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Join us as we discuss the baby yeti pet revealed for this year’s WoW Winter Veil event, Overwatch 2’s temporary Classic mode which definitely isn’t a test to bring it back permanently, Diablo 4’s lackluster seasonal events, StarCraft arriving on PC Game Pass, and more impressions of Dragon Age: Veilguard.
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[Music]
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hello everybody and welcome to the Blizzard watch podcast I'm Matt uh I usually Host this thing although not
0:15
last week and thank you to everybody here who basically covered for me and allowed the show to continue uh before
0:21
we go any further I introduce people so forth Liz you wanted to do a patreon thing and for once I want to remember to mention it at the beginning of the show
0:28
so okay yes hello everyone I'm glad you're here
0:33
listening with us I wanted to remind you that blizzard watch is made possible due to listeners like you supporting us on
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patreon this month our patreon fell a little under $4,000 we try to keep it over $4,000 to keep everything stable
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it's not an emergency Panic oh my God but kind of that number is our that's
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our happy place we try to stay 4,000 to 4500 on patreon that's a good stable
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place for us so if you are able to toss in a dollar on patreon toss in $3 on
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patreon $3 gives you early access to these podcasts $5 gives you ad free on
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the blizzard watch site and all of your support Let's us do more content uh like
1:18
more tabletop content more Dragon Age content I apologize if you do not care
1:24
for those things but we have been doing some of both uh but also more guides and
1:29
information on world Warcraft all of these things are made possible because of your support so I understand not
1:36
everyone has the cash to do this support us listening to the show sharing the show with friends who might enjoy it uh
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linking the website all of that helps we appreciate moral support as well so anything you can do for us really helps
1:49
please go to blizzardwatch uh wait patreon.com blizzardwatch if you can
1:54
toss us a little extra it really really helps so thank you all so much for being
2:00
here I want you to imagine an extremely cute child with huge eyes looking up and going please sir can we have some more
2:07
because that's what we're doing here uh so anyway that was Liz Liz is the EIC of Blizzard watch and overall Grand High
2:13
Puba uh also with us are Joe Perez who is our sort of Ombudsman does pretty much everything and Phil who is a our
2:21
guest host I guess uh say hi Phil we did this on the pre-show never mind uh how
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are you doing Phil I'm gonna do it anyway hi Phil yeah I'm gonna you can't stop me I'm gonna make the bad joke it's
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happening now we have gone too far but anyway uh so yeah we've got a
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fair amount of stuff to talk about um some of which is interesting to me so you know some of it isn't but you know
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one thing is uh tiny yeti with a present on its back uh let's talk about this right now Liz that's
2:55
important um uh so yes there are some new Winter's
3:01
Veil rewards this year coming it is uh you may have noticed that it is only November kind of we're we're halfway
3:08
through but some new Winter's Veil rewards have been data mined and it includes a tiny Yeti pet who is carrying
3:14
a little present on his back held onto him with a with a bright red ribbon it's
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adorable and I mean that's that's really it uh we don't know if it is going to
3:27
be uh I suspect it's going to be under the Christmas tree this year under the winter Veil tree I'm sorry so but but
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that's it that's it that's all we know I wish we need to know yeah that really
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really it is it's like I'm gonna log on and get this little baby Yeti yeah what else do you want I I'd want the cat with
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hord style armor to also have a pet more more baby yetis mayy yetis that are
3:54
petting cats they they've had other yetis but this is the best baby this is the best baby Yeti possibly the only
4:00
baby Yeti we do know a little bit more it is currently flagged as dropping from the quest you're mean one which I
4:05
believe is the daily well there you go the daily to go kill the Abominable greench in the arrai islands I think wherever
4:13
he's at these days I think he's he used to be rathy I don't know if he it's been a few years it's been a few years since
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I've done that so World of Warcraft has been along around long enough for me to
4:25
have forgotten how to do these things oh yeah
4:31
yeah also uh other stuff going on since we're talking about stuff like that
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apparently if you're watching streams like Warcraft direct and so forth there's there's neat rewards that you can get for World of Warcraft uh there's
4:43
a black rock saber mount for The Horde which means it's a cat but it has hord style armor and a cery warwolf mount
4:50
which is for the alliance which is a wolf with Alliance style armor um I I
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don't even know what they're going to look like and already I want them um and then there's be rewards for rumble and
5:02
Hearthstone but I I'm I'm mostly interested in in the cat and the Wolf uh
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we do have pictures of them though I realize now I forgot to link them but it's really kind of the classic hoorde
5:13
wolf but with night elf style armor and a uh kind of classic uh you know nights
5:23
saer except it has you know spiky horde armor so it's like you can get you can get your alternate faction here and it's
5:31
uh I think they're pretty neat and all you have to do is uh actually I don't have the details on this one but uh it's
5:38
a reward for watching Warcraft direct which is uh this week tomorrow uh by the
5:43
time you listen to this it will probably be in the past in the distant past well okay it'
5:50
be four days not that distant anyway since we're talking about that uh we
5:55
just we've just covered that Warcraft direct is this week so we don't have to talk about that again basically basically um did you talked about that
6:02
yeah this is one that Liz put in here and said you know I don't understand what's happening so I read it and I
6:07
don't understand what's happening but uh Warcraft is coming to football um collab between blizzard and University of
6:14
Washington Husky football team to transform W into the University of Warcraft for one game uh okay
