Up next in 10
Joe started off the podcast this week eating crow as he reflected on his prior assertion that BlizzCon would never happen again. But, Blizzard announced that BlizzCon returns September 12-13 2026. He's not mad at all, just surprised -- as all our hosts were.
After that, it's a little tough to focus on everything else that happened this week. The Race to World First is still on in Liberation of Undermine, Brann getting a nerf in Delves -- but, come on, BlizzCon! The chat about Diablo 4's announced difficulty boost to Torment brought us back into gory reality a bit.
Plus, we discuss the BAFTAs survey on the most influential game of all time, and what our picks might be.
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0:00
[Music]
0:09
hello and welcome to the Blizzard watch podcast this is Matt I am hosting I have uh Liz Pat Liz Harper and Joe Perez are
0:17
all here today we're want to talk about various games that come from blizzard and other things that blizzard is doing
0:23
uh I I think I speak for everybody when I don't think any of us were expecting the top story to be the top story today
0:30
well maybe we should uh we should do the whole introduction of who's here I think before we start getting into the top story because we do have a guest yeah
0:36
Liz I just mentioned her yeah we do but let her talk say hi hello I am also astounded by this top story and I'm
0:44
looking forward to a a loader retraction it's so rare like a unicorn it's rare
0:52
that I'm wrong sorry Matt go ahead go right no no now you're going to do the retraction yeah I listen I'm going to
0:58
I'm I'm going to I'm eat crow on this one I am and I am eternally shocked like I was literally at work at the day job
1:06
and I get a bunch of messages on Discord be like dude you were wrong we're getting a new BlizzCon and I'm sitting
1:11
there like no you're yanking my my my chain on this one uh that and I'm like
1:17
and I go and look it up and I'm like oh my gosh this is actually happening I am
1:23
extraordinarily surprised uh but yeah I was wrong we apparently it is not too
1:29
expensive or maybe they they just the cost be damned or something like that uh and they're back so there you go it is
1:36
uh it's it's coming let's turn to Liz Harper who is the only person who hasn't actually gotten to talk yet uh Liz you
1:43
should probably break down the news for people because right now they're probably like what are they talking
1:48
about BlizzCon what's going on with bcon well there's gonna be a BlizzCon in
1:54
2026 you will note that that is a it ends with a six not with a five so it's not this year it is next year and uh as
2:03
mat said it's we're all surprised uh yes it's this is a bit of a roundabout way
2:08
of telling us BlizzCon 2025 is canell but we are still getting a BlizzCon in the future it isn't on September 12th
2:17
and 13th so it is clearly in celebration of my birthday thank you or maybe don't
2:23
maybe not thank you because that's going to be a really hecking busy week uh and
2:30
we give you a continuous work for two days yeah my birthday is on the 13th so
2:36
that's going to be not the busiest day of BlizzCon but it's still usually on
2:41
the second day of BlizzCon we here at blizzard watch are catching up on all the things on the first day of BlizzCon
2:48
because we spent the entire day doing nothing but writing uh so it is on a Saturday and Sunday instead of the usual
2:56
Friday Saturday which uh is an interesting change and of course it's in
3:02
September instead of November which has become normal of course over over the past years blizzard has moved BlizzCon
3:10
around but lately they have really stuck to that November time period so it is interesting that it's different they're
3:16
planning it so far out and they announced it so far out I mean for for
3:23
an event late 2026 it seems ridiculously early to announce it but I guess this
3:29
does reassure people that okay BlizzCon is not canceled forever we're still here for you guys we aren't we aren't ending
3:35
the tradition also I I don't know if yall feel the same way but I feel like
3:40
uh Chris Metson may have played a role in this whether intentionally or not because yeah I feel like he was when you
3:46
get God and when you get medson on a stage he just energizes a crowd just
3:53
completely he owns an audience when he is on stage whatever pretzels he sells
3:59
quite Frank yes they would that's a that's a side story that we probably aren't getting into now but uh and I I
4:07
think he loves it he loves BlizzCon he loves getting on stage he loves seeing everyone who loved the games he's made I
4:14
feel like if if Metson were not at blizzard then maybe this would not be happening yeah I I think I I think I
4:20
agree with that and I was thinking about that a little bit earlier like that seems like the most likely
4:25
Vector like what got me here what you've got me thinking though is remember earlier when we were doing the pre-show
4:31
and you mentioned uh thinking bran Lee Mulligan as the president of company cedy bit I just imagined another bit of
4:37
his where he shows up to something and everyone's like he's like so when are we doing this and they were all like um I
4:44
just like he was like so what what would doing for BlizzCon and everyone was like um can we tell him there's no BlizzCon I
4:51
don't think we can look at him he look so eager so we were having BlizzCon because Chris Metson didn't know they
4:57
weren't having it especially yeah and what's especially interesting to me is you know obviously take this with a
5:04
grain of marketing salt but they're they're aiming to meaningfully elevate
5:11
the celebration and create a little experience I don't know what that means
5:18
but I think I think it means we can we will see a slightly modified version of
5:24
BlizzCon you know just date change not withstanding yeah no I mean I guess
5:30
we're going to find out what that elevation actually means cuz boy howdy do I have no idea I'm just going to say
5:36
September is a great time to go to Disneyland I'm just saying because it's
5:43
school is started for most people so it's less crowded it's one of the least less expensive times of the year to go
5:49
to Disneyland because you know it's not no holidays but they already decorate
5:55
the park is already going to be decorated for Halloween in September so you can get in your Halloween early
6:01
perfect time to go to Disneyland maybe maybe that's what this is about this is how I would have planned it and why I
6:07
would have planned it that way doesn't mean blizzard thought that out but this the schedule is Liz approved all right
6:14
um anyone else have anything else in particular they want to talk about before bcom before we move on no I'm
6:19
just I did wonder go go ahead Joe no no you first okay I had wondered for a
6:24
little bit if this was going to be you know like a special event um
6:30
because of you know a 20-y year anniversary or something but that would have actually been this year yeah I I
6:37
mean last year was the big anniversary year so I Cory is Corey in chat
6:42
because pH Phil Phil's in chat and he said this and it was also what I was thinking the reason they're doing it
6:48
next year not this year is so they can announce the big re-release of Heroes of the Storm uh because they got to get it
6:54
all up and running and get ready for the the next you know the next content drop for it and this make it a big thing
7:00
let's let's I'm I at this point I've been wrong about a few other things with like BlizzCon so I'm just going to throw
7:06
that out there and see if I can manifest it at this point because why not if you're listening blizzard please
7:11
shouldn't you be predicting it's not goingon to happen then I mean I'm just going with the opposite of what I normally think so I figure if that
7:18
that's going to happen I thought bcon was going to happen bisson's happening so I'm going to go with the opposite and see if that
7:24
works okay um I do think we have to talk about something else because it's kind of hard to talk too much about a
7:31
BlizzCon where all we know about it is that it will happen in more than a year from now yeah I mean by the time
7:37
BlizzCon is here we're going to be playing Midnight I midnight is on the road map for kind of early
7:43
