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This week we're looking back at the events of 2025, with our special guest Phil Ulrich. Rather than going at it chronologically, Matt consults a D8, which means we discuss one of our favorite things from the year which actually happened last: player housing! But there were a ton of things that happened in all of Blizzard's games this year, from Plunderstorm's return to Legion Remix, three Hearthstone expansions, and a ton of Diablo 4 seasons (though who can tell the difference between them). We also met new friends like Valentina, the lizard that was a part of a Hearthstone marketing campaign we would die for, and King Krush, also a Hearthstone-based lizard. Probably a coincidence.
The In Memoriam section this year is Warcraft Rumble. May it rest in peace.
Then, all the other games that had us in a chokehold. But honestly, it's mostly the player housing.
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0:00
[Music]
0:10
Hello everybody and welcome to the Blizzard Watch podcast. Uh, I'm Matt. I'm hosting. With me this week are my
0:17
two fantastic regular co-hosts and our one special co-hosts, Summoned from another universe.
0:23
Well, okay. No, just this universe. But it's a big universe. You should still be excited for him. Phil, say hi to
0:30
everybody. Hi everybody. And you are from this universe, right? Yeah, just, you know, from the Midwest,
0:37
which is kind of its own universe. Oh, okay. You're from a pocket universe. I understand now. Um, not from Colona,
0:42
though, right? No, I don't even know where that is. It It's in It's in or is it in
0:48
Wisconsin? God, I don't remember now. Anyway, besides Kona, which might be in a multiple places if you're listening to
0:54
our show and want to tell me where Kona is, feel free. Uh, we have Joe Perez and
1:00
Liz Harper. They're also here. And also assuming they're from this universe. At
1:05
least that's that's my hope. Uh, say hi. Last I checked. How often do you check to see if you're
1:10
from this universe? Once every couple months. Just to be sure, make sure you exist.
1:18
Yeah. Yeah. haven't haven't fallen out of your desired universal alignment.
1:23
Also, hi Joe. Hi. I'm here too. Yes. It's uh we're going to be talking
1:29
about what happened in 2025 this week, like of stuff, games that have happened,
1:34
things we're thinking about. It's kind of a look back as we as we go forward into the future. This isn't much of a news week. You
1:40
know, holidays, the things things were pretty dead in the world of Blizzard gaming. And uh
1:48
so yes, we are looking into the past and the future. We straddle two worlds.
1:54
But uh first up, since we're doing a year review type thing, we will talk about various Blizzard games and then
1:59
we'll probably segue into talking about our own stuff, like games we played that weren't Blizzard games if we feel like doing that. Um but first up, we're going
2:07
to talk about WoW in 2025. Um, Liz has very nicely put the road map
2:13
that they put out up for us to look at. And I I feel like everybody's going to
2:19
have their own thing they're gonna want to talk about. So, I'm going to start randomly with the power of this D8 that
2:25
I have. Um, so basically one, two is Liz, 3, four is Joe, 5, six is Phil, and
2:31
seven and eight are me, which I will then throw to one of you because I'm the host and I can uh First up, however,
2:37
that's a two. Um, Liz, talk about something from 2025 that you want to
2:42
talk about. Are we're not just talking about the Yeah, but pick the one that you want to
2:48
talk about of them. There's a bunch of them. Matt saying in the WOW 2025, is there something that particularly stands out
2:54
to you? Yes, that is what I mean. Uh, yeah. I think the thing that's probably going to stand out for
3:00
all of us is more than anything that's happened to WoW and in 2025, more than anything that has happened in any
3:06
Blizzard game in 2025 is player housing. After 20 years of World of Warcraft, we
3:14
have player housing in the game. We can make our own neighborhoods. We can build our own houses. We can decorate our
3:20
lawns with giant flamingos. and better and worse things than giant flamingos depending on your opinions.
3:26
See, unfortunately for me, when you say giant flamingos, I'm unfortunately drawn back to Cyberpoint 2077 with the voice
3:33
of GLaDOS saying flaming, it's oxygen. And so I I have a crazy
3:40
voice in my head every time you say flamingo. So I'm sorry that I I am I I am stuck there.
3:47
But this was such a huge feature. It touches every aspect of World of
3:52
Warcraft. There's player housing content in every expansion, in every dungeon and
3:58
raid, in every crafting profession. It's in random drops. It's all over the
4:04
place. There's I think I unlocked some player housing stuff by playing Diablo I. Like I think
4:11
when I got the expansion so I could play Paladin, they unlocked and there were there were Yes, there are
4:16
three WoW player housing decor items you get by buying the Diablo 4 expansion
4:21
Lord of Hatred. So uh but this is just there's been a lot of stuff that's
4:27
happened this year. A lot of great stuff. A lot of not great stuff, but there's been a lot of stuff that happened. And I think player housing
4:34
dwarfves all of it just by the scope and scale of it and how long people have
4:40
wanted a little piece of Azeroth to call their own and now they have it. They f 20 years we've been playing this game
4:46
and now we can make a home there too. So Liz I feel is pretty much established
4:53
that this is she her thoughts on player housing. I want to get everybody else's because I think when I give mine people
4:58
will be surprised. Uh, Joe, how do you feel about player housing?
5:04
I mean, I there's going to be no surprises. I'm absolutely in love with it. Um, I just wish that I could level
5:10
it up faster. I wish that endeavors were a thing that I could, you know, do right now. Uh, instead of
5:15
Yeah, cuz you're in still in the holding pattern waiting for midnight. Yeah, like I I know you can get to level five right now, but like it is very
5:23
expensive. Um, it's also a lot. Yeah, it's a lot of work. like you at 10 XP per unique item,
5:33
first unique item you get, that gap is massive. And like I'm I think 200 points
5:40
away or something like that or 300 points away from the next level up. um which is you know about 20 to 20 to 30
5:49
items that are all averaging either on the auction house at above a grand of gold each uh or require me to do things
5:56
that I don't want to do that I'm doing anyway like leveling legion because it's easier to uh get some of the stuff from
6:03
there that I want to get for my my base. So it it's a mixed bag right now. Um,
6:09
there are some stuff that I I really wish that they would do or clean up and and they can improve. I've submitted
6:15
feedback, you know, but overall it's been a mostly positive experience. Um,
6:21
although I am a little myiff that uh they decided to give you a Diablo chess set immediately after I went and got
6:27
everything I needed to make a chess set out of other items. So, you know, that's a thing.
6:34
And then as a bonus, their chess set is wrong. The chess board is uh got the wrong
6:40
arrangement of squares, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, Phil spoke up. So, now I'm going to
6:46
throw it to Phil. Talk about fireousing, my friend. Uh I spent every drip and drab of war
6:52
resources I have building my little troll troll house paradise on the beach. Um I am enjoying the heck out of player
6:58
housing. I kind of I kind of come and go on it. Like I work on my house for a while, then I go do other things, then I come back to the house. I'm feeling the
7:05
itch again now that I've kind of hit um what I would describe as my end game of Legion Remix, which is I've bought
7:11
literally everything. And so now the only vendor who has recurring purchases is the one who sells you Legion themed
7:17
furniture. Um so that's where all my currency is going now in that expansion.
7:24
Um I'm I'm having a kick I'm having a a real heck of a time with it. I really like it. I'm not sure why they held some
7:30
things back that they did for the expansion. Like I kind of wish like Joe, I wish there was some endeavors to do.
7:36
Although I understand why knowing a bit about the first one, which I won't say. Um, but I will say it also really seems
7:43
like compared to some teams at um, Blizzard, you know, you'll often sardonically hear people use the phrase fund detected for when there's things
7:49
that the player base seems to enjoy and Blizzard immediately shuts down because it's behavior or buggy or whatever. The
7:55
housing team really seems like the ones who like see fun and go, "No, no, let's make that official." like when they uh
8:02
let them cook. Yeah. There's a Yeah. Yeah. Let us all cook. There is a story that Jesse Kurlandic told in an interview where
8:10
they had actually fixed it so that you could not sit on chairs when they were in other things until they saw that the
8:16
community was using this to make uh you know basically you sink a stool inside another object and you can sit on that
8:22
object now. Um like you can put a stool inside a ledge and you can sit on the ledge by clicking on it. Yeah. It tells
8:28
the story. It actually went in and had the developer who had fixed it literally take the code back out to unfix it so
8:34
that people could continue doing this. Um, another example is floating houses. U, people were already doing
8:39
Yeah, I loved that floating. I love I love the way they reacted to it. They were like, "Well, we were just going to shut this down, but we saw the
8:45
cool things you guys were doing with it and instead here's the two problems we're going to fix for you. One is that it doesn't work with the basic tools.
