World of Warcraft: Forever developers say gear upgrades will remain relevant "for a long, long time": "It is very much our intention to try as much as we can not to invalidate old content."

Blizzard says items do not work the same way as in a modern MMO.

Blizzard says the items don't work like in the modern version of the MMO.

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The developers of World of Warcraft: Forever, the latest flavor of the venerable MMO classic, say that even if the level remains at 60, there will always be new gear to pursue, and lower-level gear has never been more powerful.

Developers Blizzard Entertainment are wary of massive power increases in the modern version of WoW, including the recent Midnight expansion, which renders previous chapters of gear irrelevant, requiring extensive resets between expansions and resulting in periodic stat "squishes" to prevent players from becoming almighty gods.

In a recent interview with PC Gamer, VP and GM Ion Hazzikostas said of Forever's approach: "Classic wasn't that far off. "It's gradual. Going from [classic raids] Blackwing Lair to Ahn'Qiraj, which is really just a few item levels up. The two pretty much coexist. C'thun drops are probably better than anything in Blackwing Lair, but it's like one or two items per player. It's a system that can last a long, long time."

That's part of what makes gear at Forever—and classic—meaningful, says assistant production manager Kelly Stone.

"Your best slot from a previous raid tier may be your best slot for a long time. Our goal is to try not to invalidate old content as much as we can."

World of Warcraft: Forever players will find new breaking items that challenge 22 years of experience with the classic MMO.

WoW: Forever's changelist As Blizzard gets more excited, says, "Our initial proposal internally was: We're going to do 4 new dungeons."

The developers of World of Warcraft: Forever say that a direct sequel like Guild Wars 2 is unlikely: "Why throw it away and start over?"

So again, don't expect a long period of time to be literally forever, Hazikostas says.

"At some point, if you're running the Barrow Deeps raid that's coming out in December, you'll have all the items you want. Good. You're done."

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The developers of Forever say that Forever players will see gear progress at level 60: that average item level increases, gear that's good in certain situations, and rare "chasing" pieces should keep people hunting.

An item might be particularly powerful when fighting in a desert or against a dragon for example, making it very good in a particularly tough fight.

(Yes, players, developers know this means bag space is at a premium. "We're already thinking about it," says lead designer Kris Zierhut, referring to ideas for more bank space, small bags, or even garment bags.)

Bad news for Shaman tank hopefuls - World of Warcraft: Forever still won't have the crazy design of Season of Discovery: "But never say never, you know"

World of Warcraft: Forever doesn't destroy what made the old classes satisfying by modernizing them into oblivion: "The level of mechanical sophistication in the beta classes reflects our goals."

10 Big World of Warcraft Forever Details From BlizzCon: No Separate Realms, Optional Transmog, and Much Improved Items

Forever launches on November 4th, and so far players have seen quite a few pieces that will grab them at the end of the game. The current cap in the beta is 30, and future items are hidden from view and data mining to guess.

"We've revived some old technology that keeps stats, features, and tooltips hidden until the item is accessed by someone on the server," says Hazzikostas. "It's something we can use in modern WoW if we want to."

Basically a flag on the items indicates if they are known or not, and makes them visible in the game data that goes off when someone first discovers an item, making sure it doesn't cause bugs if the player links the item to others.

But until that moment, players won't get a glimpse of what the piece of gear does. This is one of the reasons why Forever doesn't have an adventure guide for dungeons. The developers want the game to keep its secrets.

"Every boss in our raids has items that are a low percentage of chase drop items, kind of like the Dragonspine Trophy in Gruul's Lair — but for every boss," Zierhut says. It could be three weeks, four weeks before someone sees that item and the whole meta is torn apart again.

The goal, he says, is to keep the magic of discovery alive.

"The goal is to solve the game, so players have to figure out again what the best path is," says Zierhut. "They don't know what the best items are. They don't know what to get. It goes back to 2004 and nobody knows anything and they're rediscovering it."

To add a layer of complexity - and again, to prevent players from gaining power too quickly - items are intentionally not optimized for the classes and stats players are interested in. "Our items are much more specific and you don't get exactly what you want," he says, noting that knowing your class and choosing between gear sets will be one way players express their skill in Forever. "None of the ribs are perfect."

It's an old strategy – there's been some oft-discussed stuff since WoW's original launch, for example, strength over cloth gears – but what's new is how powerful the items can be at a relatively low level.

The developers say that both the low-level drops and the gear built early on are powerful, and that's intentional.

"A lot of times the trade skills in Classic seem like an afterthought. Like, 'Oh, I can make this item, but it's a lot of work and I want to level up anyway,'" says Zierhut. Skip it. I'll upgrade my tailor when I hit level 60." "I've made a deliberate effort to make more recipes worth crafting while you're leveling up, including lowering the skill requirement to craft them.

"Normal items like tailoring, leatherworking, blacksmithing require 25 skill points less than before. So you'll be able to build that item right when your best position is at that level and get real value out of doing it."

Most of the adjustments made so far to equip the Forever Beta have been to maintain the idea of moderate but steady progress throughout the leveling process.

"It's just a slightly different slope in terms of power level," says lead game designer Tim Jones.

Heather Newman has been reporting on games for more than 25 years, with internationally syndicated columns and stories in dozens of magazines. In World of Warcraft, his Mythic Plus dungeon team was #1 in North American star spots for a few weeks for little reason. He had a poor score against Jonathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel in the Unreal tournament and was briefly top 50 in the world in Halo.

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