Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[TheFirstOnes]

They don't though, as you can see by how terrible the colors are in the OC picture in question. Purple and yellow work in-game and in Blizzard art because the colors they use are well chosen, and are, for example, desaturated to a less contrastive, more neutral look, like in the picture you just posted, where the saturation of the purple and yellow is in the 30-60% range, as opposed to the other picture, where it is in the 85-100% range.

That is why the colors in the OC picture look terrible. Not because they are yellow and purple but because they are very poorly chosen yellow and purple. The issue is not using """light""" purple, it is using an extremely saturated purple. That picture is very much NOT working. Yellow and purple work fine, when you use them well, here they are not being used well.

The colors are fine. I don't need to hear some weird ass paragraph on why you don't like it. Sure, the art itself needs some work (But they're new, so who cares), and the way the colors are used is, imo at least, not the best, but the colors themselves are fine. Light and Shadow share gold and light purple themes regardless, so I don't get it. No reason why we need to make 90 paragraphs on it lol.

Also, the picture I posted showcase very similar colors still.

[Nathanyel]

Haven't really been active here in a while , some catch-up replies:

https://youtu.be/WMI_FgUOn5Q?t=199
What do you guys think.
Is there any other continents on Azeroth?
Could it be 10.0?

There definitely could be more "continents", meaning useable islands for an expansion area.
However, what people always forget about basically all "continents" after Pandaria, these zones aren't actually as big as, well, Pandaria, and even that one is possibly not as big as we assume.

Using very rough RL comparisons, assuming Azeroth is roughly Earth-sized, Pandaria might be the the size of Greenland, or maybe Australia, while the Broken Isles, Zandalar and Kul Turas, respectively, might be comparable to larger islands like Cuba or Borneo.
This relatively small size explains how new islands could've remained unknown to our factions, especially if they are on the "other side" of Azeroth,
The actual continents, though, are comparable to the Americas (Kalimdor) and Europe&Africa (Eastern Kingdoms) - treks across the Barrens have been described as taking days or weeks, we can assume the individual zones on the Vanilla continents are comparable in size to the average country or US/Canadian state.

The ingame world map enlarges the Legion&BfA zones to make them easily clickable.
Hence, "new" islands/archipelagos (Dragon Isles or whatever) could easily be used as expansion "continents", scaled to rival Pandaria only for gameplay purposes, without invalidating any existing lore or ingame globes (if you still want to involve the Ulduar globes, just say that the sensors were degraded, they couldn't pick up smaller landmasses that are further away)

However, I'd much prefer going to a different planet, maybe even for two expansions in a row, exploring two major continents that are similar but also different enough. I'd even suggest three expansions, but that might be too long for the playerbase.
I even thought that Warlords should not have used time travel, instead introducing new zones on Draenor, shards (e.g. the hinted Ogre continent) floating back to the known ones.

They did Azshara dirty, and this would make for an actually decent plot. A Titan-empowered Azshara would be such a brilliant villain imo.

I still hold the theory that Azshara might be a partially awakened avatar of Azeroth.

It is fascinating to consider how the game would have looked if it was headed by someone who saw open world content as the preeminent source of enjoyment.

TBH until recent years, the vocal minority shat blood every time "the casuals" got anything.
Catchup gear? Bad, invalidating all iLvl progress in the previous patch.
Less elite quests, Dailies/WQs completeable without a group? WoW's turning into a single-player RPG.
Legendary questlines in MoP and WoD only giving marginal advantages to hardcore raiders, any player could eventually unlock the orange item via LFR? Literal death of the game, according to certain people.

Obviously anecdotal, but I haven't played WoW in a way that could be called "hardcore" in a good decade and still enjoy it (with content of course going stale after a while)

I admit I didn't come up with the following all on my own, especially the part about recent times is inspired by what content creators have said, but people have always complained about WoW by comparing it to other games. Back then, competitive PvP or a feel of brutality, both in style and difficulty (e.g. Age of Conan, Warhammer) was seen as lacking in WoW. Nowadays, it's compared to what people love about FF14, e.g. a continuing story taking you through the expansions and casual side content remaining relevant. Streamers "suddenly" discover this "new" game, playing content that's up to 8 years old already.

