Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #338 - For Azeroth!: "K'areshi Park"

Transcript

#338 - For Azeroth!: "K'areshi Park" · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

0:00
If you're the dev who coded this and you are most decidedly not
0:05
an intern, I want you to know that for legal reasons, that was
0:08
a joke, OK? You know networks cancel joke
0:13
joking parties now, so watch your mouth for the Karen tour.
0:19
For Pandaria. For.
0:23
Calendar. To the burning.
0:26
Region. For Gilnaeus, but has not died
0:30
for the Lich King for the. Sindora for the Alliance for.
0:38
The Horde for Azeroth. Hello and welcome to another
0:44
episode of For Azeroth. I am one of your hosts, the
0:47
returning villain AKA Manny, and I am joined of course by the two
0:52
people who held down the Fort who did all the work last week,
0:58
other than editing apparently. We have, of course coming to us
1:07
from part unknown. In the new abode we have Lex.
1:11
Hello Lex, how are you and how's the World of Warcraft been
1:14
treating you? I.
1:16
Great, I finally set up my on the floor gaming station and
1:20
immediately realized that the table that I the coffee table
1:25
that I was using was far too short.
1:27
So I am now purchasing a new coffee table which I said I was
1:30
not going to do and I was going to buy them used.
1:32
So this is But this is great. I'm on the floor and I'm
1:35
snuggling with my puppy while I'm recording a podcast and I'm
1:37
playing video games, not in my spare time, so I'm doing great.
1:42
Nice. And then coming to us from
1:45
Eastern Canada in one of his manses, we have of course, Sean.
1:50
Hello. Hello, Manny.
1:54
How are you and how's the World of Warcraft been treating you?
1:56
I'm doing well, we are actually thinking about moving to PEI,
2:01
buying a home over there and moving to PEI which just makes
2:04
me chuckle but I'm doing well. Warcraft is doing well.
2:09
I've been on the PTR, hitting the dungeons, things are feeling
2:13
good. I don't want to say best season
2:15
ever, but I will say season ever and it's definitely a season.
2:23
And yeah, we've just been grinding through.
2:26
I am officially done all tasks that I need to do on retail
2:31
until the end of the next season.
2:33
As far as player power goes, I have my Warrior, my Paladin, and
2:37
my Death Knight all geared at 684 Max doe ready to go into
2:42
next season. Remaining paladin, but we're
2:44
going to keep the others ready to go just in case.
2:46
And I've started the raid prep for both NA and EU where one is
2:52
mythic and one is heroic. Things are good.
2:55
That's good, that's good. Speaking about 11.2, the last
3:02
week that I was here, we got that release date.
3:05
While you guys were holding down the Fort, of course Blizzard was
3:08
making changes. But in between last episode of
3:13
this episode, we now have a release client out on the PTR.
3:20
So it is getting very real. We're going to see people
3:24
putting up their tail list if they haven't already put up
3:26
their tailors. But I'm going to tell everybody
3:28
within the sound of my voice slow down because Blizzard has
3:33
been working through with different hot fixes on the PTR
3:39
and changing things quite quickly.
3:42
In fact, we had some changes today.
3:43
And Sean, you were looking at them at first and first you
3:48
were, you weren't happy about some changes, but you, you got
3:52
in, you played a bit and turned it around.
3:54
Tell tell us about like what kind of tuning they're doing
3:56
with Mythic Plus? So they are attempting to make
4:00
it more accessible. And one of the things that
4:02
players have identified as a hurdle, especially for new
4:06
players getting in trying to push to to higher levels is the
4:09
complexity and the coordination required in because it says they
4:13
changed the way AOE like CC's work where they don't send
4:17
abilities on cool down. That coordination of CCAOE stops
4:21
has become much higher at the higher key levels.
4:24
And it seems like Blizzard is trying to find ways to work
4:27
around that. And one of those ways that they
4:29
did try to, to work around this, the fish sticks and Soleil's
4:33
gambit, if you remember them from shadow ants, would be a it
4:39
was a 1.5. They started out as a 1.5 second
4:43
cast by the scale binders or scale finders or scale.
4:47
The stupid. Yeah, Murlocs.
4:50
And then once the cast ended, it would put a fish stick in the
4:53
ground, which is a totem. And then that totem would put
4:57
ADR on the enemies and start to heal them with invigorating fish
5:02
sticks. That's it's a frustrating came
5:04
to play around now as through tuning and shadow lands that got
5:07
changed from 1.5 to 3 seconds to cast.
5:09
People started using AOE stops to to avoid having to deal with
5:12
these. And because it's a totem,
5:15
because it's coded as a totem, they're not affected by AOE
5:18
spells. So you have to single target
5:21
them down. You have to physically swap to
5:22
them as your main target and focus them down.
5:25
Coming into this season, coming into into season 3, they were
5:29
looking like they were not going to be any more fun and people
5:31
had complained about them and asked for fixes to them to try
5:33
and make them somehow better. Wowhead did some data mining
5:39
last night before the fixes went in, and what they data mined was
5:43
that there was no longer a cast timer, that the totems were
5:46
instant cast, that they make the mobs bigger when they empower
5:50
it, and there was another change, I can't remember what it
5:54
said. Anyway, the changes that they
5:56
said made it seem like Blizzard doubled down and made these
6:00
things awful because with with them being an instant cast,
6:03
there's no you can't chain CC the enemies.
6:06
But what in actuality happened? I went in and played it.
6:09
The the totem is instant cast. So the fish stick is still
6:12
instant cast, but the fish stick itself is like 4 times the size
6:16
that it was. It's as tall as a very large
6:19
murloc. Like if you know that number,
6:21
that toy that you're that mouth that we all got for being six
6:23
months subscribers to like the big burly orange murloc that
6:26
everybody rides. It's about that size.
6:29
It's effing huge. And but once it casts once the
6:34
once the murloc casts it, it then has a 5 second cast timer.
6:39
The totem itself doesn't start. It's Dr. or it's healing for
6:44
five seconds. So you have 5 full seconds to
6:47
swap. It's still totem, which is kind
6:49
of a bummer. I'd like to see that be changed.
6:50
It's the one last change I would like.
6:52
If you still hard swap to it, burn it down.
