After the LIve Q&A, the World of Warcraft: Forever beta will go live!
Midnight Q&A
Faction-Specific Narratives
The short answer is yes.
For the Worldsoul Saga, the factions have a grudging unity.
While the Alliance are allowed in Silvermoon, it still has that section where the Horde will kill you if you enter.
Narratives
When they first sit down, they figure out the broad strokes.
They've set up all the pieces of the trilogy, and in the future the story is going to go very quickly.
Race-Class Combos
Short answer: there will be more added in the future.
Previously, they added the Void-Elf Demon Hunter, which caused faction imbalance. But they said to wait, and Forsaken Paladins are coming soon.
Character Customization Options
Being able to express yourself is very important.
They've hopefully shown this in housing recently. But it's also about the mounts you choose and the Transmog changes coming in Patch 12.2.5.
They want to give players more ways to express themselves. They might appear in a way you expect, and also in ways you might not expect.
For transmog, class-specific sets such as tier will still be class-specific.
Wrath Remix
After Legion Remix, they wanted to do another fondly remembered expansion.
They can use a more simple expansion and then remix it into something unique.
There are also a lot of players who have not been to Northrend. Since they're going there in The Last Titan, it would be good to see it.
There will be "Outbreaks" in the world and dungeons.
There will be Runeforging for every class.
It's a good opportunity for unreleased items and rewards that they want to give to players.
They also want to see what a modern take on what mounts like Invincible could look like.
Housing
Players are going to get to go to new places and steal their Decor.
There will be new Endeavors.
There might be ways to improve Housing that you might not expect as well.
They've heard the feedback from players who want different exteriors that represent different factions or cultures.
Class Design
They wanted to keep a high skill ceiling and have depth.
Outlaw Rogue had Roll the Bones, and it was highly complex, where you had to remember the value of each of the buffs and remember when to roll. Players used addons for this. It was redesigned, and there are breakpoints, but it's easier for players to tell in their head when to reroll.
Evokers had the Flameshaper tree, but it was rebuilt because it was tough to tell when the best time to use Engulf was.
Restoration Shaman had its complexity and skill reduced as well, and there might be more to do as well.
Raid Vendors
They've had a more serious story, so they didn't want to put a goofy vendor into the raid.
Now that the devs know that players like raid vendors, higher chance of them showing up.
The Sword
You can see the tip of the sword when you're in the Mantle Vault.
Sargeras barely missed, assuming he was going for the Worldsoul.
They're not spoiling who or what can remove the sword, but they will be dealing with it.
They want to make sure that players are prepared for how they're going to deal with the Sword.
Talebound
As with any Rogue-lite game mode, players will likely not succeed on their first run, but as they succeed, there are new unlocked difficulties.
Flasks and Draughts are consumable. You get experience and will level up, and each level you get a new choice to power you up, similar to Torghast.
If you die, you go back to level 1, but back in town you can have various upgrades that persist from run to run.
Forever to Modern
There will not be another new race for the Worldsoul Saga.
First/Last Name will not be coming to Retail in the Worldsoul Saga.
WoW: Forever
Skyborne
The Skyborne ended up in the Skywall, the elemental plane.
They've suffused themselves with elemental magic, as they don't have a Sunwell.
Why don't they have the Thalassian high elves? The answer is, "Why not both?" They will be back to Quel'Thalas in the future.
They wanted to do Elves for WoW: Forever, but they realized that their ambition for Quel'Thalas was too big for a low-level zone.
At the time frame that they're launching, it's not the right time for them to go to Quel'Thalas.
They thought about having High Elves start in Northshire Abbey, but it didn't feel right.
The Skyborne also allows them to explore race-class combinations that elves have not really gotten to explore, such as Druids.
Character Models
They want players who are not die-hard fans to play Forever, so that's why there's the option of the HD models.
For Classic players, there are the SD models.
They updated the animations of the races, such as spell casting, running, etc., and are grounded in a Classic feel so that the toggles work.
The Skeletons for the races on HD and SD are the same.
Realmless
It's about trying to decouple the social experience from choosing a fixed server.
You will select a specific rule set versus a specific realm: PvE, PvP, Roleplay, or Hardcore.
You will play with other players in your specific realm, except for Battlegrounds, which are shared.
Without a character transfer, you can't swap between rulesets.
They want to balance seeing familiar faces with playing with your friends.
Server Events
They are putting effort into making sure that global events feel like global events.
They are being dodgy about AQ
OCE Servers
They are going realmless but not regionless.
Oceanic players are going to be hosted on Oceania data servers.
These servers are going to share the same US-wide auction house.
If you find yourself playing overseas with your friends, your ping might be higher, as the game will pick the data center that is best for all players.
Naming
You do have to put something in your second name field.
Names are region-wide, and the same full name cannot be used across rulesets as well.
With the larger number of players due to the rulesets, it is a unique identifier for players.
GDKP
GDKP is not allowed in WoW: Forever.
GDKP tends to reach a level of ubiquity and then overtake the guild structure
They want to nurture and protect the social experiences.
Once it reaches a level of ubiquity, the barrier to entry for newer players is much, much higher.
GDKP is aso a great way for bad actors to launder a lot of gold.
They are going to be very actively monitoring the economy and will be very punishing towards gold buyers.
Addons
It will be the Modern client API.
Boss encounters are a lot more simplified in WoW: Forever.
Unifying the API with Modern should hopefully be easier.
Dungeons and Raids
They will not be starting with Flex Raiding, but they want to support guilds of different sizes.
Every single tier will have both a 10-player raid and a 20-player raid.
They want it to be easy to graduate from a dungeon group to a 10-player raid guild.
The 10-man raids will have a lot of bosses.
There is only a single difficulty for dungeons and raids.
There is also no cross-faction gameplay; the Horde and Alliance hate each other.
40-player raids are coming, starting with Onyxia's Lair.
There won't be a 40-player raid every tier.
Transmog
When they were designing transmog, they wanted players to maintain the silhouette. If you have a cloth chest as a Paladin, you need a cloth chest to transmog over that.
There is the ability to have multiple armor pieces per slot saved per set. If you're a healer Paladin and you get a plate chest piece, and you have a plate transmog in that slot, it will swap to that new transmog.
This gives you a lot of flexibility in each set.
PvP
It's something they want to invest in.
There will not be any Rated PvP. Instead, there's a new PvP track that resets every season/tier.
They're adjusting the Honor gains so that people don't feel like the best thing to do is sit in Alterac Valley.
There's a new Battleground with a new reputation.
Weekly Podcast
A new Weekly Podcast will take place every week for the next 6 weeks during the beta featuring Josh Greenfield and Josh Corbett from Countdown to Classic.
