Up next in 10
This week our writer Christian Thoma joined the mayhem that is the Blizzard Watch Podcast. Speaking of mayhem and the Blizzard Watch Podcast, you may recall that last week's episode ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, as the hosts discovered that, while they were recording the podcast, Blizzard released 14 blog posts detailing all the announcements that happened at Gamescom. This week, they discussed the highlights of all those posts, which made matters even more confusing as they contradicted some other interviews and information that came out right around the same time.
Plus, another week, another new microtransaction most of us hate -- you can get a new cute capybara pet in WoW for spending a mere $75 on the Blizzard Gear Store (on specific items).
Also, have you heard of a small indie game called Silksong?
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0:00
[Music]
0:11
Hey everybody and welcome to the Blizzard Watch podcast. Uh I'm Matt. I'm hosting and with me this week are my two
0:16
fantastic co-hosts and the special guest star that we've tricked into our web
0:22
with like, you know, some some cake and some milk. And now we've got him like trapped under the big web. And if he
0:28
tries to escape, we'll just drop it on him. Anyway, hi. Uh with us are Liz Harper and Joe Perez. Say hi, guys.
0:36
Hello. And also with us, uh hopefully enjoying that cake is uh Christian or Christian
0:42
Thomas or Calia. Chas Calas. Calcious. I keep calling you Chris is my problem. I
0:48
keep going back like the what is it 10 years now? Oh god. Oh. Oh yeah. The old birth name.
0:54
Yeah. K. Yeah, I keep calling you that or Chris or however you wanted to
0:59
pronounce that. Hello everybody. I'm joining tonight. Yes, he is joining tonight. Uh we got a
1:06
lot to talk about so we'll try to just jump into some of it. Um Gamescom still have, you know, we got Gamescom was last
1:11
month and we still have stuff happening. Last week as we were finishing this podcast, they dropped a whole bunch of
1:17
blog posts uh on the official site, the the World of Warcraft official site with more information about the upcoming
1:24
Twilight expansion that was, you know, and stuff that's just coming in the future. Um
1:29
I'm not really sure how much Twilight sounds like a really interesting expansion, but it's midnight
1:36
alternate universe. I now I'm wondering about the alternate universe in which the expansion is actually Twilight and
1:42
what that expansion would be. Didn't we already do that? Didn't we already cover that one year on April 1st where we decided to do an
1:50
entire site dedicated to Twilight for an hour? Oh yeah, we may have a different
1:56
different Twilight that was or is it a couple of a couple of years or you may
2:01
be right in that alternate universe. I don't know. Anyway, Jacob. So, in the in the I was going to say, yeah,
2:08
in the alternate universe, you have Edward Cullen. You are not prepared for my sparkle.
2:14
I just want to drink you. Anyway, yikes. Uh, if someone wrote a fanfic for that
2:21
and it ended up being, you know, the Warcraft movie. I don't I don't make rules. Um, let's talk about things we
2:28
might not have known, but some things we did know and some things were just, you know, so forth. Go ahead. I I will say
2:34
that all of this information is good in that it gives us a single source of
2:40
Blizzard confirmed information because one of the problems with Game Gamescom is you've been getting information from
2:46
dozens of content creators making videos from third party sources, second party
2:52
sources. You've gotten a lot of information from interviews that are in videos
2:58
and there's a lot of miscommunications and that's
3:03
there's a lot of left hand there's a lot of left hand right hand going on right now. Yeah. And even even in the information I think
3:10
is new out of this. There are some contradictions or perhaps oversightes or perhaps information left out and we
3:16
don't know which of those is true or accurate. But we have a pretty a pretty accurate rundown of what is actually
3:24
happening. I hope hopefully first we'll talk briefly about how housing architecture is going to
3:29
work in uh I guess technically in this expansion because it's going to be coming before Midnight comes out. But uh
3:37
player housing you you will have to you will actually have to match the neighborhood you're in with your
3:43
architecture. Your house can't look like a big orc metal and spikes thing. Yeah.
3:48
If you're playing in if you're playing in a an an alliance town. So, you're gonna have to have a house that looks
3:53
like an alliance house. This is a weird one because like they originally said this when they first talked about player housing. Then we got
4:00
that interview with Talison and Evatel where they they made it sound like, and this is not on on Talison and Evatel,
4:05
this is in that interview. Yeah. Uh where the the I forgot who they were interviewing made it sound like you could mix and match the outdoor decor.
4:13
Um, they said that pretty clearly. Yeah, mix and match exterior looks.
4:20
And then we're back to the original. And I'm wondering if the interview was a misspeak because I think they originally
4:26
said the interior could be whatever. The exterior had to match. Uh, that was uh Tony Rangani. I may be
4:33
saying your name wrong. Very sorry if so. Uh, and yes, I have watched the interview and then I went back and
4:39
watched it again after this blog post came out and it it really does sound like what he said, what Talia asked was,
4:48
"Will you be able to see like night elf architecture in a horrid neighborhood?" Or maybe he said it the other way
4:54
around. And Tony said, "Yes, you will be able. You may be able to see these." And
5:01
it could have been like maybe you'll be able to see them with binoculars looking far away in the distance outside your
5:08
neighborhood. Or maybe he just meant that there will be more architecture styles coming up, which I do think is
5:15
very likely. We know that there will be only four different exterior architectural styles on release. You've
5:21
got your standard orcy stuff, your standard human stuff, your night elfy
5:27
stuff, and your blood elfy stuff. Those are actual scientific. Those are the words for them. I I can't.
5:35
And I'm waiting for my bluefish. And I'm waiting for my dwarf. Dwarfened. This is a dwarfed district.
5:43
It's been dwarfed. What are you talking about? It's It's dwarfy town and we don't have
5:48
a dwarfy town yet. It's It's actually a holiday. It's those
5:53
holiday villages around Christmas that you get from the craft store. Just dwarf themed stuff. It's constantly October. It's constantly
5:59
October Fest in Dwarfy Town. I'd move there. So many Bratz. So little time. No, not
6:06
Bratz. Bratz. It's different. Stop calling my children brats. Well, you go ahead.
6:12
I I really like the earth and architecture we've been seeing in this expansion, but that will not be an exterior option either. You just have a
6:18
few start. And for to a certain degree, I think, and I don't know how you guys feel, and maybe this is just an aside real quick
6:24
before we get into the rest of this. Um, I don't mind that. Like I don't the outside while it is important is not
6:32
necessarily the initial focus. It doesn't seem and I think that's okay. I
6:37
think that the initial focus is going to be your neighborhood is Order Alliance.
6:42
Uh you do your thing exterior for now with what you have available to you. You know those wonderful uh outside features
6:49
that Liz loves for pre-ordering the game. We we know we covered them. Liz is a huge fan. Um, but your interior can be
6:56
whatever you want. And I think that's really where the focus is at first. And I and I'm okay with that because I think
7:03
giving us the more freedom internally allows us to create a space that's more
7:08
us and focusing on making sure that works before giving us too many options
7:13
on the exterior. I'm okay with it. Actually reminds me a lot of City of Heroes.
7:19
And I think Matt, you I think you played during when they were doing the super bases, right? Mhm.
7:24
Oh, yeah. The exterior. I I got it. I got it the week it came out. Yeah. I'm So did I. Uh but I'm saying
7:31
like in them when they added the super group stuff, the super hideouts and and bases, the exteriors were all the same.
