Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Val the Moofia Boss]

New feature Player housing.
New Professions: Furnishing.
Furnishing makes furniture for housing

What would furnishing do that other professions can't already do? Tailors and leatherworkers would be able to create upholstery or cushionings for woodworkers to complete a sofa.

Woodcutting wood can be used to make hilts for weapons

I know this probably boils down to creating mats for blacksmiths to use to complete a sword, but it would be cool if you could visually mix and match parts, like different hilts and crossguards and pommels and blades. Bannerlord and Warframe did this and I don't think it'd be too technically challenging for WoW to do it either. Same with hunter weapons, like changing out the barrel and the stock and the scope.

[Shinrael]

My perfect WoW expansion.

Imagine this. Semi world revamp. Most EK and Kal zones touched up ala Darkshore style. New quests where appropriate to erase the cata storyline.

New continent Dragon Isles. 5 zones. each with a theme and palette of each flight.
New feature Player housing.
New Professions, Woodcutting, Furnishing.
3 new battlegrounds, 2 new arenas.
Solo queue arena and RBG.
Scenarios return.
Tier sets return.
New class Dragonknight. 4 specs. 1 melee, 1 tank, 1 ranged dps. 1 melee dps. Tank is earth/black and bronze themed. Earth as armor, bronze to rewind time and heal wounds. Melee is black and red flight themed. Ranged is red and bronze themed. Healer is green and bronze themed. Healing with nature and rewinding time to heal wounds.

Tier sets can be bought with valor, but you have to achieve some level of difficulty to get them. For example, Complete the newest raid on Normal, Earn 1500 rating, Complete a Mythic+7 etc. Nothing too hard, but not given away totally freely. Old tier sets like last tier are free to buy with no restrictions. Tier sets are a lot more expensive than in the past, but only have 1 rank, and they provide different bonuses based on the content they are used in. In pvp they provide pvp bonuses. In dungeons, they enhance utility or aoe abilities. In raids they enhance raid utility and single-target abilities.

Valor returns.

Valor is used to purchase tier gear, other gear, professions recipes from faction vendors, furniture, toys, pets, mounts from faction vendors. Valor can also be converted into any prior expansion currency or even gold. 1 valor is 1 gold when you have nothing else to spend it on. A world quest gives 10-25 valor depending on the difficulty.

You can now learn 3 professions at a time. Max 2 of each type. For example, you can learn 2 gathering and 1 crafting, or 2 crafting and 1 gathering, but not 3 of either.

Archeology revamped. You can put some items you find into the house as a trophy. A lot more mounts, pets, toys, and crafting recipes from this profession. At least 10 new mounts. Mostly skeletal versions of existing models. Skeletal horse, wolf, kodo, ram etc.

World quests give Building supplies, Valor along with the usual rewards.
Building supplies are used to upgrade your house.

You can put your house in a few popular EK, Kalimdor locations, or in any Dragon Isles zone. Collect trophies from pvp, dungeons, raids, and professions to earn fun buffs (non player power), Maybe player power but only when solo in the world.



Woodcutting wood can be used to make hilts for weapons (only required starting at level 60 to make 10.0 prof items) Wands, bows, and furniture.

Furnishing makes furniture for housing, as well as items needed to upgrade your house from tier 1 all the way up to tier 8. Tier 1 houses are single room very small houses like the one near Goldshire. All the way up houses with 3 stories, a basement, a small mine under the basement, and an herb garden.

8 new dungeons on Dragon Isles including 1 caverns of time dungeon. 5 Old dungeons remade. Remade dungeons include Blackrock depths. Split into 3 dungeons. Rebuilt from the ground up. Remade Wailing caverns. 2 dungeons.

2 raids at launch. 4 boss Caverns of time Galakronds fall. 8 boss Titan vault. Vault with failed dragon experiments, clues on how to restore dragonflights power.

Scenarios return. Go back in time with Chromie and experience past events with 1-3 players. 5-10 at launch. Rewards valor, pets, mounts, furniture, achievements etc. Semi dynamic. Think a mix between torghast, islands and MoP story scenarios. Gain temp powers, semi-random maps and enemies and stop the Infinite dragonflght from changing the timeline.

No player power grinds other than for gear. Tons of content, but most only rewards cosmetics and housing progress.

Thats the kind of expansion I want, and the kind of expansion WoW deserves.

Yeep. I'm sold.

