Up next in 10
Midnight and Gamescom were the core topic of this week's Blizzard Watch Podcast. A big part of the discussion centered on just how odd -- and, frankly, frustrating -- the way the information disseminated throughout the convention. Events posted late, misinformation, and illogical choices plagued the newest expansion's reveal. We're still excited for Player Housing, but there could be more we're excited about just waiting on some cutting room floor. But, as they note, the beta is coming soon -- you can sign up now, as a matter of fact. We discussed the new Demon Hunter spec, the new battleground, and UI improvements which may or may not topple BigWigs after 20 long years (though we doubt it a little).
Plus, our writer Flan joined the crew to talk about his experiences on the Legion Remix PTR. Runas is just as depressing in 2025, by the way.
If you have a few minutes, please fill out our survey to tell us what you think about the podcast. This data is collected by our podcast host, Acast, and will be used to help us improve the show as well as attract potential sponsors. Your answers are completely anonymous. We appreciate your help! http://bit.ly/blizzardwatchpodcast-survey
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0:00
[Music]
0:10
Hello everybody and welcome to the Blizzard Watch podcast. I'm hosting my name is Matt Rossi. With me this week is
0:16
our fantastic guest host Rob Flanigan aka Fan. Hi Flynn. Hello. Uh, also the
0:24
two stalwarts, the people who keep us going, the the light in the darkness,
0:30
uh, Liz Harper, our editor-inchief, and the propulsion system, the guy who is
0:35
constantly telling us he can't do it, only to then do it, Joe Perez. Hi.
0:40
Hello. Um, this week I'm going to start telling you guys that that we we we have to now
0:47
tell you that Transmog isn't going to be free. Well, we we we issued a slight correction with last in last week's
0:54
episode. I recorded a little bumper. Yeah, because Okay, I am I feel very bad
1:00
about this. I I feel like I have to apologize because we did make a big deal about this because it's amazing. Uh but
1:08
when I first read this news, I was like, what's what's the source? Where did this come from? And you know, crickets, there
1:13
was not a source. There was not an original source for it. And I was like, this this couldn't possibly be getting
1:19
reported everywhere and not be true. And it was not true. So,
1:25
well, not completely true. It did not completely true. I should have gone with my first instinct and do
1:32
not report it until you have a definite source. Uh, but here we are. Transmog
1:39
will cost you less probably, but uh it
1:44
is it is not free. Well, it's it's good in life. Nothing good in life is for you.
1:49
The stuff we did report is mostly still going to happen. Uh you're still getting this the new system that changes based
1:56
on outfits. Like you don't have to worry as much about individual stuff. Um that
2:02
kind of thing is in there. Uh I just I feel like we had to go up front with the fact that it's not going to be great
2:09
because we said it was. And I mean I I said it was out of my own mouth. So I had to we had
2:16
to talk about it. Yeah. I mean to be to be fair it's it's not 100% uh inaccurate what we said
2:24
except for the fact that it's not making you know changing your your transmog like the individual pieces is not free.
2:31
It seems to be very similar to what we described or pointed out is uh like most
2:38
other games have where you can set outfits and those outfits will be whatever you have them set to and when you're in different environments they
2:44
will change for free. So like like what you talked about with uh Balders's Gate 3.
2:49
Yes. So like Balders's Gate 3 or uh Guild Wars 2 or uh Final Fantasy, you
2:56
can have like certain glamour sets that go very specific. Go ahead, Liz. Uh Fan, you dug into this to figure out
3:02
what was true and what was false. You want to give us the rundown on what exactly is happening and what we will pay for.
3:08
So we will be paying for our individual sets. Uh there is no exact cost that has
3:14
been mentioned yet, but we will be paying for our alpha designs and from
3:20
there we have a new interface that lets it switch on the dime depending on our
3:25
situation that we will be in. So we can have multiple outfits that we have paid for and whatever we're doing the outfit
3:33
can accommodate to it. And if you set multiple outfits for say what I'm wearing at home, because personally I
3:39
have a couple versions of the Murloc pajamas, it'll randomize to what you're wearing in those situations, which is a
3:47
really cool feature. But the one thing we are paying for still is our outfits as a whole. And like if I have I believe I
3:54
understand this correctly. If I have an outfit set up and I decide uh those shoulders aren't quite working, I want to change those. That's still going to
4:01
be an individual purchase just like if you do it right now. That is what I'm understanding from the
4:07
uh information that has been given. Just if you have a set unlocked, if you're just slightly changing it, you
4:13
will still be paying for the changes to the outfit. But then any time you switch
4:19
to that outfit, it's free. And yes, in the in the user interface, there is a button that says purchase
4:26
outfit slot. And yeah, that's that's the question. Is this going to cost us like 10,000 gold? Is it going to be like
4:32
buying bank slots? I don't know. So, from a de developer interview that
4:38
was released online from Nevatel earlier with Lauren Sardina, uh
4:44
she did mention that it is going to be uh extremely affordable. It is not going to be the exuberant amount of gold that
4:51
we are seeing right now to transmog. Exuberant. Exuberant is a good word. I I
4:57
would have said destructive apocalyptic world endear exuberant. Exuberant's
5:04
good. No, I like it. Again, it's kind of like it's it's taking a negative and selling it as a positive. I I I I like
5:10
where you're going with that. Yes. Um but yeah, that's that's basics. It's it's basically sounds like it's going to
5:17
be like a lot of other games that have transmog systems where you you pay for individual pieces that you change per
5:22
outfit, but once you have an outfit created, you can switch to it and you don't have to spend gold uh to do that
5:29
switching, which I think is good. Right now, you still right now you still do. Um there are lots of different situations
5:35
in which you can set it up to automatically switch. So, do you go into a raid? Are you going into a delve? Are
5:40
you doing a profession? And so you could in fact have a fishing outfit and whenever you start fishing you'll automatically change into your fishing
5:46
duds. So what specialization are you in? Just what form are you in? Like if
5:53
you're a draier who wants a different thing in their dragon form and a
5:59
different thing in their humanoid form. Uh so I I think that's really cool.
6:04
The one question now that I have out is I have a lot of outfits already saved.
6:09
Will they carry over or am I paying a ton of gold right at the start trying to remake those? But
6:17
we'll see uh come beta or alpha, whichever, just to take a deeper look at
6:22
this. I am guessing that there's going to be a large upfront cost for those of us who have a lot of stuff
6:30
that we want to set up. So, here we are. Okay. But we should also mention the next thing we've got to mention here is
6:36
that the we we know that you can get a a chance at a beta slot if you buy the certain
6:42
tier of the epic edition. Yeah, the epic edition you can get a beta
6:48
access, but you can also just sign up for the beta the oldfashioned way. Um they have a sign up available. Go
6:54
ahead, Liz. That just went live this week. So it before the midnight announcement, they did not have a beta sign up. So that is
7:02
new. We do not have a date for the beta, but the sign up is live. So, if you're interested, go and sign up.
