Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[ExiHext]

Yep. I'm one of them. Where WoW is concerned, my sheer apathy has thus far prevented me from updating my credit card information after a number change, though. I'm not a frugal person, but nothing in WoW currently has piqued my curiousity.

And yet you are here, discussing about a game you are not interested in...what a life.

[draugril]

And yet you are here, discussing about a game you are not interested in...what a life.

I love WoW. I'm not interested in it currently. I am very interested in its future. Imagine being the person that publicly judges and complains about how other people enjoy spending their time, though... to each their own, I suppose.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I mean they just need to annouce new Allied Races and they will hit 6+ million preorders easily and again the promise of Azeroth will get that nostalgia kickin' hard for people to fork their dollerydoos over.

[draugril]

I mean they just need to annouce new Allied Races and they will hit 6+ million preorders easily and again the promise of Azeroth will get that nostalgia kickin' hard for people to fork their dollerydoos over.

Depends on the Allied Races. I have a personal litmus test for my interest in them: have they played significant roles in at least two expansions? If so, sign me up. I don't like these asspull rep-grind-of-the-patch additions.

[Makabreska]

Depends on the Allied Races. I have a personal litmus test for my interest in them: have they played significant roles in at least two expansions? If so, sign me up. I don't like these asspull rep-grind-of-the-patch additions.

I mean, it is no secret that if we get new AR's, Covenant races are prime candidates. They come feature complete and they would be immensely popular.

[shoc]

Sounds kind of homophobic.

I am a raging gay

[draugril]

I mean, it is no secret that if we get new AR's, Covenant races are prime candidates. They come feature complete and they would be immensely popular.

If Nightbourne are any indication, making a seemingly "feature complete" race a playable option is not a 1:1 transition. Every Covenant race would face the same difficulty in translation. As for popularity... perhaps popular with the current playerbase. And I wouldn't fault them for catering to people actively playing, either. It's just not my cup of tea, at all. There are things that make sense to carry forward and things that make sense to leave behind. My sensibilities in these regards have been at odds with many of Blizzard's recent decisions.

So yes, I do see them as likely as well. But as mentioned, my personal litmus test disqualifies them from getting my support.

[AngerFork]

Depends on the Allied Races. I have a personal litmus test for my interest in them: have they played significant roles in at least two expansions? If so, sign me up. I don't like these asspull rep-grind-of-the-patch additions.

I tend to be a bit more lenient on my own litmus test for Allied Races, if for no other reason than the "two expansions" rule takes out some strong options like the Taunka & the Jinyu. I instead keep my litmus test as "is this actually a different race or just a customization?" as well as "does the addition of this race help the story proceed in any noticeable way?"

Covenant Allied Races like the Kyrian & Venthyr absolutely pass both tests in my view.

[Sondrelk]

I mean, it is no secret that if we get new AR's, Covenant races are prime candidates. They come feature complete and they would be immensely popular.

Covenant races as ARs would need to be neutral, or they would run headfirst into the same problem Nightborne had with one faction getting completely screwed narratively.
It would even be far worse with covenants since they are not just an important faction you spent a lot of time with, but a conscious decision the player opted into. Having the Kyrians then turn around and screw over dedicated Horde paladins, or Necrolords giving the boot to alliance players like me that genuinely loved that aesthetic would be a far worse injustice to the players.

And of course, this all leads back to whether we genuinely should then get 4 distinct neutral ARs, when a stated issue with Pandaren is that they are neutral, and therefore problematic to include in n faction themed plotlines.

[AngerFork]

Pending whatever options we get for Cross Faction play in 10.0 & beyond, there's a decent enough chance that we may not even need to pick a faction for them in the future. In that sense, they could be true allies. Imagine the Kyrian helping us with the threats to Azeroth & beyond, but not having to actually join a faction.

[Osmeric]

And yet you are here, discussing about a game you are not interested in...what a life.

Schadenfreude is a wonderful drug!

[draugril]

I tend to be a bit more lenient on my own litmus test for Allied Races, if for no other reason than the "two expansions" rule takes out some strong options like the Taunka & the Jinyu. I instead keep my litmus test as "is this actually a different race or just a customization?" as well as "does the addition of this race help the story proceed in any noticeable way?"

Covenant Allied Races like the Kyrian & Venthyr absolutely pass both tests in my view.

That's fair.

Personally, I see the Allied Race system as used best for what you would see as "customizations." Mag'har and Dark Iron were my favourites, but even Highmountain and Lightforged have their merits, even if they don't pass my test. They're low-resource additions that put a new spin on an existing concept and given us options that wouldn't make sense to simply add to existing options. If they simply add this stuff as customizations, we get awkward additions like the Wildhammer tattoos on Bronzebeard Dwarves.

