Pre-order the World of Warcraft 15th Anniversary Collector’s Edition

World of Warcraft 15th Anniversary In-Game Rewards

WoW Classic Launches August 27, 2019. Beta Starts May 15th
Blizzard announced this morning that WoW Classic will launch on August 27th, 2019. The beta starts May 15th!

Be sure you have opted in for beta!


Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Mark your calendars: WoW Classic goes live worldwide August 27! Whether your battle cry is “For the Horde!” or “For the Alliance!”, there’s no shortage of adventure awaiting you in the vast continents of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms.

See below for details on the exact time you can log in and experience the origins of World of Warcraft.




Classic WoW Testing Schedule
Beginning May 15, select WoW players will be invited to participate in a small-scale, focused closed beta test. Players will also get a chance to help put our servers and technology through their paces in a series of stress tests running from May through July—you can opt in now through Account Management and select the WoW Classic beta. Subsequent stress tests will extend the opportunity to even more players. Level caps will also be in place to ensure we’re emphasizing the “stress” in “stress test”

—we want to push our tech to the limit, and that means a critical mass of players in close proximity.

Stress Test Schedule*
Stress Test 1: Wed May 22–Thurs May 23
Stress Test 2: Wed Jun 19– Thurs Jun 20
Stress Test 3: Thurs Jul 18– Fri July 19
*Dates of each stress test are subject to change.

To fill our pool of beta and stress test participants, we’ll be choosing dedicated players who meet select criteria from both the WoW Classic beta opt-in and the standard Warcraft beta opt-in. Participants will also need to have an active subscription or active game time on their Battle.net Account. While opting-in to the beta is the primary way to make sure you’re in the running to join the test it doesn’t guarantee an invitation to the closed beta test. We may also consider additional factors such as how long a player has been subscribed to the game so that we have the right mix of players to ensure great feedback toward making WoW Classic the very best experience for the community.

Create Your Character
If you’re eager to claim your character name in WoW Classic, take note: we’ll be opening character creation on Tuesday, August 13.** Players with an active subscription or game time on their account will be able to create up to three characters per World of Warcraft account. We’ll have more information on realm names closer to launch, but rest assured—you’ll have plenty of time to figure out your plans for realm domination!

*To align with other regions, the Americas will launch slightly ahead of August 27 in local time.
** To align with other regions, the Americas character creation will occur slightly ahead of August 13.
This article was originally published in forum thread: WoW Classic Launches August 27th, Beta May 15th started by Stoy View original post
Comments 211 Comments
  1. Nite92's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by dhru2 View Post
    Free ads for them. I like how WoW streamers don't even know they are being used as Blizzard's personal slaves...
    You do know that it is a win win win situation? Blizz gets the Word Out, streamers get more Views and Players get to see more stuff.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Sencha View Post
    Because part of the fee was for the game development at that time.
    It's your problem If you only like parts of the product(wow) offered. Don't sub If you dont Like it.
  1. Felixon's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by det View Post
    You must have missed every thread since Classic servers were requested and announced where this topic and this argument was discussed to death

    Here..I sum up the essence after hundreds of threads and thousands of posts (wait, it is over 2000 threads and over 130 000 posts"

    A) You think you want it, but you don't. After the initial rush, interest will die down and you are left with dead and empty servers
    B) Classic will have more players than retail, retail will shut down or if not, they will re-design retail to be more like Classic.

    (and in fairness, some variation between those two, like "What should be changed")
    What did I miss exactly? The fact,that there was a bunch of people,who were playing on a private server,which was closed,and who went on to whine on the Blizzard forums,demanding an old version of a game? Or the fact,that there's a bunch of people,who think,that if they will start playing vanilla again today,it will all be the same as back - despite the fact,that a memory tends to portray things in a brighter light,than they actually were?

    People seriously don't understand or have forgotten what it's like,when you really need 40 guild members for the raid,which takes 5-6 hours to clean or how stupid it's to grind a materials for hours only to craft idiotic resistance gear.
  1. Sencha's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Malix Farwin View Post
    Yikes! because i do not like Classic i am a BfA fanboi, except i cancelled my sub for bfa lol.

