Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #280 - For Azeroth!: “EDNA”

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#280 - For Azeroth!: “EDNA” · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

0:00
I like spicy lex. I think spicy lex is best lex
0:03
though. The.
0:04
Issue is that you do that have to tolerate like apologizing
0:07
about everything for 30 minutes Lex.
0:14
Shadow word criticism. Oh, I like that.
0:17
I like that vicious mockery. I think is the proper time.
0:21
We have no Barts. I play the loot so we can
0:25
pretend. That counts.
0:26
Badly, which I feel like does more damage, so it's off.
0:30
Key. It just makes it worse.
0:33
It harms you even more. I can do so much more damage as
0:35
a Bard. If you don't know how to play
0:36
the instrument for calendar to the.
0:42
Burning region for Gilnius, for the Lich King, for the Sindori.
0:50
For the Alliance, for the. Whore for Azeroth.
0:58
Hello and welcome back to another episode of For Azeroth.
1:03
I am one of the triumphant that is me, true villain Manny, AKA
1:08
Just Manny. And I'm joined, of course, by
1:13
Lex Rants, who is stifling a giggle there, but feel free to
1:17
let those flow. Lex, how are you?
1:20
I'm great. I'm Lex rants, AKA Lex.
1:23
I'm I'm vibin. How are you doing, Manny?
1:26
Doing OK, I'm doing OK. I I got I I'm repping the for
1:30
Razoroff shirt there. There we go.
1:32
I gotta get some Forazoroff. Merch.
1:33
We have merch. Yeah, we do have merch.
1:36
Should actually mention that Whatever I, I, I don't, I just
1:40
I'm not AI was about to say I'm not a salesman, but I've been a
1:45
salesman for like 15 years. I'm not currently a salesman and
1:49
I'm not buying off the merch, but maybe you want to take a
1:54
stab at it. Joining us from the furthest
1:57
east of any of us is the Sultan of Sean.
2:01
Hello, Sean. How are you doing?
2:02
Hey, Manny, hey, Lex, I'm good, I'm good.
2:05
I it's weird. I know for the audio listeners
2:07
who are just downloaded the podcast or watching this on or
2:09
shining a YouTube, this seems like, hey, we've just sat down
2:13
and started recording. But it's weird saying, Hey, how
2:16
are you doing when we've been talking for half a night?
2:18
Oh yeah, we are certified yappers.
2:20
We are certified yappers. It's a problem.
2:23
We have our like like there's the pre show that we do on
2:25
Twitch, but then there's also the pre pre show which is just
2:27
us like not shutting up and it's really fun.
2:30
You guys don't get to see it though, so it's exclusive.
2:33
The proto show. The proto.
2:35
Yeah. The the the goop by which the
2:39
the pre show forms out of and then becomes the show.
2:42
Understood. That's right understood.
2:44
Well, you know, we'll bring a little bit of the 4th, 4th wall,
2:47
Sean, with your mastery or magic that you're gonna have, maybe
2:52
that'll be a little bit seamless in next week, but.
2:56
Doubtful. Doubt.
2:57
OK, the the audience could be the judge of that.
3:04
Anyways, we do have some World of Warcraft news.
3:08
So much so that I actually had to leave off some news.
3:11
We're gonna we're gonna have to talk about some of this stuff
3:13
whenever it slows down. But it's not slowing down
3:16
anytime soon, so let's dive right into it.
3:18
Sean, you've been playing Mr. Pandaria.
3:21
Tell us what is going on in the remix.
3:23
Well, Manny, Lex boy, let me tell you, Blizzard made a post
3:31
last week, I think it was maybe the week before where they said,
3:34
hey gang, we're pretty happy with where everything is right
3:37
now. We want you to know we don't
3:40
have any plans to nerf the cost of upgrades to the gear and they
3:45
haven't. They stuck true to that.
3:47
But what they have done, which is essentially the same thing,
3:52
is double the amount of bronze you get from bronze caches and
3:56
greater bronze caches. So while yes, it is true the
3:59
cost of the upgrades has remained the same, you now get
4:02
twice as much bronze from the bronze caches that you get from
4:06
killing raid bosses or completing your daily quests and
4:09
doing some of the questing and completing chapters in the
4:12
quests. And Manny this has made it a
4:15
rocket ship to the moon for anybody farming bronze.
4:18
Oh man, you are now able to easily get somewhere in the
4:23
range of like 50,000 bronze just by doing your daily, your three
4:29
daily quests, an extra dungeon, an extra scenario.
4:32
Could you do one normal, 1 heroic for each and then one
4:36
quick mogush and vaults raid? It's crazy it's raining bronze.
4:42
I don't know where this bronze is all coming from, but it is
4:44
raining bronze. People are maxing with their
4:46
characters, and I gotta tell you, I don't think this is the
4:49
last bronze buff we see. On top of that, they also buffed
4:53
the amount of threads you get. The threads are the thing that
4:56
power up your cloak, so people's cloaks are getting to giga Chad
4:59
levels of strength. Everything's coming up.
5:02
Mop Remix. A good, good day to be a panda.
5:06
Yeah, like I think when they made the initial announcement,
5:08
like we called it here immediately, but I also think
5:12
that this is actually better than what people were asking for
5:15
it. Like everybody was asking, oh,
5:16
just drop those costs. It's just it costs too much.
5:19
But with this increase, you don't necessarily put it towards
5:23
the gear upgrades. You can put it towards any of
5:26
the cosmetics or the mounts or anything that you that you your
5:30
heart desires in there. So it's a kind of a more direct
5:34
route. Like you may just say like, hey,
5:36
maybe I don't need to like clear through Mythic Siege of Orgamar
5:41
solo. Maybe I get what I want and I
5:44
get out. So you're still going through
5:47
midst of Pandaria. Are you still doing daily runs
5:52
or is that slowed down a little bit?
5:53
Nope. I every day full clear all of
5:56
the heroic grades except Siege of Roger Mark 'cause that one's
5:59
a bit of a slog. I can do Mogush and Vaults,
6:03
Fresh Toes, Heart of Fear and Thrown of Thunder in less than
6:08
an hour, just under an hour, which is the same amount of time
6:11
it takes to do one siege of Orgamar run.
6:13
But I do those and then I do as I mentioned, a heroic dungeon, a
6:16
normal dungeon, a heroic scenario, a normal scenario, and
6:20
all that net together gets me about like 80,000 bronze a day.
6:25
It takes approximately an hour 15 to do the whole thing start
6:28
to finish. I have four days left of bronze
6:33
farming and then I will have deleted every quest in Pandaria,
6:37
all of the campaign quests, including Isle of Thunder, which
6:40
we could talk about if you want. But yeah, including Isle of
6:42
Thunder. I went back and finished that
6:44
and and then I will have also bought every item on the vendor.
6:47
Wow. I, I actually did want to take
6:49
time to talk about your little questing adventure.
6:52
I, I've been following your streams and anybody who has been
6:55
following your streams will know about this.
6:57
But for people who are just listening to the show, we've
7:00
we've had a bit of turbulence in your love affair with Mr.
7:03
Pandaria. Yeah, it so the main Pandaria
7:08
zones and questing 10 out of 10 no notes.
7:10
Some of the best storytelling and zone design I've ever seen
7:15
in not only World of Warcraft in any game ever.
7:18
And then landfall operation shield wall came out and again,
7:22
same thing. Those quests made us feel a lot
7:25
of emotions right in the fields. Great design, great writing,
7:30
loved it. And then Isle of Thunder.
7:33
And for those who don't know, Isle of Thunder is a zone that
7:36
has no flying. It's designed to be all rocky,
7:40
craggy mountains and jagged walls that appear out of
7:43
nowhere. And the questing in that zone,
7:47
the most egregious quest chain, you have to get an item that
7:50
drops from the rares that in Pandaria is on a daily lockout.
7:56
You need 9 of this site. First, you have to get three of
7:58
the item for the first part of the quest.
8:00
That's three days of questing and then the next quest you have
8:04
to get nine of these items again that are on a day lockout in
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actual penned area time. I found out these were a weekly
8:12
lockout. You could only get one a week.
8:15
So it was like 9 weeks to complete the Isle of Thunder
8:18
quest chain. Anyway, it was, I was at the
8:20
point Saturday night I was playing and I loud and Saturday
8:22
night for like a chill Saturday night vibe.
8:24
And by the end of it, I was so angry and frustrated that I was
8:27
almost I, I had decided I'm not going to do this and I, I left
8:30
Isle of Thunder. I wasn't going to complete it.
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Luckily my friend Begasaur had nine of the gems that I needed.
8:37
He was able to summon the things I needed the summon to kill so I
8:40
could complete the quest the next day.
