Up next in 10
Since Player Housing hit the PTR last week -- for a briefer time than any of us realized -- we had a lot of Housing-related stuff to talk about. Lots of community members took their testing time to do things like build huge mechs made out of wagons in the backyard. Neat! Player Housing just does a lot of stuff like that.
But for every high there must be a low, and this week, that was the discussion of Diablo 4 changes, almost all of which our hosts felt negatively about. They got rid of the seasonal journey, and instead replaced it with... another almost identical seasonal journey. There are fewer potion charges, defensive diminishing return changes, and a whole bunch of other stuff more or less aimed at making the game harder. Our hosts are not feeling that.
Among other things our hosts are not feeling is the idea of doing seasonal bosses, even with their minimal mechanics, in story mode dungeons. It's always those NPCs, man.
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0:10
Hello everybody and welcome to the Blizzard Watch podcast. We talk about Blizzard Entertainment as many games and
0:16
other games and other stuff too sometimes. Um I'm Matt. I'm hosting. Uh
0:21
please ignore if any weird noises I make. Um because I I'm I make weird noises. I'm
0:27
strange. Uh, also with us this week are are two usual um compatriots, the the
0:33
backbone of the team, the people who keep everything going smoothly uh or at least keep everything going uh because
0:38
sometimes smoothly is not as smooth behind the scenes. Uh Liz Harper and Joe
0:44
Perez. Hi to both of you. Hello. Hello. And also with us, Phil Olrich, who is
0:51
our special guest this week. And I'm still getting the name right. Finally. You're two for two tonight. I'm very
0:57
proud of you. I I'm not going to make a third, man. I'm sorry. I'm trying so hard. I think I think I think you're done
1:02
saying my name for the night, so you're good. Here's something. We got one more to get through. One more at the end.
1:09
Oh, that's true, right? I will have to say it again. Maybe I'll just call you Phil.
1:14
Anyway, uh got a lot to talk about this week. I think we're just going to jump right into it. Um World of Warcraft's
1:21
got its player housing on the PTR, or at least it did. I don't think is currently doing Yeah.
1:26
It's over. Yeah. Uh I missed it entirely. Uh so I am kind of a dumb dumb dumb, but I'm I'm really
1:34
glad to hear what people say about it. So Liz, I know you've got stuff to tell me.
1:39
I mean, the PTR was interesting because Blizzard made a little bit of a deal, you know, announcing we're going to have
1:45
a PTR next week and it's going to start on this day at this time and then they delayed it without announcing another
1:51
date and it was just like, okay, are you delaying it a day, a month? Um, and then
1:58
when they did launch it, they launched it last Thursday and there was there was
2:04
no preamble. They made a post and it was live. So, and when when they posted
2:10
about it, it was originally supposed to just be a 24-hour test, which is not much testing time, and especially when
2:16
there was no lead time on the notification, but it wound up running through the entire weekend. So, a lot of
2:21
people were uh playing around with it. My primary interest was to have a group
2:27
of a lot more people that I could uh make a guild neighborhood and see how those work and figure out all of the
2:33
quirks. And uh yeah, those those still don't work.
2:39
Uh so I still I still have lots of questions about uh about guild neighborhoods that have not
2:44
been answered. Um Phil and Joe, did either of you get a chance to play around on the PTR?
2:52
Uh no, not even a little. I was doing prep for the game that you
2:57
ran. I I I meant to, but then I sat down on Saturday and then I started playing Hades 2 and then it was 5:00 a.m. Sunday
3:04
morning. So, yeah, it's a it's a problem. It's a problem. As established in the uh the the
3:10
pre-show, I was playing Pokemon in which there is a transmog system and it consumed all of my time.
3:17
My boy got to be pretty. Well, yeah, that's that's extremely important. Is there for the Pokemon or
3:26
just No, just for you. If they if they let me put hats on the Pokemon, I would not be
3:31
on the podcast right now. You could you could be on the podcast and just be like hats.
3:36
No, hats hats.
3:42
It's like, you know, anyone any Raichu is improved by a monle and a top hat. I mean, this is just known. I don't know
3:48
why we're even having this discussion. But um going back to player housing for a second then uh this the meta
3:56
achievements decor that you can pick up. That's interesting to me because we have lots
4:02
of different ways that you can get decor.
4:08
Uh yeah. So this I mean this was on the PTR and people have spent the whole weekend looking for more decor because
4:14
it really is everywhere. It's kind of a treasure hunt because it's some of it's on just random vendors, some of it's on
4:20
vendors that have existed forever. Some of it's on brand new vendors, some of it's on reputation vendors, but not all
4:26
reputation vendors. And it's just it's everywhere. It is everywhere. Um, and
4:31
it's also from achievements. And the cool thing about the decor from achievements is you could do the
4:37
achievements right now and have the decor later. So, some of this stuff you can get an early start on doing things
4:43
so that you have the uh your fancy fancymancy whatever you want. Yeah. Like if you if a rep if a rep has
4:50
to be like exalted to get a specific achievement sort of thing. Yeah. And and some of them some of them
4:56
are like that, but uh all of the big meta achievements have their own rewards.
5:02
I'm not super hyped about any of them personally, but that's that's just me. I don't feel like I need a tour guest
5:09
portal outside my house. I just don't. And it's just a decorative like tour guest portal. It's not.
5:15
It doesn't actually send you a toast. No. No. That's That's maybe an improvement on a
5:21
real one because you don't want to accidentally wind up in your gas. And uh there's a dark heart from the uh
5:29
War Within meta achievement. And I ju I don't feel like I need to keep dangerous
5:34
void artifacts in my house. Maybe those should go somewhere else.
5:40
Are you telling me you don't you don't want to keep Nazot's captured eye to put on your wall?
5:46
No. No, I do not. Mitch would be so disappointed. How is he gonna see into your house and
5:52
know what you're doing, Liz? Um, yeah. Yeah. So, I there are lots of
5:59
things to collect. I personally am not I don't feel like I need any of these in my house. Uh what what do y'all think?
6:06
What's the thing that you must get to put in your home? Uh well, I mean technically I've already
6:11
earned the uh what's it called? The portal to damnation. The tour guest portal.
6:17
I've I've already earned that because it's part of Back from the Beyond. So I look forward to putting one in my yard somewhere. Oh, you buy dozens of copies.
6:25
Oh, my neighbors gonna hate me. Mhm. Yeah, that's uh one of the big
6:30
things I've taken from this housing test is that wow, you can do some crazy stuff
6:36
on the outside of your house. Um like we have seen people, you know, your
6:43
house is a like a fixed object. Your house is it's always going to be a house. It's always going to look like a
6:49
house. You can change its size and you have different shape options in this sort of barberh shoplike interface that
6:54
you can switch out bits and bobs. But but you can put things in your yard. You
7:01
can put things on top of your house. You can resize things up to 200%. And you
7:06
can stick them together in different ways. You can clip things through your house. You can do all of these things. So you can take your house and make it
7:14
into a pirate ship by just building the shape of a pirate ship with like wooden panels or maybe tables or something. You
7:21
can build that out. So now you have a crashed pirate ship, which is actually your house, and you just have clipped it
7:26
through. So your your door is sticking out. Or you can build a giant robot that is
7:31
just all sorts of different bits and bobs that you've put together in the right way. I saw one that was built out
7:38
of cosmetics that I think were mostly from Meccaon. So it had that vibe.
