World of Warcraft: Classic’s Early December Release
World of Warcraft (WoW) has had quite the resurgence. After the mishap with the Mists of Pandaria expansion, World of Warcraft has bounced back in stellar fashion. The game has regained its former glory as the reigning king (or queen) of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game genre. For proof of this, look no further than WoW’s two latest releases: The Battle For Azeroth and the much-awaited WoW: Classic.
So far, The Battle For Azeroth holds the record for the fastest-selling WoW expansion, as it managed to sell a whopping 3.4 million units during the first day of its release back in August 2018. This is made even more impressive considering how many expansions WoW has had and how long the game has been around. HP’s Tech Takes details that World of Warcraft has been around for 15 years, spanning seven expansions and more content than ever thought imaginable from a MMORPG. But some of the expansions are more loved than others, with fans yearning for the expansions of yesteryear.
Blizzard gave into fan response and reacted by releasing WoW: Classic back in August 2019. Newsweek reports that the release of Classic resulted in WoW subscriptions tripling, as players flocked back to the worlds that they loved from past releases. Four months in and WoW: Classic is still going strong as the community keeps expanding. This means that Blizzard has to keep up by releasing a steady stream of content, even choosing to move up one of the scheduled updates to December 10, 2019. The update will mostly consist of the release of the well-loved classic battlegrounds, where players once spent hours upon hours duking it out with their Horde or Alliance counterparts. But for newer players who don’t know what The Battlegrounds are, read on for a brief guide on the upcoming update.
What Are the Battlegrounds?
Players of WoW: Classic know that the implementation of the player versus player (PVP) honor system back in November changed the game, as it incentivized world PVP among users. And while this is great for some players, it has hampered the experience for others, as pros farming for honor points were killing them over and over. The players can’t be blamed either, as there was no other way to farm for honor points other than world PVP. This is where The Battlegrounds come in.
The Battlegrounds are a game mode where players from each faction can queue up and be transported to two maps that will be available on December 10. These maps are Warsong Gulch and Alterac Valley, two of the most iconic maps in WoW history. Once there, the players can fight and earn honor points depending on how well they do in battle.
Other Updates
The next update will also have something for those who are not into PVP. Elemental Invasions will be coming to Azeroth. What exactly happens during the invasion? Well, various elemental leaders will be popping up all across the game world at random. They will be summoning elementals alongside them that will continue to increase until the elemental leaders are defeated. This should add enough depth to the game to satisfy players until the next update in 2020, which will bring the Blackwing Lair raid and the Darkmoon Faire into the game.
