Up next in 10
This week our hosts Liz and Joe were joined by Cory as the Midnight beta officially launched, with access for people who have preordered the Midnight epic edition. It was a little bumpy, per usual, but we made it. We would be testing, but transmog is unavailable until next week, so it's literally unplayable. BlizzCon was announced and early bird tickets were already sold out, but you can buy full price tickets next week. (They did not actually talk about Battlestar Galactica. I was memeing).
We have a round of bad news from the other games, because NetEase pulled funding from a lot of indie studios. But it's not all bad, because Steam has an event highlighting games that feature animals, so our unplayed list just keeps getting longer.
Plus, Hearthsteel. We're trying to speak positively about this new paid currently specifically earmarked for decor, which you apparently have to buy multiples of like every other decor. So. yep. Positive.
Subscribe to Blizzard Watch in your podcast player of choice:
RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/656a381dff3911001256c7bf
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blizzard-watch/id964696892
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2mRiUSalfnFAUfKO2yh4RG
Visit us at https://blizzardwatch.com for the latest news on Blizzard games, and don't forget to subscribe on Patreon to support our efforts! https://www.patreon.com/blizzardwatch
Discord: https://discord.gg/MY9p4d7t8U
Bluesky: @blizzardwatch.com
X: @BlizzardWatch
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
[Music]
0:11
Hello friends and welcome to the Blizzard Watch podcast. I am one of your hosts, Joe Perez. Uh, and joining me as
0:18
always is my stalwart companion, Liz Harper. How you doing today, Liz? Hello.
0:24
Hanging in here. And joining us, we unfortunately have lost Matt this episode. Uh we don't know
0:30
where he is. He may be lost in time or space. He may have been consumed by the dark heart by Zalat. We we'll get him
0:35
back eventually, I'm sure. Uh but taking his place this week is uh you a recurring guest uh the the weird uncle
0:42
that shows up at our sitcom uh every like 10 episodes or so. Corey, how you doing, Corey? I I'm doing great. I love walking into
0:49
the big and applause and it's such a fun moment, you know. It is. It really is.
0:56
I I it was going with that. Hey, soundboard and everything.
1:02
It was that or to go with there must always be a Canadian. Yeah, like the Lich King. But yeah,
1:07
I'm I'm I I only count as a diet Canadian. I mean, I'm really close. Like I can literally walk out my porch and
1:13
see Canada from my porch. So, I think that that counts for like.5 maybe. Uh but having a real one here definitely
1:19
definitely a necessity. Uh but we're not here to talk about that. No, friends. We are here to talk
1:24
about what's going on in our beloved games. And boy, we are going to start with some World of Warcraft news cuz
1:31
well, as of the time of this recording on November 11th, the midnight beta has
1:36
begun. Uh it's a little rocky as I think everybody expected. Uh the servers are
1:43
getting hammered pretty hard. Uh but folks are with some patience able to get in and uh start their journeys. Uh it
1:51
looks like most of the content is available, but not everything is available. Uh but we're going to talk
1:57
about that in a minute. Uh I do want to take a second here though to talk about uh if you didn't know, we just did a uh
2:04
giveaway for Midnight as a matter of fact. And uh we have several winners. Uh
2:10
I don't know if Liz wants to mention anything else of that. Uh yeah, I want to give a big congratulations to Dark Twins and to
2:18
Marie. Marie is a longtime friend of the site who won copies of the midnight epic edition from us graciously provided by
2:25
Blizzard Entertainment and uh we ran these contests on Blue Sky and Maston.
2:31
We are going to have another epic edition giveaway sometime before patch uh 11.2.7
2:39
goes live with player housing early access. And this of course will get you that player housing early access. So, if
2:47
you want to stay in the loop, please do follow us on Blue Sky or Mastadon or
2:52
both. That's also cool. On Blue Sky, we are Blizzardwatch.com.
2:58
And on Masttodon, we are Blizzard atgamepad.comclub. So, uh, give us a follow and, uh,
3:05
congratulations to Darkwins and Marie. And, uh, I hope we can get another great
3:10
winner for our next contest. So, thanks everyone who entered. Awesome. Awesome. That's all I got.
3:16
Again, again, congratulations to those winners and uh again, if you want to participate in future giveaways and
3:22
events, be sure to follow us on our socials or, you know, listen here. It helps. We'll let you know when it's
3:28
going to come. U so yeah, let's let's talk more about the the beta here and what is and isn't available. I will say
3:35
that I haven't gotten to do anything besides look at it um because of character creation woes. Uh, but there
3:42
is a new login screen and it is super rad. I actually really like it. I don't know if you got a chance to to like
3:48
scope that. Well, Liz, you've been involved for a little while. Uh, yes. Well, the but the it has not
3:53
had a login screen. The login screen is new as of the launch into the beta and it's kind of it's kind of mesmerizing.
4:01
Like, you know, sometimes you might leave your computer sitting on the login screen and you've got the kind of intro music, bold and bold and adventurous
4:10
going in the background while you're waiting to log in or you're waiting in the login queue. Right now, there is no
4:16
music on the login queue. It's just uh on the login screen. It's just a kind of
4:21
an ominous hum and uh a twisting portal directly
4:28
into the void in which shards of things are being drawn while you sit there and
4:35
stare into the darkness getting drawn closer and closer.
4:40
Yeah, I will say that it is it it looks like it's the dark heart, right? Yeah, it does. Yeah. So I'm I'm in my
4:47
head we are we are getting the view that Khadgar got when he was being sucked into the dark heart uh as it slowly
4:54
consumes us as we wait for the the ability to make our character. So do we know terrifying and beautiful it is
4:59
all at the same time. Do we know what features are missing? Uh and like we know it's not feature
5:05
complete. It's still the beta. It's it's the first beta after the alpha. Uh we know that uh uh transmog updates and
5:12
host styles are missing. Are those the transmog will be down for the first week, they say?
5:18
Well, okay. So, the alpha never had the new transmog features. It just same old
5:23
transmog system. So, we have not seen the new transmog system at all. And right now, there is no transmog in the
5:31
beta. Not just there's no new transmog system. There is no transmog at all.
5:37
So, basically beyond the login screen, the game is completely unplayable. I don't know how I can be expected to work in these conditions.
5:44
Um, but yes, I would think the biggest ones missing our transmogs and new housing styles. We have only seen the
5:50
default like orcy houses and default human houses in the alpha so far. That's
5:57
the same thing on the PTR, same thing in the beta and uh we are going to get new housing in future weeks. Other than
6:03
that, kind of late game content, the endgame stuff, raid testing isn't going on yet. You can't play higher tier
6:09
delves yet. The season one dungeon rotation isn't in yet. So, it's mostly
6:14
that kind of high-end content. Not there, but you can get uh you can roll a herinar. You can play through any of the
6:21
game zones. You can do dungeons and delves up to a certain tier. I'm not sure where the cutoff is, but I know you
6:27
can't do like the max level ones. Um, so there's a there's most of the expansions
6:34
content is there, the leveling content, all of that is there. Yeah. And I mean that's really where the
6:39
focus I think is going to be for right now because the leveling is the first thing all players are going to get to able to participate participate in once
6:45
the the beta releases. So making sure that that's as smooth as possible is really a priority and I think that's
6:53
probably a great place to start. Now don't get me wrong, I want that transmog and I'm going to be playing with the housing stuff cuz there's a 0% chance
7:00
I'm not pre-planning my home. Um but yeah, like I can understand why
7:05
maybe those aren't the priority. Um, so I'm assuming that I know I'm in. Liz,
7:11
you're in. Corey, are you in as well? I've logged in enough that I could make a brand new goblin, but I haven't even
7:17
hit play yet. Yeah, I don't think I don't think any of us have I Yeah, I I haven't even created a character yet
7:24
because character creation is very buggy at this moment. But I mean, what are you looking forward
7:30
to, I guess? So, let's let's start with that because I think since we can't get in, what are you looking forward to testing or getting your hands on now?
