WoW Forever's realmless system still has one main regional restriction
You can pick your language, but cross-region play between Europe and North America will not be available at launch.
WoW Forever lets you pick your preferred language, and the game will automatically match you with others who picked the same.
But that does not mean you can play with everyone you want.
In the 5th episode of the Podcast, Lead Software Engineer Ana Resendez clarified that the region boundary between America and Europe remains. If you play on NA and your friend on EU, you will not be able to cross-play.
This topic is discussed at 45:13 in the video, if you want to check it out.
Your Language Choice Is a Preference, Not a Restriction
WoW Forever will have a specific setting where you can pick your preferred language.
So basically, if you choose English, you will be placed with players who also chose English. It prevents the local chat from being filled with 10 different languages and will make it easier for players with the same language to communicate together.
This does not mean you will never meet players who speak something else. It is not a strict restriction or anything like that.
And if you group up with friends, you do not have to coordinate your preferred language either. No need to change your settings just to play together.
You can find this under:
Options
System
Languages and Social
Preferred Online Language
It applies to your entire account, and you can only change it once every 24 hours.
NA and EU Still Cannot Play Together
Sadly, this is a massive problem that remains in WoW Forever as well, it seems. NA players will not be able to play with EU players.
So if your friends are in another region... it kind of ruins the fun.
Blizzard did not rule out cross-region play in the future, but it will not be available on day one. So you will have to be patient if you have friends on the other side of the globe you want to play with.
Basically, Realmless does not mean Blizzard has removed physical servers. The game still runs on hardware in different locations, and Australian players, for example, have their own for better latency.
The Realmless system makes it easier to find other players without picking servers first. But you still need to agree on a region and ruleset with your friends before starting your characters.
For more information about WoW Forever, check out our latest news.