Up next in 10
The Infinite Pirate Dragon is, of course, the top story this week on the Blizzard Watch Podcast. It comes in patch 11.1.7 as a part of Turbulent Timeways, and while we're unsure that it has anything to do with the Arathi narratively, that's what headcanon is for. Our resident Diablo expert Liz Patt joined our regular hosts Matt, Liz, and Joe to explain the mess that is the
Diablo 3 seasonal rotation, and also the mess that is Diablo 4's new season and its many, many currencies.
We'll wade through rivers of blood and seas of snakes, but we'll be damned if we cave to your attempt to get us to do algebra.
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0:00
[Music]
0:09
hello everyone and welcome to the Blizzard Watch podcast i am Matt i am hosting this shindig with me are two
0:17
fantastic regular co-hosts and one special guest star we're gonna actually introduce the special guest star first
0:23
because I just decided to uh Liz P or Liz Earth 2 Liz we've called her
0:29
sometimes um I think once we called her antimatter Liz anyway hi Liz hello uh
0:36
hopefully she and Liz and Liz Ultra or Liz Maine don't ever touch and explosively annihilate each other cuz
0:42
then we'd be out to Liz's and that would not be good uh speaking of also with us this week Liz Harper EIC of the site and
0:49
as I already mentioned the highest and grandest of our pubas and uh Joe Perez
0:55
who argues that he's short and therefore a lower puba but he is no shorter than Liz H who is our grand high puba so I
1:02
don't think our pubaness relates to height i think it's just it's just inherent to you at any rate hi everybody
1:09
here's the audience now we should probably talk about stuff to them
1:16
hi all right well Matt you're in charge so let's If you're ready we're we're
1:22
ready to go let's go okay well we should probably First things first is I have to
1:27
get this document to open because it is mocking me mocking me with it spinny wheel and not opening uh but we should
1:33
probably talk about the new World of Warcraft patch because as far as I know it's either going to be it's on the PTR
1:39
or is it out no it's on the PTR it's on the PDR and it's called it's called Matt doesn't want to hear that
1:45
it's leaked called Legacy of Arathor because in this thing mentioning that Liz actually says some people were
1:52
saying uh that you know I hope we're not going back to the the highlands again
1:57
and that's where we're going and I'm like I said that I said that in the queue i I
2:04
literally just quoted somebody else saying it as my response to a question about it so you are part of some people
2:11
it is it is i mean I'm going to give it a chance um I've actually been trying to figure out a good way to get back in a
2:17
while because I've been playing so much Diablo 4 that I've been like "Okay I need to take a break from Diablo I." Uh
2:22
but they they did something and we'll talk about later why I haven't been able to yet um so I'm actually looking
2:28
forward to it and thinking maybe I'll get into this but at the same time I I really need it to be good to justify
2:34
going back to the Arai Highlands again cuz because I don't want to I I don't I
2:40
don't want to go go back but yeah right now the patch is 11.1.7 it's on the PTR
2:45
you can test it right now i should go do that um we'll see if I do probably I won't uh because I'll have to download
2:52
it and then you know I get really confused about what games I even have on my computer because I'm old but
2:58
regardless what do we know about this other than it's going back to Arai Highlands do we know what we're doing when we get there uh we know so much
3:06
about this patch we don't know much about the story campaign of patch so we don't know why we're going there uh no
3:13
but yet you know it's it's got to be related to all of our friends in Hallow
3:21
uh that's all I got that's all I got for you well I mean it says here now there's a lore people you're going to have to guess how this takes us back to Arthy
3:27
Highlands well since we know that there's infinite pirate dragon involved um at least that's coming in the patch
3:34
i I don't think the infinite pirate dragon is directly involved with the Arai but that is that is just a guess
3:41
exciting i would love for the infinite pirate dragon to swoop in and be like
3:48
the the driving force in in in the behind the scenes for why the the branch
3:55
of Ara ended up in Hollowall i'm just going to straight up say that I think it's
4:01
more along the lines of Miss Frizle's school bus except it's a pirate dragon like but it shows up and we get on its
4:07
back and it just takes us through time for no reason other than to be like let's go mess with time infinite pirate
4:14
dragon bus instead of infinite prior dragon xmachina yeah I mean it would be nice I think but
4:21
regardless we know that's coming back from turbulent time wave which is usually like the multiple heroics
4:26
multiple deal you run every dungeon over six weeks and you you get something yeah
4:31
it's just it's a it's a big time walking event where we're going to go through all of the time walkings week to week to
4:37
week to week to week uh and uh the infinite pirate dragon was actually a
4:45
boss in a dungeon in Battle for Azeroth if I'm remembering correctly and I'm I'm pretty sure everyone went in there and
4:53
wanted now I need an infinite pirate dragon mount and Blizzard didn't give us one but now now in patch 11.7 we will
5:01
have the opportunity to get our own if we do a lot a lot a lot of time walking
5:06
we never got a pony from Ghost Crawler but we are going to get the infinite pirate dragon
5:13
i Ghost Crawler never promised us an infinite pirate dragon this was after his time but we're getting getting one
5:19
anyway um I also think we should mention quickly the combat assistant feature
5:24
which is that I'm still a little shaky on what this thing does i know it's in patch 11.1.7 and I I've been told I
5:32
don't actually know this this user this add-on here that's mentioned he Yeah
5:38
I've never used it um so somebody who's used it tell me what's going on with this please i I'm happy to because I
5:46
have used it um I've used both this and hero rotation in the past because one of
5:51
the things I struggle with uh sometimes is Okay I heard of that one at least
5:56
okay is retaining uh the the the kind of the core rotational functionality of
6:03
like what builds off of what because I don't jump between classes as often as
6:10
some folks but I do like having an alt stable um specifically for originally
6:17
for things like uh the the transmog you could get for each race within World of
