Before World of Warcraft: Forever asks for your class, which is how you fight and play, or your name, it asks how the game should\nlook and behave. Blizzard's\nnew player's starter guide of 28 October\nsays your first login asks you to Choose Your Experience Preset. You pick Classic or Enhanced.
\nYou make this choice once, on your first login, before you pick a ruleset, which is the kind of\nworld a character lives in. Blizzard says you won't see the screen again after that. Our\nrulesets guide covers that second choice.
\nClassic is the old-school look. Blizzard calls it a more traditional presentation, with\nsimpler visuals, standard character models and fewer modern interface features switched on. It\nsays that makes for a cleaner experience, closer to the original, with less automatic guidance.
\nEnhanced is the updated look. Blizzard says it has higher visual fidelity and more interface\nfeatures switched on from the start.
\nBlizzard lists each preset's starting settings separately. Here they are side by side.
\n| Setting | \nClassic | \nEnhanced | \n
|---|---|---|
| Character models | \nStandard Definition | \nHigh Definition | \n
| Quest points of interest and objective blobs, markers for quests, the tasks characters in the world hand you | \nOff | \nOn | \n
| One-bag, a setting for your bags, which hold your items | \nOff | \nOn | \n
| Transmog, a system that changes how gear looks without changing what it does | \nOff | \nOn | \n
| Default key bindings | \nCamera turning, which means turning to face a new way | \nStrafe movement, which means stepping sideways | \n
| Screen layout | \nThe classic layout | \nA centralized layout | \n
Our reading of the table: Classic suits players who want what Blizzard calls less automatic\nguidance. Enhanced suits newer players, or anyone who wants more help on screen.
\nBlizzard's advice: if you're not sure, start with Enhanced. The preset is a starting point, not a\nlock. You can change its individual settings later: press Escape for the Game Menu, then pick\nOptions.
\nCharacter models can be changed later too. Each time you make a new character, you pick High Definition\nor Standard Definition models and animations. High Definition is the more detailed, updated look.\nStandard Definition is the style of the original game. Blizzard says it only changes how a\ncharacter looks, not its abilities or progress. You can change it later in the Options menu or at\na Barbershop, the in-game shop for changing a character's look.
\nOur launch guide has the dates, and the talent calculator lets you plan your talents, the extra\npowers a character picks as it levels, before you log in.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-29T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-10-29T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-experience-preset/", "summary": "Your first WoW: Forever login asks you to pick an Experience Preset, Classic or Enhanced. What each one sets, and which Blizzard suggests if you're unsure.", "title": "WoW: Forever's first-login choice: Classic or Enhanced, and what each one sets", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-experience-preset/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Blizzard is changing the racials, the bonuses a character gets from its race, for seven races in\nWorld of Warcraft: Forever, a new version of World of Warcraft. Its\ndevelopment notes of 26 October,\nupdated on 27 October, trim some bonuses, raise others and swap two out. If you're picking a\nrace, here is every change in one place.
\nThe seven, as Blizzard's notes group them, are Humans, Dwarves, Tauren, Orcs, Trolls, the Undead\nand the Skyborne, each a race you can play. The Skyborne come in two sides, one for each of the\ngame's two factions, the Alliance and the Horde, so the game files list them as two races. In\nthose files, Read Leyline belongs to the Alliance side and Skysight to the Horde side.
\n| Race | \nRacial | \nWhat changed | \n
|---|---|---|
| Human | \nRuthless | \n1% more critical strike chance (was 2%) | \n
| Human | \nHuman Spirit | \n10% more Spirit (was 5%) | \n
| Dwarf | \nEarth Fury | \nRemoved. It gave 2% more critical strike damage and healing | \n
| Dwarf | \nArtisan's Precision | \nNew: 1% more hit chance with spells and attacks | \n
| Tauren | \nPlainsrunning | \n2% more movement speed per stack (was 1%), up to 60% in total (was 30%). It no longer speeds up mounted travel | \n
| Tauren | \nEndurance | \nNow just 5% more Health, with no hit chance or critical damage bonus | \n
| Orc | \nSavage | \nRemoved. It gave 1% more critical strike chance | \n
| Orc | \nCommand | \nBack: 5% more damage for Warlock and Hunter pets | \n
| Orc | \nBlood Fury | \nCooldown cut to 2 minutes (was 3) | \n
| Troll | \nBerserking | \nLasts 15 seconds (was 10) | \n
| Undead | \nTouch of the Grave | \nInternal cooldown cut to 15 seconds (was 25) | \n
| Skyborne | \nWind Blessed | \nHaste bonus cut to 2% (was 3%) | \n
| Skyborne | \nRead Leyline | \n50% more Health and Mana regeneration for 15 seconds (was 100%) | \n
| Skyborne | \nSkysight | \n15% more movement speed for 15 seconds (was 10%) | \n
A few plain words for that table. Critical strike chance is the chance a hit lands for extra\ndamage. Hit chance is the chance an attack or spell lands at all. Spirit is a stat tied to how\nfast Health and Mana come back. Haste makes attacks and spells come faster. A cooldown is the\nwait before you can use an ability again, and a stack is one layer of a bonus that builds up.\nHealth is how much damage a character can take, and Mana is what spells cost. Blood Fury,\nBerserking and Touch of the Grave are abilities that come with those races. Warlock and Hunter\nare two of the game's classes, the kind of character you play, and both fight beside a pet.
\nRead Leyline and Skysight also get a stronger version. Use Read Leyline at a Ley Line, a spot the notes name in the world, and you get\n"Attuned" for an hour, which takes it back to 100%. Use Skysight at an elemental convergence,\nanother such spot, and you get "Charged" for an hour, which makes it 30%. Blizzard clarified on 27 October that both\nlast through death and go away when you enter a raid, a dungeon (a group's private copy of a place to fight\nthrough) built for a large group. Read\nLeyline can't be used while Innervate, a Druid spell, is active, and Innervate replaces it as\nthe stronger effect.
\nBlizzard's notes say the feedback went two ways. Some players felt some of the new racial traits\nwere too generic. Others raised concerns that some are objectively stronger than others.
\nIts answer is to put racial identity first. Blizzard says that means some races will be slightly\nmore effective than others at some combat roles. In some places where it had swapped role- or\nclass-focused racials for generic ones, it is rolling those back. Our reading is that Orc\nCommand, back for Warlock and Hunter pets, is one of those.
\nBlizzard names one exception to that rollback: the weapon specialization racials, like Human\nSword Specialization or Orc Axe Specialization. It says it isn't healthy in the long run for\nloot, the gear that bosses drop, from future raids and dungeons to be judged by "required"\nweapon types. It's also tuning some of the passive bonuses that remain, the ones that are always\non, so they don't steer players away from what they'd\nrather pick.
\nWe read racials straight from the game's own files. Build\n1.60.1.70707, which we read on 30 October, doesn't carry the changes we can check yet. A build is one\nversion of the game program.
\n| Racial | \nBlizzard's 26 October notes | \nGame files, build 1.60.1.70707 | \n
|---|---|---|
| Ruthless (Human) | \n1% critical strike chance | \n2% | \n
| Human Spirit (Human) | \n10% Spirit | \n5% | \n
| Earth Fury (Dwarf) | \nRemoved | \nStill there, 2% | \n
| Artisan's Precision (Dwarf) | \nNew, 1% hit chance | \nNot there | \n
| Plainsrunning (Tauren) | \n2% a stack, up to 60%, no mounted bonus | \n1% every 5 seconds spent moving, up to 30%, and 3% faster while mounted | \n
| Endurance (Tauren) | \n5% Health only | \n5% Health and 2% critical bonus | \n
| Savage (Orc) | \nRemoved | \nStill there, 1% | \n
| Command (Orc) | \nBack, 5% pet damage | \nNot there | \n
| Wind Blessed (Skyborne) | \n2% Haste | \n3% | \n
| Read Leyline (Skyborne) | \n50% for 15 seconds | \n100%, for 30 seconds with no leyline nearby or 15 minutes at one | \n
| Skysight (Skyborne) | \n15% for 15 seconds | \n10%, for 30 seconds with no convergence nearby or 15 minutes at one | \n
Blood Fury's cooldown, Berserking's length and Touch of the Grave's internal cooldown don't show\nas numbers in the trait text we read, so we can't compare those three. Berserking's text\npoints to a spell this build doesn't contain, so its length can't be read at all.
\nOur reading is that the files lag the notes, and a later build will catch up. We read\neach new build, and this table will change when the files do.
\nOur reading is that this is the right call for a game that's old school at heart. A Tauren who\ncan build up to 60% more speed, and an Orc whose pets hit harder, say something about who those\npeople are. A flat critical strike bonus, like the Orc's Savage that's going away, says much less.
\nKeeping weapon bonuses out is fair too, if it means nobody is told to make a character of one race just\nto use a sword. And Blizzard's own word for the gaps is "slightly". So if you're making a character now,\npick the race you like the look of.
\nOur Skyborne guide has both Skyborne sides and every one of their\nracials. Our rulesets piece helps you pick the kind of world to\nplay in, and the name reservation piece covers names.\nBlizzard's notes in full are on our patch notes page.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-30T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-10-28T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-racial-changes/", "summary": "Blizzard's notes of 26 and 27 October change racials for seven WoW: Forever races. Every change, why Blizzard made them, and what the game files still say.", "title": "WoW: Forever racial changes: what Blizzard is changing for seven races", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-racial-changes/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "World of Warcraft: Forever (WoW: Forever for short), a new version of World of Warcraft, adds nine\nnew dungeons, for levels 13 to 60.\nBlizzard, the company that makes the game, posted\na dungeon guide\non 20 October with each one's level range and where to find it. Six sit in the Eastern Kingdoms\nand three in Kalimdor, two of the game's continents.
\nA dungeon is a private copy of a place, built for a group of five players to fight through\ntogether. A level is a number that rises as a character plays, and each dungeon is made for a\nband of levels. Blizzard says each of the nine brings new threats, quests and adventures, rooted\nin the original game. A quest is a task a character takes on for a reward. Further down, we compare Blizzard's list\nwith the dungeons and raids the beta (the test version people could play before release) has on\nits own list. A raid is a bigger dungeon for a larger group.
\nHere are all nine, lowest level first, in one list.
\n| Dungeon | \nLevels | \nWhere | \nContinent | \n
|---|---|---|---|
| Hall of Thanes | \n13 to 18 | \nBeneath Ironforge, in Dun Morogh | \nEastern Kingdoms | \n
| Ruins of Lordaeron | \n15 to 20 | \nThe ruined city above the Undercity, in Tirisfal Glades | \nEastern Kingdoms | \n
| Excavation Site | \n24 to 29 | \nAbove Whelgar's Excavation, near Thelgen Rock and Dun Algaz, in the Wetlands | \nEastern Kingdoms | \n
| City of Dalaran | \n28 to 33 | \nAlterac Mountains | \nEastern Kingdoms | \n
| The Drowned City | \n35 to 40 | \nOff the coast of Stranglethorn Vale, west of Grom'gol | \nEastern Kingdoms | \n
| Krol'dok Stronghold | \n40 to 45 | \nRiverglades | \nEastern Kingdoms | \n
| Alcaz Prison | \n48 to 53 | \nAlcaz Island, in Dustwallow Marsh | \nKalimdor | \n
| Blackmaw Hold | \n55 to 60 | \nAzshara | \nKalimdor | \n
| Shaper's Terrace | \n58 to 60 | \nThe northern hills of Un'Goro Crater | \nKalimdor | \n
Every place in the Where column is a zone, a region of the world map, or a spot in one.\nBlackmaw Hold and Shaper's Terrace both reach level 60, the top of Blizzard's range. Blizzard\ncalls Blackmaw Hold a "substantial max-level adventure". Max level is the highest level a\ncharacter can reach.
\nThe Alliance and the Horde are the game's two factions, the sides every character picks\nbetween. Blizzard flags two of the new dungeons as easy for one side to reach and a journey\nfor the other. Hall of Thanes is beneath Ironforge, an Alliance capital city, so Alliance players can reach it easily from\ninside it. Horde groups have to travel into Alliance land to get there.
\nRuins of Lordaeron is the mirror image. It sits above the Undercity, and Blizzard says Horde\nplayers can reach it easily from there, while Alliance groups have to go into Horde land. Our take: a dungeon you reach by\nmarching through the other side's country is the old school kind of trip, and we like it.
\nCity of Dalaran needs an attunement first, a chain of quests that unlocks the way in. Blizzard's\nguide gives a step like this for no other dungeon of the nine.
\nAlliance players start with the\nquest "An Alarming Request" from Emissary Jacques, a character in the game, in Southshore. Horde\nplayers start with "Key to the City" and "Prison Break-In" from Magus Wordeen Voidglare, another\ncharacter in the game, in Tarren Mill. Southshore and Tarren\nMill are two of the game's towns.
\nOnce the Kirin Tor, a group of mages, trust you, your group goes in through the sewers. Inside,\nspells are going wrong and magic machines are running loose. Blizzard says you pick between\nseveral paths and fights on the way to the cause.
\nBlizzard gives each one a short story. In our words:
\nFour of the nine are already on the beta client's own group finder list, the list of\ndungeons and raids the game can put a group together for. The client is the game program players\ninstall, and we read that list from its files. The four are\nHall of Thanes, Ruins of Lordaeron, Excavation Site and City of Dalaran.
\nThe client calls the third one Excavation Site: Wetlands. The other five, from The Drowned City\nto Shaper's Terrace, are not on that list in build 1.60.1.70450 (a build is one version of the\ntest game).
\nExcavation Site's numbers also differ between two of Blizzard's posts. Blizzard's notes for the\n1 October beta build\nlisted the new dungeon with "(26-31)" beside its name, which we read as levels 26 to 31. The 20\nOctober guide says levels 24 to 29, two lower at both ends, and does not say why. Our reading is\nthat Blizzard changed the range during the beta.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-29T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-10-20T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-new-dungeons/", "summary": "Blizzard's guide to the nine new WoW: Forever dungeons in plain words: levels 13 to 60, where each one sits, and the two Blizzard flags as a trek.", "title": "WoW: Forever new dungeons: all nine, with levels and locations", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-new-dungeons/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "World of Warcraft: Forever (WoW: Forever for short), a new version of World of Warcraft, opens its\nfirst three raids on 9 December. Blizzard, the company that makes the game, posted\na raid overview\non 20 October. It names the Barrow Deeps for 10 players, Hyjal Summit for 20 and Onyxia's Lair\nfor 40.
\nA raid is a dungeon built for a large group, a dungeon being a private copy of a place to fight\nthrough. Blizzard says the three will test a group's teamwork. All three are for level 60\ncharacters. A level is a number that rises as a character plays. Blizzard calls the Barrow Deeps a\nmaximum-level raid, which we read as 60 being the top level.
\nHere are the three, smallest group first.
\n| Raid | \nPlayers | \nBosses | \nWhere | \n
|---|---|---|---|
| The Barrow Deeps | \n10 | \n8 | \nInside Mount Hyjal, with ways in from Mount Hyjal, Winterspring and Blackmaw Hold | \n
| Hyjal Summit | \n20 | \n13 | \nThe top of Mount Hyjal, near the World Tree, Nordrassil | \n
| Onyxia's Lair | \n40 | \nNot given as a count | \nDustwallow Marsh | \n
Every place in the Where column is a zone, a region of the world map, or a spot in one. Blackmaw\nHold is one of nine new dungeons in Blizzard's\ndungeon guide. A boss is one of the toughest enemies in a raid. Blizzard gives a boss count for two of the\nthree. For Onyxia's Lair it describes one fight, against Onyxia herself.
\nBlizzard says all three raids are currently planned to reset each week. A reset lets a group\nrun the raid again.
\nBlizzard gives each one a short story. In our words:
\nBlizzard tells players to build up fire resistance before Onyxia. Fire resistance is a stat, a\nnumber on a character, that cuts the damage fire does. The group should also be ready to move\naround as the fight changes.
\nEvery player in the raid needs the Drakefire Amulet. You earn it through an attunement, a chain of\nquests that unlocks the way in, and a quest is a task a character takes on for a reward. The\nAlliance and the Horde are the game's factions, and each has its own chain.
\nBlizzard's advice is to start early and bring friends for the elite quests, which are quests too\nhard to do alone. The chains also send you into high-level dungeons several times. The amulet\nonly has to be in your bags when you go in. It doesn't have to be worn.
\nThe Alliance chain, in our words:
\nThe Horde chain, in our words:
\nOnly Onyxia's Lair is both in Blizzard's overview and on the beta's own list so far. The beta (the\ntest version people could play before release) has a client, the game program players install. It keeps a\nlist of the dungeons and raids it can put a group together for.
\nWe read that list from the client's own files, and in build 1.60.1.70450 (a build is one\nversion of the test game) it holds four raids. Three of them are ones the overview\ndoesn't name: Molten Core (one of the game's raid dungeons), Blackwing Lair and Zul'Gurub.
\n| Raid | \nIn Blizzard's 20 October overview | \nOn the beta client's list | \n
|---|---|---|
| The Barrow Deeps | \nYes, 10 players | \nNo | \n
| Hyjal Summit | \nYes, 20 players | \nNo | \n
| Onyxia's Lair | \nYes, 40 players | \nYes, as "Onyxia", 40 players | \n
| Molten Core | \nNo | \nYes, 40 players | \n
| Blackwing Lair | \nNo | \nYes, 40 players | \n
| Zul'Gurub | \nNo | \nYes, 20 players | \n
Our reading is that the client list shows\nwhat the beta's files hold, not what opens on 9 December.
\nBlizzard's Forever page puts launch on 4\nNovember. Blizzard says the 9 December date gives players time after launch to\nreach level 60 and get their groups ready. Our maths: that's 35 days, five weeks to the day.
\nThe launch date, the name reservation window and the raid day are all on our\ncalendar, and our release date piece covers launch\nday. The new dungeons piece covers Blackmaw Hold, one of the\nways into the Barrow Deeps. Planning a raid character? Our\ntalent calculator shows every class's choices.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-29T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-10-20T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-raids/", "summary": "The three WoW: Forever raids opening on 9 December in plain words: where each one is, how many players it takes, and the Onyxia attunement chain for each side.", "title": "WoW: Forever raids: Barrow Deeps, Hyjal Summit and Onyxia's Lair on 9 December", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-raids/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Blizzard's Paladin class deep dive for World of Warcraft: Forever (WoW: Forever for short) went up on\n15 October, the last in the series. Blizzard's post\nlists the class's ability and talent changes. The short version: every Paladin gets Holy Strike, a new tanking Seal and Consecration at level 20,\nand Retribution gets a new kind of Seal Twisting.
\nThe Paladin is a holy warrior who can heal, tank (hold enemies' attention so others can fight) or\ndeal damage up close. Its Seals are buffs it puts on itself that add an effect to its attacks, and\nJudgement is an ability that strikes an enemy with the power of the active Seal. Blizzard says the\nclass may keep changing through the beta, the test version people could play before release. For the\nother classes, see our pieces on the Hunter and Druid,\nthe Priest and Warrior,\nthe Mage and Shaman and\nthe Rogue and Warlock.
\nTalents are upgrades you buy with points to shape a character inside their class, laid out in\nthree trees for each class. In our talent calculator, rows further down a tree need more points\nspent in it first.
\nBlizzard says talents start at level 10 and keep a familiar structure. The one-point milestone\ntalents at 11, 21 and 31 points stay, and a new one joins at 16 points. Blizzard calls these gold\nmedal talents. The table below lists the ones the post names.
\nTo change your talents, Legacy talents included, you visit a\nclass trainer, the in-game teacher for your class, in one of the major cities. Dual\nSpecialization, a second saved talent setup, opens at level 40.
\nA Paladin's three trees are Holy (healing and Holy spells), Protection (tanking) and Retribution\n(melee damage). Here are the baseline changes, the ones every Paladin gets.
\n| Ability | \nThe change | \n
|---|---|
| Holy Strike | \nNew at level 6: instant Holy damage based on 50% of your weapon damage, plus a bonus that grows with each rank | \n
| Seal of Fury | \nNew at level 10: bonus Holy damage on every swing, a shield worth 50% of that damage, and a Judgement that taunts | \n
| Judgement | \nNo longer uses up your active Seal | \n
| Consecration | \nLearned by every Paladin at level 20, no longer a Holy talent: moderate damage to the first 4 enemies to enter it, very low damage to the rest | \n
| Lay on Hands | \nCooldown, the wait before you can use it again, cut to 20 minutes from 1 hour | \n
| Salvation | \nNo longer a Blessing, so a target can have both; the version for a whole class in a raid is now Mass Salvation. Not in the beta yet | \n
| Righteous Fury | \nA smaller threat bonus (threat is how badly monsters want to hit you) | \n
| Fire, Frost and Shadow Resistance Auras | \nNow cover all raid members within 30 yards | \n
A raid is a group of players taking on a dungeon built for a large group. Blizzard says Seal of\nFury's bonus damage is the same on every swing, unlike Seal of Righteousness, so it favours a fast\nweapon while tanking. Its shield doesn't stack. A taunt makes an enemy attack you, and this one has\na 10-yard reach, where a Druid's Growl and a Warrior's Taunt have 5. Blizzard says that lets a\nPaladin reach enemies farther away than other tanks can.
\nRighteous Fury's bonus drops because Protection Paladins have more Holy damage than in Classic Era,\nthe re-released original game. Blizzard says Consecration's 4-enemy limit keeps Paladins level with\nthe Warrior's Thunderclap on threat, and keeps the Classic Era feel instead of the area-damage play\nof early expansions.
\nSeal Twisting is swapping between Seals mid-fight to get more than one Seal's effect. Blizzard says\nit no longer works baseline, as it did in Classic Era and Classic Anniversary. Instead it comes\nthrough Twist of Light, the new 31-point Retribution talent, which Blizzard says keeps the swapping\nbut makes it easier and less strict on timing.
\nTwist of Light makes Seals 20% cheaper in Mana, the resource a Paladin spends on spells. When you\nreplace a damage Seal, it leaves an Echo, so your next melee attack gets the old Seal's effect as\nwell as the new one's. Blizzard says the Mana will be hard to keep up forever, and points to\nJudgement of Wisdom and the Holy talent Reverence to help. For players who would rather skip all\nthat, Holy Shock sits in Holy as the other route, for a build that mixes in Holy talents.
\n| Tree | \nPoints | \nTalent | \nWhat it does | \n
|---|---|---|---|
| Holy | \n11 | \nVoice of Truth | \nNew ability: immunity to Silence and Interrupt for 6 seconds, 3-minute cooldown | \n
| Holy | \n16 | \nDivine Favor | \nNow the 16-point talent, not the 21 | \n
| Holy | \n21 | \nHoly Shock | \nNow the 21-point talent, not the 31, and its cooldown drops to 10 seconds from 30 | \n
| Holy | \n31 | \nLight's Vigil | \nNew: put it on an ally or an enemy, and your next Holy Shock on them triggers no cooldown | \n
| Protection | \n11 | \nImproved Seal of Fury | \nNew: Mana back each time a Seal of Fury shield is used up, more against higher-level attackers | \n
| Protection | \n16 | \nSwift Judgement | \nNew ability: ends Judgement's cooldown and makes your next Judgement free, 1-minute cooldown | \n
| Protection | \n21 | \nTemplar's Bulwark | \nNew: a shield worth 100% of your maximum health for 8 seconds, 5-minute cooldown | \n
| Retribution | \n16 | \nSacred Arbiter | \nNew: 20% more Holy Strike damage, and Holy Strike refreshes every Judgement on the target, even other Paladins' | \n
| Retribution | \n21 | \nRepentance | \nNow the 21-point talent, not the 31 | \n
| Retribution | \n31 | \nTwist of Light | \nNew: cheaper Seals, and a replaced damage Seal leaves an Echo | \n
Silence stops a target casting spells, and Interrupt cuts off the spell being cast. Light's Vigil\non an enemy deals extra Holy damage and refunds 75% of its Mana cost. On an ally, it heals every\nmember of that ally's party, the small group they play in. Blizzard says a Holy Paladin can set it\nup on several parties in a raid, then fire Holy Shock back to back when the whole raid takes a big\nhit.
\nTemplar's Bulwark applies Forbearance, a lingering effect that blocks some protective spells while\nit lasts, and it can't be used while Forbearance is on you. Blizzard says Protection needed a\nsurvival cooldown like other tanks have. Holy Shield now needs Templar's Bulwark first.
\nEach tree also gets new and moved talents beyond the milestones. Here are the main ones the post explains, tree by tree.
\nHoly. Healing Light and Unyielding Faith move up to row 2. Reverence, new on row 3, keeps up\nto 30% of your Mana regeneration from Spirit going while you cast. Infusion of Light, new on row 4,\nlets Holy Shock and Flash of Light critical hits, extra-strong ones, cut up to 1 second off your\nnext Holy Light. Divine Precision adds up to 18% hit chance with Holy spells, because Blizzard\ndoesn't plan hit chance on plate healing gear. Illumination's Mana refund drops to 50% of the\nspell's base cost, which Blizzard says was historically too strong.
\nProtection. Improved Righteous Fury no longer raises threat: it cuts damage taken by up to 6%\nwhile Righteous Fury is on. Sacred Duty, new on row 3, adds up to 4% Stamina and takes up to 1\nminute off Divine Shield, Divine Protection and Templar's Bulwark. Reckoning can now also trigger\nafter a block, no more than once every 1.5 seconds. On 15 October Blizzard said Reckoning could not yet save up 4 charges and that a fix was planned. Blessing of Sanctuary and Improved Concentration Aura are removed, and Blessing of\nKings becomes baseline.
\nRetribution. Sanctified Judgement, new on row 3, can refund up to 60% of the judged Seal's\ncost. Vengeance now lasts 30 seconds and stacks 3 times at up to 3% each, 9% in all. Before, it\ngave up to 15% for 8 seconds and fell off often. Pursuit of Justice goes up to 15% movement speed\nfrom 8%. Champion of the Light, new on row 6, turns up to 30% of your Intellect into spell damage, the post says.\nImproved Retribution Aura and Sanctity Aura are removed.
\nOur favourite is Seal of Fury, the new tanking Seal every Paladin learns at level 10. Each swing adds Holy damage, half of that comes back as a shield, and its Judgement taunts from 10 yards where a Druid's Growl and a Warrior's Taunt reach 5. Our reading: that lets a Paladin tank grab an enemy those two can't reach yet.
\nOur talent calculator is built from the beta's own game files,\nnow Forever build 1.60.1.70707 of 30 October. Every new talent the post names is in it, and every\nmilestone talent sits at the points the post gives. Five details differ, and here is how we read\nthem.
\n| The post says | \nThe calculator shows | \nOur reading | \n
|---|---|---|
| Iron Creed raises Holy Strike threat by up to 15% | \n25% at the top rank | \nThe two differ, and we go by the beta's own files | \n
| Shield Specialization's blocks restore 6% of maximum Mana | \n4% | \nThe two differ, and we go by the beta's own files | \n
| Eye for an Eye moves down to row 5 | \nRow 4 of Retribution | \nThe two differ, and we go by the beta's own files | \n
| Holy Conduit cheapens Consecration, Holy Wrath and Exorcism | \nHammer of Wrath too | \nThe files add one spell the post doesn't name | \n
| Champion of the Light turns up to 30% of your Intellect into spell damage | \nUp to 60% at the top rank, since the 28 October build | \nThe post also says the beta once gave 100%, then Blizzard cut it to 60%. The files are back at 60% | \n
The calculator also drops two talents the post never names: Improved Devotion Aura from Protection\nand Improved Blessing of Might from Retribution. We refresh the calculator as new beta builds\nappear. The Paladin class page shows which Paladin abilities are new since\nClassic Era.
\nBlizzard sums up the class like this.
\nPaladin is the last class deep dive. Blizzard says it will keep listening to feedback as the beta\nnears its end, ahead of the worldwide launch on 4 November.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-30T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-10-17T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-paladin-changes/", "summary": "Blizzard's Paladin deep dive for WoW: Forever in plain words: Holy Strike at level 6, a tanking Seal that taunts, Holy Shock at 21 points, Twist of Light.", "title": "WoW: Forever Paladin changes: Holy Strike, Seal of Fury, Seal Twisting", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-paladin-changes/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Blizzard's Rogue and Warlock class deep dive for World of Warcraft: Forever (WoW: Forever for short)\nwent up on 7 October. Blizzard's post\nlists their ability and talent changes. The short version: every Rogue can now learn one-handed axes,\nand Sap no longer breaks Stealth. New Rogue talents include Mutilate and Venom. Warlocks get Banes and pets that scale\nwith the Warlock's own stats.
\nThe Rogue is a sneaky melee fighter. It moves unseen in Stealth, uses Poisons, and spends Energy, the\nresource behind its attacks. Its attacks build Combo Points, charges that a finishing move then\nspends. The Warlock is a caster of dark Shadow and Fire magic who summons demons to\nfight beside it. Its Curses are spells that harm or weaken a target. Blizzard says both classes may keep changing through the beta, the test version\npeople could play before release. For the classes so far, see our pieces on\nthe Hunter and Druid,\nthe Priest and Warrior and\nthe Mage and Shaman.
\nTalents are upgrades you buy with points to shape a character inside their class, laid out in\nthree trees for each of these classes. In our talent calculator, rows further down a tree need\nmore points spent in it first.
\nBlizzard says talents start at level 10 and keep a familiar structure. The one-point milestone talents at\n11, 21 and 31 points stay, and a new one joins at 16 points. Blizzard calls these gold medal\ntalents. The tables below list the ones the post names.
\nTo change your talents, Legacy talents included, you visit a\nclass trainer, the in-game teacher for your class, in one of the major cities. Dual\nSpecialization, a second saved talent setup, opens at level 40.
\nA Rogue's three trees are Assassination (poisons and daggers), Combat (hard-hitting direct damage) and\nSubtlety (combat tricks and Bleeds, wounds that keep hurting). Here are the baseline changes, the ones every Rogue gets.
\n| Ability | \nThe change | \n
|---|---|
| Poisons | \nMore charges on every poison, and they now work alongside weightstones and sharpening stones | \n
| Sap | \nPuts an enemy out of action, and using it no longer breaks Stealth | \n
| Distract | \nAlso lowers affected enemies' Stealth detection for 10 seconds | \n
| Feint | \nTwice the threat reduction (threat is how badly monsters want to hit you) | \n
| Expose Armor | \nCuts armor as much as 5 stacks of Sunder Armor, an ability of the Warrior class, at about the same level | \n
| Axes | \nRogues can now learn one-handed axes | \n
Blizzard says the Sap change is because it wants Rogues to bring crowd control, a way to take an enemy out of a fight, that\nneeds their own skills, like Stealth and Distract, to set up. It says this helps parties and raids,\nthe small and large teams players form, when a pack of monsters is too big to tank safely. To tank\nis to hold the monsters' attention while others fight. The Distract change has a catch: enemy players will know a Rogue is nearby.
\nExpose Armor also no longer stops a Warrior using Sunder Armor on the same target, though Sunder\nArmor still won't replace Expose Armor unless its effect is weaker. Blizzard says\nthat lets Warriors build threat without Expose Armor getting in the way. On axes, it says Rogues\ninclude brigands and outlaws, who often carry axes in fantasy and medieval stories.
\n| Tree | \nPoints | \nTalent | \nWhat it does | \n
|---|---|---|---|
| Assassination | \n16 | \nCold Blood | \nNow the 16-point talent, not the 21, and also works with Mutilate | \n
| Assassination | \n21 | \nMutilate | \nNew: 60 Energy, strikes with both weapons (both must be daggers), more damage on a poisoned target, 2 Combo Points | \n
| Assassination | \n31 | \nVenom | \nNew finisher: 25 Energy, 30% more Poison damage and 10% more chance to apply Poisons, its length set by the Combo Points spent | \n
| Combat | \n16 | \nFlawless Execution | \nNew: Eviscerate, a finishing move, costs 10 less Energy | \n
| Subtlety | \n16 | \nPremeditation | \nNow the 16-point talent, not the 31, and lasts 20 seconds | \n
| Subtlety | \n31 | \nThousand Cuts | \nNew: each time Rupture deals damage, your next Hemorrhage or Backstab costs 3 less Energy, stacking up to 5 times | \n
Vigor used to be Assassination's 31-point talent. It's now a 2-point talent on row 5 with the same\ntotal effect. Blizzard expects Assassination Rogues to spend their finishers keeping Venom and Slice\nand Dice up, with damage finishers like Rupture and Eviscerate a lower priority. Improved Poisons\nnow also gives a large chance for a Poison not to use up a charge.
\nCombat loses four weapon talents: Dagger, Mace, Sword and Fist Weapon Specialization. A new row 5\ntalent, Hack and Slash, combines them and adds a bonus for axes. Axes get the same bonus as\nswords, a chance at an extra attack. Hack and Slash's mace bonus now lets attacks ignore some of the target's armor instead of a\nchance to stun. Subtlety loses Sleight of Hand and Deadliness.
\nBlizzard wants Combat and Subtlety to support both Backstab and Sinister Strike builds, two\nRogue attacks. Aggression now boosts Backstab in Combat. In Subtlety, Quietus adds\ndamage to Sinister Strike, Ghostly Strike and Hemorrhage against targets below 35% health.\nCutthroat gives Backstab a chance to let your next Ambush work without Stealth.
\nOur favourite is Mutilate, the new 21-point talent in Assassination. For 60 Energy it strikes with\nboth hands, and both must be daggers. It hits harder on a poisoned target and gives 2 Combo Points.\nOur reading: two daggers, two hits, two points, a talent that knows exactly what it's for.
\nA Warlock's three trees are Affliction (damage over time and draining), Demonology (the Warlock and its demon) and\nDestruction (Fire and Shadow spells). Here are the baseline changes, the ones every Warlock\ngets.
\n| Ability | \nThe change | \n
|---|---|
| Curse of Agony, Curse of Doom | \nNow Banes, a separate group for damaging Curses: one Bane per Warlock on a target, and anything that worked with Curses works with Banes | \n
| Curse of the Elements | \nNow applies to all magic damage | \n
| Curse of Shadows | \nRemoved | \n
| Firestone | \nNow a weapon imbue, a spell on your weapon: more Fire damage and critical strike chance (a critical strike is an extra-hard hit) | \n
| Spellstone | \nNow a weapon imbue: more Shadow damage and faster spellcasting | \n
| Life Tap | \nNow scales with Spirit, one of the game's stats | \n
| Drain Soul | \nEach tick has a rising chance to give a Soul Shard, until one is certain | \n
| Pets | \nNow scale from their summoner's stats | \n
Firestone and Spellstone now stack with other temporary enchantments like wizard oil. A Soul\nShard is an item some Warlock spells use up.
