Up next in 10
This week we're still immersed in Player Housing, but just a little bit of the shine has worn off, mostly as we've tried to chop down enough trees to decorate the houses of our dreams. Maybe our power level is so high we're just out here decimating every tree we encounter into matchsticks. But not everything is Player Housing. Some versions of WoW are also Classic, and MoP Classic just hit its final phase. We also have some news on Legion Remix, but because Matt is playing a Mage, they're not necessarily very nice.
We're waiting on some announcements for Diablo 4 which will be exciting but perhaps not too exciting. It seems like they really learned from the disaster that was the Diablo Immortal announcement (though we contend that it's actually a fun little game).
Plus, Overwatch 2 has a new season, which is nice and all, but that also means the Winter Wonderland event is back too, and that's really the headline.
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0:10
Hey everybody. Uh, welcome to the Blizzard Watch podcast. Uh, I'm Matt. I'm hosting. With me this week are my
0:16
fantastic co-hosts and also the most amazing Corey in the world. Our Corey.
0:22
Hi Corey. Hi Corey. Wait. Oh no. I did that joke already. Ah, and you didn't even send me for that joke. Yeah, I didn't say say
0:29
hi, Corey. I just said hi. Now you're just Now you're just narcissistic.
0:36
Um my I was so I saw it coming and I just you know he he it was a softball. He didn't even
0:43
get lobbed. But also with us are Liz Harper and Joe Perez. I'm not going to say say hi to them either because then
0:50
they'll use it. No, I'm not going to say say hi Liz because you'll then say hi Liz. I'm not
0:56
not doing that. I'm not going to be predictive. I'm I'm just saying hello. I'm here. You're here. Hello.
1:02
Hello. Uh, also Joe, you can say hello if you want to. Hi.
1:07
All right. Uh, a lot of stuff going on. Um, I'm desperately trying not to talk
1:14
about the Fallout show because it's coming this week and I'm I'm very excited. Yeah, it's the 11th.
1:20
Oh, note to self. Yeah, there's so much there's so much good
1:25
stuff out there to watch. It's kind of a problem. It Yeah, it can be. Um, honestly, it can
1:30
be really difficult. So, but yeah, we've got things to talk about. Um, right up front. I guess we
1:37
should be talking about Mr. Pandaria Classic or is there something we should be talking about else? I I I like to
1:43
leave it up to you, Liz, because sometimes last time we did this, I left it up to you. You quite frankly did better than I do. So, um
1:49
I No, may as well may as well start with it. Mr. Pandere classic uh phase three
1:54
is live which is your throne of thunder, your uh isle of thunder, your aisle of
2:00
giants. They really they had like one naming concept there and they just ran with it. Listen
2:07
to go with isles thunder thunder giant isle throne is throne I'm sorry I'll
2:15
stop my god. Anyway though, yeah, um, Gunfree Up Front, to me, this was
2:20
possibly one of the best patches slashphases for the best one of the best
2:26
expansions out. I loved Thor of Thunder as a raid. I loved the aisle of Slender as an open zone. And I loved getting my
2:32
butt stomped by Undasta over and over again and to just running down from the graveyard to hit him again. I don't
2:38
care. Original Undasta destroyed five raids at once and then had leftover room for
2:45
leftovers. It was so good. Uh, so yeah, I mean to a degree I
2:52
possibly what's coming up is actually even better for me. Uh, I did like Siege of Warmar until I ran it for like 14
2:59
months. You know, that's one of the things about classic is that you can revisit things.
3:06
Maybe you love them, maybe you hate them, but whatever you're revisiting, it's colored differently by time. And I
3:12
think Mr. Pandaria was one of the best expansions World Warcraft has ever put out. Except it suffered because you sat in
3:20
Siege of Ormar with that last patch for so long that you started kind of hating
3:26
it because this is like all there is to do and you just started hating the game
3:31
because it was just why am I here doing this still? Uh and it's not even like Siege was bad.
3:37
Siege was a very good raid. Very big raid. But also it was it was a little too big. But
3:43
it was but it was also a failure of I think uh like planning for how big they
3:49
made the raid cuz they did make the raid very big and how long it would take us to clear it. Like your players are persistent. We will do things either way
3:56
faster than you intend us to do or way slower than you intend us to do. There is no in between.
4:01
What really got me, I mean, we talked about this at the time, and I think it's one of the things that the last few expansions have really learned from in a
4:08
way. Um, Mr. Pandaria had an absolutely crackling
4:14
release schedule. Like, it was dropping stuff like a lot. And
4:20
of lightning. Yes. Thank you. I'm glad that Corey got it. Not much that anyone else wouldn't
4:26
have, but you just when Corey gets it, I feel like I've done my job as an Edmontonian. Um, but yeah, when we you
4:32
get you basically like you get from like dropping to drop like new new content, new content, new content. There's that
4:38
whole dip before uh Siege where you could go and farm up the classic looks
4:43
of the dungeon set 2 stuff from from vanilla. There was a lot of stuff happening and then Siege came out and
4:52
then 14 months later we finally got new content. And I remember thinking at the time, and I believe even writing a post
4:58
saying that if they had put an extra month in between each content drop that they actually did,
5:04
we'd have been seven months in Siege instead of 14 months in Siege. And I'm
5:11
not kidding about 14 months. That's not a joke. That's that's how long it was out.
5:17
Um, so I think one of the good things about classic is that to a certain degree they can they can look back and
5:24
stagger the releases and they can release them over a shorter period of time so that we have content. I I just
5:30
think it's a general the content speed that World of Warcraft has been
5:36
deploying its stuff on lately has really feels like it's been influenced by the experiences of then Warlords and then
5:44
Legion where they were like, you know, Warlords had another big content drought at the end. Um, and it felt like it
5:50
missed the patch at the same time which wasn't great. In a weird sort of way, I feel like Wild Classic is cool for
5:56
showing us this is what it could have been like if it had been released in a more modern fashion. If it had come out
6:03
the way they come out now, this is what it would have felt like. What I was going Yeah. So, going back to what you're saying about the uh the
6:09
release schedule for Mists, like I just looked it up just because I thought it was interesting. The OG cadence of it
6:17
was uh it launched with Mogous Vaults September 25th, 2012. All these are 2012
6:24
and then into 2013. Uh Heart of Fear raid phase 1 was released uh October
6:30
30th, so 5 weeks later. Then two weeks later, we had the Terrace of Endless Spring. Then two weeks after that, we
6:36
had the Brawlers Guild plus the Landfall campaign. 14 weeks after uh that we had
6:42
uh Throne of Thunder raid. Then 11 weeks uh 11 weeks in we had uh or 11 weeks
6:49
after that we had heroic scenarios in the Battlefield Baronss and 16 weeks after that we had Siege of Ogmar. So
6:55
like it started blistering and then they started pacing themselves at the end but
7:00
still did not buy themselves enough time which I think is absolutely fascinating cuz then after that you have That was so
7:08
at the time when they were really on the we want an expansion every year and a half kind of game
7:13
and then and then it never happened. Yeah. They could just never get things out that fast. So it was probably some
7:20
wishful thinking like yeah we're going to have this next expansion finished and then it's like oh but now look at look at the cadence that
7:26
they're putting out stuff now, right? Like compared to now they they had to start somewhere, right? And they had to
7:31
they had to have a goal to aim for. And yes, they may have missed that goal at the time, but they're they're going
7:38
pretty quick and pretty decently with their release of of content now, I think. And I think they learned they
7:43
learned they had to take that that stumble to learn how to crawl to learn how to walk.
7:49
And and also since we're talking about that, we should at this point since we've been kind of digressing a bit, we should probably talk a little bit about
7:55
Legion Remix. Uh because the final phase is currently live. Go ahead. We love digressing so much.
