Back to life, back to reality After DDOS attacks, Blizzard rolls back Hardcore WoW deaths for the first time New policy comes as OnlyFangs streaming guild planned to quit over DDOS disruptions. Kyle Orland Mar 25, 2025 12:52 pm | 12 Don't worry, she's just sleeping. Credit: Reddit Don't worry, she's just sleeping. Credit: Reddit Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreWorld of Warcraft Classic's Hardcore mode has set itself apart from the average MMO experience simply by making character death permanent across the entire in-game realm. For years, Blizzard has not allowed any appeals or rollbacks for these Hardcore mode character deaths, even when such deaths came as the direct result of a server disconnection or gameplay bug.Now, Blizzard says it's modifying that policy somewhat in response to a series of "unprecedented distributed-denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks" undertaken "with the singular goal of disrupting players experiences." The World of Warcraft developer says it may now resurrect Classic Hardcore characters "at our sole discretion" when those deaths come "in a mass event which we deem inconsistent with the integrity of the game."RIP OnlyFangs?The high stakes inherent to WoW's Classic Hardcore mode have made it an appealing target for streamers and other online content creators looking to build an audience. Dozens of the most popular Hardcore WoW streamers have been gathering together as part of the OnlyFangs Guild, a group dedicated to the idea that "every decision matters and one mistake can mean the end of a characters journey."In recent weeks, though, many of those OnlyFangs characters' journeys have ended as the result of a series of DDOS attacks that impacted all of World of Warcraft and other Battle.net games. Those attacks seemed suspiciously timed to coincide with major livestreamed OnlyFangs raids and negatively impacted many other players in the process.After weeks of OnlyFangs stream disruptions and character deaths from these server attacks, prominent guild member sodapoppin posted on the guild Discord that "I'd expect OnlyFangs is over... it's a terrible ending IMO, but that's the ending we got." In that same message, sodapoppin said it was clear that "the DDOS attacks are centered on us" and that he couldn't foresee asking guild members to continue streaming given the frequency and long-term consequences of those attacks."I don't feel comfortable dragging people through getting world buffs, flasks, and consumes etc., just to raid with the anxiety and probably the actuality of just being DDOS'd again and dying," sodapoppin wrote.Blizzard to the rescue?Sodapoppin allowed that OnlyFangs might continue "if we get a rollback [of the DDOS-related deaths] or I hear of some solid... DDOS protection" but added that they "don't see that happening." Last night, though, Blizzard surpassed sodapoppin's expectations and changed its Classic Hardcore permadeath policy to specifically deal with situations like this."Recently, we have experienced unprecedented distributed-denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks that impacted many Blizzard game services, including Hardcore realms, with the singular goal of disrupting players experiences," WoW Classic Associate Production Director Clay Stone wrote in a public message. "As we continue our work to further strengthen the resilience of WoW realms and our rapid response time, were taking steps to resurrect player-characters that were lost as a result of these attacks."While Blizzard's general policy on Hardcore mode deaths hasn't changed, Stone writes that the recent deaths due to DDOS are different because they "are an intentionally malicious effort made by third-party bad actors, and we believe the severity and results of DDOS attacks specifically warrant a different response."That's not entirely out of step with Blizzard's longstanding Hardcore Mode policies, which specifically prohibit "deliberate action to hamper or significantly impede the ability of other players to enjoy the game" or "actions to deliberately cause the death of another player." But those policies were designed to punish various forms of in-game griefing, not for an anonymous botnet attacking the game servers themselves.Now that DDOS-related deaths are no longer permanent, the griefers responsible for those attacks will hopefully have less motivation to take out all of Battle.net just to impact one WoW raid. But the appeal of disrupting specific scheduled streams will remain until Blizzard can find some way to protect its servers more effectively.Kyle OrlandSenior Gaming EditorKyle OrlandSenior Gaming Editor Kyle Orland has been the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica since 2012, writing primarily about the business, tech, and culture behind video games. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He once wrote a whole book about Minesweeper. 12 Comments