Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Hypester]

This is all I'm going to reveal. You'll have to wait until the 19th for the rest.

Dragon Isles are not in or around the Eastern Kingdoms. That's a long since scrapped idea from before the game launched. The Dragon Isles will be implemented north of Azshara, and east of Winterspring.

Parts of the world are being revamped, but not in the way you might think. Night Elves will gain a new capitol city in a preexisting zone. Tirisfal is being overhauled. The Undercity is being reconstructed, featuring a new layout and motif. Azuremyst, Bloodmyst, Eversong, Ghostlands, Gilneas, Kezan, and the Lost Isles will all be updated and rolled into their respective continents.

There are no plans to add any new classes to the game going forward at this point in time. New specializations are being experimented with, though. For now, class cosmetics are the focus. New customization options are coming for existing races, particularly the allied races. New potential allied races are also being evaluated, but nothing is concrete and there will be none at launch.

There will not be a level cap increase. This expansion is a trial run for the new "parallel content" model.

Turalyon and Calia were set up to become the stand-in faction leaders for the Humans and Forsaken, respectively. Their stories will be expanded upon in the future, but they are not the focus of 10.0. Anduin AND Sylvanas are currently planned to return in the future.

I don’t mind this leak, but I don’t buy it.

What AR special class customs are so important???? The only one I can think of is an offensive Tidesage for Kul Tirans, but otherwise I can’t think of any really needed class customizations for the ARs.

Oh, I read it wrong. It’s customizations, which are possible. But I call bullshit on no new class or race at launch because they can’t deal with that twice in a row.

[SniperCT]

All I care about wrt to leveling is any system that means I don't have to do shadowlands to get to level cap.

What's worse, resetting everyone to 50 again, or keeping you at 60 but offering a champion point type system?

[Vakir]

I don’t mind this leak, but I don’t buy it.

What AR special class customs are so important???? The only one I can think of is an offensive Tidesage for Kul Tirans, but otherwise I can’t think of any really needed class customizations for the ARs.

I think I could see some more themed abilities surrounding paladins, for example, on some of their respective variants.

For the most part, I think this is completely bogus, but I do think it's closer to the level of expectations that should be had in terms of scope.

[Chickat]

Do you mean the core system itself (as Like "we should change it to be action oriented like Skyrim or half action based like GW2) or do you mean the implementation, because obviously its a buggy mess at this point and lost so much potential because of how its implemented.

The second one I agree, the first one sounds like a "you" problem to me.

I think the best MMO combat is either GW2 or Wildstar. Half tab target/half action. Its a nice mix. Feels great.

[Hypester]

I think I could see some more themed abilities surrounding paladins, for example, on some of their respective variants.

For the most part, I think this is completely bogus, but I do think it's closer to the level of expectations that should be had in terms of scope.

No, “muh pessimism” is a meme in this case. If they make a teeny tiny expansion just to give them more time to implement things like cross faction, it makes zero sense for the next one to also be small. Unless the new standard is two patches and small expansions which is a fine standard to take off you expect the game to be on maintenance mode... which goes against why Phil bothered to buy it.

Also no mention of the updated human houses. No scarlets. It’s BS

[Chickat]

Despite getting spoiled with earlier than normal leaks last week, I still hunger for more

Gifdwarf hungers.

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the most popular MMOs have trinity... Trinity is the most popular system players want. I like to heal and tank and thats why I never liked games like GW2...

GW2 but with trinity and gear progression would be the perfect MMO IMO.

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Alt catchup is so easy in 9.2, the only way people could be complaining about it in my mind is that they haven't actually done it. You hit 48 or 50 or whatever and go to SL content, you select threads of fate and pick your covenant, get the renown catchup and level however you want. By the time you hit 60 your renown will also be well past 60, which fully unlocks your soulbind. You also have the 200 ilvl conduit catchup, and you can send over a bunch of 226 BoA gear and soul ash/soul cinders (which are in turn purchasable for Cosmic Flux on your main, which if you're playing the patch at all you have far more than you know what to do with). You either run a dungeon or quick torghast wing to get your legendary recipe, or just buy it from Rendle for Soul Cinders (again, you can get this from your main), get a legendary at whatever ilvl works for you (they're pretty cheap on any decently populated realm).

Doing just "walk here and talk to a vendor" and running a single normal dungeon after hitting 60 can easily put you at 230 ilvl with 60+ renown and ilvl 200 conduits. That's not gonna get you into mythic raiding, but it puts you at a perfectly reasonable spot to start doing M+ (which drops 236 at a +2) or LFR/Normal (LFR drops 239/246).

