Embers of Neltharion Now in WoW Dragonflight; Launch Summary

World of Warcraft received its first major update for Dragonflight. Patch 10.1, Embers of Neltharion, is now available on WoW servers, and the release is accompanied by a trailer made available on YouTube.

Version 10.1 enriches Dragon Islands with a new zone: Zaralek's Cave, with new enemies, raid, quests, treasures and a mole faction that will reward the player with reputation and unique loot. We will also participate in "exciting" snail races and learn the story of the new campaign.

In addition, one of the most important novelties is a feature that enables friends from Horde and Alliance to play together, as well as a heavily modified equipment upgrade system. The full list of changes can be found on the game's official website.

Of course, the launch wouldn't be complete without some bugs, which players are reporting in a thread on Reddit. And just for the record, the absence of the fifth and sixth chapters of the campaign in update 10.1 doesn't count. Employees of Blizzard have confirmed that both will hit the game only next week. So if you want to get Winding Slitherdrake as a new mount, you'll have to wait a bit longer.

Source: Blizzard Entertainment.

Bugs and misunderstandings aside, however, the new zone pleases most players, as do the, ekhm, interestingly written tasks in Loam Niffen (i.e., the aforementioned moles). However, there were also some complaints.

Sometimes it's a matter of relatively small issues, but some players are not thrilledthat in Zaralek's Cave Blizzard was again going to bet on hunting Elite mobs.

1. According to fans (via Reddit), for a long time the new zones don't offer much. After completing a "relatively short" series of quests, all that's left is to wait for a notification that rare mobs have appeared. Once players have that out of the way, they basically have no reason to return to a given location.
2. As a reminder: Blizzard promised that the new development policy of WoW involves creating expansions with the long-term development of the game in mind. Meanwhile, Zaralek's Cave allegedly does not fit into this strategy (not to mention that hunting "elites" appeared all too often as one of the few available attractions of the new zones).

However, a couple of Internet users point out that Blizzard has been introducing completely new attractions for some time now.

1. Starting with the second season, a golden horn symbol will appear on the minimap every hour, signaling the start of the weekly Researchers Under Fire quest, which - not to give too much away - by no means amounts to waiting for the opportunity to ambush an elite.
2. There is also no shortage of other minor activities in update 10.1, which quite a few players appreciated. Nevertheless, some Internet users are unconvinced - they would prefer to see, among other things, changes in the appearance of zones during a series of tasks or branching quests.

Recall that the second season of WoW: Dragonflight launches on May 9.