Up next in 10
Ghosts of K'aresh and its newly announced release date were the first topic in this week's Blizzard Watch Podcast, which is likely to be the final patch for this expansion. Story spoilers weren't shared, but we are excited to find out where we're going next. Our guest host Cory joined us since he's one of our resident Warcraft Rumble experts, and unfortunately that skill set is considerably less in demand since we got word Rumble is in maintenance mode. And it just wouldn't be a Blizzard Watch Podcast without a complaint about monetization these days, but King Krush is so cute, and so expensive, and so gamble-y. Plus, we're all about Summer Games Done Quick and the wacky hijinks those speedrunners get into -- including Blue Prince!
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0:00
[Music]
0:09
Hi everybody and welcome to the Blizzard Watch podcast. It's on fire. Appreciate introduce myself.
0:17
Uh but yeah, we're just gonna actually do that. Just go ahead Cy. We'll start with Cy. Cory, introduce yourself.
0:22
Hey, I'm Corey. You know, I've been here a bunch. You probably know my name by now. I mean, if not, we just told them.
0:28
It's true. Uh Joe. Hi, I'm here. Liz. Liz, I'm also here
0:33
and I'll form the head. Uh so yeah, we got some stuff to talk about. Um some
0:39
some interesting things happened. Uh one one in particular I I know we'll talk about because Cory's here. Uh but in the
0:46
meantime, let's just talk about that Warcraft news. Uh patch 11.2,
0:52
Ghost of Caresh. It's going to be releasing on August 5th. Now that's the official release date. And season 3 is
0:58
beginning on the 12th of August, which is what you wrote there. And I don't know why I couldn't remember that. Um,
1:03
what do you guys think? I mean, like, is that like were we expecting it sooner? Do you think it was going to be later?
1:10
Like, how are you guys feeling on this? Hey, I think this was about Okay, Liz. No, Liz, you go.
1:16
I I think this was about when we expected it. We actually our official the official Blizzard watch prediction
1:23
was a week before this. But uh considering considering how the schedule's going, this sounds about
1:29
right. Blizzard has been really consistent about a patch every 2 months, even when that feels super insanely
1:36
fast. And so this feels like it's right on the money. So what are we looking forward to most here? What what's what's the uh I mean
1:44
just going to Karash at all? I mean there's zones. There's Kesh and then there's the Mana Forge Omega raid,
1:50
right? That's it. There's there's not a bunch of zones. There's just the one zone that's Caresh.
1:56
We're We're going to Caresh and the uh new kind of base of operations is going to be Tazesh, which you may have heard
2:03
of Tazesh before. It's you know, it's a place. It's been a place. I mean, this is we're taking us we're taking us to
2:10
somewhere we've never been before, but we have heard a lot about and maybe unraveling a few mysteries that certain
2:17
people have only speculated about up until now. I don't know what you're talking about. Uh, yeah, sure. Yeah.
2:23
Uh, I'm not going to lie, I was kind of fading in and out. Okay. Uh, let me I'll try to re rephrase
2:29
it. What are you looking forward to in 11.2 in terms of what I'm going to ask you straight up story stuff here. What
2:35
do you want to see? What are you hoping we get to see here? I mean, I don't want to get into spoilers because I'm I'm there's people
2:42
that are probably listening to this that don't want obviously I'm getting everything I want. So, like I can't really speculate because there
2:49
from what I've seen, everything I've been asking for is already being put into the game, including something you
2:55
and I had talked about a year ago. So, I'm okay just kind of chilling and just
3:03
waiting to actually get through and play through it because I couldn't help myself and I went digging for spoilers.
3:08
Oh, yeah. I think I would have. Uh, but here's like I I wanted to ask this one to everybody involved. Do you think
3:14
we're going to How much more War Within do you think we're actually going to get? I think it's wrapping itself up with with the Caresh expansion or patch
3:22
like it because it's more than ever these are going to be tied one expansion to the next expansion. So they don't
3:29
really need to have much more come out after this one because any dangling story threads we know are immediately
3:34
going to be hit with midnight. Yeah, I'm looking right now at the uh road map and what we've got after 11.2
3:41
which again is the beginning of August is 11.2.5 2.5, which is sometime in the autumn, which has new content and system
3:47
updates, and the 21st anniversary, I believe, is what that says. Uh, oh my god, 21st anniversary. That just
3:56
it can now legally drink in most American states. And that that hit me where it hurts.
4:01
And then at some point after that, between autumn and winter, uh, is 11.2.7, which is going to have story and
4:07
quests. I don't I would assume both of those things for sure. and new content and system
4:13
updates, whatever that is. But we we already had that in 11.2.5. So, uh, that feels like it could be wrapping up. Like
4:20
it does feel to me like that this could be the last season. This is season 3, right? It's starting on the 12th.
4:26
This is season 3. I I expect we'll have a season 4, but it's not going to be one of those seasons fours where they have a
4:32
big new raid. it. I expect something like the faded raid system that we've seen where it's just like, oh, we're
4:38
gonna we're gonna throw these raids back up with some new some new mechanics or
4:44
some new difficulty and you can play through the old content again, but I
4:49
don't I don't expect any big new content from here. be some more story content that will lead us in to midnight as we
4:57
get a little closer. But I I think this is the this is going to be the last big
5:02
update probably. Like I mean it'll probably be the last big update, but we're also
5:08
entering a weird area where trying to think how to phrase this. The line between expansions is going to sort of
5:14
be blurry for the next like two that come after this. So where one ends and
5:20
one starts is probably going to be a little blurry. So saying how much more of the war
5:25
within we get is a loaded question because it might be more than you expect cuz we might be
5:31
coming back here for things. And there's certainly the potential to tie us back
5:38
to things here. Um I mean we're dealing with void stuff and crystal stuff and
5:44
all this other weird stuff. It's gonna come back to the earthn at some point. And we know that Titan stuff is in the future. It's going to come back to the
5:50
Earth at some point. Like I it feels like what's coming is not necessarily the same distinction we've had with
5:56
other expansions in the past where it's like a new one releases and the old one's just kind of like forgotten. um
6:03
with unless you're doing a specific thing or there's a pet or a mount or something that gets added to the old content that you want to go get that all
6:10
three of these are sort of tied together uh in a way that means we'll probably be going back and forth between all of them
6:18
while the story arc is playing out. And I bring this up because this current patch that we're on pre pre1.2
6:26
where did we go? We went back to the highlands. When was the last time we were at the Wrathy Highland?
6:32
Not long enough ago. Battle for Azeroth. I would say Battle for Azeroth, right? And that was a huge story beat and it was a huge
6:38
thing. And then the next thing released and we forgot all about it. But it already seems like they have an appetite for tying the stuff back together and
6:45
weaving this stuff back together so that bits and pieces of Fallenoff story or or
6:52
content are not just islands anymore. So, I don't know. Like we could have
6:58
this could be the last we see of The War Within. Uh or it could just be that the
7:03
title changes, but some of the scenery stays the same or we wind up having to to work back and forth between them.
