WoW's The War Within pre-expansion patch has already made the 20-year-old MMO so much better

Even at my most jaded—and boy can I be jaded—I've never been able to cure myself of the unbridled enthusiasm that infects me whenever a new World of Warcraft expansion is just around the corner. Normally, though, these launches come after I've taken a break from the game—not so this time, however. The War Within's imminent arrival coincides with me being in the throes of a deep WoW obsession; so much so that I'm as giddy about today's pre-expansion patch as I'd normally be about a brand-spanking new game. 

I reckon this is pretty justified, mind. Several major, long-awaited features have been bundled into the patch. These aren't specific to The War Within, but rather enhancements that impact the entire MMO. To the uninitiated, they might seem like minor improvements, but to those of us shackled to Azeroth they represent substantial quality-of-life buffs that excise some extremely annoying sources of friction that have been plaguing WoW, in some cases, since its earliest days. 

The headline attraction is the Warbands system—the announcement of which played a rather sizable role in bringing me back. Warbands is the culmination of Blizzard's attempts to unify our characters. Once, each character was an island, with their achievements uniquely theirs. For years, though, Blizzard has been bridging these islands. The transmog system lets you gussy up your alts with gear appearances earned on other characters, all mounts and toys are shared, and completing campaigns and major quests on one character lets you skip them on the rest. 

With Warbands, Blizzard has codified these improvements, as well as expanding upon them, bringing our roster of characters even closer together. The character selection screen now lists everyone together, rather than separating them by realm, and each of those characters not only shares the same list of cosmetic unlocks—as they have for a while—they're now able to collect item appearances for everyone else, regardless of class. Time to delve back into those legacy raids. 

There are some exceptions, though. Old class sets are still soulbound, so you'll need to earn them on a class that can use them if you want their appearance. The good news, though, is that class set tokens are warbound (at least from legacy raids), so they can be used by anyone in the warband, letting you transfer them to other characters and then add those sexy new looks to your collection. 

WoW might not be the fashion-focused MMO that FF14 is, but around 50% of my impetus for raiding is earning fancy new clobber, so I really couldn't be happier. Now all my alts can look hot AF with minimal hassle. I've been saving a lot of stuff in my bank for this moment, so I've got a stupid number of new pieces in my collection just waiting for the catwalk. Oh yeah, and you can finally pick a "hidden pants" option when creating a transmog outfit. You won't be able to go full Donald Duck—armour on top, stark bollock naked below—but this still gives you a bit of extra flexibility if you want to put together a look that shows off your gams. 

Warbands isn't just all about peacocking, though—shared renown is arguably an even bigger deal. Check out your Dragonflight reps today on a fresh alt and you'll see that they're at the same level as the character who's advanced the furthest. The grind has been vanquished, at last, and other reps will follow suit over time. A variety of currencies, meanwhile, are now transferable between members of your warband, allowing you to pool your resources for a big spending spree. Finally I can delete that one character who I've only kept around because of their massive stash of timewarped badges. Cheerio! 

This is obviously a work-in-progress, however, and there are some elements that could do with some polishing. It's a complicated system, for one, and without just going through everything yourself it's hard to know how exactly it works. There's no way to see what currencies can be transferred without clicking on each individually, for instance; though I suspect that will change, given that you can use a filter on the rep menu that shows you warband reps exclusively. 

Character selection is a bit messy right now, too. When you fire the game up, you're presented with a huge list of every character, in some cases even ones you might have deleted, and it's just a touch too busy and disorganised. Like, it's cool that everyone's invited to the party, but I probably don't need to be reintroduced to that weird-looking orc in his vanilla armour who I stopped hanging out with in 2007. And frankly it's a bit awkward now that I'm hanging out with a much sexier orc who has exactly the same name. 

That said, I am a fan of being able to select four favourites, who sit at the top of the list and are also represented in the main Warbands screen, where they're all chilling out in a cosy forest camp. It's the VIP section, essentially. Blizzard has promised more warband scenes will be added over time, too, but I'd also love to see it add multiple fave lists, so I can have an undead crew hanging out in a graveyard, a bunch of pretty belfs enjoying a lakeside picnic and my orcs having a blast in dusty Durotar.

