In this episode, Berzerker and Jez are catching their collective breaths between patch cycles, but still finding some noteworthy items for your listening pleasure! Jez's recent interview with Associate Game Director Morgan Day, a new book detailing Blizzard's woes, some recent tuning attempts, and Chris Metzen coming along for a ride (sort of), are all on deck for today, so subscribe and download today!
[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.
[00:00:22] To your Uncensored Home for World of Warcraft news and opinions, this is Unshackled Fury.
[00:01:02] Another brewfest has come and gone as the Headless Horseman sits on the horizon.
[00:01:07] While we continue delving deep into the war within.
[00:01:13] So welcome back for Episode 154 of your Uncensored Home for World of Warcraft news and opinions, Unshackled Fury.
[00:01:23] I'm your host Berzerker and with me once again is the newly promoted Executive Editor of Windows Central, Mr. Jez Corden.
[00:01:33] Welcome back again good sir, and congratulations.
[00:01:36] Thank you very much, and how are you doing man? It's been another week in Warcraft-y universe. I suppose it's kind of like the hype of the expansion drop has waned now.
[00:01:51] Now Season 1 has kind of waned, and we're heading towards that sort of weird period while we wait for the next major content drop.
[00:02:02] Yeah, that's where we are.
[00:02:05] It's after six weeks, right?
[00:02:08] That's kind of about the timeframe we're in here is now there's that forced lull in the action, kind of a chance to catch our breath, so to speak, while everything's been pretty hectic, fast-paced.
[00:02:22] I think everybody's been going full speed and liquid won the race for world first.
[00:02:29] So congratulations to them.
[00:02:31] It seems like it was the same teams again.
[00:02:34] I think method might have pulled three.
[00:02:37] But yeah, for six weeks, we've been going pretty strong and continuing to have a good time watching the gear come flowing in via delves.
[00:02:47] And I've tried to take on Zekvir with just the one question mark level, and I have not been able to do it.
[00:02:52] But I've gotten... I've made good progress.
[00:02:54] I'm getting there.
[00:02:55] I'm like 599 gear level.
[00:02:57] So I'm like, like right there.
[00:02:59] I'm able to do an eight, a solid eight delves.
[00:03:03] And I think that's probably good for me at this point.
[00:03:10] Wanted to give folks a quick scheduling note up top.
[00:03:13] We are going to be sort of skipping a week here between now and the next episode.
[00:03:20] So it will be three weeks because in two weekends, in two Sundays, I have got to go to a hockey game.
[00:03:30] And...
[00:03:30] Hockey?
[00:03:31] Hockey.
[00:03:32] Because believe it or not, there is hockey in California.
[00:03:36] Is that ice hockey?
[00:03:37] It is ice hockey, professional NHL hockey, the San Jose Sharks.
[00:03:44] Our long-suffering shark franchise, which has made one Stanley Cup since its inception in what, 93?
[00:03:54] And that's about as close as we've come.
[00:03:56] So we're basically just going for a good time.
[00:03:59] That's it.
[00:03:59] Isn't a Stanley Cup one of those water bottle things?
[00:04:03] A what?
[00:04:05] Water bottle.
[00:04:06] I don't know.
[00:04:08] I saw this whole meme with Stanley Cups, man.
[00:04:10] I don't know.
[00:04:12] I've missed this entirely.
[00:04:14] I don't know.
[00:04:16] Never mind.
[00:04:17] Yeah.
[00:04:17] I don't know.
[00:04:18] I'm not as connected into the culture as you are.
[00:04:21] That's why you're here, Jez.
[00:04:22] You have to educate me on all of these things that I miss with all of the, you know, the online conversations.
[00:04:29] Chronically online.
[00:04:30] Yeah.
[00:04:30] You have the chronically online zeitgeist that I'm missing.
[00:04:34] That's what you're here for.
[00:04:36] Among other things, of course.
[00:04:40] For this week then, because it is a little bit lighter.
[00:04:44] And as you mentioned, season one, we're, you know, settling in now and the dust is settling and things are cooling off.
[00:04:52] This is a lighter news worthy era, as we tend to find during expansion cycles.
[00:05:01] So this episode may prove to be a little bit shorter, maybe a lot shorter.
[00:05:05] I don't know.
[00:05:06] We'll see where the conversation takes us.
[00:05:08] But just in case anybody has any high expectations of us going through the day's news like CNN or something, that's probably not going to be this one.
[00:05:19] But let's start us off with an all time metal album banger.
[00:05:27] One of the quintessential metal bands been around forever.
[00:05:34] And this album is, I believe, one of their best, if for one track only amongst all the greats.
[00:05:41] So for this week, your metal album of the week is Power Slave by Iron Maiden, which if you've never seen an Iron Maiden show, you are missing out.
[00:05:52] And it is, they are quintessential metal.
[00:05:56] They've been around forever.
[00:05:57] Like I said, this album came out September of 1984.
[00:06:01] So it's probably older than half of this audience, but it is phenomenal.
[00:06:07] Start to finish.
[00:06:08] And the last song on the album, Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, it's like 13 minutes or however long it is.
[00:06:15] But it is, it's a classic.
[00:06:18] And Ace is High and Two Minutes to Midnight.
[00:06:21] There's a couple other good songs on there.
[00:06:22] But that is one you got to keep in the rotation.
[00:06:27] Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer.
[00:06:30] So many acts that have come since have tried to duplicate or replicate the voice and energy of this man.
[00:06:39] But it is, it is quite hard to do because even, I don't know, a handful of years ago when I saw them at a show, these are not young men.
[00:06:46] And he's running and jumping.
[00:06:48] He's all over the stage.
[00:06:49] He's screaming and yelling and doing his thing.
[00:06:51] And he can hit some pretty high notes.
[00:06:53] Plus he flies their planes sometimes.
[00:06:54] He's a pilot.
[00:06:56] So sometimes he flies their own Iron Maiden jets from place to place, which is kind of sweet.
[00:07:01] But for you, Jez, does Power Slave ring a bell for you or does Iron Maiden rank in your listening rotation at all?
[00:07:10] Man, I have to confess.
[00:07:12] I've never really listened to Iron Maiden.
[00:07:14] Ooh!
[00:07:16] I think like what I've heard of them and like every British kid knows a bit of Iron Maiden.
[00:07:23] It just didn't resonate with me as a little kid.
[00:07:26] I don't know.
[00:07:28] I remember thinking, this is a bit cheesy.
[00:07:31] I kind of put it in the same box as Guns N' Roses, you know?
[00:07:35] Oh!
[00:07:36] Um, ha ha ha!
[00:07:38] As a kid, where I was like listening to, I wanted more angst, you know, Nirvana, you know, early Radiohead, you know?
[00:07:47] Oh my goodness.
[00:07:49] Depression music.
[00:07:50] Yeah.
[00:07:51] But yeah, I respect what they've done, of course.
[00:07:54] Of course I do.
[00:07:55] As a musician myself.
[00:07:57] Huge.
[00:07:58] Um, but, I say a musician myself, but not really.
[00:08:02] But, um, but yeah, not my cup of tea.
[00:08:05] Not my cup of tea.
[00:08:07] Not enough angst.
[00:08:08] Not enough angst.
[00:08:10] Well...
[00:08:10] Too much power.
[00:08:11] They are definitely not angsty.
[00:08:13] That is not, that is not the Iron Maiden way.
[00:08:16] It is very adventurous.
[00:08:18] Uh, it's, there's a lot of historical themes.
[00:08:21] It's very epic.
[00:08:21] What's that?
[00:08:22] Epic and cinematic is the, the, the, where I kind of see Iron Maiden.
[00:08:27] That, that's, that's probably the best way to, you know, are you sure you haven't listened
[00:08:31] to them?
[00:08:31] That's a pretty accurate description.
[00:08:32] Yeah.
[00:08:33] It's like I say, all, all British kids know Iron Maiden, you know.
[00:08:37] Just through osmosis of the culture, being British, you just, you just get it.
[00:08:41] Um, Beatles, Black Sabbath.
[00:08:45] Everyone, everyone knows a little bit of all of those dudes.
[00:08:49] Elton John.
[00:08:51] Elton John.
[00:08:52] Wow.
[00:08:53] Did he ever put out a metal album?
[00:08:54] You know, put that one up here if you did.
[00:08:56] I don't know.
[00:08:56] Is the Lion King soundtrack considered metal?
