It’s been just over a week since the record-breaking launch of World of Warcraft: Forever. In that time a handful of players have raced to level 60, but the overwhelming majority are still weeks away from reaching max level, as they quest through Azeroth and see all the new sights and sounds Blizzard has cooked up.
So far, it’s been (mostly) an absolute joy. I’ve spent every spare moment I can find in developer Blizzard’s millennial retirement home, and after one week, it’s safe to say I’m more than a little consumed by it. I was already a lover of original WoW, having grown up playing it, and have since spent thousands of hours playing WoW Classic after it launched in 2019. Having a new version of this MMORPG, one that’s still unexplored and filled with new sights and sounds, is in many ways a dream come true.
That’s not to say it’s all sunshine and rainbows in Stormwind (or, if you prefer, Orgrimmar). Forever certainly has a lot going for it, and its launch was quite possibly the smoothest in Blizzard’s entire history. That being said, while Forever is nearly everything I could want from a “Classic Plus” experience, I do have a few gripes I hope Blizzard takes a closer look at in the weeks and months to come. Here’s what’s working, what I’m most impressed by, and what I’m still on the fence about as we enter the second week of Forever.
Good – The World Is Alive
MMO launches are special occasions. It’s when the game is likely to be the most populated it will ever be, and at any given moment you can see dozens of players running down the road, flooding questing areas, or hawking their wares in a capital city.
Forever’s launch was no exception, and it was, in a word, magical. Players were everywhere, and it made Azeroth feel alive again in a way that hasn’t been seen since WoW Classic Season of Discovery. Massive crowds have been an issue in past WoW Classic launches, as everyone competes to tag enemies they need for quests or loot specific items, but I found it to be a relatively pain-free experience. This is mostly due to WoW: Forever’s heavy use of layering, which divides players into different copies of the world. Layers were populated but not overcrowded, and it seems like after some initial tweaking, Blizzard has landed on what feels like the ideal number of players for various zones and cities.
It certainly helps that Blizzard’s new lighting, fog, and weather tech does wonders to make Azeroth feel like a real place. Within the first hour of playing my dwarf Paladin, an intense snowstorm hit Dun Morogh. I knew about WoW: Forever’s new weather effects, but I was floored at how immersive they can actually be. I could barely see 20 feet in front of me, relying on my map to tell me where to go. Already, within my first few hours of playing, I was being shown a version of Azeroth I’d never seen before. Later, while playing a Horde character in Orgrimmar, dark clouds formed overhead and heavy rain began to fall as I was turning in quests. The pitter-patter of heavy raindrops on the city’s rocky pathways presented Orgrimmar in a whole new light. It doesn’t sound like much, but the game’s updated visuals, particularly the weather effects, go a long way in making the world feel like a real place and not just a digital theme park.
Good – New Content Feels Seamless
Much of what’s exciting about Forever is its addition of all-new quests and dungeons to explore. From the get-go, Blizzard doesn’t waste any time showing players what’s changed, sprinkling in new quests and offering up a new low-level dungeon for both the Horde and Alliance.
New quests that let players select a gathering profession from the early starting zones are a godsend, letting you get a head start before venturing into the wider world. It’s worth mentioning how little Forever’s new quests stand out. To be clear, that’s a good thing. They don’t feel out of place, with similar “kill this many things” or “find this many items” objectives to vanilla WoW while still adding flavor to whatever zone or city they are found in. Sometimes their vague directions are reminiscent of classic WoW to the point of frustration, though you can always turn on the game’s built-in quest tracking should you get too annoyed.
Given how much time I’ve spent playing WoW Classic over the past six years, I’m usually keen on spotting when a quest is a new addition. It’s a testament to the care Blizzard has put into these new quests that I sometimes have a hard time remembering whether a quest was always there or is actually a Forever exclusive.
That goes for the new dungeons as well. The Ruins of Lordaeron and Hall of Thanes are too prominent, with too many quests associated with them for any OG WoW player to mistake them for part of the original game. Nonetheless, they fit right in. These are effective introductory dungeon experiences that build on existing lore and do a great job of showing what classic WoW’s instanced content is all about–straightforward boss mechanics and the need to use your group’s full toolkit to crowd control enemies and take out packs one at a time. It feels perfectly classic, and I can’t wait to see what other new, higher-level dungeons have in store.
Good – The Joys Of Camping
Camping is one of a handful of new systems in Forever, and at first I was skeptical. Would players really take time they could be questing to sit around a campfire, get buffs, and work on professions? Given how efficiency-focused many in the WoW community are, I had my doubts.
