Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #351 - For Azeroth!: "Unveiling Midnight"

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#351 - For Azeroth!: "Unveiling Midnight" · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

0:00
Even for somebody who's not going to participate in it as
0:02
much like myself, as far as I'm aware, maybe it's like crack and
0:06
I'll just dive in as well. But housing?
0:09
Something else that Manny notoriously loves.
0:18
This May that. That's the cold open.
0:20
That's the cold victory for the Forsaken for Lauderon.
0:24
For the Karen tour for. Pandaria.
0:31
For calendar to. The burning region for Gilnaeus,
0:36
but has not died for the Lynch king.
0:42
For the Sindori, for the alliance.
0:45
For the horn for Azeroth. Hello and welcome back to
0:52
another episode of For Azeroth. This is a very special episode.
0:57
I am of course joined by the Triven coming from parts
1:00
unknown. It is Lex rants.
1:02
Hello Lex, and how has the World of Warcraft been treating you
1:05
this week? It's.
1:07
Been treating me very good, Manny.
1:08
It's been treating me very, very excitedly and very secretly.
1:13
Very secretively, OK, OK. And of course, Sean, how are you
1:18
today? Manny, I am exhausted today.
1:22
Actually. Pretty pretty pretty crazy day.
1:27
Pretty busy and it's not over yet.
1:30
Yeah, yeah. And if you're wondering why in
1:33
the world we're being so coy, it's because by the time you're
1:36
listening to this, of course, we will have had the deep dive out.
1:40
We will know so much more about the World of Warcraft Midnight,
1:44
but the three of us have been busy being part of a creator
1:50
summit on the World Warcraft Alpha, getting some early access
1:53
so we could dive in and get you all the information that we can.
1:57
O this episode is going to be a quick overview of things that
2:00
we've seen, things that we'd love to highlight, and of course
2:03
we're going to be digging in deeper as the Alpha continues.
2:07
But first I would really like to talk about and I I think that
2:12
Lex put this forward the Argentina.
2:16
We were going purely off of vibes.
2:18
We were going off of names and we were right.
2:22
This is the nice place where you get to put your feet up and grab
2:28
a drink, but everybody just comes together and it's a quest
2:31
hub bar Very cool, very cool. So, Lex, since you were the one
2:38
who really was just like, yeah, this, this has got to be a bar.
2:41
What do you think about this little feature here?
2:43
Yeah. Well, so first of all, I think
2:44
that there's things called the Arcantina.
2:46
It's probably a bar. Congratulations to us.
2:49
We got that one. Yeah, I am.
2:51
So I'm really excited. I do.
2:54
It's. So to give you guys a little
2:55
bit, I guess you've probably watched the deep dive, but in
2:57
case you haven't watched the deep dive, the Argentina is,
3:01
it's very Dungeons and Dragons, very classic fantasy.
3:04
It is this bar that recently became bigger because of
3:08
everything going on in, in every song.
3:10
And you go in there and it's it's a hub of the the quest.
3:15
There's gonna be people coming in historically sending you out
3:19
on, you know, going to to old locations and things like that.
3:24
Very much the like you go to the Tavern in Dungeons and Dragons.
3:28
You see the person in the corner with their hood up and you're
3:30
like, I'm going to go talk to them.
3:32
So I think it could be really, really cool.
3:35
I was not able to get to the point that I could play it in
3:38
alpha today. I think a lot of I, I, I am not
3:46
going to freak out about it yet because I do think I can see
3:49
worlds where it is the sort of feature that plays for a couple
3:52
weeks and then and then dies out.
3:54
But I think if it is done well, I think it could be really,
3:57
really fun. I'm a, I'm a Dungeons and
3:59
Dragons girly. I played Balder's Gate when I
4:01
was single digits. So I love that sort of vibe and
4:06
I am really excited to see where it's going to go there.
4:09
You go all right, John. For you who?
4:13
Who? Also like.
4:15
Was this part of the guessing the right thing?
4:18
What's your feels of the Argentina and where do you want
4:22
this this feature to go? But you agree with Lex that it
4:27
definitely has Yawning Portal vibes.
4:29
For those of you familiar with the Forgotten Realm, Yawning
4:31
portals, an inn in in Waterdeep. Thank you in Waterdeep that that
4:38
it's like over this day, it's over a giant well that is the
4:41
access to the under mountain and all kinds of quests happened.
4:44
There's actually a campaign, a whole campaign built around the
4:47
yawning portal in the end of mountain.
4:48
So definitely, definitely get those vibes from it.
4:51
I don't think it'll be I I think it's going to be something that
4:56
they like, they drip feed us in content over the course of
4:59
midnight like as sort of like this.
5:02
And I hope it's in like it's own like pocket dimensions so that
5:05
people show up from all different timelines and all
5:07
different areas, maybe to give us quests and give us reasons to
5:11
go places. I, I hope that it is like that,
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that it is something that we get additions to regularly and not
5:20
just go here for generic weekly X every Tuesday.
5:25
That oh, I think I wasn't even worried about that till Lex said
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it. Now it's all I could think
5:29
about. Lex, let me do that.
5:31
No, no, no, no, I, I'm. The Yum yucker.
5:36
As we talked about last episode, the Argentina is being tested in
5:39
two phases. There is the base Argentina and
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then at the end we're getting the guests that are showing up.
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So that to me means that like I think the first initial part is
5:52
similar to what you're kind of fearing where it's like, OK,
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this is the initial thing. This is really based on what
5:57
we're doing right now. But with that guest addition, I
6:00
am really hoping that that is something that one gives it a
6:04
little bit more reach, even in this exact same tier that is
6:09
being introduced. But is the easiest part for them
6:12
to introduce so that in the next tier, right?
6:18
Or even in a .5 patch in between tiers, they can add an
6:22
additional guest. They're like, oh, this is where
6:25
we get like this person who is apparently an Arathee who that's
6:29
been wandering around and they pull that that in or just seed
6:33
some small stories or highlight some things that like they want
6:37
to keep in a player's mind. This seems like a very cool way
6:40
of doing doing it. The other part that I like about
6:43
this is that this also gives me vibes from legion.
