Blizzard is giving out free game time to some World of Warcraft players following a troubled update that resulted in server issues following the release of Patch 11.0.
The latest update required 14 hours of maintenance before it was finished and because of this, some players in select regions will get the free game time as compensation.
The regions that will get the compensation will be North America, Latin America, Australia, and New Zealand.
World of Warcraft Free Game Time
Affected players should note that the added day of game time will be tacked on in the coming weeks. The latest patch is the pre-expansion content update for World of Warcraft's The War Within, which is the game's 10th expansion, according to GameRant.
On top of getting a new login screen and various features such as Hero Talents. The War Within expansion brought major changes to account-wide systems.
Also, the new Warbands feature lets players keep track of their favorite classes as well as trade various items between characters on the same Battle.net account.
But when the pre-expansion patch went live, it came with some issues that led to World of Warcraft being in maintenance for more than half a day on July 23, 2024. During that time, players in the Western and Southern hemispheres were unable to log in at all.
In a post on the official website, Blizzard said that they wanted to take a moment to recognize that the first day of the pre-expansion update led to a severe server downtime.
The company added that the game time compensation would be provided on or before Aug. 15, 2024, said PCGamesN.
Pre-Expansion Update Issues
In other news, World of Warcraft's cross-realm trading was also disabled as Blizzard is still investigating an issue that caused the MMORPG to lock up.
A separate issue of players' currency vanishing when trading between characters has forced the temporary shutdown of the Warbanks feature.
In its blog post, Blizzard concluded by thanking players for their patience as they navigate through any lingering issues that surfaced following the pre-expansion update.
The company is working to ensure that the launch of the 10th expansion will go smoothly with an early access version available on Aug. 22, 2024.
Players who are eligible for the free World of Warcraft game time should keep an eye out on their current game time via Battle.net and monitor it in case they have received the compensation for the latest issue, according to GINX.
