The WoW community spent the second half of this week in anticipation of Blizzard's pre-patch release date announcement, only to come away disappointed. There has been plenty of speculation on the date, going from September 15th all the way to the current most likely date of October 6th (for the US). Also, a brand new clue/tinfoil hat conspiracy has come up recently as well, as some mobs are channeling once again!

The Season End Warning

First things first though, the real reason why October 6th/7th is the most likely pre-patch release date at this time is the warning Blizzard give out for the end of a season. Usually it's around 2 weeks, but it's been known to be less, and many players are hoping they'll just make it 1 week this time. However, with this being the end of not just Season 4 but also Battle for Azeroth in general, with many players still chasing AotC and CE achievements, arena rankings and everything else that's going away in the pre-patch, it seems unlikely that the now very standard 10-14 days warning goes down to 7 or 8 (as Monday would be the earliest they could announce at this point).

The Channeling Mobs

There have been several new reports of some very persistent casters channeling once more, as both the old controversial Xorothian Cultists and some new friends of theirs are at it again. Now this particular "channeling time is pointing to the patch/pre-patch/other important dates" theory has been debunked in the past, and several different mobs have been seen channeling pointing to random dates, so take this one with a giant grain of salt, but the new and old mobs are indeed channeling again and are pointing to October 6th and 7th (depending on is it's on US or EU servers).

You can read about the Xorothian Cultists here, the new Shirakess Apprentice fellows here, and you can (and probably should) read the debunking thread from a few years ago here.



Source.

The Reputation Buff

As we've talked about before, the reputation buff is active through all of September and it seems a little strange/unlikely that it would remain active for only 2 days (or even 1 for EU) of the pre-patch arriving. Obviously this isn't that big a deal but it does point to the 6th and 7th being more likely as well, and at least we know the dates of the rep buff as a fact, unlike the above two reasons.

Conclusion

It's seeming very likely that we won't be getting the pre-patch on September 29th/30th, making Shadowlands' one of the shorter pre-expansion events, coming in at 3 weeks. Whether this has something to do with the controversial nature of the Scourge invasion event, which has been moved around the insane/difficult/slightly annoying/irrelevant scale an awful lot on the PTR, so perhaps Blizzard don't want it up for too long, or perhaps there's some technical issues or even just the need for more polish for the pre-patch itself, we might never know. What we do know is that the community is VERY eager to get into the pre-patch, with its fast leveling speeds, level squish, new player experience, invasion event and so much more.

We can all still hope for the 29th/30th, but it's looking more and more likely October 6th/7th is the one.

