How likely will 8.0 add "hardcore" servers?

[nyc81991]

That would be almost completely pointless.

[whywhatwhowhenhow]

You're dreaming OP. This shit idea and vanilla servers are NEVER going to happen. Blizzard don't go back, only move forward.

[ls-]

Plenty of areas have mobs that you cannot just pull endlessly, and guess what, they have actual mechanics to them. Some world mobs today have more mechanics to them than Classic bosses. And raids always have the sort of trash which is unforgiving.

Having tried Classic leveling, I can say this; Shit tuning =/= clever design to keep things dangerous. The AI is still dumb-as-bricks, there's nothing hardcore about it compared to other MMOS of that time, which is how it became such a success. I can promise you though that a new player today, running through the murloc camps or wolf areas or quillboar areas or whatever, WILL die to aggro and not being aware of what he/she has in her/his toolkit. I've seen it happen. I guess that person will come back 7 years later and proclaim how "quillboars used to kill me, they were the epitome of difficult content design!!!"...

The timesinks are real, but we're currently in an expansion slammed by MMO-C people for its timesinks, so I guess that evens out...

TBF, there's a certain point in Vanilla when even elite areas of the world, e.g. Tyr's Hand, were becoming harmless and you could stomp mobs like a god. The only difference from now is that gearing and itemisation were shite, and it took ages to actually get decent gear. Unless you decided to buy few BWL boosts w/ gear, which was an appealing option for many people.

And jic someone decides to say "you needed T3, blah blah", no, you didn't need something like that, T2 and in some cases even T1 were more than enough, welp, unless your class was garbage

[Queen of Hamsters]

TBF, there's a certain point in Vanilla when even elite areas of the world, e.g. Tyr's Hand, were becoming harmless and you could stomp mobs like a god. The only difference from now is that gearing and itemisation were shite, and it took ages to actually get decent gear. Unless you decided to buy few BWL boosts w/ gear, which was an appealing option for many people.

And jic someone decides to say "you needed T3, blah blah", no, you didn't need something like that, T2 and in some cases even T1 were more than enough, welp, unless your class was garbage

Indeed.

I can say that even now, with my knowledge of the game and classes and so on, there are areas and mobs that I only feel comfortable zerging with my HC/Mythic geared main, Hunter.

My alts, whom are 885-900 ilvl, cannot roflstomp those same areas. My tanks can survive them, sure, but it's slower to kill mobs that way. Just look at how geared people seek groups for the 112 rares, it's constant. And some of said rares will kill people just fine, through mechanics rather than just hitting harder than correct tuning would allow.

[reauxmont]

Plenty of areas have mobs that you cannot just pull endlessly, and guess what, they have actual mechanics to them. Some world mobs today have more mechanics to them than Classic bosses. And raids always have the sort of trash which is unforgiving.

Having tried Classic leveling, I can say this; Shit tuning =/= clever design to keep things dangerous. The AI is still dumb-as-bricks, there's nothing hardcore about it compared to other MMOS of that time, which is how it became such a success. I can promise you though that a new player today, running through the murloc camps or wolf areas or quillboar areas or whatever, WILL die to aggro and not being aware of what he/she has in her/his toolkit. I've seen it happen. I guess that person will come back 7 years later and proclaim how "quillboars used to kill me, they were the epitome of difficult content design!!!"...

The timesinks are real, but we're currently in an expansion slammed by MMO-C people for its timesinks, so I guess that evens out...

It doesn't matter if it's the result of shit tuning or clever design, the leveling difficulty in Vanilla was harder than it is now. Furthermore, this is not only relevant to new players, because an experienced player will see a much bigger difference. Hop on a vanilla server right now, try to use your full toolkit (which is pretty much nothing) to defeat multiple mobs, i'll assure you, it will be a lot harder than doing it on live. NPC strength is also not the only factor that plays a role in leveling difficulty. It's also affected by:

- Quest objectives not showing up on the map (although that was solved by addons or the introduction of Thottbot later)
- Bad quest / quest-hub design
- No dungeon- / groupfinder

There's probably more to add to that list, but this suffices for making my point. All in all, I'd say leveling in Vanilla required more attention to the game, better communication, and was more punishing (and therefore had less room for errors like aggroing an additional mob) than current WoW. Those are all things that make it more hardcore.

