Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #372 - For Azeroth!: “Counting Down to Midnight"

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#372 - For Azeroth!: “Counting Down to Midnight" · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

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There have been many tales told about me, but I'll tell you the
0:07
truth no one living has heard. Once, long, long ago, I was
0:17
mortal like you. Victory for the Forsaken.
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For Lauderon, for the Kieran Tour, for Pandaria.
0:32
For calendar to. The burning region for Gilnaeus
0:37
that has not died, for the Lich King, for the Sindora, for the
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Alliance, for the Horde, for Azeroth.
0:53
Hello and welcome to another episode of For Azeroth.
0:57
We are doing a dynamic duo today because Sean is taking a well
1:02
deserved break as we lead into this upcoming convention that
1:08
we're throwing. So for those of you who have not
1:11
heard from the last episode, Northrend Live is a it's a
1:17
combination of creators who've come together to put, put this
1:21
together, including Sean and myself, as well as some great
1:25
backing from Blizzard. So this is the Canadian chapter
1:30
of the like housing thing that they did in Germany and they've
1:35
done one in UK and so now we're doing one in Canada as well, on
1:40
top of which a bunch of collaborators coming together.
1:44
So we've got people from all over the world.
1:46
We've got dark lady coming up from Florida to lead with some
1:50
cosplay. We've got Mr. GM coming in from
1:53
the UK all all over. We've got people who are going
1:57
to be linking in and supporting from home.
2:01
So we've got like Talias and Never Tell and we've got Soul So
2:05
Breezy that'll be competing in some stuff and that's going to
2:08
be really cool. But tickets have sold out.
2:12
I'm going to tell you now, tickets have sold out.
2:14
So if you are interested in this and you haven't gotten a ticket,
2:17
don't worry you can watch online.
2:20
This will be on pika.tv or the official Blizzard Twitch as
2:25
well. We'll be streaming the main
2:28
event in its entirety and that is February 21st.
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For those who don't know, but let's let's go past all of that.
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That my entire self indulgent advertising.
2:41
Self advertising. It's my show.
2:43
I get to do that, friends. I think if you just think really
2:45
cool and exciting and big, especially when it affects the
2:49
community and it sells out, I think that you deserve to have a
2:52
little bit of a little moment of like, hey yo, I did a really
2:54
cool, big, exciting thing and it's coming up soon and you guys
2:56
should watch. I think the pad in the back
2:59
happens once it's done. I think it can happen multiple
3:03
times. I think that if you're doing
3:04
hard work for multiple moments, you're allowed to have multiple
3:06
moments where you're like, I'm doing hard stuff and it's cool,
3:08
yeah. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just milking
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the fact that Sean is has been working himself senseless.
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And so that's why he needed the day off.
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But that is that's one big thing this week.
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It's been kind of a slow week. And so I guess this is a tilted
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question. Lex, how's the World of Warcraft
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been treating you? I watched fun videos and then I
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misunderstood the fun videos and argued with my Guild about them
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for like an entire day and then rewatched the videos and
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realized I miswatched the videos so that's why I was treating me
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a little stupid. But it's not the World of
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Warcraft's fault. I mean, that is our first story.
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The big the big news of the week is that we got a cool cinematic.
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This was kind of Warbringer style, that 2 1/2 D animation.
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And this one showed a lot of things.
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It it showed the subjugation of the ethereals King salad bar
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decides to bend the knee to Zalitath and throw in her throw
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in his lot with with her the harbinger.
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But we also got like a little bit of the motivations hints
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towards the motivations of Zalitath and a little bit of
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mystery back story of that. But I I love this Lex.
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Lex did you? What were your thoughts about
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this trailer? I thought it was really cool.
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So I at first misunderstood the timeline because there's a
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moment in Salvador's past where he like right, right at the fall
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of Koresh, where he he give basically gives up to the void,
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right and pulls down the defenses and like lets the void
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in. And in the the Wow pedia and
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Stafa was saying like we don't fully understand why he'd like
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he's the only one who knows why he did that.
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So I in my head thought that this was showing that moment way
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back when. And so I was making a little
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snarky comments like she wasn't actually the blade of the black
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empire at that point. And also she wouldn't have had
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that form. But after rewatching, I think
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it's it's pretty obvious. It's in the dark heart.
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Like this is immediately after when he's been sucked in.
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So now that that's a side, and I do actually know that World of
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Warcraft knows the war better than me.
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Surprise, surprise. I thought it was really cool.
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I have been getting a little bit into the different theories that
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people are putting out, so the one that I find the most
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interesting and probably the most probable.
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When Zalatoth is talking, I'm assuming we can spoil things.
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Right. Oh yeah.
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Oh yeah, Like spoiler alert. Just the official spoiler alert.
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If you haven't watched this, go ahead, go out there and watch
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this, then come back to this episode.
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I don't know how long we're going to be diving into theories
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and spoilers, but we are going to be analyzing what we saw out
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there and coming up with our own little tinfoil hats.
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So that's out of the way. All right, you guys pause, come
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back. All right, let's go into this.
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Yeah, so I basically when Zalitath is talking about her
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life is immortal, that put that pushed her towards being
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Zalitath as we know her. She chose herself as a kid right
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in. And they're like the the cameras
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coming down to her and it's all like bright lights.
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And then everything kind of like turns to ash.
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And the argument that I've heard the most that I think is
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probably true is that this is showing Zalitath and her world
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being destroyed by the Light, which would explain why she then
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turns to the void, right? If if you see your entire
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homeland just utterly decimated by this horrible, overwhelming
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power, you turn to its opposite, right?
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OK. Yeah.
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So that's my best guess. I do.
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I know there's also a lot of debate because one thing that
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Zalitas says, what she says to bring Saldadar over to her is
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what's important is survival for you and your people, right?
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For like, for like me and my people and you are all creatures
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of the void. And therefore I will like, we
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will survive together, right? Like my job is to take care of
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all of us together. And I think she's probably kind
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of telling the truth. I know a lot of people are
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saying, oh, it's Alatas, she lies.
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I think she is purposely leaving out the fact that the void is
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all consuming. And so yeah, like taking all of
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the beings of the void into this one self, right?
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The the one existence of the void.
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If you believe in the void, you could argue that that is
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survival for them. You're incorporating them into
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the one hole. But I, I, I think she, she very
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obviously, in my opinion, does not mean it the way that
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Salhadar thinks. She means it, which is I am
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going to protect you all and you are all going to cut out of
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this, OK, Because we are in the void together.
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I I am on an opposite track to you.
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Interesting. Yeah, I think 1 some of it could
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be true. And we've got people in chat,
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Snoop saying that like you can absolutely manipulate people
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with information. That's true.
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After all, that's the beauty of this cinematic, because part of
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it is her tale. And like, hey, I was once just
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like you. I lost everything too.
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And what I learned was the important thing is survival.
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And I think survival is true. She wants to survive.
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The entire thing that we're now learning about the void is that
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like, you know, this all devouring thing, like the entire
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hierarchy is just like praying upon the weak, devouring,
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consuming all and becoming stronger through that process.
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And in that way, it's a survival of the fittest.
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So that's kind of the survival. And I look at Zalitath in that
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story and it is her as a young child.
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She like the the roundness of the face, the large eyes and
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everything that is Zalitath as a young child.
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But she also has like she's clutching on to little keepsake
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when everything happens. I'm sorry about the phone
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clutching on to a little keepsake.
