Mists of Pandaria Classic brings one more Classic into the WoW trenchcoat

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[Music]
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hi everybody and welcome to the Blizzard Watch podcast i'm Matt i am the host along with my two fantastic co-hosts Liz
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Harper and Joe Perez hello guys hello hello and we als we also have our
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special guest of the week uh Corey who is our special guest of the week i mean
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hey that's me yeah it's you um I don't think Oh we do have the Heroes of the Storm patch notes okay cool i can relax
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now uh we got a fair amount to talk about this week um first up I guess we
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should just jump in where we usually do uh World of Warcraft's got its Blood Ties novel coming in it's a tie-in novel
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it's set between uh The War Within and Midnight and it's written by Christy Golden which I think is interesting um
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because not a lot of people come back and write novels for a company after they stop working there but you know hey
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she did you know if they're going to pay you if you're a freelance writer and novelist
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and someone offers to pay you to write something you're probably going to say yes which I think it's good that
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apparently Christy parted with them on good terms and she's still out there writing and doing stuff so yeah I think
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I think it's a win yeah i also think that it's interesting that the the the premise is that it's going to be
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following Erator yeah well we it would be nice to find out what he's been doing this whole time
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so yeah well I mean I think it's interesting because with uh basically Valyria being
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uh Ayria being so tied up in what's happening in the war within uh and you
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know Terellion being there now and it being void and light and everything that's happening it seems fitting that
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they would go back to Arator especially because again we talked about this on last week and I think lore watch and I
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mean it's it's the topic of of wonderful debate they brought back the horrific visions right and there's a reason they
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chose to bring them back and it's not just because of old god you know the black blood is old god blood which at
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this point we've been saying that for since this before this game released
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but you one of the the first thing you do if you are doing the uh horrific
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visions as alliance is you're dealing with the what if yria went to the dark
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side and I do again with all the stuff they're doing this is intentional it has
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a purpose it's the same reason why like they're bringing the lore walking ones back that they're bringing back like
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it's I think it's genius and then having the book come out with this which it
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absolutely is not just going to stop with it's going to have uh you know Terellion and Yria there as well or at
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least what's been happening with them offcreen and I think that's really important too
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also we should mention because we didn't uh the publication date is November 18th uh I felt kind of silly that I didn't
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say that it's available for pre-order right now apparently uh I have not pre-ordered it yet because you know money but you can so if you want to go
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pre-order that you absolutely should uh because a good writer there's also an
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audio book of it which I've also seen pre-orders for it but no information on who the voice actor is going to be for
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it but they usually get they usually get like solid Warcraft voice acting so
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that's they're they're good audio books I think generally speaking yes um I am so now I am absolutely so hoping they
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get um I'm so Darren Depal uh come in and do
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it because man and do it in your N'oth voice please yeah that would be amazing
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you know you can do it in your N'oth voice and your Reinhardt voice like have all the other people who aren't N'oth be
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Reinhardt i would be completely happy if he just recorded all future Warcraft books he could narrate them as N'oth i
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mean I'd be perfectly content with that any books at all actually you know what let's just get him doing that for like
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you know I don't know the the lion the witch in the wardrobe as bind us
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off anyway but that's pretty much all we've got for mainstream war World World of Warcraft right now uh but we do have
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some WoW classic news uh first off we've got the Mrs pandaria classic release date it's July 21st so if you're going
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to play Mrs pandaria Classic it's July 21st get get ready it's coming which is
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weird and go ahead Joe well no I was just going to say weird because one of the things they talk about is that you
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know you can earn a mount uh in Modern Wild by playing through the Pandaran starting experience but when you go to
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the details it tells you to play through the Pandaran starting experience from July 1st through July 20 uh July 30th
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july July 1st is the pre- patch and Pandarin will be available during the pre patch so you can you can log on and
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create your Pandarin and play through the starting experience but you can't Yeah you can't go on and do zones on
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Pandaria until the full thing launches but you can uh the pre- patch will include Pandarin and monks just you
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can't go to our new continent that's exactly like the pre- patch was
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back in Pandaria too original there you go retail Pandora see I can't get over
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this i loved Mr pandaria i really did but the fact that they're named a Pandarin and it's called makes me think
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of the old Shakespearean insult of being a pander and and the accusations they're
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just pandering to their fans which I went and looked that up from reading Troa it that's actually when you're
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saying that you are you're getting pretty spicy there my friends but all of this talking about this you can get the
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mountain modern woow by playing through the p the pandar and starting experience also meanwhile over in season of
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discovery you can get a level 85 character boost by killing Palazar in the Scarlet Enclave raid go
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ahead listen and I I believe he's the first boss in the raid if I'm getting that correct i think that's a really
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smart move because you have had a lot of classic players who've been really enjoying Season of Discovery they may
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not have been playing Cataclysm Classic they may not be interested in Cataclysm Classic but Missandaria was a very
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popular expansion it adds some really great content pandaria is one of the
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best continents to play through i thought the story content in Pandaria it the storytelling was really amped up in
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Blizzard making extensive use of phasing and kind of short little scenarios and
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of course scenarios themselves all while you went through the story this is such
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a great expansion so I can imagine people who were maybe like Cataclysm nah
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and have maybe been playing Season of Discovery who might be like "Yeah I went in on this and now they can get a
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character boost if they are kind of up on their Season of Discovery and actively playing it."
