Up next in 10
We start off the show this week talking about WoW Classic, namely that Burning Crusade Anniversary realms were announced and are coming in January, perhaps concurrentish with the release of Midnight. It's fine, it's not like we have lives outside of this one video game or anything. Then, we pivot to the changes to transmog coming in Midnight, and it seems like every time we look at those changes they get worse and worse, much like the gear we had to wear right at the beginning of The Burning Crusade.
While we're excited to see Vendetta, the new Overwatch 2 hero coming soon, it's kinda weird she calls herself a term used in both Italian and Spanish slang to mean "lady of the night." She does have a big sword, and she seems neat.
Also, we're coming to the end of the year, so it's game awards season. Lots of awards have been announcing their nominees, and the lists aren't without controversy.
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0:00
[Music]
0:10
Hello everybody and welcome to the Blizzard Watch podcast. We talk about Blizzard Entertainment and its mini
0:15
games and sometimes some other games if we can get them in there. Uh with me as always are my two fantabulous co-hosts,
0:22
Liz Harper and Joe Perez. And our amazing special super guest podcast host
0:28
of the week is Phil Olrich. And I'm checking his name as I say it. Um I'm
0:34
actually like going staring at it with my one good eye. Um so hi everybody.
0:39
Hi. Hello. Um right now uh let's see. We should I guess we should just do these in order.
0:44
Uh wow classics got stuff going on. So, uh, Burning Crusade Anniversary Edition is launching next year, which of course
0:51
next year means probably February or something because January pre- patch in January. Uh,
0:58
the full launch in midFebruary. Okay. Probably. We don't we don't have a fixed date for the the launch, but probably
1:07
early to midFebruary. So, what's interesting about that is that that may
1:13
be right on top of the midnight launch. So, if people are like on and off between classic and modern wow, it's
1:20
like you're you're you may have to really choose and hone in on one or the other cuz
1:26
Yeah. Also, isn't isn't this not like this? They're they're not they're selling it even though you don't
1:32
technically have to buy it. I mean, they've they've done this for all of the expansion releases in
1:40
classic, I believe, or most of them. Um, you know, all you need to play classic
1:46
is a Can you imagine the if they just sold you an expansion that you already had bought, but it doesn't apply.
1:51
Yeah. Yeah. That that you bought 20 years ago. Like, oh, uh,
1:56
hey kids, you want to buy DC again? No. No, I don't.
2:03
This one, this pack you can buy stood out to me for two reasons. one, the
2:10
price, and two, the number of things you get in Modern WoW if you buy it. There's
2:16
a flying mount, a uh ground mount, a pet, a toy, a cosmetic hearstone stone
2:24
that is Naru themed. It's all a white glowy and a Naru appears above you when you use it. And these are available in
2:32
both modern and classic. So there's in the past they've had kind of a a mix and
2:38
match of these but yeah now there are versions of both in both though the modern ones a little resolution upgrade
2:47
though I have to say one of them is a is a nether drake. Love the nether drakes.
2:52
I went through the original burning crusade grind to get every nether drake.
2:57
Uh, the modern Nether Drakes just don't appeal to me the way the classic
3:04
weird phantom glowy ones do. And so the classic version is that, you know, sort of phantom glowy thing. The modern one
3:11
is also glowy, but looks a little more like a solid real creature. I'm just I'm
3:17
a little less excited about that. But there's also the epic pack, which is $80, and that adds a character boost and
3:23
some game time. Uh, yes. So, two versions. the heroic pack which includes all of those all of
3:31
those pets and toys for modern and for retail. Uh that is uh 40 bucks. Do I
3:37
have that right? I hope I didn't do all of this and say 40ucks here on the thing you wrote. And the epic pack is 80 bucks. It has
3:44
all of that plus 30 days of game time and a character boost so you could be ready to jump right into Outland. Hey,
3:52
it that just feels it. I've got to say you're getting a lot of cosmetics out of
3:57
here if you really want it. If you like went and did the math of like how much would this cost if I bought it in the
4:03
store, you're probably coming out ahead. But also, this is it's kind of a lot.
4:08
It's kind of a lot. Already did the midnight pre-order and uh Well, it's also interesting that it's
4:14
happening for both at the same time because that is unusual that they would have everything you buy in one you get
4:19
in the other. Usually, you know, usually it'd be one or the other. So, I think I think they had one for Cataclysm that you could buy and it gave
4:26
you rewards in each one, but I think they were different. Yeah, they were there was like a mount in each one, but it was slightly
4:31
different. Um, yeah, this one's interesting. Some of the I kind of agree with you about the uh the Nether drikes,
4:37
Liz. Like, the new ones look I don't know. They've done something high res to its teeth, and I don't like the way the teeth look, but it's also a It's like a
4:44
weird mish mash of design elements. Like the face and body look like the old
4:50
classic Nether Drake, but like they put some like ethereal style armor on it, which is fine or what or like the the
4:56
gladiator armor is actually what it looks like. But then like its wings in the modern retail version are like
5:02
sparkle pony wings. They've got the stars in them and everything. And the tail is the same thing. And then solid
5:07
white feet. Um it reminds me of the dragon version of that set they sold
5:12
gosh like a year or two ago in the shop. I think it's still there. the one that has like the the gold and teal one that
5:18
like puts stars around you if you have like the cloak transmog on the shoulders. I think um it's interesting
5:25
it but what jumped out at me and I think this is just kind of funny. Um villain couldn't get the Exodar off the ground
5:31
uh ever, but by god there is a floating Exodar toy. It's just a miniature version of the Exodar that flies. Uh get
5:38
good. It's just free crash that's all. Yeah, that's it. So it's going to warp between dimensions instead of flying by.
5:43
It would actually be really funny if it if if one of its animations was to randomly crash into something and stick
5:48
up can't stick up at an angle and then it would come back out and be like if you could get this one
5:53
out, could you get the bigger one out cuz it's bigger. Oh, I hope so. It just makes a tiny ecological disaster wherever it lands.
6:00
Yes, that would be great. Um, also in classic, and this one's not coming soon.
6:06
This one is happening within a month. Um, the Missandaria is getting Mr.
6:12
Pandaria classic. my my apologies is getting the Thunder King patch, the Thunder King raid and the aisle of
6:18
Thunder open zone thing that you can do. That's all coming on December 9th, which is 2 days after my birthday. You missed
6:26
Lizard. Well, but you know, hey, at least it's happening in the same rough area. Um I'm
6:31
doesn't matter to me. I'm not playing uh Classics right now. I can't play this many games.
6:37
Yeah, at this point just playing World of Warcraft is like playing four games. It's like, oh, okay, good. Yeah, get
6:44
more stuff. Whoopee. Ah, if you're if you're playing miss, this is this is a great patch. There's just
6:50
so much great content on the aisle of thunder. One of my favorite raids, one of my the most fun I've had in a raid,
6:57
uh, with my guild, which at the time was a horde guild, was running, um, the, you know, the Thunder King raid, because
7:04
there were certain parts where you could get on your big mount, which at the time was a reforging mount.
7:10
Um, and people would like I would get up on my big mount. I was the only one who had one, and just suddenly everyone
7:15
would be like just like stuck to me like Limpitus. Um, I don't know, actually, was it the
7:21
transmog mount by then? Like I think they got rid of reforging for mists, right? It might have actually been the transmog
7:26
mount. No, reforging reforging was front and center because there was an Athereal who did it specifically. Yep.
