Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #273 - For Azeroth!: “Void of Content”
Transcript
- 0:00I'm still. I'm still not feeling it now
- 0:02don't be fooled. I have cleared the raid on LFR,
- 0:05Normal and Heroic on 2 tunes and I have grinded almost 2K already
- 0:09on my Warrior. For.
- 0:11Calendar. To the.
- 0:15Burning region for Gilnaeus, for the Lynch King, for the Sindora.
- 0:24For the alliance, for the. Horn for Azeroth.
- 0:32Hello and welcome to another episode of For Azeroth.
- 0:37I am one of your host Manny AKA the true villain Manny and I am
- 0:41joined by my Co host Lex Rant. Hello, Lex.
- 0:45Hello, Manny. And of course, the friend that I
- 0:50had to recruit, Sean. Hello.
- 0:53Hello. Hello.
- 0:53How are you? I'm I'm doing OK.
- 0:56Today was actually a pretty low energy day.
- 0:59I like, started work and then work started on me and it wasn't
- 1:04done until like I literally was just like, I need to take a
- 1:07break. And then you and Rochi were
- 1:10supposed to be like, hey, are you guys gonna do like dungeons
- 1:14on the Alpha? And I'm like, when is that?
- 1:16Let me just schedule my break for that.
- 1:21Break planned. We had a lot of fun.
- 1:22Those dungeons are a great time. I think those dungeons are like
- 1:26just really well tuned and we talked about a little bit last
- 1:31week. Of course we'll be talking about
- 1:34the the more because we've got an entirely new alpha build.
- 1:39But I I got to ask you guys, let's start with you, Sean, how
- 1:43is the World of Warcraft being treating you this week?
- 1:46Well, this week has been crazy. I I launched the last episode of
- 1:52season five of my podcast, recruited friend with guest Aya
- 1:56from Team Liquid. And then I jumped into Season 4.
- 1:59Now I'm not. I've said it before, fans, and
- 2:03I'm not a friend of season four. I got those backwards.
- 2:07I've said it before, friends. I'm not a fan of Season 4.
- 2:10Here we go. We'll scratch it and reverse it.
- 2:12And I'm still. I'm still not feeling it.
- 2:15Now don't be fooled, I have cleared the raid on LFR, Normal
- 2:18and Heroic on 2 tunes and I have grinded almost 2K already on my
- 2:23warrior. But the the the reason is I have
- 2:27addiction problems and I'm addicted to Warcraft.
- 2:31I wouldn't. Like it?
- 2:32I did it to death, but I don't like it.
- 2:34Yeah, that's I I made that. Made it mention on Twitter
- 2:37earlier. Like, don't.
- 2:38Please don't mistake my engagement with fun.
- 2:42How hard he's supposed to take it.
- 2:44Wow, he really hates it. He just going at it and get it
- 2:46again. This man just.
- 2:50Yeah, he's really unhappy. He's in another as your Vaults
- 2:5410. Oh my goodness.
- 2:57Oh. Yeah, but I'm playing a lot of
- 3:00that and obviously playing the new alpha build and doing the
- 3:03dungeons there. Big, big fan of the dungeons.
- 3:06I got to check though, that that's my week in a nutshell.
- 3:09Basically just grinding and dungeons.
- 3:11But I got to check we're still doing alpha watch for Lex.
- 3:13Lex, are you in? I am not.
- 3:15Although I I will. I will.
- 3:16I will be honest. You know how you were telling me
- 3:18about the PTR thing that I had to sign up for?
- 3:21May or may not have actually done that yet, but I'm not in
- 3:23alpha. I'm so sorry, alas.
- 3:26But this is exciting because you guys could teach me things.
- 3:28Like no no no wait wait, I I gotta check something because
- 3:31you didn't check for the PTR thing, but there's also
- 3:34something else that some people don't do.
- 3:36Have you turned off your Battle.net client like just like
- 3:40X out of your Battle.net and then reopened it?
- 3:43Well, I shut down my computer every today.
- 3:47Do you guys not do that? Am I not supposed to do that?
- 3:49Should I not be shutting down my computer?
- 3:51No. Yeah.
- 3:56Yeah, you shouldn't. But you know you do.
- 3:58You do? You like wait, I can't.
- 4:01I can't tell. If you're getting me.
- 4:02It's, it's. No.
- 4:03Yeah, I No, not a bit. Don't turn your computer off
- 4:06every day. That's wildly.
- 4:08Wildly, Yeah. Stand.
- 4:10Let it go. Put it to sleep.
- 4:11Put it in standby. Don't shut it down.
- 4:13Don't shut it down every day. That's.
- 4:15I mean, it's OK. It's fine.
- 4:16It won't affect it. It it actually, it actually
- 4:21lowers the lifespan of your computer significantly, Yeah.
- 4:25Yeah, yeah. Just put it to sleep, let it go
- 4:29to standby, set it to like if I walk away for too long it it
- 4:33goes to sleep. I thought I was doing right by
- 4:36my I was like, Oh, my poor. Little baby he needs.
- 4:38A little rest. He's been working so hard like
- 4:41you. Even 'cause your drive to work
- 4:44less if you put it to standby, they don't have to.
- 4:46They keep stuff ready, access right you're.
- 4:50Actually punishing it every night you go to bed and you say
- 4:52to your PCI, I am so disappointed in you again, I'll
- 4:56see you in the morning. It didn't do it right.
- 4:58Try. Again.
- 5:01Yeah. Do better tomorrow.
- 5:03You're like the Dread Pirate Roberts and Princess Bride.
- 5:06Good job today, Wesley. You did well.
- 5:09I'll most likely kill you. Sleep well.
- 5:10I'll most likely kill you in the morning.
- 5:12Yeah. Yeah, I.
- 5:17Feel so bad? Yeah, now if you have, like if
- 5:20you have a risk of power surges, if you don't, you should have a
- 5:22surge protector on there. But if you don't, and there's
- 5:23like a power surge risk, then it's probably better.
- 5:26Or if you know there's a storm coming up.
- 5:29But yeah, just let it go to sleep, you can.
- 5:31If you have a Windows PC, which I assume you do, you can click
- 5:33the little Windows icon in the bottom left corner and it should
- 5:35say you should see a little power symbol.
- 5:37You can click that and just hit sleep.
- 5:40This is this changed my life. Yeah, and and probably will make
- 5:45your computer last longer too. I said I gotta, I gotta put my
- 5:51computer to sleep. I mean, like, permanently.
- 5:54I need a new computer, folks. It's it's getting old.
- 5:58It's getting old. Want to play like games on like
- 6:01higher settings friends? It's so hard.
- 6:06Like I I mean, first of all, never mind.
- 6:09We're not going to get into the story of the fact that I called
- 6:12tech support because I was pressing the wrong power button
- 6:14when I was trying to turn on my PC.
- 6:16But. The wrong power button.
- 6:19There's multiple power buttons. Give it.
- 6:22A second Sean needed the 2nd to like, actually swallow his
- 6:25coffee there, that that was almost.
- 6:28I have a lot of questions Lex. So what happened was I was
- 6:33building this PC and I plugged in the power supply and I turned
- 6:39on the power supply and I went, damn, my PC is broken.
- 6:43It's not turning on. I must not have plugged
- 6:46something in, correct? And I was turning on and off.
- 6:48I was on video chat with Luke, the the Guild master and my
- 6:51Guild, and like, we were, and he was like, 'cause he wasn't
- 6:54really looking at what I was doing super closely.
- 6:56So I was like, I'm turning it on.
- 6:57He was like, and it's just like it's not doing anything.
- 6:59And I'm like, it's not doing anything.
- 7:00And he's like, we checked all the things, everything's
- 7:02connected. He was like, didn't you touch
- 7:04your your, like, whatever the thing, the the motherboard or
- 7:08whatever? Like could you have told him
- 7:09like, no, I was so careful. And then I took it back.
- 7:12You took it to the shop. And actually, while I was
- 7:15carrying it to bring it to the shop, I flipped it over for the
- 7:19first time since I built it. And I was like, oh.
- 7:23Wait, wait. Back up.
- 7:27You just need to back up for a second.
- 7:28Yeah, Yeah, OK. You, you physically built the
- 7:33PC. Oh yeah.
- 7:35And you didn't. You thought there was just the
- 7:41one? In retrospect, I don't know what
- 7:44I was thinking but like. I love this show.
- 7:49Some of the bane of building APC is actually connecting the front
- 7:52panel. So you went through the problem
- 7:55of connecting the front panel and then forgot it existed
- 7:58entirely? You know what, Lex?
- 8:00You should probably shut your computer off after that.
- 8:08Listen, I I love, I love technology for what it can do
- 8:12for me. I have never once done a single
- 8:14intelligent thing on technology. Like there's never my, my like
- 8:18my Co workers will message me because they know I'm a gamer.
- 8:21They're like Lex, you know, you know computers.
- 8:24Why is my computer doing this? And I'm like, girl, do you want
- 8:26me to call Luke for you? Like, I don't know what to tell
- 8:28you. There's a real thing here,
- 8:32right? Like, I'm of the generation
- 8:35where I know all the file folders and like, what the
- 8:38computer's doing behind. And a lot of the younger
- 8:41generation when I'm dealing with, like, my nieces, my
- 8:44nephew, when I'm dealing with like some of the young
- 8:47generation, I'm just sort of like, yeah, no, like you need to
- 8:50do this. And, like, it's probably
- 8:51directed to the wrong thing. And they're like, what?