[deadman1]

Much slower leveling speed (no XP boost, no character boost)

Timesink?

Removal of LFR and Dungeon Queues

Timesink?

Removal of Crossrealm/virtualization technology

Make the game feel more dead?

No server transfer

On a dead server? Get fucked?

[MiiiMiii]

While it is a step in the right direction, it would be a half step where they are too scared to fully commit to it. Either change the game to be like that or don't.

The game has way more problems than that though, like the flexible difficulties (1 difficulty only!) and catch up mechanics. In my opinion, obviously, don't get mad...

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Timesink? x2

Every single thing you do in this game is a "timesink". I think a better word for it is "Content".

Make the game feel more dead?

On a dead server? Get fucked?

Just think in a hypothetical world, instead of doing cross realm, Blizzard instead merged realms so all realms were well populated and balanced between horde and alliance. Crazy thought, right?

[Queen of Hamsters]

It doesn't matter if it's the result of shit tuning or clever design, the leveling difficulty in Vanilla was harder than it is now. Furthermore, this is not only relevant to new players, because an experienced player will see a much bigger difference. Hop on a vanilla server right now, try to use your full toolkit (which is pretty much nothing) to defeat multiple mobs, i'll assure you, it will be a lot harder than doing it on live. NPC strength is also not the only factor that plays a role in leveling difficulty. It's also affected by:

- Quest objectives not showing up on the map (although that was solved by addons or the introduction of Thottbot later)
- Bad quest / quest-hub design
- No dungeon- / groupfinder

There's probably more to add to that list, but this suffices for making my point. All in all, I'd say leveling in Vanilla required more attention to the game, better communication, and was more punishing (and therefore had less room for errors like aggroing an additional mob) than current WoW. Those are all things that make it more hardcore.

I simply cannot agree with your sentiment that Classic WoW was in any shape or form "hardcore", other than in timesinks. You could literally struggle with performing a 2-button rotation, and still see bosses go down and level just fine.

I'm not a hardcore player other than in the time I put into this game, and I didn't struggle for 1 second on a certain Private server. It was slow and tedius and annoying at times, but it didn't tickle my sense of being challenged once. AI is the same, and my knowledge of zones and mob locations meant I didn't get nasty surprises like I would have (and did) when I was new and unaware.

It wasn't "hardcore" for its time, it isn't "hardcore" by todays standards. Wanna see what hardcore WoW gameplay looks like? Check the World 1st races and how they play the game. Luckily, the game supports all playstyles these days, not just the ones having tons of time.

[Erwarth]

You can already do all of this by not using the tools at your disposal.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Timesink?
Timesink?
Make the game feel more dead?
On a dead server? Get fucked?

Yeah... It's clear to say that if these people had been at the helm of this ship, it would've sunk long ago akin to Wildstar.

[deadman1]

Every single thing you do in this game is a "timesink". I think a better word for it is "Content".

If I can do the same content in less time (like current servers)
then it's a timesink. So me calling it a timesink is an objectively correct statement, it's not up for interpretation. Artificially inflating the time it takes to do something for the sake of it taking longer is the text book definition of a timesink.

Just think in a hypothetical world, instead of doing cross realm, Blizzard instead merged realms so all realms were well populated and balanced between horde and alliance. Crazy thought, right?

Irrelevant to the conversation, the OP didn't say make a megaserver, don't move the goalposts.

[Mosotti]

That must be the most retarded idea I've ever read here., It's just in front of "we want a new hero class called the bard" shit...

[deniter]

I simply cannot agree with your sentiment that Classic WoW was in any shape or form "hardcore", other than in timesinks. You could literally struggle with performing a 2-button rotation, and still see bosses go down and level just fine.

