It's no secret that World of Warcraft players weren't exactly thrilled with Shadowlands, a maximalist expansion packed with so many systems that you practically needed a personal assistant t
It’s no secret that World of Warcraft players weren’t exactly thrilled with Shadowlands, a maximalist expansion packed with so many systems that you practically needed a personal assistant to keep track of them all. So it’s refreshing in many ways that Dragonflight has gone all-in on a back-to-basics approach, carving away at all the excess and trying to figure out what actually made WoW fun to begin with. It’s not easily comparable to any previous expansion so much as it is to the vanilla experience in 2004, when this was a leaner and meaner game.
Dragonflight (opens in new tab) has been something of a course correction, then, tweaking the formula in a variety of ways by reducing the bullshit and fixing some of Shadowlands’ missteps. Sure, dragonriding is definitely the headline attraction, but it’s not the only thing Blizzard’s done right. No more chore lists
(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)
Shadowlands was, to put it bluntly, absurdly bloated, filling your to-do list with busywork. In addition to daily quests, you also had your Covenant sanctum that needed to be filled up with anima, lost souls to rescue from the Maw before you got kicked out by the Jailer’s Eye of Sauron knock-off, Covenant-specific stuff like hatching new fairies or going to vampire dinner parties, and Soul Ash to farm for your legendaries. It could take a dozen hours a week just to keep up with all the progression requirements, before you ever set foot in a dungeon or a raid.
Dragonflight has crafting and daily quests and… that’s about it. They’re not even really «daily» since most of them reset only once or twice a week, so you can go away for a few days and not miss out on anything. And you can skip crafting if you’re rich enough. The mission table, which has haunted us since Legion, has also finally been slain. It was basically a way to tie-in to the mobile app and keep you thinking about WoW when you weren’t playing, and Light knows I won’t miss it. It can almost feel like there’s not enough to do when you log in at max level now.