- 8:53What, what is that? I just supposed to click the
- 8:55icon? Uncle Manny?
- 8:56What the hell, Uncle Manny? It's not working.
- 9:00It's a very strange, strange world.
- 9:02There there is definitely a like reverse, like my dad's
- 9:06generation into it. Usually I'm an I'm a big
- 9:09exception, but like. Don't don't with your dad's
- 9:12generation. Is that?
- 9:14I very carefully said my dad's generation and my I was going
- 9:17there, Manny, because I'm very nice and respectful.
- 9:20But that generation got into technology.
- 9:23And always we had to learn how to use technology, to use
- 9:25technology. And then the technology got so
- 9:27good then now nobody has to use it.
- 9:30And there was, OK, sorry, this is the last time.
- 9:33I'll go on. And then we'll talk about World
- 9:34of Warcraft in psychology, in like infant child development.
- 9:39They were teaching us about how babies don't understand how
- 9:41things work. And one of the ways, like, they
- 9:43were like babies, they seem like they know what what's going on,
- 9:45but they're really stupid. And one of the ways they taught
- 9:48us this was they were like, so if you give a baby an iPad and,
- 9:51like, it plays on the iPad, and then you unplug the iPad, even
- 9:54if it can see the cord is sitting over there, it's gonna
- 9:56keep trying to play on the iPad. I'm like yeah, because it
- 9:59doesn't understand how technology.
- 10:01Do you think you're bored knowing what charging cords are
- 10:04anyway? I think babies are very
- 10:06intelligent, but. Yeah, I'm glad you made that
- 10:09that back step there. Thank you.
- 10:10Thank you, Lex. I didn't want that hate mail.
- 10:13You think my baby's stupid? I argued very strongly that this
- 10:18did not actually teach us that babies were stupid, but I I
- 10:21think that babies are very smart, so jot that one down.
- 10:25If you're going to send hate mail for the show making
- 10:27statements about babies being stupid, you can direct that to
- 10:29me. Oh, OK well, you know what?
- 10:35The name of this episode is void of content.
- 10:39And while I would love to keep going with this intro, it's
- 10:44actually ironic title. We've got a lot of stuff going
- 10:48on in the World of Warcraft and I would love to cover that.
- 10:52So with that horrible segue, we got to talk about the breaking
- 10:58news. Just a couple of hours ago,
- 11:02Christy Golden went on Twitter and posted the news that she is
- 11:10no longer with Blizzard and in fact has not been with the
- 11:13company for quite a while. She was one of the people who
- 11:17was laid off when Microsoft came in and did some chopping, some
- 11:24slashing there. So we now know that she was laid
- 11:30off. And then part of the reason that
- 11:32we didn't hear from her directly immediately was before she could
- 11:38even get her head around it, she had a another tragedy, a death
- 11:44in the family. And that is just a horrible
- 11:49chain of events. Either one of those alone is
- 11:52just more than I would want for anybody.
- 11:54And then to have that back-to-back is is more than
- 11:59anybody should ever have to deal with.
- 12:03Yeah. So now everybody's going through
- 12:08this and it's like, OK, all right, what do you, what do you
- 12:11think about this light? This was a really shocking one
- 12:13to me because Golden is such a powerhouse of a writer.
- 12:18I will not at all claim to pretend that I know what was
- 12:21going on in Blizzard. I don't know what she was.
- 12:24You know how she was engaging with the story team there.
- 12:26I I don't know the the decision making process that happened
- 12:30behind this. But what I can say is, of the
- 12:33novels that I've read, overwhelmingly Golden's are the
- 12:36strongest. She has a way of doing character
- 12:40development and character writing that really allows the
- 12:44most well developed parts of the World of Warcraft floor to sing
- 12:49and and to learn this very this this realism to the World of
- 12:55Warcraft. It is genuinely stunning.
- 13:00The first World of Warcraft novel I ever read was Before the
- 13:02Storm, which is a golden novel and just everything I've read of
- 13:05hers, even even if I have like gripes with the content itself.
- 13:09I I love to critique, but the writing is just over the moon
- 13:15and I am really, really devastated to and really shocked
- 13:21to hear that she'll be leaving the team, that she did leave the
- 13:24team. And I'm sure she's she's going
- 13:26to land on her feet because again, just unbelievable writer
- 13:29any, any team would be so lucky to have her.
- 13:32But I'm really sad that that my team won't be the one to have
- 13:35her anymore. John.
- 13:40Yeah, Christie's name is synonymous with Warcraft, with
- 13:42the lore, with the books. It's the novels before her were
- 13:48novels and she really like came in and and everything elevated
- 13:53everything about it. It's going to be tough for her
- 13:55to be not there. I I don't envy whoever it is
- 14:00that writes the next book that doesn't have Golden on the title
- 14:03or on the on the author slot because they're going to be
- 14:06compared against her. Yeah.
- 14:09It's it's tough. It's I don't run a business I I
- 14:12can barely run my own life. So I don't pretend to know why
- 14:15the people decide who they decide if they pull names that
- 14:18have a hat or if there's reasons behind it.
- 14:20But it does sound like she has some opportunities coming up and
- 14:23that obviously she's going to be people will jump at the chance
- 14:26to work with her because she is just so amazing and she's going
- 14:28to be coming with a massive fan base already.
- 14:31So I look forward to seeing what she does next.
- 14:35Yeah, I think it's it's a big miss by Microsoft and Blizzard
- 14:39letting her go. I I mean, we're going to see
- 14:45books coming out alongside the stuff that's coming out this
- 14:49year in the game. So there is a tie in novel that
- 14:52is actually an anthology. Christy Golden did work on that,
- 14:56but she's not the only author who worked on that.
- 14:59So we're going to see Christy Golden writing part of it.
- 15:01We're going to see two other authors.
- 15:03Unfortunately the names don't come to my head head right now,
- 15:08but this is the one that's going to be following Gaslo, that's
- 15:10going to be following all these people who are tied in with The
- 15:16War Within. Now, is this going to be a sort
- 15:20of lead in novel like we get those like in between expansion
- 15:24novels sometimes, or is this going to be more like the War of
- 15:27the Scaleborn, where it is a tie in novel, but it isn't directly
- 15:33leading into the events of the of the expansion?
- 15:37I don't know. But that's going to be the last
- 15:40work we're going to see from Christy Golden in the next
- 15:43little bit. The other book that's going to
- 15:46be coming in is another exploring Azeroth.
- 15:52Now those ones were never really the same as what Christy Golden
- 15:56did. So it's going to be something
- 15:58that I doubt people are going to be able to do a strict
- 16:00comparison with, and that is with Alex, Alex, who did the
- 16:06last one exploring Northrend. So I think there's going to be
- 16:12two books and it's going to be like, I think the big one to
- 16:15look at is going to be that anthology where you're going to
- 16:17have two or two writers with their with their words directly
- 16:22beside Golden's. Yeah.
- 16:25But yeah, where it goes from here, I I don't know.
- 16:27I think the stuff that you have to think about is Jana when she
- 16:33had the Shanty Beware beware. That was golden.
- 16:39I mean, they work as a collaborative team.
- 16:41The the Rumble reveal, where they had the pinball machine and
- 16:45the the dancing and all of that. So her stone rumble, she worked
- 16:50on a number of these of these different things that weren't
- 16:53just World of Warcraft. So a lot of these franchises are
- 16:57going to be affected by it. And in fact, in her send off,
- 17:00she spoke about a line that she wrote for Overwatch.
- 17:04So like it's it's Blizzard as a whole that's going to be
- 17:09affected by this. And that kind of points to one
- 17:13thing. When they said that the World of
- 17:15Warcraft team, the Wild team, wasn't affected by the the
- 17:21layoffs, that was very corporate speak.
- 17:24That was very, hey, what do we define the Wow team as?
- 17:29Because Golden going, the Newser having left in November, they're
- 17:39they're cutting a five person team down to three people,
- 17:43right? And then you don't think that's
- 17:46going to affect the World of Warcraft or like like that's not
- 17:48affecting the Wow team? Well, and especially at a time
- 17:52when we've just promised really rapid expansions.
- 17:55Like, one thing I was thinking about when you're talking about
- 17:56the anthology Before the War Within is it Historically,
- 17:59there's always been at least one book between expansions, and I
- 18:02think usually a book published during an expansion too.
- 18:06Maybe just between maybe I'm losing my mind but like that's
- 18:10going to be really hard like the novels getting written as
- 18:13quickly as they are especially you know you mentioned the the
- 18:17exploring as Roth. There's also a Chronicles coming
- 18:19out. So it's not like the writing
- 18:21team has a a small job on their hands and so to try to pump out
- 18:26the the the novels as well in in rapid succession.
- 18:31And I mean the other thing bluntly is that it's very easy
- 18:34to write a bad video game novel right.
