WoW Classic Hardcore Players Are Dying In Some Hilariously Embarrassing Ways

World of Warcraft Classic's official Hardcore permadeath servers have been live for around a week now, and the community seems to be having a blast laughing at its own misfortune.

Players have been sharing some of their most unfortunate, or just plain funny, deaths on places like the WoW and WoW Classic subreddits. One poor soul, after having played for dozens of hours to reach level 31 on their Hunter, learned that using the class's iconic feign death ability for its full six minute duration actually kills you for real.

One death in particular attracted quite a crowd and was even highlighted by the official WoW Twitter account--a duel to the death over a rare-quality item, the Belt of Arugal, which drops from the Shadowfang Keep dungeon. A Mage wanting the belt lost a roll for it to a Hunter, after which the Mage declared a Mak'gora using WoW Classic Hardcore's new duel to the death feature. Word quickly spread around the server, and a ring of dozens of onlookers showed up to witness the duel that has quickly become part of WoW history. The mage lost not only the belt in question but also their life.

Others have died in less dramatic ways, like drowning, getting disconnected from the server at the worst time, or sitting too close to a cooking fire and then going AFK. Even some low-level quests, like Princess Must Die in the human starting zone, have claimed plenty of unprepared adventurers. And there's the ever-present threat of Murlocs, which love to swarm players in large packs.

While PvP outside of dueling to the death isn't a common way to die, it's technically still possible. There are certain instances where players can automatically become flagged for PvP, such as being attacked by NPC guards of another faction. That gives players out for blood an opportunity to hunt down unsuspecting players of the opposing faction who might not even be aware they are in danger. One Horde player who committed such a deed said a part of them "almost felt bad" about it but gave a word of warning to others: "Tread carefully in zones with NPCs of the opposite faction."

Blizzard shared official stats on Twitter for how the WoW Classic Hardcore experience has gone so far. More than 360,000 players have died, with Hunters accounting for 32% of all deaths. The average death occurs around level 9, far from the game's level cap of 60. WoW Classic Hardcore's first level 60 character, the Alliance Mage Vitochie, accomplished the feat with around 70 hours played.