Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Super Dickmann]

Did it awaken something inside them?

The succubus only attacked them in the game, the incubus in real life. I think we all know what the patrician choice is if you're maining lock, especially when combined with the set that makes you look like a Grand Wizard.

[Chickat]

That's why they should try to hook the casual audience more with 10.0. Give them housing (on a level of atleast animal crossing, if not valheim), more customizations, lots of new mounts, pets and transmog to farm. Maybe even allow me to have more than 50 chars per account just to make us alt lovers happy (they would still get lots of money from people transfering chars over from their 2nd accounts). And no borrowed power / external systems. Less Korthia-style, more Zereth Mortis-style. More timewalking, more evergreen content, don't kill elite content but give everyone else lots of other stuff to focus on.

Oh is ZM good?

[micwini]

10.0: Rise of the Zandalelves.
Basically the same premise as Patch 4.1, but instead of trolls, it's elves.

[Sondrelk]

Oh is ZM good?

The main difference is that the external power system is almost entirely focused on non-instanced open world content, meaning that with the sole exception of the double legendary and arguably flying if you are desperate to skip the run to the raid, then nothing is stopping someone going into the Sepulcher raid with no hindrances.

Of course, since the upgrade system is decoupled from the raid, it can be both more in-depth, as well as give stronger buffs overall than it would have if it was balanced for raids.

[draugril]

Yeah. I've been thinking the traditional sub will go away. Not box sales though.

They will add premium sub that gives you access to cash shop items so long as its active. Most likely the quantity of cash shop items will increase. But as long as in-game content doesn't decline, it could be a win-win for everyone.

Why do people think this? The PR around the game is abyssmal, sure, but on paper? More profitable than it ever has been. Why would they mess with an extraordinarily successful model that manages to bilk more and more out of the playerbase with every passing expansion?

[Nyel]

Why do people think this? The PR around the game is abyssmal, sure, but on paper? More profitable than it ever has been. Why would they mess with an extraordinarily successful model that manages to bilk more and more out of the playerbase with every passing expansion?

It's not profitable because of the subs though, it's profitable because people spend a ton besides the sub.

[draugril]

It's not profitable because of the subs though, it's profitable because people spend a ton besides the sub.

Why rock the boat at all, though?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Of course, that should be #1 priority. Core of game for invested people is very good, my only issue is that expansion system are not completely account wide.

Housing would be perfect for that, but imo game needs to advertise more content that is already in game. Without addons and checking wowhead you simply have no idea how many little stuff there are in SL alone.

My perfect 10.0 would be:

- full revamp of EK/Kalimdor (some zones 1-60, some reserved for patches), not 'Cata' revamp, but 'WoD' one - from scratch
- squish to 60, whole 1-60 achievable in EK/Kalimdor
- housing possible in various zones (at least cover all 'racial' zones)
- cross faction, including war mode off
- revamp war mode into heroic mode with harder world and better rewards
- class skins or new class (I guess it's perfect moment for Tinker).

And most important - stable patch cycle. Just take Legion - fast X.1, 2nd season in X.1.5, big patch zone+dungeon X.2, 3rd season X.2.5, etc. And no, really fast 7.1 was not mistake, it's important to keep momentum for launch.

But keep in my mind that no matter what they do, half of people from launch will quit anyway. As I said, many people treat WoW expac just like another game to finish or for quick nostalgia trip.

Non power progression based system seems to be the way to go even though and I gotta be honest with myself, covanents didn't become the rage factor this expansion(Based on the things I've seen people say).

[draugril]

But keep in my mind that no matter what they do, half of people from launch will quit anyway. As I said, many people treat WoW expac just like another game to finish or for quick nostalgia trip.

Here's the thing with my particular group of friends: the less we feel pressured by design decisions to keep playing (be it through pointless grinds, timegates, or what have you), the more likely we are to continue playing for the duration of an expansion. If we feel pressured to play every day/week because of any reason other than the inherent enjoyment of playing, we're just going to burn out and not play.

[huth]

It's not profitable because of the subs though, it's profitable because people spend a ton besides the sub.

It's profitable because they spend a ton in addition to subs. That's not a good reason to remove subs.

[Relapses]

It's not profitable because of the subs though, it's profitable because people spend a ton besides the sub.

Whoa. When did Blizzard start breaking down how much they get from subs versus value added services?

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

Whoa. When did Blizzard start breaking down how much they get from subs versus value added services?

I'm assuming he misspoke in that the game is not at its most profitable atm because of sub numbers alone. Which is likely true, as there's no way the game has the most subs it ever had.

[The Stormbringer]

Nu-uhh. Leave those filthy void-loving traitors out of my city. Not gonna happen.

Idk, I've seen some cool artwork of a rebuilt Silvermoon split into three sections. One for the Night Elves, one for the Void Elves, and one for the Blood Elves.

EDIT: To clarify, the current 'old, abandoned' section filled with Wretched was remade into a nature area for the Nelves, the central 'filled with dead' region was rebuilt and had Velves, and the other 'currently fine' section was Belves. Wish I could find that art, it was good.

[Relapses]

I'm assuming he misspoke in that the game is not at its most profitable atm because of sub numbers alone. Which is likely true, as there's no way the game has the most subs it ever had.