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And I love that they do the cross like the cross between the different versions of WoW like play in classic and you get
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the mount or play in Discovery and you get the boost so you can try out retail and it's such a good way of uh
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making sure that you still try and keep all three different versions of Warcraft talking to themselves or talking to each
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other and the the mount is like a it's an
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astral cloud serpent but it's kind of got a sort of a jade green color it is
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Shiaow's sage serpent so I am I am wondering if are we stealing this from Shiaow himself i can we do that are we
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supposed to be doing that but it's a really cool looking mount so I'm I'm going to go do it
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i'm going to steal the mount i just want to know if I'm doing something wrong i mean I'll still do it i I'm curious
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about the moral implications but it's a really cool mount and so I'm going to go get it because video game players and
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particularly MMO players we will do a lot of things for a neat cosmetic
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item you put it in front of us we're going to go get it i do think it's weird
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that they made Balazar the first boss of Scarlet Enclave that's kind of like I mean that's sort
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of like putting thr as the first boss of like you know an orgamar raid if they made one it's like and first off you
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fight Gahash Elgrave what isn't he the boss if you kill him why are there other
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people in the background shouldn't those guys have been up front in a way it feels kind of like everybody got smart
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was like maybe they'll kill him and leave why don't we just all get back and oh no they're still coming oh bloody
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everyone arrange yourself in order of loot best loot to [Laughter]
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worst but yeah I I do think it's really cool that the the whole deal with the
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season discovery and and Scarlet you know the Scarlet Enclave raid the fact that they had such a raid which is a
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completely new raid i I find myself wondering if at some point they're going to bring it to to Live
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Wow like they're going to just you know yeah it's here you can go back going to be time walking you could time walk to
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the Scarlet Enclave finally you can see the thing that you missed wait but I was playing back then yeah but you this this
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you missed this this was You didn't get there so I am seriously interested in
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seeing if they do that i I I don't want to have to level a character through the season of Discovery just so I can get to
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see the Scot Enclave but I'll do it if I have to but right now that's enough i Anyone
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else have anything i'm pretty sure we're done on that one so we're going to talk a little bit about Diablo II um season
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34 will never end ah just kidding it's ending June 1st so by what when is June
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1st is that Monday or is that Sunday uh that's Sunday yeah so as of Sunday
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season 34 is finally going to end and season 35 which is the pandemonium
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season that's not not not we're not saying it's pandemonium because no one knows what's going on we're literally
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referencing the plan of pandemonium uh that's going to be June 6th so you're going to have a fiveday break uh before
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you get your next season that's pretty typical yep it's enough time to remember what outside looks like and maybe talk
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to a loved one i mean yeah if you want to do that I mean sure but um the thing
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about this one the reason that it's interesting is just because the season just kept not ending uh they tried to
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end it at least once and it just didn't so finally go ahead i think they it it's
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one of the it ended accidentally for some but not all players and then it
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didn't uh they did this last season too the season ended early and then they
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brought it back up so they I don't know what the end of season and stuff is happening with in Diablo 3 it's It's
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been a weird one yeah i'm kind of hoping that next time if they just end it early by mistake
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they just let it go cuz it's confusing okay this is just It is when it goes up and comes out dead that that
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so yeah but that's pretty much all we've really got for season for Diablo II but
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that's fine diablo II is a game that's technically in maintenance mode so the fact that it has so much stuff happening
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is I guess just a consequence of the fact that Diablo II is choa block with stuff by the time it ended
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i mean they're recycling season themes so you can expect a new one to keep coming around
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so uh I'm going to talk about this Heroes of the Storm thing next because Cory's right there and I feel I can feel his eyes pouring at me from across the
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city so yeah new patch nudes for Heroes of the Storm patch nudes patch nudes i
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don't know what nudes are nudes these nudes in the patch um Corey explain them
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to me and explain to me why this means we're going to get Heroes of the Storm on on Xbox Game Pass or something we
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keep getting big balance changes like they keep tweaking functionality on
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things they're not just like "Okay this now does five damage instead of six damage at the be at the base level." No
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they're changing how the biotic grenade for Anna which is her little like she throws the grenade out and if it hits an
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ally the ally takes more healing from her and enaling added functionality now they're making
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it so that if it doesn't hit anything you get the cool down reduced so that you don't have to worry so much about
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like oh well that guy that I was aiming at just blinked halfway across the map because he can do that and now I've
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wasted my cool down and it so they keep changing
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functionality on how these talents work i'm not going to read the whole list but
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uh so there's biotic raid for Anna has added functionality aswood ends trample
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at level 16 now will lower your cooldown on heroic ability by 25% if you trample
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over an enemy hero probably just on or off 25% not trample the whole team get a
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new heroic right away um the heroic for Genji will now heal
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for 10% of the damage dealt to enemy heroes up to 30% if you're super low health which makes Genji super hard to
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kill and the list goes on like that there's a whole list of patch notes that if you're still playing which you should
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be because it's super fun check it out uh it just it shows as always that
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there's somebody's probably more than one person I would guess that is super passionate
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about Heroes of the Storm still in Blizzard headquarters camped out in a server rack somewhere sneaking snacks
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out of the break rooms and keeping this game not only updated and balanced but
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improved so give them some money get them some support maybe let them have a
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nap and then let's get this back to work and on Game Pass whatever happened to
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Josh anyway i I think he fell into the main frame and his ghost became like a a presence haunting the the web and it
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just keeps updating Heroes of the Storm ah yes the Josh Xmachina yes but I I do
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have to say that poor poor Malfurion man he he took a beating that's not that anyone else is going to
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care but I liked playing Malfurion in Heroes of the Storm he was the caster I held on i I I enjoyed the character but
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yeah it it is still kind of amazing that they're add these these added functionality things like the That's
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kind of wild that they're adding stuff like that so where does this put us on our
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doomsday clock i mean sorry our you know get bring Heroes of the Storm back you cowards clock like do we feel like we've
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moved closer or further away i I'd say every patch brings us closer to at least
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some kind of new content yeah if they keep doing the this amount of reworks and adding stuff to these characters and
