Pig & Whistle Tales - A World of Warcraft Podcast

WoW Perspectives: Exploring the Best Zones, Characters, and Leveling Experiences

• Gabriel • Season 5 • Episode 8

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The Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth podcast explores personal favorites in World of Warcraft, from beloved zones to iconic characters, while sharing weekly game updates and nostalgic memories.

• Weekly news update includes world bosses Orta and The Godfather in Azka'het
• Undermined Delves bonus event offers more loot this week
• Deepwing Dunk brawl transforms Deepwing Gorge into a basketball match
• Teldrassil stands as favorite zone due to its music, ambience, and personal connection
• Starting zones perfectly capture each race's identity and culture
• The infamous "Wetlands Run" between starting zones created lasting memories
• Arthas represents the perfect villain with his complete character arc
• Icecrown Citadel's progressive storytelling made for an immersive raid experience
• The Shadowmourne questline provided emotional closure for characters impacted by the Lich King
• Classic and Retail WoW offer distinctly different leveling experiences
• Upcoming Lorewalker Cho content promises to enhance the leveling experience with meaningful lore

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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 for a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft. I grab a bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this episode. We're going to be going over a few things that I've been asked personally. We're going to be going through the questions of what I think the best zone is in WoW, best character, etc. Etc. Many questions that have been asked by you guys and I'm going to be giving my answers to them Again. This is going to be very opinionated, um, I hope that you guys can sort of tune in as well and give your opinions on it.

Speaker 1:

Also, as always, we start off with the weekly news. We have orta and the godfather as your world bosses for the week. They are located within ashkhet and the undermined delves are your bonus event. This means that you just get simply more loot from your delves. This means that you can get more gear, more gold, more anything really, more curios to upgrade, brand etc. Etc. And finally, deepwing Dunk is your brawl for this week. This is essentially a deepwing gorge, but turned into a basketball match. So three orbs you grab one of the orbs and you have to take it to the opposition's base and either throw it into their hoop or you dunk it, and dunking gives you more points, but essentially, first one to get to a certain amount of points wins. Very, very simple, quite a good little game mode, and I think it should be, personally, one of the main staple points of a battleground. I think that it should just be a battleground in general, to be honest with you. So I'm going to start off with the first question and I do want to say this first. I do apologize if it's a bit slower in terms of me answering, not feeling 100% today. So, as you can tell, I'm taking a few pauses every now and again, so I do apologize for that. But the first question that I have is something very simple and this is going to be very subjective, but best zone in WoW?

Speaker 1:

Now, if you're talking about everything, every World of Warcraft expansion, everything that's ever come out, every zone, from uh classic starting zones like northshire or elwyn forest all the way up to sort of uh ashkahet, undermine everything in between. I am going to go Teldrassil. Now people think, yes, teldrassil is a nice zone and the reason I'm picking Teldrassil is because I have the very first memories of playing WoW there and I just love the whole night elf stuff. Obviously, there's a lot of night elf architecture and stuff. You have Darkshore, ashenvale, you, you have valshara, you have multiple different zones that have night elf architecture and, let's face it, all of the zones in well, potentially could be a favorite zone for someone, okay, apart from sylathus, who loves sylathus? Um, but yes, I am going to go with Teldrassil.

Speaker 1:

The reason being is because I remember making my very first night elf and this was my very first character, the character that I play to to this day, and I remember just seeing lightsabers. I remember seeing these cats, I remember seeing these boars and I remember seeing a big tree on a. What I didn't know at the time was a massive tree, because, tell yourself, it was just a giant world tree. You are questing on top of a tree. If, for those that didn't know that now, I think that, tell yourself, was really good, just because of the music, the ambience. I love the whole feeling of Night Elf zones Again, ashen, veil, valshara come to mind, all of these different Night Elf zones. I just love the whole, almost ethereal part of it. I think that it's so cool. I think that it's something that is very simply done with how they've portrayed Night El elves and how their starting zone is and you know what's happening and all of this stuff. Now I I any of the like starting zones I could go to genuinely well.