7:10
Just throwing that out there too as a possibility cuz they they seem a little more I don't want to say recycling, but
7:16
they they seem a little more cognizant of the stuff we've been lambasting them for years about, which is you do
7:22
something, it's there for a month, and then you forget about it, and then it's gone. looking at you Siren Isles. Uh
7:29
like so who knows? We also have Chris Metson back which he's going to have more maybe more
7:35
nostalgia more interest in older story lines where something like Dragon Flight
7:42
where we really felt like we were treading a lot of new ground and telling different kinds of stories. You know
7:48
Medson coming back really is kind of a nod to old school World of Warcraft. So,
7:53
I think we're seeing more tie-ins to other stuff. Can Can I just say that like that's a
7:58
double-edged sword? Yeah, I I know it is, right? Because I I will argue that like
8:04
Dragon Flight and and some of the stuff that was happening without him there and moving away from his his his story his
8:11
storytelling like board was some of the best storytelling they've had in game ever because it it
8:17
evolved. So, I agree with you. I
8:22
It's not necessarily a good thing. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think
8:30
it's something we're going to see because Chris Metson is back and he has
8:35
a certain style of storytelling. He has kinds of stories he likes and he's going to be maybe more attached to some of
8:42
those classic characters and classic story arcs when the game had been trying
8:49
to at least explore new directions and new spaces and new kinds of storytelling. And that's I feel like
8:56
that's always been a bit of a problem with World of Warcraft because the story
9:02
will be doing this and then it's the next expansion and you had different people writing it or someone different
9:09
sort of in charge of its direction and then so you just forgot everything in the last expansion and then you do a new
9:14
expansion, you forget everything in the last expansion because you had whoever was writing this had something different
9:21
in mind. They had different interests. So, because of the duration, you World of Warcraft has been around for 20
9:27
years, it's had a ton a ton of different people involved with writing it, it is
9:34
very difficult, perhaps impossible, to tell a coherent story that ties up every
9:41
thread, that always finishes narratives instead of leaving them midstory, as
9:47
sometimes happens when an expansion ends. Hey, Urell. What happened with that? We
9:53
never went back to that. That's still hanging there. Ul offered to come help
9:58
us out if we needed it. Well, then she went nuts and destroyed her world apparently. So, you know, at least we got we got the Margari orcs out
10:06
of it. That's cool. Hey, they're great. Alter I mean, that was alternate universe. I don't know. I don't know.
10:13
Yeah, it was that alternate universe that we had been visiting. But um I do want to mention really fast that you put
10:19
a note here that I I did want us to skip before we talk about other things. Uh you mentioned that you you were wondering how Race for World first was
10:25
going to go considering that they'll basically have season 3 opening with the raids uh on the 12th and then 8 days
10:32
later on the 20th Gamescom starts. Um yeah, and we know specifically that
10:38
Gamescom is going to have midnight reveals. So, that's another reason it
10:44
feels like we're wrapping up The War Within because in a month we are going
10:49
to get our first kind of big reveal for Midnight. We're right on the cusp of hearing all of this stuff. So, that's
10:56
part of why I feel like we're we're winding down on the War Withins particular arc.
11:01
I do like that this race to world first will not have the looming threat of like
11:06
uh Christmas, New Year's, Thanksgiving hanging over people. Yeah, that's true.
11:12
There's that ticking clock won't be there. I got a different ticking clock instead. Um, but I do think we should also
11:19
mention really fast that if you are right now, it's we're as we're recording this, it's the middle, it's the early
11:24
part of July. If you're thinking, "Wow, I I want to get a different character ready to go before the the new stuff
11:30
comes out in August." Um, from about July 15th to August 12th, we're going to get the wind winds of mysterious fortune
11:37
buff, which is going to give you the XP buff. Obviously, it will also include buffs for Goblin Cartel faction rep,
11:43
which means that if you've been trying to get your Goblin Cartel faction stuff up, uh, now you can do that, too. So,
11:50
that's nice. Uh, I think it's always nice when they give this buff. Go ahead, Liz. We have seen Winds of Mysterious Fortune
11:56
before. It is Bring this up right now. It is a D. It's a big experience buff.
12:04
20%. Ah, why are there so many numbers in this? I thought I was going to explain
12:10
this really concisely and then it just totally did not happen like that.
12:15
20% until level from levels 10 to 79. Yes. So, and there are going to be
12:21
mysterious satchels that can drop or that you can get from turning in quests
12:26
which can give you an additional experience buff. And of course, you also have the fact that if you've leveled any
12:32
characters to 80 already, you get a 5% experience buff for each of those characters. Also in the middle of this
12:40
uh buff's duration will also have the Darkman fair which will give you another
12:45
potential experience buff. So you can stack this pretty high and get a character to max level kind of in the
12:52
blink of an eye. Uh, last time this was around, it co it gave you exper uh
12:58
reputation boost to dragon flight and war within factions except for the goblin cartels and the uh the new hallow
13:06
fall faction, flames radiance, but this time it will give you a reputation buff with all of the undermine factions and
13:13
cartels and flames radiance if you're behind on those in particular. I know
13:18
for my part, I leveled under my reputation until I got bored and my cartel reputation is just it's it's it's
13:25
lagging and I don't know if I'm going to have the enthusiasm to work on it now, but maybe maybe because it this is a
13:35
100% boost to reputation gains in the war within factions and a 200% boost in
13:41
dragonfly factions. So, that's it's a good boost. I don't know if I have the patience to
13:46
uh finish those. But one last thing is that when turbulent time waves goes live um you will be able
13:52
to stack the effect of the mastery of the time waves buff with the winds of mysterious fortune buff as well. So if
13:59
you are looking to level as fast as possible, that's another thing to consider. The gear from those bags is
14:04
also not something to sleep on too because leveling a new character these days, you can find those big gear
14:10
stretches where you just don't get any real loot and then you'll you'll come into like a new continent and all of a
14:17
sudden everything is that you would have melted a minute ago just because you went up a level bracket all of a sudden
14:23
you're having a harder time. Yeah. So having that fancy bag that drops every once in a while keeping you
14:28
current is uh really nice. And the first one that drops every day is called a pristine mysterious satchel, which means
14:35
it's going to drop with better quality gear and greater loot uh in it. So, there's that as well. Uh there's also
14:41
experience potions that you can get as a warbound bound item as well. So, that's nice. Yeah, it's a cornucopia of leveling
14:50
buffs. So many all piled together. Of one thing I'm going to ask all of you,
14:56
do you have any alts that you have not leveled? We've had so many different leveling buff events.
15:02
I have tons of them that I haven't leveled. In fact, I'm currently thinking about coming back for this
15:08
uh just so I can get them leveled up because yeah uh it sounds like a much
15:13
faster and it means I can get my death knight up which I I've had a lovehate relationship with
15:18
death knighting for a while. Uh, at one point, I think it was back in uh, yeah, Battle for Azeroth and Shadow and um,
15:25
Shadowlands. I my death knight was like my main alt. It was my warrior and then my my death
15:31
knight and then my other warriors. Uh, but and then my paladin. But now I'm thinking, yeah, I get get my war I have
15:37
my warriors leveled. I have two level. I have like at least two warriors to max level. Uh, I think I actually have four warriors to max level. Uh, I'll get the
15:45
death knight up and then I'll pop the paladin up, I think, if I have time. just just cuz I only really heal on the
15:50
paladin. So, and I'm terrible at rat, so I'm not going to try that. But yeah, no, I'm actually interested. What about you, Joe?
