Names & rulesets
Two things to decide before November 4: what you are called and which world you live in. Both are harder to change later than in Classic.
Name reservation: the facts
| When | October 27 (Americas 1:00 p.m. PDT, Europe 18:00 CET, both 20:00 UTC; Korea and Taiwan Oct 28 at 07:00 local) through November 3. |
| Who | Accounts with a pre-purchased Forever pack: Skyborne Heroic Pack ($29.99), Skyborne Epic Pack ($59.99) or the Warcraft Forever Collection ($79.99). Beta access alone does not qualify. |
| How many | Three characters per account, any ruleset, first come first served. |
| The name | A first name and a mandatory last name; the combination must be unique across your whole region and all rulesets. "Thrall Stormborn" and "Thrall Frostwolf" can both exist; a second "Thrall Stormborn" cannot. |
| Rules | Blizzard's naming policy applies and is being enforced: no real-world names of note, slurs, titles, trademarked characters or leetspeak. Players lost beta access over names in October. |
| Character creation | Reservation is also character creation: you pick race, class, faction and ruleset for the reserved character. The character cannot be played until launch. |
Strategy: the good first names go in minutes, the last name is your lever. Decide three combinations now and have a fourth ready. If your group wants matching last names (a guild surname), agree on it before 1 p.m. PDT.
Rulesets instead of realms
Forever is "realmless, but not regionless": inside your region (Americas & Oceania, Europe, Korea, Taiwan) you pick a ruleset, and every player on that ruleset shares one world with layering. There is no server list and no server transfer.
| Ruleset | World PvP | Factions per account | Launch | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Normal | Only when both sides opt in | Both | Nov 4 | Leveling in peace, playing both factions, most guilds |
| PvP | Open, with Season of Discovery-style faction balancing | One | Nov 4 | World PvP, contested zones, the Hillsbrad experience |
| Roleplaying | Opt-in | Both | Nov 4 | Strict naming and in-character chat rules |
| RP-PvP | Open | One | Nov 4 | Roleplay with the war on |
| Hardcore | Opt-in duels only | Both | Winter, date not set | One life. Fully enclosed: groups, trades and battlegrounds only with other Hardcore characters |
What a ruleset locks
- Grouping: no grouping across rulesets, and no cross-faction grouping anywhere.
- Battlegrounds: mixed across rulesets except Hardcore, but a premade must all be on one ruleset.
- Guilds and chat: per ruleset. Friends list cap is 600 and works across rulesets for chat only.
- Switching: make a new character. Collections (mounts, pets, transmog) and Legacy Points are account-wide, so cosmetics follow you; levels and gold do not. A dead Hardcore character can move to Normal, PvP or RP.
- Oceania: Australian data centers inside the Americas region; grouping with US friends may route you to their data center.
Which one should you pick?
| Playing with friends on both factions | Normal |
| You want to be ganked in Stranglethorn and like it | PvP |
| You want to roleplay | Roleplaying (or RP-PvP) |
| You want the permadeath run | Make a Normal character now; Hardcore arrives in winter and cannot be transferred into |
| Not sure | Normal. It is the only ruleset that allows both factions and opt-in PvP, and PvP-ruleset players cannot join your groups anyway. |
Sources: Blizzard's ruleset article (Sept 21) and name-reservation post (Oct 7) as carried by Wowhead, Icy Veins, Warcraft Tavern and WowGuide; pack prices from Blizzard's shop.
Data from talentsforever.com (CC BY 4.0), read from the WoW Forever beta client, build 1.60.1.70630. Updated 2026-10-27. World of Warcraft is a trademark of Blizzard Entertainment; this is a fan site.