WoW Forever's realmless system has limits, and Blizzard explains why
Blizzard goes over the technology behind WoW Forever, its launch limitations, and ideas the team may explore later.
Enjoying the WoW Forever Podcasts? Then get yourself ready because a new one just released!
Podcast number 6 is all about tech.
Blizzard has shared more details about the technology behind WoW Forever. In this podcast, they explain how the realmless system keeps friends and guildmates together without putting too many players in one area.
They also discussed the limits of cross-ruleset grouping, improvements to large-scale PvP, and features they may add after launch.
How Does Forever's Realmless System Work?
So you are probably aware that Forever does not work with the usual individual realms. You simply pick a ruleset (PvE, RP, PvP, RP-PvP, Hardcore) and that is it.
WoW Forever basically uses a custom system that will "sort" players across different world "partitions." It makes it easier to maintain performance, and it is a good way to allow players to often run into people they know.
The system considers factors such as:
Guild membership
Groups
Language preferences when deciding where someone should be
When you are levelling, running dungeons, and exploring Azeroth, you can now encounter your friends or guildies even when you are not grouped together.
A lot of adjustments have been made during the beta already as well, especially when it comes to the world refreshes and teleporting between partitions.
At launch, when you join a group, it will not automatically move you to another partition. You will get a notification, and you can choose if you want to be moved directly or if you want to finish an important quest first.
They also made adjustments to areas that were particularly crowded during beta, including Westfall and the Barrens. This should make questing overall less difficult.
PvE, PvP, and RP Players Remain Separate
The realmless system does not mean every player can group with everyone else. PvE, PvP, and Roleplaying rulesets will remain separate at launch.
So if you make your character on PvE, and your friends on an RP Ruleset, you will not be able to group up together.
Blizzard was thinking about allowing players on different rulesets to group for instanced content, but there are concerns about the differences between their economies.
PvE players can gather resources without the risks associated with open-world PvP, for example, and that could create a ton of problems when it comes to trading and auction house access.
They did not rule out the idea completely, but it would not be for launch. It is definitely not a set plan.
Large PvP Groups and New Community Features
During the Podcast, they also talked about how they could support activities that go beyond the usual party and raid sizes.
Groups of around 80-120 players, or alliances combining multiple groups, are ideas under consideration.
However, do not expect a new mega-raid feature at launch.
Blizzard said the end-of-beta experience is pretty much the general technical state you can expect when the game releases.
They improved performance during large battles and continue to investigate ways to reduce unnecessary communication between clients and servers.
Other ideas include:
Proximity voice chat
Fishing tournaments
Special holiday activities
World boss encounters designed to bring players together
They want to give you more reasons to spend time in Azeroth outside levelling, raiding, and normal PvP, but none of these ideas have a confirmed release date.
A More Flexible Foundation for Future Updates
WoW Forever also uses a more modern technical foundation than the one developers originally worked with for WoW Classic.
Maintaining Classic at the same time as the constantly updated modern game required engineers to integrate security fixes, graphics improvements, and other technical changes into an older codebase.
But Forever should make it easier to update gameplay systems and give designers more control over things.
Talent trees are one example. They can now adjust talents and their positions more easily than they could with the original Classic infrastructure.
These changes may not be immediately visible to us, but they give the devs more flexibility to develop and maintain the game over time.
Blizzard's message throughout the podcast was that launch is only the starting point.
They want to use live data and feedback to adjust the realmless system, improve performance, and maybe even add additional activities or events as the community grows.
For more information about WoW Forever, check out our latest news.