WoW: Dragonflight makes you masters over the weather

In the next expansion of World of Warcraft, players become powerful. They can even control the weather!

In World of Warcraft, there are now numerous ways to customize your character. Be it through the barber, transmog options, or various toys. However, there are many aspects in the game world that characters have little or no influence over – such as the current weather in the respective area. Wouldn’t it be too powerful if players could control that?

Well, with Dragonflight, you can do exactly that.

What are these devices? These are two toys that can be crafted by engineers. The two devices are:

• Centralized Precipitation Emitter: Allows for different weather effects.
• Environmental Emulator: Changes the environment and the skybox (clouds/sky in the distance).

Both devices have a duration of 2 hours each, which is quite long. However, the effects are limited to members of your party or raid – other players cannot see these effects and will not be disturbed by them.

What settings are available? Both devices have different settings. The Centralized Precipitation Emitter determines the weather and can cause the following effects:

• Rainstorm
• Snowstorm
• Sandstorm
• Ash Rain

The Environmental Emulator changes the skybox and thus the fundamental ambiance. With this device, you can choose from these options:

• Peaceful Day
• Demon Storm
• Calm Cyclone
• Ice Crown
• Burning Sky
• Swirling Nether

Additionally, both devices have the option to “kick” the respective machine to reset it and remove any previous effects.

The effects of both devices can be combined, allowing you to have an Ash Rain with Ice Crown skybox, for example.

What benefit does this have? Basically, manipulating the weather can drastically change the ambiance of a place. Since changing it almost always comes with a different skybox, the lighting and coloring of the location can change drastically. Something similar was already utilized by many in Bastion (Shadowlands), using the “Ink Black Potion” to lower the brightness of the glaring area.

Especially roleplayers are likely to be very happy about the devices. Because who hasn’t experienced this? You’re playing a sad-romantic scene on the beach in Stranglethorn Vale during heavy rain, only for it to stop after three minutes and the sun shines down inappropriately. A scene that surely every one of you has experienced. For sure.

A point of criticism, however, is that the device lasts “only” 2 hours and has a cooldown of 6 hours. So anyone wanting to roleplay under a specific weather condition for an extended session will have to rely on the help of other players. The RP community wishes for the cooldown to be reduced. Since Blizzard is currently fulfilling quite a few requests, this might well happen.

Overall, it gives roleplayers much more creative freedom to enhance the atmosphere of a scene as a game master. Previously, Blizzard had already fulfilled a dream for roleplayers by introducing spell effects that can be cast on friendly targets.