Dragonflight’s next patch takes us to World of Warcraft’s Emerald Dream

World of WarcraftDragon Isles has been a popular destination for players to explore. Dragonflight, and the next major content patch seems like it’s guaranteed to have them going blanky mode. Patch 10.2 takes the players to the Emerald Dream’s magical world. It includes new Dragonriding Courses, Glyphs, Mounts, and World Activities, including a whole new Zone.

Emerald Dream is part of World of Warcraft lore that has shown up occasionally during the course of players’ adventures. It’s a realm of renewal, intrinsically linked with the world of Azeroth. The Emerald Dream is guarded by druids and the Green Dragonflight, and it’s under siege. Fyrakk the Primal Incarnate of Fire has joined forces with the Druids of the Flame in order to steal the Amirdrassil power within the Dream.

The Emerald Dream is technically only accessible to a small portion of players. “The Dream is massive; it’s theoretically the size of Azeroth,” says Katherine Bankson, an assistant lead quest designer at Blizzard, in a call with Polygon. “It’s the most of the Dream we’ve ever seen at once in its pure state.” Previous expansions have sent players into corrupted, defiled parts of the Dream; 10.2 will depict the original vision of the Dream.

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The Superbloom is a large public event that includes quests and world bosses. “[Superbloom] is an evolution of the other group events we’ve been doing in this expansion,” says Bankson. “You’ll be following an Ancient around; his name is Sprucecrown, and he needs our help to cultivate the tree.” Players will be joined by baby Moonkin, and they’ll gain some temporary powers from the Dream to help Sprucecrown on his mission.

Like in previous updates, the Dream Wardens have their own track of renown and rewards. A faerie mount and the Dragonriding’s first non-dragon will be made available for players. They are a fire bird that appears on the mythic level of the Fyrakk fight.

Guardians of the Dream will also include new quests regarding the Titan servant Tyr, and a quest line where Wrathion and new ally Vyranoth venture to past zones to recruit more Dragonflights — specifically, the Netherwing of Outland and the Thorignir Storm Dragons from Stormheim.

It’s been a blast playing as the Primalists. Dragonflight“The old pantheon of villains and gallery of foes from the past” “The old pantheon of villains and gallery of foes from the Warcraft 3, days, we’ve exhausted those at this point. They’ve been defeated or something else has become of them. So it’s been a new challenge for the team to make new villains and ground them in player consciousness,” says Ion Hazzikostas, game director on World of Warcraft. “It’s been encouraging seeing the community’s feedback so far.”

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

Night elf supporters had hoped that the World Tree, which was to be planted in Kalimdor as a home for night elves, would have been placed there. In fact, it is located in the Dragon Isles. This landmass was uncovered back in Dragonflight. “This isn’t a replacement for Darnassus. Darnassus cannot be replaced. But this is a new place they can use as a base of operations, that they can use to begin to heal some of those wounds that they’ve had,” says Bankson.

Blizzard still hasn’t revealed who the final boss of DragonflightGuardians of the Dream will not be the last major patch, and players should expect more. Hope of Amirdrassil will be the raid that takes players up to Fyrakk’s World Tree. Blizzard has planted seeds hinting at future story possibilities, but the full picture won’t come into focus until Guardians of the Dream goes live.

Blizzard has just released Patch 10.1.7. This patch includes Heritage Armor Quests for Forsaken, Night Elves and the Forsaken. Blizzard has not yet revealed a specific release date, but Guardians of the Dream is expected to launch soon on the test realms.