Blizzard is giving the biggest community event of the World of Warcraft: Forever beta its own stage. On the latest episode of the official WoW: Forever Podcast, released earlier this week (October 15th), Senior Game Designer Josh "Aggrend" Greenfield revealed a hidden duel arena inside an old crater in Mount Hyjal. The top 32 players in the Forever Open, a community-run dueling tournament with a $100,000 prize pool, will fight there on day two of the event.
The reveal came near the end of the PvP-focused episode, with host Josh Corbett of Countdown to Classic, Lead Designer Tim Jones, and guests Tips Out and Savix. The arena tour starts around the 54 minute mark. Check out the full episode below:
Where The Hyjal Duel Arena Came From
Greenfield explained that the arena exists because of how the team rebuilt Mount Hyjal for WoW Forever. The zone had a large crater in the original game that did not work well as a space for questing and other PvE content. The team changed the terrain there, mixing new terrain with pieces from the Burning Crusade raid, but Greenfield wanted to save the crater itself. "I was like, we need to keep this map. We need to keep this crater cuz this would be a really cool duel spot," he said.
The crater was split off onto its own separate map, and Greenfield said the team had originally planned it for later. "For the beta, we dusted it off so that so that you guys could use it for a day two," he said, adding that players "might see more of this in a future patch." Savix had asked for a dedicated dueling area with cooldown resets earlier in the same episode, and the developers asked him to wait until the end before showing it off.
What Players Will Find There
The arena will not be open to the public. The developers said Blizzard staff will help Tips Out and his crew get set up there, and that players will be placed in the arena instead of traveling to it. A ruined building on the rim of the crater will hold a few vendors for the event. One will sell soul shards and another will sell reagents, so Warlocks and other classes can restock between fights.
A cooldown reset NPC is also possible. Greenfield said that one depends on what the tournament decides it needs, and called it "something we could provide" if the organizers ask for it. He also made it clear the space "isn't really like ready for prime time to be released into the actual shipping game," though the team wants to keep working on it and other dueling spots.
The developers floated a couple of ideas for the future. They pointed to the Dalaran arena that players can see in the city's underbelly but cannot currently get down to, and suggested a Darkmoon Faire week could be a good time to open exhibition duels in the crater. The team also said it does not want to take dueling away from the crowds outside of Orgrimmar, since it is important for people to see dueling happening out in the world.
What The Forever Open Is
The Forever Open is the first WoW Forever dueling tournament, organized by Tips Out and hosted by streamers Esfand and Xaryu. It is a level 30, Horde-only event played under the PvP ruleset, and it runs today and tomorrow (October 17th and 18th). Tips Out first announced it back in September (27th) with a $50,000 prize pool:
The pot later doubled to $100,000. On the podcast, Tips Out said the organizers did not expect TimTheTatman to come in and double the prize money. Interest has been huge as well. Tips Out said more than 6,000 people signed up when the team was expecting around 1,000. He had already posted back in September that the first 48 hours brought in nearly 2,700 registrants, which he called the highest number of registrations in WoW dueling history.
This is far from the first event of its kind for the group. Tips Out said they hosted a level 19 tournament in the Barrens during the Classic WoW demo in 2018, another during the Classic beta in 2019, and the Mak'gora on the Hardcore server in 2023.
Corbett stressed on the show that the Forever Open is a community tournament and has no official Blizzard status. The developers said the goal is to support the range of things players want to do, more than any one event. They also shot down the idea that class balance is being tuned around the tournament, and the developers joked that Priests complaining about it being rigged should settle down, since Penance is just good.
WoW Forever's beta runs through October 21st, and the full game launches next month (November 4th).
Are you tuning in to watch the top 32 fight it out in Hyjal, or would you rather Blizzard save new duel arenas for everyone after launch?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.