It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, and Classic Hardcore is on the way! In fact, the PTR for this should be spinning up on June 29th so Blizzard can test out everything about how their plans for this new server type will work, with a goal of Hardcore servers going live later this summer. In prep for the PTR starting, I had the opportunity to discuss these plans with Lead Software Engineer Nora Valletta and Senior Game Producer Josh Greenfield. We covered a ton of topics regarding how all of this will work, so let’s get to it.
Why Hardcore Servers?
For some, doing hardcore servers might seem like an odd choice as it’s a niche playstyle, so it could be seen as catering to very few players. Greenfield explained that some of this was born out of the Soul of Iron challenge, which was part of the season of mastery, but he also specifically mentioned the Road to Ragnaros event as being something that also inspired them to do more to support this type of gameplay. He clarified that although they’ve had many talks about doing something like this it was “around December 2022 is when we started really thinking about it and talking about it. But yea we’ve been part of the community playing, like I leveled a hardcore character on the season of mastery realm, I think a lot of us did, so it’s been something we’ve been in touch with for a while.”
There’s also something to be said for since this is an official mode completely cut off from the rest of WoW’s servers, players who wouldn’t normally participate in something like this might be interested now. It will be interesting to see how all of this progresses and if it does truly end up being a popular way to play.
How Exactly Will it work?
The first thing to know about the Hardcore experience is that it will be the Classic era 1-60 experience rather than including Burning Crusade Classic and Wrath as well. According to Valletta, the reasoning behind this is “that’s where we saw most of the interest, and the overwhelming support for hardcore really shook us when it arrived on our Classic era realms.” Of course, they will keep an eye on feedback and how everything works to make determinations regarding what might be done in the future. Greenfield also went on to explain that the Classic leveling experience lends itself very naturally to a hardcore system and experience, and that might not carry over well into other expansions.
One thing I was a bit concerned about was if there would be the same content patch cycle on the Hardcore servers as we saw when the Classic servers originally launched. I was concerned about this because having a patch cycle can make it feel like players have deadlines they need to hit before the next patch comes out, which didn’t seem like it would gel well with a Hardcore style of gameplay. Greenfield explained their thinking about this with the following:
“The short answer is when the server launches, all of the content will be unlocked, and we had a very specific and targeted reason for that. I think when we first started developing this we kind of were just like ‘yea, of course we’ll do the phase unlocks, we’ll do Blackwing Lair and AQ 40’. But then when we really started thinking about it, we were like, wait a minute, the whole thing here is the journey is the most important part, not the destination. So many of those phase unlocks are in game content, and there is a psychological effect that has on you. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen when a new phase comes out in Wrath or original Classic, people will be posting on the forums ‘is it too late for me to start’ and the answer is, no, it’s not too late for you to start, but there’s definitely a psychological have to keep up with the Joneses thing. That feels totally wrong for Hardcore, we don’t want to pressure anyone to get to max level, that’s not what this is about. Like I said it’s evergreen, you drop in, you play for a bit, you drop out, you come back later, it’s totally ok.”
Since the Hardcore servers will be separate from other WoW servers, they have decided to make a few adjustments to how things will work on these servers versus how they worked in the community hardcore challenge. One of the big changes Valletta mentioned is that players will be allowed to use the AH and trade with other players. The main reason this was banned in the community hardcore challenge was that then players could get help from players who aren’t under those restrictions; this won’t be a problem on these servers. Greenfield also expanded on this regarding dungeons:
“To add to that, one other restriction that gets talked about a lot with the unofficial challenge is dungeon restrictions. That is something that we in spirit we do agree with, as a result as a compromise, it’s a drag to miss out on a quest item or something and not be able to go back into a dungeon. Or if you just really want one piece of loot from a boss, not ever being able to do it again is kind of a drag, so we put basically a 24-hour lockout on dungeons. Kind of how heroic dungeons would have in Wrath of the Lich King. That way if you miss something, you can’t spam the dungeon, you can’t do dungeon cleave groups, because we want people out in the world… but being too restrictive with that didn’t seem like something we wanted to do either. It’s a good middle ground. This also means that level 60 characters cannot group with lower-level characters in dungeons because level 60 characters do not have that restriction. They can run dungeons multiple times if they want, which is important for farming pre-raid BiS and stuff like that.”
When it comes to a game mode where one death means the end of a character’s journey, PvP immediately brings in all kinds of complications. This is how Valletta addressed this concern, “we want to make sure PvP is consensual as much as we reasonably can. Because of this, Hardcore realms will be PvE Realms, and PvP flagging will no longer be automatic upon right clicking another player. So normally, you’d right click another player, and then you’d attack them, and then you’d be flagged for PvP, and someone could swoop in and kill you. Players will have to be a lot more deliberate about flagging themselves if they do wish to engage in PvP. Because Hardcore realms are so high stakes, we want to make sure it’s, you know, you mean to do it if you are trying to participate in that way.”
One area I was also curious about was since every class and spec won’t be able to make use of any of their resurrection abilities on the Hardcore realms, would Blizzard go back and do some rebalancing to make up for that part of their kit being lost? Greenfield said that they wouldn’t be adjusting in that way, because it doesn’t really feel necessary. However, he also pointed out that one change they are making is Paladins will not be able to use their hearthstone while they have Divine Shield or Blessing of Protection up. Considering the hearthstone cast normally fails as soon as any damage is taken, in the context of a Hardcore realm, bubble hearthing felt too powerful. I know some will be disappointed by this, but it feels like the right call.
As mentioned previously, once a player dies on a character, that character’s journey is over on the Hardcore realm. However, that character won’t suddenly be locked with no way to log in; it’ll just be a ghost with no way to resurrect. This seems mostly geared toward guild leaders, so they have some way to transfer leadership of the guild after death. However, there is no time limit for how long a player can exist on a realm as a ghost. Valletta even pointed out that if players wanted to, they could form a ghost guild, which seems silly but could also be quite fun. Greenfield also noted that players would be able to do free character transfers off the hardcore servers after they die, which will allow them to keep playing that character, just not on the Hardcore server.
Rewards?
One thing many MMO players are motivated by is cool rewards, and that remains the case when it comes to playing things on the hardest difficulties, so it’s natural to wonder if there will be any unique rewards or leaderboards of any sort. Greenfield mentioned that they will likely bring some of the cosmetic buffs that they used in the season of mastery with the soul of iron challenge, but they don’t have them implemented yet and won’t be on the PTR this week. He gave a specific example of players who choose to participate in duel to the death will get a stacking cosmetic buff to symbolize how many times they have been victorious, inspired by the ears players could get in Diablo. However, he had this to say regarding rewards players could take to another version of WoW, “that’s not really something that we are likely to add to this. We want players to play Hardcore for the sake of Hardcore, and having extrinsic rewards you can carry forward is a little bit counter to that.”
All in all, I can’t wait to hop onto the PTR and give Hardcore Classic a try. Both Greenfield and Valletta talked a lot about how they think Hardcore servers will be a more chill World of Warcraft experience for players, which seems counterintuitive since the stakes are much higher. For my part, I think that’s exactly how it’ll play out. In Hardcore content, I tend to be a bit more cautious and deliberate when it comes to choosing what risks to take, so overall, I might be able to enjoy the journey more than I did when Classic first launched. I can’t wait to see how all of this plays out.
