Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Cosmic Janitor]

Are there really people that believe they would announce the next expansion before next year?

[Syegfryed]

Meanwhile, Calia's husband was footman, from Lordaeron, and decidedly a commoner. Unless Bolvar had a ridiculously wild side to him and went to Lordaeron incognito to pretend to be a footman and seduce princesses, there is no way Bolvar is Calia's husband.

just like there was no way of they finding Derek Proudmoore Corpse, intact and pristine, in the bottom of the ocean, after being turn to ashes by dragon fire

and here we are, at this point everyone should know that continuity and lore be dammed, if the writing team want that Bolvar and Calia had a thing in the past they will damn well make then to be a thing, and will retcon to make it so.

[Revamp Man]

Ok so either us messing around in zereth mortis caused a time skip or it messes with reality a bit (gnomeragon being cleaned and other stuff)

Either way I’m ready because dragon isles has not been burned

We have ziidormi phasing making zone remakes easier

I’m ready to leave shadowlands behind because personally I don’t like the setting or the story

[Chickat]

"Squarevanas Boxrunner, The Geometry Queen"

Im almost tempted to quote you and put that in my sig lmao.

[Sondrelk]

That's just not a thing. The only thing we know about Bolvar during the Third War is that he sent his daughter to Kul Tiras where she was accepted as a ward of the Proudmoores and was given to a knight to raise and tutor her. Which tells us that Bolvar was already an influential person, likely nobility, not to mention that he is a paladin and a Lord himself, and Lady Mara Fordragon, the High Clerist of Stormwind during the First War, was likely his mother as well, meaning he is from Stormwind and most likely returned to rebuild it after. He is probably of about the same age as Varian, probably was his friend, too, given that he was a regent for Anduin.

Meanwhile, Calia's husband was footman, from Lordaeron, and decidedly a commoner. Unless Bolvar had a ridiculously wild side to him and went to Lordaeron incognito to pretend to be a footman and seduce princesses, there is no way Bolvar is Calia's husband.

The footman thing is another hole in the theory, but not really a big one.
Again, yes it's not the most solid theory, but most of it just lines up too well to seem like it wasnt planned. The only explanation I could have for it being a coincidence is tere being two separate writers who just happened to come up with the same basic idea.

Bolvar was friends with Varian, which likely meant that he at least met Calia when they were refugees in Lordaeron. Really all you need to say is that Calia didnt know Bolvar was nobility, Bolvar was not nobility at the time, or simply that Calia didnt tell us the players that her lover was nobility and instead just said footman as a generic knight type.

Mara Fordragon being a lady isnt the slam dunk argument it might seem like either. For one we don't know that she and Bolvar are actually closely related since there isnt actually any backstory mentioning it, nor do we know whether she was nobility when Bolvar was in Lordaeron.


Bolvar goes to Lordaeron as a refugee, is/becomes friends with Varian, meets Arthas and Calia, falls in love with Calia, has daughter in secret, Scourge breaks out and they get separated and both assumes the other dead.

Again, this is the most basic of storytelling tropes. This isnt real life where the argument necessarily gets felled on small details. The entire concept taht Calia married in secret, got a daughter and then lost sight of them during a scourge attack, coupled with Bolvar having a secret daughter with a mystery woman that he also just happened to lose sight of during a scourge attack is essentially a landslide of evidence in their favor.
Making the two events unrelated is almost unheard of in writing unless you deliberately want to trick the consumer into assuming they are related only to pull the rug out afterwards.

[Vladier]

Again, this is the most basic of storytelling tropes. This isnt real life where the argument necessarily gets felled on small details. The entire concept taht Calia married in secret, got a daughter and then lost sight of them during a scourge attack, coupled with Bolvar having a secret daughter with a mystery woman that he also just happened to lose sight of during a scourge attack is essentially a landslide of evidence in their favor.

Again, this is just not a thing that's ever been established. Bolvar sending Taelia away for her safety after she lost her mother in the Scourge attack on Lordaeron is the only thing we know about that particular incident. We only know that Bolvar was in position to send her away, that Proudmoores knew who he was, that Taelia knew who he was and that she was old enough to claim that she's never asked Bolvar for anything since she was a little girl. We don't know if she even lived in Lordaeron at the time, or if her mother just happened to be visiting Lordaeron.

Another thing that makes me very unsure that Taelia is Bolvar and Calia's daughter is that if it was planned for Calia to be her mother, at least Taelia would more closely resemble Bolvar to keep it a secret. But she is a raven-haired woman, while Bolvar is either brown or red-haired, and Calia is blonde. It is impossible for a child born to a blonde (both hair color genes in the allele are recessive and other genes limit production of red pheomelanin pigment) and whatever Bolvar's hair color is supposed to be (it seems to be either auburn or red, so either he has one dominant functional black/brown eumelanin gene and one recessive pheomelanin gene in the allele, or both of his genes are recessive and their production is unimpeded by other genes) to be black-haired (since it is the most dominant gene combination of the four). And while writers are not geneticists, that they made Tiffin blonde to explain Anduin leads me to believe that they at least know that hair color is one of the best ways to establish heredity of a character and explain away seeming inconsistencies.

