Blizzard has shared new development notes for Warcraft Classic Hardcore noting they will be taking the realms offline on July 13 for one week. At the same time they will open a Normal Classic Era PTR realm with level 50 char templates for PvP testing.

(Source)

July 6, 2023
Build 50337

Testing Focus

We will bring the Hardcore PTR realm down on Thursday, July 13. It will then be unavailable for approximately 7 days until July 20.

At the same time, we will open a Normal Classic Era PTR realm with level 60 character templates enabled for PvP testing.

We will publish a full explainer on the revamped Classic Era honor system.

We will also host a “Brawl with the Blues” event on Friday, July 14 at 2:00 p.m. PDT—more details coming soon!

Gameplay Adjustments

The minimum level to earn or grant stacks of the String of Ears buff has been raised to 19 (was 10).

Upon death, any active mail in the player’s mailbox will be deleted when a realm transfer is initiated, and any active auctions will be cancelled and deleted.

Developers’ notes: This was a necessary change to enable dead characters to transfer to a Normal Era realm if they are dead and are unable to retrieve mail or cancel auctions. Please note that the Free Character Move service is not currently testable on PTR. It will function just as it does on live Classic Era servers now when 1.14.4 is released later this Summer.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where a Duel to the Death could be prematurely ended by declining a secondary duel request after the primary duel starts.

Fixed an issue where crowd control such as Frost Nova and Fear would immediately break when the target suffered damage.

Fixed an issue that caused the dungeon save notification to pop up every time a boss is killed within a dungeon.

Fixed various Lua errors associated with the options menu.

Fixed an issue that caused a Lua error to appear when abandoning a quest.

Fixed numerous trainers that were not allowing players to train new skills.

The following issues were also fixed over the past few days via hotfixes:

Being stunned, rooted, or otherwise afflicted by a CC that causes players to lose control of their character will no longer cause a Disconnect.

Abilities such as Cleave and Swipe no longer have infinite range.