World of Warcraft Classic launched its Hardcore mode with a bang this weekend, rolling out new servers in the massively multiplayer RPG where character death is permanent.
We had the opportunity to chat with Game Producer Linny Cooke Saverline and Tim Jones, assistant lead game designer on Warcraft Classic, about the launch and future of Classic Hardcore.
Newman: Are there more features to come in Hardcore?
Cooke Saverline: We plan for it to be evergreen. So just because something hasn’t come up with the initial launch, we’re definitely looking at everything. What would be neat to add? What does the public think is cool? What do they feel like we’re missing? We’re planning on continuing to grow it.
Jones: The solo self-found game mode that players have largely imposed upon themselves on unofficial realms. We don’t have a self-found mode on launch, where players have to rely on themselves and won’t be able to access the mailbox, won’t be able to access the auction house.
We are planning on adding a mode to allow players to impose that restriction upon themselves, and some way of displaying to other players that they have taken on this challenge. That’ll be coming.
Newman: How did the idea for Hardcore come about in Warcraft Classic? Was it just watching the players using the Classic Hardcore mod?
Jones: It’s been a on our minds for quite some time. As we were doing the Season of Mastery content, there was a community-driven event that was being planned called Road to Ragnaros. The community wanted to level up [without dying] — do the Hardcore challenge — and then be the first on the server to kill Ragnaros. And we were like, this is insane that the community is doing this. [He laughs.]
Most of us had heard of the Ironman challenge or the Hardcore challenge — just making leveling and Classic more challenging and interesting. But it was very new to me at the time to consider people taking on raid bosses, never having died in the process.
Newman: So where did the Season of Mastery hardcore elements come from?
Jones: We wanted to come up with some way of like recognizing those in-game achievements as best we could. We’re like, hey, maybe we could throw some stuff in here to recognize what these hardcore players are doing. And so we created the Soul of Iron, which was mostly cosmetic things that you could opt into that would indicate what level you were when you died, and a little cosmetic aura when you killed a raid boss never having died.
Newman: When did this turn from a seasonal event to the idea of something more permanent?
Jones: We’ve been paying attention to the community more and more. Just through the natural interest that everyone’s had with watching the [reaction] videos of people dying in all these goofy and interesting and tragic ways – I think we always wanted there to be an official Hardcore mode.
It just took some convincing of various people at different levels of the company. This is something the players want. Look at the community force behind this. They’re going to continue doing this themselves. Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if we made something official?
Newman: We’ve talked about some of the quest changes that needed to happen to make Hardcore a reality in past conversations. What other things needed to change to make Hardcore actually work?
Cooke Saverline: One of the big things was making sure that we were PVE-focused, and that PVP was extremely, fully optional and deliberate, so that we didn’t have any kind of accidental PVP.
Newman: What about queueing for random battlegrounds? Why was that disabled?
Cooke Saverline: Honestly, already everything on Hardcore is so high stakes that to then add a battleground where at least half the people, if not most of the people, in there are probably going to end up dying at some point just seemed so other-level.
Jones: The PVP issue is multifaceted because there’s a whole strata of PVP rewards and incentives for killing other players. When death means death, we want to stay true to that rule. We want the emphasis of Hardcore to be experiencing the world, the leveling process, and only opting into PVP if you need to settle the score with someone, not because you need the best rewards that come from PVP.
With that said, we do recognize that some PVP rewards are very good — namely the trinket that can be used in both duels and PVE content that breaks you out of crowd control. So that’s going to be available for people. People can buy that without any PVP ranking for a gold cost.
Newman: So how are War Games different from Battlegrounds?
Jones: War games require two premade teams. If two teams want to do Warsong Gulch, they run this command that queues both groups. But there are no freebie deaths in battlegrounds, so players who die in the battleground will be dead on the Hardcore server. We want to purposefully make it not easy to access, but it is there if people want a high-stakes battleground.
Newman: Why did you decide to unlock all the original vanilla WoW content and raids at launch?
Cooke Saverline: We wanted people to be able to take everything with hardcore at their own pace, and then go in and do that end game content if they wanted to. We’re trying to avoid the idea of, we release it in pieces, and then players feel this pressure to try to level up their hardcore character fast so that they can get into the next raid.
Newman: Talk to me about the experience when you’re in ghost mode. What are you expecting to see socially with ghosts? Do you expect some players hang out to haunt the rest of their guild or raid group forever?
