Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #349 - For Azeroth!: "Testing for the Public"

Transcript

#349 - For Azeroth!: "Testing for the Public" · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

0:00
I'm Mr. GM and you're listening to For Azeroth Victory.
0:03
For the Forsaken. For Lauderon for the Kieran
0:07
Tour. For Pandaria.
0:13
For calendar to the burning region.
0:17
For Gilnaeus, but has not died. For the Lich King, for the
0:24
Sindora, for the Alliance, for. The Horn for Azeroth.
0:32
Hello and welcome back to another episode of For Azeroth.
0:36
I am your host Manny, AKA the True Van Manny, and today I am
0:41
joined by Mr. GM. Hello Mr. GM, how are you?
0:45
Hello there, I am great. Thank you.
0:48
How are you doing? I'm doing OK, I'm doing OK.
0:51
It's been a crazy week, but I'm glad that like, finally catching
0:56
up on wow news. Except that there's still more
1:00
coming on the PTR. There's still the alpha that
1:04
will be in a couple of weeks. It just seems like it never
1:06
stops these days. Yeah, it's literally endless.
1:11
It's, it's, it's the the busiest man on earth, I think.
1:16
And I mean, yes, it's got to be good news for for you, for
1:20
content creators like us, because there's always something
1:22
to talk about. And really, that's what we're
1:24
here to talk about today. We're here to talk about how
1:27
things happen on the PTR, how to figure out what's happening on
1:30
the PTR, and all that good stuff.
1:33
So for the folks who don't know you for some reason, they're
1:35
living under a rock. Can you introduce yourself?
1:39
Hi I'm Mr. GM or known as Dan I guess people just call me Dan.
1:43
I am a full time World of Warcraft content creator on
1:47
YouTube, Twitch and Twitter, I guess.
1:49
I suppose I tweet stuff, I suppose, and Blue Sky and all
1:52
the others, Instagram and whatnot.
1:54
I'm just everywhere. I'm like a like a parasite.
1:56
But yeah, World of Warcrafts, you know, the thing I look take
2:00
a look at for the most part, like upcoming things on PTR,
2:03
alpha, beta, even just like random updates to holidays and
2:07
things like that. And wow, just basically just
2:09
wow. It's the best.
2:12
For sure, and you have really made a name for yourself by just
2:16
discovering all these gems that are coming up and trying to
2:19
figure out how things work. And how did you get into World
2:23
of Warcraft? I think at first you were doing
2:26
one thing and then you shifted gears.
2:27
What's the story behind that? Yeah, so I started playing in
2:32
like 2005. It must be.
2:35
It was just before Bernard Crusade.
2:37
So yeah, No, no, I put yeah, I played in 2005, got my own
2:40
account in 2006 on Christmas Day because I used to play on my
2:45
brother's account. We used to share.
2:46
And then I think Burning Crusade actually came out like a month
2:51
later, Like it came out in January, I'm pretty sure of O 7.
2:54
So my, my mom bought me World of Warcraft for Christmas.
2:56
Well, sorry, Santa brought it. And then a couple of weeks
3:00
later, I'm like, Hey, I know you bought me this thing, but I need
3:03
like this other thing now. And yeah.
3:07
And just, you know, started making content in 2011, which is
3:11
a long time ago, saying that out loud and was inspired by people
3:16
like Turtle, Biscuit, Wow, Hobbs and people like that originally
3:20
made content for like the private service scene and the
3:23
legacy Wow stuff, classic Wow, whatever.
3:26
So be it. And then kind of shifted into
3:30
more retail orientated stuff. Like I always played retail
3:33
anyway, I just never really made content for it until around
3:37
about BFA like the end of Legion BFAI think it was.
3:43
Awesome. And so as you transferred into
3:46
like the retail servers, the live servers, you've sort of as
3:50
I've said, you've made a name for yourself of like going
3:52
through the PTR and and all of that.
3:56
How do you like construct your guides to to help people find
4:01
these sort of things? Like how do I make a like a
4:05
video like sort of thing like I guess.
4:08
Like, yeah, like how do you give the instructions so that people
4:11
can like, follow it so that it that it's a, that it grabs
4:15
people's attention? Because I'm sure like, there's a
4:17
lot of people who will put out like videos on this sort of
4:20
stuff. But like, what do you find makes
4:22
your video special? To be honest, it because I've
4:27
been doing it for so long, it's like it's got to a point now
4:30
where I don't like, I used to script videos like I saw every
4:33
single word was written down on a, on a Google Doc and I would
4:36
read it word for word and all that kind of stuff.
4:38
And you know it, it was very time consuming at my real job
4:42
when I had that. I used to do it at that job
4:45
because I had like nothing to do.
4:47
But anyway, as it, as it progressed over time, it's now
4:50
just turned into bullet points. So like a video I'm working on
4:52
at the moment for like Leisure Remix, I've got like 5 pages of
4:57
like just random bullet points. And I'll kind of like because I
5:00
spend so much time on there and I'm interacting with the systems
5:03
and learning the systems and things like that.
5:05
I kind of just talk from memory I guess in the sorts and use the
5:09
points as like a jumping off point.
5:10
If I'm talking about like Heroic World tier, you know, I played
5:13
hours and hours of it and I have hours and hours of footage.