7:32
So when did they get rid of reforging after mists? They got rid of it for Legion. Okay. Cuz I know I had it and it was
7:38
very popular and then they were like, "Oh, you must hate it now that they got rid of reforging." I'm like, "Are you kidding? They put a transmog vendor on
7:44
it. I love it even more now." Yep. It's one of those it's one of those
7:50
things where it was they they removed it because it was like one of the many hoops you had to jump through in order to put a piece of gear on. So
7:56
yeah, and of course it went from, oh, I got a piece of gear that wasn't quite up to par, but I can use reforging to make
8:02
it better until I get a better piece. And into I'm going to have to I'm going to change every piece of gear I have to
8:09
give me haste or you know or crit or whatever it was. For warriors it was crit.
8:14
Yeah. and and it's like, "Oh, and I'm going to have to go to a I'm going to have to go to a website and let it punch these numbers in and balance it in for
8:19
me because I need to find the way to do this while also 6% hit." There was an actual mod that I had
8:25
downloaded that that that contacted Mr. Robot and did that for me in the game so
8:31
I didn't have to leave the game to go look at it. I really I really think I won't I won't get too much into it, but I really think
8:36
they could bring back reforging, make a lot of people happy, especially now that you don't have to hit hit or expertise caps. I really think it would be a
8:42
popular feature again. probably, but that's not over there. Yeah, there's also like there's a lot of
8:47
other cool stuff on the aisle of thunder, not just the raid. A lot of open world stuff that's really neat. A
8:53
couple world bosses at least. I know there's the big dragon one also on the aisle of giants. So,
9:00
yeah. Yep. I wonder if the I can't tame him, unfortunately. Oh, I wonder if the old graveyard zerg uh
9:06
strategy we used to use to get him down before we were possibly geared to do it because your newasta level had that
9:11
laser that would just chain and take out like 20 people at a time. So, I remember Yeah, but the graveyard is literally right next to him. So, you
9:17
Yeah. So, you just drag him to the edge of the cliff so that people would come out of the graveyard and run up to Unasa.
9:23
That's that's kind of the natural strategy there. I mean, what what else are you going to do? It's a good idea.
9:28
I like really fight the boss. In the case of Unasta, that was definitely a a
9:33
fight I didn't enjoy tanking. H god, I was still tanking back then. I did not like Unasta. Um but yeah. Uh so that's
9:40
happening. So yay. Um and now we guess we move on to World of Warcraft itself. Um
9:46
the um I'm just going to mention this one and then Liz will will take over for a
9:51
second, I'm pretty sure. Um this week's midnight beta patch adds transmog and it's going to cost you a lot to unlock
9:57
slots to every to switch between. Liz, remember remember that day when we all
10:03
read the headline that Transmog was going to be free and we were so excited?
10:09
Do you you remember the joy of that day? That day is dead.
10:15
It's on the ground now. It is on the ground. Um stop shooting it. It's not moving.
10:22
So, transmog in Midnight is you have sets and you can
10:29
freely switch between the sets without changing and the armor sets. If you have a set equipped, a transmog appearance
10:36
equipped, and you change your armor out, you're still going to have that set. Great. So, there's a lot of advantages
10:43
to this, particularly earlier in an expansion when you're switching gear a
10:48
lot. You can just set a look and keep it. You're not going to do that thing that I definitely don't do and just be
10:54
like, "Oh, I can't put on this new gear because it's going to ruin my outfit,"
10:59
which is very important to me. I So there there are some great advantages
11:05
that and the new system also lets you automatically switch between gear sets
11:10
when you're doing different things. Like you could have something you walk into your house and your character automatically puts on their pajamas. You
11:17
could do that. or, you know, I'm going into a raid. I'm going to put on my uh
11:22
kind of my murdering look because, you know, you got to you got to get ready to stomp things if you're going into a
11:29
raid. There are lots of cool things about the system. It is definitely not free. When you set up a look for the
11:36
first time, uh it will cost you kind of the same range of gold that you spend now to change a transmog. If you ever
11:43
change out a piece of gear, it uh a piece of gear in a set uh change out a single look, it costs you about what it
11:51
costs you now. In addition, you will have to unlock armor slots if you want to have multiple transmog looks. There
11:59
are 20 armor slots you can unlock in game. Now, there are also 20 armor slots that are just unlocked. They're a little
12:06
bit expensive. If you want to unlock all 20 slots to
12:12
have the number of slots that you have right now, it will cost you 800,000
12:20
gold. And that's that's a number I I could not reach that without buying several WOW tokens. And not only does it
12:28
cost 800,000 gold to reach the number of transmog sets that you currently have right now in the live game, it will cost
12:34
you 800,000 gold per character if you happen to play multiple characters and
12:39
you wanted to have more than a couple of transmogs for them. I I feel like this
12:45
is how it stands in the beta right now and so it could change.
12:50
I want to offer a a different perspective. This is this is definitely expensive. Mhm. This is exactly how City of Heroes
12:56
did it. And anybody who played that game will remember this because you got uh Matt, you played was it six outfit
13:04
slots? I think Phil, you played two. I think it was like six. I think it was eight, wasn't it? Was it eight? It was eight or six.
13:09
It was one of those two. Might have been eight in City of Villains. Like I was It was six and then
13:15
City of Villains added two more. That's right. Um you This is exactly what you did. You opened up those slots. Um,
13:24
Monsoon Mike in chat, if you can look and tell me what it's currently set to, that'd be great. Um, but you purchase
13:29
those slots and you set an outfit for those slots. But if you and that cost you influence, their version of gold and
13:37
to switch between those once they were set was free. If you wanted to change
13:43
the look inside of one of those slots, it cost you influence to change that ini individual
13:49
uh that individual uh piece or whatever. And then once it was set, it didn't cost
13:55
you anything to go back to it. They're doing basically the same thing. The problem is that this is getting very
14:01
expensive very quickly. I think it's the escalation of it, right? Uh and Mike,
14:06
thank you very much in our chat there. It was six slots in City of Heroes and right now you can unlock four more if you are on the legacy home uh
14:12
homecoming. But like the jump from a 100 to 500 to a,000 to 5,000 is is a pretty big incremental jump.
14:18
I mean, you know, an extra 5,000 up to 10 slots, then an extra 10,000 for every
14:24
slot after 10 to 20. Yeah. Um there's a lot that's a lot of gold to unlock them all.
14:29
Yeah. Go ahead, Liz. Um, so you start with two slots unlocked just uh so you
14:36
can go and set up a transmog, but you can also you could also do transmog exactly the way you do right now. you
14:42
could just you're just paying whenever you change something, which
14:48
I now feel like I'm more likely to do more of that and maybe have a couple of
14:54
slots saved for different uh occasions, but I feel a lot more like I'm just
15:01
going to use transmog almost the way it is right now, except I'll have a couple of slots that are things I want to
15:07
automate and automatically change between. So, because I I do not have
15:13
800,000 gold to unlock 20 transmog slots, and I currently have 20 transmog
15:18
appearances saved in the live game. So, yeah, that's the that's the downside,
15:23
right? You can keep using it like you are now, but it's automatically worse than what you're doing now. Yes, it is
15:28
automatically immediately worse than what I'm doing because I cannot save looks that I am going to jump between
15:36
without unlocking 20 slots. I can't I So, whatever I do, I'm going to have to
15:42
significantly scale down the number of slots, the number of looks I have saved.
