Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #357 - For Azeroth!: “Do Addons Think for You”

Transcript

#357 - For Azeroth!: “Do Addons Think for You” · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

• 0:00
  I think this is going to hurt lower level players
• 0:03
  significantly more than upper level players.
• 0:05
  I think Sean is going to be fine, right?
• 0:07
  I think he's going to be frustrated.
• 0:08
  I think he's going to have to relearn.
• 0:10
  But he's played video games at a really high level.
• 0:12
  Victory for the Forsaken for. Lauderon for the Karen Tour for.
• 0:20
  Pandaria. For calendar to.
• 0:25
  The burning region for Gilnaeus or has not done for the Lich
• 0:32
  King for the. Sindori for the alliance for.
• 0:38
  The Horn for Azeroth. Hello and welcome to another
• 0:45
  episode of For Azeroth. I am one of your hosts, Lex, and
• 0:49
  I am here with you, wonderful Manny.
• 0:51
  Manny, how are you doing today? How is the World of Warcraft
• 0:54
  treating you? Doing OK World of Warcraft has
• 0:59
  suddenly changed for me we are at the end of alpha phase five.
• 1:04
  I was playing through that, I was getting really into testing
• 1:11
  and now alpha servers are down raid rating has concluded for
• 1:16
  the season. So I've just been trying to like
• 1:18
  do some things. So I collect some mounts, but
• 1:21
  that doesn't require as much time.
• 1:23
  And so like, I'm kind of, I'm kind of glad for it.
• 1:26
  There's been so much non-stop Wow that I just haven't had time
• 1:31
  to like do catch up or like, you know, play other games because
• 1:34
  believe it or not, guys, I like playing other games.
• 1:38
  And so I'm, I'm, I'm both sad and glad for this time.
• 1:43
  I don't, I don't know what, what about you, Lex?
• 1:47
  What? What's going on with you?
• 1:49
  Yeah, I'm in a very similar boat because we just got AOTC this
• 1:52
  last week. I knew it, I told you guys it
• 1:54
  was coming. So we're AOTC dot.
• 1:57
  Obviously I'm playing alpha, but I don't really have a ton that I
• 2:01
  do after AOTC. That's kind of when we hit, you
• 2:03
  know, we do achievement runs, we do a couple little management
• 2:06
  things, but by and large that's kind of my season ender.
• 2:11
  So given that we're looking at probably at least a few months
• 2:13
  before midnight, I'm going to be in a little bit of a a holding
• 2:17
  pattern for a while, but you guys are not going to believe
• 2:20
  who else is here in the studio with us today.
• 2:23
  So in case he has some thoughts he wanted, he would like to
• 2:25
  share. Sean, how are you and how's the
• 2:28
  World of Warcraft treating you? Alexa, I'm doing great.
• 2:31
  It's we're November now, so we're deep into cozy season.
• 2:34
  Anybody who's watching this on YouTube sees that I am wrapped
• 2:37
  in a poncho, wrapped in a blanket, and wearing some lovely
• 2:41
  slippers. And with and drinking a little,
• 2:44
  a little. Tea.
• 2:45
  And I'm drinking a tea, a lemon ginger tea, yeah, or lemon
• 2:49
  ginger if you want to be fancy. It's Warcraft has been treating
• 2:53
  me good. I don't really have anything new
• 2:55
  to report. Everything is pretty much status
• 2:57
  quo. But there was a slew of news
• 2:59
  that came out this week that I've been really excited to talk
• 3:01
  to you guys about. So mostly War Craftsman treating
• 3:04
  me with an uplift in hype and something that I asked for last
• 3:11
  episode we got. So I'm really excited to talk
• 3:13
  about that. Very excited.
• 3:16
  Let's jump right into the hype. Sean, do you want to bring us
• 3:18
  into our first story tonight? Yeah, for sure.
• 3:21
  No. Can Manny do this one and I do
• 3:23
  the next? One.
• 3:24
  Yeah, Yeah. This is Manny.
• 3:25
  Just pushing back Lex finally gets the rain and Sean was like
• 3:29
  no back in she chose. Your story for me to deliver.
• 3:33
  All right, so story that just broke today is BlizzCon 2026.
• 3:39
  Tickets are going on sale November 7th, So probably by the
• 3:43
  time you're listening to my voice na na, this episode will
• 3:47
  come out tomorrow. So Friday, November 7th we will
• 3:51
  be getting tickets, advance tickets that are going to go on
• 3:55
  sale for $249.99 US, but that's all inclusive, nothing
• 4:02
  additional there. They've increased the number of
• 4:04
  passes you can get. Like in previous years you've
• 4:06
  only been able to get 2 on per account.
• 4:08
  Now you can get up to 4 which is good.
• 4:10
  So I'm sure there are going to be a lot of people who are
• 4:13
  gathered around quickly hitting refresh when these go live to
• 4:17
  try and get their tickets. And so less of you will need to
• 4:19
  actually get in to get tickets for the group, which is which is
• 4:22
  really good. But if you don't get in for that
• 4:27
  early bird special, there will be more tickets coming up.
• 4:30
  That's going to come on Tuesday, November 18th.
• 4:35
  And those ones will have an additional $40.00.
• 4:39
  So that's going to be basically $290.00 US.
• 4:43
  And you might be saying, hey Manny, that's not that much of
• 4:45
  an up up cost from the last time when they were like 275.
• 4:50
  Well, friends, that's because they're going to get you with
• 4:52
  the add-ons they have put in. If you so happen to like, you
• 4:57
  know, not like having anything in your wallet, well, you can
• 5:00
  throw $500 and do the charity night add on.
• 5:05
  Now this used to be 750, but if you do the math, yeah, you're
• 5:09
  spending 750 because you have to get the base ticket.
• 5:13
  So that's unchanged. That will allow you to have a
• 5:17
  nice little charity dinner. The full 500 from that is going
• 5:20
  to go to Make a Wish, which is really awesome.
• 5:23
  And if you perhaps feel that's too rich for your blood or
• 5:27
  perhaps you're like I've got more money to throw at at
• 5:29
  Blizzard. Well, they also have the dark
• 5:31
  moon fair add on, which is going to be an additional $90.00 onto
• 5:34
  your ticket and that'll give you access to a three hour event
• 5:38
  that's happening on the Saturday that's September the 12th.
• 5:42
  The that is going to include also 20 fair tokens and
• 5:49
  collectible credentials, which I don't know what that means.
• 5:55
  They threw it in there and there was little explanation.
• 5:58
  But yeah, if you're chasing after stuff, I guess there's
• 6:01
  going to be special stuff for you there.
• 6:04
  I will say I'm really happy about the dark moon.
• 6:06
  Fair add on. Not for myself.
• 6:09
  Neither of you guys were at BlizzCon last year, right?
• 6:11
  I'm. Not rub it in Lex, rub it in
• 6:14
  Nobody with that blizz. Well, so as as the resident
• 6:17
  BlizzCon expert, Dartmouth Fair was rough last time.
• 6:21
  Like one of my guildies wanted to.
• 6:24
  The fire Marshall apparently came in once and told them they
• 6:26
  had to clear the line. One of my guildies wanted to go
• 6:30
  into Dartmouth Fair to get some things for his kids.
• 6:32
  Like just like cute little like, oh, hey, dad came home and he
• 6:34
  has some presents for you. When I tell you, I don't think I
• 6:38
  spoke to this man the entire BlizzCon.
• 6:41
  Like he was waiting in this line almost the whole time.
• 6:45
  And like I, I, I'm probably exaggerating a little bit
• 6:47
  because again, the fire Marshall cleared the line.
• 6:49
  So like they had to start over. So it was like I, I under like
• 6:54
  cons are always kind of line bosses, but it was absurd.
• 6:58
  Like it was winding back like multiple rooms.
• 7:01
  It was terrible. So I'm really happy for this A
• 7:04
  so that people who really want to get to Darkman fair for a
• 7:06
  reason have a a, like they have a thing they can do and
• 7:11
  guarantee they're going to get in.
• 7:12
  And also hopefully to make it so the line is less absurd during
• 7:16
  the just normal event because people like, oh, whatever, like
• 7:19
  I got my Darkman fair ticket. I can just pop right in.
• 7:22
  Yeah. So one thing that is missing
• 7:25
  from this year that was in previous years, Lex, you may
• 7:29
  have remembered they had a portal pass their little
• 7:33
  premium, their first little dip in the premium and that's no
• 7:36
  longer here. So it looks like it is basically
• 7:41
  general admission, but there is special perks.
• 7:45
  If you do go to the beneficiary dinner, you have reserved
• 7:52
  seatings at the opening ceremony and at some panels.
• 7:55
  So in a way, it's sort of been put into the charity night pass
• 8:02
  there. And I'm assuming that everybody
• 8:06
  else is just going to be dealing with like the general admission,
• 8:11
  which you know, what like slightly raises the value of the
• 8:15
  general admission. I've as soon as you start
• 8:18
  putting in like fast lanes and fast passes or portal passes,
• 8:21
  you're basically saying, hey, pony up more money or you're
• 8:25
  going to get to the OR you're going to be pushed to the back
• 8:28
  of the line. And I, I don't, I might have had
• 8:33
  biased sources for this, but I was under the impression that
• 8:36
  last BlizzCon portal pass is kind of underutilized.
• 8:39
  And I, I heard mixed reviews as to whether or not people felt it
• 8:43
  was hugely beneficial. I do know some people did feel
• 8:46
  it was really, really, they were really happy they got it.
• 8:48
  And I other people were kind of like, I go into an empty room
• 8:51
  where there's nothing great. I have portal pass, so I didn't
• 8:56
  have it because I'm broke. So I don't know.
• 9:00
  Well, I mean, it is honestly based on like what they
• 9:03
  organize. Like if there's a lot of things
• 9:05
  that you really want to get to, then yeah, that portal pass is
• 9:08
  going to help. If you are focused on one thing,
• 9:10
  like let's say you are just into Warcraft Rumble, that portal
• 9:14
  pass isn't going to do much for you in that sort of situation.
• 9:18
  So, you know, it mileage is based on what they're doing and
• 9:21
  what you are interested in and along the lines of what they're
• 9:26
  doing. We got a rough outline for the
• 9:29
  event. So of course there will be the
• 9:31
  opening ceremony. There are also going to be dev
• 9:35
  stages, including a special separate classic stage.
• 9:40
  Now, that's not to say that that is classic Warcraft, but more
• 9:43
  along the lines of classic games.
• 9:45
  They do have the Blizzard Arcade, Arcade that's returning,
• 9:50
  which is going to have a lot of those classic games in there and
• 9:53
  demos there. But for the currently supported
• 9:57
  games, they will have playable demos for that.
• 10:00
  And they listed them off, of course.
• 10:01
  They've got Wow, they've got Diablo 4, they've got Overwatch,
• 10:04
  they've got Hearthstone, they've got Diablo Mortal.
• 10:07
  Yeah, I just utterly skipped past Rumble on that.
• 10:11
  And they did too, because Rumble is no longer supported game and
• 10:16
  the fact that they did not put in the Heroes of the Storm
• 10:21
  because some people keep seeing those updates for Heroes of
• 10:23
  Storm being like, maybe it's coming in back.
• 10:26
  I'm going to start doubting it if they don't even put it in
• 10:29
  like BlizzCon announcements. But maybe they're being smart
• 10:31
  and they're saying like, hey, we don't want to.
• 10:33
  We don't want to say anything right now it.
• 10:35
  Is there was a there was an announcement, there's a hero of
• 10:37
  the storms. Yes, but that's part of their
• 10:41
  classic games because they're doing Warcraft 3, Reforged
• 10:44
  tournaments, Heroes of the Storm, So it's just part of
• 10:47
  games that we're not actually supporting right now.
• 10:49
  So I did see that, but that's not the same.
• 10:54
  I don't know it it's getting its own tournament.
• 10:57
  Sure, so it's Warcraft three. I'm seriously not going to
• 11:00
  consider Warcraft three. He currently supported game.
• 11:04
  OK. Yeah, I guess.
• 11:07
  Aren't they actually working on Warcraft 3 remake?
• 11:09
  No, they did a Warcraft 3 remake the the slight was that.
• 11:14
  Updating that. If you have Warcraft 3, the
• 11:18
  original like I could go find my collector's edition somewhere
• 11:21
  around. If you have that and you haven't
• 11:23
  upgraded to their reforged version, their the window is
• 11:28
  closing. I think it's December 11th.
• 11:30
  Don't quote me on that because it's not in the notes.
• 11:32
  If you don't upgrade at that point, they're no longer going
• 11:35
  to honor your original purchase. And if you want to play Warcraft
• 11:38
  3 Reforest, you'll have to buy it at full sticker price.
• 11:41
  But aren't they doing a Warcraft Three re Reforged?
• 11:45
  I remember that coming out during the 20th anniversary.
• 11:49
  I'm certain I remember them mentioning that they were
• 11:52
  updating Warcraft re Reforged to input some of the things that
• 11:55
  weren't there at launch that were supposed to be.
• 11:58
  I'm positive they said that at the 20th anniversary event.
• 12:00
  I'm pretty sure that was like a balance thing to be like, hey,
• 12:03
  you know what, We know that this game fell short of expectations
• 12:06
  and we're going to get that stuff that we really should have
• 12:09
  put in. But I don't believe that's
• 12:10
  further support. OK, we'll look at it after.
• 12:14
  There's no point in in talking about it now.
• 12:16
  This isn't. A Warcraft?
• 12:16
  Yeah. It's all speculation that it's
• 12:18
  not something we're talking about.
