Josh on World of Warcraft and Dragonflight... | with Callum Upton

Josh Strife Hayes and Callum Upton discuss World of Warcrafts NEW Expansion Dragonflight and about World of Warcraft's state as a whole.
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#WorldOfWarcraft #Dragonflight #JoshStrifeHayes #twitch #clips

[@JoshStrifeSays]

Podcast is on mondays on Josh's and Callum's Twitch channels. Also uploaded on Tangent Tavern KZbin channel.

[@longplayracketeer9575]

Thanks for this.

[@JoshStrifeSays]

@@longplayracketeer9575 thank you for watching!!

[@gb45085]

@@JoshStrifeSays second Monitor content is not to be watched you just hear it

[@asdergold1]

DRAGONFABLE ADVENTURE QUEST Good god. Those were the days.

[@charlestrudel8308]

And having that long of a story isnt impossible. Trail in the sky started in 2004 and this sotry is still ongoing right now after trail of cold steel. We just do not have the english name of it yet, but in japan, they are at the second game of that next part. This Trails series by Falcom has a even bigger story than most mmos out there, and Falcom is way smaller. I guess talent goes a long way.

[@JagEterCoola]

"this expansion (hopefully) will..." Yeah I haven't heard that for the last 12 years.

[@SesuleGueguense]

Blizzard has the strongest hopium.

[@yeost187]

@@SesuleGueguense Followed by perpetual Copium..

[@Raffalius]

Hopefully they got the workplace in order, and many of those stubborn sexual harassers that had a god complex (thinking every idea they had was pure gold) are gone now. They do genuinely seem to listen to feedback now, for the first time in about 10 years. I'm gonna keep my expectations low, but it does seem they're trying to get the basics right this expansion.

[@JagEterCoola]

@@Raffalius [[Hopefully]] Please stop going 'hopefully'. Don't buy the expansion unless you know for sure.

[@Raffalius]

@@JagEterCoola Who the fuck said im gonna purchase the expansion? I didn't say that i hope this expansion will be good either. I just said i hope the employes at Blizzard can feel safe at work now, without the predators lurking around. That and the fact that Microsoft is about to buy the company, could be an indication of a few changes.

[@ranaku603]

Cataclysm: "The age of dragons is over, now it is time for the age of men." 5 expansions later: "Men fucked it up, time for dragons again!"

[@Adrian-pp6qy]

yeah, non-binary dragons. lol What an absolute trainwreck.

[@DarkRaven4649]

Let's not forget that the age of mortals was *already declared* by Medivh at the end of Warcraft 3.

[@Adrian-pp6qy]

@@DarkRaven4649 I don't think wow and w3 has much in common any more, like ok, names and events, but it ends there. WoW messed up everything, time-line, the world itself, locations are all messed up. It's incoherent, inconsistent. They are stretching it till they have shit to come up with. The latest shit is the "hey go back to dragons, everyone loves dragons right? They won't have gender, so all the mentally challanged can... tweet nice things about the game." ....and this is where their "support" ends, I mean those support who they are trying to pander to. At the end of the day, the same people will play the game who don't give a fuck about arbitrary changes and virtue signalling.

[@randomanun4278]

@@Adrian-pp6qy question is why are people still supporting it... the editors have made nothing clearer than "we aim to alienate our fanbase" as the single fucking driving point of their goal everything is yes absolutely fucked and where it was still like eh that's manageable I guess it'll get a pass because they're trying new stuff and it's a big crunch to get stuff through and we have a decent working relationship with them.. all of that is gone now they've essentially said "don't like it tough shit bro" to everything we've posted on the forums and now it's very obvious that they want to retcon even more despite having mismanaged the ip for over a decade.

[@mielipuolisiili7240]

@@Adrian-pp6qy Is that really the biggest problem here? That you don't get to know the exact set of genitals the mythical beasts have?

[@drekor884]

One of the big issues with WoW is every recent expansion players have thought "Oh! Blizzard is finally listening" and then shit hits the fan... every. single. time. So as of right now Dragonflight has potential positives but until we get the full picture nothing matters. Things like old talents... I played back in vanilla with old talents they don't solve any problems on their own. They add an illusion of choice but don't make any gameplay changes the current talent system doesn't already do. What people want is a huge change to basic class design so that things feel complete and whole without borrowed power. The new talents COULD do that but they could just as easily fail completely.

[@rtbear674]

Then I see content creator "things might be changing" "they are listening" "this is what I'm hoping for" "Looks great" then hyping it up. Don't they realize they are part of the problem. I'm so done with those, I'd just don't recommend channels.

[@ojon12389]

@@rtbear674 It's nice to be optimistic sometimes, but we'll see if they are putting money where their mouth is. I think the difference now is that Blizzard knows that they are bleeding money, and this expansion will determine the livelihood of the state of the game. If the devs keep their promises and listen to the fans, then WoW can pull of a reversal in not only the game, but also the trust in the blizzard team. If they don't, then the game will just continue to descend into chaos.

[@rtbear674]

@@ojon12389 "continue to descend into chaos..." until they announce next expansion again and "things are changing" "they are listening" again. Actually the part of the problem is the content creator. see belular for example. Theorycrafting, speculating on and on, interesting? sure. but it inflated the bubble so big that anything less is a disappointment. And it was never their responsibility to deliver. people get hyped, got very huge expectation, bloated even more by content creator. When it's released. "It's great" "awesome", 3 weeks later "we're not having fun" blah blah blah

[@dener461]

From what i heard new talent trees wont be like from the past. In those new trees talents will be taken from artifacts, legendaries, azerite gear etc. Many cool perks and active abilities will be there to pick.

[@kyotheman69]

they don't listen, if they did BFA and SL wouldn't happen, why I have no hope for Dragon flight

[@Robinson_Crusoe]

I believe that the main story reached its final end/pinnacle during Legion. It was the grand finale where the forces of Azeroth face the creator of the Lich King and the legion that strived to destroy their world. The enemy that lead to the great sundering etc. Yes, there were other things that remained, but the Burning Legion always seemed like the grand finale when it comes to the "main story".

[@Gnidel]

List of leaked expansions from the time of vanilla and turned out to be fairly accurate ended on Legion Set.

[@Golemoid]

@@Gnidel Nobody predicted Cataclysm, Pandaria or WoD, and it didn't really take a genius to figure out Outland/Northrend/Broken Isles. Everybody expected an Emerald Dream and South Sea expansions and that never happened.

[@SeruraRenge11]

People had been saying since day 1, "WoW will end with the defeat of Sargeras". And then it just....didn't end.

[@WowFan991]

Yeah I think story wise MoP and WoD didn't really bring much. After Legion there should have been and Naga/Azshara/N'zoth expansion because N'zoth was so hyped to be the ultimate villain

[@thenerdbeast7375]

It really was the the perfect narrative end for WoW, we faced our biggest nemesis Sargeras and defeated him. Battle For Azeroth would have worked much better as like a transition of WoW to Sandbox, a return to the rivalry (NOT ACTUAL WAR) the Alliance and Horde had back in Vanilla.

[@Fuzzy_Barbarian]

I like how this is like a really polite podcast where the hosts actually think about what they're going to say and it's not stream of consciousness random stuff. I mean, I like that stuff from time to time, but this was entertaining and didn't make me want to tune out.

[@1IGG]

You need to listen to better podcasts, mate.

[@Fuzzy_Barbarian]

@@1IGG probably, but even podcasts I like that have structure to them have decent amounts of "the hosts are just kinda... chatting" vs. actual insightful conversations, e.g. the Co-Optional Podcast back in the day

[@sixish]

@@Fuzzy_Barbarian Honestly this is maybe the only podcast I initially liked and then decided to not frequent. The same topics circle A LOT and you better have an interest in listening to how bad NFTs, Dreamworld and Earth 2 are. It's not that I disagree but I am not kidding when I've heard Josh use the exact same opening analogy for these topics 3-4 podcasts in a row at the start of a topic and the only thing making me not question if this is the right episode is that I'm watching live on Twitch. It's not like they cant have good discussions, they do but Tangent Tavern goes on the same tangents a lot which gets very tiresome. They're also immensely behind on the youtube uploads so I'd recommend going through the Twitch vods if you want some recent listens.

[@imverytired1164]

It's nice, but at the same time I'm not really a fan of how they're painting things so far as I'm listening to this. Since it seems like Callum here is just using the outrage over the sexual allegations and so forth as an excuse to sweep any other complaints under the rug. It's just comes off as very dishonest in my opinion, but maybe my opinion will change by the end of this.

[@JoshStrifeSays]

@@sixish Hi. Josh mentioned after this latest episode that he had acknowledged this and wants to move the show to more structured format where they would not constantly talk about the same topics like said above. Thought to let you know that they had noticed the pattern too and want to break it. I will cover some highlights of this new format on this channel so it may end up interesting you again :) -Visa

[@EdBurke37]

I firmly believe that Blizzard never intended for WoW to go past Wrath. They were working on Titan which was supposed to be a new MMORPG but it fell apart while WoW was still making ALL THE MONEY so they kept it going when the story was done.

[@Ashtari]

Honestly…that makes SO much sense. Specially with the huge deal about killing the old gods would also kill Azeroth. Now we just kill them with no apparent issues.

[@EdBurke37]

@@Ashtari I'm really torn on some of the retcons. A lot of them feel sloppy and poorly thought out but, well, a lot of the old lore was likely written by abusers and the people who are still there survived that might want to get rid of some of it. I can't really blame them.

[@Veridiano02]

Yeap, they screwed up when they scrapped Titan for Overwatch to "catch the ESports". Either Wrath or Legion should've been the end for WoW.

[@FishoD]

100% this. Like literally Pandaria expansion was originally an april fools joke that had such an unexpected positive reaction it became real. You don’t do shit like this if you have a grand story planned.

[@mkgaming5823]

@@Veridiano02 They didn't scrap Titan to make Overwatch, Titans issue were that the Engine had to be rebuilt constantly or Titan would come out feeling old this became to much and investors were not happy so Titan was scrapped The Blizzard devs who worked on Titan did not want to see all there work go down the drain so the Ideas from Titan were converted. Stop spreading out right bullshit

[@shingshongshamalama]

I love Callum rationalizing "well fixing the story wouldn't be good for gameplay" like... dude, no. They could just hire decent writers for a change. It wouldn't be that difficult.

[@Demortixx]

Yeah talk about copieium

[@SennaMoon4u]

For all their money & "talent", Blizz doesnt know how to do both anymore. We either get a decent story or decent gameplay. I cant remember the last time I enjoyed both. The writing for SL could've been a 15 year olds fanfic

[@illyavogel1660]

I think one thing that is not ever discussed is the quality of writers coming out of schools nowadays. Non stem departments are a gravemind of postmodern ideology. BFA story is a perfect example of this. Cant create anything worthwhile, so just tear everything else down around you.

