Is Cataclysm really to blame for changing the World of Warcraft community for the worse? Join us at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind as we tackle this provocative question head-on. We'll dissect a heated forum post that accuses Cataclysm of fostering negative behaviors like ninja looting and poor gameplay etiquette. But here's the twist: we argue that these issues are part of a broader community problem that has plagued WoW since its inception. Through server-specific management and community discord, we offer solutions that extend beyond pointing fingers at one expansion.
In our next segment, we shift our focus to the larger impact of Cataclysm on WoW, examining why some players believe it marked the game's downturn. By contrasting nostalgic views with the persistent community problems from Classic WoW to Cataclysm, we provide a nuanced perspective that debunks the notion that Cataclysm alone is to blame. We also delve into class balancing and racial imbalances in arena ladders to show that the real issues transcend any single expansion, thereby offering a balanced critique of community complaints.
Finally, we explore the evolution from Wrath of the Lich King to Cataclysm and beyond, highlighting how Cataclysm refined gameplay mechanics and addressed clunky rotations. We discuss polarizing opinions about the changes to the old world and the ongoing debate around dedicated servers for different expansions.
Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!
Is Cataclysm really to blame for changing the World of Warcraft community for the worse? Join us at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind as we tackle this provocative question head-on. We'll dissect a heated forum post that accuses Cataclysm of fostering negative behaviors like ninja looting and poor gameplay etiquette. But here's the twist: we argue that these issues are part of a broader community problem that has plagued WoW since its inception. Through server-specific management and community discord, we offer solutions that extend beyond pointing fingers at one expansion.
In our next segment, we shift our focus to the larger impact of Cataclysm on WoW, examining why some players believe it marked the game's downturn. By contrasting nostalgic views with the persistent community problems from Classic WoW to Cataclysm, we provide a nuanced perspective that debunks the notion that Cataclysm alone is to blame. We also delve into class balancing and racial imbalances in arena ladders to show that the real issues transcend any single expansion, thereby offering a balanced critique of community complaints.
Finally, we explore the evolution from Wrath of the Lich King to Cataclysm and beyond, highlighting how Cataclysm refined gameplay mechanics and addressed clunky rotations. We discuss polarizing opinions about the changes to the old world and the ongoing debate around dedicated servers for different expansions.
Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!
The 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, a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft. The copper bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this midweek episode. We will be looking at a few bits and bobs, but mainly we're going to be focusing around the forums on Cataclysm. Now I know that the day or today as of when this episode goes live is the beta testing for the War Within. I would love to do an episode on it, but I'm not going to be able to do that until Friday for obvious reasons. The beta is not out yet as of when this recording is being done, so I can't give my two cents on the expansion as a whole or anything for that matter. So hopefully I'll be able to have a look more into it on Friday and give you a sort of episode for that. So I thought for this week we may as well, if we're going to be looking at the future of World of Warcraft, like on Friday, we'll be looking at the current iteration and mainly Cataclysm, as that iteration and the forums are always the best play, uh best place to do so. So this one, uh, a lot of them I'm going to disagree with and absolutely slaughter them for their opinions, but you know, someone has to say it because Blizzard won't, and that's a that's a shame, really. So, agree with other posts. It's so clear why the game failed at Cataclysm.
Speaker 1:
I just finished a Grim Batol run and a tank trinket finally dropped. I rolled Need, so did a Rogue. The Rogue won. It's stamina only plus armor proc. When you get hit Utterly useless to a Rogue. I whispered the guy and asked why. He called me a bunch of names, laughed at me and said he did it because he needed the eye level in tbc or vanilla. He he'd have been blacklisted for the entire server.
Speaker 1:
On cataclysm, or retail for that matter, there are no consequences. Okay, there's more to this post, but I'm going to address this first. Firstly, if your server doesn't have a blacklist, then that's your server's problem, because the server that I'm on we have a really good discord and essentially something like this happens you'd post it in a sort of gm post chat and you can get them blacklisted. So that is a server problem. That is nothing to do with cataclysm or retail. Secondly, yes, the item level is needed and that's just one of them.
