What’s your favorite “in-between” content?

It’s a glorious day, where the end of server maintenance leads to World of Warcraft Patch 10.1 — Embers of Neltharion. The servers come up, and we enter the Zaralek Cavern, tackling Fyrakk Assaults and learning a new upgrade system. This has me reflecting on the content we’re leaving — patch 10.0.7 and the Forbidden Reach.

The Forbidden Reach is the first time in a while that we received new content in a minor patch version — creating a content bridge, instead of a content gap. 10.0.7 delivered an associated questline, a useful gear upgrade with the Onyx Annulet, and more world boss encounters than you can shake a Writhebark at. Not to mention the Zskera Vaults — the players have had plenty to stay busy during the six weeks between 10.0.7, and just enough story questing to bridge between Raszageth’s defeat in the Vault of the Incarnates and Fyrakk’s explorations for the Earth-Warders secrets.

Another prominent time we see content to bridge story arcs is pre-patch events. The Dragonflight Primal Storms pre-patch saw the very elements rise up supporting the Primalist attacks across Azeroth’s main continents. Players tried over and over to take down the Primalists and delved into a rebirthed Uldaman searching for Tyr’s legacy in the form of a data disk.

Truthfully, there are a lot of similarities between pre-patch events and 10.0.7, almost to the point where the most recent minor patch feels like a pre-patch event itself. And in a way, it is. It’s building us up to our explorations of Zaralek Cavern and conquering Netharion’s twisted lab — Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible. It connects where we left Scalecommander Sarkareth, defiantly remaining in the Forbidden Reach awaiting orders from Neltharion instead of joining the remaining Dracthyr.

We have a lot ahead of us. But as I’m writing this…

‘Twas the night before Patch-mas,

And all through the site,

Not a writer was stirring

Turning our editors’ hairs white.

Just kidding — we’re a word factory! Merry Patch-mas, dear reader. Now it’s your turn! Tell me, what’s your favorite content to play in between major patches? And