wow Dragonflight Account-Wide Systems, No Mission Table, Dracthyr Info and More: Twitter Space Developer Interview

[Staff 943]

 

Game Director Ion Hazzikostas and Principal Narrative Designer Steve Danuser talked to Taliesin and Evitel about Dragonflight in their Twitter Space conversation and here are the highlights. 

Interview Highlights

• Dragonflight Alpha is coming soon (without ™).
• There will be no mission table in Dragonflight.
• The team's actively working on moving from borrowed power systems to maintaining evergreen systems, like talents.
• "Nearly everything in Dragonflight will be account-wide". This refers to the expansion's features like Dragonriding and story completion, not necessarily old features/achievements, etc., and not some parts of the new reputations (like gear unlocks). 
• Dracthyr have been asleep and find out what happened to Neltharion in their intro experience, and the zone will be used for more than just that. Everyone will be able to experience it.
• They want to bring back the Creation Catalyst in Dragonflight and tie it to Professions.
• Ion joked about the Tuskarr being "too powerful for an Allied Race".
• Dracthyr won't have an Order Hall, Artifact Weapons, or a Mage Tower.
• Dracthyr likely won't have a tank specialization, as it's a caster-focused class.
• An improved reputation system with story unlocks is planned in Dragonflight.
• The Mythic+ dungeon rotation in Dragonflight will include Mists of Pandaria dungeons as they had interesting mechanics. Dungeons added before MoP won't make it because they'd require substantial reworks.
• Battle for Azeroth will remain the new player expansion, despite Shadowlands being added to Chromie Time.
  • Chromie Time lets you level from 10-60 in Dragonflight.
• Patch 9.2.5 has some interesting Tirisfall Glades and Talia Menetil content. 
• There should be regular flying with your mounts in the Dragonflight zones as well, long-term. 

[Prophet001 403]

Drakthyr

[Arcling 764]

I do welcome a lack of mission table.

[Ogalos 1]

5 minutes ago, Prophet001 said:

Drakthyr

Dracthyr*

[Migol 407]

Quote

9.2.5 has some Tirisfall Glades and Talia Menetil content. 

...I hope this isn't some handwavy three quest bit that culminates in somehow having the sister of Arthas Menethil taking over the forsaken and turning them into "not so angry" forsaken as alluded to in that brief beta opener we saw way back when.

[Prophet001 403]

14 minutes ago, Migol said:

...I hope this isn't some handwavy three quest bit that culminates in somehow having the sister of Arthas Menethil taking over the forsaken and turning them into "not so angry" forsaken as alluded to in that brief beta opener we saw way back when.

Seems like they're backing off the Calia angle.

I certainly hope they are too.

[Arcling 764]

18 minutes ago, Migol said:

...I hope this isn't some handwavy three quest bit that culminates in somehow having the sister of Arthas Menethil taking over the forsaken and turning them into "not so angry" forsaken as alluded to in that brief beta opener we saw way back when.

This is probably it. In the book "Before the Storm" there were Forsaken with different mindsets, some Forsaken wanted to reunite with their families. They are still Calia's people, though one may argue those rules of succession no longer apply. The issue is, most of those events were only in a book, so in BfA she appeared out of nowhere. We might get something more about this council that is going to rule over Forsaken, Calia would be one of its members.

Edited April 27, 2022 by Arcling

[AlphaShack33 1]

1 hour ago, Staff said:

 

• Dracthyr have been asleep and find out what happened to Deathwing in their intro experience, and the zone will be used for more than just that. No Order Hall, Artifact weapon or Mage Tower for them. Unlikely that they get a tank as it's a spellcaster int class. 