8:50
We're going to fix that. And two is the bottom of your house is untextured." Um, yeah, just stuff like that. It's been
8:56
it's just been really encouraging to see uh something like this inside Blizzard just be like so I would say clearly
9:03
player focused in almost every way except one uh which is the need to purchase multiple pieces of furniture.
9:09
Yeah. Which I don't think will go away unless uh Hearth Steel flops terribly as a currency in 2026.
9:17
Oh boy. So for me for me my playerous reaction is simple and also very confusing for
9:23
people who know me. Uh, player housing has made it so I'm not going to buy Midnight. And not because I don't like
9:28
it. It's because I'm afraid of it. I I cannot get this sucked into something
9:36
when I I have a lot of things that need to be done in my life. I I can't I
9:41
cannot let you do this to me, Blizzard. I'm sorry. I'm going to get there eventually. I'll get there eventually. I will eventually pick it up. I know I
9:47
will. But for right now, the Blizzard game the Blizzard game I'm going to be spending my most focus on is going to be
9:53
Diablo I um because Paladins are great and we'll talk about it eventually. But I can't I can't afford this. Like the
10:00
the the amount of time people are talking about spending on this, the amount of resources people are spending on this, I'm like, "Oh god, my bre my
10:08
breathing is getting shallow. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Calm down." Housing housing has made me interact
10:13
with my mission tables in my Legion class halls in every Legion class hall for the first time since 2018. So
10:20
yeah, I'm I am afraid of it. We we we stopped raid one day and I thought I'll just go fix up the I'll just go add a
10:26
few things to my kitchen. I've got I just know what I know what I want to do and then it's three in the morning and I and I have to work the next day and
10:33
I know people who are like who are seriously like talking about like relationship problems they're having
10:38
through this this like they straight up had relationship problems like they're not talking right now. Uh one girl moved
10:46
out because her her boyfriend of the that she was living with. Um, and this is a person I know in real life that
10:52
that plays they play in a in a guild that I don't play in because I just
10:58
wasn't playing horde at the time and then years have passed. But regardless, they have there they straight up had to
11:03
go to counseling for this and it isn't even fully implemented yet. I am
11:09
terrified. I know what's going to happen to me once I get midnight and start
11:15
playing World of Warcraft player housing because that's what it's going to be. It's not going to be World of Warcraft
11:21
midnight. I might not even look at midnight for a while. I might just do housing stuff and I'm terrified of it.
11:28
So, I I for right now, I didn't spend my Christmas money on Midnight. I spent it
11:34
on Diablo I because I wanted to play the Paladin now. Uh and because I know that
11:40
I can stop playing. I've proved to myself that I can walk away from Diablo I anytime I want. I am not risking
11:49
player housing until I have a big chunk of time that I don't mind blowing. Uh and that time is not now. It just just
11:56
isn't. It's winter in Canada. Today is the warmest day we've had in months and it's -5 out. That's And compared that to
12:04
-30 something last week. Yeah. No. No. I cannot live in the in the frozen
12:10
wasteland and become sucked into player housing. For those and for those of you not in uh
12:15
not in the part of the world that uses uh actual units of measurement that's 20 degrees Fahrenheit roughly give or take.
12:22
Yeah. And that's that's a balmy day. Like we were like, "Oh, it's warm today.
12:28
Water's still ice, but it's warm today." Anyway, so yeah, player housing scares me witless because of how much I want to
12:35
play it and how much I know I will not be able to make myself stop. I mean,
12:41
it's just it's too much. It is it is a dangerous consuming thing especially if it's something you're used to. Like I
12:46
joked that the real endgame in Wildstar was quite literally uh at level 14
12:54
because that's when you got player housing. Um I don't think I I legitimately don't think I got much
12:59
higher than 14 unless I was doing content specifically to get something for my house then. Um,
13:05
I I briefly poked my nose into White Veil the next zone after the one where you got housing that I was like, "Nope,
13:10
this isn't as fun as playing in my house." Yeah. Going back now. Yeah. Like I mean, and it's just the way
13:16
it is, right? Like I can't There's a reason that that um if you think about games that became very big
13:22
in 2020, uh the reason that one of them was basically go to an island and make a house and pay a raccoon uh was so
13:30
popular was because of that that same drive. And oddly enough, I couldn't get into that. Like that game couldn't get
13:36
into. But you you stick me in an MMO with like other people that I can like torture with whatever I build in my
13:42
house. Yes. Yes, please. So yeah, that's I I again, this is not a negative review um of Player Housing.
13:50
I'm super excited for it. I'm just afraid of how super excited I am for it. All right. Uh Legion Remix that happened
13:56
this year. Um it's still going like for another 12 days. Phil, did you say how much time it is?
14:02
Uh 20. It ends on the It ends like midday on the 19th. It's kind of weird. Liz, I heard you you say something.
14:08
No, carry on. Okay. Okay. That is a reference to us referencing the time. Um, but yeah, it's
14:16
it's Legion Remix did happen at the end of the year and ran it running to mid January. Um, so
14:23
and it's, you know, that's I I played it enough to realize that I, as much as I
14:29
viscerally dislike playing a caster, um, the mage legendaries were hilarious. Like the the arch, not not um,
14:37
legendaries, um, artifacts. They're hilarious. There's one that is basically Matt Mercer sassing you. Like seriously,
14:44
that's what it is. Luna. Yeah, Luna. Matt Mercer sassing you. Do something. I don't understand why that
14:50
wasn't more popular when I know people people obsess over Zalot,
14:56
but I'm just kind of like a Lunith. I think it's because Lunith was less was less malevolent and more just catty.
15:04
That's like my experience with Lunith is a Lunith is just extremely catty. Just like,
15:10
you know, just just just not taking any of my BS and not taking anybody else's either. Um, so liked that. Uh, actually
15:18
had a good time on that. Unfortunately, couldn't devote as much time to Legion Remix as I wanted to. Think I've stuck
15:25
around level 50. Um, just never couldn't get past it. Yeah, I literally wasn't going to touch
15:31
it because I like Legion, but I've had no desire to go back to Legion.
15:37
Um, I don't feel like Legion is far enough back for me to felt too much nostalgia for it. Well, that that it's not even that. This
15:42
is Legion was the time that I leveled 10 or 12 different character classes to max
15:47
level. And so like I kind of burned out on the content pretty bad. But then what
15:53
got me to actually do it now and actually level through it is the cool
15:58
warden stuff that I need to get and I would like to get it before Legion Remix ends because it's going to be three or four times as expensive when it goes
16:05
into the live servers as an option. Someone was just saying Player Housing did it. Yeah, 100%. This is why I'm afraid of
16:11
player housing. Uh Liz Dang it with remix.
16:16
I Legion Remix I think is fun, but it's also come out at this time where there's
16:21
so much to do. It's it's a late year kind of addin because we're all getting
16:29
ready for it's the holidays, the new year's coming, we're getting we're uh
16:34
the last raid tier is winding down. So, this is a great sort of filler piece of content, but it launched around the same
16:41
time as player housing. It's launched around all of these major holidays in the US, which takes up so much time, and
16:49
it is impossible to find the time to do housing, to do remakes. We just had a
16:55
new Diablo I season drop. It's the timing of it has not worked well for me.
17:00
So, I am way behind on doing anything in Remix, but I'm I'm working on it because
17:06
I want to collect all the transmog. That's that's my end goal in this video game life that I exist in.