Flight test

The joys of flight have been tempting me away from my exploration of Warbands, however, because the pre-expansion patch has also liberated dragonriding from the shackles of Dragonflight and its small (but wonderful) roster of customisable mounts. Now you can switch from regular flight to dragonriding—now called skyriding—and oh my, what a dream. Speeding around the skies above Orgrimmar on my Astral Emperor's Serpent has left me with a big dumb grin on my face. I've got a stupid number of mounts that have been languishing in my collection for ages, and now I actually want to ride them again.

Regular flying—now called steady flight—did have some advantages, like consistent speed and not requiring much input, but the moment dragonriding was added to WoW it just felt stiff and dull in comparison. I couldn't go back. It's worth noting, though, that steady flight has also been given a nice boost, so if you can't be arsed paying attention to your dragon (or floating disc, flying fish, magic carpet, goat etc), you won't have to sacrifice quite as much speed. Across the board, getting around just feels more pleasurable. 

Playing dress-up and travelling to work takes up a not inconsiderable amount of my time in WoW, so these changes have already had an overwhelming impact. Even more than the talent changes, which are substantial but will take more time for me to dig into. I suspect any build I create now will quickly be reconsidered when hero talents arrive next month, anyway. The talent screen has already been tweaked to make room for them, but you won't get your first until level 71. With each, Blizzard is trying to lean hard into the class fantasy, and I'm particularly excited about what this means for my Death Knight, who'll be able to summon four horsemen and actually mount up during combat. Proper knightly shit. I can't wait. 

Blizzard's also used this as an opportunity to give the UI a welcome refresh. Quest icons are now blessed with a bit more clarity that should be helpful for new players, though it will be less impactful for veteran adventurers—we already know what a blue exclamation mark means without the assistance of some arrows denoting that it's repeatable. More impactful for me is the overhaul of the spellbook, which now takes up more real estate but also shows more abilities on a single screen, and no longer puts specialisations in separate tabs. It's handy to see everything just laid out like this, especially for classes I'm less familiar with. 

There are lots of wee tweaks, too. I likely wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't seen people discussing it, but the camera no longer has an extreme reaction to objects entering the foreground, and now that I'm looking out for it, it's just so much smoother. Previously, the camera would make a big, jarring zoom if an object appeared in front of your character, but now it just chills out and is happy for you to hide behind a tree. I do not like to be perceived. 

Dragon-lovers, meanwhile, are no longer restricted to a single dracthyr—if you already have one, you can roll a new one and they'll start at level 10. For the time being, though, they're restricted to Evokers, but Blizzard is planning to remove this limitation during The War Within. Another excuse for more alts. I will never sleep. 

Naturally, the pre-expansion patch has not been without its issues, some of which you can see in this official post. One notable issue not referenced in the post is that currency transfer has been bugging out for some players, swallowing up their currency rather than transferring it.  Broadly, though, this has been a superb first step on the road to The War Within. And there hasn't been a better time to muck around with some new alts—especially with MoP Remix running for another 26 days. While your Remix characters will be restricted to that game mode until it ends, it's still the best way to get a character up to level 70 at the moment. Running heroic dungeons for a few hours should do the job. 

That said, don't ignore Dragonflight. Every expansion renown has a 50% bonus at the moment, in case you haven't completed them all yet. All three raids will be Awakened until The War Within, too, so this is a great opportunity to clear off your checklist. 

Ultimately, this feels like a tantalising teaser for WoW's new trajectory. More flexibility and accessibility, more excuses to conjure up new characters, and an approach to progression that goes so far beyond individual characters, making your achievements echo throughout your entire roster. And this is just the first chunk of the pre-expansion update. It's feature-rich, but is devoid of new storylines and activities—those are coming soon, though. Next week, on July 30, the Radiant Echoes event will kick off; a memorial for WoW's past as it hurtles towards the future.