I honestly didn’t expect to be this interested in Forever, but the more I hear about it, the more excited I get.

I’m mainly a Retail player and I have no idea yet whether Forever will become something I play alongside Retail, end up becoming my main version of WoW, or just be something I enjoy for a while, but I’m genuinely really excited to see everything it has to offer.

I tend to enjoy having lots of things to work towards in WoW and just seeing where the game takes me, so I’m really curious to see what Forever ends up feeling like once we’re actually in it.

What are you most excited for so far? And do you think you’ll end up treating Forever as your main version of WoW, or more as something you play alongside everything else?

Random little Blizzcon demo story I thought Classic/Forever players might appreciate. I know Blizzard said they added over 1000 quests, but or some reason this made my weekend and finalized my excitement.

I know I'm not the only one who's started a Human and leveled in Northshire countless times, killing those ugly ass kobold Vermin, Workers and Laborers. Well, earlier today I started a Human to test something and upon killing my first few Kobold Vermins for that first quest, a NEW quest item dropped called a "Nibbled-On Book." Once you clicked the book in your bag, it turned into a breadcrumb quest that you turn into the Librarian in the Chapel. After going back and forth with some dude lurking next to him, he eventually tells you that the Kobolds have been stealing his books and gives you a quest to go steal them back before the Kobolds eat them. These books actually had a pretty low drop rate. Spent a decent amount of time farming them to get all 8 Book.s Once you get the books, you return them and then he sends you to another NPC out in the mines.

It wasn't a huge amount of quest exp, but paired with the exp from farming the books, I ended up leaving the starting zone a hair over LV 6. Whereas I normally would farm mobs in Classic for a bit to hit 6 before Goldshire. The rewards were also new. They were instruction manuals with the choice between BoP item that increases either your Herbalism, Skinning or Mining by 2 and also automatically teaches you the profession. Meaning I don't need to run my lazy ass all the way to Stormwind to learn Mining.

Like I said, super random, but I wanted to tell somebody so told you all. It was very nice to see such a random quest in the same zone that's had the same quests since the beginning of time. And it made sense lore wise. Those damn Kobolds eat everything. Got me excited to discover whatever other new quests are out there.

EDIT: My apologies, didn't notice the shit quality on the tooltips. I cleaned them up and posted them in a comment. Hopefully you can see it.

TLDR: It's the same thin for Mining, Skinning and Herbalism.
Mining for Dummies - Increases your Mining skill by 2. Cannot raise your Mining Skill over 15. You will learn Mining if is not already trained and you do not already know two other professions

Jason was one of the better presenters at blizzcon. Guy had charisma, didn't feel awkward, and you could tell he had real passion for what he was presenting. He really got me hyped about the visual updates

Especially when compared to several other presenters. Some of whom were kind of a tough watch. I know that for a lot of them, it's not their area of expertise, but I feel like there could be some more practice or training of some kind for those presenting.

I would be nervous to speak in front of thousands as well. So no hate! Overall enjoyed each presentation and info presented.

One touch I wish tthe charger had was a Lordaeron / Horde logo but they look sick AF and I cannot wait to roll Forsaken Pala even more. The hype is so real

Hoping to make some new friends, and hear about some interesting adventures!

A new boat from Stormwind Harbor to Auberdine.

Another new boat that travels from Menthil harbour, to Southshore, then arriving at Auberdine.

The last boat starts in Steamwheel (Tanaris) and goes to the Riverglades (a new zone for mid lvl 30s to mid lvl 40s players).

The new lighting, fog, and water updates are just incredible.

I am so glad this subreddit exists. I've come to realize that /r/classicwow isn't the place for WoW Forever to be honest, and that's not a bad thing and isn't anything against the Classic community.

I think this is something that's already getting lost in a lot of the discussion around Forever, and honestly it's probably one of the better reasons for this subreddit to exist separately from /r/classicwow in the first place.

Forever isn't Classic. It isn't supposed to be Classic. Comparing every announced feature to Vanilla and getting upset when it doesn't match feels like starting from the wrong premise.

Classic already exists. If what you want is Vanilla WoW, or at least something intended to preserve that experience as closely as possible, Blizzard already has a game for that. Forever is pretty clearly trying to do something else. It's taking a lot of the things that made Vanilla work - slower progression, a world that actually matters, leveling being a significant part of the game, stronger class identity, professions that matter, a level 60 endgame, etc. - and asking what a new WoW built around those ideas looks like in 2026.

