videocam_off
This livestream is currently offline
Check back later when the stream goes live
Up next in 10
It's 2026, and the more things change, the more they stay the same. We start off with a new Hearthstone gatcha promotion, and follow it up with yet another splinter version of WoW Classic -- this time, WoW Classic Anniversary is splitting into WoW Classic Burning Crusade Anniversary and WoW Classic Classic Era Anniversary. Legion Remix is definitionally a rehash, but it's coming to an end relatively soon.
But it's not all old news! Immediately thereafter is the Midnight pre-patch, with a lot of new events and features, and a prepatch event. A new Diablo 4 expansion was just announced with a release date in the new year as well, even if it sounds very similar to the previous one, even if it does add Paladins. We also talk about all the new games we're looking forward to in 2026.
Plus, since Cory was a cohost, there was another edition of the Heroes of the Storm hopium corner. New year, same old us.
Subscribe to Blizzard Watch in your podcast player for more of the latest news:
RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/656a381dff3911001256c7bf
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blizzard-watch/id964696892
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2mRiUSalfnFAUfKO2yh4RG
Visit us at https://blizzardwatch.com for the latest news on Blizzard games, and don't forget to subscribe on Patreon to support our efforts! https://www.patreon.com/blizzardwatch
Discord: https://discord.gg/MY9p4d7t8U
Bluesky: @blizzardwatch.com
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:10
Hello everybody and welcome to Blizzard Watches podcast where we talk about Blizzard Entertainment, its many games
0:17
and occasionally a few other games and and sometimes we're we're considering which one of us would be replaced by
0:23
Muppets if this was a Muppet movie. Uh, so far I think you guys would get replaced and I'd stay because as I kind
0:29
of have the much smaller Tim Curry effect in that I am also a muppet. I'm just very impressive
0:35
and I've got the six degrees of Kevin Bacon just much smaller. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, that's what we're going to
0:42
do. Uh, welcome to our special guest, Corey. Say hi, Corey. But don't say hi, Corey.
0:47
Ah, too late. Uh, I I should have kn better. It's an oldie but a goodie. Yes. And uh of course Liz Harper and Joe
0:55
Perez who are always here because they are sealed in the tomb and they they can only come out to make podcasts.
1:01
That's true. That's true. Good Wi-Fi in the tomb though. Yeah, you got to admit pretty solid signal.
1:07
Thank god we can finally get Door Dash to the tomb. It's it's it's so much easier. Uh but yeah, it's it's we're
1:14
we're doing a kind of a new year thing. I mean, I feel like it's fair to say that it is 2026.
1:20
Uh I think it is. I think it is. I'm pretty sure. Um, sometimes it's hard to tell what
1:26
year or day or week or anything. Uh, and I've certainly had some some 90s flashbacks from the news lately, but I
1:33
will say, uh, we're going to just soldier on and talk about stuff going on this month and other places. Um,
1:42
starting with this little Hearthstone bit because, uh, yeah, great. I'm so glad they brought this back. Um, Liz, do
1:48
you want to talk about this before I ruin it with my my angriness? Yeah, this is this is my favorite thing.
1:54
It's great. You know, Hearstone has been doing its gotcha game where you the
2:00
first roll is free and you might get something really great. Except the
2:06
really great thing you're probably every time you spin, you get a reward. Every
2:11
time you get a reward, uh the price to spin goes up. And there's one reward
2:18
that everyone wants that is super rare and you're probably going to have to spend all 158 American dollars in order
2:25
to get it. Uh, and that right now that is a Yogeron mythic skin in Hearthstone.
2:33
I went in and I did my free spin. I did not get Yoguron and so I'm not going to get Yogeron because I have better things
2:40
to spend $158 on. if I was spending $158 on something. It's uh they seem very
2:47
very committed to this little gotcha game. They're rolling out new uh very
2:52
expensive cosmetics there once a month and it's just kind of it's just kind of
2:57
disheartening. I I also did not get Yogon. I did my spin, too, if you can believe that.
3:02
Shocked, I tell you. I can't believe you. Yeah, you you logged on. You did a spin. I mean, I mostly it's it's not the
3:10
biggest news. It's just that ongoing feeling of crushing disappointment that
3:16
life is fully based on microtransactions that are growing larger and larger.
3:22
Yeah, I'm I'm really surprised that they're doubling down on it and I'm wondering if it is a double down or if
3:29
the first one was that successful for them as a metric. Well, this is like their maybe their
3:34
fifth one so far. They've been continuing to do these. These have uh there was the most adorable dinosaur
3:40
ever and then there was an adorable void buddy and then there was Terellion. I
3:46
feel like there was something in between there. Uh yes, I have never gotten any of these things. So keep on keeping on
3:53
enjoying my free spin. They will certainly This is too good for them. I guess they
4:00
must be paying off. They must be getting 20 or $30 out of people per time they do it.
4:05
Yeah. I I feel like there's probably a few whales that'll go all the way to the end. There are enough there are going to be enough whales that they're just going to
4:11
go and buy the cosmetic. But the real money in this is probably in people who who will go, "Okay, I'll
4:18
pay for the first I did my first free spin. I'll pay for the next one. No, I'll pay for the next one. Okay, I'm
4:24
done." And the gradient is such that people are, you know, some people are willing to give them like 10 bucks. Some
4:30
people are willing to go all the way up to 158. other people will have other thresholds where they just won't go no
4:37
go any further. I feel like it it there can see why it would be profitable, but
4:43
it I also can see why it fills my soul with the kind of loathing that makes me feel like Argus the Armis or whatever it
4:51
was the Argent or I can't remember its name but the sludge of evil from that Star Trek the TNG episode. I feel like
4:58
it's living in my soul every time I see this. the one that ate Tashiar.
5:03
Yes, we didn't eat her. They did get her body back, but but it did kill her and then it was mean about
5:09
it, which was even worse, really. Um, so yeah. No, I I just I don't like
5:15
this, but I feel like I've ranted enough. So, instead, we'll talk about move on move on with our lives. The
5:22
Burning Crusade Classic, the Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary Realms are going to be launching in January 13th,
5:29
which I don't think those are these are before they're not actually going to have TBC stuff yet. Correct.
5:35
No, this is the the pre- patch is launching on January 13th. So, it's uh all of the sort of class changes and
5:42
game updates and blood elves, your blood elves, your drain eye, all of those things, your jewel crafting are all
5:49
going to be there. We don't actually have a release date for the expansion itself yet. Probably in February based
5:56
on how they timed uh pre- patches to patches in the past, but yeah, the pre-
6:03
patch is going live eventually. The expansion will go live on the anniversary realms. And if you have been
6:10
sitting on this and you have been playing on the anniversary realms, there is one really important thing that we
6:16
must tell you, which is you can get a free transfer off of the anniversary realms onto other classic realms if you
6:23
do not want to move on to into the Burning Crusade. And you have to do that by January 12th. Otherwise, you're
6:30
you're in the Burning Crusade and that's it. So, just if you're if you want to stay on, stay on. But if you want to
6:37
move up, you've got to do it before the pre- patch launches. So, get on that. Keep that in mind because if if this is
6:44
not for you, uh you don't want to end up having to spend money on a transfer after because it's annoying.
