Breaking Down WoW Stereotypes : Always blaming retail?

Ever been kicked from a dungeon just for typing "/brb"? Join us as we unravel this common tale and challenge the assumption that elitist behavior in World of Warcraft is exclusive to either retail or classic players. We share personal anecdotes from our adventures in both game versions, demonstrating that speedrunning and high expectations aren't just a retail phenomenon. We also explore the surprising reality that positive interactions can often be more frequent in retail WoW. Along the way, we tackle controversial opinions from the forums, reflecting on critiques of the demon hunter class and the nuances of spell clipping, inviting you to rethink these aspects of your gameplay.

As we journey deeper, discover why the classic version of World of Warcraft continues to hold a cherished spot in players' hearts despite its flaws. We dive into the rich lore, with quests like "The Missing Diplomat" still sparking intrigue. Ever imagined a third faction for certain races? We entertain this whimsical idea while offering candid thoughts on the Shadowlands expansion—from its storytelling missteps to the grind of the PvP gearing process. Join us for a reflection on nostalgia, the evolving landscape of WoW, and why this iconic game remains a beloved adventure for millions.

Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!

Want some 3D printed Merch, find it here!
https://pigandwhistletales.etsy.com

Support the show here:

• https://www.buzzsprout.com/1196870/support
• patreon.com/Pigandwhistle
• https://www.buymeacoffee.com/PigandWhistle

Socials :
Twitch : https://www.twitch.tv/pigandwhistletales
Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAOi6rHO3x90lOmmb82Jv1w
Website : https://www.pigandwhistletales.com/
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/pigandwhistletales/
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/PigAndWhistleTales

Try out Buzzsprout yourself! https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1154066

Listen to the podcast on other platforms:

https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/pig-whistle-tales-from-azeroth-gabriel-nsa902LrQVw/

https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/pig-whistle-tales-from-azeroth-1315927

https://open.spotify.com/show/5ZTkLtQvRSm4PStUfZquWk

https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/3032607

The Music at the start is from Tony Catch they do many amazing cover songs for games you can find the link here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHiF0dAkbpPMtQSwvAxcapQ

Chapters

• 0:45 Debating World of Warcraft Misconceptions
• 12:33 Evaluating World of Warcraft Experiences

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:45

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 for a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft. I go for a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft. I grab a bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this midweek episode. We'll be diving back into the forums and seeing just what's happening, with multiple things and a thread that I think is actually one that I might be coming back to every now and again. But firstly, I do want to say thank you very much for the past uh, a couple slash, few weeks. I know it's been very patchy over the course of the episodes. Uh, a couple of them went out on wrong days as well, and I know that there were a couple of days that were missed. I want to firstly apologize for all of this. I'm very sorry for it. Um, I have been away and before I went away, it was very tough at the time and that's kind of all I want to get into it at the moment. But I do really appreciate you guys still listening to the podcast that were out, and we should be back to normal scheduling from now on. So thank you all very much for tuning in, as always, and let's crack on with this episode. Okay, sound good to you guys. Sounds good.

Speaker 1: 2:16

So first one I want to start off with is uh, kicked for typing slash brb in a dungeon. Okay, now your job is to tell me what world of warcraft is this? Okay, is this retail classic? Or one of the classic era slash season of discovery hardcore? All right. Why is it called, uh, well, the name of the uhy here. Why is it called World of Warcraft if it has the same try hard speedrunner elitists? I typed slash BRB after a few pulls as top DPS and it only took about 30 seconds to come back and I was kicked and got 30 minutes for desertion. I already hate the expansion enough as it is. Why do pugs make it all the more unbearable by expecting you to never have a real life Speedrun and live up to their high standards? Can you guess which one it is? It's Cataclysm.

Speaker 1: 3:22

So I'm going to go back to this very first, very, very first uh sentence. Why is it called cataclysm classic if it has the same try hard, speed runners, elitists from retail? How do you know they're from retail? Okay, retail has mythic players, has pvpers and you know they're very, very good and they do speedrun. When classic came out back in 2019, a group of classic players speedran the game got to level 60, cleared molten core within aten Core within a week OK, within a week of it coming out, and this is meant to be the toughest, like leveling stuff or it will take you so long to level.

Speaker 1: 4:16

Why aren't they the try hard elitists? You know no, why is it always retail players? Very curious about that. Why is it always the retail players? Did you ask them if they played retail or are you just assuming that they did for no apparent reason? You know it makes no sense and this accusation that's the word is complete bullshit. It really really is and I'm sorry to say it, but it really is.

