Pig & Whistle Tales - A World of Warcraft Podcast

Exploring the Future of World of Warcraft: Nightfall Expansion, Player Housing, and More

• Gabriel • Season 4 • Episode 68

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What if the next major World of Warcraft expansion could redefine everything you know about Azeroth? Join us at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind as we unpack a treasure trove of updates and speculation for WoW enthusiasts. From the news of Orta the Broken Mountain taking the stage as the world boss to the challenge of mythic affixes like Oblivion and Fortified, we promise a comprehensive guide to all things current in WoW. Our conversation pivots to the intriguing 2025 roadmap, where we share our thoughts on the return of Plunderstorm and the expanding horizons of maps like Arathi Highlands and Desolace.

Anticipation is at fever pitch for the Nightfall expansion and its 11.2 updates. We speculate on the evolution of the storyline, drawing connections to past expansions and pondering if Zalatath might emerge as a formidable foe. The potential for thrilling open-world challenges and the return of beloved content via the Legion Remix stirs both nostalgia and excitement. Amidst all these developments, the prospect of earning original Mage Tower appearances adds a cherry on top for dedicated collectors who cherish their cosmetic rewards.

And, the long-awaited dream of player housing in WoW might just be on the horizon. Envision customizable plots across various zones, where players can craft their unique havens while retaining the essential social elements of an MMO. Reflecting on the lessons learned from garrisons, we underscore the need for community interaction and invite you to be part of the collaborative journey through alpha and beta testing phases. This episode is packed with insights, speculations, and the collective hopes of a passionate WoW community eager to shape the future of the game they love.

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 for a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft, so grab a bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this episode. We'll be looking at the World Within and their sort of roadmap that they gave us a couple of weeks back. We're going to be going over my thoughts, what's best about this, what's a bit disappointing and the overall feel about. You know what we can expect essentially going forward, but we always have the weekly news. So Orta the Broken Mountain is your world boss for the week. He's located within Ashkehet in the very bottom left. Classic Time Walking is your bonus event for the week. This is simply being able to do. Zulfurak Diamul, stratholme, deadmines them sort of dungeons in a classic setting. Uh, deepwing dunk is your brawl for the week. This is very much three orbs. You have to collect the orbs and take them to the enemy base and either throw them or dunk them in the so-called hoop to earn points for your team. And oblivion and fortified are your mythic affixes. Oblivion is very simple. There are these orbs that get put on the ground. There's about five of them usually, and you can kill the shield and kill them. You can CC them in any form. So Typhoon hard, cc, like Cyclones, stuns, anything like that or kick them and they will shatter, giving you a buff as well as Fortified. This means that the non-boss enemies have increased damage and health, so make sure you bring a talent build that can accommodate for that.

Speaker 1:

So we will start off with the 2025 roadmap. We obviously have quite a few things to look at here. We have a potential Legion timewalking Not timewalking, but remix. We have, obviously, the player housing. We have new plunder storm. Again. We have midnight reveal, but what we will do is we'll do the major patches and the small things in between or I say small things, they're quite big things in between is what we will be discussing. So we start out before patch 1.1, which is next month it is mid-December, according to Blizzard we are going to have Plunderstorm.

Speaker 1:

Now Plunderstorm is coming back in a different kind of way. So it's the same concept, same game mode, but you earn the currency. You earn the Plunderstorm currency and through this currency, you get to buy what you want to buy. Okay, there is no renown system. That's what people hated um because it meant that you had to do all 40 renown levels in order to get a piece of like gear or the transmog and the mount. And people didn't like that for obvious reasons, because it felt like you had to do the um, the content, and I know not a lot of people like being forced to do content.

Speaker 1:

I find it quite ironic that the first pvp piece of content that rewards cosmetics pve players cry about and you know it's an absolute travesty, but you know it is what it is. When I had to farm some pve tier sets back in the wolven and dragon, not the wolven back in dragonflight and um shadowlands, you know it wasn't a problem then, was it not? Many people were speaking out, but you know it is what it is. It is what it is um, but when you go into plunderstorm you earn this currency, currency you earn. You'll be able to buy items at the sort of trading post there. Now, this is very good. I think the highest sort of price thing is around 20 000. I want to say it's around that sort of price, um, primarily, you would earn a decent amount of plunder. You would earn god, I'm trying to think. I think I earn about 10k in one of the games if you win it. I think around that plus the bonus for winning and stuff, so you can earn quite a fair amount in one game. It is very, very efficient at doing so, but remember, you do not have to do this. This is not going away now. This is not a limited time event. This will be there, always Plunderstorm, and I think that it's a very good addition to the game. I think that it's very needed and I'm glad that it's back.

