Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Hitei]

They are keeping people invested in Warcraft week by week by dripfeeding leaks, as opposed to drumming up hype for the patch. It seems to me they have largely given up on trying to get a big crowd of subs for 9.2 and just want people to still care about the brand. Otherwise they would've hidden the campaign and encrypted models like Pelagos Arbiter.

Shadowlands is mostly a lost cause so it checks out to me.

That makes absolutely no sense.

If they've given up on Shadowlands and 9.2 being successful, there'd be no reason to drip feed bits of animation or dialogue to get people to care about the brand. People who don't care about an entire content patch aren't going to be invested in a jumping animation. There's no appreciable gain in generating hype that way.

If they'd given up on Shadowlands/9.2 and wanted to drip feed leaks to get people to care about the brand, they'd be putting in little bits of 10.0 assets into each build. A grass asset, a weapon texture, a random string referring to quest completion progress a subzone not in Zereth Mortis. Tweet out concept art for an armor piece. Not individual bits of Sylvanas' fate, a thing that is wholly Shadowlands/9.2

[Raidlogger]

That makes absolutely no sense.

If they've given up on Shadowlands and 9.2 being successful, there'd be no reason to drip feed bits of animation or dialogue to get people to care about the brand. People who don't care about an entire content patch aren't going to be invested in a jumping animation. There's no appreciable gain in generating hype that way

People can be invested in Warcraft without playing the game. A ton of people aren't playing right now but absolutely want to keep up with the story. Drip feeding what happens to Sylvanas keeps people talking about the franchise without necessarily advertising the patch. Sylvanas extends beyond Shadowlands: Zovaal, Pelagos and the First Ones do not, so they don't care about just dropping that stuff into the files.

They don't have to hint at 10.0, in fact them utterly refusing to do so implies they want a big reveal for it. But dripfeeding the Sylvanas story keeps people that may not be playing the game or may not have any interest in Zereth Mortis talking about Tyrande, Sylvanas and everything related to them.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I see more Zovaal complaining then anything related to Sylvanas(Except maybe wanting her accounted for that is). Also they hardly ever hide the story away(They should but not for the reasons said here).

[Ersula]

If she will be farming Stygia for eternity, people should be satisfied.

Leader of the post-Jailer mawsworn is fitting.

Putting a single person in charge of rescuing all the people wrongfully sent to the maw is pretty stupid though. Shouldn't the new Arbiter be in charge of fixing that?

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They don't have to hint at 10.0, in fact them utterly refusing to do so implies they want a big reveal for it. But dripfeeding the Sylvanas story keeps people that may not be playing the game or may not have any interest in Zereth Mortis talking about Tyrande, Sylvanas and everything related to them.

I would have thought they put a big sign in Danuser's office that said "Stop killing off or banishing Warcraft 3 characters: They're the only wow characters people actually like" but apparently not.

[Raidlogger]

Leader of the post-Jailer mawsworn is fitting.

Putting a single person in charge of rescuing all the people wrongfully sent to the maw is pretty stupid though. Shouldn't the new Arbiter be in charge of fixing that?

Arbiter has a billion souls to route, two jobs would be too much.

Sylvanas probably will just be tasked with sending them back to Oribos where Pelagos does his thing.

[Ersula]

Arbiter has a billion souls to route, two jobs would be too much.

Sylvanas probably will just be tasked with sending them back to Oribos where Pelagos does his thing.

Still, my point of that being a single-person's job remains: I mean, we killed Argus, not Sylvanas. You'd think the Eternal ones could help with that.

Though I do think it would be funny if takes less than one expansion for Sylvanas to clean up the Maw & is back on Azeroth by 2024.

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That makes absolutely no sense.

If they've given up on Shadowlands and 9.2 being successful, there'd be no reason to drip feed bits of animation or dialogue to get people to care about the brand. People who don't care about an entire content patch aren't going to be invested in a jumping animation. There's no appreciable gain in generating hype that way.

The PTR is a form of promotion but it's only a byproduct. "drip feed bits of animation or dialog" is just the result of testing the game as cheaply as possible.

It's more telling that they're uploading spoilers to the PTR with zero effort to hide them behind encryption. And they can't just give up on the story entirely because these things were being created up to a full year ago. You all here seem to think the turnaround for game assets is much shorter than they are in reality.

[The Stormbringer]

From the new "10.0 Leak" Thread:

Posting on a throwaway for obvious reasons.

Here it is, the actual leak. Taken from a private gamedev discord last night.

- New xpac is straight up called The Dragon Isles.
- All marketing being put together has the tagline "Azeroth has awoken!".

- New Zone: The Dragon Isles
- New Race: Black Dragons
- New System: World Shaping

End of Shadowlands

• In the fight with the Jailer Azeroth is ruptured. We beat the Jailer and save the planet, but there's consequences. Some "stay a while and listen" events after the fight describe the state of Azeroth. Magni reverts back from diamond form.
• 9.2.5 pre-expansion event being put together is huge. Lots of reused events like earthquakes and invasions but also a massive Timewalking event that's being designed as a "mini-season-of-mastery" across lots of Azeroth centric dungeons and raids. Devs want players familiar with the history of Azeroth before 10.0, a “big tour” of old events and lore.
• "Crazed" Troggs, Quilboar, Mantid and Elemental invasions across most of Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, Northrend and Pandaria. New world boss "Garaddon, Son of Galakrond".

