Shaman tanks are not planned for the launch
Shaman tanks are a popular topic inside the team of WoW Forever, but they are not planned for the launch. Holly Longdale and Clay Stone said so to content creator JackedIQ, who also asked about collecting and new continents.
The video lasts nine minutes. Along the way the talk also turned to hidden items and lore.
Shaman tanks
JackedIQ saw defensive talents for Enhancement and asked if Shamans could tank at level 60. Blizzard wants to see first how players use the specs, with the class changes as they are now. The answer on the tank itself was clear:
I will say that shaman tanks are a very popular discussion amongst the WoW Forever team, for sure. That is not something we’re officially pursuing right now at launch, but it is something that we hear loud and clear not just from players but internally as well.
There is nothing to announce yet, but the team recognises the wish. Enhancement already changed a lot on the beta: the spec fights with two-handers only.
A sword for a battle mage
Some items change the way you play your class, and not all of them have been found. A few will only turn up after the launch. One example is already known from the beta:
There is a certain sword that could make your mage more of a battle mage if you choose to use it. We were really excited by how excited players were when they found that in the beta, and there may be more items like that hidden throughout the game.
Blizzard did add a warning. Not everything players share online about such items is true.
Collections stay empty until you collect
Forever gets the Collections tab of modern WoW, a feature from a newer game in a game based on Classic. Collecting is part of how many people play today, and the friction around it in Classic was bigger than the team would build now.
One thing works differently. The tab does not show everything you can earn: an item only appears once you have it. Blizzard wants to keep as much of the world hidden for as long as possible, and let players find things together, as they did with databases in Classic.
Northrend or Pandaria?
Nothing is off the table, but the team first looks at where the story should go. The two continents of Forever can change themselves, so you could spend a lifetime in them as they evolve. The game stays in the first year of World of Warcraft, a period the team finds rich in ideas. Forever has its own continuity after the Warcraft 3 campaign Forsaken Kingdom, Blizzard said earlier in the interview about Summoning Stones and races.
At the end the talk turned to lore, with the Brotherhood of the Horse as an example: a story that was only told in the manual of Warcraft 1. Chris Metzen also enjoys going back to ideas he had at the time, such as the Forsaken Kingdom.
Source: Wowhead