It wasn't "hardcore" for its time, it isn't "hardcore" by todays standards. Wanna see what hardcore WoW gameplay looks like? Check the World 1st races and how they play the game.

i wouldn't use the word 'hardcore' either in this context, i'd say it made the game more rewarding for the players. Completing group quests or dungeons in vanilla rewarded you with items that really helped you to survive and kill normal mobs faster. If you didn't do any of these you could find yourself in a situation where you couldn't beat even a single equal level mob without struggling, especially if you played a melee class. You really had to play the game from the very start - the game didn't begin at the level cap - and that made it more interesting.

I'd also like to correct the 2nd point in @reauxmont post: The quests / quest hubs were not badly designed - they were differently and cleverly designed, and made Azeroth look bigger and gave a player a feeling of being an adventurer. Nowadays zones are like stages in an arcade game - you enter the zone when you've completed the previous one, and leave it when you've done all quests in there never looking back. The 'world effect' is now gone, it's just an action game now.

[XDurionX]

Zero percent, don't be stupid.

[Queen of Hamsters]

i wouldn't use the word 'hardcore' either in this context, i'd say it made the game more rewarding for the players. Completing group quests or dungeons in vanilla rewarded you with items that really helped you to survive and kill normal mobs faster. If you didn't do any of these you could find yourself in a situation where you couldn't beat even a single equal level mob without struggling, especially if you played a melee class. You really had to play the game from the very start - the game didn't begin at the level cap - and that made it more interesting.

I'd also like to correct the 2nd point in @reauxmont post: The quests / quest hubs were not badly designed - they were differently and cleverly designed, and made Azeroth look bigger and gave a player a feeling of being an adventurer. Nowadays zones are like stages in an arcade game - you enter the zone when you've completed the previous one, and leave it when you've done all quests in there never looking back. The 'world effect' is now gone, it's just an action game now.

Um, no.

Legion has kept leveling zones more relevant beyond leveling through them than any previous iteration of the game, and scaling tech means there's literally no reason for you to move from one zone to another before you feel like doing so.

Wether something is "more rewarding", is a subjective point. I didn't feel more rewarded playing on that Classic server than I do progressing my characters on Live, for example.

The "clever design" for questing hubs came way later, Classic's leveling zones were badly planned and unpolished in how they tied together and in story.

If you play the game as an "action game", that's fine and dandy. But I personally feel more part of a world in this expansion than ever before, with every zone remaining relevant even now, so many months after release. My hope is that they'll add the Legion scaling tech to the 1-60 content as well, removing the whole "outleveling"-concept once and for all.

[reauxmont]

I simply cannot agree with your sentiment that Classic WoW was in any shape or form "hardcore", other than in timesinks. You could literally struggle with performing a 2-button rotation, and still see bosses go down and level just fine.

I'm not a hardcore player other than in the time I put into this game, and I didn't struggle for 1 second on a certain Private server. It was slow and tedius and annoying at times, but it didn't tickle my sense of being challenged once. AI is the same, and my knowledge of zones and mob locations meant I didn't get nasty surprises like I would have (and did) when I was new and unaware.

It wasn't "hardcore" for its time, it isn't "hardcore" by todays standards. Wanna see what hardcore WoW gameplay looks like? Check the World 1st races and how they play the game. Luckily, the game supports all playstyles these days, not just the ones having tons of time.

There's probably multiple definitions of what 'hardcore' means, allowing both our arguments to be valid in some conext. You seem like you are focused on the difficulty of mechanics. You said that the experience was slow, tedious and annoying at times, I think that just adds to difficulty and challenge. For example, I'd say that gathering people to do a dungeon was more difficult / a greater challenge in Vanilla than it is now. And by that, I don't mean that people's mental capabilities were exhausted by pressing a LFG-macro in Vanilla, but that completing the task itself was a bigger hurdle than it is today - thus making it more difficult.

