Episode 159: This Old (Out)House

[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. Uncensored Home for World of Warcraft news and opinions. This is Unshackled Fury.

[00:01:02] Digging deep into the last days of WoW's opening season as visions of something new is just underfoot. And it might be time to pack your bags as the house movers, but just be on their way. So welcome back for episode 159 of your Uncensored Home for World of Warcraft news and opinions, Unshackled Fury.

[00:01:25] I'm your host Berzerker and with me once again is your favorite gaming pack rat known as Mr. Jez Corden. Welcome back again good sir. I think that's my favorite intro yeah. How you doing man? You know, good. A little under the weather today as you can probably tell which is terrible for the American holiday known as Super Bowl. As we are recording this.

[00:01:53] A mere 90 minutes from kickoff of the biggest game not involving football. The other football. Your football. Soccer. Soccer. Soccer. Yeah, doing doing all right otherwise.

[00:02:14] And you know, I strive to make sure that every intro for you is, you know, appropriate for your your level of of importance and all that you represent. So it's grandly appreciated. Well, it's good to have you back. We took a mighty winter break and I already regaled everyone with my wintertime stories and all the bullshit that I've been up to.

[00:02:42] But generally for the folks at home, how have you been since last we were here in early December? Any any wild and crazy adventures you want to share or is it just those to the grindstone 24-7 for for Jez? Oh God, yeah, it's pure been purely grindstone. I mean, it's court fours are the busiest by mile because of Amazon Black Friday deal coverage.

[00:03:08] Make a lot of, you know, a lot of the money that powers the site for the rest of the year during p-trading is what they call it. But yeah, it was extremely busy in November into December and also there was the game awards. So that was really busy as well. Oh yeah. And then in and then when it came to like Christmas, I just straight up hibernated. I'm still I'm still sort of recovering from that like, oh God back to work.

[00:03:32] And it's been we're now into halfway into February almost. I'm still recovering from from p-trading. I feel like which is why it feels like only yesterday that we were last doing the show. Like you feel it feels time is just a I guess an abstract concept to me now. Oh, I know. I it's true. Yeah, I think that's true. It's just a black hole.

[00:03:57] You wake up and one day it's Tuesday and then one day it's Sunday and then it's been two months that you've done a show and you're like, were we just here last week? Yes, I swear to God. We're just talking about this. One of the things I mentioned to folks last time was that this is the 10th. This will be the 10th year of this podcast. So sometime between now and in October, we're going to have to figure something out. We're going to have to get like a good guest or a good prize or something for the folks.

[00:04:28] We'll have to work on that this year. Something something I've been thinking about them in the meantime, there was something I wanted to bring to your attention. I was holding this. I was waiting on this because as I've admitted on the show many times, I have a rampaging ego that's out of control. And it's probably not good for somebody like myself to be doing a podcast that any kind of space with those other people, but but I do it and we are and we're here.

[00:04:57] But I've always wondered like when when you go out there on the Internet and you don't know the World of Warcraft podcast, like how do you find us? And so, you know, you just type in like World of Warcraft podcast or whatever it is. And it took a while for this show to finally like kind of pop up on some searches. It took a few years and then, you know, we kind of started to get out there a little bit, but there were things that I would see. People would make lists. There would be web pages or other places, Reddit posts, whatever.

[00:05:25] There would be lists. People say here are all the podcasts you should listen to, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, we weren't there. And then on a couple, we were kind of there. But there was always one. I don't know anybody's ever even heard of this or not, but there was always one. And it was the 25 best World of Warcraft podcast. And we were never on this thing. We were never on this thing for years and years and years.

[00:05:47] And then a month and a half ago, somebody who runs the website reached out to me and said, hey, our board of directors or whoever we are, I put you on this list. Is that cool? And I'm like, of course, that's cool. And they said, well, if that's cool with you, do you mind mentioning it? And I said, absolutely no problem. So here we are on Feedspot. I don't know what Feedspot is. Sorry.

[00:06:12] You know, outside of anything other than what I've seen over the years of searching and coming up with this exact website going, why isn't our show on this website? We are now number five. We are now number five on this website. Number five. I will. I will fucking take that. I will fucking take that. I'll take that. We will never beat Girls Gone Wild. Wow. Let me tell you, your your neighbors to the north up there. Those two women, we will never beat them, but we can take number two. I'd be we can move up a couple spaces.

[00:06:41] I think I think we could do it for Azeroth. That'll be tough picking Whistle Tails. I think we could take them and another pod. Do not relate. I think we could take them, too, especially since I'm not sure I know anybody over there. We should just fight them, Jez. Yeah, we should just fight them, Jez. We should invite them down to the Brawler's Tavern and we should just fight the other shows. That's that's how we're going to get this done.

[00:07:11] But but anyway, I want I wanted to say thank you to the Feedspot folks for finally putting us up there. I don't know how they made that decision, but I'm glad they did. Because now my some small, small piece of my ego has been satisfied. You know, it's it's screaming what you're screaming, Jez, about we should be number one. But considering that we're higher on the list than the actual number one World of Warcraft podcast, the starting zone.

[00:07:40] I got to take it. I got to take it. So my apologies to the boys over there. In the meantime, Jez, I I'm going to try. I'm going to try to Jez up our metal album of the week this week. I've been I've been thinking about this one. I've been thinking about this one. I was like, you know, I really I feel bad because I'm always coming up with these ones.

[00:08:08] And I'm like, yes, this is one that I love. And then it's just not it's just not Jez enough. So I thought to myself, OK, dig deep, dig deep into the archives. What do I know? What do I love? What do I like? What do I got? Well, here's what I've got for you today. And let's let's see Jez if this passes muster. And and there's like a part B to this. Maybe if it doesn't meet the just criteria.

[00:08:33] So today, this week from 2005, I have the fury of our makers hand by Devil Driver. Oh, you know Devil Driver. I've heard of them. I've never. OK, OK. The the lead singer of this band, his name is Des Fafara. You might know him from Cold Chamber as well.

