Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Makorus]

The potential for that to be challenged was the interesting part. Her previous characterization was interesting as a side character. Challenging her to be better than that - to experience real change with a real character arc like a real story - piqued my interest. The fact that she stood there alone, with no audience to fool, led me to believe that there was potential here for some interesting character work.

And instead, she knew it was the Jailer the whole time, this was part of the plan from the beginning, and makes her reaction completely puzzling. And no explanations are good for Blizzard: either (1) the writers did not know about the Jailer's involvement as the story was not yet mapped out that far, or (2) they knew, but chose to deliberately mislead the playerbase to manipulate a reaction out of this when they subvert the expectations that were set here solely to subvert our expectations.

In summary, either they don't write out a story in advance, or write it in a way that ignores any true dramatic potential that would stem from developing her character in favour of manipulating our expectations on a meta level for the sake of shock.

This is why most people are not enjoying the story.

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Same for her burning Teldrassil. Apparently this was a part of her plan all along? Then why was portrayed as an unplanned emotional outburst? They can't have their cake and eat it, too - they need to choose one or the other.

If it was an emotional outburst, great! That has a lot of dramatic potential!

If it was planned all along? Show us her confidently and coldly giving the order. Also great! Very dramatic!

Have us wondering what her plan is, not whether or not one exists (hers or the writers). Instead, they tried to do both, solely for the sake of misleading the audience so we could be "shocked" later on at the reveal. But that reveal has no dramatic value if it's entirely contrived and not set up properly beforehand.

It's even more annoying because Blizzard keeps flip-flopping about the Burning. There's some sources (like the latest cinematic) that display it as something she did confidently, and in some, like the short story afaik and the original cinematic, it's something of an in-the-moment decision. I mean, the Horde version, the Alliance version and the two short stories all have drastically different character reactions. It's bonkers.

[draugril]

I think you are misunderstanding his comment. He liked her at that point because she had to leave her scheming ways behind, because she was thrust into being Warchief, something Blizzard was planning to make her care about considering her inner monologue dealt with that.

Then again, I still argue that Sylvanas hardly was a character before Cataclysm and merely a plot device with boobs, but hey.

Precisely. She would have been a great focus for the narrative if she was legitimately challenged to leave the mustache-twirling behind. And whoever developed that cinematic did a great job setting this up. But this potential was simply undermined, time and time again, by intentional design. And that's absolutely tragic.

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It's even more annoying because Blizzard keeps flip-flopping about the Burning. There's some sources (like the latest cinematic) that display it as something she did confidently, and in some, like the short story afaik and the original cinematic, it's something of an in-the-moment decision. I mean, the Horde version, the Alliance version and the two short stories all have drastically different character reactions. It's bonkers.

It's not just bonkers. It's incompetent. There's no clear vision. And most plot points are written not to serve the actual narrative, but to create those meta "moments" that get people talking, completely missing that those moments in other franchises are significant because they're the culmination of hundreds of pages of reading or dozens of hours of watching that took pains to foreshadow the narrative and develop the characters.

In short, no "twist" should be unpredictable. Anyone sufficiently (if not overly) engaged with the material should be able to see it coming. If a more than a few people (more than random chance would allow) don't 100% predict the twist before it happens, your story isn't setting up these plot points well enough.

[Hitei]

The potential for that to be challenged was the interesting part. Her previous characterization was interesting as a side character. Challenging her to be better than that - to experience real change with a real character arc like a real story - piqued my interest. The fact that she stood there alone, with no audience to fool, led me to believe that there was potential here for some interesting character work.

And instead, she knew it was the Jailer the whole time, this was part of the plan from the beginning, and makes her reaction completely puzzling. And no explanations are good for Blizzard: either (1) the writers did not know about the Jailer's involvement as the story was not yet mapped out that far, or (2) they knew, but chose to deliberately mislead the playerbase to manipulate a reaction out of this when they subvert the expectations that were set here solely to subvert our expectations.

In summary, either they don't write out a story in advance, or write it in a way that ignores any true dramatic potential that would stem from developing her character in favour of manipulating our expectations on a meta level for the sake of shock.

I think you are misunderstanding his comment. He liked her at that point because she had to leave her scheming ways behind, because she was thrust into being Warchief, something Blizzard was planning to make her care about considering her inner monologue dealt with that.

Then again, I still argue that Sylvanas hardly was a character before Cataclysm and merely a plot device with boobs, but hey.

