How to preload WoW Classic: Season of Discovery

WoW Classic: Season of Discovery begins today, so if you want to preload and get ready to create your characters as soon as possible, there’s a way to make sure that happens. Thankfully, it’s also much easier than players think due to the nature of World of Warcraft’s servers. While the actual server opening times do not appear to be clear, we do know how you can set up your client, so you’re ready to get going as soon as the game is ready later this afternoon.

Season of Discovery is an ambitious WoW Classic project with a wealth of new ways to play, lower-level caps for the time being, and so much more. It’s an exciting time to be a Warcraft fan, and here’s everything you need to know about getting set up to play when the servers are up.

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How to easily preload WoW Classic: Season of Discovery ahead of launch

The servers are there but not open yet (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Thankfully, you might already have WoW Classic: Season of Discovery preloaded and not even realize it. Until this morning, the servers were likely not visible in the client. However, while the official names weren’t displayed, fans can see the Seasonal Servers appearing, even if they’re labeled offline.

All you need to do in order to play Season of Discovery is have the WoW Classic Era game installed on your hard drive. It doesn’t take up much space (around 4GB), though that may change later this morning. If you were already playing Classic Hardcore, then you don’t need to do anything else.

That said, if you’re playing Classic Lich King, you’ll potentially need to install the correct game in order to begin playing Season of Discovery when it goes live later this afternoon.

You might already be ready to go (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Steps to install Classic SoD

• Open Battle.net
• Select World of Warcraft Classic
• Click the dropdown menu in the bottom left
• Select “World of Warcraft Classic.”
• Install as normal

Your addons should likely carry over if you already played the Hardcore servers. However, if you’re new, we have a list of useful addons you should install in WoW Classic's upcoming season. At this point, all you have to do is wait for the servers to open up.

The Classic Era game will be shutting down today (November 30, 2023) from 11 am PST to 12 pm PST, so there will be an hour or so when the developers are getting the servers online for people to log onto and play. That time period could be higher or lower, depending on circumstances on Blizzard’s end.

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This latest season of content will last for a year in World of Warcraft. Players will have gated content, brand-new class/role combinations, and more. Here’s a list of the biggest changes coming to Season of Discovery.