Up next in 10
This week's podcast features three different reader questions shoved into one podcast trenchcoat. First up, would it be possible to see a Void version of Demon Hunters, considering what we know now about Void as a magic source? Which of course, raises the question of, say, Light Demon Hunters or Arcane Demon Hunters. Then, we try to shove magic sources together, like Deathwing's Shadowflame (and why does this always seem to be a villainous move?). Lastly, game mechanics: do we like it when they're also a narrative device, like book characters popping a hearthstone, or does it break us out of the immersion of the story?
Note: there are spoilers for the upcoming storyline involving Xal'atath in patch 11.2.
Subscribe to Lore Watch in your podcast player of choice:
RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6556539150cd070012089193
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lore-watch-podcast/id1023224738
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1CIJRbwbEVQfCg8r94HCwO
Visit us at https://blizzardwatch.com for the latest news on Blizzard games, and don't forget to subscribe on Patreon to support our efforts! https://www.patreon.com/blizzardwatch
Discord: https://discord.gg/MY9p4d7t8U
Bluesky: @blizzardwatch.com
X: @BlizzardWatch
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
[Music]
0:11
Hello and welcome to Lore Watch, a round table free form discussion about learning your favorite media. I'm your host Joe Perez, one of several lore
0:17
focused folks from Blizzard Watch. And I've got my stupendous co-host with me today, Matt Rossy. How you doing today,
0:22
Matt? I'm okay. I'm kind of obsessing over something I picked up the other day. Uh,
0:29
and just, you know, it's it's the way my mind works. It's like just going over things in it. I mean, to be fair, that's something I
0:35
think we both tend to do when we get to something new or something we enjoy. So,
0:40
but today, we're not going to be obsessing over that. Today, we're going to be obsessing over your questions from our wonderful listeners out there. Uh,
0:47
if you have questions for this or any of our podcast, be sure to send those into podcastwatch.com.
0:53
specify the show that it is for in the subject line as well well as any special pronunciation of your name. You can also
0:59
hit us up on Discord. We have the Q and podcast questions channel which is open for everybody. Same rules apply. And if
1:05
you are a Patreon supporter, we have the Patreon Q and podcast questions channel where we have set up as a place we can
1:12
look there first. It's our way of saying thank you for our Patreons for helping keep the uh the lights on and uh
1:18
allowing us to do this and all of our wonderful content that we produce. But without further ado, let's get into
1:24
the first one. And this one is from Teti. Based on rumors, data mining, and rapid
1:29
speculation, if demon hunters gain an additional DPS spec centered around the void, what sort of lore do you want to
1:35
see explored, and what theories immediately sprung to life with this combination? What other class and spec
1:42
would you like to see come together? Knight of paladins are a given. Uh there's a lot that we we we've talked
1:49
about this a little bit on the main podcast. We haven't really talked about it here. Um, so I'll turn it over to
1:55
Matt first and he can give his opinions and I'll uh come crashing with mine. Um, first off, I think everybody should
2:02
be able to play a Paladin at this point. In fact, if I were like, you know, granted magical powers or whatever and
2:08
can just make a wish and make it happen. I just think every race should be every be able to be every class.
2:14
It's just let everybody do everything at this point. I think I think you're
2:19
right. But I mean, let's let's handle with the specifics here first, cuz I'm absolutely with you on that.
2:25
But to in terms of, you know, the demon hunters getting a void thing, that's not
2:31
surprising based on we've seen warlocks summoning blueberries forever. Uh
2:36
there's been like at least one uh boss who was both fell and void back
2:42
in I think yeah, back in Warlords. Um, that guy was created by by Guldon, who,
2:48
you know, just has never met a cosmic force. He hasn't wanted to try to jam into another cosmic force. He's like the
2:53
Reese's peanut butter cup of evil. Um, which will relate to a question we're going to answer later.
2:58
Yeah. Uh, in terms of I I don't really know what lore. I mean,
3:05
we're going to get a bunch. We're going to Caresh. Uh, a lot of the void lore I'd want is probably already going to
3:11
happen. Um, so I don't I don't can't really
3:17
think of anything specific I want to know that I'm I I already know I'm going to see
3:24
it. You know what I mean? Like the stuff that I want to see that relates to the void and void beings and why there's,
3:30
you know, why would a demon hunter get some void in in them all already is part of stuff I've seen that is spoilers. Uh,
3:37
so I can't I can't really talk about it. I don't And I mean, do we do we do a
3:43
spoiler warning and just talk about it or do do we just not because it's not even out? Okay. Well,
3:48
you this is me now saying in 5 seconds I'm going to do some spoilers. I would jump ahead about a minute.
3:58
Okay. Uh there you go. That's the that's the warning timeline. We see in Ghost of
4:04
Caresh that Nexus Walker has made an alliance
4:10
with with our everyone's favorite evil knife. Um, Zalotath and Nexus Walker
4:16
have made a deal and that deal relates to Dementius and what seems to be Zalot
4:24
wanting to work against Dementius and it it's sort of implying that
4:29
Zealot's plans are anti- old god. Well, go ahead. I was going to say there's a little bit more to the context
4:36
for that than I think we just want to throw out since we already do since we already did the the spoiler warning. Uh we we found out through our minations
4:43
and through the the questing here that the reason that the Atherealss are the etherealss is because of Zealot. Uh and
4:49
because it was Zealot's plan in order to do that to help them fight against Dimensions in the first place. Which
4:55
brings us to a conversation we had earlier where I believe Matt and myself both called out, "We don't know if Zalot
5:02
is actually provoid or anti-void or what the case is." And well, now we're starting to get that inclination, but we
5:09
make a deal. It's not just Locus Walker, it's us. We make a deal with Zalot
5:16
because she is the reason that the Atherealss were able to survive Dementius and do the manava stuff. So,
5:23
little extra context there since we already did the spoiler warning. So, that's one of the things I would
5:28
have wanted to see. I know I'm going to get to see it. And so, again, I I don't
5:34
know of any more lore I'd want to see than what we're already getting. We're
5:39
sort of getting the void lore. Um I I don't know of anything further that I
5:44
can think of off the top of my head uh that's more important than that. Uh,
5:50
I feel like we're one of the things we're going to eventually find out is that all of the various void things and
5:56
old gods and all of that, they don't die. Like, it's going to finally be revealed
6:03
that none of them are dead, that they can't be dead, that killing them just
6:09
pushes them outside the cycle for a bit and they come on back. And we've kind of already seen hints of
6:16
that with for instance Dementius uh who is the major villain of this
6:21
patch and who was you know snuff we killed him already. We we killed him in
6:27
BC and it's basically just kind of a big inconvenience. And based on what we've seen with the uh
6:35
the demons and fell, I wouldn't be surprised if this was true for a lot of different entities.
