Blizzard Entertainment has announced World of Warcraft’s ninth expansion: Dragonflight. Below is information about the new expansion via their press kit:
The Dragon Aspects Return Home to Reestablish their Kingdom
- The Dragon Isles, the origin place of dragonkind, have come to life in a surge of elemental energy after the great sundering 10,000 years ago. The sky above the isles has illuminated with the colors of the dragon aspects once more, who’ve come to reclaim their rightful home.
- Standing in their way are old threats and fierce proto dragons, including the isle’s elemental half-giant inhabitants known as the Djaradin—enemies and hunters of Dragons who wield the power of magma. Among the rich histories and legacies to explore, even the once destructive black dragonflight has made its way to the Dragon Isles. Wrathion, who had long sought the location of the Dragon Isles, will need to help his fellow black dragons come to terms with their volatile past in the wake of his father Deathwing’s cataclysmic actions, which will be no easy task.
Iconic New Locations
- Here, the Reliquary and Explorers League representing the scientists and settlers of the Horde and Alliance respectively, are working together to research and unearth the ancestral history of the Dragon Isles across four new zones.
- The first players will experience, the Waking Shores, is a wild and untamed land bustling with activity. Here the red Dragonflight are clashing with the Djaradin in a territorial tug-of-war.
- The Ohn’ahran Plains are next, a wide-open plain occupied by centaur and fiery proto dragons. The local centaur clan have long feuded with the green dragonflight, who’ve since nestled in the nearby groves.
- The snow-covered Azure Span follows, a massive zone with lots of verticality where the fan favorite Tuskar are fighting alongside Kalecgos and the blue dragonflight.
- Finally, there’s Thaldraszus, the seat of power for all five dragonflights, where players will find the new capital city of Valdrakken (complete with its own auction house!), as well as the technical marvel of Tyrhold—an ancient facility maintained by the titans in the kindgom’s dormancy.
Dragonriding & the Dracthyr Evoker: A New Playable Allied Race Class Combo
- Neltharion, later known as Deathwing, created the ideal solider in the Dracthyr—a race with both a humanoid and draconic form that brandish the power of all five dragonflights.
- The mail wearing Dracthyr race, who can pledge themselves to the Horde or Alliance, are solely dedicated as an Evoker class, with specializations that mix magics of the dragonflights. Their ranged damage dealer specialization, Devastation, draws on explosive red and focused blue magic, while their healer specialization, Perseveration, utilizes rejuvenating green and time-twisting bronze magic.
- A new spell type exclusive for the Dracthyr, Empower, enables them to charge other spells for a greater effect. Empower can be paired with a strafing Deep Breath flight attack, which spews fire in a direct line beneath the Dracthyr. They can also knock foes back a short distance with a leafy Wing Buffet spell.
- Dragonriding, an all-new method of aerial movement, allows players to take to the skies of the Dragon Isles atop a Dragon Isles Drake, which they will befriend in each of the four new zones during the leveling experience. Customization options for the drakes open up as players progress, collecting more appearance options and unlocking new abilities that will enable them to fly farther, longer and faster.
HUD UI, Talent, and Profession Improvements
- A fresh approach has been taken to modernize the default Heads-Up Display (HUD) User Interface (UI), adding new functionality, removing clutter, refreshing art, and improving accessibility. The results are a larger gameplay area, map, and health bars along with a more compact spell bar and bottom menu. The new HUD UI is also modular, allowing for elements to be moved and placed where preferred.
- HUD layouts can now be saved, and will remember what specialization players use, updating accordingly.
- Talents have been revamped as well, with a return to a tree system, featuring one tree for class talents and another for specialization talents. The new talent trees allow for a deeper customization and combinations not previously available, and loadouts can be saved and swapped for any occasion.
- Professions have seen big updates as well, with the addition of the crafting orders system, which allows players to have specific items crafted for them despite not being the right profession or level to do it themselves. Crafting orders can be filled by other players in the same realm or guild, or by an NPC. This allows for players to get their hands on Soulbound items from a different profession they may not specialize in.
- A quality rating has been introduced to crafting, where higher quality crafted items will have more beneficial stats or effects. Crafting specializations also make their return in a new way to allow for more paths within a profession, where, for instance, a Blacksmith might specialize in Armorsmithing specifically.
- Lastly, what are professional crafters or gatherers without their tools of the trade. Dragonflight will allow players to place their profession tools into a special UI removing the need to keep such items in their bags along with new gear that players can earn to enhance their yields within their profession.
No word on when the expansion is set to launch but Alpha is “coming soon.”
The expansion also unveiled key artwork depicting Wrathion in his dragon form along with Alexstrasza in her human form:
In addition, as with most expansions, Blizzard unveiled their intro cinematic which you can check out below:
Source: MMO-Champion