To make such a statement we'd have to know how much of each there are, though. You can say the game isn't as profitable as it was in the past when the subscription was the main source of cyclical income for Blizzard but it's a bit of a reach to say that value added services have overtaken the subscription.

[Dracullus]

I'm assuming he misspoke in that the game is not at its most profitable atm because of sub numbers alone. Which is likely true, as there's no way the game has the most subs it ever had.

I doubt, dude like to make up stuff. Once he said people are more hyped for TBC Classic than SL and his "proof" were... google trends. It was right before SL Alpha.

Obviously now more money come from mitrotransactions than 'old' WoW, simply because cosmetic shop didn't exist and game has no longer flood of new players to keep launch sub numbers. Hard or even impossible is compare anything post 2015.

But it's ridicolous to say that subs are not most important (by far). Number of whales is always (relatively) very small and in WoW they simply have no room to, let's say, spread their wings. In some F2P they can even spend thounsands and thousands of $ to be more powerful - that's another thing, in WoW you will never buy power and no, paying someone to do content for you is not making you any more powerful.

[magrodelt]

That's why they should try to hook the casual audience more with 10.0. Give them housing (on a level of atleast animal crossing, if not valheim), more customizations, lots of new mounts, pets and transmog to farm. Maybe even allow me to have more than 50 chars per account just to make us alt lovers happy (they would still get lots of money from people transfering chars over from their 2nd accounts). And no borrowed power / external systems. Less Korthia-style, more Zereth Mortis-style. More timewalking, more evergreen content, don't kill elite content but give everyone else lots of other stuff to focus on.

Thats so disconnected from what a casual wants as the devs are IMHO. I have played both casual and mythic raiding. If I am playing casual I don’t want to farm more pets and mounts. There are already enough of them. I want to be able to finish the patch reputations /systems and maybe get some vanity in the process, but I don’t want to go farm an elite for 1% mount, real casuals don’t even know it drops to begin with. And I want the reputation to not take 1 month + of doing 1h+ of dailies to give me some crappy low ilvl epics and cosmetics, that’s insta quit thinking about it for me. The character limit is more than enough for 99% of the player base. And borrowed power or systems are pretty nice when you can make significant progress as a casual who gets big upgrades often and isn’t stuck at that super long farms for another 1% the non-casuals get stuck with. I have played mythic progression up to bfa and up to wod I had almost every achievement in the game, being in the top collectors in my server in pets, achivements mounts etc since classic. I now play casual and played 3 freaking days to catch up to 9.1.5 since I left in 9.0. Why am I not coming back until the end of 9.2? I can’t gear myself past lfr levels without going mythic or raid and it’s toxicity and crazy requirements aren’t very casual friendly, the lfr is absurdly long and boring and it’s unreliable to get gear (RNG is a big problem with wow) there and it’s still just a few ilvl above wqs. there simply isn’t a casual/solo gearing path, even the 230 ilvl archivist rep is absurdly grindy for something that doesn’t even leave you decently equipped. The reputations take so long that’s it’s simply a big no for me and while I actually like torghast and completed lvl 12 4 stars (210 ilvl and only a couple box talents but still possible to improve it) there is nothing for me there except… farming like 25 30 min+ torghasts to max the talent tree. It’s not very appealing and the rewards are pet n 1017 and mount n 403. Take for example ffxiv, you can get much closer to max ilvl going casual, and reputations take less than 10 minutes a day and there are 3 per expansion, they take around 25 days and best of all, you can level them in another class to level that class. Add that there is always some class you can level on the same character (vs wow where even reputations are lost when changing classes, I never got how people make a second character of a class they already have) and it’s easy to see what I will play until I decide to complete the 9.2 quest chains in 2-3 days at the end of the patch when the time gating is gone. Wow needs to stop thinking it needs to keep me hours and months connected to achieve anything. It needs to realize I will come back often if I can get significant progress when I play casual. Making everything take ages isn’t the way, it makes casuals quit. There is a huge real casual player base out there that is barely informed and doesn’t even use guides, mmoch or even wowhead. Ffxiv is a very good example of this, that’s why I mention it.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I've barely seen any toxic behavior in Mythic+ maybe once you hit super high it might pop up but my experience has been fine and it shouldn't dissuade you. Having a bad experience once doesn't define everyone doing Mythic+ or raiding.



P.S. I am not someone who is a "Make your own group" person, not as easy as one would think.

[Revamp Man]

I've barely seen any toxic behavior in Mythic+ maybe once you hit super high it might pop up but my experience has been fine and it shouldn't dissuade you. Having a bad experience once doesn't define everyone doing Mythic+ or raiding.



P.S. I am not someone who is a "Make your own group" person, not as easy as one would think.

Surprisingly the most toxic area seems to be 10-15

[Chickat]

Surprisingly the most toxic area seems to be 10-15

I've been wanting to jump back in. I haven't done any M+ since Legion. At this point, not only do I not know what the affixes do, I don't know the dungeons or the routes. It's too intimidating to jump into.

[Revamp Man]

I've been wanting to jump back in. I haven't done any M+ since Legion. At this point, not only do I not know what the affixes do, I don't know the dungeons or the routes. It's too intimidating to jump into.

It’s fine if you start slow
Half the people running use addons for routes and the affixes are explained in the grouping tab