World of Warcraft's (WoW) next expansion may focus on Dragons this time around.
A recent Wowhead post revealed that the official World of Warcraft website' code leaked the name of the popular MMORPG's next expansion, which seems to be "Dragonflight."
Wowhead expects that players will get more information as well as confirmation from Blizzard when it officially announces the next expansion on April 19.
World of Warcraft's Next Expansion Details
According to Wowhead's article, the official WoW website's public source code shows strings for the next expansion's Base, Heroic, and Epic Expansion pre-purchases. The code also points players to a new URL which is currently inaccessible but is expected to launch when Activision Blizzard officially announces WoW's next expansion.
Interestingly, this particular leaking method was also how players learned that Bolver Fordragon would be among the main cast of WoW's latest expansion, Shadowlands, per a separate Wowhead post.
Although the information is unconfirmed, Wowhead mentioned that it does not look like an "out-of-season April Fools joke" or an incomplete one. The upcoming expansion could also have a mount, pet, and some additional items with spell effects related to dragons as Deluxe Expansion rewards.
The spell effects, such as 9fx_drakemaountemerald_buff_4219045, are allegedly related to dragons and maybe hinting at a Green or Emerald Dragon mount, Wowhead pointed.
Wowhead also added that one of the unknown encrypted models shares many animations with the Vulpera Male model, with its asset being a total of 8.9MB. The asset's size may mean that it will have a higher definition than other mounts or that it has more effects attached to it.
In comparison, the Ensorcelled Everwrym mount from the Shadowlands expansion is only 2.7MB large, which is 6.2MB smaller than the next expansion's mount.
One interesting point about the new mount is that the spell effects textures that are linked to it aren't encrypted, allowing Wowhead to look at them. It found out that these spell effects textures were "all looking very Green Dragon-esque," which is consistent with the mount's supposed green or emerald color.
The pet that comes with the expansion is also noted to be fairly large, with it measuring 5.5MB big itself.
According to PC Gamer, WoW's dragons have been in decline ever since Deathwing's defeat in the game's 2010 expansion, Cataclysm, which heavily featured dragons.
World of Warcraft Shadowlands Reception
WoW's latest expansion pack, Shadowlands, wasn't a big hit with its player base due to the expansion highlighted some of the big issues concerning the game's endgame grind, per a separate PC Gamer article. The issues also include the various systems and currencies players need to track to be effective when playing in a group.
As such, the expansion lost players' attention midway to the point that only 40 percent of Shadowlands players were able to fight and defeat the first and last boss of the expansion, per Game Rant.
The drop may also be the effect of other WoW players boycotting the expansion due to the real-world problems that involve Activision Blizzard, such as the lawsuit against the company for its alleged "pervasive 'frat boy' culture," per Al Jazeera.
Windows Central mentioned in its post that although WoW is currently in a sort of decent state, it is still difficult to recommend the game to new players. It also suggested that Blizzard needs an "entirely new approach with Cataclysm-style revamps" to improve new players' experience with the game.
"World of Warcraft is in decline, but some of the Patch 9.2 improvements offer a glimpse of a hopeful future," Windows Central said. "Given that the team is under new leadership and may also be acquired by Microsoft in the near future, freeing it from Activision Blizzard's destructive shareholder culture."
PC Gamer mentioned in its article that it hopes that WoW's upcoming expansion can address the game's issues and "leave the game in a healthier state."