6:50
And I I bet you can't transfer off to it. Like, if you wanted to stay in a vanilla realm, I bet after it changes
6:56
into TBC, I bet you can't transfer to a to the past essentially.
7:01
Yeah, that makes sense. Uh especially if you did some leveling. Um, yeah, it's like, "Oh, I got one
7:08
experience point. Oh, no. I can never go anywhere again." That's probably how it works. So, yeah. Um, also, we should point out
7:15
that, uh, WoW Remix, if you're currently doing Legion, the the remix for Legion, you just call that Legion Remix, I
7:21
guess. I don't think we call it remix is whatever Lemix is what everybody's been calling it. Oh god, that's horrible.
7:27
I call it Legion Remix because every abbreviation is horrible. So, here we are. Lemix sounds like a like a
7:34
pharmaceutical medication that you'll find out has multiple horrible thing side effects. Anyway,
7:39
call it fell again and nobody was on board with Feligan. So that's because it doesn't sound like Fel again. It sounds like Feligan. Welcome
7:45
to Feligan's pub. No one's going to Feligan's pub. I I agree. I agree with uh with Anna in chat. Releion is probably the the best
7:53
one out of there and uh because I don't care for it. So, you know,
8:00
anyway, but anyway, that's ending on January 19th. So, if you are playing right now, you have a you just you have a little
8:07
time left. I'm not going to say until January 19th. Yeah. And then once January 19th comes, that
8:12
ends and you don't have any more time. Very well. Time is over. Yep. Uh, however, if you are playing
8:19
that and you're like, what am I going to do with my time after after uh remix
8:25
goes away? Um, God remixed. Yeah, you know, I was I was sitting here
8:31
worrying like Legion Remix is going to go away. I'm going to have so much free time. What am I going to do with all of
8:37
those hours in the day? Maybe I could catch up on some books, play some of those Steam games on my backlog. Huh?
8:45
Or there's so much time for activities. You could then realize that on January 20th, literally the next day, uh, the
8:52
midnight pre- patch launches. So, you suddenly have all sorts of class changes. And I mean, let's face it,
8:58
pretty much everybody who cares about player housing is already playingousing because they pre-ordered to do it
9:04
because that's what they did. We all know this. But regardless, if you didn't pre-order it, but you're going to buy it
9:09
when it comes out, you'll then get player housing as well. And then the pre- patch event is going to start a
9:16
week after that on the 27th of June. So, yeah. Hopefully hopefully the pre- patch bugs will have worked themselves out
9:22
over the week and then we can just go into I'm I'm trying to I'm trying to be hopeful here.
9:28
I'm doing my best. I just I always remember I'll never be able to forget when I I logged on to the original Myths
9:36
of Pandora and I got to the part where we were supposed to fly a vehicle around and look at the area and the vehicle
9:42
bugged out and so I spent like literally an hour and a half just flying around
9:48
the the jade forest unable to get off of this thing. So I couldn't pursue any
9:53
quests or do anything. So yeah, uh I don't think it'll be as buggy as that,
9:58
but I do expect there will be bug. I just don't think there are. There always are. Um but the
10:05
pre- patch again, uh the pre patch event, we get to fight the Twilight cult
10:11
again. Didn't Weren't you just waiting to fight a cult again? These guys? Yeah.
10:19
I mean, I'm not surprised, but at the same time, I wasn't really clamoring for more Twilight Cult. Uh yeah. Well, I I
10:26
it doesn't matter if you're clamoring for it or not, it's coming. Uh but I
10:31
think the best thing about the pre- patch is that if you complete the pre- patch event, you get the title
10:37
definitely not a cultist, which is definitely a title that a not a cultist
10:42
would use. Only non-ultists can use this title. That's that's what I've been told. And legally, I have to tell you,
10:48
only non-ultists. I certainly won't be using this as I am not a cultist. Um,
10:55
but yeah, I mean I it's a it's an event. It's the It's not looking like it's
11:01
going to be very different than the last few expansions, but that's cool. Do you have do you have fond memories of the Twilight Highlands or not? That's I
11:08
think that's going to be the differentiator here as to whether you love this event or do not love this event.
11:14
Oh, well, I've got to be honest. I don't have fond memories of Twilight Islands.
11:19
Well, I have I have bad news because we're going back. Yeah, but I don't have particularly
11:25
negative. It's not like some zone. Okay. So, it's like a middle of the road kind of thing. Yeah, it's it's fine. It's It's like if
11:31
you go to a you go to McDonald's and you get yourself a hamburger and some fries. You're not breaking you're not, you
11:37
know, setting anything new going on. But, I mean, I can eat a I can eat a hamburger. So, uh I feel like I'm
11:43
describing this in such a way as to make it sound even less appealing than I actually find it. But, uh, at least I'm
11:49
not having to go to the the Twilight Hammer raid instance in the Twilight
11:56
Highlands because that that flight was just the biggest drain on my life at the
12:01
time. It's like, oh Lord, why did they make it so it's a it's a 20-minute flight from any flight. So it was ah
12:10
it is just put a flight just put a little Griffin uh little wyvern and and
12:15
Griffin guys on top of the actual raid portal, you know, cuz it's all the way
12:20
up there. So as long as we're not doing that. I will say that this is interesting to me
12:25
that this thing's going to be kicking off every 10 minutes. There's an event every 10 minutes in the Twilight
12:31
Islands. I don't know if that's going to start that way like because they've done that in the past where they started and
12:36
this the even ramps up over time. Yeah, it's ramped up. Yeah. So, I don't know if it's going to start every 10 minutes
12:41
or if it's going to be it going to work up to every 10 minutes. I kind of hope it just starts every 10 minutes because
12:48
the the Legion pre-expansion event was my favorite and it was just continuous.
12:53
There's just always demons everywhere. Um I know that it started off slower but
12:59
it got fast very quickly. We've seen problems in some events like this where
13:04
the there are so many people interested it and so many people showing up that the event ends like the second it starts
13:12
because there are so many people there hitting mobs. So that makes it difficult to complete the event. So having an
13:18
event that starts frequently is great because even if you arrive at 60 seconds after the event started and so it's
13:24
over, you only have to wait a few minutes for the next one to start. This time I got to sit here and have it
13:30
just finish itself to my benefit. Um, yeah, I I that is that is one of the
13:38
most I'll just say straight up annoying things about these kind of events. If enough people are there, it can literally be like, "Oh, what happened? I
13:45
think something happened. The Twilight people were here. They're all dead now, but but they were here, I think." It's
13:50
really good when you get the the stuttering, too, because there's so many spell effects all happening at the exact same time. So, you don't even really get
13:57
to know what the event looked like. You just got the slideshow. Yeah. I mean, it was really nice in terms of the light show, but yeah, I I
14:03
didn't even even the the original uh invasion in Legion had that problem. Um
14:10
to the point where like there was that weird undead guy who'd just start yelling at you like do this, do that and
14:15
he was just yelling and you're like hey I remember you from such such quests as the first one I did as a warlock in in
14:22
all the way back in vanilla. Oh you're gone now. Beat the demons in 15 seconds. Okay. Well, I'll see him again soon. But
14:29
yeah, I I I'm looking forward to it just because I like pre- patch events. I I
14:35
do. I even when they're not particularly innovative, I just really like everyone running around getting like ketchup
14:41
gear. So, you're going to go into the next expansion with at least relatively decent gear.
