Hazelnutty Dragonflight Interview with Ion Hazzikostas

Tbh im torn about housing. I can see theres a place for it in a MMORPG, though I have never bothered doing anything with it in other mmos i've played(like ESO). In ESO, the only thing I have in my house(or is it a room?) is a wooden chair I placed there a few years ago. Havent been there since.

Its probably a massive undertaking that for sure will come to a cost of something else. If they do implement it, they should start small and over time build upon in for each patch & xpac.

wow was never really buildt for housing like other mmos and to be honest; If I have to choose between a huge housing feature or new zones, dungeons++, i'd drop housing in a second. I dont really stay online or idle a whole lot in wow anymore. I play & log off when im done.

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Originally Posted by Rumred

True but many players crapped on the Garrison which the Garrisons themselves were not really the issue, the lack of decent world content was until 6.2 but by that point the well was poisoned. From the devs end I think they hate it because it did eat so much time up. I think they should go into saying " Look people will bitch about lack of variety and customization at the start. We will add the base system into place and expand on it patch by patch/expansion by expansion". If they wanna try and make it perfect with all the bells and whistles everyone wants before its put in the game it will never be in the game.

To be honest guild halls are probably the best we can hope for at least in the foreseeable future in the next 4 to 5 years.

The garrison from WoD could have been moved from Draenor to outside SW, Org & IF and after that they could have buildt upon it. The "base" is already there with stuff in it. Could have buildt upon that bit by bit.

Either way, I dont really care a whole lot. Housing in every other MMORPG i've played has been ignored to the fullest.

Originally Posted by Bonkbonk100

See you at release day

Exactly lol, people always hate, but they take the time to comment on here and there.

I still don't get the point of dragon flying.

Originally Posted by Stormwolf64

I still don't get the point of dragon flying.

I think it's an attempt to do something more with WoW's flying. Right now the only thing flying offers is negating terrain and just letting you fly from A to B in a straight line. Dragonriding seems to be an attempt to make more interesting.

Certain areas might be inaccessible until your dragon/mount learns how to handle a specific weather condition, elevation or something else. Gives flying more mechanics than just point direction with mouse and auto-fly.

>The previous iteration of Archeology will not be returning.
Am I literally the only person who liked archeology as it was and actively missed it in Shadowlands? I got every item and achievement since the profession was first added.

Wouldn't be surprised if they move away from the "4 dungeons and 4 old ones for m+" after the first season or two. What they should've done is have all 8 available, with 4 older ones each season for some added flavor. Preferably trinket dungeons, where they can tune those trinkets up a notch to add incentives to actually do them.

No archeology? Excuse me? What a bore!

no borrowed power means no power progression after first 3 weeks of patch . but raiders will rejoice as they can log in and log out after raid.

no legendaries means nothing exiting to wait for as player.

crafting proffesions locked behind raiding. means its not real crafting - failed system before release. its raiders crafting

seems like worse version of WoD incoming - more and more signs proving this will be another ultra casual unfriendly expansion aimed only at raiders.

they even announced wolk - most casual friendly expansion as casual unfriendly due to removal of lfd

those combined are extremly bad signes for game.

thx god for FF14. really if it wsnt for that game mmorpgs would be dead now like wow is dead.

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Originally Posted by Stormwolf64

I still don't get the point of dragon flying.

the point is they are still at war with playerbase and want to remove flying from game for as long as possible so you will get the new exiting version of engineer glider - you wil get somethign like you had in mechagon with rocket backpack - dragon will launch in the air and then glide down.

while in flying oriented epxansion your dragon mounts will be grounded prevented from flying

they are dead set on making this game as unfun as possible

Its very clear Blizzard really wanna get rid of archeology :P

The more I hear about this expansion, the more I get disappointed. Dragonflight sounds like more fucking trash like Shadowlands and BfA before it.

Originally Posted by JSoup

>The previous iteration of Archeology will not be returning.
Am I literally the only person who liked archeology as it was and actively missed it in Shadowlands? I got every item and achievement since the profession was first added.

Archaeology had its moments, but Blizz actively turned it into a "grind to get achievements" over time. The achievements to get X amount of pristine solves of all the items multiple times was just meant to waste your time. Best parts of archaeology were likely when it was first implemented and Legion in terms of the goals of the system and what it could provide the player. Wasn't perfect, but it was a starting point.

Ultimately, I think their obsession with transmedia (aka, spreading out the story across multiple media, like books, in an effort to nickel and dime their players) hamstrings what Archaeology could be. Think about it: the profession implies that they're researching the past or history about certain things via interacting with the world. It's the perfect vehicle to tell stories or explore lore that are optional to the main story plots, giving players the ability to learn more about races, cultures, events, etc. in the world. Even the flavor text on the items in the past sometimes hinted at certain aspects of lore... yet Blizz completely dropped the ball on the potential of this system.