\n| Tree | \nPoints | \nTalent | \nWhat it does | \n
|---|---|---|---|
| Affliction | \n16 | \nCurse of Exhaustion | \nMoves up from row 5 to row 4, and slows the target by 30% | \n
| Affliction | \n31 | \nWrack | \nNew: Shadow damage every second, and 10% more damage from your other Shadow damage-over-time spells for 6 seconds | \n
| Demonology | \n11 | \nDemonic Sacrifice | \nRedesigned: the effects last 2 hours and change by demon | \n
| Demonology | \n16 | \nFel Domination | \nNow needs Master Summoner first | \n
| Demonology | \n21 | \nSoul Link | \nNow the 21-point talent, not the 31 | \n
| Demonology | \n31 | \nDemonic Pact | \nNew: needs Soul Link; summoning a different pet no longer cancels Demonic Sacrifice | \n
| Destruction | \n16 | \nConflagrate | \nMoves up from row 7 to row 4 | \n
| Destruction | \n21 | \nBane of Havoc | \nNew: for 5 minutes, 15% of your damage to other targets also hits the cursed one | \n
| Destruction | \n31 | \nIncinerate | \nNew: needs Bane of Havoc; a 2.5-second Fire cast, 25% more damage if Immolate is on the target | \n
Demonic Sacrifice gives up your demon for a bonus. Now the Imp raises Shadow damage, the\nVoidwalker restores Mana and the Succubus or Incubus raises Fire damage. The Felhunter restores\nHealth. Resummoning the sacrificed pet still cancels the effect under Demonic Pact. Blizzard says\nDemonic Pact lets Warlocks, for the first time, have Demonic Sacrifice and Master Demonologist at\nonce.
\nThe post says Affliction loses six talents: Improved Curse of Weakness, Improved Drain Life, Improved Drain Mana,\nImproved Curse of Exhaustion, Grim Reach and Dark Pact. Demonology loses six too: Improved\nHealthstone, Fel Intellect, Fel Stamina, Improved Subjugate Demon, Improved Firestone and Improved\nSpellstone. Destruction loses Improved Firebolt, Improved Lash of Pain, Devastation, Improved\nImmolate and Emberstorm.
\nIn the post, Destructive Reach moves up to row 1 and now works on all damaging spells. Blizzard says that puts it\nin easy reach of every Warlock specialization. Ruin moves up to row 3 and is now a 5-point talent with the same\ntotal effect. Demonic Brand, new in Demonology, makes your pet's next 2 attacks deal Fire or Shadow\ndamage. Blizzard says a recent change means a pet that doesn't tank, like the Imp, gets no\nextra threat from it. A tanking pet like the Voidwalker does.
\nOur favourite is Bane of Havoc, the new 21-point talent in Destruction. Put it on one enemy, and for\n5 minutes 15% of the damage you deal to anything else lands on that enemy too. Our reading: two\nfights for the price of one spell, which is about as Warlock as it gets.
\nOur talent calculator is built from the beta's own game files,\nnow Forever build 1.60.1.70707 of 30 October. Every new talent the post names for these two classes is in it\nexcept Malediction, which a 16 October build dropped. Every talent the post says is removed is\ngone except Grim Reach, back on row 2 of Affliction. The milestone talents above sit at the points\nthe post gives. Five details follow, side by side.
\n| The calculator shows | \nThe post | \nOur reading | \n
|---|---|---|
| Puncturing Wounds adds 10%, 20% or 30% Backstab critical strike chance by rank, and 5%, 10% or 15% for Mutilate | \n"a lesser percentage" for Mutilate | \nThe two agree: Mutilate gets half | \n
| Venom lasts 9 seconds with 1 Combo Point, up to 21 seconds with 5 | \nDuration set by Combo Points spent | \nThe calculator adds the numbers the post leaves out | \n
| Destructive Reach sits on row 1 of Destruction, but its text in this build reaches further with Destruction spells only | \nWorks on all damaging spells | \nThe build is newer than the post. Grim Reach does the same for Affliction spells, so this build seems to split the two again | \n
| Demonic Brand has 3 ranks: your pet's next 2, 4 or 6 attacks | \nThe pet's next 2 attacks | \nWe read the post as describing the first rank | \n
| Demonic Brand says a branded attack has high threat if it deals Shadow damage | \nShadow damage is high threat, and a tanking pet like the Voidwalker gains extra threat while the Imp doesn't | \nThe two now agree on Shadow damage, after the beta's build of 8 October rewrote the talent's text, though the text doesn't say which pets deal it | \n
We refresh the calculator as new beta builds appear. The Rogue class page and the Warlock class page\nshow which of their abilities are new since Classic Era, the re-released original game.
\nBlizzard sums up each class like this.
\nBlizzard's Mage and Shaman class deep dive for World of Warcraft: Forever (WoW: Forever for short)\nwent up on 7 October. Blizzard's post\nlists their ability and talent changes. The short version: every Mage gets Frostfire Bolt, a spell\nthat counts as Fire and Frost, at level 40. Shaman totems with lasting buffs now last longer, and a new display tracks them.
\nThe Mage is a spellcaster who fights with three schools of magic: Arcane, Fire and Frost. The\nShaman is a class that places totems, objects it sets down that buff allies, heal and solve\nproblems, and it can fight in melee, cast damage spells or heal. Blizzard says both classes may keep\nchanging through the beta, the test version people could play before release. For the classes so\nfar, see our pieces on the Hunter and Druid and\nthe Priest and Warrior.
\nTalents are upgrades you buy with points to shape a character inside their class, laid out in\nthree trees for each class. Blizzard says they start at level 10 and keep a familiar structure.\nThe one-point milestone talents at 11, 21 and 31 points stay, and a new one joins at 16 points.\nBlizzard calls these gold medal talents. The tables below list the ones the post names.
\nTo change your talents, Legacy talents included, you visit a\nclass trainer, the in-game teacher for your class, in one of the major cities. Dual\nSpecialization, a second saved talent setup, opens at level 40.
\nA Mage's three trees match its three schools. Blizzard says Arcane bends and burns Mana, the\nenergy a caster spends on spells, for more damage. Fire lands heavy hits and big critical\nstrikes, the extra-hard hits. Frost controls the fight. Here are the baseline changes, the ones\nevery Mage gets.
\n| Ability | \nThe change | \n
|---|---|
| Frostfire Bolt | \nNew at level 40: a 3-second cast that counts as Fire and Frost, hits hard up front, then burns and slows the target | \n
| Comprehension | \nA new Mage-only minor tradeskill, a side skill, for reading scrolls that creatures drop in the world | \n
| Comprehend Scroll | \nThe ability that uses Comprehension, in the General tab of the spellbook | \n
| Cone of Cold | \nLasts less time | \n
| Mage Armor | \nMore Mana back from Spirit, one of the game's stats | \n
Frostfire Bolt always uses the better of the Mage's Fire or Frost spell damage bonus. It also uses\nthe weaker of the target's Fire or Frost resistance. Blizzard's own example pairs two talents,\nIgnite and Ice Shards. A critical Frostfire Bolt then deals 200% damage, plus another 40% of that\nas Ignite burn damage, for 280% in all. Blizzard says it built the spell to open up builds that mix\nFire and Frost talents.
\nBlizzard didn't say what Comprehension's scrolls give you. It says players will find out on\ntheir adventures.
\nBlizzard says the Cone of Cold change is aimed at gold farmers and experience boosters. It says they\nkite, or lead around, big packs of monsters for easy gold and experience. Improved Blizzard is\ntrimmed too: its slow now tops out at 40%, down from 65%. Blizzard says gold farmers and\nboosters widely used Frost Mages' area damage, damage that hits a whole group, to farm dungeons\nand disrupt the game's economy.
\nOne more anti-farming rule reaches beyond Mages. Spells come in ranks, stronger versions you learn\nas you level. Arcane Concentration, a talent that can grant a free effect, now triggers less often\nfrom much lower-rank spells. Blizzard says farmers used cheap low-rank spells to fish for those\nfree effects. It has made the same change to talents across many classes.
\n| Tree | \nPoints | \nTalent | \nWhat it does | \n
|---|---|---|---|
| Arcane | \n11 | \nArcane Blast | \nNew spell: a 2.5-second cast that raises the damage of your other Mage spells and its own Mana cost, stacking up to 4 times for 8 seconds or until you cast another spell | \n
| Arcane | \n16 | \nMissile Barrage | \nArcane Blast, Fireball, Frostbolt and Frostfire Bolt can make your next Arcane Missiles channel twice as fast for no Mana, with double the chance on Arcane Blast | \n
| Frost | \n11 | \nIce Lance | \nNew: instant and low damage, but 300% more against a Frozen target, one held in place by ice | \n
| Frost | \n16 | \nIce Block | \nMoves up to row 4, one step higher in the tree | \n
| Frost | \n21 | \nCold Snap | \nMoves down to row 5, and its cooldown, the wait before you can use it again, rises to 10 minutes from 5 | \n
Blizzard says this Arcane Blast is a redesign of the one from early expansions. The old one\nencouraged Mages to cast nothing else. This one wants you to build a stack, then cash it in with other spells.
\nOther Mage talents in the post include Heating Up, a new Fire talent that needs Pyroblast first.\nDirect critical hits from Fireball, Frostfire Bolt, Fire Blast and Scorch cut your next Pyroblast's\ncast time by 25%, stacking 3 times, down to 1.5 seconds. Blizzard says it borrows ideas from Hot\nStreak, a talent from early expansions. Fingers of Frost, new in Frost, gives your Chill effects, the slows from Frost\nspells, a chance to make your spells treat the target as Frozen.
\nIgnite now gives each Mage their own burn on a target. In Classic Era, the re-released original\ngame, every Mage in a fight shared one. Winter's Chill and Improved Scorch now help only the\nMage who casts them. Magic Attunement becomes baseline, and Blizzard lists no removed talents\nfor Fire or Frost.
\nOur favourite is Frostfire Bolt, the new spell every Mage learns at level 40. It counts as Fire and Frost at once, so a Mage can mix both trees and feed one spell. And 280% on a critical strike, in Blizzard's Ignite and Ice Shards build, is our kind of maths.
\nA Shaman's three trees are Elemental Combat (spell damage), Enhancement (melee) and Restoration\n(healing). Weapon imbues are spells a Shaman casts on their own weapon. Here are the baseline\nchanges, the ones every Shaman gets.
\n| Ability | \nThe change | \n
|---|---|
| All totems | \nGlobal cooldown, the short pause before your next ability, cut to 1 second from 1.5 | \n
| Totems with lasting buffs | \nLast 5 minutes, up from 2 | \n
| Totem tracking | \nA new display shows which totems are up and their time left; right-click one to dismiss it | \n
| Resistance totems | \nNow cover the whole raid group, the players taking on a raid together (a raid is a dungeon built for a large group) | \n
| Weapon imbues | \nLast 60 minutes, up from 5, and now work alongside sharpening stones, weight stones and wizard oil | \n
| Fire Nova | \nNow a spell that erupts at your current Fire Totem, replacing Fire Nova Totem | \n
| Windfury Totem, Flametongue Totem | \nNo longer weapon enchantments: now buffs for your whole party, the small group you play in, which don't stack with each other or help a Shaman using the matching weapon imbue | \n
| Tranquil Air Totem | \nRemoved | \n
| Totemic Recall | \nNew at level 20: destroys all your totems and refunds 25% of their Mana cost | \n
| Totemic Projection | \nNew at level 22: moves all your totems to a new spot within 30 yards, 1-minute cooldown | \n
| Call of the Elements | \nLevel 20: a 3-second cast that drops a saved set of four totems, one per element | \n
| Lightning Bolt | \nRanks 4 and up cast in 2.5 seconds, down from 3 | \n
| Chain Lightning | \nEvery rank casts in 2 seconds, down from 2.5 | \n
Call of\nthe Spirits at level 30 and Call of the Ancestors at level 40 save a second and third totem set.\nBlizzard says a beta bug currently stops Totemic Recall from refunding any Mana. Lightning Bolt\nand Chain Lightning also get less bonus from spell power, the stat that boosts spells, to match\ntheir faster casts.
\n| Tree | \nPoints | \nTalent | \nWhat it does | \n
|---|---|---|---|
| Elemental Combat | \n16 | \nCall of Thunder | \n3% more critical strike chance on Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning | \n
| Elemental Combat | \n21 | \nEarthbound | \nNew: Earthbind Totem roots nearby enemies in place for 5 seconds when you cast it | \n
| Elemental Combat | \n31 | \nLava Burst | \nNew spell: a 2.5-second cast that deals Fire damage, 20% more if your Flame Shock is on the target, 10-second cooldown | \n
| Enhancement | \n11 | \nShamanistic Focus | \nNew: cuts the Mana cost of Shocks and Lightning Shield by a large percentage | \n
| Enhancement | \n16 | \nStormstrike | \nNow the 16-point talent, not the 31; cooldown cut to 8 seconds from 20, and it boosts your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning or Earth Shock by 20% | \n
| Enhancement | \n21 | \nSpirit Weapons | \nFormerly Parry: now also lowers your threat, how badly monsters want to hit you, without the Rockbiter Weapon imbue and raises it with | \n
| Enhancement | \n31 | \nRage of the Farseer | \nNew: 30% more attack speed for 25 seconds, 3-minute cooldown | \n
| Restoration | \n11 | \nWater Shield | \nNew: 3 globes that give Mana when an attack hits you or a heal of yours lands a critical | \n
| Restoration | \n16 | \nMana Tide Totem | \nNow the 16-point talent, not the 31 | \n
| Restoration | \n31 | \nRiptide | \nNew: an instant heal plus more over 15 seconds, and Chain Heal works 25% better on its target, 6-second cooldown | \n
Blizzard says Spirit Weapons lets Enhancement\nShaman manage their threat now that their damage is competitive, and still serve as a temporary tank, the\none taking the hits, in small groups. Rage of the Farseer borrows from Heroism and Bloodlust in early expansions, but it helps\nonly the Shaman.
\nThe post says Elemental Mastery is gone. Blizzard calls it a signature Elemental talent, especially in PvP\n(player versus player fights). It says Elemental damage couldn't be raised enough against the\ngame's monsters while keeping it, without making the class much too strong in PvP. So the tree\ngot new spells instead. Restoration loses Nature's Guidance. The beta has since moved this tree\na long way from the post, Elemental Mastery included: see the comparison below.
\nOther Shaman talents in the post include Lightning Overload, new in Elemental Combat. It gives\nLightning Bolt and Chain Lightning a chance to cast a free second copy at half damage. Elemental\nAlacrity, formerly Lightning Mastery, moves up to row 3 and also speeds up Lava Burst. Blizzard\nsays the old talent sat too deep for levelling Shaman and was twice as strong as similar ones.
\nIn Enhancement, Maelstrom Weapon is a new talent where every melee attack has a chance to stack a\ncharge that speeds up Lightning Bolt, until it can become instant. Mental Dexterity adds attack power, the stat behind\nmelee damage, equal to a percentage of your Intellect, the stat behind a caster's Mana, and Mental Quickness does the same for spell damage and healing. Shield Specialization,\nEnhancing Totems, Two-Handed Axes and Maces, Weapon Mastery and Improved Weapon Totems become\nbaseline.
\nOur favourite is Call of the Elements. Learn it at level 20, set four totems, one of each element, and one 3-second cast drops all four. Our reading: that rewards planning ahead, which is very Shaman.
\nOur talent calculator is built from the beta's own game files,\nnow Forever build 1.60.1.70707 of 30 October. Its builds moved the Shaman's Elemental Combat tree\nand several Mage talents away from the post, so the two now disagree in several places. Where they\ndiffer, we go by the beta's own files.
\n| The calculator shows | \nThe post | \nOur reading | \n
|---|---|---|
| Call of Thunder is gone from Elemental Combat | \nThe 16-point talent | \nBlizzard hasn't said why yet | \n
| Earthbound on row 4, the 16-point row | \nThe 21-point talent | \nIt moved up a row in the 16 October build | \n
| Lava Burst on row 5, the 21-point row | \nThe 31-point talent | \nIt moved up two rows in the 16 October build | \n
| A new Elemental Mastery on row 7, the 31-point row: for 15 seconds, 0.5 seconds off Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst casts and no cooldown on Chain Lightning | \nRemoved | \nThe build is newer than the post, and Blizzard hasn't explained the return yet | \n
| Elemental Alacrity on row 2 | \nMoves up to row 3 | \nIt moved up one more row in the 16 October build | \n
| Storm Reach is gone from Elemental Combat, and Elemental Reach sits on row 5 | \nSays Elemental Reach "now also" reaches further with Fire Nova, Lava Burst and Flame Shock | \nWe take Elemental Reach to be Storm Reach under a new name. Its text in this build drops Flame Shock and cuts Totemic Projection's cooldown instead | \n
| Totemic Mastery is gone from Restoration | \nDoesn't mention it | \nBlizzard hasn't said where it went | \n
| Ice Lance deals 200% more damage to a Frozen target | \n300% more | \nThe 16 October build cut it from 300% | \n
| Arcane Blast's stacks give you 15% of your Intellect as spell damage and last 15 seconds from the first cast | \nRaises the damage of your other Mage spells, for 8 seconds or until you cast another spell | \nThe build is newer than the post | \n
| Missile Barrage on row 2, with 2 ranks. Rank 1 gives Arcane Blast a 20% chance, and Arcane Wrath, Fireball, Frostbolt, Frost Blast and Frostfire Bolt 10%. Rank 2 doubles both | \nThe 16-point talent: a chance, doubled for Arcane Blast | \nArcane Blast still gets double. The build's text adds Arcane Wrath and Frost Blast, which the post doesn't name, though this build's Mage no longer has a Frost Blast spell | \n
| Arcane Wrath on row 4, the 16-point row, as a talent | \nMissile Barrage is the 16-point talent | \nThe build puts Arcane Wrath where the post had Missile Barrage | \n
| Piercing Ice is gone from Frost, since the 28 October build | \nLists no removed talents for Frost | \nNo Blizzard post we've read says why | \n
| Arcane Focus is gone from Arcane, since the 30 October build | \nArcane Focus now raises your chance to hit with Arcane spells | \nOur reading: Precision, a Frost talent since this build, covers Arcane spells now | \n
| Precision in Frost: up to 6% more chance to hit with all spells | \nElemental Precision raises your chance to hit with Fire and Frost spells | \nThe 30 October build renamed it and widened it to every spell | \n
| Arcane Resilience on row 1 | \nMoves from row 3 up to row 2 | \nThe 30 October build moved it up one more row | \n
| Accelerant in Fire: up to 0.5 seconds off Fireball, Frostfire Bolt and Arcane Wrath casts | \nImproved Fireball now also speeds up Frostfire Bolt | \nThe 30 October build renamed it and added Arcane Wrath | \n
| Improved Fire Blast on row 3, the 11-point row: up to 2 seconds off Fire Blast's cooldown and 15 more yards of range | \nWake of Fire, the old Improved Fire Blast, moves up to row 1 and gives Fire Blast a big critical strike boost after a kill | \nThe 30 October build moved it down from row 1, and its text has no kill bonus | \n
We refresh the calculator as new beta builds appear. The Mage class page and the Shaman class page\nshow which of their abilities are new since Classic Era, the re-released original game.
\nBlizzard describes each class's strengths and weaknesses.
\nBlizzard has explained how PvP (player versus player, where players fight each other)\nworks in World of Warcraft: Forever, Blizzard's new version of its online game World of\nWarcraft. In its post of 7 October,\nprogression has two parts. Honor is a currency you spend on PvP gear. Rank Points climb you\nthrough the ranks, 1 to 14 in Blizzard's reward list, with a weekly cap.
\nA second post the same day describes a 15 against 15 battleground, the Darkspear Islands.\nA battleground is a map where teams of players fight each other, and Forever's ranks are the familiar ones from the\noriginal game, Blizzard says.
\nHonor is the currency. You earn it from PvP, including beating other players, finishing\nbattlegrounds and doing PvP quests, the set tasks the game hands out. Battlegrounds highlighted during their holiday weeks, special weeks for a given\nbattleground, pay more Honor. Blizzard says it\nreviewed Honor gains across battlegrounds so the rates are more consistent. It wants\nplayers not to feel pushed into Alterac Valley, one of the game's battlegrounds, just for\nthe Honor.
\nRank Points are what move you up. They come from PvP activities such as battlegrounds and PvP quests, with a boost\nin holiday-week battlegrounds too. The top of the ladder is High Warlord for the Horde and\nGrand Marshal for the Alliance, the game's two sides. Ranks have a weekly cap, a limit on how far you climb each week. Blizzard\ncalls that keeping the original system's base while making the climb more accessible.
\nTo check where you are, open your character pane (press C) and pick the Player vs. Player\ntab. It shows your rank, your Rank Points and what you can buy at your rank.
\n| Rank | \nWhat it unlocks | \nLegacy Point? | \n
|---|---|---|
| 1 | \nTabard | \nNo | \n
| 2 | \nPvP trinket | \nNo | \n
| 3 | \nCloaks | \nYes | \n
| 4 | \nNecklace | \nNo | \n
| 5 | \nCombat potions | \nNo | \n
| 6 | \nTabard | \nNo | \n
| 7 | \nBattle standard | \nYes | \n
| 8 | \nEpic bracers/epic belt upgrade token | \nNo | \n
| 9 | \nEpic boots upgrade token | \nNo | \n
| 10 | \nEpic gloves upgrade token | \nYes | \n
| 11 | \nMounts | \nNo | \n
| 12 | \nEpic legs/epic shoulders upgrade token | \nNo | \n
| 13 | \nEpic chest/epic helm upgrade token | \nYes | \n
| 14 | \nEpic weapons | \nYes | \n
An upgrade token is an item that upgrades a piece of gear in the named slot, and epic is\nthe higher of the two PvP gear grades. A tabard is the cloth worn over armour, a trinket is a small worn item with its own\neffect, and a mount is an animal you ride. The post doesn't say what the potions or the\nbattle standard do. The last column is ours: Blizzard's Legacy post says reaching ranks 3,\n7, 10, 13 and 14 each earns a Legacy Point, the account-wide points of Forever's Legacy\nSystem.
\nHonor buys two sets of PvP gear: a blue-quality set and an epic-quality set. Blue and epic\nare the two PvP gear grades here, and the epic set is the upgrade. To get an epic piece, you\nneed the blue piece plus an Emboldened Seal, an item that upgrades it.
\nThe seals have rank\nrequirements you must reach before you can buy them. The post doesn't say whether the seals are the upgrade\ntokens in the table above.
\nBlizzard also added new and reworked items for specialisations that were missing options\nbefore. A class is a character's type, and a specialisation is the role it picks inside\nthat class. Blizzard's example: Shamans, one of the game's classes, now get healer, melee\nand caster sets. That's one for keeping allies alive, one for fighting up close and one\nfor casting spells.
\nDarkspear Islands sits off the coast of Dustwallow Marsh, a zone of the game's world. The\nHorde's Darkspear Raiders fight the Alliance's Theramore Expeditionary Force there.
\n| \n | Darkspear Islands | \n
|---|---|
| Teams | \n15 against 15 | \n
| Levels | \n30 to 60 | \n
| Goal | \nFirst team to 2000 points | \n
| How you score | \nHold any of the four capture points, and carry the central flag to a base you hold | \n
A capture point is a spot on the map a team takes and defends. The more of them your\nteam holds, the faster your points come in. The flag sits in\nthe middle of the map. Grab it and bring it to a base your team has taken for more points.
\nYou can queue in two ways. Talk to a battlemaster, the person who signs you up for\nbattlegrounds, in any major capital city. Or go to the Barrens, a zone in Kalimdor, one of\nthe game's continents. The Horde base is at the Merchant Coast and the Alliance\nbase is at Northwatch, and a portal there takes you into the fight. Those bases also sell\nreputation rewards and give out quests for the battleground.
\nReputation is your standing with a group in the game, and each side here has its own.\nHigher standing unlocks trinkets, rings, cloaks, weapons, armour and consumables (items\nthat get used up) to buy.\nBlizzard's post also ties the reputation quests to Marks of Honor, an item, but\nits wording doesn't make clear whether you hand them in or earn them. At Exalted, one of the game's\nreputation levels, a short questline, a chain of quests, earns that side's own tabard.
\nA PvP season is a stretch of time with its own goals. During one you climb the ranks and\nearn Honor. Each season also has a journey of\nweekly tasks. Finishing them gives Honor and Rank Points. Three tasks each season also give\na Legacy Point, the account-wide points of Forever's Legacy System. Because those tasks are\ntied to that system, Blizzard says they stay open to finish in future seasons.
\nThe Legacy System, Forever's account-wide progress system, gives 12 of its points for PvP.\nBlizzard's Legacy post lists them. We read their names from the files of the beta, a test\nversion of a game people could play before release, in build 1.60.1.70450. The beta client, the game program players install,\nnames each one and says what it asks for. Here are the two side by side.
\n| Blizzard's Legacy post | \nWhat the beta client calls it | \n
|---|---|
| Reach rank 3 | \nRank 3: reach Sergeant | \n
| Reach rank 7 | \nRank 7: reach Knight-Lieutenant or Blood Guard | \n
| Reach rank 10 | \nRank 10: reach Lieutenant-Commander or Champion | \n
| Reach rank 13 | \nRank 13: reach Field Marshal or Warlord | \n
| Reach rank 14 | \nRank 14: reach Grand Marshal or High Warlord | \n
| Exalted with each Battleground reputation (4 points) | \nMaster of Alterac Valley, Master of Arathi Basin, Master of Warsong Gulch, Master of Darkspear Islands (four battlegrounds) | \n
| Weeks 4, 7 and 10 of the Field of Honor season journey | \nField of Honor: Week 4, Week 7 and Week 10 | \n
The client settles one thing the posts leave open: Darkspear Islands' reputation, either\nside's, is one of the four battleground reputations, so reaching Exalted there is worth a\nLegacy Point of its own. And by Blizzard's two posts, rank 14 also unlocks epic weapons\nand earns the last of the five Legacy Points for rank. Our Legacy System\npiece does the maths on reaching the 16-point cap.
\nWe like what we read. Our reading of the two PvP posts is that every reward in them comes\nfrom playing PvP: Honor, Rank Points, reputation and quests. You buy gear with Honor or\nunlock it through reputation, and nothing in either PvP post mentions buying a rank or gear with real money.
\nOur reading is that the weekly cap on ranks favours steady play over marathon weeks, which\nfits a game that respects a player's time.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-29T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-10-07T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-pvp-ranks-honor/", "summary": "WoW: Forever PvP explained: Honor buys gear, Rank Points climb ranks 1 to 14, every reward by rank, and the 15v15 Darkspear Islands battleground.", "title": "WoW: Forever PvP ranks: how Honor, Rank Points and gear work", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-pvp-ranks-honor/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "RuneScape, a long-running fantasy world people play online together, launched\nplugins in the live game on 19 October. Plugins are tools that players build to change how the\ngame plays. The RuneScape team's launch post\nsays all five plugins from the beta are in, and submissions for new plugins are now open.
\nA plugin is "a tool created by a community developer", in the beta post's words. Players\nmake them, and the RuneScape team checks and approves every one for safety and security.\nThey're built on the RS API, the part of the game that decides what a plugin can see and do.
\nYou find and install them in the Plugin Hub, a part of the game's own screen, and a plugin\ncan't run in a window outside the game.
\nIf you've played Old School RuneScape, a separate version of the game,\nyou might already know what plugins can do. The team says this isn't a one-to-one copy of\nRuneLite, a plugin project for Old School RuneScape. Some things work differently, and\nsome have different limits.
\nThe plugin beta opened on separate beta worlds on 6 October. Everything in it is now in the\nnormal game. The descriptions below are the beta post's:
\n| Plugin | \nMade by | \nWhat it does | \n
|---|---|---|
| Quest Helper | \nZoinkwiz, Techpure and JosTheFarmer | \nGuides you through quests and tracks where you are. It covers 69 quests for now, focused on early-game ones | \n
| Menu Entry Swapper | \nSereSelene | \nReorders the right-click options for items, NPCs (computer-controlled characters), objects and more, so your favourite becomes the left-click | \n
| Tilemarkers | \nJ3 | \nMarks tiles on the ground with a colour and a label, and turns a set of marks into a preset you can share | \n
| Entity Hider | \nRcm37 | \nHides things from view, with toggles for other players, your own character, familiars, spiders and more | \n
| Job Gauges | \nNyu | \nGathers your combat style's resources and cooldowns into overlays in one central spot during a fight | \n
Familiars are creatures a player can summon, and a cooldown is the wait before you can use an\nability again. The beta post says Quest Helper supports the quests marked with a * in your quest\nlist, and it expected more quests to come "when they're ready rather than on a fixed schedule".
\nDuring the beta, players gave feedback on Menu Entry Swapper's limits, and the launch post names\ntwo. It can't use "Buy All" in shops, and it can't make Teleport or Drop the left-click for an\nitem. The post says that's a limit of the RS API, not the plugin's developer. The team is\nexploring whether it can fix limits like this, with no set date.
\nIf you came here from Old School, it has a\nMenu Entry Swapper of its own,\nand we've written up how that one works. The\nRuneScape plugin is a separate thing. Its developer, SereSelene, says in the beta post that a\nlot of players know the name from RuneLite and already "have a clear idea of what it should\ndo". Being "honest about what's possible today and what's coming later has mattered just as\nmuch as the code itself", the developer adds.
\nLog in to the game as normal and look for a toolbox icon on the Ribbon, the game's bar of menu\nbuttons in the bottom-right corner of the screen. That opens the Plugin Hub, where you can\nbrowse, install, manage and uninstall plugins, and report problems.
\nYou need a verified email address. Plugins are hosted on mod.io, an outside site that hosts\ngame add-ons, and mod.io asks for one. The team suggests the email linked to your Jagex Account,\nthe studio's own account system, because it plans to check that link automatically\nlater. Any email works, though.
\nA plugin you install should switch itself on. If it needs a permission from you first,\naccept it, then turn the plugin on in the Plugin Hub's Manage tab.
\nThe beta post listed the rules every plugin must follow, and the launch post repeats the main\none: a plugin should only ever support and improve your play, and must never replace it or do\nthings for you automatically. Plugins may make the game clearer and easier to use, and help you\ntrack, plan and sort information that's visible, public or already known to players. They\nmust not:
\nThe beta post adds that a plugin has to ask your permission before it connects to the internet.
\nNew plugins will come out in batches, around every two weeks alongside game updates. The\nteam says the first few weeks will be busy, so submissions may take a while to review.\nClue Trainer and Ground Items are among the plugins waiting for review, and the beta post\nalso named Runic Attuner, Bank Evaluator, Agility Helper and Anti-Drag as on the way.
\nWant to make one? Submissions opened on 19 October, and developer.runescape.com has the guidelines,\nthe review process, the team's policy on AI and test worlds for developers. The team will\nlook at popular plugins first, so it suggests joining an existing project over building a\ncopy.
\nJagex doesn't handle bugs or ideas for a plugin itself. They go to the plugin's developer,\nand the plugin's mod.io page says how that developer wants to hear them. Problems with the Plugin Hub itself go through the game's normal bug\nreport. mod.io ratings and subscriptions are planned for later. There's also a new title,\nLuanatic, for players and developers who help the plugin project a lot. Jagex picks who gets\nit, and the first ones should go out in about a month.
\nOur reading: the "must not" list is still the important part, and the launch post repeats\nits core: support the player, never replace them. The beta list's first three rules keep the player's hands on the game.
\nA plugin can point at\nthe right tile, but it can't stand on it for you. That's the line between a helper and a\nbot, and we're glad it was written down before the doors opened rather than after.
\nWe also like who gets the credit. The beta post named the developers behind each of the\nfive plugins, and the launch post adds a title for anyone, player or developer, who\nhelps the plugin project a lot. Neither of the two 19 October posts mentions paying for a plugin. Tools that make\na game easier to read, built by players for players, are about as old school as it gets,\nin our book.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-19T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-10-06T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/rs3-plugins-beta/", "summary": "RuneScape plugins officially launched on 19 October with Quest Helper, Menu Entry Swapper and three more. How to get them, what each does, what comes next.", "title": "RuneScape plugins are live: Quest Helper, Menu Entry Swapper and how to get them", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/rs3-plugins-beta/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "RuneScape, a long-running fantasy world people play online together, has cancelled Reignited, a\nplanned new kind of character with its own fresh economy and rankings. Mod Ryan said so on\n15 October, twelve days\nafter the 3 October announcement. Mod is the prefix the game's developers put on their public\nnames. 2 December still brings the Adventure Guide, a new in-game guide for players, and a\n10-day free members trial for new and returning players.
\nBecause, Mod Ryan says, the team missed the mark and is listening to player feedback. "It is clear that we missed the\nmark on this," Mod Ryan says, "and so we are not moving forward with it." He adds that the last\ntime the team didn't listen to player feedback, "combat changed forever", and it took over a\ndecade to recover.
\nHe thanks players for their feedback since the announcement at RuneFest, the team's own event. The\ngoal is to grow the game "but never at the expense of our existing community."
\nThe date stays, without Reignited. The post says 2 December brings:
\nThere are "no split worlds", in Mod Ryan's words: everyone plays together. Characters that have\nheld membership since 2 June aren't eligible and get no refund. The post also says plugins,\nadd-ons for the game's software, launch on Monday 19 October, with more detail\nthat day.
\nThe rest of this page is the story before the cancellation, as the earlier posts told it. The team\napologised to existing players\non 6 October and shared early ideas\nfor changing it on 9 October, before the cancellation.
\nReignited was announced as "a new permanent character type". It was to come with "a brand-new economy and\nhiscores", the game's public leaderboards, and "no paid progression available". That is how\nthe team's 3 October announcement\ndescribes it. The post says Reignited "has just been announced during our RuneFest 2026\nSummit", the team's own event.
\nReignited characters were to play in the same worlds, which are the game's servers, as everyone else, and, as announced, they were also to get worlds of their own, which the team was rethinking on 9 October (more below). The team compared it to Ironman, an existing character\ntype with its own rules, which already lives alongside normal characters today. The pitch to new players was a shared starting point, "almost as if the game were released for the first\ntime today", with 25 years of content to play through.
\nIt was due on 2 December in a single update with the Adventure Guide, a new in-game guide for\nplayers, and more remastered early-game content. The post also described a Hall of Legends, a place in the game to honour its legends, past and new. All the world-first achievements were to open up again, and whoever landed one would get a permanent statue of their character.
\nIn the announcement, a normal character was a Veteran (the team's name for current characters, as opposed to\nReignited ones). Each type was to get its own Grand Exchange, the game's market where players buy and\nsell items with each other. The 3 October post answers what each type can do, and here it is in\none table.
\n| Can it... | \nVeteran | \nReignited | \n
|---|---|---|
| Play in Veteran worlds | \nYes | \nYes | \n
| Play in Reignited-only worlds | \nNo | \nYes | \n
| Chat with the other type | \nYes | \nYes | \n
| Trade with the other type | \nNo | \nNo | \n
| Use the old Grand Exchange | \nYes | \nNo | \n
| Use the new Grand Exchange | \nNo | \nYes | \n
| Join the other type's boss instances | \nNo | \nNo | \n
| Join the other type's clan | \nYes | \nYes | \n
A boss instance is a private copy of a boss fight, and a clan is a group of players who team\nup. As announced, a character couldn't switch types later, though one 9 October idea would have let a character flip between the two. On a merge, the team said there were "no\npredetermined plans for a merge at this stage".
\nAs announced, yes, though the 9 October ideas below would have changed that. Reignited was "similar to Ironman and will therefore require its own\nmembership", which is the game's paid subscription. None of the four posts gives a price.
\nEvery Reignited character was to get free access to members' worlds for the first ten days, from 2 December through 12 December. The 15 October post replaces that with the trial for new and lapsed characters above.
