No more realm picking: Forever uses four rulesets instead

Forever doesn't ask you to pick a realm. You pick a ruleset, and each one works like a single huge mega-realm. There are four. Normal (PvE), where world PvP only happens when you choose it. PvP, where contested zones are dangerous the old way. Roleplaying, for people who want a more immersive, character-focused community. And Hardcore, which comes after launch.

This gets rid of two problems anyone who played Classic in 2019 remembers. Pick a small realm and watch it slowly empty out. Pick the big one and spend launch night in a login queue.

The obvious worry with a mega-realm is that you never see the same person twice. Forever tries to keep local communities together anyway. You should keep running into familiar names while questing and gathering, and guild members are more likely to end up in the same copy of the world even before they group up. You also choose a language preference and will mostly be matched with players who share it.

Some things stay the same. Horde and Alliance remain separate, there's no cross-faction grouping, and dungeon and raid groups have to come from the same ruleset. PvP rulesets will use faction balance tools similar to the ones built for Season of Discovery.

Hardcore is a closed ecosystem. Progress and collections from the other rulesets can't come in, but rewards earned on Hardcore can become available on the others. When a Hardcore character dies, it can transfer to another ruleset, and that now includes PvP.

Names change too. Characters can have two-part names, like a first and last name, and names are unique across the whole region instead of one realm. The second part gives you far more combinations, so your favorite name has a better chance of being free. There's also a Classic visual preset that hides other players' transmog, and you can change it later.