Episode 185: On the Road to BlizzCon 2026!

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

[00:00:29] It's the calm before the con, and hordes are descending while alliances are forming as we prepare for BlizzCon 2026.

[00:01:11] So welcome back for episode 185 of your Uncensored Home for World of Warcraft news and opinions, Unshackled Fury. I'm your host Berserker, and with me once again is the man who stomps a convention hall better than anyone, Mr. Jez Corden. Welcome back again, good sir. Hello. Hello. Hello. I'm very, very tired. I'm warning everyone right now.

[00:01:37] So if I'm lower energy than usual, that is why. But that's the, them's the ropes when you do podcasting across the time zones. There's no bronze dragon flight to lift our spirits in this summer. No. And you're, and you're going from games.com to BlizzCon. You're, you're, you're barely off of one slope and you're heading on to the next one.

[00:02:02] Yeah. It's crazy. It's been a very, very busy, busy time. It doesn't help that my team got laid off. So I'm doing it all by myself.

[00:02:09] Oh no. Well, with a bit of help. That's no good. No, no, no, no good with this AI. It's costing everybody gigs. They can't take you. You're, you're too valuable to the, to the machine. I think even, even the machine machine needs you, you know, we'll say it was, we'll say how long we last. I've enjoyed the ride. No matter what happens.

[00:02:39] We just got to get you at least through one more week. And then, and then when they see the superior BlizzCon coverage that you provide in person, then they'll have no choice. They'll have to sign you on for another, another decade of servitude. That's the, that's the only way to do it.

[00:02:56] So, well, uh, on that note, uh, we, we did delay this recording a week because we were waiting for these schedules and BlizzCon stuff. So, uh, that's, that's pretty much what we're doing this week is, uh, some of the usual shit, but we're focusing on BlizzCon this week. Cause it is coming up, uh, in just a matter of days at this point, I think the countdown is like five days from when we record this. So it is, it is coming fast and furious.

[00:03:25] So, uh, in, uh, in preparation for BlizzCon and of course doing the notes and things for this week, I had to think of something that I felt was appropriate on an album, a metal album of the week that, that, uh, speaks to me as a, as a near and dear place to my heart. Cause BlizzCon is one of the big ones. Uh, and jazz, we're going, we're going back to the well, going back to the well a little bit, but you know, this is, this is what we do.

[00:03:53] Uh, so for, uh, for you folks out there and maybe for you too, jazz, I don't know. Sometimes, sometimes I never know about my choices here. Uh, going back to June, June 4th of 2002. I have for you this week, warriors of the world by manor war. Which is one of the all time great power metal albums. You fire this sucker up, call the arms right out of the gate. It's, I mean, you're fired up, ready to go and fuck shit up.

[00:04:20] And it's just, it's, it's right in that vein of getting you charged up. Uh, there's, there's a little bit of stuff on this. Maybe that hasn't aged so well. Um, you gotta remember this is the June of 2002. So we are less than a year from nine 11. It's very, as you can tell from the imagery here, very pro America, you know, it was a certain kind of vibe that's going on. And, uh, you know, we were very unified at that time. Uh, for some of you kids that may not remember post nine 11 America, we were all flag waving

[00:04:49] and talking in it and then, you know, life and history has happened since then. But, um, a wonderful album overall, really great tracks called the arms, uh, swords in the wind, hand of doom, house of death. I mean, you know, listen to these titles, you know, you know what you're in store for. Uh, but one surprise, uh, Eric Adams, the lead singer of man or war has an opera, uh, component to his repertoire as well.

[00:05:17] So, uh, Nessun Dorma is also a very well-known aria. As soon as you hear it, you'll know it. Uh, this was a big Pavarotti favorite. And here we have a metal, a metal God singing it for you. So, uh, if you've never heard any of this, uh, when I think of Warcraft, I think of man of war, uh, gods of war was an album.

[00:05:41] I, I did on this a while back and that, that is probably the one for me. Uh, but this is a very close second. Um, when I pitched the intro song that you hear to this fine. And program to, uh, Kane Kong, who did our intro, uh, this, this album called to arms, the title of the, the, the intro track. That was one of the pieces that I gave to him. I said, I wanted to have this kind of, this kind of vibe.

[00:06:11] And he knew immediately. All right. I know, I know what we're in store for him. So, um, that's, that's your metal album for this week. Jez, uh, do you, do you know this part of the man of war discography? I've never, I don't know them. Never heard of them. Oh my goodness. We have so much to catch up on in person next week. It's going to be, it's going to be. I've been listening to, uh, a metal band called Amon Ra at the moment. Do you know them?

[00:06:41] I do know this name. Um, Belgian extreme prog metal band, bit weird. You know, that's, that's kind of metal. I like your vibe. That's what you got. Not very, not very war crafty. I suppose the forsaken might listen to Amon Ra. Yeah. That's probably it. Yeah. When, when you're, when you're hanging out in, uh, Southern Kalimdor, that's what you got.

[00:07:11] Amon Ra. You're hanging out with the very Egyptian coded stuff going on down there. That's what you're listening to. All right. Well, that's what we've got, uh, for this week. If you haven't heard it, highly encourage you to, uh, plug that into your ear holes. Uh, and if you do know it, get back in it. Always good. Good for the road trip. So there you go. Warriors of the world. Manor war. June 4th, 2002. All right. We'll get back here.

[00:07:41] Uh, where are we? There we go. I can work these controls. Um, just last time we were here at a raid segment, I think spoke to a lot of people and I got some, I got some good feedback on this and all of my, uh, adventures in a, in a, in a waiting room at a hospital nearby. Well, Jez, I got a part two for you. I got a part two for you. I can't wait to share. Uh, so let's get into this week's raid segments.

