4/10. Dragonflight has some good side quests, dragon riding, and the new talent system, but the storytelling and lore is complete trash. Dragon aspects are over-moisturized Disney characters who keep talking about their feelings instead doing things. Alextrazsa keeps getting her a-- kicked and Chromie is ridiculous. And they keep going back to Shadowlands by bringing Ysera back.
There is no sense of epicness and danger. Fyrakk is a Mary Sue villain. Overall, I’m bored with nothing to do.
Best expansions were Legion and Wrath.
The worst expac was Shadowlands. Warlords is a close second, then Dragonflight and BfA.
MoP and Cata were just average at most. Vanilla may be higher on the list because of nostalgia, but it had a variety of problems of its own.
STORY: Story is Lackluster in Many Ways and fell apart toward the end, if this is indeed the end. This gets no points!
GAMEPLAY: Talent System is a Plus, Dragonriding is amazing, New Armor System is pretty good too. This gets one point!
MULTIPLAYER ASPECTS: Dungeons… There was something boring about them this expansion. SL had entertaining dungeons even. Either too long, too short. But, I guess they deserve a half point for effort, and introducing new timewalking dungeons into the Mythic Plus Pool. Raids weren’t all that impressive either. We’re seeing the same things again just with new paint. One thing I can give a plus on is open world content. While it means you have to be on the ball, cuz once a new patch drops there’ll be no one to help you. If you’re on it with everyone else, you’re in for a fun time. This Gets a Half Point
MUSIC: Music was meh, I don’t like to give credit to it, but SL had a memorable soundtrack, I don’t even remember the DF Menu Theme and I played the game last on friday! Closer to personal preference, the whole whimsical orchestration of the dragonriding and what not is the worst bit. But I have a hatred for that generic kind of music which sounds the same each and every time. I guess though, that means one bit of this is memorable. This Gets a Quarter Point
QUANTITY/QUALITY: This was a good expansion for Quantity. While this was one of the shortest expansions. We managed to get something new, no matter how small a lot faster than usual. Nevertheless, I would’ve traded this quantity for quality major patches with good story, better raids, more dungeons with better variety, and more intriguing open world content. This get’s a half point.
POINTS IN TOTAL: 2.25/5.0
Woah! That’s… Well… Lower than what I expected… Yeesh! And I just made this! Couldn’t even get half, fell a quarter short!
OH SOMETHING I FORGOT!
ZONES: While this Expansion Boasts some massive zones, we enter Category 5 again, as it seems quantity is over quality. Azure Span is proof. As it is simply a massive Grizzly Hill revamp. Each zone is sprawling but there isn’t much going on. Zaralek Cavern is incredibly small, and feels like something we’ve already gotten before, just even smaller, The Emerald Dream is a letdown for an Old Lore Lad, Plain and Simple, and the Reach was a joke. The One Zone I would give a plus to would have to be the Ohn’aran plains, but that does not save this category. No Points.
Well… that just made things worse…
FINAL SCORE: 2.25/6.0| Mediocre
0=HORRIBLE
1=BAD
2=MEDIOCRE
3=PASSABLE
4=GOOD
5=BEAUTIFUL
6=MASTERPIECE
I’ve been enjoying it.
Slower paced, no grinding for power that’ll be totally gone next expansion, dragonriding, upgradeable gear.
And currently, VDH is a real joy to play.
You’re right that we’re playing different versions of the game for sure because even to the casual player almost all of that offers nothing at all. Primal Storms offer nothing unless you’re hunting for a 0.1% lariat recipe drop and even then you can only kill the rares once per day, Hunts were dead by week 3 of the expansion release unless you degen farmed Centaur rep for crafting, Time Rifts sure I guess it has unique rewards that you can get once a week, Fyrakk Onslaughts offer nothing; tbh I don’t think I’ve ever even seen anybody doing these unless they were farming their stuff for the Evoker legendary last patch, Dreamsurges are dead content unless you want old tier for fresh alts, Researchers was also also dead content outside of Tuesday reset past the 3rd week and the caverns lost any reason to go there after limiting rares to once per day, Superbloom you literally afk for 30 minutes once per week…
Forbidden Reach, Zaralek Caverns, and the Emerald Dream only have about an hour of story content, maybe two to three if you’re slow.
I’m not really sure what the point in doing world quests are either unless you’re doing the ones in ED still because Paragon reputation boxes this expansion offer basically nothing at all.
Gathering is dead because of bots and the addition of the region wide auction house, and professions take literal months to catch up so I guess there’s that?
Again, I still have no idea what the casual player does in this expansion unless it’s pet battling, rping, or just running old raids for transmog.
But the gear is pointless? Outside of Emerald Dream there’s pretty much zero reason to even do the old stuff save time rifts and dreamsurges once per week if you want to get the tier sets from Aberrus. I play alts all the time I just… play the game.
Like you can legitimately get a character to around 450 ilvl from fresh 70 in just a few hours. You just do the Superbloom / Plant 5 seed / 1500 rep weeklies in ED, kill the world boss and maybe get loot, go do the weekly time rift / dreamsurge quests, buy two pieces of gear, make your two embellishments with sparks, use your whelp crests to fill in the rest of the pieces with random 447 crafted gear and you don’t even have to step into any instanced or group content. You don’t even have to group for the world boss you can just walk up with a group already there killing it lol. I’m not even trying to flame because I’m honestly just curious at this point.
Also FWIW, Area 52 is quite literally the highest population server in the entire game.
