Pig & Whistle Tales - A World of Warcraft Podcast

Gamescom Predictions and Mists of Pandaria Chaos

• Gabriel • Season 5 • Episode 23

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Gamescom reveals the Midnight expansion from August 19-24 with player housing showcases, new mechanics deep dives, and hopefully some long-overdue PvP system changes. Meanwhile, Mists of Pandaria Classic launched with such catastrophic vehicle combat bottlenecks that Blizzard had to auto-complete the first quest for everyone.

• Weekly world bosses Orta and the Gobfather available in Ashkahet and Undermine
• War Within dungeons, BFA timewalking, and pet battles bonus events running simultaneously
• Deep Wind Dunk brawl featuring orb-carrying battleground mechanics
• Gamescom streaming begins August 19th with expansion trailer and developer presentations
• Player housing live demonstrations and creator mythic dungeon showcases planned
• Hope for lasting mechanics rather than borrowed power systems that disappear
• Speculation about new classes following recent Blizzard survey on celestial beings and tinkerers
• PvP MMR system desperately needs updating from 2006-era rating mechanics
• Mists of Pandaria vehicle combat quests crashed servers due to bottleneck design
• Half Hill farming system provides engaging daily profession progression
• Guild raiding starting next Sunday with relaxed progression approach

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:

Thank you, hello and welcome to the Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth. As always here at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind, I go for a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft, so grab a bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this week's episode. We're going to be going over missa pandaria. We're going to be going over gamescom that's going to be happening as well and a couple of sort of other bits and what we might want to see at gamescom. My opinions on missa pandaria, launch and stuff like this. As always, we do have the weekly news. We have Orta, the Broken Mountain and the Gobfather as our world bosses for the week. They are located within Ashkahet, as well as the Undermine, so you can go there, get some loot, get some gold, do your weekly business with them.

Speaker 1:

The War Within Dungeons, bfa, time Walking and Pet Battles are your bonus events for the week. I didn't think there was ever more are your bonus events for the week? I didn't think there was ever more than two bonus events, but I clearly have been proven wrong here. The war within dungeons you get an extra piece of gear from completing said dungeon Battle. Fans are off. Timewalking you can get timewalking badges and you can purchase reputation, cosmetics and mounts with these sorts of things, so very much worth doing if you are looking for any of these. Uh, reputations or cosmetics and pet battles are simply you get more xp for competing in pet battles for your pets. Very simple and very straightforward deep wing dunk is your brawl for the week. This is a deep wind gorge battleground where essentially you have one of three orbs that you take to the enemy base and you dunk it into the hoop, as it were, and score some points for your team. Very simple first team to a certain amount of points wins the game. It's amazing, it's quite good fun and it's a different take on a battleground, to be honest with you, because you're never usually running at the enemy base. You're usually running just in between your bases, like that you've captured in a rathy basin or something like that. So I do have a quick apology to make, apologies that there was no episode last week, the reason for this being I just needed I or I couldn't get around to it. I was out of the country for a few weeks now and had these episodes set up like beforehand and I just couldn't get around to it before I left. So I do have to apologize for that, but we are back on regular scheduling right now, so hopefully you can forgive me and let's carry on with the episode.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to try a different approach to these episodes. I'm going to try and give you the what is happening, what we would like to see, and sort of end it there. I want to be very punctual with it but still give my opinions across. So it will still be around the same length, but a lot less rambling is what I'm hoping for. So bear with me whilst I try and make that transition. There still might be some rambling, like there is now, um, but yeah, I want to try and get to that point, if that makes sense, because it's a lot more informative for all of you lot, rather than just me rambling. Sometimes I will ramble. It is one of them things.

Speaker 1:

But let's start off with Gamescom. Gamescom is going to be on. August 19th is the opening reveal to August 24th. Yes, august 24th, this is a. It's really weird it starts in the middle of the week. It's really weird it starts in the middle of the week. Wednesday, the 20th of August, is when it opens its doors in EU, in Germany, cologne, and Sunday, the 24th of August is when it closes. This is for people who actually have tickets to go there and to sit in and watch it there live, but for those who are sitting watching at home and everyone else actually, it's going to start on the 19th, where they will like basically be on a live stream and conducting their business there.

Speaker 1:

What is going to happen and I'm gonna, I don't know this personally, but I know that this is what's gonna happen. It's gonna load up the stream. They're gonna be like oh my god, are you all excited for midnight? And then they play the trailer. That's it, and then they're so. This is going to be set in a post-apocalyptic sort of Azeroth. This is what's happened after the previous raid Manaforge Omega. This is what Demensius has done.