6:43
Like death is a thing that affects beings from our reality because it involves our entities like them. None of
6:51
them seem to go to the Shadowlands unless they invade it. Like when you see void beings in the
6:59
Shadowlands, they're there because they're invading the place. They're not supposed to be there.
7:05
And when the Naru go there, the Naru just invades and burns people
7:10
up. They're they're attacking it. They're not traveling to it. They're not part of the cycle ofma.
7:19
Um there's no they do not live, they do not die, they are outside the cycle. that's
7:25
true for all of these other beings. And I think that that's something that we that might be interesting to see. But
7:30
that's the only thing I can think of that I'd really like to see explored with other um with with like a you know,
7:36
new void class thing. In terms of like what other class combinations I I want to see, I mean, I I don't know. Uh, I
7:46
kind of like to see shaman getting like if we think of as spirit if we think of
7:53
it as the fifth element that Drexthar talked about to thr all the way back in
7:58
in uh was it Lord of the Clans? Mhm. Yeah. All the way back in Lord of the Clans, Drethar talked about, you know,
8:05
this this fifth element to to Thrall. I wouldn't mind seeing a a shaman speck or
8:11
subspec or talent base or what have you that deals with and spirit and that that
8:17
aspect of shamanism. So maybe that it's I mean or or you know
8:23
a warrior that does something weird because you know it's me and I love warriors. Uh but I I don't I like that
8:30
warriors don't have anything that involves calling upon a higher power
8:36
if that makes sense. I like that warrior stuff tends to be, you know, I I get
8:41
really mad and and pick up a second giant weapon and swing both of them at you. Or I get really mad and I get
8:48
extremely cold and precise and I am a master of of, you know, specific combat
8:54
style. Or I get really mad and I hit you with a car door that I found.
8:59
Uh I don't I don't if we're going to have a fourth warrior spec I would just like it to be I get really mad and I and I like you know heal you with the power
9:06
of yelling. Uh I mean that's that's pretty much like imagine a warrior battle res that is essentially just
9:12
screaming at people till they get up like I'm dying tell my wife you're telling yourself you're gold breaking
9:17
bleep you know. So yeah I I I got nothing on that one. I the shaman thing
9:22
is the only thing I can really think of. Yeah. So going back to the whole demon hunter thing just for a few moments. So
9:29
we are getting a whole plethora of story revolving around void in general but
9:34
specifically with demon hunters. One of the things I'm looking at is the fact that it now opens up the demon hunter
9:40
lore the creation lore to more than just what
9:47
more than what we've seen. Right? So when we were introduced to the idea of demon hunters in the Illynan novel and
9:53
then in game it's this idea of this process of a you know in this case an
9:58
elf uh or night elf blood elf high elf whatever version of elf you are uh
10:04
essentially wrestling taking in a demon into themselves wrestling with it and
10:09
getting control over it and then constantly keeping it in check inside of them or they can get consumed by it and
10:15
die or they get consumed by it and go crazy and then we have to put them down. But the idea of the void being a source
10:23
of power for a demon hunter is it's opens it up to all sorts of cosmic
10:28
entities because at that point you could have a demon hunter potentially that is fueled by light. You could have a demon
10:35
hunter that is fueled by pure arcane. You could have a demon hunter that's p like uh fueled purely by any of the
10:43
elemental cosmic forces that we have available to us. And I think that's kind
10:48
of neat because in the same way that paladins can drive their power from really any type of source if you really
10:55
think about it cuz paladins aren't just lightbased. We've seen lowabased paladins. We've
11:01
seen firebased paladins. Uh we've seen all sorts of different flavors of it.
11:06
And the then the single night elf paladin we have we see a moonbased paladin. Yes, it isn't light but it's a
11:12
reflection of light. And there's an there's a whole other thing inside of there we could we could argue for hours about, but I like that idea of sort of
11:21
the perception of that power being broadened. And I think that is one of
11:27
the more interesting aspects of it. It's very rare for Blizzard classes to really
11:34
start opening that up and sort of broadly defining what makes a class that
11:41
class. So, for the longest time, paladins, where you you worship the
11:46
light and you are a warrior, go forth. Uh, shaman, where you talk with your
11:52
ancestors and make deals with your elements, go forward. Demon hunters, you
11:57
have a demon inside of you, and if you ever let it out of your sight or let your guard down for even one iota of a second, it's going to eat you from the
12:03
inside out. So expanding what that is is
12:08
really from a player standpoint, at least in in my concern, as far as I'm concerned, cool. Like it is really neat.
12:16
Uh especially when so many of us tell stories of our characters and identify with our characters in so many different ways with a game that's been around for
12:22
so long. This sort of like bleeds into that. And I think it's really good
12:28
story-wise because now you're not just restricted to one specific thing. One of
12:33
the one of the problems with with death knights, right, is that as far as the
12:39
story was concerned for the longest time, they were created by the Lich King and then broke
12:45
off and then did their own thing and that they could only ever be created by the Valkyr or under the control of the
12:52
Lich King. And then we learned out that the Valkyr were not just what the Lich King had. That there were more of them.
12:58
And the Valkyr were a not a perversion, but a uh a a weird take or a modified
13:06
take on the Kyrion. So now it started opening up all these possibilities of the fact that a death knight isn't
13:12
necessarily just a death knight because of what the Lich King made them. other things can now potentially open up that
13:19
door to become or be considered death knights have similar power sets but derive it from a different source which
13:26
we've talked about too in this context with necromancy. The light can do necromancy whereas before necromancy was
13:35
all about basically darkness and decay and and it was its own specific school.
13:41
But now we literally just had in this expansion an entire storyline about how
13:48
the light does in necromancy. So all of these avenues are starting to open up for all of these different classes that
13:54
are challenging sort of the classical interpretation of where they get their identity from. The identity itself isn't
14:01
necessarily changed what they are, but where they come from to get there. that
14:06
journey changes and shifts and means that you're not just everybody's a one
14:12
note song. It's not, you know, I must suffer, therefore I'm here. And Matt brought up Shaman.