17:13
Absolutely. But, uh, it's been really hard to find the time. And Legion Remix, there's so
17:19
much. It is overwhelming to look at and to see, okay, these are all the things
17:25
that are available. These are all of the achievements that give you rewards. It is overwhelming. So, it's I have enjoyed
17:34
it. I've enjoyed revisiting it. I've enjoyed getting super powerful and stomping on content, but it's it's
17:41
really overwhelming. And I think having an overlap with the player
17:47
housing early access has really really created a problem moment for me
17:52
because I want to do both, but there is not the time to work on both. So, I've been trying to finish remix goals
17:58
because uh you know that one's going away and it's not coming back. I mean, that's kind of been the recurring trend with remixes, though,
18:04
hasn't it? Cuz when we got uh when we got Mrs. Depender remix, it launched at the exact same time as season 4 of uh
18:12
Dragonfly. Yeah, that's correct. I was trying to I was trying to make Myst even older than it was. Yeah, it launched at the exact same time as
18:18
season 4 of Dragonflight. So, I know we um personally had kind of uh internal
18:23
back and forth between people who wanted to work on the uh the new raid stuff that came out, then farm the new
18:29
transmog from that, for which you had to get a currency that only came from season 4 of uh uh season 4 raids versus
18:37
uh people who wanted to spend time over in mists uh trying to farm up all that stuff. And it was just uh it felt weird
18:44
that they launched two things of what felt like equally important size next to each other. Um at least this time
18:52
playing Legion Remix does get you things for housing. So there's at least a little cross-pollination there. But uh
18:57
and it gives you the transmog that as Liz mentioned. Yeah. Yeah. And it feels like remix it
19:02
feels like the remixes always get launched alongside something else and you're always kind of splitting your attention if you want to do them. So, yeah, but I think that's I think that's
19:09
like their that's that's the niche they live in, right? Like it's here here is optional content that you can do while
19:17
waiting for other stuff if these other things that are releasing aren't your thing, right? Like if you don't care about the
19:22
last season of an expansion, you can go do it. If you don't care about that next Diablo season, you can go do it. And if
19:29
you don't care about uh remix and you want to go do one of those things, it doesn't demand your attention. This is
19:34
the first time. And again, this is mostly a personal thing. Um, the rewards
19:40
that you get for housing from Legion will be available to you after Legion
19:46
Remix is done, but you get them cheaper and quicker by doing Legion Remix. So,
19:51
there's the first time they've offered an incentive kind of to go along with
19:57
it, right? It's in reality there's very Yeah. In reality, there's very few things that are truly exclusive to
20:03
Legion Remix. It's like the two recolors of the side and then like the one item from each zone achievement. Uh
20:10
yeah, but there's there's a cheaper This is the cheaper alternative. There's a much cheaper way to do it
20:17
because bronze falls out of the sky. You know, getting bronze in Remix is not is not very difficult or not very
20:23
timeconuming. So you can buy these things with bronze in Remix, but if you do it on the live servers, it costs
20:29
what? War resources. It cost various kinds of war resources. and veiled argonite both
20:35
at the same time. Yeah. So So that's that's fun. Arganite.
20:43
Yeah. Fortunately, I'm not really interested in Legion decor, so I'll probably pick up like one of each for just for the
20:50
housing points. Yeah, that's what you I mean, that's what you get for completing the achievements that reward them. Anyways, you get the free piece. There's a few
20:57
things that aren't legion themed, like the Joe alluded to. the um the the big like watcher statues look like owls and
21:03
have a light. Um a are one of the few lights. Yeah. Uh well, no, they're from uh
21:09
everywhere on the aisle of the watchers. Yeah. Oh, right. Right. I just thought I thought it might be from that dungeon because there's the big owl statue that
21:15
the I think they're in there, too. But uh pro tip for housing enthusiasts, that's one of the few things outside that has a light that you can place outside on your
21:21
property. Um but it's like that and like a big chair for Yeah. Yeah. when midnight when
21:29
midnight goes live or closer to midnight. I think the pre- patch I think they're talking about having external lighting items be able to be placed.
21:35
Yeah, that's good cuz there's some things it feels really silly talking about.
21:41
I you know there's there's only one person to blame for that problem. It's true. Thanks.
21:48
I'm naming him. He knew it. He knows what he did with his fire garden.
21:53
We should probably talk about some of this other stuff though cuz man, I'm looking at this timeline. I can't believe some of this stuff this year.
21:58
We should probably move on to Storm really fast because I have not ever played it
22:04
despite them having it for two years now and I want somebody to explain. I I know what it is,
22:09
but why why should I have played this? What did what did I do to myself by not playing it? There's pirate pirate transmog. So,
22:16
okay, I'm fine because I don't like pirate transmog. So, I'm cool. So, go ahead talk.
22:22
No, how's that? It's uh yeah, it was a it was a battle royale style uh game mode that offered pirate transmog
22:29
and we've got I think that come out. Do you guys want to talk more about Pl before we move on? Not really.
22:35
I I would just say please go ahead. Yeah, I would just say that uh it's interesting because Blizzard did talk
22:41
about how they were going to do more differing game modes like this, but so farm is the only one we've seen.
22:48
Plunderstorm and uh remix if you count remix in that same category. And I kind of do because it's a different game
22:53
mode. Yeah. I So I think the big question about Blizzard brought Pondertorm back
22:59
in January 2025. Is it going to come back in 2026? Are we going to see different kinds of gameplay
23:05
like this in the future? I think probably yes. But I I don't know cuz isn't
23:10
World of Warcraft is the the the the midnight pre- patch is coming out uh what January 20th
23:17
something. Like I don't know that it's going to come. It's on January 20th. The midnight The 28th is when it starts actually
23:23
doing the event. 27th. Okay. 27th. So, I mean, I would be very surprised if
23:28
they drop Plunder Plundtorm alongside that. I think Yeah. I don't think I don't think it's
23:34
going to come out in January. I think if it was, we would already know about it. But, you know, something like that. I
23:40
assume we're going to get stuff like this is kind of it's a great kind of content to have when there's a low in
23:46
other things. you know, that's a good time to roll out a remake or a plunger storm or some other kind of new game
23:52
mode. Like I can see Go ahead, Phil. I was gonna say it might be a good thing for them to drop, you know, during in
23:58
the in the lull between uh 12.0 and like 12.0.5. You know, there's always like that that gap where people have hit the
24:04
hit max level. You know, they're humming along in raids or dungeons or whatever they like doing, but they still need something else to do in the background
24:10
because they don't have all the activities that come with a fully featured uh expansion yet. And that seems like the time when they like to
24:16
drop uh um things like this, like the like Plundtorm, like maybe a new game
24:21
mode, because in this case, uh for context, Plundtorm overlapped with
24:27
nothing except Siren Ale, which dropped at the end of 2024 and we were all very
24:32
tired of two weeks into it dropping. Um so this so like those kind of LOLs are
24:38
perfect for something like Plundtorm. All right. Uh let's try and talk about patch 11.1 because in a way both of
24:44
these two patches that happened in 2025 uh really affected the way the game felt. Um undermine because it was a
24:52
complete swerve from the initial launch. the the initial launch of War Within was
24:58
very focused on a specific storyline of going through these zones and getting to the end and you know confronting Zalat
25:05
and then 11.1 although Zolot's involved definitely was like suddenly now
25:10
everything everything's coming up goblin and you're like what the heck no I mean I I would argue that I I don't
25:17
disagree that it was a complete swerve. I will I will say 11.2 two, which we can talk about in a minute, I think was a
25:23
complete swerve, but that's other the whole other thing. Uh, Undermin was just
25:29
the neighboring area that was us chasing Zalat and people working with Zalot. It
25:35
made it made enough sense and then getting to uh Giwix made sense as well.