Speaker 1:

My hope is that they will expand on plunder storm and actually add a couple different maps. Arathi highlands is amazing for it. I think arathi highlands is an amazing zone for it. I kind of hope that they add maybe wetlands into it a bit more. Now I get that wetlands has a alliance uh base there, but I think that you can obviously just make that a bit sort of neutral and I think that it's a good sized zone for this sort of thing I genuinely do. Now there are other places that you can probably do, maybe something along the lines of the Plaguelands, the Western Plaguelands, I should say, maybe Redridge, maybe even Desolace. Desolace is actually a very good place. It's very circular, anything that's got a bigger landmass. You probably want to look at Plunderstorm maps, for Silithus is also a good one to Naris. All of these places can be made into Plunderstorm maps. I just hope that they do add to it and I hope that they slowly grow it over time, because it isn't meant to be a standalone sort of game. It's meant to be something that you get in addition to your WoW sub, which is really good. Good, and I think that it's very good that it is coming back to the game um.

Speaker 1:

As for 11.1, now we obviously have the new zone, the undermine. Now I don't know, is it just me or does it feel underwhelming um the zone. I've never really enjoyed goblin content. Okay, that's my personal opinion on it. I don't enjoy the goblin content. I feel like kazan is cool. You know, uh, the lost isles, their starting zones. Yeah, it's all right. I like that they implemented the driving um from the goblin starting zone into the new zone, because when you a lot of people won't know this when you level a goblin, the very first five levels, you're on the capital city of the goblins, kazan, and essentially it's just going to implode from a um volcano. Now, as you're going through the questing, you get a little trike to level up like use as a sort of ground mount for the first five levels, and then it obviously gets taken away, um, but yeah, it's a really cool little like throwback or easter egg to that.

Speaker 1:

Um, so the undermine is located underground, obviously, and it's, uh, basically four sort of what they call cartels that you're going to be picking towards, and it's, you know, you can earn reputation with all of them, but this, the one that you pick, you will earn more reputation while you're aligned with them, if that makes sense. Now, these different alignments can unlock cosmetics only, I believe, and these cosmetics are for your car. This car is kind of like a think of dragon riding, uh, ground mount variation, so this car can have increased acceleration, handling, drifting, stuff like that. Um, and these are what you will unlock whilst questing in, oh my god, the undermine. Now there is no flying in the zone, completely. They have stated that they knew from the get-go that there would be no flying in the undermine, so the car is your only mode of transport in this zone. Now, I do think that it's very good that they have these sort of zones where the ground mounts are going to be useful if they are developing this system where the car actually, like you, can modify it to have increased top speed, acceleration, all of these bits and bobs.

Speaker 1:

I think that it is needed in the future that there will be zones that only have ground mounts. Now a lot of people, I thought, would be pissed at it. They are actually not. They're quite actually happy with the decision to make it a ground mount only zone and it's quite nice to see. To be honest with you Now, that people know that this won't be the only sort of ground mount zone going into the future. I would imagine they will do this every now and again.

Speaker 1:

It's not going to be every patch. So in patch 11.2, for example, they'll bring out a new zone, but it won't be ground mount only, I don't suspect. So um, I would imagine you get the choice to um, but the new raid, liberation of the undermine as well. I'm pretty sure we're killing gallywix in that um, which is intriguing because he's been doing absolutely nothing for the past, like two expansions, we we have not seen him at all anywhere since bfa, pretty much um. So yeah, I'm, I guess I just don't like gallywix as a character. I think he's quite intriguing, but who knows, who knows? It looks cool. It looks very Goblin-esque.

Speaker 1:

I would like to see more of the insides of the raid, but again, it doesn't strike me as something that is amazing, because I just don't like the Goblin stuff. I don't, and I understand that some people do so it's fair enough. It's a Goblin patch. I'm not too bothered about it. I think it's very good. Still, I can understand and respect that it is a good patch, or hopefully a very good patch, but you know not my sort of thing.