[@LyricalDJ]

I can kinda get why someone might say that it wouldn't be good. For one, with all the mangled lore, tying it all together might lead to a bigger mess. Although.. I'd guess that'd be bad mostly for the story rather than the gameplay. But yeah as a story-loving person I would have loved a good, coherent story in WoW when I still played (last played during Legion). But Blizzard has been neglecting that in favour of gameplay for so long I can hardly remember when they didn't. Especially in major storylines, some minor storylines were pretty great.

[@pepelechad536]

@@illyavogel1660 Can you please define postmodernism, and then clarify how you believe it is ruining modern storytelling?

[@HisaKumini]

When you spoke about stories ending, and energy being released from that, it actually made me think on what kept driving me through FF14. It's not a game for everyone, and I love it as it is, but I realized that's why I had such a slump after finishing Endwalker. Essentially, with the closing of the final story arc, the game has experienced 6 or 7 story endings, and until the Big End, you had plenty of time to recover as it built to the next problem to solve. Half of the patch story was them winding the old story down, and then the other half is the starting build up for the next expansion. So each story within the greater arc had it's time, and then it ended. We could relax, and then we get eased back into a new adventure. Then Endwalker ended it. Not just ended it's own story, but the big narrative arc that we'd been playing for years. Thus why there was the big drop off of existing and new players for a bit - we just finished the wildest ride of our life. Now that the patch story is slowly building us up to our next adventure, people are probably going to slowly come back as they're emotionally ready. Wow, that's wild to think about.

[@luc1ferous]

FFXIV helped itself with Hades reminding us of our duty, of the mysteries yet unknown to us, in giving us a road map the game implanted the sense of 'ooh there's more!' even though we had just finished a massive story and found ourselves needing a breather... them building up the new story over the entire patch cycle is (possibly unintentionally) genius, there is so much time for lapsed players to become intrigued again and those of us who doggedly keep playing to recover and fully be onboard for whatever happens next. 7.0 is gonna be a big turning point for the game, but man does it feel like that team know who to take that corner with aplomb!

[@BenkaiDebussy]

At the end of the day it just comes down to FF14 having a good story and writing. If someone reads a good book, they're going to want to read the next book by the same author, regardless of whether the previous plot was concluded. While people talk about how good WoW used to be, to be completely honest its writing/plot was never that good. It was better than it currently is, sure, but it was always "fairly typical fantasy fare, but with pretty good/memorable character design." It just went from "decent/mediocre but benefiting heavily from nostalgia" to "actively bad and bizarrely hostile to the very nostalgia it benefits from." And I'm saying this as someone it applies to - I first played the WoW Beta during my freshman year of college and continued playing up until Warlords of Draenor. Another issue WoW has is that a large portion of the player base wants something that is impossible - to enjoy an MMO in the same way as they enjoyed MMOs 10+ years ago (this is why Classic became so popular). But MMOs aren't as popular with younger people these days, so most of the MMO player-base is older (I'd wager the vast majority are 30+). This means there simply aren't the same number of people who are willing to play an MMO like people used to (where there was a bigger focus on social gameplay and a heavier time sink). FF14 adapted to this by creating a game that can be enjoyed with limited social interaction, which brings in far more people. People might stop playing after the big expansion, but they'll come back because they simply enjoy it as a serial story. The only reason WoW has as many people as it does is its history - it had such a massive player-base that they can maintain a bigger player-base despite changing player behavior (though we see this gradually changing, with FF14 taking the #1 slot).

[@noarmsnolife6665]

I don't particularly think that's the reason. I think Endwalker was a pretty controversial expansion, and a lot of the newer players were people that were never going to stick around in the first place. I also think the game is probably headed down a similar direction to WoW, unfortunately, with the ways the developers have seemed incredibly disconnected from their playerbase recently, and I think people are finally noticing that.

[@BorisTheGoose92]

I think the most healthy way of playing FFXIV for most people is to play the expansion. Get through it all and absorb it. Take a break until patch 6.3 come back and play again to play through the new patch story quests. Play some alt jobs in your spare time until you feel a bit burnt out and then take another break until the .55 patch. Be caught up and prepped for the new expansion. Never feel like you're grinding for no reason.

[@TheGreatDanish]

The fact that Endwalker was a rushed mish mash of two expansions and you could *feel* it didn't help at all too. 6 expansions of plot rushed to a shitty ass pull conclusion as we fight a character that we met 5 minutes earlier.

[@adradox]

World of Warcraft is a graveyard of memories and ideas, you can hear constantly of how great it was but you never ever can experience it yourself.

[@andromidius]

Classic is doing a good job of experiencing past glory. Especially for those who never did it back in the day.

[@fish5645]

@@andromidius Unfortunately it isn't the same, because of how modern WoW works the old content is just so simple it's insane. I can believe the people who say "Huh you think this is hard? You should have seen raiding in TBC" because at that point yes it was hard to organise so many people with bad internet to do anything but now it is so simple. The setting is nice for nostalgia but I could never say to someone "If you missed Wrath then Wrath Classic is what you want" because honestly it is it's own thing now. People who have played retail will just blaze through like what happened with the other classic modes and not appreciate it. Sad really.

[@CptMarkka]

To an extent you can experience those things yourself, through private communities. It won't -- and can't -- be exactly as it was way back when, but it's a reasonable approximation. Of course depending on the server in question -- if it's advertised as "Blizzlike" or if it just gives you ridiculously overpowered equipment and instant levels at start. I haven't played official WoW since Wrath myself, save for a brief stint for a couple of months in Legion. I still enjoy Burning Crusade the most. There are also other projects that diverge from official expansions and do their own thing, which offer a fresher experience.

[@toffeelatte6042]

@@andromidius It's not the same, the playerbase evolved and it shows. Like for example in classic by the time we got round to official classic servers, I'd already done MC/AQ around 50 times each, and so had most of the guild. We went in there and those fights fell over. It's just not 2004 anymore. The worst part about playing classic was also the fact it didn't glorify the past of the game or do it must justice, it actually exposed how flawed of a game it was and how that shit would never fly today.

[@adradox]

@@fullmetalscotsman1306 I expected game.

[@thepainsight]

Until I see Blizzard actually doing stuff instead of just talking, Not going to believe anything they say or promise tbh.

[@IRedpunk]

I’ll check out again in 11.1

[@SnowJester]

I mean you shouldn't be putting that much trust in any companies in the first place. People change, company's vision/direction change etc. The problem is people always like to blindly put their faith in companies they love and never thinking twice on what if one day they decided to turn their backs on you. The same can be said to the fans that will turn their backs on a company the moment when they do something that displeases them in anyway, like what they mentioned in this video "mob mentality". The truth is a company is a business and you're a customer that buys their products, that's all there is to it and nothing more. People who refuses to see it and think that companies are obligated to build some sort of trust or relationship with their consumers are frankly delusional. After all we're just ones and zeros to them.

[@melissas4874]

@@SnowJester As a WoW player (or former one I guess) I find many players view Blizz as some sort of charitable organization making games solely to bring other's happiness. I use the term charitable because there are all these arguments for reasons we shouldn't unsub: "give them a break", "they are trying to make it better for the community", "if you unsub then you are hurting the devs.", etc. I know WoW fans aren't the only ones who think this way, but that's where I hear it the most I guess.

[@__-fi6xg]

Sounds too good to be true but it doesnt change the fact that blizzard changed paintings of wimen into apples so that their own employees would hopefully molest less.

[@jag764]

I've just written Blizz off entirely, it's no longer the old days where the quality of their games was unique. I have so many other games to play that are quite frankly better and without the baggage.

[@maxblast6014]

I recently discovered Josh Strife's content. The man is polite, yet brutally honest. He brings up insightful points that he can back up with a well thought out assertion or argument. Instant fan, 10/10. Inspirational.

[@megamage911]

And he manages to be funny as well.

[@kato1kalin]

I highly recommend his journey of playing otherland. Bat sh@t crazy.

[@electriczagnut4937]

@@kato1kalin this! It’s 🍌’s

[@ihadnoideathatgoogleallowe6551]

Make sure you also found his main channel!

[@Guitar-Dog]

Josh is awesome. I'm glad the algorithm showed me

[@Marconius6]

Josh's last point was spot on: the only good characters in WoW are taken from the earlier Warcraft games, and they've since ruined most of them. Heroes and villains alike.

[@agentrexx]

disagree, zappy boy, aethis sunstrider, rohnin, valeera, lady liadrin were al lgreat characters that had good development in wow after warcraft 3

[@broxim9668]

Mists of Pandaria is considered to be a very good story with a very vibrant setting so you're not entirely correct. Ever since they do rely too heavily on Nostalgia though yes

[@germgoblin5313]

I would say Garrosh is pretty good as a character and he was introduced in TBC, otherwise yeah you're right

[@trompell0]

@@germgoblin5313 Garrosh single handedly made me love hearthstone. Concur

[@Astares9]

@@agentrexx congrats on finding some shiny rocks among a pile of filth.

[@nslater1388]

It always amazes me how people keep saying “Maybe this time it will be good!” every…damn…time.

[@terryderry2855]

@Christian Sharp If you think Microsoft buying a company is a good thing for said company then you should do a bit of resource on video game companies acquired by them, and see what they're doing now (if they're still in business).

[@SupachargedGaming]

@@terryderry2855 Minecraft is fucking nailing it.

[@Rollenstone]

I have a friend that plays WoW and that's all I hear him day every. Single. Expansion. The other day he was telling me just how bad the story is and that he unsubbed and not even a month later he went back. It's like seeing someone in an abusive relationship go back to an abusive ex saying "Maybe this time he's changed!" And what's sad is the community falls for this every time with the copium and deserve better.

[@IvanTheTerrible77]

I'm a writer and what I learned throughout the years reading books, watching movies/TV shows, and even playing games is that having a compelling antagonist is almost as important if not more so than a protagonist. Arthas was a very compelling antagonist. I find it hard to even remember any other antagonist in the other WoW expansion (except Sylvanas but that's because she's more recent. Her story arch sucked).

[@EvileDik]

"except Sylvanas but that's because she's more recent. Her story arch sucked" not so much as she's been rammed down our throats every.single.expac, while every other faction leader has been killed off, undermined, turned into a monster or just ignored. You really have to be an alliance/elven RPer to fully grasp and be alienated by just how much attention Syvanas has been given over the years at the expense of every other faction. It's not even like her story is an any way interesting:- "untrustworthy psycho bunny-boiler is psycho bunny boiler, more news at 10".

[@IvanTheTerrible77]

@@EvileDik @Evile Gaming Actually you're right, I mained a Dwarf Pally for most of the time I played. I didn't even consider the view point as a horde character. To me, at least, I never really viewed the faction leaders as the main characters. The player has always been the main character and Sylvanas as the antagonist (at least since BFA) who also happens to be a faction leader.