6:23
stop okay I don't know who said stop was that I don't get it I I don't think any
6:29
of do get it essentially they took the Husky mascot and just turned it into a wolfy
6:34
looking head and that's all I can figure out what's going on yeah I don't know why they're doing it I don't know why
6:40
they're doing it with the Washington Huskies in particular crossovers like this are not out outside of like
6:46
territory that blizzards trod before but like my hands are definitely up in the air here like why so at at Friday's home
6:55
foot football uh game there will be a c University of Warcraft logo and digital
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takeover uh uh and a Warcraft themed fan
7:08
Zone featuring different characters from the game as well as World of Warcraft
7:14
mascots leading the team onto the field so if you ever wanted like th and Gina
7:19
running out in a crowd of football players maybe this is this is to me is a
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really good example of marketing as I've got a bowl of stuff I'm just gonna throw all of it directly at the wall that's
7:31
what they did in early in warcraft's like experience though like oh yeah they did that's true and I mean if you walk
7:37
around like the the event uh the holiday or the holiday the anniversary event like there's pieces of that all over the
7:43
place like the night elf Mohawk just chilling up on a post like the Mountain
7:49
Dew Bots are back again like they they like the motorcycle stuff is back again
7:54
like there there was this weird time where wow branched off into uh like
7:59
every corner of like Americana and pop culture and we're kind of back there
8:05
right now like I don't understand why though like yeah remember last week we
8:12
uh in last week's blatch podcast we talked about like all the different crossovers we getting like the the
8:17
Mountain Dew thing which you mentioned and like the Diablo jewelry crossover and like it's like all of a sudden uh
8:24
and I'm going to say Microsoft probably is has a hand in it has decided to just throw World of Warcraft everything
8:29
because of the 20th anniversary uh I I would guess that they're the reason why it's the University of Washington and
8:35
not anything more local to the company um but yep that's gonna be weird there's
8:40
going to be a lot of confused Huskies fans trying to figure out what this orc is doing on the field or they might just
8:46
not notice or not yeah I'm just what gets me is I'm really hoping that somehow EverQuest will manage to get on
8:53
College to show up and be their team and then we can have that game the the South Harmon Institute of Technology okay
9:00
don't know why but I'll it that is a reference that I think Phil got some of you at home may get that one yeah if
9:07
it's an EverQuest reference I didn't get it it's a it's a movie reference a very very bad
9:12
comedy well now that I've killed mat Matt's brain I'm sorry didn't kill my brain just my momentum uh but that
9:19
covers the warcraft stuff we've got other stuff to talk about I want to mention this one even though it's it's
9:25
like I don't know um OverWatch 2 classic will let us go back to the original game
9:30
for three weeks which is like we knew some of this stuff was coming because we knew about them testing 6v6 again I I do
9:37
want to say that this is separate from their 6v6 testing they they went out of their way to say they're still testing
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6v6 as a permanent game mode but this is uh OverWatch 2 classic is a temporary
9:52
classic style version of the game that you can play in OverWatch 2 just make it
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permanent yeah yeah it's it's literally it's it went it's live now it's last for
10:04
three weeks you have like so many different varieties of wow classic now
10:10
people want the thing that they first started playing that they just want it give it to them just just give it to
10:16
them give them this yeah even running it so you know you can run it just run it
10:22
yeah and I mean that's what a lot of people have just been asking for since OverWatch 2 release and since they
10:28
changed it from from 6v6 to the the 5v5 like people have been begging for the
10:34
6v6 it's plus it's not just that though it's everything it's the original Heroes original abilities original Maps
10:40
original skins like I I feel like you might as well just make that something
10:47
people can pick instead of OverWatch 2 it seems it seems like it would be
10:53
something really easy just make it an arcade mode just make it something okay click I'm gonna play classic today
10:59
because that's what I want to play and give players options but they announced this and I was like I was super
11:07
interested it's like oh that is really cool these classic game modes give us more options and let us play in
11:12
different ways and then I was like oh it's a limited time event that lasts three weeks okay yeah it's it's like and
11:19
you know it's there are ways to do limited time events that I I actually like I think like when wow did its P you
11:27
know pandemonium thing World of Warcraft Pandaria you know fast mode essentially
11:33
that was good lot people liked it um I could see doing that uh for OverWatch but I feel like putting out an OverWatch
11:40
classic essentially just for a few weeks I don't know why not just keep it going
11:46
you've got it's it's like you're GNA be running this so now we know you can run it you know you didn't throw away the
11:52
original stuff so just put it up somewhere let people opt into it let people subscribe to it or buy it or
11:58
whatever uh I just I don't know that is my feeling on it I don't disagree uh
12:04
Phil you haven't actually said anything about this one you might not care but I fig all i' ask in Cas op yeah I'm not
12:10
like highly invested in OverWatch but my understanding is that the transition from OverWatch to OverWatch 2 was shall
12:16
we say not popular and so I feel like giving them back to classic game for three weeks is almost like an insult hey
12:21
remember this thing you liked here it is have some fomo with it um it's sort of like saying that the the the transit of
12:28
the T anic across the Atlantic had a few speed bumps in ter there was an obstacle or we
12:36
had a we had a difference of agreement with some ice I I think the best outcome for this would possibly be that this is
12:43
like a test R to make sure it works like if they test us for three weeks and they go okay OverWatch classic is stabled and
12:49
in a few weeks you know after it ends they go okay we've shored up some bugs from the event OverWatch classic is now
12:55
a permanent game mode have fun like that would that I think would be the ideal outcome from this little event I would
13:01
agree yeah I mean at at the end of Blizzard's post they did explicitly say
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yeah this is just limited time it's not coming back but we'll keep an eye out for feedback so it's
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possible that if everyone is like yes this is awesome this is all we want to play ever again that maybe um so here's
