Following the WoW 2026 roadmap

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Hi everybody and welcome to the Blizzard Watch podcast. I'm Matt. I'm hosting. I am also being eaten by bacteria, but you
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don't need to hear about that. Uh with me this week are my fantastic co-hosts, Joe Perez, who is basically the guy who
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pushes buttons and makes this sure the show works. Liz Harper, who is basically queen of us all and would very much wear
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the one ring with pride and destroy everything. Um, you get to be Kate Kate Blanchett in the
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movie, too. So, don't, you know, don't ever like that's a pretty good. Yeah. Oh, she'll love me in despair.
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Yeah. Okay, I can do that. And Corey, who would definitely be played by I don't know, Canada. Just
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Canada itself. Corey would just be Canada. The trailer for me would be huge. Exactly. and it would have a lot of corn
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in it. Um, not because of anything you do, just because every time I see a video about Canada, it's like corn
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fields. Like, there's other things here, guys. There's there's everything.
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Yeah, exactly. We have so many more food stuffs than corn. Yes. Not a lot, but so many.
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Anyway, though, we should probably talk. Uh, Joe didn't introduce himself at all, but that's probably wise because otherwise I might have made a a
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Spider-Man reference. He He hates Spider-Man. I have heard that. Wow. He really isn't going to talk. Uh,
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oh, I'm trying to move us along there. [laughter] Took him a second. He was like stunned.
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Oh, I never like Fogghorn Legghorn getting mad at you. Oh, I say Spider-Man's one of my favorite
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characters. Um, midnight early access February 26th. If you didn't know,
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that's this month. Now, you know, uh, they they just announced that. So,
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yes. So, if you were feeling like I got time, it's it's it's going to be in March.
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It's like not if you got early access, my friends. Uh early access is what you it is what you think it is. It's you
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paid to get the special. Well, if you if you bought the epic edition, which is
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it's the edition with all the stuff. What else can I say? It's got all the things including early access. And this
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is this is slightly earlier than we expected early access to be because the
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you know the the text on the game box not that we have game boxes anymore but the text on the game box said 3 days of
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early access. This is actually like three and a half days 4 days depending on how you want to measure time zones.
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So a little a little bit of extra early access to do those to to get your characters leveled up and get started.
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Yeah. And um basically from what I understand, it's just the leveling game
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and dungeons that that will be available at launch. It's no raids or anything. Uh no raids. It's it's really just
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leveling content. Anything all of the endgame advancement stuff. I don't know that Blizzard has confirmed exactly what
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is and isn't in it, but we should not expect like endgame content of any kind.
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You will just have time to level the character and get them ready to start doing that, which is nice. I mean, I
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don't know. I just buy a special thing for it. But it is nice. Cory was gonna talk. As always, the the people that are most
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upset about this are most upset about the chances to run the auction uh by going by getting to the endame by
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getting to a max level first and then harvesting rare materials and getting your crafting stuff up.
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I mean, that can be a thing, but that's basically the like they see that as the point of it. Whereas, uh other
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people are just like, "Yeah, I get to be ready to go and do some dungeons on Tuesday when the game launches." Yeah, I
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mean there's always going to be people who are looking for any means that they can get to to corner the market and get
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control of the auction house. Um, thank God they're they're not crypto bros yet in Azeroth. Although we do have our own
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madeup currency, so who knows. Uh, but regardless, if you try really hard, you can turn WoW
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gold into real money. But it does take some doing. It is. It is a lot of work. Uh, that's
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basically it for the midnight early access launch. It's this February 26th, which is two days before the month ends.
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It's pretty much what we've described. It's fine. In my opinion, it doesn't really excite me, but that's why I
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didn't buy the Epic Edition. It it just it it is what it is. It's there. And uh I mean, people should know
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when it starts because it's starting earlier than any of us expected. I I just feel like in general, it's a it's
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a bellweather for oh yeah, no, this is real. Like every every [laughter] time expansions get to a certain point, I
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kind of like, h yeah, I'm just playing in the end game of the old expansion, waiting for Oh, no, wait a minute. Okay. No, we're starting to get serious now.
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Um, we are less than a month away. So, yeah, it's it is definitely one of those situ But in addition to that, we also
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got this was recently as well, right? They released this this week. Yes. Yes. This uh No, it was just last week
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that we got all the uh all the World of Warcraft road maps came out. So, first up, we've got uh to patch
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12.1.7, which I believe takes us up to Blizzard. No, Blizz Blizzcon. We are Blizzard Watch. Blizzcon is the
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convention. H. Well, that's
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uh that's that's going to be the end of the year, 12.1.7. We don't have exact release dates for
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anything yet. Uh but yeah, we got a road map that goes all the way to 1217. So,
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that's going to be our year in Warcraft. Um basically, um the Daycore duel I It's
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a prop hunt. I You wrote prop hunt and I was looking at it before and going, "Okay, go ahead." So, Joe, you made a
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noise. Go ahead and talk. No, Liz can go ahead. Uh, so I mean, they announced several
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patches and a couple of big features that are coming. One of them is the decor duel, which is a prop hunt game
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mode. And okay, Joe, I heard I I heard you over there. This is not a required
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game mode. And Blizzard specified this is just for fun. This is not going to give you like this isn't going to power
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you up. This isn't something you're gonna have to do. It's like a fun aside to everything.
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Yeah, it's it's not that. It's I'm I'm trying to think how to phrase this. I
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understand that people are going to have fun with this and I'm not trying to yuck their yum. I personally am just very
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tired of we can't just have something be a thing that there has to be other stuff
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that gets bolted on to it. We talk about this with other games and I commented on this when we started talking about
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player housing at the beginning that this is exactly the thing that I didn't want to happen with it and it's exactly
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what's happening with it. It it it's frustrates me. I don't know. I I'm sure that it will make people happy and I'm
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happy for them but I just sometimes it's okay to just let a thing be a thing. Adding extra stuff to this is kind of
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weird to me. Sorry. I mean this I don't I don't know that there is any uh rewards to bring over to the game.
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It has nothing to do with rewards. I'm not talking I don't care about that. I'm not that's not my comment on it. My
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comment on it is player housing is fine just being player housing. It there doesn't need to be
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I don't you know what I mean? I I don't think this is related to player housing. I didn't get that vibe from it.
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I did. Crop hunt's a pretty It's a game mode that other games though. Well,
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well, I we should really take a step back and tell people who have not heard of prop hunts, which there was a time I
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had not a fairly recent time I had not heard of a prop hunt what they are, which is it's basically a game of
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hide-and-seek and if you're hiding, you disguise yourself as a piece of furniture or of some kind.
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An object. There it is. Yeah, an object. Yes. So, you're a vase and you you find a nice
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hiding place where a vase definitely seems to belong and that's where you're hiding. and other players will come and
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try to find you. Uh, and that's that's basically it. It's hide-and-seek, but
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you are you are you're a vase now or you're uh chair or you're a shakuderie board that you're placing in the
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environment. And I mean, I can see that this probably makes use of some of the tools they built for player housing like
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to to place things in the environment for players to do that. Yeah. But I mean my my thing is like
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when you start and this is again just my opinion you start adding stuff like this
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like game modes then instead of improving or making the thing that it's
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essentially using as its base better or working on other stuff you spend more
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time developing it and it seems like there would be team crossover for it. It it's a personal thing. I also I I never
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really cared for prop hunt as a game mode in general, but I also am just like
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sometimes it's cool to just let a thing be a thing for a while. Like this feels like it's maybe too early to introduce
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something like this, but again, I said the same thing when they started putting battle royale uh game modes in the game,
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too. So, I I mean, I don't know. I'm good. I'm done. I've said my piece.