Speaker 1:

You know all of this stuff and during the five days that they are at Gamescom, they're going to be going over different things. They're going to be going into a deep dive with Holly Longdale, ian Hazacostas and essentially going to be going into the new zones, mechanics, new features and the story for the upcoming light expansion. So these, what are they? The deep dives are usually very good to watch. They give a lot of informative stuff on what is going to happen in this expansion now. Obviously they're going to be, um, talking about player housing. They're going to be talking about other bits and bobs like that there's technically in that expansion.

Speaker 1:

But I'm more looking for mechanics. The mechanics is the important thing to me. So mechanics in World of Warcraft are something that will change your character or have a big impact on your character from day-to-day life, from doing PvE to PvP and everything in between. These mechanics are sometimes very small and they are sometimes very big parts of your character. So, for example, in shadowlands you had conduits, you had covenants and stuff like this. This is a big part of essentially your character. It's a massive part of your character actually.

Speaker 1:

And for, let's say, a small part of your character is talents. I say it's a small part but like talents are obviously massive in the grand scheme of things, but like changing a couple talents here and there, this is a small mechanic that people fine tune the more and more they get used to the game kind of deal. There's probably a smaller mechanic in the game that's like a lot easier to describe, but that's kind of the one that first popped into my head and I know talents are one of the biggest things in world of warcraft. I know, I know, but it's just the thought of what came up first. Okay, because they've been a staple point in well, throughout years. So you know it, it is what it is now.

Speaker 1:

Here's the thing. I would like to see a few things power like conduits, okay, or powers so kind of like conduits is what I meant, sorry, uh, this is what I mean with mechanics. I want to see a sort of conduit system where you have a few different choices in to go into more a defensive choice, a more offensive choice, or a more sort of neutral where you can maybe a supportive choice, even, um, maybe something along these lines. Now I get that people will just say, oh, borrow power, borrow power. I do not want borrow power. Borrow power is one of the worst things in the game, um, mainly because it stays with you for an expansion and then it's gone. Okay, it's ripped away from you and all of that borrow power is, although how little much enjoyment you got out of it or how awful it felt, it's gone.

Speaker 1:

And I think everyone enjoyed the borrow power in shadowland. Everyone enjoyed the Borrow power in Shadowlands. Everyone enjoyed pressing their Covenant abilities, enjoyed the Covenants and the different dynamics that they brought to every class. People didn't like the Conduit system and how tough it was for ulting in this expansion, because you had to have an entire day job committed to World of Warcraft to have an alt in this expansion and it was horrible. That's the problem that people had with that. And then obviously it getting ripped away at the end of the expansion is never fun.

Speaker 1:

So hopefully there is a mechanic that will go on with us into the next expansions going forward, like Conduits or like the new talent trees and stuff like hero talents. Hero talents are something that was brought in in the War Within and they are going to be going with us into Midnight. This is a mechanic and this is what I hope for more of these mechanics. Now, there is a point where it's like way too much. I get that, but it's always nice having something else to focus on rather than just our new talent point. Okay, cool, cool, cool, um, but you don't want to be too overwhelming for the new player, and I get that. I really, really do.

Speaker 1:

I also want to see a new class, okay, so a new class that we had, or the last class that we had was obviously an evoker. Evokers was one expansion ago. Yeah, that's fine. Okay, like evoker one expansion ago, if I'm. If we don't get it now, we might get it in the last titan. It is what it is. That's kind of being greedy. I get it because I don't think that they will add a new race. They might add a new allied race, obviously, but not one that is specific to any faction. Okay, what I mean by that is kind of like the pandaren, where you could be both horde and alliance. Um, because if you do one allied race, you'll need a separate allied race for the other faction, so you'd need to introduce two. But I imagine that there will be a sort of neutral race that you can pick order alliance on at the start of it and go from there. That way, they don't obviously have to do two races.

Speaker 1:

I would love to see a new class. Okay, I really would, but I just don't. I think it's too early to ask for that. They sent out a survey several months ago or a few months ago no, several at this point, I think it is and it had a list of so many different classes celestial beings, tinkerers, necromancers, so many different things and, uh, you know. We're gonna see that eventually, I would imagine, but I I think it's just too early to say um, which is a bit of a shame. I would love to for that to be a bombshell, be like like we are actually introducing a new class as well as a new Demon Hunter spec. Maybe you know, just maybe, who knows? That's what I would like to see. I just don't know what class I would like to see. Maybe a new tank is most likely to happen, because evokers are very much damaging healers. So a tank spec for this class potentially. I don't know, who knows. I always like the classes that have one DPS, one healer, one tank spec. I always find them the best ones. But who really knows what they will come up with? It's a mystery.

