Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / FAZ Special: Returning to WoW

Transcript

FAZ Special: Returning to WoW · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

0:00
Hello and welcome to a special episode of Farazzarov.
0:04
I am one of your hosts, Manny AKA Distributed.
0:07
Manny and I am joined by a very special guest.
0:11
You may remember her from Farazzarov.
0:14
It's Joss. Hello.
0:17
Hey, Manny, it's so good to be back.
0:20
It is. It's too long.
0:22
It's been too long for sure. So I'm glad to have you back.
0:26
I mean, in all fairness, I took a pretty big break when I had my
0:30
daughter. So I, I think it's been like, I
0:34
don't know, maybe like 18 months or so since I really was deep
0:39
into Wow. So, I mean, yeah, like, I don't
0:42
blame you for not asking me back until now.
0:45
I literally had not been playing the game.
0:48
Yeah, and I and that's actually why we're here because like
0:51
you're now getting back into the game.
0:55
For those who may not remember, you stepped away from Wow
0:59
because you were you were starting the family, freshly
1:03
married and and starting your family.
1:05
So as far as reasons go for leaving, Wow, I think that's.
1:09
That's right at the top. Pretty good one.
1:12
Pretty good one. And now seems like things are
1:17
settling, you're getting back into the game.
1:19
So I wanted to ask you about that experience and as a
1:22
returning player, how the game, how the World of Warcraft has
1:26
been treating you. Oh man, where to start?
1:30
OK, well you know what? Let's start with Pandaria
1:32
because I had a lot of nostalgia for that expansion.
1:37
Of all the expansions they could have picked for that whole
1:39
little like, remix thing. Pandaria for me was like chef's
1:44
kiss perfection. Thank you very much.
1:46
Like that was like peak Wow nostalgia for me because that
1:51
was the first expansion. I think I mentioned this on the
1:53
show way back when, and that was the first expansion where I was
1:57
like ready to go day one with everybody else.
2:00
It was the first time that I was like leveling through with lots
2:03
and lots of people. So it was like it had a very
2:07
special place in my heart. So when they're like, hey, do
2:10
you want to come play Pandaria again?
2:11
I was like, yeah, I do. So yeah, that I I kind of, I
2:18
guess like eased my way back into Wow with that like comfort
2:21
pick of playing through Pandaria.
2:24
So I leveled the mage through the whole remix experience.
2:27
Although like even within remix I would say there was a lot of
2:33
stuff that was kind of like different that took me so long
2:35
to figure out. And most of the things I figured
2:38
out by the time I was Max level, I was just, you know, la Dee da
2:41
Dee da. I quested my way along like you
2:43
do. And then I was like, oh, wait, I
2:45
could have been literally like raiding this whole time and
2:49
doing all these other things, killing all these bosses.
2:51
I could have been doing so much and I was like, I'm just going
2:54
to hurt to derp my way through the levelling path like, but
3:00
yeah, it was still a lot of fun because I mean, like I say, I
3:02
was that was I guess what I was used to doing through Pandaria
3:06
and that leveling experience was pretty quick.
3:08
So overall it gave me like a nice Kushi nostalgic filled kind
3:13
of experience and, and just getting back into the swing of
3:17
an MMO because it's been like, it's not like I replaced Wow
3:20
with something else. I know a lot of people have gone
3:22
to like Final Fantasy, so you know, whatever to like scratch
3:26
that MMO itch. When Wow was in a downtime, I
3:29
didn't do that. I just didn't MMO for like a
3:31
year and a half. And they are, they are just such
3:36
a different beast. There's so much to them.
3:38
So yeah, there's so much different than any other like
3:41
genre of game. Well-being away for like that
3:46
that period of time. Obviously we've seen a lot of
3:48
changes to the games now we've got the new talents changes,
3:53
classes have been reworked. Now you were taking a mage, so
3:56
that's not the hunter slash paladin of like there.
4:01
But like on top of that, we've got all the systems that they
4:05
added into remix. So like how was it coming back
4:10
and playing through the remix? Was that like a whole new world?
4:13
Complicated, Simple, or like how did it treat you?
4:17
I mean, it was pretty complicated.
4:18
Like I said, I, I mostly focused on the levelling until I hit 70
4:22
and then I was like, oh wait, 'cause I would be like in, I'd
4:25
like, I did like the LFR stuff. I did like dungeons and things
4:28
and I'd be, I'd be seeing people like dinging and I'm like, why
4:32
are you dinging in LFR? What, what?
4:36
Hang on a second. This is not how writing works.
4:39
Like you need a Max level character.
4:40
You need a geared character. What is this shit?
4:43
Sorry, so I was just like, I don't actually understand what's
4:49
happening and I probably should have done some like research or
4:52
something. And on top of that you had like
4:56
the like I get smooshed down timelines.
5:00
It's like you could, you could go and do like your, your what
5:03
would normally be a weekly reset was like a daily reset.
5:06
And that blew my mind because I was like, well, I've done my LFR
5:09
for the week. No, I have not.
5:13
I can do this seven times. Yay, because it's still LFR.
5:20
So you were doing the LFR, you saw people digging, did you?
5:27
Did you at that point say, hey, do I?
5:30
Did you say like you want to graduate from LFR go into some
5:33
normal like because I remember back in the day like that was
5:37
your original diving into like organized rating was in Mr.
5:41
Pandaria. So did you do it like?
5:43
Two or three patches behind, like I, I made a little 10 man
5:47
raid team and we did like 2 patch old stuff.
5:50
So yeah, I mean, like I, I thought about maybe doing, but
5:55
the, the problem with not just in Pandaria rating, but in any
5:58
kind of rating is like my schedule is just such that I
6:02
don't have time to commit not only to the raid times.
