Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #314 - For Azeroth!: "Look Who's Knocking"
Transcript
- 0:00I actually watched this movie in the middle of COVID on a first
- 0:03date with a guy who kept trying to like man playing World of
- 0:05Warcraft more to me and was wrong.
- 0:08Every single time he tried to crack me, he was incorrect.
- 0:11He was, it was something like he was like, Oh yeah, like that's a
- 0:13blood elf. And I was like, I don't think
- 0:15the blood elf existed at that point.
- 0:16And he was like, no, it was a blood elf.
- 0:18It's still 100%. So that that's the that's the
- 0:20blood elf to the burning. Region.
- 0:24For Gilnaeus, but has not died. For the Lich King, for the
- 0:31Sindori, for the Alliance, for the Horde.
- 0:36For Azeroth. Hello and welcome back to
- 0:43another episode of For Azeroth. I am one of your hosts, Manny,
- 0:47AKA True Villain Manny, and I am joined by the other two parts of
- 0:52the Axis of Wow, the triumphant, the, the my friends, my, my
- 0:59genuine good friends. Thank you so much for joining me
- 1:02today, Lex and Sean. Lex, how are you and how's the
- 1:06World of Warcraft treating you? I am good.
- 1:08The World of Warcraft is treating me good.
- 1:10I am very excited for 11.1. I'm starting to get hype and I
- 1:16am also very excited for the temperatures around me to be in
- 1:20the 20s and above Fahrenheit for the next week at least.
- 1:26I am not super jazzed for 11.1, but we can get into that a
- 1:34little bit. That's spicy.
- 1:37Yeah, but like what? We'll get into that.
- 1:40But I, I'm, I'm glad that you'll be able to go for your walks and
- 1:43you'll, you'll be able to burn off some of that extra energy
- 1:46that you seem to have. And what about you, Sean?
- 1:51How are you? Doing Manny, I think the Axis
- 1:53were the bad guys I. I mean, I am the true villain.
- 2:00You're right. The Axis were the bad guys.
- 2:01Yes, they were the Axis of evil, but there's other Axis.
- 2:05This is but yes, that is the why axis.
- 2:10We are the why, Yeah. People often refer to us as the
- 2:13why, actually. Things like why are they still
- 2:15talking? Why do I still listen?
- 2:19OK, well let's get into the World of Warcraft.
- 2:21Remind people why they listen. Then we have of course some new
- 2:26news about 11.1. There has been a new build and
- 2:32along with the new build, we've gotten some changes like to 0 in
- 2:35on some of the class changes. In particular, we had some
- 2:38warrior changes. This has been a continuing
- 2:42subject on this show because warriors got to change.
- 2:46John, you finally got some reasoning behind it and you were
- 2:50you were you felt a bit better now that there was some method
- 2:54for the madness. But how you feeling about these
- 2:57latest Warrior changes? And tell us a little bit about
- 2:59what's happening. Feeling good.
- 3:02So when, you know, on the last episode of four Azeroth, we left
- 3:06and I had made the mental change to try to, you know, grasp the
- 3:10philosophy that the devs were going forward Warrior and
- 3:14embrace it. And I have been able to do that.
- 3:15I've been enjoying Warrior more on PTR, but shortly after we
- 3:18recorded that episode, show favorite Kyvax came on the the
- 3:25forms and posted another breakdown saying, hey, we get
- 3:28it. We we know that there's some
- 3:31changes and as we said, we're watching it and they've made
- 3:33some bumps to shield slam. This is the initial nerf is a
- 3:36bit too much on the reset chance.
- 3:37We're bringing it back a bit more.
- 3:39So they are continuing to tweak those dials.
- 3:41And then in the actual PTR notes for this week's build, there's a
- 3:49longer, longer piece where they talk about it and they just talk
- 3:53about how they're really trying to make it accessible to new
- 3:58players, but also keep that skill expression for experienced
- 4:00players. They're either they're obviously
- 4:03listening, right? They they came up with those
- 4:04rage nerves and people did what people do.
- 4:08And that was the initial, Oh my God, doom and gloom, the killing
- 4:10warriors. Why no put it, give it back,
- 4:12give it back, please. But they've shown consistently
- 4:15from that first post up till today that they're everything
- 4:20they're doing is with the intention of making it a better
- 4:22experience for everyone. And I'm here for it.
- 4:25I'm on board. And that's just a small drop in
- 4:28the bucket of the changes in the news that we got.
- 4:30But I know everybody tunes into For Azeroth for that Prot
- 4:32Warrior watch. So we thought we'd get it out of
- 4:35the way early. It's actually for Prot Warrior,
- 4:38it's our new name. I wanted to talk about it
- 4:41because I I kind of wanted to leap off of it a little bit.
- 4:46The big change that they made because of Warriors is that APM,
- 4:51they'd really wanted to slow it down and everything.
- 4:54And I'm kind of against that. I mean, maybe Warrior isn't the
- 5:00place for that, but I think that is an enjoyable, it's an
- 5:04enjoyable playstyle for some people.
- 5:07And we have hero classes, hero talents, We have a number of
- 5:14places that they could put it where it isn't necessarily on
- 5:18the beginner part, like if it is, if it was on where demon
- 5:24hunters are, where you need to be at a certain level in the
- 5:28past, they've now changed all these hero classes so that they
- 5:30all start at level 10. That's that's a gate that they
- 5:34took away. But if it was gated behind
- 5:37getting the level 55 for Death Knight, getting up to like
- 5:42whatever level to create a Demon Hunter, making these hero
- 5:47classes truly, hey, you've got you got experience and stuff.
- 5:51Here's a more complicated, more demanding class.
- 5:54I think that play style could be there.
- 5:57I think that it's enjoyable for people and certain.
- 6:02And it's definitely a way of separating the play style of one
- 6:06spec versus another. If Guardian druids who also use
- 6:09rage play but in a slower APM moment that is less demanding,
- 6:15then allow warriors to differentiate themselves with
- 6:18the higher more demanding APM. Or allow one hero spec of
- 6:24warriors to do it that way and people who don't want to do that
- 6:28because hero specs are only in the last 10 levels could switch
- 6:32off to something else. I just I don't I understand what
- 6:35they're doing, but I do not believe this is A1 size fits all
- 6:39approach. I, I think I and like Sean is
- 6:43right at this point, doesn't really matter what we think that
- 6:47like the, the changes are here to stay.
- 6:51I will say when I heard their initial reasoning, I was like,
- 6:53OK, like not every class is for every person.
- 6:57Like it's OK if not everything is good for new players because
- 7:01like there's how many class like or potential specs in this game
- 7:06Like so I, I thought it was silly.
- 7:08I think that, you know it's OK for something to be too hard for
- 7:11the average player as long as they're joyful for the people
- 7:14who play them. But ultimately am IA dev no.
- 7:18So who cares? Who cares what I think?
- 7:20If the devs wanted to be more accessible than if more
- 7:23accessible, it shall be. Yeah.
- 7:27All right, well, that's one thing that they're doing.
- 7:30There are, of course, a lot of changes for a bunch of different
- 7:33classes. Shamans are seemingly going
- 7:35through a secondary work in some cases for enhancement Elemental
- 7:41resto getting lighter of a touch, but resto also receiving
- 7:45some stuff. We're losing a major cooldown
- 7:48that we've had for years. I'm still crying about it, but
- 7:54from there I'd like to switch over to the changes that they've
- 7:58done to Mythic Plus. Just sort of an update as they
- 8:01continue to make make changes to Mythic Plus that they're making
- 8:05those adjustments. We've seen adjustments to a lot
- 8:08of the dungeons that we've seen over the past couple of weeks.
- 8:13Big one that I want to call out is that while mind controlled,
- 8:18the Mechagon tinkerers, squirrels cannot be used.
- 8:21And Sean, you were pointing to this last week as a well, let's
- 8:25go to lock in priest sort of thing.
- 8:26And we had a bit of a discussion about like, is it OK to have
- 8:31particular dungeons where particular classes really shine?
- 8:36And I guess the answer is no. I I think it's OK so Lex was
- 8:40very in support of locking classes in.
- 8:44I still am, yeah. Blizzard should decide who gets
- 8:47to play next season. They should be like this is the
- 8:49meta and I'll I'll die on that hill.
- 8:52I did not did. This was not a joke opinion and
- 8:54it did not change in the last. Was it a joke opinion?
- 8:56No, I was going on the fact that it's a joke opinion.
- 9:01OK, sorry, no, I'm kidding. To be clear, to be clear, it is
- 9:04a joke opinion, but it's become one of those joke opinions that
- 9:06I will now die on. So yeah, things can be two
- 9:10things. Yeah, I love it.
- 9:12It's a great change. It's it's OK to have some
- 9:16classes perform better in dungeons.
- 9:18That's OK. Like it's it's OK if your death
- 9:20knight is really good in a dungeon because it gives you,
- 9:23you know, there's a mob that gripping is really it makes it
- 9:25really convenient or the control undead is really convenient
- 9:29theater and looking at you. But it's not OK when one, when
- 9:34the when the thing that that class brings is so dominant and
- 9:38so overpowering that not having one feels almost like you're
- 9:43intentionally hindering yourself.
- 9:45And that's what it was with these mechanical squirrels.
- 9:48I think this is a good change. They made a lot of good changes.