8:02
Yeah, it is true. So much. Uh, but Remix, the thing about Remix, um, it's been it's been I've been
8:09
fighting Remix. I I I keep saying I don't want to do this, and then I keep making characters
8:15
doing it. Um, the catch-up mechanics are already there. They they actually put in
8:21
the goodbye dialogues from the, you know, Infinite Dragonfly. I mean, that's kind of cool. Uh, I just
8:28
it's this is really kind of a windown patch, which feels a little weird to me
8:33
because this is going to be live until January 19th. So, it's not they rolled
8:39
out the last phase, but this is not this is not actually the end. But now you can go and talk to all of the different
8:44
members of the infinite dragon flight and be like, "Hey, this was fun. Bye." And with various levels of seriousness
8:51
and non-seriousness. So, it's a fun little addition, but it's also this is going to be around for quite a while
8:57
still to work on. Yeah. And the updated max level is up to 779. Uh, which means you'll be if you
9:04
get strong enough, you'll be able to solo a lot of this stuff, which is good, quite frankly. Uh, it makes people already are soloing a lot of this
9:10
stuff, too. Yeah, but I need I need to be way overpowered to solo. I'm not I'm not one
9:15
of those people who thinks clearly. Um, but also I like the Timer runners mayhem buff here is just wild. Uh you can do
9:22
these quests. They're the uh infinite research from Eternis. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. Eternis has what, a dozen of them
9:29
that you can pick up. And if you do something like that, if you do the quests, you can get a 3% XP buff that you can stack up to 10
9:36
times. So I'm assuming 30% at full stack. 30%.
9:41
30% bonus experience from kills, quests, everything. So yes, if you are using
9:48
time running to level alts or if you have the hair to oh, I went to level one of every class so that I can get the uh
9:56
legion class hall cosmetics for my house and I can get the mount for finishing the class hall campaign. If you're doing
10:04
all of those things, it is way faster right now. And you have until January 19th to uh you know just what everyone
10:12
wanted for the holidays was an opportunity to level every character class in WoW all over again for fun
10:21
for the nth time. Yeah, for the for the nth time. I just I'm finally managing to level
10:26
fast enough that I can stomach the fact that I'm playing a mage.
10:32
I feel so dirty. I feel dirty constantly. How is your mage experience, Matt? Is it
10:38
Is it okay? Are you feeling okay about being a mage? It's bad. I feel bad. I feel guilty.
10:44
But I will say this, there's never going to be a part of me that doesn't secretly enjoy like freezing everything around me
10:50
and then just throwing as much AoE as possible at it until it all just dies.
10:56
Um, you just kind of think I should be using a big axe to do this.
11:01
I have been thinking that I do need to level a warrior because I've never done the warrior class hall campaign. But
11:09
do you like strike? Also, I've also I've never done the warrior class hall campaign because I
11:14
don't want to. No, it's it's Do you like to feel bad about yourself and the people you work
11:19
with? If if you're missing that. Yeah. Yeah. It's just I a lot of the
11:27
Legion class hall quests were really fantastic, but I just do I just want to
11:32
do I just want to go and play with Odin for however long it takes to finish this
11:38
class campaign? I don't I don't know.
11:43
In the podcast pre-show, Joe talked about Pokemon games he's liked. To me, the warrior class hall campaign in
11:48
Legion is a Pokemon game. You are you are you are literally Pikachu. And and you know how Ash
11:56
refuses in the cartoon to like level Pikachu up or and he just feels like working out is the solution till he's
12:02
got this muscly Pikachu that that's like I I'm going to get destroyed. That thing, yeah, oh fine, I'll go I'll go
12:08
fight it. That's what being Odin's Pokemon is like. He just he constantly
12:13
wants you to prove yourself and then when you go out with your friends and you go to something he's in charge of,
12:18
he still wants he wants everybody to prove themselves. This guy is a jerk.
12:24
Oh, but one of the nice things about doing class quest in Legion Remix is it
12:29
is so much faster because it skips all the mission table stuff, which because that took a long period of
12:35
time for those to to happen. It took a time to get troops and level them and uh
12:42
all of your champions and level them. That just took a lot of time. And in Legion Remix, they're just like, "No, we're just going to skip all of that."
12:48
So, that really speeds up getting through the campaign. And when I wanted
12:53
when I heard that about the skipping the the mission table stuff, I want you to imagine that my eyes were
12:59
replaced by gigantic cartoon hearts because that's what
13:04
But yeah, it does make the entire experience go a lot faster. It's I mean there are just fewer stops and starts
13:10
because there were some definite stops and starts when you were waiting for your mission table to finish. And so you
13:16
can just go in and play it and with experience 30% faster. I think it I mean
13:22
if I'm gonna do the Warrior class hall, I need to do it now because it's not gonna get any better.
13:28
That's fair. Um and you know, maybe without the big stops, it will feel better. Um one of the things that felt
13:34
really bad was sitting around waiting like two days to get to go and you know, go fight Harbor.
13:41
I was like, um for real, I got to wait two days before I could actually progress this thing. Geez. So, you know,
13:47
maybe that'll help. Uh so, yeah. I is are are either or Corey or Joe are you playing any remix?
13:53
Are there any alts that you're just got to finish leveling them? Not me leveled already. So
14:02
that's missing out on. That's my problem, too. I'm in the same boat where like
14:07
I've leveled everything to max that I like of of everything that is of note and evenly reasonably likely for you to
14:13
play. Yeah. and like it's too much to keep up on otherwise. But like, and I've said this before, I don't have any problem
14:19
with Legion Remix, but it's not like Remiss was for me. Remissed was like,
14:26
again, Mist was my one of my favorite expansions to ever release for any MMO ever.
14:31
Um, so going back in the game in it, it has some pretty darn good content.
14:37
Um, but like going back through it was fun for me, even multiple times with
14:42
multiple characters, so it wasn't really a a a stress. Legion
14:48
is not my favorite expansion to begin with. It's not my least favorite, but
14:55
it's not something that calls to me. And with me having everything already max level that I would conceivably ever care
15:01
about, I I just I can't I tried I tried really hard to like get because I know
15:06
everybody in the guild was having fun with it and I was like, "Oh, I'll get my character level up and I'll do world tours. It'll be fun." I was like, "Um,
15:12
oh, you know, okay, I'm just going to play Pokemon instead right now. Uh, I'll come back later." And now it's like,
15:18
"Oh, I can do I I even thought about it. But I was like, "Oh, I can, you know, get stuff up and like, you know, I can get decor and things like that and I
15:25
still cannot get me to go and do even with the promise of decor." That's also a good thing about Legion
15:31
Remix is that this is a different way to play the game. And if it is fun for you,
15:37
you can play it, but not playing it does not mean you're missing out on power or anything you
15:44
need. Even the decor, the decor that's specific to the Legion Remix vendor is
15:50
going to be in the game when Legion Remix is gone. It is going to be more expensive apparently, but it will be in
15:57
the game and you can buy it in u the dollar under in the dollar sewers.
16:03
There's going to be a vendor that will sell all of that decor. So, I'm I'm trying to I'm mostly trying to get all
16:10
the collectible stuff. I have not been super plugged into this because there's so much going on. It's just how do you
16:17
find the time to play all of these different game modes? Like I was gonna I was going to play Miss Pandere Classic
16:22
and it's like wow that's a lot of time to keep up with leveling and playing a character in classic and it's like wow
16:29
now player housing is live. Ah so it's hard to find the time to do everything. I've been playing Remix pretty casually
16:35
just trying to get transmog and collectibles and we'll see. We'll see if
16:41
I manage to do that before it's over in January. Are you going to play enough to get this cool the cool scythe transmogs from uh
16:47
Argus? I killed Argus for the first time yesterday and I got the scythe. I have
16:55
never I have never gotten this scythe. I have never I don't think I've ever seen anyone who has gotten this scythe drop.