6:49
And by that I mean legion I think was a great expansion at
6:52
the beginning because it caused players to go back all over this
6:57
world to like re experience parts of the world with new
7:01
quests. You were like going after the
7:03
dark riders or like finding this like hidden power that was like
7:09
lost in pandemic area and like going back to these these places
7:14
and drawing from that mythos to like fight the current thing.
7:18
And if we're doing a similar thing with the Argentina against
7:22
Zalitath and the forces in Midnight, that also kind of
7:26
brings the world together sort of like what they're doing with
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the Aerothore quest. And if they're already doing it
7:31
there, it seems very close likely that they're doing it
7:34
here. So I I like that it makes the
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World of Warcraft feel lived in. And if this is an Evergreen
7:40
system, crossing my fingers that this is a good Evergreen system,
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I'd like for this to continue into future expansions so that
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we continue drawing about the, like, greater world.
7:56
Beyond that, was there anything else that they really threw into
8:01
the Argentina? Again, they were going through a
8:03
lot of stuff, but I don't think there was much.
8:05
There was much that we saw without getting to play it
8:09
ourselves. OK, so we've been dancing around
8:15
this. We talked about the Argentina
8:17
because like, hey, we got to pat ourselves on the back when we're
8:20
right. But there was a full on deep
8:23
dive that they went through. And this was of course Ian
8:28
Hasecostus and the returning Kritz Metzen in front of the
8:32
fireplace talking about what is coming.
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And they like introduced it and they ended it.
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They were bookmarking it. But in between we had the
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narration, which I believe is the voice actor of Lorthemar
8:46
giving us all these details. And I'm I'm kind of glad to see
8:52
it. I don't know, Metzen being back
8:57
doesn't hit me the same way as when Metzen originally came
9:00
back. I was kind of glad for Ian
9:03
there. It just it felt like a dichotomy
9:05
there like this is 2 errors of Wow balancing the themselves.
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But we went through a lot of stuff.
9:15
There were there was of course the Argentina.
9:18
There was them re pretty much re establishing all the information
9:23
that kind of got shotgunned during Gamescon and putting it
9:28
into a cohesive package here. So what would you guys say were
9:33
like the highlights of this or at least like the things that
9:37
you felt were new information of obviously other than the
9:40
Argentina? I'll start with you, Sean.
9:45
Oh, I wish you would start with Lex.
9:47
I actually was not super impressed by the deep dive.
9:53
It didn't feel very deep or divey to me.
9:58
It felt like an extended trailer.
10:03
So if you remember they gave us the midnight trailer a little
10:05
while back where they talked about her, the hair in here and
10:09
demon 100 of hours back in the new dungeons and the new delves
10:12
and the raids. This just felt like that but
10:14
with 4050% extra footage. The RK Tina I think was the only
10:21
new ground that was broke in that.
10:23
And I have to be honest, I read the patch notes before seeing
10:26
the deep dive and the patch notes were so impressive that
10:30
the deep dive basically had to come over to my house and like
10:34
paint a bedroom for me for it to register compared to those patch
10:38
notes. And it just didn't do that.
10:40
Understood and we're we're going to talk about the patch notes a
10:43
little bit later that said well we'll come back to you Sean I I
10:48
I understand I don't want to count that against the deep
10:52
dive. I just think that these patch
10:54
notes are ridiculous. It is it.
10:56
It is just such a hard act to follow.
10:58
So, Lex, I'm hoping that you didn't read the patch notes
11:03
before seeing the deep dive. I didn't, but I was also really
11:06
happy that you went to Sean first because I also kind of I
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honestly, I, I tuned out a little bit because I, I agree.
11:15
It didn't feel like there was anything new, right?
11:19
It did feel like and and to be fair, I'm kind of for what it
11:23
was, was actually surprisingly necessary.
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I think not to return to the content creators favorite thing
11:29
to do, which is bash on the announcement.
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But because the information felt so scattered and like not really
11:35
well presented and not really clear and kind of piece meal and
11:40
not written by people who've ever played World of Warcraft
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having an actual cohesive like OK, start to finish, here's
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what's coming in midnight. Here's what to be excited about.
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Here's what's going to look like.
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Here's what's going on. Here's a picture of this.
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Here's a picture of this. Here's a picture of this was
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actually very helpful. I think so.
11:56
I didn't feel like there was really either.
12:00
Well, I was too. I was tuned out in the second,
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but I should not have been tuning out.
12:04
I do feel like actually, I'm going to, I'm going to take this
12:05
all back. We did get, I think a
12:08
significant amount more information about the Armani
12:10
trolls. That did feel like, I remember I
12:15
was even thinking, I want to talk about this because last
12:17
episode we were like, I don't really know what we're going to
12:19
do. And it kind of feels like that's
12:21
just evil. Oh, the evil guys are evil.
12:24
What? What if that's what happens?
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And I feel like we did. We didn't get a ton of
12:28
information, but we did get a structure.
12:30
And as I'm saying this, I'm also realizing we also got a much
12:33
deeper structure on Harnier. So I take it back.
12:36
Deep dive was great. It had a lot of stuff in it.
12:37
You learned a ton. Don't tune it out if you're
12:39
watching it. Incredible deep dive, so much
12:41
information. No, I'm, I'm really glad that
12:43
you guys gave the reaction that you did because I think it
12:46
highlights what I felt about the deep dive.
12:48
This was them coalescing all that information together.
12:52
But what really stands out in a deep dive isn't any big ticket.
12:57
Like, Oh my goodness, we didn't know about that other than of
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course, we talked about the Argentina, because we had no
13:02
information about that before. They didn't talk about it at
13:04
all. The games gone, but there were
13:06
little details that as you're listening and as you're going
13:08
through it, you're like, wait a second, that's new.
13:11
Oh, you ran past this. But like that we haven't heard
13:14
about before. And that's what we really saw in
13:17
this deep dive. There were parts where it was
13:20
where they're talking about the recap of what's happened and
13:25
they refer to dementias as the last Void Lord.
13:28
And it's like, wait, wait a second, the last Void Lord,
13:31
what's going on there? They gave the structure about
13:35
the heronier, the Amani as well. The Amani and Zulaman I think
13:42
was really strange because they talk about the granddaughter of
13:46
Zuljin, but at Gamescon they also talked about the grandson
13:53
and these two working together. But the the lack of mentioning
13:58
it, I thought was actually noteworthy that they suddenly
14:01
were like, actually, we're not going to talk about him first.