7:08
And that's, you know, basically it's the main website. You go there, they've got a link. You have to be in your Battleet
7:14
account for obvious reasons. Um, and they have beta optin. Click, boom, you're done. Yeah.
7:20
Uh, it doesn't mean you'll automatically get access. It just means you're signed up. You've you've told them you're interested. Uh, but that's if if you
7:28
don't want to have to spend gold or actual real money. Sorry, you don't actually technically speaking, they
7:33
don't let you buy this. You could do it. You could do it, but no, it's copy.
7:39
Important important note. If anyone says pay me money, pay me gold for a beta
7:45
key. Do not do not. That's that is a scam. Report them.
7:51
Yes. But, you know, again, if you do want to be in a beta, boom. One thing Ian He has a Costa said at the
7:57
end of Gamescom was that the alpha was coming in the coming weeks. I believe so we may get an we may start hearing about
8:03
the alpha soon and obviously the alpha comes before the beta. Yeah. And is even buggier. Uh so
8:12
yeah usually. So you know if it's not a game if someone tells you they're an alpha and another context just go like well I'll
8:17
wait for beta then. So you know some of the bugs have been worked out. Um but that's nothing to do with this. I
8:24
I I just I am glad that they got the beta already. Like they're letting people sign up. Not that they've got it out, but that they now have the sign up
8:30
there because, you know, people sometimes you just want to sign up. But now we have to talk a bunch about demon hunters because we found out we're
8:36
getting a new demon hunter spec in midnight. Surprise to everyone, I'm sure. Yeah, I mean, can I be upfront here?
8:44
I didn't actually see it coming, but the reason I didn't see it coming was because I thought, oh, this is too
8:50
obvious. It's like it's like the thing with the heraneer. We're not going to get the heraneer as playable race. That's too it's too easy. And then they
8:57
did it and I'm like, "Oh, well, well, okay." I will say that I'mical. I'm quite chuffed that I uh that I
9:04
called the mid-range, I think, on this podcast. Yeah. But so, let's talk about these
9:09
guys. We've got the new devourer spec, but that also means we're getting a new hero spec, right? We're getting a new hero talents.
9:14
Yeah. Yes, there has to be. Um, and that one is called the Annihilator.
9:20
Right. Yes. Blizzard did warn us that this is a working title, so it might change, but I
9:26
And the annihilator does sound pretty cool. Yeah, I want the annihilator to have an ability that's just the sound of a fell
9:32
reaver dropping down on you.
9:38
Like like that the reapers before the reapers and you know from Yeah. just that noise that they used to make.
9:44
I remember still to this day, I remember that that uh the original,
9:49
you know, uh Burning Crusade beta when you'd be walking along and you'd hear that noise and you'd look up and there's
9:56
a box. You're like, "What's that box?" And then you'd be dead and you ran from that box.
10:01
You wasn't even scaled to be big. It was just this tiny little box and you didn't
10:06
realize, "Oh, I'm already dead." Okay. And we were all We were all trained to
10:12
fear the checkered box. So going by what we've got here is the um dev the
10:17
devourer which is the spec for the voidy peoples get the annihilatorscard
10:23
um which is now well go ahead. So annihilator spec and the scarred spec
10:29
which scarred is currently felg scarred. It's not different. It's just now that you can be a void scarred demon hunter.
10:36
It's not the name does not make any sense. So they got rid of the fell portion. Yes. So now they're going to have that
10:41
and that means havoc is going to have the scard which is again currently fell scarred and the aldrachi reaver and the
10:48
vengeance are going to have the annihilator adrai reaver which means that if you're a vengeance you can you
10:53
can get your annihilation on in a less voidy way. These are the Yeah, these are the hero talents for the uh
10:59
yeah, for the for the shared the shared, but that also means uh Vengeance is losing access to Fel's Guard, which I I
11:07
don't know what uh what the Vengeance folks are thinking about that one. I'm interested to see how it's going to how that's going to play out for them.
11:13
If if Annihilator comes out super overb brokenly powerful, then they probably
11:18
won't be too upset. I but you know which is kind of the case sometimes with these things if it comes out but you know
11:24
feeling busted they're going to be like ah no or if you're like into RP and
11:30
you've kind of had a thing going because we have no idea what the annihilator is going to feel like we don't know what's
11:35
going on with it. Cool name we do know that it's going to focus on
11:41
summoning like their big thing is summoning fell comets or void comets from the sky to smash their enemies. I I
11:49
think it sounds pretty great. Personally, I would love to smash my enemies with comets from outer space.
11:54
We should also talk about the fact that if you play Devourer, uh nothing is green. You don't you don't do the fell
12:00
stuff. You are void. Your stuff is purpley void. Um it sounds like they did a lot of work on
12:06
the art assets to get everything. You are voidy. You are a creature of the void calling on the void.
12:12
Yep. And you're supposed to spend most of your time in the metamorphosis phase, right? From what I'm understanding.
12:18
Yeah, like you you can extend your time by casting abilities or picking up soul
12:23
fragments. Is that what they're called? I now Yes. But they may make it more voidy when it comes out.
12:31
So like if you if you keep doing stuff, you can stay in metaphors form for longer. And uh that's pretty cool, too.
12:39
And there's this little quote from Jade Martin here that I want to read because I think it was I think this is an interesting one. like
12:46
basically they're talking about exploring different things that they haven't announced. Um potentially doing
12:51
intelligence glaes um but swapping for your spec so that they'll still have agy on them if you're playing havoc or
12:57
vengeance. So it's possible devourer will be an int spec. That that makes I don't see a problem with
13:03
it. also makes it potentially the best weapon swapping for any class in the if that happen right like cuz like
13:09
I don't disagree because right now like and I was I was talking about this in uh guild yesterday
13:15
about like stat priority cuz like my stat priority as elemental and my stat priority as uh restoration are
13:23
completely different and so even with my stuff switching over between like you
13:29
know let's say agie and int if I have a one-hander cuz a lot of them do that it doesn't matter if the secondary stats
13:35
don't line up. I still have to go find a new weapon. But this this by itself, if
13:41
they still wind up having similar stat priority, will mean that potentially
13:46
demon hunters just don't have to worry about finding extra weapons to carry around with them if they want to play different uh different specs.
