THE WOW FOREVER COLLECTION · DISPATCH · RESEARCH CHECKED OCTOBER 13, 2026
Short answer: Blizzard told TechRadar it has "no plans to add races from WoW's expansions at this time," so no Goblins, Worgen, Pandaren or Vulpera, and that summoning stones are out because they "shrink the world." The same interview, published in six parts between October 7 and October 12, has the most concrete talk yet about respecs and patch cadence: respec prices will "climb quickly" at launch and only come down once a week, and class balance changes are planned "once per week" for roughly the first six months. Wowhead summarized the class and respec answers on October 12. The races answer is the one that took off: a forum thread about it passed 78 replies in its first day.
TechRadar attributes every answer to "Blizzard" or "the WoW: Forever team" rather than a named developer, and it published the conversation in pieces, so some answers are paraphrased around the quotes. Where we quote below, it is Blizzard's wording as TechRadar printed it.
No expansion races, and why
The October 11 part is the one people are talking about. Asked about modern races, Blizzard said: "We have no plans to add races from WoW's expansions at this time." Its reason is that Forever is its own timeline, built on the RTS games first: "Our main focus for the game is to build off the foundational lore of Warcraft," with the story picking up after the new Warcraft 3: Forsaken Kingdom campaign.
The team added that it doesn't want to retread stories "already told extensively in the modern game," and that the tone will stay small: "You aren't THE hero in WoW: Forever, you are just A hero." It did leave a door open. "That isn't to say we'll never go to some of the places that came in later WoW expansions, but we are fairly committed at this time to doing the WoW: Forever version of those places."
A fair point from the forum thread: TechRadar's own lead sentence names Battle for Azeroth, Shadowlands and Midnight, then lists Goblins among the races to rule out, and Goblins were in the RTS games. Blizzard's quoted line says "races from WoW's expansions," though, and playable Goblins and Worgen arrived in Cataclysm, Blood Elves and Draenei in The Burning Crusade. Read literally, the quote covers all of them. "At this time" is doing a lot of work, and nobody should treat it as a forever promise.
The thread split about how you'd expect. Some players like the idea of new races over retail repeats. Others point out that Blizzard just invented the Skyborne, which has no RTS history, so "foundational lore" is a loose rule. A few suggested the Goblin and High Elf fans could get customization options inside existing races instead.
Skyborne and the Quel'Thalas question
The first part, on October 7, was Blizzard's defense of the Skyborne, the dual-faction elf race sold in the Skyborne Heroic Pack. The headline reason is population. TechRadar reports Blizzard pointing at Blood Elves in The Burning Crusade as the cause of a big faction swing, and says a race open to both sides should manage "long-term population balance."
Blizzard also explained why it picked new elves over High Elves. The starter zone, Zephras Isle, takes "4-6 hours" before "you'll be back to terrestrial Azeroth," and "That also influenced why we chose these elves over, say, Quel'dorei elves from Quel'thalas." The team says it has "bigger plans" for the region and wants to signal "we may occasionally make a bold choice." TechRadar doesn't make clear whether "the region" means Quel'Thalas or the Skyborne's islands. That ambiguity is fuelling a separate 210-reply forum thread about opening Quel'Thalas and Silvermoon, which predates the interview story and is pure speculation.
On reception, Blizzard said "We have seen great reception to the Skyborne in the beta," particularly from players who finish the starter zone. If you are weighing it up, our best race guide and the racials list cover what the Skyborne actually bring.
Summoning stones are out
The October 9 part is short and blunt. Summoning stones arrived in The Burning Crusade, and Forever won't have them. "Easy, quick access to teleports shrink the world, and marginalize part of the identity of a class like Warlock," the team said, so they fail two of the game's four design pillars, "Nurture and Protect Social Experiences" and "World as the Main Character."