[00:09:03] Yes, I knew. I knew there is. I know. There it is. There it is. OK, I love culture. Everyone was a kid. Perfect. All right. Well, Devil Driver is like his longest standing band. Like, Cold Chamber was a thing that also was happening sidelong. Yeah. Devil Driver. That's why I know them, I think, because I discovered them through Cold Chamber. But I think it was must have been back before it was easy to get access to music because

[00:09:33] I don't think I ever actually listened to them. 2005. That's yeah, that's pretty spot. That's pretty a lot of stuff. Yeah, that's pretty early. That's that's like, I don't know. When did YouTube come in? Oh, five. Something like that. Yeah, maybe. So pretty, pretty early. But if I was 20, yes, I think something like that. Oh, so way before that. Yeah, way before. Yeah, I.

[00:09:58] I got introduced to Devil Driver and this song because of if you listen to Sirius XM, there's the Metal Station Liquid Metal with Jose Mangan and those guys. And they used to play a song off of this that I absolutely love to this day. It is still one of my favorite metal songs. And if you don't feel like just tearing up everything in your house and running through a brick wall after listening to the song, I don't know what you're doing.

[00:10:26] But the song is before the hangman's noose and put this shit on. Like if you're feeling a certain way about a day and like you got to get up and do a thing. This is this is the fucking song, man. This is this is the jam. The whole album. It's just hard gunning solid ass metal all the way through 12 songs less than an hour. You know, you just rip it and run it all the way through. But Devil Driver has been around a long time.

[00:10:53] They got a long discography, pretty solid band out of Texas. Maybe maybe just this album was no out of California. Shit, they might be my neighbors. I don't even know. But they're they're a solid ass band. Cool chamber also right. Same singer. Phenomenal metal band. But but for you, Jez, I wanted to just it up today.

[00:11:18] So we give it we're giving you the fury of our makers hand by Devil Driver. Excellent. I hope you check that out. I will. All right. We have one one big piece of news that we're going to talk about today, but to kind of jump the line a little bit. I have something related to it for a raid segment this week. So let's jump into it.

[00:11:49] Let's rage. Now, Jez. We have talked about before. About this whole cockamamie player housing issue. How come and.

[00:12:13] And how rabid people are for this player housing in World of Warcraft, among other places, gaming in general, but in World of Warcraft specifically. And this this past week, we were granted a pretty deep look. Look first look like real look into what we're going to be getting in this. And I do want to talk about.

[00:12:37] All of the good stuff that was mentioned here, because there was a lot of good stuff, but there was one one aspect of it that I I cannot believe for the life of me that they're going to do this. They're going to do this to me once again, Jez. We had we had asked ourselves. We'd asked each other. The community has asked itself. Where where are we going to live?

[00:13:05] Where is this player house going to be? Is it going to be on a plot of land somewhere? Is it going to be like an like a like a condo unit in an existing building somewhere? Is it where the hell is this thing going to be? And we kind of got an answer to that because in this blog post, it talks about how there are going to be neighborhoods.

[00:13:29] It looks like one specific to kind of Elwynn forest and one to your to your Orgrimmar ish area. And you know, I play this game, Jez, because and I know this sounds ridiculous. I want to get away. I want to get away from people. I want to get away from all kinds of people. But some of the people I want to get away from are my neighbors. And now you're going to stick me with more of them.

[00:13:57] I want to play a house that's on a plot of land in the middle of nowhere. I don't want to be next to John Q. So and so right next door who's throwing his garbage out the front door and whose situation I got to see in the backyard because they don't cut the grass and their kids screaming and they're running around and banging on the pots and pans and all the walls all night long. They got shit all over the place because that is what it looks like here or Jez.

[00:14:21] We are going to have public neighborhoods as part of our housing player or a player housing development. And for the life of me, I know that this is what you call a, you know, a multiplayer game if you will, but the, you know, the MMO and MMORPG. But God damn it.

[00:14:43] Don't make me have to live, you know, with a bunch of hooligans that I don't know over there in storm when they could be defias for all I know that and then you can let your war band in. So there's probably going to be some orc or some troll or somebody else's neighbors are going to come in and they're going to let in all these riffraff from the horde and Jez. The whole thing is sunk before it even got started. How could they do this to me? How could they do this to me? This is terrible. This is a terrible development. My condolences.

[00:15:13] I am honestly, I am honestly intrigued that they did it this way. The neighborhood system. I really thought it was going to end up being like, do you remember the farm in Mr. Pandaria? Yes. Where it was just like, it was just like, like just everyone shares the same house, quote unquote. Yeah. So I was, I was kind of thinking like, I imagined it like there'd be a player house you can have in, you know, touristful glades and Orgrimmar.

[00:15:41] And then everyone sort of congregate into that house. And like, and when you approached it, you'd phase into your instance of it. Yeah. That's what I imagined it. Cause I, I was off the top of my head. I was thinking that would be the easiest way of doing it. That's like, you know, I don't expect Blizzard to go all out and build like neighborhoods and shit, but to their credit.

[00:16:03] I mean, having like sharded neighborhoods, that is significant technological investment and also eeps more complicated than what I envisioned for it. So even though it might not, it sort of triggers your anti-social proclivities, shall we say? Um, I'm impressed that they bothered to do it, frankly speaking.

[00:16:32] Um, cause it could have been way simpler. Could have been way simpler. They have no idea what they've gotten themselves into. Cause, cause let me, let me extrapolate this out further for you, sir. 50 plots in a neighborhood, five, zero, 50, 50 plots, five, zero plots. Anyone that has ever been involved in any kind of real estate knows it is all about location. And that tells me that there are going to be some plots that have better views than others.

