World of Warcraft: Dragonflightis removing yet another system fromShadowlandsas it paves the way for theWarcraftsaga’s next chapter: the alternative leveling method known as Threads of Fate. WhenShadowlandscame out, Blizzard had hoped that Threads of Fate would offer players a liberating sandbox to level throughout the Realm of Death, allowing their alts to immediately unlock their chosen Covenant and skip the introductoryShadowlandsquest campaign. Its implementation left a lot to be desired, and manyWorld of Warcraftplayers who picked the option ended up regretting it.
The chief issue with Threads of Fate for most players was the limited questing experience it offered. Though they had a head start in their Covenant campaign, allowing their alts to catch up with their mainWorld of Warcraftcharacter, the Threads of Fate experience in earlyShadowlandslargely devolved into queuing for dungeons while mindlessly jumping from zone to zone, world quest to world quest, without the convenience of flying mounts that the latter patches provided.
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It made little sense to keep this progression through theShadowlandszones, and unsurprisingly, Blizzard Entertainment will remove the feature with thelaunch ofDragonflighton November 28. Furthermore,Shadowlandswill be integrated into Chromie Time, allowing players to level through the zone should they so desire, but otherwise letting them skip theShadowlandsin favor of other expansion zones on their way toDragonflight.
Battle for Azerothzones aren’t being folded into Chromie Time, and for all intents and purposes, they are meant to be the baselineWorld of Warcraftexperience for new players. Despite theShadowlandszones being more recent, the tone and aesthetic ofShadowlandsis understandably alien compared to classicWarcraft. It makes a great deal of sense for Blizzard to standardize the leveling experience for new players in favor of guiding them through atraditionalWorld of Warcraftstory, away from the grandiose scale of a cosmic conflict fought within a spiritual plane.
World of Warcraft: Dragonflighthas simpler villains and a simpler story, and it may be argued that the tone ofBattle for Azerothsegues into it much more smoothly thanShadowlandsdoes, even if the timeline isn’t direct. An important thing to note is that the three-yeartime-skip forDragonflightlets the developers iron out any lingering threads in the story at a rapid pace, as well as set the plot accordingly for future expansions. Whether they utilize the benefits to their full potential remains to be seen, but there’s a lot to be hopeful about.
