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The Twitter Space conversation took place today. We've recapped some of the points below.
Expansion Progress
- The expansion is quite far along, Alpha is coming soon.
New Expansion
- Every WoW expansion is a fresh start, a chance to come back and be on a level playing field with everyone else.
- If there is something about World of Warcraft that captured your imagination years ago that you haven't felt was fulfilled in the last few years, Dragonflight's return to core high fantasy, exploration, and discovering the story as you go meeting characters along the way, is a great chance to get back in and check it out.
- This expansion is an opportunity to dive back in to the classic fantasy themes that made us all fall in love with games like this in the first place.
Quality of Life Changes
- The team is moving on from borrowed power and is going to focus on evergreen systems like talents and professions. This was a decision that they made before Shadowlands even launched.
- The feedback let the team know how bad it felt to walk away from borrowed power. Losing your artifacts or legendary items started an expansion on a sour note.
- Knowing that what you earned over an expansion would be gone felt bad even during an expansion.
- The team wants to allow players to play the game how they want, not having to do parts of the game they don't enjoy to get at the parts that they do enjoy.
- The team is thinking about how alts and catch-up mechanisms will work in a way that they haven't done before.
- Nearly everything except obtaining gear should be account wide.
- Playing through a linear narrative should be optional after the first time that you do it.
- Having to improve your Dragonriding skill on multiple characters wouldn't be a satisfying experience.
- Constantly asking how something will feel the second time through, or if you are coming along months down the line.
- If your dragon can fly for longer, further, and has extra abilities, the team doesn't want to make you re-earn those things on your alts. The same stands for cosmetic customizations.
- Outside of things that grant power, if you do something once as a player, you should be able to repeat it on another character if you want to, but you shouldn't have to.
- The goal is to be alt friendly from the start, not something that is added in future updates.
- No suffering for months and then adjusting for feedback, they know people will be playing alts from week one.
Dracthyr Starting Zone
- You come into a mystery, awakening after being in stasis for a long time. Stasis has wreaked havoc on your memory, so all that you know is that you are in a barrack, with friends that are in trouble.
- You help awaken your friends and then try to figure out what has been happening, what caused this.
- You realize that you've been asleep for a very long time.
- It's a journey of discovery, figuring out what happened to you and Neltharion.
- You find out that you were made to be a solider, to protect against a threat that was coming. You'll find out what the threat was and that it is also awakening again.
- It'll be fun to see how the dragons react to you, even Alexstrasza didn't know that you existed.
- The Dracthyr starting zone will be used for more than just a starting zone. Everyone will eventually experience it.
Reputation System
- The reputation system hasn't really changed since 2004. There are bars you fill up, you go find a quartermaster for the rewards.
- Covenants in Shadowlands played out well in Shadowlands, with a nice Renown UI that showed your progression.
- There are some "Major Factions" that we'll encounter, with a clearer and more elegant reward progression.
- Each of the Major Factions stand on their own. Unlike the Covenants, you can switch around and focus on any of them as you'd like to.
- Covenants were more time gated but these factions will be much more flexible. Covenants were your power progression, so it had to be gated.
- Some rewards will be account wide, such as unlocking a cosmetic or access to an outdoor zone, but not items that give you power.
Mission Table
- There are no current plans for a mission table.
Story
- There is an epic ending that involves characters that we'll adventure along during the expansion.
- The team wants player to feel a sense of optimism and hope for the dragons. You will care about who you are adventuring alongside and the lands.
- Thematically this expansion is about the dragons, the threats they face, the goals they have, what we are doing to help them, and what other dragons are doing to stop them.
Mythic+
- Shadowlands and Battle for Azeroth dungeons are off limits for Mythic+, Mists had some that had great Challenge modes.
- The team is open to tweaking dungeons to give them modern gameplay needed for Mythic+
- Every Mythic+ season should be a fresh experience, just like raiders get a fresh experience with new raids.
- Unlikely, but possible, to go back to use Classic dungeons for Mythic+. They don't hold up with visuals or mechanics. The team probably draws the line at Mists of Pandaria onwards. Anything older would need significant reworking.