6:22
Warcraft uh which drove my all alliance uh binge in uh
6:31
Remis but um it it it kind of helps you out by prompting
6:36
you hey this is the next skill you want to hit if you've played there there's
6:44
actually kind of an indicator similar if you've played the new new character
6:50
system where you're on the abandoned island and stuff and it's uh you know
6:55
when you're still on the boat or the airship it's telling you hey this is the button you want to hit in order to you
7:03
know progress with learning this class and uh so it's it reminds me a little
7:09
bit of that because it's giving you that kind of highlight around the button saying "Hey this is the one you want to push next." And it's going to take into
7:18
account allegedly according to Yana's Costas um like whether you're an AoE
7:25
spec what talents you have um which is something that the add-ons do to varying
7:32
levels of success um but the other piece and the piece that's kind of caught
7:38
everybody's attention is the one button rotation option which is I I'm just
7:46
going to call it an amazing accessibility feature but that'll let you just hit that button
7:52
uh just to be clear here the one button rotation is going to be part of the combat assistant in patch 117 not it's
7:59
not part of any of the other add-ons that do this now this is something that we haven't
8:06
seen before previously Blizzard has been really serious about not being able to
8:11
combine a lot of things on one button so the way I kind of picture it working is
8:18
if you've ever macroed a bunch of skills one after the other in like just a a a
8:24
sequence um you still have to hit the same button over and over and over again yeah have
8:31
to hit the macro repeat exactly and that's how it sounds like this is going to behave is you still have that button
8:38
that you're pushing for each skill but it's only one button and to kind of
8:46
combat the any potential you know super advantage in DPS that this will give you
8:52
it's going to have a bakedin lag to it of I believe like 0.3 seconds or
8:58
something like that so an extra GCD if you will so it's it's really cool it's
9:05
really you know again accessibility wise totally awesome move um for folks that
9:11
maybe can't use you know a full-size keyboard um it also has brought up some
9:18
very interesting conversations around is this going to be one of the features
9:24
that helps bring WoW to console yeah I I mean I can definitely
9:30
see that being a bridge right and people have been asking for something like that
9:36
for a while and that makes sense uh I personally am all for this i know this
9:41
is a it's if you listen to the internet it's a fairly I want to say it's divisive but
9:49
there are some people who are very vocally against it um which I think is absolutely hilarious cuz they're never
9:54
going to use it and uh I think it's out of fear that it will you know make them
10:00
feel less accomplished in their gameplay but this will never be as optimal as
10:05
somebody who intricately knows what they're doing it will help people play
10:12
uh it's it's a good feature in my opinion or a good potential feature
10:18
honestly we were just talking about uh heckle I think two weeks ago 3 weeks ago in guild uh because we have people that
10:26
especially if you're like swapping classes or you're trying a different spec because maybe you have too many
10:32
healers and you need somebody to go DPS but they're not too comfortable with their DPS spec having something that
10:38
helps you understand your priority uh helps you do a little bit more damage or
10:44
you know helps you a little bit better in sort of like that regard uh but it will never it's never going to be
10:49
something that's going to replace a healer's instincts or a tank's instincts or a DPS's instincts uh it will just
10:57
help people who maybe are transitioning or again people that have maybe disabilities or uh have this barrier
11:05
that keeps them from participating at the level or with their friends that they want to makes it a little bit
11:11
easier and that's good we talk about that all the time that more accessibility is always good exactly and
11:16
I also as a sorry go ahead then i was just going to say one of the things to keep in mind too is that rotation tends
11:23
to be more important for specific classes and specs than others
11:30
um I've never known a tank who actually had a rotation as such what they have is
11:37
um they want abilities that are useful for what's coming to be on cooldown when it comes so as one example for a long
11:45
time that we're not really there right the now but we were in an era for a long time where in order to challenge healers
11:52
tanks were getting higher and higher damage spikes that the healer had to to help mitigate like healers had to put a
12:00
cool down on the tank just to get through certain fights and that's not
12:05
something that a rotational assistant in any way can help you with it it just isn't so a lot of I think it's a that
12:12
people have too much of a focus on this thinking it's going to make it so anybody can do anything it's like no
12:18
because the hardest thing about specific roles isn't the rotation the rotation is
12:24
really only important for say uh a range DPS class or a melee DPS class even
12:31
though a melee DPS can't just sit there and focus on the rotation they have to get out of the way of things there's so
12:39
much you know that can be very hard yeah and it can be very hard and it's also like I remember like there was a while
12:46
where Paladins were basically had to just go melee to heal not too not too long ago uh and
12:55
it's not something where you can just count on a rotation you need you can't just say "Okay I have enough holy power i gotta do this." Because you might get
13:03
squashed so you have to be ready to do other things and you have to be ready to break the rotation i think a rotation
13:09
assistance is really worthwhile as what you guys have already said a as a aid
13:16
for people who who have some kind of accessibility limitation but it's not
13:22
going to it's never going to be oh hey we got a main tank we'll just have Joe do it but Joe's just going to hit
13:28
rotation buttons no if Joe is doing it Joe needs to actually do it and no
13:33
amount of assistance is going to help that i do want to clarify that the rotation
13:39
assist is only going to be for DPS which as everyone is saying right here DPS is
13:44
the spec that tends to have a more strict rotation but as as everyone likes
13:49