15:57
Uh, I'm pretty caught up on my alts as far as the ones that I'm going to get to max level. So, this one is probably not
16:04
as important for me. Uh, so I mean, I'm happy for everybody's going to take advantage of, but it's probably one that
16:10
I will not be taking advantage of. Oh, there's always another character to level, right? That's the That's the
16:16
trap. That's true. the beauty and the trap. You know, there's always someone else that you're like, "Oh, well, what if I wanted to try this?" Or, "Hey, remember
16:22
when that was fun?" Maybe it still is. So, events like this are always great for shaking the rust off a couple
16:29
characters. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I might grab my chime while I'm at it, but we should probably also quickly
16:34
talk about and we don't want to spoil anything as Joe pointed out recently, but the there's a new short story called The Doom of Caresh, which is a local
16:41
Locus Walker story that kind of gives you the the the the nuts and bolts on the FA how Caresh got the way it was and
16:48
why the Atherealss are there and also why we're also seeing people from
16:54
Shadowlands in this thing and and how they relate. I don't want to spoil that either, so I'm not gonna say it, but if
17:00
you know, you know. Um, but yeah, that's out, so you can read that up. And you can read that. But also, there is an
17:07
audio book version which is on YouTube read by Ray Porter, who is the voice of
17:13
Locust Walker. Really? Yeah. I didn't I didn't recognize him.
17:18
Good job. You can you can you can get him when he has that uh he's doing the Locust Walker thing with the uh the
17:25
special effects on the voice, but uh als he's he he's really good at doing voices. He's this is a professional. He
17:33
does a great job. Yeah, he's actually done a ton of things. Uh he's one of those actors who's been in a lot of uh he does a lot
17:40
of audio books. He's done a ton of actual just straight up voice acting. Really well-known character. He he read
17:46
uh Project Hail Mary for the audiobook, which was spectacular. The audiobook was really good. So, if you prefer listening
17:54
to reading, go listen to these. Very good. All right. Uh so, yeah, that pretty much covers everything for for World of
18:00
Warcraft. But then there's WoW Classic, which is getting the classic anniversary realms. They're on their phase five as
18:07
of July 10th, so in two days as we're recording this. And that's going to start the Encourage war effort, which
18:12
will of course then open the two raids. Uh the I forget it's city and tomb. I I
18:18
I can remember city and temple of Anarrage, I think. But regardless, this there's two of them. One of them was
18:24
originally a 10-man and one of them was originally a 40man. And I think that's how they they're going to go this time,
18:29
right? That's how they do raids in in in classics. They still do the 10 and 20. Ruins Ruins Van Garage is 20 players,
18:37
which I actually do think it started out as 20 players around. No, you're right. It was always 20 players. So just like Silver was. Yeah.
18:44
Yeah. Temple of Anarrage, which is 40 players. So, it's still those classic classic sized raids. Super sized raids
18:52
where you had to get Can you imagine organizing 40 people to do something at
18:57
the same time? That just seems so impossible today. But, uh I I actually physically did it and yet I
19:04
don't know. I don't know how. I I It feels like a dream. I I did 40 man
19:10
raiding myself back in the day and I cannot imagine just getting 40 people
19:17
together at the same time to do something today. Everything have to go work. So many things had to
19:22
go right. Uhhuh. We had like I remember there were like five paladins who just didn't actually
19:28
participate much in anything just so we could like have them die and then get up and and res people. Um, they didn't they
19:35
didn't do this all at once, mind you, but it's just that there were five paladins who would like alternate like which one of us is going to be the
19:41
sacrificial paladin this time, you know, and if if you're a paladin, all you really have to do is stand in the back
19:48
and cast your fiveminute buffs on everybody. That's your job in classic. Uh, but regardless, that's going to be
19:55
this week. Now, we can talk about something absolutely horrifying. Uh,
20:01
Warcraft Rumble, not the game itself. that wasn't absolutely horrifying. Um, what happened to it was, uh, Microsoft
20:08
just laid off 9,000 people and while they were doing that, they also decided, hey, let's kick a puppy on our way out.
20:14
So, they shuttered Warcraft Rumble and it's now in maintenance mode. Uh, and I believe we found out about this by like
20:20
one of the people that worked on it basically posting to X, oh, hey, I got laid off or possibly it was Blue Sky. I
20:26
don't know. As as with as with most things, I think we first heard about it from employees saying they were laid
20:32
off, but Blizzard did make an official post about it the same day. I do want to clarify that 9,000 people were not all
20:39
in the gaming division. They were spread out across Microsoft, but the only
20:44
official comment Microsoft made about how much of this affected gaming was they said less than half. Except
20:53
phrasing it in the way where you say less than half makes it sound like it was really close to half. And if it was,
20:58
that is a lot. A whole lot. That is that is not half of of uh
21:04
Microsoft's total corporate structure. So you if you're laying off like 45% of
21:11
the layoffs are from gaming, that's disproportionately a lot more in the gaming thing. That's just not
21:17
But we don't we do not know exactly how many people were laid off in the gaming
21:22
division or how many people were laid off at Blizzard. We do know that the Warcraft normal team used to be about
21:28
100 people, I believe. Am I right there, Corey? That's what the it made it seem like a
21:34
as all this was going down. About 100 people. That's down from its initial launch too because there was another
21:40
round of layoffs that took out an undetermined amount of people from the from that division as well which was uh
21:48
earlier in the rumble life cycle. That was when they said that it was just for the the developers you needed to get a
21:53
whole game off the ground kind of thing and that the people left would be the ones taking care of a live service game
21:59
and shephering it forward. But now two people. Yeah. I I you know I really don't have
22:05
anything piffy to say about this. Um other than yikes. Uh it it is
22:11
I I think it may have been Liz and Joe were having a discussion about this that I I stumbled in earlier and I didn't
22:18
actually take part in, but I I still remember the point uh one of you made and I don't remember which one of you.
22:23
I'm sorry, but that if they had just they could have just sold toys and probably made more money. Um, just just
22:31
the art design of the game was really great and it really had a cool toy feel to it. Warcraft Rumble had so many things going
22:38
for it in so many ways that made it charming and made it fun and a game that I'm still poking at every once in a
22:44
while despite the fact that there has been an official announcement from Blizzard saying Warcraft Rumble is now
22:50
not having any new content being developed for it. There will be no new content coming out there. the two people
22:56
left on the team will just be are just there to fix bugs and uh like take
23:02
existing events and populate them back into the calendar so that they'll they'll keep a calendar rolling and
23:08
people can still log in and play the game and buy things from the store. Uh
23:13
but that's it. The we we've seen all that we're going to see for Warcraft Rumble, which is sad because it was fun.
23:21
There was there was a lot of things that it could do right and well. And on the
23:27
topic of selling toys, yeah, if there had been toys to buy for it, amazing. People would have been all over that. At
23:33
the same time, Warcraft Rumble did the really nice thing and released all of its mini files as um as 3D printing
23:40
files. So, you could Did it actually release all of them? I thought there were just like a handful
23:45
of them. No, there was a lot though. It released it released the launch ones and then well it released the ones that you could
23:50
play. I don't think it ever released all of the all all of them, but they even just had a recent batch come out
23:57
uh in the last two months, 3 months when Arthus was released that included all up
24:02
to Arthus. So I don't think thrral is part of it, but as he's the most recent recent one,
24:09
I'm looking through the files right now cuz I downloaded literally all of them before they go away. There you go. Yeah. So most if not all
24:16
available to 3D print, but you know some people don't have a 3D printer or they don't want an unpainted mini. So if
24:22
Blizzard had gone the like these guys are great little vinyl standandy Funko kind of sized things, just sell them.
24:30
Easy way to make money for the game. Or or Blizzard, I'm just suggesting this. You could have possibly just
24:35
completely stolen Warhammer 40k and just done it with Warcraft characters.