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Well, everything's happening and to to me means that she's old
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enough to have a recognition, right, to have vague memories of
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that world that we just see grey ash behind her.
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It's enough for her to resent what destroyed that world.
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And so in my mind, that's the void.
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The void destroyed her world. She is resentful that like what
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she knew what like might have been a maybe a good childhood.
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You don't know right was all taken away from her and she was
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thrown into this dog eat dog dogma of of the of the void of
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the entity. And so she's she's young enough
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that that's what she was. She grew up in just you've got
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to survive. Everybody is either a stepping
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stone or a stick and you need to and you need to convert 1 to the
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other and use them both. And then that logic and that
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sort of like, hey, like you're in a tough bind.
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You everybody wants to survive. Like assume everybody wants to
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survive except the most nihilistic sort of thing, which
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makes it funny that she works with like the cult that's like,
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yeah, let's end the world anyways.
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And she preys upon that in in King Saladar, but that's also
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her giving a bit of the truth in there, too.
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She's like, I hate this. This is a horrible world, but
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this is the world that we're in. Let's like, so like, join with
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me and we'll be the ones that survive, right?
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Don't worry about fighting me. Yeah, yeah.
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Things are being screwed up. But together we can win.
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And then, you know, she's going to betray.
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She's going to backstab. She's going to like it's we're
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going to be 6 bosses deep into like into whatever raid and
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Salivar is going to be like, Dang it, why didn't I see it
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coming? And we're all going to roll our
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eyes. But that's the beauty of it.
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She uses the bit of the truth she to like connect with with
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Saladar and like see the plate because she's been through that
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plate and then twist him to to the cause.
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Yeah, I will say so the more I, I, I, I do I, I, sorry, I have
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like 20 thoughts at once and I tried to say them all at the
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same moment. I can see that and a long thread
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in Zalitas history is that she is consistently subjugated by
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the void and then kind of takes over, right?
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That happens with Demensius and that happens with the old gods
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and that happens with Demensius again.
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Like she consistently is put under yokes by more powerful
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creatures of the void and then uses that like resentment and
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and hatred of the fact that she is put in enslaved essentially
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to then give her the power to push out.
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Right. So I, I still think it's the
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light is, is what destroyed her homeland, especially because I
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think there are little tidbits in other stories that suggest
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that that's kind of one thing that the team is looking at,
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which I mean, I'm, I'm like meta story in here, right?
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That it it seems like the World of Warcraft writing team wants
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to explore the idea of the light as a destructive force as well
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as the void as an destructive force.
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And I think that could be a really interesting story.
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But I see I, I, I don't necessarily know that I believe
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that like, so strongly that I think you're wrong, right?
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Like, I, I think that what you're saying is also
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potentially really true, right? That, yeah, that could just be
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another example of Zalotaph being subjugated under the void
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and being more powerful. It could even be how she got
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taken over by Demencius, right? To become the Harbinger in
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general. I will also say the more I both
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think through her history and also read through her history
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and researching before this, there is a part of me that's a
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little sad that Zalitov had such a very interesting story of
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constantly being like subjugated and getting out.
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And I think I wish that we could explore and maybe we will, that
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mindset of like, what would happen?
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Like, what would it look like for someone for Zalitath or for
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someone like Zalitath who's constantly subjugated to instead
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harness the void with more like awareness and compassion, right?
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Like it is kind of silly, like not crappy in the sense of like,
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I think they're like bad storytelling or anything.
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I think this is the thing that happens very frequently in the
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world, but sad to see her constantly go through this, you
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know, cycle of abuse, for lack of a better word, and then
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continue it. That's the beauty of it though.
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I love that she is both victim and victimizer.
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I I love that like especially when you see that she like was
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brought into that world at such a young age where she wasn't
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socialized on like that original planet.
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She wasn't like a young adult and then got and said, screw it,
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I'm gonna join the void. She, she was like a small child,
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right? And then it's just like dementia
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comes and says, listen, I will have my minions eat you for, for
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a meal or you can come serve me right.
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And you can have good stories along that line where she's
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like, listen, like, listen, if I don't do this, I'm on the
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chopping block. So rather your head than mine.
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And that is a mentality that is so real, right?
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And I think that from there, her ultimate defeat will come from
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somebody who is willing to do the self sacrifice.
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And that will make that such a poignant play where she's so
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good at playing on people's own motivations.
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And then she comes across somebody or somebody is finally
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willing to give up their own personal survival for the
16:00
greater good. And that's the one thing that
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she won't be able to to like plan for or understand or or
16:06
figure out. And like that to me is so done,
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is like something that can be played to like an amazing effect
16:16
based on the character that they've been showing us.
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I do think Zaltath is really well developed.
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I think her back story is, is one of the stronger ones that
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I've seen in in World of Warcraft and I I, yeah, I mean,
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I think the video had a lot of interesting potentials.
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I think it's kind of fun to have a character who lies a lot and
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who manipulates a lot because it does mean, you know, usually
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when we're given information, it's pretty straight up like
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here is what happened here is why you believe me.
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Like what I am telling you is what is true.
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And I think the fact that now we have a a character who's very
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hard to pin down and who we know.
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Most unreliable narrator? Exactly.
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Thank you. That was the phrase that I was
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looking for such an unreliable narrator.
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It means that these little tidbits of information are so
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much more interesting because, you know, there's probably some
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lie to it. You know, there's probably a lot
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of truth to it, right? You know, if the even just on
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again to meta story this, if the Blizzard team was like,
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actually, everything in that video was true, not true.
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Like that would be bad storytelling, right?
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Like it would make us sad. And so they're probably not
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going to do that. So it's it's piercing together.
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You know what's true and what's not true.
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That makes it a very fun and engaging and exciting story.
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And I am I'm really excited for midnight.
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I think that there's going to be a lot of, there's a lot of signs
17:42
that the story is going in a really interesting direction and
17:44
in a direction that I personally have wanted it to go for a
17:47
while. Yeah, and I think that this
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storyline in the time that it's released really does line up
17:59
because like, you're not the only one, Lex.
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Don't don't think that you were the only one who confused when
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this story took place. As soon as it came out, I had a
18:06
friend who was mentioning being like, wait, when did this
18:08
happen? This seems out of place.
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I'm like, no, no. So this happened after the the
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penultimate fight, right after the the penultimate fight, you
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see that King Saladar gets drained into the the Dark Heart.
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And this may actually not be taking place in the Dark Heart,
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but the staging grounds of the devouring hosts that Zalitath is
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making. Because you can see those
18:35
creatures that she's got now and that is something that she
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didn't have before. So this is this is her now
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seemingly far more powerful, harnessing all the power of
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dementia. See those those Wraith like
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guys? They look like a mix of like
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dementias always look like a super blueberry.
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But these look like the the step up of of those guys, the mini
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dementias sigh that are less thinking, but they also talk
19:05
too, like they are intelligent beings.
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And so this is her galvanizing her army.
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This is her mustering her forces.
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And it's such a that's such a great timing when we are now
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only weeks away, less than a month away from release that we
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now get a little bit more insight on like what is coming.
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So I really do. I really do love that.
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One more thing and then we can transition as you I think we're
19:36
trying to do. I talked a lot about the
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cyclical nature of Zalotax history.