[@taylorshin]

And here is important point: You were Arthas in Warcraft 3. You followed his storyarc as himself. That's why Arthas became a compelling antagonist since you know what he has been doing all along. But WoW is an MMO. It's your own character's story. Sure, your character is one of resident of the Azeroth and cannot be completely isolated from Arthas' deeds. That's how the story went on until Wrath. But after that, most Warcraft fanbase players had no interest in those new stuffs.. might except Legion which continued Illidan's storyline. The Warcraft saga was ended for most people except who makes money playing WoW such as competitive professional gamers, etc. I believe WoW should have been at least re-booted after Wrath while releasing a new singleplayer oriented game to continue on the storyline. This way WoD was also a quite good opportunity for Blizzard. They could have made WoD a complete singleplayer open world game to start a new story arc. Then launch another WoW... say WoW II from its storyline. But Blizzard was only aiming for a cash cow...

[@MAGAMAN]

Arthas was never mentioned in the first two expansions, so his story really had nothing to do with the problems.

[@caelcdye9575]

Well the protagonists have been pretty shitty so far as well. I can’t name even one I remember except maybe thrall.

[@nobodyaskedfortwitterhandles]

When I was a kid, my family was lower class and we lived out in the middle of a bunch of cotton fields where my dad worked as a farmer. I remember growing up and seeing all the ads for WoW and begging my parents to get it for me but they said they couldn't afford it, and looking back I wouldn't have been able to play because we didn't have actual internet out there, I don't remember if we even had a computer, and I was definitely to young to understand how the game would even work. I begged my parents every time a new expansion came out and I remember getting to try it for about a week some time during Pandaria because I finally convinced my parents to buy WoW for me, but I didn't realize it was a subscription service and all I had was one of the free trial codes that came with the box set. A couple expansions later, just after Legion released, I was in college and still had some money saved from working a couple temp jobs (my mom was trying to pay for college for me). I bought the base game including all content but Legion just to get my character to max level before I decided that I would actually like the game and probably enjoy it for a while. I played all the way through Legion and loved everything I experienced, right up until I ran out of money and had to cancel my subscription, just in time to do a raid finder run of the last boss of the last raid of the expansion. I was excited for BfA because during Legion I saw the story of the Void Elves and their backstory had me so interested and I thought they were going to be a centerpiece for the next expansion. Then BfA actually dropped, the Void Elves were given a lackluster racial ability that I could only ever find use for in a single dungeon, and I only really saw them as set pieces in the Alliance story. I played off and on for a few months at a time until the final content update for Shadowlands. I've grown tired of the borrowed power systems, the facebook game mission tables, all the guilds that want you to treat raiding as a second job, the story just going off the rails, the bots ruining the economy, the talents that sound so cool but are completely unusable because of how underpowered they are. I remember looking up a talent for whatever class I was playing only to find a bit on Icy Veins saying something to the effect of "pressing that button is worse than not using any abilities at all and just auto-attacking", which is something I had not seen for any other talent in the years I had been playing. I used to love Warcraft just as much as I used to love Star Wars, but both were ruined by people who quit caring about their stories.

[@anthonystrickland7049]

The biggest situation with WoW is that Blizzard shifted their MMO from a primarily open world game to an instance based scenario game. The "big three" is where the development and community focus has been since at least Warlords of Draenor. The race for world first gets hype, finishes, and everyone else goes into a holding pattern while waiting for the next patch and dungeons. "Catch up mechanics" have turned the game into a cycle of time gates that reset every expansion (and now resets every patch). Entire zones in expansions are skipable and serve no purpose once the next patch drops. The game lost any sense of accomplishment.

[@hannessteffenhagen61]

It’s one of the issues with the game… one of the biggest draws of the original WoW was the the world… of Warcraft. Even if the endgame content was shallow in comparison, there was just way more stuff on the way there. I’ve not been playing WoW really ever, but I’ve given it a shot every once in a while, and leveling in retail is just miserable as a new player. The problem here isn’t that it’s too slow or anything, it’s that it feels empty. Not really due to a lack of content (some of the quests are really good actually), but the game makes you go through the starter island which is just an over length tutorial (seriously why is there so much walking in a wholly linear zone with nowhere to go but the next quest objective?), and the actual plot is pretty trite. Then it’s BfA which has good quests but feels like side content, nothing you do there really seems to matter. And then bam, shadowlands with no context. Classic for all its flaws was much more fun during the actual leveling process, even if the quests themselves were objectively worse, because the power you gained and the stuff you did felt like it actually mattered (in a gameplay sense, not in a story sense). Retail either needs to get away from this idea that the only thing that matters is endgame, or if they won’t do that then just drop leveling entirely. It doesn’t do anything for the game other than timegating content for no reason.

[@tomfoolery1967]

For me, you take WoW down a path more like Ultima or the older games without instant dungeon queue finders and quest hubs but allow the world to tell the story and progression is met out through the world and the exploration thereof and you'd have a killer combo.

[@deafcommplays7676]

Most underrated comment I've ever read. You nailed it.

[@Aesirix]

@@deafcommplays7676 Nice PfP. ;)

[@Jaigarful]

If I had to guess, I would think the devs do not like the Race to World First events. It has an impact on player's perception of raiding and what it is. The literal tens of thousands of dollars worth of gold spent to buy tier drops via the loot system, BoEs, etc. The people who complained about that happening are likely completely unaffected and are just grasping onto it for a discussion point. WoW struggles because it tries to straddle the line between casual play and a competitive scene. Every MMO does this to some extent, but WoW is notorious for this. The end game systems in WoW, all the "borrowed power" systems and such, they're all designed to fit into raiding to try to provide as much challenge to as much of the player base that wants it. There used to be a lot of guilds that would get hard stuck on bosses until a major nerf and there was almost no way for a guild to increase their strength in that time. What that causes is guilds to break apart and people to quit. Think back to WoD. If you were a guild stuck on Gorefiend for 3+ weeks (he was a tough mid boss), chances are you're already starting to disenchanting a lot of the gear that's dropping. You might 1-2 warforged pieces to drop from the first 4 bosses, but its almost negligible. Your guild may only be gaining 0.5% DPS effectively per week. Fast forward to Legion raiding and onwards, the power progression per week after the initial gear scramble is around 3-5% on average, slowing down at a much later time. There's good reasons these systems exist. Players get frustrated and quit when they don't feel like they're getting stronger, and guilds fall apart when they can't get enough raiders (Catch up mechanics). Its very hard to pull back from these systems and I doubt Blizzard will.

[@Ben-vb2us]

Did anyone else just realize that the Arthas death cinematic makes it sound like the undead will roam wildly and go on a rampage without a lich king, and then Shadowlands happens and like… the undead are just behaving themselves?

[@Neomagam]

The undead were supposed to go on a rampage, but when it was put on the test-realm players complain so much that it never made it to the live servers.

[@designerwookiee]

The whole SL prepatch event was undead going ham (though under the control of the Jailer's forces), and in chapter 3 of the Kyrian Covenant campaign, you find out that the scourge are in fact going ham on Azeroth, in particular destroying Lakeshire as you help Kleia become an Ascended and witness the final moments of Ben Howell. Which is a whole other issue in continuity with Alexstrasza announcing that "The World is Healed" and Blizz just glossing over the issue of countless undead ravaging the world, possibly while still under The Jailer's control, while we were off in The Shadowlands. They better do something along the lines of, "And after The Jailer's forces were defeated, the undead grew disorganized and were easily picked off by Azeroth's defenders." otherwise it's gonna make no sense.

[@csatt13]

@@designerwookiee There's a "Stay a while and listen" with Bolvar and Darion where they say the Ebon Blade will keep the Scourge in check, so I assume we're supposed to just accept that and move on lol.

[@hudomi1687]

@@csatt13 Is this true? Dear lord... so the scourge, an unimaginably massive force, a force where each death adds to it's army, an army that threatened to overrun and destroy all of Azeroth if not controlled by the Lich King, hence the Lich King was NEEDED... is being kept "in check" by a small group of death knights. So the Lich King wasn't needed after all I guess? Oof... I used to love this universe...

[@csatt13]

@@hudomi1687 Yep. Here's the dialogue if anyone's curious. kzbin.info/www/bejne/rnbXeGWfo7CAbM0

[@Kevkoss]

Regarding to items being relevant years later - they used to be to some extent in WoW. People farming old content for various reasons were able to get set of items that increased movement speed or even use Goblin Gliders inside instances. But then at one point Blizzard noticed that it's fun and it overlaps in small areas with new content (Mythic+ mainly) and decided to disable functionality of those items. Something similar happened with Timewalking. When it was introduced, item sets were still a thing in game. And old sets were still working. I remember spending few weeks in WoD on running old raids and dungeons to gets optimal set of item sets, trinkets, gems, enchants and digging up legendaries from Void Storage to maximize my DPS specifically for Timewalk Dungeons. But then came time when Blizzard was so focused on borrowed power systems and changes in talents related to Artifacts in Legion that legacy item sets were disabled. Because they didn't match with some of skills and were probably nightmare to balance out (that one is understandable). And then in BfA Blizzard decided to remove item sets completely :/ As many people said: Fun detected, fun removed.

[@abbiejo6822]

Yeah I used to farm the speed potions in my garrison for my transmog runs in old content, especially on my slow-ass warrior. And then the fun police arrived.

[@garrnk]

When wrath of the litch king came out and they announced the death knight. I was hoping they would put in a quest line when your character dies and gets resurrected by Arthas and become one of his death knights and then spend the rest of the expansion breaking free from his control and when you hit max level you were finally free. But instead it was just a new character to make. I thought this idea would've been amazing.

[@warlordtf9608]

I mean, you kinda got this in the intro quest chain - so much so you are tested by killing an npc of your faction who claimed to know you from the past to test your loyalty to the Lich King, only to be sent on a suicide mission to sate Arthus' lust for Tirion. After the battle is done (where you fight and/or kill npcs at Light's hope Naxxramas era) and the deceit is laid bare, your leader Darion declares his battlion rogue from the Lich King's influence and joins *insert player faction here* Upon Tirion's express recommendation. Now, sure it was expansion-wide but it did a good enough job of setting up the story for a Death Knight.

[@DraphEnjoyer]

That was their original intention. You would need to level a character to 55 then give up that character to make your new DK. The remnant of it remained with you requiring a level 55 character to make a DK.

[@garrnk]

@@DraphEnjoyer you need a 55 character however you never lost that character just a new character on the server

[@Astares9]

@@garrnk i agree with you however sometimes those kinds of gameplay elements must be sacrificed for IRL reasons. 4th wall reasons if you will. if gameplay overly burdens the human player then immersion gets removed in order to maintain harmony

[@parker-unfired]

I think Pandaria had some of the best lore and world-building Blizzard’s writers have ever come up with, and it was accessible in interesting ways. For example, the Lorewalkers rep had you explore Pandaria for ancient artifacts, and then Loremaster Cho would stage a play for you for each time your turned in your findings. A lot of players didn’t care for the theme or setting of the expansion, and as a result I think it gets overlooked, which is a shame considering they did a pretty damn good job of building up some solid lore from scratch.

[@Uldihaa]

MoP is still one of my favorites precisely because it was so different in tone and color palette compared to Cataclysm.

