wow World of Warcraft: Dragonflight Expansion Announced

[Staff 1,488]

 

After a long wait and many speculations and leak threads, Blizzard just announced World of Warcraft's upcoming expansion. It's called Dragonflight and here is the official cinematic for the new expansion.

We have a new class (Evoker) and race (Dracthyr), talent revamp, 5 new zones and a lot more.

[Arcling 898]

So dragons after all. This might be sort of a filler expansion before Void one. That leak with evoker class was quite close. Didn't expect them to be tied with race though.

[MeMy10 26]

What is funny it looks like Blizz are copying Guild Wars 2's Skyscale/Griffon flying..

Edited April 19, 2022 by MeMy10

[darkgreenwax 412]

Well at least we get ducks. 🦆

[Arcling 898]

Just now, TyZone said:

Well at least we get ducks. 🦆

But can we quack like a duck?

[Brightamethyst 104]

Do we finally get to fight Alexstrasza? Our Dragon Aspect kill count has been stalled at 4/5 for a while now.

[SidonisAntares 290]

30 minutes ago, Arcling said:

But can we quack like a duck?

But do we weigh the same as a duck?

Edited April 19, 2022 by SidonisAntares

[Q 200]

I'm still skeptical about this, they didn't mention a new system of player power and I'm just waiting for it to be found in alpha/beta. The new race is kinda ugly, imo, and I wish you could choose to remain in the humanoid form instead of the dragon form for combat but the site says the dragon form is your combat form, like the worgen. Also wish you had more options for it than just blood/void elf model, I want to be a gnome, GDI!

[Leaflauncher 8]

This announcement was very... underwhelming.... 

[Arcling 898]

14 minutes ago, Q said:

I'm still skeptical about this, they didn't mention a new system of player power and I'm just waiting for it to be found in alpha/beta. The new race is kinda ugly, imo, and I wish you could choose to remain in the humanoid form instead of the dragon form for combat but the site says the dragon form is your combat form, like the worgen. Also wish you had more options for it than just blood/void elf model, I want to be a gnome, GDI!

My gripe is that dragon riding, looks like those dragons will be used instead of other mounts (that also include dragons!). Not a full flying either, just new mechanic with some gimmicks. I like to ride my lightforged warframe or those magical discs, not really interested in spending most of expansion on some dragon. Plus, if that new dragon-like race doesn't get any transformation for flying, they might look rather goofy sitting on dragon. Not a fan of their humanoid looks either, is there really not going to be anything else other than a reskin of blood elves?

Then there is a talent tree, which might cause another mess with balance, but there will always be a "correct" build.

Oh, and looks like nothing new for cross-faction play past that Shadowlands patch? No full guild integration or outdoor play. So Alliance as a whole will continue to lose players.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Arcling

[xirus11 5]

1 hour ago, MeMy10 said:

What is funny it looks like Blizz are copying Guild Wars 2's Skyscale/Griffon flying..

A form of flying I was banned permanently from Guild Wars 2 before being able to fully experience by politically-tribalist WoWhead mod-like customer service reps.

Guild Wars 2 deserves expansion money even less than World of Warcraft does.

This is the sort of abuse Guild Wars 2 abets and bans victims of instead for getting angry about - following someone around harassing them throughout the game for hours on end for days and months straight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOxnK8fWLFU .

Putting this comment wherever Me me me puts his coy ad for that game.

Edited April 19, 2022 by xirus11

[Swarf 110]

What an absolute yawn fest of an expansion reveal, and the worst expansion cinematic, ever.  

[Devylknyght 83]

Dragon Riding/ revamped flying and the talent trees seem like 2 positives. 

Everything else looks pretty meh. The cinematic was a rare miss imo. 

[Emmettg 1]

Heck yeah! this is what i've been waiting for. Maybe now we can get Blackwing back. This expansion is goin to be AWESOME!

[Arcling 898]

2 hours ago, Devylknyght said:

Dragon Riding/ revamped flying and the talent trees seem like 2 positives. 

Everything else looks pretty meh. The cinematic was a rare miss imo. 

There is no revamped flying. You won't be able to fly in Dragon Isles with your normal mounts, instead you will be riding a dragon given to you with some specific mechanics, more like a gimmicky mini-game. Outside of Dragon Isles, flying will stay the same.

[Badadada 184]

Is it just me or they recycled the assets of the Warcraft movie in the trailer? I mean the skybox, mountains and stone platform are pretty similar to that seen in the Stormwind scenes.