Like, I get the order hall, artifact weapon, and mage tower. But please don’t tell me no tank because int spell caster. *side eyes prot or ret/holy pally’s, brew or ww/mist monks, enhance/resto shamans, pick 2/pick a different 2 druids, and I think that’s all. Still many iterations of A) different main stat is why gear is made the way it is now with those stats swappable and B) now I just want an intelligence based dragon tank who quotes Monty Python “now attack me before I taunt you a SECOND time” followed by an equally punny quip from the off tank dragon “ooohhh… BURN”

[Dejo93 898]

>no mission table

 

Just this sentence nakes me like this expansion already

[Q 75]

1 hour ago, Arcling said:

This is probably it. In the book "Before the Storm" there were Forsaken with different mindsets, some Forsaken wanted to reunite with their families. They are still Calia's people, though one may argue those rules of succession no longer apply. The issue is, most of those events were only in a book, so in BfA she appeared out of nowhere. We might get something more about this council that is going to rule over Forsaken, Calia would be one of its members.

This is the problem with how they tell the story, not that it is outstanding by any means. Tying lore events to other media types. Imagine needing to buy books to understand something like star wars, sure there are star wars books but they aren't vital to understanding what is actually going on overall and only add more characterization to the already existing cast through characters and events you never see in the main series. Blizzard doesn't do it like that though, they tie events to books and then try to get some payoff in the game where more than half the playerbase doesn't read quest text, let alone books.

[Calorat 78]

I've been burned so bad by Blizz that when they say "no mission table" I don't even believe it.  I just assume there will be something just like it with minor differences that does the same thing so they will "technically" be correct in saying it is gone, but they will add it back in somehow. I just can't see em not pushing using mobile in WoW for something and it has to be something that pushes you to log in everyday so they can brag about their "engagement numbers"

[Devylknyght 83]

1 hour ago, Calorat said:

I've been burned so bad by Blizz that when they say "no mission table" I don't even believe it.  I just assume there will be something just like it with minor differences that does the same thing so they will "technically" be correct in saying it is gone, but they will add it back in somehow. I just can't see em not pushing using mobile in WoW for something and it has to be something that pushes you to log in everyday so they can brag about their "engagement numbers"

This. BUT I will say that I haven't even been using the mobile because the SL mission table is better with the in game addons. So if they WERE going to do a new mission table like thing, what I suggest is this: Have your alts be your champions, and you can send them to farm world bosses for mounts and old raids for xmog gear each week without having to go there yourselves in game. Pipe dream, but it is probably the only way I would ever like this "feature". For now I will just be happy if it is actually removed.

[Teta 12]

mission table should've died with wod, but nonetheless it died, finally. (i hope they wont do something thats just like mission table but different).

[rmjthrow 6]

16 hours ago, AlphaShack33 said:

Like, I get the order hall, artifact weapon, and mage tower. But please don’t tell me no tank because int spell caster. *side eyes prot or ret/holy pally’s, brew or ww/mist monks, enhance/resto shamans, pick 2/pick a different 2 druids, and I think that’s all. Still many iterations of A) different main stat is why gear is made the way it is now with those stats swappable and B) now I just want an intelligence based dragon tank who quotes Monty Python “now attack me before I taunt you a SECOND time” followed by an equally punny quip from the off tank dragon “ooohhh… BURN”

Hard agree, I would love a caster-based tank. Like a cross between a warlock and disc priest where your mitigation would be cursing enemies so they do less damage, reflect damage back onto themselves, etc, and you would have some basic shields on CDs.

[Arcling 764]

18 hours ago, Q said:

This is the problem with how they tell the story, not that it is outstanding by any means. Tying lore events to other media types. Imagine needing to buy books to understand something like star wars, sure there are star wars books but they aren't vital to understanding what is actually going on overall and only add more characterization to the already existing cast through characters and events you never see in the main series. Blizzard doesn't do it like that though, they tie events to books and then try to get some payoff in the game where more than half the playerbase doesn't read quest text, let alone books.

Yes, WoD and BfA have suffered from this the most. There were also smaller patches that also didn't make sense without any further reading, like Sunwell patch in TBC. Most people had no idea who that Anveena girl was and what she was doing there. Looks like they are trying to move away from it, but we will see how this goes.

[Bobbis 208]

21 hours ago, Prophet001 said:

Drakthyr

There's no autobot here, back to reddit my dude...

[Prophet001 403]

21 minutes ago, Bobbis said:

There's no autobot here, back to reddit my dude...

lol