If you’ve always wanted to get into World of Warcraft but didn’t – among other things – have the money for the Battle Chest, you’re in luck. Blizzard Entertainment has announced that World of Warcraft and the expansions included in the Battle Chest (The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm) will now be included with the regular WoW subscription.

Paying $14.99 per month will now grant access to all of this content, and to make the deal sweeter, the most recent expansion Legion is also included. As per the official WoW blog, “The Battle for Azeroth pre-patch is here, and with this update, we’re making some exciting changes to the way players access World of Warcraft.

“Starting today, new players can gain access to all World of Warcraft content up through and including the Legion expansion simply by becoming a subscriber—you no longer need to purchase the original World of Warcraft base game.”

At last year’s BlizzCon, Blizzard announced World of Warcraft Classic, the much-awaited vanilla version of the MMORPG that fans have been clamouring for. How the current subscription model will affect WoW Classic remains to be seen. It’s possible that Blizzard made this move to ensure a smoother experience for anyone picking up World of Warcraft for the first time.

If the past doesn’t interest you, then it may be worth looking at Battle of Azeroth, World of Warcraft’s next big expansion that will be available on August 14th for $49.99.

Blizzard Entertainment continues to update World of Warcraft with the next major update – The Tomb of Sargeras – out on March 28th. There’s a fair bit of new content to do including a new dungeon, Brawls for PvP, a pet battle dungeon and new Epic class mounts. These mounts can be earned via class-specific quests.

It will also be possible to fly in the Broken Isles but you need to unlock the Broken Isle Pathfinder, Part 2 Achievements to do the same. Artifacts also see some new features for upgrading including the ability to add empowered traits, final traits earned through questlines and higher ranks for current traits.

This doesn’t include the changes to professions, classics and other new features (like being able to track item ses and transmog options via a new screen).

You can check out the full patch notes here for more information. Are you still playing World of Warcraft following the release of Legion? Let us know in the comments.

Blizzard’s World of Warcraft will be receiving a huge new update today. Update 7.1.5 adds quite a bit of stuff to do including Mists of Pandaria Timewalking, micro-holidays, new Legendary items and much more.

The patch notes have been released in full and also contain changes made to classes and professions as a whole. Along with Timewalking, which takes you to a variety of different dungeons from Mists of Pandaria while offering a new vendor, the update introduces the Brawler’s Guild with solo boss fights and new rewards.

Other changes include finding premade groups with the quest tracks, making it easier to level your Artifact Knowledge on other characters if you’re main has already hit level 110.

Artifact traits have been causing some negative responses in PvP since those with 35 or more points in the traits can use them against other players. This tips the scales quite dramatically, thus making a mess of balance.

Which change are you most excited for in update 7.1.5? Let us know in the comments below.

Tom Chilton, who worked on World of Warcraft as its game director, has moved on to a new project within Blizzard Entertainment. Not many details were offered – only that he was “focusing on another project within the company”.

In a recent blog post, Chilton noted that Ion Hazzikostas would be taking his place. “I know that WoW will be in great hands with Ion at the helm. He’s been an integral part of the team for more than eight years and has contributed to so many aspects of the game’s development – from class design to encounter design and nearly everything in between.”

The current outlook for World of Warcraft is bright for Chilton. “World of Warcraft is the product of the passion of both the team and all of its players, so I’d also like to thank each of you for the wonderful journey that working on the WoW development team has been.”

World of Warcraft has done exceptionally well in recent months thanks to the release of Legion, the latest expansion pack that added several new zones, Artifact Weapons, quests and much more. What are your thoughts on Chilton moving on and what could the undisclosed project be? Let us know in the comments.

The Emerald Nightmare is the latest raid for World of Warcraft, introduced in the new expansion Legion, and it recently received Mythic difficulty, thus making it the hardest piece of content in the game. However, this is World of Warcraft so of course a guild would have already cleared it.

