Ever wondered why some expansions seem to bring out the worst in players? Or why Classic WoW feels more intense than Retail? This week at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind, we dive into some thought-provoking discussions about the World of Warcraft community and the state of the game. We start by breaking down the latest updates, including where to find world bosses, the current raid for that extra gear, and the mechanics behind this week's Deepwing Dunk brawl. We also tackle the ongoing forum debates, focusing on complaints about increased rudeness during the Cataclysm expansion. I argue that toxic behavior isn't confined to any specific patch—it's a broader issue that affects the entire game.
In our next segment, we explore the intriguing dynamics of WoW Classic versus Retail, pondering why Classic might feel more toxic due to heightened player interaction. We dissect the purpose of WoW Classic, touching on how it replicates the original game's expansions and allows both new and seasoned players to reminisce and enjoy favorite past content. Wrapping up, we share insights on the challenges of testing various classes and features, promising more detailed updates in future episodes. Join us for an in-depth look at these hot topics, and don't forget to connect with us on social media for ongoing discussions and content!
Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!
Ever wondered why some expansions seem to bring out the worst in players? Or why Classic WoW feels more intense than Retail? This week at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind, we dive into some thought-provoking discussions about the World of Warcraft community and the state of the game. We start by breaking down the latest updates, including where to find world bosses, the current raid for that extra gear, and the mechanics behind this week's Deepwing Dunk brawl. We also tackle the ongoing forum debates, focusing on complaints about increased rudeness during the Cataclysm expansion. I argue that toxic behavior isn't confined to any specific patch—it's a broader issue that affects the entire game.
In our next segment, we explore the intriguing dynamics of WoW Classic versus Retail, pondering why Classic might feel more toxic due to heightened player interaction. We dissect the purpose of WoW Classic, touching on how it replicates the original game's expansions and allows both new and seasoned players to reminisce and enjoy favorite past content. Wrapping up, we share insights on the challenges of testing various classes and features, promising more detailed updates in future episodes. Join us for an in-depth look at these hot topics, and don't forget to connect with us on social media for ongoing discussions and content!
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. To grab a bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this episode. We'll be looking at a few different bits and bobs on the forums, as well as going over my thoughts on the beta and where we might stand, you know, speculation on when the War Within might be coming out. All of that bit. All of them bits and bobs. But let's get started with the weekly news. As always, we have strewn run zikali, elders and aerostar as your weekly world bosses. They are located in onaran plains, zaralak caverns and the last one is emerald dream. That's the one the uh awakened raids, as they are this week, are vault of the incarnates, the very first raid from dragonflight. So this is where you want to get your extra pieces of gear or your loot for this week. If you are raiding, as the item level of these items is scaled up, cataclysm time walking is your bonus event for the week. It seems like whenever like something happens, it seems like the like time walking events coincide with releases of stuff. I swear the mop. Time walking coincided with mr pandaria remix as well, or something. It was just really weird timing, or am I just going crazy with that? But cataclysm time walking. You can get uh different reputations with time walking badges, mounts, pets, etc. So have a look, check them out. If you want any, now is the time to do so within this week. Deep wing dunk is your brawl for the week. You essentially have three different uh basketballs, essentially that you have to pick up and take to the enemy base and essentially dunk them into the hoop. Now, this is very simple. You get uh 50 points for a dunk and 25 for throwing it in. Now, this is a very simple game mode. The tough part is actually, you know, managing to get to the base without being overwhelmed. But it's a good little mode. It's certainly different and it's enjoyable, so I would recommend giving it a go.
Speaker 1:
Afflicted, bolstering and Tyrannical are your mythic affixes this week. Afflicted essentially, there are multiple ghosts or spirits that spawn and you want to CC these spirits or just dispel them. Um, trying to think which one is it, it's either cc them or dispel them. Slash, heal them. Um, I'm pretty sure it's the heel one. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's the heel. Slash the spell like 90, sure on that? Um, so your healer if you're a healer, you're going to be on this job I'm afraid you simply just dispel the mobs and they will disappear. Master spell works, you know normal dispel. Or you can top them up to full health and they will disappear. Also, bolstering when a mob dies it will shout giving uh, any other mob within its radius, like a 20 yard range, uh, increased damage and health. Either kill everything really all at the same time, or don't pull too many mobs. And finally, tyrannical. The bosses and the mobs that they summon have increased health and damage. So make sure you bring a talent build that can accommodate for that.
