After playing through the epilogue of the World of Warcraft: Dragonflight story, I can take stock of the whole storyline to see the central theme. Unsurprisingly, the epilogue nailed home what Dragonflight has felt like to me: an expansion about metaphorically and literally passing the torch. If you aren’t all caught up on the Dragonflight story, including the most recent epilogue and Gilneas story, skip the next section altogether because there will be spoilers.
Story Elements
For most of Dragonflight, one of the main story threads was who would pick up the reigns for the black dragonflight after having no Aspect or any real sense of overall unity for many years. Sabellian’s flight from the Outland was the closest the black dragonflight had come to having a unifying identity, but they were held separate from everyone else for a long time. It was quite a shock for Wrathion when Sabellian showed up at all. It was also a shock for me because I had quite forgotten Sabellian existed.
I recall many players feeling that when Ebonhorn was chosen as the new Aspect, it came out of nowhere because he hadn’t done much of anything. However, from the beginning, he seemed to be the obvious choice to me. Both Sabellian and Wrathion were shown repeatedly why they shouldn’t lead. From their childish squabbles to the fact they both seemed to care more about what being the Aspect would mean for themselves than anything else. It felt as if they both felt entitled to the position, which came off as arrogance, and that’s a hazardous quality in any leader.
Meanwhile, Ebonhorn was the only one to consider not just what but also who Neltharion left behind. He felt it essential to help Emberthal and all of the dracthyr, while Wrathion and Sabellian seemed to look down on the dracthyr. Since the dracthyr were created by Neltharion, they are just as much part of his legacy as the black dragons were, even if he never saw them as more than slaves to do his bidding. Ebonhorn recognized this and took accountability for his failings without letting them weigh him down or prevent him from trying to do better. He was there for the dracthyr in an authentic way, and it showed his strength of character better than anything else.
I also love how everything was handled with Merithra stepping fully into the role of the Dreamer. Ysera has been my favorite dragon for a long time; likewise, the greens are my favorite flight. That said, I was ready to see Merithra spread her wings and be the new Aspect, and she did that beautifully. It’s easy to think Ysera returned and did nothing, but it is a mistake to underestimate the role of mentoring someone and providing the needed encouragement and support to help them run independently.
Not to mention, expelling the first attack from the Emerald Dream, which led to Merithra formally taking on the role, was essential and only made possible by Ysera's return. Even so, the fact that Merithra wasn’t completely overshadowed by Ysera speaks volumes about how well this was executed.
Another moment a long time in the making is Shandris Feathermoon stepping up to lead her people. During both BfA and Shadowlands, one of my biggest frustrations with Tyrande was that she seemed to think more often about what would make her feel better than what her people actually needed. It often seemed to me that it was Shandris who held things together in her mother’s steed during this period. I totally get when Tyrande was so focused on vengeance; I felt a lot of that as well, but it wouldn’t have fixed anything if she had succeeded. Nonetheless, I didn’t expect Tyrande to pass leadership to Shandris, but I’m so happy she did. Hopefully, this goes WAY better than when Thrall passed leadership off to Garrosh.
Lastly, we have Genn passing leadership of the Gilneans to his daughter Tess. This one came completely out of left field for me; it never even occurred to me he’d step down. I’m curious how this will be utilized in the future, but having a spy be a faction leader feels relatively weird. Maybe it will also free Genn up to be more involved in the story rather than having duties to his people who finally have a home again. Though all of the various leaders seem to be highly involved in most expansion storylines, so maybe we’ll see less of him.
Gameplay Elements
Right from the outset, Dragonflight's tone was the complete opposite of Shadowlands', and many people remarked at launch that it felt like a return to World of Warcraft. This feeling of return was more about the atmosphere and sense of play than a real return regarding the literal mechanics of gameplay. It rekindled the excitement of exploration and focused a lot more on smaller moments with characters, which in turn helped make the Dragon Ilses feel more alive than many zones in previous expansions had.
Dragonriding was the first major update to mounts we’ve had since TBC when we experienced flight in WoW for the first time. It could have easily been a one-expansion feature if it hadn’t been an absolute hit with players, but now it’s available in all the zones we could previously fly in, and it’s moving on to The War Within. In addition, moving forward, we’ll be able to choose if we want to use dynamic flying (dragonriding) or static flight. How the dragonriding talents will be handled in the next expansion remains to be seen. Will there be a bit of an unlock process, albeit much shorter, than we have experienced in the past with the Pathfinder quests? Will there be an entirely new slate of dynamic flight talents we need to unlock in the new zones? They could go with this in many ways, so it’ll be interesting to see what they decide.
In Dragonflight, we also saw a massive update to the Mythic+ system in that every season saw a new slate of dungeons in the pool. Of course, our upcoming last season will see the return of all eight DF dungeons, but they haven’t all been available together before. For me, this is the single best change they could have made to the system. I have always enjoyed M+, but playing the same dungeons and farming the same loot season after season made each season after the first feel worse. Accomplishing this by bringing back old dungeons into the rotation has also been a blast in this expansion. Some worked better than others, and I am probably the only one, but I miss the jellyfish elevator in Throne of Tides. However, changing up the dungeon pool in each season was the single best change for the longevity of the game mode. There are other issues M+ needs to work on, but this change and moving it forward to future expansions are an enormous step in the right direction.
Upgrading gear was also a fantastic improvement over the old gearing systems, whether completely RNG or badge-based. Of course, RNG still plays a role since what I need has to drop in the first place, but I feel less burdened by bad RNG than in the past. There are exceptions of course, in DF it felt like every season, there were certain items which performed substantially better and were a bit harder to get, which always makes not geting them feel terrible. The two primary examples were the polearm off Rashok for my druid, and I never did get the legendary to drop for my evoker. Aside from these pains, being able to upgrade my gear and continuously earn the currency to do so has been a wonderful overall change.
Lastly, the monumental change of lowering the walls between the Alliance and Horde is the most significant change they could have made to WoW. As someone who never liked the faction divide, I was thrilled to see this change, even though I had never expected it. For the majority of my time in WoW, I have played Alliance, not because I wanted to, but because that’s what I needed to play to play with my friends. Which isn’t to say I don’t love my night elves; I do. But I would have always been a troll or tauren if I had my choice. Now I am, and although I understand why this is a terrible change for some, it has made me deeply happy.
Time Moves Forward
Dragonflight has revitalized World of Warcraft in a lot of ways I never expected, and has definitely renewed my love for it. I have spent so much time in game of this expansion just wandering around doing whatever and I had missed that so much. While some people miss feeling like they have to wait to do certain things to not fall behind in power, I have enjoyed having an extensive menu of options, and being able to pick whatever without fear of letting my raid team down if I don’t do specific things has been refreshing.
With the WoW dev team's stated goal of leaving behind features for only one expansion and really looking to try new things that will help improve World of Warcraft over the long term, we have definitely entered a new era. Of course, I am sure things will be tried that don’t move on for various reasons. It feels like the developers have been unleashed to try wildly new things in WoW, and I’m ready for it. I know everything won’t be the hit dragonriding was, but I also look forward to the things which will flop. It’s fun to try new things and see where they take you. Let’s go!
