Many are worried that World of Warcraft Dragonflight is coming too early and might not be good. But is that really true? We dare to analyze.
When Blizzard announced the next expansion Dragonflight a few weeks ago, there was a positive mood. The developers wanted to return to their roots, build fewer major systems, and especially tell a more classic fantasy story – indeed, an ancient, unexplored island and plenty of dragons.
However, the anticipation for the expansion quickly faded when shortly thereafter the announcement for pre-ordering came. Because it revealed: Dragonflight will be released in 2022, namely no later than December 31, 2022.
Some were happy about the early release, but many are worried: is that not too early? Is it not coming too quickly after Shadowlands? Did the developers even have enough time to create a better expansion here?
Reddit user creates useful graphic, shows problems
In the subreddit of World of Warcraft, Disargeria published a quite interesting graphic. The graphic shows the various durations of the different expansions of World of Warcraft and considers the duration of the alpha and beta tests as well as the duration of the individual patches.
This way, one can see at a glance how long players had to wait for new content or how big the gap between the individual addons really was.
Note that the information on “Dragonflight” regarding the alpha and beta is currently provisional and speculative. The duration assumes that the beta test is imminent. Accordingly, this time window is getting smaller every day.
The graphic also shows the problems that Shadowlands and thus the players had to contend with. Because Shadowlands had the longest release phase of any expansion ever – meaning the longest period after the launch without new content. Players had to wait over half a year for patch 9.1.
To the disillusionment of most, patch 9.1 also turned out to be very sparse. Korthia was unpopular among many players since it was just an extension of the Maw and therefore a rather bleak area and relatively small.
Additional new mechanics, such as the fragments of domination, caused even more systems to interact and brought initial problems. Because the new socket system conflicted with the legendary items, and anyone who wasn’t lucky enough to get their correct fragments early found their performance in dungeons and raids drastically hampered.
Is Dragonflight coming too early? In the WoW community, there is currently a general feeling that Dragonflight somehow seems “too early”. The impression arises mainly because the release must now happen within 6 months and there has not yet been a beta for Dragonflight started.
Additionally, there is the perception that Blizzard did not take enough time for Shadowlands and the accompanying expectation that this mistake should not be repeated with Dragonflight.
If one only compares the past time between expansions, then Dragonflight, should it actually be released on or before December 31, is not coming too early. Shadowlands would then have only run a few weeks longer than Battle for Azeroth and a few months longer than Legion. The time difference between the addons has hardly changed.
Does Dragonflight need a long beta? That is probably the crucial question. Because Dragonflight is in many ways not a classic addon, but does things differently. And “differently” means in this case mainly “less new”. There are to be no major new gameplay systems, like Torghast, covenants, or Azerite armor. Instead, Blizzard focuses on the core elements of recent years that made World of Warcraft great:
An exciting, large game world with plenty to discover.
There will also be no large, nested systems. Dragonflight will be classic and will come without “borrowed power”, aside from items like tier sets. There is no covenant to level, no secondary and tertiary power systems like soul binds, and no legendary items that become mandatory immediately. One also wants to largely avoid parasite systems that make the game worse.
There are indeed a number of major revisions, such as with the talent system or professions. However, these are not entirely new systems, but simply revisions of already existing game content. The testing time here is expected to be comparatively short. Any problems can presumably be resolved much faster. It is simply easier to move a few talents around in a tree than to drastically overhaul a system like Torghast multiple times.
All of this should make Dragonflight significantly slimmer and testing more focused. Therefore, even a shortened beta phase should not weigh too heavily when the developers are now able to “get back on track” after the setbacks during the Covid lockdowns.
Everyone can probably only form a truly comprehensive picture once the beta is playable. Then it will become clear whether Blizzard can indeed release the expansion by the end of the year – or whether a few more months will still be necessary.
The big question about the “after”: In the end, it might not even be so important whether Dragonflight appears too early or too late, but rather how it goes on after that. Blizzard recently acquired over 100 new employees who are largely also supposed to work on World of Warcraft.
The true test will be whether Dragonflight can deliver new content faster than was the case in Shadowlands. There, fans had to wait extremely long and were even bitterly disappointed in the case of patch 9.1. Only patch 9.2 with Zereth Mortis brought enough new content – but too little to end the expansion worthily.
What do you think about the “early” release of Dragonflight? Is it all happening too quickly? Or does it fit as it is now?
