THE STORIES BEHIND THE GAME
Good reads for your next queue.
Guides, big moments, and the people behind them.
World of Warcraft: Forever rebuilds every talent tree, drops realms, adds nine dungeons and a thousand quests, and keeps level 60. We went through every change against Classic, and we kept the collection we wrote before the reveal.
Kris Zierhut, Josh Greenfield and Tim Jones sat down with Crix and MrGM in the first two days after launch. The new facts on raids, loot, the Black Market Auction House, Shaman and Warlock fixes and PvP gear, checked against both videos, plus the unconfirmed report that level 60 quests give no gold.
Principal game designer Kris Zierhut told IGN that WoW Forever is aiming for a major content update roughly every four months, about three a year, with smaller unlocks in between. Why Season of Discovery's pace was ruled out, what the roadmap says the first two waves contain, the Northrend idea that was floated, and what is still unconfirmed.
Holly Longdale and Clay Stone did a run of interviews at PAX Australia from October 9 to 11. Cross-region play is out 'right now', the character cap isn't decided, endgame gold should be easier to earn, PvP gets reward periods between raid tiers, and some Forever features could reach retail. Everything they said, checked against the videos.
Clay Stone says 'horizontal' means expanding the world, not freezing gear. Each new raid tier will be a small power step up, old best-in-slot items should last a long time, and three forum threads passed 80 replies in a day arguing about it. Here is exactly what was said and what it means for your gear.
TechRadar ran a six-part interview with the WoW Forever team between October 7 and 12. The parts players are arguing about: no races from WoW's expansions, no summoning stones, respecs that get expensive fast, weekly balance changes for six months, and a frank admission that Season of Discovery went 'too far'.
Blizzard world builder Matthew Armstrong says he is making WoW Forever for Classic players and lapsed accounts, not retail players, and the beta forum is 338 replies deep in arguing about it. Here is what he said, what the leads told Windows Central and Shacknews the same week (27 viable trees, 10 and 20 player raids every patch, a level 27 to 32 zone, maybe housing), and the weather update Blizzard teased.