Everything you need to know about World of Warcraft: Classic Hardcore

With World of Warcraft Classic's Hardcore servers officially launching on the 24th of August, we sat down with Lead Software Engineer Ana Resendez and Associate Production Director Clay Stone to talk about the biggest changes and extra challenges coming with this exciting new game mode.

Q: World of Warcraft Classic has been around for quite a while now. What led you guys to make now the time to bring hardcore to it?

Resendez: "As you mentioned, classic, started its journey well before 2019. But that's when we actually released the first version of World Warcraft classic, and it was a great experience to see, like all the players engaged with World Warcraft Classic and get to relive a bunch of their memories. When we first came out with World Warcraft classic, we really wanted it to be about the original experience, like completely as close as it was in the original release World of Warcraft, players got to experience that for like the whole release of World of Warcraft Classic, we went through Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, but we left the servers open for people to keep experiencing that environment where there's no expansions, it's the original one to 60, and the community started to do their own challenges there, right? We kind of have a nod to that in Season of Mastery, where players were able to get a buff and then it was kind of enough for you to not have died all the way from one to sixty you get to kill the different bosses, and then you get a special buff, right? So it was kind of like a nod, but nothing really official. But after that, the players in the community have kept playing and trying to explore that hardcore style of play. Hardcore is not a new concept. You know, hardcore has existed in other games, including our partner teams on Diablo, it's an official method. So we started seeing the challenge, like really take off from the community. And we decided that it was the right time to officially support it, because we saw how people were engaging with it. The team also got to engage with the with the mode and had some experiences. And we were like, okay, this is the time, World of Warcraft Classic hardcore makes a lot of sense. It's a lot about the journey, you know, of levelling up from one to sixty. So that's what really brought us now to officially releasing hardcore servers."

Stone: "The only thing I would add is as Ana noted, we started playing it ourselves. We saw the magic that it brought to rediscovering Azeroth, with fresh eyes and that focus on the level of journey. So we looked at our available resources, we planned it out, we came together as a team figured out what rules we actually wanted to change, what other changes we want to make, and now is just the right time."

Q: Something you guys touched upon there was quite interesting with you guys saying you tested the hardcore experience yourselves. Were there any fun stories from you guys testing out this new mode and what tips would you give to new players trying it for the first time?

Resendez: "I mean, I know Clay has a very interesting story of him jumping into hardcore and then just being a little bit under cautious. Clay, want to share?"

Stone: "Yeah, I was levelling as a human Paladin. I got to level six. I didn't run back to the trainer to get divine protection because I was cruising along, you know? I've done this dozens of times. And I got to the questline where I needed to go retrieve Bernice's necklace. Went to Fargodeep Mine to go take out Goldtooth the Kobold. There were so many players playing, this was when we were on the PTR testing the the official realms, and my level six character engaged the level eight Goldtooth character and I still thought oh, you know, this is no problem. It's one on one, no big deal. And little did I know but two level seven Kobolds spawned right behind me. I was suddenly surrounded. And I had that moment that I feel like a lot of hardcore players are gonna have where suddenly you panic. You're just like, No, wait a minute. Hey, this can't be it. This can't be happening. And I did another dumb thing you're not supposed to do where I turned my back and I ran. So they stunned me immediately. And I was like, oh my gosh, this can't be this can't be my first death. I'm gonna have to tell the team about this. Like, this is not, this is not great. So yeah, going back to your question about tips. There is no danger in over over-levelling. Like, there's just no danger in it. I'd say avoid caves and mines. And Kobolds."

Resendez: "They're the number one NPC with the most kills in PTR. So be aware. Don't take candle. I will also say to help, as Clay mentioned, go to your trainer, don't skip those kinds of things. But the number one tip that I will say is pay attention. Something that really happens when you start playing hardcore is you become more aware of your surroundings, like Clay was saying, you know, like sometimes when you play World Warcraft, and you've levelled many times before, you just like, go into cruising mode. But when you're playing hardcore, you really have to be aware of all of the circumstances and everything that is around you. So if you press that autorun key pay attention."

