WoW: Forever Has Kiwis and Aussies Questing in the Dark, and Blizzard Still Won’t Turn the Sun On

World of Warcraft: Forever is the biggest launch in Warcraft history, and a big chunk of its Kiwi and Aussie players have barely seen the sun. Not the real one. The in-game one.

Forever’s day and night cycle runs on North American server time, and Oceanic players share those mega-servers. So when we actually log on after work, Azeroth is pitch black, and it has been since launch on 5 November NZ time.

Why it’s always night down here

• The clock: Forever ties its 24-hour day and night cycle to the server clock, not your local time, Eurogamer reports.
• The servers: Oceanic players connect through an Australian data centre, but share mega-servers with North America, so they get American daylight hours.
• The result: Eurogamer says Oceania players see full daylight from around midnight to 6am. If those are east-coast Aussie times, it is even later in New Zealand.
• Launch day: one Australian player on Blizzard’s forums said the in-game sun started setting at 11am their time.

Blizzard asked us what we wanted, then went quiet

This isn’t news to Blizzard. On the official WoW: Forever podcast on 29 October, lead software engineer Ana Resendez said there are Australian servers that could run Australian time, according to Wowhead’s write-up.

The catch, she said, is grouping. If you join a mate in North America, “all of a sudden you go from night to day in a couple of seconds.” Designer Josh Greenfield (Aggrend) then asked Aussie players straight up whether they’d be okay with that.

Players answered, loudly. A forum thread asking Blizzard to respond has players saying they’re posting until they get an answer, and Eurogamer says Blizzard hadn’t replied to its request for comment either.

What players are asking for

• Local time: Oceanic layers run on Australian time, and your sky flips to American time when you group with Americans. Plenty of Oceanic players in the threads say they’re fine with that.
• A shorter cycle: day and night rotate every few hours for everyone, so the sunset drifts across the week. Some players hate it, saying it breaks the immersion.
• Do it like Classic: players point out Classic’s Oceanic realms had their own clock, so it has been done before.

Our take

It’s a cosmetic problem, sure. But Forever sells itself on atmosphere, rebuilt skies and dynamic lighting, and Kiwi and Aussie players get to stare at the inside of a bin bag every night.

Blizzard already had the answer on its own podcast: give Oceania its own clock and flip the sky when people group up across the Pacific. We’re used to being an afterthought, but asking for feedback and then ghosting the people who gave it is a bit rich. Turn the bloody sun on.

More on the launch on our WoW: Forever page, including Blizzard’s record-launch brag. Living in eternal night? Moan about it with us in the GetRekt Discord.

Sources

• Eurogamer: World of Warcraft: Forever players in Australia and New Zealand are struggling to get sunlight
• Wowhead: Blizzard addresses day and night cycle issues for Oceanic players in WoW: Forever
• Blizzard forums: Blizzard, please respond to OCE Day/Night Cycle
• Pixel Herald: WoW: Forever day/night cycle, Oceania fix being weighed
• World of Warcraft (YouTube): WARPATH launch trailer