Speaker 1:
So I'll get into the war within stuff a bit later, but I'm feeling a bit you know, I don't know riled up from wednesday's one wednesday's episodes. Um, I'm I'm kind of getting to the point where these forums are just stupid at points. So I'm gonna call them out. I'm not gonna hold back, I'm gonna call some of these things out and again, this is my own point of view. So you might agree with these points of views, but from the way that they've put their case forward, sometimes it just doesn't make sense, if that makes any sense to you guys. So I have to call them out on the stuff and I'll try and be as reasonable as I can. And there are some good points on the forums, but there are a lot of bad points as well. So I'm going to call out the bad points as and when I can and this is where we will start off.
Speaker 1:
So anyone else noticing an uptick of rude players in kata? Yeah, yeah, you see where we're starting with this one, right? Not sure what happened between Wrath of the Lich King and Kata. I'm noticing so many rude people in random dungeon queue Between people needing on everything they can, people cursing and arguing with other players and just overall, just terrible attitudes from players, and usually they're tanks and healers. As a healer, I usually try to tell to the dps just to move out of something if they died without being rude. Okay.
Speaker 1:
So this guy thinks that people, as soon as wrath went into catapree patch, as soon as Wrath went into Kata pre-patch, turned into dickheads. I'm going to tell you that that is not the truth. I said this on the Wednesday episode. People don't just magically spawn in and be dickheads, not after a certain patch has come out. They were always a dickhead. People like to always name drop catter. So the reason that people name drop cataclysm into these sort of things is to try and give it a bad reputation.
Speaker 1:
So, oh my God, there's so many rude people in cataclysm. No, there's just rude people in WoW, that's it Okay. Not in cataclysm, it's. There's just rude people in WoW, that's it Okay. Not in Cataclysm. It's not in Wrath of the Lich King, it's not in TBC. It's not in Mists of Pandaria. It's not in vanilla WoW. It's not in any specific expansion, it's in general. The game has toxic people Like. People need to understand this. It doesn't go from Wrath of the Lich King into Caterpill, pre-patch and then Cataclysm and in that span people have just become absolute, like I don't know cavemen essentially, and lost all mannerisms. It makes no sense. So I can give you examples of this.
Speaker 1:
In Classic, in previous guild, there were a lot of people who disagreed with one another. Okay, I say disagreed, people didn't like certain people. Very simple, it happens. It's a human thing. You don't have to like everyone you meet. It's a normal thing. But it got to the point where during raid there there were shouting competitions. Okay. So this, these people who were shouting and being rude to other people were being dicks, and I suppose there was no you know poster? Why is classic players so rude? You know what? Why is there no post for that know poster? Why is classic players so rude? You know why is there no post for that? Because there are a lot of classic players that were rude and absolute dickheads. There were loads of them. There were loads of people in the guild who were racist, narcissistic, you know, had religious beliefs that varied from others, so they harbored hatred towards them. I have seen all of this in my classic experience, and this was in vanilla classic, ok, 2019, 2020. Ok, this isn't cataclysm. This is vanilla classic, ok.
Speaker 1:
Are you going to tell me that them people didn't exist Because you're simply just saying with the title, they are only appearing in Cataclysm, and that they didn't exist in the previous three expansions? Because they did? I can tell you for a fact they did. And I can tell you for a fact that this statement does not link to cataclysm at all. It just doesn't. He links it to cataclysm because he has a bad outlook on the expansion as a whole, which you are more than allowed to. You are more than allowed to have a bad like outlook on the expansion. Like, by all means, if you don't enjoy cataclysm, don't enjoy it. Okay, that's fair enough. Like I'm not blaming anyone for that. You are more than welcome to your opinion for that, but to I don't know.