Q: There's mention of this update appealing to new and more long-time players. Do you guys think that people who've never tried WoW Classic or even World of Warcraft in general might jump in to give this a go?

Stone: "Yeah, Gosh, 1,000%, we have been so surprised by players who have been playing in the hardcore playstyle, the hardcore challenge in what we've called the unofficial realms. We have been so surprised by the number of new players who've literally never played World Warcraft before, who have come to the game, just to try hardcore. I think that's because it does put a unique spin on the play experience. As Ana mentioned, you're much more aware of your surroundings, you tend to level slower, you pay more attention to your spells and abilities. It's such a social experience, particularly at those low levels. I mean, you started in a experience where everybody's either spinning up their first character, or they've just died, and they've spun up a new character because you go again. And it makes for a very welcoming atmosphere. Everybody's playing by the same hardcore rule sets alongside you. So yeah, I think we're absolutely hoping that new players who have never played World of Warcraft before or classic before, give it a shot. It's just a lot of fun."

Resendez: "It's a great opportunity for new players to go right in. And, as Clay mentioned, there's always going to be people in the starting zone. So there's always going to be people there that might help you. Or you can watch and see what they're doing. And the fact that you have one life doesn't necessarily mean that your journey ends there. There's like different options. One of the options is to transfer that character for free into the other servers that are vanilla. So you can keep those characters going on in the other environment where you have infinite lives. And the second thing too, is that you only have one life, but you have many characters, you can create as many characters as you want. So you can start one, learn from your errors and try it again. And I think that hardcore is a very good opportunity for new players. I know that the stakes are high but it's going again through that environment that you're so accustomed to through a different lens, it does really feel very different than when you are going into the journey in the modern game, for example, or even in Wrath of the Lich King, it's a very different experience. So I would say yeah, like, I would say, come try it, you know. You don't have to be an experienced player, you're going to start with basic abilities, level one, everybody starts in the same place. So there's not any advantage from anybody else on the server. Everybody's gonna start from the same place."

Q: And for more experienced players then what do you think are the main differences that they'll notice when they jump into a hardcore server?

Stone: "I think, because of the hardcore ruleset, where the, the fundamental rule is, death equals the end for that character. It forces even the most experienced players to be more cautious, to pay more attention to the world and their surroundings, for sure. But, you know, the team has done a great job of going beyond that, too. And implementing new features, like the duel to the death mak'gora, which is, you know, the opt-in challenge where one player can challenge another one to a duel to the death and the loser loses their character. So there's fun spins on just the basic rule set that we put in there. That makes it a different experience, even for the most experienced players."

Resendez: "There are also new challenges. You know, it's a very different gameplay, especially when you go all the way to the max levels and you start raiding, the experience really, really changes. Because before in raids, it's very common for people to die, or including wiping from a mistake, and all of those kinds of things. So it's really gonna change the way that you approach the game, you're going to have to come in more prepared, even more prepared for those rates and counters really understand every single mechanic. So you know how to avoid those deaths. It is really a very different experience, even for the most experienced of the players. Because you actually have to be aware of it."

Q: Do you think we might see some classes be picked less? The Shaman's resurrection won't work, for example, and some Paladin abilities have changed too.

Stone: "I mean, we don't know where the meta is gonna go, we've never accurately predicted that. We've seen people wanting to give themselves the ultimate challenge by choosing to play as a Warrior. Some players consider that to be the hardest class. But as you alluded to some of the class changes that we've made, like removing Paladin's ability to be able to bubble hearth. The goal there was to create a much more balanced playing field and avoid any wild class imbalance that we would otherwise see. And, you know, what's cool about it is that picking the the quote unquote, harder class to play as is, is its own challenge in itself, that that some players are going to want to take on."