[@Tleilaxu0]

I quit the game during Cataclysm (during the Firelands patch, specifically, which was a godawful slog), and returned during Mists. Once the obligatory starting questline was over, I was surprised at how much of a breath of fresh air the lack of doomsday plots and faction war was. And every time the questlines had me running into Horde and Alliance characters, it felt like meeting an annoying acquaintance while on holiday.

[@Kaftan]

@@Leunenkoenig And that's how you know not a single one of them actually played Warcraft 3.

[@shutup1037]

@@Kaftan especially when they are tired of fighting Legion when Legion is the source of most problem from orc to undead

[@hudomi1687]

It's a shame. Sure, the Pandaren race started as a massive joke. In WC3 the Pandaren were nothing more than a joke, an easter egg. Although we got a serious Pandaren character, Chen Stormstout, in Rexxar's campaign, it wasn't supposed to be more than just a joke. And yet they took that joke and made one of the best expansions in WoW's history around it. If I had to point to a time in which "everything was good", I'd point to Mists of Pandaria. I miss those times... MoP had it's flaws, but the things MoP did well heavily outweighted the flaws. I never had this much fun in WoW. It's such a shame people never took it seriously. And only now, when the World of Warcraft lies in ruins, people start to see what we had. What I would give to be in 2012 again...

[@coffee9172]

A genuinely interesting conversation. Great job!

[@cooltv2776]

" a sandbox with direction" is something ive been looking for. terraria, stardew valley, and subnautica are some of my favorite games in recent and distant memory. its something that I dont see as often as I would like to, but its very satisfying to play.

[@FF-tp7qs]

The Dragonquest Builders games are kind of like that, they have some elements similar to minecraft, like a landscape made of cubes, but the game has a story and quests to guide you along unlike minecraft, and once the story is done you have a freebuild mode. However once the story is done, my interest in building stuff disappeared

[@kurtmooreca]

You should check out Albion online. Its actually very chill and sand boxy, but you also have a bit of a handholding element to it as well.

[@QuiteSpiffing]

Regarding storytelling, Wrath had a questline leading up to a major event, the battle at the Wrathgate, Alliance and Horde forces joined together to storm the gates of icecrown. This concluded with a fully animated cutscene of Bolvar and Saurfang facing the Lich King together. Saurfang being a minor character ending up getting killed (and later raised as a boss in the final dungeon) by the Lich King, it also features the betrayal of the Forsaken, one of the Horde factions, with them releasing a plague to kill the Lich King and everyone there, ending with a close up of Bolvar collapsing before dragons arrive to purge the plague with dragonfire. (this also followed a raid on the Forsaken capital by both the Alliance and the Horde but as separate forces, the former wanting to permanently remove its inhabitants and leaders with the latter wanting to investigate) This entire event, in Blizzard's infinite wisdom, was removed. So new players who get to that expansion's content will experience a great disconnect in the story. "why are the Forsaken hated so much all of a sudden, why is Saurfang here, why is Bolvar looking like a burnt cookie, why are Alliance and Horde so hostile again?" It was a great story event, completely removed from the game, removing a lot of contextual information in mid-to-late Wrath of the Lich King's story, the only way to experience it now is on KZbin.

[@lowkeyarki7091]

Yeah, Josh's confusion is the thing new players will struggle with. Imagine this you know nothing about WoW then someone recommends it to you based on their awesome experience only to play it and realize you missed the great bits and not only did you miss it but now nothing makes sense cause nothing in the current game explains what happened.

[@MrGanzul]

I agree that they should stop with the whole storyline being set up since Warcraft 3 thing. They noted that this will be a reset, and they should treat it as such. Just listening to this podcast I feel even Callum has no idea what is going on anymore. I also believe BFA is the worst expansion for people to be dropped off at and that new players should also be able to choose where they want to start off.

[@archmagetomato8362]

I first started complaining about this in 2005 when they released battlegrounds.

[@CallieCEntertainment]

The 'chromietime' leveling experience toasted the leveling through the entire story to familiarize players with the game they're playing. That said, the leveling experience was painful. Even squished, it took forever. So, technically there's really no winning when it comes to leveling but, there should be a way for brand new players to learn about an experience the background and the story of the game they're playing.

[@thetruestar6348]

also you have to have add on so even properly play the game

[@sprksmr7208]

@@thetruestar6348 that's a lie

[@96Hopi]

My problem with warcrafts story is basically power creep, the neverending escalation of the stakes. We defeated Arthas and then we couldn't have an expansion of dealing with the aftermath of a massive war, that's not big enough! We had to have a huge fuck you dragon break the world!! And after that we couldn't deal with healing of our broken planet, that's not big enough! we had to go and pillage this new continent! And then we couldnt deal with trying to mend relations and deal with extremests (the horde was basically fasict for a couple of patches there), that's not big enough! We had to ~go back in time~ and fight against warcraft 3 characters because nostalgia! The beggining of the Legion story acaully flowed pretty well tbh, but they have SPACESHIPS NOW and guess what! ALL OTHER PLANETS IN THE WARCRAFT UNIVERSE ARE DESTROYED. mmm not big enough? Let's have Sargeras shove his, big, fat sword up Azeroths ass! that's dramatic! And thennnnn we can't actually have a Battle for Azeroth, we can't have a meaningful conflict between the Horde and the Alliance where both sides have committed atrocious in the name of victory. But we can't have that! That's not big enough, so let's halfass the coolest plots we have left, Queen Azshara and the Old Gods! They deserve a patch each and their desmay will have no consequences! Meanwhile Sylvanas is just straight up a villain and Anduin is a perfect little angle uwu. So where do we go once we've killed the Lovecraftian monsters trying to eat reality itself?? I KNOW let's fuck the cosmology why not! Let's go to the ~afterlife~ If you really wanna laugh, canonicly all of this happened over the course of just 8 years. Also the Dragonflight shit is bullshit, at the end of the Dragon Soul raid (end of cataclysm) Alextraza tells us it is the end of the age of dragons and the beginning of the age of mortals. But who cares at this point

[@nidungr3496]

Stakes creep diluted the game beyond just making the story uninteresting. The appeal of WoW in its early days, as one of the first "internet" games, was the exploration, discovery, living in the world and making friends. It was a massive game for its time and there was so much to see and experience. The escalating stakes shrunk everything: you're no longer going on a journey to distant lands, you're just teleported to the next abstract space planet with lightning spires and giant statues. When everything looks spectacular, nothing does, so the discovery aspect is gone. The fact that the gameplay became gradually more important and in the process more abstract to the point where immersion was lost pushed the game in the same direction. You're no longer experiencing the world, you're following an optimized leveling path. Compare some early WoW environments to recent ones. There would be a massive forest with an artistic color scheme and a few places of interest scattered around. A modern zone looks very busy and picturesque and as a result very small, even if it is not actually small. There are landmarks everywhere and probably some crystals scattered around and it just doesn't look like a real place anymore.

[@AndrewWilson-fb8ge]

guess the age of mortals lasted 8 years lol its sad they failed the expansion that was supposed to be character based (BFA) and to cool off after Legion. Im a lore nerd but i can like characters, love Bane, but BFA just couldn't write characters and rushed the lore huge disappointment. At the very least after that expac they could've made some build up to Shadow Lords but I think the devs have literally lost the plot at this point

[@otrikas]

@@nidungr3496 Some critic is more about general change in gaming culture overall. People enjoy cookie cutting WAY more than back then. Metas are more important etc. on one hand it's sad on the other you can still search for a small community in the game and have a great time despite everything. Imo immersion was very much still a thing I really love some zones from BoA, Legion and WoD. Heck I loved Legion as an exp. It wasn't the same as back in classic-wotlk but imo still immersive.

[@TheZackofSpades]

I just want to say calling Deathwing a “huge fuck you dragon” is one of the finest spots of humor I have seen in awhile. Cheers, mate.

[@Heroickittens]

What's sad is over the years ive posted on the forums or on reddit saying how we need expansions that slow the fuck down and have us focused on smaller baddies. Smaller stories and everyone always says "LOL THATS BORING" How cool would it be if we had an entire expansion where we came back to azeroth and had to deal with some new defias bandit king that's gotten himself a hold of some old god weapon and hes very charismatic and is actually helping and feeding the homeless in westfall. So we would have to do some real morally gray things to stop him.

[@avaedana4763]

I use to play the original Everquest (1999) game, and I can say that the things you credit toward Runescape in your discussion is the same for that game. The world was filled with adventures (the difference being mainly player driven) and they weren't crafted as a roller coaster. There were no exclamation marks or maps even. You had to explore. You found hidden quests tucked into dialogues. equipable gear was craftable, but the famous ones were assigned to certain areas, some items becoming famous for either their rarity or difficulty to obtain, and drawing adventurers and treasure seekers alike to certain locations. Others may have taken weeks (literal weeks in real life, waiting around in the same area) but once the item dropped, it felt so amazing to finally get. All the while, the game was also crafted as a social experience, a collaborated group effort, even if the group of adventurers had different goals (levels, items, exploration, or socialization). World of warcraft has done its damnedest to mitigate all of that, and it has suffered immeasurably because of it. A lot has to do with the trade off of risk versus rewards, and making risks a non-factor. The risks in Everquest were very real( hello, experience loss on death/ worn equipment at spot of death until you return back), but at the same time, it also heightened the victories that much more. Its like having a shooting range challenge of hitting an obscured far off target, but you have unlimited ammo, unlimited attempts, and unlimited time. If you know you were never in any danger, the entire challenge becomes pointless. When you realize there are risks it automatically engages you. If you only have 6 shots to hit the target, that changes the atmosphere entirely. Like going into the wilderness in Runescape. I know Josh Strife Hayes likes to rag on certain MMOs that have experience loss on death, but I think it abstractly makes challenges less trivial, and more rewarding. The cities and landmarks of Everquest had a wide range of level encounters, and that definitely inspired new players to be like the veteran players when they saw them walk past. It also felt empowering for veteran players to cast spells to buff lower levels that helped them kill monsters easier. It was definitely a feeling of substance. Nothing felt trivial so every beneficial act felt impactful. As far as story goes , Everquest's story (in it's early years) was always a collection of small stories and tales mixed with lore and legends. Most of it was discovered through NPC dialogues. There was a way to know the history of everything in the world, if that was your goal. But in Everquest the story was always yours to craft. It was your story, not simply a character in a prebuilt cookie cutter monstrosity that everyone is told you're "the hero". I had the unique perspective of playing Everquest first, and then going into WoW after (when it was first released). I stuck around 5 expansions in each MMO. Everquest was the better of the two as far as substance. WoW was the better of the two for presentability. Though WoW did things that made achieving the end game easier, it neglected the value of the journey, which was where most of my greatest memories come from in any game. Ultimately, I am just saying there is no "return to greatness" for WoW for me personally, because it just borrowed Everquest's homework and used simpler words. That is also part of the reason I am not returning nor ever would, and why I'm never really surprised by the course of direction WoW/Blizzard has taken the game through, as a whole. To me it just took everything that was Everquest and put it in a Warcraft story with Blizzard UI and severely diminished the challenge of it. Thanks for reading my opinion. Have a beautiful day.