- 9:50I get every week when they post the dungeon changes, They're all
- 9:54positive changes. They my biggest complaint with
- 9:57the first boss in Mexico workshop, the Tonk tussle Tonks,
- 10:00was that the only, only complaint I had was there was
- 10:03too many bombs that were spawning in the first boss
- 10:05fight. And it's the first note on here.
- 10:07Hey, we've reduced the number of bombs that are spawning.
- 10:10They're doing a good job, but there's a trend and I support
- 10:14it, but there's a trend that they're doing with Mythic Plus,
- 10:17but I think also they've started to apply to Delves and that
- 10:21trend is the tuning and the changes are done to make
- 10:24gameplay more fun and fair. That also sometimes sounds like
- 10:30the word easier. And while these changes will
- 10:35make some of these fights easier, I think they're positive
- 10:38change that needed to happen. But there is one aspect of the
- 10:43game that they've changed to make easier that I don't know
- 10:47that we all on the panel agree with.
- 10:49Manny, I don't want you to. Before we jump into that,
- 10:53because I know where you're, you're heading, I do want to say
- 10:56that like, I think that the changes that they're making to
- 10:59Mythic Plus is a matter of mental load where it's, it's
- 11:06easier. And I say with quotation marks
- 11:08because there's not 20,000 things coming at you, right?
- 11:13And that to me is fine. If something, if like 5 things
- 11:17are coming at me and they all hit me for 20%, Oh my goodness,
- 11:21which, which three can I stop? Which two can I stop?
- 11:24I'm still getting wailed for like some something like 40 to
- 11:2760% of my health. That feels unfair and unfun.
- 11:32But if it's like two or three things and I could stop two of
- 11:36them and therefore only get hit for 1/3 of my health, that seems
- 11:39way more manageable and is still within that that range, right.
- 11:43So I think that the mental load and she and reducing and clawing
- 11:48back from that is the is the way to go.
- 11:50I know at the beginning of the expansion this was something
- 11:53where they're like, OK, we're going to make the dungeons the
- 11:56the big thing here, but I think they kind of pushed the dungeons
- 11:59too much to this overload part. And that's why I'm like, OK with
- 12:04it. That's a good distinction.
- 12:06The the cognitive load being, hey, we're reducing cognitive
- 12:09loads. You can actually look at and
- 12:11react to the things happening because there's so much
- 12:13incoming. OK, that's a good distinction.
- 12:15I like that. Also, again, I want to I'm
- 12:17really super clear fast that if you're listening, dungeon
- 12:19changes are super positive. They're ultra good.
- 12:21Please keep making them. Now we're going to talk about
- 12:25Dells. Number of changes have come
- 12:29through. 1 is that they're, you know, generally making Dells
- 12:33easier from 9:00 to 11:00, the extra ones.
- 12:39And this is because the 9 plus have gained some rewards.
- 12:43They are in season 2 Tears. 9:10 and 11:00 will reward more rude
- 12:50crests and that's great for people who want to get this
- 12:55additional stuff. I'm totally against this.
- 12:59I think that 9/10/11 should have remained as aspirational content
- 13:06that yeah, can be tuned hard. But you know what?
- 13:08If you're not enjoying it, there is zero reason for you to do it
- 13:12unless you are some sort of achievement junkie, hunter,
- 13:14whatever, right? Or if you really want that super
- 13:18special mount, this is something you could aspire to get.
- 13:22And that makes sense if this was something that was considered to
- 13:25be like Zik veer, question mark. Question mark was a mage like
- 13:30challenge. It was difficult.
- 13:33It would take you multiple tries.
- 13:35It was something where you'd really have to like figure out
- 13:38your class to be like OK, kite here, use freeze here, whatever
- 13:42it is. And unfortunately, because it is
- 13:46one single challenge that is against all the different specs,
- 13:51some specs have an easier time than others.
- 13:55And I think that is just an A issue inherent to delves as they
- 14:02stand now. Because unless you're going to
- 14:04actually tune it 30X plus ways so that it it hits, it hits way
- 14:12harder, harder against a tank and way easier against like a
- 14:17cloth E. And there's interrupts based on
- 14:19what your abilities are. So it is much closer to the
- 14:23mange tower, which is a huge load for something that they
- 14:26would do every season with how many different variants.
- 14:30I just don't think the tuning is ever going to be tight enough to
- 14:35present a challenge where the fails estate that Sean was
- 14:39saying early is going to be the same for Sean on his protection
- 14:44warrior as it is going to be for me on my enhancement Sean.
- 14:47And it is going to be for like somebody else on their Frost
- 14:53mage, right? Yeah, I think the inherent chat,
- 14:57like the the inherent struggle of single player content is that
- 15:04sorry, sorry, like solo player content in an MMO is that it's
- 15:09just not possible to make it so that it's going to feel the same
- 15:14for everyone. And I think that's OK so long as
- 15:18it's tuned in such a way that it'll be about equally
- 15:22challenging ish for everyone, or like at least that nobody's face
- 15:27rolling it. And but I mean, again, like,
- 15:30yeah, it's hard. There's a reason I'm not a dev.
- 15:32That sounds terrible. I.
- 15:34Just think it's a it's a waste of dev resources to try and make
- 15:38it good, relatively difficult enough for each particular
- 15:43class. And so I think that like it
- 15:46should go to 8. The 9:00 to 11:00 should have
- 15:50zero rewards. It's just there aspirationally,
- 15:53if you want to hit your head against this as like the
- 15:57particular spec that it's the worst on this season because of
- 16:00whatever balancing, right, so be it.
- 16:03If they were to put like a timer on this.
- 16:06And so tanks were having a hell of a time that like low damage
- 16:10tanks were having a hell of a time to do it solo, right?
- 16:13Then we'd have another, another problem.
- 16:15There's so many different ways that this could be more
- 16:17punishing to somebody else next season than it is for for this
- 16:20season. And I don't think it's worth it
- 16:24to put the dev hours into making it like even relatively
- 16:30equivalent, like dilating in much closer.
- 16:32And then the problem is as soon as they throw in these rewards
- 16:36that are actually power games, then of course they had to make
- 16:39it easier and nerf it. And now it's less aspirational.
- 16:44And if I walk in and season season 2 and this becomes
- 16:48something that like halfway through the season, I snore my
- 16:53way through, I feel like not only I have lost something, but
- 16:59all the players and there are so many players that are better
- 17:01than me have lost something. How many players that are worse
- 17:06than than me have actually lost something?
- 17:09Because now it has to be doable for everybody without a without
- 17:15much, without relatively the same amount of effort.
- 17:19Because they have to clear through it, not only once to say
- 17:21they got the special prize and they got their title and they
- 17:24got their achievement. Now they have to do it weekly.
- 17:27And this is the same issue we had with Torgas where they
- 17:30systemized it and it became trash.
- 17:33And I'm really worried about Dells.
- 17:36I'd like to give a little bit of context from everybody who
- 17:39hasn't read the patch notes why they're making 9:10 and 11:00
- 17:45easier. And Manny alluded to it and
- 17:47actually a question about that. So, and the Blizzard says in
- 17:51season 1, everything above its year 8 was exactly what Manny
- 17:53said. It's purely for people who want
- 17:55to challenge. It's tuned that way.
- 17:57This is meant to be difficult for people right up through
- 18:00including mythic geared people at that challenge level.
- 18:03But as we have reported on here and as people have seen online,
- 18:08Blizzard is adding gilded crests from the end of the vault runs
- 18:14for tier 11 Delves. So with that in mind, they said
- 18:18because they're adding rewards at those levels now, the
- 18:21philosophy had to change. And so they're tuning 9:10 and
- 18:2511:00. And there was people on my my
- 18:27Guild who were like, really into Delves, like super into delves.
- 18:31Some of the best players I've ever met in the game loved
- 18:34Delves early season because they were that challenge who are now
- 18:38not interested at all and they so they've lowered the challenge
- 18:42to be balanced at a level where only a fully upgraded delve
- 18:47person could get to now end of delve run the match.
- 18:51You can get his champion track year.
- 18:53So you'll be looking at. I'll use this season's numbers.
- 18:55So it's so you understand, but it will be a maximum of 6/19
- 18:59unless they include the end of the bountiful delve chest, which
- 19:04is, I'm sorry, the great Vault Delve +8 and above, which is
- 19:08hero track zero track that we tuned to 626 and above, which
- 19:14for somebody who only does Delves would potentially take
- 19:17you all season to get to. But anybody who does other
- 19:19content inside of Delves is going to be at that equivalent
- 19:22level within the first 3 weeks, maybe the first month.
- 19:26So, So Manny, I hear you and everybody who's listening and
- 19:29all YouTube, both obviously know I have no dog in this fight.
- 19:32I have no horse in his race. I am not a delver.
- 19:35I don't enjoy Delves. But do you think so you're
- 19:41you're saying 9/10/11 should still just be challenge only?
- 19:44Make them difficult, make them hard, give these people
- 19:46something to do. But if that means you're moving
- 19:49gilded crests, do you think people who are delve only
- 19:52players should not have access to gilded crests through delves?
- 19:58I mean, I'm well on record saying that I think that delves
- 20:01should be retuned to the point where they are at like true and
- 20:04level content. So I I think no, I think first
- 20:07of all, I think delves in general should be harder.
- 20:09I have had this anxiety since self come out that Blizzard
- 20:13saying we want end game open world content, which I think is
- 20:19a really great idea, but I worry, and I felt this a lot
- 20:23with Delve that the player base has such an opinion of open
- 20:26world content being easy, like anyone can do it, no biggie, no
- 20:30stress, no fuss. It just, you know, you grind
- 20:33through it. That they would start pushing
- 20:35back the second the delves were complex, were at a challenge
- 20:38level that was relatable to mythic or M plus heroic rating.