25:42
Uh, because he was the one that was working with it. He's the one that had information. So, like I kind of get
25:48
that, but I understand what you're saying. Undermine was a surprisingly
25:53
robust and large content up between the vehicle system which they added which
25:59
was very very good and I think not nearly talked about enough. I thought it was really rad and neat. Um a complex
26:06
story with the factions. Uh the city itself, while it doesn't feel very big,
26:11
uh when you're zooming around at Mach 10, is actually rather large and took
26:16
you to not just the unders city, but other goblin areas uh outside of it,
26:22
like making you revisit like going back to Kazan and and things like that. Um
26:28
which again is the first time we've done that since the volcano exploded. So like
26:33
there's all these interesting like little tiny tidbits tied up with it that
26:39
also are just surrounding the whole chase for Zelat cuz even in the the 11.0
26:45
stuff and the story stuff we did with uh the the earn it's all about chasing
26:50
Zalot the stuff with the uh Arathy it's all about chasing Zalot. So it was just more of chasing Zalot. I don't think it
26:57
was a swerve, but I I do think it was logical and I actually very much enjoyed
27:04
11.1. I thought it was very well done. Also, one of my favorite raids of all of like recent memory.
27:10
Liz, I mean, I think the interesting thing about both patch 11.1 and 11.2 is that
27:17
they took us to locations that were so different. You know, it's even even
27:23
Kazalgar, everything we've seen in Kazalgar, each zone has its own flavor, its own inhabitants feels totally
27:30
different from the others. And they did not come at us with anything that felt sy. Both uh both the Undermine in 11.1
27:39
and Caresh in 11.2 felt these are different from anything that we have in
27:44
the game. And that was that was great. I'm not I'm not a big Undermine fan, but
27:52
you can't deny that this is a different kind of zone than any zone we've ever been to. The content was different. The
27:58
kinds of stories in it were were different. It was laid out different because it's a city. You know, we've
28:05
we've got cities like Stormwind, but this was a you know, a you had a grid
28:11
sort of grid like city road structure in there. You had skyscrapers reaching up to a metal sky with
28:19
cardboard clouds. It just had such a it had such a vibe. That's that's that's
28:26
what was great about both of these major patches in The War Within. They felt
28:31
really different, really unique, and they took us to places we hadn't been before. And it's actually kind of
28:38
interesting to look back and think that's the the bulk of the war within has all happened in 2025. We've been
28:45
through a lot in just this one calendar year in Azeroth. Yeah. I mean, it's fair to say I I I I
28:53
don't want to interrupt Phil. I know Phil probably has lots to talk about. I do I do want to say that for me, Caresh was the most fun I've had in WoW in a
28:59
long time. I uh I didn't necessarily hate Undermind, but um quite frankly, I
29:04
wasn't good at the driving game. I felt like the driving game was to me this time what um the dragon riding flight
29:12
was in the previous expansion. It was the thing I just wasn't very good at and it made it frustrating for me. But I I
29:19
did really like Karash a lot. Not just for lore, but for just plain old had fun
29:24
running around doing stuff. Um see and yeah, go ahead Phil. Oh, go ahead Joe
29:30
because you're talking. No, I mean, I'll let Phil go, but like 11 112 for me was
29:35
not as fun as it could have been, but let let's let Phil go and then I'll I'll rant about 11. No, I agree. As the uh So, I really
29:42
enjoyed 111. I agree with Joe on the front that I think it's one of the best uh raids that they've done in quite a
29:48
long time. Uh also uh quick shout out to the music. Uh the music in that patch was just
29:54
unlike anything in this entire game so far. Unreal. Unreal how good it Um, and of
29:59
course as Blizzard watch's uh biggest ethereal stand, I am uh I was looking
30:04
forward to Kash and I am a little bit disappointed with what we got out of it. Um, I did enjoy Mana Forge Omega. Yes,
30:10
it was kind of a return to form for, you know, Blizzard raids, but um, it was, you know, it was really good. Had some
30:16
interesting fights. Uh, lots of uh, fun little lore tidbits going on. Getting to see people we haven't uh, seen in a
30:22
while like uh, Saladar. Um, I do want to say though, uh, you know, from a looking forward perspective, Liz, you brought up
30:29
how every zone in the war within is completely different from each other. Like, um,
30:34
even you know, like the the aisle of dawn is different from the ring deeps is different from Hallow Fall, from
30:40
Ashkahhead, from Siren, from Underline, from Caresh. And I really do think that
30:46
continues through midnight. Like, I've played through a lot of the questing experience on the beta, something I
30:51
don't usually do, but I really wanted to get a look at it this time. and like going back to the redesigned Everong,
30:57
going to uh Harendar, going to the voidstorm. Um, and even just like the
31:02
little trip around the world you take with Artor, which kind of functions as a the fourth zone. Like all of those
31:09
again, every zone feels completely different from the others. Like obviously, Silver Moon and I I can't
31:15
believe I said this as our guild's biggest troll player. I forgot Zulleon.
31:22
Um, again, none of those zones even feel remotely like each other. Um, and it's
31:28
really cool how they have been like really managing to make everything feel completely different in each zone. And
31:33
like, you know, something different to look at, something someplace different to go. Everything is a different experience. Um, and I really like that
31:39
that's continuing forward in the next part of the saga. Um, especially really enjoy uh Harendar and the Void Storm.
31:45
So, uh, looking forward to those. Um, honestly, I'm still just stunned that these two major patches were both
31:52
this year. I If you'd asked me, I would have said, "Oh, yeah, undermine was Undermine was late last year, right? We
31:57
did that in 2024, right?" No, that was this year. Yeah. The the the content drop has been
32:03
steady and good as far as I'm concerned for the most part. And I I'm glad that you and I are on the
32:08
similar wavelength. I was also really looking forward to Caresh. My problem with 112 is I feel like that was the
32:14
swerve. And after playing in the beta, I feel more like that. Um, just because
32:20
and and and I've talked about this before, but it wasn't that the content was bad. It just it felt like it should
32:27
have been the opening salvo of an expansion. And there should have been more. It should have been more robust.
32:34
And like I feel like there was good stuff there, but it almost felt rushed
32:40
to me because of the timing of getting it set. And to me, the logical
32:45
storytelling wise, we would have finished dealing with the black blood in our chase and Zelath
32:51
because we still don't understand what it was. And she was very clearly using it. And there's a whole setup for it in
32:57
110, 11:05, 11, 115, 117, and then 112.
33:03
We're back on Kesh, which we were always going there. It just it felt like the
33:09
timing was pushed around a little bit. And again, I'm not saying it was bad. It
33:14
was just the surprise for this expansion. I expected it. This is where I realize that you and I
33:20
mean different things when we say swerve. A swerve literally is going from where you I mean I mean thematically.
33:27
Oh yeah. No, I'm talking I'm talking undermine talk. Undermine feels like it's a sudden, you know, jarring shift
33:34
in terms of a lot of the stuff you're talking about. Absolutely. I just wasn't ready to suddenly be in Goblin Town.
33:40
Like I did I just didn't feel Yeah, I can see that. Felt the same. Okay, that's and it's pretty much the same
33:45
thing you're saying in that it's not bad. And I will give you midnight feels like
33:50
a more natural home for Caresh because what we're going to I honestly felt like we should have gone
33:56
to Caresh after we did the opening of Midnight. Like it felt more like it would have happened there. But I get
34:02
you. I I I think the other way because I think the opening of Midnight feels more like the crescendo at the middle of an expansion. That's fair. like doing that
34:09
questing. It's very epic. It drops you right into it and it's really like I'm not talking about specifics because I
34:14
want people to experience it. But I was very pleased with that experience. It just felt to me like an like a 121 or a
34:22
122, right? Like it's it's I can see that. Yeah, I think Harendar would have actually made a more logical
34:28
story flow expansion to the inner zone for the end of the expansion, especially since you know you uh you know you met
34:35
tell you like three times you know you must go back and speak to my people. Yeah and like you meet the her in 11 and
34:40
you pal around with Orana a lot in 111 because she's trying to track down the black blood and then Orwana and the
34:46
black blood disappear for 112. So we should also talk about the UI features. They added the uh combat
34:53
assistant, um the single button deal, and the cooldown manager. And there's more coming at midnight, but I don't
35:00
know off top of my head what all of those are. But we should talk about this because I think the new built-in UI features are part of Blizzard's attempt
35:07
at accessibility options for the game, as well as their attempt to co-opt a lot of add-ons that people use right now.
