Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Ersula]

And just to tangent here a moment, I went and looked at the Cosmology chart again. The Shadowlands aren't even the Deathlands, they're sitting on the chart in the "Mortal Realm" but between Azeroth and the Deathlands. The Emerald Dream does the same thing on Life's end. So odds are when that one General was talking about the Lifelands, he meant the Dream.

You're assuming the "spheres" in the cosmology chart (Void, Light, Death, Spirit, Order & Chaos) are physical locations, but I don't think they are: There aren't "Deathlands, Lifelands, Voidlands, etc." They only represent spheres of influence. Sargeras wasn't "hiding in the Chaos realm" he was just far away in space. That's specifically why all these forces are fighting over the Dream, The Planets & the Shadowlands: It is these material planes that actually have any real estate values. No one has territory that innately belongs to them, not even the cosmic forces.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

God I hope not.

Hate the idea of retreading old territory. Again.

It doesn't sound real at all. Wod not withstanding but.... I think that would be a massive risk doing what that "leak" says will happen.

[huth]

But you are way off with elune. Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, indicates that she is more powerful than the titans or the etneral ones, other than the wishful thinking of nelf fans maybe. The issue here is more that she condemned her children to be fertilizer for the winterqueen and then didn't even bother to make sure that whatever caused the draught would not affect her dung shipment either.

Given that she apparently only learned of the drought at all due to her link with her sister and even that is implied to only be very vague information, she likely couldn't check.

[Raetary]

How did this whole thing about souls being "fertilizer" start again?

Mortal souls are not fed to anything nor used for anything, they just tend to the forest or simply... exist.
The only creatures that we saw being actively sacrificed where either natives or wild gods, and the latter only due to wildseeds requiring a lot of anima the covenant couldn't spare.

[Luck4]

Mount speculation and future expansion
https://old.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...p_checking_my/

Even speaking as someone that like elves in general, I think this would be extremely dumb.

We need to move forward instead of back in time again to destroy what is still good about this franchise.

This also emplies that Sylvanas is back as a major character... AGAIN!

This is how I feel about it:



If I had to choose between another cosmic expansion and this, I would stick with the former.

[TheFirstOnes]

"This is an interesting take"

Fucking hate reddit, sometimes. Also, you guys do realize this Cat could mean An'she, yeah? Doesn't have to be Blood Elf related, whatsoever.

[ExiHext]

"This is an interesting take"

Fucking hate reddit, sometimes. Also, you guys do realize this Cat could mean An'she, yeah? Doesn't have to be Blood Elf related, whatsoever.

What makes your theories better than anyone else's? To be fair your lifelands, light v void, whatever yadda is as unnerving as anyone's wild guesses. Especially because you repeat them at least twice on every page of this thread.

[Nyel]

Mount speculation and future expansion
https://old.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...p_checking_my/

Honestly, I like this very much. I remember that we were talking of time skips months ago, but I am not sure if someone came up with this idea. I was always
wishing for a jump to the time before the Sundering happened, but I like this as much.

Especially with Sylvanas and everything, it would be a nice closure to her storyline, I guess.

What I question is then how the game is going forward. What’s the new threat, what’s the deal? Does the time jump only affect Azeroth? What’s with Draenor etc? I think that’s hard to explain.

[Soon-TM]

They really, really seem to want to do a " hey guys the light might not be so good" twist. They see that boring done to death writers trope as super compelling writing.

While it is true that "light bad" isn't a terribly original trope, it had already been hinted all the way from Vanilla, with those edgy Scarlets using the Light like npnp. If anything, they would be coherent at least in that regard.

[Nyel]

"This is an interesting take"

Fucking hate reddit, sometimes. Also, you guys do realize this Cat could mean An'she, yeah? Doesn't have to be Blood Elf related, whatsoever.

I relate Anshe with Tauren mythology and cats are not something I’d relate to Tauren at all. Cats are distinct for Elves in this game.