14:19
We've already seen different flavors of Shaman. We've never really explored it as a player character too much, but
14:26
every time we've added a new lineage to the shaman line, we've added a
14:32
redefinition or a different path of how shaman became shaman. So, I mean I I will say that we have
14:38
explored it with one particular goblins. No, culture. Yeah, culture is another good example,
14:44
but I say goblins. I mean goblins. goblins. We already kind of knew that we had done that because
14:50
they've been around for long enough that it it's they it feels like at this point we have well and truly understand that
14:55
goblins goblins do the same thing. They just do it from a different mindset. Um
15:01
which is actually also what dark shaman do. It's essentially the same thing except it's a very different mindset.
15:07
Um, and that's what's interesting to me about cult herand because their shaman are very it's it's like they have
15:15
shamanism but don't understand that they have shamanism.
15:20
Like the whole water priest thing. It's like no, you guys are shaman. You know
15:25
that, right? No, we're water priests. Like no, you you're doing earth, you know, you're doing earth shock right
15:31
now. Come on. No, it's water shock. No, we already have a water
15:38
I but I I like that weird almost stunted
15:44
shamanism. You can imagine actual shamans running into the cultterans and like out of pity trying to explain to
15:50
them. No, no, that that's fine. It's great. That thing you're doing is great, but you can also do this and this. See
15:57
how you can do that with this? Isn't there like I I I guess like you know it it's always felt weird to me that the
16:03
cultterans seem to be like backing away from everything but one aspect of it
16:09
which is cool but it all I think it also opens up the the opportunity and not not saying that this will ever happen but this is me the
16:16
pie in the sky moment right this is the if I could if I could start redefining things and have really cool things
16:22
whether it makes sense for the game or not this is what I would do like the idea that we don't warriors in World of
16:31
Warcraft are fighters and barbarians and arms masters allin one, but they're on
16:38
the cusp of just being spiritual warriors as well. Like the whole avatar
16:44
of the mountain thing and and that they can be this whole aspect of embodying sort of like this this locus of power is
16:51
right in line with what enhancement shamans do on the tin, right? It's literally the the class fantasy of
16:58
enhancement shaman and a lot of shaman were incredibly
17:03
like fantastic warriors. I'm looking at Drethar. He wasn't just a shaman. He was
17:08
an amazing warrior till he got old. Uh like that's a whole storyline about that. So this idea of, you know, maybe a
17:16
warrior becomes a warrior instead of purely a shaman because it excuse I'm not
17:24
healing. I'm going to use this to protect, but I'm going to do it in a different way. Like I like that idea of
17:31
sort of breaching into that and that's not just because I want shaman tanks back. That's a whole other whole other thing. But it it's it's just a really
17:40
interesting concept. We've seen this with hunters. We've seen this with mages. We've seen this with warlocks.
17:47
We've seen this with priests. Like all of these have sort of like these different aspects of them that still
17:53
lead them to the same point, but they have a different origin story. And I think that makes the world feel more
17:59
vibrant and more alive, at least in my opinion. So, I'm excited for that. And I
18:06
would love to see them look at this doing more with the ultimate goal in my mind of having all races, being able to
18:13
play all classes because I think that makes the most amount of sense game-wise, but I also think it makes the
18:18
most amount of sense class fantasy or player fantasy wise by giving you
18:24
essentially unlimited uh potential for whatever combination you wanted to do.
18:30
Yeah. A while back, we talked about um cosmetic class options.
18:36
Mhm. Uh I think it was when we were talking about spell breakers as paladins and how
18:41
you could have a paladin build that was just all spellbreaker stuff. Um, and and one of the things I've always
18:47
thought is that you could have an entire like you could have a like if you play a gnome warrior, let's say, you could have
18:55
a a a thing where you basically they all have the same abilities as everybody else, but instead of their their avatar
19:01
ability being channeling like a mountain king type thing, it's literally they they they rock up in a in like they had
19:08
they hit their watch or you know it's like you know holding up their zord
19:14
summoning device from Power Rangers, the Morpher, and they summon a suit of armor around themselves for like like 20
19:20
seconds, and they're just bashing everything with big robot fists, and then it just, you know, that's the limit
19:27
of its power, and it collapses back into a wristwatch. Um, you could have,
19:33
you know, gnome hunters who basically just have a they they have a big
19:39
mechanical gun arm that shoots, you know, they don't they can't shoot this gun themselves. It's too big. So,
19:45
they've got like a Warhammer 40k techno priest extra arm that does the shooting.
19:52
You know, you could you could have a lot of flavor in classes based around stuff like that that is unique to um not
20:00
necessarily a race, but in some cases a race, but unique to a certain approach that doesn't need a mechanical
20:06
difference. It doesn't need a new spec. You could just have this be a different
20:11
way to do certain specs. It's just it's just cosmetic. Yeah. And I don't know why that got resisted
20:18
so hard. Um, I feel like it's still something they could and should do. Um,
20:24
like imagine the goblins who have like all their special if they're they're a prop warrior goblin. All of their
20:30
special prop warrior stuff is basically explosives they have t they're attaching
20:36
to their stuff. So when they do shield slam, they have a bomb on the shield
20:43
and it hits the guy in the face and it blows up. And since it's a shield, it directs the blast into the guy. And
20:50
that's just one of many things. Heroic Leap bomb feet. Uh, you know, Titan's
20:56
grip. I mean, I don't know that one. You just they have big weapons. I But the bug weapons could have bomb strapped to
21:02
them if you wanted. Um, point being that there's there's lots of room for this kind of stuff and it doesn't it doesn't
21:10
cause balance issues or at least, you know, not any more balance issues than the class would
21:15
already have. Uh, so I don't know. I I would like to see them do more with classes in that regard. And that's one
21:22
of the reasons I want to see them do like let everybody play every class. But I also think like for when you were
21:29
talking about you could have, you know, different power sources for different classes and so forth. One of the first
21:36
things that hit me while you were talking about that was imagine if
21:42
you could be a warlock of the light. Yeah, why not?
21:48
And the packed entity because you can do that in like other games that have warlocks in them. Mhm.
