News & Updates
Last updated 29 Oct 2026, 4:00am AEDT. Subscribe via RSS. New player? Start with the beginner guide.
Blizzard's starter guide: pick a Classic or Enhanced preset on first login
Blizzard's New Player's Starter Guide confirms a one-time experience preset choice at first login. Classic keeps the original look and layout; Enhanced turns on HD models, quest markers, one-bag and transmog. Either can be tweaked later.
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Two name reservation bugs: Aussie RP order issue, and a 'restricted name' fix coming
Blizzard has flagged two early-reservation bugs. On Australian servers, make your Roleplay or RP-PvP characters before any Normal or PvP ones. Separately, a bug was wrongly blocking some names (anything containing "con"), and a fix lands at the next realm restart.
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Name reservation is open: it started 7:00am AEDT today
Early character creation for the Americas/Oceania region opened at 1:00pm PDT on 27 Oct, which was 7:00am Wed 28 Oct in Sydney. You get three names per account, and it runs until 3 Nov.
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Looking for a guild? Blizzard points Forever players to the WoW Portal Room Discord
Blizzard is steering new and returning WoW Forever players to the WoW Portal Room, its official World of Warcraft Discord, where volunteer Ambassadors connect people with communities that suit how they play.
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Watch WARPATH, the animated WoW Forever launch trailer
Blizzard has released WARPATH, an animated music-video trailer for WoW Forever's launch, made with Brunch Studio and set to the song "End of You".
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Final racial pass: Human Ruthless cut to 1% crit, Tauren hit 60% run speed
Blizzard's last pre-launch racial update rolls some traits back towards class identity. Human Ruthless drops to 1% crit while The Human Spirit doubles. Dwarves get 1% hit, Orcs get pet damage back, and Tauren Plainsrunning now stacks to 60%.
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"Unbowed": Blizzard's new Forsaken short story
Blizzard's narrated short story "Unbowed" follows Cormack, a former Scarlet Crusader raised as Forsaken, who asks whether one of the undead can still serve the Light.
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The beta is closed after five weeks
Community manager Kaivax signed off the beta on 23 Oct (US time). Blizzard now has a few days of fixes before launch, and beta characters don't carry over.
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Blizzard reverses course: Roleplay-PvP ruleset arrives at launch
After saying on its podcast it had no plans for RP-PvP, Blizzard confirmed a fourth launch ruleset on 22 Oct (US time). It's a refuge for PvP players who'd rather avoid the streamer-packed PvP mega-server.
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Stress test wrapped: what the 22 Oct run was for
The Americas/Oceania open stress test ran from 8:00am AEDT Thu 22 Oct. Characters from it were deleted, as Blizzard warned. The beta itself closed a day later.
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Oct 15 beta notes: Humans lose Sword Spec, gain 'Ruthless'
The latest official beta development notes swap weapon-specific racials for flat crit bonuses. Human now gets +2% crit with every weapon; Orc, Dwarf and Tauren racials reworked too.
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Rogue class deep dive: what's new for stealth players
Blizzard's Rogue & Warlock deep dive outlines reworked talent trees and new tools for Rogues heading into launch.
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