Warlords of Draenor beta timeline

The temporary login screen used during the expansion's alpha and early beta

This page was aimed to document some of the major developments and stumbles of the Warlords of Draenor beta and late alpha, including brief flirtations with hithertofore undreamt of mechanics, scandalous experimentations (never to be seen again), and riotous exploitations of unfortunate bugs.

June

June 5

"Interested in risking your life on a suicide mission to save Azeroth? Just say the word."

• The Warlords of Draenor external "Friends and Family" alpha test begins.
• Players have access to two servers: Lost Isles (PvE) and Gilneas (PvP). Both servers are initially capped at level 92.
• Players are able to explore Frostfire Ridge. The zone is accessed through speaking to a giant Archmage Khadgar NPC found in the Valley of Strength. Players can enter dungeon and raid instances through the coincidentally titled Nexus-Lord Donjon Rade, and purchase gear and enchantments from the giant Flaskataur, Esq.
• All newly created characters bear the title "the Camel-Hoarder". Players are also given access to a huge range of mounts including many highly sought after specimens. A default gryphon mount is automatically placed on all players' action bars, despite being unusable by Horde characters.

June 20

• Shadowmoon Valley becomes available for testing.

June 21

• In-house testing of the new PvP area Ashran is disrupted by Balance druids, leading to the broadcast of a series of server-wide messages stating "[SERVER] DO NOT PLAY BALANCE Druid / BALANCE Druids, log off, you're crashing the server. / [SERVER] Crash identified as boomkins".

June 25

Boomkin by name, server crash by nature

• A third server, Mekkatorque (PvP) - incorrectly labeled EU - is made available to testers. Designed for PvP testing, the realm will allow creation of level 100 template characters fully equipped with PvP gear, but does not feature access to the new zones.

June 26

• The Tanaan Jungle introductory experience becomes available for testing. However, not all features are yet implemented. A cinematic at the climax of the zone's storyline depicting the destruction of the Dark Portal using an appropriated Iron Horde tank is instead conveyed by the simple text announcement "AWESOME IN-GAME EVENT".

Soundtrack: "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston

• It is announced that faction capitals will now be placed on the "outskirts" of the new world PvP zone Ashran, instead of the previously announced bases of Bladespire Citadel (then named Bladespire Fortress) in Frostfire Ridge (Horde) and Karabor in Shadowmoon Valley (Alliance). The announcement sparks immediate and substantial uproar from many players, with some calling the move an underhanded attempt to force players into PvP, and others bemoaning the loss of the substantial architecture of the former bases in exchange for the "shanty towns" of Ashran. The developers respond by elaborating on the story reasons behind the decision, and explaining that the capitals will not be within the PvP zone itself, minimizing impact from world PvP, but complaint continues to be widespread.

June 27

• The Warlords of Draenor beta begins.

June 30

• Player frustration over the removal of [Heroic Strike] for Arms and Fury warriors results in the creation of http://www.heroicstrike.org, demanding the ability be reinstated. The page bears the title "HEROIC STRIKE 2004-2014 We will always love you." and features screenshots of openly weeping warriors, as well as a selection of "Sad face" music that autoplays upon loading the website.

July

The start game splash graphic from beta Patch 6.0.2, listing the main attractions

July 2

• A new plan to reintroduce tank specs as a balanced and fun choice for PvP is announced. Citing previous issues concerning Vengeance and excessive survivability, Lore explains that the new expansion will see tanks in PvP dealing less damaged than DPS, but also taking a little less damage. This will be achieved both through removing Vengeance, and by the addition of a 25% increase to damage taken by tanks in PvP, implemented through the [Battle Fatigue] effect, preventing their survivability from causing gameplay problems.

July 9

• Perculia announces the datamining of Warlords Honor Quartermaster NPC "Harms-Master Brolinka Jr." (a joking reference to Senior PvP Designer Brian Holinka). Judging from its listed sounds, the NPC appears to be worgen, but does not seem to be in-game.
• It is announced that the [Battle Fatigue] effect, intended to increase damage taken by tanks in PvP by 25%, was, in fact, increasing it by -25% - dramatically reducing their damage taken, and turning them into what one forum poster described as "unkillable gods of destruction". The mistake is quickly rectified, and prior raging over the lack of wisdom in Blizzard's approach to PvP tank design disregarded.

July 10

Swimming in lava, like real men

• A bug in the key Frostfire Ridge transport quest  [10-40] Den of Wolves causes large numbers of Horde players to become frozen standing mid-air, unable to move. Players using the "Character stuck" feature are killed and transported to a graveyard in the Alliance starting area Shadowmoon Valley, but are left just out of reach of the spirit healer and still unable to move. Logging out and back in again causes stuck characters to reappear mid-air and fall to their deaths.
• Horde players wandering north of the garrison in Frostfire Ridge are treated to the return of The Rulkster <SPAWNING IS INCOMPLETE HERE, BROTHER!> and his new companion Randy Ravage <OOOOOH YEEEAH!>. The two can be found swimming in the lake of molten lava while disputing who is the greatest brawler of all, with dialogue such as "What are you gonna do when Rulk-a-mania runs wild on you, brother????!" and "How do you compete with these pythons? Ooooooh yaaaaa, brother!".

July 16

• After some downtime, battlegrounds on the Mekkatorque PvP testing server are once again available. However, joining a battleground causes the player to be immediately kicked and given a 15-minute deserter debuff.

July 17

Khadgar and Flaskataur, Esq.
Overlord Runthak (far right) for scale.