[00:17:00] There are going to be some that are at the end of a cul-de-sac. There are going to be some that are at the beginning of a street. There are going to be some that have better garbage days. There are going to be some that have better sunsets. There are going to be some that better have better sunrises. Some are going to have front doors that face the sun. Some are going to have backyards that face the sun. It all changes depending on where you are in that neighborhood. They have no idea what they've unleashed and they have to have a neighbor. unbelievable they should just throw this in the garbage

[00:17:28] where it belongs before it even takes flight just you wait there's going to be bidding wars on these plots bidding wars and then guilds guilds are going to fall this is private neighbors public and private so you can create one with your guild guilds are going to fall because somebody's GM is going to want the choice spot by the waterfall I'm telling you right now

[00:17:57] it's the worst decision that they could possibly make well I think at the end of the day you won't have to have a playhouse it seems like completely as an optional thing for role play just something else to grind out I think plenty of people will just be like nah this ain't for me they've taken it basically from Final Fantasy XIV the whole concept of neighborhoods and stuff and I think Final Fantasy XIV took it from like Star Wars Galaxies

[00:18:26] or something like that back in the day but um uh you won't have to engage with it you won't be forced to have a house you can still be homeless you know I will think of it man you can have like all your warrior what would a warrior put in the house I guess weapons and shit right I don't know well what do warriors do just we'll talk about that chunks of meat and chains

[00:18:55] lying around we'll talk about that as we dive through the uh the rest of the blog post that they had here but uh but before we got to that I wanted my uh my private lament out there about having to have neighbors because I'm just at the end of the day some asshole who wants to be left alone at the end of the street but so be it if we have to have neighborhoods then I guess I'll have to find some friends and I don't know make a commune or something but there you go if you like neighbors they're coming for you and uh if you don't well

[00:19:25] I guess we can join up and live in it separate ends of the street and keep a neighborhood all to ourself alright uh with all of that said uh we do have some news and this is part of it so why don't we go ahead and jump into that yes there was a nice big juicy blog post that was released about player housing uh and it was

[00:19:54] it came after uh a longer uh post by holly longdale who we haven't heard from holly too much yet quite yet just just yet this year uh but it was good to hear I think from holly kind of set the set the stage for the year uh once again committing to 2024 was a big year and it gave us a lot of opportunities to listen and learn and you know

[00:20:24] all that kind of stuff and we'll see how that goes um before dropping some other tidbits like yes we've got some other stuff coming up about player housing and there's some classic stuff going on uh jez there was one item in here maybe it was just for you it's possible that holly longdale was speaking directly to you uh in this where I want to try to pull this up here um

[00:20:54] I'm gonna I'm gonna read this because I don't want to paraphrase I want to read this to you where she talks about where uh the section that says where wow is and where it's going in the second paragraph uh after saying you know spent some time reflecting on where the game is it says first we want to make world of warcraft more approachable for anyone who wants to join the adventures we have available to them in introducing the new player experience with Exiles Reach we wanted to create an easy way for new players to begin their first journeys into Azeroth or bring back returning players in a way

[00:21:24] that would help get them up to speed we know the experience can be better and are working toward new improvements to the future to streamline the experience in the near term and expand upon what it can be in the future we know that being uh truly welcoming requires a lot of work around our new and returning player experiences in modern wow we are committed to that work and we will be making some improvements in Midnight and The Last Titan

[00:21:53] I'll be honest this will be a long term ongoing journey as the game evolves and changes with each expansion there is no quick fix but we are here for it that's gotta be music theoryers well I mean it should be music to my ears but I'm a little bit skeptical right because the thing that wow doesn't need I don't think it needs streamlining at all

[00:22:23] I think streamlining isn't the issue I think they've streamlined enough maybe even over streamlined right oh Blizzard will have telemetry data which contradicts what I'm saying no doubt but I think like the thing about telemetry data is it doesn't tell you what sometimes players don't know what they want and I genuinely feel like telemetry data could sometimes misinform you to the tune of you know

[00:22:53] almost killing games and I think there are games out there that have basically been killed by telemetry data where it's like oh well you know players didn't engage with this therefore we we should remove it right but in I believe that sometimes the lack of engagement in a feature actually counts as engagement because it can add flavor to something right you know like when you're eating a delicious meal you don't necessarily unless you're a gourmet you know you don't necessarily think about

[00:23:22] every flavor that makes up the whole right so when they talk when they talk things they talk about streamlining what I envision in my head is making it even easier my argument for the new player experience is that it's too easy it's too easy to the point of being boring I think like new cohorts of gamers coming in they want to feel excited and immersed that's the issue with the new player experiencing well the fact that it's not exciting

[00:23:51] and it's not immersive you know and Exile's reach is the epitome of not immersive and not exciting doesn't really give you any story context for what's going on in modern WoW it's brain dead easy it's so easy that like you know you don't even need to engage your brain in order to play it right for the vast majority of you know modern players like I'm talking like youngsters who grow up playing battle royale kind of games which are you know tough you know to win a battle royale

[00:24:22] you know like a four night unless you're in unless you've ended up in a game full of bots it's tough to win you know victory royale against 50 other players right and kids grow up on those experiences like Minecraft too is like if you're you know it's stuck in a mine and you've run out of supplies or whatever and a creeper comes up behind you you can get one shot lose all your stuff falls in the lava teaches kids valuable lesson about you know caution whereas the modern world of Warcraft experience

[00:24:52] doesn't deliver anything like that you know it's so so easy unless you go looking for that challenge like with mythic and abort right and I think that's that's where WoW sort of historically at least WoW's telemetry has cost them the flavor that makes the game exciting for anyone who isn't wearing nostalgia goggles I think so when I talk when I hear them talk about streamlining I start thinking about other big publishers that use

[00:25:21] telemetry data to inform their design decisions often to their detriment so I don't know I might write something about this in the near term because otherwise I could talk about this all day about what I think they should do and I actually put this to Holly Longdale herself when I was in London for the WoW event I actually said to her directly I said are you guys gradually rebuilding racial starting zones because in my mind Balameth

[00:25:51] and the surrounding area that was perfect to be a new night elf starting zone and the starting zones for each player race gets you immersed in your player fantasy your class and your racial fantasy I want to be an elf you know I don't want to be a random soldier of the horde in this easy mode exile reach place I want to be an elf or I want to be an orc or an undead like Tyrus Fall Glades when I was you know in my late teens playing as an undead it was awesome as hell

[00:26:21] and there's just nothing like that in the modern new player experience so I even look at like the next patch coming up and I'll finish my point quickly otherwise we will be here all day but I look at the new patch that's coming up under mine they've got whole goblin themed they've basically rebuilt Kezan complete down to the roads and the driving and all that kind of stuff it's balameth for goblins turn undermine into new