7:39
You just got to you went to this one area and they there would be one of three or four, was it? Or was it
7:44
there? There was one in each city area uh for whether you were heroes or
7:49
villains. You could either get to your secret base that way or whatever. Wherever there was your primary area was
7:55
your entrance in and they all look the same exter exterior. Interior is where everything was different and you could
8:01
customize it. Put your trophies up and and you know make your super clubhouse uh exactly as you wanted it. And I think
8:07
that's I I think that's good that they're doing that. And then they can revisit it later because once every inside's working and it's not breaking
8:14
the game and maybe not causing Yog Seron to fall through the floor of of uh Aldoir, then we can worry about whether
8:21
we get our dwarfs or earth in or our various other flavors of of uh Horde and
8:27
Alliance member architecture because I think it would be cool to expand it. But for right now, I think I'm I'm okay with it. I don't know about how you guys
8:32
feel. I'm not unhappy with it. I'm just it's just the changing information flow. It's like, okay, what's
8:39
Tell me what I'm going to get. I'm going to be excited about it either way. They did say that
8:44
you will be able to change the exterior look, but it's just going to be in one of these uh kind of fixed styles and
8:51
it'll be a barbershop style interface. Uh at least that was in the interview. So, we'll see what it turns out to be.
8:58
And I just I I know you can put flamingos in your lawn. And you bet I
9:03
will be seeing how many flamingos I can put in my lawn. Hopefully more than one.
9:10
Flame. Hopefully. Like if it's if it's a hundred
9:15
flamingos, there's going to be a hundred flamingos in my lawn. I don't know if that's going to be the case, but we'll
9:21
I'm gonna find out. I'm sorry. I can't hear anyone talk about flamingos without hearing the the robot car using the voice of GLaDOS from
9:29
um Portal, but it was in Cyberpunk and she's talking about flamingos
9:34
and you know it's oxygen oxygen will spread the fires of the flamingos and I'm like oh my god. Anyway, we should
9:42
talk about the neighborhood change or roll back or whatever because we're not sure what happened here. But uh we
9:48
basically we were told last time we talked about this we said there was going to be public, private, and guild.
9:54
And now we're being told guild is not a type of neighborhood. It is a part of
9:59
private neighborhood. So there's just going to be public and private. I I have to say that makes sense to just
10:05
have that split, but previously it was public, private, and guild. And guild neighborhoods were going to be a little
10:10
different. So, I don't know if they're not going to be different now or Yeah, we don't know if they're they're
10:16
not going to do the thing where build neighborhoods can go up to more than 50 homes, but we have no idea.
10:21
But it makes sense to divide it like this, I think. Um, yeah, it reminds me of when garrisons were in
10:27
beta and you were able to have random people show up in your garrison,
10:33
uh, by having the So, I don't know if anybody remembers this during the the the Warlords beta, uh, but your garrison
10:39
actually had a gate. It had a a singular front gate, and if it was open, random
10:44
people could come in and look at your garrison and walk around. If it was closed, they couldn't unless you invited
10:51
them in. Um, and then all that got changed because and I think that turned it to you had to invite people
10:57
in. Well, you had you had to be grouped with them. And so they changed it then. And I
11:02
think this gives me a lot of that vibes where it's like, okay, we had this really cool idea that we couldn't
11:08
technically implement back then, but we can now, so let's go ahead and do it. And so the whole public and private uh
11:15
neighborhood seems to almost fit into that motif. I do wonder how the private neighborhood
11:21
is going to handle, for lack of a better term, the HOA aspect of it because guild still because guild makes sense to me.
11:27
You know, you could assign neighborhood rights, responsibilities, whatever based
11:32
on your guild rank. I want crabs. How they do that for I want crab. I want bomb crabs riding
11:37
around on golf carts keeping my neighborhood safe. But now that it but now that private and
11:43
guild are the same, it makes me wonder if they're not going to use the guild. uh um the guild ranks is a way of
11:49
determining level of control within your neighborhood. It's going to have a different system if there's going to be
11:55
no control outside of creation and invite and that's to everybody. I don't
12:00
know. We're going to find out soon. I I think because I I think everybody's got that same question, but also it may be a
12:08
technical limitation that they're running up against as well. So with guild, I think there was an expectation
12:13
that like all of your officers would have like control over certain aspects of it, not just the GM.
12:18
And maybe that's not the case. Maybe it's a thing where the the person who starts it or is in charge of it is going
12:25
to have the, you know, they have the party hat, so to speak, and that's just how it is. And it's easier to do that
12:30
with two separate things, uh, versus the other. Yeah. The big thing that has me
12:36
concerned just because it was going to be really cool was that guild neighborhoods, each neighborhood has
12:43
roughly 50 plots as Blizzard describes it. And guild neighborhoods were supposed to scale to the size of your
12:50
guild. And there's clearly a technical limitation there because the way they would scale up was that if you filled up
12:57
one neighborhood, you would have a second instance neighborhood attached to it. So you could have a neighborhood as
13:03
big as your guild even though they had to maybe divide it into chunks. Uh so I
13:09
hope that is still the case so that the entire guild can have a cool home together. That is just not in Blizzard's
13:16
official blog post about it. They're probably still figuring that out honestly. Yeah. But now that we've kind of covered
13:23
how much we now don't know and do know and how how do how to at least find a
13:28
collected area to look at all of it, we should talk at least a little bit about the zone events that are coming in uh I
13:34
keep wanting to call it Twilight in uh Midnight. Um the one that kind of interests me is the Everong Woods one
13:41
where you basically have a party which feels very much like if you go back to Shadowlands and those parties that
13:47
happen there. Although it doesn't seem the same with the vinier. Yes, that was a fun
13:52
event. Uh there's the abundance event that happens everywhere, but it's a it's kind
13:58
of a professioncentric public event and it's basically players have to run around gathering materials from the lowa
14:04
of abundance. I don't don't not quite sure who the law of abundance is, but regardless, um that's one that will be
14:12
happening in pretty much every midnight zone. Uh, the Harendar have their own like event, the legends of the Haraneer
14:19
happening in Harendar, which is the zone that the Haraneer live in. And it kind of feels that's not confusing. That's that's not
14:26
confusing at all. Yeah. I mean, well, you know, makes sense because, you know, we as humans live here on Human Door. I mean, it's
14:32
not like if we live on dirt the planet. That would be crazy, wouldn't it? If our planet was just named dirt like Yeah,
14:39
that' just be wild. Anyway, uh yeah, Legends of the Hariner is like apparently it's kind of like lore
14:44
walking, but where you get to find out about the Hariner, which I mean I want
14:50
that a lot, but I don't know if everybody does. Bite-sized lore rich journeys. I don't
14:58
know. Pretty muchiz lore. That's for me. That is That is for me, but I don't think I don't know anyone
15:03
else is going to be down for it. Um, we're going to get the this one. Stormarian assault, which is, you know,
15:10
you're attacking the void storm. So, yeah, I guess they call it the Stormarian. I got you on this one. I
15:17
don't know. But yeah, it's basically a big assault. So, it's like tower defense, I think. Is this what this
15:22
article is saying? So, it's like kind of tower defensy kind of survival mode. So,
15:28
elements of plunderstorm to it to some degree, I think. Uh but yeah, each of these are happening in various zones in
15:34
Midnight. Go ahead and listen. It is interesting that they have kind of a different unique event in every zone that sort of suits the zones theme. So
15:42
that's uh that's cool. I do notice there is no soup making event here unless the
15:48
party includes soup in some way. So I will not have a good use of my
15:54
supervisor title, which is completely unacceptable. I'm sorry. This is unacceptable. I'm just I'm just saying
16:00
that an expansion needs soup. That's all. Now, I'm just imagining like, you know, they could be like, you know,
16:07
you you want to fight, you know, you'll want to fight him with a fork, but you need a spoon for all the rich flavor.