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exactly what they said uh in a Q&A at the bottom of the post it's will OverWatch classic ever return is this
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just a onetime thing and from blizzard while we're not planning for this to be a single while we're not planning for
13:37
this to be a single event we will be me measuring player response to inform our future plans actually now that I read
13:44
that that's a little backwards but um so if you if you like this go and tell
13:50
blizzard because it it it just makes sense just add this as an arcade mode why not it seems like it's really easy
13:57
but instead they're treating it like something like uh junkenstein's Revenge which comes up every October as a
14:02
holiday event but this is this feels like something different you could just put it in there and it would be there I
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don't know I don't know I mean yeah I feel like we we all basically saying the same thing at this point so now we will move on to some other stuff mainly
14:16
Diablo stuff because you know it's me I love Diablo um I want to read this one first though because I I kind of find it
14:22
a little funny um that the the midwinter blade event is coming back later this
14:27
year and it's like yeah was were we not supposed like I I don't I felt surprised
14:33
that they needed to announce it like this but I guess I guess it's worth doing so I'm I'm I liked midwinter blate
14:40
so I'm totally happy to see it come back I'm just was surprised that it wasn't already assume to be coming back if that
14:46
makes sense I mean we're we're sitting here talking about limited time events and you kind of you kind of never know I
14:52
guess and also like holiday events are a little new for Diablo and the Halloween
14:59
event this year did not do very well in that you could log in and completely not notice that there was a Halloween event
15:05
going on cuz I what was the event the event wasn't even very eventful yeah if
15:10
you ran a nightmare dungeon and you clicked a shrine it had a higher chance of spawning a treasure Goblin or the
15:16
Butcher and it's like okay but it's nowhere there's nothing anywhere else in the game and also there's like one
15:23
Shrine per dungeon and I click it and maybe I get a goblin or a butcher who does not drop good lot I mean it was it
15:30
it felt extremely unrewarding yeah I didn't even bother with and I was playing a lot of Diablo
15:36
was just in in their defense it's kind of hard to make a spooky event in Diablo
15:41
yeah is sort of like that's the flavor everything is I do get that frankly midwinter blight is kind of spooky it's
15:49
like piles it's like a skull Christmas tree kind of thing I I don't know I feel
15:56
like midwinter blight feels like a daning album like it's it's kind of going a little too hard on the skulls
16:01
and so forth whereas but at the same time it's it's it's endearing like you know it's like they're even they're like
16:07
bedazzling everything except instead of bedazzling them they're they're sculling them so yeah I I I at least I like wi to
16:15
Winter Play for that I also liked that it was like it's its tongue would have been in its cheek but since everything
16:21
is a skull there was no cheek and no tongue but if they had the tongue it would be in the cheek that it didn't
16:27
have uh but the the the Halloween thing this year did not feel like anything and it it felt disappointing for me that we
16:34
couldn't have had like a real butcher themed Halloween thing just go for it go for a like real butcher themed thing
16:41
like the butcher is back and now he's a world boss and there's like mini butchers that he spawn off of him and
16:46
these butchers it's like what's going on with all these butchers and and just something you know and and I know that
16:52
they have the ability to do it but I don't know if quite frankly I feel like working on two expansions means that
16:58
they don't really have the manpower to to to do this as much as they might want especially since the expansion was
17:03
literally coming out a month before Halloween yeah I and that's that's kind of a shame it really feels like there is
17:10
a lot you could do but the seasons feel pretty uneventful the events have not
17:16
knocked it out of the park I mean midwinter blight was an interesting event the New Year's one wasn't the the
17:22
one they did for Chinese New Year was kind of fun but kind of also like just click on something and I really feel
17:28
like yeah absolutely and and earn reputation and yeah it's like hey do you want a new
17:36
rep grind just in time for the holidays no well you're gonna get one
17:42
it's the most magical tasks you'll be doing well you know maybe we can hold
17:47
out for that butcher event to be next year because January 26 February 2nd marks National meet
17:55
week and if you're gonna have a butcher themed event why not on the week celebrating fresh
18:01
meat I heard Joe make a noise but then we kept talking so he didn't get to say it so Joe I did not I actually didn't
18:08
make a noise all right well anyway this I want to read this whole thing because I sometimes Liz writes really cool
18:14
things in the notes and I want to read them to you so you understand how cool lizz's notes are Diablo 4 had a very low
18:20
news campfire chat today about the season six mid-season patch which will provide for a lot of Buffs for non-sp
18:26
born classes but expect the spirit born to maintain their significant power Advantage shrines being buffed to scale
18:31
with player power catch-up mechanics being added for Eternal Ro players coming back for the xack something that
18:37
feels like it should have been added with the xack uh look for patch no later this week I I I love this because it's
18:44
true but also because it really kind of captures how weird the campfire chats
18:51
have felt lately like so I kind of wanted to throw that out there for people here go ahead Liz I hear you this one felt a little extra weird because
18:59
they talked about the mid-season patch but they're also like there's going to be a blog post about this next week oh
19:04
also we're having another live stream next week that's going to talk about season 7 oh and also there's going to be
19:09
a season 7 PTR it's going to be after Thanksgiving and it's like it was an
19:14
announcement of future announcements like there was very little information but we all got together to watch this
19:21
live stream so they could tell us we will get more information later and it was just it was um yeah but you've been
19:28
no noticing that for like the past couple years I remember we talked about like back in I think 2019 even you were
19:35
like why is it all the news about news that's gonna happen yeah why why is so
19:41
many announcements of announcements I hate that I just I hate an announcement of an announcement just tell me the news
19:48
I just want the news uh so but usually even usually Diablo live streams I don't
19:54
always like them but usually they have something to say and this one felt like it had very little to say except there
20:01
would be more to say in the future I think they're kind of cramming here to get stuff done
20:07
