Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Dracullus]

In comparison to BC and Vanilla yes. Today? Yeah I agree its aged a little bit.

It's currently worst mandatory questline on retail. It's strange that old race DKs can't choose Bolvar prologue instead.

[Nymrohd]

Damn the protodrake has the tiniest of hands.

[AngerFork]

It's currently worst mandatory questline on retail. It's strange that old race DKs can't choose Bolvar prologue instead.

I'm amazed they haven't made that optional like they did with Exile's Reach vs. old starting areas. Surely Bolvar brought back a Blood Elf or two as a DK when he was bringing back the Allied Races.

[Gloriandus]

The main thing I wanted to try out is the new UI. It's obviously VERY much a "work in progress", but needs a lot of tweaks, like individual scaling on things like the minimap. I scale my UI up quite a bit (bad eyes) and many elements simply don't scale at all, or are too large and unable to be scaled. A few initial views:

An option to show class power more like the new unitframe does with health/power:



If you hide the buffs, the arrow should recede to the minimap bar for less clutter:



You STILL can't move the chat box to the bottom edge of the screen. Minor but has always bugged me.



Need a way to fade/on mouseover these, like Bartender; just more visual clutter, especially the bags.

[Celement]

If Dragonriding is successful, they will expand it. And if they expand it, it is unlikely they will leave that many mounts unused. They will have to do the work if they choose to keep it forward.

I don't think it will be successful myself... it's an inferior form of flying. It's better then the usual locked out flying but it's still an annoyance when it doesn't bug out and put itself on cd.

[Makabreska]

I'm amazed they haven't made that optional like they did with Exile's Reach vs. old starting areas. Surely Bolvar brought back a Blood Elf or two as a DK when he was bringing back the Allied Races.

Even DH starting zone is obnoxious. No idea why we still have both of them for consecutive characters.

[Nymrohd]

Even DH starting zone is obnoxious. No idea why we still have both of them for consecutive characters.

Damn, I actually enjoy them every time . . .

- - - Updated - - -

The main thing I wanted to try out is the new UI. It's obviously VERY much a "work in progress", but needs a lot of tweaks, like individual scaling on things like the minimap. I scale my UI up quite a bit (bad eyes) and many elements simply don't scale at all, or are too large and unable to be scaled. A few initial views:

An option to show class power more like the new unitframe does with health/power:



If you hide the buffs, the arrow should recede to the minimap bar for less clutter:



You STILL can't move the chat box to the bottom edge of the screen. Minor but has always bugged me.



Need a way to fade/on mouseover these, like Bartender; just more visual clutter, especially the bags.

We really need a lot more options in general. AS you said, I am baffled that there is no scaling for the minimap (your only options are to move it around and flip the name tag. No customization for the bag and menu icons. No idea why Action Bar 1 also includes bar 2 with a scrolldown instead of having the option for separate bars (or really, letting us map buttons more freely in an advanced mode). Also baffled there is no automatic alignment.

I was also hoping that if Blizzard ever redid the UI they'd enable a version with more cosmetics. I like a pretty UI more than I like a lightweight UI.

[Lahis]

I was also hoping that if Blizzard ever redid the UI they'd enable a version with more cosmetics. I like a pretty UI more than I like a lightweight UI.

Modern UIX design principle for anything is Minimalist White so I doubt they'll be adding any visual elements for the UI.

[TickTickTick]

Check your launchers, new beta invites probably went through. I just got mine last night (EU).

[Nymrohd]

Modern UIX design principle for anything is Minimalist White so I doubt they'll be adsing any visual elements foenthw UI.

I just like my UI to be fancy I have so much real estate in my screen, it can take some cosmetics

[Arkura]

Check your launchers, new beta invites probably went through. I just got mine last night (EU).

One can only dream. Next week then!

[Sondrelk]

I don't think it will be successful myself... it's an inferior form of flying. It's better then the usual locked out flying but it's still an annoyance when it doesn't bug out and put itself on cd.

Old flying is barely even a gameplay element. It's a button to remove gameplay and reduce open world exploration to its most basic version, as in you move completely free from restrictions, away from danger, and with none of the actual moment to moment gameplay offered by other movement options.

