat.

[Sondrelk]

Frankly, anybody who remotely knows anything about space would have guessed something like this. Even if they destroyed a planet every minute since they arrived at Argus, they'd not have finished a single galaxy yet out of an entire universe and we know anybody who puts up a fight took considerably longer than that, and even those that didn't tended to take longer. Sargeras' plan never made sense to begin with.

The Titan plan feels like it was actually his main goal, since it seems slightly more sensible. Wouldn't put it past him to vastly overestimate their capabilities and still not quite get just how big the mission is.


Zovaal makes far more sense if you look at him as a serial opportunist, not a cunning long-term planner. Throw everything at the wall, see what sticks, then build from there. Rinse, repeat.

I still stand by that the best route his character could have taken is to really lean into the "predetermined universe" angle. He rebelled because he knew he would rebel in a sense. His only recourse for going against his preprogrammed destiny was to ironically do nothing but judge souls forever. He went to the Sepulcher both because he was destined to, and because it was where he knew he could change his destiny.

Everything could be built around this. He doesnt care about us because it's inconsequential to his plans. He knows we are just as much chained to the First Ones will as much as he is, so he doesnt care to talk. He knows he will eventually manage to escape, so he just waits until the pieces fall into place. And once we defeat him he doesnt really resist, because he has already succumbed.

It would add a certain spice to both him, but also to the First Ones. How much is actually pre-planned. Is everything pre-planned, or is it just him? Did he lose because he was destined to, or because he believed he was?


Anything more than boring bald guy who menaces us menacingly.

[Celement]

I still stand by that the best route his character could have taken is to really lean into the "predetermined universe" angle. He rebelled because he knew he would rebel in a sense. His only recourse for going against his preprogrammed destiny was to ironically do nothing but judge souls forever. He went to the Sepulcher both because he was destined to, and because it was where he knew he could change his destiny.

Everything could be built around this. He doesnt care about us because it's inconsequential to his plans. He knows we are just as much chained to the First Ones will as much as he is, so he doesnt care to talk. He knows he will eventually manage to escape, so he just waits until the pieces fall into place. And once we defeat him he doesnt really resist, because he has already succumbed.

It would add a certain spice to both him, but also to the First Ones. How much is actually pre-planned. Is everything pre-planned, or is it just him? Did he lose because he was destined to, or because he believed he was?


Anything more than boring bald guy who menaces us menacingly.

The goal of the character was to put the old lore to rest once and for all.

He doesn't fit into the story any other way.

[Nymrohd]

It would add a certain spice to both him, but also to the First Ones. How much is actually pre-planned. Is everything pre-planned, or is it just him? Did he lose because he was destined to, or because he believed he was?


Anything more than boring bald guy who menaces us menacingly.

The way I see it Reality was really not pre-planned. Seems to me that the First Ones planned the six forces (hence the Zereths) pretty much to set up the experiment happening in Reality. What would happen there was not really predetermined. So yeah, Zovaal and the realm he was built to serve had a specific goal with significant predestination but that's not the real focus of the cosmos. If anything he should be pissed he was built as a utility.

[Nightshade711]

Idk if I missed it or not…
But are we expecting 10.0 PTR this week? Given that the PTR servers were taken down down last week.

[Nymrohd]

Idk if I missed it or not…
But are we expecting 10.0 PTR this week? Given that the PTR servers were taken down down last week.

I don't think we have evidence for or against? You should probably @ Marlamin for something like this in case there is a pattern with past builds? Imo it seems way too early, from what we know the talent UI is really not stable and too many classes need a pass still. Imo many specs need a couple of passes on their talents before they are ready for PTR.

[Sondrelk]

The way I see it Reality was really not pre-planned. Seems to me that the First Ones planned the six forces (hence the Zereths) pretty much to set up the experiment happening in Reality. What would happen there was not really predetermined. So yeah, Zovaal and the realm he was built to serve had a specific goal with significant predestination but that's not the real focus of the cosmos. If anything he should be pissed he was built as a utility.

I imagine the "twist" the writers are going for is that the mystery seventh force Zovaal was so scared of will end up being reality.
Fits quite well with what we know of it so far, and would be a decently good twist in regards to the constant shifting of forces being good or bad depending on who from our reality uses it next.

[Nymrohd]

I imagine the "twist" the writers are going for is that the mystery seventh force Zovaal was so scared of will end up being reality.
Fits quite well with what we know of it so far, and would be a decently good twist in regards to the constant shifting of forces being good or bad depending on who from our reality uses it next.

I think the twist will be the mythological constant of "In the beginning there, was nothing". The First Ones displaced that "Nothing" and it is probably pissed with all this reality and six forces squatting at its home.