Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Makabreska]

Also an expansion dealing with the Light and Dark really makes no sense. What's the end game? We defeat Shadow Lord, master of all Shadow magic? We going to be taking down the creator of literal gods now? Okay cool! So what do we do in the expansion after that? How do you top that big bad? We going to fight reality next?

Again, it's like a Star Wars story where we fight the literal Dark Side of the force and punch it in the face.

That's a non issue. Burning Crusade final boss was Legion second in command. We needed another xpac to take down Sarg. Light vs Dark can simply be us against mostly Light, for example. So Naaru and their zealots. That would easily fill most of enemy roster. No one says they have to immediately present biggest and baddest guy for us to defeat.

[Teriz]

That's a non issue. Burning Crusade final boss was Legion second in command. We needed another xpac to take down Sarg. Light vs Dark can simply be us against mostly Light, for example. No one says they have to immediately present biggest and baddest guy for us to defeat.

There's a difference between defeating a Demon lord and defeating a literal cosmic force. Again, once you get to that point, you enter a cycle of escalation that starts to unravel the lore of the game itself. We're really pushing it in Shadowlands.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

So probably unrelated to the topic at hand but this is the third day now it's happened and I have to comment.

Does anyone else hate this new pseudo-Adult Swim twitter presence that WoW has?

[Sondrelk]

So probably unrelated to the topic at hand but this is the third day now it's happened and I have to comment.

Does anyone else hate this new pseudo-Adult Swim twitter presence that WoW has?

Not sure what you are referring to, really not up to date on Twitter as a social medium. What exactly is it WoW is doing that makes it similar to Adult Swim?

[Cosmic Janitor]

So probably unrelated to the topic at hand but this is the third day now it's happened and I have to comment.

Does anyone else hate this new pseudo-Adult Swim twitter presence that WoW has?

Care to elaborate?

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

So probably unrelated to the topic at hand but this is the third day now it's happened and I have to comment.

Does anyone else hate this new pseudo-Adult Swim twitter presence that WoW has?

The current change of communication strategy still lacks the 9.2 Preview + Future of World of Warcraft blog posts. It's why it feels so irritating and hollow.

[Makabreska]

There's a difference between defeating a Demon lord and defeating a literal cosmic force. Again, once you get to that point, you enter a cycle of escalation that starts to unravel the lore of the game itself. We're really pushing it in Shadowlands.

Us going against Naaru and their forces would be no escalation. We already went against a space faring army in Legion.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

There's a difference between defeating a Demon lord and defeating a literal cosmic force. Again, once you get to that point, you enter a cycle of escalation that starts to unravel the lore of the game itself. We're really pushing it in Shadowlands.

No, not really. This is really just the weirdest criticism, its close to stupid. Zovaal isn't death incarnate, metaphorically maybe but Death isn't gonna disappear after his defeat. Nor would the Light stop if we fought their Naaru master Keeper or whatever. Also the lore of the game has to be revealed, mysteries don't stay like that forever. We all get to the truth eventually.

[Sondrelk]

No, not really. This is really just the weirdest criticism, its close to stupid. Zovaal isn't death incarnate, metaphorically maybe but Death isn't gonna disappear after his defeat. Nor would the Light stop if we fought their Naaru master Keeper or whatever. Also the lore of the game has to be revealed, mysteries don't stay like that forever. We all get to the truth eventually.

No, Zovaal isnt literally death, he is however the ultimate force in the Shadowlands. There isnt a hidden layer beyond the Shadowlands unless Blizzard is going for something where the Shadowlands is not "actually" death, and is instead only the step before it.
The writers cannot go beyond Zovaal as a force of death since we already know all the leaders, and we know that Zovaal is the strongest among them.

This is not at all the same as defeating Sargeras. Even if he is what the players most associate with the Fel demons, there is still an entire cosmic realm beyond in the Twisting Nether that could have demons we have not heard of yet. Sargeras was extremely strong, and the Burning Legion is probably hte strongest force of demons in the story, but there isnt any indication that Sargeras took all demons, or that there isnt a demonic realm beyond.