[00:08:58] I don't think so, but...
[00:09:00] Did Elton John do that?
[00:09:02] I thought that was...
[00:09:03] Oh, he had that great song that played forever.
[00:09:10] Uh, back in the day.
[00:09:11] Oh yeah.
[00:09:11] That was certified metal banger of all time.
[00:09:15] The Lion King soundtrack.
[00:09:17] We'll put that up next time.
[00:09:18] Uh, but for the rest of you, if you have not listened to it, put this on your regular
[00:09:24] playlist, uh, power slave by Iron Maiden.
[00:09:26] It is a, it is a true metal classic and your metal album of the week.
[00:09:31] Now, I got something that if you saw me on Twitter in recent times, you will probably,
[00:09:38] uh, know what I'm going to reference here.
[00:09:41] Uh, but I do have, you know, maybe it's a personal thing.
[00:09:46] I know that this, you know, didn't happen to just me.
[00:09:50] Uh, but, uh, I have something for the rage section I want to get into.
[00:09:54] So let's do it.
[00:10:01] Let's rage.
[00:10:04] So it may not surprise you, uh, to know that putting on or putting together a podcast,
[00:10:13] you know, it takes a little bit of work.
[00:10:16] It, it, you know, even, even this, uh, goofy thing that we got right here.
[00:10:22] Um, it does, it does take a little bit of effort.
[00:10:26] And one of the things that we need when we make these things is we need a place to put
[00:10:30] these podcast episodes, and then they have to be distributed by all kinds of different
[00:10:36] platforms.
[00:10:37] So, you know, Spotify, right?
[00:10:39] That's a, that's a common one that people know, and you can listen to podcasts on.
[00:10:43] In fact, you may be listening, uh, to this fine program on Spotify.
[00:10:47] Uh, but one of the biggest, and for us, certainly numbers wise, the biggest, uh, outlet that we
[00:10:54] have is through Apple podcasts.
[00:10:58] I'd say it's, I don't know, 80% of our listenership comes through, uh, Apple podcasts that have
[00:11:05] to look at the analytics, but it is quite a bit.
[00:11:08] And so imagine my surprise jazz as, uh, we had uploaded last episode and I wake up the
[00:11:20] next morning.
[00:11:20] Cause I usually have them go off, uh, 12 Oh 5 AM on that Monday morning.
[00:11:26] And I do that basically because of the analytics of catching a whole day's worth of subscribers
[00:11:31] to see what that actually looks like.
[00:11:33] It's, it's part of the machine folks.
[00:11:36] And so wake up in the morning episodes, not there.
[00:11:41] I go, Oh shit.
[00:11:43] Uh, case lock, I believe was the listener of ours that brought this to my attention and
[00:11:47] say, Hey, it's not on Apple podcasts.
[00:11:48] Oh God dang it.
[00:11:51] So I go and I look sure enough.
[00:11:53] It's in podcast.co where we upload the actual like file itself.
[00:11:58] And then it's distributed from there.
[00:12:00] And then I go look at our accounts on Apple and wouldn't you know it, it has disappeared
[00:12:08] completely rip rip unshackled fury into the void as if it never existed.
[00:12:17] And when I tried to add our feed, Oh, sorry.
[00:12:21] It's an error.
[00:12:22] Can I add at this time?
[00:12:24] Please, please try again later.
[00:12:28] And I'm in a, not a half happy to report, but at least it didn't happen to me.
[00:12:33] So I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm not feeling like somebody from on high that really hated
[00:12:38] this show and me and not you, Jess.
[00:12:40] Cause you're, you're a saint, you're a prince, but me and the show, perhaps there was a vendetta
[00:12:46] over at Apple.
[00:12:47] I don't know.
[00:12:48] And everything just disappeared.
[00:12:50] It was gone.
[00:12:52] And when I contacted Apple, they had no explanation for it.
[00:12:56] Zero, none.
[00:12:57] And all of the listeners that we lost, all of the numbers that we lost, all of the boo
[00:13:16] podcasts and we no longer have this problem, but God damn weeping baby Jesus in a tuxedo
[00:13:22] shirt, Jez.
[00:13:23] How can these corporations get away with this stuff?
[00:13:26] They're trying to suppress a first amendment.
[00:13:31] I'm, that is really weird.
[00:13:33] Cause my other podcasts, obviously we talk about some pretty messed up stuff that gets
[00:13:40] us demonetized on YouTube sometimes, but Apple's like typically Apple's left us alone
[00:13:46] so far, as far as I know.
[00:13:49] So that is weird.
[00:13:50] I, it'd be nice if they gave some kind of explanation there.
[00:13:55] It would have been nice.
[00:13:56] I was surprised that got back to me at all to be quite frank.
[00:13:59] Cause it's Apple and they're enormous and I'm just, you know, some podunk show, but to
[00:14:05] get that back up and running was an enormous pain in the ass.
[00:14:10] And there was no good explanation for it whatsoever.
[00:14:15] So if this happens to you, fellow podcasters out there, go look in your account in Apple
[00:14:20] podcasts and see if they archived the show and didn't tell you because that's what happened
[00:14:28] to us essentially.
[00:14:29] So now that I've ranted against big tech for the day, which living in California, I feel
[00:14:36] like that's a daily affirmation is to just yell into the clouds about Tesla or Intel, or, you
[00:14:45] know, one of these ones about what the fuck are you doing to me today?
[00:14:47] Well, now it's Apple.
[00:14:49] So I feel better.
[00:14:51] I feel better now.
[00:14:52] So, uh, we, uh, do have a little bit of news to talk about.
[00:14:56] Uh, Jez, you had something, uh, that I think was pretty important to touch on.
[00:15:01] So why don't we go ahead and jump into our news?
[00:15:12] When we were just kibitzing here a little bit before, uh, we started our recording.
[00:15:18] Uh, you brought up something that I wasn't sure whether or not this was going to be the
[00:15:23] rage topic of the week, but I felt like people were tired or probably are tired of hearing
[00:15:27] me complain about what is happening to my favorite class and spec, uh, these days, given
[00:15:33] that I've already shit all over the Slayer tree and how boring it is and how unimaginative
[00:15:38] it is.
[00:15:39] And then lo and behold, I've seen my poor spec just take one hack of a nerf after another,
[00:15:47] after another, after another.
[00:15:48] And I'm like, dear God, Jesus, where does this stop?
[00:15:51] When will you leave us alone?
[00:15:53] I saw that there's a little buff to the, you know, I don't know the tear set bonuses
[00:15:57] or some shit, but like the rest of the stuff is just getting the legs cut out from under
[00:16:01] us.
[00:16:01] Um, understand there's a bunch of other buffs and nurse, but those are the only ones that
[00:16:06] I'm paying attention to, but what the hell's going on out there?
[00:16:10] I don't know, man.
[00:16:11] I mean, it's pretty usual that there'd be buffs and nerfs around the launch of an expansion,
[00:16:18] right?
[00:16:18] But I suppose there's an extra layer of complexity with the hero talents and all that kind of
[00:16:24] stuff.
[00:16:25] And if you, uh, you know, if you go over to your favorite world of Warcraft new sort
[00:16:29] of choice, there's a bunch of buffs and nerfs that I've gone through.
[00:16:33] Um, some of them would be hot fixed.
[00:16:35] Some of them require weekly maintenance, which is Tuesday in us Wednesday in Europe.
[00:16:39] Of course my favorite tanking spec blood Sanlaine is getting a massive buff because everyone's
[00:16:48] using death bringer right now for those sexy frost sides popping out.
[00:16:53] So sign lanes getting a pretty massive buff.
[00:16:55] I'm pretty strike damage increased by 30%.
[00:16:57] Um, don't know if that'll affect the uptake of it because I think some reasons people use
[00:17:03] death bringers for survivability and blood is blood is like a yo-yo tanking spec.
[00:17:09] When you initially pull and you don't have your, your bone armor and stuff, you just get
[00:17:14] absolutely walloped.
[00:17:16] Um, but there's a bunch of other walloped.
[00:17:19] Yeah.
[00:17:19] It's a good, it's a good word.
[00:17:21] Um, there's a bunch, there's a load of, there's a load of buffs here.
[00:17:24] Like havoc's been buffed.
[00:17:25] Vengeance has been buffed.
[00:17:26] So ferals been buffed a little bit.
[00:17:30] Um, augmentation evoker has been slightly nerfed, which is interesting.