7:38
I think the housing that's that's the housing is going to be it like really getting a chance to see like what you
7:44
can do in an hour versus what you can do in three hours. Yeah. You know versus like whittling away on the problem and like
7:51
get really digging into it. I could see that Liz. So, I have been in the alpha for a while and
7:59
quite frankly, I am I am not your typical alpha tester because I have
8:04
almost exclusively been playing housing and um I'm pretty sure that is the typical
8:10
tester right now. I've I you know, I've been in housing and I've been uh reporting bug reporting
8:16
every dog and cat I cannot pet. So, I'm I'm doing serious work here in the
8:23
testing, but one thing I haven't done, I've barely touched the new zones. I mean, I've been I've spent a lot of time
8:29
exploring old zones, looking for new content because housing has decor
8:35
everywhere. It's astonishing how many how far this spreads. And but I really have not
8:43
touched new content very much. Like, I've done a tiny bit of New Zones, but not very much. Uh, I visited the
8:50
Argentina, which is a fun little hangout, but uh, well, what you know, real quick, why
8:56
don't we I don't we haven't really talked about the Argentina much. What is that? Okay, so there is a quest chain with
9:03
Erator that you do. I've not actually done the quest chain because uh, but they gave you the the ability to just
9:10
unlock the Arcantina and go there. Uh, so it's it's really basically just a little quest hub, but it's a quest hub
9:17
wrapped up in a little I just it's a it's a tavern. Um, do you remember that
9:23
um there was very recently a comic
9:28
posted online that was like Christmas with Ayria and Khadgar and everyone
9:34
getting together at a tavern? Uh, yeah, I do actually. I can't. Yeah. um that was in the what
9:41
is now the Argentina, you know, so you will find all sorts of people and
9:47
characters there and most of them have chores for you. I mean, but it's like
9:52
it's characters from all over the map. Like uh there was Ted, remember the
9:59
warlock that you met in Legion? Ted who hung out with Marriott?
10:04
Exactly. Exactly. He was hanging out in the Arc Cantina. Of course, he had a
10:10
quest for you. Uh, and they're sending you all over. Uh, Gammon was there. And
10:15
you find all sorts of weird characters interacting with each other and having these little conversations or you
10:22
yourself can hang out and chill with other players because one of the things they sell the bar is a potion that will
10:27
let you understand the other faction. So, you could potentially just sit there and hang out. no reason you couldn't,
10:34
but it it's basically just a quest hub. And it's my understanding that um Well, hold on a second.
10:40
Will rotate real quick because I don't think that can be understated. A potion that they sell that you can
10:46
understand the other players. So, the opposite faction. Yes, that is amazing.
10:52
I'm sorry. It can be a hangout like a hangout that we've never had in World of Warcraft
10:58
where you can literally just hang out. That's kind of awesome. Uh, so yes, it's
11:03
it's a very cool. In the time I was testing in there, in the time it was
11:08
available, I didn't see the NPCs rotate around, but it's like it's kind of a a hit list of old favorites and old
11:15
characters asking you to do things cuz if they're there, they're going to ask you to do something. And of course, the
11:21
bartender is Bob because Bob is the best bartender. Uh, of course, Joe, you don't
11:28
play Hearthstone. N Corey, I don't think you play Hearstone. I am the only one who knows what I am
11:34
talking about. Bob's great. We love him. I know who Bob is. Uh but yes, he is the he is the actual
11:40
bartender. I He was in Doran, wasn't he? Maybe. I feel like he was I don't think this is
11:47
the first time that he's been added to the in Warcraft, but now he's in the Arcantina tending bar. When I was there,
11:53
there was also a void walker tending bar who had a uh comment about how he
12:00
wasn't allowed to devour your soul. So, he he's going to serve drinks now. So,
12:06
it's a hard life. Uh also, by the way, he is in Dornagal. Uh he's in the kindling parlor, by the
12:12
way. Okay. I thought I'd seen him somewhere, but yes. And he was also Argentina.
12:17
And he was also at the uh Caverns of Time when they did the bronze celebration. So, he's Oh, yes, he was.
12:23
Canonically, he exists inside of World of Warcraft and not just Hearthstone. Uh, it's it's crazy. We get these crazy
12:29
crossovers every now and then. Bob's just great. Bob's always in the game, reassuring you that he he supports you
12:37
and he thinks you're going to be a winner, and you can get over this last match that you lost terribly.
12:43
Keep going. Keep trying, everybody. and one more reset surely and you'll get the
12:48
the exact thing you need to make your gold. So, speaking of speaking of gold, uh I
12:54
want to kind of talk about something uh that I see a note here for that I have so many questions about. Um
13:02
yeah, so Blizzard is adding a new currency to the Battleet shop uh called
13:08
Hearthsteel, which is used to pay for housing cosmetics. Uh, yeah, it's uh
13:13
I have opinions about that, but before I give them, I want to hear what you guys think. It's a premium cash currency that will
13:20
be exclusively used for housing items. And, you know, they published a whole
13:26
blog post with justifications of why we're doing this, and none of them made
13:32
a lot of sense to me. Like, what can you do with harsh steel that you couldn't do with battle net balance? If you're
13:38
talking about the need to have some kind of digital currency so you aren't making a credit card transaction for a 25 cent
13:45
chair or something, why couldn't you do that with battlelet balance? The difference between battlelet balance and
13:51
harsh steel is that harsh steel obuscates the true cost of something. It
13:56
turns your money into a random number and that is typically I would say that
14:02
is typically used in video games in order to extract more money from consumers because you do not know what
14:07
you're paying for things. And in general, I think premium currencies are a scam designed to extract you extract
14:16
money from you at a more auspicious rate for the shareholders. Yeah, let's uh I'm going to comment on
14:23
that, but I'm going to let Corey talk first. Well, I mean, who doesn't love getting 35% more because you've bought a
14:28
thousand hearts steel all at once? Yeah. Yeah. That's that we've seen it in every
14:34
kind of mobile game that is is offering these kinds of transactions where that you'll there'll be a big fanciful pile
14:40
of the fake coin or the gem or whatever spilling out of a treasure chest and it's like, "Ooh, that looks like a good
14:46
amount of stuff." And even if you do get it, eventually you'll find out that well, it doesn't actually stretch as far
14:52
as you thought it would. And you feel almost like you've wasted your money because you kind of have. Yeah.
14:57
And it's just disappointing because it's a trap. It's a trap.
