Well, for a blog that started out as specifically WoW-themed, I guess we've gone a while without talking about the game.
This is despite the fact that after months away (largely induced by Elden Ring) I've actually been playing a fair amount, zipping around Zereth Mortis and trying to get my various characters decent gear... admittedly for no particular practical reason, as they're all quite over-geared for LFR and I'm not sure if I really want to put myself through the eons-long queue times to see the new raid.
My relationship with WoW has shifted a lot in the last couple years - Legion had been a breath of fresh air, reinvigorating my love for the game and seeing me and my guild more active than it had been since Wrath of the Lich King, but BFA and Shadowlands sort of saw that enthusiasm fall off - Shadowlands due to a mix of pandemic delays and the gross feelings about the company that makes WoW (feelings that aren't totally resolved, to be honest).
As usual, after a disappointing expansion (one whose disappointments were of a very different nature than Cataclysm, Warlords of Draenor, or BFA) we're hoping the next one will be a return to form.
And, while it's a little superstitious, I think the expansions that have added a class have tended to be the most popular ones. I'm still a little skeptical of making all Dracthyr Evokers and all Evokers Dracthyr (I could understand the latter, as, like Demon Hunters, there are enough cosmetic elements and story elements that would be difficult to give to a bunch of races, but I do think it's weird to have a playable race limited to a single class. Not one of my dragon-people can tank?) but I'm eager to try them out.
As of yet I think the content on the Alpha is quite limited - they're letting people try out Evokers (though not their starting area, I think) and the dragon-flying mechanics, which are supposedly quite good.
We still know very little about the expansion's story, like who its primary characters will be. I'm sure that will start to become more clear over time.
If I had to guess, the structure of Dragonflight might be a little more like Mists of Pandaria (that's not to say we'll have a big Alliance/Horde conflict, which I hope we just never have as a major story again) in that we find a new land with lots of new elements and the conflict evolve around what we discover.
Shadowlands was, I think, meant to be a villain-centric expansion in the vein of Wrath, but was undercut by the fact that the Jailer was so generic and boring an antagonist (for once, can we have a big bad who tries to charm us? And who isn't some muscle-bro?) Dragonflight doesn't even really imply a major villain in its cinematic. We know there's some kind of elemental dragon faction, but that screams "first raid tier" kind of threat.
I think the hope of this expansion is that it will be a reflection of the sort of philosophical shifts we've seen in the latter patches of Shadowlands, and overall just letting go of bad habits the developers had gotten into. The supposed lack of any borrowed power mechanic is one that I'm very excited about - even though I loved Artifact Weapons, the actual gameplay and talent trees for them were the least interesting part (really I just liked that every weapon had a story).
Anyway, the gates are now open, and soon we're going to be learning a lot more about this expansion - one that is supposedly coming out by the end of this year.
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