[00:17:36] Um, devastation has been a little bit buffed.
[00:17:41] Preservation has been buffed and nerfed.
[00:17:45] Um, and, uh, a lot of people have been complaining about how dominant restoration is at the high
[00:17:52] end of mythic plus.
[00:17:53] Uh, like if you, if you go and look at the, yeah, look at the stats, it's something like,
[00:17:58] cause like the, the people who really min max, they don't just min max their own class.
[00:18:02] They min max, which class they play.
[00:18:04] They will literally change class.
[00:18:06] If they, if the perception is that, um, Oh, this is flavor of the month.
[00:18:10] I'm going to switch class or whatever for this season.
[00:18:13] So everyone at the high ends playing restoration right now.
[00:18:16] And they took a massive 2% nerf on earth shield damage reduction.
[00:18:23] Um, and acid rain as damage has been reduced.
[00:18:28] But the thing I'm happy about is that my boy demonology warlock, which is, it's weird, right?
[00:18:34] Because I'm pretty high on the damage mirror in my raid right now.
[00:18:39] And I don't know if that's because my gears beyond the rest of the raid, or I just got a headstart
[00:18:45] and I've just stayed ahead of them for whatever reason.
[00:18:48] Mm-hmm.
[00:18:49] But so like my perception of demonology right now is that, Hey, demonology is pretty good.
[00:18:55] You know, in, um, heroic myth, uh, heroic raids or whatever, at least.
[00:18:59] And we killed, uh, we killed, uh, the egg boy today and also the Nexus princess.
[00:19:06] And we killed them today on heroic.
[00:19:08] I think we just, what's that?
[00:19:10] Two bosses left.
[00:19:11] I think before I had the curve or three, I can't remember off top of my head.
[00:19:14] Mm-hmm.
[00:19:15] Um, my perception is demonology been pretty strong this season, but if you actually go
[00:19:18] and look at the rankings, demonology's low down there with fury.
[00:19:24] At least right now.
[00:19:25] Oh boy.
[00:19:27] Because fury got a bunch of nerves.
[00:19:29] I feel bad, like outlaw rogues right there at the bottom, shadow priests circling the drain
[00:19:35] as well.
[00:19:36] Um, shout out to Raven in my guild.
[00:19:40] Uh, he's a long suffering shadow priest.
[00:19:43] Um, but, uh, for whatever reason, the shadow priest didn't get a buff and I think shadow
[00:19:49] priests need a buff, but there's been a lot of buffs and nerfs going in mountain thing.
[00:19:53] Got a pretty massive buff on the warrior side.
[00:19:58] Um, so, uh, so if you're a fury warrior who wants to be a mountain thing, which I always
[00:20:04] thought was an interesting theme.
[00:20:06] It's very dwarven.
[00:20:08] Mm-hmm.
[00:20:08] Um, they have got a pretty big buff because pretty much everyone on earth playing Slayer
[00:20:14] right now.
[00:20:15] And I think that's one of the, my concerns about, one of my concerns with the whole hero
[00:20:20] talent system was that it was just going to end up like covenants where it was like, you
[00:20:24] can't pick the aesthetic you want.
[00:20:26] You have to pick which is the bad damage.
[00:20:28] Right.
[00:20:29] And I feel like I've been really lucky as demonology because both specs are pretty close.
[00:20:37] Mm-hmm.
[00:20:37] So like, I could like, I can go in as a Diabolist demonology warlock or, uh, or the other one.
[00:20:43] I can never, soul harvester and pretty much do the same damage.
[00:20:47] Mm-hmm.
[00:20:47] You know, I, I pretty much been chopping and changing based on how I feel with that particular
[00:20:52] day.
[00:20:53] I think like Diabolist, you know, you min max it with a bit more management.
[00:20:57] So if I'm feeling lazy, I play soul harvester, you know, the damage usually comes out about
[00:21:01] the same, but, um, but some of the other specs out there, man, the, the damage is wildly
[00:21:06] different.
[00:21:07] Mm-hmm.
[00:21:07] You know, you, you can like, there's like a measurable difference to, to a large degree,
[00:21:13] you know, and I'm hoping that Blizzard can keep, you know, incremental.
[00:21:17] I'm actually balancing things, but it's really funny, right?
[00:21:20] Because with regards to balance, if you go and look at the chart of the DPS charts and
[00:21:26] you actually look at the chart, it'll be like the person, the class that's at the top of
[00:21:29] the, the list is only like 8%, maybe away from the bottom of the list.
[00:21:37] Mm-hmm.
[00:21:37] So like, even though the graph has this curve on it or the graph might have this curve on
[00:21:41] it, which makes it look like, Oh God, this spec sucks.
[00:21:44] It's really only 8%.
[00:21:46] And I think unless you're absolutely min-maxing every single red of juice, you can still pull
[00:21:53] off like good DPS as an outlaw rogue or shadow priest or whatever.
[00:21:58] So, oh, sorry, I'll be a bit sleepy over here.
[00:22:01] It's 11 PM in Germany.
[00:22:03] But, yeah, like balance is, it's a lot better than it was back in vanilla, man.
[00:22:09] I remember like you couldn't, you just couldn't be a rep paladin in vanilla.
[00:22:13] You couldn't be like half of these specs.
[00:22:15] They just, they didn't have the tools to even really do any damage.
[00:22:19] You know?
[00:22:20] Everyone was playing my dream rogue if you wanted to do serious damage or, you know, warlocks could do damage too.
[00:22:27] Um, but then like the best, the best warlock spec was like pour everything into curse of shadows and just spam shadow bolt.
[00:22:34] There's no rotation.
[00:22:36] It was just shadow bolt.
[00:22:37] Love it.
[00:22:38] And even like, even like casting corruption in some patches was a DPS loss.
[00:22:42] But yeah, it's a, the specs are pretty balanced now compared to what they used to be.
[00:22:48] But it's just interesting to see when there's little tweaks here and there.
[00:22:53] Yeah, it seems that they're still trying to find their footing a little bit.
[00:22:57] Cause I, I, again, this could be a recency bias, but I feel like this is more fine tuning more often than what we've typically seen in the past.
[00:23:07] I could be wrong with this.
[00:23:09] It feels like there's constantly some little changes being made.
[00:23:14] And yeah, one of the thoughts that I've had kind of sticking in my head is the comment that you have made a few times about the hero talents being potentially rushed and not ready by the time the expansion launched.
[00:23:29] And so now it's all right, we put it out there, but there's still some other work that we probably could have gotten done on like a PTR or something like that.
[00:23:37] But we're just going to have to do it in the live game because that's the position that we got put in.
[00:23:43] Do you think that that plays a factor here?
[00:23:45] Maybe.
[00:23:46] Maybe.
[00:23:47] Alonzo was worried about Zen Γιαatching.从gic
[00:23:47] a bunch of people missed in it, but I actually interviewed, Blizzard's devs this week. Yeah. As
[00:23:54] a sort
[00:23:54] of like post-mortem kind of on the, on the expansion, sort of like what their thoughts are about. You know,
[00:24:03] the near future of it.