21:54
Imagine if you're literally a warlock who's instead of making deals with demons is, you know, calling on the
22:00
kyrion or calling on, you know, titans or, you know, just calling upon whatever random light entity seems to be around
22:07
or what have you. You could have a warlock who's who's got elemental patrons and the difference you don't
22:15
want to like step on shaman's toes here, but you could definitely make it so instead of the way shaman work where
22:21
they essentially work in an enlightened sort of symbiosis most of the time, the dark shaman could actually be
22:28
represented by warlocks and all the stuff they do is just reflavored to be stuff they're forcing
22:35
out of the elements. So, there's a lot of room for it and I think it would be really cool, but in
22:41
the end, I don't In terms of like what we're going to see for like lore out of this, I I don't know. I I in terms of
22:47
void lore that we're going to see in this this expansion, I am already kind of like giddy. I don't I don't know that
22:53
I can ask for more. I can't think of anything. It's like It's like when you get home and there's an enormous feast of all the food you like and then
22:59
someone's like, "Hey, do do you think we should get a pizza?" And like, "Dude, I've already got all this. I I can't eat a pizza, too." So, I don't know.
23:07
Well, that's going to lead us into our second one, which is uh going to be from KTS stories here. Uh, what do you think
23:14
is going on with all the people, especially villains, who are trying to combine two or more cosmological forces in WoW? It seemed like this was a thing
23:20
in the new Caresh audio book, and I was reminded of Deathwing and Shadow Flame.
23:25
I just recently ran Warlords Hellfire Citel, and Zuulharak had a similar thing
23:31
going with Fell and Void. Even the Titans might be implied to have tried it with the dragons pregalacron.
23:38
It feels like something we might be learning more about soon. Like I said, it all it kind of ties back into that.
23:44
But I feel like as soon as you are aware that those cosmic forces exist,
23:51
you are immediately trying to like if you are a villain, you're trying to
23:56
figure out how to make it benefit you. And shadow flame is probably one of the the most
24:04
it's probably the longest running one besides essentially fell which is the combination of two forces or the
24:10
destruction of it right. It's when technically when light and void like break down. It's when Yeah. It's basically uh in
24:18
Legion they talked about how it's rooted in the destruction the mutual destruction of both like light and and
24:25
shadow. And that's why those engines destroy souls to create fell because the
24:30
soul of a being thema of it you might want to say is rooted in all
24:36
cosmological forces. But you know it is interesting thing to think about.
24:41
But almost always the goal at least with these villains is to either create something more powerful or to create
24:49
something more destructive or to harness something their own way. So,
24:55
well, look at like too like the we see that not just with the shadow flame itself. Um, look at almost everything
25:02
that worked for Deathwing. Yeah, he he's got chromatic dragons where he's
25:07
trying to create a dragon that has the powers of all the other dragon flights. Mhm.
25:12
Um, he's got the twilight drakes, which is based on the nether drakes. Nether
25:17
drakes are drakes that were exposed directly to the power of the twisting nether. And then he goes and and makes
25:22
it weirder by making it into the Twilight Drakes. And so that's basically
25:28
like again it's another like I want to have dragons but also this um Guldon's
25:34
use of um Zolarak was created by Guldon who wanted to be able to simultaneously use fell and void. Why did he want to do
25:42
that? Um obviously it's Goldon. you can never ignore the the simplest evil
25:48
possibility. But it does also beg the question, why did he feel like that was necessary?
25:54
Cuz Gul'dan doesn't do anything just because he's evil. Um because, you know, if he did, he'd
26:01
literally be busy. Like he'd never have time to do anything else. So if Gul'dan thinks I need a creature who can tap
26:07
into fell and void at the same time, why is it because the Naru were opposing
26:13
him? Because the Naru, the Naru are really good example of of an entities
26:19
that that use two cosmological forces simultaneously. They literally flip between them.
26:27
You're absolutely right. And and with the the Zoolhawk thing, it it makes me think of that that might not have been
26:34
the end point, right? So, no, cuz once he gets two, what's stopping him from going for three or
26:40
four? Well, the reason the reason I say that though is a little I don't want to say it's it's more than that, but like
26:46
just looking at it, we've already established that fell, at least is how we know it is like the breakdown between
26:52
light and void when it meets. So, you have this entity that can tap into the fell. Now, you're having it stably or at
26:58
least attempting to stably be able to tap into void without it being immediately converted into fell or
27:04
overpowering the fell and becoming completely void again. Why wouldn't you try for the trifecta at that point? Why
27:11
wouldn't you try to make the ultimate weapon for what you are immediately facing? Cuz at that point too, like it
27:17
becomes an ultimate weapon against the legion like it is literally all of the forces
27:23
that it needs to to fight back against the Legion. Gul'dan could in theory get his freedom. So I I
27:31
or you know be gold on being who he is. If he has a big thing that can basically
27:36
wreck on the Legion, get rid of Kill Jaden and Archamond and then now, you know, why can't he be
27:44
in charge? Especially if he's got control of the giant uses all the forces thing. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.
27:50
You know, once he's got that on a leash, Guldon is never
27:55
shy about trying to seize ridiculous levels of cosmic power. I mean, he he
28:02
heard about the tomb of Sargeras and he immediately decided to go in there and
28:08
find the secrets. And and multiple people were like, "That's that's not a great idea." And
28:14
Golden's like, "Is it going to make me more powerful? because if it is then I'm doing it. Um, so this is not a guy who
28:21
is shy about, you know, now I wield ultimate cosmic power kind of guy. So
28:28
yeah, I I I feel like there's multiple reasons for that. But two, like another example, imagine being a an undead and
28:37
not a forsaken undead. You're you're you're straight up scourge
28:42
and you're controlling the light. Sir Zeliac proved that that worked. It's
28:48
not like with Calamehil who is powered by the light. Zeliac is straight up
28:54
powered by the you know this the same evil magics, the same death magics as the scourge in general. He his power
29:01
ultimately comes from the jailer and the you know the cre the whole power
29:07
coming through the uh helm of domination at the time. So his power is that power
29:12
but he can still control the light and use it as a weapon.
29:17
And yes it hurts him but he doesn't it doesn't stop him. It's like the light
29:23
can't stop him. Once you can do that kind of thing, even if you don't mean to
29:28
be evil, if you're not trying to be a bad guy, you're still kind of like
29:33
messing the apple card up here. And Zeliac knows it. Zeliac tells you to run away from him. He doesn't want to do
29:40
this because Zeliac was still dominated by the Lich King even while he himself
29:46
was controlling the light, which meant that now the Lich King could control the light through Zeliac.
