Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Zulggun]

I'd say Cata is probably my favorite in terms of zones. Only Hyjal was kinda hit and miss, but other zones were all amazing.

[Sondrelk]

Deepholm was amazing. In general I liked Cataclysm. Raids were good. H Dungeons were near flawless they just should have had purples for the psychology factor and never should have been nerfed. The world revamp was a much needed improvement. All the new zones were at worst at least enjoyable the first time through.

Its real biggest issue was that you could finish everything in the first two weeks and once you did there was fuck all else to do or work on. Well that and also TB was a garbage ass idea and whoever thought it up should be ashamed.

Honestly I always felt that the Cata zones look good, but with the exception of Vashj'ir played awful.
All of them had the same basic loop that all zones do with flying. You mount up, go straight to your objective, kill or pick up something, then mount up and repeat.
All the zones ended up similar in that you didn't treat the zone like an organic area that needed to be navigated or understood, but rather as a big pile of empty terrain to slow your questing now that flying made traversal faster.

[Shadochi]

To be honest, I miss the zone design and aesthetics of WoD. An expansion that didn't plan to have flying and zones were designed to not be obnoxious without flying, unlike in Legion and parts of BfA. The legion zones were also aesthetically really beautiful, as a whole much more than the expansion zones we got since then. (If we were to go just by zones Suramar wouid be up there, but I am rating all zones available at launch together)

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/obT445jFX2E/maxresdefault.jpg
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/scree...?maxWidth=1200
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/scree...87-talador.jpg
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/532232.jpg
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/scree...mal/420232.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HObQ7SH9zxU/maxresdefault.jpg
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/scree...6-gorgrond.jpg
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/scree...94-nagrand.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jPUwDUgsaFM/maxresdefault.jpg
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/scree...mal/429289.jpg

[Darkarath]

To be honest, I miss the zone design and aesthetics of WoD. An expansion that didn't plan to have flying and zones were designed to not be obnoxious without flying, unlike in Legion and parts of BfA. The legion zones were also aesthetically really beautiful, as a whole much more than the expansion zones we got since then. (If we were to go just by zones Suramar wouid be up there, but I am rating all zones available at launch together)

WoD still has the most beautiful continent and the best questing experience of the game IMO. Since WoD these two aspects (questing and zones) have only worsened (which does not mean that they are bad).

If I said before that Uldum was one of the biggest dissapointments of WoW, not being able to explore Farahlon was also a big one.

[Valysar]

PvP with the blues on Friday, after the announce of the release date ?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

To be honest, I miss the zone design and aesthetics of WoD. An expansion that didn't plan to have flying and zones were designed to not be obnoxious without flying, unlike in Legion and parts of BfA. The legion zones were also aesthetically really beautiful, as a whole much more than the expansion zones we got since then. (If we were to go just by zones Suramar wouid be up there, but I am rating all zones available at launch together)

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/obT445jFX2E/maxresdefault.jpg
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/scree...?maxWidth=1200
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/scree...87-talador.jpg
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/532232.jpg
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/scree...mal/420232.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HObQ7SH9zxU/maxresdefault.jpg
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/scree...6-gorgrond.jpg
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/scree...94-nagrand.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jPUwDUgsaFM/maxresdefault.jpg
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/scree...mal/429289.jpg

Shadowmoon Valley was probably my favorite, I dunno why, it just has my soul.

[Hitei]

To be honest, I miss the zone design and aesthetics of WoD. An expansion that didn't plan to have flying and zones were designed to not be obnoxious without flying, unlike in Legion and parts of BfA. The legion zones were also aesthetically really beautiful, as a whole much more than the expansion zones we got since then. (If we were to go just by zones Suramar wouid be up there, but I am rating all zones available at launch together)

Imo Suramar was honestly the only Legion zone of value. It's strange to me that anyone can argue that any of the four leveling zones are more aesthetically pleasing than Ardenweald, Revendreth or Bastion. I don't even like Bastion's aesthetic but it's still a lot more interesting and nice to look at than Highmountain, Stormheim or Azsuna.

WoD was like half nice zones (Frostfire, Shadowmoon, Talador) and then half just really shitty looking zones (Gorgrond, Arak, Tanaan). I've never really understood the obsession with Nagrand though, so maybe that's why it didn't land well for me.

All of Zandar was top tier (Vol'dun and Nazmir especially), and Stormsong Valley and Drustvar were both great.

[Darkarath]

Shadowmoon Valley was probably my favorite, I dunno why, it just has my soul.

Seeing all those pictures makes me want to download my free account and quest in WoD

[Catastrophy349]

The copium in this thread is real.

[Khaza-R]

To be honest, I miss the zone design and aesthetics of WoD. An expansion that didn't plan to have flying and zones were designed to not be obnoxious without flying, unlike in Legion and parts of BfA. The legion zones were also aesthetically really beautiful, as a whole much more than the expansion zones we got since then. (If we were to go just by zones Suramar wouid be up there, but I am rating all zones available at launch together)

I completely agree. Zone design was an underappreciated element of WoD. For me it was the last time questing felt organic and not like a theme park.