• Players are now able to successfully join battlegrounds. However, many battlegrounds are now lacking spirit healers. Slain players must run to their corpses to resurrect, or if their corpses are looted, are unable to resurrect. This causes these battlegrounds to become relatively brief wars of attrition, with many players having only one attempt per battleground. Many dead players choose to quit battlegrounds in which they are unable to participate, but are still given a 15-minute deserter debuff.

July 18

• Gorgrond and Talador are made available to testers on Lost Isles and Gilneas; Ashran is made available for testing on Mekkatorque. The start of the expansion's questlines in the Blasted Lands are also now available.
• Players on the Mekkatorque realm attempting to stray beyond Ashran's surrounding Barrier Sea to explore other Draenor zones are given the "No Man's Land" debuff ("You are where you should not be...") and teleported back to their faction capital on Azeroth.
• All Alliance characters' currently equipped gear on the Mekkatorque PvP testing server becomes "Horde affiliated". Players are able to purchase new Alliance-branded gear from Flaskataur, Esq.. Reward Systems Designer Russ Petersen states "No I am not sorry."

Maybe she's born with it...

• NPCs are added to Stormwind and Orgrimmar representing Brian Holinka, Chris Kaleiki, and eSports shoutcaster Jared "vhell" Coulston. When interacted with, the NPCs ask the player to "Tweet me if you hate it." (Holinka), "Tweet me if you LOVE it." (Kaleiki), and "Tweet me if you find bugs!" (vhell).

Mid-July

• A model bug causes female draenei characters using the second to last available skin color to fail to display their default undergarments. The result is that removing all clothing from female draenei characters produces fully naked draenei, something not normally possible. The bug is shared widely, with the female draenei population on the beta servers coincidentally seeing an unprecedented upswing at around the same time.
• Another bug causes certain female night elf characters to suffer severe disruptions to their facial displays, with one tester describing Byancie's appearance as similar to "one of the aliens from the movie, 'They Live'", while stating that Sister Aquinne "looks like Batman enemy Two Face".

July 21

• The first stage of the expansion's raid testing begins, with two Heroic encounters from two of the new raids made available to players for a short time. However, the sudden influx of thousands of testers causes the servers to become "violently unstable", and after a short maintenance period to attempt to fix the problems, the first encounter is taken offline following what Lead Encounter Designer Ion Hazzikostas describes as "what little testing has been able to occur". Despite the problems, feedback generally reflects the encounter's difficulty to have been excellent, with the loading bar reported to have defeated more than 99% of all players.
• A bug with [Stampede] and the Hydra pet causes Beast Mastery hunters to be able to literally one-shot opponents. The hunter quickly becomes a dominant class in PvP, ending arena matches in just seconds. After several days, it is announced that Stampede will be disabled while the developers work on implementing a fix, in order to allow PvP testing to resume.

The fearsome face of Monte Krol

July 24

• In preparation for the next beta build, all characters on beta realms are wiped.
• An electrical fire at the Edison substation in Irvine, California deprives thousands of power, including the Blizzard offices. Suspicion falls on lead tools programmer Monte Krol, who is reported to have been staring intensely at a power line shortly before the fire broke out.

July 25

• Due to the previous day's power outage taking down the beta servers, scheduled raid testing is canceled, and rescheduled for the next week. Ion Hazzikostas comments "So, sometimes things literally catch fire."
• All beta servers are renamed. Lost Isles (PvE) becomes Beta Leveling Realm 01, Gilneas (PvP) becomes Beta Leveling Realm 02, and Mekkatorque (PvP) becomes Level 100 PvP, and the (US) and erroneous (EU) tags are removed. The renaming is made largely in order to reduce the substantial number of players creating characters on what was the Mekkatorque realm in order to test Draenor areas, only to find those areas inaccessible on that server; this, in turn, being due in part to the fact that the label was labeled as EU when it is, in fact, a US realm, causing many EU players to create characters on that server, only to encounter unusually long ping times and a complete lack of access to Draenor's questing zones.
• Nagrand and Spires of Arak are planned to become available for testing, with the beta level cap increased to 100.
• A new server specifically for testing end-game PvE, named Level 100 PvE (PvE), is planned to be made available shortly after the new build is implemented. The new server will allow for the creation of level 100 template characters, and feature garrison "cheats", allowing players to bypass leveling in order to move straight to end-game PvE testing, in the form of a new NPC Garrison Ford, "Your Garrison Supplier".

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Late July

• Following continued complaints about the strangling animation used when dragging garrison followers to missions, the developers replace the flailing NPC models with simple follower icons. The previous animation, which saw the player picking up miniature versions of followers' character models by the throat, had been described by one player as watching the follower "struggling and clutching at her throat as she chokes to death on my implacable command of the Force." The animation, while amusing to some, was generally considered an inappropriate way to treat the character's valued followers.
• Originally held by Varok Saurfang, the role of Horde Garrison Mission Specialist is transferred to Warmaster Zog, previously known for his exploits during the opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj.

A lot less exciting when it's for the 25th time

July 29

• A long-standing bug preventing players from upgrading their garrisons is fixed. However, establishing or upgrading the garrison now causes the game to cut to a short cinematic declaring "10 Years of Warcraft". Disappointingly, the cinematic does not go on to show the full World of Warcraft trailer, but is played each and every time the player upgrades the garrison, on each character.
• Garrisons still feature some other bugs, including peons appearing in the floor, key Town Hall NPCs being stuck underneath the building itself, and circling Ridge Condors flying directly through the Town Hall, passing in and out of walls.

July 31

• A bug causes players in Nagrand to see other player characters 'topless' with their chest armor not showing. Shadowglen and Teldrassil Protector NPCs are also reported to be "walking around bare-breasted".
• It is announced that the PvP zone Ashran will specifically draw players from different realms in order to provide faction balance. This marks a departure from earlier plans to do without faction balancing mechanisms in the zone.