29:54
Imagine if Arthus had figured out how to do it without Zeliac.
30:00
You think he would have stopped? Arthus was a paladin for years. You think he wouldn't have tried to get the light if
30:05
he could? So, yeah, there's lots of possibilities there. Getting able to control more than
30:11
one cosmological force, especially at the same time. It's it it is inherently
30:17
better than only having one of them because now you have you have fallback options.
30:24
you know, oh no, I'm fighting a bunch of void beings that barely even feel like I remember back in the day when we were we
30:29
were all raiding molten core and all the fire mages were just like really mad
30:35
because fire wasn't doing anything. Now imagine that instead of having Blizzard come along and
30:42
essentially make it so fire burned fire, which I'm okay with that because, you know, I made out of meat, but if you
30:48
threw like a 300 pounds of meat at me, I'd still be in trouble. it would hurt. You know, I don't just absorb I can't
30:55
just eat the meat that fast. So, I'm okay with like burning things that are made out of fire with fire because you
31:00
assume you just make it too hot and the things like, you know, it's like, "Oh god, I'm like a dog and a I I have to lie down and pant." Um,
31:08
so I'm fine with that. But like imagine if mages could have done frost firebolt back then, you know? Isn't that it's
31:15
like oh, you don't like you like fire, have some frost with it. So yeah, it is interesting to see even even player
31:21
classes have done it. Like we just mentioned mages with frost firebolt. That's them combining fire and frost.
31:28
They, you know, using two at once. Um I think you could even argue druids do
31:33
that cuz cuz druids do a lot of arcane stuff
31:38
in addition to their natur their natural stuff, the nature magic they do. They do a fair amount of arcane stuff too like
31:44
wrath. So yeah, I I think it is pretty common.
31:51
Well, yeah. I mean, and I think there's a lot of like again, I keep coming back to Shadow
31:57
Flame and we talk about how dangerous it was. Uh like that's a whole story. I mean, you needed a special you needed
32:02
a special cape to even get through it. That was back when that wasn't common. Yeah. And even then, we didn't know
32:09
about the origin of it prior to I mean, really prior to Dragon Flight, right? We
32:16
we learned about we learned about it as being an actual creation
32:22
uh of Deathwing during that. So before then we didn't know that it was something that somebody created. But then you go looking back at
32:28
it and it makes a certain amount of sense because he needed he needed something more powerful. He was whis
32:35
listening to the whispering of an old god potentially. We don't know the full story. It might not have been fully the
32:40
whispers that drove him mad. He may have been seeking to control the void. He may have been seeking to do the same things
32:46
our Garas was all along. He may not have been actually nuts. Um
32:51
well, for that matter too, another thing to think about is Zalot and her actions are pretty
32:58
reminiscent of Deathwing. Yeah, very much so. There's there's definitely a lot of uh
33:04
lot of overlap there. And this is not me being a Deathwing apologist. It's more like it it may have been more
33:10
complicated than we believe. It may have been self-inflicted, which would actually be worse. Like, he didn't just
33:17
get corrupted by whispers. He went he went headirst into the whispers, listening as intently as he could to
33:24
glean their secrets. We don't know that that's what happened, but we don't know that it's not what happened either.
33:29
Well, you make you you make an interesting point there and one that I've been thinking about since that raid, which is quite literally if he
33:36
created Shadow Flame. We don't know if the Shadow Flame came after he was already listening to the Whisperers or
33:43
had that door open for him or if Shadow Flame came first. and if in his pursuit
33:49
of creating his things, his his army, his craft, his his weapons, that that's
33:56
what opened him up to sort of being tipped over the edge a little bit. So, yeah,
34:01
it it's like a little bit of the chicken and the egg. We don't know what came first. Uh, so
34:07
it's also a bit Lovecraftian because it's the whole idea of I want to use this to fight, you know, fight the evil
34:13
forces in the earth in the deep earth. But in so doing, you unlock this, you're opening yourself up to them, you know,
34:20
he who fights monsters a monster might become sort of thing, right? Which also which also begs the
34:25
question like what was Shadow Flame potentially powerful enough to actually end an old god?
34:32
the way that it's talked about presumably maybe. Yeah, it certainly seems like it might have been able to,
34:37
right? Which is one of the reasons why Fyra really like wanted it because he was going to not just burn the world
34:42
tree, but anything that stood in his way, honestly. So there's a potential
34:48
that this may may have been very much that it may have been him looking for a weapon to end something that his I don't
34:55
want to say betters but the people who came before him who presented themselves as better than him could never do right
35:03
like we've we've established that the Titans they were able to and I'm going to air quote kill an old god at great
35:10
cost uh only to find out later on that it didn't actually kill the old god it just made it change forms really. Uh
35:18
yeah, instead of just one big old god, we now have a whole bunch of like bags of old god juice everywhere.
35:25
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, not good, right? And then the rest of them just got imprisoned and those prisons were
35:33
not good. Like they they weren't complete. They weren't capable of holding them forever. Like we saw that
35:39
with you know Kathun at first and then we saw that with uh you know Yagsaron
35:45
where his influence and the Sarinite was spreading everywhere. Uh like you like
35:51
you see that the provisions that they made to try to contain it weren't enough. And if you're
35:58
tasked with keeping Azeroth safe and you see this and we've argued this before
36:04
and I'm gonna go back to Deathwing because why not? But if you're if you are tasked with
36:12
being the guardian of the deep places and you can feel the deep places because
36:18
every Titan prison was where deep in the earth deep in the flesh of Azeroth for
36:26
every single prison they put an old god in or where were they contained everything was below ground
36:31
I think that's partially because they didn't put the old gods in those prisons they built the prisons around
36:38
around the old gods. The old gods were already in there. Oh, yeah. No, 100%. But it's like, but they're already there.
36:43
Yeah. No, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying it's interesting to think about that concept. It's like the best you can. It'd be like if you if
36:50
somebody comes to you, you're a doctor, and you're treating somebody who has like say cancer, and instead of trying
36:56
to remove the cancer, your only option is to essentially build a box around the cancer so it can't go anywhere.
37:04
And that that's inherently like if you're Deathwing, you're going to want a better solution than that.