2026 so we do not know what the game's going to be like in 2026 for World of
7:49
Warcraft uh no but we'll be probably we'll be well at that point with it releasing we'll probably already be
7:54
starting to get the hype in uh speculation for the LA the last Titan I bet will and we'll be uh going into a
8:02
new Diablo I expansion because they aren't releasing one in 2025 that's pushed back to 2026 I would think it
8:10
would launch before BlizzCon but it's possible it's launching late next year we don't know so there could be some
8:16
really interesting things they have to talk about if they launched it in at BlizzCon for example like that was that
8:23
was you know right before the go live or they did one of those special events around it that would be two years
8:31
between Diablo expansions which is still better than dropping one expansion and
8:37
then nothing else fair enough you could argue it is the most rapid yeah you
8:42
could argue it's the most rapid Rel expansion since they've never done more than one but I am at this point going to
8:47
force us to talk about World of Warcraft and specifically the race to world first
8:53
in the in the you know whole deal the undermine raid for the very simple reason that I have no idea what's going
8:58
on there and thus I can basically say hey Liz what's going on and then I can
9:04
just be quiet So Glorious it's it's been a really interesting race so far one
9:10
well interesting to various people in various ways one thing is there was not
9:15
a heroic week before Mythic launched and basically for people excited to tune in
9:21
to world first that meant that uh most guilds did not go into Mythic until like
9:28
Thursday Friday because they spent the entire week doing heroic splits to get key gear and get everyone in tiar and it
9:36
so it's been a lot of watching very repetitive repetitive content and then
9:42
repeating it again amongst all of the top guilds as of this recording which is
9:48
on Tuesday uh we have only seen up to the fifth boss cleared which is not very far
9:55
for the first week the fourth boss uh I I keep getting his name wrong because
10:01
they all have crazy Goblin names sorry goblins I'm not saying anything bad about your names but I cannot cannot say
10:06
them uh sticks bunk junker I'm pretty sure I'm saying that right fourth boss
10:12
took 114 pulls and liquid used vtis runes to
10:17
get him down so that is a lot for a fourth boss the fifth boss eeko killed
10:24
first that sprocket Monger locking stock you see what I'm saying about these names you see what I mean uh he took
10:32
113 pulls so if this race continues at this pace I think we're probably in for
10:39
a three-w week world first race uh because even these kind of mid-range
10:45
bosses are taking over 100 pulls so what happens when you go into some of the really difficult bosses like mugzi and
10:53
of course gy Wicks himself up there at the end uh even oh what's this machine
10:59
called the one armed someone yeah one armed Bandit yep okay so the slot
11:05
machine boss is a really complicated boss all of the next three bosses are really complicated and if it's taken
11:11
them over 100 pulls to do the last two bosses then we're probably talking at least 100 PS for the next two bosses and
11:19
more than that for gwick so I think this is going to be a long race it's also
11:24
been kind of complicated by the fact that liquid spent about 3 hours on Monday with their power out the power
11:32
was apparently out for the whole block they were on so they were kind of out of the race miday so they've gotten a
11:38
little behind but we're still kind of halfway through and uh there's plenty of time for uh anyone to come up and take
11:45
this it's still kind of a liquid method and Echo up in that top three spots
11:53
competing on the same bosses usually and uh we'll just see we'll see how it comes out in the end but I think I think we're
12:00
in for a long race so the liquid kill for sticks was on was that Sunday or
12:06
Monday um I it was not Monday okay so that's really interesting to me because
12:13
if it had been Monday you know that could have been a strategic thing where we're popping vtis runes on him to get
12:21
ahead before reset but if it was you know Sunday that's that's interesting
12:26
that's a that's an interesting choice and I feel like maybe they if Ekko you
12:32
know jumped ahead on sprocket Monger then they they might have paid for a
12:37
little bit uh but you know it's reset day when we're recording this so it
12:44
might it might change up entirely yeah I think they were close enough to reset
12:49
and uh sticks had already taken so many polls that it's like okay we're we're a
12:56
couple days from reset we're almost certain not going to get the next boss down after this guy so let's just use
13:03
our vantis runes and get this guy down and they killed him the first pull after they used vantis runes they just needed
13:09
that one little extra bump to get over that and uh sticks is very complicated
13:15
he has a lot of RNG because throughout the fight he summons these garbage piles
13:21
around the room and then he puts uh I believe four players get chosen to go up
13:27
on balls which roll around the room and you roll up the piles of trash okay so
13:33
you got the Katamari damy thing going on you roll up piles of trash you roll over ads but uh the tank is always chosen to
13:41
get a ball but I believe the other three players are random so you could get
13:47
players chosen who are not in a good position to grab trash you could get players chosen and they're really far
13:52
from the trash and once they collect all of the trash and make their own trash ball big they can run into bombs and
13:59
Destroy them the bombs could be poorly placed for players to get to so there are all of these things that are
14:07
randomly placed around the field that can make the fight more difficult and if you have bad placement if bad players
14:14
are chosen if players that you need to get through that phase to kill the ads in that phase are chosen that can be a
14:21
problem I wish it would just stop choosing me just going to throw that out there yeah yeah it can choose healers
14:27
yep so you could have you could have a Healer yanked into that you could have uh guilds have been
14:34
stacking moonin for that fight guilds have been going in with three moonen and it's really weird to see guilds stack
14:41
classes that heavily in world first but they'll go in with three moon have that
14:46
AOE power to really bring those ads down fast so they can get back on the boss
14:51
but you know if you get a couple moonin chosen then you have more trouble getting those ads down which may means
14:58
you may wipe on that phase while the moon are all over there rolling around on their trash balls so there's a lot of
15:05
Randomness to it and it takes just a lot of DPS to just burn him down and
15:11
overcome all of that and just using the vantis runes was enough to help them survive and get the boss down they did
15:18
it immediately the next pull after using runes but you know what's uh what's also
15:24
incredibly cool and here I'm I'm kind of advancing forward in the notes is that this week uh the story mode comes out so
15:32
if you're not in a guild that has burned everything down in the first week you
15:38
can actually experience the end of the undermined story and no spoilers
15:43
whatsoever but it it's a good ending I liked it a lot isn't LFR Wing 2 also
15:48
going it is yes it is yeah just did it I did it today actually so you two more weeks or is that do we have one more or
15:55
two more wings for LFR two two more wings so more weeks all of the LFR Wings will be out but you can I story mode is
16:02
literally for the story and I believe this is just the last chapter of the story yep so tying tying the bows and
16:12
dotting the eyes and crossing the tees and it's it's worth doing even if you're going to do LFR to clear everything do
16:18
the story mode and and just experience it is my advice it was it was it was
16:25
wonderful all right um I don't really know what this means so I'm gonna basically ask I think Joe usually the
16:32
want to talk to what does Mythic plus experience in season two mean I I wanted to take a couple moments today I
16:38
actually had had asked Liz for just a few moments to kind of gush about yeah of course this season of Mythic dungeons
