New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

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Talihawk
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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by Talihawk »

Yeup I'm way annoyed and disappointed there is only 1 class for the dracthyr. I think it's a huge mistake on blizz's part.
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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by WerebearGuy »

It's absolutely a mistake. EVERY humanoid dragon has been shown to be either a warrior, a mage, a priest (rewinding time = healing, fight me), and TECHNICALLY druids due to shapeshifting. If you really want to stretch it, the dragon dudes in Blackwing Descent with the two core hounds can be called hunters. Evoker being dragonfurry only makes sense since that's a special class specifically designed for dragons, but excluding the most basic of basic classes is an absolute mistake. I don't think I've seen any dragons acting stealthy, other than Wrathion due to his circumstances, but still.

I'm still not going to play one as long as they look as god awful as they do. I was able to tolerate the Don Bluth Worgen, but even if Dracthyr get more classes, I'm still not going to play something that looks that stupid. I'm also still mad that we didn't get real Mechagnomes.
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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by SylviaDragon »

I mean, i guess this removes the hard choice of race changing my nelf hunter who can somehow speak draconic to a race that probably knows draconic by default. but I still had lots of other characters i wanted to roll up on my main server.
A few of the animations do look a little goofy with their long legs but overall im happy with the customization we have seen so far. But again, i really think they need to add more classes to their option pool. I could argue some strong ties to at least mage warrior and shammy, as well as druid.

Mage: The blue dragon flight are the guardians of magic. their Aspect is listed as a mage himself and is part of the kirin tor council of six. One could argue that dragons were the original mages simply by passively existing as they do. This class also shouldn't require too much extra work in the animation department to add.

Warrior: Come on, big, hulking armored dragons cant be warriors? The exsisting Dragonspawn and Draconids are very likely already warriors. Dragon scales are used to make armor because its so tough. One of their aspects was known as the Earth Warder, protector of azeroth. (and hes the one who made the dracthyr, with the intention of making the ultimate solder.) The black dragonflgiht also played a heavy role in the Warrior artifact shield because dragons have strong ties to being protectors. This is also another class that wouldn't require too much extra work to implement.

Shaman: the dragons were originally very primal beings with close ties to the elements. Even now they're meant to heal the world and keep in in balence. And the black dragon flight in particular are known as the Earth Warders. During cata they even had Thrall, the world shaman, stand in as Earth Warder because a powerful shaman was the next closest thing to the earth aspect. This one would require a bit more effort to put out, due to themed totems/ melee+ ranged animations ect but would still be a solid reasonable choice.

Druid: Come on, the green dragon flight? guardians of the emerald dream? look around any place with a heavy druid influence and you will likely find green dragons nearby. They are meant to protect nature and the dream. Not to mention Yersa (who is now chilling in the most wild god/ druid themed afterlife) is literally the adoptive mother of freakin Cenarius! you know, the guy who taught the elves to be druids?? Sadly this option is far less likely due to all the extra druid forms they would have to make.

in parting i could also kinda argue for red dragon paladins that revere the life giving flame or something in the same way that sunwalker paladins don't directly worship the light either, but this argument has far less footing than the other options.

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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by GormanGhaste »

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that they're planning to open them up to other classes eventually, just not in the beginning.
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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by Talihawk »

From what I've seen Ion? said 'not during Dragonflight'. So that means 2 years of no other classes which is utter insanity. I get that it's resource intensive, but good lord, it's such a huge turn off. I'll make one, but I can't imagine Evoker ever replacing my main. Hunter has too much awesome utility.
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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by SylviaDragon »

yeah everything i have seen in the interviews have answered the question of more dracthyr classes with a "maybe/if/possibly/someday." they are not outright saying no but it does not sound like they want to say yes. and i think that if they had plans to open things up later in the xpack to give developers time to make the animations or advance story lines to explain their introductions through gameplay, they would have advertised that as part of their selling point. (I recall in BFA they were clear with allied races that you would unlock them and they planned on adding more than what was originally previewed)
They did say that they want to slowly end the class/race restrictions for everything but Dracthyr were not included in that statement and considering how long it has taken them to open up other race restrictions or in a similar vein, add more DK options, we could be waiting for a very long time.
right now we are looking at the very real possibility of having to wait at least 3+ years, (i.e after the xpack that hyped them up in the first place has ended and the launch of whatever xpack comes next has begun) to actually enjoy using the race like its an actual race if they don't change something.
I hope that if enough people complain about it they will at least add one other class option but I know the chances of that succeeding in a timely manner are slim.