14:47
Um I I thought some the item level is is getting squished. Is that still the case? Am I insane?
14:53
Yes. And we're getting huge a huge item level squish. Um yeah, I mean there's a
15:00
lot going with this patch. There are tons and tons of class changes. We're getting the squish. We're getting uh
15:05
your new demon hunter spec, the devourer, the void demon hunters. Um
15:12
we're getting the add-on changes. So you a lot of your add-ons are going to break, which that's broken add-ons is
15:19
normal for a big patch day, but what isn't normal is a lot of them are going to stay broken because Blizzard has made
15:26
changes that prevents add-ons from accessing combat data. So that breaks a lot of add-ons associated with combat. I
15:34
think they've been tuning this on the beta test and I think it's gotten a
15:40
little less cluji than it has been and I've heard more add-ons that are going to continue into midnight. But you
15:47
should expect it to be kind of a mess those first few days when the servers come live and all of your add-ons are
15:53
just nope nope. Um it's this one's this one's going to be a big change. I think
15:59
I think a lot of these changes are good for the game in the long term, but they're going to be very painful and
16:05
frustrating in the short term. Like the Yeah, changing how add-ons work is
16:10
probably good for the long-term health of the game and not and putting players on an even playing field as far as what
16:18
they see in the game and having more things built into the game instead of having to go outside the game and
16:23
download install an add-on. But, uh, it's it's kind of going to suck when we jump in. And, you know, some of our
16:30
add-ons aren't coming back, which, um, not thrilled about it, but I think I think it's good in the long run. We'll
16:35
see. Those are my emotional support add-ons. You're You're going to have to get like plushy versions of the add-ons to sit on
16:43
your desk to be your emotional support add-ons. When was the uh when was the last stat
16:48
squish? I think it the last squish was at the end of uh of Battle for Azeroth. I don't
16:54
know if it was actual gear squish, but it was definitely a stat squish. Well, stat squish and gear squish go hand in hand, right? That's that's
17:00
always I'm pretty sure that it was at the end of of Battle for Azeroth because we got
17:05
like I remember going out and farming up gear uh with the world quest because I needed to get gear for uh specs I didn't
17:13
have gear for and they'd squished everything so I couldn't I didn't couldn't make heads and tails of it. I think that's when it was.
17:19
So, let's see. I'm looking it up. Warlords of Drraanor patch 6.0 you know, was one of the ones that they did it
17:24
with. Uh, man, this is nobody has cataloged this in a proper data driven
17:30
way. I am so upset about this. Stat squishes can be
17:35
uh a little awkward. Yeah. 6 8 9 and 12 patches uh 6 8 9 and
17:42
12 are the ones. Okay, good to know. So, end of Battle for Azeroth right there. Patch 8.0.1.
17:47
Mhm. So, they did it again. They did it for Shadowlands 9.0.1. 0.1
17:53
with a stat adjustment. Uh or no, that was everything. That was stat a level squish too.
17:58
Yeah, stat item level and character levels. And then midnight will be the
18:04
just stat and item levels. Okay, we have learned a thing. You're welcome everybody.
18:10
But yeah, I mean so this can feel really awkward when they squish stats because it can upset
18:18
the balance. Like if you're going back and soloing old content, suddenly you can start feeling weak. I actually think
18:23
from playing on the beta, I think Blizzard has done a pretty good job here in that I'm not going into new content
18:29
or old content and feeling like I'm suddenly very weak. Um,
18:34
so hopefully that will not feel bad, but I think losing add-ons and not having
18:41
our add-ons available maybe ever, some of that's going to feel pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah. And it's also not
18:47
necessarily even because the add-ons do something that drastically affects
18:52
gameplay. It can be it can feel bad just because I was used to doing this with the add-on and now I have to relearn
18:58
what I'm doing. Um, that's I know that I've never really gotten over when I
19:03
used to use weak oras to tell me, you know, Matt, use Colossus Smash and I
19:10
basically had a picture of of um Jim Vanney as Earnest that just popped up on
19:15
my screen that told me that's that's the symbol for Colossus Smash because I I found him tremendously annoying. Not not
19:22
as himself, Jim Varnney I was fine with. Uh, it was Earnest, the character that I hated. Like holy oh holy. Uh, so yeah.
19:30
Uh, I don't really know where I'm going with this other than I I look forward to like finding out that people are still
19:36
going to be allowed to have annoying add-ons that that tell them to do things, but I don't know that that's
19:41
going to happen with the combat log being what it is. Everything has to work differently. So,
19:46
I mean, like it an add-on can't access combat data. It can't see realtime combat data. So,
19:54
basically, damage meters are gone, guys. Don't don't even mourn them. Damage meters are built in now. They're a
19:59
built-in feature of the game. There are no third party damage meters. Yeah, it's a it's a little bit different, but like it gets rid of
20:05
things like third party weak auras and and stuff like that, which which they might potentially walk back a little bit
20:12
too, like let's make sure that we we we highlight that because they've already started like conversations with the add-on
20:19
makers and the add-on makers are saying that we're going to have 12 compliant stuff and
20:25
we've been talking with them. Not everything is all doom and gloom. No, it's not. I mean, but one of the
20:31
things is the weak oras developers have said they aren't planning on continuing to have weak auras for patch 12.0 and
20:39
that's because they would have to make they would have to completely overhaul how it was set up and it would have just
20:45
a tiny fraction of the functionality that it does now because it's so many people use it for combat notifications
20:51
of different kinds. And it's like, yeah, but I have I have some non-combat weak
20:56
oras that I'm gonna miss. Like, I have a weakaura that just puts a little arrow where I am in the middle of the screen
21:03
just so I can find myself because, you know, I'm playing a gnome right now. You
21:08
get lost in all the clutter and characters that are on a screen. It's just a little arrow that's a weak aura.
21:14
So, or the add-on that something else, the add-on that highlights your mouse and where it is on the screen, too. Like
21:20
little stuff like that. So, I mean, I don't know that those are things that are now forbidden by
21:26
add-ons. It's just that they are being done by in my case that's going away. So, yeah,
21:31
an add-on that's Yeah, that's going away. So, it's like well onward onward we go into the
21:38
future. The march of progress continues. Speaking of the March of Congress, one thing I want to ask, March of Progress,
21:44
one thing I want to ask before we move on, I just repeated myself and I don't know why. Uh, will you still have like
21:49
world of logs or other off-site like you know coalation because you said you can't have live uh combat data but can
21:55
you still get a log of the data? I think you can still export the combat. Okay, that's what I'm curious about
22:01
because a lot of people use those but I think anything that automatically integrates into it
22:07
like I think I don't remember if World of Logs had that or not. Um, but anything that does that is not going to
22:13
be able to function like that. It'll all be manual I believe. I am like 99% sure.
