The test server of World of Warcraft is offline. This is said to be due to an error. But the community is sure: “It’s all a lie, you’re hiding something.”
What a coincidence. Just before the announcement of the latest expansion of World of Warcraft, Blizzard unfortunately, unfortunately has to take the PTR servers of the new patch offline. An update for patch 9.2.5 is delayed due to an “error” that was noticed too late. The community is sure: This is coldly calculated.
What was said? In a forum post, Blizzard announced that an error unfortunately occurred when installing the latest version of the PTR for patch 9.2.5. The consequence: The test realms have to remain offline for now. They will likely fix the error “at the beginning of next week” and then testing could resume.
What does the community think? The players largely agree and comment on the announcement with sayings like:
- “An error, sure. Who do you think you can fool?”
- “Okay, keep your secrets … for now.”
- “It couldn’t be more obvious, but nice try.”
The community is therefore more than skeptical that the temporary shutdown of the PTR is really an error, as Blizzard currently claims.
What’s behind these sayings? Most believe that there definitely wasn’t an error. It’s suspected that Blizzard intentionally took the PTR offline and delayed the next version of patch 9.2.5. The reason for this is said to be that next Tuesday (April 19), the next expansion of World of Warcraft will be announced.
The theory now is that the next version of patch 9.2.5 could already contain a whole series of game data that would make the next addon very clearly recognizable. Data miners would likely find numerous assets within minutes, which would make it abundantly clear how the story of Warcraft continues.
Therefore, Blizzard is waiting until the announcement of the new expansion has passed before turning the PTR back on.
How likely is this? Pretty likely. That a PTR is offline for several days due to “an error” that is so dramatic that the servers cannot run at all is very rare in World of Warcraft. The timing is just too perfect to genuinely consider this a harmless coincidence.
In the last versions of the PTR, data miners have consistently discovered small details that slowly but surely hint at the future of WoW. To prevent further leaks, pausing the PTR seems to be a good option – especially since there is hardly any time pressure for patch 9.2.5, as the current season 3 of Shadowlands has only been running for a few weeks.
Do you believe this is really just a silly coincidence? Or do you not believe a word from the developers either?
