RP-PvP joins Forever’s rulesets for the November 4 launch

Roleplayers who want world PvP will have a home at launch after all. On 22 October, Blizzard announced on its forums that it will add a Roleplay-PvP ruleset for World of Warcraft: Forever’s launch on November 4.

A change of course, explained

The announcement acknowledged that a recent episode of the official podcast had aired concerns about adding RP-PvP, and noted that the team had still been discussing it internally and watching player feedback. After examining what it would take, Blizzard said it had decided to go ahead, and thanked players for their feedback.

The same day, Blizzard marked its ruleset article as updated on 22 October. That article remains the reference for how rulesets work. Instead of choosing a realm, players choose a ruleset, and each ruleset operates as its own large community for grouping, dungeons, raids and everything else. Its summary lists Normal, PvP, Roleplaying and Hardcore, with Hardcore arriving some time after launch.

Name reservation: an aim, not yet a guarantee

The forum post says Blizzard is working hard to let players select RP-PvP and reserve names there when Early Name Reservation begins on Tuesday, 27 October. RP-PvP at launch is confirmed. RP-PvP on the first day of reservations is a stated aim, worth checking on 27 October rather than counting on.

Questions to settle before you reserve

• Which PvP rules carry over. The ruleset article sets out rules for the PvP ruleset, including that an account can only create characters for one faction there. Whether each of those rules applies identically to RP-PvP should be confirmed, not assumed.
• How roleplay expectations work on RP-PvP compared with the existing Roleplaying ruleset.
• Where your friends are going. Players cannot group across rulesets, so the choice decides which community you, your friends and your guild share.