Up next in 10
This week our usual hosts were joined by our Diablo Maven Liz Patt to talk about the announcement of Lord of Hatred, the next Diablo 4 expansion. Lord of Hatred was announced at The Game Awards -- though it was not related to The Statue -- and we have a ton to say about the details we have so far. Liz Patt preordered the expansion, and so therefore got to play one of two new classes, the Paladin, hands-on, and chats about it with us a bit. The other class remains a mystery, but our cohosts had some ideas for what they think the class may be, as well as what they wish it was.
We also talked about all the various winter events we're experiencing over the next few weeks in all Blizzard's games. They're only here for a short while so get your holiday fill while you can.
Plus, we ran down a bunch of little tips and tricks we've seen for player housing. We also wrote about these on the website but they're so charming we just had to get them out there twice.
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0:10
Uh hello everybody and welcome to the Blizzard Watch podcast. Uh I am Matt. I
0:16
am hosting along with my other two magnificent hosts and of course our in
0:21
this case special extra host. Um, we'll
0:26
intro we'll introduce her first. Liz Pat, who is sometimes called Liz
0:31
2 or Liz Omega? I'm not sure what the other terms for you are. Didn't we used
0:37
to call you Liz Omega? Liz 2. I I think you actually coined Liz Omega. Um, I'm often also other Liz in
0:45
uh I I think uh guild switches between Liz 2 and other Liz. since I'm in the
0:51
same guild as our our fearless leader. So, whichever works.
0:57
All righty. Uh, also with us, of course, um, as we already mentioned, Liz Prime.
1:02
Uh, hey, Liz. I I feel like I should make a Matrix of leadership joke, but
1:08
who knew I was fearless? I thought I was afraid of everything. The world is terrifying.
1:14
You You can decide to believe if you're fearless or not. We can't make you believe it. Uh, but in also with us, um, Joe Perez,
1:21
who would have made a much better Transformers joke there. Uh, hi Joe. Hi. I'm here too.
1:26
Not. Okay. Is that your Transformers joke sounding like a Transformer? No, I was just saying hi.
1:32
Because you sounded just like uh Wheeljack. No, I did not. Cartoon Wheeljack.
1:39
Uh, not Cartoon Wheeljack. We're We're We're going to move on from that one.
1:45
No. Wheeljack, I'll kill you, man. Uh, so no news about anything last week
1:51
happened. So we're going to spend the entire episode talking about uh blueprints. Uh, see blueprints. No, I'm
1:59
kidding. I'm sorry. Uh, I'm just love that. Yeah, I know she would. That's why I did
2:04
it. Um, wow. Now I sound evil. I knew she would love it. That's why I did it.
2:10
She had a moment of joy and now we have to talk about Diablo I. Um, so yeah, Liz
2:16
P, uh, you're here because of the group of us, you have had the ability to
2:22
actually play the Paladin. Let's just rip the bandage off. Maybe we should lead with what happened
2:28
last week in Diablo 4. That's where I'm going to have Liz talk about all of it. So, go ahead, Liz.
2:35
Okay, cool. I get to I get to sound all official. And so um so you know the
2:42
Diablo devs were teasing in various you know interviews, live streams and so forth to to encourage everyone to watch
2:51
the game awards and we all you know we all saw the statue in the desert which
2:57
was not actually Diablo. That's a different topic of trauma. Um but then
3:02
an amazing uh cinematic queued up later as expected heralded by a a room looming
3:12
uh meisto which was kind of fascinating. Um
3:18
that was the the looming meto was a little less impressive. It was
3:24
it was it was a little cartoony. Um yeah. Yeah. It was it felt like a Diablo
3:29
II era messesto ragging on Jeff Keely. So,
3:35
um, leading in, um, a an expansion announcement for the next coming Diablo
3:42
I expansion, Lord of Hatred, which came with the surprise that the new Paladin
3:50
class, one of two coming with the expansion, which we'll get into, um,
3:55
would be available that evening with pre-order of the expansion. And I I
4:03
racked my brain. I asked Liz. I asked other friends who, you know, ha have
4:10
played Diablo that are in like kind of that content creator community space. None of us could think of a time in
4:16
recent memory where a a large name ARPG
4:22
just dropped a class in our laps doing it live, so to speak. The closest I can
4:29
even get to this and it's still not the same. It was the necromancer. And even then Yeah. Even then it was there was like a
4:36
month or two of leadup before they did that. Yeah. Hey, we're going to put out a we're going to put out this pack and you can
4:42
but they That's right. It wasn't DLC technically. It was just like a an a bonus pack or
4:48
they called it. Yes. But even then they had they gave it like lead time before they did it. They
4:54
didn't like Hey, remember Oblivion? You liked that, huh? Paladins.
5:01
So, um, as as was noted, uh, I did get
5:06
the chance to play the Paladin and because I knew I would be limited in my
5:12
time, I set a goal to see if I could get to, you know, max level, not no not any
5:21
paragon, just max level, and managed to achieve that in about seven hours. uh in
5:27
in a in a season that's supposed to be harder. So, um they're fun, guys. I hate
5:35
to break it to you because I I knew they were going to be fun. Pre-orders are a thing, but yeah. Um I
5:41
miss I miss the uh Oh gosh, now I can't remember the D3 crusader spell. Divine
5:48
steed. Is that what it is? The one where you mount up and ride through people. Yeah. Yeah. Where you just plow through
5:54
things. Um, in part I I that was one of my favorite things about Crusader, which was not my class of choice, but uh
6:00
because it reminded me of my Wow Paladin. Um, and I So I thought, okay, you know, I
6:08
wasn't the biggest fan of Crusader. How is this going to feel? No, it feels great. Gosh darn it.
6:16
They they you know there's there's classics like Blessed Shield and Blessed
6:22
Hammer um that that I think came up through from from Diablo II, right?
6:28
Those were, you know, original Diablo II spells or pulled from Diablo II spells.
6:34
Yeah, the hammer. The hammer I know was a thing. Yeah, I I remember the Captain America
6:39
crusader from Diablo III seasons. So, um, Captain America Paladin, uh, build
6:46
lives on. The Hammeran lives on, but, uh, the the feather in the cap and and
6:53
and aas are are still a thing. Um, and they felt great, too. But the feather in
6:59
the cap was the new ultimate arbiter where you go into like an an angel of
7:07
justice type form and just slam you you you you like
7:14
things things die very quickly in the face of that spell. Or at least it did pop up in the air and then come down.
7:21
Yes. So it's kind of a crusader ability welded to a paladin ability. Yes. actually a bit. Yeah. Um it felt so
7:30
good. Like I tried different builds. I tried um so their class mechanic
7:38
is called the oath system. There's four oaths. Uh I tried three of them. I tried
7:45
zeal, justice, I think it was justice. I might have I might be misnaming that one. And
7:51
juggernaut. Um and it it's different play styles. So Zeal I would say is
7:56
closest to like the WoW retribution palatin play style. Um the one that I
8:03
might be misnaming justice is really ties into the arbiter form. So when even
8:08
when you're not an arbiter um you can kind of summon that style of power to you uh through specific casts. And then
8:17
uh juggernaut is is kind of exactly what it sounds like. You you're you are the the fortress. You are you are the
8:24
immovable object. You will survive anything. And you do. Um I I only had
8:31
and this is amazing for me, you know, playing a class for a first time. I had maybe three deaths. Uh it was I I was
8:39
really surprised how much I liked this. Um, the other thing with the Paladin is
8:44
that it's the only class in game right now that is giving us a preview of
8:50
what's going to come for the skill trees because they're going to be expanding the skill trees out. So, those those
8:56
skill modifiers that you have, we only have two right now, right, on on our
9:02
skills except for ultimates. Ultimates just have the single tree. They don't have a branch. So you have that like
9:08
that middle node you go directly to and then you branch out into a choice node. Paladins's choice nodes actually have
9:15
three and not two. And some of those are fascinating because they start crossing
9:21
over skill keywords which then ties into your oath system.
