World of Warcraft: Forever has players select a ruleset, rather than a server, but the game’s developers have a plan for still maintaining neighborhood identity and local in-game communities.
‘You will never have to worry about there not being enough people on your realm’
In anticipation of the World of Warcraft: Forever launch, VICE recently had a chance to sit down with some key members of the development team and chat about the game’s beta and launch.
During the conversation, we discussed the Rule Set-based play experiences and how the game ensures players don’t get lost in the massive crowd of mega-realms.
VICE: I want to talk a bit about this realmless Azeroth or mega-realm Azeroth, with Rule Set based groups instead of individual, player-selected servers/realms… Vanilla WoW and classic MMO identity always relied on tight-knit server communities with local reputations, heroes, villains, and celebrities within each server. How did you go about having Forever preserve that sense of server fame and neighborhood identity so players won’t feel lost in a much larger server environment.
Kris Zierhut (Principal Game Designer): We don’t want to get into the details of the algorithm, but we an algorithm in place that tries to keep putting you together with the same cohort of players over and over again. We know players wanted to be on realms with very high populations, and going what you call ‘realmless’ is sort of our ultimate achievement of that.
You will never have to worry about there not being enough people on your realm or you rolled on the wrong realm and having your friends on a different realm than you. If you play with the same Rule Set and the same faction, you can play together.
But then the downside is you could be lost in this massive anonymous crowd, New York City kind of vibe. So we wanted to make sure we had a way to get the best of those small realms we had back in 2004 and make you keep seeing the same people over and over again as you adventure. There are systems in place that are doing that and we think they’re working really well.
People are seeing those same [character] names pop up as they adventure and level up, so we think it’s working really well.
The new Rule Set-based experience seemed to work well for many players during the game’s beta window, so it will be very interesting to see how well the community continues to embrace this approach in the live version of the game, particular as many players begin to reach the max level and earn weapons, gear, and other accolades that could help bring fame to them if the community experience still feels tight-knight and local enough.
Be sure to check back for lots more World of Warcraft: Forever news and updates as the early days of the new experience play out.
World of Warcraft: Midnight is available now on PC. World of Warcraft: Forever launches on November 4, 2026.
The post How World of Warcraft: Forever Makes Serverless Azeroth Feel Like a 2004 Era Tight-Knit Community appeared first on VICE.