\nOn the shop side, Reignited characters could have bought cosmetic overrides, which change how a\ncharacter looks. The post also said that when Reignited launched there would be "no more\nintegrity breaking MTX items present anywhere in RuneScape". MTX is short for microtransactions,\nmeaning small purchases made with real money.
\nBecause existing players pushed back. The 6 October post opens with "We are re-evaluating\nRuneScape Reignited" and then owns the problem: "We have made you, as existing players, feel like\nyou are no longer our focus." It goes on to say sorry, and lists eight concerns it heard, "while not comprehensive",\nincluding these:
\nThe team says the reach of the announcement and the comments from people intending to play "far exceeded our initial expectations", and that an\noption to play with a fresh economy is "a big draw for new and returning players". It says it\nis "exploring a heavy set of revisions", and that "every option for what we do with regards to\nReignited remains firmly on the table".
\nEarly ideas, and the team says so: some "haven't yet been through technical feasibility checks",\nso they are "not a list of guaranteed options just yet". The\n9 October post takes the complaints one by one:
\nThe post also gives a rare number: RuneScape has "hundreds of thousands of Members" today, and\nthe team says it has been "trending on a slight decline" for a long time. It asks for feedback\non each idea and says it will follow up the week after.
\n| Date | \nWhat happened | \n
|---|---|
| 3 October | \nReignited announced at RuneFest, due 2 December with its own membership | \n
| 6 October | \nThe team apologises and says it is re-evaluating Reignited | \n
| 9 October | \nEarly ideas shared, such as Reigniting an existing character within your membership | \n
| 15 October | \nMod Ryan says Reignited is cancelled | \n
| 19 October | \nPlugins launch, according to the 15 October post | \n
| 2 December | \nAdventure Guide and the first part of the Remastered Journey release; the free members trial runs to 12 December | \n
Our reading: the right call, made fast. Every concern on the 6 October list was about what\nReignited would cost the players already there, a second membership and a nudge to restart among\nthem. And the part we liked survives in a smaller form: a free door into members' content for new\nand lapsed players on 2 December, with nobody asked to pay twice.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-17T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-10-06T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/rs3-reignited-rethink/", "summary": "RuneScape cancelled Reignited, its fresh-start character type, on 15 October. 2 December still brings the Adventure Guide and a 10-day free members trial.", "title": "RuneScape Reignited is cancelled: what 2 December brings instead", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/rs3-reignited-rethink/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "The Elder Scrolls Online's\nOctober 2026 Crown Store showcase,\nwhich is the monthly list of what its real-money shop will sell, went up on 1 October. Its schedule\nnames two returning Crown Crate lines, meaning two ranges of paid boxes whose contents are\nrandom: Nightfall from 15 October and Hollowjack from 29 October. It also marks four items as new.
\nESO, the usual short name for the game, lists 59 dated entries on the full schedule. Eight of\nthem carry a note saying where matching pieces can be found in game. Our reading is that those\neight are the part worth reading first.
\n| Crate line | \nWindow | \n
|---|---|
| Nightfall | \n15 October to 29 October | \n
| Hollowjack | \n29 October to 12 November | \n
Our maths on those windows puts both on sale on one day, 29 October. The schedule lists no\ncrate line before 15 October. The same page does link a 29 September post about the new\nHarbingers of the Divine Crown Crates, and gives no end date for them. It does not mention free\ncrates this month.
\nFour entries on the schedule are tagged new. The Abecean Sea-Crystal Wolf mount runs 8 to 22\nOctober. A mount is a creature your character rides. The Voidcaller Scarecrow Sabre Cat\nmount, the Voidcaller Scarecrow Garb costume and the Zhekleg Arms Pack all run 22\nOctober to 5 November. An arms pack is a matching set of weapon and shield looks.
\nThe highlights lead with a returning home and a returning bundle. A home is a player house you\ncan decorate, and a bundle is several shop items sold together. The Exorcised Coven Cottage\nhome is back 5 October to 2 November. The Ascending Tide Collector's Bundle is back 5 to 12\nOctober. The Bastion Sanguinaris home returns 15 to 29 October, beside the Nightfall Crates.
\nThen come the returns the page ties to Lord Hollowjack, a figure of the game's spooky season. The\nHollowjack Crown Crates, the Hollowjack Indrik mount, the Hollowjack Netch pet and\nthe Elder Scrolls Artifact: Fearstruck style all return 29 October to 12 November. A style\nis a look you can put on your gear.
\nOf the 59 entries, 47 are marked as an ESO Plus discount item. ESO Plus is the game's paid\nmonthly membership. Four entries are listed as available for Gems and Seals, which are two of\nthe game's in-game currencies. One, the Painting: Lair of Maarselok (22 October to 30 November),\nis free to ESO Plus members.
\nEight entries carry a note about matching pieces you can find in game: six arms packs and two\ncrafting motifs. A motif is a pattern book that unlocks a style of gear. A page, in these notes,\nis an in-game item that unlocks one part of a look, such as the mask.
\nFour of the arms packs point at a dungeon boss for the matching mask page:
\n| Arms pack | \nBoss | \nDungeon | \n
|---|---|---|
| Bloodspawn | \nVorenor Winterbourne | \nVeteran Spindleclutch II | \n
| Pirate Skeleton | \nCaptain Blackheart | \nBlackheart Haven | \n
| Vykosa | \nVykosa the Ascendant | \nMoon Hunter Keep | \n
| Balorgh | \nBalorgh | \nMarch of Sacrifices | \n
Veteran is the game's harder difficulty setting for a dungeon. For each of those four, the\nshoulder page has two routes. Buy it for 50 Undaunted Keys from a named vendor, or try that\nvendor's Mystery Coffer for one key. Undaunted Keys are one of the game's reward currencies.\nEach of the four also names an achievement that raises the drop chance, such as "Compassionate\nHero" for Bloodspawn.
\nBoth motifs follow the same boss pattern. Drowned Mariner chapters can drop from Zelvraak the\nUnbreathing in Graven Deep. Silver Dawn chapters can drop from Vykosa the Ascendant in Moon\nHunter Keep. In both cases the page says drop chances are much higher in Veteran or Hard Mode,\nwhich is a tougher version of a boss fight.
\nThe last two arms packs point at the Witches Festival, a returning seasonal event. Zhekleg pages\nhave a small chance to drop from new Dremora Plunder Skulls, which are event reward boxes, during the\nevent. Bound versions, which cannot be traded to other players, sell from the Impresario,\nan event vendor, for 500 Trade Bars each. Trade Bars are another of the game's in-game currencies. Crowborne\nHunter pages can drop from Dremora Plunder Skulls during the event too, and their bound versions\ncost 200 Trade Bars each. The page gives no date for the Witches Festival.
\nTwo crate lines sit on this month's schedule, against the four\nSeptember's showcase listed. Our\nmaths says October's two overlap for a single day.
\nIn our view the best part is the drop notes, as it was in September. Six times, a shop page\nstops to tell you which dungeon boss drops a matching piece of what it is selling. Twice more it\npoints at an event instead. Our reading is that this is the earn-it-instead line a shop has\nlittle commercial reason to print, and here it is in the publisher's own copy. Eight of 59 is\nnot most of them. We would rather it were.
\nWhat the crates actually hold, this page does not say, and we are not going to guess. In our\nview, that is the thing most worth listing. Each crate line gets a window and no list of\ncontents.
\nThe page closes by pointing at Season Two's upcoming solo dungeons (a Season is a named\nstretch of months with its own story and rewards) and the return of the Witches Festival. It\ngives no date for either. Our calendar carries ESO's autumn dates, each with its\nsource, and our September piece is still up for\ncomparison.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-02T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-10-02T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/eso-crown-store-october-2026/", "summary": "The dates for the Nightfall and Hollowjack Crown Crates and every new item, and the eight entries whose matching pieces the showcase says can be found in game.", "title": "ESO Crown Store October 2026: Nightfall and Hollowjack crates, and eight in-game drop notes", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/eso-crown-store-october-2026/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Beta players in World of Warcraft: Forever (WoW: Forever for short) can now reach level 30.\nBlizzard's notes for the 1 October beta build\nalso add a new dungeon, Excavation Site: Wetlands, for levels 26 to 31. Razorfen Downs and\nUldaman open too. Dungeon quests now give less experience, and Blizzard has done another pass\non Fury, one of the Warrior's talent trees.
\nThe beta was the test version people could play before release. A character's level is a number\nthat rises as they play, and a quest is a task a character takes on for a reward. Experience is\nwhat a character earns to reach the next level. The Warrior is one of the game's classes, the\nkind of character you play. A dungeon is an instanced area, a private copy of a place, built for a\nsmall group to fight through together. The full notes run long, so\nour patch notes page has every line, with buttons to filter them\nby class and topic.
\nThe headline is the level cap, the highest level a character can reach. Blizzard says players\ncan now level up to a maximum of level 30. The other big lines, in plain words:
\n| Change | \nWhat the notes say | \n
|---|---|
| Level cap | \nPlayers can level up to 30 | \n
| New dungeon | \nExcavation Site: Wetlands, for levels 26 to 31 | \n
| Dungeons opened | \nRazorfen Downs (25+) and Uldaman (30+) | \n
| Dungeon quests | \n50% less extra experience beyond normal quest values | \n
| Barbershops | \nNew ones in Darnassus and Thunder Bluff, and all barbershops now have barbers | \n
| Honor | \nMost gear and upgrade token costs up by about 50%, and the cap raised from 15,000 to 25,000 | \n
Darnassus and Thunder Bluff are two of the game's capital cities. A barbershop is where a\ncharacter changes how their hair looks. Honor is the currency earned by fighting other players,\nspent on PvP gear (player versus player, where players fight each other rather than the game).\nGear is the armour and weapons a character wears. The notes price both PvP gear and upgrade\ntokens in Honor.\nBlizzard also says city guards now give directions to barbershops, which we think is the most\nold-fashioned kind of help there is.
\nThe 1 October notes name 14 dungeons in all: the new Excavation Site: Wetlands, Razorfen Downs\nand Uldaman, and 11 that were already open. That count is ours, made from Blizzard's list. The\n8 October notes add the new City of Dalaran dungeon for testing.
\n| Dungeon | \nStatus in the notes | \n
|---|---|
| Excavation Site: Wetlands | \nNew, levels 26 to 31 | \n
| Razorfen Downs | \nNewly open, 25+ | \n
| Uldaman | \nNewly open, 30+ | \n
| Ragefire Chasm | \nAlready open | \n
| Hall of Thanes | \nAlready open | \n
| Ruins of Lordaeron | \nAlready open | \n
| Wailing Caverns | \nAlready open | \n
| The Deadmines | \nAlready open | \n
| Shadowfang Keep | \nAlready open | \n
| The Stockade | \nAlready open | \n
| Blackfathom Deeps | \nAlready open | \n
| Gnomeregan | \nAlready open | \n
| Razorfen Kraul | \nAlready open | \n
| Scarlet Monastery | \nAlready open | \n
Our new dungeons piece lists the new dungeons and their\nlevels, and our raids piece covers the raids, the dungeons built for\na large group.
\nExperience, or XP, is what a character earns to reach the next level. Blizzard thanks players\nfor their feedback on leveling speed as its ongoing discussions about the beta go on. It says that\nas part of those discussions it decided to cut the XP from dungeon quests in this\nbuild. Dungeon quests now give 50% less extra experience beyond normal quest values, and some\nquest rewards were recalibrated.
\nThe same notes raise the respawn rate, how fast things come back after being killed or picked\nup, for many creatures and objects in Hillsbrad Foothills, Ashenvale, Wetlands, Duskwood and\nThousand Needles. Those are five of the game's zones, the regions of its world map. Blizzard\nasks players to keep reporting areas where quests are hard to finish.
\nYes. Blizzard's notes for the 8 October beta build fix a bug that cut XP for players in a\ngroup with higher-level players killing lower-level enemies. Until then, that cut was based on\nthe group's highest-level member. Now, as in Classic Era, the re-released original game, only your own level counts.
\nThe same notes raise the XP from killing monsters in dungeons by about 20%. Blizzard believes the two\nchanges together will dramatically increase dungeon XP for most players. One rule stays: if\nsomeone in the group is far above the enemy's level, nobody gets XP.
\nAlso on 8 October Aggrend, one of Blizzard's game developers,\nposted on Blizzard's forum\nthat the team was fixing a bug with XP in dungeons. In earlier beta builds, the XP for each kill\nwas based on the highest-level player in the group. With the fix, Aggrend says, you should now\nget XP based on your own level against the monsters you fight.
\nAggrend's example of the bug is The Deadmines with four level 20s and one level 25: in those\nearlier builds, the level 20s got very little XP per kill.
\nAggrend also mentions a 20% increase to base kills in dungeons, which we take to be the same change, and says the fix and the increase together should make dungeon leveling feel\nbetter and more even.
\nDon't expect Era's pace, though. Aggrend says dungeon XP won't be what it was in Era, the\nversion of the game Aggrend's post compares Forever against. Some players want to "dungeon cleave" to\n60, which we read as leveling all the way by running dungeons. Aggrend says making that the best\nway to level doesn't fit Blizzard's core goals, which it calls pillars, and that the team needs\nto hold firm on its balance changes. Two pillars are named: "World is the Main Character" and "Nurture and Protect Social\nExperiences". Once dungeons become the clear winner, Aggrend says, it has a knock-on effect on how\nplayers behave.
\nSo how fast is it now? With perfect XP-per-hour play, Aggrend says, leveling in dungeons will be very close\nto the speed of the best questing, if not equal to it. Our view: a world you quest through beats\nthe same dungeon run ten times over.
\nAggrend posted the fix in the forum thread for episode 3 of Blizzard's WoW: Forever podcast,\nsaying the episode didn't mention it. In the episode, host Countdown To Classic and guest Hammerdance talk dungeon leveling,\nquesting and more with three of Blizzard's senior game designers: Josh "Aggrend" Greenfield, Jay\nHartman and Rowan Ryder.\nBlizzard's post for the episode\nhas the video, and so does this page, from the World of Warcraft YouTube channel.
\n\nThe Warrior is a melee fighter built for close-up combat who spends Rage, a resource built up\nin a fight.
\nThe notes have two lines on a Warrior's Rage from a critical strike, a hit that lands\nextra hard. One says Warriors now get 75% more Rage from a critical strike with a basic attack,\nan ordinary weapon swing. A later line says the extra Rage from critical strikes goes up to 100%,\nfrom 75%.
\nTalents are upgrades you buy with points to shape a character inside their class, laid out in\ntrees. Fury, one of the Warrior's talent trees, gets another pass. Blizzard says it wants Fury\nto have more useful tools and real choices early in the tree while leveling. A new talent, Lingering Rage, adds time before your Rage starts to drain after combat.\nImproved Cleave and Boundless Rage are removed.
\nThe Druid is a class that changes shape into animal forms. Tiger's Fury, a Druid ability, is\nremoved. A new talent in Feral, the Druid's tree for fighting in animal form, is Shifting Power.\nIt works in Cat Form, the Druid's cat shape, only and turns Mana, the fuel for spells, into 40 Energy, the fuel for Cat\nForm's attacks. All Druid shapeshift forms are now immune to Disarm effects, which knock a weapon\nout of a character's hands. Blizzard says a Druid disarmed before changing form still deals less\ndamage while the disarm lasts. It says the change matches how it felt in original WoW, the game as it\nfirst launched.
\nOur talent calculator has Shifting Power, though it shows a\nquestion mark for the Energy number, because the beta's own files don't carry it. It now has\nthe Fury talents named above, since the beta's build of 8 October: Lingering Rage sits on row 2\nof Fury, and Improved Cleave and Boundless Rage are gone.
\nWe read each dungeon's level from the beta client's own files, published by the wago.tools\nsite, for build 1.60.1.70450. The client is the game program players install. The client gives one level for each dungeon, and the\nnotes give a range or a "+" level. The two don't always match.
\n| Dungeon | \nBlizzard's notes | \nThe beta client's own level | \n
|---|---|---|
| Excavation Site: Wetlands | \n26 to 31 | \n26 | \n
| Razorfen Downs | \n25+ | \n34 | \n
| Uldaman | \n30+ | \n35 | \n
Our reading: go by Blizzard's numbers when planning a group. For Razorfen Downs and Uldaman the\nclient's single number sits above Blizzard's, by 9 and 5 levels. The client's list also names City of Dalaran as a dungeon, which the 1 October notes\ndon't mention and the 8 October notes open for testing.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-29T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-10-02T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/wow-forever-beta-level-30/", "summary": "Blizzard's 1 October beta notes for WoW: Forever in plain words: level 30, a new Wetlands dungeon, Razorfen Downs and Uldaman, less dungeon quest XP.", "title": "WoW: Forever beta level cap is now 30, with a new Wetlands dungeon", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/wow-forever-beta-level-30/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Blizzard's first World of Warcraft: Forever (WoW: Forever for short) class deep dive covers the Hunter and the Druid.\nBlizzard's post of 30 September\nlists their ability and talent changes. The short version: Hunters get Aimed Shot at level 20\nand traps in combat. Druids can drink potions without leaving an animal form.
\nThe Hunter is a ranged class that fights beside a pet. The Druid is a shape-shifting class\nthat can heal, tank or deal damage, and tanking means drawing the enemy's attacks onto yourself.\nBlizzard says both classes may keep changing through the beta, the test version people can\nplay before release.
\nTalents are upgrades you buy with points to shape a character inside their class, spread over three\ntrees for each of these two classes. Blizzard says they start at level 10 and keep the old structure, with the\nsame number of rows. The one-point milestone talents at 11, 21 and 31 points stay, and a new\none joins at 16 points. Blizzard's post calls these gold medal talents.
\nSome talents are exactly as they were in patch 1.12, a version of the original World of\nWarcraft. Others are changed, and several class buffs that used to be talents are now given to\nevery player of the class. Blessing of Kings and Improved Mark of the Wild are the two examples\nBlizzard names.
\nTo change your talents, Legacy talents included, you visit a class trainer, the in-game teacher for your class, in one of the major\ncities. Dual Specialization, a second saved talent setup you can swap to, opens at level 40.
\nA Hunter's three trees are Beast Mastery (pets), Marksmanship (ranged attacks) and Survival\n(traps and melee, the close-up fighting). Here are the baseline changes, the ones every Hunter\ngets.
\n| Ability | \nThe change | \n
|---|---|
| Aimed Shot | \nEvery Hunter gets it at level 20 | \n
| Arcane Shot | \nNo longer shares a cooldown with Aimed Shot | \n
| Multi-Shot | \nNow shares a cooldown with Aimed Shot | \n
| Disengage | \nIts threat reduction is doubled | \n
| Aspect of the Beast | \nNow also grants melee Attack Power | \n
| Traps | \nUsable in combat, with a 30-second cooldown | \n
| Frost and Fire traps | \nNow on separate cooldowns | \n
| Scorpid Sting | \nLowers the target's chance to hit by 2%, in place of Strength and Agility | \n
Threat is how badly a monster wants to hit you. A cooldown is the wait before you can use an\nability again.
\nPets now get more stats from their Hunter's gear, and they can no longer take player buffs\nthat raise their stats. Blizzard says every family can learn Bite or Claw, sometimes both, and\nDive or Dash. Foxes are a new family with a new ability. Blizzard lists Trickster's Dance right\nbeside them: it raises a pet's dodge chance and attack speed for 12 seconds.
\nThe beta's own files also list a Core Hound family, which Blizzard's post doesn't name: it has\nBite but neither Dive nor Dash, and the files don't say whether players can tame one.
\nEach family also gets one ability nobody else has.
\n| Family | \nIts own ability | \nWhat it does | \n
|---|---|---|
| Bat | \nSonic Blast | \nDamage, and slows the target's spellcasting | \n
| Bear | \nSwipe | \nHits 3 targets | \n
| Bird of Prey (the old Owl) | \nMine! | \nDamage, and disarms the target | \n
| Boar | \nCharge | \nCharges in, pins the target and powers up the next attack | \n
| Carrion Bird | \nDemoralizing Screech | \nHits nearby enemies and lowers their melee Attack Power | \n
| Cat | \nProwl | \nStealth, and a harder first hit from it | \n
| Crab | \nPinch | \nDamage, and slows the target's movement | \n
| Crocolisk | \nDismember | \nDamage, and cuts the target's healing received by 50% | \n
| Gorilla | \nThunderstomp | \nHits enemies in an area | \n
| Hyena | \nTendon Rip | \nSlows the target and makes it bleed | \n
| Raptor | \nSavage Rend | \nMakes the target bleed | \n
| Scorpid | \nScorpid Poison | \nStacking damage over time | \n
| Spider | \nWeb | \nPins the target and deals damage over time | \n
| Tallstrider | \nDust Cloud | \nLowers the target's armor | \n
| Turtle | \nShell Shield | \nLess damage taken and slower attacks for 12 seconds | \n
| Wind Serpent | \nLightning Breath | \nA 20-yard ranged attack | \n
| Wolf | \nFurious Howl | \nRaises the party's melee Attack Power | \n
Picking a pet? Our hunter pet reference lists the families and\nabilities in the beta's own files, now with Sonic Blast for the Bat. The\nHunter class page has more on the class.
\nThese are the gold medal talents the post names by point count.
\n| Tree | \nPoints | \nTalent | \nWhat it does | \n
|---|---|---|---|
| Beast Mastery | \n16 | \nSummon Hawk | \nInstant damage, and a Hawk attacks your target for 18 seconds, up to 2 at once | \n
| Marksmanship | \n11 | \nLone Wolf | \n20% more damage with all attacks while you have no pet out | \n
| Marksmanship | \n21 | \nTrueshot Aura | \nMoved up to row 4, with new lower ranks | \n
| Marksmanship | \n31 | \nSniper Shot | \nA 4-second cast, 45-yard base range, and the next 3 Shots reach 10 yards further | \n
| Survival | \n16 | \nCounterattack | \nMoved up to row 4 | \n
| Survival | \n21 | \nStrider Kick | \nAn instant weapon hit, and 30% faster movement for 3 seconds | \n
| Survival | \n31 | \nLacerating Strikes | \nMongoose Bite also makes the target bleed for 21 seconds | \n
Lone Wolf is our favourite. Blizzard says the talent trees let a Hunter choose not to have a\npet at all, and this talent pays 20% more damage for it.
\nOne snag: Blizzard calls Trueshot Aura the 21-point talent, but also moves it to row 4, which\nis the 16-point row. Our talent calculator, read from the beta, has it on row 4.
\nA Druid's three trees are Balance (spellcasting), Feral Combat (shapeshifting, turning into an\nanimal form) and Restoration (healing). Blizzard says the class-wide changes aim to make\nshapeshifting feel more fluid.
\nSeveral abilities also become baseline. Nature's Grasp comes at level 10 and Omen of Clarity at\nlevel 20. Revive, a new resurrection spell for use out of combat, comes at level 12. Lacerate\ncomes at level 42, a bleed that stacks up to 5 times. Tiger's Fury is removed, and a new Feral\ntalent called Shifting Power replaces it.
\n| Tree | \nPoints | \nTalent | \nWhat it does | \n
|---|---|---|---|
| Balance | \n11 | \nNature's Splendor | \nLonger Moonfire, Rejuvenation, Regrowth and Insect Swarm | \n
| Balance | \n16 | \nInsect Swarm | \nNature damage over 12 seconds, and lowers the target's chance to hit | \n
| Feral | \n11 | \nFeral Charge | \nNow also has a Cat Form version on a 30-second cooldown | \n
| Feral | \n16 | \nShifting Power | \nCat: instantly grants 40 Energy at a big Mana cost | \n
| Feral | \n16 | \nPrimal Bite | \nBear: a 20 Rage attack with very high threat, chosen over Mangle | \n
| Feral | \n21 | \nLeader of the Pack | \nIn the post, its critical strike bonus covers all spells and attacks (since changed, see below) | \n
| Feral | \n31 | \nBerserk | \n15 seconds in Bear or Cat Form: Fear immunity, and Primal Bite hits up to 3 targets | \n
| Restoration | \n11 | \nGift of the Earthmother | \n0.5 seconds off the global cooldown of three heals | \n
| Restoration | \n16 | \nSwiftmend | \nMoved up to row 4, and no longer uses up the heal it rides on | \n
| Restoration | \n31 | \nWild Growth | \nA heal over time on the target's whole party, pets included | \n
Rage, Energy and Mana are the resources a Druid spends, depending on the form. Feral gets two\ngold medal talents on its 16-point row, one for cats and one for bears.
\nFuror, a Restoration talent, now lets a Druid with 5 points in it build Energy, the resource Cat Form spends,\noutside Cat Form. Going into Bear Form throws all that Energy away, and Blizzard says that is\nthere to stop "bear-weaving". It says the change also took away "power shifting", a playstyle some players prize, and Shifting Power brings it back "in a\nmuch more approachable way".
\nOur talent calculator is built from the beta's own game\nfiles, now Forever build 1.60.1.70707 of 30 October. Every milestone talent in the two tables above is in it\nby name and row, Shifting Power included. Some of the beta's talent descriptions still read\ndifferently from Blizzard's post, so read the two side by side.
\nBlizzard's post said three Feral changes weren't in the beta yet: Shifting Power, Improved\nShifting Power and Shredding Attacks moving up to row 3. All three are in the calculator now.\nShredding Attacks sits on row 3, Shifting Power on row 4, and Improved Shifting Power, which\nneeds it, on row 5. One gap: the beta's own description of Shifting Power has no readable\nEnergy number, so the calculator shows a question mark where Blizzard's post says 40.
\nThe 16 October build also split Leader of the Pack's bonus again. It now raises melee and ranged critical\nstrike chance for the party or raid, Moonkin Form raises spell critical strike chance, and\nneither text calls the two exclusive any more.
\nOur reading: a cat Druid plan built in the calculator now has every talent the post names.\nWe refresh the calculator when a new beta build appears, and the\nDruid class page shows which Druid abilities are new since Classic Era, the re-released original game.
\nBlizzard says both classes keep weaknesses.
\nHunter and Druid come first. Blizzard says more class deep dives follow as the beta goes on.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-30T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-30T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-hunter-druid-changes/", "summary": "Blizzard's first WoW: Forever class deep dive in plain words: Hunter pets, traps and talents, and Druid forms and talents, checked against the beta.", "title": "WoW: Forever Hunter and Druid changes: Lone Wolf, Foxes, Berserk", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-hunter-druid-changes/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Blizzard's Priest and Warrior class deep dive for World of Warcraft: Forever (WoW: Forever for short) went up on 30 September.\nBlizzard's post\nlists their ability and talent changes. The short version: every Priest gets Shadow Word: Death\nat level 32. Warriors no longer lose Rage to their own armor, and every Warrior gets Victory Rush\nat level 20.
\nThe Priest is a spellcaster who heals, shields allies or deals Shadow damage. The Warrior is a\nmelee fighter, built for close-up combat, who spends Rage, a resource that builds up in a fight.\nBlizzard says both classes may keep changing through the beta, the test version people can play\nbefore release. For the Hunter and the Druid, see our piece on that deep dive.
\nTalents are upgrades you buy with points to shape a character inside their class, laid out in\nthree trees for each of these classes. Blizzard says they start at level 10 and keep a familiar structure. The\none-point milestone talents at 11, 21 and 31 points stay, and a new one joins at 16 points. The\ntables below list the milestone talents the post names.
\nTo change your talents, Legacy talents included, you visit a\nclass trainer, the in-game teacher for your class, in one of the major cities. Dual\nSpecialization, a second saved talent setup, opens at level 40.
\nA Priest's three trees are Discipline (shields and support), Holy (healing) and Shadow (damage).\nHere are the baseline changes, the ones every Priest gets.
\n| Ability | \nThe change | \n
|---|---|
| Fear Ward | \nEvery Priest gets it at level 20, whatever their race | \n
| Devouring Plague | \nEvery Priest gets it at level 20, whatever their race | \n
| Divine Spirit | \nBaseline, learned at level 30 | \n
| Shadow Word: Death | \nNew for every Priest at level 32: instant Shadow damage, but the Priest takes 10% of their max health if the target survives | \n
| Prayer of Healing | \nNow heals the target's whole party and their pets, not the Priest's own | \n
| Renew | \nCan now be active from several Priests on the same target | \n
| Fade | \nIts threat reduction is doubled | \n
Threat is how badly a monster wants to hit you. A cooldown is the wait before you can use an\nability again.
\nEvery Priest race has two spells of its own, and Blizzard says it went over all of them again.\nGnome Priests get two new ones.
\n| Race | \nSpell | \nWhat it does now | \n
|---|---|---|
| Gnome | \nConfounding Flash | \nNew at level 10: confuses up to 5 nearby enemies for 3 seconds | \n
| Gnome | \nContingency Plan | \nNew at level 20: a 30-second ward that shields and heals an ally who drops below 35% health | \n
| Dwarf | \nChastise | \nLevel 20: damages the target and pins it in place for 2 seconds, Humanoids, the game's person-shaped enemies, only | \n
| Human | \nDivine Grace | \nLevel 10: an instant heal on an ally below 50% health that also clears Weakened Soul | \n
| Night Elf | \nStarshards | \nMuch more damage, now on a 30-second cooldown | \n
| Night Elf | \nElune's Grace | \nCuts the chance of melee and ranged attacks hitting you by 50% for 15 seconds, or until 3 miss | \n
| Undead | \nDark Sacrifice | \nLevel 20: trades your own health for Mana over time | \n
Desperate Prayer, Feedback, Hex of Weakness, Shadowguard and Touch of Weakness are unchanged.\nWeakened Soul is a lingering effect some Priest spells check for, and Mana is what a Priest\nspends to cast.
\n| Tree | \nPoints | \nTalent | \nWhat it does | \n
|---|---|---|---|
| Discipline | \n16 | \nSoul Warding | \nA shorter cooldown and a lower Mana cost on Power Word: Shield, the Priest's shield spell | \n
| Discipline | \n21 | \nPenance | \nCast over 2 seconds: damages an enemy or heals an ally every second, 12-second cooldown | \n
| Holy | \n16 | \nBinding Heal | \nHeals the Priest and their target at once, with no cooldown | \n
| Holy | \n31 | \nPrayer of Mending | \nA heal that jumps from ally to ally until it has healed 5 times | \n
| Shadow | \n16 | \nVampiric Embrace | \nNow lasts 30 seconds on a 1-minute cooldown | \n
Other Priest talents in the post include Divine Aegis, where a critical heal, an extra-strong one, also\nleaves an absorb shield, a barrier that soaks up damage. Litany of Light refunds some Mana when you switch\nbetween healing spells. Devouring Contagion makes Devouring Plague jump to a new enemy when its\ntarget dies. Shadowform, a shadowy form a Priest takes on, now allows every non-healing spell while in it,\nand halves the Mana cost of Shadow spells.
\nHoly Precision is a talent built for healers. Blizzard says it's there so a healing Priest\ndoesn't need hit chance on gear it isn't expected to wear. Lightwell and Improved Prayer of\nHealing are removed.
\nOur favourite is Shadow Word: Death. It's instant Shadow damage, but if the target survives you\ntake 10% of your max health. On a 15-second cooldown, it grades your judgement every time.
\nA Warrior's three trees are Arms (weapon mastery), Fury (raw damage) and Protection (tanking\nwith a shield). Tanking means drawing the enemy's attacks onto\nyourself. Stances are the fighting modes a Warrior switches between.
\nStart with Rage. Blizzard kept the old formula for Rage from taking damage, with one\nbig change: armor is ignored. It now counts every hit as if your armor always cut its damage by\n50%. Wearing armor no longer cuts the Rage you gain, and neither does a\ndamage-absorbing shield like Power Word: Shield. Rage from dealing damage now depends on your\nweapon's speed. Critical strikes, the extra-hard hits, give 75% more Rage than normal ones in\nthe post, and Blizzard's 1 October notes raise that to 100%.
\nBlizzard also says players are hitting some bugs with Rage generation in the beta. It's hunting\nthe root cause, and that may take a couple of weeks. Its\nnotes for the 8 October build then say several bugs in the Rage gained from taking\ndamage are fixed, and that the typical Warrior or Druid should gain more Rage from taking damage.
\n| Ability | \nThe change | \n
|---|---|
| Tactical Mastery | \nBaseline at level 14: keep 10 Rage when changing stances | \n
| Victory Rush | \nLearned at level 20: an instant attack on a 30-second cooldown that heals you for 10% of your max health, unlocked for 20 seconds each time you kill a non-trivial enemy | \n
| Recklessness, Retaliation, Shield Wall | \nNo longer share a cooldown | \n
| Retaliation and Shield Wall | \nCooldown cut to 15 minutes | \n
| Rend | \nIts damage now scales strongly with Attack Power | \n
| Thunder Clap | \nUsable in Defensive Stance, with a 6-second cooldown and less threat | \n
| Battle Shout | \nA smaller Attack Power bonus, with Improved Battle Shout built in | \n
| Sunder Armor | \nCan be used even if the target has a more powerful Expose Armor, another armor-cutting effect, and its threat scales with Attack Power | \n
Attack Power is the stat that makes melee hits land harder. Blizzard says Battle Shout was\ntrimmed because both factions, the game's two sides, now have both Shaman and Paladin buffs.\nShamans and Paladins are two more classes, and buffs are the helpful effects they cast.
\n| Tree | \nPoints | \nTalent | \nWhat it does | \n
|---|---|---|---|
| Arms | \n16 | \nSpearing Strike | \n15 Rage, 20-second cooldown: a weapon hit that knocks the target off its mount, double damage on a mounted target, a Dragon or a Giant | \n
| Fury | \n16 | \nRaging Blows | \nIn the post: Whirlwind hits with both weapons when dual-wielding, and Cleave costs less Rage (since changed, more below) | \n
| Protection | \n16 | \nVanguard | \nCharge now works in Defensive Stance | \n
In Arms, Weaponmaster replaces four talents. The four weapon talents for Axes, Maces, Swords and\nPolearms are gone, and this one talent gives a bonus based on the weapon you hold. Improved Slam\nmoves from Fury to Arms, and Slam no longer delays your auto attack, the swing your weapon makes\non its own.
\nIn Fury, Bloodthirst no longer heals. It now grants 10% movement speed for 10 seconds. In the post,\nBoundless Rage raises your maximum Rage and Precision raises your chance to hit, though the beta's\nnewest build drops both (more below). In Protection, Shield\nSpecialization now has a chance to give 5 Rage on a block, up from 1. Bastion adds damage while a shield is\nequipped, and Focused Rage lowers the Rage cost of every offensive ability.
\nOur favourite is Victory Rush. Kill an enemy that counts, and for 20 seconds you can land a hit\nthat heals you for 10% of your max health. That's welcome healing on a class Blizzard says can't\neasily recover from taking too much damage.
\nOur talent calculator is built from the beta's own game files,\nnow Forever build 1.60.1.70707 of 30 October. Every new Priest talent the post names is in it, on\nthe row the post gives. A 16 October build changed two older Priest talents: Mental Strength\nnow sits on row 2 of Discipline, not the row 4 the post gives, and Shadow Affinity, whose threat\ncut the post says rises slightly, is gone from Shadow.