24:40
Just a thought. Why not? Why not? you people like to pie and paint things, man. They sure do. Um yeah, the every time it
24:50
Rumble felt like it was getting any kind of momentum, uh there would be like some bug that popped up or they would be too
24:58
koi with an update schedule or at no point did we ever get a a a road map of
25:05
what content was maybe coming or maybe being worked on. they just which goes a
25:11
long way especially when it's a free-to-play game. Not only do you need to let people know that yeah, big things
25:17
are in the works. Stick around, but you know what? If you tell me that, hey,
25:22
there's a lot of fun stuff coming down the line. We're we're really working on this. We've got a plan. We're going to
25:28
stick to it. You know what? Maybe I'm a little bit looser with my wallet. Maybe I'm going to spend that five or 10 bucks
25:34
when there's a new unit that comes out and I'll get like one of their bundles or two other bundles and then Rumble
25:39
makes more money because I'm like, "Well, this is going to be around for a minute. I've got five bucks sitting in my pocket. I could spend it on Starbucks
25:44
or I could buy some skill points for my batlings." Yeah. I think the problem though is like
25:50
I think Warcraft Rumble also released at a wrong time if that makes sense. Like I
25:55
I think had this had been 20110,
26:00
2012, somewhere in that range, mobile games for Americans, and I'm not
26:06
saying the rest of the world cuz I can't speak to those markets, but like here were peak. Uh it was uh still a novelty.
26:14
And I'm not saying that they're not now, but I'm like people were a lot looser with their their their wallets when it
26:19
came to like transacting in those types of games. A lot of that has, you know, like been curtailed, uh, you know, the
26:27
current economic environment, uh, as well as the fact that sometimes, like you mentioned, paying $5 to, uh, you
26:35
know, have skill points or to to do stuff like that, the appetite for playing paying money to advance in like
26:43
game features versus pure cosmetics is way different than it was a decade ago.
26:49
So, like, yeah, I I think Rumble in that regard was a game that was in production
26:55
for probably quite a while. Uh, developed about nine years, developed with an a mindset that is
27:00
about a decade old uh as far as its offerings go and is a shame because they
27:06
had a really great aesthetic. Uh, the gameplay wasn't for me, but it wasn't bad. Uh, but like and the other thing
27:15
too, like 10 years ago, literally 10 years ago, they could have done a toy to life model and it would have been gang
27:21
busters. Like you're talking about selling toys for this stuff now. And yeah, some people would buy like their
27:27
favorite characters and, you know, have them on there cuz the art style is really good. But if they had done that 10 years ago and had it where like, hey,
27:34
buy this character as an NFC chip and unlock something in the game, people would be throwing money at those. I'm looking at you amiios. I'm looking at
27:40
you uh like all the literally Skylanders and uh Lego Lego Portal and uh all these
27:49
other games that did that stuff that were huge. Say this, Disney killed that by themselves.
27:54
Oh yeah, 100%. And they killed that because they took this idea and then they refused to to
28:00
actually commit to it and just dragged it out until they just strangled all the life out of it. But that's just me being
28:05
mean. No, no, but but I'm saying like had they had Warcraft Rumble done that 10 years ago, it probably would have
28:10
seen more commercial success monetarily. It was just positioned in a weird way.
28:16
And then the the tie-ins with like Warcraft were fine. But I think also there was a level of resentment for some
28:23
people too where like I I I know during Dragon Flight the number of people I
28:29
heard complaining about why is this blanking blank quest continually popping
28:35
up for me for something that I'm never going to interact with and I can't get rid of it or get rid of it off my map.
28:41
And so I do the quest and try to get rid of it and it's just back the next day. It's so in my face. I have no desire to
28:48
do this. Whereas had it been maybe marketed a little less aggressively in the game trying to capture a Warcraft
28:55
crowd and actually go after mobile gamers, it probably would have done better, too. Like marketing for it was a
29:01
little weird. And it's a again it's a shame because it wasn't a bad game and the aesthetics were peak. So just just
29:08
my two cents on it and it's it's a shame that we will never see it live up to its
29:14
full potential and I do feel bad for all the people that worked on it and then are no longer able to do so.
29:19
Oh yeah. Um it looked like a lot of fun to work on all the any I met a few of them at Blizzcon a few years ago and
29:25
everyone I talked to about it was super fun to talk to and loved what they were doing. It just it never got the momentum
29:33
it needed to succeed in a mobile game market. Um, it was doing fine according
29:38
to people who were like paying attention to the the markets and paying attention to mobile gaming trends. It wasn't
29:45
setting the world on fire, but it was making a little bit of money. Uh, enough
29:51
to keep itself going, sure, but not enough to excel and certainly not going to reach the sky Blizzard expectations.
29:58
I assume I because they're Blizzard that your your game has to be a hit or
30:04
it's I think it's also it was in a weird transition period because like you had Activision
30:10
uh still like running the reigns for a good portion of it and then Microsoft
30:16
comes in and takes over and it's already been at at the time that Microsoft took over Warcraft Rumble had been out for a
30:23
little bit and I think the damage had already been done and so now you have
30:28
layoffs and everything else. Of course, Microsoft's going to look at it and say, "There's no ROI on this or the ROI is so
30:35
low that it's not worth it. Let's move people to other positions or get rid of
30:41
those those things and shutter the project and work towards other things."
30:46
And I'm not I'm not trying to defend Microsoft. I want to make sure that's perfectly clear to those listening at home. But it's understandable where in
30:54
the suite of games available at Blizzard, they would look at Warcraft Rumble and say, "Maybe we don't maintain
31:00
this anymore." Right. Yeah. Too much work for not enough gain. And then we and then plus I mean, you know, if you're coming
31:06
in to to a project that the previous people were really excited about and
31:11
you're not excited about it, that's going to be a problem. And and the other thing that I'll point out there too, and this is not just to get Corey going, but
31:18
because I think this is relevant here, it's also a weird point when the market where a lot of games for specific game
31:26
types are in flux. So like MOBAs are in flux right now because Smite is
31:32
currently moving from Smite 1 to Smite 2. There's a whole plethora of drama around that. Uh League of Legends has
31:39
its own set of drama and things that are going on with Riot. Um, and it's a thing where like if you had a choice between
31:45
Warcraft Rumble or maybe looking at reigniting your mobile IP to compete in
31:52
that market when there's an opportunity to do so and the timing is right. Do you
31:58
maybe try to shift? I'm not saying they're doing that and I'm not saying that they will do that. Uh, part of me hopes that that would happen, but
32:05
looking at it, that's more of an opportunity versus here's this mobile game. we're going to try to compete with the sea and flood of mobile games that
32:12
are out there already. Yeah. So, I feel like one of one of Rumble's biggest problems was I mean, all mobile
32:20
games are going to have some sort of monetization. Free-to-play mobile game, you've got to have some sort of monetization. You got to pay the
32:26
developers, etc. But it was balanced in such a way as to be grindy. It was not
32:34
balanced to be a fun game. It was balanced for progression to be
32:40
slow. It was intentionally balanced for slow progression and you could hit kind
32:47
of break points in the game that were hard walls because you hadn't leveled the right uh minions and heroes and
32:54
you'd have to go back and start over and level different things. You know what it reminded me of? It
32:59
remind people are going to remember this or how many people are going to curse me for bringing this up. It reminds me of
33:05
that stupid Farmville game on Facebook that everybody was super into that you'd
33:10
get to a point and the only way to do more in a day because you got like an hour of activity a day or something like that was to spend real life money and
33:17
people did it. But you're right, like it was grindier than I think people want. And we talk
33:23
about this all the time in a free-to-play game like and I know this is weird to say
33:29
when people are sitting there like bashing their head against like Night Rain and Elden Ring and and and Souls
33:34
likes games, but when you play a free-to-play game, you the expectation is that it's going to be you spend money
33:40
on fun things, not spend money to play the game. And yeah, and we're also in a we're in an
33:46
era where even Souls likes are are saying, "Hey, wait a minute. We should let them get experience when they die so
33:54
that they actually make progression even while they're not progressing through this boss so that they can gain some
34:00
power and maybe get through it a little easier. When that's happening even in like in those games, you're not going to
34:08
people are just not willing to sit there and bang their heads as much.