to say dead DPS do no damage so of course you do still have to focus on mechanics and dodging things and not
13:56
standing in the fire and if you're me not rolling off the edges of platforms all of those things greatly improve your
14:03
DPS so don't stand in fire unless it's the fire you're supposed to be standing in special healing exactly that's always
14:09
the trick which circle do I want to be in or or the thing that's bad but you
14:14
have to soak it yeah yeah you've got to keep track of all that so there fights still have a lot of complexity one thing
14:20
I'm really looking forward to this for is alts that I kind of like half know how to play and maybe you know the
14:28
rotation assist will just help me get on them and play them a little bit i don't have to play them at a super high level
14:34
but you know doing things uh since the last patch I haven't logged on to my arcane mage because things changed and
14:40
I'm like I don't have the time and mental energy to figure this out so I just I sit in Dornagal and disenchant
14:47
things from any other characters so I think be good
14:54
okay um I think though we can move on to talking about overcharged delves um which is apparently just delves with
15:01
better loot and you you also get a mech suit mount the overcharged mech suit mount mentioned here uh yes Blizzard
15:09
didn't say a whole lot of this it's only for six specific delves uh Crevall's
15:14
Rest Skittering Breach The Spiral Weave Nightfall Sanctum Fungal Folly and Side
15:20
Street Sleuth have they said these are going to be permanently this or are they going to switch them around when new dels come out kind of like they do with
15:26
mythics do we know it it does not say but I suspect it'll be it i suspect it's
15:32
a it's an event not a forever thing um there will be uh new rare enemies there
15:40
will be more traps and unlock traits in a new tree specific to overcharged
15:46
delves so there may be some kind of talent system you'll be unlocking in these it's a new thing it's coming in
15:53
the next patch and it will make delves harder more fun more rewarding all three
15:59
yeah and of course you get the overcharged mech suit mount which I really feel
16:05
mentioned every single time we talk about this i am not sure what it looks like but uh overcharged me suit use your imagination
16:14
and then there's another em event coming back the greedy emissary one except this time it doesn't have a Diablo tie in but
16:19
it does have new recolored tier set tier 2 set rewards so if you want that there
16:25
you go the greedy emissary one really surprised me because when we've seen this before
16:31
it has been a Diablo tie-in because it's a treasure goblin running around Azeroth
16:36
that you chase to get its loot like you do in Diablo uh but now it's coming now
16:41
there's going to be a treasure goblin in WoW just just because just because and it's got a bunch of recolored tier 2
16:49
sets am I the only one who feels like some poor regular goblin just woke up
16:54
one day and they stuffed him into the treasure suit and he's like "No I don't want to no." Ah and they just launch him
17:00
out people are chasing around trying to kill him and he's like "I'm not treasure goblin."
17:07
Ah I don't know why but this is amusing me really really past the point of any reason for it but I've always said more
17:14
treasure goblins is better i didn't say what game i made no no argument that it had to be a specific game so yeah it's
17:21
it's not bad it's just weird it it confuses me i'm like this is my Diablo
17:26
this is my Warcraft and they don't they only meet together in very specific circumstances and this is not one of
17:32
those circumstances it it it just kind of hurts my head it's fine it's fine it's going to be The middle the middle
17:37
of that ven diagram should be heroes of the storm and not random treasure goblin
17:45
every so often in
17:50
WoW you weren't wrong but also treasure goblins they
17:56
they can apparently show up anywhere at any time so
18:04
so but yeah we should also really try and get to the lore walking thing here cuz that's coming too joe did you hear
18:11
about this you mean the thing that we the thing that we uh been talking about for like 2 years yeah yeah so do you do
18:18
you want to talk about them do have you read these yet i have read at least what we have about it so uh we're looking at
18:25
lore walking scenarios that are going to be planned for 11.1.7
18:30
uh where it's lore walking with Lor Walker Cho uh you basically are going to be stepping into scenarios where you get
18:37
to do very iconic things uh throughout like WoW events so you get to in the
18:44
examples that were given here are meeting the Atherealss where you go to Nethertorm to fight Demenius uh you get
18:50
to meet Yari and Locus Walker in Legion and head to the Shadowlands to meet the brokers uh to get into Tazesh uh and you
18:57
meet up with Venari again who was you know our little broker friend uh who may
19:02
not be what they present but that's a whole other thing uh you can get to experience Zath storyline where you get
19:08
to learn more about the black blade and the uh the sorry the blade of the black empire uh see how Zotath gained her body
19:15
which we we know about that but you get to experience again for those that missed it uh it's really really really
19:21
cool um and then uh you can go back with of course Arthus and Return of Strath
19:26
for a shortened version of the calling but this is exactly what we asked for right years ago and we've been talking
19:33
about it where we said "Hey you know what' be really great as a way to bridge the story for people that maybe are
19:39
coming to the game fresh or have been gone for a while maybe miss some key things uh what if you had the Lore
19:44
Walkers just have you participate in an active story?" Well congratulations the Lore Walkers are making you participate
19:50
in an active story it's perfect so I I know that we can't take full credit for
19:56
the idea but I'm going to try to take full credit for the idea because we absolutely talked about this years and
20:02
years and years ago but I'm happy to see it i think it's really really cool and I think it's a really neat way and again
20:08
of using in-game lore in in-game established mechanics to bring people up
20:14
to snuff on the story of key moments and big story events without them having to
20:19
go back and play an entire expansions worth of content and then clear a raid
20:24
or to find videos on YouTube where it's not the same like you watch a video on
20:30
YouTube or you watch a video on a stream or something like that and yeah you get some of that but it's not the game is