15:49
And it's definitely it's definitely an impact, right? Like I'm not I'm not trying to minimize that. Yeah. Um, but I do think that for the
15:56
vast majority of players, I think that this will be mostly a
16:01
positive change for them. So, I think basically I think that if you are
16:06
going slots that you use is fine. Like I'd spend I'd spend 600 gold to get
16:13
up to four slots then then that would be fine. But I mean, as I say this, I
16:20
probably have as many appearances currently saved as Liz does, and I had
16:26
to go coordinate them because I play more than one warrior. So, I'm constantly going, "Oh, I got to get that other look." And, you know, so I get it.
16:33
I understand why people would be upset about it. I know that I'm not going to get a like 20 slots into this cuz I I've
16:40
never seen 800k gold except the only time I saw that much money was when my
16:45
guild started throwing gold at me so I could buy my own shoulders. I mean I I know I'm an oddity. I think
16:51
I'm sitting on like 3 million gold or something like that, but like and there's lots of people who are lots of my friends are. I just am not one of
16:57
those people. But that's the whole point of the debate, right? Sorry. Go ahead, Liz. If I combined every cent of gold I have
17:04
on every character on my account built up over the last 21 years, I might have
17:12
300,000 gold. That is gold making. I am very bad at it. I It's not my kind of
17:19
the amount of transmog you do. No wonder there is absolutely there's absolutely
17:25
no way I'm going to be able to get a system that is as functional as the
17:32
system I have right now. And I just feel like I thought this was going to be a
17:38
big upgrade and that we'd be able to have a lot more sets and we'd be able to automatically switch between things. And
17:44
now I feel like this is about the same as what we have now. Now, this this
17:49
would be I think two things need to be uh feedback given for this, right? And that's what the beta is for. And I'm I'm
17:56
encouraging people that are in the beta right now that feel strongly about Transmog to submit the feedback. Um,
18:02
one, I do think that unlocking the slots is way too bloody expensive. I think that that's a crazy total for every
18:09
character. So, something's got to give. One, I think the price needs to come down. I think, you know, something like
18:17
300k to unlock all the slots sounds a little more reasonable to me. There are other gold syncs in this game do not
18:23
make transmog even bigger gold sync than it already is. Two, maybe if you're
18:28
going to require slots to be expensive, it's one of those things where you need to start reducing the cost of individual
18:35
transmog or you get a discount based off of how many slots you have. And if you
18:40
manage to unlock all 20 of them, transmog's free for you forever. like there there has to be some give there
18:46
for it. But right now I I would agree it's very expensive. The concept I think
18:53
is solid. The cost is not. Yeah. And it really does feel like a
18:58
first iteration and that some costs that we were told were not going to be there are still attached. Um and that just
19:05
feels like the kind of thing that goes away with feedback. Um this is after all literally the first time the system has
19:10
been in game. like transmog was completely disabled last week on the beta so they could lay the groundwork
19:16
for this. The the only thing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth about this is I would compare it to when they made the
19:22
transition from the old bank system to the new bank system where you had bags or whatever. Um like yes, new tabs cost
19:31
an increasingly uh large amount of money, but also they didn't take away
19:36
stuff you already had to do it. Um, and you actually came out ahead um, just in
19:43
terms of sheer number of bank slots after the conversion with this. The way it's currently set up, if you go from
19:49
having 20 right now, you can save 20 looks. And I was looking at I was looking at screenshots of the UI. I was
19:55
hoping that maybe saved looks would be separate from like active slots because maybe, you know, maybe I only want like
20:01
two active slots because I'm just going between what I'm using in one spec and using another. And that's fine,
20:06
but they're literally the same thing. like it's conflated equipment like it's equated outfit slots with saved outfits
20:13
and that means that transitioning to the system they are taking away functionality that the game has for no
20:21
good reason and I do not like that. Um I do think that this is a great opportunity for people who are still
20:27
working on add-ons keep those ones that let me add extra saved appearances because apparently I'm going to need
20:32
them. Um but I think for I think for many alts this will be okay. Like I would love to have this on my Legion
20:38
remix character because I'm constantly changing gear and getting back to town. Oh god, what am I wearing?
20:44
Um but like for an alt I'm playing for an entire, you know, uh for a raid
20:49
season or two, like I want to have these looks because I cycle between probably eight or nine looks um fairly often just
20:57
whenever the mood strikes me. Um, and it's just especially with the the situation system they're adding, which I
21:03
don't think Liz even really touched on, and I don't know if it's implemented yet, where like you have like the go a
21:09
raid even into like such granularities, like you can have the outfit that appears when you're swimming. Um, like if they're going to add that
21:16
level of granularity and outfits that you can switch between, then I really want I would I would really like to see
21:22
some kind of compromise where we're not just stuck paying $800,000 per character. I think there has to be
21:28
something. Um I think if I was I said dollars 800,000 gold. I think if I was
21:33
going to see one change to this that would probably that might even just settle it for me is to make these
21:40
unlocks accountwide. Um I would I would probably actually easily pay up to the
21:45
10 slot amount. Um and then I've got 10 slots on every character. That's probably a bad use of my money, but um
21:53
I'm rich from accounting from from enchanting this uh expansion, so I'd be okay with that. Um the fact that it's
22:00
per character and that you're losing 18 18 slots per character um is just which
22:07
means there it's effectively an 800,000 gold tax per character to get back to where you were is just kind of gling. Um
22:14
so somebody somebody put that input in on the beta for me. I don't have the beta. So, I definitely agree that having it be by
22:20
character, which is annoying right now with regular transmog because I have to go back and every time I get on a new
22:26
character, I have to redo their particular transmog appearances and that's kind of a a pain in my butt. But
22:33
compared to what this is going to be, the idea that I'm going to have to scrape up, you know, you want to have all 20 unlocked, uh, you need 800,000
22:41
gold again. I was like, "Oh, oh, you I do not have I I do not." Um, so yeah, I
22:48
I agree with that. I also kind of generally agree that even though it is
22:54
completely reasonable for them to make things cost gold, uh, and I don't think they ever actually said Transmog was
23:01
going to be free. No, they didn't. Yeah. So, it's not fair that my my
23:08
expectation was was set by someone else. Yeah. The problem was Yeah, they basically said they basically
23:15
suggested transmog was going to be less expensive and that idea was it's like
23:22
some people took it and ran with it. So yeah, it's disappointing because it kind
23:27
of set everyone's expectations wrong and then like the system could be just kind
23:33
of had to be disappointing at that point. And I'm not mad. And I'm just really disappointed and I definitely
23:39
will never in my lifetime have enough gold to unlock all of these slots to get
23:45
the functionality of transmog back to what it is today. And I'm just I'm I'm
23:51
frankly really upset about it. Not mad upset, but just this is disappointed. Blizzard, she's
23:58
disappointed. Do you want that on your conscious? Disappointed. I mean
24:04
I I'm going to start crying over here. Okay, guys. Oh, we should talk about dungeons then
24:09
instead. Yeah, I was going to say I was going to say moving along as well. Yeah. Uh there's not there's not much more to
24:16
say. Uh so we you've have that they're testing the uh midnight season 1 dungeons on the beta.