34:14
We we talk we talk about this all the time in the show, right? Like if you have like especially with mobile games,
34:19
I find this is probably less of a tolerance for people too. And I know we're talking about this topic a lot, but I I've been pretty quiet today and I
34:26
have opinions. Um, mobile games tend to lend itself more to a drop in dropout
34:32
style of gameplay. Oh, I have 20 minutes while I'm commuting to like on the train or I'm waiting for my appointment. I've
34:39
got 15 minutes. And that's fine. And that works for the vast majority of people who would like pick that up. It's
34:45
one of the reasons why Marvel Snap is so successful, right? I was literally just thinking Marvel Snap like Marvel Snap like when we talked
34:52
with Ben Brute about it. Like that's literally their model and literally like they're like we look at people that are
34:57
dropping in into mobile games and they've got 10 15 minutes and we want to maximize that time, let them have fun,
35:04
let them feel that they progress and then they can go about their business. And Marvel Snap is a commercial success
35:10
by any stre like any metric because of that because they cater to the sort of that mentality. And then you have
35:16
Warcraft Rumble, which is very, very grindy and wants you to sit down and play it like an old school tower defense
35:23
game. Cuz I remember original like Defense of the Ancients, we're talking the original Dota, like you sat there
35:29
and an average game would take you hours, right? Like if you were doing well, it would take you hours. And
35:36
Warcraft Rumble had a lot of that DNA in it. Not that it was purely that, but it had a similar vibe and it wanted you to
35:42
spend a lot of time in the game. hearkening back to the other like thing the design philosophy that you see in
35:48
Warcraft which is try to entice you to spend more time in game as often as possible from a decade ago that we were
35:55
talking about forever a so it I think I think that it was a really great idea that wasn't given enough of
36:03
enough nutrients to like thrive like it it needed a different philosophy it
36:08
needed a different direction in order to capture an audience and I think it like
36:14
had it Again, I I'll go back to it. If it had been a decade earlier, I think it would have been a smash hit.
36:20
This is a little similar to Heroes of the Storm where I feel like they released Heroes of the Storm at a time
36:27
when this was no longer the new hot commodity. This was no longer the new hot kind of game. Well, I remember uh
36:34
Heroes of the Storm released right at the time when uh Warner Brothers pulled the plug on DC Crisis and DC Crisis was
36:42
their big like name brand um whatchamacallit uh Moa with all the DC
36:48
heroes, right? And I had a friend who was working he was an AI engineer on that project and literally he got canned like the
36:55
same week that Heroes of the Storm released because Crisis was Warner Brothers was like we're not going to do
37:01
this. Market's too saturated. route and it's the same thing that you saw with battle royals. How many battle royals
37:07
out there that were in the the the flood of them after Fortnite?
37:12
We're not talking about that game. Um but like look at Spellb Breakak or look at Paladins or look at um why can't I
37:21
remember the other one where like you you instead of dying you turned into a chicken and then you had to be killed
37:26
the second time. But like those games released to great fanfare and because there was a flood of them just fell off
37:33
the radar and then so anything that came after it was overly scrutinized. I'll stop talking now so that we can move on.
37:39
So I'm sorry. Well, we do have some Hearthstone to talk about really fast. Um
37:45
yeah. Uh we'll we'll just mention really quickly that the Lost City of Angoro expansion is now live. Hearthstone's
37:52
Lost City of Angoro expansion is now live, which is bringing quests back to the constructed mode, and there's going
37:57
to be the Kindred keyword. So, uh, somebody who plays Hearthstone, explain what that means.
38:03
Uh, so basically, it's a new expansion. You get 140 some odd new cards you can
38:09
collect and also some new mechanics. This time, uh, quests are coming back.
38:14
for a while uh quite a few expansions ago. Uh quests were added which are just
38:20
cards you play on your first turn and then you complete certain conditions as you continue playing and you get a big
38:28
sometimes game ending buff or card from completing the quest. Quests could be
38:34
kind of super horribly imbalanced in that way that once someone completed a quest the game was over. But uh yeah,
38:42
we're going to have to see how they play out in the new meta. These are different kinds of quests. These are Blizzard has
38:49
had a lot more experience balancing the game since they were the first attempt to release quests. There are also
38:55
Kindred cards, which are minions where if you played a minion of the same family in the previous turn and then you
39:03
play a Kindred minion on this turn, you get additional buffs to that minion,
39:08
which is going to uh encourage some more, you know, same uh same minion type
39:15
synergies, which sometimes having the same minion types in a deck was really
39:20
important depending on the kind of deck you were playing. Dragons could buff other dragons, pirates could buff other
39:26
pirates, things like that. But this is really going to stress that more that you're going to want to stick to the
39:32
same minion type, which is actually a little bit of a a battlegrounds play style where you usually play a specific
39:39
minion family and you don't want to go outside it. So, it's again, this is going to shake up the constructed meta.
39:45
This is going to change up how you play and it's always fun to see how a new expansion uh it changes up the game.
39:53
This is an exciting time to play because everything is in flux. It's not that time where it's like, oh, there's one
39:59
meta deck and everyone is playing it and every time I log on I'm fighting people with the same deck and that can get, you
40:05
know, uh we're talking about Hearthstone or Magic the Gathering. Jesus, both. Both. I I mean, this is just a
40:12
collectible card game thing that happens. So Hearthstone throws out a new expansion about every 3 months, new
40:18
cards, kind of gives an injection of excitement to the game. So it's a good time. It's a good time to play
40:24
Hearstone, maybe. Well, that's about Yeah, let's talk about the other thing.
40:30
Uh, today from Mass Effect 2. It's this horrible thing we don't like to talk about. It's
40:36
like ship cancer. Um, it's Let's talk about King Crush, the cutest little
40:41
little dinosaur pet you're ever going to want to get for your Hearthstone and how
40:47
you get it. Uh, I I get kind of I I get kind of like drooy spit spraying when I
40:53
talk about this. So, I'm going to leave it up to Corey and Liz and possibly Joe for jumping in. But, I I just I hate
41:01
this and I am unhappy about it. Uh, either one of you two want to talk because Liz just had to talk a lot. So Cory,
41:07
I'm just going to say that King Crush getting its own cinematic when so many other things don't for the
41:14
the $160 pull the slot machine wheel as cute. Loved the cinematic. Super cute.
41:21
But to get that for a $160 slot machine is not great. It feels it's taking an
41:30
already scummy and scammy method of delivery and just making it all the more
41:36
predatory and I don't like that. Dinosaur remains cute, but super predatory.
41:41
So, the King Crush pet indeed did get a really detailed 3D animated cinematic
41:48
today, which Hearthstone expansions don't get cinematics like this.
41:54
Hearthstone does not usually get cinematics like this, but King Crush, the new pet. The new pet and the most
42:01
adorable baby dinosaur you have ever seen in your life. Got a big cinematic
42:06
to match his big $158 price tag. Uh, it's a getting King Crush
42:13
is a gotcha style game where it's essentially a slot machine. You pay
42:18
money and you get one spin of the wheel and you have a tiny tiny chance to get
42:24
King Crush. A 0.1% chance to get him on your first spin.
