WoW: Forever Carries On a Long-Standing Questing Tradition

World of Warcraft: Forever will see players battling to become an ogre arena champion once more, this time in the new Riverglades zone.

Forever’s launch is just a few weeks away on November 4, and every day it seems like Blizzard reveals new information about the game. In a new video titled “Your Leveling Journey Past 30,” Blizzard goes into more detail about what to expect from the game’s all-new Riverglades zone, diving into its Warcraft 2 lore roots and what players can expect to find there. The contested zone is divided up by multiple different factions, with the Brotherhood of the Horse representing the Alliance and the Boulder Rock ogre clan representing the Horde.

Blizzard makes a point to call out a new ogre arena in the trailer, deep within Boulder Rock territory. The Bloodmasters Ring is “a fighting ring where players will prove their strength against the ogres’ best brawlers,” Blizzard says in the trailer.

That will likely sound awfully familiar to anyone who has played WoW in the last 20 years, as it’s reminiscent of the iconic Ring of Blood quest chain from the game’s first expansion, The Burning Crusade. It’s one of TBC’s most memorable quests, as players needed to put together a full group of players in Nagrand to battle boss after boss, eventually rising up the ranks to become champion. The chain also granted some great rewards that many players used early on in TBC’s endgame.

It’s a tradition that has continued in nearly every expansion since, with a similar quest chain, the Amphitheater of Anguish, in Wrath of the Lich King and again with Cataclysm’s Crucible of Carnage. The Ring of Blood itself even made a second appearance during the game’s Warlords of Draenor expansion.

What kind of rewards players can expect from the Ring of Blood is still unknown, but WoW Classic is certainly no stranger to having quests grant significant and powerful rewards. Who knows? Maybe the Ring of Blood’s original ringmasters, Gurgthock and Wodin, will even make an appearance.

Blizzard additionally dropped new details about what players can expect from WoW: Forever’s endgame raids. Like in WoW Classic, players will need to attune themselves for Onyxia’s Lair and obtain the Drakefire Amulet. Blizzard additionally warns players will want to bring some fire resistance gear for the occasion. As for the game’s two new raids at launch, the eight-boss Barrow Deeps raid will have multiple entrances in zones like Mount Hyjal, Winterspring, and Blackmaw Hold, while the massive Hyjal Summit raid will have 13 bosses to defeat.

WoW: Forever is still seeing major changes two weeks before launch, with Blizzard recently changing the math on what race to play with a huge racial-ability overhaul. In an interview with GameSpot, Blizzard gave a glimpse into what WoW: Forever’s future will look like and how it’s approaching the MMO’s endgame.