Making the two events unrelated is almost unheard of in writing unless you deliberately want to trick the consumer into assuming they are related only to pull the rug out afterwards.

I think the simplest explanation is that, while Calia's child is a plot hook and Taelia is important now, Calia's husband and Bolvar's wife exist solely to explain how their children exist and why we haven't heard of them before (Calia's husband being a commoner and against what daddy wanted her to marry; Bolvar's wife being the catalyst for sending Taelia away), but they are not themselves real characters in the story. They are the Tiffin Ellerian Wrynn to Calia's child's and Taelia's Anduin. If Tiffin wasn't an explanation for Anduin, there would be a million theories regarding him being Jaina's son of all people (and I'm pretty sure there is at least one amongst "Anduin-is-actually-Arthas's-son" theories where he is). Sure, we know that they existed, we even know something about both Tiffin and Calia's husband, but they are still essentially props. They just aren't that important, especially Bolvar's wife, who is mentioned exactly once in passing and never again.

Really, if there was some familial connection between Bolvar and Calia, at least the former would recognize her by now as his wife (I'm willing to forgive Calia not recognizing Bolvar the Lava Man) and show it in some way, but I don't think they even really interact with each other.

[Dracullus]

Are there really people that believe they would announce the next expansion before next year?

It wouldn't be impossible to reveal expansion in very early stage, like Legion or SL. But it would be stupid to take attention away from 9.2 when no Blizzcon force them to give all big news at one event.

I believe 10.0 is revamp and will launch 2023 (if it is really big revamp, maybe even August 2023, SL will be always remember as drought expac, month more or less doesn't make a difference), but even 'regular' November/December 2022 expansion could be revealed after 9.2 launch if Alpha would follow soon.

[Lahis]

"Incredible games — and the talented developers who build them — are who we want to celebrate." he literally said wow is not incredible enough to be celebrated here lmao.

Well, he is not wrong on that one.

- - - Updated - - -

Some people here claimed that FF14 is #1 popular MMO now and even attempt to cover FF14 release by Blizzard with PTR or timewalking is pathetic and doomed to failure.

Of course PTR is not like patch launch, but where is this FF hype? Why 24 hours after release it has ~20k viewers on twitch like WoW on most dead periods? Of course twitch isn't precise measurement, but two similar games should have similar outcomes.

Or most people play on release, not early access for some reason (cause I really don't understand difference when we all buy digital versions)? That's why I'll wait with final judgement until next week.

Every FF14 server has 5 hour queues.

Guess there is no hype for the game.

[Dracullus]

Every FF14 server has 5 hour queues.

Guess there is no hype for the game.

I don't talk about relative popularity between usual day in FF14 and launch day. You have queus when you have far more players than you expect, doesn't mean you break all records. SL was fastest selling PC game before Cyberpunk and had minimal queues (which was unusual on it's own, Legion/BfA had none), Blizzard know more or less what number of people to expect on retail expac launch. If we would get queus there, people would blame Blizzard incompetence (and they would be right).

Of course, I repeat, Twitch views are not precise measurement, but when WoW expac get almost a milion views for release, even re-release of TBC get 500k, then people claim FF14 is #1 in genre (in popularity, not quality), then on release FF14 expac get, what, 50k views top (right now it's 19k).. well, difference is so vast that we can safely call all these claims bullshit.

Btw, views should be higher especially when people are waiting in queues.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Launch day is always surging. Its a spike any MMO Launch does this.

[Makorus]

I mean, if my servers have the capacity for 10 people, and 400 people try to play, the queues are going to be long as well.

Hardly an indicator of anything.

[Nyel]

Some people here claimed that FF14 is #1 popular MMO now and even attempt to cover FF14 release by Blizzard with PTR or timewalking is pathetic and doomed to failure.

Of course PTR is not like patch launch, but where is this FF hype? Why 24 hours after release it has ~20k viewers on twitch like WoW on most dead periods? Of course twitch isn't precise measurement, but two similar games should have similar outcomes.

Or most people play on release, not early access for some reason (cause I really don't understand difference when we all buy digital versions)? That's why I'll wait with final judgement until next week.

Final Fantasy XIV is horrible to just watch, the game has no appeal in that regard. You really have to play it, otherwise you're just looking at infinite cutscenes.

To disregard how incredibly successful and popular FFXIV is at the moment is pretty disingenous. There's absolutely no doubt about the popularity of that game. I have a love-hate-relationship with FFXIV, sometimes it totally sucks me in, sometimes I find it incredibly boring. Even totally loving the game I would never, ever watch others playing it, that would be painful.

[Wonderment2]

Has there been any major foreshadowing in Shadowlands for what's next? By this time in BOA it seemed obvious Slyvannas would be the bridge character and "Death" would be a major theme.

