Pig & Whistle Tales - A World of Warcraft Podcast

Pig and Whistle: Debating Classic WoW's Evolution

• Gabriel • Season 5 • Episode 19

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We dive into current World of Warcraft Classic controversies and examine the philosophical divide between preservation and accessibility in the game. As the classic ecosystem continues to evolve, we explore the balance changes coming to Mists of Pandaria, the end of Season of Discovery, and why one-button rotations should be implemented in all versions of WoW.

• Weekly events include Charai and The Godfather world bosses, Mists of Pandaria timewalking, and Pact House PvP brawl
• One-button rotation should be implemented in all versions of WoW for accessibility purposes
• Season of Discovery was always meant as a testing ground for Classic Plus features
• Server population issues require merges and better faction balance across all Classic versions
• Most Classic changes come from player feedback, including solutions to world buff purging
• Mists of Pandaria Classic balance changes aim to prevent massive class disparities due to launching with patch 5.4 systems

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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, in installment I go through 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 classic. Mainly, we're going to be looking at a few things that are concerning the player base or what might be getting them in uproar, annoying them, upsetting them or is actually, you know, quite looked on positively. This means that we're going to be looking through the forums. I'm going to be giving my opinions on certain things. If it's a good idea, bad idea, indifferent, etc. Etc. And yeah, that's um kind of the main gist of it really. But, as always, we start off with the weekly news. We have charai as the world boss for the week this is located within hallowful as well as the godfather, who is located within the undermine. You have missa pandaria time walking as your bonus event for the week alongside time walking dungeons. This means that you get both missa pandaria time walking, um and the. The War Within Dungeon is your bonus event as well, and this means that you get more loot for doing these dungeons as well, and then you have Pact House, which is your brawl for the week. Pact House is a 15 versus 15 PvP event where you are all slammed into an arena, basically, and the first team to you know, beat the other team, kill the rest of the other team wins. It's very simple, very effective and, honestly, it's quite. It's more enjoyable as a caster I will say that, but I think it's one of the most enjoyable rules that I play, basically because I just love the arena setting, I love how simple it is and I love just how simple this game mode is, but it's on the more fun side of the Spectrum for it all. So let's jump straight into it. We'll start off by doing this forum post.

Speaker 1:

This one is actually quite simple, but people overlook it and don't necessarily want it. But I don't get why. So one button rotation for all of wow classic. Now you might be sitting there and thinking, wait, why would they do that? That's ridiculous. Like that just takes all of WoW Classic. Now you might be sitting there and thinking, wait, why would they do that? That's ridiculous. Like that just takes all of the fun out of the game.

Speaker 1:

I agree to a certain point. I think that one button rotation shouldn't do anything in terms of it's really tough. I think it needs to be in the game, and this is the main reason why I know it's a hot topic, but I see, but I see the actual need. My hands don't work the way that they used to, or ever since I got sick nearly two years ago, while I usually wasn't a top player, it happened on occasions, though I was never this, this bad. The joint pain and stiffness, combined with the shakes in my hand, make it hard to play. Well, no, this isn't intended to set the pot. It's about accessibility, and I completely agree.

Speaker 1:

I think that the one button rotation is needed for accessibility purposes. I think it's really, really needed for accessibility purposes. I think it's really really needed For accessibility purposes. And I think that those who aren't able To play the game To a decent level Like because of these sort of Not disabilities, but what would the word be for it? I've forgotten the word for it. You kind of know what I mean these challenges Then they the word before it, I've forgotten the word for it. You kind of know what I mean. Um, these challenges then they need all the help that they can get, and this is what the one button rotation does. It gives that accessibility to players and I think that with it being released in retail and, I think, a good version of it being released in retail, where it's not going to be better than a lot of people actually playing their character the way that they've always played their character I think that it's fine to do this in classic and I think that this is both for classic Mists of Pandaria, which is is releasing, as well as Classic Classic.

Speaker 1:

I think the one-button rotation, even though a lot of the classes are one-button already need to be in the game just for accessibility purposes. If people find it a lot easier to utilise their class or spec with this button, then I think that it should be put in every version of WoW. I genuinely do, and I get that it's going to be tougher in like a classic classic version because you're using one button already. It's just going to be a bit more of a global cooldown. But the global cooldown anyway is not going to affect you in classic, like classic, because your spells take three seconds to cast and the global cooldown is always one second. So you know it's not gonna break the game really. You're still gonna be able to do the same dps and, let's face it, classic raiding is very much. Oh, I'm just meleeing the mob as a warrior, or oh, I'm just pressing frostbolt as a mage. You know, it's nothing that's too intense.

