Most of what you pick on the WoW Forever character screen can be fixed later. Three things can't: the ruleset, the faction on a PvP ruleset and, in practice, the name. Blizzard has announced no transfers between rulesets, no paid ruleset change and no faction change service, so a character made on PvP stays on PvP, and the first Horde or Alliance character you create there decides your account's side on that ruleset.
That makes the first five minutes of character creation the most important ones for a group of friends. Agree on region, ruleset and faction together, before anyone clicks Create, and you share one world, one Auction House and, with a little care, one layer. Get it wrong, and the only fix is a new character from level 1.
Below, we list every choice you can't undo, compare Normal, PvP, Roleplay and Roleplay-PvP side by side, explain what to do when "population imbalance" blocks your faction, give a short Horde or Alliance take, show how friends end up on the same layer and what Blizzard has promised to fix, and finish with the name rules.
WoW Forever launches on November 4 at 3:00 PM PST (23:00 UTC) without any paid services for moving or reshaping a character. Blizzard hasn't ruled them out for the future, but it hasn't announced any either, so plan as if everything on this list is permanent.
The one planned exception is Hardcore. It arrives some time after launch, and a Hardcore character that dies can transfer to another ruleset, PvP included.
A few settings are softer than they look, and knowing them takes some pressure off character creation.
Four rulesets open on November 4: Normal, PvP, Roleplay and Roleplay-PvP. Blizzard added Roleplay-PvP on October 22, after a forum request gathered more than 3,000 likes, and Hardcore follows after launch. Each ruleset is one shared world for your whole region, so population is not the question. The ruleset decides whether other players can attack you while you quest, and who you can play and trade with.
Everything social stays inside your ruleset and faction. Groups, dungeons, raids, chat, trading, mail and the Auction House are separate per ruleset, and Horde and Alliance can't group on any of them. Whether there is a neutral cross-faction Auction House has not been confirmed. Battlegrounds are the one place where players from Normal, PvP, Roleplay and Roleplay-PvP meet, such as Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley. That is why PvP ranks and gear work the same on every ruleset except Hardcore.
The table shows where the four launch rulesets differ.
| Ruleset | World PvP | Both factions on one account | Faction balance at creation | Name rules |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Normal | Only when you flag yourself | Yes | Not restricted | Standard naming policy |
| PvP | Almost always at risk outside your faction's territory | No, one faction per account | The dominant faction can be blocked for a while | Standard naming policy |
| Roleplay | Only when you flag yourself | Yes | Not restricted | Strict: names must fit the Warcraft setting |
| Roleplay-PvP | Almost always at risk outside your faction's territory | No, one faction per account according to player tests | The dominant faction can be blocked for a while, as seen during name reservation | Strict: names must fit the Warcraft setting |
Players ask "PvP or PvE", Blizzard says PvP or Normal, and the real question is how you want leveling to feel. On Normal you fight other players only when you flag yourself, and you still play every battleground for the same Honor and ranks. On PvP, any trip into a contested zone can become a fight, and an evening of quests in Stranglethorn Vale can turn into an evening of corpse runs.
Here is how the choice usually breaks down for a group:
Our WoW Forever Normal vs PvP ruleset guide goes deeper into world PvP rules, grouping and battleground queues on each ruleset.
If you pick PvP but would rather skip the contested-zone grind, our WoW Forever boosting options can get your character to 60.
On PvP and Roleplay-PvP, two separate rules decide which faction you can play. The first is the one-faction lock: your first character on that ruleset sets the account's side there for good. The second is faction balance: when one faction is far ahead, Blizzard temporarily blocks new characters of that faction, the same approach Season of Discovery used. It has been live since name reservation opened on October 27. On the first day in the Americas, Horde was the faction blocked on PvP, and in Europe both Horde on PvP and Alliance on Roleplay-PvP were closed at times.
Blizzard hasn't published the threshold. Players watching the lock in Europe saw it open and close about seven times in twelve hours, switching between the factions as the other side caught up. Normal and Roleplay have neither the lock nor the throttle.
Blizzard Support lists these messages and says that a preferred faction being unavailable on PvP is not a bug.
None of these steps are guaranteed, but they come from players who got through the lock during name reservation.