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I think one and one thing that made it kind of hard to place
19:44
this video is the fact that this is also a cycles for Saladar,
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right? He gets the support of his
19:51
people and he's about like he, he's right on the edge of making
19:55
really good choices and he has a really strong ability to protect
20:00
his people and to save his people and to keep them safe.
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And then the void comes in and it convinces him and it
20:07
convinces him through his love of his people, right?
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It it tells him like, no, this is the actual right way to
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protect your people. This is how you're going to be a
20:14
good king. And he falls for it.
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And then it makes things significantly worse for his
20:19
people and. I want to say this is at least
20:23
the second or maybe arguably the third time that he's done this.
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I think it's the second. I take it back.
20:28
I I was mixing up two storylines, but he knows, right?
20:33
He did this already. This happened.
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He was following dementias. He was trying to be, you know,
20:38
thinking this is gonna help his people.
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And one thing that's really devastating the video is he is
20:43
about to help his people escape, right?
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He has made a portal. They are about to get away and
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he removes that and he re subjugates his people and yeah,
20:53
I mean, they're gonna be betrayed and it's it's his own
20:56
fault, right? I'm not saying like, oh, poor
20:58
Saladar. How could you know?
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He's so lied to. Like again, he's been through
21:02
this. He knows what's gonna happen.
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I have no sympathy for the fact that this is gonna happen again.
21:07
It's very Nerzul adjacent, right?
21:09
Like. Actually, if I was gonna echo
21:12
anything, I would go only as far back as at the beginning of the
21:17
War Within when we had the entire thing with the Naurubian
21:21
Empire and we had Anserak, who like you hear the whispers.
21:29
And same thing with this, like the, the, the, the stick is
21:32
there. We talked about sticks.
21:34
She's got them beating down and be like, your guys are going to
21:37
be devoured and and that and then she just whispers and she
21:40
comes in. It's like, hey, hey, hey, I get
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it. I get it.
21:44
We're actually on the same side. Forget that.
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I've got all these minions beating the crap out of you.
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Let's work together. And she whispers before she even
21:55
shows up, and she's still doing that same creepy thing that she
21:59
was doing with Anserak and Anserak's mother, right?
22:05
And then she comes in and she talks and she says she says what
22:11
she feels he needs to hear. And she comes in at the time
22:15
just when he's about to make it, but also when the desperation is
22:21
so high, like he hasn't made it through that portal yet.
22:24
If he made it through that portal, hope, would we reel it?
22:28
He would feel a lot safer. The hope is there.
22:34
And then she comes in and she's like, no, no, no, don't.
22:38
That's a lie. Even if you go through there,
22:41
I'm still coming after you, right?
22:44
Still showing the stick, still burying her fangs.
22:48
But then she smiles and says, but hey, we're all a family.
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We're all void, yes, us void and pulls him in.
22:55
And I think that is that's so much just if salad, if Salador
23:03
had to have something. And you're talking about his
23:05
people like you did, right? Talking about widening that our
23:12
people from just the just the subjects that he controls to all
23:19
of these void, these voids that are maybe not part of the
23:24
greater void beyond reality, but like just trying to survive is
23:30
just such a great twist of where he seems to be.
23:34
And then, yeah, he he kneels down.
23:37
So I think that is a really good point that you make there.
23:41
Unless there's anything else. Shall we step forward?
23:44
Let's step forward. OK, I do want to contrast this
23:49
because with the patch 12.0 point one that hit just this
23:54
week, things got reset, add-ons needed to be updated, new
24:00
talents for some classes, new new ways that even the abilities
24:06
work for some classes have hit. And I opened up my client and I
24:11
was once again treated to the cinematic that we first saw at
24:15
Gamescon back in the summer. And I don't know if this was the
24:22
same for you, Lex, but it hit so much better when I was sitting
24:28
in front of my computer watching it.
24:30
Not not with any kind of like anticipation, like at games
24:33
column, but just in the client. The, the lighting, the events
24:42
that happened, even the one liners just hit so much better
24:46
for me. Where like, you know, just like
24:49
you can't even break one elf. And it's like, yeah, OK, now I
24:54
want to fight for Silver Moon. And then she decides to break
24:56
like 4 of them. Like just that that that.
24:58
And I'm still just so like it was, it was quite the rush
25:05
moment for me. And did was it the sort of like
25:10
something you skipped by or did you sit down and watch it again?
25:14
I did skip by it but now I want to sit down and watch it again.
25:19
I actually, I think I probably could even I think I probably
25:22
haven't gone into World of Warcraft recently enough to have
25:26
had it pop back up. So I I not to make your
25:31
appreciation and love of the game turn into a little tater
25:34
moment, I will never cease to be disappointed that that cutscene
25:39
was revealed to us at Gamescon. I think it was not.
25:42
It was not the moon. I think Gamescon, like, I think
25:46
that is part of what I want to talk about.
25:47
Like I think that Gamescom did not sell that properly
25:51
considering how much more I liked it just this week than six
25:57
months ago when it was fresh. So, so I would agree with you
26:01
there. And of course Gamescon had like
26:03
a number of other announcements too.
26:04
So it kind of got lost in just like the chaos of it all.
26:10
So, so there's that I, I would be interested in see in what you
26:16
feel about it, but you have seen it before.
26:19
And I think that one thing that now that we are on the eve of
26:25
midnight, we're at the like, quote UN quote, 11th hour.
26:29
There are some things where when we were looking at the cinematic
26:35
in it back in August at Gamescon, we were we were
26:42
speculating about being like, oh, like is this the last stand?
26:45
Is Silver Moon the last bastion? Now we know it's not.
26:48
Now we know like it's she should have beelined, which like gave
26:53
me a bit of a conflict one. It feels so like they did this
27:00
many amazing characterizations of of like the different actors
27:05
in there. Northamar absolute like I I know
27:09
Regent, Regent Lord, but I'm going to say it absolute king,
27:13
like just new dynasty there. OK, Leadron, really cool
27:23
character, but not what who I want to call Leadron her the
27:29
desperation like as she's like being very penitent and like
27:35
feverishly praying at the beginning, right?
27:38
And you see that doubt in her later on where she's where she
27:42
like goes back to pray, like she breaks formation, she goes back
27:46
to pray. And then she stopped praying and
27:48
says like, you know what? I know I'm not worthy, but like
27:52
my people are so like forget me, save my people.
27:57
I want to know more about where that came from.
27:59
That to me seems like such a like her character could have
28:05
gone there. And if we had seen like the
28:06
world constantly being defeated by this, this host and her
28:10
herself being seeing so many setbacks that it like it broke
28:15
what who I felt feel is such a like stalwart, stiff upper lip
28:23
kind of person to like to make that I guess to make that moment
28:29
more deserved. Like it doesn't feel like she
28:31
should be as intimidated as she was.
28:37
So two things. The first is so Leodrin's lore
28:41
is not something I'm super strong on, so I'm just parroting
28:43
what other people said to me. Isn't part of Leodrin's story
28:46
that she has historically done this before that like she kind
28:49
of gave up on the light and needed to be brought back into
28:52
it or something along those lines?
28:55
So she is the first of the blood nights, right?
29:01
She like she was the one who like worked to like imprison the
29:05
the Naru that was eventually sacrificed to reignite the the
29:09
sun well. And they forcibly drained that
29:13
energy to like retain to gain their power and abilities.