- 20:42Mythic rating, which to be fair, they're not actually the delves
- 20:46are not meant to be at that level.
- 20:47I think they should be able to reach that.
- 20:50And then I think that's exactly what happened.
- 20:51I think the player base started pushing back because they were
- 20:53like, Oh my God, wait, I'm doing this open world content and I'm
- 20:56losing sometimes I don't like that.
- 20:57I don't want that to happen. Make that stop.
- 21:00And I don't think Blizzard should.
- 21:01I think they should make them harder.
- 21:03I think that delves should be like I should be able to reach
- 21:05end game levels and I think that I should have to work to end
- 21:12game like I I should be playing as an end game player to reach
- 21:15the Max level of delves. I wish that I hadn't recently
- 21:21heard a podcast where so much of what you are saying Lex was not
- 21:27hammered in again and again. There are people who are upset
- 21:35that in the war within the bees around Cinder Brew Meteory
- 21:39present too much of a challenge. There are people who dislike
- 21:45that they that they have such struggles against rares in the
- 21:52open world that they can't just solo every rare that shows up.
- 21:58And I know that there are different levels of play.
- 22:03I know that there are different levels of gear that become
- 22:08available to players, but I think that there's this.
- 22:19I don't want to call it entitlement, right, but I think
- 22:22that the game has trained people to the level at which they
- 22:30believe that anything that takes more than a modicum of effort is
- 22:37too much, right? It is.
- 22:40It's upsetting at at points where people are saying, oh, I
- 22:47do single player content and I do Dells and therefore I should
- 22:54be able to get like not even best in slot as in this trinket
- 23:01and this stuff at an item level that's relative to that, But
- 23:04like the same item level gear as somebody who pushes through the
- 23:08most difficult, hardest tuned stuff.
- 23:11And like the coordination of 20 players coming together and
- 23:18defeating whatever mythic boss should be given equivalently in
- 23:23any in any solo content when the solo content can't possibly be
- 23:29tuned the same way because solo content that like has a death
- 23:35state is binary. You are alive or you're dead,
- 23:39right? Whereas with 2040 ten people,
- 23:43you can have parts of your team dead.
- 23:45You could barely make it. You can work together and
- 23:49coordinate better and parts of your team could be stressed and
- 23:53like, can I handle that? Whereas if I put that same level
- 23:57of onus in the single player world, people would scream.
- 24:05People already hate the personal responsibility mechanics that
- 24:10slide out of mythic and into the heroic or normal level raids.
- 24:14And if that kind of those kind of mechanics started coming out
- 24:18in the open world, I could I I could not imagine the level of
- 24:25backlash we would we would receive.
- 24:27It would be worse than Cataclysm when it was it's initial
- 24:32leveling process and the suddenly things didn't bowl roll
- 24:36over to like AOE blitzes like they did in wrath.
- 24:39People were so upset about that. And this would be the same
- 24:43thing. And I just feel like we have
- 24:45such a short term memory on these sort of things.
- 24:48But like, I don't know, I'm I've got like other hot takes that
- 24:53are just off to off topic. But like, I just think that when
- 24:58you're dealing with rares like elites, they should require
- 25:04either. Like eventually you should,
- 25:06you'll outgear them, but they should require more of you than
- 25:10you going through regular creatures.
- 25:13And in fact, I think the leveling process in general
- 25:16doesn't work in Wow anymore, but that's a separate topic.
- 25:20This is one thing that I worry a little bit about Blizzard being
- 25:25so responsive to player feedback.
- 25:27I want to be clear that so far they've been like overwhelmingly
- 25:29that that's been really, really positive and good.
- 25:32But I do think that occasionally players don't actually know what
- 25:35they want. And I think that we don't
- 25:38actually want a video game that is faithful.
- 25:42I think that we do want challenge, but I think we don't
- 25:44think we want challenge. We hit a challenge and we're
- 25:47like, I'm experiencing frustration.
- 25:50I should go tweet at the mods and say I'm so pissed.
- 25:52I'm experiencing frustration. I hate experiencing frustration.
- 25:54This is the worst. And then you achieve through the
- 25:56frustration and you're like, oh, that was fun.
- 25:58I achieved through frustration. This is a good time.
- 26:02But I think that if you just catch that moment where you're
- 26:05like, I'm experiencing frustration, this sucks and you
- 26:07go tell somebody and the the not the mods and the devs are like,
- 26:10you're so right. You're experiencing frustration.
- 26:12Let's make that go away. Then the game gets worse.
- 26:19I mean, there, there, there's different levels, of course,
- 26:21like, oh, yeah, of course. Yeah.
- 26:22Like, I, I mean, like there is the frustration of, oh, we just
- 26:26wiped it out. Like, oh man, we would have got
- 26:28that. And then it makes it just that
- 26:30much sweeter when you do get it. So like, I think you're right.
- 26:32Like a little bit of frustration just makes the payoff that much
- 26:35better. And I I agree with you, Lex.
- 26:38What about you, Sean? What are you thinking?
- 26:40It's weird I guess I don't know. I'm the guy that plays if a game
- 26:44has any as a as a like difficulty selector.
- 26:47I'm choosing easy every time like I'm going to.
- 26:49I played through the Uncharted games uneasy, lovely story.
- 26:53I enjoyed myself immensely. But I don't necessarily want to
- 26:58play Warcraft on easy mode. There are sometimes I want just
- 27:02a narrative joyful experience there.
- 27:03Sometimes I want to challenge myself and push myself.
- 27:07And I think what makes Warcraft strong is that it allows me to
- 27:10do both. There are times when I can go
- 27:12and just have a narrative joyful experience or I can just go in
- 27:15one shot bosses in an old raid or you know, a normal dungeon
- 27:18and just sort of have fun. Time walking is a great example.
- 27:21My favorite part of time walking is it just feels fast and fun
- 27:25and I feel strong. So I think I think Warcraft
- 27:29needs to have a way to balance all of it, which is tough.
- 27:34Like Lex has said, you know, none of us here are devs.
- 27:37I think specific to delves, I do think Delve only players should
- 27:45have access to gilded crests because if they're doing level 8
- 27:51delves and above, they're getting hero track out of the
- 27:53vault. Hero track needs gilded crests
- 27:56to Max it out. It feels terrible to see your
- 27:59gear stuck at 4 of 6 and half be forced to have to do content
- 28:03outside of what you prefer to get it to get it to six of six.
- 28:08There's there is zero other way to get those gilded crests for
- 28:11them other than mythic plus or or raid last two bosses or
- 28:16mythic rating. So I do think I do think delve
- 28:21content needs to have access to gilded crests.
- 28:24And I mean, I wouldn't coming into this conversation, I
- 28:27wouldn't have said I see the devs point of view here and I
- 28:30agree with it. But I I think I have to say that
- 28:33because they put the gilded crests at 11, you have to make
- 28:38them. You have to think of delves, and
- 28:41this is probably why I don't like them, but you have to think
- 28:43of delves, something that are designed for people who are only
- 28:47doing delves and don't think of them as an Ave. to gear up for
- 28:52somebody who's doing raid and also doing mythic Plus.
- 28:55You have to think of that delve reward track as this is a a
- 29:01piece of content for somebody who just does this content.
- 29:05And in that regard, you need to make it so that they can get
- 29:08those crests. And the only way to do that is
- 29:10to tune those higher levels. The I guess the other option is
- 29:14put the gilded crests at +8, bump the difficulty.
- 29:18They could have done this. OK, they could have done bumped
- 29:22the shifted the difficulty up to 8.
- 29:26Like just make that a little bit harder.
- 29:28Like put whatever 11 is going to be, make that 8, you know, So
- 29:32make them a little bit harder at the low end.
- 29:34And then they could have kept 9/10/11 as cosmetic only.
- 29:38Or, you know, bragging rights only.
- 29:41Don't even call them 9:10 and 11:00.
- 29:42Call it bronze, bronze, silver, gold, just like it's now broken
- 29:48apart. You these go up to 9 or sorry,
- 29:50these go up to 8 and then you have challenge leagues above
- 29:54that so that people completely separate separate it.
- 29:57It's to me it's not that delves shouldn't be rewarding stuff
- 30:03that allows you to complete your journey along the gear that you
- 30:06get. I think that that fulfillment is
- 30:08good psychologically to be like I've now maxed out all the gear
- 30:12that I can get through here. I am now the king of Dallas.
- 30:15Wait a second. Hey, there's some challenges
- 30:17here. Let me let me go see if I can if
- 30:21I can clear through the the leagues above my seasonal, my
- 30:27seasonal conquest, right. And I think that is where 9:10
- 30:32and 11:00 were originally. And because they now reward
- 30:37progress in mechanics, they must now be brought down to a point
- 30:43where there are they are far more accessible to anybody else
- 30:48who wants to do it for the rewards and not necessarily for
- 30:54the challenge is that people will play without a challenge.
- 30:57I like, are we looking for a world where you click a button
- 31:02and world quest suddenly become like empowered and so you get
- 31:05your challenge world quest? I don't know.
- 31:07But like it, like the way that Warcraft has been adjusting
- 31:11these systems is by allowing higher levels of difficulty.
- 31:16And if the world, the world as as a open world, is the one
- 31:21place where it doesn't exist outside of rares and people are
- 31:24bucking against that. The Dells had it.
