Ever wondered why some World of Warcraft players swear by Classic while others are die-hard Retail fans? This episode promises to enlighten you as we untangle the web of preferences and peculiarities that set these two versions apart. We also kick things off with an update on some recent technical hiccups that will soon be a thing of the past, thanks to our shiny new PC setup. Dive into the latest Blizzard announcements, including the War Within pre-patch and the thrilling addition of Cataclysm: Rise of the Zandalari.
Our forum deep dive takes a quirky turn as we dissect some of the most outlandish reasons why players abandon Classic WoW, like rage-quitting over a single character death. Misconceptions about game mechanics and achievements come under our scrutiny, highlighting the necessity of well-founded arguments in online gaming discourse. We even take a moment to appreciate the nuanced challenges of PvP in both Classic and Retail, shedding light on the skill and strategy required to excel in these environments.
Lastly, we explore the contrasting landscapes of Classic TBC and Retail WoW, particularly in terms of PvP and leveling. From the frustratingly long crowd control in Classic to the rushed, less social atmosphere in Retail, we cover all the bases. Yet, it's not all doom and gloom—there are well-crafted quests and engaging stories that make the journey worthwhile in Retail.
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 World of Warcraft players swear by Classic while others are die-hard Retail fans? This episode promises to enlighten you as we untangle the web of preferences and peculiarities that set these two versions apart. We also kick things off with an update on some recent technical hiccups that will soon be a thing of the past, thanks to our shiny new PC setup. Dive into the latest Blizzard announcements, including the War Within pre-patch and the thrilling addition of Cataclysm: Rise of the Zandalari.
Our forum deep dive takes a quirky turn as we dissect some of the most outlandish reasons why players abandon Classic WoW, like rage-quitting over a single character death. Misconceptions about game mechanics and achievements come under our scrutiny, highlighting the necessity of well-founded arguments in online gaming discourse. We even take a moment to appreciate the nuanced challenges of PvP in both Classic and Retail, shedding light on the skill and strategy required to excel in these environments.
Lastly, we explore the contrasting landscapes of Classic TBC and Retail WoW, particularly in terms of PvP and leveling. From the frustratingly long crowd control in Classic to the rushed, less social atmosphere in Retail, we cover all the bases. Yet, it's not all doom and gloom—there are well-crafted quests and engaging stories that make the journey worthwhile in Retail.
Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!
Music. 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, tip back and enjoy. This episode will be going over a few forum posts and I do want to clarify. The past few episodes obviously have been a bit scuffed, whether it be sound quality or anything along them lines or just the content in general that's being given out, because I know I've been doing a lot of the forum post stuff. This is due to my pc essentially dying and wiping the episodes that I had, um, saved, uh and ready to upload, because I've been away for a couple weeks and my pc just died and yeah. So I've been very much on a scuffed setup, but next week it should be back to normal, whether it be everything sound, content wise, and because I've recently just built my new pc, got it up and running and hopefully it will keep me going for a bit. Um, I do want to say that the content will be a bit different. Um, this is going to be stuff like the actual uh stuff that's being released by blizzard. So you have the war within pre-patch. Next week you have cataclysm rise of the zandalari, you have season of discovery uh, phase four that I've not really covered. I've not covered a lot of it because these have been very much, um, I've had to adapt to my current situation and I'm in the most scuffed setup possible. Um, so I do want to apologize for how they've been the past few weeks. Hopefully they've not been too bad and hopefully they've kept you at least a little bit entertained. That's what I'm hoping for and as of next week the content should be back to normal and going over sort of important subjects in World of Warcraft, like the bits and bobs that I've just mentioned. So apologies, but hopefully it should be back to normal following this episode.