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again like like Cory said it's not just balance changes it's like full redoss on
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some of this stuff like it's absolutely mindblowing that this is this is what
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constitutes uh maintenance mode right now for this game like this this feels like active
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development like right now etc getting sorry etc
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getting new talents like sorry blows my mind etc is one of the original characters
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yeah and he's still getting worked on 10 years plus down the line and tweaked and
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brought into brought into new heights of rockstardom this patch went live to
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servers on May 15th and the patch before that went live on March 12th so that's
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two months there the patch before that went live January 27th before that was
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December 9th and before that one was October 14th and we can keep going back and these are
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consistently coming out fairly often every two months we're getting some kind of patch so I feel like they should just
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put their money where their patches are and say you know what people are if this game is worth patching this game is
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worth you know resurrecting reanimating and uh throw some budget at
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it and this isn't just Corey being Corey here i'm going to point out that whilst
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whilst we we we tease Corey a little bit uh coming you know PC Gamer put out a
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post like last month about how yeah it's been five years since the last hero release but Heroes of the Storm is
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looking pretty spry it's like it's still a lot of people are playing it it's it's
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getting like updates when when the same people are noticing then we the crazy
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people have to stop and wonder wait a minute are we right well like are we the
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righties i I don't know and I mean and I also want to put it out there too that like it's not just us and it's not just
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like PC Gamer Magazine or PC Magazine whatever whatever you said there that that that is following it pc gamers yeah
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content creators are also like starting to make content about Heroes of the
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Storm again like I'm seeing as we talk this very second Grubby is streaming
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Heroes of the Storm to 3.7K 3,700 people are watching Grubby play Heroes of the Storm right now yeah and
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that's not an insignificant number like you think 3,700 is not a lot it is like for a game that's supposed to be and I'm
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going to air quote dead or the fact that you have you know YouTubers making beginners guides still as recently as
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yesterday for people to like experience and like here's how you get started in
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Heroes of the Storm like it's it's there and it it just
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feels when they said that they were putting it in a maintenance mode i think I I know that I was very sad about that
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because I enjoyed playing it but there's got to be enough people still playing it
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to justify this level of of attention so just lean into it like I don't
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understand why they haven't or maybe they are and they just haven't announced
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it yet and maybe we'll get something later but like I'm with Corey just like just do the thing just just put it back
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on the menu boys take it take some budget upscale Lilith from Diablo I or
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downscale her or sidescale her whatever you have to do to get her into the Starcraft engine that powers your storm
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and then add Lilith to the game your biggest your biggest standout character that you've released in the
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last ex you know five years should be in Heroes of the Storm at this point yeah
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they have so many that they can do and then we can actually start getting them uh making their own characters again
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like unique ones for Heroes of the Storm like they did with uh Aphilia I think is
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I think that was her name i cannot I can never remember her name oria thank you or Yep you're you're very
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close and don't forget Kira the the badass bounty hunter with the chainsord
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yeah and you have you have stuff like the Junker Queen is available now you you have all these new heroes from like
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Overwatch that I would rather play in Heroes of the Storm i'm not going to lie
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right like like you you have all this crossover that you could do like and
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there's it's been long enough that there's so many heroes that you could put in there there's so much potential
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for skins there's so much potential to monetize the skins for them i mean and
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then again we talk about this thing with Microsoft and Game Pass we saw this with
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like Amazon and the Prime Gaming and stuff where Blizzard at one point was
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like "Oh you have Prime Gaming you can claim these rewards if you have it with the Cross Collab." They don't have to
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cross collab anymore with with third party companies they can just cross collab internally with like Microsoft
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hey do you got Ultimate Game Pass get these skins free
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and I want to actually make another point here because you just made me think of it while we were talking about this
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microsoft could introduce new heroes to Heroes of the Storm like say universe guy Doom Doom Slayer Master
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Chief you could finally answer the question could Doom Slayer beat Master Chief you can make them fight you could
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just do it just make them fight um they could introduce a card from Forza yeah you just fight a car or the
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car could The car is a really good support it actually cast healing like how is this car healing me it just
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really cares man this cares cuz I mean you think about it right they have everything under Bethesda they have everything under Activision they have
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everything under uh Blizzard they have like they could put Steve from they
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could put Steve from Minecraft in there like Spyro rare all of rare games like stuff like
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it's it's crazy Bandicoot my friends like Killer Instinct microsoft owns
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Killer Instinct you could put those in there you want to talk about some details they have Fable like we could go on but like
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yeah I I don't I'm just going to sit here and just Also the characters from Alpha Protocol
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technically they own them too like but seriously like we've seen this with with Smash Brothers of all games tony Hawk
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like bring Tony Hawk tony Hawk finds out he's owned by Microsoft what do you mean
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I'm owned by Micros yeah they bought you last year they did oh okay i guess I have to go start skating let's do some
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Let's do some 900s in the in the the Heroes of the Storm Nexus let's go come on yeah but in all
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sincerity I I I've often felt like they gave up too quickly on this game
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like it just feels like they were just in much the same way that I feel like they sort of dropped the ball on
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Starcraft 2 like it was getting really good by like the time they were near the
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end of when they decided to stop developing it they had the the uh the new commander thing they were bringing
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to multiplayer they were doing a lot of interesting stuff and then they just decided nope we're done
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and I was say like I'm with you and a lot of it felt like it was decisions by
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Activision of pulling back to what was making the most money at the time and
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because these games weren't making money handover fist because they couldn't figure out how to monetize uh Heroes of
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the Storm properly which come on really uh and they couldn't figure out how to monetize Starcraft because again
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Starcraft when it died it was at that time where games needed to be constantly
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engaging you and getting you to spend money that was Activision's sort of MMO right even WoW was was doing that with
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all the in-game stuff that they were trying to get you to purchase so now that maybe that's I'm sure it's still a
