News

By: Jarno Kokko Aug 26, 2008

Wrath of the Lich King Pre-Expansion Patch

Blizzard has officially announced that there will be a "pre-expansion patch" to World of Warcraft prior to the expansion. This was something that players pretty much expected to happen as The Burning Crusade had a similar patch.

However, this time Blizzard is going much further with the patch, with many features of the expansion actually becoming available well before the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, and to all players - even those who might not get the expansion. As if anyone would skip it - yeah, right... Here is the official word.

Content Patch Before Wrath of the Lich King

With the release of Wrath of the Lich King approaching, we wanted to provide you with some important information. In preparation for the expansion, we will be issuing a new content patch in the coming weeks. Much like the patch made available shortly before The Burning Crusade's release, this content patch is designed to bridge current game content with that of the expansion and will contain some exciting changes and additions.

We have outlined some of the larger features scheduled to release with the patch below:

New class spells and talents.
Barbershops in capital cities.
Zeppelin towers outside of Orgrimmar and Tirisfal Glades.
Stormwind Harbour.
In-game guild calendar.
Hunter pet skill revamp.
New profession: Inscription.

Two brand-new Arenas featuring challenging new layouts, terrain hazards, and moving obstacles:

Orgrimmar Arena.
Dalaran Arena.

As mentioned above, this is not a comprehensive list, just some of the major highlights. We’ll post the full patch notes as soon as they’re available.

Regarding Inscription, please note that all Burning Crusade players will be able to select Inscription as one of their two professions and level up to a skill level of 375 with it. Upon the release of Wrath of the Lich King, players who purchase and install the expansion will be able to continue leveling in Inscription and the other professions beyond 375.

The Inscription becoming available prior to the actual expansion launch is a biggie. Those Peaceblooms will soon be worth their weight in gold as herbs are used as materials for skilling up the new tradeskill. It also means that enchants will be easier to sell, as Inscription allows the creation of special scrolls that enchanters can then prime with an enchant for anyone to use - no more "Looking for Enchanter" spam on Trade channel.

New talents and new spells also change a lot of things, and I don't think they can bring all that in without also adding the massive changes to bonuses. I'm of course talking about the +healing/+damage to +spellpower change that will retroactively change pretty much all of the caster gear. Or change to the separate +crit and +hit for melee and spells that will get transformed to unified +hit and +crit that will affect both. In other words, the vast majority of balance changes to be introduced with Wrath of the Lich King will actually become available well before the expansion launch. It will be interesting to see how they play out at Level 70 in PvP and raiding.

New UI Code, Login, New Arenas

What's not mentioned here, but is a given, is the version bump to 3.0 and all the UI-related changes that brings, so expect to see most of your addons break as well. More specifically anything related to action bars and unit frames will go boom, as the underlying code has changed a lot. Luckily most addon developers have already access to the beta and many popular addons already have "WOTLK-ready" versions available, so the transition should be smooth - you just have to update all your addons and remove or replace the ones that have been abandoned by their developers.

Blizzard hasn't mentioned the incoming change to Blizzard Accounts, but it's also possible that the change will be rolled out with this patch or soon after it. US Beta already uses the new system for logins, and it would seem prudent to roll out such a major change before the expansion actually hits.

It would also appear that the new Arena layouts will be effectively beta-tested on live servers as they are in this bridge patch. Not a bad idea, as it may be hard to get proper high-end Arena matches going on the beta realms. Arena players should also note that the arena points will be reset once you hit 71.

We want to provide some information about the direction of the Arena system. Upon the release of Wrath of the Lich King, players will find they are still able to access the Arena system at level 70 for rated matches. Those competing in the Arenas at 70 will still be able to attain items using Arena points and rankings; however, we do not currently plan to offer new items or titles for this bracket. Players who level past 70 will have their Arena points reset to 0 and be removed from all Arena teams in the level-70 bracket.

No stacking of arena points to be used for instant level 80 Arena gear. Better use them before hitting the leveling game again. Sorry.

Coming Soon

Blizzard hasn't set a date for this patch yet, but the post mentions that it will come "in the coming weeks". It will also be interesting to see if there will be a PTR phase for this patch - effectively they are patching in the whole Wrath of the Lich King client, while leaving out the new content and keeping the level cap at 70, so it may be that the closed beta serves that purpose and there is no need for PTR.

My initial educated guesses about the schedule would point towards putting this patch out by the end of October. Alpha started in June, Beta on July 17th and if the pattern holds, if this bridge-patch comes approximately six weeks before the expansion as it did with The Burning Crusade, it would put this patch at mid-October - that is, if Wrath of the Lich King is to launch by the end of November. Interesting times ahead...