15:03
There's there's so much uh we're paying a subscription, we're paying for the expansion. Do we need another
15:09
microtransaction opportunity in Warcraft? I mean, obviously the bean counters say yes, but here
15:14
I'd say maybe no. Here here's the thing, right? Like it it's the fact that it's an additional currency that is the problem. Like I I
15:22
don't mind on paper paying for cosmetics
15:27
with real money, right? My problem is with currency like this, the trap, if
15:34
for those of you that have never dealt with a game that did this, the trap is you spend $20, you get 1350 mcguffin
15:44
points, and then you go and buy something and you go and buy something for 1,200 mcguffin points, leaving you
15:50
with a balance of 150 mcguffin points left over. Not enough to do anything with, but not
15:56
enough to ignore either. So then the next time you do it, you maybe buy $30
16:02
so that you get 2,500 mcguffin points, but then you go and buy, you know, a
16:08
couple things at 1,200 points. And again, you're always left with the balance. And that is that's part of the
16:15
trap is because mentally people will think, well, I'm only a few points away, so I might as well just re-up. League of
16:21
Legends did that for a very very long time. They still do, and it is almost impossible. I'm not going to say it is
16:28
impossible cuz I don't know cuz I don't think they've released any of the the uh values or what they're going to be yet
16:35
to get your balance to zero. Yeah, I do want to cut in that Blizzard has said that the ratio of hard steel to
16:42
real money is fixed. It's not going to be which says to me that it will not be
16:47
like, oh, if I spend $100, I'll get 25% more. It's going to be a fixed ratio
16:54
money to steal. And they also said you should be able to buy Hearsteel in an
16:59
amount in the amounts you want that lets you purchase the items you want without requiring you to think about which packs
17:07
to add and you know what should I buy to minimize leftover cash. They say uh it's
17:13
a fixed ratio to cash which does make it easier to understand how much you're spending is still it obiscates cost and
17:21
that they're going to sell it in amounts that make sense with what's in the store. So you the goal is to not trap
17:28
you and have money left over. And Hearthstone has actually moved to a very similar system uh several years ago. I
17:36
mostly find it annoying. It's an extra step, but they did do it to where it's a
17:41
one:1 ratio with Hearthston, uh, run stones, I believe they call them. It's a
17:47
it's a fixed ratio from cash to run stones. And, uh, you can buy
17:53
runeststones in amounts that match the amounts you would need to buy things in
17:59
the shop. It just it it feels like it's an extra step. And I can understand it a
18:04
little better in Hearthstone because it was already like that to begin with.
18:09
Well, it wasn't like that to begin with. They added that at a later date. You originally used to be able to buy things
18:15
straight with cash and they put that layer in between. And I
18:21
I'm wondering if there's a leg a legal thing with it then too for other countries or something like that. They talk about it being an easier way
18:28
to buy things like that. No, it's not. I mean I don't maybe
18:35
I can go ahead. Sorry. So what I can see is okay if you're buying like a dollar thing in the
18:40
Hearthstone store which one pack does cost a dollar if you are just buying one
18:46
pack of cards then you're making that purchase you're triggering a credit card
18:51
transaction fee. Whereas if instead of doing that, you know, a hundred times,
18:56
if you want to buy a hundred small things, you can just buy an amount of currency at one time and spread that
19:03
currency around however you want. So I can see that as a justification for putting this sort of middleman currency
19:10
in, but I also it just even when it's done to where it's not being exploitive,
19:19
it still feels it's it's it's just adding an extra step for consumers and
19:24
it's it's just frustrating and once I buy Hear Stool, I can't do anything else with this.
19:30
It it is and I can understand some of that. I will say that the transaction cost is probably not a factor. And the
19:37
reason I'm going to say that is because Blizzard is a large enough entity that they probably already have an absolutely
19:44
slamming rate with whatever their bank of choice is. Um, businesses, the more
19:51
you do with providers or or in this case banks when it comes to charging, the
19:58
lower they pull your rate. And Blizzard has been doing this for a long time. Activision has as well. I can't imagine
20:05
and now Microsoft. I cannot imagine that. I'm I'm assuming it's Bank of
20:10
America. Um, please don't come for me, Secret Police. Um, but I'm I am
20:16
relatively confident it's Bank of America and I I think it's a fraction of a percent like a fraction of a fraction
20:22
of a percent per transaction. Uh I also know that most large-scale organizations like this do what they call batch
20:28
transactions uh where you're you will see the charge
20:35
immediately. However, uh they will only be charged when they hit a batch number
20:41
of transactions for whatever the So like I I don't necessarily believe that. more
20:47
inclined to believe that there might be some some legal endaround because I know some countries are really cracking down
20:56
on games that take real money and I'm wondering if there's a reaction in there to this because some of the markets
21:02
they're in cuz they're back in China, right? Yeah, China has some really weird rules about
21:08
spending your money inside of another application. So, like if you're in an app and you are
21:14
spending real money and it's not a storefront, I I know that there's some
21:19
weird transactional rules around there. So, I'm almost curious if that may have been deciding factor. Regardless, if
21:25
they hold to their word and uh they you can it it's one to one that's fine. My
21:32
other problem is I'm wondering what they're going to hide behind the payw wall. Yeah. So, one thing
21:37
example I saw was like a ver a nice ardan wheeled kind of flower that was in your house, but I don't know if that was
21:43
just someone's suggestion or if it was footage from the alpha kind of thing. Well, Liz Liz probably has more.
21:49
I Well, I mean, there's not in the in the alpha there was not any
21:55
this was not in the alpha. You didn't see things that were going to be hard steel sold, but Blizzard has said that
22:03
it's a tiny fraction of items. the vast majority of housing items will still be earnable in game. Um, and I believe it
22:12
was Wowhead, someone published that it's like 1% of available housing items that
22:18
are marked as using this currency. Um, and Blizzard also specifically said housing items tied to core fantasies of
22:26
a player's race or class or that already exist in Azeroth will not be sold in the
22:32
shop. thematically important decor that players know and love will also not appear in the shop. So,
22:39
it does sound like you're going to get cool extras, but you aren't going to get core class fantasy stuff and it will
22:46
remain a small percentage of the housing items that are available. Yeah, if it stays like optional things,
22:53
I think that's fine. Um I Yeah, it it's just, you know, every time that you see the cool new mount pop
22:59
up in the mount store and you're like, "Oh, that would be really fun to have." and it's a unique framework and skeleton
23:05
and you know that you're not going to get it any other way than by giving them a 20 bucks. It does feel kind of bad too.
23:10
You mean like the uh Caravan Brutusaur that is rumored to be coming back?
23:16
Oh, yeah. Yeah. The the I mean, well, you could get the original for 5 million gold. That means it was an earnable
23:22
in-game. I don't think we should be spending $90 on a mount, but here we are. Yes, but some of us will spend $90 on
23:29
amount. And moving on from that, I think that
23:34
it's probably never going to be considered a failure because even if players have the like we're going to
23:40
boycott this feature and never I'm never going to buy Hearthsteel, I'm sure that Blizzard will hand out Hearthsteel every
23:45
once in a while to people who buy expansions or that kind of thing. Yeah. So, I can't imagine this ever be seen as
23:52
a failure on Blizzard's part. No. And I think it it'll probably largely be fine. And like I say this as
23:58
somebody who plays like I play Guild Wars I almost not everything but a lot
24:03
of of the the premium stuff is all behind a uh the the the Black Lion Trading Company uh which is requires
24:10
gems to purchase which you have to purchase. Um, so like it's nothing new. Like games have been doing this for uh
24:16
but there is one go ahead. The big difference between Guild Wars and World of Warcraft is Guild Wars does
24:23
not have a subscription fee and World of Warcraft already does. And I think that is one of the things that makes a
24:29
premium currency in World of Warcraft feel bad. Yeah, we are already paying $15 a month to
24:36
play this game, which I feel like I do get a ton of value from my $15 a month, but why am I paying $15 a month? And
24:43
also, I have to buy currency to uh to get these premium items, and I that just
24:50
it don't feel great. It It may turn out okay, but it doesn't feel great.
