Episode 157: The Renaissance of Warcraft | Unshackled Fury - Your Uncensored Home for World of Warcraft

In this episode, Berzerker and Jez are recounting the year that was 2024! The highlights, the low lights, and everything in between, they're taking a look back at 12 months of Warcraft news and notes, and looking ahead to 2025. So pull up a chair, subscribe, and download today!

[00:00:00] Warning, this program contains strong language, auditory violence, and mental nudity. It is intended only for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

[00:00:21] Uncensored Home for World of Warcraft news and opinions. This is Unshackled Fury.

[00:01:00] 2024 is drawing to a close, and Warcraft's future is only getting brighter as we look back on the year that was.

[00:01:12] Welcome back for Episode 157 of your Uncensored Home for World of Warcraft news and opinions on Unshackled Fury.

[00:01:21] I'm your host Berzerker, and with me once again is the gift that keeps on giving, Mr. Jez Corden.

[00:01:29] Welcome back again, good sir.

[00:01:32] Hello, hello, hello. How's it going?

[00:01:35] I missed your illustrious intro there because something went wrong with my headset, but it's...

[00:01:39] I got it working at exactly the right time. So, hello, hello, and...

[00:01:44] Hello.

[00:01:45] How's it going?

[00:01:46] Well, it's going. It's going. We're here. We're here.

[00:01:53] Last episode of the year for us today, right off the top, let people know.

[00:01:58] Um, this will be the last episode of the year. So we'll be doing our year in review, the year that was.

[00:02:05] Looking back on, uh, all kinds of stuff that we talked about and covered or maybe didn't cover.

[00:02:11] I don't know. I'll have to look at my notes and maybe it'll even surprise me.

[00:02:14] Uh, but looking back, uh, and we're going to be on a bit of a break, holiday break.

[00:02:18] Uh, there's just frankly too fucking much stuff going on this time of the year.

[00:02:24] And I know there's traveling and there's stuff going on.

[00:02:30] So, uh, we're going to be on break for a bit.

[00:02:33] This might be a bit of a longer break, uh, given my schedule.

[00:02:36] Uh, probably looking at mid to late January by the time we come back.

[00:02:42] So, um, yeah, I'm sure we'll have something to talk about by then.

[00:02:47] Not that we don't now, but, uh, I'm sure we'll have, uh, plenty there.

[00:02:52] And, uh, between now and then, uh, Jez, if you'll recall on the last episode of this illustrious program,

[00:02:59] this, uh, this piece of cinema that you and I, uh, have put together.

[00:03:05] You'll recall the last time I was, uh, quite apoplectic about the lack of hate forged blaze cycles.

[00:03:14] Well, yes. Apoplectic. That's a good word.

[00:03:17] I, thank you.

[00:03:19] I have to, uh, put out a huge thank you to a member of the unshackled fury community,

[00:03:24] a roguish member of our community who hooked me up with a code or a hate forged blaze cycle.

[00:03:31] And I, you know, I want to be transparent in all these things.

[00:03:34] I never do this because I'm begging for things or asking for things,

[00:03:38] but I do want to recognize that, uh, somebody out of the kindness of their own heart felt, uh,

[00:03:44] felt it appropriate to, to send me one of those and my, my deepest gratitude,

[00:03:48] because I'll be riding that fucker from here to eternity.

[00:03:51] Uh, cause that is a, that is a fantastic ground mount, uh, for us.

[00:03:57] And, uh, yeah, there's another one, but they haven't got it yet.

[00:04:00] So this is the only one for now.

[00:04:01] Very excited.

[00:04:03] Uh, but I also got my hands on one.

[00:04:05] Oh, which I sh I shouldn't be able to because it's not available in Europe.

[00:04:09] How did you do that?

[00:04:11] So someone from my other podcast, uh, my Xbox podcast,

[00:04:16] they, they, they were listening to me.

[00:04:18] They were listening to me complain about it and they, uh, they hooked me up.

[00:04:21] Oh my God.

[00:04:22] Very lucky as well.

[00:04:24] Riding hard that warlock.

[00:04:27] Yeah.

[00:04:27] I was, uh, I was in doing a goal with it and like everyone was gathering around

[00:04:31] cause no one's got them in Europe.

[00:04:33] So it's pretty cool.

[00:04:36] Look at you.

[00:04:36] I felt special for a moment.

[00:04:38] The big celebrity.

[00:04:39] Look at you.

[00:04:40] Unbelievable.

[00:04:41] Now this is what Warcraft can do for you folks.

[00:04:44] Uh, otherwise, uh, jazz, all things well in the world of, uh, Mr. Corden

[00:04:48] and the, uh, Windows central gang.

[00:04:52] Yeah.

[00:04:52] It's been a hard couple of weeks.

[00:04:54] It's been, um, black Friday, which is a busy time for bloggers, you know,

[00:05:00] recommending products and all that fun stuff, but it's all done now and all over with.

[00:05:05] And I can just sort of breathe and let my head down now for the rest of the year.

[00:05:08] There you go.

[00:05:09] Which is nice.

[00:05:09] I have barely touched.

[00:05:11] Because of, because of that workload.

[00:05:13] So I'm a little bit out of the loop.

[00:05:15] So you're going to have to fill me in a little bit.

[00:05:17] All right.

[00:05:18] All right.

[00:05:18] Well, we'll, uh, we'll definitely be getting to some stuff here, uh, later in the show

[00:05:22] about where we are and exciting things, uh, potentially coming up this month.

[00:05:27] But, uh, between now and then jazz, I've got our last metal album of the week.

[00:05:38] And I don't know, maybe it says a little something about where my head is at.

[00:05:42] Uh, who knows?

[00:05:43] Hmm.

[00:05:44] Maybe.

[00:05:44] Essentially.

[00:05:45] Uh, but from July 14th released July 14th, 1992 countdown to extinction by mega death.

[00:05:59] Oh dear.

[00:06:02] And if you don't know, mega death, mega death is one of the, what we call the big four

[00:06:08] and the metal scene.

[00:06:09] And this is only the second of those four, uh, or no, the third of those four, uh, that

[00:06:14] I've, that I've brought up, uh, one more, uh, remains and, uh, I'll, I'll pick a time

[00:06:19] and place for that one, I think.

[00:06:20] Uh, but countdown to extinction.

[00:06:22] This, this is one of their best albums.

[00:06:26] Uh, some certified bangers on this one, symphony of destruction, the title track countdown

[00:06:32] to extinction, foreclosure of a dream, sweating bullets, skin of my teeth.

[00:06:36] Like these are some classic mega death songs.

[00:06:39] And this truly is, I think one of, uh, one of the best albums to listen to just front

[00:06:44] to back.

[00:06:44] It's, it's a, it's a whole album listener.

[00:06:47] Not one of these, you bought the CD or the tape back in the day for just one song.

[00:06:51] Uh, no, this is, this is, this is the whole damn thing.

[00:06:54] But, um, this album definitely has certain political and military undertones to it.

[00:07:03] Uh, it was written during the time of the first Gulf war, uh, touches topics of suicide and taxation.

[00:07:10] And there's a lot of stuff going on in it.

[00:07:13] Uh, I, you know, have to separate the art from the artist a little bit.

[00:07:17] Cause I think Dave must stay in long time front man of the band who is, I think fired

[00:07:22] more people than anybody.

[00:07:23] Uh, he's gone in a direction.

[00:07:27] I'm not really sure I can, I can never follow, but, uh, a lot of great statements being made

[00:07:32] on this album and things that I think are truly still relevant 30 plus years later.

[00:07:38] Uh, I think to most people, if not everyone.

[00:07:41] Um, but it is a, it is a really excellent metal album.

[00:07:46] Uh, very toned down, very, very simple, nothing too crazy, just straight up classic metal.

