The World of Warcraft Shadowlands pre-patch is currently being deployed by Blizzard for those in the US.
While the servers are not yet online at the time of writing due to server maintenance, the highly-anticipated pre-expansion update is now being implemented. Those in Europe will have to wait until tomorrow before the patch becomes available. Blizzard announced longer-than-usual server maintenance yesterday in order to prepare for the Shadowlands pre-patch launch.
The 9.0.1 pre-patch is now out for US.
(Servers not up yet) pic.twitter.com/fqXXcjjdF5
— Martin Benjamins (@Marlamin) October 13, 2020
“We will be performing scheduled maintenance beginning on Tuesday, October 13th, 7:00 AM (PDT) and we expect the service to be available again at approximately 3:00PM (PDT)”, Blizzard wrote. “During this time the game will be unavailable to play.”
The pre-patch for Shadowlands allows World of Warcraft players to experience some of the content coming to the upcoming expansion, including the level squish to level 50, the New Player Starting Experience, and much more. You’ll find some highlights of the pre-expansion patch below:
CHARACTER BOOST CHANGES
With the upcoming character-level conversions in Shadowlands, Character Boosts will also change once the pre-expansion patch is live. You’ll want to plan ahead for how you want to use your boosts.
Level 120 Character Boosts will boost characters to level 50 after the pre-expansion patch.
Level 110 Character Boosts will boost characters to level 48 after the pre-expansion patch.
LEVELS, ITEMS, AND STATS ADJUSTED
With the pre-expansion patch, levels, items, and stats will be adjusted to make reaching a new level feel more meaningful while simultaneously making the leveling experience faster than before. Characters at level 120 will become level 50 after the content update.
NEW STARTING EXPERIENCE: EXILE’S REACH
Exile’s Reach
Exile’s Reach is an all-new starting experience that will take you on an excursion to a faraway island and introduce you to the fundamentals of playing World of Warcraft and your chosen class. If you’re new to World of Warcraft and have never created or leveled a character, you will automatically begin your journey into Azeroth with the starting experience. If you’re a veteran player or you’ve leveled a character before, you can choose to opt out of the starting experience and begin instead at level 1 in the starting area for your race.
Upon reaching level 10, new players will continue their journey through Battle for Azeroth and into Shadowlands.
World of Warcraft Shadowlands was initially slated for a release later this month on October 26/27. Unfortunately, Blizzard recently delayed to expansion to somewhere later this year. A new release date has yet to be announced.