Speaker 1:

Now, the new dungeon, operation Floodgate as well, is going to be put into the Mythic rotation immediately. Now, usually this is when a mega dungeon gets put into the game, but I don't think this is a mega dungeon, because they usually state if it is or not. I think they just wanted a new dungeon to be thrown into the Mythic Plus scene in order to sort of keep it fresh and keep it new. So it looks all right. Again, goblin themed. I can't really say that it's going to be amazing, but I think that it is very, very good.

Speaker 1:

Now, the one that I wanted to get to was Warband UI updates, warband Camp Collections. Now, I don't know what this is, but people have speculated and I think that it's the most likely one that it will be allowing you to change the background of your warband. So you know how everyone sits in that light little forest clearing. You've got your four characters setting up with tents and stuff. I think you will be able to change the background of that to wherever you want. You can go around and collect them like cosmetics. You can have maybe ice crown in the background, or grizzly heels or valshara or azuna suramar, stuff like that.

Speaker 1:

I don't think they will add every single zone or collection into the game at the moment. This is something that they can add constantly throughout the expansions and be like oh my god, there's a northern um war camp collections pack out now and that's in like midnight that they'll release it. Um, I think they'll start with the warvin and dragonflight probably zones. So you have stuff like um onaran plains, waking shore, uh, azure span and thaldrassus, and then you obviously have the Ringing Deeps, dawn of Gold, hallowfall, which I'm pretty sure everyone will go. Hallowfall if it is allowed to be a background drop. If it's a background drop and it's got Beldar in the background and it changes colours, yes, give me that all day, easily, easily Hallowfall. That is one going for. You cannot change my mind. That is a. That is what I'm going for. You cannot change my mind. It's that simple. Um.

Speaker 1:

As for everything else to do with the warbands, they are adding stuff constantly throughout the expansions, or, yeah, throughout the expansions. So in 11.2 they will add something into a warband update. It seems like there's every single major patch, another warband update. They don't give specifics, but this is what we will be getting as sort of continued what is it? Continued updates on constantly, which is really really good.

Speaker 1:

Now, in 11.2, hold up, actually I want to speak about 11.1.5 so there's new content called nightfall. Now, I don't know what nightfall is, but it's linked with horrific visions. Um are revisited. Now this is going to be very story driven. I would imagine. From now on, the story driven content is going to be in the 11 or the 0.1.5 or the 0.5 patches, because, yes, you can have major like story quests happening in the major patches. So 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, etc. But I think that a lot of the setup will be in these smaller patches and I think people need to take into account that this is where a lot of the setup for the story is going to take place. So if you're planning on just coming back each major patch in order to do the quests, you're going to be missing out a little bit of important info, if that makes sense. So keep that in mind. Please keep track of the 0.5 quests because they want to tell a story and I think that this is where the setup of the story will take place in these 0.5 patches. Multiple times they've done this um and I think it's something that is going to be very useful. It gives these patches a little bit of a progress. Almost you feel like you're walking through the story still, even though it's no major patch out. So just keep in mind of that.

Speaker 1:

I'm not sure what nightfall will entail. I would imagine it's setting up the story for midnight. Okay, going into that, I would imagine also it sets up maybe the big bad of the expansion. Genuinely, I think it might set up the big bad of the expansion because 11.2 is going to be the final um like patch of the expansion. There is no 11.3. There is no season four with like the fated raids and stuff. 11.2 is your final patch of the expansion, major patch because when you get to the player housing at the end of, like autumn slash winter, you're going into 12.0. Cool innit, no shot that they do not do that. So I think Nightfall will set up the big bad of the expansion 100%, and I'm very curious to see it. I would like to see it.

Speaker 1:

No one knows because everyone's like, oh, zalatath, zalatath, no, zalatath will be here as a 0.2 patch in Midnight. That's Zalatath, and she will unleash something that's even worse, like, if you think of Gul'dan in the Nighthold, you're going to have Kil'jaeden come after Gul'dan in order to, you know, fight the big bad. And then finally you have the big big bad, which was Argus. It was a sort of Titan that was corrupted, kind of deal. So you slowly got bigger and bigger and Gul'dan was like a sort of antagonist in the previous expansion, um, in warlords of draenor. So we fought him an entire expansion and a half after we sort of first were introduced to him, which is really cool, and now that zalatath is here zalatath, that was obviously introduced to us back in world legion technically, so we've known her for a while, but now she's coming to the forefront and I think she'll make a great sort of 0.1 patch or 0.2 patch, even maybe the final boss of midnight, um, but yeah, we will soon see, because I would like to see I, there needs to be an epic climax with Zalatath and the fight happening with her. Essentially, there needs to be something that happens, and I think that this is what will happen in Midnight. So Nightfall will give us the final boss of the War Within it will. I don't know what that final boss will be. I would only have speculations and guesses. Um, it's got to be something voidy, right, it's got to be something voidy. That um, you know zalatas been working on in the background. Um, so yeah, we'll only see. We'll have to wait and see with that.

Speaker 1:

But in 11.2 you also have open world challenges. I don't know what these open world challenges are. Maybe it's going to be something like the Farrakh assaults, something along them lines. I'm probably thinking this is as well as Warband updates, brewfest updates and Season Rewards, etc. Now, the open world changes are going to be.

Speaker 1:

You know what I'm going to put my claim on it. Yeah, it will be something like a fracassol or like a void assault. If they do like um in pre-patch, they obviously do a couple of um. You know fun little like things. So, for example, in wrath of the lich king. You had the scourge invasion. They did that sort of thing for a few weeks. If they do that throughout the entire expansion, where it's like a void invasion of Azeroth entirely, I think it would be amazing, and you're constantly traveling around Azeroth to help quell these invasions and stuff like that. I think that's what open world challenges are, and I think that's kind of what I'm hoping for. I think it will be cool to bring the actual WoW, like the original continents, kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms back into the game somehow, but I think that's going to be very tough and you probably want to obviously show off your new work in Dawn of Gold and the new zone that they will release in 11.2 as well. So I don't think that will happen, but that's what open world challenges will be. It will be something along the lines of you know, farrakh assaults.

Speaker 1:

Now, after 11.2, we do get an expansion reveal. We don't really know when this will happen, though, exactly. We just know that it will happen before the 0.25 release. Um, this could mean a day before the release, or this could mean a few months before the release. We just don't know straight up, we don't know. But within this time period you start to see the roadmap go green and it's pretty much confirmed that we're going to be getting Legion Remix now.

Speaker 1:

Mists of Pandaria Remix was very, very good. It was one of the better remixes, in my honest opinion, and I think that you know. They did it quite well, they did it justice, and legion has some of the best content in the game. Legion has some of the best content in the game and, without a doubt, it's one that many people who started playing well wish that they lived through it, because I know people who haven't played legion and are very much wanting to at least experience it.

Speaker 1:

Now, the problem with this is you will need cosmetics and for a lot of people, weapon cosmetics are some of the most important things within the game. Now, legion didn't have any weapons throughout the entire expansion because all of our weapons were the artifact weapons. So my thought on this is they will add back more weapon cosmetics for legion, um, for your artifact. Now here's the best one. This will include the original Mage Tower ones. That includes the bear forms, the cat forms and stuff like that for druids. I think they will add it back and I think that they will give you the original um mage tower weapon uh, transmogs essentially for it. I think that'll be amazing. I think that we've had it long enough and I think people who want stuff like that, like the cat form and bear form, are really sought after for druids. I think that it's a very good thing to do definitely not because I want the bear form um, that's definitely not the reason, but but I would like to see what cosmetics they bring into Legion time or remix, sorry. I would like to see more weapons, maybe just different ones, some random like common Legion transmog weapons.

Speaker 1:

I don't know something. I'm kind of curious why they skipped to Warlords of Draenor remix, though. I'm kind of curious why they skipped Warlords of Draenor remix, though. My guess is because they don't want the controversy with, like, cloudsong, glaive and you know, the gold. What is it? The timed dungeon stuff? I think that that's why they skipped Warlords of Draenor remix. I always call it time walking. I don't know, but legion is a really good expansion and if you haven't, I would really recommend trying the remix. I really would. It's such a good expansion. People need to experience it kind of as it was okay. Now I know the remix isn't exactly how it was. It's a bit different. You get the power up on the cloaks and stuff like that, um, but I think it's really good and I think that people will enjoy, enjoy it. I genuinely think they will.

