Launch live blog
Early Name Reservation runs Oct 27 to Nov 3 for anyone with a Forever pack (Skyborne Heroic, Skyborne Epic or the Warcraft Forever Collection); beta access alone does not qualify. Three characters per account, each with a first and a last name, and the combination must be unique across your whole region and every ruleset. Europe opens at 18:00 CET, Korea and Taiwan on Oct 28 at 07:00 local. Blizzard has been enforcing the naming rules and pulled beta access over names, so keep them clean.
Source: Blizzard's name-reservation post as carried by Icy Veins and Warcraft Tavern.
Blizzard's Oct 26 Beta Development Notes rework the racials one last time before launch: Human Ruthless 1% crit and 10% Spirit, Dwarf Artisan's Precision (1% hit) replaces Earth Fury, Orc Command returns and Savage goes, Tauren Plainsrunning 2% per stack to 60% with no mount bonus, Skyborne Wind Blessed 2% plus reworked Read Leyline and Skysight. Every change is on the news desk and applied to the talent calculator and race pages.
The level-30 beta wrapped on Oct 23 (10 a.m. PDT) with a one-time 24-hour celebration; nothing from the beta carries to launch. The last beta build was 1.60.1.70532 with hotfixes through Oct 23 (Paladins get Righteous Fury at level 10).
What this log covers
- Nov 3: name reservation closes; pre-download and patch size.
- Nov 4, 3 p.m. PST: servers open; queue reports by ruleset and region, login issues, first hotfixes.
- Nov 5–11: daily hotfix notes, known bugs, layering and population reports, the first level-60s, and what Blizzard says about Hardcore's date.