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Join us as we discuss all the revelations from last week’s BlizzCo--uh, Warcraft Direct including player housing, WoW Classic Classic (not a typo), and the WoW 2025 roadmap. Also Hearthstone Battlegrounds Season 9, how WoW mobile games end up on PC, and our soft spot for Heroes of the Storm.
Go to https://www.blizzardwatch.com for the latest news on all Blizzard games and don't forget to check out our Patreon if you like what you see and want to support our efforts! https://www.patreon.com/blizzardwatch
Discord: https://discord.gg/MY9p4d7t8U
X: @BlizzardWatch
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0:00
[Music]
0:10
hello and welcome to the Blizzard watch podcast uh it's it's our usual gang and also a special guest star this week it's
0:17
Corey say hi Corey hi Corey hey I thought I was above special guest star now no you haven't become recurring yet
0:24
you're getting there though uh one more I think one more podcast and you'll you'll basically start a storyline where
0:30
you get involved in like weird black magic somewhere and Joe has to save you
0:35
and that's how he Retreats you to the team and then in like the next season who knows I'm not sure maybe you you
0:40
know maybe I get killed you are a very special guest Corey you have a special place in our heart you're specifically a
0:47
special guest Corey we've emulated we have other Corey's but you're the best one no
0:53
regardless however uh in addition to Corey who is now told us that he wants to be promoted to main cast member uh we
0:59
have usual recurring hosts uh myself uh not unimportant and both Joe and Liz are
1:06
here and if you have if you ever listen to the show and you you want to hear our our pre-shows this week's pre-show
1:13
hearkens back to the early days of lorat because Liz and I basically got into a huge lore argument BR said it's about
1:20
Dragon Age but we did get into a huge lore argument so it's fascinating to me that that it felt very early lore watch
1:27
um so yeah give that a listen if you if you can listen to our pre-show you definitely should you know if you subscribe to the patreon you get access
1:34
to the unedited version of the podcast complete with pre-show and that support helps us produce this show as well as
1:40
many others you're going to hear about that because I think Liz has some things to say about that I was saying I was
1:45
about to segue to her so yeah Liz please hello as Joe and Matt have both said
1:52
this show and all of the blizzard W site is here because of listeners like you our patreon is currently a little lower
1:59
than we like it's at $3,900 we like to keep it above $4,000 so that we can produce all of the
2:06
content you love so if you are able to support us that helps us out it helps us
2:12
keep the the show going it helps us keep the site going it lets us create the content that I hope you love hopefully
2:20
love us and I yeah we've got data we know you love us we're writers so we are
2:26
always kind of desperate for affection and you to think if you've seen the if
2:32
you've seen Shrek or the Puss and Boots movies I want you to imagine a little orange cat with his eyes all huge I have
2:39
that cat in my house and he will do that if you make me I will I will put him on camera and he will give you the giant
2:45
eyes and be like Daddy please put me down and I will like not put him down until such time as you get us up there
2:52
so you don't want that you don't want a Sad Cat come on so I I did mention this uh last podcast and a few people have
2:59
jumped up to help us out I want to thank all of you right now uh metal zie I'm
3:04
probably not saying your name right I'm sorry uh pledged at $10 a month Tony pledged it $10 a month Richard upgraded
3:12
to $10 a month that uh $10 you ought uh get a very cool Discord perk in that you
3:17
can see our editorial chat which is sometimes informative sometimes just
3:23
weird you never know um Joe pledged at $5 and clay pledged at1 and I know it
3:30
maybe sounds like $1 is not very much but it's a lot of small supporters that
3:36
make all of this possible and uh you let us do these podcasts we are currently
3:41
working on some projects that uh your support helps us do we're in the middle of trying to launch a redesigned website
3:48
we're still this is early days but uh we're looking to launch it before our 10th anniversary next year uh hold on I
3:56
must now turn into dust yeah I know I know every time I mention a major anniversary it's kind of like oh oh um
4:04
and that will hopefully help you find things on the site more easily it will help you find the best content on the
4:10
site which I think kind of gets lost because if it was posted two days ago who knows where it is anymore that was a
4:15
year ago uh we are also working on spinning Tavern watch off into its own
4:21
podcast that's our tabletop gaming podcast I hope that will happen by the
4:26
end of November and I know some of you really enjoy that kind of stuff and some of you maybe don't enjoy that kind of
4:33
stuff it's been going out on our main feeds we're going to put that off on its own thing so you can subscribe just to
4:39
see that and when we do that we are going to have weekly games for you that
4:44
uh I think are very cool we have recorded several games I think they're very exciting and I can't wait for you
4:49
to hear them but uh if you can support us and I understand if you can't but if you can please help us out
4:56
patreon.com blizzardwatch thank you so much for listening thank you uh both Joe and Liz there so
5:02
we get that you know we need definitely want the support we want to get above 4,000 so we can keep doing all this
5:07
great stuff that we do and more importantly so that we can eat because if we're never eating definitely hard
5:14
hard to do the show without eating I mean seriously you may think but they don't even eat food on the show yes but
5:19
we do before and after and it's very important I do have a cookie sitting in front of me and I'm taking bites of it
5:25
in between this conversation right now no one told me wasn't supposed to eat right now uh it's
5:31
not the question of you being supposed to do anything it's just you know you just you just have to mute yourself no
5:37
crunching noises on air however we do have a lot of stuff to talk about this week there is so much I don't know if
5:44
you guys were aware that they did a Warcraft direct last week add might heard something about it yeah in
5:49
addition to the warcraft direct they also did news in other places as well um there were other things that happened
5:54
that weren't even mentioned in the direct so yeah a lot of stuff um quite frankly I'm just going to try and hit
6:00
notes and let the other three people here provide stuff like context and detail but since Corey is here one of
6:09
the things we like to do with Corey is basically make him talk about Warcraft Rumble so we don't have to look I
6:15
understand my place in the team is the guy that holds on too hard to some of the games that blizzard doesn't seem to hold on quite as hard to yeah yeah and
6:22
I've accepted that uh I I do also think I'm going to bring Cory in on Hearthstone stuff um I don't necessarily
6:28
know that you played Hearthstone but I think the last heo news we have is kind of important for the thing you do play
6:34
uh so yeah but first Warcraft Rumble Rumble is coming to PC um and the the
6:40
headline of the article we posted on it talked about its grindin so I immediately put that in the reference
6:46
that's because I wrote it yeah this is what happens when you let me write the warcraft Rumble content instead of
6:53
showing up to write it yourself Corey oh I was at my day job you know yeah I know
6:58
food again comes back to food I do like food Cory talk to me about Rumble going
7:04
to PC why is this important why do people care why are they even doing it um it's basically the only thing I would
7:10
say that the majority of people seemed to care about with Rumble is that on every social media post at least half or
7:18
two-thirds of the responses were PC when computer when and it's just people play
7:24
games mostly on their computer and therefore it makes sense to have their
7:29
game of choice be on their platform of choice and uh one thing is the blizzard
7:36
is primarily a PC game company all right PC and console they've been doing more and more console games not all their
7:42
titles are on Console but primarily PC and the last they've done two mobile
7:48
games that were mobile first that's Diablo Immortal and Warcraft Rumble and
7:53
neither of those got a great response from kind of the traditional blizzard crowd and I think a lot of that was because it's not PC these are PC Gamers
8:01
who want to sit down at their computer play games not pick up their phone and play games games on a tiny screen yeah
8:06
mortal at least got got a PC launch I believe at the same time it actually got released no it was it was it was later
8:14
but it did get it did get get released on PC yeah regard I mean I just I remember I started playing it on PC as
8:20
soon as it was on PC I've never played it on my phone um partially because my phone could would like literally burst
8:25
into flames if it attempted to play it like and I know I'd be getting the authentic Sanctuary experience look at
8:31
the flares of hell yeah no but nevertheless no um so I am curious to see well it kind of feels like to a
8:37
certain degree what we're getting is we're getting into the postmobile era where games are no longer designed so