14:05
Misogyny. I don't think it's reverse
14:08
misogyny. I think it's like, oh, maybe we
14:10
shouldn't have dropped that. Like maybe there's like
14:12
something going on here. I think when you when you look
14:16
at the differences of what was talked about and what was
14:18
skipped over, there are some interesting things.
14:20
But it really means that you're kind of like either incredibly
14:23
tuned in which yes, if you look away, congratulations, you're
14:26
going to miss stuff about like the life bloom and like, oh, is
14:30
that life and light being like a malignant force where they have
14:36
that in the ever song woods. That's the first time we've
14:38
heard about that. The fact that they finally
14:41
talked about how much of Silver Moon is available to the
14:44
Alliance and how much of it is cordoned off.
14:47
For those of you wondering or those of you might have missed
14:50
it in the in that deep dive, 1/3 of Silver Moon will be
14:56
restricted to the Alliance. That means the Alliance have
14:59
access to the greater majority 2/3 of Silver Moon that they get
15:04
to go around free use as as the Hub city, and only one third
15:10
will be restricted to the Horde. Your anger or delight will vary
15:15
based on your own personal bias. Don't bring it up with me.
15:19
And I think that's the big thing that was going on with this sort
15:23
of stuff where you're going to be pulling out little details.
15:28
But yeah, going back to what Sean said, those patch notes
15:34
were insane. We were able to get access to
15:40
working patch notes, so not the final ones.
15:42
There may be some additional parts or change parts when the
15:45
patch notes for phase one come out along with this episode.
15:50
But we are looking at some major, major changes to
15:56
basically every class and almost every role as well.
16:00
So Sean, I know you wanted to talk about tanks, so let let's
16:05
talk about that. Yeah, high, super high level.
16:07
Manny, I don't want to get into the weeds here.
16:09
That's not this show. But super high level tanks,
16:13
buckle the F up. We are making some changes.
16:17
There are massive sweeping changes coming across to all
16:20
tank classes. Blizzard, in the developer notes
16:23
of each of these class of each of the tank rolls, says
16:26
something along the lines of hey, we see your frustrations,
16:29
we hear you. We want to simplify knowing what
16:33
defensives to send when, simplify layering of defenses
16:37
and increase understanding of functional rotation and
16:42
threatened damage. Blood DK venue Steam Hunter
16:45
giving huge overhauls and how their defenses work and how they
16:49
work offensively. Warriors staying mostly the same
16:52
but getting some fine tweaks and tunes to to make the quality of
16:55
life a little bit better. Paladin as well.
16:58
Stripping back some of the because Paladin right now is
17:00
like, here's a million tiny defenses you can use and instead
17:04
it's going to be a little more streamlined.
17:06
Some of those are pruned out with others that are in there
17:09
being bumped up. And they also wanted to overall
17:11
increase the tankiness as a baseline, so the tanks are less
17:14
reliant on defensives and so that you're really saving those
17:17
for those moments when you absolutely need them and that
17:20
you know, when that happens. Also Brewmaster and and Guardian
17:23
Druid, huge change as well. It's going to be a good time to
17:27
be a tank in midnight and I'm very, very excited for it.
17:31
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
17:33
Every class got changes like that.
17:35
Augmentation Evokers, you know, get ready, buckle up because you
17:39
are also in for straight W changes across the board.
17:44
And then the interrupts. Do you want to talk about the
17:46
interrupts Manny or Lex? Yeah, let me let me steal that
17:50
one if I could. The interrupts are major.
17:53
This is further creating a dichotomy between PVE and PvP.
18:00
In Pve, diminishing returns are going to be highly changed, but
18:06
the fact that you will get to a point where you become immune to
18:11
a kind of CC is gone from now on.
18:15
If somebody sends a stun and you send a stun and everybody
18:19
apparently stuns at once, you haven't suddenly made the the
18:24
character immune to stuns. You can literally be a little
18:29
bit easier. I mean I think this helps mostly
18:31
in pugs where somebody might overlap stuns and you've caused
18:36
yourself a lot of issues, but it helps so much in definitely
18:40
mythic plus in in PV as well. Less about raids unless for some
18:46
reason taunt taunt DRS have been included with that, but that
18:50
does not look to be the case with what we saw.
18:53
The big thing specifically to interrupts though is that we are
18:57
seeing interrupts pretty much across the board have their
19:01
lockouts increased, doubled in some cases, and it's not
19:07
consistent along all classes. If you have a longer cool down
19:13
on how frequently you can interrupt in general, you're
19:17
seeing your interrupt lockout last a lot longer, which is a
19:21
very cool way of them balancing it.
19:24
But it means that like as we have all these casters coming at
19:27
you and shooting stuff when you interrupt it, you don't have to
19:31
worry about that the very next second because it starts casting
19:34
something else. It is incredible and I think
19:37
this is going to. This is definitely them
19:40
adjusting things for a mythic plus, but this does have an
19:45
effect in raids unless they start coding bosses differently.
19:51
This is not going to be videos, so none of you know this, but
19:52
I'm sitting here like a grandmother with my phone up my
19:54
nose because that's the only way that we can read them.
19:58
So the diminishing returns in PvP are actually worse.
20:01
So now you get immune after 2 when previously you got immune
20:04
after three, and it's Pve where that's being removed.
20:08
That's right. Yeah, that's right.
20:09
That's for. Stunts, though that's for
20:10
stunts. Sorry.
20:11
Sorry. Yeah.
20:13
I'm glad that you're like on the notes and everything.
20:16
Yeah, I so I am. I am be interested in how this
20:19
going to affect writing for sure, because it will
20:22
presumably, unless I'm misunderstanding things, mean
20:26
that more people are going to have to get into those interrupt
20:28
rotations and we can't. Just like I, I will say in my
20:32
group, I don't know if it's true for you guys.
20:33
Usually we'll have like two or three really solid interrupters
20:36
and everyone else is like, oh God, they died.
20:39
I guess somebody has to remember they have to press their
20:41
interrupt button, which is no hate.
20:43
I'm on the second group to be completely honest.
20:46
This should mean less people are required.
20:49
So typically in raid you don't have a lot of times when you're
20:52
when you're having the hard schedule kicks like that one or
20:54
two bosses at a time. But what this means is the time
20:58
until the enemy can cast again is longer.
