Dragonflight: What do you hate about it?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Isn't that like the main defining quality of WoW compared to rival MMOs?

WoW's artstyle is more detailed textures, harder shapes, and darker colors. Starting with WoD, the game gradually started moving towards less detailed textures, soft shapes, and pastel colors, but this only really affected the armor design. Environment art was trucking on as usual. In Legion, enemy models started being affected as well. Now it seems that the old environment artists are gone (or at least, the art director is) and now that cheap plastic look has finally started corrupting the look of the environments.

[Supertoster]

WoW's artstyle is more detailed textures, harder shapes, and darker colors. Starting with WoD, the game gradually started moving towards less detailed textures, soft shapes, and pastel colors, but this only really affected the armor design. Environment art was trucking on as usual. In Legion, enemy models started being affected as well. Now it seems that the old environment artists are gone (or at least, the art director is) and now that cheap plastic look has finally started corrupting the look of the environments.

Technically, the right one has way more detailed texture. But before WoD the game had technical limitations. "Classic" look is basically Warcraft3 on steroids.

[Flatspriest]

Considering how little we know about Dragonflight at this point, I can't really hate anything about it. When it gets released, then we can truly go through it and figure out what we like and dislike...but until then, you cannot truly know.

[Amnaught]

Didn't see a whole lot but kinda disappointed the new race can't visually wear armor...hope maybe they'll rectify that

I'm more disappointed that the Visage form can't be any race.

[Quaght]

I can't say I love or hate anything about it since I haven't played it, or even seen more than surface details.

[HansOlo]

I can't say I love or hate anything about it since I haven't played it, or even seen more than surface details.

How dare you not to judge the cover of the book!

[Atrea]

What do I hate about Dragonflight?

The whining from people like OP.

[Kokolums]

I dont hate anything about it. I want dragons. I got dragons.

[cuafpr]

eh only thing to hate so far for me is no player housing to early to tell for anything else.

[Aucald]

Fair enough on all other points, but I don't feel this is as subjective, and it circles back with an issue Blizzard keeps repeating as it expands its world. I know that 10,000 years is a lot of ground to cover, and there is probably a ton of things mortals' chronicles aren't privy to that Deathwing and other beings did, but if Deathwing/Neltharion had indeed created this new powerful race, and he never thought to use it in Cataclysm, it paints him as foolish. Maybe you'd paint him as arrogant, as he felt so powerful empowered by the Old Gods that he didn't need his little experiments. Yet we know between experimenting on his children, his flight, his brood, I don't see how from a logical, obvious retcon point of view, he wouldn't call upon the Drac'thyr to bolster his armies. I dont' see him being too arrogant or above that to ensure victory. He was mad, not stupid.

There's a pretty lengthy thread in the Lore subforum discussing all this, but to recap I kind of see it as a continuation on a theme as concerns the dracthyr and Nefarian/Neltharion's later tinkering with the Chromatic and Twilight dragons. The dracthyr were essentially a Beta version of the later Chromatic/Twilight flights - and I have no doubt that Neltharion, later Deathwing, took in the knowledge he gleaned from his experimentation on the Dragon Isles and applied it to his and his son's later abominations. Since there's a bit in the opening deep dive about the Isles supposedly being sealed away from even the Aspects' own eyes, it makes a degree of sense that the existence of the dracthyr would be a kind of state secret, so to speak. Or possibly Neltharion never told anyone because he considered the dracthyr to be failures, given the givens; hard to say without more info.

This is still an issue with Blizzard's story-telling though. They did it with Sylvanas by having her been in league with The Jailer after all after so long, but it made little sense narratively as we were inside her mind in books, and other media, so we WERE privy to her plans, yet she was doing things even she was not consciously aware of leading up to Shadowlands. That's how Blizzard's writing comes across, and now they're doing it again with Deathwing long after his demise. How does it come off?

Meh, contextually it's sort of fine, depending on the quality of the story. I'm not super hung up on the idea of recontextualizing old lore to make room for new stuff - at certain points you sort of have to, although there are limits and exceptions where it comes off as hamfisted and/or causes severe continuity snarls. I don't really consider the bits about Neltharion having secrets and whatnot to be quite as severe as Sylvanas' case of inconsistent motivations and characterization.

In concept, it's cool there's been a secret race hidden that Neltharion himself created, but then it becomes "well he never brought it up or tried to use them because..." It weakens the integrity of the lore in exchange for something "cool." That cool thing being "Neltharion made them." There's no other justification for it.

