August 1, 2025 • 27 mins
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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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Thank you, hello and welcome to the Pig and Whistle
Tales from Azeroth.
As always here at the Pig andWhistle Inn in Stormwind, I go
for a variety of subjects withregards to World of Warcraft, so
grab a bottle or a pint, sitback and enjoy this week's
(01:07):
episode.
We're going to be going overmissa pandaria.
We're going to be going overgamescom that's going to be
happening as well and a coupleof 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 theweekly news.
We have Orta, the BrokenMountain and the Gobfather as
(01:28):
our world bosses for the week.
They are located withinAshkahet, as well as the
Undermine, so you can go there,get some loot, get some gold, do
your weekly business with them.
The War Within Dungeons, bfa,time Walking and Pet Battles are
your bonus events for the week.
I didn't think there was evermore are your bonus events for
the week?
I didn't think there was evermore than two bonus events, but
I clearly have been proven wronghere.
(01:49):
The war within dungeons you getan extra piece of gear from
completing said dungeon Battle.
Fans are off.
Timewalking you can gettimewalking badges and you can
purchase reputation, cosmeticsand mounts with these sorts of
things, so very much worth doingif you are looking for any of
these.
Uh, reputations or cosmeticsand pet battles are simply you
(02:11):
get more xp for competing in petbattles for your pets.
Very simple and verystraightforward deep wing dunk
is your brawl for the week.
This is a deep wind gorgebattleground where essentially
you have one of three orbs thatyou take to the enemy base and
you dunk it into the hoop, as itwere, and score some points for
(02:32):
your team.
Very simple first team to acertain amount of points wins
the game.
It's amazing, it's quite goodfun and it's a different take on
a battleground, to be honestwith you, because you're never
usually running at the enemybase.
You're usually running just inbetween your bases, like that
you've captured in a rathy basinor something like that.
So I do have a quick apology tomake, apologies that there was
(02:57):
no episode last week, the reasonfor this being I just needed I
or I couldn't get around to it.
I was out of the country for afew weeks now and had these
episodes set up like beforehandand I just couldn't get around
to it before I left.
So I do have to apologize forthat, but we are back on regular
(03:18):
scheduling right now, sohopefully you can forgive me and
let's carry on with the episode.
I'm going to try a differentapproach to these episodes.
I'm going to try and give youthe what is happening, what we
would like to see, and sort ofend it there.
I want to be very punctual withit but still give my opinions
(03:40):
across.
So it will still be around thesame length, but a lot less
rambling is what I'm hoping for.
So bear with me whilst I tryand make that transition.
There still might be somerambling, like there is now, um,
but yeah, I want to try and getto that point, if that makes
sense, because it's a lot moreinformative for all of you lot,
(04:01):
rather than just me rambling.
Sometimes I will ramble.
It is one of them things.
But let's start off withGamescom.
Gamescom is going to be on.
August 19th is the openingreveal to August 24th.
Yes, august 24th, this is a.
It's really weird it starts inthe middle of the week.
(04:22):
It's really weird it starts inthe middle of the week.
Wednesday, the 20th of August,is when it opens its doors in EU
, in Germany, cologne, andSunday, the 24th of August is
when it closes.
This is for people who actuallyhave tickets to go there and to
sit in and watch it there live,but for those who are sitting
(04:43):
watching at home and everyoneelse actually, it's going to
start on the 19th, where theywill like basically be on a live
stream and conducting theirbusiness there.
What is going to happen and I'mgonna, I don't know this
personally, but I know that thisis 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.
(05:04):
This is going to be set in apost-apocalyptic sort of Azeroth
.
This is what's happened afterthe previous raid Manaforge
Omega.
This is what Demensius has done.
You know all of this stuff andduring the five days that they
are at Gamescom, they're goingto be going over different
things.
(05:25):
They're going to be going intoa deep dive with Holly Longdale,
ian Hazacostas and essentiallygoing to be going into the new
zones, mechanics, new featuresand the story for the upcoming
light expansion.
So these, what are they?
The deep dives are usually verygood to watch.
(05:46):
They give a lot of informativestuff 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 talkingabout other bits and bobs like
that there's technically in thatexpansion.
But I'm more looking formechanics.
The mechanics is the importantthing to me.
So mechanics in World ofWarcraft are something that will
(06:10):
change your character or have abig impact on your character
from day-to-day life, from doingPvE to PvP and everything in
between.
These mechanics are sometimesvery small and they are
sometimes very big parts of yourcharacter.
So, for example, in shadowlandsyou had conduits, you had
(06:30):
covenants and stuff like this.
This is a big part ofessentially your character.
It's a massive part of yourcharacter actually.
And for, let's say, a small partof your character is talents.
I say it's a small part butlike talents are obviously
(06:50):
massive in the grand scheme ofthings, but like changing a
couple talents here and there,this is a small mechanic that
people fine tune the more andmore they get used to the game
kind of deal.