Speaker 1:
To class people being dickheads because of the expansion just makes no logical sense, does it? It really really doesn't. You can go back all the way to 2004. Okay, world of warcraft first released and there were people when the honor system first came out, there were people camping like boats and just killing low b players like rogues were just camping lower level players. Are they dickheads? Certainly, if you die to them, you're going to be classing them as a dickhead.
Speaker 1:
So you know where's your, where's your post to say that why are so many people in classic acting this way? But there isn't a post because classic, tbc and wrath are this perfect trinity. You know, classic is just so iconic and so nostalgic that people love it and it's so simple in its design. Tbc was a stepping stone for you know, being a bit more productive with arenas and different reputations and, you know, improving on the spell book and the talents and stuff. Wrath of the lich king was the peak of it, where you had better talents, you had more aoe, you had better rotations. No, that's not true at all. The rotations in classic tbc and wrath were all very simple, let's face it. They are looked through rose tinted goggles as this nostalgic piece, which don't get me wrong. I love classic, I love tbc, I loved wrath. I think they all had their own unique elements to them and I loved playing them.
Speaker 1:
But people were acting this way in these expansions. It's not just cataclysm. People need to stop referring to these types of people only being in this expansion, because it isn't a thing, it really isn't. And then you've got this guy below that puts this Cata isn't a true classic game, just classic in name only. It's basically the very first retail version. I can kind of agree with him here. But at the same time I see elements of retail in wrath of the lich king, but not as much as cataclysm. I do agree with that little From here. Most of the retail features were born, the world landscape completely changed and many quest items and stuff changed or disappeared. Okay, in Wrath of the Lich King, didn't a lot of things change with classic quests, or not? I feel like there are a few bits and bobs that got changed and a lot of classic stuff did get messed with.
Speaker 1:
Naxxramas wasn't even in classic for an expansion. It was in there for one expansion, which is Burning Crusade, and then it moved to Northrend, I don't know, trying to cat out most of the things that were in classic era. Vanilla were there. You could level up at one and enjoy it. I don't know what he means by that, because every level you get now is still an enjoyable level to get. I get that past level 10. You get a talent point for every time and you're getting more and more powerful, but you're still getting more and more powerful. That's the thing and the difference between classic leveling and, say, an expansion leveling. When you level in classic, you are making your very first character, yeah, so you're starting at level one. You know nothing else. Yeah, just your level one.
Speaker 1:
When you go to an expansion, your character is actively getting worse because the max level of the expansion needs different sort of barriers to hit in terms of stats. So to be really powerful at level 60, from classic point of view, you would need a 100 intellect. Okay, this is obviously very, you know, simple, but it's the best way that I can describe it. You need 100 intellect or max level in tbc you need 200 intellect. Okay, that's not too bad, that's double. But as you're going through tbc you know you're still at 100 intellect with your gear. You haven't found any upgrades. When you ding level 61, then you need 110 intellect to be at the most powerful your character is. So you've already lost like 11% to 10% of your power there because you're not at the max like gearing anymore, if that makes sense. So that's where the like leveling stuff comes into it, because you only know of your character getting stronger. It's very tough to see your character getting stronger when you're actively losing damage because you're just not. Your gear doesn't keep up with your level after that. So it's kind of sad, but that's how that effectively works.
Speaker 1:
So now this retail classic game we're playing is attracting a different type of audience, mostly retail tourists. These folks are going to bounce when the war within drops. You're telling me that the people who are complaining and being dicks to certain people who play retail are not the problem. In Classic. You are the problem. You are also the problem. Okay, people come from like. I'm not denying that people come from retail and are dickheads. I'm not denying that, because retail has these players too, but Classic has these players Like. You see that. Do you understand that? You need to understand that in order to see why this is a ridiculous like point of view. To be honest, um, some folks would go back to SOD for season or for phase four, and some will return to private servers for TBC slash RAF versions. Meanwhile era and hardcore still exist and will also continue to peel servers for tbc slash raf versions. Meanwhile era and hardcore still exist and will also continue to peel players away. Good luck.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so his whole point is essentially that it's retail tourists. Again, I have so many examples of people who've only ever played classic being just inhumane and do not understand any sort of empathy or feelings towards another human being. Okay, like it's crazy that people only think that it's retail players that are that have this some sort of notion that they're the only ones who can be ruining classic. No, the classic community ruined classic, the community as a whole. We are a Warcraft community as a whole ruining like wow with retail and like classic GDKPs kind of ruin like classic. Was that a retail thing? I don't think it was, because I think that, you know, classic players made that shit up by themselves. That's a classic community thing. It is what it is.