[00:07:53] And, uh, I think it has some, some topics worth pondering.

[00:07:57] Uh, let's say so, uh, jazz, are you, are you familiar with this album, uh, at all, or

[00:08:03] at least Megadeth?

[00:08:04] No, I mean, I know of Megadeth.

[00:08:06] It's hard not to, but I, I've never really listened to them.

[00:08:10] Honestly, it's, uh, that, that, that era of metal is not my era of metal.

[00:08:16] So a lot, a lot of the times when I listen to that kind of stuff, it, it just, it just

[00:08:20] kind of reminds me of, I suppose my parents generation a little bit, no offense.

[00:08:27] No offense.

[00:08:28] It's all right.

[00:08:29] No offense taken.

[00:08:31] No offense taken.

[00:08:32] Yeah.

[00:08:33] I grew up on the corns and the slip knots of the universe.

[00:08:36] So you're a new metal guy.

[00:08:38] Yeah.

[00:08:39] Well, I dunno.

[00:08:40] I kind of, my, my taste evolved, I suppose beyond them, but that's, that was my era.

[00:08:45] You know, that what I consider classic metal slip knot, I suppose.

[00:08:49] A bit of a bit of Limp Bizkit, you know,

[00:08:52] Listen, I've seen Fred Durst and Limp Bizkit making the hell of a resurgence in the last year

[00:08:56] or two.

[00:08:57] I mean, he looks like Santa Claus now, but it's, it's, it's classic now it's back.

[00:09:01] It's old.

[00:09:02] It's new again.

[00:09:02] It's true.

[00:09:03] You know, I mean, so you want about Limp Bizkit.

[00:09:06] They've got some awesome musicians in that band.

[00:09:08] Like, even if like, some of the, some of the music's a bit, you know, corny, I suppose.

[00:09:13] Um, but.

[00:09:14] Wes Borland is a legit guitarist.

[00:09:16] Wes Borland, yeah.

[00:09:18] He's legit.

[00:09:18] Yeah.

[00:09:19] He's legit.

[00:09:20] But, um, but no, I don't know Megadeth so well.

[00:09:22] Um, I've barely been listening to any music recently.

[00:09:26] Just so, so busy.

[00:09:29] Kind of sucks, man.

[00:09:30] When you're so busy that you can't even listen to music, that is, that might be the true mark

[00:09:35] of a, of a, of a very full agenda in your life.

[00:09:38] Too full.

[00:09:39] Indeed.

[00:09:40] Too full.

[00:09:42] Well, there you go, folks.

[00:09:43] Uh, that is the recommendation.

[00:09:45] The final recommendation for the year and something that to, uh, ponder on is countdown

[00:09:49] to extinction by Megadeth released July 14th, 1992.

[00:09:52] Again, uh, certified metal banger.

[00:09:55] Lots of great, uh, tracks on that one.

[00:09:58] Now last rage topic of the year and another, I think universal challenge that needs to be

[00:10:08] addressed.

[00:10:09] So jazz let's get into it.

[00:10:15] Let's rage.

[00:10:19] I know to look at me and be to listen to this show, you would probably not say, or the first

[00:10:31] thought that would come to your mind would probably not be that I am a man of culture,

[00:10:39] probably not spending time in symphony halls, but you would be wrong.

[00:10:45] So surprisingly enough, I do on occasion, a couple of times, a couple of few times a

[00:10:52] year, I do find my way to orchestral performances, uh, here in the Sacramento area.

[00:10:59] Uh, there, there are quite a few touring groups that come through and there's all kinds of

[00:11:03] stuff.

[00:11:03] Uh, it's not always a Christmas time with trans Siberian orchestra.

[00:11:08] Uh, you know, it's, it's like real, like legit, you know, like we had London Philharmonic type stuff,

[00:11:15] right?

[00:11:15] It's, it's the real, the real deal.

[00:11:20] And one of the things that you'll notice that is different between a show like that and

[00:11:24] a show like, I don't know, let's say you go to a metal show crowds.

[00:11:29] Sometimes they're a little bit different.

[00:11:30] Although the age of some of these metal shows are starting to creep up on those of the

[00:11:33] symphony shows.

[00:11:33] I'm not going to lie.

[00:11:35] Um, but the response, the crowd interaction, right?

[00:11:39] It's different when you're at a metal show, you're, you're jumping and banging and yelling

[00:11:43] and screaming and pumping your fist and hitting the mosh.

[00:11:45] And like, you're just, you're letting it all hang out.

[00:11:49] That's like, um, figuratively speaking figurative.

[00:11:53] Well, hopefully, hopefully, uh, you know, it's, it's like, if you go to, uh, like an MMA

[00:12:00] show, uh, you know, they go to a UFC show in Vegas, like very noisy, very loud.

[00:12:06] But if you go to a, you know, a typical show with a symphony, it's more like, um, it's

[00:12:11] more like watching old pride events, uh, in Tokyo where the crowd is very quiet, right?

[00:12:16] You wait for some moment to happen.

[00:12:18] I can use that analogy.

[00:12:20] Uh, you know, you, you wait for a song to end or you wait for something to go on, but

[00:12:24] usually, you know, it's before you clap and cheer or give your encores or whatever you're

[00:12:29] sitting mostly quietly.

[00:12:32] Right.

[00:12:34] But I have found a trend, Jess.

[00:12:36] There is this trend and I don't know if this has always happened, but I feel like it is

[00:12:40] happening more recently where the people sitting behind me feel that I didn't go there.

[00:12:47] I didn't pay to hear the orchestra jazz.

[00:12:49] I paid to hear them home along with it and not just like, hum along with it, but like,

[00:12:55] hum along with it noisily and off note off key.

[00:13:00] Damn.

[00:13:02] And I just be real.

[00:13:04] I didn't pay to hear you.

[00:13:06] I didn't pay to hear you old lady or whoever else is behind us.

[00:13:10] I paid to hear the people on stage.

[00:13:12] So if you find yourself enjoying one of these shows, keep it to yourself.

[00:13:17] No need to hum along.

[00:13:19] Nobody wants to hear that, especially when it's out of tune off key madness.

[00:13:28] Except now, sometimes you might have a great inside joke with your child where the piss

[00:13:34] off your wife every once in a while, you just go and make a bunch of humming noises.

[00:13:38] And she knows what you're talking about.

[00:13:39] She tells you both to shut the fuck up.

[00:13:40] And that is kind of fun.

[00:13:42] I'm not going to lie.

[00:13:42] That is, that is a great, uh, silver lining to such an event, but please dear God, dear

[00:13:48] Jesus, your gods in the, in the heavens.

[00:13:51] If you are at one of these shows where crowd participation is not being asked for and or

[00:13:55] required, please keep it to yourself.

[00:13:59] Thank you.

[00:14:00] Thank you for coming to this tent.

[00:14:03] All right.

[00:14:04] Uh, lots of news and review to get to now that I've got that off my,

[00:14:08] chest.

[00:14:08] So why don't we go ahead and get into it?

[00:14:21] We're kicking off the year of 2024 on unshackled fury.

[00:14:26] We had one of the most seismic events we've ever had.

[00:14:30] And it's probably the biggest thing that happened all year, which was that you Jez joined

[00:14:37] the show officially.

[00:14:38] Mm hmm.

[00:14:42] Mm hmm.

[00:14:42] Unbelievable.

[00:14:43] Woo hoo.

[00:14:43] It's almost been a year.

[00:14:45] Almost been a year.

[00:14:46] Already?

[00:14:46] God.

[00:14:47] Almost been a year.

[00:14:49] Yes.

[00:14:51] Unbelievably enough.

