Apologies, I was just looking at it from a logistics perspective as it would have theoretically been a shorter distance and they would have avoided the Maelstrom entirely. I had at least 4 characters leaving from Stormwind, which was a relatively vertical direction.
Then again, Orgrimmar is the primary quest hub for the Horde, like Stormwind, is for the Alliance, so it ultimately answers the question.
I definitely agree with you that would have made more sense from a lore perspective. Both are closer than deploying out of the capitals for the reasons you mentioned. Plus it would have been a great excuse to update SMC and Exodar but, money, etc.
Also I’m just gonna say it, I hate the airships. Always have from their original introduction. The Horde one at least looks like it is capable of flying but the Alliance one is dumb. Why do we have to use them to get anywhere now? The zeppelins from Wrath were a great design and could be fielded in a large number without it looking as much of a threat. I mean its a giant angry wolf with a giant cannon sticking out of its mouth and the Alliance one is covered in deck guns. Not to mention they seem to fall out of the sky every single time they get deployed and create a huge mess.
You roll up on a new continent with those and frankly both factions should get treated as hostiles. Better to launch a fleet of smaller zeppelins with a couple of large ships as their logistics support.
Anyway, I digress. That turned into a weird unexpected rant.
Also I didn’t like the whole ‘Stay awhile and listen’ stuff on the airship tower. ESPECIALLY with Thalryssa and Loth’Remar apparently getting married and nothing being made of it? Doesn’t make sense to me and feels a little weak writing just for the sake to show that time has passed.
And I still want Nightborne to have their mana addict models because they look better than just Horde Night Elves.
Ugh I am full of weird complaint beans today.
No, I get it. As someone who’s ecologically-minded it annoys me they just keep using these wastes of resources. Their military engineers should all be fired, even the gnomes have better flying machines!
Also just want to say that the general ‘air’ in game is feeling much, much better. Maybe its just post launch high, but things just feel…okay. As opposed to how it felt the last time I was playing during Shadowlands.
Random things I noticed and minor spoilers.
When you’re doing the bonze flight storyline and get sent to your leveling zone. Did not realize that the Draenei introduction was changed! Was this done after Legion?
It specifically calls out the Legion defeated and Velen seeing visions of a war between the Light and the Void.
That said, just did the quest on my undead and the starting zone is the same as it was in Cata. Would have been cool if it had been updated to bring up Lordaeron getting covered in ooze and Sylvannas getting yeeted into super hell.
Do any other race get their starting done introduction changed?
We’re actually having an expedition RP launch party at Quel’Danas on January 14th 
The Kalgor and Duroz quest crushed me. I was not expecting to return from questing elsewhere in the Waking Shores and find Duroz…
sniffle
I want to know what the heck is the deal with the wyvern and pterodactyl dragons. Are they related to the previously seen ones from Kalimdor and Zandalar? Are they intelligent or more bestial? It’s tripping me out, man!
People were trash talking the windborne velocidrake in general the other day. Why doesn’t anyone like the ugly turkey dragon??? I like em 
I want to unlock the feathers for them and make em look like a weird plucked turkey dragon.
Turgon? Dragkey?
I prefer Tragurky.
I like tragurky lmao
I also found the whelp daycare in valdrakken.
Going to update my TRP with this being Juspion’s current residence.
When Juspion isn’t on Vigilant adventures, he’s at daycare! Often found playing in the sand box, listening to story time with Kalithumos, painting pictures and taking naps. Is he a care taker or is he in daycare? It’s hard to say but the whelps love him.
I want to like it but I am disappointed at how small it is. It’s smaller than the pterosaurs mounts from BFA and the corrupted voidwing and it’s obvious they share the same animation skeleton. I hope they either make it bigger or give it more skins you can unlock that give you an option for a bigger looking one.
Yeah I’ve enjoyed every zone I’ve been in so far, there’s a sense of wonder and awe in this expac that I only felt the first time I stepped into Ardenweald - and that quickly wore off; Bastion was pretty too, but turned meh even quicker.
I want the Centaurs to be playable so badly I can feel it. Their culture and the zone gives me strong Au Ra vibes from FF14 - they were my favourite race in the game. You can tell the quest writers and the decorators for the areas had a lot of fun doing Ohanara.
https://memeguy.com/photos/images/newborn-centaurs-265195.jpg
Being in the Genghis Khan town, I noticed a lack of children (colts?) running around and immediately thought of this problem/joke.
I get a giggle out of Primalists crying about the “Titan’s corruption” as I run around with a Demon and destroy their souls with Fel magic.
So what’s the deal with professions? Are they all just reset now?
All pre-dragonflight profession levels stay basically the same, but dragonflight-tier profession have little skill trees to unlock different recipes and perks (e.g. Tailors go down a skill tree to unlock different gear slots, miners go down a skill tree to unlock mounted mining and other perks). Crafting professions also have 3 gear slots (hat hands and tool for engineers, others are different) which have stat boosts.