• 12:22
  The thing that I'm happy for is the E sports that are going to
• 12:27
  be at BlizzCon. I think like when you're
• 12:29
  actually sitting there and you're in the crowd and they
• 12:31
  have that like entire stadium, it's hype.
• 12:34
  It is genuinely hype. Things that I wouldn't normally
• 12:38
  pay attention to, I would actually watch at the stadium at
• 12:41
  A at a live event. So for that, we've got the AWC
• 12:45
  that's going to be there. We've got the MDI and then they
• 12:48
  have other games that they're doing like the Overwatch World
• 12:51
  Cup, which talking about stuff that I was like, didn't that
• 12:54
  end? That was one, I was like, oh, I
• 12:56
  guess that's still going. And then of course, tournaments
• 12:59
  for the stuff that we were just talking about.
• 13:02
  So there's a lot of things there.
• 13:04
  If. They had a if you wanted to go
• 13:07
  watch one of those matches and you could use a portal pass
• 13:10
  there. That would be amazing.
• 13:11
  I'd love to sit closer to ringside with a portal pass with
• 13:14
  that. It's really curious that there's
• 13:19
  an MDI event because as of last season the head to head speed
• 13:25
  running no longer exists as an MDI format and now the great
• 13:28
  pushes the entire format. So they just going to have two
• 13:30
  teams squared up on a stage for four hours.
• 13:33
  Pushing keys as far as they can go.
• 13:37
  Yeah, that would be off. It's not fun to watch at home.
• 13:41
  There's no way I would watch that at an arena.
• 13:45
  So I'm hoping it means the return of the speed running head
• 13:47
  to head competition, otherwise I don't.
• 13:50
  I don't know how you make that a live event and make it
• 13:53
  entertaining. I will say for me personally, E
• 13:59
  sports, I know this is probably not a popular opinion, but E
• 14:02
  sports and BlizzCon is what I do when I'm like way too
• 14:04
  overstimulated to talk to anyone and I'm like, I'm going to go
• 14:08
  watch the Overwatch World Cup and I'm going to pay close
• 14:11
  attention. It gives you a nice like ability
• 14:14
  to kind of like black out. So I could I could do that with
• 14:17
  MDI. They can do it just for me.
• 14:19
  It can be the space that they're like it's going to be pushing
• 14:22
  keys and I'm just fully dissociated in the corner.
• 14:26
  Yeah, no, if, if I if I get to that point, it's step out, maybe
• 14:30
  go back to the Hilton lobby. You know that DJ has to do
• 14:34
  something when when the thing isn't crowded.
• 14:37
  So you know, but yeah, so that is the the set up for BlizzCon
• 14:44
  2026. Are you guys excited about it?
• 14:48
  Start with well, sorry, I I apologize.
• 14:50
  This is your your show. It's.
• 14:51
  True. Are you guys excited about this?
• 14:53
  I'm going to start with Sean. Yeah, I'm excited.
• 14:56
  I purchased my flights. I've booked a room at a hotel.
• 15:00
  I'm really looking forward to it.
• 15:02
  It it'll be my first BlizzCon. I was supposed to go in 2023,
• 15:06
  which was the last BlizzCon, but I can't remember what.
• 15:09
  Had something happened, some family thing happened or some
• 15:13
  life thing happened and I had to cancel and I ended up giving my
• 15:17
  ticket to, I gave it away to somebody, but nothing will hold
• 15:21
  me back from this one. September 2026, I'm going to be
• 15:24
  there. I mean, unless America is
• 15:25
  literally on fire, I will be at BlizzCon.
• 15:29
  What are the odds of that though?
• 15:33
  Mini, how are you? How are you feeling about
• 15:34
  BlizzCon? I bet higher on the odds, but
• 15:39
  take me. Over.
• 15:40
  Give me the over. I, I like OK, so are we going to
• 15:42
  talk about the lore of BlizzCon and the Mani curse?
• 15:44
  Because like, let's see here. Last BlizzCon I ended up not
• 15:50
  going because I fell ill and that sucked because I had like
• 15:54
  the press pass and everything to go.
• 15:57
  The first BlizzCon that I tried to go to, by the time I got
• 16:03
  back, my Guild had blown up and every and the Guild master was
• 16:09
  calling saying it was my fault. Like I had like I had like
• 16:12
  planned all of that. I know BlizzCon sometimes just
• 16:16
  or like the times that I've tried has just not worked out
• 16:19
  for me, but it's like it's such a fun thing.
• 16:21
  And yeah, I don't want to get political, but I could not pay
• 16:25
  me to go in the states right now.
• 16:26
  Anyways. What about you, Lex?
• 16:29
  I'm so excited. I had a lot of fun at BlizzCon
• 16:32
  last time. I'm really excited to be
• 16:34
  assuming you guys aren't intending to kick me out in the
• 16:36
  next year on a podcast and like like making content in a way
• 16:41
  that I can like do interviews with.
• 16:44
  Like I, I, I had a lot of fun at the Boston one where I got to go
• 16:47
  around and talk to people about their first experiences.
• 16:49
  I want to do something similar to that where I'm having like a,
• 16:51
  a nice little community mini episode that's more about like
• 16:55
  getting the vibes of being in World of Warcraft.
• 16:56
  I'm excited to I'm excited for all of you guys.
• 16:59
  I'm very excited to meet you guys.
• 17:01
  Please, genuinely, if you see me at BlizzCon, come up and say
• 17:03
  hello, I want to say hello to you.
• 17:06
  Not even in like a content creator, like I love my fans.
• 17:08
  Like, no, seriously, I am. I, when I'm at conventions, the
• 17:12
  idea of like just chatting with people randomly, like out on the
• 17:16
  con floor is like what I'm there for.
• 17:17
  And nobody does that because that's like weird and invasive.
• 17:20
  And so I also don't go up to random people and chat with
• 17:22
  them, but like, if you want to come out to me, come say hi.
• 17:28
  OK, well, yeah, so that is BlizzCon 2026 and I'm hoping
• 17:33
  everybody who's excited for it gets the tickets.
• 17:37
  Remember, they will go on sale 9:00 AM November 7th.
• 17:41
  That is in PST time. And do you little because
• 17:46
  remember that we just also did our little time change.
• 17:48
  So make sure you're double checking your time conversions.
• 17:53
  Which brings us not at all. But to Sean.
• 17:56
  Do you want to talk about the Unshackled Fury interview?
• 17:59
  I would love to. Yeah.
• 18:00
  That was, I'm not sure how that segue worked, but I'm, I'm with
• 18:03
  you. I'm with you.
• 18:05
  Yeah. So Unshackled Fury is, is
• 18:06
  another podcast, another Blizzard podcast or Warcraft
• 18:08
  podcast. And they recently celebrated
• 18:10
  their 10th anniversary and they got to celebrate it by
• 18:13
  interviewing Ian Hazacostas. And I, I, I like to think that
• 18:19
  I, I'm good at like picking out when an interview is good and
• 18:23
  being able to track whether or not it's done, well done.
• 18:25
  And this was the best interview in the Warcraft space that I've
• 18:30
  ever seen, period. Across the board.
• 18:33
  It started off really strong. They started off by like
• 18:36
  humanizing Ian and reminding everybody that, hey, he is a
• 18:39
  person and not just the face on thumbnails that some of us seem
• 18:43
  to think. And then they dove into some
• 18:46
  stuff and, and got some really good feedback from him and
• 18:49
  information from him. Ian was like surprisingly candid
• 18:52
  and refreshingly open during this interview.
• 18:55
  And just some of the highlights I wanted to touch on is that one
• 18:58
  of the things they asked him was how that what the biggest
• 19:01
  evolution in the Wow community was since he's joined the team.
• 19:04
  And he mentioned how prior to like 20/16/2017, you would get
• 19:08
  really diverse answers whenever you would talk to people at at
• 19:12
  an event, a con event, you know, on what their personal
• 19:15
  experience was. But more recently, it's around
• 19:18
  that point. And from that point forward,
• 19:20
  it's it's shifted and people are less likely to give their own
• 19:25
  personal reasons or feedback and it's more parroting of talking
• 19:32
  points they've heard on videos or from from larger content
• 19:35
  creators. And that doesn't, he said.
• 19:38
  That doesn't make the feedback any less valid, but it is
• 19:41
  definitely much less organic and it's more homogeneous.
• 19:45
  And a great example he gave was the affix system.
• 19:48
  How prior to the dragonflight revamp, everybody said you know,
• 19:51
  affixes are bad affixes are war within revamp.
• 19:54
  Sorry affixes are bad that they're ruining mythic plus
• 19:57
  these affixes are terrible. Have you know, fix this fix
• 19:59
  this, fix this. And so they they implemented the
• 20:02
  system they have now where affixes still very much exist
• 20:05
  for people up to keystone level 11 inclusive and then they don't
• 20:10
  exist afterwards but. So the people above you would
• 20:13
  expect to stop saying affixes are bad because they don't exist
• 20:16
  anymore. But miraculously, when the
• 20:18
  people at the higher level stopped complaining about
• 20:20
  affixes, all of the complaints for affixes from the bottom
• 20:23
  level also disappeared, which is really weird.
• 20:26
  I think so that he mentioned that that was one of the things
• 20:29
  he asked. They asked him flat out about
• 20:30
  the console thing. And Ian was like, no, if if we
• 20:33
  were bringing Warcraft to consoles, we would want to
• 20:35
  advertise that we would definitely be talking about it.
• 20:38
  We're very much focused on PC right now.
• 20:41
  We have no plans to come to console.
• 20:44
  And then the last, the last big point I wanted to highlight
• 20:46
  before we dive into what you guys thought of the interview is
• 20:49
  he got into the philosophy behind the pruning.
• 20:52
  And a really good analogy that I heard actually today on another
• 20:55
  podcast was that it's war Crafters.
• 20:57
  If you think of it like in the term of bodybuilding, they have
• 21:00
  been in the bulk up stage all this time.
• 21:02
  So yes, they're gaining muscle and they're gaining function,
• 21:04
  but they're also gaining some fat that they don't need.
• 21:07
  And so now they're in the cut stage of of bodybuilding where
• 21:09
  they're cutting out some of that stuff.
• 21:11
  And a great example Ian gave was that they looked at abilities
• 21:15
  that you typically macro together and then just send on
• 21:17
  cooldown because you just send it on cooldown.
• 21:20
  Weapons of order, for example, from monks, these abilities and
• 21:23
  he's like, what they are providing no skill
• 21:27
  representation and just adding complexity for the sake of
• 21:30
  complexity. He said that's the kind of stuff
• 21:31
  they wanted to target and pair down on.
• 21:33
  And I really liked hearing the philosophy from that point of
• 21:36
  view of like, we wanted to make it.
• 21:38
  We don't want to make it simple, but there's these things that
• 21:41
  you're doing just by mechanic. You know, we Gore says press
• 21:45
  this button every 45 seconds. So you just press that button
• 21:47
  every 45 seconds and it's not fun or engaging.
• 21:50
  And that's the kind of stuff they were targeting.
• 21:52
  This was this was a like a amazing interview.
• 21:55
  If you're listening to us right now and you haven't heard this
• 21:57
  when you finish our episode because you definitely want to
• 21:59
  listen to the end because we didn't tease it.
• 22:01
  But we have information on a Midnight Epic Edition giveaway
• 22:06
  for you at the end of this episode.
• 22:08
  So listen to the end of this episode.
• 22:09
  Find out how you can win that. And then go and check out the
• 22:13
  interview by Berserker Manny, Did you have a chance to listen
• 22:15
  to this interview? Yeah, I definitely went through
• 22:18
  it. I am.
• 22:19
  A lot of it is stuff where if you're paying attention, like
• 22:26
  that's just what the community has been.
• 22:28
  There will always be the microcosms where it's like, hey,
• 22:34
  it's me and my Guild and like my Guild has been saying this.
• 22:37
  And so like that shapes my opinion.
• 22:39
  And then there are people who are like on Twitter and they
• 22:42
  have their like cultivated like feed.
• 22:45
  And so it's like, Hey, everybody's saying this, right?
• 22:48
  And even in our conversations that we have here or the replies
• 22:53
  that we get to episodes be like, what the hell?
• 22:56
  Like those guys are playing a completely different game
• 22:59
  because what we're not in your bubble.
• 23:01
  Like, it's, it's very obvious for me sitting here with the two
• 23:07
  of you, because we're playing the same game from different
• 23:11
  perspectives. It's a lot less obvious for
• 23:15
  somebody who has their favorite creator and listens, listens to
• 23:18
  them at the exclusion of everybody else.
• 23:21
  And so you will have the same thing being told about like, Oh,
• 23:26
  yeah, like everybody says that paladins are dead right now and
• 23:29
  protection paladins are dead right now.
• 23:31
  And then somebody else will say, like, oh, well, no, actually,
• 23:34
  it's not that bad. Like, I played it myself.
• 23:36
  And like, this is this is this is what I think they're doing.
• 23:40
  And they'll get yelled down because the group consensus, the
• 23:43
  hive mind has now agreed that paladins are bad.
• 23:48
  And it's great to hear from Ian. And perhaps, like, the next time
• 23:54
  we have a conversation, we're like, they're not listening to
• 23:56
  us. It's like, but are they
• 23:59
  listening to the community even if it's not directly listening
• 24:02
  to us? Does Fazdev hear what I say and
• 24:06
  go, you know what, Manny? I hear what you're saying, but
• 24:10
  Sean's kind of got a point too, right?
• 24:12
  Like. Yeah, Manny.
• 24:15
  I'm hoping that day never comes because like, I've heard some of
• 24:18
  Sean's points, guys. Sean's points and if you're
• 24:21
  listening to this right now and you're thinking, man, I really
• 24:23
  don't know what the next talking point should be.
