Episode 150: Gearing Up

[00:00:01] Warning. This program contains strong language, auditory violence and mental nudity. It is intended only for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to your uncensored home for World of Warcraft news and opinions. This is Unshackled Fury.

[00:00:31] Echoes are radiating and war bands are building as we gear up and continue smashing our way closer to the war within. So welcome back for Episode 150 of your uncensored home for World of Warcraft news and opinions, Unshackled Fury.

[00:01:19] I'm your host Berzerker and with me once again is the master of the Dark War Locky and Arts known as Mr. Jez Corden. Welcome back again, good sir. Hello dude, it's been hot minutes since we had one of these.

[00:01:35] Like we said I think last time every one of these is cinema. Pure cinema. Pure cinema so everybody just enjoy it people, enjoy it. Yeah we had our little summer break I know I had travels you had travels people heard about my travels and I don't know.

[00:01:54] I don't remember if I told the story about me dodging the cops or not maybe not. I'll have to say that for another time if I didn't but I know you. Cops. Yeah well you know I just I have that kind of face. What can I tell you?

[00:02:11] They see me coming especially when you got California plates and you're in certain states in the west. You know you just you get a lot of extra looks and that's kind of how it goes sometimes.

[00:02:24] But for you, we haven't heard about this you actually came stateside didn't you? Has it been that long since we've done a show? It's been that long. Yeah I was in LA in June for Summer Game Fest yeah. How was that?

[00:02:44] That was pretty amazing I met the new Blizzard president while I was there very briefly. Spoke to John Hite as well from the World Warcraft team who's now left Blizzard. That was the last para.

[00:02:59] Yeah last para like obviously no idea who's planning to leave while we're all there but you know I also met quite a few people from Blizzard because obviously now it's all under one roof

[00:03:11] and it was quite interesting because you know Microsoft had this whole spread for their Summer Game Fest, Festivees which was like you know sort of like an industry mixer where you could meet people and all that kind of stuff.

[00:03:26] And they've been influences and streamers and journalists and stuff like that and it was crazy. It was the first time I've really experienced this because they had it was like across the whole Xbox sort of influences fear.

[00:03:40] So like they had Fallout 76 influences there because of the Bethesda connection. There was like a bunch of big Fallout YouTube and TikTok content creators like Mrs. Fallout shout out to her she's awesome.

[00:03:54] And you know they had Call of Duty streamers there some really big Diablo streamers were there too. So and obviously the Xbox content creators there so it was just like all one big happy family.

[00:04:09] So yeah LA was awesome, it was an awesome time and you know it's always fun to head out there. It's a lot of hard work but it's also like you meet so many cool people. How did California treat you? Did we do okay?

[00:04:24] Yeah yeah I've been to LA quite a few times now and it's a really nice time. I've got a bunch of friends out there now because I've been there so many times and I visited the aquarium of the Pacific I think it's called this time round.

[00:04:40] Last time I was there I managed to catch the space shuttle before they moved it out of the LA Science Museum I think it was. That was amazing seeing the space shuttle but yeah man it was an awesome time and always great food and great service.

[00:04:58] Like Uber Eats over there is like way more efficient than it is over here as I'll tell you that much so yeah it was a great time. Did you have because I know everybody talks about coming to California and having internet did you have internet?

[00:05:13] I did not, I did not but I went to a world famous taco place in, I can't remember what it's called now but this is like a Michelin star taco place in LA that started out with someone's backyard.

[00:05:31] There's like a Netflix show about it I can't remember the name of it off my head but I went there and that was absolutely incredible. Absolutely incredible just great food man great food all around we like food.

[00:05:42] Excellent well you know we do a lot of flavor here you know your folks are not known for a lot of flavor over there and I don't know if that's true or not.

[00:05:49] I don't know if that's true or not I hear a lot of jokes about seasonings not being utilized as regularly or as in quantity that happens over here but I guarantee you were down at a Mexican joint in LA that's about as authentic as it's going to get the side of the border.

[00:06:06] Super good man super good. Well that's excellent and we have another there's another thing coming up too right Gamescom is that the end of the month?

[00:06:16] Yeah Gamescom is coming up at the end of the month Blizzard's gonna be there Xbox is gonna be there Xbox is invested more than ever in Gamescom this year biggest booth and I suppose that's again because they've got Bethesda and Activision Blizzard to account for.

[00:06:31] They've got obviously the big Call of Duty Black Ops 6 release that's going straight into Game Pass for the first time so that's gonna be a big deal there and then Blizzard's also got you know Vessel of Hatred on the Diablo side but then also the World of Warcraft side.

[00:06:46] So World of Warcraft and Diablo are gonna be there in force you know for the big European audience of which European audience for World of Warcraft is very very big still and obviously Diablo too so yeah it should be a fun time.

[00:07:00] A lot of news I'm personally I'm not going personally this year sadly I usually do but I'm not going this year but I'm.

[00:07:08] But I do have colleagues who are going there so we should have some pretty cool news and stuff to talk about from the event although I don't know I don't know at this point if there's anything new Blizzard could really say about the war within I mean we're so close to launch now as early.

[00:07:27] Yeah when when is maybe the first patch maybe the first patch because this will be the weekend right now this will be the weekend right before launch maybe not.

[00:07:36] Yeah I don't know maybe that could tease season season one or something because like season one doesn't launch with the expansion it's like a few weeks after usually right yeah well and with the multiple days.

[00:07:51] Because we're as this podcast drops I think it's gonna be about 18 days to early access and 23 days to the like fully open launch so I mean the early access will have happened by.

[00:08:04] Yeah the early access do you remember the controversy about the early access of you have you bought into the access of course because I remember you were quite upset about it.

[00:08:17] I was I thought it I think it's kind of kind of weak but at the same time you know it seems to have blown over quite a bit now yeah I did order my collection which does come with the early access. Yeah yeah yeah I was.

[00:08:39] Lucky enough to get a code straight from Big Daddy Blue so I do have my early access and I will I am taking that Friday off of work and I am working from home that Thursday.

[00:08:55] So I do fully intend to be well soaked in war within goodness by the time you and I record our next episode which will be right during this launch season and I mentioned last time we did talk about it a little bit before we started recording it this might be a live one folks this might be a live one we might just say fuck it will do it live over on the Unchackled Fury Twitch so again if that's something that people are

[00:09:12] want now's the time to say something because I gotta work on it I'm not gonna put in a bunch of work and nobody gives a shit I don't know if it doesn't I care then I yeah I'll do it because that's fun for us but anybody cares say something so yeah busy month busy month in August and I think we're going to be able to do something

[00:09:30] with I guess everybody's favorite segment because it's the one I hear the most about is the metal album of the week and again this one's going to be a little different but it's just one of the things that we're going to be able to do is we're going to be able to do something

[00:09:45] obviously this week but we're going to start with I guess everybody's favorite segment because it's the one I hear the most about is the metal album of the week and again this one's going to be a little different

[00:09:58] but it's just one that truth be told I had to get the right headspace for something I was working on and this is the one that popped into mind so those of us of a certain age we remember how impactful this was unplugged the Alice and Chains album

[00:10:19] oh good choice the Nirvana one of the day the Nirvana one is very well known but the Alice and Chains one holy shit spectacular it is unbelievable and at this time when they did this so they recorded this in it was April of 96 1996 they released it in July of 1996 was very quick turnaround

