Pig & Whistle Tales - A World of Warcraft Podcast

Revitalizing WoW Classic: Fresh Starts, Community Challenges & dead servers?

• Gabriel • Season 4 • Episode 69

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Can the introduction of fresh servers revitalized World of Warcraft Classic, or are they the death knell for established communities? Join me at the Pig and Whistle in Stormwind as we dissect the fallout of Blizzard's recent decisions. With server populations dwindling and communities fracturing, we urgently need Blizzard to take charge with strategic server management. We'll explore why players are torn between starting fresh and continuing their progress, and how this discord could impact the vibrancy of the player base. By comparing these challenges with the unified experience in Retail WoW, I highlight the potential solutions that could prevent further division.

Navigating the tumultuous zones and quests of WoW can be a daunting task, especially when outdated content leads to a disjointed experience. Listen as I share my personal encounters with leveling frustrations in both Classic and Retail, and how the chaos of world PvP adds to the challenge. Reflecting on the structured PvP of Retail, I contrast it with Classic's unpredictability. Additionally, we're tackling the toxic behavior that plagues the Classic community, urging players to report incidents and foster a positive environment. Despite these issues, there's still hope for an enjoyable experience, and I look forward to bringing more insights on how we can all contribute to a better gaming community.

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:

Music. Thank you, hello and welcome to the Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth. As always here at the Pig and Whistle in Stormwind, 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 going over a few of the things that we find on the forums about WoW Classic. Now there's many different things that are happening, but I've picked out a few bits and bobs that are happening on the forums that I want to go over, discuss, maybe disagree with, agree with, etc. Etc. So let's start with the first one now.

Speaker 1:

You guys obviously know my thoughts on wild classic as I have gone through them in the past couple of episodes. Um, mainly I thought that it would kill the servers, and this one kind of attests to that. So fresh servers pretty much killed our server. Dear Blizz, we had a nice community on our PvE server. It wasn't thriving, but it was just enough to keep the economy afloat and people happy. But thanks for ruining our server by opening up a fresh one. I've seen multiple guilds leave for fresh. Our server now is pretty much a ghost town. It's pretty much broken. Which genius thought it was a good idea to open up a fresh, knowing that the current servers would take major hits. You're just breaking your own game by taking away current players. Before I end this, they aren't taking away current players, they are relocating current players. But you know, um, here is an idea strategize and market the game so that you actually bring in new players, instead of poaching current players or new servers.

Speaker 1:

Now, I did say that this would happen and this is an example. This is someone who was on a server, a classic era server and now their server is dead. Okay, now, I've said this in many different episodes, but they need to prune. If they are going to open up fresh servers, they need to prune the old servers. This includes cataclysm classic. This includes retail. In my opinion, they need to shrink the servers, um, and reduce, like, the number of servers that there actually are in the game.

Speaker 1:

So, classic era. I'm not sure how many servers it has, but it had like four ish, four, five, six somewhere around around them. Now, these servers weren't fully populated, let's face it, they weren't fully fully populated. There's going to be some dead servers and stuff like that, but but there are some people on a couple to a few servers in classic era.

Speaker 1:

With the arrival of classic fresh, not everyone in the classic era servers wanted a fresh start. Some people wanted to carry on with their characters in classic fresh and that's where the like underlying problem is, because a lot of people or at least, like we'll say, 50 of classic era players wanted to start fresh. So these 50 will move server or not log back into that character for months to play classic fresh, therefore ruining this entire server, and this means that people might not have enough to raid on these servers. People might not have enough to actually enjoy just everyday content like dungeons or, you know, leveling on that server itself. So we always knew that this was going to be a problem. Well, I did anyway and it's sad because, like I said, you are just spreading the classic player base too thin with all of these different servers hardcore anniversary servers, classic era, season of discovery All of these different things are spreading the classic player base too thin.

