In case you missed it, here’s my video from after BlizzCon when Season of Discovery was announced. It’s fun to go back and see what you were right and wrong about, or how your opinions might change over time based on what you experience kzread.info/dash/bejne/lm2cyLCih7rPo8Y.htmlfeature=shared

99.9% of the players never even see a world boss. I was in a guild that would text you at 4am the moment it spawned(we had people standing watch 24/7). then get summoned, kill and go back to bed lol. I dont want to do that now lol

@michaelmoran2125

15 күн бұрын

I was on heartseeker they had azuregos and lethon in lfg

@cyle1684

6 күн бұрын

On herod we had a multi guild coalition scouting all layers and locations, was good times tbh Edit: it also produced the most organic and exciting world pvp I've experienced

The thing is, I get the line of thinking and logic behind this social aspect of World Bosses. But, this only applied to 2 or 3 guilds on any server. They were content for the highest end guilds. I don’t mind 120 ppl losing exclusivity to a boss so that thousands can experience them and get their rewards.

@Marinthees

17 күн бұрын

100%. No game play philosophy is worth excluding the vast majority of a major feature of your game to less then 1 percent of the players.

@Solklar

16 күн бұрын

Maybe it's a bit too few people experiencing the boss I agree, but making it accessable to everyone is just plain dumb. Classic is good because you need to put in effort to do some content. You get what you deserve in classic. Season of Accessability is going to die out so quickly because of changes like this.

@vitorfernnandes

16 күн бұрын

@@Solklar it doesn't make any sense to develop things in a game that only 3 guilds are going to do. That wasn't the goal of classic in the first place, it was a distortion imposed by the community itself via a small group of people who don't have a job or a life and are in the game 24/7.

@MrAncientowy

16 күн бұрын

The fact that it's instanced now means that like on my server I don't have to wake up at 5 in the morning before work to get up and hit world boss i think it's a great change

@EsfandTV

16 күн бұрын

It’s good to have things that not everyone gets to do. That’s what makes it special. The world bosses are really not all that cool or great when they are instanced, they just end up being loot piñatas

Damn you getting slim, good job man.

@EsfandTV

16 күн бұрын

Lol thanks! Don't want to do too much more. I’m down about 70 lbs since February of last year. Just been watching what I eat, doing physical therapy and recovering from my injuries without making things worse. Tbh GTARP helped a lot I was able to take a lot of stress off my body from my normal streams with the amount of IRL and traveling I do etc

@brodiejames96

16 күн бұрын

​@@EsfandTV ..cmon bruh

@m.pearsonm9072

16 күн бұрын

@@EsfandTV you and nmp been taking that shit huh

@zeljakis817

15 күн бұрын

@@EsfandTV Fasting!

I kept trying to turn off subtitles but realized Esfand has them on lol.

@EsfandTV

17 күн бұрын

Sorry lmao

@solofalcon

15 күн бұрын

i need them

"People want classic with a little more but it feels like retail with a little less" Thank you for converting my feelings into words.

World boss battles are peak COPIUM NOSTALGIA. And the world buff meme is a close second.

I feel like I haven't seen this man in ages.

Blizzard should stop thinking for themselves and just copy Project Epoch. They don't have the talent to create a real Classic+.

@SpikeSystem

9 күн бұрын

I really like how Turtle WoW does classic+

Most people/guilds are struggling to even fill a 20 man raid for ST, if they had made raids 40mans that would literally kill most guilds/groups.

@hillerstorm

16 күн бұрын

This 100%. Just saying "raids should be 40man" is not realistic with the current player base in SoD, even 20man is stretching it

@Krzych66665

16 күн бұрын

@@hillerstorm I think this isn't the problem with the raid size, but rather other content being dull and leveling process to 50 taking literally couple of hours due to incursions and their current implementation. Alts just become trivialized and people are burned out of playing the game.

@neoikake

16 күн бұрын

Private server where doing 40man, dont tell me it impossible...

@NartrachGaming

16 күн бұрын

​@@neoikakeprivate server are still doing 40 man, if thats what you want you know where to go

@yammytime4273

16 күн бұрын

If you don’t like pugs coming into your 40 man and taking the best gear because 3 of your guildies didn’t show up, then go play retail!

