Is WoW Forever down?
There is no realm to look up, because WoW Forever has no realm list. Check these official channels instead, in this order:
- Blizzard Customer Service on X: @BlizzardCS for the Americas and @BlizzardCSEU_EN for Europe post outages and maintenance updates.
- Blizzard’s Weekly Maintenance Schedule lists planned downtime for the Americas and Europe. As of October 12 it lists World of Warcraft: Midnight and the Classic versions, but not WoW Forever.
- The Battle.net app. For a live game, Blizzard posts expected downtime in the Breaking News banner. Its October 8 beta maintenance post said so: “If this was a live game, we’d post in the Breaking News banner that we expect to bring realms back online by 3:00 p.m. PDT.”
- The official forums during the beta: Blizzard announces every beta downtime in its own thread (see the table below) and keeps one known issues list.
Blizzard’s realm status page shows up near the top of searches for “WoW Forever server status”, but it only lists the realms of retail and Classic World of Warcraft.
Stuck on retrieving character list?
If you log in but the game stays on “Retrieving character list”, the servers are usually not back yet. Blizzard Support’s article on this message says: “This issue usually indicates maintenance is not complete. Please check the BlizzardCS Twitter and Realm Status page for any service interruptions.” WoW Forever is not on the realm status page, so check the channels above. Once Blizzard reports that maintenance has ended, quit the game and the Battle.net app and log in again.
Maintenance schedule
Beta downtime so far
Each row is a post by Blizzard’s community manager on the official forums. Times are as Blizzard gave them, with UTC added.
| Date | What happened | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday, September 24 | The beta went down to deploy a new build; Blizzard gave no end time but said it would take “at least a couple of hours” (post) | Announced at 12:50 p.m. PDT (19:50 UTC), already underway |
| Thursday, October 1 | New build with changes and fixes that raised the level cap to 30; Blizzard said the beta would be back “several hours later” (post) | In the morning PDT; no exact start time given |
| Tuesday, October 6 | Short realm restarts for priority fixes, including missing quest items in chests and disconnects on elevators and transports (post) | 3:00 p.m. PDT (22:00 UTC), with an in-game warning first |
| Thursday, October 8 | New build with bug fixes and gameplay changes; Blizzard started earlier than on previous Thursdays (post) | 9:00 a.m. PDT (16:00 UTC) until about 3:00 p.m. PDT (22:00 UTC) |
The pattern so far: new beta builds arrive on Thursdays, and the beta is down for several hours while they deploy. Blizzard posts the same notices for Europe on the EU forums with Central European times; the October 8 maintenance started there at 18:00 CEST, the same moment as 9:00 a.m. PDT. The beta ends on October 21 (beta guide).
After launch
Blizzard has not announced a weekly maintenance window for WoW Forever. For comparison, its Weekly Maintenance Schedule for the week of October 13 lists the other World of Warcraft versions on Tuesday from 7:00 a.m. PDT in the Americas and Wednesday from 03:00 CEST in Europe. We will add WoW Forever as soon as Blizzard lists it.
Known issues
Blizzard keeps one official list for the beta, WoW Forever Beta Known Issues, last updated on October 8. These are the entries players ask about most:
| Added | Issue | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| October 8 | Skyborne druid cat form, some Zephras Isle creatures and some mounts and pets still use their old textures (bear and travel form are updated) | Blizzard says they arrive in a future build |
| October 8 | Hunters with the Ferocity talent do not see their pet’s critical strike chance go up on the character sheet | Blizzard calls it a visual bug only |
| October 8 | Some icons in the Professions window look broken | — |
| October 1 | The full WoW Forever installation is larger than intended | Blizzard is working to reduce it in a later beta update |
| October 1 | Enemies can parry and block attacks from behind when you stand very close | Do not stand too close to the target |
| October 1 | Switching to or from gamepad UI mode resets your Edit Mode layout to the default | — |
| October 1 | Debuffs such as Faerie Fire and Demoralizing Shout cause no threat | — |
| September 18 | Opening the Legacy panel with Y before level 25 causes Lua errors | Avoid it until level 25 |
| September 18 | Barber chairs cause a Lua error; character friends are disabled in the beta | — |
| September 18 | The Cooldown Manager is a work in progress and differs from class to class | — |
Launch day
WoW Forever launches on November 4 at 3 p.m. PST (23:00 UTC); see the release date page for your time zone. Blizzard has not said whether to expect login queues. During the beta, players reported full-realm messages and queues, and on September 27 Blizzard said it had fixed an issue that was causing the login queue to fill after a disconnect.
If you cannot log in on launch day:
- Check the official channels above. Expected: if Blizzard reports an outage or maintenance, wait; nothing on your PC will fix it.
- Read the error code. “You have been disconnected (BLZ51901016)” has its own fixes. “No realms are currently available” (WOW51900309) usually appears right after maintenance, according to Blizzard Support; see its fixes.
- Restart the Battle.net app and try again. Expected: a fresh login.
- Still stuck with no outage reported? Go through errors and fixes, starting with WoW Forever won’t launch.
During launch week we update this page every few hours with what Blizzard announces, each entry with its time in UTC and a link to the source.