Fans of World of Warcraft can play the expansion for €90 before anyone else. MeinMMO demon Cortyn thinks that’s pretty good.
At BlizzCon 2023, World of Warcraft presented its next expansion. With “The War Within”, the journey goes towards the core of Azeroth into several underground areas. But with the announcement also came the beginning of the pre-sale. As usual, there are three different versions.
New, however, is that the most expensive version, the Epic Edition, grants three days of early access to The War Within.
And to be honest? I think the decision is good.
What does early access mean? Early access with “The War Within” means that all buyers of the Epic Edition can start the new expansion three days before anyone else. So you can explore the new areas, level up to level 80, and benefit from the new systems like the hero talents.
However, many endgame systems are still deactivated during this time. The “big weekly quests” cannot be tackled yet, nor can any mythic dungeons. Since a season isn’t active yet, raids and Mythic+ are also off the table.
The only advantage is that you can level up to level 80 with a slightly smaller number of players than has been the case in previous expansions.
A lot of criticism – I see the benefits
I can understand that some do not like Blizzard’s decision. There are indeed arguments and perspectives against it. The two most common are:
- It ruins the great “We all start together” feeling that one usually had.
- It is not really “early access”, but the regular access is simply locked for everyone else.
There were almost always problems at the launches of the last expansions. Whether it was that the sudden influx of players brought the servers to their knees or that some bugs occurred. Additionally, there is a large DDoS attack guaranteed at practically every launch, which additionally burdens the servers.
Whether it was Dragonflight, Shadowlands, Battle for Azeroth, or most expansions before – the launch never went smoothly. Think about how many acquaintances in your circle were frustrated on launch night because they were stuck in a queue, on a boat, or in front of a non-responsive NPC for hours. That is easily forgotten.
With a “soft launch”, limited to part of the player base, you avoid this one, gigantic surge. At the same time, all others might see it as a “final beta test”. Because in general, additional problems arise at launch that did not come to light during testing (with fewer players). This means that particularly severe errors are likely to be fixed with a hotfix before the “real” launch.
By spacing out the launch by 3 days, you are a less attractive target for external disruptions, and the “typical launch day problems” could also be reduced.
I also understand those who say that Blizzard is only doing this to make more money. I mean: Yes, of course. So much for the obvious. On the other hand, the “hardcore WoW fans” usually buy the Epic Edition anyway. So not much changes there.
Or how do you see it?
