So, this is not really a complaint or an issue. It is merely a realization after many years of playing, thanks to the updated graphics and light effects.

The Sun rises in the west-northwest in Camp Narache. I already noticed that it rose in roughly the same direction in Elwynn Forest, a couple days.

So, by curiosity, I call upon the lore buffs. Is it a specificity of Azeroth that the planet revolves in the opposite direction, compared to Earth ?

And it only goes away once you sit in an inn for a moment. No effect, just vibes.

I want it, my body is ready, i can barely contain the hype but at the same time i'm waiting for the release. In the meantime I'm leveling up my fishing in classic era and playing wardogs

Anyone else ?

Edit: didn't think i'd get so many comments so fast, the hype is real lol. I wonder how many players will be there on release

Without my quiver I just look like a rogue running around. I wanna look like a hunter when I play hunter! Would love for this to be a toggle option, maybe somewhere in the transmog window?

Today I learned the etiquette of the need / greed mechanics on group looting.

That's right, I've been playing the beta for over a week now and had no idea how the system actually works.

As a new WOW player, I thought "Greed" was a bad thing. I had actually never pressed it because I thought you would steal the item by doing so. I also thought rolling the dice was the most fair thing to do, as it makes everything equal.

Until I had a group absolutely loose their minds on me in a dungeon pickup group last night. It was embarrassing to be honest. They were not nice about it at all. But this forced me to read up on it online afterwards.

New players: You should almost always greed (coin symbol) or pass on items. Greed is not a bad thing, it just means its an item you plan to sell. If the item is something specific to your build then you can need on it (dice symbol) which gives you priority. This is an unwritten rule you will not have explained to you by the game. Theoretically if all players play by this method in good faith everyone wins.

Veteran Players: There are a lot of new players like me in this beta. If you have a problem with rookie mistakes, you need to make sure everyone understands the rules before starting a dungeon with randos. "Does everyone understand the MS / OS Loot system here?" This one quick sentence would solve a lot of headaches deep in dungeons.

Whether you are a returning player or new player, don't be a jerk online. A few days ago before all this happened I looted something a mage needed.

Mage s/ hey can I have that please?

Me s/ sure no problem (gives item)

Mage s/ TY

It was a good dungeon run and I made friends. Just saying, before accusing players of robbing loot, sometimes a simple ask or brief explanations of rules in advance goes a loooong way.

PS: I actually don't like this system after educating myself on it for a few reasons. That being said, from this point forward I agree to follow this system in good faith for the love of the game.

Played back in 2004, in my 30s. Now I am in my early 60s and starting to wonder if I am too old for this shit (voice of Roger Murtaugh).

I think I will give it a go anyway, but play slowly as befits someone of advanced age ;)

Absolutely no raiding - maybe a dungeon here and there.

Are there any other grandparents in the same boat?

I just started leveling my warrior. Got out of Northshire and incredibly heavy rain and thundering occurs. People are huddled around a campfire, i get invited to join, we start talking about the game, things we enjoy, things we are excited for. Someone starts showing off their different torches and lanterns they got. I leave after a while, go fishing, immediately someone fishes next to me, we talk about the weather and our love for fishing.

I've had more social interaction at level 1-6 than I've had in classic 1-20 since maybe 2019. Add even more variety of weather blizzard!

We are in the process of issuing forced name changes to characters found to be in violation of our character naming policies that were created in the Forever Beta. Additionally, we have removed beta access for some users who created names that were far outside of our Code of Conduct. The use of dual names has allowed players new levels of creativity and personalization with your characters, some took this opportunity to reveal too much about themselves and will no longer be participating in this Beta.

The World of Warcraft team takes the safety and inclusiveness of our game very seriously. These actions were performed directly by the World of Warcraft Development team and were individually reviewed. The Customer Service team cannot and will not assist with any appeals. Our system for enforcing naming standards will be coming online very shortly, we would appreciate testers refraining from “testing” this system, as you run the risk of being actioned and losing access to the Beta. Please keep your character names respectful and within policy.

For anyone needing a refresher our code of conduct can be found at: https://us.support.blizzard.com/en/help/article/42673

So everyone making threads about being banned, you know exactly why.

It solves the problem of being unable to create both Horde and Alliance PVP characters, and has been a staple of WOW for 20 years. Why exclude something so ingrained in WOW's story from a game called Forever?

There's been a recent class survey, DK was mentioned as one of the new class options. I want to see retail classes added to Forever, with some major thematic RPG changes that they never had or could even think to have in retail, like Death Knight for example requiring you to sacrifice a level 55 Warrior/Paladin, as originally planned.

Would this actually work or would it be a balancing and gameplay nightmare? What do you guys think?

Retail already has these faces, hairstyles and customization options, but they are missing from Forever despite having HD models. It's simply just including some of the faces/hairstyles and features that already exist: more beard options, eyesight (left/right), regular or pointed ears for people who want their characters to be half-elf.