• 24:25
  I would like to suggest that you let Blizzard know that you don't
• 24:30
  want steady flight to be locked behind Pathfinder because a, a
• 24:37
  lot of us like boomer flight. Boomer flight is the way.
• 24:39
  Zoomer flight is fine. If you like Zoomer flight the,
• 24:42
  the, the dynamic flight, I'm happy for you.
• 24:44
  It's unlocked for you all the time.
• 24:46
  But some of us, either because of physical imitations or
• 24:50
  because it makes them nauseous, do not do well with dynamic
• 24:53
  flight. And to have our steady flight
• 24:56
  option locked behind Pathfinder makes that really frustrating
• 24:59
  for us and exclusionary. And I would like for that not to
• 25:02
  be the case. So if you're looking for a
• 25:04
  talking point, if you're like flipping through your creators
• 25:06
  this week and you haven't found a talking point yet that you're
• 25:08
  like, oh, that's the one I want to echo.
• 25:09
  I would like to present to you Boomer flight, not be locked
• 25:13
  behind Pathfinder. Lex, does that work for you?
• 25:16
  Oh yeah, I I am. I'm sure gonna no spoilers, but
• 25:20
  make this point again. I do think it's interesting to
• 25:24
  say that your team is focusing heavily on accessibility and
• 25:27
  also identify that certain things are accessibility related
• 25:29
  and also be like and so we made it hard to get.
• 25:32
  You'll get it eventually, but like first you could like not
• 25:35
  have as much fun with the game and not be able to get to all
• 25:37
  the herbs. And like, is that is that
• 25:40
  equality? So yeah, I agree with that.
• 25:43
  And I think I think what I take out of this is we need to come
• 25:45
  up with more talking points every episode because otherwise
• 25:48
  how are they, you know, they need to know that they came from
• 25:51
  for Azeroth. How Ian's never gonna know.
• 25:53
  They're gonna have like divert like complicated, like nuanced
• 25:56
  takes. Because obviously none of us
• 25:58
  have ever said anything lacking in nuance, especially not me.
• 26:00
  I would never say anything lacking in nuance.
• 26:03
  And like, I guarantee Fast Dev has gone into Ian's office and
• 26:06
  said, hey, I heard this on a podcast and it was such an
• 26:10
  unhinged take. Ian was immediately able to
• 26:12
  recognize that it came from the show.
• 26:17
  Feel like it would get a proper filter of like.
• 26:23
  Do I really need to bring this to the head of the entire
• 26:27
  division? You know, just.
• 26:29
  Festive won't bring anything from Frazzaroth to Ian because
• 26:32
  if not, like if he ever learns about this podcast, he'll listen
• 26:35
  to it and he'll be like, hey, those guys are mean.
• 26:39
  Yeah, unless Ian is festive. Can you imagine in that case, I
• 26:44
  feel like we we're going to start hitting a point of like
• 26:46
  him, just like turning out like the opposite of fast stuff.
• 26:49
  But like it's every time we say thing on the show, they go on,
• 26:52
  they're like we're actually making this forever.
• 26:54
  Idiots say you don't believe a word out of my mouth again.
• 27:01
  Yeah, it was great. It was definitely a great
• 27:03
  interview. I I suggest big time checking it
• 27:05
  out. Give it a listen.
• 27:07
  Berserker and Jez do a really, really great job.
• 27:09
  They the, the, the 1st 10 minutes are amazing.
• 27:13
  And there's one point when Berserker as he's getting into
• 27:15
  like Ian's, they go into Ian's back story and how he went to
• 27:18
  law school, how he ended up coming to work at Blizzard, what
• 27:21
  his family thought of it and all that.
• 27:22
  But at one point he says, you know, we're going to bring up,
• 27:25
  you know, we're going to humanize you.
• 27:26
  We're going to remind everybody that you're a human.
• 27:28
  Ian has this look in his face of just like, like he's just been
• 27:32
  staring into the void for so long and he and then somebody,
• 27:35
  somebody finally reached down a hand to help him.
• 27:37
  And he just looks like so relieved in that moment.
• 27:40
  It's it's a really great interview.
• 27:42
  Definitely check it out. A new thing.
• 27:46
  Well, Speaking of things, I'm going to stop trying to do
• 27:49
  segues. We're not.
• 27:51
  That's not my skill as an interview house.
• 27:54
  We're moving on. Not to put you back on the spot,
• 27:58
  Sean. Yeah.
• 27:59
  Do you want to say a little something to our team?
• 28:02
  Yeah, I definitely do. Am I going to do these
• 28:03
  back-to-back? It's OK.
• 28:05
  We're going to we're going to start with the thanks for the
• 28:08
  Patreon. So I, we want to give a special
• 28:09
  thanks to Shimmers, our new patron at 4 Azeros.
• 28:13
  Shimmers, thank you so much. We really appreciate you.
• 28:15
  And to all of our other patrons as well.
• 28:18
  We, we're so grateful. I've said it before, we're like
• 28:21
  Tinkerbell, we require your applause to live.
• 28:24
  So don't worry, Fast will always be free.
• 28:26
  But if you do enjoy the content we produce, you could consider
• 28:29
  pledging to our Patreon at patreon.com/FAZ.
• 28:34
  A great freeway to help promote the show is to leave a review on
• 28:38
  your podcast listener of choice. If you're on Spotify, you leave
• 28:40
  a review, preferably 5 stars, and if it's iPhones as well, you
• 28:45
  can leave a review, preferably 5 stars.
• 28:48
  And because those help the show get discovered by more people.
• 28:51
  And then we can grow the community of Fazians.
• 28:57
  We're still workshopping it. We're still workshopping it.
• 29:00
  I like Fazzers. I do think I like Fazzers.
• 29:03
  Set Fazzers to stunned. Set fazz exactly.
• 29:07
  I like that Manny loves it. It took me a little a couple
• 29:10
  seconds to to audio process that and that was actually very
• 29:13
  witty. Manny, I can't tell if he's just
• 29:18
  put a photo of himself and left the screen.
• 29:20
  He's. You know how like Lex goes to
• 29:23
  like Blitzcon and she just like, I'm just gonna stare into the
• 29:27
  void. Right, that's what's happening
• 29:30
  right now, was where Manny's Overwatch tournament.
• 29:34
  I don't know. He's a fully over stimulator.
• 29:37
  A little bit of behind the scenes was that we were saying
• 29:40
  like oh man, we've got all this stuff to to go over and are we
• 29:43
  going to get through it? It's like, oh we only got 3
• 29:46
  things and I'm like yeah we better get right to it then.
• 29:49
  Well, we're down. We we're cruising.
• 29:51
  We're down to the last two. We've only been.
• 29:52
  It's a 30 minute show so far, Manny, we're on fire.
• 29:55
  If anything I think we need to chat more.
• 29:57
  Yeah, that first 15 minutes don't count.
• 29:59
  Or doesn't count. Oh my goodness.
• 30:01
  The 1st 15 minutes doesn't count because Lex was in technical
• 30:05
  disarray. Imagine do we want Manny?
• 30:08
  Do you want to take the next one or would that be feeling like
• 30:11
  stealing from Sean? We can.
• 30:13
  I can cover it unless you want to, Sean.
• 30:16
  Now you got it Manny, get some feedback.
• 30:18
  All right, so another interview that we had was again with Ian
• 30:22
  Hasekosis and Andy Churchill, not Developer X, that they sat
• 30:27
  down with DVM and bigwigs authors to talk about the state
• 30:34
  of add-ons, the combat timeline and to find solutions for some
• 30:38
  pain points that these developers have been having.
• 30:41
  So there's a lot of detail that was covered by Mythical OSS
• 30:46
  update. He skipped one week just because
• 30:51
  he felt things were were covered in a previous one.
• 30:54
  But now we're hearing some things that are giving us a lot
• 30:57
  more information and in some cases maybe hope about what
• 31:03
  add-ons can do. So a big one that I that I saw
• 31:07
  was that player spell casts are no longer going to be secret
• 31:11
  values. That means the spells that you
• 31:13
  cast, the abilities that you use and the abilities that your pets
• 31:17
  use are free for add-ons to know that you've cast.
• 31:22
  That means that the Kelly can be back in business if he hadn't
• 31:26
  retired, I think yeah. No, no.
• 31:29
  OK, sorry. I know there's a there was a
• 31:31
  question about computational and my 2 Co hosts are are shaking
• 31:34
  their heads now. But to be a little bit more
• 31:37
  specific about this, it can tell that you've cast a ability, but
• 31:42
  it cannot tell if that ability has had it's it's cooldown
• 31:49
  modified. So if you have something that
• 31:52
  strictly has the same cooldown all the time, so let's say it's
• 31:56
  ascension, ascension, ascension goes off and you you get it for
• 32:01
  a period of time and it's back again in 2 minutes.
• 32:03
  That's great. It will always, it will say,
• 32:06
  hey, you've used ascension and then through logic and say in 2
• 32:11
  minutes, ascensions back up. But there are complications
• 32:15
  because it can't tell if you've used particular resources or if
• 32:20
  you've gained particular resources.
• 32:22
  So again, going with the shaman one, if you use ghost wolves as
• 32:27
  it stands right now in in 11.2, that has a cooldown reduction
• 32:36
  based on you gaining Maelstrom. And so it won't be able to tell
• 32:41
  if you've shortened that cooldown and then say it's back
• 32:44
  up again, right? Which is to say that yes, Kelly
• 32:48
  could work in some respects, but not in others, right?
• 32:52
  Because it. Wouldn't function at all because
• 32:55
  it can't register procs. It it's not able to tell you
• 32:59
  when to send spells because it doesn't know if the spells are
• 33:02
  off cooldown. Right.
• 33:03
  Yeah. So if you get an additional
• 33:04
  charge. Or yeah, or any kind of Cdr on
• 33:07
  them. And I don't know that it can
• 33:09
  tell how many mobs you're in combat with, just that you're in
• 33:14
  combat. I'm not sure.
• 33:17
  Couldn't read that from the cooldown, sorry.
• 33:18
  Rather the I, you know what, again, we are not add on
• 33:23
  authors. I do not know how much
• 33:25
  information is coming from the the rotational assistant that
• 33:31
  highlights buttons and knows how much you're in and how much that
• 33:35
  could be read from the API because that would obviously be
• 33:40
  able to inform head Kelly. Again, I don't know.
• 33:44
  Yeah, yeah, I I think first of all, just the number of classes,
• 33:46
  for example, Demon Hunter is kind of on and off.
• 33:49
  I think right now most people are running a talent where I
• 33:51
  deem like every time you use it, the cooldown gets a little bit
• 33:54
  shorter. So a lot of classes just
• 33:57
  wouldn't really be able to benefit from it.
• 33:59
  I also, I mean, if it's reading the cooldown rotation assist,
• 34:03
  it's reskinning rotation assist, which like, fair enough.
• 34:06
  I, I, I, I would be surprised if this is going to frankly, when I
• 34:10
  heard that and then I heard the caveat, I was like, oh, so then
• 34:15
  what is it? And like, I guess it's for the
• 34:16
  big cooldowns, right? It's for the things that are on
• 34:18
  a very steady timer that don't reset.
• 34:20
  But I, I can't, I sort of feel like they, they hamstrung it so
• 34:24
  high that like, what's the point?
• 34:28
  Like, OK, you gave us something that doesn't anyway.
• 34:30
  I don't know. I'm also not a cool down writer,
• 34:31
  so I don't know what an add on writer.
• 34:33
  So I don't know what they can actually do with that.
• 34:35
  Yeah, like I I know the complication of it not being it.
• 34:40
  Like again, it cannot read your you gaining maelstrom or a cool
• 34:49
  down being reduced because of something like anger management,
• 34:53
  I believe was the example used right.
• 34:57
  So it's it's definitely imperfect.
• 35:00
  And I think that is on purpose as they they spoke about with
• 35:04
  some of the restrictions where they're like, Hey, we do want
• 35:07
  some things to to be available, but we don't want it to think to
• 35:12
  you think for you. And so there's that.
• 35:18
  The next the next one is that the add-ons will be able to
• 35:26
  filter spells in the timeline. Now this is based off of a
• 35:31
  Blizzard logic. They will have some spells that
• 35:34
  are minor and some spells that are major.
• 35:39
  So they currently have some spells that are minor and some
• 35:41
  spells that are major. This will allow add-ons to
• 35:44
  individually go in and turn off explicit.
• 35:48
  Like I don't want to see any warnings about XYZ.
• 35:52
  I was a little bit confused in the video about because he was
• 35:55
  saying this communicates through the server.
• 35:58
  So you're like, you know, it's sending to server, don't send
• 36:01
  XYZ. And then that's I, I, I wasn't
• 36:04
  super clear on what that meant and how that was relevant.
• 36:06
  He made it sound very important but I couldn't parse out how.
• 36:10
  But I do you, you will be able to have an add on say I do not
• 36:14
  want to see this specific spell. Well, I could see it.
• 36:17
  I could see that being that it's like, Hey, here's the tank
• 36:21
  Buster. I am Adpsi don't need to see
• 36:24
  this tank Buster. And so it'll be like, don't send
• 36:26
  me anything about this tank Buster.
• 36:28
  Whereas if you're a healer, you're like, hey, you know, I do
• 36:30
  want I do want this because I want to know when my tank needs
• 36:33
  healing because the tank Buster does that or, or I need to send
• 36:36
  an external. But there was a part of the
• 36:42
  conversation. Perhaps I'm I'm confusing it
• 36:44
  because apparently I confused the first one.
• 36:47
  There was a part about like Blizzard putting things to minor
• 36:54
  abilities. And yes, 100%.