[Luck4]

Because people are playing WORLD of Warcraft, not Universe of Warcraft. Yeah, venturing to other realms and dimensions is okay in moderation. However, people are drawn to Azeroth itself, and that's where the 99% of the story should be taking place. We shouldn't be planet-hopping from world to world punching literal gods in the face.

I agree with this, we shouldn't have two cosmic expansions in a row, they feel completely disconnected from the traditional world and lore, and it's so noticeable that breaks the immersion. Sometimes when I'm playing Shadowlands I don't even feel like I'm playing World of Warcraft.

If the current WoW Dev Team doesn't like to work in a game that others made, then Blizzard should kill WoW instead of butchering it further just because some devs wanna make their version of the game.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I agree with this, we shouldn't have two cosmic expansions in a row, they feel completely disconnected from the traditional world and lore, and it's so noticeable that breaks the immersion. Sometimes when I'm playing Shadowlands I don't even feel like I'm playing World of Warcraft.

If the current WoW Dev Team doesn't like to work in a game that others made, then Blizzard should kill WoW instead of butchering it further just because some devs wanna make their version of the game.

You people moaning about the world but the Shadowlands IS part of that "World of Warcraft" The game isn't being butchered by being slightly more cosmic. We broke that rule way when the Orcs were space aliens. This criticism is hollow.


Much like any franchise it evolves and while some things stay the same but there's way more to it then just Humans VS Orcs. The disconnect you feel is self made, not Blizzard.

[Makabreska]

I agree with this, we shouldn't have two cosmic expansions in a row, they feel completely disconnected from the traditional world and lore, and it's so noticeable that breaks the immersion. Sometimes when I'm playing Shadowlands I don't even feel like I'm playing World of Warcraft.

If the current WoW Dev Team doesn't like to work in a game that others made, then Blizzard should kill WoW instead of butchering it further just because some devs wanna make their version of the game.

Dude, what? It's current devs that set the tone of the game and it's story, and they always make their version of it. They are by no means bound to any specific way or place when it comes to the setting. Asking them to kill the game, because you may not like they way it progresses is just dumb.

[Raetary]

Also the lore of the game has to be revealed

Actually no.
It doesn't.
Some things should absolutely stay unknown and hidden, not everything needs to nor should be explained away.

Revealing and explaining everything just rips out any mystic and wonder the franchise could have, which is not a good thing.

Sadly, we are past the point of keeping fundamental workings a mystery.
With the Shadowlands now explained in detail, it's gonna be very weird not to have the same happen with the rest of the forces. (particularly Life)

They opened a can of worms that should've stayed closed.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Anyway crazy idea.

What if we're reading too deep into "Living" as in the Cosmic Force Life and not as much into the idea of "Living" as in evolving and changing. Like what if "Living World" is meant to imply that the "world" (EK/Kalimdor let's be honest) is going to evolve over time on a larger scale. Like it'll have actual seasonal changes or something.

That my friend, is exactly what I was thinking a few days ago. What if the devs made World of Warcraft a "living world"? Seasons, events, zones evolving with the storyline and all that jazz. Basically building up the foundation for all the future years.

[Sondrelk]

That my friend, is exactly what I was thinking a few days ago. What if the devs made World of Warcraft a "living world"? Seasons, events, zones evolving with the storyline and all that jazz. Basically building up the foundation for all the future years.

Really it's what Blizzard should have done after TBC, but I guess noone expected the game to go on as long as it did.
Making the base game better is definitely a good choice though. Updating the old world, or generally adding reasons to go back to old zones would do wonders for future expansions.
I have said before, but WoW is such an old game by now that Blizzard could easily mine full expansions worht of content just based on old content barely anyone remembers.
Just consider for instance how few players go back to Desolace, or the Badlands. Consider all the zones in the game and Blizzard could easily do a thing where one zone a week is important and easily use an entire year to cycle through everything.

