Until last week, we never knew an exact date for the release of World of Warcraft’s newest expansion. All we knew was it would be released before the end of the calendar year. Now we know Dragonflight will go live on November 28, 2022.
This expansion is currently undergoing Beta testing after a pretty lengthy Alpha testing phase. The Professions system is getting overhauled (again) and the UI is also being upgraded for most cutsomization. Both Dragonriding and the Dracthyr Evoker–the expansion’s signature features–have so far not really generated as much excitement as Blizzard may have been hoping. The company was rocked by workplace scandals a few years ago and was recently purchased along with its parent company Activision by Microsoft. This is obviously not the same Blizzard from the early 2000s. In two decades, they’ve grown from a staff of around 300 to now a staff of over 10,000.
I am not like those who like to say online Blizzard sacrificed quality for profits. First of all, Blizzard was a company when it was founded 30 years ago. A company’s primary goal is to make money like it or not. That’s a company’s primary objective like it or not. That did not change when Activision bought the company about 15 years ago. It will not change because Microsoft just bought the company either. That aside, the biggest thing fans of “the old Blizzard” like the point out is not only are none of the Devs from 20 years ago still around now, they’ve left to form or join small studios. They point to veteran Blizzard staff leaving as “proof” the company is in decline despite profits saying otherwise. Last time I checked, people are free to come and go from a job they spent years in as they please.
My point with the last paragraph is this: If you don’t like WoW anymore, don’t play it and maybe find new hobbies. If you don’t like Blizzard anymore, don’t buy or play their games anymore. Whining online about the past or just wanting WoW to cater only to you is pointless. Those are the core problems with the vocal minority in the WoW Community. They only want their voices to be heard.
I point to former Blizzard Community Manager Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street (now with Riot, creator of League of Legends) as the textbook example. It’s easy to forget he got the job after years of whining online. He later admitted after leaving Blizzard it’s one thing when you’re on the outside looking in. It’s another when you’re on the inside and you see how things really work. This was back when Blizzard was still a “small” company. He also noted how interesting it was to have some friends and fans to turn on him because of his new jobs with Blizzard and now Riot. Times change as the saying goes.
As everyone knows, the leveling experience was overhauled with Shadowlands via Timewalking Campaigns. How it worked was you could choose the expansion area you wanted to level to 50 in. One thing I misunderstood until last week was the importance of talking to Chromie in Stormwind or Orgrimmar depending on where you were questing: Whichever area you pick will be the dungeons you can que to via Dungeon Finder. If you’re questing in Ashenvale for example, you’re going to want to pick The Cataclysm. Pick The Iron Horde if you’re on Draenor and so on.
Blizzard hasn’t gone into detail yet but they recently announced Timewalking Campaigns will be rescaled to extend to level 60. What this means is you could entirely skip going to the Shadowlands if you want to. I’ve noticed mostly folks leveling alts just elect to skip Kul Tiras/Zanadalar though I assume they’re all people who are leveling alts. You can certainly level to 50 right now without ever doing any BFA content. One interesting thing about Shadowlands for alts is you can choose how you want to level up. You can either do the storyline normally or elect to level via World Quests and you pick your Covenant at the beginning. If you pick the latter, there is no turning back though.
Since Legion, Flying is unlocked by playing through at least 70% of the game. This includes Loremaster, Explorer and getting exalted with most of the major factions. I found it interesting I was retroactively given Flying on Draenor and the Broken Isles despite having not gotten most of the necessary achievements. I do have most of the ones for BFA and am going to make a push to try to get rest of the next two months. I mostly have the Reputation ones to do and will make use of World Quests to try to speed things up. This is to say nothing of also working on unlocking Heritage Armor Transmogs for the Allied Races. They require leveling an allied race to 50 and I expect that to take quite a while. Should be fun though.
Anyways, I assume Shadowlands will be made the default “current” expansion in-game. Right now, BFA is set as the default “current” expansion: When you complete the Exile’s Reach starting experience (all core races including Pandaren), you will automatically be guided to Kul Tiras or Zandalar after you finish and this includes being forced to do the intro quest chains (escaping Tol Dagor as Alliance or breaking into the Stockades as Horde). Allied Races are not automatically guided there and have a bit more leeway. You can go to the Shadowlands starting at level 48 and the intro quest is automatically given to you until you accept it and go to the Shadowlands. I typically do the Shadowlands intro to Oribos (I did the Maw portion once to try it and have since skipped it on subsequent characters) and then pause after unlocking the portals to Stormwind/Orgrimmar since I’m focused elsewhere.