If the lock still holds after launch, you have three realistic options: wait it out, roll the other faction, or play on Normal or Roleplay, where both factions are allowed. Whether an account with Horde on PvP can still make Alliance on Roleplay-PvP is unconfirmed. Players are planning it, but no clear test has been posted.
Faction matters less in Forever than it did in Classic, because every class is available on both sides: an Undead can be a Paladin and a Dwarf can be a Shaman. What is left to weigh is short.
For a group, the best faction is the one everyone will stick with. On PvP, pick it together before the throttle picks it for you.
Every racial and how much it matters for each class is ranked in our WoW Forever race tier list.
Picking the same region, ruleset and faction puts your group in the same world, but not always in the same copy of a zone. WoW Forever uses layering: when a zone gets crowded, the game opens another copy and splits players between them. Blizzard says it assigns layers based on familiar players and friends, language and PvP balance, and that grouping with someone on another layer moves you to theirs.
Layering was the most criticized part of the beta. Groups got split, friends vanished after a boat ride, and whole crowds were reshuffled at city gates.
On October 23, Clay Stone, associate production director for WoW Forever, said Blizzard had "recognized areas where we need to make improvements, particularly when players may be unexpectedly separated from each other". He named two fixes in progress:
Blizzard gave no date. The work is happening "ahead of launch", with more improvements promised "through launch and beyond", but there is no confirmation yet that either fix is live. Layering itself stays: Stone said there "will always be some amount of layering". The statement doesn't cover zone borders or what happens to your layer when you leave a group.
Until the fixes are confirmed, these habits keep a group together.
Layer caps, rare spawns and what layering means for world PvP are covered in our WoW Forever realms and layering guide.
Every Forever character has two names, a Main Name and a Secondary Name, and both are required. Only the full combination has to be unique, but it is unique across your whole region and every ruleset: a name taken on Normal is taken on PvP too. Blizzard's own example is a family of characters, Asha, Thalen and Mira Brightvale, sharing one second name.
The naming policy checks both parts together, so splitting a banned word across the two names won't get it through, and major lore names are blocked on purpose. Each part is 2 to 12 letters with no numbers, spaces, hyphens or apostrophes, and no letter three times in a row; accented letters are allowed. On Roleplay and Roleplay-PvP, names also have to fit the setting, so famous people, brands and real-world names are out.
Characters created during Early Name Reservation, the October 27 to November 3 window for owners of a paid Forever pack, are your real launch characters: on November 4 you simply enter the world with them. The three-character cap belongs to that window only, and it counts all rulesets together, so two PvP characters leave room for one more on Normal or Roleplay.
"Taken" and "restricted" are different problems, and each has its own fix.
These guides cover the rest of what to settle before and after the servers open on November 4.
These are the questions players ask most about rulesets, factions, layers and names.
No. A character stays on the ruleset it was created on, and there are no transfers between rulesets. The only exception will be a Hardcore character that dies, once Hardcore arrives after launch.
None have been announced. Blizzard hasn't ruled them out, but plan your ruleset and faction as if they are permanent.
No. On PvP, your account can have characters of only one faction. Normal and Roleplay allow both.
Players confirmed it during name reservation: they could make three Horde or three Alliance characters on Roleplay-PvP, but not a mix. Blizzard hasn't spelled it out.
World PvP and the faction rules are the same. Roleplay-PvP adds strict naming and roleplay behavior rules, and it is a separate world: you can't group or trade with players on PvP.
Horde is probably the dominant faction at that moment, so new Horde characters are temporarily blocked for population balance. Wait, restart the client and try again, or park your name on Normal until it opens.
No. Groups, chat, trading, mail and the Auction House stay inside one ruleset. You can only meet in battlegrounds.
Invite each other to a group. The invite moves you to the leader's layer. If it doesn't, disband and let the other player invite, or relog.
Blizzard announced fixes on October 23 for players separated on boats and zeppelins and for large groups split at capital cities, but gave no date. Layering itself stays.
Yes. A full name is unique across all rulesets in your region, so a name taken on Normal can't be used on PvP. Names in other regions are separate.
Yes, right away, according to players who tested it. Anyone can take the name in that moment, so swap at a quiet hour.
Yes. Untick My Secondary Name under Game Menu (Esc), Options, Nameplates. The second name still shows in chat.