9:28
and the interconnectivity is it's giving a really good glimpse of I think what
9:33
we're going to kind of be able to look forward to with Lord of Hat. So that's
9:39
really cool, too. I feel like I'm just saying like all these good things and there's probably downsides, but yeah,
9:46
genuinely like it it it felt good. It felt good, especially for something that
9:52
didn't go through a big long PTR phase and didn't go through a big long beta
9:57
phase. So, it was kind of spoiled for everyone. Um, I don't know how some
10:02
other sites that do things like build guides felt about this drop because they
10:08
didn't have build guides right out the gate. Yeah, that's that's probably one of those things where like, okay, person
10:14
who does our build guides and they're like, oh god, I have a family. forget them.
10:19
Yes, you you have no family. It's kind of how I felt at the end of uh Blasting the Paladin after a full and long
10:27
workday cuz I logged into Diablo and I was like, I just I want to kill kill things. I want to melt pixels. And um
10:33
then I was like, "Oh, wait. There's, you know, there's this thing I could try the thing." And seven hours later, I was
10:40
like, "What year is this?" All right. Question to ask you before you, you know, talk about other stuff.
10:46
And like Liz, I could just heard Liz, other Liz talk, so we'll get that in there. But I want to ask you, can you
10:52
wield a two-handed weapon in one hand and a shield in the other? Not yet. Okay, that's all I wanted to know. Uh,
10:58
go ahead. Go ahead, Liz. Alpha. I I feel like often when a new class is
11:04
launched in a game, and we've seen this both in Diablo and in Warcraft, when a new class is launched, it is the height
11:12
of power. like they launched them a little overpowered to encourage people
11:18
to play them. So I mean we may be like this is this is the age of the super
11:23
paladin. It might be. Although um so I do I did watch some videos over the weekend uh
11:31
of you know other people how they were feeling about the paladin. Um, and one
11:37
of them, it may actually it may have been Riker, uh, noted that the extreme
11:43
power we saw with the Spirit Born launch wasn't intentional. It was a bug
11:51
interaction nobody had thought to test.
11:56
Um, so they would have they would have still been pretty powerful. They were like I I did not play that build
12:02
initially. Um, and they were still pretty strong and I think that's about
12:09
on par with where the paladin is right now. So, I could totally see that. But the absolute like clearing pit 150 in
12:17
the first week that they were seeing with the spirit born, I don't think is
12:23
happening as much. Now, there are still folks who at the end of the week, and
12:28
these are these are the ones that, you know, didn't sleep for 48 or 72 hours since the Game Awards, they probably
12:34
came out of the weekend blinking and wondering what sunlight was. Um, who, you know, were blasting with
12:41
their team of four and they're already at 250 Paragon points and like, yeah,
12:46
those guys are are clearing, you know, the the PIT 150s. I was about to say
12:52
GR150 and that's not right, but the Pit 150. Um, but you know, with the
12:57
Spiritorn launch, it was it was, you know, the the not the not blasters that
13:02
were doing that and um successfully. So, I think this is a little different.
13:08
Yeah. I remember people doing it during the Spiritorn launch um people who were like loved the class and were playing
13:14
were like this will have to be nerfed. Yeah. Yeah, like there just absolutely just you can't have
13:20
ladders and this like you know I I literally feel like I came from the planet Krypton and on my way I
13:27
got a Green Lantern ring just cuz I wanted to be sure. Yeah, you've become a Galacticus or you know
13:35
Hi, look. I've got the Silver Surface board, Thor's hammer. I don't know what this thing is, but it's cool. You know,
13:41
I just Yeah, it was it was definitely I think we should talk a little bit about what we know besides the Paladin. Um, we
13:47
know there's another class coming, correct? Uh, we've got an unannounced class coming for this one. And, uh, I
13:54
know what Liz wants to be. Liz Liz won. You wanted to be the Amazon. Correct. I do. I do. I'm waiting. I'm waiting.
14:02
Wait. And Joe made a point. Go. Go ahead. I'm full of hope.
14:07
It's right here in my heart. You stole it from Corey. Oh my god. Well, yeah, we can we can all have about
14:14
different things. Like it's like the grave. You have to share it. You know, here this week it's yours. Um
14:22
but uh Joe made the point that, you know, if the Amazon comes in, you will basically have all the Diablo I classes
14:30
uh from expansions and original, all all of them will finally be 4. That is not the case because the
14:37
assassin was also in Diablo II. Technically, the rogue in Diablo I 4 is
14:44
born of the assassin. That's his spiritual successor. I think the story the story arc for follows
14:50
along that that same that same trajectory as an offshoot of that that branch. So
14:56
I argue that it does a lot of similarities to what the assassin does in Diablo II. Anyway, continue. The
15:01
Yeah, the rogue in Diablo I is a weird hybrid of previous roglike classes.
15:07
Yeah, it's like the rogue from the original game and then the assassin from D2 and then I mean like it's got
15:14
and some demon hunter from Yeah. So yeah, but uh since we know that Liz
15:20
Liz one wants to have the Amazon, I will now turn to Joe and then Liz 2 and we
15:26
will find out what you what classes you guys want. I think Joe, you're probably on the Amazon thing as well, right?
15:31
I think it's the most likely and I think with the way the storyline is going, that makes the most of sense. Highly
15:37
recommend you listen to this past week's Lore Watch. Um, however, they could do a
15:42
complete swerve here and do something that would be exceptionally hilarious.
15:48
Diablo Hellfire had two unfinished classes. One was the Barbarian. the Barbarian has been has been in the game
15:56
since Diablo II. Uh the other one was Bard. They could do a complete like a
16:04
complete mad like mad person job and bring a bard in because the original
16:10
Bard art was adjacent to an Amazon essentially what became an Amazon. Um so
16:17
they could do that too which would be hilarious at least in my opinion. Hey, I
16:22
thought you were about to suggest like that they should do the Barbarian
16:27
and I was like that then he mentioned it was I'm like are they going to do an April Fool's joke now it's going to be
16:32
the Bbarian and we'll just have like a barbarian but he's carrying a guitar like now the
16:39
Armory system with a for the Bbarian includes multiple musical instruments you can hit people with um like El
16:45
Kabong bong um uh Liz P uh you also on
16:50
the Amazon train or you want something else? I I hate I hate to disagree with my counterpart, but um as as much as I know
16:59
everyone would love the Amazon, I don't think and you know, we're going to Sco
17:05
it makes sense. But the Sco Isles have two rulers. They have the Amazon queen
17:11
and they have the Oracle. And I think we are going to see some kind of oracle
17:18
witch hybridy creepy like thing. We
17:24
don't have a lot of caster power because you know okay folks argue the
17:30
necromancer is a cast you're just arguing more for the bard is what I'm hearing.
17:36
So so folks argue that the necromancer is a caster. The necromancer is a pet class first and foremost. That is their
17:44
their class mechanic. They are a half caster. They have a caster foundation, but their class mechanic does surround
17:51
the pet system. Even if you sacrifice those pets
17:56
as a power form. Yeah, exactly. So, our only caster in that sense is the
18:03
sorcerer. And the sorcerer does a great job of it. They are the literal glass cannon, but I would love to see
18:12
something an alternative caster option. And I think the Amazon's just a little too
18:20
close to the experience we already have with the Spiritorn and the Rogue. Uh, so
18:27
yeah, I feel like the biggest problem. I I feel like the biggest problem with
18:33
getting on Amazon is that there is a lot of overlap with the rogue. Like we were just talking about, the rogue has taken
18:40
a lot of classes and kind of jammed them together. It has aspects of the demon hunter. It has uh kind of it fills that
18:47
melee role of the Amazon if you I mean it was the the Amazon in Diablo II was
18:54
the bow wielding class. You didn't always wield bows but you could. That was the class that did it. And in Diablo
19:00
I it's the rogue is the bow wielding class. Even though I feel like the class is much more focused on playing melee.