There's probably a smallermechanic in the game that's like
a lot easier to describe, butthat's kind of the one that
first popped into my head and Iknow talents are one of the
(07:11):
biggest things in world ofwarcraft.
I know, I know, but it's justthe thought of what came up
first.
Okay, because they've been astaple point in well, throughout
years.
So you know it, it is what itis now.
Here's the thing.
I would like to see a fewthings power like conduits, okay
, or powers so kind of likeconduits is what I meant, sorry,
(07:35):
uh, this is what I mean withmechanics.
I want to see a sort of conduitsystem where you have a few
different choices in to go intomore a defensive choice, a more
offensive choice, or a more sortof neutral where you can maybe
a supportive choice, even, um,maybe something along these
lines.
Now I get that people will justsay, oh, borrow power, borrow
(07:59):
power.
I do not want borrow power.
Borrow power is one of theworst things in the game, um,
mainly because it stays with youfor an expansion and then it's
gone.
Okay, it's ripped away from youand all of that borrow power is
, although how little muchenjoyment you got out of it or
how awful it felt, it's gone.
(08:19):
And I think everyone enjoyed theborrow power in shadowland.
Everyone enjoyed the Borrowpower in Shadowlands.
Everyone enjoyed pressing theirCovenant abilities, enjoyed the
Covenants and the differentdynamics that they brought to
every class.
People didn't like the Conduitsystem and how tough it was for
ulting in this expansion,because you had to have an
(08:41):
entire day job committed toWorld of Warcraft to have an alt
in this expansion and it washorrible.
That's the problem that peoplehad with that.
And then obviously it gettingripped away at the end of the
expansion is never fun.
So hopefully there is a mechanicthat will go on with us into
the next expansions goingforward, like Conduits or like
(09:05):
the new talent trees and stufflike hero talents.
Hero talents are something thatwas brought in in the War
Within and they are going to begoing with us into Midnight.
This is a mechanic and this iswhat I hope for more of these
mechanics.
Now, there is a point whereit's like way too much.
I get that, but it's alwaysnice having something else to
(09:27):
focus on rather than just ournew talent point.
Okay, cool, cool, cool, um, butyou don't want to be too
overwhelming for the new player,and I get that.
I really, really do.
I also want to see a new class,okay, so a new class that we had
, or the last class that we hadwas obviously an evoker.
(09:48):
Evokers was one expansion ago.
Yeah, that's fine.
Okay, like evoker one expansionago, if I'm.
If we don't get it now, wemight get it in the last titan.
It is what it is.
That's kind of being greedy.
I get it because I don't thinkthat they will add a new race.
(10:10):
They might add a new alliedrace, obviously, but not one
that is specific to any faction.
Okay, what I mean by that iskind of like the pandaren, where
you could be both horde andalliance.
Um, because if you do oneallied race, you'll need a
separate allied race for theother faction, so you'd need to
(10:31):
introduce two.
But I imagine that there willbe a sort of neutral race that
you can pick order alliance onat the start of it and go from
there.
That way, they don't obviouslyhave to do two races.
I would love to see a new class.
Okay, I really would, but Ijust don't.
I think it's too early to askfor that.
(10:54):
They sent out a survey severalmonths ago or a few months ago
no, several at this point, Ithink it is and it had a list of
so many different classescelestial beings, tinkerers,
necromancers, so many differentthings and, uh, you know.
We're gonna see that eventually, I would imagine, but I I think
(11:17):
it's just too early to say um,which is a bit of a shame.
I would love to for that to bea bombshell, be like like we are
actually introducing a newclass as well as a new Demon
Hunter spec.
Maybe you know, just maybe, whoknows?
That's what I would like to see.
I just don't know what class Iwould like to see.
(11:39):
Maybe a new tank is most likelyto happen, because evokers are
very much damaging healers.
So a tank spec for this classpotentially.
I don't know, who knows.
I always like the classes thathave one DPS, one healer, one
tank spec.
I always find them the bestones.
But who really knows what theywill come up with?
(12:00):
It's a mystery.
I do want to see dates forreleases.
Okay, now I they're going to bevague about this, they will
never do this, but they aregoing to be giving out a kind of
date for a release.
Okay, if they give out aspecific date, even better.
But I want to see date onreleases for player housing, the
(12:24):
expansion itself.
I want to see legion timewalking in that mix as well.
I wanted to see an updatedroadmap of everything okay, and
this is going to be veryimportant because it's very much
we are on track to get all ofthis out with our previous
roadmap or it's very much we arenot on track.
We are in the mud right now andwe need some real help to even
(12:49):
get this out before end of theyear kind of deal.
So we'll very much see and Ithink that, well, the expansion
should be out by the end of theyear.
In my honest opinion, I believethat that's what they said
would happen.