7:43
There's like the Tesla coil kind of thing that you can buy and it's sort of like it's a lighting feature, but you
7:48
can also it also looks like a laser gun. So
7:53
just people making these huge crazy things because you can you can put
7:59
things gravity is not a problem. Physics are not a problem. You can put things
8:04
anywhere. I am personally after watching this test I have seen people do tree houses. I've seen several robots built
8:11
out of different things. Uh I saw one made out of wagons.
8:16
I did. There was a robot that was kind of a bunch of wagons positioned in a certain in different ways that kind of
8:22
like a transformer, maybe an Azerothian transformer. I'm starting to feel like we're in a gaming singularity where every game is
8:29
eventually turning into like Zelda. I was just going to say Zelda has trained us for this.
8:35
Yep. Uh as long as if Blizzard ever gives us a a way to make the move like we did in Tears of the Kingdom, then
8:42
it's over. Yeah, we're we're doomed. Yeah, I saw a treehouse where someone put other things
8:49
on top of their house and lots of trees up above the house so it just looked like a giant tree with houses on top of
8:55
it. Um, and so so now I'm wondering, do
9:00
our homes have a height limit? because
9:05
uh some of these get very tall and it's like if your next door neighbor builds a threestory robot in their yard, you're
9:12
going to see that all over the neighborhood. So just a little
9:18
I think this does make some of those those isolated plots makes them a little more maybe a little more appealing
9:23
depending on what you're going for. Do you not want the giant robot or the wall of toast portals next door? I don't
9:31
know. This is going to be Here's my thing. When you you mentioned that N'oth
9:37
captured Eye exists. Um and it's an outdoor one. You can put it
9:42
outdoors, which means you can make it huge. No. Um Oh, wait. Hang on.
9:50
Yeah. I couldn't really tell which one the captured. I was It kind of looked like one you might hang on your wall cuz it's in like a little horrible crystal.
9:56
I some things some things are indoor only, some things are outdoor only, and some things are both. And I don't see
10:02
object may appear closer in mirror type thing. Yeah. If if it is, you know, if you can take any of these
10:09
outside, there's some of them that would look really cool as a gigantic thing on your roof, like the dark heart. You
10:14
might not want that in your house, but my god, imagine having it like the bat signal outside your househ pointing up at the sky. I I mean, I
10:21
think I would do that. I think I would fon the place with dark hearts. Um, but I am sad that at no point like there's a
10:30
lot of eye themed stuff in in World of Warcraft. And none of
10:37
these are mechanical eye. Like I want the eye that Odin gave up
10:43
that we literally had to fight in Shadowlands. The the the eye the Jailer was using. Why isn't that thing
10:51
something I can put outside my house staring at people? I mean, that's more that's more of a that's more of a
10:56
creature, not decor. It can anything can be decor once you can anything
11:02
decor. You're you're right. You're you're not wrong. You know, it wouldn't it wouldn't
11:08
surprise me. This thing is such a common thing to have seen in the mall that it would not surprise me if it ends up on
11:13
like a list somewhere. Like this looks like something Venari should sell you. Yeah, absolutely it does. And and I
11:20
let's not pretend Venari would be above doing that. Mhm. Oh, absolutely not. Uh, but I'm gonna actually switch to a
11:26
question here because you you asked it and it's a good question to have the players thinking about. Uh, will we have
11:31
another housing PTR? I'm going to hope we do. Uh, quite frankly, this thing should get
11:37
tested a lot. So, yes, they should have more, but I have no idea if they will. Uh, what do you think was most involved,
11:42
Liz? I mean, yeah, it def I think it definitely needs more testing. I heard reports that house stealing may have
11:48
still been a thing that that was not completely resolved and um I I think
11:54
they need a big widescale stress test and of course they're going to get that when they roll out the midnight beta and
11:59
more people start getting into the midnight beta which is full full on housing. This was a small test of patch
12:06
uh 11.2.7 that uh just happens to include the housing early access. So I I think we
12:13
need another test. I think we need a bigger test maybe with a larger announcement of the test happening so
12:20
people can really uh jump in there and get in with their ideas and their craziness and you know try and do things
12:26
like guild neighborhoods and um charter neighborhoods which are the private neighborhoods and uh see you know fully
12:34
test out those tools which is hard to do with a limited player base and some of these things are hard to do because
12:39
they're are bugs still because we're still we're a little early. Uh, you mentioned in this thing that we have
12:45
add-ons and tools already. Uh, yeah, there are actually, if you're super into housing, there are actually
12:53
already a lot of tools that will help you collect decor, will help you find
12:58
all of the things you want, will help you. Okay, what achievements do you need to do to collect all the decor? Because
13:04
there's a lot of decor from achievements. But, you know, keeping track of which achievements have decor is kind of a fool's errand. There was so
13:11
much um uh there's uh the best if you're looking
13:17
for a database of housing. It's actually Wow DB has a pretty good uh database of
13:24
housing. Wowhead is sort of working on it, but it's a little uh WOWB felt like they had it up earlier.
13:30
That's not Wowhead. Wow is MMO champions. Well, that that's that's what I'm saying. I mean,
13:36
I'm I'm saying Wow DB kind of beat Wowhead to the punch here and they have a pretty good database coming together
13:42
that's easily searchable. Like part of the problem with Wowhead is it's Wowhead
13:47
is massive. So, if you go to Wowhead and search for chair,
13:52
who knows? Who knows what you'll come up with, but uh MMO Champion, their Wow DB has a specific housing hub where you can
13:59
go in and search for specific furniture and it has uh information about where it comes from that'll help you sort of uh
14:06
narrow down what you need to do, where you need to look for these things. Um
14:12
uh there's the completionism add-on. Is it an add-on or a website?
14:18
Uh, it is a website. It is a very cool website. Yeah, it's a website. Yes. That just tracks all of the things
14:25
you do and it's integrated. It's uh it knows housing stuff to help you track
14:30
your collections. So, there's a ton of tools out there that can already get you started on collecting decor of all
14:36
sorts. I feel like I have to mention the Wowia Discord server just because it name is Wowia.
14:43
Yeah, Wowia is that's a killer name. Yeah.
14:48
stuff is cool. The uh Yeah. Yeah. Go on, Phil. Now, the video that went around for a
14:54
while on how to fake a basement, including things like talking about the decor limit in uh like details you had
15:02
that a lot of like alpha testers haven't, you know, published or anything is really really cool.
15:07
Yeah, because I I mean, honestly, let's be let's all be real here. We're all going to want to eventually create basement or bunkers or something.
15:14
Yeah. And I mean, that's the that's the cool thing. You can fake a lot of things. The interior of your house is
15:20
totally disconnected from the exterior. And even though you can't build a basement, you can, you know, you can put
15:27
all of the you can fake it. You can fake anything inside your house. And it's
15:32
it's going to be crazy to see what everyone comes up with when this goes really wide.