Speaker 1:

I don't see the problem in adding this into every single wow for accessibility purposes. I think that it would be very useful, and those who can't play need the help in order to do so, and I think that it's perfectly fine for this to be released. And I know some people are going to sit there and be like, oh no, but that wasn't in true vanilla world of warcraft. Okay, yeah, great. So I'm really glad that you're going to not allow people to play because you know they have a tough time playing the game because of a certain disability or they find it tough to, you know, use their hands to play, or whatever it might be, and they might have a challenging like challenging time in playing it. But because it wasn't in original world of warcraft, you don't want it there. Yeah, no, that's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. It's like the um colorblind uh, all over again. There were people back in when classic was going to re-release back in 2019. They added a colorblind feature, which is great. It it needed to be there from the very start. It really really did. Um, but the fact that people were up in complaining about a colorblind mode in vanilla because it wasn't there in 2004 is absolutely ludicrous. It really is. People need the accessibility in order to play wow and this accommodates for that. So, yeah, this is a short one, like short uh forum post, but I think it needed to be addressed because I think it's not a bad idea. I genuinely think it's a good idea if they added the one button rotation in. I really really do.

Speaker 1:

Next one is a bit different. This one is someone ranting, as always, as most of the posts are on the forums, but let's go over it. Worst decision is what this is posted as Killing Sod in its prime. A version of the game beloved by many in this community is such a travesty Best of wow I've ever played. Yes, phase one to four was a bumpy ride, okay, but since faith phase five through eight, it's been smooth and the best wow ever has been in a classic setting, and more more.

Speaker 1:

Firstly, I want to address that if over half of the release of a game or of like a expansion or a re-release of wow, it would get slaughtered, okay, and, and season of discovery has been slaughtered because of the phase one to four. Um, it wasn't great. And the reason it wasn't great was because of the levels. Okay, level 25 being your max level not amazing. You don't really have a lot of um stuff that you can utilize. Then it was level 40, then level 50 and then obviously max level at the end, but it wasn't amazing. It really really wasn't, and that's why it wasn't great, because of them level caps. Now they did get better and they got better through phase five to eight and this is the reason that they did was because of the newer content that they released. Obviously, you have black fathom deeps released as a raid and gnome regon, all of that stuff. But, um, you have scarlet enclave, you have the karazhan crypts, you have nax, ramus, hard modes. All of these things came at later phases and these made the game a bit more enjoyable and sort of they could balance it around these runes that you all had. So this is why it was a bit more enjoyable.

Speaker 1:

Moppet will not have a lasting power and they will lose more subs than they would have kept with keeping Sod alive. I think that MOP has more potential to hold subscriptions than the Season of Discovery, and I believe that Mists of Pandaria is a very solid expansion. I don't believe that it would bleed subscriptions. No matter what version of WoW is your favourite, there will always be people that are leaving their subscriptions. Okay, this is classic. This is classic classic. This is retail. This is retail. This isn't a discovery.

Speaker 1:

There comes a point in wow, in that person's journey playing the game, where they're like yeah, I'm kind of done with it, so I'm just gonna, um, take a step back and cancel my subscription for a bit and come back at a later date when a new expansion releases or something along them lines. Um, which is fine, like, that is completely fine. But there will always be people who lose it or end their subscription because they're just done with the game for a bit, and I don't think it's because of the expansion itself. Sometimes it is. Which is fine, that's perfectly fine. I'm going to accept that Sometimes people don't enjoy Cataclysm and Classics the only thing they like. So it's like oh, okay, well, there's no point in me carrying on, I'll come back when Mists of Pandaria releases or whatever, which is completely fine, to do Like I'm not against that at all, but to say that it's going to bleed subscriptions and that they're going to lose more subs than it would have keeping season of discovery live.

Speaker 1:

I don't think so. I think that you're going to look at a worse wow experience overall if you keep season of discovery alive. The reason I'm saying this is because they have stated that they wanted to move on to basically classic plus. Classic plus is what is going to be the next version of wow that releases when classic goes into the burning crusade again. Okay now, the difference here is that if you keep kept season of discovery alive, you will have retail, classic, missa, pandaria, classic classic tbc, season of discovery and then classic plus. You have five different world of warcrafts, all with different uh realms, so that you're also split up even further in terms of realms and stuff, all with different layers within these realms. So, again, further split up and it's just too much. You're splitting the player base too much, like when wow was retail, only retail. What world of warcraft would you play and what world of warcraft would you see everyone being played? It would be retail again. You have private servers at the time, but I don't know. It wasn't quite the same experience.

