Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Skildar]

Robes are tied to character model, so nobody is using the original anymore. That went away when old models did. They can't change it to much or old robes won't draw right, though.

Of course they can, It's just texture applied using markers. You have robes and pants using the exact same texture in the game.
The developers most likely don't have any real new coat/robe model because of clipping issues and placement issues for the many different positions your character can do (sitting, mounted, lying, etc.)

[Nyel]

sure the expansion redefining the cosmos balance is filler

It didn’t do any of that because pretty much everything can be ignored and doesn’t matter for Dragonflight (as of now). And I’m pretty sure it will be kept as this and pretty much nothing so lore-heavy to change the Warcraft cosmos that was established in Shadowlands will be used later on. Shadowlands is lore-wise WoD territory, completely neglectable for the ongoing future. Shadowlands lore mattered for Shadowlands and pretty much just that.

[Chickat]

You forgot a couple of big ones here: the World Quest system & Mythic+ Dungeons, both of which have been fairly large additions to WoW since inception. Not that I disagree with your overall point, DF looks to be anything but sparse. But with those two items added on to what you already have for Legion, I'd argue Legion was bigger overall than what DF looks to be.

Yeah, its too early to tell, but my initial reaction would put Dragonflight behind legion in terms of content, but above everything else. MoP and BFA close behind. BFA had a lot of content, its just a lot of it wasn't any good.

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I mean given that if you don't enjoy Evoker you have no other way to play Dracthyr, it is very limited as a race.

Did the devs not say that the race could be opened up to more classes in the future? If that were to happen, we could put it on the level of 1 new race id say.

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pretty sure they said the prof changes were meant to be built upon like the new talent system not just thrown away like the legion changes (wouldn’t call it a revamp), as far as dragon flight goes ya it’s only going to be part of the dragon isle for now but they have been looking to change flying for a while so it’s incredibly likely to be a new base thing, also trying to say it shouldn’t count because it doesn’t apply to old flying zones would be like saying Mythic+ doesn’t count because it’s only legion dungeons onwards.

Invasions would count as being something legion add I suppose, so assuming they don’t throw away the dragon flight systems theh would both be at 3 new base systems, assuming they don’t add any thing yet to be announced

Invasions are really just world quest and scenario tech combined. I don't think there's anything entirely new there, but sure.

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I think Legion and BfA already proved that they really don't care about it being Summer or not when it fits their schedule. For Dragonflight a Q3 release just makes no sense though.

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Diablo IV will not launch in Q2, let's be realistic here. That's their optimistic and naive take to appease the fanbase, but for sure they'll delay it until at least Q3, rather Q4 though to "give players the best experience" or [insert bs PR talk]. Dragonflight can easily fit into Q1 and if not there it will be early Q2. No issues whatsoever.

Yeah, I have a feeling it will end up being early Q2 for DF.

April 2023-DF
Q3- Overwatch pve
Q4 Diablo 4

Either way its going to be a massive year for blizzard.

[Makorus]

It didn’t do any of that because pretty much everything can be ignored and doesn’t matter for Dragonflight (as of now). And I’m pretty sure it will be kept as this and pretty much nothing so lore-heavy to change the Warcraft cosmos that was established in Shadowlands will be used later on. Shadowlands is lore-wise WoD territory, completely neglectable for the ongoing future. Shadowlands lore mattered for Shadowlands and pretty much just that.

What an idiotic statement.

TBCs lore mattered for nothing but TBC. The only thing that were acknowledged after the expansion was the races and Garrosh.

Wrath didn't matter for anything. The only thing of consequence happening in that expansion was the Wrathgate. Even Arthas dying was irrelevant because there always needs to be a Lich King

[Nyel]

What an idiotic statement.

TBCs lore mattered for nothing but TBC. The only thing that were acknowledged after the expansion was the races and Garrosh.

Wrath didn't matter for anything. The only thing of consequence happening in that expansion was the Wrathgate. Even Arthas dying was irrelevant because there always needs to be a Lich King

Idiotic are your examples, to use your words and tone.