[00:10:48] and they hadn't done a show in years Alice and Chains and this was one of the last shows that they ever did with Lane Staley their lead singer who died several years after the fact but he had a lot of problems a lot of challenges

[00:11:03] and this whole album is just it's beautiful it's haunting it's great just great musicianship excellent singing it's it really is the product of its time but it is unbelievable

[00:11:20] his voice is just legendary like Lane Staley's just unbeatable it's just magic I watched like I watched a bunch of documentaries about him and like that his vocal style there's just nothing like it even close you know so amazing good choice

[00:11:38] thank you the combination what's that sorry I was just gonna say I I was like as you were saying like what you met a lot of them the week is because you know it was a surprise you know this anticipation surprise for me as well I was wondering if you're gonna go for Gojira because they opened the Olympics

[00:11:57] that is a good that is a good B choice Gojira was part of the opening ceremonies and I almost pissed my pants when I saw that because I didn't think in a million years you'd see a metal band doing something like that but so if you haven't seen that folks go check it out

[00:12:13] but yeah the the the combination and Allison chains of Lane Staley and Jerry Cantrell who was a singer or songwriter guitars for the band it's just the interplay between the two I don't know that you'll duplicate that ever again social media I know has become it's become very popular to isolate people's vocals

[00:12:35] and like play those and so you can see just how extraordinary certain people were I've seen Freddie Mercury I've seen Lane Staley was one that actually kind of made me think of this and it is just it's unbelievable and some of the other things

[00:12:51] or one of the other things I thought was really funny if you watch the video because they recorded all this for MTV remember kids MTV used to show music videos and it wasn't all just shitty dating shows or reality shows or whatever that was they were actually like you know there was actual music

[00:13:09] and they have the whole concert recorded and one of the funny things in it is Mike Inez on his bass had the phrase friends don't let friends get friends haircuts let friends get their haircuts and this was a shot at Metallica who was in the crowd who had just cut their hair

[00:13:28] and so there's like there's like this holds fun kind of meta thing going on at just that period of time and if you around then there was just so much impact that it had but this all the way through front to back

[00:13:43] and then there was just so much impact that it had to kind of re-record some stuff it doesn't make the album but live they had to re-record some stuff because there were some screw ups because it had been so long and then you know apparently Jerry Cantrell was sick with food poisoning from a hot dog

[00:13:56] and there's like a whole lord around this album but it is one of the best ever so if you haven't listened to it front to back I'm not even sure it's on iTunes I have a copy of it from a million years ago that's just poured it around with me on all my phone and my iPod and all the crap I've had over the years

[00:14:16] so you may have to pull it up you can pull it up and listen to it on their official YouTube page just go to Alice and change YouTube page and they have the playlist and you can listen to it but yeah hold on hold on to that one that's a that's a fucking good one so

[00:14:30] after after the couple of off the beaten path ones we had this time and this time I promise you folks we'll get like a down down to like hard ass metal album next week next time special something special for the war within launch

[00:14:45] and we have something really important to talk about in this week's rage segment because there is there is there is a grave matter that we must address and it was brought to my attention so we just gotta get into it let's go yeah let's rage

[00:15:13] the one of the things about world of warcraft that it's known for something that we love something that is joked about something that is just a quintessential piece the fabric of world of warcraft

[00:15:26] is the oversized nature of armor and implements and all manner of peripheral around the game it's just it's something that we love because it's ridiculous and cool all at the same time

[00:15:43] and recently on the trading posts there was something that I loved very much the valor jar champions greatsword and when you actually bought this thing and equipped it it was comically large like so large that I swear like a full third of it

[00:16:03] and I mean it looked like it was clipped underneath the ground so if you're like me fury warrior gripping two of these suckers on your back I mean it looked hilarious and I loved it and it was fantastic it was beautiful

[00:16:16] well homie nav brother nav ox previous go so on the show friend of the program brought to my attention that apparently for some reason Blizzard shrunk it

[00:16:33] so no longer is this the valor jar champions greatsword it's more than valor jar champions meh sword because it's not even the size of like a big sword now now it's like like a skinny little it it's it's

[00:16:53] just it's not even a full size two-handed sword anymore they went too far it's like the valor jar champions sewing needle it's ridiculous I mean are they gonna shrink Armageddon down to a pocket knife

[00:17:13] I can have Gore howl as a dental pick or or shalom main as a letter opener I mean it's just it has to stop because jazz do you know what the difference between ooh and ah is

[00:17:29] no three inches and I'll let you folks figure that one out but for a sword size matters folks I mean you could talk about the motion and the whatever but size matters when it comes to your two-handed weapons and I cannot believe that they have done us dirty this way

[00:17:48] and I know that there's been threads and things and people freaking out and saying hey this can't stand well it looks like it's gonna stand and what was once going to be a seminal piece of my future transmog has now become just a point in time

[00:18:02] when once again we are disrespected and I hope that this is a lesson hope this is a lesson for the future generations don't shrink the big swords gotta have

[00:18:18] a warlock I generally don't have this problem so I try and I try and empathize with your pain but I'm just sitting here with my little little dagger

[00:18:34] I'm used to I've used to small and let I let my let my demons do the size for me but this has been really awesome for me when it comes to big things for me next expansion because I can summon a gigantic pit lord in the war within which I'm pretty happy about so you know my

[00:18:58] my visuals don't have size issues on like yeah slaps Viagra on top of that pit lord meanwhile you know we have a common reflection on swords over 40 ridiculous ridiculous so it's over 40 oh dear

[00:19:17] all right well before I get myself in a more true listen I have to I have to maintain the uncensored name in the you know show here else I get I think I get in trouble

[00:19:26] we have we have some real important stuff to talk about here because we did have a pre patch we had a bunch of stuff going on with it so why don't we go ahead and jump into our news so last time

[00:19:48] talked about the pre patch being imminent imminent not imminent it has not been imminent it was imminent and we had war bands we had war banks we had the radiant echoes event we had all this stuff that was coming but right out of the gate

[00:20:08] it did not land very well and I know that the event the radio echo event didn't happen for another week after I did not clarify that last time so we did have a week a week to wait

[00:20:22] but right away one of the biggest blunders was the war bands taking the war bands with the war bank offline what happened yeah so the the patch was buggy you know in put to put it bluntly but it was it was kind of

[00:20:46] it kind of reignited these kind of debates about Blizzard rushing things out and not tested them properly and all this kind of stuff because like

[00:20:56] you probably old enough alongside me the old the team old older people that remember remember like back in the day when Blizzard was kind of known for doing things slowly and methodically

[00:21:10] yes where it was like they were testing to how and they'd launch in a generally in a relatively polished state game development has changed over the years in in you know for better or worse in various ways

[00:21:24] I think you know getting things out to a tight schedule and especially in a game that's so cash flow intensive like World of Warcraft is is you know something they constantly have to think about but this was kind of I thought this was quite embarrassing for them because

[00:21:39] this is like you sort of headline feature for the for your expansion which is war bands or one of the headline features and it didn't bloody work and not only that it was swallowing people the reason they didn't work is because it was swallowing people's items into

[00:21:56] into nothing nothing this I don't know if like people who lost items I presume they got them back because Blizzard's iron recovery systems usually pretty pretty good but yes not not the kind of bug you want to have right

[00:22:09] that took it offline they fixed it relatively quickly but then there was other issues with the radiant echoes as well.

