Hardcore Worlds Are Coming On November 4th

Death is super eager to see you tackle the challenges of the world without the comfort of respawning so we thought it was wise to give you a heads up of what to expect when you jump in next month on November 4th.

To begin you'll need to start your journey on Tutorial Island with a fresh character, where you'll find a new inhabitant that goes by Death's Delegate hanging around near the Magic Instructor's house and Paul, the Ironman Tutor. This mini-sized reaper will allow you to access Death's Office straight from Tutorial Island where you will get to speak to Death and accept his challenge in person. Will you be brave enough to face death head on?

Death Rules!

You're now in a very familiar setting, standing outside of Lumbridge Castle with your starter gear in tow just like any brand-new character coming to the main land, but with the fear of death looming over you - no biggie! These worlds will be at the exact same pace as the main game, no XP multipliers, no drop rate modifiers, no boosts of any kind.

But maybe you've never played a Hardcore before, or maybe you've only experienced the usual Hardcore Ironman ruleset, what should you expect? Hardcore worlds will use the Hardcore Group Ironman ruleset for death which is much less forgiving! This ruleset has very few exceptions, which means you should go in with the expectation that 99% of deaths will land you right back in Death's office ready to make a difficult choice.

Here's the full list of UNSAFE activities that are usually safe in Hardcore Ironman:

• Barbarian Assault
• Camelot Training Room
• Chambers of Xeric
• Dream World (during Lunar Diplomacy)
• Fishing Trawler
• Inferno
• Magic Training Arena
• Nightmare Zone
• Pest Control
• PvM Arena
• Random Events
• Rogues' Den
• TzHaar Fight Cave
• Within the Player-owned House (PoH)

That doesn't mean there aren't exceptions though as the following minigames are safe:

• Castle Wars
• Clan Wars
• Soul Wars
• The Fremennik Trials (only the 4th phase of the duel with Koschei the Deathless)
• The Resurrection reward for the TzHaar Fight Caves from the Karamja Elite Diary
• TzHaar Fight Pit
• Zulrah (only the Resurrection reward from the Elite Western Provinces Diary)

Minigames like Bounty Hunter and Last Man Standing will be disabled during the initial release of Hardcore Worlds to not take away from the initial Wilderness hype, but the team are open to enabling them in the future if that is something you would like to see!

Sell Me This Pen

Another interesting factor for Hardcore Worlds is the economy! Usually when we launch something that is separate from the main game we restrict elements like trading and the Grand Exchange, or those worlds have boosted XP rates or drop multipliers. These restrict the economy in their own way - either there simply isn't one due to every character being an Ironman, or it is heavily impacted by only having a finite amount of time to flourish before being removed completely.

That's not the case here, because Hardcore Worlds are a permanent fixture which have the exact same pace as the main game, with the added risk of death affecting and directly deleting items and/or money from the economy when a player dies. It is going to be one of the most interesting and fascinating elements! These worlds are sticking around for the long-term, which means we'll likely see major shifts and changes happen depending on who dies and when.

How much are things going cost, how much money is coming in, is there enough supply of items to meet demand, or will items be far more expensive? There's a real potential due to the risk associated playing on these worlds, 1,000,000 GP feels more like it did in 2007 than in the main game today!

Do You Know The Definition of Insanity?

Let's say you're rushing to complete Dwarf Cannon early and the thought of when you should do the dishes next distracts you, which unfortunately leads to your demise on the sharp fences near Lake Hemenster. What happens?

When you die in a Hardcore World it'll happen in two stages. First, we process death like normal. For most deaths you'll keep 3 items (or 4 if Protect Item is enabled). As for PvP deaths, all of the usual rule within the Wilderness. Then you'll be given a choice: Reset or Transfer.

If you choose to 'Reset' on Hardcore Worlds, EVERYTHING on that character will be reset including those protected items. Your quests? Uncompleted. Your stats? Back to basics. Your items? Finito.

You'll be playing that character as if you've come straight off Tutorial Island once again. You have an unlimited amount of resets, so you won't need to do anything extra in order to start afresh and try to progress further than you did before! The team are currently considering our approach for a few outliers with resets including the coins found at Stronghold of Security and we'll have more to share ahead of release!

If you choose to 'Transfer' to the Main Game, that character will be removed from Hardcore Worlds, with no ability to return. You'll keep your protected items if you had any, along with the items in your bank and anything in all other storages throughout the game. This is only possible as you're using the same save profile that the main game uses, allowing the ability to transfer over upon death if you wish!

Regardless of your choice, the main thing to remember is anything that would usually be sent to your Gravestone will be gone for good! For those of you PKing out there for added risk, death proceeds as normal in the Wilderness so you'll receive the same items you'd usually get in the main game. The Wilderness is even more dangerous than ever before, as you'll be making characters sit permanently.