16:13
They actually have the spoon and fork pole arms coming this, you know, this right now. So, you could get them now.
16:19
So, you'll be ready. Is this like, you know, chunky evil? I can totally Oh, yeah. We can get definitely get this
16:24
with this work. Um, also, wow, the word chunky doesn't feel good sometimes. Um,
16:30
but yeah, that that's happening. So, that's kind of interesting in terms of stuff going on in zone events. Now, uh,
16:37
transmog has been stuff we've been hearing a lot about. It's going back and forth, like, uh, what's happening, what
16:44
isn't happening. Uh, but now we know that you're going to be able to just put a transer outfit straight to your action
16:50
bar. Uh, so you when you're like, "Oh, hey, I'm about to go into a into a fiveman dungeon instead of hanging out
16:57
out here in the in the soup event that Liz made happen through, you know, her supervisor title." You hit the button
17:03
and supervisor goes away and that's the name of this episode. Yes, it's super. Um, but yeah, so you've
17:12
got that you can you can make them be part of your action bar. So you could basically replace several dozen of your
17:18
actions that you don't use or you should use, but you don't. Instead, you're just going to have all your different outfits
17:24
on the bar taking up that whole spot. Poor poor.
17:29
I should I should clarify that you can set up different situations in which you will automatically swap. Like you go
17:35
into a dungeon, you could have a dungeon outfit. But the piece of new information in this whole thing about transmog that
17:42
I saw was you can put them on your action bar. And yeah, maybe you don't want to have a an
17:48
outfit for dungeoning. You want to have 10. You know, you have one that you default
17:53
to, but then what if what if I want to wear my more barbaric looking outfit? That button. Oh, no. Yeah, it's not
17:59
really working. I want to look like I drink a lot of blood. Yeah. Okay, good. Now I've got my blood outfit on. I'm I'm
18:04
good to go. I honestly I'm not being sarcastic when I say that I I will probably have several things on my
18:10
action bar just go away so I can switch between various things that I want to
18:16
have for very specific dungeons. Like if I ever find myself in say some kind of mythic uh retread of the Oculus, I am
18:23
definitely wearing my I you can't see my eyes outfit because of the shame cuz I I
18:28
don't uh this again reminds me of of City Heroes and I'm going to uh bring this
18:36
out again because I think it's really funny that this is a feature coming for Transmog. Uh City Heroes let you do
18:42
this. uh you were able to have four transmogs uh four costumes
18:47
uh set at the time and the the costume system in City Heroes was really really deep. Um
18:52
actually came out in 2004, guys. Yeah. And it was it I highly recommend you look up videos of the character
18:59
creator for City of Heroes. Uh, but I also think that it's really funny that this is a new feature coming after a
19:05
certain former City of Heroes uh, personality that did work at Blizzard
19:11
left Blizzard and has come back to Blizzard. I'm looking at you Jeff or should I say Arbiter Hawk, I see you.
19:18
Yeah. So, my only question is, will there be a cool down or a cast time
19:23
for this? And can I use it in combat? That's that's all they want to know.
19:29
These questions are not answered here combat thing. Yeah, I think they probably won't let you do it while you're in combat because there's a lot
19:35
of stuff they won't let you do when you're in combat. I mean, probably not, but I still I
19:40
still want to know. I mean, there's no ability cool down. You can macro it to abilities.
19:46
Yeah. So, you can change your cuss. That's got to it's got to let you not do
19:51
it in combat because then we're going to have the rogue situation from vanilla all over again. And if you don't remember that, that was where you could
19:57
put all of the emotes on a string with Sinister Strike and if you hit somebody with Sinister Strike, you could crash
20:02
the server as long as it did all the emotes with it. Like, we're going to have that situation all over again. No.
20:08
No. Bad. Bad. Christian. One of the things that's interesting
20:14
about the idea of the of the location based costume is that Guild Wars 2 um
20:19
actually had that originally when the game first came out 12 years ago now. Yeah. And you had a city c, you had a
20:25
city transmog and your your normal transmog, but they got rid of it. I guess people just wanted to keep wearing
20:31
their outfits in the city. It was automatic. You didn't have a choice. They also got rid of it because of how the monetization was working in Guild
20:36
Wars 2 with uh the glamour effects because your transmog is not free in in Guild
20:42
Wars 2. It does cost you uh charges of things that you do need to buy uh with
20:48
uh the I think I can't I think it's actually with gems. Um, I was looking at it because I
20:54
because I was looking at it because I was I was playing my uh my necromancer recently and I wanted to get her a nice cute outfit now. So now she's, you know,
21:01
all butterfly and fairied out. Um, but like I was looking at it as like, yeah, no, it cost you real money to do that
21:06
now. And when they did that, I think they got rid of the uh multiple sets of it to kind of encourage
21:13
monetary spending. So I don't blame them, but it's just something to note there. Yeah, true. I have like 600 of those
21:20
because I use outfits and and obviously outfits cost money, but you don't require anything but uh checking off a
21:26
box to to use. So, you don't have to worry about paying a cost. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm just sitting here imagining how
21:32
how destitute I would be if I played City of um you know, Guild Wars 2.
21:37
Uh I I think we should talk about the new experience. That's gonna be popular. Yeah. No, stop. I I can't you can't do
21:45
this to me, man. Um, new player experience revamp is coming in patch 11.2.7, which is another pre-expansion
21:52
change. We we'd already talked about this before, but this is news that it's happening pre-expansion.
21:58
Um, that is pretty cool, I think. Go ahead. It's this is going to be a good one. And
22:03
one of the things it has is a condensed version of the war within story, which
22:09
is basically the war within in an hour or two as a kind of sort of lore
22:15
walkingish experience. I don't know if it'll actually be part of lore walking, but it's like the whole story right here
22:22
in case you missed it, which I think is great because at this point it's been a
22:28
while since we did the beginning of the story. What happened two years ago? I don't know.
22:33
This is This is where I scream as I look into the camera, roll the tape cuz this is exactly what we asked for like years
22:40
ago, right? Like Yeah, we used to talk about this. Yeah. Like this exact thing. Like is
22:45
there a way that we could catch people up maybe using lore walkers to do this exact I see you. I thank you for taking
22:51
our ID and running with it. You know, I'll I'll accept payment at any time. It's fine.
22:57
I mean, that's the big problem with World of Warcraft. It's impossible to keep up because there's 20 years worth
23:02
of story. And if you haven't been playing the whole time, you don't know. And even if you have been playing the whole time, 20
23:10
years was a lot of years ago. Yeah. To some of us it's a lot of years ago. To some of us it's less years.
23:15
I guess I wonder how much they're going to change outside of that though. like um like those who tried to get the
23:22
Shadowlands mounts during the um the event to uh with the higher rate knows
23:27
the Shadowlands introductions are all over the place with unlocks and skips.