\nThe Warrior's Fury and Protection trees have moved on since the post.\nImproved Cleave, Boundless Rage and Precision are gone. Furious Precision, which raises your chance to hit with\nyour off-hand weapon, sits on row 3 of Fury, and Raging Blows now just lowers the Rage cost of\nCleave and Whirlwind. Blood Craze no longer mentions Bloodthirst, and Dual Wield\nSpecialization raises off-hand damage and Rage, not your chance to hit. Bastion is on row 6 and Focused Rage on row 5, the other way round from the\npost. Three more lines of the post place or name a talent differently from the calculator, so\nhere is how we read them.
\n| The post says | \nThe calculator shows | \nOur reading | \n
|---|---|---|
| Vampiric Embrace moves to "row 3" as the 16-point talent | \nRow 4, the 16-point row | \nThe row number looks like a slip, since row 4 is where the 16th point lands | \n
| Iron Will moves "to row 2 of Arms", in the Fury list | \nRow 1 of Protection | \nThe calculator puts it in Protection, and row 2 of Fury now holds Lingering Rage, a new talent | \n
| "Unbridled Rage" gets a higher chance | \nUnbridled Wrath, on row 2 of Fury | \nWe take this to be the same talent under its old name, though its text in the files doesn't have the post's 2 Rage for a two-handed weapon | \n
Where the two differ, we go by the beta's own files.\nWe refresh the calculator as new beta builds appear. The Priest class page\nand the Warrior class page show which of their abilities are new since\nClassic Era, the re-released original game.
\nBlizzard says both classes keep weaknesses.
\nBlizzard says it will keep reviewing how these changes play in dungeons, PvP (player versus\nplayer fights) and the open world.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-30T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-30T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-priest-warrior-changes/", "summary": "Blizzard's Priest and Warrior deep dive for WoW: Forever in plain words: Penance, Shadow Word: Death, Victory Rush and new Warrior Rage rules.", "title": "WoW: Forever Priest and Warrior changes: Penance, Victory Rush, Rage", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-priest-warrior-changes/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Camping in World of Warcraft: Forever turns Cooking's simple Cooking Fire into a Basic Campfire,\nand Blizzard's camping guide\nnow lists 10 camp objects and what each does. Up to three nearby players each add one, and players\nsitting or crafting there for a minute pick up their buffs.
\nForever is Blizzard's new World of Warcraft game, set in a reimagined version of the original\nworld. Its guide is dated 21 October. Some details below come from Blizzard's earlier\nDeep Dive recap\nof 13 September. Our release date piece has launch day.
\nThe campfire grows out of the Cooking Fire from Cooking, one of the game's professions (its\ncrafting and gathering skills). It sits at Cooking skill level 1 in Blizzard's table. Placing\none makes a campsite where players can:
\nOur reading: it's a reason to stop on the road next to a stranger instead of racing them to\nthe next herb (a plant you gather), which is the whole pitch, and a very old-school one.
\nEvery object below needs a campfire nearby and skill level 20 in its profession, and they all share\na one-hour cooldown, a wait before the next one. Blizzard calls its table "a sample" of each\nprofession's camp objects, and the recap says every profession has three.
\nWhere a number is a range, Blizzard says it depends on level. Strength, Stamina, Intellect and\nSpirit are character stats, the core numbers behind a character's power, and Mana is what\nspellcasters spend.
\n| Profession | \nObject | \nWhat it does for players nearby | \nDoesn't stack with | \n
|---|---|---|---|
| First Aid | \nFirst Aid Kit | \n3 to 56 more Stamina | \nPower Word: Fortitude | \n
| Fishing | \nFishing Bowl | \n8% more stats | \nBlessing of Kings | \n
| Alchemy | \nMana Well | \n10 to 29 Mana back every 5 seconds | \nBlessing of Wisdom | \n
| Blacksmithing | \nSharpening Wheel | \n6 to 34 more Strength | \nStrength of Earth Totem | \n
| Enchanting | \nEnchanted Lute | \n28 to 260 Armor, 0 to 13 to all stats and 0 to 22 to all resistances | \nMark of the Wild | \n
| Engineering | \nReagent Bot | \nLets anyone nearby buy reagents, the items some spells use up | \nNothing listed | \n
| Herbalism | \nIncense Candle | \n2 to 25 more Intellect | \nArcane Intellect | \n
| Leatherworking | \nCamp Tent | \n5% of a level more rested (bonus) experience, unless you already have more than that | \nNothing listed | \n
| Skinning | \nCamp Chair | \n2% more critical strike chance with all spells and attacks | \nMoonkin Aura | \n
| Tailoring | \nFaction Banner | \n14 to 32 more Spirit, for your own faction (the side you play for) only | \nDivine Spirit | \n
The names in the last column are buffs that some classes, the game's character types, normally\ngive. Our reading: if you already have that class buff, the matching object adds nothing on top.\nMost of those names are in our class abilities list, under the\nclass that has each.
\nCooks can also learn upgraded Campfires that allow five or even 10 objects at a camp, instead of\nthe Basic Campfire's three. Other professions unlock conveniences such as Alchemy Laboratories and\nTanning Racks.
\nYou can learn two primary professions and all three secondary ones: Cooking, Fishing and First\nAid. Our reading: any character could work toward the campfire, the First Aid Kit and the Fishing\nBowl. Mining is the one primary profession with no object in the guide's table.
\nThe recap also counts over 600 new recipes across professions and level ranges. Leveling another\ncharacter? Our Legacy system guide covers the account-wide\nrewards for that.
\nYes. Blizzard says some parts of Azeroth, the game's world, suit a quiet rest better than others,\nand danger can still find you when you stop. That risk grows on a PvP ruleset, the kind of server you pick (PvP is player\nversus player, where players fight each other rather than the game), when enemy players find your\ncamp. Our rulesets piece explains the choice.
\nNeither post gives a cost or burn time for a campfire. Neither says which dungeons or raids drop\nwhich objects, what the upgraded Campfires cost to learn, or what Alchemy Laboratories do. The guide's table is only a sample, so it doesn't name each profession's other objects. If Blizzard's\ndevelopment notes add any of that, it'll show up in our patch notes tracker.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-21T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-27T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-camping/", "summary": "How camping works in World of Warcraft: Forever: the Basic Campfire, the 10 camp objects in Blizzard's guide, what each one does, and where you learn them.", "title": "World of Warcraft: Forever camping: the campfire, its objects and their buffs", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-camping/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "World of Warcraft: Forever drops support for older graphics cards at launch, says\nBlizzard's GPU post.\nYour card has to be built on AMD Graphics Core Next 1 (2012), NVIDIA Maxwell (2014), Intel\nSkylake (2015) or something newer. Older cards need an upgrade before you can play.
\nThe post is dated 17 September. Our release date piece has launch day.
\nA graphics card, or GPU, is the chip that draws the game on your screen. Each maker builds its\ncards in families, and a microarchitecture is the design one family shares. Forever needs one\nof these families, or a newer one:
\nBlizzard says most World of Warcraft players already have compatible hardware.
\n| Maker | \nSupported (example cards) | \nNot supported (example cards) | \n
|---|---|---|
| AMD | \nRadeon HD 7850 (2012) | \nRadeon HD 6950 (2010) | \n
| NVIDIA | \nGeForce GTX 9xx (the 900 series), GTX 750 and 750 Ti (2014) | \nGeForce GTX 760, 770 and 780, and GTX 8xxM (2014) | \n
| Intel | \nHD Graphics 530 (2015) | \nHD Graphics 6000 (2015) | \n
The catch is in the supported column. Blizzard says those cards are "still well below the\nminimum requirements for the game." Our reading: clearing this cut-off isn't the same as\nmeeting the minimum, so don't expect a supported card from that list to run it well.
\nOur reading of the NVIDIA row: the number on the box isn't the test. A GTX 750 Ti clears it\nwhile the bigger-numbered GTX 780 doesn't, so don't go by how big the number is. Look for\nyour exact card in the table. If it isn't one of Blizzard's examples, the post doesn't settle it.
\nBlizzard gives two ways:
\nForever gets a new visual look, and Blizzard says that look relies on a graphics feature cards\npicked up around 2012, "RGBA16F UAV support in compute shaders". It says the change also gives\nplayers a more consistent experience.
\nThe post doesn't list the full minimum specs; it points to the Battle.net Shop for those. It\nsays nothing about recommended specs or Macs, and it only explains how to check your card on\nWindows. Our patch notes tracker follows Blizzard's development notes.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-27T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-27T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-gpu-requirements/", "summary": "Which graphics cards World of Warcraft: Forever will and won't support at launch, Blizzard's example cards on each side, and how to check yours in Windows.", "title": "Will your graphics card work with World of Warcraft: Forever? The cut-off", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-gpu-requirements/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Early name reservation for World of Warcraft: Forever runs from 27 October to 3 November 2026.\nBlizzard's post of 20 October\ngives the start time in each region and says who can reserve. Names go first come, first served,\nand none is guaranteed. Every character will have two names, and it's the full pair that has to\nbe unique in your region.
\n| Region | \nOpens (Blizzard's time) | \nThe same moment in UTC (our maths) | \n
|---|---|---|
| Europe | \n27 October, 18:00 CET | \n27 October, 17:00 UTC | \n
| North America | \n27 October, 1:00 p.m. PDT | \n27 October, 20:00 UTC | \n
| Korea | \n28 October, 07:00 KST | \n27 October, 22:00 UTC | \n
| Taiwan | \n28 October, 07:00 CST | \n27 October, 23:00 UTC | \n
Reservation runs to 3 November, and Blizzard gives no closing hour. The UTC column is ours:\nEurope's clocks went back on 25 October, so CET is one hour ahead of UTC that day. US clocks don't go back\nuntil 1 November, so PDT is seven hours behind. Korea is nine hours ahead and Taiwan eight. The\nwindow is on our calendar, and our\nrelease date piece covers launch day.
\nBlizzard's 20 October post says players who pre-purchase the Skyborne Heroic Pack, the Skyborne\nEpic Pack or the limited-time Warcraft Forever Collection get Early Name Reservation. Those are\npaid packs (a pre-purchase is a purchase made before launch). Its small print says a purchase of the Forever Digital Upgrade or\nCollector's Edition is required, and that the benefit only applies to the account it was bought\nfor.
\nTo reserve, install Forever through the Battle.net desktop app, Blizzard's game launcher. Pick\nWorld of Warcraft, then World of Warcraft: Forever in the Game Version menu above the Play button,\nand install it. Press Play, choose a ruleset and create up to three characters with the names\nyou want.
\nEach character has two names, which Blizzard's\nnaming post of 21 September\ncompares to a first name and a surname.
\nIf the pair is taken or fails the rules, you pick another one, or roll the in-game random name\ngenerator.
\nA Blizzard staff post of 24 September\nsays the beta, the test version before launch, was getting forced name changes, as of that post, for characters\nthat broke the naming policies. Some testers whose names were far outside\nBlizzard's code of conduct lost beta\naccess altogether.
\nThe post says the World of Warcraft development team carried out those actions itself, and each\none was individually reviewed. Customer Service can't and won't help with appeals. The post\nadded that Blizzard's system for enforcing naming standards would come online "very shortly", and\nasked testers not to go poking at it, because that risks losing beta access too.
\nYour second name no longer shows in the game world, but it still shows in chat.
\nOur reading is that two names make a favourite first name much easier to get, because nobody\ncan own it outright anymore. The other side is that reserving early is a perk of the paid packs,\nand first come, first served means a name somebody reserves is gone. An early pick of a name\nisn't power in a fight, and we're not calling it pay-to-win. We'd still plan a few\nbackup pairs either way.
\nPlanning the character itself? Our talent calculator and\nhunter pet reference help with that.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-28T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-26T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-name-reservation/", "summary": "When World of Warcraft: Forever name reservation opens in each region, which purchases get it, the limit of three characters, and how the two-name system works.", "title": "World of Warcraft: Forever name reservation: 27 October to 3 November, start times and who can reserve", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-name-reservation/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "The Skyborne, a playable race new to World of Warcraft: Forever, get one class that depends on\nthe side you pick. Blizzard's post of 22 September\nsays Horde Skyborne get the Shaman and Alliance Skyborne get the Mage. Both sides share the\nother four classes and three of their four racials, the abilities that come with the race, and both start on Zephras Isle, a new starting area and their home.
\nZephras Isle covers levels 1 to 12. In Blizzard's\nstory, a group of exiled Highborne, an ancient line of elves, made a pact with wind spirits and built a\ncivilization in Skywall, one of the elemental planes. The spirits\nhave vanished, and you arrive to find that civilization in crisis.
\n| \n | Windshaper Skyborne | \nHigh Order Skyborne | \n
|---|---|---|
| Side | \nHorde | \nAlliance | \n
| Class only this side gets | \nShaman | \nMage | \n
| Classes both sides get | \nDruid, Hunter, Rogue, Warrior | \nDruid, Hunter, Rogue, Warrior | \n
| Racial only this side gets | \nSkysight: 15% more run speed for 15 seconds | \nRead Ley Line: 50% more Health and Mana regeneration for 15 seconds | \n
| Racials both sides get | \nWalk on Air, Wind Blessed, Elemental Insight | \nWalk on Air, Wind Blessed, Elemental Insight | \n
| Where you start | \nZephras Isle, levels 1 to 12 | \nZephras Isle, levels 1 to 12 | \n
Blizzard frames the split as two outlooks. Windshapers keep the elemental traditions. The High\nOrder wants back the arcane knowledge their people lost, so they don't depend on the spirits.
\nPicking by class? Planning a Shaman or a Mage, our\ntalent calculator has both. Planning a Hunter, our\nhunter pet reference lists the pet families. Skyborne Druids get new forms\nmade just for the race.
\nRacials are abilities that come with a race. Here are all five. Blizzard's\nnotes of 26 October changed three of them just before launch, and the table uses the new\nnumbers.
\n| Racial | \nWho gets it | \nWhat it does | \n
|---|---|---|
| Walk on Air | \nBoth sides | \nGlide downward through the air for 10 seconds | \n
| Wind Blessed (passive) | \nBoth sides | \n2% more Haste. The notes say it was 3%; Blizzard's 22 September post said 1% | \n
| Elemental Insight (passive) | \nBoth sides | \n5% more damage to Elementals | \n
| Skysight | \nHorde only | \n15% more run speed for 15 seconds (was 10%). Used at an elemental convergence, it also gives you "Charged" for an hour, which makes it 30% | \n
| Read Ley Line | \nAlliance only | \n50% more Health and Mana regeneration for 15 seconds (was 100%). Used at a ley line, it also gives you "Attuned" for an hour, which makes it 100% | \n
Charged and Attuned last through death and go away when you enter a raid, Blizzard\nclarified on 27 October. Read Ley Line can't be used while Innervate, which the notes call a\nmore powerful effect of the same kind, is on you, and Innervate replaces it.
\nPassive means it's always on. Haste makes attacks and spells come faster. Elementals are a kind of\ncreature in the game.
\nTwo body types, each with 10 faces and the same nine skin colours, from sky blue to light peach\nto darker tones.
\nBody Type 1 has 21 hair styles and 13 facial hair options. Body Type 2 has 25\nhair styles and six earring styles, in silver or gold. Both can wear feathers in their hair, face\ntattoos and a choice of two body tattoos, Zephyr and Wayfinder. A barber shop in the cities lets you\nchange things later, for a little in-game coin.
\nSkyborne also get their own /dance, the emote your character does when you type it.
\nForever lets you switch player characters between Standard Definition (SD) and High\nDefinition (HD) models, two levels of detail for how a character looks. In\nBlizzard's post of 7 October,\nthe team says it built that switch around the races from the original World of Warcraft, since many people are attached to those models. Our\nreading is that the Skyborne, being new, come only in HD for now.
\nBlizzard says it has heard feedback that the HD Skyborne can look jarring next to the SD models\nand the SD world, and it agrees. SD Skyborne characters are in development and arriving early 2027,\nalong with SD versions of their Druid forms, the animal shapes a Druid can turn into. Blizzard\nsays it looks forward to sharing more closer to that date.
\nThe HD Skyborne Druid forms are getting a rework too. Blizzard's example makes them a bit less soft, with\nmore detailed fur and adjusted colour saturation, so they don't clash with the look of other\ncreatures in the world.
\nOur reading is that the stat racials are modest: 2% Haste and 5% more damage to one kind of\ncreature won't decide who wins a fight. Pick the side for the class you want.
\nOn access, Blizzard's 29 October guide for returning players\nsays playing a Skyborne "requires the purchase of the Heroic Pack or higher digital upgrades".\nThe Heroic Pack (a product name, not a difficulty setting) is one of Blizzard's optional\nupgrade packs, and our release date piece\nsays what each one adds.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-29T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-26T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-skyborne/", "summary": "The Skyborne in World of Warcraft: Forever, side by side: which side gets Shaman, which gets Mage, every racial, the shared classes and where they start.", "title": "World of Warcraft: Forever Skyborne guide: Horde or Alliance, classes and racials", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-skyborne/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "World of Warcraft: Forever gives every account a Legacy System, and Blizzard says every perk\nin it can be unlocked on a single character. Blizzard's post of 23 September\nsays each character can spend up to 16 Legacy Points at launch. It also says one character\ncan earn up to 29.
\nLegacy Points are the system's account-wide points: earn one on any character and all your\ncharacters can use it, except in Hardcore (covered below), where death carries lasting\nconsequences. An alt is a second character on the same account.
\nYou finish Legacy Challenges, which work like achievements tied to how a character grows.\nEach one is worth one point, and there are 65 in six groups. Your first point switches the\nsystem on. For most players that's reaching level 25. Taking a primary crafting profession\nto 150, or exploring the whole world map, also does it. Then open it from the shield icon\non the menu, or press Y, the default key.
\n| Group | \nPoints | \nWhat earns them | \n
|---|---|---|
| Classes | \n27 | \nReach level 25, 45 and 60 with each class | \n
| Tradeskills | \n18 | \nTake each primary crafting profession to 150, 225 and 300 skill | \n
| PvP (player versus player) | \n12 | \nFive PvP ranks (5), Exalted with each Battleground reputation (4), and three Field of Honor season quests (3) | \n
| Adventure | \n2 | \nExplore the whole world map on one character, and finish the Lord Valthalak dungeon set questline | \n
| Dungeons | \n3 | \nBeat the last boss of every dungeon in three level bands: 15 to 25, 26 to 45 and 46 to 60 | \n
| Raids | \n3 | \nBeat Onyxia, all 13 bosses of Hyjal Summit, and all 8 of the Barrow Deeps | \n
Three notes on that table. Tradeskills count only primary crafting professions, not\ngathering ones. The five PvP (player versus player) ranks are ranks 3, 7, 10, 13 and 14, and\nthe three season quests are the ones for weeks 4, 7 and 10 of the Field of Honor PvP season's\nquest track. Exalted is one of the game's reputation levels, and Blizzard counts 4 points for reaching it\nwith each Battleground reputation.
\nYes, but how you play decides how. Each character can spend at most 16 points at launch,\nhowever many your account holds. Blizzard gives two reasons. New players won't be too far\nbehind to catch up, and 16 is reachable on one character, so alts aren't required.
\nBlizzard's own tally for one character is 3 from levelling, up to 6 from tradeskills, 12\nfrom PvP, 2 from Adventure and 6 from dungeons and raids. That makes 29. Our reading is\nthat the 6 means two primary crafting professions taken to 300, since each is worth 3.
\nOur maths, from that tally, for a one-character player:
\n| How you play | \nPoints | \nReaches 16? | \n
|---|---|---|
| Level to 60, two crafting professions to 300, both Adventure challenges, all three dungeon bands | \n14 | \nNo, 2 short | \n
| The same, plus 2 of the 3 raid challenges | \n16 | \nYes, exactly | \n
| The same, plus all 3 raid challenges | \n17 | \nYes, 1 spare | \n
| Level to 60 and all 12 PvP challenges | \n15 | \nNo, 1 short (add any one more) | \n
| Level to 60, one crafting and one gathering profession, all dungeons, raids and Adventure | \n14 | \nNo, 2 short. If our two-profession reading holds, only PvP is left to fill it | \n
Our maths also says this: skip PvP and the most one character can collect is 17, so you\ncan miss only one point. Skip PvP and miss a raid, and every other challenge becomes a must. If you love\nPvP, it covers most of the cap by itself. If our two-profession reading holds, we'd make\nboth professions crafting ones, because a gathering one earns nothing here.
\nPerks, sorted into three trees, the branching menus you spend points in. The points belong\nto your account, and each character spends up to 16 of them on its own perks, independently\nof your other characters. Blizzard's post doesn't list what each perk costs.\nWowhead, the big\ncommunity database, has a guide and a\nLegacy calculator for planning a\nbuild.
\n| Tree | \nPerk | \nWhat it does | \n
|---|---|---|
| Professions | \nWorking Overtime | \nBetter odds of a skill point in every tradeskill, including skills only some classes have, like Lockpicking | \n
| Professions | \nBountiful Harvest | \nHelps you find extra Scarce resources while mining, gathering herbs or skinning | \n
| Professions | \nBartering | \nVendor items cost less gold | \n
| Professions | \nPerformance bonus | \nSometimes more Merchant's Favor from the two new trade factions | \n
| Professions | \nMaster Chef | \nA chance for cooking recipes to make extra | \n
| Professions | \nLuremaster | \nA chance to catch extra fish | \n
| Professions | \nDedicated Study | \nA daily boost to level tradeskills faster, or free Elemental Essences once all are at 300 | \n
| Adventure | \nWell Rested | \nA higher cap on rested experience, and it builds faster | \n
| Adventure | \nThrill of Adventure | \nA little health and mana back after each kill that isn't trivial | \n
| Adventure | \nHigh Alert | \nBetter stealth detection outside Battlegrounds | \n
| Adventure | \nField Guide | \nCuts the one-hour wait between placing camping features | \n
| Adventure | \nField Medicine | \nShortens Recently Bandaged, the wait between bandages, except in dungeons, raids and Battlegrounds | \n
| Adventure | \nTalented | \nUnlock talent points up to 5 levels lower than normal | \n
| Adventure | \nFrequent Flier | \nCheaper, faster flights | \n
| Resourcefulness | \nGourmand | \nFood buffs last longer | \n
| Resourcefulness | \nThe Quick and the Dead | \nDead players run back to their body faster, and group buffs cost nothing after you're revived | \n
| Resourcefulness | \nReinforce | \nLess durability damage to your gear when you die | \n
| Resourcefulness | \nFor Great Honor | \nMore Honor from PvP | \n
| Resourcefulness | \nPermanence | \nParty, raid and camping buffs last longer | \n
| Resourcefulness | \nDiplomat | \nMore reputation gained | \n
| Resourcefulness | \nReagent Economy | \nClass abilities stop needing purchasable reagents, and tier 1 camping features need no materials to craft | \n
Two terms from that table need a word. Merchant's Favor comes from the Azeroth\nCommerce Authority and Durotar Supply and Logistics (Blizzard calls them two new Alliance and\nHorde factions). Camping reworks the old cooking fire: Blizzard's Deep Dive recap\nsays placing a campfire creates a campsite where players can rest and get benefits such as\nvendors, repairs and one-hour buffs.
\nTalents are upgrades a character buys with talent points as it levels. Our\ntalent calculator doesn't include the Talented perk.\nWith it, our reading is that a build can come up to 5 levels sooner than the level the\ncalculator shows.
\nAccount unlocks. Legacy Points build up across your whole account, and the total unlocks\ntoys and cosmetic items. There are four at launch, and Blizzard plans more with each\ncontent update:
\nHardcore, a mode where death carries lasting consequences, is one of Forever's\nrulesets,\nthe kinds of world a character can live in, and it isn't there at launch. When it comes,\nchallenges you finished elsewhere won't show up in it. A challenge finished in Hardcore counts in every other ruleset too. PvP\nchallenges can't be done there, so Blizzard says Hardcore will launch with 12 challenges of\nits own.
\nOur rulesets piece covers every ruleset.
\nWe like this. Every point in Blizzard's post comes from playing: levelling, crafting,\nfighting, exploring. Nothing in the post mentions buying one. Blizzard says the 16-point cap\nkeeps new players from falling too far behind to catch up. Our reading is that it's the\nright call, because a veteran with a dozen alts still can't spend more than 16 on any one\ncharacter at launch.
\nWe read the perks as modest. Cheaper flights, longer food buffs, no more buying reagents for class abilities. We'd call that respect for a player's\ntime rather than a power race. Blizzard plans new challenges and perks with each content\nrelease, and new trees later. Whether future perks stay this modest is the open question. For the launch date, see our\nrelease date piece.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-22T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-25T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-legacy-system/", "summary": "WoW: Forever's Legacy System for one-character players: how points are earned, the 16-point spend cap, our maths on reaching it without an alt, and every perk.", "title": "WoW: Forever Legacy System: can one character reach the 16-point cap?", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-legacy-system/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "World of Warcraft: Forever drops the old realm list of servers. Each character picks a ruleset\ninstead, which is a set of rules for how you want to play.\nBlizzard's post of 21 September\nnames four, and a forum post of 22 October adds a fifth, Roleplay-PvP, for launch on\n4 November. Pick with care: characters can't freely switch rulesets, and friends on different\nones can't group.
\nNormal is the baseline ruleset, the plain version of the game where fighting other players\nis something you opt into. PvP, short for player versus player, where players fight each\nother rather than the game, is for people who want every trip into contested ground, the\nparts of the world where both sides roam, to carry more danger.
\nRoleplaying is for people who want to lean into the fantasy of Azeroth, the world the game\nis set in, and find others who do too. Hardcore, a mode where death carries lasting\nconsequences, will be available sometime after launch.
\nRoleplay-PvP is the newest. Blizzard's 22 October post says the team had shared some\nconcerns about it on the Forever podcast while still watching player feedback, then "decided\nto go for it" for launch on 4 November. The post doesn't describe its rules. Our reading of the\nname is that it mixes Roleplaying with PvP, but the post doesn't say whether PvP's one-side rule\napplies there, so we wouldn't plan around it yet.
\nYou can pick now. Blizzard's thank-you post of 23 October said character creation\nwould open on 27 October, so you can choose a ruleset and a name before launch, and its\n27 October post below is about players already making characters.\nOne catch for players in Oceania (Australia and nearby) on Australian servers: a bug means you\nhave to make any Roleplay or Roleplay-PvP characters first. Blizzard's\n27 October post says that if you make a Normal or PvP character first, the two\nRoleplay rulesets stop being offered for your later characters. Blizzard says it's working on a\nfix urgently.
\n| Ruleset | \nWhat it's for | \nCharacters on both factions? | \n
|---|---|---|
| Normal | \nExploring, questing and working together, with player fights when you choose them | \nYes | \n
| PvP | \nMore danger and more fights with other players out in the world | \nNo, one faction only | \n
| Roleplaying | \nLeaning into the fantasy and finding like-minded players | \nYes | \n
| Roleplay-PvP | \nAdded for launch, Blizzard said on 22 October. The posts we read don't describe its rules | \nNot said | \n
| Hardcore | \nThe hardest challenge, where death carries lasting consequences. Not at launch | \nYes | \n
Blizzard describes each ruleset as working like "a broad player ecosystem" rather than a\nsingle server. For a second read, MMORPG.com, which is a news site about online\nrole-playing games, has its own\npiece on the ruleset choices.
\nFor grouping, dungeons and raids, only if you pick the same one. Settle this table before\nlaunch.
\n| Your friend is on | \nGroup, dungeons and raids together? | \n
|---|---|
| Your ruleset and your faction | \nYes | \n
| Your ruleset, the other faction | \nNo, Horde and Alliance still can't group | \n
| A different ruleset | \nNo, cross-ruleset grouping isn't supported | \n
Battlegrounds, the game's team matches where players fight each other, work\ndifferently. Blizzard says they may include players from other rulesets, except Hardcore, which\nstays separate. Our reading is that this helps fill matches. Blizzard's post doesn't say\nyou can sign up for one with a friend on another ruleset, so we wouldn't plan on it.
\nThere is also a language setting, so you run into players who share your language. Press\nEscape, pick Options, then Languages and Social under the System heading, then set\nPreferred Online Language. It covers every character on your account. Once set, it can't\nbe changed again for 24 hours.
\nOn the PvP ruleset you can only make characters for one faction. Make an Alliance character\nthere and you can't make a Horde one there, and the other way round. Normal, Roleplaying and\nHardcore let you play both sides. The Blizzard posts we've read don't say which way Roleplay-PvP goes.
\nBlizzard also says Forever will have systems intended to help keep Horde and Alliance\nnumbers closer on PvP. It points to the approach it used in Season of Discovery, where making\nnew characters on one faction could be limited for a while when the balance needed help.
\nNot freely. To play under a different ruleset, you make a new character in it. The one way\nacross that Blizzard's post describes is for Hardcore. When it arrives, Hardcore characters live in a\nfully closed world of their own, but a Hardcore character that dies can move to another\nruleset, PvP included.
\nYour collections, the things your account has gathered, and Legacy Points, the game's account-wide progress points, carry across\nrulesets, with Hardcore handled differently. Progress, collections and rewards earned\nthere can become available elsewhere, but progress from other rulesets won't flow back into\nHardcore.
\nBlizzard says the realmless setup is meant to reduce the pressure of choosing the right\nlaunch realm. Our reading is that this goes after a real headache. We think picking a\nserver was often a bet made before you knew who you'd play with. Now the choice is about\nhow you want to play, which we'd guess is the part most people already know on day one.
\nOur worry is losing something this site is openly fond of: servers with names, which in\nour experience gave guilds, the player-run clubs, and rivals a reputation you could learn. Blizzard says it doesn't\nwant a place that "feels anonymous", and wants the world to feel "active and lived in".\nWhether a space that big still feels like a neighbourhood is something we don't think any\npost can settle,\nand we'll judge it when people are playing.
\nThe one-faction rule on PvP reads to us as a fair price for a war worth fighting. We also\nexpect it to be the rule most likely to split a group of friends, so agree on a side before\nlaunch on 4 November.
\nWe're glad Roleplay-PvP made it in. Blizzard's post thanks players for their feedback on it, and\nour reading is that the feedback is what tipped it.
\nBlizzard gives no date for Hardcore beyond "sometime after launch", and its panel recap lists\nit among the things that follow the 9 December raids. Until then, a few dates\nmatter. The beta,\na test version people could play before release, closed on 23 October, the date Blizzard's stress test post gave. Its\nthank-you post that day says it "is now closed".
\nForever launches on 4 November 2026, and Blizzard's\npanel recap\nsays new raids unlock on 9 December. Our release date piece\ncovers the launch hour. Blizzard said name reservation would begin on 27 October. Our\nname reservation piece has each region's start time. The beta, the launch and the December raids sit on our calendar.
\nWhile you wait, two of our tools are built from the game's own data. The\ntalent calculator plans talents, the upgrades a character\nbuys with talent points as it levels. The hunter pet reference covers\nthe animal companions of the Hunter, one of the game's playable classes.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-30T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-25T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-rulesets/", "summary": "WoW: Forever swaps realms for rulesets: what each is, the new Roleplay-PvP one, who can group together, the PvP one-side rule, and Hardcore after launch.", "title": "WoW: Forever rulesets: which to pick, and can you play with friends", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-rulesets/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "World of Warcraft: Forever launches on 4 November 2026 at 3:00 p.m. Pacific, worldwide, per\nBlizzard's announcement\nand its panel recap.\nThe beta (the test version) closed on 23 October: Blizzard's thank-you post that day\nsays it "is now closed", and that character creation would open on 27 October. You don't buy the game itself: it comes\nwith a World of Warcraft subscription or with Game Time, which is subscription time paid for\nup front.
\n| What | \nWhen | \nBlizzard's own wording | \n
|---|---|---|
| Beta | \n17 September to 23 October 2026, now closed | \n"The WoW Forever Beta is now closed" | \n
| Stress test, open to anyone with a WoW account | \n21 October 2026, 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. PDT | \n"Any player with a WoW account is eligible to play the WoW Forever Stress Test" | \n
| Friend invite codes sent | \nFrom 20 October 2026 | \n"Codes will be delivered by email beginning October 20, 2026, PST" | \n
| Character creation opens | \n27 October 2026 | \n"we’ll open access to the character creation system on Tuesday, October 27" | \n
| Early name reservation | \n27 October (1:00 p.m. PDT in North America, 18:00 CET in Europe) to 3 November 2026 | \n"available from October 27 through November 3" | \n
| Launch | \n4 November 2026, 3:00 p.m. PST (23:00 UTC, our maths) | \n"globally on November 4, 2026, at 3:00 p.m. PST" | \n
| Invited friends can play | \n4 to 11 November 2026 | \n"during launch week, from November 4 through November 11, 2026, PST" | \n
| First raids: the Barrow Deeps, Hyjal Summit and Onyxia's Lair | \n9 December 2026 | \n"Barrow Deeps, Hyjal Summit, and Onyxia's Lair unlock on December 9" | \n
Where Blizzard's wording carries no year, the year is ours. Early name reservation also has its own\npiece, with every region's start time and who can reserve.
\nConverting the launch hour, and this part is our maths rather than Blizzard's. Clocks on\nthe US west coast go back an hour on 1 November, so launch day falls on Pacific Standard Time.\nThat makes 3:00 p.m. PST 23:00 UTC, 6:00 p.m. in New York, 11:00 p.m. in London, and midnight\ngoing into 5 November in Paris. Blizzard's announcement wrote the hour as PDT once and PST once.\nThe panel recap and the 24 September post, the other two that give the launch hour, both say\nPST, which is the label that matches the date.
\nBlizzard calls it a permanent home that sits alongside modern World of Warcraft and WoW Classic\n(the re-released original game). It says Forever is neither a mode, nor a season, nor another\nversion of Classic. The story sits after Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom and before\nMolten Core. Players go back to the original continents, Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, and\nlevel to 60.
\nThe design rules are blunt about what is missing: no flying mounts and no level scaling (monsters\nquietly adjusting to your level). Blizzard's four stated pillars are being approachable and\nfamiliar, treating the world as the main character, putting the journey before the destination,\nand protecting the social side of the game.
\nBlizzard's panel recap embeds the BlizzCon replay (BlizzCon is Blizzard's own convention), and\nthe recording below is that same one: "World of Warcraft: Forever - What's Next Panel | BlizzCon\n2026", published on the World of Warcraft YouTube channel.
\n\nMore than a thousand new quests are woven through the level 1 to 60 journey, and Blizzard names\nfour places to go.
\nHyjal deals with the aftermath of Archimonde's defeat. Shen'dralas is a hidden mystery between\nMulgore and Desolace. The Riverglades is a frontier of rivers and trade routes with more than\n150 quests, across much of what Blizzard calls the mid-30s to mid-40s experience. Zephras Isle\n(a starting area in the sky) covers levels 1 to 12.
\nFor a look at the levels past 30, here is a video from the World of Warcraft YouTube channel,\nBlizzard's own.
\n\nZephras Isle is home to the Skyborne, a new playable race. You pick a Skyborne character's side\nwhen you make it, and the side decides one class: Horde Skyborne get the Shaman, which Blizzard\nties to elemental traditions, and Alliance Skyborne get the Mage, tied to an arcane legacy. Both\nsides can also play Warriors, Hunters, Rogues and Druids.
\nThere are nine new dungeons: the Hall of Thanes beneath Ironforge, the Ruins of Lordaeron, an\nexcavation site, the City of Dalaran, Blackmaw Hold, the Drowned City, Krol'dok Stronghold, Alcaz\nPrison and the Shaper's Terrace. Our dungeons piece has where\neach one is and its levels.
