Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Polybius]

AOTC mounts have teased an expansion before, and BfAs seemingly lead nowhere... But then you have to think about how it was a void dragon?

Back in the 9.0 speculation thread there were folks ('leakers') claiming the dragon theme was scrapped and moved up in favor of Shadowlands. Probably untrue but it's worth noting that during Blizzcon's SL livestreams the environment artists were BARELY working on the terrain. Expansion concepts may be created ahead of time, but might not be approved until late.

[Dracullus]

Let's start day 1 of hoping it's today, even if it's totally Thursday.

[shise]

We really need another seamlessly connected continent again. The zones being separated in SL really hurt the expansion.

The Broken Isles were so comfy to traverse.

Indeed. I can´t wait for the new Isles in Azeroth. Being able to fly around them without relying on external teleportation systems is a big deal.

[Nyel]

The void lords won't be better than the Jailer if they don't manage to give us information about them beforehand. N'Zoth f.e. worked so well because he was a thing build up in the game since Cataclysm - unlike Zooval who wasn't even hinted at.

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I still think it's a missed opportunity that we never got any island expedition / argus style scenarios that show the other afterlives being invaded by the Jailer.

Exactly. Plus, Old Gods were a part of the game at least since Vanilla, so people knew what to expect. If they teased the Eternal Ones way before Shadowlands, it could have worked as well. They didn't, they failed. Let's just hope they've learned their lessons.

By the way, I'm laughing so hard if Dragon Isles isn't the location for the next expansion and it's something completely different yet somehow related to Dragons. They perverted the South Seas expansions with the Battle for Azeroth theme, so let's just wait and see what's their twist for the Dragon stuff.

[MrUnit]

I once joined you.
An interesting speculation thread, i have a question because I'm interested:
Which regions or stories would be possible in future expansions?
Hasn't everything been completed?

[Soulwind]

Exactly. Plus, Old Gods were a part of the game at least since Vanilla, so people knew what to expect. If they teased the Eternal Ones way before Shadowlands, it could have worked as well. They didn't, they failed. Let's just hope they've learned their lessons.

By the way, I'm laughing so hard if Dragon Isles isn't the location for the next expansion and it's something completely different yet somehow related to Dragons. They perverted the South Seas expansions with the Battle for Azeroth theme, so let's just wait and see what's their twist for the Dragon stuff.

We go to K'aresh, but it's full of dragons for some reason.

[Nyel]

We go to K'aresh, but it's full of dragons for some reason.

Yrel is creating a new Light Dragonflight and wants to invade Azeroth and we have to team up with the five original Dragonflights to stop her. /s

[LorDC]

I once joined you.
An interesting speculation thread, i have a question because I'm interested:
Which regions or stories would be possible in future expansions?
Hasn't everything been completed?

There are at least two major forces that are not yet dealt with: Shadow/Void Lords and Light/Naaru.
Plus, we have Azeroth herself that has not yet recovered from all the stuff that happened recently.
And on top of that recent bits of data-mining seem to indicate that next expansion may be tied to dragons in some way.
Not to mention that Blizzard can always pull something out of their ass in style of WoD.

[Marlamin]

Indeed. I can´t wait for the new Isles in Azeroth. Being able to fly around them without relying on external teleportation systems is a big deal.

I'm -really- hoping that if we go back to Azeroth as Ion implied a while back that they'll finally bite the bullet on either expanding the map phasing/loading-screen less teleporting to the point where we can finally fly from EPL/Quel'thalas OR they merge those maps together as the technical reasoning they had for splitting those up in the first place is over a decade+ old at this point. That and the Hearthstone Tavern are some of my top "wants", really.

[Darkarath]

I'm -really- hoping that if we go back to Azeroth as Ion implied a while back that they'll finally bite the bullet on either expanding the map phasing/loading-screen less teleporting to the point where we can finally fly from EPL/Quel'thalas OR they merge those maps together as the technical reasoning they had for splitting those up in the first place is over a decade+ old at this point. That and the Hearthstone Tavern are some of my top "wants", really.

I do not know if merging the old zones would be much work. But in the case of a world revamp, would it not be better to treat it as a new continent? Like they did with Draenor, built from scratch, in such a way that they can always add new zones. Let the world as we know it today be accessible from the Caverns of Time, make 9.2 finale disastrous to Azeroth so that they have a justification to restart the world, so that we can always look up for more stuff in Azeroth.

[pacotaco]

Empire of Dragons has a lot of potential:

- Wrathion knows about the existence of the Dragon Isles, yet the other flights do not share any information about them, WHY?

- Could it be that different Dragons had different points of view? The dragons we know support the Titans view, while the ones in the Dragon Isles might feel superior to the other races of Azeroth and wanted to conquer them, but ''our'' dragons threatened them to take part in the war if they attempt something like that; might be that now they feel strong enough to try, or they are just corrupted by some Old God.

- Of course, these dragons would be different to the ones we know. A more humanoid form of dragons, with very big dragons at their service. And of course, a faction of these new humanoid dragons will not share the Empire vision, and will support us, giving Blizzard the chance to implement a neutral dragon race.

- Even the way in which these humanoid dragons treat bigger dragons could be used as the cause of the rupture with the dragons we know. Maybe they wanted to enslave them, and hence why the Dragon Isles are forbidden and not talked about anywhere.

- The pre-event expansion could feature dragon invasions through Azeroth.

- Hopefully this expansion will also bring a revamp to old zones, which is something really needed to bring new stories to the world and to make ALL Azeroth relevant and evergreen. WoW as it is today, with only the new zones being relevant, has to go, a new approach has to be taken. They could use the end of 9.2 as a justification for the revamp, they can even tie this presumably desastrous event as the reason why the Empire Dragon now feels strong enough to enslave the other races.