8:43
Isle of Thunder is probably the worst zone design I've ever
8:45
seen. If if Mr. Panderi is the some of
8:48
the best zone design I've ever seen in video games, Isle of
8:50
Thunder is probably the worst, definitely the worst in
8:53
Warcraft, some of the worst in any game ever.
8:57
And it completely just has no value for the players time.
9:01
I it was a real, real disappointment, especially after
9:04
everything else was so good. I did not, did not enjoy my time
9:07
there. I I got to ask you the question
9:10
for the Isle of Thunder, did you have the progressive lock where
9:15
most of the island was locked away and then you you unlocked
9:18
different floors or was it all opened by the time you got?
9:21
There no Isle of Thunder was all unlocked right away.
9:23
Yeah. So you, so you missed the
9:25
progressive unlock, which is some of the stuff that you did
9:27
in between. OK, all right.
9:29
And then of course after that is the time styles and I think you
9:35
had a slightly better reaction to that, but not by much.
9:38
Yeah, it started out so I got there in a bad mood and it's I
9:40
got there and it was again, another no flying zone.
9:43
I was like, Oh my, what is? Come on, man.
9:45
This is there should never be another zone where we can't fly
9:48
ever again in this game. Once you give somebody the
9:51
ability to fly and then you take it away from them, it's like
9:54
asking them to choose if they want to be punched in the face
9:56
or kicked in the butt. And it's it's like a bad choice.
9:59
I don't want either, please. So it started off the same, a
10:02
lot of running around, a lot of shenanigans, but it was better a
10:07
better designed zone. It was easier to traverse it
10:09
without flying. They made it more flat.
10:11
There was less things that would block you off and the questing
10:16
felt better. The quests weren't as
10:18
egregiously time wasteful and and gated.
10:21
So my my end feelings on this aisle of or the time this aisle
10:25
where that this was an OK zone to end in still far, far below
10:30
the the the standard they had set with the the previous 5.05.1
10:35
storylines. It really fell.
10:37
It's unfortunate. I was really loving Pandaria and
10:40
it was I had prematurely said this is the second best
10:44
expansion I've ever played. It's I, I no longer think that I
10:47
have, having experienced the entire thing.
10:51
I'm gonna drop it down from there.
10:53
It's it's in the middle with Burning Crusade and Battle for
10:56
Azeroth basically. You didn't do Battlefield Barons
11:01
right? That wouldn't have been part of
11:02
the pander experience that you had.
11:05
Is that a quest chain? That is like right about the
11:09
same time as the time as Isles. You're supposed to go back to
11:12
the Barons and then fight against garage's.
11:17
No, that that doesn't exist in Remix.
11:19
OK. And then did you at least do the
11:23
purge of Dalaran? I did.
11:26
That's part of the Operation Shield wall in Landfall
11:28
question, or at least it seems to be in Remix.
11:32
And that was, I enjoyed that. That was, I mean, I didn't enjoy
11:34
it. I thought it was a horrible
11:36
experience. Yeah.
11:38
I actually felt sick to my stomach afterwards.
11:42
But that just speaks to how good the writing was for that, that
11:45
question, I think. Yeah.
11:48
So I did do that, yeah. All right, so you're you you
11:51
were missing some of the parts, but you got a lot of the
11:53
experience. I think the the where it became
11:57
the post leveling experience and it was splintered in different
12:00
places. It I guess it fell short for
12:03
you. I know like it's, it's one of
12:06
those things where you can just have those sort of nostalgia
12:08
glasses and I remember like the the battlefields, I remember the
12:13
legendary cloak chain that like really picked up later on.
12:17
So there are like pizzas that the remix experience doesn't
12:21
quite equate to. I'm I'm really sorry that this
12:25
this fell fell so short for you. But I think at some point we're
12:30
going to have to talk about like, OK, now that you've had
12:33
the experience, the full experience, not just the
12:35
honeymoon phase. Do we want this remix experience
12:41
being done like this for other for other expansions?
12:46
And like just off the top of your head, Lex, I'm gonna I'm
12:50
gonna throw throw this to you. Lex, I'm gonna throw this to
12:54
you. Would you want this done a remix
12:56
experience done again for a different expansion, and which
13:00
experience expansion kind of pops into your head for it?
13:03
Oh, good question. So I, I would, as you were
13:08
asking that, I was toying with whether I'd want remix itself to
13:11
come back. I do think, and I could be wrong
13:16
and I could be proven wrong in the future, because frequently
13:19
when I say something very assertively, I am proven
13:21
incorrect. But that said, I do kind of
13:23
think that remix is interesting in its uniqueness.
13:27
And so I think that if it's like every single, like between
13:30
expansions, we get a remix, it's gonna start to just feel grindy
13:34
and it's going to feel less exciting.
13:35
Like this is cool and exciting because we've never had
13:37
something like this before. But I think they would have to
13:38
shake it up to make it interesting again.
13:42
That's sad. So I was, I was also going in my
13:45
head through all of the different expansions.
13:47
So I took a very long break between childhood and going to
13:51
college when I wasn't playing. So between Wrath and Legion, so
13:59
I am going between wanting to say something like I'd really
14:02
like to experience Warlords of Draynor because everyone
14:04
complaints about it and I want to know it was so bad.
14:07
Or like I do have these like really intense nostalgic glasses
14:11
about Wrath to the point where like still to this day, if I go
14:14
back there, I'm just like in heaven.
14:15
Like this is so beautiful. This is so fun.
14:17
These quests are so immersive. This is incredible.
14:21
So I think I would either want a like a like a drainor Cataclysm,
14:28
one of the ones that I missed, or specifically Wrath.
14:32
So if we are taking away the like just I would like to see
14:34
something new. I would say Wrath, no question.
14:37
OK, John, do you do you have one that's in your head and do you
14:40
want to see this remix apply to a different expansion?
14:43
I would like to see it come back because I think it's been a good
14:47
it. So I agree with Lex.
14:50
It's it's magical because it's unique, But I would like to see
14:53
it come back. If, if we're going to have a
14:56
season four of The War Within, then I would like to have a
15:00
remix back because Season 4 is not my cup of tea.
15:04
If we're not going to have a season 4, I'm indifferent.
15:07
I do like, I'm a big fan of all of the things you want to get on
15:13
a vendor and they're all bought with currency.
15:15
So that alone makes me want to have it back.
15:18
But I wouldn't want it to be Evergreen.
15:20
I wouldn't want it to be always up.
15:22
I like there's things that I need to do in retail that I
15:24
would feel bad if I was splitting my time, but if it's
15:27
another season 4 where it's sort of a throwaway garbage season
15:30
that means nothing, then yeah 100% give it to us and I would
15:33
take Wrath. Wrath would be great.
15:34
There's lots of great trans mug there.
15:36
People could finally get Invincible who've been farming
15:38
it forever. Big worth.
15:40
Yeah, I'm, I'm not, I'm not in favor of seeing another remix
15:44
for any expansion. Think they should take the
15:47
lessons learned and apply it to other things.
15:49
Like I would love a 95 day, 60 day pre expansion event that is
15:57
like actually building towards something.
15:59
Sure, put put stuff on currencies, make us work towards
16:05
something, send us out into the greater world and you could be
16:09
like in all different sorts of places.
16:12
And we're we're doing that. It's just, I think that making
16:16
it based on the framework of an expansion gives us that
16:20
levelling questing experience, which is a big reason that I
16:23
think that this worked was that we got a ton of content that got
16:29
reinvigorated. And I don't think you can do
16:31
that quite with just saying like, oh, here's like this
16:35
gameplay loop that you're going to do for the next 95 days.
16:38
Yeah, that'll get back a board real quickly.
16:40
So I'm not exactly sure what I want, but I think that there is
16:44
something there and I hope that they learned lessons.
16:46
I will say looking back on my time in World of Warcraft, I
16:49
didn't think about this until you mentioned it, but
16:51
overwhelmingly my that that's not true.
16:54
My two favorite memories in World of Warcraft are both pre
16:58
expansion events. I remember being a kid before
17:01
wrath and like the when the zombie play came out and like
17:05
that was, I mean, I was a child so I have like intense and salt
17:08
glasses, but like that was legitimately some of the most
17:10
fun I've ever had in this game. Like it was insane.
17:12
It was crazy. Like you never knew what was
17:14
going to go on. You didn't really fully
17:15
understand what's happening. It was I again, I was a child,
17:18
but I was having a really good time and I got my first Max
17:22
level character because I was a role player at this time.
17:25
So I was going very slowly in the legion pre expansion event
17:29
and I remember having the time of my life flying around and
17:34
then you have everyone coming and like all this stuff is going
17:36
on. It's super hectic and like, but
17:37
you also kind of like learn the tricks when you go to multiple
17:39
of them and like everyone's running around and doing their
17:42
thing. That is, that is like my
17:43
favorite vibe in World of Warcraft.