37:10
Well, especially cuz you can feel it. You can feel the claw at the walls. You can feel the intrusion of this foreign
37:18
entity on the planet. Cuz you were literally made to do this. You were made
37:23
to feel this pain. Like, of course, in my mind, like you would
37:28
look for a solution that eliminates the problem. If you've got a tick, you don't
37:34
just leave it on the body. You find a way to remove it from the body. That's just how this works. So,
37:40
and and here's now something that you've caused me to think while you were talking about that. Go for it.
37:46
Shadow Flame is a combination of, you know, void and fire ultimately.
37:51
Void and dragon fire. Yeah. Yeah. What entity do we know of that once
37:58
empowered somebody so well that they killed an old god? Aloon.
38:04
And what does Aloon do to the beings she chooses? What does she call them? What
38:10
do they become? Night warriors. And what did Aloon do when she created
38:16
an a night warrior in Dark Shore? What did she do to the sky?
38:24
I mean, besides it going dark, she blotted out the sun. Yeah, she created a permanent eclipse.
38:31
which means Dark Shore was permanently in shadow.
38:38
So, was Deathwing kind of on the same track
38:44
there? Was he like going, "Oh, wait a minute. I oddly enough, the force that seems most
38:51
effective against the void is the void."
38:56
And we see that with Locust Walker and Yria and Zealot.
39:02
Yeah, shadow and void power can work really well against shadow and void.
39:07
Maybe even better than light does. Because when you use light and void against each other, what do you get?
39:14
Fell. So, if you don't want to make a lot of fell and burn reality and every wherever
39:21
you happen to be, void might be the go-to force. It's it's the safest thing to use
39:27
against itself. And by creating something like shadow flame, what do you you're you're
39:34
literally burning fell. I mean, not burning fell, burning void. Like that's
39:40
void seems to be the fuel of shadow flame. So
39:46
yeah, it's it's there's a lot of interesting little ticks to this that don't necessarily come together fully
39:52
right now, but which you can look at and go, "Wait a minute." You know, I I I like what what was the deal with Natalie
39:59
Seline? Why did Zalot basically betray her?
40:08
And and how is that like Natalie Seline is the reason humans had shadow priests?
40:13
She she invented it. Except the night elves had priests and they had shadow priests. Where did And did they get that
40:20
from Aloon? We already know Aloon has multiple facets. Is one of them basically a new moon/e eclipse version?
40:28
Like the the where the night warrior comes from. Is is Aloon somebody who like we've already talked about how
40:34
Aloon kind of resembles or seems to be similar to Anaru. Is Aloon also a
40:39
cosmically tied to both light and void?
40:45
This is a distinct possibility that we'll likely learn more about if nothing else in not if not this expansion. I
40:53
would be shocked if we don't get something along those lines inside of Midnight.
40:59
Yeah, it would definitely seem so. Yeah. Yeah. Seems seems like exactly the sort of uh expansion where that would be uh I
41:06
don't want to say uh viable, but quasi important. Uh, but hopefully that
41:12
answers your question. Uh, and we're going to go ahead and move on to our
41:17
next one. Uh, this one comes from Razerbug. Uh, so
41:24
what pure gameplay mechanics, graveyards, hearthstones, etc. have produced interesting lore to enrich the
41:30
story? When Anduin straight up said nope and hearth out of somewhere in the Three Hammers book, I actually said finally
41:36
out loud. And on the flip side, what new lore do you have as your own head cannon
41:41
to explain purely gameplay mechanics that haven't written official story yet?
41:47
Is there anything that really like comes to mind for that for you, Matt? Um, in terms of like one I really liked,
41:54
uh, the whole deal with Zurgos and the spirit healer, which ultimately led us
42:00
kind of to finding out about the about the Valkier and the Vool. Um which then
42:05
led us to um the Kerrion who are essentially you know spirit healers who
42:11
aren't like the spirit healers that we run into are ones who basically
42:16
according to the the lore that's been invented for them they're they're they're um kyrion who realize we're not
42:23
supposed to be dead. Like our fate is to not be dead now.
42:29
Even though we're dead. That's not our fate. So, they put us back because we're
42:34
not supposed to be dead yet. That's the lore behind why spirit healers work the
42:39
way they do. Why they don't just take you to uh like, you know, the the arbiter and go, "Hey, look, I found a
42:46
dead guy. You do what you want with them." They put people who are not supposed to be there back. They you
42:52
know, if if you're not supposed to be dead and it's like, who get like why do they have that authority? like why do
42:58
they just decide, oh, this one definitely isn't supposed to be dead. The fact that one of them could fall in love with the blue dragon
43:07
and just that whole deal that just that the lore of the spirit healer has become
43:12
so goofy and fun to me cuz yeah, this is just a mechanic so that when you die in
43:17
game, you don't have to like make a new character, right? That's ultimately all it is. you die in game, you got to spend
43:24
take 15 minutes waiting for your gear to be to all go up to full and then you can run around and and play the same character again. But they now have all
43:31
this lore for it and it's really entertaining. Um, I just I like I like
43:37
the whole deal with the Kyrion and the and the Valkyr and the fact that spirit healers are basically Kerrion who are
43:43
just not essentially have decided on their own that the
43:48
spirit of the law is more important than the letter of the law. Instead of taking
43:54
you to see the arbiter and be, you know, slotted into your un your your house, so
44:01
to speak, they take you back because they they look at you and go, "No, this guy is definitely not supposed to be
44:06
dead." And that implies that there is some force that is killing people that aren't
44:13
supposed to be dead. I just it every time I think about it, I
44:18
get kind of giddy at the idea. Like imagine if this whole deal with the devourers and all that stuff that we're
44:24
looking at possibly in the future is related to the fact that spirit healers even exist because they're they're
44:30
surreptitiously trying to alter the balance on reality by killing the people who aren't supposed to be dead. But the
44:37
spirit healers we're not no we're not letting this we're not letting this slide. We don't care what the rules are. No, you're not going back. So in terms
44:44
of like in-game lore that's already been established, that's one of my favorites. Um, in terms of head cannon that I've come up with to explain things, like
44:51
I've said, I I think that for me mostly it's just the fact that I in my head
44:57
warriors, everything they do is based around one of the three things. Getting extremely angry and doing something
45:04
physical. getting extremely angry and sh and shrugging off something or getting
45:09
extremely angry and figuring out how to say something so horrible to a dragon or
45:16
a goatman or a bassilisk or whatever that it comes and attacks you instead of
45:22
other people because we don't have magic. We can't magically challenge them with a light or, you know, be a bear and
45:29
just make a big bear noise. So, we're literally figuring out insults for rock
45:35
monsters. I feel like there's going to be like a like a there's a warrior big book of insults for things and you like
45:42
it's got one of those things on the side like with the little divots that you can track what's you know just run your thumb up it and boom be at that thing
45:49
and you just pop it open and go, "Okay, Mick Than Darak, what did you just say to her? I told her that her eggs were
45:57
all fertilized by a basilisk. Is that why she's trying to kill us right now? Yep.