23:32
And I wonder if as part of this they're going to go back and fix that so that the next time we can have a better
23:38
chance at the jailer's mount, players will be able to go straight there without having to jump through the hoops of trying to figure out what their
23:44
character can or can't do in Shadowlands or BFA or any other expansions that aren't getting this this specific
23:51
treatment. I don't think they will because I don't think they want to go back to Shadowlands anytime soon. Just in terms
23:57
of this is not me saying they shouldn't. This is me saying that it doesn't feel like Shadowlands is getting quite
24:03
frankly I don't think it gets half the respect it deserves as an expansion. Uh but I I definitely don't think that
24:09
they're going to be going back to fix that. They they they made that very difficult uh accidentally and then they
24:15
just kind of left it that way. And I think at this point we're two expansions down the road, three expansions down the
24:21
road. Um but yeah, by the time Midnight comes out we will be three expansions down the road. I don't think they're
24:27
going to do it. Uh, but that's just me being cynical. I didn't think they were going to do player housing and look at where we are now. So,
24:33
but we also know there's some UI improvements coming in. Uh, some of which had already been spoken about, but
24:38
the one I want to talk about is the one that you've got written down here. So, it's good that that you have it written down here because they're going to
24:44
change um the resource bar, the, you know, for instance, the rage bar or whatever, the
24:50
personal resource bar, it's becoming a HUD element instead of being considered a name plate thing. And the reason that
24:56
that's good is because name plates are already out of control on on a lot of
25:01
screens if you play World of Warcraft. Especially if you raid in World of Warcraft, especially if you raid in certain roles in World of Warcraft, you
25:08
could have name plates everywhere. It's like I do I even see the monster or is at this point is it just name plates? Am
25:14
I literally just playing whack-a-ole with with name plates? What's happening? So, I think that's pretty good. That's a
25:19
good change because it will make it uh it's also going to be customizable in edit mode which is like yes. Um but
25:26
there's more uh go let's customizing kind of your your resources and how that
25:33
displays is one of the big reasons I use an add-on cuz I like to see certain
25:39
things. I like to see only the things that are important to me where and not have the information of overload of here
25:45
is every buff on your character. I don't care.
25:50
That's a lot of visual noise. So, I I hope they'll have options that'll make it easier to just I just want to see the
25:57
stuff that matters and just make it really clear what's going on and telegraph the important stuff.
26:03
Yeah, I I don't disagree with you. Even just for tanking even, it would be helpful, especially since you really do
26:09
want to be able to see your personal resource bar if you you know, that's something that you want to keep. At
26:15
least I did when I was tanking. So, yeah, I I think that's great. Um, we
26:21
still don't know how much we're going to be paying for housing or transmog. No
26:26
idea. Sorry. They they have not said. There's no post like we don't know. We we know they cost something and they
26:32
have repeatedly used the language that they will cause something. We just they they haven't given that information up
26:38
yet. They may not know. It's a mystery. They may be like going, "My god, it's
26:44
been 3 weeks since we told them they were going to be paying for it." They haven't stopped complaining. What do we do? I I'm just hoping that that's what's
26:50
happening at this point. Um, okay. This one I I I feel weird calling this a capy
26:56
bar. I mean, yeah, facially, yeah, it's very capabar-esque, but I don't think of Capy Barrow when I see huge horns with
27:04
flames on the end of them or whatever that is. It's a cappy It's a capy barrow with horns. So, it's a weird blizzard copy
27:11
bar. I think it's called Australia. This The fell snood pet is
27:19
it's the Okay, it's the redorn scruffy horn fell snood pet in World of Warcraft
27:26
is what this thing is called. And I personally take umbrage with the fact that it is red. It is red and orange
27:33
like it is on fire. There is green for green. Yes, this is this is misnamed. It should
27:40
be a scrappy horn cinder snneder, but it is not. Or flame snooder. I my my problem with it is quite simple.
27:48
Cappy bars are the super chillst of of all rodents. They are big. They are friendly to many things. They like to
27:54
sleep on things and have things sleep on them. Nobody is sleeping on this thing cuz it's got spikes everywhere.
28:00
If that's your problem with this and not how you get it, then we have to have a talk. Oh, I'm not going to get it cuz I'm not
28:06
doing the I Let's rip Let's rip the band-aid off of this and talk. So, if you want to get this adorable little
28:12
Cappy Bear friend, you can if you spend $75 in the gear store. Now, I don't know
28:20
about you, I wouldn't have a problem with this if it wasn't $80 for a hoodie.
28:26
So, if you want to So, really, you just need to buy a hoodie, but like and then you're done. The sheer price
28:32
though of gear, Blizzard branded gear has gone up so much over the last
28:38
several years. And I'm not blaming like, yeah, we can blame tariffs and stuff like that, but I remember I remember when like branded
28:45
t-shirts were $25 and that was expensive, right? Like, and I like I still have my
28:52
like original like Blizzard Gear Shaman shirt. I can't wear it anymore because I
28:59
have definitely ballooned in size because I'm old and fat. But I remember that being $20 and now we're looking at
29:06
like long sleeves shirts being like very expensive. Uh you want to button down.
29:12
Well, you're paying like a hundred bucks. Like I understand that you want to like cross merchandise and this feels
29:18
like they're trying to encourage people to spend money on merch, which is great, but maybe people aren't buying merch because it's already too expensive to
29:25
begin with. like three. I looked through the clearance. Sorry. Yeah. Go ahead, Christian. Yeah, I'm sorry. I looked through the
29:30
clearance because I actually used to buy my my son plays Overwatch at Overwatch 2 and I used to try to get him by
29:37
clearance Overwatch stuff for Christmas. You used to be able to get some really good deals like on clearance like $5
29:42
shirts and everything, but even now like the clearance stuff is like 30 bucks and it's like no. I mean, I wouldn't pay
29:47
that if it was full price for this item. And now your clearance
29:53
price is 30. I I I tried to find $75 stuff I would actually be willing to spend in the gear store. I could not do
29:59
it. That's the problem. Like I found one Funko Pop. The Zho Funko's coming out, but I got it cheaper
30:05
elsewhere. Although it was only $15. I'm like, I'm not paying shipping to Blizzard for a $15 Funko.
30:11
Yeah. And but yeah, I could I could find anything I wanted even in the clearance section. And I'm in the same boat. Like the the
30:17
Funko Pops, I'm like, "Oh, those are really neat." But why? I I have a store. I literally have a comic store. I have
30:24
the I have a distribution for Funkos. Why would I give them money for it? And it's the only thing that I saw that I was like, "Oh, this would be this would
30:30
be fine." Plus, you were on the other the other problem of sizing, too, right? Because and and this is this is a me
30:36
complaint. I'm sorry I'm ranty this episode. You all get to deal with it a little bit. But the other problem that I
30:41
have as a larger nerd is that nerd gear isn't always sized for the people who
30:47
actually want to wear it. And so like a 3X from them may actually be a 2X
30:52
because it was produced maybe overseas um or or smaller or not cut right. And
30:58
I've heard that they've been better on sizing lately, but then I have to worry about do they have my size? Like I saw a
31:05
couple things that I actually would have considered buying like I like that I would have brought to work with me. Like
31:11
they had a nice buttondown and I was like, "Oh, here's a button down and a a work jacket combo for a hundred bucks."
