WoW Forever rulesets explained: no realm list, one faction on PvP, and a way out of Hardcore

Blizzard has published the full rules for how you will pick where to play in WoW Forever. There is no realm list at launch. You choose a ruleset, and every character on it shares one large world.

The four rulesets

• Normal: the standard cooperative experience.
• PvP: open-world PvP, with a faction lock (see below).
• Roleplaying: a home for RP communities.
• Hardcore: one life per character. It is not in the launch lineup and arrives some time after November 4.

Blizzard’s reasoning is that a ruleset works more like a community than a server. You no longer have to guess which launch realm will still be alive in six months. The world is meant to feel busy without being anonymous, helped by the new two-part names and a regional name pool.

Who you can play with

The walls between rulesets are real:

• No cross-ruleset groups. Parties, dungeons and raids only include players on your ruleset.
• Battlegrounds are the exception. Queues can mix players from different rulesets, except Hardcore, which stays apart.
• Factions stay apart everywhere. Horde and Alliance still cannot group together.
• No hopping. To play on another ruleset, you make a new character there. Existing characters cannot move freely.

There is also a new language preference. In Options → Languages and Social, set a Preferred Online Language and the game will try to put you near players who share it. It is account-wide and has a 24-hour cooldown, so pick carefully if you play in a second language.

PvP: one faction per account

The biggest rule change is on the PvP ruleset. Once you make an Alliance character there, you cannot make a Horde one on the same ruleset, and the other way round. On Normal, Roleplaying and Hardcore you can have both factions.

Blizzard also plans to use the balancing tool from Season of Discovery. When one faction pulls too far ahead, new characters of that faction can be temporarily blocked on the PvP ruleset. If your guild is planning a PvP launch, agree on a faction before November 4. A late decision could mean waiting for the lock to lift.

Hardcore works in one direction

Hardcore will be a closed ecosystem, but not a dead end:

• if a Hardcore character dies, it can transfer to another ruleset, PvP included, instead of being deleted;
• collections, rewards and progress earned in Hardcore can carry over to your other rulesets;
• nothing flows the other way, so mounts and progress from Normal or PvP do not unlock anything in Hardcore.

What is shared

Collections and Legacy Points are account-wide across Normal, PvP and Roleplaying, so time on an alt still counts. Our Legacy guide covers what those points buy.

What to decide before launch

1. Ruleset and faction. If you are going PvP, your faction choice is final for that ruleset.
2. Your name. Names are unique per region, and early name reservation runs from October 27 to November 3. Have a backup two-part name ready.
3. Your class. The tier list and leveling guides are updated from the beta.

The WoW Forever FAQ has the rest of the launch details.