Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #316 - For Azeroth!: “Developer Jackpot”

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#316 - For Azeroth!: “Developer Jackpot” · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

0:00
I think that's a great idea. I think, I don't remember, I
0:02
don't think I was playing probably when that got rolled
0:04
back, but I would have been against it.
0:07
I've beaten that drum today. I might start beating it now.
0:10
I, I think I'm going to, you're preaching to the choir here.
0:14
I want that. For calendar to the burning
0:20
region for Gilnaeus, but has not done for the Lich King for the
0:27
Sindora. For the alliance.
0:32
For the horn for Azeroth. Hello and welcome to another
0:38
episode of For Azeroth. I am joined by my Co host Sean.
0:44
Hello, Sean, How are you today? Manny, Manny, Manny, I'm doing
0:47
good. It is Wednesday, recent day in
0:50
the EU, and we're now five weeks away from Anjali's return.
0:56
OK, OK, so the single life is getting to you.
0:59
You look a little stressed. I just need her to come home
1:02
now. That's nice.
1:07
She's going to Uruguay tomorrow. By the time, if you're listening
1:10
to this podcast, she's in Uruguay or maybe back from
1:14
Uruguay already, but not home. She's going back to Argentina.
1:18
There you go. So all our Uruguay listeners, if
1:21
you want to say hello to Angela for us, just tell her Sean
1:25
misses her. She'll be on the beach.
1:27
She'll be on the beach. OK.
1:31
What about World of Warcraft? So you said that the reset.
1:34
I know you've been playing season discovery over on EU,
1:37
right? Yeah, let me tell you about
1:39
that. I'm done.
1:40
I am. Done.
1:42
Playing season of Discovery, Manny.
1:45
Now, there are lots of people who love Sod and I would never
1:49
yuck somebody else's Yum, but for me, there's a reason they
1:53
left that gameplay style in 2004.
1:58
It's very slow, it's very frustrating.
2:01
And if you're like, I just want to do end game, I just want to
2:05
be level 60 and be running dungeons and raids and the
2:08
process to get there takes so long.
2:13
I'm done. I level 41.
2:18
I think so. Close.
2:20
I'm not halfway is 55. OK.
2:24
All right. Because of the way these
2:25
clothes. Works with Todd.
2:27
You got to be 55 to be halfway to 60.
2:30
So I'm not even halfway. Yeah, it's it was a lot.
2:36
It was a lot. OK.
2:39
Then, then how about your retail, like have you been
2:43
diving back into retail? What's what's the story there?
2:45
No, I I did some dungeons last night with friends from the
2:48
Guild we have. One of our tanks is swapping to
2:50
Vengeance Demon on her because she's predicting that it will be
2:55
the meta next next year. She also posted a fun tweet
2:59
where she did a tier list but she just did it in color coding.
3:03
She color-coded red orange. You like the color color of the
3:06
rainbow? Yeah, for each of those tanks.
3:07
Yeah, so the color for all of the classes.
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So she released it, No context, just here's a tier list fully
3:13
color-coded. But she didn't say it like there
3:15
was no text. It was just a tier list and
3:18
people lost their minds. How could you dare put in
3:23
handsome shaman? Indeed, here there's.
3:25
No way they're. Doing She was like, I don't know
3:28
what to tell you. It's just where they fell.
3:30
She could have started the color at of the rainbow at anyone.
3:33
She could have. She could have put like robes at
3:35
the top and started working the down.
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She did red right, red, red, orange, yellow.
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So the red was blood death nights, marksman hunters, and I
3:44
want to say maybe fire mage that I don't have it in front of me.
3:46
But anyway, yeah, it's people were not like very few caught on
3:51
to what she had done. And so every time they responded
3:55
with how angry they were, she was like, I, I don't know, tell
3:58
you, like I just this isn't like a guess.
4:00
I'm not guessing. This is where they go.
4:03
I see. I see.
4:04
People angrier? Yeah, it's pretty good stuff.
4:08
Well, my my weekend World of Warcraft since we don't have
4:13
Lexa fill in her week this week. So my week pretty good.
4:18
I've been trying to get my professions and everything ready
4:23
for the start of the season so I can try and make some gold off
4:25
of like people once again getting upgrades and needing all
4:28
the all the potions and such. So I want to do that and I've
4:32
been buying stuff this week to try and get ahead of the people
4:37
who are obviously going to be buying stuff the first week.
4:41
The stock up for the raid and dungeons and stuff. 1 tip I will
4:46
give to people, there is a new recipe for beets that requires
4:53
less mats and all the other recipes.
4:55
So it is quite good and you get it quite early in the undermine
5:02
experience. It is the undermine clam
5:05
chowder, but it's an improved version because the original
5:08
undermine clam chowder is a recipe that was in the.
5:12
Old. Vanilla World.
5:16
So you have to get that recipe first, then you can get the
5:19
improved 1 immediately. The prices for this have spiked.
5:23
You go to the vendor guys and one vendor in Stranglethorne
5:28
Vale only has one. You can only get one, but
5:32
there's another vendor in the Badlands that sells 3.
5:35
It's limited supply. Buy them for 30 silver on the
5:42
auction house. They were going for thousands of
5:47
gold, so. The recipe from the Classic
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Zones is making the feast for new zones.
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It's a precursor. It's a you need to know that
5:57
that classic recipe to then learn this new recipe.
6:01
So people who are ahead of the game have been running to the
6:04
vendor that has a limited stock, buying out the stock and then
6:07
putting it on the auction house for people who don't want to
6:09
make the trek, just go to the vendor.
6:13
It's 30 silver. It's nothing.
6:15
It's a little bit of a trip. I'll pay the markup, that'll
6:17
save me some time. You're spending hundreds of
6:19
golds. That's fine.
6:21
Join, join group with me and I'll, I'll, I'll sell you one
6:24
for the for the markup you whatever markup you want.
6:29
Nice. Yeah.
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Now beyond that, of course, I've just been mostly gathering stuff
6:37
and and that I tried because, you know, thunderstorm is coming
6:42
to an end. I tried to do plunderstorm
6:45
because you're like, hey, yeah, NA isn't as bad as EU.
6:48
It's definitely time coded, man. I I went, I went.
6:52
Well, you, all of the normies are done, man.
6:55
You chose you. Right now you're only playing
6:57
with people who are there strictly for the murder.
