Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[loras]

Wholly sensible. Good storytelling. Shadowlands was a good expansion and introduced good things for the story.

Best sarcastic summary of Shadowlands so far.

[Jaggler]

That's mostly because there isn't any evidence it was ever meant to be that. That Zovaal happens to connect through it doesn't mean that was the intent or that it is even relevant. For all we know it just happens to be in the way of the power syphon installed in Torghast and the main reason for the location is because of the breach in the Veil.

It doesn't even have to be so deep. The devices are literally called soul grinders and they were always drilled into the bottom of the Forge of Souls. They had a dual purpose Arthas maybe wasn't aware of and doesn't need to be aware of for it to work necessarily. They were always giant generators fueled by souls.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Ah nice so we are just shown things that are irrelevant because they look cool. That's a great defense of the narrative!

Are you done being snarky?

[AngerFork]

We have 3 things going on same time.

1) People overestimate how bad SL story was. Main story was boring and predictable, introducing villain that pull the strings last minute was stupid, but SL story had some decent parts too (Denathrius, Nathrezim hidden motives, First Ones).

To some extent, perhaps. There were a few bright spots in the story, such as Ysera's bit in Ardenweald as well as the Ardenweald play. But any story lives and dies largely by the main thread. We don't spend much time talking about the Tillers story chain in MoP, we instead look at the Horde/Alliance conflict in Pandaria and Garrosh. This particular main plot stepped over a ton of previous lore while at the same time never quite even got to answering any questions it tried to set forth. We can make assumptions about what the Jailer had in mind for his new reality or what darkness is to come, but we honestly have no clue. Had Shadowlands never happened, the only question we'd have is why Sylvanas is a good guy now.

2) People ignore stupid things that happened in every single WoW iteration. Legion retconned characters motivations as well, TBC was "quick let's kill every name character from Frozen Throne" experience, in Wrath Lich King acted like Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain.

Each has stupid things, sure. But each was still true to the characters as a whole. Arthas' journey to cartoon villain was somewhat honest with how arrogant the character had become and what his end goals were (test us to see if we'd be a great army). Legion's retcons (as well as other ones such as the Draenei one from BC) still allowed the characters to have agency over who they were and the choices they made. The SL ones took those choices away. Arthas went from a villain who made hard choices and lost himself to the Lich King (while simultaneously taking it over) to a sock puppet for the Jailer. Sylvanas went from someone who long was trying to secure a better future for her people to a being without any sympathy for her people who was willing to kill anyone and everyone to help the Jailer achieve his goals. The SL character stretches just felt like they destroyed who the initial characters were IMO.

3) Community always forget what current expansion repaired and focus what part of current expansion is worst. In SL long droughts for 9.1 and 9.1.5, story and pointless systems seem to be that things. I bet during Dragonflight no one will utter words "borrowed power" if anything only negative consequences of resigning from borrowed power will be criticized.

No question on this. The community tends to do that a lot. Legion was maligned for a while due to Legiondaries. MoP had the massive storm of daily quests which all felt required. Not sure what DFs will be yet, but there will be something for sure. But all of those complaints are still valid, especially for something like SL where it just felt like a lot of grinding and waiting for 8 months just to get a taste of anything new, a far cry from the 77-day cadence of Legion. As it was the second straight expansion with poor community reception (and third of the last four), it's no surprise that the community would be much more frustrated about this one than the others, especially given how much further this one went towards some of the worst tendencies.

[Skildar]

Watching Steve answer during the interview, I'm not sure if the pal is deflecting because the writing team doesn't want to acknowledge weakness or if he truly believes their decisions to be the right one. I was always on the fence about this guy but his answers made him look weaker than the material he produced with his team...

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

"Steve is sus" is going to be my standard view of this whole situation at this point.

Again, I don't really think the Narrative Team is doing anything but deflecting from the Encounter Design Team who's seeming obsession with drilling themselves into hell by overfocusing on Raid Tiers is apparently all the game resources should go towards. If your narrative team is basically stating that they don't want to put more of their work into the game even though they used the argument that they would remove the Prequel books and books in general to place said content inside the game instead. So what is it then, Steve and the Narrative Team?

The fact they can't even answer why they did the 5 Year Time Skip without stumbling makes you really wonder why they did it in the first place.

Whole situation is just FUBAR'd with the Narrative Team, they have no idea what they are doing and they are writing narratives that don't stand up to the most basic of scrutiny while continuing with the most stupid decisions imaginable like timegating the Campaign while we get the Raid Ending Sequence in the middle of the campaign.