22:18
All right, though. That covers pretty much the stuff we know is going to be happening in January. Uh, now we know
22:23
some stuff that's going to just be happening like later on this year. Uh, the one that most people around here are
22:30
probably going to be interested in is is Midnight. Wo's uh WoW's next expansion. After the pre- patch launches, there
22:36
will be a March launch of Midnight, March 2nd. So, if you're wondering when
22:42
it will actually finally be time to midnight, you will finally get to go on your world tour with Arathor. Uh, you
22:48
will finally get to go talk to, you know, the the Haroner and and ask them where the heck they went. Guys, we were
22:55
in the middle of something and you just you just bailed. Yeah. All that stuff is coming uh on March
23:01
2nd. So, it feels it feels like a really long pre patch. Do any of the rest of you feel
23:06
that way? It does feel a little extra long. I I mean February is the shortest month.
23:13
So well I don't even think I think it is a long time but I think it's a necessary long time when you are
23:20
changing a game system. So fundamentally you need a long period of people who
23:27
maybe didn't get a chance to to test on beta and maybe aren't in scenarios that
23:32
will break it in new and unusual ways. give them an opportunity to break it so that you can try to fix it before the
23:38
actual expansion releases. So smart of them and good on them for releasing it
23:43
early and giving themselves time because time is the enemy.
23:50
Um yeah, I mean as I think going along with that, it's interesting that Midnight's pre- patch launches on the 20th, but the
23:57
event doesn't start till the next week and then runs the entire February.
24:02
But that's also for the same reason, right? like they need to they can't have the event go live and then people not be able to do anything.
24:07
I think that that's one of the reasons why we're getting between the fact that it's it's using up
24:12
February which again shortest month by two days. Um I just I find myself wondering if that's all part of the
24:20
making sure you have enough time to make readjustments because they are going to have to make readjustments. Um there's
24:25
going to be a class that comes out and is much weaker than anyone expected it to be. uh there's going to be a classic,
24:30
you know, things things line up. So, it's actually much stronger than it used to be. Stuff's going to happen because
24:36
it always does when you're doing something this big. But I do wonder if that's that January 20th to 27th bit.
24:42
That's kind of interesting to me. Um I hadn't thought about the fact that they've done that before, but you're right, Joe, they have. But now that we
24:49
know about midnight, we've talked about that. Uh we we don't know when um the classic anniversary realms are going to
24:55
roll over to TBC as as Liz pointed out. Um, we do think it's probably going to be in February based on when when we're
25:02
getting the the pre patch in in January. I don't, but we don't know. I don't even think it's just because of
25:08
the pre- patch that we're getting for it and the timing there. I think it's also the timing of other releases occurring.
25:14
uh even though they are technically separate teams, um you're going to have
25:19
a whole lot of people that are probably going to want to check out uh the TBC Classic Anniversary stuff that are
25:26
probably going to also want to check out Midnight. So, timing it like that gives them the opportunity to do both. So, I
25:32
would suspect that at least a couple weeks before Midnight drops, uh we'll see.
25:40
It's It's smart timing, but Blizzard isn't always smart about timing things.
25:45
True. Blizzard Blizzard drops a lot of stuff right on top of other stuff. So, the fact that
25:52
it's that this seems like smart timing and spacing things out that people may be interested in all of these different
25:58
things actually kind of confuses me because I'm so accustomed to Blizzard is like,
26:04
"Well, we're just going to release everything this week and have fun with that." Yeah. Yeah. It is not always their
26:10
strong suit, but that's what we know. Um, I should mention because I'm the one, I think, at this moment who is
26:16
currently obsessed with it. Diablo I is going to have its new expansion release on April 28th. The new expansion is
26:22
called Lord of Hatred. Um, which on the one hand, pretty solid title. Uh, Lord
26:28
of Hatred. Yeah, that that that checks. On the other hand, we already had Lord
26:33
of Destruction, so it feels like are we just going to have a Lord of Something expansion every sort of We've we've now
26:40
sorry destruction. Tori, you go Tori. It's also just a little sy because we've
26:46
just come out of vessel of hatred. Yeah. And I the part the word I don't focus on
26:52
there is hate. It's or the word I'm not focusing on is vessel. It's hatred. So we're going from a hatred expansion to a
26:58
hatred expansion. And then there'll be a hatred expansion after that and you'll like it. V and law
27:04
vo I I just I feel to a certain degree like
27:10
I I'm hoping what Lord of Hatri actually does is what Liz and I were talking about this today and I feel bad for
27:16
people who have to listen to me say the same things again. So I'm sorry Liz. Uh but we were talking about this and one
27:23
of the points that Liz made was that uh Vessel of Hatred felt like two different
27:29
story tracks both of which were not completed. Yeah. Um and that's a good way to look at it
27:34
that that I I immediately started thinking about myself. Uh, I I have felt from the beginning that there's a lot of
27:40
stuff in Vessel of Hatred that I like. A lot of the story beats I like. A lot of the questing is really good. There's a
27:46
ton of content. But at the same time, there's also a lot of stuff just sort of, hey, we've introduced this real this
27:52
cool and sinister new villain. Oh, he's gone now. Like, why did that guy take him off screen for like five minutes?
27:59
It's like, you know, here, look, he's he's literally using a piece of wood from a funeral p as his cigarette
28:06
because he's been so thoroughly destroyed by the by the hells and his experiences. Oh. Oh, he's gone now. Oh,
28:11
yeah. Okay. Well, he he made the mistake of annoying the main character. So, yeah. Okay. I guess
28:17
he's gone. Wait, he didn't even matter at all now. Oh, okay. I guess we're back on Mesto's train.
28:22
Yeah. There's a lot of stuff going on uh in that in vessel hatred and I felt like
28:28
I I don't that I don't know I'm not Jason Shrier. I haven't interviewed like a hundred people and come up with this
28:34
massive aggregate to what happened. Um, but it definitely feels like all the the
28:40
churn that we saw because of of Blizzard's, you know, employee and the
28:46
employee lawsuit from the state of California, their their tremendous
28:51
problems with some sexual harassment. Uh, just in general, Bobby Kodic, uh, we
28:56
lost like a lot of people from from Diablo's team specifically, some of whom
29:01
turned out to be really terrifying people. And you know it just you get to
29:08
the point where you feel like that can't have had no effect on the development of vessel of hatred because vessel of
29:14
hatred feels like there's a lot of good stuff here but it feels like it hits a wall. It literally feels like it just drives
29:20
into a wall and you're like wait a minute we're just letting it stop here. I do want to say another thing about
29:25
Vessel of Hatred is they were when they launched Diablo I committed we're going
29:31
to do an expansion every year. every year we're going to have a new expansion. And after Vessel of Hatred,
29:38
they were like, "Yeah, we're not doing that anymore. We'll we'll release another expansion when it's done." And I
29:44
kind of wonder if maybe maybe a year is a little too fast for the amount of
29:50
content they trying and story they're trying to put in an expansion. So, it felt like Vessel Hatred had had some
29:55
halfbaked ideas in there that could have been cool except literally did not have enough time to bake. they had to release
30:02
cuz they're doing an expansion a year. Joe, yeah. No, I got nothing. I mean, like Liz has said, uh the other bits
30:08
that I was going to add in there, it I it's excited because of where we're going, but also like I'm worried that
30:16
we're going to have another like Vessel of Hatred expansion where I got to the
30:21
end of that the story and then I was just like, "Okay, cool. There's nothing else for me here." Um yeah, which which happens sometimes.