7:01
Yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to find a time.
7:03
I'm going to go through. I've got 1 mount but I still got
7:05
how many more to go through so I am going to do it.
7:08
But I am going to be murdered this week, that's for sure.
7:13
Poor Manny. I put it off too long and I and
7:15
I, I didn't do it at all. The last time Plunderstorm was
7:18
around, I was like, I'm not going to do it this time.
7:20
I'm like, I'm just going to suck it up and get it done.
7:22
So I will deal with being murdered horribly.
7:26
So that's been our week in the World of Warcraft.
7:29
Of course, Lex is not here this week, but hopefully she will be
7:32
back soon. There has been a lot of news
7:36
just coming out. We've got several interviews
7:39
with a bunch of different content creators.
7:41
We have Scars Art who's done some interviews.
7:44
We've had Morgan Day doing interviews and we're going to
7:47
talk about that now. Before we do, I do want to make
7:51
one sort of one sort of announcement regarding our last
7:57
episode. Last episode we talked about an
8:00
interview from another former employee of ABK, and that of
8:07
course, was Bobby Kotick. And Bobby Kotick had gone on a
8:12
podcast. We talked about how he did not
8:14
like the World of Warcraft movie and that sort of thing.
8:18
But that was actually only part of the podcast and the first
8:25
article that PC Gamer Europe had done about this podcast, he
8:32
actually ended up doing three of them.
8:35
The second one was far more serious.
8:37
It was unfortunately Bobby Kotek denying allegations of that had
8:42
come up during his the end of his tenure at ABK and saying a
8:49
bunch of a bunch of things that I, I just don't want to go into.
8:52
But I hate that they that it had been released in that order that
8:58
that it was sort of buried. And because genuinely, if this
9:03
is on me, my bad for not looking at the source material because
9:07
it meant that we weren't really talking about this the more
9:10
serious issues that were in that podcast.
9:16
Suffice it to say, Bobby Kotek is a sleazy individual by my
9:21
estimation, and that the way that he presented things was a
9:26
distortion of the truth, in my opinion.
9:29
But you're free to go look at that interview and draw
9:34
conclusions for yourself. Yeah, I hopefully we never have
9:44
to talk about that man again. Yeah, like I feel like we may
9:48
have a prohibition about anything Bobby Kotek ever does
9:52
going forward thanks to this. But let's move on to happier
9:57
subjects because 11.1 will be out next week.
10:01
And like we said, we have a number of interviews regarding
10:04
that. So the first one that I want to
10:07
talk about is an interview that Dratnos and Max did with
10:13
Scarizard. And this was my opinion, a
10:17
fantastic interview because Scarizard just, he runs with it.
10:24
They ask him like a single question and he talks about all
10:28
the different angles and gives such a robust answer.
10:32
I think they may have gotten maybe 4 questions out, but he
10:37
answered 20 different concerns for each question that was was
10:40
out there. One of the and I do want to say
10:48
listen to this interview yourself, any kind of recap
10:53
synopsis or anything like that isn't going to do this justice
10:58
because he gives very thought out, very comprehensive answers
11:03
on everything. They talked about how the
11:07
universal upgrade system was first released, and I know that
11:14
may have been one of the biggest changes to the game that
11:18
Dragonflight really has brought. If like you're going to talk
11:21
about Legacy of Dragonfight, I think that's that's one of the
11:24
biggest ones and it wasn't something that it launched with.
11:28
What do you think? Yeah, so I liked his input on
11:31
the on the upgrade system. I love the upgrade system.
11:33
I'm a huge fan. He mentioned how in Aberyst a
11:36
lot of people felt that it was too fast and then they dialed it
11:39
back from there and sort of found a sweet spot and nobody
11:42
was unhappy. I was the only one.
11:44
The three were the person who was happy with the three-week
11:47
buff. It was me.
11:48
That was me. I was happy with it, but no, I
11:51
get it. It's it's good scars are you
11:54
Manny mentioned I got I just want to double double down on
11:56
it. Go listen to this because the
11:57
man talks with so much passion and he's so if you can tell he
12:01
loves this game, this world, his job and he cares deeply about
12:05
the content that they put out Blizzard and you'd get you got
12:10
to watch. But yeah, he talks with the
12:11
upgrade system and it's really neat getting the in their
12:12
insight into how they're solving a problem of hey, this dagger is
12:15
better and it's a lower item level.
12:17
How do we fix that? Very cool to hear that, that
12:20
side of it. And he mentioned that like the
12:24
stuff that his team does. I didn't realize that it it
12:27
covered. I thought he, I literally
12:29
thought he did weapons and trinkets and rings and like
12:32
stuff like that. I didn't realize it included
12:34
toys and like all of this other stuff like, yeah, it's really
12:39
good. Really cool interview.
12:41
Yeah, the rewards, the rewards systems, the reward team covers
12:46
far more, stretches far more into the game than most people
12:49
ever imagined it is. It is genuinely the cured at the
12:56
end of the stick. It is the little bits of joy
12:59
that you do in between content. It is the 50 different buttons
13:04
that you press when you are not pressing your rotation.
13:07
And I don't think people give boards team the credit that they
13:11
deserve. And this is really cool for
13:12
that. In terms of the universal reward
13:17
system, I think that there's a a number of points that he touched
13:21
on. And again, he touched on it, but
13:25
he was doing such a comprehensive thing that I don't
13:28
think he went too deep into anything.
13:30
Sean, you and I have had this conversation about like how
13:33
rewarding and how powerful the the upgrade system is, how it
13:37
can cause you to outgear certain things or in this latest season,
13:44
where it can cause you to feel that you're overly punished
13:47
because you're not getting enough juice for your squeeze.
13:51
And so it's a, it is a major factor in terms of how people
13:55
enjoy the game, both in terms of longevity and in terms of just
14:01
the level of enjoyment. You get that dopamine when
14:04
something finally drops. Is the reward system the part
14:09
that he spoke about that they didn't really get a follow up
14:13
for? I think is this question about
14:18
the bad, the bad luck protection?
14:21
The. When you get something and when
14:26
it's positioned and we sort of talked about this when we were
14:29
talking about how the dinars were in there and then they
14:31
disappeared and they were coming, coming back.
14:34
And I think that with this, the the reward check, it also
14:41
connects in with how we were talking about delves and like,
14:44
oh, they're getting a couple of the highest level of the Crest
14:52
and it's like, oh, they're only getting so much.