21:02
So. Yeah.
21:03
So the the the disrupt interrupt duration is increased.
21:07
Yeah, when they're locked out of casting, that's speed increased.
21:10
So less people so so Lex is great leader.
21:13
If you're listening, you could take Lex right off the
21:15
interpretation. It sounds like you probably
21:17
should have anyway. Okay, sorry, I was.
21:19
I was, I'm so confused as to what was because I was like it.
21:22
It's literally Manny. All it's doing is increase.
21:24
I, I, I added the word cool down in all of those without thinking
21:29
about it. So yeah.
21:30
So like if you interrupt with like let's say disrupt 12
21:34
seconds, cool down, right, and you hit the spell, they're
21:39
locked out. Used to be 3 seconds before they
21:41
can start casting another spell. Now they're locked out for five
21:44
seconds, but your cool down is still 12 seconds, right?
21:48
So by the time they're able to cast again, unless, unless that
21:52
spell is cast, cast in like less than sorry 5 but so 7.
22:00
So if it's like an 8 second cast, you can interrupt them
22:03
single handedly. But because because that
22:07
interrupts lasted so long, 2 demon hunters could probably
22:10
cover it, whereas before it might have taken 3 or put or
22:14
sliding in a fourth person. Since the lex got to be
22:17
pedantic, can I be pedantic too? Go ahead.
22:21
It is important to note that when you interrupt the cast,
22:24
they are only locked out from casting spells of that same
22:28
class again. So if you interrupt the holy
22:31
spell, they can't cast a holy spell, but they could cast a
22:34
nature spell in case you're fighting any that has multiple
22:38
schools of magic they cast from. Just because I think it's
22:41
important. I will say as I'm thinking this,
22:45
not to go back to reminding everyone that I'm an idiot, but
22:49
as I'm thinking this all through, I'm realizing that I
22:51
should have realized this is not the cooldown, because if it was
22:53
the cooldown, I was apparently under the impression that my
22:56
interrupt cooldown was 3 seconds.
22:58
My bad. But yeah, OK, OK, OK.
23:02
And I will also actually say, now that I know what it's
23:05
talking about, I am much happier with this as a change because I
23:08
did frequently feel like kicking sucked because it was so short
23:12
and it was so meaningless. And I mean, it's still pretty
23:14
short, but this feels slightly less meaningless.
23:18
Just remember to interrupt near the end of the cast so they've
23:20
wasted all that time casting and got nothing out of it.
23:24
As long as you can coordinate. And don't just everybody send
23:27
the interrupt because they're like, oh God, it's getting
23:29
close. But now it's fine because you
23:31
only need like two people. Maybe, yeah.
23:36
So when I'm not showing up on the inter app charts, that's
23:39
fine, don't worry. No it's fine.
23:41
I simply I understand how I read the patch notes.
23:44
So I'm like not worried. Did you not read the patch
23:46
notes? In your defense, you are coming
23:48
from priests, which has like just for the long time not being
23:52
able to interrupt. This is all somewhat new to you,
23:54
we'll say, But what is new to all of us is of course housing.
24:01
And we now have finally gotten our hands on housing.
24:07
We have grabbed the plot of land, we have gone inside,
24:13
created rooms, decided that we were going to put a fireplace,
24:17
try to remove it, stuck it up in the ceiling.
24:20
Don't know what to do with that anymore.
24:22
But the exterior design after we left the place, maybe we just
24:26
burned this place down and start over again.
24:28
Lex, how did you like housing? I thought it was really fun for
24:34
a while. I think that housing is going to
24:36
be. So you get into housing and it's
24:38
the coolest thing and there's like you are just running around
24:40
and all of a sudden you realize you can click on the walls and
24:42
Oh my God, the ceiling can be vaulted and you can do this room
24:44
and you can do this. And this is so cool and this is
24:46
so exciting. On the alpha, the number of
24:50
things that we can put in a house is limited pretty
24:55
severely, not like the number of I, I think it's like 300 items
24:58
you can put in a house. So it's not like we cannot, we
25:01
physically cannot interest the number of things in your
25:03
inventory you can put in a house not very big.
25:05
That to me made it kind of boring.
25:09
I got really, really excited about it.
25:13
I was actually on a call with Manny and Sean while I was
25:15
looking at this and I was like over the moon when I started
25:17
playing with it and I could see all the things I could do and I
25:19
could put this house, I could build a cloth that I could build
25:21
a staircase. I was running all around.
25:22
It was very exciting. And then that fell off very
25:25
quickly because I was like, oh, sick, I have two tables and I
25:28
added five rooms. So that's not fun.
25:32
However, A, you will probably not have 5:00 rooms because I
25:35
think they're going to price cap that pretty heavily on the non
25:38
alpha and B, you will probably have significantly more than two
25:41
tables because they're going to go back and give us a ton of
25:44
extra things from all of the big achievements we did.
25:47
And you know, we'll be able to presume I'm getting the people
25:49
are going to jump right on action house and start selling
25:51
things and making dies and stuff like that.
25:54
So I have not played it with a bunch of stuff in my inventory
25:59
to play with. I think once I can, it is going
26:02
to be very fun. I do think it is a system that
26:06
is going to take some getting used to.
26:07
There are a lot of buttons you need to press.
26:10
There's a lot of, oh, this moves this way, But then if you click
26:13
over here, that's how you rotate it.
26:15
And then once it's rotated, I, I think like I did a lot of just
26:19
like removing things and putting them back because trying to like
26:23
finagle it back into the perfect position was just way too hard.
26:26
That is something that I'm sure when you get used to it, it's
26:30
going to flow right the same way that when I got my MMO mouse for
26:34
the first time, doing everything with my thumb was the most
26:37
horrifyingly terrible thing that's ever happened.
26:38
I thought it was impossible. And now if you expect me to use
26:41
key binds on my keyboard, I'm like, are you an idiot?
26:43
I can't, Where's my thumb? What am I supposed to do with my
26:46
thumb? So this is a system that will be
26:48
workable. I would say take it slow.
26:51
Don't put 50 rooms. Even if you can, don't put 50
26:53
rooms in your house. It's too many.
26:54
You're gonna get overwhelmed, but it's really cool.