WotLK finished the plot started in the RTS and so did TBC. Everything that lead to Shadowlands was a hated side-plot in BfA that got its own expansion. If you remove Shadowlands from Warcraft's timeline, nothing before or after would change - the same can be said about 99% of WoD. The same cannot be said about TBC, WotLK or any other expansion.

[Makorus]

Idiotic are your examples, to use your words and tone.

WotLK finished the plot started in the RTS and so did TBC. Everything that lead to Shadowlands was a hated side-plot in BfA that got its own expansion. If you remove Shadowlands from Warcraft's timeline, nothing before or after would change - the same can be said about 99% of WoD. The same cannot be said about TBC, WotLK or any other expansion.

If you remove Wrath from Warcraft's timeline, nothing would change either.

The Scourge is still running rampant, there is still a Lich King, the Forsaken are still Forsaken. The only thing that really happened is that Arthas died, which at the end of the day is irrelevant because there is still a Lich King anyway. It doesn't lead into Cataclysm. Bolvar LK and Arthas LK are fundamentally the same characters as well (until SL, really).

[Lahis]

Except that they had to go to Maldraxxus to get help about the Plague, No SL wouldn't have that

There was no reason they couldn't have written any Azerothian solution to the problem.

Let's say the Apothecaries swallowed their pride once they couldn't figure the solution by themselves and ask Cenarion Circle for help. Both organizations dislike each other, but realize that getting rid of the Blight is the better outcome for the world. Hell, CC could add in some help from Green/Red Dragons to tie whole thing towards Dragonflight. Together these parties figure out solution to clean up Lordareon.

There, no need for SL to clean Undercity.

[huth]

Idiotic are your examples, to use your words and tone.

Nah, that would be yours. Just because it doesn't directly impact the immediately following episode does not make an episode filler. The concept doesn't apply to games anyway.

[ExiHext]

Shadowlands is lore-wise WoD territory, completely neglectable for the ongoing future. Shadowlands lore mattered for Shadowlands and pretty much just that.

Yea, sure. First Ones existing is absolutely neglectable for the future of the game.

[Nymrohd]

There was no reason they couldn't have written any Azerothian solution to the problem.

Let's say the Apothecaries swallowed their pride once they couldn't figure the solution by themselves and ask Cenarion Circle for help. Both organizations dislike each other, but realize that getting rid of the Blight is the better outcome for the world. Hell, CC could add in some help from Green/Red Dragons to tie whole thing towards Dragonflight. Together these parties figure out solution to clean up Lordareon.

There, no need for SL to clean Undercity.

Honestly paladins, druids and shaman have been cleaning the blight since Cataclysm with multiple parts of the Plaguelands completely cleaned by now.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Honestly paladins, druids and shaman have been cleaning the blight since Cataclysm with multiple parts of the Plaguelands completely cleaned by now.

And nothing has changed so...... yeah not much changed. SL is not filler.

[Khaza-R]

Cutting Shadowlands from the new player experience is the right choice. Most of Sylvanas's story in BfA is locked behind max level content a new player never sees. For Alliance players I think there's almost zero interaction with her since they removed the Battle for Lordaeron.

Irrespective of that, the SLs leveling experience is going to be unsatisfactory once they probably remove conduits and class abilities in the pre-patch.

[rhorle]

It didn’t do any of that because pretty much everything can be ignored and doesn’t matter for Dragonflight (as of now). And I’m pretty sure it will be kept as this and pretty much nothing so lore-heavy to change the Warcraft cosmos that was established in Shadowlands will be used later on. Shadowlands is lore-wise WoD territory, completely neglectable for the ongoing future. Shadowlands lore mattered for Shadowlands and pretty much just that.

Pretty much every expansion is neglectable for the ongoing future. So again it is silly to use definitions for filler that make it apply to every expansion. Most expansions are self contained with only a few things carrying forward to the next expansion. It is always a random chance if things get used for the next expansion and since Cataclysm Blizzard has only used small things to lead into the next expansion. That has stopped with Shadowlands as there is no clear lore hook bridging the expansions though the jailers attack does seem to have had some impact.