Beam Me Up, Scotty

With the intensity of Hardcore Worlds being the single most high-risk content we've ever done, we thought it was wise to take a look at one of the most crucial items in a Hardcore's journey: the Escape Crystal.

If you're not familiar with the Escape Crystal, it's an equippable escape option to help prevent unfortunate deaths from happening in the first place, which can activate automatically when there's been no input for a while, essentially helping you out of situations where you might have disconnected or your device crashes! For Hardcore Worlds in particular, every player will be starting with one in their inventory so you'll already be prepared from the get go! But, we also wanted to make some grander changes across both the main game and Hardcore Worlds.

First, we'd like to reduce the price of these essential items from 75,000 down to 10,000 coins, meaning you'll be able to at least grab one after delving into the Stronghold of Security. We still want them to have a cost as otherwise they would be free teleports to your respawn point but the current price is very high and we'd like to make it more accessible.

Secondly, we'd like to allow Death to sell Escape Crystals alongside Rick and the Mysterious Stranger in Ver Sinhaza. With Rick being hidden and the Mysterious Stranger only being accessible later in the game we feel like it was the most thematic and convenient to have Death sell them directly from his office.

Finally, we'd let the Crystals clear poison, burn or any other status effects if activated, as it feels a bit redundant to save you from a potential unfortunate death only to be slapped in the back by poison.

While there may still be instances where unfortunate deaths happen, we feel these changes are important to ensure that Escape Crystals for Hardcores everywhere are more accessible and adaptable than before. If you have any areas you feel the team really need to look at when it comes to making sure they are working as intended, please let us know!

Additionally, these characters will be handled just as we handle Hardcore Irons. That is to say that Player Support will not re-instate hardcore status on an individual basis for any reason. Any issues that arise with mass player impact will have the team take a stance to review the current process and our actions.

The Revolution Will Be Broadcast

We've already talked about how special we think these worlds are going to be, especially when it comes to triumph of those that will achieve world firsts or the heartbreak when one of your fellow challengers perishes. We want to add to these big moments of impact by broadcasting any World First and major deaths across Hardcore Worlds. We'll always look to publish any player that has died over a certain threshold and where possible they will also feature additional details such as how and where they died! World First broadcasts will be one and done and celebrate the moment someone has achieved those feats that should be shouted from the top of White Wolf Mountain!

We'll give you the full list of worlds first you can aim for in Hardcore Worlds at a later date but some examples would include:

• First Completion of The Fractured Archive
• First Completion of the TzHaar Fight Caves
• First Completion of the Grandmaster Combat Achievements
• First Death on Hardcore Worlds

Hardcore Worlds and the players on them have this specialness to them, as you know for a fact that those playing these worlds have only progressed on Hardcore Worlds, meaning you're truly in a world where everyone is against the same odds, at the same pace.

Step Into My Office

With Hardcore Worlds launch, we knew we needed some kind of hub to send players from Tutorial Island to, and a fitting place for if they unfortunately perish and need to make that decision between trying again or moving over to the main game! What better a spot than right at Death's Office!

That means for the first time, Death's Office will become un-instanced on all worlds, allowing you to see other players all huddling around his desk! It's going to be a bustling new hub for anyone wanting to start their journey on Hardcore Worlds, those toying over the decision about going again, or even just an area to join a Clan specifically for HCWs. And, just like you can currently, you'll be able to come back into Death's Office at any time!

Once you're ready to take on Death's Challenge, you may hop over to the Hardcore Worlds where you'll begin your journey to avoid ending up back at his office. Just remember the 5 D's; Dodge, Dip, Duck and Don't Die.

World Switcher Improvements

As we've got another new world type with the release of Hardcore Worlds, we thought there's no better reason to make some much needed improvements to the Worlds Switcher! These changes will look to launch with an engine update towards the end of November but let's take a look at what is actually being changed. First you may have noticed the World Switcher box on the main login screen now lists the type of world it is along with its region for a quick glance at your currently selected world.

We've got a whole bunch of new filters with these improvements to be able to toggle what game modes you want shown, what regions and toggles for members and F2P worlds. For Hardcore Worlds specifically, they will be included under the 'Show game modes' sections as a filter option. You'll also notice that the activities on each are now displayed so you won't need to hover over them to find out what worlds are best for your current grinds!

These changes are also coming to mobile and you'll have all the same new functionality and filters we've listed above!

But don't worry, for those of you on desktop that want something closer to the older version, you can turn on 'compact view' to squish the worlds back down to a familiar size! Your filters and toggles will still apply in this mode so there's no need to do any further tweaking. We still believe that this menu needs some further improvements in the future but this is a first step towards that goal!

That's a wrap for now on Hardcore Worlds! The team are very excited to see you tackle Death's challenge on November 4th and we can't wait to celebrate your victories and commiserate your demise.

You can also discuss this update on the 2007Scape subreddit, the Steam forums, or the official OSRS Discord. For more information, check the official Old School Wiki.

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