[00:26:50] player experience for goblins you know stuff like that and then you've got other cities which are a bit more modern like the nightborne starting area you know you don't need you already got that ready to go you just need like maybe new quest chains bring it up to you know current lore standards and all that kind of stuff and if you are doing new night elf zones and blood elf zones for nightfall you know Quel'thalas is going to be where we're hanging out then there you go you've got your blood elf

[00:27:20] starting zones right raring to go you know you do those starting zones and then you go you get shipped off to the next expansion you know I think that's that's the way it should be um but will they do something like that or will it just be another crappy exile reach maybe with some modern lore or something like that but you know like I said earlier they over delivered on my expectations with player housing so maybe they'll maybe I'm just

[00:27:50] being cynical you know maybe I should give them more benefit of the doubt we've been burned a lot to be fair and I think that that's it's cautious optimism maybe that's the right sort of balance here and that I look at you know you mentioned these cities right and I look at um what is it Suramar Suramar yeah crazy like it's a living breathing vibrant thing like I think of um because we got to get back to doing this I think of Night City in Cyberpunk

[00:28:20] and just kind of how big and alive that place seems when I'm in game and Suramar always felt the same way that there were a hundred other little stories going on that I just didn't know about and wasn't necessarily paying attention to but it had that capability and so yeah there's all these areas you feel like man ripe for some sort of rejuvenation of some kind but being that you are the uh you know the man about town you should absolutely put something out about there that Holly will

[00:28:49] read because I think you have quite a bit of influence and uh you know if anybody wants to throw something our way uh because of that uh for our big 10th anniversary um but uh one of the other things that Holly mentioned here was more about social it was like a social they call it a social initiative uh within their development team where now they're going to have a social team alongside like their other development teams

[00:29:19] and uh as an example uh they're looking at improvements on how how to connect in-game friends group finder integration better integration to common external social platforms that we knew we know the community uses regularly does that mean discord and wow do you I think that could mean that you know I know um I know from my sources that Microsoft has recently done a big overview a big strategy overview of

[00:29:49] blizzard properties so they have been looking at wow and they have been looking at diablo and they have been looking at overwatch a lot overwatch is like the big the big one right now how can we fix overwatch is is a big thing within microsoft but you know wow is a pillar of that as well like I think with with overwatch it's a bit more of a crisis thing but with wow it's like how can we take wow to the next level and one of the things microsoft wants to do is you know modernize those kind of

[00:30:19] pillars like the social aspects but also like double down on showcasing characters double down on transmedia opportunities like Netflix and stuff games have to to truly hit that sort of next level games have to be more than just games these days like you see like you see you see this a lot with fortnight where fortnight gets a lot of celebrities and cross-property pollination in in

[00:30:49] their games and I don't think I don't think we're gonna see rappers appear in world of warcraft anytime soon but you know maybe it means maybe it does mean discord integration maybe it does mean a Netflix show and and that kind of thing oh man that's we've talked about that forever in the community right and I know with edge runners for cyberpunk and arcane for league of legends right um insanely well received properties

[00:31:19] that only heighten the visibility of the related franchises and it's not easy to do they're not all great but if you if you hit the right nail at the right time boy it can really it can shoot some shit to the moon it's it's got to be the right time though maybe preferably after they fix the new player experience because if you do hit the iron and it's like oh wow this Netflix show is amazing I'm gonna check out the game and then you wear to Ponexos

[00:31:48] fucking reach it's kind of a waste right so you know you make a good point timing is yeah everything with this shit well and maybe that ties in you know I you think about if you had some sort of show whatever that is and that draws people's attention in and it's like okay whatever the the environment is or whatever the storyline is or whatever the the most familiar elements of it are right you get new players to be dropped

[00:32:16] into that that's how you hook them right and it's like oh what else is out there oh this is a thing I knew and then oh it's all this other shit holy crap it's not just Adam Smasher I mean it's not just you know one of these players it's a bunch of us so yeah so overall Holly right very optimistic again talking about not just the past 20 years but also looking forward to the next 20 years they really they really whatever the plans are they they really do feel strongly about

[00:32:45] saying to us communicating to us that they're in it for the long haul that there are long term plans these aren't going to be just quick fixes like she talks about the starting experience right that you know we're talking about this entire world soul arc and probably beyond but to get back to what we were mentioning earlier the player housing and in in an interview we talked about last year where Holly had mentioned how this player housing was something they want to think about not just

[00:33:15] for like six months or a year but for like years decades into the future like they're really big on this whatever this this part of the game is going to be and so finally just this past week we got a real deeper dive something more concrete about what they're doing why they're doing it and sort of how all this is unfolding along with the 50 plot neighborhoods but in it with the player housing talking about three pillars that's what we started off with and

[00:33:44] talking about their design choices why they're doing what they're doing and those three pillars and she and she made a point to mention or they made a point to mention that this isn't the only thing that they're basing ideas or decisions off of but these are three of the main pillars that they're using one being boundless self-expression the second being deeply social and then the third being long lasting journey that this isn't something that you can

[00:34:11] expect to finish but there was a statement in here you know thinking about how they're going to structure this what are they going to do under the boundless self-expression there's a line here that says the tool set the tool set sorry the tool set should be easy enough for someone with no 3d experience to be comfortable with and use successfully but it should also be powerful enough that players can surprise us with their

[00:34:39] creations or drill down to get the tiniest details just right this sounds to me like something that is wildly comprehensive like way beyond anything else we've ever had if we're going to have by their account like hundreds of items and be able to nitty-gritty detail where this is gonna go that that to me sounds like a like a robust system in a

[00:35:09] way that we've never seen in World of Warcraft on any level unless I'm completely forgetting something have you ever played Animal Crossing no are you aware of Animal Crossing yes but it's I know the name that's kind of like how I feel about that because Animal Crossing I was like you can't literally create textures in that game and sort of

[00:35:38] oh you know truly express yourself like you know you create your own wallpapers and do signage and things like that I suppose I suppose you know what's it called Minecraft's probably another good example with regards to because when you say boundless expression that's a really that's a really bold claim I feel like when there are these games out there like Animal Crossing or like Minecraft which truly well and truly do