Brian Holinka, man of the people

• Senior PvP Designer Brian Holinka invites players on Twitter to join him in Ashran to "join me…or kill me", with the intention of capturing live footage of the zone's PvP activity. The message is the latest in a long line of invitations from Holinka for players to join him in the battle, with the developer generally choosing to play on the side of the faction currently losing, in order to ensure a good fight. With the beta's relatively small player pool, testers are able to genuinely fight alongside Holinka and other well-known figures from WoW culture, with some players entering the battle with the specific ambition of downing the designer. Holinka plays a variety of characters and classes, from the gnome death knight "Lilgripper" and the dwarf paladin "Retbeard" to the troll shaman "Shammalamma".

August

August 1

• With previous builds featuring the return of stance requirements for numerous warrior abilities, almost all of the changes are repealed following complaints over the return of mandatory stance dancing and associated macros. Celestalon later states "Stances *should* be a thing, but they should be for mode switching, not "Switch stance, hit utility cooldown, switch back"."
• After the bodyguards of Krong the Ogre King in Ashran are found to be too easily defeated by players, Gaul Dun Firok and Muk'Mar Raz's powers are dramatically upgraded, now featuring special abilities resembling [Frost Nova], [Death Grip] and [Psychic Scream], in addition to previous melee attacks including Mortal Strike and Bladestorm.

Tarren Mill vs Southshore

• Most sub-zones in Ashran are renamed: The Tower becomes Brute's Rise, The Waterfall becomes Gorian Falls, The Quarry becomes Molten Quarry, The Altar becomes Ashmaul Burial Grounds, The Arena becomes Ring of Conquest, and The Stadium becomes Amphitheater of Annihilation. More importantly, the faction capitals, previously titled "Alliance/Horde Staging Area", are renamed Stormshield and Warspear, with the Ashran faction bases which previously bore these titles now named Stormshield Outpost and Warspear Outpost instead.
• Ashran itself sees various changes, with the Ring of Conquest area redesigned. In addition, the previously defensive Fangraal and Kronus now actively progress across the zone to assault the enemy base, changing these powerful NPCs from useful protective measures to a direct means of conquering the enemy.

August 3

• The latest beta build brings with it an enigmatic map entitled "Tarren Mill vs. Southshore". Brian Holinka says he will have "more to say about that soon…very soon". Given the zone's history as one of the main sites for intense ongoing world PvP prior to the introduction of battlegrounds, many players speculate on the encounter's reinvention as a battleground or world PvP experience. Holinka responds to player speculation by linking the 1993 R&B song "Anniversary" by group Tony! Toni! Toné!. This is largely interpreted as referring to World of Warcraft's impending 10 year anniversary, although some point out it may simply be Holinka's way of unwinding after a long day.

August 4

• The beta sees the usual variety of miscellaneous zone and spawning errors. One graveyard in Nagrand is reported to be respawning players beneath the ground, causing the ghosts to fall endlessly before disconnecting. One player, unable to play their character since it became trapped beneath the Nagrand graveyard, reports logging in after a server crash to find the character, still a ghost, now transferred to Orgrimmar. Apparently relieved, the player resurrected the character, only to be immediately transported back to underneath the graveyard in Nagrand, where the character, now alive, began once again to fall endlessly before disconnecting. The problem was reported still unfixed weeks later.
• Ongoing problems with the Ashran graveyards' Hallowed Ground effect, intended to prevent freshly resurrected players from being attacked, causes invading Alliance players in Warspear Outpost who are able to slip inside the Hallowed Ground area to gain immunity to all attacks while still being free to attack others. The bug is reported not long after an earlier fix was made, the original effect having failed to provide any protection for Horde players at all.

August 5

An exciting development in orc facial hair debuts in beta

A flowery trail leading all the way to the enemy base

• Stormshield is substantially overhauled and expanded from a small town to a sprawling city, with the addition of dozens of NPCs and buildings, and similar to Warspear is now located upon a mostly rocky outcropping rather than a small island of its own. Warspear is also substantially expanded, although it remains smaller and less developed than Stormshield. Stormshield Outpost is renamed Stormshield Stronghold, and the human Elite Stormshield Guards defending it are replaced by draenei Stormshield Gladiators, introducing a little more racial diversity to the zone. The human Stormshield Mine Guards are also replaced by worgen NPCs.
• A bug causes an error in the display of all male orcs' headgear, causing helms to be shown balanced on their side, on top of the orc's head. As a result, any horns, spikes and other protuberances now penetrate the orc's head, sticking out of the character's chin. Mercifully, the afflicted orcs appear unconcerned by this development, apparently happy to charge into battle with large spikes passing through their brains, something which fails to surprise many Alliance players.
• A persistent bug removing all Spirit Healers from battlegrounds such as Warsong Gulch is joined by a new error causing flag-carriers to gain a debuff apparently intended for Deepwind Gorge cart-pullers, reducing the flag-carrier's speed and advising them to "Take this cart to your home base to gain Victory Points." Additionally, the [Focused Assault] debuff is no longer removed upon the successful capture of the flag, leaving flag-carriers to return to the fray with up to 100% increased damage taken.
• Yet another new bug causes druids' Wild Mushrooms temporary visual effect to become permanent, allowing druids to create extensive, enduring patterns on the terrain. Some use the glowing circular effects to create pathways leading across Ashran, while others spell out messages upon the landscape.
• Upon zoning in to a new zone, players are now granted something similar to Track Humanoids, with all nearby characters displayed on their mini map as red dots.
• After sporting a sable mane for several expansions, Crafticus Mindbender has apparently decided to bleach his hair, and is now blonde.