6:06
Like I'm pretty sure if I could find a raid time between like
6:10
8:00 and 10:00 Eastern, that would probably be fine.
6:13
But then it's all the other stuff because it's like when
6:17
you're rating, maybe not so much in Remix, but over on, you know,
6:20
normal when you get into rating. There's so many systems in an
6:25
MMO. And this is the the biggest
6:27
problem with rating for me back in the day is it seemed to kind
6:31
of progress to like if you wanted to be doing heroic stuff,
6:33
if you wanted to get into mythic stuff, you had to do it.
6:36
Like you had to do all the farming, do all the grinding, do
6:39
all the mythic plussing. Like you had to, you know, have
6:42
multiple characters so you can get all the, the different
6:44
ingredients you needed to get all the upgrades and then all
6:46
the currencies and then all the, and it just like too much, too
6:51
much. So a lot of that stuff as a
6:55
like, even if I play an hour or two a night, it just feels way
6:59
out of reach to me. Like I didn't even do a
7:01
secondary character in remix, which I know was almost the the
7:05
point of it. I actually started off with a
7:07
hunter because I was like, I'm just going to take a hunter and
7:10
do this whole like, you know, get all the whatever, like trans
7:13
fog and mounts and do that stuff on a class that I know I'll blow
7:17
through it. It'll be fine.
7:19
And then someone might have actually been you.
7:21
I was like, well, no, it's for levelling.
7:23
And I was like, oh, but I already have my pallet and my
7:26
priest, my hunter, my shaman, those are the only ones I want.
7:30
And I was like, OK, I'll try mage again.
7:32
I've tried to get into mage like five times over the course of my
7:35
Wow career and it never really stuck with me.
7:38
So I was like, you know what, I'll just play it through panda
7:40
land and it'll be fine. And so I played it through Panda
7:43
Land and it was fine, you know, like it still wasn't, you know,
7:47
it's definitely not in my top five, but yeah, I had nothing
7:51
else I really wanted to level. So I never got that kind of
7:55
secondary character through Remix, which I think was the
7:58
whole point. So again, I did it wrong.
8:00
But I had fun, so maybe I also did it right.
8:04
I mean, I I'm right there with you.
8:06
Our our journeys are strangely similar.
8:09
Mage was what I leveled. I did not level another one even
8:13
though that is quote UN quote. That's the whole point.
8:15
Mage was literally the last character.
8:17
Over the course of like this expansion I've been working on
8:20
getting like every class up to to at least 60 so that I could
8:26
like understand the classes better.
8:29
Like mage. It just never stuck for me.
8:32
So took it through Pandaria, got it, got up to 70.
8:36
I did a frost mage because I was saying like OK same.
8:41
I think they they start you out as frost mage and I just never
8:44
changed. I was just like, OK, this is
8:46
fine. Icelands, Icelands Icelands.
8:48
Frost Bolt nailed it. Every every so often something
8:51
would light up and I'd be like, OK, I can press that.
8:55
But but like coming back to the game and when you had left,
9:02
there was all of those sort of wow chores that that you were
9:06
just talking about all that stuff you needed in order to do
9:09
the stuff that you wanted to do. And a big part of that was, you
9:14
know, listening to podcast like this one or going to the
9:18
information sites. Did you do that this time?
9:21
Or were you like, you know what? I just want to find the fun and
9:24
then I'll figure that out later if I need to.
9:27
So mostly it was fine, the fun because like I say, I'm not
9:31
looking to to necessarily do the rating and stuff that I was
9:34
doing before. So when I'm coming back to Wow,
9:37
I'm really looking at it as a like almost like a single player
9:42
game. I'm like, I want to see what's
9:44
going on. I do like the the mechanics of
9:48
the underlying game. I like the classes and, and
9:51
stuff like that. So I'm like, you know what, I
9:52
just kind of want to play it to like level it through to follow
9:56
the story to maybe LFR, but like I'm not going to be as into it
10:01
as I used to be. So I feel like I don't need all
10:04
the extra stuff. It's like there's a lot of
10:06
systems like especially end game systems, but I feel like I'm
10:10
probably not going to have the time to engage with.
10:12
So I'm like shrug and move on basically because like you
10:17
mentioned currencies and that is like my number one biggest point
10:22
of frustration because I have since gone back to like retail
10:25
Wow and I played through the pre patch event and I was just like,
10:29
Oh my God, there are so many things right now that I have no
10:34
idea what this thing it like essences of this memories of
10:37
that stones for flying or something.
10:39
But that's not a Hearthstone. Something about was somebody's
10:42
dragon quests or not quest cress.
10:45
Like I'm just like I'm getting all of these things and I'm
10:49
like, I have no idea what any of this is like.
10:52
Just give me the gear drops and I'll like move on with my life
10:56
because what is happening? And it's like.
11:00
There was even a point where like I think I could like the
11:04
the text said like combine twenty of these things to get
11:06
one of these other things. And it looked at the one thing
11:09
and I was like, there's just some flavor text on it and I'm
11:12
like, how are you useful? Yeah, like, and I feel like the
11:21
in game explanation of some of those systems 'cause I made sure
11:25
that I was like reading all my quest texts and everything else
11:28
and I'm like, I have no idea what the hell is going on.
11:32
There were even some quests from like Magny where that whole
11:37
thing just didn't make any sense.
11:38
Like the the grammar was bad. I was just like, what is going
11:43
on here? Like, why are we here?
11:46
What's happening? I don't get it.
11:48
And then it was just like, oh, now we're walking through
11:50
portals to one place. Now we're going through portals
11:52
to another place. Now we're going to a place
11:53
that's all purple with a bunch of islands with a bunch of
11:56
portals. We go through those too.
