Blizzard Moved Dungeon Experience in World of Warcraft: Forever From the Monsters to the Quests. Two Weeks Into the Beta, It Halved the Quest Bonus Too.
On 12 September 2026, at BlizzCon, Blizzard announced World of Warcraft: Forever, a reimagined version of the 2004 game set before Molten Core, with a level cap of 60 and no plan to raise it. Blizzard's announcement described it as "a new permanent home alongside modern and Classic WoW," included in the ordinary subscription and launching on 4 November, in which "the journey matters as much as the destination." The beta opened that same month.
The journey has a known problem. In every version of Classic WoW, the fastest way to make it was to skip it. A high-level character runs a low-level dungeon alone and kills everything, while the paying customer waits near the entrance and collects the experience. Blizzard has spent the past few years closing this door, and the doors next to it, one realm at a time. Forever opened with the door already shut. Then, two weeks into the beta, the developers shut the window as well.
The Monsters
The design was explained in an interview with The Sun, published on 13 September 2026. Kris Zierhut, Forever's principal designer, said the overall experience curve had not changed. One thing had: "we made a big change to our dungeons. In that the amount of XP you get from killing monsters in dungeons, we brought way down." To make up for it, he said, "we made the amount of XP for completing dungeon quests much, much, much higher."
The reasoning was about repetition. A first run through a dungeon would pay handsomely, Zierhut said, "But going back over and over and over again isn't the best way to go." Players would do better in the new outdoor zones. "We want people in the outdoor world meeting each other." He did not use the word boosting. He didn't need to. Experience that comes only from turning in quests cannot be collected by standing at the entrance while someone else kills the monsters. The trouble is that it can't be collected by the people who kill the monsters either.
The Quests
The quests carried the weight for about two weeks. On 1 October 2026, community manager Kaivax posted the beta development notes for the build that raised the cap from 20 to 30. "We appreciate the feedback on leveling speed as we continue ongoing discussions about the Beta," the developers wrote. "As part of those discussions, we've decided to reduce the amount of XP granted from dungeon quests with this release." The change itself took one line: "Dungeon quests now reward 50% less extra experience beyond normal quest values."
PC Gamer worked through what that meant for a single quest. Deviate Hides, in the Wailing Caverns, gave 1,600 experience in Classic. Before the patch it gave about 4,650 in Forever. After the patch, the writer turned it in and got 3,100. The monsters still pay almost nothing, as designed, and the quests now pay about two thirds of what they did, also as designed. Running a dungeon a second time remains, in Zierhut's phrase, not the best way to go. Running it the first time is less good than it was.
The Entrance
Forever's approach was the tidier of two attempts that year. On 13 April 2026, Kaivax had announced hotfixes for the Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary realms. "We've observed a significant number of Burning Crusade players entering dungeons and then participating in no meaningful gameplay, often while only one party member plays through the instance," he wrote. "When this is prominent, it can lead to detrimental economic effects." From the next weekly maintenance, players had to take part in combat to receive experience from dungeons, and loot from non-boss enemies in high-level dungeons would depend on how many players took part in each kill. "The vast majority of players who participate in dungeon groups as usual should see no difference after these updates."
They saw a difference. On 15 April the post was updated. The changes had been "impaired by bugs that did not appear in our pre-release testing," with "unintended behavior of drops for both solo and group players." In one case, "some players becoming completely disallowed from rolling on loot." The hotfixes were reverted that evening, about a day after they went live. As PC Gamer noted at the time, the same realms offer a level 58 character boost on Blizzard's own store.
The Auction
Some fixes come earlier still. On 30 January 2024, Kaivax announced that from Phase 2 of Season of Discovery, Blizzard would "no longer support or allow GDKP or 'gold bid' raids and dungeons." In a GDKP run, every item that drops is auctioned to the group for gold. The post granted that GDKP got people into groups, and said that Blizzard was "hesitant to discourage anything that gets people into groups to play together." But it was "undeniable that GDKP contributes to and drives a lot of illicit activity, such as real-money trading (RMT) and botting." It created what Blizzard called an "arms race" that pushed players to buy gold in order to compete. The penalties went "up to and including suspension and permanent account closure," enforced by "multiple detection methods for GDKP that are effective both inside and outside of dungeon or raid instances." It was described as a test.
The test became policy. At a developer Q&A during Forever's beta launch, reported by PCGamesN on 19 September 2026, senior game designer Josh Greenfield said GDKP would not be allowed in Forever either. The "main reason," he said, was that in regions where it had been popular longer it tended "to reach a level of ubiquity that it can overtake the traditional guild structure." He added that Blizzard was "going to very aggressively punish gold buyers." Guilds that had used gold bids only to sort out who gets the sword are covered by the same rule as the gold sellers.
The Gift
The gold has to come from somewhere, and so does the enforcement. On 28 September 2026, in a forum thread titled "Gold buying rules," Kaivax wrote that Blizzard was "taking steps to address RMT in the WoW: Forever Beta." Seller accounts would continue to be closed, he said, but "we will increasingly take action against buyers' accounts," removing the illicit gold "and/or" taking "further actions, which can include closing accounts." Players were asked to be "very cautious when it comes to accepting gifts from strangers or other one-sided transactions." If it became apparent that a recipient "knew or should-have-known that gold wasn't from a legitimate source," that recipient could face account action too.
In a game sold on meeting strangers in the open world, the official advice on a stranger offering gold is now the same as for a stranger offering sweets.
Forever launches on 4 November. Its dungeon monsters give almost no experience, so that nobody can be carried through them. Its dungeon quests give less than they did a month ago, so that nobody levels too fast. Its raids cannot be run for gold, in case the gold was bought. Its players have been asked to treat generosity as evidence. The people who were levelling normally were never the target of any of it. They level under all of it anyway.
Filed from public reporting:
- Blizzard Entertainment — "Carve a New Path with World of Warcraft: Forever"
- The Sun — "World of Warcraft Forever creators give sneak peak INSIDE reimagining of 22-year-old game with new zones, races & skills"
- Blizzard Entertainment, World of Warcraft Forums — "WoW Forever Beta Development Notes - October 1, 2026"
- PC Gamer — "The WoW: Forever beta's nerf to dungeon XP isn't nearly as bad as it seems"
- Blizzard Entertainment, World of Warcraft Forums — "Adjustments to Reduce Non-Participation in Dungeons"
- PC Gamer — "WoW's Burning Crusade Classic servers are removing the time-honoured tradition of dungeon boosting"
- Blizzard Entertainment, World of Warcraft Forums — "GDKP in Season of Discovery"
- PCGamesN — "World of Warcraft Forever will 'very aggressively punish gold buyers,' as Blizzard admits the MMORPG has been 'too lenient'"
- Blizzard Entertainment, World of Warcraft Forums — "Gold buying rules"
