I’ll never cease to be amazed by the improvements that World of Warcraft has made in a few short years, especially given my limited view of it circa 2020. I wouldn’t even say that this view was unfounded – quite the contrary. Shocking accusations workplace culture problems have hit one of the most disappointing expansion launch in the history of MMOs. Blizzard took the naughty step, and it pretty much did.
Stephen Messner laid it out perfectly in the article I just linked to, but to sum it up: Shadowlands had a 218-day content drought, an inconsistent story, meager rewards, and borrowed power—and by all measures, it was just a damn mess. . Back in 2020, you wouldn’t have been accused of believing WoW was going down the drain.
So the Flight of Dragons had a ton of flying and a lot of repair work to do on its scaly wings. I played it over and over again during expansion cycles and was pleasantly surprised to find that I was having a lot of fun. But it also felt (deliberately) experimental—and even a little unsure, like a newborn fawn rocking on its baby legs. This atmosphere was reflected in the release cycle: a whopping 637 days – give or take, considering early access and the like.
It’s shorter than Warlords of Draenor, an expansion considered one of Blizzard’s big mistakes. And yet it seemed much more constructive. Taking a cue from Guild Wars 2, Dragonriding has largely reinvented Blizzard’s approach to travel and zone design—and it’s a lot of fun to use, too. Borrowed energy systems, the basis of past expansions, have been completely abandoned.
To properly describe how Dragonflight changed the game: in one expansion, Blizzard launched a new, less stingy reputation system, gave us trading postupdated talent trees, improved the base game HUD (although, let’s face it, we still use expansions anyway), and much more. While somehow managing to go the route of providing an expansion with a solid chunk of content, while at the same time Also to breathe hope back into the remaining player base and not make them wait too long for more dragons to kill them.
What was more impressive, however, was that Blizzard challenged them. The company started use roadmaps in 2023 and, you know, actually fulfilled them. World of Warcraft hasn’t had a content drought or major glitches since it started doing this, and so far it has achieved most of its goals exactly when it said it would achieve them. More than 200 days of radio silence are a thing of the past.
And then there’s all the minor stuff that appeared in Dragonflight. World of Warcraft Classic and Season of Discovery, which morphed into experimental oddities like Hardcore, Plunderstorm, and Mists of Pandaria: Remix. Suddenly you have four different ways to play this thing, on top of the well-distributed update frequency of the main game. Blizzard is so confident in itself that it announced saga with three additions. Just… right out of the gate, aiming for a hat-trick. We are now approaching the first major patch of The War Within. Was this confidence deserved?
I mean, look, I’m not going to say there weren’t problems. If you play WoW yourself, you probably rolled your eyes at my enthusiastic words, so in the interests of fairness: Delves. new extension function, were extremely dirty. Most awards for events such as anniversary celebrations were broke on arrival and had to be fixed later. Was it stupid dinosaur for $90. Auction house broke down for about a week. And the heroes’ talents, one of the main features of the add-on, are either top notch themed food or demand excessive fiddling with WeakAura so that they generally deliver dopamine. I also heard that the Mythic+ raiders are unhappy with the condition of the tanks, and I express my condolences to them.
But I want to point out that these are common problems in MMORPGs. Of course, this is not something to be taken lightly, and I dutifully stick my tongue out and say “no no” to Blizzard every time they happen because they are one of the biggest gaming companies and can take any licking.
Compared to the lows of Shadowlands, where the earned expansion power systems were ill-conceived from the start, where the story had fans foaming at the mouth, where there was a mass exodus in Final Fantasy 14, where there hasn’t been a new patch in over 200 days? I mean, “the game is a little laggy sometimes” isn’t that bad in the grand scheme of things. Besides, World of Warcraft players will complain about anything—and I say that with love. This is tradition.
When you put everything into perspective, I have to take off my cynic hat and say, without a shadow of a doubt in my heart, that absolutely carry what has been done in 2022-2025 to get this thing back on track is truly impressive. And as Warbands continues to expand, player housing set for next expansionand, well, goblin racing car drifting— the future looks interesting, even if I fully expect to be writing articles about how said machines are punching holes in the game’s code, or making Anduin bald, or something like that. Dragonflight, a short and sweet expansion about dragons, brought WoW back to its feet. Now let’s see if Blizzard can keep up the pace of Worldsoul Saga.