Blizzard's World of Warcraft is accelerating its return.
On June 6th, Blizzard's official Weibo account announced that the Blizzard national server deletion technology test will start on June 11th, and preparations have been made to commemorate the achievements exclusive to pets and national servers.
Blizzard stated that through this test, it is believed that "Wrath of the Lich King" will officially launch in June. Currently, players can visit the official website to download the Warwebsite client and pre download the "Wrath of the Lich King" client.
This technical test will be open to all players, with no account restrictions, and players can experience the game content of "Wrath of the Lich King" at levels 1 to 20. During the testing period, dedicated testing servers "Compression No. 1" and "Compression No. 2" will be set up. The testing server will be open from 11:00 am to 23:00 pm every day. The test will not consume the game time in the participating player's account. After the testing is completed, all test roles will be deleted.
It is understood that Wrath of the Lich King is a classic version of World of Warcraft, released in 2008. It is a nostalgic server and not an official server of World of Warcraft.
When it comes to the reason for the latest launch of Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard stated that "Wrath of the Lich King" returns before the official server and is not a "choice". "If technical conditions permit, we will definitely choose to launch both the official server and the nostalgic server at the fastest speed. This is the best solution for your experience, game reputation, and even from a business perspective."
However, the preparation time required for starting different servers varies, and the order of server opening is also affected by this factor. The reason why "Wrath of the Lich King" was first activated is because it requires a shorter preparation time than the official server. Meanwhile, starting "Wrath of the Lich King" first will not delay the start of the official server. The upcoming technical testing can accelerate the preparation work for the official server.
"Please believe that all our efforts are aimed at bringing back your beloved world as soon as possible. We sincerely request your understanding here. We will also do our best to reduce the waiting time for players. The official server of World of Warcraft will be re launched when the technical preparation is completed," Blizzard said.
On June 5th, many players announced on social media that Blizzard's gaming platform "Battle.net" can now log in with their previous account passwords, and their transaction records have been preserved. Various functions are also being launched one after another, which has sparked a new wave of discussion about the return of Chinese servers.
Previously, the official Weibo account of World of Warcraft stated, "From June 3rd to 5th, we will maintain the official website and further integrate the Warcraft website functions. During this period, you may not be able to complete login and message operations. Subsequently, we will conduct technical tests based on Wrath of the Lich King, which will be an important step before the launch of Wrath of the Lich King. We will restart the nostalgic and official servers one by one, and everyone's enthusiasm is a great motivation for our work. All the return work is accelerating under everyone's urging."
However, for the latest official announcement of this return, many players in the comment section joked that it belongs to "hunger marketing": the official and nostalgic versions of World of Warcraft have not yet confirmed the exact launch time, and Hearthstone and Guardians have no latest updates. They are more looking forward to announcing the specific launch time of the official version.
On April 10th, a source familiar with the matter revealed to a reporter from The Paper that there is currently no guarantee that the Chinese version of World of Warcraft will be re launched this summer. "Everyone is striving for World of Warcraft to be launched as soon as possible, but there is still a lot of work to be done." However, the official and nostalgic versions of the official version were not mentioned for their respective launch times.
Previously, Blizzard Entertainment, Microsoft Games and NetEase jointly announced that Blizzard Entertainment's game works will return to the Chinese Mainland market in succession since this summer according to the updated game distribution agreement.