World of Warcraft: Forever won't destroy what made the old classes so satisfying by modernizing them into oblivion: 'The level of mechanical complexity found in the beta classes is indicative of our intentions'

Part of World of Warcraft: Forever's charm is that combat is considerably slower than the regular version of the MMO. It's the kind of game where you'll spend 38 seconds hitting a scorpion because there are so few buttons to press in the early stages of your journey.

Classes in WoW's past were simple, but had small quirks to them that you'd pick up over time. Melee classes, for example, can squeeze abilities in between their auto attacks to maximize their damage output. You'd never care about this if fights only took 10 seconds, like they do in WoW today, but back then you had to use all that time in more drawn-out battles for something.

The WoW: Forever beta has reminded me how satisfying it is to play a class that isn't built like Whac-A-Mole, where the challenge is to hit the right buttons the moment they start to glow. …