I think the Devs misunderstood the meaning of New content with SoD. Most people i talk to want Vanilla with "More" content and old rules, rather then OP talents and such. I would suggest for the Future Blizzard reads "Plus" tag , as a "More" tag ))

I was really excited for SoD but as things went on I just kept feeling more disinterested. I feel like runes can be far more imaginative than how they ended up being because they are basically retail talents from other expacs added into classic. At that point I'd rather just have tbc talent trees somehow in classic and go from there. I have quite a few issues with things still and probably won't play but I hope if they do a more "Finalized" season after fixing all the issues in the coming years that they are a bit more imaginative with things.

The main player base for SOD are now dads that have families and can’t get on the second a world boss spawns. What they’re doing for world bosses is the right move.

I get what you’re saying about the jank gear stats, but as a game dev these days it would be kind of hard to replicate that, as I’d assume back in vanilla it wasn’t intentional and players just figured out the best pieces themselves over the years. That being said I haven’t played turtle wow or any other private servers, so I don’t know if they did that 🤷🏻‍♂️

@rodgoesinya9947

16 күн бұрын

It was definitely intentional. Makes the look so much more interesting and unique

The Lion of Stormwind has returned

Wow, you coming to Rotterdam! Dident even know it was in town this weekend! Awesome

The initial annoucement for SoD was great, played tons during p1, a lot during p2 and have barely touched p3.. don't know if i'll bother with p4, SoD has just steered too far off the "classic like" experience for me.

its been awhile since i have watched your content last time but i did notice the weight loss right away. good job

I quit playing once phase 2 came out. Had a 25 rogue with pretty much full bis at that level. My coworker asked me to resub as a holy pally and it sounded appealing, so I started a fresh character. Man, incursions are such a double-edged sword. I love how much xp they give, but man, I just wanna find 5 man groups for dungeons and no one is doing them at all. I understand that people are also playing their level 60's so it's probable that they're not even online, but man, I just can't find anyone to do 5 man dungeon quests with.

Can't wait to see lvl 60 dungeons

It's been established this isn't classic+ and you said it yourself this feels like retail but a little less (retail-) as so many have said. And as so many below have also said 40m isn't really plausible when so many guilds are struggling to field 20 players.

Do you even play sod? I don’t think I saw any of your streams in the recent months

i know yall aren't saying the new set bonus make too much sense, like what ? how do you expect them to do "classic plus" and not make gear make sense lol it was clearly oversights back in the day so youre wanting them to add random stats to items for no reason for a "classic feel" classic players really dont know what they want. not for nothing sod is classic plus but thats besides the point edit: this is more for the more dramatic "muh classic experience" andys but they need to understand blizzard cannot give you 2004 wow again because it wasnt just the game itself it was the world, technology, the internet as a whole and really how you felt in 2004 memeories you hang onto and thats great but recognize thats long past because even if blizzard made it 1 for 1 vanilla server there would still be crying in the streets for some other reason - maybe you just dont like mmos anymore.

OEB did go from 240 damage to 280 slower, but harder hitting. I can still get that 8+ skill thanks to the 5+ from ring rune. Also would Untamed Thunder be great for a Genesis (Beyond Legendary) weapon as Thunderfury and Untamed Blade merges into one when doing this quest? This item takes the form of staff, polarm, split into a pair of one-hand axes, can be a two hand sword, and daggers or fists. A 75+ on all base stats and 999+ on main stat for 10 seconds when attacking. This is a muti-class item. It even gives 5+ on all weapon skills, 75% parry, and 5% hit.

I'm glad they are not doing 40 man raids and making world bosses instanced. Although I remember no lifing vanilla the first time, most of us do not have the time to waste playing SOD like full-time streamers and kids do but would still like to enjoy it without getting punished for having a life beyond the game.

When is the exp buff going live?

Completely agree with your takes. I play mostly hybrid classes and I hate to see rune options that are static for each spec. I would love to see something that would allow us to mix it up with runes that could be useful for multiple purposes/spec/roles

instanced world bosses is just the only way it can work on crusader strike imo. We've already seen how the servers handle these giant events and it's borderline unplayable.