17:00
And now I have it in two color variants. Woohoo. I'm h I'm very serious. Speaking
17:07
of someone who never got that scythe, I I am very happy. Um, but I'm also going to say what's really cool is they also
17:13
have those for like stavs and stavs and stuff too. Like it's in just pole arm now. You can
17:19
transmog your staff. So that's great. Um, I I do need to say this part though. Uh, you guys mentioned it. You mentioned
17:26
decor. So I must we must talk now about player housing. And specifically before we talk about player housing, we must
17:31
talk about this three-word note. Lumber is terrible. Please,
17:37
they just need better lumber support. Just Oh, wow. Corey. Corey. Corey. Liz,
17:43
try to ignore that joke long enough to talk. So, you're saying is you're you're a lumberjack, but you're not. Okay. Wait.
17:49
I'm not familiar with this one. Oh god. Do I have to leave? I'm going to
17:54
leave. You guys have fun with this podcast. Okay. So, um, lumber,
18:01
you can you we're back to we're back to being lumberjacks again in this the year
18:07
of our lord 2025. We are we are chopping down trees all over Azeroth. And when
18:14
you go to chop down a tree, you hit the tree with an axe and you get exactly one
18:19
one piece of lumber. And there's different expansion like every different going all the way up.
18:25
Every expansion has a unique type of lumber. Um, except current one, the new one,
18:30
Midnight. Midnight does not currently have a lumber. So, it's Every other expansion
18:36
has lumber. But the real problem is, so you're going out, you're you're farming for logs. Woohoo, logs. And you're
18:44
flying around waiting for the lumber icon to show up on your mini map. And it's not every tree is not a piece of
18:51
lumber. So, it's you'll occasionally find a tree. And every single one is just one lumber.
18:58
Very rarely you get two. And if the gods smile on you this day, you might get
19:05
three just once. But most of the trees you were chopping them down for one
19:10
piece of lumber. Uh so you can expect decor to cost anywhere from 10 to 60
19:17
pieces of lumber per piece of decor. And at one log per tree, this can take a lot
19:26
of time, particularly since uh there's also no way to uh lumber does
19:34
not have an associated profession. So there's no lumberjacking profession that we can all enjoy having now. It's
19:41
there's no skill level. You are just you're as good today as you will be next year. It's but it's a very slow grind
19:50
and it has certainly um I think it certainly boosts the cost
19:56
of a lot of professions crafting because these things are already expensive
20:01
because they have a lot of materials from old expansions and the fact that they also need lumber which is very slow
20:07
to grind. It's warbound so you can't trade it or buy it. It it adds a it adds
20:13
a big overhead to all of your crafting. And mostly it's just so slow to collect
20:19
lumber. You can go around I'll go around hunted druid and be getting herbs and
20:24
lumber and ore all at the same time. Just do get all the things. I don't care if I need them. I'm going to pick them
20:30
up. It's classic adventure gaming. It's there. I'm going to grab it and put it in my backpack. Um, and it's just you'll
20:37
collect way more herbs and herbs and orb than you do lumber because the lumber
20:42
drops are so low. And it's just it's a grind. It's a grind. And it's like
20:47
you're super excited. I'm going to I'm going to get a house and I'm going to put rug a rug over here and I'm going to
20:54
put a painting over there and I'm going to put a giant fountain over here. And it's like, but I, you know, to make that
21:00
rug, I need 18 pieces of lumber because that's how you make rugs. And you have to build an individual loom
21:07
every time you're making a rug. I don't know. I I have been making I've been making some classic level rugs to
21:13
sell in the auction house. They do each require It's like devil sore hide and
21:19
pieces of lumber. That's like That's like it. It's like a It's devil sore hide, lumber, 18 pieces of lumber, and a
21:26
bunch of different colors of dye. That's fascinating to me. I'm thinking about every rug I've ever seen. I don't
21:33
think any of them had this much wood in them, but uh Yes. Yes. It's It's a lot of pieces
21:38
lumber. And it's uh it has been very slow to get lumber. 18 trees died
21:45
for this rug because we're cutting down an entire tree just to get one plank of wood which
21:53
we are using to make a rug. So my hope
21:58
is that Blizzard will increase the lumber drops because this ties into a
22:04
larger problem which everyone wants to level their house. We're gonna get
22:09
everyone's looking to get their lumber. Everyone wants to level their house. There are two ways to level your house.
22:15
You could do endeavors, which are neighborhoodwide activities that uh
22:20
aren't available yet, won't be in the game until midnight. There are these big kind of questing things. They're a little like the um
22:28
uh the the trading post, kind of an activity list like that that you can all do and collect experience for your
22:34
house. Not in the game yet. Oh, the only way to level your house is to collect
22:39
decor. And you can't just collect any decor. You only get house experience for
22:45
the first time you collect a piece of decor that is uncom uh uncommon or
22:51
rarer. So, you can't just go and buy a ton of decor. Can't just go and buy everything from the vendors. You have to
22:58
find rare decor. And you only want one of each piece. And they only give you 10
23:03
experience each. So, the marketplace is
23:08
really inflated with demand. Everyone wants every housing thing. There are hundreds of craftable housing items and
23:16
all of them. Every single one of them takes lumber. You want to make a lobster platter? Great. You better farm some
23:23
lumber. Everything. Everything needs lumber. Even cooking. Even rug making. Even
23:30
plushies. There's a plushie. You need lumber. So puppies and pasaroth are
23:35
extremely hard and not very good to hug. Um, so I I just hope there are a few
23:43
things Blizzard could do here, but I think the easiest one would just be to say every tree gives you two or three
23:48
lumber instead of saying every tree gives you one lumber with a very rare chance for two and a once in a-lifetime
23:54
chance for three. If we got drops from a tree the way we got drops from herb
24:00
nodes or ore nodes, then it would be a lot less painful, a lot less slow to
24:05
farm lumber. That would help bring prices down on the auction house or just
24:11
the time and effort of making things ourselves. And that would just that
24:17
would just make the man it's just it's just painful because it's you want the fun decor but it's
24:23
like if I want to get the fun decor either I'm going to pay 30,000 gold per crafted item on the auction house or I'm
24:30
going to spend 3 hours going in circles over this zone chopping down trees which
24:36
I will turn into one log per tree. And let's and let's be honest, the amount
24:41
that people are charging for crafted items because of this is warranted. Oh,
24:47
right. Like, yeah. And and and the other problem that this highlights too is the and we've talked
24:53
about this, I complain about this before this was even was released. Um the fact
24:59
that you have to craft every single item or buy every single item you want to place, even common ones. So like there
25:07
or purchase them or whatever the case is. So like e even there there's a market for even the common stuff that
25:13
doesn't give you an XP because you need a ton of them. So Mhm. I'm hoping that they revisit it or
25:20
either increase the amount of stuff you make from that lumber or increase the
25:25
lumber and really look at the economy around housing because and I called this
25:31
and we're not seeing the effects of it quite yet. Housing is going to very greatly affect WoW economy more than
25:39
anything else has in this game in a probably 15 to 18 years.
