World of Warcraftwill soon have official support for one of the game’s ultimate challenges: surviving the journey from level 1 to 60 where death is permanent and final. Originally popularized by a strong community centered around an add-on,World of Warcraft’s official Hardcore realms offer that same careful playstyle but with a few different rules and changes to keep in mind.
For players who love high stakes or those who just appreciate the sense of immersion that permadeath provides, the Hardcore realms should shake up most players' approach to Azeroth and emphasize the more methodical, challenging gameplay found inWorld of WarcraftClassic.
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World of Warcraft Hardcore Basics
Obviously, thekey thing to note in Classic Hardcoreis that once a character’s health reaches zero for any reason, their time on that server has ended. There are no resurrections allowed, so Druid players don’t need to invest in reagents like Maple Seeds except as part of a few enchanting recipes. Once players die, they have the option to roam around the realm as a ghost for as long as they’d like, but they can’t participate in any content. From here, dead players can opt to freely transfer to another server and continue that character’s adventure. It’s also worth noting that players can choose to transfer out of the Hardcore realms at any time if they’ve grown attached to the character or can’t handle the pressure of permanent death.
There is also no appeals process for player deaths: even if a player dies to server issues or a glitch, Blizzard will not revive any dead player for any reason. Hunters can still revive their dead pets, though it’s common for Hardcore players to impose an extra restriction where they must tame a new pet if the current one dies. Those who enjoy some of the added restrictions available from the Hardcore add-on will also be pleased to know that Blizzard intends to introduce opt-in “self-found” modes at a later date for Hardcore servers, and this will likely allow players to choose either solo self-found or restrict themselves to a small group of cooperators.
How PvP Works In World of Warcraft’s Hardcore Realms
There are a fewchanges toWorld of Warcraft’s PvPin the Hardcore Realms, and the overall experience is mostly PvE-oriented. Most notably, all battlegrounds and their corresponding NPCs are disabled. If players want to engage in large-scale high stakes PvP, they can still create groups for Wargames, and deaths in Wargames are permanent. An exciting new feature is also arriving for duelists: duels to the death. Hardcore players can opt to initiate a duel to the death, which has its own special flag and sound effect to alert nearby players of the event. This will almost certainly result in some interesting community interaction as players gather their best gear and buffs before heading into the high-stakes fight club outside the gates of Orgrimmar. When players win a duel to the death, they acquire a String of Ears buff on their character that can stack, so a player with many String of Ears buffs can immediately be recognized as a skilled opponent.
There have also been changes to the way PvP flagging works to prevent players from unintentionally being flagged. In order to be flagged for PvP, players must manually type “/pvp,” but the majority of cases that would normally automatically flag a player have been removed. Players should keep in mind that attacking NPCs belonging to the opposite faction will still flag them for PvP, however, so it’s best to avoid running into hostile quest hubs and patrolling faction-based NPCs.
Available Content In World of Warcraft Hardcore Classic
Rather than rolling out raid tiers inphases likeWorld of WarcraftClassic, all content will be available from day one on Hardcore realms. That means that players can raid their way through Naxxramas from the very start if they somehow manage to survive for that long. Blizzard felt that it was important to take this approach so that Hardcore would remain “evergreen.” Rather than players feeling left behind for coming into the game late or mid-phase, this approach mitigates the rush during each phase rollout. Naturally, there will be players who rush to achieve world-first Hardcore boss kills, but players can generally look forward to the state of the Hardcore realms being consistent no matter when they decide to hop in.
Gameplay Changes for World of Warcraft’s Hardcore Realms
There have been a few other changes that are specific to the Hardcore realms, most notably when it comes to dungeon lockout timers. Dungeons before level 60 will have 24-hour lockouts, so players can’t simply farm dungeons for XP or loot. Blizzard intends for this change to encourage more overworld participation and to bring the focus back on the game’s questing experience. Once players reach level 60, however, lockout timers will continue to work as usual. Similar tothe Season of Mastery, having a high-level player in the party for dungeons will also nullify experience gains, so players can’t rely on high-level characters to “boost” them through dungeons for XP.
Another noteworthy change is specific to Paladins: the infamous bubble-hearth combo will not be possible on Hardcore, so Paladins can’t rely on this age-old trick to save themselves from trouble. This potentially makes Rogues one of the most attractive classes in Hardcore now, as Vanish can reset their combat state and save them from a risky encounter on a relatively short cooldown. Mobs will also be on tighter “leashes” than before: it won’t be possible to kite high-level Devilsaurs from Un’Goro Crater into Thousand Needles, for example, but it should still be possible for Hunters to kite elite enemies from a reasonable distance for solo kills.
There has also been a major change to the way buffs and debuffs work compared to Classic. In Hardcore, there is no limit to the number of buffs or debuffs a player or creature can acquire. This was initially a holdout from limitations duringWoW’s early days, andthe Classic serverskept it on for the sake of authenticity. However, the Hardcore realms will forego this limitation and players can now stack more than 16 debuffs and 32 buffs.
Overall, the experience should be largely the same asWorld of WarcraftClassic except for a few slight changes to help facilitate fair play and keep gameplay true to the intended Hardcore experience.
World of Warcraftis available on PC and Hardcore Realms will go live on August 24.