• 36:56
  And So what was that? About so he kept saying you
• 37:00
  couldn't filter abilities from the timeline, and he said that's
• 37:02
  not entirely true. There is a way to filter, but
• 37:05
  it's crude, and that crude way to filter it now is by
• 37:08
  Blizzard's option of filtering out for not the timeline, but
• 37:11
  for warnings. This is the text that appears on
• 37:13
  the screen, minor, medium and may whatever the three levels
• 37:17
  are of warnings. And so it doesn't do individual
• 37:20
  spells and it doesn't do it's not roll based.
• 37:22
  It's Blizzard considers this spell minor.
• 37:24
  So you and it's it'll still be in the timeline, but it won't
• 37:27
  show up in those combat warnings when you use the Blizzard filter
• 37:30
  that it has now. But DBM and Bigwigs will be able
• 37:34
  to filter. You'll be able to filter by roll
• 37:37
  and you'll be able to filter individual specific spells
• 37:39
  because if you can, they'll just build a pack of hey, here's all
• 37:42
  the tanks spells. We'll just filter all these for
• 37:43
  you. OK.
• 37:45
  Yeah, so it, so it's, it's a huge, it's a net positive.
• 37:48
  If Blizzard's timeline doesn't also include the ability to
• 37:53
  inherently natively filter by roll and by spell, then it
• 37:58
  becomes obsolete day one. You have to have DBM you don't
• 38:02
  have. You very much should have DBM or
• 38:04
  Bigwigs installed if Blizzard doesn't offer the same thing.
• 38:07
  So net positive for players potentially kneecapping their
• 38:11
  own combat timeline before it gets out of the gate.
• 38:15
  OK, they, they then said that there is no ability renaming.
• 38:21
  This is specifically to what you were speaking about two episodes
• 38:25
  ago, Sean, where you're like, hey, dementias has like void
• 38:30
  this and void that and whatever. And I don't know which one's the
• 38:32
  frontal and which ones which one does what.
• 38:35
  And I'd like it to be renamed to frontal or, or something along
• 38:41
  those lines. And this is where Blizzard came
• 38:43
  down hard and said, no, no, we're not allowing that.
• 38:45
  And this, I think I understand Blizzard's logic behind this and
• 38:52
  why they draw this, they draw this line.
• 38:55
  It is it's it's something that struck me when you were saying
• 38:59
  it last time that you don't know any of the abilities that
• 39:06
  they're doing. And to your credit, you said
• 39:08
  it's because they're all named the same thing.
• 39:10
  And that's like, that's a nightmare.
• 39:14
  But I think the problem is that they're all named the same
• 39:17
  thing, much like, and so it becomes hard to differentiate.
• 39:21
  If they had very evocative names, you would know, right
• 39:26
  That like Savage Backhand is, is like the tank Buster versus like
• 39:34
  pinning strike being something else.
• 39:35
  And you'd be like, oh, I'm not going to confuse Savage Backhand
• 39:38
  and pinning Strike because they sound so, so different, right?
• 39:42
  Even though you would need to learn it by looking at the
• 39:44
  dungeon journal or experiencing it to know which one was which.
• 39:48
  That would be knowledge that you would then carry into successive
• 39:50
  attempts versus if you just simply had it go and and say
• 39:57
  tank Buster, frontal dodge or like just renaming it to like
• 40:01
  what you are supposed to do. Then you would never learn at
• 40:05
  all. The names would become artifacts
• 40:08
  of something that that you never cared about, never took the time
• 40:12
  to do. And you and the and the way to
• 40:16
  skip you learning about the about it would be to install an
• 40:21
  add on that would just tell you what to do.
• 40:25
  Yeah, I'm going to pass this to Lex because I think she has some
• 40:27
  thoughts on it, but I just want to say before I do that that's
• 40:32
  probably mostly fine in a world where rating is the only content
• 40:35
  you do and you only have 9 bosses mechanics to learn.
• 40:37
  But now learn the names of all the all the enemies and all of
• 40:39
  the dungeons, trash and bosses on top of the raid bosses and
• 40:42
  enemies and hope that they're all named in a manner that lets
• 40:45
  you figure out what means what. But Lex, I I think you had some
• 40:48
  thoughts on this. Yeah, so, so I am not doomering
• 40:54
  after this. I, I, I think it's going to be
• 40:56
  fine. At least it's going to be fine
• 40:57
  for me. I am annoyed at Blizzard though,
• 41:01
  after this video, after this, I guess video, yes, with the
• 41:05
  conversation. I feel a lot like the Blizzard
• 41:10
  team has decided that the way that they play the game and they
• 41:15
  want us to engage with the game is inherently superior.
• 41:20
  And therefore like we have to like we're all going to have
• 41:22
  more fun if we do it their way, right?
• 41:24
  I personally, I'm going to gain no joy out of like learning the
• 41:30
  names of the different frontals and stuff.
• 41:31
  That's I don't think it's going to be that negative.
• 41:33
  And I think it might actually be fun for me when we're doing our
• 41:36
  blind runs. But I don't think like I'm going
• 41:38
  to be like, oh, this is so fun because I get to memorize 10
• 41:41
  different names every raid I have heard.
• 41:44
  And these are like YouTube comments.
• 41:45
  These aren't people that I've discussed this with deeply.
• 41:47
  I have heard people say with like some degree of like
• 41:50
  processing disorders or even like English as a second
• 41:53
  language that this is going to be really tough.
• 41:55
  Needing to parse that all out is going to be really complicated
• 41:59
  and it I, I, I think the thing that is frustrating me about
• 42:03
  this whole and I, I, when we finish talking about the entire
• 42:05
  video, because then I'm kind of interrupting and giving my
• 42:07
  thoughts midway through. I have, I have some bigger
• 42:09
  thoughts that I want to share about this.
• 42:13
  I, I feel like the joy of add-ons was that we could all
• 42:18
  have our own experience. And I think watching this video
• 42:21
  really made me think I do like, I, I was the one who was saying,
• 42:24
  I don't think that realistically Blizzard could have their own
• 42:27
  add-ons going and DBM and expect that anyone would use it.
• 42:30
  But like, honestly, I think I would.
• 42:32
  I think that if like I, I, I, I'm, I, I'm fine with a lot of
• 42:35
  these decisions. I'm fine making things a little
• 42:37
  bit more complicated and making it so I have to learn what a
• 42:39
  soak is and what other things are like.
• 42:41
  I, I think that could be fun, but I don't want other people to
• 42:46
  be strong armed into like, well, Ian, sorry, shouldn't we, we
• 42:48
  just humanized him. The devs feel that it's better
• 42:53
  for us to play this game by memorizing the names.
• 42:56
  They think that's an important skill thing.
• 42:57
  So we all have to do it because they've decided that's fun and
• 43:00
  you're going to have fun memorizing the names.
• 43:02
  That's how we're going to prove our skill.
• 43:04
  I, I don't like that aspect of it.
• 43:05
  I don't like that. I feel like we're all being
• 43:08
  forced to have fun in a certain way because if, if, if almost
• 43:11
  every single player in the team in in in World Warcraft rating
• 43:16
  turns on an add on that tells them what's a tank Buster,
• 43:20
  what's a soak, what's a frontal? It kind of seems like most
• 43:23
  players want that. Yeah, I mean, you're really just
• 43:27
  off it. It's not going to be fun.
• 43:29
  There are people who are going to trouble with it, but you're
• 43:31
  just going to be offloading that work onto the raid leader.
• 43:35
  So you won't have DBM or Bigwigs telling you what's a frontal or
• 43:37
  a soak, or it'll be the raid leader who has to tell you for
• 43:41
  all of these mechanics or your 21st man if you happen to be
• 43:43
  lucky enough to have one of those.
• 43:45
  It's it's not like like Ian specifically mentioned in the
• 43:49
  interview or Adam said that he did, that he wanted the
• 43:52
  understanding and recognizing the spell names as being part of
• 43:55
  the challenge of the fight. And that that doesn't sit great
• 43:59
  with me, but it's what their their their theory is.
• 44:03
  You had a rebuttal Manny to my comment about it's fine until
• 44:08
  you include eight dungeons with trash and bosses along with your
• 44:12
  9 bosses in the raid. Yeah.
• 44:16
  I mean, that presupposes that the only thing that's going to
• 44:19
  tell you something about the the ability is the name.
• 44:25
  I've done the dungeons it it literally is like there's
• 44:30
  nothing that indicates. So I've I've done the dungeons
• 44:33
  too. I'm I'm not talking if I'm
• 44:34
  ignorance. So when I talk about like the
• 44:40
  only thing being the name, I don't believe that to be true.
• 44:44
  I believe that there are like, even if you want to be pedantic
• 44:48
  and say the icon, right, the icon, but being more realistic
• 44:53
  about this conversation, right, knowing what a caster is, right,
• 44:59
  seeing how long a cast bar the cast is, seeing the cast
• 45:04
  animation, right, seeing that I can't interrupt it because it
• 45:08
  does show that it is interruptible.
• 45:09
  And I'm not saying that the that the current state of the alpha
• 45:14
  is perfect or doesn't need work. And I believe every single time
• 45:19
  Ian has had a conversation about this stuff or any of the
• 45:23
  developers have had a conversation about this, they
• 45:25
  have prefaced it's not perfect and more work needs to be done
• 45:30
  and we're looking for a conversation.
• 45:32
  But the, the entire fix isn't just the UI.
• 45:36
  If there are other things that can be done like increasing the
• 45:40
  cast time length, right? Like making the animation
• 45:45
  better, like differentiating the names of of abilities that work
• 45:50
  also helps with with this. If you are currently playing
• 45:55
  Fellowship and you see all the the dungeons there, I don't know
• 46:01
  of of like a bunch of different add-ons in fellowship that
• 46:05
  change the names of abilities so that you can so that you have to
• 46:09
  to follow it. From the gameplay that I saw
• 46:11
  when people were playing playing through, they were playing it
• 46:14
  pretty much without any add-ons that I saw when going from one
• 46:16
  stream to the next. It looked pretty base.
• 46:19
  So it seems to me that that world can exist and has been
• 46:23
  done So Blizzard could learn from that.
• 46:25
  I'm sure there's definite player, definite players and
• 46:30
  influencers out there that are saying, hey, Blizzard, look at
• 46:33
  it fellowship. They they could do it without a
• 46:35
  million add-ons and making and making it work.
• 46:37
  I'm just going to play fellowship.
• 46:39
  So if it can't exist like it seems it's I like, I don't want
• 46:45
  to say the same people who are saying you have to have add-ons
• 46:47
  or the same people saying Blizzard, you're stupid and do
• 46:49
  it like fellowship, right? And I don't even want to say
• 46:52
  that the Venn diagram is is even close to a circle, But both
• 46:55
  realities exist, right? So you can improve other parts
• 47:01
  of the game so that we're not relying on add-ons, so that the
• 47:05
  cast bar, the cast animation, various things in in the actual
• 47:11
  design of the game allow you to not rely so much on modified UI
• 47:17
  and that the base UI can also fill in some of that gap.
• 47:22
  And that's basically what I've been trying to say over the last
• 47:26
  three or four weeks that we've been having this conversation,
• 47:29
  is that I don't want to have to go to AUI or have the UI put up
• 47:36
  to the level where it does everything for me, right?
• 47:39
  I've seen Lex play and not have all the different different
• 47:45
  abilities put through and still have fun in dungeons.
• 47:48
  And maybe she she's not pushing as high as as other people.
• 47:52
  And for me as well because I don't push as high as other
• 47:55
  people and I don't have as many customizations to to the UI.
• 48:02
  But like we just came from a conversation where we're saying
• 48:06
  like the top players and the top influencers are saying this and
• 48:10
  that becomes like the thought of it.
• 48:12
  But like I'm not playing the same game as like even my friend
• 48:16
  Lithi, who is a great Raider, great great mythic plus person,
• 48:22
  but we have completely different wants and needs for this game.
• 48:26
  Or like Hawk Corrigan, like literally a person that I talked
• 48:32
  to about like shaman theory crafting.
• 48:35
  And he and I have like completely different ideas on
• 48:39
  like what we think is fun on like what cooldown should be and
• 48:44
  that's that sort of stuff. And I don't think that the game
• 48:49
  should be completely solved by the UII don't think that every
• 48:56
  part of the what is coming at me should be orderly quantified
• 49:06
  before I even see it. Like there should be some
• 49:08
  exploration and, and like attempting because I didn't know
• 49:13
  it did that. I and like, I think that's why I
• 49:17
  why I don't think that thing should be saying frontal all the
• 49:20
  all the time or like when I do the same 8 dungeons for three
• 49:25
  months for three months straight, because that only gets
• 49:29
  me halfway 60% of the way through through a season.
• 49:35
  I think at that point I don't even need to know the names
• 49:37
  anymore. I just know the abilities.
• 49:40
  Right. And the pugs I'm in, yeah.
• 49:42
  So I have two things I want to say really, I, I don't know that
• 49:45
  I disagree with you on face. I think that a lot of the like
• 49:48
  the points you're making, I, I agree fundamentally.
• 49:51
  One thing I want to say, I think this is going to hurt lower
• 49:55
  level players significantly more than upper level players.
• 49:59
  I think Sean is going to be fine, right?
• 50:01
  I think he's going to be frustrated.
• 50:02
  I think he's going to have to relearn, but he's played video
• 50:05
  games at a really high level to the point that I think all of
• 50:08
  this is extremely like this is going to kind of feel very takey
• 50:11
  pretty quickly to him. I, I, I think it's going to
• 50:14
  make, I think it's going to make mythic even harder for me or
• 50:16
  mythic plus even harder for me to do right.