Overall a solid 5/10 - the time invested into dragon animations was worth it - Alexstraza & co. are cool, but the 4 minutes before that is somewhat lacking.

The MoP cinematic in comparison might have been a bit shorter, but completely action-packed and was able to explain itself with far less voiceovers.

[Calorat 78]

I'm just sick of WoW seemingly constantly doing sequels and just going back to the past and redoing stuff with minor differences.  Both WoD and Legion felt like BC sequels, Shadowlands a Wrath sequel (that no one wanted) and there was Cataclysm and the seemingly end / retirement of the Dragonflights and now it's just a "but wait there's more"  once again.  WoW just feels like a house you've completely explored and someone paints one room a different color and tries to tell you it's a different house instead of taking you to the house across the street.  It's always just the same "ooh here's a new continent that has always been here but nobody has ever talked about it before" stuff.  Shadowlands was an idea that was just completely ruined in story and execution, but it was the most original idea the devs had had in a long time.  WoW is a universe with different planets and dimensions yet all we ever seem to do is find new islands that have "totally been there the entire time"   I know part of it's the devs feeling trapped between trying to keep the players that want something new and the players who long for "classic everything before Cataclysm" WoW happy and just mostly failing in both regards

[Devylknyght 83]

1 hour ago, Arcling said:

There is no revamped flying. You won't be able to fly in Dragon Isles with your normal mounts, instead you will be riding a dragon given to you with some specific mechanics, more like a gimmicky mini-game. Outside of Dragon Isles, flying will stay the same.

Sounds like a version of revamped flying to me. Even if it is only in the new zones at first. Flying should have always had more mechanics than just infinite auto fly. Definitely should find a way to make it apply to other mounts and old zones eventually. 

Of course blizz will probably screw it up, but this idea has been tossed around for over a decade, and it is one I like. Sadly it looks like there really isn't much else for me to like with the expac... Just have to see i guess. Right now its looking pretty doa to me. 

Edited April 20, 2022 by Devylknyght
Typo

[Arcling 898]

8 minutes ago, Devylknyght said:

Sounds like a version of revamped flying to me. Even if it is only in the new zones at first. Flying should have always had more mechanics than just infinite auto fly. Definitely should find a way to make it apply to other mounts and old zones eventually. 

Of course blizz will probably screw it up, but this idea has been tossed around for over a decade, and it is one I like. Sadly it looks like there really isn't much else for me to like with the expac... Just have to see i guess. Right now its looking pretty doa to me. 

I hope not, to be honest. It sounds like it might work more like a gliding or something similar, rather than having full control over flying. I don't want to play with some gimmicks just to fly around in previous expansions' zones. It also makes no sense how we were able to ride dragon mounts previously, but for this one we require special training (some form of a timegating, I presume).

This version of flying will be specific to new zones, as they said it will be required to reach certain places later on. Plus something like this would look silly on flying mechs, gyrocopters etc., behaving like a winged creature. Good thing, at least there don't seem to be any borrowed power systems, so this dragon flying might be the only feature that is going to timegate us from some content.

[Devylknyght 83]

2 hours ago, Arcling said:

I hope not, to be honest. It sounds like it might work more like a gliding or something similar, rather than having full control over flying. I don't want to play with some gimmicks just to fly around in previous expansions' zones. It also makes no sense how we were able to ride dragon mounts previously, but for this one we require special training (some form of a timegating, I presume).

This version of flying will be specific to new zones, as they said it will be required to reach certain places later on. Plus something like this would look silly on flying mechs, gyrocopters etc., behaving like a winged creature. Good thing, at least there don't seem to be any borrowed power systems, so this dragon flying might be the only feature that is going to timegate us from some content.

Hoping for no mission table too.... But you know it's probably coming

[Hariko 1]

13 hours ago, Swarf said:

What an absolute yawn fest of an expansion reveal, and the worst expansion cinematic, ever.  

Although I have major complaints with trying to tie these new events in with the absolute letdown of Shadowlands, my main critique of the reveal is the technical aspect of the janky opening. Why was there a sudden 7 second epic music montage of unknown events at the very beginning? Why can't they entice interest in the classic format of set introduction, establish intrigue, build conflict, deliver ultimatum?

[Devylknyght 83]

4 hours ago, Hariko said:

Although I have major complaints with trying to tie these new events in with the absolute letdown of Shadowlands, my main critique of the reveal is the technical aspect of the janky opening. Why was there a sudden 7 second epic music montage of unknown events at the very beginning? Why can't they entice interest in the classic format of set introduction, establish intrigue, build conflict, deliver ultimatum?

