Blizzard Rules Out Summoning Stones in World of Warcraft: Forever, Citing World Scale and Class Identity

The reasoning was set out in an interview with TechRadar Gaming, in which the WoW: Forever team also discussed the controversial addition of the new Skyborne race. According to the team, the game is guided by four design pillars: Nurture and Protect Social Experiences, Approachable and Familiar, World as the Main Character, and Journey before destination. Those pillars are intended to let the developers build on the "vanilla" World of Warcraft world while staying true to the game's established core design, pacing and tone.

Summoning Stones, known in their earlier form as Meeting Stones, were not part of vanilla World of Warcraft but were later added to retail WoW as a convenience feature, letting players pull friends directly to a raid or dungeon entrance. Blizzard said WoW: Forever will not carry that feature forward.

"Making sure any change we make passes the muster of those pillars is a must," the WoW: Forever team told TechRadar Gaming. "And certain convenience changes can very easily erode one or more of those pillars."

"Summoning stones are one of those. Easy, quick access to teleports shrink the world, and marginalize part of the identity of a class like Warlock. Thus, it fails muster against 'Nurture and Protect Social Experiences' and 'World as the Main Character'."

The team added that players with many different preferences are joining "this journey," and said that makes holding the line on the pillars more important rather than less.

Blizzard said it holds 22 years of data on how quality-of-life and convenience changes have affected the social fabric of the game. With WoW: Forever, however, the studio is "going down a different path," meaning each update will be informed by that experience and regulated by the four pillars. "It's a great place to be," the team said.