17:45
And I just remember having the absolute time of my life.
17:48
That said, I literally don't remember what the dragonfly pre
17:51
expansion event was. I I if you told me it I I also
17:54
the shadow lands pre expansion. I remember like I did it one day
17:59
and I was like, OK, never mind, I'm gonna go play any other game
18:02
so it can be hit. Or miss shadow Lands was elites
18:05
in Northrend you would fly around and they were on a timer
18:08
and then dragon flight was elemental elites.
18:13
Basically elemental storm fights in each of the some of the old
18:16
zones. That was fun actually.
18:17
It was the elemental storms that we had in season one, but they
18:20
did it in the pre season outside of the Dragon Isles.
18:23
OK, I take that back. That one was fun.
18:26
Pre expansion events can be a lot of fun, just a lot of them
18:30
aren't worth mentioning. Yeah, just generally.
18:33
So I would like the effort put in there as well.
18:35
All I'm thinking. Yeah, I like that vibe though
18:37
that Lex mentioned because you get that in the pre expansion
18:40
event. Everybody's sort of get that
18:42
they're starting to starting to froth.
18:43
You know, they're they're getting their energy up, they're
18:45
like, oh, there's something new coming.
18:46
This is great. And like you said, swarms to
18:48
people going through the things. And then the first two weeks, I
18:52
think the first two weeks of Dragonfly were some of the most
18:55
fun I've ever had in the game and the most like an MMO
18:58
Warcraft has been in such a long time.
19:00
But it was like people were figuring out, OK, we gotta go
19:03
farm rares. And then it was OK, it's these
19:04
specific super rares. And then you were seeing like
19:07
people like locusts swarming on them.
19:09
And then there was the events that people were, everybody was
19:11
doing them. They're all the events were
19:13
packed. I remember soup was just like a
19:15
PowerPoint presentation. There were so many people for
19:17
soup. It was just and that I like that
19:19
vibe and that goes away pretty quick.
19:21
Once once the season starts, you lose that.
19:23
So that two weeks before the patch, two weeks before the
19:26
expansion and the two weeks after the expansion, that is
19:28
when Warcraft is the most like a a community, I think.
19:32
And we're all together all sort of discovering the things and
19:35
racing to get them. And what's the new grind we got
19:38
to do right now? Quick get on that.
19:39
So, you know, we can get this minor, minor power advantage
19:42
that's not literally not going to matter in seven days, but
19:47
it's just so much fun. I love that.
19:49
Yeah, yeah, I, I, I love the event stuff when they were
19:52
relevant. We have a IRL event that has
19:56
happened with Blizzard. Lex, do you want to take this
20:00
one? Yeah, so.
20:01
John Height, the president of the Warcraft franchise,
20:04
announced that he was departing after 12 years.
20:06
There's not a ton of information that we have.
20:09
He didn't share any specifics on where he was going next, just
20:11
that he was excited for his next adventure.
20:14
And yeah, it's, it's very sad to see him leave.
20:18
I, I will say I'll, if we're gonna jump into speculation,
20:21
which I'm gonna jump right into speculation.
20:23
I feel like I'm seeing a lot of people like, I do think there's
20:26
probably a lot of grind going on in the Warcraft world right now.
20:29
I, I wouldn't be surprised if something kind of made him
20:31
decide to leave. That said, 12 years is a long
20:34
time to be at any company and I, I think there's a, A level of
20:37
this where like we are used to game industry people being there
20:40
forever, but like, I would, I would be so bored writing the
20:45
same story for 12 years. So anyway, wishing him luck.
20:48
I don't know what happened. Alas, he's not my bestie.
20:51
Jon Hite, if you want to be besties, give me a call.
20:53
We'll chat, we'll talk, we'll vibe, but alas, not yet.
20:57
So I don't have any more information than that.
20:58
But thank you for your time, my friend.
21:01
You made some great expansions. Yeah, you mentioned.
21:04
Something there you're like, well, 12 years is a long time to
21:07
be at any like one game company and totally's a long time to be
21:11
at any company in these days and age.
21:13
You kinda you kinda jump companies a lot more frequently
21:16
these days. And then on top of that, 12
21:21
years is a long time for a lot of companies to be in existence.
21:25
These days. You just sort of see them
21:27
flicker in and out other than like like there's a big umbrella
21:32
publishers and they have a bunch of small studios and those
21:36
studios they're like bought out and then closed down and those
21:40
people get chipped out and like all this sort of stuff.
21:43
It is you do not get that kind of pedigree anymore.
21:46
You, I didn't even think about that so much until you mentioned
21:50
it. It is, it is rare that you have
21:53
the companies that have people that have been there for 12
21:56
years, 20 years. You see, you see people who get
21:59
the like the mug at their one year and then pretty soon
22:02
they're like rocking the sword at 10 or the shield at 20.
22:05
And it's like, Oh my goodness. Like that's a long time to be
22:11
there. And there's a lot of expertise
22:14
that they're losing with Jon Height moving, moving on.
22:18
Yeah. Well, and these have.
22:19
Been a hard 12 years. Like I'm certainly not trying to
22:21
like Mike, you borrow this, we can bleep that out if you don't
22:24
want me to drag somebody publicly on air.
22:26
But like, I'm not saying that it's like the people who are
22:29
suffering the most in layoffs are the executives.
22:32
But like it's hard. It's hard to let people go.
22:36
It's hard to be constantly making these decisions.
22:38
It's hard to be bought up by another company and know that
22:41
you're gonna have to rearrange and know you're gonna have to
22:43
lose good people like I I can't imagine that.
22:47
And on top of that, we are seeing more World Warcraft
22:51
content than ever before, which inherently means there is more
22:53
crunch. So you are not only dealing with
22:55
the emotions of, you know, being in kind of a, a tricky place and
22:59
losing people and, and trying to figure out how to make things
23:02
work and not knowing what's going to come down the pipeline
23:04
next. And then also you are working a
23:07
lot more hours and you're putting a lot more out and
23:10
you're pushing a lot harder. And the Internet is blowing up
23:13
all the time. You know, the last 12 years have
23:15
been up upswing in social media. So again, I don't have any more
23:21
information than anyone else on why John Hyde is leaving, but.
23:26
I get it right? Like.
23:27
I can look at what's going on and understand why somebody
23:30
would be like, OK, it's been a while.
23:32
It is a hard time to be a Blizzard.
23:34
Perhaps it is time to have another adventure.
23:37
Yeah, I mean, not to turn this into the social commentary.
23:42
Oh, go crazy. Like.
23:44
You, you bring up the spectre of your Barack.
23:46
Like I, I get that there have been a lot, there's been a lot
23:51
of turbulence with like names that we know having leave left
23:56
the company. And so, yeah, that that would
23:59
affect John Hyde as well. And like, we don't know how
24:04
smooth that that transfer is. You've got a new president of
24:08
the company, Joanna coming in who has maintained a relatively
24:13
low profile, unlike the outgoing Mike Yerbera, who has not
24:20
maintained that blow of a profile.
24:21
So this this could be ramifications from any number of
24:25
things. But we've we know that there's
24:27
been a lot of people who you don't have the name, the names
24:31
on the tip of your tongue that have been let go.
24:34
And like any company where you have that separation between the
24:39
people who make the decisions and the people who feel the
24:41
decisions, it's it's going to, it's going to have some rough
24:47
patches. So we will see.
24:49
The number one speculation that people put out there was that,
24:53
oh, he's jumping ship to another MMO company and he's going to be
24:55
there pretty soon. This was something that like as
24:58
soon as the news came out, people were saying, saying, and
25:02
then I thought about it because like obviously non compete
25:06
clauses have been nullified for a lot of people in the in the
25:10
US, but that doesn't include executive personnel, which your
25:16
president of a franchise would still be under the effect of an
25:21
NDA would actually be considered a valid NDANDA.
25:25
And that effect doesn't come in doesn't work for anybody until
25:30
September 4th of this year. So I I wouldn't.
25:35
I could be wrong. I don't know if he would be
25:38
covered by a non compete though, because like if you're able to
25:41
negotiate, you usually negotiate your way out of a non compete.
25:44
Like if if you are a name that people actually want.
25:47
I don't know. I again, still not bashing with
25:49
Jon height man has not texted me in the last 30 seconds, alas,
25:53
but I would be a little I I'm not good at business.
25:57
I also like I don't know how anything works, but I wouldn't
26:00
be a little surprised if he was covered by a non compete.
26:02
But that is a good point. I didn't think of that.
26:04
Yeah. Like it?
26:06
There's definitely some non compete involved like he is high
26:11
enough within the company of Blizzard, which is a separate
26:15
company from its Activision Blizzard head company.
