Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Sondrelk]

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. Blizz always done that.

You need to know the basics of what you are doing in an area and how thing there generally work. This is why Blizzard made a mistake by going to the Shadowlands to begin with, the story should have stayed in Northrend, leaving the more cosmic afterlife stuff to be vaguely implied instead of flat out told.
We didnt need to know exactly how the armies of Maldraxxus function, what their army structure is and what the zone looks like. It would have been far more interesting if we are just told that the Shadowlands is protected by a vast army of souls that looks similar to the Scourge. Or that the mushrooms that are seen with the plague of undeath come from Maldraxxus.
Hearing about the Kyrian just raises further questions. Each soul left on Azeroth is another question raised. The idea that the Val'kyr are based on winged humanoids whose job it is to ferry dead souls to the Shadowlands is explanation enough.

By going to the Shadowlands we are left with too many questions that cannot realistically be answered in the time we have, so instead we are left with that horrible in-between where we know too much to have a sense of mystique, and we don't know enough to stop asking questions.

Staying as grounded as possible and then using cosmic stuff as a spice on top is much easier, and tends to work much better.

- - - Updated - - -

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.

We were also only on Argus for a short while, both narratively and in real time. The game didnt need to stretch out content and could instead just focus on the most important bits and leave the rest unsaid.
If the expansion had taken place entirely on Argus then we would have been obliged to more explanations on what happened to the elements, or whether there are different biomes. Or why the Krokuul still exist when the demons have had milennia to simply nuke whatever areas they suspect they might be hiding.

[Makabreska]

You need to know the basics of what you are doing in an area and how thing there generally work. This is why Blizzard made a mistake by going to the Shadowlands to begin with, the story should have stayed in Northrend, leaving the more cosmic afterlife stuff to be vaguely implied instead of flat out told.
We didnt need to know exactly how the armies of Maldraxxus function, what their army structure is and what the zone looks like. It would have been far more interesting if we are just told that the Shadowlands is protected by a vast army of souls that looks similar to the Scourge. Or that the mushrooms that are seen with the plague of undeath come from Maldraxxus.
Hearing about the Kyrian just raises further questions. Each soul left on Azeroth is another question raised. The idea that the Val'kyr are based on winged humanoids whose job it is to ferry dead souls to the Shadowlands is explanation enough.

By going to the Shadowlands we are left with too many questions that cannot realistically be answered in the time we have, so instead we are left with that horrible in-between where we know too much to have a sense of mystique, and we don't know enough to stop asking questions.

Staying as grounded as possible and then using cosmic stuff as a spice on top is much easier, and tends to work much better.

Oh ye, keep the story to WotLK continent, that would really work for people. Imagine all those "filler lol" post. Y'all say SL is an unnecessary exposition, I say it's a world enrichment, plus the gorgeous visuals.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

"I don't want mysteries to be solved" seems to be a running theme here. Its not very convincing. We all knew or well I like to think that when we hear of new places, we are curious and what to see what it is and how things look and or work. The same is applied to BC, same to Northrend, Broken Isles,Kul'Tiras and Zandalar.


Its pretty human to want to discover things and understand them. Just keeping things ignorant isn't really interesting and more often then not(I'm guilty of overspeculating) it leads to overspeculation.

We were also only on Argus for a short while, both narratively and in real time. The game didnt need to stretch out content and could instead just focus on the most important bits and leave the rest unsaid.
If the expansion had taken place entirely on Argus then we would have been obliged to more explanations on what happened to the elements, or whether there are different biomes. Or why the Krokuul still exist when the demons have had milennia to simply nuke whatever areas they suspect they might be hiding.

People WANTED to see more of Argus and such. It might of been self hype but there was a reason why we wanted to go there and see it. See it for ourselves. I don't entirely blame people wanting more out of Argus despite how....annoying the "Fel fatigue" comments would be if we stayed there longer.

Apply the same for Nazjatar and well Nyalotha.

[Dracullus]

I really hope despite all odds 10.0 will be revealed on live event. Any online expac reveal will feel shitty, including Blizzcon online.

Not event talking about live Gamescom/Blizzcon, cause I doubt lockdown craziness will stop next year, but Blizzard could just invite selected & vaccinated people from family & friends.

[Sondrelk]

Oh ye, keep the story to WotLK continent, that would really work for people. Imagine all those "filler lol" post. Y'all say SL is an unnecessary exposition, I say it's a world enrichment, plus the gorgeous visuals.

Yes of course, remaking the entirety of Northrend would absolutely make players think its filler.
Players didnt say WoD was filler because it reused Outland, players called it filler because the plot was mostly irrelevant to the larger story.