19:07
That's the class that uses bows. So, it's weird because the mythic in terms of lore,
19:12
the Amazon in D2 is literally like coming to find rogues.
19:17
Yeah. Because the rogues stole the eye from the sightless eye. Yeah. So, and we know the sightless eye
19:23
is in D4. It would make sense to have the Amazon show up and attempt to steal
19:28
stuff from the rogues kit because that's what they did. Uh but yeah, go but go on more um about
19:36
the Oracle if you want to. Well, and and kind of to Joe's point, um, because I,
19:42
you know, didn't play a lot of original Diablo, so I learned about the, you know, the unpublished expansion later in
19:51
in my franchise life. Um, you know, the Bards were tied to the Seekers of the
19:57
Light, so in a fight against Meisto,
20:02
that makes sense. But yeah, I I I think it's going to be
20:08
kind of some some spooky, you know, that kind of vibe, that kind of castery vibe,
20:15
though. All right, cool. Um, for myself, um, I I want them to bring that the the
20:23
uh warrior. No one is surprised. He wants more melee. He wants more melee. Yeah, but the the
20:31
thing is is that that's I I don't want them to bring back the warrior necessarily.
20:36
What I want um first off, if they hadn't done the paladin, I would be going insane trying to get the Templar in. Um
20:44
but since they went with the Paladin, I'm hoping they just kind of roll in the lore of the Templars into the Paladins now.
20:49
Yeah, a bit. They have they have their own new lord. These are like a new group. Yeah.
20:55
So that's fine. Uh we're cool. Well, we got a holy warrior type. I'll I'll I'll
21:00
take it. Um I if Amazon was the one that that got announced, I'd be super happy.
21:06
Um I I love the concept, especially if they got more serious about it. If they
21:11
didn't go back to bow using if they went with Okay, you've got ranged abilities, but they're based around javelin.
21:17
So like pure javason. Yeah, pure javason. Yeah, because it's got more of an iconic feel
21:23
to it. Yeah, there's like a bow, you know. Anyway, go ahead. Listen. Sorry. Like I think the
21:29
hard part about adding a class to Diablo I is finding something that feels unique
21:34
and feels different from the other classes. And that's that's where I see a problem with adding an Amazon because
21:41
it's going to have some overlap with Rogue. And as Liz said, there are already a lot of melee classes in the
21:48
game. Absolutely. Which is why I think they should have a they should have basically what I'm saying is the Amazon should
21:54
come in and it should have the Oracle as part of it because they're all from Sco.
22:00
Yeah. Like so you could have you could have oracle abilities on Amazon's to replace
22:06
the stuff that other classes are doing now. So you could actually have a magic based caster. Not too not too dissimilar from
22:12
the druid, but with instead of having shape-shifting or spirit stuff, it would
22:17
be the light, but it would be the light as a fast skirmisher or stands back
22:23
caster like you're throwing javelins and you can imbue the javelins with magical power or you can get up it fast, but you
22:30
but you don't you're not the you're not a you're not a a paladin. you're essentially a holy rogue or a holy
22:38
ranged or a holy caster. So So like instead of you know them being the Amazon that it would be more
22:45
like calling the character an escari. Yeah. Because you're you're pulling from their
22:51
their kind of regional identity rather than their their you know previous
22:56
Diablo I class. Yeah. Like to a certain degree, you kind of want to make them less the Amazon and
23:02
more this is this unique thing from this part of the world which references the
23:08
Amazon, but you don't just use the name Amazon because for one thing, you're probably going to want to let people play them of as being from either
23:15
gender. Yeah. And that's that's the rub with the Amazon. If you call it the Amazon, you make it
23:21
very hard to let someone play a guy if that's what they want to do. Um,
23:27
I you could just do that. You could just say, "Nope, got to be a woman." Uh, but I don't think they're going to do that in Diablo 4.
23:33
No. So, I mean, Diablo I Diablo I put so much emphasis on character customization and
23:39
being able to uh make your own character more than the previous Diablo games. So, yeah, I agree
23:44
with you. They aren't going to they're not going to gender restrict a character. So by making it the culture
23:51
instead of just, you know, the class, you can still reference all that stuff and still bring it in and you could
23:57
obviously play play a woman and be effectively be an Amazon or you could if
24:04
you want to play male, you just you're still part of that tradition. And in a weird sort of way, you could it by making it rooted to the Ashari, they're
24:12
you could have a warrior type figure who is nothing like the barbarian because you just can't you can't do anything
24:19
even remotely like the barbarian in Diablo and have it be anybody but the barbarian. It just doesn't make sense.
24:26
Uh so that's my thing. That's my take. No, I think that that totally makes sense. And yeah, I and that I guess that
24:32
kind of like like that that kind of pulls the thread together through all of our desires, I
24:40
would say. Um, we want to see more Diablo is what we're saying. We want to see more Diablo. Give us more Diablo.
24:45
And come on. And I want to see I want to see Amazon's Amazon.
24:50
And I would also I would also really like to see like a proper a proper assassin
24:56
class. I really enjoyed the assassin in Diablo II for all that I talk about the Amazon. And you know, I don't enjoy the
25:05
rogue so much in Diablo I. I struggle with the rogue, too. And that may be in part because it is so
25:12
many previous classes squished together. And what you're left with is something that feels like everything, but also
25:19
doesn't have the stronger identity of some of those previous classes. Feels a
25:24
little bit like Rundlefly Machine from the fly. Like you throw in the original rogue and
25:29
then you throw in bits from like various other Diablo I classes and just break it up and see what you get out.
25:35
Yeah. Just run comes out and it's like help me stab which kind of stabbing am I doing? I
25:42
actually like the rogue a little bit but I get what you're saying. I absolutely just do feel like it's kind of a hard class to get a grip on. Like am I an R
25:49
class or am I up close stabber or am I a sneaky stab in the backer? Which one am I?
25:54
Like the original rogue in Diablo I had a strong focus on bows and ranged combat. You get to Diablo 2, the
26:02
assassin has a focus on traps and kind
26:07
of marshall combat, whereas the Amazon has taken over the bow role. And in
26:13
Diablo II, you have the demon hunter. And the uh rogue has literally taken
26:19
some like specific demon hunter skills and just grabbed them. Yoink. And so,
26:26
but it also has the traps, some of the traps that like the assassin did. So, it's all it's all mushed together.
26:32
We're also missing the shadow magic of the assassin because that was one of the things that had not been represented in the game yet.
26:38
Um yeah, which also hails back to Scoos and and all that other stuff as well, right?
26:44
cuz like all that magic started there. I mean there is like so the the
26:52
imbument system of the rogue does have shadow in addition to poison and I
26:57
forget the third one but not quite the same thing like making shadow clones. Not quite the same thing. Yeah.