New races are best suited as just that: new core races. If we get, say, Ogres, they shouldn't need all the rigamarole of the Allied Races. They should simply be new options for players new and old. Vulpera, I believe, should have fit this mold. And Kul Tiran and Zandalari were overdeveloped.

Give us those races that already exist that use existing assets and spruce them up a little. Dragonmaw Orcs, Wildhammer Dwarves, Fel Orcs, Frost Dwarves, "fresh" Forsaken, Highbourne, Stromgarde Humans and so on. Take the existing lore and existing models and repackage it with a little flair and there's your Allied Race.

But expanding customization options seems to be a very low priority. I'm sure this would "cost us a raid tier" or two. But I am completely down with paying a raid tier to get more races and the like.

[Sondrelk]

Pending whatever options we get for Cross Faction play in 10.0 & beyond, there's a decent enough chance that we may not even need to pick a faction for them in the future. In that sense, they could be true allies. Imagine the Kyrian helping us with the threats to Azeroth & beyond, but not having to actually join a faction.

Cross faction play is still not the same as the AR being neutral. Unless factions are completely removed to the level where you can have your Horde character join Alliance guilds doing what are supposedly Alliance specific things like raiding the opposing faction and such then you are still asking the player to accept that not even the champion of the covenant wasn't enough to have the Night Fae join the Horde, and indeed join the opposing faction.

It was a massive problem with Nightborne since it asked the player to accept nonsensical story developments. And while that one was especially egregious because of Teldrassil happening right after, similar events could happen again, and just like then you would be asking the player to accept development choices made for the sake of gameplay development be directly at odds with the stated narrative.
Or indeed, quite simply asking a dedicated Alliance player that loves the Venthyr aesthetic to eat a dick as the race is given to the Horde and they are left with nothing in return.

[AngerFork]

That's fair.

Personally, I see the Allied Race system as used best for what you would see as "customizations." Mag'har and Dark Iron were my favourites, but even Highmountain and Lightforged have their merits, even if they don't pass my test. They're low-resource additions that put a new spin on an existing concept and given us options that wouldn't make sense to simply add to existing options. If they simply add this stuff as customizations, we get awkward additions like the Wildhammer tattoos on Bronzebeard Dwarves.

New races are best suited as just that: new core races. If we get, say, Ogres, they shouldn't need all the rigamarole of the Allied Races. They should simply be new options for players new and old. Vulpera, I believe, should have fit this mold. And Kul Tiran and Zandalari were overdeveloped.

Give us those races that already exist that use existing assets and spruce them up a little. Dragonmaw Orcs, Wildhammer Dwarves, Fel Orcs, Frost Dwarves, "fresh" Forsaken, Highbourne, Stromgarde Humans and so on. Take the existing lore and existing models and repackage it with a little flair and there's your Allied Race.

But expanding customization options seems to be a very low priority. I'm sure this would "cost us a raid tier" or two. But I am completely down with paying a raid tier to get more races and the like.

You bring up some really good points here. Moving something like the Dark Iron Dwarves into customizations not only gives weird combos like Wildhammer Tattoos on a Bronzebeard Dwarf with Dark Iron fire hair (which may look awesome, but kind of destroys the lore), but you'd also lose some of the better flavored racials like the Mole Machine.

I do wonder in retrospect if this would've been better handled as a true sub-race system where you'd pick "Dwarf", then under Dwarf you'd have options for Bronzebeard, Wildhammer, & Dark Iron (with the latter two unlockable with a non-rep based quest chain). That would give the same customization/racials without having the weird side-combo designs, plus it would be much more extendable to new races as we get them. Playable Eredar? Throw them under the Draenei race as a sub-race. Then you are free & open to take races that don't fit under those specific races (Vulpera, Ethereals, etc) & add them as their own category of race instead.

[Sondrelk]

You bring up some really good points here. Moving something like the Dark Iron Dwarves into customizations not only gives weird combos like Wildhammer Tattoos on a Bronzebeard Dwarf with Dark Iron fire hair (which may look awesome, but kind of destroys the lore), but you'd also lose some of the better flavored racials like the Mole Machine.

I do wonder in retrospect if this would've been better handled as a true sub-race system where you'd pick "Dwarf", then under Dwarf you'd have options for Bronzebeard, Wildhammer, & Dark Iron (with the latter two unlockable with a non-rep based quest chain). That would give the same customization/racials without having the weird side-combo designs, plus it would be much more extendable to new races as we get them. Playable Eredar? Throw them under the Draenei race as a sub-race. Then you are free & open to take races that don't fit under those specific races (Vulpera, Ethereals, etc) & add them as their own category of race instead.

