Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Cosmic Janitor]

I'm actually pretty interested in wherever we're going, whether its this Zereth Mortis or whatever. Though I suspect my imagination is making things a lot more interesting than they are. That was the case with Korthia. Honestly, for a "city", it sure doesn't look it.

All of 9.1 was woefully half-assed, Korthia most of all. You can feel it in almost all aspects (even the raid if you consider that the assets were already made a year ago), a city is a bunch of glorified hovels, the renown system is laughably inflated, which becomes apparent next week (later down the line there is even an upgrade that buffs the anima of Oribos weeklies.. rofl), the final of the part of the campaign was barely more than a recap after having pretty much just hastily tied up lose ends they forgot in 9.0.

I think it shows that at the best of times when Blizzard is ahead their quality can be dodgy, but when they are behind something like this patch happens, despite a 6 month development time.

[Sondrelk]

To be more specific, while I'm sure the intent to provide an enjoyable experience is in the back of everyone's mind, fluffing up metrics and promoting microtransations is certainly at the forefront of development intent - no matter how good the experience, they're all tainted to manipulate the consumer in this direction or that. This is demonstrable.

Conversely many of the same complaints could also be considered positives, with Blizzard creating content aimed at rewarding consumer loyalty and giving reasons to stay engaged even when the reward system would have normally dried up.

Titanforging could be both there to improve engagement metrics, and also give reasons for players to stay engaged in a positive way.
Systems are not always demonstrably swayed to one side of the seller/buyer relationship.

[rrayy]

To be more specific, while I'm sure the intent to provide an enjoyable experience is in the back of everyone's mind, fluffing up metrics and promoting microtransations is certainly at the forefront of development intent - no matter how good the experience, they're all tainted to manipulate the consumer in this direction or that. This is demonstrable.

NO it isn't. Ion and the devs are thinking MAU's when making their game. They are thinking about making a game people will enjoy.

[Kiivar86]

All of 9.1 was woefully half-assed, Korthia most of all. You can feel it in almost all aspects (even the raid if you consider that the assets were already made a year ago), a city is a bunch of glorified hovels, the renown system is laughably inflated, which becomes apparent next week (later down the line there is even an upgrade that buffs the anima of Oribos weeklies.. rofl), the final of the part of the campaign was barely more than a recap after having pretty much just hastily tied up lose ends they forgot in 9.0.

I think it shows that at the best of times when Blizzard is ahead their quality can be dodgy, but when they are behind something like this patch happens, despite a 6 month development time.

Yeah, like I try to be optimistic and I do actually kind of enjoy Korthia as it is, but man it did not come even close to what I had pictured. I envisioned something akin to the NE ruins in Nazjatar and Eredar ruins in Mac'aree, but there's really nothing remotely city-like about it. Its kind of astounding.

And yeah the renown rewards, there are some that made me raise an eyebrow. One of them is, if memory serves, raise the amount of anima from elite WQs. Yay?

I will say though, anima-wise, it is nice to no longer be so starved for it (though I am reaching the point on my main of having nothing to use it for).

[Cosmic Janitor]

And yeah the renown rewards, there are some that made me raise an eyebrow. One of them is, if memory serves, raise the amount of anima from elite WQs. Yay?

I will say though, anima-wise, it is nice to no longer be so starved for it (though I am reaching the point on my main of having nothing to use it for).

The issue with that is that you are still hard capped on means to gain offerings and, worse, souls. After switching covenants to one I had previously, I have to spend another 7 weeks just to finally wait out the 20 souls/week until I can finally max the covenant specific activites..

And on new characters anima is still an issue, because all these bonus gains are locked behind having already too much anima.. such a stupid system.

[draugril]

Conversely many of the same complaints could also be considered positives, with Blizzard creating content aimed at rewarding consumer loyalty and giving reasons to stay engaged even when the reward system would have normally dried up.

Titanforging could be both there to improve engagement metrics, and also give reasons for players to stay engaged in a positive way.
Systems are not always demonstrably swayed to one side of the seller/buyer relationship.

Many paint their complaints with a wide brush. I do not. I personally did not mind Titanforging at all (as long as the game isn't balanced around having those pieces, which is unknowable by the playerbase). You could entirely make the argument that it was a pro-player system, and replayability of content was simply a natural consequence rather than an imposed expectation.

