Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[SunspotAnims]

Fucking yikes on Blizz firing their female co-leader. Even the employees are pissed. They are flailing in what can only be described as death throes now.

Do you know what "firing" means?

[Ersula]

They can make up lore for anything, I just don't see it on a logistical basis. I imagine they probably understand how poorly pushing Nightborne to one side and thus rendering an entire storyline non-existent for half of the player base felt and probably won't want to repeat that by like, randomly having Venthyr decide to join up with the Horde and fuck any Alliance who have spent the whole expansion part of that covenant, or vice versa.

That's really common tho. There was even less reason for the Mechagnomes to pick a side. If there's some exodus from the shadowlands, they can say "not all Venthyr are joining the Horde," just the ones that heard about Kaelthas' world & were brought into the Horde by him. Same as Draka for the Maldraxxi undead, Uther for the Kyrian & Tyrande for the Sylvan.

[Nyel]

Covenant allied races only make sense when they are neutral and get added to both factions. Blizzard didn’t want to do this again, but…

If we are having cross faction gameplay in 10.0, it wouldn’t be an issue anymore. So covenant races as allied races only make sense when we get cross faction gameplay at the same time.

I don’t expect either to happen though.

[Cosmic Janitor]

That's really common tho. There was even less reason for the Mechagnomes to pick a side. If there's some exodus from the shadowlands, they can say "not all Venthyr are joining the Horde," just the ones that heard about Kaelthas' world & were brought into the Horde by him. Same as Draka for the Maldraxxi undead, Uther for the Kyrian & Tyrande for the Sylvan.

That is blatandly false. Mecha gnomes were isolated and if they were going to join the world at large, then it makes no sense for them to join the horde that is clearly at war with their breatheren. The covenant races on the other hand are so far removed from the azeroth bullshit and racial connections that run deep, for them it doesn't make sense to join any side, since the petty squabble and race wars mean nothing to them. They also still have a purpose to fullfill in the shadowlands.

The only way to change this would be to blow up all of the shadowlands and the machine of death with it, so they'd need to seek refuge on the mortal plain. Afaik the covenants usually don't just let go of their own and allow them to bumble around the shadowlands either, so at best they could create factions of deserters that would rather join us than chill in the afterlife.

[Lahis]

Speaking of, are we expecting them for 9.2? Would be a good way to beef up the patch if there aren't a lot of zones.

ARs are not gonna happen. BFA box feature.

[Seasz]

"Substantial Releases" can't mean Hearthstone updates or Diablo Immortal. They learned at Blizzcon 2018 if you call a mobile game a "substantial release" they'll eat you alive.

TBC SoM and WotLK

[Azxza]

JAB very obviously teased that they had new IPs in the works. At least one of them is almost certain to show up in 2022.

He also stressed that they had even more mobile versions of their existing IPs in the works.

[ExiHext]

New sword got snuck into 9.1.5 that has a First One appearance. Maybe a hint that we are getting Zereth Mortis as a raid?

Unfortunately this seems to come from the venthy mission table...
https://www.wowhead.com/item=187821/...=6935#comments

Damn, looks really good. Hope there are some decent weapons for the other covenants, too.

Edit: Just went to Revendreth, second Madraxxi dropped the follower mission, don't need to be venthyr.

[Lahis]

If they were still having Blizzcon I'd ask the devs to explain in their own words how Calia is somehow more qualified to lead the forsaken than literally any other Forsaken

She's hot instead if rotting corpse like any other Forsaken.

[Sondrelk]

Being able to see all the covenant stuff on a single character really does put into perspective just how much content Shadowlands really had at launch, doesnt it.

Also I really hope Blizzard makes it easier to swap covenants, or better still makes the covenant active stuff a toggle, and leaves the rest of the covenants constantly open. Without the actual meaningful choice the actual process of changing covenants is a bit of a meaningless bit of busywork that does little more than make it annoying to optimize.
There is afterall no good reason to not constantly swap covenants to maximise rewards.

[Dracullus]

Anyone already play 9.1.5? How fast is 40-80 renown through comp stomp?

[LordKharon]

WoWs biggest problem is that they add new systems/"delete" previous systems and completely reset power every expansion. Basically every expansion is a new game. And story has to wait for systems to be ready and the other way around, at least if they stick to their "as few patches as possible" mentality.

If they would decouple story and systems they could add new story-content+zones+dailies much easier and more regularly. But they would have to scrap their whole expansion model as it is now for that. Probably never gonna happen...

[EbaumsTipster]

I want to note that for the first time in a while it looks like the systems might be finished before the expansion is. Torghast feels complete with the easy soul ash and the “finale” rooms, we’ve gotten pretty much every reward outside of ARs from the covenants, Soulbinds seem stretched out enough and extra enhanced conduits would be silly.

What if there really are no new systems or additions to the existing systems in 9.2? The only one I really think would work is some extra renown to unlock ARs at the end but even then you would need to pad the other levels out...

Also Torghast continuing to be relevant after we leave the Shadowlands for wherever seems like an odd choice. They know it’s not too popular even if its not despised so I can see them quietly retiring it.