[00:08:14] Let's rage. Shit. I even got a visual for this one. So if we all, if, if you listened to the last episode, you heard, and this will be the shortest version of it. You heard of my adventures going to, uh, the hospital and dealing with all of that because, uh, among other things I have wrong with me, uh, I have a lovely, uh, abdominal hernia. That's, uh, it's causing some problems. And, uh, it's been a bit of an adventure trying to get some sort of handle on a fix.

[00:08:44] And after we recorded our last episode, I had a scheduled, uh, appointments with a surgeon to talk about how to deal with this, what we were going to do, what the game plan is. And Jez, after everything I told everybody on the last episode, I had possibly the worst appointment I've ever had with a health professional in my life.

[00:09:08] In that appointment where she basically told me, and I'm, I'm boiling an hour long discussion down to the nuts and bolts here. She basically told me that, you know what a, do you know what BMI is body mass index, right? Where they take your height and your weight and it's a chart. And that's the whole thing. They base your life off. She said my BMI was too high and she would not do a surgery on me unless it was below a certain point. And mind you below that certain point was like what I weighed in junior high.

[00:09:34] And that the only way I could get to that weight Jez is if she did gastric bypass surgery on me and essentially rearranged my insides. And then at that point that she would feel comfortable doing the surgery on me to fix my hernia. And she was trying to explain like how, you know, how the body works and how, you know, things get stitched together and you need room for this and room for that.

[00:10:02] And I said, well, this, listen, this, this, this, this BMI thing is bullshit. And I'm, I'm here to tell you, I know I'm a big dude, but like, it ain't like that. And we hadn't, we had a, a tense discussion and it ended up with nothing, no plans, no future plans. Basically you think you can lose this weight on your own and find good luck. If not, this is the only way that we're going to be able to help you. Now you can take no for an answer.

[00:10:32] You can, you can just say, well, I guess that's it. Fuck it. I'm going to deal with it. But you know what? I had also scheduled Jez. Have you ever heard, have you ever heard of a DEXA scan? You know what that is? No. A DEXA scan is a very fancy scan. That's you can get some places where they scan your entire body and they give you your composition, like your bone density, your fat content, your muscle content, like everything,

[00:11:01] like down to the gram, they give you everything. And I said, well, you know what? Here's what I'm going to do. I've been trying to tell these motherfuckers for years. I know I'm a big dude. I know you look at my BMI and it is, it is not great, but I'm telling you there's more to the story than just that. And nobody ever listens. Nobody ever takes my word for it. So I went and I got one of these scans. I paid out of pocket insurance. Didn't even cover it. I said, I have a feeling. I know what I'm going to see, but I need to have some sort of other backup here.

[00:11:29] Some deep level scan, you know, where they're looking at everything. So I got that scan and it came back and one, my dad was right. I am dense. I'm very dense as it turns out. In fact, my bone density is as dense as you can get for my age group, which I don't know what that means, but they give you a score. My score was as high as it gets. Well, that was another thing. And this is what I wanted to show you, Jez. And this, and this isn't bullshit. You can look this up yourself.

[00:11:56] So part of this scan that I got, they give you what's called a fat-free mass index. And Jez, you can't even see the line on this where I exist because my fat-free mass index is so high that it's off the chart. And when you look this up, it says either this can't be, or you're a bodybuilder. And I have tried to tell these people for years that I have more muscle on my body than they're

[00:12:26] giving me credit for. And these scans proved it, proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt. You go and you look this number up and yeah, there's other numbers. Oh, yeah, I got body fat. I'm not denying all that. But what I am saying and what I've told these people for years is that there is more to the story than they're giving me credit for. And there has to be a bigger discussion when it comes to healthcare than just this one bullshit number that was decided a long ass time ago. So here you go. Anybody that's watching this, go ahead, go look it up. Go look at the Google.

[00:12:56] Go look at chat GPT. You feed them this number and you see what it tells you. See what it tells you. You'll see I'm not, I'm not bullshitting. There's my date and there's where I went. You know, this is a real place. This isn't like some boo-boo place that I made up. This is in Sacramento, California, UC Davis Sports Medicine. They hooked me up and did the deal. So, and I bring all of this up to say, and there actually is a point to this, believe it or not.

[00:13:23] I have been an advocate for years of saying that things like BMI are bullshit because I've just, I've always been a big person. And, you know, people are going to make decisions based on certain things, but you have to be your own advocate when it comes to your healthcare. And you know, your body, you know yourself better than anyone ever, you know, and if you've got to argue with surgeons, argue with surgeons, you've got to argue with your regular doctor,

[00:13:51] argue with the regular doctor, do whatever you have to do because nobody knows you the way you know yourself, at least I hope you know yourself. And you know, it's, it's adventures like this that remind me of that kind of thing. And so, so after all this, where are we? Right? Well, I filed a complaint. So I'm currently in the grievance process against my own medical provider because they're denying me care, in my opinion, based on some boo-boo stuff.

[00:14:19] And it's being reviewed by the head surgeon. And, you know, listen, if we got to make some, uh, uh, uh, agreements that, you know, we're not going to base it off of BMI, maybe we base it off of, uh, you know, body fat percentage, which is lower than I'm sure that they think that I was. I am not saying it's low, but I'm saying it's lower than they probably think it was. So whatever mark that they put for me, I'm probably closer to it than they think.

[00:14:44] Like we'll see what happens, um, with that, you know, I don't know that I'll know within the next week or two, but, um, you know, you just, you take the hits and you just keep getting up. That's just, that's, that's all you can do. There's a really great, uh, Rocky quote that I share with people from the Rocky Balboa movie. And he's talking to his son and he says, you know, life, life is, life is hard.

[00:15:10] It's a, it's a, it's a mean and nasty place and it will keep knocking you down and it will keep you there. Basically is what he says. Uh, if you let it and you just, you have to keep taking the hits and you have to keep getting up. And that's what I remind myself of as often as I can that, you know, here I am. I got a situation that ain't great and nobody's helping me. So you gotta help yourself. Um, and it's shitty that it's this way, but unfortunately that is, that is what we're

[00:15:37] dealing with, but, um, keep fighting the good fight out there. That's, that's, that's my advice. You know, these systems are designed to not help you. They're designed to, especially in America, for profit healthcare, they're designed to help other folks line their pockets. It's not designed to help you. And I wish that that wasn't the case. And there are good people in the system. There are good doctors. I'm not saying that there aren't, but the apparatus that controls it, they don't give a shit.