• 50:18
  If I don't have something kind of walking me through what next
• 50:20
  steps are that's going to make an already really scary and and
• 50:23
  hard to access game mode really difficult.
• 50:26
  I think entry level rating is going to be a lot harder.
• 50:29
  I think LFR God help us all right, so that's point and and
• 50:34
  any the high level players have even said this, right, like the
• 50:36
  liquid. I think Max said something about
• 50:40
  like we're for us, this is going to be fine.
• 50:41
  We're not using that feature. This is going to be for the like
• 50:44
  mid to lower level players. I'm sure he didn't use that word
• 50:46
  because that was kind of condescending, but I'm the mid
• 50:48
  to lower level player of the script, so I feel like I can use
• 50:50
  it. The other thing I do want to say
• 50:52
  as someone who has played Final Fantasy, it is true that we
• 50:56
  don't use mods and add-ons to like tell us what to do.
• 51:00
  One thing that is true in Final Fantasy that I don't think this
• 51:02
  is true in World of Warcraft is that it is virtually required
• 51:06
  that you watch a video before you do a dungeon.
• 51:08
  Not rating like like to do a dungeon.
• 51:10
  I have my parents walk me through it because they've done
• 51:12
  it already, but they always watch a video beforehand because
• 51:15
  like you can't otherwise. I mean unless you have a team
• 51:17
  that's willing to like hold your hand and like explain why you
• 51:19
  died. But the amount of, OK, so also
• 51:23
  we have people in chat who play Final Fantasy and so maybe it's
• 51:26
  not bad. I, I, I've tried, I can't do it.
• 51:30
  It's really like, I, I find it really, really challenging to go
• 51:33
  through dungeons. I, I think, I think what's going
• 51:37
  to happen is that all of this like learning and and like like
• 51:40
  thing in information being passed to you is going to be off
• 51:44
  loaded elsewhere and it's going to require more work to get into
• 51:47
  it. I agree that the work that
• 51:50
  add-ons would do is going to be offloaded onto the player.
• 51:54
  I would say that the amount of work that is required should be
• 52:00
  lessened right. If you have less casters in a
• 52:05
  pack, then you don't need as much of the UI alerting you.
• 52:11
  If you have more time to respond to a interrupt, then you don't
• 52:16
  need the UI highlighting it as quickly.
• 52:19
  It like if you have more time to respond to mechanic, any
• 52:22
  mechanic I you don't need to rely on the UI as often.
• 52:26
  And so that's where I would prefer the them to put their
• 52:33
  their power into it because it seems, it seems like if I go
• 52:42
  back to when I was playing back in vanilla, I didn't know this
• 52:47
  stuff, the add-ons didn't exist. And I got through dungeons
• 52:50
  because they were designed for people not to have all these
• 52:54
  things. And when I was playing in Wrath
• 52:57
  and everybody remembers like how you could run through Wrath
• 53:00
  dungeons and just AOE down the stuff and there was no need.
• 53:04
  There was no need for any of this stuff.
• 53:08
  And I can go through my career and go into like Mr. Pandaria,
• 53:12
  where I didn't care. And even up to about, I think
• 53:18
  Legion was when I was like, OK, you know what?
• 53:21
  Now I've got this infinitely scaling system I need, I need
• 53:27
  these add-ons. But like, I remember playing in
• 53:31
  earlier dungeons and raids and because it was a difficult that
• 53:37
  I was more comfortable with, I could tell that there was going
• 53:41
  to be an ability because that that particular boss or
• 53:46
  something would have a cue that you would know.
• 53:49
  It's like when bosses have particular voice lines and
• 53:55
  you're like, I remember that voice line and you remember that
• 53:58
  ability that was going with it and you might not remember what
• 54:02
  that ability was called, right. And I think that is that's where
• 54:07
  I would want the game to go to rather than every ability being
• 54:12
  called frontal from frontal from Sean or like tail whip from Lex
• 54:18
  or or savage backhand or whatever to like as an allegory.
• 54:27
  Like I think that it's there are different things that obviously
• 54:33
  we're going to consider fun or not fun, right?
• 54:37
  The entry level of people playing and how much they're
• 54:42
  required to know is a pro and con versus the entry level of
• 54:48
  people playing. And how many things are they
• 54:50
  have to go outside the game to go get so that they can play the
• 54:54
  game. And I think that those things
• 54:57
  don't exist independently and have to be balanced.
• 55:01
  And if the in game stuff does a well a well enough job, then
• 55:09
  we're going to have a healthy environment, right?
• 55:14
  But like if I need to make sure that I am paying developer X or
• 55:20
  quasi every every month to get the to get this thing on day one
• 55:25
  or I'm not going to have it or I'm not going to have any
• 55:28
  ability to even do a + 2 key. That's not a reality I want to
• 55:34
  live in either. And I'd like.
• 55:35
  And so I don't think it's AI, do not think it's this false
• 55:39
  dichotomy where it has to be one or the other.
• 55:43
  I think that there is a ground where the add-ons that do the
• 55:49
  customization and do stuff will help Sean kill the game and have
• 55:54
  all the fun that he that he wants to.
• 55:57
  But it won't be necessary for like a slob like me to do my
• 56:02
  twelves. And I'll I'll get there slower
• 56:06
  because I don't have the don't have all the UI and stuff and
• 56:10
  the like the 21st person and somebody who's done the research
• 56:14
  for me. But I'll still have fun because
• 56:17
  that's the level of game that I want to play and the level of
• 56:20
  research that I want to do ahead of time.
• 56:23
  Except they're removing the ability for me to do it the way
• 56:26
  that I enjoy and just leaving it for you to do it the way you
• 56:28
  enjoy it. That's the whole premise of the
• 56:31
  add on removals. So.
• 56:32
  Well that's it. Doesn't matter.
• 56:34
  I look forward to the dungeon revamps when they remove half
• 56:37
  the casters in the packs that exist in there now and they make
• 56:40
  all of the mechanics super visible and easy to see.
• 56:43
  I'm looking forward to that. I can't wait to see that happen.
• 56:45
  Maybe next week's off a build. Next though is no ability timers
• 56:50
  on name plates. This is so I mentioned earlier
• 56:52
  that we got something that I asked for last week and this is
• 56:54
  one of those things. So right now if you have bigwigs
• 56:57
  installed or you can have weak or packs to do it, you get time
• 57:01
  timers on name plates to tell you the next time a big attack
• 57:05
  is coming up from an enemy. Super invaluable in dungeons
• 57:08
  because it lets you know in a trash pack, hey, I'm going to
• 57:11
  get a priority kick is coming up in 3 seconds.
• 57:13
  I have to hold my kick. I can't kick this lesser
• 57:15
  important cast that's coming. And we suspected that this was
• 57:19
  going to be something that was going to be removed and not put
• 57:22
  back in. But Ian Flatow said this is not
• 57:25
  something that they're interested in having in the
• 57:27
  game. They do not want you to know
• 57:29
  when major abilities are coming up on trash packs.
• 57:33
  So that will not be allowed in any form on the name plates now.
• 57:37
  So I think that is, is that a bummer?
• 57:39
  Yeah, it's a bummer. It's it's good to know when the
• 57:42
  big attacks are coming up so you can make sure you save a kick
• 57:44
  for it as opposed to, you know, just always holding kicks or
• 57:48
  sending a kick when you shouldn't ever know you don't
• 57:49
  have it. That's fine.
• 57:50
  You'll have to adapt to that in whatever way.
• 57:53
  Kicks and and stuns and stuff are are working a little bit
• 57:55
  differently now. So it might be fine.
• 57:57
  But what I was excited about, what I was glad for last week, I
• 58:00
  said, I just wanted them to come out and tell us your this thing
• 58:04
  X that you want or that you can do now you're not going to get
• 58:07
  it. So don't focus on it.
• 58:09
  So now we know we can shift any energy we had towards are we
• 58:12
  going to get time timers on the name plates and just remove it
• 58:16
  completely because they said, well, I don't know.
• 58:18
  So that was a huge, I mean losing it is a is an L but
• 58:21
  finding out that we're that we are losing it and this is
• 58:24
  intentionally gone was a huge WI think yeah, for me anyway.
• 58:30
  Super fair. I want to complain about
• 58:32
  something. Are you guys ready for me to be
• 58:33
  me and doomery? So I made a mention like 2
• 58:41
  minutes ago that I had other things that I wanted to complain
• 58:44
  about that I thought were potentially bigger issues with
• 58:46
  this and I want to talk about it.
• 58:48
  I want to talk about the fact that Blizzard is not allowing
• 58:51
  warnings if you are the target of a debuff.
• 58:53
  If you're a target of a spell, it's not allowing audio cues.
• 58:58
  They said. Ian explicitly said something
• 59:01
  along the lines of we think part of the game is parsing visual
• 59:06
  information and making decisions based on that visual
• 59:09
  information, so we don't want sounds telling you what to do.
• 59:14
  This is not super relevant to me, so I'm getting mad on behalf
• 59:18
  of communities that I'm not a part of.
• 59:19
  Fair enough. I don't think you can say that
• 59:23
  your goal is that like accessibility, the game will be
• 59:26
  equally accessible to people as it was before add-ons as it is
• 59:32
  now. And also be like, unless you're
• 59:34
  visually impaired then it's going to suck, right?
• 59:38
  Like we don't think, we don't think you should be rating.
• 59:40
  We don't think that's a thing you should be able to do because
• 59:42
  you need to be parsing visual information.
• 59:45
  That pissed me off. They are going to allow some
• 59:48
  degree of like they can tell you ranges.
• 59:52
  For example, in the dinosaur gorilla boss, it would tell they
• 59:58
  will allow some warnings that tell you some degree of like
• 1:00:02
  you're within 100 meters of acts audibly, but they're not they
• 1:00:06
  they won't let you do more than that.
• 1:00:08
  They won't they it's going to be really rigid what they allow you
• 1:00:10
  to do. And I I understand the argument
• 1:00:13
  they're making is that they're. They feel like people are just
• 1:00:18
  kind of like allowing sound to make decisions for them like
• 1:00:22
  move, run. So.
• 1:00:24
  And to be fair, if they did allow custom audio, it would
• 1:00:28
  ruin the whole point of not renaming abilities because you
• 1:00:30
  would just change the name to so whatever, or you'd get an add on
• 1:00:34
  that does it for you. I think I tend to fall on the
• 1:00:41
  line overall. I would rather people are able
• 1:00:45
  like I, I, I think I, I would rather that they figure out how
• 1:00:48
  to design around it if that means that certain people who
• 1:00:52
  otherwise would struggle to play can't.
• 1:00:56
  And I'm kind of frustrated that they decided that because they
• 1:00:59
  like I I made fun of them a little bit in the Discord, which
• 1:01:01
  you can join by going to bit dot LY slash fast discord like
• 1:01:05
  saying, oh, people are gonna people are going into like
• 1:01:08
  audio, like they're solving things just by audio instead of
• 1:01:11
  like looking and, and they're going on audio autopilot would
• 1:01:15
  be like it, it would seem very ridiculous if I said like, yeah,
• 1:01:17
  so I actually believe that fight should be plunged in darkness on
• 1:01:20
  random timers because I don't want you going on visual, visual
• 1:01:23
  audiopilot. I, I or visual autopilot.
• 1:01:26
  I want you to have to be listening and and figuring out
• 1:01:28
  where things go. And I will say I'm gonna make a,
• 1:01:30
  a quick little pause that I do understand that my guess I, I,
• 1:01:36
  I'm guessing that the like blind community that plays World
• 1:01:39
  Warcraft, I don't think that's huge.
• 1:01:42
  So it's possible that they were like, we're going to I, I don't
• 1:01:45
  know. I don't know, I'm frustrated.
• 1:01:47
  I'm mad at them. I think this is silly.
• 1:01:49
  And I, I think I, I understand the arguments.
• 1:01:52
  I think it's a stupid choice. I think it's a choice that
• 1:01:55
  removes people who historically had some ability to play from
• 1:02:00
  the game. I think especially for people
• 1:02:02
  who might struggle with parsing visual input, who are not like
• 1:02:05
  fully blind. I think this sucks.
• 1:02:07
  I think this is a crappy decision and I think it's a
• 1:02:10
  crappy reasoning and I don't think it's worth it.
• 1:02:12
  Again, it doesn't affect me. I'm going to be fine.
• 1:02:14
  Frankly, I, I don't really use sounds much like I use I, I kind
• 1:02:17
  of put all my things on one sound that's like, oh, notice
• 1:02:19
  something interesting happened. But I don't like that they're
• 1:02:23
  removing that possibility overall and they're saying
• 1:02:26
  there's no possibility they're going to bring it back.
• 1:02:28
  Yeah, audio cues on on debuffs is huge.
• 1:02:32
  Everybody, not everybody, a majority of people use them.
• 1:02:35
  Like you have a dot, you have a debuff that makes a noise here,
• 1:02:38
  hey, put an air horn on this. So, you know, you have to send a
• 1:02:40
  defensive, you know, when you have the dot.
• 1:02:42
  That kind of stuff is stuff you hear a lot in rating.
• 1:02:45
  Not being able to do that, it's going to be a learning curve for
• 1:02:48
  a lot of folks because I know a lot of Raiders now who struggle
• 1:02:52
  to recognize when they have a debuff on them or a mechanic
• 1:02:56
  that they have to deal with. You know, they've been marked
• 1:02:58
  with something and they have to do something without that audio
• 1:03:01
  cue screaming their name or, you know, telling them the day you
• 1:03:05
  have this thing. So that'll be learning.
