Pig & Whistle Tales - A World of Warcraft Podcast

Conundrums and Controversies in WoW is retail really toxic?

• Gabriel • Season 4 • Episode 64

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Ever been barred from a raid despite having the best gear? This week, I share a personal story of frustration with the sometimes absurd expectations within the World of Warcraft community. Even with full pre-raid best-in-slot gear, I faced backlash from another tank in a Molten Core raid who demanded even higher-tier equipment. This encounter sheds light on the puzzling demands of players in a game where cooperation should be the key. Also, join me at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind as I recount the latest happenings in WoW, from taking down the world boss Aggregation of Horror to the CBC time walking bonus event and the exhilarating chaos of the Gravity Lapse brawl.

But that's not all! We venture into the realm of WoW: Cater Classic dungeons with a focus on an unexpected drama during a Throne of the Tides run. Think classic players are the epitome of cooperation? Think again. Our conversation touches on the often-overlooked similarities between classic and retail players, and we dive into the divisive Shadowlands conduit system. Could this system have been a game-changer if not shackled by its time-gated renown mechanic? We explore its potential as a dynamic alternative to current talent systems, pondering how Blizzard might have enhanced gameplay with more engaging and switchable benefits.

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

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Speaker 1:

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 the Grubber Bottle have, and I will be sharing my experiences as to what is happening. So we always start off with the weekly news. As always, the aggregation of horror is your weekly world boss for the week. This is located within the ringing deeps. Cbc time walking is your bonus event for the week. This is simply doing a burning crusade dungeons on your max level characters or any character that you wish to level. Gravity Lapse is your brawl for the week. This is simply Eye of the Storm, and every now and again you get flung up into the air and able to relocate very, very quickly, and Voidbound and Fortitude are your mythic fixes for the week. The Voidbound is essentially um oh, my god, I've forgotten it again. It's in they. Zalatav spawns an emissary that you need to kill. Essentially, it's that simple um, and obviously plus tens that will have uh, tyrannical and zalatav's guile as well. This means that zalatav will betray the players and increase the health and damage of enemies that you are currently in combat with. Very simple. So, with that being said, I'm going to start this very strong, let's say, um, and during my time off I was playing a bit of season of discovery. Season of discovery is very much a comfort WoW kind of, or a very simple WoW for me to turn my brain off and just play and enjoy it. I'm playing a Paladin, I play Tank. This is my second character. My main is obviously a Balanced Druid, as per usual. Now, when I'm playing Season of Discovery, I've done classic leveling a lot and I enjoy it to some degree. I can't do it forever because it will fry my brain. It is so slow, um, but season of discovery has a nice tempo to it, which is very, very good.

Speaker 1:

Now I'm a tank so obviously when I wanted to do dungeons and gear, I would get scrutinized for, you know, not having the best gear ever. Um, I have decent gear, okay, I have like full prebis. Um, I have a couple raid pieces and a couple like epics that you can get via the uh tarnished coin system that they added within season of discovery. This allows you to get a few bits and bobs. Now when in classic, when you are full pre-bis okay, would you say that you are eligible to go into a raid. Yeah, so full pre-bis. What is that? This is your pre-raid best in slot gear for everything. Okay, so you cannot get anything better before going into a raid. Okay, would you say, you are ready to raid.

Speaker 1:

Now I thought, yeah, I'm ready to raid, so I start making a group and or I joined a raid, like a week earlier, as a tank this is when I wasn't full pre-b a group and or I joined a raid, like a week earlier, as a tank this is when I wasn't full pre-biz, by the way, I joined a raid as a tank and it was a molten core heat one, because you don't need any sort of fire resistance for it. Now, this raid was very smooth. It took about an hour, if that, and everything died so quickly. You know, I was perfectly fine tanking it. Um, it was very, very smooth. Essentially, there was no problems at all. Now I got a thunder fury, or not the whole thunder fury, but I got a binding on that character and I thought, okay, that's very cool, I can maybe put some more effort into season of discovery because of this, you know, because why wouldn't I? It's a binding. I can give the community more tanks, like in EU for those that want and stuff.

Speaker 1:

But when I went a week later to do a make my own run for Molten Core hard reserve, the binding that I needed the other one was up for grabs. You know, heat one, I'm full prebis and stuff. You know very simple. We start making it. About a half hour in we get another tank, yeah, and this tank walks up to me in Stormwind as I'm still searching for people and just says equip your tanking gear. And he says it quite a few times. He says it quite a few times and then he just starts linking all of my gear in raid chat and says I'm not boosting this guy, like good luck. And like how does that make sense? I'm full prebis, I have a couple pieces of raid gear now, but this guy wants me to do the easiest Molten Core in raid gear. He wants me to have full raid gear or something before I go into Molten Core. How does that make any sense? It's the most dumbfounding, stupid thing that you can want, essentially. So I messaged him being like you're okay, man, like you know that I'm full pre-bis and I have to have raid gear in order to, or like I need raid gear. Hence why I'm making a raid and he just puts it no, it's going to be too tough for you to tank and it's like brother, I literally tanked it last week in less gear.