before before Thanksgiving yeah um but kind of like why did you have a a
20:14
campfire chat today just to tell us you're having a campfire chat next week where you're gonna actually tell us
20:19
things and it's just kind of like hey you know we're having a party tonight to talk about the party we're
20:25
gonna have next week and it also feels weird they're telling us about the mid season patch today but next week they're
20:30
telling us about season 7 which season 7 is at least a month away I'd have to double check on the dates there but it's
20:36
like you're you're really compressing the timeline here well if the PTR for
20:41
the for season 7 is after Thanksgiving yeah yeah it's it's at least a month
20:48
away if not more because I mean depending on whether or not they actually do anything with the feedback
20:53
from the PTR but yeah it is it is interesting and odd to me how they approach this stuff sometime uh final
21:00
blizzard related thing for this week because it's you know it's it's as we just pointed out they keep telling us that they're going to tell us about
21:06
things um both Starcraft and Starcraft 2 are on PC game pass now uh I believe
21:11
they've already been on Xbox game pass for a little bit um but they're definely
21:17
pass they're on Game Pass but they're they're PC only that's why I noted the PC thing all right yeah you can't you
21:23
can't play them on your Xbox I thought I saw one that was but I that makes sense because it was they didn't really have
21:28
controls for that I I am fascinated by the fact that Microsoft seems really
21:34
bullish on Starcraft oh yeah I think they are just it's it's interesting to me go ahead I think I think it has to do
21:40
with the idea that like and we've talked about this before that there's a potential Resurgence of RTS is coming
21:46
back and where would you rather be would you rather be waiting for former
21:51
blizzard devs who worked on stuff like Warcraft uh to you know get theirs out
21:57
there which you know several of them are working on or have put out or would you like to take something like Starcraft
22:04
and try to get it back in everybody's hands and under everybody's radar right like and especially if you feel strongly
22:09
about it proving that there's a hunger for it is a really easy way of trying to get a new project green lit uh
22:15
especially again if you're banking on RTS is making a comeback to sort of that cyclical popularity of games that we see
22:23
so I mean I can't really say I blame them I think it's kind of and I personally think it would be kind of cool right like I I miss rtss I miss
22:32
when they were like all around in in done good quality and let's be honest
22:38
like Starcraft and and Warcraft were two of the uh greatest RTS franchises ever
22:45
created so if I was Microsoft I'd absolutely want to be be banking on this or or trying to get it to take off again
22:52
okay uh I just find it interesting I don't really know what what it signifies
22:58
I I keep looking and going okay are they actually going to do new Starcraft and I think I know we heard about them doing
23:04
yet another first-person shooter with Starcraft um but I'm like guys please
23:10
stop trying to do a first-person shooter with Starcraft you've you've managed to successfully kill two of them why are
23:16
you going for three do you just feel empty without a game to cancel in a few months like what's the deal well we
23:23
canceled that that Survival game so but we don't have anything to cancel right now um why don't we start make it a
23:28
Starcraft first-person shooter he yeah we could cancel that real good so yeah I don't I don't know what's up with that
23:34
but at the same time I would be down for i' I've said before I would love to see Starcraft in other genres um I honestly
23:41
kind of wish a little while ago and Riot eventually kind of stopped doing it but they had licensed other Studios to make
23:48
games based on their properties uh I played one of them which was I think the ruin King which was really good was an
23:55
Airship Syndicate Game uh I feel really bad for stuff that's been happening a Airship Syndicate lately but uh I did
24:01
really like that game I kind of wish blizzard could do that like you know maybe have obsidian come in and and do a
24:09
like a a true RPG using say the warcraft setting or in Starcraft or what have you
24:16
um just because I'd like to see what other people would do with these things uh not not necessarily because I don't
24:21
think blizzard could do it but just because I'd like to see other people spin on it I definitely feel like Starcraft is possibly the best franchise
24:29
for anything like that for the very simple reason that there isn't currently anything going on with it as far as we
24:35
know um they could be working on it but who knows uh yeah that's that's my take on it uh I don't know if if Phil has
24:42
anything else he wants to say before we move on although there's not too much more to talk about yeah I'll note that uh more Starcraft is more likely than it
24:49
was when it was just blizzard and Phil Spencer at Microsoft is a huge Starcraft fan I I would wager he at least has a
24:56
hand in this being available now um yeah think I'd love to see some more Starcraft of some kind like I I wouldn't
25:02
be wild about a first-person shooter but just about anything else i' I'd be down for more Starcraft even especially like
25:07
a uh another Starcraft RTS like Jo said I have so many hours in Starcraft uh on my on my PC back at my
25:14
parents house yeah my wife who before I before I even knew her uh played
25:20
original Starcraft into the ground like she was like she was killing Korean
25:25
people like just non-stop like in the game uh she just played forever and did
25:31
really well and you know there's no there hasn't been a Starcraft for her since because Starcraft 2 didn't jive
25:37
with her her way of approaching the game so yeah I'd like to see them do another RTS
25:44
but I would really love to see them do a forx I really feel like they could jump to a 4X real easy like and that would be
25:51
that would be interesting with a game like Starcraft where you're like you're already starting in the future so what's
25:56
the future like in 100 years and a thousand years I mean you could do some weird things with that and you could do
26:03
the whole thing like Starcraft already has the whole thing about getting resources you know we're at of vespine gas all that you could make it into a
26:09
bigger part of the game fairly easily and and have it also be like you know there's there's Waring factions we let's
26:16
run with it let's actually do something with this Waring faction idea I just feel like Forex would be a if you were
26:22
gonna go from RTS to something else Forex would be a logical stop the other possibility is I mean Total War
26:30
especially the warcraft I mean the Warhammer ones that's that's an RTS we don't have any problem admitting that
26:35
right no I don't think well I will actually I think it's more of an army Sim than an RTS i' I play a lot of if
26:41
it's an army Sim then let's do an army SIM for war for Starcraft yeah you know
26:47
like there's a if you think a game like there's just so many different games that would work for Starcraft but I that