So, who knows, player housingwill definitely be out within
(13:09):
the next few months.
I highly doubt they're going towait until december for player
housing.
I'm I suspect it's going to bea set.
No, no, october, late October,early November, player housing
as well as Legion remix at thesame time.
Or do you spread these out?
You might go Legion remix alittle bit earlier, maybe
(13:31):
September, who knows?
As I like, and we've decided to, you know, give you guys
something to do whilst you'rewaiting.
Here is Legion remix, you know.
And you guys something to dowhilst you're waiting.
Here is Legion Remix, you know,and it's like, oh my God,
amazing Although I did hearabout Legion Remix that they are
not bringing back the Legionartifact towers, which I'm
(13:54):
actually really upset about.
The artifact or the mage towerwas the best feature, I think
WoW ever done and I'm trying tothink, yeah, yeah, you know what
?
I think it is the best featurewow has ever done in its
existence.
Okay, I'm gonna stand on thatone because it was so
(14:15):
challenging but it was verydoable.
Still and this is for thecasual and like hardcore players
.
It was tough for the hardcoreplayers still, don't get me
wrong, but the casual playerscould still do it like it was
very challenging for them butthey could do it and I thought
that that was amazing.
They balanced it perfectly foreach spec, for each like class.
(14:37):
Everything was perfect okay,and it gave you some cool
rewards.
But if that's not in legionremix, I'll be a little bit
upset, even if you get likedifferent variations of it.
You know, no one's gonna tell.
I am just just a little bit oflike you know a little bit of
that for us blizz.
It would be appreciated.
(14:59):
Um, I also want to see pvpchanges.
I want them to sit down andhave an entire segment about pvp
.
Okay, I get that a lot ofpeople are going to be like, oh,
that's going to be boring ashell.
Yeah, sure, it's going to beboring for the pve pve is, but
how many times have we sat thereas pvpers and said, oh, there's
(15:20):
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, likewe need something.
And I want them to say we arelooking into the mmr system and
we are actively going to changeit for this next expansion as a
sort of test run.
Okay, I do not care if they usethe entire expansion for a
(15:44):
different mmr system for pvp.
I really do not care.
If it is a test run and it'sawful, that's fine.
I don't mind that because theycan 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.
(16:05):
We are running off of 2006 pvpmmr systems.
Okay, it doesn't work anymore.
It straight up, doesn't?
I get that you want people toconstantly compete throughout
the season.
Well, or feel like they should,because you're injecting a
little bit of MMR each time.
(16:26):
I promise you, if you open MMRup and you had a full, like 5k
scale like zero MMR to 5k andyou just allowed people to do
what they want, you would see somuch more activity in PvP
throughout, throughout the restof the season, throughout the
entire season.
I promise you you will, andit's so much better for alts and
(16:50):
stuff because people will belike, oh, I don't have to wait
till the end of the season topush anything, I can just do it
now, and it will be so muchbetter, I promise you.
Blizzard, please just trysomething with pvp mmr changes.
I beg you.
But that is gamescom.
So it's going to start on the19th of august be sure to tune
(17:11):
in and it's going to be on livestreams, youtube and twitch and
stuff on the official world ofwarcraft account and then,
obviously, from then to the 24th, you're going to be having
different things for world ofwarcraft, like the deep dives
and all of this stuff, justgeneral stuff.
Um, there's also going to besort of live stream showcases of
(17:33):
player housing.
So this is really cool.
It's actually going to showpeople just building houses how
it works and stuff like that.
There's going to be creatormatches in the new season, three
mythic dungeons and delves andthere's going to be cross region
arena bracket featuring the topfour teams from awc season two
very nice, so obviously you'regetting a bit of entertainment
(17:55):
there.
The player housing is one thatI'm very curious to see.
I've seen bits and bobs of italready and I can tell you it's
going to be amazing.
I really wish that you can.
I I've not seen this, but Ireally hope that you can change
the music inside your house.
Okay, I hope that you can get agramophone or whatever you
might want, and you can justchange the music to whatever you
(18:17):
want from anywhere withinAzeroth.
Okay, that's all I hope for Now.
My throat's going a bit dry,but we kick on.
I want to talk about Mists ofPandaria.
Okay, mists of Pandaria isbetter than Cataclysm and I am
(18:39):
really enjoying my time playingit.
The reason I'm enjoying Mop alot more is because Cataclysm,
going from classic to TBC toWrath, is very much a classic
feel.
Okay, cataclysm is where theytry and move it into the
direction of retail and it's avery janky and patchy version of
(19:04):
retail.
Okay, misa Pandaria makes thisa lot cleaner.
Okay, it cleans up the veryrough edges that are cataclysm,
and this means that some classesand specs that are kind of
neglected in cataclysm and werevery poorly designed, get a bit
more smoothing out and roundedout so they are useful in
(19:27):
raiding in pvp and stuff likethis.