- 18:36So I, I, I, I'm just worried about the team like in like a a
- 18:42a human concern, the amount of Labor that's being put on these
- 18:45people's plates, like Oh my God, I really hope they're planning
- 18:50on on hiring some pretty big guns because that's a lot to put
- 18:55on a pretty small team of people.
- 18:57Yeah. My concern would be that instead
- 18:59of hiring extra writers or putting people on that team or
- 19:03putting on is that they'll contract it out and then you'll
- 19:05lose that continuity, that sense of, you know, the story coming
- 19:09from 1 Voice. I think that hurts the franchise
- 19:11more than than anything. It's just like you lose.
- 19:14I mean, we saw sort of what happened when Metzen left, like
- 19:18everything just sort of adjusted, right.
- 19:20It was OK, we have this story that sort of fits together and
- 19:23most things seem like it's all in the same track.
- 19:25And then all of a sudden, jagged, sharp turn left and
- 19:29yeah, so who knows? Who knows what happens to those
- 19:31books? It's, it's unfortunate, but it
- 19:34is the nature of the business I guess.
- 19:37So good luck to Christy with her next opportunities.
- 19:43And she did say that she's still open to working with Blizzard
- 19:47again. So hopefully they do reach out
- 19:50to her and maybe work with her in a contract way for some of
- 19:54these books like they were doing before they brought her onto the
- 19:57team. Because it was literally the
- 19:59quality of her work that she was an A person who was like outside
- 20:05of the team writing. And they're like, you know,
- 20:07these characters are speaking such good stuff to these
- 20:09characters. We want that voice continuously
- 20:12through. And so, yeah, this feels like a
- 20:14step back exactly the way that you're saying, Sean.
- 20:16But Christy Golden isn't the only thing leaving Coming with
- 20:20the War With then the companion app is also being retired from
- 20:25the game with the release of The War Within.
- 20:27That's how you segue Manny with the reason for the reason of the
- 20:29War again, the pre expansion content update.
- 20:32So 11.0 or I think that's what they call them or whatever it
- 20:37is, we're no longer going to support the Wow companion app.
- 20:41So after that date the players will not be able to update,
- 20:44download or use the companion app and its features.
- 20:47I got to know Lex, the companion app.
- 20:49Is this something you have ever used?
- 20:53So I used to use the companion app back when I had the auction
- 20:57house on it. That was a game changer.
- 21:01I after that got taken away, I stopped using the app.
- 21:06And if I to this day am mildly bitter that I can't use the
- 21:12auction house on my phone anymore, because that changed my
- 21:16whole life, So no, I don't. I I don't really.
- 21:19Right now. Yeah, what about you, Manny?
- 21:22Are you a big companion? Are you going to be sorely
- 21:23missing the companion app when it goes away?
- 21:26I mean, I'll tell you, I used to use that app so much constantly,
- 21:34but only for the auction house. I was like, right there with
- 21:36Lex, just like, man, it's like, OK, I'm done this, let me go
- 21:41check my auctions, let me go make some gold.
- 21:44That's how I made my first million of gold.
- 21:46It's like back in Miss a Pandaria running with the
- 21:49auction house app. My job at the time was not so
- 21:54happy that I was on my phone all the time.
- 21:56But you know what? That's earlier in my life.
- 21:59I'm a much better person. Now I've got two screens, so I
- 22:03can keep at least one eye on work.
- 22:07Young Manny. Young Manny was frivolous.
- 22:09He had time for his phone. Old man Manny.
- 22:11Old I guess old Manny makes more sense.
- 22:14He doesn't. There's no no phone time for old
- 22:16Manny. He needs an extra monitor for
- 22:18all his his during work scrolling.
- 22:22Yeah, Manny, I can't believe you'd ever use your phone during
- 22:25work hours. That's really unacceptable.
- 22:27And if you're my Guild and you're noticing that I reach Max
- 22:29rumble every at 2:00, around 2:15, don't worry about that.
- 22:32Don't think about it. It's fine.
- 22:35I'll defend myself at the current time.
- 22:38I don't know where my phone is, like, you can't you can't see
- 22:42it. Maybe I'll just turn this here.
- 22:43It's supposed to be here charging, and I don't know where
- 22:46it's where I put it. I'll have to find it after the
- 22:49show so. Like, I don't mind.
- 22:51The mind is the first thing to go when you hit a certain age.
- 22:54You know, back in Lexus, Daddy's generation.
- 22:57I don't want to specifically say your generation Manny, but Lexus
- 23:00Daddy generation also has a hard time keeping track of their
- 23:04phones. So just another weird
- 23:06coincidence I guess I I was super excited for the companion
- 23:10app Shadow Lands came out. I was like, oh man, I'm going to
- 23:11be on this companion app all the time.
- 23:13I'm going to rock all my mission tables.
- 23:15And then it turns out you needed an add on to do those mission
- 23:18tables properly because they were insanely difficult without
- 23:22it. And I uninstalled that app and
- 23:25never looked back and I I think obviously a lot of people
- 23:30weren't using it and that's why they are sun setting it now
- 23:33because they they would have the numbers to see who was engaging
- 23:36it with it and it's just obviously not worth the the dev
- 23:39hours to keep it updated. Yeah, I think what they could
- 23:43have done is just allow us to do work orders through our phone.
- 23:46I would have been back on that thing.
- 23:48I've been like, beep, little notification.
- 23:50You've got to work on a hell yeah, Let's do this.
- 23:54Yeah, that would have been good. Yeah, they could have brought
- 23:56the auction house back. I thought they were planning to
- 24:00at one point bring the auction house back like I had set the
- 24:04API now that it like they were originally got rid of it because
- 24:07the bots and all that sort of stuff and they weren't fixed it.
- 24:10But yeah, I just think the damage sort of had been done.
- 24:13People had sort of walked away and were coming back.
- 24:15It's a lot harder to like get somebody back to something that
- 24:18it is to introduce somebody, something to somebody.
- 24:21And yeah, mission tables weren't it.
- 24:24Mission tables don't exist anymore.
- 24:26The auction house wasn't doing it.
- 24:28They had shut that down. What was there left?
- 24:31Like, I guess Guild talk, but we've got the Battle.net app for
- 24:35that now, if you want to do that.
- 24:37But like, who uses that? Just get Discord guys.
- 24:40Yeah, yeah. Even even when people are online
- 24:42in our Guild, we're talking in Discord instead of Guild chat.
- 24:46I mean, I think that might be kind of part of it, is that
- 24:49everything was either really difficult to put on the app or
- 24:52had kind of been outsourced, right?
- 24:54Like, I remember when World of Warcraft was really excited
- 24:56about communities and that maybe some people are still using
- 25:00communities. Overwhelmingly, people were just
- 25:02like, well, we're on Discord. Yeah, yeah, the community
- 25:06communities are great, but they still have so many restrictions
- 25:09amongst them. So it's like, you got to be B
- 25:11net friends. You can't got to be the same
- 25:13faction if you're not B net friends.
- 25:15And it's just like. Yeah.
- 25:18And it's stupid restrictions too, because, like, it didn't
- 25:22need to be this way. It could have been something
- 25:25that like, hey, we like, you got the game, you got the app,
- 25:28you're great, you could do all the all the stuff through that.
- 25:32But like, they know people use Discord.
- 25:35They know people have been using, like, before Discord.
- 25:38What was it like Ventrilo or whatever there was there.
- 25:43And yeah, Teamspeak. Oh man, go back to Teamspeak.
- 25:47And yeah, they would they limit to 1000 a thousand people.
- 25:54So you can't really have a a community and like, it's just
- 25:58bizarre. So yeah, it was designed with
- 26:00limitations. It fell on its limitations.
- 26:03Clearly none of us were using it.
- 26:05So unlike the last story, we're not sad to see this one go.
- 26:09Nope. No we are not.
- 26:11Manny, this is a lot of bad news.
- 26:12I'm really bummed out. Now we have.
- 26:13We started the show on this really nice eye.
- 26:15We were all having laughs cause Lex can't turn her computer on.
- 26:19And then we just went into this downer.
- 26:21Give me some more good news Manny.
- 26:22What is on the horizon for Warcraft?
- 26:24Oh yeah, no, there's a lot of good stuff on the horizon.
- 26:27We have 10 point 2.7 which will be launching next week.
- 26:35I'm I'm really hyped about this. Not so much for 10 point 2.7
- 26:39itself, but the week afterwards we get Mr. Pandaria Remix and I
- 26:46like. I maybe I haven't been on live
- 26:48servers as much as I would like to have been on.
- 26:51I haven't been running LFR, normal heroic versions of the
- 26:55RAID that I hate, but that's because like when I'm like not
- 27:00into something, I just don't play it, man.
- 27:02Like I I got other things to do. I got little time 10 point 2.7
- 27:07is going to be be back on live servers.
- 27:09I think that like we're going to get some cool stuff with
- 27:13Zalatath and like leading up to that stuff.
- 27:16But I do want to mention guys that like even though like
- 27:19there's some stories that's leading into the next expansion,
- 27:23it's not everything before we get to the next expansion.
- 27:29They're still going to be the expansion patch.
