Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Edward Wu]

Or a world revamp. But either that or Dragon Isles. It's the only realistic scenarion that really gives that more grounded WoW vanilla feel.

I think you can have both, but I also do think a world revamp done this time wouldn't be done like it was in Cata, but released over time.

[Jokubas]

Honestly at this point them releasing something other than The Dragon Isles will just further cement how out-of-touch they are with player desires. It's been the only leak that's actually generated hype and positive reactions.

Almost nobody actually wants anything else. It's clear people are looking for a more grounded expansion.

Part of the question is how far ahead they're working. A lot of people wanted to go to Ny'alotha for an expansion before the final patch revealed it was just going to be a raid (similar to what happened to Argus), and Shadowlands seemed liked well enough early on. It's possible they planned enough of 10.0 at that point to think we'd still be okay with something crazy before the burnout hit and can't retool everything.

I'm actually not really looking forward to a dragon expansion myself, though. I've said before it's because I'm not really into dragons, but it's also partially because I don't exactly consider them grounded. For one, their story has often been sort of its own thing and not overlapped a lot with us, which risks feeling more like Shadowlands than Battle for Azeroth on the "unfamiliar and alien culture and subfactions" sort of way (Battle for Azeroth was pretty controversial itself, but I think most people appreciated the zones and the grounded stories that didn't directly involve the war). More importantly though, their powers are on a pretty high level and include the masters of time travel, which is one of the most divisive topics in Warcraft. They've been de-powered, but I can't imagine a dragon-focused expansion that doesn't still treat them as meaningfully powerful, because it seems like it would defeat the point of using dragons then.

I'd still like to be back on Azeroth though, and being a blank slate makes it sort of exciting in its own way.

[Varx]

Or a world revamp. But either that or Dragon Isles. It's the only realistic scenarion that really gives that more grounded WoW vanilla feel.

As long as it actually has new zones like cata.

Only way the contrary would fly is if all other unexplored places have been exhausted. Even past Dragon Isles we have Ka'resh, the other side of azeroth, hell even 5 other cosmic planes.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Dragons have been pretty irrelevant for awhile, be nice to see them more.

Wasn't that partly the point? They step aside as guardians of the world so the mortals could step forward.

Which was also the lesson Medivh taught at the end of Warcraft III.

Always found that amusing. And then Medivh kinda comes back. And now dragons.

Things really are cyclical.

I never really liked Catas ending personally. (The dragons being depowered that is, good cinematic still).

[Kiivar86]

Dragons have been pretty irrelevant for awhile, be nice to see them more.

Wasn't that partly the point? They step aside as guardians of the world so the mortals could step forward.

Which was also the lesson Medivh taught at the end of Warcraft III.

Always found that amusing. And then Medivh kinda comes back. And now dragons.

Things really are cyclical.

[Varx]

Wasn't that partly the point? They step aside as guardians of the world so the mortals could step forward.

Which was also the lesson Medivh taught at the end of Warcraft III.

Always found that amusing. And then Medivh kinda comes back. And now dragons.

Things really are cyclical.

Just because they're not the designated guardians anymore doesn't mean they cant find a new place for them on Azeroth. I feel like dragon isles can explore that, which would add to a playable dragon race. You know, dragons living amongst beings they once looked down upon for being mortals and lesser. Now being mortals themselves and learning their ways.

I can see a new wave of good chromatic dragons being the link between mortals and the otehr flights, learning their ways (classes) and bringing that to dragonkind's table.

[Jokubas]

As long as it actually has new zones like cata.

Only way the contrary would fly is if all other unexplored places have been exhausted. Even past Dragon Isles we have Ka'resh, the other side of azeroth, hell even 5 other cosmic planes.

I think it depends on how it's handled. Cataclysm is older now than the original launch was when Cataclysm came out, which is a good argument for updating things purely on a pure technical level. On the other hand, after the Chromie Time changes, the issues of having significantly outdated leveling are significantly less important (Chromie Time is still a bandage, but it's a pretty good bandage for now).