[therumblings]

Very good expansion concept, I don't know if Blizzard could pull off something that good, but man I hope so.

[Chickat]

What would furnishing do that other professions can't already do? Tailors and leatherworkers would be able to create upholstery or cushionings for woodworkers to complete a sofa.



I know this probably boils down to creating mats for blacksmiths to use to complete a sword, but it would be cool if you could visually mix and match parts, like different hilts and crossguards and pommels and blades. Bannerlord and Warframe did this and I don't think it'd be too technically challenging for WoW to do it either. Same with hunter weapons, like changing out the barrel and the stock and the scope.

I suppose you could give other professions furniture to make, but does it really make sense for any profession to make a counch or storage chest? Shelving? Hottub? Other professions could supply certain things. Tailors could craft cloth, Leatherworkers or skinners could supply skins/leather. Blacksmiths could supply frames, handles, etc, on and on. I just think its time to add another profession.

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Very good expansion concept, I don't know if Blizzard could pull off something that good, but man I hope so.

Even if they had half of that, i would be hyped as fuck. That is basically my dream expansion. I could have asked for even more, but I wanted to keep it somewhat grounded in a possible reality. Even if you remove the class, the dragon isles, and have the whole expansion in revamped EK and Kal I would still be happy.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

They haven't made an MMO yet and already have all these complex and interconnecting stories that don't have obvious plotholes.

For all of leagues strengths not having obvious plot holes isn’t one of them. You don’t need to look any further then the recent ruination event where they had things as obvious as the anti magic city not react at all to a magic invasion or the zero tolerance magic hunting characters join up with a half wraith and take up using magic items with no fuss.

Thats of course not counting retcons conflicting canons characters who don’t exists in the lore at all ect.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I am mostly just curious whether it will have an audience. From what I have seen at least the LoL players have little to no interest in playing an MMO just because it looks similar to what they know.

I see two problems:

• It came too late. It's not 2004 anymore, where you had all the right conditions to make WoW explode into the mainstream. In 2004, Hollywood hadn't started churning out CGI-fest after CGI-fest and LotR had just happened, so fantasy was still fresh in the public consciousness. Social media hadn't taken off yet, so the idea of playing online with other people was still a novel idea. Likewise, it was still possible for the mainstream media engine and word of mouth to channel everyone's attention towards a few products. So WoW had mass appeal, was novel, and everyone's attention was focused on it. But now it's 2021. People have been overexposed to fantasy for years so it doesn't grip the imagination anymore. Playing online with other people is not novel anymore, and with the internet being ubiquitous, you don't get mainstream titans that define a generation like Star Wars, Harry Potter, or WoW anymore. The MCU was the biggest thing in pop culture since HP but only had a fraction of the cultural impact, because now people's options are too diversified. It also isn't 2009/the early 2010s anymore, when LoL had vaguely become a part of gaming pop culture. Besides the lawsuit, LoL has been forgotten.

• LoL does not appear to have a large fandom of hardcore people excited for the next chapter of the story like WoW did after WC3. Maybe if the Ruined King had come out, there might have been some hype for what came next, but looking at the reception to the Sentinels of Light event, it doesn't seem like people are very thrilled for the future of the storytelling in games.

I guess only time will tell whether it will join FFXIV as a legitimate contender for the MMO crown, or whether it will join the towering pile of supposed WoW killers...

FFXIV only became relatively popular over the last couple years because 1. FF has brand name recgonition. People know they're going to get a solid story experience out of FF. 2. FFXIV had built up a reputation over 7 years as the most polished alternative game to WoW. And 3. WoW was a fraction of its former self compared to the 12 million it had back in its hey day, which left a vacuum that FFXIV has been able to completely fill.

A LoL MMO has the chance to attract hundreds of thousands - maybe a million - subscribers, but I don't see it reaching the 12 million concurrent subs that WoW had at its height.

It's the only other company that can invest as much money as Blizzard in their MMO AND also has similar (if not more polished) art style

I'd contest that. I've been pouring over LoL's art over the past week (pre-rework art of heroes, post-rework art of heroes, skin art, art for the cards, etc), and LoL's artstyle is very different from WoW's. WoW goes for a much more gritty look with lined faces and darker colors. The only time WoW looks vaguely like LoL is in Hearthstone art, which the rest of Warcraft does not resemble at all. Meanwhile LoL, overall has a very soft artstyle with lots of smoothing filters, a light color palette, and smooth anime faces. In recent years, WoW's ingame art has been moving towards LoL's generic fantasy artstyle, but it has not been received well. There are forum posts on the WoW official forums criticizing the more recent WoW tiersets "as cheap", like stuff you'd see on artstation or for a mobile games. LoL aesthetics don't seem to be appeal to the sensibilities of WoW players. What few LoL heroes that vaguely appeal to WoW player sensibilities have been downplayed (Renekton) or have been waifu-ized (Thresh).