24:56
Yeah. Uh but we're going to move on to some some potentially better news or at least good news for
25:01
for folks. Uh, Kyza, which is the delve boss, has been nerfed. Yay.
25:09
Uh, I have not done delves at all this season. So, Liz, I know at one point you
25:15
were doing delves. Did you even look at Kyvea? Uh, so I did look at KYA. I was like, "Oh, I get this quest and my quest log.
25:22
No big deal. I'll just do the lowest difficulty. I'll get this quest done."
25:28
No. No. No. you will not um
25:35
because all of Kyza's uh abilities are total oneshots. And there's one, if you
25:42
fought Kyza when she was a raid boss, you will remember there was a thing where there are phantoms that spawn and
25:49
uh in the delve, you have to turn and face the phantoms or else they will one-shot you. And it's like they would
25:55
spawn and exactly 2 seconds later they would murder you unless you were facing in their direction.
26:01
This is not hyperbole. The timer for the coolown was exactly 2 seconds. It's now three. It was exactly 2 seconds. It's three.
26:08
And that's that's still uh that's a still a tight timeline, but it's more doable. And it now Dark
26:16
Massacre, which is what we've been talking about. Now talk, you know, you can be a little off before if you were
26:23
even a little off, if you were not dead on focused on the right direction, dead.
26:28
And so it was just very frustrating. Uh, another problem I've had with this that um it's not addressed at all by these
26:36
hot fixes nerfing Kyza is that if you again if you played if you did Kyza when
26:43
she was raid boss there is this mechanic where she will spawn these um sort of
26:48
void pits that suck you in. and she'll spawn them on several players and you
26:54
have to arrange them uh so they're in kind of a circle around you or a triangle around you so you can stand in
27:00
the middle and kind of cross out all of those forces. And Bran Bran Bronzebeard
27:08
who I will run to a place on the other side of the room, Bran will follow me. I
27:14
will not be able to get away from Bran before it spawns. And then I have two things right on top of each other and
27:21
then I'm dead. Uh so uh I don't know if Bran's gotten any smarter. I kind of
27:27
doubt it. Here we are. But this will help. This will really make Kyza more
27:32
doable, but it's still it's a pretty tough encounter. Corey, have you been working on this? No, I
27:38
can't I haven't been playing Midnight or War Within, so I can't I can't speak to how
27:44
difficult it is, but I have heard that it is a lot more difficult than the last two question mark bosses.
27:50
It's because everything is one shot and it just has zero zero room for error.
27:56
And also, Bran can just straight up murder you if he places that like puddle thing in the wrong spot. Dead. And it's
28:04
like he's gonna when you respawn he's gonna chide you for dying. And it's like that was on you Bran. That was your
28:11
fault. Shut up and do better. But he never does. Yeah. Yeah. Uh so I think that does it for WoW
28:20
news. Is there anything else there that we need to to chat about or I think we covered everything. Yeah. Yeah.
28:25
So I think we can move on to the other thing that is Blizzard related which is Blizzcon.
28:31
Uh tickets tickets were announced as coming up for sale and are now well already for sale. Uh early bird tickets
28:38
sold out within a day as did the bonus add-ons for Charity Night and Dark Dark Moon After Dark, which were gone before
28:45
a minute at best. Wow, that's fast. Uh so what these are is instead of
28:52
having like a separate charity dinner ticket, there is now it's an add-on to your existing ticket. So you'd buy a
28:57
ticket and then add charity dinner. And the dark moon after dark is just giving you extended hours to hang out in the
29:04
dark moon fair and do all of your dark moon fair stuff. And I logged on to
29:11
check tickets and I was there like snap as soon as they opened. The second they opened, Dark Moon Fair was already sold
29:18
out. So, but the tickets themselves were available for most of the day. You
29:24
didn't have to log on like the exact second to get tickets like you know you used to really it used to be very hard
29:30
to get a Blizzcon ticket required coordination and some luck. Uh these
29:37
seem very doable but uh also Blizzard announced that these were going on sale
29:44
last Wednesday and the sale was on Friday. So they did not give people a
29:49
lot of lead time to play on. It's possible there will be more demand when the extended ticket sales go on are
29:57
available on November 18th. So, this was just early bird sales, which it's really
30:02
if you only have two or three days to plan, it's like, am I going to be able to make it out to California on these
30:09
dates uh in September 2026, am I going to be able to do that? I don't know. You only have a couple days to figure that
30:15
out before these early bird tickets are on sale. Uh, but yes, now it's just going to be standard passes, which will
30:21
be available on November 18th for $2.89.99, which is a little less than the last
30:29
time we had Blizzcon. It's $10 less, maybe 20. Um, but that's still
30:36
it's a pretty big chunk of change. Yeah. And I mean, and there's a note here that I didn't realize that this was
30:42
a thing that they're just doing on platform now. uh Tixer, which is the I guess the vendor that it's going
30:47
through, uh has a reseller portion of it. So, we're
30:53
going to possibly see some even more exorbitant pricing if you try to get a uh a secondary ticket. I remember when
31:00
scalping was real bad at the height of Blizzcon. Uh, and like getting through the queue was awful. And they had to
31:05
implement so many things to like back before like I remember
31:10
registering you had to have like a character and you had to have like proof of it and who you were and identity and
31:16
all this stuff and you were limited to how many tickets you could get per person. Uh, and then you had to wait in line to go pick up your stuff and they
31:22
before that it was a mad house. Um, but yeah, so there's going to be a lot of money probably coming out that way. And
31:29
you said the the next the next batch of of possible tickets are going to be coming up uh November 18th. Is that
31:35
correct? Correct. And those will be full price. Now I full price which is uh 2.89. The
31:41
early bird prices were a little less but not a ton less. It was 250. So that's
31:46
still it's a price ticket but not even sure that buys you a cheeseburger in Anaheim. That's true. That's true. But still
31:54
savings is savings. But yes, it is too late for those guys. Um, it is I think
32:00
it is possible you may see Blizzard uh forcing the resale market. In the
32:06
past, Blizzard has been like um yeah, Blizzard's been really strict about
32:11
resales and it's been really difficult to resell a ticket. Like if you decide, oh, I can't I can't actually go
32:17
something came up. It's been really difficult, almost impossible to resell your tickets in the past. And this it
32:25
sounds like it is going to on the plus side it sounds like it's going to be easier and you might see Blizzard exert
32:30
some influence and limit the price of ticket sales. It might it might not be a free-for-all. We do not know 100%. I
32:39
hope it won't because scalping tickets is just sad. It is.
32:45
If you were planning on going, it's sad. Well, I mean, considering the amount of stuff that I see people try to scalp,
32:50
it's not I mean, I'm just I'm numb to it at this point. So, I go the ticket's hot enough anymore to get
32:56
high profile scalpers, like high high scalpers. Like, I I know that it's a good ticket.
33:02
They'll try, but I just there was still tickets available day of last year or in
33:08
2023. Yeah. And I think I think that'll be the case here again, too, right? Like I think we're not we're not in danger of
33:13
like if you want to go, you're probably going to be Yeah. Maybe you don't get the fancy extras on the Darkman Fair and the
33:19
charity dinner and all that stuff, but you'll still be able to get on the con floor and have fun.
