World of Warcraft must expand dragon riding across all of Azeroth. The developers have no other choice – at least that’s what MeinMMO demon Cortyn thinks.
Meanwhile, World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is several months old, has already received the first patches, and will soon start the second season of the expansion. However, it’s also time for the developers to discuss the success of features and to see which ones will be carried into the future and which will remain on the dragon islands.
This analysis is likely to be relatively brief in Dragonflight.
The only “major, proper new feature” of WoW: Dragonflight is dragon riding. Basically, it’s a new form of movement that allows players to travel across the dragon islands and replaces the usual flying with the familiar flying mounts.
Instead of simply staying in the air automatically and flying in the target direction using “Autowalk + Afk”, players must actively engage in dragon riding and take control themselves. Cliffs need to be overcome, lift used correctly, and the resource “Elan” must be utilized so that one reaches the destination as quickly as possible.
Even though there is a small portion of the player base that is not really warming up to dragon riding, most agree: dragon flying must be possible sooner or later across all of World of Warcraft.
Because once you get used to flying with dragons, you know the feeling when you suddenly have to go back to Stormwind or Orgrimmar and get on the “old” flying mount: it feels like the game is in slow motion. Everything is slower, less interactive, and simply boring.
That Blizzard wants to make dragon riding an “evergreen” feature has already been indirectly confirmed multiple times in interviews. It’s simply too successful to go back to the “old” flying in future expansions.
The nice thing about the whole situation is that even the “dragon flying is stupid!” faction could easily be appeased. A simple new setting in the mount collection could be enough to specify whether one prefers to use the “dragon flying” feature or the old flying.
The problem with mounts
However, dragon riding also has a massive problem. Of the hundreds of mounts that players have collected over the years and soon decades, only a total of 4 can be used for dragon riding.
The answer to this is unfortunately not a simple “then just unlock all mounts for dragon riding” – because that means a lot of work. The dynamic feel of dragon riding is primarily due to the animations of the dragons. This does not only refer to the regular “flying” animation, but also the countless special animations when using various abilities like taking off or diving. These animations are not possessed by any other mounts.
Developing these animations retroactively for over 600 mounts, which share over 150 different models, is quite a massive task. One that would likely occupy various developers for many weeks. Feasible, of course, but still a big endeavor.
And there is still the risk that Blizzard may miss the “feel” of dragon riding. Because gliding through the air with a magical disc simply cannot look as dynamic as a dragon flapping its wings, tucking its head, or doing a barrel roll in the air.
Dragon flying has done well for PvP in the open world
What is often forgotten, especially by critics of dragon flying, is the positive effect that dragon flying has had on PvP in the open world.
Because in war mode, if you don’t feel like PvP at the moment or had to be afk for a while, you could simply “park” way up high in the sky with a flying mount, making you virtually untouchable and safe.
With dragon riding, that isn’t possible. Not only because you inevitably crash to the ground eventually if you are not present, but also because it was possible, using the dragon’s abilities, to throw other players off their mount and force them to the ground (and often die from fall damage).
From this perspective alone, I believe that only dragon riding should be allowed in war mode – it simply makes PvP feel more thought-out when you can’t be “infinitely safe” in the open world. If you don’t like that, you can switch back to non-war mode.
There is no alternative anymore
In any case, it is clear that dragon flying has now become “inescapable”. Players will no longer accept a new (or old) world where there is no form of flying right from the start. The old flying would be a clear regression, and the classic “you must explore the world on foot before you can fly” is likely a thing of the past.
Dragon flying is the future in World of Warcraft. The problem is that Blizzard has to carry all the old mounts into this future – and whether that succeeds remains questionable.
