Matthew Rossi
How was your Dragonflight launch-day experience?
The latest World of Warcraft expansion, the reasonably long-awaited Dragonflight, is now live.
Dragonriding is the only way to fly in Dragonflight: here’s how it differs from standard flying
A lot of things work differently in World of Warcraft Dragonflight: there's no borrowed power, no mission table, and no flying...
The Queue: The coming of Red Thursday
Okay, so I have been inundated with ads hyping Red Thursday all week up here in Ice Station Canada. Since I am an aspiring Canadian citizen, I felt like I should at least try and figure out what Red Thursday actually is, and so far I can report that I have absolutely no idea. Is it a marketing scam created by legendary Canadian retail chain Canadian Tire? Possibly! Is it a ghoulish play on when doctors finally decide to perform life saving surgeries in a capitalist hellscape? Also possibly!
Mythic dungeons, world event rewards, and some weekly quest rewards in Dragonflight won’t be enabled until after the first weekly reset
Several key expansion features of World of Warcraft's next expansion Dragonflight -- including Mythic dungeons and some weekly quest rewards -- will not be available until after the first weekly reset, in an attempt to save the player base from itself.
How long does it take you to know if you like a game?
Some games, I knew instantly they were going to be games I would play over and over again. World of Warcraft actually had me within minutes of my then-girlfriend showing it to me.
Titan Rune Dungeons will add a “Heroic Plus” difficulty to Wrath Classic dungeons — now live on the PTR
Wrath Classic is adding a new difficulty to dungeons in Phase 2 with Titan Rune Dungeons, which allow players to gear up with 10-man raid level loot from Phase 1 — helping to keep Wrath dungeons relevant throughout the game. Blizzard has talked about increasing dungeon difficulty and improving loot before, originally calling it "Heroic Plus," but now the feature is live on the PTR for testing.
What content do you most enjoy in an MMO?
I'll be up front -- I thought the Mission Table was the best innovation in Warlords of Draenor. Now, many years later, the news that it won't be in Dragonflight fills me with a kind of joy I wasn't aware I was capable of feeling -- a boisterous, almost terrifyingly primal exultation, like unto that you would expect to feel just before you started singing and a musical number just sort of happens.
The Queue: Holy Pirate Ghost I told Cory I’d cover his Queue today
I literally forgot until just this second, I’m awful. I’m the worst human who doesn’t own Twitter.
Anyway, I’m alive, and I’m writing the Queue as promised. Listening to ‘Switchback’ by Celldweller.
How should Blizzard handle Allied Race restrictions in Dragonflight?
The first Allied Races we got were unlockable by doing Legion content, and the others all required Battle for Azeroth unlocks, which means as of Dragonflight we're talking two or three expansions ago. World of Warcraft certainly seems to be trying to make leveling easier and more streamlined, but that also makes those older expansion unlocks for Allied Races more and more extraneous, in my opinion.
How have you been feeling about the Dragonflight pre-patch and all its events?
Honestly I've really enjoyed the Primal Storms so far, and I got one of my Warriors from level 50 to 57 in under two hours this week.



