World of Warcraft: Forever will avoid repeating WoW Classic's mistakes and will have tools to prevent "dead" or "unsustainable" server rulesets, Blizzard said.

In the past, various WoW Classic servers became "dead" over time, as players either stopped playing or transferred to other servers. Those massive drops in population had major ramifications for players left on the server being unable to find groups for raids or dungeons, as well as for the server's economy and auction house. In some extreme cases, Blizzard gave away free character transfers so players could leave their "dead" servers behind.

While Forever is going a different route with what are essentially mega servers tailored around specific rulesets, some players might still have anxiety when it comes to picking a ruleset that will be a healthy place to play long-term. 

In the latest episode of the WoW: Forever podcast, Blizzard said it has tools it can use if a ruleset's population becomes "unsustainable." Senior game designer Josh Greenfield gave the example of Forever's separate RP and (newly added) RP-PvP server rulesets. He said there were initially concerns about splitting up the RP community, fearing that one or both of the rulesets wouldn't be able to stand the test of time. He said Blizzard now believes "it will be fine," but does have options should the worst happen. 

"If someday down the line, if something happens and one or both of those populations can't quite sustain themselves, we have options if we do need to say link up their auction houses or allow them to group for instanced content," Greenfield said.

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