>>508767183I can tell you that since I leveled on Hardcore, Fresh and SoD during the holidays.
Hardcore is the closest you can get to the original vanilla experience. The people are mostly nice, they help each other and buff each other. The downside is you can lose your character and the world is absolutely assfull of bots.
SoD on the other hand has surprisingly almost the same experience as Hardcore. There are groups everywhere, there are no dungeon cleave groups, there are event groups, pugs all the time. The economy is not fucked and there are probably 20% of the bots you see on Fresh and Hardcore.
Fresh has been the worst experience by far and I entirely regret jebaiting myself into doing it. Got to 51 and quit and so did my friends who started 2 weeks ahead. Entirely degen, bots everywhere, every quest area is camped, assholes in every single dungeon. Every run has all bis items reserved by an undead rogue who does 100 dps, parsing culture, boosts, bots everywhere. Economy is ruined and you see 3-4 new Edgemasters per day on the AH as well as flying bots and underground gathering bots.
If you wanna have fun I strongly suggest SoD, but if you're after the og vanilla experience as well as the leveling hardcore is your best bet.