26:53
doesn't mean first person shooter couldn't work I just feel like they must have angered like you know they must
26:59
have angered some wandering mendicant or something uh because man they have bad
27:04
luck with keeping those games going in terms of coming up with the shooters but all right uh I've been clipping out some
27:10
actual questions from the uh uh Discord but before we do that we do have some other games to talk about um I haven't
27:17
not gotten to play Dragon Age field guard so I'm literally living vicariously through other people who have so I want to hear about people's
27:23
Second Impressions if anybody has one Liz have you been playing it yes talk
27:29
I will not not I will not be able to get this game this year so if you've got Stu to tell
27:35
me please I I think I've put 95 hours into the game so far and it released a
27:42
week and a half ago um I do after playing after putting a lot of hours in I understand some of the criticism I've
27:50
seen of it but I also I love it this game is Liz catnip uh because it's a
27:57
very it's a very story forward game it's very much characters and relationships between characters it has tons and tons
28:05
and mountains of dialogue between characters so if you go back to your
28:10
base you'll see your companions have like moved around while you were gone and you'll walk up to them and they'll
28:16
be having conversations with each other I have done this a lot and I have yet to
28:21
find anyone repeat anything so I don't know how much dialogue there is that's
28:27
just like casual conversations your companions are having but a lot and when
28:33
you take them out on adventures with you they talk to each other a lot more than they have in previous games yeah I have
28:40
yet find any repetition in this I I imagine there is like a mountain of
28:46
dialogue that I have not seen and I am here for it I am here for every little bit of it um so and it I think it's a
28:55
remarkably story focused game because it is more about like making choices but
29:02
making the choices that you want to make and deciding how you were going to approach a situation and it's not so
29:09
much oh I have 27 Charisma so I can have this conversation it's like I'm going to
29:15
do this Quest and I'm going to decide I'm going to talk to this person instead of fight them that's actually one of the
29:22
very first things you do in the game it's like you go into you go into a fight and it's like do I want to talk these people down or do I want to fight
29:29
them and you can do either one and it's not like well you're really strong so you're going to be really good at
29:34
fighting them and it's not like well you're really charismatic you're going to be really good at talking to them it's like how do you want to approach
29:40
the story it frankly it feels like a Choose Your Own Adventure book a little
29:46
bit does that make sense yeah I think abolutely I was going to say I think I
29:51
was reading that there's more branching dialogue paths in this game than uh any
29:57
of the previous ones and I I believe it I absolutely believe it um because like
30:02
your bond and choices you make there's a lot more of a it was a lot more of the the the three-way like you know this
30:09
will have consequences choices uh in this than I than I remember seeing in other games so I definitely agree with
30:17
you there uh and I think it's a a little I want to call it revolutionary maybe
30:23
yall will have different opinions but if you want to do this game but you're bad
30:28
combat you don't enjoy the action oriented combat system it has right now you can put it on what is called
30:34
Storyteller mode Storyteller is basically the easy mode for the game except it is not just it is not just
30:40
easy it is super easy it is completely easy and if you set it to Storyteller
30:46
mode and you go into the options you can actually turn off death so you can
30:51
literally approach it where you just go in and you want to experience the story
30:57
and you go in and you have little combats but they aren't a big deal they're just part of your ongoing
31:02
narrative you cannot die and you just you explore you do puzzles you have conversations with people and that is
31:09
the game if you want that game experience that is the game you can play and I think that's kind of astonishing
31:15
in a big budget AAA RPG that does have some really fun in my opinion action
31:22
combat but you can also say no that's not my bag I just I'm just here for the story I'm I'm just here to meet all
31:28
these cool people and I I think it's great yeah the accessibility is Big
31:33
there and we talk about this a lot cuz like even if combat is your thing but you just find yourself in a position where you can't do it anymore um because
31:41
it is a very action uh game right it's not it's not turnbas at all um and so
31:48
you spend a lot of time uh you know mashing buttons and trying to time uh
31:53
Dodges and and uh and if not the Dodges then time I mean defenses or paries and
31:59
things like that and uh manipulating the the ability wheel and and and that can
32:04
be a lot for some folks so giving the option for folks to just experience the story which is really well written or at
32:11
least I maybe I'm enamored with it but right now uh from everything I've seen
32:17
for it I've really enjoyed the writing the storytelling I enjoy the characters I hate the fact that normally and this
32:24
is going to be a a weird complaint so I apologize um in these types of games in in dragon
32:31
effect games um I I there's usually a front runner of who my character is
32:37
going to like romance or like there's a very clear winner and in this one I'm
32:42
sitting there being torn between two who are hitting very very distinct me like
32:49
uh personality trait triggers and I I'm sitting here um and you meet them early
32:56
so it's not them not I'm not going to go into too many details about their personality for folks that haven't played it yet but like Bellis Bell or
33:03
bellasara and uh and Harden like hit two very distinct like personality things in
33:09
me and like I I'm torn I can't decide and it's like no why why you do this to
33:17
me game and it's the first time in like this type of game that I really have like felt torn between it and both
33:23
characters are incredibly well written their voice actors do an amazing job
33:28
um like even the the NPCs that give you quests like there's actual like I'm
33:35
trying to think out to this in Dragon Age Inquisition there was very good uh voice acting but not all of it was very
33:41
good some of it was very robotic and some of it was very phoned in I have yet
33:47
to find that here right like I I and maybe that's just me maybe it's just the the the honeymoon period with the game
33:53
because I'm not nearly as far in as Liz is but I haven't found anybody that just sounds
33:58
like they're phoning it in right they're not Peter Dinklage in uh you know with
34:05
Mo yeah right uh no i' I've even I've even found that even minor NPCs like
34:12
shop shopkeepers who are talking to you while you're while you're browsing their stuff I need to go through the voice
34:17
acting list I'm I'm relatively confident I gotta like poke uh [ __ ] Jones uh but
34:23