[00:24:16] there was a there was a couple of interesting comments because i did bring up that point and
[00:24:22] i said you know this is an interview with morgan day and i did bring up this point that you know
[00:24:30] the hero talents you kind of admitted with the the rework of the dark ranger that some of the
[00:24:36] hero talents haven't had a good enough pass on them um and i was like i feel both thematically
[00:24:44] mechanically some trees are a lot stronger than others even now and um morgan day said dark ranger
[00:24:50] is the big one for 11.0.05 and the 20th anniversary update super excited for the update and the new
[00:24:56] visuals there and dark because dark range of course not only got a complete overhaul about how they work
[00:25:02] but also like a lot of cool visuals based on sylvanas and they look absolutely badass now
[00:25:07] whereas before they had pretty much no animations whatsoever yeah and they they got black arrow
[00:25:12] which was an existing ability so it was like this is just not exciting at all um and uh and this is
[00:25:19] what morgan's day said which um i'm surprised wowhead and ml champion didn't pick up on it but
[00:25:24] i'm not um i'm afraid of you
[00:25:28] i know the truth oh man the gothic sprite over there wowhead it runs that place she's afraid i know
[00:25:35] it i just know it you have an aura jess you have an aura i hope not because i'm a big fan of
[00:25:41] wowhead but um but uh this is what morgan day said but for the immediate future outside of dark
[00:25:47] ranger we're also looking at making adjustments to rogue restoration and balanced druids as well as
[00:25:53] enhancement and elemental shamans uh with regards to hero talents additionally based on player feedback
[00:25:59] we're also looking into just the shaman ascendancy form which they just showed off they've the shaman
[00:26:04] ascendancy form being like it looked pretty ridiculous on the first path pass at least
[00:26:10] for everyone except i kind of feel like it matches trolls a little bit because it looks like one of
[00:26:16] those toy trolls you know you used to get as a kid but for everyone else i think it looked pretty ass
[00:26:22] so they've added a version that has a helmet now and hides the hair away which looks a lot better
[00:26:28] but i think even then like thematically ascendance for ascendancy form just doesn't make much sense
[00:26:33] because that was a in the law it's a twilight's hammer cult thing it's like a like a holdover from
[00:26:38] caraclysm i don't think that shit makes sense at all in any in any in any way shape or form i i don't
[00:26:45] know why they're clinging to it so much because a lot of shamans i know just hate the damn thing
[00:26:49] but they feel like they have to take it because that's their dps cool down right um anyway it's a
[00:26:55] tangent but but yeah it sounds like they are going to be doing more in-depth reworks on the hero
[00:27:02] talents and i do i do feel like the dark ranger rework that's pretty much an admission that they
[00:27:09] were underbaked and if you look at how balanced the warlock ones are i mean yeah the demonology
[00:27:14] like is apparently bottom of the pack but at least between the two hero trees the the hero trees
[00:27:21] themselves are like they feel perfectly balanced you know or they're very slightly some fights maybe
[00:27:27] one slightly better one fight maybe the other's better but overall they're so close and i think
[00:27:33] that's where they need to be with all the specs but thematically is a different argument altogether
[00:27:41] well since uh since you got the chance to talk to morgan day is there anything else because you had a
[00:27:48] pretty good interview i know you talked about uh something about cinematic stuff uh i think the
[00:27:53] stay a while and listen was in here uh you had some really good questions in here uh what else can
[00:27:58] you tell folks about that interview um i don't have it in front of me so i can't remember all of
[00:28:03] his answers but um but we yeah we we talked about like delves and how they've landed and also balancing
[00:28:12] the rewards from them and and i also complained that you know there's another balance issue there where
[00:28:18] some the some classes have a much easier time with delves than others like my my demonology warlock
[00:28:24] you know i plowed through all the delves really easily my dis priest like had a really it's like a
[00:28:31] chore because everything just takes so long to die and it's not it's not like it's not like it's
[00:28:37] you know yeah you can heal yourself and stuff like that but like it's not like you're it's impossible
[00:28:44] to do as a dis priest it's just slower it's just so slow because dis priests are not a damage class
[00:28:49] and bran in dps mode does not make up for the damage of a real damage dealer yeah so like there's that
[00:28:55] that aspect of it as well and morgan day was saying like they do want to get get it back to that level
[00:29:00] um they want to make it feel you know balanced for all the different roles but i suppose making
[00:29:06] it balanced for different all the different roles is like going to be an ongoing thing and i suppose
[00:29:12] hopefully what they want to they want to get to a point where it's just a system where it's like
[00:29:16] the delve knows okay this is this priest we need to adjust the dungeon on this basis you know and this
[00:29:24] i think this is one area where ai could probably help if like ai is like generally yeah i think it's a bad
[00:29:32] thing for gaming but this is probably something where like you could you could feed all the data into an ai
[00:29:38] and the ai like works out the math you know for you but yeah i don't i don't know what's out of my
[00:29:47] wheelhouse to know if that would actually work or not but you think that's something ai could help
[00:29:52] with right you'd think theory yeah it sounds like a good plan to me well that's uh that's awesome that
[00:30:00] you got a chance to interview him and uh for folks that haven't seen the article uh i don't know
[00:30:05] if there's a an official title here world of warcraft interview discussing solo dungeons war bands
[00:30:10] more talent trees and more with morgan day by our lovely uh executive editor was the executive editor
[00:30:21] jez gordon uh getting out there and and spreading the war so awesome that you got a chance to talk to
[00:30:28] him and it is a good time for sure and i'm glad that you touched on your profession because there's a
[00:30:40] discussion that i've been wanting to at least touch on for a while that we've kicked a little bit down
[00:30:49] the road and that has to do with the upcoming in two days as we record this one day when this episode
[00:30:58] drops the upcoming book uh by uh well known in the gaming space uh reporter jason schreier and the
[00:31:06] quote play nice the rise fall and future of blizzard entertainment book that he has coming out this was
[00:31:15] announced oh some time ago and even then i had my i don't know i had sort of two minds about this when
[00:31:26] it came out because i have had my issues with jason schreier not personal we don't know each other but
[00:31:34] just like the way that some things have played out i think he has over sensationalized certain things
[00:31:41] that didn't quite fit the mold for what i felt was getting the energy that it was uh getting uh while
[00:31:49] other times hey people have talked to him and leaked stuff and he's had his name out there and you know
[00:31:54] like i think it was back when he was with uh leaf kotaku and would put something out you knew that it
[00:32:00] was gonna be some insider shit or whatever it was and like oh here we go it's gonna be something big
[00:32:05] uh and so basically this book which is coming out october 8th is just a bunch of that it's all these
[00:32:14] insider stories of all of these things that have happened uh with blizzard basically since their
[00:32:20] inception uh talking about mike morheim uh the relationship with bobby kotick with activision
[00:32:27] taking over uh what happened with the uh project titan and how essentially that apparently as we
[00:32:36] knew and this really confirms was a catalyst for a lot of things uh one being that was purportedly
[00:32:45] the springboard that bobby kotick and activision used to begin to exert more influence because of
[00:32:53] all of the time resources uh and energy that have been essentially wasted on titan of course part of
[00:33:01] that did become overwatch um but there's more and there's you know all the salacious stuff about
[00:33:07] swingers parties and getting banned from a hotel and um you know all these things that happen with uh
[00:33:14] there's a lawsuit with netflix where apparently jez at one point we might have been getting a a
[00:33:20] starcraft animated series and that you know that would have sufficed i would have i would have been
[00:33:27] okay with that but there was allegations that netflix poached uh an animation lead uh over at blizzard
[00:33:34] and so that scuttled that whole thing and and so the whole book is filled with a lot of these kinds
[00:33:40] of stories it's insider information obviously what happened with uh all the allegations and the
[00:33:46] lawsuits uh around the harassment and otherwise a few years ago and my understanding is is that it ends
[00:33:53] the book ends with the most recent uh huge wave of layoffs and so the question that i've been wrestling
[00:34:03] with still is and i've talked to a few different people about this for the most part it seems that
[00:34:12] people are enjoying what they've been seeing i know some folks were given advanced copies this show is
[00:34:20] not important enough or well known enough to get said thing uh so nobody reached out to us because
[00:34:25] i would have taken it if somebody would have asked because i don't know that i want to pay money for
[00:34:30] this because i don't know that i want to give it to this person um because the challenge that i'm
[00:34:35] continuing to have quite frankly is something about this just feels wrong to me and i i i
[00:34:46] have to admit that i love good gossip at times as much as anyone and i am completely guilty of it i work
[00:34:52] in an industry that is built on gossip i swear to god most of the time um but there's something about it when it comes