16:45
um so season 2 uh a lot of people were very on the fence with like with the
16:51
ones being added to the rotation how it was going to work putting dark left in there the new one with operation
16:56
Floodgate all of this stuff like and how it was going to shake out if it was going to be harder easier uh especially
17:03
with all the new changes uh I'm here to say that I really am in love with the dungeon choices and uh I don't have any
17:11
complaints for once there's not like one that I just dread going to like last season nobody wanted to go to uh the the
17:19
um why can't I think of the name of it now the prior no not the prior ston Vault nobody wanted to go to ston Vault
17:24
ston Vault was so awful right like it just it was just one of those things was absolutely God awful um and then this
17:31
one the only thing that was really like a standout was the metery uh because the first boss the
17:37
intermission uh was just a ton of damage it was very very difficult to get through as a healing check which they
17:44
immediately tuned like within a day of it releasing uh cuz they're like oh well yeah no no we got to turn this down but
17:51
every dungeon just feels good it feels doable the routing on them which is one of the most common complaints with a lot
17:58
of dungeons is like knowing exactly which mobs to get for your percentages when you're doing Keys uh it it feels
18:06
you don't have that problem here at least not really because like in dark flame CFT which is you know one of the
18:12
ones that people were really curious about it's very linear it takes you through the dungeon and you don't
18:17
necessarily have to pull everything because by the time you get to the last room there's usually enough uh leftover
18:24
mobs for you to kind of like go ahead and make up that count uh in you don't have to go out of your way to pull extra
18:30
mobs in a lot of the dungeons you just go along your normal path and so it becomes more about execution in less
18:37
about where do I find 1.3% and that feels really really good I can't tell you last season how many times uh in my
18:44
experience like we were doing Keys especially higher level keys and we're desperately trying to push our way
18:50
through and and make and make count and also make the time and then only to get to the end and realize that like we need
18:56
to still find a pack especially in like uh the spider dungeons which uh filled
19:02
me with nothing but dread I hated healing those I'm not going to lie these I'm I am thoroughly impressed with the
19:09
way that they learned their lessons from season 1 I am very happy with the choices I've hearing this a lot from a
19:15
lot of other folks and the fact that people are now dipping their toes in that maybe skipped last uh last season
19:24
of of Mythic plus dungeons are jumping in because they're hearing it's not as nightmare as the last one cuz again the
19:30
last one was like what and stops in chat and he can keep me honest there were like three or four dungeons that people
19:35
just like e it was hell to do and like one thing goes sideways and like the
19:42
entire run is scuffed there's just nothing you could so I'm I just wanted to put that out there that I'm really
19:47
happy with it I'm really happy with uh the lessons they learned how they put everything together um yeah it's just
19:54
I'm really really impressed with the season that might change when I start pushing 10 I'll let you know
19:59
um I might hate life at that point uh but yeah and even the zixes they feel
20:04
better they feel more manageable I think they may have fixed the algorithm for how the balls spawn when you need to get
20:10
rid of them too because there's not one just out in the middle of Delaware I realized you weren't referencing balers
20:16
gate but still you made me think it for a second yeah so um I guess the other
20:21
thing to point out is we're talking about delves as well and apparently in season two they've already decided to
20:28
Nerf tank Braun uh so I guess he's doing too well as a tank uh I haven't done a
20:34
delve with braon yet go ahead I I'm C I'm curious Joe if you've run with with
20:40
braon as a tank in delves I have actually I I switched him over immediately because he stinks as a
20:46
Healer yeah um yeah I thought I loved him as a tank I think he was it was a
20:52
really smart choice uh I thought it made for me as somebody who primarily plays
20:58
is a healing class and when I switch to uh DPS to do a delve uh pulling aggro is
21:05
generally hard because I will pull aggro my trinkets J if they proc I'm going to
21:10
pull stuff I'm going to pull stuff away from Brandon his little guys and that usually means that I'm going to die at
21:15
higher level dels I didn't have that problem now he died at higher level DS and I had a resurrect them but that's
21:22
fine I can deal with that that that's okay uh but yeah like I really like it and I I hear that there's some Nerfs
21:27
coming uh because he was felt to be too strong uh and maybe I could see that but
21:34
selfishly please don't change brand I love I listen he was an idiot last year
21:40
that just did like really goofy weird stuff ran off karenine into the abyss to
21:45
find some treasure halfway across the mlom in the middle of combat and he's actually doing what I need him to do right now please don't change it I'm
21:51
afraid you're going to break him so there is a whole like page of changes coming to him a lot of damage reductions
21:58
uh but also he takes 60% more damage and
22:04
his maximum health has been reduced by 20% Which that on own is a lot but it's
22:12
also like his pistol shot down by 15% uh his electrocharged pistol damage reduced
22:18
by 35% it's just a whole list of things like this uh and his brown bear melee
22:24
Auto attack reduced by 80% brown bear stomp damage reduced by 25% it just keeps going yeah but I mean I guess that
22:31
makes sense for sorry I guess it makes sense for like damage reduction if he's in tank mode mhm because he doesn't
22:37
really need damage to hold threat if they're doing other things for him to hold threat yeah but they seem to be
22:42
hitting they seem to be hitting his damage really hard but also his survivability pretty hard so I'm it'll
22:48
be interesting to see how this goes I I don't know and I just want him not to be
22:54
bad I mean that'd be nice I I have better I been running his DPS lately and
22:59
I have better luck with him as a Healer than as another DPS because he may not be a great healer but he's still a
23:06
Healer and that's something listen throwing throwing potions on the ground and telling you to walk over them does
23:12
not constitute his healing and I say this as somebody who's played healing I'm looking at you Braun get your head
23:18
out of your butt man throw them on somebody not next to them come on wasn't that essentially the whole priest light
23:24
well thing I mean come on they've done it before I don't want to play Fetch with my
23:32
healer we've never tried we've never just throwing potions at people in a raid maybe this is the answer to raid
23:38
healing I don't know you have to understand as a person who plays a refo shaman and you've heard me how many
23:45
times in a raid do I yell at people to stand on the healing Circle and EST if you're listening to this I'm looking
23:51
directly at you I I having the healing thing just
23:57
Out Of Reach or put right next to me feels like an insult to me who puts it on people it feels like an a
24:06
front oh I'm so I'm so happy right now because I didn't I don't have any dog in
24:11
this fight because whenever I have braon I don't care he tanks because I'm gonna tank and and you guys are like I don't
24:18
know I'm I'm like blissfully unconcerned it feels so good it feels so good to not
24:24
care about something in World of Warcraft because here's the thing about the nerfing him I'm looking at these
24:29
Nerfs there's like there's like 30 of them there's a lot of Nerfs it's a good
24:35
list and the one that really comes to me is I'm imagining if if you were playing
24:41
a tank and you saw on a list of changes to your class receives 60% increased
24:47
damage like I I I know tanking people I've I have spoken to many a tank the
24:53
reaction would either be a sputtering tornado of building Rage or a complete I