33:24
Yeah. Uh I will say one other thing that I this reminds me of too is like in in social commentary here cuz why not? Um
33:32
scalping has been a real problem just in general, even when something isn't necessarily like and I'm going to air
33:37
quote scalpable. Um, like I saw this with like Disney Lurana, which when it
33:44
first released was people were trying to buy it up in droves because you know it
33:49
was the new thing, but then Ravensburgger just printed it into oblivion, which they told everybody they
33:54
were going to do and like all the people that were trying to scalp it just lost all that money and it made me very very
34:00
happy. Um, I like it when when when stuff like that happen. Yeah. Random aside. Uh, I think we're gonna move on
34:06
to the the next thing, which is where I'm probably gonna poke Liz and see if she's got any opinions on this one because Oh, no.
34:12
I have not touched Diablo I in when did the expansion release since then.
34:18
So, a while. It's been a while. It's been a while. So, there's some there are some updates here. Would you like to would you like
34:23
to go through them real quick? Uh, yeah. So, there have been a bunch of developer interviews with Diablo in the
34:29
past week and they've been I find this really strange as a strategy because
34:35
they have done these interviews and they're going live on YouTube creators channels and Blizzard has not been
34:42
publicizing them even though in some cases they're giving away a lot of information. So, you do have to really
34:48
dig around to find to find out what's going on in this case. Um, and it's
34:55
really a a very peacemeal look at features that are probably coming up in
35:00
maybe the near future. So, one thing that they have talked
35:05
about is having a solo self-found mode, which we did get in Diablo II late in its life, which is basically no trading,
35:14
no buying. You what you have on you is what you have. What you collect is what
35:19
you collect, and you're playing by yourself start to finish. That's a little bit harder to do in Diablo I
35:26
because you do have these huge boss encounters that are not soloable. They
35:32
just aren't. So, I'm not sure how they're going to work that in, but it does sound like a solo self found mode
35:37
is coming at some point. Also coming, additional tournament difficulties. Who
35:43
could have seen this? Because Diablo III did have a ton of tournament difficulties. And one of my complaints
35:50
about Diablo IV from day one is there were not enough difficulties because you
35:56
get these big jumps between difficulty levels and you don't have an easy way to
36:02
kind of increase the difficulty. It's like Torment 3 may be too hard but
36:07
Torment 2 is too easy. And then once you get to the maximum difficulty level,
36:13
there's nowhere else to go and the game can get a little stale when you hit those uh thresholds. But of course,
36:21
Diablo for Diablo II, it it had a lot of tournament difficulties and you really
36:26
didn't there were a few you would play because those were kind of the points where the risk versus reward was best.
36:34
So, we will see how it goes with more difficulty. Uh, and there was a teaser
36:39
of a potential paladin or paladinlike class, which they did not confirm. They
36:46
explicitly did not confirm anything, but just kind of koi little hints that we
36:52
may be seeing a paladin. And I some very strong hints like developers staring
36:59
straight into the camera and saying, "You should watch the game awards." Uh
37:06
so I feel I feel it's very likely we will have an expansion announcement at the game awards even though that feels
37:12
pretty late for an expansion announcement. Uh that will be on December 10th.
37:17
Personally I'm looking forward to a Paladin. I uh when the last expansion
37:24
rolled out, Blizzard said, "We're rolling out an all new class to the franchise." And everyone was like, "Is
37:29
it a paladin?" And they were like, "No, it's an all new class to the fan to the franchise. Is it a crusader? No, it's an
37:35
all new class to the franchise. Is it a Templar? No, it's really a new class. So, I there
37:42
was hype for this from the last expansion and Blizzard. And I think uh I
37:49
think there was a little disappointment in the Spiritorn, which was uh really
37:54
marketed something as brand new and feels a lot like a monk. It feels a whole lot like the Diablo 3 monk, but
38:01
it's a monk and a witch doctor that had babies. Yeah, exactly. So, what about you two? Are you would
38:08
you jump back in to play if you had a paladin crusader templar style class to
38:13
play with? I mean, I loved playing the spirit born as a whole new class. So, yeah, I'm down
38:18
to what they can took on. Uh, I haven't played the last couple seasons because
38:24
it was just getting too sy and I agree. I mean, the next season sounds like it's going to make some big swings
38:30
and we'll I'll poke back in and see if it uh is feeling a lot better. I believe it could. You know, it's the
38:36
core gameplay of Diablo is great. So, yeah, I'm here for it. I Yeah, I mean, it does. It's Diablo can
38:42
swing really, really wildly. I think it has a problem where it uh it
38:48
overcorrects. It overcorrects. So, something's wrong, so it swings hard the other way and then, oh, now this is a
38:55
problem. So it swings hard back the other way and um you know they don't
39:01
have a franchise game director and it's kind of like okay does anyone does anyone know where we're headed here
39:07
because it's a little concerning but it does sound like we are coming in for an
39:12
announcement maybe a month away and I I'm pretty excited if we get a a paladin
39:18
style class. I love the paladin in Diablo II. I enjoyed the cr uh crusader
39:24
in Diablo III. And frankly, the original Diablo I story felt like it was really
39:30
primed to have some kind of Templar to carry on the story of the Zacharoom that
39:35
we saw in um Howazar. So, I think there are lots of cool story hooks you could
39:40
tie into a lot of Diablo Ilore, but also a lot of older lore. I think that could
39:45
be really, really cool. So, I hope I hope we're getting a Templar or something along those lines. Um, uh,
39:52
there's also been another thing that's kind of making controversy in the community right now is that there is a
39:59
survey going around that's linked from the game's login screen that uh, it
40:04
says, "Feedback survey. Let us know what you think and directly influence Diablo
40:10
I's development process." Now, Corey, if you saw this, what kind of survey would
40:16
you expect to take? Well, I don't know. I'd expect something like, "How do you enjoy playing these
40:21
classes?" And how what kind of activities do you like to do in game? And let's say things like that, you
40:27
know? Uh, yeah, that's kind of what I would expect when it talks about influencing the game's development. But actually,
40:35
it's a lot more like a marketing survey. It asks for demographic information and
40:41
how many people are in your household and how much money do you make because they're trying to uh target well they're
40:48
trying to learn about who is playing the game. And from that kind of demographic info information you could potentially
40:56
make some broad conclusions about what different groups of people enjoy and
41:01
what kind of gameplay you might focus on based on demographics. So that could it could be that this is
41:09
actually influencing Diablo's forest's development, but also also this is more
41:14
this seems a lot more like marketing information. It's it's how to sell your stuff better. It's how to advertise
41:21
better. Uh so the community does seem to be a little bit up in arms. Uh,
41:30
and uh, yes, I specifically there's a there's a headline going around about
41:35
how this invades privacy and harvests player data, which I think is is going a
41:41
little too far. That does seem a bit alarmist. It's a little It's a little alarming. If
41:46
you saw this headline, you'd be like, I Diablo is harvesting my data. It's It's
41:52
stealing my personal information, which the the survey is asking for different
41:58
information than you would expect it to be asking, but it is also I think it's
42:04
just mislabeled. It's not going to take any data from you that you don't give it. You know, you have to voluntarily
42:10
give it data. It's not sucking up data from your computer if you open it or anything like that. But at the same
42:17
time, you might not want to give Blizzard that kind of information, which is fair. I think Blizzard has it's been
42:24
handled badly. Yeah. They're they're also not the only It's been positioned badly. It has been. And they're also not the
42:29
only company asking for this data recently, and I find that really
42:35
worrisome. Like it's not so much the in like the
42:41
invasion of privacy and harvesting player data is a separate entity. Technically, they kind of already do
42:46
that, but that's not really it. If you're asking a survey that is asking
42:52
for like demographic information, income, stuff like that, that's when I
42:59
get a little worried because are they looking for I'm trying to think how to phrase this. Usually that means
43:05
something is potentially being talked about that will ruin the the whatever you're consuming because they're going
43:11
to try to maximize the profit on like uh Wizards just did this and a random aside
43:17
I know but they just released the uh Spider-Man universe's beyond set and it did not do well. it did not perform to
43:24
what they expected. And so they released a survey and in that survey it asked for stuff
43:30
like this. Uh and then it asked for why didn't you buy this product and if you didn't buy
43:35
this product why is it because of streamers and like trying to find justification for like why the product
43:41
didn't sell versus you know maybe it wasn't something people wanted. But here it's like why
43:46
are you are you trying to figure out why people aren't buying your silver currency? Like why are you asking for
43:52
this information? Like stop it. It really feels this would be a marketer
43:58
advertisers kind of treasure trove this tell you who should you know who should you be advertising to? How should you be
44:06
advertising these things to reach different demographics? That's that's frankly exactly what this feels like to
44:11
me is that this is going to help them market stuff, which is if you're a player and you want to influence Diablo
44:18
II force development, that's not what you want to do. Yeah. No. No. Although I will encourage
44:24
anybody who wants to take this and just pick the highest salary range. Even if you don't make that money, just just throw off that data. Go for it. Like
44:30
that's fine. As Yeah. As another random aside, it it's kind of a conspiracy, but the as we
44:37
all know probably in the gaming sphere that Grand Theft Auto just got delayed again.