5:16
But I had like, you know, I wrote down a few bits and pieces
5:18
just to kind of be like, you know, the XP is 500% and you get
5:22
these, you know, these other things and there's achievements,
5:24
all that kind of stuff. And the way I kind of present
5:27
the video and when I record it is just like me explaining to it
5:31
to someone. Like, that's kind of the way I
5:33
think of it. Like if someone asks me like,
5:35
oh, Dan, what's heroic welty? Like I'll be like, well, and
5:37
then you know, to the old spiel, but yeah.
5:41
And it speeds up the creation process a lot.
5:43
And kind of the stream feeds, the YouTube in regards to like
5:47
the content we do on stream normally is the stuff we show on
5:50
YouTube in in kind of guide or preview form, which is, yeah.
5:56
But although like that being said, there has been more more
6:00
recently, I've been kind of doing a lot of PTR stuff off
6:02
stream as well, because it's kind of like boring busy work,
6:04
especially like with the state of the PTR being so complete
6:07
when it comes out. So I do a couple days like kind
6:10
of streaming it and then it gets to a point of like every new
6:12
build just checking the same thing over and over.
6:14
And it's just, I don't find that to be super entertaining.
6:18
So I just do that stuff off stream for the most part.
6:20
But that was a really long winded answer to a very simple
6:23
question. No, I, I'd love, I love giving
6:26
that nuance, especially the what you do on stream versus off
6:30
stream, because I think sometimes in order to get the
6:34
information people need and make sure that it is up to date based
6:37
on whatever the latest build is, you have to do that, that off
6:41
stream stuff. So on the on that lines, what do
6:45
you kind of stuff do you have to check through when you are
6:50
looking into these systems? What are the things that like
6:52
might trip up people that you're you're checking to make sure is
6:55
correct? Yeah, it's that's kind of the
6:59
the the worst part of it at the moment is like, for example, I
7:03
just put out a video about these Gary sets, these sets that you
7:07
get from Legion Remix. And one of the sets was
7:11
originally you had to complete a 25 key, but in the last build
7:14
they changed that to 30. So the way I did that, literally
7:17
they changed it last night. So like, or whenever this comes
7:20
out, who knows, I basically just run the data mining software,
7:25
right. So then I'll like compare
7:26
different tables, like, you know, for example, I'll look at
7:29
the achievement table and that'll say like, you know,
7:32
they've crossed out like the word the number 25 has changed
7:35
to 30. So then I cross reference that
7:37
with the game and then kind of go go with that.
7:39
But yeah, like if I'm working on a video, there'll be like high
7:42
spots that I want to make sure are like the same or like,
7:45
sorry, that haven't changed for the most part.
7:49
And I tried to keep away from like too much nuance with
7:52
numbers and item levels and things like that because that
7:54
stuff changes so often. Like today we were looking at
7:57
like mythic plus, like what all the loot is from that.
8:00
But I'm like, no one really cares that much.
8:03
Like they just want to know what a like a + 40 drops.
8:06
And maybe I want to know what a rate drops like sort of thing
8:08
like, but you know, just for the for the sake of it, like, you
8:11
know, I'll keep that information and maybe I'll like tweet out or
8:14
something to help other creators if they want to like make a
8:16
nuanced guide of like what drops in Mythic Plus and things like
8:19
that. Because I think it's important
8:22
to share stuff, you know, if you find something or or whatever,
8:27
like I think it's important to kind of let everybody know like
8:29
about that because yeah, knowledge is power, as they say.
8:33
I guess a little bit of Inside Baseball is that Mister GM,
8:37
you're always doing stuff that helps benefit the community in
8:41
general. That's not a sentiment that
8:43
every content creator shares, but like, what caused you to
8:47
take on that sort of mindset? I just really like helping
8:52
people, like that's really it. Like because I know it kind of
8:58
stems from like years ago when I used to like when I was trying
9:02
to learn to do different things with date mining and things like
9:05
that. There was only like a real
9:06
handful of people that were helpful.
9:10
And everybody else was kind of selfish in regards to like they
9:15
would have like these tools and this information and ways that
9:18
do stuff they would never tell anyone.
9:19
And there was only a couple of people, literally like a handful
9:22
of people who would be like, yeah, I can help you out with
9:24
that and teach you that. So, you know, I'm just kind of
9:27
paying that forward. Obviously not like, you know,
9:29
nuanced data mining things. I'm not really getting into with
9:32
stuff on Twitter. But like, I feel like, you know,
9:35
in the content creator space especially, like, you know, for
9:37
example, if I want it like with the widget thing for the stream,
9:42
right? Like it's, you know, I make that
9:44
for myself anyway. And it's not like if I give it
9:46
to everybody else, everyone's going to blow up and their
9:48
streams going to be the best stream in the world.
9:50
And, you know, they're going to overtake me as you were.
9:52
But you know, but like, I don't know, it's just, I guess I see
9:57
people struggling with things that I've struggled with in the
10:00
past and I think it's important to help them out.
10:03
And also like, I don't really want people to be spreading
10:07
misinformation about wow when it comes to news and things.
10:09
So I try and, you know, help out where I can.
10:14
Yeah, the community helping each other just makes the community
10:16
better in general, allows us to like make sure that we are
10:21
avoiding misinformation and that.
10:22
So I love that with data mining, that's something that not many
10:28
content creators can do. It's something that you've used,
10:31
I guess to a limited part because you don't want all the
10:33
numbers. Is that something that you
10:35
started with like roughly early on or is that something that
10:39
like you adopted later on I loved?