- 27:33And that's going to have the the proper pre expansion event where
- 27:37whatever thing like we had with like you know the Dark Portal
- 27:42opening up back in BC or the the Scourge invasions in Rathalip
- 27:47King and so on and so on. That is coming with the 11 point
- 27:51O update. So what exactly we're going to
- 27:55see with this Dark Heart content, I assume it's going to
- 28:00be a couple of story events. They've unlocked everything
- 28:05that's that was like locked behind your renown with the
- 28:09flight. So like if for some reason you
- 28:11haven't done that stuff over the last two years, now that's going
- 28:14to be available. We're getting heritage armor for
- 28:19the Janai and the Dark Trolls. I'm sorry, not dark trolls,
- 28:22rather the dark spear trolls. I am really loving the dark
- 28:29Spear One, 'cause it's got the entire face mask right, like the
- 28:34it's got the entire witch doctor kind of thing going and I I love
- 28:39it. The Drenai one, have you guys
- 28:41seen the Drenai 1? No.
- 28:44Yeah, it's it's very reminiscent of the concept art for the
- 28:49Drenai. It's very travelery, a lot of
- 28:52robes, flowy stuff. A shaman totem is the shoulder
- 28:56piece. A drain eye shaman totem is the
- 28:58shoulder piece. Oh, I have seen this.
- 29:00Oh my God, that is very exciting.
- 29:02Yeah, I'm pretty. I'm looking forward to it.
- 29:04Lex, you're my lore link. You're my link to the lore.
- 29:08I mean, you can say that when Manny and I were talking lore on
- 29:12the YouTube, you should go check it out.
- 29:14I did forget an entire major segment of Legion lore, so you
- 29:20know, it might not be the best link, but what do you what do
- 29:22you what? Do you want?
- 29:23To know 10 point 2.7. So I'm I'm obviously excited for
- 29:25Panda Remix. I'm going to get my my Panda on
- 29:28but how excited should I be? Like what?
- 29:31Where should I set my hype levels for the the quest
- 29:34stories, the stories we're getting in 10 point 2.7, like on
- 29:37a scale of, you know, one to 10? Oh, so I always set it at a 10
- 29:43because it's going to be fun and you're going to go talk to
- 29:45people and they're going to, like, tell you things.
- 29:46And you're like, I didn't think of that.
- 29:48And then you're going to walk around and you get to go slowly
- 29:50because you're just bopping around and looking at all the
- 29:52pretty trees. And you're going to like, that's
- 29:53a really pretty tree. I forgot how pretty the trees in
- 29:55World of Warcraft are. And then they send you somewhere
- 29:57else and you learn something else you didn't know.
- 29:58So I put it at 10. Yeah. 10 All right, Ten.
- 30:01That also sounds like the best way to experience any new batch
- 30:04content. I have a lot of fun and then my
- 30:07Guild is like we have to get ready for raid and and then I
- 30:09have to hurry up. But up until then I'm it's
- 30:11great. Those bastards, How dare they
- 30:14want you, You've been rumbling and trees to look at.
- 30:18There's so much going. On I have to say this is the
- 30:22first time that like a patch is going to go live in forever
- 30:26where I haven't been on the PTR testing it if they've allowed
- 30:29it. On the PTR I I didn't get any
- 30:31time with with the Dark Heart stuff.
- 30:34So when we when we are doing the story stuff, it's going to be
- 30:40brand new to me. It's going to be like like like
- 30:44I said it's going to be like whoa wait when did that come in
- 30:46there? But like obviously I am a man on
- 30:50the Internet. So I've read some things.
- 30:52So I I know that we're going to be doing things with like the
- 30:58the DRAC theater fine. Like, they're a thing that in
- 31:02Dragonfly, and hey, we're doing more stuff with them.
- 31:04So we have Emberthal, who we've started this expansion with.
- 31:09With the cinematic here comes Norzamu and like, let me tell
- 31:13you about like, the actual history of the the drag theater.
- 31:17And now we're coming back. And Emberthal never chose a
- 31:21visage, never had a visage for him, and now Emberthal's making
- 31:27that choice. Do you think that's how they're
- 31:30going to unlock other race visage forms?
- 31:34Amberthell's going to pick a gnome or something, and it's
- 31:36going to let other drag here pick different races.
- 31:40I don't know, and in fact people on the PTR do not know what the
- 31:45final step of this is, so it could be anything.
- 31:49I think that would be really. Oh, they hid the final step.
- 31:52That's kind of a sign of it. All right, You here to hear
- 31:55First for Azeroth breaking this news at after the 10 point 2.7
- 32:00patch releases, all drag here will be able to pick any
- 32:03different race for their visage forms.
- 32:06That's exciting stuff. I am at a 10 Let.
- 32:09You all right? That would that would be
- 32:13amazing. For legal reasons, this is not
- 32:16an actual guarantee. But like, it can't happen
- 32:21immediately. It can't happen immediately
- 32:23because they said that in 11 Point O Drag Theater can still
- 32:27only be evokers. Yeah, you don't have Doesn't
- 32:32your visage form? Doesn't it defect your class?
- 32:34Avoker. Yeah.
- 32:37You but like your race is. No, but there's so evokers are
- 32:42the class drag theory of the race.
- 32:44The drag theory is what chooses the visage form.
- 32:46The drag there looks like a dragon, but the visage form is
- 32:49when it looks like, in this case, a blood elf male or a
- 32:51human female. By all you're doing is giving
- 32:54them different options for that. They'll still turn back into a
- 32:56dragon when they do their useless breath attacks.
- 32:59Wait, is that actually the only two drag their options?
- 33:01Is blood off male male or human? Female.
- 33:03Yeah, they're like slight variations of blood elf, male
- 33:06and human female. But it's like, it's like when
- 33:10you watch an Usher concert, you're like, that's Michael
- 33:12Jackson. It's obvious.
- 33:13It's very obviously based heavily on those other things.
- 33:18I love Usher. This is not a slide against
- 33:20Usher. The man is legend.
- 33:23Okay. I honestly would love if they
- 33:26just opened up the Jack there customization so you could have
- 33:30your your form be like torn based or or Volpera based or.
- 33:35You gotta say with confidence happening in 10 point 2.7,
- 33:40there's two things people on the Internet love predictions that
- 33:42are right and telling us we're wrong.
- 33:44This is covering both bases. OK, we'll see.
- 33:49We'll see. I'm not so sure.
- 33:51I think that there's a there's a way to go, but like this could
- 33:55definitely be the story thread that leads into that because
- 33:59same thing with Augvoker, they started it.
- 34:02It wasn't there right when the expansion started, but the
- 34:05storyline was there that led into it.
- 34:07So if they do this and Emberthal is what leads into it, so it
- 34:11actually has a story reason for it. 10 out of 10 That's what I
- 34:15would love. That would be very fun.
- 34:18Stop saying if when Alexa's with me, It's happening right, Lance?
- 34:23I will say the more we talk, I have not clearly never really
- 34:26gotten into Dragonborn, but this is kind of convincing me.
- 34:31This actually does make a lot of sense.
- 34:34OK, fine. Later this year, Drag fear.
- 34:38All the different visages, all the different races.
- 34:42Tuesday the 7th. Which is this year I.
- 34:51No, it's not Tuesday. It's later this.
- 34:54Year, OK. Later this year.
- 34:56All right. When?
- 34:58Yeah, there we go. But also later this year,
- 35:02something that isn't happening. Wow.
- 35:04We're going right back to bummer news with the biz.
- 35:07Let's do that. No, no, no backup.
- 35:09I want to hear Lexington OK? No, because this is probably
- 35:12really stupid and we're gonna be really sad that we backed up.
- 35:14One thing that is I cannot stop looking at on the road map is
- 35:17that for 10 point 2.7 they also have quote new holiday event.
- 35:21Do we think that's just the 30th anniversary?
- 35:24Oh, what if it's visage day? Visage day.
- 35:26Oh man, we. Just we just can we just can we
- 35:33spare on this show. I don't know if we can swear.
- 35:34On this, yeah, Mini just goes in and Murloc's.
- 35:35It I I I put a murloc noise over it.
- 35:39OK. I'm sorry, I you probably have
- 35:40to do a lot of those. I apologize.
- 35:42We just figured it out. It's busy today.
- 35:43It's the new holiday, and we're getting it because Emerthal
- 35:46picks to be a gnome. Yeah, Have you been on the PTR?
- 35:50No, no, I've been. Have you not listened to any?
- 35:52I've been playing Season 4. Because Chrome helps Emerthal
- 35:58and it's like, this is a big thing and it's a holiday for the
- 36:01Dragons. Why don't you make it a big
- 36:03thing? We just figured, listen, I'm
- 36:05100% convinced, 100% convinced. Like I would show the I would
- 36:12show everybody our show notes, but like on the audio, it's not
- 36:14going to help any. We have show notes.
- 36:19Poor Manny. You did so much laboring for
- 36:21what? Yeah, Sean, what do you
- 36:24contribute? I show up and make a lot of loud
- 36:26noises. Thank you.
- 36:29This is this is a critical where where the personality hires.
- 36:32That's right, That's right. Yeah, if Chromie's involved
- 36:35100%. So with 10.2 points you can stay
- 36:37with confidence with With 10 point 2.7 launches later this
- 36:41year. Draft here will be able to
- 36:43choose any race as a visage form following the completion of the
- 36:46Amberthal Visage Form quest and it will unlock the new holiday
- 36:50in Warcraft Visage day where all draft they get to celebrate
- 36:53being their true self. I love this.