Pvp wise, I think it's some ofthe best pvp that wow has to
offer.
Mr pandaria, I think it's quitewell balanced.
I think that obviously you'regoing to have the outliers as
well.
I think that warriors arealways 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.
(19:48):
It's mmo balancing.
It's one of them things.
Now, the launch of missapandaria classic.
I don't think they realizedjust how much of a fuck up they
were going to have, because thevery first quests in Mop Classic
require you to get on a flyingmachine and shooting the
(20:14):
opposite faction out of theocean, 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 andthousands and hundreds of
thousands of people all clickingon this one little flying
(20:36):
machine and then going on theexact same path trying to shoot
the exact same mobs.
And it's not.
Yeah it, you can see theproblem.
So it got to the point wherethe servers were constantly
shutting down.
They were constantly liketurning off the servers or
hotfixing them so that the questwas actually doable In the end.
(20:59):
They had to make it so that thequest, literally when you
clicked on the flying machine,it auto completed for you.
That's how bad it had gotten.
Okay.
So the launch a little bit umoff to a rough start.
The jade forest as a whole isthe first zone that you spawn
(21:19):
into as both horde and alliance.
That zone was hell on earth toplay through in the first, like
couple to a few hours okay.
Once you got further ahead andaway from the absolute travesty
that was the first quests youwere fine.
The lag went away.
(21:41):
There was still a little bit,obviously because the servers
were a bit slow, we'll say, butit was fine.
I made it to the second zone alittle bit after a couple hours,
okay, and there was nothing.
It was so smooth the leveling.
It felt like I was playing acompletely dead realm and I'm
(22:01):
not.
I'm playing one of the mostpopulated realms in eu, but like
it's absolutely crazy that theydidn't foresee that problem.
Okay, because it was so glaringthat it was going to be a shit
show basically on.
Yeah, it was just going to be ashit show.
(22:23):
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.
I think it's going to be a verysolid expansion.
Okay, I remember it quitefondly, I think a lot of people
do.
I think it's going to be a verysolid expansion and the raids
(22:45):
are very good.
They've already said to theplayers that they're going to
keep the original releasecadence.
So we're going to be looking atthree months of Mogushum Vaults
into three months of Heart ofFear, into three months of
Throne of Thunder and then threemonths into Siege of Orgrimmar.
That's fine.
(23:06):
That's a year.
That brings us to August nextyear when wall of the drain or
maybe you know who knows, therewas a survey that went out with
that saying if you'd want to goback to classic or to transfer
everything onto your uh retailcharacters and stuff like that,
or if you want to go on to wallof the drain or and then legion
etc, etc.
(23:26):
You know these sort of things.
So time will tell with that.
But honestly I love doing thefarming stuff in messa pandaria.
The dailies do get a bittedious, I do have to say that
they really do.
The farming, though, is amazing.
For those of you that don'tknow, in half hill in valley of
the four winds, there is a smalllittle farm and this farm you
(23:49):
can basically do a quest or two,and it is your own personal
farm.
You get a certain amount ofplots where you can plant your
vegetables, your fruit andveggies, and, essentially, you
can harvest them the next day,and this harvest allows you to
do and level up your cookingprofession, and it it's
(24:10):
absolutely amazing.
To be honest, I'm currently at12 sort of slots on my farm and
I'm currently harvesting a lotof herbs at the moment, which is
amazing.
It's great fun.
I honestly remember thisexpansion so fondly.
I have yet to do a lot of PvP,um, but I want to get into that,
(24:32):
and we are starting our raidingnext sunday and my guild, so
we're looking forward to that.
We're allowing people toexperience the uh expansion in a
very calm manner.
We're not going to rush peopleinto raids or anything like that
, but honestly, it's a verysolid expansion.
I would very much recommendchecking it out and just take in
(24:55):
the music, the scenery, justeverything.
I get that some people don'tlike the whole panda thing and
all of that.
But honestly, just chill withit, chill with the expansion.
It's such a good expansion,you've just got to roll with it.
Well, no pun intended, becausethe monks you know are being
released, but honestly, it is astep up from Cataclysm.
It really is.
(25:16):
I do have to say sorry for thosewho, like, went against me with
the Cataclysm stuff.
I was wrong in my initialjudgment of it.
Cataclysm is unfortunately oneof the worst expansions.
But yeah, I thought I'd give ita go and that's all I wanted.
(25:36):
All right, that's all I wantedpeople to do give it a go if
they liked it, which some peoplemight have.
If they gave it a go, then fairenough.
But in my opinion, the more itdragged 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.
(25:57):
I would very much recommendthis.
Thank you all very much forlistening once again, and
apologies again for last week.
I I really don't mean to miss aweek and I do try and keep
people up to date if there isnot going to be an episode or
something has happened, etc.
But either way, thank you allvery much once again and go aval
(26:18):
a friend, goodbye all.