[00:16:04] It's the same one that, you know, cuts a team like Jez's same people that don't want to give you care. It's all about trying to make the buck and it sucks and it's bullshit. And that's the era we live in. But you know, you just gotta keep fighting. That's it. That's the whole deal. So there you go. There's the health update. There's, there's the part two. I promise this will be the last time we talk about this shit. I don't know. We wants to hear about this. We want to talk about BlizzCon. We want to see all this other horse shit, but, uh, yeah, I did get a fair amount of

[00:16:34] feedback on that. So I wanted to give people the, the sub B to that fucking drama bullshit. And, uh, and it's just a reminder to keep fighting a good fight. Only, you know, you, uh, the way you do. That's it. So that being said, big news, big stuff. BlizzCon. Let's do it. There we are.

[00:17:03] It's a Sunday, Sunday before BlizzCon. Just a few days away. Now, uh, we both are traveling because neither of us lives in Los Angeles to get there. Uh, I think my travel plans are probably a little simpler, but you're Wendy. When do you fly in? How many days do we get you here? You know, you remember. I land at some point on Thursday, I think. Okay.

[00:17:33] Thursday afternoon. Okay. I think. All right. LA time. But I leave six in the morning UK time. So because we're flying back in time. Yes. I'm going to lose like 10 hours or something. God. So. That's. Oh, there's the police. Um, yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be a fun time. It's going to be a fun time. But you know. And when, when do you fly out?

[00:18:02] How long, how long are you here? I will leave on Monday afternoon. I think Monday evening, actually. Okay. So. Yeah. Quick trip. And then I'll get back home on Tuesday and gain a bunch of hours, I guess. Yeah. Something like that. Time traveling jazz. Man. Road warrior. Time traveling. She.

[00:18:31] That's what it sounds like. Yeah. Yeah. Um. I won't be losing any hours necessarily. I was same time zone, right? I'm just heading essentially seven, eight hours south of where I am now. So. Uh, the homie Rommel and I, uh, hit the road sometime in the eight o'clock hour. And, uh, on Friday morning, cause we're going Friday. And, uh.

[00:19:01] Uh, because of the way scheduling kind of worked out. I'm hoping that his wife and I are going to do a custody exchange of him in the parking lot of the old building where we used to work in Sacramento. And then we're going to head down from there, uh, and come down Friday. So we'll be there Friday, Saturday, and then, uh, Sunday. He's got to fly back Sunday night. Cause he's got work bullshit.

[00:19:29] So I will be, I'll be riding solo Sunday night and then driving home all the way home Sunday, uh, Monday, uh, on the solo ride. So I better get some, all these good metal jams ready. Cause it's, if you've never driven through the central Valley of California, uh, there's a whole lot of nothing and there's a whole lot of nothing for many hours at a time. So you gotta, you gotta be, you gotta be ready for these things.

[00:19:57] Um, one of the, uh, big developments since the last time we were here, Jez, and I, and I, I feel a responsibility to cop to this. And I think they did kind of want us to say something that this happened. If you recall, I had mentioned that Blizzard had apparently changed some things when it came to content creators and press passes and this and that.

[00:20:23] And so, uh, they were kind enough to provide a general admission pass for myself and a lot of other content creators. Well, I don't know if it was the winds of the universe change in direction or I just won the motherfucking lottery, but lo and behold, I got an email the other night that I have been upgraded to a press pass for BlizzCon. Nice.

[00:20:51] So not only does that mean that I get access to the minimally used bathroom, uh, up on the third floor, which let me tell you, that is a fucking godsend and you will find out. Um, but it also means that either you get to sit in my lap or I get to sit in your lap for the opening ceremony. So I'll let you decide who gets to hold who during the big announcements, but you, you are going to get some company if you want it.

[00:21:21] I don't want to crowd your style. I don't know. Maybe you got a bunch of other, uh, Microsoft homies there that want to sit in your lap, but, uh, I'll be there to hold your hand the whole way or you can hold my hand and get me through it because it's going to be an emotional experience. So especially, especially for one thing we think might be covered. Yeah, indeed. Um, I'm coming with a gem box 360 on Twitter. Who's a colleague window central.

[00:21:47] Um, she's part part time freelancer, but she's like the Diablo Diablo is her thing. So I don't, I'm not expecting a ton of stuff at Diablo, but, um, yeah, there will be, there's a lot of people I want to meet there. Like loads of content creators, loads of people I've worked with, you know, over the years should be fun times, man. It should be fun times. It's unlike anything else. I know it just, the, the vibe is different.

[00:22:17] The energy is different. I, I hope that you get to experience, I think what a lot of us have experienced over the years with it and just the energy that that's there. But, um, but yeah, uh, people everywhere. I've never really been to an event like that. I mean, I've been to the Xbox events and I've been to games con, but they're very, they're kind of small compared to, um, BlizzCon, you know, I mean, obviously like games con is

[00:22:46] huge, but everyone, all the fandoms are like spread out to different fandoms. Right. This is like the biggest convention I've been to for like a single fandom. It's kind of what Blizzard is. It's like the single centralized Blizzard, Blizzard-y thing. I've never really been to an event like this, so it's going to be very interesting. It's, it's awesome. That's the, I mean, if it's anything like other ones that I've been to, this will be, this will be my fourth now.

[00:23:15] Um, unbelievable, unbelievable. So, um, so we, we both have press passes. So now you can babysit me. Um, when, uh, when the, when the homie Rommel's got to take a restroom breaker, just needs a break from my, my madness. Um, or I'm sure you'll be busy doing actual work stuff. But, uh, we did, uh, finally get, as we mentioned before, a map and the schedule.

