I am posting this for everyone to read the support article so you can see exactly how it works.
The beginning of this video explains it pretty well! Thanks Classic WoW Curios!
What is a Character Clone
A clone is a snapshot copy of your WoW Classic character taken right before the Burning Crusade Classic pre-patch.
WoW Classic characters that existed before the Burning Crusade Classic pre-patch will each be automatically cloned onto their respective Classic Era realm. You don’t have to do anything.
The Character Clone service gives you a choice: you can —for free— activate your Progression realm clone and play the Burning Crusade Classic expansion, or you can —for free— activate your Classic Era clone and continue playing WoW Classic. You can pay a fee to activate both.
How to Activate a Clone
After pre-patch, the Battle.net App will give you the option to launch the Burning Crusade Classic game client or the WoW Classic game client.
The first time you log in with your character in either client, you will be asked if you want to activate your Burning Crusade Classic Progression clone or your Classic Era clone. This choice is free, and you will have to make it for each of the characters you had before pre-patch.
- If you activate your Burning Crusade Classic Progression clone, the Classic Era clone will be deactivated and become unplayable
- If you activate your Classic Era clone, the Burning Crusade Classic Progression clone will be deactivated and become unplayable
Want to make both clones available for play? After your initial free choice, you can purchase the paid Character Clone service to activate your deactivated clone.
Blizzard Customer Support cannot assist with mistakes activating the wrong clone.
Limitations
- Activating a clone is irreversible. Once a clone is activated, it cannot be deactivated
- If you activate the wrong clone for free, you can purchase the paid Character Clone service to activate the clone on the other realm type
- A clone is a snapshot copy of your WoW Classic character taken right before the Burning Crusade Classic pre-patch
- Includes your inventory, items in the bank, items in the mailbox, and friends list
- Characters created after pre-patch are not cloned. This means you cannot activate the clone of a Draenei or Blood Elf character on a Classic Era realm. By extension, you cannot activate the clone of an Alliance Shaman or Horde Paladin on Classic Era realm
- Any game progress you make on the Burning Crusade Classic Progression realm after pre-patch will not translate to Classic Era
- Characters you deleted before pre-patch are cloned and can be activated, as long as you can undelete the character
- You can hide deactivated clones from your character selection screen. However, a deactivated clone still counts against your total character limit on your realm
- You can delete and undelete clones as any other character
- Activating a clone on a Classic Era realm type does not give you a choice of realm
- Your character will remain on the same realm it was before pre-patch. For example, if you played on Ashbringer in WoW Classic, you can activate your character on Classic Era Ashbringer, or on Progression Ashbringer, or pay to activate both
- If you want to transfer to another realm, you can purchase a Character Transfer service from the character selection screen
- It is not possible to transfer a character (either a clone or a newly created character) between a Progression realm and a Classic Era realm
- You can transfer a Burning Crusade Classic Progression character to another Burning Crusade Classic Progression realm
- You can transfer a WoW Classic Era character to another WoW Classic Era realm
- Characters activated on a Classic Era realm are all guild-less, including Guild Masters. On Classic Era realms, all guilds must be recreated
