A month ago, World of Warcraft announced Guardians of the Dream, the second major patch for Dragonflight. While the expansion has churned out tons of updates over the past year, Patch 10.2 is ones of its largest, with a new zone, raid and Mythic+ season, and Renown track to unlock. Players have been looking forward to delving into the Emerald Dream as they protect Amirdrassil, the new World Tree, from Fyrakk and his fiery allies. Now, World of Warcraft has finally revealed Patch 10.2 releases on November 7, with Season 3 beginning a week later.
Game ZXC spoke with World of Warcraft associate design director Maria Hamilton and game designer Laura Spreitzer in celebration of the impending release of Patch 10.2. The developers discussed the new zone, activities, and story elements players can look forward to in the new update. The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
World of Warcraft Developers Talk Tonal Balance of the Patch 10.2 Narrative
Game ZXC talks to World of Warcraft developers Maria Hamilton and Laura Spreitzer about the serious and the silly in Guardians of the Dream.
Q: Please introduce yourselves, and talk about what you’ve been working on for Guardians of the Dream since it was first revealed.
Spreitzer: Hi, I’m Laura Spreitzer. I’m a game designer. In general, I’ve been overseeing the endgame loop and repeatables for the zone. I have specifically, myself, worked on the Superbloom and especially the Torghast powers side of it, alongside another designer. I’m excited about a lot of the recent work we did in the last two weeks. It was a lot of scaling to the Superbloom to make it more soloable after hearing a lot of feedback about other public events recently that have not been soloable and are difficult in smaller groups and low-population servers. So yes, lots of scaling and soloability stuff lately.
Hamilton: Hi, I’m Maria Hamilton. I’m the associate design director on WoW, and I have been working on a lot of things other than Guardians of the Dream. But for Guardians of the Dream, I’ve mostly been playing, writing feedback, and helping guide decisions around improvements and changes we’re making as we are getting close to making it available to everyone to play. I haven’t done anything particularly, specifically, sadly, but I would sure love to! But that’s what I’ve been doing.
Q: The key art for Guardians of the Dream renders the five Aspects, plus Tyrande and Vyranoth. Can you talk about what it was like designing this major, culminating arc for these important characters in this content update?
Spreitzer: It’s always a delight to work with such big, well-known characters who have had such long journeys and to be a part of bringing them to wherever the next part of their journey is. Tyrande is a good example. She’s had a long journey for a couple of expansions now, with being the Night Warrior and getting revenge for Teldrassil, and she’s taking on a different role now where she’s put the revenge part of things behind her. She’s focusing on renewal and rebirth, which is a lot of the themes we have in Dragonflight. Forgiveness, moving onwards.
That’s also reflected in Vyranoth, who is choosing to put aside the violent side of what she believes needs to be done in order to actually get what she needs to be done, and choosing the side of acceptance and coming together. It’s very special to be a part of that. It’s a big process, with lots of talking to narrative and stuff like that, but it's very fun to see it through.
Hamilton: With some of the new characters we’ve created for Dragonflight, we’ve had a wonderful time mapping those journeys as well, and figuring out just how to build them up and make them interesting and different. Our Primalists, the whole story arc of what they’re concerned about, why they’re so angry, and how each of them views that differently. We’re seeing that difference now, between Fyrakk, who just wants to burn everything down, destroy everything, and Vyranoth, who keeps going back to, “Wait a minute, that’s not what we’re trying to do. That’s not the goal.”
Knowing we were going to develop these characters and start to show their personalities and their differences has made it really fun for us to see player reactions. Players seem to really love Fyrakk. He is just unhinged. He’s one of my favorite characters, honestly. But, after we saw Fractures in Time and some of the things that happened there, people are talking up Iridikron as well. They’re starting to understand “Wait a minute, wait a minute. He’s up to something!”
I can’t tell you how much fun that is, when we plan things out, we try to set those events in motion, and we leave those clues and hints for people. To watch that speculation, it feels so good to know people are engaged, interested, and having fun.
Q: One interesting note from the Public Test Realm for Patch 10.2 is that characters from Ardenweald are present in the Emerald Dream. Will we learn more about the connection between these two realms?
Spreitzer: There is an established connection between Ardenweald and th Dream, especially with Amirdrassil, this seed that is kind of bridging the gap between the two. As far as the specifics, I wouldn’t want to spoil anything, so I’m not sure exactly how much I can answer that, but we definitely wanted to show that everybody is coming in, everybody is helping, to protect Amirdrassil. Getting this World Tree is so important to the denizens of many realms, all across Azeroth and into the Shadowlands and Ardenweald. Having them come here to help is just another way of being able to show that.
Hamilton: There are things you haven’t seen on the PTR, so we definitely don’t want to spoil that. Essentially, whether we’re really right in your face about it or more nuanced, there is certainly more to learn there.
Q: Druids are getting a bunch of new customizations for their shapeshifting forms in Patch 10.2. Can you talk a bit about some of these options and how they will be acquired in Guardians of the Dream?