[00:14:52] Uh, Jez has, has chosen to join this, this crazy little, uh, shambling wagon down

[00:14:59] the road and, uh, we've been having some fun this year and enjoying all the crazy shit that's

[00:15:05] been popping up.

[00:15:05] And Jez, I know we've all enjoyed getting a fresh perspective on particularly the business

[00:15:10] side of things.

[00:15:11] You have brought such a great, just well of knowledge when it comes to all of that.

[00:15:17] And, and I've had a lot of comments, uh, from listeners saying, you know, how much they enjoy

[00:15:23] hearing more about that in a way that, you know, we never brought to the masses before,

[00:15:28] but, um, has, has, has the year been all right for you?

[00:15:32] I hope it hasn't been too, uh, tortuous.

[00:15:35] I mean, professionally, it's been a strange year, you know, coming out of the pandemic

[00:15:38] where everyone was stuck at home and it was, it was a boom time for us.

[00:15:43] Right.

[00:15:44] So, but like in capitalism, it's like, they always want you to go up.

[00:15:48] So like the constantly being compared to the pandemic era in our figures is, is weirdly

[00:15:54] stressful.

[00:15:54] And I think like a lot of people in a variety of industries are probably feeling that way

[00:15:59] right now, but like, it'd be different for other industries, right?

[00:16:01] Like industries that had to shut down in the pandemic.

[00:16:04] This is their boom time, you know?

[00:16:06] So I like hospitality industry hotels or whatever.

[00:16:09] So that has been a bit of a weird year professionally work here, corporation and all that kind of stuff.

[00:16:13] But, um, but yeah, there's been like cool stuff, you know, joining the show.

[00:16:18] Well, the Warcraft's been doing really well.

[00:16:20] It'd be nice to see.

[00:16:21] Well, the Warcraft sort of emerge from the doldrums of Shadowlands, come back pretty strong in Dragonflight

[00:16:27] and come back even stronger in the war within so far, you know, um, wait and see.

[00:16:33] I'm really eager for the next season though.

[00:16:35] At this point, it feels like it's been a long while waiting for that.

[00:16:39] But yeah, overall, I think it's been generally a pretty good year or it could, you know, it could have been worse.

[00:16:46] I suppose.

[00:16:47] Ha ha ha!

[00:16:49] You know, it could always be worse.

[00:16:50] There it is.

[00:16:52] I guess, I guess the big question, uh, for the minds on some folks is will you be continuing on in your journey with Unshackled Fury?

[00:16:59] Of course, if you'll have me.

[00:17:01] Well, there it is.

[00:17:02] That's it.

[00:17:03] That's the biggest news.

[00:17:04] There is another, another go around with Jez.

[00:17:08] You know, he hasn't gotten tired of us yet.

[00:17:10] This is what I say to my wife all the time.

[00:17:11] You tired of me?

[00:17:12] Yeah.

[00:17:12] She goes, no, I'm not tired of you.

[00:17:13] Okay.

[00:17:14] All right.

[00:17:14] Another victory.

[00:17:15] Let's jack him up.

[00:17:17] Uh, so other than Jez joining us, uh, officially in January, one of the things that we talked about way back with Ann was the 2024 roadmap

[00:17:26] as has now become the norm for us seeing these roadmaps.

[00:17:31] And we just got the 2025 one, uh, here recently.

[00:17:34] We'll get to that a little bit later, but, uh, looking ahead, we knew the war within was coming.

[00:17:42] We knew that it was going to be sometime in the summer.

[00:17:45] I think we all kind of guessed around the right time, but, uh, we were starting to get a sense of what this year was going to look like with, uh, a couple of smaller patches to end dragonfly.

[00:17:56] Uh, season four, uh, something with a pirate flag, which we know what that ended up becoming.

[00:18:02] Uh, there was, there was still some kind of unknowns here.

[00:18:06] What was, what was pandemonium?

[00:18:08] What was time running pandemonium?

[00:18:10] What the fuck does that mean?

[00:18:11] You know, there were some, there were some questions that remained out there about what this year, uh, was going to entail, but, uh, we did have a pretty good sense of flow and they ended up, I think matching that, uh, pretty damn closely in terms of what.

[00:18:26] What our expectations were.

[00:18:28] And so the first of those many patches that came was 10.2.5.

[00:18:34] Remember that seeds of renewal?

[00:18:36] Oh my God, a whole way back in January.

[00:18:40] Uh, that launched.

[00:18:41] That's when we reclaimed Gilneus.

[00:18:43] And that was, if you know, it was cool.

[00:18:46] If not a little, little abbreviated.

[00:18:48] Uh, we also got follower dungeons and what Jez has, I think convinced me.

[00:18:56] I think you've convinced me, Jez has been the creation of a new night elf starting zone in Bella meth.

[00:19:03] Although they seem intense on shooting that idea down.

[00:19:07] I'm with you, Jez.

[00:19:07] I, I, there seems to be too much there to just have it be nothing.

[00:19:11] Like, like a significant purpose.

[00:19:15] Yeah.

[00:19:16] I don't know.

[00:19:17] You never know with Blizzard because they're very careful with their messaging.

[00:19:20] You know, when they tease something or don't tease something.

[00:19:24] But I just, I just kind of feel like you don't make something that, that expensive with that, with the plan to never use it.

[00:19:33] So, I don't know.

[00:19:34] It's pretty bad.

[00:19:35] It's my conspiracy theory.

[00:19:36] You know?

[00:19:37] I'm, I'm with it.

[00:19:38] You know what?

[00:19:39] I'm putting my tinfoil hat on for that one.

[00:19:41] Uh, so we had, we had 10 to five and brought, uh, the dragon isle epilogue, uh, dragon riding worldwide, uh, the Azerothian archives.

[00:19:53] If you did that little, uh, quest chain and, uh, the Outland cup, uh, things that we had going on.

[00:19:59] Uh, but unfortunately I think the other biggest news that came out in January was we'd been riding high off a dragon flight.

[00:20:08] We've been riding high off a blizzcon and then more layoffs.

[00:20:13] And as we have talked about and Jez, you know, better than anybody, the, the tech industry, the, the game development industry, just there's so much globally, uh, that has gone wrong in terms of the game.

[00:20:28] Uh, the tech sector and the layoffs across the board have been monumental.

[00:20:34] And I don't know that there's any way to overstate how big it has been.

[00:20:39] Uh, I think for a lot of us, it was surprising.

[00:20:43] Well, maybe we shouldn't have been surprised.

[00:20:45] Uh, the, after the buyout from Microsoft, we thought Microsoft was going to solve every ill and we weren't going to see stuff like this again.

[00:20:52] But again, I think that's, you know, our own naivete or, uh, you know, lack of knowledge on how any of this works.

[00:20:58] Um, but that, that was a really big bond that just effectively, I think blunted a lot of the goodwill that we were having at that moment.

[00:21:08] And now coming out of that, now that that was the beginning of the year.

[00:21:11] Now that we're at the end of the year, Jez, it's, it seems like it just keep, it just continued for the industry following that point.

[00:21:19] I mean, even through today.

[00:21:21] Yep.

[00:21:21] We, we are not out of the woods yet with the game industry.

[00:21:25] It was just what they're seeing is costs go up, but new users actually go down again.

[00:21:32] This is like, ish.

[00:21:33] Part of this is post pandemic, similar to what I was talking about earlier with me.

[00:21:37] They were like, Oh, people will be stuck at home forever.

[00:21:40] So let's hire 10,000 more people, you know, exaggerating or not in some cases, actually, you know, some companies really beefed up during the pandemic to take advantage of that wave and deliver shareholder profits,

[00:21:53] max, max and max profits. And now it's like, Oh, actually a lot of those users, um, didn't become permanent gamers.

[00:22:00] A lot of people dabbled and tried out gaming for the first time during the pandemic.