\nThe panel named two raids (the Barrow Deeps, planned as a challenge for ten players at the level cap,\nand Hyjal Summit, built for twenty). Across the two, Blizzard names new tier sets and a legendary reward it\nhas not detailed. Blizzard's\n20 October raid overview\nadds a third, Onyxia's Lair, for 40 players, and says all three unlock on 9 December. Our\nraids piece has where each one is and the steps to get into Onyxia's Lair.
\nFor player versus player fights there is a new 15 versus 15 Battleground (on the Darkspear\nIslands), and Blizzard says updates to that side of the game carry on after launch.
\nBlizzard names two new systems. It pitches Legacy progression at players who\nlove levelling alternate characters; our Legacy System piece\ncovers how it works for a player with just one. Camping, which is new, lets you build a campfire out in the world so other\nplayers can stop by, help through their professions and share campsite buffs. Transmog is\nopt-in. There are also modern and Classic visual presets, high and standard definition\ncharacter models, and controller support.
\nBlizzard names three optional digital packs (our reading: Heroic in the first name is a product\nlabel, not a difficulty) plus a physical Collector's Edition.
\n| Edition | \nWhat it adds | \n
|---|---|
| Skyborne Heroic Pack | \nThe Skyborne race and the Zephras Isle start, Early Name Reservation, the Cerulean Prideclaw ground mount, cosmetics, housing decor, one Invite-A-Friend Launch Code | \n
| Skyborne Epic Pack | \nEverything above, plus beta access (17 September to 21 October), 30 days of Game Time from 4 November, more cosmetics, pets, tabards, and three Invite-A-Friend Launch Codes in total | \n
| Warcraft Forever Collection, limited time | \nEverything above, plus Warcraft III: Reforged, its Forsaken Kingdom campaign, and Forsaken and Human figurine decor for housing in modern World of Warcraft | \n
| Collector's Edition | \nA physical box from the Blizzard Gear Store and some retailers: a Warcraft Forever Collection code, a 13-inch Dwarf and Bear statue, a Zephras Isle mousepad, art prints, pins and a journal | \n
Each digital pack starts with everything in the one above it. Blizzard's 24 September post\nadds that orders from its Collector's Edition restock are expected to ship in February 2027, after\nlaunch, with a limit of one per household on its store. No Blizzard post we read gives a price\nfor any of them, that one included.
\nOur reading of that table, in three parts. First, the good news, and it is genuinely good:\nanyone already paying to play owes nothing extra on 4 November. Nothing Blizzard lists in\nthose packs is described as a stat, damage or gear boost, and that is worth saying out loud.
\nSecond, that is still not the same as saying the packs are all paint. The base pack carries a\nplayable race, and Blizzard's panel recap says the Skyborne come with class access that depends\non the side you pick, plus racial abilities of their own. Whether those abilities are any stronger\nthan another race's is a thing none of the posts we read says, so we are not saying it either.\nWhat we will say is that a playable race reaches into how a character plays, and calling these\npacks cosmetic would be wrong.
\nThird, the Cerulean Prideclaw. It comes with the base pack, and Blizzard's own line says "players\nwill need to purchase the riding skill in-game to access and use this mount". So it is a mount you\npaid real money for, with a second purchase inside the game between you and riding it. A small\nthing, and the kind of small thing that reads badly on launch day.
\nAnd the question we used to ask, now answered. The beta included the Skyborne and Zephras\nIsle. Blizzard's 29 October guide for returning players\nsays it plainly: "access to the Skyborne race and starting experience requires the Skyborne Heroic\nPack or higher." So on 4 November the new race is behind a purchase. Our reading: that's a paid\ngate on a way to play, not a skin, and we'd rather say so than call the packs cosmetic. Credit where\nit's due, though: Blizzard says it plainly.
\nBlizzard's 29 October guide for returning players gives the steps, in this order.
\nYour first login asks for an Experience Preset, Classic or Enhanced, before you pick a ruleset.\nOur Experience Preset piece puts the two side by side.\nBlizzard's advice is to agree on a ruleset and a side with your friends and guild first, so you can\ngroup and raid together. If you can't sign in, the guide points you to Blizzard Support's\n"Can't Log In?" account recovery page.
\nNew raids arrive on 9 December. Past that Blizzard lists more raids and dungeons, player\nversus player updates, more world content, more quests through the 1 to 60 journey, and a\nrevamped iconic raid (Blizzard does not say which). None of those has a date.
\nIt also lists Hardcore. Forever moves away from picking a realm: each character picks a ruleset\ninstead, which is the kind of world it lives in, and Hardcore is the one where death carries lasting\nconsequences. Blizzard's ruleset post\nsays Hardcore arrives sometime after launch, and that a Hardcore character who dies can move to\nanother ruleset, player versus player included. Our rulesets piece\ncovers every ruleset, including the Roleplay-PvP one Blizzard announced on 22 October for launch.
\nThe beta, the invite codes, the launch and the December raids are on our calendar.\nFor what the game's files hold, see our\ntalent calculator and hunter pet reference.\nBlizzard's own change lists are on our patch notes page.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-30T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-13T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-4-november/", "summary": "World of Warcraft: Forever launches 4 November at 3:00 p.m. Pacific; the beta closed 23 October. What the packs add, and the price no post we read gives.", "title": "WoW: Forever release date is 4 November; the beta ran 17 September to 23 October", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/wow-forever-4-november/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "RuneFest 2026 runs on 3 and 4 October at the Birmingham NEC, and\nJagex named that venue on 15 January 2026\nin the release that opened its 25th-year plans. RuneFest is Jagex's own fan event for\nRuneScape, a long-running fantasy world people play online together. If you came looking for\na Chicago show, that is a different event.
\nThe Birmingham NEC. Jagex's release of 15 January 2026 puts RuneFest 2026 "at the Birmingham\nNEC", gives the dates as October 3 and 4, and says the event doubles in size from RuneFest\n2025 to hold 6,000 fans.
\nIf you have seen Birmingham mentioned, that is the right city. Our reading is that the venue\nis easy to miss because RuneScape's own news post about the event, dated 17 April 2026, never\nnames a place at all. It gives the dates, the tickets and the plans, and leaves the venue out.\nThe venue was already three months old by then, and it sits in a Jagex press release rather\nthan in that game news post.
\nThe NEC is not new ground for the event either. When Jagex moved RuneFest 2025, its post of\n3 July 2024\nsaid it would host "RuneFest at the NEC in Birmingham, UK on March 1st-2nd, 2025". Same site,\nthe next RuneFest along.
\n3 and 4 October, which is a Saturday and a Sunday. Both pages agree: Jagex's January release\ngives October 3 and 4, and\nRuneScape's post of 17 April\nsays "This October 3rd & 4th". Neither one gives a start time for either day.
\nThere is a real Jagex event in Chicago this year, and it is not this one. The same\nJanuary release announced Deadman All-Stars Live at the Rosemont Theatre on 20 June. Deadman\nis a competitive version of Old School RuneScape, and the release calls this an elite Deadman\nMode competition. It says top content creators and competitors will battle it out, with the\ncreator Solomission.
\nThe release says that would happen in front of a theatre audience and a livestream. Two\nevents, two countries, two different months. If you searched for the Chicago one and landed\non October dates, that is why.
\nStandard tickets are GBP 210 and Gold Tier tickets are GBP 375, in both cases plus what Jagex\ncalls a platform booking fee. The 17 April post says tickets were due to go live on Thursday 30\nApril at 16:00 BST, and Jagex's January release said they would be sold through RuneFest.com. We\nhave not found a publisher page saying whether any are left, so we are not going to guess.
\nA standard ticket covers both days and comes with a goodie bag. Gold Tier adds an upgraded bag\nwith a figurine, early access to the merch store, 15% off merch at the event, reserved seating\nat the front of the main stage, and priority booking for LAN sessions and meet and greets.
\nThis site is hard on paid power, so it is worth being as plain when something looks like the\nopposite: nothing Jagex lists for Gold Tier is game power. Every one of the five perks\nabove is a real-world thing. The April post says the standard bag is packed with exclusive\ngifts "including some 25th anniversary surprises", and never says what those are. So we\ncannot tell you either bag holds nothing for Gielinor, the world RuneScape is set in, only\nthat nothing Jagex names is. That is the version of a premium tier we have no argument\nwith. Jagex also writes in the April post: "We do not\nmake our events or set ticket prices for profit in any way." That is its claim rather than\nours, and it is a claim worth holding it to.
\nJagex's January release describes two permanent stages of reveals and developer sessions, plus\nmeet and greets with staff and creators. RuneScape's April post fills that in: a second stage\nrunning all weekend for developer panels and question sessions, and the return of the props\nfrom last year, including the Lumby gates, the Grand Exchange and the Varrock fountain.\nThose are places in the game, rebuilt in the real world.
\nTwo things there are worth calling out. The Skill Chips come back in new versions, 8 brand new\nchallenges built on the game's skills, plus a final reward chip for finishing all eight. And\nthe event is running quests, which the post says it has never done at RuneFest before, with\nquest points and a hiscore table for them, the same way the game tracks its own story missions.
\n| \n | RuneFest 2026 | \nDeadman All-Stars Live | \n
|---|---|---|
| Dates | \n3-4 October 2026 | \n20 June 2026, already past | \n
| Place | \nBirmingham NEC, UK | \nRosemont Theatre, Chicago, US | \n
| What it is | \nJagex's fan event, two stages of reveals and developer sessions | \nThe release calls it an elite Deadman Mode competition, and says it will see top content creators and competitors battle it out, with Solomission | \n
| Announced | \nJagex release, 15 January 2026 | \nThe same release | \n
Both were announced in one press release in January, and after that they went their separate\nways. RuneFest got its own game news post in April with the tickets and the plans in it, and\nthat post never says where the event is. Deadman All-Stars Live has no equivalent post on the\nfirst page of\nRuneScape's events news list,\nwhich is as far as we looked.
\nJagex gives RuneFest 6,000 fans, and gives no capacity at all for the Chicago show in\nanything we read. RuneFest's venue sits on a corporate site three months upstream of the\nApril post, and the other event's only home in what we read is that same release. That\nevents list also carries a 25 Years of RuneScape entry dated 15 January 2026 that we did not\nopen, so we cannot tell you whether the venue turns up in game news somewhere we did not\nlook. Our reading is that the April post leaving the venue out is enough on its own to mix\nthe two cities up, and that nobody is being misled: a publisher can fix this by repeating\nitself once, in the post a player actually reads.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-13T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-07T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/rs3-runefest-2026-venue/", "summary": "Jagex named the venue on 15 January 2026: RuneFest 2026 runs 3-4 October at the Birmingham NEC for 6,000 fans. Chicago's Deadman All-Stars Live is separate.", "title": "RuneFest 2026 is at the Birmingham NEC on 3 and 4 October, and the Chicago show is a different event", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/rs3-runefest-2026-venue/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Havenhythe Part II arrives on 28 September 2026, and that is the only date\nRuneScape's own September preview of 3 September\nputs on it. The post gives no launch time. Havenhythe is an island in RuneScape, which is a\nlong-running fantasy world people play online together, and the game added it back in March.
\n28 September, and that is the one date the post gives it. The post writes "September 28" and\nno year; 2026 is ours, off its own dateline of 3 September 2026. The post's own framing is that\nSeptember is "predominantly about" seeing out the remaining weeks of Leagues II: EQUILIBRIUM,\nwhich is a temporary game mode with its own fresh characters and rules, "before transitioning\ninto Havenhythe Part II, which launches on September 28".
\nOur reading is that this makes Havenhythe Part II the month's headline, because the post lists\ntwo further updates as "two other dedicated updates" and puts this one ahead of them.
\nAn island, and the game's own announcement when it arrived is much more forthcoming than the\nSeptember preview is.\nThe post of 23 March 2026\ncalls Havenhythe "a brand new landmass" and places it east of Morytania, which is one of the\nregions of the game's map. It describes the island as "a quiet and mysterious place with\na long history behind it".
\nThat first release is the part with the detail in it. It opened with an introductory quest,\nwhich is one of the game's story missions, called Visions of Havenhythe, free to play and with\nno requirements. It stretched Hunter, one of the game's skills, up to level 110 for paying\nmembers. It added fish farming for members, between Fishing levels 45 and 84, and a couple of new\nboss fights the post aims at early to mid levels.
\nYour first stop is Wendlewick, described there as "a small village that sits along the island's\nshoreline". The story starts with a vision and works toward what that post calls "a growing\nthreat known as The Sanguine".
\nWorth saying plainly, because the September preview does not: that March post said the island\nwas built to keep growing, with "more stories, activities and discoveries" added across the\nyear. Our reading is that Part II is the next of those. Neither post says what is in it.
\nThe post does not say. It names the day and no hour, and no time zone either. We are not going\nto guess one. If a publisher page puts a time on it, it will appear on our\ncross-game calendar with the source beside it.
\nThe post gives no end date for Leagues II. What it says is that September is about seeing out\nits "remaining weeks" before the move into Havenhythe Part II on the 28th. Our reading is that\nthe two sit close together in the month. The post never says they land on the same day, and\nneither do we.
\nTwo more updates, one separate game's full release, and a fan event just after the month ends.\nIn date order, as far as the post dates them at all.
\nAn Engine Update is "coming next week", which from a post dated 3 September is the week of\n7 September, and that is our maths rather than the post's. An engine update changes the software\nunderneath the game rather than the content in it. The post says this one carries "a beta for\nVulkan", a different way for a game to draw itself, which we\nwrote about separately, plus "a few other in-game\nchanges that were not previously possible". It does not say what those changes are.
\nRuneScape: Dragonwilds 1.0 launches on 15 September. That is a separate game carrying the\nRuneScape name, and 1.0 is the label for a finished release. We have\ncovered that one too.
\nThe Deep Clean update lands in "week four of September", which is as close to a date as the\npost gets. It is a tidy-up. The post lists trimmed login messages, the removal of "a lot of" what it calls\n"egregious info box popups that get in the way of gameplay", and icons unified so interfaces\nmatch. It also refreshes the look of level 99 skillcapes, which are the capes a player gets for\ntaking a skill to 99, and the health bars on "all core bosses", which is the post's phrase for\nthe game's main boss fights. And it brings bank PIN\nentry by keyboard, for anyone using a Jagex account. A bank PIN is the code that guards a\nplayer's stored items.
\nRuneFest follows on 3 and 4 October. The post calls it "the biggest in-person RuneScape\nevent of the year". It names no venue and says nothing about tickets.
\nOne human note from the same post: there is no video version of the Month Ahead today. The\npost puts that down to "a variety of factors", one of them that "Jagex is moving offices and\nour studio has been packed up". The team says the video format is coming back.
\nThe post is written for people already playing. Here is the same information sorted by where a\nreader is standing, which is the view it does not offer.
\n| Where you are | \nWhat the post gives you | \nWhat it does not | \n
|---|---|---|
| Never played | \nA date, 28 September, and the sense that the month builds toward it. The March post fills in what the island is. | \nAnything at all about what is in Part II, or whether a new player can start there. | \n
| Played years ago, thinking of coming back | \nThe Deep Clean, in week four: fewer login messages, fewer popups in the way of play, matching icons, refreshed level 99 skillcapes and boss health bars, and a bank PIN you can type, on a Jagex account. Our reading is that these are the changes a returning player notices first. | \nA day for the Deep Clean. "Week four of September" is the whole of it. | \n
| Playing Leagues II right now | \nThe order of events. Leagues II is seen out, then Havenhythe Part II on the 28th. | \nThe Leagues end date, which is the number you actually need. | \n
This is a preview doing the honest version of its job. It dates its headline update 25 days\nahead, which is our maths off the post's own date, and where it cannot give a day it says so in\nplain words: "next week", "week four of September". That is better than a fake precision, and it\nis worth saying so, because the opposite is common.
\nThe gap is the one a current player feels. The post dates the thing that starts and never dates\nthe thing that ends, and if you are partway through Leagues II with rewards still to earn, the\nLeagues end date is the number you came for. It is not in this post.
\nThe Deep Clean is the part we would cheer for. Trimmed login messages, popups removed, and a\nbank PIN you can type are not content, and none of it will make a trailer.\nThey are the small daily frictions of an old game, and clearing them out is a studio treating a\nplayer's evening as worth something. The post gives the keyboard PIN an exclamation mark. Our\nreading is that it earned one.
\nThe September and October dates above, 15 September, 28 September and 3 and 4 October, are on\nour cross-game calendar, with the source on each row.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-06T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-06T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/rs3-havenhythe-part-ii-28-september/", "summary": "RuneScape's September preview dates Havenhythe Part II (Part 2) to 28 September 2026 and names no hour. What Havenhythe is, and what else the post dates.", "title": "Havenhythe Part II comes out 28 September, and RuneScape's own preview gives no launch time", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/rs3-havenhythe-part-ii-28-september/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "RuneScape, which is a long-running fantasy world people play online together, is changing\nhow it draws itself.\nThe game's news post of 4 September 2026\nsays a voluntary open beta of its Vulkan renderer starts on Windows on Monday 7 September,\nand you switch it on yourself from the Graphics Mode setting.
\nThe post is signed by the RuneTek team, which is the name it gives the group that builds the\ngame's engine. It never says how long the beta runs.
\nMonday 7 September, on Windows, and taking part is your choice. The post describes this\nas the first step of what it calls a staggered rollout, chosen because shipping a new\nrendering backend is high risk. A rendering backend is the part of a game that turns the\nworld into the picture on your screen.
\nThe beta is there to collect data. The post says it will give the team a lot of information\nabout remaining crash, visual and performance issues, and that only once the team is happy\nthose are resolved will it start offering the Vulkan version as the default through the\nlauncher.
\nThe post's own instructions, and it says to do this once the beta launches. We have split\nthem into four steps:
\nOur guess is that the last step is the one people will miss. The post says you have to\nrestart the client after making the change so that the launcher can download the new\nexecutable, which is the program file it runs.
\nThe game currently uses OpenGL, which is the older way it can talk to your graphics chip.\nVulkan is a newer one, built by the Khronos Group, and the post says it works across\nplatforms rather than being tied to one.
\nThe post's own comparison is a car. OpenGL is the automatic and Vulkan is the manual: both\nget you there, but the manual gives more control over gear changes and fuel economy. In\npractice that means the engineers get to decide more of what the graphics chip does, and\nhave to be more precise about it.
\nVulkan arrived around 2016. OpenGL's last major update was version 4.6 in 2017, and the post\nsays it has, in its words, essentially been "put out to pasture".
\nLess than the headline suggests, at first, and the post says so itself. For launch it says\nthe goal is for Vulkan to be at least as good as, or better than, OpenGL on stability and\nraw performance. Parity is the floor it sets.
\nThe most immediate change the post says you may notice is streaming performance, and it\nmeans the technical kind rather than the Twitch kind. Streaming here is the game loading the world in\nand out around you as you move. Better streaming means faster loading and less stuttering\nwhen you run across the map.
\nThe post ties that to threads. Multi-threading is a computer spreading work across several\nparts of its processor at once instead of queueing it all through one. It says the cause is OpenGL's\nthreading model "not being up to snuff", and that for the most part this is behind certain\nstuttering issues that have, in its words, "somewhat plagued" the game over the years. Vulkan,\nit says, is built for multi-threading from the ground up.
\nBecause the old road is closing. The post says OpenGL is no longer actively developed and is\nessentially deprecated, that many platforms are stuck on older versions of it, and that\nApple and other platforms have warned developers they may remove OpenGL support altogether\nin future operating system versions. It says vendors such as Nvidia and AMD are already winding\nsupport down in various ways.
\nThere is a second reason, and it is about the team's own resources. The post says waiting\nthis long let the OpenGL work mature to the point where very little engineering time goes\ninto it, and that this is what lets it support two renderers in the live game at once\nwithout a significant hit to those resources.
\nThis is the part worth keeping. The post narrates a full rollout in prose, but it commits to\nexactly one day. Everything else is an order of events with no calendar attached to it. Our\nreading is that this is the honest way to write it, and also the reason not to plan around\nany row below the first one.
\n| Step | \nPlatform | \nWhat the post dates | \n
|---|---|---|
| Voluntary open beta | \nWindows | \nMonday 7 September | \n
| Vulkan becomes the default renderer | \nThrough the launcher; that sentence names no platform | \nNo date. Conditional on the team being happy that crash, visual and performance issues are resolved | \n
| Rollout reaches mobile | \nAndroid first | \nNo date. Stated as after desktop | \n
| Rollout reaches Apple devices | \nOSX and iOS | \nNo date. Stated as after Android | \n
| OpenGL becomes the fallback | \nAny device without Vulkan | \nNo date. Stated as happening once Vulkan is the default | \n
Four of the five rows are sequenced against each other and pinned to nothing. That is not a\ncomplaint. Our reading is that this is what a staggered rollout looks like when a team will\nnot promise a date it might miss, and we would rather have this than four dates that slip.
\nOpenGL does not disappear immediately. The post says that once Vulkan becomes the default renderer,\nOpenGL mode becomes the compatibility mode, or the fallback for a device that cannot run\nVulkan. On minimum specification devices it hedges: it says those should theoretically\nguarantee Vulkan 1.1 support, and we are keeping the hedge because the post did.
\nApple is the awkward one. The post says Apple does not officially support Vulkan and uses\nits own low-level graphics interface called Metal instead. The bridge is an open source\ntranslation layer, which is a piece of software that converts one set of graphics\ninstructions into another, called Molten in the post's own spelling. It says Molten maps the\nVulkan code into Metal code on the fly with little extra overhead, and that the Khronos Group\nmaintains it, so future support is probably guaranteed.
\nElsewhere, the post lists three places where Vulkan is already the preferred interface:\nSteamOS hardware, Android and Linux. It also says DX12 is Windows only, and that this game\nneeds an interface that runs on more than one platform.
\nThe sentence worth reading in this post is the one about stuttering. It says long time\nplayers will probably know those stuttering issues, it says the cause is for the most part\nOpenGL's threading model, and it says this should no longer be the case with Vulkan.
\nA beta whose stated floor is to match what you already have is a strange thing to\nadvertise, and it is also the right thing to build. Our reading of the lighting talk further down the post\nis that it is intent rather than commitment, and it carries no date anywhere in it. The thing we would watch is the second row of that table. A default\nswitch with no date is where a beta either lands or quietly stops being mentioned. Our\nreading is that it is the row the rest hangs off. The post ties the fallback to it by name,\nand leaves mobile tied to the desktop release instead, so the mobile half of that is ours\nrather than the post's. When a date shows up, it goes on our cross-game\ncalendar, beside the other RuneScape dates we track, each row carrying the\nsource we took it from.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-13T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-06T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/rs3-vulkan-beta-7-september/", "summary": "A voluntary open beta of the game's Vulkan renderer starts on Windows on Monday 7 September. How to switch it on, and what the post never dates.", "title": "RuneScape Vulkan beta opens 7 September on Windows: how to switch it on, and what it should fix", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/rs3-vulkan-beta-7-september/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "RuneScape: Dragonwilds, which is a survival game set in the RuneScape world, keeps its price\nwhen it leaves early access, the paid unfinished release players can buy into before launch. A post on the game's own Steam news channel, dated 3 September,\nsays the game is "staying the same price once 1.0 releases", at £24.99, or $29.99. It\nalso promises monthly updates after that, and a free winter update it calls Luminance.
\n1.0 is the finished version that ends early access. A separate announcement from Jagex, the\nstudio behind RuneScape and Dragonwilds, dates it to\n15 September 2026,\non PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
\nOne note on who is speaking, because the post itself does not say. It is written in the first\nperson, as "we", and it names no author and no studio. It sits on the game's own Steam news\nchannel, and our reading is that it is Jagex's own post. Every "the post says" below means\nthat document, not a person we can name.
\nNo. The post says the game is "staying the same price once 1.0 releases", and its own headline\nsays the price is the thing that is not leaving. Two currencies are given and no others:\n£24.99, or $29.99.
\nThe post frames this as thanks, and it thanks two groups rather than one: the players who\nbought in during early access and took part, and the people who waited for the story to be\nfinished before buying. It says it hopes "this small gesture" shows its "endless appreciation",\nand our reading is that the gesture it means is the price hold.
\nWe have not found a source saying what studios usually do with the price at 1.0, so we are not\ngoing to tell you. What we can say is that the post exists, twelve days before the release, and\nour reading is that answering the price question early is worth more to a buyer than answering\nit well later.
\n| \n | What the 3 September post says | \n
|---|---|
| Price at 1.0 | \n£24.99, or $29.99, unchanged | \n
| What the game contains | \n"the entirety of Kuldra's Saga and the Free Updates around it" | \n
| After 1.0 | \nMonthly updates, "as the game grows" | \n
| An update it names | \nLuminance, in the coming Winter, free | \n
| Next word on 2027 | \nAfter 1.0 ships, and at a Summit at Runefest (which is Jagex's own convention for its games) on 3 October | \n
Kuldra, in that table, is a figure in the game's story and the name of its story arc. The post\ncapitalises "Free Updates" as though it names something, and never says what. The post\nwrites "our Summit at RuneFest on October 3rd", and our reading is that the day belongs to the\nSummit rather than to Runefest as a whole, which is how we have it on our\ncalendar. The post does not spell that distinction out.
\nThe post names four things that happen after 1.0, and only two of them carry a name.
\nThe unnamed pair is how often updates arrive, and the story. It says it will "continue to deliver monthly\nupdates" as the game grows, with no day, no size and no content on any of them; and it points\nat "the next Saga in Ashenfall's story" without saying what that is. Ashenfall is a region of\nthe game's map.
\nThe named pair is Luminance, arriving in the coming Winter and free "much like the minor\nupdates", and the Summit on 3 October, where the post says its 2027 plans will be discussed.\nLuminance gets no day, no feature list and no region. Anything more specific than that is\nsomebody else's guess, not this post's word.
\nThe post is short, and it leaves four ordinary questions open.
\nIt says nothing about paid extra content after 1.0. Not that there will be some, not that there\nwill not be. What it does say is that Luminance is free, that the minor updates are free, and\nthat the game already contains what it calls its "Free Updates".
\nIt gives no price in any currency other than pounds and dollars, and it does not say which\ndollar. A reader in Canada cannot tell from this post what they will be charged.
\nIt also never mentions the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S versions that Jagex's June\nannouncement said would launch alongside the PC one. The only platform it names anywhere is\nSteam, and that is where it is published.
\nAnd "the coming Winter" is a season, not a date. We have not put Luminance on our\ncalendar as a dated row, because there is no date to put.
\nOur reading is that this is the cheapest kind of goodwill a studio can buy, and it still counts.
\nOur reading is that a studio does not announce a price hold in advance unless it has decided\nnot to revisit it. The post names no other price, and no price it might have charged instead,\nso there is no gap for us to put a figure on and we are not going to invent one.
\nThe part we will be checking is the word "monthly". A price that does not move is verifiable on\nthe day it does not move. "Monthly" is a promise that comes due again every month, and our reading\nis that it is the claim in this post most likely to quietly stop being true. We track\nDragonwilds' dates on our Dragonwilds page and our calendar, and\nLuminance goes on the calendar the moment it gets a day.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-30T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-05T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/dragonwilds-price-holds-at-1-0/", "summary": "The game's own Steam post says the price is \"staying the same\" at 1.0: £24.99 or $29.99. Jagex dates 1.0 to 15 September. Plus a free winter update, Luminance.", "title": "RuneScape Dragonwilds 1.0 price: £24.99 / $29.99, unchanged when early access ends 15 September", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/dragonwilds-price-holds-at-1-0/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Old School RuneScape has a Menu Entry Swapper, the game's tool for reordering or hiding the\noptions in its right-click menu.\nThe game's news post of 3 September 2026\nsays MES 2.0, a ground-up rewrite, is live on mobile and in the game's own client from client\nversion 240.6. The top entry is what a tap or left-click does.
\nMES is the short name for it, and the post uses both. The post says the feature was added a\ncouple of years ago to give players more control: setting the order options appear in, hiding\noptions, and generally letting people tune the menu to suit them.
\nOne thing worth saying early. This piece is Old School RuneScape only. The post it is built on is\nOld School RuneScape's own, so nothing here is a claim about RuneScape, the version that\nkept moving forward when this one was preserved separately. That game has\nits own page.
\nOur reading is that the last line is the one worth holding on to, and that it is not new: the\npost describes selecting the top entry as how the game picks what a left-click does, and puts\nno version on that. Everything below is about moving the entry you want into that top slot,\nand getting the ones you keep misclicking out of the way.
\nThe post's own instructions, in its order, and then the controls.
\n| Control | \nWhat it does, in the post's words | \n
|---|---|
| Up arrow | \nBring entry to top of menu | \n
| Down arrow | \nShift entry down by one space | \n
| Eye | \nHide/show entry | \n
| Star | \nPromote sub-entry to top-level menu | \n
| Reset | \nMove all the entries under this object back to default | \n
The post flags one line under that list as important: the top entry in the menu becomes the\nprimary entry used when you tap or left-click.
\nBring the option you want to the top of that object's menu with the up arrow. That is the\nwhole thing.
\nThere is a second setting worth knowing about, and the post spells out why. By default the\nmenu opens with its very top edge under your pointer. A setting called 'Minimenu start\nposition' changes that so one of the entries sits under your pointer instead. The post says\nthis works well alongside reordering, because it lets you set both a left-click option and an\neasy right-click option.
\nTwo more settings are named. You can change how long a long press has to be before touch\ninput opens the menu, and the post notes that shorter times let you act faster but need more\nprecision. You\ncan also change the spacing of the menu entries, which the post suggests if you find the menu\ntoo small.
\nSame edit mode, different button. Open the menu, press 'edit', go to the object you want, then\npress the eye on the entry. The post lists that control as hide/show entry, so it turns the\nentry off and can turn it back on.
\nThe post says hiding options was one of the reasons the feature was added a couple of years\nago, alongside setting the order entries appear in and letting people tune the menu to suit\nthem. Our reading is that this is the control to reach for when you never want to see an option\nagain, rather than pushing it down the list with the down arrow.
\nWalk-here, which is the menu option that just moves your character to the spot you clicked, comes\nup in four places in the post.
\nThree of those four are here; the fourth is in the technical section further down.
\nEntries can now be re-ordered around walk-here more reliably. The post lists that as one of the\nrewrite's improvements. Some customisations involving walk-here will not carry over from the old\nsystem, so those are ones you set up again. And walk-here turns up in the known issues: on\npriority swapping the post names walk-here being prioritised over Attack in player versus\nplayer, meaning the parts of the game where players fight each other rather than the game.
\nYes. The post says MES 2.0 is available on mobile and in the game's own client from version\n240.6 and up. Some of this is mobile-specific, and the last line applies everywhere:
\nOur reading is that this is the one that will catch people out. Set your phone up the way you like it\nand your computer is still on its own settings.
\nFive things the post says, before you go looking for a bug.
\nThe post also carries a Known Issues box, which it says is a new format it is trialling. Six\nissues are listed, each with a status word and a date. Our reading is that three of them are\nabout the swapper itself:
\n| Issue, as the post names it | \nStatus | \nDated | \n
|---|---|---|
| Cannot Open The Swapper | \nIssue Raised | \n3 September | \n
| PoH Fairy Ring Issues | \nIssue Raised | \n3 September | \n
| Priority Swapping | \nIssue Raised | \n3 September | \n
On the swapper failing to appear, the post says some players have raised that in certain\ninstances the swapper options fail to appear. On player-owned houses, which are buildings each player customises and fills\nwith useful rooms, it says some players have raised that their fairy ring, which is one of\nthe game's teleport networks, either cannot rearrange options or activates the wrong\noption. On\npriority swapping it says some players have raised that setting certain priority options are\nmaking other options a priority in different interfaces. It names one case: walk-here being\nprioritised over Attack in player versus player, where players fight each other rather than\nthe game.
\nThe other three issues in the box sit on the same page, and our reading is that the post does\nnot connect them to MES 2.0. They are the chatbox, the Total Level text appearing in the top-left of the\nscreen rather than over the appropriate skill, and a tablet issue where the Special Attack\nbutton needs a long press. Total level is the game's running total of all your skill levels.\nThe Special Attack button is the on-screen button that switches on the special attack of the\nweapon you are holding. The chatbox entry is three separate reports in one. The post says\nsome players cannot scroll it with a finger. It says it has also seen reports of the channel\nbuttons not responding when pressed, and that others have reported not being able to click\nthrough the chatbox's transparent version. We are naming them because they are on the same\npage as the ones above, not because the post says the rewrite caused them.
\nTwo ways, and they do different amounts.
\nThe big one is a "Reset minimenu ordering" button in the settings. The post says that is the\none to use if you want to reset your existing customisations and start from scratch. The\nminimenu is the game's own name for the little list of options a right-click opens.
\nThe small one is the Reset control inside edit mode, on the row of controls in the table\nabove. That moves all the entries under one object back to default. Our reading is that the rest of\nyour setup is left alone.
\nOur reading is that this is the part of the post most people will scroll past, and the most\ninteresting thing in it.
\nThe post says that in the 2007 code, its name for the game's original code, the order was\nfairly simple to achieve: things went into\nthe menu already in the right order by default, apart from a few that were shifted to the\nbottom. It says that order was tightly coupled to the 3D renderer. The renderer drew every\nobject to the screen back to front and recorded everything under the mouse as it went, which\nthe post says incidentally leaves a list of what was under your pointer in reverse order.\nFlip it, and you have the order the menu should be in.
\nThen two things happened, both in the post. The game's own client kept adding to what the menu\ncould do: some entries had to move to the top, some had to move around walk-here, some had to\nappear only while shift was held, and full reordering arrived. And the game switched to\nZ-buffered rendering, a way of drawing a 3D scene that works out what sits in front point\nby point instead of painting whole objects back to front, so the renderer stopped drawing\nthings in that neat order. Our reading\nis that this is why the menu resisted patching for so long. Its order was a side effect of how\nthe scene was drawn, so changing one meant reaching into the other.
\nOur reading is that the post is candid about what the rewrite cost, and that this is worth\ncrediting. Drag-and-drop is gone. Some walk-here setups will not carry over. Settings live on one device and stay there.\nThe post says the rewrite "will attempt to migrate" existing customisations and that most will\ncarry over. Our\nreading is that this is the good kind of trade: the price is written in the same post as the\nprize.
\nOur reading is that the game took the harder repair here rather than the quicker one. We read\none of the Summer Sweep Up batch's fixes the same way, in\nour own coverage of it.
\nNothing here joins our calendar, because the post puts no date on any of what comes next.
\nSix issues are listed with the status words "Investigating" and "Issue Raised" as of 3\nSeptember. The post says feedback will be closely monitored and asks for thoughts and bug\nreports in the #mobile-bugs channel on the game's Discord server. It calls the Known Issues box a format it\nis trialling, without saying whether it stays. And it says the new foundations let the team\nadd support for different styles, larger fonts and better internal debug features, none of\nwhich is dated either.
