Hardcore Mode

Brings the official Hardcore realm experience to any non-hardcore realm — complete with permanent death, rulesets, leaderboards, and announcements for everyone to see.

Features

Ruleset System: Fresh characters (level 1, no XP or money earned) can choose a ruleset upon entering the world. Non-fresh characters can also enable the addon, provided they have the Soul of Iron buff to prove they never died, but are locked to Normal. All restrictions are actively enforced, and blocked actions send an automatic whisper to the other player explaining why.
- Normal: No restrictions; trading, the Auction House, mail, and grouping are all allowed.
- Self-Found: Trading, the Auction House, and mailing items are not allowed. Items and gold must be earned on your own.
- Solo Self-Found: Everything in Self-Found, plus no grouping with other players.
Death Tracking & Announcements: Every death is recorded with its cause, area, date, and last words. The addon supports two types of announcements, replicating the official Hardcore realm experience: chat messages and raid-style alerts. Both are configurable independently, and a minimum level threshold can be set to suppress announcements for deaths below a chosen level:
- Guild: Announced only to guild members.
- All: Announced to all same-faction addon users on the realm.
- Disabled: No announcement.
Death Popup: On death, a popup appears with the choice to "Try again!" (to log out) and "Release Spirit" (to become a ghost). Another popup replaces the standard corpse recovery and resurrection prompts — both matching the official Hardcore realm experience.
Players Window: A live leaderboard of all same-faction Hardcore Mode addon users on the realm. Filterable by guild, recently seen, or free-text search, and sortable by any column. Click any player to whisper them, Shift+click to look them up with /who, or right-click for a context menu with options to whisper, invite, copy the character name, or copy the guild name.
Deaths Window: A complete record of all known same-faction deaths on the realm, including cause of death and last words. Filterable by guild or free-text search, and sortable by any column.
Soul of Iron Buff Tracking: On realms where Soul of Iron is available, shows its status for you and other players — whether they have it, have lost it, or are unknown — and notifies you when it's first detected.
Last Words: Your last chat message before dying is saved in the Deaths window and announced in guild chat if you're in one. You can configure which chat channels are monitored for last words.
Character Sheet & Tooltip Integration: Your Hardcore status and ruleset are shown on the character sheet. Hovering over other addon users also shows their Hardcore status in the tooltip.
Level Milestones: Max level achievements are announced to all same-faction addon users on the realm. Every 10 levels, a milestone is also announced in guild chat.
Authentic Hardcore Sounds: Plays sound effects matching the official Hardcore realm experience on death and max level.
Minimap Button: A minimap button for quick access — left-click opens the Players window, right-click opens the Deaths window, Shift+right-click opens Options, and Ctrl+right-click toggles the button's visibility.
Options & Configuration: Configure death announcement scope, death alerts, minimum level threshold for announcements, last words channels, player online/offline alerts, minimap visibility, whisper suppression, and more. Supports AceDB profiles with settings that can be scoped per character, realm, class, race, faction, locale, or shared globally.

Limitations

Addon required on both ends: Players who are not running the addon are completely invisible to the Hardcore Mode network. They will not see death or max-level announcements, cannot help relay messages to others, and their own data will not appear in the Players or Deaths windows.
Protected actions on death: Unlike official Hardcore realms, the addon cannot automatically log you out or transfer your guild leadership when you die — both are protected game functions that addons cannot access. Clicking "Try again!" opens the game menu instead, and guild leadership must be transferred manually.
Not everything can be blocked: The addon tries its best to enforce restrictions on trading, mail, grouping, and the Auction House, but some things simply cannot be blocked — such as the use of items, spells, or abilities that would be off-limits on official Hardcore realms. The honor system applies for what falls outside the addon's reach.