27:04
Mind blast shadow master fading making clones of yourself like
27:09
uh the classic cloak of shadows being able to block weapons with shadows. like you don't see a lot of that stuff. Also,
27:15
rogue or sorry, assassins had um essentially the first instance of psychic damage in Diablo, if I remember
27:22
correctly, from psychic hammer, uh which basically just spike somebody's mind with a giant hammer. Uh that's also
27:29
not been represented in a very very very long time. Now, the good news is we don't have long
27:35
to wait, right? Because with the announcement, they actually gave us a date. Uh the expansion is coming out
27:41
April 28th. That's a pretty which was another shocker. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We were all expecting
27:48
next BlizzCon. But yeah. Um this also does I I don't want to say
27:55
we're we're putting on a lot of weight on the expansion because I feel like there is a lot of weight of expectation there. But it also kind of gives me hope
28:03
because if they're releasing in April, you know, it's not quite a year and a
28:09
half, but that's pretty close to a year and a half from the last expansion, which is not a bad cadence, especially
28:16
for a game that has not successfully or a game franchise, I should say, that has
28:22
not successfully released two expansions for a title. Yeah. Not ever. This has never happened.
28:29
This is the first They they they tried doing one expansion that they didn't even get out. They because they, you
28:35
know, had Sierra doing it. Then they did one expansion for D2 and one expansion for D3, which the expansion for D3 is
28:42
actually D3. It almost feels like the D3 before the expansion was kind of like a
28:47
a beta test and then they like, "Oh, let's make it actually be good. Okay, yeah, here you go. Here's an example."
28:52
Diablo, Diablo I almost felt the same way that before Vessel of Hatred, they
28:58
were just constantly evolving systems. And it was by the time they were out for a year, they launched Vessel of Hatred,
29:04
and that was really the point where the game started to feel very solid, like you had a range of activities, a lot of in-game
29:10
stuff, a lot of stuff to do while you leveled. And they've continued to iterate, but it really felt like the
29:16
game didn't completely gel until almost a year in. Do you do you think that really unusual?
29:22
So, here's a quick question for you guys then based off the time frame of which we're getting the expansion and the fact
29:28
that they're letting the paladin be playable now. Do you think it's too soon? I don't actually because uh if you Joe,
29:36
you probably remember this cuz I know we talked about it to the side. uh while
29:42
they have you know two teams developing kind of you know seasons in parallel so
29:47
they're alternating um you know we knew that Vessel of Hatred was in development
29:53
before let me let me clarify not too soon for the expansion too soon to release the
29:58
Paladin oh right I don't cuz I mean we're looking at four months
30:05
right and I think it's actually a good opportunity go ahead No, no. I was just going to say
30:11
because like it it seems like with how quickly you move through Diablo I
30:16
4 because this is the other side of it, right? Like you go quick in Diablo I Diablo I
30:22
leveling happens extraordinarily fast. You get to the end and then what do you do?
30:28
You do either season content or you level your paragon. Um there there's some stuff to do, but like is it too
30:36
early to release a class that is very clearly tied up in the story of the next expansion as playable
30:43
like four months in advance? Like it's a bold move. I'm just curious like I think
30:49
it might have been too soon. Yeah. So here's my theory. It's a theory. This is nothing official. This
30:55
is coming from the brain of the second Liz. This is not fully endorsed by
31:00
Blizzard Watch or Diablo or anyone. Did you call it Lizard Watch?
31:07
Blizzard. Um, so my theory, my theory is one in
31:13
releasing the paladin. Now, it makes sense in the story beat because we have
31:18
the first non zelatus trying to earn their way back into the high heavens
31:25
angel presence in season 11. Um, second,
31:31
that holy warrior energy is, I think, something that they're going to need
31:37
going into Lord of Hat. Oh, I agree. So, this is Yeah, this is the, you know,
31:42
they even showed it in this is the beat of the trailer is you're digging up that
31:47
old armor and, you know, you're you've never really turned your back on the
31:53
light and now you're wielding it again in defense of Sanctuary. Yeah. Yeah, but that's the other question though, too, is are you the OG
32:00
Paladin or are you a descendant? Because we don't know yet. I I think it's absolutely a descendant.
32:07
There's I mean, there's some lore you get just by playing your character through, right? The next level.
32:13
Um so, I know that I know that's there and there's a little side story in the season.
32:18
Um before I say anything on my on my own, Liz, uh Liz one, do you what do you
32:24
think to Joe's question? I I feel like Blizzard really wanted something splashy to go along with the launch for season
32:31
11. Personally, I feel like the seasonal rotation has I have no data back to back
32:37
this up, but I feel like the season rotation has not had the punch that Blizzard wanted. Um, and certainly for
32:45
me it's uh it's gotten a little tiring to just okay, I'm going to roll another
32:51
one of the same class and I'm going to level it up and I'm going to level through Paragon until I get tired of doing this. And yeah, the the
32:59
repetitiveness of it has grown a little weary to me. But something like a new
33:04
class that's definitely going to get you excited. It's definitely going to get you in game. and the paladin, a warrior
33:11
of the light, fits in very neatly with the season 11 theme, which is about uh
33:18
wielding angelic powers. That's a perfect fit for the paladin. So, I feel like they slotted these two things
33:24
together intentionally, both because it's a thematic fit and also because uh
33:30
you you want people to get in and play the game. That's that's your hype generator is this new season, and they
33:36
tie in nicely. Also, you know, this has kind of an, you know, just from a
33:42
pragmatic standpoint, it gives them a fringe benefit of now they have two
33:48
seasons worth of play and patching and balance focus that they can give to the
33:55
class before they then roll out the second class. Yeah. I I mean, we don't know when the second class will get roll out. We don't
34:01
know if it'll be It's with the expansion. They they said that in the post.
34:06
Oh, yeah. I was wondering if it would roll out with I was wondering if it might roll
34:11
out with season 12, which at least by the calendar, season 12 would launch before the expansion, but I wonder if
34:17
it's going to be pushed back. Although that is my that is my surprise that the pallet didn't come out for season 12 closer to the release. But
34:24
yeah. Yeah, but thematically it makes more sense. Like Liz P just said, I I'm going to say this. Um I think it was an
34:30
inspired idea for a couple of reasons. One of which it's an incredibly compelling pre-order.
34:36
Oh, yeah. As opposed to I I didn't care at all about what WoW offered for its pre-order
34:43
uh for the for the upcoming for Midnight. I just wasn't tremendously interested. That's, you know, but for
34:48
this, I'm sitting here. I am sitting here desperately thinking, what can I stop doing that I do? I don't need to
34:55
eat, right? I don't need to eat. I could pre-order this because I want to play
35:00
the freaking Paladin and I want to do it now. I don't want to do it in two months. Uh or in this case, four months
35:07
really. Um so there's that. But also, um, even taking aside the thing that Liz
35:13
just said about them having, you know, two seasons to play test this thing, I think there's a benefit to having one
35:20
class be out getting the the iterative feedback whilst you work internally on
35:26
the other class because we don't we have no idea what the other class it or or what it's going to be like to um,
35:32
as much as we speculate. Yeah. As much as we love to speculate, right now we don't know. The Spirit Born
35:38
had a really rough landing. Not just because everyone said it was overpowered, but because it was it was
35:44
like very tied into the expansion on a thematic level, but it was unusual. Go ahead, Liz.