Remake Northrend to look slightly different. Someone "leaked" a concept art of a half-melted Northrend map before SL was announced and I was a great believer in that.
Underground caverns of Nerubians, a giant lake where Wintergrasp was. Old raids we didnt get to see in WotLK like the Drakkari raid.

It would have been amazing I would have imagined. Then you could have had the Maw as an endgame zone and even keep Torghast if that is important.
If you want to have old characters for nostalgia then you could have just had inhabitants of the Shadowlands somehow enter Azeroth. Draka and Mograine are parts of the Maldraxxi armies so they could move over without problem. Uther is a forsworn at the beginning, so you could have him come as well. Revendreth crossing over might be more difficult, but Ardenweald could be entered through the dream if you want.

Going to Northrend could have given us most of the important stuff from Shadowlands. Even the covenants if you put some effort into explaning why they are in Northrend. And more importantly it would have given enough distance from the actual Shadowlands that concepts wouldnt need to be overly explained, and could instead stay at a nice comfortable vagueness.

- - - Updated - - -

"I don't want mysteries to be solved" seems to be a running theme here. Its not very convincing. We all knew or well I like to think that when we hear of new places, we are curious and what to see what it is and how things look and or work. The same is applied to BC, same to Northrend, Broken Isles,Kul'Tiras and Zandalar.


Its pretty human to want to discover things and understand them. Just keeping things ignorant isn't really interesting and more often then not(I'm guilty of overspeculating) it leads to overspeculation.





People WANTED to see more of Argus and such. It might of been self hype but there was a reason why we wanted to go there and see it. See it for ourselves. I don't entirely blame people wanting more out of Argus despite how....annoying the "Fel fatigue" comments would be if we stayed there longer.

Apply the same for Nazjatar and well Nyalotha.

Players want to know stuff, but that doesnt necessarily mean the sheer enthusiasm would translate well to a game.
Going to Argus for a full expansion isnt a bad idea because it overexplains stuff necessarily, its a problem because the nature of an MMO means the reveals would likely be unsatisfying, both narratively and as gameplay.

Going to undiscovered continents like Zandalar is easier because we already know most of the stuff there simply because it's already part of the game. We know what an island entails, we know what trolls are and how they work, if you want them to have a navy you just need to come up with a quick explanation for why they have not used them frequently.

Going to Argus or the Shadowlands is different because you have to explain pretty much everything. Why it looks like it does, why it works like it does, what demons or undead do all day.
And you need to do all this while also telling a compelling story. Questing is Kul Tiras is easy because you don't need to get an explanation on why they use small ferries, or why the grass is green and the mountains have snow. You can just take it for granted because the game doesnt need to explain stuff like that.


Explaining stuff like how Argus functions, or what areas exist in the Shadowlands are best limited to supplemental materials like the WoW Grimoires, or quick vague explanations.
When the gameplay is limited to a single patch and zone you could get away with much less explaining. If you want the player to stay there longer you need to start explaining stuff.

[Makabreska]

Yes of course, remaking the entirety of Northrend would absolutely make players think its filler.
Players didnt say WoD was filler because it reused Outland, players called it filler because the plot was mostly irrelevant to the larger story.

Remake Northrend to look slightly different. Someone "leaked" a concept art of a half-melted Northrend map before SL was announced and I was a great believer in that.
Underground caverns of Nerubians, a giant lake where Wintergrasp was. Old raids we didnt get to see in WotLK like the Drakkari raid.

It would have been amazing I would have imagined. Then you could have had the Maw as an endgame zone and even keep Torghast if that is important.
If you want to have old characters for nostalgia then you could have just had inhabitants of the Shadowlands somehow enter Azeroth. Draka and Mograine are parts of the Maldraxxi armies so they could move over without problem. Uther is a forsworn at the beginning, so you could have him come as well. Revendreth crossing over might be more difficult, but Ardenweald could be entered through the dream if you want.

Going to Northrend could have given us most of the important stuff from Shadowlands. Even the covenants if you put some effort into explaning why they are in Northrend. And more importantly it would have given enough distance from the actual Shadowlands that concepts wouldnt need to be overly explained, and could instead stay at a nice comfortable vagueness.

So like, instead of giving us a new world/continent with new stuff, which Blizz has always done, you want this? "Slightly different" Northrend? Instead of a brand new world? This world revamp craving is getting out of hand. Not to mention your line of thinking could be applied to any expansion:
- Why go to Pandaria? It's a land of mystery shrouded in fog and let it be that way. We will get some panda travellers telling us a thing or two and that's enough.
- Why go to Draenor? It's a land of shamanistic tribes of orcs and technologically advanced Draenei. We know it from the tales of our allies and let's leave it at that.
- Why go to Broken Isles? It's a land of ruined elven civilization that caused all the problem. No point digging up the past.

