World of Warcraft is Holding a The War Within Launch Beta Test Today, Expansion Unlock Details Revealed

World of Warcraft’s next chapter starts soon with the upcoming launch ofThe War Within. Today, there's a launch beta test, and expansion unlock details have been revealed.

The beta launch test is going to be a brief one, starting at around 1:30 p.m. PDT/ 4:30 p.m. EDT. Whenever a new expansion launches,  most of us are pretty familiar with the crashes and lag and high demand spikes and sometimes queue times that flavor a big expansion launch.  While those things are still probably going to happen in some form, the team is simulating an expansion launch with this test to get ahead of things.

The test itself is only scheduled to last for about two hours in total. After the test begins, half an hour later they're going to simulate the full expansion launch, where everyone will get a quest to start the expansion intro. Then, testers will get to play through the expansion intro and get into the first zone, the Isle of Dorn, Until about 3:30 p.m. PDT when they'll wrap it up.

Early Access is set to begin in one week, on August 22nd, with the expansion unlock happening at 3:00 p.m. PDT. In the announcement of the beta test and unlock times, there is a chart showing what this is in various time zones around the world.  The global launch for all who aren't playing Early Access will be on August 26th at 3:00 p.m. PDT.

If you are looking to try to take part in today's special beta session, when the test opens today, only a test realm called  “Launch Test” will appear in the list if your account is eligible.