Speaker 1:

Retail, even though it's got flaws of its own, retail, has a good system. Retail realms are merged. They are merged with other realms, so it still feels alive. You still have the activity there, but you aren't spreading the player base nearly as much as you're spreading the classic player base because everyone plays retail. Like well, you know what I mean. Everyone who plays retail is playing retail. There is no retail hardcore, there is no retail Season of Discovery, etc. So you're not splitting the player base. You have a certain amount of people playing retail and these people over these servers are all merged together, so it's a healthy sort of standard, whereas you're having to manage Season of Discovery players not being with any sort of like classic player base. Same with hardcore. You cannot. Same with the PvP, pve realms. They're not even merged, so you have these separate realms and then you've got Classic era. That has also just been left behind due to the release of the classic fresh servers.

Speaker 1:

So, in my honest opinion, I I knew it was going to be a problem. I, I did, and I can't see how other people didn't see this as a problem. They even need to make the conscious decision to merge realms in classic era or they need to move everyone, and again forcefully. Moving everyone from certain realms is awful because some people don't want to play classic fresh and if you're forcing them to move, that server is not fresh anymore because the content isn't out in classic era. You have, uh, molten core blackwing lair on garage nax ramus in classic fresh, you have nothing until about the 20th of december when it um, when molten core and oni come out. Now that's the problem. That's the problem with with all of this.

Speaker 1:

Um, yeah, look, I think it was very stupid to release these fresh servers without having to deal with the population of the other classic era servers first. That's my honest opinion and I think it's quite clear to see that it has affected people. Um, it, it really is. It really really is. Now, again, the solution is just to cut down on the servers. I think that they put too many servers in at the start of classic as well, I think. Or what they did actually for classic was they released too few servers and then they slowly added to it over time, and I think that that's the way that it should have been done. But it's tough now. It is tough and I feel sorry for those who are left behind on the classic era server because they clearly didn't want fresh classic. Not everyone does. Only a very small player base does all right. Um, the other classic fresh players didn't.

Speaker 1:

And the thing is, classic was always there. It was always there. But, like I've been saying. People like the idea of everyone being in the same zones, these low level zones, at the same time, everyone leveling up at the same pace. But the thing is you can do that by yourself. In classic era. You can level at the same sort of pace. It's just you don't see as many people in these low level zones taking your fucking boars or your kobolds or your scorpions or whatever you might be killing for a quest. Instead, you're having to god forbid kill all of the mobs that you want within the first like a few minutes. Instead you're looking around, standing there for about 30 minutes trying to kill golems in fucking westfall. You know that's the difference. That's the difference between classic era and fresh.

Speaker 1:

In my opinion, classic era was always there and I think fresh. I get the appeal of it I really, really do and it allows people who never experienced classic fully to experience that and fair play. If people want to do that, they are more than welcome to. But it ruins it for the people who have been playing classic this entire time classic era, I should say and you know, their servers are just slowly dying because of this. So I think it's a poor decision to make. I think they had to rectify this first with the other servers. But what can you do now? It's one of them things, but let's move on to the next one.

Speaker 1:

So this next one is um based on, as again, classic, and it's do you guys actually like leveling? Now, I'm not sure what he means by you guys, um, my get. My question is this might be someone who plays kata, classic or even retail. Um, because just the way that he's phrased it. Uh, just a general question, because I have heavily disliked leveling in classic and I'm curious exactly why people like it. This isn't an attempt to judge. I'm just wondering what exactly is fun about it.

Speaker 1:

Because there are parts in classic where you are so forced to grind to level up that there aren't enough quests in the world to progress efficiently. Just enough that, uh, that's where it ends. Um. Classic was, in its first iteration, always meant to be a grinding sort of game. That's what the mmo genre was back in the day. Back in 2004, you were meant to grind mobs to get levels. Um, and again, retail has gone from that dramatically, is diverted from that very, very dramatically. So some of these replies I'm very curious about. So let's see From a gameplay perspective.