44:42
Mhm. And the conspiracy that I had heard about it was that it had been delayed so that it was going far enough back that
44:49
the public opinion on how much a game should cost will have allowed for the $100 games without a lot of backlash.
44:56
So, anytime we see a a money focused marketing thing like that, that's my assumption, too, is that
45:01
they're just they're trying to see how much money they can get away with charging you for the game that you want
45:06
to play. I mean, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that the game in its current state is probably wildly broken and going in a million different
45:13
directions. I mean, I'm sure it has nothing to do with that whatsoever. Are we talking about Grand Theft Auto?
45:19
Are we talking about Diablo? Yes. Yes. And I I know that there's probably
45:24
been a lot of crunch and I I think I've seen some headlines about former staff members at Rockstar that have not been I
45:30
I don't know the full story. I haven't gone into this. So I'm sure that there are other factors there that lead to the delay. But the conspiracy theory of the
45:36
moment is that if they hold it long enough, people will be like, "Oh, you know what? 100 bucks for a game, that's not so bad." Well, you know that that's
45:42
based off of it's not necessarily I would say a conspiracy theory versus an
45:48
educated guess because there have been developers that have talked literally about doing that in interviews like you
45:54
know waiting for the price tag to be more palpable or palatable right like
45:59
it's it's a thing that is they've done it in the past um and and maybe this
46:06
makes me the odd man out and I understand games are just expensive I
46:11
don't mind paying a larger price for a game nowadays. I understand inflation
46:17
and cost and stuff like that. Um, it's the ridiculous stuff that they try to
46:23
give you to entice you for it as opposed to having just gently raised them all along that's the problem, right? Like if
46:30
I pay 70, $80, $90 for a game, chances are pretty good I'm going to get my money's worth just from time spent in
46:36
the game. Like Pokemon ZA is a really good example. It's a $70 game, brand
46:41
new, right? Like, but I have played probably a couple like two weeks worth
46:47
of time in that game. Like two weeks of days worth of time, so however many hours that is um playing the game, and I
46:55
feel like I got my money's worth out of it. It it it's the games that charge you like $100 that have no content to them
47:02
or are wildly broken um or release in an unplayable state. Those are the ones
47:08
that feel bad. I'd rather a game be delayed though so that it just releases in a proper state.
47:13
You mad Ben. Yeah, I'm a I'm I'm a rebel, Dy. Um,
47:20
but I think that's really it for Diablo IV news and I want to touch on some other stuff because there are some other things going on
47:26
that I think are kind of important to touch on. Uh, particularly NIS is doing some culling it looks like.
47:32
Um, we know about one of them. Uh, we've we've seen about it, but I didn't know about the other one.
47:37
Uh, which makes me sad. So fantastic. Go ahead. Yeah. The thing about I we have talked about Fantastic Pixel Castle before I
47:43
believe, but they are now officially shutting down on November 7. Yeah. Which they were with NEIS.
47:50
Netis pulled funding from their studio and they're basically no more. Uh the one that I didn't know about was
47:56
Jackalyptic Games, which was a studio founded by Jack Emirate, which was working on the Warhammer 40k MMO. Uh
48:04
lost its funding from NEIS as well and is also shutting. I at this point like I
48:11
understand that games are expensive and and getting games development is expensive
48:16
but like I if I was a developer and I was lining up people I would not be working with NIS like
48:23
well in in recent months NEI has really been pulling back on what it's spending
48:28
on development so that's why we're seeing these shutdowns I suspect we will we could still see more of them and of
48:34
course the problem is we're in a difficult time econ economically a difficult time for the gaming industry.
48:40
So, both of these uh studios have tried to secure new funding, but it is
48:46
expensive to develop a video game and you need some big support back there.
48:51
So, they've both tried to secure funding and it sounds like
48:57
they just One thing I do appreciate about both of these is that they're like, you know, we've got to support our
49:03
employees. We might be able to get this project funded at a later date, but we
49:09
aren't going to be here and just run every penny drive and leave our leave our developers, you know, in the dust.
49:16
They're going to uh one thing that Greg Street has specifically said is, you know, it
49:22
sounds like they're encouraging their developers, go and look for new jobs. If we get this project off the ground and
49:27
you want to work on it, that's a possibility in the future. But uh yeah,
49:33
it's a it's a tough economy for making video games right now. And I don't know if either of these are going to going to
49:39
turn into anything now. Well, not only that, but to make an MMO, which is the the biggest most expensive
49:46
video game you could possibly try and make. Yeah. I think there's also a level of it too where our current global political
49:52
climate doesn't help either because a lot of especially over the last like uh
49:58
20 years 10 years more more or less uh you've seen a lot more foreign
50:03
investment pick up game studios and and stuff here and with stuff happening in
50:10
the world I mean I can understand why they're severing some of those ties but
50:15
I will say that I've always appreciated uh Greg Street's game design chops and like his the way he thinks about games.
50:22
Um, and I would love to see another game with his touch on it. Um, and the people
50:28
around him working on it. Uh, if I have to wait a while for that, that's fine. But I hope that in the meantime, maybe
50:34
he gets a chance to do something, maybe a smaller project, maybe another passion project or something, maybe something
50:39
slightly less uh, ambitious than uh, Project Ghost. Do you think that he
50:44
would ever go back to Blizzard after, you know, it's been a it's been a while. He's got 10 years at Riot or 10 plus
50:51
years at Riot under his belt. I don't know. I WoW is a much different
50:57
game now if I'm going to make somebody angry when I say this. Um
51:03
to me in WoW, class balance has never been better than when Greg was on that.