Speaker 1:
What about, like gear score, gear score kind of ruined Wrath of the Lich King, didn't it? Oh, you need 5K. I saw someone wanting 6K gear score for an Obsidian sanctum run three drakes, 6k gear score. You could do obsidian sanctum, three drakes with less than 5k like gear score. It's absolutely ludicrous, but that's a classic player asking for that.
Speaker 1:
Is that toxic it can be to some people. I don't personally think it is, but some people might take offense to that and be like well, this is fucking stupid, you need to get over yourselves. I personally think they do need to get over themselves, but I'm not too bothered by the idea. I don't think it's toxic in any way. Um, but yeah, the classic community is just as toxic as the retail and I would argue that classic is more toxic because you have to interact with people a bit more. I would argue that to my dying breath, in all honesty. That's the thing. Okay, swiftly moving on.
Speaker 1:
So this one I think I've covered this a bit before as well, but some people do need to hear it essentially, point of Classic If Classic is just following every update from retail. Is there much point in it? I thought it was more the old style plays, but if each expansion is going to be released, it seems kind of dumb to me. Why not create an alternative story, aside from retail, where we players can maintain the play styles that we prefer or something? Okay, that's season of discovery, because you have different play styles that you can technically do there. Secondly, the reason that classic is following the same footprint is because people who have started okay, I'll give you numbers and stuff for this.
Speaker 1:
So you had 15 million players at the peak of world of warcraft, which is end of wrath of this. So you had 15 million players at the peak of World of Warcraft, which is end of Wrath of the Lich King. Okay, 15 million players back in 2008, 2009. How many of them players still play World of Warcraft now? I would argue it's probably less than three mil. Okay, that's the same players. I would argue maybe less than two mil. Okay, I think wow's player base is somewhere around the five. I can't remember exactly. I want to say five to ten mil, but that's a big range. So I want to be more specific probably six to seven mil, and I think I'm kind of being generous there, I'm not gonna lie. So you have two million players that were playing in wrath of the lich king. Yeah, that might or may or may have not experienced classic and tbc. Okay, then you have these four extra million people who have started the game since wrath of the lich king. Okay, they might have started in missa pandaria, might have started in warlords of draenor, battle for azeroth, shadowlands, you know anywhere. Some might have even started in dragonflight.
Speaker 1:
Now, these players never got to experience wrath of the lich king. I did. I experienced it through very young eyes. I didn't remember much of it. I remember killing the Lich King and I killed the Lich King with my guild in like Wrath Classic and that was one of my happiest moments. It really, really was. It was absolutely amazing to do and I will remember that for a very, very long time, which is amazing. Now I have the nostalgic purpose of wrath of the lich king.
Speaker 1:
Other people will have the expansion like version of that. They will be excited to experience wrath of the lich king as wrath of the lich king was, because they they've only heard stuff about wrath of the lich king. As wrath of the lich king was because they. They've only heard stuff about wrath of the lich king. They've only heard that it's a really good expansion or one of the best expansions. They've heard that, you know, cataclysm shit, even though personally I think that it's a very decent expansion at the moment and I think a lot of people are coming to the realization that it wasn't as bad as people think. And that's the thing. It's through rose-tinted goggles where it's like, oh my god, this expansion was awful or this expansion was really good. There is a new, there is loads of new people in wow who never experienced these expansions and we can look at it from a better pc perspective. We have better performing pcs, so we can just do everything that we need to in these expansions. And we can look at it from a better pc perspective. We have better performing pcs, so we can just do everything that we need to in these expansions at the best that we can and see it for how it actually was. For that like year, essentially like back in 2010. It wasn't a bad expansion, was it like all of these different system updates, the different world being revamped? You know, the raids were definitely an upgrade for those that were in wrath of the lich king, tvc and stuff. You know it's absolutely crazy. And that's the purpose of classic to allow the people who are newer at the game to experience these like uh, what are they? Expansions. And it allows people who have played these expansions before to revisit them and maybe give them another shot.