Surely all valid criticism when derived from your own impressions, and WoW can definitely learn from other games, but different games obviously are different. Not everything can be applied to an established game system, at least not in a sophisticated way. And ideally, I want WoW to come up with its own systems, instead of only picking up things that have worked in other games, always on the back foot.

[Hugnomo]

The colors are fine. I don't need to hear some weird ass paragraph on why you don't like it. Sure, the art itself needs some work (But they're new, so who cares), and the way the colors are used is, imo at least, not the best, but the colors themselves are fine. Light and Shadow share gold and light purple themes regardless, so I don't get it. No reason why we need to make 90 paragraphs on it lol.

Also, the picture I posted showcase very similar colors still.

It seems you're the one being weirdly defensive. Hitei and huth gave reasonable explanations for what is obviously apparent.
No disrespect to the person who did the drawing, but it poorly represents how Blizzard professionals would execute it. It doesn't really get the point across as to how it would look.

[micwini]

https://boards.4channel.org/v/thread/575814982
What do you all think?

[Sondrelk]

https://boards.4channel.org/v/thread/575814982
What do you all think?

I love the idea that both BfA and SL were made by the supposedly terrible B team, and the reasoning seems to pretty much solely rest on the fact that BfA and SL were badly received.
Also, what changes are going to be entirely reverted? The one where AP was removed, or perhaps the one that gave players loads of cosmetics from varied sources?

Other than that it's the most big standard and boring "leak" I have seen in a while. I would rate it a 3/10, and only so high because it at least didn't say something completely absurd with the plot.

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

https://boards.4channel.org/v/thread/575814982
What do you all think?

Lol, complete load of crap.
“It was all the B team! B team suck! They’re being babies and are probably going to be fired!”
Give me a break.

[Nathanyel]

https://boards.4channel.org/v/thread/575814982
What do you all think?

So bad the poster apparently already deleted it, I'm getting a 404.

[Raetary]

"It's all the B teams fault guys, trust me!"

[Azzurri]

The part of B team throwing a Tantrum made me laugh because I could see it.

[Nathanyel]

The part of B team throwing a Tantrum made me laugh because I could see it.

Are you making fun of it, or are you saying "I'm believing this because it confirms what I was thinking"?

[Sondrelk]

So bad the poster apparently already deleted it, I'm getting a 404.

Or it's a ploy to make it seem more legit. Let the "leak" get some notice on Reddit or here, then delete it and make it seem like it was taken down because of a DMCA.

I somehow doubt this leaker was clever enough to go for that though. The leak didn't seem nearly well thought out enough that the poster was planning on trolling by making it seem more legit.

[Hellspawn]

>10.0 is big as fuck and being made by the A team.
>BFA and SL were both made by the B team.
>B team blew it and is currently throwing a tantrum before the majority of them get sacked or moved to different projects after 9.2 launches.
>A lot of their stupid changes are going to be reversed come the 10.0 prepatch.
>10.0 takes place in a completely revamped Eastern Kingdoms.
>Scarlet Crusade and Calia control Lordaeron, Liadrin controls Quel'thalas, Turalyon controls Stormwind and Yrel is running the show with Xe'ra. Ironforge is the major neutral city.

All of team A probably already left the company
(I don't think there is Team A / Team B at least not in a way that they are entirely different dev teams)

[Nathanyel]

Ooooh, now I get what "stupid changes" this was talking about, it meant the recent removal of references and creepy emotes Yeah right, because you need to remove the team, instead of just ordering it from higher up the chain of command.

[Sondrelk]

All of team A probably already left the company
(I don't think there is Team A / Team B at least not in a way that they are entirely different dev teams)

There is likely separate teams working on different expansions, but this is probably more to do with the fact that you don't need the entire team on a singular project. It's the same writing team for every expansion, and it's the same world design team every expansion, but since you don't need them working at the same time you can have them work on separate projects as their part is done.

Also, even if there was probably an A and B team, what would make people think BfA and SL was made by the same one? Their only similarity so far is the same stuff that is always a part of WoW, like raids and dungeons.
The plot is on an entirely different scale, the reward system is completely overhauled, and AP is removed.