51:08
I think that he listened to player feedback and understood how to filter uh
51:14
like understand the containerization of players like understanding this is what hardcore mythic raiders want. This is
51:21
what hardcore mythic key players want, this is what casual people want, this is what solo players want, and developing
51:26
classes to fit those niches in ways that made as many people happy as possible in
51:33
balancing the classes. cuz I will say that I think that at least from a healing standpoint when he was there,
51:39
healers were the most balanced they had ever been. Um, if he were to come back the next day or decide that he wanted to
51:46
come back or they made an offer to him, I would not be upset in the slightest.
51:51
Uh, if he were to be coming back and bringing some of his game design chops back to um, and if he doesn't also
51:57
understandable, we don't know, you know, the reasons why he left. He's never really talked about it. Just wanted to
52:02
go do other things. um he may just be past that point as well where it's like that chapter of his
52:08
life is fully closed. But I don't know somebody I would you know Greg if you're listening to this we have you on the
52:14
podcast love to talk with you see what your uh your POV is on that one. Yeah. Um,
52:19
MMOs are a dying industry. H I I do want to throw in maybe a little piece of good
52:26
news, which is okay, it's not going to sound like good news when I start here, is that another studio that NIS pulls
52:34
pulled funding from was Tminus Zero Entertainment, which had uh had some
52:40
Boware people, some Bethesda people, uh founded by Rich Vogle, I think was running the studio, who is uh Boware
52:48
Austin guy, and uh shut them down in September, but it seems like they have
52:54
been able to come up with some funding and have uh acqu
53:00
that the brand has been acquired by a small group of veteran game directors
53:05
and founders. So, um, and one of the things they've talked about is that they're, uh, re-imagined, refocused, and
53:13
ready to build the next great playerdriven experience, which sounds a little like, you know, your standard
53:20
marketing thing. But they're also talking about doing a development model and funding approach that's more
53:26
inspired by the independent field film world where they have focused projectbased
53:32
uh development and it's going to be very much based on partnerships. Who's going to so I don't know I don't know it looks
53:39
like they're approaching this thinking maybe small if that makes sense. If you're thinking about this like your
53:45
game is equivalent to an indie film, you know, you're making smaller games, that
53:52
doesn't mean they aren't fun and awesome. But speaking of, you know, maybe that's a better scale.
53:57
And they were working on some sort of science fiction multiplayer game that I don't think they ever announced. But uh
54:04
so at least at least one of these shutdown studios has had something of a
54:09
success story even if they are almost certainly scaling down what they were working on. Well, speaking of games that may be some
54:16
of them may be smaller in scale but uh big and hope uh we're going to slide over real quick to uh talking about the
54:23
Steam Animal Fest uh which so cute. It it literally it's exactly what it
54:29
says on the tin. games uh about cute animals or just animals in general doing
54:34
all sorts of weird shenanigans. Uh if you haven't played it, you get a chance to pick up certain games uh at quite a
54:41
reduced price. Like one of my favorite uh totally not Zelda games, Tunic, I think it's 50% off right now, which
54:48
highly recommended. Uh Little Kitty Big City, Goat Simulator 3 is out there. Uh
54:54
I mean, Goat Simulator is just iconic at this point. I mean, it's a variety. Like, you can buy Hello Kitty Island
55:01
Adventure or you can buy Goat Simulator, you know, there this is not all necessarily fluffy friendly animals.
55:08
Nope. Cuz some sometimes it's Goat Simulator and Yeah. U there's a ton there. Uh was
55:14
there any particular standouts for you that uh that you saw that you really liked? I've played Goat Simulator and that's
55:20
just it's so much wacky fun. It is. I would point out uh Sunderf Folk is one of the games D uh games available
55:27
on sale. It's 30 bucks, which is a pretty sizable discount, but it's also
55:32
it's not free, which is uh the game developed by Dream Haven and uh that's
55:38
Mike Moore Studio, which they have not been doing great either because I think they've produced a couple of great games
55:45
in uh Sunderfolk and Okay, what's the other one? I want to say Wildstar, but
55:51
that's definitely not it. Wildgate. Dumpgate. I think Wildgate. No, Wildgate. Okay, we got there
55:58
eventually. And I think they've been good. Sunderfolk has gotten good reviews, but I don't think they've been
56:04
as huge mainstream popularity as they needed to keep developing at this scale.
56:10
So, but you can pick that up. Sunderfolk for sale right now. Cory, anything particularly stand out
56:16
for you? Just goat simulator. like you don't have fun, be a goat, go headbutt some random
56:21
farmers and and make their day just a little bit worse by being just that orary goat. Uh me, I'm looking at Whiskerwood.
56:27
Personally, I like a good civ game and this is Civ with mice. Little tiny cute
56:34
mice who must uh you know, free themselves from the tyranny of cats. Uh but it it it looks
56:41
really clean. I it looks like it has everything you want from a a sim
56:46
simulation citybuilder base building type game. Has elements of strategy. Uh
56:51
so definitely something I'm going to check out, I think. Um or at least keep an eye on cuz I didn't know this existed
56:58
until this festival and I'm here for it. All right. Well, I think at this point we're going to turn it over to Liz for a
57:06
little site news. Uh, so I want to remind all of you that Blizzard Watch is
57:11
made possible by listeners like you, by readers like you. It is your support that really keeps us going. I want to
57:18
give a big shout out to Gabriel, who supported us this week at $5 a month. If
57:24
you are able to support us financially, you can go to patreon.com/blizzardwatch
57:30
and set up a monthly donation. And if you support us at $3 a month, that gets you early access to all of our podcasts,
57:38
ads free, plus the bonus Blizzard Watch podcast pre-show. Uh, this week we
57:43
talked a lot about trains. I It just happened. Trains, other stuff, but a surprising amount of train based
57:49
content. Very little planes and automobiles though. Boats though, too. Yeah, there boats. Yes, it was kind of a
57:57
transportation theme thing going on. If you support us at $ five dollar a month, you get all of that podcast stuff, but
58:02
you also get uh adsree access to the website itself at blizzardwatch.com
58:09
because yes, we have a website. If you listen to us here, you may also enjoy reading us. So, your support really
58:16
helps us out. Our support is a little low right now, which I can understand. It's it's tough times all over. Uh but
58:24
if so, if you can support us financially, thank you so much. Head to patreon.com/bizzardwatch.
58:31
If you cannot support us on financially, I understand that. You can also go to patreon.com/bizzardwatch
58:37
and join as a free member and you will get our weekly newsletter of the latest
58:43
news, which I I try to write on Fridays. Sometimes I write it on Fridays,
58:49
sometimes I write it on Monday morning. So, uh, but that totally free. You can get
58:56
that in your email box instead of having to remember to go to the site or follow on social media. But you can also follow
59:01
us on social media. That does help us out. Uh you can sub you can share things
59:08
with your friends and help other people find out about Blizzard. That does in fact really help us. We are Blizzard on
59:15
Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Mastadon at gamepad.comclub. We are blizzardwatch.com on blue sky and
59:23
blizzardwatchodcasts on YouTube and blizzard.watch
59:28
on Tik Tok. That's this list of networks has really become a mouthful. If you
59:34
subscribe to us on any of those places, like, subscribe, and share. That genuinely helps out. And also, if you're
59:42
looking to uh get a little further into Warcraft lore, you can go to blizzardwatch.com/warcraft-books.