I think that Esfand has exactly the right idea he really loves and wants to keep the fun corky things that vanilla provides but understands that the product needs some change but keeping the thing that makes vanilla vanilla need to stay! Love his care for the game. Now let’s just do fresh vanilla server because it’s imperfections are it’s perfections

Have you made a video describing your perfect Vanilla+ game? I agree that too much of retail is leaking into vanilla (I think that's what your point was, at least), and I think it would make for good content if you fleshed out your ideas in video format. Maybe have Asmon in the call or something. And discuss what aspects of retail should stay away from Vanilla and what features would enhance Vanilla. It would be cool to listen to WoW veterans theorycraft their ideal version of Vanilla+

Hell yea man looking good keep it up brotherman

I am an old player. Playing WoW since release and always loved Vanilla. When classic came around the leveling was too much for me or would more say not that fun. When SOD came p1 was fun but just played till lvl 20 because i wanted to look what will come and also because i was into mythic raiding in retail. Now with p4 coming i will finally raid MC and such and i leveled to 31 in 2 day.

Crusade is still going strong. I know we have at least 2-3 main raid groups and we're all ready for p4 💪

Pretty sure Aggrend himself knows they blundered SoD. He frequently states or hints on twitter that in hindsight things should be different or a future iteration should be closer to vanilla values

i dont know why they are trying to turn classic into retail, as opposed to making classic +

Even if there are different difficulty or different raid sizes, who’s gonna form a raid and bring 20 extra people to roll agains on gear, and who’s gonna form a molten core group where your just gonna get less loot.

To go back to 2k19 and replay classic again, but with the crew i got now, itd be so nice. Retail classic aint it, they aint foolin me. We wanted MORE dungeons and raids, some dope new quest and skills into the classic world. Sigh guess ima stay on Dark and Darker, wish you and some OTK would hop in there and RP for fun together, maybe one day

Been a fun run. Time to not give them my money anymore since it is not in line with my vision from P1

I hope they do a completely new raid, but it aint looking like that right now

I understand what Esfand is saying about the gear, it kind of makes sense BUT what I don't know if he realises is that they had to unjank the gear to make it worth getting. A lot of the ST gear would have just been better otherwise. A tonne of MC loot probably would have dropped and nobody would want it. Plus the only reason that gear was janky was because Blizzard developers 20+ years ago were not not optimising out of choice, they were just ignorant and had no real solid idea what people would end up wanting. It's the weakest point by far in this video. I also don't think people want 40 man raids. I'm sure a few people do here and there but going off of anecdotally talking about this with 100s of people in PUGs, I would estimate it's less than 20% really want 40 man.

@EsfandTV

17 күн бұрын

You do actually have a good point about the itemization maybe having already been out of wack to begin with because of what you’re getting at level 50. I actually think re itemizing stuff is fine, I don’t think I was clear on that, but I think that it should be done in a way that’s not so overly optimized. One of the best things about Vanilla is how you have gear from every raid tier that is relevant all the way through the expac, and seemingly with their current vision, each raid tier is going to become obsolete and the next one comes out. As far as gear being weird 20+ years ago it actually wasn’t exactly because the devs didn’t know, I’ve talked to a few devs about it years ago, a lot of it was trying to make gear that could fit on multiple classes and it be “okay” rather than having gear that is intended to solely be used for one class or another. Over the years this allowed people to come up with fun builds by piecing together seemingly random items to do cool things. Or finding items that are lower level than end up being useful until 60, etc.

@gregjross852

17 күн бұрын

He skipped P2/p3 so he probably doesn’t have a firm grasp on how ridiculous player power has gotten lol

@chrisjones658

17 күн бұрын

@@EsfandTV I think you're right and in the event you read this reply, I reread what I said and I hope it didn't come across as being a dick. It was earnestly constructive feedback. I agree that that is/was cool and in theory that would be cool. I think the developers (I don't know HOW true this is in reality) feel like the entire game in SoD is basically raiding now. The community through optimisation and them buffing the poop out of XP means levelling isn't a thing, and I strongly suspect the rank 12/13/14 gear is also not gonna be that relevant, and the pieces that are will probably be outdated VERY quickly when they release the next bit of gear. So that begs the question, why would you even bother with PvP given how much effort it takes. Realistically I don't think it'll be worth it for most people when the raid gear in this patch is probably just as good. This is all to say, I think there's so many things pushing people into only caring about raiding more than ever before, which limits the scoop of what people care about in terms of gear. I think they really messed up all the way back in phase 1 with how good they made that gear, and since then the inflation has been insane because they've had to give people a carrot to chase from then. And now we're in a position where I wouldn't be suprised if the Naxx gear is way better than the level >70 I also don't necessarily even know if it's possible to make viable fun builds that could compete because of how much the runes force you down a path. Thanks for the video, you look great, I hope you have fun in SoD, I personally don't know how I'm gonna continue raiding in Cata and now progging SoD too.