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I mean, I think it's a little aside thing and maybe it's fun, maybe it's not. It's going to be in patch 1205. So,
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this is probably a couple of months after the midnight launch. Well, especially since that's going to
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be the also the patch where we get void assaults according to this road map. Uh, and the void assaults are continuing at
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least into 12.0.7. Um, so there is at least something else
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to the patch besides it isn't the entire thing. Yeah, I mean we didn't it's it's
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not going to just be a prop hunt, but you know it's a 0.5 patch. It's never going to be something big. It's usually
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a couple of little things. Uh so I mean it's there. It's there. It's a little thing to do. It's
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these patches are always little in between patches. Uh but it's it's probably 1207 when we're going to start
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getting you know big things which is more void assaults which frankly you can
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just hear the name. If you played Warcraft, you probably have a good idea of what a void assault is going to be like. It's a Zalot increasing her attack
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on Azeroth with with little events like this. Um, do we know what are coming? Like, are
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they coming the first patch or later? They're coming in 1215. Okay, 1215. Okay, cuz I'm interested in
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those. Uh, quite frankly, those look really interesting to me. The idea of just it feels like you're taking delves
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out into the point where they almost become like riffs from WoW. I mean from Diablo where you got this long solo
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content you can do. Uh so we should probably step back and say what a labyrinth is. Uh because
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Blizzard did announce a new feature which is coming in 121.5 after that's going to be just after Blizzcon which is
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interesting timing because this is this could have been something amazing they could have announced at Blizzcon but
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they're announcing it now and kind of gave us a little preview of it. Um which is these are mega delves. This is like
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taking the mega dungeon concept and applying it to delves. And one of the
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things I thought was really interesting was that Blizzard said this is content you can do all at once or you can come
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back to it. So it sounds like it may have a reset of some kind. Like maybe it has a weekly reset and you can go in and
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out and explore and do things without um yeah without being forced to do this huge chunk of content in a in a fixed
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period of time. See this this I'm I'm on board for. I like I like delves.
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Uh but I I I like the idea of exploring that space now that delves have sort of
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been solidified over the course of an expansion and seeing some of the cool stuff you can do with it. This is this
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is interesting. I really hope that they don't just go all in on uh Valer for it and that maybe
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we get some more companions if it's going to be a properly big experience. I I love the debate we had though about it
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in Guild uh last night as we were talking about like various other things. And one of the questions that came up
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is, you know, how Bran currently just kind of like saunters off and does whatever. He can be in the middle of
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fighting in a Ruby and he's like, "Oh, look a rock. I'm going to go over here and mine this now." Uh we're wondering
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how Yria is going to do that. Like if she's going to stop firing arrows and just go, "Oh, look a rock. I must mine
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this now." Uh just out of sheer curiosity, which I don't know. I think
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I'll be upfront with you what I think Yria is going to do. It'll be like she'll be helping and then be like, "Wait, Zotath and just vanish and then
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come back." It wasn't Zalot. It was It was just a picture of some feet. Anyway, that's right. Are we talking about Are we talking
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about Quest with Yria or are we talking about Valyria? Valyria is what I've been saying. The
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Bel. Oh, okay. I thought it was I thought you were talking about Yria. Sorry, I didn't hear the V.
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It's my bad. I feel bad now. That's the roi. the rogi type, not the huntery type.
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The problem there is that you got Valyria and then you got um like several other people with names vaguely like
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Valyria um including Verissa. So I'm always like wait hold on hold on which elf is it?
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It's like almost a game at this point like you know wheel of pointy ears.
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Uh you know which which one is it? Ding ding ding ding ding. N it's that one. It's the it's the roy one. Stabber.
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That's one. Okay. Wait, isn't there another rogue one? No, she's undead. She's undead. Easy mistake to make. Um,
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happens all the time. You'd be surprised. But in addition to labyrinths, because we kind of talked about them. They're mega. Um, we've also got a cool pet
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uh coming, which is not Go ahead, Liz. I I heard you make a noise. Go. I I do want to say one interesting thing on the
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road map, which is not actually in the topics for today, but uh uh we're
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getting a kind of weird raid schedule, which is we're getting raids that are going to come in between major patches.
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So, we're getting a raid in 1207 and they're going to be small raids, like one boss. So, we get a raid in 12, you
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know, we get the obvious big raid, actually three raids when midnight launches. Um, then in 1207 we get
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another raid. Uh, in 12.1 another big raid. In 1215 we get another small raid.
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So we're just raids all over the place in Midnight, which is interesting.
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In addition to the raid, doesn't 121 also have a new world boss? Um,
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yeah. I mean, 121 is a 121's a major patch, we're going to get new zone, new raid, new dungeon,
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season, new delves. It's also season. Yeah. Yeah, I mean Midnight's going to the launch shortly after launch we're
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going to get season 1 and 12 is going to be season two and presumably next year
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we're going to get 122 which would be season 3 ostensibly. This that's not on
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the road map. I'm just making my best guess there. But it's interesting. This is a raid schedule of a sort that we
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have not seen. Uh not in a while. Yeah, it's what Battle for Azeroth was the
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last time we got little mini raids like this. I think kind of. But I think the last time they really did anything like this would
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probably be um it was in North Rend, right? Cuz we got all those like [clears throat]
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we got all those like oneoff raids or the smaller raids or they opened a new wing in the Vault
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of the Yeah, right. Like so little stuff like that which is not a bad it's not a bad plan,
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right? I think that's actually kind of it's an interesting way to develop content. I'm unsure how I feel about it
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yet simply because I kind of and again I it's just because I kind of like the cadence of raid smaller content that we
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can go exploring with our buddies. Raid smaller content we can kind of explore
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with our buddies. Now it's with it strewn out. I'm interested in how that's going to feel, right? If they're doing
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it though, if they're doing it similar to like when they did Grrul or what have you where they would put in like a one
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or two encounter raid uh similar to like when Liz mentioned Battle for Azeroth,
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we had the uh Squid, you know, the Squidward raid where you could go and
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fight monsters there. Uh trying I cannot remember the name of that thing. It was tied into the Zatath quest, but I don't
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remember how. Uh but but we had that. It was like a small thing. It was a It was digestible. It's not that different than
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just a new world boss. It's just inside a cave or what have you. So if those raids are like that, it's
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not that big a deal. It's like uh um when we go kill Alakir's dad, it was the
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Vault of the Four Winds. There's one there's just one guy, so it's it's Yeah, you're right, too.
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There's two B there's two boss encounters in it. No, I'm I'm agreeing. I I said, "Yeah, you're right." Yeah. Uh just it's just Yeah. Go ahead.
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No, no, I was going to say like and it's not the only thing in the road map, too. like we know that there there's a ton of stuff coming for for this and I think we
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should keep talking about the road maps real quick before we we jump to anything else cuz go ahead with Clary.