Speaker 1:

Classic, classic dungeons and raids are simple to tank. In Season of Discovery it is so easy to tank. Okay, look, I get it. If I'm doing Mythic Queen Ansarac or something in retail, I'm going to need the best gear. I'm going to need a good rundown of the tactics. Molten Core, you decurse, you spread some ads around and you fucking dispel. It's that simple. It really isn't rocket science.

Speaker 1:

But no, this guy really really wanted the other tank to be full raid world buffed pre-bis gear. Well, no, actually, not even pre-bis gear, full raid gear. So I didn't need anything from the raid. But you know, no, no, no, full pre-bis needing gear from raids, that's, that's not good enough. So actively. And this, this is the thing. This isn't the first person I've seen do this in classic. Okay, this is a classic, only problem, really, is it really really is?

Speaker 1:

I've been doing some mythics. I've been doing some retail on or not retail. I've been doing some raiding in retail. I've walked in and done the most damage done tactics perfectly. It's so simple or not so simple, but it's simpler than Molten Core. Molten core, no, tougher than molten core, oh my god, my words, um, and molten core is simpler than retail raids by a long shot. It's so ridiculously like you can't compare the two.

Speaker 1:

So the fact that this is a classic problem that people look at you and be like, yeah, no, you need the gear, and it's like, okay, firstly, how do I get more gear then, if I can't raid because you deem me not geared enough to raid and I literally have full, like prebis. And secondly, like isn't this literally what more people come into raid with than others? Because I walked into my first raid back in classic as a frost mage with greens. I I did no pre-abyss farming, I didn't do anything, still did decent damage. You know, it's that simple season discovery. You have the abilities that carry you all right. You really, really do. It's that simple and let's face it it classic raids aren't tough. They aren't. People want to complain for the sake of complaining and I'm done with it. I.

Speaker 1:

I see a lot of people who go oh my god, these retail players are so toxic. No, no, classic players are the ones who are more toxic. Okay, now, not all classic players and not all retail players. I do want to stress that. But I play classic, retail, season of discovery. I play it all. Okay, my experiences on retail are a lot more beneficial and more productive than they are on classic. Okay, and now the argument might be oh, but that's because you speak to no one on retail. No, you do. You do. I speak to about the same amount of people on retail as I do classic, and classic has about a 60 to 80 percent negative reaction. Okay, with everyone that I speak to in dungeons, raids, whatever it might be, the, the 20, the 40 to 20 percent that are good.

Speaker 1:

Interactions are with guildies. Only, that's, that's as simple as it is now every single. I cannot name you a classic experience that I've enjoyed genuinely. I enjoy the raiding with our guilds, I enjoy that sort of thing, but I cannot name you a randomer who's just simply gone oh my god, that's amazing. Thank you so much for the help. Or like oh my god, how is your day? Or anything like that.

Speaker 1:

But you guys preach about this community, this great community. Ever since classic re-released in 2019, it's not there. It's never been there. Okay, it really hasn't. Don't get me wrong. There are some guilds and people that are good, but I've always stressed this in my episodes when I cover this topic these people aren't the ones that are hired. The people who claim that, oh my God, the classic community is the best, they're the ones who are dickheads. Okay, it's that kind of simple to me, and I would love to be proved wrong. I would love to see everyone you know chat with each other, have a happy interaction, stuff like that. But classic wise, no, I really only get negative interactions in classic With retail, don't get me wrong. Quite a few bad interactions there when it comes to looking for group and stuff, but I don't nearly as much have arguments on retail than I do classic.

Speaker 1:

It's that simple and this can be about anything. This can be about a simple dungeon route in classic, like oh my God, we could have skipped that pack, what are you doing? Tank, you're shit, you know that kind of deal. Whereas retail, if you just don't like something, you just leave, just leave the group. It's still classed as a negative interaction, but you're not having an argument over it and the thing is you can do the same or somewhat similar in classic now with dungeons, because people are from other realms so you can just leave. You don't have to say, oh my god, this guy's shit, this guy's shit, that guy's got no gear. This guy's got no gear, that guy's like pulling before me and you know all of that shit, like it's ridiculous.

Speaker 1:

Um, but yeah, people need to get off their high horse and accept that this whole oh my god, everyone from retail is toxic. People from classic can never be. It's bullshit, it really really is, and you need to accept this and you need to open your eyes and accept this, because you are painting classic as a nostalgic masterpiece, like, yes, it's very good, it's a very good, wow in its own right. But people are toxic in classic. They aren't retail players, they are classic players that are toxic and it just needs to it. It's gone on long enough. People need to be told this shit because they don't. They just think, um, well, that's a retail player, clearly, and it just isn't. Classic players are just as much, if not more, toxic than retail players.