30:29
It is the nature of this game. Um, but yeah, I I don't know. We'll we'll we'll see. We'll see how it goes
30:34
when it when it comes out. I will. Oh, go ahead. Joe, would you tell us you said you're
30:40
excited about where we're going. Would you tell us where we're going and why you're excited to go there? I am excited that we are going to the
30:46
Sco Isles or at least Sco Isle. We don't know if we're going to all of them yet.
30:51
They haven't really clarified that. Um, but it's the home of the Amazon and the
30:57
Oracles, which a lot of the story of
31:03
Diablo, a lot of the lore and a lot of the stuff that comes after like after Diablo 1 and a lot of stuff that really
31:09
happens in Diablo II is a direct result of the history of the Sco Isles. Um, it
31:15
it would be very I'm really excited to see what they do with it. And Matt and I have talked about this a little bit. I'm
31:22
curious what they're going to do because we know that we're also getting another class. They haven't said what it is yet.
31:29
Um, we a lot of people are immediately snapping to Amazon and I feel like at
31:34
this point if it's not the Amazon, we're going to have a Diablo Immortal situation all over again. Um, but also
31:40
it could open themselves up to give us the Oracle class. Um, and people are starting to like they're they're
31:46
starting to do math or they could do a full swerve and you get both. Um, you
31:51
never know. So, I'm I'm excited to see what they do with it and and hopefully it'll be worth the the story weight. Um,
32:00
because again, we haven't heard from the Sco Isles in ever like since the Amazon
32:06
showed up in in Diablo II. That was the last that they you didn't actually get to go
32:11
to Sco at that time. No, I'm saying hear from like that was the only connection we had to it really. Yeah. We've never been there period and
32:19
we haven't heard much about it. The only time we heard anything new about it was at the end of Diablo II where Laurath is
32:24
like, "Yeah, we send people to the Squa Isles and they're all dead." So, but I will say um as someone who's
32:30
been playing it, if nothing else, I can say that I have absolutely loved the
32:35
mechanical implementation of the Paladin. Like, this class is ridiculously fun to play.
32:41
I do want to jump in here with a tiny clarification. The paladin is a class in
32:47
Lord of Hatred, but you can play it right now. If you pre-ordered Lord of H right now, I did
32:52
there there are a lot of there are a lot of mysteries about this uh about this expansion, but Paladins live in the game
32:58
right now. Yep. And whilst I will say that um to a certain degree it feels almost a little
33:05
weird to play one through the rest of Diablo I cuz we don't know what the Lord
33:10
of Hatred content will be like. It feels a little weird to play a a paladin up to level 60 and do the content that already
33:17
exists. There's some reference to the fact that you're a paladin and that things are different, but not a ton. And
33:24
there's like only one quest which is near the end of the game essentially where you can go and and help out
33:32
another paladin and figure out what's going on. Who are these people? Are they the original paladins of Karass? What
33:39
what are they? Who are they? That's kind of there's a lot of back and forth on this uh in terms of what's going on with
33:46
that, but mechanically tremendously fun class and one I would recommend people playing. I I liked it
33:53
so much that it took me a very long time to even try a barbarian in the current season and and I'm still every time I I
34:01
log on I'm half the time I'm on my paladin just because they're just so much fun. Um and they're weird. They
34:09
have a real seessaw approach to to life and death in terms of Diablo combat.
34:15
Sometimes I'm practically invulnerable and sometimes I don't line up my stuff right and I die like a bug on a
34:22
windshield. And at first I didn't like this. But then I'm like, "Wait a minute. I'm I'm finally playing a wizard. I'm
34:31
finally playing a glass cannon. I am a glass cannon. I'm just a glass cannon that has a lot of armor on it." Um, but
34:39
yeah, it's it's a strange and wonderful class. I really enjoy it. The mechanics, the the switching between your four
34:46
archetypes, for lack of a better word. You can play like I want to play my paladin as a as a unholy vengeance
34:52
wielder. Uh, no, I want to play mine as like a tank. I want to play mine as somebody who protects and supports the
34:58
people around him. Or I want to play mine as a giant pain in the butt for everybody involved. Um, I'm looking
35:04
right at you, Zealot. Um, so yeah, it's it's it is it is really mechanically
35:10
it's great. It's great to play one. I have still have no idea how integrated they are into the story. I don't know
35:16
why we couldn't have gotten a new Paladin order that had the Templars and the Crusaders in it um from the
35:22
beginning because you did that with the Rogues. They had all these different orders of like, you know, people who
35:27
were previously in other, you know, Diablo games in the Rogues now. Uh so
35:33
yeah, I don't know. am looking forward to finding out. Uh, but as as a class, I
35:40
this is the most I've ever loved a paladin in my life. Like I I straight up will be playing paladins from now on. I
35:46
will always have a paladin on the burn. I will do every season with a paladin. Probably do a paladin first.
35:51
Uh, so yeah, having barbarians die a lot until they get gear
35:58
that really supports them. The paladin just can go naked in the first 20 20
36:03
levels if you have the right build. If you have the right build, you can seriously just wander around in a dress.
36:09
Um because I did I mean I literally was at least until I got to what's that little town? Uh Nves. Until you get to
36:15
Nvesque, I had nothing. And then you go to Nves and you go out to the first dungeon and you come back and I had
36:22
literally nothing but what was dropping. So, a bunch of like a bunch of gray cloth stuff on and I was completely
36:28
immortal. Like could not die. Uh I at one point I like I got frozen. My game
36:34
crashed. When I got back in, I was still alive. I also feel like happened in Diablo. Go ahead, Liz.
36:39
Yeah, I I feel like when Blizzard launched a new class, it's it's a little bit overpowered. Like on launch day, the
36:46
new class is always going to feel good, though. I will say, yeah, not only not only did I disagree with that at first
36:52
and then come around to it, I was saying for a while that they weren't as they weren't as busted as the spirit born.
36:58
The spirit born were super overpowered, but it was also in part literally because of a bug
37:03
Blizzard didn't fix. Yeah, I feel like the Paladins is actually more broken, but it's broken in
37:09
terms of longevity. Like the spirit born like at the first 20 levels you were
37:14
like a god and then it it calmed down so you were just extremely overpowered. The paladin starts off you're a little
37:20
overpowered a little more overpowered. Oh wow. Now I can do this ability. I have an ultimate that's got a 20 second
37:25
cool down. A 20 second cool down on an ultimate and it can refresh itself
37:31
randomly. So sometimes I can just keep that ultimate going for literally a
37:37
minute straight and just swooping around this gigantic flaming sword that sweeps
37:42
the battlefield and then crashes down on top of something and I can just keep it going. I've literally soloed world
37:48
bosses. I I'm not even kidding. I've been the only one doing any damage. There was like me and one other guy and
37:54
he spent the entire time running away because there was so much stuff on the ground. I could completely ignore it because my consecrate would drop and
38:00
then it was just ultimate ultimate ultimate ultimate. Oh yeah. Okay. Asodon's dead now, guys. Come on in. You
38:06
can get you can get some loot. Yeah. No, I I took him. I got I took care of it. It's crazy. It's I know they'll nerf
38:13
this down. I know they'll fix it and they should fix it and I'm not even mad or sad about it, but I am so glad I
38:21
played them right now. So, yeah, that is my the only time you'll hear me talk that lovingly about Paladins ever.