The <Jailers of Ashran> stand ready to judge prisoners of the Alliance

Early August

• A roleplaying guild called <Jailers of Ashran> takes up residence in the Alliance Prison in Ashran. Paladin members of the guild patrol the PvP zone, using [Jailer's Judgment] to send Horde players to the Prison, where the rest of the guild await to pronounce judgment upon the guilty before quickly executing them. Brian Holinka describes the scene as "amazing".

August 6

• A new limited edition "team deathmatch-style" 100v100 battleground, Tarren Mill vs Southshore, is announced, ending speculation regarding the previous build's new map. Brian Holinka further announces that the battleground will make use of the game's original honor system to make successful players more rewarding kills. One of the main sites for world PvP (and any PvP at all) prior to the introduction of battlegrounds, many veteran players are thrilled at the prospect of reliving the area's "timeless struggle" in full nostalgic detail, leading some to suggest adding "authentic" touches such as prohibiting Alliance shamans and Horde paladins, excluding all post-vanilla races, and scaling all characters down to level 60. The reintroduction of spell ranks is also suggested, but quickly shouted down.

One of the less problematic flight paths recorded during the expansion's beta.

• With the latest build comes a full character wipe for all beta servers, with all characters and related progress deleted. The third wipe since the start of the beta, the wipe is met with frustration by some, with some dedicated testers having now run literally dozens of characters through the Tanaan Jungle introductory experience.
• Recent builds bring further changes for Ashran, seeing the addition of monk class leaders who can teleport players to the location of their party leader, a 10-second reentry window for players straying outside the PvP zone, stat buffs for players in their faction base or nearby towers, and minor structural developments throughout the PvP zone and faction bases. New faction prisoners are also added, placed behind locked gates instead of inside cages, as well as battle events like Hemet Nesingwary's Stampede, Yu'lon and the  [Frost Wyrm Egg]. Other changes include the addition of Savage Piranha Pools, Slimes in the Amphitheater of Annihilation, and the introduction of zone-wide announcements when a player picks up the [Ancient Artifact].
• Adjustments to the terrain on the beach north of Brute's Rise cause Flat-Toothed Riverbeasts to fall into the landscape, becoming trapped in the sand, while alignment phasing issues with the surrounding Barrier Sea zone cause spectacles such as schools of fish leaping in the skies above Ashran's waters. The island's eastern beach remains undeveloped, with large slabs of unshaped, jaggedly distorted and badly textured terrain.

August 12

Khadgar/Stormcrow link confirmed

• After ongoing complaints from players, Lore announces a "targeted feedback request" regarding flight paths, with the intention to correct the unfortunate and often tortuous paths upon which players often find themselves traveling after speaking to flightmasters. The request comes following complaints of flight paths involving several unnecessary connections, often traveling more than 10 times the distance required to arrive at the destination if the most direct connection were taken, and as part of assurances by Blizzard that the flight paths in Warlords of Draenor will be less erratic than those in Mists of Pandaria, in order to minimize inconvenience from the planned lack of flying mounts.

An orc in Frostfire Ridge pioneering an exciting new style of wolf-riding

August 14

• The Warlords of Draenor cinematic is unveiled in a special event, along with the announcement of the expansion's street date. Chris Metzen announces "The age of the whimsical panda is over."
• A bug in Shadowmoon Valley zone causes an elite boss-level crow to assume the title of Archmage Khadgar. The crow also provides gossip text to players, expressing some uncertainty over the player's capabilities.

Mid-August

• A presumed bug in the Elite Warspear Guard NPCs in Ashran causes all female orc Elite Guards to immediately respond to player interactions with their 'pissed' soundbites. While members of the Elite Warspear Guard belonging to other race and gender combinations remain friendly, a simple character selection with a female orc often elicits a "Will you stop touching me?!" or "I'm getting angry!"
• A bug causes all male orc characters to occasionally stand upright while riding mounts. This includes Frostfire Ridge NPCs seen standing atop their worgs (while they run), and orc player characters witnessed levitating bolt upright several inches above the heads of their dragons. The bug is erratic, with groups of patrolling orcs seemingly taking turns to jump up on top of their mounts before settling back into the saddle.

The first draft of the Warlords login screen, released August 21

August 18

• Following feedback on Ashran, specifically regarding victory, rewards and the progression of battle within the zone, it is announced that substantial changes will be made to the zone's mechanics. Specifically, the Road of Glory's Towers, previously captured through defeating players and lower-level NPCs within the area, will become capturable through player presence, allowing node capture to better reflect each faction's standing within the zone rather than lagging behind it; and "mini-bosses" will be added to each faction's mage towers, adding "texture" and challenge to progression across the Road of Glory, but also to increase the challenge of storming the enemy base. In addition, the build will see the next step in the realization of the designers' plan for the faction generals, with defeating the enemy faction leader now causing invading players to be flown back to their own base and the Road of Glory reset, following a short interval to allow for looting. The build also granted the zone's previously untitled Towers names, and saw the ranks of the grunt NPCs expanded to include healers.
• Other changes to Ashran include making previously zone-wide class books drop only from secondary areas' rare mobs such as Titarus, and causing the POI events to give a few minutes' warning before commencing, as well as now rewarding [Conquest Points] instead of merely [Honor Points]. Some of the more powerful buffs found in the zone's secondary areas are nerfed, including the acrobatic [Leaping Gorger Residue] and the exponential Power Geode buff. The number of Artifact Fragments required for different battle NPCs is also adjusted, with Fangraal/Kronus now costing 500 Fragments to summon, and Mage Portals and Warlock Gateways now costing 200; all functions had previously cost 300 Fragments to activate. Planned future changes are also announced, including polishing Fangraal/Kronus' abilities and adjusting their behavior to move in line with the captured nodes, rather than progressing across the zone regardless of Tower control.
• Unannounced changes include the renaming of "Krong" the Ogre King to "Kor'lok", the change matching the Seat of Kor'lok zone, itself originally named the Throne of the Ogre King. Kor'lok's dialogue is also altered, becoming slightly less verbose and a little more combative, and new player death quotes are added.