Speaker 1:
Things just to get you into the initial sort of heroic dungeons, and I think it's shitty. But at the same point, you are not going to be able to get into these dungeons if you essentially allow people to, just you know, if you get no gear. That's the thing. And people want already high level, like geared people to go into the raids. People want four, no three, four, eight item level, when the heroic dungeons need three to nine item level. So there's already. You need to get 20 item levels, like in addition, before people like want to raid with you, which is ridiculous. It is utterly ridiculous because people went into the raids on the night that they were released and cleared them within two hours. Okay, let them within two hours, so you don't need the best geared people to clear these raids. Still, okay, people can still do it, even in like a few bits of heroic gear if that, all right. So it's absolutely crazy.
Speaker 1:
But I do not condone what this rogue is doing. I think it is a massive dick move as well. But people were ninjaing stuff in classic, in tbc, in wrath anyway, so you know you're never going to stop that. People are actively incentivizing to be jerks or incentivized to be jerks. Who wants to play with people like that? It isn't worth it.
Speaker 1:
As someone who played vanilla back in the day and loved the classic reboot from 2019, this is where it's time to get off the train. If you have a guild, awesome. If not, the community is just so terror bad. That's not a word that I've made up, that is the word that he has put here Low damage, don't interrupt, stand in bad and ninja loot. Okay, I will carry on with the post after. People in Classic don't do this. I'm going to agree with him on this. They don't kick, they don't interrupt, they don't do anything. They stand in shit. The ninja loot, but like ninja lootings in every form of world of warcraft it was back in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, all the way through to retail.
Speaker 1:
This isn't just because of cataclysm. So far, he is giving zero reasons as to why it's cataclysm. That is why it failed. This is a gaming problem. This is just a wow problem and a community problem. This isn't a cataclysm problem. So he has addressed nothing. That is essentially a cataclysm problem. All right, he has literally put it here.
Speaker 1:
The community is just terribad I don't know what the hell that word is, firstly, but terribad, it's ridiculous. People were ninjuring in 2019 when Classic got rebooted. People were ninjuring in TBC in Wrath of the Lich King. Like it's crazy, people were dicks in these eras. I can name about 40 people from my Classic guild that were dickheads. It's crazy that people think that you know the reboot of classic, like wow, was some sort of reset on people and how they acted. It wasn't the community. You notice it a lot more in classic because you have to talk to them, and when you notice that the community are dickheads, you're suddenly going to blame the expansion for it. No, that's not how that works. There are dickheads in retail, for sure, but you don't have to communicate with them as much, which means that you can go about your day playing the game and enjoying the content that you want Without having to deal with that shit show of people. So in anything, retail is just better in that regard.
Speaker 1:
But let's carry on. I'm seeing stuff like this more and more, and the only place where I can avoid it is PvP. He has not done enough PvP to experience the toxicity that is in PvP. Okay, he will find out that that is a cesspool of a shit show Like it's way worse. That's not enough to keep me subbed. My sub runs out in two weeks. I don't plan to renew.
Speaker 1:
I missed cataclysm the first time round, so seeing the dungeons was fun, the rest not so much. Take care all. If you're enjoying the expansion, more power to you. I just realized the reason we play was the people we played with and the bonds we formed. No, it isn't it. It literally isn't. I I have played it through classic, through tbc, through wrath, through kata. Okay, classic, I have a downward look on it because of the people that I played with, yes, but tbc I played with the people that I'm still with now and I still enjoy it because I found the people that I enjoy playing the game with. Ok, so the people haven't changed. It's just you haven't found the right people and there is the right people somewhere in this shit show of a game.
Speaker 1:
People will complain about anything that they can in the game, but he has literally stated nothing about why cataclysm is the reason for this. Everyone wants to make cataclysm the scapegoat. I think it's very good. I'm personally really enjoying it. I'm doing a lot of guild content. I'm doing a lot of solo content. Um, I think the bit that ruins it the most at the moment for me is the bots flying around at 3 am when I'm usually online. Um, just chilling doing my herbing and stuff. That's kind of the only bad thing about it, but I expect there to be a bandwave very soon. In my honest opinion, I don't know. He has literally stated nothing as to why the game failed. In his words at Cataclysm. He has simply stated that it is a community problem. And this community problem has been there since classics relaunch. It always has been.
