Discover the heart of Azeroth's latest saga as we unpack the 10.2.7 patch, Dark Heart, and its ripple effects across the EU and NA servers. Settle in for a spell at the Pig and Whistle Inn, where I'll guide you through the labyrinth of changes, including the perks EU players are savoring, thanks to an NA bug-squashing session, and the ways World First races are getting reshaped by maintenance schedules. Fancy a walk through the mists? The Mists of Pandaria time walking event beckons with transmog treasures that have been lost to the archives until now. The Harbinger quests are not just another set of tasks; they're your roadmap to the War Within narrative, and I'll point you to where you can feast on free lore-rich comics. As for the Draenei heritage armor, the questlines are as enriching as they are enigmatic, and I'm itching to share my initial impressions.
When was the last time you were whisked away by the charm of an expansion? I'll recount why Cataclysm's distinct flavor might just eclipse the allure of The Burning Crusade and how WoW Classic's less ornate mechanics compare to the intricate dance of contemporary expansions. Nostalgia isn't just about looking back; it's about bringing the past to life. We'll explore why venturing through each expansion is more than a mere trip down memory lane—it's crucial for every new adventurer seeking to carve out their legacy in Azeroth. And as we anticipate the potential for Classic to smooth out the peaks and valleys of content pacing, I'm filled with optimism for the tapestry of stories waiting to be woven in both the retail and Classic realms of World of Warcraft. Join me for a candid journey through the realms we cherish, with insights that will surely enrich your next foray into the world's most storied MMORPG.
Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!
Discover the heart of Azeroth's latest saga as we unpack the 10.2.7 patch, Dark Heart, and its ripple effects across the EU and NA servers. Settle in for a spell at the Pig and Whistle Inn, where I'll guide you through the labyrinth of changes, including the perks EU players are savoring, thanks to an NA bug-squashing session, and the ways World First races are getting reshaped by maintenance schedules. Fancy a walk through the mists? The Mists of Pandaria time walking event beckons with transmog treasures that have been lost to the archives until now. The Harbinger quests are not just another set of tasks; they're your roadmap to the War Within narrative, and I'll point you to where you can feast on free lore-rich comics. As for the Draenei heritage armor, the questlines are as enriching as they are enigmatic, and I'm itching to share my initial impressions.
When was the last time you were whisked away by the charm of an expansion? I'll recount why Cataclysm's distinct flavor might just eclipse the allure of The Burning Crusade and how WoW Classic's less ornate mechanics compare to the intricate dance of contemporary expansions. Nostalgia isn't just about looking back; it's about bringing the past to life. We'll explore why venturing through each expansion is more than a mere trip down memory lane—it's crucial for every new adventurer seeking to carve out their legacy in Azeroth. And as we anticipate the potential for Classic to smooth out the peaks and valleys of content pacing, I'm filled with optimism for the tapestry of stories waiting to be woven in both the retail and Classic realms of World of Warcraft. Join me for a candid journey through the realms we cherish, with insights that will surely enrich your next foray into the world's most storied MMORPG.
Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!
Thank you, hello and welcome to the Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth. As always here at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind, I go through a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft, so grab a bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this midweek episode. We'll be looking at the new what is it? 10.2.7 patch. It has just been released, essentially on EU servers. It's been out for a day or not even a day because of maintenance really for NA, but yeah, we'll be looking at it. What it brings, what is in the future, we'll be looking at cataclysm classic as well. All of them bits and bobs. What I do want to say first actually is, although na get their uh reset day a day early, usually if it's a long maintenance, there is either a lot of bugs or the maintenance is very, very long, like very long it is. It usually says like 3 am to 11 am for eu. I'm not sure what it is for na, but I'm pretty sure it's during the day for them, um, and usually it is around that six, seven, eight hour like maintenance period that it is down for uh, whereas eu we get the exact same patch but all the bugs have been figured out. You know the patch rolls out relatively smoother than, uh, the na side. But yeah, that is just something that I thought about to myself right now and I was like, oh actually, yeah, we don't have it too bad. Uh, it's still quite annoying when you have like to World First and stuff, though, because there is a team that is at a disadvantage essentially, although you can see it as an advantage when, like, oh, you can see what strats these teams are doing and all that, but you're an entire day behind. It's really rough, and especially if it goes into the second week, because the NA teams get more gear essentially. But that's precisely the point. That's precisely the point. I'm going off on a tangent there.
