Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Varodoc]

For once, I find myself in full agreement with you. Turalyon has a lot of the makings of a warhawk & has already done questionable things, not to mention his talk about wanting to take back the other human kingdoms. However, he had years to start that effort & the Alliance does not appear to be currently at war with the Horde. He hasn't visibly tried to force the issue. We also saw that he's willing to learn & adjust his past views from his interaction with Alonsus Faol in Before The Storm. Plus we also have to remember that the Light's control over him seems to have faded with X'era's death. His eyes during the Rejection of the Gift cinematic show this being the case.

With that in mind, why would he suddenly go evil? He'll likely be happy to see troops from the Light with Yrel if they invade, may well even roll out the red carpet welcome to them in Stormwind at first. However, given that he's now had years of Alleria at his side balancing him again as well as Velen as an advisor who himself no longer blindly follows the Light (though he is still a follower), he's likely to be a bit more grounded & willing to fight back if they start to try to enslave or kill everyone. The main concern I see on his end (if anything) would be if Yrel talks him into renewing his vows to the Light via the efforts of another Naaru.

Calia on the other hand...I agree with Nymrohd on her being a much more likely threat. The Light specifically wanted to bring her back & used Anduin in part as a vessel to do so. She is seemingly far more under the Light's control right now than Turalyon was back then. She may seem peaceful now, but so did Yrel at one point.

I noticed something interesting actually, it's only a few people in this forum who are obsessed with the idea of Turalyon becoming a villain. Everywhere else online or in-game, he's barely brought up ever in the first place. And I keep asking myself, towards those people: "Did you guys not play Legion, not see Turalyon swallow his pride to team up with his Goddess' killer?"

Regardless, we already have a recognizable and iconic villain for the Light faction: Yrel. She and the Lightbound have already been set up as the major villains of a future Light plot to take over the Cosmos. Either Turalyon or Calia becoming villains would only deprive Yrel of the spotlight she's entitled to.

Furthermore, Yrel makes for a much better antagonist in this kind of storyline, as it adds an element of tragic that is absent with Turalyon and Calia. Yrel's connection with the Naaru was gifted to her by Velen upon his sacrifice, she replaced him as the prophet of the Naaru; and now, because of this fact, she is overwhelmed by visions of the Naaru who are sending her on a cosmic crusade. This is why Yrel works as a villain of the Light, while Turalyon is just an asspull for a very tiny, small, little vocal majority that still wants the Alliance equivalent of SoO.

[Caiphon]

And after BfA? She understood the errors of her ways, got over her trauma, redeemed herself in the eyes of her people, and became a worthy Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras. Overall, her story has a happy ending, which she deserves btw.



If that's your argument, "anything can happen", then it's a pointless argument. Blizzard can turn anyone into a villain, correct, so it's pointless to focus on Turalyon.

In the meantime, I would point you to Geya'rah, who clearly stated that the Alliance cities would burn. She, and Mag'har like her, definitely don't need any corruption to make genocidal threats.

My argument is not 'anything can happen', but rather that starting with Arthas, Blizzard has historically been fond of sending otherwise well meaning, righteous individuals spiraling down towards madness. And it's usually the important, benevolent ones for the sake of dramatic impact. Turalyon's got everything Blizzard loves for their corruption arcs - high profile (de facto leader of Stormwind and the Alliance by extension), strength of character (fought the Legion for 1000 years), benevolence (willing to work with demon hunters and whatnot) and the tiniest cracks that can be utilised to push him over the edge, such as his void-aided torture of possible informants and a slight lack of critical thinking as demonstrated when X'era imprisoned his wife, when Illidan resisted X'era's conversion etc.

As we all know by now Blizzard tends to plagiarise its own plots. BfA's Sylvanas arc was basically Garrosh 2.0, complete with the villain running off to another realm of existence and invading Azeroth from said realm. It's extremely easy to make a Jaina 2.0 out of Turalyon - just make Theramore happen again. Arator killed by void creatures, Khadgar killed by warlocks, Locus Walker controlling Alleria to blow up a part of Stormwind or something along those lines. Jaina's descent didn't lead to a world-consuming catastrophe thanks to Varian holding the reins but she certainly tried to make it happen. Turalyon doesn't have a superior in the Alliance, nobody can stop him if he's really dead serious about his crusade. The ending could be tragic (Arthas), happy (Jaina) or none of the above (Sylvanas) but the opportunity is definitely there and it's something Blizz loves to do.

