Things are ramping up for the launch of World of Warcraft Classic’s hardcore realms in a month or so. Now that Blizzard has confirmed the ruleset for these permadeath servers, it’s begun testing the build before pushing it live “later this summer.”
The build for Classic Era 1.14.4 involves testing mob leash distances, the new Duel to the Death mechanic, and a warning that players will lose all mail and auctions upon death to facilitate transfers. “Please note that the free character move service is not currently testable on PTR. It will function just as it does on live Classic Era servers now when 1.14.4 is released later this Summer,” the studio said.
One interesting change is that the studio is playing around with XP rewards in dungeons: “Dungeons currently save players after a boss is killed. As a result, we’ve moved all XP in dungeons to bosses only. The amount of XP granted by bosses is not final.”
Blizzard said that it’ll be opening up a second round of testing later this month to put the revamped Classic Era PvP honor system through its paces.
