WoW: Shadowlands’ Pre-Patch Update is Not Yet Live

It seems that reports from various sources regarding the upcoming updates to the current state of World of Warcraft have proven untrue. You see, back in April, I reported upon a certain rumor which seemed credible at the time. This rumor stated that the Shadowlands pre-patch would reach live servers yesterday, based on the announced expiration date for two in-game character buffs which double experience and reputation gains. This update would prepare players and the game world for the upcoming expansion. As far as I’m currently aware, this series of events has not come to pass.

Instead, the aforementioned experience and reputation buffs remain in effect for the time being. From my understanding the reputation buff known in-game as “Impressive Influence”, is scheduled to expire sometime tomorrow morning. However, the exact hour at which the buff will reportedly expire has currently not been confirmed. As for the experience buff which is known as “Winds of Wisdom,” no expiration date has been announced or confirmed by Blizzard at the time of this writing.

In hindsight, I suppose I should have suspected sooner that the widely-anticipated pre-patch update would not go live when this rumor claimed it would. After all, there were no reports from more reputable and trustworthy outlets such as Wowhead, about the patch’s release date. Also there was not any sort of public mention of such a date from Blizzard’s end. Furthermore, if the pre-patch were actually scheduled to reach live servers at any point this week, I suspect Battle.net’s integrated background downloader would have passively downloaded the patch data in advance for those of us who have this feature enabled.

I must admit, this turn of events leads me to wonder when not just the pre-patch, but the Shadowlands expansion itself may be released. I sincerely hope it won’t be another holiday release, similar to December of 2010 when Cataclysm released. This will likely sound selfish, but I honestly don’t want to wait that long for the game to receive what I think is a much-needed dose of fresh, new content.

As it happens, a few of my friends are also eagerly awaiting the new features that have been announced in Shadowlands. So much so, in fact, that some of them are understandably holding off on getting back into World of Warcraft entirely until closer to the expansion’s release date. If not for my desire to unlock the remaining Allied Race I’ve yet to acquire, as well as flying in Battle for Azeroth; I might have taken a break from the game myself.

I suppose there isn’t much to do while we wait for news about the pre-patch except take advantage of the experience and reputation buffs while they last. As a nice bonus, the Impressive Influence buff and an unrelated weekly buff that grants players an additional 50% reputation gained from world quests are coincidentally overlapping until either of these bonuses expire.

That means you’ve likely got a couple more days to push toward unlocking any Allied Races you’re missing along with the ability to fly in Legion and/or Battle for Azeroth content. If any of those unlocks are your ultimate goal, I humbly suggest that you hop to it while you still can.