Heads up: the news here is real and sourced. The read on what it means for the unannounced Riot MMO is ours, and speculative where labelled. RuneGrove covers everything through one lens: what it tells us about the MMO.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment. Verified against multiple sources; datamines and reports are labelled as such, not stated as fact.
What Happened
WoW: Forever launches November 4 with no realm list: you pick a Ruleset instead.
November 4Launch, 3:00 p.m. PST
NineNew five-player dungeons
December 9Three raids open
The launch
- November 4 launch. Blizzard, the studio behind World of Warcraft, launches Forever, the new branch returning to the 2004-era world with new zones and quests, worldwide at 3:00 p.m. PST (23:00 UTC).
- Realms are gone. Rulesets, the broad player pools replacing them, are Normal, PvP (player versus player), Roleplay (in-character play) and Roleplay PvP. Hardcore arrives after launch.
- No single realm. Blizzard: "Each Ruleset functions as a broad player ecosystem rather than a single traditional realm."
- A late addition. Roleplay PvP is the option Blizzard first said would split its players before adding it.
- Legacy System. This is Forever's account-wide horizontal progression, and all its advantages can be unlocked on one character, Blizzard says.
- Shared campsites. Forever also adds a shared campsite system.
- New content. Blizzard lists more than 1,000 new quests and nine new five-player dungeons for levels 13 to 60.
- December raids. Three raids, Barrow Deeps, Hyjal Summit and Onyxia's Lair, open December 9 for groups of 10, 20 and 40.
The beta
- The CEO's claim. Satya Nadella, CEO of Blizzard's owner Microsoft, called it the "largest beta in franchise history" on the October 28 earnings call, per Kotaku, a games outlet, and Simulation Daily.
- No number. Kotaku says Nadella gave no figure or further context. We read the press reports, not a transcript.
- Unofficial count. ClassicPlus.io, an unofficial tool, suggests more than one million beta characters, Kotaku reports. That isn't a Blizzard figure.
- Developer reaction. Josh Greenfield, a Classic developer at Blizzard, wrote on September 18: "The craziest numbers I've seen in 17 years working at Blizzard and almost 8 years on classic."
- Open entry. Kotaku notes entry included paid bundles, free sign-ups and a free stress test day.
The guild post
- Riot manager recruiting. Orlando Salvatore, whose X bio reads "Senior Engineering Manager @RiotGames on League MMO," posted on October 31: "My guild is looking for more PvP Horde!"
- The poster. The image attached to the post carries the Forever logo and reads "The Horde Needs You."
- A personal post. One person on Riot's team is organizing to play. It says nothing about the MMO and doesn't speak for Riot.
What This Means for the Riot MMO
Riot reset its MMO because the first vision wasn't different enough from what you can play today, and that list is about to grow.
- Riot's own test. Marc Merrill, Riot's co-founder, said on March 20, 2024, announcing the reset: "The initial vision just wasn't different enough from what you can play today."
- A new benchmark. From launch, "what you can play today" includes a new branch Blizzard pitches as exploring Azeroth "at your own pace" with community first.
- Demand, not sales. The beta remark points to current demand for this kind of MMO, but beta size isn't sales or retention, and no player number has been published.
- Server choice tested. Rulesets are a live test of keeping a shared world populated without traditional server choice.
- Population friction. Beta players said leaving a party or crossing a zone line dropped them into another copy of the world, a separate problem any shared world has to solve.
- Power versus play. The Legacy System tries to reward play without raising raw power, a question any new MMO has to answer.
- Nothing from Riot. Riot's MMO has shown no systems, so how it handles servers or progression is unrevealed.
Our read. Forever raises the bar for what counts as different. It says nothing about Riot's plans. If Rulesets keep players together past the December 9 raids, a server list stops being a given for the next MMO. If they don't, picking a server gets its case back.
What to Watch
Your Take
Reader poll
Should the Riot MMO drop server choice the way WoW: Forever drops realms?
Reported from Blizzard Entertainment and corroborating coverage. The MMO read is ours and clearly speculative. Analysis by RuneGrove.