24:58
got to go excuse me and and water droplets that aren't quite water in their track as they head to to change
25:05
themselves because I can't imagine he's that good a tank he's not is he that
25:11
good that he needs the 60% damage increase he's incredibly like sturdy
25:18
which good that's what your tank should be but it's not like he's not he's not
25:25
blasting his way through absolutely every encounter er ever like as as Joe
25:31
can attest to you have to heal him he gets in this weird stunned recovering
25:37
State when he's taken too much damage and then if you are say not a tank you
25:44
are going to get your face melted so and you have an opportunity to then like
25:49
kind of break him out of it but they they they said they were going to improve the experience with Braun and
25:57
and and now they're like JK we we we overshot the mark y you're having too
26:04
much fun too early and I'm I'm I'm disappointed I am disappointed but I
26:10
think I could give Matt something to care about in WoW again and that's a
26:16
customizable Chihuahua pet I'm listening it's in the 11.15 PTR along with a baked
26:25
in to the game cooldown manag SL we or replacement but really the
26:31
customizable Chihuahua is where it's at obviously yeah I was going to say I mean I don't whenever they do that when they
26:38
built in something that's that previously existed as a mod I think it's cool but I'm much more interested in the
26:45
customizable Chihuahua I want to know if they have a Chihuahua that's the size of my chihuahua because my Chihuahua is 16
26:52
pounds and not fat she's just big for a Chihuahua people don't know this the the
26:58
5B Chihuahuas you see people carrying around in their purse are pure breads that are breed very specifically to a
27:04
breed standard most Chihuahua are not that small like my dog is comparable in
27:09
size to to like a Pomeranian and I would love to see a Chihuahua that looks like my dog because my dog is really awesome
27:16
because she's my dog and I'm gonna say that but regardless I am still I'm very much interested in these customizable
27:21
cha B I don't know about you but I mean I'm happy for you but I'm really interested in that cool down manager I'm
27:27
very interested in the cool down manager as well because uh especially if you
27:33
watched and I'm I'm referencing external content here but um tal Essen of Talen
27:38
and avatel did a an episode where he played wow on one of each type of class
27:48
if I remember correctly um without any add-ons whatsoever and this was one of
27:55
the things that he mentioned was that he had to kind of clude something together and Liz I think you and I have even
28:01
talked about that where you can kind of with like an additional action bar give
28:08
yourself like a monitoring pain but like you don't really have one yeah that's that's actually what I'm doing right now
28:14
because I haven't gone through and set up a whole bunch of we ores I just have I have an extra action bar and you know
28:21
things pop up with the Highlight when you have oh your cool down is up or oh this Pro and so now this is highlighted
28:27
tell you something rock related to it so right now I literally I literally have
28:32
no sophisticated cool down tracking I have a button bar which it works it works it's just not it's less
28:39
customizable you know one of the things I was say let's talk a little bit about that customization I don't know if
28:45
you actually read the thread or or like went through on it at all um but like it's effectively broken down into a
28:51
couple different categories like essential coold Downs utility cool Downs track bars and track Buffs uh so like if
28:58
for essential cool Downs it'll track like rotational impacting things so like if you're a paladin Crusader strike
29:03
judgement avenging and wrath stuff like that um and it's all done per class right uh and it's for your individual
29:09
character utility cool Downs are uh interrupts or Mobility or crowd control stuff they're going to have their own
29:15
little section for it that can be tracked uh tracked bars uh things that have durations are going to be there uh
29:22
so things that change your rotation like they they call out uh combustion uh as a
29:28
effect or in my case if you're a Russo Shaman undulation or uh tidal waves or any of the other chain heel Buffs uh
29:35
that you can get from talents will be in there as well and then their track Buffs which again we have Buffs and debuff
29:43
tracking already but sometimes you care about very specific ones and apparently
29:48
stuff like this for like melstrom weapon uh when durations of certain effects uh
29:53
are going to be there as well I think this is a fantastic first start what I really want to see this grow into is a
30:00
replacement for Aura 3 and yes the reason I say that is because as a former
30:06
raid leader and as somebody who often gets in and Liz and Liz we we we'll tell
30:13
you about this I occasionally get into a hyperfocus mode uh when we're like on a
30:18
boss that's like really challenging and and I'm sorry Ros if you're listening sometimes I take over quarterbacking
30:24
stuff for for healers I want to be able to track their cool downs and I have AA set up to track down or to track all the
30:30
major cool Downs for all the healing classes right now I'd love to have
30:35
something built into the game that just does that when you're in a raid group that I can customize that I can like do
30:41
what I do with AA 3 and just eliminate one additional add-on just have it built
30:46
into the game I don't know if that's where they're going to go with it I hope that we see something like that but
30:51
between this and their version of weak oras which they kind of already have in the game because you know when certain
30:57
things light up you already get those icons because I I'm going to be 100% real with you I hate week orus it's very
31:04
very useful and I do have a a little bit of a programming background and I still hate weak oras because I can never get
31:10
it to do exactly the thing I want it to do and I always feel like I'm searching some weird GitHub repository like trying
31:17
to find the one string of code I need to do the one Niche thing I need and if they put something in a game that lets
31:22
me do that I'm I would be so much happier and maybe this cool down will do it too because this is just a personal
31:29
complaint sorry random aside it's my turn um tracking Earth Shield charges is
31:36
a pain and getting it to show very specifically like when it's off or on is
31:42
easy getting to show when it has how many X charges left so that you know when to cast it again instead of just
31:49
saying oh it's off or saying oh it's at 1 I'm going to cast it now because by the time my cast is done or the inflate
31:55
is done it'll refresh to nine and the last will have already been expend expended because Min maxing is a thing
32:02
uh that's super Niche and super hard to do but if they can give me something in game that just shows me the number of charges on a cooldown bar or in an aura
32:10
that I can just click a button and it's just built in I'm there like this is the type of stuff I love I live for like
32:17
this these are great changes to like the the the base game Sorry
32:22
that no I the thing I also find cool is that I feel like it means they're they're not you know one of the things
32:28
they said when they implemented the UI edit mode was that they they didn't want to treat the UI like a static fix thing
32:36
anymore and I think that this is another way that they're that they're embracing that yeah meanwhile they have four
32:43
different coat colors for chihuahua um sorry guys while you having that incredibly intelligent discussion of all
32:50
the pros and cons of this new stuff I was going oh wow they got four different Cod colors and they got a shark hat and
32:58
they got a kitty hat and they got a fox hat and they got a murlock hat and they
33:03
have a different shark hat and another cat hat and another murloc hat that
33:09
merlock hat is is Peak cuteness I should note this is data mind from the patch
33:15
11.1.1 files so we don't know if this is everything we don't know how you're going to customize it we don't know how
33:21
you're going to get it but it is in the patch so I am looking at pictures of it