[Catastrophy349]

Before anyone calls out of work or cancels dinner reservations, remember that Mike Ybarra said that he has "two announcements for the last week of January". He never said for which IP/game, so these announcements could be non WoW related, or even WoW related but not 9.2/10.0 related.

[Sondrelk]

Imo Suramar was honestly the only Legion zone of value. It's strange to me that anyone can argue that any of the four leveling zones are more aesthetically pleasing than Ardenweald, Revendreth or Bastion. I don't even like Bastion's aesthetic but it's still a lot more interesting and nice to look at than Highmountain, Stormheim or Azsuna.

WoD was like half nice zones (Frostfire, Shadowmoon, Talador) and then half just really shitty looking zones (Gorgrond, Arak, Tanaan). I've never really understood the obsession with Nagrand though, so maybe that's why it didn't land well for me.

All of Zandar was top tier (Vol'dun and Nazmir especially), and Stormsong Valley and Drustvar were both great.

I would make a good case for Stormheim being a great zone. It looked cool, it had nice variety in regards to starting all the way by the coast and rising steadily towards Highmountain, and it had a unique traversal mechanic with the grappling hooks.

I would have said Highmountain, but looking back I cannot in good conscience say it ever truly made effective use of its biggest strengths, instead focusing questing on the boring flat areas instead of really leaning into the mountain aspect.
Something as simple as a goblin glider WQ that has you jump from the top of the mountain and hitting targets on the way down would have done the zone wonders for instance.

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I completely agree. Zone design was an underappreciated element of WoD. For me it was the last time questing felt organic and not like a theme park.

WoD definitely managed to strike a more ideal balance between making effective use of space by placing questing areas next to eachother, as well as having ample dead space in-between to give the proper sense of scale.

Legion definitely went too far in using the entire zone, which left very little in the way of areas to make the zone feel bigger.

[Golden Yak]

https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/532232.jpg

Heh. I remember that one.

[Hitei]

I would make a good case for Stormheim being a great zone. It looked cool, it had nice variety in regards to starting all the way by the coast and rising steadily towards Highmountain, and it had a unique traversal mechanic with the grappling hooks.

I would have said Highmountain, but looking back I cannot in good conscience say it ever truly made effective use of its biggest strengths, instead focusing questing on the boring flat areas instead of really leaning into the mountain aspect.
Something as simple as a goblin glider WQ that has you jump from the top of the mountain and hitting targets on the way down would have done the zone wonders for instance.

Stormheim just feels like a worse version of Howling Fjord, which is weird because I don't even particularly like Howling Fjord. Its (Stormheim's) concept art was really nice, but the execution was just bad, and so instead of jutting, tiered steppes and creepy swamp lowlands, it feels like a bunch of individual areas sequestered by the blocky rocks, a la Blade's Edge.

Highmountain is the story of area that looks really nice if you go off to very specific spots and take a picture of it looking into the distance, but which doesn't look great from the majority of its locations.

[Shadochi]

Before anyone calls out of work or cancels dinner reservations, remember that Mike Ybarra said that he has "two announcements for the last week of January". He never said for which IP/game, so these announcements could be non WoW related, or even WoW related but not 9.2/10.0 related.

Hardly that it would not be 9.2 related since a few weeks ago they teased that season is ending soon with that post about M+ 0.1% thingy. AS for 10.0 I defo don't expect that except maybe a "we have more WoW news coming in the following weeks/months"

[Hitei]

Hardly that it would not be 9.2 related since a few weeks ago they teased that season is ending soon with that post about M+ 0.1% thingy. AS for 10.0 I defo don't expect that except maybe a "we have more WoW news coming in the following weeks/months"

10.0 is definitely not going to be announced unexpectedly. It will be the sort of thing where they specifically advertise "an exciting announcement stream at X time on X day in a week" or something to that effect. They will want as many eyes watching as possible.

[Shadochi]

They really need to go back to WoD zone design and questing where there is also a storyline between the zones (Yrel's journey for alliance). And design zones that arent obnoxious until we unlock flying. I assume more people would be okay with no flying on launch if zones were designed for that as well. For example in Stormsong and Voldun I didn't have an issue with no flying but the rest were cancer. Legion almost all zones were cancerous but especially highmountain.

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10.0 is definitely not going to be announced unexpectedly. It will be the sort of thing where they specifically advertise "an exciting announcement stream at X time on X day in a week" or something to that effect. They will want as many eyes watching as possible.

Yes, that is why at most if they mention the future of WoW it will be just a tease, no date for the announcement or hints towards what it is

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Heh. I remember that one.

Truly the best thing that came out during WoD

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I think calling something cancer might be an exaggeration. Going back to Stormheim, I liked the aesthetic but man those mountains.

[AngerFork]

Found in a discord

Yeah, not buying this one. I have a hard time believing that the Blizz team would announce their new expansion at 9 AM on a Friday, not to mention how lazily that picture appears to have been made.

EDIT: I totally failed on calculating the right time here. Adjusted it.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

It's so weird that they put the fake logo over it then decided to black it out. Like why not just have the normal WoW logo for this leak instead if you want to make it seem genuine.

Pretty goofy.