World of Warcraft: Seeds of Renewal impressions (Patch 10.2.5)

Patch 10.2.5, Seeds of Renewal is here!

This mid-season patch brings with it several new pieces of story content in the form of Dragon Isles Epilogues and Gilneas Reclamation quests, along with new gameplay content including the Azarothean Archives and Follower Dungeons.

There’s also the promise of Dragonriding in the old world (as well as new races in the Outland Cup), and tons of new cosmetics, mounts, and other goodies to collect.

Throw in some smaller updates such as new ability visuals and new appearances for Trolls, Draenei and Warlock Demons, and we’re left with a modestly-sized patch that offers some neat story beats and a decent grind for those who want it.

Dragon Isles Epilogues

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve not done a particularly good job keeping up with the story of Dragonflight, although I’m aware of the major beats and overall narrative.

These quests do a good job of wrapping up two of the major plotlines of Dragonflight while also giving the opportunity for Blizzard to start building up the narrative to take us into The War Within in the patches between now and the expansion’s release later this year.

I won’t talk too much about the specifics of these quests, both to avoid spoilers and because I don’t want to embarrass myself in my admittedly lackluster understanding of Dragonflight’s story.

That said, don’t expect too much in terms of gameplay – these quests are solely about the story. We see our first glimpses of the Night Elves’ new home, Bel’ameth, where a touching reunion takes place.

It’s nice to see that the Night Elves finally have a home to call their own after The Burning of Teldrassil. There’s not too much going on in Bel’ameth right now, but I hope they build it into a proper Night Elf hub over time.

I imagine it’ll stay ina Sanctuary though, rather than an Alliance city. There’s lots of Night Elf-themed cosmetics to loot around the city, so don’t miss out on those.

The other Epilogue – which is a cinematic rather than a questline – has more to do with the story that’s going to take us into The War Within and beyond. Once again, I won’t spoil that, but it’s safe to say I’m very intrigued.

With Blizzard’s commitment to doubling down on story for The World Soul Saga, I plan on following the narrative much more closely going forward.

Gilneas Reclamation

The Gilneas Reclamation questline sees us taking back the Worgan capital city, 10 or so years after it fell during the events of Cataclysm. It’s a storyline that players have been wanting to get wrapped up in for a long time. It’s nice to finally give our wolf-friends back their homeland, even if it’s after a little longer than we’d like.

It’s not a long questline; perhaps thirty minutes or so of quests that involve not-so-sneakily infiltrating the City of Gilneas, which has been overrun by the Scarlet Crusade, to blow up the gates, enabling allied forces to support our reclamation.

Although short, the quests do evoke strong feelings of nostalgia as you fight your way through the streets in a similar fashion to how it was done in those first quests with a newly created Worgan all those years ago. It briefly yet neatly wraps up a fan-favorite questline, even if it feels like watching an epilogue for a TV show that finished airing ten years ago.

Alas, it did feel a little strange to be taking part in this heroic reclamation from the perspective of a Horde character. It wasn’t so long ago that our Forsaken allies were using the Plague – essentially Warcraft’s version of chemical warfare – in their fight against the Worgan in this very area.

It leads me to think that the inclusion of the Scarlet Crusade was simply done to give both Horde and Alliance a unified enemy to fight against, or, in other words, give the Horde a reason to be there.

Once you’ve taken back the city, you’re rewarded with a neat mount and a positively spiffing transmog inspired by the Worgan’s Victorian-England dress-sense. You’re also able to freely move around the city, and even set your Hearthstone there if you’d like.

Azarothean Archives

The meatiest piece of new gameplay content in Seeds of Renewal is the Azarothean Archives. You team up with a faction of archaeologists to uncover fragments of history across the Dragon Isles. By completing a series of archaeological-themed activities through the week, you earn Mysterious Fragments that can be traded for an array of thematic cosmetics.

The activities can be classified into four main formats:

1. Technoscrying, where you’ll use a fancy set of goggles to find clues hidden within an area. It works like a game of ‘hotter, colder’.
2. Excavation, in which you’ll use the power of elementals to uncover artifacts within the earth. You need to use elemental powers and the environment to aid you.
3. Research, where you and an arcane familiar fly around the map looking for knowledge your friend can gather and bring back to its master.
4. Big Digs, a group activity that runs once per hour where you’ll assist a team of archivists in digging up old tomes. This event always culminates in a battle with a fiery dragon.

In order to unlock the Azarothean Archives content, you’ll need to complete a few quests that introduce you to the faction and the new activities. I’d recommend doing these as soon as possible as doing so will unlock the world questions associated with Technoscrying, Excavation, and Research. You won’t need to do the introductory quests to take part in the Big Dig.

All in all, I found the Azarothean Archives a bit of a mixed bag. On a positive note, some of the new cosmetics are incredibly cool and unique. Who doesn’t want to run into battle wielding a candelabra? Additionally, the variety of gameplay on show within this new feature is nice. An event plus three types of world quest is a decent offering for a mid-season patch.

