How to download WoW Forever: install it from the Battle.net app's Game Version menu, then log in from 4 November with a subscription or Game Time

Blizzard's 'Prepare to Launch' list in the name-reservation post is the current, official set of steps. The list below follows it in order, with Blizzard's wording in quotes and a note where a step has a catch.

The step people miss is the Game Version menu. Blizzard's steps put Forever in 'the Game Version menu above the Play button'. That is how the Battle.net app generally works: it lists World of Warcraft once, with modern WoW, Classic and Forever as versions inside that entry, and Play starts whichever version the menu currently shows. So check that it reads Forever before clicking. For the beta and the stress test the Forever entries appeared 'under In Development'. Blizzard's launch steps name 'World of Warcraft: Forever' with no such label.

Blizzard has not published the download size or an install time, and its steps give no figure to plan around. In general the Battle.net app reports a size and progress once an install starts, but Blizzard has not said what Forever's will be.

The download and the first login happen on different dates for different players, and Blizzard has dated each step. The launch itself is global: Blizzard's announcement says Forever 'launches November 4 at 3:00 p.m.' Pacific, and the What's Next recap repeats the date. The release-date page converts that into local times for every major zone.

Before launch, Blizzard's instructions only cover one group installing the live client: pack owners using Early Name Reservation from 27 October. The reservation start times Blizzard lists are 27 October at 1:00 p.m. PDT in North America and 18:00 CET in Europe, and 28 October at 07:00 in Korea (KST) and Taiwan (CST). Blizzard has not announced a separate pre-load date for everyone else, or said whether players without a pack can install the client before 4 November. If the Forever option is in your Game Version menu early, installing then saves downloading in the launch-night rush. If it is not, it will be there at launch.

Invited friends follow the pack timetable. The Invite-A-Friend Launch Code in each pack 'grants an eligible invitee access to WoW: Forever from November 4-11', according to the product page footnotes. Blizzard said codes 'will be provided by email beginning October 20', and gift purchases are excluded.

The download is the easy part. Access is what decides whether Play works. Blizzard's Shop page is explicit: 'A subscription or game time is required to play World of Warcraft®: Forever. Access to World of Warcraft®: Forever is included with your active World of Warcraft subscription or game time.' The October subscription-offer post says it more simply: 'Your WoW subscription or game time grants you access to WoW: Forever starting November 4.' The same post describes a single subscription that grants access to modern World of Warcraft, Forever and WoW Classic progression.

The paid packs add things on top of that access rather than replacing it. The Skyborne Heroic Pack and up add the Skyborne race and the Zephras Isle starting questline ('Access to Skyborne Race or the Zephras Isle starting experience questline requires purchase of Skyborne Heroic Pack or higher edition'). They also add Early Name Reservation and Invite-A-Friend codes. The Epic Pack and the Collection include 30 days of Game Time from launch, after which 'gameplay outside the included 30-day period requires a Subscription or additional Game Time'. The price page sets out each edition.

The product page footer lists the remaining requirements: 'Internet connection, Battle.net® Account, and Battle.net® desktop app required to play.' Forever is listed for Windows and macOS. Blizzard has announced no console, mobile or Linux version, so there is nothing else to download from anywhere.

The first screen after Play is not a realm list. Forever is realmless, and Blizzard's final install step reads 'select Play and choose your Ruleset'. At launch the choices are Normal, PvP, Roleplaying and, following Blizzard's 22 October update, Roleplay-PvP. Blizzard planned to make Roleplay-PvP available for Early Name Reservation as well. Hardcore 'will be available sometime after launch', even though it appears on the selection screen in Blizzard's preview image.

The choice sticks more than a realm pick used to. 'Players cannot freely hop between rulesets; to play under a different one, they'll need to create a new character in that ruleset.' Grouping, dungeons and raids work only within a ruleset ('Cross-ruleset grouping is not supported'), although battlegrounds can mix rulesets except Hardcore. On the PvP ruleset an account can only make characters for one faction. During Early Name Reservation the three-character limit is shared across all rulesets, so two PvP characters leave room for one elsewhere.

Set your language once you are in. Blizzard's path is: open the Game Menu with Escape, choose Options, then Languages and Social under System, and pick a 'Preferred Online Language'. It is 'account-wide', applies to all characters and 'has a 24-hour cooldown before it can be changed again'. It is how the realmless world pairs you with players who share your language.

Blizzard's Forever posts give a short list of fixes, and this section sticks to them. The rest is general Battle.net support territory. The beta post points players who 'have issues installing or operating the test' to Blizzard's Common Technical Issues and Solutions article, which is also the right first stop for the live client.

Unsupported hardware is the one failure no reinstall fixes. If your GPU predates AMD Graphics Core Next 1, NVIDIA Maxwell or Intel Skylake, Blizzard says you 'will need to upgrade' it before playing. The system-requirements page explains how to check.

If you took part in testing, your Game Version menu may still show older Forever entries. The beta was installed by choosing 'the World of Warcraft: Forever Beta option listed under In Development', with test realms and test characters. The stress test was 'World of Warcraft: Forever Stress Test under In Development'. Both were temporary. The beta was 'available through October 21, the last full day of testing', and Blizzard said stress-test characters, names and guilds would be wiped 'in preparation for the beginning of Name Reservations opening on October 27.'

Blizzard says the stress test's characters, names and guilds were wiped before reservation opened. For the beta it published no carry-over; its characters were made on test realms, so our reading is that they do not carry into the live game either. The live client is the plain 'World of Warcraft: Forever' entry from Blizzard's launch steps. Blizzard has not said whether it removes the leftover test entries from the menu, or whether you need to uninstall them yourself to free the disk space; the app's per-version options are where to look.