After months and months of begging and waiting for Blizzard Entertainment to make Dragonriding available beyond the Dragon Isles, fans’ wishes will come true in World of Warcraft Dragonflight Patch 10.2.5, but not without a catch.
On Nov. 16, Blizzard announced the upcoming Dragonflight patch, 10.2.5 that will give a new coat of paint to the old world content and allow your Dragonriding drakes to spread their wings outside the Dragon Isles. Unfortunately, Dragonriding drakes won’t be as fast as on the Dragon Isles. In fact, their maximum speed will be capped at 80 percent of their top speed.
You’ll still have all your Dragonriding abilities and customizations, but the idea behind this move is to avoid the old world of Azeroth, Outland, Draenor, and Shadowlands becoming smaller and a piece of cake to traverse. Blizzard didn’t design these old zones with Dragonriding in mind and they are significantly smaller than the Dragon Isles. This is wonderfully explained in Blizzard’s interview with WoW streamer and content creator Preach where you can see that Westfall consists of only nine world units, while the Azure Span consists of over 100 chunks.
Essentially, the goal behind this isn’t to gatekeep or to stop the fanbase from having fun, but not to end up in a sticky situation where WoW devs have to explain why the once vast and colorful world of Azeroth suddenly feels like a doll’s house. I believe you won’t even feel this change, and Dragonriding will still be way faster than using your regular flying mounts. Besides that, your old mounts will learn Dragonriding in the upcoming expansion, The War Within, and you’ll have an even easier time traversing your favorite zones from past expansions. So, don’t fret, there’s a good reason behind Blizzard’s actions.