6:55
If you have a monk in your group that can touch and death it, get
6:57
it down before that 5 seconds and then it never DRS and it
7:00
never heals the enemies or you. Also, alternatively, you have 5
7:04
seconds to cut away from it. Yeah.
7:06
So the data mining and posting before the patch notes, because
7:11
the patch notes sort of clarified a little bit, didn't
7:13
paint the whole picture, and it wasn't until we actually went
7:15
and played it. That's why it's so important
7:17
that we don't get frustrated and immediately triggered by what we
7:21
read from data mining, because it doesn't always mean what we
7:23
think it means or play out the way it does.
7:25
And I was one of those people who instantly got.
7:28
I was like, oh, this is it. They ruined so last gambit.
7:31
But I was wrong. Yeah.
7:34
They fixed it so last gambit's better now.
7:35
It's perfect. There are no more issues.
7:37
Blizzard stop tuning for me Gambit.
7:39
There, there are things that people want.
7:41
Yeah. No, like they definitely made
7:42
it. We're done.
7:43
It fixed it. Another change to Slayers Gambit
7:46
that is a huge quality of life change but also makes me a
7:49
little bit sad. The second boss is the pirate
7:53
dragon Captain Hook Tail. In that fight.
7:58
ADS get off of a boat, rush the beach.
8:00
You, you, you turn the dragon to use its frontal breath weapon to
8:04
kill those pirates as they're running into their swashbuckles
8:07
as they're running in. But Captain Hook Tail, as the
8:10
name says, has a giant tail mechanic that hurts the players
8:13
in your group as you swing it around to hit them.
8:16
They have removed the tail mechanic entirely.
8:20
There is no more to. So instead of a tail mechanic,
8:22
now there is a dot that goes on players which gives you a haste
8:26
buff. So I think it's a 30% haste
8:29
buff, but it also does 244,000 damage.
8:32
Every tick of damage, it does 10% more damage for 30 seconds
8:37
or until it's dispelled. So now there's going to be this
8:40
really fun gameplay of how long can I survive this dot ticking
8:44
with this buff before it has to get dispelled.
8:47
And then when you dispel, there's a burst of damage.
8:49
Two of those go to once. So it'll obviously have to be
8:52
something you stagger dispels on.
8:54
But I'm really looking forward to MDI groups where they have
8:56
like a single Death Knight who pops AMS and then gets spell
8:59
wording from his paladin and then gets paints up and they
9:02
stack them all the way for 30 seconds and watch him blast.
9:05
That's going to be a lot of fun. But yeah, Captain Hook Tail
9:08
doesn't have a hook tail anymore.
9:09
So now it's just, yeah, now it's just Captain Tail.
9:13
That sounds so much worse. Yeah, than.
9:17
It does, yeah. Like does it?
9:20
I want to know if it goes through immunities and stuff.
9:22
I could see to see like a Palin be like, oh, I'm about to die,
9:24
time to bubble and get like 3-4 more seconds out of this with
9:28
like that much haste to kill who?
9:30
Who? That can be spicy, that is.
9:33
I love that. That's got play.
9:34
Let's got play. Let's got into play.
9:36
But yeah, all this means that if people are putting out those
9:40
tier lists being like, Oh my goodness, this is good, This is
9:43
worse. This is the worst dungeon.
9:45
This is the hardest dungeon. Like don't, don't take that to
9:50
heart right now. They are still very much at work
9:54
trying to do adjustments here. I saw that there were some
9:57
healer changes last week while while I was travelling back from
10:03
the more rural parts of Ontario. Yes, you're allowed to say
10:07
Ontario to John. That's fine.
10:09
I. Almost gave your address though.
10:10
Manny, I was like you. Didn't quite go there at least.
10:12
Maybe you edited that part out and I'll be thankful for that.
10:16
Yeah. So yeah, like I'm excited for
10:24
11.2. Like I just, you guys already
10:30
talked about Sean's misgivings of the story.
10:33
I I hold some different misgivings of the story, but
10:38
that will literally have to be an entirely separate episode.
10:42
But what are you guys excited for an 11.2 let Lex I got I got
10:47
to throw this one to you first. Rating I'm excited to get back
10:51
into the raid. It sounds really fun.
10:53
It sounds really cool. It sounds like there's a lot of
10:54
story. I am I'm excited to feel like
10:58
there's like something for me to be working towards right now
11:01
that isn't just like prepping in general.
11:04
That is that is absolutely the thing that I'm the most hyped
11:06
about, and this one sounds really cool.
11:09
I have. I I know none of us.
11:12
Question Mark. I've seen the dementias fight,
11:14
right? That one's hard locked.
11:16
Yeah, well. Unless that's what Sean couldn't
11:18
tell us about. But yet.
11:20
Yeah. As far as we're legally allowed
11:22
to say, apparently none of us have seen the dementias fight.
11:26
Well, that just, it just sounds sick, like the, you know, fight
11:31
as a city. Oh my God, insane.
11:33
I'm so hyped and I'm so hyped for our inevitable betrayal by
11:36
Zalitath. Yeah, I'm, I'm more on Sean's
11:42
side on that one, but I can just like, OK, Sean, before I go off
11:49
on this tangent, what are you most looking forward to?
11:53
Is it also rating or are you more excited for Mythic Plus or
11:56
what's what's got you going for 11.2?
12:00
Are you most excited for your personal zoo?
12:02
I am looking forward to actually, you know what the
12:05
Ecodome I, I was thinking about this.
12:06
So the Ecodomes and I, you know why I equated it to Jurassic
12:09
Park. You go and you're, you're
12:10
rebuilding these things. And then I saw the new Jurassic
12:13
Park movie and then I was thinking to myself, I've seen
12:16
every Jurassic Park movie and they all end horribly.
12:20
But if there was an actual real world Jurassic Park, knowing how
12:26
horrible it goes and everyone, I'm still going.
12:29
I'm not passing up the chance to see an Ankylosaurus like I'm
12:32
sorry, I need to see my spiky boy, I'm going to Jurassic Park.
12:38
That is not what I'm most excited about 11.2.
12:41
But I just wanted to be clear that if they open a real
12:43
Jurassic Park and you see me going, please don't tweet at me.
12:46
Wow, he's such a hypocrite. He knows those Dinos be eating
12:48
some. You did so good last episode,
12:54
not swearing and so I know you can do it so.
