WoW: Forever Has a Plan for Dying Rulesets

Blizzard says it has a way to handle the scenario World of Warcraft players know all too well: a server slowly emptying out until nobody can fill a dungeon group or assemble a raid. In the latest episode of the WoW: Forever podcast, the team said Forever has tools ready if one of its rulesets stops drawing enough players to stay healthy.

The worry is not hypothetical. Classic-era WoW servers sometimes went "dead" as players quit or moved to other realms, leaving those who stayed unable to find groups while the economy and auction house withered. In extreme cases, Blizzard offered free character transfers so players could leave those servers behind. Forever is built differently, around large rulesets rather than traditional individual servers, but players choosing a ruleset still want to know it will last.

Senior game designer Josh Greenfield pointed to the split between Forever's roleplaying ruleset and the newly added RP-PvP option. Early on, the team worried that dividing the roleplaying community might leave one or both groups too small to survive. Blizzard now believes both will be fine, but Greenfield said that if one population struggles later on, the studio could link the auction houses or let players from the two rulesets group together for instanced content.

Those options are levers, not a plan. Greenfield said Blizzard would not reach for them unless it was absolutely necessary, and that it is committed to keeping the rulesets separate for now. The team debated both cross-ruleset grouping and merged auction houses during development, but it chose to protect distinct communities. Part of the reasoning is economic: farming gold and items is easier on PvE servers, so mixing the two economies would raise questions about trading and would likely require extra restrictions. "Ultimately, these are different mindsets, these are different rulesets," Greenfield said, adding that the underlying technology would allow a change if the team ever felt it was needed.

For players nervous about choosing the wrong ruleset, that flexibility should offer some reassurance. Forever also arrives on November 4 with full controller support, a first for WoW. Executive producer Holly Longdale has framed that feature as a step toward letting players enjoy the game wherever they want and on whatever device they choose. Ahead of launch, players can already create up to three characters.