like I'm convinced she's one of the shopkeepers there there is this one shopkeeper right outside the uh base for
34:30
the shadow dragons in menrath who like you're looking through his Wares and he's going don't touch the treasure he's
34:37
just pedaling absolute garbage but it's just he says it with such emotion and it's like it caught me off guard I was
34:43
like what is he talking to me I'm just looking at his stuff man and some of them and some of them have interactions
34:49
like when you Mouse over or move your cursor over specific items which is wild
34:55
like they'll have specific triggers in dialogue that the the this the shopkeep will say like there's uh there's a uh
35:02
there is a bar that you will go to several times over the course of the story and and Rus and one of the
35:07
bartenders uh is actually a mixologist and we'll like talk about the drinks as
35:12
that she has for salees you Mouse over them snoody tells you uh as you start to interact with her that the other
35:17
bartenders serve drinks but I craft experiences man such a Seattle thing
35:25
you're yeah you're killing me right killing me I'm sitting here going oh I'll just be playing this game that I
35:31
have from last year over and over again I will I I will say I am with Joe 100% on the I did I so I I probably have the
35:39
weirdest perspective on this because I haven't played a Dragon Age game before this one although I intimately familiar
35:44
with them due to spending way too much time on the Dragon Age Wiki for fun um but then like I just came off Mass
35:52
Effect and the whole trilogy and then like a week later picked up Veil guard didn't mean to but then everybody in our
35:57
um wow Guild was playing it I'm like well [ __ ] I got the day off um but the
36:03
um it's so it's interesting because I'm in the same boat Joe was where I did not
36:08
know who I was going to romance and as we kept picking up additional party members it just got worse the point
36:13
where I I let an NPC decide for me like one of the one of the NPCs propositioned
36:21
me very strongly after a flirty dialogue option and I kind of looked over at my wife because she's locked in on these
36:27
stories as as well and I'm like do I go for this one and she's like yeah do it so I kind of let an NPC and my wife pick
36:33
the option for me my wife played Dragon Age uh two before I did uh was the deal we had that
36:41
I let her play it before I touched it um so she would not get spoiled watching me play it and when I was playing uh I was
36:49
starting my my character I was playing a a a wizard for my first playthrough before I realized that that meant I had
36:55
Carver for the whole game um so I was playing My Wizard going through town I
37:01
met up with with Andrew and I was like starting to do the flirty talk with him my wife literally smacked the controller
37:07
out of my hands she was like no do not Ro he will
37:13
break your heart don't do it as as someone who romanced Andrew on my first Dragon Age 2 playthrough I understand
37:21
the nature of bad choices in we are all bad idea in the
37:28
[Music] end like seriously it was just one of those moments where I'm like okay I
37:33
guess I'm not Romancing that guy uh so yeah but you're better off you're better
37:39
off do think we should also mention this really briefly um there's no DLC coming
37:44
for for Dragon Age The Veil guard and the reason for that is because the entire company is essentially working on
37:50
the new Mass Effect game now they've effectively just said okay we got Veil guard out people either like it or they
37:56
don't it's it's getting some positive reviews so now we're all switching over to get Mass Effect done and yeah I'm not
38:03
mad at that meanwhile there's a patch that came out for dragon field guard that's essentially got a little N7
38:08
surprise in it you can tell us about that one Liz uh it it's just a bug fix patch which I I not know how many how
38:16
many people like did it uh I know PC players have been having trouble did it uh Phil did you notice the gameplay gets
38:23
smoother after the Patch uh on my PC not so much it definitely runs better on my steam deck so I feel like there was some
38:29
more optimization there um it did not fix the only mechanical bug I've noticed in the game but that's okay because it's
38:34
a mechanical bug in the player's favor um so yeah it was H just a little
38:40
but fixed patch and the team is still going to do stuff like this bug fixes
38:45
things of that nature but yeah there we're all working on Mass Effect and uh for in 7day all we got this year in
38:52
seventh day of course beinging the grand celebration of Mass Effect uh all we got this year was a little a little present
38:59
in uh Dragon Age Veil guard which you can log on and find Shepherd themed armor that you can
39:07
pick up for your Rook so uh I think it's pretty cool looking I mean I'm into it
39:12
I've seen a picture of Joe's character wearing it h it looks good it's it's a
39:17
long black it's a long black coat with a red and white stripe down the arm so uh
39:23
and there is a there's another more Warrior looking look that is black and
39:28
red but it doesn't doesn't have the stripe down the arm so I think it's a little less iconic yeah it's got like
39:34
some weird arm ties going on it doesn't have the long coat I'm actually using that one I'm actually using that one for my rook's casual wear
39:41
instead this is reminding me very much of how the only good DLC that came out
39:47
before they scrapped King Amer was the BioWare tie-in that gave you Shepherd's
39:52
armor and an omniblade and I it's it's also funny that the pre-order bonus for
39:58
Veil guard was um the oh the name completely was the blood dragon armor
40:05
you got three variations of the blood dragon armor which was of course armor in Mass Effect 2 and three that yeah but
40:12
it was also blood yeah it was also original DLC for Dragon Age Origins and
40:17
Dragon Age 2 yeah yeah like I had it in both those games so yeah yeah it's like
40:23
it like made the jump to Mass Effect and now it's made the jump back along with
40:28
uh along with these looks so it's it's kind of cool the little tiny tiny itty bitty crossovers um but yeah I'm I'm
40:36
into it I'm into it that's how could I not I was goingon to say like I and and
40:41
for some folks I've heard some folks being upset that there is no DLC coming for for Veil guard but I will say and I
40:50
get it I get it but one thing that I do want to make sure that I like put out there uh is that well uh at the end of
40:57
the day if you do just the main quest and I do mean just the main quest and
41:02
the major side quest you're at 60 hours that doesn't include everything else and think it's a long game Liz just really
41:08
wants to sit down have a party with her friends like said though it's fine that's one of the best DLCs they ever
41:13
made for any game so yeah really was give me the fan service expansion I I don't care even the part of it that was
41:20
an actual mission was great I I took Liz's advice on when to do the DLC which she uh thankfully told me when things
41:26
would be best with being spoilery about them and that was uh saving that one for last was definitely top-notch um I'm a
41:33