15:38
Yeah. There's also like there's already add-ons for like taking tours. Um, there's like an like the one on Wow
15:46
DB actually is not a it's not an add-on, but it's a basically a virtual reality tour you can kind of take looking around
15:53
housing hubs. Uh, they have pictures of the different houses in housing and we have also
15:59
posted pictures of the different houses in housing. Um, if you hit YouTube, you
16:04
will find some video tours. The only problem with video tours is the neighborhoods are so big. You could
16:10
spend an hour watching a video tour of a neighborhood because there is these things are massive and each of them has
16:17
55 plots. They have six or seven flight masters in them if you want to get
16:22
around that way. So that's neighborhood. It's hard to explain this
16:28
because it is such a large system. Um but yes, you can find screenshots. you can find videos of the neighborhoods to
16:34
really get an idea of what's going on and maybe pick out, you know, where's your perfect house.
16:40
All right, cool. But, uh, at this point, we're going to move on to talk about something else, even though I think we probably could sit here and talk about
16:47
this for a very long time. Uh, house transmog is is dangerous beyond imagination, guys. I am terrified.
16:54
The thing is, decorations are just transmog for your house, which makes them just part of the real end game. Yep. We know we know that housing
17:02
transmog is the true endgame. It's not about killing bosses. It's about looking good while you're killing those bosses.
17:09
That is also important thing. It's important. Now, it's important to also look good while not doing anything
17:16
just inside your strange house that you're hiding from everybody in. That's something that I feel needs to be there.
17:22
And so, this player housing is just house transmog. So, this is again another pillar of in-game content of
17:29
hardcore endgame World of Warcraft gameplay.
17:35
I know. I don't know why you're laughing. I'm completely serious because it's funny in that way that we
17:40
have to be horrified by, you know, that we're now going to be spending all our time trying to get a Sha's lounge by,
17:45
you know, finding out the secret achievement for it. Um, but now let's talk about The War Within
17:50
really fast because right now the turbo boost is started on the current live servers. Um, which is stuff like not
17:57
crests anymore. Those are gone. Uh, I want you guys to explain what's what is gone. Crests.
18:04
Actually, Phil, do you do you know this one? Do you have a rundown for us? Yep. This is uh this is pretty much the
18:10
time of the year where Blizzard says, "Okay, you want some gear? Go get your gear. Here it comes." Uh, so crests are
18:15
still here, but they are finally uncapped, so you can earn and also convert as many as you like. Uh, valor
18:23
stones are also uncapped and they are once again tradable between alts. So, if you got an alt who's just sitting on
18:28
2,000 of them they can't use, uh, trade them over. Especially since those are still capped, as far as I know. Um,
18:35
catalyst charges, I believe they're increasing the rate we're getting catalyst charge. Oh, the catalyst charges will now drop from dungeons.
18:42
That's right. Uh, from the dungeons, from the raid, from delves of raided PvP. So, if you still need to pick up uh
18:47
tier set pieces, whether for alts or transmog or the world's unluckiest
18:53
season 3 main, um you pick up you can pick up dear. I believe you are still
19:00
wearing a champion piece, aren't you? Um and uh the um probably the most
19:06
important one for a lot of people, the puzzling cartel chips have returned. Uh
19:11
nine per customer. It actually says it up front this time. Only nine per customer. spend it wisely. Uh you get I
19:18
believe they're doing that again where you get three of them up front and then the others will be available over the
19:23
coming weeks and you can trade those in for uh basically loot from raid from
19:29
raids or dungeons. If you've completed the mythic plus dungeons at the uh required level, you can buy them from
19:35
the mythic plus dungeons. If you've completed a level of the raid, for example, if you've completed it on heroic, you can buy heroic tier
19:41
trinkets. So, uh, Joe can finally get that fractulous trinket that we have
19:46
seen dropped once. Never. Don't have to do it. No. Did you get it in in in pure? I haven't checked my box
19:53
yet, but in pure, of course, this is going to happen. I got Solless Trinket last night immediately after raid.
20:02
Oh, see, I heard you get that. I was still online when you got that because I heard it drop. I thought maybe you still wanted the void glass whatever from
20:07
Fractal, the one that makes the set bonus. It was one or the other. like it was either one, right? So, I finally got
20:12
that I finally got the thing. But yeah, just in time for us to finish heroic rating for the season. Good job.
20:18
Woohoo. Uh but yeah, basically it's just the
20:23
turbo boost is pretty much just the loot must flow. Um also delves are really really rewarding now, especially in
20:29
terms of crests. Like if you can reasonably run tier 11 delves, which
20:35
thanks to a nerf or bug or something that got introduced with the uh patch a
20:42
couple weeks ago, they've become incredibly easy. Like things just kind of randomly die and no one knows why. Um
20:48
yeah, I've been I have been wondering about that because I've I've been doing my three delves a week to get my extra
20:54
crusts and sometimes I'll be fighting something and I'm like, "Wow, your health is going down really slowly. I
20:59
need to think about defensive planning and then it's just dead. Yeah, things are just things are just collapsing and no one seems to know why.
21:05
But uh I I personally think that Bran just picked up a new ability and isn't isn't putting it in the combat logs. But
21:11
uh um no, what is happening is Bran is talking to Yeah.
21:16
Oh, it's amazing that you're here. You can't live there and then they die. But there is a cool new feature of this
21:23
one that is actually something entirely new to Turbo Boosts. went once uh you can now your bountiful coffers at the
21:29
end of tier 9 and up delves can drop untainted mana crystals which for the first time you can use those to buy hero
21:35
track versions of the delve trinkets. Previously some of the delve trinkets were tuned really really well but
21:40
wouldn't you can't like you can get them to drop very rarely from your vault or you could buy them from the uh trinket
21:47
vendor in the delves at champion tier. But this is the first time you've actually been able to selectively buy a
21:53
really good delve trinket at hero tier. And there are still some of those delve trinkets that are competitive with like myth track trinkets. Um, so that's just
22:01
something new for people who like to continue to optimize here in the back half of the season. Um, now they've got another source of uh things to consider.
22:09
So um, now we should talk about this hall's end stuff because wow, who doesn't want
22:14
to to get a mount that won't ever drop for you? Oh, I I do have a question. Of the four of us here, who has the
22:21
Headless Horseman's mount? I have it. I got it the first year it was available.
22:26
Oh my god. I've actually had I've got it in my bags even because I had it already and then
22:32
it dropped before they stopped doing it that way. So, I've actually got one in my bag still.
22:38
I I I got it the first year it was available and I have discarded two since. Yeah.
22:43
Oh my god. I've even got I've even also got the mount uh from Stratholm that
22:49
kind of looks like So I look forward to paying for my crimes by having this new one never drop for me. Yeah.
22:54
Uh yes. So as I understand there is a new recolor and you can also get an
23:00
alternate recolor from the trading post. Am I right about that? There's a new one. Uh it is a new kind of high-res uh
23:06
version. Uh it's kind of cool looking. Uh yeah. I I don't have any Heathless
23:11
Horseman's mount and I don't have any of Rivendar's mount from Stratholm despite
23:16
having soloed that dungeon endlessly in Burning Crusade trying to get that
23:22
mount. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I always feel bad when people ask
23:28
that question because I know I'm going to be like, "Yeah, I have it." I I was just curious. I've frankly kind
23:34
of given up on rare drop mounts. It's like this is just not going to be worth the time it takes to like farm it every
23:41
day. And Blizzard has made it easier to do the everyday farming because they're say either rare mounts are either you
23:48
have a chance to get it only on the first drop of the day or you have an increased chance on the first drop of
23:53
the day. So, it's not worth farming endlessly with an army of alts. Uh but still, I feel like it's just am I going
24:01
to be riding around on this enough to want to make the time commitment? And I
24:06
most of the time I think nah, I can live without this and think of all the hours I can reclaim in my life.
