World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is just a bit over a week away from launch, and to help ensure the experience is smooth for its players, Blizzard Entertainment announced a Launch Test taking place on the beta servers that will simulate the circumstances of the real deal as closely as possible. Expansion launches in World of Warcraft have always been a chaotic affair, with many people trying to break through memorably long queues only to suffer a lag-staggered introduction to the new expansion.
Though some players now humorously recall the first two weeks in Warlords of Draenor, no one was happy with the state of the servers at the time, and the collective frustration in the World of Warcraft community drowned out any other discourse. Blizzard Entertainment clearly wanted to make sure that this never happened again, and though Legion's launch had its hiccups, the release of Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands was so smooth that even Final Fantasy 14 developers congratulated Blizzard on it.
To continue this streak of stability and excellence, the World of Warcraft team has scheduled a stress test on its beta servers tomorrow November 21 at 12:00 PM PST. The servers will be taken offline at noon, and half an hour later, ill come back online in a pre-launch state (as they currently are on Live). The closing events for the Dragonflight prologue will occur half an hour after that, and at 2:00 PM PST, the Dragon Isles open up to players entirely.
The test will conclude at 3:00 PM PST, after which the beta servers will go offline and relaunch in their original post-launch state, along with all previously-made characters. Though the release of Dragonflight will undoubtedly present a bigger strain on the World of Warcraft servers, and the recent launch of Overwatch 2 left a lot to be desired, there's no reason to doubt that Dragonflight won't follow in the footsteps of Shadowlands and Battle for Azeroth.
While a lot of players have expected the expansion to launch next year, Blizzard's efforts to stay on schedule and introduce the next chapter of the Warcraft saga as planned should be commended – doubly so, if it sticks the landing. Dragonflight is introducing a new Hero Class, reintroducing the old talent and loot systems, and presenting a simpler story that's closer to home for most players. It has all the ingredients needed to be a return to form for World of Warcraft. Whether Dragonflight truly is that breath of fresh air – or more of the same – will be something for the players to find out on November 28.
World of Warcraft is available now for PC. Dragonflight launches on November 28.
Source: World of Warcraft