\nSo the honest summary of what comes next is: six known issues with no fix dates, a feedback\nchannel, and a list of things the rewrite makes possible. We will move a date onto the\ncalendar when the post's own follow-ups give us one.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-23T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-05T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/osrs-menu-entry-swapper-2-0/", "summary": "MES 2.0 is live on mobile and in the game's own client from version 240.6. How to set what a tap or left-click does, and the six issues the post lists.", "title": "OSRS Menu Entry Swapper on mobile: how to use MES 2.0 and set your left-click", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/osrs-menu-entry-swapper-2-0/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Albion Online's September referral pays you nothing until the friend you invited buys at\nleast 30 days of Premium, which is the game's paid membership.\nThe announcement\nputs that third in its three steps, and excludes Premium bought with the in-game currencies\nGold and Silver. One referral unlocks the Steelplate Cougar mount skin.
\nAlbion Online, if you have not played it, is an open-ended fantasy world you play online with\nother people, and a Season is one of the named stretches of play it runs, each with its own\nbundles and rewards. Two other September offers lean on Premium as well. The Season 34 bundles\nare listed at $69.95 and $119.95, with 90 days of it inside both. And the Adventurer's\nChallenge, the game's own rolling reward event, hands its Weekly and Monthly tiers to people\nwho have it.
\nFour things each, and only one of them is cosmetic. Everything quoted in this section comes\nfrom\nthe Season 34 bundles announcement,\nwhich is a different post from the referral one above.
\n| \n | Season Bundle | \nConqueror's Bundle | \n
|---|---|---|
| Price | \n$69.95 | \n$119.95 | \n
| Premium | \n90 days | \n90 days | \n
| Gold (one of the game's two in-game currencies) | \n2,000 | \n9,000 | \n
| Learning Points (an item the game hands out for progress) | \n1,000 | \n3,500 | \n
| Vanity | \nDragon Hunter Vanity Bundle | \nDragon Hunter Vanity Bundle | \n
Vanity, on that last row, is the game's word for appearance items.
\nThe announcement closes its price list with "Prices may vary by platform and region", so both\nfigures are list prices rather than what a given store charges.
\nIt is direct about why 90 days is 90 days: that covers "the full season and both surrounding\noff-seasons", meaning the gaps either side of a season. It is equally direct about where Premium\nstops being optional. Premium "is required to take part in the Conqueror's Challenge", which is\nthe season's own run of tasks. A player doing it earns avatar sets, unlocks legacy avatars,\nwhich the page describes as avatars from previous seasons, and claims reward chests and what the\npage calls "valuable Fame buffs". Fame is the game's word for experience points.
\nThere is also an upgrade path. Start on the Season Bundle,\nmove to the Conqueror's Bundle any time before the offer ends, pay the difference.
\nYour friend has to spend money, and the announcement puts that third.
\nThe Steelplate Cougar is a mount skin unlocked by one referral, and the ladder climbs from\nthere. Three friends for a T7 Pile of Tomes worth 100,000 Fame, where T7 and T8 are the game's\nlabels for how good an item is. Five friends for a T8 Pile worth 200,000 Fame. The announcement\nalso lists a T8 Pile worth 200,000 Fame as a bonus for your first-ever referral, and 500 Gold\nfor each friend referred. The\nreferral announcement\nlists three steps. Step one is sharing the link. Step two is the friend signing up. Step three\nis the one that decides whether any of it happens: the friend "purchases at least 30 days of\nPremium status".
\nThen comes the condition, in the same breath: "Note that this does not apply to Premium\npurchased with ingame currencies (Gold and Silver)". Silver is the game's other in-game currency.
\nAbove the daily rewards and below nothing else.
\nSeptember's Challenge is the Heretic Challenge, and its\nannouncement\nsets the split out plainly.
\nOnly Premium players unlock the Monthly Rewards: the Heretic Challenge Avatar Ring, and the\nHeretic Combat Mule. The ring is an avatar border, which is decoration around a player's\npicture; the page says it unlocks permanently for one character or can be traded to the game's\nVanity Merchant. The mule is a mount, and it fires a cannon shot which knocks back and slows\ntargets, with the page warning about its "massive recoil". Only Premium players unlock the\nWeekly Rewards, which are the Heretic Challenge Chests, meaning reward containers. Anyone can\nclaim the Daily Rewards, which the page says include 10 Learning Points and a Tier 4 Tome of\nInsight, where Tier 4 is a rung on the game's quality scale.
\nThen the part that deserves credit. Players without Premium "also make progress on all reward\ntracks". A player who unlocks Premium later is told their earned rewards will be waiting.
\nThe publisher posted these as three separate announcements over two days. Here they are in one\nplace.
\n| Offer | \nWindow given | \nWhat it costs | \nWhat Premium unlocks in it | \n
|---|---|---|---|
| Season 34 bundles | \nto 21 September, 10:00 UTC | \n$69.95 or $119.95 | \nthe Conqueror's Challenge, avatar sets, reward chests, "valuable Fame buffs" | \n
| Steelplate Cougar referral | \nSeptember; no closing day given | \na friend's "at least 30 days" of Premium | \nthe whole ladder: the skin, three Tome piles, 500 Gold per friend | \n
| Heretic Challenge | \nSeptember; described as monthly, no closing day given | \nnot stated; points come from open-world activities | \nMonthly Rewards (Avatar Ring, mount) and Weekly Rewards (Challenge Chests) | \n
Our reading is that these three announcements are one offer wearing three hats, and the hat is\nPremium. A bundle that includes it. A referral that requires somebody else to buy it. A monthly\nevent that hands its Monthly and Weekly tiers only to people who have it.
\nNothing here is hidden. Every price, condition and reward above is printed on the publisher's own pages in plain\nEnglish, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. The plain-words explanations are\nours: what Gold, Silver, Fame, Vanity, Learning Points, an avatar border and the T tiers are,\nwhat a Season and its off-seasons are, and what kind of game this is. So is the subtraction\nbelow.
\nWhat we would push back on is the referral condition. A referral programme is a friendship\nbeing asked to do sales work, and this one only pays out when the friend buys Premium outside\nthe game's own currencies. Gold and Silver are excluded by name. Our reading is that this is a\nchoice about who the programme is for, and our view is that a note tacked onto the end of the\nsteps is the wrong place to qualify the step the whole ladder hangs on.
\nThe Adventurer's Challenge is the one we would defend. The Premium gate on the mount and the\nring is the least interesting thing on that page. The line worth noticing is the other one:\nplayers without Premium make progress on all reward tracks, and the announcement promises the\nearned rewards will be waiting for them. Banking somebody's progress while they are not paying\nis a decision in the player's favour, and it is one sentence long.
\nWe will leave the bundles to your own sums, with one observation ours does support. Both tiers\ncarry the same 90 days of Premium and the same Dragon Hunter Vanity Bundle. So every one of the\n$50 between them buys Gold and Learning Points and nothing else. Our maths, not the publisher's:\nthe announcement prints the two prices and never subtracts them. What that extra Gold and those\nextra Learning Points are WORTH to a player, the announcement does not say, and we are not going\nto fill that in for it.
\nThe bundles close on 21 September at 10:00 UTC, the only closing time any of the three\nannouncements gives. The challenge is described as monthly and running all month long, with no\nday named, and the referral says only that it is September's. That 21 September close is now a\nrow on our calendar beside the other September dates we track, each row linked\nto the publisher's own page.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-04T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-04T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/albion-september-2026-premium-offers/", "summary": "September's Albion Online referral pays out only once the friend buys at least 30 days of Premium, and Gold and Silver purchases are excluded by name.", "title": "Albion Online's referral pays nothing in September until your friend buys Premium", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/albion-september-2026-premium-offers/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Guild Wars 2, which is ArenaNet's long-running fantasy world, wraps up its Visions of Eternity\nexpansion, meaning a large paid addition of land and story, in September. The studio says it\nthen spends nearly a year on the game itself. In\na post published on 6 June 2026,\nArenaNet said it will spend "nearly a full year going back through each era of Guild Wars 2,\nmaking meaningful improvements to the player experience".
\nThat starts with the first Hall of Monuments update, "coming later this year". The Hall of\nMonuments, which is a place inside Guild Wars 2 that players can visit, goes first. Guild Wars\nReforged, which is a third ArenaNet game alongside Guild Wars 2 and the announced Guild Wars 3,\nis mentioned further down.\nThe post naming September is dated 6 June 2026, so our reading is September 2026.
\nThe post went up one day after ArenaNet announced Guild Wars 3. Our reading is that it is the\nhalf of that week most useful to anyone already playing.
\nUpdated 13 September 2026. ArenaNet has since named the day. Its post of 8 September 2026\nsays Code of Creation,\nthe final chapter of Visions of Eternity, "drops September 15". The section below is our reading\nof the two June posts, which gave the month and no day. Its wording is unchanged apart from\nits heading, which now says when it was true.
\nThe post gives one month and no day for any of that work. On 3 September 2026 we read the front\npage of ArenaNet's news index and its\nevents page. The newest article listed was dated\n25 August 2026, and the events page carried no Visions of Eternity entry. Nothing we read on\neither named a day for the finale.
\nThat is our own check on one day, not a claim about every page ArenaNet has ever posted.
\n| The commitment | \nWhat ArenaNet has actually said, across its 5 and 6 June 2026 posts | \n
|---|---|
| Visions of Eternity wraps up | \n"in September", the month, with no day published | \n
| What comes next | \n"improving the foundations of Guild Wars 2" | \n
| How long | \n"nearly a full year" | \n
| The scope | \n"going back through each era of Guild Wars 2" | \n
| The first piece | \nThe first Hall of Monuments update, "coming later this year" | \n
| Where players send requests | \n"the new feedback forum", for players to "share your ideas on what you’d like us to address" | \n
| Guild Wars 2's status (5 June) | \n"we’re not done making Guild Wars 2" | \n
| Guild Wars Reforged's status (5 June) | \nAlso not done; three games "actively developing" at once | \n
| Guild Wars 3 beta (5 June) | \n"a chance to join" it, "in the fall of 2027" | \n
Not one row carries a day. Three carry a period: September, "later this year", "the fall\nof 2027". One carries a duration, "nearly a full year". The remaining five carry no time at\nall. That is worth saying plainly rather than filing under detail. Our reading is that nearly a\nyear of improvements with one named milestone is a direction rather than a plan, and no player\ncan put any of it in a calendar yet.
\nArenaNet announced Guild Wars 3 on 5 June 2026, calling it\nits first brand-new game announcement in almost two decades.\nIt is set in Orr, which is a region players already know from the current game, and ArenaNet\npromises you will explore it as you never have before. It runs on PC and PlayStation 5, and its combat is built to work with a controller\nor with a mouse and keyboard.
\nYou join the Vaelwardens, described as a guild sworn to protect the land, the people living\nbeyond the walls of Orr's towns and cities, and the nature spirits who call Orr home.
\nOur reading is that ArenaNet gave the sequel its own day on purpose. The announcement post promises\ndetail on Guild Wars 2 "tomorrow", and adds: "Today, we’re celebrating the first brand-new game\nannouncement for ArenaNet in almost two decades, and that deserves its moment in the\nspotlight." The answer for existing players arrived the following day, from the Guild Wars 2\ngame director in a studio update video, alongside the studio head and the Guild Wars Reforged\ngame director.
\nNearly a year of going back through each era of a game people are still playing is the least\nannounceable work a studio can do, and close to the most valuable. None of it ships as a\ntrailer. Nobody puts a repaired old zone, meaning one area of the game's map, on a shopping\nlist.
\nOur reading is that this is the shape of work a studio does when it wants an old world to still\nbe worth living in after the sequel arrives. ArenaNet marked Guild Wars 2's\nfourteenth anniversary\non 25 August 2026, so there is a great deal of era to go back through.
\nOur reservation is the calendar, and it is smaller than it was. The finale has a day now,\n15 September 2026, named on 8 September. Nearly a year of work still has one named milestone. A beta, meaning a public test before\nrelease, that is a chance rather than a place in a queue, and our maths puts the fall of 2027\nabout a year past the finale. The finale is a date now. The other two are still kinds of\n"later".\nOur reading is that ArenaNet has told players what it intends and almost nothing about when. Still better than a roadmap that quietly slips. Still not something you can schedule your\nplay around.
\nWe said we would move our cross-game calendar row the day ArenaNet named one.\nWe did not manage the day. ArenaNet named it on 8 September 2026 and we moved the row on\n13 September, when our fortnightly re-read of every source behind that calendar reached it, so\nfor five days the row showed an estimate and the answer was published. It now reads\n15 September, announced.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-13T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-04T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/gw2-after-visions-of-eternity/", "summary": "ArenaNet named 15 September 2026 for Code of Creation, the final Visions of Eternity chapter, and says it then spends nearly a year improving Guild Wars 2.", "title": "ArenaNet says Guild Wars 2 gets nearly a full year of improvements after Visions of Eternity", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/gw2-after-visions-of-eternity/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "The Elder Scrolls Online's\nSeptember 2026 Crown Store showcase,\nwhich is the monthly list of what its real-money shop will sell, went up on 28 August. It names\nfour Crown Crate lines, meaning four separate ranges of paid boxes whose contents are\nrandom. Our maths on their windows puts all four on sale together between 10 and 17 September.
\nOne more bit of vocabulary and you have the lot. Golden Pursuits, the campaign handing out the\nfree crates, is a rotating list of in-game tasks that pay shop rewards. Its Straight to the\nCrate run goes until 17 September and, in the showcase's own words, "allows you to earn up to 20\nfree crates".
\nLooking for October? The\nOctober showcase is out, and\nour October piece reads it the same way.
\n| Crate line | \nWindow | \n
|---|---|
| Diamond Anniversary | \n20 August to 17 September | \n
| Scalecaller | \n27 August to 17 September | \n
| Wraithtide | \n3 September to 17 September | \n
| Xanmeer | \n10 September to 24 September | \n
Our maths on those windows puts all four on sale at the same time between 10 and 17 September.\nThe page itself does not point the overlap out.
\nThe showcase's highlights section leads with these dated items. The Reveries Formal Wear\ncostume is new, 8 to 21 September. Keshu the Black Fin arrives from Gideon as a new\nhouseguest, 10 to 24 September. A houseguest is a character who lives in your player house.
\nThe Fair Winds home returns 17 September to 14 October, which the page ties to the High\nSeas of Tamriel event arriving 30 September (Tamriel is the continent the whole series is set\non). And for followers of the Mad God there is the new Sheogorad Chateau house, stocked from\nthe Sheograth Shenanigans furnishing pack, both 30 September to 15 October.
\nBeneath the highlights the page carries a full week-by-week schedule. Thirty-six of its entries\nare marked as carrying an ESO Plus discount, ESO Plus being the game's paid monthly membership.\nOne item, the Amaranthine Pocket Watcher (28 September to 12 October), is listed as "available\nin the Crown Store for Gems and Seals".
\nNine entries in the schedule carry a note saying where the in-game version comes from: six arms\npacks and three crafting motifs. A motif is a pattern book that unlocks a style of gear.
\nThe routes are not all the same, and that is worth saying, because the pattern is easy to\nover-read. Four of the arms packs name a dungeon boss for the matching mask page. The Slimecraw\npack points at Alene Pellingare in Veteran Wayrest Sewers I. The Scourge Harvester pack points\nat Alene and Varaine Pellingare in Veteran Wayrest Sewers II. The Lord Warden pack points at\nLord Warden Dusk in Imperial City Prison, and the Shadowrend pack at High Kinlord Rilis in\nVeteran Banished Cells I.
\nFor each of those four, the shoulder page has two routes. Buy it for 50 undaunted keys, from Maj\nal-Ragath in most cases and from Pledge Master Urgarlag Chief-bane for the Lord Warden set. Or\ntake a chance from that same vendor's mystery coffer for one key.
\nThe other two arms packs point somewhere else entirely. The Oaken Order armor pages have "a\nsmall chance to drop from Glorious Pan-Tamriel Reward Boxes and Pan-Tamriel Reward Boxes". The\nEltheric Revenant pages have a small chance to drop from "certain Dremora Plunder Skulls\nintroduced in the 2025 run of the Witches Festival Event". The page adds, for the Oaken Order,\nthe Eltheric Revenant and the Glass motif alike, that the event they come from is not live\nduring this period.
\nTwo of the three motifs follow the dungeon-boss pattern. Fang Lair chapters have a chance to\ndrop from Thurvokun in Fang Lair, and Waking Flame chapters from Baron Zaudrus in The Cauldron.\nThe page notes in both cases that the chance is higher on veteran difficulty and hard mode. The\nthird goes elsewhere: Glass chapters turn up in Anniversary Jubilee Gift Boxes, with the\ncomplete book sold by Rolis Hlaalu for 180 Writ Vouchers.
\nFour of the notes go further and name an achievement that improves the odds. Among them are\n"Down the Gutter" for the Slimecraw set and "Pellingare Ghoul Slayer" for the Scourge Harvester\none.
\nFour crate lines are open at once this month. Our maths on the windows puts all four on sale\ntogether between 10 and 17 September. Our reading of the sequencing is that it is deliberate.\nThe windows are staggered rather than aligned, so from 20 August to 24 September there is never\na day on this schedule with no crate line open.
\nThat is the mechanic doing what the mechanic is for. Saying so plainly describes it rather\nthan accusing anybody.
\nThe free crates are the part we would look at hardest. Up to 20 crates earned before 17\nSeptember is a generous-sounding ceiling, and the campaign ends on the same day three of the\nfour crate lines close. Our reading is that handing a player crates from a line about to shut is\na funnel rather than a gift. Say what you like about the design, though. The ceiling and the\ndeadline are both stated plainly in the publisher's own announcement rather than left to be\nworked out.
\nThe genuinely good thing here is the farming notes. A shop page that stops mid-list to tell you\nwhich dungeon boss drops the mask you are about to buy is a shop page arguing against itself,\nnine times, in writing. That is the earn-it-instead line a shop page has no commercial reason to\nprint, and here it is in the publisher's own copy. Nine notes across a schedule this long is not\nmost of them. We would rather it were. The habit is still the right one and it deserves the\nname.
\nThe highlights the page chose to lead with are a costume, a houseguest, two houses and a\nfurnishing pack. Decoration, in a word. What the crates actually contain, this page does not\nsay, and we are not going to guess. Their contents are the thing a reader would most want\nlisted, and this showcase does not list them.
\nThe showcase says Update 51, which belongs to the game's current named run of months, and the\nHigh Seas of Tamriel event finish off the month. The crate windows run into October. Our calendar carries ESO's dated autumn with the\npublisher's own notice against each entry.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-02T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/eso-crown-store-september-2026/", "summary": "Four Crown Crate lines, together 10 to 17 September by our maths, and nine items to earn in game instead, three behind events the page says aren't running.", "title": "ESO Crown Store September 2026: four crate lines, and up to 20 free crates", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/eso-crown-store-september-2026/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "The Warden rework in The Elder Scrolls Online still has no release date. In\na letter published on 1 September 2026,\nthe game's development team wrote that it is "not ready to share a release date today". The\nsame letter changes the running order: Templar now comes before Sorcerer. All three are\nplayable classes, and each is being rebuilt in turn.
\nSome plain words first, because the letter uses none of them. The Elder Scrolls Online, or\nESO, is a fantasy game shared with a great many other people. You pick a class, which is\nthe kit of skills your character fights with. ZeniMax Online Studios (ZOS), the team that makes it,\nis rebuilding those classes one at a time. The Warden is the one in the workshop now.
\n| Question | \nWhat the letter says | \n
|---|---|
| Warden release date | \nNone given: "we're not ready to share a release date today" | \n
| Is it still happening | \nYes: "development is continuing, the vision remains intact, and we're committed to bringing this refresh to you when it's ready." | \n
| Why the timeline moved | \nThe feedback loop adds time, plus "the July restructuring at ZOS" | \n
| Does the plan still stand | \nYes, per the letter: the studio letter from game director Nick Giacomini "still reflects our current roadmap" | \n
| Running order | \nTemplar moved ahead of Sorcerer | \n
| Updates already shared | \nThe letter says "including" the Dragonknight (another of the playable classes) and Werewolf, a transformation skill line a character carries alongside their class | \n
The team lists three problems it says it is fixing. The Warden "currently lacks a unified\nvisual identity and theme". Its skill lines are "role-centralized, reducing their\neffectiveness when attempting to utilize their entire kit", which in plain words means each\nline is built for one job and the whole kit does not work together. And Wardens "lack a\nunique mechanic to their kit that all roles can engage with".
\nWhat stays is listed too: nature magic, animals, ice-themed abilities, and a clear identity\nas protector of the natural world. What goes is the Morrowind of it. Morrowind (an old chapter\nof the game, set in a region of the same name) is what the Warden shipped alongside, and the\nclass was themed to match. The letter\nsays the rework is "pivoting away from the Morrowind-specific visual theming to better\nrepresent the natural world across all regions in Tamriel", the continent the whole series is\nset on. It credits community feedback for that call.
\nThe team is also looking at tying the class to the four seasons, spring through winter. The\nidea is to bind its themes into one whole rather than leave them as separate bits.
\nThe letter carries what it calls "very early work-in-progress examples". This is the part with\nsomething to look at rather than something to promise.
\nThe honest thing in this letter is the absence, and our reading is that a studio with a date\nwould have given one. "We're not ready to share a release date today" is more use to a player\ndeciding what to level than a quarter that quietly slips twice. The four videos do the work\nthe date cannot. Here is the thing, it is real, we cannot say when.
\nThe queue change is the part worth flagging, because it costs somebody something. The old\nroadmap, in the letter's words, "laid out that the Sorcerer refresh would follow the Warden\nclass". Templar now goes first. The letter says so plainly and says it "may disappoint some of\nyou", which is more candour than a silent reshuffle. It is still a cost. Sorcerer has moved\nfrom next in line to behind Templar, in a queue whose front position has no date at all.\nGetting classes out "as quickly and effectively as we're able to" is a fair goal. From a\nSorcerer player's chair, it is also indistinguishable from waiting longer.
\nThere is one date in reach, and it is not in this letter. The letter says a recent studio\nletter from Nick Giacomini still reflects the roadmap, without dating it. Our reading is that\nthis is\nthe game director's letter of 30 July.\nThat letter says of the class and combat refresh: "we are targeting 2027 for the next\nrefresh." It also says the team is "discussing some interim options for the classes still\nawaiting their full refresh". So 2027 is still the working target, by our reading, because the\nSeptember letter neither repeats it nor revises it. It is not a date the studio gave again\nthis week.
\nThe other thing we take from this letter is that ESO is still paying for July. "The July\nrestructuring at ZOS" is named as a cause here. The earlier\ngame director's letter\nmoved Update 51 to 28 September and pushed both Update 52 and the Crimson Veldt trial into\n2027. A trial is this game's word for a raid, which is a dungeon built for a large group. That\nletter wrote of "organizational changes and departures of teammates" without dating them. Our\nreading is that these are the same events, and that they are one of the two causes named for a\nclass rework nobody can date. Two letters, one root. That is not a criticism of the letter,\nwhich does the right thing by saying so out loud. It is a reason to read the next roadmap with\nJuly in mind.
\nOne note in the game's favour. The letter is explicit that combat work has not stopped while\nthe rework runs, and points at the ability changes made during the Update 51 public test\nserver, a copy of the game where changes are tried before release. The failure mode here is a\nclass rework that swallows every balance decision while it runs. The letter addresses that\nhead on rather than leaving it to be asked.
\nNothing the letter promises carries a date, which is the point. It promises more detail on the\nexact fixes as development continues. The dated ESO events are elsewhere: Update 51 on 28\nSeptember, and the rest of the game's autumn on our calendar, each with the\npublisher's own notice against it.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-10T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/eso-warden-refresh-no-date/", "summary": "The 1 September letter is \"not ready to share a release date today\". July's 2027 target is the nearest thing, by our reading. Templar precedes Sorcerer now.", "title": "ESO Warden rework release date: there isn't one yet, and Templar now jumps ahead of Sorcerer", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/eso-warden-refresh-no-date/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "BlizzCon 2026, which is Blizzard's own convention for its games, now has a running order.\nThe studio published the\nschedule, stream plan and rewards detail\non 1 September, eleven days out from the show on 12 and 13 September at the Anaheim\nConvention Center. It says which parts are streamed for everyone at home, and it prints every\nstart time twice, once in Pacific and once in UK time.
\nThree rows below are esports matches, and they come from two tournaments. The MDI, which\nstands for Mythic Dungeon Invitational, is the studio's dungeon competition. The AWC, the\nArena World Championship, is its arena tournament. One panel on day two is about Hardcore, a mode\nwhere a character who dies is gone for good.
\nThe Warcraft panels and three of the esports matches, taken from Blizzard's own longer list.\nBlizzard prints both clocks itself, so the UK column below is Blizzard's own, not a\nconversion of ours. BST is British Summer Time, the UK's summer clock. Every time is marked\nsubject to change.
\nFour of these land after midnight in the UK. The UK is eight hours ahead of California,\nso a slot from about 4 p.m. Pacific onwards has already tipped into the next UK day. The\ndates in this table are ours too. Blizzard writes "day one" and "day two" and says the show\nruns on 12 and 13 September. Which day is which, and what weekday each one falls on, are our\nown reading of a calendar.
\n| Day | \nPacific | \nUK (BST) | \nSegment | \n
|---|---|---|---|
| Sat 12 Sep | \n10:30 a.m. | \n18:30 | \nOpening Ceremony | \n
| Sat 12 Sep | \n12:00 p.m. | \n20:00 | \nWorld of Warcraft: What's Next | \n
| Sat 12 Sep | \n12:45 p.m. | \n20:45 | \nMDI Grand Finals: Dignitas vs Big Lucky | \n
| Sat 12 Sep | \n2:00 p.m. | \n22:00 | \nBuilding Cutscenes in World of Warcraft | \n
| Sat 12 Sep | \n2:45 p.m. | \n22:45 | \nWorld of Warcraft: What's Next II | \n
| Sat 12 Sep | \n3:30 p.m. | \n23:30 | \nDevelopers x Creators Showcase | \n
| Sat 12 Sep | \n5:30 p.m. | \n01:30 Sun 13th | \nMDI Grand Finals, championship match | \n
| Sun 13 Sep | \n10:00 a.m. | \n18:00 | \nWorld of Warcraft: Deep Dive | \n
| Sun 13 Sep | \n10:45 a.m. | \n18:45 | \nCrafting Coziness and Creative Freedom | \n
| Sun 13 Sep | \n11:45 a.m. | \n19:45 | \nWorld Building in World of Warcraft | \n
| Sun 13 Sep | \n1:15 p.m. | \n21:15 | \nWorld of Warcraft: Art Design | \n
| Sun 13 Sep | \n2:45 p.m. | \n22:45 | \nWorld of Warcraft: Design Deep Dive | \n
| Sun 13 Sep | \n4:15 p.m. | \n00:15 Mon 14th | \nWorld of Warcraft Hardcore: What's Next | \n
| Sun 13 Sep | \n5:00 p.m. | \n01:00 Mon 14th | \nAWC Grand Finals, championship match | \n
| Sun 13 Sep | \n5:20 p.m. | \n01:20 Mon 14th | \nClosing Remarks | \n
Two "What's Next" panels on the same afternoon is the shape worth reading. Our reading, and\nBlizzard has said none of this: one of those panels on its own is usually a year plan. Two\nback to back, with a cutscene panel wedged between them, looks like a roadmap split across a\nreveal and its detail. That is how we would pace an announcement we wanted to land twice.
\nThe second signal is Hardcore getting its own forward-looking panel on day two, at 4:15 p.m. Pacific,\nrather than a mention inside a broader session. Our reading: a named "What's Next" slot is\nabout the smallest promise a schedule can make to a mode, and it is still a promise. We will\ntake it. A mode where death is permanent, given a stage of its own, is the genre remembering what it\nis good at.
\nThe fine print is where our complaint sits, and Blizzard states it plainly. The streams cover\nthe opening ceremony, major panels and esports competitions. The musical\nperformances are not part of that, and neither are what Blizzard calls some other elements.\nLe Sserafim plays at 6:00 p.m. Pacific on day two and the trophy ceremony follows at 6:30 p.m. Pacific.\nAnyone attending in person has until 18 September to link a BlizzCon Pass, which is the\nin-person ticket, to a Battle.net account and still claim the rewards.
\nThat deadline is the bit we think will cost somebody something. It is five days after the\nshow closes, and Blizzard publishes it down inside a rewards section rather than up at the\ntop. Our view: a paying attendee should not have to find a deadline in the small print to\nkeep what they already bought. Say it louder, and say it early.
\nBlizzard says to check back after the opening ceremony for the fully updated schedule. Our\nexpectation is that day two moves more than day one, because it has longer to move in. Both days, the two esports finals and the reward-linking deadline are on\nthe calendar with the day we last checked each against Blizzard's page.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-10T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-02T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/blizzcon-2026-schedule-and-stream/", "summary": "Blizzard's BST column: 18:30 day one, 18:00 day two, Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 September by our calendar. Every WoW panel it listed, and three esports matches.", "title": "BlizzCon 2026 UK time: 18:30 BST Saturday, 18:00 Sunday, and both championship finals after midnight", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/blizzcon-2026-schedule-and-stream/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "The Moogle Treasure Trove returns on Wednesday 9 September 2026 as the First Hunt for\nAstronomy, by\nSquare Enix's own announcement.\nThe Trove, which is a recurring event that pays a temporary currency for replaying old\ncontent, is billed this time as a special edition marking the upcoming release of Evercold. It\nruns across two installments rather than one, and its special reward is an uolon horn.
\n| \n | First Hunt | \nSecond Hunt | \n
|---|---|---|
| Starts | \n9 September 2026 | \n"a later date", no day given | \n
| Currency for exchange | \ndifferent tomestones from the other hunt's, per the announcement | \ndifferent again | \n
| Item lineup | \nits own | \na different one | \n
| The uolon horn | \nyes | \nyes, by Square Enix's own note | \n
| Extra requirement | \nminimog and ultimog challenges award the item the horn needs | \nnot stated | \n
A tomestone, in case that table is the first you have met one, is a token the game pays out\nthat you exchange for items. The announcement calls this event's ones\nirregular tomestones of astronomy I, and says the two hunts need different tomestones from\neach other.
\nSquare Enix calls this run "a special edition" and says it takes place across two\ninstallments.
\nThe two-installment shape changes how much of this is urgent, and the answer is less than it\nlooks.
\nSquare Enix states plainly that the uolon horn is available in the Second Hunt too, so the\nreward is not on a clock that ends with part one. The announcement says the tomestones\nrequired for exchange differ between the installments, and that the item lineups differ too.
\nThe two footnotes are where the earning goes wrong. Running content with an adventurer\nsquadron, or through Duty Support, which is the system that fills a party with\ncomputer-controlled allies, awards no irregular tomestones of astronomy I at all. Our reading\nis that this removes the most convenient way to farm old content alone. An unrestricted party has to have Level\nSync switched on to receive them, and Level Sync is the rule that drops a strong character\ndown to a lower area's power. So a high-level group racing through low-level content without\nLevel Sync earns no irregular tomestones of astronomy I for it.
\nThat exclusion is the one thing here we would argue with. As we see it, Duty Support is what\nlets a player without a regular group still see old content. Paying it no tomestones in\nan event built on old content is a quiet tax on the people with the least flexible schedules.\nThe event is otherwise the good kind, in our view: a currency earned by playing, spent on a\nfixed lineup of items.
\nThe framing is worth a line of its own. Square Enix pegs this Trove to the upcoming release of\nEvercold. Our reading is that this is a catch-up window aimed at people levelling a job,\nmeaning a character class, before Evercold arrives.
\nPatch 7.56 arrives the day before, on 8 September, and\nSquare Enix's own notice\nsays it closes PvP Series 11 with it, PvP being short for player versus player.
\nA PvP Series is a numbered season of that side of the game's reward track.\nThe Trove start date and the patch both sit on\nthe calendar with the day we last checked them. Evercold's release date is tracked on\nour Final Fantasy XIV page.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-31T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-02T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/ffxiv-moogle-treasure-trove-9-september/", "summary": "The First Hunt for Astronomy runs from Wednesday 9 September 2026; the second has no date. What the uolon horn needs, and which runs earn no event tomestones.", "title": "FFXIV Moogle Treasure Trove 2026: the First Hunt for Astronomy, from 9 September", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/ffxiv-moogle-treasure-trove-9-september/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Square Enix keeps a list of the nights Final Fantasy XIV might go down, and it keeps changing\nit. Read again on 25 September,\nthe notice\ncarries nine possible windows and nothing confirmed. Six new nights run to 8 October, and the\nnext one is the night of 28 September.
\nYes, the list lives on a wedding page. The Ceremony of Eternal Bonding is the game's in-game\nwedding, booked in advance, and Square Enix says maintenance may cause a reserved one to be\ncancelled. That is why this notice exists at all.
\nWe have now read this page four times. The columns are those four readings. Every window\nmarked possible runs from 9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. the next morning, Pacific time, which the\nnotice writes as PDT.
\n| Night, Pacific | \n2 Sep | \n7 Sep | \n10 Sep | \n25 Sep | \n
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Aug into 1 Sep | \nPossible | \nGone | \nGone | \nGone | \n
| 1 into 2 Sep | \nPossible | \nGone | \nGone | \nGone | \n
| 2 into 3 Sep | \nPossible | \nGone | \nGone | \nGone | \n
| 7 into 8 Sep | \nPossible | \nConfirmed, 11:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. | \nGone | \nGone | \n
| 8 into 9 Sep | \nPossible | \nPossible | \nGone | \nGone | \n
| 9 into 10 Sep | \nPossible | \nPossible | \nPossible | \nGone | \n
| 14 into 15 Sep | \nPossible | \nPossible | \nPossible | \nGone | \n
| 15 into 16 Sep | \nPossible | \nPossible | \nPossible | \nGone | \n
| 16 into 17 Sep | \nPossible | \nPossible | \nPossible | \nGone | \n
| 21 into 22 Sep | \nNot listed | \nNot listed | \nPossible | \nPossible | \n
| 22 into 23 Sep | \nNot listed | \nNot listed | \nPossible | \nPossible | \n
| 23 into 24 Sep | \nNot listed | \nNot listed | \nPossible | \nPossible | \n
| 28 into 29 Sep | \nNot listed | \nNot listed | \nNot listed | \nPossible | \n
| 29 into 30 Sep | \nNot listed | \nNot listed | \nNot listed | \nPossible | \n
| 30 Sep into 1 Oct | \nNot listed | \nNot listed | \nNot listed | \nPossible | \n
| 5 into 6 Oct | \nNot listed | \nNot listed | \nNot listed | \nPossible | \n
| 6 into 7 Oct | \nNot listed | \nNot listed | \nNot listed | \nPossible | \n
| 7 into 8 Oct | \nNot listed | \nNot listed | \nNot listed | \nPossible | \n
Square Enix marks the possible ones as subject to change, and says emergency maintenance can\nstill happen outside them. The confirmed list currently reads "None".
\nThe three nights from 21 September are still on the list, though all three have passed. So by\nour count six of the nine possible nights are still ahead, and the next one is the night of\n28 September. The notice lists nothing for the three nights before it.
\nCredit where it is due, because this is a publisher telling players something ahead of time\nrather than after the fact.
\nThe useful thing here is not the wedding advice. It is what four readings of the same page\nshow. On 2 September the notice listed nine nights and confirmed none of them. When we read it\nagain on 7 September, three had dropped off, one had hardened into a confirmed four-hour\nwindow, and the rest were untouched. By 10 September that confirmed entry had been cleared\naway, and three new nights had appeared at the end. By 25 September four more nights had\ngone, and six new ones had appeared, reaching into October.