42:30
Each time that chance goes up a tiny tiny bit to a maximum of 6.67%
42:37
chance, but each time you spin the wheel, it costs more. each time. It
42:43
costs a little more and you may have to spin it $158 worth of times in order to
42:49
be guaranteed to get him. Uh, and yeah, because there's a slight chance that it goes up as you're spending
42:56
money. It goes every So, there are a certain number of things in this reward track.
43:02
Uh, 10 10 items, six 10. There are 10 rewards you can possibly get and you can
43:09
only get each reward once. So each time the chances of getting King Crush goes
43:15
up, but it remains the most rare thing in this little game. So
43:21
So you will get it on the 10th time, but by then you will have gone up value 10
43:26
times. So it it will cost you $168 total, right? 158, which is
43:33
US1 158 US. Yes.$ 220 or so Canadian. Uh,
43:39
yes, it is. It is a a high number of dollars. So, yeah, I
43:45
this feels real bad. This this feels bad. And I'm saying this
43:50
as somebody who routinely drops hundreds of dollars on Magic cards, but at the end of the day, I physically have the
43:56
card in my hand versus, and we just talked about this with the other game.
44:02
If, god forbid, anything happens and this game goes under and you lo and they decide to get rid of it and you lose
44:08
this and you just spent $160 on your pet that you can't take with you, that just
44:14
feels bad. on top of the fact that this is so bloody expensive.
44:19
Like I I can't wrap my head around that. Like it's I know we talked about this before and and like Liz and I know we've
44:27
had a chat about it, but oh my goodness, like how like why? Like it this just
44:34
feels extra predatory. And maybe I'm wrong. The other thing I'm not going to
44:39
disagree with you. The other thing is the first spin is free. So I mean they really do this thing. Oh my god.
44:45
That really feels like a predatory gambling style gotcha tactic where it's
44:51
like you just have you just have 10 spins to get everything and the first spin is free. You're not going to get
44:58
what you want from the first spin. This is the beginning of a dare. Mhm.
45:05
Uh, so I did go there was an online widget where you could pretend to pull
45:10
this lever and see how long it took you to get King Crush. And I think I pulled it 50 times. Did the whole thing 50
45:17
times. And of those 50 times, one time I got King Crush on the fourth pull. And a
45:23
handful of times, no more than five or six, I got him seven or eight instead of
45:28
10. So, it's so so rare to get him so early. So, he's basically the $168 pet
45:35
$58 pet. Yeah, it's it's so rare. $212 $216 uh Canadian in case you're
45:42
I went So, I did I did log onto the game earlier and I used my free spin and I
45:48
got a uh an Angoro card pack, which you know, it's fine. It's fine. I'm not
45:53
going to complain. I got a free card pack. I am not going to spend $158 to
45:59
get this baby dinosaur pet, even though it is the most adorable baby dinosaur I have ever seen. It's $158.
46:05
I will not say it's the most adorable baby dinosaur I've ever seen, cuz I have seen a lot of baby dinosaurs, but
46:11
regardless, it is freaking cute. I mean, if it was just available for $25,
46:18
just Yeah. Like, I'd buy it. I I I mean I would feel bad, but even then but even if it
46:24
was $35, I could see people do that. Yeah. Just to have this cute pet. I mean, geez.
46:29
It's like if they rolled this out and you could just spend money and have it,
46:35
it would be so much more appealing. But instead, you have to play this stupid slot machine game. And
46:41
every time it's more expensive, and it's just it's annoying. It makes me aggressively not want to spend money on
46:47
this game. was I I will say silver lining at least feels so bad at least as a slot machine. So like they're accurately representing that
46:53
you're gambling instead of loot boxes. I mean yeah. Okay. Yeah, maybe I will say if I
47:01
was going to drop $158 on something this month, it would be Summer Games DoneQuick, which is happening right now
47:07
to uh Doctors Without Borders. I I thought that was a good segue. I think it was a very good one. That is
47:14
one of the things that makes me feel so bad about this that Blizzard is asking us to spend $158 on this. Well, you
47:22
know, alt tab away to the other screen and it's summer games done quick raising money for Doctors Without
47:28
Borders. And uh you play Titanfall 2, guys. Um which is still one of my favorite
47:35
games. It's just it's really good. Uh, the fact that there was never and there
47:40
might never be a Titanfall 3 at this point saddens me amazingly and it's just one of many many games you can watch
47:46
people do crazy things in. We can hope when EA closes that our titles the our favorite titles will go to good homes. Maybe
47:53
EA is not going to close. EA is is a lich. It's just gonna, you know, burst. Well, let's talk about positive stuff
47:59
because yeah, the the summer games done quick is actually really really cool and like it is a
48:05
well like just some of the amazing things you're going to get to see is there's a Super Metroid uh low
48:10
percentage ice race one which is just nuts. Doom the Dark Age has an any% one
48:15
which I don't even Yeah, because I love Dark Ages and I've seen
48:20
barely little of that game and there are some brutal parts of it. I want to see what a speedrunner does. break that
48:26
game. Yes, absolutely. Oh, yeah. Well, I've heard say usually it involves spinning, at least in the previous Doom,
48:33
it involves spinning the weapon wheel really fast and then gling up through the ceiling of the map.
48:38
I don't know that they're going to do that here. That does. Also, the blueprints one looks interesting because it's quest
48:44
bingo. Uh blueprint. The blueprints one was really fun. It is bequest bingo which is
48:50
bequest bingo which is the main game mode in which you are given a bequest by
48:56
your uncle in his will. Um that was this day so it's already
49:02
happened. Sorry you guys but that was literally and everything after it's happened you can find it on
49:08
YouTube. So it doesn't matter if it's in the past you can find it on YouTube. But I thought blueprints was really fun
49:13
because they literally had a bingo board and each spot on the bingo board had a different objective that you had to do
49:19
in game. And of course, you were trying to get uh from one side of the bingo board to the other. And uh it was it was
49:27
winners the first one to get a bingo. And after they did that, they did a just a standard speedrun of the game which
49:35
was 2 minutes. two minutes exactly that whole game because there is a special
49:42
way you can clip outside of the game world and zoom to the end if you have
49:47
kind of really precise positioning to get from here to here to here to here which of course speedrunners
49:54
speedrunners they figure that stuff out and that was a really fun one and
49:59
I'm looking forward to the still wakes the deep one that's going to be something I I was looking at the still wakes the
50:05
deep one and I'm like what what Is he still wakes the deep speedrun? Is it just a speedrun into the endless terror
50:11
of the void or you just like walking right into the endless terror? I don't know.
50:16
But uh that's part of the horror block which I think is always really fun because you are playing really silly
50:23
really scary games, but you're playing them really fast and often with different kinds of exploits to get
50:29
places where maybe you aren't supposed to go. And it just they can turn really silly. And they're fun. It's fun to
50:36
watch. Is anyone Is anyone else looking forward to anything in particular this
50:41
summer games? Yeah, Control. One of my top 10 games of all time is being speedun
50:48
and I I love seeing what people do with it because Control is literally a game
50:54
in which you get psychic powers to do fantastical things. And I love watching
50:59
ways that you can break this game. So, I'm really looking forward to watching that run.