8:44
that you they would only work on one platform like there's a certain amount of this could be run on PC why isn't it
8:51
yeah if game exists it might as well be on multiple platforms uh if you have a
8:56
game you've designed for mobile there's probably very little keeping you from playing it on PC and from jump people
9:03
were running rumble on emulators on their computer and they were screaming it via third party programs and so it's
9:10
not like it hasn't been playable on your PC it's just that that was with workarounds not an official client and
9:16
now they will they will have one so now they will have one that's interesting that they've done that with both of
9:21
their big mobile games I I would say they did it with harthstone too but they actually went the other way with Hearthstone it started on PC and then
9:28
they you know released did on on mobile yeah so yeah and so Rumble is rumbling
9:34
along they've announced some new Heroes for it some new leaders that are a dual
9:39
faction so that it makes sense that Sylvanas is both horde and Undead because hey guess what she led the horde
9:44
for a while and they're adding malfurion who's going to be Alliance andarius and orgrim doomhammer who's
9:51
going to be both a black rock and H faction and everyone's favorite Beetle anuak who will be beast and Undead so
9:59
you can you can mix and match and have more fun with the different Heroes you got and try and uh work some different
10:05
combinations and just play more of the game and then you get choal who's just crazy and crazy new factions if we
10:11
created just for him I would I would be all over that I love choal yeah I I also
10:16
love joal although it's not a good love he's not a good person to know but we're
10:21
gonna move around to another kind of interesting little tidbit that's not about Warcraft Rumble but it is a
10:27
Warcraft thing uh Warcraft one and two remasters are apparently live now I thought they were coming out next week
10:33
uh but apparently no they're now blizzard announced them during Warcraft direct and said you can download them
10:38
now it boom go wow yeah boom go are they still just they're still just PC though
10:45
right they haven't put them on consoles in any way they are still just PC and I one one tiny little note they are not
10:52
available on Mac which I'm I don't know maybe blizzard has just saved me from
10:58
having to replay these games I can just I can move on with my life yeah I was a little annoyed because I
11:05
opened up the page about the battle chest because you can buy one two and three all of the remasters in a battle
11:11
chest now and it lists Max system requirements and I'm like oh wow that's great they're still there all this is
11:17
mat compatible and then if you go in and read the fine print it says well actually Warcraft 1 and two are not mat
11:22
compatible have fun uh so I I I saved myself some money there why are you
11:28
giving me system ref enironment of our system you won't let me run this game on this is we what are you doing it's it's
11:35
War you can play Warcraft 3 on Mac I think wow okay not the one not the one
11:41
and two remasters and the battle chest has one two and three so it's like so am
11:47
I am I doing this just to play Warcraft 3 really I mean it is the best one but
11:53
yeah I get you um also reforged is getting a slight glow up as well they're they're fixing some bugs they're they're
11:59
doing a few graphical things it is not to the level of another remaster because they just did that a couple years ago
12:06
and didn't it didn't really work out so they're not gonna do that again they did it but it didn't it didn't go too well I
12:13
think they're kind of I think the patch the Warcraft 3 reforged
12:18
2.0 is kind of aiming to bring it up to par but it's still not exactly kind of
12:24
the reimagining that blizzard originally promised and I don't think we're ever going to see that no no I don't think I
12:30
don't think that there's enough people left working on it to to do that I think that this is probably much like Heroes
12:36
of the Storm it's probably it's last gasp and maintenance mode kind of thing that this is gonna get it to the point
12:41
of this is not egregiously awful for the for the long-term fans and then you know
12:47
it's one one developer working on it in his off time that he begs his you know manager for yeah so because he loves it
12:55
like that it's definitely a passion project so it's definitely a a love of I think to a certain degree it's also
13:00
the fact that that uh the current corporate overlords want to get RTS back on the menu so to speak and this is one
13:08
of the ways you kind of inch into that um however as we mentioned before Warcraft direct last week uh it was
13:14
literally the day after the podcast which is yeah that's that's how it goes far for the course I'm sure tomorrow we're gonna find out that you know
13:20
Microsoft has been bought by space aliens but regardless uh finally there's a ton of stuff to mention I am actually
13:26
going to mention something that I think is technically not not as important but I think people are going to be most interested in they're they're giving us
13:33
player housing in 2025 winter 2025 which means next year you you think that's not
13:39
important I think that's the only important thing on this list that's housing it's not important in terms of
13:45
it like you know there's not much to say about it I all I can say is player housing is happening and there's a video
13:51
but the video is just a guy sitting in this house we don't know anything about how player housing is going to work we
13:57
we're pretty sure it's going to be like it's possible midnight will be out based on I'm just saying that they've
14:04
said winter 2025 which is not tremendously nailing it down you know that could that could easily slip into
14:10
2026 you never know with these guys and and when it's this vague there's just not a lot to say like
14:17
iside go ahead I'm sorry Liz I I I don't think they'd put it on the 2025 road map
14:22
they aren't sure they could get out my guess is this is going to be the midnight pre patch which is going to hit
14:27
right at the end of the year with midnight in the in January or February
14:33
which means they've basically made themselves stick pretty closely to that two years almost exactly thing yeah they
14:40
they have been pushing really hard to get content out on a regular and really
14:45
aggressive Pace but yeah um I feel like all of us here should mention play you
14:50
know should now talk about player housing at least a little um I feel like I've already made my point that I don't
14:56
feel like this is enough news for me to have any real opinion but I do think it's fascinating to see
15:01
them finally give this to who been basically been talking about it since
15:08
2004 forever players have always wanted it they've they I'm I'm waiting to see
15:14
how this like monumentally breaks the game um go ahead I I'm just gonna assume
15:23
yog seron is going to be broken when player housing rolls out it's it's just it's a sad reality is Blizzard does
15:29
anything and yog on breaks yeah he's just a very temperamental old God yeah
15:35
yeah but I mean it's a good thing and Y San now has a dance studio I don't understand
15:40
this Hey listen there was a functional display of the dance studio at one point
15:46
um no I I I think this is a good thing overall I think a lot of players have wanted it I'm going to be very curious
15:53
how it's implemented because one thing that I I I've pointed out in the past is Garrison's in the beta for Warlords of
16:01
dror was very much player housing it got scaled way back when I think they
16:07
realized that they couldn't reach those goals um but like you were able to invite your friends over and you could
16:13
put stuff in different things that weren't just the plot and you could decorate and uh then you could open and
16:19
close your Gates so that you can you know if you didn't feel like visitors you just closed your Gates um and then a
16:25
lot of us had uh the wild star player housing which opened at level 14 and was
16:31
the real end game didn't matter that you could level the 60 wasn't that that didn't matter you got to 14 you got player housing that was the end of it
16:36
that's that's all you deal so yes let as all take a moment to remember the beer sign rain beer Road rain beer Road the
16:43
video is still online it has been preserved so you all may go see it if you look up Rain beer Road it'll be the
16:49
only video out there with that name but yeah it's a good thing kind of that's the kind of wackiness that people are hoping to get out of player housing I'm
16:56
pretty sure I don't think it's going to be anything that wacky though right like I I don't know that it's going to be at least At first I don't think it's going
17:02
to be anything too extravagant I'm I'm going to guess you're probably going to get like a version of a house depending
17:07
on what faction you're in or what your character race is and then like you're going to be able to decorate like X
17:14
number of things or make a choice of things that you unlock um because it's the only way I see with this many
17:19
players making it viable cuz that's so much data that is so much data but
17:24
either way on on top of a 20-year-old code base we'll see I am very excited to see though I I want
17:31
to know what's going on here and I hope we have I I hope we have a lot of options I hope it's just let not like