And this is all assuming you are a solo player, if you've got friends and/or a guild it's way easier to get gear.

Honestly, I'm not sure how much easier they could make it, the basically free BoA gear you get is already pushing up pretty close against the entry level gear from M0/LFR, and you even get stuff at that quality from rares in ZM.

Its pretty great, but I think they may have went a bit too far with catch up.

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Every single action combat MMORPG has the exact same gameplay and that is sending 5+ enemies at you so you can aoe them down with cleave attacks. That is not what is appealing to me, sorry. The only MMO with different and imo better combat system was Wildstar, and I truly hope it does come back one day. It has to.

Wildstar was fantastic. It had a cool plot and world too. Its a shame what happened to it.

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Yeah, and it's gonna be an even longer wait for any other news to come out after the expansion reveal. Right now we're talking about just a little over a week of waiting, but once the expansion has been revealed, we'll be waiting months for Alpha/Beta access. That's gonna be painful (especially if the expansion genuinely looks promising, which I hope is gonna be the case).

Even if there isn't a public F&F I hope it starts in April or early May. Even to just get datamining would be great.

[Vakir]

No, “muh pessimism” is a meme in this case. If they make a teeny tiny expansion just to give them more time to implement things like cross faction, it makes zero sense for the next one to also be small. Unless the new standard is two patches and small expansions which is a fine standard to take off you expect the game to be on maintenance mode... which goes against why Phil bothered to buy it.

I don't fully understand this post. Is the implication SL was small to implement cross faction? If so, why? Was this ever stated as explicitly the purpose? This feels like a lot of assumption.

Do you think Microsoft seriously bought Activision-Blizzard over World of Warcraft as the exclusive focus and not the 50 other successful properties that they have?

Why is the implication that a mid-tier expansion would be "maintenance mode?" That's a meme'd term more than anything. New expansions even when mediocre sell very well at ship and usually have similar engagement metrics with each new patch because that's what they prioritize. Warcraft is still a highly popular franchise even if it isn't reaching the same cultural fever pitch it did from roughly 2005 to 2008. Everything thus far has been time-tested to be successful even when aiming low. If low effort means maintenance, then Pokemon has been in maintenance mode for roughly a decade and a half, but it's still the most lucrative franchise on the planet.

Also, there's a big difference between pessimism and realism. To say you should temper expectations is pessimism is a pretty black and white dichotomy of how to engage with hype cycles. A thing notorious for being a problem in pretty much every area of media the vast majority of the time.

I'm saying ya'll and the "wish list" style leaks are expecting an 11, pessimism posts like the one quoted or troll-style leaks are looking at a 3 for misery purposes, and I anticipate a 6.

[ryanmahaffe]

Whenever Wildstar is mentioned I am summoned.
Best game, I think there are a few things that it did well that WoW could borrow. Housing is the main one obviously, but I also wouldn't mind seeing the Primal matrix added as a game wide power progression system, basically a roided out artifact talent tree. The contract system was cool. Expeditions as solo instanced content. A few things they could add.

Aside from that though, I really hope Blizzard makes some good world content for once. SL and BFA both kind of sucked in this regard though Legion was much better early on with Suramar. I want to see some gw2 style world content, meta events and stuff like that.

[Luck4]

Strange that you are the one who discovered their tweets so fast.

The guy is a Blizzard employee in disguise. But it's good he is giving clues sometimes, even when he doesn't think he's giving it.

[Hypester]

The guy is a Blizzard employee in disguise. But it's good he is giving clues sometimes, even when he doesn't think he's giving it.

Blizz employee would be skinned alive for posting employees goodbye messages on forums. They know people eat that shit up as doomsday.

[Vakir]

Blizz employee would be skinned alive for posting employees goodbye messages on forums. They know people eat that shit up as doomsday.

This implies they'd know who for certain was posting and when. And that their involvement in the thread was endorsed rather than self-decided.

I think it's a cute LARP, though. The ninja edit I caught that one time from "we" to "the developers" was probably a troll at best or a break in character at worst.

Even after 4/19, I doubt we'd get a confirmation if such a thing were true, not after what happened to the warlock developer that came around here based on them actually engaging in feedback and shooting straight.

[Vynestra]

I mean so far, other than blizz leaking the name, no other leaks have been confirmed, so it's possible the expansion actually hasn't leaked other than the name. Which is what I am personally leaning towards being the case.

[Calfredd]

Whenever Wildstar is mentioned I am summoned.
Best game, I think there are a few things that it did well that WoW could borrow. Housing is the main one obviously, but I also wouldn't mind seeing the Primal matrix added as a game wide power progression system, basically a roided out artifact talent tree. The contract system was cool. Expeditions as solo instanced content. A few things they could add.

