Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Lahis]

Wouldn't be surprised if Blizz and other companies used pandemic excuse to completely ditch live events to cut the costs and reduce hassle.

I will be surprised if industry events like E3 ever return with the scope they had before the pandemic, but fan events like Blizzcon or anime conventions will return.

That said, it would require there would be any attendees left. Blizz might not be feeling too hot on that front after these past few years of constant dumpster fire.

[Makabreska]

I think Blizzcon always was a very lucrative event. Ten thousand fans attending for $100+++ should be good money for the kind of stuff they're doing there. Plus online ticket revenue.

I don't know how it balances out costs of huge hall staff, electricity, food, concert etc. Plus, they can fully control on-line presentation, big boon in current times of horrible PR.

[Marlamin]

"Seamless World Transition" was probably for testing the flying between zones in Shadowlands.

Though I wonder what "Living World" means for Classic. Are they maybe trying to revamp how dying/corpse running works across retail and classic?

Shadowlands doesn't have between-map transitions so not sure why they'd need an A, B and transfer map for that, all of the Shadowlands zones are one map.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Shadowlands doesn't have between-map transitions so not sure why they'd need an A, B and transfer map for that, all of the Shadowlands zones are one map.

Isn't there an animation that plays when you travel to them, though? Might be for that.


Otherwise, there's always the... holy grail of WoW.

Merged EK+Kalimdor+Great Sea.

[Marlamin]

Isn't there an animation that plays when you travel to them, though? Might be for that.


Otherwise, there's always the... holy grail of WoW.

Merged EK+Kalimdor+Great Sea.

Yeah, but that's still a single map with just flight points, I don't think that'd need multiple maps to test it with (like in the image). It might be an iteration of that though, where taxis can go between continents and maybe like you say have a somewhat merged feeling of maps. That would be really cool.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Yeah, but that's still a single map with just flight points, I don't think that'd need multiple maps to test it with (like in the image). It might be an iteration of that though, where taxis can go between continents and maybe like you say have a somewhat merged feeling of maps. That would be really cool.

Oh yeah maybe Holy Grail Lite.

Where you can now taxi anywhere on Azeroth and the "transition" zones is just flying over ocean (with maybe some islands) while your destination loads in the background.

[Dracullus]

We had Blizzcon online details on late September last year, still no news about next one. So it's not like February is a given. Maybe first they planned smaller online event early 22 and real Blizzcon late 22, but after July new people said: "yeeeaaah.. it will be better to skip live audience Blizzcon this year as well".

Of course if they plan to release expac in 2022 (which I don't think is super likely), March/April is deadline for revealing stuff - with assumption Alpha start literally days after reveal.

EDIT: Still not Mage Tower this week? November release for 9.1.5 start looking more likely than 19th October.

[Nyel]

I definitely would not expect a Blizzcon live event in 2022, maybe not even in 2023. A live event means there will be protestors at the venue and a live event means Blizzard can't control what's going on / the narrative.

[Makabreska]

I definitely would not expect a Blizzcon live event in 2022, maybe not even in 2023. A live event means there will be protestors at the venue and a live event means Blizzard can't control what's going on / the narrative.

Protestors lol. People don't care that much, and by that time everybody will forget about all the shit. Fresh Blitzchung drama caused only one "free Honk Kong" during questions panel.

[Nyel]

Protestors lol. People don't care that much, and by that time everybody will forget about all the shit. Fresh Blitzchung drama caused only one "free Honk Kong" during questions panel.

People might not care, but (paid) activists do. And be sure they're swarming Blizzard events, if they'll exist in the future.

[Makabreska]

People might not care, but (paid) activists do. And be sure they're swarming Blizzard events, if they'll exist in the future.

Dunno, did Ubisoft got any of these?

[Hitei]

Disagree. Outland gave us Garrosh and the Mag'har. Blood Elves and Draenei. It introduced elements to the lore that have carried on long after that expansion was over and done with. Same with most others. I think the least impactful (unless we revisit Yrel in the future) was WoD, which can be summarized as "Gul'dan resurrected" without missing a beat in the overarching narrative. I suspect we'll be able to summarize SL as "Sylvanas was (killed/redeemed)" without any other narrative elements having an impact on the plot at all.

