WoW Forever: Riverglades and Hyjal wait past level 30

The WoW Forever beta stops at level 30, and Blizzard has released a video about what comes after it on the way to 60. Two new zones carry most of that journey: the Riverglades, which builds on factions from Warcraft's past, and Mount Hyjal, which Blizzard presents as the climax of levelling. The Riverglades can be entered from around level 36 and has quest hubs for both the Horde and the Alliance.

Alliance players meet a faction from Warcraft II, the Brotherhood of the Horse. They are what is left of the elite knights of Stormwind who fought at the Battle of Blackrock Mountain and then disobeyed orders to chase down Horde remnants raiding undefended Alliance lands. Their survivors hold Farhold Keep in the Riverglades. Horde players work with the Boulderrock ogres, former members of the Twilight's Hammer, who have enemies on all sides, including their old masters in a nearby fortress.

Both factions end up fighting the Twilight's Hammer, and around that story sit smaller ones, such as wrecking a pirate operation and rescuing a horse. Deep in ogre territory there is a fighting ring, the Bloodmasters Ring, where players take on the ogres' best brawlers, in the spirit of the Ring of Blood quests from The Burning Crusade. Blizzard has not said who runs it. The Riverglades already appeared in the ship routes added earlier.

In Hyjal, the road onto the mountain is open for the first time since the Third War. Players work with the Druids of the Talon and other members of the Cenarion Circle to rebuild, while the Horde and the Alliance live side by side under an uneasy agreement that is starting to fray now the gates are open. A crow uncovers trouble involving the Wild King, and Hyjal is also home to Barrow Deeps, a new 10-player raid set in a prison that once held Azeroth's most infamous betrayer; it is one of the 3 raids that open on 9 December.