Resendez: "Definitely, I can totally see myself being max level and seeing certain classes wandering around - I'm going to be like 'how did you do it?' My respects, you know. I think there's gonna be more player decision on what kind of challenge you want to take. There are certain classes that have more tools and abilities to make levelling easier or skip mechanics, right? Like even though you cannot bubble hearth you can still bubble and potentially get yourself out of an dangerous situations, when there's other classes that don't have those sorts of mechanics. So yeah, I'm already thinking like, I usually play a Priest, but now I'm wondering 'do I really want to play a Priest hardcore?' Already I'm talking to my friends, and I'm like, 'Yeah, I'm gonna pick a mage, that sounds really fun.'"

Q: From the rules of engagement, it's clear you guys have taken a lot into account when it comes to gameplay and restricting unfair deaths. How do you approach this from a design perspective to minimise trolling and unfair deaths?

Resendez: "So, step one was to take a look at research from the unofficial servers, to see what things were happening. And step two, really, is to understand what it is that we're trying not for people to engage in? And the the most clear thing is PvP engagement. We want PvP to be 100%, consensual, that's why first, all the servers that are coming out are gonna be PvE. So you're not going to be flagged into PvP combat, other players from the opposite faction can't attack you. That's not going to happen automatically unless you go to the main series, but then you know what you're doing when you're going to be opposite factions' main cities. But other than that, in the common areas and stuff like that, it's gonna be completely optional on a toggle. So that was definitely the first thing that we looked at. We don't want PvP to be something that you were engaging with unless you were trying, we saw different things like for example, people trying to take a flight path, and then there was someone stood next to the NPC. And then they will get into combat when they weren't wanting that. So we really, really looked at all of those kinds of different scenarios. What happened? Do we know every single thing that could potentially get you in that situation? So we really took a look at that. That said, we might have missed some, so I'm always open for the community to please let us know if we missed a certain scenario or something else. But the whole idea is that PvP is something that you want to engage in. And as we mentioned before with the duels to the death, we also really like PvP, right? We don't want to remove PvP out of the game. But we wanted to make it an option so much that if you want to leave your life aside and kind of like do the ultimate duel, that kind of challenge then you get to do that."

Stone: "One of the other things that we did was the ability to be able to join battlegrounds. We've gone ahead and we've removed that. There was a big discussion about this on the team and we love battlegrounds. But unfortunately, putting battlegrounds in an environment where death equals delete doesn't make a whole lot of sense when those battlegrounds are tuned to be able to PvP die and resurrect. So what we realised is being able to allow folks to queue for these battlegrounds would probably just encourage non-engagement and just have people sit in the back wait for the battleground the end and then collect the rewards and continue on so that's one of the changes that we've made in respect to player versus player combat as well. Now that being said, players will be able to cue for war games and those will be opt-in for players who want to engage in that sort of combat."

Q: Just while we're on the topic of PvP, in these duels to the death you can collect a necklace of ears. Do you guys want to talk about this and what you get from it?

Resendez: "I mean, it is only a cosmetic reward. We didn't want it to be some sort of power up or anything like that. We really want it to be more of a, 'hey this person really knows what they're doing' thing. The whole logic behind it is there are certain cultures in real life and outside of it. In history, books, and stuff like that. In fiction, where there's been things that show if someone has defeated many enemies, you know, there's insignias in real life, there's medals, there's all of those things. So we were like, 'okay, what kind of thing can we do?' So we kind of took another look at our partner teams over there with Diablo and I mean, when you kill a character in Diablo you get to loot their ear. So it was a reference to that like, 'okay, you go to, to defeat this person, you get to have a token of it.' It's a cosmetic reward. But we really wanted it to mean something. And for that, we actually added certain restrictions. You only get it if you defeat someone that 's around your same level. And we you only really start earning them once you're level 19. Because I mean, we didn't want potentially people be going around level one and duelling everyone. But I'm really excited to see the challenges. You know, I heard about certain challenges like you get an ear every level and then duel every level to keep your streak."

Q: Do you guys think there's going to be a difficulty spike in PvE for players outside of the constant fear of losing your character?

