World of Warcraft is going green in Patch 10.2, Guardians of the Dream. The second major content patch and third raid season of Dragonflight, 10.2 finally brings players to the Emerald Dream - a verdant realm glimpsed in scenarios from the game's history. The patch's campaign will revolve around the defense of Amirdrassil, the new World Tree and setting for the next raid, as the Primal Incarnate Fyrakk tries to twist it to his own destructive schemes. World of Warcraft players can look forward to new events, quests, rewards and both in and out of the bountiful realm.

Game ZXC talked with World of Warcraft lead quest designer Josh Augustine and senior game designer Allison Steele about Guardians of the Dream. The huge update may be introducing a new zone full of fantastical sights, but players will have plenty of things to look forward to outside the Emerald Dream as well. The developers gave a preview of some of these stories, activities, and rewards coming in World of Warcraft Patch 10.2, as well as the insights behind their creation. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

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Q: Players have visited the Emerald Dream before, but have never had a whole zone located there. How does it feel being able to finally create that experience for players after almost two decades of buildup?

Augustine: It’s awesome, right? This has been something the team has wanted to do for a long time, so it’s really great. One of the things that’s cool about it is this focus on the World Tree that’s growing there. The Emerald Dream is so big, I remember the rumors way back in the day was like, “the next expansion would always be the Emerald Dream!” So I love that we’re focusing on a slice of it. This isn’t the entire Emerald Dream. The zone is about the size of the Ohn’ahran Plains, and it’s really focused on Amirdrassil, growing this tree, what that means. We have Tyrande coming back, obviously a Night Elf and has feelings about a new World Tree. A lot of our public events in the zone are centered around helping this World Tree grow and bloom.

One little fun fact, it’s such a fun space to play around in. One of our designers came up with the idea of “What happens when you /sleep in this zone?” It’s in the Dream, so what does that mean? They came up with this fun little mechanic where your character falls asleep, and then a Dream version of yourself rises up, so you’re like a shade greener and you can run around and explore a little bit while you see your character sleeping on the ground with the little Zs and stuff. It’s just fun little twists that are so fun for our team to explore when you’re coming up with a new concept like this.

Steele: To add on to that, we knew that we were going to the Emerald Dream in this content patch a while ago, so if you remember back in Dragonflight launch, there was a Green Dragon storyline; they got access to via the Maruuk Renown, and you briefly went through the Dream in that. So, one of the things we did is we seeded a mechanical throughline. When you were going through that questline, you were finding these little fragments of Dream and you were collecting them and turning them into little treasure boxes you could get some items out of.

They weren’t a big deal back then, there was a quest item you could get, but it was like, here are some apples or something. But it was a way to indicate there was all these Dream bits around. We’re bringing that back so you’ve got this mechanical throughline. We went to the Dream, and there were these Dreams you could put back together, and now that we're going there for real, players will be once again doing the same thing. It’s not a huge thing, like the /sleep thing Josh brought up, but it’s a fun way to get some zone drops and gray items you’re probably going to vendor anyway, but it’s a way to reinforce the zone, and remind players we’ve been here before a little bit.

Q: Can you tell us a bit about the different biomes and sights players can look forward to in the Emerald Dream zone?

Augustine: Absolutely! It’s really cool; there are a lot of different pieces you get to explore, and different groups. We have the defenders of the dream, where their areas are more in the lush, vibrant places. They have their center of the capital city in the zone, but then you have the Druids of the Flame, Fyrakk’s forces, and the Djaradin that are teaming up with them. Each of them will have different areas where they burnt out some of the things. Some areas where Druids of the Flame have taken over, and what they’re doing to the landscape gives you a vision of what their view of the perfect Azeroth is. It involves a lot of burnt things and a lot of fire! So, we’ll get a lot of diversity there, contrasted with the overgrown, lush, gorgeous plant life in other areas where the Dream is really thriving.

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Q: The new Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope raid will be finally bringing the fight to Fyrakk. Can you tell us anything about the bosses or environs found there?

Augustine: On the PTR, we’re going to be having the first four chapters of the campaign available in the outdoor world that’s building up to the raid where the story really revolves around Fyrakk trying to break his way in, and we’re trying to stop him from getting inside the raid. And, since we fight Fyrakk inside the raid, you can guess what the outcome is there! But the story is really building up those characters and what they’re trying to do inside that raid, and what the stakes are if we fail to stop them inside the raid.

Steele: I think that’s a good way of summarizing it. One of the things that strikes me about this raid is there are two different types of bosses. There are the fellow dream defenders who are testing you, and then you have the Druids of the Flame and Fyrakk’s buddies who are testing you perhaps in a different way! Collectively, there’s a ton of really cool fights, a ton of cool items you’re going to be able to collect. Obviously, the tier sets we’ve already showed off.