17:37
okay I'm playing horde so I get a house covered in spikes I'm not into the spike
17:42
aesthetic so well don't forget you can also get a an undead house that's covered in goo oh yeah that's true I
17:49
could get the undead house or the house I have pets my house is already
17:55
go uh so I hope we have some options that that aren't just you play hordes so
18:01
your house looks like this or you play alliance so your house is a is a cheerful gold Shireen because um no no
18:09
no please my Dre I is crying because there are no crystals anywhere in this
18:14
house exactly how do I even go to the bathroom all they have are these [Laughter]
18:20
shells I'm playing a dra the now you have to be able to take your you know
18:25
you have to be able to fit through the door with your wings without like crunching down so you know it has to be
18:32
designed with that in yeah and also I'm going to say for like wargan and draer and pandarin there needs to be a
18:38
scritchy thing on the wall so you can get your back and maybe for some humans too quite frankly if you live alone scr
18:44
thing on the wall is nice I I I'm just I maybe i' my time has passed maybe I've
18:50
just gotten too jaded my response to player housing was I hope I never have to deal with it and I mean like I said I
18:57
don't I don't want to be you know Captain fun sucker but I don't it just I
19:03
just don't want to have to deal with it yeah I think you're right in terms of that yep I was hoping El would
19:10
talk I I don't I want to save the things I was saying before but they you know Liz was talking about transmog for a
19:16
while I mean there should be optional systems the the game is it's hard you
19:22
can't make a game that's designed for everyone right you can't make one thing
19:27
that every single Le person is going to going to go to and say this is fun I
19:33
love it I think that is in fact really an important point to to for you to you know make because I think people forget
19:40
this they they like you know there's that whole what's the old axom you know you know the mistake of assuming
19:46
personal experience is universal um for some people it's absolutely the case
19:52
that say PVP is the most important thing and they love it and they do it all the time and it's their focus but aot lot of
19:58
people couldn't can't stand PVP and don't want to go anywhere near it I mean I liked them the first time I would
20:04
argue that the first two Mission tables were an okay addition and I did not mind having to interact with them but the by
20:11
the third and fourth time they were less good yeah I would say that I the novelty basically carried me through War
20:18
lizard ranor I think that they made some interesting improvements that made them more interesting in Legion and then I
20:24
didn't want to do it anymore but that was that but that's just me and there were other people I know who kept riding
20:30
that train all the way through into into shadowlands well shadowlands I just got the app and the app did all my work for
20:36
me and I got rewards yeah but there was also that Rogue like that like wasn't it
20:41
wasn't an the add-on sorry the add-on not the app the app was great but the the add-on
20:47
that I just said I want to do as many missions that prioritize gold and then charms and then UHA power and then after
20:54
that ignore everything else one button go come back in a minute and go about my life yeah that's what you want in a game
21:02
system I don't want to play this punch okay I'm good but I extracted so much
21:08
value from the rewards from it I just didn't want to engage with the it's a lot like the Diablo for Paragon tree I
21:15
don't want to engage with it I just want you know a guide and then to get powerful I don't want to have to think
21:22
about why I'm choosing this button or this blob or this node I just want someone else to do all my thinking for
21:28
me on that case so that my guy punches demons harder the only thing that I'm concerned about is if they give how many
21:37
options they make available right one of the things that I think was interesting but also a detriment to Wild Star was
21:43
when you had player housing uh there were a lot of rewards in the content you did that were just player housing items
21:50
and so if you didn't engage with that your options were to sell it on the auction house or their version of the
21:56
the trade trade exchange or whatever was called Intergalactic exchange um and or
22:03
just do nothing with it or vendor it maybe and if they start replacing other drops with it or other and put it in
22:10
like like inside of loot tables as opposed to being its own thing that that could be detrimental or if they tie it
22:16
to like I don't know what would be better and maybe this is something we can discuss where it because you know whatever we it's our show we can do what
22:22
we want yeah um would you rather it be like like items if they were going to
22:27
put more in there would you rather them be their own separate table or would you rather them be like tied to achievements
22:34
or doing specific things to get like like almost like transmogs but not be
22:40
drops what would what would you prefer I know 100% that I expect them to be
22:46
sources from all over the world achievements like everything everything you do in game can lead to some shoot
22:52
like a new chair a new wall hanging etc etc uh what I 100% do do not want them
22:59
to do and this is just one very specific example for myself is do not make me go
23:04
back to the Argent tournament I've gone back three times after I said that I was done that I'd gotten all the rewards and
23:10
then they added in toys and they added in extra battle pets and I was just like ah every time it killed me but as long
23:17
as they don't put any kind of housing accessory in the Argent tournament I will be okay see my theory and and I do
23:24
actually want to talk about other stuff because we have a lot of other stuff to talk about so much is happening slow it
23:30
down blizzard I don't want to find myself in a situation where I'm actually
23:35
interested in doing this and the primary way to interact with it is to spend real money I I've already had this situation
23:43
with transmog in Diablo 4 where I simply don't pursue transmog there with
23:48
anything like the fervor I would like to because my options for getting new stuff are spend money and not just spend a
23:56
little money spend a lot of money like 25 bucks for one outfit and there's
24:02
enough outfit class yeah for one outfit for one class yeah so I mean for me
24:07
that's not a problem because what else am I playing but for other people yeah that that's that you know I spent $25 on
24:13
this outfit I'm only going to get to wear on one of my six characters um so yeah there there is a just a I don't
24:19
want that to be housing because at the same time I think it probably there will be at least some you know cash you know
24:26
for for looks thing and instigated and I've even said to a certain degree I I
24:32
think that it's fine when it's something like housing because that way it keeps it away from you know buying power I
24:38
don't want people to be able to actually buy Power if all you can buy is like you know a new Co a new couch for your house
24:45
I mean on the one hand that means that if you don't have the money to spend on a you know couch you're not going to get
24:51
one and I I don't want that because what is the point of having this thing that people have wanted for literally 20
24:57
years if you don't get to do anything unless you spend money that that just
25:03
that's not doesn't feel good um just thinking about it feels bad but at the same time I do understand that you know
25:11
we've basically the the subscription hasn't gone up in 2 in the full 20 years of of world of World of Warcraft the
25:17
subscription hasn't really gone up um the game prices are higher but not to
25:23
the level you might expect uh so I do know that companies being they like money a lot like they would push you off
25:30
of a building if there was money in it for them uh so yeah and they could get away with it they don't want the
25:36
shareholders to find out they're pushing people off of things uh but regardless although the shareholders could see that
25:41
as decisive decision-making yes exactly be in favor of it oh that's a big bold
25:47
decision uh but regardless I do understand that that's going to happen to some degree but if it's the only way
25:54
then it becomes honorous in my opinion this needs to be something where sure you can buy things but you can also just
26:00
play the game and get things maybe not as fast maybe not the really cool ones but you shouldn't it shouldn't feel like
26:06
there's no option the way it does in Diablo 4 where I have every look you can get on outside of money and I got them
26:14
pretty much just playing the game there's no hunting involved I would say that there's at most four transmog sets
26:21
that have popped up on the shop as like a purchased thing maybe more but I'm I'm thinking of like the major ones like
26:27
there's the fire lord finery and a couple and the Sprite Darter set and maybe a couple others but for the most
26:32
part most of the transmog and Warcraft has come from just playing the game yeah that's fair but I just say player
26:38
housing to turn into that is all I'm saying so either they've been super restrained but yeah I I don't think that
26:43
we'd see a big push to making an entirely you know trading Market House
