Today, I started getting an error on the character select screen: “This system will not be supported in future versions of World of Warcraft…”
Can someone explain what exactly this means? Will the game not launch at all? Will Blizz just refuse to help? Is there a chance I can still play if I minimize settings? Or, is it finally time to fork out a few grand for a legit gaming PC instead of a workstation? Thanks in advance!
This error means that one or more of your PC’s components are either unsupported currently or below the minimum system requirements.
In your case specifically, with the system info that you’ve given, it sounds like it would be showing you that message due to the Intel Xeon 5160 CPU. WoW has never officially supported Xeon CPUs (as they are not designed for gaming) but the game may run on it. Since it’s unsupported we can’t guarantee that you won’t run into crashing issues or performance issues while playing.
The GTX 760 is the current minimum requirement for video card as well. So when the system requirements get updated, as they often do with each expansion, that card may end up being below the new minimum requirement.
If you are able to launch the game and play now in patch 9.0 then you should be able to play in Shadowlands. However you may experience unexpected issues since you do have unsupported components.
As for what will happen in the future, we can’t say really. You should always aim to have a system that is at least within the minimum requirements for WoW. So if it were me personally, I would probably start saving up for a full system upgrade at some point in the future.
Thank you for the detailed information, I was hoping to hear something like this. I’ll definitely start saving and planning for a new build, but I’m glad to hear that my current system may continue to work for now and that I will likely have performance issues instead of just not being allowed to try.