World of Warcraft: The War Within’s 11.0.5 update is coming soon and a huge new 20th Anniversary In-Game event will be taking place, bringing back none other than Leeroy Jenkins himself. While exploring the event on the Public Test Realm,players are reporting several famous characters from WoW’s history making an appearance,including the group-wiping, chicken-loving legend himself.
Alongside Leeroy, some beloved characters from the past that appear include Mankrik and Hemet Nesingwary fromClassic WoW, Lorewalker Cho and Farmer Yoon fromMists of Pandaria, Bartender Bob, originally fromHearthstone,andmany, many more! These iconic and nostalgic characters showing up to the Anniversary Event are just one of many exciting additions coming to this game patch, which is expected to go live in November.
Everything to Expect in World of Warcraft’s 11.0.5 Patch
What’s Coming With The 20th Anniversary Event
Blizzard shared an initial preview of the 20th Anniversary Celebration at the beginning of September. Since this preview, the patch has gone live on Public Test Realms.
On the PTR, players have gotten a first look at everything included in the event, including the cameos from classic characters not mentioned in the announcement. Each of the NPCs is complete with dialog to let players ask and observe what they’ve been up to since we last saw them, and what they’re doing at the event.
Leeroy himself has set up a chicken stand outside the Caverns of Time,where players can purchase “Leeroy’s Spicy Fried Chicken” and “Jenkins' No Nonsense Fried Chicken”, referencing his line in theiconic early internet video from before memes were called memes, “At least I have chicken!”
InBlizzard’s blog post about the event, they provided a list of features players can expect, includingone of the game’s first major dungeons reworked as a 10-15 player raid:
Here’s what you can look forward to during the 20th Anniversary Celebration:
Apart from the Anniversary Event, which takes center stage, the 11.0.5 patch will also allow any class to collect the appearance (or transmog) of previously class-locked items, addsix new class optionsfor the newest in-game race, the Dracthyr, and introduce some additional quality of life features andclass and hero talent reworks.
Why WoW: The War Within’s 11.0.5 Update Matters
Blizzard Maintains A Breakneck Content Pace Compared To Previous Expansions
At the beginning of the previous expansion,Dragonflight,Blizzard surprised manyWorld of Warcraftplayers by maintaining a more regular content pacing, primarily through x.0.5 and x.0.7 patches to add new content to the game outside larger, more fully-featured x.1 and x.2 releases. In previous expansions, “smaller” patches like these rarely included more than bug fixes, class changes, and, if we’re lucky, a new toy or quality-of-life change.
In the late stages of thewidely criticized expansion beforeDragonflight,Shadowlands, Blizzard madean unprecedented shift to their development philosophy, taking player feedback into much greater account and walking back many reviled systems and changes added to the game at the beginning of the expansion. Since the end ofShadowlands, Blizzard’s content updates have been far more frequent and player-friendly. While some have criticized the quick pace of updates with limited testing, I believe Blizzard has trulyturned over a new leaf with player communication and feedback.
In my opinion,The War Withinis the best version of WoW we’ve ever seen, with streamlined systems, regular updates, and frequent changes based on player feedback. That makes thisthe perfect time to celebrate all things WoWwith the 20th Anniversary Event while continuing Blizzard’s impressive streak of entertaining and impactful game updates.