First draft start animation

Brian Holinka being invited to a skirmish group during the "Play With The Blues" event

Bashiok lending his gnomely support to a group of players

• After previous builds removed warrior stance ability requirements entirely, the new build reintroduces the requirements but now has warriors automatically changing stance upon using an ability which requirements a different stance, removing the need for macros. Another key difference is that the requirements are found on rotational abilities and not utility abilities, in theory preventing warriors from needing to switch stance and then immediately switch back, with stance change instead reflecting a commitment to a specific combat role. In addition to these changes, the previously Protection-only abilities [Shield Barrier], [Revenge] and [Devastate] are made available to all warriors. However, switching to Defensive Stance now places several key DPS abilities on a special 6-second cooldown, including [Mortal Strike], [Wild Strike] and [Slam], deterring DPS warriors from making too opportunistic a use of these new abilities.
• Following Garrison zone changes, numerous testers discover a 'world hole' in the floor of the Horde Garrison Inn, with some players left to fall endlessly into a depressingly familiar void, while others find themselves instantly transported to the nearby mine. The hole is suggested by some to be one of the touted new "jumping puzzles", while others pronounce it a trap put in place in order to weed out the weaker beta testers.

August 19

• The very first beta test of Mythic raiding is planned to take place, beginning with Blackrock Foundry bosses Flamebender Ka'graz, Beastlord Darmac and Oregorger.

August 20

• The latest changes to Ashran see ongoing bugs in the zone. Kronus frequently refuses to leave the Horde-side Towers, making the capture of a well-defended Alliance base extremely difficult; Artifact Fragment NPCs often collect players' hard-earned Fragments without providing any service in exchange; and successfully defeating the enemy General occasionally sees not only the zone's NPCs reset but the entire zone reloaded, with all players ported back to Stormwind and Orgrimmar. Additionally, all combat NPCs acquire the tendency to frequently evade, resetting all debuffs and returning to their original positions, often evading more than once per second before returning to attacking their targets. The constant interruption almost entirely prevents damage over time effects and causes a substantial portion of attacks to miss altogether, dramatically increasing both the difficulty and frustration involved in attempting to achieve victory within the zone.

Is that a pickaxe in your shoulder or are you just pleased to see me?

August 21

• A new build brings the Warlords of Draenor login screen, with the vanilla login screen having been used prior to this point. The screen marks the third login screen to feature the Dark Portal, making this the most common theme so far, and features the Dark Portal initially in a darkened and inactive state, before then exploding into life. The screen would later be replaced with a slightly altered version, most notably lacking the introductory activation.
• The first "Play With The Blues" event takes place, where players testing the Premade Groups feature have a chance when forming groups for dungeons and 3v3 Skirmish of encountering members of the World of Warcraft development team including Brian Holinka, Celestalon, Ion Hazzikostas, Don Adams, Russ Petersen, Julien Tremblay and Ryan Shwayder, as well as QA, CS and CM team members including Rygarius, Bashiok, Lore and Kurtis McCathern. Blizzard employees are shown as members of the guilds <Blizzard Alliance> or <Blizzard Horde> in order to allow players to be sure of their identities. However, the new build released shortly before the event suffers patching issues, with many players unable to join the blues in-game.
• Some streamers are able to stream encounters with the blues live to their viewers, including well-known streamer Bajheera in a 3v3 skirmish match against opponents including Brian "based" Holinka. During the skirmish, later made available on youtube, Bajheera's team is able to kill one member of the opposing team, after which all players cease to attack one another, apparently due in part to Bajheera being unable to bring himself to kill Holinka. As Bajheera is standing with Holinka's gnome avatar, taking screenshots and contemplating his next action, both he and Holinka are suddenly boosted to several times their normal size, apparently at Holinka's command. The two titans then duel, with Bajheera ultimately victorious.

The [Ancient Artifact]'s rather basic appearance during the early and mid-beta

August 22

• Holinka announces on Twitter that an upcoming build will give Discipline priests baseline access to the previously Shadow-only ability [Silence], in an unprecedented boost to the specialization's crowd control abilities. The announcements comes following widespread observation of the spec underperforming, especially in contrast to Holy priests. Holinka states "We expect mixed reactions."
• A new bug causes all female draenei characters to carry their right-hand weapons embedded in their right arm. The display bug persists while in combat, and works with all weapons including bows, staves, and two-handed warhammers.

August 23

• The latest build sees Ashran's Tuskridge Tower renamed Emberfall Tower, the previously silent Kor'lok granted soundbites to accompany his quotes, and numerous other changes throughout the zone, as well as being the first build to feature a fully functional Kronus and Fangraal, properly advancing across the zone to press the advantage. In addition, many NPCs including the faction Gladiators, Tower Guardians and mobs in the secondary areas are retuned to be tougher and hit noticeably harder than before. The racial diversification of the zone continues with Warspear Raptor Riders replacing the orcish Wolf Riders, and races such as night elves, draenei and trolls added to the ranks of their respective factions' Gladiators.
• The addition of set dressing to Ashran areas causes Horde players being teleported to Warspear Outpost's Warspear Keep (then simply named "Great Hall") to be placed directly on top of a fire that is now found there. Horde players browsing Dazzerian's wares are able to tell when a new player has returned to the base by the sudden sound of burning and yelping.