10:43
Finding out how the game was made since pretty much like the
10:48
beginning, like, you know, back when I was doing the kind of
10:50
undocumented service stuff like obviously they created out of,
10:53
you know, you know how it works, but like they they basically,
10:56
you know, reverse engineer it in that way.
11:00
And you know, regardless of legality and things like that,
11:03
it's like kind of interesting to see how the cake is made
11:06
nowadays. People create tools and, and
11:09
it's all open source and things where you can like compare
11:11
builds and things like that. And you kind of just learn by
11:14
doing. Like every every day I learn
11:17
something new where I'm like, OK, I want to learn how an OK,
11:21
for example, like more recently, right?
11:23
So I was like, how does the achievement know how to trigger
11:29
it? Like what is the trigger for
11:30
that achievement? How does that work in the data?
11:32
So you kind of go from like you look at the achievement thing
11:35
and then one of the tables is called like criteria.
11:37
You look at criteria and then you look at that number and you
11:39
go to like another folder and like, because there's all
11:42
different like files and stuff. And eventually you'll get to a
11:44
point it's like, yeah, this achievement is triggered by this
11:47
quest and it will have like the quest number you look on my head
11:50
and it like kind of correlates. You're like OK, so now I know
11:53
and that's it. You kind of learn that, right?
11:55
So if I ever needed to find out how an achievement is triggered,
11:59
most of them you can do it, but it's just a bit like whatever.
12:03
So really it's just learning by doing.
12:05
I get into my head of like, I want to know how this works.
12:10
You know, random things like the war band character select
12:13
screen, like there's a table for that that has like 1 of the
12:16
things is like the angle it's looking at on the map ID and
12:19
it's like it says like where the different play?
12:22
I'm really getting into this, but like there's just different
12:24
things like that. I love finding out how Blizzard
12:26
make it. I have no idea how they make it
12:28
with their tools, but looking at like the data files that they
12:31
put out or not that they put out, but that in the game that
12:34
you can take out. It's super interesting and I
12:36
find that to be fascinating. Yeah, I, I'm sure that there is
12:42
like obviously a lot of people love when the data binding comes
12:45
out and we find out all these stuff and we see all these
12:47
models. But like they are, is a subset
12:50
of people, myself included, that like really likes to see how
12:55
that that gets uncovered or like how it's connected to one thing
12:59
another. When people are data mining the
13:02
big sites, the small, small people, everybody in between,
13:05
sometimes we get information that isn't properly connected or
13:10
misinterpreted. How does that sometimes come
13:12
about? Sometimes.
13:16
Yeah, I think a lot of there's a lot of assumption and and
13:19
Blizzard also, they have loads of things in the game that don't
13:24
make it to life. And you know, over the years
13:27
there's been tons of examples. I guess one more recently was
13:30
phase diving. There was data to suggest that
13:33
phase diving was going to be limited in regards to how long
13:35
you could phase dive for. And that was one of the early
13:38
builds said that in there. I don't think anyone actually
13:41
reported on it because it was kind of like, that's a bit
13:43
strange. But yeah, just things like that,
13:45
like because it's ever, you know, it's ever changing.
13:48
There's builds weekly, things like that.
13:49
Things are changing all the time.
13:52
And I think as said, like people assume a lot, a lot of the time,
13:55
like they'll see something and be like, yeah, that's probably
13:58
related to this thing. And then people run with it,
14:00
like certain websites and certain Twitter people and
14:03
whatnot. Like, and I, you know, I'm
14:05
guilty of this too, being like, Oh my God.
14:07
There's a, you know, I think it was like super early on when
14:10
they were developing follower dungeons, there was like a new
14:13
thing that came up in the data that was like with AI bots.
14:16
And we're like, are they developing this?
14:18
And then obviously it ended up that they actually were.
14:19
But there's definitely been, I've think over the years I've
14:22
made videos about things that never even happened, like a
14:25
Baron's war front. There was a map for it and there
14:28
was all sorts of different things and, you know, and
14:30
whatnot. So yeah, I think that's kind of
14:33
a lot of it. And then, yeah, I think it is
14:34
just people just huff in the hopium a lot of the time as
14:38
well. They see something and they're
14:39
like, hey, this could be this, but it's probably not.
14:44
For sure. And like with how quickly the
14:47
PTR cycle is nowadays, obviously there's a lot of things that you
14:52
have to go through in a short period of time.
14:54
Assumptions are going to happen, but like, how do you prioritize
14:57
what you're looking at when you start fresh on a new PTR cycle?
15:03
Yeah, I everyone's different, right?
15:07
Some people like Wowhead will always go like almost always go
15:11
for models like this. They have like these crazy tools
15:14
that nobody else has, which are incredible.
15:17
But we have like, you know, our tools are good still, but
15:20
they're open source. But yeah, they'll always go for
15:22
new models. People love that.
15:24
People pop hard for that, right? A new like mount model or a new
15:27
boss model or some information like that.
15:29
I normally kind of work down. So I'll like started
15:32
achievements to see what new achievements have been added and
15:34
then kind of go through. And normally mounts is always
15:37
one that I go to 1st, like the mount folder because I'm like,
15:39
all right, what new mounts are in here?