Ah, Dragonflight, the latest chapter in our grand Azerothian saga! Verily, thou art basking in its fiery breath, yet wary to pass full judgment till the tale is complete. A wise stance, akin to tasting but a single grape and pondering the wine it might yield.
Giving it a 9 out of 10, thou sayest? Generous indeed, as bountiful as a dragon hoarding its treasure! Methinks thou art like a noble knight who, upon encountering a dragon, saith, “Well, thou mightest have singed my armor and charred my boots, but what splendid flames thou cast! Full marks for style!”
Yet, hold fast to thy reins, for the true test cometh at the journey’s end. Will it soar high as the dragons themselves, or tumble like a clumsy gryphon in its first flight? Only time, that most fickle and unyielding of dungeon masters, shall reveal the final score of this grand adventure! For now, let us ride the winds of Dragonflight, hoping our scales do not get too scorched in the process!
I’ve enjoyed certain aspects of it, they’ve done some really cool things in the open world that make it a lot more engaging to play, but I still don’t really care for the narrative or the setting
Where and when did I get (how many?) sparks and how long did that take?
When did I get all the mats and gold for the 13 extra pieces of crafted gear, and how long did that take?
Why would I want to superspeed my way through maxing out my gear, especially if it really only took “a few” hours?
(My definition of “few” is 3.)
I like taking my time. I like reading quest text. I like not rushing. I like playing alts. I don’t do caffeine. I also like not playing WoW like a second job. I play WoW to decompress from RL. I do play several hours every day, unless RL leaves me with fewer free hours.
For me:
-the new talent system is interesting and fun to play around with
-dragon riding has been a fun alternative to regular flying
-I like the addition of rated arena, but it became annoying with long queue times
-storyline/npc characters not interesting at all. Very underwhelming
-I appreciate the elaboration of professions but I never participated in work orders
-mythic dungeons ok, but too many past expansion choices in the pool.
-I don’t raid, so no comment other than that the reason I dont raid is that the raid environments have been made from simple cookie cutter assets for the last few expansions, so I don’t bother checking them out anymore.
I would say that yeah, 3 hours is pretty accurate, maybe 4 if you miss the superbloom which by the way you don’t even have to do you can just show up at the end and get credit for the quest. Collecting 100 of the dreamsurge currency takes 10 minutes of flying around, time rift takes 15 minutes, you quite literally get sparks just from playing the game and existing (can craft your third 463 base this reset 12/5), the whelp crafts use the blue pieces of gear as a base which cost basically nothing at all to craft, embellishment mats are not even expensive at all outside of like two items and because you’re doing 463 base crafts assuming you put a missive it’s basically impossible to not get a 463 5* from a public order because there’s no added skill for base crafts and the missive means they can’t just craft it with 0 points.
And for the other question, why not? Why waste time farming 8 month old content when the intentions of the new zone is literally to give you catch up gear to play the game. Farming 389 primalist gear and 402 / 415 surge gear before moving on makes literally no sense at all. Also are you really rereading every single quest on every alt that you play?
If I was playing a monthly subscription MMO like the way you’re describing the only thought I’d have in my head is why am I playing this game in the first place. I mean look, you’re allowed to do what you want it’s not like I pay for your sub. It just blows my mind is all.
What blows my mind is you answered questions I didn’t ask, while mostly ignoring questions I did.
I know how all of the world events work. I never post here on my main, if that’s what confused you.
I farmed (past tense) Primalist gear to get more mogs in the Catalyst.
New Time Rift gear is 428 now, and Dreamsurge gear is 415/428, as of 10.2.
I just know your sense of time isn’t reflected in reality.
I don’t craft, I gather. (I’ve not seriously crafted since Wrath, except for making an Engineer to make the Bad Robot pet.) But even if I did, in order to craft the 13 extra 447 pieces I didn’t buy with my Time Rift and Dreamsurge weekly currency, for a Hunter I’d need to not only have both Jewelcrafting and Leatherworking, but all the recipes for those items and the gold to buy the mats assuming nothing requires any BOP items.
Your 3-4 hour past dinging 70 to 15 pieces of 447 gear is a fantasy.
And how is not participating in a Superbloom event supposed to be fun? I like them. Researchers and Time Rifts are more fun, but sitting on the sidelines is boring and sleep-inducing.
I’m not you, and don’t want to be you. I enjoy the way I play, and don’t play any other games, which is why I have an annual sub, and am having exponentially more fun in Dragonflight than you are.
But you do you, and keep up the condescending belief that I’m playing the game wrong and you need to elitesplain to me how to play it your way.
Man I’m no fan of DF, but the Legion love baffles me. It was so frustrating having to grind out two weapons and I thought the story was atrocious. My whole guild quit after the Suramar raid.
Dragonflight is genuinely the first good expansion since Mists of Pandaria.
WoD was a neat expansion cut halfway short, resulting in an unfinished product.
Legion had great content but was marred by borrowed power systems, RNG Legendary power drops and hit-or-miss class reworks.
BfA was Legion 2.0. It still had mediocre class design and borrowed power grinds that stifled the fun of the game. Cool content, though.
Shadowlands.
DF is a really solid experience. It has flaws, but the core gameplay experience is intact. This is the best class design has been since WoD, and we’re finally free of borrowed power systems. Gear progression feels satisfying. Dragonriding is an excellent addition. Good expansion.
Started playing a couple weeks ago and having fun with the new raid and campaigns. I think retail is on a good path but we will see what The War Within brings.