Speaker 1:

Now the big one, player housing. This comes at the end of, or end of, autumn, beginning of winter. This happens before the next major patch. So after 11.2, there is no major patch until player housing. After player housing, it will be 12.0. I'm calling that right now. Player housing been wanted in the game since the dawn of wow. Okay, so 20 years now.

Speaker 1:

There was even ideas for player housing back in 2004 we know this with the portal in stormwind. Um, back in classic. That led to nothing and was gated off. That was meant to be where player housing, or you instanced into player housing. There was going to be something similar in orgrimmar, probably after it was complete, but there was never a portal in orgrimmar.

Speaker 1:

So, um, player housing, how will they do it? I think they will do it via a system where you can buy certain things or certain zones. So, for example, darkshore will be a thousand gold, okay. If you want a place in Stranglethorn, however, it will be five thousand gold, you know. If you want Plaguelands, you know know it's pretty down bad up there Plaguelands, so maybe it's like 500 gold, you know that sort of thing.

Speaker 1:

Now, I think that this is maybe the way they'll do it. I don't see how they'll do it instance-wise, but my idea is that they kind of get a clean slate of the world. So all you have is like towns and cities and town cities and the foliage around the world and like the trees and stuff, and you can maybe just put your house where you want within this world. It's going to be tough, though, and you can share it with other people. So if you want, like if there's a group of four of you or something, you can all be in the same instanced world and put your houses where you want and sort of customize them that way. I really don't know how they're going to do it. I'm very intrigued and I would like to see a PTR with it or a very early alpha build, but I just don't know how. And whatever iteration they bring into, well, people will complain. I know that very much.

Speaker 1:

But player housing, just like the ui or the warband ui stuff, is a sort of evergreen feature. You can essentially keep adding to it as the expansions roll on now. You're going to start with obviously being able to decorate your home. Uh, you're going to start with obviously being able to decorate your home. Uh, you're going to start with being able to buy a certain sized house. I would imagine. If you are able to freehand build your house, I would be so impressed. But I don't think that sort of technology would work in wow kind of like um, the sims, like how you build your house. I do not think that technology will work in wow um, just because of how wow was built. But again, I could be proven completely wrong. I have no idea if that's true or not, I'm just speculating at this point.

Speaker 1:

You'll be able to decorate your house, probably be able to decorate the like wall color, the outside of it and what mounts you have on show. You can maybe have like a stables or a workshop, stuff like that, for your blacksmithing, for your alchemy. I would imagine you can have one main building and then three sort of optional buildings. Okay, so one stables and two for your professions, kind of like your garrison, but not at the same time. I would imagine they learn from the garrisons. The garrisons were good in my opinion. I just think that they were very isolated garrisons made you feel isolated in a mmo, and that is not good. So they need to implement the mmo aspect into warcraft housing somehow. And, yeah, it's going to be tough to do so. I don't know how they're going to do it. I'm very intrigued to see how they do it. If you guys would have any idea on how they do it, please let me know, because I'm very curious. I really, really am. I think that it's going to be amazing.

Speaker 1:

Either way, people have been wanting this forever and it's something to do during your downtime. Oh, one request I want for player housing Please let me play any music from the game. Let me pick a soundtrack from the game and let me play any music from World of Warcraft in my house, whether it be the Memorial or King's Rest from Stormwind, whether it be Val'sharah, teldrassil, ashenvale, any Night Elf music. Let me play it in my house, please. That's all I ask for. That's all I want I would imagine they already have ideas about that and put in the gramophone.

Speaker 1:

Is it a gramophone? Yeah, because they did that in Warlords of Draenor, but there were only a select few amount of songs that they could pick. So I would imagine they maybe expand it to all songs. Just saying, just asking for it, just curious. I just want to play like night song music, please, amazing. But yeah, player housing will be really, really good.

Speaker 1:

I can't wait to see the alpha of it or like small tidbits of it, and I cannot wait to see until they get like the beta version, because they will need people to test this. People will find ways to break it. I want to find ways to break it and in breaking it, you find possible better solutions in order to make the housing better. Now I think that this will go live, probably midnight expansion reveal Not live, but on PTR. I would like to hope so, but yeah, we'll just have to wait and see with that, we'll just have to wait and see. But thank you all very much for listening. Do check out all of the socials down below. Constant stuff happening over there, as well as on the Etsy shop. Constant stuff being added each and every day. Thank you very much once again and go, val, a friend, goodbye. Thank you.