little I'm a little sad there won't be but then just with all the party banter in here like I want to start doing quests that I know I did before but with
41:39
different different combinations of characters because they also will like comment to each other based on where
41:44
they are in their own story setup yeah like there's a couple there's a couple of your companions who if you don't
41:50
romance one of them will start like they become a thing and like if you take them
41:56
out earlier before that actually happens like you can actually like see it developed because they're like subtly
42:01
flirting with each other in interp party banter while you're just walking around it's really cute I love
42:07
itly flirting that's that's because put that in Inquisition as well that's
42:14
definitely hel Jennifer heler yeah well one of your one of the one of the companions is subtle and the other one
42:20
is not yeah it depends on how you define subtle I think he's talking to
42:29
you I'm saying your I'm saying your bad idea boyfriend has no subtlety in his soul uh no he's he's very bad at things
42:37
he's but bad in the best way for you yes
42:43
specifically well see you know I I was going on a trend to find the person who is the worst idea to date in this game
42:51
and I I picked one but then I really I really pissed him off and uh yeah so I
42:56
had to changed my mind and I think my my next choice was worse so uh here I am here I am making my terrible
43:03
relationship choices virtually yep yep that's thing yeah at least with that if
43:09
they start breaking your heart you can like walk away from the console or computer or whatever you know I will say
43:15
that uh one thing that uh I will note for this particular game uh this is the
43:21
first time that I have bought extra Hardware in order to play this game
43:27
I I was commenting on this in in Guild I'll comment on here a little bit um so
43:34
I had to get it I I was trying to play it on the PC and playing it on the PC was fine uh but I couldn't I couldn't
43:41
really get it to to run well uh so the problem that I ran into was well do I
43:46
keep it on the PC and they patch it or do I kill it from that and then you know
43:52
try to move it to something else move it to uh the PlayStation or or something
43:57
like that so I moved into the PlayStation I uh and the problem that I have is that my partner will
44:03
occasionally nest on the K off when they do this which is not a problem uh but
44:08
when they do this it will take over the TV the only TV we have in the house uh
44:15
and so that I cannot uh I cannot possibly uh you know play while she's
44:22
watching TV so I went and bought a PlayStation portal [Laughter]
44:30
you might be you might be the only person I know to admit to buying a PlayStation portal there so apparently they're selling like hot cakes they are
44:36
they are doing absolute Gang Busters in 2024 apparently uh to the point where it was hard to find one in stock somewhere
44:44
I wonder if it's all people now trying to play V guard while their Partners watch TV maybe but like I I went out and
44:49
bought it and it works pretty damn good um and also because now I can play it
44:55
when I'm at the shop and do doing other things so you know there's that I'm happy that we talked about this because
45:02
I wanted to all right um see we're doing on time we've got enough time and then
45:07
some I got a question from daiju here and I think it's going to be a pretty long question I mean the question itself
45:13
is not that long but and we may have answered it somewhere else I don't know but I grabbed it it was there um my
45:20
current belief is that since the events of D3 and and Reaper of Souls the High
45:25
Heavens and burning Hells are freaked out about Humanity finally coming into its own and deciding it's had enough of
45:31
both sides interference hence the reason the High Heavens have walled themselves off and the burning Hells getting more
45:36
aggressive about corrupting Humanity to their side thoughts um I have a lot of thoughts and I'm sure you know we'll be
45:43
talking about this again on latch at some point but um anyone else want to go before I do because I don't want to like monopolize the the conversation plus I
45:50
sound like a raspy you know corpse i s like Withers from Boulder's Gate at this point Joe Phil uh Joe speak to it if he
45:57
wants to I haven't uh I admit I have not played the uh expansion for D4 um so I
46:03
don't know where the story at is right now as regards uh hell and so forth um I
46:09
mean the assertion makes sense um I know that I mean my understanding is that in
46:14
the Diablo Universe humanity is kind of viewed as either a useful tool or a big
46:19
mistake depending depending on who's trying to use them or kill them at any given time so the idea that Humanity
46:26
might finally be getting enough uh regaining enough of their Nephilim Heritage to maybe um tell both sides to
46:33
uh go away um yeah I can see where maybe that would um bother both sides of the
46:39
Eternal conflict Joe so maybe there's definitely something to it where I think
46:46
that what's happened with all of humanity uh especially in regards to the rest of the world is definitely offut uh
46:53
the angels in some way but I don't know that it is necessarily that they um are
46:59
freaked out that it's finally coming into its own um because again tyriel is
47:04
there and tyal went back home uh and tyriel is our friend and he kind of wants us to be able to do our thing um
47:11
because we're the only ones that can actually solve the Eternal conflict and actually you know maybe fix things uh I
47:19
think more they're trying to get their their ducks in a row and their house in order um we we talked about this on the
47:27
Diablo lore watches and I highly encourage you go back and listen to them uh if you can uh
47:34
daiju what Diablo did to the High Heavens was bad like colossally bad very
47:44
very very very UNG good we don't know what damage was done to the crystal Arch the other thing that Matt posited that I
47:50
think is interesting is we don't know because Diablo got essentially taken out
47:57
uh in heaven did Diablo get forced through the crystal Arch all we know in
48:03
the expansion is that mephisto's brothers are coming that's it that's all he says he doesn't give any more details
48:09
than that mefisto was reforming in Hell uh we haven't heard anything from Diablo
48:15
since the events of Diablo I and we know that angels can be reborn in hell so
48:23
maybe just maybe they shut the door because came out as an angel and they
48:28
got to deal with that cuz that's going to be a thing that's my opinion I I am I
48:33
am all in for diablas we we just have not heard
48:38
anything from the heavens in Diablo 4 so we don't know what they're doing but
48:44
also angels are not our friends traditionally tyal is our friend angels
48:51
are not our friends true and some angels actively dislike us we certainly saw
48:58
inarius who are you implying that inarius didn't have our best intentions in mind I don't think I we fly I think I
49:07
you know we were helping him towards his own ends which were did not work out well for him
49:14
um angels in the Diablo Universe Angels do not implicitly care about humans
49:20
