World of Warcraft Reveals The War Within Pre-Expansion Patch Date And New Event

Highlights

• The War Within update for World of Warcraft will go live on July 23, with Radiant Echoes event starting on July 30.
• New features in the expansion include Warband system, Hero Talents, and the 25th playable race, the Earthen.
• Patch 11.0 update on July 23 brings class balance changes and new interface elements for players to explore.

On social media, Blizzard said the pre-expansion content update for World of Warcraft: The War Within will go live on Tuesday, July 23. World of Warcraft players can participate in an event called “Radiant Echoes” starting a week later, on July 30, and last until the expansion’s official launch on August 26.

As the tenth expansion to Blizzard’s long-running MMORPG, World of Warcraft: The War Within will be the first chapter of a trilogy called The Worldsoul Saga. The expansion will introduce new features, including the account-focused Warband system and Hero Talents for each class. The War Within will also introduce the game’s 25th playable race, the Earthen. Blizzard allowed World of Warcraft players to sign up for The War Within‘s closed beta test and give feedback. During testing, players uncovered via datamining that the pre-expansion patch could go live in late July. Suffice it to say, the dates were correct.

While the expansion will not be released until August, Blizzard will give players a taste of what to expect in just a few days. On Tuesday, July 23, World of Warcraft‘s Patch 11.0 update will go live following server maintenance. While details about the maintenance were unknown at the time of writing, the update will bring class balance changes and new user interface elements for players to familiarize themselves with. The new Warband feature, one of the main facets of The War Within, will go live on July 23. The system will give characters a new account-wide bank that can be used to transfer items and gold seamlessly and allow for shared reputation point gains to make gearing up much faster. To avoid potential issues with Warbands, the character restoration service will be temporarily suspended starting on July 23.

When Does World of Warcraft Patch 11.0 Go Live?

One week later, on July 30, an event called Radiant Echoes will begin. This event will feature characters from World of Warcraft‘s deep lore as bosses that can be found throughout Dragonblight, Dustwallow Marsh, and Searing Gorge. Players who participate will receive a currency called Residual Memories that can be traded to merchants in Dalaran and the aforementioned zones for mounts, bags, and companion pets. The Radiant Echoes event will end when The War Within fully releases on August 25. Players who preorder the Epic Edition of the expansion will be granted early access starting August 22.

After being greeted with a new World of Warcraft login screen, fans will have plenty of content to sink their time into before The War Within‘s launch. How players will react to the imminent update remains to be seen.