24:21
Um that's going to be today as in like as we are recording on Tuesday, November
24:26
18th. Uh in fact, I think they'll have done it by now. Yeah, because it's it started at
24:32
noon. Uh 3 pm Eastern. So yeah, it's live. Yeah. So, that happened. Um, so yeah,
24:39
uh, and was going to that that's running until um, Tuesday, November December 2nd. Um, that's going to end at, uh, 10
24:46
a.m. Pacific, which is, uh, 1:00 p.m. Eastern. And then they have CEST here,
24:51
700 p.m. CEST. Uh, and there's right now the ones that are opening right now, the
24:56
the current round of testing, uh, we've got Pit of Sarin, Skyre,
25:01
sorry, of Tramit and Algathar Academy. Those
25:06
are the four that are getting tested. Three very good dungeons and one that should never have existed.
25:13
Uh, I don't know. Seat of the Triumph. I I like it way I like I like sitting see
25:21
the the triumvert way more than Pisaon. I don't know maybe it's just my the
25:27
guild I was in had the weird strategy of just charging to the top and fighting everything there and for some reason it
25:34
worked for us. Uh in retrospect we were pretty bad. Well Matt I think that is also because
25:39
at the time I was your healer. That's fair. So that's fair. So, you all survived while
25:45
I'm sitting there like chain smoking in the background trying to like calm my
25:50
nerves as everybody's pulling everything up the dangs. No, I me and Piseron I I've broke up
25:57
with it a long time ago. I do not want to see my ex again. Your your ax has been fully reimagined
26:04
for a modernized experience, including complete spawning. Um, well, these these are going to be
26:10
our season 1 dungeons. Uh, and there there have been some changes. Like, uh, Phil was saying, this has been
26:17
re-imagined. Um, I was hoping that maybe Phil or Joe
26:23
could talk about some of the changes coming to these dungeons. Are they good, bad, are they enough? Do I need to be
26:29
chain running these dungeons and submitting a lot of feedback reports? Uh, unfortunately, some of these changes
26:34
are so broadreaching that we don't actually know how they are without running them. Like, seed of the
26:39
tribrant, all creature and boss encounters have been updated. That's a lot of stuff.
26:44
Um, I will I will I will point out one specific concern I had when I heard this
26:50
uh set of dungeons was the you know the the thing they've been doing for the last couple expansions where last where
26:55
you get like four of the current dungeons and then four old dungeons in the mythic plus season and that is the
27:01
wind platform on Sky Reach. Um because yeah, it's automatically a slowdown for a lot
27:08
of classes if you don't have a way to cheat your way around it. Um, and also I love you. Heroic Leap.
27:13
Yeah, Heroic Leap is so good in there. Um, like I saw it was in there and I was like, "All right, warrior for season one. Got it." Um, but then like also um
27:22
the birds on that platform if your timing was just a little bit off, you had a good chance of dying anytime Sky Reach was at level content because the
27:28
birds would just hit you. And then it's like it's like when you're going through a uh
27:34
a city where the stop lights are on a timer such that if you get one green, you get all the greens. And if you get
27:39
one red, you'll hit every red. If you got hit by the first bird on Sky Reach, you were going to get hit by every bird
27:44
on the wind platform and probably die. Mhm. Um, and also the first person, so the
27:49
birds no longer deal damage at all. So it's just a mandatory slowdown period now, which is kind of goofy. And the
27:55
first person across can now disable it by channeling on a little thing called coalescing winds, so everyone else can
28:01
everyone who's bad at it can get across afterward. This is a very positive change for Sky Reach. Um,
28:06
but why even do it then? Yeah, I I admit that I don't understand the whole point of it. Um, it just
28:12
means, you know, do you have somebody who can leap over the winds or someone like, you know, a death knight or a shaman who has a way to either ignore or
28:19
mitigate a lot of the winds. I don't know. I don't get it. Um, but I'm not as
28:24
curious to see that one as I am to see Pit of Sarin because that dungeon is probably going to feel like a completely
28:31
new dungeon at this point. Um, which is good because there were some encounters that absolutely would not have worked in
28:37
the modern WoW experience. I'm looking at the thing on Scourge Lord Tyrannis where he would mark one of your DPS and
28:43
they just do anything or they would murder the tank. Like that doesn't work
28:48
in in Modern WoW. Um, especially when he sometimes targeted
28:54
the tank with the thing it was only supposed to be on DPS. That was fun. I was like, "Cool, I can't do anything
29:00
or I die." Love to hear that. So, I'm sure I'm going to be able to keep the threat off of that rogue now.
29:06
Mhm. Uh but also I want to say that I think I hope when
29:11
they say they're doing a complete pass on creature spawning, it is that pathway up to Tyrannis that they're talking
29:17
about because that was wild and not at all like it it wasn't very sane. Uh, I
29:25
feel like that needed to be re that that needed a look that that in my opinion that that is the thing I remember the
29:30
most breaking groups. Um, I remember people getting really really angry.
29:36
So yeah, I'm going to say look at that one. I was going to say the a lot of these changes and I what I agree with Phil
29:42
like some of them are just so broad sweeping that or broad sweeping statements that until we get in there
29:47
and test them, we're not really going to know. But I will say that some of the stuff is really nice like or at least
29:54
for me they're like quality of life things like Veximus no longer gaining energy when an arcane orb uh reaches it
30:00
to prevent unfair overlaps with arcane fissures. Thank you. Like I random wipes
30:06
at at high levels uh when when that would happen were were very frust. Um so
30:11
it looks like there there's a bunch of tuning a bunch of tweaking uh which is great. Um, so we are going to I mean I'm
30:19
looking forward to actually testing this uh in particular because well it's it's
30:25
important and I like healing dungeons a lot. I like healing mythic plus a lot.
30:30
Uh and I'd like to know what state it's going to be in and what I'm going to be in when it when it happens. So and I
30:36
will yes I will suffer through Pit of Saron. Uh I might just need a shot of whiskey to do it but I will suffer
30:41
through it to see how that is. All right. Uh anything further on these before we move on to the next bit? No, I
30:46
think I'm good. Nope, I've said all I said. Okay. Uh, Liz, no.