26:20
Therefore he is an executive level within that company and
26:23
the and the non complete, the non compete would be in in
26:27
effect, even with the ban. It's just a matter of yeah,
26:30
maybe he's negotiated his way out of it or something along
26:33
those lines. I don't know.
26:35
I think that it's probably something along the lines of
26:39
yeah, he wants to like take some time to clear his head and
26:42
figure out where he's going next.
26:44
But I'm looking forward to seeing what that is, a lot of
26:49
this talent out there. I'm hoping it sparked some big
26:52
things in the industry. I hope.
26:53
Oh yeah. Got some games to make.
26:55
Or maybe he's leaving the gaming industry, which would also be
26:58
fair if I wasn't the gaming industry and I'd probably leave
27:01
it too. But hopefully he won't.
27:03
Hopefully he's out there making some more games.
27:05
We will see. We have like last week I was
27:08
like, oh, here's a here is a new I team review, which we have
27:12
this week. But Sean, you corrected me.
27:14
You're saying that you weren't expecting something big for the
27:17
IT review. You had something for our next
27:21
patron, which today we have a new patron.
27:24
So Sean, what would you like to do?
27:26
I would like. To to regale you with the tale
27:31
of our new Patreon, I happen to have a bit of back story on the
27:36
new for Azeroth patron and I would like to share it with you,
27:41
my Co hosts as well as our listeners.
27:46
Lore in the shadowy. Depths of Black Rock Mountain,
27:51
Danny, Klingon fearless warrior, single handedly held back a tide
27:55
of rampaging orcs, his blade gleaming with determination.
27:59
His unwavering courage inspired his comrades to rally, turning
28:03
the tide of battle in favor of the Alliance.
28:06
As the dust settled, a grateful cheer echoed through the cavern,
28:10
honoring Danny as a true hero or Azeroth.
28:14
Thanks for the Patreon subscription, Danny Man.
28:20
Danny's gonna be so pissed if he's Horde.
28:25
Yeah, maybe we should ask that next time.
28:27
No, I don't know him at all. I made all that up.
28:29
That's all made-up. I've never.
28:32
This man has never been in my kitchen.
28:35
I was wondering like, oh, you have some Laura, do you do you
28:37
know this? Danny?
28:38
Did you like it? This is one of your friends,
28:40
like bribing you? But Nope, it's just some random
28:43
shot in the dark. And for the.
28:44
Next person to sign up for Patreon.
28:46
We will also tell a back story of you.
28:50
OK. Entirely fabricated.
28:54
Time to fabricate it. The back story of expressed by
28:58
Sean does not necessarily affect those of us or our patrons.
29:09
OK well getting back to the news because we have had a lot to
29:15
test over the last couple of days.
29:19
The first thing that we're going to cover is the raid testing
29:23
because we have had the 1st 5 bosses tested at a heroic level
29:31
for the Nerubar palace. Now for people who listened to
29:36
last episode and you're like 5 what I thought this was an 8
29:38
raid dungeon yeah they decided to change up the testing.
29:42
They they right after I had like sent this out to the airwaves,
29:46
they're like, hey, Manny, screw you.
29:48
Short of notes. And I'm like, oh, all right,
29:50
fine. I'll just, I'll, I'll just put
29:52
out a little tweet being like, oh, it looks like they changed
29:55
something. And then before I could even put
29:57
out that tweet, there was another change.
29:59
And I'm like, you know, what the hell with this?
30:01
We're just gonna cover this on next week's episode.
30:04
So there were two changes to the raid schedule.
30:07
We got two bosses on the first day that I missed, but
30:12
apparently I didn't miss much. And then we got 3 bosses on the
30:18
Friday and this is our first look at the new raid.
30:24
Now Sean, you've been deep into the testing.
30:29
Can you, can you tell us a little bit about the joy of
30:31
testing on day one, Day one testing?
30:34
So we had a saying for those of you who don't know, I I served
30:37
in the Canadian Navy for 14 years and we have a saying in
30:41
the Navy every time is like the first time.
30:44
So no matter what event you were doing, no matter what evolution
30:48
you were going through, no matter how many times it had
30:50
been done before, no matter how many decades the the fleet had
30:54
been doing it, every single time you did, it was like nobody had
30:57
ever done it before. And it was just constant
31:00
casserole of nonsense, just chaos.
31:04
And true to form, no shade to Blizzard, but every single first
31:11
day of raid testing on beta and the three betas I've been part
31:15
of has been exactly like this. So it was fraught with
31:21
disconnects and the raid not opening and then the raid did
31:25
open but the bosses they wanted to test weren't able to be
31:28
spawned for the 1st 30 minutes. But bosses they didn't want to
31:32
test were available to be pulled.
31:35
One boss you could pull but it didn't actually have any
31:37
mechanics, just sat there like a target dummy.
31:41
And it was, it actually was would snap if if if a tank
31:44
engaged it and then you tried to wipe by jumping off the platform
31:48
it was snapping the tank back to it.
31:50
So instead of us snapping mobs to US, the mob was snapping the
31:55
so the tank would. Yeah, and we have footage.
31:57
The tank was running towards the edge to die.
31:59
Just before I got to the edge, you would snap back into the
32:02
mud. So it was just this constant
32:03
loop of a bear running from this giant whir.
32:06
Wait. Pause really quick.
32:07
Really quick. Blizzard, if you are listening
32:09
specifically to Bully Manning, make that a real mechanic.
32:12
Make it unwipeable please. No, dude, did you not?
32:21
But 30 minutes in, 30 minutes in, they did a, a soft reset on
32:25
the, on the, on the raid instance.
32:27
They got the first boss owed for us to test.
32:30
And then credit to Blizzard, 'cause they don't always do
32:34
this, but credit to Blizzard. They said, hey, because this
32:36
boss didn't start 30 minutes for 30 minutes, we're gonna leave it
32:39
up to 30 minutes longer. And then the second boss came up
32:44
with a with an issue at that point.
32:47
And yeah, day two was was flawless, though, no issues.
32:51
And then that's how that's like every time if especially if
32:54
you're new to the beta testing, cause a lot of new beta testers
32:56
right now that's it's par for the course.
33:00
It's completely normal. So don't use that as a doom and
33:02
gloom, you know, finger pointy. Oh man, how are we gonna be
33:05
ready by August? That's always how it is, yeah.
33:08
I was doing some things so I couldn't test.
33:10
I was, of course, jumping into Twitter to check to see what
33:13
people were doing. So I checked out your stream.
33:15
I checked out a bunch of people from the Dojo as well as some
33:18
other streamers just to see like what what this testing was
33:21
about. And yeah, it was as as other
33:24
content creators would say, it was a shit show.
33:29
But I got in on day two and like you said, day two was a lot
33:33
smoother. Got to do some testing and yeah,
33:38
I'm I'm liking the raid so far. Blizzard has seemingly learned
33:43
its lesson about telegraphing abilities, which we already knew
33:47
from the dungeons. The dungeons have done such a
33:49
great job of telegraphing abilities.
33:51
It's continued into the raid. There is one boss that I don't
33:56
really like. It is the slime.
34:01
The big slime boss, it's two lasers, like it'll have a laser
34:06
that shoots out of its sides and then it'll spin around the room
34:10
and that initial start up is like a dark blackish thing and
34:16
then the pools themselves are purple and the background's red.
34:19
And so like luckily it always comes from the same location,
34:22
like it's always night and it like right, coming from its
34:25
side. So, like, you should generally
34:28
not get caught by it, but that's the one thing that I find wasn't
34:31
quite attract your attention visually.
34:35
They do such a good job of, hey, here's an ability and you can
34:40
see where it's going. You can kind of like, just
34:43
intuitively know, like, yeah, I shouldn't be standing in this
34:46
big glowing thing that looks like it's about to blow up.
34:49
And I'm really glad for that. Big, big kudos for the Princess
34:56
Nexus. I can't quite remember her name.
34:59
I can just look at the notes 'cause I have them here.
35:01
Princess Nefertiti. Is that right?
35:06
No. No, that's not right.
35:08
It's not. Anyways, somebody decided.
35:10
Not to put the bosses that were actually raid tested in the
35:13
notes I. Mean, but it's.
35:15
It's Nexus Princess Kai Veza, and that's close.
35:22
She. Has the most amazing
35:27
intermission I have seen in World of Warcraft period.
35:32
It is like a mix of Final Fantasy raids where you know,
35:37
half the floor gets covered in the I'm going to blow up this
35:40
spot and then a void version of the fire wreck heroic lines.
35:48
And so you are running around the platform and it's just avoid
35:51
these lines, avoid these pie shapes.
35:53
So good and pretty intense to damage coming out.
35:57
It's also her softened rage slash.
36:00
Yeah, it's a softened rage 'cause you can technically have
36:03
a tank that kind of lives through it.