26:49
housing market for real money I don't think that that we're in danger of that of course if in a year and a half we
26:55
find out differently then feel free to refer back back to this podcast episode and laugh at me for being so wrong I
27:01
think at that point I would probably moved on to being depressed about something um but regardless yeah that's
27:07
so that's a thing I feel like we we really do need to if nothing else at least sit here and realize this is a
27:14
momentous event it it's 20 years in the making people have wanted this forever now it's here um what does it mean and
27:21
what will it be like and all that stuff we haven't gotten to any information on I think that we also the they had the
27:27
most amazing uh like copy in their in their tweets about it too and it was
27:33
like for 20 years you've lived in Azeroth now you can come home and I was
27:38
just like that is perfect marketing right there that is like somebody got paid not enough money for them coming up
27:44
with that line because it is so good you have successfully raised my
27:50
hopes and now you may Dash them sis but okay um since we're talking about it the World of Warcraft 2025 road
27:57
map which Liz mentioned since they have this on there and there's plenty of other stuff like the road map is every
28:04
road map they put out and they put out like three maybe four yeah three well
28:09
they they got Hearthstone too so they did WOW classic they did World of Warcraft they did Hearthstone didn't
28:16
they do another one or am I just kind of insane he's in a discovery or Classic Plus or that's still classic I would say
28:23
all the class all of the season of Discovery classic classic classic all of that that you you may think I'm
28:29
stuttering there but I'm not no no all that's on the classic road map so um
28:36
rather than try and go through all of this stuff in this road map uh I will just point out that the road map takes
28:41
us to uh in patch 11.0 point7 we have the siren Isle coming which is similar
28:47
to what they did before in uh in Dragon flight go ahead Liz we knew we knew about this one we knew about the siren
28:54
Isle kind of a a little patch with some little versions and collectibles and things to do here uh but now we know
29:01
it's coming out on December 17th I had not expected it this soon I actually figured it would be in January I figured
29:07
we weren't get another patch this year that's around a month yeah especially this dropping as it is a week before
29:14
Christmas y yeah after that oh go ahead and a couple weeks after Thanksgiving this is like dead in the middle of
29:20
holiday season in uh in the United States yep uh after that patch 11.1 is
29:25
going to be the undermined they actually have the D in in parentheses so it's undermine parentheses d uh that's going
29:33
to be a bit bigger it's because it's you know it's a patch 11 it's a major patch
29:38
yeah um it's you know there's going to be a raid there's all sorts of stuff happening there that's considered season
29:45
two for uh the war within then we have two smaller patches there's 11.1.1 and
29:52
11.1.2 they follow the program that you guys remember from from dragonflight pretty extensively uh I'm looking at
30:00
them and unfortunately they they're you know they're in the spring uh we don't really know much more about them than
30:06
that there's children's week uh quests it's an update to Children currently
30:12
it's kind of the same pattern we've seen them doing you've got your point uh the 0.0 patch then the 0.05 then the 0.7 and
30:20
then the 0.1 then 105 then 0 107 you
30:25
know yeah basically think I think I'm think I'm adding too many O's to these but are doing that you get the
30:32
idea it's like major patch minor patch minor patch and everything about two months apart yeah the next major patch
30:39
uh which is on this thing is for a new Zone this is season three which makes this yeah this is the final season uh on
30:47
this road map like there's and it it's we just know it's 11.2 we don't know if
30:53
there's going to be an 11.3 or not uh it doesn't say when there wasn't an 11 there a 10.3 if I'm not insane but I
31:00
might be uh but regardless 11.2 is going to have um new Zone uh new world events
31:08
uh looks like it's gonna have it's pretty much the standard season patch it's a new season it gets a new raid
31:14
Mythic plus rotation I think expect to an extent this feels like this is business as usual this is there's
31:21
probably going to be a new Mega dungeon seems possible but um there's also new open world content which I think is
31:27
interesting um there's also going to be the expansion reveal I don't know what that means like I means it just going to
31:34
reveal the expansion but that's coming after 11.2 um I don't think it's going to me
31:39
we're not going to get the pre patch for the expansion at that point I think it's Lally just GNA be here is what it is
31:46
because on the road map they say expansion reveal and after that is 11.2.5 and 11.7 and then a little icon
31:54
of a house yep and then winter and that's the house is directly above in front of winter so hopefully uh yeah
32:02
that that's that's the thing that is happening um but it's it's simultaneously a pretty it's bog
32:09
standard for what we've saw in dragonflight it's basically the the exact same kind of road map but it also
32:15
does kind of give us a sense of how fast this this train is moving and the fact that they're going to be doing some kind
32:21
of expansion reveal after 11.2 and before the two patches 11.2.5 and 11.2 .
32:28
s indicates that they are committed to the speed of release that they've had so um at least that's my take on and
32:34
they've always threatened to do something along these lines and they've been trying to do this for literally the
32:40
same 20 years they were trying years at this point Joe I am paranoid
32:45
that we're having technical difficulties so I'm asking you to say I'm still here we're good uh so yeah that's that's the road
32:53
map in Broad Strokes either of you have anything you want to say any of you because Joe is here as well I really
32:58
hope you like goblins because the whole next season is going to be goblins at least for raid content it sounds like
33:05
for the whole it's it sounds like everything in 11.1 is going to be Goblin
33:10
oriented we're going to undermine unsurprisingly we're dealing with Goblin Politics the raid is the liberation of
33:18
undermine uh we're going to there won't be flying and undermine but there will
33:23
be cars whiche yes uh and there will be some new
33:28
delves new delves but still with our friend BR just going to say you need to
33:33
tell people about bran still being in the Del still with our friend bran uh
33:39
which blizzard had said was not happening that we would get someone new and that we would not have to continue
33:44
adventuring with Brian with the same zy one liners for the rest of the expansion
33:50
but now I I think we will we are stuck with brand bronzebeard for all of 2025
33:55
so that's fine yay if if I were BR Bron right now my self-esteem would be in my
34:02
feet look he's a perfectly cromulent companion we were just hoping to see other people come along I yeah you're
34:09
good you're fine brand but you know it's just I can only eat hamburgers so much I did kind of would get more of the more
34:15
of the league of explorers and get some more interesting characters and also there there's only so many times you can
34:21
hear the same lines before they get and I mean to be to be fair though they have at least fixed Ran's AI quite
34:29
a bit uh so he's not he's not quite as bad as he used to be where I'd be at the end pulling the final the final
34:35
Encounter of the delve and then he'd still be at the front fighting this one lone evaded bug creature that I didn't
34:42
even know was there because it like spawned in a wall so like he at least knows to walk away
34:48
now probably he'll probably still be telling us not to stand in AOE attacks
34:54
that he himself is standing in I'm just assuming there but it seems
35:00
likely we should also mentioned really briefly that if you want to punch gwick in the face and you've wanted to punch
35:06
him in the face for a long time I'm looking at all I cannot wait for that yeah you will finally possibly get a
35:13
chance to punch gy Wickes in the face because he is he is involved in some way he is the final boss likely of the raid
35:20
if not final the second last yeah and then the final boss will turn out to be a gigantic shoe um I don't know why I
35:27
said that it doesn't really mean anything I just don't like alley so yeah uh we should we we'll do some wild
35:33
classic here uh thought it was a joke about how often we see zalot feet no I haven't been looking at zalot feet what
35:39
are you talking about no I'm out of here no I I didn't actually know zelot
35:45
feet were all that involved I'm sorry I I I there's just been a lot of talk about how prominently they feature in a
35:51
lot of the cinematics okay um sorry I mean Claudia Christian does the voice so for me it's like Inova
35:58
every time Z shows up I'm like oh oh no it's not but it's not his CL but still
36:04
glad to hear Claudia Christian talking she's she's a great um yeah we got the wild classic uh 2025 road map um that's
36:11
that's got a lot of stuff in it and we'll try and cover some of them now um for example we got the new WoW classic
36:18
servers are coming um blizzard has called them classic classic seriously it's like Coke Classic classic like