33:27
and that's all I can do go I actually had to call my wife into the office to show her this while you
33:34
guys were talking I'm like they they're gonna go for a bit they they'll go for a bit I can trust Joe to talk about this
33:40
and so I just was like texting her she comes in I'm like pointing and scrolling and pointing and
33:46
scrolling so yeah and then of course there's other stuff that there's been data mind as well and we don't want to
33:51
spend a it's like when we talked about the baftas that time and we don't want to talk about everything but I will say this be on the lookout for extremely
33:58
cute cats I'm going to just say that there are cats they are cute um so yeah
34:04
there's other stuff there's like there's the story stuff coming in 1115 uh there's a return to horrific
34:12
Visions which I'm not sure how I feel
34:17
about the thing that's there I will say one of the things I'm really interested in is dastardly Duos which is it's a new
34:26
six week long event where you can go up and fight animatronic versions of past
34:33
bosses so I'm very curious as what these animatronic versions look like and uh
34:42
what exactly the rewards will be you can fight with a a party and uh fight two or
34:48
more bosses at a time two blizzard says rack up your highest score and earn a
34:54
variety of Cosmetics toys and even some dungeon items I am I am very curious as
35:01
to how this one will work out so we're going to see testing for that one's only
35:07
a week too um and it begins next Monday so maybe maybe folks can report back and
35:13
be like oh my gosh this is so cool Joe I'm looking at you if you feel like engaging with the
35:19
PTR that is I mean it's likely going to be a thing I I don't engage with a PTR
35:25
often because I don't have time this is probably something I will H it like legitimately it takes a lot to get me to
35:31
install the PTR and go go to town usually it's some catastrophic Shaman change that I need to check my math but
35:38
this stuff yeah no probably yeah that's fair I actually just installed another
35:43
PTR which is next up on our subject list yeah a 10 gigabyte PTR by I
35:48
understanding yes so we'll just we just jump over that then uh Diablo 4 um we
35:54
found out during the campfire chat which was last week right like I'm not having a neural it just happened okay I I just
36:02
sitt going that was last week right please tell me it was last week um yeah so yeah PTR is gonna be running this
36:08
week um as in tomorrow because today's the 10th today it's live okay so it's
36:13
the 11th today all right yeah that's fine I I'm not like sitting here going I can never remember what day it is
36:18
anymore um but yeah so from this week till next so until next Tuesday the 18th
36:25
yep Tuesday to Tuesday so making torment harder uh because torment 4 should be
36:33
aspirational uh we have quotes here so that was in fact what they said they said torment for should be a a difficult
36:40
thing that should be aspirational and in season 7 which is going on now they felt that players hit torment 4 way too fast
36:48
and that players simply leveled and progressed too quickly which I can say progression is very fast in season 7
36:55
it's a lot of fun because you Zoom through the levels you collect all sorts of cool gear but also I haven't unlocked
37:03
torment 4 myself so I feel this messaging is not targeted towards me who
37:09
has been playing on tournament 3 well I don't know who made this note but I think it's a good note to make uh and
37:14
that the latest season Journey required objectives in torment 4 so are you basically trying to say that if
37:21
aspirational but at the same time if you want to get your season Journey done you have to do it so one of the things one
37:27
of the things that happened in season 7 was they made it the season Journey much more difficult because they felt the
37:34
higher levels of the Season Journey were too easy so they made the top tier of the Season journey is a whole lot of
37:40
stuff you have to do in torment for it's I think there's one thing on that top level that doesn't have to be done in
37:46
torment 4 and everything else is just do a whole lot of stuff and do it in torment 4 right so the question is when
37:54
they make torment 4 and all of the torments more difficult which they're doing next season are they also going to
38:01
keep this philosophy where uh where the season Journey requires you to do things
38:07
at that difficulty to get all the rewards because this this season to get
38:12
the Raven pet you have to complete the full season journey and the Raven pet is really cool so the season Journey isn't
38:21
easy to complete but blizzard seems to think it's too easy so if is this going
38:27
to be the new thing that torment 4 is an aspirational level that normal average
38:33
players should not be able to achieve or will'll have a lot of trouble achieving and does that mean that these highlevel
38:40
cosmetic rewards will be locked forever I mean this depending on what the details look like here I may be much
38:47
much less interested in season 8 because hey we don't like people moving fast and
38:53
killing things fast and progressing through the difficulties we we don't like like that it's like have you have
38:58
you ever played an arpg guys have you because that's why I'm playing this game
39:04
to smash lots of demons really fast and you know that's kind of that's kind of
39:10
why I'm here and I never thought I never thought I would say this but when they had certain things unlock at certain
39:19
difficulties and this is actually a a huge lead in now that I think of it to our next topic which is the season 8
39:26
theme um it made more sense you like when we had the four difficulty tiers
39:34
and I can't believe I already managed to block out what the third tier was called you were only in it from about level 50
39:40
to level 70 and it kind of felt like a slog um and but on the upside you had
39:49
bosses on the boss ladder that unlocked at that third difficulty and so you had
39:56
something that was kind of unique where you weren't going to be doing it in the first two um and you could Blaster it in
40:04
the highest difficulty but like it it felt it felt like the difficulty
40:10
progression right and that's I feel like they've lost that with the new
40:15
difficulty the the four and four um where you go you know leveling up to
40:22
endgame progression and there's nothing to make each of those torments feel
40:28
unique anymore feel like you know you should be spending time in one two or
40:34
three on your way to four instead of just sprinting to torment four and if
40:40
they want to distinguish from because they've already said they don't want to go into the Diablo II difficulty system
40:47
where you really only spend a little bit of time you know in torments one or two
40:52
or torment six or torment 10 um which torments 10 to 13 were like kind of the
41:00
target range for completing That season Journey you know if you're not going to
41:05
shape up to that model then give us a reason to be in those lower torments and
41:13
don't gatekeep torment 4 um just because you think like people are reaching it
41:19
too fast this is also a problem I feel that could be solved by adding more
41:26
difficulty levels if the top difficulty level is not hard enough if you think people are getting there too
41:31
easily add another difficulty level that makes the game harder but the Diablo 4
41:37
team has seems to think that the Diablo I way is not the way to go they seem to
41:43
they kind of seem to laugh at the number of difficulty levels in Diablo II which indeed there are a ton of difficulty
41:48
levels in Diablo I what did it go up to tment 13 15 16 so be a lot I I did not
41:58
have a problem with them having 16 tournament levels yeah I never saw it as a concern never saw it as I think part
42:05
of that I think part of that was because it was balanced you had you know the the four what was it normal uh expert or
42:14
normal hard expert master and then you could go up to torment six while you were leveling and you wouldn't often do
42:21
that although nowadays you can you can do that and blast to level 70 within a couple hours
42:27
but it there was an even split and they've got an even split now but they
42:33
