World Of Warcraft Battle For Azeroth Questline Begins

World of Warcraft is setting the stage for its next expansion with a series of in-game events that have now officially kicked off. War of the Thorns: Chapter 1 comes alongside the Battle for Azeroth Pre-Patch, preparing both the game and the story for the Battle for Azeroth expansion to drop next month.

In this chapter of WoW, Warchief Sylvanas Windrunner is marching on the Night Elf capital of Darnassus. Level 110 players can rally to Stormwind or the Undercity, depending on their faction alignment, to prepare for the battle ahead.

The pre-patch makes some significant changes of its own, including the ability to play any expansion up through Legion without purchasing the base game. You'll still need to pay the subscription fee, however. Existing subscribers have been upgraded to Legion for free. You can toggle War Mode on or off when you're in Orgrimmar or Stormwind to play PvP, and Blizzard has made updates to the PvP Talent and Honor systems. A new Communities feature makes it easier to connect with other players who share your interests, and some Battle for Azeroth changes to classes and specializations have already been implemented. You can read the full pre-patch notes for more details.

World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth launches on August 14, so we can expect more in-game events to set the stage before then. Meanwhile, Blizzard is planning to attract nostalgic Alliance and Horde members with a Classic mode that will let players experience the game as it was at the outset, before the multiple expansions.