[00:36:07] let you have boundless expression like recently I watched a video about Minecraft where some MIT students had created a 32 bit processor using Minecraft circuitry which is just nuts right so while I doubt we'll be making processes in player housing anytime soon like it does sound as though something akin to Animal Crossing could be

[00:36:35] probably a little bit more along the lines of what to expect here like an Animal Crossing you can visit someone's island and it's it's never you're never going to see two that are the same unless it's two new players starting out with the default right it's crazy the kind of shit you can do in there so that does sound pretty exciting I you know again I think not

[00:37:02] having a basis for comparison all of this sounds just like holy shit to me because as you mentioned earlier we've had the farm and the farm had its little you know cute nature to it we had our garrison which had some limited capacity in terms of what it could have or some of the accoutrement if you will that it could have within but I mean this is accoutrement you know it's uh like yeah I know it

[00:37:32] means I was just I was just impressed with the oh vocabulary and also the pronunciation like I would have accoutrements but like you put like a french twang into it I was like damn every every once in a while my my professional life uh creeps in and you know the fact that I have a have a vocabulary sometimes uh you know sneaks in but yes uh you know not having any sort of other basis for comparison this all

[00:38:01] sounds insane to me uh part of what I loved about this write-up too just quickly because you'd mentioned it and I have awareness of this now is that uh under the section in the blog post it says a home for everyone it says as part of our focus on wide adoption we wanted to ensure that housing is available to everyone if you want a house you can have a house no exorbitant requirements or high purchase costs no lotteries and no owner is upkeep so that's a final fantasy dig right that was a shot of

[00:38:30] final fantasy that was and I feel I feel a bit bad for square index here because they they kind of pioneered this system in the modern era at least but they they built it in such a unscalable way they basically like it requires dedicated servers it requires like you know a server upkeep and it's not a dynamic system whereas like wow has this really

[00:38:59] great sort of server array sharding technology which can sort of dynamically spin up servers virtual servers as and when it's required and now they're also tied to Microsoft so Microsoft has pretty much infinite server capacity at this point it's like second biggest cloud provider on earth second behind Amazon only and Amazon you know hosts services like Netflix and stuff like that so um

[00:39:26] and but I when you when you do have the ability to sort of deliver a system that is scalable from the outset you know which is clearly what Blizzard's doing here they've kind of got the advantage of looking at final fantasy and being like oh these are the mistakes they made we need to make sure that our system scalable so we don't have things like these lotteries because whoa my chair just decided to break that's great oh that's

[00:39:53] great um but um yeah sorry uh but yeah in final fantasy for those who don't know there's like a fixed amount of neighborhoods each server shard has and there's a fixed amount of plots of land that each player can have so like these these plots of land are typically full you know and um and uh you have to like maintain a subscription and activity within those plots in order to not lose them and if I think off the top of my head and I

[00:40:22] can't remember if this is exactly right so don't quote me on it but I think you have to like if if you're not there for like a month you will lose that plot of land and then it becomes a lottery system so then players will come in by their hundreds or maybe even the thousands on some servers and be like trying to win the lottery for this plot of land so they can have like a little faction for their a little personal house or you know a guild because the guild houses too and stuff like that so um

[00:40:51] so yeah it's it's cool that they built it to be scalable from the outset but they were also building on the mistakes of Final Fantasy but this is what what competition is cool because I think Final Fantasy will look at this and be like well we need to go back to a drawing board and maybe build something that is more scalable because if our competitor is going to have the standard bearer for player housing like we're kind of losing our unique selling point that you know yeah well and yeah

[00:41:20] that that competition hopefully breeds you know a continual evolution of not just where we start but then where we go as they're talking about you know developing this thing over time you know if they need to change the course because something turns to out to be shit or something turns out to be wildly popular I mean I love World of Warcraft and in many ways it's not the most original property because it borrows from so many others and I think we're all kind of okay with it because it's sort of the nature of the

[00:41:50] beast um so you know their their ability to be flexible as time goes on and and get this it's the Monday Night Wars bro everybody knows that WWF was better when WCW was around at least back then it's pretty good now anyway um mentioned what would a warrior have in their home uh outfitting your home is something that they touch on here and the question of will there be items that you can pay for yes

[00:42:19] there will be but it seems like the majority of things the hundreds of items and decorations or whatever will be available uh through you know various rewards in game which is cool I look at this and I think okay let's go to the maximum possible extent in my mind of what this could be with elements both in game and out of game because I think of where

[00:42:45] in game I want a place to put any of my cool transmogs uh or my cool weapons that I've got something that denotes important kills or achievements that I've reached um you know furniture is there certain types of furniture that you can get you know all the major stuff chairs beds ottomans couches

[00:43:15] tables equipment like an all number of things that you could have in there but then there's like what about art there'll be wall space I assume can I like what cyberpunk now just instituted in their game where you have picture frames where you can put whatever picture you want in there so if you want a big giant picture of pan am's butt right over your you know fireplace you can do that right you know in world of warcraft is it

[00:43:44] screenshots can I bring other shots in are there pieces of in-game art that I don't know is there like an art gallery I can go to to buy pieces for a wall because anybody that has owned a home for a period of time knows every once in a while there's a wall that you're looking at you like you know I really would like to put something there I want X to put there but it needs to be the right thing and so you just you just kind of go on for years and you think about okay well if I see the right thing to put on that wall

[00:44:14] will there be opportunities like that here where now it's like oh okay for a limited time we have this or we're making this or can you have player created art like can I go to one of the artists that we know in the community and say hey we've got this wall art you know bag textures like you mentioned you know uh you know textile textures there could be any number of things that you import in the game will they care if you have I don't know a picture of somebody's booty like I mentioned earlier are they gonna

[00:44:42] police that kind of thing like what is the the the length of depth to which we'll be able to go and allowed to go um you know over this and so again I think about you know as a warrior having my armor having my weapons yeah having like a I don't know can I get like um oh I'm gonna get killed for this but there is a very famous uh barbecue joint I want to say it's lock hearts but I don't think that's it there's a very famous barbecue joint

