Players pick one faction on PvP rulesets

On a PvP ruleset in World of Warcraft: Forever, a player may only have characters of one faction. On the other rulesets both sides are allowed. Lead Game Designer Tim Jones and Lead Software Engineer Nora Mills say so in an interview with Game Informer, summarised by Wowhead.

One side on a PvP ruleset

Whoever rolls on a PvP ruleset picks a faction and stays with it. A character of the opposing faction cannot be created there. On rulesets without open world PvP the restriction falls away, so an Alliance and a Horde character can sit next to each other.

Why Blizzard draws the line there is not explained in the interview. Whether the rule also applies to a character that transfers to a PvP ruleset later is not mentioned either.

A long flight path is not dead time

Jones and Mills treat waiting as part of the design. Running to a dungeon or sitting on a long flight path looks like something to fix, they say, but Blizzard sees a moment in which a player answers a question in general chat or talks to the guild.

The campfire buffs work the same way. A player has to sit down to get them, and Blizzard hopes that pause puts two people who are on the same quest next to each other. Those buffs are tied to the professions, and a campsite can hold objects crafted by other professions.

Addons stay supported and keep parity with mainline WoW, the two say. The team does want to keep addons from taking too much power over how a player experiences the game.

The Hall of Thanes is the Alliance answer to Ragefire Chasm

The Hall of Thanes, the dungeon for levels 13 to 18, is a sister dungeon to Ragefire Chasm and is meant for the Alliance. Ragefire Chasm sits under Orgrimmar and has always been the first stop for the Horde.

A level cap that never moves

Journey before destination is one of the core pillars, say Jones and Mills. Some players will race to level 60, others want to see the raids first, and a permanent cap supports both. A session of half an hour is enough for a few quests and some work on a profession.

What comes after launch

Gilneas is named as content that players expect. Next to that the team wants to keep surprising, the way the Riverglades did, and it is looking at level brackets that hold few dungeons. There is room for small stories instead of world ending threats, say the two.

Players without access to the Skyborne still get nine new dungeons, over 1,000 new quests and the new zones for the same subscription, they add. What that access asks for is not said in the interview.