35:51
One thing about the Spiritorn I feel like Blizzard went out there and said, "We're going to have a new class and
35:57
vessel of hatred." And everyone was like, "Is it a crusader?" And Blizzard was no. Is it a paladin? No. And then
36:06
they, you know, there was a lot of hype. We just gotten out of Howard where we'd done this big story about the Zacharoom
36:12
and the crusaders trying to find their way again, trying to
36:19
overcome this sort of miasma that this despair that has that has uh kind of
36:26
filled their order and let them crumble. And there was a lot of interest even
36:31
back then in continuing that storyline and becoming a warrior of the light and
36:37
helping the Zacharoom rebuild even though we know they've done terrible things. We wanted that holy warrior. And
36:44
then we got the Spirit Born and we knew Blizzard had said that there was a totally new classic, a class we had
36:50
never seen before. And I feel like there was some disappointment there, which uh Diablo does have a bit of a history of
36:57
overhyping things and maybe not quite meeting community expectations. Uh so
37:03
I know what you're talking Doctor about. H I mean I I was rooting for a witch or a
37:11
witch doctor class of some of some sort with uh with vessel of hatred because again we've just been out of Howard. We
37:17
were learning about the witches of Howazar and they seem so interesting and so cool and that would have been a great
37:24
story continuation. Uh yeah, I think if anything that's going to wind up probably being like the ne the expansion
37:30
after this one because there's I I there's they want this to be like an
37:35
episodic release set of of stuff. They want it to be MMO adjacent. So we can assume that there's going to
37:42
be more, right? Or at least I mean we've seen based on what Blizzard does when they have
37:48
anything even remotely MMO is they're going to do their absolute best to to keep this thing going for years. Uh, so
37:55
it was I'm not opposed to that. So that was always the goal for Diablo I to be a live service game and to continue
38:03
much like Diablo II kept going except Diablo I keeps going and is also
38:08
monetized which is great. I love it. I I am battle passes.
38:17
I am going to self-correct real quick here. Uh Joe was correct earlier or
38:22
technically correct earlier which is the best kind of correct uh the second class looms on the dark
38:29
horizon is how they put it. I thought earlier they had said or maybe in an
38:35
infographic they had said that the next class comes with the expansion
38:41
but that may be in a different reference that I'm not looking at right now.
38:47
Unfortunately, you both made a Hermes Conrad reference, so I now have to say that just raises further questions. Um,
38:54
but speaking of further questions, we haven't even talked about what's going on in this expansion, and we should
38:59
probably at least mention it uh tangentally just so we can move on to talking about Yeah, maybe, you know, we're we're
39:06
taking out Meisto. Yeah, Lord of Hatred. It's Meto from the end of the previous expansion. If you
39:12
didn't play that expansion and don't know the story, we're not going to spoil it here because I I don't have the
39:19
ability to to know. Like I can't tell what's a spoiler anymore. Um but just stuff
39:24
happened. Meisto is back. Uh it's full court press. I'm so hoping that that
39:30
there's going to be a Lilith 3 appearance in this because quite frankly, I found her much more
39:35
compelling as a villain than I mean to date. I think we can safely say yes, Lilith is going back.
39:43
She's got a voice over on the in the uh the thing, doesn't she? The the trailer. She has a voice over in the trailer.
39:49
And also on the Microsoft blog post about the expansion announcement, they heavily talked about Lilith. Uh, so they
39:58
are in on the Lilith hype and I think they would probably know
40:03
when would it be kind of like finding out you come home and your kids have done an expansion without telling you
40:11
has a new living room. What did you do? Like what do you mean you made a new expansion and you changed the locks?
40:17
Yeah. So one hopes that the the parent company has some awareness of what their other
40:23
company is doing. Uh, but regardless, uh, yeah, I'm looking forward to Lilith. Uh, I thought she was a much cooler
40:29
villain in the main campaign story than we've gotten from from Meisto yet. Not
40:34
that he hasn't been good. Uh, he's he's quite good at being stark and evil. Yeah, she was just better. It's very
40:41
hard to hate Lilith even while she does absolutely horrible things because the things set up so well that you actually
40:48
can feel like honestly I feel like Anarius was her stalker except
40:56
yeah it's very hard to feel like yay go get her Anarius is because you're totally
41:02
murdered your own son to this is just it's hard to root for and you're
41:08
you're kind of rooting for Lilith the whole time even as you're going to fight her. Uh yeah, Inarius had a bad breakup
41:16
and has never gotten over it and founded a whole religion in the process.
41:22
Who cuz he did this before. Uh but anyway, so that's Yeah, that's the expansion. And we should mention that
41:28
there's going to be a new ability, a new thing in Diablo. Uh this is the ultimate endgame.
41:34
Go ahead. Some of you say this cuz I can't. You You can't You can't say that the
41:39
true endgame of Diablo is fishing. No, I absolutely cannot. I have I don't
41:46
have fishing skill. This is any of my WoW characters. This just feels like Hades did it, so we
41:52
have to do it. I But Hades did it in both one and two.
41:58
Mhm. The other thing is fishing does exist in Diablo Immortal. So,
42:04
yes, I'm aware. If if you want to consider that, then we
42:09
could revisit our class discussion, which we should not do because we've been talking about this a lot because
42:15
blood knights, you know, Diablo Diablo Immortal has added some very interesting classes,
42:20
including the Blood Knight and the Tempest. I think the Tempest is super cool and would fit in very well in
42:25
Diablo 4. But here we are. The reason we can't have four classes, Blizz just said, dude, keep going. Keep going. But also,
42:31
since we mentioned it, uh we'll just say quickly, season 11's live. It's the one with all the angel stuff, which is why
42:37
the Paladin fits really well into that as well. As Liz Pat already said, uh we should talk about there's winter holiday
42:44
events here for multiple games. I think we should talk about them now because we're already past the midpoint of the
42:50
show. Uh but Liz, I heard you about to say something. There there is it is time for holiday cheer enforced holiday cheer
42:58
via holiday events in all of your games. You must rewards. Yes,
43:04
exactly. It's it it feels a little overwhelming. Yeah. Do you want to read?
43:10
Absolutely overwhelming just reading this list. Sure. Yes. Just looking at the list. Diablo I
43:16
from December 18th to January 6th has Goblin Greetings. Not Yeah. Yeah. You're
43:23
going to understand that. Yes. Um where you kill treasure goblins. Always my
43:28
favorite activity for extra rewards in WoW. In modern WoW, uh it's Winter Veil.
43:36
Yay. It's live through January the 2nd and you can expect presents under the
43:41
tree on December 25th. Uh there is no news of anything new this year, but m
43:50
maybe we'll get some decor under the tree. Oh, there's a note here. There's a note
43:55
here that Dementius is wearing a Winterville hat. That's a very very large hat.
44:01
Dincius is very large. He wears a very large hat. So, um as as always, the uh
44:07
during winter sale, the bosses have festive decor and hats. My favorite
44:13
Winter's Veil boss, remains Razagath, who wore a Santa hat and carried a
44:19
wreath and a candy cane in her tiny little arms. It was great. Uh, so yes, you made the fight really hard. You were
44:25
laughing. You were too busy. Yes, you were laughing, but very festive. WoW Classic
44:31
and Mr. Pandere Classic both have Winter Veil of their own through January 2nd. Overwatch has Winter Wonderland
44:39
through January 7th. Uh Diablo II, Diablo II, we haven't talked about that
44:45
in a while. 22 Nights of Terror from December 16th to January 7th, which uh
44:51
they've changed it up this year where instead of having a different game play
44:57
uh buff or feature every day, which got a little crazy. It's just a some fixed
45:03
but buffs for the entire event which you get an additional 25% experience in
45:08
terror zones and everyone gets an extra 250 magic find and there are 19 popular
45:16
terror zones available all day every day. So, a little less random, a little
45:22
more consistent. There you go. Uh, still extremely
45:27
super festive magic finding. Yeah, we're going to go with that. Um, that's almost
45:33
the end. In Hearthstone, uh, you kind of get at the end of the year sort of a slew of little mini events that award
45:40
cards and packs, uh, quests and, uh, festive holiday brawls, uh, where you
45:47
destroy presents for treasure, things like that. Uh, so yes, holiday excitement in everything, everything
45:56
everywhere. At least three Diablo games, it seems. No, two. They didn't say anything for
46:01
Yeah, I I was I was looking at the list. I'm like, three, did I not seasons beatings?