[@ILoveGrilledCheese]

EverQuest was an mmo for people who actually liked MMOs.. I have no idea what these new games are but they can be barely called MMOs

[@otrikas]

Sorry but Everquest is to hardcore. No hardcore MMO would grow as big as FF14 or WoW. Which is fair. They have their decent playerbase within EVE, Albion etc. but imo WoW didnt need it. "Its like having a shooting range challenge of hitting an obscured far off target, but you have unlimited ammo, unlimited attempts, and unlimited time. If you know you were never in any danger, the entire challenge becomes pointless." Ehh.. no it doesn't. Even Darksouls doesn't loose you anything if you don't happen to have souls on you and you can throw yourself 1000 times against a boss without loosing something but it doesnt deminish the challenge.

[@mahe7744]

The thing with arcane is, all of that lore already existed and in fact they had to cut a lot more lore related to those characters and modify the parts that they didnt cut because it would not fit in the story or it would be too long. The series really did show the lore of league to the world since most league players dont even know the game has lore sadly

[@Skund79]

One of the main issues with WoW is that the community eats itself and the devs created the environment for it The sheer amount of toxicity in this game is borderline insane. The moment you run dungeons or raid people switch into competitive mode, min maxing, top tier performance expecting and so on while it's not necessary Having fun, taking it casually? Not possible When your hunt for literal 0.4% improvement of your gear piece because that's what the vast majority expects, you know something is broken But here is the worst part: People can't play mechanics and are bad at teamplay So what happens in raid or mythic scenario is the moment something goes wrong people look for ways to to put the blame on someone and that is usually stat and thus gear focused They finally expanded progression from dungeons and raids to world content. It's a monumental task to fix it and reverse the trend. I hope for the best

[@Skyblade12]

The game is run by someone who literally told anyone who doesn't follow his guides to stop playing.

[@Static-EN-]

i'd like to add that compared to other MMO raiding, WoW's raids are mostly DPS checks and healer pressure, getting through boss mechanics is pointless if you're going to get kicked for not getting the best gear

[@Static-EN-]

@@fullmetalscotsman1306 my apologies, i havent done endgame dungeons and raids in ESO since the map completion was the main appeal for me

[@patrickstar1164]

One wipe and I am leaving

[@MrDoggo23]

It's why I liked WoD. I had my own corner where I could fuckoff to and screw around with. I never felt an obligation to do anything. Of course, they stopped adding content to focus on Legion because they didn't have the numbers they wanted. Funniest shit is Legion sucked ass so much I never played WoW again after the first month.

[@gundampharmacist7348]

Okay in anime’s defense, the “always bigger villain” thing is usually a low quality shonen manga and light novel problem. And quite a few of the best subvert this

[@tacticianAlexandra]

Yeah it normally the popcorn entertainment that falls into the trap. For there being a bigger threat out there. Can make sense and be well done. If used in a limited dose. Like a master coming to get revenge against the hero for slaying his student. For when it truly becomes a trap. Is when you overuse it. More so when you go to say galaxy level and you don't give a reason to care about most of the galaxy being wiped out. Which also boosting up the power level to insane degrees, can make it hard to have simple every day adventures when your character is strong enough to punch out god. Wow being a good case of using this trope poorly, for to make the shadowlands villain seem like they are this big bad threat behind everything. They had to retcon so much lore, rather than properly building up their villain. They when the lazy route and it shows. They wanted a big paid off, without doing any of the work to earn it. While also showing everyone the dangers of needlessly retconning stuff. Which yeah not alot of anime I can recall seeing as of late has done the bigger villain thing. Of course most I have seen lately, are very short anime that tell their story from start to finish and go, yep we are done here. Like Gridman, where there is a fair few times, where the giant monster is a threat due to having something Gridman lacks. Like the ability to fly, along with great speed to perform hit and run attacks, to make trouble for the hero. Of course I wouldn't worry much about this trope being over used. Long as people are willing to honestly review things and not replace reality with their own fanfiction.

[@KP-to4lm]

Awsome podcast. Some great takes I haven't thought of. Keep em up

[@patrickstar1164]

I was reading all the books, comics, and novellas. But when I started to play, I noticed that devs do not care about what's in the book. There were terrible retcons. Then they just started to justify all these saying that "it's not canon", like wtf I must buy a book and read it if a year later it's not canon anyways? There was this situation that they didn't add Falstad as his own faction leader because they thought he's dead, and a player on blizzcon told devs about their own mistakes, and they fixed it in the game. I genuinely don't know how can you not know your own story and lore as a developer. And the new writers seem like not respecting the established canons and they just butcher the lore for empty characters like the Jailer. They are ready to claim the lore for themselves. They ruined Arthas, they humiliated Kael'thas, they destroyed Sylvanas, Bolvar, Jaina, Garrosh, Thrall, literally everyone simply because they misunderstood these characters. In writer's head "Sylvanas is an undead, and she has skulls? That's a villain for sure!" The story writers are absolute amateurs. This is why the people who care about the story, they moved to final fantasy. And people who play wow now are clueless about the lore. People think Ner'zul and Guldan were always warlocks, in fact they were shamans. How tf you can be a warlock if you never met the legion? Nobody cares anymore. So, these things just annoy me, and I gave up on the story and I'm just doing PvP now. Never read a single quest, completely ignored and skipped BFA, not watching any lore about bfa or shadowlands simply because it's just not good.

[@OldManInternet]

Blizzard's greatest sin wasn't the garbage borrowed power systems each expansion. It wasn't ignoring the player base, or the terrible class balance. It's not the diligent farming, or the shallow and unfulfilling gameplay loop. It's not the terrible writing ruining previously beloved characters, or the retconning and butchering of the lore. It's not even the lawsuit or the fact that they treated so many of their employees like crap. It's the fact that after 17 years of playing the game, they finally produced a product so bad that they've essentially dared the players to go find something else to do. So I did. Now it's not just a matter of patching up the game and making it decent again. It's a matter of not only fixing their broken game, but making it better than the competition that they drove so much of their playerbase to. We'll see how that goes.

[@tacticianAlexandra]

In the end. The greatest wow killer, was wow it's self.

[@Ps-we3pp]

they fixed a lot of issues in 9.2. the problem is they wait till the final patch to do it.

[@Keldiur]

@@Ps-we3pp They have done that the last 3 expansions. They nerf their systems into the ground so new players or finally Alt players do not feel left behind and give a good, positive feeling going into the next expansion. Anyone can change, but I would suggest to any angry WoW player to wait for 10.1 to come back. You will be flooded with positivity until the honeymoon is over and everyone reaches the grind. We will see how bad that grind is this time.

[@orionar2461]

You cant heal a dead tree. Just plant a new one.

[@legowarcreator]

I was with you till you said terrible class balance. Unless you are in the top 1%, it doesn't matter as much as you think it does. Usual excuse from mediocre players.

[@Uldihaa]

I'd describe the first two expansions of WoW as "travelogues", going to the big, important set pieces of Warcraft 2 and 3. Vanilla was like the first Warcraft, a kind of vague "us vs them" story but nothing particularly solid to tie it all together; it was a series of smaller adventures without an overarching plot. Burning Crusade was tying up loose threads from Warcraft 2, while also retconning it at the same time; with some follow-up to certain events in WC3. Then Wrath was entirely about finally wrapping up all the drama and events of WC3 and its expansion. I strongly believe that Cataclysm was intended to break that trend and let them start "fresh" by exploring the peripheral lore of the world. But then that became the new trend and kind of mired them down. Trying to keep world PvP active also crippled their story-telling flexibility because no matter what happens, it _must_ circle back to reigniting the conflict between Horde and Alliance or their basis for PvP collapses. Mists of Pandoria was, I believe, the first expansion with the weakest connection to the Warcraft games and that was both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. On one hand, it allowed them to really change things up both visually and story-wise. But on the other hand, it created a very noticeable disconnect with the rest of WoW. Unfortunately, that disconnect was what made so many dislike that expansion. So they set things up to return to what they were doing pre-Cata: leaning heavily on WC2 and 3. Warlords of Draenor is WC2 Alternate where the invasion of Azeroth is stopped before it happens. Legion is WC3 Frozen Throne with demons instead of undead. It's also the last expansion I played. I don't know if this trend continued into Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands.

[@BillNyeTheBountyGuy]

On the note of quests, a thought I've had is the 'River'. Your small quests should lead you to the bigger quests, and play into them. So the old lady has you pick berries that are used as a sleep aid, which actually plays into the larger quest of the murder mystery of the King (Was poisoned by these berries).

[@jordanweir7187]

I believe the reason is that if I'm not mistaken, Blizz was originally a group of people in a company who were piling huge creativity upon huge soul upon huge ambition into a wonderful bonfire of potential, nowadays it is merely a business, a company, a corporate entity which is built to survive and produce a product, whose aim is profit and longevity. I think a lot of great points discussed here though great talk

[@10cody7]

so glad to hear someone feel exactly the same about supernatural as I do

[@TuffMelon]

One of the main criticisms I had with WoW in the last few years is that it feels less and less connected to the World previously. Not necessarily literally, but even then it kinda was too. Like Cataclysm was an attempt for them to redo a lot of the world for a more modern experience, which was okay. Mists brought up a story of the Pandaren, which were a joke race in WC3, but hey, why not right? But then Warlords was a 'what if?' scenario that felt like they were trying to double down on nostalgia of Burning Crusade Legion felt like a bunch of nice ideas they had to fit somewhere so they found something to connect it to BFA felt like they were trying to rekindle the Horde vs Alliance war, just because they realised people wanted WoW Classic. And then shadowlands was just an almost complete detachment from the rest of WoW. Such a feeling of forcing something to be tacked on, rather than naturally being an extension of the world. It's been like 8 years since I felt like I was actually travelling around in our Azeroth, to be put simply.

[@LobsterFusion]

Yes, this is what I felt about WoD and SL was feeling very disconnected from the world. Can't comment on Legion cause I missed that one. But having a connection to the world is sooooo important to MMO's.

[@ceegronlee]

Yeah I appreciated how they included some old zones and areas in some of the Legion quests (mostly for artifact weapons, but still). The could do more with the world we already have. But I guess expansions HAVE to include new zones.

[@cas6382]

I personally disagree that the setting of Shadowlands was a part of the problem since I believe it could have opened the doors for some really wacky and incredible stuff but it was the content and gameplay that just ruined it. If they had it connect with Azeroth like the Legion artifact stories had you go out to random places to help and see the damage being caused that would have tied it together way better. It also would have been immensely better if they didn't purposely hurt the game to up their retention metrics, have content come out more than maybe once a year on average (this was already a problem for years before Shadowlands but the lawsuits just made it worse), and the content was just fun to do instead of just a tax to play the game the way you wanted to. I find Shadowlands to be in a very similar position as FFXIV Shadowbringers but the difference is Blizzard just botched it.