Speaker 1:

Some people found it enjoyable, which is fine. And then when classic released, it's like, oh, that's cool, I get to play retail and classic, I can pick and choose which one I want to play on a daily basis. I I don't mind that, that's an enjoyable thing that I can do and sort of manage my time on both. And then classic gets, uh, keeps going forward into tbc, into wrath of the lich king, and then they're like, oh, you know, we're gonna keep. Or obviously when they went into tbc, it's we're gonna keep classic realms open. And it's like, yeah, that's cool, okay, so a third split, that's fine, they won't do anything else. And then down the line, down the pipework, they kind of went oh yeah, now we're doing this uh kind of experimental mode as season of discovery, and it's like, oh, okay, that's interesting. So what, you just play classic, but you have some retail like runes. Okay, I'm kind of down for that. That sounds like a cool idea as like a seasonal thing, kind of like Diablo, where they have multiple seasonal things. Yeah, that's a cool idea. I think that's good. But again, that's for World of Warcraft now all with their own different realms, different factions. Obviously You've got Horde and Alliance, so you're going to be further split up in that direction and it just kept getting more and more split.

Speaker 1:

So I don't think that keeping sod alive was always going to be a good idea. I think that sod always was going to be a testing, testing ground for what they can and can't do in a classic setting. Think of it as garrisons in warlords of draenor. They are very much a first iteration of garrisons. Well, if you want to be super, uh, you know crazy about it, garrisons, uh, the first iteration was kind of half hill in missa, pandaria, where you had your own like farm. Okay, that was kind of the very, very first iteration of garrisons, even though it's only a small farm. Um, but yeah, that's kind of what season discovery was to me from the start. It's a testing ground for potential things going forward, rather than its own wow forever kind of deal. Yeah, does that make sense?

Speaker 1:

I get that some people loved it, but I think that they will come back with a better version of Classic Plus. Okay, I think that they will, and I think it will be more populated than what Season of Discovery ever was. Okay, and that's my honest opinion on that. This guy carries on. The crazy thing is now that they are making classic plus, apparently like you have it right there, uh, and you just had to keep developing it and launch a fresh version every two years. Okay, great, so now we're back to relaunch fresh, relaunch classic, relaunch season of discovery. No, it's ridiculous, that is stupid. Okay, I get that you want to relaunch it every year, but what if people enjoy their characters after two years of progression? You know, it's one of them things.

Speaker 1:

Some people like the real, real end game of classic wow, and they like having all of the gear and then they'd like just running around plaguelands doing some nax, ramus raids, um, and then it's like, yep, we're releasing classic again and then that server dies off and they have to do it all again and they don't want to that kind of deal. Um, okay, back to this, bam done instead. Now classic plus will have to be better than season of discovery. I think it will, um, and it will be compared to it every way. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot Again. I think that Season of Discovery is very much a stepping stone for Classic Plus.

Speaker 1:

I genuinely believe that and I think that Classic Plus will do a lot better than Season of Discovery. At a minimum, they should merge Season of Discovery servers now, okay, this one I don't disagree with. I think that they need to merge more servers in all of the world of warcraft, just saying um and or allow for new characters to be made of any faction. Uh, they not only killed it but still restrict who and what characters can be made. I can't even get friends onto alliance on Crusader Strike to play with Insanity. Rant over, do better. Well, the rant wasn't over, because you said do better at the end. But you know, I think that, yes, they should merge the servers, and I think that this is true on all the classic versions of WoW as well. I genuinely think that.

Speaker 1:

But I believe that the class balance or the race no faction balance on the server needs to happen as well, mainly because you see these servers and, depending on if they're going to be a PvE or PvP server, you are going to need the faction balance for it to be a decent server or not, because I cannot tell you how bad it is to be on a full horde or full alliance server and you're trying to level the opposite faction but you just get killed while leveling. Well, when you hit that stranglethorn veil level, you get killed by a rogue or a mage or whatever it might be. That's 30 levels higher than you. And then it's like, ah well, that was fun. But even when you want to try and like do anything about it, you can't because there's just an. You're just overwhelmed by the amount of numbers that there are of, like horde compared to alliance or alliance compared to horde and stuff. So it needs to keep the faction balance. It really does.

Speaker 1:

I get that you can't play with your friends but make a horde character with you know why can't you do that? Because that might be something that they want to do or like a different kind of experience. But that way you get to play with your friend. Does that make sense? And I get that you might want to play a lion and all of that, but surely playing with your friend takes more precedent here rather than just, oh, I want to play a human instead, or a gnome or a night elf, dwarf, you know all of that. So it kind of makes sense. Just to bite the bullet, play Horde and, you know, enjoy the time with your friends, although, unless you can't on the same realm, because classic doesn't allow you to make Horde and Alliance characters, do forget about that sometimes. So it isn't great.