- 31:27And now they're sort of pulling everything into the limit of
- 31:33rewards. And I think that they already
- 31:36saw this, this issue and solve this issue with Mythic Plus you
- 31:41can go way beyond the reward scope there.
- 31:44Do we uncap Dells? And you can go way beyond the
- 31:48the reward scope there. I don't, I don't know.
- 31:51But I think that is preferable to removing the difficulty that
- 31:56could have existed, the challenge that could have
- 31:57existed, if it wasn't also giving you this reward.
- 32:01Can we talk about what I think is the bigger concern and it's
- 32:04how long it took me to get to Why don't we just put the crests
- 32:09at 8, maybe 8? Harder, No, no, I think it's
- 32:15fine. I think there's multiple
- 32:16obviously because they didn't go with that.
- 32:19There are multiple ways to go to go at this, but I think go
- 32:24ahead. Oh, I just want to, sorry, I'm
- 32:26kind of interrupting because I'm feeling really bad.
- 32:27And I want to quickly clarify what I was saying because I
- 32:30think I sounded like one of those like, if you don't play
- 32:32this game on Xtreme Max, you are a bad gamer and you lose.
- 32:37I do think that like, their content should be like there
- 32:39should be content for everyone at every level.
- 32:41And I think that somebody who is in their 80s and has never
- 32:44touched a computer in their life should be able to go into World
- 32:46of Warcraft and play and have a good time.
- 32:48I want them to have content that feels good and then that you
- 32:50know, is enjoyable and exciting. I also want somebody who has
- 32:54played like, you know, is, is playing video games for money
- 32:58and does nothing all day except play video games to have content
- 33:02that's fun and exciting for them.
- 33:03And I think that there needs to be that progression so that
- 33:06everyone is able to do things. I can't do mythic writing and I,
- 33:09I don't really want to. I've tried.
- 33:10I don't like it. I don't think that means that
- 33:13mythic grading needs to be made easier.
- 33:14I think that that's fine. I think it's OK and in fact it's
- 33:16good that there is levels of World of Warcraft that is
- 33:19unachievable to somebody who only plays a few hours a week
- 33:23and doesn't really want to like min Max and spend hours
- 33:27researching and spend hours doing things.
- 33:28I think that's good. I think that I should not be
- 33:30able to reach all the content. I think that there are some
- 33:33people who would say heroic rating is like that for them,
- 33:35and I think that's OK. I don't think they should make
- 33:37heroic rating easier because I think the challenge level is
- 33:40right for me. And I think the same thing
- 33:42should be happening with Delve. I think that there should be
- 33:45places that I, I as a player, should not be able to do all of
- 33:48Delve. I should hit walls.
- 33:50I should have like, this is a point that I can't do it anymore
- 33:53and I don't want to. And if I do it, it's going to
- 33:55feel frustrating and bad. And I think there's be points
- 33:57that are like this is frustrating, but it's joyful
- 33:59like and it's frustrating in a way that I can push through and
- 34:02I think that's correct. I think that is how a video game
- 34:05should work. Anything.
- 34:06There also should be delves that you know, you do you.
- 34:08You have literally are bought your first keyboard of your life
- 34:13today and you do that delve and you're like, Oh, that was a fun
- 34:15little time. We enjoyed that.
- 34:17Like I think that's good. I think that's how the game
- 34:19should be. That is the point I was trying
- 34:20to make. Not every single person should
- 34:22be doing ethic level or they should delete their account.
- 34:25I'm sorry that many answer. No, no, I think that is actually
- 34:29quite a good a take generally that I agree with.
- 34:33I think that as a where I'm at, and I know I'm not the best
- 34:37player, I hope that I'm not the worst player.
- 34:40But regardless, I think that there should be stuff for me.
- 34:45If I want to work towards it, I can stuff that is perhaps
- 34:48something that I'll never reach, but is there for people who want
- 34:51to, to do that and stuff for people who don't want to mess
- 34:54with the same levels of challenge or frustration or
- 34:58obstacles that I that I, that I want to deal with.
- 35:02And I think that delves have sort of pushed one way and
- 35:07ignored the other. And when people want to be toxic
- 35:10about this, they're like, oh, it's be you're catering to the
- 35:13hardcore, you're catering to the casuals.
- 35:15And I think Blizzard has normally done a good job of
- 35:18dealing with the spectrum and I I'm hoping that delves get that
- 35:22back somehow the. Idea that there's zero hardcore
- 35:26solo gamers is immediately disproven by the existence of
- 35:30RPGs like the existence of single player games.
- 35:33So like, yes, there are people who would want to push to the
- 35:35top level in delves in World of Warcraft.
- 35:39I think that they should be allowed to do that, but I'm
- 35:41sorry, I will allow us to move on.
- 35:45Well, the next topic with with that segue is a big word on the
- 35:52World of Warcraft for 2025. And this comes from Holly
- 35:56Longdale, your queen, who had a big State of World of Warcraft
- 36:04address that came with the Lunar New Year.
- 36:07Now there's a lot of things that are in here, but I was hoping we
- 36:11could just like pick out points that we thought were really
- 36:14cool. For me, I think a big one was
- 36:19the new player experience, the returning player experience that
- 36:23she spoke about in the where Wow it is and where it's going.
- 36:29She referenced Exiles Reach and how that was like a step of
- 36:35bringing players into like what modern Wow is.
- 36:38And I guess I just said this, but modern Wow I think has such
- 36:47a focus on end game that the intro experienced your initial
- 36:52like, oh, this is your journey from zero to 70, let's say
- 36:58before you even get into the expansion.
- 37:00Zero to 70 has been incredibly compromised over the years.
- 37:05Specs and how fast they come at you.
- 37:07Abilities and how fast they come at you, how quickly you go
- 37:09through levels, how quickly you move on from one place to the
- 37:13next, and quest hubs and so forth.
- 37:15The actual characters that we who have been playing since the
- 37:19beginning have like a connection to.
- 37:22But somebody who would jump in and do Exiles, reach into
- 37:25Dragonflight and then come into the War Within would have no
- 37:31idea who the hell Thrall is or Illyria.
- 37:33They like, they'd be like, who are you?
- 37:36And I think that's a big issue that World of Warcraft has, is
- 37:41there is all of this history that has that is treated with
- 37:45absolute irrelevance and it is harmful to players who are
- 37:50trying to get their footing in this world.
- 37:54I I'm not sure if they need to like redo the leveling
- 37:58experience of something like Final Fantasy where you actually
- 38:00go through all the expansions. That seems like a such a radical
- 38:04change and a lot, but there's got to be something that they
- 38:08need to do. They should make a better movie
- 38:12like the war, the war, World of Warcraft movie that kind of
- 38:14flopped because it was kind of bad.
- 38:16They should do that, but they should do it well this time.
- 38:18So you're going to have people watch the.
- 38:20Movie. To this date, I haven't seen it
- 38:24that was. Really.
- 38:25Good. OK, the movie.
- 38:25Here's the thing, the movie is really good if you already know
- 38:29World of Warcraft lore. I actually watched this movie in
- 38:32the middle of COVID on a first date with a guy who kept trying
- 38:34to like mansplay World of Warcraft more to me and was
- 38:36wrong. Every single time he tried to
- 38:39correct me he was incorrect. But anyway it like he have.
- 38:48You seen the movie Mean Girls. You see mean girl Lindsay Lohan
- 38:53Every time her I I'm just picturing your inner monologue
- 38:57being her inner monologue when Aaron Samuel, she's asking Aaron
- 39:00Samuels questions about math. Oh, the derivative is the
- 39:05denominator. That's wrong.
- 39:06Wrong again. Yeah, exactly.
- 39:13He was, it was something like he was like, Oh yeah, like that's a
- 39:15blood elf. And I was like, I don't think
- 39:17the blood elfs existed at that point.
- 39:18And he was like, no, it was a blood elf.
- 39:20It's 100%. So that that's the, that's the
- 39:22blood elf race. I'm like, you need to shun your.
- 39:27Was he at least like cute and good looking So you'd be like
- 39:30they're they're quiet honey, let's.
- 39:33It was, it was. It was one day.
- 39:36I, I actually really, I, I mean, we're obviously sidetracked
- 39:39here, so we're diving into it, but I, I really enjoyed the
- 39:42Warcraft movie. I saw it overseas.
- 39:43I was deployed like I saw it at an on an American base in Spain,
- 39:47Road to Spain. And I went with a bunch of
- 39:50people who were all Warcraft players.
- 39:52So everybody was just like, I just the art direction, very
- 39:56true to form. I'm a big fan of.
- 39:58I think it's Travis Fimmel's his name, the guy that played, not
- 40:04Lothar. No, he did play though.
- 40:08Anyway, Travis Journal guy from Vikings, fantastic job.
- 40:12And I like Ben Foster a lot and he played Madif, although I've
- 40:15been maybe not a great casting because he's kind of young, but
- 40:17Madif was young then, so. I yeah, I think it, I think that
- 40:23it was, it was like it, it, it felt more to me like Chronicles
- 40:27than like a stand alone movie in the sense that it felt like it
- 40:30was fanservice, right? It was there for World of
- 40:33Warcraft players to watch and be like, ah, that's so cool.
- 40:35That's the theme that I remember reading about.
- 40:37That's so beautiful and like, that's a valid thing to be.
