Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Nyel]

In the recent interview(s) they seemed to be hellbent on their 2 year expansion cycle. I think it’s very, very safe to assume that they’re going to release the expansion in Q4/22 and they will do everything to make this happen. There are various reasons.

[EbaumsTipster]

If it's just a normal expansion that sounds about right.

However if it does end up being an updated Azeroth then I think Q1 2023 is very likely.

They have been working on Updated EK/Kalimdor for a very long time, we don’t know how much is ready to ship. We at least know they are working on human buildings, nelf buildings are done and most of the old world models save for Gnolls, Centaurs and Dragons (and a few others) have been updated.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Starting from the fact that a World Revamp is happening, even if a World Revamp wasn't happening I still hope they update at the very least the two capitals, Stormwind and Orgrimmar, and bring them to the same level of quality that Suramar, Boralus, and Dazar'alor have (which put the so-called """"Eternal City"""" to shame).

Since Stormwind and Orgrimmar are the main hubs in the game they should be regularly updated in textures and graphics, since you spend so much time in them, and this hasn't happened since 2010...

Stormwind doesn't need a revamp. The city aesthetically holds up, is functional, and is overall up to date with the lore, even if it isn't at the size it should be. If an alliance cities were to be revamped, it should be the Exodar (canonically repaired as of a Cata story) and Gilneas (should have been retaken and cleansed of the plague).

For Orgrimmar, I'd like the evil black iron mordor architecture that went up under Garrosh' tenure to be removed. Revert back to the more colorful, more welcoming aesthetics under Thrall's tenure.

Thunder Bluff should start having the tents replaced by permanent buildings.

Silvermoon badly needs to be repaired.

[Jokubas]

Oh, as a follow up to my last post, I just remembered something.

The reveal about the Dreadlords was something I thought Shadowlands did well when it came to changing the way we saw something that's been around since Warcraft III. The idea that the Dreadlords have been triple agents all along works so well for them, and is one of the first times their reputation for deception has actually been used and not just claimed. I have been suspicious about their true allegiances since the Chronicle established how Sargeras met them and I think the canon for that worked out decently. I was worried about how it would go, but I even liked how them being native to Revendreth allowed them to nevertheless pull the wool over the eyes of the other denizens. It was a natural way to allow the people who knew their true origin to still be fooled.

The one flaw in the Dreadlord reveal for me is that it feels more like its setting up for some future story than it feels like a part of Shadowlands revealing things about the Lich King and his allies. I buy that the Dreadlords still have a lot of steam left in them, but it's weird when the one good twist in Shadowlands isn't for its sake.

Also, I completely forgot to mention the Jailer's name. That's another seeming consequence of the story acting like a perpetual rough draft. Zovaal was announced as "the Jailer", a mysterious being. Once we actually get the expansion, the name Zovaal starts popping up almost immediately and is first mentioned directly in reference to him super casually. It comes off strongly as a case of one version of the story wanting his identity to be a big reveal, but the final version not caring anymore. I'm not even sure how often he's even called the Jailer in the game. A lot of times he's called the Banished One, which makes a lot more sense given his actual history. I'm not saying a character can't have multiple titles or have a name reveal, but that's not what it felt like we got. It's no surprise fans are having a hard time getting excited for a villain when the story can't even seem to decide on their name. That's another point in Denathrius' camp (and my feelings about Denathrius are more complicated than most).

I want to clarify that I don't hate this expansion. I even felt at home learning about the Covenants much quicker than I expected to, it's just that it feels like nothing interesting has happened since the expansion came out. It's not bad, but it's forgettable and I just feel apathetic about the whole game right now.

[EbaumsTipster]

Stormwind doesn't need a revamp. The city aesthetically holds up, is functional, and is overall up to date with the lore, even if it isn't at the size it should be. If an alliance cities were to be revamped, it should be the Exodar (canonically repaired as of a Cata story) and Gilneas (should have been retaken and cleansed of the plagu

Stormwind looks like ass, what are you smoking? Just because other zones like TBC zones need a touch up more doesn’t mean that some Cata zones aren’t looking like hot garbage.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I don't think they would create new assets for no reason. They would have stuck the character in an existing zone. Even if it is just a prop set, it's still new textures. Textures for snow zones in like winter spring and such? Idk. Just seems weird to me. We have been getting hints about a revamp for years. If they aren't doing one they are wasting dev time on stuff like this.

Have you seen those Blizzcon demonstrations of environment artists using WoWedit to quickly create terrain? An environment artist could have easily whipped out the terrain for that screenshot in 5 minutes.

[Skirdus]

Considering a Constellar is in the new zone, but not a titan, the Constellars may have withheld the information from the Titans.

So basically:

• The dreadlords were never truly loyal to the Legion and were actually working for their true master, Zovaal.
• The constellars were never truly loyal to the titans and were actually working for their true masters, the First Ones.