11:57
Like, OK, guess I'm just along for the ride.
12:01
But I didn't get I didn't understand why a lot of the
12:07
stuff was happening like Hazaroth is in even Kadgar seems
12:11
confused. He's like are these her memories
12:13
or our memories? Who knows.
12:15
And I'm like what is happening? So I feel like really
12:19
disconnected from retail wow right now and very confused
12:23
specifically around like the currency stuff.
12:25
I'm just like I I could look it up but also it's a pre patch do
12:30
I even care? Yeah, yeah.
12:34
I think this is a big issue with retail Wow and the retail Wow's
12:40
end game. Because what will happen, and I
12:43
think what had happened to you is that you get there and there
12:48
are if it was just the two quests like the pre patch, it
12:53
would be fine. But you get to the main city and
12:55
there's a million quest and all of them are lit up and all of
12:58
them are demanding your attention.
12:59
It's like, well, which one of these are relevant and you'll
13:04
pick up. Let's let's talk about the pre
13:06
patch stuff. You'll pick up the quest and one
13:08
was out last patch before the pre patch, which was the going
13:14
through the rifts and and following around Illyria.
13:18
And if that was alone in in Dalaran, that would be one
13:23
thing. But now they've layered on top
13:25
of it the pre patch event which has you going through portals to
13:27
all these old other different places.
13:29
They're similar enough that they actually confuse against each
13:33
other. And so I, I went through and did
13:36
the Illyria stuff when it first came out and then I went and did
13:40
the pre patch stuff and I was talking to Cadgar and he's like
13:43
just go down through the portal. And then so I went down the
13:46
stairs and there's the big purple portal that we went
13:49
through with Elyria. And I went through the portal
13:51
because there were so many people in that area.
13:53
I didn't realize that there were other normal smaller portals.
13:56
So go through the portal and I'm not the only one that did this
13:59
because there was like probably about 25 other people hopping
14:03
islands with me going, what am I supposed to?
14:05
It would like the quest was like kill a boss or something.
14:08
I spent like 45 minutes hopping those islands thinking there was
14:12
a boss that was supposed to be spawning.
14:15
Oh wow. And I just kept going like where
14:18
is this boss? Why isn't it showing me anything
14:20
in the map? Am I just on the wrong island?
14:22
OK on to the next. Haven't found it.
14:24
OK let's go back again. Hop hop porta Porter portal.
14:27
And I was like, this is so dumb. There should be some sort of
14:32
like indicator of like a boss timer or something.
14:35
And then when I came out of the portal back into dollar because
14:38
I just gave up, I was going to abandon the quest be like, this
14:40
event is terrible. So I came back out of the portal
14:44
and that's when I realized there's like a timer above the
14:47
other portals in the room. And I noticed the other portals
14:49
in the room. And I was like, Oh my God, OK,
14:52
fine, let's go. It was such a terrible
14:57
experience. Yeah, that is that, that that's
15:00
a horrible experience for the overlay laying quest.
15:04
And I was, I was really worried about that.
15:07
So I think that's a pain point of that like returning or new
15:11
player experience because at least you were like looking for
15:16
the criteria and we're able to sort of go like, OK, let me go
15:20
back because somethings gone wrong.
15:21
A new player may just think that they're doing something wrong
15:24
and might have stayed in there much longer or longer.
15:27
Than 45 minutes. Because or just turn it off.
15:30
Well, yeah, yeah. Well, and like I say, there were
15:34
other people who were doing the same thing that I was.
15:36
So as with any kind of event in the game, in an MMO, in any MMO,
15:41
it's like you go where the people are and there were people
15:43
there. So I'm like, clearly I've got to
15:45
be, you know, everyone's waiting for something.
15:48
Nope. We were just 25 very wrong
15:51
people. You were.
15:53
You were the subset of wrong people that made a group because
15:56
they face you together. It's a thing.
15:59
Where like you see a queue and you're like, well I better go
16:01
line up. I don't know what it's for, but
16:03
if this many people are queuing, clearly there's something good
16:06
at the end. So then also coming back, you've
16:13
been doing this and you're saying, OK, you're playing it as
16:15
a as a single player, but like you're coming back and some
16:20
friends are still playing. Obviously I'm still playing and
16:23
other friends of ours are still playing.
16:26
How do you reconnect with that community?
16:31
Oh my God so this is honestly makes me so so sad.
16:35
It just breaks my heart because our Guild is like very, very,
16:40
very quiet now. I, there's like two or three
16:43
people who are active in there. And most of the time when I come
16:48
online, it's only me. And I just like, it makes me so
16:52
sad because I mean, like life happens.
16:54
It's a Guild that we started in Legion.
16:56
Like, you know, people have moved on.
16:58
Some people left for different games.
17:00
Some people, you know, have had kids.
17:02
Like life happens. I get it.
17:06
And specifically when it comes to like raiding, raiding was
17:11
really the thing that like tied everybody together and it was
17:14
like, you know, we we all go Sundays and Tuesdays,
17:18
everybody's in the same place. We laugh, we joke, we have fun,
17:21
we catch up and then, you know, kill some bosses and whatever.
17:24
But without that raid, because even like everybody from the
17:29
Guild who's still playing, who's trying to find other raid teams,
17:32
like they've even split it off into two or three different raid
17:36
teams because we had like a kind of a late night Guild.
17:43
Because again, like we were all young.
17:45
We had nothing better to do with our times.
17:47
We were stupid and staying up till 2:00 AM and like whatever
17:51
it was no big deal because what our responsibilities.
17:55
Progress night extra half hour. Let's do this.
17:57
Exactly. Exactly.