Speaker 1:

I do want to see dates for releases. Okay, now I they're going to be vague about this, they will never do this, but they are going to be giving out a kind of date for a release. Okay, if they give out a specific date, even better. But I want to see date on releases for player housing, the expansion itself. I want to see legion time walking in that mix as well. I wanted to see an updated roadmap of everything okay, and this is going to be very important because it's very much we are on track to get all of this out with our previous roadmap or it's very much we are not on track. We are in the mud right now and we need some real help to even get this out before end of the year kind of deal. So we'll very much see and I think that, well, the expansion should be out by the end of the year. In my honest opinion, I believe that that's what they said would happen. So, who knows, player housing will definitely be out within the next few months. I highly doubt they're going to wait until december for player housing. I'm I suspect it's going to be a set.

Speaker 1:

No, no, october, late October, early November, player housing as well as Legion remix at the same time. Or do you spread these out? You might go Legion remix a little bit earlier, maybe September, who knows? As I like, and we've decided to, you know, give you guys something to do whilst you're waiting. Here is Legion remix, you know. And you guys something to do whilst you're waiting. Here is Legion Remix, you know, and it's like, oh my God, amazing Although I did hear about Legion Remix that they are not bringing back the Legion artifact towers, which I'm actually really upset about.

Speaker 1:

The artifact or the mage tower was the best feature, I think WoW ever done and I'm trying to think, yeah, yeah, you know what? I think it is the best feature wow has ever done in its existence. Okay, I'm gonna stand on that one because it was so challenging but it was very doable. Still and this is for the casual and like hardcore players. It was tough for the hardcore players still, don't get me wrong, but the casual players could still do it like it was very challenging for them but they could do it and I thought that that was amazing. They balanced it perfectly for each spec, for each like class. Everything was perfect okay, and it gave you some cool rewards. But if that's not in legion remix, I'll be a little bit upset, even if you get like different variations of it. You know, no one's gonna tell. I am just just a little bit of like you know a little bit of that for us blizz. It would be appreciated.

Speaker 1:

Um, I also want to see pvp changes. I want them to sit down and have an entire segment about pvp. Okay, I get that a lot of people are going to be like, oh, that's going to be boring as hell. Yeah, sure, it's going to be boring for the pve pve is, but how many times have we sat there as pvpers and said, oh, there's a new raid, yep great. Oh there's a new dungeon yep, great, because we all love that as pvpers. You know it's ridiculous, like we need something.

Speaker 1:

And I want them to say we are looking into the mmr system and we are actively going to change it for this next expansion as a sort of test run. Okay, I do not care if they use the entire expansion for a different mmr system for pvp. I really do not care. If it is a test run and it's awful, that's fine. I don't mind that because they can go back to the drawing board and be like this doesn't work. So let's try this now. Let's try that. If it works, amazing. But it needs to be updated. We are running off of 2006 pvp mmr systems. Okay, it doesn't work anymore. It straight up, doesn't?

Speaker 1:

I get that you want people to constantly compete throughout the season. Well, or feel like they should, because you're injecting a little bit of MMR each time. I promise you, if you open MMR up and you had a full, like 5k scale like zero MMR to 5k and you just allowed people to do what they want, you would see so much more activity in PvP throughout, throughout the rest of the season, throughout the entire season. I promise you you will, and it's so much better for alts and stuff because people will be like, oh, I don't have to wait till the end of the season to push anything, I can just do it now, and it will be so much better, I promise you. Blizzard, please just try something with pvp mmr changes. I beg you.

Speaker 1:

But that is gamescom. So it's going to start on the 19th of august be sure to tune in and it's going to be on live streams, youtube and twitch and stuff on the official world of warcraft account and then, obviously, from then to the 24th, you're going to be having different things for world of warcraft, like the deep dives and all of this stuff, just general stuff. Um, there's also going to be sort of live stream showcases of player housing. So this is really cool. It's actually going to show people just building houses how it works and stuff like that. There's going to be creator matches in the new season, three mythic dungeons and delves and there's going to be cross region arena bracket featuring the top four teams from awc season two very nice, so obviously you're getting a bit of entertainment there.

Speaker 1:

The player housing is one that I'm very curious to see. I've seen bits and bobs of it already and I can tell you it's going to be amazing. I really wish that you can. I I've not seen this, but I really hope that you can change the music inside your house. Okay, I hope that you can get a gramophone or whatever you might want, and you can just change the music to whatever you want from anywhere within Azeroth. Okay, that's all I hope for Now. My throat's going a bit dry, but we kick on.

Speaker 1:

I want to talk about Mists of Pandaria. Okay, mists of Pandaria is better than Cataclysm and I am really enjoying my time playing it. The reason I'm enjoying Mop a lot more is because Cataclysm, going from classic to TBC to Wrath, is very much a classic feel. Okay, cataclysm is where they try and move it into the direction of retail and it's a very janky and patchy version of retail. Okay, misa Pandaria makes this a lot cleaner. Okay, it cleans up the very rough edges that are cataclysm, and this means that some classes and specs that are kind of neglected in cataclysm and were very poorly designed, get a bit more smoothing out and rounded out so they are useful in raiding in pvp and stuff like this. Pvp wise, I think it's some of the best pvp that wow has to offer. Mr pandaria, I think it's quite well balanced. I think that obviously you're going to have the outliers as well. I think that warriors are always going to be very good in mop classic. Priests are always solid, uh, these sort of things, but you're always going to have that. It's mmo balancing. It's one of them things.