Speaker 1:

I say that I'm looking more at the human starting zone, which is northshire or elwyn forest as a whole, and I'm looking at teldrass zone, which is Northshire or Elwynn Forest as a whole, and I'm looking at Teldrassil as the two main ones, elwynn Forest being so iconic because you have the two mines. You have Eastvale Logging Camp. You have very important NPCs there that people know, like Hogger. You have Princess, which is the boar in the farm in the bottom right Now. It's such a very well balanced zone all of these starting zones. In my honest opinion, the starting zones are very, very well balanced. Now I can't say the same for the horde. I don't really know too much about the horde starting zones, but I do have an understanding of them. And you go from dirt into more dirt zones which isn't great because it's duritar into the barrens now saying that actually undeads have a really good starting zone. I love the whole sort of feel of not undead. Why do I call them undead, forsaken? They have such a very good starting zone as well as a zone that leads off into that with Silverpine Forest, with the whole Worgen and the Arathel storyline in Classic. So there possibly is a case for the Forsaken Blood Elves as well. They're very, very good when it comes to starting zones, but it's not any of the actual zones late on in the game that I enjoy. It's the early ones because it feels so refreshing to make that character and start that journey. It really does.

Speaker 1:

Back in Classic I made a human mage. Big mistake, should have went gnome, 100%. No, I should have went gnome, but I made a human mage and a person who I was leveling with at the time wanted a druid, so obviously they could only be night elf. One of us had to make the trek, the menethil harbor run or the wetlands run from uh teldrassil or from elwyn forest all the way to the opposite faction, and this is a very long trek. So we'll start it from stormwind, the human zone or city.

Speaker 1:

You get the tram to ironforge. From ironforge you run all the way to the east of dunmarrow into loch madan. You run up through loch madan. So you run north and then you run all the way through the wetlands until you get to menethil harbour. Then you get to menethil harbour, take the boat over to dark shore, which is, you know, not this you've done most of the journey by that point. But then from dark shore you get the boat over to ruth theron village, which takes you to tell your seal, the big tree. Then you obviously run from darnassusus or Rutharen Village to Shadow Glen.

Speaker 1:

So it's one hell of a run and I chose to go to Teldrassil because I enjoy it a lot more although it should have been. They come to me because there's actually a druid trainer. I was stuck with rank one, fireball for like 10 levels. So, yeah, I couldn't train for like 10 levels, which was kind of crazy, but it was really, really fun and I think that it's something that you need to experience.

Speaker 1:

Uh, when it comes to the starting zones, if you just make a new character and literally turn up the music, turn up the ambience, like sound, honestly tell yourself will not disappoint, especially when you get out of, uh, the very starting bit, shadow glenn, when you get out of that and get to dolinar, the little like town. That's in between darnassus and shadow glenn, that's when the music really kicks in and it's just so amazing. But again, there's many different things, but I have to go with one of the starting zones because they are portrayed so perfectly for each race that starts there. It's, it's amazing, all the way from blood elves, forsaken night elves, humans. I even like the gnome starting zone, uh, gnome and dwarf, but again, not as much as the others. That one's going to be very situational. You obviously have all control, which are the same and again it's very situational. I get that people might like that idea more, um, of the ruggedness, almost, rather than the ethereal, you know, sort of night elf stuff. But you know it's personal preference and I think that they've done so well in depicting the starting zones that it's got to be one of them, in my honest opinion.

Speaker 1:

Um, the next question is best character in wow or favorite character? There's loads, there is absolutely loads, and it's really really tough to actually pick out one character. But I am going to go with and I don't think this is a controversial one, I think that this is a very obvious one for a lot of people. I'm gonna go with Arthas. I think that I know that's the boring answer, but the way that they've depicted its story all throughout warcraft into warcraft, like warcraft into world of warcraft I think it was done flawlessly. I think that they set up so much of it in warcraft that bringing him back for like an expansion in world of warcraft is perfect. He's a perfect villain to have an end boss for, even though he wasn't technically the end boss of Wrath of the Lich King, it was Ruby Sanctum. But the way that it builds up to this pinnacle of you have to kill the Lich King and the Lich King is Arthas. He is someone who has terrorized and gone through so much pain and all of this stuff is someone who has terrorized and gone through so much pain and all of this stuff like that. It's so amazing to kill him essentially as an end boss. I remember one of my first memories of wow is killing uh arthas, like in a 25 man pug, and it was great fun. I found it absolutely amazing to do so.