15:40
And it's like, Oh my God, there's 70 new mounts for Legion
15:43
Remix and things like that. So it's like, yeah, I just kind
15:47
of look at that like kind of the high spots of like mounts,
15:51
achievements always have a little look in like classes to
15:55
see if there's any new race class combos or, or races to see
15:58
if there's anything new like with, with character races or
16:01
anything like that. Any changes with those.
16:04
There's also like a table called like global strings that has
16:07
like things like to do with like controller support and, and
16:11
random nuance, things like that, or like the abandoned system for
16:13
Mythic Plus that they put in recently and, and things like,
16:16
and you kind of get hints of those in there.
16:19
So yeah. And then like after time,
16:22
because The thing is like these builds come out super late for
16:24
me as well. Like last night, I think it was
16:25
like midnight. So I'm just like looking at it.
16:28
I'm like, OK, this will do. Look at the rest of it tomorrow.
16:31
And sometimes I even like, can't you know, I have a whole night's
16:33
sleep. I wake up and then I start
16:35
looking at it again. I still find new stuff that
16:37
people haven't found yet because I don't know, there's so much
16:41
there, especially with the major patches as well.
16:43
They have so much random stuff that not everyone will pick up
16:47
on immediately like in in 11 to 5.
16:50
I think even in last the the last bill they put like a bunch
16:55
of stuff for housing decor, like they've started putting
16:57
populating some tables to do with that, which has been really
17:00
exciting. The only things in there at the
17:01
moment are the the pre-order stuff, but you know, there's
17:04
definitely going to be more coming, I'm sure in 27
17:07
especially. OK.
17:09
What is like one of the most memorable things that you have
17:14
uncovered while data mining or just testing on the PTR?
17:17
Oh my goodness. Oh, man.
17:23
That is, that is a tough question.
17:24
There's been so many where we've had like revelations where we're
17:28
like, what the heck? Like, what is this?
17:31
Oh man. I think what was it more there
17:40
was something to do with time walking recently.
17:45
It's stuff like that, like finding like an MPC that does
17:47
LFR or something like that, right?
17:49
Stuff like that is always really like oh wow, OK or Oh yeah like
17:54
here's 1. So they super encrypted the the
17:58
dark Ranger stuff. Do you remember that?
18:00
And God, I can't. It was shadow lands at some
18:03
point they had that and there was all those rumors about like
18:06
dark Ranger and they kind of get this quest line.
18:09
But then there was like, and it was just so much fun from the
18:11
community side of things because they'd encrypted it so hard that
18:13
it was, you know, basically doesn't exist in the files.
18:16
But there was like there was like random MPC skins where
18:20
we're like, oh, this is, you know, this MPC.
18:22
And then there was all these different maps and, and
18:25
speculation and things like that.
18:26
So just kind of uncovering that obviously with people as well,
18:30
with other people, kind of posting bits and pieces and then
18:32
kind of putting the puzzle together was super fun.
18:35
And even then Blizzard encrypted it so much that we didn't even,
18:38
you know, it was still a surprise when it was announced,
18:39
of course. So just yeah, things like that,
18:44
this, you know, yeah, it's just, I think it's the hints to new
18:50
expansions as well. I think in BFA, no, in what was
18:56
before BFA Legion, in Legion there was like Abfa robe or
19:02
something like a, there was like a robe that had like a, a map of
19:07
Colteris on it. And I remember like people were
19:09
freaking out about it and things like that.
19:12
So that's always fun to find. But I can't think of anything
19:16
off the top of my head that I've kind of broken the news with.
19:18
But I feel like there has been perhaps some stuff maybe?
19:23
I mean, as you said, like sometimes it's just encrypted to
19:26
hell. Sometimes it is just like a
19:28
whisper of something and you don't even realize it until they
19:31
finally break the news. You're like, that's what that
19:33
was. I always find that is very cool.
19:38
I guess more of the hands on testing.
19:42
What's something that you've sort of come across that you had
19:45
no idea you were going going to see?
19:48
And then you just be like, OK, this is where like a lot of the
19:52
testing you do on stream where it just like takes over the
19:54
stream. It's like, OK, folks, this is
19:56
what we're doing for the rest of the day.
19:57
I've got a good story for you. So Battle for Azrof Alpha,
20:04
literally like one of the first builds.
20:06
And obviously they had announced this Warfront feature.
20:09
We had no idea what it was like, and they hadn't announced any
20:12
testing for it. Anyway, we're in a Raffi
20:17
Highlands. And I think it was something
20:21
really weird. So there was an airship there
20:23
and we were flying around it. And like, that's so random.
20:25
Like obviously it's war fronts for like, I don't know how that
20:27
works. Anyway, I ended up flying over
20:29
it and I got dismounted and died on the airship I released.
20:35
And I was in the war front, so I'd got into the war front map
20:41
and I'm like freaking out. I'm like, then this is on
20:44
stream. I'm like, Oh no.
20:46
And Towley found out about it, so Towley's doing it as well.
20:49
So we're both in there and we're like, this doesn't seem like
20:54
something we should be doing. So yeah, something like that.
20:58
Or like more recently at Gamescom, I played with housing
21:02
and someone said you should try and escape the house.
21:06
I'm like, that's a funny idea. Let's do that.
21:09
So I clipped a bench through the wall and I sat on it and I
21:13
jumped out and I was outside of the house, which wasn't
21:17
neighborhood. It was in like some like blank
21:20
map. That's how they they work.
21:21
But yeah, so I'm running around this like grey ground, like grey
21:25
and textured ground. You can see the outside of the
21:26
walls of the rooms that I've put in this house.
