World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor alpha invites in the mail (for some)

The headline feature of Warlords of Draenor is its garrisons, but you can bet it will have raids aplenty.

Some of you may have woken up to an unexpected email from Blizzard inviting you into the Warlords of Draenor alpha. The closed test lets some players go hands on with the new World of Warcraft expansion ahead of its release this December.

As the test progresses more features and areas coming in the expansion will become available to play with but for now alpha testers only have access to Frostfire Ridge “a harsh land of ceaseless winter and volcanic peaks,” and they can only play as the Horde, too.

“As an alpha test participant, you’ll experience the new content and features of Warlords of Draenor before the expansion is released,” write Blizzard. “Over the course of testing, you’ll venture through the Dark Portal, establish your Garrison, and fight back against the Iron Horde!

“For this early phase of alpha testing, we’re focusing on the Horde experience in Frostfire Ridge, a harsh land of ceaseless winter and volcanic peaks. You’ll need to create a new character (only Horde is available, at least for now); we’ll give it some gear and level it to 90, and then you’ll be on your way! We’ll be adding lots more content and features as the alpha test progresses—head to our forums to keep tabs on the latest.”

The alpha forums can be read by anyone so even if you’re not in the alpha you can keep tabs on the new content. Blizzard have also made the alpha patch notes public, too.

Testers are free to post screenshots, videos, and discussions of what they’re seeing in the test realm so expect a great many details to be revealed in the near future. I’m downloading the alpha at the moment and will hopefully have some thoughts in readable form in the next day or so.

If you can’t wait till then you can read more about the Warlords of Draenor expansion in our preview.