25:46
Yeah, it sounds like taking the the big change to player economy when transmog
25:51
made old greens valuable. Now add that to every expansion at scale
25:56
for multiple things. Yeah, it's it does sound like it's going to be wild. But on top of this, this is the only way to
26:02
level your house. This is it. I mean, there's some built-in demand because you need you can't just buy one chair. You
26:08
need to buy as many chairs as you want to put in the house. So, there's some built-in constant demand. But
26:14
the fact that this is currently the only way to level up really boosts that and
26:19
it's either you need a lot of time or you need a lot of gold. But this ties into the other thing which and I think
26:25
for a lot of players, you don't need to be level five housing right now. You get
26:31
a lot you I mean it's great to have it because you get more placement of stuff internally for rooms, but you have a
26:37
surprisingly large amount of room placement at level three. Like I am not hurting
26:44
for space right now. anything I add is either just waiting on my open sky room so that I can increase my and I'm going
26:51
to air quote temple space or like I don't know what I would do with more rooms right this second um different
26:59
rooms unlocking at different levels yes that makes a bit of a difference but it you don't necessarily have to be level
27:05
five to have a very compelling and very engaging house right this second that
27:12
said with it being the only way to level it like Liz is pointing out it is pretty
27:19
rough because you are either doing what I was doing which is running around the world trying to find every unique thing
27:25
and then doing a cost analysis in my head of do I throw money at this or do I farm the skill myself and then farm the
27:32
materials right like as a primary jewel crafter I can make lots of lanterns
27:38
that's about it um I have to go supp supplement this with other things I've
27:44
probably thrown about 200 grand at the auction house already just for stuff that I did not feel like crafting myself
27:49
or hunting down, which most I spent in a long time. Go ahead. Uh, one thing to be aware of is that you
27:55
can put in work orders for craftable decor. So, if you can't craft something,
28:01
but it's like, okay, I farmed the lumber. I've bought these materials on the auction house, you can put in a
28:07
crafting order, and there will be someone out there who will fill it. Um, so that does kind of get you around the
28:13
problem that lumber is warbound and you can't buy or trade it. So you can always
28:18
remember you can do a crafting order and I think a lot of crafters are going to be completely happy to do it if you
28:25
provide the materials or you give them a generous tip for their lumber.
28:30
But I think that's that's the part that I think we're going to struggle with is the lumber economy because it's not just
28:36
it's not just give them a tip. It's how much is that market value worth right now for that
28:42
lumber, right? And because of lumber being, like you said, difficult to essentially farm
28:49
because of the time cons constraint with it. It makes it more expensive. So, you're
28:54
paying almost the same as you would on the auction house in a lot of these cases before somebody will pick it up.
29:00
I I have an idea, Blizzard. Um, if you don't for some reason want to make it so lumber spawns more when you find a tree,
29:07
I want you to consider any boss that's a tree.
29:12
There are a few trees in this game that we kill and that would be drop lumber. If you if
29:18
it's a wood thing, it doesn't have to just be bosses. If it's a mob that is a giant tree or even the smaller trees
29:24
that run around and attack you, they should drop lumber. They're trees. I
29:30
should get to kill this tree and then use its body to build my my rug.
29:35
Apparently, I don't I'm not sure. I don't think that's I don't think it's gonna happen. They won't let me skin Wargan. So, I don't think you're going
29:42
to get your tree your tree from the fallen enemies. All right. All right. Just Just hear me out. What about if hunters could tame
29:48
the trees? The plant things coming in. Ah, yes. The story of the dwarf the
29:53
dwarf hunter pet. Anyway, in in Midnight, there are plantbased pets hunters can tame. So, you should be
29:59
able to tame it and then get it to provide you with lumber. I'm not sure.
30:05
Perhaps the word poop might not be too polite, but you know, listen, we've all played Breath of the
30:11
Wild. We know what Cororox seeds are. Carrying on. But now to move on to player housing in
30:17
general. Uh, I I do want to I'm not going to read all these. There was a patch. There's like a quick response on
30:23
the forums talking about changes. I don't want to read the whole thing, but I do want to read this one bit about
30:28
houses going up. Um, almost immediately after the 11.2.7
30:34
patch went live, we saw players using keybinds to elevate houses off the ground, even though there weren't UI
30:41
controls for that. We quickly began work to enable this this control, the controls, so it would be easier to move
30:48
a house upward. We have two concerns, of course. One, the underside of houses
30:53
aren't modeled or textured. Players who lift their houses may decide to hide that part behind other things. Uh, two,
31:02
if you lift your house up, clicking on the door could become a difficult. You might want to consider building a ramp
31:08
or a jumping puzzle or a mount landing spot, etc. Uh, and then is I have just
31:15
met you and I love you in quotes. So apparently whilst working on this system, uh the people at at Blizzard
31:22
were like, "Oh, they're doing a thing that we didn't think they'd do." And instead of getting angry about it, they
31:27
went, "Let's let's put the controls in so they don't have to like jump through hoops to do it." So now you can make
31:33
your house float, which is as it should be. Yes. In a fantasy setting. I just think that it's great that they
31:39
just supported it. They didn't they didn't say like, "Oh, let's let's end this." Because sometimes we get like, "Oh,
31:45
Blizzard, what do you hate fun?" So, I'm I'm glad to see them not hating fun. Like, this is a nice change.
31:50
I hope Emil joined enjoying scene. Yeah. The other thing that they've done um the they they had an exterior decor
31:58
limit of 200, which I'll be up front, I haven't pre-bought the game yet, so I don't quite know what that means, but I
32:04
do know that they've now raised it at level three. It goes up to 250. Because they were like, "Oh, we're worried about performance." But then they looked at
32:10
their metrics and were like, "Oh, performance isn't as bad as we thought." So now they've added in more exterior
32:16
decor for you. So if you're like, I don't have enough, you know, giant bronze statues outside my house, you can
32:22
now add more giant bronze. And I you say that that's not a joke. You can take a lot of things and just make them bigger
32:28
or smaller and put them outside your house. So are you guys are you guys going to use either of these? We'll
32:34
start with uh Corey. Are you going to use either of these? Change it. Uh the the jump the elevating thing that's Yeah, for sure. 100%. the and of
32:42
course more stuff is more stuff and more stuff is good number go up. So yes, this these are both very welcome changes and
32:48
they show that they're uh willing to engage with the community and also have fun with us which is great.
32:54
Okay. Uh Liz definitely going to be making use of that outdoor decor limit when I mean
33:00
I've been playing with different ideas about uh hiding my house because I don't
33:06
care for the appearance of hoarde houses. they're just not very
33:13
aesthetically pleasing and I need to put something on top of it or you know it
33:19
needs to go away. The house needs to be hidden under something else. Uh and I do
33:24
I have seen a pattern for a hobbit house in which you do you literally cover the
33:29
whole house and it looks like a pile of earth. This is a very intensive. This
33:35
will take up by itself most of your decor limit to build a hobbit hole
33:40
house. So, it is nice to have a slight bonus to that decor limit which will let
33:46
you also had some decorations outside in addition to having your under
33:51
underground hobbit house. But if you're building an underground hobbit house, you're not going to make it float. No, I'm probably not. I'm probably Yeah,
33:58
I'm not. Floating houses are cool, but I don't feel like I have the need to make my house float. I did see one person who
34:05
had made their house an airship. Yes. So, you know, you make the house float and you build like an airship around it
34:12
and then there was a little airship dock next to it, which was really cool. Just not something I personally feel like I
34:18
need to do. Okay, Joe. Uh, the outdoor limit. Yes, because I
34:24
also am not a fan of the hoorde houses currently. Um, you can make them very big and very imposing, but I don't
34:31
really care about that. They don't really have a homely charm for what I have envisioned. Um, and I'm going to
34:36
wind up currently I have buried my house under boulders and trees because they
34:42
give me the most bang for my buck as far as size goes and placement. Uh, however, I have discovered a pattern to turn it
34:49
into uh an elven tent essentially um with a bunch of the Bellameth uh tents
34:56
and and some other. So, I'm going to probably do that and I will 100% be utilizing all 250 uh units
35:06
uh of the core limit to to make that happen uh to make it match my internal
35:11
aesthetic that I have in my brain for. Okay, I'm going to tell you guys what's been going through my head since I read
35:17
this this post approximately an hour and a half ago. I want to build a floating
35:23
orb or I want to have a big brass looking orb floating in there uh that
35:30
people like go up to the big round door on it and get in somehow. I I don't know that this is possible quite frankly. I
35:37
don't know if they support this kind of thing, but this is what I'm thinking about. Possibly what I'll go for is like
35:44
a floating dome because I could see that working more, but I'm I'm I'm desperate
35:49
to build some kind of floating shape. And I don't know why. I don't know where
35:54
this comes from. I don't know why I've decided I want to, but I desperately want to do this. So, that's going to be
35:59
my project for the next until I go and say it. Is it because of the floating nature of fantasy structures? Like we see a lot of
36:07
things. No, he almost pondered his word because of destiny. Yeah, I I knew exactly what you were going to reference.
