Pig & Whistle Tales - A World of Warcraft Podcast

The Love and Frustration of Two Decades in World of Warcraft

• Gabriel • Season 5 • Episode 22

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The Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth podcast dives into World of Warcraft questions, covering everything from personal favorites to deep thoughts about the game's evolution over nearly two decades.

• Weekly news on current world bosses in Hellefall and the Undermine
• Battlegrounds and Legion Time Walking as the bonus events of the week
• Gravity Lapse brawl discussion with its impacts on ranged vs melee classes
• Personal mount favorites including the Shadowlands gladiator dragon for sentimental reasons
• Invincible from Lich King discussed as an iconic mount with rich lore connections
• Critical analysis of the 95-5 split between PvE and PvP content development
• Call for better developer communication about PvP content and updates
• Reflection on the player base being both the best and worst aspect of WoW
• Nostalgic discussion about experiencing WoW again for the first time
• The unique magic of WoW compared to other MMOs and gaming experiences

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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 in installment, go for a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft a grommer bottle or a pint. Sit back and enjoy this episode. Variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft. A grubber bottle or a pint. Sit back and enjoy this episode. We will be going over well, not going over, but we'll be doing a Q&A of questions that have been asked and put forward towards me and I'm going to be answering these questions. Some of them are going to be more personal than others. Some of them are going to be just about WoW in general, in specific cases, etc. Etc. But we obviously start off with the weekly news. As always, we are starting off with the world bosses for this week. Our aggregation of horrors as well as the Godfather these can be located within HelloFall as well as the Undermine.

Speaker 1:

Battlegrounds and Legion Time Walking are your bonus events for the week. Battlegrounds you get more honour for completing them and to Legion Time Walking you can buy cosmetics, mounts, reputations using Time Walking badges by completing Legion Time Walking dungeons Very simple. And as your brawl for the week, you have Gravity Lapse. Gravity Lapse is based in eye of the storm only and essentially every 30 seconds you're flung up into the air and able to relocate quite effectively and quickly whilst doing so. Obviously, this is um a bit trickier for melees to hit people in the air. Definitely ranged have more of an advantage, but you know, it's still good fun. It's still a good way to um mess with people. There are certain ways that you can mess with people for sure.

Speaker 1:

As for that, that is the weekly news we'll be starting off with the first question that I have picked out and that is um. We're going to go with something simple and then go into the longer questions is the best way to do this. So my favorite mount now there are thousands of mounts, I think, literally thousands um of mounts in world of warcraft. But there's two answers to this. There's one that I use it because I'm more sentimental towards it, because I earned it really well and I'm happy with it and it holds a certain memory for me, and then there's one that I just think looks the coolest. So what I'm going to do is give you the first answer and that is the Shadowlands gladiator dragon, basically the unchained glad mount from season two of shadowlands.

Speaker 1:

The reason I enjoy this mount is even though it was a super inflated season. I get that, but it's my first ever gladiator mount and still to this day is my only gladiator mount and I didn't, you know, get boosted or anything. I did it with people who are newer to the game, like literally recently just started up again, and I did it with a randomer. So I'm really happy. Again, it was a super inflated season, but it was my first glad mount, my only glad mount today, and even though I'm better at the game now than when I was back then, it's tougher because of MMR and inflation to get the glad, hence why I haven't been able to since. Um, definitely not without trying, but I'm definitely at a better point when playing now than I was when I got my glad. But this mount definitely holds a special place because it is the very first glad mount that I ever earned in the game and I'm hoping that I'm going to earn some more throughout the years. I really, really am and I believe that I will. I genuinely believe that I will.

Speaker 1:

So that's the first part to that answer. The second part is basically a glorified what is cool? A contest, isn't it? And I do have to. It's really tough. There's so many good ones. There's invincible, there's ashes of allah, there's even, like the nether drake, mounts from burning crusade. All of these are very, very cool mounts, but I'm gonna go for something.

Speaker 1:

That's obviously going to be a boring answer, but I think it's invincible and the reason I say that is mainly due to the fact it being from one of the most notorious villains of Warcraft ever. You know, super notorious, probably the most notorious villain in the game. So you know, there's that Super notorious, probably the most notorious villain in the game. So you know, there's that, plus a horse with wings, an undead horse with wings. Who doesn't want that? Who doesn't want an undead horse with wings? Obviously, ashes of Alara is so cool. It's more fantasy, it's, you know there's more to it. But the lore behind Arthas and you know, invincible, um, and you can. You can see where Invincible was raised in game. If you go into Tirisfal Glades and you go to Balneir Farmstead, there is a grave for Invincible there and it reads what arthur's put on that plaque, like the day invincible died due to its leg basically being broken running through snow. Basically that's it. Um, yeah, and it's.