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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by worgpower »

I’m ok with the evoker concept, but I also wanted it to have a melee spec, but people would say we already have feral, I would love a spec that uses its claws without weapons with flame attacks
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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by Vornesoul »

Shadowlands and other problems drove me into the arms of other games recently but I still prefer the core gameplay of World of Warcraft. I'm willing to be hyped for this expansion but I'm also someone who isn't excited by Dragons. I feel their largely overdone in modern fiction. I need something outside of dragons to hype me up. Thus I was really looking forward to a bunch of new character customization to follow the recent trend. Turns out? Dracthyr got them. A dragon race I have no interest in playing.

Blizzard has been hyping up the customization of the Dracthyr. Jeremy Feasel was asked about it in the Game Rank interview and he admitted the customization work has been heavily skewed towards the Dracthyr. Which must be disheartening since most of the feedback I see is overwhelmingly negative. I doubt the team would want to put that much work into a race that will remain forever limited to a single class forever. Sylvia is right though, it could be years before we even see an obvious class like Warriors given to them.

The cross section of people who want to play a Worgen-like race and love dragons and who want to switch to a new caster class seems slim. It's a baffling decision to sink so many development resources into, even if Blizzard plans to widen the available classes later.
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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by DannyGreen »

Well think about it, You have a class that if you don't like healing. Has 1 spec, it's a caster, it's tied to a single race, you only get one druid form (the dragon) You wear some of the worst armor out of dragon form. And on top of everything else? You have to be a blood elf AGAIN!

I'm honestly a little baffled about blood elf love in this game.
Horde side. They were the only ones you could play a paladin, then the only one you could play a Demonhunter, now the only one who can be an envoker.
They get to play both sides, with the void elves being able to look like regular blood elves to. It's bizarre.
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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by Valnaaros »

I don't understand a lot behind the decisions that they are making for Dracthyr. By the time that most classes come out for them (if that ever happens), the initial interest in them will have worn off. Further, lorewise, they shouldn't be capable of existing. As far as we know, Deathwing didn't start experimenting until after he had gone insane. And even if that wasn't an issue, there is one very big issue: all Dracthyr are either Humans or Blood/High Elves. Both of those races didn't exist back when it was claimed that Deathwing created the Dracthyr, so Dracthyr shouldn't be Humans and Blood/High Elves.
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Wain
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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by Wain »

That's how I've actually been feeling about a lot of major story decisions. It feels to me like they decide what they want, regardless of established lore or likelihood, and then cobble together a reason why it exists. And that often comes across as contrived, strange, or downright contradictory.

Like adding centaurs to the isles that have a "different origin" to the rest of the centaurs. Sure you can contrive a reason for their origin, just because for some reason you really, really want them to exist, but it's inevitably going to come across as a feeble explanation.
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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by WerebearGuy »

The game's lore was kind of on that track since the end of WotLK. We defeated the final big bad of the then-established lore, finally dethroning Arthas and...crowning a molten zombie? Then, we suddenly had Deathwing return and try to kill everything, which was fine until we randomly turned Thrall into green Jesus. Next up was Pandaren and a "Horde vs Alliance" expansion that focused entirely on the Pandaren's troubles with geckos, bugs, and furry statues, leaving the actual intention of the expansion to the final patch where Garrosh was randomly turned into a lunatic. Garrosh' downward spiral was continued in Warlords, where we absolutely needed a "HEY GUYS, REMEMBER OUTLANDS?!" moment and he screwed up the timeline of a random alternate reality. Following that, the emergency glass was broken and we got Illidan back, and we eventually defeated WoW's Satan with alternate timeline space goat technology. The next expansion was a bit more down to Earth, having us duke it out between factions again while we...collect the planet's literal blood and roid ourselves out. Finally, we went to the afterlife(s) and defeated the actual WoW Satan who was just a puppet with no master after uniting the various deities in the different afterlives while also getting the worst writing of the franchise by a tremendous margin.

Honestly, the storytelling is pants-on-head awful now. Has been since Pandaria, with signs of a downfall in quality showing early on in Cataclysm. The storytelling had been absolutely awful at times, like how recently Tyrande in her Super Sai- I mean Night Warrior form could have just killed Sylvanas, but NOPE ELUNE MOONBLOCKS HER LOL. Or, how Elune decided to allow all the Night Elves to die horrible deaths puely to juice her sister in the afterlife, only to have that Night Elf protein shake get snatched by Zovaal instead. I could write an entire essay regarding the hundreds of thousands of terrible plot problems, but I can summarize it all with what I started with; the plot is pants-on-head awful. If not for my friends discussing the story and Wowhead spamming a dozen articles a day with spoiler titles, I would not even know the lore after Pandaria. I skip reading the quest text, and have been since Pandaria. Quite frankly, I don't care at all about the lore. I'd rather watch an hour of consecutive splinter removal videos than read the game's lore.