Speaker 1:
So the 10.2.7 patch has just been dropped. It is called Dark Heart. Now, what the Dark Heart patch essentially is is it's setting up the war within. So you have, uh, well, this doesn't set up the war within, but you have missa pandaria and time walking that releases next week. Um, in this patch. It's in the patch essentially, but next week you can check your calendar, it is going to be active and you can delve into that. And what missa pandaria? Time, no, not time walking. Uh, time running pandemonium, uh, pandaria is that the best way to say it? I don't know, it might be um, best way that I can describe it is essentially, you're going back to pandaria, you're going to start a level 10 and you can level through pandaria, and you can do this for a few months. You have certain items that increase your XP gain. You know all of that stuff.
Speaker 1:
But this is purely for transmog. You are more than welcome to get your transmog appearances from Pandaria, and there's even more appearances that you might not have ever seen because they were in the game files but never released in the game itself. So you have different colored weapon models. So different weapon color of swords, bows, axes, maces you know all of that stuff. Different color set armor, which is really really cool as well. So that releases next week and that is going to be ongoing for a few months. If I'm not mistaken, I think it goes on for until at least august. Uh, if I remember the calendar in my own head, um, harbinger quests. Now, what the harbinger quests are are essentially I'm going to try and do this in the most non-spoily way possible but they are the quest that set up the war within. They uh take you towards certain characters that are going to be law specific in the war within and they are very important for setting up, uh, these sort of things. What uh?
Speaker 1:
Blizzard released a short story like a short comic, almost on um a couple characters on illyria and essentially these comics show a lot of lore. You don't have to buy them. You can simply go onto wowhead and you can find where they are on the wowhead website and you download a pdf and you just read it there. It is a short story, sort of a short comic. They are very, very good and I would very much recommend them because they are written really well and they do give you a lot of insight as to what a character is going through and they are very important to what you see in the war within is the best way to describe it without giving many sort of spoilery hints away.
Speaker 1:
Uh, you can, for these harboring requests, get certain transmog appearances as well. Uh, there is one which is really spoily um, so I'm not going to spoil that one, but you can get some void appearances, um, of certain items, you think. I think you get like a purple flail uh, a like voidy offhand. Uh, you even get a manuscript for your drake, uh, to turn it into a void colored drake, which is really really cool and it's one of the best things that you can get there, um, but the best thing is the one thing I can't tell you what you can get because it will spoil um, I would just very much recommend doing it because it is a very cool transmog if you are able to use the mog, poe and Draenei heritage armor.
Speaker 1:
Now, I have yet to do any of the heritage armor. I have yet to see any of the quest lines for this. I don't actually have any Draenei. I know people who do so I'm going to be reaching out to them and seeing if I can watch them do the heritage armor, essentially, um, but I've heard that the quest lines are really really good. I've heard that they are spectacular, to be honest, because all the heritage quest lines usually are. They're all going back over um, old content and content that is very unique to their race, obviously.
Speaker 1:
So with humans, their heritage armour was all based around Onyxia and you know the Defias Brotherhood and stuff like that, and finding out that Onyxia's like the neck piece that you use to get into Onyxia's lair back in Vanilla Well, still had some power and people were being corrupted by it and stuff like that. So you had to go and figure that out with mishafaya shaw and vanessa van cleef and you know. All of that stuff and all of these heritage armor stuff are really, really cool. I would really recommend doing them if you have the races that can do them, such as draenei and troll. This time I think we've had human, we've had gnome, we've had dwarf. Yeah, we've had loads. I think there's more heritage armor than there isn't at the moment, which is really really cool. And again, lore wise it does have a lot of lore tied to them. Um, these like heritage armors quest lines, so very much recommend it. Plus, everyone likes a good MOG set. So you know it is what it is.