- 40:41But I don't think what I what I want is like, this is a very
- 40:47interesting and multi dimension and like layered world with a
- 40:50lot of fascinating stories. And I think that the team should
- 40:54be capable of, I should say is capable of making a movie that
- 41:00would be exciting and interesting to people who
- 41:02haven't played the game. And I don't necessarily know
- 41:05that the World of Warcraft movie did that.
- 41:06But again, I watched it when I had played the game, so.
- 41:10Do you think it would have, Do you think Warcraft would not be
- 41:13better as a series, maybe an animated series or live action?
- 41:17Live action is tough because you really have to nail the art
- 41:19style. So you're going to the expense
- 41:21of the show is going to be really, really high.
- 41:22I need you to under you were you were here when I was like losing
- 41:26my mind over that little teaser we had like a Netflix show
- 41:31coming and that it was going to be perfect.
- 41:33Yeah, you're right, Sean. It would be much cooler like
- 41:36that. That would be.
- 41:37Really interesting, I I just had completely on my own.
- 41:41I I haven't watched Arcane season 2 either, I'll get on
- 41:44that too. Don't.
- 41:46Don't just live in the world where Arcane Season 1 is this
- 41:49perfect creation and skip Arcane Season 2.
- 41:53Wow, I I don't think I could do that.
- 41:55I. I stopped.
- 41:57I watched. I think I quit after 4 episodes.
- 42:015 I might have like I might have got 5 episodes in.
- 42:03I could tell you the exact moment when I quit, but it was
- 42:06the third episode in a row where I started the episode going, I
- 42:10don't understand what is happening.
- 42:13Understood. OK.
- 42:13And then I was just like, I'm done.
- 42:15I'm out, sorry. That's OK.
- 42:17Well, getting this train back on track.
- 42:20I I honestly think that I just I'm going back to the work half
- 42:29movie, you guys. Bring it back on track leveling.
- 42:33Yeah, yeah, I, I, I will say as somebody who's played Final
- 42:37Fantasy, I strongly do not think that we should make the new
- 42:41players play through the entire story, especially if you are
- 42:45just kind of trying to go hang out with your friends.
- 42:47It is a lot of content to go through.
- 42:51And Final Fantasy 14 or whatever is the online Final Fantasy is
- 42:56much younger than World of Warcraft.
- 42:58Like if you had to play through all of the like the entire
- 43:00storyline to get there, that would I, I, I, I'm not, I, I
- 43:04think I, I see where you are coming from that with that with
- 43:08coming from with that Manny. I think that would actually make
- 43:11the new player experience significantly worse.
- 43:13That said, I do think that like an expedited version of that
- 43:16where like it is very careful, like you're, you're playing
- 43:19through certain. Or maybe if you have like an
- 43:24option to play through like a, a quicker story where you don't
- 43:27have to go on all the little like, oh, and then we do this
- 43:29for 50 hours and you're going to go through this little path and
- 43:32then it's a surprise when this thing pops out and you just go
- 43:34to the main story beats. That might be fun.
- 43:38Taliesin from fame to YouTube channel Taliesin Evatal has
- 43:43well. I'm suggested a Path of the
- 43:46Curator using Chromy Time and the Bronze Dragon flight where
- 43:50you level from 10 to 70 or whatever the Max level is
- 43:55through exactly what you said, Lex.
- 43:57The main story beats from each expansion and it culminates at
- 44:00the end of the expansion in a fight against the raid boss with
- 44:05a follower fight, like a story mode fighting as a raid boss.
- 44:09And I think that works, especially if you make it
- 44:10optional. Yeah, it's tough.
- 44:14Lex is right. You can't if you just forced
- 44:17people to play through the previous expansions because
- 44:21there's no coherent story in the main leveling area because it's
- 44:24all half ripped apart by Cataclysm.
- 44:26So it's like vanilla quests mixed with Cataclysm quests.
- 44:30And then it's you're into Burning Crusade where there's
- 44:34not really. Like I can't point to one thread
- 44:37of a story that runs through Burning Crusade from I've come
- 44:40through the dark portal in the Hellfire Peninsula to I'm
- 44:43fighting Calfas at the sun. Well, like I couldn't get, you
- 44:46know, oh wait, didn't we fight him?
- 44:48Let's keep barely a set back. Yeah.
- 44:52So I don't know, it's tough, but I would like to see there be
- 44:56something I would love for a way that doesn't require reading
- 44:59through the Chronicles books, which may or may not change
- 45:02depending on who's sitting in the director's chair.
- 45:06Yeah, but I am excited that they're working on it because I
- 45:09really enjoyed Excels Reach. I'd like to see new ways that
- 45:11they develop that. OK.
- 45:14So then, all right. So then is there anything else
- 45:18from this 2000 25 state that you wanted to point out, John?
- 45:26Yeah, I want to talk about their focus on the social aspect of
- 45:30Warcraft. So Holly specifically calls it
- 45:33out. Social stands alongside their
- 45:35other initiatives like expansions and housing to
- 45:37provide solutions and features like rewards for positive
- 45:43behavior, which is something we talked about here.
- 45:45When we were, I can't remember what episode it was.
- 45:47We were brainstorming ways to fix mythic plus or to change
- 45:51mythic plus. And one of those things that we
- 45:53said was if they made it like a, a random queue where you queued
- 45:56in, you could reward people for good play based on being
- 46:00positive people. And then that would like raise
- 46:02their lift their rating and it all They also she also
- 46:05specifically mentions role-playing in this post.
- 46:08I think this is the first time since 2004 that an official
- 46:13Blizzard post has has addressed and acknowledged the existence
- 46:19of role-playing in the game. I had have interviewed, I
- 46:24interviewed a role player a few years ago on recruiter friend
- 46:26and that was one of the things they mentioned.
- 46:27They were like Blizzard knows we exist, makes changes
- 46:32specifically for us, like the not charting you if you're in a
- 46:38major city. I think it was there was some
- 46:40change they made so that it didn't break role players
- 46:42immersion. So but they never ever mention
- 46:45us. And this is like she actually
- 46:48says role-playing. It's something we're looking at.
- 46:50And they're talking about ways to connect people easier because
- 46:53ultimately it's a it's an MMORPG and you can play in solo if you
- 46:56want. If you're a demon souls or a
- 46:57Dark Souls lover and you want to get your hard mode content, you
- 47:00just want to go out there and farm bees, whatever it is this
- 47:03game is that it's hard an MMORPG.
- 47:05So finding ways to group like minded people together.
- 47:07I think it's good because especially today in the year of
- 47:11our Lord 2025, finding ways to to connect with people who share
- 47:16your values is so, so important and can make all the difference
- 47:20in the world. So I'm just really glad that
- 47:22they recognize and are taking ownership of of their place in
- 47:28like society and community and connecting people.
- 47:33Yeah, and I like that The way that they're doing it is not
- 47:37purely putting it on themselves. They are linking to external
- 47:41things. So like they already have in the
- 47:44EU, they have the community discords that are like Blizzard
- 47:48supported discords. And of course there was a bunch
- 47:50of controversy about that. But being able to be like, oh, I
- 47:54want to do Mythic Plus and join a group like the Oasis server or
- 48:00Dungeon Dojo or Wow Made Easy or whatever, whatever groups are
- 48:05out there that support that when you are doing whatever it is, is
- 48:09great. Being able to find ARP group and
- 48:12like jump into their discord through like a link in the
- 48:16community group or whatever would be fantastic.
- 48:22And I think that that is a huge thing, though the Wow secret
- 48:25finders are a massive group that clearly affects the way that
- 48:31they even developed the game. And this is this would be an
- 48:35easy way to have a more straightforward way to go into
- 48:39that. So I think acknowledging that
- 48:42we're in this year, 2025, as you say, and that these groups exist
- 48:47and that people aren't going to use the in game chat and forget
- 48:51it, just use your discord guys. Is, is just the way it should
- 48:56go. And I, I'm looking forward to
- 48:58that as well. Lex, do you have anything from
- 49:02this entire State of the Union? I don't have anything specific,
- 49:06but can I just say I love the way that Holly Longdale writes
- 49:09and the way that she like this. Just the entire thing just feels
- 49:12very kind and adventurous and exciting.
- 49:18Every time I read something by Holly Longdale, I'm immediately
- 49:21calmed and also excited again. So I I'm excited about 2025.
- 49:29Lex would just like to bring specific focus to her massive
- 49:32crush on. The Holy I want to bring
- 49:37specific focus to my massive crush on Holly Longdale's
- 49:40jacket. It was such an amazing jacket.
- 49:43I want it. But there is one other thing
- 49:47that she did mention in this, which got an article all its
- 49:51own. And that of course, is housing.
- 49:54And later that same day, today as all of this recording, we got
- 50:00building in Azeroth, a first look at housing.
- 50:04And so this is them finally pulling back the curtains a
- 50:08little bit. We're getting a sneak peek into
- 50:10housing and they talk about a lot of what they're doing in
- 50:16this early stages of design. So they talk about their design
- 50:21pillars, their guiding tenants that they want for housing.
- 50:29And so going right back to what you were just saying, Sean, one
- 50:33of the biggest things, it's the second bullet, but I really want
- 50:36to highlight this one, is that housing is supposed to be deeply
- 50:40social, where World of Warcraft is more fun with other players,
- 50:45and housing should be no different.
- 50:47While players can enjoy housing purely on their own, it's
- 50:51systems are designed at a fundamental level to encourage
- 50:55interacting, playing, and progressing with friends,
- 50:57neighbors, guilds, and the wider community in a meaningful way.