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concern but also revisit it like look at these maybe maybe understand that you
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don't have them have to be the sources of all the money given to you for these
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things and still have them be successful i'd love Starcraft to come back too like while we're on the topic
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of it bring Starcraft back let's go come on i I really do think we're going to see Starcraft again every time it pops
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up everyone loves it so much yeah well plus I mean we go back to this and Liz
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was the one who pointed this one out going all the way back to when Microsoft first said "Yeah we we now own we
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finally made this thing work we we finally purchased Activision." They had four games up on their their banner i
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don't think they had Call of Duty guy but they definitely had Starcraft up
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there you know so I think they're aware this is this is
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not a a franchise we should be allowing to lay Valow uh it is just it's strange
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if we're going to have if we're going to be in a gaming industry where everyone's afraid to take risks and nobody wants to
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risk their billion-dollar stuff then by God don't leave money on
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the table like what are you doing you've got Starcraft you can make something
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with this i I keep coming back to the idea that at some point there should be a Starcraft 4X
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game i'm amazed that they have never had one a third person Starcraft action
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adventure game where you play as a zealot with armblades or a ghost perhaps
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we could even call it Starcraft Ghost
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[Laughter] it's uh yeah there's so many options for
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games out there and there's so many like do a do a rogike as a zurgling where every time you respawn you get a little
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bit stronger and are a little bit better at being evolved oh my lord they could try to make a rogike map for Heroes of
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the Storm the the rules are completely different than normal and it it's you know as
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you're going in there you die and you get new like you get better players just show up to kill you i don't know i'm I'm
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I'm spitballing here i I just I feel like Series of the Stormmy should have done something with it and now that
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we've allowed Corey to talk about this for his usual amount of time actually we went a little over we're actually almost
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at seven let's talk about Diablo I season 8's currently there uh the
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season 9 PTR is live as of this recording i believe it went live today right
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yeah so uh if you don't know what day that is it's the 27th 27th
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i just I can't I don't know what day it is anymore it's live that's That's good yeah but the season theme we we actually
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had a like a a community chat last week it was of course after we do the podcast because it's always after
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but they like they like doing these on Thursdays yeah so it's just evil it's
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evil and they and they drag them on for about two hours so you know we're just
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going to summarize it for you in way less than two hours because we were time
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well I sat there i sat there watching it for two hours and I just felt kind of
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exhausted by the end so I'm I'm a strong believer in if you can't explain it in less than two hours
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i don't know man it depends on what it is i mean I don't think you can explain true true but anyway uh first up the
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season theme is the Sins and Harajum which brings her see now here I don't
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know how to explain her spellcraft in in two hours it's Herodric spell crafting you get new
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heredric spells which you can customize and they are effects attached to your
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existing spells it feels a little bit like uh the the bodyguard system that
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they added in the expansion um where you you just attach them you
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can attach their abilities to one of your spells and when you use that ability they'll show up and smash do
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whatever you requested them to do in this case you are attaching one of these Herodrick spells to one of your
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abilities and when you press that ability the spell lands but the spells are also customizable so modified with
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the S what is it the catalyst i can't remember the other two it's It's
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perhaps a little too complicated but it's there maybe that's why they needed two hours to explain it i admit so you
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have I watched it and I seriously was like "Oh God please this is making me This is making me long for the altar of
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rights back please just bring back the altar of rights at least I know what happened with that you just got new
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powers as you played so you have your catalyst which is kind of the core skill
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you have so an example is celestial surge which pulls in all surrounding enemies and rains stars down them so
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just like whatever that druid ability is in Warcraft starfall is it literally Starfall yeah like that like that
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and then and then you can apply an infusion
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to that ability which monitor uh modifies the damage or damage type bonus
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your catalyst deals and then you can apply up to three arcana i believe I may have that wrong
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that uh modify it in different ways so you might add an arcana that cause that
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also makes it days things or increases the size of the effect so it's really
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wholly customizable you can tweak this to be exactly what you want and to you know like fill holes in your build if
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your build isn't very good at doing this well bang you can customize your herodic
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spell crafting in order to make it do that thing and kind of round out your character or maybe you just want to be
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like make your one thing that you're really good at even better so it's all
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up to you i I do love customization i I'm not I'm not sure if this will be fun
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or if it'll feel like an endless grind but I think it's a really cool system and of course like the other systems
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that have added new skills to Diablo 4 all of these abilities can be upgraded so you can keep powering them up as you
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level yeah I'm not upset that they have customization i'm I'm upset that it like
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you know first I thought okay so you just attach this to Oh oh but then we have to get to this and then this and
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like this is starting to get this is starting to get scary it's really completely customizable which I think is
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cool i there is one really great change they're making for season 9 which you
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know in previous in previous seasons where you had to earn this whatever
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power ability of the season and level it up you had to earn that in like the
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specific new season event so uh way back in the season of blood
30:49
when we were all really hyped about our new vampire abilities you had to go and into the vampire event and kill vampires
30:57
forever forever and ever and ever in order to power up your abilities now they are changing that to where
31:04
there there is going to be an event that you can run forever and ever and ever if you want to but you can also earn the
31:11
currency that lets you power up your skills and do seasonal stuff just by killing elites and doing normal stuff so
31:19
I think that's great because some of these seasons felt kind of like a onetrick pony and that you're logging on
31:25
and okay the only thing that is worth doing is the seasonal event because that's the only thing that's going to power this stuff up yeah I think they
31:32
even talk about that on the uh the campfire chat they they mentioned they want to make it so that you don't feel
31:38
like I have to run this because that's the only way I can get power to do that and I think that's fair
31:45
um but regardless however you think of it that's that's what we got with the Diablo 4 season in terms of its theme uh
31:53
they also added the thing called Harri Storm Rooms strong rooms strong and I
31:58
think someone said this to me and I just loved it so much I stole it and put it in our little notes here like we heard
32:04
you like dungeons so we put strong rooms into our dungeon so you can run a micro dungeon while you're running a dungeon
32:10
cuz that's what it is it's you're going through a dungeon and you're like "Hey
32:15
what's that over there it's a smaller dungeon with like with loot." And I was like "For real you you really did that?"
