wow War of Thorns 8.0 Pre-Expansion Event & Release Date

[Starym 3,800]

 

Several redditors spotted a new entry in the beta/PTR event calendar, featuring the pre-expansion event. It's already started on the PTR and it's called the War of the Thorns, featuring conflict in Darkshore for control of Teldrassil. Now, we know how that particular "control" ends up, but hopefully the event itself won't be as fire-y!

Also, based on the length of the event, it seems most likely we'll be seeing it come up on live servers on or around July 17th, if we assume it will last until the expansion launch itself, so we have a little over three and a half weeks until we see the pre-expansion event and the pre-patch itself as well! It's a little unclear if the Battle for Lordaeron will be part of the pre-patch or will be available at launch, so the date might actually be a little earlier since it seems logical that the events won't overlap, as one is caused by the other. so another possible date would be July 10th.

Also, check out what you should do before the pre-patch goes live, as there are achievements to be had that will be removed.

[Nazamber 38]

Interesting title, War of the Thorns. Any who, I was thinking about the same time frame since there will be a lot of getting used to for us non-alpha/beta/ptr folks and there are world quests. Also, I am not 100% sure but I thought there was a blue post floating around saying that Teldrassil and Battle for Lordaeron as pre-patch events...but I would rather they release Battle for Lordaeron at launch to make the story flow much better even though most of the cinematics were directly before the in-game experience as they were released with pre-patch.  Which some of these events had the best build up phases  to pre-patch.

Clarifying what I mean:

Burning Crusade:
Cinematic - Dark Portal being opened by Kruul.
Pre-patch - His demonic invasion across Azeroth (oh man the days of kiting him to Stormwind...haha) and the battle at the Dark Portal.
Launch - Enter the Portal

Wrath of the Lich King:
Cinematic - The Lich King finally awakens
Pre-patch: Epic Scourge Invasion happens but you had that awesome Phased build up, starting with the plague, then the zombies...oh man this was great.
Launch - Journey to Northrend

Cataclysm:
Cinematic - Deathwing emerges from Deepholm
Pre-patch: Beautiful build up phases prior to pre-patch launch, actual launch the world went through the changes following Deathwing's emergence and Stormwind was destroyed.
Launch - Vash'jir (yuck) or Hyjal

Mists of Pandaria:
Cinematic  - Landfall on Pandaria
Pre-patch: Nothing...:( made me so sad.
Launch - Landfall

Warlords of Draenor:
Cinematic - Denial of Mannoroth's "Gift" building of the Dark Portal
Pre-patch: Would have been epic...with the idea of phased advancements of the Iron Horde towards Blackrock (which would have made the UBRS dungeon make sense) but ended up being the controlled Blasted Lands.
Launch - Enter the Dark Portal

Legion:
Cinematic - Sylvanas and Varian start the attack on the Broken Shore
Pre-patch: Build up, demonic invasions, doom sayers and dark whispers
Launch - Begin the invasion of the Broken Shore (following the events of the Cinematic)

Battle for Azeroth:
Cinematic - Siege on Lordaeron
Pre-patch: **We have had out of place, events so its weird how they are doing this one...if we are taking the above into consideration**

a) We have the Sword of Sargeras dilemma still ongoing which I think could have been a build up event, and not necessarily "deplete" the weapons until pre-patch but go through everything.
b) Then we have the comics that have made a few prelude stuff to Before the Storm, which kind of ends on an Alliance reason for why they choose Lordaeron.
c)  We know Teldrassil happens but we have no real build up to why it would happen or anything that suggest the Horde and the Alliance are looking at that as a focus. (They could have released the the Novellas to the public versus ransoming so they can make more money...because I really think this was a greedy effort on their part..."Lets capitalize on people loving our story, charge them $100 for the more valuable story aside from everything else"

--I think that's what is bothering me, Blizzard has had a good time building stuff without leaving too much mystery. The way things have trended, the cinematic would be the visual pre-lude to the "what happens next" which usually is the pre-patch but we have too many loose ends and beginning storys that don't piecemeal together thus far. 

-- If pre-patch concludes with the Burning of Teldrassil that is still fitting, despite the clunky story telling due to its jigg sawed placement. I do highlight that it does make sense to have BfA start with the BfL just because of the freeing of the Zandalari princess and Jaina's endeavor to get the Kul Tirans, which puts us at the questing areas...