17:59
And then play DVD for three hours after raid finishes.
18:03
We made some choices. And so like, but like I, I can't
18:09
do that anymore. And I think that there's like
18:12
our, our Guild was kind of, I don't want to say like split
18:16
across the country, but like, you know, we had West Coast
18:18
people, we had East Coast people.
18:20
And you know, now I feel like there's some of the, the West
18:23
Coast people have kind of gone off one way and the East Coast
18:25
people have gone off another way.
18:27
And you know, it's just, it's been really, really hard even in
18:31
difficulty wise. Like we've had some people who
18:33
kind of drop back down to like more normal ratings and we've
18:36
gone up to mythic. Like we, it just our whole
18:39
entire Guild has like splintered.
18:42
And so now like you say, I, that's a big part of why I'm
18:45
playing the game, how I'm playing is because I'm like, I
18:49
don't have a community anymore. Like the, the discord server's
18:52
still there. The Guild still exists in game.
18:54
There's a community in game, but it's just so quiet, like
18:57
everybody's just gone because it's really hard to maintain
19:03
those relationships when you don't have that like central
19:07
thing like holding you together, which in our case was raiding.
19:10
So like, I don't know, because I'm not going to be able to
19:14
commit to the game. Like I already mentioned, I'm
19:16
not going to be able to commit to the game on that level.
19:19
Like I don't know how to find like a casual community now or
19:25
like if any of the raiding communities would even want me
19:29
because I'm not a I'm not going to be a Raider, right?
19:31
So like it not that I can't contribute, but like my
19:35
contribution is going to be like, hi friends, how's it
19:38
going? OK, bye, everybody smile.
19:43
OK, that's it. I'm here for cheerfulness.
19:47
So, you know, like it is it is really, really hard.
19:51
And I think that's why it's also really difficult to stay engaged
19:54
with. Wow.
19:55
When you don't have some sort of larger goal like I am very much,
19:59
I'm expecting to kind of like. Go in play quest and see what
20:04
the patch content is and then move on to other single player
20:07
stuff like I'm going to go off and play like frost punk two and
20:11
you know like Wow is not going to be my main thing anymore
20:14
because I there's no it doesn't feel like I shouldn't say there
20:21
is no because again, I haven't paid attention for like 2 years,
20:25
but it doesn't feel like there is engaging, meaningful end game
20:34
content for a single person. It's an MMO like multiplayers in
20:40
the genre. I get it, but like I don't see a
20:44
like a long term thing for me to do and engage with in the game.
20:49
So once I'm done my question, once I've maxed out my
20:52
character, like not even my gear, just like once I'm Max
20:55
level and I've finished all the question content, like that's
20:59
about it for me. OK, that's, that's a really good
21:05
point to look at the stuff that they're offering in the war
21:07
within and see how that might interest you.
21:10
So because like your core of of what you're doing was rating,
21:16
let's talk about the stuff that they're doing for rating.
21:18
And so obviously we've talked about how far we've talked about
21:20
normal and how people have moved from heroic or mythic or
21:23
whatever. But story mode, story mode
21:27
rating, right, is a new thing that they've added into the
21:31
game. And that is something that you
21:32
can go in with one, two, I think up to 10 now.
21:36
People just as a group and witness the story thing.
21:41
It's a one time. It's something it's supposed to
21:43
be one time, just to see the events of the way they can leave
21:46
behind there and get that. It's about time, honestly,
21:51
because like that was one of my biggest things when I was
21:54
questing when I first started playing in Cata is I was like,
21:57
I, you know, you'd kind of go through one thing and then you'd
22:00
get to the end of the content and then jump to the next thing
22:04
like the next patch. And I was like, what the hell
22:07
happened? Because all of the like, the
22:09
cinematics, all that kind of stuff was all like behind the
22:13
raid, right? So I was like, I don't
22:16
understand what's happening. This story's really disjointed.
22:18
Like what? What's going on?
22:22
The Lich King content, Northrian content content was the same.
22:26
And so it very much felt like I didn't understand the story.
22:29
I didn't know what was going on because just questing wasn't
22:32
enough. So I'm glad that they finally
22:35
added in something to let you go through and experience it if
22:40
you're not a really a Raider. And I know LFR was like I guess
22:47
when was that added? Cataclysm and the.
22:50
Cataclysmic guy. Yeah, because I was going to say
22:53
like, I know LFR is something, but again, if you are, if you're
22:57
shy, if you like to, if you're a little bit like, oh, what's the
23:03
word? Not like worried about how you
23:06
can perform, right? Like you can perform it's
23:08
anxiety. Like if you have a.
23:09
Little It's definitely anxious about it, yeah.
23:11
Yeah, there's definitely some anxiety that goes into just like
23:15
queuing with other people you don't know, because people on
23:18
the Internet aren't always great.
23:20
So you know, like and and I know sometimes like 9 times out of 10
23:26
when I go into LFR, it's fine. It's no problems.
23:28
Like it's whatever, but that 10th time, oh man, people are
23:34
cruel and horrible. So like it's very much, it can
23:40
be really hit and miss. And so like I understand not
23:44
wanting to engage with that system.
23:47
And so it's really nice that you can, you know, either by
23:51
yourself or with, you know, a couple of other people that
23:54
wouldn't be enough to raid otherwise.
23:56
Now there's a way for you to actually see that content that
23:58
is thumbs up. Good.
24:02
OK. And then along the same lines,
24:04
they've now introduced follower dungeons, which is again, you
24:08
can go in with up to from one to four players into a dungeon and
24:12
anything below 5, they fill in the gap.
24:15
So you can have a tank, healer, 32 DPS and be the last DPS in
24:20
that group and then see what the story is in the dungeons.