[00:23:44] So let's, let's pull that up here. Uh, see if we can see it best we can. A little, little tough on this screen. I'm fed up. Maybe blow it up a little bit. Um, so fairly typical setup, I would say for a BlizzCon, although, uh, they moved again, the main stage last time it was in the arena, which you can see an orange kind of on the upper right-hand side there.

[00:24:13] If you've ever been there, it's essentially four main halls. He's like rectangular halls, uh, running, uh, east to west and then, and stacking up sort of, uh, north to south. And then on the northernmost side, there's this big arena that has this, I don't know what year it was built, but it has this kind of like retro vibe to it that I've always really done. Uh, but the Overwatch World Cup is going to be up in the arena and the main hall is going

[00:24:38] to be back in Hall D, which is, uh, the one that they've essentially done most of the, uh, opening ceremonies from, although they've changed the orientation. If you've ever been there, it used to be where the stage was kind of up against the, the northern wall, like one of the longer walls of the rectangle there. And then now it's going to be, uh, looks like against the western wall. So it'll be narrower, uh, to some degree.

[00:25:04] Uh, but we'll have main stage in Hall D World of Warcraft stage on Hall C. So we get our own stage was kind of rad. Uh, Hall B is the Hearthstone stage. Hall A is the classic cup stage. And it has all kinds of stuff in there. Random smattering of bunch of franchises in there, including, I believe a heroes of the storm set up somewhere. So. I wonder why they've got a heroes of the storm set up. Another thing. That's interesting.

[00:25:34] Very interesting. Uh, North hall, there's the dark moon fair. And if you're really into pin trading, I would line up early and bring some patience. Cause that line last time the fire marshal showed up and tried to shut the whole fucking thing down. The line was so long. So it gets, it gets pretty crazy out there. So if, uh, if you want to see this in greater detail, the BlizzCon website has got all this. There's a huge PDF, really super high detail.

[00:26:03] You can blow this thing up, um, and get a really good look at all the little bits and bobs, all the, um, uh, vendors that are going to be there. I think where some of the statues are, there's a big demo station, uh, set up in a couple of places. Uh, the merch store looks like it's going to be. Yeah. And the basement of the North hall again, that's where it was last time. If you went, uh, so yeah, I, I highly recommend going and looking at this on the site and getting the full PDF view.

[00:26:33] Cause it is, uh, it's big. It's real big. Um, let's see. Let's see. Let's see how I do this here. Oh, let's shrink this back down. There we go. Ha figured it out. All right. Now schedule time. This is the, this is where the fun begins. So looking at the schedule opening ceremony, 10 30 to 11 45.

[00:26:59] And that's going to be pretty much all stages, uh, carry this. So if you, if you line up super early and you can get into the main hall and you get good seats. Awesome. Awesome. If you don't, you can line up anywhere in there. I'm sure they have a bunch of, uh, the screen set up, or I think you can just go to any one of the other halls and they'll show it on the stage. So if you wanted to be in the main hall with that energy, I highly recommend getting in there. If you can, if you can, if you can't, you'll still see it.

[00:27:28] They're still showing it elsewhere. Um, but I think the big, the big question here, again, I'll, I'll blow this up for us. Which is there's the world of Warcraft. What's next, which will immediately follow the opening ceremony. Then there's a gap. The, the infamous BlizzCon schedule gap and guesses are flying.

[00:27:56] But I think any one of us that is a betting person believes that this is something related to Starcraft. Um, the Starcraft website, if you haven't seen it recently has suddenly started to glitch in a very intentional way. People are digging into the code of the website itself and are finding things. So it is very much looking like we are getting a Starcraft surprise.

[00:28:26] And maybe they've kind of let the cat out of the bag a little bit by doing something on the website, but a little teases I think are fine. Um, on the website for BlizzCon, it even says that following the opening ceremonies, there will be an updated schedule released. So again, I think they're already kind of tipping their hat here, but, uh, Jez, uh, without giving too much away, if you know, is, is it reasonable for us to assume?

[00:28:55] That something is going to fill that slot. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's a pretty, it's pretty, it's pretty clear, isn't it? Like we're going to get something Starcraft related. Um, it's, uh, it's been long rumored. I think Jason Schreier of Bloomberg was the original reporter for the Starcraft shooter.

[00:29:25] Um, um, so, you know, it's, uh, it's, um, it's pretty much a shoe in, I think. And he's been talking about it recently on his own podcast. I think. Okay. I would say it's a shoe in. Um, what we know about it is, uh, this is based on LinkedIn and hiring and stuff like that. It seems to be led by the former franchise lead for Far Cry, uh, Far Cry franchise.

[00:29:52] So I think he joined after Far Cry five, I want to say, which in my view is probably the best Far Cry. Um, so he's joined across from Blizzard, uh, from Ubisoft and, uh, he seems to be leading this project. So I think I've said this on Xbox two podcast before. I actually seen an early footage of the game and, uh, you know, it's from what I can tell,

[00:30:21] and this is old footage, I'm expecting some kind of third person shooter, squad shooter, maybe co-op play with your friends, that kind of thing. It does seem like it's, uh, a true cinematic story kind of game. Okay. And, um, it's not like a PV hell divers kind of thing or an extraction shoot or a PVP game or anything like that. Okay. It does seem like a bonafide story driven game. I'm sure it'll have multiplayer modes, much like, uh, gears of war.

[00:30:52] E-Day has its siege mode, EV siege mode kind of thing. I would assume that this is going to have some kind of PV stuff attached to it. Maybe as like a hell divers mode or something. Cause obviously like we all know, like, if you know the history of Starcraft, you know that it's like, it was originally pitched as a sort of war in a 40k game back in the day. But the games workshop didn't believe in video games back then. They do now. They definitely do now.