[00:22:17] There was and although I didn't see it to kind of tack on real quick another bug that I saw is like people's main characters were being deleted just they would fire up the warband and characters

[00:22:30] not yeah I didn't see that one this this world that I know it's you can't have that and you bring up the point I think that frankly you're right those of us of a certain age or been around the game long enough remember there was there

[00:22:46] was there was I can't remember exactly what the term was you have to correct me if I'm wrong but it was something like you know Blizzard ready like you know it was you knew that it was

[00:22:55] not tm yeah it was going to take forever to get something but you knew that when you got it it would be relative like he said relatively stable in good shape something fun something that would last for a while and this was always my concern with the cadence through

[00:23:16] through dragon flight was alright nobody likes to wait a year for content I get that but if you cut that down you start rushing these things out and there's I mean major major bugs like a warbank type feature being wholly unusable to the point of being shut down

[00:23:36] now they did fix it like you said in a few days so that is great the response time seems to be fairly good but it is it does go kind of you know into that are we going too fast are we rushing things out is this the right idea

[00:23:50] this has always been the concern with this updated cadence and you know I got a wonder a little bit because then again to the to the point that you made about there was also something with the prepatch we had the radios radiant echoes that started July 30th

[00:24:07] we now had you know about a week about a week with it now we go to Dalaran you got the portals the portals go down there and there's the

[00:24:21] the residual memories that you get from killing baddies at certain locations and then there's a big boss that eventually spawns and you can rip through all of that pretty quickly and then there was I don't know kind of not a lot and if you're leveling

[00:24:39] if you're getting ketchup gear and you're looking at the prices and costs for all these things I know I did the first one I was like oh I don't know how much I'm actually going to be able to do here because

[00:24:51] I don't have all day all night to be waiting and then you know corralling my schedule around when a radiant echoes event is going to be up so I can run in and like do something real quick and then you know be done for a while it's just

[00:25:05] that right away seemed to spark something amongst the community where people were not having it people were not having fun it was taking too long to gear up it was too slow and it's one of the few times I've seen the community be in general agreement about

[00:25:22] uh oh this is going sideways in a hurry did you get a chance to jump in before they fixed it I didn't actually so okay the cool thing about being in Europe is that Americans get to better test everything we do so

[00:25:45] some of the issues at least was sort of I think at least for me they were patched out because we have to wait an extra day so like waiting an extra day meant that Liz had identified some of this stuff before they hit the European realms

[00:26:00] but I didn't get into radio echoes straight away I don't think because of work so when I came in it was already been changed but um but yeah this whole sort of it's done because this is not the first time this kind of thing has happened

[00:26:18] you know like Blizzard Blizzard does this because it's sort of like it's like the time getting stuff right it's to pad the numbers and it's like to stagger things out and make so people feel compelled to you know log on

[00:26:34] and they get to sort of pad their churn figures and all that kind of stuff and the thing is they didn't diablo a lot too over the last year with like the helltides were up at a specific time

[00:26:50] and you have to sort of schedule your life around them and stuff and everyone hates that no one likes it no and if they made the mistake with that so they patched it out and then okay helltides are up all the time now

[00:27:04] which is great and the way it should have been and then they're doing this again with the radio echoes where it's like okay well now you've got to be online at a specific time you know and it's just why do they keep doing this

[00:27:15] because it always leads to backlash and then it always leads to them capitulating so it's it's just like just why do we have to go through the steps of you know I suppose one day they think like

[00:27:29] eventually we'll sneak it under the radar and no one will bitch but people are gonna bitch because it sucks so Blizzard and then Blizzard will come out and say things like we're always learning and it's like bro the game is 20 years old you've learned enough

[00:27:46] you should know not to make us wait 90 minutes in between events now yes that's just and you can see where they were tapering it right where it was 90 and then I think it was an hour and then I think it was 30 minutes

[00:27:59] and so yeah as it goes on it gets closer but I think back to I believe it was Shadowlands when there was the pre-patch event for Shadowlands and so there were gonna be you know old baddies that were gonna come back and be around up in Northrend

[00:28:14] and so you know at certain times you had ones that came up but they put things like the bag on one of them and everybody was trying to get Poppa's new bag and so they were waiting and people were waiting too long

[00:28:27] and people were mad so then they just do like all the like when one boss went down the next one goes up and so you were just ping pong and all over Northrend to get all this stuff done and it's kind of the same thing where

[00:28:40] you're right nobody wants to wait that long especially if you are trying to be alt-friendly like if we're going into this realm of warbands and alt-friendliness and gearing up and all this stuff then you gotta feed those motherfuckers like if you've got an army of alts

[00:28:58] you gotta be ripping through that stuff at all time to get at least a chunk of them up but if it's that long in between for a week or however long and we only have what two more weeks now until launch that's not enough time

[00:29:13] maybe you get your main up in one alt that's it like it's not very much unless you're just on all the time which I don't recommend just for your own sake of mind your own health but I did run in this morning

[00:29:28] before I started working on my notes here for our recording I did run in because I haven't had a chance to check it out since they fixed everything or updated everything and it is much better in my opinion having done now both versions where I was like

[00:29:41] this kind of sucks and then all of a sudden I'm just getting all of this currency just rolling in and I'm getting XP and I'm blowing up my alt my DK I'm like yeah let's get him out of cold storage and boom he's blowing out

[00:29:54] I've already almost leveled his ass which I almost never level any alts I've been debating which one I want to use my free level on which I still have a bunch of them and I've never done anything with now it feels like it's much better

[00:30:09] I don't know if it's the most exciting thing of all time but I think there's some good rewards I'm happy with that I mean I don't know if you've had any issues with the rewards out of this but some good mounts and gear

[00:30:22] and other stuff are pretty standard but now it feels attainable to me that seems the more important part rather than just making people wait yeah I'm not a huge fan of the event I looked over the reward I did run earlier just as we were starting the show

[00:30:41] and you know I double checked the reward and it's just like okay there are existing battle pets that have a azureite yellow blue hue on them kind of lame it's not like you know the I think it was was it the shadowlands pre-patch event

[00:31:04] or the one before Shadowlands even the battle for Azeroth pre-patch event where you got like the badass bat mount at least on Horde you did I know you got on the lions but it was like I'm pretty sure it was for battle for Azeroth

[00:31:21] it was a badass bat mount and stuff like that I don't know man it's whatever it is what it is it kind of feels like they get into the crunch phase for the war within to make sure it's fully finished up and there's parts of war within

[00:31:40] that haven't been seen by the public or beta tested or anything which is the event that precedes the beta which you know involves Dalaran and that intro sequence that's been fully encrypted it's not been beta tested or anything so that's going to be a surprise to everyone

[00:32:00] when that goes live and you know it makes me wonder what else is there in the war within that we haven't seen before because I think Blizzard is experimenting with encrypting their patches to keep things as a surprise you know because you know WoWhead and other websites

[00:32:18] prolifically datamined for content that leads to spoilers we all know everything but now they've started encrypting parts of the build so they can keep some things close to their chest I think that's really interesting and cool but you know and I suppose

[00:32:37] making sure those untested aspects of the patch are fully polished and tested because we've just bitched about the lack of polish and testing has kind of led to this pre-patch event being a bit lacklustre I would say but it is where it is and I think

[00:32:55] at the end of the day people will forget this event as soon as war within starts and we won't worry too much about it I don't know I can't think off the top of my head I missed the Legion pre-patch event which I know people liked

