Pig & Whistle Tales - A World of Warcraft Podcast

Exploring World of Warcraft's Future: 2025 Roadmap and Past Expansions

• Gabriel • Season 4 • Episode 66

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Prepare yourself for an exhilarating journey through the World of Warcraft's future as we unlock the secrets of the 2025 roadmap. Uncover the mysteries surrounding Shirai, the Atrocity of the Undersea, and prepare for new adventures with Siren Isle and Plunderstorm in patch 11.0.7. We unravel the secrets of patch 11.1, dubbed "Undermined," which promises groundbreaking changes with its new zone, raid, dungeon, and a revolutionary ground mount system that could redefine gameplay. Our exploration doesn't end there, as we speculate on the upcoming patch 11.2 and the potential impact of a swift expansion reveal that could set the stage for one of the best expansions yet.

Retrace the steps of Pandarans, monks, and pet battles as we reminisce about the beloved Mists of Pandaria expansion. Experience the thrill of mastering monk gameplay and relive the captivating scenarios like Theramore's Fall. While retail WoW continues to soar with its continuous updates, we also reflect on the classic realm's triumphs and tribulations. Despite the challenges of revitalizing the magic of Classic's initial success, the Season of Discovery shines as a beacon of hope amidst concerns about player base fragmentation. Join us in this riveting discussion as we celebrate World of Warcraft's legacy and its promising future.

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:

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 through a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft. Subjects with regards to world of warcraft. A grab a bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this mid, not midweek. This week's episode, we'll be going over the latest that we know of the 2025 roadmap, for both classic, for retail, for everything that they covered in the. I've forgotten the official name of it, but essentially blizzCon in 30 minutes. You know that's kind of what it is, isn't it? Let's face it. So we will start off with the weekly news, as always. We have Shirai, the Atrocity of the Undersea, located in Hallowfall. He is your world boss for the week, simply located in the north. You can get some gear there. World quests and classic time walking are your bonus events for the week. These are very simple you get more reputation for world quests and you can do classic dungeons for your time walking. This is stratholmes or farrakh diamor, stuff like that. Comstomp is your brawl for the week. This is simply you walk in, you're against ai and you get some free honor. It is that simple and ascendant and tyrannical are your mythic affixes this week, ascendant being the zalatath affix that spawns orbs and you simply have to soak these orbs to get a damage increase. Do not let them hit the boss as or the mobs, as they will increase their damage. So very simple. So I will go into very basics with this and I will go through the winners, losers and stuff like that and then later on down the line, in subsequent episodes, we can go through and dissect each and every one of them individually and say this is shit, this is good, you know that kind of deal. So we'll start off with retail. Okay, so retail, we obviously have the ptr of 11.0.7 up and this brings the siren isle, this brings new story quests, this brings new rings and new stuff to the turbulent timeways, etc. Etc. Very simple that's been on the ptr for a while now.

Speaker 1:

This leads into plunder storm after that plunder storm being released very soon after, I think within. I think it's released, jan, if I'm not mistaken and there is a few changes with plunder storm when it comes to the buying of items that you want with the currency that you get, the plunder currency. Very simple you can go to a trading post like sort of a vendor and buy the bits and pieces that you want using the currency that you get from Plunderstorm. Very simple, and I think Plunderstorm is very good and should be a staple point within World of Warcraft in itself, and I think that they should add more maps that can accommodate for plunder storm. In my honest opinion, this leads us into 11.1.

Speaker 1:

Now this is called undermined and it essentially um goes over the home of the goblins, the city of the goblins, and you have four different factions that are sort of a militia type city and you can align yourself with whichever one you wish. Now this patch brings obviously a new zone, which is the undermine, new raid called liberation of the undermine, new dungeon operation, floodgate, as well as a drive. Now, obviously that means drive, but they put it as you know, dri. You know what I mean. But essentially this is a ground mount equivalent of Dragon Riding, and I think this is very cool because Dragon Riding obviously has left the flying in the past and the ground mounts haven't really changed. So this is a new way of introducing ground mounts back into world of warcraft at a better pace. And this ground mount you can customize. Apparently you can cause it to drift more you can cause like top speed acceleration stuff like that. So very curious about how this will work and I think it's a really good addition to the game, in my honest opinion. New Delves as well as a new Renown, and there's Warband UI updates as well. So stay tuned for that.