- 51:01And I think that is really good because I mentioned it's first
- 51:05because everybody's fear with Wow housing goes directly to
- 51:08Garrison's, which was the epitome of isolation, and I'm
- 51:11glad that this is a pillar of what they're doing.
- 51:16The first one that I skipped over to get to that point is, of
- 51:19course, Boundless self-expression.
- 51:23And their highest priority is to allow players to build a house
- 51:28that shows off their own personal tastes for their war
- 51:31bands acts as desired, as a desired backdrop for
- 51:35role-playing or just to allow players to create something in a
- 51:38flight of fancy. And then there's a lot more that
- 51:41go that goes into it. But like I do want to mention a
- 51:45highlight that it's war banned on that housing.
- 51:48And as they go through it, there's a lot of talk of your
- 51:52war band being able to access a house, and I'm questioning about
- 52:01that. But there's a third pillar, of
- 52:03course, before we go too deep into this, they talk about it
- 52:07being a long lasting journey, and then they say that housing
- 52:12is being built as an Evergreen addition to the game, with its
- 52:15own road map reaching across multiple patches and into future
- 52:19expansions. Housing isn't something that
- 52:21players should expect to finish, but instead continuously, sorry,
- 52:26continually look forward to the next housing release, be it new
- 52:30content or systems. This is a long term commitment
- 52:34for them as developers and offers players rewards all along
- 52:38the way. So I think those are great
- 52:42pillars. They do make a note that those
- 52:44pillars, while they're like vague and sort of like the
- 52:47central things are not everything that is in for
- 52:51housing, which is which is phenomenal details of this.
- 53:00They first talk about the zones that we're going to initially,
- 53:04and I say initially have housing being restricted to one Horde
- 53:09zone and one Alliance zone. And I had a quick sad trombone
- 53:16for this because my immediate fear, which was reinforced by
- 53:21the first image that they have below the title was Ord have orc
- 53:27decor, Alliance have human decor and not being able to really
- 53:37change it as fundamentally as I would like.
- 53:41But they they seem to be going against that with the boundless
- 53:45self-expression. The fact that like that is a
- 53:48major, major thing. So I don't know, I'm, I'm kind
- 53:52of conflicted. What?
- 53:53What do you guys mean? They specifically say in the
- 53:56post that even though you're Alliance character, you're
- 54:01you're you're a human warrior can't buy a home in Duratar.
- 54:05You can make a Horde character who can.
- 54:07And your human character can come and go as they please from
- 54:10your Horde home. And any unlocks that you unlock
- 54:14on your Horde character can be used in an Alliance home.
- 54:17And any unlocks in an Alliance character can be used in a in a
- 54:20Horde home. So I mean, maybe the actual
- 54:23physical structure itself would be the only thing that will be
- 54:25locked in. But then the interior you can
- 54:29decorate as you see fit. They do call out, they say they
- 54:33they talked about zones. And I imagine this was something
- 54:35the team struggled with. And that the reason they said
- 54:37they settled on just the two zones is that they would rather
- 54:40do an amazing job with two zones than a passable job with many
- 54:45zones. And they also don't want to lose
- 54:47the deeply social, the second pillar.
- 54:50They want people to be able to see each other.
- 54:52So that's why I think we had to expect it, right?
- 54:57Yeah, you have to start somewhere, right?
- 54:59Like they didn't make it sound like this is their plan forever.
- 55:02And I mean, they very specifically said they want us
- 55:04to keep expanding and keep getting more interesting and
- 55:05having new releases. And I cannot imagine that if
- 55:08this is popular, new zone won't be one of the things that they
- 55:10do pretty quickly. But I think if you, you know, if
- 55:13you have to make a brand new system from scratch and you're
- 55:15trying to figure out what to do and how to design it, doing the
- 55:17very classic human versus orcs thing like the World of Warcraft
- 55:21has gone to since before it was even World of Warcraft.
- 55:24I get it. I get why they're starting
- 55:25there. And I'm not overly I I also
- 55:28don't love either of those two aesthetics.
- 55:29So I'm not like jumping for joy over that.
- 55:32But I think I'm pretty confident that we will expand out of that.
- 55:38Yeah, but it's just, it's, I get it, They're iconic to those two
- 55:43factions. They are very much ingrained in
- 55:48that. But when I look at the title
- 55:51picture, which is the what I would think is their concept art
- 55:55for the Alliance homestead, When I look further down at the last
- 56:00image that's in there, which looks like their Horde
- 56:04homestead, those are orc cuts. Those are human human buildings.
- 56:10I don't see the outside of one of those looking like a torn or
- 56:16goblin or anything outside of Night Elf.
- 56:22Not not even like even if it was like restricted to the horde
- 56:26factions, like what if I did what?
- 56:29What if I'm a night born and I just want to set up a night born
- 56:33structure in there? Like I think the outside of the
- 56:36house should be a something that is deeply customizable that
- 56:41somebody walks past their past Shawn's house and they're like,
- 56:45my goodness, look at the banners he has hanging from from like
- 56:50the highest reaches of his home. And then you go inside and it's
- 56:55unique to Sean. I think that customization needs
- 56:59to be on the outside of the house as well as the inside of
- 57:02the house, because one of the things that they talked about is
- 57:05that they are having neighborhoods in the in this.
- 57:09Each of these places that you go are actually going to be 50 plot
- 57:16instances that will either be public or private.
- 57:20The public ones are going to be managed by the server.
- 57:23So as the 50 get filled up, the next one will be spun up and
- 57:26another 50 will go in. You'll have your neighbors.
- 57:29They'll be persistent. So if Lex and I are in the same
- 57:32neighborhood, Lex and I are going to run into each other
- 57:35until Lex realizes I'm in the same neighborhood and moves out.
- 57:38Or just quit, say, game altogether, right?
- 57:41But at least then we can run into each other.
- 57:44And that to me would mean that like as I'm going through a
- 57:48neighborhood, unless I'm going to break into somebody's house,
- 57:51which I don't think they should allow, I should be able to see
- 57:54their customization, their expression on the exterior of
- 57:56the house as well as the interior of the house.
- 58:00Yeah. Do you want to talk about
- 58:01neighborhood? Sorry, Sean can say.
- 58:02No go. I was going to say the same
- 58:04thing but I agreed with them. It's at first I was like, I
- 58:07understand why they're doing it, but now I'm really like, God
- 58:09damn it, I want to have a night out of the house so.
- 58:11I'm just going to say I really, and I could be wrong, but I do
- 58:16not think that they're like, that's not going to happen.
- 58:19I think based on what they're saying, I am 99.99% sure that
- 58:24they also want you to be able to customize that they also want
- 58:27the outside to be customizable. They have plans for this.
- 58:30They either A have to prioritize right now and determine what
- 58:36they're going to work on and they were like inside of what
- 58:38we're going to start with because that's what people are
- 58:39most excited about, or B just didn't think to include this in
- 58:42the concept art, right? Like this is very initial baby's
- 58:45first concept art. It's not like they said you
- 58:47can't customize the outside of their house.
- 58:49And so there's another option, which is just the artists while
- 58:52working on this, we're overwhelmed and we're told draw
- 58:55a horde neighborhood and they were like, and to be fair, I
- 58:58want to be really clear for one of the artists, it's a beautiful
- 59:00drawing. I'm not saying that this looks
- 59:01like you're overwhelmed when but wex.
- 59:05Thinks she can do better than the artist confirmed.
- 59:07No, God, no. Please no.
- 59:11We'll, we'll, we'll be getting Lex's concept art for the next
- 59:15episode. You know what that I would love
- 59:17to see Lex's concept art I. Just some trying I you when I
- 59:21was a role player, I drew badly, but I drew no.
- 59:24No, I want, I want the Lex concept art.
- 59:27We'll we'll throw it up in a Patreon or something.
- 59:29We'll do like, we'll do Lex's house.
- 59:32We'll do, we'll do Sean's house just done up.
- 59:35Like let's do that. That would be hilarious.
- 59:37I'd love it. But like, yeah, you look at the
- 59:39concept art that they've got here and it is beautiful.
- 59:42I really think that that Stormwind in the background with
- 59:45the housing looks amazing. I think that the, the streams
- 59:51that's running through Doritar and, and all of this that's here
- 59:55looks great. And I genuinely like just
- 1:00:00absolutely glomped on to when they said not just Doritar, but
- 1:00:05and Zara being part of the theming for, for the horde
- 1:00:11thing. I'm like, OK, great.
- 1:00:13It's not all going to be just deserted, barren and lifeless.
- 1:00:17And I think that could be. Built upon, if you had like just
- 1:00:23the different structures on there, I would say most likely
- 1:00:27like you, like you've said, Lex, it is a matter of being able to
- 1:00:31provide something. And even if the concept art, I
- 1:00:37don't think the concept art was rushed.
- 1:00:38I think that there's probably a lot of concept art of different
- 1:00:41places. And he said, we're going to move
- 1:00:43forward with these two. And so that's the concept art is
- 1:00:47like focused on, hey, this is the Durator setup, this is the
- 1:00:51Stormwind setup. And they probably have stuff
- 1:00:53that's like don't show them this yet.
- 1:00:55When we get to it, then we could start showing them.
- 1:00:58Here's the Iron Forge setup, and here's the Lorderon setup and.
- 1:01:01And here's the Zankamar setup Right Blizzard, Right Blizzard.