What's next? "The draenei were never truly loyal to the Alliance and were actually working for their true masters, the Light Lords"?

I'm so fucking tired of this retroactive allegiance BS. It's not clever or creative. It's just lazy and uninspired

[KainneAbsolute]

The one flaw in the Dreadlord reveal for me is that it feels more like its setting up for some future story than it feels like a part of Shadowlands revealing things about the Lich King and his allies. I buy that the Dreadlords still have a lot of steam left in them, but it's weird when the one good twist in Shadowlands isn't for its sake.

Yeah, it seems something is missing because if you had agents in almost every force, which were they exact roles in pushing this? How do Light and Void fit in this multiversal danger? The Void said Sylvanas serves the true enemy, and we had a Naaru in the Venthyr storyline. Maybe Denathrius was also a double agent (Denathrius served himself).

[EbaumsTipster]

So basically:

• The dreadlords were never truly loyal to the Legion and were actually working for their true master, Zovaal.
• The constellars were never truly loyal to the titans and were actually working for their true masters, the First Ones.

Dreadlords corrupted Sargeras in the oldest version of lore.

Also we meet literally one Constellar (maybe two if you count Harbarom) and Constellar may just be the name of the race which the Titans are in the first place. In which case the First Ones making the Titans checks out.

[Varodoc]

Stormwind doesn't need a revamp. The city aesthetically holds up, is functional, and is overall up to date with the lore, even if it isn't at the size it should be. If an alliance cities were to be revamped, it should be the Exodar (canonically repaired as of a Cata story) and Gilneas (should have been retaken and cleansed of the plague).

For Orgrimmar, I'd like the evil black iron mordor architecture that went up under Garrosh' tenure to be removed. Revert back to the more colorful, more welcoming aesthetics under Thrall's tenure.

Thunder Bluff should start having the tents replaced by permanent buildings.

Silvermoon badly needs to be repaired.

No it needs a revamp, have you not seen Boralus? It needs a revamp desperately.

It shouldn't even be too difficult to do due to the massive Human assets created for BfA, all that this multi-billionaire company has to do is take the Kul Tiran houses, paint them blue/red/purple/yellow/brown instead of green, maybe remove some tiny assets related to the sea, and voilà.

Oh and they would also have to create new models for the unique buildings like the Keep, the Cathedral, etc. but it's a multi-billionaire company so it shouldn't be too costly

Thunder Bluff and Silvermoon don't need anything since they are not main player hubs.

[Ersula]

So basically:

• The dreadlords were never truly loyal to the Legion and were actually working for their true master, Zovaal.
• The constellars were never truly loyal to the titans and were actually working for their true masters, the First Ones.

I think the Constellars are just constructs, like Watchers & Automa, and are loyal to whomever made them. And I'm pretty sure that while Denathrius called Zovaal master, when Dreadlords say master they refer to Denathrius. The dreadlords aren't actually loyal to Zovaal because, surprise, we're not going to see them again this expansion. (Besides the one still spying for Denathrius in the raid) The dreadlords are just evil free agents like Azshara now.

On unrelated news: I'm going to enjoy watching everyone slowly realize Arthas is never showing up.

[Chickat]

Have you seen those Blizzcon demonstrations of environment artists using WoWedit to quickly create terrain? An environment artist could have easily whipped out the terrain for that screenshot in 5 minutes.

Sure but not the texture.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Sorry to piss anyone off.

I don't want Sylvanas to die but I want her to answer for her crimes but she's too much of a bad bitch to die. Like how Garrosh was too badass? The same void, if not bigger, would be created with Sylvanas. Let Sylvanas suffer for a bit and then reintroduce her with a proper redemption arc and let her lead the Forsaken again. No one else can lead the Forsaken other than the person who created it.

Blizzard's writers do not believe in accountability. In Tides of War, Jaina was framed as being in the wrong for seeking to retaliate against the Horde after they nuked Theramore. In the Isle of Thunder questline, you have Taran Zhu making a blatantly false moral equivalency between the Alliance and the Horde. In War Crimes you have orcs being let off the hook for raping Alexstraza, enslaving her children, and sending them out to die as child soldiers. In WoD you have Mr. "I paved a road with the bodies of hundreds of thousands of Draenei" being let off the hook. Legion bends over backwards to defend Illidan by saying "no ackshually, he wasn't super evil! Yeah he enslaved Outland and has a harem of sex slaves but he was totally the cool anti-hero who did what had to be done!". And then you more false moral equivalencies with the BFA Horde vs Alliance war. And then you had Tyrande being framed as being in the wrong for seeking out justice for her people being genocided...

Sylvanas should have her head lopped off, and her Forsaken lieutenants and everyone who was involved in dissecting live victims to make the blight and abominations should be shot too.

[The Stormbringer]

They. Don't. Plan. Short. Expansions.