My favorite little bit of the raid bosses, there’s a boss that will plant down some roots, and those roots break up out of the ground and form barriers you have to get some fire and burn down to allow you to cross between different parts of the arena. Kind of like adding walls sort of like Echo of Neltharion did, though players are going to be dealing with them in a different way.

There’s also a giant lava serpent boss you’re fighting in, if you imagine a donut, the lava serpent is in the middle! It’s this cool fight where the lava serpent is throwing lots of fire and polluting the ground with tons of magma you should probably not stand in, and there are tentacles that come down and thwack players for standing in the wrong spot. It’s this huge, frenetic fight to down the serpent before the whole area is unlivable. That’s going to be a cool fight too. There are obviously various fights, but we can’t cover all of them now.

Augustine: Obviously Dragonriding was a huge success in Dragonflight, so they’re actually doing a boss fight that is using Dragonriding as part of how you deal with the threats and encounters. I haven’t personally played that one yet, but that is the one I’m most looking forward to playing because that sounds really cool.

Steele: Oh yeah! And, if you’re not a huge fan of Dragonriding, or you just aren’t interested in doing it, you’ll be able to do the ride-along thing in the same way that it’s enabled in the outdoor world. Somebody’s going to be doing the Dragonriding, but if you have some members of your raid who aren’t up for it, they aren’t going to be left behind.

Q: The new Faerie Dragon dynamic flying mount looks adorable. Will players be able to get customization manuscripts for it or the Grotto Netherwing Drake in the future?

Steele: Yeah, we are introducing some manuscripts to let players customize their Grotto Netherwing Drakes, so that’s going to be fun and exciting. As far as the new Faerie Dragon Drake, I’m actually not sure.

Augustine: I guess we’ll find out soon!

Q: Patch 10.1 added the Ground Skimming and Aerial Halt traits for Dragonriding. Can you tell us about the new Dragonriding talents players can get in Guardians of the Dream?

Steele: So, one of the abilities, Swift Skimming, is actually building on Ground Skimming. If you’ve got Thrill of the Skies on, and you’ve got the blue glow on you, and you’re regening vigor, and you’re also doing Ground Skimming, those can now work together, which is going to be cool. Then, the other one is Wind’s Respite. That builds on Aerial Halt, which is your airbrake, stop-on-a-dime in midair. What Wind’s Respite does is it turns down gravity for two seconds after you hit the brakes, so it’s easier to find a soft landing spot. It makes Aerial Halt a lot easier to use.

Q: One of the more exciting things about the Dragonflight story right now is Vyranoth joining forces with the Aspects. What other characters can we expect to see in Guardians of the Dream?

Augustine: There will be a lot of people that get cameos. We have some awesome story content coming in the update that isn’t tied directly to the campaign. For example, we’ve had the Tyr saga going alongside the campaign. That has its big, epic conclusion in this patch, so there’s going to be a lot of cool characters involved there. Chromie is going to be helping out over there with Eternus, and all the people who have been a part of that so far. Inside the story itself, 10.1.7 just went live, so the first prologue chapter is going to be out, and it’s going to introduce some of those characters. Vyranoth, Fyrakk, Shandris Feathermoon, another Night Elf who will be in the patch as well.

And then, when we transition into the zone, you’ll get a lot more people. There’s going to be stories with different characters coming over here, local stories involving characters as well. I think you can probably take a pretty good stab at who the cool, strong Druids and the characters who would be really interested in a World Tree are.

That’s really how we try and decide what characters appear. There are two big things we look at. The meta-level characters, like Fyrakk. He has had something going on, he’s definitely going to be in this content update because we want to tell his long-term story, and also, from our side on the quest team, whenever we enter a new zone like this, we think “Okay, who would care about this? Who would race across the planet because they wouldn’t miss this moment?”

We always look to bring in characters that maybe won’t be hugely central to the story, and won’t be drivers of the story, but we care to get their reactions and input. So you can imagine, when Fyrakk is threatening the new World Tree, there’s going to be heroes and incredible characters from across all of Azeroth that are going to care about stopping him and giving the world tree a chance to bloom and grow. So you’re going to see a lot of familiar faces there.

Q: Guardians of the Dream is finally bringing the Netherwing and Storm Dragons into the Dragonflight narrative. Can you tell us anything else about this exciting development?

Augustine: That’s something we’ve been thinking about for this entire expansion, even when we were first conceiving it. The Aspects are awesome and incredible archetypes of their different flights, but they aren’t the only types of dragons. We’ve always been wondering what the smaller dragonflights that weren’t a part of the core aspects imbued by the Titans, what do they think about this? What is their future?

The Aspects are constantly questioning themselves throughout this expansion of like, what they’ve learned, how they’ve grown. We saw that with Alexstrasza interacting with the Dracthyr and the Drakonid rebels about realizing maybe we haven’t always treated them the best. So, looking at that reconciliation, what is possible with these new lesser dragonflights? Do they want to join? What does that mean? What do they want their future to be? How would they work together?