31:17
Okay, that's a little bit expensive, but it's looks like it's really nice and classy and I could wear it to the office and do my my nerdy. They don't have my
31:24
size. Like, it's just gone, right? And I understand that that's that's a problem
31:30
for me, but it's like, okay, the one thing that I found that I'm was considering is just like not there. I I
31:36
don't know. And then I have to worry about getting it and then I'm always weird about ordering stuff online regardless. And then I have to worry
31:42
that the uh the sizing is right or that it's gonna fit me and and not be, you
31:47
know, I have to send it back or worse. Uh yeah, I don't know. It's just let me
31:53
buy let me buy the dang dang pat. Just let me give you let me let me give you money in exchange for this digital good.
32:00
I will do that. That I'd be willing to do. I don't know. Sorry, I've ranted a lot. I'm going to shush now.
32:05
Well, I'm just going to say this up front. Um I I was looking at this going, "Wow." Uh you can they now have Alliance
32:13
and Horde hoodies and so forth that look like they're from a generic grocery store because it just says right right
32:19
or Alliance or you know the signate ring that's just a red square. I haven't even seen the signate ring. Uh
32:25
I was I got caught up all these these hoodies that are just horde or just Alliance. It's just like it looks like
32:30
it should just say corn or you know beats. I I'd be willing to buy the corn one. So
32:37
would I. But that's if I'm going to do that, I'm going to buy it from Dimension 20 store. Let's be honest. But then there's also the fact that, you
32:43
know, you've got stuff on here like the I I think I think Liz was trying to say something, though. So I want I want to hear what Liz was saying.
32:49
Well, I've lost the thread. Continue. Well, it's like the the um warlaze of Azenoth statue thing. Have you looked at
32:56
this? Oh, those are those not a statue. Those are replicas. Those are actual things you can hold. Yeah, but the the thing that they come on is
33:02
like arms sticking out of the earth to set the warlaves in so you can display it.
33:08
I'm a little more forgiving of cuz that's a weaponed like replica. Okay, $200 for that is fine.
33:13
Like what gets me price isn't what gets me is like if you buy that you immediately get the felneuter because
33:20
you know you've spent more than $75. So I I don't know how to put this. Sane
33:27
people would be like, "Yeah, but I'm not going to buy that thing, Matt. It's $200." I have a real problem with like
33:33
if that were Ash Candi, I'd already have it. Like, I'm I'm afraid they're going to
33:39
make an Ash Condi and do that. No, you're not You're not alone. If they ever made a replica of Voler,
33:45
thousand% it would have been an instant purchase for me. Give me the Mace of Kings, please. But that's Yeah, I'm with
33:52
you. I should note that these that these replicas are eight and a half inches long.
33:58
Yeah, they're not full size. Well, instantly out. Yeah, they're I mean, they aren't just they aren't even like toy size. They're
34:05
actually very small, I think. Uh wasn't Yeah, cuz I was going to say, wasn't the um the Frostorn,
34:11
wasn't that like $1,500 or something like that? I forgot. It was really the full size one. Yeah, it was crazy.
34:17
I don't know anybody who actually bought it. I know people who got it because they worked there or because know
34:23
several people that bought it. I don't none of my friends were going to buy that thing, but they would
34:28
definitely get it otherwise. So, you know how they bought it? Like, and this again, I don't I don't want to harp on this and we should probably move
34:34
on, but I'm just going to say this. My friends who bought it didn't buy it from Blizzard. They bought it from the
34:39
company that made it directly and saved literally 50%. Yeah, it makes sense. Uh, but we should talk about Legion Remix because we've
34:46
talked about that before. And last time we talked about it, which I believe was last week, we talked about the fact that
34:51
a lot of people were saying on the PTR that it didn't feel good the way that re remists did. Uh the Mist of Pandaria
34:58
remix had really fast leveling and everybody could like blaze to max level and start working on doing all the
35:04
content solo and had a lot of fun with it. And that wasn't what was happening
35:09
with Legion Remix, which means they've now changed it. So instead of it being
35:14
like 100% XP for running the heroic world tier, it's now 500% XP.
35:21
And they've increased player power. There's other XP boosts that they've put in. Um I'm not really sure how the warb
35:28
band XP gains are going to work in this as well. Like I I you'll you'll get them at certain
35:34
levels. So, uh, it'll just boost your once
35:39
you've leveled a character as you go, you'll gain war band boosts to experience the next second character,
35:45
third character will be going faster. Uh, I do think it's kind of funny that somebody whoever wrote this pointed out
35:52
that they're going to have the names for this like instead of just calling it an XP boost or whatever, it's going to be like the momento of epic curiosity.
36:00
It's like, oh, okay. I see where we're going with this. You're making puns. You're doing puns, guys. I get it.
36:07
That's just the the power drops like uh Rob was talking about this when he was
36:13
talking about remix and he was on that all of the things have odd names so you
36:18
get them and you don't exactly know what they are. That's still the case. So,
36:23
it's not it's not even all of the buff items you pick up are named like this
36:29
and it's it's not epic. It's epoch momento of epoch curiosity which I
36:37
grammatically I have issues with. I don't think this is well phrased but
36:43
also it's just confusing pronunciation wise that's weird because up here that that is pronounced epoch
36:49
not epoch. Yeah that's pier. I don't know how you pronounce Well, I also I also heard you saying
36:55
epic like I see. I'm trying to say epoch, but I probably swallowed.
37:00
I Well, we may both be saying it wrong or we may have different regional pronunciations.
37:07
It's like the niche niche thing. Yeah. Yeah. So, but I I'm positive that they did it as a pun, but I get you. It is
37:15
really bizarre. It feels like somebody was playing exalted and then they just decided to name stuff in WoW like that
37:20
because like a like an epoch is like it means a period of time.
37:27
Yeah. So obviously it's it's a joke based on the fact that you're you're curious about the flow of time and by
37:32
getting it faster XP. Yeah. Blah blah blah. I got you. But it's it's not just curiosity. it's
37:38
uh curiosity or happiness or you know it's just all sorts of they just slapped
37:44
a random word generator on the end of that and it gives you stats of some kind and it's it's it's a little confusing
37:51
but there it is. That's what you got. They should have just kept it the way they did with uh Remists where it was
37:56
just one thing, wasn't it? Um, it was you would get threads for your cloak, but each thread was named like thread of
38:02
agility, thread of, you know, thread of stamina, kind of things like that. And now it just has they're weird. It's
38:09
weird. It's different. So, therefore, it is weird. You know how it is. So, now we talk about WoW Classic
38:16
because we just talked about Remis and now it's Mr. Pandaria Classic. Uh, Landfall is happening on September 23rd.
38:23
So, as we record this, it's a couple weeks down the road. Um, we're also going to get the I think this says that
38:29
the Temple of End Terrace of Endless Spring raid unlocked on September 4th, which was last week, right?
38:35
So, uh, yeah, of Spring is, uh, live right now. Yeah. And we're going to get
38:41
carry on. No, I was asking you, what are we going to get next? That was Oh, uh, next. Okay, next we're getting
38:48
uh celestial dungeons will offer Terrace of the Endless Spring Celestial Rewards for players, which just means uh that's
38:56
kind of their sort of hard mode raids, hard mode dungeons, mythic dungeons.
39:02
That's the version you find in classic. So, they're a little harder, but they'll be giving you these raid rewards. So, if
39:09
you can't get into a raid, if you don't have time to commit to a raid group, even though terrorist is a bad example
39:15
because that's a really short raid, uh you can still get these rewards doing small group content. So, uh yes, that
39:22
will unlock on September 16th. Do we know when we're going to get Heart of Fear? Uh I do not.
