Inven Global

Following the announcement of 'World of Warcraft: Forever' (hereafter referred to as Forever)—previously known as Classic+—at BlizzCon 2026 on Sunday, September 13, detailed information about the game was revealed during the 'World of Warcraft: Forever - Deep Dive' session on Monday, September 14. Here is a summary of the development philosophy shared by the developers, focusing on detailed elements such as camping, trade systems, server infrastructure, combat, items, and classes.

First up are camping and professions. While players could already encounter others while roaming the world in existing World of Warcraft, Forever introduces a camping system so these chance encounters can develop into positive interactions. In legacy WoW, players could set up cooking fires on the ground, but in Forever, this has been changed to allow players to set up campfires instead. Players who rest here can enjoy various benefits, including vendors, repairs, professions, and buffs.

By default, up to three special player-crafted objects can be placed at a campfire—one per player. Each profession features unique objects that provide different buffs or functions. Additionally, as profession skill increases, players can learn additional objects.

For example, Blacksmiths can place objects that increase Strength, Tailors can place objects that boost Spirit, and Herbalists can place objects that increase Intellect. These buffs function identically to existing class buffs provided by Paladins or Mages and do not stack with them. Objects beyond the default offerings are learned through recipes, which players must discover themselves through adventuring.

Alongside this, Cooking and food have undergone a major revamp. Most crafted food now grants stats in one form or another. Furthermore, maintaining the Well Fed status provides a minor experience boost buff.

Over 600 new profession recipes have also been added. Existing recipes have been revamped as well, ensuring that a player's choice of profession makes a distinct difference even at lower levels. The developers aim to provide clear motivation for leveling up professions.

The second topic is Transmogrification. Since Transmog was not present in original Vanilla WoW, opinion among players has been divided, with many desiring to intuitively inspect what gear other players are wearing. To address this, extensive work went into Forever to satisfy player needs around Transmogrification.

First and foremost, players can disable Transmog simply by speaking to a Transmogrification NPC. This allows players to hide other players' Transmogs on their own screens. Additionally, when logging into the game for the first time, players can choose between 'Classic Mode' and 'Enhanced Mode'; selecting Classic Mode immediately hides Transmogs for all other users upon login. However, even if the Transmog option is turned off, players can still set up their own Transmog, and options to hide helmets and cloaks function regardless of whether Transmog is enabled.

Additionally, the issue of heightened loot competition caused by players rolling on dungeon gear purely for Transmog despite not needing the stats has been resolved. When high-tier Bind on Pickup (BoP) gear drops in a dungeon, its appearance is automatically unlocked for all party members in the dungeon. However, to preserve their rarity, Epic gear dropped in raids can only be used for Transmog by players who actually obtain and bind the item.

Transmogrification in Forever also boasts unique features. First, appearances can be registered separately according to armor type, such as Cloth, Leather, or Plate. This allows players to configure appropriate Transmogs even if they acquire a different armor type out in the world. Furthermore, the item level of the target appearance must be equal to or lower than the item level of the equipped gear. This item level restriction is lifted once a character reaches level 60.

A new progression feature, the 'Legacy' system, was also revealed. Designed to turn leveling from a mere stepping stone into meaningful content, it lets players complete new challenges to earn points and claim various rewards.

Legacy Points can be earned by completing diverse challenges, such as leveling specific classes or reaching profession skill milestones. Since most of these challenges are completed naturally through normal gameplay, they do not require extra effort or dedicated time investment.

Legacy Points can be invested across three talent trees: Adventure, Professions, and Resourcefulness. The talent trees feature effects such as extended rested experience duration in Adventure, increased gathering yields in Professions, and removal of skill reagent requirements in Resourcefulness. Because the capstones at the end of each tree grant powerful effects, choices must be made carefully.

While Legacy Points are shared account-wide across all characters, talent trees are invested independently per character. This allows players to allocate different talents depending on how they play each character. At the launch of Forever, players can allocate up to 16 points in the talent trees, while the maximum obtainable talent point cap is 65 points, designed to prevent players from feeling forced to level unwanted alt characters just to gain points.

Whenever Legacy Points reach specific milestones, players unlock cosmetic-only rewards, such as pets and Transmog-exclusive gear.

Server structure in Forever differs from the traditional model. Similar to retail servers, it operates as a single unified realm, but divided into four rule sets based on playstyle: Normal, PvP, RP (Roleplay), and Hardcore. Each rule set functions as one giant server, but players can only group up and play with players of the same faction who selected the same rule set. Hardcore in particular operates as an entirely independent ecosystem.

However, rather than having every user play in a single open area at once, players encounter random players in the world through a channel-like layering system. The system is configured so players frequently encounter others who chose the same language setting, while also structuring instances to re-encounter previously met players, maximizing the community feel of classic single realms.

