World of Warcraft subscription numbers are on the up

World of Warcraft is experiencing a rise in subscribers, climbing to 7.4 million at the end of September compared to 6.8 million following the end of June, Blizzard confirmed.

The massively multiplayer game's subscriber-base is nearly back at its height of 7.6 million users from earlier this year. The rise is being attributed by Activision-Blizzard to the upcoming expansion, as well as the pre-expansion-patch which offers updated character models and tweaks to both user interface and player classes.

The company is continuing its push for additional subscribers, now offering former WoW players access to all previous expansions up to Mists of Pandaria by subscribing.

World of Warcraft's fifth expansion, Warlords of Draenor, will launch Nov. 13, Blizzard announced previously.

The expansion takes place in Draenor, better known as the home of the orc and draenei races. The area is split into seven zones and includes new battlegrounds, bosses, dungeons and raids. The game's level cap has been raised to 100, and players can boost one character to level 90 to jump into new content immediately.

Warlords of Draenor will include cosmetic updates to several of the game's races, including human females and males, orcs and gnomes. Players will also be able to build garrisons - expandable, customizable strongholds to serve as a base of operations.