The 7th expansion for WoW will be available on the 14th of August this year, raising the level cap to 120 and giving the Horde and Alliance a reason to fight each other again until they reveal the actual end of expansion boss and we all come together to defeat it all while continuing to generate silly amounts of money for Blizzard.

Trailer for those that care. I'm so freaking pumped for this since I have recently caught the WoW bug again. 14 years and still can't shake this sickness. Currently leveling my Highmountain Tauren Shaman out since I have the majority of stuff done on my main. Wish I could be leveling a Mag'har Orc but they don't unlock until 120.

Also some press release notes courtesy of MMO-Champion

Highlights

• Battle for Azeroth will release on August 14, 2018!
• Dark Iron Dwarves and Mag'har Orcs will be the first two new Allied Races. Play through the War Campaign at release and unlock them.
• Kul'Tiran and Zandalari Trolls will come later in the expansion.
• Another round of realm connections is coming!
• The pre-expansion patch will include content in Darkshore that tells the backstory of the Burning of Teldrassil. It will include both story quests and replayable skirmishes with elites.
• There will be 2.5D animated pieces that tells the story of the Burning of Teldrassil.

Misc

• Warlords had the Garrison campaign, Legion had the Order Hall campaign, and Battle for Azeroth has a War Campaign.
• Attendees were shown the Zandalar landfall cinematic. Nathanos and a Zandalari troll are on a ship and mention that they believe that they have lost the Alliance that were chasing them after they rescued Princess Talanji. Talanji is in the cabin, praying to Rezan for aid. She is worried that her father will not agree with her seeking out the aid of the Horde. He sees her boldness, power, enemies that fear both, and that her enemies that seek her demise are here. Alliance ships appear behind the Horde vessel and attack, with it sustaining some damage. Talanji summons a large dinosaur spirit and pushes her ship away quickly into fog. After exiting on the other side, you can see an entire fleet of Zandalari ships waiting. They fire and destroy the Alliance fleet.
• We are very close to a beta, which the team is trying to save for when the game is feature complete and polish is remaining.
• Patch 7.1 may have been released a little too soon, but other than that Legion content pacing worked out well.
• Trial of Valor was an idea that came up just before Legion launched.
• There are 6 factions for the continents, 3 for each continent. There are 2 neutral factions: Tortollan and Voice of Azeroth.

World PvP

• The team isn't 100% sure why players are hesitant to engage in PvP combat. Is it the fact that there is a person on the other end, so they feel pressure and stress, or is it the behavior of the character on the other end.
• Leveling with War Mode (World PvP) enabled will grant more experience and rewards, with the intent being to offset the time lost to dealing with PvP and making leveling just as fast and rewarding with PvP on.
• You will fill up a bar with Conquest Points, earning a weapon or another piece of gear each time you fill it. Every week you earn another piece, and after you completed your set you will build a more powerful set.
• If you are a Gladiator level player, there is still a random loot system that rewards gear competitive with raid gear.
• Honor Talents are now tied to player level and will be unlocked as you level to 120.
• When you have War Mode on, you will be put on a shard with only other players that have it on.
• Group finder will only list groups with players that have the same War Mode toggle state as you.
• You can manually group with people that have War Mode off, but you won't be able to see them out in the world.

Warfronts

• The expansion will release with a 20 player Warfront in Arathi Highlands.
• Warfronts may change the outside world when your faction controls it, granting access to quests or world bosses.
• Your faction will turn in resources, unlock the warfront, play through the content and win the battle, then hold it for around 5-7 days while the other faction turns in resources to fight to control it.
• Resources turned in include Azerite, gold, tradeskill materials, and more.
• You will almost always win a warfront battle, so there is no risk of one faction holding it for a long time. Warfronts are held by one faction across an entire region.
• More Warfronts will open as the expansion progresses.

Island Expeditions

• You’ll queue for Normal, Heroic, Mythic, or PvP difficulties either alone or with a group by using an Expedition table in Zuldazar Harbor (Horde) or Boralus Harbor (Alliance).

• Island Expeditions are three-player encounters, and while you can play as any mix of roles, you’ll want to make sure you’re coordinating with the rest of your group to overcome the opposing faction and acquire 6,000 Azerite before they do.

• Island Expeditions use your party member's visibility to show Azerite on the map until the entire island's map is revealed.

• There are six different islands with dozens of enemies and structures. There are 6 enemy groups per faction.

The expansion to FINALLY make PvP relevant again?

I like the changes they are making to world PvP a lot and the changes to the PvP talent tree. I love WoW PvP (except arena's) and making the honor talent tree fully accessible as soon as you reach 120 is the right change. It was super annoying in Legion to have to "level" up your PvP talents as it made it incredibly difficult when you faced players who were prestige 1 or higher that had theirs unlocked.

The PvPvE islands sound amazing too.

I might not play the game currently, but man, they always pull me back a little closer with their cinematics.

Kill me.