39:27
All right. Well, that's unless anyone has something particular they want to say about Mr. Pandaria Classic.
39:33
I don't I I have I have one question. Is anyone else playing Mr. Pandaria Classic? Nope. No.
39:39
Yeah, I was I was I was trying, but I haven't been able to keep up. I have a pandarin I
39:45
have a pandarin monk that I was trying to level up to Pandaria levels and like 81. I hit level 81 and then and then the
39:54
latest WoW patch and raid tier hit and it's like I do I can't keep up with both of these things at the same time. So, I
40:00
guess mists farewell mists. Yeah, that's that is the problem with all this stuff is you kind of have to
40:05
pick one you're going to do. Yeah. So, yeah, I leveled the pin there and and
40:10
you know, started zone just to get the mount in the main game, right? I had no intention of doing anything
40:15
more than that. Plus, we just had Remis not that long ago. We were doing this content and it's kind of odd, right? I
40:23
get a classic because it's progression, but it's kind of like it's hard to say if you really enjoy Remiss, you should
40:29
try Miss Classic. And they haven't really done that kind of advertising. Well, if you enjoyed Remiss, you should play the much slower version. Yeah,
40:36
that's all I need. Was remiss too fast for you? Well, we have a solution. But you should talk about um Diablo II
40:43
is now on its season 35, which is the first time that they've actually rerun
40:49
something that they rerun already. Uh Lords of Hell season. It's going to be on September 12th, so this week as we're
40:56
recording. And yeah, it's it's back again. It's it's literally in there back
41:01
again. Lords of Hell. Um, so yeah, it's just something they've done before.
41:06
Again, that's what it's going to be from now on, guys. So, if you're surprised, I mean, we knew it was going to be reruns, but we saw it in season 25, and
41:14
then we saw it in season 30, and now we're seeing it in season 36, so it's
41:21
surprising that they're recycling themes on this fast of a schedule. It hasn't been in maintenance mode for that long,
41:27
but we're already we're already doing these reruns. Diablo II seasons are still pretty fun,
41:32
but it's a tiny tiny bit disappointing. And uh meanwhile, Diablo I's got its um
41:39
s they're going to have a new season starting on well, we know it ends on the 23rd. I don't know if we know usually
41:46
start the same day. It ends and begins on September 23rd. Season 9 will be starting later this
41:52
month. So, uh season 10, you mean because it's season ending? No. Do I have this down wrong? I
42:00
I'm reading this. This is what it says. I know. I know you're reading this. Okay. Well, okay. Yes, we're in season 9 and season
42:06
10 is going to start. All right, cool. I have I not Diablo I is another one of
42:12
those things I haven't I just can't keep up with this and do everything else. Yeah, for me, Diablo 4 is something I
42:18
pick up on like weekends. Mhm. Like when I'm, you know, so I don't finish the seasons anymore. Like I I I
42:25
just don't play enough to finish them. I come in, I get my character like, you know, uh, up to max level so I can get
42:32
my Paragon on. And then I just kind of play on weekends, uh, when I'm, you know, when I've got an hour or two to kill or if I'm really angry at something
42:38
and I can't, I can't go yell at the person involved because, you know, it's not legal or whatever. So, I just go
42:44
and, you know, kill demons for a couple hours, I'm like, "Okay, okay, I feel better now." But I can't I can't do the
42:49
thing where I play any game for like hours a day every day of the week. It
42:55
just it's No. And especially not, oh yeah, I'm playing Diablo, but I'm also like rating and wow. And I'm also It's
43:01
like, no, no, I can't. I cannot do this. It's too much. But, uh, at this point, I think Joe, I
43:06
believe you are the one who wrote this down. Yeah. Uh, want to talk about Silkong? Can we have Liz do her thing first
43:12
before and then you come in on this? Would you mind? However you want to do, go ahead. So, Liz, if you'd mind doing site news.
43:19
I just want to remind all of you listening at home that Blizzard Watch is made possible by listeners like you. You
43:27
keep us going. You help us thrive and grow. At least we're trying to thrive.
43:32
Everyone Everyone's just doing their best in this crazy old world. I want to thank new supporter Moon Frey who uh
43:40
pledged $3 a month. That helps so much. I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but
43:45
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44:03
except when I forget to post them. Uh, that that doesn't happen often though. I usually remember to post them. And uh I
44:11
also want to thank Tony who pledged at $10 a month. Thank you so much. In
44:17
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44:22
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44:28
much. You are what keeps the site going. And we are running a little lower than we like on Patreon right now at almost
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44:40
to keep it around 4,000. So, we're a little lower than we'd like to be. If you are able to support us financially,
44:46
please do. I understand. If you can't, I get it. It's a life. I know, you know.
44:54
So, if you can't, thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for reading the site. That really helps. And if you
45:02
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45:22
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So if you can Patreon it keeps us going. We are patreon.com/blizzardwatch.
45:42
Thank you so much for listening and I appreciate your support. Thank you Liz. And uh now Joe, as I
45:48
throw this to you so you can talk about um Hollow Night Silk Song, can you give people a quick precess on what it is if
45:54
they for people who don't know? Yeah. So if you are familiar with the concept of a Metroid vania, you may have
46:00
heard of Hollow Knight, uh which was a breakout success and just a standout
46:06
game from Team Cherry, uh which was all of your wonderful Metroid Vania classics
46:12
with a little bit of Soulslike difficulty thrown in. uh recovering your corpse and stuff like that which we've
46:17
seen in other other Metroid vanias uh all themed around bugs. You are bugs. Uh
46:24
that is the short version of it. Silkong is a game that has been in development as a sequel to this for 5 years I think
46:31
six years. Um finally released. It was across all platforms. Uh it is available
46:37
on the Switch, Switch to uh your PlayStation, your your Xbox, and also on
46:44
Game Pass uh and PC. So if you have Game Pass, you can you can try it out for free. Um it is one of the most
46:51
anticipated games of all time. And it was joked that it was going to be Vaporware or get the Duke Nukem Forever
46:58
treatment because when it was announced, nothing else was heard of it uh except for this. Now, why am I talking about it
47:06
here? Two things. One, this game is so important and so uh looked for as far as
47:12
anticipation that other games have actually had to move or have chosen to move their own release dates or even
47:20
their demo dates to not interfere with uh Silkong or be overshadowed by
47:27
Silkong. uh some of which if you like uh Bennett Fod's Getting Over It, the next
47:33
game from that developer, they announced it by showing a picture of the uh it's called Baby Steps. Uh with the character
47:39
walking up a statue of uh Hornet, the main character from Silkong. But it did
47:44
release. It's very very if you like that type of thing, it's very good. Uh highly recommend it if you like Metroid Vanias.