12:59
No, maybe what he's saying is the dinosaurs famously eat dogs
13:03
and so there's got a 50% chance that they'll be female.
13:06
That's not even a swear. It's true.
13:08
It's true. Yeah.
13:09
Jurassic Park 3, The Lost World. They eat a dinosaur in the
13:11
backyard in San Francisco, right over to the doghouse.
13:14
I can't believe you don't remember that man.
13:17
Come. On man, anyway, one of.
13:18
My excited for an 11.2. I'm going to.
13:20
I mean, I'm with Lex. The raid is a banger.
13:23
I've played through it. I'm looking forward to progging
13:24
with my teams. I think for me what I'm most
13:29
excited for is to be one step closer to midnight and the
13:36
announcement of cross region gameplay.
13:39
I think that is what I'm most excited for.
13:41
An 11.21 step closer to being able to use all of my characters
13:45
on NA with my friends on EU, and more importantly being able to
13:49
merge all of the collectibles from my EU account into my NA
13:53
account. I am looking forward to 11.2.
13:59
The non 11.2 thing that I'm looking forward to is a super
14:04
clip of every time Sean has predicted that we would get
14:07
cross region play. But coming in 11.2, I think I'm
14:16
yeah, I'm with you on that. Getting closer to midnight.
14:18
I think that that like I'm excited to see where that goes,
14:24
especially since the, the scuttlebutt around it is that
14:29
the story of the war within sort of shifted in production and
14:34
this is what they could divert the story to.
14:38
And so like midnight will be the true pushing towards what they
14:42
what they had planned. And then beyond that, man, I, I
14:47
really want to push pretty hard at the beginning of this season
14:52
for mythic plus. The end of this season was my
14:55
push for for mythic plus. This time I'd like to kind of
15:00
get there earlier. I'm not going to be anywhere
15:03
looking to push for title. I'm not going to go be going to
15:06
like nineteens and 20s. That's not that's not in the
15:10
forecast as it were. But I would love to start
15:14
pushing into fourteens into fifteens, see where we can go,
15:20
see if my my team is willing to push themselves considering
15:24
where we got this time. I am scared however, that we're
15:31
going to get things in later patches that are going to be
15:37
like we got in 12.5 and in 12.7. Namely the belt power up, the
15:46
extra 8 item levels on everything, power up the head
15:49
and chant power up. Which meant that the early part
15:52
of the season kind of didn't count, which I felt was weird
15:57
and kind of self defeating I feel.
15:59
Like that's sort of true of every patch, though, is that
16:04
like, would it like you're always going to go into it with
16:07
the knowledge that if you push in the beginning, they're going
16:10
to make it easier by the end, right.
16:12
And so like, do I, I maybe not to, to to be fair, this season
16:18
was back loaded and it was back loaded with time limited things
16:21
and I didn't like that either. Like I, I hear what you're
16:23
saying that there was a lot that was handed to you by the end of
16:25
it. But like at the end of the day,
16:28
it's always going to be the people who get title within the
16:30
first few weeks or the people who get, you know, Keystone
16:33
master or whatever. Within the first few weeks
16:35
though, like just by definition, they worked significantly harder
16:39
and had significantly less gear available to them than the
16:41
people who get it right before season close.
16:44
Like there's always catch up mechanics, there's always some
16:46
extra little things they give you.
16:47
There's always ways that it just got significantly easier.
16:50
To a point, yeah. But like entire systems, like we
16:54
didn't have anything quite like this for much of Dragonflight.
17:00
But like, to your point, in 11.1, we did have the ring that
17:04
showed up on the Siren Isle that gave a lot of people a boost of
17:08
power. I don't think there was much
17:10
beyond that. You guys can correct me if I'm
17:13
wrong, right? It was a weird this season it
17:18
did feel like they were really scared people were not going to
17:22
be able to get things by season end, which was a little bit
17:24
surprising because to be fair, I didn't do any method.
17:27
But it it sounded like this was one of the easiest seasons
17:30
they've had. So I don't know why they were so
17:33
like terrified, But I, I guess my argument would be that like
17:37
there's always like, even if it's just like they start
17:39
handing out gear like it's candy by the end of the season, right?
17:43
Like they always do things to make the end of the season
17:45
significantly easier than the beginning of the season.
17:48
This season was easier because of the extra power they gave us.
17:54
It was the turbo boost in 11 point 1.5 that made the season
17:59
easy. Everybody gained 6 item levels
18:01
and then on top of that we had a few weeks later we had the the
18:05
helmet chance coming from from visions which added player
18:08
power. A lot of classes were still
18:11
using Cersei's circuit which was a bit overpowered especially if
18:13
you were a mastery loving class. And then boomkins and or feral
18:17
druids maybe. But that is why sorry.
18:20
Enhancement shaman call. Enhancement shaman, Yeah.
18:23
So that, I think, is why the season felt easier.
18:26
And the Galliwick's mythic kills, they've that rings true
18:30
for that there. It's like the most killed boss
18:32
or right now it's the second most killed boss and boss in, in
18:36
modern Wow, it might be the most killed at this point.
18:40
So it's, it's definitely more accessible, but it's because of
18:44
that mid season boost. And they've already said that
18:47
they liked what turbo boost provided and they're, they're
18:50
looking to do something similar in 11.2.
18:53
So I expect a mid season Crest bump.
18:56
Save your crests now. Hot tip, don't use the Crest
19:00
upgrade vendor guy until the turbo boost of season of season
19:05
3 comes out and then you can do it all in one day and not have
19:07
to farm anything. That's a hot tip for you.
19:10
That's what I did this season and it wasn't just that I forgot
19:12
that I could do the craft upgrade and.
19:15
The end of the season. Well, another, another thing
19:18
that Lex has been doing that everybody else should be doing
19:21
is not spending your valor stones because going into 11.3,
19:30
we will not have a reset of valor stones.
19:32
Anything, any valor that you have if you're capped already
19:35
because you just, what are you going to spend it on?
19:37
You've upgraded everything already and so forth.
19:40
You get to carry those into the next season and as you get
19:44
upgrades, you'll be able to immediately start pushing that
19:48
through. If you're somebody who is
19:51
economically minded, make sure you have a lot of things ready
19:59
for enchanting items and all of that.