Flying has lacked any actual gameplay ever since it was added in TBC, and it's clear that Blizzard has been in a constant battle to actually prevent it from just making the open world gameplay collapse in on itself.
They tried to make the zone larger in Cata, didn't work.
They tried making the endgame questing areas in elevated areas, didn't work.
They tried removing flight entirely in WoD, didn't work because they didn't have open world content worth mentioning.
In Legion they finally managed to get open world content to work, and they did so by not having flying.

DF is adding Dragonriding to try to give a new version of flying that can actually enhance gameplay, and not just reduce it.


Besides, everyone seems to love it, so unless Blizzard shits the bed with its implementation, then I imagine it will be carried forwards, and likely even expanded on.

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Modern UIX design principle for anything is Minimalist White so I doubt they'll be adding any visual elements for the UI.

There are some visual elements. The gryphons on the side of the action bar are still there, even if they look a bit different.

Personally i think my biggest gripe are the UI elements in the bottom right corner (dungeon journal, collections, etc.)
Feels like they are likely to just disappear into the background without any defining coloration to make them visible at a glance.

[Nymrohd]

There are some visual elements. The gryphons on the side of the action bar are still there, even if they look a bit different.

To be fair, that's not some. That's one. There isn't another.

[Sondrelk]

To be fair, that's not some. That's one. There isn't another.

There isn't exactly that many visual elements that stand out in the current one either though. It's mainly the colour scheme that is a bit more colorful, as well as the tiny border around things.

[Nymrohd]

There isn't exactly that many visual elements that stand out in the current one either though. It's mainly the colour scheme that is a bit more colorful, as well as the tiny border around things.

The border helps though. I mean just look at the menu and bag UI, without the border all the empty space makes them fade in the background and makes choosing the right choice on the menu harder. I think they should have offered options for background and borders for at least the action bar UI and the minimap UI.

Oh have to add, I don't see any ability to move quest/achievement tracking either.

[Sondrelk]

The border helps though. I mean just look at the menu and bag UI, without the border all the empty space makes them fade in the background and makes choosing the right choice on the menu harder. I think they should have offered options for background and borders for at least the action bar UI and the minimap UI.

Oh have to add, I don't see any ability to move quest/achievement tracking either.

That's true. There are definitely a lack of clear option for different version of the UI as far as I can see.

[Nymrohd]

That's true. There are definitely a lack of clear option for different version of the UI as far as I can see.

And to an extent I always considered visually pleasing UIs to be a big strength of blizzard. Their Icons are so crisp (I'm actually annoyed we don't get to see most quest items anymore which go into an invisible bag of sorts because they DO have icons in the data and someone actually makes the effort to pick something fitting) and the UI usually frames their games well.

Moving to a lightweight UI effectively just gives me a WORSE version of what I can get with addons. If I am getting it from Blizzard with much less options I'd at least like to get better visuals

[Avikur]

Does anyone know if it's worth me saving my sandworn relics to kit my Evoker out in starter 246 gear when the prepatch launches or will they get better from the starter area?

[Sondrelk]

Does anyone know if it's worth me saving my sandworn relics to kit my Evoker out in starter 246 gear when the prepatch launches or will they get better from the starter area?

You'll almost certainly get better gear from the Pre-patch events. Usually it's at least LFR quality, if not NM quality. Not to mention easily gatherable.

[Berkilak]

I like cosmic lore when it consists of 5 adventurers discovering an ancient Titanic artifact in Uldaman.

When Elves dwelling on the slopes of a massive tree worship a mysterious moon goddess.

When stalwart defenders of a kingdom wield the Light to smite their undead foes into dust.

I absolutely loathe cosmic lore when it sends us to meet the robotic progenitors of Death, or has us imprison gargantuan Lord of the Burning Legion inside a space station, or explains to us the physical properties of magic and why it's all really just some kind of artificial battery juice.

Yep. It's great when it's used for background world-building. When it takes center stage, as it did with Legion, it should still be mostly unknowable with the actual main narrative thread starring, as it did with Legion. We got character moments with Alleria, Illidan, Velen, and more. We didn't get diatribes on the true nature of chaos and its essential nature as a cog in the cosmic machine and tripe like that. Character moments are interesting - revealing the mechanics of the mystery completely robs those mysterious elements of their potency as there is simply no way that WarCraft-grade writing (even at its best) can ever measure up to the potency of mystery.