If you step into the Roguefeather Den harpy cave in Thousand Needles right now, you can watch other players swing at nothing - and then eat an area-of-effect silence from harpies you never see. That is day 4 after WoW: Forever's global launch: the cave's layers appear to be only half-merged, and one small cave is suddenly hosting every layer's players at once.
Wowhead documented the situation at 11:11 a.m. Beijing time on November 8 (9:11 p.m. November 7, US Central), filing it under its Forever coverage. As of writing, Blizzard had not posted a blue post, an announcement, or a fix timeline.
You can see other layers swing, but not what they hit
Two symptoms stand out in Wowhead's on-site account. First, you can see other players mid-attack inside the cave, but not what they are attacking. Second, you get hit by the harpies' AoE silence coming from layers you cannot see, while your own layer looks quiet. Per Wowhead's read, the layers here are only partially combined - everyone is squeezed into the same space without sharing the same spawn queue.
The consequence is simple: the cave has not grown, the player count has. Spawn tagging is already contested, and quest mobs are the worst of it.
Three quests, one cave, two rare spawns everyone wants
Three quests send you into this cave: Test of Endurance, Stop the Screeching and Stolen Freewind Supplies. Grenka Bloodscreech and Screeching Windcaller are rare-ish spawns at the best of times; with every layer's players working the same cave, Wowhead expects these quests to take a long time.
Figure scope: Figures are renders of the site's client basemap with site-made numbered annotations (base map © Blizzard, local client 1.60.1.70862 zhCN); cave markers use QuestieDB reference coordinates (pinned cac1eff8), not game-verified.
Thousand Needles — ① the Roguefeather Den harpy cave (spawn cluster ≈26,54, QuestieDB reference coordinates): three quests and two rares squeezed into one cave; ② Freewind Post (Dorn Plainstalker 53.9,41.5) is the Test of Endurance turn-in, note it before you go in
Hotspot quick reference (reference coordinates; the game governs)
| Item | Location | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Roguefeather Den harpy cave | Thousand Needles ≈26,54 | Every layer's players in one cave; quest mobs contested |
| Test of Endurance turn-in | Freewind Post 53.9,41.5 | If the claw loot does not tick, relog |
| Grenka Bloodscreech / Screeching Windcaller | Rare spawns inside the den | Fought over by all layers |
Test of Endurance also carries a bug of its own: if your quest objective does not update after you loot the claw, you have to relog for it to trigger. That tip is appended at the end of Wowhead's report.
Not the Westfall bug, and not the same fix either
Layering already broke once this week. On day 2 (the night of November 6), NPCs and mobs in Westfall duplicated across layers, and Blizzard responded that night - via a server message relayed by Wowhead - that all zones were being cleaned up one by one. That incident was about duplicates: extra mobs. This one is the other half of the problem: no extra mobs, just two layers of players stuffed into one cave. Whether the incidents share a cause, and whether the earlier zone-by-zone cleanup has reached Thousand Needles, Blizzard has not said.
Wowhead adds one more piece of context: on day 1, players complained zones felt too empty. This week the complaint is zones feeling too full.
Park the quests, remember the relog
Wowhead's advice is direct: leave these quests until the layering is fixed. The quests will still be there, and the cave will not get less crowded before a fix. Level somewhere else for now and circle back for these three.
Quick reference links
- Tools: per-level sheets (to route around Thousand Needles for now) · pre-30 quests · map cheat sheets · Forever-new quests
- Related posts: Alliance/Horde 1-30 route · party phase refresh mechanics
If you go in anyway, keep one trick handy: if the Test of Endurance objective does not tick after you loot the claw, relog before you assume the loot bugged out. The first real sign of progress will be an official response or a patch note - until then, treat this cave as skippable.