I may sound like I'm being harsh or possibly rude, but come on. The story objectively sucks now. I have no hope for it at all considering how it's so dry and boring. I'm glad they're supposedly keeping it simple this time, but WoW's simple is like calling Gordon Ramsay's roasts simple banter when it's a full course verbal beating.
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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by DannyGreen »

Lore is dumb, but in all seriousness. I don't think you can FIX this lore in its current state.
Maybe if they did a time skip, they could hammer out some new consistent lore with an official timeline thing. We could do that through an emerald dream expansion. But as it stands, lore crap. And if you want to explore the world it's a disjoined phased mess.
CATA 2.0 LETS GO LADS! We go to the emerald dream, wake up in azeroth a few decades in the future from druid sleep. BAM easy time skip without the logistic issues of timeskips.
All the old world dungeons and raids are now in a section of the caverns of time with a pandaren lore keeper, who will queue you up for any you want to run.
Old overworld stuff, is now phased in chromie time. Would need a new exiles reach or some tutorial zone but you could easily whip that up.
And for people who want we could introduce solo/group content called Tales of azeroth, which puts you in mini dungeons that explain key lore narrated by characters from that zone.
Wana know about war of the ancients? BAM instance dungeon telling you the tale as you play a elemental warrior or something goin through it.

OK BUT WHAT I WANTED TO ACTUALLY POST ABOUT!
What new families do you think we will be havin?
Unless they go ahead and make all the new dragony stuff unique races, which would be pretty stupid. I could only see them adding some sort of "Dragon" species. Everything else is kinda done.

What I would LOVE
Is brutosaurs, and aquatic pets.
Imagine a fucking shark! THAT WOULD BE SO COOL! Also jellyfish, mantarays, threshadons! Just put a little bubble effect coming from beneath them let them float. Tie the acquisition to a quest where you help out Neptulon.
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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by Castile »

I'm honestly ok with Dracthyr being one class. Its like how only 2 races can be demon hunters - makes them unique to people who want to play evoker. And unique to that expansion.

We won't see them as melee either way - Ion has said several times wow already is overloaded with Melee. If they add extras it'll be casters or healers for sure.

This expansion overall looks like alot of fun. Train your own dragon mount? umm yes please! I'm excited :)

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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by Ana »

Is it a YouTube troll things or is addons really bring banned without the new expansion?

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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by DannyGreen »

makes them unique to people who want to play evoker
Yer unfortunately if you don't like elves. You can at least play a human female so I guess that's one point they got going for them.
Is it a YouTube troll things or is addons really bring banned without the new expansion?
No.
Long story short.
Final fantasy is doing stuff against addons. And Blizzard has said that they don't like having to make fights specifically designed to counter addons.
Which is a problem of their own making, since so many bosses do so many weird mechanics and tactics where you need to have a perfect run or wipe.
If they didn't add so many effects and systems then there wouldn't need to be addons that help you play them.

They are only concerned about Major raid/dungeon self play addons, not things like stable, or trp.
Which makes sense really. So they are trying to fix the amount of Addons you need with a general ui overhaul.

I think that's the case anyway.
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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by Wain »

<post removed>

Debate is encouraged here, but turning it into a personal attack / speculations on the personal motivations of a poster are not.
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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by Tsukina »

The pre-purchase of the expansion has just been activated and one of the "gifts" (in quotes), is a blue flight related helmet cosmetic, only with the blue one (unlike the other cosmetic that has 5 colors), that can be some clue or is it just paranoia?
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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by Ana »

it says december 31st as release day in the prepurchase.. not that you get THAT much for prepurchase....

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Re: New Expansion Discussion and Speculation!

Unread post by Valnaaros »

Maria wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 2:48 pm it says december 31st as release day in the prepurchase.. not that you get THAT much for prepurchase....
On or before December 31st. It could be on that date (most likely it won't since that is around Christmas and New Years), or within the couple of months prior to. My guess would be November or early December. If not by those months then it is possible that it could get delayed, like what they did with Shadowlands initially.
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