New Xpac

• 10.0 Cinematic being put together is the biggest Blizz have ever produced. Entire cine team has been developing this for over a year. All Shadowlands pre-rendered cinematics were scrapped and whole team moved on to this. Is a "love letter" to Azeroth, mirrors the original WoW launch cinematic and ends with Azeroth being "born".
• As a result of the Jailer’s assault, "Azeroth the Eternal" is born from the World Soul. She's a dragon! Sort of...
• All world souls are unique and Azeroth's essence has indirectly shaped the planet for eons.
• Dragons are tied directly to Azeroth who is sort of the dragon progenitor.
• Once players reach Dragon Isles they work directly with Azeroth to "reshape" the world. Story here is that the planet has taken a beating over the last couple of decades and it is having dire consequences for everyone living there.
• Azeroth as a character described sort of like Leeloo from 5th Element. A supreme being but with the mind of a child. Players need to help her unlock her powers to heal the planet. She’s in a temple on Dragon Isles with Thrall and Wrathion. Lots of “Earthwarder” lore as the three of them try to do what Deathwing couldn’t.
• Azeroth has her own talent tree, looks very much like old school talent trees from Classic. Players can help her by "training" her via this tree. Each talent is also usable by players through the "World Bond" ability.
• New abilities are like Covenant abilities but no additional “locked in” choices. Everyone gets the same abilities. Abilities have secondary effects depending on the zone you’re in. One example is an ability like Abomination Limb that also works as a grapple hook.
• Dragon Isles zones will change over time via World Shaping, some pretty cool massive changes like a whole zone turning from a desert into a forest. Zone is heavily Elf focused with Night Elves trying to discover a way to restore Teldrassil with Azeroths help. You plant trees and tend to a huge forest here, like a massive version of the MoP farm.
• World Shaping unlocks new abilities in each zone. Water walking, flying, teleporting, spectral sight, treasure finding.
• Some older zones in Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor will be getting big updates during the expansion.

Black Dragons

• Works like Worgen, customize your dragon form and humanoid appearances. Humanoid can be any race, including allied races. Extra customization options for humanoid form including horns, tails, jewelry, scales as well as effects like burning eyes and “molten blood” which is a cool new effect.
• Dragon Form is mainly used for travel and two racial abilities, story will explain why Black Dragons need to learn how to fight like mortals as one of the classes.
• Black Dragons can be Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Druid, Hunter, Warlock, Priest, Shaman and Paladin. All the original WoW classes.
• Black Dragon druid lore and shapeshift forms are "super fun".
• Wrathion has been trying to restore the Black Dragonflight since Cata. Players are new dragons that Wrathion has been overseeing in The Dragon Isles. Wrathion has recruited/kidnapped class trainers from all over Azeroth to train his new flight. The warlock trainer will cause some players to flip out.
• Since the battle with Deathwing all dragon aspects have been losing their magic. New dragons (players) need to learn how to fight alongside mortal races to save their race. Wrathions big thing is reversing the loss of magic from Dragons completely and protecting his flight.
• No big bad in 10.0 but there are infinite dragons, netherwing and some new Dragon Isles specific proto-races (there’s a pretty fun Trogg progenitor race that’s actually super advanced and intelligent). Going back to smaller zone-contained stories. Big focus on discovery, soft-rebooting Azeroth (the planet) and setting up future conflicts.

[micwini]

Nothing too crazy and while also not boring. However most correct leaks only have a few points. The part "the warlock trainer will have some people flipping out" is interesting. Who could that be?

[Dracullus]

Nothing too crazy and while also not boring. However most correct leaks only have a few points. The part "the warlock trainer will have some people flipping out" is interesting. Who could that be?

Correct leaks only happen few days before event, cause few more people can take some sneaky photo from promo materials. I don't see this happening in online event.

Unless, of course official page will leak everything like with 9.1 xD.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Sounds cool but I don't buy it.

[Sondrelk]

Correct leaks only happen few days before event, cause few more people can take some sneaky photo from promo materials. I don't see this happening in online event.

Unless, of course official page will leak everything like with 9.1 xD.

I always assumed it's leaked by grunt workers at the expo catching a rehearsal if the announcement.
Few if any pictures, extremely limited in scope, written probably from memory when the worker gets back to his phone, the info being presented similar, if not exactly the same as the power point bulletpoints.

Someone working part-time or otherwise in an expo center probably doesn't have much reason to respect a stringent NDA like what a full-time developer or similar would. Nowhere near the same risk or consequence.

[Teriz]

Correct leaks only happen few days before event, cause few more people can take some sneaky photo from promo materials. I don't see this happening in online event.

Unless, of course official page will leak everything like with 9.1 xD.