Please, you are just proving my point that this is how every expansion is. The Mag'har are a completely irrelevant sideplot, Blood Elves and Draenei are only important because Blizzard arbitrarily picks them to be the "group" doing shit. You could have put anyone on Isle of Thunder or Suramar Horde side and changed a few lines of dialogue. The Draenei don't even make sense in Legion, the only place they were really important, because the expansion already had the Illidari, a force specifically bred to fight demons.

Being a thing that can be used later doesn't make any expansion more or less filler, because every group is that and ever expansion has those groups, see the explorer's league being constantly involved in world-ending shit, or Khadgar, or Tyrande and the Night Elves. It's all just arbitrarily picking what groups they want involved, and until that point things are just introduced and left in limbo, like the Mag'har who were introduced and then were completely unimportant until what, vague relevance in the last patch of MoP? the Blood Elves who were unimportant after BC until basically Suramar, or the Draenei who never really became important again, because besides Velen, the only important Draenei are a completely new group introduced specifically for Legion.

SL details what happens after passing on, establishes what guided the cosmic powers into existence and expanded on their relations to one other, that is far more fundamental to lore than anything at all that happened in most expansions.

[Lahis]

Isn't there an animation that plays when you travel to them, though? Might be for that.

That's exactly it. An animation. Not a separate map.

[draugril]

So you’re saying that Garrosh is irrelevant?

[Al Gorefiend]

beats me what the expac theme would be this time. Another left-fielder, was WoW written for a story to last this long? lol I kid, but really where to go from here.

[Sarethion]

Anyone tried out the PTR recently and could say if all major features (covenant swapping, all skips and so on) are already in?

[Sondrelk]

beats me what the expac theme would be this time. Another left-fielder, was WoW written for a story to last this long? lol I kid, but really where to go from here.

Dragons most likely. That or a Light themed story, possibly even both.
We go to the Dragon Isles to find something to help against an invasion of Light, and while there help the dragonflights with their problems.

If that plotline worked for Legion then it could work perfectly fine again.

[Ersula]

I would say that Feb Blizzcon Online will be catering to the Expansion and that the PTR will go live during the massive news push in November. I'd definitely believe that they will try and make the Final Patch come out prior to Blizzcon Online but then again I'm kinda optimistic about where their efforts have been put and that they are trying to get back on schedule by pulling off this really tight schedule to get ready for Alpha in April. We'll see as the Sylvanas Book releases in February too.

That's specifically what I was referencing. They always cover a deep dive of the final patch at the same event they give preliminary expansion info. They might announce the expansion in November, or February, either way that doesn't affect the patch schedule. Though one new factor is that the final patch premise is usually well telegraphed long before it comes out, but this expansion is different. That just means they'll want to cover 9.2 before they announce the new expansion, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be released before then.

[Kokolums]

Diablo and WoW seem to have features that bleed across to each other.

D4 seems to opting for a massive skill tree that offers (to quote them) years of exploration of build types. So perhaps the wow skill trees will be massively expanded into a forest. In D4 you can set any skill as "passive" and it will do some passive stuff. For example, you can set the meteor skill to cast meteors on your enemies, or move it into the passive slot such that you can no longer cast meteor but meteors will periodically fall from the sky. D4 will have dungeons with difficulties not set to just normal, heroic, mythic but they will a slew of settings to give you great granularity in how easy or hard it is. D4 will have mounts and you will be able to buy various pieces of armor for your mount.

Those are all features to consider when thinking 10.0.

[ohwell]

They should've given the Jailer a twirled moustache.

No that seems to be what the player base wants him and Sylvanas to be. They're actually the opposite. They've kept their plan concealed while beating us every step of the way. No instead people like you and others in this thread seem to want the "villain dropping their scheme monologue" while there's still a chance to stop them aka mustached villain from saturday morning.

- - - Updated - - -

Anyone tried out the PTR recently and could say if all major features (covenant swapping, all skips and so on) are already in?

Yes. It's all pretty much there and testable, but there was a bug with the cov swapping where if you rejoined some weird stuff happened like you'd lose the followers etc.