[00:35:03] to people's lives and livelihoods and damage that was done to like real human beings that i i question
[00:35:13] the motives for this publication and one of the things that i again this is gut check i have not
[00:35:23] read this stock i have not read this book i have seen the same excerpts as everybody else and the stuff
[00:35:28] that has been put out there i'm not gonna lie it's some interesting stuff there was a reddit ama that jason
[00:35:34] did and he you know touched on a bunch of the things that go on in there um you know obviously it
[00:35:41] was hey here's a little bit about it go read my book and you know all of that this dude has been
[00:35:45] everywhere there's been a lot of books about a lot of things in our space i have never seen anyone
[00:35:54] out there as much as jason trier for this book i i mean all the usual outlets for us uh the people
[00:36:02] uh you know would have articles on window central uh polygon uh gizmodo you know some of these places
[00:36:10] that i go to uh the verge um you know all these other tech sites shit i even have a subscription
[00:36:17] to defector which if you know what that is uh cool if you don't it's the group it's a group of guys that
[00:36:24] used to basically be in charge of the website deadspin uh they went and started their own thing and it's
[00:36:29] a pretty good website and they got a lot of good writers on there including ray ratto from uh the bay
[00:36:41] even they had an interview with him on a podcast and i'm like what in the fuck this guy is freaking
[00:36:48] everywhere and on one hand it's like hey he's doing you know publishers doing her job he's doing his job
[00:36:55] he's getting out there he's getting everywhere but the thing about it that strikes me as kind of odd
[00:37:01] is that in in a lot of these reviews and in a lot of these places everyone seems really over eager to
[00:37:10] kiss this guy's ass and it's all this glowing stuff about how great he is and how good his reporting is
[00:37:18] and all these things and nobody is that universally well loved number one
[00:37:26] number two when i see people act like that in my professional life it's because they don't want
[00:37:34] to get in trouble with this person that they know that they wield some sort of power or authority or
[00:37:40] influence or something that makes them nervous to speak ill in any way shape or form about this person
[00:37:50] and i and i could be entirely wrong maybe they all love him and he's great and he's the
[00:37:56] most wonderful guy since time of memorial but there's something about it when i read these things
[00:38:02] and i see these things and i just kind of have a past history it it makes me it makes me hesitate
[00:38:09] and so while there are a lot of wild salacious stories in this thing i i i don't know if i'm going to be
[00:38:19] able to get over my own hesitation to uh pay money to read this book and i and i have had
[00:38:26] people that i trust their opinions on have come and said that what they've read and seen and this
[00:38:31] and that that they had no problem with it and so this could very well just be me saying this as the
[00:38:39] one lone podcast in the dark in the community that's having a problem with any of this
[00:38:44] so i guess the one question that i would ask of you jez who is the professional journalist in this space
[00:38:55] is where is the line between responsible reporting to your to the to the public at large
[00:39:08] and trying to instead profit off of people's misfortunes
[00:39:16] or is it always just kind of a a blend of both and that's okay
[00:39:22] the line is a few hundred thousand dollars i would think
[00:39:27] i'm joking in terms of like a lawsuit
[00:39:31] no in terms of box house oh i see i see i see yeah um but i i don't know i mean
[00:39:39] the end of the day the point of journalism is if there's information
[00:39:44] it depends what kind of line you take on it right
[00:39:48] like if you are someone like the wikileaks dude i can't remember his name
[00:39:53] uh julian assange right his whole shtick was like if information exists it should be public
[00:39:59] right um and he went obviously he got in a lot of trouble
[00:40:04] yeah for sharing a lot of diplomatic military you know classified cables from all sorts of nation states
[00:40:12] united states pretty much made his life a living hell for the last god how many years now
[00:40:19] uh 20 years something like that yeah um was so he suffered very much for his craft
[00:40:25] you know but the the but because of his work you know we we discovered the end the you know the nsa
[00:40:32] dragnet and bunch of other stuff that you know you think he's well within the public interest now
[00:40:41] is gossip about a video game company um really newsworthy now that ultimately depends on the individual
[00:40:50] you know if are you interested to know um you know about blizzard swinger parties you know
[00:40:57] personally i think what adults consenting adults do in their personal fucking time
[00:41:01] i could not give the remotest fuck about now that make but that makes it sellable right sex is
[00:41:10] sexy sexy sex sells and you've got like and you've got like um you know companies like
[00:41:17] you know daily mail or the the sun you know british tabloids legendary for publishing all kinds of you
[00:41:24] know stuff like that right but i don't know the context that that stuff is in there in you know
[00:41:31] because obviously swinger pie is a swinger pie but if like something happened as a result of that
[00:41:37] swinger pie which you know led to someone being um you know because obviously one of the things about
[00:41:43] one of the things about blizzard in the recent years with regards to controversy is you know the abusive
[00:41:50] practices that have you know led to people being maligned and and mistreated and stuff like that right
[00:41:58] so i don't know what the context of that kind of reporting is because i haven't read a book and
[00:42:04] i'm probably not gonna read the book because i'm not really that interested in learning that stuff
[00:42:09] personally speaking um i'm more i'm more as a news guy i'm more interested in the future i suppose
[00:42:21] and i want to know i suppose maybe it's part of its working in tech
[00:42:26] like like for me a lot of this stuff's just old news and it's not my it's not my personal interest
[00:42:33] but at the same time i don't begrudge people who are interested in it um
[00:42:40] but at the same time as that like when i when i think about it and i've tried to do reporting like this
[00:42:45] i spoke to i spoke to about within the region of 40 and 50 developers on halo infinite because i don't
[00:42:56] know if you know much about halo infinite but the game was very expensive and it was a big it was a
[00:43:02] big catastrophe when it launched um like it got decent reviews at the gate didn't resonate with all
[00:43:11] the fans but the big issue with it was the live service there was no team in place to do the live
[00:43:16] service so it fell short of pretty much every other live service shooter out there lost all its user base
[00:43:23] and the most notorious thing about it really was you know the these rumors that it cost like half a
[00:43:28] million dollars to make uh half a billion dollars sorry so um it's really expensive game to make
[00:43:37] you know considering how much of a flop it was how unfinished it was the story the story just ends
[00:43:43] and we're probably never going to get a resolution to that story you know so i tried to find out what
[00:43:50] went wrong with that because microsoft cleaned house after you know halo infinite bunch of bunch of high
[00:43:56] up people microsoft lost their jobs yeah bonnie ross famously was pushed out the company um you know all
[00:44:03] that kind of stuff so i was like i want to i want to try and do some proper reporting on this and find
[00:44:07] out what the truth is but my issue was all the people i spoke to and i spoke to about 60 different
[00:44:14] people between between four not 60 well i don't know it's about 50 people 40 50 something like that
[00:44:21] i can't remember this is like going back a few years now i spoke to i spoke to dozens of people
[00:44:25] and i um my issue was i couldn't get a consistent narrative every single person i spoke to had a
[00:44:36] different version of events a different person to point blame at and all that kind of stuff
[00:44:41] and i was thinking like i can't in good faith because i wasn't there i wasn't there i wasn't
[00:44:48] flying the wall i didn't have a cct camera cctv camera 343 right to be able to
[00:44:56] in good faith say this is what happened to 343 this is what happened because everyone had a wildly
[00:45:03] different take on it one of the reasons for that is the company was very siloed which again was an
[00:45:09] issue there they used a lot of contractors which didn't have access to the full breadth of information
[00:45:14] themselves again you know big issue and that's something i can report you know a little more so
[00:45:21] but to be able to you know do a complete consistent story on that i feel like i couldn't do it in good
[00:45:30] faith i wasn't confident that the human witnesses i was speaking to were completely reliable you know
[00:45:39] or which ones were reliable which weren't which were disgruntled employees and had an agenda which
[00:45:44] people had a personal vendetta against certain employees because there was definitely definitely
[00:45:48] a sense i got from speaking to some people that they wanted me to print something specifically to
[00:45:56] attack someone they didn't like and that's happened to me before and in fact it's a good it's a good
[00:46:02] source of leaks when there's a pissed off employee i bet or that yeah and they'll come to you and be
[00:46:07] like oh this happened this happened this happened and sometimes it'll be like oh well this is cool
[00:46:12] information xbox fans should know this but other times it's like this dude's just trying to impact
[00:46:19] someone else's career they've got an invent that and they're trying to use me to create that narrative
[00:46:24] for them um and these are all things i've had to learn in the job like i never had a mentor i never
[00:46:30] had anyone mentor me about journalism i haven't done any journalism qualifications i've just sort of