[huth]

Cutting Shadowlands from the new player experience is the right choice. Most of Sylvanas's story in BfA is locked behind max level content a new player never sees. For Alliance players I think there's almost zero interaction with her since they removed the Battle for Lordaeron.

Irrespective of that, the SLs leveling experience is going to be unsatisfactory once they probably remove conduits and class abilities in the pre-patch.

They'll likely handle it the same way as the Heart. They already talked about what happens if you have an ability from both Covenants and DF talents.

[rhorle]

There was no reason they couldn't have written any Azerothian solution to the problem.

Sure they could have done something differently. But they didn't. There can always be a different story written for everything in WoW that still doesn't change what they did use.

[Nyel]

Pretty much every expansion is neglectable for the ongoing future. So again it is silly to use definitions for filler that make it apply to every expansion. Most expansions are self contained with only a few things carrying forward to the next expansion. It is always a random chance if things get used for the next expansion and since Cataclysm Blizzard has only used small things to lead into the next expansion. That has stopped with Shadowlands as there is no clear lore hook bridging the expansions though the jailers attack does seem to have had some impact.

The thing is - and that matters in this case - that they clearly planned another path for Shadowlands by all the pathos the Shadowlands expansion was oozing pathos. The Jailer, the ultimate baddie, the First Ones, the better Titans, all of this cosmic bullsh*t they wove into the Shadowlands lore just to use nothing of it eventually and leave no further impression on the franchise or Azeroth whatsoever.

Shadowlands was orchestrated to be this climax of the franchise, but in the end has less impact than even f* WoD, which is just hilarious. That's why I said this expansion is so far left and right of the core franchise that we can easily remove it from the timeline and its abscence won't even be recognized by how irrelevant all of it was. That the Shadowlands are its own realm even adds to this, as we leave them and everything is as it was right before we stepped into it. It feels like a Warcraft spinoff with some of its main characters but plot wise completely detached from the "main" franchise.

[rhorle]

Shadowlands was orchestrated to be this climax of the franchise, but in the end has less impact than even f* WoD, which is just hilarious. That's why I said this expansion is so far left and right of the core franchise that we can easily remove it from the timeline and its abscence won't even be recognized by how irrelevant all of it was. That the Shadowlands are its own realm even adds to this, as we leave them and everything is as it was right before we stepped into it.

It wasn't a climax to the franchise. Stop building things up just so you can get angry at its fall. If anything was the Climax it would have been Legion. Since the Burning Legion was always the big bad boogeyman of the franchise.

Every expansion has little to no impact on the greater franchise. Because Blizzard choose to ignore or build on stories on their whim. Everything also isn't the same as it was before we stepped into the Shadowlands. The scourge is running around. Lordaeron is cleansed. A magical seed from the Shadowlands is being protected in secret until it grows larger. There are also plenty of starting points Blizzard can use that involve Shadowlands. You can easily remove any expansion and the franchise won't suffer. TBC? Wacraft RTS fan service isn't needed. WotLK? Arthas fan service isn't needed. All of the expansion were never required for the franchise and could easily have had story written for them to never happen.

[Makorus]

Are we making stuff up now? Shadowlands was never the climax of the franchise. And before you start quoting the 9.2 Reveal video:

"Shadowlands is like the final chapter of ONE BOOK of the Warcraft saga". That book (most likely) being the whole Sylvanas storyline.

Once again, the only expansions that really had an impact on bigger franchise (i.e. direct results of those expansions rippled into the next expansions) were Legion and BfA. Maybe Cata, but that's really the world destruction, nothing that happens in the actual expansion is really relevant. Wrath, TBC, MoP? All as inconsequential as WoD and Shadowlands. You could go from TBC to Cata and you wouldn't even know that there was anything missing. You could go from Wrath to MoP and once again, outside of the world damage, you would not even notice Cata happened.