13:53
But also, we don't know if these have the same stat. We don't know yet. We have no idea. I mean,
13:59
they're going to do this. Yeah. Yeah. He said this is they're exploring this but devour you know they might love
14:05
mastery and maybe annihilator loves crit and may you know it's like they could
14:11
still have totally different secondary stat priorities. I think that's something uh every spec struggles with
14:17
if you want to hop back and forth a lot. Mhm. Yeah. I don't
14:23
Yeah. I I do think it's interesting that devourer and the annihilator hero talents are coming in if for no other
14:30
reason than to to make demon hunters finally make sense to me. Uh I've had the hardest time coping with the two
14:37
spec class. I've I have easier time dealing with druids who have four and
14:43
they they've gone from the the the group that had a speck that did John Madden for DPS to the group that has a John
14:49
Madden for figuring out their hero talents. Um, I I spent a lot of time staring at my druid in complete
14:56
incomprehension, but I had a harder time with demon hunters. I was like, which one's the tanking spec? I'm just going
15:01
to stick with that. Uh, yeah, that's that's Havoc. Okay, great. There, done. That's that's
15:07
I don't want to think. Yeah. See, see what I'm saying? I I have
15:12
more trouble with the with the demon. Having a third spec means that I'll have I'll have more flexibility to actually
15:19
understand this class. Sometimes that's the thing is you actually need a little bit more complexity just to get your
15:25
mind to settle on things. So I'm I'm happy about this. I I want them to have a third spec. I'm very happy that it's
15:32
going to be there. Um I mean it doesn't mean I'll play my demon hunter that much more cuz not a warrior. Let's not get
15:38
nuts. It actually made me uh start leveling my demon my demon hunter. Actually, I keep my demon hunters leveled uh
15:43
because I liked the one time I tanked on one. I was like, "Oh my god, everything is dying. I'm I'm This is like when I
15:50
played my monk times 100. Uh but yeah. No, the current the current the current
15:56
classes I have at at max level are not this because it's a So this this made me
16:02
break my uh my current meta as it were. Gotcha. Uh all right. We should probably
16:07
talk about these UI improvements. Um because they're right here and then and why shouldn't we talk about them? I like
16:12
UI. Uh I do like this updated name plate stuff. the the customized buff debuff display, highlighting cast bars uh for
16:19
dangerous abilities. That's all good. Uh go ahead. I see as we're watching this, I see somebody literally outlining
16:26
something and highlighting it. Liz, is that you doing that? No. Okay. I don't know who's doing it, but
16:33
Ion says you should not need an an add-on or external guide to tell you to do that. I I don't know if I agree, but
16:41
I'm curious to see how they implement that. Yeah, I mean I got some opinions on it. I mean and and I'll I'll make it
16:48
quick so Liz can talk, but like I'm fine with them ingesting add-ons as long as
16:54
they work properly and give you the same options that those add-ons do. Uh name plates, I've always said that they
17:01
should have more robust name plates built into the game instead of us having to use thirdparty name plates because third party name plates drive me
17:08
bonkers. So I'm a-ok okay with that. The boss alerts one is the interesting one
17:13
because deadly boss mods is the standard. big wigs is the next closest
17:18
one as far as I'm aware and I don't know if there's anything else in that that that category that that competes but
17:24
they give you so many options and so much customizability and look for things that Blizzard maybe
17:32
doesn't necessarily expose immediately because that's the other side of it is
17:37
and and Phil uh and I have talked about this in the past Blizzard's hide Blizzard hides things sometimes
17:44
sometimes they don't want you to see like certain things going on in the background of a boss ability or or whatever or timing. Um, so this in order
17:52
for their boss alert to replace deadly boss mods or bigwigs, they need to do
17:59
one of two things. It either needs to become exceedingly more transparent and be feature on par with those, or they
18:07
need to break the other one, right? And force you to use. So, I'm really curious to see how this goes. I'm hoping they go
18:12
with the uh you know the first one there and and and not just you randomly breaking something you know like they
18:19
may or may not have done in the past with other Adam Liz you say something. I mean what I think is interesting here
18:24
is that the the game does not always like you were saying Joe it doesn't always do a good job telegraphing things
18:31
or surfacing information that is potentially crucial and that's why these name plates are going to be so
18:38
potentially great. I hope they're going to be great. I use uh threat plates right now. I know a lot of people are using plater to do things like this and
18:46
it makes those cast bars really obvious when they're casting something dangerous I need to interrupt. They make their
18:52
buffs and debuffs really obvious. So that's the sort of information they're trying to surface. And I I think I do
18:58
agree with Ian is that what he was putting out there was if it is going to
19:04
kill you, you should be able to tell that without an add-on. So like the new name plates are going to make cast bars
19:11
more obvious so that particularly if it's casting an ability that will wipe
19:18
your group or will instantly murder you. So things that are important the game
19:23
should make them clear and should telegraph that information so that you have a chance to respond because the
19:29
reason we all turn to add-ons is because if you're in a game, okay, well that guy's doing a cast animation. Should I
19:36
interrupt him or is it just like animation is it which is it is it this deadly ability that uses that animation
19:41
or is it the one that doesn't really hurt as much that uses that exact same animation like
19:46
it's too yeah absolutely your interrupts have a cool down you can't always interrupt every ability you need to interrupt the really bad ones
19:52
and it's hard to tell what they're casting so that's why we all turn to add-ons
19:58
because I mean this is crucial information to play the game and game doesn't always I think I
20:03
think Blizzard has been doing a better job at this like they're making abilities more obvious. They've really
20:10
standardized different graphical effects. Like, okay, this is what it means if you need to stack and soak
20:16
something. This is what it means if you need to run out of this. Like, they've st they've done a better job of
20:21
standardizing visual effects. They've done a better job of making it clear where an effect is like not lines that
20:29
are off. So they've really they've really made their design language more streamlined
20:36
is really what it is. Yeah. So I feel like this is part and parcel in that they want to make it easier to
20:43
tell when something is happening and what is happening so that you are able to respond to it without an add-on.