when was the last time you played wow?

@Sulthex333

12 күн бұрын

That’s what I’m saying why does he care when he doesn’t even play wow anymore. Would he rather have 10k people watching him an doing soemthing he hates or 2k and loving the game he’s playing at the end of the day whatever makes him money

Yo awesome video bro, can’t wait for u to come back and check it out

Lookin good my guy. Big cheers

Def not with you on the set gear (stats etc) I'm not sure how you think good stats for class = bad. Especially playing a niche class like ret.

@Lmmpeprstepr

16 күн бұрын

It takes player choice out of the game. Now I must use this exact gear set or be unoptimized. I must use only this rune and only this talent set. For your ret example they are basically just wearing warrior gear. They have no mana to use their spells no spell power etc. SoD had turned into basically retail (while not necessarily a bad thing) it's not what a good chunk of people who are playing "classic" are looking for. It's an amusement park on rails now instead of a sandbox which it used to be where you could play the game how you wanted to play.

@Khagrim

16 күн бұрын

​@@Lmmpeprstepr Classic is a solved game so there was no "choice" in gearing. You just look up BiS list and go from there.

maybe a 4.0 will be enough to make a SoC twist playstyle viable? at least for pvp. huge burst, at the cost of sustain i think

The Ret Paladin from Azeroth doesn't want optimized sets? Shocker! But for real, I ain't playing SoD but it seems like things are getting streamlined af

"I want classic plus, not retail minus" I think my thoughts have always been a little opposite of the purists on this. I think modern wow could be awesome if it just had some design philosophy from classic. Not having a lfg tool or flying mounts are the main things in my mind. From there I feel like most of classic forms organically if they dont let you speed lvl through the content but theyre already drifting toward that for some reason.

Esfand, in case you didn't know, lots of guilds fell apart cus they couldn't gather 20 ppl consistently for p3. U are a big streamer, you say the word and have 100 ppl lining up to raid with you. Your opinion is jaded. If they force 40 ppl raid for SOD it'd be a death sentence for the game

@EsfandTV

16 күн бұрын

So in your opinion, why do you think 40 man raids that weren’t an issue in vanilla/Classic will be an issue in SOD? I have a couple theories, both involve people just not playing. Maybe they’re waiting for level 60 and put it down before they gave it another try, the other theory is that maybe the audience of SOD is actually different than the audience of what Vanilla/Classic WoW was. It’s a pretty commonly shared opinion at this point that it’s much more like retail than it is like Vanilla or Burning Crusade, so maybe SOD just doesn’t appeal to the player demographic that those versions of the game appealed to, and as such things that weren’t as much of an issue in those versions of the game now do become issues in this version. I’m not really sure what the right answer here is, and maybe it’s too far gone that you need to just keep it retail minus. It’s just unfortunate that for those of us that really wanted that style of Classic+ we originally talked about ended up getting something much different than what we envisioned.

@walterruiz2130

16 күн бұрын

@EsfandTV im just going by the facts, sunken temple killed a bunch of guilds cus they could not get a 20 man roster consistently. My guild had to merge with anotherone and still had to pug 1 to 3 ppl every raid.

@chrisbalcu4033

15 күн бұрын

​@@walterruiz2130 Estfand will defend the game till the end but at the end of the day you are right and many guilds fell apart in SoD cause you couldnt gather 20 ppl or motivate them to try cause of shit loot

@MrRavmoor

15 күн бұрын

It's literally because of the culture of obsessive min-maxing. People could fill 40-mans back in 2005, they did it in 2019(despite a lot of the exact same complaints before it's launch) and now suddenly they can't? Nah, it's because they wont let people join if they haven't already done the content or are geared up. The amount of posts I see all the time of people not able to find groups to play with because of the long lists of demands is crazy. Some guilds would rather fall apart than try unsafe/subpar recruits.