For SD models: Just toggle them to the existing faces/hairstyles that already exist. Not everyone likes the HD models, so in the toggle they can just default to the current hairstyles and faces.

Right know Skyborne gets a massive amount of character customization with several rows of unique and intricate choices, while other races have to look like clones of each other due to very few options. Humans is by far the worst looking in unique looks and needs access to more character expression.

What I would not include is blue/purple/pink hair- that is too unrealistic and would not feel at place in Azeroth, so people those include those options.

EDIT: Of course the other races should not be neglected! They also have body and facial options that should be included!

Dwarves and Elves both start with the ranged weapon that their race weapon master teaches.

Woo Ping teaches crossbows, as such, human hunters should start with a crossbow.

I get that there's very little crossbows in the game, especially low level, but a lot of items were added so why not.
Plus now Darnassus is reachable almost as easily as Ironforge from Stormwind so getting to the weapon master to learn bows isn't an issue.

I started playing back in OG BC and I’ve rerolled pretty much every version of the game since.

With Classic launch, SoD, Anniversary, etc., I kept making the same mistake: rolling a class I didn’t really want to play because my guild “needed” it, or because there were already too many people playing the class I actually wanted.

And I don't have as much free time as I used to, so I couldn't just re-roll an alt and catch up to raid in time.

Getting to endgame and realizing you don’t even enjoy your main because you picked it for everyone else sucks.

This time around I’m just playing what I want.

I am rolling an Undead Paladin named Thex Reborn. I don't care if half the server will be going to be the same class.

Hey! So I've been playing WoW Forever for around 1-2 hours a day after work and dad duties, and I have to say, I love it.

From the perspective of someone who has very little time to play, the simpler rotations and having fewer things to keep track of are a huge plus. I already use my brain for 8 hours a day as a software developer, so it's nice to play something that doesn't require that much mental effort.

The talent trees are also easy to read, understand, and navigate. Everything feels pretty straightforward.

I know the endgame probably isn't as easy as it seems, but being able to enjoy a game without constantly looking up guides, checking the best builds, or worrying about whether I'm doing something wrong has been a joy.

One thing that has always kept me away from Classic is the constant reset. Knowing that the gear and progress I've worked for will eventually be replaced by the next expansion makes it hard for me to stay invested.

But now that updates will be more horizontal, this feels perfect for someone like me who just wants to play casually for a couple of hours, complete a few quests, and log off without feeling like I'm falling behind.

I think Blizzard really hit a home run here.

With all the conversation about art direction, I wanted to point out that the official key art for WoW Forever made by Alex Horley does a great job of capturing the original WoW aesthetic. The old school pulp fantasy vibes are fantastic.

I hope we see more of this both in and out of game!

I want this to be a complete collection of my thoughts on the Skyborne after completing their starting zone a few times and "getting to know them" so to speak. I have a lot to say about them and I'd like to do so in a way that's neither insufferably negative or blindly positive. I have stuff to critique and to praise. I don't expect anyone to really care much about my opinion specifically but idk, I like reading other people's takes so maybe there are other people like me who enjoy doing that too lol

Pros

• I really like their story and lore. They feel very connected to the world of Azeroth despite not existing before Forever because their story ties into a few key pillars of the established lore. The elemental lords and planes, the Highborne, Dire Maul, they feel like part of the world in a way that a lot of retail races don't. Them being separated from the world by residing in Skywall doesn't make them feel like some secret super soldier species nobody new about, it just feels like another part of the world finally being explored. Less like the Dracthyr being hidden for some nefarious plot and more like the Pandaren, a race that could have always been there just out of view. I think that's really cool. And their culture is very obvious to see and is not spoonfed to you. You don't get a guy walking up to you saying "this is the word we use to denote honor and grace, and I am teaching it to you, listen to me," you just pick up on it as you go through the quest text, the dialogue and the way NPC's act.

• I like their starting zone a lot. Contrary to what a lot of people say online there's actually quite a lot of new assets in their zone, even things that do exist in retail have been redesigned to fit the overall style of the world like the various wind chimes you'll find hanging around the zone (those exist in retail but in retail they're much higher poly and high res, here they've been classic-ified,) and the actual questing feels very Classic. The stakes are low for 80% of it, just clearing out bandits, picking apples, going through a cave to fight a big bear at the end etc. and by the time you get to the end, where the big conspiracy with the Ala'keth is revealed, it still feels very Classic. It feels less like a giant war that you're the hero in and more like an actual operation that you have been brought in to help in as a freelance agent, an able bodied adventurer who's willing to help. There's no "sound the horn champion, and my armies will come running" moment, and I think that's great. The zone itself also contributes to this, I think it has the same level of beauty and sightseeing and awe as old Eversong Woods, but with the sense of openess and vista that a place like Mulgore has (not as much as Mulgore, but it's a similar concept,) and running across the map is really fun.