Spreitzer: You’re in luck, I’m close friends with the engineer who is letting us customize them, but I once again have to make sure I don’t spoil anything, though! As you know, Moonkin are getting a bunch. I think those are currently up on the PTR, but they’re currently fixing some bugs. You’ll be able to customize them through the Barber Shop, they have different horn options, different glowing options, different necklaces, and different colors. There’s a lot, it’s a lot of fun. I know the engineer went out of their way to make sure you could use the Glyph of the Chameleon–the one that lets you randomize it. Now, when you randomize it, there are so many different versions it’s a completely new one every time. It’s really cool that’s hooked up and working. I believe there are more planned, but I’m not sure exactly. I’m only on top of the Moonkin.
As far as how you earn them, they’ve been riddled throughout the zone and various mechanics, and I don’t want to spoil any of what that might actually be! But they definitely will be all over the place. You’re going to start with a baseline pretty broad sweep of them to begin with, so you’ll already have some right out the gate, and you’ll be able to unlock more like you can unlock Dragonriding mount customizations.
Q: World of Warcraft has been slowly opening up many race and class combinations since the beginning of Dragonflight. With this customization overhaul and the general theme of the patch, could we expect to see the Druid class receive a similar treatment soon?
Hamilton: Philosophically, we are really interested in making sure players have the opportunity to play the race/class combos that make sense to them, and we have managed to open classes, like Warlocks, up to everyone. It doesn’t always make sense. Sometimes, we have to do some real contortions to make it make sense because narratively it’s just really pretty tough. I don’t think we’re moving away from that philosophy, but I’m also not able to announce anything at this time.
Q: Players have been wanting a full Emerald Dream zone for years now, and Patch 10.2 is finally delivering one. What was it like being able to design content for such an important and lore-heavy location?
Spreitzer: It was delightful. I think I’ve said this in just about every interview so far, but my absolute favorite part about it is what we can do to make this place weird. It’s a dream! It’s a reflection of Azeroth, but it’s also this weird dreamy place, so especially when it came to making repeatables for world quests, rare elites, and the Superbloom, a lot of time was spent where I stopped and was like “Okay this is good, but what can we do to make it weirder?”
We ended up with the fish that are flying through the sky, and all sorts of weird, wacky powers you get during the Superbloom, and you see little things like little magic flying octopi that look like they’re just fragments of dreams floating through the air. And, when you sleep in the Dream, you turn into a dream version of yourself, and you can open chests and things like that. It was absolutely delightful to think outside the box and see what kind of weird things we could come up with to sell that flavor of it.
Hamilton: I think one of the coolest things about it for everyone, including the world builders and the artists that helped us make the zone, was having such a cool visual look to work with. Everyone on the team plays pretty avidly, and so everyone has had this idea of “Ooo, what should be here, what should be here?” And it’s resulted in us getting some really amazing looks. Art went crazy on it, our vis dev people went crazy on it, coming up with amazing concept art. Our world builders, I mean, wow. Some of these spots are just epic, right? They’re just amazing. And the tree itself is amazing.
But the other piece of it is that we’re telling a pretty serious story. This is a significant threat. So, being able to have that whimsy, that sort of light-hearted weirdness to balance out the mood when you’re in the zone–because the Emerald Dream should have that–was delightful. Everyone was so excited to work in this area, and I think you can really see it, particularly in some of those points of interest that are there, in some of those areas that have been built out. They really were imagining - and probably have been imagining–some of those spaces for a very long time.
Q: Out of everything you’ve helped design or playtest during development, what are some of the highlights you can share with us today?
Spreitzer: That’s a very difficult question. It’s like asking you to pick your favorite child, but also out of all your friends’ children too! There’s a rare elite where the whole idea is that there is a child on Azeroth who is dreaming, and who has manifested here in the Emerald Dream, as Druids often do. So, it is a young budding Druid who doesn’t quite realize what’s going on, and so they just start going crazy! They start throwing out all sorts of random stuff: they spawn some monkeys, some crocolisks, and then some dinner tables so you can have a food fight because they think they’re just having a fun dream, and that you’re all just figments of the dream.
Eventually, they spawn this big rare elite monster to be like “Oh, you guys are so cool! I bet you could fight a cool monster. Let me dream up a cool monster for you to fight!” The whole idea behind that rare elite is just a child’s dream you’re playing with, and I found that really charming.
Hamilton: I really love Q’onzu, the Loa of Change, who is introduced, and all the shenanigans that could happen, change being a very volatile force, and also a very fickle kind of Loa. Everything associated with Q’onzu just makes me laugh. It’s just so cool. I really like that we had this opportunity to do something so very different and so very fun.
I’m also going to sneak in one more thing. We were able to integrate Dragonriding into the main campaign questing and into the raid. This is something we’ve been working towards, finding a good way to do that, and making sure we had accessibility options for people who don’t do well with Dragonriding, or who get ill or motion sick or any of those things. We were trying to find a way so players who really love and enjoy it could do that, and then the folks who were less comfortable with that would still feel like they were having a good time and were engaged and having fun to. That was another thing I wanted to call out, because I was really happy to see. And this was all the quest designers saying, “I’m going to add this in because I want to make sure it’s accessible.” It wasn’t like we had a specific plan there, but more the creativity of the individual designers that did this, so that was really awesome to see as well.