Blizz doesn't operate like that. We get brand new xpac, we get brand new lands. With the exception of Cata, where devs said world revamp took too much of a toll on development.

[GardensofLife]

Gardens of Life:
- Level 70 cap
- Profession revamp
- Cross-faction PvE and PvP
- Eternal Maze
- New class: Lifewarden
- Flying at launch
- New realm: Gardens of Life

The Jailer has disrupted the eternal cycle and the Gardens of Life are in chaos. Elune calls the night elf souls sent to Ardenweald and Tyrande to her side. An'she calls the newly awakened Vol'jin to him. A new class introduced themed after these two major characters new paths: The Lifewarden. Mail user with ranged/healer/tank specs. Ranged/healer uses bow and tank uses warglaives. Flying is at launch and zones are designed with it in mind. The Eternal Maze is a new rogue-like experience that has no loading screens that generates content as you move through the mist seamlessly in this living world.All faction restrictions lifted from Raiding, Mythic+ and PvP and can now be done with the opposing faction and guilds can now have members from both factions.

[Varodoc]

You need to know the basics of what you are doing in an area and how thing there generally work. This is why Blizzard made a mistake by going to the Shadowlands to begin with, the story should have stayed in Northrend, leaving the more cosmic afterlife stuff to be vaguely implied instead of flat out told.
We didnt need to know exactly how the armies of Maldraxxus function, what their army structure is and what the zone looks like. It would have been far more interesting if we are just told that the Shadowlands is protected by a vast army of souls that looks similar to the Scourge. Or that the mushrooms that are seen with the plague of undeath come from Maldraxxus.
Hearing about the Kyrian just raises further questions. Each soul left on Azeroth is another question raised. The idea that the Val'kyr are based on winged humanoids whose job it is to ferry dead souls to the Shadowlands is explanation enough.

By going to the Shadowlands we are left with too many questions that cannot realistically be answered in the time we have, so instead we are left with that horrible in-between where we know too much to have a sense of mystique, and we don't know enough to stop asking questions.

Staying as grounded as possible and then using cosmic stuff as a spice on top is much easier, and tends to work much better.

- - - Updated - - -



We were also only on Argus for a short while, both narratively and in real time. The game didnt need to stretch out content and could instead just focus on the most important bits and leave the rest unsaid.
If the expansion had taken place entirely on Argus then we would have been obliged to more explanations on what happened to the elements, or whether there are different biomes. Or why the Krokuul still exist when the demons have had milennia to simply nuke whatever areas they suspect they might be hiding.

In fact plenty of people suggested Shadowlands should have just been patch content...

Since again before Shadowlands, they were just a ghostly version of Azeroth. No blue angels, furries, vampires, cooler skeletons, weird robots, etc.

[Sondrelk]

So like, instead of giving us a new world/continent with new stuff, which Blizz has always done, you want this? "Slightly different" Northrend? Instead of a brand new world? This world revamp craving is getting out of hand. Not to mention your line of thinking could be applied to any expansion:
- Why go to Pandaria? It's a land of mystery shrouded in fog and let it be that way. We will get some panda travellers telling us a thing or two and that's enough.
- Why go to Draenor? It's a land of shamanistic tribes of orcs and technologically advanced Draenei. We know it from the tales of our allies and let's leave it at that.
- Why go to Broken Isles? It's a land of ruined elven civilization that caused all the problem. No point digging up the past.

Blizz doesn't operate like that/ We got brand new xpac, we got brand new lands. With the exception of Cata, where devs said world revamp took too much of a toll on development.

Why go to Northrend. Significant chunks of time has passed and the stories that could be told there are different from before.
The Vrykul and Drakkari are defeated, do we help them rebuild? Are they hostile? Maybe Odyn has returned to Ulduar and taken with him his Val'kyr to proselytize, and we are stuck in a civil war between hostile and friendly Vrykul.
The situation with the dragons are very different from what they were in WotLK. So zones like Dragonblight could be about entirely different problems than hostile blue dragons. Maybe the Infinite dragonflight is there, or something as simple as Wyrmrest being abandoned and we fight looters or crazed dragon worshippers.
Ulduar could be interesting to see again, are the watchers aware we have met the titans? Has this changed stuff for them? Is Yogg-saron completely dead, or does he just seem to be? Are the watchers interested in doing stuff other than just sit around Storm Peaks doing nothing? Is there perhaps infighting with Odyn who returns? Do they lament the loss of Ra-den being dead?