30:52
All right. Legion Remix phase 4 begins November 18th, which is again today as we're recording. Um, it's, you know,
30:58
it's the Argus Zones. It's, uh, Seed of the Triumpher Dungeon. Um, so you can go
31:04
practice for when it comes out in midnight again. Um, and it's going to have the Enourus raid as well, of
31:10
course. Uh, Enourus is another really good raid. Uh, I really I think it's one
31:15
of the best raids in WoW. I I enjoyed it quite a bit, but although I don't really
31:21
like uh some of the fights, but I don't got to talk about them right now. Um, also apparently they've hot fixed it, so
31:27
you can get the hidden artifact appearances. Yeah, there was um there was So, one of the things that
31:32
they'd said early on was that no, they're not adding any new artifact appearances and you know, the crowd
31:38
booed. Then they said, "Oh, you can get the ones that already exist in case you haven't earned them in retail." on the crowd cheered. Then everyone realized,
31:45
"Oh, um, the majority of the hidden artifact appearances don't take place on the Broken Aisles. Either they require
31:50
you to leave to start them or they require you to leave at some point during the quest for them. like you know
31:56
it's not it's uh there were there were a lot of um things off definitely had to
32:03
go a lot of places including you know the the places that yeah your red paladin had to do that old
32:09
rumor uh chain effectively from when well so they actually have shortcuted that a little bit too um because of how
32:16
there's no fishing in Legion remakes and so they can't actually start it by fishing up Nat Paggel's old book um that
32:23
that specific one you actually just start by getting the um the sh the dark shard item from Horus and pick up from
32:30
there. But um if Legion Remix players have seen these, they may not know what they are because there are just a number
32:35
of portals scattered all over the place that are just like mysterious like mysterious timebound portal. Um and
32:42
sometimes you take them and you're like, well, why did this take me out to Fails Rest in Tearsville Glades? What's this for? Um or it's like why did this take
32:49
me to this random spot in Deleran? And those are related to the artifact appearances. If um if you can start a
32:56
hidden artifact appearance on the uh on the broken ales um you can now get that
33:01
item to drop. So like if you're working on the demonology warlock artifact which
33:08
requires you to collect skulls from aridor um that those skulls started dropping after this hot fix and also
33:15
they uh now's the patch for you because there's so many aridor on Arcus. Um, but
33:20
like if it was one that started off of the aisles, then you can now get that one. Or if it's one that required travel
33:26
off of the aisles, they've hot fixed it so that people can get their hidden artifact appearances. Um, so that's
33:33
cool. Um, I might try to get some of the ones that have never dropped for me before, such as the bear one, which is a
33:40
drop from Earth. Um, at the time that everybody was running this in was running Emerald Nightmare in uh,
33:46
remakes, it was not dropping. Um, and now they've added it and no one's running April Nightmare anymore. So,
33:52
maybe if you get powerful enough, you can go solo it. Yeah, I think that might be what I have to do. So, um, but maybe I'll finally
33:57
get that bear look. So, but, uh, yeah, they've added, um, they they've added that to it and it's kind of cool.
34:04
They've also added a bunch of new rewards that you can get from vendors and stuff as well. Um, which I think is
34:11
good. Uh, including there's like mounts. There's Oh, go ahead, Liz.
34:17
We knew we knew they'd be adding stuff. Basically, as they unlock the raids, you're getting all of the rewards
34:24
related to those raids unlocked. And of course, the one I'm super looking forward to is getting
34:29
all of those sides, which are now available, I think, at three different colors. Is that correct? Yeah. Green, red, and
34:36
uh and yeah, not just three different colors, but also uh you obtain staff
34:41
versions at the same time. Previously, they've been restricted to pole armor, but you were also getting staff
34:46
variants. It looks like this would be so cool if transmog were as functional as it is today.
34:54
It should be for Legion, shouldn't it? Yeah, it is. Legion remakes should still be as functional.
35:00
Liz is busy looking to the future. I am I am so disappointed. You guys have
35:06
no idea. There is I'm starting to get an idea. There is not a chart. There is not a chart I
35:11
could make out that would show my level of disappointment. There is the cartoon of the cat hanging
35:17
from a rope to hang in there. That's me right now responding to you cuz I feel
35:23
bad. I do. You're trying. I'm doing my best over here. Uh there there is an
35:29
exclusive thing added with this patch that I also think is cool that is not from Argus, which is that Light Forge, Drananai, and Nightbor are able to pick
35:36
up recolors of their heritage armor that uh some of which have been in the files
35:41
for the game since Legion. Um there is a nightborn have one new coloration. It's
35:47
that dark red one uh which the the uh it's it's termed vineyard red in game uh
35:54
which is like a dark red and gold uh version of their heritage armor ensemble. Um life forge
35:59
blood adjacent. Yeah, it's right there. Life forgi have
36:04
three new ones. Uh one of which uh also blood elf adjacent because it is dark red with the same gold ornaments as the
36:11
standard set. Uh, but they also have Holy Gold, which is kind of like the current one, but with like some of the,
36:18
despite the name, has some of like the like glaring yellow colors like toned
36:23
down. It's kind of a a more muted gold color. And then hollow gemmed, which is a more purple purpley color.
36:30
They also have the Grim Soul one. Uh, I don't know. Those are the only three I know about. I also know that they're extremely cheap in term terms of
36:37
bronze. They are 7,500 bronze, which is basically nothing at the rate that bronze drops in Remix. So, um,
36:46
it's kind of funny though, you know, one thing that that isn't on a vendor that dropped it in
36:51
Taslock. Uh, Tata Lock is actually on the vendor and there is a one-handed version of it.
36:57
Uh, Wowhead Wad Wad has left it off of their article for some reason, but it's been on the vendor
37:03
since uh, phase one. You just can't get it yet. Um, all right. Yeah, defeating um
37:09
defeating Agramar gets you a drop item, just like how um all the rare drop items, all the rare raid drop items have
37:17
something you get by beating the boss that they originally came from. Um in this case, you do get an item for beating Agramar. Um and if you get it,
37:24
you get both the old if you get 20 of that item and 30,000 bronze, you get both the old version of Tatlock and also
37:30
a one-handed version of T, which is the big cool flaming sword where like the top half of the blade is just completely
37:35
gone. That's fire. Um, so yeah, Tatlock is uh I've been farming that thing for years
37:40
and it hasn't dropped. So yeah, I'm I'm interested. Yeah, they left it off the list here, but Tatlock is definitely in the uh is
37:47
definitely in Remix, so you'll be able to grab it. Um, I do want to say we we kind of skewered Blizzard for the uh transmog thing, so I will I will I will
37:54
give them a prop for something they did in this one. Um, which is not tying the currency that I need to buy a transmog
38:00
to be the same currency I need to upgrade gear. Um, thank you. I've never
38:05
had to fret about how to spend my bronze in this. I just go and go, "Well, you know, I'm going to buy whatever I want
38:10
right now and then I'm just going to get more because it just kind of flows like water." Um, and it's really cool. Um,
38:16
another thing in this patch since Argus opened up is a lot of those things that
38:21
dropped from rares on Argus, uh, both inside the Antoude and outside, um, are
38:27
available for purchase for bronze. Uh, some of them are a little more expensive than others. Like if you want the mount
38:33
that dropped from mythic Argus or the one from the Antorin Charhound from Farah, those are each 100,000 bronze.
38:40
But for example, the felspotted egg, which you would have to farm up on Argus
38:46
and then wait 5 days for it to hatch and then 90% of the time you got an egg yolk. Um, those are a much more
38:52
reasonable 40,000 per coloration. So, um, way to fill in I really enjoy the
38:58
use of these to fill in things where, you know, it's like I've tried for these over the years. I put in my time on the,
39:03
uh, uh, you know, the the fighting the RNG. I'm I'm just happy to be able to
39:09
just put in some time, target this, and buy this cool thing I always wanted. So, um, yeah, I think this has been another
39:15
successful remix. Um, and, uh, now you can buy stuff from Argus, which is cool. Um, I'm just very interested to see what
39:21
they do next because we know that there is a fifth phase coming. Um, I'm assuming it's just going to be, you
39:28
know, all numbers go up, more bronze, more power, more everything, just so people spend the last half of, uh, uh,
39:33
Remix getting absolutely everything they ever wanted. But, um, we know there's going to be some kind of cool event near
39:40
the end because there's a feat of strength, uh, related to infernals raining down. So, which reminds me of
39:46
like old days when MMOs would go out and you'd actually have, you know, go offline. You'd have GMs online just
39:52
spawning enemies uh to fight players. So, kind of a cool moment for us old
39:58
folks, I guess. Can I have to not game related real quick? Every time somebody says feet of
40:03
strength, does anybody else think of Isaac Hayes and Robin Hood Men and Tits like or am I the only person?
