World of Warcraft: Forever will avoid repeating WoW Classic’s mistakes and will have tools to prevent “dead” or “unsustainable” server rulesets, Blizzard said.
In the past, various WoW Classic servers became “dead” over time, as players either stopped playing or transferred to other servers. Those massive drops in population had major ramifications for players left on the server being unable to find groups for raids or dungeons, as well as for the server’s economy and auction house. In some extreme cases, Blizzard gave away free character transfers so players could leave their “dead” servers behind.
While Forever is going a different route with what are essentially mega servers tailored around specific rulesets, some players might still have anxiety when it comes to picking a ruleset that will be a healthy place to play long-term.
In the latest episode of the WoW: Forever podcast, Blizzard said it has tools it can use if a ruleset’s population becomes “unsustainable.” Senior game designer Josh Greenfield gave the example of Forever’s separate RP and (newly added) RP-PvP server rulesets. He said there were initially concerns about splitting up the RP community, fearing that one or both of the rulesets wouldn’t be able to stand the test of time. He said Blizzard now believes “it will be fine,” but does have options should the worst happen.
“If someday down the line, if something happens and one or both of those populations can’t quite sustain themselves, we have options if we do need to say link up their auction houses or allow them to group for instanced content,” Greenfield said.
Greenfield said it’s not something Blizzard will jump to unless absolutely necessary and that it’s committed to its current separate-ruleset path. Blizzard debated the idea of rulesets during Forever’s development and discussed letting players from different rulesets group together for instanced content or combining auction houses.
However, it landed on wanting to maintain distinct communities, in part because of the differences in server economies when it comes to PvE and PvP rulesets, with Greenfield using an example of how it’s easier to farm for gold and items on a PvE server. That in turn opened up debates on whether these cross-ruleset players would be able to trade items with one another and the need for other restrictions.
“Ultimately, these are different mindsets, these are different rulesets,” Greenfield said the team decided. “Let’s keep them separate for now. That is a part of original WoW that we don’t want to just throw out completely. But I think the tech is set up in such a way that if we ever did really feel like we needed to make a change, we could do so.”
He said those options are merely “levers we can pull if we need to” and that it’s important for Blizzard to “stay flexible.” That’s good news, and will likely give players worried about choosing the wrong ruleset some relief.
Blizzard is keeping busy in the handful of days left before Forever’s launch. It previously detailed how it’s making improvements to Forever’s divisive layering system in time for release, and announced major changes to racial abilities.
In a first for WoW, Forever will be fully playable on a controller. WoW executive producer and vice president Holly Longdale recently said Forever’s controller support is a step towards WoW being playable “wherever you want” and “on whatever you want.”
WoW: Forever arrives November 4. If you want to be ready for launch day, you can technically make up to three WoW: Forever characters right now.