I haven't played any of the patches so missed alot of stuff?

[hattahat]

Final Fantasy XIV is horrible to just watch, the game has no appeal in that regard. You really have to play it, otherwise you're just looking at infinite cutscenes.

To disregard how incredibly successful and popular FFXIV is at the moment is pretty disingenous. There's absolutely no doubt about the popularity of that game. I have a love-hate-relationship with FFXIV, sometimes it totally sucks me in, sometimes I find it incredibly boring. Even totally loving the game I would never, ever watch others playing it, that would be painful.

Actually... we can't really know how popular ffxiv is now. All the statements that ffxiv is the most popular mmo originate from one single statistics site, mmo-population, where they use totally untrustworthy data. So the statistic we can feel most directly is just viewer number because both wow and ffxiv don't offer their subscriber number. And whether the game is great to watch is pretty subjective. I see many people who say wow is awful to watch.

[YYDelive]

If you search for anything related to ff14 6.0 on twitter, almost all of them are highly rated. You won’t see anyone criticizing it.

I mean, this is not a good sign

[Dracullus]

Final Fantasy XIV is horrible to just watch, the game has no appeal in that regard. You really have to play it, otherwise you're just looking at infinite cutscenes.

To disregard how incredibly successful and popular FFXIV is at the moment is pretty disingenous. There's absolutely no doubt about the popularity of that game. I have a love-hate-relationship with FFXIV, sometimes it totally sucks me in, sometimes I find it incredibly boring. Even totally loving the game I would never, ever watch others playing it, that would be painful.

This doesn't make any sense. Are you suggesting this game has nothing to offer beside story or I'm missing something? It doesn't have instances, questing, casual content? This was for months presented as direct competition to WoW, so I guess it isn't the case. Hell, people claimed that FF does these stuff BETTER. But somehow WoW can bring people to watch literally any aspect of game, but FF can't cause story has lot of cutscenes?

And somehow hyped single player games with 100% story focus (where stream spoils whole game for you) get shit ton of views after release as well. And as I mentioned waiting in queue should even encourage people to gather on twitch and discuss about game. On Classic vanilla release exactly that was happening.

This story that FF14 is incredible popular and has taken ton of people from WoW, but somehow very few (relatively) want to stream and watch it just doesn't add up.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

If you search for anything related to ff14 6.0 on twitter, almost all of them are highly rated. You won’t see anyone criticizing it.

And twitch is also a variety of popular streamers playing ff14

I mean, this is not a good sign

Not a good sign if they are just blind to any negatives it has

[Sondrelk]

This doesn't make any sense. Are you suggesting this game has nothing to offer beside story or I'm missing something? It doesn't have instances, questing, casual content? This was for months presented as direct competition to WoW, so I guess it isn't the case. Hell, people claimed that FF does these stuff BETTER. But somehow WoW can bring people to watch literally any aspect of game, but FF can't cause story has lot of cutscenes?

And somehow hyped single player games with 100% story focus (where stream spoils whole game for you) get shit ton of views after release as well. And as I mentioned waiting in queue should even encourage people to gather on twitch and discuss about game. On Classic vanilla release exactly that was happening.

This story that FF14 is incredible popular and has taken ton of people from WoW, but somehow very few (relatively) want to stream and watch it just doesn't add up.

FFXIV does do things better than WoW, but it's also a very different kind of game.
Some stuff is better, like how FFXIV has a better story, which it accomplishes by essentially making a singleplayer story and ignoring how this clashes with the MMO.
Other stuff is very different though. Like the class system which is different enough as to be incomparable.


Something being popular and something being popular to watch doesn't necessarily have a direct correlation either. Watching someone watching a movie wouldn't really work for instance. Or conversely watching someone do something tedious might be more fun than doing it yourself.

[Valysar]

Every FF14 server has 5 hour queues.

Guess there is no hype for the game.

5h ? Meh

Max 3100 players for me, and it tooks 20-30min

Edit ; nvm, 5862 right now...

[Dracullus]

Something being popular and something being popular to watch doesn't necessarily have a direct correlation either. Watching someone watching a movie wouldn't really work for instance. Or conversely watching someone do something tedious might be more fun than doing it yourself.

When WoW launch new expansion and 500-1000k people watch it, do you think they are doing it because playing on expac launch is so tedious for them? Not talking about first patch in general, but first hours/days.

There is no correlation between number of players and number of viewers - some genres are on top, MMOs somewhere in the middle, single player on the bottom. But there is strong correlation between viewers on release and hype for game. When RDR II and Cyberpunk launched, ton of people suddenly were keen on "watching someone watching a movie".

Not a good sign if they are just blind to any negatives it has

In WoW community people who see both positives and negatives are often called "fanboys" by people who often admit they straight up hate this game in current or any form. Of course some fanboys who see no wrong still exist, but it feels like they are almost non-existent compared to FF community.