Four years have passed since the aftermath of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, and a great tension now smolders throughout the ravaged world of Azeroth. As the battle-worn races begin to rebuild their shattered kingdoms, new threats, both ancient and ominous, arise to plague the world once again.

World of Warcraft is an online role-playing experience set in the award-winning Warcraft universe. Players assume the roles of Warcraft heroes as they explore, adventure, and quest across a vast world and trying to stay alive at the same time.

NOTE: Instructions for installing the 4.2.0a patch:

- extract all files and place everything except the MPQ in your main WoW folder

- place wow-update-base-14480.MPQ into the \Data\ subdir of your WoW folder

- run the launcher to patch.

Here are some key features of "World of Warcraft Patch":

· Adventure together with thousands of other players simultaneously.
· Explore an expansive world with miles of forests, deserts, snow-blown mountains, and other exotic lands
· Choose from three server types and find the one best suited for your own playing style: Normal, Player versus Player, and Role-playing
· Join the Horde or the Alliance as one of 8 playable races
· Encounter many familiar and new Warcraft characters and monsters.
· Learn the continuing story of Azeroth by completing a wide variety of challenging quests.
· Journey through an epic world filled with dungeons of different styles and depths.
· Explore 6 huge capital cities, which serve as major hubs for the races inhabiting them
· Practice various professions to help locate reagents, make and enhance custom items, acquire wealth through trade with other players, and more
· Purchase tickets for travel along a number of air routes flown by creatures such as Gryphons and Wyverns. For global transportation, travel by Boat or Goblin Zeppelin
· Once a certain level has been achieved, players can choose to purchase permanent personal mounts
· Establish a guild, purchase a custom guild tabard, and promote or demote recruits to different ranks within the guild.
· Mail gold, items, or messages to other players, or send them to your own characters for easy muling.
· Sell your items or search for items for sale via the automated auction house.
· Locate and engage other players with easy-to-use features and tools, including chat channels, friends lists, and animated and audible character expressions.
· Customize the game's interface via XML.
· Enjoy hundreds of hours of gameplay with new quests, items, and adventures every month

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

· Classes: General
· Vengeance is no longer triggered by receiving damage from other players.
· Druids
· The Tier 13 Balance Druid 4-piece bonus now also increases the damage of Starsurge by 10%, in addition to its current effect.
· Hunters
· Aspect of the Hawk now grants roughly 35% more attack power.
· Deterrence now also reduces damage taken by 30% while active.
· Black Arrow now ticks every 2 seconds for 20 seconds, as opposed to every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. The total damage dealt by the ability is unchanged.
· Lock and Load no longer benefits Arcane Shot, nor is it consumed by Arcane Shot.
· Mages
· Fireball damage has been reduced by roughly 6%.
· Pyroblast initial damage has been reduced by roughly 6%. Damage over time is unchanged.
· Paladins
· Holy Radiance now costs 40% of base mana, up from 35%.
· Priests
· Mass Dispel should again prefer dispelling targets that have magic effects that can be dispelled.
· Rogues
· Adrenaline Rush no longer triggers a global cooldown.

Dungeons & Raids:
· You can now form same-faction raids with Real ID friends, allowing you to enter Raid Finder in groups larger than 5, run older normal or heroic raids, or participate in Battlegrounds. You will not yet be able to run normal or heroic Dragon Soul with cross-realm raids of Real ID friends.
· Several typo fixes and clarified descriptions have been added to the Dungeon Journal entries for Dragon Soul.
· Players can no longer win multiple copies of the same item on a single Raid Finder boss kill. For example, a player who chooses Need on two set piece tokens or two weapons and wins the first, will not be eligible for the second on that particular boss.

Baradin Hold:
· The roaming Eyes of Occu'thar have been replaced by hateful creatures who serve Alizabal.


· Dragon Soul
Yor’sahj the Unsleeping:
· The Shaman spell Unleash Life now properly only triggers Deep Corruption on its target. Previously, this affected both the caster and the target.

Warmaster Blackhorn:
· The visual warning for Twilight Elites' Blade Rush should be easier to see.

Spine of Deathwing:
· Burning Tendons health has been reduced by 15% in 10- and 25-player Heroic mode. This change eases the burst damage requirement to complete the encounter, which should allow players to make use of more varied raid compositions.

Madness of Deathwing:
· The Priest spell Leap of Faith is no longer usable while under the effect of Carrying Winds.

Items:
· Vial of Shadows damage (Lightning Strike) has been reduced to approximately one-third of previous damage. However, it will now trigger approximately 3 times as often. This is intended to keep overall DPS the same while reducing burst damage, especially in PvP.
· Maw of the Dragonlord can now have its effect triggered by healing from Holy Word: Sanctuary.
· User Interface
· Fixed a bug that caused the Mature Language Filter to reset on exit.
· A notice is now displayed 15 minutes prior to the player being disconnected by parental controls.