I found that odd too... But judging by the cinematic in it's entirety, I wonder if they were concerned we would be confused and bored for 2-3 minutes about who the rock watcher guy was, what he was doing, and why we cared. I definitely had those thoughts. So maybe they added that initial bump as a reminder/encouragement to hang in there until the end of the cinematic. But it just came off as awkward and disjointed. 

[Arcling 898]

3 hours ago, Devylknyght said:

But it just came off as awkward and disjointed. 

Exactly, we don't even know who the main villain is and we are suddenly going to those islands. Jailer said there was some bigger threat coming (Void Lords?), yet we suddenly take a break from that. Void Lords are going to wait for us!

It seems they are trying to repeat Mists of Pandaria, plus some Cataclysm vibes. We don't have any central villain yet, another ancient continent that was hidden from us with some kind of magic. Will be even more similar if most of the stories in these zones are on a smaller scale, with something bigger kept for later patches.

[Devylknyght 83]

49 minutes ago, Arcling said:

Exactly, we don't even know who the main villain is and we are suddenly going to those islands. Jailer said there was some bigger threat coming (Void Lords?), yet we suddenly take a break from that. Void Lords are going to wait for us!

It seems they are trying to repeat Mists of Pandaria, plus some Cataclysm vibes. We don't have any central villain yet, another ancient continent that was hidden from us with some kind of magic. Will be even more similar if most of the stories in these zones are on a smaller scale, with something bigger kept for later patches.

It sounded to me like the jailer was warning of a threat outside the 6 cosmic forces. Because he said they needed to unite. So that would include the void lords uniting with us against whatever is out there. Maybe the Xel Naga and a StarCraft crossover or something. Who knows. 

It definitely looks like this expansion is just going to leave the Horde and alliance in their current terrible situations. 

My money is on a future expansion, the one after Dragonflight probably, being a tyranny of the light expansion where yrel returns, Turalyon converts Stormwind, Calia converts Lordaeron, and maybe even Liadrin converting Silvermoon. So that would be the Entire Eastern Kindoms controlled by the light. 

So in order to fight back from being enprisoned and enslaved, we need to go find leaders to help us. And what 2 characters hate being enprisoned and enslaved and have been placed neatly on the shelf for use later? Hmmmmmm

[darkgreenwax 412]

8 hours ago, Hariko said:

Although I have major complaints with trying to tie these new events in with the absolute letdown of Shadowlands, my main critique of the reveal is the technical aspect of the janky opening. Why was there a sudden 7 second epic music montage of unknown events at the very beginning? Why can't they entice interest in the classic format of set introduction, establish intrigue, build conflict, deliver ultimatum?

 

4 hours ago, Devylknyght said:

I found that odd too... But judging by the cinematic in it's entirety, I wonder if they were concerned we would be confused and bored for 2-3 minutes about who the rock watcher guy was, what he was doing, and why we cared. I definitely had those thoughts. So maybe they added that initial bump as a reminder/encouragement to hang in there until the end of the cinematic. But it just came off as awkward and disjointed. 

 

58 minutes ago, Arcling said:

Exactly, we don't even know who the main villain is and we are suddenly going to those islands. Jailer said there was some bigger threat coming (Void Lords?), yet we suddenly take a break from that. Void Lords are going to wait for us!

It seems they are trying to repeat Mists of Pandaria, plus some Cataclysm vibes. We don't have any central villain yet, another ancient continent that was hidden from us with some kind of magic. Will be even more similar if most of the stories in these zones are on a smaller scale, with something bigger kept for later patches.

 

For how many scrying professionals there are, and for all the naval and air scouting, THIS PLANET HAS WAY TOO MANY HIDDEN ISLES.

 

I too was disappointed in the cinematic. This is the first cinematic since perhaps TBC (which is a long time ago), where I feel no sudden urge to ever re-watch, unless I'm intentionally re-watching all the cinematics in order.

 

There was no emotional pull, nor any emotional stakes. The only characters we could possibly care about are the dragons, which would only lead to confusion in seeing, especially hearing Alex's words, due to Cataclysm's ending. Is the end of Cataclysm a victim of retcon now? They spent their powers, yet here Alex is saying they've laid dormant for thousands of years, and now our time is up and their time is now (_{john cena})?

 

I'm just not sure how someone rational and loving of the Warcraft mythos would truly get excited from this. The idea is palpable but the execution is a spilled smoothie.