32:23
And they really did that that's absolutely a thing they did um that's I
32:28
think it's fun because it it adds it's it's yet another way to power up your Herodrick spellcraft for one thing uh
32:34
you can get cool stuff for that and just in general it's neat um I think they really had to do something with
32:40
nightmare dungeons too because as they stand right now since they took upgrading your glyphs out of them why
32:46
even bother going into them i'm glad you asked Corey because another thing we're about to talk about is escalating nightmares liz were you going into
32:52
escalating nightmares when you were talking i did want to say a little thing about Herogic Strong Rooms which is that
32:57
they will provide you the currency to open an escalating nightmare yes so the
33:03
deal with escalating nightmares is you get your normal nightmare dungeon uh sigils and you want to do that but with
33:09
the the escalating nightmare what happens is you chain together three nightmare dungeons uh when you do that
33:15
the second nightmare dungeon you run continues the aics from the first one so
33:20
now you're running like essentially a a twice as hard nightmare dungeon if you
33:26
get through that into the third nightmare dungeon you now have the affixes of all three dungeons so it's a
33:32
way to make these things get hard like they go the difficulty level goes up um
33:38
and the thing is is that why you would do that is by the time you get through the third one you then get to do
33:44
something that um I'm sure everybody would love to do and that is to kill uber harden enhanced Ultra
33:53
Asteroth who is back uh the char duke the demon who you know stabs he got his
34:00
soul stone stabbed into Damon's kid and now he's mad and just it's a whole deal
34:07
but that's he's back and he you can kill him for loot obviously you want to do that um but you can also it's just it's
34:13
a it's a rail hard fight which you guys like uh more than I do really i kind of like fights that are easy sometimes but
34:19
no the Diablo I group you guys like rail hard fights and this is going to be one of those um and then Liz added something
34:25
here which I didn't see a time but that's actually really cool they're also changing nightmare dungeons in a bunch
34:30
of other ways so since you you added this Liz do you want to like talk about it really fast yeah and I the important thing is
34:37
that some of these changes are coming to the base game because you know nightmare dungeons they were a system created way
34:45
back when Diablo I have launched i say way back and that was like two years ago so the distant do way back way way back
34:54
so it they and they don't they haven't been updated a whole lot since then now
34:59
one of the things they're doing is they're altering the aixes previously you could get an aix that was just super
35:07
punishing like an aix that said "Okay all of your shadow damage is cut by like
35:13
60% or something like that you know really hit specific damage types and
35:19
nerfed them to the ground as we like to say and if you are a playing a character
35:24
and that is the damage type you primarily deal because most characters
35:29
are specialized into one kind of damage or another that felt really punishing you would get that at you would get that
35:35
nightmare sigil and you would immediately throw it in the trash cuz I I ain't doing that
35:41
so the eventually have to make it so you could like sell them or something or turn them into like dust i just remember
35:48
you turn them into dust that you can use to uh craft more sigils but then when you craft a sigil it's completely random
35:55
so you don't know what you're going to get so the ones that the aixes that
36:01
really punish specific builds gone they want to make aixes that are sort of balanced and it doesn't matter if you're
36:07
playing a a necromancer that focuses on blood damage or you know you could play
36:14
any class and you have an equal shot at this and they're also adding more
36:20
rewarding affixes so more buffs that a aixes provide but also removing some of
36:26
the real punishing the ones that punish specific classes um I I think they're
36:31
all good changes they want Nightmare Dungeons relevant which as Cory said
36:36
earlier has not felt like the case since uh since uh leveling was removed from
36:44
them yeah and the other thing about them too if you really think about it that
36:49
change they made to not make them punishing to specific specs
36:54
mhm before they did that there were certain dungeons that just some groups you know some players just could not do
37:01
at least until they got a different you know sigil because the one they had was
37:06
just like yeah why would you bother why would you bother going into a dungeon
37:12
if nerfed so hard your bleeding damage is reduced by 100% it's like I that's all I do like I currently spec around
37:20
bleeds and making people bleed you're telling me I none of that's going to work anymore great so yeah that in general when you have
37:27
that kind of thing it is really not a great move because it it does it does punish people for having a specific spec
37:33
and it's like you designed the specs guys if you didn't want us to use them you know it's not my fault i didn't make
37:39
you put that in there and it's not easy to just swap your spec in Diablo even
37:44
though they have added the ability to you know save your you know save a spec and switch between different specs it's
37:51
building out and gearing and gearing is enough yeah gearing gearing is the deal gearing
37:58
is like 85% of your power mhm so if you have don't have gear for it you just
38:03
can't do it yeah you can't just hit a button and it's okay i used to do all shadow damage now I'm going to do all
38:09
bleed damage you can't it's a lot of work so uh I think these are good
38:15
improvements that'll make Nightmare Dungeons feel more approachable in the base game i do think some of the stuff
38:21
that's only seasonal like the uh escalating nightmares and the asteroth
38:26
boss these would be good ads to the base game the escalating nightmares is a cool thing that would give you a level of
38:33
progression for nightmare dungeons where it's like "Okay I've done this dungeon 100 times why am I coming back?" You
38:38
could say "Oh I want to do Escalating Nightmares which has more rewards." But for now I mean I don't think they're
38:45