Speaker 1:
So let's start off with the weekly news. Liskanoff, zirconi, elders and Aerostar are your weekly world bosses for the week. Liskanoff and the Vault of the Incarnates is your drainwalking boss for the week, or boss and raid, if you want season four gear. You want to be going to this boss and this raid as it will scale up to the current season. Warlords of Draenor timewalking is your bonus event for the week. This is simply Warlords of Draenor content dungeons and I believe it's blackrock foundry, the raid that you can do on the time walking. I'm could be wrong with that, um, but essentially you get time walking badges and you can use these to buy mounts, pets, reputation mogs, just gear if you need to anything along them lines. It's very much worth it if you're a collector, and it's not too bad to experience some of these older dungeons in different expansions.
Speaker 1:
Classic ashran is your battle or brawl for the week. This is essentially ashran, but classic um. This means that there is no reinforcements at the top of the page. This is very simple um. Reinforcements are there to end the game if it goes on too long. Classic Ashran never had that. So the only win condition is kill the enemy boss, and this can literally go on for days. This can go on for days. I'm pretty sure there is accounts of this going on for days, but I could be wrong with that when it was current content in Warlords of Draenor. I think it's very enjoyable if your pc can handle it. I would definitely recommend giving it a go, especially if you need some honor. It is not a bad shout.
Speaker 1:
Tyrannical, incorporeal and spiteful are your mythic fixes for the week. Tyrannical the bosses and the minions that they spawn have increased health and damage. So bring talents that can accommodate for that. You have Incomporal. The healers need to be dealing with this. This is a very much dispel and a heal. The target to full mechanic Very simple and Spikeful. When you kill a mob, essentially a Spikeful shade will appear from it. These Spikeful shades will fixate on a player and you just simply want to move away from them, kite, cc them. Whatever you might want to do, um, just make sure they aren't hitting you and you're taking damage. That isn't necessary. So where do we begin? We begin on this forum page. We have four currently that I've picked out. One of them is one that I want to get really in depth with. The others are very much sort of, you know, softening, softening us up for it. So fix AV 100% horde win rate, 100% horde win, like it already was for Arathi Basin for other reasons in brackets. Shamans, please fix your game. Already.
Speaker 1:
Av has always been a controversial battleground in Classic. This is because the starting points for both Horde and Alliance are different. Usually the starting points are very much the same. Arathi Basin you're both in your base and every base from your starting point is pretty much the same distance away For Warsong Gulch. You're both in your base. You have the exact same distance to cover, okay, it's the exact same. For altruic valley, the alliance start at the very top of the map, okay, and it's a very long and linear battleground a very, very long length ways is the best way to put it. But horde start a little bit further up from the bottom of the map and this gives a massive advantage. So think of the middle point as this giant field which it literally is in outer oak valley. When alliance get to this giant field, 50 of the way, 50 of the map the horde are already past there and, at the like, past the first tower okay, so they have about a 20% increase like head start. This isn't. This is why our track valley is a 100% horde win rate, as this guy claims.
Speaker 1:
Now, it isn't impossible to lose or to win Outer Oak Valley as alliance, but it requires insane coordination that you do not have. The way people got around this in classic, when it was back in 2019 and people were ranking um, there were alliance or there was a discord server that when you joined an Outer Egg Valley, you simply clicked on the voice channel that allocated to your Outer Egg Valley number. So if you got Outer Egg Valley 5, you would join the voice chat of Outer Egg Valley 5 and then you can communicate, so you would have comms. Now this, obviously, is what Blizzard didn't like, so they scratched the number off of the Outer Egg Valley queue. So you can't do it, but you can always attempt to. You can always go around the voice chats and be like I'm in this battleground with these people. Come and join this channel.
Speaker 1:
It takes a lot more effort, though, and is not as easy to do. Essentially, it's always going to be this in classic, board will always have a very good win rate in outtrack valley. Um, in classic, because of the map play out, it's very shit and it's just one of them things that you kind of have to accept. If you're an alliance player playing um or pvping and you get outtrack valley, there really isn't much that you can do about it, which is the shit part. Um, they would have to move it and they would have to make it so that the horde starting point is at the very bottom of the map, which they won't do in classic. They will not do in classic right. That one's very simple. All right, it's someone who might not understand how the like, why they're winning, but they are okay and it's just shit. It's a poor design from classic point of view.