[00:22:04] Well, those people just didn't come back. They didn't come back. They didn't become permanent gamers.

[00:22:08] And now studios are having the price of the price.

[00:22:11] A lot of these sort of studios that were set up with venture capital money during the pandemic, they're shutting down.

[00:22:18] I saw a couple of ex Bioware staff studios, uh, Casey Hudson studio.

[00:22:24] And I can't remember the other guy's name off the top of my head, but two Bioware directors, they, they left the air and set up studios.

[00:22:31] Both of those studios have now shut down without releasing the game.

[00:22:34] They've all run out of money. So, you know, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's still a weird time industry.

[00:22:39] You know, Ubisoft's got tons of issues on right now of its own 10 cent reportedly going to buy them out, which is going to be funny.

[00:22:47] So that goes, but yeah, the industry is undergoing all kinds of what people right now.

[00:22:52] Um, and, uh, you know, Blizzard ain't out of the woods either. Really?

[00:22:56] I mean, Blizzard's facing some stiff competition right now.

[00:22:59] Marvel rivals eating into overwatch is lunch path of exile, potentially eating into Diablo's lunch a little bit, because at the end of the day,

[00:23:08] a lot of these games, they're not attracting new users. Like I said, they're just stealing users from other people taking, you know,

[00:23:15] Piazza Vaxel is going to take from Diablo's audience and Marvel's rivals probably going to take from overwatch's audience as well.

[00:23:22] So, you know, it's going to be interesting to see how Blizzard navigates that, but at least for us, well, the Warcraft has no real competitor at the moment, at least not in the West.

[00:23:33] Um, so does the, the, the, the wow killer has not emerged in the West yet.

[00:23:38] It has not.

[00:23:39] They're, they're, they're, they're their own assassin at the end of the day.

[00:23:43] I think, you know, riot games is working on their league of legends.

[00:23:47] MMO.

[00:23:47] Um, which, you know, we still haven't seen materialize yet, but they're still plucking away on it.

[00:23:56] Maybe that'll give wow, some serious competition to think about, but blizzard seems to be able to rise to the challenge when, um, they do get competition.

[00:24:05] I think a lot of the good stuff that has happened to world of Warcraft recently was because of competition from Final Fantasy 14.

[00:24:11] And that kind of gave them a kick up the ass, but you know, um, something like riot, you'd imagine might be even stiffer competition.

[00:24:20] So we see how that one goes down.

[00:24:24] As, uh, anyone who knows anything about the Monday night wars, WWF versus WCW, you know, that things were good and better when there was competition between, you know, those two.

[00:24:37] And when it, it only suffered after WCW got bought out.

[00:24:40] So I am a firm believer in the power of competition, uh, you know, making, making good stuff.

[00:24:45] But, uh, unfortunately, as you've mentioned, you know, a lot of these shops closing down and as part of these layoffs in January, we also found out that project odyssey, which was the survival game that blizzard had been working on for however many years.

[00:25:00] And all we'd seen publicly was concept art about it was the whole thing was shuttered and the whole team let go, or at least a good chunk of it.

[00:25:10] And that I think is another one of these huge blows to the community because we're all still thinking about Titan, which we never really saw or know much about publicly.

[00:25:22] And it turned into parts of it anyway, overwatch, but we know how damn well that whole debacle really hurt them and has hurt them long-term.

[00:25:32] And so to see another big project just completely get wiped off the map, that was, that was a big shock, especially considering that they had said something about it publicly to give us some indication that this thing was coming and now nothing.

[00:25:47] And so that I think was a really hard start to hear.

[00:25:52] It was, um, uh, but it's kind of funny, like out of, out of the ashes of Titan, we got overwatch and I think out of the ashes of ashes of odyssey.

[00:26:03] And I really wish I kept the gameplay footage.

[00:26:06] Okay.

[00:26:07] Cause it looked really good.

[00:26:08] And I think if people saw it, they'd be like, Oh wow.

[00:26:10] That actually looks really good.

[00:26:11] It looked like a, it looked like a fairy tale kind of,

[00:26:16] it had a strong fairy tale vibe.

[00:26:18] I mean, it was clearly built on, it looked like overwatch, you know, Pixar stylish, but fairy tale vibe.

[00:26:24] It looked really, really good.

[00:26:26] Like it kind of reminded me of fallout 76 a bit with player, player vendors.

[00:26:30] And at least what I thought looked like a player vendor, like a potion vendor that a player had built.

[00:26:36] Um, but, uh, you know, it wasn't for this world, but I do think that the sort of, uh,

[00:26:46] the engine and some of the code they use to build that game will live on in whatever this rumored Starcraft project is,

[00:26:56] which now counts one of the far cry directors among its lead devs.

[00:27:02] So like it sounds as though really?

[00:27:05] Yeah.

[00:27:05] So this is the rumor from Bloomberg, Jason Schreyer.

[00:27:09] I think he said that I believe it was him anyway off top of my head.

[00:27:14] They've managed to grab one of Ubisoft's far cry directors and they're looking to make an open world shooter based on the Starcraft IP.

[00:27:23] If that's true.

[00:27:25] And then I just pull it off.

[00:27:26] It could be really good because far cry has some really great games in, in its sort of pantheon.

[00:27:34] Like far cry five was really good.

[00:27:37] Far cry two was like gritty and good.

[00:27:40] Far cry three had a great story.

[00:27:42] Far cry four and far cry six, not very good.

[00:27:46] And then far cry primals.

[00:27:47] I liked it, but it was controversial, I guess you play it.

[00:27:51] You played as a caveman.

[00:27:52] No guns in that game.

[00:27:53] Bow and arrow, spears.

[00:27:55] It was weird, but weirdly good.

[00:27:57] I liked it.

[00:27:58] But, um, if they can make it like far cry five with Starcraft universe with a good story,

[00:28:03] I think that could be really, really powerful.

[00:28:06] And, you know, and from what I've heard, some of the team that worked on Odyssey have gone on to work on that game.

[00:28:12] Um, so hopefully we get some out of the ashes of that.

[00:28:17] Yeah.

[00:28:18] Well, I would be very excited as we know this, this show, it may be about world of Warcraft, but I think the sub header is, it's also about Starcraft.

[00:28:27] So anytime we get Starcraft news, we're going to fucking talk.

[00:28:30] There's a lot of crossover between Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, Overwatch fans, I think sometimes, but, um, but Blizzard, you know, cross-pollinates like Warcraft people.

[00:28:42] People work on Starcraft and vice versa and stuff like that.

[00:28:45] So it can't, it can't be that Warcraft carries the whole company on its shoulders.

[00:28:51] Like they need, they need like, they need other games.

[00:28:54] No, they shouldn't.

[00:28:54] Yeah.

[00:28:54] They shouldn't.

[00:28:55] And, and it doesn't like, you know, Diablo and Overwatch do well in their own right.

[00:28:59] But you know, it's imagine like, imagine that all the games are firing on the cell at the same cylinders that world of Warcraft is, you know, it'd be really happy times.

[00:29:09] And it would lead to a better Warcraft as well.

[00:29:11] Probably.

[00:29:12] Yeah.

[00:29:13] But sure.

[00:29:15] So that's where we started and, uh, heading into then February, uh, I of course had a Super

[00:29:22] Bowl hangover cause my San Francisco 49ers are fucking dog shit and apparently can't win Super

[00:29:26] Bowls anymore.

[00:29:27] And they're even worse this year.

[00:29:29] So that's all that needs to be said about any of that business.

[00:29:32] But, uh, as we went through February, you know, scenes of renewal was live at that point.

[00:29:39] And, and truly, I think the biggest news that came out of that period of time was that Steve

[00:29:42] DeNuser left Blizzard.

[00:29:45] And as we recall, he had been given the keys to the castle over world of Warcraft.