20:49
Something that I think is Go on, Joe. I was going to say the interesting thing about it too is like and I was thinking
20:54
about this while reading like this earlier in the week. Um, WoW is in a
21:00
interesting spot, right? Because we had we have games that have come after WoW
21:05
that are very clearly, you know, were designed in a postWOW world that uh do
21:13
telegraphing differently. They don't require you to have add-ons and you can do a ton of stuff without having to
21:19
worry about it. And you know, the three that come to mind are Guild Wars 2, uh,
21:25
Final Fantasy 14, which are both still going strong, and then one that was no longer with us, which is a shame
21:31
because, well, NCoft, I hate in words, Wildstar, right? And all of these came
21:37
after WoW, which WoW did a better job than EverQuest, where EverQuest you had
21:43
no idea what was going to kill you until they killed you and then you had to learn like it was they it was like a rogue, like it was like Dark Souls back
21:48
then. Um, WoW made a lot of that stuff a lot more telegraphed by having animations and by having different voice
21:55
lines and things like that that made it easier, but it's still very much that game that was created in, you know, 2004
22:03
or released in 2004 where its design philosophy hasn't
22:08
necessarily caught up with all of the competitors and everything yet. And so this the boss alerts is a way of moving
22:16
it further towards like falling in line with modern-day sensibilities. And I
22:21
think that's very commendable uh cuz it's very easy to say, you know, no, we're never going to do this. You can
22:27
just suck it up and use your add-ons. Uh but this is better. The other side of
22:33
it, the technical aspect is how much load it's going to put onto the game engine. Uh, which is always an
22:40
interesting thing because right now if you add add-ons, yeah, it may only be a couple hundred megs of memory, but for somebody's computer that could be the
22:46
tipping point. And so like you can uninstall an add-on, you can't opt out of something that's built into gate. So
22:51
I'm going to be curious to see how how well they implemented based off Yeah. Um, we should also mention that
22:56
damage meters are supposed to be part of this as well. They want to have a server side, authoritative, and always
23:02
accurates. Now that damage meter, um, I'm in for if they actually make it work. One of the things I hate about
23:07
damage meters is this. Damage meters have always given me a problem in that
23:13
sometimes I'm playing a spec that's extremely bursty. And as a melee DPS, if
23:19
you are extremely bursty, there's going to be stretches of time you are not doing any DPS. You know, you're not
23:25
damaging anything. You're just trying to stay out of all this stuff on the ground that's going to kill you while still getting in the stuff in the ground
23:31
that's going to heal you and still staying close enough to hit something. um that can be a problem and it's always
23:37
irked me that if for whatever reason I chose to keep myself alive so that I
23:43
could hit him later when he wasn't doing everything around me dies coincentric circles
23:49
I therefore take a DPS hit and it's not I'm not mad that the game does that
23:55
yeah that's the meter thing and that's why I like the idea yeah but it's also to a degree it's a
24:01
meter thing just because it it doesn't my point just being I want this to be accurate about that dead bedtime.
24:08
I like I would love if it reported time spent not doing anything. Most of them do, but I want to hear what
24:14
Liz and Flynn were saying because I I heard both of them pipe up. Well, the one thing I'm excited about and want to see about damage meters is I
24:21
have played a hunter for years and some damage meters did not register pets.
24:27
Oh yeah, pets are awful. And so even worse, they don't register a pet
24:32
damage over time stuff, right? Like if you got a pet that does a poison or something and they don't they don't
24:38
get it. It's like what? That counts. My traps should count, too, by the way. So, I just want to hope that this damage
24:45
meter takes into account all the extra abilities and, you know, the pets of it
24:52
all that this is part of this is a major part of my damages. If I'm Beastmaster,
24:57
my pet is doing most of the damage because that's what I speced for. So that's what I'm just hoping to see is
25:04
that carries over. So that's why I use details. Details is the one that registers that
25:09
Liz, I mean, the reason that they're doing this is just like the rest of it. It's
25:15
this is really essential if you want to tell how well you're playing. If you want to see which skills are doing the
25:22
most damage, if you want to see what kind of damage you're doing, if you have this talent as opposed to that talent,
25:28
all of that stuff is kind of important to playing a character. I mean, you don't have to get into that if you don't want to. But if you want to get into
25:35
that and really know how well you're playing, really know how much damage or healing you're doing, you need to go to
25:42
a third party. uh add-on or service and
25:48
now it's just now it's just going to be built in. And one of the things is that Blizzard can make something that really
25:55
tells you your damage. If you look at something like details or scattera or
26:01
logs, any of those things may not be 100% accurate because it is based on
26:08
range. If you're out of range, if you're over there, it may not pick up your damage. So, some of these are going to
26:13
be off. So, it is I think this could be really great. I thought the the Warcraft logs when
26:19
you're in a group I thought that was pulled from client side from the combat log. I thought that they thought they fixed that a while ago. I could be
26:25
wrong, but um I I could also be wrong. I I thought that Warcraft logs could pull in from
26:31
multiple players and that was what made it more accurate, but I could be completely wrong. Uh,
26:38
and also you get things, go ahead, like, uh, augmentation evokers that it's
26:43
just really hard to tell their impact on a group. And I don't know if just a
26:49
damage meter made by Blizzard is going to fix that. Well, I mean, part of that is just the culture around damage meters, right?
26:54
Like the the culture around damage meters is top performers, you have to be doing XYZ, you have to be doing like and
27:00
to Matt's point and to everybody's point, that's not always accurate and it's not always the best on a point. So, like I I'll use healers as an example.
27:09
Um, healing meters are sort of a joke, right? We I mean, we joke about it
27:14
internally in our guild because like, you know, Rosa and I and we've been
27:20
healing against and and Resol, we've been healing against each other for years at this point. We're friends. We do it as a way of joking and and playing
27:26
around, but we actually don't care. As long as like, you know, everybody's alive, then everybody did their job,
27:32
right? Um, and certain classes do better uh when you're learning a fight. Like
27:38
restoan are the bee's knees when you're your raid is taking a ton of damage
27:45
because that mastery woo that mastery is chef kiss. Um, but then when everybody
27:50
knows what they're doing and you guys, you know, stop standing in bad number go down. It's not that I'm worse at my job.
27:57
It's you're, you know, learning the fights and you are rewarded for surviving. Um, and meters like as far as
28:04
like who's in first place shouldn't matter, but that's a cultural thing. The thing that is important though is
28:09
analysis. How many times did I cast X spell? What was the impact of it? A lot
28:14
of times people use this for trinkets too, right? Or for gear, for uh set
28:20
bonuses, how much did this affect it? What is what is the impact of me giving myself 10% more crit? and looking at
28:27
what that spell rotation looks like and analyzing from there and folks like me who sit there with spreadsheets. That's
28:34
what I care about. And I like we were doing I mean there's a whole bit about healing where does when does it tip over from
28:40
I'm doing enough healing to keep everyone alive to I'm overhealing a lot because I no longer have
28:45
I play a shaman. I have 40% overhealing and I just live with that. That's fine. Yeah. Um, but it's one of those things you might
28:50
want to analyze, especially if you're on a a class like a paladin where it's less or less overheal or
28:57
the paladins are paladins are are well we can talk about that as a separate topic another day.