My confusion was that in that same post, he's talking about "OG Sylvanas fans" being disappointed because the character """is unrecognizable""", but it is literally the exact same character. She was kind of an asshole in WC3, she was a huge asshole in early wow, and she's still a huge asshole now.

I don't know which inner monologue you're referring to, but literally the first thing that Sylvanas did as Warchief was abandon her entire fleet to destruction in Stormheim, without saying a word to anyone, including Nathanos her most loyal assistant, so that she could go find and make a bargain with Helya, (during which she leaves the Horde player to struggle to escape Helya's realm) so that she could forcibly mindcontrol a titan watcher into making her more soldiers to die for her.

The Jailer was almost certainly written in as far back as Legion, especially since Legion has specific references to the powers of Death (e.g. Helya telling Odyn he better not fuck with the "beings of Death" because they are "ancient and powerful" and it would be dangerous "even to a Keeper").

And instead, she knew it was the Jailer the whole time, this was part of the plan from the beginning, and makes her reaction completely puzzling. And no explanations are good for Blizzard: either (1) the writers did not know about the Jailer's involvement as the story was not yet mapped out that far, or (2) they knew, but chose to deliberately mislead the playerbase to manipulate a reaction out of this when they subvert the expectations that were set here solely to subvert our expectations.

Your binary here is terribly false one, there are many reasons for her to react as confused. There are quite a few explanations here on their side, regardless of whether or not the Jailer's influence was intended at the time (which it almost certainly was, since they almost certainly had an idea of who told Vol'jin to pick her, knowing that she was going to be a malevolent force in the next expansion).

1) Her reaction just isn't genuine. She's not surprised, she's acting like Vol'jin's death is weighty when she just doesn't give a shit.
2) Her reaction is genuine, she just didn't know that part of the plan. Maybe the Jailer told her he'd make her powerful but she wasn't expecting it to come in that form. Maybe he told her he'd make her warchief but she thought it would be her having to politically maneuver into the empty seat, when instead Vol'jin just casually, easily made her warchief. Maybe he hadn't told her anything at all beyond broad strokes of the plan.
3) Her reaction is genuine and she knew the exact plan, she was just still surprised the Jailer's faction was capable of pulling strings to that extent.
4) Her reaction is genuine, she knew the exact plan and isn't surprised that it worked, but in that moment she's still struck by the magnitude of what just happened, because even if you know you're going to win a nobel prize, I imagine getting physically handed the gold medal is still a stirring event. She was made warchief of one of the two most powerful factions in the world and her plan to completely destroy the laws of the universe just became very real.

[Tyris Flare]

I think the main thing to understand is that many people in this thread have put far more energy into understanding characterization and narrative than anyone who actually creates it

[draugril]

Hindsight is 20/20. Any of that could be true. In hindsight.

But having your emotional beats land through hindsight is not satisfying or dramatically potent.

[Soon-TM]

Who cares? Why do they keep acting like this matters? No ones uses monarchy as their basis for leadership in this game. Varian & Anduin were seated king of the Alliance for less than half of this game's lifetime & Gilneas is the only other nation that had a king.

Edit: I forgot about Dwarves. But that doesn't say much because they've never mattered.

Well... The Zandalari empire is a monarchy, and so is Silvermoon, even if there isn't a ruling king at this moment. Ironforge Dwarves are in more or less the same boat, DI Dwarves are still ruled by a queen, while Gnomes became a monarchy by the end of BfA. Tauren, while not a formal monarchy, do seem to accept Baine as their ruler by birthright - as do their HM brethren, whose leader Mayla came to power because she is the daughter to the previous chieftain.

[Ersula]

Well... The Zandalari empire is a monarchy, and so is Silvermoon, even if there isn't a ruling king at this moment. Ironforge Dwarves are in more or less the same boat, DI Dwarves are still ruled by a queen, while Gnomes became a monarchy by the end of BfA. Tauren, while not a formal monarchy, do seem to accept Baine as their ruler by birthright - as do their HM brethren, whose leader Mayla came to power because she is the daughter to the previous chieftain.

Lore'themar being named regent lord & promising there will "never be a king of Silvermoon" ever again, makes it clear their stance on monarchy: Though now I realize how fucked that is... he essentially was named Regent Lord, by dismissing the monarchy, effectively named himself leader-for-life.

The Tauren seems odd that their children took over for them but while that's odd not technically a monarchy.

[Hitei]

I think the main thing to understand is that many people in this thread have put far more energy into understanding characterization and narrative than anyone who actually creates it

That is always going to be the case for all media.

