WOW's Echoes of Doom patch out today

By Oli Welsh Published 15 October, 2008

Servers back up at 1pm - if you're lucky.

World of Warcraft's Echoes of Doom - the update formerly known as patch 3.0.2 - goes live on European servers today. It will bring many of the new features of next month's Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack to all players of the game.

Servers went down to receive the patch in the early hours of this morning, and are expected back online following maintenance at 2pm Paris time (1pm in the UK).

However, if the patch day experience in the US yesterday is anything to go by, you might be waiting well into the evening to try out your new talent trees. WOW Insider reported that most servers were still offline at 8pm local time, after the target for turning them back on had been pushed back three times.

We'll check the servers again in the afternoon and let you know how they are getting on, in case you want to consider making other plans for your evening than staring at a login screen and crying quietly.

Echoes of Doom introduces new abilities and talent trees for every class; the Achievement system; the new Inscription profession and the Glyphs that can be be used to customise your abilties; barbershops for changing your appearance; two new Arenas with terrain hazards and moving obstacles; radical changes to the way Hunter pets work; and some user-interface tweaks. It also adds a harbour area to Stormwind City.

It's a monster, and the first major update to WOW since Fury of the Sunwell all the way back in March.

You can read about all the major changes in our most recent Wrath of the Lich King beta report. The expansion pack itself follows a month behind this patch, on November 13th, for Mac and PC.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (14) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • ZuluHero #1 4 years ago

    going back for this, can't wait (for some reason :S)

    First thing im gonna do is get a hair cut ;)

  • That_Happy_Cat #2 4 years ago

    Well there's a pretty, new log in screen... brrr chilly!

  • dredd97 #3 4 years ago

    looking forward to it, after playing the beta, the stats tracking and achievements are worth it alone...

  • Goodfella #4 4 years ago

    Yeah, the new login screen is nice, I'm sure they've tarted up the theme tune too?

    Fingers crossed for 1pm.
    Edited by Goodfella at 15/10/08 @ 09:19

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #5 4 years ago

    I see many users going 'thats from WAR, thats from LOTRO, thats from XBL' whats that thing again 'copying is the best form of flattery' or somthing like that?

    Even I'm interested in what the update has and I left WoW years ago and currently hugging WAR :)

  • smirny #6 4 years ago

    if i EVER get back into the game... 2 months since my acct was hacked, finally got a new password last weekend, but my account is still frozen :/ ... i'd quite like to try some of that

  • Fleisch #7 4 years ago

    bloody hell! the install takes as long as original WoW install!!!!

  • Mooks #8 4 years ago

    2 new arenas, no new battlegrounds, I know there will be in lich king but people who don't enjoy arena (which is alot) need some love too. WAR has much better PVP than WoW at the moment along with much nicer and battlegrounds and PQ/RVR, what I don't get about the WoW community is the excitement that surround trivialties like barber shop, achievements etc, personally apart from the classes changes I see little to get excited about ... then i guess if your 12 having a haircut is exciting ...

  • Goodfella #9 4 years ago

    Surprise surprise, maintenance has already been pushed back to 2pm (GMT).

  • Mooks #10 4 years ago

    Any word on how bad the performance hit is with shadows on high?

  • James-Caldari #11 4 years ago

    Does this new patch include new graphical options/improvements, or is that purely for the Lich King expansion?

  • makememoo #12 4 years ago

    the ptr seemed to have a ropey implementation of the shadows because with them on i got like 5 fps. however if i flicked to the beta there was no fps loss with shadows on full over off for me.

    and yes, thats the major graphical update that is going live today.

  • Goodfella #13 4 years ago

    Still offline. :/

  • iokthemonkey #14 4 years ago

    I dunno if the Achievements in WoW are are realised as they are in LOTRO, but in the latter, going for one is - in effect - a kind of "quest" in its own right and often worth the reward. Yes, the first one might only be for a title, but the second rank will often give you a very cool new ability. For example, the other day I completed a Deed that rewarded me with a skill that allows me to completely heal all my damage once every hour, which is well-worth the work it took to get.