[Nathanyel]

FFXIV respects its players time. It is a video game first and foremost. It is not designed by a committee to get people to log in as much as possible.

I have no idea about FF endgame, but I doubt more than 10% of the people that started playing during the current trend have yet reached the point where there are no more story quests, and aside from the maxlevel raids, only daily dungeons left to grind - the hate for Praetorium is palpable even to me as a non-player
(I see levelling other jobs as essentially alt gameplay, so I don't see it as true primary progress)

If a western game designer told people to play another game while they work on updates they would be crucified. Completely different culture, in America its a huge sign of weakness that people would prey on like animals.

This is actually exactly what happened when Ion suggested something to that amount some years back. Stripping out the pure hate, the replies stated "I want to always have something to do in WoW" - which was then followed by the AP grind.

I am hoping they do a soft reboot for 10.0's story. You don't have to be an old player to know Turalyon = military light guy, Thrall = nice guy orc, Azhara = bad tentacle elf, etc.

I mean, they don't even have to change anything about the old story for that. While knowing the story of previous expansions and even the RTS games helps, it's far from mandatory at this point:
The Legion, which was the ultimate cause for all expansions but Cata and MoP, is defeated, so any future appearances of demons can just be seen as generic baddies by new players.
Exile's Reach introduces you via example characters to the core races minus Pandaren.
BfA as the default 10-50 experience introduces the last gasp of the Faction Conflict, which I believe will only receive mentions from now on, or only minor flare-ups. Not that you need a specific explanation why Orcs and Humans might not like each other much.
Shadowlands, while referencing a lot of older things, mainly consists of new story hooks.
10.0 remains to be seen, but will likely not be strongly based on content before Legion either.

They can make up lore for anything, I just don't see it on a logistical basis. I imagine they probably understand how poorly pushing Nightborne to one side and thus rendering an entire storyline non-existent for half of the player base felt and probably won't want to repeat that by like, randomly having Venthyr decide to join up with the Horde and fuck any Alliance who have spent the whole expansion part of that covenant, or vice versa.

Just as then, what your character did is not necessarily canon.

However, these concerns are irrelevant if playable Covenant 'races' come as a form of "ascension" for your existing character. Faction allegiances remain as they were before, and even if multiple Mawwalkers and thus multiple people, of different factions, in the same Covenant, are canon, as hinted by off-hand mentions ingame, the player Venthyr is not someone your character assisted before. Not that PvP will be relevant outside of BGs (essentially re-enactments) or Arenas (gladiator matches ignoring factions) or Warmode (basically your individual character fucking up/getting fucked by other individuals of the other faction)

[Varodoc]

Objectively the issues the Shadowlands systems had have already been fixed in 9.1. Covenant switching has finally been addressed, Conduits have been fixed with the removal of the energy cost, and Torghast has been overhauled and expanded with a new talent system.

That's why 9.1 is comparable to 8.2 in how both patches fix the systems of the expansion. Just like BfA fixed Azerite armour by introducing Essences.

Of course you can make the argument that those systems are all dogshit, but at least they are now dogshit AND fixed

I can't imagine a scenario where 9.2 is bigger than 9.1 content-wise.

[EbaumsTipster]

I can't imagine a scenario where 9.2 is bigger than 9.1 content-wise.

The zone(s) will be bigger than Korthia easily but the patch may be smaller by way of no megadungeon. Will be interesting to see if it’s Argus sized or its another 8.3 so they can go full steam ahead with 10.0.

I’m sure nobody will care if it’s small if they show off 10.0, which sounds surprisingly likely based on Ion talking about the future of the game so much.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

"Respecting player's time"

I think that opinion is not universal for any MMO.

[Sondrelk]

I want to note that for the first time in a while it looks like the systems might be finished before the expansion is. Torghast feels complete with the easy soul ash and the “finale” rooms, we’ve gotten pretty much every reward outside of ARs from the covenants, Soulbinds seem stretched out enough and extra enhanced conduits would be silly.

What if there really are no new systems or additions to the existing systems in 9.2? The only one I really think would work is some extra renown to unlock ARs at the end but even then you would need to pad the other levels out...

Also Torghast continuing to be relevant after we leave the Shadowlands for wherever seems like an odd choice. They know it’s not too popular even if its not despised so I can see them quietly retiring it.

Torghast will likely be made into a new and improved rogue-lite, similar to how Torghast in turn was an improvement on N'zoth visions and Islands.

[EbaumsTipster]

Torghast will likely be made into a new and improved rogue-lite, similar to how Torghast in turn was an improvement on N'zoth visions and Islands.

Oh I'm sure the tech will remain I just don't think we'll get a Torghast expansion in 9.2.

[Nyel]

Oh I'm sure the tech will remain I just don't think we'll get a Torghast expansion in 9.2.

I mean we’re done with the Shadowlands and the Maw / Torghast in particular, so it would be weird to give that feature something fresh or new content. Tweaks maybe, but besides that I wouldn’t expect anything.