46:07
Yeah, there's just when when Diablo's got two Christmas events happening, it's
46:12
like yikes. Um cool, but yikes. Uh we should talk um we got some World of
46:17
Warcraft stuff. Not not a ton of stuff, but um these are all this I love this because it's I'm going to read this.
46:23
Stupid housing tricks we've seen in love. Um, and I think there are a lot of them. Uh, specifically to me, the first two
46:32
you you mentioned here, making your house float. This is one that I've loved the more I'm hearing about it.
46:37
Well, they they acknowledge it as an official thing now, right? Yeah. It was notable before. Go ahead. Go ahead, Liz.
46:43
Yes, you can also sink your house into the ground, though. This does sound like it's still
46:49
a little buggy, but for people like myself who want to build things on top of our house that are not maybe less
46:56
houselike, like like a gorgeous hobbit hole, uh that can be very helpful.
47:02
Yeah, I uh I'm going to be taking advantage of that because I need to sink my house down a little bit to make my my tents actually fit.
47:09
I'm I'm sorry. Uh I I'm going to be making the the wizard tower from Ultima.
47:14
Uh you can you can make a floating thing. I'm going for it. Um, but I also
47:20
like this one just cuz it's the kind of thing that just feels like a lot of player housing feels like they were
47:27
designing it and then all these weird things started happening and they just left them making almost anything into a
47:34
chair by sinking a stool into it. I don't believe that that was ever their
47:39
intent. I think they just accepted. I think you're right there. I think that has to do with the fact
47:44
that they gave up on enforcing collision. Yeah. Yeah.
47:49
The weirdness. I mean, I think basically they I want to say in an interview or something they
47:55
said they were they were going to fix this because it was like, oh, you can sink something into something else and completely lose it and then they
48:01
realized people were using this to do cool stuff. Like let's say you have a big fountain out in your front yard and
48:07
you want to just sit on the edge of the fountain. Pretty cool, very reasonable thing to do. Well, what you do is take a
48:13
stool that you can sit on and just kind of sink it, hide it inside the fountain and position it just right. So when you
48:19
click it to sit on it, it looks like you're sitting on the edge of the fountain. So it's a it's as as we've
48:25
said, stupid housing tricks, but great. Yeah, I think that the fact that housing seems to be really amendable to allowing
48:32
these things to exist. If players are doing it, they're not like, how do we stop them? They're more like, how do we
48:38
make it work better? like the original concept of the flying house, they had to put in UI elements cuz those weren't
48:45
there. People were doing it with with workarounds. So, they went in and made the UI elements for it.
48:51
See, the only thing the problem that I have is I don't want to share my favorite one because I don't want them to patch it.
48:57
Yeah. Well, I mean to to this point, they have been like embracing the fun instead of oh no, fun detected that we
49:05
tease them about often. And uh that's great because this is so this is purely cosmetic. This is not player power. This
49:12
is not stuff we're doing in a raid. This is stuff we're doing in our own personal spaces. And there they seem to be uh
49:18
more accepting, more permissive of it than they might be if it was out in the open world.
49:23
I mean that I'll I got to share mine then. And well I'll roll the dice and god I hope you guys don't take it away
49:29
from me. uh the fact that you can oversize items beyond the slider uh which I think is
49:36
so there are hot keys and it's the bracket uh left bracket and right bracket for um smaller or larger and if
49:44
you go to the edge of 200 um percent for whatever it is some objects not all
49:50
objects but a lot of like the outdoor objects and a lot of uh very random things you can hit the increase size key
49:59
and get it to like 250%. Some of us are actually using that to hide our house inside of things like
50:04
tents so that we can actually like have the aesthetic we want without, you know, having to do it. The
50:11
the caveat is if you move the object at any point it reverts to its maximum 200%. You have to resize it again. Um,
50:19
but yeah, it I found that incredibly useful because currently uh I can't have an elf house. So, I have an elf tent and
50:26
I made a very large elf tent that looks like one of those like if you've ever seen like those like mansion tents that
50:33
you can get like 13, 14, 15 people into. It looks like that and I'm like, "This
50:38
makes me happy. Please don't take this away from me, Blizzard. Please don't take this away from me." It's pretty that's pretty fantastic. I'm
50:45
not going to lie. Uh, finally though, this one I hadn't heard of, so I'm going to like see if you guys know much about
50:51
it. Uh, exploiting the people on your friends list by using their house to port closer to a particular point of
50:57
interest. Um, I've do this in real life. Like if I know I'm going somewhere and I
51:03
know I know somebody there, I'll I'll like go to their house and maybe crash
51:09
there like when I did the last time I was in Southern California. Um, so the
51:14
fact that you can do it with player housing feels like it it should have always been that way because yeah, you
51:20
that's what you why you have you know somebody lives there. It's more reason to go there now. You don't have to like
51:25
stay in a hotel or whatever. Uh, so yeah. Do you have you guys seen this or heard about it? Like how is this and
51:32
basically I learned about it from Liz. Basically, if you have someone on your friends
51:38
list, anyone on your friends list, you can teleport to their house. Whether
51:43
they're online or offline, doesn't matter. Open your friends list, right
51:48
click on your friend, and select houses. You can choose if they have two houses,
51:54
you can pick a house and you can teleport there immediately. No cool down. So yeah, say I mean your hear your
52:04
hearstone your neighborhood Hearthstone only has a 15-minute cool down. If that is too slow, just teleport to anyone's
52:11
house. Bang. In the houses are the houses are in basically set neighborhoods.
52:16
Yes. Right. Like you're So they're basically close to this capital cities. Uh there is in both neighborhoods
52:22
there's a portal to the capital city. So, my advice is to if you want like a shortcut to Stormwind or Oram or find
52:29
make friends with someone who has a house close to the portal and that's
52:34
your go-to. That's your go-to. You teleport there immediately go through the portal. Uh even though the Horde
52:41
neighborhood has a portal that appears to be going to Ormar, if you're an alliance character in the Horde
52:47
neighborhood, it will send you to Stormwind and vice versa. So, yes, it's just it's just a stupid
52:53
little housing trick that is not obvious. Blizzard has not mentioned it
52:59
in the housing documentation, but it is there for you to use as you see fit. We
53:04
are joking about exploiting the people in your friends list, but this is not an exploit. This is just a game feature
53:10
that is easy to miss. Yeah, I mean, I'm not exploiting my friends when I go visit them before I go
53:15
to a convention, but I'm still going to do it. So yeah, I I don't I don't think it's a problem at all. But that covers
53:21
us for Blizzard stuff this week. We did go pretty heavy on Diablo. We could have gone heavier quite frankly, guys. Uh
53:27
before we There's so much we didn't touch on. Yeah. Before we move into like the other games portion, I am going to turn to um
53:35
you know, Ultimate Liz and say uh we've got site news and and you've reached your final form, so if you don't mind.
53:43
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56:11
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56:17
that's it. All right. Uh then we're going to talk about other games. Uh really fast. The Indie Game Awards are still coming on
56:24
December 8th. I don't know why you made that noise, man. The last game awards left a bad taste in
56:31
my mouth. Well, we're going to talk about that soon. But this is this is the Indie Game Awards. It's different thing.
56:37
Is it though? Is it? We're going to get into that. Okay. Indie Game Awards
56:43
different thing. Just going to read this because I think it sums it up pretty effectively. Uh,
56:49
the Game Awards, Clare Obscurer was only prevented from winning a queen sweep of every category they were nominated in by
56:56
Battlefield 6 winning best sound design. I'm going to say before we even talk about that, I'm I'm just like glad to
57:02
see that once again, I am not Nostradamus cuz my prediction for the Game Awards was woefully optimistic
57:09
about people voting for other things. I hate that I was right. Claire Obscura came in like a hurricane.
