Blue Plz!
| Blue Plz! | |
|---|---|
 | |
| URL | Blue Plz! |
| Type | Podcast |
| Registration | Free |
| Launched | May 23, 2005 (Retired June 4, 2011) |
| Maintained by | John “TotalBiscuit” Bain |
Blue Plz! was a weekly internet radio show that broadcasts live and archived in podcast format. The show originated on WoW Radio and has been consistently updated, shows cancelled only when computer systems, broadcasting equipment, the internet, and the U.S. Government conspire against him.
The show, while reviewing aspects of the World of Warcraft and changes being made to it, was known for its inability to settle for less than the best that Blizzard can offer. Every mistake, bug, and silly decision is brought up and torn to shreds, with constructive criticism and ideas for fixing the problems also presented when possible. This is the dividing line that makes Blue Plz! neither sycophantic Blizzard fanboy nor misinformed blind hatred.
The show relied partly on the participation of the community built around it. This community began building itself in 2005 when the show began on WoW Radio. Dissenting opinions and constructive criticism were welcomed, while sheer stupidity and fanboy sycophancy were not.
TotalBiscuit, known as WoW Radio's resident 'shock jock' and self-proclaimed Cynical Brit, moved over to his new website when WoW Radio closed its doors during a veritable drought of Warcraft content.
The Cynical Brit site gained additional coverage during the beta for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm after TotalBiscuit started posting a series of YouTube videos (which were then featured on MMO Champion) that catalogued many of the zone changes and gave insight into the new starting areas for the Goblin, Troll, Worgen and more recently Gnome races.
Blue Plz! aired its last episode on June 4th, 2011, ending Season 5 on 11 episodes, making it the shortest season for Blue Plz!
John Bain passed away on 24 May 2018 due to cancer.
Seasons
- Season 1 - May-23-2005 - Jan-22-2006 (30 Episodes)
- Season 2 - Feb-11-2007 - Jul-29-2007 (22 Episodes)
- Season 3 - Aug-7-2008 - Jan-30-2010 (59 Episodes)
- Season 4 - Feb-12-2010 - Dec-3-2010 (40 Episodes)
- Season 5 - Dec-10-2010 - Jun-4-2011 (11 Episodes)
Regular sections
- Mail Bag - listener questions, or more recently an agony aunt/uncle section
- Ask the Murloc - fictional Murloc character that has learned to speak, an evil genius, is extremely wealthy, enjoys weapons that launch bees, and hates the peasant's stupid questions.
- Nubcake News - fictional newscast from inside Azeroth
- The Illusion of Choice - listeners mail in a topic for discussion. Totalbiscuit will pick one, or make one up (hence the illusion of choice) to talk about for around 15 minutes
Irregular sections
- Imbecile of the Week - a post on the forums is taken and broken down to find the most wrong ever seen on the World of Warcraft Forums
- Rappin' the forums - a horrible, horrible forum post is turned into a horrible, horrible rap song
The sour end of Blue Plz!
During June 2011, it was revealed that Blizzard was rolling out a series of nerfs to the Tier 11 content through a Blue post. This was what TotalBiscuit considered the final straw, as he put both his radio show and his YouTube show (the latter being Azeroth Daily) on permanent hiatus, subsequently criticizing Blizzard for making the game too easy for players to get through high-end content. However, on further episodes of "The Mailbox" (what Azeroth Daily became following the announcement), he gave additional reasons, such as him souring on hotkey MMOs.