26:57
There's a lot you can do, there's a lot of fun little
26:59
things you can negotiate, and there's a lot of fun little
27:01
things you can place. And I'm going to make it a
27:03
holiday decoration every time there's a holiday I'm really
27:05
excited about having. Yeah, I I think that is a very
27:11
notable thing is that on the Alpha right now, the prices are
27:16
set so that you are not limited. The purchasing of a house is
27:21
1000 gold and the premade characters come with like 100K
27:25
gold. That is not going to be what
27:28
it's like on live. Obviously the the prices will be
27:32
more expensive and how much gold you may or may not have will
27:36
vary depending on what a token was.
27:39
When Manny finally reminded you guys that you could buy a token.
27:41
So I do think that's a big thing.
27:43
Go ahead, I. Do think the house price, if
27:45
I'm, if I read the patch notes or the whatever was saying it, I
27:49
do think that's going to stay low.
27:50
They want that to exist. But like I think they were
27:52
saying like if you even just like boosted up a character,
27:55
unless I miss, unless I misread and that was just about the
27:57
midnight thing. But I don't think they want the
27:59
price of the house to be prohibitive.
28:02
However, I think they do want the room price to be
28:05
prohibitive, which actually makes a lot of sense because
28:08
again, the first thing I did when I got my house was I put 20
28:11
rooms in it. And the second thing I did was I
28:13
said Oh my God, I don't have time to decorate 20 rooms.
28:15
This is stupid. Yeah, I like, I definitely think
28:18
the house room price is going to differ what you can buy from the
28:23
vendor as well what you're going to be hunting down from like
28:27
these various achievements is backwards compatible.
28:29
So the stuff that you've already got on your character right now
28:33
as as of the time you're listening to this is going to
28:35
enable you to have more options that Lex on your pre made you
28:39
you had. So that's going to change things
28:42
as well. The price for a house itself at
28:45
one Ki can't see that as a final price that is so low.
28:51
But like, I guess it could be. I, I, I misread the patch notes.
28:56
I'm just going to blatantly say that it said assuming you use a
28:59
template character, you'll have plenty of people to afford it.
29:01
I didn't think about that. The fact that going into an
29:03
alpha, you make a template alpha character.
29:06
So I was under the impression I was like, Oh yeah, template
29:08
character, like if you boost to 80.
29:09
So I think they have said they don't want the, the cost of the
29:12
house to be prohibitive. They want everyone who wants a
29:14
house to have a house. But I think you're right.
29:16
I think 1000 is probably very low.
29:18
Yeah, I'm like, that's one world world.
29:20
That is one world quest on the current live servers if you go
29:27
out to like Koresh or anywhere around the Isle of Dorn.
29:31
And I think that they that there should be a little bit more
29:34
investment in that. So you're not like, OK, I've got
29:36
this and then I'm going to go buy my alliance side house the
29:39
the very next quest. So I do.
29:42
I do believe that is going to change.
29:44
I've been, I've been told before that that people want housing to
29:48
be affordable, and at this point in 2025, I won't believe that
29:53
until I see it. That's a real world joke for
29:57
everybody out there. The real the the resale value is
30:01
nothing, so that'll keep the interest from being entrenched.
30:07
Yes. Anyways, I I'm glad that we
30:10
don't have to show off our wow wow houses to get them sold.
30:14
You can just pack up and move over to a new place.
30:17
That said, housing is something that's strange to me because
30:21
it's interesting. The concept is like, that is so
30:25
cool. But I am finding that I just do
30:28
not have time for everything that Wow has to offer.
30:33
And housing seems like one of the biggest time sinks that Wow
30:37
has created in a long time. I don't, I do not see how
30:44
somebody could be a Wow housing enthusiast and it not impacting
30:50
other parts of their game. One thing that I'm feeling a lot
30:56
with Midnights, and I was thinking of mentioning that with
30:59
the art Cantina as well, is that with the introduction of Delves,
31:03
it felt like Blizzard was like, oh and some of you are solo
31:06
players so we should give you a couple solo activities.
31:09
It feels like a huge number of Midnight is solo activity like
31:13
they are heavily leaning into. This is for the people who play
31:16
alone. Yeah, I learned one very
31:20
important lesson today watching Lex go through the housing.
31:24
I had an exceptionally good time as you tried to find the perfect
31:27
place for your box on that table.
31:30
I will be watching time lapse videos of people setting up
31:35
their house. If you are artistic, if you're
31:38
like a housing enthusiast, here's your YouTube channel
31:41
idea. Just housing, house building,
31:44
house decorating, time lapse videos set to some of that
31:48
Blizzard lo fi music. I am going to watch that shit on
31:50
repeat. My house will be a mattress on
31:54
the floor in a single room with a fireplace that is 2 sizes too
31:58
small. But I will watch all of your
32:01
time. Lap links and them come over to
32:03
the discord at bit dot LY slash faz discord and in the channel
32:08
that does not yet exist but they will exist called House Time
32:13
lapse or Home Time lapse whatever man he decides to name
32:16
it. When I ping him and remind him
32:18
that we want this channel and drop me your links to your
32:22
housing time lapse videos. I want to watch them all.
32:27
Well, unless they suck. I don't want to watch ones that
32:29
suck. Put good ones please.
32:30
OK. But I will say, I will say Sean
32:32
said that he was having a really fun time watching me play with a
32:34
box. I was doing such a bad job
32:37
playing with that box. So like the the level of
32:41
expectation here is really low. Yeah, I really it, it was the
32:45
fumbliest box playing I've ever seen, but I enjoyed it
32:48
thoroughly. So are we not doing?
32:50
Phrasing here like is that not a thing on this show anymore?
32:55
Anyways, Lex is turning absolute red OK.
33:00
Anyway, I hear it now. That's not what I meant.
33:08
That said, I do think that the one thing that's going to
33:12
prevent you from having the mattress house is that they're
33:16
they are looking to be able to share this stuff with people if
33:20
they have the import codes and such.
33:23
That's basically how I'm going to probably set up my house.
33:27
Is this. Oh yeah, that looks good.
33:29
Let me put that in my house and shortcut a lot of this.