[@sintanan469]

@@ceegronlee But they don't. WoW has the ability to instance whole zones. They've done it many times on the small scale for X quest or Y event. Theramore Isle is an easy example. If WoW wanted to progress zones, they could. Imagine if instead of Desolace being a small woods built in what was an elephant graveyard it's still a bland, grey wasteland. An area burned, battered, and discarded. Now imagine if you could start quest chains to build up and change the zone. Maybe you work with the Cenarion Circle to create the forest grotto. Then you go off and level. You come back and find that the Cenarion Circle is besieged by the centaur clans not wanting their grey plains conquered by trees and you have to decide their fate. Do you put them down as mad dogs and have the forests reclaim the tribe lands as untamed wilderness, or do you try to make peace with the tribes by running a Heroic version of Maruadon? What about instead of taking this path you work with one of the centaur tribes to wipe out the other. There are now many camps of the chosen tribe dotted around Desolace. You go level up and come back to find the tribe has grown and is now threatened by ogre invaders from Feralas and Dire Maul. Instead of tackling a heroic Maraudon, you're now running heroic Dire Maul to break the ogres once and for all. "But by doing this you'll miss some content with your character!" So? You can make 11 characters. Having locked paths incentivizes you to try a new character and actually explore the world again instead of just power leveling. Or, if you really have to give all options to a character.. use the bronze dragonflight to view other timelines. Again, Theramore Isle does this. But, take this new concept of Desolace and apply it to (almost) every zone. Instead of having to add new zones you teleport to with an expansion, reuse zones already in the game.

[@MrQwertyman111]

Well... took a breake right after the final patch for WoD because I realized the expac sucked. Quit Legion right before the final patch when I realized it was going to be just "meh". Quit BfA around mid expac, because it was just boring - tons of filler content but no actual engagement with the world. Shadowlands? Didn't stick around long enough to see the first patch content. Sorry, but when both me and my wife watched the Dragonflight trailer as people who played vanilla back in the day? We laughed hard and agreed that we got conned 3 times in a row, and we'd be braindead morons to fall for the same hack for the 4th time: nostalgia train right up to the bank, with fancy new mounts all over the place for a humble fee of 6+ months game time. Good luck to Blizzard, they'll need it because most people I knew through my adventures in Azeroth? They have no faith this expac will be even decent, let alone good, and pretty much everyone found a new game to have fun in. And crushing majority reacted to the news just like we did: laughed and moved on. It's a shame WoW is where it is right now. But I guess Josh is right in his vid: WoW is a platform to sell gameplay and cosmetics now, the story is of little to no importance in the grand scheme of things. Unless Blizzard changes their attitude, WoW will remain a husk of its former self and can fade away for all I care.

[@ThePsydex]

Love this format, thank you 🥰

[@dotmairis]

The new talent tree actually doesn't change anything. It's an unpacking of current passive effects and automatic spell learning into a clickable interface. The main problem still remains the focus on specialization. What your class does is solely dependent on the specialization you pick. Do you want to tank? You have to fully commit to Protection and that's the framework you'll have to work with. Want to heal? Restoration or go home! The old talent system worked beautifully because, in theory, you could concoct some crazy triple-dip talent trees that didn't really have a specialization. Death Knights in WotLK are a great example on how you could just go crazy with different, wacky talent setups. Once you force the player to pick specialization any hope of fun talent trees is gone.

[@gamingpc5459]

Wow definitely ran out of stories to tell. I think one of the reasons people liked classic is that there were a lot of bits of Warcraft lore here and there. Most people at the time had played previous WC games, so when we learned about the origins of the alliance, the relationships between the realms or even the betrayal of the masons that rebuilt Stormwind (and consequently the creation of the Defias Brotherhood) we were in awe at these stories. Duskwood was fascinating, visiting the Swamp of Sorrows was cool, and of course, going through the famous Dark Portal! Yes, you can have giant events, save the world and kill the big bad guy. But you can do it for a limited amount of times before people stop caring, because that's literally the opposite of world building.

[@continuallyblessed44]

I want them to make the game flow better. If I make a new character to play through the whole game, they’ve constructed the game to frown upon that. I resubbed a couple months ago, made a new character and found out I can’t group up for old dungeons in the group finder thing unless I timewalk? I have no idea what that even is. They need to take a page out of FF’s book and make old content relevant. Until they do this I have little interest in ever playing again. MMO’s for me are about the journey, not the endgame. Once I hit lvl cap (or end of MSQ in FF) I’m done until the next chunk comes out. I have little interest in raiding all the time. I’ll usually do the FF raids once to clear off my log then that’s it unless I need gear upgrades for the next MSQ.

[@browal14]

I wanted to try wow but once i learned they stremed the leveling i was like well no point now not going to see the cool stories everyone was talking about

[@abbiejo6822]

Correction: they DID explain why there must always be a Lich King. During the expansion, the 3 dungeons in the ICC area that the players would have gone through before the raid tell a cohesive story and in the 3rd dungeon the ghost of Uther comes out of the sword Frostmourne and explains that the tiny bit of good Arthas that remains within the Lich King is the only thing keeping the scourge from running rampant across all of Azeroth, so a noble soul will have to take on the mantle if we manage to defeat Arthas. So it was explained and, unlike a lot in modern WoW, was explained IN GAME.

[@goroakechi6126]

Counterargument; that’s Uther’s speculation. Arthas tried to burn a town to the ground and after he got the power of the Lich King, kept a vial of blood from the woman he killed, revived and raped. Arthas is a deluded sadistic maniac even before he got Frostmorne.

[@bromora989]

@@goroakechi6126 uhhh… never heard that thing about after he became the Lich King, but a reminder that isn’t really “him” anymore. Only a small fraction of the personality of the host remains when they become the Lich King, it’s a mental fight to retain your own mind: and yes, Arthas lost, but that also means it wasn’t really him anymore. As for the town he wanted to burn before obtaining Frostmourne: you mean… the town RIDDLED with the scourge, a plague that would bring certain death (really, a fate worse than death as they become undead) to every citizen and FAR more people if allowed to spread. There was no cure (and even when a cure came to be for the plague, it could do nothing for the people already transformed). Arthas made a “greater good” decision. He knew what the plague would do.

[@goroakechi6126]

@@bromora989 No, not really. Think about it from Ner’zhul’s perspective. He has absolutely no reason to do what the Lich-King did to Sylvanas. He just wants to raise more undead. That’s it. To revive her as conscious, and then make her watch as he destroys everything is completely antithetical. But Arthas has a track record of being driven to anger when someone gets in his way. And yeah, it was probably unlikely that they would have a cure before they turned, but it’s super telling that Arthas’s first reaction is to burn the place to the ground Not saying that Arthas was incapable of doing good things, I’m saying he wasn’t a good person. After all, if you’re Ner’zhul, why would you try and turn a goody two shoes when you can have the most violent, prideful paladin there is? And in the novelization, Arthas explicitly dominates over Ner’zhul when he puts on the helm, soooo-

[@brianm.595]

Final fantasy 11 did what you describe with classes before realm of the mad God. There were jobs that you leveled then advanced jobs that you could unlock based on the basic jobs. At any given moment you could have a main job and a sub job at half max level (and whatever skills you could have at max and half max respectively). It was really quite a genius system as you basically kept on leveling through all the areas over and over on a single character. Keeping most areas relevant.

[@pavelowjohn9167]

Man, I used to really enjoy WoW, had a pretty good guild, even got a beta key to help test Cataclysm....then, when Mists of Pandaria came out, I played for a bit and then just quit. I knew it was downhill from there and best to just make a clean break. Then Classic came out. I though, okay, cool, a little nostalgia never hurt anyone. I played a little bit of classic, including Burning Crusade Classic, for about six months...and that was enough (that also coincided with the lawsuits and allegations, so that made it even easier). And now I hear these two talk about WoW and I feel absolutely no desire to play the game, not even a little. It's amazing how a thing you once enjoyed immensely can be so thoroughly purged from your system.

[@hayleyberry3437]

Lich King and Legion were the "end game" of the narrative was also when the player felt most powerful, great lore, great cotent.

[@vizthex]

really like these longer clips, cuz i never even knew they talked like this but would love if they uploaded it to YT. Can't stand livestreams.

[@Dkgow]

I remember back in the day there were amazing Raid Sets, my favorite and why I made a Warlock was the Nemesis Raiment, but when I got in near start of BC I couldn't get it. Once they made it a bit easier I was able to get it and loved it, but it got power crept by my newest favorite, Deathbringer (25-man). It was such a cool set and it was a grind to get, but I loved being one of the people who managed to get it. Then it got power crept itself, which isn't the worst, but it made the gear useless even though I wanted to keep it. I also managed to get Deathcharger before they closed the Dungeon and i never went back to see if it came back

[@BrendonLee]

I lost a lot of my WoW mates after Wrath coz they were tired of losing their progression after spending so much blood, sweat and tears getting Heroic gear. I´m shocked that this shit has gone on for so long and even more shocked that people stuck around all this time. Really hope that all your patience and dedication finally pays off this expansion.

[@markedforstrike]

Actually I think that Sylvanas had a good writing in the past. She had her own story with motivation and reasonable personal goals. Protection of homeland, death, being a mindless slave, getting freedom as a banshee(I dont remember for sure if she was "in body" or not), attempts of getting a revenge And then all that Legion stuff and "now Sylvanas leads the horde" and for me she became a slave of fanservice, which Imo is worse then being under Scourge control

[@KumaNicol]

I absolutely agree with the legendary critique, btw.; I think they should redo the Legion "legendary" system, cause I think those effects and pieces were very fun for me to collect and mess with, but DO NOT make them legendaries, change their name to "Unique" or "Artifact" gear and make it its own, baked in, does not disappear with expansions system. And with that / on top of that, god, bring back old legendaries. I am super excited at the idea of getting a Shadowmourne come Wotlk classic. And when I see Warglaives I get so hyped to this day.. I want that fantasy to come back, and also to have the "everyone gets one" as well, but shifted to its own system. Fantastic video, and I am only 1/3rd done.

[@kylewilki9636]

Thank you Josh for bringing up OSRS, my favorite topic of yours

[@lorenzolyleabadia1669]

With XIV's new story arc being out now. They actually addressed a lore that we've completely taken for granted since we were so preoccupied with the Ascians, Primals, and the overall arc of Zodiark and Hydaelyn and it is the Twelve Gods of Eorzea. Thus far, we've seen four out of the twelve and what I liked about the story thus far is they aren't trying to take over the world but rather they are testing our mettle. Whatever that test is for is still a mystery since their law is preventing them to tell us. And that makes it more interesting. They have laws. Meaning, their realm are also quite civilized. Which raised the question, what kind of Gods are they?

[@xxJing]

I play the game in Japanese so I don’t know how Koji translated it in English. One thing the gods say though is “we have always been the same since primal times” one of the Andients in Elpis also says “the world was quite violent in primal times, be we’ve built it up to be so wonderful.” This makes me guess that these gods predate the Ancient’s Civilization. However there are a million things they could do with that idea.