My complaints would stem largely from certain tendencies to ignore profitable problems. For example, faction transfers. I played on a server that was literally 1:500 at times - during WoD, I was often the only result in a realm-wide /who on my faction. Blizzard did nothing about this, since anyone ignorant enough to stay on my faction was pressured to either swap factions or servers, and the population on the opposing faction was a draw for others to transfer there. My experience was absolutely miserable, but it would have meant discouraging cashflow - it was a problem they ultimately wanted to have. Add in Ion saying that it's a problem created by the community that they are powerless to fix, and you've drawn my ire. Modern WoW is similarly plagued by issues stemming from the WoW token, which are too numerous to really get into here.

Timegating content and arbitrarily removing/rewarding flying is another annoyance. As I grow older, my time to play becomes more unreliable and more restricted in general - I want to play the game I paid for on my own terms. If I have that one-in-a-million weekend where I can just sit and plough through some story? Let me. None of this "wait for next week!" garbage for content that it already in the game.

Also, tying everything into player power - conceptually, I like Torghast, just as I liked Island Expeditions and Warfronts and Visions. The problem with it, just like its precursors, is that they made it a part of the endgame power loop arbitrarily to increase those metrics. Instead of being its own content, standing on its own, it now needs to be neutered and designed in a way that it is tolerable to all players. They completely kneecap its appeal because they're manipulating players to play the content instead of relying on its inherent enjoyability. The irony is, in forcing players to engage with it, they remove the potential for it to be inherently enjoyable content. There's a reason that, even though it was extremely limited in scope, the Mage Tower challenges are still remembered more fondly than any of the content it inspired.

I could rant on, but I do believe I'm going beyond the scope of this discussion. Long story short, in isolation, WoW had and has a ton of content that I enjoy. Unfortunately, the way they've structured that content has made it difficult to actually enjoy any of it.

[Nagawithlegs]

People often clamor for a new evergreen content system in WoW but I have yet to see a single suggestion that makes sense and is ACTUALLY evergreen besides Housing.

I think a lot of people are banking on Blizzard coming up with some new scientific method that nobody has discovered before, and I’m unsure if it’s possible. Besides Housing what could you even do? How could you make something like Visions/Islands/Warfronts/Torghast last virtually forever?

[draugril]

Timewalking itself was a good starting point. I could definitely see that system being expanded into a legitimate branch of player progression. The right expansion would need to come along for it, though.

[Nagawithlegs]

Timewalking itself was a good starting point. I could definitely see that system being expanded into a legitimate branch of player progression. The right expansion would need to come along for it, though.

It’s possible, but then you’d have devs creating content themed around every old expansion.

Doing something similar to ESO with month celebrations about old expansions that add SOME new mounts/tmog etc could be viable though.

[Alanar]

Timewalking itself was a good starting point. I could definitely see that system being expanded into a legitimate branch of player progression. The right expansion would need to come along for it, though.

We already have timewalking for some time now and they even introduced that chromie shit.. I am not in a hurry of more of that stuff tbh.

Whats up with people liking this timemachine stuff out of nowhere? Last time I checked people hated it.

[draugril]

This is where I think the current focus on "play the patch" really screws over the game longterm. If they spend all their resources on developing content for the current patch, and quite literally discard all of that progress every two years, of course they'd never be able to maintain other "evergreen" systems patch after patch. But if they could actually settle on something and stop trying to reinvent the wheel? It would free up so much time and resources that they could dedicate to getting these kinds of "superfluous" systems online.

[Raetary]

they even introduced that chromie shit..

... What chromie shit?
Do you mean chromie time? That isn't an endgame progression system, that's a fancier hero's call board for your low lvl alts.

[therumblings]

We already have timewalking for some time now and they even introduced that chromie shit.. I am not in a hurry of more of that stuff tbh.

Whats up with people liking this timemachine stuff out of nowhere? Last time I checked people hated it.

It's a way to make old content relevant, people aren't playing it for time travel lore.

[Alanar]

... What chromie shit?
Do you mean chromie time? That isn't an endgame progression system, that's a fancier hero's call board for your low lvl alts.

Lol that was just a system.. ( what at that time was counted as one (semi) not introduced for alt leveling( i done it once when it was current.. no idea what players turn it into eventually).