On the other hand Geya'rah is certainly not expansion material, the biggest reason being she's pretty much nobody. Only a handful of Mag'har managed to land on Azeroth and with her main timeline counterpart Thrall leading the orcs there's precious little she can do. Also worth noting that she's not supported by a cosmic power and is extremely unlikely to gain the support of one - if anyone from the AU becomes a main villain (and I doubt this would happen) it'll probably be a hugely successful Yrel bringing a Light version of the Burning Crusade to Azeroth, opening the Dark Portal for the third time in WoW (sigh).

[Dracullus]

I just went through Dragon Soul thinking I could get a selfie with all the Aspects for this beta competition to discover how limited the damn selfie is. Really now, they wasted a patch developing that?

This was just some dude side project. 6.1 had some content, mostly Garrison updates like raid bosses there, but it was de facto patch 6.0.5. Main mistake there was releasing Blackrock Foundry 3 weeks earlier instead of week after patch day which would link these together in community perception.

In general WoD was just breaking point of old design with raids as only PVE progression. On top of that main hub where your AFK was your personal instance and you had good reason to stay there + no real reasons to go elsewhere. Classic confirmed how outdated it is, just look how fast hype dies after most people are done with leveling.

[Varodoc]

it'll probably be a hugely successful Yrel bringing a Light version of the Burning Crusade to Azeroth,

Which is an infinitely better storyline than villain batting the Alliance because a certain group of people are still angry about the Horde getting villain batted twice.

Both the Garrosh storyline and the Sylvanas storyline were complete and utter flops, do we want a third repeat of that, but with an Alliance character for a twist? Maybe third time's the chance?

Or maybe Blizzard should just be more conservative with their characters. Turalyon can serve his purpose to the story even if he does not become a villain; if anything, it would be much better if he didn't become a villain. While Yrel can represent the fanatical side of Light worship, the side that demands submission from everyone, Turalyon can represent the moderate side of Light worship, i.e. the side that sets aside their grudge to team up with Illidan and co. after he literally blew up their Goddess.

It's important to keep a storyline grey, not black and white. If you just show evil Light users, it's boring. If you show evil Light users, but also show GOOD Light users (Turalyon and Calia) in the same conflict, it's better.

With this being said, I don't deny that Turalyon is objectively a badass option for a villain. A paladin who was blessed by the Prime Naaru with immortality and has a profound faith in the Light, as well as a skilled tactician and accomplished military commander. He would make for an incredibly tought antagonist for the protagonists, but we already have Yrel, soooo... there's really no point in villain batting Turalyon.

If Yrel didn't exist, then sure, maybe you could argue that we need more representation of the Light acting in a villainous way (the Scarlet Crusade has been in the game since Classic btw). But, with Yrel and the Lightbound, we have enough representation of villainous Light. We don't need more.

On the other hand Geya'rah is certainly not expansion material,

She's an appointed member of the Horde Council and iirc Blizzard stated that quite a sizeable force of Mag'har crossed over into Azeroth as they even brought war beasts and iron transports with them. So she is more influential than Garrosh was when he was introduced. She already proved to the world that she is objectively morally twisted as she supported Sylvanas until the very end.

Besides, if/when Geya'rah becomes a villain, she'd obviously share the spotlight with other villains. Just look at N'Zoth, he was the literal mastermind of most conflicts in Azeroth and he still had to share the spotlight of "main villain of BfA" with Sylvanas. So, just because I'm saying it makes for Geya'rah to become a villain (as she literally said she wants to see Alliance cities burn), doesn't mean I think she should literally be the main villain of an expansion.

[Caiphon]

Both the Garrosh storyline and the Sylvanas storyline were complete and utter flops, do we want a third repeat of that, but with an Alliance character for a twist? Maybe third time's the chance?

To play the Devil's Advocate here the Sylvanas arc was a failure because it was literally a copy&paste of Garrosh's story. On the other hand Arthas' fall was a monumental success and Jaina's wasn't completely bad as you have also acknowledged. Still, I don't trust the current iteration of Blizzard to pull off an Arthas so I do not wish for a Turalyon arc anytime in the near future. I just think it's fairly likely to happen considering the decades-old obsession with corruption.

She's an appointed member of the Horde Council and iirc Blizzard stated that quite a sizeable force of Mag'har crossed over into Azeroth as they even brought war beasts and iron transports with them. So she is more influential than Garrosh was when he was introduced. She already proved to the world that she is objectively morally twisted as she supported Sylvanas until the very end.

I mean Garrosh was an absolute nobody when he was first introduced in TBC yes but by Cataclysm he was warchief, the supreme leader of the Horde. The current Horde has specifically decided against having a warchief and Geya'rah's significance in the council is fairly neglible. If she ever does attempt to stir something up it would never gain traction with Thrall being where he is, and even if we manage to make Thrall retire AGAIN we've got folks like Baine, Lor'themar and Rokhan who completely outmatch her in career, power and followers (Sylvanas, on the other hand, outmached all three). She generally doesn't have the gravitas or significance that the two rogue warchiefs had (seriously, who on earth would ever be excited to fight against Geya'rah?) and as you've pointed out even those two arcs ended up very poorly. Third time's the charm? Probably not.