That’s just my take. Cats have been a stable for Night Elves since Vanilla, I find it weird to introduce another type of cat that’s not directly related to Elves anymore. Imagine Tauren riding that foxcat, hilarious.

[Ersula]

How did this whole thing about souls being "fertilizer" start again?

Mortal souls are not fed to anything nor used for anything, they just tend to the forest or simply... exist.
The only creatures that we saw being actively sacrificed where either natives or wild gods, and the latter only due to wildseeds requiring a lot of anima the covenant couldn't spare.

On one level, the Shadowlands itself is like a Recycling plant, set up by the Titans when they ordered the universe. The pre-shadowlands explanation for what happens after we die is still true: Souls naturally return to the twisting nether. But at the same time the Shadowlands isn't a purely altruistic institution: It was made to maintain the Titan's creation: Their cosmology built specifically to protect future god progeny, the world souls.

I'm sure if content wasn't so sparse they would have been able to clarify these things better, but from what I can glean: Your Soul is immortal, it can't be destroyed, but it is invisible & ineffable: The Part we can see or touch is the result of Anima. Anima flowing through a soul leaves a residue that gives it a visable form: A lot of anima residue gives the soul a physical body: Specifically when they say "Essence" in Shadowlands, they're referring to the kind of, unliving Shadowlands body powerful people have after they die. And if you're killed in the shadowlands, your soul escapes but your "Essence" is the empty form that is left behind.

And basically Ardenweald sucks up any power they get off people's essence to refuel the natural world in the living. That's the "Great Cycle"

[Cosmic Janitor]

Given that she apparently only learned of the drought at all due to her link with her sister and even that is implied to only be very vague information, she likely couldn't check.

Doesn't really change that she casually decided to send souls to their doom. While I'm not sure if the WoW devs are actually going for the whole "the gods are cunts and don't give a damn about mortals" theme (I'm okay if they are), I simply find nothing about elune positive the way she is portrayed and Tyrande's immediate acceptance of it all seems really weird, even if she was an ultra orthodox devotee before, the turn from raging looney to zen master was a bit too abrupt for my taste. Especially after she denied her the sylvanas kill and afterwards tells her the choice is hers.

[Ersula]

Especially after she denied her the sylvanas kill and afterwards tells her the choice is hers.

At least we're starting to think about this on an existential level: I bring up the inverse side of that: What is the logic in letting her get revenge for something that Elune ordained to happen in the first place. Really, Life or Death mean nothing to Elune: Hell, the concepts of Life & Death in this universe seem to be made up by the Titans, but put the veil up between the mortal plane & the Shadowlands in the first place. Sylvanas was operating under this same mentality ever since she threw herself off ICC

[Cosmic Janitor]

At least we're starting to think about this on an existential level: I bring up the inverse side of that: What is the logic in letting her get revenge for something that Elune ordained to happen in the first place. Really, Life or Death mean nothing to Elune: Hell, the concepts of Life & Death in this universe seem to be made up by the Titans, but put the veil up between the mortal plane & the Shadowlands in the first place. Sylvanas was operating under this same mentality ever since she threw herself off ICC

I think your read on the lore and titans is a bit off. While the titans ordered the cosmos (mortal plane), they've done so cleaning it of old gods and other invaders like demons. They establish order in the classical sense. While there is a titan of life, the titan of death wasn't even properly born yet and never joined the pantheon. The creation of the shadowlands can be attributed to the first ones, which apparently are no longer around (my guess is they sacrificed themselves to spawn/divide/order all of their creation or something like that). That's where the whole 6 first ones (6 cosmic forces) comes in and the footnote in the sl book about the 7th fractal (probably something relating to azeroth).