57:16
It was It was Miley Cyrus smashing through a relationship. I was going to say, would you say it came in like a wrecking ball?
57:22
Absolutely. I would. I'd even hire her to sing. I could if I could, I would pay her to sing dressed
57:30
up as The Outer Worlds 2, which I still think deserved that type that award more than they did. Um, but anyway, yeah,
57:36
let's all talk about that real fast if we want to. Uh, Joe, you first cuz I think you might go off. I I'm not going to say that Clear
57:42
Obscura was a bad game because I don't think it was a bad game. No, no, no. I do not think it was a sweep every
57:47
category good game though. I like the categories that it was winning. I come
57:53
on like some of the stuff that was up against made no sense. I don't think it
57:59
it deserved everything that it got. It deserved accolades, but I don't think it
58:06
deserved everything it got. And I am very mad that, you know, like best
58:12
performance and stuff like that and best narrative cuz it was it was definitely not the best narrative that released
58:18
this year. Again, not saying it's bad. The crop of games this year was spectacular, but it should not have
58:25
swept every category like it did. That's just again, it's my opinion. I know I'm going to get crap for it later. Um, I
58:31
can hear guild members yelling at me right now about it. Uh, but it's just it I tried really hard to like that game. I
58:39
really did. And I couldn't finish it. And that's a very rare day that I can't
58:45
finish a game. So maybe I'm biased, maybe I'm not, but I I don't think it
58:50
needed to win every single category. It's boring. I I do want to jump in here and say uh Claire Obscure won game of
58:56
the year, best game direction, best narrative, best art direction, uh best
59:03
uh score and music. It won best performance, best performance for
59:09
Jennifer English, uh it won. Is that it?
59:14
Did I reach? No. Best independent game. Best debut indie game. And yeah, almost
59:23
everything it got nominated for it won. So, oh, and best RPG. Sorry, I missed
59:29
one. Yeah, the one that I really thought other people had a chance on it. It won. I I mean, this is a game with There were
59:36
so many great games out there this year. So many. This is such a bloated year for
59:43
good games. Just there's a there's a crazy number of great games on the list.
59:50
So, I I will agree with Joe in that it's a little boring when one game just sweeps everything. Clare Obscure is not
59:57
a game for me personally. That's that's all I can say is it's just not not for me. That's fine. I am so glad other
1:00:04
people love it. Uh but yeah, it really did sweep the awards and I it is it is
1:00:10
kind of sad that some other games did not get more recognition because Clare Obscure really swept all of these
1:00:16
categories. Uh Liz Ped before I say anything. Uh I I watched it. I was probably most
1:00:24
delighted uh not with because uh to to the point
1:00:30
that has been made. I think you know um it that that much uh cleanup was um
1:00:38
maybe a little monotonous. I'm I'm delighted for how excited the team uh
1:00:44
behind Clare Obscure was. Um, but uh I I
1:00:50
was pretty delighted to see uh Jennifer English's speech. It was very sweet and
1:00:56
wonderful. Um, and I was also delighted to see folks that were in the category
1:01:02
with Jennifer English just wildly cheering for for the win. Um, I was
1:01:09
honestly uh most delighted with our our own Anna's coverage of the fashion of
1:01:17
the Game Awards because such a great job. So good. So if you if
1:01:23
you wanted to catch that, it's it's on the Blizzard Watch Blue Sky. Uh I I
1:01:28
found it delightful. I'm gonna say first off uh shout out to my boy uh Doom: The
1:01:35
Dark Ages for getting best innovation in accessibility, which is like that's the
1:01:40
award Doom wins. But you know, if Doom's going to win something, sure they got to
1:01:46
win something. Anyway, uh shout out to Erica Isi for the most hilarious reaction to anybody winning a category
1:01:52
that they're in that they didn't win. Mhm. Um, she's sitting there chowing down on popcorn and giggling
1:01:59
and I'm I'm there. That's that's that's amazing. Yeah. Uh, and again, I have nothing against
1:02:05
Jennifer English winning. I think Jennifer English is an incredible voice actress. Uh, I do think
1:02:10
I would I would rather she won that award, but then a couple of the other ones didn't necessarily go to Clare
1:02:16
Obscure. But for me, the really weird decision of the night was of of all the
1:02:22
things that I saw was best action game to Hades 2. And I'm not saying that
1:02:29
Hades 2 isn't an action game, but it almost feels like we need a roglike
1:02:34
category now. Yeah, it does. One thing is Doom and Hades being in the same
1:02:41
category feels like a caveman and a fighter jet being in the same category.
1:02:47
They are not the same thing. And the other thing is there's two categories. There's best action game and
1:02:54
there's best action adventure which are so similar but Hollow Knight won action
1:03:00
adventure and then Hades won action. So it's the the line there is very
1:03:08
confusing. The fact that Ghost of Yotai is in action adventure
1:03:13
that that's fine, but then Death Stranding 2 is is in that category. It
1:03:19
just feels like I don't know like Death Death Stranding Ghost of Yoai do not
1:03:24
belong in a category with split fiction. The broader categories I think get a little uh limiting. Yeah, I think
1:03:31
of course we also need to say that the game awards is there are awards at the
1:03:37
game awards. This is a part of the game awards. It's right there in the name. But a lot of the game awards are about
1:03:45
advertising for future games. Yeah. And there are there were tra there was some stuff like the whole Diablo
1:03:51
thing we just said is part of the the game hype thing. So we should definitely talk about those. Liz uh
1:03:57
Omega again. You should start cuz you started which which part Omega you're always Liz too or or Liz
1:04:05
you know follow what you wanted me to say.
1:04:10
I'm sorry I missed the question. Somebody talk now I don't know what's going on. Okay talking more talking. There were
1:04:17
trailers galore at TGA and other than Diablo. Uh there were there were some
1:04:22
really incredible ones that uh I wish listed and there were some I wish I hadn't had my eyes open for.
1:04:29
Divinity. How'd you guess? Because I threw up. Do we even
1:04:36
talk about that today with the the the visceral guttural reactions of people jumping to conclusions?
1:04:41
So I I do want to say that uh you know the crazy statue in the desert that we
1:04:47
were all thinking was Diablo related. It was not Diablo related. It was Divinity, the new upcoming game by Lyion. And
1:04:56
yeah, the trailer was too much for me. It just a little too much of too many
1:05:01
things. I'm here for the Croninburgian horror. Bring it on. I I
1:05:07
just didn't need to see that. I was not ready. Like, if I I know when I when I play the game, I'll be fine
1:05:13
cuz I'll know it's there. The the original Diablo I trailer was amazing. And this just went like a
1:05:20
little far beyond the line. M I would say a lot far beyond the line
1:05:28
just because it took it took a lot of things that maybe you did or didn't want to see and put them all together. It's
1:05:34
like every little thing that might be in a high a game with like a higher maturity rating. It's all in here one
1:05:42
thing after the other like a step too far. Maybe two steps too
1:05:48
far. Uh technically beautiful. It's definitely going to be an interesting game. I trust Lyion to make
1:05:54
great games, but uh do kind of wish I'd been away from from the screen when that
1:06:01
aired. So we don't just, you know, talk about that. Does anyone else have any other favorite announcements they want to talk
1:06:06
about? Joe will hit you first. Nope. Okay. Uh Liz one. I mean, if no
1:06:13
one else is going to mention it, uh, Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic from Casey Hudson. So, uh, we're we've got
1:06:21
our original Knights: The Old Republic developer coming in with a new Old
1:06:26
Republic Star Wars game, which they had a very fancy trailer. This is from a
1:06:32
studio that was founded by Casey Hudson in July.