- 36:56I'm all in. This hasn't happened.
- 36:58I'm going to be so bummed out when the new holiday is like
- 37:02Teens Week. Week they're going to have a
- 37:07holiday for for people who haven't hit 30 and their dad's
- 37:12generation, that's what it's going to.
- 37:14Be right. That's right.
- 37:15Yeah. Here's a holiday for Lex's Dad's
- 37:17Generation. Lex's Dad's Generation Week.
- 37:21That's what it's called. Yeah.
- 37:22The main in. Between me and my dad.
- 37:28OK, there's no way I could be your dad.
- 37:30I would have been. 11 I know that's what I'm saying, Manny.
- 37:34The the two, the two end points of this were my dad and me, and
- 37:38I was saying that you kind of fall somewhere in the middle
- 37:40there. OK.
- 37:41All right. OK, now.
- 37:46All right, Manny, now that we've had a good laugh, you can bum us
- 37:48out again. Yeah, I'm sorry I'm bringing the
- 37:51mood down. But maybe I'm not.
- 37:54Because you know how like you finish with BlizzCon and get
- 37:57those BlizzCon Blues? Because it's like it was so
- 37:59great, it was so amazing and now I got to go home.
- 38:04Well, you don't have to deal with it that this year.
- 38:07This is an interesting, interesting take on this.
- 38:09News. Oh, I love this.
- 38:10Never experience joy, because then you'll never experience
- 38:12disappointment. I'm sorry, Sean, I screamed over
- 38:14you. No, that's OK.
- 38:15You you said it much more eloquently than I was going to.
- 38:20Yeah, yeah, there, there's no BlizzCon for 2024.
- 38:24Blizzard announced earlier this week or sorry now this is
- 38:28Monday, so earlier last week that BlizzCon is going to be
- 38:33cancelled this year. It is something that they have
- 38:39thought about for a while and had to come to this conclusion.
- 38:45What do you make of this, Sean? Well, I'm not surprised because
- 38:50there was rumors that the entire BlizzCon staff got gutted during
- 38:54the layoffs. And so I think this was
- 38:59something that a lot of people saw coming.
- 39:01At one point people were like, we're going to have BlizzCon in
- 39:03Vegas, which is obviously never going to happen.
- 39:08I think it's. I think it stinks, is what I
- 39:11think. I I think BlizzCon is something
- 39:15that sets Blizzard apart from other gaming companies.
- 39:17I think it's it's not just good for Blizzard, but it's good for
- 39:21the community that BlizzCon exists.
- 39:23And now that it doesn't, I think there's going to be a gaping
- 39:27hole in the hearts of every Warcraft player and every
- 39:30Overwatch player and Diablo player and those two folks who
- 39:32still play Hots. Shout out Brock.
- 39:35And yeah, I think it's a huge mistake and a big mess,
- 39:39especially being the 20th anniversary of World of Warcraft
- 39:42and the 30th, 30th anniversary of Warcraft.
- 39:45Just this is a massive L. Yeah, I I agree.
- 39:49I mean, I think I was kind of also seeing it coming just
- 39:53because like, even even ignoring the fact like this last
- 39:57BlizzCon, it did feel like there was a lot of.
- 40:00Obviously knowledge missing because there hadn't been
- 40:03BlizzCon in a while and they've lost a lot of people during
- 40:05COVID. And so when you also layer like
- 40:07do massive layoffs, I I was really scared about BlizzCon
- 40:10because I was like, there, this is going to be bananas.
- 40:13Like they're just not going to have the industry knowledge.
- 40:17The people who've remembered like, oh, This is why we don't
- 40:19do this and This is why we put this here and here's how we
- 40:21should organize this. The one thing that's giving me a
- 40:24little hope and I'm being bias because I am a Bostonian and so
- 40:28BlizzCon was a a massive track is that they did say that they
- 40:33were planning on in person, like at least I don't remember
- 40:38exactly what word they use, but like in person events in
- 40:40multiple different places for the 30th anniversary.
- 40:43So I'm really excited about that because it means odds are very
- 40:46high that I'm only going to have to either go to Boston or
- 40:49potentially New York City to experience Blizz Con or not
- 40:53Blizz Con, but to experience the vibe.
- 40:55But that also means, like Blizz Con was the first time I'd seen
- 40:58some of my Californian friends. Blizz Con was the first, you
- 41:01know, people were coming in from all over the place.
- 41:03Liz Con was the first time I saw some of my Canadian friends and
- 41:06they're, you know, obviously my Californian friends are not
- 41:08flying into Boston for Boston's 30th World of War or for 30th
- 41:13Warcraft anniversary. So I think you're right, Sean,
- 41:15that there's there's a lot that we're still missing just on the
- 41:17basis that what BlizzCon did was it brought Blizzard gamers all
- 41:21into one place. I'm going to come down for Boss
- 41:23Con though. That sounds great.
- 41:25Oh my God, go crazy. Please.
- 41:26We have an air mattress. I probably shouldn't promise
- 41:28that without talking to my boyfriend, but.
- 41:30Yeah, yeah, you're definitely going to check with him, I snort
- 41:32quite loudly. Oh, that's valid.
- 41:37I mean, yeah, like even if they do things that Gamescon, Gameson
- 41:42is a big event, even if they do things like San Diego Comic Con
- 41:47and they have like a presence there, it's not the same as when
- 41:51they're pitching the tents for BlizzCon, when they bring
- 41:57everybody in for Blizzards. Blizzards event, people have
- 42:03been demanding like a third day, right?
- 42:06Like BlizzCon. Instead of doing 2 days, let's
- 42:08have a third day. Like, there's so, so much, and
- 42:13this is decidedly less with that.
- 42:17I think what's really going to be closer to filling the gap are
- 42:22going to be the the community events that aren't set.
- 42:28That isn't something like the events that happened with The
- 42:34Game Awards or they're like, oh, announcing this new expansion
- 42:36and this new expansion. It's like yeah OK sure right.
- 42:39We all know the games award is like 90% commercials and like
- 42:43they've rushed the people off the off the the podium to like
- 42:47get in the next announcement but like next month is Mr. G Ms. LFG
- 42:56event right. Preach Con is another one that
- 43:00happens. I believe Rage Darling does one
- 43:03as well. And I think I I like going again
- 43:08Back to your latest guest on Recruit A friend is doing AMMO
- 43:16awards event. Yeah, that's a digital event.
- 43:19It's an online event. OK, that's not gonna be quite
- 43:22the same thing. Yeah, and you're right, Rage
- 43:24does do one. It's called Plebicon.
- 43:25I think she has two a year. Yeah, and I think that's gonna
- 43:30be where you're more likely to find something closer to
- 43:33BlizzCon. Obviously a smaller scale with
- 43:36more likely to have more local people, but you're going to LFG,
- 43:40right? Yeah, we fly out on the 12th of
- 43:44May and we're we're in London until the 20th and it hasn't
- 43:49been announced yet, but we're I guess I can just by the time
- 43:53this airs tomorrow. Yeah.
- 43:54So there will be a live recording of recruit a friend at
- 43:58the event on the Saturday the 18th.
- 44:02I don't know if I'm allowed to say that I might have just got
- 44:06fired. Well, there you go.
- 44:10Breaking news there on on fast there.
- 44:13I was going to say breaking news on recruit a friend, but no, no,
- 44:16That'll be when you get fired from there.
- 44:18But you still have a show to be on here.
- 44:21It'll be fine. It'll be.
- 44:23And I got to tell you, this is a better show anyway, so this is
- 44:25good stuff. Yeah.
- 44:29So like I guess those sort of events, and they didn't say that
- 44:32it's gone forever, they are looking to have it come back in
- 44:36later years. But like missing out the World
- 44:38of Warcraft 30th anniversary, missing out on all of these big
- 44:42milestones, the fact that we've got like the first Diablo
- 44:46expansion for Diablo 4, The War Within coming out this year,
- 44:50like there's a lot of stuff to talk about and they're they are
- 44:54definitely going to do events like that.
- 44:55It's just more likely going to be more virtual events I think.
- 44:59Or smaller, local, which I mean, I think there's pros and cons to
- 45:04everything. I, I did BlizzCon struggled this
- 45:08year, right? Like I remember everyone was
- 45:10telling me like you need to get in line you, you know, the
- 45:13tickets are going to sell out so fast.
- 45:14You know, you're probably not going to get it on first round.
- 45:16It's going to be really hard. But that's OK.
- 45:18People resell like we're going to get you in Facebook groups.
- 45:21It's going to be fine. And then Blizzard, BlizzCon
- 45:23didn't sell out, if I remember correctly.
- 45:24Like it? No.
- 45:26Struggled a lot. So this is.
- 45:28This is not confirmed information.
- 45:33They were still still selling tickets the day of.
- 45:37Yeah, and so like, that's confirmed.
- 45:40They were. And a lot of scalpers got
- 45:42screwed and I am smiling about their losses.