Speaker 1:

This is obviously when Season 2 will start as well, and I think this is going to be happening within late winter, so around about Feb time. I believe that this will be released in spring. You obviously have two patches in between 0.1 and 0.2. These will bring um new content, so horrific visions revisited, as well as new content called nightfall not sure what this is and obviously more holiday updates, as well as story and quest uh, stuff to prep, to push on the um well, the story of the saga, essentially, um, this leads into 11.2. This is coming within the summer of 2025. You get new zone, new world events, new dungeon, new raid and new open world challenges, which I imagine are delvesves, as well as new season rewards and warband updates. We don't really know anything more about it, and then after that, we actually get an expansion reveal um, this is in between summer and autumn and this means that we will not be getting a 11.3. Okay, the 11.3 is not like documented on the 2025 roadmap, so you know we're probably going to be going into, uh, world of warcraft midnight.

Speaker 1:

The expansion in winter of next year, which will be pretty good. Um, I'm trying to think of when they released the war within. The war within was released in september this year, so a one year turnaround on an expansion is really good, really really good. Um, if they can keep this sort of content coming out at this rate, it will be deemed as one of the best expansions that have that has ever been, genuinely, and that's because of the content that they've released with it, as well as how quickly the expansion has been progressing. Essentially, when we get this expansion reveal, we'll have a 0.25 and a 0.27 patch. This brings new content and system updates, as well as the 21st anniversary so a year from now, um, which will be around november time and obviously new system updates and story and quests. Now there is a symbol on this roadmap. This symbol is that of a triangle with a little sort of rune marking on the inside of it.

Speaker 1:

Now, people have speculated what all of this is, but my guess is the new player housing that they introduced or teased to us in the show. Essentially Now, player housing is something that people have been looking forward to and asking for for a very, very long time, and I believe this is when it will come out. It will come out during the pre-patch of world of warcraft midnight. I'm not sure how they'll do it, but I imagine they put it in an instanced version of something and it allows you to customize everything. I would imagine you get three different tiers of building or something, most likely so you can get, you know, a little hut. You can get a different or a bigger like house, and then you get a house with, like a stable or something to show off, mounts and stuff. I wouldn't I would be very surprised to see the beta version of this and honestly, this is really cool.

Speaker 1:

I just hope that you get to pick your music when you are in your home, because there's so many good pieces of music in world of warcraft that you have to dip from expansion to expansion to experience it. So my personal favorites valshara music, darnass. You have the memorial in Stormwind. That music is perfect. You have even stuff like Elwynn Forest, like the very simple musics.

Speaker 1:

What I hope for is that you can add a certain audio track in your house and it will play these audios, kind of like a Spotify list. You put these audios on a sort of what they called not a megaphone, I've forgotten the name of it A oh, you know what I mean. You know where you put the disc on and then you put the little pin. Is that a phone? No, I've forgotten the name of it, but that. You know what I mean. This is what I would want. I'm all for decorating the house and, you know, making it whatever colour you want. I'd be amazed if they do that. I think they'll do the garrison where you get a certain three set sort of ideas that you can do and you can kind of customize the space that you want. But it'll be very tough to see how they implement this and I think, no matter what they do, people are obviously going to complain about certain things. But I think that it's really good. I think it will be really enjoyable and this is what we need to expect.

Speaker 1:

Early winter, slash, midwinter of next year. Player housing cannot wait for it. It will be amazing to see now what they are doing. I will start with season of discovery. First season of discovery is entering phase five, um, or no, sorry, phase six very soon, and it is currently on the ptr, if I'm not mistaken and this phase six introduces, uh, anchorage, um, the gates of anchorage, and then nightmare grove raids, um, this is very interesting. I'm not sure what the nightmare grove raids are, but I'm very intrigued to see how they play. But, um, with obviously aq coming out, that leaves one face left. This leaves nax ramus. Now, everyone knew that nax ramus was coming out, but they teased other things. They teased a or a small little snippet of people outside Karazhan Crypts with a new summoning stone and people sitting around vibing. This means Karazhan Crypts will be coming to the game in the phase seven of Season of Discovery.

Speaker 1:

I think this is amazing. I think that this is absolutely brilliant and this is what Season of discovery was about, because it's new content for classic. It isn't. You know, you're going through everything again. You're not going through molten core, then blackwing lair, then zilka rub, then anchorage again. You are going into a different era of classic. This is classic plus, and I think that this is amazing and has potential to be better than the other announcement that they made, this other announcement being world of warcraft classic again. They're doing it again and, in my opinion, I I'm not sure about it. I think that it's very it's tough to get a gauge on it.