[00:46:35] struggled my way through and i find like journalists in in the space that i'm in a very elitist they don't
[00:46:42] want to share things they don't want to help each other they don't want to mentor um yeah so i've pretty
[00:46:48] much been completely solo they're very sort of insular and like when you say like people seem afraid of
[00:46:54] jason i genuinely get a sense yeah they are they are afraid of jason because um you know because of his
[00:47:03] influence and stuff like that you don't want to be on his bad side because he can he can you know make
[00:47:10] he can easily sort of um he's got a huge fan base you know and it's like any youtuber or content
[00:47:17] creator with a huge fan base and they can use use it against you i mean i've done it myself you know
[00:47:22] when someone's been a dick to me i fucking like quote tweet them into my feed when i'm pissed off and
[00:47:29] just be like yeah sick them boys uh oh yeah but like you know but it's it's different when it's like
[00:47:35] a random anonymous person on twitter and when when it's like it directly impacting someone's career you
[00:47:41] know so i'm not saying jason would do anything like that um i don't really know the guy i've met him a
[00:47:48] couple of times at events um i don't think he likes me very much because i said you know i write about microsoft
[00:47:54] and i get the impression that he doesn't like microsoft at all personally and i think by
[00:48:00] extension he doesn't like me no personally i don't know what i've done to make people in this
[00:48:07] industry dislike me but yeah i just get the sense no journalists really like me to be honest it's not
[00:48:12] just jason but um that's not for you know trying i guess i'm just a weird or an asshole or people
[00:48:21] don't like me for whatever reason but um but i get why people are interested in this stuff you know
[00:48:28] the the people will be interested for different reasons like a you might be interested in what
[00:48:33] happened with titan because maybe you're looking forward to titan you're interested in what's going
[00:48:37] on with starcraft because you know there's a lot of unsatisfied starcraft fans out there yep we're very
[00:48:42] very patiently waiting for the next one and one of the things jason said on one of these podcasts was
[00:48:47] blizzards incubating a starcraft shooter now one thing i was told a couple of years ago was that
[00:48:55] it was i was just given a sort of vague starcraft isn't dead watch this space yeah um kind of thing
[00:49:02] and actually i actually said that on a podcast about a year ago while i was really wasted and then a bunch
[00:49:09] of websites picked it up jez cordon club starcraft reason development and it was like no i was told
[00:49:14] i was kind of hinted it wouldn't be starcraft 3 so i was kind of worried that it was a mobile galub
[00:49:20] or some shit but it sounds like it could be the shooter that jason was talking about at that trying
[00:49:28] to incubate but um but i can see like why you'd be interested in that stuff and the the video game
[00:49:33] industry is strangely secretive he's really secretive and i don't know why like it's it's so weird to me
[00:49:40] how how controlling video game companies are of all their narratives and i suppose part of it is like
[00:49:49] the amount of risk involved in a video game flopping is huge but i think like they really want to
[00:49:58] micromanage perceptions to some degree but then i think i think about that but then i think like well
[00:50:04] why do they do so much fucking stupid stuff then you know if they're really if they're really that
[00:50:09] worried about you know the perception of their business why do they keep doing so much stupid
[00:50:16] stuff you know the stuff that pisses everyone off like you know the pre-order bonuses nickel and
[00:50:22] diming people you know all that kind of stuff like do they actually really care about that stuff
[00:50:27] so i don't get why they're so secretive and insular and i'm i think part of it is just almost
[00:50:32] traditional they just think oh we're a video game company so we have to be like that and it's something
[00:50:37] i've come to realize since getting back into wwe because now my feed is flooded with wwe wrestlers
[00:50:44] who just go on podcasts and just they're just super frank about everything yeah super out of character
[00:50:50] that they talk about the business they talk about the history being really up front
[00:50:55] shooting on people yeah k-fabe is totally dead like why and it's and it's great it's really good for
[00:51:02] the business it's awesome you know it's awesome like why is the video game industry not like that
[00:51:06] like even my interview with morgan day and i really appreciate that they did do this
[00:51:10] but you know other interviews i've had with blizzard or any video game company there's always like
[00:51:17] the sense that these responses have been sort of they've gone through a pr agency or they've been
[00:51:25] very coached totally and there's i get i get why they do that you know you don't want to you don't
[00:51:31] want to mislead the fans or you know overhype something or you know that doesn't materialize
[00:51:36] like um like peter molleney used to famously do the guy who made the fable games back in the day
[00:51:42] he's kind of he's kind of notorious for like overhyping his games and driving the pr pr people
[00:51:49] crazy um but like it's it's interesting like you you look at some of those warcraft podcasts and
[00:51:55] most of them are like very obviously coached but then you go and watch the chris metzen interview
[00:52:01] and this dude's like a senior a senior dude at blizzard you know he's he's retired once and come
[00:52:07] back he doesn't really he's not really afraid you know to say the wrong thing or piss off the pr people
[00:52:12] and that conversation was so much more natural it flowed so much better and i think it made him a
[00:52:18] lot more relatable so i think like there is a there is a value to the work that even the tabloidy kind
[00:52:26] of stuff or the gossipy stuff that game journalists are doing because it's sort of like
[00:52:31] teasing the game industry to hopefully become less ridiculously secretive um i've got people who
[00:52:41] and i've sort of my my opinions about leaking and stuff has evolved over time because like i if i
[00:52:48] hadn't leaked anything i would never have made a career but at the same time i feel guilty about
[00:52:53] doing it because i don't want to rob yeah i i don't want to rob teams and artists of their creation
[00:53:00] the the right to be the ones who announce their creation right right at the same time it's like
[00:53:08] it's kind of the job you know and then it's like well what kind of information do you draw the line
[00:53:14] at um if i'm willing to leak xyz why wouldn't i be willing to leak the swinger pies or why wouldn't
[00:53:21] i be willing to talk about this or that or the other it's kind of like it's kind of like that argument
[00:53:26] it's like either you know everything's free speech or nothing's free speech you know so i don't begrudge
[00:53:32] what he's done um i think some journalists want to because they wish they could make thousands of
[00:53:40] dollars doing a book yeah um i certainly could never do that i'm i'm the blog post is about as
[00:53:48] much as i can manage before my attention waivers yeah i could never write a whole fucking book there's
[00:53:53] just no there's just no universe where i'd be able to do that i'm a gamer first and you know
[00:53:59] everything else i'm gamer first and everything else flows after but jason is a journalist first
[00:54:05] and everything else flows after and i think that's where like that's where i think some people
[00:54:13] misunderstand the way he approaches things because he is he is a journalist in the truest purest sense of
[00:54:20] the word where it's like all information is on the table you know so yeah that's that's kind of my
[00:54:27] long-winded thought process about that it doesn't sit it doesn't sit with me i wouldn't do it you know
[00:54:33] i i couldn't do it i'd feel too guilty but i also feel like that's the job of a journalist
[00:54:40] i know i know other journalists that like that too you know and they're just like the the information
[00:54:47] is king oh yeah yeah and that's and sometimes i wish i could be like that i just can't it's because
[00:54:56] you have integrity morals morals no i know no and that that is kind of i think what's gnawing at me
[00:55:03] is that you know i know i come on here and over the years i've said all kinds of stupid shit and i will
[00:55:07] continue to do that and you know morally flexible in certain ways i'm not gonna lie but there is
[00:55:15] something about this and maybe i'm just pre predisposed to to go in this way but no i appreciate
[00:55:21] what you're saying um and i don't know i i maybe it's just the contrarian me that's like everybody's
[00:55:29] just being too happy and like yay about this i'm like yeah i don't know man like this is some just
[00:55:37] shit but i'll tell you what if this ends up like in a bargain bin somewhere in the years to come or i can
[00:55:43] read it for free online i probably will just just so i can understand maybe some reference points that
[00:55:49] other people are talking about but um if you're interested there there's both uh you know uh the
[00:55:55] written and the uh verbal form of this book being made available so play nice the rise fall and future
[00:56:02] blizzard entertainment uh coming to you uh october 8th so you know regardless of my uh misgivings i am
[00:56:10] giving the book a plug so there you go mission accomplished uh related to this to a degree i also
[00:56:16] wanted to get your take jez on something else that i held over from the last episode but it was kind
[00:56:22] of funny to see this more recently in that there are now a bunch of tabards in-game items right tabards
[00:56:29] that you can get for purchasing a variety of things one of them like gummy worms from trollees
[00:56:35] but another one that they had was this i don't think you have kroger grocery stores where you
[00:56:43] are but gross kroger is a grocery store chain and if you sign up for their rewards program this is like
[00:56:50] a regional fucking grocery store chain because i don't have it anywhere near me uh you can get a