24:25
So is that something that kind of interests you?
24:27
Something that you would use to sort of like farm materials if
24:30
you so wanted to, like create, do some stuff with professions.
24:34
Yeah, that's actually, it's really interesting because for
24:37
me, I feel like that is something I would use for like
24:41
totally different reason. That is something I would use to
24:43
practice as a a more important role than what I would normally
24:49
play. So like as a tanker healer,
24:51
because I have wanted to try tanking for years and years and
24:54
years and years and years, but there's so much pressure.
24:57
But like knowing the dungeon, knowing your rotation, making
24:59
sure that you pull all the right things.
25:01
And you know, like if you mess that roll up, it feels like
25:06
you're, you really have a like your whole team's going to wipe,
25:09
right? It's like if the healer messes
25:11
up, everybody else has got cool downs, you can maybe make it
25:14
through like you can, you know, but if the tank messes up, like
25:18
those guys are just going to come and smack you in the face
25:20
and one shot you and your whole group is dead.
25:22
So, you know, like the tank role always felt so important to me
25:26
that I was like, I don't know how I learned this.
25:29
Like I don't know where my trial and error happens.
25:33
So I feel like that sounds like the the, would you say follower
25:38
follower dungeons? That sounds like a place where I
25:41
could go in solo, take the tank roll and just have a whole bunch
25:45
of bots with me. And if the bots die, who cares?
25:48
Like the bots aren't my friends. Sorry, robots, don't listen.
25:55
Come over. Take over.
25:56
This is, Yeah. I hope I haven't like flagged
26:00
myself. Now I'm on the robot kill list
26:05
for the eventual uprising. There we go.
26:07
Well, you know what Skynet can be future.
26:12
The next thing though, that I wanted to ask you about is of
26:16
course, the profession system. This is something that's become
26:19
actually more complicated than it used to be.
26:22
Dragonflight made it pretty complicated.
26:25
They've really shared it down and it's, it's a, it's a bit
26:30
more streamlined that it wasn't dragon fight.
26:34
But I know that you are somebody who wasn't super into
26:39
professions originally. It was something that you would
26:42
do sort of like, OK, I've done most of the things I want to do.
26:46
I should have some professions towards like again, we talking
26:49
about the Wow chores. This is something that you could
26:51
do to support your, your raid team with professions being
26:56
changed that they are supposed to be more engaging, something
27:01
that that you can express yourself more as like, hey, I'm
27:06
not just a warrior, I'm a jewel crafter.
27:09
I'm not just a paladin. I am an, I am like the herbalist
27:13
and the sub stuff in between that is that something that
27:17
interests you as something you could do on your own time or or
27:20
profession. Still the sort of like the
27:22
background noise that you that you didn't really feel
27:25
interested in. So I did dabble in the first
27:29
patch of Dragonflight. So I am familiar with like the,
27:34
the different, I guess rankings of the mats that went into the
27:39
profession. And I, I did try alchemy.
27:41
I got really frustrated because I feel like I only had like one
27:45
or two points left to level my alchemy all the way.
27:48
And it was like every single time I try to do it, it would
27:51
like explode in my face and then be like you're shit, go try
27:55
again. But you can't try again for half
27:57
an hour or some stupid, stupid thing.
28:01
So I gave up. I'm like, I think I'm like 148
28:04
out of 50 or something stupid because it just, it seemed like
28:10
again, like the information in the game wasn't enough or
28:14
something like I was clearly missing something, but I had no
28:16
idea what I was missing. And I, I was playing very
28:19
casually at this point. So like I didn't bother to
28:23
figure it out. I just got frustrated and was
28:25
like, whatever. And the problem that I have with
28:28
professions is it feels like no matter what they do to them,
28:34
they become irrelevant if you're not the like absolute top on
28:41
your server day one. And, or if you have a raid team
28:45
that you can like do stuff for, you know, but like, if you don't
28:48
have the kind of like the raid team to contribute to or you're
28:53
not the fastest, best played 20 hours a day on your server, then
28:57
there's no point in getting into professions because there's no
29:00
like you don't make money from them anymore or you're
29:04
constantly behind or, you know, like I just, and I don't, I
29:07
don't know how they fix it. I don't know how they fix it,
29:09
but it never, I was never like fast enough to compete on my
29:14
server. And then usually there was
29:16
someone else in my Guild who was just better.
29:19
And so I'm like, why? Well, then why am I going to do
29:21
this? So until they kind of answer the
29:24
why to do professions for someone who's a little bit more
29:28
casual than someone who's server first, which I feel like is most
29:34
people like, I don't know why you would necessarily engage
29:39
with that kind of stuff. I think when they put like
29:42
mounts when they had those jewel crafting Panthers or like
29:47
companions, even like the the companion pets, something to
29:51
kind of work for that feels like a hey, now I have a thing now.
29:56
I now I've done this, I've hit a goal because just like making
30:01
consumables for your server isn't enough of a goal anymore.
30:05
I don't think just because like I say, it feels like you being
30:10
useful and being able to, you know, get a return on your time
30:15
just unless you're like super into it all the time, server
30:18
first type of a player for that specific profession.
30:21
It just feels really unfulfilling.
30:24
I think to me personally. Again, like give me mounts or
30:28
pets or something, you know, or cool transmog.
30:31
I'm sure like blacksmiths and stuff.
30:33
Probably get some pretty cool transmog.
30:35
I would hope so anyway. Yeah, yeah, there, there are
30:39
some stuff. So then did you do any of the
30:46
work orders where people would post up their work orders and
30:49
then you could fulfill the work orders for them?
