WoW: Forever PvP Details Cover Realm Transfers, Battleground Honor, and a Hyjal Dueling Event

Blizzard shared a fresh look at PvP plans for World of Warcraft: Forever during Episode 4 of the WoW Forever Podcast, with host Countdown To Classic joined by Savix, Tips Out, Senior Game Designer Josh “Aggrend” Greenfield, and Lead Designer Tim Jones.

The big takeaway for players choosing a server at launch: there won’t be character transfers between PvP and Normal rulesets. If you start on one ruleset and later decide you want the other, you’ll need to reroll. The team framed that as part of preserving realm identity and keeping those server choices meaningful.

RP-PvP realms also won’t be available at launch. The developers said the concern is splitting the community too thin and weakening realm identity, though they didn’t completely shut the door on the ruleset appearing later.

Open-world PvP layering is still being worked on. The team described fixes as incremental engineering work, with a goal of having improvements ready for the November launch. That said, it’s not guaranteed yet.

Battleground honor is also getting adjusted. Alterac Valley honor gains have been reduced, while other battlegrounds are being buffed to make them more worthwhile. The aim appears to be avoiding one obvious honor grind while giving players more reasons to queue for different maps.

There’s also a more unusual beta plan in the works: a dedicated dueling zone on an unfinished Mount Hyjal map for a $100,000 tournament planned for Week 2 of late beta. Blizzard hopes the space can become permanent later, but for now it’s tied to the test event.

Further reading: Official WoW Forever Podcast Episode 4