Late August

• The sheer, jagged hillsides and saw-tooth beaches on the eastern edge of Ashran have now been polished and developed to include the remains of several imposing ogre buildings and a range of plant life, although the area still lacks any mob or NPCs.
• The [Ancient Artifact] has a new, far more impressive look.

September

September 2

Stormwind City Patrollers are infamous for photobombing tourists

• A new visual bug causes certain sections of male draenei models to fail to display, resulting in 'hollow' characters which players are able to peer into. For some classes, this affects the arms and belt areas, while for many warriors their entire lower body is removed, with only the feet remaining.
• In the ongoing saga of player reaction to facial changes involved in the player character revamp, following months of complaints from players of female gnomes regarding their excessively cheery new faces, the latest build brings a fresh selection, with the previous skins' fixed smiles replaced entirely with frowns, scowls and grimaces. Player reactions are mixed.

September 3

• Celestalon announces some key changes to tanking in Warlords, chiefly that both tank defensive effectiveness and mob damage in dungeons and raids will be reduced drastically. He explains that tanks have seen a lot of "power creep" over time, with tanking characters now 50x or even 100x better at tanking than non-tanks. The change sees drastic reductions to dungeon and raid mobs' damage output, as well as to the amount of armor on plate, mail and shields, and the effectiveness of numerous tanking abilities that reduce damage or otherwise improve tanking ability; [Resolve] is also changed again. The post is made in order to prevent tanks from misunderstanding recent changes, with Celestalon stating, "If you do the classic 'scroll to my class, read datamined changes to my class only', you'll be sad and angry. And I'll be sad that you're sad and angry."

Early September

• The missing Ashran Class Leaders are added for the Horde, namely Genevere Hymnsorrow, Kaga Barkhoof, Pheary Sparkrocket and Aaron Scourgeflesh. In addition, once "Archdruid of Ashran" Atomik has now turned to the ways of the shaman, accordingly now making use of shamanic (rather than druidic) magics and being accompanied by Warspear Shamans rather than Druids. Mare Wildrunner, previously the Warspear Shaman Leader, has now been demoted to Warspear Farseer.
• Bugs continue to plague the beta's battlegrounds. Warsong Gulch continues to lack Spirit Healers, forcing players to resurrect at their corpses, or if their corpses are looted, to become unable to resurrect at all; Twin Peaks' Preparation buff fails to deactivate after the beginning of the match, leading to unending battles of immortal players with almost instantly refilling health and resources; and in Eye of the Storm flag carriers do not drop the flag after capturing it, allowing them to cap repeatedly within a few seconds, quickly winning the match. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the beta continues to see relatively few players queuing for battlegrounds.
• A bug causes the cooldown of the powerful shaman spell [Ascendance] to reset as soon as its buff expires, allowing shamans to constantly maintain the effect.

September 8

• Following comments from players, the Talador coast Robin Williams tribute NPC Robin's quote "INFINITE COSMIC POWER!" is changed to "PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS!", correctly matching the actor's quote from Aladdin.
• A new build sees the 'Risen Spirits' event added to Ashran's Ashmaul Burial Grounds, while the number of fires required in order to complete the Brute's Rise area's Ogre Fires event is increased to 10, previously only 3.
• Patch 6.0.2 becomes available on the public test realm.
• Ashran-specific music has been added.

September 10

That barbershop's seat might need adjusting a little

• The Tanaan Jungle Stress Test takes place, in which all level 100 beta realms are turned off in order to focus testers into creating new level 90 characters to "put the starting experience through its paces". The event is intended to help iron out potential launch day problems, with players encouraged to log in from 3pm PDT in order to help "test new tech and measure capacity", although some players choose to view it as more of a rare instance of the developers encouraging players to crash the server and cause errors.
• After official reports of server engineers daring players to crash the server, around 1200 players log into Beta Leveling Realm 01's Tanaan Jungle, managing to crash the server around 15 minutes into the test.
• Senior server engineer Kurtis McCathern subsequently reports that the crash was due to running out of memory due to too much performance measuring instrumentation being turned on, and having turned much of it off, the server is restarted within a few minutes. McCathern also takes the opportunity to officially state "Score is players 1, realm 0."
• Around 2 hours after its start, the Stress Test is hailed a success by server engineer Dusan Jan and other staff, having successfully provided data allowing the team to make a few tweaks, hopefully reducing problems to be experienced on launch day.
• Following months of concerns from players regarding the results of the player character revamp on the faces of pre-existing characters, and with the developers previously having stated that they had no plans to allow recustomizations following the revamp, the new beta build introduces the option to recustomize facial details at the barbershop. However, a small bug causes some of Azeroth's smaller races to fail to reach the center of the screen, providing a small challenge for players seeking to recustomize their gnomes.
• Brian Holinka announces two changes to [Battle Fatigue], reducing PvP healing by 25% and the resilience by 15%. However, a bug causes player vs player damage to instead be increased by 50% across the board. Alerted to the bug through twitter, the devs quickly hotfix the error.

September 12

His mother told him not to keep pulling that face, but would he listen?

• With the role and function of [Battle Fatigue] repeatedly tweaked and continually debated throughout the beta, the devs temporarily reduce its effect to 0% while they evaluate healing in PvP.

