A small mistake reveals where the journey in World of Warcraft is heading. The next destination seems to be the Emerald Dream…
There is always hot speculation and discussion about how things will proceed in World of Warcraft. Even though Blizzard repeatedly hides small hints in the story, they rarely show their cards directly – at least unless an unintentional leak ruins it. Now Blizzard apparently has revealed themselves. The culprit is an icon that tells us where the journey is heading soon.
What was discovered? In the game files of Patch 10.1 Embers of Neltharion, the data miners from wowhead discovered a suspicious name. The icon of a glaive bears the name “inv_glaive_1h_emeralddreamoutdoor_d_01”. The interesting part here is “emeralddreamoutdoor”, which translates approximately to “Emerald Dream Outdoor Area”.
For World of Warcraft, it is common to assign such names to icons that hint at where you can find the associated items. For example, items from Zaralek Caverns are internally named “inv_sword_2h_blackdragonoutdoor”, meaning “Black Dragon Outdoor Area” – a fitting description for the Zaralek Caverns, which house the laboratory of the black dragon Neltharion.
What does this mean? Blizzard has probably unintentionally leaked upcoming content. Because an “Emerald Dream” does not appear in Patch 10.1 – and especially not to an extent that makes the dream accessible as a whole area.
However, it strongly suggests that Blizzard has already integrated early content of a later content patch, such as 10.2 or even later, into the game data.
How likely is this? Based on current assessments, probably very likely. The naming of this item is already very revealing, but the current lore of Dragonflight also hints at this path. Because those who have reached a high renown rank with the Valdrakken Accord experience a questline around the green dragonflight, where Ysera, Merithra, Tyrande, and Malfurion also play a role. Events in the Emerald Dream are also part of this questline and thus can be considered the “cornerstones” suitable for a journey into the dream world.
In the foreseeable future, there will likely be a journey into a part of the Emerald Dream – why the storyline leads us exactly there will surely be revealed to us later. But the green dragons and the night elves will surely get involved.