- 45:46I have 0 sympathy for that but it was supposed to be only two
- 45:53waves of tickets and then they decided hey let's move some
- 45:58stuff around and we can fit more people in and they did a third
- 46:00wave and that third wave just did not sell and that's what
- 46:04kind of caused the caused the issue it it the price just kept
- 46:09going up and up like it. This last year was quite
- 46:14expensive and I'm I was hoping that because it didn't sell out
- 46:21they would like maybe rein in the ticket price a bit more or
- 46:25like add in some value but like can't think it all together.
- 46:28Not like this Blizzard. Not like this.
- 46:30Yeah, yeah, it's. I'm definitely concerned.
- 46:34I was one of the big when Microsoft bought.
- 46:36I don't know that this is Microsoft, but when Microsoft
- 46:38bought Blizzard, I was one of the ones who's like, no, like,
- 46:40don't worry, it's going to be fine.
- 46:42They're telling us they're going to take care.
- 46:43You know, they're not going to let they're they're not going to
- 46:45hurt World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft's going to be
- 46:47fine. This is their cash cow.
- 46:48Nobody's going to touch this. Like, we're going to keep
- 46:50getting what we need. Like, don't panic, don't doomer.
- 46:54It's going to be fine. And like, I'm still not
- 46:56doomering, you know, it's not like everything is immediately
- 47:01going up $5,000,000 and everything we love has been
- 47:04cancelled. But I also don't feel like I
- 47:08have had proven to me that everything is fine and nothing
- 47:11bad is going to happen to my game and nothing bad is going to
- 47:14happen to my community. So I'm worried I I'm, I'm
- 47:17staying optimistic, but I'm definitely worried.
- 47:19Listen, Phil Spector, if you're listening, and you might be, you
- 47:22need to make sure you don't hurt Lex.
- 47:23So we're going to have problems, all right?
- 47:25She's teetering on the edge. I will.
- 47:28Cry on a podcast. Frankly, the fact that I haven't
- 47:30cried on a podcast yet is kind of crazy.
- 47:32But if if if we if anything bad happens, World of Warcraft, I
- 47:36will cry on a podcast and we'll all send screenshots of me
- 47:38sobbing and be like hey Phil Spector this is your fault.
- 47:41Which I'm sure you've never been cyber bullied before so this
- 47:43will be really new to you. Anyway, this is this is is.
- 47:46It Spectre. I can't think it was Phil
- 47:48Spencer. Why am I?
- 47:51Oh, it is Spencer. OK, all right.
- 47:53You guys are gonna slide to me again like 'cause, like you set
- 47:57it up like I'll, I'll let it go. And then Lex started thinking I
- 48:00was like and I agree I didn't. Want to get sued for libel,
- 48:03Manny, But I guess you're closer to the FAZ lawyers than I am,
- 48:06so. On my credit card anyway, the.
- 48:10Faz later this year for Azeroth get sued and likes cars on a
- 48:13podcast. But Manny, I I will say your
- 48:19first mistake was thinking that me taking it up meant anything.
- 48:22Because we've learned that I'm the girl who doesn't know what a
- 48:24power button is. So that's really on you.
- 48:27All right, understood. I watch a lot of suits, see and
- 48:31I I really like her respecter. OK, OK.
- 48:38Sharp dresser. But I I honestly think that
- 48:44Blitzcon hopefully will come back soon, better than than ever
- 48:48cross fingers, but I don't think it's going to be next year guys.
- 48:52I don't think 2025 is going to be the year.
- 48:54I think that that's the year that they're actually going to
- 48:56have a properly planned out circuit of smaller conventions.
- 49:02And then maybe 2026 we'll see something with the like coming
- 49:06up to the next expansion after the war within midnight, being a
- 49:10big tent pole thing and stuff around that.
- 49:13Well, and I do, I do hope that whatever happens, I, I hope that
- 49:17they give us warning because like that's kind of why Congress
- 49:20before the storm didn't happen this year, right, Because nobody
- 49:22knew what was going to happen until it was a little too late.
- 49:25So I hope they do 2026 and I hope they give us like a solid
- 49:28amount of time to plan. But I'm sorry, Sean, What were
- 49:30you saying? I am.
- 49:32I was just going to say that I am full doom where I don't think
- 49:34we're ever getting BlizzCon again.
- 49:35It's not going to happen this year.
- 49:37They're going to see that they can get away with not doing it.
- 49:39And then we'll get maybe some smaller digital events.
- 49:42They'll show up at a games.com, they'll show up at a packs.
- 49:45There's I don't think Microsoft is going to be willing to take a
- 49:49loss at all and take that risk on a on a big event like
- 49:52BlizzCon, they're not going to see the value in it.
- 49:56I mean, you say tumor, I say realist, you know?
- 50:00Yeah, it's hard to say. I mean just BlizzCon online.
- 50:05Do better, do better folks. That said, what is online and
- 50:11something that I am actually looking forward to rather than a
- 50:14BlizzCon online is the alpha. We got a new build this week and
- 50:20I have been in most of it with a very important distinction.
- 50:26Now there's a lot that came in with this new build.
- 50:30We don't have most of the stuff that we had last week, so we
- 50:34don't have the previous zone, but we do have a new zone, the
- 50:39ringing deeps. And in that zone we've got two
- 50:43new dungeons, we've got the two new delves, we have new hero
- 50:51talents. I got to test out the fell,
- 50:53Scarred Demon Hunter, which there's there's some
- 50:58ridiculousness going on there, And they also did some major
- 51:04reworks of Fighter Mages, Wind Walker Monks, Retribution,
- 51:09Paladins got some adjustments, So there's a lot going on there.
- 51:13Sean, I know you're out of live, but I did jump in and play with
- 51:17you a couple of times this week, actually, the alpha fan.
- 51:22So you've you've been in on the Alpha.
- 51:24Tell me, what do you think of these new dungeons?
- 51:27Well, the new dungeons are really, really good.
- 51:33I enjoy Stone Vault immensely. Thematically, it's a lot of fun.
- 51:37It is a beautiful dungeon. The boss fights are interesting,
- 51:41and something I've noticed in both of these dungeons.
- 51:45Blizzard has gotten extremely good at telegraphing mechanics.
- 51:49Frontals charges are like charges are now like you see a
- 51:53line on the ground with an arrow to let you know that he's going
- 51:56to be running in that direction. Frontals are like straight lines
- 51:59that run through a player. They are doing some really,
- 52:02really good things with the telegraphing of mechanics.
- 52:05I hope it carries into the raid to make the raid easier, but
- 52:08Stone vaults 10 out of 10, no notes.
- 52:10There's sorry nine out of 10/1 note.
- 52:13There's you click a minecart, you go to each wing, and then
- 52:17when you're done fighting that boss, you click a minecart and
- 52:19it takes you back to the center. And right now on the alpha, it's
- 52:22just a black screen. You click the minecart black
- 52:24screen, you're at the center, and if you're listening Blizzard
- 52:27in Mythic Plus, that's how it should be.
- 52:30I should click the minecart black screen.
- 52:32I'm in the center but in Normal and Heroic and Mythic 0.
- 52:36If you just give me a little give me a little minecart scene
- 52:40it's a little toad's adventure. Just a little something you know
- 52:43as I ride the cart I throw my hands up in the air you know
- 52:46it's Friday. We're happy it's I just landed
- 52:48at LAX with my dream in my card again.
- 52:51I just want something in that little in between in those again
- 52:55and plus give me the I'm in the car black stream I'm in the
- 52:57center. Great.
- 52:59But stone vaults love it. Amazing dungeon.
- 53:01Can't wait to run more of it. Dark flame.
- 53:04Cleft. Cleft.
- 53:08Yep. Yeah, dark flank.
- 53:10It just sounded. The word sounded.
- 53:11I was just kept thinking chins. Anyway, this dungeon also great.
- 53:17The 1st 3 bosses? Amazing.
- 53:19And then I I replayed it again today.
- 53:21My initial reactions because the last boss.
- 53:24Are we allowed to do spoilers for the dungeons here?
- 53:25Yeah. Yeah.
- 53:27So the OK the last boss was a My Other.
- 53:30There's a transition piece to it where you have to fight on the
- 53:33objective. You're guarding A minecart with
- 53:34a candle, Knowles or things of the darkness are attacking you.
- 53:37And then the last boss has a mechanic where you have to keep
- 53:40this candle lit. Will you fight the boss after
- 53:42playing it a second time and having a better understanding of
- 53:45what you're supposed to do? I enjoyed it a lot more, but the
- 53:49biggest take away I got from this is I felt a lot of
- 53:54secondary guilt from every Cobalt I've ever fought and
- 53:59killed who has screamed no Take candle because they need these
- 54:03candles. Guys, I don't know if you know
- 54:05this. The Cobalts need these candles
- 54:08to protect them from these monsters that exist in the
- 54:11darkness of their caves. So when you take their candle,
- 54:15you're damning them to be eaten by these soulless creatures of
- 54:19the darkness. Sean, can I give you some really
- 54:21good news? Can I, like, take a little
- 54:23stress off your plate, please? I promise you that none of these
- 54:27Cobalts have been eaten by the darkness because I killed them
- 54:30first. See you bad at those legs.
- 54:36It was a mercy kill. They weren't alive.
