Together Forever Challenge, The HC Vow, and The Calendar

[Kestrel]

Three of the larger changes coming in this patch are deserving of their own post, so here it is!

The Together Forever Challenge:

Want to share your journey with a friend? Tired of them leveling up without you while you are offline? Start a new character with the Together Forever challenge and you will only be able to gain experience when leveling together!

To start this challenge, you (and all participants) must select the challenge when creating the character. Then once in the world, you should form a group with all players that you would like to be in your fellowship. Once you ding level 2 your fellowship will be locked in and you will only be able to gain experience while in a party and in EXP sharing range of all party members.

When you embark on this challenge, each participant is given a Ring of Frendship which will allow you to summon all online members of the fellowship to your location once per day. Upon hitting level 60 the ring will upgrade to only have a 1 hour cooldown.

Joining a fellowship with any of the following challenges will result in the challenges being shared amongst those who do not yet have it; War Mode (unable to be turned off when in a fellowship), Slow and Steady, Exhaustion, Boaring Adventure, Trial of Heroism, and Path of the Brewmaster. When the Craftsman challenge is active, you may wear gear crafted by anyone in your fellowship.

On the hardcore realm, if a member of the fellowship dies, they are removed from the fellowship. Should the death be appealed and their character revived they will be placed back in the fellowship. The Dark Portal transfer to the normal realm is still available and will result in a permanent leaving of the fellowship.

True Hardcore Mode:

For those that have no interest in crossing to the normal realm, this is a mode that will prevent any character from ever being transferred off of the hardcore realm. This is activated upon completing the second quest that is started from the Mysterious Missive that players receive in the mail at level 55. For those already passed that quest, you should receive a Vow of the Damned item in the mail that will activate this mode. All subsequent quests require this mode to be active.

When this mode is active and you are level 60, you will receive the Immortal Champion's Charger and the Tabard of the Immortal Guardian. In addition to this, the Pendant of Mortality is now locked behind this mode. This should prevent the item from being acquired on other realms.

Calendar:

Open the calendar by clicking the server clock in the top left of the vanilla UI or with the /calendar command. Here you will be bale to see server wide events. guild events, and custom events that you have been invited to. You must pay postage and be near a mailbox when sending invites to custom events of your creation. When receiving an invite you will be able to accept it in the Mail UI.

[Interix]

Can the together forever challenge be open to sign up with current characters for a time? My friends and I have synced characters and it would be awesome to just use the challenge.

[Eppies]

Really nice additions kestrel thank you!

[Yslith]

Will this challenge block XP gain from quest turn-in?

[Sumyungboi]

First the good:

1. I like the together forever challenge being added and I really wish it had come out 2 weeks earlier before I started a duo with my buddy.

2. A native calendar is a fantastic addition.

Now the bad:

I do not think "True Hardcore" is a good idea. It's going to split the player base on a server that is already at a relatively low (but stable) population. Groups MAY form around this, guilds WILL form around this. I really kind of liked things just the way they were in this regard. IMO it should be all or nothing, either everyone is on this boat or no one is, no in-betweens, this defeats the purpose of giving HC its own server by fracturing it.

[Kestrel]

"Can the together forever challenge be open to sign up with current characters for a time? My friends and I have synced characters and it would be awesome to just use the challenge."
- I would love to but unfortunately it would be a bit difficult, we would need to determine a level to cuttoff at to prevent level 59's from getting it, and of course that would be a controversial and difficult decision. Then there is the technical work it would require when we unfortunately have many other things we need to be working on. Finally an effort like this while super great for the community also would eat up our development time for a one time benefit that will never be used again as whatever method we developed to allow existing characters to enroll it would need to be removed at some point soon and never used again.

"First the good:

1. I like the together forever challenge being added and I really wish it had come out 2 weeks earlier before I started a duo with my buddy.

2. A native calendar is a fantastic addition.

Now the bad:

I do not think "True Hardcore" is a good idea. It's going to split the player base on a server that is already at a relatively low (but stable) population. Groups MAY form around this, guilds WILL form around this. I really kind of liked things just the way they were in this regard. IMO it should be all or nothing, either everyone is on this boat or no one is, no in-betweens, this defeats the purpose of giving HC its own server by fracturing it."

I totally agree in terms of not wanting to split the player base of the hardcore community more, but how would it split the community? I don't think any guild would exclude those who want to leave the option to transfer open, the only potential issue would be that gearing up with enough stamina for raid would be harder than it was before. It was always do-able though without that trinket and will provide some incentive for actually putting down roots on the hardcore server.

Perhaps I overestimate the hardcore community but we will monitor it and are not above changing things if it does end up causing a rift of some sort. If you do have any specific examples of how it could happen though I am definitely open to hearing them!

[Tinu]

Can the together forever challenge be open to sign up with current characters for a time? My friends and I have synced characters and it would be awesome to just use the challenge.

I 100% agree. We only play together, and spent quite some time on it. Would be awesome to be able to enable it. Maybe only allow it if the characters are within certain xp difference?

[Svno]

Interix wrote: Fri Jul 17, 2026 3:19 am
Can the together forever challenge be open to sign up with current characters for a time? My friends and I have synced characters and it would be awesome to just use the challenge.

I 100% agree. We only play together, and spent quite some time on it. Would be awesome to be able to enable it. Maybe only allow it if the characters are within certain xp difference?


I also agree, let us sign up for this when we have already been doing a duo, we are lvl 32-33, dont want to start over, and this would allow us to go mine, quest, run dungeons without outleveling eachother... give us something to do when the other is offline. PLEASE.

[Sargatanas]

all good, but have 1 problem... How can we play with "Together Forever Challenge" if i am started elf, friend gnome ?

[Vargali69]

the together forever sounds good, but needs a caveat... sharing OTHER challenges should be optional.. other wise i see it a sneaky way to FORCE PVP thru the warmode challenge onto others who might not want to PVP...

the true hardcore is basically saying we know the toon might die forever... which if you like making new toons should not be an issue....

and lastly calendars are always nice.. specially if a guild can use them for internal event reminders...

hope to see what other changes and improvements come out soon....