What’s your reaction to the detailed look into some of the new play areas coming in Dragonflight, such as the Waking Shores, Ohn’ahran Plains, Thaldrazsus, and Azure Span?
They look fantastic, but the thing I appreciate the most might actually be the presence of an auction house in the main city hub. Thank you for that.
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I don’t mean to be insulting in this, I really don’t.
Why do all of the zones look like the art team regressed to the Wrath Era of graphics? It’s extremely noticeable in the trees and grass.
Shadowlands was gorgeous - I have plenty of issues with Shadowlands, but the zone graphics looks were not that. They are gorgeous.
But the only thing I thought during the deep dive of the zones was how ugly they were. Not the sights like the landscape or such, but the actual textures.
As for the storyline of the zones, none of it was really that interesting to me. Nothing that really drew me in. I’m sure my thoughts will change when I actually play, but so far nothing has grabbed my attention.
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Well they look beautiful! I think the art team did a good job at a glance, and I’m really looking forward to the finer, close-up details. I will very much be looking at how the environment tells a story- I’ve been on a kick with that since I just flew through Vol’dun the other day and spent over an hour tracing where waterways were.
And even though I turn music off after a month or two, I am still hoping the music makes me want to go back and listen.
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I’m pretty excited about these! They look just like what I really like about WoW, impressive natural vistas sprinkled with some ancient titan architecture. I’m also quite excited to see some old friends/enemies coming along, like the tuskarr and gnolls. I’m excited to see what it’s all going to look and feel like when they’re done.
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The zones look very interesting, and the dragon riding hints that they are -big-. I am very hopeful about this and think it looks just as wild and untouched as you want it too. I am mostly excited about walking through The Azure Span, I can’t wait to explore and get lost in the enviroment!
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The zones looked beautiful as always. I’m excited to see some old places represented in the new zones. They all seemed to be throwbacks to places we’ve already leveled through. I didn’t really follow the story for each of the zones, it was hard to keep track of what was going on but it sounded sort of interesting.
I like exploration themes a lot and I think it is part of what makes an RPG amazing and immersive. The WoW zones are normally beautiful, even the stark ones (with some SL exceptions - I HATE the Maw). The art team is one of the best things at Blizzard and the care that goes into crafting every tiny detail is noted.
- Size. From the descriptions these are going to be large zones. Which is great, but also frustrating when you need to travel somewhere. Flight whistle or day one flying is a must if they are doing something so large we spend a ton of time traveling instead of playing.
- Treasures to find including dragon hoards! I love finding treasures, esp if they spawn like the ones in ZM. Gives me a reason to keep hunting. Would be pretty awesome if each zone had different types, including rare crafting mats that we can use to post work orders. Those of us who don’t raid adore that sort of mechanic to get mats or currency that is high end.
- I trust that pacing and quests will be handled like most recent expansions which flowed pretty well. Not hard to find, and finishing one hub led to one or more new ones.
- Story looks far more appealing to me than the current expansion. Less focus on certain heroes, and more on everyday interactions with the Dragonflights. I find I don’t get as immersed when it is all about the main lore chars for some reason.
More thoughts once I see more about the zones I am sure.
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I don’t want people to think I’m being unfair, it’s a legitimate concern I have with the zones. Here’s some press images from Blizzard.
Now, compare those to Shadowlands press images.
Dragonflight looks like it was made 10 years ago in comparison. Shadowland zones are gorgeous, but Dragonflight is just… lackluster and to be blunt, rather ugly. They look like they pulled the textures from Wrath of the Lich King.
It’s possible they weren’t rendering the game on max settings in the screenshots, or they aren’t completely finished, but I can only go off what I see obviously.
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I thought the same thing Maizou. Specifically in the screenshot you’ve provided, I literally thought, “…that looks exactly like Azshara…” and then the team was talking about how much they love Grizzly Hills. Grizzly Hills always felt like the most “basic” zone of Wrath as it was basically a camp zone. Nice for what it was, but I always lacked the “wow factor” or “pizazz” for me. Just my thoughts off what I saw. I am excited to go soaring through the caverns and mountains though.
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I love the new zones so far. Very happy to see a new snowy zone.
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Art team killing it as always
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It’s really, really hard to get a feel for a zone from photos or even promo video. I have always been a big fan of WotLK and Pandaria zones and a lot of them are still some of my favorite places to level in the game.
I noticed right away that a lot of the zones reminded me of WotLK zones and I was really excited. The feel of the zones came through right away. It definitely has the look and feel of traditional WoW environments which is exactly what I was hoping for.
So far so good! It’s impossible to draw any real conclusions without walking, riding and flying around in it so I won’t try to lol. If the textures are lower resolution or less crisp etc or reused old textures I’m sure the art team will know for sure. If that’s the case those things really stand out when actually playing in the zone and it’s worth the time to make sure it’s all the best it can possibly be. Whether conscious or subconscious those things get noticed and effect the immersiveness in a very big way.
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As others have said, WotLK zones also came to mind when I saw the pictures. I personally don’t think these zones need be insanely well detailed if they’re meant to be explored with a fast dragon, but I’m hoping they’re large.
I don’t believe every new zone has to be super unique and creative, in the same way Zereth Mortis was presented to us; good old-fashioned forests and plains can work just fine. In the preview video, it was mentioned quite often that zones seemed to have a lot of life in them. Dragons flying around, doing dragon things, and centaurs hunting them, etc. can make zones quite fantastic with these sort of NPC interactions happening. We’ve come a long way, looking back at vanilla, with just NPCs moving and standing in random directions, not doing anything specific.
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I liked the zones they looked very nice and beautiful to me but to be honest not overwhelming like shadowlands.
Biggest problems i had with most of the buildings, they looked a bit boring. I would love them to be more mystical or more dragon specific.
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