Speaker 1:
People just wanted to, you know, go into the nostalgic point of view of it of, oh my God. Classic WoW was so perfect. It wasn't. It was nowhere near. The PvP was off. The PvE was off, the rotations and like the damaging abilities that you had to use, was absolutely mad. I pressed Frostbolt for the first two entire raids of Classic. How is that not a stupid class concept? It's ridiculous. I didn't use 95% of my spells in Classic unless I was PVPing.
Speaker 1:
But the community were still dickheads. There were still people who were ninja looting. There were still those absolute prats that just spouted random shit and, just you know, were racist or whatever it was racist, homophobic, you know, you name it. They were there, but people just had this nostalgic look on it and turned a blind eye to it because, oh my God, classic is perfect. This is the sort of shit where people need to get out of their own arse and be like this isn't an expansion problem, this is a community problem, and that's the thing. Because Kata isn't going to be looked at as a more nostalgic, um, what is it expansion? People will be like oh, this is where it died, because everyone turns into dickheads. No one just turns into a dickhead after one expansion, do they? They don't suddenly kill the lich king and then stop playing and then, like two weeks later, cataclysm comes out and they've come out like a new person, just like bawling at everyone and shouting and shoving everyone out the way. They don't do that. All right, they are there before cataclysm. Uh, it's, it's crazy. It's crazy that people think that this is the reason.
Speaker 1:
I'll go back over the title again. It's so clear why the game failed at cataclysm. He stated zero things. Why it failed at cataclysm zero. He has stated why the community fail in the game, but it's not because of cataclysm, is it? He says nothing about why, like, maybe the class balancing is not as balanced as it should be and it's an mmo, it never will be. But classic class balancing was never good. Neither was tbc, neither was raf, neither was kata, neither was missa pandaria, neither was warlords of draenor, legion bfa. Shadowlands like shadowlands especially was a shit show. You had four covenants and each you know class had a different covenant ability. Oh my god, it's never been balanced.
Speaker 1:
But if you were to make a claim that the game failed at cataclysm, you'd be like because warriors are super overpowered and priests get one shot by them. All right, it's not a factual statement. I've just made that up on the spot, by the way. It's completely false. But that's what you would go for. You wouldn't be like the community is just dickheads and it's like okay, how is that cataclysm's fault? You see where I'm going with that. You see how it makes no sense. It's actually rubbish. These people just post a rubbish and I know I'm meant to be kind of, you know one sided to it. But some people just need a rocket up their ass sometimes and just to be told this is wrong. You're being stupid. It's completely wrong and there is no factual evidence that you've given to essentially make your statement or base it off of the title. It's absolutely crazy.
Speaker 1:
So after that one, let's move swiftly on this one. It's not that big of a deal but it pisses me off. 95% of the top of the arena ladder is alliance. Something needs to be done about the human racial Proof. And then he does a link. This is just season nine. Imagine how much worse it's going to get in the later raid tiers when more broken trinkets come out.
Speaker 1:
For all the kicking and screaming about how racial imbalance would be the death of TBC Arena, this ended up being extremely extravagant, with a reasonable, even horde slash alliance split in the top of the area Area, I think he means. But arena Arena ladder Alliance had some genuine busted ratios that in some comps were better than Will of the Forsaken In Kata. Absolutely nothing compares to human. It massively outperforms everything. No matter what your comp is. You are outright handicapping yourself picking anything but human. This is a very serious issue that needs fixing immediately. You're telling me in classic world of warcraft this guy has a picture of an orc and he'd never once I went back through all of his posts he never once complained about the orc racial in category or in classic, not once didn't care about it then did he? But the?
Speaker 1:
For those who don't know, the orc racial in classic you had a 25 chance to not get stunned or to resist a stun 25 percent. How crazy is that? Will of the Forsaken you could get out of, like fears. That's essentially what your trinket did. And the thing is, a priest would have different. So classic trinkets only got you out of certain things. So, depending on your race, if you were Will of the Forsaken or if you were a priest or something you would have been able to get out of, say, polymorph Stuns and what else I don't know what else there is or like an Incap, yeah, but Will of the Forsaken would have gotten you out of a fear as well. So you have that extra button. You know, horde racials have been so good for three expansions. Now.
