Blizzard Entertainment has put together a starter guide for World of Warcraft: Forever, a week after the game's launch. The official Warcraft account shared the quickstart yesterday for anyone who has not logged in for a while or is visiting Azeroth for the first time, pointing to Blizzard's breakdown of what is new in Forever and what will feel familiar to players of modern WoW. Check out the official post down below:
Classic Or Enhanced Presets
The first choice players see is an Experience Preset, which bundles the starting visual and interface settings into 2 options. Blizzard's graphic describes Classic as "a more traditional presentation with simpler visuals, standard character models, and fewer modern interface features enabled by default," and Enhanced as "an updated presentation with higher visual fidelity and additional interface features enabled by default." The preset only affects presentation, not the Ruleset, and individual settings can be changed at any time under Game Menu, then Options.
Enhanced turns on quest guidance with points of interest and marked objective areas, a one-bag inventory view, transmog, strafing keybinds with a centralized screen layout, and high-definition character models. Classic starts with standard-definition models, the classic screen layout and camera-turning keybinds, with quest guidance, the one-bag view and transmog switched off. Blizzard notes that "the preset names describe defaults, not player skill."
Advanced options add tools such as a Cooldown Manager and a Damage Meter. Gamepad support is in beta, letting players target allies and enemies, cast spells, loot and move through menus with a controller, though a keyboard is still needed for chat.
New Zones, Dungeons And The Skyborne
Forever keeps the level cap at 60 and stays on the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, adding new and expanded zones and quests on top of the original game. The guide lists 4 new zones with their level ranges:
- Zephras Isle (1-12)
- Riverglades (35-40)
- Shen'dralas (40-45)
- Mount Hyjal (60)
There are 9 new 5-player dungeons covering levels 13 through 60. Six of them are in the Eastern Kingdoms:
- Hall of Thanes (13-18)
- Ruins of Lordaeron (15-20)
- Excavation Site (24-29)
- City of Dalaran (28-33)
- The Drowned City (35-40)
- Krol'dok Stronghold (40-45)
The new playable race, the Skyborne, starts on Zephras Isle. Players pick between the Horde-aligned Windshaper Skyborne and the Alliance-aligned High Order Skyborne at character creation.
Classes Work Differently Than Modern WoW
Blizzard warns that "a familiar class name is a starting point, not a guarantee of the same build or combat rhythm you use in the modern game." Classes have talent and ability updates rooted in original WoW. Hunters, for example, can use traps in combat, and their pets now scale with gear and have unique family abilities. Racial abilities have been updated as well.
Six new race and class combinations join the original lineup: Undead Paladin, Dwarf Shaman, Gnome Priest, Human Hunter, Orc Mage and Troll Warlock. Some of the racial changes are covered in WoW: Forever Racial Tuning Brings Back Orc Command And Turns Tauren Into Speed Demons Before Launch.
Legacy Points, Camping And Rulesets
The Legacy System adds account-wide progress through challenges, Legacy Points, character-specific perks and cosmetic rewards. Points are spent across 3 areas, Professions, Adventure and Resourcefulness, and each character can spend up to 16 at launch. That cap can be reached on a single character, so alts are optional. Camping is new as well: resting at a campfire grants campsite buffs, and campsites and profession features are spread through the world, though Blizzard points out that "stopping to rest doesn't put the dangers of Azeroth on hold."
Instead of picking from a traditional server list, players choose a Ruleset: Normal, PvP, Roleplay-PvP or Roleplay, with Hardcore planned for a little after launch. Characters can only group, join guilds, run dungeons and raid with others on the same Ruleset and faction, and the PvP Ruleset restricts players to 1 faction, so Blizzard recommends that groups of friends agree on both before making characters.
What WoW: Forever Is
Blizzard built Forever as "a new permanent home alongside modern and Classic WoW." It is set after the events of Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom and before Molten Core, and it launched globally on November 4 at 4:00 PM MST, as covered in WoW: Forever Launches Today As Blizzard Releases New Video For Legacy Talents. Access is included with a World of Warcraft subscription or Game Time, which also covers the modern game. Optional editions include the Skyborne Heroic Pack, the Skyborne Epic Pack and the limited-time Warcraft Forever Collection, which adds Warcraft III: Reforged and the Forsaken Kingdom campaign.
Check out Blizzard's gameplay trailer for World of Warcraft: Forever below:
Which preset are you playing WoW: Forever on, Classic or Enhanced, and which Ruleset did your group pick?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.