38:28
Well, I really enjoyed Paladins in Diablo II. I'm I'm glad to see them make a return.
38:34
Um, we've got Blizzcon 2026 this year, which is 2026, which makes sense.
38:39
Weird. Yeah, but it's not sold out according to this, which I is a little surprising
38:45
because they they started selling tickets last year, right? They Yeah, but the even the last BlizzCon before this
38:51
in 2023 that you could still get tickets day of. Yeah. And I mean, if you want to go,
38:57
don't take that as red that there are going to be tickets day of. Buy them if you know you're going to go. But yes,
39:03
there are still BlizzCon tickets available if you want to go to Blizzcon. Just I don't know. It's hard to justify
39:09
the cost with how easy it is to see things online these days. For me, at least. For me, I just don't want to travel to
39:15
the United States again. Well, yeah, that's another that's a whole another thing. Yeah. Yeah, there are lots of factors that go into
39:22
that decision. Yep. Uh but yeah, that's happening. So, we also have a little thing here about list of non-B Blizzard games. And the
39:29
funniest part about this is GTA 6. The game that could be out at any time, but it is not. So, I'm not worrying about
39:35
I think the question here is what else are you all looking forward to in 2026? What what games? We talked about kind of
39:41
the Blizzard big Blizzard releases we know about, but what is everyone looking forward to this year in gaming?
39:46
Honestly, talk about Discord season 2, man. Dawn of War 4. I'm I'm looking forward to that. I really loved the first Dawn
39:53
of War and the all of its expansions and the second one was pretty good and the third one was pretty good. And I'm just
39:59
always going to want to shove Little Space Marines around a map and make them fight orcs because it doesn't get much
40:05
better than that. So, and it's another RTS and it looks like it's more in the line of the first game than the other
40:11
ones were. So, we're it's looking like a return to the form and I can't wait.
40:16
That's fair. Joe, you were going to say something I thought. Yeah. Insomniac's Wolverine is supposed to come out this year and I really
40:25
I really enjoyed uh the Spider-Man games and I'm really curious to see what they
40:30
do with um with Wolverine in general. Insaniac is one of those companies that I think understands the pulse of comic
40:37
books. So, I think it'll be very interesting. Uh so, yeah, that's uh that's where I'm I'm at right now. Uh
40:44
that's what I'm excited for, or at least one of the ones. I'll let other people talk before I steal another one.
40:50
I will say that one thing I want to mention about the Wolverine game is that they've come up with a way to integrate the regeneration into gameplay in a way
40:57
that I think if they do it right, will be very cool. Um, I'm I'm I'm off and on
41:04
about Wolverine as a character. Like, I actually quite frankly liked Laura, you know, Kenny as Wolverine better than I
41:11
liked Logan as Wolverine. But when done properly, like, ironically enough, the
41:16
movie that most people talk about as being bad was X-Men Origins Wolverine. And I enjoyed that movie.
41:21
I did too, just because it just it just went with the premise. If Insomniac can do that
41:27
here and we've seen what they did with Spider-Man, it's it's even odds that I
41:32
will be enjoying. Um, but I I feel like Discord season 2 and the fact that we're going to have Discord content that isn't
41:40
season 2 is like going to come out before that. Basically, uh, Discord was an enormous success. It's now sold
41:46
something like 3 million copies and as a result we're going to get more content
41:51
because they the the publishing company you know essentially got bought out by
41:56
Critical Role and that's what m allowed them to release Discord and nowatch
42:02
Dispatch sorry I keep saying Discord that's my bad dispatch season two uh I was sitting here being confused and
42:08
trying to yeah trying to understand what what who's he chatting with um but no
42:13
Dispatch season 2's coming out. They're going to have some stuff before that. Um there's heavy hinting that it's going to
42:19
involve Malavolia, which if if you have played Dispatch, you know Malavolia is pretty cool. Um and if you haven't, go
42:26
play Dispatch. I mean, what do you want? Uh also, apparently Dispatch is going to be available for the Game Awards next
42:34
year as as best indie game, even though they came out this year. I mean, last year for some reason, because they were
42:40
released too late for consideration or something. Regardless, uh, Dispatch, one of my favorite games of the past five
42:46
years, really good. I am looking forward to seeing more of that. Um, there's I
42:51
can't really think of another actual coming out game that I know is coming
42:56
out that isn't Wolverine that I was thinking particularly strongly about. Um, maybe Neo3,
43:04
but I don't I'll be upfront that I don't actually think that's going to happen. Uh, people keep telling me it's going to
43:10
happen, but I am not convinced. They announced it at game the game awards, but the game Bradley the Badger,
43:16
the the 2D or the the 3D platforming one that had a bunch of meta commentary on other games, including uh actor Evan
43:24
Peters as the voice of the Badger character. I hope that's coming out this year. It looked pretty finished from its
43:30
trailer. So, if it is, I'm looking forward to that. Uh Liz, I want you to th toss an answer
43:36
out there before I give my next one. See, the thing is, I'm not there's nothing on my list for 2026 right now,
43:42
which isn't to say there aren't games I want to play, because 2025 was so busy and so stacked with amazing games. I've
43:52
uh been really uh tied up in World of Warcraft lately. So, I have I've barely
43:57
touched The Outer Worlds 2, which is a game, a 2025 game that I was really
44:03
really looking forward to. And it's not that it's a bad game. It's just I've had so many things to do. I haven't been
44:08
able to like sit down and really commit to a giant RPG. Um
44:14
I can't tell I I can't spoil it for you because I literally think you'd kill me with your mind.
44:19
But I will say that it's it's a very good game. I have very much enjoyed playing it. So
44:25
I But yeah, the things I'm looking forward to playing to right now are games that released in 2025 that I just
44:31
haven't gotten around to yet. like Dispatch, which I haven't bought because I'm like, "Okay, my gaming backlog is so
44:36
big. I cannot buy I cannot buy another game that I'm not going to play right now." Uh, so yeah, I I'm really looking
44:44
forward to making the time to sit down and play The Outer Worlds. Uh, I I don't
44:50
know what time I'm going to not be obsessed with building the perfect player house in WoW, but maybe there
44:55
will be a time when that happens. There will be a time that that happens. Yeah, I mean, that's that's true. I may
45:01
I may get to a happy spot. I don't know. But uh it's it's so hard to make time and 2025 was such a crazy year for great
45:09
games that the things I want to play are things that are already out and I just got to shove things aside my schedule
45:14
until I play them. Yeah, I I feel you on that one. But there is with exception some that are
45:21
like I am really excited for this. Like there's been a few roglike games that I
45:28
have I have dumped an inordinate amount of time into in the past. Whether it's Binding of Isaac, where I had well over
45:35
a,000 hours in, um, or Enter the Dungeon, which I had close to a,000
45:40
hours in, Enter the Dungeon 2 comes out this year. I may die. Uh, but I'm I it's it's a game that I've
45:47
really been looking forward to. I it's I really like the IP and uh it's while I
45:54
have other games that I need to catch up on, that is 100% a game that I will make time for over others once it releases.