36:26
really we're just throwing Classics see if you can taste the difference yeah like you know the Original Classic
36:32
servers have been around for a few years their economies are very established or very broken or calcified whatever word
36:39
you want to use calcified that's actually that's an excellent word I like it uh and this will just this is a fresh
36:46
start on a new classic realm and it's going to go through the it's going to go through the stages it's going to roll
36:53
out all of the original vanilla stuff then it's going to roll out all the burning Crusade stuff so can you can
36:58
start over and it again from the yeah they've actually even we should mention that this is starting on November 21st
37:04
which is two days yeah so if you're listening either you're listening to us and going oh that's in two days or
37:09
you're saying oh that was this week so yeah either way you can you can jump on by the time you hear me talking you can
37:16
jump on pretty soon and start a character and begin leveling from one to
37:21
60 at the original speed although there's usually some leveling buff stuff like uh Winds of whatever regardless you
37:28
can start doing that and you you will be on a server where that people have not already cared the market on everything
37:33
it's tens of thousands of gold for like some copper um not that I had that experience but regardless yeah that's
37:39
happening um we're also going to be getting uh molten core and uh anxia
37:45
those are opening on December 12th so yeah keep in mind that you from November
37:50
21st to December 12 12 that's you're getting to level 60 time which is not a
37:55
lot of time to get to level 60 but no you got a little time you got a little time as a treat uh we should also
38:02
mention um wrath classic season of Discovery is going to have it season s which is going to be sometime in 2025
38:09
that's not wrath it's just classicor wild classic sorry this is the the mini
38:15
headed Hydra of classic which is GNA get worse because we're also getting thisa Pandaria classic yeah we currently
38:22
active we have wow classic we're about to have wow classic classic we also have cataclysm classic and season of
38:28
Discovery and as you say soon miss Pandaria classic which I mean I don't think anybody was surprised by Miss
38:34
Pandaria classic yeah I I you know I psychically predicted this was going to
38:41
happen whether or not we get to warlord's Classic who knows not an experience I necessarily
38:47
need but sure they did cataclysm classic so I don't think anything is off the
38:52
table after they did cataclysm it's like okay they're going all the way if you're doing this you're doing everything but
38:59
um the season of Discovery um season 7 it's coming in 2025 I don't think we know exactly when it will be we don't
39:07
have a date it's uh early 2025 is what we have on our article yeah um yeah
39:13
that's gonna be next ramas and new in content yeah which is pretty cool I'm
39:19
interested to see if they make any changes to next Romas uh as they have done with other stuff so far or add any
39:26
new abilities or anything you can pick up there that they you know I just there's a lot you could do and I'm interested to see what they do with it
39:32
um so yeah that's pretty much the the wow classic slate of stuff it is is fair
39:38
amount of stuff um it's it's a busy time for the wow team it continues to be they
39:44
just haven't slowed down nope they have not and I mean on the one hand good because more content but on the other
39:49
hand wow uh this is a pace that is kind of shocking for us old folks who remember you know when are we going to
39:55
get another raid after this this uh Siege of oramar thing about 18
40:01
months dear God help us all um but yeah there's some Diablo news we're g to try
40:06
to get through relatively quickly so we can go on to other news because there's still more news um if you were wondering
40:13
why should I even bother like after the initial season why should I even get vessel of hatred um I can just switch
40:20
back to just doing I can I could literally not bother to getting it and just keep playing because I get I get
40:26
level 60 I get Paragon I I will have all the content to the original game world
40:31
what's the deal um if you're one of those people like Seasons there's going to be specific seasonal content just for
40:38
people who have vessel hyrd and that's going to be every season from now on that that's that's something that Rod
40:43
Ferguson talked about they're making sure that season the uh vessel of hatred
40:48
is considered Baseline and will have stuff that's specifically for it uh go ahead Liz I heard you talking I mean I
40:55
think it makes sense they want you to come to nantu and do nantu stuff oh yeah
41:01
there is cool stuff to do in nantu there are cool new things in the expansion but also the base game is better than it's
41:08
ever been so to an extent you like you aren't pushed to buy the expansion necessarily if that makes sense no
41:15
absolutely and like I said many people have said straight up okay why why should I buy it if if you if people who
41:22
are not particularly into the story I mean I think having me and Joe on this podcast and then saying for people who
41:27
are not particular interested in stor it's like the two of us are like uh what do you what do you do this for then but
41:33
I understand that for people who are not particularly inolved in the story if I can have all the same demon smashing fun
41:39
without laying out more money why wouldn't I so making it so that there's more value to the expansion makes sense
41:46
uh I don't I will I will add a tiny note here that I did not add to our topics list which is that vessel of hatred is
41:53
currently 25% off on the battl net store for for Black Friday so if you had been
41:59
thinking about it but you were on the fence or it was a little too expensive because expansions are expensive you can
42:05
get it now at a discount I gotta tell you straight up too um it is a really good expansion um I I still think it's
42:13
got one of the better stories I've ever seen in a Diablo game it's maybe not quite as good as the story for the main
42:18
campaign but it's really good so I recommend getting it um but regardless
42:23
we also have a campfire chat coming for season 7 they're going to talk about Diablo 4 season 7 another season 7 um
42:31
that chire chat's going to be on November 21st and we know there's going to be a PTR and in a season announcement
42:37
but we don't know exactly when the PTR is going to be uh much less when the season will actually be coming out um
42:43
kind kind of know but we don't really actually now now that you've said that I think they said this the PTR would be
42:49
coming up after Thanksgiving just because um you know after the holidays when everyone's back in the office don't
42:55
want to do it yeah yeah but um so that's happening and that's cool I'm interested to seeing
43:01
what the new season is and what what they're doing with it um quite frankly I kind of hope at some point you guys
43:06
seriously start considering putting seasonal content on the Eternal realm uh it just feels weird to me that that I
43:12
can't play my original character uh but there's midwinter blight uh that's again
43:17
it's not really coming back but it's kind of coming back they kind of did something really weird here in that they
43:23
they butchered midwinter blight where they just made the the one boss showing
43:29
up in Hell Tides that's that they didn't do the full event yeah so I mean last winter we had been winter blight and it
43:37
was this big event where like cities were bedazzled with skulls there was
43:42
this whole skull decoration and like a skull tree and a reputation thing to go
43:48
through to get rewards and apparently that's not happening but we're getting the boss and he's just going to show up
43:54
in Hell Tides I think in place of Hell tide Commander yeah well I me you know I'm glad to see the redcloak toor come
44:00
back but I I would have liked them to just bring the whole event back and I'm not really up on why they didn't I I
44:07
want to go back and visit the skull tree I mean come on it's the holiday season I want a skull tree I'm trying to make my
44:14
skull thrown and it's really hard guys if you don't put more skulls out there
44:19
that's your I think your skull Throne is going and getting the skulls for yourself see I I get you I understand
44:26
that you're like Orthodox but I I'm reformed I'm like a Sigmar so I'm just
44:33
at this point I'm trying to get Joe to react no I'm gonna make age of sigar references until he does I mean you can
44:39
try you can try but it ain't gonna happen man well I did dude you just
44:44
reacted it's like all that those quests in the Barons where you're going to get like bore livers and it takes you 10
44:51
bores to get a liver I I guess you're just smashing them so hard they no
44:56
longer have livers their organ just kind of unv variegated paste the thing about that though got me was that you you kill
45:03
a zra and you can't get a single hoof off that thing that's always been my that's
45:08
always been my like least favorite thing about like MMOs like I kind of understand like if I blow it up with a
45:15
fireball there's a chance that stuff might not be there but if I'm playing a class where I'm just like literally hitting this thing with a stick why
45:21
aren't the Hooves there seriously where' they go did it's to legs just fly off
