Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Wangming]

I would not have been shocked if it was something like how FFXIV used to bring in the big bucks for SE but SE took all the money it made and gave it to anything else but XIV. Only recently did they change it.

If Acti-Blizz had been doing that with WoW for a while it would make sense but it's not something we would ever know for sure.

Yeah all the subs payed 15 and it ended up being meh. With no attention by players the two good DLCs got canceled. At least FFXVI is done by Yoshi-P. They are starting to realize who to trust.

- - - Updated - - -

I wanted to point out that I do not think the "they are removing expansion leveling campaigns" thing in the text leak for Dragonflight to be that odd, considering SL is the first expansion where you can just skip the leveling campaign completely on alts. That gives me the vibe that they are looking into changing leveling more than that and they probably have some solid data now on how many people skipped the leveling campaign in SL.

Nobody who is paying attention to Blizzard finds it odd, IMHO. "The game starts and max level" has been the general consensus to quite some time.

[AngerFork]

I'm not sure Blizzard has had the resources people think they do, the years from Overwatch launch to now have been kind of shaky and content-light outside of Legion and game development across the company has been very very very slow. NOW they do with Microsoft, so they no longer have an excuse, but I think the "small indie company" jokes actually had some truth to them that Blizz actually did not have the resources people thought they did (likely due to standing next to a giant like Activision).

Irrelevant to the discussion, and everything points to them making things have longevity based on the past few patches, but wanted to mention that. I don't think 8.3-9.2 happened like it did solely due to laziness or incompetence.

For sure. The lawsuit was absolutely hammering them as were the leadership issues when most of the old guard was leaving for various reasons. Plus with OW2 behind schedule, team members absolutely shifted around all over the place. I'm hopeful with many of those issues behind them & preparation for the Microsoft takeover (who seems to have done well with the games they've had thus far) might help make 10.0 a bit better.

[Shadochi]

I was away since sunday, anything important happened after the Alex promo and the name drop?

[Wangming]

I was away since sunday, anything important happened after the Alex promo and the name drop?

Nope. The leak gods were waiting for their greatest champion to return.

[Shadochi]

Nope. The leak gods were waiting for their greatest champion to return.

Well with 2 weeks before announcement, I am reporting for duty of debunking leaks 7

[Wangming]

Well with 2 weeks before announcement, I am reporting for duty of debunking leaks 7

No, you are here to draw in the leaks.

Also sweet baby jesus! I followed the link proving your Number 1 shitposter credentials and by the time BfA beta ended, the 8.0 hyp thread had 5320 pages. We are super fucking behind even though we started with 9.1

[username993720]

Can someone do a recap every several pages or so?
I hate going through rows of pages, feeling lost.
It's like everytime i check this thread, it has been 50 pages or so.

[draugril]

No, you are here to draw in the leaks.

Also sweet baby jesus! I followed the link proving your Number 1 shitposter credentials and by the time BfA beta ended, the 8.0 hyp thread had 5320 pages. We are super fucking behind even though we started with 9.1

I'm definitely seeing a lot fewer regular names this go around.

[Baedril]

A senior UI designer said on Twitter that he's excited to show what he's been working on for several months, two weeks from now.

I hope it's a login screen overhaul.

What other major UI changes could fit the bill? WoW on console?

Coud also just be the UI for the Next New System™! Do you have a link to the actual tweet?

[Revamp Man]

I wanted to point out that I do not think the "they are removing expansion leveling campaigns" thing in the text leak for Dragonflight to be that odd, considering SL is the first expansion where you can just skip the leveling campaign completely on alts. That gives me the vibe that they are looking into changing leveling more than that and they probably have some solid data now on how many people skipped the leveling campaign in SL.

its not so much you can skip it completely on alts but taht going through it linearly once lets you then choose just like legion and bfa

they had issues with disjointed story rythm in legion when one zone story happened after another but nobody noticed so they just figured "listen do it once then do whatever you want"

[Lady Atia]

A senior UI designer said on Twitter that he's excited to show what he's been working on for several months, two weeks from now.