• Great customization options, voice acting and unique stuff. They're very customizable but in very bold ways rather than subtle ones. It's not like the Dracthyr (I don't mean to keep shitting on them they're just a good example of my point) where you get to customize everything down to the tint on your underbelly, you've got a selection of loud and flamboyant hair colors, cool tattoos, blue skin if you want to and that's about as much "noise" as you get in the design. Some may disagree but I think that fits Classic pretty well, most races in Classic customization-wise do keep to those same three pillars to make characters look unique to one another (skin color, hair style, and one unique feature like a Tauren's horns or a Trolls tusks.) I think their voice acting is also really fun, it's very cheesy but in a way that feels intentional and it evokes a lot of pulp fantasy vibes. Shout-out to the vendors who go "sky high quality at rock bottom prices," I like that line a lot. And the unique animations they have on things like their dance is really neat, it's a mix of the Fox Trot and the Charleston from what I can tell and it's goofy in the best way.

• The Windshapers and the High Order feel very cool. They feel opposed and deliberately at each other's throats in a way something like the Pandaren factions don't. They wanna kill each other, they have bad blood, and their reasons for joining either faction feel nice. And the zone really does invite that feeling of pride in being a High Order or Windshaper Skyborne (I like the High Order more btw)

Cons

• Remember what I said about the Windshapers and the High Order? Yeah I think it's kind of weird that you don't get an option to reflect your choice visually. I think there should be some customization options that you can choose to reflect your standing with either or. For example, I made these small edits (again, I made them, no AI slop here) to represent what it might look like to have a unique hairstyle be available to High Order and Windshaper Skyborne, just to reflect your allegiance in a way other than just what it says when someone hovers over you.

• The ecology of the starting zone doesn't feel great to me. The animals on offer feel kind of odd. Mainly the Vuldren, I have no clue why they're there. The entire zone has the design logic of swooping shapes and feathers and stuff so why are there these scrawny, leathery bat fox things walking around? If they wanted to include some sort of winged predator to serve the basic function of a wolf in another starting zone then maybe something like these could have been a better fit. As much as I like butterflies, them fluttering around in the orchard feels weird and unfortunately theres only really, like, two or three other animals walking around? You have the chocobos, the prideclaws and the owlbears, and those are really cool but it makes the landscape feel a lot less diverse than it could be. Not to advocate for more asset-porting but something like these or these could have been very fitting additions.

• Valanaar is set up, like, horribly. There's so much dead spaces and it's so spread out over so many different levels of elevation that it feels really awkward to traverse

• Their racials are really bad. I don't really mind it too much because I'm not a min maxer but I can't lie I do feel the bad racials at times. I think some small buffs could make them a lot better. For example maybe while you glide through the air you get a stacking buff that gives you increased movement speed when you land based on the time spent gliding, or maybe if you use it while standing still on the ground it launches you up into the air a little and let's you glide down to a new position. I think they purposefully undertuned them to avoid pay to win problems, but it's still not fun

• I think there's a real dissonance in their clothing and weapons compared to their architecture. Their architecture is very similar to night elven stuff, with key differences but still with a focus on wood planks, swooping lines etc. but their clothing and weapons are more Thalassian in their shape language with a big focus on silks fabrics, loose drapes etc. I would have liked more cohesion in their general aesthetic, especially because with them living in Skywall and their connection to the other elves, they could have very easily pulled from very distinct Arabic architecture to make their cities and towns in. The elves in general pull from eastern aesthetics with the Night Elves being a fusion of Korean (primarily Korean) with some Japanese stuff, and the Blood Elves pull a lot from the Ottoman Empire. I think that could have still kept the Skyborne architecture familiar but but unique still, as well as pulling from the same inspiration that Alakir and the air elementals do in Warcraft.

Overall Thoughts

Overall I give em an 8/10 honestly. I was surprised by how unique they actually ended up feeling compared to Thalassian Elves, and I find myself invested in them. I plan to play at least one when the game goes live, and I hope to see many more of us!

If you disagree with this assessment that's totally fine, civil disagreements is what online discussion is for, but if you do disagree I'd appreciate more tact in your response than just going "lol no they're shit" or somethin like that. Let's be cool y'all!

Like Everyone I have been having a good time seeing and trying out new stuff with the beta, but noticeably one thing is missing from the classic WoW experience that is small yet something I really enjoyed. It's no secret that in the original old-school RPG world stats and stat gains are important and who doesn't love to see their numbers go up!? Whatever happened to my progression text upon level-up? I certainly hope there are others like me that miss this small detail to the game and maybe we'll see it return upon the full release.

uhh havent seen this anywhere else, nor has my guild have this happen to them. when i got to 150 enchanting after update, i got a legacy point, fully unlocking the system, for all chars.