[00:33:11] I wasn't playing the game at that time Warlords of Drenna just completely dropped off the game during warlords but so that pre-patch event was good the Wrath pre-patch event was also very good with the zombies I don't think this one's going to be remembered

[00:33:25] that far away for a while Yeah it's probably not going to hold up in the pantheon or pre-patch events over time they become a little routine and you know like you said it is what it is and it serves the utility

[00:33:40] and hopefully gets people ready that want to be ready to level and do what you gotta do because all that gear you can outgrow anyway but there is no way and I hate to say this because I love Blizzard

[00:33:54] and I love this game and I want everybody's experience to be awesome but there is no way that that intro experience is going to go smooth without testing there's just no there is no earthly way and I have a feeling

[00:34:11] that first day as soon as that thing is out it's going to be a mess and you know we say, I think we've said this since warlords try not to take the day of launch off because there's going to be problems there's going to be stuff that happens

[00:34:29] and granted there was a DDoS attack for that one that just went apeshit but it's there's no way that's going to be smooth and that's why I'm taking Friday off and not Thursday when they do the early launch

[00:34:43] just because I'm like, ah, give me a day to iron that one out before I gotta cry about what happens um because that'll really take me out of the you know the moments if all of a sudden it drops through the earth and I just perpetually fall forever

[00:34:57] because somebody didn't beta test some shit whether I'm supposed to have a big emotional moment in Kaz Algar or wherever else we're going um and I hope I'm wrong I hope I'm wrong, I really hope it's smooth

[00:35:11] and you know there's going to be some sort of big cinematic and you know there's going to be stuff and it's intended to be cool and I hope it is um and we will know by the time we get to the next recording

[00:35:23] of this show, we will know I hope I'm fucking wrong but if that thing goes smooth if that thing goes smooth the first day and there's legitimately no problems the first person that reaches out to me I'll buy a steak dinner there's just there's there's just no way

[00:35:41] I'm going to keep on that I'm going to claim that steak dinner man I'll put my money where my mouth is wherever you want to go steak so along with the pre-patch event we did have a very brief but I think meaningful for the story quest line

[00:35:59] to kind of catch us up on you know where we're about to go to a degree it's almost inescapable as you go through the little quest line that introduces us to all of this getting us ready to go to Kaz Algar I think which by the way

[00:36:19] I totally forgot I don't know what it's like for the Horde but in the Alliance and Stormwind there is a secondary portal room that is behind the main portal room that you kind of have to access through some secret stairs and there's already the Kaz Algar Cove

[00:36:35] that's got the Tabard and all this stuff in it so it's kind of neat to see that and how that's all ready to go but there was a video that plays that you can watch to catch you up and I'll be honest

[00:36:49] I was kind of glad that they did that because it's not always the most linear thing to get to where we're going and I thought they did a really good job of kind of taking the major beats from the last few expansions

[00:37:03] and pulling stuff from whether the full CGI cinematic or the in-game cinematic or whatever it was to kind of explain the major players, how we got here and all of that and I don't believe that they've done anything quite that way before have they? Yeah, I'm not sure

[00:37:23] maybe I think I've took my head I liked it I dug it, I was glad that they did it It was fun showing my son because now he's up to speed this might be the expansion he starts playing finally, I made an account for him

[00:37:41] I've got to do this, get those good grades I had someone on Windows Central write a story recap based on that video they did I think Blizzard's the Harbinger event I think the Harbinger event was more interesting than this pre-patch event in terms of setting the tone

[00:38:07] there's some really great in-engine cinematics there with Kagger and Alleria, it's a bit of a lines heavy but what can you do I thought those were really well done, really well animated the level of craftsmanship when it comes to in-game cinematics has really stepped up

[00:38:29] I started doing it in Shadowlands to this level that's one good thing that came out of Shadowlands it was the level of enhanced cinematics that have been put into the game, so that was really awesome to see that was a great table setter as well

[00:38:47] I had no idea who Locus Walker was and now I know all of that great stuff that was a good intro for us on this more recent piece of the quest line it took us all the way back to Syllabus where if you haven't done it yet

[00:39:05] or if you get there and you're flying around and you're going where's the sword and where's the you gotta talk to the little one up in the upper right hand corner to get them to change back to the current timeline

[00:39:19] because for whatever reason I was still on the old school timeline and I was flying over there, I'm like where the fuck is this sword what the- oh shit I forgot so if you need to go back and change timelines make sure you do that

[00:39:31] so we get over there all the major players, Thrall Jaina and and we gotta go down to the to the heart the heart chamber we go talk to Magni, what's going on what's happening Magni people are seeing shit, what's going on and we find out

[00:39:51] Magni's kind of in a bad spot he uh Azeroth has gone silent to him he looks a little dirty you know at one time he was all diamondy he was a little translucent when he started moving around again and now he's he's not shiny anymore

[00:40:07] he's a bit rocky yeah, look at a little more earth I wasn't sure if I was imagining that or not no, no I feel like that's very intentional he looks different and I don't know if that's why but he turns out he's kind of resentful

[00:40:27] he's mad, he's upset he's giving up all of this going all the way back to cataclysm when he tried to commune with the with the planet turned him into a diamond we didn't think he was ever coming back and then oh, now he's the speaker of Azeroth

[00:40:45] he's giving up his kingdom and his family and all these things and now he's stuck down there in this chamber and nobody gives a shit anymore and there was a crappy locket that nobody cares about and we gave up all these powers

[00:40:57] and now he can't even hear Azeroth so it's like what the fuck but he's not happy, he's not having it we go down there gotta help him with a little ritual we turn on some consoles and lo and behold, thing fires up

[00:41:11] and oh, he starts elevating into the air and oh, he can hear Azeroth again and she says we have to go to uh, and then a big explosion and he gets knocked down and he's laying on the floor now, pretty sure that

[00:41:25] let's just to set up, we gotta go to Kaz Algar we'll leave it with somewhere else, but they haven't seen us, I don't know we take him back to Dalaran have a little chat with Moira and Bran and big boy Dagren who's now everybody's boyfriend apparently and

[00:41:43] it's kind of where we are in terms of the story line, in terms of the timeline kind of where we are just see them building the pieces putting the players on the board and just getting that ready for when some shit's going down, folks

[00:42:01] some shit is going down um, and I mean that literally some shit is going down uh don't know how I think we might have some idea um, but again if you want to do some laps around Dalaran now is the time

[00:42:19] I would get that out of your system and start taking some photos cause uh, reasons dude, there's still um, there's still one coin I need to fish up from the fountain one coin better hurry better dive in there with both hands that was

[00:42:41] the only way I think I got that was waiting for Raid's coalesce back in the old days and just sitting there and fishing into that fountain waiting for people to show up or whatever that was how I ultimately got that I think, and yeah that took forever

[00:42:55] it was sad pulling some of that stuff up and oh, boats and things that's good stuff though ah, Raft was the best anyway, old guys talking about Raft again so that's where we are any other thoughts about where the story is kinda knowing where we're going

[00:43:18] is there something more that you want to see before we hit the big time I tweeted this out the other day and it was it's a little bit controversial controversial because someone, I can't remember who it was but I saw someone tweet what's your controversial well take

[00:43:38] or something and I tweeted yeah, you might have seen it oh, I commented, I replied I said this is why we can be hosts well yeah, my comment essentially was well was better when the Alliance and Horde were at each other's throats and the warcraft and

