Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Yarathir]

Oversimplifying villains isn't really an argument.

I don't really think it's possible to oversimplify the Jailer.

It'd be like multiplying 0 by 0.

[Teriz]

I don't think people want any cosmic baddies. It is just that Blizzard is incapable of doing expansion without one.

Your Goblin Cartel expansion will end up with us killing the Grandmother of Light or something.

I'd be fine with a powered up baddie, like Garrosh in SoO. I can somewhat buy an Orc, Human, Elf, or Goblin that gets possessed by evil powers. I just think when we start taking down titans and gods on other planets, we've jumped the shark. I've seen posters clamoring for us to go into the Void and take down the Voidlords, the ones who supposedly created the old gods.

I think we need a break.

[Makabreska]

I don't think people want any cosmic baddies. It is just that Blizzard is incapable of doing expansion without one.

Your Goblin Cartel expansion will end up with us killing the Grandmother of Light or something.

Yes they are capable. We had Garrosh right after Deathwing trying to literally destroy Azeroth. BfA with N'zoth also de-escalated stuff after Legion. It's just their long term story plan (that started after MoP) made them fell into constant threat increase trap. But that story is now over.

[Sondrelk]

Yes they are capable. We had Garrosh right after Deathwing trying to literally destroy Azeroth. BfA with N'zoth also de-escalated stuff after Legion. It's just their long term story plan (that started after MoP) made them fell into constant threat increase trap. But that story is now over.

It's a problem that is inherent to WoW expansions. It's possible to avoid it, but it would require drastically rethinking how they function.

The way expansions are set up means it needs an internal threat curve that builds up to an explosive finale.
Avoiding it would require essentially making small individual patches rather than expansions.

[Alanar]

And that's where the issue lies. The character comes first, and then they do a design around it. The fact that you got those feelings from that design means it's a bad design for the character they were going for. He was never meant to be a morally-grey character, or someone who you have to question whether they are evil or not. He is supposed to be unquestionably evil. He's the villain of the expansion. Just like Arthas was designed to look like a pure evil character, or Sargeras was, or Deathwing was.

Don't get me wrong, the design would have been cool for someone like the Runecarver, someone you don't know much about and you don't know what their full story is.

And let's not act like a lack of motives is exclusive to the Jailer. Why did any of the villains of previous expansions do anything other than "world control, I guess" or "we just wanna destroy the world lol"

It doesnt make sense to me... we as fans see an image of main villain that looks cool and interesting. What we got doesnt look interesting at all and it showed in the response. I mean Arthas looked cool.. jailer never had this feeling.

I dissagree with your view on runecarver.. hes fine as he is. mean.. the concept with the crown, chains, beard and face.. dude concept looked like a juiced up witchking, can you really say blue man is a better concept with a straight face?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

It's a problem that is inherent to WoW expansions. It's possible to avoid it, but it would require drastically rethinking how they function.

The way expansions are set up means it needs an internal threat curve that builds up to an explosive finale.
Avoiding it would require essentially making small individual patches rather than expansions.

Nah they should keep the expansions. They could take a vanilla approach but that might mean no crazy threats as often.

[Sondrelk]

Nah they should keep the expansions. They could take a vanilla approach but that might mean no crazy threats as often.

Vanilla is the only part where the patches felt like individual mini-campaigns rather than a growing narrative, which isnt really provably better than the expansion approach if themed villains leading up to a grand finale.

And of course, you do at some point need a big ongoing storyline with a finale, otherwise it all becomes a big pile of mush endlessly repeating the villain of the week approach, so even with that you would need to internally differentiate expansions as a whole, which is why I say the problem is the very concept of the WoW expansion.


Really what WoW should have been is a more freeform MMO where sometimes we get a new zone leading to a dungeon or raid, sometimes we get just plot updates, sometimes just combat or instanced content updates, and sometimes we get big ongoing storylines like Legion with themed rewards.

Expecting this is probably pointless though, as I said, it wouldn't just be changing expansions, it would be drastically changing the entire workflow of WoW as a whole, and it wouldn't even necessarily work out at all.

[huth]

Nah they should keep the expansions. They could take a vanilla approach but that might mean no crazy threats as often.

It's not like making patches would actually solve it, either. You need that build to keep people engaged.

- - - Updated - - -

And of course, you do at some point need a big ongoing storyline with a finale, otherwise it all becomes a big pile of mush endlessly repeating the villain of the week approach, so even with that you would need to internally differentiate expansions as a whole, which is why I say the problem is the very concept of the WoW expansion.

But that's contradicting yourself. You still need that buildup, even without any expansions at all. The problem isn't the concept of the expansion, the problem is inherent to the medium. There's no way to avoid it.

[Sondrelk]

It's not like making patches would actually solve it, either. You need that build to keep people engaged.

- - - Updated - - -



But that's contradicting yourself. You still need that buildup, even without any expansions at all. The problem isn't the concept of the expansion, the problem is inherent to the medium. There's no way to avoid it.

That is what I mean though. Ideally WoW would be set up so that we could both have small one-off patches, pure lore patches pushing the plot forwards, as well as bigger stuff like what we would expect from a big expansion.

Currently we only have expansions, which is good for stuff like Legion that starts big and ends explosively, but not so great for smaller stuff that has no business sharing space with other plots, but which nonetheless should get space in the plot.


Again, ideally WoW could have patches where we go to Dun Morogh to talk to Dwarves. Patches where we go to a single dungeon or raids. As well as bigger sets of patches that have us go through the entire big stuff in Legion or SL.
It would require massively restructuring WoW, so it isn't exactly feasible, but it is nonetheless what MMOs should ideally look like.


Imagine for instance if Legion was not an expansion as we know it, but rather individual pieces of buildup like Suramar and the Warden stuff. Then a big double latch containing the most important stuff, like the Broken Shore and Argus.
You would take all the individual pieces of Legion that don't directly deal with the "main" plot and use them for individual stories, then once the time is right make essentially a mini-expansion that counts as that story's finale.

This way you would get all the buildup stuff, but without having to consider fitting all of it onto a larger expansion where it might feel extraneous or otherwise detract from the meat of the story.
It would be very different, and it would probably be less profitable for Blizzard, but I think it would work better as a long-term narrative, and more importantly as a game.

[Taarna]

This was my reaction back when the voice lines were datamined, Pelagos feels like such a random pick that I cannot find any other explanation than he being a last-minute replacement.

They're making her the literal god of the universe to stick it to transphobes

[Chickat]

They're making her the literal god of the universe to stick it to transphobes

Pelagos is a man.

[cocomen2]

Pelagos is a man.

Who was a woman in ex-life, so now S'he can judge both genders equally.

[Taarna]

Pelagos is a man.

She's a god.

[Raetary]

He's a god.

FTFY
/10chars

[Taarna]

FTFY
/10chars

Women can be gods too.

[Lahis]

They're making her the literal god of the universe to stick it to transphobes

So how much did him becoming the Arbiter hurt your fragile feelings then?

[Taarna]

So how much did him becoming the Arbiter hurt your fragile feelings then?

It actually gave me a boner. I fantasize about docking his golden neo-phallus.

[huth]

Pelagos is a man.

And also only the judge of souls in the afterlife, not "the god of the universe".

[Al Gorefiend]

Who was a woman in ex-life, so now S'he can judge both genders equally.

Oooh is that who Pelagos was? I thought he was a man in life, a man in Bastion, but ascends to female form.

[Varx]

Whelp, looks like we got even more tinker clues. That new Christmas toy from today gives me nice tinker vibes.