World of Warcraft players recently learned the release date for Shadowlands expansion after a full year of waiting. Now that everyone knows the next expansion arrives at the end of October, players are racing around finishing up their final Battle for Azeroth tasks and getting their characters ready for the transition to a new adventure. One lingering question still floats over Azeroth though... When will the pre-patch arrive?
Originally many fans predicted that September 22 would be pre-patch day, which would give players just a little more than a month with the pre-patch content before the new expansion arrives. That has been pretty close to the experience for the last few World of Warcraft expansions. That said, the patch did not arrive this week, but instead a developer update did appear on the official Blizzard forums. That update didn't confirm a pre-patch release date, but it did reveal that there will be not one, but two pre-patches this time around. That puts things under an even tighter time crunch.
First, the expected pre-patch, 9.0.1 will arrive and bring features like the new character customization options and the streamlined leveling experience (and presumedly the level squish). Then, sometime very shortly before the actual release of Shadowlands, patch 9.0.2 will go live and bring the polished version of the level 51-60 leveling experience. This approach is designed to get the new character customization options and new leveling experience in the hands of players as soon as possible, while still allowing Blizzard to take a few more tweaks tweaking the level 51-60 experience.
The news came in a recent development update from game director Ion Hazzikostas...
"First, on a technical note, players paying close attention to the Beta client may notice that this week’s update bears the designation “9.0.2.” Unlike recent expansions, this time around we will have not one but two client updates, aka patches, in the weeks prior to the official release of the expansion. Development of Shadowlands -specific content (the zones and dungeons of the Shadowlands, covenants, etc.) will proceed with weekly Beta updates in the 9.0.2 branch, while our Public Test Realm runs patch 9.0.1."
This is an interesting approach and, if it goes well, could potentially change the way future WoW expansion pre-patches are rolled out going forward. Fans are anxious and eager to see the level squish happen and check out the new leveling experience, so it definitely makes sense to get those options live as soon as possible. With only a little more than a month left before Shadowlands is live, it seems like the first of the two pre-patches must be shipping out next week or perhaps the following one at the latest. There is usually quite a bit to explore in a pre-patch and Blizzard will want to give the community a few weeks with that content to play around and get comfortable with the changes before diving into Shadowlands.
Be sure to check back in the coming weeks as more details about Shadowlands emerge. Until then, For the Horde!
World of Warcraft is available now for PC. At this point, World of Warcraft Shadowlands releases on October 26 or 27 (depending on time zone) for PC.
Source: Blizzard