20:35
like you get to experience it yourself and this is a step above the plays that
20:40
we did in Ardan weld uh and I think it will be quite nice so what do you guys
20:46
think i don't like it when they talk about the lore in games
20:53
that is a joke one of the things is I I have played
20:59
World of Warcraft since the beginning i've played every expansion i have the lore master title for every expansion
21:06
even before they made it a little easier to get the lore the lore master title
21:11
and when you had to do every every quest every
21:17
quest and I have played all of this i've played all of this firsthand i've done
21:22
the raids i've done all of this but I still you know some of this has been a
21:29
while some of this has not I don't know if all of this has been in game like this Zalatas scenario it's talking about
21:36
where okay yeah I remember seeing her get her body back in Battle for Azeroth but going back in time to the Black
21:44
Empire to see her encounter the old gods I what I mean yes that sounds like
21:49
something that would have happened but was not in game that I'm aware of so it's going to it's possible this will
21:56
not only refresh our memories but show us maybe little in between scenes that we haven't seen or haven't seen in game
22:03
well the the interesting thing with the Zealot one in particular is it says go back in time and experience Zelat's
22:08
encounter with the old gods makes the assumption that Zealot wasn't always just an old god weapon that was broken
22:14
off of the body of an old god so we may be actually getting some interesting lore reveals that have not been covered
22:19
anywhere else so there might be some new bits perfect
22:24
this is perfect we're going through the World Soul Saga which has lots of ties back ties back to older lore this is a
22:32
great time for a refresher on some of these things and I think it's interesting that the Arthus one is in
22:37
here because the ethereals and experience Salat story line both of those sound really immediately tied to
22:45
some of the things we're doing right now going back to Stratholm does not feel directly tied to where we are right now
22:51
in the story so I'm I'm curious about the last one on this list we're going we're going back to the Arafy Highlands
22:57
right oh yeah okay i also think that that um is going to have the later tiein
23:05
to The Last Titan because we're going back up to North End so how did how did
23:11
uh Northend and its uh state of the scourge get to where it is let's let's
23:18
go revisit Arthus yeah i mean it makes perfect sense to me
23:26
so like I'm I'm down for it um yeah okay uh therefore I'm going to
23:34
push us to the Hearthstone bit and then just kind of look plaintively at Liz and go um can you explain what Embers of the
23:41
World Tree since it's going live next week uh talk about it just just quickly just mentioned because we know we've
23:47
talked about it before so we don't need to go into great detail but go ahead if you if you do want to hear it in more
23:52
depth go back to our previous episode of the blister batch podcast where we did talk about it more uh but embers the
23:59
world tree going live on May 13th it is a mini set which basically means it is a
24:04
small set of cards you can buy uh for cash or gold and there's no RNG you just
24:10
you get this little set of cards and it is all it's called of the world tree so
24:17
it's it's all about fire trying to burn down the world tree that's kind of that's kind of the theme we just love we
24:23
we love burning down world trees and uh the new mechanic is smoldering cards which are cards that will gain uh new
24:32
powers as they are in your hand but if you leave them in your hand for too long
24:38
I I think they may go away or get worse so it's they have effects based on how
24:43
long they're in your hand and possibly they catch fire you know that's just a
24:49
that's a thing that can happen i love that i think that's out next week out
24:54
next week buy it with cash or gold which you can earn in game so I that's what I like about them you can get the whole
25:00
thing every card just buy it with in-game currency yeah they are discarded
25:05
if they're in your hand too long that's basically catching on fire
25:13
it's catching you on fire you got to drop them they're burning you
25:20
but there's also a thing where you have to hold them a little bit to get them slightly getting better as well so
25:25
that's interesting not that I know much about this but I'm still think reading right
25:30
there all right well that seems to be it for that so now we can do to the thing that I've been trying to talk about the
25:35
entire episode and stopping myself with sheer force of will um if you don't know
25:41
Berserk uh Joe do you want to explain Berserk to people you're probably better at than me because I just watched it and
25:47
stared at the tour the whole time uh Berserk is an anime/manga that is um
25:55
trying to think of how to phrase this uh cartoonishly super violent yeah it's a it's a medieval Europe inspired very
26:03
dark fantasy world uh which is over-the-top violence over-the-top uh
26:09
like action i would say it's like Dn D but even D and D isn't this dark most of
26:15
the time uh but yeah it's it's really the best way to put it it's just it's
26:21
bonkers it's bonkers grim dark and absolutely fits perfectly with Diablo
26:27
yeah it kind of feels a little bit like if Warhammer Fantasy and Dungeons and
26:32
Dragons had a baby and then emotionally put the baby through some
26:38
real stuff emotionally i mean just just Guts's story by himself not even
26:44
counting the you know Cascar or any of that just just a lot going on mhm and I
26:50
think Joe's right that it if Diablo is going to be doing weird crossover events which we know they are um this is a good
26:58
one to do uh you do this event which is coming um it's already started like Yeah
27:06
and um basically there's free rewards and then there's cosmetics from in-game shop which they have their own reoquary
27:13
and you can buy the reoqueries with uh I can't even pronounce this word belly lights i don't I I don't know how you
27:20
pronounce it it's a new iname currency yeah but it drops from Elite Mobs and I'll be upfront um I'm in this p purely
27:28
for the transmog but my god I'm in it for the transmog because one of the sets
27:33
is a barbarian set which is basically just the armor that Guts wears in the in
27:39
the manga and anime um I think it's a little bit more like the manga really um
27:45
the manga is actually darker than the anime yes because it would have to be i think if the anime tried to be as dark