46:00
Yeah. Anybody else got any others you want to throw out there? I will wait to see if Cory does before I
46:05
say anything. No, I I again like it's like Liz, I'm not really looking forward to games. I And it's like the what we're talking
46:12
about in the pre-show with the trailer hype. uh it doesn't really work on me or I don't I don't want to see a thing and
46:17
then obsess about it for a while. I want to see a thing and then play the thing. So yeah. Yeah.
46:23
Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna list a few then that I'm just going to list and not talk about them too much. But Lego Batman Legacy of the Dark Knight is basically
46:29
an Arkham game set in Lego Batman's world. I did see that. Yeah. Yeah. And it actually looks I I don't
46:37
like Batman except when he's Lego. I I actually prefer Lego Batman to any other
46:42
version of Batman. So, I I'm I'm excited about this game because I like I like Batman comics and they're basically
46:48
adapting a bunch of different Batman comics. Uh there's Marvel 1943 Rise of Hydra, which is like, have you ever
46:54
wanted to see the game where 1940s Black Pan Captain America fight Hydra
46:59
together? Because that's the game. That's what this is. Uh so, yay for
47:05
that. Um there's control resonant. Oh, yeah. which is not a not a sequel to
47:10
control more like hey this also happened in the the same place as control and max
47:16
you know uh all that different stuff not max pain max pain is not actually linked to the it's a remedy game but it's not
47:22
linked to the you know the control slash wake averse um but yeah
47:28
we know about that I mean he could just show up uh quite frankly I wouldn't be surprised but but
47:33
regardless that's the the cool thing is that control there will be another control game because control is a very
47:38
good It it actually is and they've they've kind of linked it through with the game just to let you know.
47:43
Oh, I knew about the Alan Wake part, but I'm not sure. They did. Yep. Okay. I mean, quite frankly, I I can't
47:50
pretend that I remember everything about the last Allen Wake game because that
47:55
game is like there's a lot. Uh yeah, there's a there's a whole thing with Alex Casey being an alternate
48:01
version or the uh fictional version of Max Payne uh that was written in by uh
48:08
Alan Wake's actual character because it's the same voice actor, same mannerism, same facial features, same
48:13
everything. Sorry. Yeah, cuz he's the head of he's the head of the company. He is. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, but I mean like it it's
48:21
Yeah. I'm sorry. It's one of those things where I was I was like I I went super down this rabbit hole. So there
48:26
you go. But regardless, so those are the ones I'm I'm listing really quickly just so we have them. Uh but at this point, I am
48:32
going to say Liz, before we do anything else, uh I'm going to give you the puppy dog eyes again to say, could you please
48:39
I just want I would just like to remind all of you listening at home or wherever
48:45
you happen to be. You don't have to listen at home. I'm I'm not keeping track. Uh thank you so much for
48:51
listening. It is your support that lets us do all of the things we do. All right, that's so many podcasts. We do
48:58
three podcasts a week. We have a website full of news and features and hopefully helpful guides. We try to make them
49:04
helpful hopefully. Um, and uh, your support means the world to us. Just
49:10
having you here listening or reading helps us out so much. You guys keep us going. But those of you who can and do
49:18
support us financially on Patreon really are what keeps the site running because
49:23
yes, we do have ads on the podcast and the website which keep it running, but it's uh individual support that really
49:30
keeps the site going. If you're able to support us financially, you can give us $3 a month on Patreon to get early
49:37
access to all of these podcast ads free and the special exclusive super secret Blizzard Watch podcast pre-show, which
49:44
is it's very random. Today we talked about Muppets cuz why not? Why not? Some days
49:49
and Herzog and that. Yes. I'm not going to try to I I can't I can't do any better than that.
49:56
So, I'm not going to try to. And for $5 a month, you get that, but also you get
50:01
adsree access to the website at blizzardwatch.com. If you can support us financially, just
50:06
head to patreon.com/bizzardwatch and pledge whatever you can. Even a
50:12
dollar helps us out. And it's a lot of little people listening and chipping in a little bit that keeps things going.
50:19
So, and if you can't, I understand. Wow, we're just into a year and it's already
50:26
it's a it's an interesting one. So, I understand if you can't support us financially. Keep listening. Share the
50:32
podcast, like, subscribe. That helps out. It helps tell the
50:38
algorithm that people like the podcast. Um, and you can also follow us on social
50:44
media, which is a good place to find out when we're doing stuff and uh share it with your friends. We are Blizzard on
50:51
Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Masttodon@gamepad. Club, blizzardwatch.com on Blue Sky,
50:58
BlizzardWatchodcast on YouTube, and Blizzard.watch on Tik Tok. So, uh, come give us a
51:05
follow and, uh, share our posts. And, uh, thanks so much for being here, everybody.
51:12
And thank you to Liz for reading all that and saying all that so that the rest of us could get some like um I want
51:18
to turn to Corey now and turn the big flood light on him and say so I understand that there's going to be uh
51:23
Heroes of the Storm at Blizzcon 2026 this year. There is so
51:30
it's just a little they're doing some tournament stuff with it. Uh they're going to play they're going to have some
51:36
esports action at Blizzard at Blizzcon and Heroes of the Storm is part of it. I
51:41
don't know how they're going to put teams together. I don't know where they're going to get the roster from. I don't know any more details than that.
51:48
They haven't, as far as I know, they haven't announced any casters yet for it, but um it's coming.
51:53
Isn't there also at least one patch announced for 2026? Uh I don't know if we've gotten a patch
51:59
yet, but we we've come off of one recently that added in the the Lush Butcher skin and uh tweaked up some of
52:06
the long game length quests that various heroes have. So, at the rate they've
52:12
been going, it's been about every two months that we get a patch. So, I'm sure that by Blizzcon 2026, we'll have two or
52:18
three more patches under our belt. Fingers crossed. And it just shows that, yeah, we're due
52:23
for the resurgence as always. You know, it the game is not dead. The game is very much alive and they will continue
52:30
to be alive because it still plays really well. It still plays really fun and people are still playing it. I I
52:37
played a bunch of games the other day and it took no more than a minute to get into a quick match and they were fairly
52:44
even and they were a lot of fun. So, not dead. Game is still very much alive. Go
52:50
out there, have fun, and fill your boots with all the Heroes of the Storm action you could want.