Again, sure; pretty much agreed. But so much of WoW's story is run by "Rule of Cool" convention that it seems almost like punching down to take major issue with specific incidents.

Did he never bring them up or think to use them because he had no access since the Dragon Isles were hidden/restricted? I guess. It would be a convenient reason, but is it really a better choice than giving the players a race they have requested that could just as easily be slotted into whatever story they want to tell, which does not take precedent over game play anyway? At the end of the day, Blizzard creative can do whatever they want, but they're not above criticism.

I agree there are better ways to have done it, but that doesn't imply or require that the Neltharion angle was necessarily the wrong way, either. A lot of this will depend on how the story itself shakes out since we currently know very little of it. If serious thought and care are taken in the explanation, you can easily make it work in the manner I sort of did above, and if that care isn't taken then you're going to have a mid-sized inconsistency in an important part of the expansion's backstory. I also agree they're not above criticism, as well - but also that criticism itself needs to be consistent, especially when the thing being criticized is not.

And to your point, yes, not introducing the Necromancer in Shadowlands will probably go down as one of their biggest creative mistakes.

Wholeheartedly agreed. I can't really express how disappointed I was when it was finally announced Shadowlands would launch with no Necromancer class in the wings. That was just an all-around swing and miss.

[Snowfunk]

The Dragon, Dracthyr race design. I find it repulsive.
It really just looks a furry in a suit.
Wouldn't surprise me if this is intentional, and that the design is the result of some woke-acceptance madness.

Really should've taken after existing Drakonid and Stoneborn design.
And the race not being available to other classes is just silly.

[Trumpcat]

I don't hate anything about it.

Though I find the new class/race a little underwhelming for two main reasons:

1. Visually the Dracthyr form is skinny and almost comical. Jumpy lizard.

2. I also feel that Dracthyr not having a black dragon tank spec is a miss.

[Urti]

The more I learn the more I really just don't like anything about the dracthyr. I started pretty lukewarm, but now I'm literally more excited for the ducks than the race/class. The dracthyr class/race gimmick seems lazy to me, the draconic forms look anemic, and their "visages" look horrendous IMO. Like game breaking garish. They seriously look like something from a chinese knockoff mmo.
Take that Spyro furry fanart back to Raid:Shadow Legends.

[druchii5]

Personally, the only thing I heavily dislike is the new race. Shame they spent so much time on that instead of providing us many more modern customization options for all the existing original races (as well as heritage armor and weapons).

[Inoculate]

Honestly, I don't feel hate or love for it. It's kinda meh. Unless some friends come back, I'll avoid it. Not hating on it or anyone playing it, I just realize that I'm not the target audience anymore.

[Kithelle]

The tier set for the class looks like its being designed to fit the dragon model from the concept art.
https://www.wowhead.com/news/blizzar...shots:326790:4

The Devs still have plenty of time...just saying it's something I hope will be addressed in the alpha/beta

[Cosmic Janitor]

Hate is way too strong a word, but the raclass is aleady a failure in it's current intended design imho. It feels like they are very thin on ideas for the class part and they mostly were enamored with the fly-over breath attack, the rest they showed was essentially just druid and mage stuff. That is underwhelming to say the least. Add to that the rubbish looks of the racial part and the I feel a major feature of the expansion is headed for being a stillbirth. While it's possible to change stuff, we know Blizzard is very relucant and slow to change the more major parts.

The talent and crafting changes seem like things Blizzard will break their own back over. Crafting is either going to become an ultra niche thing, like the current legendary blank crafters to the power of 10 and/or it becomes a major clusterfuck with all the different item levels. The talent system is just the antithesis of the lazy ass mantra Blizzard had for 10 years. Their failed balancing efforts with covenants also don't exactly give me much hope that we won't be getting the bog standard cookie cutter builds again. At the end of the day it's not a problem with the talent system(s) itself, it's WoW that is simply build by and for meta chasers. There is no place for individuality when there is one task and it requires one solution, deviating from that is just punishing yourself for no gain.

[Faerillis]

Nothing really, little early to feel that passionately about an expansion with so little announced.

[SinR]

Dragon Race limited to one class.

So far that's really about it

[PsychoSe7eN]

Technically, the right one has way more detailed texture. But before WoD the game had technical limitations. "Classic" look is basically Warcraft3 on steroids.

Wasn't vanilla wow basically warcraft 3 engine that got boosted?