Speaker 1: 4:43

I would argue that I have better interactions with people on retail than I do classic. I really mean that the only people I like and talk to in classic are the people who I play with, like guildies. That's it genuinely. I have yet to have a very good interaction in both classic and Season of discovery and yet I've had quite a few in retail. So you tell me, is it, is it a retail thing, or has it always been a classic thing? Has it always? Always been people who play classic and play vanilla and classic era and season of discovery who are toxic because they care about the community? You know in I forget what the word is for the. You know where you do the thing finger thing, um, yeah, it's never been about the community, is it?

Speaker 1: 5:40

You just like to see people say looking for more? You know dead minds level 15 plus, that's all you like to see. You like to see people say looking for more you know dead minds level 15 plus, that's all you like to see. You like to think and have that like what would it be the idea that people are there because you constantly see it, whereas you, instead, you sign up for a mythic plus in looking for group on retail, you know it's not, oh my god, looking for more mythics like mythic five plus. It's not that anymore, it's. You have a looking for group system.

Speaker 1: 6:13

You sign up, you can put a note, you can whisper them, that kind of deal, all right, but I can guarantee you that these weren't retail players. These are people who play classic and have played classic since 2019, when it was released um, or re-released um, probably a bit before. Like, yes, they play retail and probably have done in the past, but these are the people who would claim that classic is a better version. And, let's face it, they're different. They are different products completely, so you cannot compare the two. Um, yeah, it just isn't elitist from retail, is it? Because it just isn't, and I'll get into why. I think that is very soon because it comes into contention with the next point. So this is a thread that I found super controversial takes only now. Some of these are very trivial, so this one, for example.

Speaker 1: 7:15

I hate clipping and it's the worst thing in the game that is just allowed. Okay, clipping is where you clip a spell. So at the end of a spell, before it's like finished, you stop the cast and start casting something else, kind of deal. You know that's what clipping is essentially. Now there are other ones.

Speaker 1: 7:36

Demon hunter should never have been a class. They took a single character and tried to stretch the concept out enough to fit an entire class, but only wound up with enough ideas for two specs plus. What even is the point of them after legion? Well, the legion isn't finished, the legion isn't dead and it's kind of subdued. It's in a prison, but there are still pockets of demons that roam about. So that's probably their purpose cleaning up that. But ultimately they joined the horde or alliance to help out. You know, clean shit up and protect the world. They want to protect azeroth. That was their whole being, I'm pretty sure. So kind of a controversial take. Yes, um, I would say demon hunters fit legion perfectly and I do agree that they needed more demon hunters, but I think that it isn't as controversial as you think.

Speaker 1: 8:39

The next one uh, you should beat silver proving grounds to do any content with other. I can kind of agree with that. Not if you're doing normal dungeons. If you're doing anything like Mythic Plus and above. I think you would need to prove yourself in the Proving Grounds by doing a gold challenge or something like that. I definitely think so. But normal dungeons, heroics, I think you're fine to do them.

Speaker 1: 9:09

The next one Vanilla is bad. It was bad for its time and it's bad now. Ok, so the kind of three points here Vanilla is bad Genuinely. No, it isn't. Vanilla isn't bad. I enjoyed my time during vanilla to some extent. I enjoyed the leveling, I enjoyed the vibe of vanilla. I enjoyed how big the world felt. It was bad for its time. This is factually incorrect. This is incorrect.

Speaker 1: 9:49

Vanilla came out in 2004. Okay, what other games came out in 2004 that were like world of warcraft? Name any, because there was none. And that's proven, because world of warcraft is still going now. It still stands the test of time because nothing has ever been able to revolutionary, revolutionary, beat world of warcraft in the mmo genre like to this day. You have other ones like final fantasy, guild wars, stuff like that, but it is still the reigning champion of mmos to this day.

Speaker 1: 10:33

So for it to be called bad for its time back in 2004, when you have stuff like mario kart coming out, which is a very simple go-karting game now, don't get me wrong, amazing game, mario kart, but you can see the difference in a mario kart game being made World of Warcraft. There's a massive difference. You had like Nintendo 64s coming out or not coming out, like being sold alongside GameCubes eventually coming out, maybe PS1s, stuff like that. I can't remember what is released in 2004,. But essentially these are the consoles that are around that time period and the games that are on them are bad. They are substantially worse than what world of warcraft was and not bad as in. They were all awful games. I remember like all the mario parties being good. You know all of the like nintendo stuff was actually quite fire back then and you had like tomb raider.