Speaker 1:
Next one is a brm event. So the brm event is the black rock mountain event that has recently been added to season of discovery, phase four. Now, what this entails is essentially pvp. So after several days of going into black rock mountain, this is the summary I got, with people camping dungeon entrances always one-sided. People wanted to pve. Dungeons can't enter. Nice feature this event. So it essentially enables the entire what is it zone to be pvp enabled.
Speaker 1:
Okay, kind of like the blood moon in uh uh, zandalar or stranglethorn god, um, but essentially everyone is flagged for pvp and what this entails is in blackrock mountain there are a lot of choke points, essentially for classic dungeons. So Blackrock Depths, you have even Molten Core. You have a couple of other dungeons Upper Blackrock Spire, lower Blackrock Spire. All of these dungeons are located within this one place, blackrock Mountain, and they are very much choke point dungeons. So if you want to get to any of these you have to go through a very thin like pathway and now obviously these very thin pathways are tough to get past when you have people putting slow traps down. You have people fearing, you have just people being killed. You have people just killing you.
Speaker 1:
So there's a clip where a hunter essentially stood on the bottom of the chain in black rock mountain and people who are trying to get to black rock depths um, jump into the lava to climb up this like little ramp because it's a shortcut way to get there. I think a lot of people would do it, but when they jump into the lava, this hunter just starts killing them and the hunter never has to move because all he does is trap launcher, the like um ramp. So they are moving slower getting up that ramp because they have no way to get out other than that ramp. They have to trigger the trap to get out, so you're getting trap value and it's permanently up because of, uh, cooldown reductions and stuff that are in Season of Discovery.
Speaker 1:
But yeah, it is a bit ridiculous. I'm not going to lie. I think they did a little bit of an oversight with Blackrock Mountain and how degenerate people can be in this game. So I think they might need to go back and have a look at something where they can opt out of the Blackrock event. I think that you could do something like that, kind of like how they did with the Blood Moon, where they should be allowed to opt out of the event if they are wishing to do so. I think that it's probably one of the best things that they should do and it's kind of an oversight that they didn't add it to begin with. So there's the Black rock event mountain. It seems a bit black rock mountain event. Sorry, it seems a bit. Yeah, they kind of overlooked a very fatal flaw in this. Um.
Speaker 1:
The next one the true authentic wow vanilla experience. All these changes. No one cares about us players or the fans. There's no rules, no parameters. There's no feeling for this game anymore. Now you've got a total anarchy. I don't really know what this guy's like going for, but one of these comments is quite weird.
Speaker 1:
But back in the days players didn't use the world buffs in raids, not even nex. There were no such thing as feral DPS. The shape-shifting was not even invented. Warriors wasn't the highest DPSes. One reason is that they didn't utilize world buffs. Players knew nothing about the game. There were no mage boosters, no Mara, zul'korak, zg, nor Strat Farmers. There were no bots. There were basically no real good add-ons for anything. The number of internet guides were few and there are no YouTube tutorials nor streamers. People played on bad computers with a garbage internet connection. Most people don't even get to clear a single raid. You really want true, authentic WoW Vanillia experience. I kind of understand where he's coming from. The game as a whole has developed as we've developed as players and they've Blizzard have had to build around us essentially, and how degenerate and good we became at the game. Essentially, this is obviously thanks to the hardware obviously improving with PCs, the internet improving etc. And then players just getting more and more experience with the game.
Speaker 1:
People who want vanilla experience will need to understand that they will get nothing in the game. Like, if you want to do a classic experience, classic, classic era, you will not get any updates for that game, or very few. This is because the game as a whole wants to be left in vanilla. People want it to be left in vanilla and people have made it very clear that they wanted it to be left in vanilla. Okay, so you are not going to get any changes and the changes that they do make, such as the guild uh tab in classic era um, I think it's very good, but people complain about it. I don't know why people just complain. Um, it's, it's weird. It's a weird change and it was kind of left field, but it doesn't hurt anyone. It doesn't hurt anyone's gameplay or anything. It's just one of them things.