51:04
What about you, Corey? Do you follow SGDQ? I I only ever see the the highlights and the memes from it. I don't uh I don't
51:11
really watch them for that, but it's always so impressive, you know, when you see that like this this game was
51:17
finished in 13 seconds because
51:22
So, I really appreciate that for that. It's It's always so interesting to see how people have found ways to break
51:30
things. It's I mean, it's just a good time. You're going here and you're celebrating games and it's just this big group of
51:37
people who loves video games and we're all playing video games and watching video games and cheering each other on
51:43
and donating money to a really great cause. And this feels like for all that
51:50
we talk about the horrible things that can happen in video games, both, you know, from corporate greed and layoffs
51:57
to just games that didn't reach their full potential, games that maybe didn't have enough development time or games
52:03
that just didn't work out. Games DoneQuick is everything that's great about gaming and everything that's great
52:09
about being a gamer and loving video games. So, this is just they do this big thing twice a year. Summer games done
52:15
quick and awesome games done quick. And they are they are always great. They always make you feel good about video
52:21
games, good about being a gamer, even when other gaming news kind of sucks.
52:27
I'm actually still trying to figure out this Hercules the Legendary Journeys game. I I don't remember this game. So,
52:33
is this based on the TV show? I'm hoping it's not. You do sometimes see games on
52:38
here that it's like, "What? What is that?" Uh, of course, later this week
52:43
they're playing an airport for aliens currently run by dogs. I am looking forward to watching that one. But that
52:50
actually that is a game I had previously heard of. So, not a total mystery, but also it's an airport for aliens
52:56
currently run by dogs. That's that's it. That's the game. There's not a lot to it. It does what it
53:01
says on the tin. It's very cute. However, I am going to at this point uh look to Liz and say uh we should
53:07
probably do site news now because it's it's time. Uh yes, I want to thank all of our
53:13
wonderful supporters out there for supporting us on Patreon. And for the people who don't support us on Patreon,
53:20
I love you guys, too. Listening to the show, reading the website, sharing our stuff on social media, all of that helps
53:28
us out so much. I appreciate you for being here. Thank you. I will say that
53:33
our support on Patreon is a little low right now and we're at about $3,500. Our
53:39
goal is to keep it up around $4,000 and it's been kind of trending downward a little, which is not unexpected. It's
53:46
not weird. It's not something we can't deal with, but we're a lot more comfortable and the site is more stable when we're up at that $4,000 level. So,
53:54
if anyone is able to support us on Patreon, it would really help the site
53:59
and to keep us going because it's you guys that keep us going and let us be here and do all of these things and have
54:06
these conversations about the great things in gaming like summer games done quick. So, if you can support us, if you
54:12
give us $3 a month, that gets you early access to all of these podcasts and a
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better chance of getting your questions answered on the podcast or the queue. And we actually have a question today. I
54:22
I don't know if we'll have time for it from one of our Patreon supporters. And uh so if you can, please help us out. If
54:31
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55:01
Watch and Lore Watch about tabletop gaming and video game lore, respectively. Sometimes, sometimes other
55:08
kinds of lore. Joe and I have been talking about non video game things we might do cuz we're so excited about it.
55:14
We're going to do it. Okay. You know, you know, we talked uh we talked about Doctor Who, too, and we
55:21
haven't gotten to that one yet. There's there are there are so many great things in this world that we could talk about.
55:26
Also, if you are on social media, which I understand if you aren't cuz the world is kind of a terrible place. Sometimes
55:32
you just don't want to deal with it. But we are also on social media and we try to share things that aren't terrible. We
55:38
do our best. Uh we are Blizzard on Instagram, threads, Twitter, Facebook, and Masttoon. On Masttodon, we're on
55:44
gamepad.club. blizzardwatch.com on blue sky and blizzardwatch podcasts on YouTube. If
55:50
you follow us on Instagram, you will get clips of our podcasts which I think are entertaining and funny. We also post
55:57
those on Twitter and uh and words Twitter and Blue Sky. Yes, those are
56:02
things. Uh yeah, I'm going to I'm going to keep calling Twitter. I'm sorry, guys. I just can't I can't I can't. Um
56:09
so, thank you all very much for your support. It really helps us out. I should probably read this question now.
56:16
I was like, what happens now? [ __ ] Um, I should probably do the thing I'm
56:21
supposed to do. Uh, this one is from Ted Semi. Uh, he is a Patreon supporter, as has mentioned before, and this is one of
56:27
the things we do for you guys cuz we love you. Um, live service games inherently seem to have systems with a
56:33
level of grind built in to keep players engaged while new story and game content
56:39
is being worked on. What game systems do you actually enjoy and which make you want to fire up the game into the near
56:46
in the nearest star? Uh so I it's just gonna I got D4 here.
56:52
You know, you know, Liz, I rolled a two and I'm deciding that you're two. Uh go ahead.
56:57
Okay. I pasted this question into our podcast document and I did not actually read it.
57:02
This uh this ties into everything we've been talking about today in a terrible way.
57:08
Well, not necessarily. There's good there's We got some good stuff we could maybe get in there. Go for it, Liz.
57:14
I I do think uh you know I like having you know things to do, things that are
57:19
fun. And a good live service game will give you things that are fun and keep
57:26
your interest so you keep playing. Even those freetoplay games that are trying
57:31
to get you to encourage you to do microtransaction. The key is having content that is fun
57:38
enough to keep players there and engaged because when you're there and having fun, you're going to think about
57:44
spending money. You know, World of Warcraft is doing a killer job out there. And it's not because they're
57:50
saying, "Hey, give us money." They don't have an advertisement to give you to give them money all the time. They have
57:55
microtransactions. They have mounts. They sell transmogs. They have a subscription fee. And frankly, the
58:01
subscription fee feels a little quaint right now in this world of battle passes, but it feels great. I pay them a
58:08
certain amount of month, and I get all of these things every month, and every other month there's a patch with new
58:15
story content, new game mechanics, new things to do. There's always something
58:20
to do in the game. There's always something, almost always something new to do, and it's a place where I go, and
58:26
I have a lot of fun with friends. I think World of Warcraft does a great job of being a good live service game. So,
58:34
it's, you know, making money, paying its developers, but also being really fun because it's putting up content that's
58:40
enjoyable, content that does not that isn't like an in-your-face advertisement. Give me money for this
58:46
now. And I can just I can pay a certain amount and I get the game. And that
58:52
feels very quaint right now, but that feels also good. I know what I'm getting. I know what I'm paying for. And
58:58
because I'm having fun, I am also tempted to sometimes buy other things.
59:03
Yeah. You know, oh, transm Oh. Oh, there's a pet.
59:09
Yeah. Oh, there's a charity pet. You know, I always wind up buying the charity pet. They always get me to do that. Which,
59:17
uh, that does kind of tie back into that adorable baby dinosaur and summer games done quick. You know, you you can really
59:23
get people with a charity pet. I I want to jump in real quick and and uh give
59:29
mine, but also want to make sure that I say this. Everybody associates live
59:34
services games with a very specific type of game. And in fact, it's a way broader
59:40
spectrum than people would really think. Like you mentioned World of Warcraft, even though it's a paid subscription, it
59:46
is a live services game, as is Final Fantasy 14. These these are still live services
59:53
games. And there are many, many live services games that actually do things really, really well, uh, or at least
59:59
used to. Um, Rocket League jumps to mind as a game that has really great core
1:00:04
gameplay. Yes, it is repetitive, but because you're playing against other people and or playing with friends or or
1:00:11
whatever the case is in a car soccer match, uh, it's, you know, a very fun
1:00:18
experience and that repetitive gameplay loop is just fine. Uh, you have things like Genchin Impact, which is a gotcha
1:00:26
game and a live services game all at the same time and is incredibly popular.