21:29
And then I'm sitting there. I'm like, what am I doing?
21:32
I'm a games comp. There's literally Blizzard
21:33
developers all around me and they I'm here to like show off
21:36
the feature and I've escaped it like, so I was like, yeah, we
21:41
didn't, we didn't do that. That is amazing.
21:46
That is so much fun. I remember people talking about
21:50
like climbing Mount Hydro and such back in Vanilla and that's
21:53
that's what that reminds me of going to the places that you
21:57
should never have been in in the first place.
21:59
As you're testing on the PTR, as you're testing on alpha and
22:04
beta, how do you get people to to help you?
22:07
Is it just like you're talking to your audience or like, hey,
22:10
can somebody help me with this? Are you organizing ahead of
22:13
time? Do you do a lot of testing for
22:16
like dungeons, raids, I guess delves now or are you more open
22:21
world when you're doing testing initially?
22:23
It depends really. So I guess going back to remix,
22:27
which we've been doing recently, it's been super good.
22:29
So like there's a lot of people that are really interested in
22:33
remix. So we've been like the other day
22:35
I was like, oh, we, you know, I need to test a mythic raid.
22:38
I want to test this. Like to see what it's like with
22:40
20 people. I didn't think we'd ever get 20
22:42
people. We ended up getting a bunch of
22:44
people from the stream. I was telling them like it's
22:46
super easy to set up. Like, and I was explaining how
22:48
they set up the character and everything, making it as as
22:51
accessible and easy as possible for them to be like, OK, I'll
22:55
come help out. Like, and, and that's kind of
22:56
what it was. And people just, I get, I guess
22:59
if they're in the stream and they're watching something on
23:01
PTR, they're like kind of understand the vibe.
23:03
So they're like, oh, you know, I'll come help.
23:05
And like, I'm very, very blessed to have like people in the
23:07
stream who are like, you know, I literally say, Hey, you know,
23:11
for example, even today, like there's a guy called Moe who's
23:13
like super great. And I was like, oh, I want to
23:17
test levelling through a raid. And he was like, I'll run you
23:20
through it. And he ran me through it for
23:22
like 2 hours straight like and, and just leveled my character
23:25
like he was Max level and he pushed the character through
23:28
just to see how the XP was and things.
23:29
I'm just like so nice of him to do that.
23:32
Like that is incredible. And it's it's great on the
23:36
public test realm, but also not so great on like the alpha, the
23:41
very early alpha when it's just like press creators and like a
23:46
couple, you know, 100 people who have like signed up and got in
23:51
randomly. So it makes it really difficult
23:52
with that when you're like, I want to do these group
23:55
activities or test as well, boss or test this random thing, but
23:59
you've got no one to do it because not everyone's in.
24:01
And it's a shame. But obviously as the alpha
24:03
progresses into Bayer, especially now with like
24:05
pre-orders giving Bayer access, it makes it a lot easier.
24:09
And, you know, it's an interesting one for sure.
24:13
But yeah, I'm very lucky to have like people who who want to help
24:16
out with group content. With the more recent PTR alpha
24:21
beta test, things have been moving a lot faster.
24:25
How else has that evolved over the time of you testing?
24:29
How have things change and force you to change in response?
24:33
Yeah, it's kind of crazy. So obviously been doing this a
24:37
while. So I've seen all sorts of
24:39
different PTR cycles and things. It's definitely way more rapid
24:45
now. So like I think we got into like
24:47
season 3 of the war within and then like the a day later we got
24:52
into the PTR of 1125. I'm like, this is ridiculous,
24:55
Like I'm so tired. But I it's great as a content
25:02
creator. Obviously it's difficult because
25:05
stuff does change so rapidly, you know, and I, and I'm the
25:09
only one that really like, you know, I, I overthink it a lot.
25:12
But like putting out a video, you know, for example, I put out
25:15
a video about the Arsefat weapon and was like, hi, like the, the
25:18
highest time level you can get right now on is 633, which it
25:21
isn't anymore. They literally changed it last
25:23
night. So I'm like, that's annoying.
25:25
But you know, I said try not to get into numbers too much
25:28
because that stuff changes. But yeah, it's it's it's really
25:33
good. Sometimes I think even recently
25:36
we've had like 2 PTRS at the same time.
25:38
I think we've had like a major patch and a mini patch at the
25:40
same time. Obviously Alpha coming up will
25:44
likely have two seven at the same time as Alpha, but also
25:47
Legion Remix like will release as well.
25:50
So that's like 3 things that are going to be happening at the
25:52
same time. So it definitely gets
25:54
overwhelming. I try to keep like a Trello
25:57
board of like I, you know, with Midnight, for example, they
26:01
announced all those features. So I made a list of like, I want
26:04
to make a video on this. Is this is this.
26:06
Sometimes a video will be like, OK, like sometimes something
26:09
will come out on alpha and I'll be like, oh, I want to make a
26:10
video about this, you know, that that wasn't announced or
26:12
something like maybe they'll add like more control of support and
26:15
they just never told anyone, you know, and I'll make a video
26:18
talking about that because that happens all the time.
26:19
There's always stuff that's like snuck into different builds
26:25
that's just like Blizzard just haven't said about it, I think.
26:27
Oh, actually going back to your question from earlier, I did
26:30
think of something when they made oh God, it was like, I
26:36
think it was the last patch, maybe 11, maybe 1117.