[00:31:21] I was going to say, is this going to be like space Marine two? Like that kind of thing? Yeah. It kind of, it seemed a bit like that, but, um, from what I could tell, and like I say, the footage I saw was very old. It did seem like it was a more open world ish than space Marine. Okay. At least the segment that I saw, it felt like there was a lot of, it felt like there was opportunities for exploration.

[00:31:48] Again, perhaps the Far Cry DNA coming in there a little bit, but honestly don't know for sure exactly how it's going to look, how it's going to play. I don't know what it's called. I don't know if like, you know, the project even continued to be honest. I mean, like I say, this footage is really old. So maybe it's, uh, you know, something else entirely, I suppose. It's going to be quite an interesting thing to find out.

[00:32:14] There's obviously a lot of speculation about other companies potentially showing interest in making a StarCraft game. There's rumors Nexon wants to license a StarCraft IP. Um, and also StarCraft has obviously history as a, you know, history as a strategy game rather than a shooter. Although, you know, if you're of a certain age, you remember StarCraft Ghost being a thing.

[00:32:40] Um, but it never, never materialized, unfortunately. But this does seem, at least from what I could tell, you play as, you know, a Terramarine, not a ghost. It does seem like Space Marine coded to me. But yeah, really interesting to see. I wonder if like, because one of the things that I think Blizzard might be cognizant of

[00:33:05] is, um, I suppose people, I don't know, being disappointed that there's no StarCraft 3, like a true RTS. So I'm wondering like, what I'm wondering now, I'm, I'm really heavily expecting the shooter, the long, the long rumored StarCraft shooter. But I'm also kind of expecting like, do they announce like, and yes, we're also eventually going to deliver StarCraft 3 in some form.

[00:33:34] Because I do, one other thing I've been hearing is there's, you know, there's work going into some of the classic Warcraft strategy games too. Yeah. And, um, I think some of this is like potentially via third parties. Because I'm not sure Blizzard has an in-house strategy game team anymore.

[00:34:00] Um, a lot of those old school devs went and made other studios. Mike Morhaime took some and the Stormgate. Stormgate? Is that the game? Yeah. Isn't that like already closed down? Dead. Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. Um, so there was like, there was a bunch of other studios that emerged in the ruins of that. But I, my belief is that Microsoft kind of like, because Microsoft's had a lot of success

[00:34:29] reviving Age of Empires. It's one of like the big success stories of, of this era of Xbox is reviving Age of Empires. And while like strategy is this niche, there's sort of like, well, these, these fans are crack. They're absolutely super passionate and that will show up for every single DLC you put in. So like they uncancelled Age of Empires 3. Age of Empires 3's life service and brought it back from the dead. And they've, they're bringing an Age of Empires 3 DLC.

[00:34:57] Even though Age of Empires 3 is probably the least popular Age of Empires. So like there's enough of an audience in Age of Empires 3 of all things to keep developing that game. Age of Empires 2 has had a ton of DLC and Age of Empires 4 got an expansion announced. I want to say at the Xbox showcase. So like all the classic Age of Empires games, except Age of Empires 1, even Age of Mythology, they're all getting, they're all getting love. And that fan base is very, being very well served.

[00:35:27] So you have to sit there wondering like, you know, the Age of Empires is pretty huge by itself, but it was never, I don't think it was ever as big as StarCraft at its height. StarCraft at its height basically created esports, you know? And you have to think like, they've got to be looking at what they've done with Age of Empires and thinking we could seriously look at doing something with classic StarCraft or classic Warcraft games.

[00:35:56] Or maybe even some Heroes of the Storm as well. Maybe not everything needs to have billions of monthly active users because that really was, that really was Bobby. Yeah, that was Bobby Kotick's thing. It was like, everything's got to be a billion users or not bother at all. But like Microsoft's philosophy has been like, as long as it's, you've got a self-sustaining passionate niche, that's enough, you know?

[00:36:22] And that's why Age of Empires has continued to do well and a bunch of their other games, classic games get updated. Like Solitaire for fuck's sake. Still getting updates for Solitaire and Candy Crush and all the rest of it. So I want to believe that like under the new, under the new regime with Kotick gone, thank God. Blizzard was like, we've got to revisit some of these older properties and maybe StarCraft 2

[00:36:50] gets some love and they announce that yeah, we're working towards StarCraft 3 in the future. Maybe they announce something else entirely. Maybe like WarCraft 3 gets some love. And there was also that leaked slide that talked about WarCraft Chronicles RTS. So could that be WarCraft 1 and 2 remastered or remade even? Yeah. So yeah, huge amount of potential for surprises with the strategy stuff.

[00:37:15] But yeah, I do think that gap is almost certainly StarCraft shooter, I would guess. Yeah. And that's the only time I think we see that because we look at like day two here, you know, it's there's deep dive stuff, but there's no, you know, it's a pretty, it's a pretty full calendar and they can still move stuff around or they can shift some things. Like if we go back to day one, you see where there's the World of WarCraft, what's next? And then there's World of WarCraft, what's next too?

[00:37:43] I mean, that just seems kind of goofy that they would have what's next and then what's next too. That being one's got to be classic. Well, that being, I was going to say that being said, correct me if I'm wrong. I think the community for the most part is all on the same page about, we assume that we're going to see something about patch 12.2, like where does midnight go? You know, what, what, what is the next kind of major thing on the horizon?

[00:38:11] We did get a 12.1.5 preview already, but you know, what is that going to be? And then last Titan, like we already know what's coming. They've already given it to us. So it's not like there's a big mystery and it's not like, Oh, I don't want to overlook what's coming next, but we kind of already have to, because we know that it's coming. So I fully expect to see a last Titan cinematic, like a full blown, you know, somebody's fucking

[00:38:37] around and we'll do our something kind of, you know, something cool happening somewhere waking up a Titan. I don't know some crazy shit. You know how they do it. Um, and then maybe talking about the re-imagining of Northrend, because I think you can probably give some of that away without spoiling too much crazy stuff. Um, and then maybe going into some designs and I actually have for us here in a little bit, we're going to play a game.