35:14
Um, I would say call I'm gonna go straight to Liz and say,
35:20
you know, first Liz, what do you think? Um, I think Blizzard is going into this
35:25
with good intentions where you're trying, they're trying to create an environment that is the same for all
35:32
players. So, if you go in and play the game and you have a pile of add-ons right now, and if you go in and play the
35:38
game and you have no add-ons, your experience is vastly different. and Blizzard has to balance for the power
35:45
that add-ons give players, which means encounters can be very
35:51
difficult without them. So, the the problem, if you want to call it that, is
35:57
that, you know, we've all gotten used to our add-ons and Blizzard is taking a
36:03
hammer to them. They are building a lot of cool new features into the base UEIE which means you can log on and just jump
36:09
into the game and have the same tool set more or less as other players. So
36:16
theoretically that means less less tuning with add-ons in mind which should
36:23
put players on a somewhat more even ground. I I will add I will add to this that that conversation about add-ons has
36:30
been evolving since uh the recent patch went live uh and add-on uh developers have been working
36:37
with Blizzard and discussing it as well as player feedback. I will give them credit. Um they are listening. The
36:44
hammer that they were taking to it is now more of a rubber mallet. Um, and I agree with like the the core concept of
36:50
it is tackling something we've talked about before and something that I don't know that I've talked about a lot on
36:56
this podcast, but something I will bring up. Um, weak oras is an absolutely
37:02
insane add-on. And the reason I bring that up is not because I think weak or
37:08
is bad. I think having ways to notify you of when key cool downs are up and or like key abilities, that's a good thing.
37:15
The problem is is when I was doing Mana Forge Omega on Mythic difficulty without
37:21
having specific tools designed by Mythic World first raiding guilds, which
37:29
included method tools and a very specific subset of Liquid uh Team
37:35
Liquid's weak oras, the fights were absolutely undoable. And this is going
37:41
to what Liz was saying where like fights get to a certain complex nature where they keep adding stuff and they're
37:46
balancing them around the idea of these these add-ons being there. But it's almost like an escalating arms
37:52
race and it has been for years. Um there's a problem you make a fight more difficult like let's go to Leen.
37:58
Next thing you know there's a Lean specific add-on that helps you deal with that specific encounter or um what's his
38:06
name? the eyeball in that that zone where you have to do the uh the maze Duramu. Thank you.
38:11
Oh, Daru's stupid maze. There was an add-on that literally the second someone says there's that eyeball, I'm going to be like Daru move
38:17
cuz I have like such PTSD from it. But there was literally an add-on that like made that easier for you to do and
38:24
see. um and taking a lot of the player thought out of it and the the mythic
38:29
rating with weak auras and and stuff like that really did that. Like doing uh
38:35
Princess uh Silk Butt uh I can never remember her real name cuz we just
38:40
decided that's what she was called. Um but like doing her and doing that encounter, you could not coordinate fast
38:47
enough to deal with one of the mechanics without having weak orers that told you when to go and like that looped into the
38:54
game. So, I agree with like them scaling that stuff back so that they can focus on engaging encounters, but then they
39:02
also broke everything. So, like I will freely say that I am not a fan of their
39:07
bar mods. I am not a fan of their uh party frames and raid frames. I think
39:13
that they are not nearly as good as they could be and their recent iterations of it actually made them worse uh in a way
39:20
that I didn't realize until I went to go heal with them which and again we haven't talked about this you're their
39:26
new bars have a thing where like if you have a focus um spell or something that's like a
39:32
major cooldown running on a player, it takes up the majority of the the the frame that you cannot adjust the size
39:39
of, mind you. Um, and you cannot click through it. So, if you don't click like
39:46
exactly around it, you don't get to see it. And you might not care about that cool down, but you're forced to see it
39:52
anyway. And like it's it's an interesting mix versus like something like grid where it's like, I don't care
39:57
about literally anything except this one thing. Show me this in a corner and it lets you click through it. Um, wildly
40:04
different uh use cases maybe. Uh but like it's just it's interesting to see
40:09
them start to walk some of that back because they're listening to player feedback. So like uh Grid and there's
40:15
another healer one are going to continue development into Midnight, which is great for me and some other players. Um
40:22
ones that do things for you automatically probably not like Voodoo. Um, so like I get it, but it was very
40:29
interesting to see the immediate reaction, which I had a very visceral reaction to, and then them walking a
40:36
bunch of that back, which I think Phil and I had both thought that they were going to do pretty uh pretty readily.
40:43
And it's happy I'm happy to see them do that. So yeah, the it it was it was obvious to me
40:49
from the beginning that that's what was going to happen when everyone was freaking out because like the initial
40:55
lockdown they put on secret values for add-ons was so like so restrictive it
41:03
didn't even make sense. Um, and uh, in and to go along with something Matt mentioned earlier did break a lot of
41:10
accessibility related add-ons for players who, for example, have vision impairments or uh, hearing impairments.
41:16
Um, it always seemed to me from the very beginning that they were going to just lock down as much as they could and then
41:22
dial it back. And that seems to be exactly what they've been doing. So, yeah, because a lot of was of course
41:27
done on the alpha and beta as well. So, we've seen it develop over that
41:32
time. I am going to push us a little forward here because quite frankly I'm a little worried we won't get to it and I
41:37
really want to talk about it. Um, we can come back to WoW Classic in 2025, but I want to talk about Diablo I in 2025,
41:43
especially the tail end of it. Um, so right now I want to talk first up about
41:48
the seasons in Diablo 4. I keep saying Diablo 5 in my head, so I don't know if I said it out loud that way. Um, the
41:55
first season of the year was the season of witchcraft, which was January. Um, April came the Balile thing. Season
42:03
eight. Season eight. Uh, Bile's return. Um, season. Go ahead. I mean, I don't know if we want to. I I
42:09
listed all of these seasons out. I'm just going to list the ones that are there and we'll move on. Yeah, there are five there are five
42:16
seasons and they're different themes, but they feel kind of the same. They blur together.
42:22
They do in fact blur together a lot and that's one of the things I'm going to talk about. Uh, season 9. Uh, season 10
42:28
was the seasons of infernal chaos and now we're in the season 11 divine intervention. Divine intervention feels
42:34
like it's just season of eternal chaos t part two. Like it's it's so similar. Um,
42:40
and quite frankly, seasons in Diablo I are simultaneously some of the best and
42:47
some of the worst gameplay that I have playing it. Um, I like them. I end up
42:52
playing them, but there is a sameness to them that you didn't get in Diablo II. And I really feel like they need to look
42:58
at how to do seasons where they feel more consequential as a whole. And
43:05
especially since the battle pass, which we are going to talk about briefly, the the redesigned battle pass with all the
43:11
uh reoquaries, it I thought it was annoying before, but
43:17
now that I've been doing season 11 and I've done season 11 into the ground, I'm going to talk about these reoquaries
43:22
because they are it's the weirdest thing to actually go. Well, go ahead, Liz, cuz you you started talking. I heard you.
43:27
I mean, we should probably start by saying what the change was here, which is that Diablo I launched with a pretty
43:35
straightforward battle pass system. You buy the battle pass, you go and you do all you jump through all the little hoops, you get everything in the battle
43:40
pass. They changed that to a reoquery system, which is a battle pass except
43:47
it's split into four pieces. One of those four pieces, those four relic queries is free. the others you have to
43:53
buy to so that you can go through the game and jump through your hoops and unlock the rewards and the reoquaryy.
43:59
So, it's like it's like they took a battle pass and split it into four battle passes and you can buy each one
44:06
individually or you can buy all four of them as a battle pass.