1:00:31
People still play it. And even if you invest no money in it whatsoever, is still an enjoyable experience for the
1:00:38
vast majority of people who try it, especially if you like games like Breath of the Wild because there's a lot of
1:00:44
overlap there. Uh, Path of Exile is a live services game. Path of Exile is
1:00:50
extremely popular. Um, League of Legends, Diablo I, League of Legends, Destiny 2,
1:00:58
Marvel Rivals is a live services game. The The thing that makes a good live
1:01:04
services game versus a bad live services game is, is the gameplay loop fun?
1:01:11
And it doesn't necessarily have to not be repetitive. It could be the same thing over and over and over again, but
1:01:17
is it fun? Is there a positive impact? Do you like do you enjoy what you're
1:01:22
you're diving into? And those tend to be the best ones. And the ones that fail
1:01:30
are the ones that don't understand that concept of, you know, yes, this is a
1:01:35
live services game, but it should still be fun. It's like, no, this is a live services game. You only get to have fun if you spend money. Those are the ones
1:01:42
that tend to be right out the window. Like fun shouldn't be the reward. It should be the carrot.
1:01:47
Yeah. The fun should be the carrot and then the reward should be us giving them money. And I've brought this up in the past and as far as like gameplay
1:01:55
mechanics that I tend to like even when they feel like a bit of a grind. I'm a sucker for rogike games there. If
1:02:03
you go through my Steam library, it is 80 to 90% rogue likes. I like that style
1:02:11
of game where the game will shift. If you made a live services game that shifted and did like, I don't know, a
1:02:18
Hades style thing, yes, it's going to be popular, and yes, it's going to be something I enjoy and play. Uh, but when
1:02:25
a game goes into pay to progress or pay to win or pay to unlock basic game
1:02:30
functions like skills or skill points, then that's when I want to fire it into
1:02:36
the sun. So, those are that those are my two cents and my long-winded answer for you, Tatsumi. I hope you enjoy that. And
1:02:44
then I'll toss it over to Matt or Corey. Oh, Cory. I mean, yeah. I just like I like to play
1:02:50
the game that I'm playing. Uh, if you're going to throw up a roadblock in me like, "Oh, you've done three things this
1:02:55
hour already. If do you want to buy more energy to do more things, then yeah, no, I'm not going to stick with your game
1:03:01
for very long." It doesn't really boil. There's not much more to it. I can't speak to a single specific live service
1:03:08
mechanic specifically that I'm like, "Yeah, this is this is what I like to see." It's just, "Can I play your game?
1:03:14
Is your game fun? Is it cute? Is it does it have neat stuff? Does it have a good
1:03:19
logo? Would I buy that logo and put it on a t-shirt kind of thing?" And my thing is quite simple. Oh, are you done? I'm sorry. I thought
1:03:25
you done, Cory. Oh, no. That That's it. Yeah, go for it. My thing is real simple. Can I ignore
1:03:30
your live service? Like, ser I'm not kidding. Can I play this game and never engage with the live
1:03:37
service? If that's yes, then it's already doing what I wanted to do. It's
1:03:43
a game that I can play. That's it. That's one of the I I I don't like to
1:03:48
say that this one's a live service cuz people people are very negative towards Ubisoft live service for good reason.
1:03:54
Like it's not like Ubisoft is some innocent, you know, child out in the woods being attacked by wolves and everyone's blaming Ubisoft for the
1:04:00
wolves being injured. It it's Ubisoft comes up with the ridiculous predatory microtransactions and and will not stop
1:04:08
until all life on Earth has been extinguished. But regardless, Assassin's
1:04:13
Creed Odyssey is a live service game. You know, it had you could buy an XP boost, you could buy like gear, like all
1:04:22
that stuff was there ready for you could get you could technically get all of it by playing the game. Like there was a mechanism for getting it by playing the
1:04:28
game, but you could buy all of it and it was there. It was one of my favorite games of 2018 and I played that game
1:04:34
into the ground and I spent maybe 10 bucks on that stuff. Like there was a
1:04:40
there's like a Pegasus suit of armor that I just absolutely had to have. But that was it. That was the only time I spent any money on it. The rest was just
1:04:47
play the game long enough and you will get all this stuff. That works for me. Whereas stuff like Cory was mentioning
1:04:53
was like, you know, uhoh, you can't do any more in the game. You know, you can't stab any more people, Cassandra.
1:04:59
You need to get some more energy. Would you like to buy some energy? No, I'm not doing that. I I want to stab people and
1:05:06
the the as long as you let me stab people. Like Diablo I's microtransactions bugged the heck out of
1:05:11
me. I don't like them. Um I am actively confused by the season pass uh at this
1:05:17
point, you know, the reoquish. But yet, I still like playing Diablo. Like as
1:05:22
long as I can sit there and and just smash things on a barbarian, I'm a I'm a pig in a in a paddic. I'm
1:05:30
I'm happy as as can be. That's what that's all I'm asking. Game, let me ignore this. That doesn't mean I will
1:05:37
ignore it. I just want it to be an option. That's the reason that Diablo Immortal and I fell out cuz it wasn't
1:05:43
ignorable. I couldn't not do it. I couldn't not engage with it. Uh I had to
1:05:48
go to the in-game store every day to get my special treasure. Uh and then they're just going to throw millions of ads at
1:05:54
me. And it's just like, look, I just want to sit here and play this game for an hour and smash things. If you won't
1:06:00
let me do that, I'm not going to keep playing it. I mean, Fallout 4 is technically a live service game. We were
1:06:05
talking about Fallout 4 earlier. 76. Yeah, 76, but 76 is very is very
1:06:11
obviously a live service game and everyone knows it. But even Fallout 4 has all these microtransactions and all
1:06:17
this stuff, you know, and it's like, can I ignore it? the the litmus test is always going to be can I ignore it for
1:06:24
me. I agree with that actually. Like I mean the game that I spent the most money on is and I I will never reveal the total
1:06:31
because I looked at it once and I never want to speak those words out loud again. The amount of money that I spent on League of Legends on skins and just
1:06:38
stuff like that for a free game is absolutely obscene. Uh but it was not
1:06:44
because I felt I had to do something. It was cuz I wanted the shiny pretty thing and to support the game that I enjoyed playing thousands of hours in.
1:06:52
And you you didn't spend it all in one go either. No. No. You didn't just sit down and you didn't have to do it for
1:06:58
I didn't buy $158 pet, you know. Yeah. Exactly. Like we said earlier, we'd buy that crush pet if it was just a
1:07:05
one-time purchase of a set amount of money that we knew what it was. But the gambling aspect, no. No, this is
1:07:12
terrible. No, I'm out. So, yeah. I think that basically that's it for me. I think we've all pretty much said what we need
1:07:18
to say on this one. Does anyone else have like a final thing they want to say about this before we move on to the getting out of here?
1:07:23
Corey, Joe. No. All right, then. We are going to say goodbye, guys. Thank you all being here
1:07:30
with us. Uh it's it's really very helpful to doing a podcast when people listen to it. Uh otherwise, we're just
1:07:36
kind of sitting around chatting. Um this has been the fun to talk to you. Um well, I'm not fun to talk to. My god,
1:07:44
keeping track of what I'm saying. Even I don't know what I'm doing half the time, but you guys are great. Um, thank you
1:07:50
again to Corey, uh, Liz and Joe for everything that they do to make this a fun experience for you guys and for me
1:07:56
really, quite frankly. Um, I get to talk about Mayday on the pre-show. That was
1:08:01
fun. I haven't done that in a while. Uh, so yeah, thank you so much everybody. Thank you for being here. Thank you for
1:08:07
supporting us. And we'll be back next week. [Music]
#Computer & Video Games