Speaker 1: 11:33

That was good but graphics wise, most of this was non-existent compared to world of warcraft and just the vastness of world of warcraft I mean it literally was revolutionary in the gaming world and not even not even in the gaming world in the like actual, in irl, like real life. World of warcraft has been studied by like multiple things and this is like based on like pandemics, corrupted blood incident and stuff where they literally have studied the game based on um, like a for pandemic reasons, because there was a debuff in the game that spread if you got too close and essentially a hunter dismissed his pet with it, brought it out in a capital city and it just spread throughout the entire game and it was on lockdown for like a couple days. Essentially, well, like world of warcraft and people studied it. It's so cool. And this essentially like World of Warcraft and people studied it. It's so cool.

Speaker 1: 12:33

And this is the impact that World of Warcraft had. And this is back in 2004, 2005, when that happened. So this is how impactful the game was back in its time. You cannot say it was bad for its time. That is just factually incorrect.

Speaker 1: 12:51

Now, the last one, and it's bad now, I would disagree. It still stands the test of time. It's just a more rough test of time. It's a very you look at classic World of Warcraft. It is a beta version of what World of Warcraft has become essentially. You would look at World of warcraft classic and be like this is a like alpha version right of the current game and you're like no, this is how it was. Um, but saying that it isn't bad now it has its own place in everyone's heart.

Speaker 1: 13:30

For me, it's very much play it as and when I want to just chill out and turn my brain off, because it is a turn your brain off sort of world of warcraft. It's not I'm gonna log on to retail, do some arenas, go crazy, do like comming and stuff like that. No, I'm gonna go on wow and I'm gonna turn my brain off and do some quests. You know it's very simple, it's. It's very, very good. So I this is not controversial or this is a controversial take and it's just a completely false one, I'm afraid, because I think it stands the test of time, classic, and I think this person just doesn't really get it. Um, and that's coming from someone who didn't even play the original. I just I I love classic world of warcraft for its rustic aesthetic I don't know is the best way to put it but how it plays like back in 2004 compared to today's world of warcraft. It's that simple.

Speaker 1: 14:33

Nobody cares about the lore. The story is trash. Okay, people literally do care about the lore. There is people on YouTube who literally make a living off of reciting the lore and going through everything, reciting the law and going through everything. And it's a very well-known World of Warcraft YouTuber novel does law and a lot of people listen to his stuff. So people do care about it, I care about it, but I am very guilty of skipping over, like, the quest law and stuff.

Speaker 1: 15:10

And there is a lot of quest lore, because there is a reason you do these sort of things. You know, um, like, there is a reason you're doing these quests. It's to inform, you know, stormwind, that varian's been captured, or you know stuff like that. Um, it's crazy, like, did you know there is a quest in classic called the missing diplomat? Okay, now, what do you think this quest is about. It's a missing diplomat. Did you know that diplomat is the king of stormwind? Did you know that? No, you didn't, because you didn't read the quest text. And that is the whole like thing with classic. Like I'm guilty of not reading the quest text. And this is meant to lead you to alcaz island, where varian rin was being held captive until a certain patch, when they took him out and he just appeared back in wrath of the lich king. Um, but yeah, that is what the missing diplomat quest is. And it just ends at bolvar being like oh well, we'll look into it. You know, cheers, mate, that's it. It ends there.

Speaker 1: 16:13

So, law-wise, it has a massive ramification on what actually is happening within World of Warcraft, but people don't take the time to read it, and I'm one of them. People, I'm very guilty of that and it's very bad. Yeah, it is ridiculous. Now let's see gnomes at. Pandaren and volpera should be moved to a third faction called the unwanted and are permanently flagged for pvp. All the lights can attack them anywhere, anytime, with no penalties or guard actions. If you kill 100 per day for a week, you get a new mythic slot opened in the vault for the week. Okay, okay, this is coming from the male human paladin, so, um, make that what you will. Yeah, make that what you will. Um, outside the story, I really like shadowlands, yeah, no, I. I think that this is a very fair take.

Speaker 1: 17:15

Now, the one thing that the story was a bit meh, I'm not gonna lie. Um, the whole stuff with the jailer is meh. I loved the questing. Um, oddly enough, though, I like the questing story where you went through bastion, you learn that there's an anima drought. Then you go to maldraxxus to say what the fuck's happening? Why are you attacking us? And then it's like, okay, go to ardenweald. And then you, you know, do all the stuff in ardenweald, head to revendreth, find out denathrius is the big bad. And then you're like, oh, okay, that sets up the first raid. You know that kind of deal, but anything after that, and like the jailer, kind of shit, not gonna lie.