33:34
But yeah, I could see this becoming just a completely
33:38
different vector. Just like there are people who
33:40
specifically hunt for pets, just like there are people who are
33:44
chasing down all those mounts. People are going to be getting
33:47
every single pattern they can get for their house as a
33:50
collectionist. And some people are going to be
33:52
creating the exact right house. And that is going to be their
33:56
primary method of playing. And you're going to be like, Oh
34:00
my goodness, is that Sean, he never leaves his neighborhood.
34:04
There must be something new out in the world for housing, right?
34:09
And as Blizzard has already said, they're going to integrate
34:13
this in to all these different professions.
34:16
So doing dyes and stains is going to be with alchemy and
34:19
inscription. This is this is something that
34:22
like hopefully those same dyes, those same stains are going to
34:27
be added into armor because I would love for that.
34:30
As soon as they give us one inch, the the mind just runs
34:34
wild and you want the mile. So housing, even for somebody
34:38
who's not going to participate in it as much like myself, as
34:41
far as I'm aware, maybe it's like crack and I'll just dive in
34:45
as well, but housing. Something else that Manny
34:48
notoriously loves. This may that.
34:57
That's the cold open. That's the cold open right
34:59
there. So housing might be like a nice
35:08
wholesome book that I'm going to just dive right into and, and I
35:15
forgot what I'm saying. Oh God.
35:18
I'm sorry, Manny. I.
35:19
Just tried that was that was too good, That was too good.
35:23
Cheers anyways. So housing might be like a big
35:27
thing that everybody dives into and I think that there's
35:31
definitely going to be a thriving community for that as
35:34
well in terms of wow. With that said, when you venture
35:39
out of your house, you will be faced with yet more stuff.
35:44
And why not do that on the latest class, sorry,
35:48
specialization that is hitting the block that is the Devourer
35:53
Demon Hunter. And so we've had some time to
35:56
play on play with this. This speck is vastly different
36:02
than Demon Hunter as we know it. So Are you ready to look for
36:08
Intellect gear? Are you ready to play at range?
36:13
Are you ready to get your face bashed in?
36:15
Lex, tell us about the Devourer Demon Hunter.
36:19
Yeah. So it's a very, it is
36:22
interesting because it's definitely very different than
36:25
Demon Hunter as we are used to, but it does actually keep a lot
36:29
of the core similarities. It is very movement heavy.
36:33
Movement is in fact a core part of the rotation.
36:36
You need to be keeping on your toes to play this class because
36:39
you have to get there's ways to collect your little soul
36:42
fragments. One of the spells is going to
36:44
collect some of them, but a lot of them you are, it seems, if
36:47
I'm playing it correctly, going to have to physically run
36:50
through. And it is, this is not like soul
36:52
fragments on Havoc where you like glance in the direction of
36:55
a fragment that's halfway across the screen and all of a sudden
36:57
and sucked into you. You have to physically run
36:59
through the little boy, which does mean the most what you're
37:03
going to be doing. The size action I forget what
37:05
it's called but it is the pictures size and it pulls I
37:08
think it's up to 3 into. You is that.
37:10
Reap or consume? It's consume, yeah.
37:12
There's two because consume is not the one I'm talking about,
37:15
but. Then it's the reap.
37:17
Yeah, exactly. I think that it's both of those
37:20
right now. Devourer is, which is funny
37:26
because Havoc is one of the tankiest melee DPS right now and
37:31
by far the most self Healy I think.
37:34
I actually don't quote me on that.
37:35
I don't know if that's true, but it does a lot of it's very tanky
37:38
and it does a lot of self heals. The Devourer is neither of those
37:45
things. Now, this is alpha, so it's hard
37:48
to know what of that is how they expect it to be.
37:52
And what of that is is tuning issues, right?
37:54
That they haven't played it before and everyone's getting,
37:57
you know, wiped on the floor. And now that they know that
38:00
they're going to stop, they're going to play with it and make
38:02
it a little bit easier to play. I honestly did not play Devourer
38:06
for very long because I could not get anywhere in the story.
38:08
I was just like dying every couple minutes.
38:11
It was very frustrating and I switched back to Havoc.
38:14
The time that I did play, I did find it fun.
38:16
I think I'm going to need to wait for other people to play
38:19
Devourer to give me a better idea of how exactly I'm supposed
38:22
to play. I was a little bit button mashy
38:24
to be, I mean, surprise, surprise.
38:27
But what I was playing I did really enjoy and also I haven't
38:31
played, I played priest and then I switched to Havoc.
38:34
So I've not played a true ranged class.
38:37
So it's quite possible that the squishiness is just like if I
38:40
played a mage I would have been like oh Yep this is what happens
38:42
when you play DPS as as a a general ranged.
38:48
I have a suggestion. Don't be mad at me when I make
38:51
it. When you tried devour next, you
38:54
could turn on the rotational assistant and it will tell you
38:57
what buttons you should be pressing in order to learn the
39:00
new spec that you haven't played before.
39:03
Or alternatively the single button assistant and then just
39:07
look at each cast before you press it and then you'll know as
39:10
well what you should be casting in order.
39:11
I'm not saying that because I think you're a bad player, I'm
39:13
saying it to help. Did I did I did forget the
39:16
rotation assist exists because on havoc it sucks so bad.
39:20
It like it literally if I played it with the rotation assist, I
39:23
mean it doesn't suck so bad I could play it but it would you
39:26
would have me blast both of my IMO auras and the whole point is
39:30
you want IMO aura up as much as possible so I can't.
39:32
Put rotation assist get it together.
39:34
That is, that is actually a really good point.
39:36
That would be a that's exactly what I should be doing.
39:38
So thank you, Shawn. It's trying to rotation.
39:40
No problem and anybody else who gets access to the alpha,
39:43
hopefully a lot of you do. There's a great way to learn
39:47
that. Devour respect and if your class
39:49
over a whole went over went massive changes they all did
39:53
that can also help you to learn new rotations that way instead
39:56
of fumbling through like Lex with her box and housing.
40:00
Not to not to make this all about Demon Hunter.
40:03
I did actually. So Havoc, they're trying to
40:05
simplify, do some changes that I don't think are errors, but I'm
40:10
hoping are errors. For example, the fact that meta
40:13
no longer resets I-beam, but that's, that's OK, we'll figure
40:16
it out. But I I think that actually is
40:20
what they want to do. I think that's on purpose.