20:01
Because a lot of people are going to be getting items,
20:04
upgrading them past anything that they've gotten this season,
20:07
Especially if they're like a heroic Raider and they're being
20:10
capped at 470 something. In that first week, you're going
20:12
to be getting 480 something gear.
20:15
And then in Mythic Plus, you're going to be starting to get gear
20:19
from that. And that means.
20:21
Anybody who needs a new ring enchant, new gems, new whatever
20:28
consumables, they're going to be way more of a hot commodity in
20:35
the beginning of the season that I think they've been in seasons
20:38
past. Now.
20:40
I don't think either of one of you are really doing professions
20:44
on. You have like an entire Guild
20:45
network. So you've got like your one sort
20:47
of profession that you've worked through.
20:50
Yeah, I'm in. I'm enchanting an alchemy on
20:53
every character. Chanting enough, have you?
20:56
Are they all the same level of completed or?
20:59
Yeah, they're all finished. Well, I have one that is almost
21:03
finished. He was behind.
21:04
But yeah, all of my characters are enchanting an alchemy.
21:07
Alchemy for the extended flash duration.
21:09
It only makes sense and enchanting because when all you
21:12
do is dungeons, it's a gathering profession.
21:17
Good, good. My mind chanting is nowhere near
21:21
complete because it's on an alt that barely touches dungeons.
21:24
And so thank goodness for War Bound because that's where it's
21:27
beginning most of its stuff. Lex, what about you?
21:32
I, I feel like you had said early on in season 1 that you
21:35
were sort of like not really doing professions.
21:37
I don't think I've really seen heard you pick up from there.
21:41
Yeah, I have 30,000 golds. That probably tells you about
21:43
how about how much I've been doing labour wise to keep things
21:47
going. I will, I, I need, I need to
21:52
start doing gold work just because like I'm kind of hitting
21:54
the point when like people be like, oh, you can craft this
21:56
thing and I have to sit there and do a little math and be
21:59
like, oh, that is all my money. So I think especially now that I
22:03
have my cute old floor couch and I can get back into just like,
22:07
you know, spending a couple hours just flying around, having
22:11
a good time, watching TV, listening to a podcast,
22:14
gathering stuff. I think I do just need to go and
22:18
sit down and and make myself a little money 'cause I am a broke
22:21
baby. Well, at 30 Ki might suggest the
22:26
tried and true Sean method of gathering.
22:30
Basically you use your credit card and the Blizzard store, you
22:34
get yourself a token that'll get that little like at this point
22:38
roughly 10 times your gold right off the bat and that that'll
22:43
like keep you comfy and for like what, 20 bucks like I I feel
22:48
like that'll be pretty good. If you're living within your
22:52
means, AT30K300K will be some mad money for you.
22:57
I got 300. If I saw 300,000 gold in my bags
23:02
I literally don't know what I would do.
23:04
Like I think I might actually cry of joy like the shoe.
23:06
There the token 300K right now. Yeah, like it's because that's
23:11
what I said, because it's getting close to 11.2.
23:14
So the token prices are are ballooning.
23:18
I would suspect that they're not.
23:21
They're going to go down a little bit.
23:23
But by the end of August, once we get Gamescon, you're going to
23:26
see those balloon again. And this is probably going to be
23:30
one of the last times people are going to see tokens on NA below
23:35
300K, in my opinion. They like it's.
23:40
I expect as we get closer to the expansion, as things heat up
23:44
with like Legion Remix and all that sort of stuff, tokens are
23:47
going to go up yet again. And I remember getting those
23:51
tokens 430K back in the day, Lex.
23:56
So you know that that's where that's what it is right now.
24:00
I I might just go fix a couple problems this evening.
24:04
Oh my God there are 311,000 right now.
24:06
I'm buying one right now. There you go.
24:09
OK, you. Fucking money.
24:11
Are you serious? Lex, you got to buy well I'm
24:13
spending real money to get the 311,000 gold like I'm purchasing
24:19
the token to sell on the Lex, you got to do it do it with me
24:21
let's do it together. I.
24:23
I, I might be opening my my World of Warcraft client as we
24:26
speak just because you're, I mean, that would just do you
24:30
know how many problems in my life would be fixed by 300,000
24:33
gold? For the for the audience at
24:36
home, I was like, this close to just giving Lexi 100K just like,
24:42
just like, oh, I'm sorry, Lexi a cow.
24:47
This is this is the issue is my, my sweet loving Guild who I love
24:51
so much will very kindly like anytime we're talking about
24:54
crafting or anything, I'll be like, oh, I don't know if I can
24:56
afford that. Like three people are like,
24:58
we'll make it for you. And I'm like, I should say no,
25:00
but I kind of can't. But if I had 300,000 gold, do
25:03
you guys regularly have 300,000 gold just sitting in your bags?
25:08
On and on what? Like Mike?
25:10
It costs me money, but yes. My alts, I don't like leaving
25:15
them with less than 5K because I'm like, yeah, but what if they
25:17
need to like repair or something?
25:20
So I've got, sorry, I've got like my army of alts and none of
25:26
them have less than than 5K. My cheapest on my war band, it's
25:38
got to be 6 digits. There's no way it's less than 6
25:40
digits. How do I sign up to be one of
25:43
your alts? Well Lex, you have you have your
25:49
own, your own will, and therefore, damn it, I will allow
25:54
you to live your life. I don't want to be an alt, but
25:59
how do I get you as my sugar daddy?
26:05
We'll, we'll, we'll talk after the show because I do want to
26:07
come visit before you fly out to PEI or something.
26:09
Well. We would take the boat across
26:12
OH. There you go.
26:13
That's true in. The ferry not we don't have.
26:16
We wouldn't take the. Sorry guys, he wouldn't take the
26:21
yacht. He doesn't want to damage that
26:22
with the property. He would hire a crew and they
26:25
would ferry his property over from one of his, from one of his
26:30
pavilions over to whatever place that he buys.
26:33
Yeah, gold problems aside and money problems non existent for
26:38
Sean, We're going to be moving on to the next thing, which is
26:42
if you have all that goal, what are you going to do with it in
26:46
11.2? You're going to go to the new
26:49
shiny trinket vendor that Lex thought should be next, but is
26:54
actually a trinket vendor that it comes from Delves.
26:58
And so updating from our story from last week, we now know that
27:04
the rotation of that of that vendor and I I dislike daily
27:17
rotations on vendors. I think that is annoying and RNG
27:23
and I would literally rather they have this a static amount.