14:54
It's like, well, why are they doing that?
14:55
And then you and I like kind of on the spot realize, oh, it's so
14:58
that you can complete your track sort of thing.
15:01
And I love that they did that with Raid as well, that the last
15:06
boss is actually allowing you to finish the track there.
15:08
And we hadn't made that connection way back.
15:11
And it's so cool that it all sort of connects in, in this
15:15
system that is like unified, but so multifaceted.
15:19
But I got to ask you, one of the things that they touched on is
15:23
how the naming conventions, different crests and stones and
15:28
so forth can seem confusing at first.
15:31
But he says, oh, once you get it, you get it.
15:33
I am not sure that it is actually as straightforward as
15:38
it could be or as well articulated as it could be.
15:45
This system like seems like a system to stay.
15:48
Do you think that it needs to be improved in just like
15:50
signposting at least? Yeah, just call them the same
15:54
thing for the love of all that. It's holy.
15:58
You've got veteran gear. Give me veteran crests, you've
16:01
got champion gear. Give me champion crests, you've
16:05
got heroic gear. Get your heroic track gear.
16:07
Give me heroic crests. Mythic track gear, Give me
16:10
mythic crests. And I think it's fine that
16:12
heroic track gear overlaps with mythic track quest crests at the
16:18
top 2 levels, 5:00 and 6:00, because the item levels overlap.
16:23
Those item levels overlap with mythic track, so it's fine that
16:27
you're using mythic because the crests are tied to the track,
16:30
not the piece itself. So if you have a heroic track
16:33
piece, you need crests that can upgrade anything in that heroic
16:37
band of like up to the Max of heroic heroic gear and just name
16:45
the crests. And then there's no confusion
16:47
that you don't have. Is a gilded Crest better than a
16:49
ruined Crest? Better than a carved Crest,
16:50
better than a aspect Crest? You know it's but you.
16:54
Have the gear and you're like, I've got adventure gear, so I
16:56
needed, well, there's no adventure.
16:58
Yeah, but like a bad example on my part, but like.
17:01
Oh yeah. But yeah, I have a heroic track
17:03
piece. I need heroic track crests to
17:05
upgrade it. Until you get to four of six and
17:08
then you know, I'm at the top. Like heroic item level stops at
17:12
226. Current terms, 220-6226 is the
17:15
Max for heroic item level 229. The next upgrade, which you can
17:21
put on a hero track piece is the first level of mythic track.
17:26
I'm sorry. Yeah. 29.
17:28
Yeah. So I, I don't know, I just, I
17:30
would, I would just in the same, personally.
17:34
Yeah, but he's right. Once once you get it, you get
17:38
it. And really, does it matter what
17:41
they're named? You're just going to go to the
17:43
upgrade person. Even for somebody who doesn't
17:45
know the naming convention, you're going to go to the
17:48
upgrade person, you're going to drop your piece, and then you
17:50
want to upgrade and it's going to tell you whether or not you
17:52
can upgrade it based on what you have.
17:54
So do the names really even matter?
17:56
We could really just call them Crest 1-2 and three, right?
17:59
I. I think it's the names don't
18:02
matter in that sense. I think it's more that when
18:04
you're out in the world, you're like, oh, I want to upgrade my
18:07
gear. What gear is this?
18:08
What Crest do I need that that one to one that you're putting
18:12
out there. I think that's when it helps for
18:14
the for the player who's not right there at the station.
18:17
And it's like, oh, what does what what is that symbol?
18:19
What color is that symbol? If it was just like, I've got
18:22
this piece of heroic gear, let me go find hero Chris, right.
18:26
That to me seems like a really good idea there for that.
18:30
I think the other part to it though, is they need to like
18:37
when they're adding in these convenience options, they also
18:39
need to realize that people will get confused about it.
18:42
They're like. Sorry, I just realized 219 is
18:45
what I meant to say 219 we're. At 500 something, so I'm like,
18:49
the numbers are numbers, whatever, he cares.
18:51
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like I, I understand, like
18:53
they're just numbers like. Somebody's going to be like,
18:57
actually hero. Mythic Track starts at at 4:23
19:01
and your things cap out at 419 for hero track is.
19:05
I know 506 hundred something you can.
19:07
Write your comment. We need the engagement, but I
19:09
know. Yeah, that's why I left it alone
19:12
for the, for the baiting, the engagement.
19:14
That's right. Little do they know, Manny, we
19:16
say one thing that is wildly wrong every episode because
19:19
there is no comment faster than somebody coming to correct you.
19:25
There you go. And that's this episode's just a
19:26
tip. Just a tip.
19:28
That's right, yeah, If you're a content creator, always say one
19:30
thing completely wrong every video.
19:35
But yeah, I think that when you are going going through this
19:39
gear and you're like, oh, I don't need weathered crests.
19:43
I don't need the lowest form of Crest or I don't need my like
19:46
the second highest form of Crest.
19:49
And I want to go up and you're like, oh, so I trade in these
19:53
press. I have seen too many people for
19:55
it to be a coincidence that will accidentally trade down instead
19:58
of trading up. And that will cause them nothing
20:02
but heartache. Yeah, an error on those would be
20:06
good. Yep, Yep.
20:09
Just just a little, a couple of more signposting and this is
20:12
stuff that like they added in after the fact.
20:14
This is something that wasn't originally originally in there.
20:18
They've done a lot of. Here's a way to tell, though.
20:20
If you're somebody who's not sure if the number you get is
20:23
the same as the number it costs, you're going down.
20:27
If the number you get is smaller than the number it costs, you're
20:30
going up, yes. Yes, this, this, this is true.
20:35
This is true. Two, just the tips.
20:37
You're welcome. So better signposting, we would
20:40
definitely help with the system. I think that now it's been in
20:44
for this is going to be our fifth season, fifth season with
20:47
it because I'm going to technically be counting the
20:52
bonus season in in that math, right.
20:55
I think that they really should put in clear signposting, make
21:00
sure that this system as it is right now is there.
21:05
And this is something that I think that the rewards team
21:09
often has to, to balance because you will get some items that are
21:15
amazing and go past their, their tier and they put it, they put
21:19
it in the system and it, and it makes more sense.
21:22
But sometimes you do, you do get confused.