1:06:37
Yeah. based on the publisher statement, the guy who's who's partnering with him is also from from the Cotor team
1:06:44
and he basically said we we kind of went up to Casey and said, "Hey, make a company because we want to make this
1:06:50
game." Like it's straight up like Casey Hudson was in his garage and somebody was like, "Hey, Casey, you're working on
1:06:55
your woodworking. Would you like to make a Star Wars game?" And he was like, "Yeah, okay." I mean, the other thing Casey Hudson was
1:07:01
in a Casey Hudson founded game company up until from the time he left Boware up
1:07:07
until last year when uh Netis was one of their developers. Netis has been pulling their money out of third party
1:07:13
developers and the studio shut down in November 2024. So now new studio as of
1:07:21
July working on this gigantic title and
1:07:27
they're promising to have it out fairly soon. Jason Shrier said, you know, this
1:07:32
is a new studio. We are probably not going to see this game before 2030 at the earliest. And Casey Hudson came back
1:07:38
to that and said, "Nope, I'm not getting any younger. We're going to have the game out before then." Which is
1:07:43
extremely ambitious. That's kind of pointing at the, you know, long run.
1:07:49
Just makes it makes you wonder how much they retain from what was lost when funding got pulled.
1:07:54
Yeah, they were working on a sci-fi game. I would assume that I would assume
1:08:00
that Net Ease had some uh ownership of that. Maybe that was negotiated away.
1:08:06
It depend if they were the publisher, they don't necessarily have those rights. They can have rights. Not
1:08:12
well hold on a second because from a a programming standpoint there's something that might be at play here too. They may
1:08:18
have had something in fact where they own like that version of the code but if they were using a game engine that
1:08:24
already exists that repository probably is not exclusive. So they could probably
1:08:29
take stuff that they were already worked on they already worked on inside of Unreal Engine apply it to this game and
1:08:36
then rig whatever skin they want on it. I'm not saying that's what they're doing, but I mean that is a possibility
1:08:41
and that would exceptionally speed up development. Yeah. Because they would basically be using the development they already did.
1:08:47
Yeah. But uh I mean that's that's an unknown and I would expect I'm just excited to see uh a new
1:08:54
Cotoresque game. Quite frankly, we didn't get the remaster for Cotor that I kept getting told was going to happen. I
1:09:00
will take this. I mean it's it's good to see Casey Hudson making some games. He's made been involved in some of my favorite games
1:09:06
like Coder, like Mass Effect, and uh he has not been involved in he's not had a
1:09:13
game release in quite a few years. I think the last game he did for Boware was Mass Effect Legendary Edition. So,
1:09:21
that has been a couple of years. And even that was a remaster, not a new game. So, and before that it was Anthem,
1:09:29
which that not the worst game, not not not an exciting game. So, it's going to be
1:09:36
to their core capacity, their core capabilities, I'd say. So, it's going to be interesting to see
1:09:42
what does a new game he's working, what does this look like? I didn't think of I don't think of two
1:09:47
answers for you, Matt, now that I have had time to reflect on the question. Um, which are two very different
1:09:53
answers. uh Forloop, which is coming from the uh creator of Left 4 Dead, and
1:10:00
Coven of the Chicken Foot. Those are those were two of my favorites
1:10:05
that I'm really looking forward to. Warlock. Oh, yeah. That's interesting.
1:10:11
I don't play warlocks very often in Dn D, but one of my favorite characters that I did play briefly was a warlock.
1:10:19
Um, and it was a divine soul warlock. So, I was, you know, my pact was with with like, you know, an angel or
1:10:25
something. And I enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to, even though I'm pretty sure this is going to be much spookier. It's going to just be it's
1:10:31
going to be more classed towards the Hexblade type experience based on what it looked like. But the idea of a firstp person action game set in in a D&D miloo
1:10:40
with the playable class being a warlock, it just it tickles me. Uh, I I don't
1:10:46
know how else to say it. I I just I find it fun. I like the idea. I'm I also like
1:10:52
the idea because they they keep trying to do the fantasy first person shooter. They did like
1:10:58
Immortals of Aavium and uh that didn't really work out, but it's not really the
1:11:03
game's fault. I' I played some of the game. It was on Game Pass. It's not it's not bad. Uh they're working on another one right
1:11:10
now. Uh and it's actually Oh, I can't remember. It's it's by the studio that
1:11:15
does a lot of firstperson shooters in general that isn't um the guys behind
1:11:20
Apex Legends. Um I know that much. I think it might actually be the the guys behind Battlefield. So it might be an EA
1:11:27
subsidiary, but they are working on another one right now and Warlock is in the in the can being worked on. That's
1:11:34
uh I I do want to add about Warlock. This is an official Dungeons and Dragons game in partnership with Resorts of the
1:11:41
Coast. It is made by the studio that made Dark Alliance and we really have very little uh information on it. Just
1:11:48
the trailer was all vibes. Yeah, absolutely. But the vibes were
1:11:53
good and I'm willing to see what happens. If it's bad, it'll be like when Dark Alliance launched and was bad. Um,
1:11:59
you know, it's like what's the saying about pizza? Even Even bad pizza is usually okay. Well, I don't know. I've had some pretty
1:12:05
bad pizza. Yeah. Well, I can get behind a really bad game if the game amuses me. uh which
1:12:12
Dark Alliance the the second one not the original one which is really good. Um
1:12:17
but the second one but you know the D and Dark Alliance they that game was it's it satisfied my desire to see
1:12:24
Drizzen get run over and crushed a lot. I don't like Drizz. I think he's a jerk. Uh we don't have timeel for life.
1:12:32
Yeah. No, I mean I'm I liked Wolfgar before she did. I'm sorry. Wolfgard goes to hell and
1:12:38
then Drizz steals his girlfriend and that's never really dealt with. If this is something you want us to talk
1:12:44
about on a lore watch, I will be more than happy to go the Icewind Dale series in depth with Matt on on an episode of
1:12:50
Lore Watch. Just let us know. But anyway, like I said, Warlock, uh, I want to see this game. I'm I'm pretty I'm
1:12:57
pretty interested in it. Of course, I'm interested in Divinity, and I don't
1:13:02
think it has to be not gory or whatever. I just wasn't expecting that trailer to go that hard. I was like, yikes. Okay.
1:13:10
Uh, also, as a guy with eye issues, there's a lot of stuff coming out of eyes.
1:13:15
It did go from zero to 100 pretty quickly. Yeah. So, that was my thing. But, but I am I am super interested. Not just
1:13:21
because it's Larian, but because it's Larian's original IP that they worked on for years now, and it feels kind of like
1:13:29
a soft relaunch of the whole franchise. Um, I'm kind of
1:13:34
hoping that they'll that they'll not necessarily do this as just another
1:13:40
action, just another RPG. I want to see if they go into different styles with
1:13:46
it. But regardless, I'm interested in anything Larian does, as Liz said. But I think that pretty much covers us for the
1:13:52
week. Um, so yeah, uh, thank you to Liz P for being here and talking all things
1:13:57
Diablo with us because quite frankly, uh, my envy and palpable jealousy at her getting to play a a pilotin early is is
1:14:05
consuming me alive. So, thank you for feeding me crumbs, Liz. You're welcome. No, no, thank you. I meant it. That's
1:14:11
serious. I'm very happy. I know I sound weird, but I am strange. Uh, also thank you to Joe and Liz for basically
1:14:19
everything that we, you know, behind the scenes on the show. They do everything. Uh, then I show up and yammer on for a
1:14:25
while. So, thank you to both of them. Uh, and yeah, this has been the Blizzard
1:14:30
Watch podcast. Uh, thank you guys so much for being here with us this week and we'll be back next week.