WoW Forever Can't Fix Your Old Party
Before you give the old group another winter in World of Warcraft: Forever, ask what everyone misses. One friend wants to get lost in Azeroth again. Another wants to get very good at it. Someone else would settle for an evening talking nonsense. Those people can all love the same game and make each other miserable playing it.
Blizzard's new permanent game launches November 4 in North America, at midnight on November 5 in Central Europe. It returns to the original continents and a level cap of 60, alongside World of Warcraft and World of Warcraft Classic. New adventures will fill out that familiar world.
We have not played it. But the rules Blizzard has published already complicate the reunion, especially when one friend can play every night and another has an hour on Sundays.
A long walk needs a purpose
There are no flying mounts or level scaling. Expect to travel on the ground through places whose difficulty does not continually adjust to your character. For anyone tired of treating a world as a series of destinations, that is an appealing prospect.
Getting stronger can change your relationship with a road you once avoided. You can learn where danger starts, decide whether to risk a shortcut and eventually become the person who knows the way. Those are good reasons to spend time in a place.
Waiting for a friend who is hopelessly behind can also turn a reunion into an unpaid escort shift. A long run back can be funny once and maddening when your only free hour is nearly over. A wasted evening does not become meaningful because the waste resembles 2004.
My test is whether a delay creates a choice or a conversation. Having to ask someone for help gives the inconvenience a possible reward. Repeating an empty chore while your friends wait deserves no special forgiveness because you remember doing it at school.
Let the newcomer get lost
The new terrain gives veterans something to discover instead of simply reciting directions. Blizzard's Found Photos presentation describes the Riverglades frontier, new journeys through Mount Hyjal and additions to existing starting areas. There is a chance for the person who remembers everything to be surprised too.
Executive producer Holly Longdale pitched it to first-time players in PC Gamer's October 12 interview:
A clean beginning helps, but your experienced friend can still spoil it. An expert who answers every question before it occurs to you can make an adventure feel like following instructions. Let the newcomer choose a direction sometimes. Allow an unnecessary detour to become their story before explaining how much faster your route would have been.
A solo player can want a populated world without wanting an appointment every night. If that is you, test a small personal goal before volunteering for anyone else's schedule. Finish a quest chain or learn a profession. See whether that evening was enjoyable in itself. You do not owe a famous game another week because somebody else had a wonderful adolescence inside it.
Camping could help with those smaller encounters. Blizzard describes profession-made objects, useful buffs and places to rest together. It gives you a reason to stop beside another player. Whether either of you has anything to say will remain your problem.
Your second character has a job
The Legacy system rewards accomplishments across characters, with points each character can spend on its own perks. At launch, each can spend up to 16 points, even if the account has earned more. Perks include improved rested experience and increased gathering yields. There is a practical return for going through the early levels again.
In PC Gamer's interviews, the developers connect alternate characters to welcoming friends and exploring new leveling content. Keep a character for playing together and you can share the awkward early discoveries instead of standing nearby as a bodyguard. Your friend's first adventure need not be a catch-up assignment.
That only works if the character actually waits. Agree whether anyone can use it outside the group's sessions, and what happens when somebody misses a week. If the keenest player races ahead every night, extra rewards will do nothing for the person left behind. A system that encourages more characters could just as easily become more homework.
What you need to buy
Access to Forever is included with an active subscription or game time. The optional Skyborne packs add things beyond that access. The Heroic pack includes the Skyborne race and its Zephras Isle starting experience, early name reservation, a ground mount and cosmetics. Epic adds beta access, game time and further extras.
The race and starting area matter if those are specifically what you want to play. You do not need that upgrade simply to join friends. Settle whether you want those additions before comparing bundles; enthusiasm in the group chat is an expensive way to choose an edition.
Eligible upgrade purchasers can reserve up to three characters from October 27 through November 3. Europe's window opens October 27 at 18:00 CET; North America's opens that day at 13:00 PDT. These are separate regional schedules. Names use a two-part combination unique within a region, so a taken first name does not automatically rule yours out. Reservation does not guarantee the name you want.
Make the important choice together
Before reserving anything, agree on a region, faction and ruleset. Blizzard confirms that friends on different rulesets cannot group for quests, dungeons or raids, and Horde and Alliance cannot group together either. Starting under another ruleset requires a new character. Removing the old realm-selection screen does not remove those boundaries.
For a reunion with mixed enthusiasm, I would choose Normal unless everyone actively wants open-world player-versus-player combat. One person's cherished ambush story can be another person's entire evening ruined. Roleplaying and Roleplay-PvP also launch with the game; Hardcore comes later. Do not let the loudest veteran choose everyone's tolerance for interruption.
Then agree on an evening and an honest stopping time. If you want the journey itself, especially with a newcomer you will let discover it, Forever makes a persuasive invitation. If you mainly want the old group's company and nobody wants to begin again, keep playing whatever currently gets you together.
My vote is a modest return: one character each for the group, one agreed evening, subscription access first. Finish that session asking whether you want another. Give the game a chance to earn next week before you promise it the winter.