21:24
I think that's OK in terms of just random rewards that you
21:28
will get. Because the people who really,
21:32
really care are going to search out that information and the
21:35
people who don't, I don't think it's going to make or break
21:39
their game. I think it's just making sure
21:42
that it's clear and easily understandable for the beginners
21:46
is like where Wow needs to put the focus for the system.
21:50
Do you have a a point other than other than signposting for the
21:55
universal upgrade system? No, not for the universal
21:59
upgrade system. There was another point in this
22:01
interview I would like to talk about if we're done on upgrades
22:05
and dinars. Yeah, yeah.
22:08
Because I yeah, You go to yours and maybe it's the same as mine.
22:11
Go ahead. OK so I want to talk.
22:13
So they asked Scars art about the raid difficulty curve.
22:17
Now in Skarsard's defense, he's not on that team, he doesn't
22:21
handle that. But he reached out to people who
22:23
are on the team to get them an exact quote.
22:26
The TLDR of it is they weren't super happy having the giant gap
22:33
that the giant step up in difficulty between ration on and
22:38
Overnax and Caveza. They felt that you know, rat
22:41
getting up to rationale was fairly easy and then a big jump
22:44
up to oven excavasa and then two hard bosses at the end after
22:47
those two. This is the same thing they said
22:53
they didn't want after Amyra cell and it was the same thing
22:57
they said they didn't want after avarice.
23:00
We keep getting it. My concern is this though, not
23:03
that they keep saying hey we have these walls at X point in
23:06
the raid and we don't want them. We want a more linear
23:08
progression curve. My concern is the solution
23:13
suggested was that they increase the difficulty of Sikran and
23:19
Rationon to make it a smoother progression curve and difficulty
23:25
up to the top boss, which yeah, that's a smoother progression
23:29
curve. But here is my issue and my
23:31
concern. Ovenax and Ovenax and Caivesa
23:35
were massive walls for a huge portion of the Mythic rating
23:40
community. Now, did my team get by them?
23:44
Yeah. Did lots of teams get by them?
23:46
Yeah, like teams got by them. But we saw walls of 2500 plus
23:51
guilds at these bosses. If teams get to that point and
23:57
they can't get further, the majority of them disband.
24:01
They or players get discouraged to stop rating mythic.
24:04
Making it harder isn't going to make that more accessible ration
24:09
on and and Cykram being more difficult isn't going to make
24:13
teams suddenly get to Ovanax and they go I got Ovanax down.
24:15
Now it's going to make less people get to that point of four
24:18
out of of eight mythic. Because the difficulty in the
24:21
Ovanax fight was the fight design itself, and the mandatory
24:26
requirement for use of an external week or the mythic
24:32
rating scene can only be healthy if it's accessible to new
24:36
players coming in and they have an opportunity to succeed where
24:39
they're not forced to be weak or programmers and they're not also
24:43
forced to play the game in an unhealthy amount of time.
24:47
So I don't think raising the difficulty of the lower bosses
24:50
is the answer. I think bringing down the
24:52
difficulty of those mid tier bosses is a much better solution
24:57
and even if it means dropping down the difficulty of the final
25:00
two, the penalty for the final boss, even if the drop their
25:02
difficulty down a little bit, which in all honesty is probably
25:05
healthy for the game anyway. Yeah, that's my concern.
25:09
My concern is that when the next raid tear comes out, because
25:12
when when Liberation of Undermine launches, you kill the
25:16
first boss, vaccine the gear grinders and then from there you
25:20
have an option to go to four different bosses and a natural
25:25
progression of this boss is easier.
25:27
We'll form and that's the path people will take.
25:30
But if that curve is too high, we are at the risk of what is a
25:35
gorgeous raid with fun fights not being experienced by a lot
25:39
of the player base, and that worries me.
25:42
Well, I think that kind of contrast with the part that I
25:48
wanted to talk about because the difficulty for overnights
25:53
difficulty for some of these fights is something that they
25:57
said, well, Max, this is something you're saying you
26:00
won't be able to outgear. You have to execute the mechanic
26:04
in a particular way with very little divergent or you are
26:09
screwed. That's what forces that weak
26:10
aura to be done. That's what caused issues with
26:15
particular fights, even in the like the first time they
26:18
introduced this entire universal upgrade system.
26:23
Those were the fight that was like, oh man, these hidden or
26:27
these hidden auras are now causing us to use these new
26:31
really weird, clunky add-ons in order to circumvent it because
26:36
you have to get it right there. You have very little time to get
26:40
to get it right. And the fail of that is not, oh,
26:44
we're going to be weaker and then fall prey to the next
26:47
thing. It's just your team's done and I
26:50
think that that is what really makes overnax just the terror
26:56
that it is and very hard to to gear past even when they have
27:03
things like the the 3% buff that they will be putting in with
27:09
this new track. So can a boss something of a
27:14
jump in difficulty? Yes.
27:17
And I don't think it's it's, it's really realistic to say
27:22
that will never happen again. I think that if it does happen,
27:27
they need to make sure it's not because it's a mechanical wall.
27:31
Yeah, I agree. That's a good point.
27:33
I'm with that. If the difficulty jump is we're
27:36
just not geared enough, we'll be able to overcome this with more
27:38
damage, more healing, more more health.
27:40
I'm OK with that kind of a wall, but when the when the wall is
27:45
this mechanic can only be solved by a by a weak aura or even in
27:49
the case of Silken Court. Silken Court is a it's like
27:51
scripted dance fight that is very, very tightly controlled.
27:55
One mistake is a wipe. Even now we're on our 10th kill
28:00
of Oven Ax I think, or of Ansorek.
28:03
Even now for us, it is still not a guaranteed one shot every time
28:06
and our team is very practiced at it.
28:09
I don't know anybody on the planet who wants farm raid to be
28:13
stressful. Once you have progged and killed
28:16
the boss, you want the re kills to be sort of a good time.
28:21
You know, I've done the work. I let me go in and vibe.
28:25
That's what I want now. And I'm worried that this shift
28:29
to, oh, it's, you know, it's not just damage and healing, it's,
28:33
you know, got to do the dance right, which I am a huge fan of
28:36
dance fights. I'm a huge fan of the check on
28:39
this boss isn't strictly damaged numbers, but it's doing the
28:42
dance right, like getting the mechanics right.
28:44
I love that. That is a great solution, a very
28:46
elegant solution to an often, you know, big problem in rating
28:51
is how do we make these engaging?
