Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Cosmic Janitor]

I really cannot imagine them going from Shadowlands - Pantheon of Death to Lifelands (aka Realms of Life) - Pantheon of Life in the next expansion. This would be hilariously bad planning in every aspect, especially when we considered how poor the reception to Shadowlands is. I don't expect Blizzard to be this ignorant and tone deaf, so at best we might get a patch or two out of it, where the main setting is entirely different.

Tbh, I don't think Lifelands were ever planned as the next thing. I mean besides the name being below 3rd grader levels of awful, the concept of a plane of life seems rather idiotic.. what the hell is the mortal plane then supposed to be? I guess they could have tried to inflate the dream stuff some more, but it feels like a really bad thought out concept you get by hammering square pegs in round holes with a power hammer.

Frankly I would have bet more on light and shadow stuff, mostly light first since BfA is still too fresh, with a gradual shift towards a mixture over the expansion. We'd have at least some proepr hooks set up for that with the stormwind leadership, some hints towards Light-extremism, and one of the currently topical Nathrezim working for the Light.

[Nyel]

Tbh, I don't think Lifelands were ever planned as the next thing. I mean besides the name being below 3rd grader levels of awful, the concept of a plane of life seems rather idiotic.. what the hell is the mortal plane then supposed to be? I guess they could have tried to inflate the dream stuff some more, but it feels like a really bad thought out concept you get by hammering square pegs in round holes with a power hammer.

I mean Realms of Life could basically be your "life" before you are born. Shadowlands is afterlife, Azeroth is life and Lifelands is... pre-life or whatever you want to call that. Just throwing some ideas around here what something like Realms of Life could be, nothing based on facts though. And you're totally right, if it's just a very soothing and peaceful realm for life it's basically Azeroth experienced on drugs, so that makes barely any sense.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Everyone wanted a deep dive into Nyalotha for an entire xpac and instead we got merely a glimpse in a patch.

No-one wants a deep dive into cosmic lore and that's exactly what they offer.

The thing is we didn't peer into Nyalotha in a patch, we got a raid in a patch. That was it.

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I mean Realms of Life could basically be your "life" before you are born. Shadowlands is afterlife, Azeroth is life and Lifelands is... pre-life or whatever you want to call that. Just throwing some ideas around here what something like Realms of Life could be, nothing based on facts though. And you're totally right, if it's just a very soothing and peaceful realm for life it's basically Azeroth experienced on drugs, so that makes barely any sense.

Eh, I guess. It's just weird, it feels like all of this stuff just degrades the mortal plane more and more, yet everyone wants a piece of it for some reason.

[draugril]

I mean Realms of Life could basically be your "life" before you are born. Shadowlands is afterlife, Azeroth is life and Lifelands is... pre-life or whatever you want to call that. Just throwing some ideas around here what something like Realms of Life could be, nothing based on facts though. And you're totally right, if it's just a very soothing and peaceful realm for life it's basically Azeroth experienced on drugs, so that makes barely any sense.

I wouldn't be surprised if they tied in the Botani to the "Lifelands," and Aggramar assisted in ensuring they could not "take root" in the mortal plane.

[Nyel]

I wouldn't be surprised if they tied in the Botani to the "Lifelands," and Aggramar assisted in ensuring they could not "take root" in the mortal plane.

I'm totally here for more Botani stuff, they're awesome and I would like to dive deeper into their lore. And they remind me of Sylvari from GW2, my favorite race of "plant people".

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Eh, I guess. It's just weird, it feels like all of this stuff just degrades the mortal plane more and more, yet everyone wants a piece of it for some reason.

I totally agree. Everything that's not Azeroth just... diminishes the importance and impact of Azeroth, which is a shame.

[therumblings]

I mean Realms of Life could basically be your "life" before you are born.

Ooh, now that's an interesting idea I didn't think of! Maybe it will show how souls are made.

[Hellspawn]

I'm totally here for more Botani stuff, they're awesome and I would like to dive deeper into their lore. And they remind me of Sylvari from GW2, my favorite race of "plant people".

And since we have now Botani (and Saberon) in Kalimdor... you can totally do it. I could see them even make one or both of them into an allied race.

[draugril]

And since we have now Botani (and Saberon) in Kalimdor... you can totally do it. I could see them even make one or both of them into an allied race.

A world revamp could definitely run with this.

