Can player behavior really dictate the fate of an entire game economy? Join us at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind as we unpack how individual decisions, from skipping crucial paladin skills to exorbitant wool cloth prices, shape the World of Warcraft landscape. We'll dive into the dynamics of the Classic and Cataclysm expansions, challenging the notion that these changes alone are responsible for dissatisfaction. By examining heated forum debates, we reveal the broader MMO community issues that often get misattributed to specific expansions.
Ever wondered why Cataclysm sparked so much controversy? We tackle the myths head-on, dissecting critiques of its leveling experience and its role in subscription declines. From addressing the notorious 30-minute dungeon ban for vote-kicked players to the rush mentality in Classic dungeons, we cover it all. By the end of this episode, you'll have a clearer understanding of the real factors driving player retention and satisfaction. Don't miss out on these eye-opening insights—stay engaged with our socials for more updates, and thank you for your continued support and enthusiasm!
Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!
Can player behavior really dictate the fate of an entire game economy? Join us at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind as we unpack how individual decisions, from skipping crucial paladin skills to exorbitant wool cloth prices, shape the World of Warcraft landscape. We'll dive into the dynamics of the Classic and Cataclysm expansions, challenging the notion that these changes alone are responsible for dissatisfaction. By examining heated forum debates, we reveal the broader MMO community issues that often get misattributed to specific expansions.
Ever wondered why Cataclysm sparked so much controversy? We tackle the myths head-on, dissecting critiques of its leveling experience and its role in subscription declines. From addressing the notorious 30-minute dungeon ban for vote-kicked players to the rush mentality in Classic dungeons, we cover it all. By the end of this episode, you'll have a clearer understanding of the real factors driving player retention and satisfaction. Don't miss out on these eye-opening insights—stay engaged with our socials for more updates, and thank you for your continued support and enthusiasm!
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. It's us from Hazoroth. As always here at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind, I go for a variety of subjects With regards to World of Warcraft. Tuck up a bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this midweek episode. We'll be going over what is it? Cataclysm that one. And we're going to be looking at some of the forums.
Speaker 1:
Now these posts are a bit of the more well, we'll say they're on the more ranting side of things, and I'm going to be debunking them, basically agreeing, disagreeing, giving my points on the things that they're saying essentially, and calling them out or telling them that they are completely right. So we'll start with the first one, and this one is literally called rank time. Um, quit removing players for silly mistakes. They get 30 minute dungeon bans. Yes, I can understand why this is annoying and I think it's stupid that someone who is vote kicked should get a dungeon ban. But, on the other hand, I kind of understand why, um, there is that there because if you want to vote kick someone the purpose of them to just get into a new dungeon then you can do so. They don't get the ban and they can just essentially go straight into the next dungeon. I understand why it's there, but it is a bit stupid that people that get kicked do get a dungeon ban. In my opinion, I don't think that there's any need for it and I think it is a very it's a bit of an oversight from Blizzard.
Speaker 1:
Why the rush? These are not mythic runs in retail. Classic isn't designed to rush the content. Um, classic is a lot easier than retail dungeons. Wise, you can go through it, you can power through it and do the dungeons very quickly. But sometimes there isn't a rush and you do need to just chill out. Um, not everyone, unless you are in a full group like guild group, but not everyone is on that wavelength. Not everyone wants to rush through the content. So, taking, take a note of your guild that or the group that you're currently in, and essentially um, go off of how they want to play. Right, I get that you want to maybe rush through dungeons, but they might not and you know. It's just a sort of be a bit respectful to it kind of thing. Uh, you want a challenge or hard content? Then go and run high-end mythic pluses in retail if you can. That is, again, hard content isn't tough in any circumstance. Tbc, classic, wrath, they all were pretty much easy content maybe besides like 25 lich king, heroic, um, it's pretty easy.
Speaker 1:
In comparison to retail, kata player base is very toxic. Quit the attitude. I wouldn't just say that this is kata player base, I would say that this is player base that you would see in MMOs. This includes Retail, classic, era, cataclysm, hardcore, wow. You know all of them have their own toxic player base, but this isn't Cataclysm, this is classic player base.