don't really give you a reason to you know stay in the lower tiers so why
42:39
wouldn't people push forward to torment 4 as fast as possible I definitely think there's an idea in Diablo I that the
42:46
thing keeping you at torment 3 should merely be that you cannot survive torment for yet like that seems to be
42:53
the the thing that they think should be the limiter on why you why you're in a tourment level like you're in this level
42:59
because you can't go up yet and I I used to stay in lower torment levels when I was playing uh Diablo I not because I
43:08
couldn't handle higher tournament levels I had characters I was running tournament 16 with sometimes I
43:14
deliberately run torment 12 just so I'd have an easier time doing specific things that were just milk runs like
43:20
yeah no nobody's doing was doing bounties to get materials who wanted that to be at torment 16 like why do I
43:28
you know it's not like I'm gonna get that much more stuff out of this for the amount of time I'm gonna have to spend
43:33
uh yeah I think now with enties you don't even have to do that you can get all your mats from your challenge Rifts
43:40
and emities yeah exactly so it doesn't I don't I ultimately feel like Diablo 4
43:46
has made great strides since it came out but there is sort of a mentality of trying to it almost feels like Diablo 4
43:55
sometimes gets a little bit too CAU up in trying to like almost wear shades and be cool all the time it feels like
44:02
Diablo 4 invests a lot of time in trying to not be Diablo II and I almost wonder
44:09
if this is a we're going to see this for season 8 and then in season 9 it's going to be totally different because there
44:15
have been times in the past when the Diablo 4 team has taken a stance against doing things like Diablo II and then
44:22
they change their mind in the next major patch cycle because they realize hey you know Diablo I did some things right
44:29
actually we should do that so like goblins uh yeah so I wouldn't be
44:35
surprised if in a another major patch cycle or two after this one if we don't
44:42
just see some more difficulty levels which would be the easiest way to tune
44:47
difficulty higher but like I have nothing more to say but I felt like I had to say yeah go ahead go ahead Liz I
44:52
was gonna say you know for all the and I have I have many thoughts that Liz has had to hear and uh one of our other
44:59
writers Chris has had to hear um as as annoying as this uh this perspective may
45:07
feel to us like there's definitely some good stuff coming in this patch so um I
45:13
guess I could just lead into it which is they they're they're reworking the so the boss ladder is still going to exist
45:20
um the quite frankly I was going to ask you what happens what letter is after the M there because it just stops and
45:27
I'm like to make them easier and make them tasty what no what's happening so please bosses um so the they're going to
45:36
they're going to be easier to get to and your your approach with the summoning
45:42
materials is going to be completely different um so there's there's going to
45:48
be a switch to how you use the summoning materials and that means you'll be able
45:54
to fight the bosses with without having having to leverage those summoning
45:59
materials instead they're going to act like keys to unlock their Loot and
46:05
that's incredible because it felt awful and I I
46:10
I have actually lost count of the number of the times this happened to me with duriel uh it felt awful to summon the
46:18
boss and try and try again and tune your gear and have to go back and repair your
46:23
gear after a number of initial failures and and come back and try again and try
46:29
again and for whatever reason even if it's as simple as a disconnect or you
46:34
just you can't do the fight at that time you have thrown away those materials that you had to put some effort into
46:41
farming and that felt really bad and so that's that's going to be a different
46:46
experience now and I'm really looking forward to that there's also going to be additions to the boss ladder that are
46:52
going to be Central of the theme of or the quote unquote storyline of season 8
47:00
um but they will they're permanent additions you know they're not going anywhere um I guess since they said it
47:06
in the campfire chat I don't have to worry about spoiling it where they said this is this is literally happening it's
47:12
been announced so uh joining the boss ladder lineup is none other than bile
47:20
which means we now have 1 two 3 four of the seven major evils of of the burning
47:30
Hells returned to Sanctuary uh which also you know of course brings up the
47:36
question in my head of so when is the titular character of the series going to
47:41
show up but that's a whole another can of worms to open up I just find myself wondering if that means that we're
47:47
getting bile in season 8 because B's not in the game right now we are literally we are literally
47:54
getting bile in season 8 that is the season theme so he part of the
48:00
Season theme okay that's what I was thinking about but the so he is part of this I'll say he's part of the Season
48:06
story um and he is involved in the season theme but the season theme itself
48:11
in terms of the quote unquote borrow power system that we'll get as part of the theme is actually about stealing the
48:19
powers of these endgame bosses so anyone from you know like Varon Lord zir to
48:28
andariel and duriel to even the wandering death and bile um and even
48:34
Lilith they actually you know referenced a Lilith power um which I should say echo of Lilith or Uber Lilith uh those
48:42
will those will all be you know potentially up for grabs and each power is going to have you know like a power
48:49
option and then a modifier option which reminds me of another system and I could
48:55
not for the life of me think it uh so if any of you know um maybe what I'm
49:01
talking about there then please throw it in um but you're you're so you're going
49:06
to have an unlock you you'll have like I think it was something like 24 different build
49:13
combos or something like that uh BEC between one you know active power and
49:18
one modifier power um and that's really cool right like that's that's unique
49:25
like you you you could go around you know shooting Lilith um you know Spike
49:30
circles uh and then have that be modified by the wandering depths beam um
49:38
like the laser beam that shoots out uh and that I'm I'm really intrigued by
49:45
this system I have downloaded the PTR I went straight from work into podcast
49:51
today so I haven't tried it yet since it just opened up but I will be trying it and I will report back I do love the
49:58
idea of getting the wandering deaths ability and just I'm just going to spin around and be a laser beam for a while
50:05
it's gonna be great everything's gonna be dead I I think this is a really fun
50:10
season theme it's super thematic it draws from all of the cool things that are already in the game with all of
50:16
these bosses and to gain these different powers in season 8 you will kill the bosses and then you will be able to
50:23
access their power so uh B is joining the boss ladder I mean the whole season
50:29
is kind of themed around bile but he is also permanently joining the boss ladder and we're also getting two others on the
50:36
boss ladder which is the harbinger of hatred do I have that one right yep who
50:42
we yes who we just fought in uh uh vessel of hatred yes and uh ovar who we
50:49
also still F fought in vessel of hatred and kind of showed up and left so fast
50:54
that you forget who he was until they bring bring him back up uh he will now be in the boss ladder as well so I think
51:00
all of the changes are really good changes I mean I'm a little iffy on the tournament thing but I think the boss ladder changes are fantastic going to
51:08
make it a lot easier I there are plenty of times where to even find something on
51:14
the boss ladder I had to go look up a guide because I'm like okay which where is this one where I okay I'm looking
51:21
through the map I'm looking on the map okay here's something that's a boss icon on the map but I don't remember who's in
51:27
this spot okay I need to I need to Google it yep and that's going to be permanently improved yeah so the icons
51:35