27:51
as the the manga the people animating it would die uh it it it is it is a wild
27:58
wild story but yeah there's the there's just so much about this I want to talk
28:04
about but ultimately just straight up the Berserker armor for barbarians is it
28:09
is a thing of beauty in that it is black and sinister and awful and exactly the
28:16
kind of weapon you only see in anime the kind of the sword that makes Cloud look
28:21
at it and go "Wow that's that's a big sword i don't know if my sword could be that big that that's a extremely large
28:28
sword." Um yeah so I I am super excited about this go ahead Liz i hear you talking so do do you want the bad news
28:35
or should I should I leave it at that bad news at up go for it okay the So
28:40
there is a reoquaryy with a number of cosmetic rewards uh the the Berserker armor for the barbarian is not on it
28:46
berserker armor for the barbarian and sever Yeah several other rewards are part are in the in-game shop and cost
28:54
most of them cost 2,800 platinum yep which is uh 28 to $30
29:02
maybe a little lower if you buy if you buy the big bundle yeah but I'm trying to still trying to like scope through all the other stuff
29:08
and it's it's incredibly cool looking um but go ahead Liz before I start my rant
29:17
one of the rewards is also a Matt or Joe you were going to have to
29:22
explain this one of the rewards is a a nose on legs as a pet
29:29
and can anyone explain what's happening here is there an explanation
29:34
i I'll let Matt explain i can't cuz I don't remember it i looked
29:40
at like I know I should remember this and I can't i also barely remember this
29:45
thing like I have like like a fever dream but like I don't remember what it was in the the anime/manga i think the
29:53
weird thing is I think it came in the manga first and it it's like and then they had it in the anime and it doesn't
29:59
really have much of an explanation for why it exists i think it's just like look this could happen or something i
30:06
don't remember it i remember it was like it was like an astral like monster slash
30:12
thing um and I think it was like the chimmy chimmy morio or something like
30:18
that but that's all I remember and I remember it was like a scene and I
30:23
remember like a lot bunch of like the anime forums and people were just like absolutely obsessed with it cuz it looks
30:30
ridiculous and what you see like the picture when you go to the their their website and you see the photorealistic
30:37
version of it for some ungodly reason it's worse here than it was in the the
30:43
manga yeah in the manga it's just like a one panel once off little weird nose thing uh it's it's related to like
30:51
horrible monsters from beyond reality i think they're they're even like clipothic in nature so it's like
30:56
touching on that whole thing but I can't for the life of me i don't remember ever
31:02
seeing it it doesn't really show up that much i don't think it's actually in the game that I mean the the manga at all
31:08
like it's barely there it's just something that gets mentioned once or twice but yeah it's weird it is really
31:15
weird and it looks even worse and that's yeah the the version here is terrifyingly realistic
31:23
i don't even it's it's difficult to describe but it it it's unsettling that's that's what
31:30
I'm going to go with it's unsettling to look at but now you can have one one of your own
31:35
if you happen to have enough platinum to buy it
31:42
but on that um go ahead Liz do your your rant now yeah I was gonna say because
31:48
Liz Liz mentioned currency and uh I have thoughts and feelings this also ties
31:54
into you know having having been hands-on um in the season playing the
31:59
season over the last week uh uh Diablo 4
32:04
please do not go down the World of Warcraft road i do not like currency you
32:12
did not hear I like currency do not put more currency in my currency so that I
32:18
can have some currency because you just added a new currency
32:24
um to you know power the battle pass reoquaries and now we have another one
32:32
to go with specifically the event and I get that some of that might be if you
32:37
don't want to spend clarification it's the event reaquery we
32:42
have to keep using Lizard blizzard named it this so we have to keep using this
32:48
word reoquery by the time I finished writing about it reoquaryy no longer
32:54
felt like a real word it was no longer a real word to me so yes I I I don't So we have we have
33:04
our rep track in um in the seasonal theme that gives us
33:11
rewards we now have a currency that we slowly acrewue as we murder to unlock
33:18
reoquaryy purchases and we have um whatever they're calling
33:25
the the revised I don't want to say it's a currency but the revised tracking
33:31
system within the seasonal journey i I don't I don't need more
33:36
stuff to keep track of blizzard please please
33:42
if you're going to steal from World of Warcraft steal from Remis
33:47
yes it just all happens and then boom it's done and you just move on yeah so
33:54
I'm um additionally I am a little now that
34:01
I've actually like seen the reoquaries for the season we're not talking about
34:06
the event reoquary i am with I I I really
34:12
empathize with a lot of the community because so many folks were investing the
34:19
1,000 platinum into the battle pass and getting back like 6 or 700 as part of
34:27
the premium battle pass um and that's no longer the case and on the flip side
34:34
it's a good change because folks can get platinum without investing a dime
34:42
because it's now tied to the free reoquary which is also like the season
34:47
theme reoquary in this case Bile's return so you get you know you have two
34:53
uh platinum rewards within that and they're 100 each for folks who were
34:59
investing the thousand platinum um it's a lower rate of return
35:06
and if you are playing the free track so to speak and you use the 200 platinum to
35:16
unlock your first reoquy which is the weapons reoquary it actually shakes out to be
35:22
more expensive if you want to continue opening reoquaries with you know their their
35:29
platinum unlocks it's 200 500 and 800 it it's more expensive than if you had
35:36
just paid the thousand in the first place and I don't like that it feels
35:44
icky so the thing is that you can still buy a battle pass which is now a
35:51
collection of all of the reoquaries for the season yes but if you buy a single
35:57
reoquary instead of the battle pass once you have bought any of the reoquaries you can no longer buy the battle pass so
36:04