Speaker 1:

So, icecrown, citadel, or going throughout the storyline you obviously have arriving in Northrend and then you slowly work your way up, you get to Icecrown and when you're in Icecrown they did something that they've never done before and it's a progressive story, it's a phased story almost. So. You start off in the bottom right of ice crown with just this little outpost. As you're progressing you get a second outpost, a third one, and then it all ends with, like you basically ready to storm the citadel, the ice crown citadel, and break the gates down and push in, and then when you push in and go into that raid, you are met with, directly in front of you, the first boss. But the first boss is very far away, just down a couple corridors basically, and you've set out a perimeter. You've got all of the class, um, like sort of not trainers but vendors there for your tier sets, so paladins, all of that. You have darian mograine there. You have the leader of your faction there. Um, you have obviously did I say no tyrian mograine, leader of your faction. You have all of these different people and you have kind of a stepping stone into icc, ice crown, cit, and it feels grand and that's the best part, that's what makes it amazing. The raid feels grand when you enter it and throughout the entire thing you're constantly getting like RP prompts.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so as soon as you walk past a certain point at the start of Icecrown, you get Arth's talking to you and it's a very long rp thing. You don't have to listen to it, you can just carry on clearing trash, but he is talking to you and it's really really cool because it's showing how much of a villain he actually is. And then you go and do the shadow morn quest line, the legendary quest line, and at the end of it you are getting something that you know apart from a legendary, which is really cool. You loot arthas, uh, at the end of this quest line, and you get a box. This this box contains, I think, several items. There is one for Mograine, which is a basically an echo of his father, and it's saying there's a lot of RP in all of these, but it says that you know, thank you for freeing him and stuff, and he gets to talk to his son and all of this. It's a really really like cool. You one for sylvanas, who reflects on how she was killed by arthas and then raised as a banshee by him, and stuff like this. You get one for muradin, who taught arthas how to like wield a weapon you know swords and all of that and he sort of reminisces on how he was just a boy, uh, which is really cute. You get one for utha, who sort of reminisces on how he was just a boy, which is really cute. You get one for Uther, who sort of almost forgives him for betraying him and killing him as his sort of mentor, almost. You know, there's many different ones and it's really cool. It really really is.

Speaker 1:

You have a perfect villain arc going from Warcraft into world of warcraft and it being finished there. That arc took years to finish and I think it's depicted so perfectly and I think that this is why zalatath is going to be looked back on in the current world of warcraft as a very good villain. It depends on how long she'll be a villain for and what she needs to do to up that status of oh shit, like she could really be a villain. I think that they dropped the ball with hadgar still being alive, okay. I think that if zalatath had killed kadgar in the current expansion, she would have been like oh fuck, okay, now it's really kind of dangerous kind of deal. But because she didn't, it's kind of still like, okay, she hasn't really done much else. You know, she's kind of pulling the strings, yeah, but she hasn't been the big bad. She hasn't been like I have killed everything, I am raising a shit ton of undead and all of that stuff. Like arthas, he hasn't had that or she hasn't had that sort of betrayal moment yet that, oh shit, she's really bad. Kind of deal. Like yeah, she is, but she needs a something, she needs that extra something just being just to be like well, we're fucked, we have to end it now, kind of deal.

Speaker 1:

Um, so it's got to be arthas as best character and favorite character. Just to see the whole story arc play out how it ended. It's absolutely amazing, absolutely amazing. Look up law videos on it. Honestly, there is so much law about arthas that it would take me years to go into to get every single point. But yeah, there is so much about it. He is literally thought to because Arthas and the Lich King are two different entities, they're two different people and he has fought the Lich King and taken dominance of the Helm. It's so much lore it's absolutely amazing to listen to. I will not do it justice here. I'm not even going to try to Look up lore videos on Arthas and there is so much about him. It's absolutely amazing, amazing. Would very much recommend the next question.