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I bet that they're probably using it as a storytelling device. Uh because yeah, if you introduce us a good a good
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character in your little seasonal content or in your patch content update, you get some story stuff and you get
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like, "Oh, you'll never stop this big guy. He's clearly destroying all of your NPC buddies." This will let them have an
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actual end fight that feels appropriate to the menace proposed by their new
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friend as opposed to just like you get a you get one quest and your your character's given some artificial power
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for that one quest because you did some other stuff and you got a mcguffin and then you're done. So, this is probably
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just a good story capstone that lets people let that gives the raiders something to do and gives the gives the
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character gives the enemy more of a a feeling of yeah, this guy really was
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tough. It's he makes sense why he was giving us so much trouble in the questing. Yeah, I mean that's entirely possible. I
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mean, we'll see how they roll it out and how it integrates with the story. um because it's real easy to miss when you
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try to do that too and just have it not make any sense or have something that that kind of delays it or whatever the
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case is. But again, I'm interesting to see how this feels with them going to
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seeming like this is like they're trying to fine-tune their their content trickle, right? Like I although I do
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think that the War Within had a good a good cadence. Um I think Dragonflight taught them a lot. I think War Within
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had a good cadence. Um, I I think that them tweaking it a little is just trying
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to find the sweet spot and they might wind up walking it back. Like it might be a thing where they feel that it doesn't accomplish what they want it to
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do. We might see a different release schedule after the the first one or the, you know, after BlizzCon we may have,
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you know, it shifts to it. We'll see. Um, but there's also a lot of stuff coming for housing too for for uh retail
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which are a lot of stuff. Go ahead. Well, no, I I just wanted to interject. A lot of stuff coming. Not a lot of
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release dates for this stuff, which I would hope tomorrow is the release date, but I doubt it. I I doubt it's coming
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out this week. That's probably unlikely. Let's Let's run through a couple of them just because I think these are things that players have been asking for. So, I
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think it's interesting that they're working on these are huge. These are huge. Yeah, these are these are huge. Like uh one one of the big ones is uh companion
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pets in homes. There's a lot of stuff that were that were with the initial housing stuff that was released that you
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could have pet beds essentially or uh the pet houses like outside you have the
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dog house. Um and we know that with the garrisons our you know our our battle
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pets and our mounts were able to just kind of roam around the the garrison. And a lot of players as soon as player
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housing was was announced that was one of the first things they asked for. Well, we're kind of going to be getting
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it. We don't know when. Uh but mounts outside of homes, uh pets in and out of
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homes, I would imagine. Uh more ways to showcase collections, which I think is nice. One thing that I know a lot of
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people were really commenting on is the lack of armor stands and weapon mounts for things that you have collected. Um I
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could just see Matt in a giant throne room of nothing but Ash Gandhi. Uh, but we all we all we all have
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no my dream my dream has been established since well before they ever gave us any hope of getting this. All
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the way back in vanilla, they did a picture kind of referencing Iron Man uh
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with the the guy standing in front of his armor inside of a display case and a whole
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bunch more off to the side. That has been my dream ever since. I have done it
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in Fallout 4 because I couldn't do it in WoW. It is the one thing that I wanted and they didn't have any armor racks
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and but I mean armor racks are also something that they talked about having from very early on and it just didn't
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that didn't show up. That's one of the reasons that my arter cooled pretty quickly uh when we got to
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that point. So if they actually put them in, it's like I want you to imagine a big my face symbol just got painted on
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the clouds from Gotham City and I look up going what? Oh, okay. I best restart
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my account now. I just I just I just hear that scene from I Love Lucy when you know Lucy's about to have the baby and they're
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rehearsing and Rick Ricardo comes out. I'm sorry folks, I'm a little on the old side. Uh and he just goes, "The time is
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now." And I just have Matt doing this in my head as soon as this becomes available. Pretty much pretty or or you know if you
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want a like a slightly more recent one uh when you know Captain Kirk is screaming I am Kira over and over again
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that too. Yeah, just I am the armor guy. Regardless, I I'm You say war, you say
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armor stands. I am like, you know, tube and throat singing is
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going to start happening if we don't give me this soon. Yeah. I mean, another thing that I think is coming soon that a lot of players have been asking for, and I say soon
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with an asterisk and a TM because we have no idea. Um, but one of the things
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that we were talking about is, and they've mentioned this when they they first talk started talking about housing, uh, is ways to do things like
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group, select, copy, and paste for your decor. So, let's say you have a repeating pattern like I do in one of my
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rooms where I have like an, uh, arborium, and I have a lot of repeated patterns throughout like the walls and
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and the stairs and stuff like that. Uh, and it was painstaking to rotate everything into the same directions when
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I could have potentially just copied and pasted uh in the same rotation and same spots to make that a lot easier and
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quicker. Well, they're working on something like that. Or the idea of let's say I want to move a bookshelf.
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Uh, I can't move the books that are on it with the bookshelf, right? I'd like to be able to do all that at once. And
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there like that's stuff that you should theoretically be able to do. Sometimes things seem to stick together. Like if
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you don't go into advanced editing mode, it seems like you can stick things together. But there's a lot of things
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you can't do outside of advanced mode. So uh yeah, like uh I've seen people
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creating some wild things like um pianos. Have you seen the piano some
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players? And it's I created a chest set before they gave us the Diablo chess set because with with fence posts and and
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dyed paintings cuz that's a thing that Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. But like a piano like every key is like
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a book on its side or something like that that you've painstakingly resized and put into place on to make keys of a
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piano. And just imagine if you put your piano down and you're looking at it and you're likeing,
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you know, that piano needs to be a foot to the left. Yeah.
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But they're also doing some other stuff too which I think is and not just not just the movement and not just the sticky stuff in the grouping which is
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very good. Um, one thing they talked about doing early on, and we hadn't heard about it, but it looks like it is
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still in the works and coming, is the ability to import and export codes for uh for sharing your setups, which is
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really neat because again, um, like the the chess set thing that we created or like that piano, you could
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literally share code potentially and have that done for somebody so that they don't have to go through the same thing,
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right? Uh, which is just really cool. And it's also a great way to build community around this this feature.
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Yeah. Um because one of the things that players love to do is showcase their stuff, right? We saw it with Machinima
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back in the day. Uh now we're going to see it potentially with player housing. Uh which I think is really really cool.
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And then the last thing that I think is really interesting uh and probably very important for a lot of us is bigger
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interior and exterior budgets. [laughter] The interior budget for a lot of players is very important, especially
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if you're doing things like making your own stairs, uh, you know, doing specific types of rooms that require a lot of
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like minute individual things to replicate other stuff. Again, looking at
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you, piano. Um, so having those bigger budgets is really, really good. The only thing that they haven't mentioned, and I
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know it's been asked for before, and I'm hoping that they do consider this, is the uh ability to change a room type
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without completely destroying all the decor that's in it. So, like, cuz right now, I can't do that
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with like my main room. I'd have to redo every bit of the house in order to do it. I suppose if you have an import Yeah.
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or an export code, you could just Yeah, that would do it on its own. Yeah. in in theory, but like I
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I but I would like that ability to change one room and be like, "Okay, take all the decor out of this one room and
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then I can change the room type. I can reset up that room or I can import stuff to that room." I'd like to see something
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like that happen as opposed to I have to dismantle my entire house. Oh, [laughter] yeah. For sure. I'd also like to be able to import or
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export just one singular room at the same time, too. Agreed. Yeah. Yeah, that would be that would be a very nice feature. And these
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are feedback items that I'm sure that they're they're getting from more than just us because I see it on the forums.
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I see it on Reddit. I see it in a bunch of places. So, I'm sure that there will be uh a bit more of that. Uh but yeah,
25:43
good things coming for retail. Midnight looks like it's going to be uh chalk full of stuff and pretty busy and a lot
25:49
of stuff for us to uh consume. Uh you know, which I think is is nice and it
25:56
looks like it should have a steady cadence. Uh there were other things for the RO map as well, uh which I I think
26:02
we should just talk about real quick, uh which is the classic anniversary and miss classic realms, uh with nothing for
26:08
classic era realms, which I thought that was an interesting call out. Um but they
26:13
have their own road maps. Go ahead, Fiz. like no Season of Discovery, nothing
26:18
like that was on the on the list for classic era. Just classic going to keep classicing.
26:24
Yeah. And there's there's the other thing about classic though is that there's three classics now.