That would be "better" in many ways, but it would put a lot of pressure on Blizzard to make subraces for every single race.

And of course, even being generous and bundling stuff like Velves under Night Elves, that still leaves stuff like Vulpera as complete outliers that don't fit under any core race, or indeed possible highly requested ones like Ankoan/Jinyu.

[draugril]

That would be "better" in many ways, but it would put a lot of pressure on Blizzard to make subraces for every single race.

And of course, even being generous and bundling stuff like Velves under Night Elves, that still leaves stuff like Vulpera as complete outliers that don't fit under any core race, or indeed possible highly requested ones like Ankoan/Jinyu.

On that note... it would be awesome to have High Elves with Void and Blood under them. High Elven options being all of the shared stuff without the exclusives. And being able to choose "High Elf" as a neutral race, like Pandaren, but limiting your customization options. This would also let Blizzard go a little crazier with the Blood Elf customizations.

And functionally, most already have subraces. I see no issue with putting pressure on to expand our options further.

[AngerFork]

Cross faction play is still not the same as the AR being neutral. Unless factions are completely removed to the level where you can have your Horde character join Alliance guilds doing what are supposedly Alliance specific things like raiding the opposing faction and such then you are still asking the player to accept that not even the champion of the covenant wasn't enough to have the Night Fae join the Horde, and indeed join the opposing faction.

It was a massive problem with Nightborne since it asked the player to accept nonsensical story developments. And while that one was especially egregious because of Teldrassil happening right after, similar events could happen again, and just like then you would be asking the player to accept development choices made for the sake of gameplay development be directly at odds with the stated narrative.
Or indeed, quite simply asking a dedicated Alliance player that loves the Venthyr aesthetic to eat a dick as the race is given to the Horde and they are left with nothing in return.

That's somewhat what I mean. There are a handful of ways cross-faction play might happen...some affecting the story while others don't. Pending how Blizz opts to do cross faction play, there are a handful of situations where racial loyalty doesn't matter as much. If factions are dissolved, then there's no reason for new races to choose a faction (aside from old raids/zones). If player characters are generally removed from factions a la Jaina/Thrall working together, there still isn't a ton of reason to force a faction on new races...after all, we work with non-faction NPCs all the time. Such a setup would avoid things like the Nightborne/Mechagnomes/Highmountain Tauren being forced to go against a side that helped them & allow Blizz to give out races as they wish rather than needing a constant set of two each time for fairness.

For past faction-based zones/instances, you could have Chromie or an NPC give them a default option that can be switched. For future faction-based conflicts...honestly, that can of worms has been opened enough times, we don't need another faction war.

That would be "better" in many ways, but it would put a lot of pressure on Blizzard to make subraces for every single race.

And of course, even being generous and bundling stuff like Velves under Night Elves, that still leaves stuff like Vulpera as complete outliers that don't fit under any core race, or indeed possible highly requested ones like Ankoan/Jinyu.

There would definitely be some pressure on Blizz to make subraces for every race, but that pressure has already been there. Since the introduction of the Allied Race system, there have been quite a few people trying to equate an Allied Race for each Core Race. There's often threads asking what the Worgen/Forsaken/Pandaren Allied Races should be in order to complete the first round of ARs...I just responded to one yesterday. That pressure was set up from the moment the system was announced.

As for Vulpera not fitting under any category...I'd argue that shows somewhat how the Allied Race system changed & makes an argument that Vulpera should perhaps be their own category. They don't share much at all in common with the Goblins their frame came from...animations are different, stories are unrelated, personalities are way different. If anything, the should set up a better differentiation between what an Allied Race is vs. a Core Race where that differentiation really got muddied by the end of BfA.

[Ersula]

Depends on the Allied Races. I have a personal litmus test for my interest in them: have they played significant roles in at least two expansions? If so, sign me up. I don't like these asspull rep-grind-of-the-patch additions.

The Shadowlands races are a good idea, but why they care about the world of the living would need to be developed. The Dreadlords going back & forth between the veil caused all this in the first place so I can't imagine many would think letting people come & go as they please would be allowed.

Considering the latest build has new Sylvanas clicky lines, it seems like she's really sticking around: Perhaps as faction leader of undead elves? The Lilian/Calia scene at the end of BFA does feel like an allied race quest: complete with unique racial mount.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT6UDBY9nIM

[Vasoka]

Alright, real talk. When do you ppl think they'll announce 10.0? And in what manner? Given that xpacs were always announced at Blizzcon / Gamescon so far.

[Raetary]

Alright, real talk. When do you ppl think they'll announce 10.0? And in what manner? Given that xpacs were always announced at Blizzcon / Gamescon so far.

Late feb/March, after 9.2 release, big announcement stream.