29:02
Um, but for like me like mana consumption, I look at mana consumption and like what points in a fight uh I've
29:08
burned my mana, regen it and stuff like that. So for me them having a and I'm going to air quote damage meter. Um, I
29:16
think it should just be an event meter, right? Like I don't think like calling it a damage meter, I understand is a colloquial term for it. But I care more
29:22
about non-damage stuff. I care more about the individual stuff. I care about debuff clearing. I care about personal
29:28
cooldown usage. I care about raid cooldown usage and how many times things were used during an encounter. We just
29:36
uh started working on uh not so wacky, definitely not inflatable tube man. Um,
29:42
I can't remember the actual name of the boss because I just make up weird things in my brain and they stick. Um, but
29:48
we're doing that and we have to clear debuffs and we have to manage cooldowns and it's a very high like spike damage
29:54
fight. And so in between polls, I'm going through logs seeing who didn't dispel or how many times was dispel
30:01
cast. How many times did they cast a spell or how many times were they targeted for something that forced them to move away from the raid so that I can
30:08
start, you know, planning around stuff like that. Who used what cool down when, did we accidentally layer too many cool
30:13
downs at one point and not have one later on? I care about accurate reporting of when that stuff was used.
30:19
As long as they can accomplish that and give me an easy way to read it and an easy interface to read it, I will be
30:25
content. Especially, well, I will be over the moon if it's a more accurate
30:30
version than details right now because details does miss things. It's not perfect. Does better than some others,
30:36
but yeah. I mean, I scatter, but Scotta doesn't always work the way you want.
30:42
Yeah. So, okay, I think we should move on. We should move on. Yeah. PvP. We got a new 40v40
30:49
battleground called Slayer's Rise in Voidstorm Zone. Um, this will be a world
30:54
PvP opportunities in the zone, which I don't think is necessarily related to Slayer's Rise, but there's going to be war mode stuff.
31:00
Uh, yeah. I mean, Slayer's Rise is in Voidstorm and it's it reminds me a lot
31:06
of Alterak Valley because it's big 40 by by 40 brawl. Um, but also in the outer
31:14
Yeah. Yeah. in the outer uh voidtorm zone. There's going to be uh world PvP
31:19
stuff and war mode stuff for players who are into that. There's also going to be like the comp stomp level PVP versus AI um which is
31:27
going to be training grounds. Um that's cool. The idea you get to go and do some PvP AI, so you get familiar with the
31:35
format of it, for lack of a better word, like the way it it's going to feel. So that's cool.
31:41
um they're going to try to make the bot less bad.
31:47
One thing that you know people will use comp stomp for now is to go in and you can finish quests, you can earn honor,
31:55
you can I mean there's things you can do. Uh I would say farm.
32:00
Yes. The most important reason to play com stomp is to be able to buy PvP transmog. That's that's why you play it.
32:07
I wouldn't dispute that. I I don't they didn't say anything about whether you
32:12
will still be able to do that, but they did talk about it as a practice mode, a way to kind of onboard yourself to PvP.
32:20
So, we'll see. We'll see. Is it going to be just like comp stomp or is it going
32:25
to be comp stomp without all the transmog in which case I'm no longer interested? Yeah, that would be a problem. But uh we
32:32
should mention that you can currently apparently the the the goal is for Arathy Bas and Silvershard Mines and
32:37
Battle for Gilaeas as part of this. Um I don't know if we'll get more. I hope we do because quite frankly uh it would
32:44
take a lot to get me to do Silvershard Mines again. I don't care if he has computer. I just know I don't want to go
32:49
there. Um but you know, we'll see. Uh I'm going to just read this one. This is
32:54
uh something we were going to talk about before anyways. This one's from Ted Semi. It's right here. So, a question
33:00
for the Blizzard Watch podcast. How much has Blizzard's communication of information shaped how you view the
33:06
company as a whole from both a personal and professional level? Um, I'm going to
33:11
look at Liz first here. Uh, I mean, the information roll out from Gamescom was not great. It was not
33:19
very polished. It was not very professional. It did not look like this
33:25
is a multibillion dollar company producing giving information for us
33:31
because they, you know, they initially had a reveal of midnight during Gamescom
33:36
opening light night live and then nothing. They gave us a very basic blog
33:44
post and we were talking earlier about the misunderstanding with transmog being free. That's because there was something
33:52
that I think certain people read and said, "Oh, transmog is going to be free rather than transmog is going to cost
33:58
less or transmog is going to be different." And then they told everyone that and it got started spreading around
34:04
and then that was all anyone was talking about. Uh because we had opening night live and then it was two days later
34:10
before we had a panel from Blizzard talking about games features. And that
34:16
panel keeping up with this transmog thing, that panel did not mention transmog at all. It did not go into any
34:23
stuff. It laid out the zones and the delves and the dungeons and just kind of
34:28
your big picture stuff and your story stuff. And then it was 2 days later before we got a systems panel that
34:35
started talking about actual gameplay. Like all of this stuff we've been talking about with demon hunters and UI
34:41
improvements is all from the systems panel. So, it took them several days to
34:48
get the information out and it was they did not live stream these panels. They
34:53
came out seven or eight hours later. The first panel had significant audio
34:58
problems and there's a point in the panel where the audio is just dead. It
35:04
is hard to hear the people on stage. The second panel was a lot better
35:09
audio-wise, but not good. This did not feel like a polished presentation. And
35:14
the only things they live streamed were uh the creator clash which was a
35:22
competitive player housing in which they spent different creators spent 20 minutes or 30 minutes making houses
35:29
based on a theme and that was kind of interesting though. It had some slightly cringe-worthy or MC kind of pattern
35:37
going on that was not it was an advertisement for player housing turned into a competition that
35:42
shouldn't have been a competition. Let's call it what it was. I mean, I think it was a fun competition. It was interesting to see
35:48
what people had created, but it also meant, okay, we have to have hosts for this. Everyone has to be talking all the
35:54
time. We, you know, it felt kind of needless. Housing, the esports.
35:59
Wait, Robert has already left the company. How did that happen? Oh boy, we're we're going to get into
36:05
that. They did evil. I'm sorry, Rod. They did dungeons, but they were current
36:12
dungeons. They had a delve showcase. It was current delves available in the
36:19
game. So, and that was all they live streamed. So, it felt like there was a
36:24
big information gap. If you wanted to know what was happening at Gamescom, your best bet was to follow like Talison
36:32
Nevatel on Twitter because they were on the floor and uh or to watch their live
36:37
streams because they had a couple of live streams there and they would talk about what was going on. And then
36:43
throughout the week, you had a bunch of creators who released videos, videos of interviews with developers and that had
36:49
a lot of details that weren't in either of the panels. And a lot of those interviews came out before the second
36:55
panel which clarified some of those things. So we got information in drips and drabs. Most of the information was
37:03
video-based and uh when it is information released over dozens of
37:10
videos, it is very hard to find out okay what's actually going on? What is happening?