[Ersula]

I think your read on the lore and titans is a bit off. While the titans ordered the cosmos (mortal plane), they've done so cleaning it of old gods and other invaders like demons. They establish order in the classical sense. While there is a titan of life, the titan of death wasn't even properly born yet and never joined the pantheon. The creation of the shadowlands can be attributed to the first ones, which apparently are no longer around (my guess is they sacrificed themselves to spawn/divide/order all of their creation or something like that). That's where the whole 6 first ones (6 cosmic forces) comes in and the footnote in the sl book about the 7th fractal (probably something relating to azeroth).

Argus is only "the Titan of Death" as a moniker invented by Sargeras. It doesn't hold any significance. For all we know the First Ones ARE the Titans, or at the very least, other World Souls that don't consider themselves part of the Pantheon: I mean, the architecture is very similar.

And yes, Chronicles talks about the "Ordering of the Cosmos" then shows the Cosmology chart we're all referring to: We're meant to infer that's what they meant. They separated the forces & put the veil up between worlds. Just like they did when they created the Elemental planes. The 7 forces thing in the Shadowlands books is too vague to glean much from. There are 6 Cosmic Forces. There were Six Eternal Ones originally, with one outlier. They're not related.

[TheFirstOnes]

I relate Anshe with Tauren mythology and cats are not something I’d relate to Tauren at all. Cats are distinct for Elves in this game.

That’s just my take. Cats have been a stable for Night Elves since Vanilla, I find it weird to introduce another type of cat that’s not directly related to Elves anymore. Imagine Tauren riding that foxcat, hilarious.

I mean, the Cat in itself takes from many aspects. I wouldn't consider much of Ardenweald's stuff just "Night Elf" related either.

- - - Updated - - -

What makes your theories better than anyone else's? To be fair your lifelands, light v void, whatever yadda is as unnerving as anyone's wild guesses. Especially because you repeat them at least twice on every page of this thread.

I know I do...

Cause maybe they're the most likely options?

[UndedoKoleda]

I think your read on the lore and titans is a bit off. While the titans ordered the cosmos (mortal plane), they've done so cleaning it of old gods and other invaders like demons. They establish order in the classical sense. While there is a titan of life, the titan of death wasn't even properly born yet and never joined the pantheon. The creation of the shadowlands can be attributed to the first ones, which apparently are no longer around (my guess is they sacrificed themselves to spawn/divide/order all of their creation or something like that). That's where the whole 6 first ones (6 cosmic forces) comes in and the footnote in the sl book about the 7th fractal (probably something relating to azeroth).

Well, we know that the Titans can create life(the Earthen, for instance), so are they truly only a Pantheon of Order/Arcane? Also, we know that the Old Gods were responsible for the Curse of Flesh, does that mean that the Void has a way to create life as well? Are the Old Gods themselves a Void creation or a corrupted one from Life? How about Demons? Are they fel-corrupted entities that originally came from the Lifelands, or are they made that way? Where are the Gardens of Life/Lifelands in all of that?

Blizzard really opened Pandora's (lore) box with this expansion.

[Gaidax]

People really overthinking the cat.

It could be simply that someone correctly assumed that a frikkin' cat mount would make people swoon and buy it in droves... which it does.

And that's about it.

[cocomen2]

People really overthinking the cat.

Yep, if its was just a "Cat" then you would be right but main part about it is "Sun" and we got prophecy and hints about it.

1.Sylvanas once again seems to be good.

2.Blood elfs too much relying on Sunwell as drug replacement for magic addiction which was their main point,Garithos was jerk to us so we betrayed Alliance and joined zombies and orcs who much worse than 1 human racist but we sniff mana-wyrms so who gives a fuck, drugs go brrrrrrrrrrr.

3.Sunwell once again would belong to High elfs, Alleria wants it.

/s , with this much my Hopium tank went empty so i gonna wait for 2022 blizzcon.

[Tanaria]

3.Sunwell once again would belong to High elfs

Already does. It's just those High Elves call themselves Blood Elves.

Sunwell is in the hands of it's rightful owners.