47:50
I thought it was interesting because one of the things that is happening is we're already getting a patch for it. So
47:58
players started commenting that the early game was a little too difficult. Uh both in terms of economy and just the
48:06
difficulty scale of the enemies. Uh you start with a relatively low health bar like you would expect from any Metroid
48:11
or or Castlevania style game. Uh and some enemies early on can hit you for two of your meager five health bars uh
48:19
right away. So, Team Cherry is actually looking at it and is making some adjustments where they're going to not
48:27
necessarily lower the difficulty a lot, but make sure that it is much more in line with it being a initial zone. And
48:34
they're also looking at the economy to make sure that transitioning from early game to midame is a lot not a lot
48:41
easier, but is easier for players uh to make it a little more inviting and a little less off-putting. So, I'm
48:47
actually really excited to see that. And I wanted to put this in here because it's not only is it worth mentioning that the game came out, but it's worth
48:54
mentioning that they're taking player feedback and reacting to it relatively quickly. And that's commendable. That's
49:01
that's all I really wanted to to say about it. Uh and yeah, that's that's it. Yeah, my son uh has been playing it
49:08
almost non-stop since it came out. He's really enjoying it. He's still not sure whether he likes uh it better than
49:13
Hollow Night. Uh but his play time seems to suggest that he does. Yeah, it's You could definitely tell as
49:19
a a second game from a developer, they learned a lot of lessons from the first game. The animations are smoother. Um it
49:28
looks like it has a lot more of the personality that made the first game so charming. Uh like there's so many cool
49:34
little hidden things. Like it is a treasure trove of experience and I've
49:40
barely scratched the surface. I know members of Liz and and my guild are like speed running through this game and I'm
49:46
just like that's cool. I'm still trying to just chilling out and hitting every wall to see if it explodes into a secret area. So like Yeah. Yeah.
49:54
You you mentioned the games that delayed because of the announcement. Uh counter example, Atari released Adventurous
50:01
Samsara, which is vaguely tied into the old classic adventure game
50:07
uh for the 2600 and it's sitting with a whopping 16 reviews so far. Yeah,
50:13
because everybody's playing. Well, I mean to be fair, Atari has not been advertised like Y Rising, which I
50:19
played and enjoyed, uh got a lot more um advertisement and push from Atari, so it
50:26
did better. But yeah, they did not move this game and it's just Yeah, it may be better than Filong, but
50:32
there's no way to know because almost no one's playing it. Yeah. And sometimes you have to be
50:37
nimble with I think in some of these it's easier to do than others. like Little Witch in the Woods looks like a
50:42
really cozy uh like Zelda-esque game where you play as a little witch. And it was supposed to release on September
50:48
4th. Uh they decided to push it to September 15th because of uh the release for uh Silkong. There's even a picture
50:55
of the little witch crying over a broken broom. Uh with the shadow of the main character, Hornet over overshadowing
51:02
her. Uh Baby Steps, Clover Pit, uh Demon School. Uh these were all games that
51:09
like pushed or um Eternal Lucas or Lucius uh Mega Bonk. These all pushed
51:16
their their dates back uh to sort of deal not necessarily deal with but let
51:21
it be its own thing and not interfere with Silkong or have Silkong interfere with it. So yeah, any games are very reliant upon
51:28
initial sales upon release. Oh yeah. Um, so because I've se saw a
51:33
lot of commentary on Reddit and whatever like, "Oh, well, why are people moving their games? I mean, didn't Animal
51:39
Crossing and Doom come out on the same day and get a bunch of memes, but those but those were AAA games."
51:44
Look, are we going to try to make the character from Silkong is now also dating Doom guy and Isabelle? I mean,
51:50
come on. You can only do that so many times. Yeah, therea can get away with
51:56
shared release dates, especially of different genres because you'll they'll they'll have legs, but for every every
52:03
indie game that comes out, if it doesn't, it's very rare for indie games to break in like, you know, just get to
52:09
actually know they even exist. And when you have a game like Silkong that had 500,000 concurrent users,
52:16
5.2 million wish list requests on Steam. Yeah. And and and the 500,000 is amazing
52:22
because my son couldn't buy it for like hours. Yeah. It crashed PayPal. It crash it crashed Steam. It crashed
52:28
PayPal. It crashed the PlayStation Network purchasing. It crashed in the Nintendo eShop. Like it was
52:34
Oh. Oh, by the way, Joe, you you had asked how long it was in development. Yeah. Uh it was announced on February 14th of
52:41
2019. Yep. So, six years. Yeah. And the thing is is that it got pushed back at least three times in
52:48
2025. And rightfully so. Yeah. I'm not saying it's bad that they did it. I'm just saying it's harder for
52:54
smaller game companies to not counterprogram. So like they it's harder for them to get out of the way when you
53:01
keep moving your release date. So that's another thing to keep in mind for companies that maybe didn't and should
53:07
have is if you've moved your release date twice and they've moved theirs twice, like at this point we got to
53:13
release this game. I don't think so ever actually had an actual real release date until they announced uh this.
53:19
No, like they No, they announced it at uh they announced it uh Gamescom that it
53:24
was coming and that it was actually done and ready. They didn't announce a release date for it. And then the week
53:31
prior to it releasing, that's when they said, "Yep, by the way, it's coming out here." Like that. Which honestly, kudos
53:38
to them. That that was that's the way to treat the hype engine. Yeah. I mean people were I mean my again
53:44
my son uh so this is all secondhand. Yeah you know he was a big Hollow Night fan and what he he said was which was
53:50
frustrating was Team Cherry wasn't saying anything. Yeah. Radio Silence. Yeah. So every single time whether it
53:57
was a Tokyo game show, whether it was summer game fest video game war for the last three years cuz the demo I think or
54:04
two years cuz the demo came out the first demo came out two or three years ago you know radio silence and it got
54:10
frustrating but apparently it didn't frustrate enough people to skip it. Although the price of only 20 bucks probably helped that as well.
54:16
Yeah, that that too. Like the fact that if you're buying this for like just outright, not even just playing it on
54:21
like Game Pass, which again it is on Game Pass, $20 USD for a game of this
54:27
like content and quality already is insane in today's uh asking or
54:33
marketplace for video games. We were just talking a few weeks ago about the price of the expansions for World of
54:39
Warcraft and how much midnight it costs and like yes, it's a different animal, but it's just like it's such a a stark
54:46
like you're paying $70 for a or $80 for a current generation premium game and
54:52
here's one for 20. Like, but again, they're going to make that up. I mean, again, 5.2 million people wishlisting it
54:58
is not an insignificant number. Okay. But I'm going to actually say now, uh,
55:04
both of you guys play Guild Wars 2 at least a little. Talk to us about Homesteads in a new expansion.
55:09
Go for it, Cale. Okay. Actually, yeah. Bring up. Yeah, the new expansion for Guild Wars 2 is coming out next month. And it I think
55:16
the base for that is only 25 or $30. So, not every expansion's gone 30 bucks, $29.99, I think, USD.
55:23
Yeah. But if you want to add stuff like digital there, there are digital editions and um editions that come with
55:29
gems at a discounted rate. So, you can get that. Um, but the homestead, you know, with all the talk about the
55:35
housing in in World of Warcraft, it's interesting to compare how Guild Wars 2 has handled it. Um, for those who don't
55:41
know, Guild Wars 2's Homes Edge, uh, their version of player housing is basically an instant space and it's just
55:48
you. There's there's no neighborhoods, so it's just you. Everyone gets the, uh, same style of house
55:54
and it's not just a house, though. Oh, no, no, it's not just a house. Um it allows you to but it it but it it it
56:01
inhabits a physical space starting with the house. There's land around it. Um all your nodes you can you have nodes
56:07
for like farming nodes, gathering, uh mining and so forth. Um but it's
56:13
customizable um and in ways that of course the players immediately jump on because the
56:18
Guild Wars I uh community uh is a little insane when it comes to stuff like jumping puzzles
56:23
a little. Um and Oh yeah. trying to be sarcastic there. Um I
56:30
actually know someone who's building a blueprints simulator in their homestead. Whoa.