[00:29:51] The dragon flight was essentially his baby coming out of shadow lands and all this turmoil

[00:29:55] and Alex Afraziabi getting booted and the lawsuits and like all of these things.

[00:30:00] Right.

[00:30:00] And so Steve DeNuser was the captain of the ship and then he just sort of was gone and nobody

[00:30:09] really knew why.

[00:30:11] And eventually it seemed like it was maybe one of a couple of things, uh, sounded like he

[00:30:17] was citing the, uh, return to office protocol as a big indicator of this or wanting to move

[00:30:24] on and do other things.

[00:30:26] And then I don't know, perhaps maybe this was a soft layoff of some type, but just did we ever

[00:30:32] really settle on what happened with him and why he left?

[00:30:36] I never found out the real reason if there was anything more to the story, but I know that a lot of

[00:30:43] people, you know, who reacted to the work from home culture and sell home offices and then sort of

[00:30:49] got into a lifestyle of working from home.

[00:30:51] You know, they didn't want to come back to the office, you know?

[00:30:54] And I think for a lot of people, when you, you bite that, you bite that pill and it's like, oh, wow.

[00:31:00] I saved so much money doing this.

[00:31:02] It's hard to go back.

[00:31:03] Like I haven't worked in an office or, oh man, like 10 years now, 12 years, something like that.

[00:31:14] So way before the pandemic, I was, I've been very lucky that I could do a job working from

[00:31:18] home for even longer than, you know, most people.

[00:31:22] I can't imagine going back, dude.

[00:31:24] I just, I can't, there's no way you can get me back in office.

[00:31:27] That's like my worst nightmare.

[00:31:29] I don't, I don't blame people who leave, leave their job.

[00:31:32] If, if they're, if they're like, yeah, you got to come back in the office.

[00:31:35] I'd be like, nah, nah, nah.

[00:31:37] Yeah.

[00:31:37] Peace.

[00:31:38] I'm out.

[00:31:39] Bye.

[00:31:41] I'm gone, baby.

[00:31:43] So yeah, I dunno.

[00:31:47] Yeah.

[00:31:47] It's, you know, at the time I, I was always really high on Steve Denuser because I felt

[00:31:56] like he was somebody who really cared about the universe.

[00:32:01] And even if people didn't agree with decisions that he made and he genuinely cared about the

[00:32:08] characters and what we were doing and where we were going and why, and that, you know, coming

[00:32:12] out of shadow lands and just everything else that had happened just in the real world, the

[00:32:16] dragon flight was this sort of like this soft landing where, then we talked about this

[00:32:20] before.

[00:32:20] It was not dark.

[00:32:21] It was not gritty.

[00:32:22] It was not big, you know, universe ending shit.

[00:32:25] It was a smaller story.

[00:32:27] Very heartfelt.

[00:32:28] Very, uh, you know, yeah.

[00:32:30] Yeah.

[00:32:31] It was more emotional in that way.

[00:32:33] And, and I never had a problem with that.

[00:32:37] I thought it was a good momentary change of pace.

[00:32:40] We knew it wouldn't last, but it was a good sort of interstitial.

[00:32:42] And I thought Steve was doing great, but after he left, man, people really let it hang

[00:32:47] out.

[00:32:48] They had all kinds of things to say about him.

[00:32:50] And I, you know, I wish him all the best.

[00:32:52] I figuratively speaking.

[00:32:53] Yeah.

[00:32:55] Yeah.

[00:32:55] I, yeah, people, people went in on Steve Denuser.

[00:33:02] I mean, you know, people credit him for the terrible direction of Sylvanas, you know,

[00:33:08] which irritates me personally, you know, Sylvanas are my, one of my favorite characters.

[00:33:12] And it is, it is kind of weird.

[00:33:15] It's weird and wild how Sylvanas was handled.

[00:33:18] Like to, to, to build her up in interviews saying like, Oh, she's a smart tactician.

[00:33:23] She wouldn't, you know, she wouldn't be a garage.

[00:33:26] And then just basically make her a garage is difficult to swallow.

[00:33:32] It's a different, difficult build to swallow.

[00:33:34] But at the same time, it's like, he's just a dude, you know, doing his best.

[00:33:38] And, you know, he didn't want to, you know, make it bad.

[00:33:42] Also deadlines.

[00:33:43] I'm sure, I'm sure that some aspects of this were like, this is the result of a rush job.

[00:33:48] Activision saying, you've got to get this done by now.

[00:33:51] Just ship it, just ship it, just ship it rather than iterate.

[00:33:53] Cause I'm sure if they had more time to iterate and really sit down and take it slow

[00:33:58] and think about what the implications of what they're doing here, you know, they would sort of,

[00:34:04] they'd realize they can't just go ahead with all these story changes that they did implement

[00:34:08] without having a good enough pay payoff at the end.

[00:34:11] And the payoff was non-existent, you know?

[00:34:14] So part of me wonders if there had not been maybe some internal criticism,

[00:34:19] but at the same time, it was a different era of Blizzard back then.

[00:34:22] You know, would Steve Denusa deliver better results under the current cadence,

[00:34:28] which, you know, they've planned out all the major story beats in advance now.

[00:34:35] And they've, they've got plenty of time to iterate on some of that stuff and,

[00:34:38] and react to it internally and just sort of think about things and figure things out and be like,

[00:34:44] Oh, actually, maybe this doesn't make total sense.

[00:34:45] Maybe we should change this, you know?

[00:34:47] You know, using WWE as another allegory, you know, he talks about the Monday night wars.

[00:34:52] I was often, I was often like thinking how, cause I've started watching it again in the last year.

[00:34:56] And you compare like what they used to do in WWE to what they're doing these days where Triple H plays this,

[00:35:03] when Triple H is writing, they play this really long game.

[00:35:06] Yes.

[00:35:07] Where they think what the major story beats are going to be over the year.

[00:35:09] And then in the events, they'll call back to things that happened ages ago.

[00:35:13] And they're really thoughtful.

[00:35:14] And it's like all those plot threads and it's like, wow,

[00:35:16] this is so much better than it used to be where it was like,

[00:35:20] it was rare that we get callbacks to previous things that had happened.

[00:35:24] And it was like, hang on.

[00:35:26] Why are these two wrestlers teaming with each other?

[00:35:27] They used to hate each other a couple of years ago.

[00:35:29] But they, they, they acknowledge those things now in the right.

[00:35:32] And it's like that the characters feel like they have more consistent presence and more

[00:35:38] persistent character.

[00:35:41] Like, you know, I was watching, like, I was watching a video recently where they were talking about,

[00:35:46] you know, all the issues Sam Punk had had with Roman Reigns and they could have just

[00:35:50] threw all that under the bus.

[00:35:50] That's what they would have done in the early 2000s, the late 90s.

[00:35:54] They would have just forgot all that stuff happened.

[00:35:56] But with the, in the era of social media, nobody forgets anything now.

[00:35:59] So no.

[00:36:01] So, and I think, you know, that's because they've been able to adopt a more thoughtful approach

[00:36:07] to it, I guess.

[00:36:07] And I think that's what Chris Metzen represents for World of Warcraft is a more thoughtful approach.

[00:36:12] But, I don't, you never know what completely went down, which is why I never want to blame devs

[00:36:17] directly because there's so many, there's so many constraints on game development that can

[00:36:24] frustrate the creative process.

[00:36:26] Especially when you're working for a corporation like Activision or now Microsoft.

[00:36:29] And they're like, just ship it, just ship it.

[00:36:31] You know, I mean, maybe it is his fault, maybe it isn't.

[00:36:34] But what I do know is that nobody sets out to make a bad game or disappoint people.

[00:36:40] So, yeah.