Thank you.
Thank you, hello and welcome to the Pig and Whistle
Tales from Azeroth.
As always here at the Pig andWhistle Inn in Stormwind, I go
for a variety of subjects withregards to World of Warcraft, so
grab a bottle or a pint, sitback and enjoy this week's
(01:07):
episode.
We're going to be going overmissa pandaria.
We're going to be going overgamescom that's going to be
happening as well and a coupleof 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 theweekly news.
We have Orta, the BrokenMountain and the Gobfather as
(01:28):
our world bosses for the week.
They are located withinAshkahet, as well as the
Undermine, so you can go there,get some loot, get some gold, do
your weekly business with them.
The War Within Dungeons, bfa,time Walking and Pet Battles are
your bonus events for the week.
I didn't think there was evermore are your bonus events for
the week?
I didn't think there was evermore than two bonus events, but
I clearly have been proven wronghere.
(01:49):
The war within dungeons you getan extra piece of gear from
completing said dungeon Battle.
Fans are off.
Timewalking you can gettimewalking badges and you can
purchase reputation, cosmeticsand mounts with these sorts of
things, so very much worth doingif you are looking for any of
these.
Uh, reputations or cosmeticsand pet battles are simply you
(02:11):
get more xp for competing in petbattles for your pets.
Very simple and verystraightforward deep wing dunk
is your brawl for the week.
This is a deep wind gorgebattleground where essentially
you have one of three orbs thatyou take to the enemy base and
you dunk it into the hoop, as itwere, and score some points for
(02:32):
your team.
Very simple first team to acertain amount of points wins
the game.
It's amazing, it's quite goodfun and it's a different take on
a battleground, to be honestwith you, because you're never
usually running at the enemybase.
You're usually running just inbetween your bases, like that
you've captured in a rathy basinor something like that.
So I do have a quick apology tomake, apologies that there was
(02:57):
no episode last week, the reasonfor this being I just needed I
or I couldn't get around to it.
I was out of the country for afew weeks now and had these
episodes set up like beforehandand I just couldn't get around
to it before I left.
So I do have to apologize forthat, but we are back on regular
(03:18):
scheduling right now, sohopefully you can forgive me and
let's carry on with the episode.
I'm going to try a differentapproach to these episodes.
I'm going to try and give youthe what is happening, what we
would like to see, and sort ofend it there.
I want to be very punctual withit but still give my opinions
(03:40):
across.
So it will still be around thesame length, but a lot less
rambling is what I'm hoping for.
So bear with me whilst I tryand make that transition.
There still might be somerambling, like there is now, um,
but yeah, I want to try and getto that point, if that makes
sense, because it's a lot moreinformative for all of you lot,
(04:01):
rather than just me rambling.
Sometimes I will ramble.
It is one of them things.
But let's start off withGamescom.
Gamescom is going to be on.
August 19th is the openingreveal to August 24th.
Yes, august 24th, this is a.
It's really weird it starts inthe middle of the week.
(04:22):
It's really weird it starts inthe middle of the week.
Wednesday, the 20th of August,is when it opens its doors in EU
, in Germany, cologne, andSunday, the 24th of August is
when it closes.
This is for people who actuallyhave tickets to go there and to
sit in and watch it there live,but for those who are sitting
(04:43):
watching at home and everyoneelse actually, it's going to
start on the 19th, where theywill like basically be on a live
stream and conducting theirbusiness there.
What is going to happen and I'mgonna, I don't know this
personally, but I know that thisis 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.
(05:04):
This is going to be set in apost-apocalyptic sort of Azeroth
.
This is what's happened afterthe previous raid Manaforge
Omega.
This is what Demensius has done.
You know all of this stuff andduring the five days that they
are at Gamescom, they're goingto be going over different
things.
(05:25):
They're going to be going intoa deep dive with Holly Longdale,
ian Hazacostas and essentiallygoing to be going into the new
zones, mechanics, new featuresand the story for the upcoming
light expansion.
So these, what are they?
The deep dives are usually verygood to watch.
(05:46):
They give a lot of informativestuff 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 talkingabout other bits and bobs like
that there's technically in thatexpansion.
But I'm more looking formechanics.
The mechanics is the importantthing to me.
So mechanics in World ofWarcraft are something that will
(06:10):
change your character or have abig impact on your character
from day-to-day life, from doingPvE to PvP and everything in
between.
These mechanics are sometimesvery small and they are
sometimes very big parts of yourcharacter.
So, for example, in shadowlandsyou had conduits, you had
(06:30):
covenants and stuff like this.
This is a big part ofessentially your character.
It's a massive part of yourcharacter actually.
And for, let's say, a small partof your character is talents.
I say it's a small part butlike talents are obviously
(06:50):
massive in the grand scheme ofthings, but like changing a
couple talents here and there,this is a small mechanic that
people fine tune the more andmore they get used to the game
kind of deal.
