Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft is about to begin its 7th expansion. The Pre-Launch is now live, but they are facing some issues with the game. “WoW killers” came and went, and while it’s numbers aren’t what they once were, Warcraft remains the top MMORPG, with millions subscribed monthly. While you can now purchase game time with (hundreds of thousands) of in-game gold, most still opt to pay their monthly fee. So what does the near future hold for the game? How did Blizzard gearing players up during War of Thorns, their pre-patch event?
The original World of Warcraft released in 2004 and nerds all over the world hooked ever since. In 2015, Blizzard gave a final subscriptions report of 5.5 million, with a peak of 12 million in 2010. Since it’s release, we’ve had seven expansions with varying degrees of popularity. You want a quick way to start an argument on any nerd forum? Claim one expansion the best over the others. Or commit the cardinal sin of suggesting any of them were better than the original, vanilla WoW.
However, this pre-launch has some severe leveling up issues. Comments from all over the event have Blizzard in a fix-up frenzy. Most fixes they were prepared to happen, but others have Blizzard baffled. According to Game Director Ion Hazzikostas “We see the same sort of discrepancies that folks in this thread and others have pointed out,” said Hazzikostas. “But we still have yet to pinpoint the exact aspect of scaling that we failed to account for. We want to understand why the numbers are off and fix the underlying cause: Were stats on gear reduced too much? Some aspect of creature armor or other combat calculations? Are our baseline values accurate, but the shape of the scaling curve wrong such that it’s particularly far off the mark in the 60-80 range?”
As Blizzard moves into the new expansion, players have become accustomed to going through pre-launch events. And with the new expansion, Battle for Azeroth, players expect something epic with War of Thorns. This two-week long event promises to change things players have known since the beginning.
War of Thorns marks the burning of the world tree, Teldrassil, which also serves as the Alliance capital city of the Night Elves. Week one, the players played through a small quest line as Horde Warchief Sylvanas enacts her plans to take the zone of Ashenvale, ransacking Night Elf towns. The questline stops short of Sylvanas reaching her goal. Night Elf Druid leader Malfurion Stormrage holding her off as he waits for reinforcements. In the meantime, players unlock world quests along the Darkshore shoreline that drops various armor and weapons to help players gear up for the expansion release.
The event marks some other changes as well, item level shrinking, talent resets, and artifact weapon removal. So while the first week may seem a bit lack-luster for active players, there’s a lot for returning players to get used to as the expansion looms ever closer.
The new expansion brings lots of content. Reigniting the faction war after the defeat of the Burning Legion. New Allied Races, and current race customization, level cap raise, new zones, new community features, with lots more. Even the promise of the return of Classic Warcraft sometime in the future.
The second week begins this week, which makes sense with Blizzard’s timeline. The event ends with mount rewards for each faction. You can find everything you need to complete the pre-launch event and ready yourself for the Battle for Azeroth over at WoWHead. You still have plenty of time to jump into things and get re-acquainted with the game.
Do you still play World of Warcraft? Want to start? Are you looking forward to the return of Classic WoW? Let us know in the comments below!