- BTW, if the Dragon Isles are not floating in the sky I will be dissapointed.

Also, please port WoW to consoles :P

Imagine if the Dragon Isles are the prison for dragons that sided with the Old Gods instead of the Titans, and now that Xal'atath is free again, she opens the door.

[TBCCLOL]

But in those RPGs, the rewards are the same no matter what the difficulty, the only thing that separates them is how you play because the difficulty changes the meta for the game, and achievements. But the rewards, and the story are the same across all difficulties.

Because those are Single Player games.

When there are 0 online interactions with people there are 0 issue on enforcing dumb 0.5% top meta or whatever bs that makes the game insufferable for casual players.

No rush rush mindset, you have all the time of world to do other stuff, explore etc etc


Things that wow lacks currently unless your RPG taste is so that even a warm shit like current wow is a delicatessen

[Darkarath]

Imagine if the Dragon Isles are the prison for dragons that sided with the Old Gods instead of the Titans, and now that Xal'atath is free again, she opens the door.

I thought about that, Dragons that sided with the Old Gods instead that with the Titans, but it would not make sense, as it will be really hard to explain why these dragons did not show up to support the Old Gods in Cataclysm or in Battle for Azeroth.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Imagine if the Dragon Isles are the prison for dragons that sided with the Old Gods instead of the Titans, and now that Xal'atath is free again, she opens the door.

Oh, that could be quite interesting! Since it was suggested that Galakrond was a result of an experiment by Tyr, perhaps he's a microcosm of these Proto-Proto Dragons? He could have been equivalent to G'Huun for these dragons, in a sense. And, by extension, it would make sense, as we know that the Proto-Dragons may have been descendants of the elemental Dragons we've already seen in Cataclysm, who naturally would've served the Old Gods.

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I thought about that, Dragons that sided with the Old Gods instead that with the Titans, but it would not make sense, as it will be really hard to explain why these dragons did not show up to support the Old Gods in Cataclysm or in Battle for Azeroth.

They could've simply been sealed there, and for whatever reason N'Zoth or Deathwing never got them out (perhaps they tried, but simply couldn't do so directly for whatever reason?)

[TBCCLOL]

I thought about that, Dragons that sided with the Old Gods instead that with the Titans, but it would not make sense, as it will be really hard to explain why these dragons did not show up to support the Old Gods in Cataclysm or in Battle for Azeroth.

Because and this is the only lucky way to make it work with the current dogshit storytelling



Because those Dragons were actually imprisoned in some titan facility/prison like Uldir ulduar that nobody knew about it


Just like we saw Raden the top dog watcher had no idea about Heart of Azeroth existence and Mother told us various other Uld-alike location


So we can assume there are location / facilities that are secret even to the watchers

[Darkarath]

Because and this is the only lucky way to make it work with the current dogshit storytelling



Because those Dragons were actually imprisoned in some titan facility/prison like Uldir ulduar that nobody knew about it


Just like we saw Raden the top dog watcher had no idea about Heart of Azeroth existence and Mother told us various other Uld-alike location


So we can assume there are location / facilities that are secret even to the watchers

I mean I know that they can come up with whatever reason, but It would be weird that Deathwing or N'zoth did not know about this prison, and if they did and did nothing to free them It would be even more bizarre.

But hey, if they come up with a good story and an acceptable explanation I am in.

[TBCCLOL]

I mean I know that they can come up with whatever reason, but It would be weird that Deathwing or N'zoth did not know about this prison, and if they did and did nothing to free them It would be even more bizarre.

But hey, if they come up with a good story and an acceptable explanation I am in.

Why Deathwing or Yogg-saronn didn't attack the Heart of Azeroth?


Because they didn't know about it probably so the same "cliché" can be used.

Now that we have the First One we can use them as Deus ex Machina to explain anything

[huth]

I mean couldn't it be per character zone updates including stuff like terrain and skyboxes. Like as you clear out and fight back against X thing in a zone it changes to reflect what's happening. Think like how Shadowbringers handled Eternal Light but on a scale that's not just the skybox. I still think LivingWorld could just straight up be the big ticket feature. I think a good example of a test is the way Assaults in the Maw are handled. When they're happening the zone can dynamically change to reflect what's happening. It's not just mob spawns but also where things are laid out including objects and decorations as it is now so if they expanded that even further could be a "Living World" kind of thing.

And I don't mean phasing. I basically mean phasing 2.0 though.

That's not even half of what phasing can already do since Cata. Wouldn't make much sense to sell as the big ticket.

[Teriz]

Surprised this one wasn't posted yet. They say it's from some discord group.

The elements of that logo are as follows;

Title: Dragons (Obviously)
Background: Void/Old Gods
Border and Letters: Titans

The "Titan" border even surrounds the background like a prison, and the world (Azeroth) is corrupted and breaking.

My guess would be we're pretty much picking up where BFA left off, and we're probably looking at a corrupted dragonflight of some type. Possibly the Voidwings. I could see Wrathion either being a protagonist or an antagonist, and I definitely see a return of N'Zoth or Xal'natath(sp?). I have no idea what level Titan stuff is going to come into play, but if that logo is real, its going to be significant.

[Catastrophy349]

I am hype for this week as well. However, I am worried that a lot of people are jumping to the assumption that we are going to get WoW specific news. Mike Ybarra represents Blizzard, not WoW (singular/by itself). Furthermore, if we do get WoW related news, I imagine it’ll be 9.2 only.

It’s true, we’ve had new expansion announcements before the final patch/raid tier. However, I can’t think of any scenario where announcing 10.0 won’t spoil the ending on 9.2. All in all, excited for anything!