Those stats are profession specific and do things like increase your crafting speed, your chances of making a duplicate item, a stronger item, or your chances of not using reagents when crafting.
Its all pretty fun, let down only a little bit because behind all the complexity there still isn’t that much stuff you can craft. I’d love more profession-specific mog sets and stuff, for instance (my tailor just makes recolors of leveling cloths afaik), or at least for the profession gear itself to be moggable (why in the year of our lord 2022 is anything still non-moggable? rabble rabble where me moggable whites blizz)
On a super positive note as an engineer, I can add tinkers to items other than belts! It has finally been accepted that I will never remove my nitro boosts and I can instead put tinkers on helmets and stuff for the first time since, what, wrath?
I do wish the profession tools were able to be transmogged onto weapons.
I would 100% change a sword to the herbalism sickle. It looks nice and also does not look like it would eviscerate my dracthyr’s wings when sitting at his hip.
Agreed. I wish I could transmog the fishing hat personally. Why can’t I murder people in full Bass Pro Shop drip.
One criticism, now that I’ve played a fair bit: as great as it is to do away with “systems” and stuff, it isn’t enough on its own, and I’d like a bit more variety in end-game activities.
In some ways it kinda feels like Dragonflight is rewinding things back to Mists of Pandaria. No garrisons, no artifact systems, no weird complicated means of progression that gets reset each patch.
And the story has been made a bit more sane too–no alternate universe, no windrunner 4d chess, just some dragons dealing with dragon stuff.
I like all that a lot! It creates a good spot to build off of. But rewinding 10 years really drives home how few permanent additions have been made to the game since then. When we do away with the harmful systems of garrisons and mission tables and artifact power and so forth we are, again, at MoP: an expansion which was good, but a bit lacking in meaningful things to do at max level other than daily quests for casual players. And maybe it even tries a bit less than MoP, which did add a few evergreen types of content like pet battles and started with a larger questing experience.
I’m absolutely not saying that I want a nice artifact grind–I basically ignored those in BfA and Legion and just rode catchup mechanics, and Shadowlands was so systems-riddled that I barely played it at all.
But examples of fun things to do other than daily quests, for me:
player housing yes I’m sure you predicted this suggestion, it is still a feature we need and Dragonflight would have been perfect if it was the “jettison ‘systems’ and add housing” expansion
end-game questing area. Suramar was cool!
Scenarios with meaningful rewards. Warfronts were weird, but they were something I engaged with a lot–it was a way to gear as a non-mythic+/raider person, and the mog sets were really cool! Scenarios existed in MoP too but I never really did them because IIRC they just gave an upgrade currency. They also gave zone revamps to adventure in, and more zones would be welcome in Dragonflight, which feels a bit cramped with just 4.
Heritage Armors/Allied Races. Between warfronts and these features bfa actually had a lot for me to do in spite of its flaws. I don’t think these can really be evergreen features, because adding a race every patch is not sustainable, but, y’know… finish heritage armors! And there’s still room for a bizarro-worgen and undead-variant too, right?
harvest moon. I hear you can have a farm island or something in FFXIV. I want a farm island too
brawlers guild was fun
bards? like as a secondary profession or something? I’ve been using the Musician addon lately and its really fun to suddenly stumble upon someone playing music, and it was fun in FFXIV too. Give all those bard RPers some instruments other than a fairy harp and an official way to play their tunes!
leveling multiple classes on one character. Another idea stolen from FFXIV, and one that WoW probably cant technically support. If you’re like me you enjoy leveling, but your collection of alts has bloomed unsustainably since WoD and BfA and sometimes I wish I could just lay down my sword and pick up a gun if I feel like it
Leveling in general is weird too, because Shadowlands shortened it so much. 1-60 is maybe three days of playing for 3-4 hours… a lot of gaming, sure, but quite a speedy experience by MMO standards. Leveling alts used to be a big activity for casual players too, and it is sort of trivialized now. I have mixed feelings about that, because in a way it reduces my attachment to my alts when they feel like they could be replaced over a weekend if I felt like it. I leveled a Draenei Rogue in the prepatch and a human warlock (because I wanted a thematically appropriate character for exploring the enchanter profession) in the past week and I feel like I barely know these guys
I’m going to do the FFXIV comparison again and point out that their leveling is still an epic, months-long journey. They probably go too far in the other direction–I’ve never hit max in that game! I played for a few months and put maybe 120 hours into it, more than enough to hit max in WoW post Wrath, and I was only just getting into “first expansion territory”! But I think there’s a balance somewhere in between where the journey feels vast and meaningful without being a year long slog where you have to fight ifrit like 3 flippin times. For WoW I guess there’s no going back now, because once you’ve reduced leveling to a 8-12 hour experience you can’t really go back to it being a ~80 hour experience
Overall I’m positive about DF at any rate, just wish there was more. Which is a compliment, because it is designed in a way where I actually want to play it, unlike Shadowlands
That was a lot of musing so
TLDR dragonflight: good, but we still need player housing or some other non raid/mythic+ content and I dont remember my alts names anymore