26:30
And the other Yeah, they they seem to have been putting a lot of their stuff in the uh
26:35
wow the anniversary um Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary Edition. Uh that
26:41
seems to be where most of their stuff's going. Uh the other two that's where Yeah, that seems to be where all their stuff is going. I mean
26:46
that's that's why I pointed out because it's in the past Blizzard has done some interesting development. some sort of
26:53
classic plus development on the classic era realms and that's just not on the agenda this year. It's
26:59
season of discovery does not seem to be happening. Yeah. No, there's nothing like that. Nothing at all. There's not a road map for
27:05
classic era. There's a road map for anniversary realms and a road map for Miss Pandaria, the classic progression
27:12
realms. Yeah. And even like you you just pointed out, the the Pandaria stuff ends at
27:17
phase five and we've got nothing past it. So, yeah. Uh, but since that I did want to
27:23
mention really fast because we kind of skipped away from it. We were like right there and then we didn't talk about it. Uh, 1217 it basically doesn't have a
27:29
anything like a raid, but it does have some interesting small stuff. Uh, which makes me wonder if they're going to do season 3 right after it. I
27:36
mean, that that would fit the previous road map, but we don't have anything for season 3 yet. But they do have story
27:42
quests, holiday updates, new standalone mode, and turbulent timeways. Um, they
27:49
do turbulent time waves pretty much before every like season. So, I'm not
27:54
surprised about that. But I am interested in what what exactly would the standalone mode be? Uh, we don't
27:59
have anything about it. So, yes, we we do. We do because they've talked about Yeah, in the past they've talked like
28:06
before releasing this road map, they talked about a new standalone mode coming and this is going to be from the
28:12
people who gave us Plunderstorm, but it's not Plundtorm. And the only thing we know about it is there's a sort of
28:18
spooky teaser uh some spooky teaser art that looks like initially we were kind of think
28:25
there was a lot of buzz about it being Duskwood something in Duskwood but uh we've we've been exploring all over the
28:31
game and we think it's actually something set in Dustvar because it's like that creepy village look with that
28:38
sort of blue color that's kind of associated with drust magic. Um, but we
28:44
don't actually know anything about it. We just know it's a new uh sort of standalone game mode like Plundtorm, but
28:51
not Plundtorm. Something new from the same team that brought us this this
28:57
Wonderstorm, Spooky Storm. I just imagine like, you know, the Drust Storm
29:03
or what have you, the Drust Bowl instead of we really do not know anything about it.
29:09
We can just make our best guess. A lot of players have talked about an Among Us mode, something that mimics that kind of
29:16
gameplay, but we don't know. We don't know what it's going to be. And it's it's a long way out. It's
29:22
werewolf/ whatever. Yeah. I mean, that that would work really well with like a Gilian setting.
29:28
I mean, that's the perfect that's the perfect way to put like a werewolf style game, but uh but yeah, that's late in
29:35
the year and we don't know much about it yet. Do we know anything about the holiday updates that are supposedly coming? like cuz they put that right there. So,
29:41
nope. We don't know. All right. So, should we talk about the uh trading post thing or should we talk
29:47
about something else? You guys seem to have a lot of stuff planned here. Uh I think we should talk at least a little
29:52
bit about uh Trading Post because it's the anniversary, right? The third anniversary.
29:57
Go ahead. So, in addition to having um new stuff uh which uh Liz wrote in the notes that
30:04
she's not overwhelmed by them, neither am I, Liz. So, I feel you there. But I
30:09
am excited about the discounter rewards from previous trading posts. So, you want to talk about that or Whoa, whoa, whoa. Before we talk about
30:15
anything else, someone has to mention how cool that Anubis armor looks because that is Okay. The Anubis armor is pretty cool.
30:22
It's pretty one one other thing to say about the Anubis armor is that it is
30:27
also available in the in-game shop in an alternate colorway for $25.
30:34
I'm less impressed by that. Yeah, but for that $25, you also get 700
30:40
trader tender. So, are you more impressed by that or less impressed by that? [laughter] Sort of moderately, slightly more
30:47
impressed, but not tremendously more impressed. All I know is I can buy more sweatuits. I'm I'm on board for sweatuits and I'm
30:53
happy. But I don't know. It doesn't feel like there's a lot new. There are some cool sort of blood elf themed weapons. Uh, I
31:01
was really happy to see some uh staffs that had sort of that sort of blood elf
31:06
blade at the top, which was neat. Uh, I think there are two or three that are
31:12
stavs and one that's a pole arm. It's kind of a weird mix, but I am definitely buying those up. But yeah, I wasn't I
31:19
wasn't overwhelmed. I was not overwhelmed by what's in the new items in the trading post this month. There
31:24
there is a mount. I was not I was not overwhelmed by it. That's all I got. But you can get a pink glitter.
31:30
But I I could and you could actually equip those quivers on any character. It's just piece
31:36
which that actually I think is really neat, honestly. Um I I like when they do that because
31:42
Hunter shouldn't be the only one that get to shoot things with a with an arrow. So I I I like the assortment. I
31:48
like when they do stuff like this. There's like little tiny bits of theming, but there's like pockets of
31:54
themes, not one theme. Uh, and I like that because it's variety and variety is
31:59
good. I just think I'm interested in seeing the various discounted items that they're going to bring in because I like
32:05
that. I like when they bring stuff and there is frankly so much stuff. You will, I should note, you will only find
32:12
the stuff on vendors in Dornagal. It isn't at the other trading post locations, only in Dornagal. And it's on
32:19
that same level that the traders the actual trading post is. There are other vendors kind of along the walkway. that
32:26
sell other things and lots of it. Lots of other things. There is I I can't even
32:32
conceptualize what I want to buy because there is so much stuff and one
32:38
this month you might actually be doing all those things to get more attended because because
32:43
I can to get Yes. [laughter]
32:48
So trans beast doesn't feed itself. You know, I fortunately I I do have some extra
32:54
trader tenders to throw around, but I definitely don't have enough to buy all the things I would want. So, it is a
33:00
problem. But one thing, if you have not been doing the trading post in full every month, you can actually buy the
33:08
rewards now from having reached the end of the trading post in previous month.
33:13
So if you have extra trader tinder and you missed a month, you can now buy
33:19
those things on the anniversary trading post vendors there. So it's it's a little way you can kind of catch up if
33:25
you miss something that you really love. Yeah. But man, there's just so much there's so much there's so much stuff
33:31
and I want all of it, but I can't afford all of it. So I I'm just going to I'm going to have to prioritize. I'm going
33:37
to have to make a spreadsheet. I'm going to have to add up what everything costs. H It's tough. It's tough. Yeah,
33:43
I I really want the sword from the the new SAT kind of keeps
33:48
I saw it and I immediately knew you were going to want it, man. It's a cool sword. It's very similar to an old like blue
33:56
sword you used to get back when Burning Crusade was new. Uh the sword itself wasn't blue to look at. It was blue quality, but it it has
34:02
that same kind of like doubleointed end and that same kind of like blade handle, but it's this gold and black color. It's
34:09
really nice. Yeah, it's like a it's like a a less ethereal version of taste alac.
34:15
Yeah, it's it's just a really nice looking sword. Uh I just straight up like how it looks. Um but I mean, you
34:22
know, that's what happens. Uh they make nice weapons and I'm like, "Oh, I have to have that weapon now." So now I have
34:27
to go and I have to go go around getting things to people who want me to get for
34:33
them. Yeah, it's great. Fine. Whatever. Give me Give me the Give me the coin so I can buy the things. Speaking of buying
34:39
things, there's there's another thing that I think we should talk about too that may takes up a lot of people's money uh in game or at least their gold
34:46
because I think I think this is important. Uh did you ever want to have it doesn't sound right. Well, did you ever
34:51
There's another way to get it. Did you ever want to uh have your own dark portal? Did you ever want to put it inside or
34:56
outside of your house? Did you ever want to have 17 dark portals and have them around your house
35:02
and maybe try to recreate what happened to Dranor? Well, now you can.