[00:45:10] that has this open pit where they hang all the meat over the pit and they smoke it and it's just this giant open pit I would love to have some shit like that in my player house and I could just you know go and grab something get a buff real quick from so some shank or something so booties and barbecues is is on the menu for your player housing is what what I'm hearing I think it should be number one on everyone's list but uh you

[00:45:40] know that's that's sort of the the the male warrior the straight male warrior uh side of this thing uh I don't know you can have any kind of booty up there it's just the warrior side of it anyway um what what would uh what would Jez the goblin be putting in a house I suppose I know being an alchemist a goblin and a warlock might have probably be stereotypical books various vials of in

[00:46:09] nondescript reagents potions slime weird mechanical things demon stuff I don't know might have been metal as hell man I do doom and doom and sludge metal though more so than thrash metal I think as well as if like a warrior is thrash metal then a

[00:46:33] warlock's more like sludge metal I guess in my head yeah no that makes sense we're we're uh we're like thrash and then maybe uh paladins are kind of like power metal you know yeah ballads there yeah that kind of thing yeah you could be you could be sludge metal why not they need you know what they need to give us then is take that uh that jukebox from the garrison and port that over into our house oh yeah we have to have tunes you know

[00:47:01] some kind of tunes it's the cool thing about this player housing malarkey is that they've already got a lot of the assets in order to deliver stuff like this because they've got player housing assets when they design houses in the game you know like if you you know go to kezon and look at the not kezon undermine sorry in the next patch you know it's gonna feel lived in because you know they've had to design

[00:47:28] all those assets for all the goblins that live there the npcs but a lot of those sort of features those you know basic things like chairs you know windows and picture frames you know and all kinds of things like that they already exist in the game as assets i suppose some of it will be like some of it i'll need to be up raised maybe because a lot of those assets are a bit old-fashioned and from the old days um yeah but a lot of them are you know pretty fresh so

[00:47:58] it's gonna be cool i see how this develops we need we need like our own barbershop in our house let's do your hair see now that's that's one of the things that i don't think they'll do you know i think a lot of the facilities like auction houses uh barbershop vendors repair vendors and shit like that i think they'll keep them in the city because if everyone just sort of like has the ability to never leave their player house you could end up

[00:48:27] with depopulated cities and i don't think they want that i don't think they've they've never really wanted that where yeah the cities are empty and which was which was has been their argument for not giving players easier auction house access and stuff like that in the past at least i know there's an auction house mount now which by the way reportedly analysts think made them about 15 million dollars that brutesaurus auction house mount uh-huh um

[00:48:53] something like that i remember seeing some figures on but but yeah i i don't know if we're gonna get facilities like barbershop in the in the house but maybe we will maybe they just think fuck it if it's fun let's do it maybe that's their philosophy now i doubt it but we'll see well and to that point right they want to make sure that people are getting out and you know out and about not just stuck in your house but they have mentioned that there

[00:49:21] will be things that they are going to sell what do you think would be so great that people would be willing to pay real world money for like what's is it is it that well they have to have that tapestry they have to have like i don't know that that rug that really ties the room together you know is

[00:49:42] there is there something that you think would would be a 15 million dollar housing item yeah i mean that's the other that's the other side of this isn't it it's just like how much of this will be tied to microtransactions because this is a a pretty great platform for microtransactions and i think if they weren't gonna do that holly long down probably would have said that said so in the post

[00:50:08] where it would have been like oh yeah and by the way none of this is going to be microtransactions it's all all going to be in game she didn't say that so i think that pretty much you know what that means it's going to be microtransaction to hell right so i don't know man um they probably need to tread carefully because if there are like cool items that are like really cool but also cost a shitload of money i think that's gonna breed a lot of salt potentially our blizzard has to make

[00:50:36] money at the end of the day and you know costs have gone up developing games in california especially is monstrously expensive no offense to your state but um none taken california is ridiculous man we are a country unto ourselves yeah but uh so i appreciate they've got my money you know but at the same time it's like they were really pushing it with that brute source man i mean they were

[00:51:05] pushing it until i i logged in and saw that everyone fucking bought it they were like oh man i'm sure everyone's gonna be really mad about this and i log in and everyone bought the fucking mount i didn't by the way i'm proud of myself i didn't buy them out but good job but everyone else did all of you guys did you guys listen to this all of you boy i know you did you people you people

[00:51:32] yeah it's you know we've talked about it and you know better than anyone as you've mentioned many times here is you know the financial aspects of this can't be ignored and there's always going to be something but that's kind of the thing i've been thinking about is all right what what on earth would i want to spend my money on because you know again thinking about this in real world terms a neighborhood was going to be the one house that's got like the rolls royce drive car in the driveway

[00:52:00] and you know the nice trim on the house with the good paint and a good front yard and a nice fence and you know the yard's kept up but then right next to them it's going to be somebody that's got like a fred flintstone jalopy in the driveway and a grass is gonna be long and a roof is gonna be fucked up and you know there's there's you're gonna see these neighborhoods and houses that are like the haves and the have-nots you can see people drive by and turn up the nose at the uh the people who spent money

[00:52:28] in the in the real world and oh man maybe this wasn't such a bad idea maybe i do like the neighborhoods now hmm i think about this the drama alone might be worth it uh i think about that but yes um there is a very good housing preview out there so if you haven't seen it yet go take a look good tidbits i don't think it's going to be very long until we start seeing this thing if 11.1

[00:52:57] is reportedly going to be dropped sometime in the next two to three weeks my guess is knowing the history of this show and our timing it's probably going to come out tomorrow on monday that is coming out next week um so it's probably not too far away um you know that next ptr is gonna hit and then it's only a matter of time i think until we start seeing something in real and then it'll be

[00:53:27] a big conversation i think at that point once people actually know uh what we're looking at but if you if you haven't seen it yet go out there and uh take a look at uh holly's 2025 uh kind of yearly kickoff statement and uh the blog post about uh the housing and uh before we get into some uh questions the q a section of the show which uh thank you to uh folks that continue to send in

[00:53:52] questions to our show for jez and i to kick around uh jez as you mentioned goblin goblindom is your is your domain here on unshackled fury i certainly know very little about them and at this point i'm probably about to learn more over the next six months than i ever cared to uh but in undermined we have been told that there are going to be four factions that we will be aligning ourselves with

