Blizzard is introducing official Hardcore realms to World of Warcraft Classic for players looking to take the challenge of exploring Azeroth up a notch, with the new way to play available to try via the Public Test Realm (PTR) ahead of the official release later this season. We got to chat to Clay Stone, associate production director, and Chase Maguire, associate software engineer, ahead of the release to find out just why players are frothing hardcore gameplay, and what to expect.
For those not familiar with hardcore mode gameplay, character death is permanent; meaning if you slip up or find yourself overwhelmed by a large mob, your character is gone and you’ll be forced to start again from scratch (although you can wander around as a ghost). Hardcore gameplay in other Blizzard titles like Diablo IV has seen dedicated players racing to hit max level without dying with varying levels of success.
Hardcore realms aren’t exactly new for some World of Warcraft players due to the community-driven hardcore efforts, but official servers do mean balances and updates (as well as rewards for players brave enough to take on the challenge, like auras) will be more readily available. Stone told Kotaku Australia the community interest in hardcore gameplay was “substantial” and has continued to compound “outside of the novelty of it,” due to providing players with a completely different way to play the classic MMORPG.
Stone said the move to introduce official support for hardcore gameplay in World of Warcraft Classic came from looking at player base trends. “We’re always discussing what the community is up to, we really watch what our players are engaging with what they’re talking about ,” he said. Development work on new hardcore realms has focused on “build[ing] out a robust experience for…players.”
One of the key areas the World of Warcraft team has focused on is patching up “pain points,” Maguire said. Some of these areas that required work to ensure the hardcore experience presents a challenge while still being achievable and fair include changing the mechanics of quest-critical items that would typically kill player characters to ensure they can still complete the quest without losing all progress through death.
“Dying to Teremus the Devourer in Stormwind won’t be an option anymore. We’ve added some band-aids around that errant disconnects on flight paths, we are investigating and implementing some changes…as well as more deliberate use of PvP,” Maguire said. The team said that “the overall goal” of these tweaks to gameplay and balance is that “you are in control of your life as much as possible so that you don’t die from a disconnect, a player or a trick.”
While changes to regular World of Warcraft Classic gameplay will ensure hardcore realm players don’t die the moment they step into the world or cop a boss drake while trying to explore a city, death by other players is still an option in the new Duel to the Death feature, meant to make PvP both “intentional and optional” for players. For those willing to risk their character in a duel, the victors can expect to receive an aura showing how many characters they’ve defeated within a level range as well, the team confirmed.
The team behind the hardcore realms are excited to see how players engage differently with the hardcore format, particularly through the stories they’ll be able to tell of their wins and (hilariously bad) losses. “How did this character die? What did I accidentally do to make this character die? That’s some of the most fun that we’ve seen come out of players engaging with the game in this way so far,” Stone said.
The new addition to World of Warcraft Classic is an interesting move given how player and community-driven it is. Maguire says the internal announcement of hardcore realms was met with plenty of team enthusiasm. “To be able to go to them and announce that we’re doing this…the reaction in response to that was so enthusiastic, that it reinforced what we were doing. It’s not often that we get to put in an entirely new mode like this simply based on what the community is engaging with. So it just felt like a great win all around,” he said.
While the Classic hardcore Realm is only available to try out via the PTR right now, a more concrete full release will follow soon. Each region on release will have one hardcore server (America & Oceania, Europe, Korea, and Taiwan), but the team has indicated they’ll closely monitor player interest to ensure that “every player who wants to engage in hardcore [is] able to do so,” and will look at expanding this number if need be.
If you’re ready for plenty of spectacular failures (I’m personally expecting to die in the most ridiculous way possible in-game on my first try) and for the challenge of reaching level 60 unscathed, you can check out the PTR now to get a feel for just what to expect when hardcore realms for World of Warcraft Classic get their full release later this season.
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