[00:44:00] everyone feels like these days it's like well's gotta be this fluffy, come by ya everyone's friends and family now all this BS and it's like no, the ordinary Alliance should only be an Alliance when it's apocalyptic scenario and then even then they should

[00:44:22] it should be a very tenuous Alliance, like in Wrath where we find the Lich King but hey, we're also gonna try and kill each other with these flying machines yeah we're gonna go in the arena and wreck each other to see who's the best all that stuff

[00:44:40] I love that identity that well had and it's just not there anymore which I'm not a huge fan of and I think it really detracts from the identity of the game I think Blizzard's gone too far with it and I want to see in the next game

[00:44:56] it will fall apart all go to shit and everyone hates each other again I would love that, I would be very happy with that they should do that there's not a lot of daylight between you and I on this one where it's funny because and Stanchly Horde

[00:45:14] and this is like one of the things that we definitely agree on is you gotta put the war back in Warcraft I mean that is what it is and I know because I've heard it from people for years is well it's stupid because you know that eventually

[00:45:28] it's just gonna resolve and so the stakes aren't high enough essentially cause you don't really believe that they'll always be at each other cause you know that they're gonna come back together and to your point maybe that's a byproduct of the storytelling that Blizzard has instituted now

[00:45:44] where you know that they're gonna you know kinda break down the walls and have a little te-ta-tet and they're like oh okay now we gotta go blow up Zalatath together but I think you're right about midnight midnight's gonna be fucked up I am preparing for

[00:46:00] if this is Metzen driving the train right I am preparing for midnight to be our Empire Strikes Back World Soul Trilogy like I expect it to be dark and messed up and we're gonna lose characters and Azoroth is screwed and like I expect it to be messed up

[00:46:22] the expansion that certain people have been screaming about for years we wanna lose why do we always have to win I wanna lose okay people were bitch about that as well I think I remember people bitching that things have been too apocalyptic

[00:46:42] Dragonflight almost felt like a response to that where it's like okay well we're pulling back a bit and we're gonna have this sort of I don't know some of the software story but yeah, something a little bit more terrestrial almost like vanilla dealing with local threats, elementals

[00:47:00] and all that kind of stuff it was great, I really really enjoyed Dragonflight to give Dragonflight to Fowers I think it was a fantastic expansion for the modern era especially in the context of all the challenges that are facing AAA game development right now

[00:47:14] I think they've really really nailed it and to their credit it was kind of like all the stuff that was going on in the background around Dragonflight like the acquisition for example and all the drama surrounding that and more layoffs and things like that and

[00:47:38] all that kind of craziness and yet still they managed to pull it out of the bag and did a really really great job for overall they set out a massive roadmap they hit the roadmap for the most part and it was just a really really great expansion

[00:47:54] so does that momentum to consider when going into Dragonflight I think they've acknowledged in interviews that this is going to be a shorter campaign we were talking about how World of Warcraft is eventually moving towards a yearly expansion model and is that we talk about

[00:48:22] the world soul saga being this kind of this like end 20 years of World of Warcraft so is that what they're talking about is not necessarily there's a wow too is it more that it is a yearly chapter that we're going to see maybe after the saga is over

[00:48:46] is that what they're working towards I don't know man clearly they've got a plan they were talking to BlizzCon about having this plan to set up wow for the next decade so clearly they've got a plan in mind I've got that conspiracy theory that like

[00:49:04] they're going to do a full world revamp I imagine that like the way that this is going to look is like the midnight and the last titan are going to spruce up a lot of the existing zones with better graphics do a graphics pass on them

[00:49:22] and then after the last titan because I imagine in midnight and maybe even in this expansion I've got a feeling that like some of the seasonal content the patch content will probably take place in existing areas as an excuse to update them so like you know how

[00:49:42] we got we got you know we basically got a new night of starin zone it's not set up that way but it easily could be that in the future and you know you got dragonfly those zones are pretty much fleshed out already you know

[00:50:02] and when it comes to Kalimdor and Kalimdor in the eastern kingdoms those are the bits of the game that at least the bits of Azeroth that need the most love and updates I would say and then you've got northrend as well

[00:50:16] which is going to be where the next expansion takes place or was the last no the last titan so the third expansion is northrend yeah the second one is like 12th the last and like the kind of that upper eastern kingdom area I think

[00:50:34] so I kind of feel like the next two expansions are excuses to update the old world in different ways and then I suppose the expansion after that could be if something truly apocalyptic happens in the last titan you're probably looking at a time skip

[00:50:50] and then sort of like a soft relaunch I would imagine where it's like okay we're back to Kalimdor in eastern kingdoms again maybe Dagran has grown up now and Anduin's an old man just to make all of us feel old and and we've you know

[00:51:08] thralls a really old man like Drekthar in a wheelchair now and we've got like the next generation of junks as like a sort of baritone situation in anime terms the root of baritone somebody had to put Gen down yeah maybe I don't know

[00:51:26] but then like all the elves are still young because they're really long-lived I don't know but I think that's probably the way it's going if I had to imagine I don't think there's ever gonna be a WoW 2 on a new engine because the engine is

[00:51:38] the engine's what makes the game affordable to develop for but I think they've really identified that the way to do a sort of where WoW is gonna grow and find new players it needs to be it needs to have a radical sort of time shift

[00:51:54] where people don't feel intimidated by the 20 years of content attached to it and I think that's a good way to do it but I don't know it's just the theory no it makes sense even this morning when I was kind of portaling back

[00:52:10] to Stormwind and I was walking through I was thinking you know the only way that I'm ever really gonna see all of this content and as long as I've been around and as much as I've played I think the only way I could really see it

[00:52:24] is in 20 years when I retire and that's what I do during my retirement is have like solid chunks of WoW time every day basically until I die because I do believe that this game will be around I mean you know, give an average life span

[00:52:40] maybe I got another 40 years I feel like it's Warcraft is gonna be around another 40 years unless something catastrophic happens but there'll be something somewhere and I'll be playing it when I'm retired so anything's possible and yeah it's gonna be interesting to see

[00:53:00] switching gears just a little bit here last bit on this whole pre-patch situation we got going on and all the fun stuff coming with it is you and I like everybody else love and celebrate the full CGI cinematics that Blizzard does they're all just fucking amazing

[00:53:24] and have been you know since time of Memorial as much as I love World of Warcraft I still think the one that they did at the end of Diablo 4 is probably the greatest one of the greatest things I've just never seen that whole battle that happens it's just

[00:53:44] like 8 and a half minutes and it's fucking crazy and again you hear the calls of us going why don't we make a fucking movie what's taking so long because even those little clips take years folks we got a little something ourselves

[00:54:02] a little 2 and a half minute kind of intro to I think some major areas and characters and some things and they showed this earthen dude just wailing away on doing some blacksmithing stuff on it and I mean like a building sized you know hammer situation

[00:54:22] we saw a troll she's got a name I think it sounds like people know who she is I don't know who she is but she sounds like she's important and she's doing some like druidic magic which is awesome we have Farron Lothar and the Arathi

[00:54:38] who appear in the background while she gets all armored up and then behind her this Arathi army appears or like a battalion or something and it's again that looks straight out of Diablo 4 when they're about to have that battle the shades of that as they're like being

[00:54:52] lit up and like oh shit there's a whole thing we've seen the Rubians we see what looks like an old god tentacle and of course fuck a knife who got to come in at the end because you at this point you can't do anything in World of Warcraft