- - - Updated - - -

Ooooh, now I get what "stupid changes" this was talking about, it meant the recent removal of references and creepy emotes Yeah right, because you need to remove the team, instead of just ordering it from higher up the chain of command.

You know, if the "stupid changes" are actually referring to the removal of questionable elements the this leak is even dumber than I thought.
Readding the stuff will only please the players who are tacitly okay with sexism.
The content is removed, players already threw a hissyfit over it, readding it will only invite controversy over why Blizzard are okay with half naked ladies and blatant sexual innuendos when readding them doesn't add anything to the game as a whole.

[Hitei]

https://boards.4channel.org/v/thread/575814982
What do you all think?

A team and B team

Immediately 100% false. Only players subscribe to this utter retardation, which is insane because very basic logic should tell everyone it's not a thing.

As Sondrelk said, there are probably two teams, but they are not A and B, and they do not rotate expansions (this makes zero sense from a logistical standpoint, the team working on the next expansion is way too tiny to run an active expansion and the team working on the current one is too big to all be allocated to the pre-Alpha development of the next expansion).

You have a groundwork team that does the initial foundational work for the next expansion (i.e. the people working on 10.0 right now) and a main team that works on the current expansion but will start shifting over to working on 10.0 as SL development wraps up. Every expansion is worked on by both teams (started by the early development team and then finished and developed live by the main team) so there's no X expansion was developed by A and Y expansion was developed by B; they are all developed by both. Both teams report to the same deparment design leads who are the ones guiding development for every expansion, so there's just no sense here at all.

Also, expansions are never just good, or just bad. In this hypothetical A B world, the people who made design choices in MoP are also the same people who made the first 60% of the expansion nothing but dailies, made Escalation and Landfall, the worst patches in the game, designed MSV, and made launch Scenarios, a truly abhorrent system. The people who made design choices in Cata and WoD are also the people who made Timewalking, transmog, archaeology, updated the old races, and designed Firelands and BRF.

[Marlamin]

Pretty much. It's just parts of the team that work ahead of everyone else (concept artists, exterior level designers, etc). We can see through file IDs that work on things like exterior levels for the next expansion usually starts while the beta for the current expansion is winding down or just finished. Obviously this isn't more than basic layouts/concepts at that point but still.

[Zexaniro]

All of team A probably already left the company
(I don't think there is Team A / Team B at least not in a way that they are entirely different dev teams)

this is exactly what 10.0 needs to be, therefore it's too good to be true ):

[Varodoc]

Say it with me.

They are not replacing Stormwind and Orgrimmar as faction capitals.

There will never be an expansion in which Stormwind is in the hands of the enemy, and Alliance players are relocated to Ironforge.

Any leak that even remotely hints at the notion of a change in faction capitals is automatically disqualified and put in the trash bin.

[Sondrelk]

Say it with me.

They are not replacing Stormwind and Orgrimmar as faction capitals.

There will never be an expansion in which Stormwind is in the hands of the enemy, and Alliance players are relocated to Ironforge.

Any leak that even remotely hints at the notion of a change in faction capitals is automatically disqualified and put in the trash bin.

Exactly, if MoP didnt have the balls to actually make Orgrimmar hostile to the Horde despite it supposedly being actively hostile to dissidents then I fail to see how it would be different for Stormwind.

At most we will see the same as what happened to Orgrimmar. Stuff will be weirder than usual, NPCs will be accosted on the street, and maybe with the ability ot rescue them, and some guards will be snarky. Then we will get a dungeon, or raid, or whatever that has us go into a completely hostile Stormwind with the explanation that while we were somewhere else the complete takeover happened, and that when we return everything is back to normal.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

It's just the crowd I see defending time gate and grind systems the most on the offical forums. They always push this weird " wow was always about grinding to be good nonsense" and without fail they never have even normal cleared. They make up about 90% of posts claiming to be mythic raiders.

I had some fun with classic but it had a been there done that feel to it. I got around it by playing a rogue since I played caster back in the day. TBC... I wanted to love tbc but it felt like a game I had already mastered and beaten.

Because timegates have always existed in wow. Its just part of the genre, you can't have a game with no timegates, this includes you can't rerun raids over and over again, that is a timegate.