24:13
Yeah. Um, see they they've added a new two-hand weapon. Well, that that will actually be probably a little easier to earn.
24:20
Yeah, I'm going to have to run it at least some. It's also it goes the appearance goes straight to your warb
24:25
band collection. So yeah, if you get it on your you know if you get it on character can't use it just
24:30
like Yeah. So, uh, to clarify, the Headless Horseman's Reigns, the old one, has a higher chance of dropping on your first
24:37
attempt of the day, but can drop any other time of the day. The new one, the Headless Horseman's Ghoulish
24:42
Charger, according to Whead, can only drop on your first, although and that's the new high-res one with kind of a
24:48
fancy horned armor and glowing green hooves. And then the armor pieces, uh, one random piece will drop per day until
24:54
you have them all. There's a whole Headless Horseman's ghoulish attire this year. Um, I will also say I'm always
25:00
nostalgic for this holiday for one reason. I first got the helmet on my
25:06
Torin back when it was bugged. Do you guys remember the bug? No. Other other than how it normally looks
25:13
on torin? No. Okay. Right now, the way it looks on Torin is it's just up on the head. It
25:19
used to basically replace your head and torso. You you were a gigantic headless horseman mount helmet just all the time.
25:27
you would just walk around, your arms and legs were coming out of it like you were a Halloween themed Modok like and
25:34
you know kudos to anyone who gets that reference. Um so yeah I I I had there was the place we used to work aka you
25:42
know WoW Insider I used to have like the Warrior column for like a year was just pictures of my torren with that giant
25:49
helmet replacing his entire body like it was and then they fixed it one day and
25:54
they didn't they didn't announce that they fixed it. They they fixed it when they fixed the the the the orc shoulder
26:00
problem. Remember the orcs used to have super small shoulders for some reason? Remember that when the orcs were very
26:06
Yeah. They fixed that. And as a result of fixing that, they also fixed the headless horsemen thing. I was so sad. I
26:12
was like, "No, it just looks like a hat now. It's just there on his head."
26:20
So yeah, I I've always remembered fondly that that helmet. I still got the original helmet that I got at Yeah, I
26:26
think I was level 60 when I got that. So, yeah, it's I I love the look. I love the look of the new armor. Um I'm quite
26:33
if nothing else, I'm happy that they've got new they've got some more transmog
26:38
stuff in here just for people who've not got it for some reason. But I I hate mounts on these bosses. They stress me
26:45
out. I mean, I get why people want them. They're beautiful. Uh, this this new Headless Horseman mount is it's I think
26:51
you said it was like upscaled cuz that's kind of what it looks like. It's just it's just a higher res model, but it's really nice.
26:57
Yeah, it's just kind of a new Halloweeny model for him. I I don't even think he rides it during combat actually.
27:02
No, I don't think so. I think he's still using the old one. Yeah, but um if people do want uh one that's a different
27:08
color but without worrying about the random drop, the October Trading Post has a light themed one, the Headless
27:15
Horseman's Hallowed Charger, and also a whole light themed uh set of the armor
27:21
and the weapons. So, uh there you go. Yeah, I'll be I'll be stopping there as
27:27
soon as the show's over. Yeah, I Oh, it's such a good looking two-handed sword, too.
27:32
Yeah. Uh, also we should mention that the Legion remix is now on phase two.
27:37
Um, which is adding in the Suramar campaign and the Nightighhold raid and the return to Karazan dungeon, which is
27:43
itself quite a trip. Um, and apparently they're doing phases every two weeks.
27:49
Uh, yeah. I mean, they're they're rolling through the content really quickly. It's um, there are Yeah,
27:56
I I've wanted to do Legion Remix. I haven't gotten around to it yet. And now I'm like, oh, I may need to do this
28:01
faster than I thought I needed to do it. Okay. Well, let me give you the good news here is that you have it. It's a
28:07
threemonth event. It's running a little over 3 months. It lasts until January 19th. You have time. Uh it is broken up
28:15
into five phases. And each phase, they're rolling out a new one every two
28:20
weeks, but it doesn't matter if you come into the game later because it's all still going to be there and it's all
28:25
going to last until the middle of January. Yeah. I still need to get in before you Yeah. No. No. Yeah. I haven't I haven't done very much
28:32
in it either. And I need to I need to get in there, collect that transmog. Here's something I want to actually ask.
28:39
Can you start like you can't start with a with a when a nightborn elf, right?
28:44
You you can't start. Oh, you can. Oh, yes. I'm definitely doing uh I believe they are set so that when
28:50
you although I believe they are set that when you come out of the starting area, it lowers your nightfallen rep. So it's
28:56
not like a shortcut to finishing the cereamar rep or anything. The only thing you
29:01
cannot play in legionary mix is an evoker. Um yeah, I would think that would be because they didn't because they didn't
29:07
exist and they would have to they they don't have a class campaign, they don't have artifacts, etc. So um but like you
29:13
can play literally anything else. All right, cool. I I I'm definitely I only have two Nightbor
29:21
I you're going. So Yep. I have a uh I have rolled a nightborn warrior in honor of the one
29:27
that I rolled at the end of Legion just to get the prop warrior mage tower appearance. Uh had never played propw
29:34
warrior prior to that point. Uh rolled her up in the waning days of Legion, leveled her up, geared her through LFR
29:40
and uh dungeons as well as I could and then went up, let's just take a swing at this and did the tank challenge in like
29:46
10 tries. Yeah, Pratt was really good at that.
29:51
It's because the uh Pratt warrior version was nerfed compared to all the others because they had no defense against magic. They would have just died
29:57
if it was the same as all the others. Yeah, back then they didn't. Um all right, though. Um that's
30:03
basically it for World of Warcraft. We got through it in like a little bit more than half an hour, but hey. Uh Diablo 4.
30:10
Diablo 4. All right. Um Liz and I are going to pour one out for Diablo I while you guys
30:16
talk. No. Uh but Diablo I season 11. it's been announced. Uh the PTR is live
30:22
as we as we're talking and it's live to October 28th. So you got a week um to go
30:28
look at that PTR. Um which is, you know, part for the course for Diablo PTRs is
30:33
like a week and then maybe sometimes they might come back with another one, but usually they don't. Diablo I has never come back with a
30:40
second PTR. Diablo II has sometimes sticks to these Diablo I sticks to these really fast
30:46
PTRs. And this is a patch. This season is one that feels like it could really
30:51
use some very thorough testing because there are significant changes. But uh we're getting to one week PTR. Have fun.
30:59
And uh like I I don't know how to explain the season journey switch to
31:06
season ranks without sounding incredibly cynical. I'm going to try or Liz, you can try.
31:12
Do you want to go for it? I'm curious. I go for it and I I will jump in if I feel like I need to.