[Raetary]

Well duh.
The Shadowlands are where souls end up in, so naturally (heh) the Lifelands/Gardens would be where souls would be made, before they are sent out into the great dark to continue the cycle.

As for the mortal realm, they are already starting to establish it to be some sort of grand cosmic Nexus.
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Exp..._A37J_-_Part_4

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And since we have now Botani (and Saberon) in Kalimdor... you can totally do it. I could see them even make one or both of them into an allied race.

I would sacrifice a kidney if that meant i could play a Botani.

Absolutely love their design and i've always had a thing for plant people.

[Kiivar86]

If it makes you feel better then SL is a perfect case study of why an entire expansion set on Argue would get tedious after a while. Sure you would learn more about it, but you would also be stuck there narratively for 2 years of wow.

Much better to set the expansion on Azeroth with thr cosmic stuff as the spice on top, then go full blown on that theme for the last patch to cap it off.

Eh, I think it could work. One way or another we're "stuck" somewhere. People used that exact same argument against Pandaria back in the day (before opinion turned in its favor).

I'm not opposed to going to other worlds or realms. I mean, hell, the very first expansion was precisely that (and so was WoD, though less said about it, the better).

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I'm going to just go a different route and wonder what 9.2 is going to be. Not that I don't think 9.3 is dead but...it might make it easier to see where the future is going.

[Zyrinx]

Well duh.
The Shadowlands are where souls end up in, so naturally (heh) the Lifelands/Gardens would be where souls would be made, before they are sent out into the great dark to continue the cycle.

As for the mortal realm, they are already starting to establish it to be some sort of grand cosmic Nexus.
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Exp..._A37J_-_Part_4

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I would sacrifice a kidney if that meant i could play a Botani.

Absolutely love their design and i've always had a thing for plant people.

+1 million for playable Botani, that would be great. I guess Saberon could be cool too.

[Hellspawn]

I think Botani would make an interesting ally for Night Elfs... One is close to nature... the other is nature fanatic like... the nature version of dark iron dwarf.

[Raetary]

They wouldn't really be fanatic tho.
The Botani are as dangerous and unpredictable as they are due to Draenor having a ton of Spirit on the planet.
Causing Life to grow out of control, whereas the elements are rather calm.

On Azeroth its the opposite, the world soul consumed most of the Spirit on the planet, causing the elements to go haywire but Life to be stable.

Unless Blizzard throws that out of the window or just forgot about it, i could see a recruitment questline where we have to help out a groupt of Botani that struggle to adapt and are relatively peaceful.

[Lady Atia]

I really cannot imagine them going from Shadowlands - Pantheon of Death to Lifelands (aka Realms of Life) - Pantheon of Life in the next expansion. This would be hilariously bad planning in every aspect, especially when we considered how poor the reception to Shadowlands is. I don't expect Blizzard to be this ignorant and tone deaf, so at best we might get a patch or two out of it, where the main setting is entirely different.

The problem with setting is, what do we have left on Azeroth? Right now when we're talking about that it's a) Revamp or b) Dragon Isles, both options are rather limited (the one clearly being a 1% chance and the other just being so... basic?). Floating Dragon Isles where flying is mandatory from the start sounds awesome, but if it's neither a) nor b), what could Azeroth offer besides that? Undermine sounds so irrelevant that I don't expect anything from it, so... another secret continent like Pandaria? How likely is that after all these years and after all that's happened?

Well, you talk about the same defs who thought it would be great to switch the theme of WoD from Orcs to Fel right before an Expansion about the Legion. Or wait, they actually did the same with MoP > WoD with SoO lol.

[TomatoBisque]

Eh, I think it could work. One way or another we're "stuck" somewhere. People used that exact same argument against Pandaria back in the day (before opinion turned in its favor).

I'm not opposed to going to other worlds or realms. I mean, hell, the very first expansion was precisely that (and so was WoD, though less said about it, the better).

The problem with a location like Argus as an entire expansion vs. somewhere like Pandaria or the Shadowlands is there's no variety on Argus. The entire planet is controlled by the Legion with a small pocket of resistance. You wouldn't be able to have small sidestories meeting and helping out locals like you do in every other expansion because there are no friendly locals, it's just a completely hostile area.

