World of Warcraft: Forever is gearing up for launch with some major class balance changes, but don't expect any more for at least a month.
As detailed in Forever's launch patch notes, Blizzard is making some dramatic class changes, including major reworks to Rogue and Paladin talents, in time for release that will result in a big spike in player power. Blizzard said it has used all the data from the game's month-long beta to "get everything tuned to a reasonable place."
However, don't expect additional changes in the near future. Blizzard said it won't be making significant balance changes until sometime next month.
"With the exception of bugs and serious outliers, we don't plan on making big tuning changes between now and the opening of the raids next month," Blizzard wrote in its patch notes. "Once we have sufficient data from players leveling past 30 and engaging in a wide range of content, we expect that we will do a large tuning pass based on our data."
Forever's three launch raids will open December 9, meaning there will be a little over a month without class changes. But launch and its subsequent months will just be the beginning, Blizzard said.
"This is all merely a starting point for the classes in Forever, which will continue over the course of the months and years ahead just as they did following the original launch in 2004," Blizzard said.
Blizzard is in it for the long haul with Forever, telling GameSpot in an interview it hopes the game will continue to receive updates for the next 10-20 years (or potentially forever). It recently announced its plans to release major Forever content updates every four months, as well as teased how its controller support will eventually lead to players being able to play the MMORPG on "whatever you want."
WoW: Forever launches November 4, but you can make your character now. In other Forever news, Blizzards revealed it will be making major improvements to the game's divisive layering system, how it's avoiding the problem of "dead" servers, and announced big changes to racial abilities alongside its newly announced class changes.