29:18
And that was the formation of the blood night, the blood
29:22
nights. It's her and coming in this
29:25
expansion, the, the person who controls the, the prey system,
29:32
right? They are the ones that like
29:35
formed the the blood nights and then for through the burning
29:40
crusade, the the turn of events and everything and the eventual
29:49
coming together of the of the sorry, I'm alive, I'm alive OK,
30:01
The eventually coming together of all the all of the forces to
30:06
like reignite the sun Well, the same Naru that she captured,
30:11
sacrificing itself to reignite the sun.
30:13
Well her like enemies at the time, which were the Junai
30:20
saying like no, no, no, we will work with you.
30:23
That kind of put a shame in her made her realize that she was
30:30
wrong in what she was she was doing and that that is part of
30:37
it. Like, that's why I would say
30:39
like, OK, like she would say like, yes, I'm not worthy, OK.
30:43
But like, the the frailty of her conviction, not necessarily her
30:50
her faith that she's deserving of the light, but her conviction
30:53
of like, I'm gonna stand. I don't care.
30:54
Like to me, Leon's the person who says I don't care if I'm
30:58
worthy or not. I will die unworthy rather than
31:01
like, give up and become worthy. Yeah, so I I'm gonna say before
31:07
I say my second point, I do remember in the when I watched
31:11
the Angela cutscene, I thought it was confusing and I thought
31:13
it it seemed kind of stilted and and sort of shoe horned without,
31:17
again, without knowing a ton of Leon, I know my my Leodrin
31:20
loving friends loved that cutscene.
31:23
So it's quite possible that I part of it is just that I'm
31:26
missing old lore contacts. Although I would make the
31:30
argument that if you need like all of the lore nuance to
31:33
understand a major opening cutscene, that's a problem in
31:38
and of itself. But the other argument I would
31:42
make is one thing that I was thinking about a lot with this
31:47
moment, right? With how did I just forget the
31:52
name of the Blood Elf city? Silverman.
31:55
Silverman, thank you. Is it Silverman just keeps
32:02
getting beaten down? Right?
32:03
This has happened so many times. They are constantly the ones
32:07
being attacked. They're constantly the ones.
32:09
And then, you know, like one of their old heroes comes back and
32:12
there's freaking void everywhere and they lost half their one of
32:15
their goddamn magisters decide. I mean, I'm not telling this in
32:19
order, but like he's oh, I'm going to go explore the void and
32:22
all of a sudden he's an alliance and we want to be the alliance,
32:25
but then the God damn everything.
32:27
And what if we what like this is just like the the life of the
32:33
blood elves is just constantly getting beaten down and
32:37
constantly having like like being in the repair mode and
32:42
getting things better. And then it falls apart and
32:45
you're just about to OK. And we're now we have, you know,
32:49
these conversations going with the Alliance and it falls apart.
32:52
And you know, like we we're like Arthus comes in and decimates
32:55
and everything. Like this is the thing they've
32:58
been through again and again and again.
32:59
And so I can understand some degree of just and as I'm saying
33:06
this, I, I do think this might have even been stronger had it
33:09
not been Leodrin and not been a specific character.
33:12
And more so constantly, like if if this had been more of like
33:19
the blood elves as like a like a, a legion of them almost
33:22
losing faith. I don't know, I'm thinking on
33:25
the fly, but I, I can't imagine being a blood elf is just
33:34
feeling like every time I open my eyes, there's another thing.
33:39
And every time we're just we finally repaired the city and
33:42
it's destroyed again. And like, we damn it, like we
33:46
were just getting better and now Zelatad has to come here.
33:52
Like out of all we had everything under control.
33:54
We were finally dealing with the magic addiction.
33:56
And like everything was finally OK.
33:58
And she's back. And that just like heart
34:03
wrenching. Like, what is the point?
34:06
Like, why am I still fighting right if if it's just gonna
34:09
happen again and again and again?
34:12
And I think that's a really powerful story within the blood
34:15
elves. But again, I don't feel like I
34:16
know Leodrin well enough to speak to whether or not this is
34:20
good for her. And I, I do feel that it wasn't.
34:25
Whatever internal conflict was going on is not super well
34:28
explained to us. Yeah.
34:31
I mean, I think that the plight of the blood elves has been like
34:38
a lot of hits, But I would also say that that is true for all of
34:46
the races. Like you go night owls and they
34:48
had their tree burned down and the other tree they had to
34:50
sacrifice to get rid of the demon.
34:52
You go orcs. And it's like, how many times
34:54
have we seen Jorge Amar? You go, you go.
34:58
I don't know the gnomes and it's like we just still don't have
35:02
our CD back. We just never got it back and
35:04
and the rate that everybody else is getting their city destroyed,
35:07
you know what, we'll just leave it just set the default
35:10
irradiated. So like it happens, it happens
35:13
to all of the races. This is of course, the World of
35:15
Warcraft. As much as people want to scream
35:18
that it's not the same as it's always been, it's very much
35:20
continues in those cycles like the the.
35:25
Humans had all these great internment camps and all of a
35:27
sudden we have to respect other races.
35:30
I mean. Taking heads.
35:33
There, there's a there is a lot right?
35:35
The yeah, Lord on, of course, getting sacked by the the orcs.
35:41
Everybody fled, fled to Stormwind.
35:44
They they get it back. Sorry, sorry, sorry, Stormwind
35:47
got hit first. They went to Lord Aron.
35:49
Lord Aron fought back. Undead plague comes in and no
35:52
more Lord Aron. So humans have definitely had it
35:55
hard. Gilmayans who like were like, oh
35:57
man, this is bad. Let's put up a wall and then
36:00
curse of the the wolves. So yes, there's there's been
36:03
flights for every every race and I think that there have clearly
36:09
been people who have been shaken in every race.
36:12
So like, I mean, you don't get nihilistic cults springing up
36:17
because everything's been hunky Dory's for so long.
36:21
So the fact that you have like the Twilight Blade as they're
36:25
called now is is testament to that, that people have been way
36:30
more shaken that they are fully on Like, no, no, life is
36:34
torture. Let's just end it all, end it
36:37
all. I forget what voice line that
36:38
is, but that that is a Warcraft voice line.
36:42
So yeah, you you're right on that too.
36:45
It is, it is interesting. It is Distill Cinematic team
36:49
doing such an amazing job pulling together all of those
36:56
characters and making it interesting and touching upon
37:01
things and hinting at things with these relatively short
37:06
moments of time. You're looking at the two
37:09
cinematics we talked about and the two of them combined that
37:12
that's not even 2015 minutes of of content there.
37:18
So that yeah, I agree with you on that.
37:23
Moving past the cinematic, if we could, that leads us to of
37:29
course 12 point O .1 actually hitting live.
37:34
And as I said before, there have been a number of changes.
37:41
Lex, you haven't been playing that much.
37:43
I've been on every day because for me, it's all about the big
37:48
love rocket. Sorry, I apologize.
37:52
That's a show that is, that is no longer with us.
37:56
I'm talking about the X-45 rocket that comes from the the
38:01
love is in the air. Still hunting that on top of
38:06
which from previous years they added in the sweeping, the
38:12
sweeping broom, which still don't have that also comes from
38:17
the heart-shaped box. And this year they've added a
38:21
third mount that can drop, which is a butterfly.
38:27
So if you haven't gotten any of these amounts, just login.
38:32
There are different drop chances.
38:34
I'll go through those here for everybody.