[00:56:56] tabard for essentially putting yourself on their mailing list and this again is also one of these
[00:57:02] things where i should be happy that this is an easy way to get a tabard in game and maybe this is
[00:57:07] because i'm getting old i don't know but i'm like this feels kind of scummy too where you're asking
[00:57:13] for people's information on a grocery store chain that i don't know you probably don't even use
[00:57:19] to get a reward and now you're on their mailing list and now they have their information and god
[00:57:22] knows what they do with it and they're probably selling it to other people and that's how you end up
[00:57:26] getting 10 000 catalogs during christmas time that you never fucking asked for um but you get a tabard
[00:57:33] but i do get a tabard uh is this is this is this is one of the other things that bugs me about some
[00:57:45] journalists right they will like they'll join in on the chorus of people who are like oh my god it's
[00:57:51] so dumb these market transactions exist that's so dumb right but then they'll also say things like oh
[00:57:57] my god these companies are terrible for laying people off they you know though that tabard will
[00:58:02] pay someone's salary you know and one of the big issues the video game industry has right now
[00:58:08] is the lack of growth you know and costs always go costs always go up but you're you know if if
[00:58:17] you're not growing then you've got you've got a big issue and making a video game in california just
[00:58:21] using world of warcraft as an example but fucking expensive it is fucking expensive and i've said it
[00:58:27] before and that's why like blizzard's new studio uh not blizzard activision's activision just opened
[00:58:33] a studio in poland called elsewhere entertainment and that is a direct response to how expensive it is
[00:58:39] to make games in california and other places where they have studios so you know in a universe where
[00:58:45] your costs are going up you know things like this pretty at the end of the day quite harmless ways
[00:58:52] that can generate revenue in a world where the player base isn't going up the the the addressable
[00:58:59] audience for world of warcraft is probably at its absolute maximum there's probably like no one else
[00:59:03] that will come in now maybe if they release the game on console on playstation xbox they can find a
[00:59:08] new audience but i think the the game runs on a potato i don't think like you can possibly find any
[00:59:15] more people at this point at least not while the leveling experience is in the state it's in and
[00:59:20] i think you're going to mention that in a bit but um so yeah i think it's fine personally okay i would
[00:59:28] defend like optional monetization um i personally where i draw the line is like buying power i think
[00:59:39] that's where it gets a bit iffy because you're separating you're separating gamers by their
[00:59:43] purchasing power then which i think is really unfair um you know if i shouldn't be able to buy
[00:59:50] an advantage over someone else which is why i don't touch free to play games generally yeah um
[00:59:56] but if it's cosmetic i think that's fine that's where i draw the line yeah i uh to be clear buying like
[01:00:04] like the gummy worms i think it's hilarious like that's fine to me that's fine because that doesn't
[01:00:09] require like any of your personal information it's the signing up for something that's the one that's
[01:00:15] the specific one that i find a little challenging but the rest of them yeah sure okay why not because
[01:00:20] you make again a great point as you have made a few times is that making these games is
[01:00:27] so goddamn expensive uh they need to find ways to continue to generate revenue and you know if you
[01:00:36] had more of that let's say for heroes of the storm it might still be around uh and not in maintenance
[01:00:43] mode um but that's something you're interested head on down to your kroger website and buy or kroger
[01:00:52] itself and buy some trolleys get yourself uh some tabards uh and while you're doing that jez
[01:01:00] um do you have a car no my girlfriend does though i'm a passenger princess okay look at you passenger
[01:01:10] princess uh i i as you can imagine living in the suburbia of america i i have a vehicle uh do you
[01:01:19] have a familiarity with the driving app ways i do now
[01:01:29] well uh i had only you know seen this around i'd never used it myself google maps was always
[01:01:37] uh sufficient but now ways has become the superior product for one reason and for one reason only
[01:01:45] is that they have partnered with blizzard and there is essentially a thrall and i'm considering this
[01:01:55] a chris metzen voice pack that you can use on ways and it is thrall talking to you and giving you
[01:02:06] directions on your trip and you can change your car icon to a dragon and i have uh never switched
[01:02:15] apps for anything faster in my entire life yeah and i knew right we were going to record today and
[01:02:24] yesterday i was on the road and i knew it was gonna have to be on the road for uh about four
[01:02:28] hours worth of driving uh to and from uh someplace and so in the family vehicle we put it on and sure as
[01:02:37] shit here he comes on and gives us you know i don't want to spoil all the voice lines because they are
[01:02:43] pretty fucking great if you fire this thing up uh but you know it's like turn right you know you're
[01:02:48] like oh i'm gonna turn right okay thrall i'm gonna do exactly what you tell me in a half a mile
[01:02:52] turn left like yes i'm gonna do what thrall is telling me and then up ahead like police ahead i hope
[01:02:59] they have a dog i like dogs and like we all are cracking up fucking laughing uh it was awesome
[01:03:07] and there's all kinds to try it it's available in europe uh i know it's available here in the u.s i
[01:03:15] think it might be you have to fire it up and find out because it's it does seem like it's restricted
[01:03:22] um we've got a we've got a tom tom okay i don't know it's like a it's like a proper
[01:03:29] sat nav yeah i know what that is yeah my um i'm gonna have to fire up ways next time we go somewhere
[01:03:36] i think so there's a there's a quarry near here and we've been planning for ages to go
[01:03:42] fossil hunting because you can go there and they'll give you a pickaxe and let you go dig up fossils and
[01:03:50] you can take them home that's pretty sweet yeah when we when we go there i'll fire it up and
[01:03:57] dig fossils while thralls advising me i even used it this morning when i had to go to the store back
[01:04:03] i'm like all right all right buddy pick me take me to the store take me home and it's the one thing i
[01:04:10] will say is you know there's only so many voice lines that they can do right uh so depending on
[01:04:16] the trip like the one yesterday i had um because i was in the the bay area and if you know anything
[01:04:22] about driving around in the bay area uh san francisco oakland area there are a lot of like
[01:04:29] highway exit changes like you're kind of jumping on from one to another to another depending on the
[01:04:34] route and the traffic and whatnot and so some of the voice lines were getting a you know you would
[01:04:40] hear them and then you would hear them again and then you would hear them again and there is some
[01:04:43] variation in there uh and they were pretty great but um it's clearly meant for not that because if you
[01:04:52] have to change certain types of interchanges or intersections or exits like it's programmed to
[01:04:59] kind of give you different sayings if you're like getting off a highway you know say like look for a
[01:05:05] good place to camp you know it's like you know exit here keep an eye out for a good place to camp
[01:05:11] you know stuff like that it's like yes i will i i will chris bettson because as i tweeted this will
[01:05:17] be the closest i ever get to going uh on a road trip or driving in a car with uh my personal lord
[01:05:22] and savior so you're damn right i'm gonna take him with me uh in this uh form and fashion because it's
[01:05:27] as good as it's gonna get so if uh you are so inclined that is out there right now uh for uh for
[01:05:35] your enjoyment um one other thing i had that i wanted to uh talk about uh jez
[01:05:44] a very important thing happened this week a very important thing something i have been waiting
[01:05:51] oh more than a decade for oh my child my progeny my my my mini my mini zerker
[01:06:02] has finally at last started his own world of warcraft account and there has never been a
[01:06:13] more momentous occasion more momentous occasion in my household i think than this i've waited
[01:06:17] many years and he finally got his grades to a point where i felt comfortable letting this happen
[01:06:24] um he made a hunter which i protested but this is what he wanted to do and he made it as a pandaren
[01:06:33] which you know listen he wanted to roll with the with the pandas uh both literally and figuratively so
[01:06:40] fine that's a that's an interesting combo we can we it's a yeah panda hunter you don't you don't see
[01:06:46] many panda hundreds no no but you know this isn't about min maxing or anything like that this is just
[01:06:52] the pure joy of like getting to make something and do something right and i knew because this was
[01:07:00] his first foray into the game that he would have to play through the much blind starting area that you
[01:07:08] and i have talked about uh many times about the nature of it its difficulty level how well it performs
[01:07:16] or guides you or teaches you and all these kinds of things uh so with really the freshest of fresh eyes
[01:07:22] and the most basic of skill levels because he's not like a big gamer or anything like that in the sense
[01:07:29] of like what we do here on pcs um it was definitely a mixed bag for a newcomer and he had a good time
[01:07:38] he was enjoying the hell out of it and even he said jez it was too easy
[01:07:46] hmm and i know that that's kind of one of the laments is like well it's kind of brain dead i think
[01:07:52] is maybe something you might have said at one point um and he did yeah he did seem to steamroll right
[01:07:58] through it and there was a lot that was not explained about being a hunter where there were just