you lose the discounted price a battle pass cost 1,000 platinum and um what are
36:11
what are we at for the for buying them inventory 1,200 yeah so if you use the free platinum to
36:18
open weapons yeah if you use the free platinum to open weapons you're you're then shelling
36:24
out 1300 for the um beasts and armor and yeah I
36:32
don't I don't like that um the other thing is that with the premium battle
36:39
pass in in o old OG premium battle pass so to speak
36:45
um you got everything like that you it was it was a single rewards track in
36:52
sequence and you earned them in sequence and it took a while if you wanted a specific reward but you got everything
36:59
if you bought the accelerated which was more expensive you only got like plus 20 levels I believe on on the reward track
37:08
if you buy the new equivalent of the accelerated battle pass I don't remember
37:13
what they're calling it because it's no longer accelerated but it's also not premium um they actually have gated
37:21
rewards behind that now again they're cosmetic rewards there are no power rewards in this which I appreciate
37:29
because that was a problem with Diablo Immortal was that you could actually gain power through battle pass purchases
37:35
um and I think through instore purchases but
37:40
you're you're you're literally at that point how are these rewards any other
37:46
than the fact that they are timelmited how are they any different from an inshop purchase they're not they're not
37:54
so I I Do I understand why you resent that but that's not what I'm resenting i resent that I had to sit here and do
38:01
addition in my head to explain this if I have to sit here and No that's not your
38:06
fault if if if you know you're putting out a reoquery system to replace battle passes and I have to sit and do
38:13
calculations just to understand the the the way it's set up it's like no
38:20
but I can get the first one with the 200 platinum that I already got so that one's free but then the other the others
38:27
add together to be 1300 or I could have just bought it for a,000
38:32
exactly yeah it's like I don't want to like I don't want to like look up and and either I've got the the chalkboard
38:38
full of like conspiracy stuff behind me or that one where they're like all the numbers are floating past them and
38:44
they're staring off into space like calculus or geometry one i don't want to be either of those to play a video game
38:51
that's the thing about all these all these systems of currency all these new
38:56
ways to get the you know things back and forth is that they require more math
39:02
the whole reason I used to love D and D beyond was because it allowed me to do less math and and the fact that the fact
39:09
that then you've unlocked the reoquery and you go in and now you have to spend
39:15
favor of varying amounts depending on the item um to so so now you've used
39:22
your in-game currency to unlock the thing that you can then spend your acred
39:28
seasonal currency in now you can bank um 99 of these currency if you're just
39:34
going gang busters at the season um or let's say maybe you know this reminds me
39:40
of the tendies system um excuse me traders tenders system um where uh you
39:46
if there's just rewards you're not really jazzed about you can bank up to 99 of them to the next season and they
39:53
carry forward and that is cool because that was not something you got with um the favor tokens i believe that's what
40:00
they were called in original battle pass fun fact there was actually like an invisible currency in the background and
40:07
that's what unlocked like earning that invisible currency unlocked your next battle pass purchases and that was tied
40:14
to the season's journey as well there was like a little token um next to
40:19
different season's journey items and it was a smaller favor token and then when
40:24
you completed a chapter you actually got a larger favor token which is why as you
40:30
progressed in the journey you would get further and further along the um battle pass it wasn't just based on you know
40:38
murdering your way through sanctuary um so like in that sense we've already been
40:43
doing this it was just invisible and in the background and why couldn't it have stayed invisible and in the background
40:50
instead of another currency i don't want to have to think about this but speaking of not thinking about
40:56
things properly let's talk about Diablo II season 34 and when it might happen or it might
41:02
not happen and it's definitely not going to work except it might who knows um
41:08
again um Liz P let's chat about this thing um we at this point they've been
41:16
pushing this thing back forever like we have no idea when it's coming it could happen anytime we're We're in 34 now
41:23
except we're not really anymore because apparently only PC players are consistently still in 34 and on Sunday
41:32
console players started losing access to seasonal features like leaderboards or
41:37
the alder of rights where you've spent the entire season occurring additional power and now it's gone um and last I
41:46
checked I hadn't seen any uh blue responses on the forums so this has been
41:51
this has been posted about on the forums it's been posted about on Reddit i haven't seen anything on the social
41:58
media accounts when I've checked them which I've been looking for the season end date because I thought it was going
42:04
to end last weekend and we would be starting a new season this Friday that is not the case so I'm hoping they'll be
42:11
like JK we're actually ending this weekend you know we we shifted because
42:16
we shifted forward a week for when we would start we accidentally you know
42:22
didn't shift the console end date but really we're doing this again
42:28
yeah except this is the exact same thing we did last season they pushed the season end date and so the season
42:35
accidentally ended earlier because they forgot to change it and now something is
42:40
messed up again there was a miscommunication last season quote unquote and and is this another
42:48
miscommunication in that the season has kind of maybe sort of ended for a lot of people and Blizzard has said nothing
42:54
about it so the way the way I'm picturing it now because the you know console play unlike Diablo I where it's
43:01
this big interconnected world that everybody can access through crossplay um Diablo II is still isolated so in my
43:09
head there are a couple of gerbles on a wheel or hamsters if you will and the
43:16
console hamster got tired because it said "I was only told I
43:22
need to run in this wheel for this long i'm done."