Speaker 1:
Ideally you would want the human racial to be what the human racial is to this day in retail a three minute cooldown and it shares a cooldown with, you know, a normal trinket. Okay, that's like. That's the ideal. But human racial has been shit for the, for classic, tbc and wrath. It wasn't great but it was getting to its potential. But in classic it's just increased stealth detection Great, I mean, what's that for? That's really going to help me? Like, kill a warrior, isn't it Fucking hell? It's ridiculous. Killer warrior, isn't it fucking hell? It's ridiculous. There is no complaining when people are having the easier ride through an expansion. So, orcs, in classic, with just a 25% resist to stun effects, you know, um, I don't know. It just annoys me that people really aren't prepared for it, like this change that happened 14 or years ago. They suddenly are just discovering that. You know, oh, my god, it's super. Well, no shit.
Speaker 1:
Earlier iterations of anything in world of warcraft were op. There were op things in world of warcraft, like in the earlier days. It's just the way that it is. You just got to get over it. Now, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1:
I think that the human racial was the best, probably in Kata, but you obviously still have, you know, dwarf racial that takes away bleed. So if you're against maybe a rogue or a feral druid, you know it's still decent and gives you more armor. So you're a bit tankier against warriors and the melee classes. Um, you have gnomes that are very good at getting out of, like roots with escape artists. That's a very decent one. Wargen, you have the increased speed. Trolls, you have the haste buff. Um, orcs, you have obviously your blood fury. So a little dps cooldown, as well as the racial for like, reduces, stun durations, which is still very good. Will of the Forsaken is always a staple point. Torrents, you just have more versatility. And the War Stomp the War Stomp, do not underestimate, it is still very decent. But I would say, yeah, human racial is one of the best ones, but I mean, horde have always had the better ratios, to be honest, and having this for one expansion isn't going to be the life or death of you, to be honest. But yeah, that is what it is.
Speaker 1:
Moving on to the last one. This one is I don't know. I've not read it yet. I only saw the title and I knew it was going to annoy me. Kata is a big mistake. Shutting down TBC and Wrath is not smart at all. You're seeing plenty of posts asking for TBC. The same will happen with Wrath a couple months into. Kata, firstly, there's a few more lines to this, but I've not seen any TBC posts. If there are any, there are very, very few and far. Between and Wrath, we have just spent eight months in Icecrown Citadel. Eight months Before that we had about six-odd months of Ulduar. Yeah, that's crazy, that's over a year just for two raids. Okay, if that happened in Warlords of Draenor, people were up in like riots about it all right.
Speaker 1:
Now the problem with these older expansions is that they are nostalgic. Okay, they aren't meant to be the endgame of WoW. Sometimes they are. If you've got a good guild and you want to raid with them every week, you know they can be your end game. And if you just want sort of a chilled experience, by all means make it your sort of end game World of Warcraft. But you should be playing these for the nostalgic purposes and then moving on. If you are to stay in these expansions, it will ruin that nostalgia.
Speaker 1:
Look at Classic Era, for example, season of Discovery. It was very good. It's a definitely a different take on it, but it has died. It has completely died and it's a shame. I like the take on season of discovery. I thought it was very, very cool. I think it's going to be kind of a sandbox mode. I think that that's what they should make it into. And, you know, really experiment on seasoned discovery with like loads of different types of abilities that might make it into wow, like in a future iteration. You know that kind of thing, um, potential raids that could have happened in classic. You know all of that like jazz, but it wish we should be there just for a few or several months in these expansions. That's my honest opinion. They are nostalgic and that's what gives them their life fuel, essentially because no one wants to be stuck farming the same herbs, same raids, the same minerals, the the same PvP content, the same gear, you know, for eight months.
Speaker 1:
I'm taking ICC as just a span of this. It's nice to have, but it shouldn't be there forever. This is no longer classic. It's like you're back to square one, alienating the player base. That likes the original trilogy. Guess where these players guess where these people that want to play TBC and Raffle flock to again right, private servers. There's literally Season of Discovery and Classic Era that they can go to. If you like the original trilogy, okay, okay, that's part of the original trilogy, isn't it? Uh, you should have progressed vanilla tbc wrath, while leaving behind one to two servers for their dedicated fans, and focused all your efforts on classic plus. After the lich king, classic should have never progressed to kata, it's the oa and you know it. What's doa? Uh, I can't remember or I can't recall. No wonder you're rushing the timeline. Just a very weird decision that makes no sense at all. Okay, he wants to talk about people who are dedicated fans and, uh, you know, should have gone to classic plus. Season of discovery is classic Plus. Okay, go there if you want to complain about that.