26:40
Anyway, they made shadow lands reps account wide and nobody had
26:44
reported on it, not even Blizzard.
26:47
And I was the first person to to tweet out and announce it, which
26:51
was awesome. And and then I started second
26:54
guessing if they even intended it because Blizzard never even
26:56
put it in the development notes. They never put in the patch
26:58
notes. They didn't even put it in the
26:59
official patch notes when they put them out.
27:01
And then then eventually they changed it, which was so weird
27:05
because it's such a massive feature, right, making an
27:06
account wide, you know, reputations for an entire
27:09
expansion. So it was very strange that they
27:11
never really acknowledged it until the very end.
27:13
But sorry, yeah, I'm going off on a tangent now, but it.
27:16
Was great because I didn't even realize till just you saying it
27:20
now that they had done that. OK, Utterly lost in the sauce
27:24
sometimes, OK. Yeah, that was that was a good
27:28
one, but I can't remember the original question.
27:31
I've gone off on a right old rent.
27:34
I guess a question that I did want to ask you was like for
27:38
the, for the folks at home that want to like test, right, how
27:42
like what tips would you give to them?
27:44
Is there like a video where it just shows you like here's how
27:46
easy it is to like get in onto the PTR?
27:49
Or is there like resources that they can use or things that they
27:52
they could at least focus on? Not that I'm aware of.
27:57
I mean, there probably is videos from years ago, like how to get
28:00
on PTR and things like that. But I guess just kind of it's a
28:04
weird one, right? Someone else we wants, like,
28:06
would I do it if I wasn't a content creator?
28:09
And I think the answer was probably still yes because I
28:11
really enjoy seeing, you know, Wow being developed.
28:15
And it's always good to have that feedback cycle as well,
28:18
especially through the stream, which was actually funny even
28:21
today, like one of the devs tweeted that they were watching
28:23
my stream and I was like, I had no idea like what the heck, it's
28:26
crazy. Never never lost on me.
28:29
Honestly, it's ridiculous. But so no, there's not really
28:35
any resource to like get into that kind of stuff, but it's
28:38
very easy. Like it's all kind of there.
28:40
You know, you can create a PTR account for free through your
28:43
Battle.net and then just kind of jump in.
28:45
I do wish the PTR was more of a test environment with like pre
28:49
made a ES and you know, you can buy gear, but like if you don't
28:52
have, you know, a Max level character on live, which you'll
28:56
be surprised how many people don't, you can't, you won't.
29:01
You'd have to level on the PTR, which is just ridiculous.
29:03
You don't want to do that. So I think yeah, there should
29:05
be. And especially like for example,
29:07
like if I wanted to like I recently leveled a Demon Hunter
29:10
because I was worried that the alpha wouldn't have pre made
29:14
A's. So because I want to test
29:16
devour, right? So I was like, I need to do that
29:19
just in case. But normally it does, but still
29:23
like the PTR doesn't, which I find very unusual.
29:25
And it just feels like they've just kind of put the patch out
29:28
and they haven't really been like, you know, talk to an MPC
29:31
to skip this part or talk to an MPC to do these like different
29:34
things. Like I think there should be
29:35
more of that instead of just like go out and play, you know,
29:40
go and grind this thing on PTR just so you can do it again
29:43
later on. You know, it's just like
29:45
ridiculous, to be honest. They have got a little bit
29:49
better with it. Like in the notes, they're like,
29:51
you know, coming back to Legion remix again, it's like they they
29:56
added Bran. It's actually called bronze Bran
30:00
beard because obviously bronze remix, which is amazing and he
30:06
levels you to AT gives you all the power.
30:08
Like, he basically puts you at the absolute pinnacle of kind of
30:11
remix power and things like that, which is great.
30:13
Like, because I don't want to go out and farm all that stuff, you
30:16
know, on PTR for it to just be, you know, wiped and not gone
30:20
over to my live account. So yeah, I think there probably
30:26
should be better resources to get into it, but I try and help
30:31
out where I can. Oh, I mean I'm glad you are
30:35
making that sacrifice so the rest of us don't have to.
30:39
I appreciate your service. I agree with you.
30:43
Having been on PTR tests and such myself.
30:46
There are times where it's like, oh, this is like let's say it's
30:50
heritage armor that's now they're no longer testing, but
30:54
it's it's something that is narrowed down to a specific race
30:58
or class or faction or anything. Being able to actually test that
31:02
is restrictive on the PTR and less restrictive when they add
31:06
in the template. So I agree with you there with
31:09
all of this testing, how does that impact your live play?
31:12
If you're always on the PTR, always on the alpha, testing all
31:14
this stuff, when do you get time to just play as yourself, Dan?
31:19
I actually like now basically like in the evenings I do like
31:26
the weirdest stuff off stream like kind of boring.
31:30
Like I, I have like a barometer of like what I think is boring
31:33
to watch on stream for me at least.
31:36
So I just kind of do stuff like that.
31:37
Like I'll go and like recently I've just had this itch to do
31:41
rated Battleground Blitz. So I've been doing that in the
31:44
evenings. So yeah, it's funny actually,
31:47
especially when we're heavy in PTR like we are right now with
31:50
with remix. Like retail is my like chill
31:53
time, which sounds super weird. So yeah, I just literally just
31:59
do my delves and do you know, I just chill and do like random
32:02
collecting and things and I just do it in like the evenings or
32:06
like if I get like an hour in the morning between something,
32:09
I'll do it. So yeah, I just, and maybe that
32:13
on the weekend, like I have a laptop that I have downstairs
32:15
that I just kind of play pretty casually on as well, which is
32:18
nice. It's nice to not be in the
32:19
office all the time I find. So yeah, I just.