Mage tower tbh was same caliber if I follow that logic. eventually you had people like you saying: oo i did it casually for my alt and LOL I even got the challange tint lmao nubs kind of responses. Players consume to fast hence shit is easy fast and that system can turn into something that wasnt meant for it to be, but did anyway.

Progression systems like artifacts and azerite? Please for the love of god.. keep those away please. Where are just the system you could just do without being it tied to some progression system.

Using timewalking for older content to be relevant is something I can understand, but that is more of you think you do, but you dont. Rather focus on new things. I wasnt a huge fan of redoing wod dungeons or cata dungeons.

[huth]

We already have timewalking for some time now and they even introduced that chromie shit.. I am not in a hurry of more of that stuff tbh.

Whats up with people liking this timemachine stuff out of nowhere? Last time I checked people hated it.

So you never before checked? Nostalgia has been a thing for about as long as human culture has existed.

[Alanar]

So you never before checked? Nostalgia has been a thing for about as long as human culture has existed.

Checked what? Nostalgia?

Nostalgia kinda lost its meaning with wow fyi. Its nice of you trying to point me to what that means... but there is no need as this is a you think you do, but you dont situation. Trying to relive that 9 out of 10 times end in dissappointments.

Many, just like me already tasted that nostalgia and have no disire to play that, hence I dont play that content myself.

[huth]

Checked what? Nostalgia?

Nostalgia kinda lost its meaning with wow fyi. Its nice of you trying to point me to what that means... but there is no need as this is a you think you do, but you dont situation. Trying to relive that 9 out of 10 times end in dissappointments.

Many, just like me already tasted that nostalgia and have no disire to play that, hence I dont play that content myself.

The last time you checked that you refered to before. Since this has been a thing since before you were born, the only logical outcome is that you never checked before.

That Nostalgia tends to include some rather heavily rose-tinted glasses isn't news, but that doesn't stop people from asking for old stuff back. It is also generally relatively easy to do, so it's an easy sell. There's therefore no reason for you to act so suprised by it.+

That you don't play it is irrelevant. There's a sufficiently large playerbase to justify the expense.

[Alanar]

The last time you checked that you refered to before. Since this has been a thing since before you were born, the only logical outcome is that you never checked before.

That Nostalgia tends to include some rather heavily rose-tinted glasses isn't news, but that doesn't stop people from asking for old stuff back. It is also generally relatively easy to do, so it's an easy sell. There's therefore no reason for you to act so suprised by it.+

That you don't play it is irrelevant. There's a sufficiently large playerbase to justify the expense.

So what is the purpose of your post besides being.. well this?

That its easy content aka recyle is obvious, but I already told you its a: you think you do, but you dont situation. I dont relive those moments as back then, when I replay time. Not in vanilla not in timewalking.. so I have no disire to play that type of content. The rest is not relevant for me.

The outcry to old content is fairly low tbh and serves more as a nich these days.. But a fairy big expense of the playerbase? Hard to believe realy.

[Nagawithlegs]

So I just did Guardian of the First Ones for the first time and I noticed the area (which is canonically pulled from some "other realm") has both pyramids and more importantly is covered in sand.

I think the sand implies the First Ones may have sand as an aesthetic, pointing again to them being a force of Time. Like sands and hourglasses. Also Time is often closely associated with death... and we just got a new Infinite Dragon model. And the Bronze area in Dragonblight is covered in sand.

Maybe the First Ones aren't really the first beings but ones that time traveled to the beginning?

Also the polite robot voice on the core things was pretty funny.

[Blayze]

Maybe the First Ones aren't really the first beings but ones that time traveled to the beginning?

I had this idea for the Titans, before we learned about the First Ones; I had the idea that they could be advanced troll golems that were sent away from a dying Azeroth to try and seed new planets with life, only to end up going back through time and causing the very events that led to their own creation.

The only question is, however, which entities would be the most ironic to go back to the start of existence and be its creators?

That's obvious: Dreadlords.

Imagine them caught in an endless loop of time travel, with their past selves constantly trying to get the upper hand over their future selves, so they can steal their power for themselves until they eventually get beaten and mindwiped by their future selves to ensure they become... compliant. Every time the cycle repeats, events diverge slightly, until eventually the past selves can finally become the victors.

After all, it's not like their future selves can kill them.