45:27
from the impact is this a pinata zra if it was Diablo I would understand
45:32
completely because that stuff happens all the time I chunk these things I there's bits of there's bits of whatever
45:38
that demon was in that guy's hair over there and in that tree over there but the zra I mean yeah no it's
45:45
weird but we're gonna also I should mention this there's two things um first off the mother's blessing is back which
45:52
is the Diablo 4 experience boost weekend type thing that's going to be till
45:57
November 26 I think it's up right now right or is it yes it is now live it's now if you are not currently playing
46:04
Diablo 4 but you want to to get your character leveled you can get an XP boost it's 50% or is it just 10% or what
46:10
I can never remember how much it is 35 35 I think it's 35 and 50% gold boost
46:18
okay uh 50% extra gold 35% okay I looked it up in yeah that that's what it is uh
46:23
I looked it up on blizzard watch by the way so you can totally do that uh just a shout out to our articles because a lot
46:29
of these things are sourced from our articles um but also they're also making other things they're making a a boost
46:36
for Eternal realm characters as well so if you've been playing an eternal realm character you want to play that
46:41
character again uh you can get some neat stuff and there's a boost to level 50
46:46
blah blah there's a lot of neat stuff so yeah all alas of Lilith unlocked um yeah
46:52
there there is a fair amount of things that you can pick up um to to make it easier I think the best thing is it
46:57
gives you a fresh set of gear designed towards whichever spec you quest and
47:04
that is something like if you played Diablo 4 on launch and then you're like okay I had fun I'm leaving and you came
47:10
you came back for the expansion it's like wait all of my gear is like depreciated and I can't upgrade it
47:15
anymore and it's way less powerful than these drops I'm getting now so this is kind of like a reset so that can bring
47:22
you back up sort of the bring you back up to par I leveled about two of my interal characters uh before I did a
47:29
season character it's a pain and well I didn't my biggest pain wasn't the process itself it was the fact that I
47:35
was literally made out of tin foil and cardboard until I started getting gear jobs yeah because all of a sudden your
47:41
your old gear is like nothing yeah and the only reason starting over the only reason I got through it was because I
47:48
had played this like several characters 100 I had a ton of money money lets you
47:55
buy things and I had a ton of materials materials let you boost that yellow item
48:00
that dropped into a legendary so I was basically bootstrapping myself legendaries I was just throwing
48:06
legendaries at the problem until the problem wasn't there anymore the problem being I didn't have any good legendaries
48:11
anymore because they put in a whole new gear system but if you if you stopped playing at level if like say you stopped
48:17
playing at like level 40 or something and now when they when they did the leveling thing that your dropped your
48:22
level dropped on say like 35 you now your gear is completely just not going to help you it it it you
48:29
will be made out of tin foil and cardboard you will just die so it is nice that they've come up with oh oh we
48:35
should totally have done this um so I do agree with that I think that's really especially for people who played but
48:40
then were like E I didn't feel the need to do this before so yeah um it is it's
48:46
good it's good overall it's good for Diablo 4 which is again as Liz pointed out earlier it's in the best shape of
48:52
his life yeah this is the best Diablo 4 has ever been it is not the best it could be but I leave that to other
48:58
people to argue what the next big changes should be to make it even better it is really good um I can say to for
49:04
sure though not just cutting all your weird little holidays up into bite-sized chunks and like instead of just having
49:10
the holiday that would be a step up agreed it would just be nice if their holidays had a little more substance to
49:16
them at least absolutely at least this one would be something that I could run into because the last one was basically
49:22
only in Nightmare Dungeons and at a nightm d and it didn't even necessarily do anything yeah you could kind of
49:30
sometimes run into the butcher a little bit more yeah kind of that the hall
49:35
Halloween event meet or treat in which shrines may or may not spawn the butcher
49:41
shrines only a nightmare dungeons you could really log on and not know an event was happening at all yeah or you
49:47
know just never find just not get a shrine in your nightmare dungeons also that also goe I mean they they gave
49:55
everyone a free horse a free Spider infested horse and the only way you found out is if you looked at the uh the
50:01
shop as that's that's not that's that's a segue into a very long discussion of
50:07
[Laughter] upsetness it's joking with spiders oh
50:15
God and you can only get it from a store that you have to check ah it was just
50:20
you and 58,000 of your closest friends going on a little journey together yes
50:25
but we should um Hearthstone Battlegrounds season 9 it starts
50:30
December 3rd and it's going to be adding microtransactions because of course it is Liz do you want to talk about the
50:37
microtransactions I love Hearthstone Battlegrounds and I am very excited for season 9 because it's a new season Stone
50:44
Battlegrounds uh and it kind of battleground Seasons always uh adjust
50:49
sort of the state of the world trinkets are going but the new mechanic replacing
50:55
them is called hero roll roles where you can go into the game and it gives you a selection of Heroes to play at the very
51:01
beginning a random selection and you pick one and now you can roll those
51:07
except the rerolls are bought with a token that you can pay cash for which is
51:12
a little weird it's kind of the ongoing quest of the Hearthstone team to monetize the game in a way people will
51:19
actually engage with which I think has been a problem since the invention of
51:24
this game mode and I I don't know it's kind of going to be one of the hard things about Battlegrounds is you go in
51:30
and it just gives you a random selection of Heroes to play two if you are a free player for if you have paid for the
51:36
season pass and you know maybe none of those are a hero you want to play Maybe none of those are heroes that are very
51:42
good R now and you don't feel like that but uh you don't have a choice you're these are the Heroes that you can play
51:47
these are your options and now you'll be able to roll roll them uh so you can get
51:54
some of these for free you can get I believe eight of them on the free battle pass you can earn them through events
52:02
blizzard has said but not clarified you might get them from drops but uh you know a Battleground season lasts two or
52:08
three months and getting to roll a hero 8 times over the course of several
52:14
months sounds pretty weak unless you're willing to Pish so I'm I'm feeling a
52:20
little cynical here yeah that does the cash shop thing was the first thing I thought of as well yeah that was but it
52:27
is it is also rotating out a huge huge pool of minions there are going to be
52:33
three new Heroes uh the damage caps are changing there's a currently if you play
52:40
the game there's a damage cap so that you can't get like one shot in the first round it's not technically possible but
52:47
to make it harder to get eliminated in the early game but you can still get eliminated pretty easily in the early
52:53
game if your early hands don't go your way uh this is going to make it a little
52:58
easier to not get murdered early on so you have a better chance to C catch up
53:05
that's going to be great we're going to get three new Heroes one of them is going to be nobundo who uh is a drani
53:12
hero uh we did speculate there would be new drani minions there're not drani
53:18
minions just got added to the Mania game but they are not coming to Battlegrounds uh and we don't know about the next
53:24
Heroes so we'll we'll find out it's still going to be fun you don't have to engage with the roll thing if
53:30
you don't want to you don't have to spend money on the roll thing if you don't want to you can just keep playing the game as you play it so I'm on the
53:38
fence about the reroll thing like I guess it's makes sense in a way like it
53:43
definitely is a good way to like monetize that I feel like it would get a lot more positive interaction if it was
53:49
like a $5 onetime cost for the season there well I should I should add that if
53:55
you buy the season pass which gives you extra rewards on the rewards track you can now buy the season pass plus which
54:02
gives you the same extra rewards but also gives you one roll per uh game you play so every game you can go in and you
54:09
can roll your Heroes if you don't like them so you can pay $5 and just okay now
54:16
I've got rolls and I can have a lot more flexibility on who I play each game I'd like to say that I'm a genius and I'm
54:22
very good at this you you are a star here Corey you you knew that was
54:28
coming I I didn't know that was coming because I hadn't read that article on blizzard w.com but I uh I appreciate it
54:35
that does sound like if I was playing Battlegrounds all day that's definitely the way to go and I had for I had
54:41
forgotten to mention that and your your Keen your Keen skills brought and my my