Speaker 1:

Now, what this is is, essentially, they are releasing fresh classic servers to the populace. Okay, now, these fresh classic servers people have been asking for them. Don't get me wrong, but the problem that we are going to have with fresh servers is the fact that, firstly, yes, it's very good, I I love the fact that they're doing this, but I think that they're doing this in a completely wrong way. Um, fresh servers are great. People will play on them, no doubt. But the problem arises what happens when people want fresh servers again? Because, oh, it isn't quite the same. You know everyone logging in at the same time at level one. Yeah, I, I get it, but you're going to spread your classic player base so thin that every server that is played on will feel dead because everyone will obviously level, and then eventually, it'll just be like oh my god, dead realm. This is ridiculous, dead, dead realm, stupid realm. Like, please, merge the servers. You're gonna have so many realms that aren't needed that you need to. You need to cut some of them. You need to merge some of the classic realms. I'm sorry, but you need to um, otherwise you're going to spread your player base way too thin.

Speaker 1:

Now, classic classic um is obviously going to launch level 1 through 60 and they're going to do a release phase exactly like classic. So phase one will be molten core and anixia. Phase two will be diamal and the pvp system, um. Phase three is blackwing lair. Phase four, zul garub. Phase five, aq. Phase six, naxramas very simple, okay.

Speaker 1:

Now they're doing something I didn't think I would ever see. They are going into burning crusade classic with it. They are. They are making classic classic. So whilst cataclysm goes into missa pandaria, you're going to have classic go into tbc and it's just.

Speaker 1:

It's crazy to me. I I don't get it. Again, you're spreading your player base too thin. If it classic servers are squished a bit, okay, you merge some of the classic era servers into classic, okay, the classic classic that is being released, then I think that it's fine. But you are spreading the game rate way too thin. And then when it it goes into Burning Crusade, you're going to get people who go, oh my God, I want fresh classic servers, and then it's just a loop. It's just a loop and what makes classic amazing is the nostalgic purpose of it. Okay, and the thing is, if you play classic 24-7, it's not nostalgic, is it? It's just playing World of Warcraft, yeah, do you see how? That's the problem. So it's absolutely ridiculous that they're doing Classic Classic, in my honest opinion, and I just don't think that it's a good idea. In my genuine opinion, I think that fresh servers would have been fine for classic, but I don't think that they should be going into burning crusade with it genuinely.

Speaker 1:

As for cataclysm classic, the actually the og classic retail classic, I guess. Is it classic retail now? I, I guess. But we currently have Firelands out and in winter we're going to see Dragon Soul Now I'm pretty sure they estimated about 12 weeks worth of Firelands, so this will bring us into about February time. This introduces Caverns of Time dungeons this is End Time and stuff like that as well, as well as new elemental rune dungeons. So there will be different dungeons that you can use to gear up your characters, stuff like that as well, as well as new elemental rune dungeons. So there will be different dungeons that you can use to gear up your characters, stuff like that. In spring, we're going to be seeing missa pandaria classic.

Speaker 1:

Now this is rough because we're seeing, from winter to summer, nothing for classic okay, and, doing the maths, that's going to be several odd months where we are going to be stuck in the end game of, uh, um, cataclysm. So I really hope they don't, you know, drop the ball here and fuck up like they did with ice crown citadel, where they just put it in sort of park for about eight months and you're just raiding ICC for eight months. I really hope they don't do that. But in the summer we're looking at pre-patch for Mists of Pandaria Classic. This brings Theramore's Fall.

Speaker 1:

Pandarans are playable as well as monks and pet battles, which is really good. Monks honestly, I'm gonna make a monk so quickly when that releases. Monks are so fun to play. Please try them if you haven't already. They are really fun to play, um, but what this means is that you get to level your monks, most likely before the launch of Mists of Pandaria.

Speaker 1:

Now, pandaria is a very good expansion. Honestly, cataclysm. Look, I tried to give it a go, cataclysm. Or I tried to endorse people to give it a go, because some people might not think that it's as bad as they wanted or as they thought. Don't get me wrong. I think that it isn't great as an expansion as a whole. I enjoy it because I'm playing with people that I enjoy playing with and I can see the ideas behind the classes, but Mists of Pandaria refines that to a great level. Sadly, though, the talent tree changes in Mists of Pandaria, and it's something that I don't think was really enjoyable the new talents, hence why they went back on it.

