Blizzard keeps Forever's quest XP-to-gold conversion off and readies gold for most level 48+ quests

Quests finished at level 60 in Forever don't turn their experience into gold, and Blizzard says that's deliberate. Kaivax answered a forum thread called "Gold at 60 for quests" on 10 November at 21:56 UTC. The conversion stays off, and Blizzard is preparing a hotfix that adds gold to most quests with a quest level of 48 or higher. Kaivax wrote that it should go live "in the next 24 hours or so."

Why the conversion is gone

The XP-to-gold conversion paid gold for quests completed at maximum level. Kaivax says it arrived in 2006, in the weeks before the original Burning Crusade launch, to give players finishing the original game's content a gold boost before the first expansion. Classic Era kept it in 2019.

For Forever, Kaivax says, the team removed it because it gave players a reason to hold "a full quest log worth of completed quests" and hand them in after reaching 60 for the most gold. Under those conditions the best way to level was to grind creatures for experience and not hand quests in at all, "which is not a design we want to retain in WoW: Forever."

What the hotfix adds

Kaivax also says the removal cost more than intended. In original WoW only about 25% of quests give raw gold, so losing the conversion was "a slightly more negative change than intended" to gold income closer to 60. The hotfix adds gold to most quests of quest level 48 or higher, including quests above 48 that never paid gold before. That is the level of the quest, not of your character. "The idea here is that you should feel good about doing quests at the appropriate level to progress your character," Kaivax writes.

About an hour later, Blizzard's Clay Stone put it more briefly on X: "Yes, when you reach 60, quests will reward gold, and we're also adding gold to quests at and above level 48 that never previously rewarded gold at all."

What this doesn't settle

Neither post gives gold amounts, says which quests "most" covers or says whether quests handed in before the hotfix will get anything. The 24 hours is Kaivax's estimate. When we checked the thread and Blizzard's Forever hotfix notes at 00:29 UTC on 11 November, neither said the hotfix was live. Nothing in either post brings the conversion back, so holding finished quests until 60 doesn't earn the extra gold the conversion used to pay.