A few months back, it was revealed that World of Warcraft Classic is getting an official hardcore mode - where if you die, that's it, you are dead, no rezzing - and now the servers are about to go live.
Blizzard tells us that Classic Hardcore realms are opening on August 24, just a few weeks from now (as PC Gamer spotted).
The company reminds us: "Face Azeroth's dangers in WoW Classic's Hardcore realms and see just how far you can go. You only have one life to live, and the Spirit Healers won't be there to whisper sweet nothings and send you back out into the world of the living when you die."
"Death is permanent, and once you've been bested by the environment (or even other players), you'll need to create a new character to try, try again."
So there you have it. All that pointed out, mind, the death of your character doesn't mean you can't remain in the world to chat with folks. Your ex-character will turn into a ghost so you can still interact with fellow players and have a chinwag, and can do things like turn over leadership of the guild (a post it might be tricky to continue with, being dead and all).
Also, your dead character can be transferred to a regular WoW server, to live again - but they can't ever be on a hardcore server.
The strictness of hardcore mode is not for the faint-hearted, of course, and outside of the official servers, we've seen some pretty eye-opening happenings in this mode. Most notably a player running a long con on a guild and managing to get a main tank role in the Four Horsemen raid - before spectacularly wiping out the raid of max level characters. Is this the worst act of griefing ever? Maybe, just maybe...