28:53
But there needs to be some way that, OK, we've got this on farm
28:56
now. We don't want to have to keep
28:58
hitting this same check every time we come in here and making
29:03
it different, you know, and you want it.
29:04
You want farm to get easier. Now Silken Court does get a
29:07
little bit easier because you get more you as you get more
29:10
gear, more damage, you kill them faster.
29:13
You deal with less mechanics in the long run.
29:14
So that's how that deals with it.
29:15
I actually, it sounds like I'm really down on the silken court
29:18
fight. I actually.
29:19
Think that silken court is a good way of hey there's a dance
29:22
but now you out gear it, you have to dance less of the time.
29:25
Yeah, yeah. So Silken Court is still a good
29:27
a good time. So if they if they lean towards
29:30
that and less towards over, we just stop killing overnights
29:32
wouldn't even go there anymore. There's no point.
29:35
It's like everybody has to be on the same decor version.
29:37
Everybody has to make sure they're updated.
29:39
And it's it's so frustrating. I don't know how he made that
29:42
mistake. It's such a huge miss.
29:43
It's they did so good on the rest of this raid.
29:45
Ansereck might be my favorite boss fight of all time period
29:48
far none across the board. And Ovenx is such a huge miss.
29:51
It's like that was developed by some other company.
29:56
Well, I got to ask you right? Looking towards this upcoming
30:00
raid, what are the fights you think demand more of a dance and
30:05
what are the and so are this fights that you're most afraid
30:09
of encountering that problem on? Right away, mugsy the second
30:14
last boss will be difficult and will will require a dance it you
30:20
use. He has two different heads.
30:23
Each head does different mechanics.
30:24
You need to use mechanics from one head to counteract the
30:27
mechanics from the other head. That's going to be like a
30:29
tightly controlled, Yeah, two sides.
30:32
Yeah. So that'll be a tightly
30:33
controlled fight. I don't think there's any that
30:38
are going to like hard require weak auras.
30:41
Maybe Rick Reverb will require an assignment week aura for
30:45
clearing the pillars and oh sprocketmonger lock and stock is
30:55
100% going to require we gore for bomb detail.
30:58
Yeah, I was asked if. Sprocket Monger is the one
31:02
that's that's the big concern is Sprocket Monger mugsy will be
31:06
tough, but doable I think. And I think Rick Reverb will
31:09
probably also require some sort of we gore coordination.
31:13
I'm actually worried that Rick Reverb's going to require like
31:16
you know how we had the map planning for Echo of North
31:20
Aryan. I'm worried Reverb's going to be
31:22
that because you have to have precision placing of amps.
31:25
Oh, oh, dear. OK, Understood.
31:28
All right. Yeah.
31:30
So that's three bosses out of eight that you have some fair
31:34
level of. We'll see how that shakes out
31:36
because. I haven't.
31:38
Seen. Yeah.
31:39
We haven't seen Galliwick, Yeah. This is just, this is all just
31:42
mythic. Anybody who's like a normal
31:43
Raider or heroic Raider, I think you're in for a 10 out of 10
31:46
raid. It's going to be a banger from
31:47
start to finish and nonstop thrill ride.
31:51
Yeah, 'cause all of the concerns that I have are only concerns
31:54
with the mythic portions of those fights.
31:56
Yeah. That said, or any of those
31:59
bosses, obviously we've got the penultimate boss.
32:01
So that's not one or any of the other bosses within the 1st 5
32:05
bosses. Remember you get the
32:07
introductory boss and then you can go to four, right?
32:10
Or any of those bosses you just mentioned within those first
32:13
five bosses? Well, one of them has to be at
32:17
least. At least one of them has to be.
32:21
I'm not sure. I don't have the order
32:22
memorized. It's it's possible that both of
32:25
them are because the only other boss I didn't mention was the
32:28
one armed bandit which could be the 6th the.
32:31
Slot machine 1. Yeah, that could be the sixth
32:33
boss. I'm not sure where it falls in.
32:35
I don't think that was going to be a problem.
32:37
There's giant arrows, giant markers over the heads of the
32:39
things to kill. That one's going to be fine.
32:42
I would have to look at the raid list, but at least one of them's
32:44
in the 1st 4. I think that that sort of thing
32:48
if it's in the 1st 4 where it's like hey this is a boss that
32:50
they can go to up to the SEC as the second encounter might mean
32:55
that the tuning of it might relax it a bit because of its
33:01
its position in there. It's like if Flame Leviathan
33:05
hadn't been the first boss, I would have screamed.
33:09
Good distinction yeah yeah, if the and it's all tuning based
33:12
when we did the testing on on PTR, we were geared in LFR gear.
33:16
Like my literal live character has more item level than I had
33:19
in the myth of grade testing. Yeah, we'll see how it all all
33:23
plays out. But I I think as far as like,
33:25
hey, this boss requires you to have a weak aura Sprocket,
33:28
Monger, Lockenstock, almost without a doubt will require it
33:32
because players get randomly assigned a color and you can
33:36
only break the bombs of your color and you can only break one
33:39
bomb per player per round of bombs.
33:42
And every player has to break a bomb each round of bombs.
33:47
So I think that's going to have a case of like we're assigning
33:50
based on weak or who's breaking what when.
33:53
That's going to be a a tough thing for teams to coordinate.
33:59
So then the other part that I would like to talk about is
34:04
trinkets, because Scarzard went on sort of a trip down memory
34:08
lane of trinkets talking about how they had done trinkets back
34:13
in Sepulchre of the first ones, how some trinkets are like, you
34:18
know, the the sought after ones and some trinkets are are not so
34:21
sought after and balancing of thereof.
34:24
I'm surprised that they didn't revisit tanks getting that 33%
34:29
nerf on DPS trinkets. I just I thought that would have
34:32
come up, but they didn't talk about it.
34:35
What do you think of the current state of trinkets?
34:37
I got to ask you I. Think they should pretend tanks
34:40
only get 70% of the DPS of the tank on DPS trinkets?
34:44
OK. I haven't looked too much at the
34:47
trinkets coming up. Trinkets are something that's so
34:50
basic on tuning that I don't. I read them to see which ones
34:54
sound like they might have fun interactions, but outside of
34:56
that I don't put a lot of stock into them.