There's probably a smallermechanic in the game that's like
a lot easier to describe, butthat's kind of the one that
first popped into my head and Iknow talents are one of the
(07:11):
biggest things in world ofwarcraft.
I know, I know, but it's justthe thought of what came up
first.
Okay, because they've been astaple point in well, throughout
years.
So you know it, it is what itis now.
Here's the thing.
I would like to see a fewthings power like conduits, okay
, or powers so kind of likeconduits is what I meant, sorry,
(07:35):
uh, this is what I mean withmechanics.
I want to see a sort of conduitsystem where you have a few
different choices in to go intomore a defensive choice, a more
offensive choice, or a more sortof neutral where you can maybe
a supportive choice, even, um,maybe something along these
lines.
Now I get that people will justsay, oh, borrow power, borrow
(07:59):
power.
I do not want borrow power.
Borrow power is one of theworst things in the game, um,
mainly because it stays with youfor an expansion and then it's
gone.
Okay, it's ripped away from youand all of that borrow power is
, although how little muchenjoyment you got out of it or
how awful it felt, it's gone.
(08:19):
And I think everyone enjoyed theborrow power in shadowland.
Everyone enjoyed the Borrowpower in Shadowlands.
Everyone enjoyed pressing theirCovenant abilities, enjoyed the
Covenants and the differentdynamics that they brought to
every class.
People didn't like the Conduitsystem and how tough it was for
ulting in this expansion,because you had to have an
(08:41):
entire day job committed toWorld of Warcraft to have an alt
in this expansion and it washorrible.
That's the problem that peoplehad with that.
And then obviously it gettingripped away at the end of the
expansion is never fun.
So hopefully there is a mechanicthat will go on with us into
the next expansions goingforward, like Conduits or like
(09:05):
the new talent trees and stufflike hero talents.
Hero talents are something thatwas brought in in the War
Within and they are going to begoing with us into Midnight.
This is a mechanic and this iswhat I hope for more of these
mechanics.
Now, there is a point whereit's like way too much.
I get that, but it's alwaysnice having something else to
(09:27):
focus on rather than just ournew talent point.
Okay, cool, cool, cool, um, butyou don't want to be too
overwhelming for the new player,and I get that.
I really, really do.
I also want to see a new class,okay, so a new class that we had
, or the last class that we hadwas obviously an evoker.
(09:48):
Evokers was one expansion ago.
Yeah, that's fine.
Okay, like evoker one expansionago, if I'm.
If we don't get it now, wemight get it in the last titan.
It is what it is.
That's kind of being greedy.
I get it because I don't thinkthat they will add a new race.
(10:10):
They might add a new alliedrace, obviously, but not one
that is specific to any faction.
Okay, what I mean by that iskind of like the pandaren, where
you could be both horde andalliance.
Um, because if you do oneallied race, you'll need a
separate allied race for theother faction, so you'd need to
(10:31):
introduce two.
But I imagine that there willbe a sort of neutral race that
you can pick order alliance onat the start of it and go from
there.
That way, they don't obviouslyhave to do two races.
I would love to see a new class.
Okay, I really would, but Ijust don't.
I think it's too early to askfor that.
(10:54):
They sent out a survey severalmonths ago or a few months ago
no, several at this point, Ithink it is and it had a list of
so many different classescelestial beings, tinkerers,
necromancers, so many differentthings and, uh, you know.
We're gonna see that eventually, I would imagine, but I I think
(11:17):
it's just too early to say um,which is a bit of a shame.
I would love to for that to bea bombshell, be like like we are
actually introducing a newclass as well as a new Demon
Hunter spec.
Maybe you know, just maybe, whoknows?
That's what I would like to see.
I just don't know what class Iwould like to see.
(11:39):
Maybe a new tank is most likelyto happen, because evokers are
very much damaging healers.
So a tank spec for this classpotentially.
I don't know, who knows.
I always like the classes thathave one DPS, one healer, one
tank spec.
I always find them the bestones.
But who really knows what theywill come up with?
(12:00):
It's a mystery.
I do want to see dates forreleases.
Okay, now I they're going to bevague about this, they will
never do this, but they aregoing to be giving out a kind of
date for a release.
Okay, if they give out aspecific date, even better.
But I want to see date onreleases for player housing, the
(12:24):
expansion itself.
I want to see legion timewalking in that mix as well.
I wanted to see an updatedroadmap of everything okay, and
this is going to be veryimportant because it's very much
we are on track to get all ofthis out with our previous
roadmap or it's very much we arenot on track.
We are in the mud right now andwe need some real help to even
(12:49):
get this out before end of theyear kind of deal.
So we'll very much see and Ithink that, well, the expansion
should be out by the end of theyear.
In my honest opinion, I believethat that's what they said
would happen.
So, who knows, player housingwill definitely be out within
(13:09):
the next few months.