In Pandaria, the Pandaren had a big civilization and we went and helped them out in every zone, while also meeting other friendly races like the Hozen/Jinyu or the grummles, and allies of convenience like the Klaxxi. On Argus it'd just be... the army of the light, no variety in culture. And then on Pandaria, we also had a variety in enemies. The Sha, the Mantid, the Mogu, minor threats like the Yaungol and saurok. In an Argus expansion you'd just have the legion (and maybe some of ethereals) because you can't realistically have other enemies there.

like, people complain about orc fatigue from WoD but an Argus expansion would be 1000x worse

[Makorus]

I'm going to just go a different route and wonder what 9.2 is going to be. Not that I don't think 9.3 is dead but...it might make it easier to see where the future is going.

9.2 is obviously going to be Zereth Mortis, which will, judging by what we have seen so far, have something akin to Isu Architecture from Assassins Creed. Depending on whether it is the last patch or not, the last boss will either be Anduin or the Jailer, and depending on if its the last patch or not, the Jailer will either try to invade Azeroth and succeed, or we stop him.

If he is the last boss, Gorribal will be used somehow by an Avatar of Azeroth.

[Hellspawn]

They wouldn't really be fanatic tho.
The Botani are as dangerous and unpredictable as they are due to Draenor having a ton of Spirit on the planet.
Causing Life to grow out of control, whereas the elements are rather calm.

On Azeroth its the opposite, the world's soul consumed most of the Spirit on the planet, causing the elements to go haywire but Life to be stable.

Unless Blizzard throws that out of the window or just forgot about it, i could see a recruitment questline where we have to help out a groupt of Botani that struggle to adapt and are relatively peaceful.

I imagine in the case of Azeroths death at the end of SL this could free the spirits, or the life lands itself provide too many spirits (for some reason).
But I think Botani would still have some of their characteristics regardless of that fact just not less extremely/evil.
If the expansion starts in Kalimdor there has to be something wrong there... maybe after Sargeras sword gets removed all the spirits escape to Kalimdor and hyper charges life on that continent... (maybe a giant version of the well of eternity would re-emerge)

[Nyel]

Well, you talk about the same defs who thought it would be great to switch the theme of WoD from Orcs to Fel right before an Expansion about the Legion. Or wait, they actually did the same with MoP > WoD with SoO lol.

I mean it worked as the last patch was the introduction to the upcoming expansion. This wasn’t the case in BfA (shame). In Legion it was rather pathetic how Sargeras stabbing Azeroth lead to BfA, but whatever… I think if the last patch sets the tone for the next expansion, it’s not hurting the game overall. It’s just the overload of specific stuff that makes it too much and players get sick of it. This is happening in Shadowlands right now, where 9.1 was just more of 9.0 which people already didn’t like that much. Now imagine this for 9.2 again. And then possibly for the entirety of 10.x just in a different color.

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Ooh, now that's an interesting idea I didn't think of! Maybe it will show how souls are made.

I think it would be a neat twist in an infinite cycle of life - living - death. But what role do the other four cosmic powers play then? And what is Elune then, the counterpart to the Eternal Ones or above them? If she’s above, who’s the counterpart for Zovaal, Primus & Co.? It’s too much new lore and I think it would cause the same problems as Shadowlands in that regard. Although the idea sounds nice.

[Sondrelk]

The way a lifelands would likely work in regards to the mortal world would likely be that the mortal world is just a byproduct of the transmigration of souls. We are told in the new lore book that the cosmic powers were created, whereas the lesser stuff like the mortal world just started appearing as a byproduct.

The issue would likely be that the Shadowlands is overexplained, which leaves further questions for a lifelands. Ideally a system like this would be that the dead eventually moved to reincarnation some form, but that would require a retcon in this case.

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Eh, I think it could work. One way or another we're "stuck" somewhere. People used that exact same argument against Pandaria back in the day (before opinion turned in its favor).

I'm not opposed to going to other worlds or realms. I mean, hell, the very first expansion was precisely that (and so was WoD, though less said about it, the better).

I would argue the issue is that we need something that grounds us to the core story we like. Some might not care at all, and for those a pure Argus expansion might work, but for others the removal of Azeroth from the main story would present a layer of removal from the story that would not be noticeable immediately, but which would slowly build to eventually become annoying to deal with.

In this case there is also the simple issue of all zones looking extremely distinct, which looks good at a glance, but which becomes tiring to look at when you are stuck there for a while.