Speaker 1:

Actually, I think on Season of Discovery you can no, I'm pretty sure on season of discovery you can. So you're more than welcome to make a horde character and play that with your friends, um, but yeah, I, I think that classic plus will be better than season of discovery. I genuinely do. And I think that it's going to be needed to shut down Season of Discovery and I thought that from the start people knew that it was going to just be. Yeah, this is a very seasonal sort of realm, hence the name Season of Discovery. It's very much a testing grounds for classic and what they can and can't do, I would say.

Speaker 1:

And then last one I'm going to make this very short and sweet is because I've gone over this before what exactly caused them to pivot away from no changes and give us these versions with big changes. So this person is clearly referring to the Misa Pandaria changes that have happened right now. They have stated exactly why these changes have gone through and I will reiterate them here. The changes that have been made on Misa Pandaria have been mainly due to balancing issues. So balancing issues in Misa Pand Pandaria fluctuated a lot, okay, and they fluctuated throughout all of the classic pluses or classics at the moment, classic TBC, wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm All of them fluctuate in terms of what is viable for a raid okay, or what is more viable for a raid. And what they have done is they've looked at the balance in, looked at the stuff at the end of mr pandaria, because it is a ending patch of mr pandaria, it's not the starting patch, and they've, um, obviously accounted for nerfs, buffs and all of that going into the first raid, when it's going to be completely different.

Speaker 1:

When the first raid, when it's going to be completely different. When the first raid releases, you're on patch 4.1. Yeah, because this is Mists of Pandaria, 4.1, we'll say, or was it 5.1. Probably 5.1. I think it was 5.1. This is Mists of Pandaria, first raid 5.1. We are starting on 5.4. Okay, and the changes from that time, which is over the course of nearly two years, are going to be significant in the damage that you can do in the first raid when it is released.

Speaker 1:

So they are changing these to account for all of the changes that happened throughout missa pandaria leading to that final raid, and they have stated that these changes should even themselves out by the time we get to Siege of Orgrimmar, which is the final raid of the expansion. Okay, this is just due to gear, this is due to scaling, this is due to everything. But everything should be in a more fair and even playing field with the changes. That is the whole reason they've done it. Instead of you know, warlocks being the kings or whatever and boomkins being so low that you can barely see them with a binocular or with binoculars, it's going to be oh, everything's on even ground, doing similar DPS kind of deal that make sense. That is why they changed these things. And again, they changed things in Classic for accessibility purposes or just quality of life stuff.

Speaker 1:

A lot of the changes come from the player base. Genuinely, they said that they didn't want any changes, like Blizzard. Now some had to be implemented. Do not get me wrong colorblind mode and stuff in classic had to be implemented just for accessibility purposes. These are changes that are very healthy to the game.

Speaker 1:

But people um, back in classic were complaining about their world buffs and their world buffs getting purged. So they all wanted these people who got world buffs for a chrono boom to be brought in, basically where you could store your world buffs. This is how the chrono boom came to be and this isn't a Blizzard change. This is people wanting that because they couldn't handle getting purged of their world buffs when this is a viable part of the game. Okay, there are purges within world of warcraft, as a spell purge being one of them. You have magic dispel from a priest that obviously dispels magic, and these are magic buffs that you get via diamo, via song flower, via you know all of these different things, and people couldn't accept that. They got purged and they complained about it and they forced it on the forums for blizzard to do something about the purging meta, and this is where the chrono boom came to be.

Speaker 1:

So a lot of the changes do come from player base concerns and you know what is it?

Speaker 1:

Opinions, thoughts and stuff like that. That's just the way it is. That's why it's always been, but that is why changes were needed and given. Okay, I'm not going to go into the whole post. There's reasons why these things happen and the player base is mainly part of it. Okay, it really is. Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 1:

The mop stuff I think that that is more blizzard than us, but I think that they have explained the reason why they are doing it and I can understand and agree why they are because there's going to be nothing worse than starting out mr pandaria, playing the class that you love and then doing 20k DPS less than someone who's you know doing their complete rotation insufficiently and badly. It's. It's not as fun because you're like I can do absolutely everything in my power to try and be better on the like DPS meters, but you just can't because of the um patch that we're in and all of the nerfs and buffs that have happened over the course of mr pandaria. That's all it is, but that is where I will end it for this episode. Thank you all very much for listening. Do check out all of the socials down below constant stuff happening as well as the etsy shop multiple things going up there constantly. But thank you all very much once again and go with valor friend. Goodbye. Thank you.