- 54:39Hold on, the candle. Thanks.
- 54:44I feel so much. I feel so much better.
- 54:46Are we the bad guys? I do love that they've added
- 54:56this in for like the cobalt floor.
- 55:00For anybody who has played Hearthstone, the cobalt and
- 55:04caverns had this special hibernating creature where you
- 55:10would have to to like extinguish the candles.
- 55:13And once you did it would the creature would become active and
- 55:17that creature was like the darkness and so they put the
- 55:20darkness into the dungeon, right, right from Hearthstone.
- 55:24And it's it is. I think they need to Telegraph
- 55:30more that like you aren't needing to get the full health
- 55:34down. They also need to sort of make
- 55:37that candle management maybe a little bit easier for the group
- 55:41because it feels like what I'm really terrified about is you're
- 55:45going to have one bad player or one player who's pissed at your
- 55:49group and decides destroy the the destroy, destroy the key by
- 55:56by like just messing it up, like taking the key, eating
- 56:00themselves out. All of you guys now do 99% less
- 56:04damage or healing because you're in the darkness.
- 56:07And like just I I don't want a troll.
- 56:10Something that could be so easily trolled or screwed up by
- 56:131 player. Yeah, that is my.
- 56:16As. Somebody who hasn't played it,
- 56:18that's my #1. Mythic anxiety is like I can do
- 56:20something that ruins everyone's day, and so the last one person
- 56:24can just destroy the entire group, the more joyful I am.
- 56:27You're on NA Lex. We should do keys together
- 56:29sometime because that sounds like fun, but I don't think that
- 56:34will be an issue. The the candle is 100% going to
- 56:37become a healer mechanic. It'll be the healer's job to go
- 56:39get the wax to refill the candle to keep the light up so that the
- 56:43players can keep DPS ING when. I play less heals when you're in
- 56:48the in there, the healer can't stay in the darkness.
- 56:51The thing I would say is like. No.
- 56:53So you do 99. Yeah, you do 99% less healing
- 56:56when you're in the darkness, but the healer's running out to get
- 57:00the candle and coming back. And the DPS don't need the
- 57:02healer. They can just keep pumping.
- 57:04They can off heal themselves that it'll be the 100% will
- 57:07because you're not going to want to pull DPS off of those
- 57:09creatures because they slowed the cart down.
- 57:11It will 100% be a healer mechanic healer's job to fill
- 57:14those candles. So if you're a healer, get
- 57:16comfortable with finding those wax candles and filling that
- 57:19candle out. I guarantee it 100 percent,
- 57:22100%. It's a healer job.
- 57:25You're not wrong, you know. Wow.
- 57:31Yeah, but. Both of them are fun.
- 57:32The Zone I I enjoyed The Zone. I enjoyed the story through The
- 57:35Zone. No story spoilers, but I enjoyed
- 57:37it. It feels a little Zerelek
- 57:40caverny. So however you felt about the
- 57:43Zarelac Caverns Zone, whether it felt oppressive to you or you
- 57:47felt that it was fine, and your mileage may vary based on how
- 57:51you feel about it, but it does have that sort of feeling to it.
- 57:54Oh, there's one prior to the sorry, I'm sort of bug guiding
- 57:57the mic here, but prior to the arachnophobia toggle, I was
- 58:01like, why would you need this? Like, I don't love spiders, I'm
- 58:03not afraid of spiders, and none of the spiders in game really
- 58:05looked that bad. Obviously I understand people
- 58:07have like massive fears of spiders and that's why it
- 58:09exists. But there are like ultra
- 58:12realistic, terrifying spiders in this zone.
- 58:16You I I may turn the arachnophobia filter on.
- 58:19There is I I don't want to describe it and trigger people,
- 58:21but there is some spiders in this thing that are like I was
- 58:24fighting it on today, like on my computer and I was like let's
- 58:28look away. I don't know if I can.
- 58:29I'm just going to do my rotation like this.
- 58:33I mean the toggles real quick for the arachnophobia.
- 58:36It's insane how quickly you can you can switch it up.
- 58:39I don't want to get time for that.
- 58:40I just look at. That I don't think it's quite
- 58:44the same as the Zealac cabins because they have all those
- 58:47breaks in the ceilings where the lights coming down.
- 58:49So like it it does feel a little bit more open.
- 58:53But I I I think that this is the zone that is going to be closest
- 58:56to Zealak cabins because I've used like a little bit of
- 58:59Farsight, Sean. They freaking disabled Farsight
- 59:03on the Alpha. This I got like anyways I did a
- 59:08little bit of farsighted and did a little bit of Eye of Gould,
- 59:10Dan to go look at the other zones and while this zone is the
- 59:15largest of the three underground, it's got the lowest
- 59:18ceilings, it's got the most claustrophobic sort of set up.
- 59:22The other zones, while not being as like long, are just way more
- 59:28expansive as like how high they go they go and stretch and how
- 59:33like deep they they stretch down South.
- 59:36Yeah, I I I can see where you're coming from, but I even still I
- 59:40feel like they've done a lot to sort of break it up from that,
- 59:42like you're just in The Cave sort of thing.
- 59:46I have a friend who found a way into Hellifall and as Kahet and
- 59:54I have screenshots if you want them later.
- 59:56Oh, oh, yeah. No, no, we'll we'll, we'll take
- 59:58that. You know what?
- 59:59Throw those in the discord. Throw those in the discord.
- 1:00:01Let. I didn't.
- 1:00:03I don't know if I can. I I didn't take them.
- 1:00:05I would feel wrong sharing other people.
- 1:00:06Talk, talk to your friend, right.
- 1:00:10If if we got to, if we're got to be worried, we'll just like,
- 1:00:12flip them so some scanning bot doesn't come in and be like,
- 1:00:15that's the person. Get them Blizzard.
- 1:00:18OK, it'll be fine. It'll be fine.
- 1:00:22It was Phil Spector. It was Phil Spector.
- 1:00:26The the music producer. Phil Spector.
- 1:00:29OK, the other thing that I thought was really good is the
- 1:00:35Affliction Reworks. Now I'm an Afflict.
- 1:00:39I'm not like the biggest Affliction player.
- 1:00:40It is one of the alts and I've been playing more demonology and
- 1:00:43Affliction recently. But I love the feel of
- 1:00:48Affliction. Do you like putting those dots
- 1:00:50on and just whittling away your enemy and like and feeling them?
- 1:00:54I think that like warlocks have a good kit but they've reworked
- 1:01:00Affliction and I am happy and sad they they've taken away a
- 1:01:06lot of talents that were specifically to make them more
- 1:01:10AOE set up so that more of your single single target talents
- 1:01:14also have AOE applications. And you don't have like you know
- 1:01:19the the the like hyper focus build which is the only way you
- 1:01:24can be competitive. So you don't have to be like,
- 1:01:28well I guess I'm picking these so I have no single target
- 1:01:31ability or I guess I'm not picking these.
- 1:01:33So I can't I can't do AOE your your build will just naturally
- 1:01:37be able to do a bit of both and I think that's really good, good
- 1:01:41for it. They got rid of my Doom Blossom
- 1:01:44though and I really love the play of Doom Blossom I think
- 1:01:51have you guys OK, you've played Warrior, right?
- 1:01:55And Warrior's got a fairly decent rework early in the
- 1:01:59expansion. No.
- 1:02:03There I can fight. No.
- 1:02:04No, no. It's not nerfed out there.
- 1:02:07Where has had the least number of changes of any class since
- 1:02:11the talent rework since the start of Dragonfly.
- 1:02:15Like they have 13 lines of notes in the Blizzard dev notes and
- 1:02:19the next lowest is like 72. Yeah, I would just like to draw
- 1:02:26special attention to how Lex pretended to care about your
- 1:02:31affliction, Death Blossom being in.
- 1:02:32Need I do care. I want that one you feel very
- 1:02:37supportive and validated. Yeah, I know.
- 1:02:39That was Wow. You turn against each other.
- 1:02:42Let me know. I'm here for I love.
- 1:02:43I was like, wow, Lex really just validated Manny's loss of that
- 1:02:47ability. I I just sat here blank faced
- 1:02:50and you were like, it was amazing.
- 1:02:52It's hard. As long as you don't ask her
- 1:02:56what Death Blossom does, so you're you're going to be.
- 1:02:59Presumably what's important. Yeah, and it blossoms.
- 1:03:02What's important is who's supportive of her friend.
- 1:03:06Yeah. She doesn't even know what Death
- 1:03:08Blossom does. She needs to know how it feels
- 1:03:09to lose something you love. And she understands that.
- 1:03:12Manny. That's something we all
- 1:03:13understand. OK, so then you.
- 1:03:18Get me. Yeah, I I have to ask you.
- 1:03:22Yeah, what's up? Did you do?
- 1:03:23Any delves this week? No, I didn't.
- 1:03:26I'm going to do some delves tomorrow.
- 1:03:28I'm going to delve into the Dive into the Delves tomorrow during
- 1:03:31reset while I wait for my vaults to come up so I can redo all the
- 1:03:34stuff I did this week in Season 4.
- 1:03:38Is there a reason that you put it off so long?
- 1:03:40Because for me it was just like after last week.