Speaker 1: 17:51

The only other thing that was shit gearing gearing for pvp was tedious. I've gone through it so many times in the past on this podcast and that's what ruined shadowlands for me. I absolutely loved the covenants. I loved having the choice between four different abilities well, eight technically because of the covenant ability and I loved the switch up in it. I loved the feel of each covenant. I loved the zones of each covenant. I loved the like anima stuff for each covenant and what you could do with it. I loved all of that. But the gearing was so bad and it made no sense at all for pvp as anyway, I get for pve as, but for pvp it just gave an unfair advantage sometimes and it was shit. It was shit. I'm so sorry. It was so good at points, but yeah it, it really missed the mark. It could have been so much better. It really could have.

Speaker 1: 18:53

The expansion model should be abandoned in favour of a dynamic world that is constantly changing, with a rolling narrative and new challenges arising on a regular basis all around the WoW universe. Isn't that the war within? Because they are doing a. They're not releasing expansions now. Well, they're technically called expansions, but it's like a.

Speaker 1: 19:20

What do you call it when there's three things? Oh no, what do you call it when there's three? A trio? I'm gonna call it a trio, a trio of like films, a trio of um expansions. You know what I mean? Um, but yeah, that's what they're doing for the war within.

Speaker 1: 19:41

If I'm not mistaken, that's um, I don't know, but I think what this guy means is have no expansions, just have shit pop up in the old world and you gotta go deal with it. That's all well. And old world and you've got to go deal with it. That's all well and good. But then you've got random raids happening whenever there's no purpose behind the raid, there's no cool interactions, there's no cool story behind it, there's no nothing behind it. It's just yeah, have a raid, enjoy peace out. See you in a couple of months for a new raid. It's not going to be great fun. Is it out like? See you in a couple months for a new raid? You know it's not going to be great fun, is it?

Speaker 1: 20:21

Um, boe gear should be able to be broken up by engineering formats Kind of like disenchanting, I guess. Um, I guess I quite like that. I think that's a very cool idea, but I think that's what gives enchanting the enchanting value, in my honest opinion. What is this? Jaina has been eating too many panacakes and cheese slices to be wearing those outfits. Her cultirin is starting to show. I mean, just what the fuck Island expeditions were. Great mission tables should have stayed in the game and should have kept it like the first one in wad. Okay, this guy, he's a wow community council member. It shouldn't stay like wad. Because the problem with Warlords of Draenor garrisons was the gold influx from them was substantially through the roof. It was crazy. So, yeah, not a big fan of that. I do like the mission tables sometimes, but not all the time. Yeah, I think that there's a lot here. I'll do one more.

Speaker 1: 21:37

Season of Discovery is superior to retail in pace and genre immersion. Okay, season of Discovery takes spells from later expansions and uses them in classic. Okay, eclipse, wrath of the lich king, star surge, cataclysm uh, what else? Starfall, wrath of the lich king, um, life bloom, wrath of the lich, lifebloom, rathalich King. All of these spells come from later expansions. And as for pace-wise in retail, my brain is through the roof with that one. This guy has not played a single mythic or PVP'd at a decent level at all in retail, you're telling me I I walked into a season of discovery raid a few like a couple weeks ago, couple to a few weeks ago, and I afk'd in my brain so hard that I forgot that I was in a raid.

Speaker 1: 22:50

I genuinely blacked out the entire raid and ended up at the final boss getting some loot. That's how like brain dead you can be. In classic raiding you really can and it it's very stimulating for other people, don't get me wrong. Like the um, like the raiding and stuff, people really enjoy it and that's fair play to you. But for me, turns my brain off and I have to turn my brain off to survive the raid. Yeah, but I have to do the raid to gear to some certain degree. So you know it's a give and take thing for me. But this guy has the worst controversial take because season of discovery is just multiple things from different expansions pushed into classic and the raiding is basically the same. Apart from you have to decurse an extra couple times now in a fight not realistic. In the slightest and worst controversial take. I think that we're going to end it on because that is just awful. It's horrendous that take. It's so, so bad, but we will end it there.

Speaker 1: 23:54

I do want to say a massive thank you all again for being patient the last few weeks. I really do appreciate it. Back to normal scheduling. There is one hell of an episode on Friday. It's based on stuff that has happened in the previous weeks whilst I've been playing Wow, just chilling and stuff. So you're going to want to not miss that one. I'm yeah, I'm going to go in on certain people um with that um, because it's just ridiculous. So someone needs to call these people out, um. But yeah, don't miss that one on Friday again, really surreal. Thank you very much for keeping with it and hopefully I can make it up to you by keep them that episodes rolling out and stuff like that from now on. But thank you all very much for listening, as always, and go avalafriend. Goodbye all Thank you.