WoW Forever name reservation hits a delay at launch

6 p.m. CET, Tuesday, October 27. The client is running, the button is ready, your character names are waiting on a scrap of paper. Then the « Dernières nouvelles » (Latest News) panel shows a message. The WoW Forever name reservation is not opening on time.

Update, 7:40 p.m. CET: around 7:20 p.m., the Battle.net launcher banner changed. It now says that if the RP-PvP ruleset does not show up when you log in, you should pick another ruleset first, then click Rulesets in the top bar. According to Wowhead, players who manage to log in still find every ruleset grayed out, so no name can be saved yet. Only Europe was affected at that point, with the North American opening scheduled for 1 p.m. PDT (9 p.m. CET).

Blizzard had laid everything out in its official announcement: opening at 6 p.m. CET in Europe, 1 p.m. Pacific Time, and 7 a.m. on October 28 in Korea and Taiwan. The window runs until November 3, the day before the November 4 launch.

The delay message, in English on a French client

Here is the text shown at opening: « World of Warcraft: Forever Name Reservations are delayed while we resolve some final technical issues. Thank you for your patience! » No new start time, no new window.

This is not the first hiccup. During the October 21 and 22 stress test, the realm and ruleset selection stayed stuck for about an hour before the game finally held up (we covered it in our account of the first night of the test). Off to a great start.

What Blizzard has not said, and what players are saying

At 6:30 p.m. CET, no new time had been given. Mein-MMO (a German site) published an article by Cortyn, updated at 6:14 p.m. CET, reporting that Blizzard is pushing back the reservation until the server problems are fixed.

On the official European forum thread, one player sums up the mood: « servers are inaccessible lmao to even reserve the name ». Nervous laughter is the only option.

The queue is going to be long. The most obvious names will go in the first minutes of the real opening, whenever it arrives.

The rules of WoW Forever name reservation

Nothing changes on the substance, and our reservation guide is still valid. According to Blizzard in its article on name creation, reservation is open to owners of the Skyborne Heroic Pack, the Skyborne Epic Pack or the Warcraft Forever Collection. It covers three characters in total, across all rulesets: with two PvP characters, you have only one left in Normal or Role-Play. First come, first served.

A name here is made of a first name and a family name. The full pair must be unique in the region, regardless of realm. The family name can stay hidden in game.

Some good news, though: on our French client, the « Choisir votre ensemble de règles » (Choose your ruleset) screen does show up. It offers three choices, Normal, PvP and Role-Play, with a yellow line below: « You can only interact with player characters who chose the same ruleset. » The RP-PvP ruleset announced the day before is missing: exactly the case described in Blizzard’s second message.

You cannot redo this choice for a given character. If you are still hesitating, our page on choosing a ruleset weighs each option, and Venruki’s take on Normal versus PvP gives the view of a high-level player.

What to do while you wait for the opening

The window lasts a week. Showing up an hour or even a day after the start costs little, except for highly coveted names. To approach the WoW Forever name reservation without nasty surprises:

• Keep the Battle.net app open and watch the « Dernières nouvelles » (Latest News) panel.
• Do not hammer the button: if the servers are overloaded, you gain nothing by overloading them further.
• Prepare two or three first name and family name combinations, in case the first is already taken.
• Choose your ruleset before you log in, not while staring at the screen.

Blizzard had given no new time at 6:30 p.m. CET. As soon as an official message drops, it will show up in the client first, and probably in English again.