38:37
The X 45, the original one that is currently on the first chance
38:45
each day on each account, you will have a greatly elevated
38:50
chance of it dropping. Beyond that, you still have a
38:56
chance of it of it dropping from other characters on that same
39:02
account, but it's the greatly reduced chance in terms of the
39:08
brew mount that one has a chance for the first one each day on
39:17
the account, but it also has a increasing bad luck protection
39:23
so that eventually you should have a high chance, but not
39:26
fully guaranteed. It never hits like you're
39:28
guaranteed after so many attempts to have that dropped.
39:33
And then this latest one is again, first attempt per account
39:41
and the bad luck protection. So if you're, if you're just
39:46
trying to not go crazy, make one attempt a day, right, Go get a
39:51
tanker a or a healer because you get super fast cues.
39:57
Do pick up the potions with the scaling, the, the poisons, the
40:02
purple pools and the green pools actually do hurt.
40:05
So do pick up that potion just so you're not stressing your
40:08
healer. Or if you are the healer that
40:10
you don't like, do pay attention to life bars because people will
40:14
get trucked and then beyond that.
40:19
Just outside of the major towns, there is this entire fairgrounds
40:23
that are set up. Once again, you can buy a bunch
40:27
of stuff that was in there from last year as well as anything
40:32
that you want as well. Now Goblin Graphics asks if
40:36
there's any holiday decor. And Lex, have you, have you
40:40
pulled that up? Because I actually don't believe
40:42
there is, but I can't say with a certainty.
40:44
Unfortunately, I don't think so though.
40:48
I am not seeing any. I'm seeing it looks like a lot
40:54
of butterfly decor this year. So they have like trans mods and
40:57
stuff. Was that true last year as well?
40:58
I wasn't paying attention. Yeah, if you've.
41:02
Missed a year? There's a lot to do.
41:04
Yeah, yeah. So it, it does not look like
41:07
there's any holiday decor. And I, I feel like I'm saying
41:10
that while scrolling to the very bottom of the Wowhead article.
41:12
I think if there was holiday decor it would be like for front
41:15
and center. Yeah, new, new this year sort of
41:17
thing. I think that you're because
41:20
we're just ahead of midnight. They didn't add Decor to this.
41:23
Same thing with the trading post.
41:25
I was like, oh, maybe they'll put in Decor.
41:26
It's more likely gonna be a March thing or whatever holidays
41:30
we get going forward. Yeah, and to be fair, as much as
41:33
I'm like sad that we don't have seasonal decor yet, it's not
41:36
like the housing team is sitting down doing nothing, right?
41:40
Like they are working very hard. They have put many things in.
41:43
We will get our seasonal decor eventually.
41:45
Not everything has to be at the start.
41:46
I say that mostly to myself, to be clear, because I was the one
41:49
who was throwing a little wine fit about how I couldn't
41:52
decorate for Christmas. Yeah, yeah.
41:55
I I would look for that like last expansion, I think it was
41:59
more dragonflight they added in hearthstones into every if
42:03
everyone. I really did like that theme.
42:05
So decor for midnight would be really awesome.
42:10
The Go ahead, Lex. Oh, I was gonna say this is kind
42:14
of an interruption because goblin graphics was mentioned in
42:17
chat that like, oh, a noble garden holiday accord would be a
42:19
fun start and that actually, so I was really I'm I'm a little
42:22
confused about the decision this year to make it the spring
42:25
butterfly. Maybe it's just that I live very
42:28
far up north and so we got like almost half a foot of snow last
42:32
night. I'm exaggerating, but still.
42:33
So I'm like, what do you mean spring butterfly?
42:36
It's February, but I do feel like spring butterfly vibes are
42:40
much more noble garden. I'm not, I guess like they're
42:43
pink, right? That's a little Valentine's Day,
42:46
but I don't I don't know that I fully agree with the decision to
42:51
make it the the spring butterfly here.
42:52
But I mean, it's pretty. Maybe it's gonna be rabbits.
42:55
Rabbits for for noble garden. That's very spring.
42:59
Yeah, get a big Bunny mound or. Something I I will say in terms
43:05
of Decor, if you are looking for Decor, 3 of the four dungeons
43:11
that were locked out in the first pre patch have been
43:16
opened. So if you go into Skyreach, if
43:20
you go to Algothar Academy and if you go to the pit of Sauron,
43:25
turn in your dungeon difficulty to normal and you can run
43:28
through the dungeon and you have really high chances.
43:31
I, I ran them each once and got the decor.
43:35
So like it was less like I if it's not guaranteed, it's
43:39
incredibly high, but you will get the you can get the decor
43:43
out of that before we get into season 1 and they become part of
43:47
the mythic plus rotation. The seed of the triumphant
43:50
unfortunately still requires level 90, so you can't get into
43:54
that one. I also did look at the in game
44:01
Decor guide and that has been updated not only reflecting
44:05
stuff that is going to be coming in midnight.
44:06
So you'll, you can see what will be there, but also locations and
44:10
such of some stuff that is currently available right now.
44:13
I while I was going and doing Skyreach, I was finding a decor
44:19
vendor that's out in the spies of Iraq in, in Warlizer.
44:23
Traynor picked up a bunch of different stuff from from there,
44:27
so if you are looking for more decor stuff to like make your
44:33
place look great, go ahead and look through that in the in the
44:38
game. Has anyone made just like a
44:40
list? I'm sure they have.
44:41
I'm sure I haven't seen it of like every decor vendor and
44:44
where you can find them. So you if you want to just like
44:46
grind it out and go pop to every single vendor you could.
44:49
Yeah, if you go to there is the Wow database, housing database.
44:57
So I think it's like Wow housing DB is the exact, I think that is
45:04
the entire site that's dedicated to like here it is.
45:07
This is how much cost, this is where you can go for it.
45:09
This is the budget for like room budget and so forth.
45:13
And you can just like find stuff there.
45:15
But so more So what I'm talking about is like has somebody?
45:18
Unless I'm misunderstanding because I'm on the page now, Is
45:21
there somebody who's kind of walked through like, here's just
45:24
where you like If you wanted to hit up every single decor
45:26
vendor, right? Less so like identifying what
45:29
decor you. Want so you're like trying to do
45:30
a world tour where I like spend as little amount little amount
45:34
of time circumnavigating the map to get to every decor vendor?
45:38
Exactly. Got it.
45:40
I haven't seen that. I have seen some great videos by
45:43
Discordian Kitty that kind of breaks it down into like, hey,
45:47
if you want to go and do dungeons, here's the dungeons,
45:50
here's the delves, here's going around Eastern Kingdoms, right?
45:55
And I think that kind of helps a bit.
46:00
So like that would be kind of good.
46:03
It's sort of like data for Azarov has this entire or no,
46:08
might not be data for Azarov. There is a site that I'm
46:11
blanking on right now that has an entire like these are the
46:14
amounts you're missing. Here's the most effective route
46:16
for you to go to all of the places and and go farm them.
46:20
And I think that's what you're looking for, but I haven't seen
46:23
that for decor. I don't know phasers.
46:27
If you know of a site or any sort of resource that gives that
46:32
sort of breakdown on where to go and like where to go next, let
46:37
us know. We'd love to hear about it.
46:41
But yeah, have you, I guess if you're asking that, that's
46:46
because you're you're sort of saying like, I want to do this
46:49
tour, I'd love to do it as efficiently as possible.