Hindsight is 20/20. Any of that could be true. In hindsight.

But having your emotional beats land through hindsight is not satisfying or dramatically potent.

But your entire position is based on hindsight? Like your issue here is that in hindsight that specific expression is "strange" based on what we know now and also the questionable interpretation that said expression meant Sylvanas was going through some major revelation concerning the value of human life. What you suggested earlier was that people who were a fan of Sylvanas' character (i.e. being a dick) have somehow been betrayed because in hindsight part of her didn't like her own actions.

You literally just got done praising that emotional beat as you experienced it during the narrative, and are now talking about how it is bad because of the hindsight. I don't think that indicates emotional beats are being poorly delivered through hindsight, quite the opposite.

I am just pointing out that your hindsight interpretation of what that cutscene cinematic shows is not the only interpretation in hindsight, or even the most likely one.

[Edward Wu]

Fun question:

What is the absolute earliest you guys see 10.0 releasing a sort of public alpha?

Would May be too optimistic?

[Civciv]

Fun question:

What is the absolute earliest you guys see 10.0 releasing a sort of public alpha?

Would May be too optimistic?

I think June or July is the perfect time for them to release alpha.

[Makorus]

Fun question:

What is the absolute earliest you guys see 10.0 releasing a sort of public alpha?

Would May be too optimistic?

A month after the raid comes out, I would wager. So yeah, roughly May.

[Hitei]

Fun question:

What is the absolute earliest you guys see 10.0 releasing a sort of public alpha?

Would May be too optimistic?

Historically I'd vote for june, but it really depends on where they are at. It's not really a typical announcement -> testing release cycle so who knows, maybe it will drop in April.

[Teriz]

Fun question:

What is the absolute earliest you guys see 10.0 releasing a sort of public alpha?

Would May be too optimistic?

Announcement and alpha asap.

[Lady Atia]

I think June or July is the perfect time for them to release alpha.

Faaar too late. I would expect an Expansion announcement between January and February with Alpha starting a few weeks after the race to world first is finished. They seem to hurry up with the 9.2. builds and raid testing already.

[ohwell]

When I remember that they still haven't explained why she went to sleep in the first place it feels like my brain touching a hot stove.

As for her existence, she was originally part of the Jailer, so he just became whole again. Which was always my problem with this expansion: Considering the Jailer was initially damned for "asking questions" & nobody noticing the "machine of death" was broken, made me think that Sylvanas was supposed to be in the right. Based on the precedent established by this franchise in the first place: Sylvanas explicitly wanted to create a better world, and we've already been shown characters like Kerrigan & Illidan, killed innocents without remorse, but that was ultimately shown to be "worth it" because their goals were pure. I guess these characters would still be shamed by the Thrall & his friends, but the narrative definitely presents Kerrigan & Illidan as a christ-figure.

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They should be more worried about Endwalker than Lost Arc, especially is just a diablo clone pretending to be an MMO

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It's his story. He made a story that doesn't make sense.

It wasn't "broken" if you mean his argument. His argument was the First One's design was flawed/unfair to the souls involved.

If you refer to broken as in the Arbiter being broken, the covenants had lost touch with each other(not specified if it was right after they banished Zovaal or much later) and the attendants were keeping it hush hush otherwise as that's made pretty evident as they take us away to show us rather than tell us right there. The whole "purpose" hasn't been the Arbiter, but rather then First Ones obviously or even at this point the 4 cov leader's interpretation of the First One's purpose. The attendants are so devoted to all of this it's pretty obvious they wouldn't spread word that the Arbiter was broken. Everything has been and is setting up the covenants to be wrong at worst and misguided at best, but due to time constraints and people being unable to follow a simple story, they may just forgo it all.

[Bsirk]

Faaar too late. I would expect an Expansion announcement between January and February with Alpha starting a few weeks after the race to world first is finished. They seem to hurry up with the 9.2. builds and raid testing already.

I don't think they will make an announcement until after World First kill of the Jailer. It'll take away too much attention from 9.2. However, saying that, I am perfectly okay if they gave us information sooner rather than later.

[Lamoth]

Redemption is absolutely about what others think about you. And not a synonym of atonement in any way.

An objectivly completely innocent person can be redeemed. They have nothing to atone for.

