The All Blacks will find out in December who the main opponents in their pool will be when they defend the Rugby World Cup in 2015.
The "pool allocation draw" will be staged in London on December 3, Rugby World Cup Ltd said on Tuesday.
This will determine the make-up of New Zealand's pool, as well as which side of the draw they are on.
As with the 2011 tournament, the 12 automatically qualified nations will be seeded based on world rankings and placed into three bands of four according to strength.
The teams will then be randomly drawn by bands and put into four pools.
The 12 automatic qualifiers are those countries who finished in the top three of their pool in 2011 - New Zealand, France, Australia, Wales, Argentina, England, Ireland, South Africa, Tonga, Scotland, Italy and Samoa.
The remaining eight teams for the 2015 tournament will be decided by a qualifying process.
NZN