Before World of Warcraft: Forever asks for your class, which is how you fight and play, or your name, it asks how the game should look and behave. Blizzard's new player's starter guide of 28 October says your first login asks you to Choose Your Experience Preset. You pick Classic or Enhanced.

The first-login choice: Classic or Enhanced

You make this choice once, on your first login, before you pick a ruleset, which is the kind of world a character lives in. Blizzard says you won't see the screen again after that. Our rulesets guide covers that second choice.

Classic is the old-school look. Blizzard calls it a more traditional presentation, with simpler visuals, standard character models and fewer modern interface features switched on. It says that makes for a cleaner experience, closer to the original, with less automatic guidance.

Enhanced is the updated look. Blizzard says it has higher visual fidelity and more interface features switched on from the start.

Compared: what each preset sets

Blizzard lists each preset's starting settings separately. Here they are side by side.

Our reading of the table: Classic suits players who want what Blizzard calls less automatic guidance. Enhanced suits newer players, or anyone who wants more help on screen.

Which one to pick

Blizzard's advice: if you're not sure, start with Enhanced. The preset is a starting point, not a lock. You can change its individual settings later: press Escape for the Game Menu, then pick Options.

Character models can be changed later too. Each time you make a new character, you pick High Definition or Standard Definition models and animations. High Definition is the more detailed, updated look. Standard Definition is the style of the original game. Blizzard says it only changes how a character looks, not its abilities or progress. You can change it later in the Options menu or at a Barbershop, the in-game shop for changing a character's look.

What else the starter guide confirms

• Where you can play. Windows or Mac, with a keyboard and mouse. Controller support is there too, but Blizzard says it's in a beta state, a test version.
• How to get in. Forever comes with an active World of Warcraft subscription or Game Time, which is prepaid days of subscription bought in a block. You pick it from the game versions in the Battle.net app, Blizzard's own launcher.
• Rulesets at launch. Four on day one, which our rulesets guide walks through. Hardcore, which Blizzard calls "a high-stakes challenge where every decision matters", comes later, with details and timing to follow. You can group, join a guild, which is a club of players, run dungeons and raid only with players on the same ruleset and faction. Dungeons are closed-off adventures for a small group, a raid is a dungeon built for a large group, and a faction is the side a character belongs to, Alliance or Horde.
• Professions. These are the game's gathering and crafting skills. Each character can learn two main ones and all three secondary ones: Cooking, Fishing and First Aid.
• Names. Every character has a main name and a secondary name, and the pair must be unique in your region, the part of the world your game account plays in. Our name reservation guide has the rest.

Our launch guide has the dates, and the talent calculator lets you plan your talents, the extra powers a character picks as it levels, before you log in.