are going to stand out more and also they will tell you things like hey this
51:40
boss is in here and there it's going to tell you the summoning materials too
51:46
isn't it on the just on the icon that's correct um well we should we should see
51:52
now we're going to have to change how we refer to them because they're no longer summoning materials they're reward
51:57
material yeah and uh also you'll be able to teleport to them so it's just going to be way easier to access these things
52:05
you will just be able to go in and fight them because I have wasted a lot of time
52:10
running down to a boss area and then going in and it's like oh crap I have
52:15
four of these things and I need five now I've got to go off and find another thing exactly yeah or you know okay I've
52:23
gotten five of these things I summoned this boss and oh wow this is a lot harder than I thought and I can't kill
52:29
it and then you've just thrown those materials away so both of those hurdles gone and I think that's a great
52:35
Improvement yes I think we all agree and if we don't whatever I I agree with it
52:41
that's all that matters to me uh We've going to we basically are going to move on to um our other game section uh Liz
52:47
do you want to do your your site news before or after the other games thing because I think we're going to be pretty done pretty soon uh sure I'll do my site
52:54
news okay I do want to remind you all that blizzard watch is made possible by
52:59
patreon it is your support that allows the site to continue to thrive and to
53:05
grow I hope that's that's that's the goal here is thriving and growing so I
53:11
did want to thank a couple of new supporters in the past week we have Warren Warpath I I love this name
53:18
because it's Warren with two RS and war path also with two RS this makes me
53:24
think of a magic card I love I immediately love this name yes I that's a it's great uh upgraded they're pledged
53:31
to $25 a month thank you so much it is uh supporters like you that really
53:38
really help the site continue make these podcasts possible uh supporters get all
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podcasts and you get them add free both are great if you love podcast if you like listening to us $3 a month will get
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you that K uh Kelly I hope I'm saying that right also pledged for $5 thank you
54:06
Kelly $5 also gets you an AdFree site experience so you can go to blizzardwatch decom and enjoy all of our
54:13
articles without advertisements that includes a lot of coverage of the race to world first this week we're talking
54:19
about patch 1115 and I tried to hit all the latest news we're going to have some more on
54:24
the Diablo PTR now that it is up so if you're curious about any of those things hit the site blizzardwatch outcom and uh
54:33
I think that's all I have thank you guys so much if you can support us subscribe
54:38
on patreon.com blizzardwatch any amount you can give us helps and I do want to just
54:45
add a couple quick things here at the end there uh we also look at our patreon
54:50
subscribers first as a way of saying thank you for helping us keep the lights on when you send us questions uh and I
54:56
wanted to call this out specifically at this point because uh Kaye has actually sent it in send in WoW words are hard
55:02
folks has sent in many questions in the past and we really do appreciate it uh and as a reminder if you're a patreon
55:08
and subscriber we have a Discord Channel set aside for that where you can hit us up uh so it allows you if you're you
55:14
support us on patreon to to get to that private Channel which is the patreon qm podcast questions channel uh and then if
55:21
you are not a patreon subscriber we do appreciate the continued support as well sharing our content listening listening
55:26
to our content liking our content commenting on our content does actually help a lot uh and if you wanted to
55:31
submit questions and you are not a patreon subscriber you can always hit us up on our Discord server at the Q and
55:37
podcast questions Channel or send us an email at podcast blizzardwatch dcom all we ask is that we you specify the show
55:44
that it is for in the subject line and if you have any special pronunciation of your name yeah you put it in the body of
55:50
whatever message you sent us to uh because it makes it our life a lot easier I actually have a question that
55:57
got sent in by a patreon supporter for lore watch that I need to send to you Joe so uh it works that after the show
56:04
it works there's the proof it's yes I have a question you will have it in your
56:09
mailbox okay um trying to get to this quickly because I think at this point we're really up against time but let's
56:15
go we got time for a question the baft does have currently open survey asking people to nominate the most influential
56:23
video game of all time and the form is open till March 13th according to this no March 20th so you got tell about next
56:29
week uh rather than just go on to a discussion of that I just want to ask each of you if you were going to do this
56:34
if you were going to be nominating a game to be the most influential game of all time man that's subjective uh which
56:41
game would you nominate and will go first to Joe that is a loaded question
56:49
because there are so many very good options um man that hurts uh I'm going
56:56
to actually give it to Mario 64 all right and it's going to sound like a weird one but here's why Mario 64 did
57:05
something that no other game before it had really done on consoles uh and even
57:10
on PC uh which was it literally taught developers how specifically to work in
57:16
3D space with a controllable camera um so if you think about it games that came
57:23
beforehand even if they were I'm going to air quote here 3D weren't necessarily
57:29
really fully 3D they were doing things that were tricking or allowing it like um the Doom games the Doom games
57:36
presented as a pseudo 3D as you're moving through the map but they were doing tricks with uh 2D rendering to get
57:41
that happening you couldn't uh aim up and down you just had to move your mouse left and right uh the same thing with
57:47
like Duke Nukem 3D things like that Mario 64 changed that game I I just
57:52
watched a documentary on this like I maybe two months ago uh and I think it's I think it's really up there as
57:58
something that should be appreciated for what it did in making what we now take for granted as just basic games like uh
58:06
Horizon uh zero Dawn or Monster Hunter or all these other 3D action games that
58:11
we have with wonderful cameras that you can move around and all these cinematic experiences would not exist without this
58:18
okay uh Liz Harper yeah I mean the problem is that this is such an
58:23
open-ended question what is the the the most influential game where do you even
58:29
start with that I mean you could go back and say something like Zork because this
58:35
started you know just this very basic way of telling stories I remember when I
58:41
was pretty young playing hack did any of you do any of you know what I'm talking
58:46
about with hack oret hack yep I sure do you're a little asky at sign on your
58:52
screen navigating a dungeon made completely of asky characters and it's
58:58
randomly generated the monsters you encounter are random the loot you get is random sounds a lot like Diablo doesn't
59:05
it only Diablo has slightly better graphics so I mean you could go you
59:10
could go back to these touchstones because games like that have led to everything that comes after them
59:17
so do you go back and you talk about those first games which are the games that started gaming down this path
59:24
that's gone so long I think I think I'm going to talk about the game this is a gimme I'm going to talk about the game
59:31
that has been most impactful on my life and I think has been a big Touchstone in
59:36
gaming it is it's such a g I'm going to say World of Warcraft because it it
59:42
really shaped multiplayer gaming there was multiplayer gaming before there were MMOs before there's multiplayer gaming
59:49
after MMOs after but Warcraft I feel catalyzed the community of gaming in a
59:57
unique way and has held on to that after so many years so can I Pig you back on
1:00:03