35:07
[laughter] None of this sounds good. Why are you doing this, Joe? Please stop putting I
35:13
already feel like I'm the guy with like the common sense guy trying to stop, you know. No, no, come on, man. Don't Don't
35:19
put another dark portal down. Joe's like flump. That's two. Oh god, he's going to keep doing it.
35:25
Yeah. I just think it's I think it's actually kind of interesting because one of the when logging into the game now up
35:30
until uh I think it just before midnight. Yeah. So March 2nd, just before
35:36
midnight, uh you get an achievement and that achievement gives you literally a replica of the dark portal that you can
35:42
put on your property and it is exactly a dark portal. Uh and then once you get it, the cool stuff that I thought was
35:48
really really cool, uh was that you can go buy more of them afterwards
35:54
uh in Orgamar or Stormwind City, uh for
36:00
about 1,500 gold for each one. So you can have as many as you have gold. I'm
36:05
sitting on a stockpile of several million gold. I may buy too many of these things. I
36:11
I have not considered this yet in game lore that two of them is too many of these things. Well, now you buy more than two of them.
36:20
Uh and I I have seen people making just weird crazy things with the dark portal.
36:27
He's going to make a giant chair out of dark portals. I'm telling you, you could I mean But
36:32
yeah, I was sorry to play. I mean, one one cool thing you can do is that like the green glowy center of the
36:39
dark portal. You can walk through that. So, you could maybe, you know, hide it in a wall and just use the green portal
36:46
as like a cool door. You could put it behind a secret bookcase that like slides out of the way and then you go on
36:53
the other side. Uh, but it's like bookcase slides out of the way and you
36:58
have a dark portal on the other side. This is a world of exciting
37:03
opportunities and all you have to do to get it is log in. Log in. Log in.
37:08
Yeah. And the best thing I've seen with them is the armies of plush critters coming out from the dark portal.
37:15
I thought that was really cute. [laughter] Uh, and I just see I I just see screenshots
37:22
of armies of plush critters and player housing and I just think, "Wow, that cost you so much lumber. That's so much
37:29
lumber in that screenshot because every plushie a high lumber cost. High lumber cost for
37:36
those plushies. Yeah. And speaking of things that may actually be very interested in those plushies, there is another thing that uh
37:43
you can per purchase. I believe you mentioned the puppy. I'm going to be mad. The puppy is mine to mention.
37:48
I was gonna say, Matt, would you like to talk about it? But you didn't let me get there. I didn't let you get there. I'm I the
37:55
puppy is the thing I've been wanting since I I read this document. I first
38:00
off before we even talk about the puppy, we do not have a a date for when it will
38:06
be available. There's no ETA we can get this can estimate soon. It's
38:12
a habitat for humanity pet. So, you know those come out, you know what they are. This particular pet is named Rufus. He
38:19
is wearing a construction helmet and he is carrying a hammer and he is a good boy. He is a dog. He is a beautiful
38:26
little dog. And yes, I have nothing. He's going to be in modern and classic.
38:31
And in modern, he's also including decor items like a dog house, a water bowl,
38:37
and a dog bed. Yeah. So, if if you have a dog already, you're going to might possibly want to get
38:43
Rufus just for the stuff he comes with. I do want to just clarify though for for those that don't know or maybe are new
38:49
to this that every year uh Blizzard releases a charity pet. Um we've had
38:56
several in the past. We've had uh Revan the Detective Fox which uh
39:01
was a charity one for the the Q I can I can never pronounce the disease.
39:06
Um Sher Duchan, thank you very much. Uh which was in honor of a a WOW player and their
39:12
Makea-Wish. Um, we have Sunny the dog, uh, Flurky the Murloc, Daisy the Sloth,
39:19
Bananas the Monkey, Doy the Baby Alpaca, uh, Wamper the Baby Yeti, Shadow the
39:24
Fox, Mischief Thelkitten, Breitpaw the Manakitty, uh, Argy the Space Coat, Alter Brew Pup,
39:30
Cinder Kitten, Senarian Hatchling, uh, Moonkin Hatchling, and Pandaran Monk, uh, from all the way back in 2009 when
39:37
they started doing this. Uh, this is just the latest entry in it. And every time they do it, the proceeds
39:42
are usually all or most uh I think sometimes it's been 50%. Uh sometimes
39:48
it's been all, depends on what it is, goes towards that charity. So it's a a
39:53
quasi ethical real money purchase for you, I guess, would be the best way to put it. They're going to take your money, but they're not going to spend it on bad
39:59
things. They're going to give it to people who deserve it. At least 50%. Let's be upfront. There's no ethical consumption to capitalism. Give me my
40:05
puppy. I need the mo I need the momentary rush of endorphins to make me feel like life
40:10
is worth living. Give me the dog. But this this is going to Habitat for Humanity, which is a really good cause.
40:16
So, I'm going to encourage you to get the dog when the dog is available because Habitat's a great cause. They're out there building houses for people in
40:23
need. And if if you're going to give someone money, there you go. There you go.
40:29
Certainly much better than giving it to like somebody who's going to build a death ripe. Yeah. I'm just saying which is I do feel like there are a
40:36
couple of things about Rufus that we have not thoroughly discussed which is
40:41
the fact that he has a construction hat and he carries a hammer in his mouth.
40:46
We could mention both those things but but talk about them again. I have no problem with that. Let's talk more about
40:52
Rufus's hat cuz it's a nice hat. This is This is literally a pet dog that
40:57
is out there on the front lines building homes. He's This is a good boy. This is a very good
41:04
boy. Belt. Oh god. If he has to carry that hammer in his mouth. He doesn't have thumbs.
41:10
Yeah, he's doing his best. This is If you're into player housing, you should be getting Rufus just so he could be there helping you build your
41:16
house. I don't understand why [laughter] this is not obvious. He's so cute. Look at his little obvious. This is It's
41:23
this very obvious. And also his his name is Roffus. R O O F Us, not Roffus like
41:32
you would spell the name because he's Roffus, you know, he's barking, guys. Come on. Or or he's building homes. Either or.
41:40
With his head cuz he has to use the hammer in his mouth. [laughter] So, [gasps] oh my god.
41:46
Maybe maybe he's just carrying the tools. I've checked. There there are no there are no rules in the handbook about dogs
41:52
building houses. I think we're good to go here. [laughter] Yes. Rufus is the air butt of Azeroth.
41:59
Surprisingly though, there are a lot of rules about dogs playing basketball. Who knew? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that rules demon
42:06
doesn't have those rules. Basketball is only played by demons in Diablo, particularly the ones that serve Asmadan. We know this. [laughter]
42:14
I I didn't, but okay. Um I mean, I should I I'm pretty sure it wasn't Diablo that taught us that, but
42:21
I think it was actually a storm. But no, it's Yes, I I was It's an Azardance skin.
42:27
I was trying to sneak into that. It's only an Azardan skin because of the mechan the mechanics of the thing, but
42:32
all right. We should also though we should talk also about the fact that you're going to get your one free transmog. It's It's up
42:38
now. It's live now. So, if you haven't gotten it yet, you can log on and get your one free transmog
42:44
for each character. Yeah. For each character. Yes. And then after you do that, you're going to have to pay money for all the other
42:50
gold. Gold. Gold is money. So, we should maybe say, why are we getting a free
42:56
transmog? It's because when you logged on in the pre- patch, Blizzard,
43:01
you know, all of your transmogs were reset. New transmog system, everything was reset. So, Blizzard,
43:08
that meant you had to go in and reapply your transmog. Even if you weren't changing it, you're reapplying it. You
43:13
had to pay for that. Uh, and of course, transmog was more expensive in Midnight, not just because
43:20
you had to buy the outfit slots, but it was just more expensive. Um, this was apparently an oversight on Blizzard's
43:27
part. They did not intend for you to have to pay again for transmog to just
43:33
look the way you did before you logged off before the pre- patch. So, one free transmog for every character. Enjoy.