\nSo this is not a schedule published once and left. It is a page Square Enix edits. Our reading\nis that it is worth checking again rather than trusting a copy of it, including a copy of it on\na site like ours, which is why this table has four columns instead of one.
\nThe uncomfortable half of that is what it means for anyone planning around it. A list that\ngained three nights at one reading and six at the next is a list you cannot plan a month\nagainst. Our view is that publishing it anyway still beats the alternative, which is a player\nfinding out the servers are down by trying to log in.
\nThe one rule worth carrying away sits at the bottom of the notice and dates to 2018. A\nceremony booked to start after maintenance or an outage ends stays valid and needs no\nrescheduling. Square Enix says to reschedule a reservation that overlaps confirmed\nmaintenance, and confirmed is a stricter word than possible. Read that as a floor rather than\na ceiling: the same page says maintenance may cancel a reservation, and that emergency\nmaintenance can happen outside every window the notice lists.
\nWhen we read the page on 7 September it had something concrete on it. The confirmed section\nnamed 11:00 p.m. on 7 September to 3:00 a.m. on 8 September, Pacific time, and\nan all-Worlds maintenance notice\ngave the same hours. All Worlds means every server, rather than a few. By 10 September the\nconfirmed section was back to "None".
\nThe night of 16 September was one of the possible nights, and it did get a maintenance notice.\nAn all-Worlds emergency maintenance notice\nscheduled the game offline from 11:00 p.m. on 16 September to 3:00 a.m. on 17 September,\nPacific time, to add hotfixes for Patch 7.56, and said the finish time could change. A hotfix is a small repair shipped between the game's\nnumbered updates. We did not read the wedding notice that week, so we cannot say whether it\never showed that night as confirmed.
\nNote that the edges did not match, either time. Both windows were scheduled for 11:00 p.m. to\n3:00 a.m., narrower than the 9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. bracket the possible nights use. Neither\nnotice we hold says when the work actually finished. Two nights is not a\nrule. Our reading is that it is still worth remembering if a future night hardens the same\nway.
\nAs of 25 September, by our count six possible nights remain, the last of them ending at 4:00 a.m. on 8\nOctober, and none is confirmed. We will read the page again rather than assume this table\nstill holds. Every date we track for this game sits on\nthe calendar with the day we last checked it against the Lodestone, which is the\ngame's own news site.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-25T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-02T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/ffxiv-september-maintenance-windows/", "summary": "Square Enix lists nine possible FFXIV maintenance nights, 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. Pacific, to 8 October. By our count six remain as of 25 September. None is confirmed.", "title": "FFXIV maintenance schedule, September and October 2026: nine possible nights to 8 October, checked 25 September", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/ffxiv-september-maintenance-windows/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "The free subscription period on the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Final Fantasy XIV ends at\n11:59 p.m. on Monday 7 September 2026 in each region.\nSquare Enix's own notice\nexplains what happens next in more detail than the date suggests. Billing on this platform\ndoes not work like the others.
\nA subscription, for anyone new to the game, is the recurring fee you pay to keep playing. And\nFFXIV is simply the usual short name for Final Fantasy XIV, which is why the coins below are\ncalled FFXIV Coins.
\n| \n | How it works | \n
|---|---|
| Subscription scope | \nSeparate from every other platform, even for an existing subscriber | \n
| Discount | \nHalf price with an active subscription elsewhere, but not while a 30-day free play period is running there | \n
| Payment method | \nthe subscription itself, FFXIV Coins from the Nintendo eShop only | \n
| Payment registration opens | \n8 September, 3:00 a.m. Pacific | \n
| Renewal | \nAutomatic while the coin balance covers it, halted when it does not | \n
| Account link | \nMade on first launch, and cannot be undone or transferred | \n
| Nintendo Switch Online | \nNot required to play; members get one extra free teleport destination | \n
Two of those lines cost money or characters if they are read late, and neither is the headline\ndate.
\nStart with the one we think is indefensible. A subscription is rent on a world, and this is\nthe same world, the same character and the same server. Charging a second time because the\nplayer picked up a different box is a platform tax wearing a product's clothes. The half-price\ndiscount is a discount off a fee that should not exist, and it comes with a condition on top.
\nThe condition is the part that will catch people. On Switch 2, registering a Starter or\nComplete Edition, which are the two retail bundles, gets you a 30-day free play window opening\non 8 September. While a free play period is active on another platform, the\nhalf-price Switch 2 subscription is not available. Square Enix adds that the discount does\napply if remaining game time is still on the other platform when the charge lands. So the\norder of operations decides the price.
\nThe account link is the other one, and it is the only genuinely irreversible step here. On\nfirst launch the Switch 2 user profile binds to a Square Enix account permanently. An existing\nplayer must pick their existing service account at the licence prompt. Choosing to create a\nnew service account instead means, in Square Enix's words, that you will be unable to play as\nyour existing character. The registered region has to match as well: an Americas account needs a Nintendo\naccount registered in the United States, Canada or another applicable region.
\nOne smaller trap is worth knowing before anyone blames the game. Hotbars, HUD layouts (the\nHUD being the bars and buttons drawn over the game screen) and macros are stored on the device\nrather than the account, and Square Enix says they are not synced automatically. So a\ncharacter logged in on Switch 2 arrives with whatever that console holds, until the settings\nare uploaded from the other platform through the server backup feature and downloaded again\nhere.
\nPatch 7.56 lands on 8 September and, by the same notice, is scheduled to resolve the\nlauncher bug that currently stops it opening the coin purchase screen in the eShop. Until it does, coins are\nbought through the console home menu. Both dates are on the calendar with the day\nwe last checked them.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-02T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/ffxiv-switch-2-subscription-starts-8-september/", "summary": "A separate subscription, half price only for existing subscribers, paid in coins from the eShop, and an account link that can never be undone.", "title": "FFXIV on Switch 2 starts charging on 8 September, and the account link is permanent", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/ffxiv-switch-2-subscription-starts-8-september/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Jagex, which is the studio behind Old School RuneScape, shipped the rest of its Summer Sweep\nUp on 2 September 2026.\nEverything landed except the pet updates, which its own note says are planned for release\nwithin the next two weeks.\nThe changelog\nis mostly small mercies: stackable Unsireds, a lectern that remembers what you were making,\ninventory locking in the Seed Vault, and four amulets for spellcasters plus a fifth that\ncombines them.
\nA little of the game's own vocabulary before the numbers. An Unsired is a drop from the\nAbyssal Sire, one of the game's bosses, traded in for a reward. The Seed Vault is the storage room for farming seeds.\nRunecraft is the skill that makes magic runes. GP means gold pieces, the currency. A raid is a\ndungeon built for a group. And Permanent Deadman Mode, which the changelog names as such, is\na high-risk mode where dying costs a great deal.
\n| Change | \nDetail | \n
|---|---|
| Necklace of Fangs | \n+12 Ranged Accuracy, +1 Ranged Strength, 1 in 128 from Turoths; also drops from Spiked Turoths, at a rate Jagex does not give | \n
| Elemental jewels | \n1 in 64 each: air from Killerwatts, water from Sea Snake Hatchlings, earth from Molanisks, fire from Infernal Mages | \n
| Elemental amulets | \n+10 Magic Accuracy, +2 max hit, Runecraft 18 to 21 by element | \n
| Elemental amulet, combined | \nThe four elemental amulets plus 500 runes of each element, Runecraft 30; +10 Magic Accuracy and +2 max hit on all elemental spells | \n
| Shark lures | \n1 lure, 50% chance of 5 ticks becoming 4; 3 lures, always 4; 5 lures, always 4 with a 50% chance of 3 | \n
| Fishing Sacks | \n500 Molch pearls reclaimable per extra sack, from Alry the Angler | \n
| Permanent Deadman risk floors | \nat least 100,000 GP in alch value to attack other players, at least 500,000 near the chest; raid entry needs at least 1,000,000 AND no Deadman protection remaining | \n
Alch value, in that last row, is what an item is worth when magically turned into coins.
\nThe Unsired fix is the model here, and it is worth explaining, because it shows the right way\nto solve this kind of problem.
\nUnsireds could not stack because each one, in Jagex's words, had to retain separate information\nabout its potential reward. Jagex moved the roll to the Font of Consumption instead. Our\nreading is that this is the harder of the two available fixes and the better one. It makes\nevery Unsired the same item, rather than bolting on a storage exception that would have left\nthe oddity in place. A design fix rather than a convenience feature, and it costs the player\nnothing.
\nThe same instinct runs through the rest. A lectern that remembers your last tablet. Ghommal's\nLucky Penny working when consumed rather than worn. Inventory locks in the Seed Vault. Abyssal\nLanterns storable in Magic Wardrobes, which the changelog credits to popular request. None of\nthat is content. Most of it is friction with no benefit to anyone, and removing friction is\nthe cheapest respect a studio can pay to the people playing.
\nDeadman is the one that will start an argument, and we think Jagex has it right. You now need\nat least 100,000 GP in alch value to attack another player, and at least 500,000 near the\nchest. Entering a raid area needs at least a million risked and no protection left. A player\nwho risks nothing can no longer farm players who risk everything. A permanent mode where players fight each other works\nbest when the attacker has skin in the game.
\nThe one blemish is a promise rather than a change. The pet updates would let pets follow you\ninto content like the Gauntlet, Fossil Island's underwater area and various minigames, and\nrespawn with you on death. They did not make this batch, and Jagex says only that they are\nplanned for release in the next two weeks.
\nJagex plans the pet changes for the next two weeks, and lists the Phosani's Nightmare pillar\nhealth bars for a coldfix next week. Phosani's Nightmare is a solo version of one of the\ngame's hardest boss fights. Nothing new joins the calendar from this batch.
\nThat coldfix note sits oddly, and our reading is that it is worth flagging. A line further\ndown the same page says the totems and pillars at Phosani's Nightmare were not showing their\nhealth accurately and have been fixed, while the Known Issues box still lists the problem as\noutstanding. Jagex never says the two are the same bug.
\nThe page does carry two dated events: LANscape on 5 September, which is the studio's own\nin-person day where creators play together, and Dragonwilds 1.0 on 15 September. Both are\nalready on the calendar from their own announcements.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-10T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-02T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/osrs-summer-sweep-up-remaining-changes/", "summary": "The water sapphire drops from Sea Snake Hatchlings, 1 in 64, and makes an Amulet of Water. The rest of Summer Sweep Up: stackable Unsireds and Deadman floors.", "title": "OSRS water sapphire and elemental jewels: where they drop and what they make", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/osrs-summer-sweep-up-remaining-changes/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Blizzard's fix pass dated 1 September 2026 points in two directions at once. Thirteen\ncharacter specialisations went up in World of Warcraft, while several healing and defensive\nnumbers came down where players fight each other. Ten of the thirteen took a damage increase, two took\nhealing and one took survivability. It all sits on\nBlizzard's running hotfix page,\nwhich is edited in place as fixes land rather than reposted each time.
\nThree words to carry through the rest of this. A hotfix is a small change applied to the live\ngame without taking it down. A spec, short for specialisation, is the role and playstyle a\ncharacter picks inside their class. A raid is a dungeon built for a large group.
\n| Spec | \nChange | \n
|---|---|
| Frost Death Knight | \nHowling Blast and Obliterate +15%, Frost Strike +20%, melee +10% | \n
| Protection Paladin | \nBlaze of Glory +150%, Consecration +30%, Divine Guidance +30% | \n
| Feral Druid | \nall ability damage +5%, auto-attacks +10%, Ferocious Bite +10% | \n
| Beast Mastery and Survival Hunter | \n+7% each, Survival only +3% against other players | \n
| Frost Mage | \n+6% | \n
| Fire Mage | \n+3% | \n
| Restoration Druid | \nhealing +4% | \n
| Vengeance Demon Hunter | \nDemonic Wards 15% (was 12%), Fel Devastation healing +25% | \n
| Mistweaver Monk | \nhealing +5%, tier 4-piece proc chance 25% (was 20%) | \n
| Havoc, Balance, Windwalker | \n+4% each, against monsters only | \n
A tier set, which is a matched set of gear whose pieces give a bonus when worn together, is\nwhat the Mistweaver "four-piece" row is about: wearing four of them.
\nFive of those rows carry a developer note explaining the intent, and the notes are more\nspecific than the numbers. Frost Death Knight is aimed at single target and two-target cleave.\nVengeance is called out as still short defensively. Feral is called short in raids. Mistweaver\nis said to want more healing and more value from its four-piece. Protection Paladin is behind\nother tanks in dungeons.
\nThis is a difficulty correction aimed at the bottom of the ladder rather than the top, and\nthat is the right end to aim at.
\nThe Venomous Abyss, which is the raid at the centre of the current season, has four\ndifficulty settings. Raid Finder, the automatic queue that puts strangers into an easier\nversion, sits at the bottom. Then Normal, then Heroic, then Mythic at the top. Every Venomous\nAbyss change on 1 September touching Raid Finder, or a smaller Normal or Heroic group, makes\nthe fight easier. Inside that raid, Mythic is the only setting that gets stricter anywhere, on the Twin Fangs,\nthough two abilities on the Coiled Altar, one of its boss fights, were cut there as well.
\nNek'zali the Soulcoiler lost 15 percent of its health in Raid Finder, the Entombed Sentinels\nthe same, and Vexhul and Ithraz 20 percent. On Mythic, Eternal Venom now takes ten\napplications to kill instead of fewer, and Ravenous Feast hits at least four people.
\nRead that split as a statement about whose evening matters. Midnight Season 2 is the game's\ncurrent run of months, and Blizzard's own\nschedule for it\nputs wing 3 of that raid in the week of 1 September, so it opened the same week these\nnumbers came down. A group walking in that night met a trimmed version rather than the one\nthat had been standing. Nobody had to buy anything to get that. The fight moved. A player with a couple of evenings a\nweek getting a fix in a hotfix, for free, is how this is supposed to work. Worth saying out loud in a genre where the same problem is often solved by\nselling somebody a shortcut.
\nThe pass for fights between players runs both ways, and the healing cuts are unusually blunt\nabout why. Healers keep topping people up too fast. So the Gladiator's Distinction set bonus now grants 5\npercent primary stat for healing specialisations instead of 10, Restoration Druid's Swiftmend\nheals 20 percent less, and Mage barriers absorb a quarter less. Those are pace changes aimed\nat shortening matches rather than at any one class, and the studio saying so in the notes\nbeats leaving people to guess from the numbers.
\nWhere we would push: a fix pass this large arrives as edits to one running page, dated by day\nrather than laid out change by change with a build behind each one. Six weeks from now,\nworking out which version your Tuesday night sat on means reading the whole page again.
\nCredit where it is due: Wowhead is where the community keeps a\nrunning record of these hotfixes.
\nThe Venomous Abyss finishes opening with Raid Finder wing 4 in the week of 8 September,\nthe last scheduled unlock of Midnight Season 2. That date, and BlizzCon, which is Blizzard's\nown convention and which we wrote up in\nour piece on its running order, are both on\nthe calendar with the day we last checked them.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-10T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-02T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/wow-hotfixes-1-september-2026/", "summary": "Blizzard's 1 September pass lifts thirteen specialisations, trims boss health in Raid Finder, and cuts healing where players fight each other.", "title": "WoW hotfixes, 1 September 2026: thirteen specs buffed, and boss health cut in Raid Finder", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/wow-hotfixes-1-september-2026/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Albion Online's Dragonfire update went live on 31 August 2026, and\nSandbox Interactive's own launch post\nleads with a 20-player dungeon where nobody can attack you, and calls it the greatest\nchallenge against the game itself that Albion has seen yet. The route to it runs through the Ancient Lands, which is a new region of floating islands\nwhere rival groups very much can.
\nThat contrast is the whole story, so here is the vocabulary. Albion Online is a fantasy world\nwhere items are made by players, and where in much of the map other players are allowed to\nattack you. PvE, short for player versus environment, means fighting the game's own\nmonsters. PvP, short for player versus player, means fighting each other.
\n| Layer | \nParty size | \nContested? | \n
|---|---|---|
| Ancient Lands portals | \nSolo up to 20, matched with similar sizes | \nYes, deeper routes carry a higher chance of rivals | \n
| Leygates, opened with Keystones | \nAs above | \nYes, and rewards rise with depth | \n
| Dragon Sanctuary, entered with a Spirit Waystone | \n20 | \nNo, no other players can attack you | \n
| Dragon attacks, Royal Continent (the safer inner region) | \nOpen, with little warning | \nWhoever is nearby | \n
| Dragon attacks, Outlands (the lawless outer region) | \nOpen, announced in advance | \nYes, rivals can contest the fight and its rewards | \n
The Royal Continent is the game's inner region and the Outlands its outer one, where players\nhold territory themselves.
\nRewards run from Dragon Scales, which craft into the Dragonslayer armour set, up to a Fire\nDrake Egg from Azaryon that can be raised at home into a Firewing Drake.
\nThe two-tier design is the smart part, and it is a genuine answer to an old argument.
\nAlbion's identity is that everything worth having is contestable, which is also why a lot of\nplayers never see its best content. Dragonfire keeps the contest where the value accrues, in\nthe Ancient Lands and on the routes deeper in, and then puts what the studio calls its most\ndemanding fight against the game itself behind a door other players cannot open. You still have to survive a contested region to get\nthe Spirit Waystone. What you do not have to do is lose a two-hour run to an ambush on the\nlast boss. That is a world with rules rather than a lobby with a queue, and it is the right\ninstinct.
\nThe Outlands dragon attacks are the same idea from the other side. Announcing them in advance\nso guilds can assemble, and letting rivals show up for exactly that reason, turns a world boss\ninto a scheduled territorial fight. Announced contested content beats surprise contested\ncontent, because both sides chose it.
\nWhere we would sound a note of caution is the reward ladder. A Fire Drake Egg raised at home\ninto a mount, exclusive cosmetics gated behind Draconic Insight, plus creator giveaways\nrunning six weeks. That is a lot of engagement machinery bolted to one update. Nothing in the\nlaunch post is sold for money, which is the thing that matters, and it is worth watching that\nit stays that way.
\nThe launch gift in Albion's own shops runs to 7 September at 10:00 UTC, and doubled Twitch\ndrops, which are rewards for watching a stream, run to 14 September at 09:30 UTC. Both dates are on the calendar with the day we last checked\nthem.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-01T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/albion-dragonfire-ancient-lands/", "summary": "The Ancient Lands opened on 31 August: portals scaled from solo to 20, a dungeon nobody can raid you in, and dragon attacks rival groups can contest.", "title": "Albion's Dragonfire update puts a 20-player dungeon above the clouds, safe from raiders", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/albion-dragonfire-ancient-lands/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Patch 7.56 for Final Fantasy XIV lands with overnight downtime. Square Enix's\nmaintenance notice\nputs that at 11:00 p.m. on 7 September to 3:00 a.m. on 8 September, Pacific time, while\nits other notice on the season ending\ndates the same maintenance to Tuesday 8 September. Our reading is that these are one\nwindow written in two timezones.
\nThat other notice says PvP Series 11 draws to a close with the beginning of that maintenance.\nPvP is short for player versus player, the part of the game where players fight each other,\nand a PvP Series is a numbered season of its reward track.
\nThat is a useful reminder. Our reading is that the deadline easiest to miss is the season\nclosing under the patch rather than the patch itself.
\nBy\nits own all-Worlds notice,\nSquare Enix takes the game down from 11:00 p.m. on 7 September to 3:00 a.m. on 8 September,\nPacific time. Maintenance is the planned shutdown while a patch is installed, and the notice\nsays the finish time may move.
\nOur reading: the patch day is still the eighth almost everywhere, but if you play on the US\nwest coast, your evening of the seventh is the one that disappears.
\nFour smaller things go with it, and one of them is not obvious.
\nThat last one is the one to act on before the servers go down. The notice states the effect\nand gives no reason for it; our reading is that a patch changes the game underneath a\nrecording. It is also the kind of thing a player only discovers by going to watch a fight they\nwere proud of.
\nSeveral things move around the eighth, and not all of them are updates.
\n| What | \nWhen | \nDetail | \n
|---|---|---|
| Patch 7.56 downtime | \n7 Sep 23:00 to 8 Sep 03:00 PDT | \nBrings beastmaster, a limited job (job is this game's word for a character class) | \n
| PvP Series 11 ends | \nTue 8 Sep 2026, as the downtime starts; our reading puts that at 7 Sep 23:00 PDT | \nSeries experience and level reset, rewards replaced | \n
| Series 11 rewards claimable until | \nend of Series 12 | \nTrophy crystals carry over | \n
| Switch 2 free subscription period ends | \nMon 7 Sep 2026, 23:59 in each region | \n30-day free play then starts 8 Sep | \n
| Moogle Treasure Trove, First Hunt for Astronomy | \nWed 9 Sep 2026 | \nTwo installments, uolon horn reward | \n
Beastmaster comes from a different notice. The\nLetter from the Producer LIVE Part XCIII digest\nwas recorded at Fan Festival 2026 in Berlin, which is the game's own convention. Lead battle\ncontent designer Masaki Nakagawa walks through live gameplay of beastmaster there. Square Enix\ncalls it the limited job introduced in Patch 7.56, a job being a character class and a limited\none being a class that only works in certain content.
\nThis is the quiet one, and it is a bill rather than a patch.
\nBy its own notice on Switch 2 subscription fees,\nSquare Enix ran a free subscription period on the Nintendo Switch 2 version, introduced to\nhelp ensure server stability. That period ends at 11:59 p.m. in each region on Monday\n7 September, the same night the downtime begins. From Tuesday 8 September, the 30-day free play\nwindow that came with a Starter or Complete Edition registration begins. A subscription, which is the recurring fee you pay to keep\nplaying, is required once that window has elapsed.
\nThe same notice carries the part that decides what you pay. A Switch 2 subscription is\nseparate from every other platform's, even for an existing subscriber. It is half price with\nan active subscription elsewhere, and that discount does not apply while a 30-day free play\nperiod is running on the other platform.
\nSo the practical order runs like this. The free period ends the night of the seventh. The\n30-day clock starts on the eighth. Thirty days from there lands in early October, which is\nwhere our maths puts the end of the free play window. The notice says that if you set up\npayment before then, the fee comes out of your FFXIV Coins balance, bought from the Nintendo\neShop, once the window expires. Square Enix gives the first two dates, not the third. The free trial is\nunaffected and stays free, which the notice says outright.
\nWe are going to defend the model and then complain about the paperwork.
\nA flat monthly subscription is the fairest arrangement in this genre, in our view, and it is\nworth saying so while the industry drifts the other way.
\nThe paperwork is where we would push. There are three dates in this chain. The free period\nends at 23:59 on the seventh. The 30-day clock starts the following day. Our maths\nputs the end of the free window in early October. Our guess is that only one of those three\nlands in most people's heads. As we read the notice, a Switch 2 player who set up payment\nwill see a charge they may not have planned for, and one who did not will find they cannot\nkeep playing until they pay. Nobody is being tricked here.\nThe notice writes down every step except the end date, and a single line in the launcher would fix that.
\nThe free trial is unaffected and stays free, which remains one of the more genuinely generous\nthings any subscription game does.
\nThe Moogle Treasure Trove opens the day after the patch, on Wednesday 9 September. The\nTrove is a recurring event that pays a temporary currency for playing old content, and this\nrun is called the First Hunt for Astronomy.
\nBy\nits own announcement,\nSquare Enix calls it a special edition celebrating the upcoming release of Evercold, and it\nruns across two installments. The uolon horn needs an item awarded for minimog and ultimog\nchallenges. Square Enix says the horn will be available in the Second Hunt as well.
\nOur reading is that 7.56 is a closing patch rather than an opening one. Evercold's release\ndate is tracked on our Final Fantasy XIV page. The patch, the Switch 2 date\nand the Trove are on the calendar.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-31T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-01T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/ffxiv-patch-7-56-lands-8-september/", "summary": "Square Enix puts 7.56 downtime at 11 p.m. on 7 September to 3 a.m. on the 8th, Pacific. What stops early, and the reward season that closes with it.", "title": "FFXIV Patch 7.56 maintenance: 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. Pacific, and the season that closes with it", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/ffxiv-patch-7-56-lands-8-september/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "World of Warcraft's Midnight Season 2, the game's current run of months, finishes unlocking in\nthe week of 8 September 2026. That is when the fourth and last chunk of its big group\ndungeon opens to the automatic queue. Blizzard staged the season across five weekly steps rather\nthan one day, in\nits own announcement.
\nThe names, in plain words. The Venomous Abyss is this season's raid, which is a dungeon built\nfor a large group and the hardest thing on the schedule. Raid Finder is the automatic queue that\nputs strangers into an easier version of it, released in chunks called wings. Above Raid Finder\nsit three harder settings: Normal, then Heroic, then Mythic at the top. The Great Vault is the\nweekly chest a character earns just by playing. Delves are short solo dungeons.
\n| Week of | \nWhat opened | \n
|---|---|
| 11 August | \nAltar of Fangs, Heroic and Mythic 0 dungeons, the new eight-dungeon rotation, Tidebound Grotto on World difficulty, Prey Normal and Hard, Nemesis delves at the first difficulty, arena training grounds | \n
| 18 August | \nThe Venomous Abyss on Normal, Heroic, Mythic and Raid Finder wing 1, Mythic+ Season 2, player-versus-player Season 2, bountiful delves and keys, Prey Nightmare mode, Great Vault season rewards | \n
| 25 August | \nRaid Finder wing 2 and the raid's story mode | \n
| 1 September | \nRaid Finder wing 3 | \n
| 8 September | \nRaid Finder wing 4 | \n
Mythic 0 is the detail people miss in that table. It ran on a weekly lockout in the first week\nand moved to a daily reset in the second, at the same 292 item level either way. Item level is\nthe number that says how strong a piece of gear is.
\nA five-week ramp is a decision about who the season is for. Read it in order and it tells you\nwho Blizzard expects to be where.
\nThe first week is a gearing week with no raid in it at all. The second carries almost everything\ncompetitive at once: the timed dungeons, the fighting between players, the raid on Normal,\nHeroic, Mythic and the first Raid Finder wing, and the Great Vault, all turning on together. The three weeks after that add the raid's story mode and\nthree more Raid Finder wings, and nothing else.
\nThat last part is the interesting choice, and we think it is a good one. A schedule whose back\nhalf is built entirely around pacing the story for people who do not raid on a fixed night\ntreats a casual evening as a legitimate way to play rather than a lesser one. The competitive\nplayers got everything in week two and are not waiting on anybody.
\nFor a returning player the practical read is that arriving now costs almost nothing. Every\nsource of gear except the last two Raid Finder wings has been open since the week of 18\nAugust. The dungeon rotation is fixed\nfor the season. The rating thresholds are published up front: 1500 for the title "the Venomous", 2000 for the\nmount Breath of Blight, 3000 for Breath of Ruin. Rating here is the score a character builds\nfrom timed dungeon runs. The top one percent and top 0.1 percent of players in your region\nsettle at the season's end rather than on the way through. Thresholds published up front are\nthe difference between a goal and a treadmill.
\nThe raid's rewards are unusually generous for housing, and this detail is worth copying.\nDefeating Ula'tek drops the Venomous Abyss trophy decor for every raid member at 100 percent,\non every difficulty. Heroic adds a second trophy and Mythic a third. A guaranteed drop rather\nthan a chance is the right way round for a cosmetic. It pays the group that finished the raid,\nrather than the one lucky person in it.
\nCredit where it is due: Raider.IO is where a lot of groups will actually\nwatch those rating thresholds move.
\nAfter the week of 8 September the season has no further scheduled unlocks. The next dated\nWarcraft event is BlizzCon, which is Blizzard's own convention, on 12 and 13 September. Its\npublished running order\ncarries a "World of Warcraft: What's Next" session and a second one numbered II. Both sit on\nthe calendar with the day we last checked them.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-01T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/midnight-season-2-unlock-schedule/", "summary": "World of Warcraft's Midnight Season 2 opened over five weekly steps rather than one day. The full timeline, what each week added, and the date outstanding.", "title": "WoW's Midnight Season 2 finishes unlocking on 8 September", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/midnight-season-2-unlock-schedule/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "RuneScape's September Patch Week landed on 1 September 2026. Its longest section is\nhousekeeping for Leagues, a temporary game mode with fresh characters and its own rules. The\nline most players will feel sits in the housing block of\nJagex's own patch notes: the 300\nfurniture limit in a player house is being enforced again, with a warning on entry for anyone\nalready over it.
\nA player-owned house, to be plain about it, is a building each player customises and fills\nwith useful rooms. It is a long-running side system in this game, and most of what goes in it\nis there for the look of the thing.
\nSix names in the table need a line each.
\nThey are all the game's own words. Dungeoneering is the skill built around descending a\nrandomised dungeon. Prayer and Summoning are two more\nskills, one powering protective blessings and one calling creatures to fight beside you. A\nGodsword is a family of powerful two-handed weapons named for the game's gods. Miscellania is\nan island players manage for a steady supply of resources. Anachronia, in the hotfix row, is\none of the game's islands. Anachronia, in the hotfix row, is\none of the game's islands. Anachronia, in the hotfix row, is\none of the game's islands.
\n| Area | \nChange | \n
|---|---|
| Player houses | \n300 furniture cap enforced again with an entry warning, bigger limit promised, undated | \n
| Player houses | \nMiscellania table recipe from Royal Trouble, Ports table recipe in the Ports Reward Shop | \n
| Dungeoneering Remastered | \nPrayer and Summoning doors capped at 99, Follow the Leader completable after a party member leaves, bound blastboxes and surgeboxes no longer lost on floor completion | \n
| Leagues II Equilibrium | \nEleven quests and area tasks auto-completed, five quests and six tasks, divine boons at half energy with the Divine Druid relic, poison-only kills now award experience and drops | \n
| Leagues, hotfixed | \nThe Leagues rare drop boost now applies to Godsword shards in the God Wars Dungeon, Clue Connoisseur gives 3 charges per outfit piece, Anachronia's base camp tutorial auto-completes on region unlock | \n
| General | \nSoul altar no longer demands a pure essence in the inventory, items sold to Tom's Trove buyable back, chicks added to four farms | \n
Take the good first, because there is a lot of it and it all points the same way.
\nAuto-completing a quest a Leagues player cannot reasonably do, rather than making them do it,\nis the correct call every time. Eleven auto-completes went in this week: five quests and six\narea tasks, plus one more in the hotfix block for Anachronia's base camp tutorial. Alongside\nthose came a fix so enemies killed only with poison award experience and drops, and a Wiki\nbutton that now points at the Equilibrium page. That is a team watching a temporary game mode\nand clearing the potholes as players hit them, which is what a seasonal mode needs and rarely\ngets.
\nThe housing cap is the other thing. Enforcing an existing 300 item limit again is not a nerf\non paper. Our reading is that in practice it is one. The patch note adds a warning "on entry\nto any players above this", which is Jagex confirming those houses exist. A warning on entry,\nno way to raise the ceiling, and a bigger limit described only as coming soon, leaves those\nplayers holding a house the game now flags as a problem. Housing is exactly the kind of\nlong-horizon, no-power, purely-for-love system that keeps people subscribed to old games. It\ndeserves a date rather than a promise.
\nCredit where the source gives it. Jagex points at Mod Yuey streaming Dragon trophy tips on 3\nSeptember alongside Maikeru and RSWillmissit. Mod is the prefix a Jagex staff member's public name\ncarries. The notes also highlight community work by Casillio, Artwle, Bucket\nCultist, Wings of Absurdity, Lily and SaltyxRs. The Pink Skirts run their usual week of open\nevents, including Vorago, one of the game's boss fights, on 6 September.
\nThe Month Ahead for September was due mid-week, and the community API and plugin update from\nMod Fable has moved to the week of the seventh. An API is the interface community tools use to\nwork with the game. Neither is a dated commitment, so neither joins\nthe calendar until Jagex gives a day.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-01T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/rs3-september-patch-week-house-limit/", "summary": "September Patch Week auto-completed eleven Leagues quests and tasks, and warned any player house over 300 items. A bigger limit is promised, with no date.", "title": "RuneScape starts enforcing a 300 furniture limit in player houses again", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/rs3-september-patch-week-house-limit/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "World of Warcraft's Curse of Ula'tek update went live on 11 August 2026.\nBlizzard's own summary\nleads with the Coiled Isle: a new outdoor area off the east coast of Zul'Aman, with an\neight-boss raid, a three-boss dungeon and three new delves behind it. The raid arrived a week\nlater.
\nThree words worth unpacking. A raid is a dungeon built for a large group, usually the hardest\nthing a game has. Delves are the small solo version. Zul'Aman is a region long-standing players\nalready know, so the isle sits somewhere familiar.
\n| Piece | \nDetail | \nLive from | \n
|---|---|---|
| The Coiled Isle | \nPublic events, Curse Surges, cursed fishing, an isle-only talent tree | \n11 August | \n
| Altar of Fangs | \nThree bosses, up to Mythic 0 (Mythic is the hardest difficulty setting) | \n11 August | \n
| Lairs | \nWorld bosses moved into private instanced fights; the notes describe scaling up to flexible Mythic with 15 to 25 players | \n11 August | \n
| Three delves | \nThe Ring of Glory, Gnarldor Isle, and Venomfall Deeps as a Nemesis one | \n11 August | \n
| The Venomous Abyss | \nEight bosses, Ula'tek last | \n18 August, with Season 2 | \n
| Mythic+ rotation | \nAltar of Fangs joins seven others | \n18 August, with Season 2 | \n
Two changes in this update outlive the season around them, and neither of them is the raid.
\nThe first is the Discord link. Discord is the chat app a great many guilds already run on the\nside. Connecting a Battle.net account to a Discord one and passing messages both ways closes a\ngap guilds have long papered over with a second app. It changes nothing about how the\ngame plays and quite a lot about who reads guild chat, because the people who miss a raid\nsignup are the ones not logged in. Unglamorous plumbing, and the best thing in the patch.
\nThe second is housing blueprints, and this is the one we will actually praise. Exporting a\nwhole house, an interior, an exterior or a single room and handing it to another player turns\ndecorating from a private hobby into something shareable. The detail that makes it usable is\nthe import screen: it lists what you are missing and still lets you import. A reset option puts\neverything back in storage, so experimenting costs nothing.
\nNote what is not there. Nothing in Blizzard's summary attaches a charge to any part of it. No\nshop entry, no bundle, no currency. In a genre where housing is very often the first thing put\nbehind a shop, a sharing feature arriving with no price on it is worth saying out loud.
\nThe area design earns a line too. Killing a rare tough monster at a Curse Surge unlocks cursed\nfishing in that spot, which chains a combat activity into a quiet one rather than running them\nin parallel. Those monsters rotate across five locations, so the isle rewards moving rather than\ncamping. A world that pays you for walking around in it is a world rather than a menu.
\nCredit where it is due: Wowhead is where the community documents\nthe blueprint format and the rare rotation.
\nThe last dated step of this content cycle is the fourth Raid Finder wing, which is one chunk of\nthe Venomous Abyss opened to the automatic queue that puts strangers into an easier version of\nit. Blizzard's own\nMidnight Season 2 schedule\nputs that wing in the week of 8 September.
