Classic Hardcore rekindled my love for WoW

Community General Discussion
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Lately I’ve found myself playing less and less. I was on the verge of quitting because I just didn’t have anything left to give this game anymore… couldn’t even bring myself to log in.
I’d been watching videos on Classic Hardcore and it genuinely looked like they were having fun, despite being a severely older game.
Being a fan of roguelikes and WoW, I figured why the heck not. I installed the addon, logged into Classic and joined a HC guild.

THE SOCIAL

Finding a guild was instantaneous because on my server there are 7 Mortal guilds dedicated to the HC challenge.
People welcomed me. They’d write “F” when other’s died as a sign of respect (the addon announces it to the guild), and they’d congratulate those who made milestones like 10, 20, etc.
Within minutes I remembered that WoW once had a social aspect to it. People were chatting about tactics, helping newer players to classic, and just general banter. The zone chat was the same.
As I’m running around random players are buffing me, or even helping me if they see me struggling, despite getting no reward from the mob kill.
In a cave there was a line for Goldtooth. People were respectful and waited their turn, talking to others to pass the time. The person who completed Goldtooth would thank the others before running off to turn in the quest. This kind of human decency is completely alien from retail, at least in my experience.
But be warned, there’s also some not so nice people.

THE GRIEFERS

My first death happened in Goldshire. I was on a dopamine high from buffing my fellow adventurers. A friendly mage gave my paladin a buff, and being a good citizen I returned the favour. Then the hardcore addon alerted me “YO BRO YOU’RE FLAGGED FOR PVP”. Instantly the mages max level Horde friend sniped me and my run was over in a flash.
I rolled a rogue next so I wasn’t tempted to buff anybody…

IT’S WORLD OF WARCRAFT!

Whatever you may think, retail is not World of Warcraft anymore - it’s a generic fantasy game. That’s not a bad thing at all, and I still think retail is great. But Classic era, to me, is truly World of Warcraft. A place where you can get enveloped in the lore. Where being a true RPG means something. Where murlocs aren’t just a meme or a cute backpack - they are actually incredibly dangerous creatures.

PROFESSIONS

A lot different from retail. Professions in classic are pretty basic in nature, but incredibly useful. Being able to craft your own armor/weapons can save you a lot of gold, and the engineering perks are just priceless. They can even save your butt.
I never really bothered with professions in retail because there’s no need, but I’ve enjoyed them in Classic.

Long story short; if you feel burnt out on retail at the moment, you love the WoW lore, you enjoy roguelikes (one life), you enjoy the grindy aspects and feeling of growing in power from true RPGs, you miss socializing in online games, then I implore you to give Classic Hardcore a try before cancelling your subscription.
The hardcore community is BOOMING right now. There’s players running around everywhere no matter what time of the day, and it’s an honor to be one of them.

Cheers.

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I don’t understand how someone can have fun in a mode where you can lose all your progress due to no fault of your own.

I stopped playing hardcore in games that aren’t single player after I lost a paladin in diablo 2 because of my internet disconnecting.

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You can appeal when you die to disconnections, so it doesn’t have to be the end. They are pretty forgiving when it comes to things that are outside of your control like that. I probably could have appealed my griefer as well, but I was pretty low level so didn’t think it was worth it.

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it’s nice that your enjoying crapstic op but it will never be the same as it was in 2004 no matter what mode you slap on it

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I keep seeing these ckassic hardcore videos? How exactly do you play it? Just on a classic era server?

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Yep just on a regular classic era server. The most populated one with hardcore guilds is probably Hydraxian Waterlords (RP). You also need to classic hardcore addon (https://classichc.net/).
Once you’ve got the addon installed that’s really all you need to do. I’d recommend Questie as well if you’re not very familiar with classic as it will pinpoint quest objectives on your map and keep track of ongoing quests.

It’s a heck of lot closer than retail is. But tbh I’m not playing it for that vanilla experience. I’m playing it for the old school RPG feel.