The narrative and lore of WoW doesn't need to be an exposition dump from a random NPC, it can be woven into activities to allow players to explore and learn things organically. This is one aspect of Dragonflight that is for certain not looking promising, as the people behind this aspect of the game don't appear to have learned anything from Shadowlands at all.

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Originally Posted by steellz

Exactly lol, people always hate, but they take the time to comment on here and there.

While haters will always hate, there's still sizable group of people (myself included) that want the game to be great... we're just severely disappointed in how Blizz has been handling WoW as of late. The moment that people like myself stop talking about the game or offering suggestions/improvements is when we have given up on the franchise. While I'm critical of Blizz and see some warning signs with Dragonflight at this point, I hope it's an amazing and successful expansion with Blizz finally learning their lessons and trending in a good direction.

My impression is that Ion Hazzikostas completely and utterly hates this new expansion himself. This 'new' direction has probably been forced on him by management. In a way this expansion is going back to the fundations put down by Ghostcrawler and erasing all what has been added since. Back to basics. Away with all the fancy time-gating borrowed power systems. Putting the focus again on the story and being the hero in that story. It's great for the players.

Originally Posted by Eurhetemec

I mean, has anyone ever got it right? FFXIV definitely does not, impressive as it is.

DAoC was kind of close, maybe. Certainly closest to what I'd want to see from Blizzard.

Wildstar definitely

Originally Posted by StillMcfuu

They should release them on live servers to actually work them out with real players, not just alpha/beta testers.

Alpha/Beta testers ARE real players.

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Originally Posted by rogas

My impression is that Ion Hazzikostas completely and utterly hates this new expansion himself. This 'new' direction has probably been forced on him by management. In a way this expansion is going back to the fundations put down by Ghostcrawler and erasing all what has been added since. Back to basics. Away with all the fancy time-gating borrowed power systems. Putting the focus again on the story and being the hero in that story. It's great for the players.

Nah your impression is what you have convinced yourself is happening, not what is actually happening. There is Zero evidence to support any of this.

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Originally Posted by exochaft

Archaeology had its moments, but Blizz actively turned it into a "grind to get achievements" over time. The achievements to get X amount of pristine solves of all the items multiple times was just meant to waste your time. Best parts of archaeology were likely when it was first implemented and Legion in terms of the goals of the system and what it could provide the player. Wasn't perfect, but it was a starting point.

Ultimately, I think their obsession with transmedia (aka, spreading out the story across multiple media, like books, in an effort to nickel and dime their players) hamstrings what Archaeology could be. Think about it: the profession implies that they're researching the past or history about certain things via interacting with the world. It's the perfect vehicle to tell stories or explore lore that are optional to the main story plots, giving players the ability to learn more about races, cultures, events, etc. in the world. Even the flavor text on the items in the past sometimes hinted at certain aspects of lore... yet Blizz completely dropped the ball on the potential of this system.

The narrative and lore of WoW doesn't need to be an exposition dump from a random NPC, it can be woven into activities to allow players to explore and learn things organically. This is one aspect of Dragonflight that is for certain not looking promising, as the people behind this aspect of the game don't appear to have learned anything from Shadowlands at all.

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While haters will always hate, there's still sizable group of people (myself included) that want the game to be great... we're just severely disappointed in how Blizz has been handling WoW as of late. The moment that people like myself stop talking about the game or offering suggestions/improvements is when we have given up on the franchise. While I'm critical of Blizz and see some warning signs with Dragonflight at this point, I hope it's an amazing and successful expansion with Blizz finally learning their lessons and trending in a good direction.

But those haters don't actually play the game. Therefore, they do not matter.

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Originally Posted by Slythas

I think it's an attempt to do something more with WoW's flying. Right now the only thing flying offers is negating terrain and just letting you fly from A to B in a straight line. Dragonriding seems to be an attempt to make more interesting.

Certain areas might be inaccessible until your dragon/mount learns how to handle a specific weather condition, elevation or something else. Gives flying more mechanics than just point direction with mouse and auto-fly.

It also basically keeps people on the ground until flying is fully unlocked while still allowing a form of flight at the beginning.

Originally Posted by swisscheese

Wildstar definitely

Oh yeah. I don't remember what they did very clearly but I remember it mostly not sucking.

Where is my pandas-druids!

People need to give it up with player housing. WoW is not the game for it and it will never be.

Ion "phoning Wow expansions in since he took control" Hazzikostas. Master of check boxes and completely unable to make Wow exciting and relevant again.

imagine the major selling point of your game is the stuff that WONT be in the game. its like selling a car saying it WONT explode

Originally Posted by StillMcfuu

They should release them on live servers to actually work them out with real players, not just alpha/beta testers.

You´ll have wowhead talent calculators ready to use asap.