40:22
However, the point of this is it's actually kind of crazy to
40:24
me because I have like 4 open buttons on my action bar. 1
40:31
bananas. From what I've seen from the
40:38
Devourer Demon Hunter you can even at the pre made level 80
40:46
set up you can maintain that demon form for a good while.
40:52
It doesn't do demon form like traditional demon hunters where
40:55
it is long cool down you get you get the buff for 30 seconds or
41:00
so to like keep keep fighting in that area.
41:04
It is much like trying to keep up your big buff and so you will
41:14
keep consuming souls to refill your bar, you will keep doing
41:18
abilities to do the increased damage that you get while you
41:22
have your meta going, and then you will fall out of that form
41:25
and then have to reform that that energy again.
41:28
How long you stay in your meta is what really makes that class
41:33
seem to work. Or spec seem to work, but
41:37
there's a question about like how viable that is in questing,
41:41
where the mobs should fall over somewhat quickly and how quickly
41:46
you can get back in. I'm looking.
41:49
I was looking as I was watching different people play, looking
41:52
for a way to perhaps terminate your metamorphosis early to save
41:58
that energy or at least a talent that was involved with that.
42:02
It's, it seems like it is a class that is very much cool
42:06
down based very much around this one meta cool down.
42:11
And then outside of that, it looked like it was playing
42:15
similar to a destruction or devastation Evoker, where a bit
42:21
of it is kiting, a bit of it is keeping that distance because
42:24
you've got that mobility. But when you are chasing after,
42:28
not just staying away from whatever you're attacking, but
42:31
chasing after the orbs, that's a that's a bit of a complication
42:35
there there. I am looking forward to seeing
42:37
what Brighter Minds and I come up with on how you're supposed
42:42
to play this. This might be the class where
42:44
you are making good use of your cooldowns while questing to keep
42:50
them off of you until you can get back into that meta.
42:53
Definitely something interesting, but going to agree
42:58
with Sean and highlight Sean because I think this is very
43:01
solid. When you're first getting a
43:05
hanging of things, use those assistant rotations, whether
43:09
it's a single button rotation or just the the rotation assistant,
43:13
just so you can get a baseline of what you're trying to do
43:16
unless you are a theory crafter and can like like just dig down
43:21
into like what you think it's going to be.
43:25
But yes, Sean, any final thoughts on the Devourer Demon
43:28
Hunter? I think it looks great.
43:31
I don't think it's for me I I don't enjoy ranged squishy
43:35
glasses, but I'm really excited for the people that are excited
43:38
for it. I'm looking forward to seeing
43:40
one more specialization, and it's great that Demon Hunter
43:42
finally has three to bring it on par with everyone other than
43:45
Druids. Soon will I'll have 4:00.
43:48
Well, I'll be late for it. Yeah, soon will I'll have 4
43:52
Shaman tank win. Anyways, I think there's a lot
43:57
on the alpha. By the time you're hearing this,
44:01
we will have concluded the deep dive and we'll be playing on the
44:06
alpha along with everybody else the very next day.
44:10
Tomorrow, if you're listening to this on Wednesday, that is when
44:13
the alpha becomes available to everybody and I'm sure there's
44:16
going to be a lot of people digging in.
44:19
That's when the data mining is going to open up and we're going
44:22
to see all of that. When Manny says everybody, he
44:24
means everybody who's invited. It is still a closed alpha.
44:28
It is. A.
44:30
Still closed alpha. But I did the data mining.
44:31
I mean, there's this one everybody's going to see.
44:33
All the data you didn't make the cut.
44:35
I'm sorry. Pong got X you're not getting
44:36
in. That's it's OK though, keep
44:38
trying. If you do want to be considered
44:40
for alpha, sign up for the beta. We'll have the link.
44:43
I'm going to make work from Andy right now.
44:44
We'll have the link in the description of this podcast
44:47
where you can go to sign up for the beta because I think they
44:49
pull names from there as well. But yeah, on Thursday when
44:53
somebody don't get into alpha, please don't come to bit dot LY
44:56
slash fast discord and say Manny, Hey, where's my alpha?
45:00
Where alpha? Like that mean with the with the
45:03
monkeys on the couch? Where alpha.
45:06
OK, under it's understood. I I apologize for that man.
45:10
They're trying to get us cancelled over here.
45:13
But we are going to be doing a lot of coverage.
45:15
I'm going to be speaking with Theory Crafter for Elemental
45:19
Shaman and we'll have that episode quickly.
45:22
We're also going to be talking to healer expert Volk as well.
45:28
And we are going to make sure that we are covering everything
45:31
that's happening because it is drastic what we're seeing.
45:34
We're looking at a streamlining of all classes.
45:37
And I would say that there is a defensive kind of pull back for
45:43
many classes. We saw again talking about Demon
45:46
Hunter, there are two defenses of Netherwalk.
45:50
And I apologize, I'm Blur, right, being almost combined,
45:58
Blur is still there, but Netherwalk is now a modification
46:03
of Blur and not a separate defensive on its own.
46:07
And there's many examples like that, including for healers
46:10
reducing their cooldowns, including for tanks, making sure
46:13
that they have less cooldowns for defensives.
46:16
But each of those are more impactful.
46:18
And we're definitely going to make sure we're talking to
46:20
people, making sure that we're going through this to see how it
46:23
shakes out. But until next time, no.
46:27
No, wait. Oh, come on.
46:28
We're the episode so short. We're only like 45 minutes in.
46:30
We're only like 40 minutes in. We talked for 5 or 10 minutes.
46:33
I think we should do like a first vibe field check on the
46:37
Alpha and everything because I really want to say the things
46:41
that I'm excited about. All right, let's do this.
46:43
So Sean, you, you do this while I try and think of something.
46:46
Lex, you're up after this. I can't, man.
46:49
He doesn't mean that chat. He doesn't mean that.
46:51
So first thing I said, Chad, there's nobody here.
46:53
It's just the three of us. But the first thing I'm excited
46:55
about is the name plates. And I like I, we talked about
46:59
this before and we saw just some images and we were like, OK, you
47:02
know, I think we're at like an 80% for name plates of not
47:06
perfect, but like an 80% of you know, like this is going to give
47:10
me everything I want for the two notable things that are missing.
47:14
So right now it tracks debuffs, but they pick the debuffs and
47:18
Blizzard knows typically what debuffs we want to track, but
47:20
there are some that I just don't like.