angels are not here to help us or or do anything for us so it is more common for
49:27
angels to lock themselves off from Sanctuary then not and this just kind of
49:32
seems a continuation of that the demons are taking advantage because the angels are staying out of it and so the it's
49:40
giving the demons an opportunity to make a power grab and the angels are like yeah human sanctu but I don't know we
49:46
just don't we don't have any actual insight into what's going on in the heavens right it could be exactly as Joe
49:53
says there's chaos up there after all the damage Diablo caused maybe Diablo is still there in some form um it's it's
49:59
just uh it's interesting so we also don't know about any of the other Prime evils except Mesto we don't know where
50:06
anyone is or what anyone's doing there's a lot that could be happening and we don't know most of
50:11
it I'm going to throw three things out first is based on a spoiler so if you
50:17
have not played the end of Diablo 4 uh vessel of hatred you you will get a
50:23
spoiler here um so Phil I suggest you put your fingers in your ears and go la la la la la if you care about that and
50:30
and then we hopefully somebody will will let you know when you can start talking again um but this is the first one we've
50:37
seen that the uh the the demons are really good at using things like faith
50:44
and people who appear to be holy or sacred in some way to their own ends and
50:49
we're seeing that very much we saw that in Diablo I the entire quogan is really
50:54
secretly mefisto uh deal from Diablo I that's that's something misto is is
51:01
going for again in Diablo 4 but he's going up he's scaling it up rather than
51:06
oh well I've corrupted the representative of this religion he's now corrupted the actual body of the
51:12
original founder of said religion so he's he's taking it up a notch uh it would be like going from possessing the
51:18
pope to possessing Jesus essentially um and then that's where they're going with that storyline so that's that's one
51:24
thing to keep in mind the second thing is when we've seen Angels become demons
51:29
in in in the hells they've completely switched their ethos like they've become
51:36
demonic in their aspect and and nature so if Diablo was reborn through the C
51:41
the crystal Arch it's entirely possible he's now good or at least good with the
51:46
air quotes that we would use for any other Angel because keep in mind imperious and and you know imperious and
51:51
Arius oh and malel if you want to talk about angels who don't like us
51:58
yeah so there's all that stuff too uh but third and most interesting to me is
52:04
this real simple idea about the whole thing at the end of Reaper of Souls it's
52:09
our buddy tyel who wets himself in Terror at the sight of us tyriel who
52:15
likes humans and wants to be to bring them Justice is like oh the Nephilim can defeat the most powerful of Heaven or
52:22
Hell what will happen when this Mortal being decides to flex it its incredible
52:27
power and I'm going to point out to everybody we have not heard bibbly squat about what happened to the Nephilim
52:33
nothing there is nothing in game about what happened to that guy or girl um
52:38
there's there's characters that could be the Nephilim if you played as them like there's Johanna she gets mentioned
52:45
specifically that she's dead um but we don't really know what happened to the
52:50
the Nephilim because we don't have a canonical Nephilim to know what happened to him and that's something that I think
52:56
I don't think we'll we'll be picked up on I don't think they're going to do anything about that but if they did what
53:02
would that mean for this argument because keep in mind if you want to show that both the Angels and Demons should
53:08
be afraid of of humanity the Nephilim is your go-to example because that person
53:13
walked out of the woods decided they were going to go look at a falling star and the next thing we know they've
53:19
killed multiple demon Lords and then as an encore after they killed the biggest
53:24
of the demon Lords that literally had all the their demon Lords nested inside of it like matrika dolls for an encore
53:31
they killed the the former Archangel of wisdom who decided he was now the Archangel of death and him possessed by
53:39
all the demons at once he broke the Black Soul Stone and basically used all their power too and we this Mortal still
53:47
beat him so if they're afraid they're afraid because of that guy or girl again
53:52
I should say you know afraid of them and that to me that's f fascinating to me
53:57
because I really feel like it's something that we don't get much you know why does Lilith when she comes here
54:03
she picks you even though you basically turn on her almost immediately like you
54:09
don't you get the the blood petals you don't like go oh well Lilith had a point at no point do you do that even when we
54:16
the players might have been doing that I mean I was like going come on and of these two between Lilith and an Arius I
54:21
definitely don't like an Arius more but that's never really brought into it so I do find myself wondering if that's going
54:27
to be part of the plot of either the next expansion or possibly something after that because I mean the last
54:33
expansion did pretty well I wouldn't be surprised the next one does pretty well and as long as the expansions are doing
54:39
well they're gonna keep putting them out especially now that it's micros off to the helm so yeah I don't know I don't
54:44
know what's going to happen next but I definitely think they could do that but at this point I guess we're we still
54:50
have a little time but no no actually we're we're a good place to stop um here's where I turned to first to Joe
54:56
but actually Liz you you did it at the beginning of the show you want to do it again just so we make sure we catch people I sure um just a reminder that
55:05
blizzard watch is made possible due to listeners like you it is your support
55:11
that lets us keep this site and this podcast going it lets us do more more
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56:25
every little bit thank you so much thank you Liz uh Joe now I've tagged you well I don't have to
56:32
Liz already did it right I so yeah I'll just do my my xro then my ex doing it live uh so yeah
56:40
thank you guys so much for being here thank you to Phil for for coming along and really helping out with just being
56:46
someone to else say something so I can drink because my throat's killing me um and also for the pre-show because that
56:52
was a lot of fun in point of fact I I really enjoy the the pre-show we do RPG topics so thank you very much Phil um to
57:01
be on yeah thank you of course to Liz and Joe for you know basically being the backbone that keeps the site going and
57:06
keeps this podcast going thank you both so much um and thank you to you the the
57:12
I want to see viewers at home but only some of you are viewing uh a lot of you are listening a lot more than are
57:18
viewing but regardless listeners yes listeners makes more sense thank you guys so much too because that means we
57:24
have a show to do and people to listen to it and that's always great uh this has Ben the blizzardwatch podcast and
57:30
we'll be back next week [Music]