27:30
But because every trinket is available at least two of the
27:34
days, it's a little bit better. But that still means it's not
27:39
there three days. And if you happen to go on one
27:43
of the three, the three days it's not there and then have to
27:45
come back a week, like a week later, you're like, oh, shoot,
27:50
let me go check this community guide resource or like a site
27:56
here to be like, is this the day where this is available?
27:59
That just seems annoying more than anything else.
28:03
Yeah, I don't get the point of this because it's not in like an
28:06
order that anyone could figure out on their own.
28:11
Like you have to go to a guide to know what's like if if if
28:15
you're going for a specific, I guess it looks like there's two
28:20
that are constant. You can always get the shadow
28:23
guards twisted Harvester and you can always get the chaotic
28:26
another date. But everything else, it's
28:29
literally I, I I can imagine if you aren't engaging in other
28:34
world. I mean, I guess you know,
28:35
Google's if if you can play World of Warcraft, you can
28:37
Google. But this just feels complicated
28:40
for the sake of complication. I'd like to quote Kurt Russell
28:46
in the 1980s classic Tango in Cash.
28:51
When him and his partner Cash were on trial for a crime they
28:58
did not commit and the judge asked if they had any
29:01
statements. Kurt Russell stood up and said
29:03
yeah, I'd like to make a statement.
29:06
This whole thing effing sucks. If you haven't seen Tango in
29:13
Cash please check it out. It's a great movie.
29:15
You broke that job. That'll make sense once you've
29:17
seen it. This is stupid.
29:19
Why do we have rotations on vendors Blizzard?
29:22
We didn't. Did we not learn this lesson in
29:24
BFA with the with the corruption vendor?
29:27
We do not need to be rotating vendors.
29:29
It's time getting for the sake of time, like time getting.
29:33
It's aren't you frustration injection for the sake of
29:37
frustration injection? I guess I don't know if you're
29:40
going to let us buy them, just let us buy them.
29:42
We don't need to have this on a rotation.
29:43
And what I'm really worried about on the PTR, it's a five
29:46
day rotation. What if on live it becomes a
29:50
five week rotation? So a five week rotation is, I
29:57
think, better in some ways because it hurts the people who
30:02
can't log in every day less, right?
30:05
It hurts the people who have like, oh, I have a commitment.
30:13
I've got like volleyball, I've got book club, I've got DND or
30:18
whatever. And the time that I would
30:19
normally play, I can't be on that.
30:21
And congratulations, you can't do it that day.
30:24
You have to come back next week while all of your contemporaries
30:28
get it. And now there's they've got
30:29
their quote UN quote Bis or or stronger item and you're this
30:33
that far behind. It's the worst kind of FOMO when
30:36
you when it hits like that, if you're away for the week that
30:41
that is available, then that is going to hurt you as well.
30:47
And it's like, how do you balance those two?
30:50
Well, I think maybe they just do it as like a hey, week 1.
30:57
These are going to be available Week 2, Both these and the
31:02
second tier are going to be available.
31:03
And then by week 5, everything's available at all times.
31:06
So even even if they're doing like a hey, we're only releasing
31:10
these a little bit at a time. Even if you show up late, you
31:13
can immediately get it again and you're not missing the boat
31:16
until the next time it rotates through.
31:19
Yeah, I, I, so first of all, I, I think a week long rotation,
31:24
especially with how many trinkets and the fact we're
31:26
talking 5 weeks, that would just hurt.
31:29
I, I would be pretty grumpy about that.
31:31
And that would also suck. If like, you know, if you aren't
31:33
tuned in and you don't realize it's going to rotate and you're
31:37
saving up money for, you know, one that's there week 1 and you
31:40
don't even know a rotation is going to happen.
31:42
And then all of a sudden it's the first day of Week 2 and you
31:44
are like hard locked and you didn't realize that was even on
31:47
the table. But I I just.
31:50
Don't. Yeah, rotation suck.
31:54
I just don't want a rotation period.
31:55
Yeah, it it, it just doesn't make sense.
31:57
It's not protecting, you know, from overpowering.
32:01
I mean, like it's just, it's just crappy and confusing for
32:08
the sake of being crappy and confusing.
32:11
I don't. I I wonder like again, like you
32:15
have to bend yourself backwards to find a rotation that doesn't
32:18
suck as much. And the only way I can think of
32:21
like a rotation is when they have an overlap.
32:25
So it's like, hey, instead of it just being available for one
32:29
day, it's available for three days.
32:31
And then on day 2 through today, today 4, right?
32:38
The next ones are rotating in and out.
32:40
And then so there's overlap between all of them and you have
32:44
three days to get it. And then because there's like,
32:47
because they'd like come back, maybe it's only missing for a
32:51
day, but at that point, what's the point of rotation?
32:53
It's so bizarre. Just this is literally like a
32:57
let's just have the determinist deterministic loot.
33:00
You've already got it locked behind you having to get to a
33:02
certain level on your delvers journey.
33:04
Anyways, that's the unlock. Hey, congratulations, you've
33:08
reached delve delvers journey Level 3 or 6 or something.
33:13
Now you can buy buy these trinkets.
33:16
It feels like hey, let's have the intern code something today
33:22
and they chose this. OK, I'll go to rotating vendor
33:26
for drinking. Hey guys, good work intern.
33:31
I can neither confirm nor deny that some intern was involved in
33:35
this, but I feel like the planning stages of such a system
33:39
maybe have a consensus in the team seems more impossible.
33:46
If you're the dev who coded this and you are most decidedly not
33:51
an intern, I want you to know that for legal reasons, that was
33:54
a joke. OK, you know networks cancel
33:58
joke joking parties now, so watch your.
34:01
Only, only ones that are not profitable, Manny, those are
34:04
purely financial decisions since our profits are still at the
34:09
same percentage they were when we started.
34:12
We're good. At this point, I would like to
34:15
thank our patrons. Thank you for everything that
34:18
you guys do. That's right, as long as we have
34:20
one patron, we get to stay on the air.
34:24
That said, 11.2, there's a lot of stuff in there.
34:28
As we as we are approaching the day, we're going to start
34:32
looking at some of these systems again.
34:34
Hot fixes are changing a lot of things.