[00:55:06] if it doesn't involve Xalatath and yes I have seen whatever the goofy shit is that a bunch of the partnered streamers are doing where they're doing something online and then they're taking over by Xalatath and whatever and Jez I can't wait until you get to do one

[00:55:22] it's cause sure shit ain't gonna be me but I don't believe any words it was just you know it was just pure cinema it was just pure cinema baby pure cinema the way that they're able to create these images and make them look so fucking real

[00:55:46] it's just beyond me earthen looks so cool man unbelievable and you know it's easy to do in a video game but seeing it in that more lifelike kind of way and I think Taliesin of Taliesin and Evatel pointed this out and I had the same thought

[00:56:06] when I first saw it is when you see Farron pulling her armor over her head and like you see how it bounces you know her ears go in and just the way your ears would respond when you're pulling a shirt over your head

[00:56:20] just the physics of that alone it's a little thing but it's fucking cool and you're like man that looks so goddamn real this is amazing it's just got me hyped and I love it, I love this time

[00:56:32] this is the best time to be a World of Warcraft player when all the hype is coming all the new stuff is coming I expect there'll be more I really really really really hope they have an old soldier type series going through maybe through the whole world

[00:56:46] Soul Saga maybe we don't get a lot of them in one sitting not all they're not gonna have a big whole long thing in the war within maybe we have them spaced out over the whole saga but man what I wouldn't give for another one of those

[00:57:02] I really like the Warbringers stuff man, remember the Warbringers series yeah those were great I really really enjoyed those especially like the Azshara and the Zoth one I mean I know a lot of people didn't like some of the story beats

[00:57:18] in Battle for Azeroth but it was probably story wise probably my favorite expansion it just kind of it falls apart because of you know Sylvanas's motivations don't make sense they don't make sense it's like oh you believe this cosmic entity you've got no reason

[00:57:40] to trust in the Jailer and the Jailer's motivations are boiled down to you don't know you don't need to know that's basically you don't need to know basis why would Sylvanas go along with that so that kind of ruins it in a way but if we just ignore

[00:58:00] all of that and pretend that there was a good explanation for what she was doing then it's great all the build up the Warbringers, the Burning Tree the characters all the stuff leading up to that the lack of explanation was great I would love to see

[00:58:22] some more stuff like that with going forward and maybe we'll get it they provided great context like why we would care about certain characters or their stories or whatever it was and it is the opportunity to do it and we still have time

[00:58:40] we still have a couple weeks I assume that they've got more surprises in store because they know the cam and it's what we love so if you haven't watched it, it's on YouTube and probably everywhere else, the shadows beneath cinematic that we're talking about

[00:58:54] so if you haven't seen it go check it out and we'll keep in our eyes on what else is coming between now and the launch of the war within meanwhile Mr. Corden here has been busy at his regular day job had a nice article

[00:59:14] and a report that I thought folks on this show might be interested in is that Blizzard, it sounds like and you can tell us Blizzard has formed a new internal team that is going to focus more on double A games

[00:59:30] and you're going to have to explain a little bit about double A, triple A and what all that is so can you give us a bit of the low down on what this is and what it might mean so a few people had noticed

[00:59:42] over the last few months that a lot of employees from King so like Activision Blizzard King and King being the team behind Candy Crush Saga and some other mobile games, very casual kind of games about 70 employees from King had moved from King to be in under Blizzard

[01:00:08] and they you know people were speculating on what that was I did a bit of digging as I do and I discovered that they're part of a brand new team an all new team within Blizzard specifically within Blizzard that are sort of there to build

[01:00:30] new games based on Blizzard IP now the way it's been described is that they're going to be a small and agile team there's a lot of emphasis right now on agility and cost cutting in game development building smaller games and scaling back and taking you know

[01:00:52] not as such big risks because these days if you spend like 500 million on a game and it flops it can just destroy your whole company and I think like there's been some recent really big examples of that like Destiny's going through it now

[01:01:06] we talked about Bungie and Destiny earlier at least if that was in the part that I didn't accidentally pause the recording on but yeah Bungie and Destiny having issues right now with how much they cost to develop their game and cash flow issues there

[01:01:22] and then you've got stuff like Suicide Squad over at Warner Brothers they tried to build this live action live service Suicide Squad game which has just been a colossal failure and we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars here because it was a huge lifespan between

[01:01:44] Rocksteady's last game and then Suicide Squad and all those wages you paid and all that investment in people and studios and rent and just dumb stuff like electricity and then the game comes out and it flops, that's devastating so there is this

[01:02:00] there is this push in the game industry to make smaller teams, more agile teams teams that can make smaller but highly profitable games with good margins and it sounds like that's what this studio is going to be so they're going to be making smaller games

[01:02:14] based on so called TRIPAA which means refers to the amount of budget which is going to be smaller budget games not like Diablo if Diablo is a AAA then a AA is something like I don't know Diablo 2 Resurrected probably where they can basically adapt

[01:02:38] an existing game into something something new but I think as well these are going to be new games potentially not necessarily remasters but you have to wonder with King's expertise they're probably going to be mobile games I would have thought or at least maybe cross

[01:02:56] platform kind of games where it's like there can be mobile Xbox, PC and Playstation as well I suppose or really loud car just driving past there and also you know maybe Nintendo Switch 2 on the side so yeah I don't know what that's going to look like

[01:03:16] I don't know what they're working on they could be working on some fun silly mobile games based on Warcraft or Diablo that could be working on Starcraft stuff maybe even you know revive Heroes of the Storm I don't know so I guess

[01:03:34] we just need to wait and find out see what happens as much as I love Starcraft I'm not going to lie I would be a little disappointed if all I got out of it was a mobile game but at this point I will take anything yeah I

[01:03:52] was always saying that I was thinking like if they're going to bring Starcraft back they're going to do it more traditionally first I don't think they've earned the right to build a mobile game based on that IP just yet and

[01:04:04] I think Microsoft would be heavily criticised for that if they did use the IP to make a mobile game instead of giving people what they want but you never know we'll see what happens I feel like the BlizzCon where Starcraft 3 is announced will be

[01:04:22] probably like when Roman Reigns came back last night at Summerslam people just lost their shit spoilers haven't watched it yet but it was great Summerslam was good this year or like the Undertaker showing up at Russell Mania there you go big pop I

[01:04:48] I'm going to leave you my fans two drops minimum on that one it would be big so yeah I guess we'll have to see what comes out of that and you know that seems to me like at least a positive step that they're

[01:05:08] trying to figure out ways to add more things to the arsenal for individual franchises sometimes I feel like well I enjoy this world or I enjoy this franchise or I enjoy this lore or whatever it is but I only have so many avenues

[01:05:24] to enjoy that or explore that or experience that so if there are maybe some other smarter ways to do that I'd be a fan or it's going to be Diablo Mortal all over again and then god not help us Diablo Mortal was a very expensive game

[01:05:42] to make so I don't think it's like Diablo Mortal but I just mean the backlash and all the other oh yeah yeah yeah maybe I was thinking that it might be because there is one caveat about smaller games right and one of them is you know

[01:06:00] you can have a small core team but then like you can partner up with an external studio to get it up to that next level so like there's always this sort of potential where it could be like okay well they're developing

[01:06:14] the sort of concept in the core of the game and then like you partner with an external studio that sell for remote development like you know Double 11 or something to build it out Double 11 built a Minecraft Dungeons with Mojang which is a Diablo like kind of game