Speaker 1:

And again, I'm not saying retail is flawless. People are toxic in retail, but it's a different kind of toxicity. You just leave, you just leave. You don't argue with them, that's it. You go about your business, um, and I don't know.

Speaker 1:

It's crazy to me, but essentially what this meant was coming back to the Season of Discovery story. I didn't log back onto that paladin for well since, because I just don't find the drive or want to play that paladin or that World of Warcraft anymore. So it's a negative interaction that has caused someone to stop playing that World of Warcraft. Now, don't get me wrong, I will go back and play every now and again. I'll play, play season of discovery, but I won't go on my paladin, I'll go on my druid, I'll go on my druid. So, effectively, season of discovery has lost a player for a certain amount of time and it's lost a tank, and people complain that there's no tanks and healers in the game. And yet these are the negative interactions that have a impact on the world.

Speaker 1:

Feeling like an mmo. Now, don't get me wrong, one person leaving. It's not going to be the end of the world. But what if this other tank you know did the same to 10 other people? Then suddenly you've got 11 people that have left. And what if there's another tank out there that's doing the same? Then you've got another 10 people that have left, or 11 people you know, so on, so forth.

Speaker 1:

So it will slowly diminish and it just it doesn't make it fun because this whole yes, wow, classic has a great community. That's bollocks, that's some bullshit. It doesn't okay, the people who are the loudest are the ones who are the worst in the classic community. You never hear the good, friendly people speak out in classic. That is my honest, honest take on it. Um, it just is.

Speaker 1:

Now, again, I cannot stress that this isn't everyone. Okay, this isn't every single classic player. There are nice players, but ultimately, this whole old retail players are clearly the ones that are being toxic in classic games. No, they aren't. You're just trying to. You're trying to paint a picture that isn't there. Okay, it's classic players that are being toxic in classic. Here's some retail players. I can tell you that much, because retail players will just log off and go and play retail because we enjoy it more. It's that simple. Well, we enjoy it to a certain different degree, but, yeah, it's crazy, it's the people who preach. This is like my classic community and all that shit. No, just no, get over yourself, get over yourselves now. Another one that I wanted to discuss was a simple misunderstanding. I say misunderstanding, but essentially it's people who piss me off. So these people who are, they're very different in the way that they accommodate themselves. Again, this is a classic interaction.

Speaker 1:

We were queuing in Cater Classic. We were doing the new dungeons, we were a healer and a DPS, we were looking to do some of the new currency farm and we get Throne of the Tides. We do the first two bosses very easily and then the tank decides to go left. Okay, now, left leads towards the final boss and the end of the dungeon. But to get more currency, you go right, clear that boss and then at the end of the dungeon you get extra currency from the last boss. So if you were to just do the last boss, you get two. If you were to do the optional boss, you'd get two there and then the last boss would drop five. Then You'd get an extra five currency. Very good.

Speaker 1:

Now the tank simply didn't understand and we said can we do the optional boss? It gives more currency. And he simply went I don't have the time. Okay, firstly, if you don't have the time, why sign up for the dungeon anyway? Secondly, we literally could have killed the boss by the time that this guy was complaining and thirdly, he was the one who ended up getting kicked after everything. So, firstly, he cleared everything, started the boss encounter, like the last boss, with the other two dps, and the other two dps were saying that like, oh, let's go back and do the other like boss or something like let's go do the optional boss, um, but they still follow the tank for some, for whatever reason.

Speaker 1:

Now the tank started the final boss, so it's just three of them in there I mean the healer, just chilling really and there's a vote to kick. They wanted to vote to kick the healer. Uh, that didn't go through, so we voted to kick the tank and simply just put didn't have the time while they're clearing this last boss. Now it passed, so the tank was kicked out of the dungeon group, which amazing, because he's basically holding it hostage. We got another tank. We killed the optional boss, killed the main boss. That was it, very simple.

Speaker 1:

Now what I don't understand firstly, why queue when you don't have the time? Why hold a group hostage when everyone else in the group wants to do the optional boss for the currency? Like it just makes no sense, it is ludicrous. And again, this is a classic interaction. It was a negative interaction and it's just not needed.

Speaker 1:

But again, are people going to say, oh, this was a retail player? Then no, it wasn't. It was a full classic player. You could tell it was a classic player because all they played was classic. It was ludicrous. We looked it up, we literally looked it up. They'd never been playing retail for like since bfa, like since classic came out.