I hope it's a login screen overhaul.

What other major UI changes could fit the bill? WoW on console?

Housing. Just imagine if we would get a sims like ui for customizing our homes.

[Revamp Man]

Housing. Just imagine if we would get a sims like ui for customizing our homes.

i think people are getting too hyped over this

imagine if it is just a new character creation ui

[Raetary]

i think people are getting too hyped over this

imagine if it is just a new character creation ui

But they just revamped character creation.
It's unlikely they'll do so again.

[Wangming]

Coud also just be the UI for the Next New System™! Do you have a link to the actual tweet?

My first reaction was: "housing confirmed". Obviously it is not, but that is among the most UI intensive features in any game. Or yes, as SiF speculated, a more console friendly UI. There aren't many major MMOs yet, that aren't multiplatform.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm definitely seeing a lot fewer regular names this go around.

Did the ban of Teriz sat us back 3000 pages?

- - - Updated - - -

i think people are getting too hyped over this

imagine if it is just a new character creation ui

I would be happy with that. The current one isn't anything to wright home about. And if they want to add cool options to the interface, we need to be able to do cool things with the creator.

[draugril]

Did the ban of Teriz sat us back 3000 pages?

I mean, I did still have the energy to go round and round with him back then.

[Nyel]

Housing is basically the most pointless feature WoW could integrate. I know this was already discussed, but this game did very well for 18 years without housing and it will be fine for the next 10 years without it. It just feels super unnecessary. WoW has other strong points that should be build upon and enough problems they need to fix. Players don't play this game for housing and what WoW at the moment needs is something players criticized in the past and want for the next expansion - and housing isn't it.

[Rae888]

A senior UI designer said on Twitter that he's excited to show what he's been working on for several months, two weeks from now.

I hope it's a login screen overhaul.

Ugh yes please, I hate the current character selection screen and how you have to scroll down to characters off the screen if you have more than 11 or 12.

[ercarp]

Housing is basically the most pointless feature WoW could integrate. I know this was already discussed, but this game did very well for 18 years without housing and it will be fine for the next 10 years without it. It just feels super unnecessary. WoW has other strong points that should be build upon and enough problems they need to fix. Players don't play this game for housing and what WoW at the moment needs is something players criticized in the past and want for the next expansion - and housing isn't it.

Agreed. I really hope Blizzard doesn't bring Player Housing to WoW because it would be a massive waste of time and resources imo. I've always felt that it's a strangely anti-social feature to include in an MMO.

And let's be completely real here, the only ones who really want Player Housing are the ones who intend to use it as some kind of ERP sanctuary for themselves and their Goldshire buddies.

[Wangming]

Agreed. I really hope Blizzard doesn't bring Player Housing to WoW because it would be a massive waste of time and resources imo. I've always felt that it's a strangely anti-social feature to include in an MMO.

And let's be completely real here, the only ones who really want Player Housing are the ones who intend to use it as some kind of ERP sanctuary for themselves and their Goldshire buddies.

So you want them to continue doing it in Goldshire?

[draugril]

Housing is basically the most pointless feature WoW could integrate. I know this was already discussed, but this game did very well for 18 years without housing and it will be fine for the next 10 years without it. It just feels super unnecessary. WoW has other strong points that should be build upon and enough problems they need to fix. Players don't play this game for housing and what WoW at the moment needs is something players criticized in the past and want for the next expansion - and housing isn't it.

Disagree.

From my perspective, WoW has been playing to its strengths too much, losing much of the breadth of appeal it once held. And even from a sterile MAU perspective, if they were to borrow certain practices for housing, it could assist in balancing server populations and keep people logging in to maintain their property. Anecdotally, I know a ton of players of other MMOs that are came over from WoW explicitly because WoW ceased to attempt any content that falls outside of the loot treadmill.

Another raid or a "Super Mythic" difficulty isn't going to appeal to anyone that isn't already hopelessly addicted.