And of course that is just stuff that wouldnt require changes. As I said before, you could have a plot point be that Northrend is getting warmer for some reason. Maybe the influence of the crown is changing the temperature, or maybe something else is happening? Entire zones could be different, or maybe zones like Crystalsong forest has collapsed into the Nerubian tunnels underneath, opening up a giant cave system to explore?
Has Sylvanas set up shop in Icecrown, or somewhere else? Does she have followers there? What about the Scarlet Onslaught? The Scarlet Crusade as a whole is remarkably resilient, who knows whether there are still any there.

Sure players want new stuff, but sometimes it really is just better to take a look at what you have and what is viable to reuse instead of just declaring the entirety of Northrend a no-go zone simply because it's already been used.
I mean honestly, should we accept that just because Northrend was used as an expansion once that future expansions cannot take place there again? If WoD could reuse the idea of Outland, then why can't a different expansion do something similar to Northrend?

[hipolnalrt]

Gardens of Life:
- Level 70 cap
- Profession revamp
- Cross-faction PvE and PvP
- Eternal Maze
- New class: Lifewarden
- Flying at launch
- New realm: Gardens of Life

The Jailer has disrupted the eternal cycle and the Gardens of Life are in chaos. Elune calls the night elf souls sent to Ardenweald and Tyrande to her side. An'she calls the newly awakened Vol'jin to him. A new class introduced themed after these two major characters new paths: The Lifewarden. Mail user with ranged/healer/tank specs. Ranged/healer uses bow and tank uses warglaives. Flying is at launch and zones are designed with it in mind. The Eternal Maze is a new rogue-like experience that has no loading screens that generates content as you move through the mist seamlessly in this living world.All faction restrictions lifted from Raiding, Mythic+ and PvP and can now be done with the opposing faction and guilds can now have members from both factions.

This sounds about right for Blizzard. Wouldn't be surprised if legit.

[Hyrja]

I dont think "Flying at launch" could be used as a selling point.

[hipolnalrt]

This sounds about right for Blizzard. Wouldn't be surprised if legit.

I wouldn't be surprised if the realms of life were originally going to be 9.3 or 9.2 or something, but with delays Blizz decided to shrink SL and spin the life realms off to their own expansion.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Eternal Maze got a good laugh out of me.

Amazed and Mazepilled.

[Teriz]

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

But that isn't what I'm talking about. I have no problem with us fighting Yrel and the Lightbound if they're invading Azeroth. That is a grounded expansion because it's on Azeroth, and the history of the Draenei is well documented. All we have to worry about story-wise is the actual conflict and who is involved. This makes the entire concept more interesting and compelling because we give a shit about Stormwind, Orgrimmar, Ironforge, Thunderbluff, Pandaria, etc. on Azeroth while we simply don't have the same emotional investment in places like Bastion, Ardenwald, Maldraxxus, or Ravendreth.

In addition, the Villains are characters we've already been introduced to. Yrel especially would be an extremely good villain because we fought alongside her, and her villainy isn't totally evil. Turalyon and/or Alleria would be good villains for the same reason; We know them. They're heroes. They're legends. It makes fighting them an emotional experience for the player, because there is an earned connection there, and like Yrel, they may feel that they aren't doing an evil deed.

No, I'm not talking about a Lightbound expansion. I would welcome that expansion with open arms. I'm talking about the purpose behind a Light vs Void expansion. In such an expansion, we would inadvertently have to be on the side of the light, and ultimately we would have to defeat whoever or whatever is controlling the void. Compare what I explained with a Lightbound expansion to us fighting the Void Lords. What do you know about the Void Lords? Why would you care about going to Void planet and killing the Void Lords? Who cares about these characters? Why do we NEED to defeat or kill the Void Lords in the first place?

And yes, that is an escalation that unravels the game, because the Void Lords supposedly CREATED the Old Gods. Again I ask, where do you go after that? When you can beat a creator of gods, going back to killing 10 boars and looting their tusks just doesn't make sense.

You may argue; "Well what if we don't defeat or kill the Void Lords?" Okay cool, then WHAT'S THE POINT of such an expansion?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

And yes, that is an escalation that unravels the game, because the Void Lords supposedly CREATED the Old Gods. Again I ask, where do you go after that? When you can beat a creator of gods, going back to killing 10 boars and looting their tusks just doesn't make sense.