43:28
I think it's because there's multiple console worlds for lack of a better word like each one has their own ecosystem
43:34
and therefore there's a there's the Xbox One is really tired the PlayStation one is confused as to what's going on and
43:41
the one on the Switch because keep in mind Diablo II is on the Switch is full-on screaming in Japanese with a
43:48
headband on like we have no concept it's upset because it didn't get its pre-order in in time and they were all
43:55
the Switch 2 was all sold out yes that's exactly what's going on with the console
44:00
hamsters uh I can't believe that I've actually managed to talk about a hamster
44:06
euphemism this long in in relation to season so you know two seasons in a row
44:11
in Diablo III where um they they went a little wonky and in my head I'm seeing
44:17
the scene from the the end of the third Star Wars movie where young Obi-Wan is
44:23
shouting "You were the chosen one." Um because Diablo III like your seasons
44:29
have been so steady the last couple the at least the last five have been very
44:36
steady very stable launches everything has been fine you're in maintenance mode
44:42
all you need is is well I say all you need I am not a game designer developer
44:47
what have you I do not know what is required but as far as I understand because you're you know you're recycling
44:54
the themes All you need to do is go boop in my head that's what happens is
45:00
someone hits the big green button that says seasonal rollover and then it happens unfortunately seasonal rollover
45:06
chaos there's another button directly next to it and they're very similar very similar someone accidentally
45:12
knocked over a broom it hit the button and then everything will be fine with the automatic rollout no no joke no it's
45:19
fine everybody we got this drinky bird and it'll hit the button the new season needs to come up the drinky bird goes
45:25
continuously sir it's going to just keep hitting the button oh that could be a problem cut to season 34 when does it
45:31
ending it already ended maybe it has an ending the bird is upset now it It You know it got some bad news so it just
45:38
leaned forward but it shifted a little because its head was kind of sagging like I I don't I don't know i don't know
45:45
and Liz Liz can tell you I am probably one of the most positive people
45:53
sometimes maybe without merit when it comes to Diablo I i you know gave season
46:00
one a try like a big big try even after it was a slo you know the the it should
46:07
take 200 hours to get to your endgame and and and I was still in it i was
46:13
still in it i did Vessel of Hatred i got to the end that I'm not spoiling for anybody and said "Okay." But I I was
46:20
still in it i was still at it and then about midway through Season of Witchcraft I went "Haven't I been here
46:28
before?" And and and now Diablo III which is my refu my season refuge
46:35
basically has has gone a little caterwampus and And I'm I'm sad i'm sad
46:41
blizzard you made me sad that's the title of her autobiography
46:47
everyone it is Blizzard you made me sad the big takeaway here is that per its
46:55
usual schedule Diablo II season 34 should be ending soon
47:02
but we have no idea yet we we don't know yet and also it's kind of buggy if it
47:08
particularly if you're playing on console it may be already over if you're playing on console we don't console may
47:14
not come back up if it's if it's supposed to be ending this coming weekend they they may just bite the
47:19
bullet with console um in the interim someone go find the PC server hamster
47:25
and tell it it can take a nap because no faster run faster run faster run faster
47:32
the server starts smoking always be chasing goblins why can't I catch the
47:37
goblin cuz you're in a hamster a second hamster just Yeah get a second hamster
47:43
just But don't put it in don't put it in at the same time oh god no
47:50
really offbalance situations but at this point well we can we should
47:55
stop torturing hamsters in our metaphors long enough to talk about some other games um this first one uh I I think
48:01
it's kind of amazing that a game won a Peabody award uh so let's talk about
48:07
that liz Liz H sorry
48:12
i uh so uh 1000X Resist which uh is a
48:18
game I have never played because it is PC only has just run the 2025 Peabody Award which honors media that is
48:25
especially powerful enlightening or impactful so I we're all gamers here i
48:31
think I think that's fair to say we're all gamers we have played games and we know the power a story in a video game
48:38
can have particularly because you are in the middle of it you are there you are
48:44
making choices you are participating in the story being told and that can be a
48:49
very impactful thing i have seen some video game stories that have made me cry
48:55
and laugh and every emotion so but it's not it's not always
49:02
recognized by the mainstream media as as as powerful a storytelling media as it
49:08
can be so it's really interesting to see this game recognized for that to see any
49:14
game recognized for that yeah and to give you guys an idea this um I I worked
49:19
as a uh a teaching assistant when I was in graduate school and the one of the
49:25
teachers that I was assigned to be an assistant for basically never came to work and never did anything uh he showed
49:31
up like once every so often just to be there so people could see him and go he's the person that this class is is
49:37
actually for even though this guy and point to Schlumpy me uh is the one who's
49:42
actually teaching it and he had a Peabody award and that's why he was
49:47
capable of writing his own ticket he could do anything he wanted at that school the Peabody is a big deal it's
49:54
it's up there with the Pulitzer in terms of awards that if you have it it's basically your
49:59
career like you're done you don't have to worry anymore so seeing this go to a to a video game is it's a little
50:05
shocking the Peody is conservative not conservative like in the kind of a political way it's conservative in terms
50:12
of who it gives rewards to and that so this is actually really amazing i'm I'm
50:18
tempted to play this game just to see how it managed to get a Peabody like that's that's not that's not very common
50:28
so yeah this is a huge deal go ahead may May I add um I don't think I could do
50:33
the words justice because I h or do it justice because I haven't played it yet
50:38
myself as well but um there's actually a a wonderful quote
50:45
uh from when IGN first reviewed it which is 1000x Resist is a revolution in
50:52
storytelling creating its own complex and rich fiction that's beautifully
50:57
written and spectacular ularly visualized by expertly weaving genuine
51:04
intimate moments with a sharp political entity it makes its statements with a
51:10
confidence that leaves an everlasting impact like
51:17
like I don't I don't you know as you said we're all gamers
51:22
and you know game company folks reviewing games we're we're not always
51:29
the most positive of people we may have played a few things
51:34
in our time so for IGN to write something that
51:41
glowing specifically about a game's
51:46
storytelling is honestly it's kind of
51:56
impressive i should add that uh the Peabody does have an immersive and
52:01
interactive category now which does include other games so uh one of the
52:07
other noms was Zinba which is a cooking game that's about growing up and it's
52:13
again it's a narrative game it's an indie game
52:19
so this feels like it's starting to become recognized in the larger media that yeah video games have stories video
52:26