36:12
Destiny, you know, that wizard came from the moon, guys. Um No, I I just the
36:18
Traveler. I It's an orb. I want a big orb. Um there's it's just
36:23
I So, yeah. Uh that's that's what I'm thinking about. Uh if possible, I also want the orb to have an art deco look
36:30
because again, I've been playing a lot of the Outorlds, too. Uh but yeah, orb. Definitely wanted it to be a big
36:36
floating orb with possibly a do a dodcahedron would be nice.
36:41
Uh uh you can you can actually build one with the uh floor. Uh so you can get
36:47
flooring units that are triangular uh circular or square or semic-ircular or
36:54
square. Um, and you can go ahead and like you can actually do I've seen
36:59
people make like giant D20s on their like their front lawn because they they want to. Um, I've seen them also make
37:05
giant D12s because they wanted to. Um, yeah, I think the D12 would be the structure I would be most likely to go
37:11
for for an actual house. Yeah, but you can you can you can absolutely do it. It will it will take up a lot of your your limit, but you can
37:18
but the housing budget just goes up. So now, you know, maybe we're closer. Before Before we move on, I do want to
37:24
interrupt real quick and I want to tell a quick story about this latest patch that um it's been fixed now, but was
37:29
very frustrating um because I couldn't figure out and I thought it was tied to housing. Turns out it wasn't. Um some
37:36
folks that follow me on social media may have noticed that dur after this last patch was released um before today's
37:42
recording on the Tuesday uh I was complaining about being flagged as the incorrect faction. So, I play a Dark
37:49
Iron Dwarf and uh which is an alliance tune. And I went to go queue for a uh
37:55
LFR just to kind of get a couple things towards my uh travelers uh journal uh
38:02
stuff so I can get more attendee points. Uh cuz I really want to get the to the end there. And I zone in and everybody's
38:11
hostile to me. Everybody's alliance, but everybody's hostile to me. One person in theirs up, oh, you can zone out and zone
38:17
back in. and it usually fixes it. So, I do that. Nope. Everybody's still hostile to me. Well, that's weird. So, I can't
38:22
heal anybody or interact with anybody. So, I I leave. Don't get a deserted debuff. Cool. Uh, try it again. Maybe it
38:30
was a freak accident. Nope. Happens again. I notice I've been queuing from inside of my house. I thought I thought
38:37
because my guild is doing is neighborhood is hoarde that it was flagging me as horde when I was queuing
38:42
out of it. Correct. pro like problem from my character because our characters are basically a bunch of uh flags of SQL
38:48
code and and if then statements essentially in a database. I was right about the flag being stuck. Wrong about
38:54
the reason. I've also been randomly having a memory leak issue which a lot
38:59
of other folks have had on and off throughout the war within and I crashed in the middle of lore walking with blood
39:05
elves. Do you know what happens when you are lore walking with blood elves? You are you are flagged as horde. No,
39:13
you stay as your character, but you're flagged as hoarded so that you can interact with everything. So, when I
39:19
crashed in the middle because of a memory a memory leak error, and I have 64 gigs of RAM, it was it was just a lot
39:25
of leakage in the background. Um, and it kicked me out of the scenario and I never went in and finished the scenario.
39:32
It left me flagged as hoarded and I did not know this. So, shout out to the
39:37
folks that were able to look into it and figure out what was wrong. I was also informed that a uh hot fix went live. I
39:45
think it was Monday before today's maintenance uh to address that particular issue because I was I may
39:52
have been patient zero because I didn't see a lot of it being posted before I
39:57
like said something. But then immediately after like escalating it and making like a big thing about it, tons
40:03
of posts started popping up about people having the exact same problem. So, I was like, "Okay, well, I was very happy from
40:10
a technical standpoint that one, I knew what the problem was, maybe not the cause, but what the root was, and two,
40:15
that I got to be patient zero for something." Do you know how long it's been since I've gotten to be patient zero for a really game-breaking bug.
40:21
This was fantastic. It was great. Sorry, I work in tech support. I've worked in it for so long. I love when things break
40:28
and I can like I love when I'm in the middle of something that breaks and I can help fix it. It makes me very happy.
40:36
You hear here first. Joe s sol solved a problem that he might have been the first person to suffer.
40:41
Well, I identified a problem. I didn't solve it. The the the fine folks the fine folks at at Blizzard fixed that
40:47
problem, but I helped identify a problem. We should move on to talk briefly about Diablo. Um because
40:52
Well, before we talk about Diablo, what would you say about going to a hockey?
40:58
No. No. Oh, well, what if I told you that hockey game was sponsored by Blizzard Entertainment? Still say no.
41:04
Okay. Well, then no hockey game for you. Thank you. But Blizzard did over the weekend
41:09
sponsor the the Edmonton Oilers NHL game against the Winnipeg Jets uh as the main
41:16
presented by sponsor. And they were kind enough to invite me along, which was so
41:21
weird and so random and amazingly cool all at the same time. And I just it's it's another
41:27
The hockey game you were asking me to go to was already over. Well, yeah, but you didn't invite me at the time and you
41:32
just thought you'd bring it up now. Well, here's I'm glad that I don't like watching hockey. Well, okay. But here's the good news.
41:39
They're going to be doing it again in March, I hear. So, you you might get your chance. You've upset me. No, you've upset me.
41:44
I'm done. Anyway, now that Cory's rudely rubbed my face and the fact that he got to go see
41:50
a hockey game and I didn't. I got to go. Not only did I get to go see a hockey game, I got to go sit in the fancy person, rich person, and watch
41:56
a hockey game. That's where the blood really the blood gets right with blood elves. With blood elves. With some blood elves. Yeah.
42:02
They had a couple of cosplayers. Uh and they were filming like fun little skits with them around Roger's place. And I
42:09
would love to be able to show these fun little skits to people, but unfortunately due to the ephemeral nature of Instagram stories, I have no
42:16
idea where they exist anymore. They've they've gone past their 24 hours and they're somewhere, but I don't know
42:23
where. But it was mad. This is such a weird content crossover. It's I did not
42:29
expect this one. Blizzard's whole thing has been weird lately. They they come up and it's like what are they doing? This giant what
42:35
weird statue in the desert. What? Uh, which actually I I'm bringing up to bring up Diablo 4 season 11 start date
42:42
was shifted to December 11th, which is going to be at 8:30 p.m. Pacific, which
42:48
is coincid Yeah, that's a very unusual start time for a season. 8:30 p.m. Eastern,
42:56
uh, which is going to coincide with the Aim of the Game Awards. And we talked about this last week. What are they going to announce?
43:02
Blizzard was doing, we don't know who's doing it. There's weird stuff out in the desert. People thought it was Diablo
43:08
related. Uh Jeff Leosted it, right? Yes. Originally. And a lot of people
43:15
have denied it's various people have said it's not Diablo related at this point. People have attributed it to
43:22
practically any game you could think of. And man, I don't know anymore. But we
43:27
will find out soon. And we will definitely talk about it more next week because it is happening between us recording this and you listening to it
43:34
probably. Yeah. But it is should be pointed out if you're just if you don't care about weird announcements, uh you will know
43:40
that your your season hasn't ended and started yet. Uh and instead of it's now
43:46
going to be on December 11th, which is this week, I believe, because it's the 9th today, right? Yes, it is this week. Yes. Yes.