As per PCGamesN, Russian guild Exorsus did just that when it finished the raid just 18 hours after it released. The final boss Xavius was even defeated in two hours and this was at a time when the other top guilds were still dealing with Cenarius, the previous boss.

There will be a Mythic+ difficulty in the future to really separate the men from the boys but it’s impressive all the same to see a guild finish such a difficult piece of content so quickly after launch. What are your thoughts on the success of Exorsus? Let us know in the comments below along with your thoughts on World of Warcraft: Legion as a whole.

World of Warcraft fiends take note – the Emerald Nightmare raid will see the launch of Mythic difficulty today. It coincides with the Raid Finder’s first wing becoming available today. The second wing goes live on October 11th and the third wing is live on October 25th.

Legion is actually quite busy right now for World of Warcraft players. Along with Normal, Heroic and Mythic modes for Emerald Nightmare, there are Mythic dungeons which offer Keystones for harder challenges which lead to increased rewards. The first season of PvP is also available and the top players for each faction receive seasonal rewards (which is an improvement over top players all-around receiving them).

More content is on the way in the coming months so there’s definitely a better future for the game post-Legion. What are your thoughts on World of Warcraft: Legion thus far? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft: Legion has been a pretty big success thus far as the studio announced more than 3.3 million copies sold on launch day itself. This number is actually in line with the record set by Cataclysm (released in 2010).

Blizzard CEO and co-founder Mike Morhaime stated that, “It’s been a thrill to see players hunting demons, powering up Artifacts, and freely exploring all the new zones in Legion. We worked hard to make this the best World of Warcraft expansion yet, and we look forward to providing players with even more content as Legion’s epic story unfolds in the months ahead.”

It was also revealed during PAX West that World of Warcraft saw its highest concurrent player count in years though how many subscribers the game currently holds (or gained since Legion released) isn’t likely to be revealed anytime soon.

Regardless, what are your thoughts on WoW’s Legion expansion? Let us know below.

Each expansion for World of Warcraft usually sees a huge uptick in numbers, though Warlords of Draenor – the last major expansion for the MMO – didn’t quite result in the highest increase. It’s a different case for Legion, however, and Blizzard has revealed that the reception to its latest expansion is the highest it’s seen in years.

According to PCGamesN, Blizzard revealed at PAX West that, “We knew this expansion was going to be something for the books, but reception has just blown us away.

“The early reviews are coming in, they’re really positive. Fan reception has been phenomenal. Concurrency – we’ve had to check and triple check our numbers, because it’s the highest they’ve been in recent memory. Several years, for sure.”

Though the concurrent player number is fairly high, it doesn’t say anything about whether the number of subscribers – the main source of revenue for WoW – has gone up as well. Then again, Blizzard doesn’t offer subscriber numbers anymore so it’s difficult to know if the actual number has gone up thanks to Legion.

What are your thoughts on the expansion though? Let us know in the comments.

Note: This list is in random order. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Increased Level Cap

“110” is the new magic number for players to strive for in Legion with the level cap being increased by ten levels this time around. For those worried about having to grind through old content to get any of their characters up to speed, Legion will ship with a free, one-time boost for level 100. This is especially useful for new players who want to get into the new content immediately.

Blizzard Entertainment’s latest expansion for World of Warcraft, Legion, is now available. To celebrate the same and tease players with the coming war, the developer released a new trailer on “The Fate of Azeroth”. Long story short, The Burning Legion has returned and it seems to be the end of the world. Heroes will rise of course, including some familiar faces.

World of Warcraft: Legion features quite a lot of content to run through including a new continent to explore with several new zones, changes to the PvP system (including PvP-exclusive abilities and a Prestige system), Artifact Weapons for each specialization which advance in power as you progress through the expansion, Order Halls for each class, new quests, new raids and much more.

There’s quite a lot to sift through and it should keep players busy for a while, especially with new raids due in the coming weeks. What are your thoughts on Legion thus far? Let us know in the comments.