The four pillars, from the October 8 part, are Nurture and Protect Social Experiences, Approachable and Familiar, World as the Main Character, and Journey Before Destination. Blizzard says it doesn't ask "is this classic" so much as whether a change supports those pillars, and "if the idea doesn't support them, we don't do it." That is the same reasoning behind the shared tagging decision and the dungeon XP line, so expect to hear it again.
Respecs will get expensive, and dual spec stops at two
This is the part with the most practical detail, from the October 10 piece on classes:
| Topic | What Blizzard said |
|---|---|
| Dual spec | Learned at level 40 for a cost, "no plans to go past that" |
| Respec price on beta | "The first re-spec every hour is temporarily cheap in the beta" |
| Respec price at launch | "will climb quickly and only decrease once per week" |
| Future | "the possibility... of some increased re-spec utility coming to the Legacy talents" |
| Balance cadence | Changes "batched up to all happen at the same time," initially "once per week" for about six months |
| Design changes | "very few design changes once the game goes live" |
So if you are testing builds in the talent calculator, don't plan on swapping freely at 60. (The level 40 unlock itself may move: Josh Greenfield floated "a cheeky thirty" on the October 8 podcast.) The trainer price will ramp like Classic's and decay weekly, and dual spec at 40 is the only second slot. The Legacy respec hint is interesting given the current fight over Legacy power: a 235-reply thread titled "Remove character power from legacy points" argues that perks like Talented make the game harder for new players to catch up in.
The weekly balance plan sits alongside a promise of few design changes after launch. Our read is that numbers will move often and kits will mostly stay put. On class philosophy, Blizzard said it will "err on the side of simpler classes, but with engaging depth," that "some classes in the Classic era were too simple," and that "the level of mechanical complexity found in the beta classes is indicative of our intentions."
The Season of Discovery confession
The last part, on October 12, is the most candid thing Blizzard has said about SoD. "We pushed every class to the limit and explored every power fantasy on every class. But we knew we were going too far. It's like eating all your Halloween candy on October 31." Its conclusion: "Forever will be a lot more careful and cautious with slower class changes."
The lesson Blizzard did keep from SoD is economy control. It says SoD's systems for controlling "the inflow and outflow of key resources" led to "much less problematic behavior such as RMT."
Gold buyers and mage farming
The October 8 RMT part matches what we reported when Blizzard started banning beta gold buyers, with one new detail. Blizzard said "certain Mage talents and abilities have been changed to make it harder for a single player to farm an instance for gold or experience." That lines up with the Frost AoE cuts in the October 7 class deep dive, which we covered in the mage balance piece. Penalties for gold buyers will "progress much more rapidly," up to permanent bans, and Blizzard won't detail the detection systems because "it's a cat and mouse game."
Art direction
One more answer worth knowing if the model debate bothers you. Blizzard says its target is not 2004 assets and not modern retail fidelity, but a "vanilla era" look that "could have existed in Vanilla, Burning Crusade, or Wrath of the Lich King." That is the standard the high-detail Skyborne druid forms are being measured against in the forums.
Sources: TechRadar Gaming (Demi Williams, with Alex Whitelock), Why no High or Blood Elves? Blizzard speaks on WoW: Forever's controversial new Skyborne race (October 7, 2026), Blizzard explains its philosophy for 'Classic Plus' (October 8), Blizzard issues stark warning to WoW: Forever gold buyers (October 8), Blizzard explains why WoW: Forever won't have Summoning Stones (October 9), WoW: Forever's classes won't be modernized (October 10), Can fans expect Goblins or Vulpera in WoW: Forever? (October 11) and The WoW: Forever team says it learned a lot from Classic: Season of Discovery (October 12); Wowhead, WoW: Forever Classes Won't Be Modernized: TechRadar Interview with Blizzard (October 12) and Blizzard Teases Possible Change to Unlock Level of Dual Spec (October 10); Blizzard forums, Thoughts on the latest interview saying no retail races? (October 12, with replies), Remove character power from legacy points (October 9, with replies) and Quel'Thalas and Silvermoon city for Alliance (October 10, with replies).