[00:39:03] Uh, cause I did, I did pull up some leaks from MMO champion. Cause I love pulling that shit out and just kind of seeing what people are saying. Uh, maybe going into a few of the, the major changes that are coming down the road, that sort of thing. Um, do you think that that's an appropriate level of expectation along with whatever this classic plus?

[00:39:28] And I, and I, I use that term very loosely, but whatever that reveal ends up turning out to ultimately be, do you think that's kind of the major Warcraft tent poles there? Yeah, definitely. I suppose like maybe they'll, you know, get into the nitty gritty of 12.2 and the, uh, uh, the labyrinthine delves, the mega delves. Maybe we'll see some more information about that.

[00:39:54] Um, but I, I don't want to overhype it, but like I've got disproportionately high expectations for this year's police corner, this year's Warcraft style. Yeah. And I'll, I'll explain why, um, Riot's MMO is around the corner and. You know, Riot is, they're serious about turning League of Legends into a war, World of Warcraft allegory with their, you know, their League of Legends MMO.

[00:40:23] A competitor to World of Warcraft. And, you know, as, as we know over the years, there's been so many competitors to World of Warcraft that have come and gone and just, you know, folded under the, the might of the, the habitual World of Warcraft lifestyle, you know, cause it's really hard to pull yourself away from how World of Warcraft feels. Like it doesn't matter how good an MMO story is or how good its graphics are and all the rest of it.

[00:40:53] There's something about the way World of Warcraft feels the engine, the responsiveness, all that kind of stuff. It's really hard to just every other, every other MMO I've played just feels like sludge after playing WoW. Like WoW is so responsive, but you've got like, you've got Ghostcrawler working on this MMO. And obviously he led World of Warcraft development for a long time. So like, I think if there's anyone who wanted to really truly understands what it would take

[00:41:22] to make an MMO that could actually take on WoW, it's the team that Riot put together for their MMO, which is made up of poached former World of Warcraft staff for a large part. I think Ghostcrawler since left. I think he left and he started his own studio and that studio has already folded. Maybe he went back. I don't know. Shows what I know. But he was.

[00:41:52] He was there for several years. And I think to your point, that's what they've been trying to do. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's other people like beyond Ghostcrawler as well, who, who were World of Warcraft people and you know, they left for various Kotick adjacent reasons probably. But, or just, you know, general Activision shenanigans. But, you know, it's, um, so like my point is that I'm expecting, because what happened was

[00:42:21] when, um, Overwatch has been popping off this year and what it took for Overwatch to get back its mojo was a competitor and that was Marvel Rivals. So Marvel Rivals came, ate Overwatch's lunch, Blizzard got serious and they were like, you know, if we're going to take on this game, we've got to over deliver. And then they dropped like a million heroes all at once. They dropped a new game mode.

[00:42:50] They started dropping all this lore stuff now. And, you know, they really, they really, really changed the paradigm with Overwatch. And one of the things that I feel like in, in a lot of ways, like the current state of retail has become a bit stagnant. I think we'd all agree. Like, I think like, um, I saw memes of people like, oh great. Another mid-season patch with assaults, more assaults, you know, everything's assaults. Yeah.

[00:43:18] There's like, since Battle for Azeroth, there's just where every, the activity between, the activity in the mid-expansion or, you know, even, even now. I'm doing an assault right now as we speak. You know, it's, um, it's getting a bit old hat and it kind of like, it kind of comes back to, um, you know, what I remember people talking about, but for Azeroth and the wounds, the wounds,

[00:43:47] get the wounds, you know, and, uh, farming the Azerite stuff. And people get fed up with doing the same thing over and over again. I think Blizzard's very cognizant of that, but I think, and this is like my, this is my copium, right? The reason why the retail seems stagnant is because they're investing a lot in what's next for World of Warcraft. I think like, if you want to call it maybe the A team, maybe, maybe that's harsh, but

[00:44:14] like the, the Blizzard's best developers and, and the creativity and stuff, all the sort of like, the, the high level conceptual stuff are kind of like, again, this could be pure copium, but I want to believe that the reason why retail feels stagnant is because all the best devs right now and all the, all the investment is really being poured into preparing wow for

[00:44:37] a big paradigm shift in a similar way to we've seen with overwatch because they don't want to allow themselves to get, I suppose, backdoored by the league of legends. I think like, I don't think like, I don't think Blizzard had prepared for Marvel rivals or how popular it ended up being and it ate their lunch for a good time, you know?

[00:45:04] And then the, and the same happened with Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy 14 for a little while, like during Shadowlands, like it looked like Final Fantasy 14 could be a genuine alternative. But then, you know, Final Fantasy, uh, the next expansion after that didn't do particularly well for Final Fantasy 14 and then wow kind of clawed it back for a time. But wow's gotten back to that sort of stagnant feeling now.

[00:45:31] So I'm expecting Johanna Fares, who's the president of the Blizzard. I'm expecting her to deploy the, deploy the learnings with overwatch and that kind of model to World of Warcraft. And I'm expecting the last Titan hopefully will be a much more ambitious project than we've seen from the so-called world soul saga so far.

[00:45:57] But that is my copium and that's why there are multiple panels for wow because they've got a lot to talk about. That is my copium. I like could be complete bull. I like that copium. I like that copium. And it ties in nicely with, um, some of the leaks I've been pulling. I want to, I want to get into a couple of these and kind of see if maybe some other people are riding the copium way with you. Uh, let's, let's hear the copium. All right. Let's cope. All right. Now listen, listen, people.

[00:46:26] I don't know anything. You know what I, you've seen what I've seen. So if I say something here and it's legitimate and you're mad because I spoiled something, I am literally just pulling shit from MMO champion because I thought it sounded fun or funny or interesting or whatever. So if I'm spoiling something for you, I apologize. If you don't want to see or hear any of this, please fast forward. Please, please don't listen to this. Cause I may wear very well be spoiling shit for myself and Jess knows and a homie Rommel knows everybody knows. I don't really like stuff spoiled that often.