Speaker 1:

Um, in, obviously, dragonflight, so who knows? But at the launch of Mists of Pandaria, we get Campaign Story, which is the Jade Forest, into all of the other ones. You get the raids, dungeons, other scenarios. Now, for those who don't know, scenarios are three player instances. Okay, these, uh, three player instances can have one tank, one healer, one dps, three dps, two dps, one tank any sort of mix and match you want, okay, and these that give you xp, progress, the story, stuff like that. Um, there's some really interesting ones. So there's obviously theramore's fall, where you get to witness the fall of theramore. There is one that involves vol'jin and actually shows an assassination attempt on vol'jin from garrosh. Not many people know this, that he attempted to do this, but yeah, like people haven't seen these scenarios and they were very good. I don't know why they aren't in the game now, but they are very good scenarios and something that is honestly quite lost in time for World of Warcraft. So I'm glad that they are bringing Mists of Pandaria back and I think that it will be very, very good.

Speaker 1:

So winners in my honest opinion, retail obvious winner. Okay, you have, uh, warcraft housing. Essentially, you have the next patch, you have plunder storm, you have an expansion reveal next year, you have a potential or a potential expansion next year. So one expansion like every year for the next couple years would be insane and you know it's just very good. Plus, all of the ui updates, the different sort of um content system, updates, stuff like that happening throughout the year as well. For retail I think retail is the obvious winner here.

Speaker 1:

Classic wise, I'm not gonna lie. I think season of discovery is winning it. I I think season of discovery, depending on how good cataclysm or not cataclysm, um, how good karazhan is, I think it will be a massive winner and it depends on how quickly they can get out newer content as well. It's not just karazhan as well, it's stuff to do with the Scarlet Crusade down in Hearth Glen. There's multiple different things that are happening within Season of Discovery and I think that it is very cool and I think that, out of classic, season of Discovery is the winner. Second, I would say Cataclysm Classic I'm not going to lie, because I think Mists of Pandaria moving into MOP Classic, I think, is really good, really fun, and I think that it's a very good expansion.

Speaker 1:

Kata or Classic Classic Again, if you are a massive admirer of just classic, then obviously this is your winner. But in my opinion, I don't think it will be the same. I really don't, and it saddens me to say it, but when Classic released, it was late 2019. Ok, and on the news, you have, obviously, that there is an outbreak of a disease in I believe it was China that it started and you know, over the course of the next few months, you see, oh, okay, this is becoming a bit, you know, worse and worse, and then it's like suddenly it hits 2020. And it's like, okay, you guys need to, you know, be cautious about going out and contracting this thing called COVID. And then, a couple months into 2020, everyone's in lockdown. So what do you do? You play. You play on your PC, you play on your Xbox, you play wherever, you chill out at home and you vibe and Classic just released, so why wouldn't you be playing Classic? It won't be the same. We're not in lockdown.

Speaker 1:

People't have that, that sort of time to invest in classic anymore, and it's sad, but that's what made classic classic the fact that everyone was online. It was massive at the time it was just released and then a lockdown happened at the same time. It felt like you were a kid again, almost, and well, playing the game almost, um, but yeah, it's, it's not going to be the same because you've diluted the classic population so much. In my honest opinion, with classic servers or classic era servers, hardcore servers, season of discovery uh, cataclysm, classic, you know you've diluted the pool there so much that these new servers after about a couple of weeks you're not going to see many people on them. That's the sad reality of it.

Speaker 1:

But yes, people will log in for the hype and stuff, but after a couple of weeks, what are you going to do Really? What are you going to do? That's different, because you're just going through the same loop and again, when you hit level 60 and get into molten corn, you start spamming your frost bolts. You're going to be like oh, this is boring, I want fresh classic. I want to just level, just do that. That's all you got to do, just level. But then you don't like the leveling because suddenly there isn't 200 people logging in at the same time at level one as you. I think that's the problem and that's what people want. They want to see 200 people log in at the same time because it feels like the game is alive and well.

Speaker 1:

But after about a couple months of classic classic people would just be like yep, this is a dead realm, ridiculous blizzard, need to merge servers, stuff like that. That's my honest opinion on it. I'm gonna go through classic classic. Um, probably next episode next wednesday, um, as I believe it will be around then that they release, if I'm not mistaken let me just double check around the 21st. Yeah, so by the time that they release, I would have spoken about them again, but nevertheless, that is my winners and losers kind of deal. That's everything sort of that was mentioned within the Warcraft anniversary deal. But thank you all very much for listening. Do check out all of the stuff down below Lots of stuff happening over on the etsy shop as well. A new little christmas fella has just popped up on the etsy shop, so please give him a look over. He is amazing little polar bear with a hat. I'm absolutely loving him and although the one that I painted was kind of awful, but yes nonetheless, thank you all very much for listening and go aval a friend, goodbye, thank you.