WoW Wrath of the Lich King Classic is, for many players, a return to a golden age of the premier MMORPG. WotLK was a time when WoW was at its peak in popularity and relevance, hitting an as-yet unbeaten active subscription count of around 12 million during the expansion. Celebrities like William Shatner and Ozzy Osbourne were appearing in prime time adverts pretending that they not only knew what it was, but played it themselves. Although it’s unlikely the throwback release will capture the same lightning in a bottle, it’s a nice trip down memory lane for those long-tenured or lapsed fans. A new release build for the beta servers just dropped, so let’s run down what’s new in this update.
This build is particularly appealing for PvP enthusiasts, as we have numerous new features relevant to their interests, starting with Wintergrasp. Wintergrasp was, at the time it was implemented, an ambitious endeavour. Rather than being separated entirely from the game world, like other battlegrounds, Wintergrasp was a zone in the middle of Northrend. Every couple of hours, Horde and Alliance players would flock to the zone in order to either wrest control of or defend the main fortified keep. Holding the keep would give the faction access to a raid, the Vault of Archavon, as well as access to vendors which traded exclusive items for Stone Keeper’s Shards. The area of Wintergrasp is now open for exploration in WotLK Classic, although the battles will not start just yet. Once they do, you too can experience the joy of accidentally flying over Wintergrasp while a battle is underway, becoming dismounted and plummeting to your death.
In other PvP news, Strand of the Ancients is now open for testing. Strand is a battleground where the attacking team must bust through a series of fortified walls from a beachhead, using war machines and avoiding turret fire in order to capture the central sanctum. In addition, a new PvP arena, the Ring of Valor (also known as the Ogrimmar Arena) is also open for testing.
A whole host of bug fixes are also dropping in this update, including a fix for spell animations, class abilities, various quests, and the removal of Epic gems, which shouldn’t be available until later in the expansion.
For the full patch notes, you can check out the blue post on the WoW forums. For more of the latest on WotLK, check out the details of the WoW Wrath of the Lich King pre-patch. If you’re not the nostalgic sort, check out the new WoW Shadowlands Fated Raid affixes, which introduce some unique challenges to the raiding experience.