WoW Forever: Blizzard's starter guide for new players

On 28 October Blizzard published a starter guide for people coming to WoW Forever for the first time. It walks through setting up an account, the first login and the first hours in the world, and ends with 5 tips: read tooltips and quest text, keep your Hearthstone handy, repair and sell, ask for help, and try another class if the first one does not feel right.

WoW Forever comes with a World of Warcraft subscription or game time and is installed from the Battle.net app as one of the game versions. It runs on Windows and Mac with keyboard and mouse; controller support is in beta. On the first login the game asks you to pick one of 2 presets. Classic keeps Standard Definition models, no quest markers on the map, separate bags, no transmog and the classic interface layout. Enhanced turns on High Definition models, quest objectives on the map, a single bag, transmog and a centred layout. Blizzard suggests Enhanced if you are unsure, and every setting can be changed later in the options.

There are 4 rulesets at launch: Normal, PvP, Roleplay and Roleplay-PvP. Hardcore, where a character's death is final, follows later, with no details or date yet. Groups, guilds, dungeons and raids only work with players on the same ruleset and faction, so the ruleset you choose decides who you can play with. Blizzard recommends Normal for newcomers.

The Skyborne can join either faction: on the Horde side they are Shamans, on the Alliance side Mages, and both start on Zephras Isle, covering levels 1 to 12. Playing one needs the Heroic Pack or a higher upgrade. Every character has a main name and a secondary name, and the pair must be unique in the region; the secondary name can be hidden from nameplates but still shows in chat. Each character can use High Definition or Standard Definition models, and this can be changed later at a Barbershop.

Each character can learn 2 primary professions and all 3 secondary ones: Cooking, Fishing and First Aid. The guide also points to campsites for resting, sharing profession benefits and trading, and to the WoW Portal Room on Discord for help. WoW Forever opens in Europe at 23:00 London time on 4 November, which is midnight on 5 November in Central Europe.