37:17
You have to find you have to find the video. Then you have to find the video that said the thing that you actually heard from other people or didn't say
37:22
it. Yeah. It's it's a lot of hunt and pecking. Yes. And Blizzard has still, you know,
37:28
we're a week after Gamescom. Blizzard has still not released just like a written fact sheet beyond what they
37:33
initially released, which was uh very much the basics. So this was just a very unpolished presentation
37:41
and the information roll out was pretty bad. I mean, Blizzard has released some
37:48
extremely polished video content, talking about new content, explaining
37:53
it, doing developer interviews. They've done that in a really polished way in
37:59
the past, which has really helped you understand what's going on with something. This was not that. This was
38:04
not anywhere close to that. Blizzard has also done live streaming from events before. They've live streamed panels
38:09
from Gamescom before, but they did not do it this time and it it's just it's
38:16
it's sad. It's sad that we have this this company that is making these games
38:22
we love and you know the developers there love the games they're making and they're doing their best to make an
38:29
awesome game and do awesome presentations and then the information release is so fragmented. You know, if
38:37
this were if this were an indie company, I would be like, "Yeah, you know, this is hard. This is hard work to get your
38:43
information out there. This is tough." But this is Blizzard owned by Microsoft. This is a huge, massive company. And
38:51
they can't even Okay, they did give us a press release. The press release also did not mention Transmog, which I think
38:57
is obviously the most important feature in the game, but it was just a lot of incomplete
39:03
information. And if you want the complete story, you need to watch a dozen video interviews, plus two
39:10
Blizzard panels with poor quality audio. I would hate to be someone who had
39:15
hearing problems, who was deaf, who had any kind of any kind of auditory
39:20
disability because these are hard. Some of these are very hard to hear. Even the Blizzard panel that was better because
39:27
if you watch the second panel, the systems panel, you will notice that all of them have two microphones. They have
39:33
a a microphone they're holding and then they have a microphone up on their up on their face. A lav mic or a head mic. Yeah.
39:41
Yes. And they did not have that in the first one. They were just holding microphones. So, it's definitely a
39:46
technical problem that they had at Gamescom that they attempted to address for the second panel and they did a lot
39:52
better. But why why this is the biggest gaming event in the world? This is a
39:59
massive gaming company. Why can they not well they live stream a panel? And I and I mean this as nice as
40:05
possible. They couldn't even do it when they were the ones putting on the show. How many times did we sit at watching a
40:11
Blizzcon, whether you were live in the in the seats there or watching the stream when they were doing it where the
40:17
audio was completely jacked. I mean, I remember I remember sitting there cuz like again, I'm
40:23
I'm the one that records and edits the podcast and stuff like that. I'm an audio guy. I always have been. Um, I
40:29
used to record live performances all the time. I was in a band. I was in charge of our sound. Like, I'm not saying that
40:35
I'm perfect at it, but I have a working knowledge of it. And I remember sitting back during BlizzCons when before Adam,
40:41
you know, his journey moved him away from the website and him and I would sit and just cuz he has a similar background
40:46
with that stuff would just be mind blown at like how poor the stuff was managed.
40:53
And like in a company that large with uh you know that many teams, you have to have people that know what they're
40:59
doing. Did you not put them in those roles or did you you know tell them that they weren't allowed to do it and you
41:04
went with a like a third party because it was cheaper than paying overtime. We'll never know. Uh but like stuff like
41:10
this is like just a continuation of that where Gamescom is the biggest show and we don't know if it was a Gamescom
41:15
problem. We don't know if it was a Blizzard problem. We don't know if it was a uh you know a larger Microsoft
41:20
problem and what they told them they could and couldn't do. Like we have no information on it and it's being like
41:26
wild speculation of why everything was so poor, right? Like it it's it's a
41:31
weird spot to be in and I feel bad for the dev when audio quality was not great at Blizzcon or not perfect on streams. And
41:39
I think particularly the musical performances at Blizzcon could be very poorly balanced.
41:44
They're terrible sometimes. But you could hear people. You could hear clearly hear a voice that was loud and
41:50
distinct. Did you have you gone through the two panels that they published show? Yeah, I did.
41:55
Yeah. There the voices are muddy. They're covered in background sound.
42:01
They're echoey. It is It is tough to hear these people and it's this is the worst way to release.
42:07
Yeah. And and I'm and I'm really curious cuz like and again and this is just not that it's apples to apples but I've done
42:13
a live show at a convention. I literally did a live podcast recording at PAX East
42:18
before. Um and there were when we did it there were three sets of audio equipment
42:25
at just PAX East. It was ours that we brought and set up. It was our um parent company that was
42:33
essentially sponsoring us brought their stuff so that they could be do a backup and on site at the convention center
42:40
they had their own system as well. So there were literally three recordings being made at the same time and three
42:47
toggles in case the audio cut out or there was any problems with any of the equipment so that if there was a problem they go
42:53
through. And this was way back when. This was back during the time of like when Bastion was still in like beta,
42:59
right? Like not WoW Bastion, the Super Giant Games first game. Uh so like this
43:04
is years and years and years ago. And I cannot imagine that Gamescom didn't have that stuff available. But I'm wondering
43:10
if Blizzard tried using their own stuff. Maybe something got damaged in transport. And then for the second
43:15
panel, like you said, you can notice that there's visibly more equipment, which means they're plugged into more soundboards, which means they're trying
43:22
to use other technology in conjunction with their own to try to essentially mitigate that damage. I'm wondering if
43:29
then they went into the games kind of stuff, but again, it's you would have expected more, I guess, and it I'm with
43:34
you. It just it seemed seemed pushed. And also also, you know,
43:40
if you know you're going to be slow to get these panels out, if you know that, oh, this audio quality isn't what we
43:46
wanted, you could have put out a blog post with the slides from the presentation. You could have done a blog
43:53
post with bullet points saying, hey, we had a presentation this afternoon. Here are the slides. Here's what we went
43:58
over. Now, you can go watch it if you want to. But the fact that Blizzard did not publish a lot of information
44:04
themselves and left it to videos and left it to content creators to put out
44:09
that information has led to the spread of misinformation and it is hard to tell what is true and
44:16
false because you have to go through all these videos. One thing I heard earlier in the week was that heron are going to
44:22
be an alliance only race. That is not true. That is not true. they're faction neutral. And actually, that one is in a
44:28
Blizzard blog post, but you've got to go, you've got to go through all of this stuff to find out if that is true. Uh,
44:36
the thing that we were talking about earlier about switching between transmog sets being free, they did not say that
44:42
in the panel. They did not say anything about switching between sets being free. They did not even imply it would be free. You
44:49
might think it would be free because it would be nonsensical for it not to be free, but they did not say that. They
44:55
said that in an interview with a creator, I can't even remember who it was, that that would be free. So,
45:02
there's a lot of room for misinformation to spread. And that more than anything, even if they had the bad audio quality,
45:09
you know, you understand that technical problems happen. It's it can be tough to do these things. But Blizzard has not
45:16
stepped in to make sure everyone has the information that's available, that
45:21
misinformation is not spreading around. they have not published any of this themselves and so it's it's just very
45:29
difficult to know what's happening and I think that's extremely unprofessional especially for a company this size.