40:11
Well, I'm going every time. Every time great strength of feet like every time
40:18
it plays in my head. I'm sorry. Yep. Anyway, uh now to feel even older. Uh
40:24
WoW's 21st anniversary event is started on the 16th and it's pretty much the same as last year, but there's a new
40:30
loyal watchman cosmetic set and a Casgar enthusiast title. Um which okay, cool. I
40:37
guess if that's what you want to do with your life. Um I don't know. I the anniversary events have not really been
40:44
getting my attention in the past couple years. Yeah, this one's kind of looking it's like 90% of the one from last year.
40:50
So last year's was a huge blowout event. I think you're going to be most excited
40:56
about this if it's like oh I didn't get that last year. or I can get this well or just I can get this this year and
41:03
there was some secrets of Azeroth stuff that uh is specifically tied to this and
41:08
was difficult to start or to get if you hadn't done this I believe um stuff that
41:15
you need to get the fel cycle which has been difficult to do if you didn't do this last year so it cool for it to be
41:22
back there's nothing like thrilling to go back for if you did it last year
41:27
unless you unless Unless you really love Kazgar and you need the new enthusiast title because there's one for every
41:33
expansion. I might go through it on my Paladin just to get the Paladin set cuz I didn't do that last year. Um but I probably won't
41:40
cuz I know me. Uh the transmog, but then it's like also, you know, tired. Uh
41:46
let's see what else we got here. Um th this one uh I admit I've never
41:52
understood why it exists, but but well I I do understand why it exists. And the
41:57
reason it exists is because it costs $90 US. Um, the traders gilded Brutusaur
42:04
mounts back and it's $90 and you can buy it up until January 5th. So if you want
42:10
to have a really big mount with an auction house and you didn't get it, you know, with an auction house, 90 bucks, please use it
42:18
responsibly. Don't park it on top of a mailbox. Please. It's so hard to get around this thing. Well, the good news
42:25
is if they park it on a mailbox, you can just use the mailbox that's on it. So, it's fine. That's a fair point. But also, don't leave it out in the zoko
42:31
if you're in desera. Something can spook one of the brutasaurs.
42:36
I have just traumatized every horde player to walk past that world quest. Yep. Every time.
42:43
So, yeah, there's that. Um, finally for WoW news, um, the Blood Ties novel is releasing on November 18th, which again
42:50
is today. As of the time of this recording, it is live. So, I'm sure Joe and I will have to talk
42:56
about that soon. Um, well, I have to get into my hands first. Yeah, exactly. Same here. But, you know,
43:02
it's it's by Christy Golden, who we all like, and it's, you know, it's a pretty big and it's a tiein to Midnight, so we
43:10
probably want to read it just so we know what's going on. Seems to be going around some of the
43:15
stuff that Matt and I talked about in this uh most recent lore watch as the time of this recording. So possibly uh
43:21
if you're reading this book, maybe listen to our lore watch, then read the book. Okay. At this point, um just so I can make sure that we get this in before we
43:27
do other stuff. Liz, do you mind doing the various stuff? Uh yes. I want to remind all of you that
43:35
Blizzard Watch is made possible by listeners like you. You are the ones that keep the site going and keep these
43:42
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44:02
our podcasts with the exclusive Blizzard Watch podcast pre-show where we talked a lot about The Outer Worlds this week.
44:08
It's just it's it's a great game. Um, and uh, at $5 a month, you also get ads
44:14
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44:21
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44:28
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44:33
Thank you so much for listening. That really helps. Listen to the listen to the podcast, read the website, share the
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45:38
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45:59
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46:05
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46:20
go to patreon.com/bizzardwatch. It helps so much. So, thank you all for
46:27
being here. And thank you to Liz for saying all that so the rest of us can sit here and like let her talk for that long period of
46:33
time and get drinks. Now, I need to take a drink of water. That That was That was so many words.
46:38
You You take a drink. And now, while you're doing that, uh we'll move on and we'll quickly talk about Overwatch really fast. Uh because they've made a
46:46
new hero. Um Vendetta. I I guess she's actually called Lal Lupa in the Vendetta hero trailer
46:52
um came out in October. Her name is Vendetta. Yeah, but the the loop is like she calls herself that in
46:58
the trailer. So, just just don't be too confused by that. Uh it it's the anime style. It's not the it's not using
47:05
in-game assets or anything. Um I liked it. Um quite frankly, I'm
47:10
interested in it because it's it's basically every fighter I mean warrior.
47:16
Sorry, my D and D was showing. Every warrior I've ever played in WoW except for my very first one. Uh, I'm sitting
47:22
there going, she's even got a robo Ashcandi. And And it does look like Ash Gandhi. It's got a big hole in the
47:28
middle. It's got the flaring. It It It is a techno Ash Gandhi. So, yeah. I'm sitting here watching this trailer
47:34
going, I I I really wish I didn't get motion sick playing Overwatch cuz I would play this.
47:40
I want to know who authorized this name because as a person of Latinx descent,
47:47
um Oh, I know what you're talking about. Oh, no. Do you? Cuz Lalupa. Yeah, I know why that's potentially bad. Yes.
47:54
Okay. Cuz like like it's it's a weird name for somebody
48:00
to call themselves. Like I understand what they were meaning, but it also has a negative connotation with it. Why Blizzard? Why?
48:06
Um that's that's the hero's name. The trailer the trailer.
48:12
Yeah. But I mean like the fact that they have it like as a line say that I am
48:18
that's that's the problem. Like I I heard that in the trailer and I'm just like, how did this get okayed?
48:24
Well, I mean, for one thing, nobody there um probably no one actually checked with people to to know that. Um
48:32
what's really weird is the meaning that we're talking about, and I'm not going to say what it is. Um that goes back to
48:38
Roman times. Yes. As in as in the the myth of Romulus and Remis, people knew about this meaning
48:45
and used it as a joke. So, it's really weird to me that they didn't catch it.
48:50
It's all I mean, yeah. So, I I don't want to dwell on it. The character looks cool. Um, but yeah,
48:56
it stays with a big sword. I'm I'm down. I am I'm going to call them Vendetta. And I I might even play despite the
49:04
illness I get whenever I play Overwatch, just to get to hit things with that big big sword because I want that sword.
