Tuesday, November 29th 2022
The Dragon Isles Have Awakened—World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is Now Live
World of Warcraft : Dragonflight, the ninth expansion to Blizzard Entertainment's critically acclaimed massively multiplayer online role-playing game, is now live! Heroes of the Horde and Alliance are called back to Azeroth to explore the mystical Dragon Isles and its ancient secrets, where the dragon aspects have returned to reclaim their kingdom and ancestral home.
"Dragonflight goes to the heart of what players have always loved about World of Warcraft—exploration, customization, and the feeling of wonder as the world and its stories unfold," said Mike Ybarra, president of Blizzard Entertainment. "The updates to core systems, such as the new talent trees, build on the legacy of WoW for players of all types, allowing old friends and new to enjoy everything Azeroth has to offer for years to come."
The new Dragon Isles continent is comprised of five vibrant zones, which are some of the largest by area in the history of WoW: the Forbidden Reach, the new starting zone for the dracthyr race; the primordial Waking Shores, an untamed land brimming with elemental energies; the windswept Ohn'ahran Plains, home to proud centaur clans; the expansive Azure Span, where tuskarr fish amidst arcane ruins; and gleaming Thaldrazsus, the seat of power for the dragon aspects and home of the dragon capital city Valdrakken.
Dragonflight introduces the first ever race/class combo for World of Warcraft, the dracthyr Evoker. Featuring an abundance of character customization options and starting out at level 58, dracthyr Evokers are the first ranged damage class to be added to World of Warcraft since the game's launch 18 years ago. Players can channel the magics of the dragon flights, maneuvering across battlefields as they heal their allies or damage their foes while utilizing all-new Empowered spellcasting.
Take flight early on in Dragonflight with Dragonriding, an all-new and exhilarating means of aerial exploration, where adventurers can dive down from height on ridable Dragon Isles Drakes to gain speed before pulling up on the reigns to glide and swoop on built momentum. Besides competing in timed trials and multiplayers races, players can collect a bevy of account-wide appearance customizations and skill upgrades for four earnable drakes throughout the Dragon Isles on their journey to the new level cap of 70.
Core systems have been reimagined for Dragonflight, and each will see further updates through a phased approach throughout the expansion:
A special 12-month subscription offer is currently available ($155.88 SRP, equivalent to $12.99 a month) which comes with the Nether-Gorged Greatwyrm flying mount and the Tabard of the Flame in WoW Classic from the current 6-month subscription offer plus the Telix the Stormhorn flying mount, the Gargantuan Grrloc ground mount, the Festering Emerald Drake mount in WoW Classic, and all to-be-announced items included with our upcoming 2023 6-month subscription offer—to be revealed in January.
Source:
Blizzard
"Dragonflight goes to the heart of what players have always loved about World of Warcraft—exploration, customization, and the feeling of wonder as the world and its stories unfold," said Mike Ybarra, president of Blizzard Entertainment. "The updates to core systems, such as the new talent trees, build on the legacy of WoW for players of all types, allowing old friends and new to enjoy everything Azeroth has to offer for years to come."
Dragonflight introduces the first ever race/class combo for World of Warcraft, the dracthyr Evoker. Featuring an abundance of character customization options and starting out at level 58, dracthyr Evokers are the first ranged damage class to be added to World of Warcraft since the game's launch 18 years ago. Players can channel the magics of the dragon flights, maneuvering across battlefields as they heal their allies or damage their foes while utilizing all-new Empowered spellcasting.
Take flight early on in Dragonflight with Dragonriding, an all-new and exhilarating means of aerial exploration, where adventurers can dive down from height on ridable Dragon Isles Drakes to gain speed before pulling up on the reigns to glide and swoop on built momentum. Besides competing in timed trials and multiplayers races, players can collect a bevy of account-wide appearance customizations and skill upgrades for four earnable drakes throughout the Dragon Isles on their journey to the new level cap of 70.
Core systems have been reimagined for Dragonflight, and each will see further updates through a phased approach throughout the expansion:
- An All-New Talent Tree System offers unprecedented control over gameplay, more impactful choices at every level, and new ability combinations. Starter talent builds are available to help new or returning adventurers, and talent builds can be saved, swapped, and shared with friends.
- The Redesigned Heads-Up Display (HUD) and User Interface looks great on modern displays and surfaces important gameplay info more effectively. The HUD UI is now easily customizable for all types of players with the addition of edit mode and allows for easily sharing loadouts.