45:34
I was going to say but we do know something that is happening and I do want to make sure that Rob gets a chance to talk about it that we do actually
45:39
have information about. Yes. Uh yes yes yes. Rob, would you like to talk about Legion Remix because we do actually have more
45:46
stuff about that now. I would love to talk about uh Legion Remix. Uh, I was playing it for the last
45:52
2 weeks while it was available on the BTR. It left the BTR yesterday, so now we have to wait until it finally drops.
45:59
But, uh, the big thing I've noticed is this does feel a lot different than the,
46:05
uh, Mr. Banderia version did. A lot of people are talking about how this feels a lot slower. I don't entirely agree.
46:14
Uh, this is mainly because when MOP Remix started, it was a lot slower than
46:19
we remember it at the end when everyone was basically the powers of Titans and one-shotting uh, Garage without even
46:27
thinking about it. This is moving a little bit slower. We only managed to test up to the first raid which means as
46:35
we weren't able to develop our powers fully especially now bec uh gear based
46:40
is controlling how much agility how much uh stats we actually have instead of it
46:46
all going to our weapons instead of the cloaks. My biggest issue was I didn't
46:52
know what stats I was getting throughout this entire uh excuse me this entire PTR
46:58
situation we were instead of the threads in the past the threads were you know this is a threat of agility your agility
47:05
has gone up this is the thread of a leech your leech has gone up the things
47:10
in this were named like this is your uh memory of happiness this is your memory
47:16
of joy or sadness and it's like What does that mean? It's like, well, your stamina has gone up. What else? So,
47:24
the the power that we were seeing in the end of M OP Remix, it's not there yet,
47:32
but I do like how this is starting off slower. Uh, we will be going through phases in this. Uh, we are starting in
47:40
just the Emerald Nightmare and then we'll move to the Nightwell. Sorry. Yes,
47:45
the Night Well. We'll get that Karazan by week two and then it'll just every two weeks we gain more and more powers
47:52
until it says our final month we are going to be going in there all out in
47:58
full as we remember Titan Titanic powered creatures destroying uh the
48:05
Legion. So I am looking forward to that phase. We're not starting there, but
48:10
it's good to see that it will ramp up to experience we all remember from remix.
48:16
I don't remember getting happiness in Legion. I don't remember happiness in Legion either because I remember Run the Shame
48:23
and there was definitely no happiness when Runes was around. I just in general games game seem to be
48:31
more about hurting things than you know feeling feeling happy. It's like yay the players being invaded by the Legion. I
48:37
don't I don't remember that one. Yes, these felt really strangely named for that because it's like I don't
48:43
remember and these names don't exactly equate to
48:48
what I would assume for telling you, you know, your crit's going up. Like I just What is happiness mean? I'm happy. So
48:55
that means my crit is going up. But yes, but wouldn't you just call it crit? I at least I know what you're talking about.
49:02
That that's interesting. I'm kind of hoping that gets changed. I I hope that make you cryptic, but yeah. Okay. Um,
49:09
did you did you get a chance to play around with the difficulty levels out in the open world? Because that's one thing
49:15
that sounded interesting. The heroic mode was actually amazing. And I do hope that heroic mode
49:21
eventually makes it to live. It adds the feel of Diablo when Diablo is like,
49:27
"Well, this creature has a wall effect." Well, as I'm going through the world, all of a sudden, I'll be facing a mob.
49:34
And yes, that mob will be like, "If you attack me, I'm going to summon two demons." And I don't know if this was
49:41
intentional or a bug that has become intentional. This also affected critters. So, you could find a squirrel
49:49
and that would be a demon's favorite squirrel if you accidentally hit it and all of a sudden you are facing down a
49:56
legion of the legion because you took out a critter. So, it did lead to a lot
50:02
of fun moments. This confirms so many holy dogs conspiracy theories about squirrels.
50:08
It it it is hard, but I do recommend switching to it as soon as possible. It
50:14
recommends you try heroic around level 25. By around level 35, I I stayed in
50:20
heroic mode and was happy the entire time because it just made the game much more exciting cuz he never knew what was
50:27
going to happen next. So yes, heroic mode, please, please come to the live
50:33
game. Um, at this point, uh, Liz, I'm going to ask you to do the thing you usually do here, and then we'll have
50:38
probably have enough time to cover one or two more things. Uh, yes. I want to say thank you to all
50:44
of our Patreon supporters because you are what makes the site possible.
50:49
Blizzard is supported by Patreon, which you can find at patreon.com/bizzardwatch.
50:57
Uh, and if you want to support us, if you support us at $3 a month, you get early access to all of these podcasts
51:05
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51:14
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51:29
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51:34
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51:41
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getting clips of these podcasts, uh, follow us on YouTube or Instagram or uh,
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Blue Sky. Yes, that's it. Uh, so, thank you so much. I appreciate all of you out
52:15
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52:21
than we would like on Patreon. So, if you can chip in, that really helps us out and keep the site going. Thank you
52:27
all so much for being here. All right. Um I think we should talk about really quickly the leg the changes
52:34
to leveling that are coming up because we talked about them last time, but we have a little bit more information about them. Um so, does anyone want to talk
52:42
about this or you just want me to do it because sometimes somebody here is closer to something than I am? Not here than you. Oh, this is going okay.
52:49
I I think it's really interesting the way they're updating the leveling experience and the new player experience
52:55
in Midnight. So, you can play through Dragon Flight, but not just play through
53:01
Dragon Flight like all of us played through Dragon Flight. You can play Dragon Flight up to the first raid. And
53:07
there's going to be a story mode of that raid. So, you can go in and do that as you would have narratively. And then you
53:13
could keep playing, keep going through the quests, get to the next raid, story mode. So, they're adding story modes to
53:19
all the raids because the raids are such big parts of the story. And it's not like you can go and level through this
53:24
and get an LFR for these raids. So, they're adding story mode. This is the first time they've done story mode. And
53:30
it sounds like they're they're tweaking the campaign to make it easier to access access this
53:37
content if you're coming in later, which has always been a weakness of World of Warcraft. It's hard to consume the story
53:44
if you are not doing it every day as it rolls out. And then after that, they're going to do
53:50
an abbreviated version of The War Within just to get people onroaded to midnight. Uh yeah, and it sounds like it's really
53:57
abbreviated, like a couple of hours and you will have finished The War Within. That's pretty abbreviated, but it just
54:05
get get people up to speed. So, I think this is really interesting. It's really great and it's probably something that won't affect me at all ever. This is
54:13
great. It's going to really help people get in and see see the story, see the world.