49:10
Wow, so bad. I want that. Let's talk just just a second about what the hero looks like. Uh I we don't this
49:18
is not a gameplay trailer. This is a story trailer about who she is and but
49:24
you can certainly get impression. This is a lady who hits things with a sword that is larger than she is and cuts
49:31
giant robots in half. That's that seems to be the whole vibe. So you've got a melee focused fighter which she's
49:39
impressive looking. And the first thing I thought about when I saw her is that wow this is a matte character. This is
49:45
seriously I I want to play this. I really want to play this. I'm very sad that I I'm not good at Overwatch and it
49:52
makes me kind of ill because oh my word if this had been in the game when it launched, I would have I would have made
50:00
myself play it. Um so yeah, it's it is basically every
50:05
character I played in WoW uh for years now in Overwatch. Um, it makes me miss
50:12
Heroes of the Storm because I was like, then here, this would come out for Heroes of the Storm and I could play it
50:17
in that. I mean, oh yikes. That's it. I don't have anything else to say about that one. Do you Does anyone
50:23
else before we move on to the next thing? Nope. Okay. Uh, this one's kind of sad. Um, but I'm I'm hoping it's he's he's
50:30
got good things coming up for him. Um, Adam Fletcher, who you know is Pez Radar, if you've paid attention to the Diablo,
50:37
uh, you know, social media type stuff, especially their forums. Um, he is no
50:42
longer going to be at Diablo. He's leaving Blizzard on November 19th, which means tomorrow as we're recording, by
50:48
the time you hear this, if you're not listening to it live, he will have left Blizzard. Um, which at this point, uh,
50:55
it kind of feels like they don't have anybody left who does anything public to explain things other than like the the
51:02
big video things they release. There are a few people, but no one is as was as frontfacing as Adam. I mean,
51:10
radar was right up there. He was the guy. He was the director of social and content marketing. And it's
51:17
like he was running most of their live streams. He's the guy who'd answer questions if you ask them on the forums
51:23
or social media. So, there are other people who post on social media. And I feel like recently they've been trying
51:29
to get more faces, more people on their live streams. Quite possibly because they knew this
51:35
was coming. Quite possibly because they knew this was coming. And uh I I feel like there's
51:40
maybe some effort made to get more people involved and in front of the camera, but man, I just I'm I don't know
51:48
where we're going. I don't know who's going to take over and do this sort of stuff after Adam Lee. Yeah. Um so as a person who does still
51:55
enjoy Diablo uh both three and four, I'm sad to see him go. I think he did a really good job, but we'll see what
52:01
happens. I I again I hope he's going somewhere good. I hope he's going to have something good in the future. Uh
52:08
you know, you hate to hear about people leaving and then you nothing ever comes up again. I'm hoping in this case that he does something cool. He gets to have
52:15
some fun with something. Uh, speaking of things like that though, uh, we we've got other game stuff we wanted to talk
52:20
about. Uh, we don't have a lot of time and two of them are are game or game awards and indie game awards. I really
52:27
want to mention Hightail. Uh, cuz cuz I didn't see this coming at all. Uh,
52:33
Hightail, do you guys remember the the MMO Riot was working on? Yep. Nope. They shuttered it.
52:39
Yep. And now they've literally just sold it to a new management team who were
52:44
people that were working on it before they started their own company. Yeah, we kind of expected something like
52:50
that to happen though, right? Like we were we're we're amusing that that might be one of the things that happened. I I I'm used if I'm used to that, I'm
52:57
used that as a complete like sarcastic this will never happen thing. Kind of like I was with Player Housing. Uh, and
53:03
now it has happened and I am I am happy cuz quite frankly it looks like a fun
53:09
much less serious MMO but also I'm like is this really like is this the time of
53:14
that we release new MMOs? I think you do. I don't know. And I also I also like as
53:19
much guff as I give Riot and I will give any company Guff when they earn it. I
53:24
will say they've been pretty good about like game development and understanding like letting go of things I guess would
53:32
be the best way to put it. So like this sort of makes sense in the vein of like what we've seen in the past with other
53:38
stuff that they've done. So I'm I'm excited and I think that people are
53:43
saying that the time of MMOs is done. I don't think it is and WoW's longevity I think proves that if anything. Um, it's
53:50
I think it's going to be exciting and I'm really happy to hear of another MMO releasing or not releasing but like
53:57
being worked on because I think it's good. It's competition and it also means fresh ideas might get instituted or put
54:04
into the space and as we all know fresh ideas are good. Well, sometimes
54:09
for me honestly um the reason I'm happy about it is for one thing it's people that worked on a game getting to come
54:15
back and still work on the game that they loved and put their time into. Mhm. That's great. Um I'm also kind of
54:22
surprised that they're going to attempt Linux and Macs release Mac releases. Um Windows at launch, but then Linux and
54:28
Mac are their next pro before they even move on to other platforms. They're they're going for Linux and Mac
54:34
again that handheld market. Mac is interesting. Linux Linux is not
54:40
surprising. Mac is interesting. Yeah, Mac actually games that run on Mac, they scream. Games run incredibly
54:47
on the Mac. There's also a developer toolkit that makes it easier to port games to Mac. In fact, you know, someone
54:55
like me, little old me, who does not have a lot of programming experience, does not have development experience, I
55:01
can, you know, use the developer toolkit to sometimes out of the box run a PC
55:07
game on my Mac if I'm willing to jump through some hoops. So they Apple has
55:13
really really been trying hard to get game developers to release games native
55:20
to Mac and they do they have provided some tools that can make it easier. So maybe that's what they're counting on is
55:28
support from Apple and using kind of the existing tools to help them get it to this platform.
55:33
That's good. And then Linux makes sense because the handhelds um a lot of a lot of the handhelds like we
55:40
know that Windows is trying to bring into the market but Linux based handhelds are are sort of like I mean looking at you Steam Deck
55:47
have any new stage stuff that's coming out will be as well. Exactly. So,
55:52
I should also mention that this is one of those cases where um for lack of a
55:57
better word, this is plucky underdogs who just came to Riot and said, "Look,
56:03
let us buy this." And they did it, according to them, they did it sight unseen. Like, they had no idea what the current development was. They had been
56:10
on the game back in its beginning, but they hadn't been on the game in years. And they were like, "Look, we just don't
56:15
want to see this game die, so sell it to us." And Riot did. They own this game.
56:22
Riot sold it to them. And I don't know. I I'm happy. I wish League of Legends had done this. I wish
56:28
somebody had bought League of Legends and we could have had it this whole time instead of waiting years for them to finally realize, oh, hey, people still
56:33
like this. Not League of Legends. Sorry. Uh, City of Heroes. Wow. League of Legends. They should I was going to say, brother, League's
56:40
still going strong. No, I'm in City of Heroes. I'm sorry. Uh, I I realized as I was saying it,
56:47
like, wait, no, that didn't happen. What dimension am I in? Uh yeah, this is definitely Yeah, go
56:53
ahead. On the subject of MMOs, I want to mention something that didn't make our topics list, which is that uh Guild Wars
57:00
is getting Guild Wars Reforged, which is basically the original Guild Wars
57:05
Classic Edition updated for the modern day that uh brings all of the campaigns.
57:11
It's you can run it on Steam Deck. gives it just a big update to sort of bring it up to modern standards and lets you play
57:19
all of this all of this game which the original Guild Wars was really great. I played it back in the day. I don't I I
57:27
don't want to go and look at how far back in the day it was cuz you know knowing that WoW is 21 years old is
57:33
basically enough to make me collapse into a pile of dust. But uh would it surprise you to know that Guild
57:39
Wars 1 as of this month still had 25,000 people logging into it regularly? No,
57:44
that would not surprise me at all. Um you know, there was always an active classic community in WoW well before it
57:50
was official or supported or accepted by Blizzard. So, I'm not surprised that
57:56
Guild Wars is getting that kind of treatment as well. But, you know, maybe it is the time to launch an MMO. Maybe
58:01
people are more willing to play MMOs than we might think. I I also think it's really interesting, just so you guys
58:07
know, I don't know if you've you've ever seen this, there is a website that actually tracks MMO population by day.