Speaker 1:

Azeroth is a varied and absorbing world. Every zone has a unique feel and the quests are genuinely well written and you're always just a level off from some cool new spell, weapon or dungeon and you can treat gameplay as a super intensive activity or just zone out and listen to a podcast. Psychologically, the early exposure to quick levels that gradually diminish over time is addicting as hell. Yes, I do agree with this. I think that he's got it down to a T almost, so, um, with the leveling, you can treat it as super intensive or you can zone out. Personally, I don't see how people treat it as super intensive. Um, I think the gameplay is too boring to be super intensive. In my honest opinion, the only time gameplay actually gets really interesting is if you're a mage, aoe leveling in like zilphorak or something. Um, so yeah, I'm not too sure about that, but um, as for the levels and the spells and the weapons, yes, the weapons and the gear that you get while leveling all feel like they mean more than they do in retail, which is very good spells wise, I disagree.

Speaker 1:

I think that you're constantly getting spells in retail and classic classic is just kind of over bloated with useless spells in my opinion like oh, my god, yes, I got amplify magic as a mage great. What are you going to use that for? Apart from one boss in nax ramus, which is saffron? What? What else are you going to use that for? Genuinely, because you never use that. And it's stuff like that where it's a bit disappointing.

Speaker 1:

I'm playing a mage, I'm level 14, and I'm really trying to enjoy myself in classic, classic, classic. But I just cannot get my head around it. And the thing thing is I'm not even buying stuff like arcane missiles because it's a gold waste. It really, really is. It doesn't do any damage, it has no use at end game, apart from pvp, and even then it's a very niche. In pvp, um, it's if something's going to line like losu, um. So yeah, it's very niche. I don't even see the need to spend six silver on it. You know it's that sort of thing and I get that. It's addicting as hell.

Speaker 1:

But why not level in retail? Now people will be like, oh, because retail leveling is shit. Um, it's decent. Look, it's not the same experience as classic. I do have to say that. But if it's the high of getting a level that you want, retail is your thing, okay, I genuinely believe that. Now, if it is the, you want to just chill, or you like the gameplay of classic, fair enough, but if it is literally just about the high of getting a level in retail, um, or the high of a level, then, yeah, retail is where you want to go because you can ding so much quicker with them.

Speaker 1:

Now the next one that I want to talk about, or the next reply to this, is in the current iteration you are playing, there are far more quests than needed. Level just at doing quests, um, no, there isn't. If you are to just do quests in world of warcraft, I am pretty sure, let's say you do all of the quests. Let's say it even takes you a few minutes to just do the quest normally now, or like you don't get lucky with the drops and stuff like that. I don't think you hit level 60 by doing every single quest that there is in world of warcraft. I don't think you do genuinely.

Speaker 1:

There is a lot of lower level quests that become gray quests by the time that you hit level 20 to 25 and then these quests are out of the equation. There are a lot of lower level quests. There are not a lot of higher level quests. Okay, apart from certain zones, gadgets, and being one of them, um, rob a bullet, oh my god, probably thousand needles. They're really good quests because they're just kill quests. Um, there really aren't many quests, they're all scattered about the world and that's the thing. I don't think you level to 60 by purely doing quests. So, um, in the current iteration you are playing, there are far more quests than need to level. Just doing quests Kill stuff on the way to objectives. So that isn't doing quests. By the way, killing stuff on the way is not doing quests. So this guy's already gone against himself. Do the objectives, yes, that is doing the quests.

Speaker 1:

If you run out of quests by, the next logical zone is too high. Every level bracket has like three to five zones. I don't believe that. I genuinely don't believe that.

Speaker 1:

Um, let's take this, for example level 40. You are smack bang level 40, just got your mount. Where are you going to level? Uh, tanaris is too high a level. Tanaris is level 45, ish, level 43, 45, somewhere along them lines. Um, if you want to do it comfortably anyway, uh, dust wall of marsh. Yeah, maybe somewhere. Dust wall of marsh is probably your first one.