54:18
All right. Um uh yeah, uh I'm going to go for add to that.
54:24
Go ahead. Uh they were also having it that players returning would uh be able
54:30
to spend time in uh the Wrathy Highlands with quest lines just so if you haven't
54:35
played your character in a long time, you would go to a questing area just to reaclimate yourself to your class
54:42
abilities, especially if you haven't played them in months and your the entire playthrough has changed for that
54:49
particular type of character. just so you could relearn your uh skills and then you can go back into the world and
54:55
pick up uh quest lines to start leveling again from there, which was a really nice change of place.
55:01
We did technically mention that last time. Uh but yes, it is a really cool change. I do, this was a really brief
55:07
one. Uh this is actually another game news one, but I did want to mention it because it involves Rod Ferguson, who just left Blizzard fairly recently. If
55:13
you don't know, Rod was the um overall, you know, general manager for the Diablo
55:20
I, you know, creation, Diablo franchise. The whole Diablo franchise. Yeah. And he
55:26
left Blizzard this year. I mean, he left relatively recently, didn't he? Like a month. A couple of weeks ago. Okay.
55:31
A couple of weeks. It's not been long. Yeah. It's Yeah. His his job basically he moved
55:38
over to Cloud Chamber. the studio was working on the next Bioshock, which is a game that he has previously worked on as
55:44
well. He worked on I think it was Bioshock Infinite. Yeah. Um,
55:50
now that he's moved over to Cloud Chamber, they just had a round of layoffs. Um, Rod, I love you. What are
55:56
you doing, Rod? Rod, what are you doing? I don't actually think this is Rod's fault, but I do think it's like, wow, dude. Um,
56:02
like the fact that he was there for like a week when this happened. this. Yeah,
56:07
he may be the fall guy for it, but this was Yeah, it definitely definitely in the works before then.
56:13
It definitely was. And I will also say that we were talking earlier about Blizzard communication styles. And one
56:19
of my biggest problems with Blizzard's communication style over the past couple of years, and one of the reasons I
56:24
didn't talk much during that was Rod Ferguson. And it's not that I don't like Rod. I actually think Rod's a very nice
56:30
man, and he talks a lot of stuff that's interesting. But when you have him on a stream, he can't stop himself. And I
56:36
think that that we saw that from not just from him. There were other people at Blizzard doing it where they would
56:42
talk about things that were not related to the thing you were there to be told about at length and you'd have to sit
56:49
there and wait until he'd finally stop so you could get to the thing. Um, it's one of the reasons that I liked it when
56:55
they started having Joe Shel in there more often. So yeah, that's I don't know what's going on with the the Bioshock uh
57:02
cloud chamber stuff, but I do think that Rod, you you got to need to learn to step back a little. Yikes.
57:10
I mean, one thing about Bioshock, the new Bioshock, the next Bioshock, has it been in like development hell
57:16
forever? It's been in development for over a decade. And no game is in development
57:22
for over a decade that is in good shape. If it's been in development for that long, that means it's been rebooted.
57:28
That means maybe it's bad management that's not giving it direction. You know, I will not hear this slander about Duke
57:33
Nukem forever. I'm sorry. There is there is no game that is like
57:39
this. So, I don't like layoffs, but I this game needed clearly needed
57:45
something to get it and and yeah, again, just pointed out he was just there. He just moved there.
57:52
It's very unlikely that he showed up and immediately laid a million people or not a million but you know
57:57
I mean Rod is kind of known as a I don't know a closer someone who will come in
58:02
and get a project finished. So and you know Diablo I had been in development for an extremely long time before it
58:11
came out the door. So yeah, he came in in 2020. Let's point that out. He came in in 2020. They'd
58:17
been talking about Diablo I for years without actually announcing it. And they only announced it in 2019 when they
58:24
finally had a trailer to to announce it with. They were supposed to announce it before that. We know this because they
58:29
had a tie-in comic that they were made about Lilith and then they just jettisoned it so nobody would know.
58:35
So yeah, he came in and actually got the game out the door. That's that's fair to say that, but still.
58:41
Um, so I don't know. I don't know. I mean, he left Blizzard earlier this
58:46
month. He started up here a couple weeks later and it's this isn't even the end of the month.
58:52
Yeah, there have just been a couple weeks between these two things. So, uh I don't
58:58
know, maybe this means we'll get another Bioshock game because it's not going to sit there spinning its wheels for another decade.
59:06
But I mean, we've seen that happen. We've also seen like I I made the joke about
59:11
Duke Nukem forever, but we've seen companies bring in people over and over again and games haven't come out. So
59:18
yeah, I mean let's also just point out there Bioshock 4, which has been being worked on at Cloud Chamber uh was
59:25
announced in 2019 and it failed an internal review in August of this year
59:30
uh due to and I'm going to air quote this narrative issues. Uh so there yeah
59:38
development hell is probably a good a good you can't you cannot put this on any one person's head. No.
59:44
No. Honestly, I keep forgetting that Bioshock 4 is not Judas, which is apparently coming out as well,
59:51
which is that's one of them spiritual successors, right? Well, Judas is what uh Ken Lavine is
59:58
working on, who made previous Bioshock games, but is not involved in this one. But I think at that point, we're pretty
1:00:04
much done for the day because we are out of time. Um, thank you guys so much for being here. Thank you to Flynn for
1:00:09
coming back to talk about Legion Remix after we were supposed to talk about Legion Remix last week and didn't.
1:00:14
Um, he's very happened last week. Yeah. No, happened last week that you care about. No,
1:00:21
we're going to start doing like an hour and a half long shows if they just keep talking about GameStop stuff. But
1:00:26
anyway, uh, thank you to Flynn. Thank you to Liz and Joe for basically keeping the show on track and making sure it
1:00:32
exists at all. And thank you to us the, you know, to you, not me. I'm not a listener. I'm actually here. I'm
1:00:38
working. Oh my god. Having a shatter. Hopefully that hopefully you're also
1:00:43
listening at the same time. I think I think I'm listening. I'm trying. I'm doing my best over here. But I'm not listening to the recorded
1:00:49
podcast. I'm listening to you guys and you're like my friends. Anyway, thank you to everyone who makes the show
1:00:55
possible. This has been the Blizzard Watch podcast and we'll be back next week.
1:01:01
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#Gaming Reference & Reviews