Aside from that though, I really hope Blizzard makes some good world content for once. SL and BFA both kind of sucked in this regard though Legion was much better early on with Suramar. I want to see some gw2 style world content, meta events and stuff like that.

Not going to lie, the last thing I really remember about Wildstar was a certain short slasher having a meltdown a bit after it went f2p all the way until it's shutdown.

[Hitei]

I mean so far, other than blizz leaking the name, no other leaks have been confirmed, so it's possible the expansion actually hasn't leaked other than the name. Which is what I am personally leaning towards being the case.

I mean, that's what happened with Shadowlands.

[Vynestra]

I mean, that's what happened with Shadowlands.

I feel like blizz has gotten better at not letting leaks about the specifics in the xpac through, names are a different story, but the content itself has been tight-lipped.

[Palapop]

https://twitter.com/KirbyAu/status/1...ASGJ84KRrbl7dA

Also, https://twitter.com/JeffAHamilton/st...ASGJ84KRrbl7dA

F*ck team 2. They ruined SL storyline by implementing all retarded cliffhangers and IRL politics into gameplay lore.

Ah and also the biggest of all: fruit bowl.

[Revamp Man]

Bold of you to assume Covenant abilities will last in their current form past 9.2.5;

As for Legion, the simple explanation is to flag any additional classes as unable to do any class-specific Legion quests. Of course, if I really wanted to make it good I’d create simple Legion content for them but the easiest thing is to skip those parts on them.

Torghast is a different story. They can either only give them generic powers, or actually create powers for them, but “you can’t have a class because X” is such a surface level, easily dismissed viewpoint.

Also, “hero class” is utterly meaningless at this point. Any class can start at whatever level they want and be flagged for any content they want.

1. as i said class specific abilities will be removed and i imagine at 10.0 the basic abilities will be limited to old content at least based on common sense

2. Legion is kinda based around class specific content

3. i didnt say "you cant have this class" i said you it wouldnt happen until prepatch which is the same as a DH and i dont get your point

4. "Hero class" is a thing in WoW even if you dont like it because last time they launched a class at level 1 it was barely played and remained the lowest played class for years even when they had an exp boost

[Luck4]

I mean so far, other than blizz leaking the name, no other leaks have been confirmed, so it's possible the expansion actually hasn't leaked other than the name. Which is what I am personally leaning towards being the case.

Hard to believe in that right now, to be honest. I mean, at first, I was leaning towards Emerald Dream/Cosmic Life expansion but this Night Elf group...

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Dra..._Loreth%27Aran

... connected all the dots.

They're the reason why we're getting only the Emerald Drake as the 10.0 Deluxe Mount, and that's because they'll guide us to the Dragon Isles, and they can only ride green dragons.

Meanwhile, the reason why all store items give us "Emerald Dream" vibes is because these riders live in the green dragons' zone that probably is based on the Emerald Dream, and since this zone will probably be our first zone it makes sense that Blizzard started developing this place first, which explains why we're only seeing green dragon-related stuff.

[Revamp Man]

https://twitter.com/KirbyAu/status/1...ASGJ84KRrbl7dA

Also, https://twitter.com/JeffAHamilton/st...ASGJ84KRrbl7dA

wait wait wait
Team 2 is losing people??
does that mean we wont have the shitty expansion every other expansion now?

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Hard to believe in that right now, to be honest. I mean, at first, I was leaning towards Emerald Dream/Cosmic Life expansion but this Night Elf group...

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Dra..._Loreth%27Aran

... connected all the dots.

They're the reason why we're getting only the Emerald Drake as the 10.0 Deluxe Mount, and that's because they'll guide us to the Dragon Isles, and they can only ride green dragons.

Meanwhile, the reason why all store items look so "Emerald Dream" themed is because these riders live in the green dragons' zone that's probably based on the Emerald Dream, and since this will probably be our first zone it makes sense that Blizzard started developing this zone first, which explains why we're only seeing green dragon-related stuff.

just sayin
some npcs that may be dragonsworn in game has one with Sun in the surname
sun bathed furline

[Jokubas]

It's weird how the leak from an actually official source, the Dragonflight name, inadvertently killed a lot of the discussion.

Since most of the other leaks had names, the name alone basically debunked 99% of the other leaks, however, the name alone also doesn't really give us anything new to talk about. If the name we got was something wild like "The Mongrel Horde" it might have led to a ton of new speculation, but we've already exhausted the dragon guesses.