Speaker 1:

So you tell me if that's a retail player or not, but I'm pretty sure it isn't. It's ridiculous, the, the whole thought process behind it. That's got to be a retail player like. That's got to be. No, it isn't. It's just your ego and nostalgia thinking that everyone within classic is perfect and they're not. So get over it. And that's all I need to say about this anymore, because it is ludicrous that this is a point of contention in the world of warcraft community and classic players need their eyes opening to it, because retail players are more chill than classic players. That's it. That's the reality of it. But you think that classic is a perfect haven and retail players ruin it. Don't get me wrong. Some retail players can ruin it, because some retail players go into classic and just want to moan, complain and stuff, but a majority of the time classic players are the ones that cause the most ag and sort of frustration within the game. That's as simple as it is.

Speaker 1:

Now, with them, two points out of the way, I want to get back and finish. The final thing I wanted to get done, and that is the controversial takes only on the forums. I said that I'll be revisiting this constantly and I want to find some of the better ones now. This one, I think, is a very good and contentious point. Number one Shadowlands conduit system was a great system.

Speaker 1:

It's a better system than this hero talent garbage we have, and it should have been an evergreen system. Now the conduit system wasn't bad at all. The problem arose with the conduit system that you needed renown to unlock it. Now renown was a ball lake to unlock because it was time gated. If you missed a week you were just always behind. There was no catch up for about a year and a half to like catch up your renown. So these were the problems with it and I enjoyed the conduit system. You could choose between three different nodes a finesse node, a damage node and a defensive node, and these things you could switch out. So one would heal you, one would do more damage, one would be a mobility sort of thing, and these were very good. Now these were potentially implemented in some way in the in the future.

Speaker 1:

Um, I think the anima cell that you had from the conduit system basically turned into the warriors pain and gain talent. I'm pretty sure you had the tireless pursuit conduit for druids turned into a pvp talent for feral druids. So some of these got distributed like around classes and specs and stuff like that. But I I genuinely agree with it. I think that if they made the conduit system a system that you didn't require renown and they made it instead of hero talents, I wouldn't have been offended by it. I think it would have been a decent idea. I just think that you needed to implement it in a way that wasn't time gated. You could change like hero talents. I think if you switched out for it in a way that wasn't time gated, you could change like hero talents. I think if you switched out for hero talents and had the restrictions that hero talents have, I think it would have been a great system.

Speaker 1:

Still, I think people would have looked at it and been like, yep, that's very good, and I think the only negative rep that it gets is that it has Shadowlands at the front of it, because people always think that Shadowlands was one of the worst expansions ever. Don't get me wrong. It is to some degree, but that's because of gearing, that's because of the time-gated stuff, that's because of stuff that you didn't really need to put behind a time wall or anything like that, and gearing was also a ball lake. The story was a bit bad, but it was a good, fun expansion. With the covenant abilities, with the conduit system. I think that you unlock all of this towards the end. I think it's amazing.

Speaker 1:

I think that it was a very good expansion, but the start of it, the first year and a half, really let it down with storytelling and you know the time gated nature of quite a few things. Don't get me wrong. Time gated stuff is fine, but make sure that you are able to catch up, because this certain thing you just couldn't and you were always hindered if you missed one week. So you thought you were forced to play world of warcraft and that's the worst thing about it. And the second one, the corruption system from bfa, was incredibly fun, an amazing idea, and it should have been an idea that continued to happen. The only reason people hated it was because the acquisition was terrible. Okay, so the corruption system you had certain corruptions on items that did certain things and, yes, it wasn't great or it wasn't right, but the acquisition acquisition, that is the word was pretty bad because you just RNG'd, you were rolling, and if you got the wrong roll, oh well, try again next time. You know kind of deal. You needed some sort of fail-safe to buy what you wanted.

Speaker 1:

In the end, in my honest opinion, the corruption system wasn't amazing. In my honest opinion, the corruption system wasn't amazing. I found that it was quite annoying, but I didn't play with it a lot. In my honest opinion, or like to be honest with you, so I cannot say like yes or no to this, but I know that some people enjoyed it because they got the corruptions they wanted. I know some people didn't because it took them a while to get the corruptions they wanted. I know some people didn't because it took them a while to get the corruptions they wanted.

Speaker 1:

Also, within an arena setting, it's tough to know when someone's going to burst or kill you with these corruptions. And it just added an extra layer, which is always good sometimes in arenas. But yeah, there's enough to keep track of in arenas already before adding this into their game. So I can't really say yes or no to this. I personally didn't think it was a great um addition to the game, not compared to, like covenant abilities, conduit systems, stuff like that but I can see the argument for it, which is always good. Now, that is where I will end this episode. Thank you all very much for listening. Do check out all the socials down below constant stuff happening over there. Do check out all the socials down below Constant stuff happening over there. Do check out the Etsy shop. I'm back so I can monitor that there's stuff that's going to be going up there tonight and such. But thank you all very much for listening once again and go, avala friend, goodbye all. Thank you.