31:19
Okay guys, um basically if you remember the season journey stuff, it was essentially pretty straightforward,
31:25
although somewhat, you know, you just had to do a bunch of stuff, get these achievements, click boxes, and and as
31:31
you did so, you would advance in the season journey. Um, now we have the
31:37
season rank, which means you still have to do a bunch of that stuff. Like you still have to do a bunch of, you know,
31:42
side achievements and so forth, but in order to actually advance, you have to clear a capstone through each rank of
31:49
the season, which is like each level of the season journey. It's now you have ranks in the season that you must get
31:55
through these capstone dungeons in order to progress. Um what that ends up doing
32:01
is uh amongst other things is if you remember like if you start a season character right now um you'll
32:08
essentially get like about 10 uh points 12 yeah 12
32:14
sorry you have like 12 uh points to to spend on on talents and stuff to to get your
32:19
character up and that won't be here anymore that's that's a holdover that's about yeah that's a whole another
32:26
thing that's about renown you know if you did these tasks in the If you found all the altars of Lilith,
32:32
if you advance the renown of each zone to maximum, you got all of these bonus,
32:37
which included bonus skill points, bonus potion slots, things like that. Gone.
32:44
All of it gone. Bye. Forever. Uh, you are locked to four potion slots forever.
32:49
That's it. There are no more potion slots. You do regenerate potions over time. I think it's maybe one every 30
32:56
seconds. So, I mean, you're going to you're going to have your four potions, but you don't have more than four
33:01
potions anymore. And you will be able to earn the same number of t of skill
33:06
points. You aren't losing a dozen skill points, but you will no longer log in and have a dozen skill points because
33:12
you've done all of this work in the game before. Right now, if I log on my character, I think I I don't think I have 12. I think
33:18
I have 10. And that was where my confusion is. But I usually I start the game and boom, I have 10
33:24
like on on my first characters. No, I think you're right. I think it just depends on how many of the things you
33:29
have and I haven't finished them all. I finished most of them, but um but whatever. That's not going to be there
33:34
anymore. So admittedly, it's not really necessary to kill the
33:40
wolves you first see uh when you you know when you start a level one character on season. It's it's not like
33:47
oh if I don't have those 10 points these wolves are going to destroy me. They don't. It's it's you know quite
33:53
you're you're fine. But it is still surprising. It's like what it does it gives you a jump a jump start
33:59
and it gives you a jump start if you have previous experience playing the game. It gives you a little boost at the
34:05
beginning to help you get started. Yeah. And now you don't have that which I am finding. Uh I also find the fact
34:12
that they just took renown out to be uh Yeah. weird one. It's I'm I'm frankly
34:19
I'm a little confused by some of these changes. Um and they do kind of
34:24
universally feel like step most of them feel like steps backward to more like
34:30
the launch version of the game that uh so it's like we when the game originally
34:36
launched, we had capstone dungeons that you would complete in order to unlock higher difficulty levels. Those went
34:43
away. Now, we're getting new capstone dungeons, which aren't tied to difficulty levels, but are required to
34:48
advance in season rank, which you will need to do to unlock rewards, to unlock your season blessings, and things like
34:55
that. And it just it it feels like we've we've gone a few steps backwards. The changes to defensives are the same way.
35:02
Um, yeah, we should talk about are going to have uh diminishing returns
35:08
again. So, the higher the number goes, the less you are getting for each point. Um, so yeah, it becomes impossible 100%
35:16
anything. Yeah, it's impossible and you shouldn't bother stacking stuff. Yep, absolutely. Yeah, well, you you stack to a certain
35:22
amount, but yeah, there's a new physical damage resistant type and all of your
35:27
damage resistances are kind of combined into one stat called toughness, which if
35:33
that sounds familiar, you've probably played Diablo II. Yeah. Um, pretty much. I but this does sound like
35:39
a a some changes to defensives that make it much more like it was at launch
35:44
instead of the way it is today. So I it's gonna play a little differently. Um
35:51
and this isn't just for seasons. This is a permanent rework as far as well at least until they decide to change it
35:56
again. Um yeah. So I mean season rank is a seasonal system but by
36:02
my understanding yes the the renowned system is just uh going away
36:07
and that also means that you know the defensive changes are also just there. They just that's going to get them
36:13
whatever they are just changes to the base game. So, I mean, I I think I I I don't want
36:18
to sound like a complainy person, especially since there's also changes to tempering and masterworking that we
36:24
should probably talk about, where you can It's actually a good change in my opinion. Yeah, this is an extremely good change.
36:29
This is a change a lot of players have been asking for because tempering has a
36:35
lot of RNG. When you when you're tempering a new aics onto an item, it's
36:40
you have a random selection. It gives you you can select like a category and it gives you a random one in that
36:45
category. Yeah. And you may not want the one you get and you may want you may reroll it and then you
36:50
run out of rerolls. So you can have a perfect item but to make it like the
36:56
perfectest of perfect you need to get the specific thing and if you don't get the specific thing throwing it in the
37:01
trash. Yeah. Especially since masterwork can literally break an item. Yeah. I will just minor thing. Uh,
37:08
renown will remain in the eternal realm, but the potion capacity changes are taken off of renown. Those are those
37:15
still affect the eternal realm. Um, but also things like the altars of
37:20
Lilith now just grant some XP. Yeah, I I ran around C getting every single
37:27
one of those things just to make sure I got the extra talent pool. Feel silly.
37:33
But it's fine. Yeah, I think last last time I played was me doing the same thing to get the tenants of Acarat
37:38
in the uh in the expansion area and cool. It's just doesn't matter anymore.
37:43
Cool. Thanks. I'm glad I'm glad I spent that weekend. Yeah. Woohoo. Yeah. No, that doesn't mean it's not necess
37:49
it's a necessarily bad all the way around, but it's it is there is a philosophy in the design of Diablo I
37:57
that I call sometimes we changed it just bec and sometimes the changes have been good. Like I think that the revamp they
38:04
did uh just before the expansion came out was was actually really good. Like
38:10
it it it really improved the playability of the game. I'm not feeling like these changes to seasons have have improved it
38:17
or at least not like changes like the potion thing going away. I don't feel like that's improving it. I think one thing
38:23
Oh, go ahead. Go on, Phil. I will say now it granted it has been a while since I played but I
38:28
I will admit that one of the things that I didn't really like about renown in the seasonal game is the way a lot of stuff
38:36
got reset so that when I'm rolling up my season character instead of just getting to max level and stomping some dungeons
38:42
and getting some loot and doing the cool season stuff is I also felt compelled to do a bunch of stuff that I didn't really
38:48
want to do but which felt like busy work cuz I needed to get that renown level up so I could get the rewards for renown.
38:53
Like I was like, well, obviously I've got to go ahead and complete every um
38:58
god, what do they call the places that are taken over? You have to take them back like Turra strongholds. Strongholds. Thank you. I blanked on
39:04
strongholds. I'm like, well, I have to get every stronghold whether I'm going to visit again or not. I need to get every way point because that's renown. I
39:10
need to do x number of side quests in every zone because that's renown. Like, yeah, that's fair that I will say that at least some of
39:17
that tedious busy work in the season is gone. And if I do decide to come back to play more D4, at least it sounds like
39:23
I'll just be able to directly engage with the season instead of having my mandatory homework list first.