54:46
ability to sit here and and drink some soda M meant that both of you could talk no I'm just but we should mention really
54:53
fast we've got the into the emerald dream in Pat 32.0 um I believe that is what that is
55:00
um then the shrouded city which is kind of a sequel to uh journey to angaro I
55:05
think um that's coming least SAR Seeker is coming and that's 33.0 go ahead Liz I
55:11
was trying to figure out what we were talking about what we had what we had to uh yes uh Hearthstone actually released
55:18
a road map which Hearthstone has never done nope um never ever uh so we do know
55:24
what the next three expansions are at least their names yeah like like I said into the emerald dream uh the shrouded
55:30
City kind of a sequel to a journey to angaro and finally the heroes of time which is StarCraft Heroes and themed and
55:39
I didn't see that coming um the last time we saw blizzard doing a crossover between this like this it it wasn't this
55:47
game well okay uh I don't know how much Starcraft is going to be in the last
55:53
season of 2025 they're doing uh Starcraft themed mini set yeah yeah it's
55:59
not the whole thing I'm sorry if I gave that that's just me being completely confused it is very confusing the mini
56:05
set is coming out in January so it's actually early next year but and it's
56:11
weirdstone does not have a good track record with Crossovers and this is going to be a whole Starcraft themed mini set
56:18
with uh Zerg and protos and Tern each uh each uh Starcraft faction will be
56:25
available to different uh classes in Hearthstone zerger death knight Hunter Warlock and
56:31
Demon Hunter protos are Druid Mage priest and Rogue and Tern are Paladin
56:38
shamans and warriors so I we're just going to get we're just going to get a whole bunch of Starcraft cards mixed in
56:45
with our mixed in with our Warcraft and the uh actual expansion theme the heroes of time is basically chromy collecting
56:52
people from other timelines and Alternate realities to recruit various
56:57
people to fight Mand in a minis set called the end of time so yeah that's
57:03
what's going on with that one um I don't know why I thought the danai were in that one instead not the Dan the pro the
57:10
StarCraft I'm trying to say protos but I didn't know why I don't know why I thought they were in that one and not just a mini set but I did and now I'm I
57:17
was wrong and now we're we've we've cleared that up but this still makes me wonder um Heroes of the Storm guys maybe
57:24
maybe you could do Heroes of the Storm Cory would really like it look at him I would really like that like it too I
57:30
love Heroes of the Storm it was such a it was so much fun it was so good at
57:35
giving these characters that we know and love in all the other games their own little rasat Taz that made them stand
57:42
out a little more like there's a canonical Crusader and a canonical witch doctor now because the Heroes of the
57:48
Storm and nabo had a PhD in PvP thanks to carbot and Heroes of the Storm and it
57:53
was just fun times brightwing pop up yeah we we were seeing
57:59
like new characters and not tied to any other IP start to get created as well which was super super fun like uh opilia
58:07
right like she was not tied to anything else I think it was orthia orthia was it
58:12
was it Oria Oria like or yeah so like but I mean like that was really cool and
58:18
I was like oh I remember being super excited like oh they're actually investing in this whole Nexus universe
58:23
and it being its own thing and then game went in maintenance mode and I cried to
58:28
be fair Oria was in there for a while before the maintenance it's true but we didn't get more we should have got more
58:34
we needed more Oria and Kira yeah don't forget Kira with her amazing whip sword
58:40
um yeah we could have gotten more but again also it was people didn't like I a
58:45
lot of people were just like sweet new character love her love her already kind of thing but there was also a big part
58:51
of the fan base that were saying hey you guys went from releasing a hero every month to releasing a hero every 3 months
58:57
and then uh one of those Heroes that we only got in three months is a not like
59:02
Lilith or Ty Lilith or VD or whoever the flavor of the month at that time was in
59:08
whatever game and so they were sad that it wasn't insert existing character here
59:14
yeah which is always a problem right like I I mean I'm I'm derailing this because let let's go because I got Cory
59:20
here I got back up um I play I still play a lot of League of Legends right I enjoy the game
59:27
I've played it for a while I like Moz um I like the whole concept of I
59:32
like the fact that there's so many champions to choose from and and stuff like that or so many Heroes and I was
59:38
really like League of Legends has so many Smite has pantheons of gods um and
59:45
then I was looking forward to seeing what blizzard would do going all in on that genre again and I liked the idea
59:53
that they were trying to push which I think maybe they could have marketed a little better too uh which was what if
59:59
you had a MOBA with a talent system versus a a a uh inventory system right
1:00:06
like which is essentially the entire value proposition of the game and it was just a completely different feel it felt
1:00:13
like fun you could customize your your uh character abilities to a certain extent instead of just leveling up the
1:00:19
same five or four abilities over and over and over again to make them more powerful it was the fun MOA it wasn't
1:00:28
the serious MOA and I think that they missed out on really pushing that as
1:00:33
like you know its angle so I don't know I loved it I wish it would come back I
1:00:38
wish it would come back with a vengeance if they if they were an announce uh you know an updated version of it like Heroes of the Storm 2 I'd be super
1:00:46
jazzed or you know even at this point just just bring back the game you had
1:00:52
that you still have and is technically still playable just it is very still playable it's not only still playable but
1:00:58
blizzard has been releasing a balance patch like every yes yeah they're a new one just at the PTR the other day
1:01:04
they're they're still going I think that I've I've recently talked with a former blizzard employee about many many things
1:01:11
but he talked about a project that they were working on that they loved they
1:01:16
loved so much and they said that it had been cancelled and they were so sad about it but in a heartbeat they would
1:01:24
come back to work on that project again because they were so into it and I'm sure that yeah a lot of the talent had
1:01:30
moved on by the end of Heroes of the storm's tenure Lana binsky is doing amazing things over at Riot on League of
1:01:37
Legends and she was like the animator who gave us so much of the amazing moments she fully animated Deathwing and
1:01:43
you know people like that on all levels of the game have moved on but I'm sure that you would be able to collect a lot
1:01:49
of them back if you said hey we're we're spinning up here as the storm again you want to come back and have fun yeah and
1:01:55
I mean like and I think that's one of the things that I think is missing from games in general the ones that are
1:02:01
always being successful are ones that you could tell that are labors of love and are passion projects for people and
1:02:07
then the ones that are kind of like phoned in or they're like they're doing it just because they're that's what they overlords want and it's not the game
1:02:13
that they wanted to make suffer for it we see it all the time um but me I I
1:02:18
would love to see that team come back and just be given like hey you know what let's see what you can do without like
1:02:25
with this the the safety rails pulled off go nuts and I would absolutely love to see that because there are some
1:02:30
really creative and really cool Minds like evokers people like and I don't think enough people talk about this
1:02:36
evokers happened because of Heroes of the Storm that was the healing kit that
1:02:42
was given to my my girl yera like that was the evoker Kit and like people don't
1:02:48
talk about that or or or how many of Alex Straw's abilities uh were were
1:02:54
precursors with the charge effects in the col and the range and and having that were precursor to evoker effects
1:03:00
like I don't think those would have happened if you hadn't got them in Heroes of the Storm and people flocked
1:03:06
to them because they were new and different and fun so like I think that's a that's a really cool thing that nobody
1:03:12
talks about the the love of blizzard and like how much hers of the storm was
1:03:17
willing to engage with all of the different universes and find what worked in them and pull it out and make it work
1:03:24
in another game and then original universes were like oh hey that's pretty cool what's their name brightwing oh
1:03:30
yeah okay we could we could make a fairy dragon pop up every once in a while named brightwing yeah and then you got brightwing and everyone was like whoa
1:03:36
there's brightwing that's a cool fairy dragon yeah and and verree in chat yeah no like it's one of those things that I
1:03:43
don't think they ever really announced it but go back and play those characters in in Heroes of the Storm and then go
1:03:49
play an evoker and tell me that they that that's not like what that they wasn't shared DNA like it just feels way
1:03:57