@walterruiz2130

15 күн бұрын

@MrRavmoor u can pin this to whatever reason you want, but facts dont care about ur feelings

Dude! looking good gym vlogs coming soon?!

If they are making Ony 40 man but tuned for 20 man, why not do the same with MC? Also I am upset that they stopped adding new class roles after P1. Why not let another class tank or heal?

They needed to not increase the power level in vanilla, with skill addition and straight gear upgrades they need to make sidegrades that have niche uses like runescape did.

Idt Esfand understands that SoD is retail classic wow. In the sense that even at level 25 the gear was changed to to match retail. Not that hes too stupid. Hes clearly very intelligent.

A lot of us in R3 took a break in phase 3. I ran Gnomer a couple times but I never did sunken Temple once. It might be cool to come back and see what phase 4 is like. But to be honest, I feel like I have so many abilities now. The game has become a bit foreign to me.

Will this be the return of the number 1 Ret paladin? 🤔

This is feels more like Wrath-

Have not seen ya in a hot minute. Ya look great !

World bosses were only accessible for sweaty guilds and only like maybe the top 5 guilds on the server seen them… I personally think it’s a great change

Too many classic content creators who havent been playing SoD for longer than a week chime in with their dislikes on raid sizes but truly dont understand the guild dynamics that SoD players are dealing with. Most guilds dont/didnt have many more than 10 active players and then they upped raids to 20. handfuls of lucky guilds found like minded people to merge with but that isnt the case. 40man raids are pretty much going to be pure pug raids which is fine but expecting all guilds to have 30-40 active players is actually an unreasonable expectation.

Great vid

This is Sod, not vanilla. Remember that.

Looking good man

You have to think though that from your perspective is not the normal player base though. You have the free time and community size that 40 man raids and world bosses are content you can do with ease. Most of the player base doesn't play games for a living or have an army of dudes whenever you want to make a raid. I honestly wish they would have kept 10 mans across the board. I had a 12 person 10 man dad guild and 20 mans sucked. We had to eat 2 guilds that were pugging just to make raids work. You havent struggled to fill a raid since 2019.

The fact that they are listing the basic features of the original classic experience, just proves that they are out of ideas and creativity in the long run

great video Esfand! you are looking TRIM mr ret pally. Very impressive.

We asked for classic plus and got retail minus.

Looking trim Esfand

Ah hell yeah esfand you the goat

Well there is no good solution to world bosses really, so if they would just be instanced or they would have loot that you can already get from Raids, then maybe it would solve something. Otherwise they will be contested by 4 same guilds on the server and nobody will ever see them.

holy shit you look good congratulations

Brotha looking like he left some weight behind

what am I doing here I don't even play SoD

Plz do old school AV with all the NPC's and loot.

0 interest in being in an organized 40 man. It had it's time 20 years ago and again in the Classic pure servers. 20 man is as much as I want to have to manage for SOD (I think I preferred 10 man honestly) so i'm glad all the content seems to be balanced for it.

Esfand think about Dreadlocks

My main concern is they're not making dot crit a baseline ability for priests and warlocks. They really need to get rid of that rune and make it baseline. Playing everquest right now and p4 is looking like a skip.

@Valientes4life

15 күн бұрын

Everquest? That's wild , thought it was dead

Why is a GTARP streamer talking about classic wow

fkn im yelling it since sod started: its not classic + its "reltail, but i lil less"

July 11th….so basically 2 weeks prior to TWW prepatch. IMO you are gonna see quick levelling and 40-50% of the player base gone back to prepare for retail. This should have came out 2 weeks ago. Very disappointed with the timing .

is esfand losing weight?