44:13
Yeah. And the weird thing about it is too there is a way to get gold not gold,
44:18
silver, whatever you call it in this game. There's a way to get the money platinum to buy the platinumat platinum
44:24
that to get the season the various uh reoquaries by duce doing the reoquaries. There's
44:29
two that you can spend the currency you get the uh whatever that's called. I've been playing this game for seven days
44:35
straight and I still can't remember what this thing is. Favor tokens. There it is. Um so you can you can get up to aund
44:42
to a thousand uh platinum doing that. Thousand platinum is not going to get you all four of the reoquart. So, it's
44:50
technically impossible to get all four just from gameplay. Yeah, you have to. This is a This is a
44:57
premium cash currency thing. You cannot earn enough because you can't earn platinum in game. You can get some
45:04
platinum from the battle pass, but nowhere near enough to buy this. the one
45:09
that you get for free, the one that they give you, the the battle pass uh divine intervention, that has two rewards where
45:17
you spend five of these favor tokens and get 500 platinum, which leads up to a
45:23
thousand. And then each one has a different platinum cost.
45:28
And like the first one is actually pretty cheap. It's like you spend 200 and get it. The next one's like 500 and
45:35
then the third one's 800. So, you cannot earn, you know, two, eight, if that's
45:42
1,500, you cannot earn that through in-game play. You have to spend actual
45:48
money to go buy their platinum, which is exactly it's exactly like the battle
45:55
pass was before, which you can't earn enough currency to do this in the game or by completing the battle pass. You
46:00
have to give them cash. This is a premium cash battle pass though. It gives you it gives you some uh premium
46:06
currency, some platinum to kind of just as a teaser. Well, I mean, you can get three of them,
46:12
which which I did. I have three of them. I got entirely from in-game play. I'm not going to spend my my platinum or
46:19
real money to buy platinum because that's a whole other thing. You can't get platinum in any like like a convenient amount. Uh, but as a result
46:26
of all this, because the battle passes and seasons are so linked, even though
46:31
they're not technically the same thing, but the battle pass is to basically make your season give you cool things. And
46:39
since they are so linked in that way, the seasons ultimately constantly end up feeling flattened out and you're always
46:47
like thinking, do I want to spend money on this reoquery or do I want to just try to grind up the platinum myself? Um,
46:55
it just it takes away from the joy of the actual gameplay. And that's one of
47:00
the things that's really annoying because the Paladin class came out and I'm sorry, it's so fun. The Paladin for
47:08
Diablo I is the best thing I've played in 2025.
47:14
I am I am over the moon with how cool this class is. How it combines like a
47:21
real strong flavor with with just enough opess.
47:27
Sorry, I shouldn't have said it that way. Um to make it feel strong without
47:32
feeling like you're just trampling over things. Like I have died. I I have died doing this, but I don't die constantly.
47:40
I'm not getting my head torn off. I'm playing on the hardest difficulty I was currently allowed to. I'm about to get
47:46
kicked it up to the next to the first level of torment. And it it's always felt like I had to pay attention, but I
47:52
didn't have to struggle. And it just it's so smooth. I just It is so smooth.
47:58
It is. So, it rewards considering how you're going to play your character and
48:04
picking the right of the four play styles that you're going to use to to
48:09
make that work. And it's just so good. And to to see it get ruined by having to
48:17
to like debate, okay, do I want to get beasts so I can get the mount or do I, you know, I won't be able to get one of
48:24
these cuz I can't I'm not going to buy the extra platinum. Uh it just it's like h it's not a question of you not you
48:31
have to do it slower like for some some games have a a battle pass where if you don't get the battle pass you can still
48:37
do everything you just have to do it slower. There's stuff you just can't do and won't get if you don't get all four reoquaries and
48:45
it is just it is really been like a like a it's been really hard for me playing it
48:51
to to get past that. I hear Liz trying to talk and I want to let her talk so I'm going to
48:57
you you were going the same direction my mind was. Keep keep going. It's just that's basically my problem
49:02
with it. And it's so sad because the paladin is so good and I'm sitting here going if this if the paladin is this
49:09
good to the point where I I have rolled a second one. I the person who literally just had
49:16
barbarians like I had 16 slots used and they were all barbarians. I had to delete
49:21
barbarians, guys. I want you to understand how hard that is for me. And I did it because I played that paladin
49:27
and I'm like, "Yes, I must play more of it because this is like it it the only
49:34
way it could be better if it was like canonically the Templar was involved
49:39
somehow because then I would be like super excited." And I'm actually still excited to see how how does your
49:45
character digging up uh their pal their paladin stuff, who what is the deal with that? what is going on? All that stuff's
49:51
cool, but just the gameplay of it is just so good. It's so I I never feel
49:56
like I I've tried multiple builds now, and I never feel like I made a really dumb choice. But I have felt like, oh
50:03
no, this doesn't work with what I'm doing. I need to to go think about what
50:08
I'm doing in a way that I haven't had in a long time in Diablo. Um I just I
50:13
really love the Paladin. I think it's great. It's It's I honestly don't know
50:19
what I'll level through the new expansion when it comes out. I don't know if I'll level a paladin first or my barbarians first.
50:26
Uh because I mean I haven't got enough chance to play my pal my barbarian recently to know how it compares. Uh cuz
50:32
I haven't been able to make myself. Uh but yeah, no uh the season stuff the seasons feel pretty flat quite frankly.
50:39
They almost always feel the same. Liz is dead on about that. The battle pass just feels complicated for no reason. It did
50:46
not have to be four separate relic queries that you have to pick and choose through. Uh, no, you don't have to do
50:52
that. I feel like they should should consider going back and simplifying it. Go ahead. Yeah, Blizzard made that change in
50:58
season 8. It used to be a battle pass. In season 8, it started being a reoquaryy for battle passes in a battle
51:04
pass. Um, and as to the Paladin, the Paladin launched with season 11, which
51:09
went live in December. So, if you pre-order the new expansion, Lord of
51:15
Hatred, which I think I will spend the next year having to stop myself and
51:20
think whether I am getting that name right. Yeah, especially since the previous expansion is Vessel of Hatred.
51:26
Yes, you've got the previous expansion was Vessel of Hatred and then we have another previous expansion, Lord of
51:32
Destruction. And I'm always mixing those three up in some way or another. But no, the Diablo expansion Lord of Hatred,
51:40
definitely the correct name. Uh if you pre- purchase that, you will get access to the Paladin class immediately and you
51:47
can play it right now in season 11. So that's that's the big exciting thing. But there's there's more excitement
51:53
coming because the Diablo I expansion launches in 2026.
51:59
Surprising new year. It's in April. Yes. Okay. I want to make sure that we got that out there for people who are cuz
52:05
quite frankly, Midnight's coming out in March and if you're trying if you're trying to figure out, you know, which one will I be playing insanely, I'm sure
52:11
more people are going to be getting World of Warcraft, but man, for me, uh, the April Lord of Hatred release is my
52:19
it's going to be my big thing. I just want to chime in here that uh, Vessel of Destruction totally sounds
52:25
like an Iron Maiden song. So does like literally anything like Lord of Hatred,
52:32
Vessel of Hatred. These could also be Iron Maiden songs. Um I I I think Destruction of Hatred though is possibly
52:39
the best one that that that would be, you know, I could actually hear them singing in my head right now. Uh but
52:45
yeah, I will also say I'm still I'm I'm still desperately
52:51
wanting them to tell us what the next class is going to be. And I know they're not going to announce
52:58
we should add to that statement that Lord of Hatred will have a second new
53:03
class that they have not announced yet. So they have also but they have also
53:08
announced that in the new expansion we are going to the Solos Isles. So we think it's going to be related to that.