36:04
But it is it is fantastic. It is dazzling.
36:09
And I really think that this, this raid has a lot of treats
36:14
for the eyes. Even if you are just like, you
36:16
know, tank in the floor, you get to watch all the sparkles go
36:19
off, Yeah. Yeah, it's they did.
36:22
You mentioned the the job they did with Telegraphic.
36:24
We said, we've said it before in the dungeons they had like we've
36:27
been asking for, I don't know how long to make mechanics
36:31
easier to see. And if they're going to stick to
36:34
their guns with private auras, they need to make these
36:36
mechanics like super clear. And specifically on the Nexus
36:39
Princess fight, there's a mechanic where she targets 4
36:42
different melee. There's a shadow form of her on
36:45
the side of the room. They target 4 different melee
36:47
with these purple lines, But if you're one of the people who's
36:50
targeted, your line is red instead of purple, though you
36:54
know you're targeted because it's red And it's very clearly,
36:57
hey, this is the one coming at me.
36:59
But for everybody else, they just see the four purple lines
37:00
and they know, OK, I gotta not stand in these.
37:02
And that's also another cue. If the lines are all purple,
37:05
well then I'm not targeted. It's they've done a really good
37:08
job. And I know, honestly, I know
37:09
there was some minor discourse on line about the how much fun
37:16
the bosses were or how good they were.
37:18
I enjoyed them all. There was not a raid boss that
37:21
was tested that I didn't I didn't find fun in some aspect.
37:25
So I'm really looking forward to the right.
37:27
I'm looking forward to the testing this week.
37:29
Hopefully the trend continues. I am not personally a fan of not
37:34
testing the last two bosses. I think just like I think
37:38
everything should be on the PTR, more testing is better in my
37:42
opinion. But it was it was a great first
37:45
two days ace or first day and a half, we'll say, minus the
37:49
hiccups that most of us expected.
37:51
And then I'm looking forward to this week.
37:54
I can't wait to see what happens.
37:56
Sorry, like I feel like the last raid boss not being tested has
38:02
been pretty decent over the course of Dragonflight with with
38:08
like obviously they've had to do some adjustments.
38:11
There was the shield on Razagath.
38:13
Razagath. Was tuned for the the damage
38:16
checks in the single target phases.
38:18
Was tuned for players to be in full single target builds and
38:22
the damage checks for the AOE phases.
38:25
Was tuned for players to be in full AOE builds.
38:27
That's a that's a pretty big miss.
38:29
See this. This is there's actually a
38:31
secret cheat to get around all of this, which is that if your
38:34
team doesn't move through it very quickly, somebody else
38:37
tells it for you. It'll feel we fixed by the time
38:42
we get there. Yeah, I've been razzagat though.
38:47
I think you're right. I think I mean Sark was a bit
38:50
under tuned. It was a very fast fight and for
38:53
Rock it was very intense. I thought they did a really good
38:56
job with Sark being like, challenging but fast, yeah.
39:01
For non race to world first players, yes, but I think for
39:05
the race to world first teams, which is where this matters the
39:08
most, it was a bit under underwhelming, but yeah, they
39:13
it's not been terrible. Razzageth.
39:15
Razzageth was a pretty big mess and then the tuning happened at
39:18
a controversial time which sort of made people question Eve.
39:22
Massacre. Yeah, the.
39:23
Validity of the the world first win.
39:26
I didn't question it because the better team won.
39:28
But yeah, yeah. So I just you will always have
39:33
the opportunity to remove those hiccups.
39:38
If if if Raz had been tested, that wouldn't have that wouldn't
39:40
have gone live like that, they would have had that fixed
39:42
because Blizzard is very good at reacting to those issues.
39:45
So yeah, I just don't I don't know.
39:48
I do understand that it gives some surprise, but it doesn't
39:51
really give like it's not them not testing the last boss on the
39:55
PTR doesn't mean that that anybody outside of the top two
40:00
teams gained anything because it wasn't going to be a surprise
40:03
for you anyway. You were going like Lex just
40:05
said you were going to see somebody else kill it first.
40:08
So not putting it on the PTR means just it only effects those
40:12
teams. And that's why I sort of look at
40:13
it with that in mind of. What's going to be the biggest
40:16
hiccup for them, because on the PTR or not, it doesn't it
40:20
literally doesn't matter to anybody from spots five up
40:24
right, because at that point it's been killed by somebody
40:26
else and seen by everybody else. So maintained a.
40:30
Story surprise pretty easily, right?
40:31
Like you just cut out voice lines, you cut out breaks.
40:33
Yeah, just. Don't show the cutscene.
40:35
Yeah, right. I I mean like what happens
40:38
within the fight is a is a thing, like the entire platform
40:42
of Fairleck's fight is a spoiler.
40:46
I I would say that there is also something to be said about the
40:52
audience for the Race to world first, the people who watch as
40:57
these teams do it and get into phase three and then see the
41:01
secret, the secret phase that isn't there before.
41:04
And everybody's like, oh, come on, Mythic only phase, Mythic
41:07
only phase. That to me extends just beyond
41:10
the teams that get there first, even if it is as lackluster as
41:14
Nazov's secret phase, right. Just.
41:18
That. Experience extends into the into
41:20
the community. We've we haven't seen a big
41:26
mythic only fight. I think really, since Mystic
41:31
Pandaria was the last time we had a mythic only last boss,
41:35
Cataclysm had one before it and I don't recall any after outside
41:40
of I guess I don't want to call it as as a complete separate
41:43
pause. But we did have like the demon
41:45
within in in Legion and I thought that was a really great
41:49
surprise. So like there's reasons to kind
41:52
of maybe test it on like normal or or heroic to just sort of be
41:57
like, OK, here, we're gonna give you this, but we're gonna hold
42:00
back Mythic only. Maybe that's the compromise that
42:03
they need to do. Yeah, I think they did.
42:07
Go ahead, Lex. Oh, I was gonna say.
42:09
There's also, I think there there could be a little bit more
42:12
of like AI guess nuance to it, like Blizzard could choose to
42:17
exclude, like to be very honest with themselves about like, is
42:20
this boss actually exciting? Like beyond in a way that would
42:24
make it less exciting if you get it spoiled and withhold.
42:28
And they and they I think they did a really good job of this in
42:30
dragon flight of a allowing us to test without giving story
42:34
spoilers, which I I this is gonna be an unpopular opinion.
42:37
I'm kind of sad they did away with.
42:39
I thought that was really fun, but I clearly am not in the
42:43
majority there. And B, like knowing how to let
42:48
us test what needed to be tested and being like, no, actually,
42:52
this needs to not be tested. Like you guys need to not see
42:54
this until it's ready to go. Yeah.
42:57
And and then just like know what they want to withhold.
43:01
Yeah. Well, there is more testing to
43:04
come. We've got testing for this week
43:07
on Tuesday and Friday. This is going to be another 5
43:11
bosses. Thursday is going to be two more
43:13
heroic bosses that we didn't get last week.
43:16
Friday is going to be our first three mythic bosses that we're
43:19
testing. Not the first three in the raid
43:21
per per chance, but just three. The 1st 3 mythic level bosses
43:26
that we're going to get to explore.
43:28
Then on this weekend the entirety of the raid except for
43:34
the last boss is going to be open and available for testing
43:38
on normal. No.
43:39
Well, you're, you're giving me handshakes, June.
43:41
June 28th. June 28th.
43:44
Sorry, I apologize. But not this weekend.
43:47
Next weekend. Next weekend, my apologies.
43:51
We've got the entirety of normal for testing, which means that
43:54
you're gonna be able to test the trash, which I also think needs
43:57
testing 'cause there's been sometimes where the trash has
44:00
been just complaints needed to be registered and they need to
44:04
be registered quickly. Yeah, I will forever be an
44:08
advocate of no trash. Give me more Trial of the
44:10
Crusader, please. I I.
44:12
Like trash? I also really love trash when it
44:14
like gives you an intro to the boss that you're about to fight.
44:17
Like hey Telegraph, see how the trash that are the disciples of
44:22
this boss do this. Maybe you should learn to deal
44:24
with that. I like, I like that, but also.
44:28
If we don't have trash, what do I pull to piss off my team?
44:34
Black suit trash puller. Oh yeah.
44:36
Oh my God. Oh, you guys should have seen me
44:38
in the room before the council fight in this lab.
44:41
I, I was the one who would just pull every single plan and then
44:45
die and my team would be screaming at me.
44:47
They'd be like, they don't even drop.
44:48
Gear, but I was. Having a great time.
44:53
Oh, I love it. Absolutely evil.
44:55
OK, well we do have a iTunes review and this one I'm gonna
45:02
hand off to Lex. Lex, who is giving us a 5 star
45:06
review this time. The absolute king of the world,
45:11
light of the light of everything.
