Blizzard Announces Final Patch for World of Warcraft Classic
Blizzard has shared its plans for the last patch of World of Warcraft Classic, which will be released on December 1. The patch is currently being tested, including parts of the Naxxramas raid, and will be available to all realms worldwide on December 3.
Blizzard’s decision to release this patch so close to the launch of retail’s raid in Shadowlands, which comes out on November 23, is unexpected. In the past, Blizzard has been careful to avoid overlapping content releases between the two versions of the game.
Interestingly, the release of Naxxramas in Classic WoW is earlier than its original release during the vanilla WoW timeline. In Classic, Naxxramas will be available 20 weeks after the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj, while in vanilla, it was released 24 weeks after AQ.
One possible reason for this timing difference could be the avoidance of releasing a raid during the holiday season. Blizzard may have wanted to prevent a raid release around Christmas and New Year’s, which they have done in the past.
Another factor that could have influenced the timing is the difference in player progression. Modern players are able to progress through content more quickly than players in the mid-2000s. This is evident in the clearing of AQ, where top guilds took weeks or even months to defeat certain bosses, whereas in Classic, the raid was cleared within hours of its release.
This has resulted in Classic players being much better geared compared to their counterparts in 2005.