World of Warcraft Patch 6.0.2 release date revealed
Warlords of Draenor world event and new dungeon hits servers this week.
The pre-release patch for Warlords of Draenor, the fifth World of Warcraft expansion, launches in the US tomorrow, with the EU version arriving on Wednesday.
The hefty update, which lays the groundwork for the next few years of adventuring in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game, packs in plenty of changes as WOW approaches its second decade of service. (The last time we checked our background downloader there was still another 8GB of data left to go, so if you've switched off automatic downloading in the past, you might want to think about re-enabling it ahead of launch.)
This time around, the traditional pre-expansion world event sees the legions of the Iron Horde invading Azeroth through the Dark Portal, and you'll be able to pop along when the patch goes live and bop a few of them on the chin.
If you fancy a stiffer challenge with a party of friends, the upcoming Level 100 remake of Upper Blackrock Spire is being temporarily retuned to Level 90, so you can get a taste of the action before starting the levelling process when the expansion goes live next month.
As well as this new content, a huge number of changes are being made to each of the game's classes in Patch 6.0.2 - including the outright removal of certain abilities - and the older character models are also getting a fresh and long-overdue lick of paint. WOW's Dungeon Finder tool is getting some enhanced functionality, and there are plenty of quality-of-life improvements being made to the game's interface and storage systems.
Last week we spoke to the expansion's lead designer Ion Hazzikostas about all of the changes being introduced with the imminent mega-patch. We'll have all the details from this interview for you at 5pm UK time today.
Warlords of Draenor will be released simultaneously around the world on 13th November.