WoW Forever Podcast — Tech & Community Building TL;DR

1. Modern technology and performance

• WoW Forever uses a modern codebase to benefit from ongoing WoW engineering improvements, security updates, and performance optimizations.
• Shared tools make it easier for designers to adjust systems like talents without extensive coding.
• Beta testing helped identify server bottlenecks and improve performance during large-scale PvP battles.

2. Mega raids and larger group events

• The team is exploring ideas for 80–120-player mega raids and alliances between groups, but nothing has been confirmed.
• Developers are optimizing server-client communication to improve performance during large battles.
• The beta’s final days showed significant improvements, and further tuning will continue after launch.

3. Layering and server technology

• WoW Forever uses a new, custom-built system that divides the world into smaller, adjustable population groups.
• This helps prevent overcrowded zones while keeping the world populated and active.
• Players disappearing or appearing suddenly at zone boundaries was a major beta issue. Improvements were made, though occasional world refreshes and transitions may still happen.
• Unlike traditional realms, players won’t need to worry as much about choosing the wrong server and being separated from friends.

4. Playing with friends and rule sets

• Players can choose their preferred rule set, such as PvP, PvE, or RP, and play with friends across the same region, regardless of location.
• PvP and PvE rule sets will remain separate at launch. The team wants to preserve their distinct gameplay and economies.
• The developers may consider connecting activities or economies between rule sets in the future if population issues require it, but this isn’t currently planned.
• Faction restrictions apply separately to each rule set to help maintain a roughly balanced Horde-to-Alliance population.

5. Building lasting communities

• The system is designed to help players repeatedly encounter the same people while questing, leveling, and grouping, recreating the community feeling of classic WoW.
• Guild membership and grouping with friends help determine which world population players join.
• Players will receive a notification and a time window to move to another world rather than being forcibly moved without warning. This avoids disrupting gameplay, particularly in Hardcore.
• Community populations will evolve gradually over time, helping new players joining years later find others to play with.
• Client language settings also influence which communities players encounter.

6. Ignore lists and community management

• Players can still use the ignore list, but ignoring someone won’t necessarily remove them from their wider community.
• The team is considering how to improve community management without allowing players to manipulate the system by strategically ignoring or friending others.

7. OCE, NA, and day/night cycles

• Australian players have dedicated regional hardware to help reduce latency, but grouping with players elsewhere can move them into a different world.
• The team discussed whether players should be able to switch between Australian and North American world populations, potentially causing abrupt day/night changes.
• No final decision was announced. The developers want feedback from OCE players on the best approach.

8. Community events and future content

• The team rebuilt underlying event systems to give designers more flexibility and avoid technical problems experienced in previous versions of Classic.
• Future possibilities include:
  • Larger-scale PvP events.
  • New holiday activities and fishing tournaments.
  • Special arena events and limited-time activities.
  • World bosses designed to bring players together.
• No major new event was promised for launch, but the team wants to expand content horizontally with activities beyond leveling, raiding, and PvP.
• Developers encouraged players to share ideas and feedback about events they’d like to see.

9. Proximity voice chat

• The team has discussed proximity voice chat and automatic voice chat when joining a party.
• There are no confirmed plans to introduce it. Safety and making players comfortable using voice communication would need to be addressed first.

10. Development philosophy and launch

• WoW Forever is being built for long-term development, with infrastructure that allows the team to respond to player behavior and introduce new features more efficiently.
• Hardcore was highlighted as an example of the developers supporting community-driven gameplay.
• The team emphasized that WoW Forever is supported by a much larger group of engineers, QA, production, live operations, and other teams—not just the developers featured in the podcast.
• Launch was announced for November 4, with the team planning to continue refining systems based on player feedback.

Overall takeaway: WoW Forever aims to preserve the social experience of classic WoW while using modern technology to support larger battles, more flexible populations, easier grouping, and stronger long-term communities. The launch is the foundation, with further improvements and community-driven content planned as the game evolves.

Thank you.

Dear Blizzard Team and Shobek,

I would love to pitch a core concept feature for WoW: Forever that is designed to bring organic life, purpose, and excitement back into the open world of Azeroth.

I recently shared a detailed, step-by-step framework titled “Make Azeroth the Content! A Player-driven MERCHANT, PROTECTOR & BANDIT System”, and I would be incredibly grateful if you could take an urgent look over it.

The concept is fully detailed here:

In a nutshell, the system introduces three completely optional, player-driven roles at level 40:

• Merchants: Transport visible, physical NPC cargo across the map (where distance scales the gold/cosmetic rewards).
• Protectors: Get hired by merchants to defend the caravans, creating organic server reputations for guilds and mercenaries.
• Bandits: Track, ambush, and steal the cargo, which they must then physically transport to a Black Market to claim their pool of rewards.

This system is completely faction-independent (Alliance can rob Alliance, etc.) and features safe 1-star PvE routes alongside high-stakes PvP routes to ensure both playstyles thrive without breaking the Auction House economy. It utilizes ground travel and existing zone geometry to turn world travel back into actual server stories.

Shobek, I know how much you value meaningful open-world engagement, and Blizzard team, this perfectly aligns with the “journey-first” philosophy of Forever. I truly believe this could give players a reason to live in the world again.

Thank you so much for your time, your hard work, and for maybe taking a look at this project!

Please just don’t - you’ve been bot-posting this basically everywhere. Nobody wants this or interacted with your posts in the past few weeks.

This is a completely different game than WoW. There’s probably other games out there that better fit this niche.

Dear Aggrend and tech developers: Zones must not be overfull, no, but even just “full” can be too much. There doesn’t need to be people around all the time. Sometimes those quiet moments just questing or farming alone are valuable too. It’s supposed to feel like a big world and making player interactions more scarce also makes them more meaningful. If you see people running past you all the time then they are just a crowd rather than an encounter.

the day/night cycle is not a problem only for OCE players.

No matter in which timezone we play,
For most of us, the playing hours are 99% of the time the same hours, mainly after work, so practically we are locked in permanent darkness. Please desync the cycle from realtime so we enjoy both day and night. Azeroth is not Earth, there is no reason it’s cycle would be 24 hours.

Those were a lot of words to just say “It is not gonna change, it is a trade off but don’t worry it will get better later on”.

The night is only after 00:00 server time. Hence, no, you are not permanently locked playing in the darkness. Unless you come from work after midnight.

Speak for yourself, I don’t want this. Keep it as it is for the rest of us.

Agreed, please desync the cycle from 24 hours, so we are all able to see the new day/night lightings blizzard has been working on. Or better yet, make it either a toggle or ruleset specific setting. Rp servers would greatly benefit from this as well i.m.h.o.

Yea - i‘d love shorter day-night cycles. Especially if they are de-synced from RL day-night cycles. I do not always want to be stuck in a perpetual night, if I mainly play in the evening.

Could something along those lines be introduced?

Totally agree.

Also some of us have issues seeing anything meaningful on a dark screen. Watching videos with people carrying torches… That kind of light is going to make the game unplayable for me.