too similar with your charge attacks and placing your heels and zooming through the battlefield and like picking people
1:04:02
up and moving them from one place to another and like there's just a lot of really fun stuff with that but yeah I would love to see what the creative
1:04:08
minds could do with with that especially because there's no risk to just doing
1:04:14
whatever because it doesn't it doesn't change Warcraft lore it doesn't change what happened in Starcraft uh you know
1:04:20
it doesn't change what happens in Diablo uh you know so many so many really fun
1:04:27
and cool things that you could just do with it but I'm going to stop talking about Heroes of the Storm because man
1:04:32
I'm just going to sit here and talk about it for another 40 minutes with Corey I really will well I mean we've
1:04:38
pretty much covered all the various things you want to talk about except we didn't talk about the new OverWatch hero
1:04:44
over I was going to say that's a that's a thing they announced a new OverWatch hero today actually before the podcast
1:04:51
which is unusual they wait until the day after yeah they they they messed up and gave us a chance to say something about
1:04:57
it so we should probably not anyway no I'm kidding uh Joe do you know anything
1:05:03
about Hazard because you play OverWatch more than I do I watched the uh the
1:05:08
announcement thing and the animation that was released for it the hero trailer um he seems cool his name is
1:05:15
Hazard um he's a criminal like so many of the other cool cool heroes Champions
1:05:22
are uh he looks like he shares DNA with very X-Men uh to this to the same point
1:05:28
of like he has an X and a like a blue blue and silver x on his jacket because
1:05:34
that's a thing that they did I see you blizzard I see you um and it looks like
1:05:39
he's his abilities are based off of uh some goop that he that he steals and
1:05:45
then Jackson do his nervous system Allah cyberpunk 2077 uh because why not why not Ian he
1:05:53
cable and it gives him gives him pink Spike Powers I guess I I'm just watching
1:05:59
the animations here and assum yeah it gives him the ability to sort of like looks like Mor weapons or use his body
1:06:05
as as like a bioweapon or something like that um they haven't given too many specifics about it in his uh uh his
1:06:12
thing there but yeah it's it's very much cable like it reminds me of cable and the technov virus from the comic books
1:06:18
oh yeah big time Big Time just look at him he yes and that's why I was calling out the blue the blue and silver x cuz
1:06:24
what color is cables X on his first appearances whatever he's with the X-Men blue and silver again I see
1:06:31
you he's sitting he's sitting here with two eyes but you know full well he's Gable so yeah I gotta I am interested in
1:06:38
seeing how he plays because I'm always interested in seeing how they play uh it's one of the things I find the most fun about OverWatch characters is they
1:06:45
have new ways to do things he's supposed to be a tank character so we'll see how that works out
1:06:51
I'm I'm interested to see his Mobility so I will say that I think OverWatch for
1:06:57
all of its faults it does one thing really really well and that's Mobility on tanks um because they are very
1:07:05
fast-paced uh they have a lot of different options each one of them locomotes differently and feels
1:07:10
different uh which is really really cool and it's not just a slow plotting March
1:07:17
to the the goal or to the point or or you in front of your team as they all behind you you can do that but like you
1:07:23
can also just be Reinhardt and rocket get yourself into people because it's just super fun to scream YOLO and just
1:07:30
go for it and then take people off the ledge with you because why not um or to have tanks that you know maybe rally
1:07:37
people to them or have little range attacks or uh have little bits of heels so they can get out or you're Wrecking
1:07:43
Ball and you literally are a wrecking ball um or you freeze people and then you turn into an ice block oh wait that
1:07:49
was May and heres of the start he was tank she was a tank in that game she should be a tank in OverWatch anyway um
1:07:55
um but like they do cool things with it so I'm really interested to see what his movement's going to feel like uh and I
1:08:03
will pop back in specifically to test that uh because it is probably my favorite part of OverWatch hands down so
1:08:10
we've gotten that covered and now we're basically gon to have Liz come up with something else I was trying to escape
1:08:16
tiny I know tiny thing you will be able to play Hazard this weekend November
1:08:21
22nd to the 25th if you want to check him out early we do not have an actual release date but I would assume soon is
1:08:29
I'll put up for people to play then yeah I'll report back on Tuesday okay so
1:08:35
anyway I do think we should mention really fast that the game awards uh the nominees were announced this week um I
1:08:42
read them and it's not one of the years where I care particularly much about Game Awards this the about the game
1:08:49
awards um I kind of feel the same way I did like seeing Diablo got itself a nice accessibility n because they did did do
1:08:55
good accessibility stuff it's very interesting that World World of Warcraft despite being amazing and firing on all
1:09:02
cylinders and putting up 17 versions of classic has not made the list of best ongoing live service game or whatever
1:09:08
they're calling it these days Diablo 4 did yeah I think that's probably why because if they're giving it to diaa 4
1:09:14
they don't want to they don't want to give blizzard two Noms yep 100% that's 100% that's what it is I will also say
1:09:21
that the indie game awards looked a lot more interesting unfortunately their we ite the actual indie game awards website
1:09:28
has some serious problems for accessibility I could not read it like I'm straight up staring at going oh God
1:09:34
I have to put my face on the screen to read these game indie game awards please
1:09:39
bigger text so that's a problem uh especially since there's accessibility Noms in the game awards and then you go
1:09:46
to the Indi game awards and there's no no way to get in there I also got to say
1:09:51
I did not see a poker Rogue like coming uh yeah batro making the Game of the
1:09:59
Year Awards I I didn't see that coming either but there it is it made both in the game awards and the indie game
1:10:04
awards that thing was like super popular okay uh this says here Dragon Age vguard third Impressions but we took care of
1:10:10
that no no no that's not a thing we are we are we are gonna move past that and save that for later we we handled that
1:10:17
uh in the pre-show so you can go listen to the pre-show or we'll do a a lore watch when we all finish the game or
1:10:22
something um but yeah that's that's pretty much it um so at this point I
1:10:28
guess we're Liz and do you want Liz to do the patreon thing again or do you want to just
1:10:34
do we did it at top of hour so I'm gonna go ahead and do it because blizzard watches made possible due to the
1:10:40
generous contributions of patreon.com blizzardwatch your continued support means that this podcast sting Community
1:10:46
is able to thrive and grow blizzardwatch supporters enjoy exclusive benefits like early access to the podcast better a
1:10:51
chance to having your question answered on our podcast or the Q and adds fre site experience uh and just as a quick
1:10:56
reminder uh we are doing another little pledge drive because you know we're a little below where we want to be so if
1:11:02
you have not yet pledged or if you've pledged like say a dollar and you feel like you can support more which if you
1:11:08
can't totally cool we're we're not crazy uh but we do appreciate any support you
1:11:13
can give us uh so you know give that a look it's uh is it patreon.com blizzardwatch uh patreon yes that's
1:11:21
correct all right and we we also do appreciate moral support we are fueled
1:11:28
by your love well I'm not but I I need constant validation I need constant
1:11:34
validation I'm fueled by the ability to talk to you guys about weird stuff it makes me super happy so yeah um but
1:11:41
anyway thank you guys so much for being here thank you to Corey for guest starring and trying to get himself
1:11:47
worked up into recurring character which would be great I want to get Corey and Phil into recurring character status so
1:11:52
then at the end one can be revealed to be the secret Trader that would be awesome and it's gonna be Corey because
1:11:57
nobody who knows Corey would think it would be him because he's so nice I'm so nice yeah but see Canadian oh that
1:12:04
doesn't mean anything there's there's evil up here ex you know you know us Americans
1:12:10
look at you Canadians and we're like they're just so friendly and nice me right to your faces you know it's also
1:12:17
friendly and nice if people send us questions yes that would be nice but I don't this week yeah this week we kind
1:12:24
of was less looking so much so much news lately but I expect as we get into the holidays we're going to get less news
1:12:31
and need more questions yes are we're going to go off on crazy off tangent rants for longer than usual and thus I
1:12:38
managed to turn this this goodbye into a longer thing than I expected which has been part for the course for this show
1:12:44
but now guys thank you very much for being here with us this has been the blizzard watch podcast and we will see you next week
1:12:51
[Music]