wow The War Within Launch Roadmap: Important Dates

[Staff 1,488]

Blizzard has posted a launch roadmap for the War Within expansion going live on August 26 and here are all the important dates!

The War Within Launch Roadmap

• The War Within Beta is now live, you can upgrade to the Epic Edition for instant Beta access.
• Early Access begins on August 22 and is also available when you pre-order the Epic Edition of the game.
• The War Within launches globally for everyone else on August 26, 2024.
• The War Within Season 1 starts on September 10, 2024.

Here's an infographic covering all the above.

[Ken007 97]

Bet this surprised a lot of people. Many were expecting the launch in September due to the time Remix ends. Glab to see it is coming early!

[Q 200]

23 minutes ago, Ken007 said:

Bet this surprised a lot of people. Many were expecting the launch in September due to the time Remix ends. Glab to see it is coming early!

I'm certainly surprised, though I do worry about how many bugs and glitches there will be since it seems pretty soon

[profion85 5]

So the pre-patch will be release at end of the July? Usually pre-pacthes comes out one month before the launch.

[Fungo 6]

I wonder if they plan to end wow, when they say it is the final battle.

[Cham79 87]

1 hour ago, Fungo said:

I wonder if they plan to end wow, when they say it is the final battle.

I think it's more to hype up Xala'tath as the harbinger / a battle we wont win since it's what she says in the trailer and it's just the beginning of the saga

Edited June 10 by Cham79

[Fluke 0]

There are always issues at the start of expansions, so it being released early isn't really concerning - especially as Season 1 doesn't start until 2 weeks after the release date.  It's good news, as it helps keep guilds and groups of people together if content is released sooner.

[CatieRambles 0]

23 hours ago, Ken007 said:

Bet this surprised a lot of people. Many were expecting the launch in September due to the time Remix ends. Glab to see it is coming early!

seeing as Remix ends August 19th, The War Within is coming out a week later. FFXIV times their moogletome event the same way, running it up until the launch of new content. kinda figured they were going to do something like that and gave the release that time frame.

[Arcling 898]

9 hours ago, Cham79 said:

I think it's more to hype up Xala'tath as the harbinger / a battle we wont win since it's what she says in the trailer and it's just the beginning of the saga

We are supposed to have our final fight with Void Lords in Midnight, unless they are going to change it and it's going to happen in The Last Titan. Otherwise, we might fight corrupted Titans, I guess. Xal'atath feels like a pretty boring villain to me. Her only goal is to consume the power of a Titan. Perhaps she will die during this expansion or they will keep her for Midnight, but by then they could introduce more Void Lords. TWW will likely end up as a filler and set-up, they seem keen on delaying something significant happening as much as possible. Main characters also have plot armor, I would be surprised if Jaina, Thrall, Alleria or Anduin have died.

This release date seems a bit too soon. It doesn't leave much time for a proper beta.

[Pandabuffel 184]

On 6/10/2024 at 7:40 PM, Arcling said:

Xal'atath feels like a pretty boring villain to me. Her only goal is to consume the power of a Titan.

That's oversimplifying it a bit imo. The whole history of WoW consists of the fact that the Void Lords want to corrupt a world soul. It's the whole reason we had Old Gods yeeted at our planet. We have been warned many times that the void has always been our biggest enemy and that corrupting a world soul would basically mean absolute victory for the void. Even our biggest enemies like Sargeras shared our goal of preventing that from happening at all costs, we only disagreed on the means of how to prevent it. We have been shown many glimpses of what happens when the void wins, especially in the fight against Star Augur Etraeus in the Nighthold where we see whole planets covered in purple tentacles (with the phase being called "Inevitable Fate"). Now looking at the trailer we get a glimpse that Xal'atath might actually succeed her mission. No Old God has come this close to corrupting the world soul of Azeroth. We're not just looking at Xal'atath 'just wanting to consume the power of a Titan'. We're looking at the Void finally reaching their goal after all these years, at the cost of Azeroth (our planet and what seems to be the strongest world soul out there).

Sure, we don't have to agree on how interesting a villain is, that's personal opinion. But I do think you're extremely underestimating the importance of what's happening here.

 

[Arcling 898]

11 hours ago, Pandabuffel said:

Sure, we don't have to agree on how interesting a villain is, that's personal opinion. But I do think you're extremely underestimating the importance of what's happening here.

We will see, they have to save some story for Midnight. She might get close to her goal, but not close enough. The story has been moving quite slowly over the last few expansions. They used to burn through villains (and some heroes) quite fast, but now they are reluctant to kill more important characters. Regarding the world soul, Void Lords either want to consume or corrupt it and use its power. As villains, they don't really have any interesting goals, other than just to corrupt, consume or destroy. Xal'atath has a body of a void elf, so this looks like their attempt to fill some... Void, by putting another "waifu" villain in the center of the story as a replacement for Sylvanas. 

Anyway, this expansion looks like it will mainly serve to set up Midnight, so waiting several years for something actually important to happen is rather underwhelming. We've defeated N'zoth in BfA, defeated Zovaal and heard his warning, Dragonflight felt like a one huge filler and we are still waiting for Void Lords' final assault. And none of the important heroes have died: Jaina, Thrall, Anduin, Alleria, Baine and so on, they are all fine. Villains should feel like a threat again, I hope they are going to change this at some point.

Edited June 12 by Arcling