• 1:03:08
  Yeah, it's they did say that they're going to allow custom
• 1:03:11
  audio sounds for spell casts, which is nice, but that doesn't
• 1:03:15
  include a debuff hitting you. So you would know, you could
• 1:03:19
  know I have a custom IQ that says, hey, he's casting the
• 1:03:22
  thing, look at your debuffs. But but you can't tell if you
• 1:03:25
  have it applied to you. So it just.
• 1:03:27
  It also emphasizes. Sorry, Audio queue or did they
• 1:03:30
  just say an audio queue? Sorry, it was just.
• 1:03:32
  Yeah, the custom, you're right. The custom audio sounds were for
• 1:03:34
  the cooldown manager. I extrapolated from that that
• 1:03:37
  we'd be able to use them on other things as well.
• 1:03:39
  You're right. No no, they did say you could do
• 1:03:41
  custom audio cues. He said for the DDM and big wigs
• 1:03:44
  warnings, custom audio cues they can have ADBM voice pack.
• 1:03:47
  OK, then I'm I yeah, I, I fully didn't remember.
• 1:03:50
  I I wasn't. Sure.
• 1:03:51
  So they could tell you that the cast is happening.
• 1:03:55
  Yeah, it'll be it. We it just highlights even more
• 1:03:59
  the need for filtering on their current debuff tracking, which
• 1:04:02
  is I mean, it might as well be non existent.
• 1:04:04
  It's just next year mini map and no filtering on it at all.
• 1:04:08
  So yeah, I think they they did say.
• 1:04:11
  That that's something they're working on, that that's like on
• 1:04:13
  the list of things that they're going to, they're putting, they,
• 1:04:16
  they're emphasizing, they understand the healers have
• 1:04:19
  gotten really the short end of the stick and.
• 1:04:21
  Yeah, not, not just not just debuffs on the RAID frames, but
• 1:04:24
  like your own personal debuffs, because there's no way to filter
• 1:04:29
  those and track them for yourself right now.
• 1:04:30
  So it's just they it, it needs to be implemented as we enter
• 1:04:35
  our last alpha phase, our last week of alpha.
• 1:04:38
  And then the last thing we just sort of buried the lead there
• 1:04:39
  was the custom sounds for the cooldown manager will be
• 1:04:41
  permitted, which is pretty good. And I think that's a win.
• 1:04:45
  We want custom sounds so that people can get the information
• 1:04:49
  the way they need to get the information or the way they
• 1:04:51
  prefer to get the information. And the great thing about custom
• 1:04:53
  sounds is if you don't want it, just don't use it.
• 1:04:55
  Use the bass UI as much as you want.
• 1:04:57
  You don't have to use the add-ons.
• 1:04:59
  Yeah, I don't think I have anything else to add on that.
• 1:05:03
  It was a good video. I definitely recommend checking
• 1:05:05
  it out. Adam goes into like really good
• 1:05:06
  detail on everything. Yeah.
• 1:05:09
  Manny, any last thoughts? I don't know if you have custom
• 1:05:17
  warnings, audio warnings on abilities and you do it on a per
• 1:05:23
  ability basis, what is to stop it from saying spread as the
• 1:05:29
  custom warning for this ability or saying frontal for the custom
• 1:05:33
  warning for that ability and aren't we going right back to
• 1:05:35
  where we are? Yeah, hopefully nothing.
• 1:05:38
  Hopefully nothing stops it because I want it.
• 1:05:42
  But if that's their intention, I don't think that that's what
• 1:05:45
  they're doing. If they're if they are trying to
• 1:05:47
  lock that out, then I think that there is.
• 1:05:51
  I think that the of encounter encounter Warner, the encounter,
• 1:05:56
  the encounter warnings are probably more restricted in the
• 1:06:02
  sounds used because that is exactly the sort of remove
• 1:06:09
  interpretation and I don't want to say thought, but in move it.
• 1:06:12
  But removing the interpretation of abilities that would put us
• 1:06:15
  right back to they may as well have just allowed us to rename.
• 1:06:21
  Yeah, yeah, I don't. I mean they would have to
• 1:06:23
  individually scan each audio file in an add on.
• 1:06:25
  I don't think Blizzard checks the add-ons now.
• 1:06:28
  Like it's up to Curseforge basically to verify an add on.
• 1:06:31
  Right, yeah. So my thought would be that the
• 1:06:33
  encounter warning in in general for the API wouldn't allow those
• 1:06:38
  custom audios. Yeah, I, I, I.
• 1:06:42
  I'm sorry, I'm just. Trying to see if I can find the
• 1:06:43
  video part and I don't think. I'm positive he said that you
• 1:06:46
  can have a custom audio. He said you can.
• 1:06:49
  So you can have a custom audio pack like we have for DBM right
• 1:06:51
  now is what he said. So and he was talking about the
• 1:06:54
  encounter warnings. We can go back to check it out
• 1:06:56
  after though. But yeah, I, I see your point.
• 1:06:58
  It's he just has to make the custom audio say frontal.
• 1:07:03
  But maybe that's a good workaround.
• 1:07:06
  Not required. Everybody else, you know, the
• 1:07:08
  visuals are going to be so clear.
• 1:07:09
  For everyone else, they don't need it, but those who prefer it
• 1:07:11
  can have it. Which would be great.
• 1:07:14
  I love that. I that's what I want.
• 1:07:16
  I I would like everyone and I mean, to be fair, I know what
• 1:07:20
  I'm describing is a world with free rein of add-ons, but I
• 1:07:22
  would like everyone to be able to determine what they need to
• 1:07:25
  make this game playable and fun and enjoy it like joyful for
• 1:07:28
  them. And I want them to have that and
• 1:07:31
  I want the ability to not do that if I don't want to.
• 1:07:35
  And you know, that's that's my take on the on the city.
• 1:07:42
  Do we want to talk about prey or do we want to say that for next?
• 1:07:46
  Time Now we should talk about prey.
• 1:07:47
  Let's talk about prey. We did all this testing.
• 1:07:53
  Yeah, I'm very excited. Does anyone want to take that
• 1:07:57
  specifically or should I go through it?
• 1:08:00
  Go ahead. I'll go through it.
• 1:08:01
  I'm doing great. I'm doing great hosting the way
• 1:08:03
  you host a podcast, you just make everyone else do the work
• 1:08:05
  for you. So Prey, we've talked about this
• 1:08:08
  a little bit. We've made little comments about
• 1:08:09
  not sure what it looks like, trying to like figure out from
• 1:08:11
  what they're saying how it's going to go.
• 1:08:13
  And now we have it on alpha. So we've actually tested, we
• 1:08:15
  have some ability at least of what they're thinking of it
• 1:08:16
  right now. And we have all gotten a chance
• 1:08:21
  to play around to see how we feel.
• 1:08:23
  So Prey is rural agnostic, anyone can do it.
• 1:08:28
  It's not going to be like determined based on like these
• 1:08:30
  are the tank prey. Every difficulty level of which
• 1:08:34
  there are three there's normal hard and nightmare will have 4
• 1:08:39
  hunts per week that they can complete.
• 1:08:41
  You can do the same target at different difficulty levels and
• 1:08:45
  locations. If you encounter it in in a new
• 1:08:49
  week, you can do any. So when you the way it's going
• 1:08:54
  to work more, at least currently, you pick a hunt.
• 1:08:57
  The hunt is in a zone. I know in the past we said any
• 1:09:00
  activity worldwide I believe would give you like was was part
• 1:09:05
  of the hunt. That is not true in current
• 1:09:08
  state. It is only the zone where you
• 1:09:10
  selected. If you do any, basically
• 1:09:12
  anything, world quests, fighting rare mobs, any I, I, I know
• 1:09:16
  there's others that I, I can't think of off the top of my head,
• 1:09:19
  but if you fight things in that zone, you get hunt progress you
• 1:09:24
  or sorry, prey progress. There's also prey specific
• 1:09:26
  activities you can do in those locations and that's going to
• 1:09:30
  help your your progress, which in current state kind of goes
• 1:09:34
  from nothing to you're getting attacked.
• 1:09:38
  There are, as I said, 3 difficulties.
• 1:09:39
  There's a normal, hard and nightmare.
• 1:09:41
  You do get gear from it now for your first kill of the week at a
• 1:09:45
  certain level you get one year piece.
• 1:09:49
  So you get veteran. Sorry, you know, you get
• 1:09:51
  adventurer gear for Normal, you get veteran gear for Hard, and
• 1:09:57
  you get champion gear for Nightmare, and you also get Dawn
• 1:10:01
  crests at the level above. So Normal's giving you veteran
• 1:10:03
  Dawn crests, Heart is giving you Champion Dawn crests, and
• 1:10:07
  Nightmare's also giving you Champion Dawn crests.
• 1:10:09
  I should learn to read forward before I start giving a pattern.
• 1:10:15
  So again, for the progress is actually a bunch of stuff you
• 1:10:18
  can do. You can.
• 1:10:18
  You're going to be fighting off ambushes.
• 1:10:20
  I'll give you my thoughts on those later.
• 1:10:21
  Don't worry putting a pin in that prey if they do this
• 1:10:26
  coalescing anguishes you can fight, which makes sense when
• 1:10:28
  you're in the prey, they walk you through the whole thing.
• 1:10:31
  Treasures. There's little traps that they
• 1:10:33
  drop because they're hunting you too.
• 1:10:35
  And if you disarm that you can you you get increased ability
• 1:10:39
  there too. There's little mini games where
• 1:10:41
  you can like chase them down. And of course, like I said,
• 1:10:44
  World quest will do it as well. You also they are timed so when
• 1:10:48
  you go in, once you enter the zone until you're done and it it
• 1:10:54
  it wouldn't quest completion, but the quest auto completes,
• 1:10:56
  such as, you know, pot you kill the thing and Hoopa do
• 1:10:58
  Congratulations, you get a time currently that's just fun
• 1:11:02
  information. There's nothing else going on
• 1:11:03
  there. So we all tested prey.
• 1:11:05
  We all had a little bit of a little bit of adventure.
• 1:11:07
  What do we think? Manny, I'll start with you.
• 1:11:10
  So it's a good end game activity.
• 1:11:14
  I'm gonna change my words from end game pillar after last week
• 1:11:17
  and game activity that I I enjoyed.
• 1:11:23
  I do think that there are a number of problems with it that
• 1:11:27
  they need to look at. Like major major 1 is how
• 1:11:31
  gamable the traps are. Again you can get progress from
• 1:11:37
  from doing many things but the traps one give you a lot of
• 1:11:40
  progress 2 will auto complete an ambush.
• 1:11:43
  If you get an ambush, you can throw that trap at the prey
• 1:11:47
  that's ambushed you and immediately get them to run
• 1:11:50
  away, which gives you gives you credit.
• 1:11:53
  And three traps are not limited like the other prey specific
• 1:12:00
  activities. Like there's only so much world
• 1:12:02
  quest, There's only so many treasures, there's only so many
• 1:12:05
  rares. You can collect traps from an
• 1:12:09
  area that is a prey specific world quest until you're done.
• 1:12:13
  And it has shifted me completing the praise from something like
• 1:12:20
  along the 12 minutes to sometimes under 6 minutes, 5
• 1:12:24
  minutes plus just run around, grab the traps.
• 1:12:27
  Oh, I, I encountered a rare, sorry, I encountered a fight and
• 1:12:31
  the ambush happened. Well, get out of here.
• 1:12:33
  I've got like 24 traps still in my inventory.
• 1:12:37
  But like there, there's like other things that I'll go into,
• 1:12:40
  but it's just to to illustrate that it is still working out the
• 1:12:44
  kinks. I, I wish it was role specific.
• 1:12:50
  I did this on my healer. I did this as a DPS.
• 1:12:54
  I did this as a tank and right now it's only fun as a DPS.
• 1:12:59
  It is very strange how they will have like senior tinker whatever
• 1:13:06
  his name is with like 2 interrupt abilities and healers
• 1:13:09
  don't have interrupts anymore. Congratulations, you're going to
• 1:13:13
  get wailed. Or on the opposite end I went on
• 1:13:15
  my blood DK and like the affixes are like supposed to be
• 1:13:19
  threatening and they are threatening as Adps but as a
• 1:13:22
  tank I just kind of laugh and go about my business.
• 1:13:25
  It's odd. Is there no is there no
• 1:13:29
  alteration for interrupts for healers like they said there was
• 1:13:32
  going to be? But they haven't made that
• 1:13:35
  change change for for the guy I switched to DPS, he like he does
• 1:13:42
  a shrink ray and then he does something else afterwards.
• 1:13:45
  If you somehow interrupt the shrink ray because hey shaman,
• 1:13:48
  I've got a 32nd interrupt, it's not enough friends.
• 1:13:51
  How do they how do healers deal with the I don't know the thing
• 1:13:54
  from beyond that appears it chases you and you interrupt it
• 1:13:57
  in a. Discontent, rude.
• 1:13:58
  It run away. It does like it's like because
• 1:14:02
  you said thing from Beyond, it's actually like echo of predation,
• 1:14:05
  but thing from Beyond is exactly what it's based on.
• 1:14:08
  And so any stun will will immediately cause it to enter to
• 1:14:14
  despawn. But you can also root the thing.
• 1:14:16
  So if you're like a druid or a shaman with the earth bind,
• 1:14:20
  right, you can do that. Yeah.
• 1:14:22
  But like, there's lots of options.
• 1:14:23
  And then of course, you can snare it and try and run away,
• 1:14:27
  throw a trap under it, whatever. Yeah, but that if that thing
• 1:14:31
  hits you, it's heavy damage as ADPS or or healer if you don't
• 1:14:37
  have a defensive up as a tank, Kind of just blood striked my
• 1:14:40
  way back and ignored it. Yeah.
