The beta's cheapest leveling trick won't make it to launch. Wowhead reported on October 31 (US Central time) that Blizzard has fixed Applejack Still, the Alliance-only repeatable quest sitting just outside Stormwind City, ahead of WoW: Forever's November 5 launch. Per Wowhead, Blizzard's Josh "Aggrend" Greenfield confirmed the fix on X: the unintended experience farm is gone.
Four apples, 170 XP, as many times as you like
Applejack Still asked for exactly one thing: 4x Shiny Red Apple, purchasable straight from a vendor — no killing required. In the video that spread from the Classic WoW subreddit, a level 21 character collected 170 XP per turn-in. Buy another round of apples, turn the quest in again, and the experience kept rolling. Plenty of beta testers rode it to level 30 quickly; many others never knew it existed. As Wowhead put it, "whether players knew about it or not, Blizzard has fixed this exploit for Forever's launch."
What's confirmed, and what isn't
The fix rests on a single source: Aggrend's confirmation on X, relayed by Wowhead. As of this writing, Blizzard has published no announcement and no patch notes for the change, and there is no matching post on the official forums as of the afternoon of November 1, Beijing time; no other gaming outlet has picked up the story either. Whether the fix will show up in launch-day patch notes is not announced — anyone who wants to verify it should wait for Blizzard's own documentation.
The XP loopholes are closing, one by one
Leveling speed has been the most argued-about topic heading into launch: one camp wants to savor the road from 1 to 60, the other wants level 60 as fast as possible, and the two clash constantly across comment sections. This particular quest, though, was "clearly unintended" in Wowhead's words — not even the fast-leveling camp defended it.
Blizzard has been working through the XP system all fall. Dungeon experience was cut twice in early October (previously covered on this site), and now the quest-side exploit is closed too. With launch days away, the leveling path that goes live on November 5 looks close to final.
What to do before November 5
Drop Applejack Still from any launch-day leveling plan — it won't be there. Fast-levelers should rebuild around normal quest chains and dungeon routes, where the post-nerf dungeon XP already sets the pace; slow-levelers change nothing. If a "free XP quest" guide resurfaces after launch, treat it as outdated until Blizzard's own patch notes say otherwise.