[@LoreSquid]

Personally I feel like WoW's player numbers didn't decline because Arthas's story ended, they declined because the way Blizz implemented features in Cata went in an awkward direction. They added new zones that were patched onto the world map (which they never did in any other expancsion since Cata), they suffered from a level bloat that demanded people to grind even more hours in a game where alting was still an investment even with Heirlooms, the story hooks were a bit all over the place (like Deathwing appearing suddenly on the map and torching it at random). Then gearing was an issue because back then GS mattered less so people looked at your raw HP to decide how well equipped you are, and above all that they removed a good part of the 'world' mistery by adding flying in Azeroth. Now you could see Azeroth from up high and realized how small it was. And on top of that, they added way more stats and made the game need even more simulations for the raiders. And added Raid Finder. They fixed most of the issues in MoP (reducing exp needed, making zones contiguous, fixing gearing and stats etc.) and then added in however a new odd talents system that we have to this day. It's less about the 'story' ending and more about the fact that Cataclysm made the game take the first shaky steps into a pattern that devalued the previous experience.

[@Keldiur]

I did not mind the leveling in Cata and decently liked the new leveling but will admit it was half baked. What I wish they did was cross realm, server merges or mega server for the old world maps. Vanilla has a great questing and leveling experience... when the bodies are around to team up with. It is absolutely boring without other people to move shit along. IF you had decent population for maps, nothing would have had to change. These options as well could have fended off LFD and LFR. If they put the LFG tools added in in the last patch of Pandaria and taught players to use it the community would have run with it. Blizzard are just so slow, even when there were mods to do that shit even when Cross Realm invites were a thing in mid Cata.

[@Tleilaxu0]

I don't think there's anything wrong with a slow levelling process, so long as that content isn't treated as "lesser" than endgame content. I bought WoW on the day TBC launched yet didn't get a character to level 70 until two weeks before WotLK's launch, but I still enjoyed that process more than I did levelling any alt from Cataclysm onwards. Between the dip in writing quality, the standardized quest design, the rampant phasing, and the dungeon finder giving you greater rewards for just sitting in a capital city and queueing your way to level cap, I can't help but wonder if Cataclysm was actively trying to kill questing as the default gameplay experience.

[@LoreSquid]

@@Tleilaxu0 Vanilla and BC were slow in the sense of encouraging huge grinding outside of having a storyline. There's plenty of moments where you run out of quests in Vanilla and to get to the next set you need to grind NPCs for exp or do dungeons. BC had the same issue but lesser. Wrath more or less had a continuous leveling experience via questing but still needed you to do almost every quest you found. Back then, the reason why alts were more needed to be an easier experience was because of class design. You could pick a class that would be fun and decent, but most raids and dungeon groups by the endgame of Vanilla and BC had specific roles for specific classes. If you weren't that role while playing that class, people would skip inviting you over. Wrath was when some of the other specs got fixed and Cata was when most classes became self-sufficient regardless of spec (example, rogues didn't need to be Combat anymore for levelling because assassination and sub had recuperate too. DKs didn't need Blood anymore for levelling because Frost and Unholy could also heal with the improved death strike)

[@mohammedghanem9228]

Informative video, well done

[@bumberton7958]

The whole time you talked about the class stuff I was think of Dragonfable! So glad to actually here it get called out for how fun that system was with finding new classes and the like!

[@fgc_7433]

I've been watching alot WoW videos since Dragonflight was announced and this has been the best one. This back and forth should happen with the devs to really get things going in a better direction.

[@MontyDotharl]

I feel like this is the same song and dance we go through with every WoW expansion. In the lead up, everyone gets hyped. It's going to fix all the problems! They're finally listening to fans! It's gonna be great! And it comes out. And everyone has fun with the leveling experience and maybe the story if Blizzard hasn't shot themselves in the foot. Then a few weeks go by. People reach endgame. And it's all just either the same problems again, all new ones, or both. And it just gets worse as the patches come out (or in Shadowlands's case, don't come out). And everyone goes back to realizing Blizzard doesn't give a fuck about them. Or, at least, the people in charge at Blizzard don't. The saddest part of it all is that most of the actual devs and artists and such at Blizzard are great, but the leadership is rotten. But anyways, this cycle has just repeated itself ad nauseum since like, Cataclysm at least (when I lost interest in the game and drifted off). And if Blizzard has actually decided to finally listen to people? That's great for the fans of WoW. I won't be going back thanks to the... everything horrible at Activision/Blizzard but y'know, I will be glad for the people who do go back or stuck around. But I don't expect it them to actually change. I'm just waiting to see how they fuck it up. Well, fuck it up more than they already did with those awful dragon people models lol

[@chestbuster1987]

I was planning on just listening to a few minutes of this to get a general idea of whether or not there is any real reason to potentially consider returning to WoW but I ended up listening to some quite thought-provoking discussions. Best second monitor content ever!

[@Orchested]

The original adventure quest has such good storytelling and artwork, i still play it from time to time and its incredible the storylines are still advancing after so many years

[@ChrisWhiton]

Interesting take on the box art thing. I played all expansions until BFA launched and just prior to this video if you had asked me what it was about I would have also assumed it was furthering the Orcs Vs Humans storyline... NEVER would I have guessed at dinos.

[@ErwinPommel]

It's not just about dinosaurs. That's an over-simplification. There are also pirates.

[@maciejwalenciak5497]

Another nice full time video proving that Says became the main thing and Josh Strife Hayes is second channel content

[@gaijinkuri684]

Very good point. I stopped after wrath and probably because I had seen the end to Arthus’s struggles. The story after never really interested me after that.

[@defaultprotagonistname]

great discussion lot of great points about running out of the ideas after the core story is done

[@paro2210]

I feel like the big mistake blizzard did with the narative, happend with TBC. Vanilla didnt have a overaching story. It was just a world were there where alot of small stories and some larger ones. I feel like that made it feel like a world and not just a theme park. I think they should have expanded on that consept and instead of making it this big narrative. Having this big bad guy, is fine if the game is going to end. But if you dont have an end in mind, it kinda needs to be more open ended from the start.

[@GeorgeMonet]

No it's the other way around. The biggest mistake in vanilla after the terrible shitty gameplay was the lack of coherent story to explain why what you were doing mattered and why you were continuing to do it. Having sidequests is fine, but having just sidequests makes everything feel like it doesn't matter and leaves the player aimless and bored.

[@karelposedi]

The last 3 out of 4 WOW expansions flopped. The only argument Cal has their word- devs also said more alt friendly and respectful to lore and characters for Shadowlands. On the segment of borrowed power, watch Ions interview with Hazelnut- where he said that "they are moving away from borrowed systems" and then confirmed they will not abandon borrowed power systems. ExWOW player of 15 years

[@Skyblade12]

Ion also literally said “no new systems after Shadowlands launch”, and then added Domination Sockets and the Catalyst and Cipher and crap.

[@206Zelda]

Ion playing the Ubisoft card: "We don't plan" is a loophole to avoid promising that they "won't".

[@zeron851]

Yep. Blizzard's word is about as good as mud. They consistently say and do completely opposite things. We won't know anything until it's released, and by then it'll be too late to "fix" anything.

[@nulltheworm]

@@206Zelda Ion was a lawyer. Ion thinks and speaks like a lawyer. You can't turn that off.

[@darkzero226]

i think you’re misrepresenting what ion said about borrowed power. it’s existed in the game since the beginning with things like talents, tier sets, even just the normal, no frills gear (a point i kinda disagree with but this is not the first time i’ve seen someone make the point that gear is borrowed power.) he said dragonflight wasn’t abandoning “borrowed power” because there are forms of it that were tried and true and they were going back to those older systems (talent trees and tier sets) as opposed to these other systems with grindy mechanics.

[@RareSt3ak]

Was not expecting to see AdventureQuest mentioned in a video about WoW, so damn cool that they draw inspiration and comparisons from so many different games!

[@joeybravo6172]

I still remember doing dragon slayer for the first time to wear my rune plate. Or lost city, and then my first trip to the barrows. I spent hours in castle wars having fun, and other minigames for useful gear or to skill up.

[@NezeruGaming]

I'm reminded that there's a logical reason why even the longest running DnD campaigns usually end at max level and don't continue further. Its because like WoW.. built up power and renown of godlike player characters only makes an unwinnable situation for the DM to continue creating compelling obstacles for them to face at their ridiculous power level.

[@tarron3237]

Yeah, once you've saved the world, what's next?

[@kaakrepwhatever]

The issue with "legendaries" being restricted to a tiny part of the playerbase to make 7 people feel fantastic about themselves is that they didn't actually earn those. They were in the right place at the right time. And the rest of the playerbase has to suffer with mediocre weapons for the rest of the expansion to make sure those lucky ones continue feeling special.

[@KNByam]

Make legendaries an ultra rare drop like it use to be.

[@lumaro9704]

In WoW? Sure they were pretty rare drops... that then required you're guild to feed you the mats i.e. "make sure those lucky ones continue feeling special."

[@j_corb]

I've heard Josh's name before, but just never came upon any of his content. Definitely impressed to listen to folks who have such a deep understanding of MMO's and game design, and some really great considerations. It's so easy to jump into "X game sucks" or "X game is the best thing ever", very few people delve into the nuance with these kinds of discussions.

[@AkameGaKen]

i still remember playing vanilla for over 2 years 8+ hours a day every day and never getting tired of it because i enjoyed it so much. i want that feeling again. new talent trees are a good start. not even upset they are stealing ideas from gw2’s mount system and ff14’s crafting system. they could even learn a think or two from eso’s story telling.

[@zenith110]

From another WoW veteran who was talking to me, it seemed like a lukewarm reception to the announcement.

[@brunohommerding3416]

A very nice conversation, but a person with current and overall lore insight was needed here to put some more perspective. The emerald dream is related to just one of the dragonflights(the greens), not the dragons in general, so i strongly doubt the dream will have any prominence in this new exp. Most of the dream plots relating to the nightmare etc were settled in legion, and yeah theres more stuff they can do there but i still highly doubt the dream will have any significant impact at all impact in the new expansion. What we know we will deal with is the future of the dragonflights, Wrathion rebuilding the black flight, the primordials(mostly elementals and other dragonkin that are some of the villains) and the wakening of the titan world soul.

[@CalestoBella]

They never said that it would be related to this expansion. Callum said that if they wanted to reset Azeroth and WoW (aka Final Fantasy style) they have established lore to do so i.e. the Emerald Dream.

[@karatefylla]

oh wow adventure quest, didn't realised I had played it untill I googled it, what an absolute blast from the past.