30:52
Yeah, I didn't know I didn't do that mostly because the the
30:56
stuff that I saw that people wanted was like way up here and
31:00
and my skill was way down here and I didn't like, I don't know
31:04
how I bridge the gap or like, again, I have so little time
31:08
that bridging that gap just seems like I would never be able
31:12
to do that. Right.
31:13
Like, you know, it was one of so many things to focus on that I'm
31:19
like, I just don't have like, I mean, I had to, you know, grind
31:22
out stuff with the black Dragonflight and you had to like
31:25
still do like the dungeons and the stuff to get ready for rate
31:28
because I think I rated for a few weeks at the beginning of
31:31
Dragonflight anyways. I never got the final boss kill.
31:37
Think we were on the final boss when I was just like, OK, I
31:39
can't actually get me doing with like I'm I want to go to bed at
31:43
10:30 and you guys are starting right at 10:30.
31:46
That's not gonna work for me anymore.
31:47
So yeah, it was like that. I did raid the first raid of
31:50
Dragonflight, but yeah, like I say, the the checklist just
31:53
seemed to get so long that, you know, doing work orders for
31:58
other people. I was just like, I can't, I
32:00
can't get like like I say they with the alchemy stuff
32:04
specifically, like it just kept exploding in my face and I was
32:06
like, fine, screw you, then I'm out.
32:10
OK, so then the new thing that they've added is these NPC work
32:15
orders, things that are four players to help them skill up
32:22
that won't disappear. Cause another thing that was a
32:24
big issue was of course something would go and there'd
32:29
be like 5 people jumping on and if you were not like Hawk.
32:33
Early bird time, most of the time I would go and I'd look at
32:36
the work order thing because that was always a quest with all
32:38
your characters was like, hey, have you heard of work orders?
32:41
So I'd go over to the work order thing and they're like, there's
32:43
no work orders for your skill 'cause you're shit.
32:45
So by, I'm like, oh, OK then. So yeah, like I, I just found
32:52
that even with the work order system, there was never anything
32:56
that I was able to contribute to.
32:58
So like, cuz again, everybody wanted the the best of the best.
33:01
Which again, I get like if you're going to be engaging with
33:04
a game, you of course you want the best of the best.
33:06
You want to do the best you can when you're playing with other
33:08
people. So I get it.
33:09
But yeah, it made it inaccessible.
33:12
Like I say, I would assume what is probably the majority of
33:17
players, like I don't have any stats or anything, but I feel
33:22
like again, if you weren't like right up there, one of the first
33:26
few on your server. And when you have servers full
33:28
of, you know, hundreds and thousands of tunes, like it's
33:33
just statistics at that point. Not everybody can be first,
33:38
therefore many of us are last. OK.
33:41
All right. And then I guess the last part
33:45
of this is of course Delves. Now Delves are a completely new
33:51
system. They I have not heard that word
33:55
so. So this is the new system that
33:58
they're introducing in the War Within.
34:01
It is basically a scenario like you did the scenarios back and
34:06
missed the Pandaria. This is a scenario where you
34:09
will find like a cave or a mine shaft or something like place to
34:13
like explore. You will shift into a instance
34:17
version of that. And so you and I believe up to
34:22
five people might be only Yeah, I think it's you and up to five
34:25
people scalable again go through this delve and this is something
34:30
you can do at your own time. It takes something like I
34:33
believe it's supposed to be 1520 minutes ish on on a run.
34:38
It scales much like Mythic plus where it goes from the base
34:44
level all the way up to 11, right.
34:47
And this is a way that you can gear that goes all the way up to
34:52
heroic level gear. Oh yeah.
34:55
So this is their end game solo player progression system.
35:01
You can get, obviously they've connected titles and mounts to
35:07
it. Much like Dragonflight had the
35:09
Dragons with the customization, This one has a dirigible, a
35:13
flying machine that you can get a bunch of different
35:16
customizations for. And it is supposed to be like,
35:20
like I said, the single player end game progression system.
35:24
You'll get stuff out of the Great Vault based on like what
35:28
you did during the week and so forth.
35:30
So for you and everything you've been saying so thus far about
35:34
like time constraints about finding the community, is this
35:38
something that would work at least interest you as like
35:43
something you could do in Wow? I mean, quite possibly, but I
35:48
mean honestly the when you said it could give up to heroic gear,
35:51
like how do the Raiders feel about that?
35:56
Oh man, it, it's, it's a, it's a matter of I think Mythic Plus
36:02
sort of had all those issues 1st.
36:06
And so it's the same sort of thing where people sort of
36:10
gotten desensitized or used to it.
36:12
They've been shifting where Mythic Plus has been over the
36:17
course of Dragonflight. So now back when you, you know,
36:22
Josh, you and I were playing every week going through it in
36:26
in Shadow Lands to get get our Keystone master.
36:30
What they did was instead of it going from one to basically
36:35
15/20, they sort of sliced off that bottom half.
36:41
And now one to 10 is the higher range.
36:45
And heroic dungeons and mythic dungeons have sort of shifted to
36:50
fill that gap a bit, which has made, I would say mythic plus
36:57
more of a challenge at the onset and also meant that it wasn't
37:03
such a free gear pinata that people were calling it.
37:09
And so now delves are coming in and they're sort of shifting
37:13
into that lower and but they only give up to heroic.
37:17
They don't give up to mythic, which means where you and I were
37:20
like, let's say in Battle for Battle for Azeroth, where we
37:26
were saying like, oh, it feels bad.
37:28
The people who are doing mythic plus clearly have this like gear
37:31
advantage and we get into. Yeah, not only the the gear
37:36
advantage, but then you would get no drops from raid.
37:39
You do all this work, you kill this boss, it would be this like
37:42
a huge, Oh my God, yay moment. And then you'd look at the loot
37:45
and you're like, I can't use this.