• 1:14:44
  Yeah, it's it's big snoozefest. As a tank, it's I so one of two
• 1:14:53
  things I think should happen It it a you can do it in groups.
• 1:14:57
  So if you are a healer, just find a friend.
• 1:14:59
  You can do it in I presumably after normal 50.
• 1:15:03
  Just normal. Yeah, unless they change
• 1:15:05
  something I didn't try that. The final fight solo only.
• 1:15:08
  The final fight of the of Nightmare will only be allowed
• 1:15:14
  to be done in solo. So you are it was.
• 1:15:16
  Nightmare and hard because you get the weird little like like.
• 1:15:18
  The circle that goes around. Dan and I, Dan and I did it on
• 1:15:21
  his stream. Yeah, yeah, we did a full
• 1:15:24
  nightmare together. They definitely said it was
• 1:15:27
  solo, but I haven't tried. I didn't try.
• 1:15:28
  I've I've only been testing solo so I wouldn't have any ability
• 1:15:31
  to know where it's at, right? Now I'll go back and check his
• 1:15:33
  VOD or issued him a DMI know we did.
• 1:15:35
  I think we did it unless it wasn't nightmare.
• 1:15:38
  Anyway that's a good thing. I'll find out for sure.
• 1:15:43
  So it drops gear which is not going to be relevant for me
• 1:15:46
  outside of the first two weeks. Anybody who has access to mythic
• 1:15:48
  plus or raid, it's gear that you won't need outside of the first
• 1:15:53
  two weeks of, you know, farm trying to get early champion
• 1:15:56
  pieces, which it sounds like you can just get one and but that is
• 1:16:01
  all transmog, which is great. So I kind of like that it's easy
• 1:16:05
  because I can just farm it for transmog.
• 1:16:08
  It either needs to be way more difficult or roll specific like
• 1:16:12
  Manny mentioned difficulties or like if Jack that difficulty way
• 1:16:20
  up if you want it to be like if, if you want it to be a
• 1:16:22
  challenging content. But at 197 I was.
• 1:16:26
  And if even the debuff that they put on you that stacks up.
• 1:16:29
  I when I did one on stream, I took a phone call.
• 1:16:33
  I went and did the intro quest line as well and then went and
• 1:16:38
  did it was like 26 minutes. It took me.
• 1:16:39
  I think I had like 22 stacks of the the bleed or whatever it is
• 1:16:43
  that the damage increase taken. So it was damaged increase taken
• 1:16:46
  22 stacks and I still didn't There was no it's it's very,
• 1:16:50
  very easy, very, very. So I assume that tuning can go
• 1:16:53
  and they can tune that up. So it's more difficult, but I'd
• 1:16:56
  really like for it not to be, you know, one shot a bowl on
• 1:16:59
  nightmare in the first week for anybody who's in questing
• 1:17:03
  greens. That would be cool.
• 1:17:05
  But if you leave it that way, that's fine.
• 1:17:07
  It'll be like a weekly thing that I jump in to get some
• 1:17:08
  transmog for until I have all the transmog and then I'll
• 1:17:11
  ignore it. So I was positive on the way
• 1:17:13
  that it is because I plan to use it just for transmog farming,
• 1:17:16
  but there's it's not challenging content in its current state, I
• 1:17:20
  guess unless you're a healer because they don't have
• 1:17:24
  interrupts. So I had a lot of fun with I, I,
• 1:17:29
  I, I think Prey has a lot of potential.
• 1:17:32
  I do think I think it might be tuned differently specifically
• 1:17:38
  for alpha. That is my best guess right now.
• 1:17:40
  I think it is, and this might be a hot take in this group.
• 1:17:43
  I think it is way too fast. When I started, when I got into
• 1:17:47
  my very first prey, I start, I did like a little fight while I
• 1:17:50
  was doing a world quest to, to get my prey up and I was
• 1:17:55
  ambushed. I got the noise and all of a
• 1:17:57
  sudden there's a thing next to me and Oh my God.
• 1:17:58
  And I have to fight two things and it's crazy and it's very
• 1:18:00
  exciting. And I was like, oh wow, that was
• 1:18:02
  a lot of adrenaline. Can't believe that.
• 1:18:05
  I like, I just got my first ambush.
• 1:18:06
  That's so cool. I guess I'll keep going and see
• 1:18:08
  what happens next. And I did another world quest
• 1:18:10
  and I got into a little fight and all of a sudden I got them
• 1:18:12
  and I'm ambushed and there's someone fighting like oh wow, 2
• 1:18:15
  in a row? That's wild.
• 1:18:16
  I can't believe I got 2 ambushes in a row.
• 1:18:18
  I wonder what's going to happen next.
• 1:18:21
  I wonder when my next one's going to come.
• 1:18:22
  And I got into a third fight and it quickly became clear that
• 1:18:25
  you're getting ambushed every fight, which I personally think
• 1:18:32
  is sad because it was actually very exciting the first time I
• 1:18:36
  got ambushed. And I think if that was
• 1:18:38
  genuinely random, that would be really fun, right?
• 1:18:42
  And I think right now we were all hitting about.
• 1:18:45
  I was at about 9 minutes. I only did hard.
• 1:18:47
  I didn't do nightmare. I was scared, but I was getting
• 1:18:49
  about 9 minutes per fight. It sounds like Manny was
• 1:18:51
  somewhere in that range too. I I think especially because
• 1:18:56
  this is including world quest, it could go for a while because
• 1:18:59
  you can kind of go for a bit right, Especially if you know
• 1:19:02
  there's four per week if they're spread out between zones.
• 1:19:04
  So you can really work at it and grind at it.
• 1:19:07
  I think this this could be bumped up to a more complicated,
• 1:19:11
  more long term encounter. I do also feel, and to be fair,
• 1:19:16
  I only did a couple different fights because I got my map
• 1:19:18
  bugged out and I didn't know how to select other things.
• 1:19:21
  So I was able to do like two different zones.
• 1:19:24
  I didn't really feel like they were playing with mechanics the
• 1:19:31
  way that I I, I I really think the joy of open world and and
• 1:19:34
  solo content is that you can make mechanics really fun and
• 1:19:37
  interesting. And I was doing the harm deer
• 1:19:40
  one, which is really just like baby's first tank and spank like
• 1:19:46
  a couple interrupts, but they're not necessary.
• 1:19:48
  And sometimes ads come out And it just felt very dull.
• 1:19:53
  And I felt like this is a place where we can be really creative
• 1:19:56
  and have really fun puzzles and like, how are we going to engage
• 1:19:58
  with these mechanics? So I, I think it needs more, I
• 1:20:02
  think it needs to slow down. I think it needs to be more
• 1:20:04
  random and more exciting. And I think it's OK for it to be
• 1:20:08
  more of like a. Back, you know, like, oh, I'm
• 1:20:11
  going in the zone anyway, I might as well pick up the prey
• 1:20:13
  and then by the time I'm done with that, you know, running
• 1:20:16
  through that zone, I'll have my prey done versus a I'm going to
• 1:20:20
  go and I'm going to grind it out real quick and then I'm going to
• 1:20:22
  be done. But a this might be a take
• 1:20:25
  that's going to age really poorly when I'm kind of sick of
• 1:20:27
  doing things and I don't want to do the stupid freaking world
• 1:20:29
  quest again and I'm bored and I want to go and what do you mean
• 1:20:33
  to me? Like 30 minutes for me to finish
• 1:20:34
  the stupid prey. I just want stupid prey.
• 1:20:36
  So I might be sick of it after a while.
• 1:20:39
  And this might also not be a hot like it might be that most
• 1:20:41
  people really do just want to be a grind out thing.
• 1:20:43
  And I would be fun. I would think it's fun to have
• 1:20:45
  random ambushes, but that's a unique experience to me.
• 1:20:47
  And most people think that sounds terrible and bad.
• 1:20:53
  If it's longer than 7 minutes, I'm out.
• 1:20:57
  The 30I I do see the joy in Like if you're somebody who like is
• 1:21:00
  actively engaging in world content, you're doing world
• 1:21:03
  quests, you're bopping around the zones, you're doing some
• 1:21:05
  farming, you know what I mean? Mining and and herb picking or
• 1:21:08
  whatever. I could see you wanting it to be
• 1:21:10
  like something that sort of follows you out for a day or two
• 1:21:13
  and and drags it out. But not for IE.
• 1:21:17
  If I'm engaging with this, I want to be yeah, yeah, like I
• 1:21:20
  want to be in and out like a Band-Aid right off.
• 1:21:25
  I I'm somewhere in between. I think that Lex, you're right,
• 1:21:29
  the frequency at which you get ambushed is way too high.
• 1:21:32
  It is pretty much a guarantee that the first fight you get
• 1:21:36
  into in the zone is going to be an ambush.
• 1:21:40
  So much so that yeah, I was going starting a math out being
• 1:21:43
  like, OK, it's clearly got some internal cooldown so that it
• 1:21:47
  doesn't it doesn't proc immediately right afterwards,
• 1:21:50
  but it has a rising chance after after you leave combat.
• 1:21:55
  Therefore, if I'm out of combat for this long, I'm pretty much
• 1:21:58
  guaranteed to get a fight. And I don't like that it's way
• 1:22:03
  like this is going to be spoiled mathed out theory crafted in
• 1:22:10
  days and it's going to like remove a bit of the mystique
• 1:22:13
  from this. So I I want this, the ambushes
• 1:22:17
  themselves to be it's just a more of a special event.
• 1:22:23
  It doesn't need to be that like, hey, I touched the ground.
• 1:22:25
  Congratulations, you're you're getting ambushed.
• 1:22:29
  Another one that was really bad was the kill command.
• 1:22:34
  It's one that doesn't that doesn't scale.
• 1:22:37
  So if you get hit by by a tank, you're laughing.
• 1:22:39
  If you're a healer, you can just heal through it and ignore it.
• 1:22:43
  But those are the two roles that are going to have the hardest
• 1:22:45
  time killing something in that in that short window before you
• 1:22:48
  get the blood debt, that is the penalty for not killing
• 1:22:51
  something at that time. Actually, they're not, because
• 1:22:54
  it's also coded to not have any exclusions.
• 1:22:58
  So you could fight a proper enemy and kill it in time like
• 1:23:02
  intended, or you could turn around and one shot a critter
• 1:23:05
  and remove it. And that is stupid.
• 1:23:08
  Yeah. Yeah, like it got to the point
• 1:23:11
  where I'm just like, I'm just gonna put the this critter as my
• 1:23:15
  focus target and go about my business.
• 1:23:19
  It needs to be a. Tweet.
• 1:23:20
  You gotta tweet that. No, I, I it's already reported.
• 1:23:23
  It's already reported. Don't worry.
• 1:23:24
  They Blizzard, everybody knows. Blizzard knows, but everybody
• 1:23:28
  know. This no, that could be that
• 1:23:30
  could be when Ian's like, oh, you got that from fast.
• 1:23:32
  There you go, you got it here, folks.
• 1:23:37
  The like we already talked about the echo and how it it is
• 1:23:44
  incredibly painful if you don't have the right thing for it, but
• 1:23:48
  also the fact that you have to run away from it in a in an open
• 1:23:53
  world actually makes it cool. I kind of wish it couldn't get
• 1:23:56
  sneered like that. Would that would make it like a
• 1:24:00
  hearts done? Sure, if you hex it, sure right,
• 1:24:03
  but I don't think it should be able to get sneered like if you
• 1:24:06
  like, I don't know. It's a weird thing where I both
• 1:24:08
  want it to be more dangerous, but like either way, it's got a
• 1:24:12
  it's got a scale with with who it's against like a stronger dot
• 1:24:16
  if it's against the healer, just more raw damage.
• 1:24:20
  If you're a you're a tank so that it has the same level of
• 1:24:23
  threat. The stupid blood pools.
• 1:24:28
  Wow guys, you hate melee cuz if you are, if you're a range,
• 1:24:33
  you're just blowing them up from from afar and that you'd never
• 1:24:36
  have to deal with it. If you're a tank you don't care
• 1:24:39
  because it doesn't do any damage.
• 1:24:41
  It's it the general theme of this is that great idea, but you
• 1:24:46
  didn't really think about the variants of what what can
• 1:24:49
  happen. The the one thing that helps
• 1:24:52
  with the blood pools, Mammy, what you're going to want to do
• 1:24:55
  after you kill something, you're going to want to hit fell rush
• 1:24:58
  and then you're away. Or like they don't do enough
• 1:25:01
  damage in general. They don't do enough damage in
• 1:25:04
  general because you have to like literally be standing in it for
• 1:25:06
  a good long time or already be like super weak by the by the
• 1:25:09
  time you're sitting in it. Even as a DPSI generally want
• 1:25:13
  them to be like bursting. Go ahead, keep the circle right.
• 1:25:17
  Maybe have the dots like a dot be put on the player and stack
• 1:25:21
  up right so that you like have to like slow down on killing
• 1:25:26
  things that it actually effects range as much as it affects
• 1:25:32
  melee. That like it could stack up to
• 1:25:35
  be threatening if you're a tank and you pull everything and
• 1:25:37
  everything dies at the same time.
• 1:25:39
  Just something that like makes it more interesting.
• 1:25:44
  And big thing is when you're doing your final, your final
• 1:25:49
  hunt, like you've locked down your your prey.
• 1:25:53
  I would like maybe one or two affixes to get into that prey.