[Skildar]

It didn’t do any of that because pretty much everything can be ignored and doesn’t matter for Dragonflight (as of now). And I’m pretty sure it will be kept as this and pretty much nothing so lore-heavy to change the Warcraft cosmos that was established in Shadowlands will be used later on. Shadowlands is lore-wise WoD territory, completely neglectable for the ongoing future. Shadowlands lore mattered for Shadowlands and pretty much just that.

you've got your head burried in the sand I see. But the story did progress quite a lot in Shadowlands and you can expect many rippling effects to be noticeable in the coming expansions.

People already acknowledged that the relationship between life and death, Winter Queen and Elune, has been developed to be continued in future expansions (we already have hints for the seed given to Tyrande that it will probably find its place in the dragon isles).
Galywix traded with brokers and their order are not inline with what titans are doing (whose wardens will be there during dragonflight).
Vol'jin has accepted the powers of Rezan and will come back to life in a future expansion.
Anduin has stepped down from his king responsibilities and will look for an answer to who he is supposed to be as a king and how he can go forward with the pain he's inflicted to the world.
The scourge is once more existing and devided at the same time. It will probably become a tool of destruction once more but probably used by another force compeltely.
There is another kind of cosmos order that exist and which is probably a threat to all the forces we know for now.
Denathrius has left the Shadowlands with some of his nathrezim followers and will most likely act to upset the existing balance of the cosmos. We don't really have a clue to what motivates them though (which is why I was never really sold on Denathrius)

You have many other threads to be continued and that have been started or continued in the shadowlands. The fact that you didn't read the quests or played the expansion and feel like there isn't anything in it is moot. There are things to be read and stories to get invested in. You will see some of them play out in later expansions.

[Nyel]

Are we making stuff up now? Shadowlands was never the climax of the franchise. And before you start quoting the 9.2 Reveal video:

"Shadowlands is like the final chapter of ONE BOOK of the Warcraft saga". That book (most likely) being the whole Sylvanas storyline.

"One book of the Warcraft saga" [that was started decades ago]. That was what they meant and no, they've not been talking about the Sylvanas storyline. Shadowlands was the climax of the Warcraft franchise as of now, dating back to the OG Lich King etc. Dragonflight supposedly starts the "new" book of the saga.

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you've got your head burried in the sand I see. But the story did progress quite a lot in Shadowlands and you can expect many rippling effects to be noticeable in the coming expansions.

People already acknowledged that the relationship between life and death, Winter Queen and Elune, has been developed to be continued in future expansions (we already have hints for the seed given to Tyrande that it will probably find its place in the dragon isles).
Galywix traded with brokers and their order are not inline with what titans are doing (whose wardens will be there during dragonflight).
Vol'jin has accepted the powers of Rezan and will come back to life in a future expansion.
Anduin has stepped down from his king responsibilities and will look for an answer to who he is supposed to be as a king and how he can go forward with the pain he's inflicted to the world.
The scourge is once more existing and devided at the same time. It will probably become a tool of destruction once more but probably used by another force compeltely.
There is another kind of cosmos order that exist and which is probably a threat to all the forces we know for now.
Denathrius has left the Shadowlands with some of his nathrezim followers and will most likely act to upset the existing balance of the cosmos. We don't really have a clue to what motivates them though (which is why I was never really sold on Denathrius)

You have many other threads to be continued and that have been started or continued in the shadowlands. The fact that you didn't read the quests or played the expansion and feel like there isn't anything in it is moot. There are things to be read and stories to get invested in. You will see some of them play out in later expansions.

Ok. Then let's wait for all these future expansion they're making use of all of this threads they've going on. Doesn't change the fact that the Jailer storyline itself had no effect on the world at all. The things you've listed are mostly minor side plots they have in every expansion, side plots that more often than not are abandoned instead of used in the future.

I think this discussion is pretty pointless as it's been proven time and time again how terrible and damaging the Shadowlands plot is for the franchise, we don't have to go back to that. So let's focus on all the grandiose Dragonflight news.