[@paganflute3989]

I am now nearly 42 years old and i played even Warcraft 1, then Warcraft 2 and first times multiplayer network with friends. After that the epic story of Warcraft 3 and Frozen Throne and i started WoW in 2005 after being reluctend about paying monthly for a game. I played WoW mostly with breaks till shadowlands but always when i think of it when WoW became for me like a chore more then a fun passion, was truly after Wrath of the Lich King. It always felt to me, that after Wrath, the big villains and stories coming from WC3 like Kael Thas, Vashj, Illidan and then Arthas were over. Like "A time of great heroes and villains" ended. Thrall went more away, Sylvanas never was that present until they made her the main, wahtever they made of her...After that it really was like a stretched TV series that had its fame but just couldnt end it on a good note! And with the fame, came the arrogance. To me WoW didnf evolve alot to a point now where i think, even if Dragonflight might be good, that i dont know if i ever want to see that game again.

[@savedbygrace1582]

My take: They destroyed our lands, good-bye UC, the destroyed or corrupted our leaders, they destroyed our iconic abilities, they destroyed all remnant of wow. Making an xpac and calling it wow doesn't make it wow.

[@spydere3392]

*is clip channel* let's upload a video of perfectly reasonable length! *Uploads **44:44** minutes of pure content* Almost as good as the loop incident.

[@EvilDude1]

19:47 I don’t remember exactly when or where it was explained, but the reason there must always be a Lich King is to control The Scourge (basically the original faction of Undead). Without a Lich King to control them, they would uncontrollably rampage.

[@LifeForAiur]

I just want to remark that Old School Runescape has probably some of the best lore out there if people are actually willing to read the quest dialogue. Mod Ed (head of lore) has stated that he will NOT do anything with the 6th age and that the gods will only remain as an elusive influence in Gielinor (not a direct influence). This means that the Zaros returning plotline will FOREVER be a future possibility and the edicts of guthix (laws that prevents the gods from returning to Gielinor) will forever help keep a delicate balance in Gielinor. This also means that the much more grounded stories (elves storyline, xeric and the politics of Kourend, pirates, gnome storyline, vampyre storyline) have the opportunity to take the spotlight as being of major importance in their relative regions in the game. There is no overarching world ending threat. There is no single story of utmost importance that overshadows all the other sides stories or forces them to converge to it. It is a bunch of different stories, happening simultaneously, as one would expect of a real, complex, world. They are stories about mortals and magical creatures and exploring the remnants of a highly magical past (the 3rd age), a past that nearly decimated the entire land. But it's an era where the land has healed now and it's the age of mortals.

[@xXbaker1025Xx]

That comment about WoW dying because Arthas's story ended makes a lot of sense and is something a never even considered. It's also a thing that repeated itself with legion and shadowlands. First it was arthas, then it was sargeras, then it was the jailer. There's always a bigger fish.

[@eldrevo]

Arthas, Sargeras and who?

[@lubo1358]

Sargares was always in the lore but I get your point. The Jailer was just some made up on the spot bullshit enemy.

[@asiragan7416]

21:00 Story telling wise, it's all about how you write stakes and how you make the players feel like they actually matters. A competent writer can make a really intense story with barely anyone dying in it, if he set the stakes right. Josh was talking about anime; and on this topic we could take the example of JJBA, where, at the end of part 3, the author had to answer the question "Ok, now that the megalomaniac, insanely charismatic and fan-favorite vampire is dead, where do we go now?", and answered with a serial killer who only wanted a quiet life, which is brilliant. And really, the problem with wow's writing right now. Incomprehensibles and/or forgetable stakes, no setup and/or no payoff, the power system change according to the writer needs, etc... No one will care if the world face destruction if they don't make you understand why this world is worth protecting in the first place.

[@claudiusiatat7248]

i remember I got asked in BGs constantly (cool TBC) where i got Trollbane from! I mean, it looked new, fresh and cool, and most importantly, had finally hunter stats

[@tineye5100]

Josh, you are spot on about the story of Arthas. Once we beat him, nothing felt important.

[@restinginn9906]

The comparison between OSRS and WoW around 27:40 is really good. OSRS gear has so much STAYING power. I guess thats the only term I can think of. Basically, the items and gear you get even 15 years ago are relevant and good to this day. Iconic weapons like the abyssal whip is still considered one of the best weapons for mid/high level players and it also retained its value in gold. I can't even imagine world of warcraft having something like this, like imagine if Thunderfury was still an incredibly good weapon or something. I think these games are so completely different in areas, gear, and experiences that I just don't ever see WoW doing something like that. They prefer a linear gameplay experience, while throwing away everything you earn every 10 levels. It sucks, but they'd have to do a major overhaul of all of their items/gears for the past 15+ years (extremely unlikely). Overall though, Blizzard has stated they want to remove borrowed power systems, and thus there will be more staying power hopefully.

[@thenightshiftginger8701]

I loved mop it brought back professions to use the lore was rich and good best balancing and some really fun raids thunder throne was soooo dope timeless isle was fun pvp was amazing but people hate it because pandas

[@MAGAMAN]

MOP was shit. You literally fought against bad feelings while being harassed by Kung-Fu Pandas.

[@thenightshiftginger8701]

@@MAGAMAN tell me you never played mop without telling me you didn't play mop pandas and pandaria have been in the lore since warcraft 3 mentioned thought classic and used their own fighting style now you didn't really fight against feelings you fought against the corruption created by an an old god that used manifested emotions as well as garrosh and Lie Shin The Thunder king this is why nobody can take the wow community seriously and half of you wotlk Andies look like absolute tools

[@thenightshiftginger8701]

@@MAGAMAN let's add in the fact all classes were balanced and timeless isle was absolutely amazing until the content drought going into draenor because Ion ran out of ideas

[@ChrisCatchTheHat]

could listen to them for hours

[@katepro5451]

great discussion :)

[@PsyrenXY]

I couldn't disagree more with Callum's ridiculous "exclusive pixels FOMO" desire for the game's items. FF14 and GW2 manage to be massive hits without nearly as many restrictions on the fashion game as WoW has.

[@LordMareus]

I can't agree more. Like when he mentions that rare items are cool because they're rare, and seeing them everywhere robs them of being cool. Have to say, that if being rare is the only thing that makes something cool, then it was never actually cool.

[@LyricalDJ]

@@LordMareus I agree in principle and while It may not necessarily be great, satisfactory design it is a psychological trick that works on people. Ooh, shiny, a super rare item! Of course there's alternative ways of making things cool and appealing. Not sure how a playerbase used to their rarity fix would react to that in the long run, though.

[@mateusaparecido4590]

I swear to God that if I wasn't aware of the subject here, I would think that you guys are talking about NFT's

[@pepelechad536]

@@LordMareus It's not "only" that it's rare or time-exclusive. It's that certain things are tied to time-locked events or achievements. I.e. challenge-mode dungeons from MoP and WoD, or Elite PvP gear from previous seasons. There's nothing wrong with having these things remain a relic of the past, accessible only to a select few people that earned them at the time.

[@tec5412]

​@@pepelechad536 fomo. You missed the point

[@davidvenegas220]

Saw the title. Saw the length. First thought: "Ohhhh buddy...." Currently brewing a cup of coffee, and am going to enjoy the next 45 minutes.

[@JoshStrifeSays]

Sounds cozy! Hopefully you will enjoy the discussion 😀

[@_Banjo_]

Saw your comment 10 mins in, went to make a brew

[@davidvenegas220]

@@JoshStrifeSays World of Warcraft is the Simpsons of MMOs. Good comparison, great discussion. Cheers mate.

[@Nicupos]

I always assumed; as a kid, that blizzard would make a warcraft 4 so that the story of the world of Warcraft can resolve any potential cliffhangers or plot points of the rts game stories. Following a nice pattern that could go back and forth for a while for story focused players and meta players.

[@philipmarquette2808]

I never played Runescape, but hearing you talk about Baron's Armor reminded me of playing through Diablo 1 many, many years ago and doing the quest for Arkaine's Valour. It's a great mid-level set of armor that you go on a quest to get, and it's good for quite a while, and when I did end up eventually replacing it with a higher level item, the feeling was kind of bittersweet that this legendary artifact that I quested for was no longer useful. Of course, that doesn't make it any less useful for the next playthrough.

[@magpie_monster]

as somone whose never played WoW, the first 2 minutes describing the swords being drained of power after a long grind shocked me. In FFXIV, which is my fav mmo (i know typical sorry lol), you can grind out a relic weapon every expansion that ends up being the equiv. of Savage (high-end raid) tier equipment. But everyone knows it'll be outclassed in the next expansion? The value is how pretty it is and how it can carry you through the first few levels of new content. The idea of grinding something out and having the power actively taken away by the developers just to soft reset you........thats kinda insane???

[@HowtoHowNow]

Expansions should provide asynchronous progression and not make the previous one redundant

[@JonoSSD]

I used to play the heck outta Adventure Quest back in the day. Was on the AQW beta and played that game for a long time as well. They were pretty good, especially for people in developing countries who had really old computers with dial-up internet at home.

[@futurepastnow]

I don't want to spoil anything from FFXIV's story, but "where do they go after saving the world" is... saving another world. There are *many* worlds in that game's universe.

[@chronoxtreme2427]

The other nice thing too is that while we're saving another world, the action is still ramping down and is much lower stakes. It gives the player time to breathe and relax while still having some reason to continue forward. Now especially with 6.1 it's not "Saving the world", it's trying to save one person for a personal reason. It's much more character driven and personal than the huge overarching story and that helps us chill out but still be engaged.

[@broxim9668]

The lore is my reason for loving Warcraft and since BfA at the latest they have been irrevocably destroying it on purpose. No new mechanic can change that.

[@fourcrippledhorses]

nobody wants to admit it (because overall it was good) but it pretty much started in TBC. they mangled almost everything from the illidan-blood elf-outland things in WC3 for the sake of dungeon content, which is pretty much inherently disposable. it set the precedent for what they've been doing since: x is a mustache twirling genocidaire now! y is actually alive still, and also a mustache twirling genocidaire now! like, sure, they can make new characters... but they usually fuck those up, too. even the good things from TBC were brought back to be dragged through the mud, like Garrosh; and WoD was just pathetic "let's find a reason to bring back familiar names, so you can kill them in dungeons". it's not like Warcraft was ever truly good literature, but for a ripoff of a ripoff, it came a lot closer to what made good fantasy compelling rather than tepid, chunky gunk like the 2016 movie.

[@unloyal4847]

WoW addicts is like a broken record, “its gonna get better” or look how they “listen” to feed back, nah i’ll Watch the fire from afar

[@Rollenstone]

They're on heavy copium that's for sure.

[@54tisfaction]

"Who is Bolvar?" Good question. I played WoW from TBC and onwards, as Horde. When that thing happened at the Wrathgate, and when that guy put on the Lich King Crown instead of Tirion, I had no clue as to who he was. Blizzard never did manage to create a world where you actually had a connection to many of the major participants in the story, even though you are supposed to be the hero at the center of it all.

[@Saiku]

Questing to advance your class is how Ragnarok Online worked, and it was awesome. Everyone starts out as a novice, you advance to a first job(like merchant, swordsman, thief, acolyte, archer, etc) and these all branch off into other classes with quests you do.