52:55
We've ripped to you quite a bit over the years about this, but do you actually like I'm This is a completely serious
53:01
question. Do you think that this could lead to actual live development on on
53:07
Heroes of the Storm and the Field? Uh, I sorry, I didn't mean without without hyperbole. I
53:15
fully eyes open to the light of day. Who knows? I
53:22
the the they're still doing stuff with it that there's still people who will pop up every time and there's a new
53:27
patch and be like, "Whoa, this game's still going." Yeah, it's not the best sign for it, but at the same time, they
53:32
keep making new patches. If they if they had no faith in the game at all, they could have at any point just stopped. We
53:39
wouldn't really notice. Some at some point, somebody would stick their head up and say, "Wow, it's been a minute since they patched Heroes of the Storm."
53:45
Huh. And then they'd continue on with their life. But they're still doing it. They're still the janitor's working away
53:51
and he's got a team of subjanitors now. It seems they've announced that it's part of the Blizzard Classic Games
53:58
portfolio. So maybe there's a bunch more people than just a janitor and a couple assistants and they're releasing mostly
54:06
full like content that was 90% of the way to completion before they shut it
54:11
down into maintenance mode has new content has come out. Two new skins have come out. They've made big changes to
54:17
the gameplay and they've changed how forts and keeps work. They've added extra towers. They've changed quests.
54:24
They've changed evade behavior. They fixed bug after bug after bug. So, it's
54:29
all still chugging along. And every time they do something with it, there's a bunch of people that go like, "Oh, yeah.
54:34
That game was a lot of fun. I'm going to play a couple more games." So, let's do it. Just push the push the lever. Give
54:40
it another year of full development and see what you can do out of it and let's see what happens. At this point, why not?
54:46
I just want to thank you, Corey, for among other things, giving me this this moment of hope that the world could
54:52
actually be sane. Um, it doesn't last very long, but you know, up until I see some news. Yeah. But for
54:59
a moment. Uh, before we leave, Joe, can you explain the picture you put into the
55:04
group chat? So, I want the audience to know about it because I we talked about it in the pre-show, but we didn't really
55:10
get into detail, and I want you to explain this to people. No, I mean, I don't know that there's much to explain. It's a meme. You can
55:16
find it online if you if you search uh James Marsden in Cars with Animals. Um
55:23
because James Marsen has officially completed the trifecta of essentially being in a vehicle with a uh some form
55:30
of uh animated creature. Uh the first one was Hop where he was teamed up with
55:36
a rabbit uh which was a buddy cop movie cuz of course it was. Uh then there was Sonic the Hedgehog where he teams up
55:43
with Sonic. Uh and there's like in multiple films too. He's not one of them. No, he's in all trilogy.
55:49
Uh possibly more to come. Uh, and then the last one was from the Avengers Doomsday uh, teaser, which is James
55:56
Marsden in the car with Rocket Raccoon. James Marsen as his Cyclops character. So, he's completed the trifecta uh,
56:03
which is sort of the the meme picture and we were talking about it at the beginning of the show uh, or in the
56:09
pre-show and I I posted it in uh, the podcast channel because I was like, this is funny and everybody needs to see it
56:14
because I have seen it and yeah, I didn't notice that he' done that. So cue to me near the end of this
56:20
podcast that we're currently doing and I flip over to the channel and there it is and I'm like I need I need Joe to
56:27
explain this to people cuz I don't think I can. Uh so yeah, if nothing else it kind of shows you that James Marsden does not
56:34
age. No, he really does not. His hair changes. He's one of those very well.
56:40
Uh yeah. So but now I feel like we've Oh, there is one more thing though. Oh, one more thing. Go.
56:46
Okay. So, uh, Awesome Games DoneQuick is live currently as we're recording this and should still have another weekend in
56:52
it by the time that most people are listening to this and we have a reporter on the ground there. Our very own Mitch
56:58
Fizzle has been volunteering at the event and so I have a few notes from him about how Awesome Games DoneQuick has
57:04
been going. Uh, first off, I don't know if you know this, but Mitch is uh, short
57:10
and I was aware I've met him. You I know. I made sure to point that out to him because he's he showed a
57:15
picture of all the volunteers together and they stuck him way at the very back and you can barely see the top of his forehead and I'm like, "What? You're so
57:21
short, Mitch. How come they stuck you all the way at the far back and not in the front where, you know, people could actually see your face?" But he he
57:28
didn't seem to take that as nicely as I meant it. But he is a short fellow. Um
57:33
it sounds like it's been going super well. They've got a lot of new additions this year and uh if you ever have the
57:40
chance to go to it in person in Pittsburgh where they've been since 2024, it sounds like a really fun time.
57:46
They've got an artist alley now. Um they have a board game room with games you can rent. You can play video games on
57:53
old school CRT monitors and consoles. They've got different arcade setup where
57:58
you can play free-to-play pinball rhythm and motion games, House of the Dead,
58:04
Street Fighter stuff. you're they're doing panels the whole time that that you're not seeing like people playing,
58:10
but there's also people talking about speed running. And it should be noted that this this year's charity, I believe, as always, is
58:16
for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. Um, and they are raising in quite a uh quite a good chunk of money. Uh, if you're
58:22
listening, they've already passed $400,000 this year and it's been going for three days.
58:28
Yeah. So, they're well on track to make a very impressive number. Uh, also if you can't
58:34
catch anything live, they have been very very good about uh getting the uh
58:40
recordings essentially the stream VODs up on YouTube. Uh, pretty much
58:46
immediately after within like within a couple hours they're up and and and ready to watch. So like
58:52
if there's something you missed by the time you're listening to this um check the channel, they'll likely it will be
58:58
available. Uh they've also been very good about accessibility options on the ones that they've uploading, making sure that uh languages and uh the closed
59:07
captioning and stuff are are already uh you know readily available. So 10 out of
59:12
10, highly recommend. Take take your time and uh enjoy the content. There's a lot of really cool games this year.
59:18
Yeah. And the community around this event has al has been one of the most wholesome, incredible and welcoming
59:24
communities that you will ever find in the gaming sphere. There's none of the there's no gatekeeping. People aren't
59:30
being jerks to each other. This is a wholesome time raising money for a good cause. And it's I I don't remember what
59:38
their lifetime total is up to now, but it's it's in the millions and millions of dollars. So, the Prevent Cancer
59:44
Foundation has done really well from this event and it will continue to do really well. And I think you all should
59:51
be looking forward to the Super Mario 64 70erson relay event which I
59:58
It sounds exactly like what it is there. There's going to be 70 people relaying Super Mario 64 to try and get through it
1:00:04
as fast as possible. So, I mean, that sounds like a wild time. You should definitely check it out. Okay. Uh, thank you, Corey, for
1:00:10
remembering to bring that up cuz I had forgotten and it is it is, as you guys both pointed out, a really cool event
1:00:16
that helps a lot of people. So, but I think we're done. This is going to be it. This is the last podcast of today. I
1:00:25
hope this is another one today. I hope so, too. I'm not I don't have the stamina for more podcasting.
1:00:30
Uh next week, sure. Uh this weekend, probably. Yeah. But but right now, this this one's the last one until at some
1:00:37
point in the future. Um this has been the Blizz podcast. Thank you guys so much. Thank you to Liz, Joe, and Corey
1:00:43
for being here and making it more than just me kind of muttering to myself for an hour. My day we didn't have so many
1:00:49
video games. Um yeah, this has been the podcast and we will be back next week.