World of Warcraft’s Expansions Are Graveyards of Old Features; Dragonflight Wants to Change That
One of the most frequently criticized elements of the World of Warcraft community is the growing number of discarded features that have been built up over the years. Look at you, the artifact weapon.
However, using Dragonflight, production director Patrick Dawson said the team wants to focus on improving existing features over the long term, rather than implementing a number of new features that will be discarded later. increase.
“This is one of the things we really wanted to get involved with in Dragonflight, trying to make as much as we can for the evergreen World of Warcraft,” he says. “Therefore, you’ll see HUD updates, talent updates, crafting systems, and more, all of which are the basic core of World of Warcraft that goes outside and beyond the Dragon Isle.”
Dawson mentions some of the major announced features of Dragon Flight. Implemented a much more customizable HUD with a more sophisticated default design aimed at reducing the need for add-ons for casual play, not just for additional recipes for Dragonflight, but for all ages of crafting. We will make a major review of the profession that we touch. It’s also much more modernized and easier to reconfigure with new features such as loadouts and default talent sets for those who don’t want to search for a theoretically created guide for each patch. , The talent tree is back. Dawson reassures Blizzard intends to keep the tree for multiple expansions, as opposed to the critical tactic of adding a new Power MacGuffin with its own abilities each time.
Dawson says that philosophy doesn’t just apply to explicit functions. He also described the new elements that the hero class Dracthyr brings to the game. For example, Dracthyr Evokers can use “empower” spells. Basically, it’s a spell that has different effects depending on how long it’s charged. For now, they’re limited to Dracthyr only, but Dawson will later see Blizzard if he gets a better idea of how Dracthyr will play in raids, PvP, and high-level dungeons. He says he is ready to consider how to work with his class.
And there are Dracthyr customization options. This is much more robust than any other playable race so far.
“We definitely put a lot of effort into being able to customize the one from them,” he says. “We don’t think there’s any duplication, as every player on the planet can make their own Dracthyr customizations. That’s the number we have. By an order of magnitude, it’s Not just a small amount. “
It’s true that Blizzard has been working over the years to add more options to some of the older playable races, but Dawson distinguishes it from what the team did with Dracthyr. increase. He says the update to the old character is for the benefit of expression and not for the player to aim for full robustness, but to allow the player to see himself in the character. .. But Blizzard is always trying to do more. Therefore, Dawson does not expect many updates to other races in the release of Dragon Flight, but there may be opportunities for updates in the future. Perhaps because of the variety of customizable shapes, this is a feature that Dracthyr is currently exploring in the alpha version.
However, one factor that Dawson says is that he sticks only to Dragon Flight. It’s a new dragon riding feature.
“I think dragon riding is one of the things that I felt was thematically tied to the area you were going to go to, so the Dragon Isles theme is a little more maintained,” he says. “But other than that, we’re trying to expand to more evergreens.”
We also told Dawson how Dragonflight’s Dragon Isles are Blizzard’s biggest expansion continent to date, and why the studio is making major changes to how it tests new content. Blizzard is trying to open Dragonflight Alpha to the first wave of players, so you’ll hear more about Dragonflight in the coming weeks. For now, you can see a complete preview of what you’ve seen so far.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN.She can be found on twitter @duckvalentine..