Take a look at the Diablo 3 hardcore mode. If you reduce difficulty and challenge to mechanics, or your ability to defeat monsters, it's essentially the same as the softcore mode. The major inconvenience of this mode, that your characters are lost when you die, is what adds to the difficulty and challenge. Vanilla wasn't difficult mechanic-wise, but it had lots of inconveniences that made the whole leveling experience more difficult to complete than it is today.

I'd also like to correct the 2nd point in @reauxmont post: The quests / quest hubs were not badly designed - they were differently and cleverly designed, and made Azeroth look bigger and gave a player a feeling of being an adventurer. Nowadays zones are like stages in an arcade game - you enter the zone when you've completed the previous one, and leave it when you've done all quests in there never looking back. The 'world effect' is now gone, it's just an action game now.

I think the word I was looking for was "less streamlined", thus more difficult.

[Deleted]

I think 8.0 would be the perfect time to introduce "hardcore servers" don't you think? I'm not talking about hardcore mode like Diablo
- Removal of LFR and Dungeon Queues
- Removal of Crossrealm/virtualization technology
- No server transfer

You've just described the average day of a semi serious WoW player. If you're in a guild, you don't need queues. You can do all content with guildies and don't have to depend on non-guildies, let alone people from other realms.

[Deleted]

I think 8.0 would be the perfect time to introduce "hardcore servers" don't you think? I'm not talking about hardcore mode like Diablo where when you die, your character gets deleted. Just special rule set like:

- Much slower leveling speed (no XP boost, no character boost)
- Removal of LFR and Dungeon Queues
- Removal of Crossrealm/virtualization technology
- No server transfer
etc.

Wow has been drifting more and more into a single player with MMO elements. They need to bring back the core essence of what an MMORPG is supposed to be.

You have no idea about what Hardcore means

[deniter]

Um, no.

Legion has kept leveling zones more relevant beyond leveling through them than any previous iteration of the game.

And "more rewarding", is a subjective point. The "clever design" for questing hubs came way later, Classic's leveling zones were badly planned and unpolished in how they tied together and in story.

If you play the game as an "action game", that's fine and dandy. But I personally feel more part of a world in this expansion than ever before, with every zone remaining relevant even now, so many months after release.

Well, having no pre-written story for players to follow from 1-60 is a pro in my books. What you had was a big world full of stuff going on, which you could figure out if you felt so.

Also, 'every zone remaining relevant' sounds a bit strange to me. Isn't that a no brainer in a game that calls itself WORLD of Warcraft. Unfortunately your statement only applies to Legion content - rest of the world of Azeroth is completely irrelevant and pointless, but i hope that will change at some point.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Well, having no pre-written story for players to follow from 1-60 is a pro in my books. What you had was a big world full of stuff going on, which you could figure out if you felt so.

Also, 'every zone remaining relevant' sounds a bit strange to me. Isn't that a no brainer in a game that calls itself WORLD of Warcraft. Unfortunately your statement only applies to Legion content - rest of the world of Azeroth is completely irrelevant and pointless, but i hope that will change at some point.

It is a no-brainer, but that doesn't change the fact that the tech didn't come along until Legion. Literally no content before Legion had the same relevance at max level, outside of dedicated max level zones/areas.

And "figuring things out" is as much part of the game now as it ever was. Loads of people never look at guides, for example.

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I think the word I was looking for was "less streamlined", thus more difficult.

You're right, I don't consider logistics to be difficult. I was around in Retail before automated tools came along, and there was no "challenge" to putting groups together. It was annoying and time-consuming, but it didn't satisfy my need to tackle content in the slightest.

People calling Classic "hardcore" usually do just that, they confuse logistics with actually demanding gameplay. Even Blizzard themselves have said that the hardest part of raiding back then, was the logistics side.

I think most players wanting the gameplay challenge, would agree that the game's evolved from then. Want to see what hardcore is by today's standards? The world first race-guilds represent that group, and they play at levels that most of us could never accomplish, both in terms of time spent, performance and tackling of mechanical difficulty.