[00:46:56] So, you know, I'm probably rib ribbing myself here. Uh, but this is, this is just a random one from somebody who has two posts on MMO. That's how, you know, either this is their first post or only their second post on MMO champion. They make these burner caps. That's usually like keyboard Turner one, two, three and shit like that. All right. So this one says, uh, what was this one title? This one was titled TLT. That's all it is. TLT.

[00:47:23] The last time I saw after the events of the world core, Azeroth is plunged into darkness. Players will travel with Sylvanas wind runner to the frozen wastes of Northrend to unravel a conspiracy eons in the making. Uh, let's see. Reforged Northrend, ice crown, storm peaks, dragon blight, winter scorn, tiger. Shola's are old to our city. Two new classes, artificer and necromancer. No new races.

[00:47:52] Racial's are replaced with something called tree of blood and a new feature called venture where every day there's some new venture in one of the zones. Uh, no way, maybe, or very plausible. Well, see like the, the adding the two classes thing really speaks to me in the sense that

[00:48:18] overwatch did that blitzkrieg of adding like however many heroes all at once and really changed things up. And the heroes were, they weren't like crappy heroes either. We got jet pack cat, which was a very ambitious, unique hero. Um, and it's currently my main. So, um, you know, I want to believe like, even if this particular leak isn't true, two classes in one expansion, I think would be fantastic.

[00:48:48] You know, even if they're like just two spec classes like demon hunter was for a while. I mean, why not, man? I mean, the game's like people complain about balance a lot, but wow is more balanced now than it's ever been every class. Every single class is viable all the way up to the highest rating and all the way up to the mythic content. Like I, unless you're doing like race to world first and you want to stack something very specific.

[00:49:18] Every class is viable. You know, um, I don't care what people say. So they've clearly got, um, a pretty good methodology for class balance. Generally speaking now compared to like what it used to be like, like the classes are rarely more than 10% differential between each other. Um, back when I was a kid playing this, like some specs were just completely broken and non-viable.

[00:49:45] So, so yeah, give us two classes at once. Fuck it. Give us three classes, man. That'd be fantastic. So, but I still, I don't, I don't believe this particular rumor. So I'm going to say bullshit. All right. I agree. Two new classes. No way. That's way too ambitious. Way too ambitious. All right. Maybe this one might be a little bit closer. Let's go.

[00:50:14] The post is titled, the last Titan is bigger than you think. That's what this one's called. Uh, and this one we're saying a new class is the artificer. Two specs, one astrology based and a healer. The other Titan tech based and a DPS. Uh, shamans get a tank. Evokers opened up to other races. This is the big one for me.

[00:50:40] Vrykul neutral race, uh, include Valarjar, Kivaldir, Constellar, Felscorn, Frost, and Iron Vrykul. That'd be cool. Uh, we see Azeroth looks like a heron here. The curse of flesh was a lie. And instead, Titans were turning native beings into stone slaves. The Titan forged are the main thread of 13.0 led by Illidan.

[00:51:05] Uh, no capital city and all of Northrend is available at launch and some other stuff. What do we think about that? Generally speaking, I don't like Vrykul as neutral. First of all, I'm sick of this neutral race bullshit. Like stop, stop, man. I want the horde back. I don't want neutral races, man. I hate neutral race. I hate neutrality. I want violence and bloodshed.

[00:51:35] I said it on the show. So I'm hoping this is bullshit purely on that basis. If give Alliance Vrykul and give horde Tusk. I agree. Yeah. I'm with you on that. I think that that's, that's exactly what I was going to say. Um, I'm just going to reverse co and hope that that's just fake. This, I put this one somewhere in the middle. This, this feels like there's, there could be, there could be, there could be something on this one. Uh, there has to be a new class though.

[00:52:05] Like you think so? Um, yeah. I have, how long has it been since we had a new class now? Evoker was the last one. Dragonflight. So three expansions. Two expansions ago. There has to be a new class. Like it would have been ridiculously a long time to not have a new class in my view. I don't know what that class looks like, but I hope it's something cool. There's all the classes they've added. Like happened to appeal to me. Really?

[00:52:33] Necromancer would appeal to me, but I also think necromancers like, I just don't think they do necromancer personally. But, Artificer might be something. The next one. I want a bard. What's that? You want a bard? I want a bard. You're a bard. Next one. This one is future of Warcraft spoilers. Again, only one more. Only one post.

[00:53:02] This is, this is the, this is the standard by which I judge all these. This one, this one kind of speaks to me a little bit because it touches on a few things. One, the last Titan, the whole continent is there. It says, the whole continent is there. Don't worry. Plus some underground locations, not separate zones, just part of existing revamped zones. Mechanic slash tinker themed hunter spec, necromancy themed warlock spec, order titan themed paladin spec,

[00:53:29] and astrologian constellar themed mage spec, each reworking the visuals of the class a la Devourer. New grizzly hills, how, uh, howling fjord and koldara themed housing neighborhoods. At launch players choose to side with the Titans or with a Riddicron, which changes the main campaign. Neutral hub is winter grass. Titan city is all the war and a Riddicron city is arrows deep. The old war raid is split like a battle of desire. Allure was.

[00:53:57] Then it goes on classic plus slash camelot. Now we're touching on that one. Heavily horde versus alliance themed skyborne are neutral. It can be warriors hunters, rogues, shamans, maids, and a mystery new class. Six new zones at launch. Uh, let's see. Season of discovery dungeons and raid encounters. Rass, uh, sorry. Race class combos. Never before seen some, uh, uh, season of discovery play styles.

[00:54:25] Return MOP classic. Warcraft four slash chronicles set during the world's whole saga outside of the main part of Azeroth. We've seen setting up the next chapter in wow's story for factions. Never before seen in Warcraft official names are the empire, Drani rustlers, and the J bound. And the author stuff is says too early in development for a real look. We'll only get a brief teaser. It's a lot. I didn't know. This is the most bullshit one.