Speaker 1:

I was gonna say quest, uh, the next question is that do you like the leveling? Now I don't know if you're referring to classic or retail, but I'm going to answer for both. Leveling in classic and retail are two very different experiences. Leveling in classic is very slow, a little bit tedious and kind of a brain turn off OK. Leveling in retail is very fast, but tedious and kind of a brain turn off. But tedious and kind of a brain turn off, okay. So it depends on what you would prefer at the time. Because if I wanted to spam, run some dungeons, get a lot of dopamine in terms of get a lot of levels quite relatively quickly, I would play retail. If I wanted to play the game at a very much slower pace, I would play classic the game at a very much slower pace.

Speaker 1:

I would play classic, and classic quests are interesting, to say the least. Some might take you to other continents, some might just be kill 10 cats. You know these kind of deals but honestly, uh, it's so tough I don't enjoy the leveling as it is at the moment, but I think that I would enjoy it when it does the law walker cho stuff. Now, the reason I say that is because leveling at the moment is very much a chore. Oh, okay, I want to get to max level just so I have this um class or this race as a max level, because I do pvp. Uh, the ratios do matter for me, so I need to make an undead monk that I have will of the forsaken. It would just be really useful, really needed and something that can be used. Um, as for classic, it's very much. The whole journey is about the questing. So I'm not too upset that I have to do the questing um, and I kind of take that into consideration. So it's very much. I can turn my brain off and just super chill with the questing.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I think in retail the questing and the leveling experience will be better when law will could show, uh, stuff that comes out next patch and what the law will show. Questing experience is very much. He's going to take points within world of warcraft's lore and basically allow you to live through them and do quest chains through them. So he's done arthur's zalatath and the brokers for arthur's, he's very much done. You get to see the culling of Stratholme, him going to Northrend picking up Frostmourne, all of this stuff. Oh, my God, excuse me, sorry, and essentially this is what you're going to be seeing, and I think that that is a very good way to level. You're gaining experience, but you're also gaining knowledge of the lore and of the game itself, which I think is just a win-win, because I enjoy the lore of world of warcraft.

Speaker 1:

I enjoy so much about it that this I usually rush when it comes to retail leveling. Okay, I want to rush through, I want to be like, yep, cool, I just want this, this and this, I want these classes at this level so that I can get this racial ability pretty much and all of that, but the leveling is very much like okay, I'm still getting levels, which is good, but I'm also experiencing some really cool lore now and I think that that is an amazing thing to have. So I genuinely think, when the lore walker chose stuff comes out next patch that it will be a lot better leveling experience in retail. I do have to say that they are completely different experiences in leveling, but I do enjoy. Oh, that's tough.

Speaker 1:

I get more satisfaction out of getting a level in classic than I do in retail, but because I don't always get a level in classic and because I find it very slow at points, I would prefer retail leveling, and that's just personal preference. I think that that's just how my brain works and I get that that's going to be a very unfavored and unpopular opinion, but it's just how my brain works. It needs that sort of uh, almost small dopamine injections quite quickly and retail well does give that. Now I get that there's like some good dopamine in playing classic wow and leveling in classic well, because it feels like every quest you're doing is meaningful. It's like, oh, that's a nice chunk of xp, um, but brain can't sustain that.

Speaker 1:

I don't think, and don't get me wrong, I think that classic leveling is still very, very solid. It's just I prefer retail one, like, it's that simple, there's nothing more to it, all it is. Yeah, that's literally all it is. There's nothing too much crazy about it, but my voice is going so I do need to call it there. I do apologize. Do check out all of the socials down below. Constant stuff happening over there, as well as stuff on the Etsy shop multiple things going up. Yeah, thank you all very much for listening and go and val a friend. Goodbye all for listening and go and val a friend, goodbye, thank you.