Blizzard announced that its popular MMORPG World of Warcraft will be getting a whole new expansion: Dragonflight. The upcoming expansion will take players into the Dragon Isles with deeper lore, a new Evoker class and Dracthyr race, and areas to explore.
Dragonflight looks to be one of the biggest expansions that the MMORPG has received in a long time. While fans of the game are excited for some changes to come, a number of avid MMO players have claimed that the upcoming expansion "stole" a key crafting feature from World of Warcraft competitor Final Fantasy 14.
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight Expands Crafting
"Professions" were introduced with the original World of Warcraft in 2004. Players could pick two primary professions to match their WoW class, potentially a mix between the Gathering, Production, and Service categories; "Production" being the official name for crafting and eight professions. Those who chose at least one Production profession could craft items, mostly for themselves, although anything not soulbound can be sold in the Auction House.
For the most part, crafting in World of Warcraft was just another way to pass the time. There wasn't much incentive for players to pursue a profession aside from making some extra gold, but even then there were better ways to earn in-game currency. Since its introduction, there haven't been many updates to the gameplay system aside from the addition of new professions and crafting legendary armor.
Meanwhile, Final Fantasy 14's crafting is a completely different ballgame. Officially called "Disciples of the Hand," players have eight crafting classes at their disposal. Final Fantasy 14 allows players to specialize in all Disciples if they want to, a complete departure from World of Warcraft's limit of two. Crafting also places an emphasis on Quality, which has been a staple of the mechanic from the get-go, and players can craft items for others as a part of leveling up.
Compared to the crafting system in World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy 14's approach may feel overwhelming at first. Although separate, each of the crafting classes in Final Fantasy 14 does need another at a certain level, encouraging players to level up each Disciple. Fortunately, this MMORPG wants players to care about their crafting tasks, making them feel like mini-games rather than idle tasks.
Among the biggest features coming to Dragonflight is that the crafting mechanic in World of Warcraft will be massively revamped for the first time since launch. However, some new additions may be familiar to fans of Final Fantasy 14. Firstly, the introduction of "Crafting Orders" will add a multiplayer aspect. Players who would like something crafted that they aren't able to create will be able to put out a Crafting Order, either within their Guild or to the public. Compensation can be offered, and those players can even help by gathering the materials needed beforehand.
The other thing that sounds reminiscent of Final Fantasy 14 is the addition of quality to items. When an item is of a higher quality, its stats will also be a lot better compared to those of a lower quality. The quality aspect that is going to be added to crafting in World of Warcraft will mitigate the feeling that stats are somewhat randomized. MMORPGs, especially those based in fantasy settings, are bound to have similar features to one another. But whether they can implement those features well is a whole different issue, and one fans will have to wait to see in the case of crafting in Dragonflight, whether World of Warcraft developers learned from the mistakes of Shadowlands.
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is currently in development for PC.