September 16

• Following longstanding complaints from the Fury warrior community, Celestalon announces that [Colossus Smash] will no longer be available to the spec, in what is described as a "significant change to the core gameplay style of Fury". He explains that the ability was dominating the spec's rotation, with Fury warriors attempting to deal as much damage as possible during the ability's window, which, while an enjoyable playstyle for some, had caused the spec to diverge from its original concept of "a furious berserker wielding a weapon in each hand, unleashing a flurry of attacks to carve his opponents to pieces", more fitting to a hectic and reactive playstyle with players dealing damage as quickly and as often as possible, rather than intentionally holding back until a specific cooldown became available. Celestalon states that while the developers originally planned to slowly fix the problem by making numerous smaller adjustments over time, they had eventually decided to instead "rip the bandaid off" in order to set Fury back on the right path.

Mid-late September

In the days when Ashran Captains outnumbered the players

• Various changes are made to Ashran:
  • The cost of the battle vendors is doubled across the board, with mage portal and warlock gateway cost increased from 200 to 400, patrol cost from 300 to 600, and boss NPCs from 500 to 1000.
  • Kor'lok has a new model, and now sports two heads rather than one.
  • Certain NPCs within Stormshield Stronghold and Warspear Outpost have been moved: Monk Leaders have been moved down from their previous vantage points (Zelaji also now has a new and smaller banner); the Horde battle vendors have been spread out; and Dazzerian is now found in a camp in the main area of the base, instead of inside the Warspear Keep (then simply named "Great Hall") past the generals, making him far easier to slay.
  • The 'Reinforcements' count has been replaced by an 'Enemies Slain' count. Where factions previously lost reinforcements based on deaths of players (and originally NPCs), they now accumulate a tally by defeating enemies. The total varies from 50 to 200.
  • Important features such as events, the awakening of Kor'lok and the summoning of Fangraal and Kronus are now announced, with key words linked to tooltips providing basic information on the features.
  • Capturing the enemy faction's final Tower now causes your faction's Sentinels or Headhunters to eliminate the enemy Gladiators, rendering the enemy base vulnerable to attack.
  • The faction Gladiators are no longer constantly in combat posture.
  • The /follow command is disabled in Ashran, leading to complaints from the multiboxing community.

A stack of 20 Captains, all standing on the exact same spot

September 24

• The latest build brings a new bug which causes players attempting to log out a character to be disconnected. Attempting to immediately login afterwards frequently causes the player to become stuck in the 'Connecting...' stage, forcing the player to restart the application.
• The latest in a long line of display bugs affecting male draenei causes their top lip to be distorted into a lengthy spike, protruding several inches from their faces. The error is worsened when sitting in the chair in a barber shop, with the draenei's bottom lip also stretched, but in this case horizontally.
• The login screen is altered from its previous version, seeing a change in angle, an increase in lighting, and a reduction in swirls. The activation of the portal itself is also removed, with the portal already established upon loading.
• Game Designer Chris Kaleiki takes to the forums in response to player complaints regarding the number of Captains currently seen in Ashran. Kaleiki explains that the problem is caused by a number of factors involved in the current design, with Captains spawning each time a faction reaches their Enemies Slain quote. Since the cap resets each time the faction loses a point, players are able to rapidly summon several Captains, sometimes resulting in the presence of more than 20 Captains in a single area at the same time. The presence of these powerful NPCs is made worse by their excessively high health and 'obnoxious' pillars of light highlighting their locations. Kaleiki promises that these factors will be adjusted shortly.

September 25

• After repeated requests from the level 19 twinking community, Brian Holinka announces that Skirmishes will be available from level 15, instead of from level 20 as previously stated.

October

October 1

• Server engineer Jared Gillis states that the design team is currently averaging "about 50 hotfixes per day for the last two days", with their frequency only expected to increase in the days to come.

October 2

• The Warlords of Draenor Dungeon Preview is released, previewing each of the new dungeons that will be available in Warlords at launch, and sharing some insight into the development process behind each instance.

Twas the night before Patch Day, when all through Azeroth

Not a creature was stirring, not even Garrosh

Players gathering at the Dark Portal the night before patch day

Many players remained in the area until they were disconnected by the server shutting down

October 3

• A new bug causes player characters in certain areas to immediately die upon looting any item, including mob drops, quest items, herbs and garrison work orders. Characters killing mobs are also instantly killed. While QA poster Dresorull is happy to inform testers that their deaths are due to "some Shadowstepping Murlocs in the server", the true cause of the bug is described by server engineer Jared Gillis as "Just a typo. A fantastic, amazing typo." Gillis also states that one of the first thoughts in response to the bug was "are GMs messing with beta players or something?"

October 7

• A new bug makes it possible for players to gain impossibly large, permanent boosts to their stats. Players who purchase rings on an island in the west of Nagrand are able to gain permanent stat bonuses each time they equip the rings. They are therefore able to repeatedly equip and re-equip the rings, until their stats have reached monstrous and game-breaking levels. The bug is most noticeable in Ashran, where single players with as much as 1.679 billion health (not merely 1.679 million) are able to one-shot even the toughest players and NPCs with simple AoE abilities or auto-attacks. As opposing players rush to replicate the bug, some can be heard complaining of having merely 9 million damage on their [Bladestorm] ticks, or having 'only' 228 million health, not enough to topple the lone player ravaging their base. Similar players are reported in faction capitals including Stormwind, effortlessly slaying every player and NPC in sight. After at least 2 days, the servers are brought down in order to remedy the problem.

Ocotober 13

• The night before patch day on US servers, players gather at the Dark Portal in the Blasted Lands to bid farewell to the green Dark Portal and commemorate the many years since its re-activation in The Burning Crusade.
• Others gather in Grommash Hold, to commemorate the beginning of the end of more than 13 months of Siege of Orgrimmar, with many having raided frantically in the days running up to Patch 6.0.2 in order to obtain soon to be unobtainable achievements and rewards.