Speaker 1:
Um, you have to understand that the authentic wild vanilla experience will get nothing updated to it. There won't be any fresh servers, there won't be any different changes apart from the ones that have already come, such as the rank, uh, 14, grind and you know a couple other small bits and bobs. But you are stuck in vanilla. They won't add more content to it. They won't add new regs, they won't add anything like that. That's what season of discovery is for, because people who want to experience vanilla wow can do okay, they simply can do um, but sadly it won't get any more updates and people need to understand that before, like, trying to post about oh my god, you know we've been left, like, because we're not getting any sort of updates and stuff. People wanted this, people wanted vanilla. So you're getting vanilla, um, you're not getting anything extra. Okay, that's what season of discovery is for. That's what, like, classic is for to follow along with the journey that has been had. You know you're, you're stuck there. Okay, it's a sad truth. It's a sad truth, but you're stuck there.
Speaker 1:
Now, this one, this next one I'm very curious about. So this is a question and I haven't read any of the comments yet. So we're going to say classic players, why don't you play retail? This is a genuine question. As a person who enjoys both classic and retail, I'm curious to know why people don't enjoy about retail and why they prefer classic. I would love it if people were able to answer these questions. What things do you find unappealing in retail version of the game? What things do you think are better in classic? What do you like about retail, if anything, and what would need to change for you to consider playing retail? I think these are very good questions and these are like a very simple questions.
Speaker 1:
Now, what I'm expecting to see when I scroll down on this forum post is that either something stupid which is going to be like because I hate it, because it's shit, you know, something that isn't a response. That's always going to happen. I'm expecting to see one detailed uh post and I'm kind of expecting to see one say because retail was like dead, you know, or it's like it isn't as good as Classic, and not give a point. You know I'm expecting them sort of responses. For the first one. I would consider playing Retail. If they kill Malfurion, I would drop Classic. If they kill Bane, like what. Why does that make you not play Retail? You don't play retail because there's a character that is alive in retail. What? And you would stop playing classic if they killed bane bloodhoof, the torrent npc, who is in the second village of the like torrent starting zone, giving out a few quests. That's what you would quit classic for. That makes no sense. That is ridiculous. It's absolutely stupid. So yeah, there's one stupid answer.
Speaker 1:
Um, the next one is everything, everything, achievements, more zones, guild banks, impossible. And now retail. Come to classic, I quit. Okay, so everything, everything. These are the first two. But what things do you find unappealing in the retail version of the game? Everything? What things do you think are better in classic? Everything? What do you like about retail, if anything? Achievements, more zones, guild bank. So it isn't everything, because the guild bank is something that you enjoy, but you said that you find it unappealing because you said everything. What? Why is it unappealing like? This is the reason that people don't take things seriously on the forest, because you don't give explanations.
Speaker 1:
And the fourth one was what do you need to change for it to consider what? What would you uh need to change for it to consider what? What would you uh need to change for you to consider playing retail impossible? And now retail come to classic. I quit, it's clearly a troll, like it's ridiculous. So retail come to classic. It was always going to happen, because classic wow is following world of warcraft, is following wow retail and it's following like the patches and expansions that people have not gotten to experience before, so obviously they're going to follow it. Now this post again is just a troll. It makes no sense and they haven't backed up anything. Now this one.