that real quick too I was going to say wow was up there too uh for all the things you mentioned but also wow made
1:00:10
gaming mainstream that's true yes and I I don't think that that can possibly be
1:00:15
understated gaming had already always existed but wow pushed it into popular
1:00:20
culture and made it ever presentent and made it cool to be a gamer which we talk
1:00:26
about that Lighting in a bottle which other games yes they existed and yes people played them but it wasn't cool to
1:00:32
be a gamer wow did that and wow is a game that's been with us for 20 years
1:00:37
now I have lifelong friendships I've made with wow I met everyone in this
1:00:43
podcast because of wow and it has had I think wow for people who have played it
1:00:50
people who have played it for a long time can have such an impact on your life because it becomes a social Forum
1:00:57
it's not just a game it's where you make friends it's where you go to talk to people and socialize and hang out it is
1:01:05
kind of a unique phenomenon that brings people together and I know it's not the only multiplayer game out there but wow
1:01:12
feels like it catalyzed a gaming community in a unique way and it's somehow kept doing that for two decades
1:01:19
now I think uh so there you go H wow okay uh Liz P so I wow is a big one um I
1:01:28
actually have you know the the kind of gimme answer um as well which I was
1:01:34
going to say pong because I think that's one of the games that uh is is literally
1:01:41
close-minded because that was my first pick as well but then I changed my mind it it's it's so uh so just in into
1:01:50
the common common Collective memory now you know um but my other an
1:01:57
uh was Super Mario Land because it was the first game boy story or first game
1:02:03
boy game so it would have been the first handheld game and that's spectacular cuz
1:02:10
that I I argue that also pushed gaming forward a great deal and that that leads
1:02:16
the way to things like Pokemon is it though the first game wasn't that wasn't that like the game and watch stuff
1:02:21
though I'm not tennis for two is usually credited whichis first video game pong
1:02:27
is um not the first uh I'm just talking I'm talking about mobile handhelds oh so
1:02:33
so I I mentioned Super Mario Land because that was the first game that released for the Game Boy um they also
1:02:40
had a few like baked in kind of basic games and then when it released in the US it also came with Tetris as an option
1:02:49
um but uh the Game Boy is probably the I I I will say oh it's the most
1:02:55
influential because I don't yeah I think it's the most influential handheld and I think
1:03:00
that that also changed gaming because that led to our experience nowadays with
1:03:05
literally gaming on our phones yeah yeah you're right about that I had thought about but is that is are you done
1:03:11
because I don't want to jump on your thing if you no I'm done I'm done all right um mine's a little different because mine is sort of the opposite
1:03:18
like your guys are all very positive I'm thinking about a game that basically helped crystallize the dangers of rushed
1:03:27
crunch time development in gaming like the first game that really as a result
1:03:32
of those things had a had a bad outcome it's the first game that actually made
1:03:37
people stop and think is this an industry that can survive um and that
1:03:43
game and the the thing that came after it is 1982's ET the Extraterrestrial for
1:03:49
the Atari 2600 because it nearly killed video gaming and it's not that it it
1:03:55
didn't do it by being like that important like it wasn't the actual
1:04:00
cause it's the it's the focal point it's the thing everyone points to as they rushed this game out they basically
1:04:07
pushed it all on one person to develop it entirely by himself which is true for a lot of games of that era um and they
1:04:15
didn't let you know that they didn't tell you who made a game yeah people's names were not as people's names were
1:04:20
not associated with it it was the whole reason for the first Easter eggs in video games were to sneak in their name
1:04:26
um and that's one of the many reasons why the industry was bleeding people who
1:04:32
knew how to design games they didn't they people would like come in make a game and never want to do it again um so
1:04:39
when ET came out they had they had basically projected and if you've ever heard of EA making a prediction on sales
1:04:46
you you'll say oh Deja Vu they had predicted something like 20 million units sold and it's like in what Fantasy
1:04:53
Land were you going to sell 20 million units of an Atari 2600 cartridge but there were because ET was a big movie
1:05:00
people thought it was going to sell Gang Busters and it sold okay but not gangbuster and so they ended up burying
1:05:07
like tens of thousands of of copies of this game in the desert and you know companies fell apart um Atari became
1:05:17
went from being like this the the company by which you know the the fortunes of its creators were made to
1:05:23
the thing that allowed Chuck EES to exist in like one year and today we see
1:05:29
all the legacies of of of ET the Extraterrestrial in bad practices now
1:05:34
like R crunchtime rushing people coming up with ways to cut their names out like oh you left halfway through so you don't
1:05:40
get to be on the credits even if you designed half of the game in a in a real way ET is like the grinning harbinger of
1:05:47
the of terrible times to come and so I think it's extremely influential in video games today so that's why I'm
1:05:53
going with ET the Extraterrestrial but I almost went with pong almost went with pong then I'm glad I said it but I think
1:05:59
that's it unless anybody else has anything I'm surprised nobody else had anything to say about ET like it wasn't that bad but I guess none of you played
1:06:05
it I did I played the heck out of that game but I'm not about this sit make that argument it's it was a good game
1:06:11
for Atari 2600 game none of them were great no no it wasn't H all right it was Bor andure was itself bad oh right yeah
1:06:19
okay Adventure was Adventure was an opus compared to ET yeah I mean the original pitfall anyway that you know the fact
1:06:26
that that you know ET even existed man uh but this has been the blizzardwatch podcast I want to thank Liz Pat for
1:06:32
being here with us thank you Liz you're welcome I also want to thank uh Joe and Liz age for being here because you know
1:06:39
without them I'd have to do a lot a lot more and I don't think I'd be able to handle it quite frankly uh so thank you
1:06:45
both of you so much for all the work you do for this this podcast each and every week no problem that's what we're here
1:06:51
for and finally thank you to all of you who were listening supporting us whether it's by being on patreon I will point
1:06:57
you again to lizz's thing about patreon earlier or simply by telling people about the site and the podcast or
1:07:04
listening to one of our many podcasts uh Liz what's this what's the current state
1:07:10
of uh Tavern watch in terms of the next the next game releasing uh Tavern watch
1:07:15
just I was gonna mention that and I forgot thank you for the reminder Matt Tavern watch is our podcast about
1:07:21
tabletop gaming and we just started a new game release called triangle agency
1:07:28
that's three episodes the first episode is already out and next month we have a
1:07:33
game called pigeons 11 coming out I think both of these games were very fun
1:07:38
uh others in this uh in this podcast could tell you if pigeons 11 was fun but
1:07:44
uh uh that should be I think that'll probably be three episodes when we get it together so we have an ongoing weekly
1:07:53
tabletop games for you to listen to We have talk show we're doing once a month about the latest tabletop news if you
1:07:58
enjoy that kind of stuff which we try not to talk about here because we're talking about it in another podcast please search for Tavern watch in your
1:08:05
podcast player or service of choice or watch blizzardwatch tocom they are posted there every Monday thank you guys
1:08:13
and thank you Liz um so yeah again guys uh thank you for being here and supporting us this has been the blizz
1:08:19
watch podcast uh we'll be back next week [Music]
#Computer & Video Games