43:52
So, it's this week. It'll be Thursday at like 11:30 Eastern and 8:30 Pacific. And
43:59
yeah, probably related to the Great Game Awards, but we don't know. We just know what they're going to announce the
44:05
revival of Heroes of the Storm with a crossover with Diablo immediately. That's it. I mean,
44:11
oh, of course, Diablo the Diablo team does have a bit of a history with overhyping
44:18
announcements in um Yeah, like the giant giant Lilith statue
44:23
back in New York. Yeah, I remember that. I mean, I would say the most notable one
44:28
was when they did uh they did just big hype. you want to watch BlizzCon, this
44:33
BlizzCon, we're going to have something really exciting. And you know, everyone everyone in the community universally
44:40
was like, "You're going to announce Diablo 4. They're going to announce Diablo I." And then they announced
44:46
Diablo Immortal. Yeah. Yeah. And we did in fact have phones, which we used to tweet our disappointment.
44:52
Yes. I personally continue to think Diablo Immortal is a really good game.
44:58
It is amazing how well it translated Diablo to a mobile device. I like playing it on my tablet personally. Uh
45:05
monetization not great game. Really excellent gameplay. Really excellent.
45:10
But it was Yeah, it runs great. It's astonishing. Uh but the thing was Diablo hyped it so
45:19
hard that players immediately were like Diablo I Diablo I. And this was not what
45:25
they wanted. They hyped it so hard that they even like right before Blizzcon was
45:31
like got maybe don't be quite that excited but it was too late. Well, it also it also
45:37
came after a year in which there was going to be something Diablo related that got cancelled and everybody was
45:42
super hype about that comic. Yeah. So like Well, it wasn't the comic. They were like there was going to be
45:48
another announcement or something to do with Diablo and then it just didn't get announced. Um we all thought it was the Netflix show,
45:54
I think. Yeah, we thought it was the Netflix We thought it was the Netflix thing which everybody was super thirsty for and then we just straight up didn't
46:01
get it and then we didn't get an announcement about it. It quietly died in the background and so then when this
46:06
came up and everybody was super excited, but I agree with you, Diablo Immortal, while it was not initially wellreceived
46:12
and I was guilty of it as well, I am very surprised at how well it runs and how well it translates Diablo the core
46:19
gameplay loop. Yeah. Yeah. It's frankly, it's pretty astonishing how well it runs on, you
46:26
know, any old tablet or phone and how it feels like playing a Diablo game. And of course, you can play Diablo Immortal on
46:33
a PC these days. So, you can you get the best of every possible world.
46:38
It doesn't run quite as well on PC, quite frankly. Yeah, it's really it's really smooth. I
46:43
used to play on my phone and I would mirror my phone to my television.
46:48
Yeah. What are you telling me about that? And I was like, "Oo, I got to try that." And I never did cuz I'm lazy. And essentially, you're just using your
46:54
phone like a controller and watching the television. And it just it looks incredibly good even on like a 55 in
47:01
television, you know? It's just shockingly good for a free-to-play game.
47:07
But my entire point of this diversion is that Diablo does have a bit of a history
47:12
of overhyping things. Yeah. And go ahead. Go ahead.
47:18
Well, a couple of weeks ago, they were doing a bunch of interviews with creators and they were all like hinting,
47:23
"You should watch the Game Awards." Wink wink. You know, they were pretty strong
47:28
hinting, you should watch the Game Awards. And then last week they had a campfire chat and at the end they said
47:36
more directly, you should watch the Game Awards. You should really watch the Game Awards. So, they've gone beyond hinting.
47:44
They're just telling us really you need to watch the game game awards for something Diablo related. Hopefully,
47:52
it is as big an announcement as we expect and we'll just uh find out what this statue in the desert was really
47:59
about. If it's Diablo, if it's something else, and if it's something else, why does it feel so Diablo? I don't know.
48:05
We'll see. We'll talk about it next week. But for right now, um I'm actually looking at the time and figuring out
48:11
what we'll be doing next. I'm going to turn to you right now, Liz, and say, could you please do something news before we talk about Overwatch?
48:16
Of course. I want to say thank you to all of our supporters out there. Whether you are just listening to this, whether
48:22
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48:30
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48:36
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48:42
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48:48
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48:53
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48:59
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49:04
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49:11
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49:17
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49:22
dinosaurs. I didn't crash out and talk about 3D printing for a half hour. Y'all are welcome. See, now you and I get together cuz
49:29
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49:35
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51:07
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supporting us. So, thank you very much. Whether you're just here listening, reading the site, or whether you support
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us on Patreon, all of you guys keep us going. Thanks a lot. All righty. Uh, we got a couple things left
52:04
to mention and I think we can get through both of them. First up, um, season 20 for Overwatch 2. It's starting
52:09
on December 9th, which is today as we're recording. Um, if you're listening to us later, it happened already. Uh, but it's
52:16
one, this is the season that's going to be featuring new melee DPS hero Vendetta. Vendetta is also known as
52:23
every character Matthew has ever played in World of Warcraft as a playable hero. Uh, watch.
52:29
Maybe not quite because there there are some key differences. I mean, it's pretty close. I'm just talking looks, man. I'm not talking
52:35
Oh, yeah. Looks. Yes. Play style. Not not not even close. Giant girl with a big sword. I mean,
52:41
that's and and she does have a whirlwind move. She does. Um that's that's kind of warrior, but
52:46
otherwise it's not a it's not a a WoW Warrior, but it looks like one. So,
52:51
yeah. Every time I look at it, I'm like I know I get I get motion sick when I play Overwatch, but maybe I could try
52:57
and play again. I mean, I could just keep a bucket nearby. that that's that'll be fine, right? I'm sure groups want to have a player who's every so
53:04
often has to stop and be ill. Uh that's not the case. Yeah. I would like to take just a moment to talk about the character a little bit
53:10
more though, just so that you go, which is what I was trying to break in here. Um so a lot of people are trying
53:15
to compare this to uh Marvel Rivals who has a character who is a similar
53:20
aesthetic in the terms of if you know the X-Men magic. Uh she is a giant sword
53:26
wielding character, a melee character in a game about guns and fighting. Um, but they are wildly different play styles.
53:32
Um, so I just want to call that out. So, Magic is a combo based uh character who
53:39
chains survivability through combos and being aggressive uh which has high mobility, high things for invincibility
53:45
with a high combo potential and burst damage. Um, Vendetta on the other hand is a literal death star of a glass
53:52
cannon. um very high damage, wants to be in there for rapid kills and wants to
53:58
get out. Um has a blade block ability that offers a strong defense. Um but she
54:05
has a very very high DPS uh potential. She however has no survivability.
54:12
Um there's really nothing built into her that makes her wildly survivable on her own. So, she relies on uh team support
54:20
uh and other uh tanks and things like that to help crowd control, but she's a very dangerous assassin type character.
54:27
Um, but she has to get into melee. Very fun, very aggressive, fast-paced
54:34
uh play style that really wants to get in there and quick damage. So, if you're looking for something
54:40
gap closers, she has uh a a gap closer, but it's not a very long gap closer.
54:46
Um It's a spinning whirlwind of death. Yeah, that is her gap closer.