For those who might be wondering, Legion-era Normal Dungeons can be soloed at level 50. What this means is you can fully complete Class Order Hall campaigns at level 50. We will have to wait and see if Raidwide debuffs will be added to Legion and BFA raids though. Many players have noted Legion-era Raids have not been nerfed for solo runs yet–not even at level 60. What this means is you’ll need to bring help if you want to do Legion-era Raids.
If you’re looking to return to WoW after being away to level for Dragonflight, the Wisdom of Four Winds XP Buff will be active until the Dragonflight prepatch goes live in the near future. I am going to assume everything except Dracthyr and the Dragon Isles will be unlocked at that time.
In meantime, here’s a reminder of some leveling milestones to be mindful of:
- Level 10: Timewalking Campaigns Unlocked. Speak to Chromie in SW/Org to change the focus from BFA to other content. Dungeon Finder, Class Specializations and Land Mounts (2G) also unlocked.
- Level 15: Talents Unlocked.
- Level 20: Fast Land Mount Riding Unlocked (50G), level cap for Starter Edition accounts.
- Level 21: Mage Teleport Spells unlocked excluding Oribos.
- Level 24: Mage Portal Spells unlocked excluding Oribos.
- Level 30: Max level content for Eastern Kingdom, Kalimdor + Cataclysm + Outland + Northrend areas unlocked. Flying also unlocked (250G)
- Level 35: Max level content for Pandaria unlocked.
- Level 40: Max level content for Draenor including Shipyard + access to Tanaan Jungle Unlocked. Fast Flying also unlocked (5000G).
- Level 45: Max level content for Legion including access to Broken Isles quest and Argus unlocked.
- Level 48+: Access to the Shadowlands unlocked.
- Level 50: Max level content for Battle for Azeroth including Nazjatar, Mechagon and Black Empire content unlocked. Heritage Armor Quests and Allied Race Unlock Quests can also be done starting at level 50.
- Level 51: Mage Oribos Teleport Spell unlocked.
- Level 54: Mage Oribos Portal Spell unlocked.
- Level 60: Max level content for Shadowlands including Zereth Mortis unlocked.
That’s all the stuff I remember from memory.
If you’re playing around on a Starter Edition account, keep in mind all of the following restrictions are in place:
- Level 20 level cap
- Auction House Disabled
- In-Game Mail Disabled
- Unable to use Global chat channels
- Unable to Join or Create a Guild
…There ya go.
If you’re looking to get some Netherweave Bags from a starter account, temporarily learn Tailoring + Outland Tailoring and then farm the cloth you need. If you’re worried about overleveling while in a starter account, you can see an NPC in Stormwind or Orgrimmar who can disable your ability to gain XP. Speak to the NPC again to turn it back on. A good move to make when you’re just farming mats!
Wrath Classic is now live!
Of course, I will not be playing it myself due to Dungeon Finder being removed. The game is incomplete without it as far as I’m concerned.
I’m currently playing on one of my two WoW accounts using prepaid time set to expire next month before Dragonflight goes live. I’ve been playing WoW using prepaid time since June. I find it much more cost-efficient for me to play WoW using the 60 days’ prepaid time than being subbed. I had been planning to buy prepaid time before my current time runs out but now I’ve decided to wait until February or March to return to WoW. I want to allow a few months for things to stabilize after Dragonflight launches. By “stabilize” I mean most to have leveled a character or two to max level. If the first major patch’s release window overlaps with my return window, I’ll delay my return by a month.
I no longer play WoW progressively and this has been the case for me for almost 10 years. For me, I get the most out of the leveling experience. The story content is the main reason I play WoW. Two secondary reasons are Transmog hunting in legacy content and Achievements. I saw all of BFA’s story between June and September so it’s on to Shadowlands. I’ll be doing Shadowlands while Dragonflight is current so things should be much quieter there. I was able to do BFA’s story without having to compete with a lot of people which worked out great for me.
I avoid large servers because for the most part, I play WoW alone. I do have a guild I made on almost all the servers I play on but no one but me is in them. I gave up trying to recruit people 10 years ago is why. This has been true since I first came to WoW in 2007: People don’t play MMOs to make friends or interact with others–at least not anymore. People play MMOs to play the content. If you make friends or interact with others, great. Otherwise, you can play WoW and any other MMO without being social. That was what WoW taught me when I started playing back in the day.
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