September 17, 2026 — The independent reference site classicwowforever.com published a September 15 update batch that adds four details the tracker does not yet list: planned 10-, 20- and 40-player raid tracks, Hardcore Legacy carryover, a Hardcore warning before world refreshes, and the official dungeon experience curve (kill XP sharply down, dungeon quest XP sharply up). The site flags its own data as captured, community-reported or estimated — and in places AI-assisted — so everything here is listed as fan-reference, not Blizzard confirmation.
What is new (per the reference, flagged)
- Raid tracks of 10, 20 and 40 players are planned. The reference does not map which raids get which size — treat the track structure as the claim, not a launch schedule.
- Hardcore carries Legacy progress into later runs. Reruns keep the Legacy points earned on a Hardcore death — the one-way transfer out stays as covered, but Legacy progression is not lost with the character.
- Hardcore players get a warning before world refreshes — an announced refresh event rather than an unseen wipe.
The dungeon XP curve: two independent sources
The strongest item in the batch — the dungeon experience rebalance — does not rest on the reference alone. Blizzard's principal designer on Forever, Kris Zierhut, told The Sun (September 15, via Icy Veins): dungeon kill XP is brought "way down" while dungeon quest XP is "much, much, much higher", so the first clear of a dungeon is the payoff and repeated dungeon-spamming is not the leveling route. classicwowforever's own update ("dungeon quests reward the first run more heavily") matches that reading. This is the same philosophy behind the camping changes on the hub: Evergreen content rewards first-time exploration, not repetition.
What it means for private servers
A 10/20/40 raid track on launch raids (Hyjal Summit, the Barrow Deeps) is the scene's familiar three-format structure — the format private servers have run since Vanilla, now the official template instead of a PS choice. Hardcore-with-progression is the notable divergence: death-losing-more than character life is a design private-server Hardcore modes rarely attempt. The dungeon XP curve is the cleaner signal — it aims directly at the dungeon-spam meta that dominates WotLK-era and modern private realms, and its first-run-favored shape is worth watching against new-project tuning in the beta.
Tracker
No server changes here. The reference site also confirms, in its changelog, talent calculators for all nine classes — consistent with the Classic-era 9-class reading from the Kotaku designer interview (no SoD-style hybrids). Full system tables live on the Forever hub; open questions collected on the beta verification hit list.
Update September 26: how to grade it now
The site has grown into the most detailed unofficial reference in the scene, and it is now worth watching for a specific reason: it is fast, and it lags. Its class and racial pages still carry a September 19 check date, so as of this pass they still show the pre-build-70009 Gnome Eureka! value, the old Touch of the Grave crowd-control interaction, and Cultivation without its new level gate. Its talent index is labeled with a Classic Era build number and still describes the beta as not yet open, nine days after it opened. Its guides index is older still, checked September 14.
That is a feature for us, not a problem. A reference that publishes every claim with a date and a source grade is easy to audit, and the gaps are where first-party reading adds value. The practical rule: read its structure and its sourcing, confirm every number against Kaivax's notes before publishing, and treat anything it reads out of client files as reported rather than official. That is how the Round 10 reconciliation and the beta build guide were produced.