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Honestly the only reason I haven’t tried is that I’d prefer wrath, but the option doesn’t exist.
Why? Class design, blood elvesthe a little faster paced combat. But in a way that makes classic the way it is, I hope more such community events happen. They’re the best thing to happen in game

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I definitely have a few friends that enjoy this and I’ve really enjoyed hearing their adventures, but it’s just not for me.

It would make me way too anxious to play classic without dying lol.

I’m really glad that you’re enjoying your time though, and that death would have triggered me XD Ofc there’s always a high level ganker trying to ruin people’s day. Wouldn’t be classic without it haha.

If only blizz would make community type events like this officially… Kind of like PoE does at the end of every league.

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we need to take this mode one step farther for the ULTIMATE HARDCORE Mode when you die your blizzard account is permanently deleted

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Half the reason I gave a try to TBC was blood elves. The other half was that the extreme mob grinds were removed. I recall trying an orc warrior and when I was at 24 I had enough. Couldn’t bear it anymore.

It took hours and hours to get even half a level. I don’t know how people could enjoy purposeless killing. :sweat_smile: There was simply so few quests, and even though I had professions I couldn’t bring myself to walk half across the world just to grind a specific type of mat.

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personally i could never go back to vanilia but i was not a fan of it even back then compared to Everquest it just felt like a bad copy like someone had copied someone’s homework but made it a bit to different from what made Everquest actually good

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On retail I could theoretically tell someone to eat shiat and die because I don’t rely on them for my overall progress and I’ll never see them again.

If I do that in classic, my reputation will be destroyed and I’d quickly become the server’s black sheep that nobody wants to deal with.

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I want to play Classic again.

I logged in last night and saw all the servers were either low or medium.

All the medium servers were PVP realms with 1 RP realm. So to play PVE I would have to goto a Low Pop server.

Now my fear is that I start levelling and all that happens is that I only meet players doing these Hardcore Challenges, which I’m not really interested in.

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I love that. Classic is like a town where everybody knows everybody, and if there’s any shenanigans they get shamed.
Then there’s people who are known for certain things, like this guy “Walker” on my server. A guildie was like “Walker is out at the wetlands fighting crocs”. Then later on in the day someone said he was in redridge. Everyone knows him because he stays in walk mode. I bet he thinks the flying mounts in retail are abominations.
You don’t get these kind of stories on retail. There’s nothing memorable, and very little socializing.

I’m playing on an RP one and it’s really populated, but yeah it’s mostly HC players, so if you aren’t into that I’d probably steer clear because they are everywhere there. You can still run dungeons with hardcore players, but they aren’t allowed to group up out in the world (unless they are on their way to a dungeon).
They still help people out who are struggling, give them buffs, talk, etc. So it’s not like they are in their own little bubble - you may still enjoy playing alongside hardcore players.

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That’s nice, but You don’t need to be “hardcore” to enjoy the wonders of Classic Vanilla WoW, though. I understand it’s an interesting “game mode”, but it has its flaws. For instance, the situation with you all waiting for the named mob to spawn, taking turns to kill it because you’re not allowed to group up with each other due to the imaginary ruleset you all follow, is something that could be accomplished in a more truthful-to-MMO fashion (grouping with other players to complete a common objective) had you not been playing on the “hardcore” server that has been hijacked by “hardcore” players, using an imaginary ruleset that’s aiming to turn what’s supposed to be a social experience into more of a single player experience.

If you ever decide you wanna play an MMO in a more MMO-esque way, the servers that have yet to been hijacked by the “hardcore” community (every server with the exception of Hydraxian Waterlords to my knowledge) are flourishing on Classic Era. The Firemaw cluster (just roll on Firemaw) is booming with players. AND, unlike on Hydraxian Waterlords, you’re not stuck queueing for named mobs, or with any other imaginary limitations, you can simply play the game normally - the way it was intended!

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