The World Of Warcraft Shadowlands Pre-Patch Is Live With A Few Surprise Changes

After months of waiting plus a few extra hours for the servers to come online, World of Warcraft players finally got to dive in to the Shadowlands pre-patch last night. As expected, Blizzard Entertainment hit a few snags as soon as the floodgates opened on patch day including login queues, lag, and disconnection problems.

Pre-patch 9.0.1, like previous pre-patches, gives players time to get used to the gameplay changes, new mechanics, and features and give the devs valuable feedback before the full expansion goes live sometime later this year. These include the level squish, leveling changes, Chromie Time, a new tutorial area, and newbie chat. Players can also take advantage of the new customization options that have been added for all races and classes.

While Shadowlands beta players will probably already be familiar with the aforementioned changes, there are a few changes and additions that caught them by surprise as detailed by Wowhead. Of significant note are a number of unannounced class changes such as the Expert Riding requirement for Druids, and the ability for Hunters to tame undead pets and cloud serpents. Artifact Weapon Transmog has also been introduced along with dungeon entrance markers for Old-World zones, even more character customization options, and flying unicorn mounts.

Players also got treated to a new pre-patch cinematic which you’ll find right down below. We've also embedded the Shadowlands cinematic just in case you need a refresher about how Sylvannas opened the way to the afterlife.