46:51
So you haven't started doing this yet, right?
46:55
Not really, not really. I still get very overwhelmed
46:58
every time we like I think about housing and I know you and I
47:03
have talked offline a little bit about like different ways to
47:06
potentially tackle that. And every all of it is just
47:09
there's just so many stats, right?
47:11
Like does everything is like to try to fit even like going on
47:15
this wow housing database. It's so cool and there's so many
47:19
things and every single thing I'm like, well.
47:21
That's the problem. The second thing you said,
47:22
there's so many things, it's like, where the hell do I even
47:24
start? Yeah.
47:26
Yeah, yeah, I do think I want to make my house a little bit more
47:31
functional. You and I chatted a little bit
47:33
about how when I'm on like a phone call with people, I'm
47:36
usually just like on World of Warcraft, like jumping around.
47:38
And so turning like getting a big room and just turning it
47:41
into kind of like a jungle gym, right?
47:42
Where I can just like be like on an officer chat, like just try
47:45
to like hop up to like 1, you know, little platform up here
47:48
and then go over here. Like, you know, that sort of
47:51
thing would be really fun for me.
47:52
So maybe making housing last just like a set up my house and
47:55
make it look pretty. So it's pretty and more so like
47:57
how can I use this in the ways that I tend to engage with the
48:00
game, But I have not actually started doing that.
48:03
I've just talked about it. Yeah, I mean in the Patreon I
48:07
did a tour of my house that is now so out of date.
48:12
I've I've rebuilt different places.
48:14
I think 2 of the rooms are the same, like the entry room and
48:18
the kitchen are somewhat the same.
48:22
But like, again, Lex and I do talk outside of the show,
48:26
apparently. And the the empty room that I
48:31
was like that I was saying, oh, I should make this.
48:33
You were saying I should make this like a gymnasium or a
48:35
training room. I ended up turning it into a sun
48:38
room, which like I really do love.
48:44
And communities, communities have sprung up about this all
48:47
over World of Warcraft that they're doing these housing,
48:52
housing communities and stuff like that.
48:54
And for me, I wanted to make my house seem like not like
48:58
something that is like World of Warcraft sort of thing.
49:02
It was just like, it's a house that my adventurer returns to.
49:05
It is, it is like the kind of a functional thing, like what
49:10
would a house in World of Warcraft do for somebody who
49:13
wasn't like like the grand mage of cool terrace or whatever sort
49:18
of thing. Not like the Castle Borealis or
49:21
whatever, or Borealis, not Borealis, Borealis or whatever.
49:25
This was just like a home in the neighborhood.
49:28
And I have really enjoyed when I do get that idea, just building
49:34
it out and being that I, I geeked over making a laundry
49:39
nook where I had like a little washer or dryer and putting in
49:44
like the little steam coming out of the right place.
49:46
And, and it and one part that I actually jostles around.
49:50
So it looks like that's running. And then I found like little
49:52
dials that's it's so geeky and so much fun.
49:56
And it's stuff that I used to do when I was playing like Animal
50:00
Crossing. I never actually played The
50:02
Sims. I played like Animal Crossing
50:04
and and that and I really enjoy that and I love putting in the
50:09
clutter and making it lived in and making it feel like it's
50:12
like a actual place instead of just like, here's the fridge and
50:17
here's the stove and here and here's some counters and leave
50:21
it at that. It's like, no, no, no, like,
50:23
hey, like this fridge doors like this cupboard door slightly open
50:26
and inside you can see the stuff there.
50:28
Like there's there's the wine and one glass is sort of left
50:31
out. And like all these little things
50:33
in there that like, like we were just talking about with the
50:37
cinematics, sort of tell a story in there.
50:40
Not like, oh, this place is like showroom ready, but like this
50:43
place is, Hey, I you came over there and he had to go rush off
50:47
to like fight in the mana vaults.
50:49
And so he didn't get a chance to clean up the takeout food.
50:52
And so the takeout food was like left there.
50:55
And it's like, oh, wow, you better come back and clean that.
50:57
Like that to me is this weird little head cannon, not quite
51:03
full RP as you have talked about in previous episodes, but like
51:08
just making that kind of cool little environment I love to do.
51:11
Yeah, Yeah. So I would invite you to do
51:15
that. Forget about building the house,
51:18
make a room. Be like, I'm going to do the
51:21
library and it's got a bunch of the fell tombs and like my Demon
51:26
Hunter was like looking for a book here and then zipped over
51:29
here and dropped the book down there and then and then couldn't
51:33
find it. So like jump double jumped up
51:36
here. And so like there's a platform
51:37
here for demon hunters to double jump to and the the ladder is
51:42
always been left off there. It's got cobwebs because he
51:44
never uses it because all he does is he double jumps and like
51:48
that becomes like the story and like you build that and and
51:51
such. I think that's cool and I really
51:53
do love the people who are building these amazing,
51:58
fantastical, fantastical buildings and structures that
52:03
that are there. Yeah, I do think when I start
52:08
more so copy like pulling in from other people, that probably
52:11
is what I kind of need to do is spend a little time looking at
52:13
other people. Because I was thinking when you
52:15
were talking about like playing Animal Crossing and like I did
52:17
play The Sims and I was the girl who would just go in and do the
52:20
like high money cheat and then just buy up a really nice house
52:23
that was pre made. I once tried to make my own
52:25
house and it was very distressing for my SIM because I
52:28
forgot to make a bathroom. It's got 2 bathrooms in my house
52:33
so on. Suite end you got the the one
52:39
that I forgot way back. There you go.
52:43
Yeah, No, I I would do that. The other thing, just general
52:46
advice for anybody. Don't do the big rooms.
52:48
My goodness, trying to fill up the big rooms is insanity.
52:52
Go small. If you find that you were like,
52:54
Oh my goodness, I don't have the room for stuff, then go ahead.
52:57
Make the medium room but the largest rooms.
53:00
I don't think they'd make any sense in in my mind.
53:03
There there are some people who seem to love the really big
53:06
spaces, but I'm also very much not.
53:10
These are not the skills of mine.
53:13
OK. That brings us to kind of link
53:17
to this, but also the last story that I want to talk about today.
53:22
People who saw the state of Azeroth, who have seen the
53:27
various things that are coming in housing and so forth and are
53:31
talking about the quote UN quote Disneyfication of the World of
53:35
Warcraft. So this is this is coming from
53:41
people who, you know, have been with the game for a long time
53:45
and resent that the game is evolving.
53:48
They saw the interview where it was Ian Hasekosis and Holly
53:57
talking and Holly's talked about like how even Chris Metson
54:02
venerated is his name said Like, man, sometimes I wish it was, we
54:07
didn't name it Warcraft just so it would be more approachable.
54:10
And this caused a backlash on the interwebs because we were
54:15
like, what? Chris Metsons portrayed us.
54:18
This is Warcraft. Can we?
54:20
Just be honest with each other. I don't mean to yuck in my own
54:23
Yum. I don't mean to yuck.
54:24
I don't mean to be mean to the devs.
54:26
Fast dev. If you're listening, you can put
54:27
the little cuffs on. With the with the Airbus going
54:29
to be talking about Warcraft? It look, it's an amazing game.
54:35
I understand like where it all can't having especially like now
54:37
that I'm playing the RTS a little bit.
54:39
I get the history, I get where it came from.