Speaker 1:

Desolace, I want to say desolace, like some quests there. So two, yeah, I really can't think of anything else. Arathi Highlands no, that's like level 30. Hinterlands Is the Hinterlands level 40? No, because Jynther Allura is level 50. I think Hinterlands is like level 45. Am I crazy for that? But yeah, either way, I don't think every level zone or every level bracket has three to five zones because, let's face it, they really don't. The middle levels don't have that much um or like. There's an awkward stage where they just don't have a lot um. Sometimes it is worth going to the other continent. Well, yes, to do quests, um. To me, leveling is nice and relaxing gameplay and each time I try to improve the route a little bit here and there.

Speaker 1:

When the pvp starts I get a ton more fun, because world pvp on a fresh server is amazing. World pvp on a fresh server is shit. I'm gonna put that right now. If the next phase releases, there will be people who are level 48 okay, level 48 and they will be flagged for pvp. What is going to happen to these people? Because they are eligible to be killed by level 60s and the level 60s will get honour for killing them a level 48. They will just get camped and then they don't want to play anymore because there's no point in playing, because they're just sat in the open world getting killed by level 60 rogues or hunters or mages and then they quit. That's the problem. World PvP is shit. In PvP or in pvp zones it's shit. Stranglethorn veil, for example, really shit. You have level 60 like rogues just killing people for no reason apart from just to make their lives miserable. How is that fun to anyone? How please explain that? It isn't. It really't.

Speaker 1:

A lot of people like to say oh my god, classic PvP is so good. It isn't. It's unbalanced, it's stupid and it's something that needed a lot of work. It really really did. I love that there are rock paper scissors matchups in classic. I absolutely love it. I love that mage and rogue great like 50 55 and it's cooldown based. I love that mage, warrior. Mage shits on warrior like 90 of the time. I love that warrior and rogue rogue kind of gets shit on by a warrior. You know that kind of deal.

Speaker 1:

But it is fundamentally flawed because of the pvp servers and the honor system. That's just the way it is. How many times have you been ganked in stranglethorn veil? Turn in a quest to for killing 10 raptors at hemet nesing where he's camp. How many times? If you said none and you're on a pvp server, you are so lucky. If you said too many times, then yeah, you know that it's shit, don't you? You know what I'm talking about?

Speaker 1:

Um, yeah, in my opinion, pvp is just better in retail by far, and the people who disagree with that either can't do retail pvp or just don't like pvp in general, actual pvp where it is a max level versus a max level. That's it. That's my honest opinion on it. I genuinely think it. Um, again, a lot of people disagree with that. But pvp in retail even classic, like cataclassic to an extent way better than classic pvp. There are some elements to classic pvp I do enjoy I'm not saying I hate it all like fully as a fundamental part, but there is not a lot of enjoyment to be had apart from the initial sort of few battlegrounds. There really isn't. And this is coming from someone who's achieved GLAD in retail, someone who did PvP grind in WoW Classic back in 2019, 2020. I've done it all PvP-wise and I can safely say retail PvP way better. But again, that's my honest opinion. Some people might think the opposite and that's fair enough. That's fair enough on them, um, but yeah, it is what it is.

Speaker 1:

Let's move on to the next one, um. So this one I'm very intrigued in. Um. This one says what's going on, with all the unhinged bigotry? Now, this is a retail um one and essentially what it says here is, or there's a retail form, and what it says here is I know this is the internet and edgy trolling is a permanent fixture of gaming.

Speaker 1:

But why are there? But why is there so much of that kind of edgelord humor? Um, general and trade chat almost always have something unhinged going on. There's always something political going on and it escalates from there. People comparing rl minorities to horde races, the word naga, you know the fish people um getting thrown around as an n-word. Stand, stand in for people who really want to say it. The s just flying around with impunity.

