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A group invite won't move you any more, and the Orgrimmar gate pop-in is gone, says Blizzard's last podcast before launch
Blizzard's tech podcast, the last before launch: a group or guild invite shows a world refresh prompt instead of moving you, no more pop-in at zone edges, zone caps will change, and raids above 40 are only an idea.
Oct 29, 2026Checked against build 1.60.1.706855 min read
Blizzard’s sixth podcast is about the servers, and it’s the last one before the November 4 launch. Host Josh Corbett and Aggrend sat with Ana Resendez and Frank, an engineer on the team, and the streamer and guild leader Shobek. It answers the question the end-of-beta episode left open: what happens at launch to players vanishing at zone edges and to being moved between layers. How layering works in the first place is in WoW Forever layering explained.
A group invite shows a prompt instead of moving you
On the beta the game was quick to move you to another layer, the world refresh. Frank showed the team’s graph of those moves, highest in the first week of the beta, when “17 different systems” were all moving players around.
▶ 39:59 ▶ 44:45What changes at launch:
- Joining a group shows the world refresh prompt and doesn’t move you at once. You get a time window and move when you’re ready. ▶ 41:08
- Joining a guild works the same way. When you aren’t in a group, the game aims to put you with your guild’s players. ▶ 42:06
- Being invited to a group could move you on the beta, accepted or not. Aggrend called that a bug, fixed. ▶ 44:12
Frank gave Hardcore as the reason: you don’t want to be moved inside a cave to a spot with an elite next to you. So when the prompt shows, finish the pull, then move somewhere quiet.
No more pop-in at the Orgrimmar gate
The clip of players appearing and vanishing at Orgrimmar’s gate came from the edges between zones, the trade-off of Forever’s new server system. Fixes in the beta’s last days “pretty much erased” it, Frank said, and “you won’t see that anymore when we go live”, with more fixes coming. ▶ 21:44
The world still won’t be one unbroken piece. Aggrend said you’ll sometimes hit a zone edge or a world refresh.
▶ 23:16Zone caps and groupings will change after launch
Each zone, or a small group of zones, shares one layer, and Blizzard can change which zones are joined. At launch Durotar will be packed with new characters and Orgrimmar quieter; a month later that flips, so the groupings at launch may look very different a month on. ▶ 19:45
The number of players allowed in a zone can be tuned too. Early in the beta Westfall and the Barrens felt so full it was hard to tag a mob, and the team lowered the caps as the beta went on. ▶ 26:57
Your community, now and in three years
The game places you with the people you keep meeting: your groups, your guild and the guilds around you. Your client’s language counts too, and a setting lets you change it later. On the beta, one of the team saw it at once after switching to Spanish.
▶ 43:37That circle follows how you’ve played over the last few months and shifts slowly, so a player who starts in two or three years should still find a community of the same size. ▶ 46:17
Putting someone on ignore won’t remove them from your world. Blizzard worries that if it did, everyone would end up ignoring everyone. ▶ 48:08
Bigger groups than 40: an idea, not a plan
Shobek asked for groups of 80 to 120 for world PvP and guild events. “An army” of that size, or groups joined together, has been talked about, the team said, but nothing is announced.
▶ 13:45There might be a whiteboard with “mega raid” on it, one of them joked, and the team has looked at servers that spot a large PvP battle and widen to keep it together. For launch, though, the servers as they were at the end of the beta are what to expect. ▶ 15:47
Oceanic players: day and night
Players in Australia and New Zealand share the Americas region and have asked why the game is always dark in their evening. Blizzard has hardware in Australia and could give those worlds Australian time, Ana said, but joining a group led by an American player could then flip day to night in seconds. Blizzard asked Oceanic players to say on Reddit and the forums whether they’d accept that. ▶ 51:34
▶ 52:34Regions and rulesets are in WoW Forever realms and regions.
Rulesets stay apart, with levers kept in reserve
- PvE and PvP players won’t group at launch. The team was split on letting them group for dungeons; worries about farming and the economy kept them apart. ▶ 34:15
- Role-Play and Roleplay-PvP could share an auction house or group for dungeons later, if either becomes too small. Blizzard called it a lever it can pull if it must; nothing is planned. ▶ 35:47
- Faction balance is per ruleset, so Roleplay-PvP aims for 50/50 by itself. A faction that’s too big there can be closed to new characters even if it’s open on PvP. ▶ 54:08 More: RP-PvP in WoW Forever.
Events: no big new one at launch
A few holiday events were rebuilt, but there’s no major new event at launch. The system behind world events was redone after Season of Discovery’s Ashenvale troubles, and the team is looking at large PvP events and holiday-style events such as a fishing tournament. ▶ 58:31
▶ 59:06The team named the Mak’gora Arena, already in the game files, as the kind of thing that might open only at certain times, like the Darkmoon Faire, and said world bosses have been discussed.
▶ 1:00:03The same day, the live servers received the spells of 2008’s zombie plague event, unannounced: the zombie plague in WoW Forever’s server data.
Proximity voice chat has been discussed a lot, with no plans. ▶ 56:47
Why Forever runs on modern code
Forever is built on the current World of Warcraft code, not on Classic’s, so it picks up security fixes and speed work from the rest of WoW; the engineers credited the housing team for much of the performance.
▶ 7:26It also gave designers tools Classic lacked: Aggrend said that in Season of Discovery they couldn’t easily change talents, and now they can move them around the trees. ▶ 8:26
Next episode
No podcast in launch week. The show returns about two weeks later with a lore episode.
▶ 1:07:32Until then, everything for November 4 is in the launch checklist, and the BoF Guide, our free WoW Forever leveling guide addon, takes every race from 1 to 30.
Questions
Will joining a group move me to another layer in WoW Forever?
Not straight away at launch. Blizzard said in its Oct 29 podcast that joining a group or a guild shows a world refresh prompt with a time window, so you choose when to move. On the beta the game could move you at once.
Can raids be bigger than 40 players in WoW Forever?
Not at launch. Blizzard said in the Oct 29 podcast that groups of 80 to 120 have been discussed but nothing is announced, and that the servers at the end of the beta are what to expect at launch.
Is there a WoW Forever podcast during launch week?
No. Blizzard skips launch week and returns about two weeks after the Oct 29 episode with a lore episode.