Hardcore WoW

[CriticalGaming]

It's not really news to anyone that World of Warcraft USED to be an incredible game. A game that I personally sunk 12 years+ into playing almost exclusively. But no king rules forever and we know that WoW has gone into the gutter in terms of the magical quality it used to have. Now it's a pay to win dumpster fire of systems and bullshit that just aint fun no more.

Though in recent years there has been a resurgence of people playing the original Vanilla version of WoW. First people played on private servers just trying to enjoy the game that used to be. Then Blizzard shut that shit down which everybody disliked. But then Blizzard made WoW Classic through some bullshit excuses and it blew up major for a while. Then The burning crusade classis. Finally now you can play Wraith of the Lich King just like it was when WoW was at it's peak.

But the player base isn't really playing Lich King like that anymore. In fact most Classic players are still just playing the Vanilla servers, but now they've come up with a twist that has blown up so big that there are going to be official servers for this mode of play soon.

HARDCORE.

Basically Hardcore WoW is much like hardcore modes in other games, you get one life and if you die then your character is deleted. Boom gone you fucking dead fool, that's it goodbye. And it's magical.

I went back to try this mode and have lost 5 characters at fairly low levels now (my highest is like 22 i think). And this has hit me with some strong feelings about what WoW used to be. WoW originally had a magic to it, and while it suffers from some modern quality of life things that most MMO's have these days, there is a calm to it's simplicity and it's grind. Classic WoW isn't that hard of a game, WoW originally was designed to be much more forgiving that MMO's at the time. However when you are not allowed to die at all ever for any reason, it changes the game quite a bit. While the game isn't very hard, it will kill you quickly and without mercy if you make a mistake, and that i think really adds tension to the experience where there otherwise would be none.

Not to mention there are a few other rules in Hardcore you have to abide by. You are NOT allowed to group for elite quests, you can group for dungeons only and you can only run any dungeon ONCE ever. You cannot use the auction house, meaning you can't upgrade your gear with gold and must rely on drops for loot, nor can you use the AH to make gold for something like a Mount. The restrictions are fairly simple, but something about playing old school WoW this way has been really really fun for reasons I cannot explain. Perhaps it's just me enjoying the nostalgia, or perhaps there is the simple fact that WoW used to be really good, but moreso, that era of WoW is STILL really good.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

None of that sounds like any fun to me whatsoever. WoW was always full of bullshit that could easily get you killed, from lag to glitched mobs. Hell, on release Dalaran had an invisible hole by the door of the barber shop that would drop you straight through the island to a falling death.

WoW originally had a magic to it

Be careful not to fall into the trap of nostalgia. Was the game good then, or do you just remember that era fondly because you were younger?

 

[CriticalGaming]

Be careful not to fall into the trap of nostalgia. Was the game good then, or do you just remember that era fondly because you were younger?

See that's the thing. I don't have a specific nostalgia for Vanilla WoW because technically I didn't play it. I played The Burning Crusade and while the Vanilla leveling experience was mostly still there by and large, players could be much higher level than Vanilla content and would often help me with group quests or dungeons by just blasting through it like gods.

But to answer the question, yes it's good. It's good in a very simple way in which there aren't a lot of systems in Vanilla Wow. It's a game in which you can take your time because there is no real rush to get to endgame, which is something that WoW drastically shifted towards a couple of expansions in. Even in TBC the game treated leveling in kind of a bad way where if you weren't level capped yet you weren't shit. In my experience in Vanilla so far, and especially with Hardcore players dominating the game right now, the leveling is that meaningful content. People celebrate fairly pointless milestones like 10 where you start getting talent points or 25 when a class quest happens. People in my guild chat post items with excitement even when the items are mundane boosts like an extra 4 stamina.

It has somehow almost recreated the experience of playing WoW for the first time for everyone doing these challenges. Because the game knowledge you have almost doesn't matter and even becomes a detriment as if you get too cocky you will die and that'll be it.

So ultimately it's a new lens to look at the game from but not a rose colored one.

 

[meiam]

Maybe it was different in vanilla, but from my time in WoW (BC to cata) leveling was kinda of joke, where the only danger was to walk off a cliff or going AFK. Also sounds like it would be a major pita for a couple of class.

Still its an interesting idea to breath life back into something that already exist, I think there's another long running MMO that also has a dedicated hardcore community/mod?

 

[BrawlMan]

I think there's another long running MMO that also has a dedicated hardcore community/mod?

Dungeon Fighter Online.

 

[Gordon_4]

It's not really news to anyone that World of Warcraft USED to be an incredible game. A game that I personally sunk 12 years+ into playing almost exclusively. But no king rules forever and we know that WoW has gone into the gutter in terms of the magical quality it used to have. Now it's a pay to win dumpster fire of systems and bullshit that just aint fun no more.