[01:06:34] based on Minecraft it was a very successful game I think as Microsoft and other developers look at what success looks like in today's economy it is some of these it is a lot of these smaller games which end up having high profit ability because

[01:06:54] they were cheaper to make stuff like Grounded, stuff like CF Thieves these were all made like by comparatively smaller teams and they've become these huge success stories as a result so I think that could be what they're making but you know it's all speculation

[01:07:10] all speculation until we see the you know what they're working on okay, alright well we know our man on the scene, Jess Gordon will make sure that we're up to speed on whatever those developments look like and appreciate your reporting on that then as a member

[01:07:28] of the gaming media as a journalist in this space I have one more discussion item for us on this episode and I know you'll enjoy this we did talk a little bit about it before we started recording so a few days ago we had a little

[01:07:48] controversy in the World of Warcraft community space where Josh Corbett who is a long time podcaster in our space had an interview with a couple WoW Classic developers and you know it's a typical podcast you have an interview, whatever and WoW Head

[01:08:14] as talked about, WoW Head a lot on this show we always do mixed feelings and that's part of what we're going to talk about here I had an article about the interview and had a pretty long readout of what some of the things that happened in that interview

[01:08:32] and Josh Corbett when they tweeted about it at WoW Head put that tweet on blast saying WoW Head is a leaching website run by absolute scumbags without a creative bone in their bodies this will get some hate but only by fuckwits

[01:08:48] this is not a shout out or a spotlight for a creator they've just written a 1564 word article basically transcribing my interview I will get 0 extra attention, sub-t traffic from an article like this this is completely done to drive clicks traffic, content and money to WoW Head

[01:09:06] built off the work of others and dressed up as quote community building fuck off you talentless useless tools now I so I know I had a response I retweeted this with a with a gif of my boy Zach Wilde doing a little clapping prayer hand thing

[01:09:28] and you responded with you don't own the devs opinions you're entitled as AF and good luck getting more interviews after this childish outburst that's just backed up by your you're right in the ambulance just now so multiple ways to look at this and I think that

[01:09:52] what's, oh there is there is and that's why I wanted to bring it up because I think for you you have a great perspective as somebody who's been a journalist understands how these spaces work especially when it comes to getting interviews and what those, what the purpose of

[01:10:08] that is and all of that I think there is a slightly different perspective that I want to put on this because this did get a lot of hate a lot of hate he was getting blown up left and right about this he knew that he would

[01:10:28] but for you Jez from your side from the experience that you have what is the I guess what is the issue with him I don't know, blown up like this look, he doesn't own the devs opinions right and getting an interview and him calling wowhead uncreative is just

[01:10:50] a load of bullshit for one thing so wowhead is providing the guides that he uses to build his character that is not uncreative so to call them uncreative is a childish little outburst that is just cringe and bullshit for one thing

[01:11:08] second of all he doesn't own the devs opinions so you know them sharing their opinion and him pointing it in the public domain that doesn't not mean he has any rights whatsoever to that content he just doesn't it's not how this works so like the etiquette

[01:11:28] is to give a backlink and embed the show and they did that prolifically at the top of their article they didn't have to do that to be honest they didn't even need to do that they could take that content and report it as fair use in you know

[01:11:44] fair use for journalistic reasons there is no law that says they have to provide a backlink non whatsoever so in fair use in terms of legal terms wowhead did everything they were supposed to do they gave them a huge shout and a big backlink

[01:12:02] and a lot of people just don't like to listen to podcasts I'm one of them I don't like listening to podcasts which is dumb because I do podcast I don't like listening to podcasts I prefer to read the articles

[01:12:16] I just scan over them and just give me the juice you know because I'm a busy dude so I really appreciate that when wowhead and other companies provide these summaries you know and allow me to get the information that I want and the information that I need

[01:12:32] in a more piecemeal format I don't want to listen to some rambling dude and you know and when I just want to know what the devs think and after his childish outburst I sure as hell wouldn't want to listen to that dude so

[01:12:50] for me I just thought it was super unprofessional really cringe and entitled the developers of their time and effort into doing that interview and I'm sorry but interviewing isn't super creative either you're not exactly creating anything the devs are the creative ones here he's the one leaching

[01:13:10] of their work and building a fandom and all that kind of stuff we're all doing that in this space we're not the creative ones the devs are the creative ones and for him to sort of try and claim any of that is asinine and childish and really irritating

[01:13:26] so that's my thoughts on that and I think like and the backlash to his tweet speaks for itself you know and to call people fuckwits to disagree with him like Blizzard ain't gonna work with him again I know Blizzard PR really well and that he just like

[01:13:46] comes across like an entitled child and he's really unprofessional if Wellhead hadn't given a backlink that'd be something and that's happened to me I've had situations where a YouTuber has taken an opinion piece I've written, basically built a script off my opinion

[01:14:06] and then passed it off as their own content to be pissed about because that's like wholesale theft with no flowers given to the creator and content creation is hard and it's hard work so it's like to give people the shout outs they deserve for actually putting

[01:14:26] that content together and getting the interviews and I'm not denigrating the fact that he was able to get the interview, that's awesome congrats but even if you've been linked back to and having your stuff embedded that is gonna grow even if it's like

[01:14:44] a few people, that's gonna grow your shit that's gonna grow your show and that's gonna draw attention to your stuff I'd never heard of this dude until this and I heard of him for the first time when he was crying like a little bitch

[01:15:00] so that's my perception of him now and I think he'll probably regret it it really is a shame but so let me ask you this question and maybe again it could help shine a light on a few things as a podcaster I would say that

[01:15:20] most people care about and even people like yourself with post articles on a website where you're trying to drive traffic you're trying to pull people in and part of this is that and I understand this if we had an interview with Chris Metz

[01:15:41] and let's say the Holy Spirit's Align and we get him on this show and we have a great conversation whatever that is would you at all be upset in any way if somebody just transcribed our conversation with him saying hey here's a snippet

[01:16:03] go here for the rest of it would that bother you in any way no I don't think so I mean because again like some people just don't want to listen to a whole show they'd rather read it maybe they're at work

[01:16:19] maybe they don't have access to headphones at the time I would just feel happy that we've been linked to and that we've been promoted and stuff it's happened to me before and for example if we did interview Chris Metz

[01:16:35] and on here I'd want to post it on Windows Central as well you know and and I think it's really dumb as well to bring up money because these well head writers they're not millionaires they're probably it's probably not even their main job they're probably scraping by

[01:16:55] they're probably not even salary they're probably like supplementary income for them writing he's not a great profession to make money with so to make it a thing about money is also just ignorant you know everything he said rubbed me the wrong way as someone who's

[01:17:13] made themselves in this industry of writing and I'm like incredibly lucky to have gotten to the level that I got to and it was all on the essentially sharing of my content that led me to get here you know people won't discover your content unless it gets shared

[01:17:35] and I'm happy when anyone shares personally but you know it is what it is and I think he just came across in the wrong way I mean he could have framed it in a much more mature way without having to you know throw them under the bus

[01:17:51] that hard and it could have been like all winey and stuff like that and you know it could have even like reached out to our head privately and been like look instead of transcribing it could you you know maybe just you know

[01:18:11] to be fair to him I wouldn't have transcribed the whole interview on Windows Central I would have done it as a editorial with snippets and then you know it's kind of difficult to go and link back to it but the same time it's kind of like this is

