Wryxian announced yesterday that EU players may now begin enjoying premade characters on the beta servers. These premades, unlike their US counterparts, are available to be placed on regular beta servers – not just special premade-only ones.

They are still in PvP gear. They have no special PvE gear. However they are still good for doing instances and what not. The only catch is that you'll notice some standard differences in the way the class behaves (mana regen, hit/miss, defense, etc...).

EU players can access the premades by going to the site where they originally copied their character over to the beta and select to copy over a "template" character.

After the false alarm a few days ago, premade characters are available for copy to the US Wrath beta PvP realm Murmur. (Apparently, the realm was called "Murmer" up until a few hours ago. I guess Blizzard decided on a last minute spell check.) I have firsthand knowledge that the character copy now works because I copied three toons this morning and less than two hours later they are now playable. If you have a beta key and you want to play on the PvP server, keep in mind a few things:

• You can only choose all Horde or all Alliance toons because it's a PvP server.
• You can copy up to three level 80 characters, stacked with top-notch PvP gear.
• This server is designed to test Wintergrasp. Other PvE areas like Azeroth and Outland may not be available for play on this server.
• If you like Night Elves, you're stuck playing a Druid. Dwarves, on the other hand, get a choice of three classes (Hunter, Priest, or Warrior). Every other race gets two classes each.
• Right now the wait time is only a couple of hours. It will get longer as more people copy toons. So go over there ASAP.

Commenters have (sad to say, rightly) accused me of a US bias in my posts so I did some extra research on the this topic for our EU readers. The EU servers do not have premade templates available because -- at the moment, at least -- there is no Murmur-equivalent beta realm available to them. Sorry, folks. We'll keep you posted if that changes.

According to Tigole, Blizzard will "try to patch" the Wrath of the Lich King beta today. Storm Peaks will open back up and should not crash the sever. No word yet if Naxx will be introduced in this patch. The servers should be up between 4:30 p.m. PDT and 6:30 p.m. PDT.

The XP required to level will also be reduced by 10% this beta patch. Things should go faster for all you playing around with leveling.

Finally, there will be a new beta realm opening up named Murmur. Tigole mentioned that the premade characters should not have been made available on the existing realms. He tells us that "they are being removed." There is no indication as to whether or not current premade characters will be moved to the new realm or just outright deleted.

The option was just opened up to create premade level 80 characters on the LK beta realms. Up till now in the beta premades had not been available, and we don't know exactly what kind of gear they'll have, but my guess would be blues. None of the high-end content has been implemented yet as far as I know; however, Daelo did say that Naxxramas, the first raid, will be open "soon" in both 10- and 25-man editions, and will have loot in. So hopefully we'll be able to see just what they're planning on doing for the different gear in 10s and 25s. If you're in the beta, you're eligible for three premades, so get cracking if you want to play in the deep end.

[Thanks, Kenzi]

Blizzard forum poster Hortus has announced that premade characters are now available for copy to the PTR for patch 2.4.3. The Character Copy page says that the average wait time for copying is five days, but I've never waited as long as the estimates for my copied toons. I copied mine to the PTR tonight and will let you know how long the transfer takes.

The eighteen premades are all Level 70s, two of each class (one Horde, one Alliance). Undead comprise the largest race (5), followed by Dwarves (4), Gnomes (3), and Orcs (2). There is one character each for Tauren (Druid), Night Elves (Druid), Blood Elves (Paladin), and Draenei (Shaman). They are all specced with gear made for PvP, judging by the character names. So what are you waiting for? Maintenance starts soon! Get out there and copy a premade character -- or four -- for yourself.

[Thanks, Josh and Philip Stetson.]

In case you were wondering, there will be premade characters for the 2.4.3 PTR before all is said and done, according to Hortus. There's no word for sure on why they're needed, what gear they'll have, or when they'll come along, but they'll be here. You'll need an account that had Burning Crusade activated before these PTRs went live, and when the time comes, you'll be able to sandbox it up with a fresh new premade while you help test the patch.

This phase, says Hortus, is also not intended for testing Season 4 gear, since it was already tested on a previous PTR. Besides, with 4 days left until Season 4 goes live, the 2.4.3 patch won't be on live servers until Season 4 is well underway. That said, it looks like most (but not all) of the Season 4 gear is still on the PTR right now, so if you want to go check it out, you can fly up to Area 52 on the PTR and check out Big Zokk Torquewrench's wares. Of course, you can also expect us to give you all the Season 4 news you need in the next few days here at WoW Insider as well, including gear guides.

Also, Mages and Warlocks are reporting that their self-buff armor spells are now no longer dispellable on the PTR servers. That's a nice chunk of mana you won't have to waste recasting after a stray Purge in PvP. We'll be watching the PTRs for more undocumented changes, oddities, and happenings, so be sure to keep it here for the rest of the testing cycle for all the news and analysis you'll need when the patch goes live.