[00:54:22] uh as time goes on and there'll be mechanisms for us to choose which one we're gonna work for and do good deeds or bad deeds for probably mostly bad deeds if if i understand this whole thing correctly uh but within them uh we have uh some names and some uh sort of character connections and different things but i wanted to get your take on this as a man who actually like knows goblins firsthand

[00:54:50] what i say maybe you could give our readers or our listeners a little uh a little more insight into who exactly we're going to be dealing with uh if only just briefly but um we've we've been uh introduced to the builds water the steam wheedle the black water and the venture company as the four cartels that we're going to be working with and right out of the gate is there any one of those

[00:55:16] four for you that you immediately go yes if i'm gonna pick one this is who i'm working for day one let's get on that drive system and go yeah so you know bilge water is obviously the horde aligned cartel of goblins but i suppose like if you're a relatively new player you probably think of goblins as like a horde race but they're not really you know yeah goblins are split up into little companies

[00:55:45] called cartels and they you know i suppose they're analogous to clans in a way but they are sort of company oriented um you know they have a uh corporate structure generally speaking um and and stuff like that it's it's kind of like goblins are a bit steampunky you know in in in the warcraft universe so

[00:56:09] um generally speaking i can't remember black water off the top of my head but um steamweedle cartel is probably the closest to being the nice one so steamweedle the the neutral goblin faction which runs the neutral auction house they run tanneris and booty bay and stuff like that off the top of my head and then you've got like venture co which is arguably the most evil one generally speaking

[00:56:36] venture co have been enemies that we kill in the game venture co strip mine like both horde alliance venture co strip mining stranglethorn veil classic quests and stuff like that um kill hundreds of hundreds of them in stranglethorn veil back in the day and also i believe if i'm not misremembering

[00:56:59] actually i think i am misremembering but there were goblins that helped nefarion and i was gonna say their venture company goblins but i'm not sure they were now off the top of my head but anyway um i think maybe they were maybe they were basically venture co reboot so it's interesting that they've they're letting us align with venture co i think um and i think that's that's part of the player expression

[00:57:25] thing right if you are someone who has absolutely i mean goblins generally speaking don't don't care that much for the environment but if you want someone someone who doesn't care for the environment doesn't even pretend to care for the environment venture co is your bag pure you know core profits above everything steamweedle is probably the ones that uh probably the most neutral you know

[00:57:51] uh trying to please everyone kind of faction bilgewater increasingly feels in uh influenced by the orcs i feel like they they kind of have an honor about them now under gazlow so like i do feel like the bilgewater are probably the maybe they are the nicest faction now although alliance players might not be super happy about aligning with them but you know the

[00:58:20] alliance quests probably paint them in a much different light than the horde quest i would imagine um a little bit yeah probably but but yeah i don't know it's it's really interesting that um that they're doing it this way um obviously my goblin is technically a bilgewater goblin if we're talking law wise but goblins i suppose are also very mercenary and they will they'll go where the best best deals

[00:58:46] are you know so well that certainly matches with what i think i've kind of come to understand as i've been looking into this is uh bilgewater being as you mentioned kind of the maybe the the nicest i don't know that's not really the right word but you know sort of the i don't know not even more honest uh gazlow is the nice goblin hero character now like bilgewater used to be run by gallowix who we're

[00:59:13] going to be killing in this patch um he's the big bad goblin who discovered azurite and told syvanas to go after it so he's the big meanie and we're gonna we're gonna be finally putting him out of his misery you know they're on the line so yeah it's uh it should be a fun patch should be so beyond these fours we have bilgewater like you mentioned uh steam wheedle which is uh

[00:59:43] kind of like it sounds like your alchemists blackwater which is like your pirates and venture company which are yes the ones that just basically are mowing down the the rainforest there is reportedly even in their own materials here a fifth secret cartel who could that possibly be because i have no idea i don't i don't know enough about the goblin corporate structure to know but

[01:00:09] who could a fifth secret cartel be have any idea i have no idea off the top of my head um i suppose i could have a quick look over here what kind of cartels um there is an unknown there is an unknown

[01:00:29] cartel led by a so-called trade prince donna who is chilling in gallowix's pleasure palace in azshara and he's been there for some years i wonder if they're bringing him back and uh as a sort of a character who's it's just sort of been chilling there since cataclysm and all we know about him is

[01:00:59] that he runs a mysterious cartel that nobody knows the name of involved in some random quest at some point so yeah maybe it's his cartel um but otherwise it could also be not a goblin cartel because there's another there's another species or another race that

[01:01:22] are broken up into cartels the brokers true yeah and um and there are ethereals there were ethereals involved in the previous raid with queen anseric the consortium or whatever they were there so that's strange um blackwater according to this period previously blackwater were part of steamward or

[01:01:50] cartel but it sounds like so see blackwater raiders were a subsidiary of steamward or cartel running booty bay but it seems like they have become their own cartel now so that's why over operations yeah they've they've um they've yeah they've they've separated out into their own faction which i suppose is interesting they're led by baron revelgaz who runs booty bay so i guess

[01:02:20] they're their own faction now um so maybe they've got some rivalry i don't know well oh no that fifth secret faction i was gonna say if that is to your point if that is the uh the ethereals that would line up potentially with marrying this patch coming up and where people think

[01:02:44] we might be going after yeah true that true that so and also um i was all everything i said about trade prince donna was potentially incorrect since he's dead and he's now in revendreth oh well um but you know hey that that only gives your ethereal guess uh even more juice yeah true that so

[01:03:08] he did speak to the broker talora while in revendreth no the brokers aren't exactly brokers seem to be linked to ethereals but not quite i don't know it's all weird that shit but well all of shadowlands just got you know it's all ptsd uh so yeah so if you haven't seen a nice

[01:03:33] little write-up here carve out a rewarding career and undermine cartels it's uh it's out there and yeah we're inching closer to 11.1 it should be announced i assume before our next episode is out so uh if uh if it is out before we're back here again uh we'll have a lot to talk about uh next time but uh we're getting closer and you can feel we are we are right around the corner and uh to finish up