[01:08:07] some concepts immediately right away he had no idea like different pets do different things or
[01:08:14] because he kept thinking he was going to fight in melee but i'm like no that's something different
[01:08:18] than what you're doing here and so there is in fact much left to be desired about the starting
[01:08:24] experience jez i think you've been right all along about this so um i'm on board i'm on i'm on the
[01:08:32] i'm on the train we gotta we gotta we gotta do this redo this again and the ai is fun i love the ai i
[01:08:39] think that's great and and that being a sort of a testing ground for that uh i think has been a good
[01:08:44] idea but uh yes it it even for even for the little chitlin here it's it was too easy and not enough was
[01:08:54] explained but he he's on he's in we're doing it jez we're doing the thing he's here he wondered where
[01:09:00] his time loss proto drake was and i told him no that's mine on my account you have to go camp your
[01:09:06] own for three weeks if that's what you want to do and he was like no i don't think i'm gonna do
[01:09:10] that so uh very excited he is uh 13 yeah right in the prime age it's the time it's when we hook
[01:09:22] him that's when we get him no more of that minecraft forget all that it's it's it's world
[01:09:29] of warcraft time now and he's you know from his perspective he's watched me his entire life
[01:09:34] doing raids and he'll come wandering into my office and you know he won't even say anything
[01:09:38] i just kind of look over my shoulder i'm like oh hey buddy who's that what's going on there who's this
[01:09:44] oh hello to you too oh yeah hi what's going on there what's this what's this that guy what's going on
[01:09:50] over there desperately interested right and you know i assume at some point he's uh you know gonna
[01:09:57] want to you know check out a raid and do some other stuff and so we're gonna we're gonna ramp that up
[01:10:03] incrementally but i'm very excited big day big day in our household um last but not least i'm gonna keep
[01:10:11] this one a little bit shorter jez i i don't know let's let's let's let's let's ask you a question about
[01:10:19] uh your knowledge of me at this point in time of our uh team up here if i were to ask you what is
[01:10:26] my favorite expansion of all time what would you say my favorite expansion of all time is i would
[01:10:32] guess wrath you would be correct it is wrath of the lich king no no story got me uh greater hooked
[01:10:39] into this game there's no character that i love outside of varian rind more than the lich king and
[01:10:46] of of that character what would you say is the greatest paraphernalia connected with the lich king
[01:10:57] i would say frostmourne probably frostmourne i once again uh 10 points uh for the house of cordon
[01:11:08] correct frostmourne much beloved great design it's been mimicked and sold in different places
[01:11:16] including uh diablo 4 but we're not going to talk about that anymore because i've already talked
[01:11:20] about that uh in the real world many many many years ago back when i think wrath was fresh they did sell
[01:11:32] a replica of this and i believe it was somewhere in the neighborhood of about 500 it looked good it
[01:11:41] seemed cool i couldn't pony up that kind of money back then so there was zero chance of that happening
[01:11:46] but i always hope jez that one day one day they would bring it back because it is an iconic all-time
[01:11:52] iconic weapon one of the greatest most recognizable things warcraft history they did eventually bring
[01:12:00] it back uh i believe a couple of years ago and then it went out of stock they have brought it back
[01:12:06] again and it is for sale right now live as we speak and jez what was once a near 500 item somewhere
[01:12:16] thereabouts how much in u.s currency united states dollars do you think a frostborn replica costs today
[01:12:27] uh i'm kind of cheating because i already looked at the store page how much is it
[01:12:35] i know what it is in great british pounds it's 1500 pounds what is it in dollars 1500 united states
[01:12:43] american dollars see that makes it 1800 dollars in britain roughly so we have to pay extra for some
[01:12:52] reason but uh it is uh not cheap are you planning to buy no no there's no because here's not only that
[01:13:04] it's 1500 for the sword but what are you gonna do with it you're just gonna throw it on the ground
[01:13:10] you're gonna hide it in the closet no you you gotta what you gotta put it somewhere right
[01:13:15] the wall mount that they sell for this is 200 dollars but even better if you want a like a
[01:13:25] pedestal i think they call it that goes on the ground and lights up it's like a big ice shard looking
[01:13:30] thing you can stick that in there 600 dollars so you could spend more than two thousand dollars for a
[01:13:39] sword and basically a plastic stand with lights and i love this thing and it does look amazing and
[01:13:47] all credit to the artists and people involved with making this thing it does truly look phenomenal and
[01:13:54] amazing but that is a price too high if if i won't pay for what is also an amazing lich king piece which
[01:14:04] is the uh skin for reinhardt and overwatch 2 with the with the collaboration they got going on right now
[01:14:10] between those two franchises if i won't pay for that don't think i'm paying 1500 for a frostborn replica
[01:14:18] that being said jez thinking back across all of your gaming experience all of the all of the many
[01:14:29] years you've spent and on azeroth and beyond world of warcraft is there any single piece of anything
[01:14:38] that they could replicate that you would consider ponying up that kind of money for honestly
[01:14:45] rosamorn you know and i've looked at it and thought oh man but i just it's just can't justify it man
[01:14:53] cannot justify the you know this looks like so many other things i need need to buy to live
[01:15:01] i can't sort of justify this and i think my girlfriend would probably murder me
[01:15:06] if i uh did did buy it my wife how would you feel if i bought
[01:15:12] how would you feel andy if i bought a 2000 euro world of warcraft sword no she just said no
[01:15:20] right that's the sort i hate to know about that i think that is the universal spouse answer unless uh
[01:15:27] i don't know yes you have two spouses that are like yes we must have this and i see people
[01:15:32] that have this thing like streamers that will have this like in the background hanging up in their
[01:15:36] house and i guess i'm like well if yeah i guess if this is what you're making money off of and that
[01:15:42] helps you do it i suppose you could consider that a business expense but that's about the only way i
[01:15:46] could think of to make this reasonable because this is like this is ultra collector status right like this
[01:15:53] this is who is this even for
[01:15:57] would you say uh it's just just people with money you know i get warcraft fans with money you know
[01:16:06] in the day and there's plenty of them plenty of them exist i ain't one of them but i mean um i did
[01:16:12] buy the lily statue that was that was like 800 um yeah and i was you know i that was about my limit
[01:16:22] and i was like man should i have done this you know it looks second get second guessing myself
[01:16:28] almost uh was this was this a fiscally responsible thing for me to have done um but uh but yeah you
[01:16:38] know it's uh not entirely without precedent that people would buy stuff like this um and you know
[01:16:46] makes money you know makes a lot of money for blizz i guess yeah all the margins are good i hope so
[01:16:53] because i i've noticed that some of them they have to have repeated i'm sure you like myself get many
[01:17:01] multiple emails about all the stuff in the store and some of them they kind of have to keep plugging
[01:17:07] away at because i think the price is just too damn high on a few of these things they're like uh maybe
[01:17:13] we didn't ship as many of these as we thought we were going to or you know whatever it was like i
[01:17:18] think it was either the was it the illidan one like christ that came out like 10 years ago and i
[01:17:25] swear that thing was gonna sell out and never come back and i'm i think you might still be able to get
[01:17:29] one because they were still selling them not that long ago like man made that seven to eight hundred
[01:17:33] dollar range that really does seem to be the limit so i think you're i think you're probably the most
[01:17:39] uh accurate example of the blizzard consumer base let's say in terms of uh having uh free expenditures
[01:17:49] but should should you want it unless dear listener fifteen hundred dollars and it can be yours and if you
[01:18:00] do end up buying this whoever you are i would love to see a picture of it so if somebody out there
[01:18:06] uh does end up getting this for their own uh home arsenal i would love to see an actual picture of
[01:18:12] this thing to see how cool it is or good it is or what this whole getup looks like so uh you know
[01:18:18] where to find me but if you don't you're gonna hear it here uh in just a minute all right i think
[01:18:26] we've done enough damage for one episode for those who don't already know where could the good people
[01:18:32] find you on the internet jez uh yes you can find me on threads at jez corden j-e-z-c-o-r-d-e-n and
[01:18:40] pretty much everywhere with that username and uh right here on shackle fear and also on the xbox
[01:18:47] 2 podcast if you are interested in xbox and microsoft general news yeah so you can find me
[01:18:54] there it is my thanks to you all for listening uh to today's nonsense and remember you can always
[01:19:02] follow me and this show on twitter at berserker rage and unshackled underscore fury on blue sky
[01:19:09] at berserker and unshackled fury as well as on twitch at unshackled fury and real berserker you
[01:19:16] also join our discord links for which are in the profile of the show on twitter and on our bonus
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[01:19:25] through any of those resources or unshackled fury.com and you can find this show wherever
[01:19:31] you get your podcasts so once again thank you for listening remember to keep your swords wet
[01:19:37] and your banners high and we'll see you next time farewell