34:59
I've gotten really good at PTR testing and beta testing OS
35:02
since shadow lands in learning that numbers are going to
35:07
change. So don't try to predict which of
35:09
these is going to be best. Just wait for the math, the math
35:12
people to tell you they this is the one you need.
35:15
Yeah. So I'm OK with that.
35:17
I do like the Skarsard was like whenever we make an item, we go
35:20
all in. I don't know that I'm ever going
35:22
to get to make a goblin themed casino item before.
35:24
So I'm going to make the most goblin themed casino items I can
35:28
and I love that. Do you know go go big or go home
35:31
mentality? I always look at trinkets as I
35:39
would look at trinkets as I look at magic carts, right?
35:43
Trinkets can be very powerful. Magic cards can be power
35:46
powerful. Some trinkets and some magic
35:48
cards can only be powerful under certain conditions, which is why
35:52
I will ask the same question. What does this ask of me?
35:56
If I need to jump through 5 hoops to make this strong, I
36:00
don't want to touch that trinket, Yeah.
36:02
Tell me you're not using the treacherous transmitter without
36:04
telling me you're not using the. Right, So that's how I that's
36:10
how I will test those trinkets on PTR on on beta and alpha.
36:15
I will be like, OK, So what do I have to do to do is trinket?
36:18
What effect does this do? Is this something where it's
36:22
like an RPPM and it's just going to happen and therefore I just
36:25
need to hope that it lines up with what I'm doing to get the
36:27
best results. Is this an on use trinket that
36:31
is 2 minutes so I can line up with my two-minute cooldown?
36:33
So one minute so I can line up with everything 3 minutes, which
36:35
means now I've got this weird cadence, right?
36:38
Like what is this? What does this trinket ask of me
36:41
in order to make it good? And I think that the team has
36:45
been doing a a pretty solid job of making these kind of off the
36:50
wall trinkets that do different things and are somewhat
36:53
difficult to parse. So yes, leave it for the math
36:55
guys to get to get that done. But I've I've seen a growing
37:01
trend of trinkets that will SIM one way but do not do not
37:08
actually work that way in in live.
37:12
And I really wish they had kind of asked him like, what's up
37:15
with that? The SIM traps, there's a lot of
37:17
those. Yeah.
37:17
The SIM traps lighters Candle. Was that the one of the speedy
37:20
quick quick? Whatever it was that was a SIM
37:22
trap. Yeah, and like Grim, like back
37:26
in dragon fight, the the Grim torch was like like if there was
37:31
there was a bunch of them. And that was even with like
37:33
tanks getting full advantage of it.
37:34
It's a it's very strange. And he did talk about like some
37:38
amazing concepts of trinkets that were reminded me of things
37:41
where it's like, OK, here's a trinket, but it's got like a 10
37:44
minute cooldown. So you get to use it once in a
37:46
fight, but it does this huge thing.
37:48
And and of course the team was like the amount of damage or
37:51
whatever it would need to justify that is ridiculous.
37:54
And so yes, I get that. But like, is there a world where
37:59
it's like, OK, I have to do X amount of things and then the
38:03
trinket will go off automatically and validate that
38:07
where it's like use three different moves that are like
38:14
different without repeating it, right.
38:15
And it's like, oh, a monk would be happy with that.
38:19
A fire mage, maybe not so much Like I I.
38:23
I wonder about trinkets. It does that what is there is a
38:26
trinket that that's the thing you have to use three different
38:28
abilities, 3 non consecutive or three non of the same abilities
38:33
yeah no, I I'm going to use an on used trinket and a passive
38:36
trinket Manny. I am going to find one on used
38:39
trinket that is close to the top that requires very little effort
38:42
and I can macro it into my abilities and one passive
38:45
trinket that I can just forget I'm not even wearing that's
38:48
where I'm at. I.
38:50
Have. That's the.
38:50
Level that I have. You have one question for you.
38:55
Way, way back they had trinkets that that were affected by your
39:01
mastery and then they decided to change masteries to whitelist.
39:04
So if you were a shadow priest and your mastery increases
39:08
increase the shadow damage used to be that a trinket that did
39:11
shadow damage would increase for you and then they changed it.
39:16
I feel that is a mistake. I felt that it was cool that
39:20
like, oh, you wanted this trinket because your mastery
39:24
would affect it and it would therefore affect your mastery
39:27
value and how you would gear for that.
39:29
I liked when it was like, oh, this trinket, let's just say it
39:34
caused a bleed. And so if you were a warrior or
39:38
a pharaoh and you're like, oh, an additional bleed that gets
39:41
increased or affected by my mastery, that was the trinket
39:45
for you. And it allowed more of the
39:47
trinkets to be valuable for different classes.
39:52
Do you think that's too much of A can of worms and or do you
39:54
think? That sounds amazing.
39:56
Right now everybody is using the same 3 trinkets.
39:59
If you're a melee physical melee DPS you're using probably sack
40:03
brewed mad Queens mandate and or treacherous transmitter.
40:08
You might be using the mark of card rose or a skarmarek shark.
40:13
Those are like the five. If you're a melee DPS, you're
40:15
using one of those five, probably two of those five.
40:19
And if you're arranged, you're using Gala Shadows and I can't
40:23
remember the one that dropped off of Council, but there's one
40:28
that drops off Council anyway. Yeah, I I think that's great.
40:32
If I do bleeds, give me the bonus of the bleed damage.
40:34
Let me you know. And now all of a sudden my bleed
40:36
class is using these other trinkets.
40:37
I think that's a a great idea. I think, I don't remember.
40:40
I don't think I was playing probably when that got rolled
40:42
back, but I would have been against it.
40:44
I've been beating that drum today.
40:46
I might start beating it now. I, I think I'm going to, you're
40:50
preaching to the choir here. I want that.
40:53
But yeah, so again, lots of stuff.
40:56
There is so much in this interview.
40:59
Seriously, I think they asked like 3 questions before they got
41:02
to the half hour point and then they went on for another 8
41:06
minutes before it finally got shut down.
41:08
This was a fantastic interview with somebody who is just so
41:13
enthusiastic about what they do and what they're bringing to the
41:16
game that we all get to enjoy. Yep, there was.
41:20
I can't remember if it was that interview I or another interview
41:23
that I heard today, but there was one answer that was given.
41:28
If it wasn't this interview, it won't matter, but if it was, I
41:32
want to talk about it where they they were talking specifically
41:35
about Oh no, it wasn't this interview.