Speaker 1:
I don't like retail because all your achievements are invalidated every start of the next season. Why bother raiding in the next season when you can just get better stuff with close to zero effort? Why bother raiding if the next season you can get better stuff with close to zero effort? I don't like because of all your achievements are invalidated every start. Wait, this guy's saying every single season, your achievements, not the actual achievements. Your stuff in game that you've earned is invalidated because of the next season. But if you play classic world of warcraft, you go into molten core and then when blackwing lair comes out, surely it's invalidated, right, because Blackwing Lair gear is just better. Then when you like Uncarriage comes out, blackwing Lair gear is like completely negated because Uncarriage gear is better. Same with Naxx Ramos. And then what? It makes no sense. And apparently you can get. Why bother raiding if next season you can get better stuff with close to zero effort. Better stuff, what gear? You mean? Gearing your character, the fundamental part of world of warcraft since its inception back in 2004, like hello? That makes no sense. That's the most ludicrous like response. So the reason that he's saying that you can get better stuff with close to zero effort, you can get stuff with zero effort, like to some degree, but you have to put in the time.
Speaker 1:
Doing Battlegrounds or PvP or Arenas or, you know, raiding Mythic Plus, these things aren't like like zero effort. They take a lot of effort to do. But you know, I guess doing a stratholme dungeon is a lot of effort, right? No, stratholme's simple, just don't arse, pull something and you're fine. Like it's ridiculous. I, it's absolutely ridiculous. That makes no sense as well. Um, this next one came dead after cataclysm only went down from there, especially pvp wise. The spell reset after wad made a pvp brain dead as fuck. Okay, pvp wise, yeah, it went downhill from there.
Speaker 1:
Let me go into classic PvP. I played a mage. Warrior charges me. I blink, warrior berserker stance intercepts me. I frost over him and move away. I start to cast a frost bolt and then Kona cold him to shatter combo. He's basically half health. Now I just simply kite him while casting rank one Frostbolts. What is he meant to do? How is that better PvP than what we currently have in retail? Because in retail it's not a game of like rock paper scissors, it's a chess game. You make this move and I'll make this move. You make that move and I'll make this move. Whereas in read, or whereas in classic rock, let's say, warriors are rock, yeah, mages are paper, yeah, it's that simple. Like paper will be rock if you just use your base class, if you use externals, like free action potions and stuff, you have a little bit more of a chance. But even then, a free action potion on a warrior, you just simply polymorph him for 30 seconds and you wait out the free action potion. It's not that tough, it's not rocket science. Pvp wise has gotten so much better in retail. I have to completely disagree. Pvp wise is so much better in retail than it is.
Speaker 1:
Classic tbc pvp was awful. It was classic. Pvp was fun, but it was awful because you could poly someone up to a minute. Okay, polymorph lasted a minute on a player and then you could re-polymorph them. Like how is that fair? How is that a thing? That shouldn't be a thing? Tbc they added, uh, diminishing returns. Uh, well, diminishing returns were always there, but they added like the actual pvp stuff. So polymorph was only like eight seconds now on a player and stuff like that. But pvp was still very awful in tbc because rogues could just ambush you and then you're dead as a mage. You know it's nothing fun, is it? Whereas there's no outplay to a lot of the sort of cheesier shit that was in the game. It makes no sense. Um, yeah, I don't know. This one is a bit crazy to me. This last one, this is where we'll end it. So whoa, there's a big post. I like this. I like this.
Speaker 1:
I recently picked up retail again after I left it many years ago without buying latest expansion. So my observations are for leveling only and ends at level 60, unappealing. The retail mentality is rush it. Examples world you have 10 to 20 flight points per zone and usually also a handful of portals. This makes the world, which is quite big, feel much smaller and you never meet other players while traveling, because only idiots travel by horse. That's me dungeons. As soon as you enter a dungeon, the tank picks up the targets and runs and keep on running. First, when we're on the boss, he stops and kills stuff. If dps is lagging behind, not his problem. Sometimes tanks just continue past boss because xp gain is better by skipping bosses. Those of us at missing gear gets a long nose instead.
Speaker 1:
What, what kind of game is this? These two points I can kind of agree. I think that they should make the world a bit smaller or bigger sorry with the amount of flight points and reduce them. I think two flight points per zone is probably the maximum. You shouldn't go any more than that, and I hate the mentality of Russia and I hate the fact that people think that this is only retail.