However, game design has also changed in that time. Content with a longer lifespan is something that World of Warcraft players have been requesting for a long time and something that other games have managed to prove is possible. Making it where Azeroth, the titular World of Warcraft, isn't just an outdated piece of trivia in the gameplay but could be consistently relevant, is a goal I think they should definitely chase. I can't say they have those ideas or they're ready to implement them though.

There is one last thing to say in favor of a world revamp though. People have been asking for some things for so long, like an actually playable Gilneas, Stromgarde back in the hand's of its people, or a Gadgetzan that reflects its much more fleshed out appearance in Hearthstone of all places (and in the Traveler novels), that I think you could sell an expansion on zones that aren't even new and aren't even sold as a Cataclysm 2.0. You show that Hyjal will be a new night elf capital or Teldrassil will be rebuilt to resemble its amazing concept art with the city built along the tree instead of on the flat top of an ugly stump, and I think you'd bring a ton of excitement back even if you outright admitted that only those key places were being updated and not everything with replaced quests (not to say you could avoid having endgame content, just saying the specifics aren't important).

[Sondrelk]

As long as it actually has new zones like cata.

Only way the contrary would fly is if all other unexplored places have been exhausted. Even past Dragon Isles we have Ka'resh, the other side of azeroth, hell even 5 other cosmic planes.

I would argue an expansion like Cata filled with revamped zones doesnt even need new zones outside maybe patch zones. EK and Kalimdor are filled with genuinely enough and varied zones that you could have your pick of whatever zone you could ever want.
Just in EK we have mountains, volcanic regions, wetlands, plains, corrupted zones, desolate zones, jungles, swamps, and a litany of more grounded zones like Silverpine, Western Plaguelands, Elwynn Forest and the Hinterlands.
And this is the same for Kalimdor. You have all these zones, and they never get used even when they should.

Dragon Isles is currently the only non-cosmic zone of Azeroth that players expect and have a preexisting notion of what to expect from. The backside of Azeroth is another, but without any kind of story to go along with it. At best it could go for a Colonizing the New World vibe, but the narrative isnt really at a place where that would be natural yet. We would actually probably need a World Revamp "reset" expansion before going to the backside of Azeroth would be the natural next step.

[Wadrak]

Since the 9.2 is called Eternity's End, "End", do you think there is no chance for 9.3 in Shadowlands ?

[Jokubas]

I would argue an expansion like Cata filled with revamped zones doesnt even need new zones outside maybe patch zones. EK and Kalimdor are filled with genuinely enough and varied zones that you could have your pick of whatever zone you could ever want.
Just in EK we have mountains, volcanic regions, wetlands, plains, corrupted zones, desolate zones, jungles, swamps, and a litany of more grounded zones like Silverpine, Western Plaguelands, Elwynn Forest and the Hinterlands.
And this is the same for Kalimdor. You have all these zones, and they never get used even when they should.

Not only that, but if they leveraged modern techniques, they could be made into so much more. I recognize that it's a pipe dream even in the context of a world revamp, but I've said before that I'd love a true overhaul. Rebuild some areas from the ground up, so that places like Hyjal could actually be the peak of an incline that starts in surrounding zones and gradually reaches an amazing vista, with the surrounding zones properly being partway up to the peak as they were implied in Warcraft III instead of just sitting next to basically a sheer cliff. Lord of the Rings Online is a game that feels much older than World of Warcraft despite coming out after because it never really came up with the times, but the way it handles mountains and a much more realistic incline to astounding heights still blows me away (most games just don't give you that feeling of looking back down the trail and realizing how far you've come). I don't think that's remotely likely, but I think that would seriously grab people's attention.

I do think a Teldrassil that at least tries to resemble the concept art (and current skybox) is possible though. Even smaller things like a Swamp of Sorrows that doesn't just use a color filter to tell you its a sickly bog are things that I think could breathe legitimate new life into nostalgic areas enough to sell an expansion on.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Dragons have been pretty irrelevant for awhile, be nice to see them more.





I never really liked Catas ending personally. (The dragons being depowered that is, good cinematic still).