Speaker 1:
Okay, don't get it mixed up. And number four you're ruining the game. I mean nothing I can really digest there because he doesn't specify who wants to. But I do want to address this comment. This is the attitude since TBC, at least what I noticed. All the hard reserve, gbid, gdkp, shit is the perfect environment for this bacteria to grow and since nothing was ever done to stop it, now we have what we have Expect, only to get worse. Okay, firstly, gdkp, g-bid, heart reserve. You know whatever you want to call them or whatever system you don't like isn't the reason, isn't the sole reason for this attitude. And he's saying after TBC, like since TBC, no, straight up. No, I know many people who have never partaked in like GDKPs and they are absolute dickheads. Okay, I've seen so many of them in classic. It's unreal. I could count more people in classic that are dickheads than I can in tbc, wrath and kata combined. Okay, so it's not just a specific expansion thing, it is just a general what would you call it? General sort of group, as it were, or like a general yeah, a general group of people in this genre of WoW. Okay, it's not because of the expansion, it's just because they are the type of people to do it and they are still playing. They've played since classic and are still currently playing in cataclysm. They are still dickheads. Okay, it's not because of a certain expansion. Please stop saying oh my god, because of cataclysm, people have gotten more toxic. Because of wrath, people have gotten more toxic. No, they've always been there and they've always been shits. Okay, it's very simple. Next one is a bit longer, but it goes like this I can see why Blizz lost a lot of subs during Kata. Okay, so by this logic, you would think that you know he's going to give us some cataclysm point of views. You know what he doesn't like about it and stuff.
Speaker 1:
I decided to give Kata a try and thought I'd level a new character from scratch and give it a proper go. Frankly, the leveling experience is so bad compared to pre-Kata world. The moment you hit level 10, everything dies in one shot. You have many DPS abilities on your bar to form a rotation, but it doesn't matter, because everything dies immediately. Okay, one thing that I want to say to this yes, you do have a lot of things and, yes, mobs do die quicker, but in Classic, how many of these abilities did you press in a rotation to kill a mob?
Speaker 1:
As a mage, what would you press? You'd press Frostbolt, and then another Frostbolt, maybe a Frostbolt. Then you'd Nova run away and press Frostbolt, yeah, yeah, you see where I'm going with this. As a warrior, what would you press, rend? Perhaps? You can't do that to the golems in Westfall because they're immune, so all you do is is heroic strike and melee. You know, you see where I'm going with this. I would rather things die in one shot than me have to just press one button for 60 odd levels. Yeah, because that's all you're pressing for 60 levels. And then, guess what? You get to press that button in raids as well, because you get to only press Frostbolt in classic raiding. Yeah, in Molten Core Seems fun, doesn't it Like?
Speaker 1:
I get the appeal of it, but there's two sides to the story, because, yes, you do have buttons in classic as well, but realistically, you're only pressing one button to kill a mob. Like Paladins. What like paladins? What are paladins? Even pressing judgment? That's it. It's crazy. It's crazy.
Speaker 1:
Um, questing feels so tedious and boring. You can only pick up three to four quests at a time. You have to quest the way the game tells you to, rather than questing however you want. You can't jump ahead to higher or lower level quests because questing is so linear and has to be done in a certain way. Literally no freedom on how to play, not to mention you constantly out level zones you're questing in and it feels dissatisfying.
Speaker 1:
Ok, my argument to that's around what? What level was it? It was around level like 40 to 45, anywhere between that. You had very much a scarcity of quests within classic. You could go to tanaris towards the later of them, 40s. So 43, 44, 45. That's fine, was it that? No, no, it wasn't my mistake. I've mistaken that. My leveling was it was around level 45 to 49, I think. I think that's where the scarcities of quests came from. So essentially around these levels.
Speaker 1:
In classic there were very few quests that you hadn't done. Okay, because you would have done Tanaris, you would have done Feathermoon Stronghold in Feralas, you would have done maybe Blasted Lands, maybe the five odd quests that are in there where you just kill mobs, but essentially there were a scarcity of quests. So all you're doing is going around doing these like weird quests. It's like, oh, okay, let me just deliver something to Teldrassil, that's like the entire continent away. Yeah, and that would give you what? Not even a quarter of a bar, and then you had to take it all the way back. And these are like 10 minute flights. So you did 20 minutes of flying just so you could get not even half a bar's worth of level.
Speaker 1:
How is that entertaining? Like there's two different sides to this, like completely. And also I would argue that Cataclysm leveling is a bit easier for the newer player because it is the linear way, because it's okay, you do these quests, you hand them in, you come back, we give you more, this opens up more, you know that kind of thing, whereas it stops people from just jumping from one zone to the other to do like one or two quests. You know that. That's, in my opinion, kind of boring, I'm not gonna lie. Um, all flavor is removed from classes. We went from having cool and fun quests to getting a class quest at level 20 to go into a dungeon, collect some mats and get a blue literally zero flavor.