[00:36:42] No, I think as we talked about at the time, it probably, it felt a little bit like there was an arc that was in mind.

[00:36:49] And they're like, no, no, no, you can't kill Sylvanas or you can't do this.

[00:36:51] And so they had to come up with something else.

[00:36:54] Pivot.

[00:36:54] Yeah.

[00:36:55] The pivot.

[00:36:55] And I think that analogy of the long-term storytelling of Triple H now in WWE is, you know, to Metzen and sort of the thoughtfulness about the canon.

[00:37:08] You know, it, that really resonates.

[00:37:11] And, you know, that's probably the reason why we were so fucking excited to see him back and doing this World Soul Saga and everything else.

[00:37:18] We're like, Metzen's the man.

[00:37:19] Metzen's going to get it on the right ship.

[00:37:21] And maybe that was it.

[00:37:22] Maybe Metzen being there didn't need Steve Denuser anymore.

[00:37:24] And maybe he's like, fuck it.

[00:37:25] I can't compete with the king.

[00:37:26] I'm getting out of here.

[00:37:27] I wouldn't blame him for that either.

[00:37:29] So he left.

[00:37:32] And at that point in February, we were starting to hear about what this pirate flag fucking thing is.

[00:37:39] Patch 1026.

[00:37:40] And it ultimately became Plunderstorm, which is going to be back next month again, by the way.

[00:37:48] Okay.

[00:37:49] And this was this matchup battle royale whole system that happened up there in the Rothy Highlands.

[00:37:57] And I don't know that I ever quite came around to it.

[00:38:01] I know the whole pirate aesthetic really pleased lots of folks and the play style, the rewards and the way that all works, you know, battling down to the final the final person.

[00:38:11] A lot of folks like it as a very popular format.

[00:38:14] And it seems like Blizzard was able to come up with a very Warcraftian way to to to craft, to make something, to mold something in that fashion with it coming back in 2025.

[00:38:27] I'm sure I'll take a look at it.

[00:38:29] I always do.

[00:38:30] We'll see how much I actually dig it.

[00:38:32] But Jez, are you looking back on it now almost a year later?

[00:38:37] Did you do you have fond memories of Plunderstorm?

[00:38:40] Do you look forward to playing it again next month?

[00:38:43] I did not particularly enjoy Plunderstorm first time around.

[00:38:47] I bounced out very quickly, but I also kind of felt like there's something here, maybe with some iteration and some tweaks.

[00:38:55] I hope that when they do bring it back, it's not just the same.

[00:38:58] I hope that like they've examined it and maybe made it a little better, a little bit more interesting.

[00:39:04] Yeah.

[00:39:05] Because sometimes I do look at the rewards that people have got.

[00:39:09] Some of my guildies have the pirate stuff and I'm I am a little bit jealous sometimes.

[00:39:14] That's how they get you.

[00:39:15] So yeah, the transmog, you know, so maybe I'm just like, maybe I will grind it out for the transmog and be a pirate for a day.

[00:39:23] But we'll see.

[00:39:24] Yeah, that was my note that I had here is is, you know, needs a better reward system just in terms of the grind was terrible.

[00:39:32] And I would I know that they made some tweaks and they added trios and they did some things.

[00:39:37] It's it's definitely, you know, it's definitely better to do it in certain formats than others.

[00:39:42] But man, I was just getting my fucking ass kicked every time.

[00:39:45] And there was just there was no there was no good for me in there.

[00:39:49] So we'll we'll see. We'll see if maybe a 2025 iteration is is a better partner for us.

[00:39:56] But at the same time in March, we also had Hearthstone turning 10, 10 freaking years for Hearthstone.

[00:40:03] And I remember when, you know, that was first being put out and like, oh, man, if they put that on a on a phone, shit is over.

[00:40:15] And yeah, it turned out to be very popular once it was not just on like a like a one format and it expanded.

[00:40:21] And it has just grown from there over the years.

[00:40:24] And it's got a million expansions and all the stuff that's happened and still going strong.

[00:40:29] And by God, we're getting some StarCraft related thing happening in the near future here.

[00:40:36] Very excited about that. Hopefully they've recorded some new voice lines for Jim Rayner.

[00:40:40] I would love that. That would be fantastic.

[00:40:41] But Jez Hearthstone, that is that in your repertoire at all?

[00:40:47] Did the StarCraft talk get you fired up? Is it on your phone?

[00:40:53] I think it is currently still on my phone.

[00:40:55] I play here and there, but like I find it. I find it super difficult.

[00:41:00] Right. I'm not particularly smart for one thing.

[00:41:03] Also, I can't keep up with the matter. It changes every few seconds.

[00:41:07] Oh God, no. And all that kind of stuff. So yeah, I play Battlegrounds when I played it and I have won a few Battlegrounds matches and I felt really smart when I do it.

[00:41:17] But then sometimes I wonder, did I just not get lucky and look into a bunch of good combos here and everyone else I'm playing with is idiots.

[00:41:24] I don't know, man. It's not my cup of tea. I know some people love Hearthstone and that kind of thing, but I wish I was smarter.

[00:41:32] But it makes me feel dumb. So I don't play it because it makes me feel dumb.

[00:41:36] Oh, I feel like a fucking child every time I look at it.

[00:41:39] I'm like, I have no idea what's going on.

[00:41:41] The Battlegrounds seems to be kind of the level, you know, the level setting right there where you kind of get a better chance.

[00:41:46] But I never thought it would grow like this to the degree that it has where now you have to have seasons and cards that are in play.

[00:41:55] And like, it's a full on it's like, you know, magic and these other like real big card based games where now you have to have all these different rule sets and what's allowed and when.

[00:42:05] And then it also has like all this story expansion stuff that's going on over here.

[00:42:10] There's so much to it now. They've really grown that thing out.

[00:42:13] And I have to say, I don't know if Celestalon is still the one in charge over there, but they've done a wonderful job with that part of the franchise.

[00:42:21] I have to say, it is really impressive.

[00:42:27] So one of the issues they're gonna they're gonna struggle with is cutting through that reputation of everyone thinks it's too hard or too inaccessible or it's too late to play it.

[00:42:38] This is what everyone I talk to says like it looks cool, but it's way too late for me to get into.

[00:42:43] I don't know how they can. I don't know how they'll be able to overcome that.

[00:42:47] But I suppose like as well, like the physical aspect of Magic the Gathering and other card based games.

[00:42:53] I think that's also lacking in Hearthstone.

[00:42:55] You know, I think there needs to be a physical aspect to the game, whether it's collectible cards or physical tournaments.

[00:43:02] I think that could be cool if they wanted to go down that road.

[00:43:05] I'm surprised they haven't done that.

[00:43:06] Yeah.

[00:43:07] That seems like such an easy merch thing to do.

[00:43:10] Exactly. And Activision of Yesteryear would have done that because they had this whole toys to life division.

[00:43:16] You know, Guitar Hero with the guitars and then they also had Skylanders with the little figurines.

[00:43:22] So like you would have thought that Activision would have been all over that.

[00:43:25] But whatever reason, it never happened.

[00:43:28] It is.

[00:43:29] It is interesting.

[00:43:30] I don't know, but it's the future is limitless for Hearthstone and it will.

[00:43:35] I'm sure of you seeing much more of that in the years to come.

[00:43:39] But 10 years this past March and then coming in April of this year, we got our first real look at sub numbers.

[00:43:52] The first real look that we've had probably a decade.

[00:43:59] And this was due to John Height, who was like the general manager for WoW or whatever specific title was, who left two months after this happened.

[00:44:12] He gave a presentation at the GDC where he had some slides and talked about, you know, the the the churn of World of Warcraft lessons learned and some things.

[00:44:24] And there was a mock up that did did showing expansion starting with Legion going up to Dragonflight.