34:37
I don't really think I want to spend that much time on the zoo.
34:41
I'm going to let you guys blindly enjoy the zoo because
34:44
apparently enjoying stuff blind is the the new hot thing.
34:48
Let's let's leave the zoo for for that.
34:52
Sorry, except for you, Lex. You're, you're a hippie, you're
34:54
ahead. You were doing it before it was
34:56
cool. Oh yeah, I grew up with so many
34:59
random animals. It was.
35:01
Oh no, I mean doing things blind.
35:03
Oh, doing things blind. Oh, I get it.
35:05
I get the joke. That's very funny, man.
35:06
That's a very funny. Joke for for legal reasons, I'm
35:12
going to edit that part out. Wait, do I don't think I wait?
35:16
Do I not get the joke? No.
35:20
I assume he's referencing your Guild doing braid bosses.
35:22
Me too, but then why is he asking this?
35:24
Out. Because you dead banded and it
35:27
didn't sell. Oh.
35:30
You'd like to send send hate mail and you can direct it to
35:33
Manny at 299 Queen St. West, Toronto, ON M5V 2Z5.
35:41
Whose address is that? Much.
35:44
Music. Much.
35:45
Music. Oh my, but.
35:47
The thing is, an address like that you could just give because
35:50
Americans would be like Zed. Yeah, man, you don't.
35:54
Yeah, What what made-up letter is that?
35:57
I don't. Know ZET?
35:59
Yeah, man, I'm surprised you don't have much music address
36:03
memorized. That's like a staple of my
36:05
child. How did you send letters into
36:07
Electric Circus? I walked past the building
36:10
frequently. I live in Toronto.
36:12
It's a beautiful, glorious city. You have to remember center of
36:16
the universe, but that's, that's enough.
36:19
Canadiana. I did want to also talk about 11
36:28
point 2.5 on the central distribution networks, which
36:34
means already we're seeing some internal testing and that is not
36:38
all. Just today we also got 11 point
36:42
2.7 detected on the internal testing.
36:46
So they are pushing ahead with this.
36:50
At this point, midnight seems so close.
36:54
Obviously we are at the final chapter and I don't want to get
36:57
too far ahead of it, but I do want to ask you guys as we're
37:02
heading into the final chapter of this expansion, have you
37:06
liked the faster cadence? Have you liked the two year
37:09
expansion sort of thing? Has this initial part of the
37:14
World Soul Saga hit for you guys in rating in Mythic Plus?
37:20
If you enjoyed that or didn't enjoy that in the new delves in
37:25
story, like what were the hits and what were the misses, I'm
37:28
going to throw this one, of course, to you, Lex first.
37:33
Yeah. I mean, I am like, is it?
37:41
The raids were great. I had a great time with the
37:43
raids. I don't rate at a high enough
37:45
level for any of the like major concerns to really hit me.
37:47
So I was just having fun with everything cadence wise.
37:51
I'm worried we had a like, I know I'm a broken record at this
37:55
point, but we had a dev resign without another job lined up.
38:00
A previous streamer, someone who's worked in the video game
38:02
industry his whole life, could only handle working at World of
38:05
Warcraft for four years before resigning without a job lined
38:09
up. That is that scares me and that
38:12
makes me concerned we're going to have brain drain because I
38:14
mean, like, maybe it was just a bad fit for him.
38:17
Best of luck to him or like wish him all the best.
38:21
He did incredible things for the game.
38:22
This Scarizard is the dev's name if I remember correctly.
38:26
Yeah, but I'm I'm worried man. I feel like the content has been
38:32
like we frequently get patches that we're like, what were we
38:35
even doing here or or choices. It felt a little bit rushed.
38:39
I'm worried about what this is going to do to the team,
38:41
especially since layoffs are continuing onward.
38:44
And I will say again, I would rather have a really slow
38:48
release cycle with like a really solid team who loves their job,
38:52
who I'm I'm proud to to play this game and buy into it.
38:57
Then, you know, three years down the line we have just a, you
39:02
know, oh Jesus Christ, we got another one coming.
39:05
I don't know. It's the freaking, it's the
39:07
trolls. I don't like we got to do
39:08
something because we set this cadence and we have to stick to
39:10
it. And I feel like my fears are
39:14
like, slowly being more and more realized.
39:16
But I'm also insane and I'm an insane labour girlie who is
39:19
stressed about, you know, will always panic on behalf of the
39:23
worker, even if the worker isn't telling you to panic on their
39:25
behalf. So like, I, yeah, it's been fun
39:28
to have new content all the time.
39:30
You know, there's always something to do.
39:33
It hasn't. Like it it, I was scared it
39:35
would feel overwhelming. And I'd feel like I was always
39:36
kind of being pushed to do things and it didn't.
39:38
They put in a lot of like story content or content you can kind
39:41
of, you know, choose not to engage with.
39:44
And they're like experimenting with cool stuff, which is fun.
39:47
So I mean, I just, I just don't want us to end up with no team
39:51
because everyone burned out. That's my fear.
39:54
Yeah, yeah. I mean, this wasn't exactly
39:57
where I wanted this conversation.
39:59
I planned this for this. No, no, this wasn't where I
40:02
planned for this conversation to to go, but it is definitely
40:04
something I would want to talk about.
40:05
So thank you for for bringing that up.
40:09
Yeah, Patrick Skarsard Scarborough, he worked with
40:13
Blizzard for like 4 years, did a lot for the game.
40:18
He is one of Sean's favorite developers, if not only for
40:22
creating the Dinar system that Sean loves those those things,
40:27
but like also being a big push for the new unified upgrade
40:35
system that we have in Pve. That was another thing that he
40:38
had helped work on. Obviously, these things are team
40:42
efforts and the team came together to help sculpt that,
40:45
but that's things that he had his fingerprints on.
40:48
He had taken a leave of absence last year because of like stress
40:55
and wanting to like get a bit of a reset and then I guess could
41:00
could not continue when he came back deciding to yet and and his
41:06
tenure at Blizzards after like you said, four years.
41:11
So it is it is upsetting. I can not in my mind think that
41:22
the series of layoffs and seeing that go through friends of
41:30
friends and Co workers could not like have made it any easier and
41:36
probably contributed to that. I know there was a follow up
41:40
post where people where people say, oh, it's because of the
41:44
backlash about this system or that system.