37:47
It's 20 levels lower than my stuff.
37:50
What's going on? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
37:54
So like the parallel gear pass have have been an issue for so
37:58
long, pretty much as long As for Azeroth has existed and over the
38:04
course of dragon fight, they've really been trying to fine fine
38:08
tune it. Basically the, the gear, the
38:11
unified gearing system that they've got going now sort of
38:16
means that wherever you get the gear from, you're still
38:18
upgrading it through this. The catalyst that showed up at
38:21
the end of shadow lands to make your tear sets.
38:24
That is the primary way that people get gear, their tier sets
38:27
now. It's not like the tokens in the
38:31
raid. It is specifically catalyst is
38:34
the is the primary way to the point that they have reduced the
38:37
amount of tokens that drop in a raid because people get upset
38:42
when tokens drop for the 4th week in a row and it's like
38:45
everybody's got this piece already.
38:47
So again, it's there's been a lot of gear shifts over the
38:51
course of that, but it means that when you're rating, when
38:56
you're doing mythic plus, when you're doing delves or even out
38:59
world content like you saw with the pre patch, you're getting
39:02
the upgrade currency, which is the flight stones and the Crest.
39:09
That's what EU is upgrading to that are not hearthstones.
39:12
Yeah, they are. They are Dragonfly's version.
39:18
Thankfully in the War Within they gave it better names.
39:24
Like the crests are still crests but it's not flight stones
39:26
anymore, it's valor stones. Everybody remembers valor.
39:30
Valor is quasi back. OK.
39:35
And so you would just use, you would use those to upgrade your
39:39
gear and it wouldn't matter where you what what stuff you
39:42
did, you would all of that would lead towards upgrading your gear
39:46
and basically you would play what you want.
39:53
But yeah, I think I can see myself maybe potentially
39:56
engaging with that system. Again, it just kind of comes
40:00
down to like giving me something, I guess to work
40:06
towards, like giving me a reason to upgrade my gear.
40:10
Because again, if I'm not going to be doing like rating, then.
40:14
You know, what do I care if my gear is, you know, like on par
40:19
with a heroic Raider? So I guess it would really
40:22
depend on like the gameplay loop of Adele.
40:25
Like, how fun is it? Is it something that I want to
40:27
go back and do over and over again?
40:29
And then like what I guess the rewards are like, are there are
40:34
there reasons for me? Are there things I want to
40:36
unlock? Like if I don't care necessarily
40:38
about my item level, what else is there for me to do?
40:42
Like what do I, what do I get out of it?
40:44
And you know, do I guess, does the community or like, are they
40:51
cool enough? Does the community think they're
40:52
cool enough? Like do what am I going to want
40:54
these things? You know, if it's going to give
40:57
me like the delver title and then everyone's like whoa look
41:01
at her, she delves lol. I'm like, I'm never going to use
41:06
it, please don't look at me so. You know why did I equip this
41:11
idol? Exactly, exactly.
41:14
So, you know, like it kind of depends, it kind of depends on
41:17
the kind of wider community reception, I would think.
41:20
And, you know, unless it's like something sort of super awesome,
41:24
pretty mount that I would definitely want to go for, you
41:27
know, like that mounts for me are always the the big drive to
41:31
do anything, honestly. OK.
41:35
And then I guess the last aspect is the greater Wow community.
41:41
So obviously we did a podcast about this, which meant that
41:45
we're always looking at the community sites like Wow Head,
41:48
like Icy Veins, like the various guilds and such that were
41:52
competing. Coming back to it, have you
41:56
looked at Twitter off? Have you looked at any of those
42:00
things or when you were, when you're coming back, did you
42:04
constantly decide not to and what was the reasons for that?
42:08
Well, I've had a certain aggregate site blocked on social
42:12
media for quite a long time because they seem to not care
42:17
about ruining things for everyone.
42:19
So I, yeah, like, I mean, I, I'm haven't been very active on
42:26
social media and like, I, I'm really trying to be conscious of
42:31
like how much time I spend online cuz it's just, man, it's,
42:37
it's, it's awful out there. So I mean, like in terms of like
42:41
aggregate sites, I, I basically use them now as a, like, I need
42:47
a specific piece of information. I'm going to go and search for
42:51
that specifically, but I don't like, don't engage with it how I
42:57
used to. Like I, I used to be much more
43:00
active on socials. It was like one of them
43:05
specifically would have been my like, as soon as I open my
43:08
Chrome, it's one of my, my pages that automatically loads.
43:12
Like, let me see what's new in the news.
43:13
Like not quite as far to like sign up for alerts or
43:18
newsletters or anything. But you know, I was, I was
43:20
actively reading stuff for Hearthstone too.
43:24
I mean, it's, it's the same for both of them really.
43:27
But yeah, now I'm, it's more like, OK, I need someone to tell
43:32
me what my daily tasks are in Pandaria.
43:34
I need someone to tell me how to play survival, survival hunter
43:38
now because Oh my God, what the is going on?
43:41
So, you know, like it's much more targeted.
43:44
I would say. Like I definitely don't engage
43:47
with community content nearly as much as I used to.
43:51
And part of that definitely is trying to see if I can figure
43:56
out the game on my own because like it is complicated.
44:01
But again, where I'm not rating, I'm like, I think I need to find
44:05
the fun and maybe figuring out mechanics and builds and things
44:09
on my own is actually where I'm going to find the fun.
44:12
And Wow now is being that little bit more of like a an
44:16
independent player as opposed to like just, you know, tell me all
44:21
the things and let me copy paste.
44:23
You know, it's great that those quality of life things exist,
44:25
like the talent talentry copy paste thing.
