World of Warcraft: Forever launched November 4 and became the biggest launch in WoW history by concurrent and returning players. One week in, close to 3.9 million characters have been created across all regions and rulesets, according to Raider.IO, a WoW stat-tracking website.
Around 48% of characters are on Alliance, with nearly 52% on Horde. Humans dominate the Alliance at 37% of that faction's population. Undead lead the Horde at nearly 40%, boosted by being the only Horde race with access to Paladin. Paladin is Forever's most-played class, with undead Paladin the most-played race-and-class combo.
Skyborne elves, the game's newest playable race available to both factions, comprise around 10% of all characters, split fairly evenly between factions. The $30 price tag to access them may explain why their adoption trails other races, though the report notes Skyborne elves are popular in other versions of the game.
The normal PvE server ruleset dominates with over 2 million characters. The PvP ruleset has around 1.5 million. The two RP rulesets combined have around 250,000 players. Every ruleset except standard RP shows a larger Horde population.
Blizzard announced it will restrict new Horde character creation on PvP rulesets to push toward 50/50 faction balance. "World of Warcraft: Forever's PvP is at its best when the Alliance and Horde are on equal footing," Blizzard said. Forever received its first major class and dungeon changes earlier this week.