The region is the broad boundary
A developer’s example says Normal players across the Americas can party, play, and raid together. That supports a region-wide population, not worldwide play or one physical machine.
Realmless, not regionless
How realmless play works
Forever replaces individual realms with separate, region-wide ruleset ecosystems, then uses dynamic world layers beneath those larger player pools. A useful mental model is four isolated “mega-realms” per region, with Hardcore arriving later.
From game to region to ruleset to layer
Follow the branches from the starting node through regions and rulesets to world layers. The Americas is the named developer example; the other region nodes show how the hierarchy repeats without asserting unpublished region names.
What “realmless” means
Rulesets remain separate
Normal, PvP, and Roleplaying are the three launch choices. Hardcore arrives later as the fourth. Cross-ruleset grouping is not supported, so each behaves like its own regional “mega-realm.” That is a useful analogy, not a claim about the underlying server topology.
Faction still gates grouping
The official recap says players can play with others who share their ruleset and faction. Players can also choose a language preference and encounter others who share it; the exact placement mechanism remains unexplained.
What beta still needs to answer
These are implementation questions, not negative claims about the final game.
Layer allocation
The refresh warning supports dynamic world layers, but Blizzard has not described how many can exist or when layers are created, merged, and retired.
Keeping people together
Blizzard says players can encounter others with matching language preferences. The exact placement rules for language, parties, guilds, and friends remain unspecified.
Infrastructure
Datacenter locations, routing, queues, population controls, transfers, cross-region play, and expected latency remain unconfirmed.