WoW Forever at PAX Aus: Longdale on the Biggest Beta, Riverglades and Krol'dok

No Beta Bigger Than This

Stone noted that the beta "just had a content unlock" that morning, the October 8 build that opened City of Dalaran. Longdale then described the response:

Blizzard, Holly Longdale at PAX Aus

In our recorded history of Blizzard, there's been no beta bigger than this.

People are "playing it like it's live," she said, and "I don't think we were ready for this kind of engagement."Source: PAX Aus 2026 Day 1, 1:13:04 to 1:13:51, retrieved Oct 11, 2026; speaker named in PCGamesN's recap, Oct 11, 2026.

Earlier in the keynote, Stone asked how the team listens when millions of players want different things. Longdale said feedback "comes from everywhere" now, and the lesson is "you don't listen to the loudest people in the room." The team looks for trends and checks the data underneath them.

"You have to accept you're not going to make everybody happy," she said.Source: PAX Aus 2026 Day 1, 0:38:51 to 0:40:17, retrieved Oct 11, 2026. The same day, Blizzard answered the dungeon XP debate by raising kill XP while keeping questing the fastest way to level.

Riverglades Is Massive

Share Image: Blizzard's in-game map of Riverglades shown at PAX Aus, a green river valley between Burning Steppes, Redridge Mountains and the eastern coast, with Krol'dok marked in the north

Stone walked through how Riverglades went from the old Eastern Kingdoms map to concept art to the finished zone. "You're not supposed to go there now," he said, but some beta players "have found their way in there through large, you know, large parties, which is fine." He called the zone "massive."

It is part of "over a thousand new quests" Blizzard added, and players will see it "at the appropriate level" at launch.Source: PAX Aus 2026 Day 1, 1:14:30 to 1:16:14, retrieved Oct 11, 2026.

Share Image: A dirt road winding through green Riverglades hills toward a pagoda-roofed fortress on a ridge, from Blizzard's PAX Aus keynote

He sorted new content into "three buckets":

• Expected: what players dream of, like Mount Hyjal.
• Unexpected: high concept, like Zephras Isle and the Skyborne.
• In between: Riverglades, which fits "original vanilla era" WoW.

"No one was expecting something like this," he said of Riverglades.

How Krol'dok Stronghold Was Built

Stone said the team first thought it could build about six new dungeons. "Spoiler alert. We ended up building nine." Krol'dok came out of that brainstorm.

A gnoll dungeon came first, but "we've kind of done a lot of gnoll stuff," so the team chose ogres tied to Cho'gall and the Twilight's Hammer.Source: PAX Aus 2026 Day 1, 1:17:37 to 1:19:00, retrieved Oct 11, 2026.

• Lore: Alliance Brotherhood of the Horse shares the zone.
• Look: Burning Crusade's Blade's Edge ogres set the building style.
• Route: Playtests sent groups up the hill and back.
• Fix: Now the run ends at the summit.
• Bosses: No names; one line is "bigger rock, bigger stick."

Stone said the Brotherhood's insignia is already visible on the army crossing the bridge in the BlizzCon opening cinematic.Source: PAX Aus 2026 Day 1, 1:19:03 to 1:22:32 and 1:24:38 to 1:25:21, retrieved Oct 11, 2026.

Blizzard kept a hole in a bridge. In an early playtest, designers found a gap in a bridge where the dungeon sends waves of enemies at you. A player who falls through usually lives, then has to find a way back up. The team left it in. Its in-universe answer: "they're ogres."

He is "really excited" to see hardcore players get there.Source: PAX Aus 2026 Day 1, 1:26:10 to 1:28:13, retrieved Oct 11, 2026.

He closed by calling it a level 40 to 45 dungeon. That matches Blizzard's corrected range on our Krol'dok Stronghold guide. The beta caps at 30, so nobody can run it yet.

The Original Classic Plus Pitch

Stone also showed the real pitch slides from before the game was called WoW Forever. Three things it is not:

• A remake of WoW from the ground up.
• A drastic change to the art style.
• A contradiction of post-vanilla lore.

The pitch listed new zones, dungeons, raids, a race, class updates, reputations, professions content and legendaries, "all with a persistent level 60 cap at launch." It promised "frequent large updates" for a "horizontally expanding evergreen classic Azeroth."

Longdale said the pitch felt like an "oh, hell no" at the time, and the team then "pulled a rabbit out of the hat."Source: PAX Aus 2026 Day 1, 1:07:26 to 1:11:42, retrieved Oct 11, 2026.

Stone also credited the 2023 Hardcore launch with showing the team it could build something "that feels entirely new."Source: PAX Aus 2026 Day 1, 0:57:00 to 0:57:19, retrieved Oct 11, 2026.

The keynote ended on the launch date: November 4, or November 5 in Australia. Riverglades sits in the mid-30s to mid-40s band. Our RestedXP guide review covers the leveling add-on, and the leveling zones guide shows where Riverglades fits.