My first impressions on the expansion reveal (these are just my two cents):
What I’m positive about:
At last, we are going back to Azeroth!
Dragon Isles as new zones.
Dragon flying - it gives me the vibes of “How to train your dragon?” Finally, flying is not the enemy, it is again a feature!
Talent trees : if they will remain with us instead of throwaway systems and borrowed power, I’m all-in. I know it may upset some people though that they will have to re-learn their class again.
Professions: I think they needed a serious revamp. I recently picked up blacksmithing again and levelling blacksmithing (and, all the other professions) across all expansions is pretty insane (I know, I’m not forced to do it). I hope finally we will be able to unlearn and learn all professions, including the secondary ones as well. I also hope that the old crafted transmogs will still be available after the revamp in some way.
What I’m neutral about:
The new race/class. I don’t think I will play it but then again, I don’t play most of the other new races / classes either. It’s okay.
What I’m negative about:
Nothing so far. I will wait and see.
What I’m curious about:
Is it true that we are going to get dragon factions like the Covenants in Shadowlands? If yes, I hope they will remain purely cosmetic.
Will we get player housing?
Will we get lumber / carpenter professions?
Will we get a few old zone revamps like Lordaeron, Quel’thalas, etc?
Summary:
I will buy this expansion but I don’t think I will pre-order it just yet. I would like to learn more.
The new UI shots that got seem like they were taken very early in the development for the healthbar. And the fact that we are not shown a group or raid interface tells me this is heavily subject to change, so good news
Zone and it
I’m really forward to discovering the new zones, updated models for the gnolls, centaurs and tuskars in action. I’m loving the fact that they are revamping the fly system with this dragon riding. I hope it will be a good success that they will be able to use to implement an equivalent of it around the whole world of Azeroth and beyond.
New Race
The new race looks hideous (sorry for the harsh feedback) but I’m not sold at all. When I’m picturing a dragon race, it is bulky, it is massive and you don’t want to get close to it because of the danger it represents. This one I don’t want to get close to because of its looks. If they add options to make it fierce and intimidating, stronger silhouette and more menacing poses then I will be sold. I’m greatly looking forward to some more gameplay footage and details on the specs.
Talent system
The reworked talent system can be a great breath of fresh air but the fact that you can save your trees and have a multitude of them is not very reassuring to me. This just feels like they are giving up to the people who raged over the covenants soulbind switch limitation. Constraints are healthy and I’m not looking forwards to swapping talent trees between bosses. I know it’s very early, we haven’t seen anything but I feel better expressing this now.
Intro Cinematic
The cinematic was a bit peculiar, I really didn’t get what they were going for but I liked it a lot that they went back to a more poetic narrative direction. The dragons are pretty quick to hear the call I must say ^^
The logo
Other than all of this, the logo is disgusting (harsh feedback sry again), I’d rather have the team move to a flat design, legion had it right.
I feel like if they were going to make a new class that’s locked to one race, they should have a dps/heal AND tank spec? idk it feels weird that as a dragon (in fantasy they are ferocious and large and bulky) cannot be a tank spec at all
Appreciate the good news cause it seems to be shaping up nicely.
There’s only one thing I’d like to see looked at especially as the reveal stream mentioned the council and their feedback.
There’s been no official word on suggestions and feature requests regarding the health of wow’s roleplay community and functionality yet and id very much love that to get looked at in some way prior to release.
Link here for one of the bigger topics that lists several smaller and some bigger wishes from the community.
At the very least, it’s inoffensive. BFA and SL pre-release was obnoxious. This is just a “here’s a new continent, cool zones, have fun with it” Like Mists of Pandaria was.
I’m not hyped per say, but I don’t dread the future so much.
People complaining about melee i bet wouldn’t complain where if they have done instances for years. Has needed to move so much that they are never able to consistently at the same time continue being able to DPS.
I as a melee person since over a decade, welcome a Rdps new Class take at last. It has gotten very and old annoying throughout this expansion moving constantly 10+ miles every new Boss to Fight!
OK, you’ve convinced me. I’ll give it a chance. After 17 years I had finally decided to unsubscribe as I really didn’t like the direction this game was headed with the trainwreck that was Shadowlands, and I had made a promise that unless this next expansion was at least at Legion-level in terms to good, I was never coming back. However, from what I’ve seen so far, this looks good, I’m actually impressed so I’m willing to give it one more chance.
Please add more support for stuff like this.
I am happy with the reveal as is and think it’s got some nice additions but I agree, if you mention listening to feedback and the council then please also do something for rp on the side because people have been dying for any kind of official word on their behalf from blizzard.
Current talent-revamp seems like crossover of actual trees & the soulbind system.
If you actually take a look at them they don’t really leave you a way to customize or hybrid as you almost always move in a restricted line, this seems okay as a replacement for acquiring spells/effects while leveling but seems too restrictive as an actual replacement for talents.
Especially as a druid, the current viewable tree is effectively the current retail one, you can’t deviate from your path & have endless single-strings that only branch out when you could (have to) take a major ability like the decurse, vortex, bash etc and force the vast majority of points.
90% of the Druid-Tree is literally just the affinity-talents pseudo-split, while the spec one is almost the same as the current one, just spaced out & connected by lines, leading to the practically same outcome, just visually altered.
This seems very much in-line with the current philosophy which was expected but is still disappointing.
The Expansion reveal and new added things looks amazing , i hope blizzard execute those stuffs well in live version and listen to Alpha and beta feedbacks so we can see wow in its glorious days once again
While I view most of the news about the expansion as positive, I can’t help but feel that Blizzard is missing the golden opportunity here. And that is, allowing people’s characters to become empowered physically with the dragonflights. People have long looked up to the leaders of the dragonflights with awe and wonder, writing endless stories and fiction about them. It wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination to create a system whereby if people have a character become a dragonkin, they go through a set process after helping the dragonflights in order to turn their characters into Dragonbourne or whatever you may wish to call it. I feel that severely limiting the new race like this where they can’t be any other class is a horrific move. I don’t have a problem with how they look. I don’t have a problem with any of it beyond the aforementioned fact and the fact that we’re only able to be a dragon-like character because we’re mutated experiments? Come on. That’s a rather feels bad vibe on what should be a crowning achievement for this expansion. How much more awesome would it have been if you decided on the dragonflight you wanted, you worked your backside off for them and eventually they gave you the “Blessing of the Green Dragonflight” or some such, and you become half dragonkin or something. There’s a gigantic fantasy here that Blizzard is straight up cutting themselves out of by going the route they are. And it’s sad. If Blizzard do have some kind of plans to allow regular characters in the game now to become dragonkind later on, I HIGHLY suggest you tell people about it. THIS is the perfect opportunity to make everyone’s wishes about this fantasy in Wow come true. They don’t want to be experiments and castoffs. They want to be the characters they already have, ascending with the Dragonflights, empowered by them in order to protect Azeroth!
Dragons!..and a new Hero class…and a new Race…and DRAGONS! 