 

Edited June 22, 2018 by Nazamber

[Drachar 45]

Personally I hope we have the burning of Tedrassil and the fall of Undercity in the prepatch, so you go straight to the Horde jailbreak/Jaina's trip to Boralus when BfA is realeased.

It gives a bit more to do while waiting for the expansion, and having every single player queue up twice for the scenarios around release time is gonna be.. problematic for the instance servers.

[Stan 5,240]

Played this on 8.0 PTR. Here's a little preview from the Horde perspective >  *Contains spoilers*

Spoiler

You start the quest in Undercity, where Sylvanas sends you to find High Overlord Saurfang in Barrens, you push your way through Ashenvale, poison a Night Elf village (Astranaar) and make your way up to Darkshore, fighting off furbolgs and killing wisps. Malfurion tries to stop you by summoning a wisp wall, but you learn that wisps are easily distracted and Sylvanas manages to get over the barrier. There's also a cinematic where she asks Malfurion: "Where are you hiding, little bird?" haha. In the end, you unlock Darkshore world quests. Not sure what else will happen after that. It appears that the Horde wants ultimate control over Darkshore before Teldrassil is burned down.

[Nazamber 38]

3 hours ago, Stan said:

Played this on 8.0 PTR. Here's a little preview from the Horde perspective >  *Contains spoilers*

  Reveal hidden contents

You start the quest in Undercity, where Sylvanas sends you to find High Overlord Saurfang in Barrens, you push your way through Ashenvale, poison a Night Elf village (Astranaar) and make your way up to Darkshore, fighting off furbolgs and killing wisps. Malfurion tries to stop you by summoning a wisp wall, but you learn that wisps are easily distracted and Sylvanas manages to get over the barrier. There's also a cinematic where she asks Malfurion: "Where are you hiding, little bird?" haha. In the end, you unlock Darkshore world quests. Not sure what else will happen after that. It appears that the Horde wants ultimate control over Darkshore before Teldrassil is burned down.

Interesting. I feel like we are all still missing the, "who started it" or does everyone think this is going to be like how the American Revolutionary War started with the high tension and one person let off a round but no one knows from which side...I mean I would feel better with that neutrality then them deciding 14 years later...that Horde is just a band of evil doers...like..Siege of Orgrimmar II would probably cause a lot of people to stop playing...I just cant fathom them rehashing Pandaria Garrosh story line...and ending it with a raid...with another Horde leader...its just fanfare for kids at that point...

[Laragon 269]

56 minutes ago, Nazamber said:

Interesting. I feel like we are all still missing the, "who started it" or does everyone think this is going to be like how the American Revolutionary War started with the high tension and one person let off a round but no one knows from which side...I mean I would feel better with that neutrality then them deciding 14 years later...that Horde is just a band of evil doers...like..Siege of Orgrimmar II would probably cause a lot of people to stop playing...I just cant fathom them rehashing Pandaria Garrosh story line...and ending it with a raid...with another Horde leader...its just fanfare for kids at that point...

Equally I'd be pissed if they make it "equal" to have the alliance be the starter. Especially with heroes like Tyrande, Anduin, and Malfurion which are as close "innocent" as the story-line has. Either way we all know this screams old gods.

[PatrickHenry 293]

On 6/22/2018 at 11:42 AM, Laragon said:

Anduin, 

Like the theorycrafters surmise, he very likely could be the Boy King that serves at the master's table, from Il'gynoth.  

I concur with the old god angle.

[Nazamber 38]

On 6/22/2018 at 12:42 PM, Laragon said:

Equally I'd be pissed if they make it "equal" to have the alliance be the starter. Especially with heroes like Tyrande, Anduin, and Malfurion which are as close "innocent" as the story-line has. Either way we all know this screams old gods.

Just because Anduin, Tyrande and Malfurion are "innocent" doesn't mean anything. Baine, Lor'themar, Rok'han are innocent.

The way the story has been panning out since Siege of Orgrimmar and War Crimes to add the Broken Shore events, it would only make sense that the Alliance started the war based of sheer ignorance of events...then to have a Garrosh 2.0 again. 

Tyrande isn't innocent...she has been strangely anti-Horde for awhile...and has even made the declaration to battle the Horde if we effect her side of Ashenvale. Malfurion has also expressed his deep hatred for the Horde...Anduin is the only one I pass because since War Crimes and the moments in Before the Storm...he kept to his main idea that the Horde wasn't bad.