WoW Forever name reservation: start times by region, who qualifies, and how the three-character limit works

Blizzard lists four regional start times and gives each in its local time zone. Because they are written in four different zones they are hard to compare at a glance, so the table converts each one to UTC. The conversion is ours and is plain clock arithmetic. Europe left summer time on 25 October 2026, so 18:00 CET is UTC+1. The United States stays on daylight time until 1 November, so 1:00 p.m. PDT is UTC−7. Korea Standard Time is UTC+9 and Taiwan's CST is UTC+8.

Put on one clock, Europe opens first. North America follows three hours later, then Korea five hours after Europe and Taiwan six hours after. Korea and Taiwan both open at 07:00 local time on 28 October, but those are different moments, an hour apart, because Taipei is one hour behind Seoul. For a player in the UK, Europe's 18:00 CET is 17:00 GMT. For a player on the US east coast, North America's 1:00 p.m. PDT is 4:00 p.m. EDT.

Blizzard gives no closing time. Every source says the window runs 'through November 3' and none names an hour or a time zone for the end, so if a name matters to you, do not leave it to the last evening. Launch follows on 4 November.

The main text of Blizzard's post is specific: 'Players who pre-purchase the Skyborne Heroic Pack, Skyborne Epic Pack, or limited-time Warcraft Forever Collection will have access to WoW®: Forever Early Name Reservation from October 27 through November 3.' The same sentence appears word for word in the stress-test post (S34). It matches the September announcement (S1), which lists 'Early Name Reservation' among the Heroic Pack's contents. The Epic Pack and the Collection each include 'everything in' the tier below, so they include it too.

So the cheapest way in is the Heroic Pack. Press and shop listings put the packs at $29.99 (Heroic), $59.99 (Epic) and $79.99 (Collection) in the US; the price page has the regional detail. A plain subscription or Game Time gives you access to Forever on 4 November, but it does not give you name reservation. The beta does not count either: the stress test post says every character, name and guild created there was wiped 'in preparation for the beginning of Name Reservations opening on October 27', so nothing made in testing carries over.

The asterisked footnote on the same post is worded differently. It reads 'Purchase of World of Warcraft: Forever Digital Upgrade or Collector's Edition required.' Blizzard does not define 'Digital Upgrade'. Its names article (S41) calls the qualifying purchases 'eligible upgrade purchases', which reads as a collective name for the three packs. The footnote also names the physical Collector's Edition, which the body text does not mention. We quote both and do not pick between them. If you hold only a Collector's Edition, Blizzard's footnote is the line that covers you.

The rule is one sentence: eligible players 'can create and reserve names for up to three characters total across all Rulesets.' Blizzard then gives one example: 'This means that if you create two on a PvP Ruleset, you'll only be able to create one more character in a Normal or Role-Play Ruleset.' The limit is three for the whole WoW account. It is not three per ruleset. The post closes the point with 'This restriction only applies to Early Name Reservation.' From 4 November the limit of three no longer applies. Blizzard has not published what the normal character limit per account or per ruleset is after launch.

Two other rules interact with the count. Under S28's ruleset rules, a PvP account can only have characters of one faction: 'Once you create an Alliance character on the PvP ruleset, you won't be able to create a Horde character there, and vice versa.' On Normal and Roleplaying you can make characters of both factions. Names are also unique across the whole region rather than per ruleset (S41), so a name taken on one ruleset is very likely taken on all of them. Our scenarios below combine these rules. Rows other than Blizzard's own example apply the published rules to a plan; they are not extra statements from Blizzard.

The install steps end with 'select Play and choose your Ruleset', so every reserved character belongs to a ruleset from the start. Of the four rulesets in Blizzard's post (S28), three are relevant on 27 October. Normal is 'the baseline World of Warcraft experience'. PvP is for players who want 'more danger, excitement, and open-world conflict'. Roleplaying is for players who want to 'lean more deeply into the fantasy of Azeroth'. Hardcore 'will be available sometime after launch', so you cannot reserve a Hardcore name this week. The screenshot of the selection screen shows a Hardcore card, but Blizzard's text says it comes later.

There is also a fifth option. The ruleset post was updated on 22 October: 'The Roleplay-PvP Ruleset is now arriving with the launch of WoW: Forever on November 4. We also plan to make it so that this Ruleset is available with Early Name Reservation when it begins on Tuesday, October 27.' The word Blizzard uses is 'plan', not a promise. If Roleplay-PvP is not on the selection screen when you log in, the update allowed for that. Blizzard has not said whether the PvP one-faction rule also applies to Roleplay-PvP.

Pick carefully, because a reserved character stays in its ruleset. 'Players cannot freely hop between rulesets; to play under a different one, they'll need to create a new character in that ruleset.' During reservation week that new character would use one of your three slots. The realmless page explains how rulesets work after launch.

The reservation post includes a 'Prepare to Launch' list. Here it is unchanged, with one note added under it. The install can be done before your region opens. Downloading the client on the evening itself is the step most likely to cost you a name, so finish it earlier.

Blizzard says names will be available 'on a first-come, first-served basis, and desired names cannot be guaranteed', and it repeats the point in each name-reservation post. A rare name in a busy region can go in the first minutes, so the night itself is mostly preparation done earlier. The checklist below follows Blizzard's published rules in order. The judgement calls in it are ours and are labelled as such.

A Forever name has two parts, a main name and a secondary name, and the full combination has to be unique within your region. It does not have to be unique only on a realm, because Forever has no realms. So reservation is not a race for a single word. If the first name you want is taken, a different second name can still make the full name yours. The character names page covers how the parts work, how to hide your secondary name and what the naming filter rejects.

Some questions are still open. They are listed here so you know they are gaps in Blizzard's information, not in this page.