going to leave Asteroth out like there's just Oh I don't think they not forever even if they don't bring in Escalade
38:51
Nightmares then they'll just make him be a a summonable Uber yeah he should be he
38:56
he's not on the boss ladder in season 9 but I'm I feel like they're going to add him to the boss ladder in the future
39:02
they usually do that with seasonal bosses yeah I think that makes sense but
39:07
but I also Go ahead the other the other thing about Asteroth in the campaign
39:13
Asteroth was just such a defining iconic fight where you are chasing him through
39:19
town while he is burning it down and he has just stolen the body of a character
39:24
that you've been playing alongside and that fight felt very
39:30
dramatic and it was a pretty difficult fight at the time so I I have trouble seeing how this could be could hit that
39:38
same level but uh yeah it's there it's there i guess as long as treat the
39:46
getting through three empowered nightmare dungeons in a row as the
39:52
challenge and then you have your nice the big capstone to that challenge and you know that if you fail you're not going to get any rewards or you're not
39:58
going to get as many rewards and so it's not quite as narratively satisfying but it could be loot
40:05
satisfying see I I chase those narrative moments
40:10
and I look at this and I'm like that's that's not that's not scratching that itch that's not that big narrative beat
40:16
it the original fight was fair enough but uh I'm just glad they
40:22
did anything with Nightmare Dungeons quite frankly uh so now we're going to talk about some other games that aren't
40:28
necessarily Blizzard games um first off we're going to talk about Duck Detective because it's first on this list uh Duck
40:35
Detective releases this week the newest one it's already live okay so it's already live um to I assume you wrote
40:43
this so could you tell us about Duck Detective because I'll be upfront i don't know much about it i I actually
40:48
did not write this but Duck Detective is an adorable game in which you play a duck the duck is also a detective uhhuh
40:56
uh-huh so far Truth and Advertising that's what it says on the tin and it is
41:02
this game that kind of has like a sort of paper craft feel to it like all of
41:07
your little characters feel like they're kind of little 2D cartoon things that sort of move around the page like it's a
41:13
like it's a paper craft thing and it it hits all of the kind of hardboiled
41:19
detective tropes you know your duck has the the trench coat and fedora kind of
41:25
look and you know he's uh he's divorced he has a crippling bread addiction and
41:32
he's just he's just trying to get by he's going to solve this case this this is the uh second game in the series it
41:40
is called The Ghost of Glamping and I I have I have not played
41:46
this one yet so I don't know how that's going to go but the first one was very very charming it's just a little kind of
41:53
word puzzle game you go around and you talk to everyone and you know you collect clues and then you're filling
41:59
out this is what happened kind of Mad Lib style and it's all voice acted it's
42:04
it's a ch it's a cute little game is it going to change your life maybe not but
42:10
if you had dreams of playing a detective that was also a duck this is your game
42:19
100% you can't you cannot take the wave from this game that it is about a duck who is
42:25
a detective you can't you can try but you're going to fail if if that's if that is your dream this game fulfills
42:32
that dream and it's it's great now I'm going to ask because I have not been
42:37
playing Guild Wars 2 so I don't know what the significance of this is but
42:42
Guild Wars 2 Janther's Wild X Pack it's releasing on June 3rd um somebody who
42:48
plays Guild Wars I please tell me about this well it it does say final patch so this could be Yes the the expansion has
42:56
been live for a while this is so Jan Wilds is an is an expansion yeah I told
43:01
you I didn't know anything about it it is also
43:12
uh yeah no it it it it did it's the the Homestead instance or whatever it's called
43:18
so for that alone yeah it released it actually released in August of 2024 so
43:26
this is the final patch of said expansion yes this is the final patch of it okay
43:32
that that's really it like I don't know what it there's not like Do we know what the final patch is got
43:39
got in it like does it have a new raid or dungeon or something
43:46
uh not that I'm aware of and he is a robot again I don't think he sounds like
43:52
a robot to me it sounds like someone's stealing his furniture
43:57
but okay so we know at least the small patch is going it follows it it follows
44:03
a um pattern that's a lot like World of Warcraft you have an expansion and then there were three updates three major
44:10
updates that uh add new content etc etc i am not completely up on my guild wars
44:17
i know it's a thing and uh it's it's a nice it's a totally free-to-play MMO and
44:23
it is continually releasing these things well the expansions do cost the expansions I'm sorry the the base game
44:30
is free and the expansions do cost money yes but there is no subscription there is a uh and each of these is going to
44:37
have a big uh a big story element to it so you you know me I'm here I'm here for
44:44
the stories so that is coming out on June the 3rd which is really close so
44:52
June already that doesn't make sense and the one thing I will say is I I have no idea the one thing I will say is that
44:57
Guild Wars 2 in general does something that uh WoW doesn't if it's something you're interested in uh most everything
45:04
you do is a diplomatic mission you are not just a champion you're a face of of
45:11
basically trying to unify people to work together you're trying to end conflicts
45:16
not necessarily start new ones which I think is really really interesting and they play that up really really well uh
45:24
so when you do like the Janthier wilds and you do those those initial uh quests
45:29
a lot of it is you talking to an assembly of the various leaders and
45:35
figuring out what the next steps are what to do how to safely navigate the world who has gone through a bunch of
45:42
uncertain times like it actually addresses and spends time
45:47
addressing past events up to that point and beyond so is
45:53
it just about the dragons waking up yeah that's a problem let's deal with that is it about the gods coming down and and
45:59