We did it in Pandaria and most really outside of this forum, there wasn't so much a big reaction. If anything people are overly fond of MoP. This is a you thing.

Why go to Northrend. Significant chunks of time has passed and the stories that could be told there are different from before.

I don't really hate the idea but its not as unique as creating a now realm or land. You don't want to start encourging people to do "OH BLIZZ OUT OF IDEAS HURP"

[Sondrelk]

We did it in Pandaria and most really outside of this forum, there wasn't so much a big reaction. If anything people are overly fond of MoP. This is a you thing.




I don't really hate the idea but its not as unique as creating a now realm or land. You don't want to start encourging people to do "OH BLIZZ OUT OF IDEAS HURP"

Just because the story can go back to killing boars and chasing off angry gophers after killing interdimensional deities doesn't mean the game should be given free reign to do so constantly.

Sure you need a big blowout expansion like Legion sometimes just to give some proper payoff at some point. But that doesn't mean we need every expansion needs its own Argus invasion moment.


Creating new lands is nice and all, and it does encourage creativity. It does mean however that the writers need to start coming up with increasingly obscure areas or reasons we have not visited it before. And each time an island is made into a continent and we spend time there we also miss an opportunity to have an ongoing story in older zones.

What is happening I Westfall anyways? Is that a storyline that will be continued on the Dragon Isles? Will the Botani that escaped to Southern Kalimdor be given some continuation when we go to Karesh? Will the possibility of a Dark Iron civil war between friendlies and Ragnaros cultists be given some payoff on the other side of the world instead of in their own zone?

[ohwell]

Writers care too much about what the mouthbreathing majority of the fanbase thinks, sadly, and they do let them influence the story direction instead of going for their visions in some capacity.

If that were true then you wouldn't have so many people spouting "lawl SL lore bad" when it honestly has more to unpack and The Jailer and Sylvanas was the opposite of what they claim(Saturday morning villain) by not actually telling what they're planning and merely hinting at things. If they catered to the mouthbreathers then they would have given some "epic villain speech" detailing their plans at the beginning of SoD so that way all the idiots who can't seem to understand what's going on and just spit up what random streamer XXXXX told them to think(hur dur SL lore bad) would actually be able to grasp something.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

If that were true then you wouldn't have so many people spouting "lawl SL lore bad" when it honestly has more to unpack and The Jailer and Sylvanas was the opposite of what they claim(Saturday morning villain) by not actually telling what they're planning and merely hinting at things. If they catered to the mouthbreathers then they would have given some "epic villain speech" detailing their plans at the beginning of SoD so that way all the idiots who can't seem to understand what's going on and just spit up what random streamer XXXXX told them to think(hur dur SL lore bad) would actually be able to grasp something.

Honestly every person who says these things don't know that current lore speculation literally is about metaphysics and ancient geometry/fractals which is literal topics that 99.9% of the current population on Earth do not even know about.

I do find everyone of you who think the story of Shadowlands is easy to grasp, fucking hilarious though. Keep on keeping on, I say.

[Sondrelk]

If that were true then you wouldn't have so many people spouting "lawl SL lore bad" when it honestly has more to unpack and The Jailer and Sylvanas was the opposite of what they claim(Saturday morning villain) by not actually telling what they're planning and merely hinting at things. If they catered to the mouthbreathers then they would have given some "epic villain speech" detailing their plans at the beginning of SoD so that way all the idiots who can't seem to understand what's going on and just spit up what random streamer XXXXX told them to think(hur dur SL lore bad) would actually be able to grasp something.

You wouldn't have players mention that the Jailer is horribly underdeveloped if only the Jailer was actually a developed character that wasn't conjured from the ether.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Gardens of Life:
- Level 70 cap
- Profession revamp
- Cross-faction PvE and PvP
- Eternal Maze
- New class: Lifewarden
- Flying at launch
- New realm: Gardens of Life

The Jailer has disrupted the eternal cycle and the Gardens of Life are in chaos. Elune calls the night elf souls sent to Ardenweald and Tyrande to her side. An'she calls the newly awakened Vol'jin to him. A new class introduced themed after these two major characters new paths: The Lifewarden. Mail user with ranged/healer/tank specs. Ranged/healer uses bow and tank uses warglaives. Flying is at launch and zones are designed with it in mind. The Eternal Maze is a new rogue-like experience that has no loading screens that generates content as you move through the mist seamlessly in this living world.All faction restrictions lifted from Raiding, Mythic+ and PvP and can now be done with the opposing faction and guilds can now have members from both factions.

Faké faké faké faké. It's like fake, only trying too much.