Really what Blizzard needs to do is beef up Timewalking. Make it something that players really look forward to. With Legion Timewalking being added next week we are at a point where each individual Timewalking rotation will be available twice a patch. If you add some randomization to this to make each Timewalking slot slightly different from each other, then old content can be stretched out to last for years.

[Makabreska]

Actually no.
It doesn't.
Some things should absolutely stay unknown and hidden, not everything needs to nor should be explained away.

Revealing and explaining everything just rips out any mystic and wonder the franchise could have, which is not a good thing.

Sadly, we are past the point of keeping fundamental workings a mystery.
With the Shadowlands now explained in detail, it's gonna be very weird not to have the same happen with the rest of the forces. (particularly Life)

They opened a can of worms that should've stayed closed.

I mean, and then we got plenty of complaints like "Jailer is a shit villain, we don't know anything about him". Also, let's not pretend keeping a mystery should apply to how current realm and it's denizens work. If you don't explain, people will not know wtf is going on and you wont fully introduce new aspects to the story and world. Blizz always done that. Like, in minutes of us arriving in Pandaria we got exposed to Shado Pan, Sha, general Pandaren philosophy. Then as we level we discover Thunder King, Mantids and Yaungol.

[Luck4]

You people moaning about the world but the Shadowlands IS part of that "World of Warcraft" The game isn't being butchered by being slightly more cosmic. We broke that rule way when the Orcs were space aliens. This criticism is hollow.

This is interesting because I didn't feel disconnected in Outland, Draenor, or Argus, and that's because we see organic connections such as Orcs and Draenei civilizations there, a similar case can be seen in the Emerald Dream when we go into a place where we see the roots of something already known. Shadowlands on the other hand have only weak connections like Maldraxus or the Kyryan in Bastion, but even these were changed so dramatically that doesn't bring any resemblance from either Wrath of the Lich King or Warcraft III Scourge Campaigns.

[Varodoc]

This is interesting because I didn't feel disconnected in Outland, Draenor, or Argus, and that's because we see organic connections such as Orcs and Draenei there, a similar case can be seen in the Emerald Dream when we go into a place where we see the roots of something already known. Shadowlands on the other hand have only weak connections like Maldraxus or the Kyryan in Bastion, but even these were changed so dramatically that doesn't bring any resemblance from either Wrath of the Lich King or Warcraft III Reign of Chaos.

That's because orcs and ogres and draenei and eredar and demons have been in the lore for ages. They weren't asspulled into existence like the Covenants. Hell the entire Shadowlands were originally just a ghostly version of Azeroth.

It actually surprises me that some people don't understand such a simple concept.

[Makabreska]

This is interesting because I didn't feel disconnected in Outland, Draenor, or Argus, and that's because we see organic connections such as Orcs and Draenei there, a similar case can be seen in the Emerald Dream when we go into a place where we see the roots of something already known. Shadowlands on the other hand have only weak connections like Maldraxus or the Kyryan in Bastion, but even these were changed so dramatically that doesn't bring any resemblance from either Wrath of the Lich King or Warcraft III Scourge Campaigns.

Maldraxxus architecture is very similar to Scourge. And ye, of course we wont see many connections in SL, when barely anything drips from there to Azeroth. But does it mean Blizz shouldn't try creating brand new worlds with stuff we haven't seen yet?

[Raetary]

I mean, and then we got plenty of complaints like "Jailer is a shit villain, we don't know anything about him". Also, let's not pretend keeping a mystery should apply to how current realm and it's denizens work. If you don't explain, people will not know wtf is going on and you wont fully introduce new aspects to the story and world. Blizz always done that. Like, in minutes of us arriving in Pandaria we got exposed to Shado Pan, Sha, general Pandaren philosophy. Then as we level we discover Thunder King, Mantids and Yaungol.

All of this is an issue with the set up and execution.
I am aware that they need to explain how the places we go to work, but i'm arguing that we should've never gone there to begin with.