43:40
Have fun. I have been making extensive use of this on all my characters. It was necessary. Yeah, it it does feel like it is the
43:46
least they could do. I do want to make a side mention here, a side quest, and direct everybody to our
43:51
website because we have a really neat article uh about how to use the new transmog system and do stuff like the
43:57
situation stuff. Uh which is really a really neat feature that I don't know that a lot of players are utilizing. I
44:03
know some are. Uh it it really cool conditionals that automatically change your transmog based off of what you're
44:10
doing or where you are. Uh it's really powerful and a lot of like fine-tuning that you can do. Highly recommend you go
44:17
to the website uh go to go to blizzardwatch uh.com and actually check out the article. Really really a
44:22
treasure trove of information about transmog. And one thing uh one thing in that article that I did not know until I read
44:31
it was how do you apply transmogs? Now I know how to apply a transmog after I've
44:38
created a transmog for the first time. might just click save. But after that, how do you apply a transmog?
44:44
Mhm. Yeah. My prior to reading this article, my strategy had been click random
44:51
things, exit the transmog menu, see if my transmog changed, open up the transmog menu, try clicking random
44:57
things again and repeating until I just until my transmog changed. That's not an effective way to do this. Uh, but
45:04
apparently for those of you who were like me confused, you have to click on the icon next to the transmog. You can't
45:11
just click on the name. You have to click on the icon to set your transmog to a different outfit, which the user
45:19
interface for transmog is a little clunky. It's a little clunky. It's not entirely intuitive. Uh, specifically,
45:26
some of the outfit conditions can be very confusing. So, uh, yes, definitely.
45:31
Uh, that would be if you want to go more directly there, blizzardwatch.com/category/player-housing.
45:40
I I don't know if that helps. Maybe it helps. I Yeah. Yeah.
45:45
Wait, not not player housing. Did I just say player housing? I was going to say it's transmog. Player
45:51
housing is kind of transmog for a different reason. It's house transmog, but yes, they're different categories. Forward
45:56
sltransmog. Yes. Yes, that's actually a definite thing. I do also want to really commend the new system. It does operate
46:03
uh in a way that we thought it was going to, but I cannot overstate how how much I appreciate this with characters that
46:09
I'm gearing up. Uh once you you can set a look and then as you change pieces of gear inside the look, your look stays,
46:16
which is kind of like how Guild Wars 2 and other games do it. And it is so nice
46:21
to be able to just do that now. Yeah. You know, it's also interesting because we knew Blizzard knew how to do it because it's how Diablo I works.
46:28
Yeah. Yeah. So that's how Diablo II worked. Yeah. So the fact that you change a
46:34
piece out doesn't change your transmog because your transmog is applied to your entire set. Yeah. Very happy. [clears throat]
46:40
That is a good change. I do however want us to mention that GTFO is not as dead
46:45
as we thought it was. Mostly dead. Yeah. Yeah. It's Wesley on It's Wesley on the slab.
46:52
He's he hasn't eaten the bean yet. Kind of kind of position. He said to which of course we know means
46:57
to bluff. Uh, but no, GTFO, we talked about it past couple of weeks. I'm sure
47:03
I don't know if you guys talked about it last week. You probably did. You definitely talked about it two weeks ago because I was here for that one.
47:08
Um, basically, uh, I'm going to read this quote directly because this quote is worth reading just to get a sense of what's
47:15
happening here. The old GTFO tracked almost 6,000 different fires, swirlies, and puddles
47:22
of crap you shouldn't be standing in. The new GTFO with Blizzard's restrictions tracks 57 for now,
47:28
which is that's a smaller number, right? That is a smaller number. It's slightly smaller. I mean, and the
47:34
thing is because Blizzard has to like explicitly turn on everything you are
47:41
allowed to do. So, it's like before it was tracking things all across the game
47:46
in dungeons, delves, raids, across 12 expansions, 11 expansions. Yeah. 10
47:53
expansions. Okay, I'm getting there. And this is a big game with tons of content,
47:58
but most of the things Blizzard has opted into allowing developers to see
48:04
that's new content and it's primarily just raid content. So, there's a lot of
48:09
stuff this doesn't cover, but it does cover some things. And the other thing is it's not Joe.
48:16
No, no, I was going to say I think you were going to say the same thing I was there. There are some other caveats with it. Uh, like GTFO used to uh I don't
48:23
want to say spam because it's not the right word. Constantly remind you of your failings when necessary. [laughter]
48:29
Um, you're fire. You're in fire. You're still in fire. Why are you in the fire? Get out of the fire.
48:35
Yeah, it will no longer do that. Instead, it will alert you once uh and
48:40
it will not buzz repeatedly until you exit, which is not an insignificant
48:45
change. um that actually will be potentially a dealbreaker for using the
48:51
add-on for a lot of folks that that's exactly what they used it for. Um there are no friendly fire alerts that have been added yet. Uh there's no PvP
48:58
support, which depends on whether or not you are are, you know, care about that stuff. This is also another big one. No
49:05
environmental alerts. Uh so no lava, poisonous rivers, campfires, drowning,
49:11
anything that causes you to take damage out in the wild um from just being in the environment. you standing in a
49:17
campfire. Well, hope you pay attention to that. Uh, no longer no longer does
49:22
that. Um, there's no outdoor or delve content. There's no visual alerts
49:28
whatsoever. One of the things that it used to be able to do is like flash your screen or do other stuff like that. There's no smart filtering currently, so
49:35
you can't tell it to not alert. That's actually a very, very big a huge reduction of functionality.
49:40
Uh, and there's no ability to plan sounds while or play sounds while muted. um which is something you used to be
49:47
able to do with the old one. There was a toggle where if you had game sounds muted, I am one that plays with game
49:52
sounds muted. Um most of the time, usually not the first time through like a raid or something like that, but
49:58
usually afterwards I have game sounds off, but I used to have this on uh where
50:03
it would still alert or ping me despite that. That's no longer an option now. Uh
50:08
and then they didn't specify what anti-PAM protection is. I was not aware that GTFO did that in the first place uh
50:14
because I was just used to it yelling at me in new and unusual ways. Um but yeah,
50:20
so a great reduction in it. It's not dead. Uh it has got some signs of life
50:25
and hopefully more stuff will be added and unlocked as midnight rolls along.
50:32
So we shall see. One of the worrying things is it could also get more restricted. It all depends
50:39
on what Blizzard adds. I am hopeful that Blizzard wants to support this and wants
50:44
to continue this, but we do not know for sure what what's going to happen
50:49
tomorrow. I'm I'm going to make the demand now, and I mean, I know that I carry so much weight here. Um, [laughter]
50:56
this is an add-on that Blizzard needs to get behind. It makes their game
51:02
accessible in a way that they do not and that I do not know that they have the bandwidth currently to do it. And so
51:09
working with this developer in a way that allows it to operate is in their
51:14
best interest. Accessibility is huge. Oh yeah.
51:20
Yeah. And while it is good to have something like this in any form you can get it for raiding, uh there's lots of
51:26
people who don't raid who do other things and they still kind of need help. Um quite frankly as somebody who's
51:32
visually impaired, uh delves can be real annoying for me. Oh yeah, because it's a lot of times, especially
51:38
like I remember the first delve I did, Bran wouldn't stop standing in and
51:44
dragging things into stuff on the ground. And it's like I'm a fury warrior, Bran.