54:51
Um, so she doesn't have ne like she lacks the gap closer like Magic has. And
54:57
again, not neither one is better than the other. They are just completely different play styles. Um, so one I want
55:04
to say good on Blizzard for not just copying the homework like people were
55:09
trying to claim they do. Two, good on them for giving her a unique feel. She does feel a little clunky, but I think
55:16
that they'll wind up balancing it out and once players get used to her. I think you're going to see her be a very
55:22
big kill machine. Um, it's going to be one of those things where if you've ever seen uh like players that take like a
55:30
high burst character and take out an entire enemy team at the cost of their own death. That's what Vendetta is going
55:36
to be. You say it's very high risk, high reward type play. Very high risk, very high reward. Um,
55:42
and it will reward players for getting good with her and her skill set. And if you can get in and chain a bunch of
55:47
kills together, uh, and then die, you're if you can get your KDA ratio to like a
55:54
3:1 or or even a 2:1, it will be way more valuable. So again, I just want to
56:00
call it out because I have not been the the biggest fan of Overwatch 2 lately. This is actually a really cool, neat
56:07
thing, really cool hero, really cool design. And if you are interested in a
56:12
different type of play style and think you want to have that high-risisk, high reward, highly recommend giving Vendetta
56:18
a shot. Okay. Uh, Winter Wonderland also started at the same time, December 9th, and that's going to be running until January
56:24
7th. Uh, it's I don't think it has any real big changes this year. It's just Winter Wonderland.
56:29
Winter Wonderland, which, you know, it's fun. But, uh, finally, this one makes me laugh because
56:35
I had to just look this one up for a completely different reason. Um, no. Anyway, the cosmetic the internet is,
56:42
you know, delighted in, I'm sure, or like me going, "What?" And and then they have to go look it up and then they look
56:48
it up and they're like, "This didn't help at all." Uh, but there's now a new 67 emote for Soldier 76.
56:53
I audibly groaned when I read this. I I literally did. So, I I mean, this is a situation where
57:00
I've literally sat down and spoke to a a Gen Alpha kid to get him to explain it
57:06
to me and he couldn't. There's no explanation. There's no just a ridiculous thing.
57:13
That's all it is. Yeah. Yeah. So the thing the the thing is if you take
57:18
Overwatch in its time setting that would mean that Soldier 76 today would be like
57:25
a middle schooler. This is totally appropriate. Yeah. Completely appropriate.
57:30
I hate how right you are. Oh my gosh. This is very much like my brain just broke. This is when you
57:38
you realize to some people that like I was alive and at a time when when like
57:44
Beyblades was really popular, you know what I mean? Like there's you you every so often it hits you. Oh, you were born
57:50
in like 1990. Well, that means you really liked, you know, Kim Possible. Uh
57:55
just stuff like that. It's very odd to me that that this emote is something that I'm I have no idea what
58:01
it's just it is so so appropriate, but it's also something you could never plan
58:06
out. It's just it worked out. Yeah, this is I now want to see Reaper doing it, too.
58:13
Cuz they're like the same age. They are roughly the same age. There's a great
58:18
Well, no, no. Reaper's younger. I don't know cuz they they were on the same team together when they were both
58:24
younger. Uh, and then Reaper turned into like a rotting, discorporating being. I
58:30
have no idea how old he actually is. Reaper is 60 in Overwatch 2. Let's see how old Soldier 76.
58:36
Okay. Reaper is 60. Yeah. So, if he's 60, yeah, he's he'd be roughly the same age.
58:41
Yeah, they're both 60. So, they're both they both should be doing it. Maybe even dabbing. I don't
58:47
know. There's a clip floating around of it's
58:52
some Santa's village somewhere and there's a Grinch, someone dressed up as the Grinch and some kids go do the hand
58:57
motion. They go 67 at him and then the Grinch immediately without missing a beat uh like weighs his hands to either
59:04
side of him, left, right, and goes 89. And all the kids are very upset about it. So like right there is your reaper
59:12
emote with the 89. Oh, somebody we got to talk about this
59:20
one because it's something I've actually been looking around. Uh we're in the end of the year game showcase time period.
59:26
Everyone's going to be doing that. Like we just mentioned game of the year awards going to be happening um on the
59:32
11th. So uh let's just say straight up is hopes and dreams. You asked for hopes
59:38
and dreams here and I want to talk about some games. What games are you guys looking at? What what awards are you
59:43
paying attention to? Um, we're going to start with Corey cuz he's a special guest and plus he's going to have some
59:48
horrible joke that's going to break me. So, go ahead Corey. Well, Matt, that surely that can't be
59:53
right though because the year just started. It couldn't possibly be the end of the year.
59:58
Corey, when I said break me, I didn't mean psychologically. Uh, you need to be more specific. I'm sorry.
1:00:04
Yeah, I was gonna say that's your own fault. Just following instructions. Um, I I I'm going to be very interested to see if it
1:00:09
just in terms of mainline games because there was a big late season push for Arc Raiders to get game of the year and it
1:00:15
didn't quite line up to any of those. But it's a very popular game right now and it so it's going to be very interesting to see how the various games
1:00:22
of the year shake out because Expedition 33 is a very strong contender for that.
1:00:27
And uh we could see some other ones too that are just uh is expedition 33 going
1:00:33
to take everything or is it too old at this point and everyone's more on the new hotness of
1:00:38
I mean it's been nominated for a lot of awards and uh I it won a bunch of awards
1:00:43
the golden joysticks a couple weeks ago and I think it's a real contender for
1:00:51
just sweeping this year. But I mean, we will talk more about the winners in next
1:00:56
week's show. Uh, but since you since you were jumped in, Liz, what about you? Um, you know, I I I actually talked
1:01:04
about this last week, I believe, when we were talking about Wholesome Snack. Uh, we got a new trailer for Mandre, which
1:01:10
is a farming sim, but set in kind of a a vaguely English fairy tale sort of
1:01:17
world. And it's like farming has been like growing things has been cursed and
1:01:23
you're like a wizard with a farm because that's what it takes to make a farm now.
1:01:29
Uh, and it has the new trailer had introduced a new creature that had a very Todoro vibe to me. Like in My
1:01:37
Neighbor Todoro, it's kind of this world sort of very realistically grounded, but
1:01:42
then all of a sudden Tooro is there and you're sort of diving into this realm that is beyond the normal. It really
1:01:50
felt like that. Like it's the real world except you've kind of fallen over a few
1:01:57
degrees and now there's something completely different and off. And I I like it. I like the vibe. So, I'm
1:02:03
looking forward. It does not have a release date yet. I'm surprised you're not telling up this the art design of this thing any
1:02:09
It does have beautiful art design. Yes, it it's not Gothic. It goes to It's like
1:02:16
kind of cozy core. It's a, you know, I was gonna call it like it's almost gardening punk. Like I seriously I'm not
1:02:23
even kidding. That's a good word. I mean, it really does fantasy village, but it's really Yeah, it's kind of it's
1:02:28
kind of gardening punk and everything is there's a lot of green overgrown spaces,
1:02:34
but it's like apparent cursed farming, so you're like a wizard. Yeah. I I enjoy the concept. I finally
1:02:42
found the Todoro lookalike and it's like a tree that kind of sits there and and waves its arms around at you. It is
1:02:48
really weird and cool looking. So, I'm I'm just wanted to point that out. This is really a fascinating build, too. It's
1:02:55
kind of like a It's kind of like if you took um Stardw Valley, but you really
1:03:00
upped the resolution on it and then you had like this really cool like fancy aesthetic gardening type
1:03:06
stuff. It's It's really cool. I really This is nice to look It it feels it feels very Stardw Valley except with a
1:03:11
totally different aesthetic. It doesn't go with that retro pixel look and it's not trying to be, you know, like, hey,
1:03:18
realistic present day. It's gone into this sort of British fantasy world,
1:03:23
which, you know, we kind of think about, oh, the classic fairy tale fantasy, you know, we think about like the Disney
1:03:29
movie version of fairy tales and the actual fairy tales, if you go back to
1:03:36
your original source material, a toucher. They're usually a touch darker and so this has that sort of a touch darker, a
1:03:43
touch weirder feel and I I do love weird. So, here we are. All
1:03:48
righty. Uh Joe, anything you want to talk about really fast? No. Uh aside from the fact that I'm not
1:03:53
looking forward to the game awards this year because I think that here's my problem. Not that I think it's
1:03:59
a bad game, but I think Clare Obscure is going to win more awards than it probably deserves because a lot of the
1:04:05
categories are heavily stacked in its favor compared to what else is there. And I think that's going to make me
1:04:11
really sad for some of these categories. So, it it's a personal thing. Again, I'm not saying that it's a bad game, but
1:04:17
it's just so not that I really give a lot of weight to the game awards, but I like seeing the acceptance speeches from
1:04:26
the developers and people who worked on the game, especially if it's a smaller game, like looking at the best
1:04:31
independent game. I, you know, I'd rather see somebody go up there who, you
1:04:36
know, worked on blueprints and and talk about, you know, their experience and being in and what it means to them
1:04:43
versus again, not saying that the the Clare obscure team doesn't earn it, but
1:04:49
they're going to be up there a lot, I think. And I think that's going to kind of ruin it for me. Whenever one game I think is going to dominate every
1:04:54
category that it possibly can and be shoehorned into, I start to get bored and it makes me just feel bad. So, see,
1:05:04
okay, I get you on that one. And this is why I'm going to throw in my hot take here. Cliff is not going to win nearly
1:05:10
as many of these games awards as people think. I I think so. I hope not. Here's why I think so. Looking at game
1:05:17
of the year for starters, uh you've got a three-way split on Indie Cred here where you've got Claire Obscura,
1:05:24
uh Hades 2, and Hollow Knight Silk Song all nominated for game of the year. They
1:05:29
are going to split that vote. Maybe I this is my belief. You don't have to agree. Um Death Stranding 2 is up there.