To be fair, the initial Shadowlands leak hit several months before the actual announcement.

[Alanar]

From the new "10.0 Leak" Thread:

sounds really.. boring for my taste.

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The biggest problem with Vrykul is the height and similarities to regular humans. Kul Tirans have the fat body type schtick/naval culture and Kyrian have their own culture/aesthetic while both are slightly bigger humans. (Kyrians are also more slender than regular Human men/more buff than regular Human women, providing them with another body type)

Both are not very good arguments these days anymore. Height was always the main argument naysayers off vrykul were saying back in 2008, but after seeing other tribes of Vrykul with sizes simmilar to zandalari or slighty bigger making it a non issue. They have always used 2 completely unique models both male and female, with unique animations which imany new or old races can't say. You know after stormheim, explaining and exploring more about other Vrykul tribes is actually very interesting.

On topic of being to human.. I mean we have skinny human and maldraxxus brutes requests .. Vrykul.. I mean.. have had their own kit/props/buildings/models/animations armor wearable for some time now and even go pretty far in lore for the one who likes it. Hell they have been requested since Wrath and are in fact one of the more coheisive and all arround fleshed out races out there. They have only but shown hostile towards us untill Legion. They are part of requests like walrus people or Ogres. Kyrian have always been nothing but rekins female vrykul who got shrunken down and painted blue. If I have to think about Kul Tiran or Vrykul, I am like.. where did it go wrong??

Don't forget that.. we got a literal copy of blood elves instead of broken or Vrykul back in Legion. We got almost all races assosiated with the reputations that became playable except they suddenly changed and asspulled the void elves in, I will be forever salty about that fucking lame addition. Either Broken or Vrykul would have been so much better imo. ...If you complain about being to close to the human model.. then please open your eyes, cus Kyrian or skinny humans look closer to regular humans, then Vrykul ever did and besides.. allied races made more things possible as well. I mean if you would say.. highmountain look to close to tauren then.. you might have a point..

[AngerFork]

I buy that about as much as most leaks, which is not at all. Still though, it does sound decent. The Black Dragon race is largely how I imagine a Dragonsworn class could best work, with all races open that have dragon-style enhancements and/or dragon forms. World shaping could be a cool way to have long term investment in a zone, similar to how Isle of Thunder worked back in MoP.

I doubt this is it, but I'd enjoy an expansion similar to this.

[Gigantique]

Don't misunderstand this as me defending Blizz here, locking Conduits/2 x lego behind rep grinds is dumb af and basically does lock player power behind a grind in Zereth Mortis.

But TECHNICALLY those aren't locked behind the Cypher system itself, no? So Blizzard teeeeeeeechnically didn't lie.

Just a weird coincidence that I'm guessing most rep grinds will also be connected to the Cypher system, woopsiewaddayaknow.

[Hitei]

To be fair, the initial Shadowlands leak hit several months before the actual announcement.

What leak hit several months before announcement?

[Sondrelk]

Don't misunderstand this as me defending Blizz here, locking Conduits/2 x lego behind rep grinds is dumb af and basically does lock player power behind a grind in Zereth Mortis.

But TECHNICALLY those aren't locked behind the Cypher system itself, no? So Blizzard teeeeeeeechnically didn't lie.

Just a weird coincidence that I'm guessing most rep grinds will also be connected to the Cypher system, woopsiewaddayaknow.

They didn't tell the truth with a technicality, they told the truth exactly as we see it now. The ZM cypher system is so far completely free of player power, which is indeed exactly what Blizzard said it would be.
Blizzard never actually said ZM open world would be irrelevant to player power, players did after misunderstanding the interview about the cypher system.

[Dracullus]

To be fair, the initial Shadowlands leak hit several months before the actual announcement.

Nope, only real leak were screenshots few days before Blizzcon. What you are thinking of was totally made up bullshit that only guessed name right. Which wasn't hard, many expected some kind 'death' expansion, Scourge 2.0 on revamped Northend and Shadowlands were two most popular theories.

[Kiivar86]

To be fair, the initial Shadowlands leak hit several months before the actual announcement.

Only accurate thing that I recall was a few days before, stuff like Bastion art and Bolvar's cinematic look.

There was a metric fuckton of fake leaks before that.

[Gigantique]

They didn't tell the truth with a technicality, they told the truth exactly as we see it now. The ZM cypher system is so far completely free of player power, which is indeed exactly what Blizzard said it would be.
Blizzard never actually said ZM open world would be irrelevant to player power, players did after misunderstanding the interview about the cypher system.

Which is why it's true on a technical level. Sure the Cypher system isn't player power, but it happens in the same zone as something VERY much player power (rep) and I wouldn't be surprised if it somehow unlocks extra sources for rep etc, making it in all but name as necessary as the actual rep grind.

If they had said Archivist's codex only had cosmetic rewards, say it didn't have anything to do with player power, but put all the power rewards in the Death's Advance rep instead their statement woulda been bull as you do basically the same activities for both, making it technically true but not practically/realistically so.