Perhaps it wasn’t the overwhelming positive reaction that Blizzard was hoping to see, but the reveal of World of Warcraft: Dragonflight certainly got the internet talking about the next phase of this MMORPG. Plenty of MMO bloggers were on hand with their own hot takes, so I thought we’d share a few of them today.
Tales of the Aggronaut didn’t find the announcement clicking with him: “The weird thing is… it isn’t that ANYTHING I saw was bad. In fact I think Dragonflight is probably going to be a universally good expansion. There is a part of me that would have been super excited by this reveal. The problem is as I watched it yesterday felt nothing. It summoned forth the same amount of emotional attachment that I would have while watching the evening news.”
Blessing of Kings talked about the new race/class combo: “The class part seems to be okay, but a lot of people don’t really like the look. It’s seen as very scrawny, more lizard than dragon. Apparently people really wanted more bulky D&D dragonborne types of dragons. Something which exudes power.”
In An Age called out the Guild Wars 2 connection: “I get that the entire history of WoW is copying other peoples’ homework and all, but something about this is… a bit too on the nose.”
GamingSF thinks this looks pretty spiffy, overall: “Dragonriding looks like a combo of customisable dragon mounts plus ‘vehicle rides’ from a WoW perspective. More broadly it looks a lot like gliding or the griffon mount from Guild Wars 2. Movement mechanics is something I’ve praised before, so this could be a good thing.”
Gnomecore ended up somewhat underwhelmed: “The last thing I want to talk about is zones. I’m always impressed by art team of Blizzard pulling the weight… but not this time. Again, it’s is very surprising, like with cinematic, that one of the biggest attractions – exploring the new terrains – is not it. Simply put: I’ve seen literally nothing that I did not see before in the game. It’s not just similar, it’s a blunt rip-off from previous endeavors.”
Kaylriene offers constructive criticism, both the good and bad variety: “On the one hand, I find a lot of what is presented to be interesting and even compelling on the face of it…Â On the other hand, I find it difficult to have a strong positive opinion right now because I have felt burned by Blizzard the past two expansions.”
Rokk Talk is cautiously optimistic: “Overall, my initial feeling is that this is a filler expansion. No big story development, but some mechanical changes like the new UI and the aforementioned talent tree(s) that will take some getting used to.”
Battle Stance is decidedly middle-of-the-road on the pack: “The dragon-riding looks fun and I hope there won’t be any weird borrowed power, that’s about it. My optimistic prediction for a launch would be Christmas 2022, but maybe February 2023, not later.”
And some bloggers reacted to the various announcements related to Wrath Classic. Priest with a Cause took exception with the lack of a Burning Crusade Classic shard: “This whole situation is just giving me flashbacks to my late Cata days when I was getting increasingly frustrated with Blizzard’s constant pronouncements that nobody could possibly like the things I liked, so that it was only natural to nerf or remove them.”
The Ancient Gaming Noob isn’t feeling it this time around: “I am also wary of going back to try and relive what might have been my peak time in the game. I worry that WotLK was great in its time, both in the state of the genre when it came out and at the point in my life when I played it, but that it might not be all that when it comes to nostalgia.”
Every day there are tons of terrific, insightful, and unusual articles posted across the MMO gaming blogosphere — and every day, Justin reads as many as he can. Global Chat is a sampling of noteworthy essays, rants, and guides from the past few weeks of MMO discourse.