October 14

• Patch 6.0.2, the Warlords pre-patch, is released for the Americas, bringing with it the updated character models, all changes to abilities, stats and systems, and the Warlords launch event, featuring the invasion of the Iron Horde through the Dark Portal, and a preview of the revamped Upper Blackrock Spire instance.
• A bug causes players mousing over items in the new Toy Box to crash their client, while another causes level 90 players engaging in battlegrounds and skirmishes to be scaled up to level 99. Another persistent bug renders battlegrounds inaccessible, with battleground queues lasting for hours, before suddenly dropping players.
• While players remain limited to level 90, raid boss training dummies in capital cities are increased to level 103, causing confusion for some players at being unable to successfully hit their targets. Some players are briefly to be heard blaming the problem on the removal of hit rating.
• Bugs or miscalculations with the stat squish cause leveling content, especially dungeons, to become much harder. Reaction from players is mixed, with some praising the increased difficulty, others bemoaning it, and a few accusing Blizzard of deliberately making errors in their calculations in order to slow leveling, causing more players to purchase level 90 Character Boosts. The changes are however confirmed to be unintended, with a fix on the way.
• With patch 6.0.2 comes the long-awaited  [Warlord's Deathwheel], the Horde 'chopper' created in the Azeroth Choppers web-series. With all players who logged in between July 24 and September 30 having automatically received the mount, the new patch sees Horde cities transformed into a sea of choppers, with some players forming rallies and convoys of the bikes. Others are quick to complain about the aggravating noise of two dozen of the bikes roaring around Orgrimmar at once.
• Around 6 hours after launch the first hotfix of 6.0 is released, feature a miscellany of bugs and scaling errors. For the next 6 days, this causes the live game to be ahead of the beta in its version number, with the hotfix not yet released for the beta.
• The patch release also marks the beginning of a 100% bonus chance for players to get their first heirloom weapon from Siege of Orgrimmar in each difficulty except Raid Finder. The bonus comes in anticipation of the release of Warlords, at which point the heirlooms will be removed.

October 15

• Patch 6.0.2 hits EU servers.
• New bugs continue to surface, including one which causes [Blood Boil] to automatically spread diseases back to the casting death knight. One player suggests death knights should "wear masks and gloves when spreading diseases".
• Many players express concern over imbalance between classes, due to the new systems being balanced for level 100, while players are still only level 90. Certain features also fail to perform properly at level 90, such as skirmishes which only offer strongboxes at level 100, resulting in extremely low rewards for certain types of play. A day after release, the developers announced that they would be increasing Honor gains slightly, seemingly in response to the issue.
• PvP performance causes the developers to reconsider their removal of baseline PvP Resilience, with a hotfix being made to reduce player damage by 25% at level 90. The change is announced to be an interim measure intended to improve matters until Warlords is released, at which point it will be reverted.
• A bug in Wintergrasp causes all walls as well as the relic itself to be missing throughout the match. Russ Petersen explains that the walls were removed because "attacking was too hard".
• A bug in Alterac Valley, Strand of the Ancients and Isle of Conquest causes the level 90 players to face off against level 100+ NPCs. In Alterac Valley, the error has an interesting result: the pace of the battle is slowed, forcing players to take a more strategic approach instead of the common 'zerg' of the enemy boss. Some players report nearly hour-long matches with 400 honorable kills on both sides, while others share screenshots of Ivus and Lokholar, summoned for the first time in many years and making their presence felt among the level 90 players. While some state their desire for the new version to remain in effect, the NPCs are quickly hotfixed down to appropriate levels.

October 16

• In another temporary change to improve sub-100 balancing, skirmishes are changed to offer increased Honor for longer matches, helping to counter the lack of strongboxes at level 90.

October 21

• After a week of complaints, it is announced that a bug affecting the  [Iron Starlette] - a pet rewarded from the Iron Horde Incursion world event - will be fixed, preventing the pet from 'assailing' players' ears with its movement sounds. The pet had fast become infamous for deafening and irritating nearby players, producing an extremely loud and grating audio effect whenever it was in motion. With many choosing to exhibit their newest companion, the sound of players complaining about the Starlette had become almost as common and deafening a noise as that of the pet itself.

October 29

• With just over two weeks before Warlords sees release, the second "Play with the Blues" event takes place, this time centering on Ashran. Beta testers are invited to join Brian Holinka, Chris Kaleiki and Lore as they share commentary and insight on the zone, from a roving mid-air vantage point (likely an invisible gnome). While the Blues do not actually participate in the battle, noted streamers Hotted, Bajheera and Treckie are featured on the stream. The event is streamed live on the official World of Warcraft Twitch channel at http://www.twitch.tv/wow. It is suspected by the Blues during the event that they may be inadvertently swaying the battle, by directing the attention of those players watching the stream to specific areas of the zone. The realisation comes after a lone player, who the Blues had been streaming soloing a rare in Ashmaul Burial Grounds, is suddenly attacked and killed by a large group of enemy players. Holinka remarks "Here comes the stream crew!"

Gallery

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  The Flaskataur twins await on Mekkatorque to vend gear and enchants

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  A rare indoor Ridge Condor, on its way through the garrison walls

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  Garrison Ford - That belongs in a Garrison!

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  A shoal of fish leaping in the skies above Ashran's waters

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  The beach north of Brute's Rise during late Patch 6.0.1, featuring unshaped terrain and levitating chains and statues

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  Bringing new meaning to "Pantless Raiding"

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  Star of the first all night elf production of Face/Off

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  When Captains ruled Ashran

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  A player looks on in bafflement as 20 Captains charge past him

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  Lua errors were commonplace during the beta, especially when using the Garrison interface