WoW: Dragonflight Alpha Launch – Interview/Information Roundup

The Alpha for Dragonflight has officially begun!

Below is a roundup of new information, of course you can expect spoilers:

Alpha

The Alpha will focus on different parts of the game every week (Official Bluepost)
Week 1 will focus on the zone The Azure Span, the new race and class, Dragonriding, the new UI, Death Knight, Hunter, Druid, Priest and Rogue Talents, and the professions Alchemy and Blacksmithing. (Official Bluepost)
Week 2 will focus on the new zone The Forbidden Reach. (Official Bluepost)
Week 3 will focus on the new zones The Forbidden Reach and Waking Shores (Official Bluepost)
Week 4 will focus on the new zones The Forbidden Reach and Thaldraszus (Official Bluepost)
Week 5 will focus on the new zones The Forbidden Reach and Ohn’ahran Plain (Official Bluepost)
Week 6+ are expected to have all zones playable (Official Bluepost)
They’ve baked a lot of time into the Alpha/Beta schedule to iterate and process feedback (Wowhead)

Dragonflight Release

They feel comfortable about a 2022 release, they have all zones ready for testing on the Alpha (Wowhead)

World/Outdoor Gameplay

A preview was released of the first zone on the Alpha – The Azure Span
Each of the zones will have their own world content progression (4 Zereth Mortises). You don’t have to do them to gain player power. (MrGM)
Azure Span might be the largest zone in WoW History (MrGM)
They are looking at Timewalking for outdoor content (MrGM)
The maps for all 4 zones are already available (Wowhead)
Renown will be used for each zone as an enhancement of reputations (Towelliee)

Dungeons/Raids/Mythic+

Temple of the Jade Serpent and Court of Stars are likely candidates to be dungeons for M+ season 1 (MrGM)
Ion wouldn’t be surprised if Shado-Pan Monastery will be a M+ dungeon sometime during DF (Towelliee)
Legion M+ Timewalking will not exist in DF (MrGM)
With the rotation of new dungeons every M+ season, the seasonal affixes will be more simple (Towelliee)
BfA Timewalking is likely for DF (MrGM)
The first raid is called Vault of the Incarnates and will contain 8 bosses (Icy-veins)
They are looking at re-adding group loot to Raids only (Wowhead)
They are looking at a scaling buff over time through gear (like in Uldir) to soft nerf raids over time (Towelliee)
The 8 DF dungeons are: Brackenhide Hollow, Halls of Infusion, Neltharus, Ruby Life Pools, Taz’algeth Academy, The Azure Vault, The nokhud Offensive and Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr (Towelliee)

Professions

They are still figuring out if Work Orders will be server wide or region wide. Will likely start off server wide (MrGM)
You get a new bag slot specifically for a new profession materials bag. Kind of like the reagent bank but on your character’s inventory (Wowhead)
Most crafting professions will require crafting tables spread throughout the zones and in the main city to craft recipes (Official Blogpost)
Gathered reagents can stack up to 1000, up from 200 (Official Blogpost)
Consumables such as potions can stack up to 200, up from 20 (Official Blogpost)
Prospecting and milling are getting UI updates and will have recipes to unlock for each expansion (Official Blogpost)
To recraft items you will need the Artisan’s Mettle crafting reagent (Official Blogpost)
Tailors will be able to make 34 slot bags and 36 slot reagent bags for the new reagent bag slot (Wowhead)
When crafting the best gear (mythic level) it will mostly be Bind on Pickup (Towelliee)

Dracthyr Evoker

The talent trees have been datamined (Wowhead)
They will join the Monk, Rogue, Warrior tier token (Wowhead)
Dracthyr will show your shoulders and belt transmog. In your visage (human) form your entire transmog will be visible (Wowhead)
It is very unlikely that Evokers will ever have a tank spec, they have been designed as a caster/ranged class (Towelliee)

Dragon Riding

The progression system will be account wide (Wowhead)
Dragon Riding is best learned by seeing it, Taliesin & Evitel have a good video to explain the gameplay

Cross Faction/Region Play

Philosophically they are moving more towards an interconnected world where server doesn’t matter much (MrGM)
Cross Faction guilds will not be available at the launch of DF, but is likely to be a subject over the course of the expansion (MrGM)

Story/Lore

To confirm once again, DF will have a more grounded narrative compared to the last couple expansions (MrGM)
Hemet Nesingwary is on the Dragon Isles but is retired
Sindragosa will make an appearance

Achievements/Collections

New achievements are being added for 500 mounts, 500 toys, 1250 Pets, 1500 Pets, 1750 Pet and 2000 Pets (Wowhead)
Many new mounts have been datamined including a Fox Wyvern, Slugs and a new lava Mammoth (Wowhead)
Blizzard agrees that the reward for the 500 mounts achievement should not be a yeti (Bluepost)
MMO-Champion has datamined the first list of new achievements

Misc

They hope to continue the encryption of content present on the PTR so that players can be unspoiled when new content comes out (MrGM)
They are looking into raising the limit of 50 characters on an account to a higher amount (MrGM)
They hope to add the vast number of character customization to other races in the future as well (Wowhead)