- Enhanced Professions, now a pillar of gear acquisition, allow for living the fantasy of a master crafter or gatherer and building a clientele through new player-driven work orders, unlockable specializations, and the addition of a quality system for crafting and gathering.
A special 12-month subscription offer is currently available ($155.88 SRP, equivalent to $12.99 a month) which comes with the Nether-Gorged Greatwyrm flying mount and the Tabard of the Flame in WoW Classic from the current 6-month subscription offer plus the Telix the Stormhorn flying mount, the Gargantuan Grrloc ground mount, the Festering Emerald Drake mount in WoW Classic, and all to-be-announced items included with our upcoming 2023 6-month subscription offer—to be revealed in January.
23 Comments on The Dragon Isles Have Awakened—World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is Now Live
I played WoW for nearly 12 years myself, from February 2006 until August 2017. Last time i played was in December 2018.
then I woke up one day and realized I was wasting my life away, so I went to college and got in a life time of debt.
should have kept playing WoW in retrospect, I can't even get married with the payment plan I currently have for student loans, or I risk my payments going up. most girls aren't open to not getting married, so I am pretty much going to be alone anyway, hence, I should have just kept playing WoW anyway. lol, what a fucking joke life is
1. Content can never match WoW in sheer amount and overall quality, especially at launch but also for several years post launch. There is just no way, impossibru
2. A new MMO means a new time sink/investment for a playerbase. The existing WoW playerbase is already solid in the age group of 'ain't got time for grind' and they simply progress on top of their existing few hundred or thousand of hours, easy enough with an hour or two per day. But starting all over? Tall order!
I speak from experience... I tried re-entering the game and many other MMO's, and while some stuck with me for a while, none did like WoW. Its not just the nostalgia of Vanilla and TBC. Its just a fantastic open world game in every possible way. Locations, lore, flavor/humour, bad guys, good guys, and the execution of most things are all in good order. Not a single other MMO manages to tick that many boxes imho. Still. I want to say Guild Wars 2 comes close, but thinking about that longer, it really doesn't - gear progression doesn't even remotely present the same motivator to keep going, for example. A lot of systems in WoW are just entire games in their own right, or can be used as such. Crafting and selling, trading/AH, Arena tournament ladders... and that's not even mentioning dungeons altogether.
Look at New World. That was an attempt. Its part shameless copy and the rest is stuff you've already seen, generic as hell, soulless, and definitely not backed by the quality of lore that Blizzard created in its time of glory. Even if it gets content parity in amount, it never will in quality and execution. Last year november it already sank to 85K concurrent players online.
The MMO era is over. ....and here comes the rat Zuckerberg pushing his multiverse, that's worse in every possible way than everything it tries to replace, but incorporates all the psychological tricks in the MMO book to make it interesting. :D Offtopic, but the similarities just stand out to me, its doomed to fail.
I didn't get Dragonflight yet. I might if it goes half price some day, but I am in no rush. The latest dungeons didn't look all that neat to me, and "Dragon Flying" doesn't really do anything for me personally. I probably will go back to FFXIV mmo in December or January, just for one month to catch up on all the latest story quests from patches.
Edit: looks like next big patch for FFXIV will be in early January. So yeah, I will probably go back in January, as I have about 10 months worth of story quest patches to catch up on, should be a good time for a one month sub, always is.
At this point I'm just curious how far activision will push it before their audience finally gives up.
League of Legends MMO - New Details Revealed! - (comicyears.com)
Not sure how the engine will be, but if I were them, I would copy a lot of WoW's strongest points. At least they got Ghostcrawler on board, so it doesn't hurt to dream.
And yeah, profession seems more fun, story does make some sense, and less AP system to deal with.
Now I just need to convince higher end guild my ancient mythic log actually mean something lol
Two points:
On a bright note now that my daughter is 10, I can let her do her own thing and I actually can sometimes find time to play a game. I used to go weeks, if not a month without touching a game. Also games aren't everything. I've gotten into photography and it helps me be physical more than a video game ever has. So it depends on priorities. I do like a good game though and WoW is a bit nostalgic for me. When I was a little younger than you I was doing heroic ICC raids. They were a lot of fun, but I can't do that kind of thing anymore.
It's also frustratingly difficult to find benchmarks for WoW. Since it's the game that I spend the most time playing, I want to know how each card performs in WoW. Cards like the 7900xtx vary considerably from game to game (immature drivers?). In some games it's slower than a 4080, in others it can almost match a 4090. So which of those categories does WoW fall into?