[Catastrophy349]

Here it is!! https://twitter.com/unshackled_fury/...afRxm1lSHmnvaw

Another interview with Ion and AnnieFuchsia today at 1:00 P.M. EDT!

[huth]

Ah nice so we are just shown things that are irrelevant because they look cool. That's a great defense of the narrative!

So you're saying doing things because Rule of Cool is un-WarCraft-y?

[Cheezits]

The fact they can't even answer why they did the 5 Year Time Skip without stumbling makes you really wonder why they did it in the first place.

It sounded to me more like he CAN'T explain. They have mentioned that it is to "age up characters in LATER stories" and none of them appear in Dragonflight at launch. So there's something going on with the timeskip that they felt the need to do in Dragonflight, but it doesn't actually matter at this time, and Danuser actually is not allowed to explain the true purpose during these interviews.

Same thing with Gilneas. It sounds kinda... revampy.

- - - Updated - - -

Here it is!! https://twitter.com/unshackled_fury/...afRxm1lSHmnvaw

Another interview with Ion and AnnieFuchsia today at 1:00 P.M. EDT!

Ion mentions that 10.02 is a small-midsize patch after launch and that they want to do more smaller patches inbetween 10.1/10.2 etc.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Was it the info for 10.0.2 that was coming after launch or was it the patch?

Honestly a 5 month cadence would be insane even without the knowledge of how many raid tiers are in Dragonflight.

[Cheezits]

Was it the info for 10.0.2 that was coming after launch or was it the patch?

Honestly a 5 month cadence would be insane even without the knowledge of how many raid tiers are in Dragonflight.

Ion said 5-6 months between major patches. So a return to Legion style.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I rather they not reveal everything to us ahead of time and really I can figure out what my character(s) are doing for the past few years.

[Xilurm]

So you're saying doing things because Rule of Cool is un-WarCraft-y?

The rule of cool isn't an excuse anymore. It's not 2004.

[Nathanyel]

[The Primalists] aren't as sympathetic as they appear at launch.

jfc do people really think they are misunderstood noble rebels? This is the Forsworn all over again...

[Catastrophy349]

Ion said 5-6 months between major patches. So a return to Legion style.

Yeah, essentially, they want to do patches with some content between major patches. Major patches will come around 5-6 months at most. Next patch will be 10.02 and we will be hearing about it “very soon”.

- - - Updated - - -

Another interview on YouTube in 45 minutes so we’ll see what comes from that.

[Cheezits]

jfc do people really think they are misunderstood noble rebels? This is the Forsworn all over again...

People's problem with Forsworn is that they were in the right to start and didn't really get a good ending until a lot of them got killed. Also Devos's reason for joining the Jailer was skipped over.

Now that we know that the Titans shaped the Dragons to do their bidding, people think the Primalists are sympathetic and its not fair that we are killing them. But apparently we are going to find out they did a lot of horrible things we aren't aware of yet.

[Makabreska]

jfc do people really think they are misunderstood noble rebels? This is the Forsworn all over again...

I mean, Blizz literally said that Primalists aren't inherently evil, just following their own believes. So there you have it.

[Sondrelk]

Watching Steve answer during the interview, I'm not sure if the pal is deflecting because the writing team doesn't want to acknowledge weakness or if he truly believes their decisions to be the right one. I was always on the fence about this guy but his answers made him look weaker than the material he produced with his team...

Admitting a mistake wouldnt get them more than brownie points from those who care, it would be actively detrimental to those who want the story to go any direction other than the one we get.

As has been said before on this thread, stating an expansion story is not canon would essentially be the writers conceding defeat and in the process setting a dangerous precedent that whatever they write will be made canon or not at a nebulous point in the future not necessarily because of writing that has happened at that point.

Admitting the writing is bad would just be them building themselves up to a new standard that they cannot possibly bet on living up to, because even if the spirit of the great writers descended upon them and wrote an expansion, they would still be subject to circumstances outside their control, as well as scrutinized by players who hate the given direction.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I mean, Blizz literally said that Primalists aren't inherently evil, just following their own believes. So there you have it.

"From my Point of View the Titans are evil"


I am sorry I had to do it

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

"From my Point of View the Titans are evil"


I am sorry I had to do it

I mean the entire point of Shadowlands was to literally enlighten people to the understanding that morality is uh a bit more complex than what has already been presented here.

Not saying that people are wrong if they want to keep that perspective though. It's just the Narrative Team clearly wants to indicate that morality is a perception issue than an actual factual standpoint of which you should view the enemies you clobber to death to feel good about yourself.