46:03
So that's that's that's my head cannon. That that that warrior taunt as opposed to everybody else's taunt is basically
46:10
just the big book of insults getting flipped open and like aha this one will
46:15
work cuz really taunt is ridiculous.
46:20
It's like how do I even this thing? I've never even seen one of these before. It's a big statue with an with an Anubis
46:26
head on it. Why did that work? How did I manage to insult it so that it comes to
46:31
attack me? They just wave my hand at it. What? What? So, yeah, that's that's my head cannon. There's a book compiled on
46:38
Azeroth. It probably has new additions every expansion with insults for like whatever you're going to run into. That
46:45
that's my head cannon. Yeah. I mean, one of my favorites is definitely the evolution over the years
46:51
of Hearthston in general. Um, I remember I think in the original book, I'd have
46:57
to dig it out from my desk and I don't feel like digging right now, but in the original manual they were just described as like arcane runstones that allow you
47:04
to teleport in the way that like, you know, not having to find an arc mage would be uh necessary because it was
47:10
coming from hard. It was coming from Warcraft 3 where mass teleport you needed an arc mage and you needed to be
47:16
in that circle otherwise you just didn't go. Uh so over the years watching how it
47:23
sort of evolved was very entertaining for me. Uh where it they were then considered still really rare artifacts
47:31
yet every player in WoW has one. Uh, but the story of it didn't really line up
47:37
unless you consider the fact that you have to dis you have to disconnect from
47:43
every other player and realize that you as a champion or you as like this high powerful entity is being loaned one of
47:50
these absolutely precious stones, these artifacts by your respective faction
47:56
leaders. Um, and then over time what a Hearthstone was became a little more
48:01
fleshed out and it wasn't necessarily just an ancient artifact. It was something that could be created. Uh, as
48:07
a matter of fact, like beings like Aloon or the the high priests and priestesses,
48:14
sorry, the high priestesses and the high mages of the Caldori Empire could create them back in the day. Like there was a
48:21
precedent for it. As a matter of fact, in the story, Teronda Whisperin actually
48:27
uses Aloon's power to forcibly change who a Hearthstone is bound to. Um,
48:34
like there are these little things like that that that are really really interesting as far as how it sort of
48:40
evolved, but the true origins of it still have never really been discovered.
48:47
And I also think it was really funny because as you're going through like early days of the game, uh it's such an
48:55
oddity when it comes to story. Like King Vyian at the time, uh believed that if
49:01
you go back to the the Storm Rage book, uh that they were just things of myth or
49:06
legends that they that they, you know, it was a mage or an elf thing only and he had never seen one. But then you have
49:12
Brawl Bear Mantle who had seen a Hearthstone twice prior to the war against the nightmare. Uh which I think
49:19
is just absolutely fascinating. Or then you have a legend in game of uh a
49:25
dwarven inkeeper u I think it's stonekeeper inkeeper stonekeeper who tried to make a deal with a gnome
49:31
warlock to turn his daughter into a hearthstone so that she would always returned home to her father's inn.
49:37
whether or not that is actually something that ever happened. It's a funny little thing in the game that it's like, "Yep, this is a story. We think
49:43
this happened. We don't know that it's true or not. Can a person become a Hearthstone? Who knows?" Uh or the
49:49
Hearth having a little line or a throwaway thing where it was a magical construct uh rumored to have been made
49:54
from the same mineral or stones or that a Hearthstone has to be crafted from. Uh
50:00
or Hearthy, which is a battle pet, I think. uh which is an animated
50:05
Hearthstone that was created by a wizard who refused to wear robes with pockets. Just didn't want to wear pock robes with
50:11
pockets. Like it's such a goofy little thing, but it just goes back to like
50:16
filling in the blanks on it. Make the world feel more alive because it is such a goofy little thing.
50:23
Going back to the lack of death, like the whole And you know what's really funny? I'm not trying to I'm not trying to like
50:28
break it in, but No, please. I went and looked up I looked up while you were talking. Hearthy looks exactly
50:34
like an earth elemental except the center stone is a Hearthstone. Yeah. So it's like some
50:40
It doesn't It doesn't have a head. It doesn't have a head, I don't think. Yeah. But there's like It's really hard to tell cuz it's not it's not a really
50:47
big thing. So yeah. No, it's it's messed up. It's kind of cool. Uh I just think it's kind of fun to imagine. Does
50:54
Hearthy exist because some mage didn't have pockets or does Hearthy exist because some mage was bored? Yeah.
51:02
And just wanted to see like can I make it animated like Yeah, I could bind earth elemental to it. That's cool. And
51:08
now that shaman's giving me a dirty look again. Look, I'm sorry about water elementals. Okay. Uh but the the head
51:16
cannony one or I guess the one that I spent a like not a lot of time thinking about because I have too many tin foil
51:22
hat theories and stuff rolling around in my brain always is how pocket dimensions are handled in game. So, in game, and
51:30
this is probably something a lot of players don't necessarily think about a lot, but for whatever reason, this is
51:36
something that I've I occasionally think about, especially when I'm leveling alts or going back to the original main cities, Stormwind or Iron Forge or uh
51:45
going back to uh what I'm going to call it, uh Ormark. Wow, words are hard. But
51:51
like go to the mage tower in in Stormwind and look at it from the outside.
51:57
then go inside and go through the little portal. Where the hell are you? Right?
