Forever OverviewForever Guide Compendium
In World of Warcraft, if all players were in the same location in a zone and could see each other, it would cause immense strain on the servers. As such, WoW has phasing technology called layering or sharding. Each zone in the world has multiple identical copies, and players are assigned to one of them when they enter. This places them into a zone that starts identically to other phases and runs independently from the other copies of the zone. Players can typically jump between layers and shards by forming groups, and as the population of a zone increases or decreases, the number of layers and shards can dynamically update as well.
In WoW: Forever, there's a new notification when a forced phase change is about to occur. Players will be notified that a zone "refresh" is coming soon, and they have 5 minutes to get somewhere safe before the change happens.
When the transition occurs, it's unknown what will be in the new phase. You could have defeated all the mobs nearby in your current phase, but in the new phase, all the mobs could all be alive again and immediately aggro you. Alternatively, your new layer could have everything dead, and you'll be surrounded by a bunch of new people. Questing mobs or pickups could despawn, or new herb and mining nodes might pop up.
When you're ready to trigger the phase, head to a safe location, away from any dangerous spawns, likely to a road or a town, and then you can click "Refresh Now" to trigger the phase. Once you're in the new layer, feel free to continue with your business.
If it's taking a little longer to get safe, you can click "Okay" to hide the notification. On the left side of your screen, near the chat box, there will be an arrow and a notification that reminds you how much time you have left before the forced transition. Click on the arrow when you're ready to bring up the notification again, and you can then click "Refresh Now" when you're ready.
At BlizzCon, this new phasing technology was revealed to have been created with Hardcore players in mind, since a forced phase at the wrong time might mean certain death. All players can use the new Refresh option, though, to make things a bit easier and provide more control.