- 1:03:43I just don't feel like level level up delves provide like
- 1:03:48enough of a challenge to be like engaging for me.
- 1:03:51Like I feel like I'm going to have to test these delves when
- 1:03:54we get to Max level when I can like ratchet up that difficulty.
- 1:03:56Because last week it just it like it was like, OK, here's
- 1:04:01some environments, but like, yeah.
- 1:04:03That's part of it. The other part of it was I have
- 1:04:05to do 32 keys a week at the start of a season and then The
- 1:04:09Raid six times. So there was that.
- 1:04:13OK, all right. So it's not, it's not, as you
- 1:04:15have, legitimate excuses. How do you think I get it?
- 1:04:19I don't have a job, but I should just be able to do these things,
- 1:04:21man. But get off my back.
- 1:04:25A man needs to breathe. I put a floor in a cottage on
- 1:04:28Friday. All right, You handled that next
- 1:04:32week, Lex. You take care of the delves.
- 1:04:34I'm gonna, Yeah. I'm still on alpha watch for
- 1:04:37Lex. I'm gonna.
- 1:04:38Alpha because it won't shut down my computer and I'll also
- 1:04:40download the PTR thing. That's.
- 1:04:42Probably. What it is Lizard tries to send
- 1:04:44you alpha, but your computer's off.
- 1:04:46Like, I guess she doesn't want it.
- 1:04:48I'm invited to the alpha this week.
- 1:04:51It's like, wait, why did I just get this e-mail?
- 1:04:53It's like, I don't know, sometimes this happens.
- 1:04:58I like I should I say this? Don't get us cancelled.
- 1:05:04No, I don't want. To.
- 1:05:06Leave it for the after show. We'll leave that for the after
- 1:05:08show anyways. And now I'm on the edge of my
- 1:05:11seat. I can't wait till the after.
- 1:05:12Show. Yeah no.
- 1:05:15Like this. This alpha has been a lot.
- 1:05:17I think the Demon Hunter, the fell scarred Demon Hunter for
- 1:05:23Vengeance is insane. There are the funniest talent
- 1:05:30names they have in pursuit of angrieness.
- 1:05:35Great a great A and they had set set fire to the pain as a choice
- 1:05:44though and I was like you guys are great like half of this
- 1:05:47comedy I'm just like whatever. But that one those two got to me
- 1:05:51and I loved it. But one of the talents that are
- 1:05:54just that is just great regardless of what it's named,
- 1:05:57is that when you activate your your Metamorphosis, you reset
- 1:06:05the cooldown of Fell Devastation and your Sigil when your
- 1:06:10Vengeance. And if you spec into Demonic,
- 1:06:16your Fell Devastation activates. The activates your Metamorphosis
- 1:06:22on a shorter period of time, and it counts for the reset.
- 1:06:26So on Alpha, in the current build, I spend about one second
- 1:06:32every out of every 10 in my base form and the rest of it's pure
- 1:06:39demon form. It is insanity.
- 1:06:43I love it. Like there's no way it goes live
- 1:06:45like this. This is this is ridiculous.
- 1:06:47Not a chance. Not a chance.
- 1:06:49But like, I'm. I'm living a dream here, man.
- 1:06:51It's just like, you know what, guys?
- 1:06:53Forget my scars. I'm my inner demon.
- 1:06:58And I love that for you. We're besties.
- 1:07:01I I think that being a Demon Hunter sounds most fun, because
- 1:07:05you got a fun little bestie right in your brain, and I ought
- 1:07:07to talk to myself that much. Like, I might as well have
- 1:07:09someone talk back. I like.
- 1:07:13That. You got a little inner Angel
- 1:07:15too. You're a priest, you got.
- 1:07:16A little inner Angel. Oh, God, no.
- 1:07:19Oh, God, no. Have you met me?
- 1:07:21Do you have an inner Angel? We have talked for so long.
- 1:07:25How do you think that's even a question?
- 1:07:29Oh, you slapped your mic again. But yeah, I I think that the
- 1:07:38alpha development's been pretty good.
- 1:07:40I am really looking forward to hopefully getting Stormbringer
- 1:07:44or Totemic so I can play enhancement this week.
- 1:07:47Guys, I know I didn't talk about my week and wow, but this week I
- 1:07:50I'm back to stubbly shaman. This this entire flirtation with
- 1:07:53like, Ghoulmani. Not happening.
- 1:07:56Back to Shaw Manny. I am 100% enhancement and I'm
- 1:08:01loving it. What are you going to do when
- 1:08:03you want to play a class that you can't easily fit Manny into?
- 1:08:06I don't think it exists, but sure.
- 1:08:10Rogue. Rogue, Rogue.
- 1:08:15OK, you know what? I'm I'm going to have to go look
- 1:08:17for my rogue's name, because, like, right now, I think it's
- 1:08:19Sneakagosa. But I Sneakagosa is my rogue's
- 1:08:25name, but I will come up with a rogue name that fits Manny into
- 1:08:30it to get back. Yeah.
- 1:08:35But I think that's it for the alpha coverage.
- 1:08:38We've got, Like we said, a lot of stuff that's going to be on
- 1:08:41live. So I'm hoping that I can
- 1:08:42actually play some alpha next week with everything that's
- 1:08:45coming out. I'm not going to be doing as
- 1:08:47many dungeons as you, but I will be doing some dungeons after the
- 1:08:50show and I did see some dungeons earlier this week.
- 1:08:54OK, quick pull. Favorite returning dungeon this
- 1:08:58season? Let's start with you, Lex.
- 1:09:00Oh God, what are? They have you even done any
- 1:09:02dungeons this we this season? The season?
- 1:09:05Yeah, in season. Four in season. 4.
- 1:09:08Certainly not. I'm lovely, a Demon Hunter.
- 1:09:10I'm just on LFR all the time and I pretend that makes me a good
- 1:09:13player. Does OK, Sean.
- 1:09:18Yeah, what's up? With all of the I know the
- 1:09:22question I'm. Stalling, Manny, I'm stalling.
- 1:09:25I know, and I'm just feeding. Into it by know.
- 1:09:27When you ask a parent to pick their favorite child, well, just
- 1:09:31imagine that the parent hates all of their children.
- 1:09:35Are you a? Vault OK, I thought you were
- 1:09:38going to say Academy and I was going to be like, get off my
- 1:09:40show. I do like Academy, so yeah, I
- 1:09:43guess Academy's fun 'cause you can do big chunky pulls.
- 1:09:46Azure Vault is fun now because it's it's a little challenging,
- 1:09:51but the no. The last boss still sucks, but
- 1:09:53it's a little. Actually they didn't fix last
- 1:09:55boss. There's a lot of things that are
- 1:09:56better about it. It's a little challenging, but
- 1:09:58it still seems fair. Yeah, I would say Azure Vault is
- 1:10:02probably my surprise favorite returning dungeon of the season.
- 1:10:08Yeah, I am still down with the school deer runs.
- 1:10:15I think that that dungeon continues to be just like the
- 1:10:18best of the ones that they introduced in Dragon fight.
- 1:10:22And if anybody says Noku Offensive, they they're trolling
- 1:10:25you, No. Good action, let me zoom.
- 1:10:27Around on your little dragon. I don't have an opinion in this
- 1:10:31to be clear, but I've decided that I do have an opinion and
- 1:10:34Noku Offensive. OK, yeah, Noku got really hard.
- 1:10:41It's vicious now. The timer's still pretty good on
- 1:10:43it, but there's like the pack where you have to like, kill all
- 1:10:46the little hills of centares before you fight the the two
- 1:10:50centares. They added some some stuff there
- 1:10:53where the Beastmasters spawned like just dogs over and over and
- 1:10:57over again. I'm gonna.
- 1:10:58Go play. I wanna hang out the puppies.
- 1:11:00You have to. Kill.
- 1:11:00I'm we. We protect I I'm a healer,
- 1:11:04Manny. I don't have to do anything.
- 1:11:06You have. To.
- 1:11:07Aid and Abed, the killing of Bakar.
- 1:11:10As a healer, you're going to have to do the candle mechanic
- 1:11:12in Dark Flame. Yeah, yeah, I I've been talking
- 1:11:15about whether I want to stay Demon Hunter permanently, and I
- 1:11:19not Unconvin just for the candle mechanic.
- 1:11:22Right. OK.
- 1:11:24Well, I guess that's going to do it for us.
- 1:11:27Do you guys have anything to plug before we go, Lex?
- 1:11:31Oh, no. I'm the the look at the trees,
- 1:11:33you guys. The trees in the World of
- 1:11:35Warcraft are so pretty. Look at the trees.
- 1:11:37That's my point. OK, Sean.
- 1:11:40No, I haven't season Play your season drank your Oval team.
- 1:11:43Play your Season 4. OK, well I'm going to plug the
- 1:11:48last episode of season four of Recruit a friend with I I.
- 1:11:52That's a really good one. Make sure you do check that out.
- 1:11:55All of this season is actually on YouTube, so do check that
- 1:11:59out. You can find the link for that
- 1:12:01in our Discord. So until next time guys, do
- 1:12:04check out our discord at bit dot LY slash Fast discord and may
- 1:12:09all your hits be crits.