45:13
Johan. Sorry.
45:14
That was not that was not how you pronounce that name.
45:17
Johann Howe. I said it the exact same way.
45:19
I don't know what's wrong with me today.
45:21
It's it's anyway. Johann.
45:22
Thank you. Johann.
45:24
Is it Johann? Johann.
45:26
Keep saying. Johann, Johann, you got to just
45:30
double down. Lex, you got to just at this
45:32
point, you just got to sell it. All right, Johann, there we go.
45:35
Listen. Thanks for the five.
45:36
Stars, I already have to. Apologize, I honestly have not
45:41
checked the Denmark iTunes before this and there are a
45:46
number of different places at that I was checking.
45:50
So there'll be a lot of reviews that are going to be late coming
45:53
in, but send them in guys 'cause I found, I found out that I can
45:56
now just quickly scan through country codes and also find a
46:00
place that aggregates it for us. So send in those iTunes reviews.
46:04
We will catch it pretty much in any country.
46:08
If you leave a comment, I can see it.
46:11
There are places where we get like five stars and it's great
46:13
that we have the great review, but I don't know who did it
46:16
because it's a limitation, sorry.
46:18
So here. This is this is the one that you
46:20
can clip. Johann how thank you so much.
46:23
We appreciate it from the bottom of our hearts.
46:27
I'm leaving them all in Johann can be there's there's.
46:29
A 0% chance that that's the clip that gets picked.
46:35
As the person who does the clips, I promise you, it's you
46:38
saying Johann seven times in a row.
46:40
Good morning. So bad are the names you guys, I
46:47
really don't know who decided actually the.
46:48
Wondering guy. Turns.
46:50
Thanks. Yeah.
46:51
That'll be a one star review next week.
46:53
Oh no, no, we've, we've, we've already.
46:55
Gotten it wasn't a star review. This was Spotify guys.
46:58
I do also check the Spotify reviews, but we we had a nice
47:01
Spotify review being like guys, I want to support you, but you
47:05
can't say a single name right? Oh, really?
47:09
Yes, I love it and I'm like you. Know I'm going to work on that.
47:13
So like even if I don't acknowledge it, I am reading it.
47:18
And you should read Spotify. Reviews too.
47:20
Let's read them all. We should just have a review
47:22
show. Great these.
47:23
Are just comments not necessarily reviews of like 5
47:26
star or something? It's just comments too.
47:28
I don't know. Spotify could even get com Yeah
47:30
just. You're telling me?
47:32
That there are opportunities for me to be bullied online, and you
47:36
haven't been telling me about them.
47:37
You know, my favorite thing is when people harass me on the
47:39
Internet. Well, you've gone.
47:41
Come to the right place if you want to get harassed.
47:44
Welcome to the Internet. But yeah, no, I don't support
47:48
that. But before.
47:49
I start getting DMS that I don't want to be receiving.
47:51
I'm specifically I I appreciate a good roast.
47:55
Anything else that you're thinking when you hear getting
47:58
harassed on the Internet, cut that one out.
48:00
No thank you, but good qualifier.
48:04
We'll make sure to include that bully.
48:06
The hell. Out of me though.
48:09
You said cut that part out, Manny, you want me to get rid of
48:10
that part? So moving.
48:11
On we've got keystones. Big kerfuffle with keystones.
48:17
We got testing again this week on top of ray testing, on top of
48:21
Delves, we got keystone testing. And this is what we were talking
48:26
about last time. Jon being not a big fan of
48:30
these, these level 4 affixes. The big changes that they've
48:35
done for level 4, the big changes that they have done in
48:40
general with Mythic Plus from season four that is now
48:44
affecting how we're getting stuff in season one of The War
48:49
Within. And so I dived in, I tested some
48:54
keys. Sean, you have also dived in and
48:56
tested some keys. I am unfortunately going to have
48:59
to defer to Sean because I made the mistake of picking the
49:05
dungeon with the Queen. Above all, Edna and I, I, no
49:16
disrespect to Edna, I do not need to be on the the the
49:20
backside of her fist again. Oh my goodness, I feel like
49:25
that's. Specifically respect to Edna.
49:27
Like girls trying to kill you and you're saying she's doing a
49:30
really good job of it. Like 10 out of 10 girl bossing.
49:34
I'm so the D and stands for defense and I'm telling you, I
49:39
got none after dealing with with Edna.
49:42
Yeah, Edna was. Definitely dishing out the D
49:44
this week, but I think the issue was less with I know a lot of
49:49
people online were saying, oh man, this boss tuning is wack.
49:51
This this tuning is wack. These these these, these mobs
49:54
are really, you know, kicking the snot out of us here.
49:56
You want us to test this good recovery, Lex, But I don't think
50:00
the issue, I don't think the issue was with the tuning.
50:04
And then I, I think what I mean to say is there's no way for us
50:08
to know if the tuning was out of whack because the, the real
50:12
problem was we were scaled to item level 580.
50:18
For those of you who don't know, LFR raid drops 587.
50:26
So we were scaled to below LFR rating the test keys that at a +
50:32
2 are the equivalent of what is now at 12.
50:37
So it's difficult, it's tough for a lot of people to do that,
50:40
especially if you're not like the so Echo team Echo was was
50:44
doing some testing. They were doing plus nines.
50:47
But for the for the majority of layman's, especially people who
50:49
are new to testing. And this was a problem that we
50:50
saw. And I think I think this is a a
50:53
problem with opening the beta up to everyone.
50:55
I really want to have. This discussion, but I I just
50:58
think it needs it needs its own episode really OK.
51:01
Yeah, so we were seeing people who were getting frustrated
51:05
trying to build quote UN quote meta comps for beta testing,
51:08
people who were dying and leaving keys.
51:11
And it was just a lot of just I, I, I think people need to end
51:14
for beta with the mentality of, hey, this isn't the goal here,
51:17
isn't to time these, the goal isn't to, it's, it's to, to
51:20
figure out how these dungeons work, how the mechanics work,
51:23
how the athexes interact. And for a lot of people that
51:26
never got to even test them because they weren't in gear
51:29
that was high enough for them to test above, you know, zeros or
51:32
twos or threes. It was, it was a rough week for
51:35
keys and I didn't, I didn't enjoy myself.
51:38
And the dungeon testing is normally my, my favorite part of
51:42
beta testing. I enjoyed the company I was
51:44
with. They always have fun hanging out
51:45
with my friends and we had a lot of laughs about how we were
51:47
getting the absolute snot beat out of us and how difficult some
51:51
of the fights were. I was running them on 3/4 and
51:55
five for the difficulties I was running these on and it was it
52:00
was apparent that Blizzard really wanted us to test the
52:06
affixes because for the first time in my memory, you couldn't.
52:10
Normally you could build the keystones and add your own
52:13
affixes and typically what would happen is people would build
52:17
keys with no affix or they would just put tyrannical on, or they
52:21
would just put fortified on. I ran, I mean, I, I, I myself
52:26
ran the entire Dragonflight beta with not a single affix in any
52:30
of the dungeons and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
52:34
But I got to test all the mechanics quite well and the
52:37
dungeons themselves as a dungeon without including the affix
52:40
because it was in my mind, I'm testing the I don't need to
52:43
test. I'm testing the dungeon, not the
52:45
affix. But I hate but Blizzard said you
52:48
know what, we're going to include the affixes on here and
52:50
then scaled us to an item level that was so low that most people
52:54
couldn't even test beyond Fortified or Tyrannical.
53:00
If they don't increase that scaling going into the next
53:04
weekend of mythic plus testing, they're going to get almost no
53:08
good data from this testing. I don't imagine they got
53:11
anything from this weekend that was any useful.
53:14
Don't go into mythic pluses with 570 here.
53:18
That's good, Dana. Yeah, like it's basically
53:21
levelling greens. You're like you're trying to do
53:23
plus 10s and levelling greens basically plus 10s, plus 12,
53:28
plus thirteens, fourteens. It's wild.
53:30
It is insane. How some some of those like pro
53:34
players can get so high with like literally capped at 580 And
53:39
yeah, I did see those at 580. I wanted to test to see if as
53:45
you went to certain keys, 'cause it has been the case on previous
53:48
testing that like at certain milestones, they do scale it
53:51
accordingly. But like not to get in that
53:56
discussion. But you're right though, the
53:58
people that are jumping in because we have a bunch of
54:02
people who got their, their early access, they're not in the
54:07
mind for testing. And that also reflected in my
54:10
ray testing as well. It was, it was very hard to get
54:13
people to say, to get people to stop being like, let's just go
54:16
again, Let's just go again and say, hey, wait a second, did you
54:19
see how that mechanic worked? Why don't we do, why don't we do
54:23
this and see if we, if that actually breaks things, 'cause
54:26
I'm not there to defeat the boss.