[00:44:30] So we don't have anything for War Within.

[00:44:32] So this is prior to that showing kind of the subscription numbers.

[00:44:35] They didn't give actual numbers, but you could kind of guess.

[00:44:38] And I think Bellular was one that was able to kind of tease out some of these numbers.

[00:44:43] And we looked at where coming into Dragonflight and having having been out for a little bit in combination with classic and the other things going on.

[00:44:53] The World of Warcraft was in the best state that it had been in in quite some time.

[00:45:00] And it did, you know, show that the bottoming out like a battle for Azeroth.

[00:45:05] We knew it was gonna be pretty bad.

[00:45:06] It was pretty bad.

[00:45:07] You know, the churn during Shadowlands, it was pretty bad.

[00:45:10] But that World of Warcraft really was recovering through Dragonflight.

[00:45:19] And I would love to see what it is, you know, post War Within launch, you know, into into, you know, September, October, like what those numbers look like historically compared to like Legion or when classic launched and stuff like that.

[00:45:39] I know that one of the ways that they do it now is I correct me if I'm wrong, but they'll look at like how many mythic plus runs are happening or how many dungeon runs are happening or raid runs.

[00:45:51] Or there's there's some other metrics that people are kind of trying to use to figure out what exactly is going on.

[00:45:57] But World of Logs, World of Logs, API calls, all kinds of stuff.

[00:46:01] Like, it was weird because they used to use mystic plus runs, but you can't really do that anymore because people can gear up through delves now.

[00:46:09] So then people were using like World of Logs reports instead.

[00:46:13] And, you know, and you can compare and contrast.

[00:46:16] But the problem is it's difficult because when they add new activities to the game, obviously, that's going to reduce the amount of activities potentially that the raids have and all that kind of stuff.

[00:46:27] And also then the other modes like wow classic wow classics just come out.

[00:46:31] You probably are going to have fewer mythic plus runs and stuff like that.

[00:46:35] So it's not exactly an ideal metric, but yeah, it does.

[00:46:39] The point being it does seem to be doing pretty well.

[00:46:41] And I think Blizzard themselves report something like they've got more players in China than they've ever had now or something like that.

[00:46:46] The game is monstrously popular in China.

[00:46:49] Right.

[00:46:50] So China back.

[00:46:51] They got China back, which is like, you know, huge, huge market for them.

[00:46:58] And obviously the business model over there is a little bit different, but it's it's still vast amounts of money and Chinese people love their online games.

[00:47:05] Right. So huge.

[00:47:07] Yeah, the game the game seems to be doing quite well.

[00:47:12] But yeah, never know for sure without the odd figures.

[00:47:19] Yeah, those those earnings calls back in the day were some shit where we used to, you know, pour over those figures and look at all that stuff.

[00:47:26] And then I guess just it's kind of like mentioned earlier in the age of social media.

[00:47:31] Nobody ever forgets anything.

[00:47:32] It's like once you start putting those numbers out and you have these fan sites that are out there just combing through all this stuff, you got to be really careful about what you say.

[00:47:38] But that was that was the first real like hard look into the sub numbers that we'd seen publicly in quite some time.

[00:47:48] And that was really, I think, refreshing for a lot of us to see.

[00:47:51] But also in April, we had season four finally kicked off for Dragon Flight.

[00:47:58] I don't know how much anybody did in that.

[00:48:02] I get the sense that that season four was not really well received, which I don't know.

[00:48:08] I don't know that that's why I'm not going to confidently say that's why we're probably not going to have one for a while.

[00:48:14] I don't think the story that we're in right now really allows for that much time.

[00:48:19] But I think that might be the last season four we see for a little while.

[00:48:23] Yeah, it's not like the weird sort of legacy season they do where you do all the raids.

[00:48:30] I despise those seasons, but at the same time, I don't mind having a reason to quit for a few months.

[00:48:38] So, you know, and catch up on other games and play with my backlog.

[00:48:42] So keep them going, Blizzard. You know, I won't play them, but sure.

[00:48:47] Help Jez clear his backlog. Please.

[00:48:50] Yeah, I'd much rather have a new raid, but if you ain't going to give me one, I'll skip ahead and play.

[00:48:56] I don't know something else. I barely touched Diablo since the expansion came out.

[00:49:00] Yeah, I got so many games I want to play. It's just a monstrous amount of games.

[00:49:04] I just can't fit in because of everything.

[00:49:08] So yeah, bad bad well seasons. Great excuse to go and play another game.

[00:49:12] It's a nice problem to have sometimes.

[00:49:16] Well, speaking of new things, I believe it was in April Jez that we had the big War Within Alpha London kickoff, which you were at.

[00:49:28] I was. Yeah, I was at the yeah, I was in London.

[00:49:32] The first blizzard event, I think that I've ever been to or first like closed press sort of blizzardy event.

[00:49:39] That was cool.

[00:49:41] Took some pictures of Charlemagne, which will never see the light day.

[00:49:49] I'll show you those.

[00:49:50] You have. Yes, you did. You have to share those with the world.

[00:49:53] I think I told you that when I saw them.

[00:49:55] No, no, no, no, no.

[00:49:55] That's that's I know that the horde in you does not want the public to see that you did this.

[00:50:00] But I mean, it is it is it is a wonderful moment in time that I think the whole world needs to witness.

[00:50:11] But that's pretty exciting. You know, typically when this stuff happens, you know, I think as a as a player, you always feel a certain amount removed from these kinds of things.

[00:50:24] And with this being in London, right, this is not something that they typically do.

[00:50:30] And it seems to me like they've been better about incorporating our European partners out there.

[00:50:38] Yeah, but now looking what's that?

[00:50:41] Yeah, I think so. I think so. Yeah.

[00:50:45] What do you I don't know what was like the biggest takeaway from getting to do something like that and actually being there?

[00:50:52] Was it was it cool to be around like all these other folks? Was it was it weird?

[00:50:57] Was it was it nice just to be acknowledged?

[00:51:00] Well, you know, kind of thinking back on it now, what was what was like your biggest takeaway from being there?

[00:51:04] The first thing that popped into my head when you said that was just the passion.

[00:51:08] You know, I think when when you see when you see people like Holly on on TV or in a video, you know, there's this I don't know this sort of unwritten kind of expectation that, you know, this could be rehearsed or whatever, you know, like this.

[00:51:26] Because I don't know, it's at least for me, my brain just thinks like if it's on TV, it's it's it's not real.

[00:51:32] It's not a real thing.

[00:51:34] Yeah.

[00:51:36] And but when you meet someone in person, it's this it's completely different, you know, and when like you're there with Holly and the other the other developers, and you can just it's not rehearsed, it's not scripted, but you can still feel their passion and their love for the franchise and the community, you know, importantly, so the community.

[00:51:57] That's what my biggest takeaway there was, you know, and also I was just grateful to have not completely messed up the my time at the event, I guess.

[00:52:08] That's always that's always a plus, you know, make making making good on it.

[00:52:14] And, you know, not making them look because that's part of the challenge to write.

[00:52:18] You don't want to make them look like idiots because you came along and they invited you and then you act up and whatever else.

[00:52:22] Like, well, fuck that guy. We're never doing that.

[00:52:25] You know, yeah, but you also don't want to give them an easy ride, right?

[00:52:29] Because there's people I've got a lot of questions and you want to hold them accountable because at the end of the day, we're giving them money.

[00:52:36] We're giving them a lot of money. So in some cases, I don't even want to.

[00:52:39] I don't even want to know how many race changes I've spent over the years.

[00:52:44] But, you know, so it is a weird balance of like trying to be friendly and nice, but also, hey, I've got to find out why you ruined Sylvanas, you know, and stuff like that.

[00:52:57] I hate to ask, but I have to.

