WoW: Forever PvP Realm Faction Locks Aren’t Going Away Soon

Blizzard is sticking with faction-based character creation limits on WoW: Forever’s PvP and RP-PvP realms, production director Josh Greenfield said during episode 7 of the official WoW: Forever podcast.

The restrictions were added to keep realm populations from tilting too far toward one faction. On most affected PvP and RP-PvP realms, that means Horde character creation is currently locked down or heavily limited for players who haven’t already made one.

Greenfield said the team has “tightened it up” and told players who still haven’t created a Horde character that they should “start making other arrangements.” In practical terms, that means rolling Alliance, choosing another ruleset, or joining friends somewhere else if their group is already settled on Horde.

According to Greenfield, Blizzard usually allows about a 10% faction population difference at launch, and the current PvP realms have already hit that cap. He also said the team has looked at faction balance by zone, not just by realm, and made adjustments intended to make individual leveling areas feel fairer.

Greenfield also pushed back on a rumor that trial accounts or level 1 characters were being used to manipulate the balance system. “That does not have an impact,” he said. “That is not how the system works.”

Faction balance has been a recurring headache for World of Warcraft PvP realms for years, especially once one side becomes the obvious place to play. Blizzard’s current stance is clear enough: short-term inconvenience is preferable to launching PvP realms that quickly become one-sided.