Speaker 1:

It's quite sad, to be honest, but to be able to see this mount and to be able to honestly be like, yes, I have it as a kind of flex is kind of cool. I get that many people want this mount and I hope that many people do. I hope everyone that is actively trying to farm it does achieve that goal in getting the mount. I really, really do, because I'm the type of person who doesn't really care if people will have the same mountain stuff. I still think it's cool regardless. But I digress, honestly, it's.

Speaker 1:

I think that there are other choices in terms of favorite mount, but I've got to go with that. It's that. Or, honestly, baron Rivadare mount and you might be thinking, but that's just a different undead horse model. Yes, yes, it is, but I predominantly play Alliance and when I first saw this mount and I saw that it was an undead horse, I was like yo, I got to have that, this mount. And I saw that it was an undead horse, I was like yo, I gotta have that. And this is the only mount that I've actively tried to farm for in Stratholme. It's the only mount that I actively attempted to farm. Okay, and that's important, I have not actively like intended to farm anything else, intended to farm anything else.

Speaker 1:

Now there are close thirds, fourths, fifths, like places, some of them, I would say you got jaina's water elemental mount from battle for azeroth, from the battle for desire law that raid. You obviously have ashes of allah. Obviously that is one of the most sought after things in world of warcraft as a whole, like without a doubt. These are the ones that you think, yeah, these are really really cool. So I can kind of understand it. But honestly, there's so many cool mounts, it's really tough and really, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Opinion based, that's the word that it doesn't really matter what I say. Everyone's going to have a different set of opinion. It's going to be very rare that people will go, yeah, that is the coolest mount. So hence why I went with invincible for the safest option. But I went with a more sentimental one with the uh, unchained gladiators, uh, soul eater I believe that it's called. That's my personal favorite.

Speaker 1:

The next question is what could you improve in wow or what could improve wow? Sorry it's very tough, but what can improve wow is? It's a very tough answer because there are so many things that you would want to see in wow player housing. They're already doing that. You want to see more pve content, more different, like ways to add player power, but not player power, not like artifacts or um, what, what was the other one as right? And stuff like this. No, ap sort of grind, and they are doing that. They're taking away the grindiness of the game in retail, whereas you still have classic now, which is your go-to, like wow grind almost where you're grinding through the levels. So you have a smoother game that's easier to pick up, but late game is a lot tougher. And then you have a game that's very grindy at the start but very much not end game based in classic. Then you have two different variations, which is very good in terms of improvement in wow.

Speaker 1:

I think the best thing to improve wow is something that can come from outside of wow, and that would be communication. Okay, the devs do a good job at communicating when patches are going live, when ptr is going out and stuff like that. That's great. I don't discourage that, I don't think that's bad. But pvp wise is the one that upsets me.

Speaker 1:

Now. I always thought of wow as you've got pve and pvp. Okay, they've always made it seem like that. But if you look at over the course of years, what pve has had had added to it and what pvp has been added to, you will notice a large discrepancy in what has been added basically. And if this was the other way around and it was flipped, pve's would be losing their heads over it. They would. It's that simple the amount of okay, let me put this into perspective. Since classic, there has been three battlegrounds. Okay, we're going to take this expansion by expansion, basically, but all the way up until the War Within, how many battlegrounds have been added into PvP? Let's just take that. I would say that you have about 10 to 15 battlegrounds now, and I'm trying to think of them off the top of my head. So, no, warsong Gulch and rathy basin and outer oak valley. We'll just say that they launched with classic or they're in classic. Okay, I know that some of them didn't launch with classic, but it is what it is.

Speaker 1:

Um, in burning crusade, what did we get? I don't remember either. Storm, okay, so you got either storm there. But wrath of the lich king. You got winter grasp. We'll say and isla conquest okay, so there's three. Yeah, yeah, we win me so far for cataclysm. Uh, tolberad, we'll say and battle for gilneas. I think that that's one right, yeah. Yeah, twin Peaks. I think Twin Peaks might have Screw it.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to say Twin Peaks. I'm going to list out all of the thingies. I'm trying to think of what actually we got Templar, kotmogu, silver Shard Mines we got I really can't remember the others the latest, the War within one, where you escort the mines and get the crystal. So that's 10. It is anywhere between 10 and 15 new battlegrounds. Okay, now put this into perspective with pve. Every single patch you're going to get a new raid.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so we'll take um pve in classic, for example, you have four raids. You have molten core, blackwing, lair, anchorage, naxramas. These are 40 player raids. These are main raids. We're not going to count zul, grub and anchorage there as well. Okay, we're just not going to count them. We'll say that if you look into the future, you have three to four raids.