53:15
Yep. And that actually ties back to the Oh, nope. Nope. Got to stop. Uh we've still got a lot to talk about and we are
53:21
almost out of time. So, should try to at least mention Wild Classic really fast and then get some Hearthstone in here. Um, Miss Vendor Classic launched this
53:28
year and it's right now it's up to Throne of Thunder, which is possibly the best Missandaria raid in my opinion. Um,
53:35
I'm I'm not I don't hate Caesar Ormar, but I didn't think it was as good. Go ahead, Liz. The whole Throne of Thunder patch was
53:41
just magnificent, you know, very with the the aisle of thunder. The Do I have that
53:47
right? Isle of giants and Isisle of Thunder. Yeah. Yes, you do. Both of those were really good zones and
53:55
it kind of feels to me like the first maybe I'm maybe I'm off here, but the first kind of really modern expansion
54:01
patch where it's sending you somewhere different from where you've been before and it's giving you this significant
54:08
story alongside the raid. It's not just like, hey, here's a new raid and a quest. Yeah. Like, hey, here's a new zone and a raid
54:15
that's all thematically connected. Yeah, I absolutely agree. That's pretty fair. Um, we should also talk though
54:21
about uh Wild Classic because the classic anniversary has now gone through all of its vanilla phases and we're
54:26
going to have the TBC anniversary uh launching in 2026. Um, and season of
54:33
discovery servers are going to uh have a classic all new raid which they No, they
54:38
did have it. They did have it. It's a Scarlet Enclave season. Uh, yeah. Season of Discovery
54:44
wound down in kind of spring 2025 with uh after eight phases.
54:50
That was the last season of Discovery. The last thing they did was uh the Scarlet Enclave raid which um wow that
54:58
they did that. Um the fact that it, you know, it's still just there and nowhere
55:03
else. Uh wow, that is amazing. It's and they didn't close the door on doing more
55:09
Season of Discovery content, but uh phase 8, I believe that was in April 2025, is
55:15
the last new content we've seen in Season of Discovery. Blizzard hasn't announced any new things like Season of
55:21
Discovery. So, we don't know what's next. We don't know if anything's next.
55:27
I mean, and we know that they're going to be doing uh TBC Anniversary. So, yeah.
55:32
You know, who knows? Maybe they're going to do TBC No. Seasons of TBC Discovery. I don't know. I mean, yeah, we're going to have to see
55:39
because they uh Seasons of Discovery was so cool specifically because it was
55:44
something it did things that were new, things that didn't actually happen in classic. And so, yeah, it's interesting
55:50
that they went there. They went to all these new places, but then we've we've kind of backed down and now all we have
55:57
is the classic progression realms currently up to mists and the anniversary realms which are going to
56:02
roll into TBC early next year. There's still going to be um the straight up original classic is it is it
56:10
just called classic classic? What is it called now? The classic arrow realms which are just
56:16
purely the vanilla content. Yeah, those are still there. They aren't going anywhere. you can still play one. Um uh
56:23
but yes, the classic anniversary realms are going to continue to advance through the uh through the expansions, but yeah,
56:30
looks like uh 2026 is going to be uh Burning Crusade, which was a great one.
56:37
And uh finally, Hearthstone, we have the road map there if you want if we ourselves feel the immediate go look at
56:42
it. But we've got I'm just going to read this the way you wrote it, Liz, because I do like this. three expansions, three
56:48
mini sets, three HSBGs seasons like clockwork because if there's anything we
56:53
can say about Hearthstone, and I'm serious about this, they have got their cadence down for releasing. They know
57:00
exactly when things are coming out. Um, so yeah, I think uh also
57:06
yeah, World of Warcraft has also been really good about this kind of new content every two months, but
57:12
Hearthstone really is a clockwork operation where it's expansion, mini set, Hearthstone, battleground season.
57:18
Uh, and of course, the expansions have their own seasons and battle passes. So,
57:24
there's a lot of there's a lot of cash money in these three sets of three
57:30
things happening on this uh in Hearthstone every year. Um, so yeah,
57:36
this year we got the Emerald Dream, the lost city of Angoro, and across the timeways expansions, which were all
57:42
great thematic expansions. Uh, and but but really the most important thing is that uh with the lost city of Angoro, we
57:48
were introduced to Valentina, who stole our hearts. Valentina is a lizard. That's all I have to say.
57:54
Is there a lizard that can hang from from its tail? Um, I thought that this what that I I did not I I should step back and say
58:02
that Blizzard did a dinosaurs versus tortolins
58:07
event to celebrate the release of the Lost City Van Goro expansion and it featured Valentina the lizard who was
58:14
not a not not a winner of this reptile race but always the winner in our
58:19
hearts. Thank you, Valentina, for being there for us. This has been a lot. Things that were not things that were
58:25
not, you know, winning in our hearts. Uh, King Crush, but released sort of this year, that gotcha game to get it.
58:32
Uh, yes, Hearthstone added what? Um, probably the most expensive
58:38
microtransaction in I I think it's the most expensive microtransaction in a
58:44
Blizzard game, which was King Crush, the most adorable baby dinosaur you ever ever ever saw. Maybe Matt's seen a lot
58:52
more dinosaur pictures than I have probably. Um, it was certainly up there. Yeah, it's it's there. a little pet that
59:00
would hang out in on your Hearthstone board while you were playing and you
59:05
could click it and pet it and feed it and change its color and all of these
59:10
things. But to get it, you had to play a gotcha game that's just kind of a a roulette wheel. It'll go around and it
59:16
lands on a prize or it doesn't. And it's uh the first the first roll was free.
59:23
And after that, it cost you an increasing amount of cash money, real cash money to get. And of course,
59:30
getting King Crush, the most adorable baby dinosaur you ever saw, uh were were
59:36
very very low. So, you might take every single spin and collect every other reward before getting him. And uh if you
59:44
That would be like 165 bucks if you didn't. uh $158
59:49
$158 US. So, uh yeah, and Blizzard has
59:54
since then done several additional pets also obtained in this way. Um a very
59:59
adorable void bunny and right now Terellion.
1:00:04
I I don't know what to say about that, but uh $150. actual kind of has to get somebody to
1:00:11
take care of Terrion because the person supposed to take care of Tallion is currently shasing a a shoeless um void
1:00:18
elf monster across multiple someone's got to take care of Terion. So
1:00:24
yeah. Uh yeah. Awesome. So so glad we have added this to our
1:00:30
Alexa. It's a Hearthstone. Also, we should mention really fast uh Warcraft Rumble died this year. Uh July.
1:00:38
Yes, we're sorry, Corey. Unlike Heroes of the Storm, I don't think there's a plan to save this. I don't really think
1:00:44
there's a plan to save your either. You do, Corey. I I feel like Heroes of the Storm has
1:00:51
good odds. Come on. We're going into a new year. We got to have hope. I legitimately do. We and we didn't talk
1:00:58
about this, but I think it's worth mentioning that in 2025, Heroes of the Storm received quite a
1:01:04
number of large updates that you would not have expected to be given to a game in maintenance mode. Uh,
1:01:12
and with the renewed popularity of uh, League of Legends breaching into
1:01:17
other media, including card games and being ever present, it seems like a good
1:01:23
opportunity or maybe an impetus for Blizzard to bring back their own MOA and strike back and see if
1:01:30
they re recapture the hearts of folks. I live in Hopium and I will die in Hopium. I don't know if Phil has any opinion on
1:01:36
this, but I feel bad that you haven't talked in a while, so I'm trying to prod you. Nope. Rest in peace, Warcraft Rumble. I
1:01:41
did not like you. I will not miss you. Sorry, Corey. I love I love the 3D files. You like Yeah, Joe liked the 3D
1:01:47
printing. But I have all of them. You could have just released those and
1:01:53
that would have done what Joe wanted. Warcraft Rumble is a game that was designed to be a microtransaction game
1:02:00
and that it was balanced to have just enough friction to make you want to spend
1:02:06
money. It was a very fun game and it was just annoying enough and just fun enough
1:02:12
to make you want to spend money on it because it's very grindy and it gets grindier the higher up you go.
1:02:20
And what I would like to see with Warcraft Rumble is that Be Reborn is a new product, not a video game because
1:02:27
Warcraft Rumble is the perfect name for a Warcraftbased miniature skirmish game.