[huth]

My argument is not 'anything can happen', but rather that starting with Arthas, Blizzard has historically been fond of sending otherwise well meaning, righteous individuals spiraling down towards madness.

Then you haven't understood Arthas at all. Yes, he is righteous. But not really all that well-meaning and the madness was always there. Nor was he terribly smart or a good leader.

Turalyon is what Arthas wanted to be seen as.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Then you haven't understood Arthas at all. Yes, he is righteous. But not really all that well-meaning and the madness was always there. Nor was he terribly smart or a good leader.

Turalyon is what Arthas wanted to be seen as.

Madness is not the word to use, he's very quick to anger but thats not madness.

[Nymrohd]

Madness is not the word to use, he's very quick to anger but thats not madness.

YEah Arthas was just a self-righteous asshole.

[huth]

Madness is not the word to use, he's very quick to anger but thats not madness.

Well, the point is that it has always been there. None of his characteristics suddenly turned up.

[draugril]

Then you haven't understood Arthas at all. Yes, he is righteous. But not really all that well-meaning and the madness was always there. Nor was he terribly smart or a good leader.

Turalyon is what Arthas wanted to be seen as.

I always thought this would have been a better end for WoD instead of demons again. The alternate Alliance invading Draenor after Jaina takes on Gul’dan’s role and warns Azeroth of what happened in the First War. Causing the Alliance to do a pre-emptive strike, taking out the Iron Horde, our Horde, and our Alliance. Why our Alliance? Because the First War heroes were true paragons of the virtues of the Alliance. The current leaders don’t live up to those ideals. It would be a sobering experience for our Alliance, at war for 30 or so years, to realize how twisted by conflict they’ve become. To the point that their heroes view them the same as Orcs.

[ChairmanKaga]

I haven't seen much about it in the beta but have they been updating the old dragon models (and dragonkin, drakonids etc) or are all the new models only in the new continent area?

[Nymrohd]

I always thought this would have been a better end for WoD instead of demons again. The alternate Alliance invading Draenor after Jaina takes on Gul’dan’s role and warns Azeroth of what happened in the First War. Causing the Alliance to do a pre-emptive strike, taking out the Iron Horde, our Horde, and our Alliance. Why our Alliance? Because the First War heroes were true paragons of the virtues of the Alliance. The current leaders don’t live up to those ideals. It would be a sobering experience for our Alliance, at war for 30 or so years, to realize how twisted by conflict they’ve become. To the point that their heroes view them the same as Orcs.

While I would have loved for the seven Kingdoms to get the treatment of the Draenor clans (so much lore we could get) it would also divert too much time away from Azeroth proper.

But damn can you imagine fighting against AU Medivh and AU Lothar. The reasoning could be that AU Medivh as a true Guardian realized this was an opportunity to occupy and safeguard MU Azeroth by using the existing time portal. Then he'd attack us with the full might of the Kirin Tor, Seven Kingdoms and Council of Three Hammers behind him not to kill and conquer but to take over.

But no one would know he was Sargeras all along.

[Raetary]

Treant form is now back, its just cosmetic though.

[micwini]

anyone not subbed got into beta ?

Im not subbed, but I do keep my gametime running. I do have beta.

[Raetary]

Im not subbed, but I do keep my gametime running. I do have beta.

I don't think Blizzard differentiates between a sub and bought game time.

[micwini]

I feel like you have a bigger chance of getting into beta if you report bugs in the live game once in a while.

[Lahis]

Treant form is now back, its just cosmetic though.

Been like that since Cata changed Tree of Life into Incarnation instead of normal shapeshift for Resto

[Raetary]

Been like that since Cata changed Tree of Life into Incarnation instead of normal shapeshift for Resto

I'm aware, but the spell was taught by a cosmetic spell tome before.
Now its baseline, even though it does nothing.

[Nyel]

I'm surprised how long it takes them to announce a final release date. I don't know how it was in the past, but Dragonflight is supposedly launching in two months and they are not sure to announce a fixed date yet?

[Zaganite]

I'm surprised how long it takes them to announce a final release date. I don't know how it was in the past, but Dragonflight is supposedly launching in two months and they are not sure to announce a fixed date yet?

Most organisations (where I'm from) require four weeks notice for time off so if anyone is looking to book time off for launch then it has to be October. I can see it happening in the next two weeks if I'm honest.