Speaker 1:
This is classic as well. This is classic. There is a classic mentality to rush it. You could take, for example, boosting Zul'Gurub, boosting Zulfurak, boosting Scarlet Monastery, boosting Zul'Gurub, boosting. This is rushing the content to get to max level. It was done in classic and this is the same. You are rushing the game to get to max level. You are not taking the game in stride, but I do agree with his points here.
Speaker 1:
I don't like it when people rush the game as well. I really hate how some quests are added to your quest log by force, for example, the trade post quest or the legendary quest in dalram lizard. Stop it. The classic mentality do you, uh, do what you want in what order you want is gone. I can kind of understand that. The freedom of uh wanting to do it kind of makes sense and is a an appeal to people.
Speaker 1:
There's no social aspect in this game. The fast-paced dungeons leave no chance for making friends and if you enter the dungeon and say hey, you are obviously considered a lunatic. Did he just wasted time like typing that? Um, I, I still say hey. It's still a polite thing to do. And the thing is you can say hey in a dungeon, like in classic, and just get ghosted still. I've had that many times. Uh, leveling is fast.
Speaker 1:
It took me less than 10 hours to level a character up to 60. I've put this as a negative thing, since that is too fast for my taste. I didn't even finish my quest line and again, blizzard automatically added a new quest upon 60, so so I was removed from the Time Walker questline. Yes, if you don't have the current expansion, or even if you do, I think you are forced to go to Shadowlands. I think you're forced to do that, which is a bit of a shit thing. I think you should be allowed to do it, but I think it's more for lore purposes, to get a rundown of what's currently happened within the game. I think that's why they've put that there. I think 10 hours is a bit too short as well. I can see them increasing it, like they should increase how long it takes.
Speaker 1:
But again, retail, um, retail is very much about the end game and not the journey itself. Compared to classics, I can understand the downside to this for people. However, there are definitely good things as well. I really like most of the quest lines with good told stories, often with that feeling that you are achieving something and not just collect 10 stones. I do find that a very fair point. The voice acting in the newer expansions works great.
Speaker 1:
I'm personally in love with talia. Okay, bit weird, but fair enough. I do like her story. You know the daughter of bolvar and you know all of that stuff like being sent off to colterus at a young age because of the like whole scourge invasion or the third war and stuff like that. I'm pretty sure All specs are eligible. At least both Shadow Priests, retro Paladins, boomkins and Arcane Mages are a thing. Yes, the validation of off specs are very good. You know the non-meta specs. I think that's very good. Retail works great for leveling. It feels like reading a book, but you also know that the book will end at some point.
Speaker 1:
I don't see myself raiding in retail. I can't imagine coming from classic raiding with that mindset and speed into retail. Raiding would work, but I haven't tried. I think you should always try to get into the end game content of retail, because that's where the gameplay is meant to be and that's where they forced it to be for the um for retail now. It isn't classic where you can just do to be, and that's where they forced it to be for the um for retail now. It isn't classic where you can just do your quest and that is the main point of the game. I think that you have to do some end game content in retail to give it a full diagnostic, as it were.
Speaker 1:
But that is where I will end it for this episode. I think there's a few good points here. I definitely like the like why do you hate retail? Because you could do another similar question to like that as to why you hate classic and only play retail. In my opinion, it's a lot more classic players shitting on retail than retail players shitting on classic, which I don't get because they're meant to be the less toxic, and all I see is like, oh my god, these retail players coming here and being like shits and stuff, but they're always the one who are criticizing the other. Wow, that's what I see. You know all the go back to retail and you know all of that shit. I don't get it. I really don't. But that is it. I'll end it for this episode.
Speaker 1:
Thank you all very much for listening. Do check out all of the socials down below. Constant stuff happening over there and again I apologise for the last few episodes. Hopefully we should be back up and running within the next week and talking about the current content that is happening in WoW and such as the War Within next week. That would be really good, the pre-patch and stuff. But thank you all very much once again and go like pre-patch and stuff. But thank you all very much once again and go aval. A friend no-transcript.
