Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Sondrelk]

Imo Suramar was honestly the only Legion zone of value. It's strange to me that anyone can argue that any of the four leveling zones are more aesthetically pleasing than Ardenweald, Revendreth or Bastion. I don't even like Bastion's aesthetic but it's still a lot more interesting and nice to look at than Highmountain, Stormheim or Azsuna.

WoD was like half nice zones (Frostfire, Shadowmoon, Talador) and then half just really shitty looking zones (Gorgrond, Arak, Tanaan). I've never really understood the obsession with Nagrand though, so maybe that's why it didn't land well for me.

All of Zandar was top tier (Vol'dun and Nazmir especially), and Stormsong Valley and Drustvar were both great.

I would make a good case for Stormheim being a great zone. It looked cool, it had nice variety in regards to starting all the way by the coast and rising steadily towards Highmountain, and it had a unique traversal mechanic with the grappling hooks.

I would have said Highmountain, but looking back I cannot in good conscience say it ever truly made effective use of its biggest strengths, instead focusing questing on the boring flat areas instead of really leaning into the mountain aspect.
Something as simple as a goblin glider WQ that has you jump from the top of the mountain and hitting targets on the way down would have done the zone wonders for instance.

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I completely agree. Zone design was an underappreciated element of WoD. For me it was the last time questing felt organic and not like a theme park.

WoD definitely managed to strike a more ideal balance between making effective use of space by placing questing areas next to eachother, as well as having ample dead space in-between to give the proper sense of scale.

Legion definitely went too far in using the entire zone, which left very little in the way of areas to make the zone feel bigger.

[Golden Yak]

https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/532232.jpg

Heh. I remember that one.

[Hitei]

I would make a good case for Stormheim being a great zone. It looked cool, it had nice variety in regards to starting all the way by the coast and rising steadily towards Highmountain, and it had a unique traversal mechanic with the grappling hooks.

I would have said Highmountain, but looking back I cannot in good conscience say it ever truly made effective use of its biggest strengths, instead focusing questing on the boring flat areas instead of really leaning into the mountain aspect.
Something as simple as a goblin glider WQ that has you jump from the top of the mountain and hitting targets on the way down would have done the zone wonders for instance.

Stormheim just feels like a worse version of Howling Fjord, which is weird because I don't even particularly like Howling Fjord. Its (Stormheim's) concept art was really nice, but the execution was just bad, and so instead of jutting, tiered steppes and creepy swamp lowlands, it feels like a bunch of individual areas sequestered by the blocky rocks, a la Blade's Edge.

Highmountain is the story of area that looks really nice if you go off to very specific spots and take a picture of it looking into the distance, but which doesn't look great from the majority of its locations.

[Shadochi]

Before anyone calls out of work or cancels dinner reservations, remember that Mike Ybarra said that he has "two announcements for the last week of January". He never said for which IP/game, so these announcements could be non WoW related, or even WoW related but not 9.2/10.0 related.

Hardly that it would not be 9.2 related since a few weeks ago they teased that season is ending soon with that post about M+ 0.1% thingy. AS for 10.0 I defo don't expect that except maybe a "we have more WoW news coming in the following weeks/months"

[Hitei]

Hardly that it would not be 9.2 related since a few weeks ago they teased that season is ending soon with that post about M+ 0.1% thingy. AS for 10.0 I defo don't expect that except maybe a "we have more WoW news coming in the following weeks/months"

10.0 is definitely not going to be announced unexpectedly. It will be the sort of thing where they specifically advertise "an exciting announcement stream at X time on X day in a week" or something to that effect. They will want as many eyes watching as possible.

[Shadochi]

They really need to go back to WoD zone design and questing where there is also a storyline between the zones (Yrel's journey for alliance). And design zones that arent obnoxious until we unlock flying. I assume more people would be okay with no flying on launch if zones were designed for that as well. For example in Stormsong and Voldun I didn't have an issue with no flying but the rest were cancer. Legion almost all zones were cancerous but especially highmountain.

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10.0 is definitely not going to be announced unexpectedly. It will be the sort of thing where they specifically advertise "an exciting announcement stream at X time on X day in a week" or something to that effect. They will want as many eyes watching as possible.

Yes, that is why at most if they mention the future of WoW it will be just a tease, no date for the announcement or hints towards what it is

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Heh. I remember that one.

Truly the best thing that came out during WoD

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I think calling something cancer might be an exaggeration. Going back to Stormheim, I liked the aesthetic but man those mountains.

[AngerFork]

Found in a discord

Yeah, not buying this one. I have a hard time believing that the Blizz team would announce their new expansion at 9 AM on a Friday, not to mention how lazily that picture appears to have been made.

EDIT: I totally failed on calculating the right time here. Adjusted it.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

It's so weird that they put the fake logo over it then decided to black it out. Like why not just have the normal WoW logo for this leak instead if you want to make it seem genuine.

Pretty goofy.

[Shadochi]

Found in a discord

Seems fake, uses the old world map.

[Catastrophy349]

9 A.M. PST would be 12 P.M. EST. It clearly says 6:00 P.M. CET

[Dhomeli]

Yeah, not buying this one. I have a hard time believing that the Blizz team would announce their new expansion at 6 AM EST on a Friday, not to mention how lazily that picture appears to have been made.

I don’t believe it’s real either. I think Blizzard used a similar template prior to Legion announce, so this may be lifted from that. However, 9am Pacific is 12:00pm noon Eastern, not 6am.

[RoshuanEU]

Found in a discord

I saw people showing their doubt. This logo is the same as the EoD one (spiky bow things to the sides, someone said it resembled a bow, I just saw the spiky points. Then again, I am no architect or artsy expert). If it came from discord, its probably the same one that 'leaked' the EoD logo

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

They never do Friday streams, they've always been on Thursdays. So uh, checkmate nerds.

Also the time...

[Edward Wu]

wait...

[Teriz]

Found in a discord

Yeah, that's fake. Blizzard would officially announce this.

[Relapses]

wait...

It's almost like you can take an image and overlay it onto another then black it out.

[RoshuanEU]

They never do Friday streams, they've always been on Thursdays. So uh, checkmate nerds.

Also the time...

I don't think the time is weird, most of the announcements and things have been at 6 PM CET or somewhere early in the evening. Though it does differ. I don't think the time is biggest thing here, more the background and the usage of the 'leaked' EoD logo

[AOL Instant Messenger]

wait...

Yes. That's the entire bait. That's the bait. Yes.

[Revamp Man]

I saw people showing their doubt. This logo is the same as the EoD one (spiky bow things to the sides, someone said it resembled a bow, I just saw the spiky points. Then again, I am no architect or artsy expert). If it came from discord, its probably the same one that 'leaked' the EoD logo

He’s just being cheeky because we discussed the other discord leak