\nThe next Warcraft date on our calendar after that wing opens is BlizzCon, which is Blizzard's\nown convention, and we have its dates and its running order in\nour piece on the schedule. Both sit on\nthe calendar with the day we last checked them.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-13T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-31T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/curse-of-ulatek-coiled-isle/", "summary": "The Coiled Isle update went live on 11 August with a new outdoor area, shareable housing layouts and Discord messaging. Its eight-boss raid opened a week later.", "title": "WoW's Curse of Ula'tek adds an island, an eight-boss raid and a Discord link", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/curse-of-ulatek-coiled-isle/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "The combat team behind The Elder Scrolls Online went back into Update 51 and rewrote its\nbalance pass. Players had spent two weeks hammering the public test server, which is a copy of\nthe game where changes are tried before release. The team says so plainly in\nits own post on 13 August:\nthese adjustments answer that feedback, and were not originally planned.
\nThat is a rare admission, and it is why this list is worth reading closely. A quick primer for\nanyone who has not played. You pick a class, which is the kit of skills your character fights\nwith. ZeniMax is rebuilding those classes one at a time. Update 51 is the next free patch, and\na balance pass is the round of number changes that decides which classes feel strong.
\n| Class | \nChange | \n
|---|---|
| Dragonknight (a fire and earth themed class) | \nCore of Flame 12% missing resources (was 15%), Heart of Flame healing down 20%, Landslide builds faster and stacks to 12, Seething Fury halved in player-versus-player, Power Lash damage down | \n
| Templar (a light and healing themed class) | \nBalanced Warrior uncapped and now rewards slotting Templar skills, Judgment's Brand 1600 bonus damage (was 1400), Aetheric Lancer's area effect spawns on a stationary caster | \n
| Nightblade (a stealth themed class) | \nStrife grants 1% damage per 10% of current health while active; the cost increases stay under review | \n
| Necromancer (a class that raises the dead) | \nNothing Wasted loses 2 stacks instead of 3 but decays every 12 seconds without generating a corpse (was 15), Pummeling Goliath's bash gains a 1-second cooldown and about 73% more damage, Frozen Colossus 12.5% more damage and costs 150 ultimate (down), both to be reverted in a future update | \n
| Warden (a nature and ice themed class) | \nFetcher Infection 75% every other cast (was 60%), Arctic Blast about 20% more per tick | \n
| Sets and skills | \nDraugrkin's healing reduction halved in player-versus-player and its bonuses moved to weapon and spell damage, Ice Comet about 21% more damage over time and now snares on every hit | \n
Two bits of vocabulary for that table. A stack is a counter a skill builds up as you use it. An\nultimate is a powerful ability you charge up before you can cast it.
\nCredit first, because it belongs to the testers rather than the studio.
\nNothing in that table exists without the people who spent two weeks on a test server writing up\nwhat was wrong. ZeniMax naming that feedback as the cause is the honest thing to do. A public\ntest server is unpaid labour that makes a live patch better, and it deserves to be described\nthat way.
\nThe substance is a studio admitting that rebuilding classes one at a time was always going to\nbreak fights between players. Dragonknight and Werewolf got their refreshes before the others,\nand the post names their "prevalence and often dominance" in that space. Werewolf is a\ntransformation skill line a character can carry alongside their class. The team says part of\nthat is inevitable by nature of going first. It is. That is exactly the argument against\nshipping a rework class by class in a game where players fight each other. Everyone on a class\nthat has not had its turn waits on a schedule they did not choose.
\nThe Warden entry is the one that should worry people. A class the studio says is still\nmid-rework gets two number tweaks and a note saying they do not indicate where it will end up.\nThe next stage of that rework has already moved to 2027. That is a long stretch of playing a\nclass the developers agree is not finished, and no amount of Fetcher Infection damage closes\nthe gap.
\nThe Necromancer bash change is the quiet good one. The post says it is aimed at correcting the need to\ndouble bash weave, which is the fiddly habit of squeezing two bashes in between other\nabilities, and gives one harder hit instead. ZeniMax says plainly that this "will nerf some of\nthe ceiling potential", and that it is fine with that based on the logs. Our view is that\ntrading a little top-end power for a far less fiddly ability is the right way round.
\nUpdate 51 lands on 28 September 2026, a week later than first announced\n(the studio director's letter).\nThe next stage of the class and combat rework is now targeted at 2027. Update 51 sits on\nthe calendar with the day we last checked it.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-30T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-31T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/eso-update-51-pts-combat-changes/", "summary": "Dragonknight burst cut, Warden nudged, Templar rebuilt. The Update 51 combat changes ZeniMax says were never originally planned, listed with their numbers.", "title": "ESO's combat team rewrote Update 51's balance pass after test-server feedback", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/eso-update-51-pts-combat-changes/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Old School RuneScape's Bronzeman vote got more yes votes than no votes and still failed. A\nchange put to a vote in this game needs 70 percent to pass, which is a much higher bar than a\nsimple majority.\nJagex's own post-vote note,\npublished 21 August 2026, confirms the majority and the shortfall.
\nTwo things to know if you have never played. Jagex, which is the studio behind the game, puts\nbig proposed changes to a public vote, and the cache for this one says the Bronzeman poll\n"fell short of the required 70% supermajority". Bronzeman is a self-imposed mode that blocks\nbuying from other players.
\n| \n | Detail | \n
|---|---|
| Result | \nMajority yes, below the 70% bar | \n
| Threshold | \n70%, described by Jagex as the required supermajority for this poll | \n
| Studio's advance knowledge | \nJagex says it can see results before they are public, and prepared for this outcome | \n
| Immediate action | \nIn-game survey, live from 11:15 UTC on 21 August | \n
| Proposed change | \nAn optional question in future votes asking why a player voted as they did | \n
| Next step | \nAn update once the studio is confident what, if anything, should happen | \n
We are going to defend the threshold, and then criticise how it was used.
\nA 70 percent bar is the single most valuable thing this game has. It is why the world still\nfeels like something its players own rather than a product shipped at them, and it is why a\nstudio cannot quietly reshape it in a direction the community hates. A mode that more than\nhalf of voters wanted and fewer than seven in ten did is exactly the case the bar exists for.\nJagex publishes no percentage, only "a majority" and the shortfall. The bar held. Good.
\nWhere we would push back is the design of the vote rather than its outcome. Jagex said it saw\nthe result coming and had prepared for it, and that it now wants to ask people why they voted.\nAsking why after the fact is a survey. Asking why on the ballot is data. The studio's own note\nsays this information is "now much easier for us to process with the improved polling system\nwe have", which raises the obvious question of why a proposal this contested went out without\nit. A failed vote costs the community the wait and costs the studio the work, and both are\navoidable when the disagreement is legible in advance.
\nThe tone deserves credit. Jagex asks everyone to focus on "where did we go wrong, and what\nneeds to change in the future". That is the right target. Our reading is that the mode failed\nbecause the pitch did not answer the objections, and blaming voters would have been the easy\nmove.
\nFor anyone tracking the discussion, the studio points at the 2007Scape subreddit, the Steam\nforums and its Discord, and at\nthe Old School RuneScape Wiki for the reference material.
\nNothing is dated. The survey opened at 11:15 UTC on 21 August, with no close given. Jagex said it would return with\nan update once it knew what should happen, and as of writing it has not. So\nthe calendar carries nothing for Bronzeman, and will not until there is a day to\ncarry.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-31T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/osrs-bronzeman-poll-supermajority/", "summary": "Jagex's Bronzeman vote won a majority and missed the 70 percent bar the game requires. The studio opened an in-game survey the same day to find out why.", "title": "Bronzeman won a majority in Old School RuneScape and lost anyway", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/osrs-bronzeman-poll-supermajority/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Update 51 for The Elder Scrolls Online lands on 28 September 2026, a week later than\nZeniMax first said. Three things have moved out of 2026 altogether. The change\ncame on 30 July in\na letter from game director Nick Giacomini,\nwhich also covers recent changes at the studio.
\nIf you have never played it: The Elder Scrolls Online is a fantasy game shared by what the\nletter calls "millions of players", and an update is a patch that adds new things and fixes old ones. Season\nOne is the game's name for this stretch of the year and the content grouped inside it.
\nThe letter puts a principle before a date: "quality experiences over calendar dates". Here is\nwhat that costs, in dates.
\nFor Update 51 itself, the letter gives a new date and no old one. It "will now launch one week later, on\nSeptember 28". The 21 September in the first column below is that week subtracted, not a date\nZeniMax states.
\n| Feature | \nWas | \nNow | \n
|---|---|---|
| Update 51 | \none week earlier, so 21 September 2026 by our subtraction | \n28 September 2026 | \n
| Nowhere Vault | \nno date stated | \n28 September 2026, with Update 51 | \n
| Rumors system | \nno date stated | \n28 September 2026, with Update 51 | \n
| Player experience improvements | \nno date stated | \n28 September 2026, with Update 51 | \n
| Three-sided Battlegrounds (arenas where players fight each other) | \nno date stated | \n28 September 2026, permanently | \n
| Crimson Veldt trial (a trial is this game's word for a big-group raid dungeon) | \nno date stated | \n2027 | \n
| Update 52 | \nno date stated | \nJanuary 2027 | \n
| Class and combat refresh, next stage | \nno date stated | \ntargeted at 2027 | \n
Everything else in Season One runs as planned. The letter adds a Golden Pursuit campaign, which\nis a rotating list of in-game tasks that pay shop rewards, called "Straight to the Crate", from\n20 August to 17 September. It also dates a High Seas of Tamriel event from 30 September to 14\nOctober. Tamriel is the continent the whole series is set on. Season Two is dated 21 October\n2026.
\nA week is not much. The rest of the list is, and the letter is more honest than it had to be.
\nOur pick for the biggest thing on the list is the Crimson Veldt. A trial is this game's word\nfor a raid, which is a dungeon built for a large group. The letter says it is pushing boundaries\nwith mounted combat, and it now moves into 2027 with no date attached. Our reading is that a\nfeature this size sliding into another year with no date costs a studio trust it cannot buy\nback.
\nThe class and combat rework is the quieter loss. A class is the kit of skills your character\nfights with. The letter says the studio is\n"targeting 2027 for the next refresh", and that it is discussing "some interim options for the\nclasses still awaiting their full refresh".
\nA rework that leaves some classes waiting is a balance problem the whole time it runs, and that\nis our reading rather than the letter's. Stretch the window into 2027 and you stretch the problem\nwith it. The people paying for that are the players still waiting on a rework. We wrote up what\nthe combat team itself said later in\nour piece on the Update 51 test-server changes.
\nThe studio context is in the letter too: organizational changes, departures, and a\nleadership arrangement in which Giacomini runs the studio alongside Josh Henderson. The letter\nlinks the schedule to those changes, and says the class refresh and the new trial are "highly\ncomplex". Our reading is that the studio context is more useful to know than the schedule\nitself, because it is the likeliest guide to the next one. Publishing it rather than letting a\ndate slip quietly is the right call, in our view, and we would rather have this letter than none.
\nCredit where it is due: the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages\nare where the community documents this game's class changes patch by patch.
\nUpdate 51, High Seas of Tamriel and Season Two sit on the calendar with the day\neach was last checked.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-30T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-30T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/eso-update-51-moves-to-28-september/", "summary": "ZeniMax pushed Update 51 back a week and moved the Crimson Veldt raid, Update 52 and the next class refresh into 2027. Every date that changed, side by side.", "title": "ESO Update 51 slips a week to 28 September, and three things slide into 2027", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/eso-update-51-moves-to-28-september/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Jagex, which is the studio behind Old School RuneScape, is running a live creator event in\nLondon on Saturday 5 September 2026, streamed from 14:00 to 19:30 UTC.\nIts own announcement\nis refreshingly clear that this aims at something more relaxed than a polished esports\ntournament. Twelve Old School RuneScape creators, four\nteams, in-game and real-world challenges, and viewers voting on how badly to sabotage them.
\nLANscape, which is what the studio calls the event, is its own in-person day where creators\nplay in one room. The four teams are named after gods in the game's world: Saradomin, Zamorak,\nBandos and Guthix.
\n| Team | \nCreators | \n
|---|---|
| Saradomin | \nPurpp, Potatohime, Mr Mammal | \n
| Zamorak | \nSoloMission, Tastylife, Sardaco | \n
| Bandos | \nSkill Specs, Katerena, Sick Nerd | \n
| Guthix | \nB0aty, Megan, MMORPG (a creator's handle here, not the genre) | \n
The in-game rounds run on a special event world, which is a separate copy of the game where\nJagex can change rules it would never touch on the live one. There is a team tileman challenge\nscored on crossing as few tiles as possible. There is a boss relay of familiar bosses, one or two of which Jagex says may catch the teams\noff guard.\nThere is a barrage race across Gielinor, the world the game is set in, with obstacles thrown\nin. There is hide and seek. And there is a final showdown where players fight each other, where Jagex says points earned\nearlier could help teams buy upgrades.
\nAway from the keyboard there are gnome gliders, giant Jenga, cup-stacking and carnival games.\nThe announcement lists all of those as challenges Jagex is "looking at" rather than confirming.\nSoup and J1mmy host.
\nThis is the right way to spend a Saturday on a game this old, and the reason is the part that\nsounds like a joke.
\nThe event world is the news. Jagex is making rule changes it describes as deeply irresponsible\nanywhere near the main game, which is only possible because the studio is willing to build a\nthrowaway ruleset for one afternoon. Most publishers would either run the event inside the live\ngame with the handbrake on, or build a competitive format only the very best players\nrecognise. A tileman race and a game of hide and seek make sense to anybody who has ever\nplayed this game, and that is exactly why they will draw an audience.
\nGiving the vote to Twitch chat is the other good decision. Handing viewers the power to split a\nteammate's mouse and keyboard, or take away somebody's F-keys at the worst possible second,\nmakes the audience a participant rather than a metric. It also, quietly, makes the competition\nunfair on purpose, which removes any pressure to treat it as a ranking.
\nCredit is the whole point of the event, so we will pass it on. Purpp, Potatohime, Mr Mammal,\nSoloMission, Tastylife, Sardaco, Skill Specs, Katerena, Sick Nerd, B0aty, Megan and MMORPG are\nthe twelve competing. Soup and J1mmy are hosting. Jagex thanks The Skulled for the\nannouncement video. A game stays alive this long because those people keep showing up.
\nThe stream runs 14:00 to 19:30 UTC on 5 September, on the Old School RuneScape Twitch\nchannel. Jagex says some participating creators may also stream their own perspectives. The date is on\nthe calendar with the day we last checked it against Jagex's page.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-30T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/osrs-lanscape-5-september/", "summary": "LANscape streams from London on 5 September, 14:00 to 19:30 UTC. Four teams, in-game and real-world challenges, and viewer votes deciding the handicaps.", "title": "Old School RuneScape puts twelve creators in a room and lets chat sabotage them", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/osrs-lanscape-5-september/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Throne and Liberty's update 4.9.0 followed roughly three hours of downtime, which the notes\nsaid would begin at 10:30 p.m. Pacific on 26 August 2026. The\npatch notes on Steam\nare dominated by a single theme. Most of what happens in Nix, which is the region of the map\nwhere the current content lives, now takes less time, fewer people, or both.
\nThrone and Liberty is a fantasy world made by NCSOFT, which is a Korean studio, and released in\nthe West by Amazon Games, Amazon's own game division. The Tumgir Vault below is an instanced\ndungeon inside Nix, and a Skill Core is an equippable item that changes how one of your skills\nworks.
\n| Where | \nChange | \n
|---|---|
| Tumgir Vault | \nChest interaction time down 30%, Skill Core acquisition down 50%, elevator sequences down 40% | \n
| Tumgir Vault | \nCrowd control removed from named enemies on floors 2 and 4 and reduced on floor 3; the Frost effect removed on floor 1 | \n
| Ritual of Frost | \nFrost Curses per magic circle down from 29 to 9 | \n
| Frozen Moment | \nThree waves down to two, survival per wave up from 45 to 60 seconds | \n
| Tumgir Hollow | \nWater Energy requirement down from 15 to 10, geyser reactivation 60% faster | \n
| Scarlet Dream, Primal Trial, Hall of Repentance and others | \nMaximum participants cut from 6 to 3 | \n
| Remnants of Nix | \nMasarax now spawns at a fixed location with a 30% chance at 15 minutes, more rewards, less difficulty | \n
Crowd control, in that second row, is the family of effects that stun, freeze or otherwise stop\nyou acting.
\nThe cuts are the right call, and the reason for them is not flattering.
\nInstanced events that allowed up to six players now cap at three, and the interaction timers\ncome down by 30 to 60 percent. The notes give the changes and no reason for them. Our reading\nis a studio concluding that content gated on assembling six people was gating on something its\nplayers could not supply. Better to fix it than leave it standing empty, and the fixes are\nreal: faster chests, fewer curses, fewer waves, and Masarax now spawning in a fixed spot\ninstead of a random one.
\nWhat we will not wave through is the note at the bottom about the Battle Pass, which is this\ngame's seasonal reward track and has a paid tier. Alongside Battle Pass: Smoldering Vow, the\nupdate says that moving forward, Battle Pass event shops will contain a Premium section. It\nsells extra Trait Unlockstone Fragments, Trait Enchantment Stone Fragments and Heroic Trait\nUnlockstone Fragments to players who have bought the Premium Pass. A Trait is a small permanent bonus attached to a piece of gear, so those are\ncharacter power materials rather than cosmetics. Putting more of them behind a purchase is the\nplainest form of paying for strength there is. A game that has just spent a patch making its\ncontent reachable should not spend the same patch making its progression purchasable.
\nThe Snowsoul tier deserves a flag of its own, for a different reason. A new weapon rank above\nAscended Archboss gear, crafted from the weapon you already own, resets the top of the ladder\nfor everyone who finished the last one. An Archboss is the game's largest open-world boss,\nfought by many players at once. That is the treadmill working as designed, and it is at least\nearned through Ascended Deluzhnoa and Ascended Giant Cordy rather than sold.
\nBy the same notes, Vegamor has moved to the end of September and the Primordial Wanderer\nmilestone now ends 24 September 2026. Both dates are on the calendar with the\nday we last checked them. The handover of this game's Western publishing, which we covered\nfrom Amazon's own announcement, is on our Throne and Liberty page.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-30T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-30T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/throne-and-liberty-4-9-0-nix-difficulty/", "summary": "Update 4.9.0 added a weapon tier above the top one, cut difficulty across the Nix region, and put purchasable power materials behind the paid reward track.", "title": "Throne and Liberty's 4.9.0 makes the Nix region easier almost everywhere", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/throne-and-liberty-4-9-0-nix-difficulty/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Black Temple, which is a big-group dungeon from an old World of Warcraft expansion, opened on\nthe Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary Edition servers on 27 August 2026. It arrived\nalongside the Battle for Mount Hyjal, the Netherwing daily quest hub and epic gems.\nBlizzard's own notice\nlists them together under what it calls your journey ahead, and puts Arena Season 3 five days\nlater on 1 September.
\nThe short version for anyone who has never played. Burning Crusade Classic, which is a\nre-release of the game's first expansion, runs on its own servers so people can play it as it\nwas. Each of Black Temple and Mount Hyjal is a raid, which is the game's word for a dungeon\nbuilt for a large group. The\nCaverns of Time, where the second one sits, is the in-game hub that leads to dungeons set in\nthe game's own past. Netherwing is a faction you build standing with to earn a flying mount.\nAnd an arena season is a numbered stretch of ranked small-team fighting, with its own gear.
\n| \n | Black Temple | \nBattle for Mount Hyjal | \n
|---|---|---|
| Level | \n70 | \n70 | \n
| Location | \nShadowmoon Valley, Outland | \nCaverns of Time, Tanaris | \n
| Bosses | \n9, ending on Illidan Stormrage | \n5, ending on Archimonde | \n
| Reputation | \nAshtongue Deathsworn | \nScale of the Sands | \n
| Gate | \nAn attunement chain | \nThe Vials of Eternity questline | \n
| Extra vendor | \nOkuno, inside the raid | \nIndormi, inside the raid | \n
An attunement is a chain of quests you finish before the game lets you in at all. Indormi is\nthe row to note for anyone not raiding: the jewelcrafting designs for the new epic gems sell\nfrom inside Mount Hyjal, and the gems themselves come from mining in that raid at 375 skill or\nas rare drops in Black Temple. Blizzard's notice also says a raid group is not required to\nenter Mount Hyjal.
\nThe arena rollover is the part with a deadline on it, and it has already passed for anyone\nholding points. Season 2 closed the week of 16 August, at 10:00 pm local time the night before\neach region's reset. Unspent Arena Points, which is the currency earned in ranked small-team\nmatches, turned into Honor Points at ten each. Honor is the older currency, earned from\nfighting other players out in the world.
\nThat is a conversion rather than a refund, and we think it is the wrong way round. Points\nsaved for a Season 3 purchase became honor, which buys a different and older set of gear.\nAnyone who did the disciplined thing and banked their points for the next tier was paid out in\nthe currency for the last one. The people who spent theirs immediately lost nothing. A\nrollover that punishes patience is a small unfairness with a real cost, and it was avoidable.
\nThe upside of the same rollover is genuinely good, and worth being loud about, because it is\nthe opposite of how a lot of this genre now solves the same problem. Two tiers of\nplayer-versus-player gear dropped their gates at once. Season 2 gear now sells at a discount\nfrom Area 52 with no rating requirement, and Season 1 gear moved to the Honor vendors in\nOrgrimmar and Stormwind. For a player arriving late to this phase that is a cheap way\nback in, and it costs time rather than money. No\nboost, no bundle, no shop page. A vendor and an afternoon.
\nNetherwing is the long tail and it makes no apology for it. The standing comes from daily\nquests on Netherwing Ledge. That is a floating outpost in southeastern Shadowmoon Valley, which the notice says needs a flying mount to reach, or a\nwillingness to take a very strategic fall. The six Netherwing Drake colours all need exalted standing, artisan\nriding, and the Blood Oath of the Netherwing step of the quest chain. Nothing about that chain\nis fast. That is the point of putting it in beside a raid tier. It is the sort of reward that\nstill means something a year later, precisely because nobody can shortcut it.
\nCredit where it is due: Blizzard's own notice links a community guide for the Netherwing\nchain, and Wowhead is where a lot of players will check the\nsteps.
\nThe anniversary servers have no further dated phase in Blizzard's notice. The next Warcraft\ndate on the record is BlizzCon, which is Blizzard's own convention, on 12 and 13\nSeptember. Its\npublished running order\ncarries three forward-looking Warcraft sessions, one of them for Hardcore, the mode where a\ncharacter who dies is gone for good. Both days are on the calendar with the day\nwe last checked them.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-29T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/launches/bcc-anniversary-black-temple-arena-season-3/", "summary": "Two big group dungeons opened on the Anniversary Edition servers: Black Temple and Mount Hyjal, plus Netherwing dailies, epic gems and a new arena season.", "title": "Black Temple opens on WoW's Burning Crusade Classic servers, with a new arena season", "url": "https://0hp.com/launches/bcc-anniversary-black-temple-arena-season-3/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "EVE Online, which is a long-running science-fiction game about spaceships, is taking apart the\nmost established screen in it. And\nits second design blog\nis unusually explicit about the order. An opt-in phase, then a long opt-out phase, then a full\nswitch only once adoption is high. A first version is aimed at the next expansion, with\nno date attached.
\nThe screen in question is the HUD, which is the set of bars and buttons drawn over the game.\nAt its centre is the medallion, a round dial carrying your ship's speed, its health, its heat,\nand its capacitor, which is the energy pool that powers guns, shields and engines. A module is a piece\nof equipment fitted to a ship and switched on and off in combat. To overload one is to run it\npast its safe limit for extra power and some damage. And the minimap is the small radar view\nshowing what is near your ship.
\nThe studio is Fenris Creations, which is the company behind the game. It took that name when\nit\nannounced on 6 May 2026 that it was becoming independent again.
\n| Element | \nChange | \nStage | \n
|---|---|---|
| Speed | \nMoves out of the medallion into its own controls | \nFirst | \n
| Health | \nShield, armour and hull stay around the capacitor, with clearer proportions and possible ticks | \nFirst | \n
| Capacitor | \nKeeps its circle, gains a gauge showing how fast energy is gained or lost | \nFirst | \n
| Rack heat | \nMoves beside the medallion, pointing at the rack it belongs to | \nFirst | \n
| Overload (running a module past its safe limit) | \nBecomes its own interaction; Shift-click is preserved | \nFirst | \n
| Modules | \nClearer active and inactive states, a moving cycle indicator, discoverable shortcuts | \nFirst | \n
| Minimap | \nOn-grid, metro and system views | \nSecond | \n
| Boosters | \nDedicated consumable slots with shortcuts | \nThird | \n
| Customisation | \nHUD as movable components, hideable parts | \nFourth | \n
One row there needs a word: boosters, which are consumable drugs that raise a pilot's stats\nfor a while.
\nThe rollout plan is better than the redesign, and the redesign looks good.
\nAn opt-in phase, then an opt-out phase the studio itself expects to run long, then a switch\nonly once adoption is high. That is how you change an interface people have spent years\nlearning without taking those reflexes away from them. Compare it with the industry\nnorm of shipping a new screen on patch day and learning from the forums afterwards. Nobody's\nFriday night fleet gets ruined by a redesign they did not ask for, and the studio still gets\nits modernisation.
\nThe research is credited where it belongs, and that should be noted. New players were brought\nin to be watched. Veterans were interviewed. There were sessions with the player-elected\ncouncil the blog calls the CSM, plus a workshop and a booth at Fanfest, which is the game's\nown convention. The single most useful finding in the\nwhole blog came from watching newcomers fail to realise the security status element was a\nbutton at all. A designer does not find that by thinking harder.
\nOur one reservation is sequencing. Customisation is the thing veterans have asked for longest,\nand it is the answer to the screen space a minimap and consumable slots will eat. It is\nexplicitly last. Screen space is a real cost in a game played in several windows at once, and\nshipping the parts that take room before the parts that let you hide them is the wrong order\nfor the people most likely to opt in early.
\nA third blog is promised, covering what comes after this work. The first round of HUD changes\nis targeted at the next expansion with no announced date, so nothing here joins\nthe calendar yet.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-29T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/eve-online-hud-rebuild-opt-in/", "summary": "EVE's second design blog splits its central dial apart, adds a minimap and slots for consumables, and promises an opt-in phase before anybody is moved onto it.", "title": "EVE Online is rebuilding the screen you fly by, and you can opt out for a long time", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/eve-online-hud-rebuild-opt-in/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Black Desert opened three dated events at once on 27 August 2026, and\nthe event post from Pearl Abyss, which is the studio behind the game,\nruns the longest of them out to November. The one with a competitive deadline is the Guild\nLeague, which is a scheduled competition where guilds fight each other. Its regular season\ncloses on 23 September.
\nBlack Desert, if you have not played it, is an action-combat fantasy world made by Pearl\nAbyss. Guilds are player-run clubs, and the Guild League is fought between them.
\n| Event | \nRuns | \nWhat it gives | \n
|---|---|---|
| Guild League regular season | \n27 Aug to 23 Sep 2026 | \nFaster-paced format, rebuilt rules, rewards at 3, 6 and 12 total victories | \n
| Sailing and barter hot time | \n27 Aug to 10 Sep 2026 | \n+100% sailing experience, +100% barter experience, double sailor experience from monsters on the Great Ocean | \n
| Olvia Academy combat boost (servers with boosted rewards for new and returning players) | \n27 Aug to 12 Nov 2026 | \nOrdered quest chain giving cron meals, perfumes and selectable harmony draughts | \n
A hot time is the game's word for a limited window with boosted rewards. The Olvia Academy is\nthe game's programme for new and returning players, named after one of its starting towns.
\nGuild League's reward tiers are the Thankful Premium Outfit Box, 1,500 Cron Stones and an\nUltimate Premium Enhancement Box, at three, six and twelve victories. Cron Stones are\nconsumables that stop a piece of gear breaking when you try to upgrade it.
\nThree windows of three very different lengths is a scheduling choice, and it tells you what\nthe studio wants you doing.
\nThe hot time is two weeks and doubles a grind: sailing and barter experience, barter being the\ngame's system of trading goods between islands, plus double sailor experience from monsters\nkilled on the Great Ocean, which is its open sea. Short\nwindows on multipliers are the least objectionable kind of event, because the reward is time\nsaved on something you were going to do anyway rather than power you could not otherwise get.\nThe Great Ocean is one of this game's genuinely world-shaped systems, and paying people to go\nout there is a reasonable use of a fortnight.
\nGuild League is the interesting one. Rewards tiered at three, six and twelve victories over\nfour weeks mean the ceiling is reachable by a guild that turns up, rather than only by a guild\nthat wins constantly. And 1,500 Cron Stones at the second tier is a serious amount of upgrade\ninsurance handed to the middle of the ladder rather than the top. Rewarding participation over\ndominance is how a competitive mode keeps enough guilds in it to stay competitive.
\nThe Olvia chain running eleven weeks is aimed squarely at people who are not here yet, and it\nis the longest of the three by a distance. Our reading of that gap is a game spending a lot of\neffort pulling newcomers and lapsed players in, and comparatively little on the players\nalready climbing.
\nThe sailing hot time closes on 10 September, Guild League on 23 September and the\nOlvia chain on 12 November. All three are on the calendar with the day we\nlast checked them.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-28T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/bdo-guild-league-season-to-23-september/", "summary": "Pearl Abyss opened a rebuilt Guild League season plus a sailing and barter bonus window, with three dated events running from August into November.", "title": "Black Desert's Guild League season runs to 23 September", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/bdo-guild-league-season-to-23-september/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "RuneScape: Dragonwilds, which is Jagex's survival game set in the RuneScape world, leaves\nearly access and launches in full on 15 September 2026. Jagex\ndated it on 5 June\nduring the Summer Game Fest Live showcase, and that page still carried the date when we read it\non 14 September. A second release, on 19 August,\nnames four platforms for that day: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and Nintendo\nSwitch 2.
\nFour things from that opening. Jagex, which is the studio behind RuneScape itself, makes it.\nEarly access is a paid unfinished release players buy into before launch. A survival game is one\nabout gathering, building and staying alive; this one has skills to level as well. And Summer\nGame Fest is an industry announcement event.
\n| \n | Early access | \n1.0, from 15 September | \n
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | \nPC (Steam) | \nPC (Steam, Epic Games Store, Jagex Launcher), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch 2 | \n
| Console release | \nnone stated | \nsimultaneous with PC; the 19 August release calls it the franchise's first game on a console | \n
| Covered by a subscription | \nneither release says | \nXbox Game Pass from day one; PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium | \n
| Headline content | \nthe road to the Dragon Queen; update 0.12.1 expanded the Agility skill on 29 July | \nthe Scorned Wilderness update, plus all content from the Umbral Sands expansion | \n
| Sales, as stated | \n5 June: over one million sales during early access | \n19 August, same period: over one million players. Sales in one release, players in the other | \n
The Dragon Queen, in that table, is the figure the current story builds towards. Jagex calls\nthe Scorned Wilderness an update and Umbral Sands an expansion.
\nThree facts are worth carrying out of that table. The console launch happens at the same time as\nthe PC one, which the 5 June release calls a first, and the 19 August one says this is the\nfranchise's first game to reach a console at all. The second is that 1.0 is not a re-release of\nwhat early access already had. The 5 June release says it includes the brand-new Scorned\nWilderness update, alongside all content from the Umbral Sands expansion. It dates that\nexpansion only as "arriving later this Summer".
\nThe third is the one that decides what you pay. Jagex's 19 August press release puts the game on\nXbox Game Pass from day one, and Game Pass is Microsoft's paid games-subscription service; Jagex\nsays holders play it for free. Of PlayStation it says something narrower, only that the\nPlayStation 5 release is on the Extra and Premium tiers of PlayStation Plus, Sony's own paid\nsubscription service. Those two tiers are the only part of it the release names. Our reading is that this\ncomes to the same thing for anyone already on one of those tiers, and Jagex does not say so. On editions, that release names a Digital Standard and a Digital Deluxe on\nPC, and a Digital Standard on Switch 2. Physical Standard and Deluxe editions reach PlayStation 5\nand Xbox Series X in Q4 2026, the last three months of the year. It names no digital edition for\nPlayStation 5 or Xbox, and neither release carries a price.
\nDragonwilds is not one of the big shared online worlds this site usually covers, and it is not\npretending to be. It is an open-world survival and crafting game for one to four players\ntogether, set on Ashenfall, which Jagex calls a previously unexplored continent of\nGielinor, which is the world the game is set in. This is the first standalone title in the\nRuneScape family.
\nThat matters if you are reading this as a RuneScape player rather than a survival player. The\nfamily is being widened rather than deepened, and the thing shipping in September is a\ndifferent genre wearing familiar art. Whether that is exciting or annoying depends entirely on\nwhich of those two things you turned up for, and we are not going to tell you which.
\nWhat we will say is that the shape of the release is the right one. A game leaves early access\non a named date, at 1.0, for up to four players in a world you can walk around. The press\nrelease of 5 June names no season pass and no shop, nor does the one from 19 August. On one of the\nfour platforms the game is free from day one to Xbox Game Pass holders, and on a second it sits\nin two PlayStation Plus tiers. In 2026 that is worth noticing rather than assuming.
\nThe early access run earns attention. The 5 June release says the game passed one million sales\nduring early access, which is a great many for a game still being finished. An executive producer quoted in the 5 June release says every update through early access was shaped\nby player feedback, which is a claim easy to make and hard to check. What is checkable from\nJagex's own newsroom is the cadence beside it. Update 0.12.1, expanding the Agility skill, went\nout on 29 July. The Xbox Game Pass day-one announcement followed on 19 August. That is a team\nshipping in public in the weeks before a console launch.
\nUntil 14 September this piece told you Jagex had not named Nintendo Switch 2, and to treat any\nSwitch listing as unconfirmed. That was wrong. Jagex named it on 19 August, in\nthe same press release the Game Pass line above comes from: the game arrives on Switch 2\nas a Digital Standard edition on 15 September too.
\nWe had that release's date sitting in our own paragraph about Jagex's shipping cadence, a few\nlines up, and still left the old sentence standing. It is corrected here and on\nour Dragonwilds page.
\nOur reading of how it happened, and it is ours rather than anything Jagex said: we checked the\none announcement that dated the launch, wrote down what it did not say, and never asked whether\na later announcement had said it. An absence is only ever true of the page you read, on the day\nyou read it.
\nThe Scorned Wilderness update arrives with 1.0 on 15 September, and the 5 June release says\nall content from Umbral Sands is in it. Neither release we read gives a day for Umbral Sands\nitself: the 5 June one says "later this Summer" and the 19 August one never mentions it.
\nSo Umbral Sands is not on the calendar. The launch is, and the row carries the day\nwe last checked it against the 19 August release.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-10-30T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-28T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/launches/dragonwilds-leaves-early-access-15-september/", "summary": "Jagex dated the full launch to 15 September on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox and Switch 2. What ships with it, and where a subscription you already pay for covers it.", "title": "RuneScape: Dragonwilds leaves early access on 15 September", "url": "https://0hp.com/launches/dragonwilds-leaves-early-access-15-september/" } ], "language": "en", "title": "0hp", "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1.1" }