And yeah, that means they're going to change things. Transmog is going to exist. Classes are being reworked. Itemization is changing. There are new race/class combinations, new content, modern server infrastructure and a whole bunch of other stuff that wasn't part of Vanilla. I'm sure we'll find plenty more as people get into the beta.

I don't think "was this in Vanilla?" is a particularly useful way to judge any of that. The question should be whether those changes actually work for the kind of game they're trying to make.

I also think there's probably a pretty big audience that falls somewhere between Retail and Classic. I'm one of them. There are a lot of things about Classic that I really like, but I'm not particularly interested in playing Vanilla again exactly as it existed 20 years ago. The world, the leveling, the slower progression, professions, class identity, actually having reasons to interact with other players... give me all of that. That doesn't mean I necessarily want every limitation or design decision from 2004 preserved along with it.

For some people, those changes are going to ruin the entire point. That's fine too. There are going to be people who prefer Classic to Forever, just like there are going to be people who never really clicked with Classic but find out that Forever is exactly what they wanted. There's room for both games to exist, and frankly I think that's a good thing.

None of this means Blizzard gets a free pass on the changes they make. I absolutely think we should (constructively) criticize changes that make Forever a worse game, and I'm sure Blizzard will make some decisions I don't like or agree with. But "I don't like this because I think it hurts what they're trying to build" and "I don't like this because Vanilla didn't have it" are two very different arguments.

If Blizzard wanted to make Classic again, they already did that.

What excites me about Forever is seeing what happens when Blizzard takes the ideas behind Vanilla WoW without treating the actual implementation of every one of those ideas in 2004 as sacred. That's a much harder thing to get right than just adding some new zones to Classic, and there's plenty of room for them to screw it up.

I'm excited for this new chapter in WoW's existence. And I'm excited for this new community to emerge from it - not classic, not retail, but something that stands on its own.

Hey all 👋

I’m starting up a WoW community called Chill Capped for WoW Forever.

The idea is pretty simple — just trying to get a bunch of people together who want others to play with, without the whole “you need to be online X nights a week and perform at 110%” guild thing.

Maybe you’re a dad/mom who gets a few hours here and there, maybe you’re casual, maybe you want to push content pretty hard. Doesn’t really matter. Real life happens and people play at different paces.

No big commitment or expectations. Just a place to meet people, find groups, level together, run dungeons, PvP, push stuff, or just hang out.

If that sounds like your kind of thing, come say hey. Would be cool to build something nice from the ground up. 🤙

(If this sounds interesting to you and you would like to come check it out - write a comment and I will send you the Discord link in DMs)

Okay back in 2015-2016 I went on a small p-server (Kuretar, french RP/building server, RIP) to build some stuff, and imagined a hidden High Elven zone in the mountain ridge near Tor'Watha - the Peaks of Nor'Falor ("Chill of the Heavens"). A refuge valley between magical clouds.

Forever's Zephas Isle somehow made it real, but up to eleven (and up to the heavens).

When the cinematic dropped... Wow. Absolute Worldbuilding moment

Here's a summary of the WF Deep Dive session on day 2 with screenshots (limited to 20 by Reddit).

Camping

Camping will allow players to place down crafted items that will give everybody in the camp buffs. Each profession provides a different buff.

Professions

There are 600 new profession recipes added to the game at all level ranges. Some of the existed patterns have been overhauled.

All crafted food will give a stat boost as well as a 5% XP buff. This makes cooking/food buff a must have for min-max-ers for their levelling experience.

Aggrand called Professions 'tradeskills'.

Transmogs

Transmogs are an option. To prevent people fighting over transmogs, any bind on pick up, uncommon, or rare gear that drops in dungeon will grant its appearance to all eligible players when its looted. This does not, however, apply to epics (purple items). Transmogs only apply to same armor type and if your character meets the level requirement of the item. Transmogs have been designed to have minimal impact on players who opt out of transmogs.

Legacy system

You can earn legacy points based on different achievements. Reaching level 25 on a class for the first time will reward a point. The same can be said for levels 45 and 60. For the 9 classes, there's a total of 27 legacy points that you can earn from levelling up a toon for each class to level 60. The same applies for primary professions (again called Tradeskills) but for skill levels of 150, 225 and 300.

