Full confession: I’m old. I’ve been gaming long enough to remember when Azeroth was new. I’m not referring to World of Warcraft either. I still remember installing Warcraft: Orcs and Humans on my Packard Bell 486 and was elated to move my tiny orcs across the map, uncovering the fog of war and discovering the world of Warcraft. Having now been a part of this incredible franchise for 32 years, having played every title and expansion (yes, that includes Warcraft Adventures), I have many feelings and thoughts about the franchise.
The release of World of Warcraft in 2004 carried with it the same wonder and desire to explore every aspect of this fully realized world as did my first adventures in Orcs and Humans. A lot has happened since those early days of WoW, running around Azeroth on my Tauren Druid, having no idea what I was doing or what the next 22 years of expansions would bring. It hasn’t all been amazing, but it has all been memorable.
So when World of Warcraft: Forever was announced at BlizzCon 2026, I was eager to dive back into this world as I once experienced it. To be honest, I’ve been wrestling, since the announcement, with why I was so excited, especially considering that WoW Classic exists. Having now spent the past week or so, night after night, slowly levelling my new Night Elf Druid, I think I am beginning to get my head around that initial excitement and why World of Warcraft: Forever appeals to this old gamer.
WoW: Forever Captures that Sense of Wonder
While it’s been a blast to play through Classic, Classic Burning Crusade and Classic Wrath of the Lich King over the past couple of years, it was also a stark reminder of how rough MMO’s were in the mid to late 2000s. Levelling was painfully slow; a single mob could be your death if you weren’t paying attention, and having now played for so many years, it’s lost its wonder.
While each expansion brought with it a new area to explore, it also brought new efficiencies that sped up the levelling experience and, especially in later expansions, forced players into faster catch-up-style mechanics because of the sheer amount of content that needed to be covered. It’s a reality of any long-running MMO that pumps out content like Blizzard has; there is a point where no one could experience it all if they are new to the franchise.
In its current state and at least for its immediate future, World of Warcraft: Forever pushes back against this “get through the content to catch up” experience. In its place is a world that invites you to slow down and experience all that Azeroth has to offer. WoW: Forever’s inclusion of new zones, dungeons, loot and skills in the core game provides a unique opportunity to appeal to veteran players who have seen it all.
I’ve loved playing through the early stages of the Alliance campaign, experiencing new quests and narratives in a world that still feels familiar. Perhaps it’s because I spent more time in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms in the early days of World of Warcraft than I have in any subsequent expansion, but this blending of the familiar and unknown has helped foster a new sense of wonder and excitement about exploring the world has to offer.
The Power of Permanence
Another confession: I don’t fully understand how horizontal progression is going to work at level cap, and I’m also not really stressed about it. The horizontal progression, though admittedly still a bit ambiguous in nature, offers the promise of permanence in a gaming culture that advocates for the next new thing. The idea that I’m not levelling a character simply to have to level it again next season is refreshing.
Sure there will be raid tiers and other carrots to chase, but if Blizzard can actually pull off this horizontal progression well, the idea of investing long-term in a character might actually break me of my Altoholic nature. Even now, as a lowly level 17 druid, not even with Cat form yet, I’m slowing down to level all my professions, both primary and secondary, not because I’m a crafter by nature but because this investment will aid my guild long term.
Putting time and energy into mastering those skills, my class, and my build now feels like they have long term impact on my guild and my community. Where retail, in its present state, still provides excellent narrative delivery and great quality-of-life features, I know that in less than two years a new expansion will come out and all that progression, really, will be for nought.
As a casual player, I don’t have the bandwidth to min/max my character’s build every day to be a contributing member of my guild. This is not to say I don’t want to contribute; I truly do. Community is one of the best aspects of an MMO, but I cannot do it at the pace of modern WoW. With the introduction of WoW: Forever, I can now, at my own pace, bring my skills, talents and abilities to a community and contribute in a meaningful way for a long time. That makes gaming fun.
The Desire for Community
Humans are communal by nature; it’s a fact. Sure, some claim stoicism, but if we are all honest, the most comforting sound to any person is the sound of their own name said in a familial tone. We want to be known, maybe not by everyone, but by someone.
When World of Warcraft first released in 2004, community was a core mechanic. No dungeon or raid finder, no summoning stones, no overpowered characters that could pull an entire dungeon single-handedly and live to tell the tale. You needed community to succeed in the World of Warcraft. That, unfortunately, has been lost in retail. For better or worse, WoW retail is the best single-player MMO in existence.
WoW: Forever changes that. I have observed, since launch, an interesting phenomenon happening as I traverse the early zones: people are helping each other. Oftentimes without reward, or even because they need the quest, and mob tagging is a thing! On several occasions now, I’ve grouped up with people while exploring in the hopes of getting through a quest, only to finish collecting a needed item and discover that they had completed it just after we grouped up. They simply wanted to help me finish my quest.
It has happened in other ways too. While running around the open world, random Int and Stam buffs will be bestowed on me out of nowhere, only for me to catch a glimpse of a mage or priest running in the opposite direction. I’ve actually chased down a few of them for no other reason than to make sure they were topped up on their Mark of the Wild.
Or seeing a player cornered in the wilderness by one too many mobs, other players will run to their aid, throwing out a heal or charging in to pull aggro to save that player from the long walk back to their corpse. No XP granted, no loot awarded, just people helping people.
The Campfire system has encouraged community as well. While I’ve not seen too many instances of long chats around a fire, I’ve frequently run across groups of adventurers setting up camps in the wild with multiple buff stations active, only to immediately run off again, simply leaving them for the next adventurer.
The result of all this is that I’ve connected with more people playing WoW in the last week and a change than I had in the past several years, and it’s delightful. I didn’t realize how much I missed this aspect of MMOs, but having now experienced it after so many years of essentially soloing my MMO’s, I don’t want to go back! I’ll take the long road if it means meeting adventurers along the way.
World of Warcraft: Forever — The New, But Old Azeroth
While there have been a lot of sensational headlines around WoW: Forever praising or trashing it for whatever the most recent update or change is, I’ve found my time in this familiar yet new version of Azeroth to be a delight. It has been a long time since I’ve been counting the hours until I could jump back into WoW, and yet I simultaneously don’t feel the pressure to rush through this experience.
If anything, WOW: Forever has created a world I want to experience slowly. I want to soak up every aspect of Azeroth and invite my friends, old and new, to come along for the journey. So, for this old gamer, WoW: Forever is an opportunity to experience some of the best parts of what makes the world of Warcraft special at a pace that I can enjoy.
