World of Warcraft Midnight pre-patch follows tradition with a colony of bugs, filling the sky with dragons and turning hills into squishy gray lumps: "I just expect them to try and do better for once"

World of Warcraft developer Blizzard has just released its pre-patch for the gigantic Midnight expansion, and it is predictably infested with a variety of bugs ranging from big, small, or… gray.

Many World of Warcraft players accept the MMORPG's often messy pre-patches as a loved one's quirk – nobody's perfect, after all, and Blizzard has at least been actively monitoring the Midnight pre-patch's known issues. But there really are a lot of them this time.

Popular WoW guide site Icy Veins, for example, has spotted the fact that the typically idyllic green hills of the Nagrand region have somehow been turned to 3D-printed gray slime; soaring dragons have suddenly started to swarm the Eastern Kingdoms' northern skies, and players have also been describing a seemingly infinite list of broken quests, useless UI, and that the transmog customization feature is nonoperational.

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It's inspiring trust issues. In one Reddit thread, a player bemoans the fact that "the state of the pre-patch is not a good look for midnight," while their compatriots quip things like, "first time?" But others don't find yet another round of pre-patch madness so amusing.

"'FIRST TIME? DUR DUR DUR ARE YOU NEW HERE? DUR DUR DUR,'" says one tortured thread reply. "Been playing since 2004 here, I just expect them to try and do better for once."

The full Midnight expansion, which will introduce highly coveted player housing, launches in full on March 2.

World of Warcraft Midnight "brought me to the verge of tears," says MMO's production director, and it's not only "our best expansion ever," but maybe one of the most important ones in 10 years.