Factions conflict might appeal to Warcraft fans depending on how the LoL MMO handles it. If you can play as Noxus or the Shadow Isles and try to invade Demacia or Ionia, then that might appeal to Warcraft fans.

AND they already have much better communication and faster reaction to player feedback than Blizzard.

I don't know. I've been listening to Necrit and T B Skyen and the generally feeling I'm hearing is that Riot has been ignoring their fanbase for the last few years (no longer releasing a wide variety of different heroes like beastmen and just putting out a bunch of pretty faces), has had a severe drop in the amount of heroes released, events like the Ruined King/Sentinels of Light being botched, story writers being fired, hero balance botched, etc. It sounds like Riot isn't much better than Blizzard.

Also their world/story is much more polished and organized than WoW's.

Wasn't there two or three different complete retcons of the lore? And there are heroes who haven't had their lore updated yet? Not to mention that it seems that most of LoL's lore is told out of game, and apparently the card game's challenge mode tells more story than the MOBA does (outside of the dating visual novel event, or the botched Ruined King event). WoW has a lot of botched of storytelling, but they also have several well received stories told through gameplay, and WoW has two decades of singelplayer games and questlines.

They haven't made an MMO yet and already have all these complex and interconnecting stories that don't have obvious plotholes.

Counted several plotholes in their new show already, and then there is the reception to ruined king, but I digress.

everything people hate about BFA and SL was there in Legion and was much, much worse and they have toned it back in both expansions, and will likely tone it back again in 10.0. But it's been years so you've forgotten all that and you only remember the good stuff. Grass is always greener on the other side.

Yup. People tolerated Legion because it was their first exposure to borrowed power grinds, and the story wasn't offensive in a super obvious way.

[Nyel]

I kinda think they will push it back to march to make the quarter look better? TBC phase 3 in Jan or Feb. 9.2 in March.

Then Alpha in April, 9.2.5 in June to make that quarter hopefully not as bad.

A terrible July-September quarter with a November/December 10.0 because there is no way Activision lets them slip past December.

If its a World revamp id like them to take their time and push it back to Spring 2023 (Not gonna happen), but if its a bog standard expansion like BFA or SL they might as well get it out in 2022.

Yeah, although Q1/22 is Diablo Immortal on top of that. Might be enough to generate revenue. I can see 9.2 in March, maybe it's safe to assume it'll launch then. March is one of their go-to months for content patches.

Right now, even if it's a world revamp, I do not think they can delay it until 2023. There is nothing besides Diablo Immortal next year (I do not count Hearthstone expansions), absolutely nothing. They desperately need the WoW expansion for their revenue. Sure, a lot of money is already generated with pre-orders and they can start them in Q2 already, but the year looks very desolate without an expansion.

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Man I keep trying to come up with a worse alternative that's still on Azeroth and there really isn't one left is there. It's like Dragon Isles, New Continent, or they lied about returning to Azeroth and we're going to the Lifelands.

Pretty much this. For me it's like:

Hope/Cope: Azeroth revamp
Pragmatism: Dragon Isles continent

I hope for the former while I totally expect the latter.

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I'm hoping for a revamp because WoW desperately needs a soft reboot. I mean, just look at Zereth Mortis, a nowhere place from a nowhere land, have you seen anyone hyped for this stuff? It's like visiting someone's dream world. If this is what the future has in store for this franchise I'm sorry but WoW is doomed.

We need new characters, old characters growing faster, new leaders, new heroes, new cities, changes in territories, new alliances, and new threats. We can't keep following Jaina, Thrall, and co. in wonderland forever. [/B]

I agree. If Zereth Mortis and 9.2 shows anything, it's that even the art team is pretty much bankrupt at this point and can't carry World of Warcraft anymore. Hype for 9.2 is very limited and players are whelmed, at best. 10.0 must be special.