39:29
Yeah. Um I mean positive spin on all these changes. That was part of the problem with Renown
39:35
is that it did not feel like a system that was compatible with a live service game. It was odd. It was a do once and
39:41
then you have some of these rewards or most of these rewards and you keep them forever. But a the kind of the nature of
39:49
Diablo I seasons, the nature of this as a live service game is that you are
39:54
starting fresh and you are starting over and doing this grind over and over again. And that always felt a little
40:00
weird with Renown. So, this may make more sense philosophically with how the game is run, but it's also it's hard to
40:08
be excited about getting fewer skill points until late game cuz you will be
40:14
earning you will be earning the skill points you used to get at the beginning at at the end after you hit max level.
40:20
You'll be earning some extra skill points as you progress in Paragon. Yeah, it it is kind of an odd feeling,
40:26
but I I honestly for me it isn't necessarily even that it's bad. Like there's some stuff in here that's
40:31
actually pretty solid. Like the tower thing looks like it's going to be interesting. It's a that's the new leaderboard system, you know.
40:37
Um yeah, and that's kind of cool. It has more of a challenge rift vibe or at least that's what I'm being told. Um
40:44
uh yeah. I mean, so monsters are getting a revamp. They're they're adding in more elite monster fixes. Uh so that's neat. I I like more
40:52
different stuff. Although I mean I'll be I'll be screaming and yelling at the time like when I'm actually
40:57
I mean we'll have to we're we're really going to need to feel how see how it feels. I mean they're getting smarter
41:05
which uh Blizzard says they'll adapt to combat. Um so each monster will have a clear
41:14
role and identity when fighting. If you can hear the air quotes around that, that's because there are air quotes
41:20
around that. um to make them less predictable and be more dynamic. Um uh
41:28
so one of the monsters will be dropping buzzwords at you. The quote the quote I like from the
41:34
description of this was that the monsters have learned what AoE is and will not and will not all just group
41:39
up together, which I mean this could be fun and challenging, but it also could just be
41:45
it could some of this could be just super annoying. It's like, okay, I have an AoE build. Diablo particularly loves
41:51
to throw just tons and tons of monsters at you. And if they're just if you're
41:57
just fighting one at a time, that may not be a little fun. That may not be the exciting monster crushing experience
42:03
that you enjoy. So, this is one we really have to see in action and get
42:09
some maybe longer than a week PTR playtime on, but we're probably not
42:15
getting that. No. So basically just stop sleeping. Just stop it. Stop sleeping. Stop having
42:20
any kind of life. Just play Diablo 3 4 on the BTR until you are dead. Uh
42:26
but but also I mean for me the defensive rework needs to be seen. I I don't I can't really comment on it until I've
42:33
seen it. Uh so it's looking like I'm going to It feels a lot like defensives in launch
42:40
day Diablo. Yeah, frankly. I mean, let's combine that with now that the monsters
42:45
won't stand and stuff. Combine that with like, you know, the changes to, you know, not getting those free points up
42:51
front, you could get it could be a slog. It could end up not being a problem at all.
42:56
Yeah. Um, but yeah, it just it the overall vibe here like season rank is a
43:03
lot like the season journey except it's more complicated, supposedly more difficult than the season journey. Uh,
43:09
defensives are different. It may be making the game harder. It may be fine
43:15
in play. Monsters are supposed to be getting more difficult and more deadly. So, it feels like the overall goal is to
43:22
make the game more challenging and to make it uh more difficult for players to progress, which has been a theme of the
43:29
past few seasons of Diablo making because and Blizzard seems to ping pong
43:34
back and forth on this pretty hard. one season people will be super powerful and leveling really really fast and Blizzard
43:41
just like whoa that's too fast we need to make the game harder and slow people down and then they do it they do it a
43:47
little too much and they swing they ping pong back the next season ah the pendulum of Blizzard design
43:53
it really is I mean I feel that in Diablo I more than other Blizzard games though I think Blizzard does it
43:59
everywhere uh Diablo I seems to have a really hard swing season to season from
44:04
uh players let's power players up and get them leveling and having fun and smashing demons to oh no that's yeah
44:12
you're leveling too fast now let's dial that down and make the game harder and it just we're we kind of slide back and
44:17
forth. Um you haven't even mentioned that like there's going to be in the season uh the season theme itself is you know you have
44:24
angel powers now and they're going to bring back more of the lesser evils. Uh like Asmodon shows up. Uh, Asadan is
44:32
kind of Asthmaan's kind of just the season theme this year. Um, this season,
44:37
not this year. Uh, which Asmodan is showing up as a world boss, but all of
44:43
the lesser evils are making an appearance. Uh, Asadan is a world boss and he can replace any boss in the world
44:50
boss rotation, but you can also summon him at various altars around the world.
44:55
Each altar is related to a different lesser evil. And as you summon Asthmodan, you'll find uh mobs and
45:02
Asodan himself will have abilities related to that other lesser evil. So it's kind of turns into this little
45:07
combo boss fight where you aren't fighting both of them at the same time, but Asadan is like empowered by the
45:13
other boss. Yep. And all of the lesser evils have um
45:18
are sort of related to one aspect of the game and they'll be their minions are
45:23
going to be showing up in these different things like Duriel will be burrowing into hell tides to spread his
45:30
parasitic presence. Uh and Dariel will be burning into the curest unders city.
45:36
Yeah, I think someone got out like a thesaurus and was working on these descriptions. Um, Balile will be
45:43
bringing illusions into the pit where you'll encounter Balile eyes randomly
45:49
uh trying to trip you up and and uh uh make your make your runs a little more
45:55
difficult. And so you're the lesser evils will have a a big presence throughout season 11.
46:01
I'm I'm happy to get to see good old Asthma again just because I've missed killing it. Yay. Um, you know, you know,
46:10
it's unfortunate we're not going to get to fight his little boss before him from Diablo II because, uh, she was voiced by
46:17
Claudia Black. So, I was always very excited like, "Yay, he's Claudia Black Morgan. You know her now. She's a spider
46:25
and she's trying to kill you again, just like she does in in the other game that you knew her from." So, yeah, I was I
46:31
was actually I'm a little sad that I won't get to see that again, but still, Asminadon's a good time. I'm also kind
46:37
of interested to see how all these legendary powers work. Like the the angel powers are it's it's yet another
46:45
system that's it's not dissimilar to previous ones, but go ahead. They basically Diablo's basically kind
46:51
of picked a style and they're going with it. So, you know, we have every season
46:57
you get a new kind of power and you slot it in and that's that's the season. So
47:02
yes, these have divine gifts or our powers this season. This maybe they're balanced in such a way
47:08
that these things end up blowing up everything and we needed to make everything harder just to, you know, actually have
47:14
I wouldn't assume so since they also sound kind of random. Oh yeah, they're always super random
47:20
like the last one. Yeah, the D Yeah, the D4 version you want to do after you've done everything else to
47:25
a piece of gear because it actually locks that piece of gear from being changed anymore. But it also has like
47:32
one of five random effects. It can apply a bonus legendary or it can improve an aix and a greater aics or it can give us
47:39
a give it a bonus of from a pool of sanctification aixes or it can replace
47:44
an existing aics with a sanctification aix or it can just make it indestructible which feels like the
47:50
booby prize of sanctification. It's like well at least I'm not going to have to repair it. Yay. So yeah, that one is not
47:57
related to the divine gifts. That's sanctification, which is, you know, it feels like they improved masterworking
48:03
to where you can no longer break items, but they're adding the sanctification system, which is season specific, which
48:09
it's kind of designed to break items. I mean, it you have a one-time chance to
48:15
do one of five things. And if you're trying to chase the perfect gear and you don't get the perfect five things that
48:21
you want, if you don't get the perfect thing you want, that's it. That's it. You don't have the perfect thing. Yeah, I get it. They're walk They're
48:28
constantly walking this tight rope between making people play the game more to get the thing they want and then
48:33
making sure people can get the thing they want. And I don't know if like we got two steps forward with the changes
48:40
to masterworking and tempering and then we got this on top of it. Then you literally two steps forward
48:48
banana peel. Oh, he's like, "Yeah, this item is so Well, all I need is this one sanctification
48:54
aics on it, and it's indestructible." Yeah, I guess I'm I'm farming another one of these things
49:00
and then making the exact same one again. And then that doesn't feel good. So, I don't know. And this is it's a
49:07
seasonal thing, but it is such an end end end endg game thing that I think it's possible a lot of players will
49:13
never really be participating in the sanctific sanctified gear system because it's like this is the last thing in your
49:21
chain of upgrades. Yeah. And it's not the divine gifts. Um divine gifts thing is its own thing.