Speaker 1:
Class quests from before not only gave items but also progress your character's abilities. But that doesn't matter anymore, because all your class abilities are baked into your class with zero effort invested and zero backstory to why you are getting this ability. I kind of agree with him on this one. The bits that he's talking about are priest resurrection, paladin's resurrection maybe you're looking at the hunter sort of roctolar and loctolar quests or the priest's anathema and benediction. Anything like that was really, really cool.
Speaker 1:
The only thing I have to say about it is there were some people back in Classic who had never trained res as a paladin because they just didn't do the quest. They weren't bothered to do the quest. These were primarily retribution paladins. Um, so, yeah, you'd just be standing there waiting for them to res in a dungeon and then they just suddenly go. Oh, I never learned that because I didn't do the quest. Couldn't be asked Like how is that fun? Instead, it's wasting your time, but that's very few and far between.
Speaker 1:
And I do agree with this one. I think class quests were very good, but they couldn't do them because I think it was like too much time it would have taken up. I think that's the reason that Blizzard gave, which is a bit of a shame because Hunter, like Rock Delar and the Priest, anathema and Benediction quests were amazing. I think that they definitely should have done more of them. I could have pushed through one character to level 80 because I know the game will get better once I get there. But honestly, because I know the game will get better once I get there, but honestly, at level 38 I just want to reiterate that 38 I wanted to get some wool to level my first aid a bit to get silk cloth and saw the prices on the auction house 15 gold per stack at the time I had 38 gold on me and I was saving for my epic mount at level 40 and I was like yep, the servers economy is so damaged.
Speaker 1:
It made me feel like I won't be enjoying the end game content with how the community on these servers is on the surface. Um, I exited the game and uninstalled. He uninstalled because of wall cloth. Okay, I just want you to, uh, I just want you guys to take that all in. He uninstalled because of wall cloth prices. Um, look, don't get me wrong 15 gold for a stack of wall cloth is crazy. But the economy will grow as the game grows or as the expansions go on, because a lot of people are good at making gold, um, and obviously the earlier materials are less farmed, so therefore they're going to go up in price.
Speaker 1:
Um, what you can do is obviously level to level 85 and then farm some wall cloth and make your gold back. You know, pretty easy, right, um? But the thing about this is he obviously wanted to give cataclysm a real go. He made it to level 38. Okay, he didn't even make it to halfway to level 85, let alone xp wise to 85. So obviously halfway to 85 is between a 42 and 43. But if you're looking at xp wise, you're probably looking at more like level 70, where you've got to that halfway point, like for xp, you needed. Um, yeah, he didn't get to the Cataclysm zones when he's given Cataclysm a real chance, which is a bit ridiculous. Yeah, maybe I'd try Cata if they did a mop remix fashion for the 80 plus zones.
Speaker 1:
Otherwise, the expansion earned its reputation and it's no wonder Blizz lost so many players during it. They literally axed a large portion of the player base. Please the players who like to rush to max level. Just some thoughts I wanted to get out. If you're really enjoying kata, all the best to you. Personally, I'll stick to era and hardcore plus, um, play some retail every now and again.
Speaker 1:
Now this guy said I just he wanted to rant about. He can see why blizzard's lost subs, why, why did they? What reasons did he give what? Because the economy is bad. The players dictate the economy of the game. That's it. The players do, no one else does I. I don't know. When people go through these sort of things, they don't actually give their reasoning, and I don't get why, because there needs to be some reasoning as to why he's saying like it's bad. All he's saying is that the class quests were bad, which I do agree with, or that there are no class quests, the questing is a bit more linear for those who are newer to the game, which I think is good, and that there is no way that you can do a rotation and you can really do a rotation in classic either. So what's your point? Um, but essentially he has.
Speaker 1:
The main bulk of the argument is that he quit at level 80 or 38 because of some wall cloth being the price that it was. And again, the wall cloth is dictated by the players and the economy on the realm. So it's the players that dictate that, not blizzard or the game itself. The game doesn't go. Okay. Wall cloths now 15 gold, does it?
Speaker 1:
No, it's absolutely ridiculous. Like people need to get facts in on why it's like lost subs, and they just don't in these sort of stupid forum rants and like please make your arguments actual arguments as to why cataclysm isn't great or you know why it might have lost subs or anything along them lines. Don't just say, oh, the wall cloths 15 gold, so I quit and uninstalled. That's not a blizzard problem, that's a player base problem. It's ludicrous to think. But yeah, anyways, that's where I'll end it for this episode. Thank you all very much for listening. Do check out all of the socials down below. Constant stuff happening over there. Um, sorry, if the episodes have been a bit weird in the past, like few ones, I'm going to be back in my original setup, maybe not next episode, but the episodes next week. It should all be back to normal. Thank you all very much once again, and go, valor friend, goodbye all. Thank you.