56:35
Yeah, it can't it can't do the randomization, but it's going to be set up like that. Um but with the new
56:41
expansion, we're getting a new location and um I had actually had a chance to look at it early. Um it's um it's a it's
56:47
an island paradise Isle, right? Uh Castor. Um, I'm not sure what the
56:53
name of the actual island itself is, but it's an island paradise. It's in Castor, but I think it's Kamosus
56:58
Isle. Okay, thank you. And, uh, but it has a it has a mountain. Um, it has a cavern
57:04
with a a pool of water that has a secret exit out to the sea, so you can build your uh Bond villain style um layer if
57:12
you want, if that's how you want to do it. Um, they're also um so that's cool. And you have a choice. you you can only
57:18
have one instance at a time, but so you have to choose either the current
57:23
homestead, which is more like a traditional homestead, or your island uh villain layer or island paradise,
57:28
however you plan to build it. Um, but they've added layouts so you can save it. So, you can easily switch back and
57:34
forth. You don't have to build from scratch. You say, "Oh, yeah, I love how this looks. Um, but I'm going to go buy
57:40
my island pads for a while. Let me save how that layout is." But then they add it. You have XML editing of your of your
57:46
files. You can now share your layouts. So if you go to someone's blueprints,
57:52
uh, simulated homestead, you can actually build it yourself if you don't have everything they have because
57:57
materials cost resources. The game will now tell you what you're missing so that you can build it and add it yourself,
58:04
which is tremendous. They're also converting. Right now, you can't really uh mess around with the house itself. Um
58:10
you like one of the tricks they did was they turn over like the hearth um upside down so that you can uh make a stone
58:18
floor. Now they're making that all construction materials. So you can tear down
58:23
everything that's there as your that's your house and then build it however you want. If you want to put a stone castle
58:30
in your island parish, you can do that. And it's going to do more. It's going to be amazing customizations going to come
58:36
out of it. I'm really looking forward to see what the players come up with. Me, too. And I'm not going to do anything.
58:42
Oh, no. This is This is going to ruin me. This is This itself is going to ruin me. We were talking about this like I I
58:48
mentioned that I went to school for architecture and like player housing and WoW is going to ruin me. Like, you're going to have to pull me from from
58:55
dealing with my player housing to get me to do anything. This is up there as well. It's going to be bad. And the one
59:01
thing I will say about the their homesteads too that we didn't even mention is uh regardless of whether you're in Hearth Glow or Cosmosis Isle,
59:09
uh they're not disconnected from the world. Yes, these occupy physical spaces. Um but portals link everything
59:16
across the world of Guild Wars. Um and in your homestead, you actually have
59:21
portals to three of the the major meeting areas. Uh which is really nice.
59:26
So you're never disconnected from the world itself. Uh, I tossed a picture of the island into our podcast chat here.
59:34
Uh, and it is like there's a very distinct art style with Guild Wars. There's a very painterly style and uh,
59:42
everything from the interface to the talking heads with quests to the world design is very very much in that vein.
59:50
And your your homestead is not any different. It's absolutely gorgeous. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a it's a great
59:56
feature. Um, I I was beatable jokingly when I said I wasn't going to do anything with it, but uh yeah, like but
1:00:03
like in the picture you said they have that boat that's standing on its end. You have this crash ship that you're
1:00:08
using as your actual house. Y um unlike World of Warcraft where the inside is whatever, you know, it's
1:00:14
different from the outside. It's all inside and outside integrated, but you can tear that boat down if you want. Yeah. Use the material to build
1:00:20
something else. All I know is I cannot wait. I cannot wait to have my necromancer with her flesh gollum, her bone golems, uh her
1:00:28
bone scorpions chilling on an island, feet in the sand, drinking a margarita,
1:00:33
cuz that's exactly what's going to happen here. Hey, that's what it's for. Going to be like that vamp like that guy
1:00:40
in Veilgard who had his little uh skeleton following him around everywhere. Manfred, I think his name.
1:00:45
Manfred. Yeah. But uh Liz, you were saying something, I think. No. Okay. I am sorry. I do want to mention
1:00:51
something else about Guild Wars 2. If we're talking about homesteads and if we have time, um, they actually now they're
1:00:57
Guild Wars 2 is finally adding a group finder feature. Yeah, I saw that, which is really,
1:01:02
really rad. Long time coming. They're uh they're they're starting with fractals. Uh, fractals, for those who
1:01:08
don't play Guild Wars 2, they're kind of like a mix between scenarios and dungeons. Uh, they're fiveman. Guild
1:01:14
Wars 2 does not have a typical uh tank healer DPS style. Yeah. party structure is a little little
1:01:20
more free form. Yeah. Yeah. Uh but it's still five players and uh and it's like you have
1:01:25
like little mini goals and it can be as long as a dungeon because Gilbert only has some old school dungeons that no one
1:01:32
even goes to any they haven't added a new dungeon since the the original as far as I can remember. Um and so it's
1:01:40
but fractals are basically the first group content above leveling and solo uh world activities. So, this is kind of a
1:01:47
it's a dual purpose. They're unlock they're doing a beta test through for the next four weeks of the group finder
1:01:54
for fractals to give players who haven't done fractal before because you get to group up for them. Um, chance to try
1:02:01
them out. So, hopefully it'll encourage more because fractals are fun. I've done fractals. Um, never done the more
1:02:07
advanced ones. They get difficult. Uh, but fractals themselves has always been kind of an odd mechanic. Like the same
1:02:15
fractal is a tier five, but also tier 33. What does that mean? What is agony? So, it's a it's a good way of getting
1:02:21
players introduced to fractals. But even if that doesn't have a lasting effect, the group finder will be able to use for
1:02:26
the raids, the strikes, all the more recent group content convergences that they've put in where that it's harder to
1:02:32
get groups together for. So, it'll be interesting to see how um the the experiment works. saw screenshots today
1:02:39
of a whole bunch of people outside the fractal area looking uh looking for groups. Um so hopefully it'll get
1:02:46
players involved because it's it's a digital thing to do in the game. Um it's got transm which of course is the end
1:02:52
game for all uh MMOs but it you know there are some uh transmon they put in a ton of rewards for like legendary
1:02:59
gloves. Um I might have to find a way to play it because I I don't know when I'm going to but um the rewards but they
1:03:06
just really want players to test this out. some uh it should be a good experiment. Hopefully it works out. Cool. Uh if you play Guild Wars 2, you
1:03:13
look forward to having your own group finder. Um at that point though, I think we're going to pretty much be done for
1:03:19
the day because we are past time. Uh thank you to for uh Kell, sorry, I
1:03:25
should say your name at least. Uh you know, Christian for being here with us this week. Um well, thanks for having me. I know it
1:03:31
was short notice, but I thought no one else would have stepped in, so I thought I'd give it a try. Thank you. Uh, thank you for joining us
1:03:37
and thank you to Liz and Joe for of course making the podcast even happen. And uh, thank you to all of you for
1:03:44
making it be something besides us just talking because we can do that without recording it and sending it. Yeah. Uh,
1:03:52
so thank you to everybody. This has been the Bliss Watch podcast and we'll be back next week.
1:03:57
[Music]
#Massively Multiplayer Games
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