Jones: If there’s anything that we’ve seen from the Public Test Realm, it’s that players are insanely creative. They always defy expectations. I was in disbelief about people completing Hardcore Molten Core at the time, yet here we see people doing Naxxramas Hardcore. I’m sure there there’ll be some ghost communities. There are some restrictions on ghosts — like ghosts can’t go into instances.
Newman: There goes my ghost raid leader, the 41st man. I was really excited about that.
Jones: Hey, maybe never say never, you know? Maybe we will add some future ghost tech to allow for the 41st man.
Cooke Saverline: I’m looking forward to one, the videos, because those are going to be fantastic. And two, just the role-playing opportunities and seeing what people do with that.
Newman: Are there things that you’ve got on your list to watch out for on live servers? Any areas where you’re keeping an eye on activity?
Jones: I think one of the most important things, especially for Hardcore, is server stability. That has many other things that it feeds into, such as realm population — making sure that realms have a healthy population, and making sure that we add more servers when need be, so that server stability isn’t impacted by the realm population maxing out. People’s connections to the game are very, very sacred during Hardcore mode.
Newman: One of the things I know that you’ve been trying to cut back on is that concept of kiting big, giant, scary monsters into places where tiny, tiny, little people might be hanging out. What about quests that flat-out require kiting, like the hunter epic weapon quest?
Jones: Most of the anti-kiting rules revolve around not being able to bring creatures outside of a specific zone. So Teremus [the Devourer] can be kited within Blasted Lands, but if you try to take him up to Swamp of Sorrows or into Elwynn Forest, that’s when those systems are going to be kicking in to cause those creatures to leash.
Specifically for the Rhok’delar quest line, it’s funny because we actually had to make different concessions. If you try to intervene with those quest lines in mainline, there’s an NPC called The Cleaner that obliterates anyone instantly who tries to interfere. We don’t want someone unknowingly walking into the priest doing their Benediction quest line and then getting killed by some unknown entity out of nowhere.
So instead of killing people, those, those people get teleported to a safe location by The Cleaner. [He laughs.] It cracks me up that that’s the name of that NPC. I love it.
Newman: Character transfers of dead characters to other non-Hardcore realms are free, right?
Cooke Saverline: Specifically to other Classic Era realms. You can’t go over to Wrath. It has to be original WoW.
Newman: What if I get started in Hardcore and I realize that I’m now suffering anxiety attacks, because every time I see a Devilsaur, I want to leave Azeroth. Can I transfer for free before I’m dead?
Jones: A hundred percent. Dying is not a condition to be able to utilize the free character transfer to Era servers, for your exact scenario. You’re free to carry your character back to Era without ever having died.
Newman: What changes are you most curious to see in people’s playstyles between the public test realm and the now-live servers?
Cooke Saverline: We’re honestly just excited to see what players do when they’re unleashed in the world. What do they interact with? How challenging is it to get some of the items like Flask of Petrification?
Jones: We saw some of the highest PTR participation that we’ve ever seen across all of WoW for Hardcore. That shows how excited this community is. Just seeing all the crazy stops that that players pulled out on the PTR, we’re waiting with bated breath to see what players continue to do on live servers. Seeing the PVP tournaments [on PTR] that people did with the Duel to the Death… It’s something unique to Classic Hardcore, having such a high-stakes PVP environment. We’re super excited to see what they do.
Cooke Saverline: Something really cool I thought from PTR was, they did a Westfall Invasion, where you had huge Horde and Alliance armies taking each other on right at the shores of Westfall – mostly level ones through levels five or six.
Jones: I love the content that Guzu and Savix put together as generals of opposing armies. It’s amazing.
Newman: Is there a role for Hardcore mode on Retail/modern WoW?
Jones: Maybe. We’re following the players on this one, and players have congregated around Era. I won’t say that we’re not ever going to do hardcore rule sets on different types of servers, but Era’s going to be our focus for now.
Newman: Will Hardcore bring new audiences to Classic WoW?
Cooke Saverline: We’ve talked about the memes and the videos and people encouraging the “Go again, go again!” It has a really neat community feel that I think will bring people.
Jones: [Hardcore is] a version of the game where you’re encouraged to take it slow, where you can focus on your professions and just methodically play through the game. You’re not rushing to get to raid content.
I think that there’s going to be a greater appeal to way more audiences. I’m seeing it in friend and social groups that I would never have expected to be interested. I think it has a broader appeal than people might initially think.
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