Big Drama About Hardcore Servers for Classic WoW…

Servers aka Hydraxian Waterlords for EU, and before this I also had some low level characters on previous Classic Hardcore Servers way back in the day. For reference here’s a quick Screenshot of my First Classic WoW Hardcore Video, which was uploaded on the 26th of February 2020, more than three years ago.

Just incase someone thinks I’m completely new to this challenge and have never played it before or that I’m just riding a hype train or whatever, I just wanted to mention that to set the stage. Alright, I guess it’s time to talk about some Drama!

Official Hardcore Servers were announced by Blizzard last week, and even though this is something we should all be incredibly excited for, it’s pretty much split the community and it’s starting so much drama to the point where people just straight up insult eachother for having different opinions than their own.

So, let’s have a chat! Exactly what drama am I talking about? Well, Blizzard said during the anonuncement that they felt it was not right for Blizzard to impose on the server by adding any additional rules beyond having One Life, while also saying

An absolute frenzy from a part of the community. Basically, you have 2 different types of players that are going to war against eachother, where 1 is very vocally against the other, and I want to preface this by saying that I personally

Will enjoy Hardcore no matter what happens, rules or no rules, it will be fun no matter what. So to summarize the two groups of people: Group 1 wants to have the current rules we have when we play Hardcore with the Hardcore Addon, which basically enforces a very strict

Ruleset for a Solo-Self-Found Challenge, meaning No Grouping, No Trading, and no Auction House. Group 2 wants to have what it looks like we are getting, a regular Classic WoW Experience with one life where they can play the game in the way they want to play the game.

Now here’s where I am going to trigger some people: The group that wants to have the rules we currently have with the Hardcore Addon is basically who’s starting all the drama. Trying to gatekeep the word “Hardcore” and saying “if trading is allowed there’s no challenge

Anymore you can do it blindfolded just buy epics and enchants and everything lmao it will be so easy wtf”. After playing Hardcore for about 500 hours in the last 2 months, and being a part of the Hardcore Community since it came out, I can tell you this: 95% of deaths are due

To mistakes. You misjudge a scenario, pull something wrong, you run into too many mobs, you overestimate yourself, or you make one out of a million different mistakes which makes you die. In 99% of those scenarios, you would have died no matter what gear you have.

I have seen a Warrior loot Edgemaster’s, then die after an hour. I’ve seen a Retribution Paladin loot an epic axe, and then die after equipping it. I’ve seen a fully raidgeared warrior die in the Open World in a level 50 zone. Am I trying to say trading will not make it easier?

No, ofcourse it will, I’m not a complete moron with only one working braincell, I have atleast two braincells working and I am able to acknowledge that trading will have an impact, however the impact will be much smaller than people are making it out to be.

People are running around saying “Trading & Auction house will break hardcore, getting a level 60 warrior will be so easy and it will no longer be a challenge” like seriously once again after being here for 3 years and playing more hardcore than most of you ever

Will, 95% of deaths are due to mistakes and no matter how much gear you had you would still have died. The only levels where gear really brings in a huge boost, is level 1-30, after that the noob-filter really sets in.

And another point I want to bring up is this: Where are you going to get all the gold? Once again people are using the arguement of “People will be running around with Crusader enchants at level 1, full world epics by level 40, mooncloth bags, and full consumables”.

You do realize that items are not free on the Auction House, right? Hardcore Servers are starting from scratch. Nobody has anything at level 1. It will take months to build an economy where getting full epics, full bags, crusader at

Level 1 and mooncloth bags is even possible, like we’re talking atleast 6months down the line, and it’s going to be expensive as fuck, so you’re going to have to go out and farm that gold, in which case you are playing the game, which I personally don’t see any problem with.

Let’s look at this from a different perspective: Player A wants to buy full enchants for his level 1 character and level fast. He farms gold for 100 hours to do this and buys the best items for level 1-20.

Player B wants to do the Solo Self Found Challenge and does not have to farm for 100 hours, he can literally start right away. By the time Player A has farmed his gold and starts his character at level 1, Player B

Will already be level 40 or level 50, but Player A will be level 1 but be very strong. Who’s really winning here? And moreover, why would Player B care about how Player A chooses to play the game, and vise versa? Why can’t both players have fun in their own way?