1:05:37
It's not going to win, but you never can ignore Kajjima. Like some people will literally if if Hideok Khjima sneezes
1:05:45
and hands you the tissue afterwards, some people are gonna nominate it for game of the year. True. It's just it's
1:05:51
it's Hideok Khjima. So that to me means that um Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 actually has a shot to get in because it
1:05:58
it has the same indie cred in a lot of ways and it's got rabid following among
1:06:04
the people that love it. Now, I don't like Kingdom Come: Deliverance for its sequel, but I do think that you got to
1:06:10
pay attention to that one. Uh, for best game direction, I think you're going to see Clare Obscure take that. Not because
1:06:16
other games, like Hades 2 had good game direction. Come on. But Clare obscure is going to win that one. I don't see a
1:06:22
problem with that. For best narrative though, uh, straight up, I'm gonna say
1:06:27
if Ghost of Yoai doesn't win it, it's just because of how overwhelmingly
1:06:32
powerful the the Blitz for Expedition 33 was, not because it doesn't have good
1:06:38
narrative. I also think Erica Ishi deserves best performance, and I'm worried that she's not going to um that that is a possible that is a
1:06:45
possibility. However, I will say this straight up looking at um best performance. Um Charlie Cox is not going
1:06:53
to win this. He doesn't even want to win this. No, he doesn't even want to. He he actually goes around talking about the
1:06:59
original French voice actor who he calls superior. So, he is not going to win this. That's going to push Clare Obscura
1:07:06
to just Jennifer English and Erica Ishi and Ghost of Yoai. And honestly, Ben
1:07:13
Star is going to split the go the Clare Obscura vote. Like not that Jennifer English didn't do an amazing job. First
1:07:18
off, she already played an amazing role last last year. They're not going to give it to her. I think it is going to be Erica. That's that's my opinion. A
1:07:25
lot of these other games though, Clare obscure is going to win. However, best role playing game is a fascinating pro
1:07:32
process because whilst I think Clare Obscure might win, it almost doesn't
1:07:38
matter if Clare Obscure wins because Obsidian has two games in this. They
1:07:44
have a vowed and the Outerorlds 2. Now, I've I've bagged on a vowed before. You
1:07:49
guys all heard me. But having two games in that category is pretty pretty neat for that. Having two games in that category is
1:07:54
amazing up front. Secondly, anybody who wins this is going to have to always have that asterisk that Obsidian had two
1:08:01
games in there. And of course, Obsidian's fan base got split. You didn't really win because you deserved
1:08:07
it. You won because Obsidian was competing with itself. I'm not also not
1:08:12
this isn't a community vote either. This isn't just Yeah. Yeah. That's that's the other problem too, right? So again, but by the time
1:08:19
people wind up listening to this this recording, if you're not listening, we will all be resolved and I will we will all have the answers to our
1:08:24
questions. Yep. Yeah. But I am going to say this though. I honestly do think um having we had that discussion a
1:08:32
couple of I think almost a month ago now about a vowed. I've come around on Avap. Like I liked it a lot when it first came
1:08:38
out. Then I got disenfranchised with it and now I'm back on board possibly just
1:08:43
because I realized that a vow is not intended to be the outer world. That is a very good realization to have.
1:08:50
Yeah, it's not intended to be snarky. It's actually extremely
1:08:56
um I'm not sure the right word here. It's upfront. It's an it's honest. That is it is what it says. It is earnest.
1:09:02
Yeah, it is an earnest game. Thank you, Cord. And I think it might uh
1:09:08
win this. Uh I don't know why they put Clarabura in fighting games. I'm kidding. They didn't. But I just, you
1:09:13
know, like I think at this point they lost their minds. But yeah, I don't I don't think Clare obscure is going to
1:09:19
destroy this the way everybody thinks they're going to just because whilst they have a lot of votes in here. Uh and
1:09:24
a lot of them are, you know, I could absolutely imagine them winning. I don't think they're going to win all this like
1:09:30
players voice maybe. Well, I don't know that I mean the players any any choice that's
1:09:36
an open vote that's a player's choice. Yeah, those feel like the wild cards, those are the ones most likely to go to the
1:09:44
whatever game has the biggest buzz right now. Yeah. And honestly, I think for that
1:09:50
one, Dispatch has a real shot. I'm hoping because again, Dispatch should be getting nominated for
1:09:55
a lot more stuff. Quite frankly, I would I would tend to agree. Ridiculous. But again, we're gonna have
1:10:00
the answer to this question in by the time you hear listen to the next episode of the podcast. So, probably expect us
1:10:06
to have some reactions. Yeah, I just I've been teeing this one up all podcast. I've been looking at
1:10:12
this category list and saying and saying, "Ah, I you know, so I wanted to get to run through it." But anyway,
1:10:18
that's basically it. I do I do want to add one little note is that in addition
1:10:24
to the game awards that next week on December 18th is the Indie Game Awards
1:10:30
which is in the same vein but there's a lot more a lot more variety at the Indie
1:10:35
Game Awards. So you will see some of the names like Clare Obscure. You also see a lot of smaller games and lesser known
1:10:42
games and I am excited to see that one this year. And I just the indie world is
1:10:48
full of so many incredible games right now. So I'm really looking forward to seeing who comes out on that one. But
1:10:54
any nominee for the indie game awards, you can't go wrong with playing them and checking them out.
1:10:59
Yeah. Also go go play. Um sorry, but it is an indie game and I do love it. Uh
1:11:05
but this has been the Blizzard Watch podcast. Uh thank you guys so much for being here. I'm a little mad that Diablo
1:11:11
4 didn't get a nominee for the Indie Game Awards this year. I'm kidding. Um, who could have seen that one coming?
1:11:17
Honestly, everyone be like, "What?" Oh, yeah. This is uh Thank you guys so
1:11:23
much for being here with us. Uh, you make this whole thing possible. Thank you guys again just for you and we'll be
1:11:29
back next week.