For Normal, PvP, and RP rules, collectibles and Legacy Points are shared across rule sets. Collectibles and Legacy Points earned in Hardcore can be used in the other three rule sets, but not vice versa. Hardcore will not be available at the launch of Forever and will be added later; characters that die in Hardcore can be transferred to one of the other three rule set servers.

In Forever, the team plans to preserve the feel and pacing of combat from WoW Classic. The development team outlined four core pillars of Forever's combat philosophy. First, each class should feel simple and intuitive. However, fun and depth are prioritized, ensuring the gameplay does not feel excessively clunky or sluggish.

Second, every class must express its own distinct identity, maintaining class-appropriate strengths and weaknesses. Third, combat speed will not become overly fast. The tempo will be tuned so soloing a single mob generally takes about 10–15 seconds. Finally, dungeons and raids should offer tactical combat that utilizes crowd control and dynamic threat management.

In addition, gear is being revamped and new options are being introduced to prevent repetitive, cookie-cutter builds dictated by solved meta theorycrafting. Stats like Hit and Critical Strike, which were previously split into Melee, Ranged, and Spell variants, will be unified into single stat attributes. Weapon Skill will remain as it was in Classic, but tuned so individual pieces of gear do not grant excessively high values.

Additionally, healer specializations faced the issue where Healing Power gear was useless out in the world; to address this, gear with Healing Power will now grant Bonus Damage equal to one-third of its Healing Power value. Weapons for casting classes will now feature Spell Power and Health Regeneration, while Trinkets have been designed with specialized stats to suit distinct situations.

Loot tables for all bosses have been updated so dungeon drops are at least Rare (blue) quality, and quest rewards have been revamped to prevent players from receiving gear unsuitable for their class. Naturally, iconic popular items from Classic remain intact, alongside a wide range of new world-drop gear.

In Forever, legacy racial traits have also been redesigned. To ensure each race offers a distinct gameplay experience, racials have been made stronger and more unique. Class-race combination restrictions have also been expanded. Forever will allow new combinations such as Gnome Priests, Human Hunters, Dwarf Shamans, Orc Mages, Troll Warlocks, and Undead Paladins.

Every race now gains two active abilities and two passive traits. Balance was adjusted so each race offers comparable offensive power and utility. For instance, the Dwarf racial Stoneform remains similar to its original design, but reduces physical damage taken instead of increasing armor. Additionally, a passive granting 5% bonus damage against Beasts has been added, differentiating which race shines in specific scenarios.

For the Undead, the overly dominant 'Will of the Forsaken' racial was adjusted to act as a single break effect rather than granting 5 seconds of immunity to Fear, Charm, and Sleep. At the same time, retail WoW's Undead racial 'Touch of the Grave' was added to Classic to provide offensive performance missing previously, ensuring all races feature strengths tailored to different situations.

Class specializations have also seen major overhauls. While keeping the core Classic framework intact, major talents have been added at the 16-point tier in addition to the existing key talents at 11, 21, and 31 points. Furthermore, pure stat-tuning talents were removed and baseline class abilities were given those benefits instead. In their place, new talents that directly affect gameplay style have been introduced.

Paladins were highlighted as a detailed example of class revamps. First, Holy Strike—an ability present back in the original beta test—has been restored. Available to all Paladins at level 6, it is a melee strike that deals Holy damage to the target with the equipped weapon. Protection, Holy, and Retribution talent trees each feature unique talents to empower Holy Strike.

Judgements no longer consume Seals, and Protection Paladins receive a new Seal called Seal of Wrath. It deals damage with every attack and creates an absorption shield; casting Judgement while Seal of Wrath is active taunts the target. Unlike other tanks' taunts, it can be cast from range, serving as a distinct advantage for Protection Paladins. Protection talents empower Seal of Wrath and allow Paladins to restore mana upon blocking attacks with a shield.

Holy Paladins receive talents that reduce the cooldown of Holy Strike, grant immunity to Silence and Interrupts, and regenerate mana through Spirit. Multiple new choices are offered, including tools to heal multiple party members simultaneously. Alongside these, the offensive playstyle known as 'Shockadin'—dealing damage via Holy Shock—is also preserved.

Retribution Paladins gain various new talents, such as gaining benefits from two Seals simultaneously or making Hammer of Wrath an instant cast. Additionally, talents enhancing the efficiency of Intellect gear have been added, enabling Retribution-specced Paladins to also build Shockadin setups using Holy Shock.

Through these talent changes, Paladins are being improved to support more diverse gameplay, though their core weaknesses will not disappear entirely. Paladins still lack reliable interrupts and face limits in ranged combat. Instead, their baseline strengths—such as unique Seal and Judgement mechanics and single-target healing—have been amplified, while making them even more formidable against Demons and Undead. The core philosophy of Forever's class design is clearly delineating each class's strengths and weaknesses rather than homogenizing them.