41:37
Never mind. We'll talk about this next talk
41:39
about this next week. OK, No, no, we have to talk
41:43
about it now. You've teased it too much A.
41:45
Question asked of one of the developers about balancing and
41:48
how you know when do you make the decisions on when to make
41:51
adjustments and when not to It might have been this one anyway
41:54
and they talked about how you know it's a super it's it's like
41:57
it's very difficult, but they don't want to make snap
41:59
decisions they don't want to make decisions quickly.
42:01
They want to wait and collect all the data, find a good
42:05
solution so that they're making one change instead of multiple
42:08
changes. It might have been this one, it
42:10
might have been scars, right now that I think about it anyway, I
42:12
think we talked on this show a lot and people on Twitter and
42:15
every other show, they talk about how you know, Blizzard
42:17
isn't listening. Blizzard isn't listening.
42:18
Why aren't they making these changes?
42:19
We've been telling them all season and it's like, well, they
42:22
are listening and they're making changes, but they're not just
42:25
they're not making them as fast as you think they should.
42:27
And we talked about this last week.
42:28
I think of the week before. It's like turning a cruise ship,
42:31
you know what I mean? It's it's not going to happen
42:33
quickly and it's not going to happen gracefully, but it's
42:35
going to happen. So just daddy chill.
42:39
Yeah. And I, yeah, I, I do think that
42:44
if they over, if they overcorrect, it's kind of
42:49
impossible to go back. Imagine you're like, you miss a
42:53
week of of clearing for whatever reason, and then it gets harder.
43:01
It was hard. It gets way easier.
43:03
You miss that, that window of opportunity and then it gets
43:06
harder again. You're going to feel like you're
43:08
going to scream bloody murder. So it's better that they make
43:11
the adjustment after two weeks to get it to the right spot than
43:14
to have all of this weird things.
43:16
There's all like, we were just talking about Mythic Plus.
43:19
Now people will be using like all of these buffs to like get
43:24
to levels that they wouldn't normally be able to get.
43:27
And that's ridiculous. And we talked about like, oh,
43:29
maybe Blizzard should punish them.
43:31
This would be like as if Blizzard intentionally threw in
43:34
all those extra buffs. And that would be way worse, in
43:37
my opinion, than some people who are abusing.
43:41
But on that note, I think there was an interview that kind of
43:44
covered that. Do you want to talk about that
43:46
one? Yeah, so that that it was with
43:49
their their interviews with Morgan Day and Katrina Yeppos.
43:53
They talk about Mythic plus the upcoming raid.
43:54
A lot of, a lot of questions on designing and balancing and, and
43:59
you know, what do they mark, what data points do they use to
44:02
consider it? Whether it's a season, a mythic
44:04
plus season was successful. And Morgan Day goes into really
44:06
good detail on mythic plus and how there's like they see three
44:09
different buckets of people who engage with mythic plus.
44:12
But just to specifically to the, to the, the bugs, the, the, the,
44:16
or the exploits that people have been talking about.
44:18
And we mentioned on this show, radio asks point blank, do you
44:22
have any plans to change how non group eligible buffs are applied
44:29
in Mythic Plus in Season 2? And Morgan Day's response was,
44:32
yeah, that's a bug. The team is actively working on
44:36
a fix for it and it will deploy with season 2 of the War Within.
44:40
So that will not be able to be happen.
44:42
That will not happen during season 2 of the War Within that.
44:45
So they are fixing that bug where people are able to get the
44:47
extra buffs that they shouldn't have.
44:50
I've seen bandied around on Twitter that they should just
44:52
whitelist buffs instead of blacklist.
44:54
Right now they blacklist buffs when you go into Mythic Plus.
44:57
That's how they determine what you don't get.
44:58
If they just whitelist then and then maybe add five seconds to
45:01
the timer like inside the Dome so that you can rebuff and that
45:05
would fix it. But we'll see what their
45:07
solution is. We don't know what they Morgan
45:08
didn't say that that was a Twitter solution.
45:11
We'll see what their solution is.
45:12
But it was a really good interview, Morgan goes.
45:13
And I think you're going to like it a lot, Manny, if you haven't
45:15
had a chance to hear it yet, He said, knowing full well Manny
45:18
hadn't yet had a chance to hear it.
45:21
Where Morgan is asked specifically like, Hey, you
45:24
know, the, the, the community has said the mythic plus the
45:26
season is rough and they're unhappy.
45:30
But what and key levels are down, which is an indicator that
45:34
the season's not as successful as it could be.
45:36
And they asked what specifically do you, or what other data
45:39
points do you use to measure the success of a mythic plus season?
45:42
And Morgan went into detail. He was like, so obviously key
45:45
participation is one thing, but they talked about getting people
45:48
new in the keys, in the keys. They talked about the balancing
45:52
curve of keys. They talked about how there's
45:54
three buckets of the people that are like, they just engage with
45:58
nothing. Plus early on the people who are
46:00
like, I'm coming from my weekly 10s and then the people who are
46:02
pushing above for title and how are these buckets?
46:05
And they also mentioned how adding Keystone Legend was
46:08
because KSM to KSH, you have that carrot.
46:11
Hey, I want to make this jump. It's a small jump, but from
46:14
Keystone hero to title is a huge jump.
46:17
So he was like, we wanted to have something in between for
46:19
those people that are maybe not going to push the title, but
46:21
want to push a bit beyond Keystone master.
46:25
And that's where the Keystone, sorry, Keystone hero and that's
46:27
where the Keystone legend was born from.
46:31
Yeah, it's a really good interview.
46:33
And Morgan talks a lot about, oh, there's a whole section.
46:38
There's a whole section on the meta and the, and, and how they
46:41
define meta and what they do to act to counteract the meta.
46:45
And Morgan mentions that, believe it or not, the meta
46:53
actually might be a community perception issue and not
46:56
necessarily, hey, you need this issue.
46:59
And they say how they measure success rates of groups at
47:03
different levels with different comps.
47:06
And if they're seeing high success rates, which they said
47:08
they, they statistically, traditionally do see extremely
47:12
high success rates for groups running dungeons, you know,
47:16
below title range with groups that are not meta.
47:19
So no, no requirement for an or no requirement for resto shaman.