52:02
Because you're not somewhere physically, at least, not that you can really think of. There's no windows that point
52:08
outside. It's a filled with a layer of magical constructs. It's got broom
52:13
sweeping. It's got uh elementals about. It has a very ethereal feel to it, but
52:19
it's it's it's somewhere, but also nowhere. And that's where the portals are for Stormwind. And I'm looking at it
52:25
like this is basically just a pocket dimension. The mages somewhere decided,
52:31
hey, we need more room. Cool. Let's just put a bigger room inside the smaller room. And that's what they did. And you
52:38
see this happen all throughout. Wow. Doon was lousy with it, right? Uh Oramar
52:47
has at least one instance of this. Like everywhere you go in the world, there's
52:52
been some evidence of this. Was this something that they learned from Titans? Was this something that was based off of
52:58
the same spell that was used to create the elemental prisons, but instead we just now are able to add an extra room
53:05
into our house? Like like it nothing ever explains it. They never talk about
53:11
it. They never do anything with it. It's just a thing that exists. And like Matt
53:16
going back with like theme and be like, "Oh, it's just, you know, here's this. I just want I was bored. Here's what I
53:21
want to do. Okay, cool. I can do it. Great. Let's go." It's like some mage literally was like in my brain is just
53:27
like, "Man, my house is too small, but I don't have the building permits to go any further. What if only I could twist reality and and
53:34
create a like a cyst Yeah. of another dimension inside my house that's bigger than the house.
53:42
Yeah. Nice. That would work. Yeah, we could do that. Meanwhile, somewhere Roden is like that that power is so
53:49
fundamentally destructive to reality that I I had to bind it to another plane of existence. And you're just
53:55
you're just taking off pieces and sticking them on your house because you because you just can't stop collecting
54:00
leather pants. That's great. Maybe that's why we had to get rid of void storage.
54:08
Uh, but I mean that's that that's something that like I said like it's I would love to have an in an in-game like
54:15
nod to it at some point. Doesn't even have to be an explanation, but just a nod to it. Like some some actual
54:22
powerful charact like Jana literally sitting down and going, "Why do we keep doing this?" Like like this is a thing
54:27
we all seem to like just do randomly. Why are we doing this?
54:33
or or have like Caligos go, you know, I never really said anything about this before cuz I was kind of like on the
54:38
whole like you humans are and your mortals are kind of okay, but you really should stop poking holes into reality.
54:45
Uh cuz like you're just literally thinning the walls and the devourers are going to like start coming through and
54:51
that's going to be a bad time and we don't really want that. Like I don't know. But that's it's something that I
54:57
would absolutely love to see somebody actually address in the same way that like you Razer that you put out here
55:04
which is in the Three Hammers book when you have Anduin trying to Hearthstone out. And until this point we've never
55:10
seen an NPC Hearthstone. We've seen like Jana teleport. We've seen magic users teleport. We've seen them hitch rides
55:17
with mages and do the teleporting thing but never really use a Hearthstone. And
55:23
like seeing something in a book that acknowledges that was like really really cool. I'd love to see them acknowledge
55:28
all this interdimensional space that we just seem to be carving out randomly for whatever various reasons we possibly can
55:34
or need to. Like I don't know. I I think it would be fun. I think that'd be
55:40
something that I would love to see addressed. Do you have any other comments for that, Matt? No, I I think it's one of the
55:47
things that it's kind of fun to think about the difference between how, you know, all these other beings and
55:53
entities and forces treat these kind of magical abilities versus how mortals
55:58
treat them. Mhm. Like what's the there was like one thing I I don't think this is Wow related, but
56:05
it still kind of works for WoW. Uh guy was talking about how, you know, we when we graduate from our magical our magical
56:11
academy, we tell all of our students to go forth and craft a unique spell tailored to their own soul that is the
56:19
full expression of their their inner being. It's always fireball.
56:26
They just always make fireball except for the one guy that decided to animate the broom to sweep his lab. Yeah. But but still the idea that you
56:33
know we've got you've got the ability to twist reality and you're just making
56:38
balls of fire to throw at people. It's like think about how hard that spell probably
56:45
was to come up with. It's like it may not even existed
56:51
before, you know, before the Wrathy War, but then they gave humans mages and humans immediately were like, "No, no, I
56:57
don't have time for this. I just want to guy to blow up. I don't have time for the subtle weave of energies. I'm just
57:05
going to make everybody in a circle around me freeze to death so they can't hurt me. And then I'm just going to
57:10
throw fire at that guy until he's dead. When you have a hammer in your hand, eventually everything looks like a nail.
57:17
That's is how this works. And when you have a blowtorrch in your hand, eventually everything looks like you should be going fire.
57:24
So, you know. H Well, I think that's going to do that do it for us today, folks. Uh, I do want
57:30
to thank you for joining us. As a reminder, BlizzardWatch is made possible due to your generous contributions at
57:36
patreon.com/blizzardwatch. Your continued support means that this podcast siting community is able to
57:41
thrive and grow. Blizzard watch supporters enjoy exclusive benefits like early access to the podcast. Better chance at having your question answered
57:47
on our podcast with the Q&A site experience. Again, if you have questions for this or any of our podcast, be sure
57:52
to send those in. You can send us an email at podcastblizzardwatch.com. specify the show that it is for in the
57:59
subject line as well as any special pronunciation of your name. You can also hit us up on Discord. We have two
58:04
channels set aside. The Q and Podcast questions channel open for everybody. Uh
58:09
you can just go ahead and just throw those in there and again what show it's for. Give us your your your name
58:15
pronunciation. And if you're a Patreon subscriber as a way of saying thank you for helping us keep the lights on. Uh we
58:20
have the Patreon Q and podcast questions channel where we tend to look there first just that little extra thank you.
58:26
Uh, and as always, check out our other podcast. I normally don't shill them too often on this one. Uh, but our Blizzard
58:34
Watch podcast where we do talk about things other than just Blizzard, but we do that's where our main news sources
58:40
are for all things Blizzard and a lot of other gaming related news around the the the world of gaming entertainment. Uh,
58:47
feel free to check that out. our Tavern Watch podcast, which is our monthly uh podcast where we talk about tabletop
58:52
news, and this is everything from board games to TTRPGs to to card games like Magic the Gathering. Uh we talk about
58:59
that there. And then we have our live play. Every month we do one uh where we
59:04
do a little mini uh oneshot ep like three episode uh stint uh where you know
59:10
you can kind of enjoy some of the the the role playing aspect of the tabletop role playing uh scene without having to
59:16
you know go too far. But if you enjoy that and check out our other stuff, we would appreciate it. Uh drop us a
59:23
comment and and maybe engage with our content. Maybe share it with your friends. If you can't support us on Patreon, we appreciate that too.
59:30
But that folks, we'll see you next week. [Music]
#Online Media
#Computer & Video Games