Early name reservations for World of Warcraft: Forever open on October 27, giving eligible players a week to claim character names before the new branch of WoW launches on November 4. Blizzard has also explained the new two-part names, which replace the old rule of one name per realm.
When Name Reservations Open
Reservations run until November 3 and open at these times:
| Region | Opens |
|---|---|
| North America | October 27, 1:00 p.m. PDT |
| Europe | October 27, 18:00 CET |
| Korea | October 28, 07:00 KST |
| Taiwan | October 28, 07:00 CST |
Who Can Reserve a Name
Early name reservation is open to players who pre-purchase the Skyborne Heroic Pack, the Skyborne Epic Pack or the limited-time Warcraft Forever Collection. It only applies to the WoW account the upgrade was bought for.
- Each account can reserve up to three characters in total across the PvP, Normal and Role-Play rulesets.
- Two PvP characters, for example, leave room for one more character on a Normal or Role-Play ruleset.
- The three-character cap only applies to early name reservation.
- Names are first come, first served, so no name is guaranteed.
To take part, players choose World of Warcraft: Forever as the Game Version in the Battle.net app, install it, then pick a ruleset and create their characters.
How Two-Part Names Work
Forever is built around a realmless Azeroth, so each character now has a first name and a second, surname-style name. The full combination has to be unique across the whole region instead of a single realm, which means two players can share a first name as long as their second names differ.
Players who prefer a single name can hide their own second name in the game world through Options, Nameplates and "My Secondary Name", although it still shows in chat. The usual naming rules apply to both parts, and the filter can check them together, so a restricted word split across the two names can still be rejected.
