World of Warcraft Dragonflight Preview: WoW Stretches its Wings

ign.com:

Since the announcement of Dragonflight, the ninth World of Warcraft expansion, Blizzard has been determinedly tight-lipped on the details of what's coming. Understandably so, given that now seems like a really critical time for Blizzard to impress.

Coming off the heels of Shadowlands, which garnered significant criticism for its endgame content and its story (looking at you, Sylvanas), Dragonflight has a lot to prove. It's an expansion that the community has asked about for years, featuring playable dragon characters in the Dracthyr Evoker hero class and a high-speed new mount system in dragon riding. It promises much-needed upgrades to the profession system, and customizable UI. And it's all coming out by the end of this year, per Blizzard.

Fortunately for those of us who have been wondering when the fog around the Dragon Isles might finally lift, Blizzard is preparing to launch its public alpha later this week, and I was able to get a brief, limited taste of what the dragons there have in store.

I spent a few hours in the colorful, scaly skin of a Dracthyr Evoker, the new race/class combo launching with Dragonflight. Were my time not limited, I probably could have spent hours fussing with the Dracthyr character creator before I ever got into Dragonflight, customizing every detail of both the draconic and human forms of my Evoker – from her multicolored hair right down to the scales on her feet. It's the most robust character creation Blizzard has made for a WoW race before, though at least some part of that is due to Dracthyr's unique draconic forms requiring a custom armor set they wear all the time rather than taking on the visual appearance of whatever armor they happen to have equipped. I can see that trade-off being