47:23
And he's like, and we're seeing a, a very high success rate of
47:25
these keys. So he said it's, it's like it's
47:28
proof. It's it's empirical data showing
47:31
that you don't need the meta to complete these key success.
47:39
It was, it's really good. Yeah.
47:40
I think you're going to like it quite a bit.
47:41
Yeah, I I think that that meta point is something that we have
47:44
said on the show. It is unfortunately something
47:48
that a lot of people don't like to hear.
47:52
Met is set in because people see something that works and it is
47:58
less effort for them to just get as close to whatever it is that
48:05
they know to work than to figure out a different way to make it
48:10
work themselves. It's just the path of least
48:12
resistance and this season, because it has been more
48:17
challenging earlier on than past seasons have been, people
48:24
resorting to a meta has set in way earlier and therefore made
48:29
it has like just sort of stifled people's creativity.
48:33
Because I think that back in Dragonflight Season 2, Season 3,
48:40
when we had key levels going from like 2 to 15, the point
48:47
where you had to like sort of buckle down and get this because
48:49
things were were really starting to hurt was a lot longer of a
48:54
period. And so that three range of play
48:58
existed for longer showed gave more time for various comps to
49:02
show that they they were viable before the trickle down effect
49:07
of people who were really pushing set in to the, I guess
49:12
community consciousness. And yeah, like I, I agree with
49:16
Morgan, the community consciousness is something
49:18
that's impossible to to really control.
49:22
It really comes from people like you, Sean, who are going to sit
49:26
there and say like, hey, this is the season of the shield, right?
49:31
Or who are going to sit there and be like, listen, I know
49:34
warriors aren't viable, right? Sorry, rather, I know warriors
49:38
aren't the top meta spec right now, but warriors can still kick
49:41
butt. And however your message is,
49:43
whatever your message is, however far it gets, that's what
49:46
helps define the like what the the met is.
49:51
And so I yeah, it's a lot more field craft than the numbers at
49:55
this point, unfortunately. And one of the things, so where
49:58
do I also asked, you know, what is what are some of the ways
50:01
that Blizzard actively tries to shake up the meta or change it?
50:05
And Morgan's response was sometimes we don't do anything
50:08
at all. And the meta changes, he said we
50:10
buffed prop paladins and people stop bringing shamans.
50:15
No, they. Got rid of our cleansing totem
50:18
and they saw bringing shamans. Prop paladins and people brought
50:20
this priests. He's like, sometimes we don't
50:25
even touch the healers and the change.
50:29
They know what they did to resto shaman, that was very specific
50:33
what they did to shamans. It's a really good interview.
50:35
I I think listen to the Skyrim interview and if you listen to
50:38
the Morgan Day interview from Radar IO, Morgan Day and Katrina
50:42
Yeppas, it's really good. They go into some good detail on
50:45
some philosophies and how they do class balancing and how they
50:48
do dungeon balancing. They ask them about how they
50:52
decide what legacy dungeons to put into a seasonal pool and how
50:55
they decide what changes to make to those dungeons.
50:58
And then they asked them, you know, they asked them flat out
51:01
like how, what do you, what are you hoping to see this season
51:04
with the changes you're making? It's, it's really good.
51:06
And they, the devs go into great detail.
51:09
We're so lucky that the devs take the chance to talk about
51:12
the scars. I've mentioned this in his
51:13
interviews, like a lot of devs don't do interviews, not because
51:16
they don't care and not because they don't want to talk to you,
51:18
but it's really intimidating for them.
51:19
They're not public speakers. Most of them.
51:21
They're not like media trained. They're game developers and
51:25
they're developing a game that they love and they're passionate
51:27
about. And they know that you're love
51:29
that you love and you're passionate about.
51:30
But sometimes people come at them quite aggressively, and so
51:34
they're like, you know what, Maybe I'll just stay here
51:37
quietly making the game instead of publicly making the game.
51:40
To that point, it has been hours at the time of this recording
51:46
since the interview with Max Andratnose was released, and
51:51
already people are coming sideways at Scars art.
51:55
It is ridiculous. The passion, the extensiveness,
52:02
the knowledge with which he answers those questions.
52:06
This is in my opinion, bar none, the best interview we have had
52:12
for all of the War Within, if not ever.
52:17
And people get caught up on the dumbest thing that to me, like
52:23
you, you, you don't care what he has to say.
52:25
You're, you're just, you're just there for whatever shock points
52:29
you can get. And like, that's pathetic.
52:32
Yeah, it's a it's a vast, vast minority of people who have made
52:38
negative comments towards that interview.
52:40
The overwhelming majority of people who have seen it have
52:43
said how great the interview is, how great Scars that is, and how
52:45
amazing it is that we as a community get an opportunity to
52:49
get this insight into the game that we love being made.
52:52
Yeah. So in a world of what was that?
52:58
Do you remember that old comic Doofus?
52:59
And I'm really old. Why don't we go with this quote?
53:05
Because it's from this this show I used to.
53:07
You only hear me struggle to remember with the name of the
53:09
scholar. Quote I'll give you a great
53:11
quote from this this old show I used to listen to.
53:14
Right, Dallon. Goof, Duke, Goofus and Gallant.
53:18
OK, anyway. In a world where you can be
53:21
anything, be nice. I do know that show.
53:24
Yeah, I do know that show. I started my quote.
53:26
I stole that from like, I don't know, like a pillow and a
53:31
wayfarer there. You go.
53:35
I mean, OK, if I if I could change anything, it would have
53:40
been to respectfully bound and gag Alex so we could have got
53:44
another half hour my. Goodness, that was.
53:47
So good. But yeah, yeah, it it was a
53:49
great interview Do go go check it out go look for a flurry of
53:53
interviews that are being released this week.
53:56
We will try and cover cover more as we see them ourselves, but I
54:01
think that is going to be it for.
54:03
Us we did I I checked my schedule for our interview with
54:07
fasdev but I didn't see it. So, Fasdev, if you're listening,
54:11
I didn't get the invitation to the interview with you to come
54:14
on for Azeroth. Faz dev on FAZ.
54:17
I mean, it's a match made in heaven.
54:20
I don't think they can reveal themselves.
54:21
I think that's why we'll. Put a voice modulator on and
54:27
yeah, we'll put a voice modulator on and we'll black out
54:30
your camera. Let us know FAZ Dev, we love
54:33
you. But until next time guys, may
54:36
all your hits be crit.