Blizzard Kicks Off Phase One Of The World Of Warcraft: Dragonflight Alpha Test

July 15, 2022 Marc Marasigan Comments

Blizzard Entertainment has officially kicked off the first phase of alpha testing for World of Warcraft: Dragonflight which will focus on testing out the new features arriving with the expansion. These include the new Azure Span zone, the Drachtyr Evoker race/class combo, Dragonriding, Talent Tree revamps, and the new Alchemy and Blacksmithing professions.

The Azure Span is one of the new regions that players will get to explore when they step foot on the Dragon Isles later this year. According to Blizzard, it’s the largest zone they’ve ever created and is inspired by the Grizzly Hills in Wrath of the Lich King and the Bay Area’s towering redwood forests. The snowy forest tundra is inhabited by various races, including the Tuskarr, Furbolgs, and Blue Dragons. The Dragon Isles itself is the largest expansion continent that the team has ever made.

“This is the biggest expansion continent we’ve ever done, and that was designed with dragon riding in mind so you can traverse it a little more simply,” the developers told IGN. “It’s the land of dragons. They need space.”

The first alpha test also shines the spotlight on the Drachtyr, a new playable dragon race, and its exclusive Evoker. The Evoker functions much like the Shaman except that they pull their power from different dragon lineages rather than the elements. They also have the unique ability to charge up their abilities to up to three levels of power. This is done by holding down the appropriate key to fill up a meter and releasing it to trigger the ability, a mechanic that’s never been seen in the game.

Blizzard also talked about the upcoming Talent Tree revamp and how it’s designed to bring back cooperative play instead of focusing on dealing the most damage during a raid. According to Game Director Ion Hazzikostas, it feels like they’re juggling to different games. The first game is the one they’re making where players need to cooperate to take down a raid or dungeon boss, and the other, which most players tend to prioritize, is setting the highest DPS.

“We don’t create that game. But many people are playing it and many people are like, that is a primary motivation almost for them. And the question is, how sensitive should we be to that?” Hazzikostas told PCGamer.

“If we were making a game, and the point of the game was maximize your score, maximise this number, it would be problematic for us to introduce elements into the game that are very random or skew outcomes one way or another,” he added. “But that’s also not the game that we have made. We have created a cooperative game that presents these challenges to be overcome.”

The team also touched on the new Alchemy and Blacksmithing professions, crafting changes, and the new crafting stations that players will use in the Dragon Isles. The new stations will make up a big part of the player experience as they explore the new continent and are designed to “increase the immersion and fantasy of your chosen professions.”

As for concerns that Blizzard seems to be rushing Dragonflight’s release, Hazzikostas said that it’s right on time based on previous expansion releases. “We've seen concern in the community of like, oh, is it too soon? Is it going to be rushed? I understand looking solely at alpha and beta timelines, how that might seem to be the case,” said Hazzikostas. “But if you take a step back and ask: is two years after the last expansion too soon for the next one? Well, no, that's in line with a kind of historical precedent there.”

For reference, Blizzard has been releasing new expansions just over two years after the previous one. Legion came out in August 2016, Battle for Azeroth in August 2018, and Shadowlands in November 2020. The team is looking to roll out Dragonflight on or before December 31, 2022, which fits right into that timeline. Blizzard also recently acquired Spellbreak’s Proletariat and is using the additional manpower to help push Dragonflight towards the finish line.

“Dragonflight has been in development since before Shadowlands shipped and has had the full development cycle that any WoW expansion would have had in the past,” Hazzikostas added. “A difference this time around is that we kind of consciously decided to have a more focused public test period. Whereas in the past, I think we would start our alpha with the game in less of a state of readiness. […] We're gonna have a lot of excitement over the next month and a half as we roll out our zones, the rest of the talent, trees, dungeons and everything else. And then as soon as it's all there, we'll move on to beta.”