Speaker 1:
Because maybe you didn't like cataclysm? Because now I'm going to use certain examples here. Um, like, your guild disbanded in cataclysm. Okay, you sat through cataclysm without it, without a guild, and the guild before that in wrath of the lich king was very tight-knit. You know, you had fun, you played some games, you did some raiding, and then it just disbanded in cataclysm. How depressing is that. Now you relate that to cataclysm so you just think it's an awful experience. But what if you had a guild this time, like cataclysm? Then suddenly that experience there's a 180. Maybe you enjoyed all of the different like fundamentals of cataclysm, like the valor points, like you know, heroic dungeons, heroic raiding, you know all of that stuff. But you just didn't have a guild to enjoy it with. And that's why you have an outlook that's so negative with cataclysm.
Speaker 1:
But then this time you like have that guild. So it makes it a more positive thing and you actually experience the content within the expansion itself, not just feeling down for yourself because of what's happened. You know there's many different elements to it, but that's the reason classic is going in the way that. It's going to give people the chance to try out the expansion again. That's it. That's all it is. Because why not? Firstly, from a money point of view for blizzard, obviously it's always going to come back to that. But secondly, you have the classic era servers. If people want to test out classic tbc and wrath I know that there is some like want for it. But at the same time there's not enough and you do not want to split your player base even more so with classic.
Speaker 1:
Classic era season of discovery, retail, um, mr pandaria. Classic Era Season of Discovery, retail, mr Pandaria, remix. And then Cataclysm Classic. You have five World of Warcrafts there.
Speaker 1:
It's absolutely crazy and you just can't split it anymore because when do you stop? When do you actually stop? Until everyone complains that there's all of these dead servers? And then people don't want to merge servers and it's like, oh my God, you're having to merge servers because it is so dead. Like what the fuck? Blizzard, just do something good in your game, like that's how it goes. That's how it goes on the forums. That's how it's always gone. We've always seen it. It's crazy, it's stupid, okay. Well, yeah, that's the reason that Classic goes in the direction that it is. That's it really. So the War Within beta I did have a couple of forum pages, but I think that I would rant about them too much. Or some of them are like really deep discussions which I can maybe get into another time, because this one is, um, what's the most neglected class in wow and that's quite tough to like visualize and like discuss. But you know, I'll maybe look at that another time because I that way I can get the data for what is the actual least represented class and stuff.
Speaker 1:
But the War Within beta I've had a good go at the talents On the two classes that I personally play. So my main and then my main alt I have yet to check out my other alt, which is a Mistweaver Monk, and I do really like the resto shaman. I'm really getting into a resto shaman, but there is a lot to learn with resto shaman and I think its skill ceiling is very high for a healer, um. So I probably do need to test that out a bit more. But from the two classes that I've played Boomkin and I think it's Diabolist Warlock Boomkin the Treants are really, really underwhelming. I just I can't. They are so underwhelming and it's really rough to get into them. I've never liked them since, to be honest, tbc, I haven't really liked them. They, yeah, they don't do enough for me in all honesty, and if they randomly moonfire stuff and if that can break cc, that's going to be a massive problem for me in like pvp, because why would I want to actively be breaking cc? It's going to be ridiculous.
Speaker 1:
Now, as for the what is it? Elune's warrior, I much prefer that one because it is constant damage. It's constant, uh, fury of elune, have a fury of elune, have another fury of elon and then, to top it off, you throw a star note, a fury of a loon. That's the usual rotation. Now, the whole purpose of that is through arcane damage and you're constantly getting these fury of a loons with damage and you know these sort of crescent moons when you have full moons and I just personally like that sort of what. Would it be the rp aspect of boomkin more, where you're just calling down beams of light and moons essentially to crush your target? It just sounds a lot cooler, doesn't it then? Put some trees out and they punch a target and throw a moon fire out every now and again? Sounds a lot more interesting, doesn't it it? From an RP perspective anyway. So honestly, boomkin, I'm not too upset.