waging war on what's left yeah that's a problem let's deal with that here's the aftermath of it as well here's what we
46:05
have to do to get everybody safe and everybody okay again and there's a lot of more focus on the people not just the
46:14
threat so Janth Wild's absolution uh it continues that right like
46:20
Janthther Wilds is just even more of that with going through uh dealing with
46:26
the fact that Titans have been released through Tyria and having to deal with that and not just that it's a big threat
46:32
but absolutely how do you how do the average person deal with that how do
46:38
society move on with this huge cataclysmic event so I will say that
46:44
that's something that it does really really well and if you are potentially interested in it you can try it for
46:55
free okay uh sometimes I like someone going to talk I I I I want to wait i
47:00
want to wait okay no one spoke um next thing we're going to talk about really fast is there's two things
47:06
actually because one of them is one thing that I want to talk about and then there's more from that thing so uh last
47:12
week the Warhammer Skulls event happened i think it happened either the same I think it was like two days after we did
47:19
the podcast and Warhammer Skulls in case you don't know what it is cuz last time I didn't
47:24
tell you what it was go ahead listen exactly the same as Diablo it's you know
47:29
everything is coming a day or two after the podcast yeah exactly to just
47:35
directly to taunt me and it worked you got me uh Games Workshop you got me but
47:41
lots of stuff was was revealed uh more stuff than we could really talk about in the amount of time we've got left on
47:46
this podcast in fact you can probably take the whole podcast to do it so we're not going to worry too much about that but uh one of the things they announced
47:53
was they several expansions that were announced for various games and and of course one remake that I think needs to
47:59
be mentioned really quickly uh Warhammer 40k Space Marine the original one is got
48:04
a complete remaster it's called the Mastercrafted Edition it's coming i
48:10
think it's coming in like June like it'll be it'll be out fairly soon uh that's one that's coming that's coming
48:16
to I think both consoles uh it's also going to have a PC release space Space Marine 2 got it it's
48:24
getting a free siege mode um which is a kind of update that will allow you to kill things in a different way i I
48:30
honestly I've read this thing three times and I can't tell if siege mode is just multiplayer or what's going on with it but I did read it um Bolt Gun 2 is
48:39
just going nuts on its advertising because I think that quite frankly uh based on the article I read and also
48:45
just on what happened with Bolt Gun I feel like people at at Games Workshop
48:50
are like Bulk Gun should have hit it would have hit if we had just
48:55
pushed it hard enough so now they're really Yeah but not as much as they wanted it to obviously uh because it is
49:02
not it's getting an advertising campaign that's just like blitzkrieg yeah no but I I I I don't understand and maybe this
49:10
is me but it was very successful which is why they're making a sequel yeah it
49:16
was extremely successful i just feel like they feel based on the commentary I'm seeing in these articles it feels
49:21
like everybody is saying it didn't do well and I'm trying to figure out do you did does Games Workshop think it didn't
49:27
do well because if they think that why are they making another one and also Bulk Gun bulk Gun is fun it's a
49:37
extremely fun game it's basically like it's a throwback to like two 1997
49:44
uh you know FPS games yeah they're they're called boomer they're called boomer shooters that's the genre yeah it
49:50
feels very much like that um well regardless Yeah and and it's good i I
49:55
had a fun playing it um so Bulgun 2 though the advertising campaign is whilst bolt gun itself felt an awful lot
50:01
like you were you were firing up Quake or something bolt gun 2 is using advertising campaign where they're
50:07
they're dragging in the the Do you remember the uh House of the Dead typing
50:13
game oh yeah you had like a first-person shooter typing game that's what the ad
50:18
is saying with Bulk Gun it's like saying Bulgun 2 will have a typing teaching
50:23
section and I'm like you people are brilliant you're maniac geniuses it's it's absolutely crazy what you're trying
50:29
to get away with here uh but but yeah we've got Bulk Gun 2 coming there's there's The fact that
50:36
Space Marine 2 has been out for a year is also kind of freaking with me quite frankly it's it's already got it's it's
50:42
getting the Siege update it's it's getting they're they're talking about more expansions for it um and Rogue
50:48
Trader which was the game that came out I want to say like late 2023 i don't remember if it was 2023 or
50:55
2024 uh but either way Rogue Trader which was the CRPG the first Warhammer 40k CRPG uh is getting three more
51:03
expansions one of which is coming uh on June 24th so next month and then two
51:08
more between now and 2026 when season 2 get there's a second season pass coming
51:13
out that will cover those two expansions so Rogue Trader is getting hyped up
51:19
before the final thing I want to talk about which is that Alcat is making a fully voiced Dark Heresy CRPG and this
51:29
is the game where they basically pick up the gauntlet that Larryan threw down when they made Boulders Gate 3 the most
51:36
voiced CRPG ever made and when I say CRPG we're talking about a certain kind
51:42
of role playing game like it's it's an isometric multi-party type
51:48
game i I don't know how to feel about the fact that they're doing Dark Heresy quite frankly uh I was going to actually
51:54
ask Joe if you have any opinion on it like is would you have called Dark Heresy as your next CRPG probably not no
52:02
like Dark Heresy is not I don't want to sound like a [ __ ] but Dark Heresy is dark
52:07
[Laughter] i know that that sounds like but Dark Heresy man that stuff's dark like thank
52:14
you Matt but it it really is and so seeing this as their next CRPG choice I
52:21
I don't know on the one hand I I I just feel strange to me that
52:28
we're getting so much Warhammer and that we're getting Warhammer like I didn't even mention the Blood Bowl 3 stuff
52:34
we're not going to mention the Blood Bowl we're not going to mention the blood yeah but but they're but they're still
52:40