58:13
Um, and it literally tracks essentially everything that's not World of Warcraft
58:19
because World of Warcraft does not expose those numbers. Um, and it's an estimated number over a 7-day rolling
58:25
period. So, it's it's as much as they can obtain from what's uh legally available or like openly available. And
58:32
they've got like stuff on here like Warframe, Path of Exile, Final Fantasy 11 still has an active player count.
58:38
Final Fantasy 14 obviously is still on there. Um, but like you can get a an
58:44
interesting look at how many people are playing this game or these games roughly daily and like where they are cuz like
58:51
Conan Exiles still has about 80,000 people logging into it. Conan Exiles, I
58:57
am shook knowing that. Uh, just a little interesting numbers. That's all. I just thought it was fascinating.
59:03
I'm sorry. I'm still thinking about that slider. Um anyway, yeah. Uh we also, you
59:08
know, we're kind of out of time, but we do also have game awards and the indie game awards to at least mention are
59:14
happening. It's kind of the awards season right now. And uh everyone's announced their nominees for the year. So,
59:21
and and is what I predicted is happening. Claire Obscura is being in both categories. It's on the Game Awards
59:27
and it's the Indie Game Awards because it is that good a game. Everybody wants it and it was in my mind it absolutely
59:34
was an indie game. There was no way you can argue it wasn't. I'd be like saying that Silkong was I mean the I think the hard thing is is
59:41
that it's pitted up against like games that were put together by a single developer kind of thing. So it's it's
59:47
hard to be like okay where where does the line fall and is it fair to have
59:52
these tiny studios going up go up against large? I don't know. I don't
59:57
know. I don't know what the answer is. There may not be a good answer. We are at a point where indie game needs to actually start being broken down into
1:00:04
subcategories. I mean, yeah, I was going to say have it be like single developer, multi-person
1:00:09
developer, and development team type things. I don't know. But I definitely think that clear obscure is definitely a
1:00:15
really good game that deserves to be nominated for a lot of things. Yeah. And I mean, the Indie Game Awards have a whole lot of categories. When you
1:00:22
look at something like the Game Awards, it has it doesn't subdivide indie games. It's like indie games are not indie
1:00:28
games. It's that's the line. So if but if you look at the Indie Game Awards, there's a lot of different categories,
1:00:34
but still Clare Obscure is up for game of the year and it's been it's it's
1:00:40
created some the whole thing has created some enthusiastic online arguments. Uh
1:00:45
you can take that as you will. Yep. Um, so in addition to that, we
1:00:50
should probably mention this the last bit, which is that Cozy Quest is highlighting and discounting a bunch of fun cozy games, which, you know, it's on
1:00:58
Steam, by the way. I should have said that up front. Uh, let's, you know, we can't list all of them. Well, we could,
1:01:03
but we we're not going to. Uh, but Liz, tell us the ones you think we should get.
1:01:08
Oh, and then everybody else can tell me the ones they think they should get. Yeah, absolutely. Wow. I I could have told you things
1:01:14
about indie games, but uh uh this one, I mean, it's just it's the sale of a lot
1:01:20
of cozy titles. Uh Unpacking is a really interesting one. Unpacking made me a
1:01:26
little insane cuz it's it's literally about it's telling the narrative story of a person as they grow up and become
1:01:33
an adult through them moving and unpacking their boxes every time. And
1:01:39
this is what's in their house now. This is what's in their house now. And you can see the things that stay, the things that go. It's a really interesting
1:01:46
concept and it makes a really interesting narrative. The the thing that made me completely insane. It's
1:01:52
like you're taking things out of the box and putting them places. And sometimes there were really specific places you
1:01:57
had to put things and I it made me it made me nuts. Uh but that's a really
1:02:02
good game with a with a really kind of low-key interesting story. Uh Winter
1:02:07
Burrow is on here. That's a game we were talking about on the site just last week, which is you are a tiny mouse
1:02:13
building an adorable burrow and also it's winter and you might freeze to death. So, it's like it's got that
1:02:19
really cute and cozy part and then it's got that oh wow, winter is really terrible and you may you may die
1:02:26
horribly by freezing. So, I I'm not sure where I fall on that one. I both really
1:02:32
want to play it and uh I'm like but I don't like being a tiny mouse freezing
1:02:38
to death. I don't know. Uh Joe or Phil, you have anything to recommend? I'm not a cozy gamer, so sort of out of
1:02:44
my element here. Bill, yeah, I think this is more of a Liz coded thing. I will note that there is kind of a uh a I guess I would call it a
1:02:51
cozycoded puzzle game um that I really enjoy that's on sale. Uh actually a couple of them. One is uh the short
1:02:58
title is A Monsters Expedition. The full title is a monsters expedition through curious expositions, which is just a fun
1:03:05
little uh puzzle game that can um gets deviously hard after a while. Um and
1:03:12
then the other one that I would call out is called Is This Seat Taken? Um which is Oh, that's so
1:03:18
that's an interesting game. Yeah, it's it's logic puzzles, but um it's like if
1:03:23
you've ever had those ones about like if you've ever seen like those written logic puzzles about like seating people
1:03:28
at a wedding, but like X doesn't like Y and uh Z has to be within X seats of the
1:03:34
wedding party, etc. That kind of thing. Um that's basically what is this seat taken is. you're um trying to arrange
1:03:42
situations with hilariously um picky people um so that they are seated
1:03:49
correctly. Like there's one uh where you're arranging people in a movie theater um and one person insists on
1:03:55
wearing their big hat um so you cannot put them in front of anyone else because they have to be wearing their big hat
1:04:01
and they'll block anyone else's view if they're in front of them or uh um yeah
1:04:06
just it's things like that. It's uh it's just got a cute little art style. Um like there's one where you're arranging
1:04:12
people on a bus. Um and there is someone who wants to be with their parent, but also you can't sit there near anyone
1:04:17
except their parent because they also forgot to shower today and they're feeling embarrassed about it. Um so
1:04:23
yeah, I'd say uh those are probably my two. Uh a monstrous expedition and is this seat. All right. And I don't have one because
1:04:30
it isn't out yet and you can't play it yet and I'm sad. It's hounded. It's stray, but you fight ghosts and you're a
1:04:37
border collie. I want this game so bad. I am I am dying
1:04:42
to get this game. My wife hears this, she will be going out to pick it up as soon as it is available. That is such that is Yeah,
1:04:48
that is her name. As you can hear over his speakers, it's called Hounded. Um,
1:04:56
but no. Um, that's I think that's the podcast, guys. That is it. We made it to the end of the show. We got most of the
1:05:01
stuff we want to talk about. Um although we could always have talked more about all of it because you know that's what
1:05:07
we that's why we're doing there's so much there's always so much. Yep. All right. But thank you all uh for
1:05:13
being here and listening to us go. Thank you to Liz and Joe for being the bedrock that keeps this podcast going. Thank you
1:05:19
to Phil for showing up and letting me like actually not mispronounce his name once for once. Yeah, you actually said it correctly on
1:05:25
the first try in both pre-show and the regular show. And I'm so proud of you, Matt. I'm trying so hard. I keep I It's not my
1:05:32
fault that I read a lot of Daredevil comics as a kid. Yep. I That's That's the problem. Uh but
1:05:37
anyway, thank you again everybody. Uh this has been the Blizzard Watch podcast and we'll be back next week.
1:05:43
[Music]
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