[01:18:29] sort of what it's almost like it's a cultural thing I think with MMO reporting in a way because I've seen Wowhead do this as well and not Wowhead sorry MMO Champion do this as well whether transcribe a whole interview

[01:18:43] I think it's essentially boils down to the fact that they know there's an audience for it and I think that's fine but maybe I'm wrong maybe he's right maybe I am a fuckwit aren't we all really in one form or another I um

[01:19:03] I guess the perspective I have on this is one truly I think it's fair and we've seen this a million times where there's an interview Wowhead being the ones really the one true central location where all of these things are housed

[01:19:19] you know they'll have some article about hey there's an interview by so and so with so and so here's a couple of highlights and then you know they've been I think fairly good about embedding you know whatever the video is or something like that

[01:19:33] when they cover it and so for me I under now the way that he went about it part of the reason why frankly I was kind of impressed is because you're napalming every bridge you have by going out like this because

[01:19:49] nobody is gonna want to touch you after this this is you know this is not how you handle things if you want to maintain a relationship because anybody that's a part of it now is like oh shit this is this is not gonna

[01:20:03] engender any kind of good will towards anything we do with this entity so I had to say I it took a lot of balls to do it was it the best way to handle it no but I think it took a lot of guts to do it

[01:20:17] this way because you know that essentially you're ending whatever that is and you know this is the one hill you want to die on then go for it I mean you think he knows that but maybe you just thought like either he knew

[01:20:31] he was torturing his bridges or he was arrogant enough to think like oh I'm such a big shot that I can say this and get away with it I think you know I think he knows he's gotta know I am yeah

[01:20:45] but I think that this is more about in my opinion this is more about wowhead itself which I have had a litany of problems with for a long time and when it comes to podcasts when it comes to I think some of these things it's about gatekeeping and

[01:21:03] that I think is one of the bigger challenges that I and others have had in the podcast space with wowhead is because in sort of my experience they're kind of like the kids who got picked on who are finally in charge and they turn out to also be

[01:21:21] dicks because for all of the stuff about community and this and that I know people who have had some pretty big interviews who didn't get a stitch of coverage because they're not part of the cool kids club girls gone wow who is part of the bonus

[01:21:39] role productions family had an interview with Holly longdale no less no coverage starting zone who had their 600th episode with Taryn Gregory as a guest which is not an easy get no coverage but some friend of theirs one of these people in the sponsored streamer realm

[01:22:03] has got a brand new podcast and their first episode is up and let's blast that out and that was like right kind of coinciding with the time of this so I can understand the frustration when it comes to how wowhead as like the central entity handles the podcast

[01:22:23] community in that it doesn't really handle it very well and I know that we're the redheaded step children when it comes to pretty much all content creation and it's almost like a badge of honor at this point but there are some challenges there and I understand

[01:22:41] that frustration because if you don't get in with them it doesn't matter you're not going to get your coverage you're not going to get you know like he said he's talking about traffic and I'm sure he got some increased traffic somebody's checking on this somebody's

[01:22:55] looking at it I don't know what his numbers are I don't know what his subscription numbers look like so it could be little it could be big I don't know but I get that frustration and so having a podcast as long as I've had one in this

[01:23:09] space and knowing how difficult it is to get an interview there's never been one on this show not for lack of trying and maybe it's what it says about me in the show so be it but you work and work and work and you're working

[01:23:29] the back channels and you're sending in pitches and you're doing all these things and finally you get oh shit I got somebody let's do this thing and there is that part of you that hopes like okay now people are going to come listen to the show

[01:23:41] because I've got this thing it's you know I assume it's the same as like television I've got a good guest and I want people to tune in but instead they read you know a paragraph about it in entertainment weekly and the ratings didn't go up it's like well

[01:23:55] that didn't help but at the same time you're not going to get mad because it's entertainment weekly's job so it kind of depends on how it's handled on both sides but I understand the frustration of wanting to have more people interested in what you're doing

[01:24:11] after working really hard to put it together and then somebody out there just transcribes the whole thing so they negate the need to go to your spot so I get it I understand that frustration from that angle and it is very real amongst the podcasting community

[01:24:29] let me tell you for all of the things that it does do for all of the things that it does do there is a strain when you put it like that when you put it like that you know there is like an element of

[01:24:47] I get the frustration right but it's unfair to blame well head for that in my view because we live in this environment of hyper low attention span everything and it's the tiktok world you know it's easy to say like oh this is all

[01:25:07] Gen Z's fault but it's everyone everyone's attention span is completely crying out Mindstrasht why don't listen to podcasts specifically because my attention span is really bad and having the content out there is rewarding enough for me personally the fact of the matter is you're never going to

[01:25:31] really make a living doing a world podcast it's too niche you could be the biggest world podcast in the world and I think like you're making yourself niche by having a podcast in the first place and then focusing entirely on world of warcraft is also going to increase

[01:25:51] the niche of it it is what it is right so I think like people can't have delusions about some of this stuff and then cry about it and call everyone fuck with and stuff when it doesn't when the reality just doesn't go your way

[01:26:11] so yeah I don't know it's tough man but it really did rub me the wrong way because attacking like writers who are pretty much struggling just to make ends meet effectively and calling them creatively redundant when all you've done really is do an interview you haven't created anything

[01:26:29] essentially I think all that stuff really rub me the wrong way as a writer and someone who I know has struggled to get into this space and I know the way I had writers struggle and work hard too they always have the guides up so quick

[01:26:47] they always have all the best up to date information and they work fucking hard for what they do and then to just sweep in and make such huge generalising statements was so childish and then also to just burn away any potential that you could have to

[01:27:05] make your podcast look mature and viable I guess I don't know it is what it is I guess well this is why I wanted to bring it up because I knew that between the two of us there's a kind of a spectrum of perspectives here and I can't

[01:27:23] know what it's like to be a struggling writer because I could not dare take that challenge because that is a hard way to make a living and the success that you've had it is pretty incredible because it's not an easy space and so that is a fair

[01:27:41] totally fair viewpoint on this I don't know coming out of it I doubt that Wowhead transcribes an interview quite like this ever again so maybe maybe the point will get made I don't know but yeah it's a tough one because I get it I understand the frustration with

[01:28:05] Wowhead they are kind of the gatekeepers of the Wow community and if anything I think they are even bigger than Blizzard itself in some ways because of just the reach that it has and while I'm looking at this tweet of Josh's this initial tweet

[01:28:21] it has almost 900,000 views on it so this one definitely caught the attention of the community for sure and y'all have to read it make up your own minds decide for yourselves but there's a couple perspectives on your side for you folks to think about alright

[01:28:43] I think we've done enough damage for one episode for those who don't already know where can the good people find you on the internet jezz you can find my content on winnescentral.com and I'm on twitter jezzcorden j-z-c-o-r-d-e-n there he is and thank you for joining me

[01:29:05] and uh my thanks to all of you for listening and remember you can always follow me on this show on twitter at berserker rage and unshackled underscore fury on blues guy at berserker and unshackled fury as well as on twitch at unshackled fury

[01:29:25] where we might actually do a live show and real berserker you can also join our discord links for which are in the profile of the show on twitter and on the facebook page feel free to contact the show with any of your questions comments or otherwise

[01:29:39] through those resources or on shackled fury dot com and you can find the show wherever you get your podcast so once again thank you for listening remember to keep your swords wet in your banners high and we'll see you next time farewell