After I wrote my last WoW update a few weeks ago, I was not sure if I would be writing another one, but then I found the ‘Hardcore Challenge‘. As I feared, my interest in Classic WoW did not return, at least when it comes to Wrath of the Lich King. What I have found however that there is still a partially active Classic ‘Era’ WoW community. Classic Era is a permanent version of the vanilla level 1-60 game, if there are any regular readers of my blog you may remember one of my favourite blog posts back in May 2021 at the end of vanilla classic, when I decided to pay to have my main character (Mithril) copied to exist on one of the classic era servers for reasons of nostalgia. I have always been happy with this decision, now more than ever. What’s more is that the classic era community has really taken off with a player driven ‘Classic Hardcore Challenge’.
Classic hardcore is relatively simple in that players are challenged to level their character without dying. If your character dies you delete it and try again (or quit). There are other important rules such as only entering dungeons once within certain level brackets and that you can not trade with other players or your other characters through the mail. The idea is that your character is completely self sufficient in every way. You can’t even join a group in the open world (with the exception of before entering a dungeon). This is moderated by a very clever addon which must be active at all times to monitor your progress and will provide you with a verification key for when you reach max level so that your character can enter the ‘Hall of Legends‘ and take part in the hardcore end game content if you so wish.
My first classic hardcore character died at level 10, which is a bit embarrassing. She died trying to do one of the first rogue quests, Snatch and Grab in Elwynn Forest. It was a silly death which could have been easily avoided, but I learned a lesson from it.
I shrugged off the death, deleted my character and remade it. I have reached level 27 so far, that doesn’t sound much, but playing within the rules of the classic hardcore challenge has made me slow down and take my time. It has completely changed the way I play the game in order to survive and thrive without the assistance of anyone. Not even the auction house. I am very nervous about joining groups to enter dungeons, because I will be relying on them to play sensibly and not get us all killed, however I did manage to complete The Deadmines at level 24.
There was a problem which occurred yesterday where there was significant server lag, possibly a result of how viral the hardcore challenge has become recently. There have been times where people have died on flight paths or during transit between continents or even due to the server lagging or crashing entirely. This happened to me which I was able to successfully appeal with this short video proving what happened. If it wasn’t for my quick thinking to start recording what was happening I am sure my appeal would have fallen on deaf ears.
Moving forward I think I will continue to play classic era, at least for the time being. I don’t know if I will necessarily continue to play the hardcore challenge as a rogue or if I will try a new character entirely, but for now playing Wrath of the Lich king is unlikely for me. What’s important however is that I don’t burn any bridges, that would be foolish, especially as the Inspired guild playing through Wrath of the Lich King has always been good to me and I very much enjoyed playing through Wrath of the Lich King the first time around.
If there are an readers who are interested in trying the WoW hardcore challenge, I encourage you to do so, it’s really fun. But be warned, read the rules very carefully and consider the possibility that you will fail the challenge. If you think that it will upset you too much, perhaps the hardcore challenge is not for you.
Leave a comment