• 1:25:59
  Like as soon as you go into there, all your stacks of the
• 1:26:02
  debuff that Sean stacked up to 20 cleared away right that that
• 1:26:08
  to me feels a little weird. Like I'd like if in the fight it
• 1:26:12
  started stacking up maybe a little bit faster to be like
• 1:26:15
  hey, the prey is using this affix against you.
• 1:26:19
  But there are certain ones that would suck.
• 1:26:21
  Like if you are the praise specific world quest.
• 1:26:25
  Currently I've only seen three. There is the endurance where you
• 1:26:29
  have to run after the the target and you have to pick up these
• 1:26:34
  blood things and avoid the pools that they put down.
• 1:26:36
  And there are boots that will help help you keep up with
• 1:26:39
  speed. There is the one where there are
• 1:26:43
  a bunch of guardians that are themed after what you're what
• 1:26:46
  you're hunting and then you have to hit 5 different points and
• 1:26:50
  destroy, destroy things on those points.
• 1:26:52
  And then there's one where it's just like a bunch of enemies and
• 1:26:54
  go ahead and kill the enemies so that we can show off the ambush
• 1:26:56
  mechanic. I'd like more variety please in
• 1:27:00
  those. And I'd also think that you have
• 1:27:03
  to understand that if I am in a force movement chasing after
• 1:27:08
  this this guy that I will not kill because you cannot kill him
• 1:27:13
  or do abilities while you're running around.
• 1:27:15
  Maybe that's not the time to have killed command.
• 1:27:18
  Say you have to kill something because now you are forced to
• 1:27:22
  drop the chase and kill something, whether that's a
• 1:27:25
  critter or not, right? Or you're one of the classes
• 1:27:29
  that can ignore it anyways, AKA tank and it doesn't matter
• 1:27:33
  anyways. Again, it's just the entire
• 1:27:35
  system is such a cool idea and I enjoy it and I think it's it's
• 1:27:39
  great. Like obviously I've been like
• 1:27:42
  pulling at these different threads to see how it works.
• 1:27:44
  So I've been enjoying diving into it, but it just needs some
• 1:27:50
  refinement before it goes live, especially those traps.
• 1:27:53
  You should not be able to like go to 100% on traps that you
• 1:27:57
  shouldn't be able to take the one traps from one to the next.
• 1:28:01
  And on the higher difficulties, traps should not auto complete
• 1:28:04
  an ambush may maybe have them as like a set damage so that they
• 1:28:09
  one shot normal because hey, you're on normal.
• 1:28:11
  Congratulations, they do significant damage on hard, but
• 1:28:15
  on a nightmare difficulty, that trap is is not going to help you
• 1:28:20
  as much as you think You've really got to.
• 1:28:22
  You've really got to fight. You got to use your your own
• 1:28:25
  abilities. This is one thing I feel like it
• 1:28:27
  should be a caveat. Anytime I talk about solo
• 1:28:30
  activity or open world activity, there should be like a big sign
• 1:28:32
  above my head. I guess it shows up on your
• 1:28:34
  podcast screen where you're listening that says, remember,
• 1:28:37
  Lex exclusively plays a highly mobile like tanky mele DPS.
• 1:28:42
  Like I, I play a class that is uniquely built for solo play.
• 1:28:47
  So by the way, if you're thinking, I don't, I want to
• 1:28:49
  play do more solo play, but I feel like it really sucks.
• 1:28:51
  What should I play? You play Demon Hunter.
• 1:28:53
  It's highly mobile. So you can you can navigate
• 1:28:56
  around things. That's fine.
• 1:28:57
  It's tanky enough that you can take a few hits.
• 1:29:00
  It's not that the end of the world, but it's not so tanky
• 1:29:02
  that it's boring. And it like it, it's, it's just,
• 1:29:06
  it's, it's really good for solo content.
• 1:29:09
  So a lot of things that I find fun is because like, it's kind
• 1:29:13
  of made for me. I mean, yeah, but like different
• 1:29:17
  classes are going to have their different advantages and your
• 1:29:19
  mileage may vary. Somebody who plays Demon Hunter
• 1:29:22
  different than you or maybe plays the devourer spec may not
• 1:29:27
  may not get the same mileage even on the quote UN quote same
• 1:29:30
  class. So like it.
• 1:29:32
  I don't think that. Again, your opinion is not
• 1:29:36
  invalid. It is your opinion and your
• 1:29:38
  point of view, and people who often agree with you will
• 1:29:43
  understand that. People who often disagree with
• 1:29:45
  you, they can add the salt as they see fit.
• 1:29:48
  Season to your taste, friends, this is just our perspective.
• 1:29:51
  OK? The last thing I will say about
• 1:29:56
  the the entire thing is that I love that they have all these
• 1:30:03
  different characters with like their own little bit of lore and
• 1:30:07
  stuff in them and I took the time to read through that.
• 1:30:10
  I think this is a great way of them to like give like backdoor
• 1:30:13
  introductions to new characters or do cool little call backs
• 1:30:17
  from characters. Like when I saw a senior, senior
• 1:30:21
  inventor, whatever his name is, I was like, oh man, wouldn't
• 1:30:23
  that be great if that was like the, the mana storms, right?
• 1:30:29
  Or if, if they wanted to have like, oh, this Druid that's
• 1:30:33
  going around and killing. Remember that Druid way back
• 1:30:36
  when who was like, I don't know what kind of Druid I am and I'm
• 1:30:39
  incompetent stuff. What if he went bad?
• 1:30:42
  And like just cool little callbacks like that, I think
• 1:30:44
  would be a wonderful use of this, this system.
• 1:30:49
  And I kind of low key think that Astor or whatever his name is
• 1:30:54
  Astor, whatever. Astolor.
• 1:30:56
  Manny, he is one of the first Blood Knight.
• 1:30:58
  He helped create the Blood Knights.
• 1:31:01
  Leandro was the first, but he helped create the Blood Knights.
• 1:31:02
  Surely. Yeah.
• 1:31:03
  I want you to put some respect on that man's name.
• 1:31:06
  Astor. Astolor.
• 1:31:07
  Yeah, Astolor. It's a very respectful his kill
• 1:31:10
  command. The echo predation is ours,
• 1:31:14
  right? The torment is him tormenting us
• 1:31:18
  guys. I think we're the lab rat.
• 1:31:20
  He's sending us all these hunts and we think we're getting
• 1:31:22
  anguish from those guys. I think he's farming us the hero
• 1:31:25
  for anguish. And that would be so cool if
• 1:31:28
  they like capitalize on that story.
• 1:31:31
  One of my one of the folks in chat I might have been Nick
• 1:31:35
  suggested that he might be the season 3 Delve Nemesis, Astral
• 1:31:41
  or Blood Sworn as he delves back into blood magic which the
• 1:31:45
  elves, the blood elves are supposed to be moving away from.
• 1:31:48
  But I don't think he'll, I don't think it'll be him.
• 1:31:50
  I think it will be one of his creations will be the season 3
• 1:31:54
  nemesis. I don't think they're going to
• 1:31:56
  turn him. He's too well known and
• 1:31:59
  respected a character in the Sindore High heritage.
• 1:32:03
  That's true, they'd never take an elf and make them like deeply
• 1:32:06
  evil. Yeah, you and then like you
• 1:32:10
  like, OK, I do want to say Lex, you had a a problem with seeing
• 1:32:15
  other hunts because you when you like click in on a hunt and it
• 1:32:19
  zooms in, you can't zoom back out.
• 1:32:22
  I'm pretty sure they're going to fix it on the next build like
• 1:32:25
  so. I've I've heard that from
• 1:32:27
  sources, but in case they don't much like any of these, any of
• 1:32:31
  these other things that we're hoping will come in on the next
• 1:32:33
  one, just reload your UI and you'll get back to normal.
• 1:32:36
  I I learned that after I did the herrand deer one like 3 times
• 1:32:41
  and then I did one more and I was like OK, I want to go to bed
• 1:32:43
  there you. Go.
• 1:32:44
  So you heard it from Lex. Just reload your UI.
• 1:32:47
  Yeah. Of note, this week's alpha build
• 1:32:50
  is late. I have had a mind that there
• 1:32:56
  will be no available alpha build to play and that we're just
• 1:33:01
  going to go straight into beta week down for them to do
• 1:33:05
  changes. Then the information they gave
• 1:33:07
  the add on devs last week was wrong because they told them
• 1:33:11
  that it was an alpha build coming this week and then they
• 1:33:13
  reiterated it yesterday it. Could be data minable but not
• 1:33:16
  like something that goes through because it's all API changes,
• 1:33:20
  isn't it? I I thought they did confirm to
• 1:33:22
  somebody that there was a phase X.
• 1:33:24
  Yeah, they did the add on devs. They told them there would be a
• 1:33:26
  phase 6A phase six and the expected launch date was today.
• 1:33:29
  Yeah, yeah. No patch notes or anything
• 1:33:33
  though, there wasn't one on the road map.
• 1:33:35
  So many could be correct and maybe there isn't actually 1
• 1:33:39
  coming public and they were just waiting for the beta.
• 1:33:41
  That would be really weird. That's a whole week of testing
• 1:33:43
  that they would lose out on. If they needed to like, I don't
• 1:33:46
  know, take the the build, well, they can always build work on
• 1:33:50
  the build while one build is live, they can work on the
• 1:33:53
  future build. So there's no reason to have it
• 1:33:55
  down for a week. Yeah, they.
• 1:33:57
  Usually a build or two ahead, aren't they?
• 1:33:59
  Is that a rumor or is that true that?
• 1:34:01
  Why would you be two builds ahead when you commit a build?
• 1:34:06
  Why would you then say, OK, we can't, we're not going to put
• 1:34:09
  that lie for people to test. We're going to leave them with
• 1:34:11
  the old build and we're and we're going to work on some
• 1:34:14
  other build that we haven't committed but haven't put live.
• 1:34:18
  OK, all right. Maybe it's a myth.
• 1:34:21
  I don't know. I don't develop video games for
• 1:34:26
  a living, so I don't know. I have a lot of.
• 1:34:28
  Software and committee and and putting a a commit and not
• 1:34:33
  putting it live is a very odd choice unless it's like a a
• 1:34:36
  launch. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:34:40
  I believe you man, you sound very confident and elegant.
• 1:34:42
  I. Sold me.
• 1:34:44
  And these I'll, I'll repeat these talking points to somebody
• 1:34:46
  and they'll be like, oh shit, listen to.
• 1:34:48
  That he said it with all the confidence of a mediocre man on
• 1:34:50
  the Internet. So I believed him, I think.
• 1:34:51
  He's an excellent man on the Internet.
• 1:34:53
  Well, I know, but he said it with the confidence of.
• 1:34:57
  Right, Oh, that's fair of the confidence of because he is like
• 1:35:00
  clearly we all know he's not a mediocre.
• 1:35:02
  Man right name of this episode is mediocre.
• 1:35:04
  Man, do you want to wrap us up, Lex?
• 1:35:07
  Hold on before you wrap us up, if you are still listening at
• 1:35:10
  this point we are giving away 3 copies of the Midnight Epic
• 1:35:14
  edition. One on Twitter, you go and
• 1:35:18
  retweet it and follow us and like the tweet you get entered
• 1:35:21
  there. One on Instagram, you go and re.
• 1:35:23
  I don't know what they call it on Instagram, repost it and like
• 1:35:27
  it and follow us on Instagram and the third one on our YouTube
• 1:35:30
  channel, which is LinkedIn. The description here to this
• 1:35:34
  video directly. These are cross regions.
• 1:35:36
  So I any region. Oh, sorry, they're NA or EUI
• 1:35:39
  don't know if they're actually any region.
• 1:35:40
  I know they're definitely those two regions.
• 1:35:42
  Definitely not China. OK, So what about Korea?
• 1:35:46
  Taiwan. I think so I.
• 1:35:50
  We're not sure definitely at any you but to enter on YouTube.
• 1:35:53
  So three chances the you to enter on YouTube follow like
• 1:35:58
  subscribe to the YouTube channel or follow it the free 1 whatever
• 1:36:01
  the free version is on YouTube. I think it's subscribe and leave
• 1:36:03
  a comment like the video and leave a comment on the video
• 1:36:06
  that says Faz gift. And I got to be honest, if you
• 1:36:10
  want to win the epic edition, that's probably going to be the
• 1:36:12
  smallest pool of people. Your chances will be best, so
• 1:36:14
  head on over to our YouTube channel.
• 1:36:15
  We'll make sure the link to this video is in the description of
• 1:36:19
  this podcast, wherever you're listening to it.
• 1:36:20
  And we're doing the draw for all three of these on November 10th.
• 1:36:24
  So you will get beta access the day before beta goes live.
• 1:36:30
  It'll be we'll probably get together and record a draw maybe
• 1:36:32
  and then drop it as a video in our Discord.
• 1:36:34
  But then I'll watch slash slash discord.
• 1:36:36
  We haven't worked with the logistics of that yet, but
• 1:36:38
  November 10th is the draw date and we're going to post.
• 1:36:40
  I'll make a post in the Discord tomorrow once this is posted
• 1:36:43
  with links to all three ways to get entered.
• 1:36:47
  And thank you to Blizzard for providing us with these codes.
• 1:36:53
  We really appreciate it. I think I'm supposed to say, I
• 1:36:55
  don't know. We have to write while partner
• 1:36:57
  on the tweets, but I don't think we have to say while partner.
• 1:36:59
  It just seems weird to say. Anyway, we're well, partners.
• 1:37:01
  So thank you very much, Liz here for these codes.
• 1:37:06
  OK, now you can on the show. Yeah, thank you guys so much for
• 1:37:09
  listening. Go have fun, go hopefully good
• 1:37:11
  luck with the Epic edition and until next time they all your
• 1:37:13
  hits be good.