51:50
I have to hit them. So, I have to like juke around and try and find the exact spot I can stand,
51:56
still hit things, and not be standing in this giant purple disc. GTFO was quite helpful in that regard because every
52:02
time I thought I had one and I didn't, it would yell at me until I got out. Um,
52:07
taking that away and taking it away from Dell's entirely, that's a pretty big double whammy for me. I And I'm not,
52:14
this is not me complaining. Well, it is me complaining. It's not me like saying, "Blizzard, fix it now. Give me what I
52:19
want." I'm saying, "Please think about this. Please look at this. Please, I I hope they go in the direction of adding
52:27
more things, not the direction of pruning things out." Yeah. And I mean, some of their some of their mentality seems to be skewing that
52:32
way. Sorry, Liz. Go ahead. I mean, I think I I think they want this to be supported. And it just seems really
52:39
tragic that we had these tools and they have all been severely curtailed because
52:47
of what is essentially an attempt to limit uh raid power by removing the
52:54
ability of raids to track and uh certain things. And but it's just killed such an
53:00
accessibility feature and you know Blizzard hasn't done enough work to
53:06
allow both in their own interface which is very bad at pointing some things out
53:11
there. They've made improvements but it's still not good um but also in just
53:18
supporting add-on developers to do this. I think they have they have tried but there's a lot of work to still do.
53:24
Yeah, I agree. Um And it's so interesting that they they didn't I mean I know obviously they can't hire every
53:31
add-on developer out there, nor does every add-on developer want to be hired by them, but so many of these things seem like you've
53:37
got these very creative and very passionate individuals who've been doing this work for so long that if you just
53:43
pick them up and put them on the payroll, your in-game version could be the equal to what it was before.
53:49
Not not even if you don't want to hire the people though. Even if you don't want to, just let them do what they were
53:56
doing anyway. You know, it's it's that's the thing that bothers me the most. Contract them is actually also a good idea. But I feel like all they had to do
54:03
was simply allow them to continue to do what they were doing, even if they wanted to make changes that they made.
54:08
Obviously, they did want to make them, but I really feel like, for example, no friendly fire. That's a thing of them
54:14
not putting friendly fire available will be detected. Yeah. But that's also just because and
54:20
and and I'm not I don't want to completely vilify them because it's not like they intentionally are are breaking
54:25
this. Oh, no. I don't think they're doing this to be bad guys. I don't Yeah, this is this is still fallout from the
54:31
decisions that they had to make to, you know, actually curtail some of the stuff that was basically playing the game for
54:37
people. And again, we saw that with, you know, mythic raiding and the tools that
54:43
were developed through literally uh, you know, mythic raid tools and, uh, method
54:50
raid tools and liquid weak auras that basically took any of the pressure off
54:57
the fights. Uh, especially I'll use um, Lumathar as a really great example. I
55:03
can't imagine doing that fight without these. But that also means that as these add-ons kept doing that, fights had to
55:10
get more complicated to present a challenge to people who were doing this content at a higher level. And I
55:16
understand why they make the decision. It's just now unwinding
55:22
and, you know, running back some of it and figuring out what they can peel back without having to again design
55:29
impossible boss fights that humans can't parse in real time in order to keep the
55:34
competitiveness of it or the the difficulty of it. So, it it they were
55:40
kind of damned if they do, damned if they don't almost go. Yeah, I think Blizzard has maybe moved a little fast on this just because
55:47
we've made this change. We're a few weeks from a new raid tier and the interface is still very limited. It's
55:54
still buggy and we still have a much smaller tool set. And I'm not talking about the tools that allow you to do
56:01
this sort of coordination, the trivialized encounters. I'm just talking about basic, okay, can I see do I know
56:07
what I'm standing in? Can I set an alert to tell me something is off cooldown?
56:13
You know, like the cooldown manager, there are abilities that it just doesn't track. There's a lot of things it just
56:18
doesn't track and you can't tell it to track. Uh, some of those things are to me very strange. Some cooldowns you can
56:24
see in one spec but not in another spec. You know, there are all sorts of weird things about the built-in cooldown
56:29
manager. I'm very happy to have a built-in cooldown manager. It's easier to set up and maintain than weak oras
56:35
was. Weak oras was super customizable and really useful, but that also meant it can be complicated to set up. it.
56:42
Yes, the barrier to entry on weak auras was pretty high and the barrier to entry on cooldown manager is very low.
56:48
And that's why I was so always appreciative of my raid leader because he did all the weak oras for everyone. If anyone ever wanted anything, he was
56:55
just like, "Yeah, I'll make that for you." Easy peasy. So, shout out to Corg for that. He's a programmer, isn't he?
57:02
He was He worked for big Microsoft. Yeah. Uh, but it was amazing because you
57:09
would have something in in a fight where he would just be like, "Oh, this is something that our healers have to pay
57:14
attention to. Let me take care of that." And then three two or three pulls later,
57:19
he [snorts] had a thing that worked mostly. Maybe sometimes he misclicked
57:25
something and for the next fight, all of the healers had the submarine ping sound going off every two seconds. [laughter]
57:31
Oops. But at the end of the day, that was a fully functional weak aora that made our raid a little bit better. And
57:38
along the way, we had some fun stories to tell. So, like that was that was the amazingness that we could accomplish
57:44
with this program and with this extra add-on that we had. And now that's gone. And oops, it's not quite the same.
57:51
Yeah, it is. There's a lot of back and forth on it. But unfortunately, I have to now turn to Liz and give her the
57:57
Roffus the dog eyes and say, "Please, please do the site news, Liz." You know, we can barely see Rufus's eyes under his
58:04
construction hat. I mean, how how am I supposed to know what? Trust me, they're huge. You You were [laughter]
58:12
[gasps] in the arms of a demon hunter. Sorry. Go ahead.
58:18
In In the arms of an adorable puppy dog. I mean, I think that's kind of more what we're going for this week. I want to say
58:24
thank you to all of our amazing supporters on Patreon. You guys are what keeps this site alive and growing. Uh I
58:33
have not thanked any specific supporters in a few weeks. I I realized looking at my email box and I was like, "Oh, oh,
58:39
actually." [laughter] Uh so I want to thank in some people thank some people who have come in over the past few
58:45
weeks. Thank you to Kitten Promise, Scott, Standpoint, and Mario. All of who
58:50
have pledged $5 a month. That helps us out so much. If anyone out there pledges
58:57
$5 a month, you get ads free access to the site at blizzardwatch.com. We have a
59:02
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59:11
if you like the podcast, $3 a month is great to just get them a little early, not have to worry about ads. Uh so if
59:18
you can support us financially, that helps so much. If you can't, I understand. But life is hard.
59:27
But you you help us so much just by being here, listening, by uh sharing our
59:32
content, by liking our content, by commenting on our content. All that
59:38
stuff helps other people see the content. So if you don't follow us on social media, please do. Uh we are
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59:51
BlizzardWatch Podcasts on YouTube, and Blizzard.watch on Tik Tok. So follow us
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on any of those channels for the latest news and podcast clips. And if you have
1:00:02
questions for this or any of our podcasts, please send them to us at podcastardwatch.com.
1:00:08
Specify the show in the subject line and give us any special pronunciation of your name. We try our best. We are not
1:00:15
always right. If you want us to get it right, please tell us. Um, you can also
1:00:20
contact us on Discord. And Discord is a great place to just hang out and chat with us. But if you're a Patreon, you
1:00:26
can contact us through the Patreon Q and podcast questions channel as our way of saying thank you. Little extra thank you
1:00:33
for supporting us. Or you can just chat. You can share cat pictures. We we do all of that there also. So, thank you
1:00:39
everyone for listening. And thank you, big thank you to our Patreon supporters, particularly Kitten Promise, Scott,
1:00:47
Standpoint, and Mario who have uh chipped in over the last few weeks. Thank you guys so much.
1:00:52
Thank you, Liz, for doing that for us so that I could think more about Rufus.