- 1:01:04Right Blizzard. Zankamar setup Blizzard.
- 1:01:06Right, Blizzard. Setup was just a tent.
- 1:01:10I I honestly think that would be great if you could do a Voltaire
- 1:01:14setup where it is just your, your tent that you had from like
- 1:01:19your racial setup there with like a little bit of more
- 1:01:21permanent structure to decide too.
- 1:01:23That would be great. Yeah.
- 1:01:24We talk about how terrifying this Griffin is in the Stormwind
- 1:01:28concept there. It's so huge and it's tucked
- 1:01:31into this tiny little garage, overhead garage.
- 1:01:34She's like, what is happening to that?
- 1:01:36Wait, how? What size do you think a Griffin
- 1:01:38is to carry to carry? Like a person like, like look at
- 1:01:43the person who's in the door frame.
- 1:01:47I'm looking that Griffin does look like he could get him in
- 1:01:51two bites. Like like that poor do.
- 1:01:53You guys have the. Person who's like walking
- 1:01:55forward, I don't know because like he see the wolf behind just
- 1:01:58on the far edge Anyways, that's a small that's a small thing
- 1:02:01You're like this is all concept art.
- 1:02:03Obviously some things are there I.
- 1:02:05Love it. Even if the attaching on the
- 1:02:07roof is customizable so I could have like red and I don't have
- 1:02:10to do the storm blue or stuff see.
- 1:02:12What's going to? Happen.
- 1:02:13Don't worry. It's coming.
- 1:02:14It's coming. Yeah, this isn't.
- 1:02:16Can we talk about the giant Battle.net store elephant in the
- 1:02:22room? He.
- 1:02:23Did talk about that? You want to talk about that?
- 1:02:26OK, yeah, let's talk about. It I would like to just come out
- 1:02:28and say Blizzard, I'm absolutely for this.
- 1:02:31So they haven't, They have said that they want the stuff to be
- 1:02:35collectible, to be accessible in game.
- 1:02:36But there will be some things you can buy in the shop, but the
- 1:02:39intent is not for the main or the best things to be in the
- 1:02:42shop. It's just there will be some
- 1:02:43things in the shop they're very transparent about.
- 1:02:45They're very apparent about it. And I say put it all in the shop
- 1:02:48and he'd buy all of it. Sean wants to fight with you.
- 1:02:54Actually, no, I don't know how I feel about that.
- 1:02:56I mean exactly. Can you put night elf housing on
- 1:02:58the shop only? OK, here's the deal.
- 1:03:02Wants to fight with me. Sean wants all the hate and Sean
- 1:03:06wants to like just have people low Jack us and come for us.
- 1:03:11But I think that if they keep it in a similar manner to what they
- 1:03:15are doing with the shop right now, which I think has become
- 1:03:19nicer than it used to be, because what they are doing
- 1:03:22right now is that things will get a run on the shop.
- 1:03:26They will then come out later on the traders post.
- 1:03:29And I think that if customization, some
- 1:03:32customizations, not all customizations show up on the
- 1:03:35shop and come out later on the traders post, that's great.
- 1:03:40Like, hey, you can get it early if you want to spend the money
- 1:03:43or you can wait get it on the traders post.
- 1:03:45If you're if you're conserving your tenders or you have to get
- 1:03:49everything, go ahead, pick up, pick up a bundle of two of two
- 1:03:55mounts that look exactly the same as the two mounts that are
- 1:03:58in the game, but but different color tints with your 600
- 1:04:02tenders so you can get just a little bit more stuff.
- 1:04:05If you want to spend your money like that, more power to you.
- 1:04:08If you don't want to spend your money like that, more power to
- 1:04:11you. If you want to complain that
- 1:04:13other people have the ability to spend their money like that,
- 1:04:16don't worry, you're never going to be on the guest on this show
- 1:04:18so we don't have to listen to you.
- 1:04:20I genuinely think that the options that they throw out
- 1:04:25there, they've been quite good about it.
- 1:04:30In some cases they've even said, hey, it's going to be back
- 1:04:32within X amount of days or months.
- 1:04:36That's that's completely transparent.
- 1:04:40I have no issues with the store as it stands being including
- 1:04:46housing stuff as long as it is not something so fundamental as
- 1:04:51you could do a night off building now and wait six months
- 1:04:55and then the rest of you plebes can get it.
- 1:04:57The poors can come get their night out housing.
- 1:05:00That is a line too far Sean, and we will send a hate mail your
- 1:05:04way. Yeah, I think that the shop
- 1:05:07should be a couple fun, cutesy little things that are, you
- 1:05:11know, maybe exciting but not world endingly exciting.
- 1:05:17And most of it should be in the game that I pay every month to
- 1:05:22play. OK.
- 1:05:27And I I think that yeah, like sure, open up the store for
- 1:05:30that. If they want to put in campsites
- 1:05:32into the store, because that's coming in the next batch, right?
- 1:05:35And then later on it comes into the traders post.
- 1:05:38So be it. You know what, it doesn't even
- 1:05:39matter if it comes to the traders post for the camping
- 1:05:41sites, but like, like, I think that's all good.
- 1:05:47I think that one of the the scariest parts of this are the
- 1:05:50private neighborhoods. I am just worried about like
- 1:05:55quasi HOA community, quasi elitist communities that's that
- 1:05:59are going to pop up from this. It's, it's not like a real HOA
- 1:06:04where you're stuck because you spent $300,000 in your house.
- 1:06:07Just leave and go to yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to touch
- 1:06:10your hand. While I say this as somebody who
- 1:06:12has role played, There are going to be groups that exist entirely
- 1:06:17to be pretentious. Like, yeah, there's going to be
- 1:06:19neighborhoods that are only there to suck.
- 1:06:21Like, don't worry about it. They all.
- 1:06:23There are already groups that exist exclusively to be annoying
- 1:06:26to other people, respectfully. Are you still talking about the
- 1:06:31game? OK, that's true.
- 1:06:33That's true. Even even outside of the world,
- 1:06:35there are there are some people, if you allow people to make
- 1:06:39communities, some of those communities are gonna suck.
- 1:06:42I'm so excited about neighborhoods.
- 1:06:44You guys, I think they're gonna be so cute.
- 1:06:46And I think, you know, presumably the guilds are gonna,
- 1:06:48we're gonna make a little Guild neighborhoods.
- 1:06:51But like, Oh my God, can you guys imagine like the
- 1:06:53neighborhoods have like little like neighborhood events and you
- 1:06:55make you join your like little neighborhood discord.
- 1:06:57You're like, oh, we're having a little neighborhood cooker.
- 1:06:59There's still a little role player in me, I think.
- 1:07:03Here's my question. I have two questions.
- 1:07:06Question one I'm in a private neighborhood for my Guild.
- 1:07:11Can I invite my friends into our neighborhood to hang out and
- 1:07:17does that then mean I'm forced to see my guildies friends if I
- 1:07:22don't like them in that neighborhood?
- 1:07:24And second question, am I limited to one neighborhood?
- 1:07:28I guess you would presume that you would be.
- 1:07:30So now I have to choose, do I join my guilds neighborhood or
- 1:07:34do I join my for Azeroth neighborhood where we have a 25%
- 1:07:38tariff on trade with all other neighborhoods?
- 1:07:41So wait, I actually am not clear.
- 1:07:46I think it was a joke that happened while I was reading
- 1:07:48this very excitedly. So if there was a very funny, I
- 1:07:53I'm actually not clear that you can't own multiple houses
- 1:07:59because they say, first of all, they say your houses are also
- 1:08:03shared amongst your war band, which could mean just like, you
- 1:08:05know, the houses that multiple people own or your multiple
- 1:08:08houses, you'll be able you, you'll be able to live in or
- 1:08:12visit. Yeah, the you will be able to
- 1:08:15live in or visit your friends or guildmates houses, which makes
- 1:08:21me think like presumably it's not that you just choose to live
- 1:08:24in someone else's house. You can't get your own, and they
- 1:08:26also talk about how like your human character can't buy a
- 1:08:30house in the horde zone but your trolled character can in the
- 1:08:34same war band can. Basically, I don't know, I
- 1:08:37don't. I want to be clear in case you
- 1:08:38think that any of these quotes are me saying this definitively
- 1:08:40says you can buy multiple houses.
- 1:08:42I don't think it's clear yet. I don't think we are aware.
- 1:08:45Going to have neighborhoods where my alliance, my human
- 1:08:50character is walking to my home in my public neighborhood in
- 1:08:54Duratar and he gets discriminated against for being
- 1:08:57human. There's one of and then the HOA
- 1:09:02knocks, knocks on your doors. So it's like we're going to have
- 1:09:04to we're going to have to ask you to take down that night born
- 1:09:09banner or get out of our neighborhood.
- 1:09:11I'm telling you, private neighborhoods scare me because
- 1:09:14of what people might. I'm worried about public, a
- 1:09:16private neighborhood. I can just leave.
- 1:09:18I would only be in a private neighborhood if I chose to join
- 1:09:20that group of people. But if I'm in a public
- 1:09:22neighborhood with 50 other strangers and 49 of them all
- 1:09:27play orcs and they're like, hey, you can't be here.
- 1:09:30What do I do? I think you.
- 1:09:32Can leave. I think you can I'm.
- 1:09:33I I'm. So excited.
- 1:09:35Because they just said that because it says in there that
- 1:09:38you have neighbors unless you move, which means that you have.
- 1:09:41The ability to move, OK. Right.