41:45
I forget which systems they were they were talking about.
41:49
But he, he responded, said, no, no, it's not about that.
41:52
And yeah, the fact that he's saying it's burnout is is it's
41:58
something that we should be concerned with because we want
42:01
this. We want like great people who
42:04
are passionate about this game to be building this game.
42:09
And you cannot say that Scarzard was not a passionate developer
42:17
and had put a lot of love and into crafting things.
42:22
And the game is going to be less without without him.
42:27
John, I'm going to pass it to you to give a few closing words
42:32
and then maybe we'll go back towards 11.
42:36
Sorry, rather where you feel like this expansion is landing
42:40
I. Don't want to talk about
42:42
Warcraft at all in this moment. I want to talk about another
42:45
franchise that I had a lot of love for and was actually the
42:50
first One of the games in that franchise is the first game I
42:53
ever platinum trophied on PlayStation and that's
42:56
Assassin's Creed. Assassin's Creed one came out to
43:01
slightly mixed reviews. It was people who liked it
43:05
really, really liked it. It was a it was a Polish game
43:08
was a lot of fun. It was a bit repetitive and
43:10
there was some, it wasn't like perfect, but it was, it was a
43:15
real basis of the game. And then time went by and
43:18
Assassin's Creed 2 came out and it was gangbusters and it they
43:22
fixed all the mistakes and all the issues people have with
43:24
Assassin's Creed One. They came out with his new main
43:26
character named Ezio and it was just a beautiful game.
43:29
First game ever, Platinum. And then they released again
43:32
about the same length of time after Assassin's Creed 1 to 2,
43:36
they did Assassin's Creed 2. So Brotherhood was the second
43:42
one. It was it was like a sub sect of
43:44
the second game, Another amazing thing, but that also made a lot
43:47
of my and then they started to make them every year.
43:51
Then we got Assassin's Creed 3 Revelations.
43:54
Actually, I think it was Assassin's Creed 2, Assassin's
43:57
Creed 2. I think there's one in between
44:02
two and and and Assassin's Creed 2 Brotherhood.
44:05
I think there's one in between and then Assassin's Creed 3
44:07
Revelations and then Assassin's Creed Black Flag and the quality
44:11
and the storytelling and the games just fell off a Cliff and
44:17
I stopped playing them. The developers got burnt out
44:20
from it. It was not making them as much
44:22
money and then they had to do like a hard reboot.
44:25
I love the World of Warcraft. This.
44:27
I mean, obviously, it literally pays my bills.
44:31
I am super, super concerned that shifting to an 18 month locked
44:38
in expansion cycle is not only going to hurt the devs, but it's
44:42
going to hurt the quality of the game.
44:45
And everybody can point to the fact that Chris Madison is back
44:47
as much as they want and say Green Jesus is going to save us.
44:51
But the reality is 18 months is 18 months and you can only get
44:55
so much work done in that window and you can only be so creative.
45:01
I really, really hope that I'm wrong, but even more so, I hope
45:07
that somebody who makes the financial decision says, hey,
45:11
you know what, 2 years is fine. Just give him two years.
45:15
You know what I mean? They don't have to let and let
45:17
the patches instead of six months, let the patches be 8
45:20
months. And I realize that players are
45:22
going to say, Oh no, that doesn't do it for me.
45:25
Well, throw a throw a collector's bounty on the in the
45:27
last two months of every patch, everybody and their dog has been
45:32
glazing Warcraft since collector's bounty came in over
45:35
how great this is. The old world is rejuvenated.
45:38
It's amazing. So that gives you a, a little
45:40
bit of a filler, a little bit of buffer.
45:41
I, I just, I'm really worried. I, I think it's too fast and as
45:46
a, as a player, as somebody like, I can't imagine how
45:49
normies do this. I, my literal job is to play
45:52
Warcraft. I play this game all day long
45:55
and I feel like it's too fast and I feel like there's no
45:59
break. Like when do I take a month and
46:02
play Expedition 33? When does that happen?
46:05
Because I don't know when that happens in an 18 month patch
46:07
cycle. And I'd like to go back and play
46:10
Black Flag because I heard that was a good Assassin's Creed.
46:16
Yeah. I don't know.
46:18
If I how about people war within it has been passable.
46:23
I don't know if either of you read the book play nice, the
46:26
Jason Schreyer look at Blizzard and to be sure I haven't like
46:29
fact checked anything I don't I only know what Jason Schreyer
46:32
wrote in this book. But one reason I'm a little bit
46:35
scared is because basically everything that Blizzard was
46:38
holding really firm against Activision and Activision and
46:42
Bobby Kodak were pushing to Blizzard to do, and Blizzard was
46:45
able to protect themselves against it kind of just happened
46:48
when they got bought up by Microsoft.
46:50
And that's one reason why I'm so stressed is I'm like, oh, we
46:53
knew this was going to be nasty. And like I love to say on this
46:57
podcast, the reason the patches were slow before was not because
47:00
old doves wanted to go, you know, throw pizza parties
47:04
instead of do work. Blizzard was famously crunchy
47:06
before and I just, yeah, I, I'm, I'm just worried.
47:10
I just want them, I, I want the game to stay good.
47:13
And also I want the humans who develop the game to stay good.
47:18
OK, so I'm going to, I'm going to say this here, but I I'm
47:22
going to elaborate it on it later.
47:25
He's going to delete it after and deny that he said it.
47:27
No, I, I'm going to say this here, but I'm going to elaborate
47:29
more later. I just feel like we're we're
47:32
hitting near the end of the episode.
47:33
So let's let's talk about this. I feel like with the war within,
47:41
and this is also being true in Dragonflight, they have been
47:46
doing a lot of things, throwing a lot of things at players, but
47:51
there has been very little meat to it.
47:54
We have been getting events like the Nightfall thing, which is
48:01
just paper thin grind, and I don't want to just put this on
48:06
the War Within or the return of Chris Metzen or whatever.
48:11
We've also seen that in Dragonflight with, hey, we're
48:16
going to do the soup. This one and soup was great.
48:19
I loved soup. Soup was great, but it was
48:20
pretty thin. And they put in a bunch of thin
48:23
small activities to be like, OK, waste your time with this.
48:26
And then people would get bored of it.