Speaker 1:
I think the Treants definitely need a little bit of tuning in PvP because pets can be CC'd, they can be stunned, they can be kited, and that's the main problem that I have with them. Yeah, I've just never liked Treants and I give up my Warrior of Elune, which is kind of rough, as I use that to get into an Eclipse in PvP. So, yeah, it's a rough one. It really is a rough one to sort of try out. But the Warrior of Elune, yeah, that one looks like so much fun and at least I've got one. Um, what is it? Hero talent, specialization that I am going to probably very much enjoy in all honesty.
Speaker 1:
As for warlock, diabolist warlock is the only one that I tried and I don't even want to try the other one, purely on the basis that Diabolist Warlock looked so, so fun. It looked amazing. I'm not gonna lie, I'm not a warlock player, I'm. I. I'm someone who alts a warlock, but I heard that I think that warlocks aren't too happy with a lot of things and I don't get why. I would need to look up forums on that and you know, see the warlock sort of discussion about it. But I've heard rumors that warlocks aren't too happy and I don't get why.
Speaker 1:
So essentially, I think the gist of it is like when you get to a certain amount of soul shards spent, like when you get to a certain amount of soul shards spent, you get a proc. That's like summon overlord or summon, you know, a shavara or whatever some sort of demon, and they do different things. Well, I tell you what this overlord when you summon him, he can spam so many chaos bolts. He is just a machine gun and firing out these chaos bolts like they're nothing. But it's crazy to see and it is so satisfying to just be pumping like damage along with him because there's just chaos bolts, chaos bolts, chaos bolts. It's absolutely crazy to see.
Speaker 1:
I had so much fun playing Diabolus to Warlock, like Destro Diabolus to Warlock, that I didn't even want to try the other one. I will try the other one, like eventually, and I'll try Aflark and Demolark and you know everything else, but these are the two that I wanted to test mostly, and I used someone else's account for it because I didn't get the beta. So you know, I quickly nipped on and just helped out. But yeah, it was good fun. I really, really am looking forward to the hero talents. I think it will shake it up quite a bit.
Speaker 1:
As for the beta, they haven't put anything on there yet to test out leveling wise, so or not. When I was like first on there, which was the night that it came out, yeah, the night that all the servers went up there was nothing on there to go and quest with. From what I remember, I think you get a pop up quest. I could be wrong completely, but the map wasn't like up to date, so the new island wasn't there. So I'm not sure if, like, you have to do the quest to discover it or whatever that might be.
Speaker 1:
But yeah, it's looking in pretty decent shape with the hero talents and everything. It's looking in pretty decent shape and I would say we're looking at a j, not a June, a, maybe early July. I would be surprised if they left this till August. I think we're looking at a July release and I think that would be amazing. Now, I think this is the last patch before the actual War Within. No, we get pre-patch, don't we? Yeah, pre-patch. So pre-patch will be probably early July and then late July will be the actual release of the War Within.
Speaker 1:
Honestly, it looks good. It looks so, so good and I'm really going to enjoy the War Within. I'm especially going to enjoy the shake-up in PvP that happens with these hero talents, because for one matchup I might need my treants. For other matchups I'm just going to be an absolute fury of a loon machine essentially is the best way to put it.
Speaker 1:
But yeah, I don't know, it's tough to see and I need to do a bit more testing on it. So sorry, I can't give you too much info on many of the classes and stuff, but I to do a bit more testing on it. So sorry, I can't give you too much info on many of the classes and stuff, but I'll do a bit more testing and come back to you a bit later and I'll keep you updated as and when I can with that. But that is where I will end this week's episode. Thank you all very much for listening. As always, do check out all of the socials down below constant stuff happening over there. But thank you all very much once again and go val a friend, goodbye, thank you.
