The WoW Forever beta opened last night. A few hours before that, I posted a video going over the project and announcing that I’m relaunching my guild. Here’s the essential info in writing, with the dates checked.
WoW Forever beta is live, next stop November 4
We’re back on World of Warcraft Forever. The beta for this Classic Plus opened last night, Thursday September 17, right after the official Q&A stream, Midnight at 7pm then WoW Forever at 7:30pm Paris time. The Blizzard EU forums in French relayed the exact time the day before, picked up from a Warcraft Team reply on Reddit.
The WoW Forever beta stays short, it runs until October 21. The official launch is set for November 4, seven weeks after the WoW Forever beta opened, not ten days as I said in the video. It’s official on my end too, I’m relaunching my guild project, PvE and PvP, on the Alliance side, on a PvP server.
The PvE PvP guild is recruiting during the WoW Forever beta
Recruitment for the guild starts right from the beta, with no commitment on either the PvE or PvP side. This will mainly be a test roster. The goal is to spot the players who could interest us, both for the main PvE roster and for PvP. Nothing forces anyone to commit right away, the WoW Forever beta is exactly there to size each other up before the groups really form.
I expect to see several other rosters forming in parallel, like during Season of Discovery. I’m building tools on the site to create raids and organize more easily. On Season of Discovery, everything went through Discord. It worked fine, no real issues, but I want to do better on this new version of the game.
A new guild tab on the site, open to every guild
I’ve added a guild tab to the site, and it’s for everyone, even players who already have their own guild and have no plans to join us. Plenty of French guilds are launching on WoW Forever, and each one can post its listing straight from this menu. Three guilds are already there, La Bonne Franquette on the Alliance side, AETERNUM and Andromeda Forever on the Horde side.
From this tab, a player can create their guild, manage it, or apply to one of those already listed. Applications are handled automatically. An email goes out on acceptance, another on rejection. The back office gives a full view of applicants, with the option to contact them directly. You can still post your guild on the Kami Labs Discord, in the guild recruitment channel made for that, but the Guilds page on the site gets you a lot more visibility.
City raids, camping and battlegrounds on the agenda
PvP remains the announced priority for the guild’s events. I want to organize city raids, camping in front of raids and battleground sessions, classic formats I plan to offer once the game launches. The guild’s recruitment also targets this type of player, alongside the PvE roster. The Arms Warrior PvP build already published on the site gives a first foundation for this playstyle.
Leaks about the PvP gear have been circulating since BlizzCon, and Blizzard has since confirmed part of the system. I’ll get back to that further down.
PvE recruitment and a raid helper in the works
The guild won’t be PvP only. I do PvE too, with dedicated officers and a GM who specifically handles that side. I don’t handle recruitment for the main raid myself. My officers are far more qualified than me to spot the players who’ll fit the team. If PvE interests you, apply on the Guilds page.
I’m also building a raid helper on the side. The tool should let you set up raids, manage buffs and plan raid nights, with a calendar and email notifications. If you’ve created your guild on the site, it’ll also be able to pull in the roster and let you communicate and share your raids, a bit like Raid-Helper does on Discord.
The tool is still a work in progress. I’m aiming for the official November 4 launch to ship it.
WoW Forever, the most ambitious Classic+ project since Vanilla
WoW Forever was announced at BlizzCon 2026, presented by Blizzard as a permanent Classic+, a third pillar alongside Retail and Classic. I already covered this announcement in our BlizzCon deep dive. In my opinion, it’s the most ambitious classic project Blizzard has launched since Vanilla Classic came out. That one wasn’t really a polished project, the game shipped almost as-is, in its base version.
On WoW Forever, Blizzard has taken a lot of inspiration from the big private servers that worked well, and I think they’ll keep going in that direction. This first version of the game has good odds of doing well, it builds on what’s already proven itself elsewhere.
Nine new dungeons, brand new raids and classes that are changing
On the PvE side, Blizzard has announced nine new dungeons, plus brand new raids and fresh lore to dress up these zones. The leaked loading screens already give a glimpse of some of them, even before the beta shows them in game.
The real shake-up is happening on the class side. The more I look at the talent trees, the more I see deep reworks, capable of changing the performance and gameplay of several specs. Blizzard is also promising new spells for every class, still unknown at this point since the beta client hasn’t finished being dug through. As a result, the WoW Forever meta needs a full rethink right from the beta opening.
The Heritage tree is evolving, and so is the talent calculator
Blizzard is preparing a new heritage system to make rerolling easier and extend the game’s replayability. It turns accumulated progress into points you can spend on dedicated trees, to level up faster on a new character. Three trees are planned at launch, Professions, Adventure and Resourcefulness, with 16 points spendable from the start and up to 65 points earnable through play. Full details are on our dedicated Heritage tree page.
The site’s talent calculator also got an update. You can now save and share your builds with a simple link, and the required level shows up automatically based on the number of points invested. Several fixes still need doing once the beta client gets datamined. That’s my priority for the next few days.
14-rank honor track, armor with stats: PvP is taking shape
At BlizzCon, Blizzard had said almost nothing about WoW Forever’s PvP. I still spotted some clues on Savix‘s stream: gear that’s traded for honor and battleground marks, with a rank required to upgrade an epic piece. A system close to TBC and WotLK, where the purchase depends directly on what you’ve farmed.
Blizzard has confirmed this direction since, in an interview given to Kotaku by Tim Jones, lead designer on Classic. His quote sets the frame: « you’ll be able to get to rank 14 within that patch cycle, and there are rewards, cosmetic rewards, as well as PvP armor that has stats on it that people will be able to obtain. »
The new battleground is called Darkspear Islands, alongside Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley. What Blizzard hasn’t given yet are the reward tables and the exact thresholds for climbing the ranks. We already know you’ll need to farm battlegrounds, meaning set PvP groups.
That’s exactly what I’m counting on for my guild. I’m launching a big PvP recruitment drive, and if you’re looking for people to chain battlegrounds with, we’ll have the numbers for it.
Success is still unproven, but my old friends are already back
I don’t have a ready-made answer about WoW Forever’s success. What already matters to me is that all my old friends came back to play. It’s great to reunite on Classic, and it’s the players who make a game, not just its content. The more polished the title, the more the community enjoys itself together.
Given the scale of the changes made to the classes and the content, I think there’s enough to play for at least a few months without getting bored. After that, we’ll have to see what Blizzard offers over the long run. More content is already planned, I’ll be tracking it here.
The schedule to remember before the November 4 launch
The level cap stays at 20 to start, then moves to 30 after two weeks, until the WoW Forever beta closes on October 21. Your test characters won’t be carried over to launch, they’re only there to let you check out the content early.
Signing up for the WoW Forever beta stays free, in waves, with no guarantee of getting in. For guaranteed access, you need the Skyborne Epic Pack or the Warcraft Forever Collection. The official launch lands on November 4. It’s included in your regular subscription, nothing extra to pay.
For our PvP events, there’s an idea I want to dig into. A shared calendar where other guilds’ leaders could sign up with their groups, to put together really big PvP nights. It’s still just an idea at this stage.
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