Every expansion has a 22-25 month lifespan. If it's closer to 22 months that just means development went well & they can't plan for that.

Short as in "short on content", not "short in terms of time the game exists in this version".

[Ersula]

Blizzard's writers do not believe in accountability. In Tides of War, Jaina was framed as being in the wrong for seeking to retaliate against the Horde after they nuked Theramore. In the Isle of Thunder questline, you have Taran Zhu making a blatantly false moral equivalency between the Alliance and the Horde. In War Crimes you have orcs being let off the hook for raping Alexstraza, enslaving her children, and sending them out to die as child soldiers. In WoD you have Mr. "I paved a road with the bodies of hundreds of thousands of Draenei" being let off the hook. Legion bends over backwards to defend Illidan by saying "no ackshually, he wasn't super evil! Yeah he enslaved Outland and has a harem of sex slaves but he was totally the cool anti-hero who did what had to be done!". And then you more false moral equivalencies with the BFA Horde vs Alliance war. And then you had Tyrande being framed as being in the wrong for seeking out justice for her people being genocided...

You're just stuck in this Star Wars mentality where someone needs to die to be redeemed. Illidan having to stand jailer over Sargeras forever IS accountability.

And if we're talking about the zeitgeist, MCU Loki killed a few billion people but they'll never stop featuring him in their stories. He's too entertaining.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Thunder Bluff and Silvermoon don't need anything since they are not main player hubs.

They're popular places for roleplayers, which is pretty important because they're one of the most engaged communities Blizzard has left (which is important for spreading word of mouth hype for WoW), and yet for some reason Blizzard seems to be hellbent on antagonizing them. Normal players would also tend to hang out in those cities more if Blizzard stopped their decade long trend of trying to artificially force everyone to just sit in SW, Orgimmar, or the latest expansion capital by making those the only places to have the utilities like reforging and transmog.

[Varodoc]

They're popular places for roleplayers, which is pretty important because they're one of the most engaged communities Blizzard has left (which is important for spreading word of mouth hype for WoW), and yet for some reason Blizzard seems to be hellbent on antagonizing them. Normal players would also tend to hang out in those cities more if Blizzard stopped their decade long trend of trying to artificially force everyone to just sit in SW, Orgimmar, or the latest expansion capital by making those the only places to have the utilities like reforging and transmog.

Stormwind and Orgrimmar are Canonically stated to be the capitals of the Alliance and Horde respectively, that's why they're the main player hubs.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

You're just stuck in this Star Wars mentality where someone needs to die to be redeemed. Illidan having to stand jailer over Sargeras forever IS accountability.

Felt more like he was having fun torturing Sargeras rather than being forced to suffer for his actions.

And if we're talking about the zeitgeist, MCU Loki killed a few billion people but they'll never stop featuring him in their stories. He's too entertaining.

I bailed out of the MCU pretty early on due to how bad it was (combination of poor writing, poor acting, forgettable music, meh aesthetics, etc) so I don't know what else he has done. I think he might have killed an entire army in the second Thor movie? I don't know.

It is possible to have a protagonist who is unrepentantly evil (The Black Company series of books about a bloodthirsty mercenary group of stone cold killers and robbers, the Rance series of VNs about a barbarian conqueror and a serial rapist, etc), but those narratives don't pretend that the protagonist is ackshually a good, righteous hero we should cheer for like Blizzard constantly tries to do.

[Khaza-R]

Stormwind doesn't need a revamp. The city aesthetically holds up, is functional, and is overall up to date with the lore, even if it isn't at the size it should be. If an alliance cities were to be revamped, it should be the Exodar (canonically repaired as of a Cata story) and Gilneas (should have been retaken and cleansed of the plague).

For Orgrimmar, I'd like the evil black iron mordor architecture that went up under Garrosh' tenure to be removed. Revert back to the more colorful, more welcoming aesthetics under Thrall's tenure.

Thunder Bluff should start having the tents replaced by permanent buildings.

Silvermoon badly needs to be repaired.

Stormwind probably aged the best out of any of the old cities but its still in desperate need of attention. New players are thrown into Boralus which is full of flavor and incredible detail. Then they have to go to Stormwind which is the de facto capital of the entire Alliance.

As for Orgrimmar, I completely agree. They need get rid of all the metal. Go back to the softer stone appearance. Something like updated WSG just grander would look nice.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Stormwind and Orgrimmar are Canonically stated to be the capitals of the Alliance and Horde respectively, that's why they're the main player hubs.

I think players should be allowed to choose where they wish to chill out. You were able to do this in early WoW, but again for some reason Blizzard started trying to coral players into one spot whether they liked it or not. For some reason, GW2 has been doing the same thing as of late. It used to be that you could pick whichever of the 6 cities you wanted to chill out at, but then with Icebrood they've been moving all of the utilities to the Eye of the North, artificially trying to make the playerbase move over there whether they like it or not.