So, this questline really explores that. What is the future of these different dragon groups, and what do they want as well? What are their goals? We’ve talked a lot about what the Aspects want. We know exactly what they want. But what do these other groups want? We’ve lovingly called them the 'Misfit Dragonflights', which is a term I love. They are different, and they have different goals, so let’s explore what they want to do.

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Q: What sorts of rewards and activities can players expect to see with the Dream Wardens Renown track?

Steele: You’re going to see things you might expect if you’re looking at what the Loamm Niffen offer, or what the Maruuk Centaur offer, or the other Dragonflight launch factions give. You’re going to see some drake manuscripts, flightstones, crests, a lot of really cool cosmetics which I’m excited about. There are also some items that help with some cool activities that are around the 10.2 zone. You’ll be getting some seeds you will plant around the zone. It’s largely what you might expect from a Renown track, but every time, there will be different cosmetics, and I’m really looking forward to these new ones.

Augustine: I’m super excited for that. We’ve been iterating on public events throughout Dragonflight. That was our new experiment in the outdoor world this expansion. Tuskarr feasts, centaur hunts, Obsidian Citadel, that sort of stuff. We tried different things throughout the patches – Researchers Under Fire, Time Rifts – so we’re trying a new version here in the Emerald Dream. It’s actually a three-part super event. We did some experiments with this with the Siege of Dragonbane Keep where after the public event ended, it would spawn a rare nearby so the ball could form and move over. We’re pushing that and cranking it to 11 here.

So, we have the core main event called the Superbloom, that’s a really fun event where a treant is helping grow the tree. Helping go around, growing, and there’s awesome visual effects of flowers and plants rippling out. There’s a funny little dryad that keeps poking him because he keeps falling asleep, so he keeps poking him to keep him moving! It’s a mobile public event where you’re getting powers alongside him.

We’re doing mini-Torghast powers, but not going crazy. You won’t have Rogues with 0% cooldown one-shotting you across the zone. It’s more focused on giving you activities during the event. You can rescue little baby moonkin that can run alongside you, and you can get a whole pack of baby moonkin casting Moonbeam on things for you. So tons of stuff like that, but it’s all about moving with the treant throughout the zone, the Druids of the Flame and Primalists and Fyrakk’s forces are all trying to stop you, so you escort this treant around and do the big event.

After that ends, it triggers an Emerald Frenzy, which is essentially a short-term farm event where an area of the zone surges in nature, and so that causes beautiful things, but also lashers and plant monsters and stuff to rise. And so, after everyone finishes the public event, you roll over into this farm area, get some currencies, and like Allison mentioned, you get some seeds. That then leads into Emerald Bounty, which is this public garden spread throughout the zone where players can plant seeds that create a public activity where everyone can contribute and help grow the tree up, try to get it to its full potential, and its full potential is, of course, becoming every Warcraft player’s favorite thing – a treasure chest! So you can then have all sorts of different rewards inside of there.

So, that’s our fun loop we’re trying to use to get the ball moving, and if you just want to do the core event and move on, you totally can. But if you want to hang around the zone and participate in the longer activity, we want to make sure there’s lots of content for you.

Q: With Patch 10.2 officially announced, can you tell us if there is a Patch 10.3 on the radar, or will the next major patch be the 11.0 expansion?

Augustine: I can give you an answer, but it probably won’t fully satisfy you, but it can at least give something! We aren’t talking about future plans yet. This is not the end of Dragonflight. This is an awesome turning point in the story, but there’s still lots of cool activities and stories ahead that we’re really excited about, but we’re not ready to talk about any sort of future patch plans in specific.

Q: Any final thoughts and highlights about Guardians of the Dream?

Augustine: I am very excited about the Battleground Blitz, which is the new solo queue for rated Battlegrounds. It’s coming in as a Brawl rotation, so just like we did with solo queue, it’s temporary to see how it goes so we can iterate on it. I’m super excited for that, I love rated Battlegrounds and making that more accessible when it’s not my team’s night to play. I’m really excited about that.

Steele: I’m really excited about the raid of course, but the upgrade system introduced in Embers of Neltharion is getting a significant package of iterations, so we’re going to be introducing a whole bunch of stuff, like an opportunity to trade your crests up to a limited degree. You’re going to be able to get crests of a lower level if you’re capped on one, you get the next level down. We’re going to be lengthening the Hero and the Myth track a little bit.

There’s a whole bunch of changes to the upgrade system, a lot of them driven by player feedback. I think people are definitely going to be really happy when we take crests out of bags and put them on the currency tab, for example. I’m really excited about the upgrade system and what’s coming next for that, but there’s just so much going on in this patch that it’s hard to say one thing is better than the other. They’re all great, I can’t pick between my children!

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