Speaker 1:
And there are new holiday events. Now, we obviously don't know anything about this yet, but the holiday events that are happening before the pre-patch, I believe, are the Fire Festival. I think that's the only one, really. Yeah, I believe that's the only one. Hallow's End might be happening in the war within pre-patch, if I'm not mistaken. I think we might be getting it around there. No, halloween would be like during the war within. Yeah, yeah, okay. So I think it is only um midsummer fire festival. We don't know what it entails, we haven't seen much of it. But you know the holiday events have been good so far the Christmas, the Valentine's one, what are the others? The Lunar Festivals you know they've all been very good and very updated to recent times, which is very nice to see, because for those who actually enjoy these sort of little holiday events, it's a nice update for them, as they haven't had any updates since 2004, essentially. So you know it's about time. Essentially, they got looked into Going into what's next. So if you take a look at the roadmap, you can simply do this by typing MWC roadmap.
Speaker 1:
Dark Heart is the very last patch before the pre-patch. Now, season four was before Dark Heart. Season four released two weeks ago. Okay, the Alpha released a week before season four, and Plunderstorm was the patch before that four. And, uh, plunder storm was the patch before that thunderstorm. When did plunder storm release? I think march, yeah, about march time.
Speaker 1:
It's incredible. It's absolutely incredible, um, how quickly we're getting these like patches rolled out. Essentially, it's really close. We are very, very close to the war within pre-patch. Before the war within pre-patch, though, there is the war within beta. Now, alpha is currently at hollow fall. Is it hollow fall? I'm gonna go with hollow. Um, they are currently at that stage within the alpha. When they go to the final zone in the alpha, I think that's when they'll switch it to a beta and in my opinion, we will be getting the beta within the next couple of weeks, maximum next couple of weeks. In my honest opinion, I think that there will be a massive influx into the beta to see what's happening, to see the hero talents, to see as many bugs as we can so that they can get it fixed for the pre-patch.
Speaker 1:
And then finally, the War of In. We are looking at a very early War Within schedule. We are looking at essentially, maybe, july release. In my honest opinion, it should be a July or August release. I'm going to go with the benefit of the doubt and I'm going to go with an early July release. Yeah, I'm putting my money on that. That that's where my money's going. I think that they will want to get it out as early as possible.
Speaker 1:
Um, because it shows the player base kind of what's happening and you know, a good idea of. You know, we really want to make this game better. We're sorry for shadowlands and bfa stuff like that. Um, we want to get it back on that legion sort of you know, content release, uh cycle and uh, yeah, that's where I think we're at in terms of, like, july release. You're gonna have a june pre-patch, like mid to late june pre-patch, I I think it's gonna be amazing because if you have a look at people who have the Alpha right now, it looks quite done. To be honest, it looks very clean in my honest opinion, and I don't think that's far off of being in a beta stage, let alone actually releasing the expansion as a whole. So, who knows, hopefully we'll get to see the war within a bit more in the beta. Hopefully a lot of people get the beta and get sort of um access to it to try, and you know, bug out the game, to try and mess around with certain things.
Speaker 1:
But, who knows, going on to cataclysm. We are currently in the pre-patch event which, by the way, there is no pre-patch event which, by the way, there is no pre-patch event. Did anyone else notice that there's some fire around Azeroth but there isn't actually stuff to do around Azeroth, which is quite funny. They kind of just skipped that pre-patch event, which, okay, fine, I'm not too bothered about it. It would have been nice to have, but Cataclysm will release, as we all know, in a couple weeks' time. As of when this goes out, essentially Is it a couple weeks? Yeah, just under a couple weeks now, I believe. After Cataclysm is released, we have Season of Discovery and then we're looking at very quick succession like raid releases, like every couple months. So it is Rise of Zandalari and then it's Rage of the Firelands and then Season of Discovery has more endgame content updates and then it will be Dragon's Soul. Now they are wanting to complete Cataclysm within a year, within a year, and have Mists of Pandaria come out next year's summer. Essentially, I think we'll be looking at, honestly, a May release when Cataclysm comes out, like may next year, mr pandaria release. I think that's how quickly they'll want to get through cataclysm.
