From Press Release:
The Champions of Azeroth begin their final preparations for the journey deep within the world to confront the forces of the Void gaining strength as the pre-expansion update for The War Within is now live!
This update is the first of two that brings big changes to World of Warcraft as players inch closer to global launch on August 26 at 3:00 p.m. PDT (and early access starting on August 22). With today’s update, players can look forward to:
- New Feature: Warbands
- Players will see account-wide changes that will transform character management to include a warband bank, an increased amount of achievements and reputations that are now account-wide, a new character select screen and more!
- Expanded Feature: Skyriding
- Introduced as dragonriding in Dragonflight, skyriding expands the number of mounts that can be used with this system with more on the way as the expansion progresses
- The previous flight system is now referred to as steady flight
- Class Balance and Changes
- In advance of Hero Talents that will be available during the level-up experience after launch, all new adjustments and changes for classes and specializations will be available for players to explore
- Dragonflight absorbed into the base subscription
- Ahead of the pre-expansion update, Dragonflight will no longer be offered as a standalone expansion offering and will transition into the base subscription
- Additionally, new and returning players will now see Dragonflight as the default 10-70 leveling expansion, which was Battle for Azeroth previously.
Coming on July 30 with the second part of the pre-expansion update:
- New Event: Radiant Echoes
- Confront the memories of Azeroth and earn Residual Memories to purchase new items to add to the warband collection
- This event is open to all players level 10-70, regardless of whether they own The War Within.
For more information on the pre-expansion update, check out the World of Warcraft blog.