32:26
And also it kind of ruins kind of playing the next thing, makes
32:30
you more excited for it. So now you're like can't really
32:34
be bothered to play the nought like the current version.
32:37
Like for example, in in when we were doing 11/2 stuff with
32:40
Koresh, I'm like, man, I wish we could start Koresh now.
32:45
So I try not to try not to get too into like nuance stuff with
32:50
PTR because then I just get, you know, carried away and then I
32:53
burn myself out for live game when it comes out.
32:57
Yeah, understand, understand. I I definitely felt that
33:00
actually with Koresh, because like you said, very next day
33:04
here's Legion, Legion testing. And yeah, it was just so like,
33:09
yeah, phase diving sucks. I'd rather be fighting demons.
33:12
Yeah. So random question, when you're
33:16
not playing Wow, when you're not Mr. GM of World of Warcraft,
33:20
what are the games that you like?
33:24
I I. Really enjoy.
33:27
I got into a weird thing recently where there was this
33:30
thing I found this thing called retro achievements, which adds
33:33
achievements to older games and I have a steam deck.
33:35
So I started playing older games and I added achievements to
33:40
them. So I started playing like crash
33:43
Nitro car on it was like APS 2 game and and things like that.
33:49
Just retro. A lot of retro games I tend to
33:52
gravitate towards, but I also have a bunch of games in my
33:56
Steam that I've never played that I would like to play.
33:58
I was playing through Indiana Jones recently, which was
34:01
incredible. And I'm playing through and I'm
34:03
like, man, I've really missed out on a lot of games over the
34:06
years. Like I know like I would
34:07
absolutely love a game like Elden Ring I've never played or
34:10
Skyrim I've never played because I was just playing way too much
34:13
World of Warcraft, right? And I, I, oh, Metal Gear Solid,
34:20
I'm the like the biggest Metal Gear Solid fan in the absolute
34:22
world. I absolutely adore that game
34:24
series. And I haven't played the new
34:25
one. Like they literally just put out
34:27
a remake of #3 which is my favorite, one of my favorite
34:29
games of all time. So I want to play that, but it's
34:34
just finding the time because I always feel this weird, like
34:39
force of nature bringing me back to Wow to do stupid busy work of
34:43
killing Rez and Koresh. You know, like stuff like I'm
34:46
like, you know, I'm playing these games.
34:49
I'm like, man, this Indian endurance game is great, but
34:51
what about like, you know, phase diving?
34:53
I need to go collect those orbs. I I get it.
34:58
I the first week I was on every day collecting all those orbs so
35:02
I could get them out. I am a mount collector, so I
35:06
didn't have anything else. But yeah, it's, it's good to
35:09
step away from games. But when you are playing World
35:13
of Warcraft and you are on live servers, what's, what's your
35:18
personal like focus? What's your, what's your love of
35:21
the game? Are you like you doing PvP?
35:23
Is that like the the thing that you enjoy when you're not
35:26
streaming or are you more about like collecting all the things?
35:31
Collecting all the things? Most definitely the PvP thing is
35:34
funny. It was like a bit of a weird
35:35
side quest that I went on that I thought would be fun because I
35:38
wanted the vicious mounts because I really like to look at
35:40
the vicious mounts. I think there's some of the best
35:41
looking mounts in the game. And I thought, you know, maybe
35:44
how hard, how hard could this possibly be?
35:46
And the, the the difficulty wasn't in the PvP, it was in the
35:50
queue times. I was in a queue for like over
35:52
an hour for Blitz and I'm like, this is just not worth it.
35:54
Like, how can anyone farm this out?
35:56
It's ridiculous, which is a shame really.
35:58
But yeah, I just kind of, I do a lot of solo play and, and the
36:02
game accommodates it a lot more now with with Delves especially
36:06
Delves have been something that have been fantastic and I'm
36:09
looking forward to seeing what they do with them in, in
36:11
Midnight. I know they're kind of like
36:13
something that perhaps not everyone enjoys, but I think
36:16
it's a really good method of gearing.
36:18
Like I've, you know, getting a vault is like such a normal
36:21
thing for a lot of people, but I never got a vault in like
36:23
Dragonfly. So I never really did Mythic
36:25
Plus. So like having that in the war
36:28
within every week, having a little vault of like 3 things
36:30
that I can pick from has been really nice.
36:33
I was rating, I was rating with, with Sean and, and Sham and, and
36:37
people like that. And I was doing that last year,
36:39
but I didn't do it this year, mainly just because of timings,
36:42
just because they they raid quite early and I have a young
36:45
daughter and she has to go to bed and things like that.
36:46
So it was a bit unfortunate because I really enjoyed it.
36:49
I'd like that, doing it with a raid group.
36:51
It's been a very, very long time since I've done that.
36:53
And it was a lot of fun. But yeah, the timings just
36:55
unfortunately didn't work out for that.
36:56
So yeah. But mainly just collecting stuff
36:59
though. That's that's kind of and that's
37:01
kind of what it is at the moment.