I highly doubt they're going towait until december for player
housing.
I'm I suspect it's going to bea set.
No, no, october, late October,early November, player housing
as well as Legion remix at thesame time.
Or do you spread these out?
You might go Legion remix alittle bit earlier, maybe
(13:31):
September, who knows?
As I like, and we've decided to, you know, give you guys
something to do whilst you'rewaiting.
Here is Legion remix, you know.
And you guys something to dowhilst you're waiting.
Here is Legion Remix, you know,and it's like, oh my God,
amazing Although I did hearabout Legion Remix that they are
not bringing back the Legionartifact towers, which I'm
(13:54):
actually really upset about.
The artifact or the mage towerwas the best feature, I think
WoW ever done and I'm trying tothink, yeah, yeah, you know what
?
I think it is the best featurewow has ever done in its
existence.
Okay, I'm gonna stand on thatone because it was so
(14:15):
challenging but it was verydoable.
Still and this is for thecasual and like hardcore players
.
It was tough for the hardcoreplayers still, don't get me
wrong, but the casual playerscould still do it like it was
very challenging for them butthey could do it and I thought
that that was amazing.
They balanced it perfectly foreach spec, for each like class.
(14:37):
Everything was perfect okay,and it gave you some cool
rewards.
But if that's not in legionremix, I'll be a little bit
upset, even if you get likedifferent variations of it.
You know, no one's gonna tell.
I am just just a little bit oflike you know a little bit of
that for us blizz.
It would be appreciated.
(14:59):
Um, I also want to see pvpchanges.
I want them to sit down andhave an entire segment about pvp
.
Okay, I get that a lot ofpeople are going to be like, oh,
that's going to be boring ashell.
Yeah, sure, it's going to beboring for the pve pve is, but
how many times have we sat thereas pvpers and said, oh, there's
(15:20):
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, likewe need something.
And I want them to say we arelooking into the mmr system and
we are actively going to changeit for this next expansion as a
sort of test run.
Okay, I do not care if they usethe entire expansion for a
(15:44):
different mmr system for pvp.
I really do not care.
If it is a test run and it'sawful, that's fine.
I don't mind that because theycan 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.
(16:05):
We are running off of 2006 pvpmmr systems.
Okay, it doesn't work anymore.
It straight up, doesn't?
I get that you want people toconstantly compete throughout
the season.
Well, or feel like they should,because you're injecting a
little bit of MMR each time.
(16:26):
I promise you, if you open MMRup and you had a full, like 5k
scale like zero MMR to 5k andyou just allowed people to do
what they want, you would see somuch more activity in PvP
throughout, throughout the restof the season, throughout the
entire season.
I promise you you will, andit's so much better for alts and
(16:50):
stuff because people will belike, oh, I don't have to wait
till the end of the season topush anything, I can just do it
now, and it will be so muchbetter, I promise you.
Blizzard, please just trysomething with pvp mmr changes.
I beg you.
But that is gamescom.
So it's going to start on the19th of august be sure to tune
(17:11):
in and it's going to be on livestreams, youtube and twitch and
stuff on the official world ofwarcraft account and then,
obviously, from then to the 24th, you're going to be having
different things for world ofwarcraft, like the deep dives
and all of this stuff, justgeneral stuff.
Um, there's also going to besort of live stream showcases of
(17:33):
player housing.
So this is really cool.
It's actually going to showpeople just building houses how
it works and stuff like that.
There's going to be creatormatches in the new season, three
mythic dungeons and delves andthere's going to be cross region
arena bracket featuring the topfour teams from awc season two
very nice, so obviously you'regetting a bit of entertainment
(17:55):
there.
The player housing is one thatI'm very curious to see.
I've seen bits and bobs of italready and I can tell you it's
going to be amazing.
I really wish that you can.
I I've not seen this, but Ireally hope that you can change
the music inside your house.
Okay, I hope that you can get agramophone or whatever you
might want, and you can justchange the music to whatever you
(18:17):
want from anywhere withinAzeroth.
Okay, that's all I hope for Now.
My throat's going a bit dry,but we kick on.
I want to talk about Mists ofPandaria.
Okay, mists of Pandaria isbetter than Cataclysm and I am
(18:39):
really enjoying my time playingit.
The reason I'm enjoying Mop alot more is because Cataclysm,
going from classic to TBC toWrath, is very much a classic
feel.
Okay, cataclysm is where theytry and move it into the
direction of retail and it's avery janky and patchy version of
(19:04):
retail.
Okay, misa Pandaria makes thisa lot cleaner.
Okay, it cleans up the veryrough edges that are cataclysm,
and this means that some classesand specs that are kind of
neglected in cataclysm and werevery poorly designed, get a bit
more smoothing out and roundedout so they are useful in
(19:27):
raiding in pvp and stuff likethis.