1:02:33
Ooh. And they and you could just use the figures again. You could use the figures again. You could use that same c the the same exact
1:02:40
figures they used and they print beautifully. They're wonderful models. You can scale them however you want. I
1:02:46
would love to see it reborn from the ashes as a new product because it was a
1:02:51
really cool idea that I think was a a little late uh in
1:02:57
in its conception as far as being released to the wild. Um, and yes, I would like it to like it was just very
1:03:03
grindy and very microtransactiony, but it could be reborn as something else that could make them a lot of money and
1:03:09
make players and nerds like me very happy. Okay, Liz, uh, I'm going to tap on you
1:03:14
to do the site news now. Oh, well, of course, I have to remind everyone listening at home that Blizzard
1:03:21
Watch is made possible by you guys. It is you supporting us, listening, or
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1:03:39
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1:03:45
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1:04:04
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1:04:22
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1:04:27
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1:04:59
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1:05:05
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1:05:10
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1:05:19
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And if you have any questions for this podcast or any of our other podcasts, please send us an email at
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patron Q and podcast questions channel as our way of saying thanks. So, I'm also going to say thanks right here.
1:06:02
Thank you all for listening and supporting us. Thank you, Liz. Uh we're kind of really we're pretty much over time at this
1:06:08
point, but I do want us to talk briefly. Um one of the things that we were going to briefly cover is games that aren't
1:06:14
Blizzard that have had us in a chokeold in 2025. I wanted to go around and give everybody a chance to talk about them.
1:06:20
At least one game that you want to talk about. I'm going to start with Phil because I don't know if Phil has anything and I don't want to keep him on
1:06:26
the on the waiting if he does. Uh I'll take the first one off our little list here that we kind of threw
1:06:32
together, which is the first three to four months. uh kind of like several other people in Blizzard watch uh our
1:06:37
Blizzard watch Discord. Shout out to the Discord. Uh was Blueprints. Uh I still have my little notebook uh that looked
1:06:43
like the fevered scribblings of a madman um trying to decipher the puzzles and blueprints. Um that was such a good
1:06:49
game. Um and it got robbed uh at the game awards. Uh Blueprints was great.
1:06:55
Get blueprints, play it. It's wonderful. Okay. Uh Liz, since I thought that was going to be the one you talked about,
1:07:00
I'm going to toss it to you just in case. That's the only one I have. Uh I have played a lot of games, but none
1:07:08
were a complete obsession like Blueprints where you think you know what's going on and then you just you go
1:07:13
just a little deeper. You find something and it actually means something and you had and then you just it's like you keep
1:07:21
going and there's always something else. I finished the game,
1:07:26
but I did not finish the game because I know there there were puzzles where I got I I got stuck at and I knew I could
1:07:33
get past them if I spent a lot of time continuing to work on them and to get the RNG to line up right. And I just I I
1:07:41
got to a stopping point and I didn't go back and get all the way to the end. But I was very obsessed. I had a lot of kind
1:07:48
of lunatic fringe notes that I was taking and um yeah. Yeah. Your your blueprints
1:07:55
notebook. It says things about you. It says things. Okay. Uh Joe, I suspect I know what you
1:08:02
might talk about. Uh and I know that if you don't, I probably will. So, let's find out. Uh there are two uh two games that
1:08:09
absolutely consumed me. Uh one was Dispatch, which I'm not going to talk too much about because I'm not going to
1:08:15
take that away from Matt. Um, but the other one was Pokemon Z. Actually, go ahead because there's two I
1:08:20
want to talk about. So, well, I know I don't have to. Okay. Okay. Well, Dispatch being a
1:08:26
return to a form of Telltale style games, uh, which made by former Telltale
1:08:32
developers, it a superhero game with an incredible story, incredible voice
1:08:37
casting, uh, an incredible gameplay because it wasn't just a visual novel. It was also a uh strategic dispatching
1:08:45
game like it says on the tin that added another element to uh this type of genre that I feel was I think always missing
1:08:53
from the Telltale formula was actually gifying it instead of just going pure visual novel with quicktime events.
1:08:59
So yeah, I I agree with you there. Uh and just phenomenal all all around.
1:09:04
And then Pokemon ZA for me because and I've talked about this on the podcast while it's a very polarizing one for a lot of folks. I love the Legend series
1:09:12
of Pokemon games, maybe more than the mainline games at this point. One, because they're doing adventurous things
1:09:18
with the games and trying new things and new systems to see what works. And then
1:09:24
they're carrying stuff forward. So like stuff that worked in uh Legends Archus
1:09:29
carried over into ZA. Um, they're continuing a cohesive story, not through
1:09:36
just through the Legends games, but also working in the mainline games and stories that we may have dropped in
1:09:41
other regions and making them relevant again, which I know a lot of people don't play Pokémon for the story.
1:09:47
Pokemon's got some really cool twisted weird lore because they're essentially they're pocket monsters and or Yo-kai.
1:09:54
So, like they're weird and we love them for being weird. the the sand castle that kills Pikachu. It's weird.
1:10:01
Yeah. So, those are the two games that consumed me the most and uh really took up a lot of my time and uh in particular
1:10:09
cases uh even though I've played probably more Dispatch than I could ever hope for and I will probably go back for
1:10:14
another playthrough because it's just a fun game. Uh Pokemon Z still consider continues to have a strangle hold on me
1:10:20
as I play through the DLC. As for me, I would have I have two that I'm going to mention just as honorable mentions and I'm not going to talk about
1:10:26
them much at all. Dispatch, everything Joe just said, Outer Worlds 2, just because it was fun. It was a straightup
1:10:32
fun game that also happened to be a complete anti- capitalist, anti-fascist greed. And I love it when you can do
1:10:39
that. The the fact that a game can simultaneously be funny and witty and have lots of uh an inner humor and
1:10:46
interesting characters and yet also just be, you know, what's happening now is bad. Yeah, I'm there. However, uh my
1:10:54
favorite game that released in 2025 is Doom. in the dark ages, not because of the story, because the
1:11:00
story is basically just there to get you to places full of demons so you can
1:11:05
explode them. That's it. This game is not subtle. It is just a really
1:11:11
satisfying um kill demons don't die experience. Um
1:11:17
I loved it. I think it was the best of the three modern Doom games. I I really
1:11:23
felt engaged by it in a way that I hadn't for Doom Eternal. Not that Doom
1:11:28
Eternal was bad. I liked Doom Eternal, but I I really felt like this was the one that brought everything from both of
1:11:34
the previous games together and and understood that this is not a it's not a
1:11:39
shooter. This is not a shooter at all. This is a kill demons game. However you
1:11:45
choose to do it, do you bash them to death? Do you kill them with like some kind of chainsaw? Do you hit them with
1:11:51
like a a black hole? Doesn't matter as long as they die. Big giant robot. Okay. And the voice acting and the
1:11:57
storytelling. The voice acting was actually pretty good. Um the fact that Doom Guy talks, he has like at least two
1:12:04
times he speaks to someone. That's crazy. I know he's done it before, but it still wasn't right. Loved it. Uh it
1:12:10
was my is my favorite game that was released in 2025. Uh but yeah, that's it. That's me. So, I guess we've pretty
1:12:17
much wrapped it up. Um, anybody have anything else to say before we move on? Like, get out of here? Yeah. Do you guys feel like maybe we
1:12:23
forgot a Blizzard game of some kind? None at all. No, I don't think so. No, I don't know. Marvel Rivals was
1:12:28
cool, though. So, Marvel Rivals was really cool. I haven't played it, but the art style
1:12:33
is amazing, and I love Jeff. Everyone loves Jeff. Jeff is amazing. You're required to love Jeff. It's, you
1:12:40
know, all of us love Jeff and despair. That's how it works. Uh, so yeah, this has been the Blizzard
1:12:45
podcast. Thank you very much to Phil for coming in on relatively short notice and helping us flesh out the uh 2025
1:12:52
roundup. Uh just happy to be here yet again. Thanks. Thanks to uh Liz and Joe for as always
1:12:58
keeping this ship going and making sure that it doesn't crash on the the gigantic rocks of my complete
1:13:05
uncomprehension of what's going on in the world right now. And thanks to all of you for allowing us to be doing a
1:13:10
podcast and not just a weekly therapy session. Uh cuz cuz you know, life is
1:13:15
what it is, guys. Uh this has been the Blizzard Witch Podcast. Thank you guys so much and we'll be back next week.
1:13:22
[Music]