games have good stories that are worth experiencing another thing about this is you can buy it right now for $15 on
52:34
Steam so I think this is an interesting point uh this because game prices have
52:41
been going up and we've talked about this before microsoft is talking about increasing its game prices to
52:48
$80 but it games haven't kept up with inflation just in general i mean games
52:54
have been running in the $50 price range for a long time and then they kind of inched up to 60 uh and now with uh
53:02
Nintendo going to higher prices with its Switch release and now Microsoft is
53:07
following suit so we're seeing from the main from the big game companies higher prices but we're also seeing these indie
53:14
games with fantastic amazing original creative stories and novel types of
53:20
gameplay that while we see big game companies mostly playing it safe with
53:26
things they know will be successful so I think that makes it you know it
53:32
feels like those big games are becoming a more difficult sell their price points are going up their creativity is not
53:39
going up to match uh and we just have so many choices we have so many choices
53:45
from so many developers right now and yeah 10,000X Resist 15 bucks on Steam
53:54
uh we should also mention that we have the other game we we have mentioned here is the Wildgate which is a game from
54:01
Moonshot Games which is uh I guess a a house inside Dream Haven which is Mike
54:07
Moheim's uh new thing if you don't remember Mike Moheim he was the president of Blizzard for years uh he
54:13
res he I want to say retired retired feels better than resigned because I don't think he just resigned i think he retired um few years back when the uh
54:22
Activision was getting more and more involved in Blizzard's day-to-day operations uh and as a result his new
54:29
company is now putting out I think they have two games because they have Sunder uh Thunderfolk recently came out that's
54:38
actually a fun game too uh by the way and uh Moonshot Games is putting out Wildgate which is currently in testing i
54:45
mean we have a post on the site about how to sign up for the play the next play test which is May 9th I think yeah
54:50
it says May 9th to May 12th so 3 days of of getting to play it starting I want to
54:56
say at the end of this week since as far as I remember today is the 6th 7 8 yeah
55:01
okay yeah so this week yeah uh Friday I think yeah say the sixth yes friday i
55:09
did do more math ah anyway um so if you want to get involved in this play test
55:14
we we talked about this game previously it's it's kind of like a lot of different things uh Joe described it as
55:20
kind of being like a How did you describe it Joe i'm trying to remember exactly how you described it
55:26
i think it's Wildstar meets Extraction Shooter yeah so it's it's kind of like
55:31
that or I think someone else described it as as Rocket League with guns uh so I
55:38
don't I don't know how I don't know that I would I don't know that I would compare it to Rocket League
55:43
well regardless it is currently going to be a play test on um Steam PlayStation 5
55:49
and Xbox Series XS so you can test it in those three platforms um it's a 9.5 GB
55:57
preview so that's worth keeping in mind when you download this you're downloading 9 gigs uh which isn't too
56:03
bad quite frankly i've I've downloaded bigger things but yeah uh that's available and you can you can sign up
56:09
right now i I Go ahead Liz uh I actually had a question for you Joe
56:15
i remember you being excited about the first beta did you sign up did you get a chance to play i signed up i got in and
56:22
immediately immediately when I uh got done installing it work exploded
56:28
h that's the worst i haven't been able to play it unfortunately so I do have good news for you which is
56:36
if you were previously in a test you were still in this test you will have an automatic invite to the new test so and
56:43
if you have previously signed up to beta to beta test it you do not have to sign up again you're still in the list and
56:49
you'll get invited as they keep expanding it it does seem like they're running regular beta tests so think
56:56
everyone has good odds just uh they're maybe kind of slowly expanding the beta
57:01
pool which is that's smart and testing server load and things like that yeah and I mean honestly that's in in the
57:09
best way that's what you'd want it to do right like you'd want to slowly ramp up and make sure that you're uh getting
57:17
things situated it's not just about the gameplay it's also about um making sure that your load is good
57:24
that the that you know you're not going to run into some weird edge cases or like you can't plan for everything but
57:30
you try to plan for as much as you can all righty then um at this point I
57:37
should turn to Liz and say uh Liz could you do some site news for us please
57:42
absolutely i would like to start by thanking two new supporters on our Patreon quazar who joined us at $3 $3 if
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any of you have $3 to spare to give us per month gives you early access to all
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of our podcasts you can listen to them early and add free so if you enjoy our
58:03
podcasts $3 a month on Patreon is a great way to get more out of them and
58:09
Darren who subscribed at $10 a month for being a Blizzard Watch super fan and supporting us and making sure that we
58:16
can continue to do podcasts and blog posts and I can keep making weird podcast clips on social media i I don't
58:23
know if that's what they intended to be supporting but it helps the site we are on Patreon at
58:31
patreon.com/bizzardwatch and that's that's what keeps all of this going it lets us do all of this that I hope you
58:37
are enjoying because you are listening to us so if you have a few dollars to support us on Patreon that is what keeps
58:43
us going we are we've been lingering a little below what we'd like to be on Patreon we like to be at $4,000 last I
58:50
checked I think we're at $3700 so if you can give us a little bit
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and help us get up to that level we uh that helps us keep on going and I
59:02
understand if you can't if you can't totally fine we appreciate moral support i mean we're all writers here i think we
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and blizzard watch podcasts on YouTube you can follow us any on any of those places for the latest news for Anna and
1:00:04
I being increasingly unhinged and uh for colorful clips from our podcast that I I
1:00:11
I I don't know I don't know I don't know what to tell you there they're wonderful and delightful and you should check them
1:00:17
out that's that's the goal i don't know if I
1:00:22
always hit it because I I find things that I think are hilarious whether they're actually
1:00:28
hilarious that's you know we're doing our best here nothing will surpass uh Joe's void senpai notice
1:00:36
me and we also have a podcast survey going
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helps us out so much thank you very much for being here thank you to everyone who
1:01:14
supported us and of course Quaazar and Darren who just joined us in the past week thank you very much
1:01:22
well all right i think we're basically at time Joe is usually the one who knows best so I'll ask Joe we are definitely
1:01:27
at time and Liz already did the thing so I guess we're just going to get going
1:01:32
everybody thank you very much for being here with us this has been the Blizzard Watch podcast we'll be back next week
1:01:43
[Music]
#Gaming Reference & Reviews