Forever: ruleset instead of realm - Normal, PvP, Roleplaying and Hardcore

World of Warcraft: Forever drops the traditional realm choice. Before creating a character you choose a ruleset, meaning the style of play your character lives in. Cross-ruleset grouping is not supported. If you want to switch rulesets, you have to create a new character. A ruleset works more like a broad player ecosystem than a single realm.

• Normal: the standard experience built around exploration, questing and cooperation, with PvP being optional.
• PvP: contested territory with more danger and open-world conflict.
• Roleplaying: for players who want to lean into the fantasy of Azeroth and meet like-minded adventurers.
• Hardcore: the toughest option, where death has lasting consequences. Hardcore is only available some time after launch.

Groups, dungeons and raids work only within the same ruleset. Battlegrounds, on the other hand, can mix players from different rulesets, with Hardcore excluded and fully separate. Horde and Alliance still cannot group together.

Hardcore characters stay in a fully enclosed ecosystem. If one dies, though, it may move to another ruleset, PvP included. The reverse is not possible: progress from other rulesets does not flow back into Hardcore, while things earned in Hardcore can become available elsewhere.

On the PvP ruleset you can only create characters of a single faction: once you have made an Alliance character there, you cannot make a Horde character there, and vice versa. To keep Horde and Alliance populations balanced, Blizzard is planning systems for it; the article points to Season of Discovery as a precedent, where character creation for one faction could be limited temporarily. Normal, Roleplaying and Hardcore allow both factions.

Collections and Legacy Points are shared across rulesets for the whole account. Hardcore is treated separately: things earned there can become available elsewhere, but progress from other rulesets does not count in Hardcore. There is also an account-wide language preference (Game Menu > Options > System > Languages and Social > Preferred Online Language). You then meet players who share that setting. It applies to all characters and can only be changed once every 24 hours.

Original report: Blizzard