Speaker 1:

I think it's four raids in Burning Crusade, from Mount Hyjal, serpent Shrine, black Temple, sunwell. There's four, as well as Zul'Aman, but again, that's a ten player raid. We're not going to count these. Then you obviously have Olderman Naxxramas, revamp again. So I'm not going to count Naxxramas here. But Olderman, not alderman. Uh, old war, sorry. Trial of the crusader. And ice crown citadel. And then ruby sanctum as well, can't forget, ruby sanctum is technically a raid, is the final raid of wrath. Again, that's another four. Okay, if we keep going on. You got cataclysm that had Bastion of Twilight, firelands. There was another one that released alongside Bastion of Twilight. Oh, blackwing Descent. You have Dragon Soul. So again another four. You're getting four per expansion.

Speaker 1:

Basically, okay, and this is just raids, this is just pure raids. If you are to include all of the pve content that was added during that time as well, such as, let's say, take dragonflight, for example, the elemental world stuff. You got the knockout offensive stuff. You have multiple sort of things happening pve wise around, uh, azeroth or the zones that are currently ongoing. You are looking at a very much 95 to 5 maybe pve to pvp scale, and that's quite sad.

Speaker 1:

So, to answer your question, I would need a lot more communication on the pvp side of things to improve. Wow, because I feel like, as a pvp player, that we do not get enough said about it or mentioned about it. It's always oh yeah, this is great. We're going to get player housing pve. We're going to get a new raid pve. We're going to get new mythic plus rotations pve. We're gonna get all of this stuff. There's like, uh, phase diving in the next patch pve, you know all of this. Again, in the next patch we get a world um, world pvp island or something.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the only purpose that this will serve is for, firstly, rex troy. Uh, if you don't know him, he's a youtuber who breaks world of warcraft, basically with mechanics that are within the game that the game is within. He just breaks the game. Uh, so he'll do that in world pvp. But essentially, it's going to be there for a week or two for people to get one or two pieces of bloody token gear, and then no one will go there. No actual PvPer will go there.

Speaker 1:

I don't believe, not for anything apart from content-related, and there's not many of that. So it's really tough. It really really is. But I think that to improve well, there needs to be more communication on what might actually be happening, and I know that they're doing Gamescom and they're going to talk about all of this stuff then. But I bet you, when Gamescom comes out, I usually have so much hope when it comes to announcing different PvE or PvP changes, but it's always just oh yeah, player housing is going to be always just, oh yeah, player housing is going to be this uh month. Uh, the new raid is going to be this this is what's happening to azeroth, you know all of that stuff. And for pvp, it's like yeah, we, we got a new battleground. Uh, it's got carts that you can travel on and that's it. Apart from that, you escort a crystal, which is basically a capture the flag, and you move a cart, which is basically, um, silver, sharp mines. Yeah, it's. It's a little bit upsetting. So to improve, wow, I would like them to communicate more on the pvp side of things. That's all um.

Speaker 1:

Next question is what is the worst part about wow? Well, I mean, got over quite a few things, but in my honest opinion, wow has had many bad ideas. Okay, many, many, many, many bad, many bad ideas. Okay, all the way from 40 man raids which, yes, don't get me wrong, are amazing, backing classic, okay, but let's face it, try and get 40 people together. It's an absolute headache to do, okay, especially if people are playing, casual working, they don't have the time. On the weekend, something comes up, family irl stuff happens, so happens, okay, getting 40 active people constantly each week is very tough and there will be burnout eventually because of the different way that people like to play games and stuff like that, all the way up to garrisons. You know, garrisons were not great to start with and then you obviously have artifacts. Where it's in Legion, artifacts were introduced amazing, great for an expansion but then they went into the heart of Azeroth and Azerite powers and then they went into Shadowlands with conduits.

