Asmongold of Twitch discusses why he believes the Dragonflight expansion for World of Warcraft is less anticipated than previous expansions.
Blizzard has officially announced Dragonflight as the next expansion for World of Warcraft, and the response from the MMO community has been mixed. While the Dragonflight announcement event went well, World of Warcraft players still have questions about storytelling and design from previous expansions. Asmongold, a Twitch streamer, recently expressed these concerns, explaining why he believes Dragonflight is struggling to gain traction in a way that previous World of Warcraft expansions haven’t.
During a recent stream, Asmongold became interested in the YouTube views for World of Warcraft’s previous three expansion announcement trailers. After seven days, the cinematic trailer for Battle for Azeroth had 6.5 million views, Shadowlands had 4.7 million, and now Dragonflight is just shy of 2 million. The implication is that Dragonflight’s announcement will be met with far less fanfare than World of Warcraft’s previous two heavily panned expansions.
The “truth” is that World of Warcraft players are “tired of being fooled,” according to Asmongold.
Players feel duped twice, he says, with Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands promising meaningful changes and improvements but delivering the same frustrating experience that World of Warcraft players are used to. As a result, those World of Warcraft players are waiting to see what happens with Dragonflight.
Dragonflight, in Asmongold’s opinion, is an expansion that will have to earn back World of Warcraft’s audience, and he believes that this will take a year. Asmongold believes that Dragonflight will not be the immediate success that previous expansions have been, and that convincing World of Warcraft players to return will take time.
Asmongold compares Dragonflight to the Legion expansion in this regard, claiming that it took time to entice players back after their disappointment with Warlords of Draenor.
Asmongold refers to this as a “best-case scenario” for Dragonflight. It’s just one possibility, and it’s something Asmongold believes Blizzard should be attempting. The unspoken worst-case scenario is that Blizzard fails to reclaim World of Warcraft’s audience, and Dragonflight continues the MMO’s downward trend.
Following the expansion’s announcement event, Asmongold stated that he is excited for Dragonflight, but that he will wait and see before making any firm statements. To be fair, prior to the announcement of Dragonflight, Asmongold had stated that he was “done” with World of Warcraft, so his current attitude toward the MMO is a significant improvement. Blizzard, on the other hand, has its work cut out for it.