[Nuciek]

I agree. If Zereth Mortis and 9.2 shows anything, it's that even the art team is pretty much bankrupt at this point and can't carry World of Warcraft anymore. Hype for 9.2 is very limited and players are whelmed, at best. 10.0 must be special.

Or they are already invested in 10.0 and anything that has to be done in SL is just required minimum.

[Lady Atia]

but it wasn't, this is just your hindsight talking

Emerald Nightmare was the easiest raid in modern WoW and people hated that. Then we got raid after raid with hard AP requirements to stat check bosses. Tomb of Sargeras was an insanely punishing raid that killed several guilds. It was so bad that Method released a video complaining about how overtuned and buggy KJ was. Exorsus (who got WF on Mythic Gul'dan) wrote blogs about how Blizzard was killing the high end raiding scene.

Legendaries were insanely imbalanced and RNG acquisition. People were actually benched because they got a pair of legendaries that lead to them just doing 20% less damage than an otherwise equally geared player of the same spec. Oh, and for several months they were stealthily softcapped at 4, you stopped getting bad luck protection on them after that so it was quicker to literally just roll a new character to get the ones you wanted.

Speaking of specs, you couldn't off-spec efficiently because the AP grind was insane (on top of also needing the right legendaries).

People hated how every single thing was timegated, including stuff like third Relic slots (which weren't equal between classes, some campaigns took longer to unlock them because of mission table requirements). This peaked with the Broken Shore, where you had epic story quests like "collect 100 netherrunes for Khadgar" or whatever the fucking currency was called, and that was just the entirety of your questing for that week.

People hated how everything could titanforge, including weapons and stuff from past tiers or world bosses. And since tier sets were 6 slots but you only needed 4, you were encouraged to run old, trivial raids every week for them

And then they introduced things like Netherlight Crucible which was RNG upon RNG, because now you needed to not just get a relic to drop, it also needed good traits from that or it was worthless because traits were way more important than ilvl. When Azerite Armor was announced with BFA, Blizzard had to specify that the traits weren't RNG because people were so burned and mad about the Crucible.

Or how about little things like how the hidden appearances were often gated behind AK levels, which at the time people insisted was Blizzard forgetting to put them in the game and just lying about it.

But nowadays people are crying because you have to spend 15 minutes on dailies for a 1% dps gain or spend 30 minutes in torghast a week at the start of the patch for your legendaries to get more ilvl. Is it fun gameplay? No, but I'm not going to go on forums crying about it killing the game. I like raiding and I like M+ so I will spend my hour on chores of this content every week so that I can spend 10+ hours on the stuff I like doing. If I feel it's not worth it I will simply quit the game.

So I'll say it again: everything people hate about BFA and SL was there in Legion and was much, much worse and they have toned it back in both expansions, and will likely tone it back again in 10.0. But it's been years so you've forgotten all that and you only remember the good stuff. Grass is always greener on the other side.

Honestly titanforging and legendary drops were the best thing against content droughts - because running old raids was actually giving you good gear, unlike what we have now. No one is running Castle Nathria anymore and it's a shame. They need to bring back atleast titanforging so we have reasons to run anything else but the current raid ...

[draugril]

My perfect WoW expansion.

Imagine this. Semi world revamp. Most EK and Kal zones touched up ala Darkshore style. New quests where appropriate to erase the cata storyline.

New continent Dragon Isles. 5 zones. each with a theme and palette of each flight.
New feature Player housing.
New Professions, Woodcutting, Furnishing.
3 new battlegrounds, 2 new arenas.
Solo queue arena and RBG.
Scenarios return.
Tier sets return.
New class Dragonknight.

Say no more.

I'd come back.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Honestly titanforging and legendary drops were the best thing against content droughts - because running old raids was actually giving you good gear, unlike what we have now. No one is running Castle Nathria anymore and it's a shame. They need to bring back atleast titanforging so we have reasons to run anything else but the current raid ...

Bringing back Titanforging will incur this forum's wrath. I don't miss Titanforging but it didn't bother me either.

[Sondrelk]

Honestly titanforging and legendary drops were the best thing against content droughts - because running old raids was actually giving you good gear, unlike what we have now. No one is running Castle Nathria anymore and it's a shame. They need to bring back atleast titanforging so we have reasons to run anything else but the current raid ...