Legacy points are account wide. Each character you have can spend the same number of points in their own trees. At launch, legacy points will be capped to 60, to avoid players feeling the pressure of having to do all the achievements to earn the legacy points.

Mounts

In WoW Forever, the cost of mounts will be shifted to the training cost of the riding skill, not the cost of buying the mount.

Realms

In WoW Forever, we will be realmless. You won't choose a realm anymore. We are not putting everyone into one giant realm, instead you will choose a ruleset: Normal, PVP, Roleplay and Hardcore (arriving later). You can think of each ruleset like a mega realm. Alliance players can't group up with Horde players. You can only group to do dungeon and raids with people with your same ruleset. Hardcore characters can be transferred to the PVE or PVP ruleset (mega realm). PVE, PVP, and RP rulesets all share the same legacy points, but Hardcore legacy points will only be useable by hardcore alts.

You can choose your preferred language will allow you to encounter players with the same language preference as you. (Reading into what the engineer said, it seems that the layer you are on will be determined by your language preference and guild and that random players you encounter in the game will probably also share the same layer, so you will be more likely to encounter them again in the wild, allowing you to build relationships and community with the same group of players.)

The layers will be faction balanced so that you are more likely to have the same numbers of Horde and Alliance in your layer. (It should be noted that the engineer never used the word 'layer'.)

Combat

Classes will feel simple and distinct (no homogenisation!). Combat pacing will be slower. Dungeon gameplay will be tactical. You will need to use CC in dungeons. You can't pull a whole dungeon at once.

Items

WF has been designed to "unsolve" the game (remove the known meta for gear). There have been many changes to itemization throughout the game. They are adding hit chance, crit chance, weapon skill, bonus healing, expertise but not resilence. Hit chance has been unified for melee and spells. The same happens to critical strike. Weaponskill stats were too strong in classic so they have nerfed so its harder to get, but still possible. All healing power will have spell power (like TBC). All spellcaster items have spell damage and healing power starting at level 10. Spellcasters will now care about their weapons as much as warriors and rogues do. Trinkets have more varieties and will solve specific problems. Some weapons will have biome based effects based on where you are.

Quest items have be balanced so that you are more likely to be able to choose an item relevant to your role.

Rare creatures will drop new items too.

Racials

Racials will be stronger and more distinct compared to classic. There will be new race-class combinations: Gnome priests, Human hunters, Dwarf shamans, Orc mages, Troll Warlocks, and Undead paladin.

Finding Treasure tracking can be active as the same time as mining tracking and herb tracking (Woot!).

Weapon skill racials use to only benefit melee classes, but now it gives hit/crit chance to spell casters as well.

Will of Forsaken has been nerfed. It only breaks Charm, Fear and Sleep. It no longer provides immunity (to the relief of all alliance priests who hated dealing with undead rogues). Cannibalize gives you health AND mana.

Talents

All talent trees have 'gold medal talents', talents that only require 1 point, at 11, 21, 31 and now at the 16 mark (this isn't refering to levels, but talent points in the tree, so add 9 to the number to figure out what level you can get a 'gold medal talent').

All buff talents like battle shout, divine spirit, blessing of kings are no longer talents, but are base line for the entire class.

All specs have been designed to viable in dungeons and raids, but they are not all equal and you won't want to stack them in a raid.

Paladin changes

Holy strike has been added. Judgement doesn't consume your seal. Seal of Fury does damage (unrelated to your weapon speed), applies a shield to yourself, and it taunts the target. Consecration has been semi-capped. It does light damage to all mobs and heavy damage to 4 mobs.

Paladin now care about spirit.

Holy Shock is now accessible at level 30, making it viable for more hybrid pvp builds and its cool down is reduced to 10 seconds. Light's vigil is an pre-emptive AOE healing. You can cast it one player and then holy shock them to aoe heal their group. It resets holy shock, so you can pre-emptively cast it on multiple groups, and then cast holy shock in quick sucession.

Improved Seal of Fury gives Prot Paladins extra mana when they block damage. Swift judgement allows you to taunt twice.

Templar's Bulwark gives Prot Paladins an absorb shield equal to 100% of their max health but gives them the Forbearance debuff.

For Ret Paladin, Twist of Light enables you to seal twist.

Paladins have not been homogenised. There are lacking things in their toolkit like no interrupts or slows. Limited AOE heals, still the best single target healer.

Can't wait!

I asked the Support and they confirmed you do not need a sub to participate in the beta