The fact is, Player A wants to enjoy the game and finds enjoyment in being overpowered during early levels. Player B wants a challenge. Both can get what they want, it doesn’t need to be an “us vs them” environment here.

By Blizzard giving us servers with one premise aka One Life or Death = ghost, it’s up to the community to come up with challenges like Solo Self Found to spice up the gameplay if they want to, but the server itself will fit EVERYONE who wants to play some iteration

Of Hardcore, which is literally what a MMORPG server should aim to accomplish. I honestly can’t help but feel like Player B in this scenario, aka the fictional player I have made up in this video to represent the people who want to impose the current

Solo Self Found ruleset to the Official Hardcore Servers, think that getting to level 60 is such an impossible mountain to climb and they NEED other people to complete the challenge the same way they did, otherwise they are not worthy of playing hardcore or something.

Literally gatekeeping the Hardcore community to try to keep people away from it, while that is so antithetical to what a MMORPG should be about in the first place, and also very antithetical to what Classic WoW has always been about, which is helping eachother.

One of the reasons why I returned to Hardcore recently was infact my love for the Challenge and my love for the community, and the community helping eachother during the leveling process in guildchat and hardcore-chat and so on, but lately that has shifted to a more toxic

Environment where it’s more gatekeeping-focused, less helpful and more trying to push others down rather than helping eachother up, and it’s shifted more and more from a respectful & welcoming community, more to a community that is trying to keep people away from joining it.

Now I’m hoping that didn’t come across too harsh, because I seriously to love Hardcore overall, I’m enjoying it every single day, I Just hate this gatekeeping mentality that people have which reminds me so much of elitism which has always plagued this game and I desperately don’t want to see it in Hardcore.

The simple fact is, if you want to keep using the rules we currently have with the addon, you can keep using the addon on Official Hardcore Servers, there’s nothing stopping you. There’s an arguement I see online saying “Having access to Grouping, Auction House & Trading

Will destroy hardcore servers” which is simply not true because it never has. We are currently playing Hardcore on Classic Era, Bloodsail Buccaneers and Hydraxian Waterlords mostly. Two regular Classic realms where Trading is available, the Auction House is available, and grouping is available.

However we are using an addon to restrict the use of it, but the features ARE AVAILABLE. And here’s the kicker: You can use these features and still complete the hardcore challenge with a verified run as the hardcore lua file is very easy to edit if you spend 5 seconds

Online googling how to do it, so at this point, not using the auction house, trading or grouping are personal rules you impose on yourself for a personal leveling challenge, which you can still do on the Official Hardcore Servers without imposing those rules onto everyone

Else at the same time, because the simple fact is people play the game differently and you have no say in telling me how I should have fun, just like I have no say in telling you how you should have fun, and playing the game should be about having fun.

One of the beautiful things about having an Official Hardcore Server with only one main rule: Having one life, is that the community can come up with several new challenges based on that one baseline rule, allowing for the future use of Staysafe’s Zoneman Challenge,

Solo Self Found Challenge, Ironman Challenges, PvP Challenges, its basically Blizzard giving us a server with one rule that would fit into so many challenges and would make sure these servers stay here for a long time. By adding multiple rules onto the server like only trading at level 60, or not allowing

Grouping and so on, you are massively restricting the core server itself, and in return you are actively discouraiging people who want those aspects available from being able to play on that server. There’s another comment I’ve seen coming up once or twice which is “if you want trading

& grouping, go play regular Classic”, as if people are not allowed to enjoy the concept of having one life and trading + grouping at the same time. That is the equivalent of the people saying currently in Wrath of the Lich King “if you

Want Dungeon Finder, go play retail” which is just the dumbest arguement I have ever seen in any discussion in all of my life and I’m amazed how these people even found out how to leave a comment in the first place. Stop gatekeeping the Hardcore-word around a singular Hardcore Challenge, and allow it

To be a fun experience rather than a challenging one, with the challenging element being optional.