After the chaotic release of the pre-patch for WoW: The War Within, criticism is now being directed at the beta. The community is therefore discussing postponing the expansion.
At the end of 2023, the WoW developers at Blizzard announced that the upcoming expansion, The War Within, would be released in the summer of next year, by the end of September 2024 at the latest. As the year progressed and the test phases continued, many players assumed a September release. In June, it was surprisingly announced that The War Within would be released at the end of August.
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After the initial good test phases, players discovered that the beta was not running as smoothly as previous expansions. The pre-patch also caused a relatively large number of problems. Although there is no doom and gloom like before the release of WoW: Shadowlands, for the first time, the community is discussing a possible postponement of The War Within.
Should TWW Be Postponed?
I know it's wishful thinking at this point, but given the state the Pre-Patch was released in, and the way beta testing is going…
… for everyone's sanity on the dev team, I *really* hope a launch delay is being considered.
— Neryssa 💙 @ Wowhead (@itsneryssa) July 25, 2024
On Twitter, WoWHead writer Neryssa shared her thoughts on the TWW beta and the pre-patch. She writes in her post:
“I know it’s wishful thinking at this point, but given the state the pre-patch was released in and the way the beta testing is going… I hope for the sanity of everyone on the development team that a release delay is really being considered.”
The Twitter post now has 500 likes and is also being hotly debated in the WoW Reddit forum with over 300 comments. According to some players, the surprisingly early release date is now taking its toll. However, it feels like a postponement of the expansion is discussed before every add-on, according to another part of the commentators.
The only WoW expansion that was postponed by a month at short notice was the penultimate expansion, Shadowlands. At the time, the circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic caused delays for many video game companies. With, as of now, four weeks until the official release of The War Within, a postponement seems unlikely.
The pre-patch of the add-on casts a worse light on the project than is actually the case. Important expansion features that do not work at all in the pre-patch, such as the warband bank or the warband transmog features, work without any problems in the beta.
The developers have shot themselves in the foot with the current pre-patch build of The War Within. The version of the expansion features that we play on the live servers is based on an old build of the pre-patch and not on the one from the beta server. This is causing discontent, especially among the war mob.