37:02
I'm just like logging in, doing a world tour of like 5 res in
37:07
Koresh and then maybe going to undermine.
37:10
But I fell out of love with that zone so much that it makes me
37:13
want to all F4 the game. So I'm like maybe not like the
37:16
most random thing I'm doing at the moment is like collecting
37:21
raid skips so I can use them in Lesion remix because raid skips
37:25
are kind wide. So that's kind of like the most
37:26
random thing I'm doing at the minute.
37:28
But yeah, as I said, busy, boring work in Wow, but I find
37:32
it enjoyable. But no one wants to watch me go
37:34
through the night hold four times a week like trying to get
37:38
this one raid skip item. Honestly, yeah, it is basically
37:43
a lot of people looking at the new and shiny stuff.
37:45
Like again, PTR comes and then that makes live a little bit
37:49
less shiny. The new life thing hits and that
37:51
makes Undermine a little less shiny.
37:53
Though I have my own complaints about Undermine, but that's a
37:57
different episode for for the tip that you could give for
38:02
people who want to test, test PTR.
38:06
What's like just a general thing that you could say like, hey, if
38:09
you're going to do this, make sure you're on the lookout for
38:12
this or make sure you do this. I guess really just like do the
38:19
thing that like most spaces are covered, right, Like most people
38:23
will do, you know, they will look like, for like, I tend to
38:26
look at everything, but some people will be like, you know,
38:28
for example, we run a, a discord, but that has like for
38:32
public test round. And one of the people on there
38:33
is like super focused on pet battles and pets and, and things
38:36
like that. So what they do when PTR comes
38:38
up is they go and find all the pets and they tell, you know,
38:41
they tweet about it and they post it around and all that kind
38:43
of stuff. And that's really great.
38:44
And I, I guess my advice is like, focus on the thing you
38:47
like, you know, like if you're mount collector, you know, go
38:50
and find how you get this random mount, you know, like, for
38:53
example, like the translocated, translocated Georgia, right?
38:56
Like you get the 20 of the thing from the Ecodome invasions.
39:00
Like finding stuff like that is always really satisfying.
39:03
I really enjoy doing that too, because finding like, for like
39:08
example, in Koresh again, like Starbs, right?
39:10
Starbs is the big ghosty boy who was the observer who was
39:15
attacking the Ecodome Primus or whatever it's called.
39:18
No, the Oasis, sorry and he was in face diving, but we couldn't
39:23
find him for ages on the PTR and then eventually, like we went
39:26
into face diving. He was spawned and we're like
39:27
oh, because we knew it dropped from him like this mount because
39:31
it was called starves last lunch and it literally said that it
39:33
was from him and then finding him and then obviously finding
39:36
out that it drops from him was really cool.
39:38
So that's always fun. You know there's even mounts now
39:42
that haven't been discovered in Koresh.
39:44
There's one that's like, it's, it just says redacted as the
39:49
source. And I, as far as I'm aware,
39:51
nobody's found it yet. So stuff like that is always
39:54
really fun to do and I find a lot of enjoyment in that.
39:57
So yeah, my advice is that you just focus on the thing that you
40:01
want to find out about when the patch comes to kind of give you
40:05
a leg up on what is to come, I suppose, and obviously give
40:08
feedback. OK.
40:11
And then when people want to find you and everything you do,
40:13
where can we find you? I'm everywhere, I'm everywhere,
40:17
Manny. I'm like a parasite.
40:19
I'm on Instagram, I'm on Twitter, I'm on Twitch, I'm on
40:23
Myspace, I'm on YouTube. I'm over on Bebo, I'm on
40:27
Threads, I'm on Blue Sky, I'm on I I can't think of any of the
40:32
social medias. I don't know.
40:34
But anyway, I'm everywhere. Mainly YouTube doing long form
40:38
content. Have got into a little bit of
40:39
shorts recently as well. Super fun to do.
40:42
And then obviously streaming on Twitch and then my Twitter.
40:45
I'm like addicted to tweeting as you know, regardless of how
40:50
people feel about that platform, I think it's very good for
40:53
communication with people in regards to like people
40:55
commenting and giving feedback and things like that.
40:57
Obviously, you know, that's a whole nother discussion for
41:00
another day on that whole platform.
41:01
But in general that there and Blue Sky have two very good
41:04
platforms for kind of posting out stuff and then seeing
41:07
people's reaction, see what people say about it.
41:09
And I really like that. It's just that instant feedback
41:13
is really good. You know, posting something from
41:15
PTR and being like, hey, like, you know, you for example, like
41:20
literally just before the show I tweeted about like what you can
41:24
do when you're Max power on Legion and Legion Remix.
41:27
And then like everyone was like, Oh yeah, cool, this is awesome.
41:30
And then asking questions and I answer them and you just kind of
41:32
get that awesome like immediate feedback.
41:34
But anyway, Twitter is where I'm at.
41:36
Spamming everybody's for you pages I guess.
41:41
Which is awesome and thank you again for coming out today.
41:45
Again, really do appreciate all the work that you do for not
41:49
just PTR and stuff, but for the content creator community.
41:53
That's going to be it for us today.
41:56
And if you need to find anything that I'm doing, of course,
41:58
you're already on the channel. And otherwise you can find me as
42:02
true villain Manny. That's true without the E over
42:05
on Twitter, over on Blue Sky and all the socials except Mocap.
42:10
I've never heard of that before. And until next time, may all
42:14
your hits be crits.