With World of Warcraft Classic’s hardcore realms now officially launching August 24th, Blizzard has penned a dev blog reminding players just what to expect. With luck and some forethought, it’ll be more than just “dying repeatedly.”
“[T]he gist of it is that once you’ve been bested by the environment (or even other players), you’ll need to create a new character to try again,” the studio warns. “Death is permanent, and when you die, the Spirit Healers won’t be there to send you back into the world of the living. No rezzes, no regrets. When you’re on the Classic Hardcore realms, you’ll get to prove that you have the edge, the grit, and the will to survive[.]”
As previously noted in the “rules of engagement” document, PvP flagging is manual to reduce flag trickery, battlegrounds are disabled, quests that require death or PvP no longer do so, griefing through kiting won’t be possible, dungeons will be on 24-hour lockouts under level 60, buffs and debuffs will be uncapped, skills like bubbling and reincarnation are gone, and players can join in “duels to the death” for bragging rights.
And when you do die, you can move your slain hardcore toons to a non-hardcore Classic server, so at that point you’ve lost nothing but your street cred and possibly your dignity.
Do note that you’ll need to sub to WoW to play this and all other extant versions of the game.