49:28
Okay. Yep. Uh but regardless, that's that's where we're thinking about when
49:33
it comes to to D4 because as as we've said, the development of this game has
49:39
been uh I think one person said it's like a yo-yo that occasionally hits you in in in a bad place. Uh instead of just
49:46
going down and coming back up, it sometimes comes around and bam. Ah. So yeah. Uh don't don't walk the dog too
49:54
much. So I've got a question. After reading this, who here is playing is excited
49:59
about Diablo I season 11? Phil, I mean, I'm I'm just always excited. I haven't been excited about Diablo I in
50:05
a long time. Yeah. Yeah. I might if I might, if only because the
50:11
angel powers, the divine gifts kind of sound like the seasons that I do like. Uh like I really like the vampire season
50:17
and then I kind of stopped playing for a while and then I came back when it was season of the witch. Uh, Divine Gift kind of sounds like maybe uh Vampire
50:24
Season 3, which is Yeah, I might play a little bit of it, but there's just a lot of other games right now included.
50:31
That's always the problem. Yeah, both both within and without Blizzard games. I mean, it's Hades, too, for you know,
50:36
quite frankly, if you're going to be playing a rogike, if I feel like losing sleep, there's Hades, too. Yeah.
50:44
But all righty. Uh, we've got a couple things, but first we're going to turn to Liz and say, "Hey, Liz, can you do the
50:50
site news, please?" I want to say thank you to all of our
50:55
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52:47
Tell us what show the podcast is for and any special pronunciation of your name. You can also contact us on our Discord
52:55
channel, which is a great place to hang out whether you subscribe or not. Um,
53:00
you can leave a question through the Patreon Q and podcast question channel if you're a Patreon supporter as a
53:06
little thank you. We look at those questions first or the Q and podcast questions channel for everybody else. We
53:12
also look there for any questions. So, please send us your questions, support us if you can, and we really appreciate
53:20
you. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you, Liz. And now, uh, before we
53:25
leave for the day, I'm going to talk about a couple other games. Uh, first one I'm going to mention is Dispatch,
53:31
which I've been mentioning relatively frequently. Um, I'm thinking Joe might have put this down, but it might have
53:36
been Liz. I don't know. Uh, but Dispatch October 22nd release, which means as you're listening to this, unless you're
53:42
listening to it live, uh, it's out. Could someone could someone here tell us what Dispatch is?
53:49
Joe could. I don't know if Joe wants to, but he could. I mean, why wouldn't I want to? Uh if you remember the old Telltale games, uh it is in that vein
53:56
made by a lot of people that worked on some of the Telltale games. Uh it is a visual novel and resource management
54:03
game in which you play a superhero uh who has lost their uh superpower suit
54:09
and are now in charge at least temporarily of dispatching other lower ranked superheroes uh across the city to
54:16
respond to various threats. uh hilarity story and uh all sorts of other
54:22
wonderful things ensue. Uh this is this is a way better story than you would ever expect for a resource
54:27
management. It's Yeah. And I want to clarify this is chapter one, not the whole game.
54:33
Yeah, chapter one, which by itself is pretty wild. Um this is I really cannot
54:41
recommend this highly enough. And I didn't like most of the Telltale games. I wasn't really a big fan, but this is
54:47
hitting every button for me. It is It's superhero adjacent without actually being too superhero involved. It's
54:54
almost like this could be just a cop thing, but by making it a superhero thing, it kind of broadens it out and
54:59
makes it less I don't know. It's just something perfect about the way it comes together. Yeah. Nope. Nothing to add.
55:06
I do have one thing to add, which is that if you want to check it out but aren't committed to buying it, there is
55:12
a demo out there. That's true. There is a demo which and it actually will not take super long
55:18
for all the episodes to come out. They're actually showing that October 22nd will be episodes one and two and
55:25
then they're releasing looks like two episodes a week up through the last two on November 12th. So
55:30
I don't know I don't know how to find time to play all these these things. There's there's too much going on. Yeah,
55:36
this is this is a problem because at least for me um the next thing we want to mention is that the Outerorlds 2 is
55:41
now going to be on early access on October 24th with a full release on the 29th. So yeah, that's happening. Um and
55:48
it's hardly the only late October game coming either, guys. October is pretty jam-packed this year. Like it's there's
55:53
quite a few games coming out in it. Um I'm not excited about early access
55:59
getting a weak jump on the game. like that that doesn't make me happy, but I don't I'm not upset about it either. If
56:06
people wanted to pay the extra to get early access, okay. Uh but I will definitely be playing this as soon as it
56:11
hits uh um Game Pass because yeah, The Outer Worlds is one of my favorite games. Uh and this is basically just The
56:19
Outer Worlds with more stuff and a and a more complicated character creation system, which I admit I'm interested in
56:25
because you can do some really weird things with it. I love getting more stuff. Yeah, we're gamers. We love more stuff.
56:32
Always. This is good. Yeah. I mean, this all this needs is like I can have a space house and put all sorts of weird stuff
56:38
on my space house and it's pretty much all you know now it's perfect. Um I don't know if you get a space house, but
56:43
you probably get a spaceship. But yeah, um that's basically that. Do we have time for any like questions or do we are
56:49
we pretty much up on time? Joe usually knows. Uh we can do one. All right. Uh this one's been getting
56:55
asked quite a bit so I'll throw this one in there. Uh, Meth asks, "Why are holiday dungeons like the cues uh for
57:01
Corn and Dyru not as redone as story mode things? I I realize there are hold over from beforehand, but having the
57:09
these them changed so it could be more um soloable, no weight, and able to group up if you wanted would uh change
57:16
it. I mean, it would change it, but is that necessarily a good thing? I don't know. Let's uh Joe."