Speaker 1:

There's been so many mistakes and bad parts about WoW but honestly, sometimes it's us that are the worst part about wow, the player base, and I think a lot of people might agree with that, because the player base screams out for oh, we want this, we want that, we want this, and when we get it, it isn't implemented correctly because, let's face it, it was never a good idea in the first place. We have done that before and we have actively chose to pursue things to be brought into WoW but end up being awful for the game itself. It's just one of them things that's going to happen, but what I mean by us is the player base as a whole in terms of the toxicity player base as a whole, in terms of the toxicity we trying to interact with someone. You are effectively doing a coin flip. Okay, this coin flip maybe back in 2004 to 2010, um, wow or anywhere online, you're thinking, okay, you've got a decent chance of, you know, talking to someone and they'd be polite. But as the years goes on, as the, the internet trolls and memes and you know, people just realize that, oh, I can just be a dickhead and not suffer any sort of repercussions and people start to become sort of hostile in the game or just actively mean for no reason and act stupid and all of that. So what I mean by this is the community that we sometimes have in wow itself. Whether a new player dies because they simply accidentally pulled something with a pet, like a hunter pet okay, that's fine. Look, it happens. It's not the end of the world. But some people sit there and then start yelling at the person for pulling this and they're sat there like I have no idea what I did. I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, because they didn't. They're just pulling like mobs. Okay, they accidentally pulled some mobs, that's all it is like. We need to do better as a community to help the game become more and more welcoming for newer players, because it isn't at the moment it's alongside it, being a big mmo that's been out for 20 plus years now, so there is a lot to dissect. We are just putting on the pressure when it comes to how we act towards the like each other in game. Obviously not everyone's like this, but there is a decent amount of people that are very toxic within the game, and I think that that is the worst part about wow, in my honest opinion. Swiftly moving on.

Speaker 1:

Do you wish that you could start wowW over again? This is the one that I'm going to end on the episode, but this is a really tough question. If I asked you this question when you started WoW back in 2010, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, or even the later years in 2023, 2022, 2021, would you restart it again, and why would you? I have to argue both sides here, because I would love to restart playing WoW again. I would adore not knowing anything about WoW, getting told to play this game and falling in love with the game all over again. Okay, I love it in many different ways because of the active brain stimulation and dopamine effect that it gives my brain. I love it because of just everything about it the ambience, the music, the class fantasy.

Speaker 1:

I have so many memories on the game and this is an amazing thing and I wish that I would never lose that, because I know that this is a comfort game. I know that this is one of the best games that I've ever played, and people say the same thing when we're going through classics. I remember playing Wrath of the Lich King very vaguely but I remember one of my earliest memories being Killing the Lich King and going back to Wrath Classic and Killing the Lich King is a very nostalgic thing for me and it was something that I enjoyed doing with the people that I finally did that with, which is the guild that I'm in for Classic and that was very nostalgic. But people don't remember that and people now in Mists of Pandaria remember Mists of Pandaria. This is their first expansion that they remember quite well and they are feeling more and more nostalgic about it. And that's the thing about this game if you've played it for this long, you're going to have these moments where you're feeling nostalgic.

Speaker 1:

But there's also people who are learning about this expansion for the first time. People have never played mr pandaria. People have never played warlords of draenor or wrath or burning crusade or legion, bfa shuttle land, and this is a new experience for them and that's what I would love to do to be able to experience all of these um expansions again, as well as the ones that come out in retail which is midnight, and the last titan, and stuff like that, because it's always a feeling of I don't know what's going to happen and it's really cool. But to start it all over again as well would be magical. It would just be magical.

Speaker 1:

I've said this so many times my very first character by myself was a night elf druid, still playing it to this day. It is still my main, it is still there and I love that druid. That druid is so good. I remember getting to level five, level six, walking to dolinar and seeing that big treant, uh, that like giant guarding, like the guardian of the town, basically the giant treant, the teldrassil protector, or whatever it's called, and it was amazing. I was fascinated by it, the music that surrounded it as I walked past it as well in darnassus or not darnassus, but teldrassil is just so it's, it's ingrained in my brain. That's how good it was, and to experience that again would be mesmerizing. It really, really would.

Speaker 1:

I have yet to find a game that has made me go yeah, this is, this is the one compared to world of warcraft. World of warcraft is the only game that I've ever been able to do or think like that and be like, yeah, this is the game, this is the game for me. Tried many other mmos. They just don't hit the same. They really don't. Tried so many games. I've so so many games. None of them hit the same. Some of them are a comfort pick and games that I've played for years heroes of might, magic 3, stronghold crusader, all of these different games. They're always games that I can go back to and be like, yeah, this is good fun, this is a chill time, but nothing will ever be wow. So, yes, I would love to go and experience that again. But I kind of have and that's the thing I have experienced that again with the release of classic and then the burning crusade classic and then wrath classic, crusade Classic and then Wrath Classic. Especially this is when I was like, yeah, this is what I remember, this is nostalgic and that's the fun part of it. That really really is.

Speaker 1:

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 multiple things happening on the etchy shop. Be sure to check it out. But thank you all very much once again and go, avala friend, goodbye, do do Thank you.