Redemption is an act of proving you are better then what people think about you independently of how your bad reputation was obtained. Most of the time it's used in situations were that bad reputation is a result of falsification. So yeah, 'Sylvanas' redemption' would be showing that everything she did somehow was for the greater good. We always knew that she believed exactly that. So people talking about 'internal' redemption are wrong.
You cannot apply real world morality to situation where an actor knows death is not final and aims for restructure of cosmic rules. In this world killing is more akin to moving to another town with your kids.

[Cosmic Janitor]

It wasn't "broken" if you mean his argument. His argument was the First One's design was flawed/unfair to the souls involved.

If you refer to broken as in the Arbiter being broken, the covenants had lost touch with each other(not specified if it was right after they banished Zovaal or much later) and the attendants were keeping it hush hush otherwise as that's made pretty evident as they take us away to show us rather than tell us right there. The whole "purpose" hasn't been the Arbiter, but rather then First Ones obviously or even at this point the 4 cov leader's interpretation of the First One's purpose. The attendants are so devoted to all of this it's pretty obvious they wouldn't spread word that the Arbiter was broken. Everything has been and is setting up the covenants to be wrong at worst and misguided at best, but due to time constraints and people being unable to follow a simple story, they may just forgo it all.

This isn't on the people this is purely on the incompetent writing and framing. In the case of ardenweald they already had to forsake their purpose and sacrifice entire glades (yet for some reason they kept parasites like the troll loa around..) for their anima and yet no one bothered to check what the fuck is wrong with no anima coming through. The eternal ones know how the machine of death works, they should know that something is amiss. In the case of the Kyrians you have them flying to Oribos all the time and not a single one thought to report that all souls are being funneled into the maw? This maybe be plausible with a rinky dinky operation that has 10-100 people looking away, but it becomes unbelievable when it's on the scale of all life in the universe. If you want to blame this all on the attendants in Oribos then there should have been covenant representatives constantly petitioning them for an answer, oribos should have been shut and been designed entirely different visually to facilitate this plot. The way it is though, no, everyone can see from a distance that something is amiss.

[Chickat]

Galakrond returns bigger and badder
We have no aspects, fewer keepers, and in terms of power our forces are still recovering from recent events

Wrathion has discovered a new way to empower the aspects and it lies in the dragon isles a floating land mass

We need to find nozdormu to help us locate them. If he helps us he becomes moruzond because in helping us it prevents his original death soon to be at the hands of galakrond. He helps us by searching the time ways and is twisted before our eyes and leaves

With galakrond screwing up the world slowly due to his new body the scarlet crusade uses this to their advantage and tries to blame anduin and install their own king supposedly the heir to lordaeron but is actually a black dragon in disguise and the last surviving whelp of onyxia.

The dragons on the isles don’t like outsiders ever since they originally lifted the isles into the sky away from the troubles of the mortals below.

So would Galakrond be the final boss or Morozond? Perhaps Moro would not even be a boss to stretch villains for future expansions.

[TheFirstOnes]

Your first sentence is reasonable and I accept your expanation.

Your next two sentences are ridiculous, and I think you miss the point of people who say that stuff. You have to understand that the core of Warcraft is in Azeroth. Even when we left Azeroth early on back in BC, the designers made sure to take key elements of the WC1-3 and Vanilla WoW story into Outland. Outland felt extremely connected to Azeroth and frankly still does. It feels like a natural extension of it. We could easily go back to Outland in a future expansion.

The same cannot be said of the Shadowlands. They feel distinctly alien in a way that is not relatable with the majority of players and it clearly seems intentional. That's a bad thing. When you move away from your core identity, you will get complaints. The designers don't just get to make whatever they want, they have to stay within the confines of what's already been established.

There are certainly elements of the Shadowlands that are cool, but they make an unnecessary effort to build up a world that is not relatable. Do you remember the beginning of the expansion late in 2020 when people were basically calling the Shadowlands hell? Bastion's story and atmosphere felt very inhuman and cruel, even machine-like. The covenants and zone's characters (aside from the obvious story baits like Uther, Kael etc.) do not have any real connection to Azeroth.

It doesn't help that the Shadowlands story retcons so much shit to hell and back that it is simply unreasonable.

Tf? No they didn’t. WC 3 retcons and changes so much shit from WC2, same with 1.

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They even changed most of Illidans story cause to many players, him goin insane was a dumb fucking excuse to kill him off, which I agree with to a degree.

Azeroth wasn’t even the planets name in WC1, just the name of the nation where the Humans of lower EK thrived.

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If the jailer is gone and the rift is still there then what is stopping an evil dragon from resurrecting

Us closing it.