54:28
I'm there to like, see if this, if these things work that well.
54:32
And you're right, like with such a low item level, I think that a
54:36
lot of the people who were testing couldn't get past the
54:41
first boss on a tyrannical definitely was the case with the
54:44
storm vaults with Edna, who people were saying was
54:48
surprisingly the standout, a hard one.
54:51
We did do other other other keys and were successful in actually
54:58
clearing it. And it actually found out that
55:02
if you defeated a defeated one and didn't have a key, it would
55:06
give you a key and it would have a fortified.
55:09
And that was so great that I could take a fortified key and
55:13
not get like destroyed by some of these bosses.
55:15
In general, it felt like the dungeons that were coming back,
55:20
Mr. Terran aside, the Seizure Barrales and so forth, those old
55:25
dungeons, the scaling actually felt better.
55:29
Like I felt that our team was able to more easily progress
55:32
against those. But again, so as long as it
55:36
wasn't tyrannical, we could progress on any progress on any
55:41
key, just not on time. I I never, I unfortunately never
55:45
got to through a four with the team that I was with.
55:50
I'm really glad that you guys were able to do four and five
55:52
and test the some of those new affixes.
55:55
Did you, did you get a feel for any ones that were stand out or
55:58
was it just sort of like, yeah, it's about what I expected or
56:01
less than what you expected? I didn't, I, I'm, I was unhappy.
56:06
I, I'm pretty firmly in the camp of I don't think they're a good
56:09
change. I don't imagine I'm going to do
56:10
anything that's going to change that.
56:14
And I, I, I'm going to have a lot of, I have foresight of
56:18
like, so reckless is the mechanic that they ignore 20% of
56:23
your armor every, every 4th week you're going to have bolstering,
56:29
which means every other fortified basically is gonna be
56:33
bolstering. So there will be weeks when it's
56:35
reckless with bolstering and fortified.
56:39
And you're gonna go to Grimbatall and the second pack
56:41
you pull as an overseal that hits you overseer that hits you
56:44
with the mechanic called rive that increases physical damage
56:46
taken. So now you're taking increased
56:49
physical, you're taking 50% increased physical damage and
56:52
the mobs are bolstered doing an extra, I think it's 20% damage.
56:55
Whatever it is they do, it's gonna be unplayable for attack.
56:57
It's, I really hope I know a lot of the I know a lot of the high
57:01
end players who have went into the weekend, they went into the
57:04
weekend and they were able to time the keys that they were
57:06
because they they spent the time to figure out what cheeses
57:10
worked and did those, what classes are performing the best?
57:15
What are the cheeses? OK, let's do those.
57:17
Which isn't indicative of how it's going to be for the real
57:19
people or the majority of players.
57:21
And then they came out of it going, oh, it wasn't that bad,
57:24
you know, because we did all of these things.
57:26
But for real people, for actual normal players that aren't, you
57:32
know, God tier mythic plus dungeon winners, like MDI
57:36
winners going to be rough going to be and they're going to be
57:39
weeks that the unfortunate thing is you hit those weeks and
57:44
everybody realizes it's a problem, but it doesn't get
57:46
nerfed until the end of the week.
57:48
You're stuck in that week, you know what I mean?
57:50
And it's just, we see it every season, the first week of
57:54
Tyrannical, there's bosses that just can't be killed at certain
57:57
key levels. And then on the Monday night,
57:59
hey, we're making these changes to those bosses going into
58:01
Tuesday. And it's like, great, but next
58:03
week is Fortified and we need the fortified changes for next
58:06
week, please. And then you go through a week
58:08
of fortified that's miserable. And then on that Monday they
58:11
say, hey, we're making these changes to fortify.
58:13
So yeah, it's like 2 weeks. You're playing catch up before
58:16
these feel good. And if we have to wait for that,
58:18
like if we're waiting for these cycles for these these keys to
58:21
come around, I'm not hopeful. Mythic plus is my my favorite
58:24
part of the game. And I am, I am.
58:26
I'm very step season. That's coming up well.
58:32
My, my hope is that they change the scaling that we get in and
58:37
maybe this was week 1 where OK, I guess now we can sort through
58:41
the tyrannical and the next week will be week two and that'll get
58:45
through the fortified. And so when it goes live, we'll
58:48
be two weeks ahead of your most dismal schedule.
58:52
Doubtful. But, but maybe, but it's not my,
58:53
I have two more complaints. I know you, I know you probably
58:56
want to move on, but I have two more complaints about the
58:58
dungeon testing from this weekend.
58:59
I'd like to talk about. We ran miss the Tirana Scythe a
59:03
lot because it was one of the ones that was easier.
59:05
So we, we ran that a lot. The shortcut for those of you
59:08
who are going to wear, there's a shortcut you can use at the
59:10
entrance to miss the Tirana Scythe.
59:12
And there is also a secret door you can open up to get some
59:15
buffs. And then there's nuts that you
59:17
can rub at the end of each boss that will unlock a skip.
59:22
So you kill a boss, you touch the nut, it unlocks the skip.
59:25
In shadow lands you had to be night fade open those gates or
59:28
to get the nut. They removed that which is good.
59:32
Yes, please remove that requirement for us to go to
59:34
shadow lands. But they have replaced it.
59:37
Only a druid, porin, a night elf or an herbalist with skill of 25
59:43
can open those. And for the for the shortcut and
59:47
the the bonus damage bonus, I think it's bonus damage bonus
59:51
defense that you can get from the mushrooms.
59:54
Sure that's fine. Have those limitations on there.
59:56
Those are not going to make or break a key.
59:57
The shortcut is pretty substantial in your routing, but
1:00:00
you can work around it. But the checkpoints are locked
1:00:04
behind it. If you don't have a night elf, a
1:00:07
porn, a druid or an herbalist in your midst of Tyranus scythe,
1:00:10
anytime you die, you respond at the entrance.
1:00:13
My. My solution to it would be that
1:00:16
you know how it has a channel time, right?
1:00:18
To unlock it, make that Channel time 20% of what it normally
1:00:23
would be if you are one of those, and then a longer channel
1:00:25
time if you're not. So at least if you don't have
1:00:28
it, you still have access, it just takes you a bit longer.
1:00:30
There's a preference for it, but it's not make or break.
1:00:33
It's just hey, this can make it faster.
1:00:35
That's a. That's a purpose wank.
1:00:37
That's a great solution, man. That is a great solution.
1:00:42
I don't think it's gonna happen. So every mists of Tyranus Scythe
1:00:46
run this season will have a Night elf, a druid, a Torin or
1:00:50
an herbalist in it. I don't I.
1:00:52
Don't believe it's not. I don't believe it's not gonna
1:00:54
happen. I don't think they'll adopt my
1:00:56
solution. I think what's more likely gonna
1:00:58
happen is that they will just break the gate and anybody can
1:01:01
do it. They'll just go for go for
1:01:03
broke. I just like typically when
1:01:07
there's things that are polarizing, I just like to
1:01:11
narrow the field. Like if you can, if you roll a
1:01:15
one or two and one fails and two succeeds, that sucks.
1:01:18
But if you roll and it's like 2 means that it's a slower, but
1:01:22
four but A6 means it's that much faster, then you don't feel so
1:01:27
bad and that that's it. Anyways.
1:01:30
Did you have another criticism? Well, yeah, one more.
1:01:33
Issue, and this is something we missed last week when we talked
1:01:37
about the changes that I think bears mentioning the dungeon
1:01:42
pool. So war within starts, the normal
1:01:45
dungeon pool is the 8 war within dungeons, right?
1:01:48
It should be the new dungeons. The heroic dungeons when season
1:01:53
one starts are the season one dungeons.
1:01:56
So it's four war within dungeons, 4 new dungeons.
1:02:00
I mean that just feels bad though We're we're essentially
1:02:03
not going to see four dungeons from the war within outside of
1:02:06
the two days it takes us to level until five point until
1:02:10
11.1, which is kind of a bummer. I.
1:02:13
Would I would say that it's following with the fact that
1:02:19
we're trying to they want to prep.
1:02:21
People for the mythic plus season well.
1:02:24
Yeah, you're following along with that, but it also is a
1:02:26
matter of we're trying to keep or we the designers are trying
1:02:33
to keep some of this stuff fresh.
