WoW Forever: Impressions from the Beta

So I’m something of a hoary old World of Warcraft veteran. Whilst I’m not one of the storied hordes who started on Day One in November 2004, I did start my journeys in Azeroth in March 2005. I played the game obsessively until 2010. When my guild splintered, I played sporadically after that, whenever a new expansion dropped, or the mood grabbed me. Constant gear resets, new “theme park” zones, and a dwindling list of online friends who played eroded my enjoyment.

I was therefore the prime audience for the newly-announced WoW Forever. A return to an Azeroth which we’d remain in, exploring new zones and new dungeons alongside the classic content that people who were there in the early 2000s remember. I paid the £52 quid for Beta access, renewed my subscription and downloaded the Beta client.

The game that greeted me is, in many ways, the version of WoW I’ve always wanted to play. I logged in as a Human Paladin in the familiar Elwynn Forest, filled with dozens of other neophyte adventurers. Already in the starter zone, there were some new quests in addition to all the old favourites, which gave you a head start on your gathering professions.

Once you’re out of the starting area, you start to see the changes in the zone. There’s more new quests, sure, but there’s also campsites, player-created spots where you can sit down, get some buffs and maybe even socialise. There’s better weather and fog effects as well, as you can see from the downpour my Paladin is in:

The quality of life adjustments in this version of the game are incredible. In the original game, any UI customisation required downloading 3rd-party addons. Now a lot of the main ones are part of the base game. You can customise the UI, combine all your bags into one inventory window, and even enable cooldown managers and a damage meter if needed.

The new dungeons I’ve tried all feel like classic dungeons which require thought, care and a little exploration to solve rather than the modern approach of “run in, gather everything up and AoE it down”

Professions are more important. My Paladin is a Blacksmith, and I’ve had two patterns drop from dungeon bosses that allow me to create loot better than any drop I could find. Healing potions have been moved from the Alchemy profession to First Aid, so now anyone can theoretically make them. 

And my Paladin is so fun to play. In the original game, I never bothered with Paladins because they seemed to only work as healers at level 60. I’d seen friends trying to be a Paladin tank or a damage dealer, but it felt like too much work for no real reward. Now it just works. Paladin tanks have the ability to keep aggro and talents which help them recover mana. Tanking feels possible from level 16, and from level 20 onwards it only gets smoother.

There’s such a lively community right now around a Beta which is, let me remind you, paywalled behind a £52/$60 bundle. I think this bodes well for a game which will only require a subscription to access at launch. If you’re a lapsed WoW player or are WoW-curious and put off by the 22+ year history of the game, this is the version of the game you should try, in my opinion. It reminds me of why I first fell in love with the game, but with clear lessons learned from the intervening 22 years.