Q: You mentioned you had been working on making the Superbloom easier to complete with smaller groups based on feedback you received on prior public events. Can you talk about the journey these world activities have evolved over the expansion?
Spreitzer: Even beyond the public events themselves, the endgame loop in general, we iterate a lot. Our process is extremely iterative. So, going from the baseline, you’ve got your world quests and your rares. And then, we started having those outdoor scenarios, with the horn icon, like the Tuskarr soup and the Grand Hunts. Then, we iterated on those.
In 10.0.7, we had the rare elite murderball, which was very fun. Then, in 10.1, we had another rare elite murderball, and the Researchers Under Fire as the public event, which was excellent. We started, however, to see a shift that people were feeling the strain of needing a lot of players to complete both Researches Under Fire and the rare elites, so there wasn’t as much content for solo players to do. So, we can iterate off of that further.
Now, in 10.2, we wanted to pivot in another direction to see how well we could do. It can be a little challenging to scale down from a solo player all the way up to 80 players, which is why we don’t often try to do it because it’s hard! But we did what we could. In 10.2, there were a couple of things we iterated on. For Superbloom, we wanted to do what we could to make sure it would be soloable, so we added a lot of scaling to that. Different amounts of enemies will spawn based on how many players are around.
And, for the final boss, we did a fun little trick. The final boss is a rare elite, it is a massive boss. We didn’t want to just make it weaker, because if you see the rare elite icon, you should know you probably can’t solo it. We could spawn a less powerful creature that doesn’t have the icon or something like that, but we settled on a different solution I think is quite fun. The rare elite will spawn. It's huge, and it's scary. But Sprucecrown, the Ancient that is helping you on your journey, gives you this buff called Lone Wolf’s Courage. You’re trying to do this alone? Good for you! Have this massive buff. You get really strong and really powerful so you’re actually able to solo the elite. It only happens if you have a couple of people, or if you’re completely alone–as soon as there are more people around, the buff doesn’t happen. It’s just to help those smaller groups still have that epic moment, so we don’t that take the huge battle away by spawning a weaker creature. Instead, you get to be even cooler.
Also, to pivot away from the rare elite murderball, we still have some rare elites in 10.2, but there are only a couple of them. I think there are five total. But sorry, those are still not soloable. But previously, the rare elites were the fallback activity. When you have nothing left to do, you’ve done your world quests, you’ve done everything, and all you have left to do is kill rare elites over and over again. So, for 10.2, we were looking to find a different activity to give you as a fallback. We still have rare elites, but it is no longer the thing you are stuck doing over and over again.
That’s how the Emerald Bounty came about. That’s another feature we have in the zone where you’ll be getting seeds from various activities, and there are patches of dirt throughout the zone. You can plant the seed in the dirt, and it will sprout a sapling that grows and starts a public contribution. People can contribute to the sapling, it will sprout little activities around it for just a couple of minutes. It’s a very small, short, player-driven public event everyone can come together really quickly to do, and once it’s done after three minutes, it will drop a chest that gives a bunch of rewards for anybody who contributed to the event. You can work towards a lot of transmogs, and get mounts and pets, through that system. This activity is always available. When you run out of everything else to do, instead of going to fight rare elites, this time you will hopefully want to do the Emerald Bounty, plant some seeds, and get some people together.
Q: What is the release schedule for Guardians of the Dream?
Hamilton: We will be launching Guardians of the Dream on November 7 following BlizzCon, and Season 3 on November 14.
Q: There has been a lot of speculation about what comes next for World of Warcraft. Can you tell us if there will be a 10.3 in Dragonflight?
Hamilton: Nope, we’re not ready to share that yet. Guardians of the Dream is a major point in our story, and the story is not done yet, but I can neither confirm nor deny an additional major patch like that. Nothing to announce yet.
Q: Any final thoughts on Guardians of the Dream, BlizzCon, or on Dragonflight in general?
Spreitzer: I can list off some more things to look forward to. We have some really cool world quests I’m excited about. There’s one where you help a fish up a series of waterfalls, so it can get to the top. I believe it turns into a dragon much like the old myth, so that’s fun. There are a bunch of really beautiful local stories and side quests for people to explore. There are both some silly ones and some very serious and heartfelt ones, like one with Alexstrasza and Ysera. There’s one about the Druids of the Flame that’s really great, and one about Shandris and Lillian Voss, an unlikely pairing, where they get to work together and learn a bit more about each other and all of that. It’s just a lot of really cool things to see across the zone.
Hamilton: We have some encrypted things that haven’t been seen on PTR, and I’m really looking forward to having people see those and get a taste of some of that extra stuff we’ve been holding back. Additionally, I’ve never been to a BlizzCon. I hate to confess that, but I started at Blizzard right after the last in-person BlizzCon, so this will be my first one in person. I am overwhelmingly excited about going and hanging out with fans, meeting and chatting and just talking about this game we love. BlizzCon should be a really good time, and I’m hoping to see people there!
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