World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Classic will launch July 21, Blizzard has announced, and there will be a new way to get brought up to speed for those who haven’t played some of the game’s previous Classic expansions.
Blizzard has long sold WoW character boosts, and in WoW Classic, started selling them ahead of the arrival of The Burning Crusade Classic. The boosts give players who didn’t play the previous expansion a chance (for a price) to jump straight into the new content. This time, however, Blizzard is giving players a way to earn a boost for free, but it will require some legwork.
One free level 85 character boost will be given to players who defeat the Dreadlord Balnazzar, the first boss of the new Scarlet Enclave raid added in April to WoW Classic’s more experimental Season of Discovery servers, before June 30. Those who have already defeated Balnazzar prior to the announcement of the promotion will be retroactively awarded a boost.
The boost can be used to instantly bring a character to level 85 on the game’s Cataclysm servers, which will soon transform into Mists of Pandaria servers come the arrival of the expansion pre-patch on July 1. Players will need an active WoW subscription to take advantage of the boost, as it’s required to play WoW Classic.
It’s a nice way for Blizzard to attempt to convert some Season of Discovery players to jump into Mists of Pandaria Classic, but given the amount of time and effort required to gear up to take on the Scarlet Enclave raid, the number of players who will be able to take advantage of the free boost seems like it will be fairly small. Perhaps an additional reward will be enough for some players to push through, but for those who can’t be bothered, Blizzard is also offering a $80 bundle that includes a paid level 85 character boost, game time, and additional cosmetics. Mists of Pandaria Classic itself doesn’t have a box price, but does require a subscription or active game time to play.
WoW Classic: Mists of Pandaria comes roughly a year after Blizzard brought back the Chinese-themed expansion in the modern version of WoW for a limited time as part of its first WoW Remix event. While still featuring modern WoW’s gameplay, the event saw players make new characters and speedrun through Mists of Pandaria content with faster leveling speeds, powerful gems that triggered additional effects in combat, and new limited-time rewards like mounts and armor sets.
WoW’s next remix event will be for the popular Legion expansion later this year. Meanwhile, WoW’s long-awaited player housing system is still on track to arrive as part of its Midnight expansion. During a recent hands-on preview of WoW’s player housing, we said the possibilities for housing customization already feel endless.
