Blizzard is pulling out all the stops for it’s upcoming 10th expansion, The War Within. Pre-patch unlocks began on the 23rd with the additions of warbands, and the warband bank, followed by the start of the expansion’s pre-patch event, Radiant Echoes. This pre-patch gear catch up event did get off a rocky start, with low rewards, and a 90 minute respawn rate that left many frustrated. A frustration that was taken directly to the Blizzard forums. Well, good news denizens of Azeroth, Blizzard heard you.
New changes to the radiant echo events were tested in PTR and applied later that same day. Blizzard has now dropped the rotation timer to 1 hour, the event will remain active for the entirety of that hour cycling through each of the 3 phases until the event moves to the next area. For you farmer types out there, players can hang around in a zone and still farm lingering echoes even with the event not active.
Boss loot currency has been increased, and bosses can now reward flightstones and crests as well. Lastly, Blizzard has made the weekly quest a daily instead making the task of gearing an alt or main that much easier.
Not only has Blizzard listened to fan response, and quickly implemented changes based on that feedback, but they’ve also given players an exciting chance to come back to Azeroth, for free.
Starting yesterday August 1st, Blizzard has made the full World of Warcraft game available to players who are no longer subscribed to play for free. All the way up to the celebrated Dragonflight expansion. The free play event does end on August 4th. Returning players will have the option of playing through the level 1 through 10 training zone or skipping the training quests and starting off at level 1 in their racial starting area. From there, once level 10 is reached, something accomplished in a few hours of gameplay, players can choose to level to 70 via Chomie and her timewalking campaign or hop right into Dragonflight and level to 70 from there.
The War Within launches for early access on August 22nd, with the expansion officially going live on August 26th. Make sure to check back here at Cinelinx for our review!