World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor alpha testing in progress

World of Warcraft's Warlords of Draenor expansion has gone into alpha testing, meaning those of you on the list could be checking out the new content right now.

We're certain the timing has nothing to do with the launch of a competing major subscription MMORPG today. Hem hem.

In a Battle.net post, Blizzard described the test as being at a "very early stage", and the developer is currently testing new technology with "friends and family". However, it anticipates data-mining leaks to begin detailing the new content.

"The expansion content available during this first phase will be quite limited—many of the expansion’s major features, such as Garrisons, won’t be available until a later point in the testing process. This early phase of testing will help us ramp up for our larger beta phase later on, when we’ll be inviting more players," Blizzard said.

One of the major back-end changes brought by the expansion is a change in file format from Mo'PaQ to CASC, and Blizzard expects to roll out the change to all players in a patch before Warlords of Draenor launches.

The new format should help prevent errors during installation, increase game performance, quicker patching, hotfixing of clients, better streaming data support and future-proofing.

If you're keen to be a part of Warlords of Draenor's testing, you can register a beta profile.

Thanks, Massively.