Dracthyr
- Dracthyr are an intellect class.
- Initial thoughts on weapon types will be what Shamans can use, minus shields, plus swords.
- Unlikely to have Mage Tower access, at least initially.
- They'll be able to run Torghast.
- No Artifact weapons or Class Hall. Chromie Time only goes so far.
- The Art team has added an amazing array of customizations for both forms. There's a blog post in the works by the artists to talk through the options in more detail.
- They aren't from a single race or Dragonflight, more of a combination of the best from all of them.
- When you awaken, you are in your draconic form. There will come a point in the story where you'll venture out into the larger world, and you'll have to tap into the mortality within to present their visage form.
- A Tank spec is unlikely. This is a spellcaster class at its core.
- The team won't close the door on a third spec, but tank is unlikely. Previous Hero classes have had Tank options, so that's pretty well covered.
Chromie Time
- Chromie Time is working well overall. The intent is to roll Shadowlands into it.
- Battle for Azeroth remains the default experience for new players, but that may be updated down the line.
- Shadowlands is a challenging story concept for new players.
Story
- Wrathion and other Aspects have built a lot of story over time that will be present in the Dragon Isles.
- In Patch 9.2.5 something takes place in Tirisfal Glades, and may let us catch up with Calia Menethil, get an update on the Forsaken, and more.
- When the team adds new character customizations, such as the Patch 8.1 customizations, they are added when there is a story opportunity.
Dragonriding
- Flight as it has existed is swimming through the air. No momentum, physics, or gravity.
- Flying has the potential to shrink the world, eliminate danger, reduce exploration.
- Long term, convivence is paramount, so the team let people unlock flying after some amount of time in the expansion.
- At launch, this time around they wanted to do something new and exciting, rather than just being stuck on the ground.
- In the first or second leveling zone, first day of the expansion, you gain the trust of a dragon companion that you can call upon. They initially have limited stamina and experience.
- There is a stamina bar that is depleted through gaining stamina or doing moves.
- Standard flying is still the long term plan for Dragonflight.
- The Dragonriding we have seen in the videos so far will be fairly early in the experience. It won't start out lame and have you work to make it feel good.
- TBD how you'll advance your Dragonriding skill. They don't want to tie it to one specific type of content, as that is limiting.
- Long term, allowing Dragonriding outside of Dragon Isles is a possibility. In the near term, this is an expansion specific feature, taking place in an environment built for it. Player feedback is key.
Cross-Faction Play
- The armistice signed at the end of Battle for Azeroth was the starting point for cross-faction play. Players will be reminded that this is a cooperative venture.
- Everything isn't forgotten between the Alliance and Horde, there is still resentfulness and distrust.
- We'll get to see some characters working together that would be previously unthinkable. In the past you wouldn't see these rivals working side by side to a shared goal.
- In some ways, this is less about the narrative adapting to the new mechanic, but the mechanic adapting to the narrative from the past. Situational cooperation to overcome common threats has a history throughout Warcraft.
- Cross-faction guilds could happen, but there are a significant number of technical challenges.
- Community feedback and engineering progress will determine how any cross-faction play will go.
Systems
- Borrowed power going away.
- The team didn't carry forward most of the Shadowlands systems. There is gear, outdoor progression, and universal currencies that help to further your power progression.
- The outdoor world experience needs to stand on its own for players that enjoy only that part of the game.
- Some version of the Great Vault is being carried forward, with some small tweaks. It felt like a clear improvement from the single item chest.
Story
- Tuskarr would be too powerful as an Allied Race!
- Alexstrasza has seen a lot of carnage done to dragons by both mortals and dragons. She is optimistic but will acknowledge hard feelings towards previous actions. She may something specific to Death Knights. Conditional quest text when there is history relevant to a character is nice to have.
- The World of Warcraft: Exploring Azeroth: Northrend book is coming with lots of cool stuff.
- When working on the Northrend book, the team met with some Inuit people to see how they could add some story in a way that would be respectful and feel good.
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