Though in recent years there has been a resurgence of people playing the original Vanilla version of WoW. First people played on private servers just trying to enjoy the game that used to be. Then Blizzard shut that shit down which everybody disliked. But then Blizzard made WoW Classic through some bullshit excuses and it blew up major for a while. Then The burning crusade classis. Finally now you can play Wraith of the Lich King just like it was when WoW was at it's peak.

But the player base isn't really playing Lich King like that anymore. In fact most Classic players are still just playing the Vanilla servers, but now they've come up with a twist that has blown up so big that there are going to be official servers for this mode of play soon.

HARDCORE.

Basically Hardcore WoW is much like hardcore modes in other games, you get one life and if you die then your character is deleted. Boom gone you fucking dead fool, that's it goodbye. And it's magical.

I went back to try this mode and have lost 5 characters at fairly low levels now (my highest is like 22 i think). And this has hit me with some strong feelings about what WoW used to be. WoW originally had a magic to it, and while it suffers from some modern quality of life things that most MMO's have these days, there is a calm to it's simplicity and it's grind. Classic WoW isn't that hard of a game, WoW originally was designed to be much more forgiving that MMO's at the time. However when you are not allowed to die at all ever for any reason, it changes the game quite a bit. While the game isn't very hard, it will kill you quickly and without mercy if you make a mistake, and that i think really adds tension to the experience where there otherwise would be none.

Not to mention there are a few other rules in Hardcore you have to abide by. You are NOT allowed to group for elite quests, you can group for dungeons only and you can only run any dungeon ONCE ever. You cannot use the auction house, meaning you can't upgrade your gear with gold and must rely on drops for loot, nor can you use the AH to make gold for something like a Mount. The restrictions are fairly simple, but something about playing old school WoW this way has been really really fun for reasons I cannot explain. Perhaps it's just me enjoying the nostalgia, or perhaps there is the simple fact that WoW used to be really good, but moreso, that era of WoW is STILL really good.

Take it from someone who was there during vanilla. Most of the ‘magic’ was ignorance on part of the players because you’re essentially going in blind. But by Burning Crusade, levelling strats were plentiful - hell there were addons that guided you through the most efficient path - and we had an understanding of how most dungeon mechanics would work.

As for Pay to Win, uh, welcome to 2006. People have been grinding and selling gold for real money since the old days: used to advertise all over the place for it. Only difference here is Blizzard decided - not unfairly - that if people were gonna pay for gold, they may as well get their piece of the action. Enter the Token. Costs about as much as a month sub, and is redeemable for the same or its purchase value in Blizzard balance and sells for about 100-160k gold five or take. But you can’t just buy gear off the cash shop and go dominate. Best you can do is get mats; cheaper but you need to craft them and the item yourself or pay someone else to do it. Which is how it’s always been.

 

[Hawki]

I debated whether I should even take part of this given my experience/lack of it (let's just say I'm well versed in the universe of Warcraft, just not World of Warcraft), but that being said:

It's not really news to anyone that World of Warcraft USED to be an incredible game. A game that I personally sunk 12 years+ into playing almost exclusively. But no king rules forever and we know that WoW has gone into the gutter in terms of the magical quality it used to have. Now it's a pay to win dumpster fire of systems and bullshit that just aint fun no more.

I thought Dragonflight was well received? I know Shadowlands wasn't, but I haven't seen much recently to indicate WOW is a "dumpsterfire."

I went back to try this mode and have lost 5 characters at fairly low levels now (my highest is like 22 i think).

TIL that level 22 is a "fairly low level." 0_0

Yeah, I'll say it, I have no idea how you manage to find so much time to play games.

Anyway, yeah, I encountered some hardcore players back when I played Classic earlier in the year. Meanies wouldn't help me with a quest because they were afraid they might die. Which, okay, sure, but WHAT ABOUT MY NEEDS?!

 

[CriticalGaming]

I thought Dragonflight was well received? I know Shadowlands wasn't, but I haven't seen much recently to indicate WOW is a "dumpsterfire."

You know what's funny, EVERY expansion is well recieved at the beginning. Because players always want new content and the leveling process is usually pretty good, evening Shadowlands and BFA. However then you get to the endgame and the endgame has been a bunch of nonsense for several expansions now. Even Dragonflight has had a lot of profile level players bow out of the game. Wow expansions aren't holding people's attention they way they used to. And it's not just because people have lives and have grown up or whatever because other MMO's don't suffer this same problem.

Yeah, I'll say it, I have no idea how you manage to find so much time to play games.

I pretty much exclusively work and play games. That's all I do.

Anyway, yeah, I encountered some hardcore players back when I played Classic earlier in the year. Meanies wouldn't help me with a quest because they were afraid they might die. Which, okay, sure, but WHAT ABOUT MY NEEDS?!

Technically the rules say you can not help or be helped by people in the world. So that's probably why.