Cata felt like a plot and an ending that Blizz wanted to do then decided after they'd emailed in the final draft they didn't want to do after all. BFA felt like the "End of the Old Gods arc" they wanted to do, maybe 10.0 will be the "end of the Dragons arc" they wanted to do.

[Sondrelk]

Since the 9.2 is called Eternity's End, "End", do you think there is no chance for 9.3 in Shadowlands ?

It's far from impossible, but it would either be a very small patch just to hold players over with leftover stuff from SL that didnt have time to get added, or less likely a patch we get if 10.0 is delayed to 2023.

[Shadrax]

Reboot is more likely than Dragon Isles, even though both will probably happen around the same time.

There’s no reason to change the status quo for so many Azeroth races, radically change the Horde and swap Alliance kings if you’re just going to another separated continent.

[huth]

As Shadowlands is a flop, it will very likely not get another major patch.

Last i looked, SL did pretty well as far as money goes. Whether you like it isn't really relevant to that.

[Jokubas]

Oh yeah, one other thing I forgot to say about a world revamp is that it's possible it may not actually require as much work as it sounds. A big draw for the new customization on the developer end of things was how they made it much easier for themselves to add new options and nonstandard options. While the world would be a completely different system than the characters and that convenience wouldn't carry over, the fact that they've considered that sort of back-end overhaul means that it's always possible that they have been working on something similar for the world. In other words, building a way to make it way easier for them to make smaller or unusual changes without having to rebuild everything from the ground up every time.

That would be a lot of work itself, but they could have been working on that in the background for the sake of getting around to something where it really matters. Again, I don't think we have any serious evidence for that as a guess, but I do think it would sell.

[Khaza-R]

I think you can have both, but I also do think a world revamp done this time wouldn't be done like it was in Cata, but released over time.

Probably how it should be done to be honest. Cataclysm was way overambitious and ended up being kind of sloppy because nothing really got properly fleshed out.

Sometimes knowing when to show restraint is more impressive then trying to do too much.

[Jokubas]

Probably how it should be done to be honest. Cataclysm was way overambitious and ended up being kind of sloppy because nothing really got properly fleshed out.

Sometimes knowing when to show restraint is more impressive then trying to do too much.

To be fair, it was sort of necessary. World of Warcraft basically exists for its endgame, but getting to the endgame had gotten increasingly absurd by that point. Not only was the leveling extremely slow and backbreaking, but the game design philosophies had changed so much in that time that you were basically playing a different game at level 1-60 than at level 71+. They needed to overhaul the world without leaving gaps in it, but they also couldn't just abandon content for veterans either. It was sort of a Catch-22.

Nowadays, Chromie Time at least bails them out from some of that.

[Wadrak]

As Shadowlands is a flop, it will very likely not get another major patch.

I was hoping more patches will fix it.
I don't mean the cliche "they will fix it in next expansion or next patch". But expansions have always best content in last tier.

More tiers, better it should be.

Hovewer I dont really see any build up of a story beyond 9.2, since Jailer is supposed to be there.

[Edward Wu]

I was hoping more patches will fix it.
I don't mean the cliche "they will fix it in next expansion or next patch". But expansions have always best content in last tier.

More tiers, better it should be.

Hovewer I dont really see any build up of a story beyond 9.2, since Jailer is supposed to be there.

I think they are doing a 9.2.5 since they held back one of the arenas that was supposed to come in 9.2.

Likely could have that patch be the "we're sorry please come back we made everything casual this time for realz" prepare for 10.0 patch.

[Varx]

I was hoping more patches will fix it.
I don't mean the cliche "they will fix it in next expansion or next patch". But expansions have always best content in last tier.

More tiers, better it should be.

Hovewer I dont really see any build up of a story beyond 9.2, since Jailer is supposed to be there.

I'll say, transmog came out in Dragonsoul. IMO best permanent feature added to WoW mid expansion.

I think the main SL story of the jailor will for sure end in 9.2

I do think though that there must be some kind of 9.2.5 or maybe 9.3 that acts as an epilogue or bridge between SL and 10.0.