[00:52:59] Yeah, kind of thing. It's weird being press.

[00:53:02] I'm not I'm not a particularly big fan of it, but I got to pay the bills.

[00:53:07] Got to got to pay those bills and, you know, at least you got to go and you got to see, you know, as part of these being the alpha kickoff, you got to see a lot of the major features first.

[00:53:17] You know, that was part of the, you know, the alpha kicking off was, hey, here's a bunch of the initial stuff like usual that we're going to see.

[00:53:25] And we got to enjoy that swell of excitement, you know, because it only happens once really every couple of years now where, oh, it's all the new shit.

[00:53:36] All kind of all at once is that big, that big group of all of it.

[00:53:40] Um, it was kind of cool to see that and actually knowing somebody that was there and got to see it in person.

[00:53:46] I'm not gonna lie. It's kind of rad, especially because you're on this show and are able to speak directly to the situation.

[00:53:52] But coming out of that in May, we had finally our then next patch, patch 10.2.7 dark heart.

[00:54:01] I know you all remember dark heart. Well, and I know it was one of your favorite patches of all time, uh, as this was the final chapter for dragon flight.

[00:54:10] This was the proverbial handoff to the war within.

[00:54:17] This is when we first got someone to Dalaran to investigate the harbinger.

[00:54:21] So then we all know how, uh, that went for Dalaran.

[00:54:25] This was also the patch when the time running pandemonium.

[00:54:30] Wow. Remix.

[00:54:32] Mr. Pandaria went by like 19 different names, but that's when this finally hit and proved to be so popular.

[00:54:39] That's I guess we're going to be doing it again in Legion, which, you know, Legion was a great expansion.

[00:54:45] Nothing wrong with that.

[00:54:48] Um, we also learned in May.

[00:54:52] And this was not a surprise to Jez certainly surprised some of us.

[00:54:56] The blizz con would not be happening in 2024.

[00:55:02] Not a big surprise.

[00:55:03] Looking back on it.

[00:55:04] There's a lot going on.

[00:55:06] I think Jez, as you mentioned, it is, it is not a winner when it comes to money.

[00:55:12] It's a, it's a, it's a purely marketing advertising event that loses the company, a lot of money.

[00:55:19] Um, but I, I still maintain that because it is such a, it's such a cornerstone of the community.

[00:55:31] It's just a foundational event for this group.

[00:55:35] I have to believe that it's coming back.

[00:55:38] Maybe not, you know, maybe not even in 2025, but I have to believe that blizz con will be back at some point.

[00:55:47] But now that we're, you know, some time removed from this and the relationships continued on a little bit with Microsoft.

[00:55:54] Uh, Jez, do you, do you, what, what would you say if you had to give it odds percentage wise of blizz con coming back in the next two years?

[00:56:02] What would you say?

[00:56:04] A hundred percent.

[00:56:05] Ooh, next two years.

[00:56:06] A hundred percent.

[00:56:07] I don't know if these cons coming back next year, but I was pretty much assured that it's not gone forever.

[00:56:12] So I do expect it to come back.

[00:56:16] Um, but I think like they'll want to, they'll want to maximize the return on investment.

[00:56:24] So IE that want to do a blizz con when they've got a ton of cool stuff to show for it rather than just like one well expansion and maybe Diablo patch or whatever.

[00:56:34] So like maybe it's when the star crafts ready to come back.

[00:56:39] Maybe it's when they've got a new expansion to show off all and all those games line up at the same time.

[00:56:46] I think that's when they'll probably bring it back.

[00:56:48] So maybe not next year, but I could certainly see it the year after, but we'll say, I'll try and find out something more concrete soon.

[00:56:56] So a hundred percent chance that we're going to get you out here and get you to some fine California cuisine.

[00:57:03] That's what I'm hearing.

[00:57:06] First rounds on me.

[00:57:08] Um, so unfortunately, uh, that was a bit of news that was shared with us back in May, along with, uh, Christie golden, long time blizzard writer, uh, author in her own right, uh, outside of blizzard, uh, franchises.

[00:57:22] But Christie golden, uh, laid off, uh, over there blizzard.

[00:57:26] And as we talked about, you know, story and franchise development and some of the publishing, I think, as you'd mentioned, you know, these were areas in which blizzard was downsizing because of, uh, uh, redundancy with Microsoft.

[00:57:42] I still have a hard time with this one because she was such an integral part.

[00:57:49] I thought of the blizzard storytelling machine.

[00:57:51] And she always was very, uh, pointed about saying, it's not just warcraft.

[00:57:56] I'm involved in all of these other things.

[00:57:58] So to have one person, a creative involved in so many things and to let her go, that one still doesn't make sense to me.

[00:58:07] Part of me, mate, part of it, part of me wonders if it was sort of like, I dunno, they wanted to have a specific change the team up in a specific way or something.

[00:58:21] I mean, it sucks and it, you know, it is what it is, but I also, it's probably just like they thought we can, you know, get a good saving in here.

[00:58:31] One thing that I've noticed in the corporate world, when you climb up a ladder and you've been there for a long time, you get a lot of pay rises, right?

[00:58:38] Over time, pay rise, pay rise, pay rise.

[00:58:40] And it's like, Oh cool.

[00:58:41] My company is so generous.

[00:58:42] They give me all these pay rises.

[00:58:44] And then when, when it comes to layoffs, they're like, Oh, who's, who's really, who's really expensive.

[00:58:49] And he's been with the company for a million years and it's had a million pay rises, but we could get someone new without those pay rises and reset that salary back to square one.

[00:58:59] And just kind of what happened, I think personally to major Nelson at Xbox, who'd been there for like decades, but he'd been there for decades.

[00:59:07] And it was like, you know, and then they, they hired Tina Amini from IGN to lead programming for Xbox.

[00:59:15] And I have to imagine it was kind of like a, you know, a lot, a sort of a cold, logical money saving exercise in that scenario.

[00:59:25] So I don't know, I don't know the ins and outs of why, why there were, why that was, um, that decision was made, but it is what it is, I guess.

[00:59:38] Yeah. Yeah. That's a tough one. And I know she's still out there on social media and, and it seems like she's had a particularly difficult year, not just professionally, but personally.

[00:59:47] So if you're, you know, if you're out there, uh, on the social media scene and you see her, give her some love, give her some love.

[00:59:54] She's, she's truly, she's really one of the best of us, um, and deserves, I think better than she's been getting.

[01:00:00] So give her, give her a little love if you see her out there.

[01:00:03] Um, but for may kind of wrapping up, uh, this portion of things, this is the end of dragon flight and it was, you know, as we mentioned earlier, it was a different kind of expansion.

[01:00:15] Um, but I still believe and will always believe that it resurrected what could have been a dead franchise because it was certainly on its way.

[01:00:29] Shadowlands was a mess and that's putting it lightly.

[01:00:32] It just, it looked like the game and you, you could see everyone had their own eulogy for the thing, but it really felt like dragon flight pulled world of Warcraft out of the nosedive, uh, that it was in.

[01:00:45] So final word, Jez looking back on dragon flight and what it meant, what it established, you know, hits and misses.

[01:00:55] Uh, what would you say about dragon flights now here?

[01:01:00] Seven months after its official end.

[01:01:04] It was decent.

[01:01:07] You know, I think like I liked, I'm not a big fan of the dragon storyline to be honest since forever.

[01:01:15] I think the dragons are too, I liked them when they're being evil.

[01:01:20] I like deathwing.

[01:01:21] I, you know, me, you know, they're too Alliance coded these days to find them interesting.

[01:01:29] No, got it.

[01:01:29] I don't know.

[01:01:30] I just, I think, I think all those dragon kind of things, I, they all felt too vanilla.

[01:01:37] And I wasn't a huge fan of the writing.