54:41
I'm so happy it exists. Can we not be honest with each
54:44
other that the World of Warcraft is a little bit silly of a name?
54:48
Like we can again, love the game, Great game, well
54:51
developed, incredible. It's a little goofy.
54:55
It's a kind of the World of War. It's a It's a slightly goofy
54:58
name. It so like, you know, names, so
55:03
be it, right? World of Warcraft.
55:07
Everybody said they were cribbing notes off of Warhammer,
55:11
right? Warcraft itself doesn't seem
55:16
silly because like statesmanship Warcraft, that's the, those are
55:20
things. So like Warcraft makes sense
55:22
always. And then of course, when you
55:25
you're like, hey, like let's now do an MMO and we're gonna put
55:28
people in the World of Warcraft. It's so very direct.
55:31
So I've never considered it silly.
55:34
I just considered it maybe perhaps a little unimaginative.
55:39
I think, I think Warcraft made sense a lot as a name in the RTS
55:45
because that was what you were doing.
55:47
I think that's kind of I On the one hand, what else would they
55:51
have named it? On the other hand, like, I think
55:53
that just doesn't really translate.
55:55
To. Yeah, it's so much more epic.
55:59
But also, like, I mean, first of all, if you want to transition
56:02
from the RTS, that makes sense. And now you're, I'm not like
56:05
saying they should rename it. I'm not saying it's bad.
56:08
I'm not saying like, Oh my goodness, if you are a World of
56:11
Warcraft dev, you should feel so embarrassed.
56:13
I feel so like I just, I think we can be honest with ourselves.
56:19
I don't know how you could feel in that anyways that this is me
56:22
fanboy. If I if I got to work on the
56:25
World of Warcraft team, right. But like I'm so into the game,
56:30
like I I was a little inside baseball.
56:33
I was talking to my, my ex earlier this, this week and I
56:40
was talking about like different, different things and
56:42
you know, the podcasts, like the, the organizing, the event
56:46
and all of that. And I stopped, I stopped for a
56:48
second and I said, like you always, you always thought that
56:53
like the video games were silly, right?
56:56
Because she's not a gamer. Never, never has been.
57:01
And her response was, you know what?
57:03
It's not for me, but I see the community.
57:06
I see like the great things that could come out of it.
57:08
And that's, that's amazing, right?
57:11
And so even if you are miles away from gaming in general, and
57:19
you can say like, hey, like I'm working on a game that's been
57:23
out for like 20 years and has been like going strong, a
57:27
franchise that's been going for like 30 years with a company
57:31
that's been around for like 35 years, right?
57:35
Like all of that is, is just objectively like this has been
57:44
something with staying power. And so I, yeah.
57:47
So I, I don't think people who want to like pinch at like
57:55
Warcraft, It's just, it's the name, right.
57:59
Like Microsoft is Microsoft's kind of silly when you, when
58:04
you're not like indoctrinated into it being a home name.
58:06
It's just, it's just a name. Yeah.
58:07
Oh. Yeah, I didn't mean that.
58:09
It's like a big I I, I still love the game.
58:13
And I'm not saying it's a terrible show.
58:15
I just when I heard that line from like, you know, Holly
58:18
saying Chris Metzen sometimes, like I wish we didn't call it
58:21
the World of Warcraft, I'm like, Oh yeah, I could see why.
58:25
OK, OK, well that that made Chris Metzen, even though it was
58:31
just like an anecdotal sort of thing that he talked about.
58:34
And if you get the context, it means basically nothing.
58:37
Like we all regret it. There's there's sometimes where
58:41
I'm sure, I'm sure like a pair goes and says, man, I kind of
58:45
wish we didn't name him Nelson or whatever name.
58:49
Like, I'm sorry to all the Nelsons out there.
58:50
This is the name that came to me, right?
58:52
Just like I kind of wish we named him something else.
58:55
Like why did we name our kid like Billy Willy?
59:00
Whatever. I don't know, right?
59:02
I'm going to stop this before I offend, like every name out
59:05
there. We we're already getting
59:06
cancelled because I've said the World of Warcraft was a silly
59:09
name and Manny's like, let's. Just make sure we're just going
59:12
to name them all. Let's.
59:14
Get it all out so. Everyone wants to stop
59:16
listening. What?
59:17
What possessed us to name our kid Lex?
59:20
I don't know. As as clearly this is the guppy,
59:25
you know the the Rance family really thought that was.
59:29
OK, I in terms of names, the 2 ones that always will stick with
59:35
me were my friend whose last name was DYKE.
59:45
Which doesn't matter if you pronounce it one way or the
59:49
other. You should never name your kid
59:52
Richard. What are you thinking?
59:59
Oh God, yeah, there were. I've done a lot of work with the
1:00:03
public, so I've seen a lot of last names and occasionally I'll
1:00:07
like see a last name and I'm like their parents knew they
1:00:10
could take. The woman's last name, right?
1:00:13
Like there wasn't a law that we had to continue this.
1:00:19
My father was rich and we had to name him after my father.
1:00:21
It's like, just don't marry into that family then.
1:00:26
Anyways. So yeah, we've all had name
1:00:29
regrets. It's really not that thing.
1:00:31
It was a fleeting sort of comment.
1:00:33
And the, IT ignited this, this conversation about like World of
1:00:38
Warcraft and how it's evolving and if it's staying true to what
1:00:43
it was. And I think anybody who's played
1:00:47
World of Warcraft, any version of it knows that it has some
1:00:52
silly weird humor. Before it was the like annoyance
1:00:58
line. When you clicked on a unit
1:00:59
enough they would start saying weird weird strange things like
1:01:03
I'm not that kind of orc or whatever it might be.
1:01:08
It's the quest that have been in there since vanilla that are
1:01:11
poop joke 1275 right? It like World of Warcraft has
1:01:17
always had this sort of silly thing.
1:01:20
Pet battles aren't Warcraft, but they don't they haven't gotten
1:01:26
the same. Or maybe they did and I was just
1:01:29
blissfully unaware like that was that was the straw that broke it
1:01:33
for some people that pet battles have come into my World of
1:01:36
Warcraft and Oh my goodness, now I now I got to go find Pikachu
1:01:40
so I can get into the raid. Who knows, But what do you think
1:01:45
of this Lex? Yeah, I mean, in case I haven't
1:01:49
pissed off our fans enough, I think to some degree we need to
1:01:51
call a spade spade. I think the difference between
1:01:54
poop jokes and, you know, cheering 'cause you got a pretty
1:01:58
piece of decor is that one of it is man jokes and one or like big
1:02:03
air quotes over. This stereotypically
1:02:05
heteronormatively man jokes, Yeah.
1:02:07
Right. The like, you know, pop culture
1:02:11
references and the, you know, like those were read as more
1:02:17
masculine jokes and the cutscene that some people like to lose
1:02:24
their mind about read is more feminine.
1:02:26
And I think people want, I mean, actually they don't because I've
1:02:31
seen some of the comments and a lot of people are really
1:02:33
explicit about it that they are mad because they feel like this
1:02:36
used to be a man game and now it's a girl game and they don't
1:02:38
play the girl game. They want to play the man game.