[01:04:01] this week we're gonna once again dive into our unshackled theory q and a i want to thank uh once again folks for uh showing some interest they're getting a lot of questions through discord and uh so if you haven't jumped in there uh please do so and you can always send your questions a billion other ways but uh jez we've got uh i've got three new questions and one returning question because you weren't here last time and i desperately want to hear your answer to it

[01:04:30] uh so first up right out of the gate this is from uh brother navox with player housing coming to azeroth can we get an outhouse attached to the home we can use at any time we can we only get to use the bathroom once in our entire life the game i have no idea we have to yeah i say we have to i think it

[01:04:55] you know it fits with blizzard's humor i suppose but it would be weird if you've got a house with no bathroom right so if we are going for maximum immersion i suppose you know i could see a goblin a goblin toilet which has some kind of shredder attached to it or something like that you know that have a violent fancy japanese toilets yeah but violent it's got to be violent it's a goblin right

[01:05:24] yeah having a shredder anywhere near like like a saw blade you know just in case you got like a really tough one you're trying to squeeze out it's like you know a little little help uh connected with this question uh from shanty man we have piggybacking off the last question should the midnight poop quest be tied to player housing somehow yes and um yes you say yes yes definitely

[01:05:52] and i always i always my mind always goes back to that quest in um uh the burning crusade where i don't know if you've played through through that that expansion but with the dog yeah one of the first quests is like shoveling fell fell hunter poop it's like what is this there's a lot of poo quests in that expansion man someone someone of blizzard has issues i think

[01:06:19] mm-hmm yeah well back then a lot of them did i suppose this is definitely the uh the fecal philia portion of the show uh yes yes i i i agree i think we do have to have some sort of quest tied some sort of poop quest tied to player housing because how else are we gonna earn the outhouse i mean we probably start with a bucket you know like a bucket just somewhere in a corner

[01:06:50] and then there's some sort of quest for like you know listen i'm looking for something with a double vanity maybe uh you know a shower and a bathtub uh maybe a fancy goblin toilet you know something in there like you got you gotta upgrade over time somehow so you start with a bucket and then you end up with one of those like 360 showers you know where it gets you from all sides and the top it's like a rain shower whatever that thing is that i think we have to uh have something tied to that

[01:07:19] where you know you got like the longer you hold it like the longer you hold the poop then then then the bigger the bathroom you get because you've earned it good i think that's you know i think that's what it then you really need that goblin shredder oh man this is this is getting off hand all right uh next up uh also from brother navox why oh this is a good question why did the wow fetish change from poop

[01:07:45] to tentacles to feet what the hell fetish are we in for for midnight it's a good i i'm gonna say water sports that's that's my guess water sports water sports yeah uh i mean surely it's gonna be more

[01:08:10] tentacles i would go back to tentacles you think we're going back to tentacles i mean yeah maybe i i kind of feel like midnight's gonna be heavy on old gods and we're gonna end up back with the tentacles and stuff see i went that route and that's why i was thinking like azara and you know instead of feet you know flippers or something and oh right again yeah that's i i'm going more

[01:08:38] that direction maybe uh you know she she's like dripping on you somewhere and people are like you know same way they are about the feet now i can see it midnight's gonna be fucked up i'm so i'm so glad to have that thought in my brain now and you're welcome bam now it's in yours so there you go it's gonna be good time uh last question this is actually a holdover uh front of the

[01:09:02] show alley um and this one's for you and you only jazz because i answered this last time what character from warcraft would you like to see in cyberpunk and what character from cyberpunk would you like to see in warcraft i'd love to see i don't see like i'll go with the the patch the gazlow from heroes of

[01:09:28] the storm with these like huge mech backpack i think that would fit inside pretty well and then we're in the reverse i don't know adam smasher as some kind of hideous evil gnome creation we don't often have evil gnomes and we should that are like not comedic like they're all the villain gnomes in this like

[01:09:53] millhouse man of storm and uh king mechagon for example they were they're all a little bit comedic i suppose galliwix is a bit comedic as well but he's also genuinely evil you know he's he's had he's had an opportunity to have character depth and to the point where it's great that he's a ride boss and they've given him like great music his music's fantastic and it's it's like i want to kill this

[01:10:19] guy you know because because of the stuff he's done it feel it feels right you know but we've never really had that gnome equivalent so what if there was like an evil an evil mecha gnome that was like you know what i'm sick of being three foot tall i'm gonna make myself bigger and then he basically becomes adam smasher as a gnome but a giant gnome it's like a human with extra steps but a giant

[01:10:44] gnome evil adam smasher gnome i'm going with that there it is well you'll you will not be surprised to learn that i too chose adam smasher i thought he would make a great raid boss uh i thought he would make a great raid boss and then uh for warcraft character in cyberpunk i'd like to see a nomad variant that was kind of what i settled on was uh nomad variant running around with all the caldos or

[01:11:09] something all right well uh thank you everyone again for your questions and uh yeah we're gonna we're gonna keep the uh the q and a going every episode so please if there are burning questions to which you must hear our answers whether it be about your our poop quest favorites or uh warcraft finishes

[01:11:31] we will cover whatever you give us so uh so please uh keep sending those in all right i think we've done enough damage for one episode for those that don't already know where can the good people find you on the internet jez i think the easiest way is to direct you to jez corden.com now jez corden c-o-r-d-e-n j-z-d-z

[01:11:56] sorry j-z-c-o-r-d-e-n for american friends um that was all my socials also linked to this lovely show that you host and much more thank you there it is all right thank you and uh my thanks to all of you for listening and remember you can always follow me and this show on twitter at berserker rage and unshackled underscore fury on blue sky at berserker and unshackled fury as well as on twitch at

[01:12:26] unshackled fury and real berserker you can also join our discord please do it's where we get a lot of questions links for which are in the profile of the show on twitter and on our website unshackled fury.com feel free to contact the show with your questions comments or otherwise through any of those resources or email us at unshackled fury show at gmail.com that's all one word and you can find this show wherever you get your podcast so once again thank you for listening remember to keep your swords

[01:12:55] wet and your banners high and we'll see you next time farewell