whether or not you're upset about it or not you know it exists they're putting that out too they're doing a ton of stuff well Blood 3 has been out they're
52:46
they're they're just releasing expansion stuff they're It's mostly just teams
52:52
right yeah it's still more stuff i know let's not I don't want to make
52:57
you I don't want to make your blood pressure get you here but it's still just there's a lot of stuff coming out i
53:02
did not see that Space Marine remaster coming out i'm surprised that it didn't come out
53:07
before Space Marine 2 came out yeah like I mean Space Marine was a good game
53:14
don't get me wrong i I thought I always find it very enjoyable but the idea that they're putting a big remaster out for
53:19
it like a year after Space Marine 2 came out like are we getting a Space Marine 3
53:26
at some point we sure are yeah they announced that about a month
53:31
ago months ago this has got to be aimed for that then right
53:37
two two months ago by the way Corey okay yeah so this has to be aimed for that
53:42
and that's just it's just wild to me that we're at a point where people are actually writing articles saying "Forget
53:48
Space Marine play Bulk Gun." And you know well you also you also you also missed the part where Bulk Gun is tied
53:53
up in the Space Marine universe it's part of the continuation of the story of the first Space Marine game it takes place between Space Marine 1 and two and
54:00
then so Bolt Gun 2 is likely to take place between two and three
54:06
yeah I did miss that i had not actually had not even thought about that because Bulk Gun Bulk Gun plays
54:13
so I I think the way I had I saw it described was as a spin-off of a
54:18
spin-off like there's just something very very out of left field about
54:24
Bun but it's a fun game so anyway yeah uh Alcat is doing a lot of stuff i feel
54:31
like at this point Alcat has pretty much picked up the glove that Larian threw down not not a not like you know you
54:36
suck we we're great but uh you have to make CRPGs at least this good like you
54:42
you have to get to this level to to be taken seriously and it looks like they're trying because they're doing
54:48
dark heresy like uh good luck to you good luck to you on that i mean wow
54:56
like honestly I Yeah yeah like I'm a guy who likes playing Doom and and Diablo
55:02
and I feel like Dark Heresy is like leagues above that in terms of like you know the stuff that happens in it would
55:09
you say that it's putting the grim in darkness i would say at this point it is
55:15
like it's like it's like putting the Ben Grim in darkness like it's literally showing up and screaming it's clobbering
55:20
time as it punches you with just how dark it is and again yes dark heresy dude that's dark i can't help it uh but
55:28
regardless that's unless either of anybody else here has anything else to say about Warhammer Skulls uh I will be
55:34
throwing it over to Liz now so anyone
55:40
skulls for the skull throne okay also really quickly apparently they're going to be releasing a bunch of new quests
55:46
and stuff for Cyberpunk 2077 so there will be new content in the game that they said they weren't going to make any
55:51
more content for i don't know what's going on with that
55:56
it's just they've announced it maybe they keep finding strange USB sticks in
56:01
their office and they like plugging those in it's the same guy who's updating Heroes of the Storm is that
56:07
what you're saying josh Makna yeah so in other words I have a thing living in my
56:13
head that when I sleep makes content for these various games gotcha um go ahead
56:19
Liz please i just want to tell all of you that Blizzard watch is made possible by
56:25
listeners like you you make this podcast the site all of us here talking to you
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possible i do want to thank a new supporter in the past week Fundo i apologize if I have mispronounced your
56:38
name at $10 thank you so much it is people like
56:44
you who let us do this and keep podcasting uh if you are not subscribed
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you can subscribe at $3 a month to get early access to these podcasts ad free or you can subscribe at $5 a month to
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get uh an adsfree site experience read Blizzard watch completely without ads
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and I understand not everyone is in the financial place where they can do that if you can't totally fine i am so happy
57:11
you are here listening to us are reading the site uh just being here and
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58:13
you could see me that doesn't work in audio someday someday we're going to have to do a podcast with a special
58:19
commentary track that tells people what we're physically doing cuz I I do that so many gestures you know Rossi you
58:27
can't be that surprised and no one sees these things it's like you know I'm just waving around and no one knows i am
58:34
constantly waving my arms and making faces and yeah you're everyone is
58:39
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you want to check them out and get little podcast previews so thank you all
59:15
so much for listening thank you for supporting us on Patreon if you can i appreciate you
59:23
i I just want Heroes of the Storm to come back guys so Cory yeah yeah that's fair we'll let my family live
59:31
no no Cory family if I had that kind of power it would have been back long before now not really i don't think
59:38
threatening my family isn't going to do but regardless uh I think we're
59:44
pretty much done um I'm going to turn to Joe here and make sure I'm right yep we're good all righty uh thank you guys
59:50
so much this has been the Blizzard Watch podcast uh thank you to Liz and Joe for being mag massively awesome as always i
59:57
was going to say magnanimous but then I was like is that what I want to say magnanimously awesome that I don't know
1:00:03
either way thank you both for being awesome and for allowing me to blunder about using the wrong words like I do uh
1:00:09
and thank you to Corey for being here and talking about Heroes of the Storm and other things uh and also just
1:00:15
allowing us to to stop and think about the fact that druids exist
1:00:22
they do exist and bears are great and go Oilers go
1:00:28
thank you guys so much for being here with us and we'll be back next week

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