- 1:09:43And also. I'm putting, I'm putting up my
- 1:09:47make Azeroth great again, Simon. You can just deal with it,
- 1:09:50trolls. Who's trolling who?
- 1:09:54You know, I feel like it's me, yeah.
- 1:09:57What's the? Thread here.
- 1:09:58OK, like, there's a lot in here. There's a lot of possibilities.
- 1:10:02This is just like the first look at it.
- 1:10:05I mean, I'm hoping for more. I dislike that one motif is the
- 1:10:10I don't even know what it's what it is tribal, rustic or
- 1:10:15something. The ugly one.
- 1:10:16Do you and it ugly color Orgamar?
- 1:10:18Is ugly. Give me the ugly.
- 1:10:19Do you mean the ugly? The ugly one, which is the
- 1:10:21Orgamar one? Because Orgamar is an ugly city.
- 1:10:24Is that the one you mean? Is that what you mean, Manny?
- 1:10:26Is that what you're trying to say right now?
- 1:10:28It shares a lot of letters with ugly.
- 1:10:31It is rugged and it is so ugly and did you want to know?
- 1:10:38Why Ugly Manny? And it is color-coded to be
- 1:10:41Horde. And then they have an A equally
- 1:10:48like simplistic and like completely like stereotypical
- 1:10:54setup, right? And it is color-coded to be
- 1:10:58Alliance, right? And I again, these are just
- 1:11:06setups. I'm hoping that the D that the
- 1:11:08decor can be, I can grab a shelf from this and a table from
- 1:11:14another one and that I can tint or diet so it all fits the room.
- 1:11:20I'm worried that it's going to be because you got it from this
- 1:11:23one. It has to be this blue.
- 1:11:25I don't think it tents and dies. I I I like maybe it's like the
- 1:11:28traders post and like it'll have multiple different colors all.
- 1:11:31That would be sick. I 'cause that is, I will say
- 1:11:33that is one of my biggest stresses with trans Mogs.
- 1:11:35Some of you guys are really good at them, but I find that 99% of
- 1:11:39the time I just end up using an entire set just because, like,
- 1:11:42the Blues don't match perfectly between two sets.
- 1:11:44And I'm like, well, that's a little ugly.
- 1:11:47Yeah. I'm with Manny, I think.
- 1:11:48And I actually, I will also say this is one thing that Final
- 1:11:52Fantasy does really well is that you can dye clothes.
- 1:11:54And I think, I think my dad does this more than I do.
- 1:11:56But like, you can do that sort of stuff.
- 1:11:59And I've always kind of thought, oh, wouldn't it be cool if I
- 1:12:02could customize the outfits in World of Warcraft more?
- 1:12:06So World Warcraft Fast F, baby. What about we experiment with
- 1:12:10that? What if we had fun?
- 1:12:11Little, little you know, everyone can play with it.
- 1:12:15I'm going to go one further because tinting stuff on the in
- 1:12:20the Warcraft engine I don't think is set up for it.
- 1:12:23So I would say Blizzard, if you are going to put in an item,
- 1:12:29make sure it has multiple tints and maybe have particular colors
- 1:12:35that you just stick to. So you don't have one that is
- 1:12:40sky blue and one that is turquoise blue and and not have
- 1:12:45an equal on the next one. Just get at least if you're
- 1:12:49going to start limited, stick to a couple of colors that are the
- 1:12:522025 or at maybe at that point is the 2026 colors and then
- 1:12:56expand from there. I really do not need a color
- 1:13:00that's got Dalaran purple and the next one that's got Void
- 1:13:04Midnight purple, and I put them together and it's just like,
- 1:13:06yeah, what the hell was I doing? I agree with you.
- 1:13:08I do actually want to say I don't know that tinting is
- 1:13:10impossible in the World of Warcraft system because they
- 1:13:12feel like they've been experimenting with that a lot
- 1:13:14with the customizable mouth, right?
- 1:13:17Do you guys disagree with me? Am I misunderstanding what
- 1:13:18you're saying? Different different texture path
- 1:13:21that gets loaded in that is full on textures that are that are
- 1:13:24being switched on the same model that it's not tinting.
- 1:13:28Would you be open to that? Like if, if it's, you know, that
- 1:13:31sort of thing where like you can make your, you, you kind of have
- 1:13:33to pick to have your entire house go to one, like to
- 1:13:36different color schemes, but you can just like go in and be like,
- 1:13:40boop, this is the color scheme I'm picking.
- 1:13:43And these? Yeah, however they want.
- 1:13:44To do it again, we're not devs. However they want to skin that
- 1:13:48cat as long as things are not weirdly off color.
- 1:13:51And I get super annoyed by it because if I'm going to go into
- 1:13:54like Decor, right, I, I would want that to be a possibility.
- 1:14:00There are people who will spend an evening running through the
- 1:14:05same dungeon on LFR versus heroic to get gloves that and
- 1:14:09have the exact right tint to match their boots so that it
- 1:14:13works for them. And I, I'm glad that it works
- 1:14:15for them, but it needs to be a possibility because it would be
- 1:14:19so annoying to like put it together and be like, I guess I
- 1:14:23refund this. What the hell, Blizzard?
- 1:14:25Yeah, they do. So they've been really good.
- 1:14:27I think the traders post is a really good example of what
- 1:14:30you're describing Manny, because they have the hoods, the open
- 1:14:35face hoods with the cloaks, the scarves with the cloaks, the
- 1:14:39over the shoulder buckles or over the shoulder cloaks, then
- 1:14:43the over the shoulder cloaks with the buckles and then the
- 1:14:45prowler cloaks, which is the hood open face or with a mask
- 1:14:49and a cloak. And they all used like you
- 1:14:52mentioned how you know, give me one red, give me one blue.
- 1:14:55They they use that. So those are all inter inter
- 1:14:57match, inter mingle. They all follow the same pattern
- 1:15:02color. Matched.
- 1:15:03That was really tough. That was a bad word for me.
- 1:15:05I don't know what happened there.
- 1:15:06Interchangeable. Interchangeable.
- 1:15:08There it is. Thank you so much.
- 1:15:11Yeah. So I would like that as well.
- 1:15:13I also think Lex is on to something.
- 1:15:17You got to let me paint my walls, right?
- 1:15:20Am I? Well, my choice is just.
- 1:15:22But if it's a horse. Shack.
- 1:15:23They wouldn't have wallpaper. No, they won't.
- 1:15:27They'll just have dyed or stained the rugs they've used
- 1:15:31for the wall anyway. I'm excited.
- 1:15:34It's, listen, I can't believe I'm saying this.
- 1:15:37I'm excited for housing. The possibilities are great.
- 1:15:41I'm really looking forward to it.
- 1:15:43There's one last thing I think we should mention before we
- 1:15:45probably wrap up, and that is Blizzard gave some clarification
- 1:15:51on holiday mounts and reward drops and I guess was
- 1:15:55desperately needed. I'm not a mount collector, so I
- 1:15:57don't know, but all you mount collectors out there, mounties
- 1:15:59as we call them, I want you to get some clarification here.
- 1:16:03So here's how it works. I'm going to break it down for
- 1:16:06you for legacy drops. So this is your X-45
- 1:16:08Heartbreaker. Your first attempt of the day on
- 1:16:11your account has an increased drop chance.
- 1:16:15Every other attempt on the day after that point has a minuscule
- 1:16:20drop chance. So not 0, just very small for
- 1:16:25new mounts. Like the love which is sweeper
- 1:16:28which is also falling from the chemical Co during the love is
- 1:16:31in the air has a once a day attempt to drop.
- 1:16:35So on your first kill of chemical Co a day, oh sorry,
- 1:16:38your once attempt today and then that increases your drop chance
- 1:16:42with each kill after until it drops.
- 1:16:44It doesn't say whether that carries through to next year.
- 1:16:48That would be some clarification we could use.
- 1:16:51It also doesn't determine where they make the break point
- 1:16:54between legacy and and new. So if I were going for like
- 1:16:58let's say the manuscript that drops off of some of these
- 1:17:03things for customization, is that now considered legacy
- 1:17:06because we're on to a new expansion?
- 1:17:07Or do I have to wait 2 expansions for where legacy loot
- 1:17:10would activate this? This initial change with the
- 1:17:15once a day, then you get increased chance started in
- 1:17:19Dragonflight. I would use Dragonflight as your
- 1:17:22cut off. I I assume that's what that
- 1:17:24means because that's when they initially made that change.
- 1:17:27So that would have to be it couldn't possibly have been
- 1:17:29before that change came in and that change came in last year
- 1:17:33for love is in the air. So I guess potentially the
- 1:17:36manuscripts are legacy. Could you?
- 1:17:39Use clarification. Yeah, yeah, it's weird.
- 1:17:42Just give us a list. I'm sure people are going to be
- 1:17:46testing this and checking the drop, the drops that are being
- 1:17:50reported and then determining what they are based on that.
- 1:17:53But, you know, you can skip a step and just tell us.
- 1:17:59With that said, yeah, you know, there's something to be said
- 1:18:05about that. But with that said, we're going
- 1:18:08to call an episode here. I really did love all the
- 1:18:10discussion we've had and obviously there's a lot going on
- 1:18:14in the future of World of Warcraft.
- 1:18:15Some point I will tell you why I'm not so happy about 11.1
- 1:18:19right now, but that will have to wait for a future episode.
- 1:18:23Until next time guys, may all your hits be quits.