Pvp wise, I think it's some ofthe best pvp that wow has to
offer.
Mr pandaria, I think it's quitewell balanced.
I think that obviously you'regoing to have the outliers as
well.
I think that warriors arealways 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.
(19:48):
It's mmo balancing.
It's one of them things.
Now, the launch of missapandaria classic.
I don't think they realizedjust how much of a fuck up they
were going to have, because thevery first quests in Mop Classic
require you to get on a flyingmachine and shooting the
(20:14):
opposite faction out of theocean, 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 andthousands and hundreds of
thousands of people all clickingon this one little flying
(20:36):
machine and then going on theexact same path trying to shoot
the exact same mobs.
And it's not.
Yeah it, you can see theproblem.
So it got to the point wherethe servers were constantly
shutting down.
They were constantly liketurning off the servers or
hotfixing them so that the questwas actually doable In the end.
(20:59):
They had to make it so that thequest, literally when you
clicked on the flying machine,it auto completed for you.
That's how bad it had gotten.
Okay.
So the launch a little bit umoff to a rough start.
The jade forest as a whole isthe first zone that you spawn
(21:19):
into as both horde and alliance.
That zone was hell on earth toplay through in the first, like
couple to a few hours okay.
Once you got further ahead andaway from the absolute travesty
that was the first quests youwere fine.
The lag went away.
(21:41):
There was still a little bit,obviously because the servers
were a bit slow, we'll say, butit was fine.
I made it to the second zone alittle bit after a couple hours,
okay, and there was nothing.
It was so smooth the leveling.
It felt like I was playing acompletely dead realm and I'm
(22:01):
not.
I'm playing one of the mostpopulated realms in eu, but like
it's absolutely crazy that theydidn't foresee that problem.
Okay, because it was so glaringthat it was going to be a shit
show basically on.
Yeah, it was just going to be ashit show.
(22:23):
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.
I think it's going to be a verysolid expansion.
Okay, I remember it quitefondly, I think a lot of people
do.
I think it's going to be a verysolid expansion and the raids
(22:45):
are very good.
They've already said to theplayers that they're going to
keep the original releasecadence.
So we're going to be looking atthree months of Mogushum Vaults
into three months of Heart ofFear, into three months of
Throne of Thunder and then threemonths into Siege of Orgrimmar.
That's fine.
(23:06):
That's a year.
That brings us to August nextyear when wall of the drain or
maybe you know who knows, therewas a survey that went out with
that saying if you'd want to goback to classic or to transfer
everything onto your uh retailcharacters and stuff like that,
or if you want to go on to wallof the drain or and then legion
etc, etc.
(23:26):
You know these sort of things.
So time will tell with that.
But honestly I love doing thefarming stuff in messa pandaria.
The dailies do get a bittedious, I do have to say that
they really do.
The farming, though, is amazing.
For those of you that don'tknow, in half hill in valley of
the four winds, there is a smalllittle farm and this farm you
(23:49):
can basically do a quest or two,and it is your own personal
farm.
You get a certain amount ofplots where you can plant your
vegetables, your fruit andveggies, and, essentially, you
can harvest them the next day,and this harvest allows you to
do and level up your cookingprofession, and it it's
(24:10):
absolutely amazing.
To be honest, I'm currently at12 sort of slots on my farm and
I'm currently harvesting a lotof herbs at the moment, which is
amazing.
It's great fun.
I honestly remember thisexpansion so fondly.
I have yet to do a lot of PvP,um, but I want to get into that,
(24:32):
and we are starting our raidingnext sunday and my guild, so
we're looking forward to that.
We're allowing people toexperience the uh expansion in a
very calm manner.
We're not going to rush peopleinto raids or anything like that
, but honestly, it's a verysolid expansion.
I would very much recommendchecking it out and just take in
(24:55):
the music, the scenery, justeverything.
I get that some people don'tlike the whole panda thing and
all of that.
But honestly, just chill withit, chill with the expansion.
It's such a good expansion,you've just got to roll with it.
Well, no pun intended, becausethe monks you know are being
released, but honestly, it is astep up from Cataclysm.
It really is.
(25:16):
I do have to say sorry for thosewho, like, went against me with
the Cataclysm stuff.
I was wrong in my initialjudgment of it.
Cataclysm is unfortunately oneof the worst expansions.
But yeah, I thought I'd give ita go and that's all I wanted.
(25:36):
All right, that's all I wantedpeople to do give it a go if
they liked it, which some peoplemight have.
If they gave it a go, then fairenough.
But in my opinion, the more itdragged 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.
(25:57):
I would very much recommendthis.
Thank you all very much forlistening once again, and
apologies again for last week.
I I really don't mean to miss aweek and I do try and keep
people up to date if there isnot going to be an episode or
something has happened, etc.
But either way, thank you allvery much once again and go aval
(26:18):
a friend, goodbye all.
Thank you.
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