44:28
Great, but like I've then been finding I have no idea what's
44:33
going on. So like for the mage, I very
44:37
much when I was playing through Pandaria with the talent tree
44:39
and choosing my talents, I was like, does it say passive
44:41
excellent. So, you know, like it's, it's
44:46
very much me trying to engage with the game and seeing if the
44:50
game itself is enough for me to keep playing.
44:53
And if I need too many outside resources, then like, I'm not
44:58
going to really enjoy it, I don't think.
45:01
And because that's just kind of the way I play almost everything
45:04
now. Hearthstone is probably the only
45:07
game that I engage with and use a lot of other community tools
45:11
just because I am not a deck builder.
45:13
So I need somebody to at least point me on the right path.
45:17
But yeah, like everything else, I play all the other like
45:22
strategy stuff and you know, like single player whatever's
45:26
like I just, I like to figure it out on my own.
45:28
So I want to see if Wow does enough to, you know, explain
45:34
itself and to not need a third party tool.
45:37
But like that, like I said, that's a conscious decision that
45:41
I'm making about the way I want to play.
45:44
Like nothing against, you know, communities or third party tools
45:47
or any of the other stuff. I just like, I kind of want the
45:50
game to stand on its own and if it doesn't then I'm not going to
45:56
play it. Well I I look forward to seeing
46:00
what your take is on the hero talents and how they they work
46:06
out for you. Well, I've been so happy that
46:09
that thing is grayed out right now.
46:10
I'm like, I can't even let me get back in.
46:13
Let me figure out this pre patch, like let me just
46:16
reacquaint myself and you stay Gray.
46:18
Just stay Gray. Yeah.
46:20
Yeah. You don't want any of that right
46:22
now. That will that will be for a
46:25
later time. Thank you so much for taking the
46:30
time to go through this with me. The last thing that I would want
46:35
to ask you is, as you've come back, what's the number one
46:41
thing that has stood out to you as you sort of forced this new
46:45
path as a returning player? Oh man, number one thing that
46:50
stands out. I don't even know.
46:52
I guess maybe I was kind of surprised and I know where our
47:00
Guild landed, we were on kind of a much, much more populated
47:05
server than where our Guild started out.
47:07
So I think, and maybe this is just a pre patch thing, I don't
47:11
know, but there were so many people, so many people still
47:16
like playing people levelling alts.
47:18
Like I say, I'm going through and doing all the pre patch
47:21
things and it's like as soon as we kill the boss, it's just
47:25
everyone's like Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding.
47:27
And I was like, Oh my goodness. Like there are so many people
47:30
like still playing, leveling alts, engaging with the game,
47:34
talking to each other. Cuz again, like this is one of
47:37
the things that I like about being kind of on the cutting
47:40
edge of the content on like the day one of the patch or
47:42
whatever, or engaging in these time limited events is there are
47:45
so many people and everyone's just chatting like, hey, what's
47:50
going on? How do I do this thing?
47:52
What does this thing mean? And there's that in game
47:55
community, which again, like nothing against the third party
47:59
stuff, but like, it's really nice when you get everybody
48:04
engaged with the content. And even when there's like lulls
48:08
in between, they're like, hey, how's it going?
48:10
What's everybody up to today, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
48:12
Like, and, and like I say, the the server that we landed on
48:16
Bleeding Hollow, it was quite populated, very active.
48:21
And so I think I was kind of surprised at the number of
48:24
people who were still very actively playing and engaged
48:28
with the game. It was really cool to see.
48:30
So I mean, I am looking forward to War Within blanked on the
48:36
name of these manches per second.
48:39
But and it's mostly because like, I do plan to play like day
48:45
one and do some of that questing and like see who's coming back,
48:48
see how active the Guild ends up being, you know, trying to
48:52
reconnect with some of those people and and, you know, have
48:55
some of those experiences again, because like it had like
48:58
everything else I play is single player.
49:01
So I mean, it is kind of nice to have something I'm doing with
49:06
other people whether they realize I'm there or not.
49:12
Well, that is awesome and that's an amazing note to end on.
49:16
But just if people want to find you, not in the World of
49:20
Warcraft, but your other stuff, where could they find you?
49:24
You guys should go and check out the gamers in.
49:26
That is my general gaming podcast and that's kind of my
49:29
outlet now for the times when I am playing things like
49:33
Hearthstone and Warcraft that I used to have stand alone shows
49:35
for but do not play nearly enough to speak on every single
49:39
week. So if you guys are interested in
49:42
my thoughts on gaming and what I am, you know, keeping up with
49:45
what my game of the year this year is, then yeah, go and check
49:48
out The Gamers In. Yeah.
49:51
And I believe at this point you guys are starting up your Make a
49:55
Wish drive. Extra Life, Yeah, Extra Life
49:59
starts, well, we do technically have the Extra Life page is
50:04
available right now. We're gonna start kind of
50:06
ramping up our fundraising efforts usually is near the end
50:10
of September. And so yeah, we'll be kind of
50:13
like going a little bit harder on that near the end of
50:18
September through October and November.
50:20
So yeah. But if you do want to check that
50:22
out, you can go to Bitly slash TGI Extra Life 2024 and go and
50:27
check out our team page. I'm not even 100% sure if I've
50:31
set up my page yet, but there are like Ryan is already my Co
50:36
host is already active and and we have some community members
50:38
over there that are already active and doing some streams
50:41
and stuff. So yeah, go and check that out
50:43
as well. OK, well if you guys like this
50:46
and want more, make sure you do check out everything you can
50:49
join in with the discord at bit dot LY slash fast discord.
50:53
And until next time, guys, may all your hits be crit.