Fans awaiting the highly anticipated World of Warcraft: Shadowlands can now download the expansion’s pre-patch, which went live today. As announced last week, World of Warcraft will soon see an undead invasion to lead into the story of the Shadowlands expansion. Along with the undead invasion event, Blizzard has discussed numerous other adjustments being implemented with the Shadowlands pre-patch, such as the level squish and changes to the leveling system.
The latest expansion for Blizzard’s popular MMORPG was recently delayed due to hinderances with working from home and other issues, though that hasn’t stalled all the content promised in the pre-patch. That delay, however, while disappointing on the surface, has been met with mostly acceptance and understanding by the World of Warcraft community. Showing understanding of its own, Blizzard started offering refunds to players who pre-ordered the expansion after the delay was announced.
After a lot of leadup, the World of Warcraft: Shadowlands pre-patch update is now live and was detailed on the official World of Warcraft website. In addition to the level squish, leveling system changes, and cosmetic adjustments to character creation, the pre-patch also includes a new tutorial area for brand-new players and a newcomer chat - the latter of which allows all new players to communicate with each other and other players who have taken on the role of guides. Today’s pre-patch does not mark the start of the Scourge invasion that is supposed to begin outside Icecrown Citadel, though it will begin sometime after the pre-expansion’s release in-game.
World of Warcraft is as known for its pre-patches as much as it is the expansions themselves. Pre-patches are Blizzard’s way of giving players time to acclimate to an expansion’s new features and mechanics - getting their feet wet before an expansion’s full impact floods the community. WoW fans get to raise their eyebrows at any UI adjustments, balk at new or returning abilities, and laud or criticize preemptive content as they see fit. It’s an opportunity for the community to offer Blizzard feedback prior to the main course’s launch.
Whether Blizzard will take any suggestions to heart prior to the new release date of Shadowlands - which has yet to be announced - remains to be seen. However, it would behoove the team to at least take notes of fans’ desires and critiques while it continues to work on the expansion. Doing so will allow the developers to immediately begin work on making fixes and tweaks once World of Warcraft: Shadowlands goes live later this year.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is scheduled to launch sometime in 2020.
Source: World of Warcraft