Speaker 1:

Now, the launch of missa pandaria classic. I don't think they realized just how much of a fuck up they were going to have, because the very first quests in Mop Classic require you to get on a flying machine and shooting the opposite faction out of the ocean, the sky or whatever, and vehicle combat, especially one. That is. What is it? It's on a set path. You can't go your own way. So you have hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands of people all clicking on this one little flying machine and then going on the exact same path trying to shoot the exact same mobs. And it's not. Yeah it, you can see the problem. So it got to the point where the servers were constantly shutting down. They were constantly like turning off the servers or hotfixing them so that the quest was actually doable In the end. They had to make it so that the quest, literally when you clicked on the flying machine, it auto completed for you. That's how bad it had gotten. Okay.

Speaker 1:

So the launch a little bit um off to a rough start. The jade forest as a whole is the first zone that you spawn into as both horde and alliance. That zone was hell on earth to play through in the first, like couple to a few hours okay. Once you got further ahead and away from the absolute travesty that was the first quests you were fine. The lag went away. There was still a little bit, obviously because the servers were a bit slow, we'll say, but it was fine.

Speaker 1:

I made it to the second zone a little bit after a couple hours, okay, and there was nothing. It was so smooth the leveling. It felt like I was playing a completely dead realm and I'm not. I'm playing one of the most populated realms in eu, but like it's absolutely crazy that they didn't foresee that problem. Okay, because it was so glaring that it was going to be a shit show basically on. Yeah, it was just going to be a shit show. It's quite funny to speculate, but anyways, mop Classic I've leveled, I've done've leveled, I've done my professions, I've done my farming.

Speaker 1:

I think it's going to be a very solid expansion. Okay, I remember it quite fondly, I think a lot of people do. I think it's going to be a very solid expansion and the raids are very good. They've already said to the players that they're going to keep the original release cadence. So we're going to be looking at three months of Mogushum Vaults into three months of Heart of Fear, into three months of Throne of Thunder and then three months into Siege of Orgrimmar. That's fine. That's a year. That brings us to August next year when wall of the drain or maybe you know who knows, there was a survey that went out with that saying if you'd want to go back to classic or to transfer everything onto your uh retail characters and stuff like that, or if you want to go on to wall of the drain or and then legion etc, etc. You know these sort of things. So time will tell with that.

Speaker 1:

But honestly I love doing the farming stuff in messa pandaria. The dailies do get a bit tedious, I do have to say that they really do. The farming, though, is amazing. For those of you that don't know, in half hill in valley of the four winds, there is a small little farm and this farm you can basically do a quest or two, and it is your own personal farm. You get a certain amount of plots where you can plant your vegetables, your fruit and veggies, and, essentially, you can harvest them the next day, and this harvest allows you to do and level up your cooking profession, and it it's absolutely amazing. To be honest, I'm currently at 12 sort of slots on my farm and I'm currently harvesting a lot of herbs at the moment, which is amazing. It's great fun.

Speaker 1:

I honestly remember this expansion so fondly. I have yet to do a lot of PvP, um, but I want to get into that, and we are starting our raiding next sunday and my guild, so we're looking forward to that. We're allowing people to experience the uh expansion in a very calm manner. We're not going to rush people into raids or anything like that, but honestly, it's a very solid expansion. I would very much recommend checking it out and just take in the music, the scenery, just everything. I get that some people don't like the whole panda thing and all of that. But honestly, just chill with it, chill with the expansion. It's such a good expansion, you've just got to roll with it. Well, no pun intended, because the monks you know are being released, but honestly, it is a step up from Cataclysm. It really is.

Speaker 1:

I do have to say sorry for those who, like, went against me with the Cataclysm stuff. I was wrong in my initial judgment of it. Cataclysm is unfortunately one of the worst expansions. But yeah, I thought I'd give it a go and that's all I wanted. All right, that's all I wanted people to do give it a go if they liked it, which some people might have. If they gave it a go, then fair enough. But in my opinion, the more it dragged on, the worse it got, and it did drag on a while, which is quite a shame, um, but yeah it's. It's one hell of an expansion, mop. Please do try it. I would very much recommend this. Thank you all very much for listening once again, and apologies again for last week. I I really don't mean to miss a week and I do try and keep people up to date if there is not going to be an episode or something has happened, etc. But either way, thank you all very much once again and go aval a friend, goodbye all. Thank you.