Stone: "Yeah, the level of difficulty? That's a good question. Because [hardcore] forces you to play the game a little bit differently, you're more aware of your surroundings, things like that. You think about a little bit more about the areas that you're entering the quest that you're taking on. I guess the interesting point there is it does force you to look at your whole tool set. And there may be abilities that you typically wouldn't utilise all that much as you're levelling up. That now you would employ to get out of tough spaces. So there may be that additional difficulty, because you're trying not to put yourself in more dangerous situations, but you may find yourself utilising tools that you typically otherwise would not use in order to compensate for it. So again, it just goes back to how we began the conversation of playing the game a little bit differently and looking at that journey through fresh eyes."

Resendez: "Just to be clear, we didn't make any changes in any of the encounters that we have. All the encounters are the same as the original ones. We're also going out with all of the raids open. So there's not going to be a timeline of when the different raids and encounters open. Everything's going to be open from the beginning. But yeah, we didn't make any changes on the encounters. So there's still the same level of difficulty in that sense. But as Clay mentioned, yeah, you have to be more aware of it. I mean, one thing that we did change is that we removed the debuff and buff limit. So now, when you're attacking a boss, and you're in a raid, everybody will be able to use all of the DOTS because they're not going to be overriding any of the other DOTS. We did that change, which we hope that is going to help a little bit with the encounters but not a specific change on any level of difficulties. I know we have Season of Mastery where we did make changes to how difficult encounters were but this time, we are not making any of those changes."

Q: As we've touched on a couple of times, Diablo IV had a huge success with its hardcore mode, what do you think draws people to these game modes?

Resendez: "I mean, it's a challenge, right? It's also the reward of being able to show off to your friends. People know what it means to achieve this, especially if other people are joining the challenge. If you see someone at level 60, and you're a level 20 You, you know, what it took to get there. So I really think it's that kind of engagement. That's always been in video games, right? Like that kind of difficulty you get to choose in different games? World Warcraft doesn't necessarily have that where you have to choose easy mode or something. But in this case, it is really just like a harder version of it. So it's that appeal of mastering these levelling experiences with multiple lives with a higher challenge. So I think that that's something that really engages people in it. And also, you grow very fond of your character, because you really take care of it. So I feel like that's, at least from my eyes, what throws people into hardcore."

Stone: "There's something else that we think about, often when we think about any version of World of Warcraft, but was changed slightly for hardcore. And that's really the memories that you create, when you're playing. Either levelling solo, or playing with groups of other people. Typically, a lot of your deaths aren't usually all that memorable in the modern game, or standard classic, because it happens, you know, it can happen frequently. Hardcore brings with it these experiences when your character dies that are super memorable. I mean by Kobold mine story. In any other character, if I messed up like that, I'd be like, 'okay, I'm just gonna run back and resurrect,' but because it was on hardcore, and because that character is now gone, I now have this memory of that experience that, you know, I'm going to carry with me, probably for the rest of my life. Again, that panic I can vividly remember that panic in that moment of what that felt like. But it was fun. It was just so much fun."

Q: Just to round things up then, apart from Classic Hardcore, we're heading towards 20 years of World of Warcraft soon, what excites you guys about what you've got cooking up?

Stone: "So we have announced that we are working on another season. It is Season of Mastery two, it is something else. We wanted to make sure that we were delineating that World of Warcraft Classic Hardcore is not our next season. The team is hard at work on that. We're excited to talk about it. I would also say gosh, I should have lead with this too. The team is still hard at work on Wrath of the Lich King. Obviously, there's Wrath of the Lich King Classic. Obviously, there's one more phase to go. We're eagerly looking forward to taking part in the Icecrown Citadel raid alongside fellow players. And that's just been a great experience to be able to work on too and the player base really seemed to enjoy it."

Renendez: "Yeah, and this is exclusively just about World of Warcraft Classic. Our partner team on World of Warcraft also has very big plans."