Speaker 1:
Because a lot of people have negative like thoughts on cataclysm. I personally think it's quite enjoyable. I think there's a decent expansion. It's not up there with the best, it's not down there with the worst. I think it's just very different and people don't like the change. That's all it is. I think that Cataclysm is going to be a bigger success than TBC, and that's just my personal opinion. I think that Mists of Pandaria. A lot of people will be coming back for it.
Speaker 1:
Classic at the moment is not what people wanted it to be, because they all wanted to just stay in vanilla forever. Personally, not my type of thing. I think that it's very good that they're going forward with the older expansions. Classic is still there in Classic era servers, which is fine because people can go back to it when they want. I probably will go back to it eventually in like a year or two's time. If the, if the classic era servers are still there, I'll probably go back and level something, because I have a very enjoyable memory of leveling during that time and I like the simplicity of the game.
Speaker 1:
Classic is very much built off of nostalgia, though that's it. Gameplay, mechanics-wise and the fundamentals of the game are not up to scratch, essentially because in raiding you're only pressing one button Crossbow for mages or fireball. If you're fire heroic, strike, cleave, bloodthirst, you're not doing a lot, are you? Sinister strike, eviscerate yeah, it's not really really engaging or fundamentally like perfect, is it? Um so, classic, in my opinion, is built off of nostalgia, but what they are doing with cataclysm and moving forward is building it off of the expansions that have been because people who start late and I will always say this as the argument people who start late in world of warcraft I know people who have started in bfa they never get to experience.
Speaker 1:
You know, legion or missa pandaria or warlords of draenor, no matter how good or bad the expansion was, you still have to experience it yourself in order to know if you enjoyed it or not. Warlords of draenor I enjoyed, but because I was a pvp player, I I didn't care that there was no pve content, but I do in classic pve content. So when warlords of draenor rocks around as classic, there's not going to be that many raids to do pve wise. But the difference is they can squish it. So instead of, you know, waiting eight months for the next raid, we'll only wait like a couple because they just move that one forward a little bit. You know it's that kind of thing, it's not rocket science. Um, they can fix the floor, the massive fundamentals of the game when going through classic.
Speaker 1:
Um, and I think that's what is really good about classic, because everyone gets to experiences. Everyone gets to experience these expansions if you are new to the game and you've heard oh my god, missa pandaria was absolutely amazing. It's one of the best patches or expansions in the game. And you're like, oh okay, well, I'll give missa pandaria a try and you absolutely hate it's one of the best patches or expansions in the game. And you're like, oh okay, well, I'll give mr pandario try and you absolutely hate it. That's fine, but you have your own opinion then of the game, because it's like, I'm not too keen on mr pandario. I can see why people like it, but I'm not too keen. You know that kind of deal. Um, the experience is what counts when it comes to the expansions, and not many people get to have a second chance at experiencing past expansions.
Speaker 1:
Look at any other sort of MMO or any other sort of game actually Any game at all. If they release a DLC, that's great, but you play through the DLC and then you're done. Future DLCs do not go back to that DLC. They don't. They might have bits and bobs from it, like characters or places in the world, but they never go back and revisit it. Classic allows you to do that, which I think is amazing, and it allows people to really get a feel for how the world has been built over these 20 years now. Nearly it's crazy, but that is where we'll end it for this episode. It's looking really promising for retail and classic from like now on. It's really really good. But thank you all very much for listening. As always, do check out all of the socials down below constant stuff happening over there. Thank you all very much once again and go with allah, friend. Goodbye all, thank you.