Those doubts were quickly put to rest. Camping is a great addition to classic WoW that perfectly matches the game’s pace, encouraging players to make connections, slow down, and smell the roses. In almost every questing hub I walked into, I found crowded campsites. Players shared the buffs available from their professions, crafted items, and made small talk as they waited to receive their experience buff after sitting by the camp for one minute. While I do worry that camping won’t have much purpose at endgame, so far it’s a welcome sight to see when out questing, serving as a beacon that brings players in an area together before they all go their separate ways.
Disappointing – Prohibitive Respec Costs
I hate to admit I may have messed up my talent tree in a moment of panic during a dungeon. No big deal, I thought. After all, I’m only level 14. I made my way to my nearest class trainer to reset my talent points, only to discover it costs an entire gold to respec. Guess I’m stuck living with my mistakes for the time being.
Given how much each class’s talent tree has changed in Forever, the high cost of respeccing and experimenting with different builds is a little disappointing, even if it is true to how the system worked in original WoW. As it is currently, I feel forced to continue down a certain path until my finances can afford the gold fee. That same feeling extends to the game’s dual-specialization feature, which is locked until level 40 and costs 50 gold. It’s great Forever has this as an option, but its steep cost and high level requirement mean few players will be taking advantage of it while leveling.
That’s a shame, as it’s already clear Forever, like every version of WoW before it, has a tank and healer shortage. Giving players a way to switch between healing, tank, or DPS specializations would encourage more experimentation and give hybrid-class players more options when it comes to grouping up. It’s ultimately a problem that will likely fade away in a few months when most players have reached the endgame and gold is more plentiful, but for now, the gold costs associated with talents feel like a missed opportunity.
Off-Putting – Mount Collections And Store Items
I think every WoW Classic player knew this day would eventually come–Forever has an in-game store tab. Its inclusion seemed inevitable. Blizzard isn’t going to put out a new version of WoW meant to last for decades without finding a new way to monetize it.
So far, there are only the various Skyborne packs available, but it’s easy to imagine how in just a few months it could be flooded with various cosmetic appearances and mounts. That’s all thanks to the addition of transmog and the new collections tab, which are features taken straight from the modern version of the game. I have to be honest: It’s extremely offputting to open up the collections tab and see that, despite being only level one, I technically own two mounts from purchasing Forever’s collector’s edition. While I can’t use them until level 40 and need the required (and expensive) riding training, it’s still a bizarre sight to see.
It doesn’t help that the new mounts and appearances look completely out of place. Unlike Forever’s new quests and dungeons, which feel right at home, these premium cosmetics don’t fit in with the rest of Forever’s mostly classic-looking world. They are simply too detailed and high-res. The same can be said of the new Skyborne race, though Blizzard has already said it will be adding “standard definition” versions of them to the game early next year. I can only hope Blizzard will extend that level of care to everything it adds to the in-game shop in the future, because as of right now, these additions feel like they belong in the modern version of WoW, not Forever.
Wait And See – Legacy Talents Feel Underbaked
If there is one major new addition to Forever that I’m not quite sold on yet, it’s the Legacy talent system. An account-wide achievement system of sorts, Legacy talents reward players with talent points for accomplishing various tasks. These talent points can then be spent in a passive perk tree, ranging from a small discount at vendors to longer food buffs, cheaper flight paths, increased reputation gains, and more.
To be perfectly honest, I haven’t interacted much with this system as of yet, as you don’t unlock it until level 25, when you earn your first Legacy talent point. But judging from the talents themselves and the requirements needed to gain them, I have some reservations. Most of the talents seem fairly inconsequential, while a handful seem too powerful and borderline mandatory.
The main fear I have is that those playing a single character won’t unlock enough points to make the system feel useful. You get a single Legacy talent point for exploring the entirety of Azeroth (which is, frankly, absurd). You get three for achieving certain level milestones for each class, for a total of three at level 60. Those who level their first character to max can expect around 12 Legacy talent points in total, and that’s if they level two professions up to max and complete every dungeon in the game at least once. At launch, players can only spend a total of 16 Legacy points per character, though they can earn more.
That’s a lot of work for not much payoff. I get that the goal is to give players a reason to make new characters and work toward some form of account-wide progression, but currently, the system feels more like a nice bonus that you get for just playing the game than a reward for accomplishing specific goals or feats. I’m sure Blizzard will continue to flesh the system out and refine it, but for something that was billed as a game-changing feature exclusive to Forever, it mostly seems like it could be removed entirely and I wouldn’t even notice.
No doubt I’ll have more to say about Forever as I continue making progress towards the endgame. There’s a huge amount to see, do, and uncover, and even after an entire week, I’ve only just scratched the surface. I still have dozens of levels to gain, dungeons to conquer, and new zones to explore. It’s the journey, not the destination, that counts, and I have a long journey ahead. Best not to keep Azeroth waiting.
