I'm in this weird place with WoW, in large part because Shadowlands felt like it was "supposed" to be my favorite expansion - dealing with stuff like the Scourge and an extra-planar adventure. But I think the expansion had two things (well, and a third outside-the-game issue) going against it. One was just the bad luck of the Covid pandemic, and Blizzard's struggle to keep up with content in the face of such a disruption. The other is that the Jailer was just the most disappointingly boring villain - the kind of villain who kind of retroactively cheapens what he has touched.
In all honestly, I'd been hoping for a wall-to-wall spooky expansion, and while I think in the long run varying things up was the right call, the Jailer could have been much more - and honestly, if he had had any other personality than "alpha male douche bro" he probably would have been way better.
(The third thing is the whole harassment and discrimination revelations about so many well-known names from Blizzard's past).
Having played this game for nearly sixteen years, I am asking myself questions about how excited I can still get about the endless progression treadmill, and what that's going to mean for my enjoyment of the game.
But I also have a deep love for WoW, and I think the shifting philosophy in design look really enticing. Also, let's not forget that the expansions that add new classes tend to be bangers. (I'll confess that I'm not quite as enamored of Mists of Pandaria as some are, but that merely bumps it down to 3rd place for me after Legion and Wrath).
I'll also admit I'm a bit skeptical about the notion that, not only must all Evokers be Dracthyr, but all Dracthyr must be Evokers. Apparently the idea for the playable race - essentially WoW's version of D&D's Dragonborn - came first, and then they decided they wanted to make a class that would fit with their draconic nature.
Still, I wonder if they might reconsider, given that it would be nice to see Dracthyr in all different armor types, and perhaps just to build out what they might be as a culture and society.
The Dracthyr are clearly going to be a huge part of the story. I also appreciate that the Evoker is filling that niche that has needed something more or less since the Monk gave us a third leather class. We needed a new Mail class, and a new ranged DPS class. Naturally, I think Blizzard has always regretted having any "pure DPS" classes, so anyone using magic can theoretically be made a healer, especially given the nature of Warcraft's dragons.
I'm very eager to see how the Evokers play.
Another thing I'm really happy to see is that they've designed the Dragon Isles with flight in mind. We haven't really had questing zones designed for flying since Cataclysm, and some of my favorite memories of leveling up in Wrath was when you hit level 77 and could get flying, and all of a sudden had these super vertical zones in Icecrown and Storm Peaks.
So, could this be an amazing expansion? Yes. We won't know until the next one's about to come out, but I imagine we'll have a very good 10.0. Shadowlands started off very strong, and honestly probably only suffered because of the lack of content, not any problem with quality.
The general sense I got was that Blizzard is doing an experiment: give the people what they want. So many aspects of Dragonflight seem direct responses to the players' demands (or at least the most common ones). I hope this experiment pays off, and that WoW gets a new lease on life.
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