Two tracks matter for World of Warcraft: Forever, and on the morning of October 21 they disagree.
The playable beta is still 1.60.1.70450. That build landed on October 16 and has not moved since, even though the beta manifest itself was rebuilt at 01:22 UTC on October 21. Same build, newer manifest.
The internal development track moved to 1.60.1.70502. Its manifest was created at 18:36 UTC on October 20, and it is flagged encrypted, which is normal for that track rather than a sign of anything. Before this, the internal track had been sitting on 70374 since mid October.
What can and cannot be concluded
Nothing about content. Build numbers are sequence, not changelogs, and the internal track has always run ahead of what testers download. We have watched that gap for weeks: the beta client and the internal client routinely differ by dozens of builds, and the beta is the only one that matters for what players actually see.
What the numbers do show is that work has not stopped on the day before the beta closes. The stress test is today at 2:00 p.m. PDT and 19:00 CEST, the beta is expected offline around it and back shortly after, and the beta access period ends October 21 PST.
There is still no launch candidate on the beta track. If Blizzard ships a new playable build before November 4, it will appear on the wow_classic_beta track first, and the difference between a launch build and a stress-test build is not visible from the version string. We will report it when it happens rather than predict it.
The timeline that has not changed
- October 21: stress test, then the beta closes.
- October 27 to November 3: name reservation, up to three characters, with any upgrade purchase.
- November 4, 3:00 p.m. PST: launch.
- December 9: first raids, with the Onyxia's Lair date conflict still unresolved.
The build watch is automated on our side and reads both tracks separately, which is why the number in the site header and the number in this article can differ without either being wrong. For the full sequence of dates, see the last fifteen days.