57:22
Uh, so it is mostly just holdover. don't know if they would ever really consider
57:28
changing it to a solo thing simply because it is all the holiday events
57:34
tend to have some element of social history to them uh and dungeons happen
57:39
to be that uh in in you know another aspect right like I I get the desire for
57:46
it but also I feel like holidays have sort of taken I don't want to say a back
57:51
seat um but they're not quite as important as they used to be. Like WoW
57:57
used to be the only game that did in-game holidays, then everybody else started doing it, and now it's just kind
58:03
of a thing that exists and has been there. Uh maybe if they revamp the holiday system, that would be something
58:08
they consider, but I don't think they're ever going to look at that. Or at least I mean, I was wrong about player housing. I might be wrong about this. Um
58:15
yeah, we never know. You never know. they they might decide that, hey, we're going to go ahead and redo the holiday structure and we're
58:21
going to add it more akin to lore walking or we're going to have more close to scenarios. Like they have other
58:26
vehicles in the game that could potentially suit it now. So maybe they will get a revisit, but for now I think
58:32
the cues are so fast and everything else is so uh entrenched with them that I
58:38
mean I don't I don't see it anytime soon. Uh, Liz, uh, I really think what Joe was just
58:44
saying about how fast the cues are. You can get into these bosses really fast,
58:49
even doing a DPS queue. And usually the fight is super fast. Also, sometimes
58:57
sometimes so fast that you don't even realize what is happening, which is probably one of the reasons a story mode
59:03
version would be nice because you could actually see the fight instead of having the fight over before you've actually
59:10
had a chance to even load into the space or see the boss. But I feel like the fact that it is so fast and easily
59:17
accessible to players of all classes is what makes it less likely to get any
59:22
kind of story mode or lore walking mode because you know one of the reasons we get story mode done uh raids is that
59:30
there is a high barrier to entry there. You can't just walk into a raid and uh
59:36
do it with just a couple of other casual people. You don't always see that. You can't see it quickly. It's big time
59:42
commitment. So that makes it easy to see things in the game that are have really
59:48
significant story elements but are really kind of locked up behind a lot of time and effort. Whereas the holiday
59:54
dungeons, all of them have their own little interesting story. They have interesting environments, but they're very accessible through LFG. So I I also
1:00:02
don't see it as a big priority for Blizzard. One of the things they did do specifically with Hallow's End was a
1:00:07
couple of years ago they added new story quests. So you can go in and get some of that, some more story and backstory for
1:00:13
the Headless Horsemen by doing the quests and that's not part of the dungeon. It's just leadup to the
1:00:19
dungeon. So I could see more things like that where there's more content around
1:00:25
the holiday instead of maybe making a story mode or lore walking mode of the
1:00:30
dungeon or event itself. All right. Uh Phil, anything you want to add? No, I think it sums it up pretty well. I
1:00:36
think the the difference is that they like for the last couple of expansions, they've really focused on telling a
1:00:42
coherent throughline story in at least the first patch of the expansion,
1:00:47
usually leading up to the raid. And the problem is the story the story for WoW zones has always ended in WoW raids. And
1:00:54
for a long time, that was locked behind group content, which is not something everyone is capable of doing or wants to
1:01:00
do. Um, which I realize you could say the same thing about holiday dungeons, but also the holiday dungeons, you're in
1:01:05
out in 5 minutes. Um, it's fine, but it's it's way less of a time commitment and social commitment compared to uh a
1:01:13
raid. So, I think I'm fine with them restricting story mode to just being
1:01:18
here's what happened at the end of the raid that you might normally have not gotten to see or that you might not have gotten to like, you know, watch this cut
1:01:24
scene because you could only get this in LFR before and there's like 24 other people who are chomping at the bit to
1:01:30
just kill this boss and get out of here. So, I yeah, I like them adding more story outside of the story outside of
1:01:36
the holiday dungeons and then just let the little just let the little fights like Corin and the headless horse ever just let them be as they are. Um, the
1:01:42
other thing is I think they might have to make a mechanical switch because right now in story mode, no loot drops. Um, so they would probably actually need
1:01:49
to make essentially a second version of story mode that has loot. Um, which right now all the holiday dungeons.
1:01:56
Um, at least the first time a day, which is another thing. This I I might have agreed with this when when there was
1:02:02
still an incentive to run, you know, 50 alts through these dungeons and try and get a drop. Um, but right now Blizzard
1:02:07
has really disincentivized doing more than one a day. um unless you really really really really really are still
1:02:13
working on your headless horseman's reign which good luck uh to everybody but um like with Blizzard especially
1:02:20
with them disincentivizing running it more than once a day I don't really mind that's just still just a regular and my
1:02:26
take on this is everything so far is is good and also I just don't think they're going to allocate the resources
1:02:33
like there's so many things to work on there's so many things uh people we we
1:02:39
doing a hot. Yeah. And it's coming pretty fast. Yeah. Like I mean,
1:02:44
so whilst I'm not going to say, you know, player housing cost us a raid tier or whatever, you know, you guys remember
1:02:50
the way that the meme worked. I will say that if you got to pick what you're going to do with story mode, is the Headless
1:02:57
Horseman worth it compared to say the next raid coming? You people can run the
1:03:02
next raid indefinitely. You're only running the Headless Horseman on the holiday event.
1:03:07
Mhm. And then you've like then for the rest of the year it's just something that isn't there. Um and honestly some
1:03:13
of them don't really even have enough story outside of the quests that lead up to him anyway. Like are you going to go
1:03:18
fight AON? Like I I just feel like is anyone really that that you know I want
1:03:23
to see what happens with Aoon. He shows up and you kill him. Yeah. It's not like he he doesn't have any
1:03:29
real reason to be there other than we want to get a stick off him. Um so yeah I I I don't feel like they're going to
1:03:35
allocate the resources. Uh, not that it's a bad idea, it's just that I don't I don't see them.
1:03:40
Yeah, you mentioning brings up the other thing I forgot, which is uh if this was if they made these available in story mode,
1:03:46
you'd have to run them with those NPCs that you get in story mode. And I've seen them I've seen them get
1:03:52
confused by shallow water before. Um, so I'm not sure I want to see them trying to fight a hoon.
1:03:58
Oh god, it's like the worst of times 100. Yeah. Well, this is a true story. I ran um just cuz you could get the rep bonus
1:04:04
for it for running the weekly dungeon. I ran Operation Floodgate uh as a um as a
1:04:10
follower dungeon, which is essentially the story mode dungeon, you know, where you've got the NPCs with you. And when you get to the part where you have to
1:04:16
cross the river to get to the other side of the dungeon, they have no clue how to pathfind over.
1:04:21
Yeah, I've I've seen similar. They all just kind of bunch up and then they're like back and forth, back and forth.
1:04:27
Yeah. And they're just like standing in the river fighting crabs indefinitely. So Yeah. Oh, I think I think I think I think Joe was
1:04:33
saying something else. No, no, I was I agree with like the allocation of resources like you basically are all saying the stuff that
1:04:38
I wanted to but I was going to mostly just insert agreeing noises here. And speaking of inserting agreeing
1:04:44
noises, I believe it is now time for us. This is me making an agreeing. Um, thank you guys for for like listening to the
1:04:50
show with us. Uh, thank you to Phil for being our special guest. Uh, see, I managed it. I cheated. Uh, and thank you
1:04:58
to Liz and Joe for as always making sure that this show actually happens and makes sense and gets recorded and all
1:05:04
the good stuff. And thank you to everyone who's listening for being the
1:05:09
reason we're here. Uh, this has been the Blizzard Watch Podcast. Thank you guys so much and we'll be back next week. Bye
1:05:14
bye.
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