1:02:35
And it's not just for the people who are chain running Mythic
1:02:38
plus that me is that it's like, oh, you don't know the dungeon
1:02:43
that sucks. Like it's also for the people
1:02:45
who are running their normals, running their their heroics,
1:02:49
getting stepping up into other things as they feel more
1:02:54
comfortable. So having it follow from a lower
1:02:57
from a lower difficulty keeps things fresh for the people who
1:03:00
never get up to mythic zeros mythic plus, but also makes it
1:03:04
easier follow through for them so that they will get the
1:03:07
variety when season 2 comes out. Same thing that when they
1:03:11
introduce the mega dungeon, they also introduce a heroic version
1:03:18
when they do the split and they they introduce the mythic plus
1:03:23
wings as well. So like giving that variety to
1:03:25
all levels is more about like engaging all of them, even
1:03:30
though I, I find that like it's a small section.
1:03:36
The other part to it is that I have seen a number of times
1:03:41
where something will come out in a dungeon and it's a really good
1:03:44
trinket or something And you will farm that at the highest
1:03:49
point that it can be farmed at. And putting it in that heroic,
1:03:53
which is equivalent to mythic zeros now or mythic zeros, which
1:03:56
is now equivalent to mythic 10 would distort the drop the the
1:04:02
like things that people would chase for if you are a normal
1:04:06
level Raider or something along those lines because of the
1:04:11
equivalent item level that you could get.
1:04:13
So I think it's just pushing that down so that the mix of
1:04:17
items isn't that complex. It's just you've narrowed down
1:04:21
that field. These are your best in slots
1:04:23
regardless of where you are in the hegemony of raiding and
1:04:28
stuff 'cause I would hate to be a normal Raider.
1:04:30
And they're like actually you now need to go into Mythic 0 and
1:04:34
this dungeon here to get that because that's it.
1:04:39
And if you are a mythic Raider, actually no, you now need to go
1:04:43
here. Just it makes the most
1:04:45
convoluted reward structure. OK.
1:04:50
Yeah, I just. Yeah, OK, I'll take it.
1:04:54
I just think it I don't. Yeah, OK.
1:04:56
I'm. Your reasons are sound, but
1:04:59
there are other reasons that are fighting against it, yeah.
1:05:02
Yeah, I just don't, Yeah, I, I don't know.
1:05:04
I just feel like if I was somebody who only plays at a
1:05:07
normal dungeon level or a or a heroic dungeon level, going from
1:05:12
normal to heroic and losing half of my dungeons that are new and
1:05:16
having to play ones from Shadow Lands and BFA in heroic, even
1:05:20
though I'm not planning to go above that feels, I don't know,
1:05:25
maybe I don't play at that level.
1:05:26
So I guess I can't. I don't know how it feels, Yeah.
1:05:29
Well, that is basically all of your issues, right?
1:05:36
Yeah, it was. Not a good week it was.
1:05:38
Not a good week it was. There was.
1:05:39
It was growing pains. It was growing pains, but I'm
1:05:42
not going to leave you alone because I have issues, OK?
1:05:47
I, I honestly think that one of the issues that I really
1:05:52
disliked with this rating is the constant fluctuation in the
1:05:56
rating schedule. I did not know what bosses I was
1:05:59
testing when and the way that I like to test is I like to read
1:06:04
up about the boss beforehand. I like to like go in so I'm not
1:06:08
spending X amount of pulls be like, oh, this is how this boss
1:06:13
works. No, I want to I want to break
1:06:15
the boss immediately and like that that happened to be
1:06:21
compounded by the testing pool that we have because of the the
1:06:27
entrance. But like I like to like go in
1:06:32
and be like, OK, this is basically how I think this is
1:06:34
going to work. Does this work?
1:06:36
And then by like less than half a dozen pools in, I'm looking at
1:06:44
the very specific mechanics being like, OK, can we immune
1:06:47
that? By the way, there's a there's a
1:06:49
boss where you can immune an entire mechanic that's got to
1:06:52
get changed, right? Can we pull the boss over here
1:06:57
so that we like narrow the angles and make this entire
1:07:00
entirely way easier? Yes, that is a possible thing.
1:07:05
And we only have a short period of time to test these bosses.
1:07:09
So being able to prepare ahead of time is big.
1:07:12
And I know that that is also true for like the high tier
1:07:17
teams that are going in. So I would really like the the
1:07:21
team to sort of figure out what their testing schedule is and
1:07:24
just stick with it. Lex, are you also sad this week?
1:07:28
Are you? Is there a?
1:07:30
Yeah, so. I have I have issues with this
1:07:32
week too. Mythic plus don't like it?
1:07:41
Nailed it. There you go.
1:07:43
All right. I just realized how low our
1:07:44
energy is this episode. We had a we had a end on a high
1:07:47
note. Man, you tell me something you
1:07:48
love about the game. Oh.
1:07:50
Mount collecting about well. Warcraft raid now collecting.
1:07:53
I I got one of the few missing mounts that I need from shadow
1:08:00
lands. It is one of the the necro ray
1:08:04
eggs. They are notoriously rare
1:08:08
because you have to be part of the right covenant.
1:08:11
The Necrolords, they only come from the emissaries.
1:08:15
They are super low chance. So low in fact, that Blizzard
1:08:19
has tripled 300 times the drop chance of these things.
1:08:24
And this was the second of three that I've gotten.
1:08:26
And I, I tell you guys, all throughout Dragonflight I have
1:08:30
been doing emissaries for these guys.
1:08:34
So I got my second egg. I am on cloud 9 or whatever
1:08:39
undead version of it that they have in the Necro Lord's Mal
1:08:44
Draxus land. I know some fart from like a
1:08:47
pulsing ulcer that like I'm floating.
1:08:50
Yeah, floating. Flesh orb seven I think is.
1:08:55
But yeah, there you go, I'm getting high off the fumes of
1:08:58
Floating Flesh Orb 7, and I'm happy for it.
1:09:01
I dig it. I dig it.
1:09:02
Lex, our Empress of enthusiasm, we got.
1:09:05
Tell me something you love about Warcraft right now.
1:09:07
My favorite? Thing in World of Warcraft is
1:09:09
when you have to like defeat something or do this is this is
1:09:12
going to be kind of a callback like when there's a world event
1:09:15
that you need to do cross faction.
1:09:17
And so you're doing that thing that we used to do, like all the
1:09:19
time, like very, very early on where like you're like emoting
1:09:23
and you're like, do you know, jumping around and you're trying
1:09:25
to like communicate like certain things with this other person
1:09:28
and they're communicating back. And you're having this whole
1:09:30
conversation with somebody you can't talk to.
1:09:32
And it's like such a like bonding moment where you're also
1:09:34
like, yeah, like we're both playing an MMO and there's this
1:09:36
like secret language of like body language and jumping and,
1:09:41
and moving in different ways and fun little things.
1:09:43
And we all know it, even though we don't like, realize we know
1:09:45
it. And we're, we're just these,
1:09:47
these two people who can't even talk wherever we are.
1:09:50
We could be next door. We could be across the world and
1:09:52
we're just bopping along. I love it.
1:09:55
I love it. Jump means so many things in an
1:09:57
MMO. Hey, come over here.
1:09:59
Hey, stand here. Hey, let's go kill this thing.
1:10:03
My. Mother's playing.
1:10:05
Sorry, I'll I'll. Let you speak in a minute.
1:10:06
I swear to God my mother started playing Final Fantasy as her
1:10:09
first ever MMO and she had to buy a new keyboard because she
1:10:12
broke the space bar. I love it, but I'm sorry, what's
1:10:19
your favorite thing? No.
1:10:21
It's OK. Angelina and I started playing.
1:10:22
She started playing the game I was playing with her.
1:10:23
I was playing a Pandaren and when they jumped, they do like
1:10:25
that little ninja landing. And she laughed.
1:10:29
She said, oh, your character looks like you in real life.
1:10:31
I was like, oh, thanks. And so then we went to the
1:10:33
grocery store one day and she was down the aisle from me and I
1:10:36
walked like across the end of the aisle and I was in the game.
1:10:39
I would jump when I wanted to get her attention.
1:10:41
So we were in the grocery store and I started doing the pen to
1:10:44
her and jump and she was like you too.
1:10:50
Yeah. She was like, Oh my God, why do
1:10:53
you do that so well? You know, I don't really care
1:10:58
that everybody else in the grocery store thinks that she
1:11:00
was taking her homeless friend out for food.
1:11:02
But it was a good time. Something I love with the game
1:11:07
right now, Mr. Pandaria Remix. By the time we come back here
1:11:11
for our next episode, I will be completely done.
1:11:14
I will have done all of the quests.
1:11:15
I will have bought all of the toys, mounts and trans mog.
1:11:20
And I like that the game gives me check boxes that I can check
1:11:23
off. That feels really nice.
1:11:26
So thanks for Remix. Thanks for the check boxes.
1:11:28
There you go. Guys, if you want to find out
1:11:31
anything that we are doing, what's on our mind, jump into
1:11:34
the discord that is bit dot LY slash fast discord.
1:11:38
And until next time guys, may all your hits be crits.