Creating a character on the more populous faction of WoW Forever's PvP rulesets is getting harder: for now, the Horde on North American PvP rulesets and the Alliance on European Roleplay-PvP. Kaivax announced it on Blizzard's forums on November 10 at 02:05 UTC (02:06 on the European forums), for North America and for Europe. His reason: "While even the most extreme case in a region is currently at roughly a 55/45 split, that is not as close as we want it to be."
What Blizzard changed
- Creation weighs the balance over time: Blizzard has "adjusted the character creation system to better recognize the overall state of faction balance in each region's PvP rulesets, rather than what may feel like snapshots of points in time". Its goal: "as close to a 50/50 faction balance as possible".
- Harder on the larger faction: "it will become increasingly difficult to create characters on the more populous faction in each region – currently Horde on North American PvP rulesets or Alliance in EU Roleplay-PvP".
- It can turn around: "As everyone settles and shifts, these may flip to the other side." Blizzard admits that while restrictions are in place, a player may not be able to start playing a specific faction "in that moment".
- How it is counted: at 03:04 UTC, in the same thread, Kaivax added that the 55/45 counts "the active logged-in population across all levels over a specific period of time", and that there is "no evidence that trial characters had any impact at all".
What the post does not say
It speaks only of creating characters: nothing about characters already created, transfers or faction changes. It gives no figure and no date for how hard creation gets, and says nothing of the Normal and Roleplaying rulesets. Of the regions, it names only North America and Europe.