48:27
Patch would come in and we do the chromy time ways, shattered
48:33
time ways thing. And that was the thin, thin
48:35
little event that really didn't go anywhere.
48:38
And so they've been doing this sort of stuff because they want
48:43
people to be able to skip it if they so choose.
48:48
And they don't want us to have mandatory content.
48:52
Because it could have easily have been that whatever quick
48:57
little content we had we have coming in 11.2 could also have a
49:02
very real grind to upgrade your cloak Ala Cata.
49:07
Sorry, not Cata. No, this wouldn't actually have
49:12
been in in BFA when we were had our last legendary cloak and we
49:20
were going through visions over and over and over again to
49:23
upgrade the cloak that we could have easily had the exact same
49:27
thing in this. And the question becomes like,
49:30
what's the healthy balance? Because I do want to have things
49:36
to do. I do want that stuff to be
49:39
somewhat meaningful, but I don't want to feel forced to do it.
49:46
If I were to throw out a solution, it'd be just add story
49:51
to it. We have these wonderful local
49:54
stories that at the beginning of the war within everybody was
49:58
losing their minds over being like, man, that's that story
50:01
made me cry. That was awesome.
50:05
I'd like to see that. We had the story that came in
50:10
with the with 11 point 1.7 and the Arathi Highlands and people
50:17
had their complaints. I've had my complaints about it,
50:19
but it was engaging for a little bit.
50:22
And I think that if we had more of that along with the systems,
50:27
the entire thing would be like, OK, engage in the system, get
50:29
these cools cosmetics and appreciate this story.
50:33
Something that Final Fantasy 14 as much as it is currently
50:40
lagging right now, is that it has big story to go through.
50:45
And people are like, oh, did you experience this story?
50:48
And like, so much of the community is like, hey, get
50:51
through this moment and play through this and don't skip
50:53
ahead. Yeah, yeah, we'll, we'll play
50:55
soon. But you've got to experience
50:56
this story. And I think that can be a
50:59
rewarding thing for some people. I look back at past expansions
51:04
and I think about characters like Zappy Boy, characters that
51:12
were relatively small, but like captured the entire community,
51:18
captured the entire audience, and people loved finding out
51:22
what was happening with the next.
51:23
And I don't see the same sort of payoff in the characters that
51:27
they've introduced now. Right.
51:30
Like I have hopes for fair in and I think that the cheese
51:35
going to be built into midnight or whenever they pay off on the
51:38
Arathi Empire. There's going to be more with
51:41
that. But I also had hopes for Stoney,
51:44
Tony and in Dragonflight. I also had hopes for any of the
51:49
dragon aspects in Dragonflight and I don't want them to be
51:56
like, OK, Andy one's got his mojo again and then forget about
51:59
him for another 20 years while we go randomly deal with
52:03
goblins. What?
52:05
So maybe the lore can can help with that, but at the same time,
52:13
just just do something that makes me like eager to do to
52:18
like work through on this and happy to get this stuff done.
52:22
Because even if something as simple as increasing drop rates
52:26
by 5% and doubling the trans mock has hit people because it's
52:30
like I can accomplish something. I can get that trans mock.
52:33
I can get those mounts that I've been searching for and that
52:37
that's what I really want. Just like make it make it
52:40
rewarding again. Lex, you've been nodding your
52:45
head a lot. Sean, you got anything to add?
52:51
I don't want to have to do chores.
52:52
Manny, you lost. Me at chores.
52:54
Chores. I like that I don't have to do
52:57
that stuff. I know I can do the stuff I
53:00
want, but I don't want to have to do stuff.
53:06
That's all. I like everything else you say.
53:08
I. Just don't want them to make it.
53:09
We do the story there, so we put the story.
53:11
There. No, because I like the story.
53:13
I don't want to. Have to do it for story.
53:16
Oh well. OK, do quests for.
53:18
Story. Or read a nice little book or
53:20
get a little audio drama. Fun little audio drama will be
53:24
nice. I just I'm just worried the fast
53:27
that's going to hear this and I'm going to be doing Soup for
53:30
Sparks. But you don't.
53:36
I mean. With a cap wide progression like
53:39
a little bit of effort that is. Once on your account, swear to
53:42
God I will drive over to 290. 9 Queen St.
53:45
West and I will give you a well, the other the.
53:49
Other option. Not to make this whole
53:51
conversation but is just to give overlapping rewards and cap them
53:55
right? Like make it so you get the
53:56
same, you know, like you can get things out of multiple different
54:00
directions and so it's up to you which direction you want to go.
54:03
You can get the same thing. You can only get X number of
54:05
things though. So you know, you're, it's not an
54:07
eternal grind. It's just, oh, I don't really
54:10
feel like doing soup. So instead I'm going to go do.
54:14
My mythic plus and I'll get the same stuff and it's going to cap
54:16
at a certain point or I don't feel like doing mythic plus I'm
54:18
going to go do soup. I I think there's an.
54:21
Entire conversation about having deterministic drops, similar to
54:27
the dinar system where you can get up to heroic level in a very
54:34
deterministic way. And then when you go beyond
54:36
that, the drops become back to the back to an RNG system where
54:41
it's like, now to get the best of the best you have to focus on
54:44
where that drops. But that's a lot of theory
54:48
crafting. There's a lot of things there.
54:50
Maybe that's a conversation for another day.
54:53
Do you guys have any last things that you want to say this?
54:58
Check with Lex first. I love this game.
55:01
It's really fun and I love the people that I get to play with
55:04
and it's a good time, Yeah, and I.
55:07
Think, I think that with housing that you guys were talking about
55:10
last week, we're going to see a lot of things that don't require
55:14
much of A grind that are just community driven and get and let
55:17
you play with your friends without having to like line 20
55:20
of them up in a row to go beat their head against the boss.
55:24
And for the people who enjoyed that, Sean, do you have anything
55:26
to say? Yeah, I am grateful for the War
55:30
Within. It's been a good expansion it I
55:33
think I've grown as a player and as a Guild member, but more
55:37
importantly it brought me here for Azeroth and I'm grateful
55:41
that War Within gave me two great friends, Johnny and
55:45
Xander. Maybe the failed War Within was
55:49
the war. Within.
55:51
Within war within, within. I I I still remember Sean
55:58
complaining about the wait within.
56:00
But until next week guys, may all your hits be grits.