1:02:41
And to them I say. Tough, I am sorry like I don't I
1:02:51
think that PvP right, I think that rating, I think that
1:02:59
delving and the upcoming labyrinths are all there for
1:03:04
people who want the exploration, the fighting, the cutthroat
1:03:09
right. None of that has been diminished
1:03:13
by the addition of this stuff that appeals to a wider
1:03:16
audience, not just in terms of tone, but in terms of like play
1:03:21
time and play patterns, in terms of how I want to express my
1:03:27
character. I love that professions have
1:03:31
been like put up to this level where somebody can be like, I am
1:03:35
going to be a blacksmith and like, that's what I'm working
1:03:39
on. And I'm going to like get all
1:03:42
the patterns or I'm going to create my army of of alts and
1:03:46
I'm going to just own the auction house.
1:03:50
And that's my end game. And that isn't something that
1:03:53
might challenge some people's fragile nature of what they feel
1:03:59
is threatening to their sense of what the game should be.
1:04:06
And so it feels, it feels like people are being disingenuous
1:04:14
when something else shows up that just so happens to cater
1:04:20
like it just be like directed to a lighter hearted sort of sort
1:04:27
of thing. Hearthstone has been using the
1:04:31
same light hearted sort of nature before, and just because
1:04:35
the Hearthstone ads haven't prominently featured a female
1:04:40
blood elf in in some of them doesn't mean that this isn't the
1:04:44
exact same sort of like subversion of what Wow is.
1:04:50
Because she is such a fighter in the initial parts and she is
1:04:56
right there slashing and slicing and dicing and then she finds
1:05:03
the piece that she wanted and it's just this euphoric.
1:05:07
Like, yes. And if you don't understand
1:05:11
that, that is wow. You are never have haunted for
1:05:15
your Moby Dick Captain Ahab mount.
1:05:19
You have never been tracking down Decor.
1:05:22
You have never defeated a boss that was eluding you for how
1:05:27
many Poles and not have like that, that moment of euphoria
1:05:30
that is World of Warcraft. That is so much what all of us
1:05:35
experience when we get the good, when it's all about the loot.
1:05:39
As my friend Coltrane used to say constantly on his podcast.
1:05:44
You would get that like that, that great drop.
1:05:47
You'd finally complete your your tear set.
1:05:50
You'd that legendary would be forged, Nerd screams.
1:05:54
You would down the boss, nerd screams.
1:05:58
You would finally kick that team and get that rating and you'd be
1:06:05
like, Oh my goodness, I've reached this rating in PvP.
1:06:10
Yeah, buddy. Hell yeah.
1:06:13
Right. That's that's it.
1:06:15
That's what this is. And I think that's amazing.
1:06:18
And I, I, I do want to make it clear, I'm not saying I think
1:06:21
like you can't critique anything in World of Warcraft or you're
1:06:24
like, I mean, first of all, I am one of the arguably the biggest
1:06:28
haters on this podcast. So like, obviously I will give
1:06:31
critiques. And I, I even think you could,
1:06:33
like, I personally feel that World of Warcraft's writing
1:06:37
style tends to struggle a little bit with differentiating good
1:06:40
characters. And if they want to show a
1:06:42
character's good, they kind of fall into a, a heap of like just
1:06:47
everything has to be perfect. And they're lose a lot of their
1:06:50
like moral greatness because they have to make all the good
1:06:52
person choices, which is a really hard thing to write out,
1:06:55
right? I think most writers who deal
1:06:57
with a lot of stories have a tendency to kind of goodness
1:07:00
sort of becomes like, oh, but to be clear, we have to be like
1:07:03
anything that's important. They have to be good, otherwise
1:07:05
they're evil. So, but like, I, I, I think the,
1:07:08
the point of this is to say, I think there are valid critiques
1:07:11
of certain writing styles in World of Warcraft.
1:07:13
I think there's valid critiques of directions in, in certain
1:07:18
storylines. I think there's valid critiques
1:07:19
of, of ways, things like ways we write out stories.
1:07:23
I'm, I'm not saying if you critique World of Warcraft,
1:07:25
you're a misogynist. I will also say, though, to the
1:07:28
point of like, what if World of Warcraft losing, you know, what
1:07:31
it originally was originally World of Warcraft was really
1:07:35
misogynistic and really racist, right?
1:07:38
Like, and, and, and not like in a, in a like irredeemable, you
1:07:42
know, it was just, they came in and they just wrote, I hate
1:07:45
women, I hate people of color, I hate women.
1:07:47
Like, like obviously there was nuance.
1:07:48
And my understanding is that when it came out, it actually
1:07:51
was among the more progressive of the games for it's time,
1:07:54
right? Like it's complicated.
1:07:56
We're allowed to hold that complication.
1:07:57
And you can love a complicated thing and acknowledge the where
1:08:00
it came from and acknowledge what issues arose and also what
1:08:04
issues continue to exist, right? I think that's, I, I personally
1:08:07
think that's a critical part of loving something is being
1:08:09
capable of, of holding nuance with, of it.
1:08:12
But the idea that the original story writing was unproblematic
1:08:19
and didn't hold biases that were held by the the writers, I think
1:08:25
is provably untrue. And I think that growing through
1:08:28
that is going to mean that some of the things that we expect,
1:08:31
you know, that if you played from the beginning that you
1:08:33
expect from World of Warcraft have to be written out.
1:08:36
And I think that's, that's good, that's growth, that's becoming
1:08:40
something better. That's acknowledging the spaces
1:08:42
where something you were doing was problematic or, or or not
1:08:46
what you thought or like you didn't fully understand
1:08:49
something or you held a belief you didn't, you know, in
1:08:51
retrospect, you find embarrassing, which again, is
1:08:53
true of all of us. I'm really truly not trying to
1:08:55
like decimate the the World of Warcraft team or make like, say
1:08:59
this one person is a bad person, right?
1:09:01
I that's a that that is how you develop and grow.
1:09:06
That's not a loss. That's not a failure.
1:09:09
That is growing up and maturing. I would say that that is 100%
1:09:15
true and you can see that in the character development of Thrall,
1:09:20
who is basically being like Metzen's self insert into the
1:09:24
game where as we got the cataclysm, he got married.
1:09:30
As we moved on, he has kids, he stepped aside and let the next
1:09:37
generation take take their place at the helm.
1:09:41
He has like had to come to terms with like what issues he has
1:09:49
created. Like could it be that like, the
1:09:52
monster that Garage is, is kind of also a monster that Metzen
1:09:56
felt that he created? There's so much analogies of
1:10:00
like how Metzen's life evolved, how his views evolved, and how
1:10:04
the World of Warcraft has evolved.
1:10:05
And that didn't happen overnight in one single thing.
1:10:10
That's been a constant movement and as this game has gone on for
1:10:15
20 plus years, people have come on to the project, people have
1:10:20
left the project, the voice has shifted.
1:10:24
That hasn't been suddenly where they're like, yeah, we're
1:10:27
suddenly throwing out all the old stuff and going in with the
1:10:31
new stuff. This has been the evolution of
1:10:35
Wow for the longest time. I think the same thing is true
1:10:41
that people complaining about the Disney fication of Wow has
1:10:45
been going on for the longest of time.
1:10:48
So nothing new under the sun. I guess just more cycles, much
1:10:51
like Solitas abuse. But we're going to be back with
1:10:56
more stuff next week. If you like this episode, make
1:11:01
sure you join us for the conversations that we have in
1:11:03
the discord. That's bit dot LY slash fast
1:11:05
discord. And until next week, guys, may
1:11:08
all your hits be crit.