Ultimately, though, I feel like the Azarothean Archives could have done with more time in the oven. It feels like a case of quantity over quality. While I do genuinely enjoy the Technoscrying mini-game, the others feel too shallow.

The Research mini-game is nothing more than flying around and interacting with clouds of blue dust. I straight up didn’t enjoy the Excavation content; it felt clunky and unresponsive, and so I wouldn’t be unhappy if the devs went back to the drawing room with that one.

While the scale of the Big Dig is cool – especially early in the patch cycle where dozens of players are taking part – I think there’s a balancing issue. The idea is that you wait for instructions from an NPC to tell you what to do around the site, and while you’re waiting you’re supposed to click on piles of books to excavate important pages.

Every time I’ve taken part so far, I’ve only been given one or two proper tasks to do across the whole ten minutes, which means I spend the majority of the event clicking piles of dirt. We need more things to do during the event, because right now it’s pretty lackluster.

The Azerothian Archives are also a wasted opportunity on the lore-front. Our companions gleefully express every time we excavate something that we’ve made a remarkable discovery, yet there’s no lore or story tied to the artifacts.

The Azerothian Archives seem to be a prototype of how the Archeology profession, a long-forgotten and well-loved secondary profession that Blizzard have neglected over the last few years.

If that’s the case, we’re definitely heading in the right direction. There’s a lot of room for improvement if this type of content is going to become a flagship feature, though.

Old World Dragonriding and The Outland Cup

And now for one of the changes I was most excited about: we can now Dragonride in the old world! You’re able to mount up on your dragon and fly anywhere in the old world that you can fly in the old fashioned way. So, basically everywhere except the Blood Elf and Draenei starting areas.

You’re limited to 85% of normal Dragonriding speed, but honestly, you won’t notice it. I do wish that I could take advantage of this feature while leveling alts, but unfortunately you need to be level 60 to learn Dragonriding.

It’s a shame because unless you’re flying to old dungeons and raids to farm transmog, you’re never really going to be able to take advantage of this awesome new feature. Let us Dragonride when we unlock flying at level 30, please!

Despite that complaint, it does feel incredibly liberating to dynamically fly through the old world. Blizzard prepared for this in an earlier patch when they massively increased the maximum draw distance in Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, and spiraling through those continents on your dragon really gives you a new level of appreciation for these old areas.

That brings us to the Outland Cup, which is made up of 13 races across Outland. They’re mostly set around key landmarks such as Tempest Keep and Shattrath city, with the hardest difficulty offering up a good level of challenge on most of the races.

As with the previous cups, you’ll be able to trade the currency you get for completing races in for cosmetics. It’s a shame the main reward is just a recolour of the transmog set from the previous cups; it would have been nice to have a unique set based on Outland.

Follower Dungeons

Follower Dungeons are a brand new feature in 10.2.5 that allow you to queue up with AI companions to run Dragonflight normal dungeons. For those familiar with FF14, it’s essentially a replicant of the Trust/Duty Support system.

Follower Dungeons are designed to give players an opportunity to try out a new class or spec – or even dip their toes into instance content for the first time – in a risk-free environment. The WoW community isn’t exactly known for its patience, after all.

There was a lot of hype surrounding Follower Dungeons in the lead up to the release of 10.2.5. Personally, I was indifferent. While I appreciated that Blizzard were making moves to make instanced content more accessible, I didn’t think I would really make use of the feature.

However, I’m pleased to say that I’m a convert. I had a level 60 boost to use up, and decided to boost a Demonology Warlock, a class that I’d never played before. Upon boosting, I was greeted with two bars full of spells I was mostly unfamiliar with, and I had no idea how the class worked.

Thankfully, I was able to drop straight into a follower dungeon and run Ruby Life Pools at my own pace, stopping every now and then to read tooltips and better understand my talents. It was an extremely pleasant experience, and I learned a lot about the spec in less than thirty minutes.

You don’t get much experience for running AI dungeons (20% less with a full party, and you can’t benefit from the XP bonus from queuing up for a random dungeon), so they’re not going to be an efficient way to level. That said, they’re an extremely efficient way to learn the basics of a spec.

I’ve got a tonne of characters in WoW, many of which I’ve not played in years and quite frankly wouldn’t know where to start with. Having the option to run Follower Dungeons to refresh myself had made the prospect of picking those characters back up much less daunting.

I’m also excited about what Follower Dungeons could mean for the future of the game. With this technology, Blizzard have the ability to make what was traditionally group-only content doable solo, which means they have the flexibility to make dungeons and even raids core parts of the story. The prospect of dungeons and raids being the culmination of a zone’s story or a key narrative moment – rather than a side activity – could make for some epic instanced content in the future.

Closing thoughts

While 10.2.5 brings with it quite a bit of new content by mid-season patch standards, a good portion of it feels a little undercooked. While Follower Dungeons are objectively great and Old World Dragonriding is a fantastic way of modernizing the old world a little, the other flagship pieces of content are symptomatic of great ideas with not enough time to implement them.

How are you enjoying the new patch so far? Let us know on Twitter or through our Discord!

See below for our list of partners and affiliates: