World of Warcraft: Shadowlands artwork for the Bastion zone

[Update #2]: The Shadowlands expansion has now gone live without any notable problems!

[Update]: World of Warcraft will soon start issuing bans for multiboxing and automated gameplay.

After seeing the beta plagued with far too many bugs and random problems, Blizzard chose to delay World of Warcraft's Shadowlands expansion in order to give the team enough time to get everything polished up and ready to go. With that in mind, you'll be happy to hear that they appear to be nearly finished as the Shadowlands expansion will be officially launching at 3pm PST on November 23, or 12am CET on November 24 for us in Europe.

"Since we first told you about our decision to delay, we’ve used the time to further polish the expansion and shore up the endgame, including overhauling the combat and rewards in the Maw, and reworking the Covenant systems to make your choice more immediately impactful and have clearer long-term goals," reads the brief update. "Now the team is in a great position to get things the rest of the way to the finish line before November 23—and as always, we’re committed to working with you to improve the game for as long as you’re out there playing it."

"Now that we have our launch date, we’re also excited to tell you that our pre-launch event will kick off November 10, so steel yourselves to take on a flood of the Scourge. In addition, we’ve set a December 8 date for the opening of our first raid, Castle Nathria—which takes players into the heart of Sire Denathrius’ lair in Revendreth—along with the start of Shadowlands Season 1."

As an additional little bonus, Blizzard has also shared a story trailer that's mostly here to showcase some of the characters that will be playing a major role in the Shadowlands expansion. In other words, don't worry too much about spoilers as the video keeps things fairly vague. Have a gander:

Once the pre-launch event goes live on November 10th I'll make sure to let you know. Until then, you can read more about the Shadowlands and its various Covenants over at the official website.