“Stay a While”: A Look Inside the Quest

news.blizzard.com:

Dragonflight introduced a variety of quests to draw players into the beauty and wonder of the Dragon Isles, but one has stood out among the many—"Stay Awhile.” We take a moment to look at the genesis of this quest with the quest design team and how it evolved into the quiet moment of remembrance so many players love.

The NPC Veritistrasz’s story emerged from the desire to tell a story about the Ruby Lifeshrine and keep the action contained entirely within the area while providing It was insight into the mind of a dragon returning home for the first time in 10,000 years.

The original pitch was for a player to explore the area with an old red dragon who grew up in the Ruby Lifeshrine. The red dragon would tell the player about it from notes they had written to help them recall many things they may have forgotten over time. In this version, the quest had a lot more levity to it but would end in a similar way, with the red dragon coming across the black dragon egg tending location and having a breakdown as he remembered his old black dragon friend pre-corruption.

 The intent of the quest could be described as “Explain what the Ruby Lifeshrine is and explain the various situations of the dragonflights told through the lens of an old dragon.” The problem was that we already had a similar quest where the player visited the various hatcheries and talked to the egg tenders, so the team decided to work on other ideas for this quest. They focused on the core idea of an old red dragon feeling remorse and weariness after such a long time and then confronting those feelings and memories.

Then began the team’s iteration on this quest to the version players play today.

Some changes that were made include:

Further iteration of the dialogue was