Speaker 1:
Firstly, those people who have started playing World of Warcraft never got to experience these expansions. Allow them to experience these expansions. Okay, like Jesus Christ, stop being so gatekeepy about these expansions. Let people try them and give their own opinions on them. I think a lot of people will enjoy Cataclysm. I certainly will, because the people that I'm with, the people that I play with, I never really experienced Cataclysm because of how old I was, because of, you know, I was just very confused, what I was still doing, like learning the game. I had no idea what was going on. But I feel like I'm going to enjoy Cataclysm.
Speaker 1:
I feel like it's a very good step in what towards, like the players or the classes should be, in my honest opinion, because they still feel very clunky and if you look at the breakdown of damage, like in Wrath of the Lich King, a lot of classes still just only had one damage, breakdown or rotation, and that was, you know, whether it was Frost, dks with Obliterate, or Boomkins with Wrath and Starfire, or Warlocks with Shadow Bowl, affliction Warlocks, I should say, you know, there's many different things that needed ironing out almost, and Cataclysm does that to a very good extent. But allow these people to try the expansion. There are so many players that have not tried wrath of the lich king, cataclysm, missa pandaria, so on, so forth. Why not let them try it and give their honest opinion about it, because I bet you right now that they will enjoy it. I I think a lot more of the population will enjoy it, purely on the basis that it's something different and there isn't a nostalgic about them, about this, and I think a lot of people who hate kata are the. The reason they hate it is because it just changed the old world. I think that's genuinely the reason, and I there's also other reasons in terms of like something bad could have happened, like during that point of time and wow, you could have left your guild in cataclysm, like guild could have disbanded. So you've always got that sort of oh, that's kind of shit like vibe with cataclysm. That's what I know certain people do have. But I honestly think that it's crazy that people just want these tbc and wrath servers. Wrath, I can understand. It's a great expansion. Tbc not as keen about it, and the thing is I think more people would enjoy Cataclysm than enjoy TBC, and that's probably a statement that not a lot of people would like to hear. But I think Cataclysm will be, by the end of it, a more enjoyed expansion than TBC and I would love to see the numbers on who agrees with me on that or who doesn't.
Speaker 1:
But you know it, it's. I don't know. It's crazy that people want this many servers. When do we stop the people? Like, if 10 people wanted a cataclysm server, do you give them a cataclysm server? No, you don't, because it's stupid to do so. You're just splitting the player base even more. Now it's only 10 people, but what if five of them people stop playing? Then suddenly you can't even raid on that server anymore. So it's a dead server. So you can't do anything and you've just got a server up running for five people. It's ridiculous. They can find something else in world of warcraft, retail, season of discovery, classic era, cataclysm. You know, whatever it might be, I don't know. These people just drive me insane and I don't get why they do it. They really don't I.
Speaker 1:
I think it's good that they're going through all of the expansions that people who are newer to world of warcraft never got to experience. The expansions actually do get a like good look at it, like from a first person perspective, rather than just hear shit about it and it's like, oh my god, cataclysm was so bad. That's when the death of wow happened. And it's like why? And then you've got the dumb asses who go oh, it's because of the community, and it's like that community was already there. You've literally not given a reason as to why it was cataclysm that ruined it. You know it all circles back round and it's all stupid.
Speaker 1:
But I think when we go to Mists of Pandaria I'll still be really intrigued. I would still want to do the raiding in Mists of Pandaria with the guild that I'm in like and stuff like that, because I never experienced it I, the guild that I'm in like, and stuff like that, because I never experienced it. I experienced it to a degree, but I remember enjoying Mists of Pandaria and I think I would have enjoyed Cataclysm if I knew how I was actually playing the game back then. But I don't know. People need to get over themselves on the forums because some ideas on here and some posts are stupid. I'm gonna say it. They are stupid, okay. Posts are stupid. I'm going to say they are stupid. Okay, it's one of those things, I don't know. I've got to call it there because it's actually starting to wind me up a bit.
Speaker 1:
But thank you all very much for listening. Do check out all of the social medias down below. Constant stuff happening over there. Thank you all very much once again and go with Val, a friend. Goodbye all again. And go with our friend. Goodbye all, thank you.