47:22
I don't need to see Thunder clap.
47:24
I know it's going to be on them. I'm hitting that button every 2
47:26
1/2 seconds. So I don't need to track Thunder
47:28
clap. But if I could, if I could
47:30
blacklist some of the debuffs they're tracking, that would be
47:33
great. With odour, it's fine because
47:35
then in plates are big enough, it's not going to get too
47:36
cluttered, I don't think that's one thing.
47:38
And then the other thing is I still would really love the
47:41
ability to control the color of the bars myself in some fashion.
47:45
I'm worried that that is a step too far in terms of
47:48
customization. And without it, it's fine.
47:52
I would just have to like, it's red.
47:53
If you're tanking, red means you have the mobs.
47:56
And if you're DPS, purple means the tank has the mobs.
47:59
And I think red means you are have a go and you shouldn't.
48:02
So I would have to learn the colors, but it's like it's very,
48:04
very close. The name plates.
48:05
There is a lot of options and a lot of customization.
48:08
I am super, super happy with that as it is right now.
48:12
And are we allowed to talk about things that we heard in the Q
48:14
and. AI was going to cover the Q&A in
48:16
a separate episode just 'cause it would take a lot.
48:20
OK, and that's what I'm really excited about nameplates and and
48:24
so far everything feels good. I really like the direction if
48:27
you when you read through the patch notes chat and I keep
48:29
fucking this chat listeners faz heads you're.
48:32
Just sitting there like me, and when they listen to a podcast,
48:34
they're actively talking to themselves at the same time.
48:38
Just to say chat, we'll just, we'll short form it to chat.
48:41
We need a new name. We need a name for our
48:43
listeners. Faz come to bit dot LY slash faz
48:45
Discord and let us know what we should call.
48:47
I listen to a podcast called Heed to Call and and they call
48:50
their listeners hedonists and I love it.
48:54
We can't steal that though, because we're not called Heed to
48:55
call anyway, Shout out. This is the Dan Hansu shout out.
48:59
OK, what was the thing? Oh my God, care.
49:03
Of this the thing you like? Something I like read the patch
49:08
notes, read the patch notes guys, because Blizzard is is
49:11
making a concerted effort and it says in each like each specific
49:14
developer note. It's like we want to simplify
49:18
and they're not trying to make the game dumbed down.
49:21
They're trying to make it more accessible.
49:23
And I have said so many times, this game is so much better when
49:26
it's accessible and if the classes have a have a higher
49:29
floor, if it's easier to get into and play a class and then
49:33
the ceiling can be as high as you want it.
49:34
But by making that first step in, it is so good for the game
49:38
and it's so good for people that want to try new classes and new
49:40
players. I'm really, really excited for
49:43
the future of midnight. This was a great deep dive day.
49:47
I'll say the day was a great deep dive and I don't know, the
49:49
deep dives were so great, but the day was great.
49:52
OK, that's it, I'm done. I'm sorry.
49:53
I'm Bogart in the mic Lex. So I am primarily a solo player
49:58
and I'm actually really excited. I did not expect to be so
50:01
excited by housing, but I am. I think it's gonna be really,
50:03
really fun. I think there's a lot of
50:04
different things you can do. You can make it fun.
50:07
You cannot build 20 rooms and overwhelm yourself.
50:09
Don't do that. I I'm just excited about there's
50:13
a lot of little things you can do.
50:15
It does. Emmanuel was saying that he
50:16
feels like there's too much, which is valid, that you can't
50:19
do everything in the game anymore.
50:20
There's just too many things to spend your time.
50:22
The other hand of that is you can really customize your
50:24
experience. You can be like, I'm the type
50:27
person who really enjoys gathering and making things
50:30
pretty and I miss playing The Sims, but I don't really feel
50:32
like dealing with the like, you know, interpersonal stuff.
50:36
So I really want to spend all day with housing.
50:38
You can also never touch housing and be fine, right?
50:41
And I think there's something very exciting in that, in the
50:45
fact that there are just so many paths you can take on a given
50:47
day. That means that your game of
50:51
World of Warcraft can be so fundamentally different than
50:54
somebody else's game of World of Warcraft.
50:55
And you can both have a really, really good time.
51:00
I'm really glad that we got those answers.
51:02
Those are two very divergent answers there.
51:06
And I love that. Like there is something just on
51:09
day -1 we're not even on day zero of the PTR on day -1 that
51:16
there is something that is appealing to just a wide variety
51:20
of players like we have represented on this podcast.
51:24
And so that that's amazing to me.
51:27
I I'm surprised, John, that the main bars have stoked you.
51:34
Have you stoked that that's good that that's good portents as
51:40
long as they allow things like LUI and such to continue to work
51:46
that will address your color or customization in terms of that
51:51
way. Lex for housing, the fact that
51:55
it is there, that there is so, so much that it like feeds into
51:59
other things that you're doing it anyways.
52:02
I like that as well. I know I recently had to like
52:07
figure out like how much I play Wow in a given week and that
52:11
sort of thing. And man, I slash play played is
52:15
a very depressing thing to do for me.
52:19
And I'm glad that I have all these memories in the game and
52:22
that they're adding so much more.
52:23
Honestly, something that is just like stuck out to me is the sky
52:29
boxes and just the little bit that we've played.
52:34
The sky boxes of silver Moon are insane.
52:38
They're beautiful. They are wallpaper when you're
52:41
doing in game, they're wallpaper.
52:45
And I love that the art team is continuing to rocket and when
52:48
you guys get into this world, I hope that you have a similar awe
52:52
experience. They they seem to be 1 upping
52:56
themselves every time. I won't say that this is the
53:00
same absolute all I had as when you fly into hollow fall, but
53:05
this is still a cut above the. Rest Yeah, it's gorgeous.
53:11
With that, can we officially call this episode a wrap?
53:14
Yeah, OK, sorry. I'm Yeah, we can.
53:16
Now we can end it. OK, you you do the call out just
53:18
so we're sure. Oh, that's going to be me.
53:21
OK, man. I can remember how this goes in
53:24
a world where you can be anything.
53:25
No, that's not it. That's different shit.
53:29
Thanks for listening to FAZ episode 3. 51.
53:32
Something something and we'll see you next week and may all
53:37
your hits be crits.