@wowthatbolivar4400

17 күн бұрын

Ozempic or a diagnosis

@EsfandTV

17 күн бұрын

A little bit! I’m down about 70 lbs since February of last year. Just been watching what I eat, doing physical therapy and recovering from my injuries without making things worse. Tbh GTARP helped a lot I was able to take a lot of stress off my body from my normal streams with the amount of IRL and traveling I do etc

@rock4glory713

17 күн бұрын

​@@EsfandTV dude keep up the good work with that, I'll be honest I discovered you when you were reacting to ai stuff from athene a little over a year ago but I love your energy man Ignore the mean people in the comment sections man you're doing great! 💙

@wowthatbolivar4400

17 күн бұрын

@@EsfandTV I havent been deep in the lore fore a while, I'm so sorry you were hurt, happy to see you not only on the mend but strong.

@preslim84

17 күн бұрын

@@EsfandTV congrats keep it up

wow you got really small, good for you man!

You look good ny friend 🙌🙌🙌

i loved playing cata and they canned it feels bad i just wanted a dungeon finder and scrap all the other shit that they have added on

I'll be real SoD Lost its classic feel after Phase 1 but definitely after Phase 2

Very hard to get interested in Phase 4 when it's 20 man raids and everyone is gonna be just getting Tier Tokens. TBC all over again, meh.

True, Turtle WoW is just straight up better classic+ than sod

@Psilocybin77

17 күн бұрын

I love the devs installing Trojans and selling users data. I love crooked Russian servers 😂

@Tiermus

17 күн бұрын

​@@Psilocybin77Really? Can you confirm this somehow?

@oran1plays

17 күн бұрын

Turtle wow is what i wish blizzard would just make one day.

@678master

16 күн бұрын

​@@TiermusJust so you know Turtle WoW is ran by the same dodgy cabal that runs Elysium (bunch of DDoSers and generally sus people). Trojan:Win32/Phonzy.C!ml was flagged inside its package, a lot of the people on the forums claim its a false positive but there's a high chance of there being data siphoning/theft in the background so yeah play at your own discretion. A lot of the bad shit about Turtle WoW is mass reported and hidden. It still looks great but not worth the risk, decided to comment here as I did a fair amount of research on it and came to the conclusion that the risks outweigh the rewards

dude nobody loved or has fond memories of spending 4 hours talking to other guilds sweating it out on the chat box and spending 3 hours putting together a raid for it to fall apart. It's better this way. You have to remember "Back in vanilla" wow was all there was really and it was all new.

anyone elese try to turn off captions.

cant they leave classic as it was and just add new content like dungeons / raids / new zones?? thats what classic+ should have been and i am sure that is what 99% of the classic community wanted

So the alliance got windfury and another world buff what horde get kings ..neat

@jacobspeck7639

16 күн бұрын

We don’t need more we’d be op 💪🏻

Very good

Yeah, Twice weekly raid reset sounds cool and stuff, but djeez. The game now forces you to no-life in order to actually get into proper groups that do not waste your time by an unnecessary amount.

Sadly those social aspects of wow dont exist anymore and pvp would cuck everyone.

Homogenized version of Classic... SOD is long dead to me, from the start they just borrowed existing stuff from retail to make everything "better" but the same. Also Ozembic?

Wow an expansion that isn't classic and all anyone can complain about it is it isn't classic. Man classic players never change.

@EsfandTV

16 күн бұрын

That’s because the whole desire of Season of Discovery is that it’s would maintain the essence of Classic while adding some new things and changing others. Of course people are going to complain if that’s not the case.

you gonna play ? you got my SUB

i loved 40 man raids

Sadly you're out of touch with the common person struggling to get groups together.

@EsfandTV

16 күн бұрын

There’s a few reasons why people struggle to get groups together, but one of them is just straight up people not playing the game and instead playing the waiting game for level 60 like myself.

finish bg3 already

They have lost the script. Their biggest sale and the thing that even got people hyped for SoD was them filling in the gaps. Showing us the places that were intended for box release vanilla but never made it in. Instead they have just created a bastardized version of the classic era that no longer plays like classic but also doesn't play like any version of what people would consider "retail". It's sad too because I had recreated all 8 of my Vanilla Alliance characters and got them to 50. Had planned to do Horde ones next. Vanilla WoW kept me subscribed through 3 expansions two of which had midnight releases. SoD couldn't keep me subscribed through the entirety of phase 4.

world boss seemed so cringe, until you realise that most PUGs wont get WB, itll be griefed by the god guilds that chumps cant compete against. its sad to say but i agree w/ instanced world bosses