59:50
And we have a list of every book, comic, everything you can purchase uh related
59:57
to Warcraft lore. All of the novels, all of the comics, all of the everything in chronological order. If you are
1:00:04
interested in buying any of that, we get a little uh a little kickback on all of those if you purchase them from our
1:00:10
page. So, if you're going to do that anyway, please visit our page and buy them from there. That that does really
1:00:18
help us. So, thank you all for being here and listening and reading. It
1:00:25
really helps out. Now, if you have questions for this or any of our other podcasts, please send them to podcast at
1:00:32
blizzardwatch.com. Specify the show, which is Blizzard, that's us talking about video games,
1:00:38
Tavern Watch, where we talk about tabletop games, or Lwatch, where we talk about the lore of your favorite games
1:00:45
and other nerdy things. Uh, and give us any pronunciation of your name and we
1:00:51
will answer your question as soon as we can. This is uh we did not get to
1:00:56
questions this week, but we have a few. And if you want to send us any more, great. We will put them. We
1:01:02
I was gonna say we got time. We're going to do this one, I think. Oh, are we? Okay. Okay. We'll get a
1:01:08
question in. So, you can also send us questions on Discord. And if you're a Patreon subscriber, you can do so
1:01:14
through the Patreon Q and podcast questions channel as our way of saying thank you. And I will also say thank you
1:01:21
again right here. Thanks for your support. Thanks for listening. Well, I think on that note, and thank you very much, Liz, we're going to get
1:01:27
to this question real quick because it is relevant, especially with the midnight beta just starting. Uh, this one comes from Dos, which every time I
1:01:34
see your name, I want to start singing a very particular song. Um,
1:01:40
stat squishes. Personally, I can't stand them as they break the whole power fantasy. I'm aware of the practical
1:01:45
reasons why we can't just keep getting infinitely more powerful. But while I'm aware that the practical impact of the
1:01:51
game is minimal, I've never enjoyed how it feels post squish, and there's always some wonkiness to be adjusted and
1:01:57
rebalanced after the fact. Here's why I bring it up. Midnight is coming with a stat squish, and it feels like a rough
1:02:05
time for it. If they knew we were going to need one before World Soul was over, maybe we should have one go had one
1:02:11
going into The War Within to not find ourselves suddenly weaker going into the second act of a trilogy. though if they
1:02:17
actually incorporated into part of the story of Zealot test from the Sunwald and Azeroth in general that could at least be an interesting way to frame it.
1:02:23
So what are your thoughts if any about stat squish in Midnight? And seeing as they're a necessary evil, how would you
1:02:28
handle stat squishing in general if you were in charge? A very good question and very topical. So thank you very much for
1:02:34
sending that in. Personally, and and I understand why people are very upset about stat squish. I don't necessarily
1:02:40
mind it. Um, that's also maybe because I look at the math of it a lot and as
1:02:46
somebody who does a lot of ma math calculations, like I I'm a spreadsheet
1:02:52
guy when it comes to like gearing and stat priority and everything else. Like I know there's there's guides out there
1:02:57
that do it for you. I always do it myself. It's just the way I've always been. Uh, so I appreciate personally
1:03:04
when a stat squish happens because it makes those numbers a little more easier to, you know, calculate. Um, but I
1:03:10
understand why like that that feeling of weakness that happens right after it. It always is a little bit weird, but it
1:03:16
usually is the weirdest part when you go to older content. Most of the time,
1:03:21
newer content, I think, is okay because they they're squishing with that in mind. Uh, it's when you find the random
1:03:28
old content that like wasn't tuned properly or adjusted that I think it that's when it feels the absolute worst.
1:03:35
Um, but you are right that it is it does seem like it may be a weird point to uh
1:03:40
put it in at the middle of a trilogy. But I think actually Midnight might be the right place for it. And the reason I
1:03:47
say that is because at the beginning of the War Within, so many new things were being added to the game that you could
1:03:55
spend time putting the stat squish in and then adjusting the game or you could
1:04:01
put delves in, right? you could you can you can focus on the newer content. You can focus on
1:04:07
uh making sure that the game has what it needs. And I'm not saying that the War Within was perfect,
1:04:12
but a lot of that stuff would have probably been on the back burner as they scrambled to balance the game to make it
1:04:17
playable. Uh now they know what the systems are. They know how Dells work. They know, you know, they've had time in
1:04:23
the sun with this stuff. And midnight is probably a safe place to actually do the squish because it still gives them time
1:04:29
to adjust and it probably will not break the game like it has in the What do you guys think?
1:04:34
The numbers get meaningless if you'd let them go on too long. I have a million
1:04:39
health. I have 10 million health. I do 20 million DPS. I might as well be doing 2,000 DPS. I I understand the whole
1:04:47
power fantasy of like number go up. We like number. But I I don't know.
1:04:53
as long as the things are dying, the health bar is going down, the I it feels fine to me. I don't mind seeing a squish
1:04:59
happen. The worst uh the best part of the stat squish though, I would say, is that when you get the one the situations
1:05:06
where all of a sudden something is a little broken in the background that uh maybe wasn't before and you can go back
1:05:12
and have fun with like breaking an achievement as long as the achievement is still getable.
1:05:18
Liz, I think I'm with both of you. I don't mind a stat squish. What I do mind is when you go back and you feel weak going
1:05:26
back in now, having played in the alpha, even though I have said I've mostly been doing housing, I have done some content
1:05:34
modern. What I like is that content has not felt bad to do. I don't feel weak.
1:05:40
Even though alongside the stats squish, they've really changed up talents for some classes. I mean, some classes more
1:05:45
than others, but everyone's getting some changes. So, I've gone back and done some old content, I have done some new
1:05:52
content, and none of them feel bad to do. And if that is the case, if I can go
1:05:57
back and do content without feeling weak, I'm okay with that. And again, it's everybody's going to
1:06:03
feel a little bit differently about it. And I don't know that there's I think they're handling it the best way they can. It's always going to be it's one of
1:06:10
those situations where it's a kobayashimaru. You You cannot win. You have to do it. you try to minimize
1:06:17
the impact. There really is no right time to do it because you also need players to actively be playing the game
1:06:23
to know what's broken. So, like you could do it in the lull between expansions, but then your player base is
1:06:28
is short. Um, you know, and then you do it now and it feels like it's a bad time
1:06:34
because it's the the opening chapter of the the middle middle expansion of a trilogy, but also that's when the most
1:06:40
players are probably going to play and you're probably going to get the most valuable feedback. So, I I I don't know
1:06:48
that there is a better way to do it, but if we can ever think of one, we'll be sure to let them know. But I think that's
1:06:53
I mean I I can think of like percent like all damages do percentbased damage now instead of that. But then you get a
1:06:59
whole different swack of problems cuz I remember that like why they got rid of percentbased trinkets.
1:07:05
Oh, why they got rid of percentbased stats a while ago? is the math on it and
1:07:10
and I mean we're not going to spend too long on it cuz I think we're we're we've talked a little bit about too much but
1:07:16
uh percentages used you had to figure out if they were multiplicative, if they were additive, how they what their
1:07:23
priority was, how that order changed the math. The math got really convoluted and the game as a result was really hard to
1:07:30
run. It's a lot easier now. So, but yeah. Uh about that folks, I think
1:07:38
that's going to do it for us. I do want to thank you for joining us on this journey. Uh and we will see you next
1:07:44
week. [Music]
#Sweepstakes & Promotional Giveaways