Speaker 1:

Again, this is nothing new to me. But what? But you don't see this behavior so widespread on other versions of wow? What is going on with the community? I get that it's a nostalgic game and probably going to attract a certain group, but but yeah, this sort of thing is always in wow. Now you might be thinking like, yeah, that's a classic retail thing. What if I told you this isn't retail at all. This is classic. This is classic classic that this guy's talking about. All right, I cut out the parts where he says this edgelord's humor in classic and he says what is going on with the classic fresh community? I get a nostalgic game mode. It's probably going to attract a more I'm not even sure what that word is at a visit, at a visit group. But this wasn't like it was in 2019. This is classic. And for you guys that went oh yeah, I knew that retail players were awful. No, this is classic, classic. Okay, this, in my opinion, is the same as 2019.

Speaker 1:

I knew people who were like this in 2019. Maybe not the racial slurs um, definitely not that but I knew people who were, um, discriminatory against other sort of ethnicities and religions. I had someone in the guild that I was in that actively disliked them and spoke about them in a degrading manner, and multiple times we tried to ask him to get kicked out of the guild. But guess what? The other people in the guild didn't want to kick him out because they felt sorry for him. They felt sorry for him. They felt sorry for him. Look, granted, he wasn't all there, okay, he might have had a slight, uh, mental disability, okay, but this does not give you any sort of excuse to be that disgusting to a minority, race or any sort of other ethnicity or religion or anything. And yet people were defending it back in 2019 and saying we feel sorry for him, that's why we keep him in the guild. Okay, this happened in 2019.

Speaker 1:

People need to stop putting on their rose tinted glasses and being like, yeah, 2019, 2020, like wow, classic was amazing. No, everyone was perfect. No, people were dickheads. People were absolute dickheads in that time period. And it's all over. Classic wow, don't get me wrong. People like that are in retail as well, but I don't see it anywhere near as much in retail as I do in classic. The ratio is probably like 10 to 1, like from classic point of view. So this needs to stop, no matter what. Okay, all of this stuff needs to go in every sort of wow version. I don't want to see this in any sort of wow version classic catcatter, season of discovery, retail, anything.

Speaker 1:

It is disgusting and if you see it, just report them. Please, just fully report them. Um, don't even warrant a response to it. Click report. Please just say racial abuse in chat and blizzard will deal with it. All right, I do notice.

Speaker 1:

For all of classic's flaws, I think classic has some of the better people working on it. From a gm perspective, okay, because I reported a bot. I was in elwyn forest. I reported a bot in elwyn forest on day like two of classic fresh or classic classic day two. There was a bot, um, and the next day I actually got a customer support uh mail and it said that they had banned them. So they are on it. Please report these people. Okay, they are disgusting and they shouldn't be playing the game at all. Um, yeah, it's, it's ridiculous, though it is something that needs to be called out. But you can't call it out in terms of give them a reaction. You just simply report them. That's how you're going to call them out and, every now and again, just keep reporting. I promise you that it will get solved. Um, but yeah, this is is disgusting in every form of and it shouldn't be in the game at all. But that is where I will end it for this episode.

Speaker 1:

Thank you all very much for watching. I do hope you are enjoying Classic. Classic. Look for all the shit I give Classic. I think it is a very good product in itself. I think people can enjoy it. I just don't see the point of it sometimes, especially releasing fresh servers when you already have a product there. But that's just a me thing, that's my opinion. No, no harm to anyone. Um, I really do hope that people who play or who are playing classic fresh servers are enjoying it, and I hope that it keeps them going and keeps them playing well. Okay, that's what I hope, that's what I wish, and I wish all the best for the people who do enjoy the game, but I also wish for the best for the people who were enjoying the game on the servers that are now dying because of it. Okay, that's the problem and that's where I feel like there is an injustice. That's all it is. So, once again, thank you all very much for listening. You check out all of the socials down below. Constant stuff happening over there. Thank you, thank you.