That is the opinion now. The opinion then was that it nurtured degenerative gameplay where you would farm a boss just on the off chance it would titanforge.
One of the world bosses in Legion dropped a trinket that was by far the best if it titanforged, leading to players feeling obligated to farming it forever.
It also interfered with tradeable personal loot, made players feel like the raid tier never ended, and generally led to massive power spikes based purely on luck.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

That's the same time of year the Shadowlands alpha started

Yes, but it doesn't matter if you consider the fact that we didn't get x.3 patch for this expansion and the fact that the expansion development scope is much larger than Shadowlands.

There's also multitude of employee reasons why this is not looking good.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I suppose you could give other professions furniture to make, but does it really make sense for any profession to make a counch or storage chest? Shelving? Hottub? Other professions could supply certain things. Tailors could craft cloth, Leatherworkers or skinners could supply skins/leather. Blacksmiths could supply frames, handles, etc, on and on. I just think its time to add another profession.

It probably makes more sense to have a woodworking profession like carpenter instead of one that specializes in furniture only. That way you could also make staves, polearms, bows, etc. as well as normal furniture and parts of it.

[Nyel]

Are we agreeing that the next expansion needs at least a new class?

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I don't feel that the next expansion needs anything but the basics. If they execute on the basic idea and drum up a PR campaign they will reinvigorate the product. Obviously they should also have a much better release cadence.

I think the fact that we are in these circumstances where a 10.0 with the basic principle of "Hey, it's Azeroth" could lead to complete collapse of the audience is indicative of the Narrative Team and the Design Team not playing ball with the feedback they have recieved.

Certainly, I think if people had issues with the N'zoth Raid Cinematic for 8.3. I definitely think the 9.2 Raid Cinematics could supercede the travesty of "it" by an AU.

Again, I don't think they need to overcomplicate 10.0. If they just reset the universe and take us to a new Azeroth and do that they win. If they take us to a BFA scenario with cosmos invasion forces clusterfucking the narrative they will drive everyone out. Especially if the narrative storytelling has not changed into a different format.

Honestly, I do think they will bring out the big guns whether its' Preorder bonuses with new races or a new class.

The fact that I am genuinely worried for 10.0 which should be the easiest spike in return of players never before seen since WoD is definitely describing an obvious problem.

Not to speak of the Dev Cycle they are gonna go through to get this expansion into the same cycle as CoD MW2 with how intense Cataclysm development was and also the burnout and churning of employees while they are Working From Home with senior developers being permanently WFH..

[draugril]

Are we agreeing that the next expansion needs at least a new class?

Very much so.

I first identified with Enhancement Shaman. That is unrecognizable.
I then really clicked with Blood DPS DK. That didn't even survive the expansion in which it released.
I haven't had a class that I felt was "me" since. A new class is that Hail Mary chance to give me a new perspective on the content of the game that would allow me to enjoy it fully.

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I don't feel that the next expansion needs anything but the basics. If they execute on the basic idea and drum up a PR campaign they will reinvigorate the product. Obviously they should also have a much better release cadence.

Define "basics." Gameplay-wise, IMO, BfA and SL were simply following the "basic" standard that Legion set. Even if BfA and SL are technically superior, I think we can agree that neither were as well received. We need new and novel experiences. Narratively? Yeah, reel it back in. Do some character work.

[Teriz]

Are we agreeing that the next expansion needs at least a new class?

Yes.

By the time the next expansion drops, there would have been a six-year gap since Demon Hunters were released. People also expected a new class in Shadowlands and didn't get one. I really think a new class is overdue at this point, and Blizzard really needs to inject some new blood gameplay wise into the game. We need a new way to interact with the content.

Also if the goal is to draw in players not currently playing, a new class can bring those people in.

[The Stormbringer]

Ok, now Shadowlands is over, and talking about 9.2 lore is boring since Anduin lives, Sylvanas will be redeemed and Zovaal will die. Everyone knows that etc.

INSTEAD, Let's get some excitement here!








#Team World Revamp ARISE!!!

These are fucking gorgeous. I'm leaving the full quote in since it's been a few days, but damn... how have we missed these? Absolutely stunning.

[Crysis]

Soooo, new patch heavily implies we will be leaving the afterlives after this and no raising the dead theme whatsoever - which means probably no Necromancers next expansion. But since they REALLY *NEED* to add new class, Im thinking all this tinkery stuff in 9.2 will instead give us the Tinker class. I don't like it, I don't want it, but that's what I think we'll get. Any1 see it going the same? And if yes, do you think Blizzard can make Tinkers fun to play?