1:00:58
[laughter] That's what I'm doing right now. Rufus has an Ashkandi and his own armor set and an armor set display in
1:01:04
his doghouse because he deserves all this. [laughter] Uh unfortunately uh we're a little bit
1:01:09
low on time. So basically we're going to be going. Uh we did want I do want to mention really fast that there's a PTR.
1:01:15
It's currently for Diablo I. It's patch 2.6.0 season 12. And they're describing it as
1:01:22
a more focused streamlined season leading into Lord of Hat. So I'm thinking it's probably going to be just
1:01:28
kind of a season that's there. Uh yeah, I don't really know what's going to be exactly.
1:01:34
Uh the the big new feature appears to be kill streaks, which I which is weird because they've kind of
1:01:40
been testing those surreptitiously while they were doing the pit. Um yeah, I mean
1:01:46
I've been doing the pit a lot and the follower the follower from the uh mercenaries
1:01:52
also did gave you killstreaks that increased your speed as you got them. So yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, they've kind of had
1:01:58
kill, but they haven't had, you know, a big fleshed out kill streak system that was there all the time. This sounds much more like the Diablo II
1:02:05
one, quite frankly. Yeah. So, slaughter your enemies in quick secession to begin your kill
1:02:11
streak. This is nothing surprising or revolutionary, but it's it's there. And kill streaks are really fun.
1:02:18
Kill streaks are fun. I cannot wait to be trying to do Torment for uh Demon Invasions with this. Oh my
1:02:26
word, there's gonna be demons everywhere just coming out of every place and it's just killstreaks of 300. They're just
1:02:33
gonna be like everywhere. It's like doing the Infernal Hordes event with with this. Yeah, but I need I need the Unreal voice
1:02:39
award or it doesn't matter. I I I don't need any voice but but my own. It's so
1:02:45
interesting to see who like which voice you like more because for me like Unreal guy is great but I really like the Halo
1:02:52
guy announcing Killionaire because that was See I never and I never played Halo. Well, so like like it was one of those things.
1:02:59
Yeah, it's interesting. We've come from different directions, but neither of us are wrong because
1:03:04
they're both fantastic. This is actually weird because you guys are making me think of a thing I did in Wigoras for
1:03:10
WoW of all things, but it was my wife going treasure goblins, treasure, treasure goblin, goblin, treasure goblin
1:03:18
because they had the seasonal thing where they brought in the treasure goblins briefly. And so I had a thing
1:03:23
that would tell me in quick succession where the next one was. It would just flash out a a face and my wife going
1:03:30
treasure goblins goblin goblins. So yeah, that's nothing to do with this Diablo thing, but it's just wanting you
1:03:36
all to know [laughter] my way. Um, but yeah, they're gonna have killstreaks. They're going to be continuing them. You're going to be
1:03:42
killing more stuff, trying to get like cool things like refreshing things. It's
1:03:47
just it's just a fun thing to do. I've always liked killstreaks. Yeah. And then the the seasonal theme,
1:03:52
unless there's more to it than they're talking about here, seems really light. So, you can collect bloodied items,
1:03:58
which is a new item quality that you can get uh to harness in combination with
1:04:04
your kill streaks to heighten the bloodshed, which okay, okay, we we just
1:04:11
they're just going all in on kill streaks. And uh you can collect bloodied sigils, which you can use uh
1:04:19
uh which you can nightmare dungeons, infernal hordes, and layer bosses. That's what it That's what it said. That's what I That's where you get them and you use
1:04:26
them to go to other torment levels and so forth. Yeah. Each bloodied sigil carries a
1:04:31
bloodied aics relentless butcher. The infamous purveyor of human shudery hunts
1:04:38
you endlessly, hounding your every move. Should you manage to fell the butcher, he will immediately return. He will
1:04:45
never cease. which is I mean it's it's interesting to have a new butcher because the butcher has become strangely
1:04:52
non-threatening lately. I Yeah, I mean I think that's part of the problem of you get to like max level and
1:04:58
you start getting better gear and you start getting like I I'm literally standing there letting the butcher hit
1:05:04
me because it refills my fury bar so I can hit him harder. I'll just stand there and go, "Okay, yeah, sure. Let me
1:05:10
just put up my B my my fortified bubble. Okay. Oh, I'm full f I'm full fury now."
1:05:16
die, die, die, die, die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die okay he's dead so it would be kind of funny to see him just immediately get up and be like ah
1:05:22
but yes that I just in general not even at max level it feels like he's much less threatening than he was you know
1:05:29
back back when the game first launched it was like he was a menace they show up yeah absolutely
1:05:36
and now he is much less menacing I do like this does not replace the existing chance to have butcher spawns
1:05:42
so there is a chance you will fight both butchers simultaneously so you'll be fighting and two butchers and one of them won't die,
1:05:48
just as Diablo intended. Yes. And finally, expect the activity in the Bloody Sigil to be around a torment tier
1:05:56
higher in difficulty than your current torment. So, I mean, if you're torment tier four, welcome to torment tier five.
1:06:03
Uh, you know, I you don't know what it is, but that's what it is. So, yeah, that's it's not a it's not a bad season theme,
1:06:10
but it's just it's just kind of there. It's basic. It's just kind of there. It's fairly basic, but at least it's not yet another
1:06:17
exact copy of the vampire. Um, the vampire season was pretty fun. But yes, we have gotten into let's have more
1:06:25
vampire season. Yeah. So, but there's also the cool Wendigo rant, but we are burning time. I got to stop.
1:06:31
I got to stop. We're burning time. Thank you guys so much for being here. Thank you to Liz, Corey, and Joe for being
1:06:37
here and making the show what it is. That is a show that you can listen to. Otherwise, again, it's just crazy guy
1:06:43
muttering in his basement. I don't think we want that. So, thank you to all of you. You're very welcome. And remember,
1:06:49
Heroes of the Storm isn't dead, and you can help keep it alive by playing it a little bit more every day.
1:06:55
Um, excuse me, Corey. Uh, can I speak directly to the slug on the back of your head? Please let Corey eat and sleep
1:07:01
sometimes. Okay. All right. Why would he do that? He There's more Heroes of the Storm to play.
1:07:06
Well, that folks go, Corey, I'm so worried about you. Um, well, you know, it's when Blizzcon comes
1:07:14
around and it turns out that he that Heroes of the Storm 3.0 is coming out,
1:07:20
he's he's going to be able to he's going to be justified in all of this. Cory and I will be unstoppable.
1:07:27
[laughter] I will never financially recover because then I'll have to support it because I've supported it so long by not paying
1:07:32
for it. And so if they put out a bunch of new stuff, I'm just going to have to buy everything.
1:07:39
over owning a house. Yeah, it's it's Yeah, but it's in a good cause. It's to get Heroes of the Storm
1:07:45
back. So, Corey being living in a snow cage he's made for himself, I guess, is
1:07:51
just the price we're all going to have to pay. Um, thank you guys. At least build an igloo. At least build
1:07:56
an igloo. Corey [laughter] 2026 dream. Cory gets an igloo.
1:08:05
[gasps] a nice sod house on top of it. Keeps the cold nice and insulated. It'll never
1:08:10
melt. No. Um, he'll be making his igllet pipes. Oh my god. Somehow
1:08:15
this is coming back to the conversation before we started recording about perafrost not being quite so permanent.
1:08:22
That's Yeah, now it's just frost. We've Yes, we we're coming full circle.
1:08:27
I I did see before we go, we are leaving, but I got to tell you guys this one good thing is polar bear spawning is
1:08:33
on the rise. Polar bears have figured out how to live in a much less frozen north. The the answer,
1:08:39
kill and eat people. And I'm not kidding. That's been the Blizzard Watch Podcast. Thank you guys very much for
1:08:45
being here with us. And we'll be back next week. Polar bears are coming, guys.

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