    - - - Updated - - -



    Spoiler alert, we don't actually care if Classic is successful or not. Its basically like a private server in terms of care factor.
    Yet you get triggered by this post aimed at retail fanbois when you claim you're not one. It's funny.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Nite92 View Post
    It's your problem If you only like parts of the product(wow) offered. Don't sub If you dont Like it.
    Thanks Sherlock. I thought I was forced to.
  1. supermany2's Avatar
    Does anyone know at what Time the Beta starts? Or is it already live?
  1. Flamez2's Avatar
    best thing was so many people and very very active guilds and the friendship made, we still have a handfull of the same people playing in the same guild as back then.
    however i remember how much grinding we had to do in vanilla and the stupid slow leveling.. no way i'll go back to that
  1. Aucald's Avatar
    I don't really understand this whole "Retail vs. Classic" thing people seem to be so insistent on - more options are good, and you can play either form the game (or both of them) depending on your tastes. I'll likely spin up a Classic character for nostalgia's sake, taking in the old world and doing quests and taking in storylines I can't anymore in the Retail version of WoW. It'll be great to have both options, and there's no real need to fight over which is better - it's a subjective thing, a matter of personal taste. Someone not liking or not wanting to play what you like doesn't make them your enemy.
  1. Bethrezen's Avatar
    Classic can't arrive soon enough.
  1. Themerlin's Avatar
    I have opinions.
  1. Cassidin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Eleccybubb View Post
    It's a bit shitty.

    They could have at least said the Beta as well needed an active sub when announcing it.

    - - - Updated - - -



    I think it just shows how passionate the majority are for Classic.

    Something you rarely see with current WoW these days.
    People will still take time off for this - I may myself. The fact that it's not going to be the levelling speed we have got used to wont change anything. The difference will be that you wont get to lvl60 in a day (im guessing 20-30 maybe? - but its been a loooooong time since I played vanilla obviously and of course it was new to me then so will be interested to see).

    Personally I will likely take a day off - but maybe not launch day to make sure I dont take a day off only to be greeted with server crashes! Ill then enjoy the story but also see how far I can level in a day - just to see the comparison. I may actually do a "day in live WoW without any heirloom buffs" and then a "day in classic" just to see the difference.
  1. sch1ntus's Avatar
    I will be looking forward to grinding in Winterspring from 56-60
  1. Cassidin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Lurker1 View Post
    LOL enjoy those empty servers in a few monthts.
    I'll be very surprised if they will be empty..... There wont be nearly as many classic servers as live servers and I strongly suspect there will be four types of players on them:


    • Dedicated hard-core classic fans (who will be frustrated with things they see as not true to vanilla - but will still play regularly).
    • Players who want to play again what they played years ago - many of these will level a bit or even up to 60 and maybe raid a bit - but then will move on to something else - but many of these will still come back every so often for their "fix"
    • Players who never played vanilla and want to see what it's about. I don't expect many of these to be dedicated classic players - but some will likely. Most will try it and decide its too slow progress and give up - but that's fine they will have at least seen what it's about.
    • Players who want to go to classic just to find fault with it. most of these will only log in a few times and can pretty much be ignored as irrelevant.

    Of these player types - with the lower number of servers and the combination of players who log in occasionally and the dedicated players there will likely still be plenty of players to keep a limited number of servers up and running.

    What I do expect may happen is to merge some servers after its been up and running a year or two and the number of players more closely represented once the "gimmick" of it dies down.
  1. fupr's Avatar
    Been hooked on pserv for more than 4 years now. Can't wait for classic! <3
  1. Castration's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by FelPlague View Post
    Extremly unlikely speaking that it literally just went up today, screenshot it my dude.
    just because you did not get the invite, doesn't mean nobody else did, my dude.
  1. MarkTheMadMad's Avatar
  1. supermany2's Avatar
    When does the Beta start?
  1. FelPlague's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Castration View Post
    just because you did not get the invite, doesn't mean nobody else did, my dude.
    no invites went out yesterday...
    and again there was no screenshots provided, so it was literally fake.
  1. Castration's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by FelPlague View Post
    no invites went out yesterday...
    and again there was no screenshots provided, so it was literally fake.
    believe what you want, I'll enjoy Classic while you fume on the forums about not being invited.
  1. FelPlague's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Castration View Post
    believe what you want, I'll enjoy Classic while you fume on the forums about not being invited.
    well do you have ANY evidance? still no screenshots, still no evidance anywhere, literally noe one has been invited yet dude
  1. Akka's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Felixon View Post
    The fact,that there was a bunch of people,who were playing on a private server
    [...]
    People seriously don't understand or have forgotten what it's like
    I'll never understand how people can manage to say in the same breath "people have forgotten what Vanilla was like" and "people play private server".
    It's like their brain is so damaged it can only hold "I don't like Vanilla herp derp" idea in it, and everything that could support their point is okay, even if self-contradictory or factually wrong.
  1. Castration's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by FelPlague View Post
    well do you have ANY evidance? still no screenshots, still no evidance anywhere, literally noe one has been invited yet dude
    no need to prove it to you just so you can cry while we play, dude.

Site Navigation