[00:54:52] So that is ridiculous. No chance. Any of that is true. Oh man. All right. Next one. We got some people got crazy. I got, I got two more. This one's my favorite because the title of this one is hubby works at blizzard cork brief info on project camelot throwaway account for obvious reasons. My hubby works at the blizzard office in cork.

[00:55:19] And after months of nagging, I finally got him to spill a few details about project camelot. He refused to go deep into specifics and claimed he doesn't know everything. Honestly, I can't tell if he's genuinely clueless or just lying to protect his job. You know, if this person is really married boy, the wife or the spouse really threw this person out of the book. That is a terrible one. My God. What the fuck? As most of you already suspect, camelot is indeed tied to wild classic. And yes, it features way more quests, brand new areas to explore new dungeons and raids.

[00:55:45] But here is the massive twist that completely blew my mind and will be the big reveal. The game does not take place during the original 2004 timeline. It is set years before during the actual foundation of the horde. Is that wife getting, is that a divorce? Are we having a divorce? I think she's got, she got to have a divorce from just lying. I think.

[00:56:15] But like all, all in life. I don't know where to come over. All right. Last one. Last one. So far, a lot of bullshit. All right. This one, this one's already been banned and see this. These are the ones that I really wonder about because only one post, but this person already got banned from the MMO champion forums, which let me tell you, you got to do some stuff to get banned from these forums. That's in some shit. This one, this one is called clarifying. Wow. Two with minimal spoilers.

[00:56:45] And there's, it's a longer post. I'm not gonna read the whole thing. It says, I'm not really going to spoil any story or content specifics like races, classes, et cetera. Since that's not my intent here, I want to clarify what wow two is hopefully before people freak out about it being teased at BlizzCon. Also, I'm not interested in discussing any classic projects. So sorry about that. First, wow two is a rebranding and is just there to reflect the new engine systems updates,

[00:57:14] new design philosophy, and new story. It is not a new game. You do not lose your characters. You do not lose any progress. It might as well be a new expansion with a two next to it. The stuff encompassing wow two mentioned above has been in the works since after BFA. Most of wow two went into production.

[00:57:40] Most of the team went to work on that while a smaller team remains to develop current content. Now, this does tie in a little bit to your copium where you were hoping that the A team might have been off doing some other stuff. Here we got somebody claiming that they are. It's very interesting that Blizzard apparently learned its lesson by making a game called wow number two, but actually isn't number two with Overwatch and just having a slightly different end.

[00:58:10] Weird that they learned their lesson with Overwatch, but they're going to make the same mistake with wow, apparently. There's a lot more information here about how they claim that there was the original roadmap of what wow looked like, and then now what it's supposed to look like, how midnight is this sort of Frankenstein thing, which I think we all know.

[00:58:32] You know, it goes into more detail, but I like this one in the sense that if there is some sort of next generation leap, that would make sense to me that it's basically just taking what we have and upgrading it or making it better because a 20 year old game has got to be damn near impossible to work on at times. So even just from a technological standpoint, I feel like they would have to do something at some point, but maybe not.

[00:58:59] They've just spent the last five years updating all the models already to the higher polygon count. There's no wow two. No wow two. Okay. No. All right. We heard it there. You heard it there first. The margins don't... There's no reason to make a wow two. I mean, I'm perfectly happy with continuing to play where we are.

[00:59:27] Just keep giving me new fun stuff. Poor story. That's all I need. All right. Well, those are the handful of leaks. My guess is we'll probably see something Friday night that is promotional art or some other crazy thing that somebody will get a hold of and be like, oh shit, here it is. And, you know, we'll be in the Hilton lobby. People are going to be freaking out about something.

[00:59:53] And you'll see a bunch of coy faces from Blizzard employees going, oh, never seen... That could be anything. That could be a grocery store coupon for all I know. I don't know what that is. But last before we go to our Q&A, we've got some good Q&A questions this week. Any plans that you want to tell folks about? Anywhere that they might be able to find you? Do you want to cop to where you... What hotel lobby you might be seen at? Anything like that?

[01:00:24] I think we're staying at the Marriott. Okay. All right. Well... But, yeah, just look out for a fat guy. A lot of us are there. With a big orange beard. The big orange beard might be able to. There's only a couple of you. I've got... I'm like... I need to... I feel... Sometimes, like, people come up to me at events and stuff. And I always feel like I've really disappointed this person.

[01:00:53] Because I'm usually just so tired. And it's like... I'm trying to be like, hey! You know, and, like... Fun. And usually I'm just like... Want to die. You know? So, if you do see me and I'm boring and tired and annoying, I apologize in advance. You gotta use Thursday to catch up on that sleep. And then Friday you'll be... We hammered it. Yeah. That's the plan.

[01:01:23] That's the plan. That's the plan. Well, um... Yeah, I'm... Team Hilton for life. So, uh... You may see me there. But, uh... My plan is to come find you. Um... So... I'm... There's a chance... If you watch this podcast or you listen to this podcast, you might find the both of us together. Somewhere. Um... It's a big place and there's lots going on. But I'm pretty sure I can find Jez. I'm good at finding people in a crowd. So, I'm... I'm pretty sure I can find you. I also have your number.

[01:01:52] So, I figured... I figured... I figured it out somewhere there. Um... Yeah, we're getting in Friday. Uh... There is a... There is a bit of a soiree. I've got to get to Friday night. And then... Should be back. Hilton Marriott area. Uh... There is... One event that I know of. S... S-Fan is putting on an event at the Marriott until 1 a.m. Jez, I've got us some tickets. So, if you and, uh... Your homegirl want to...

[01:02:22] Want to double date with the homie Rommel and I. You're more than welcome. I secured you a couple spots. Uh... So, we can see what all that's about. I understand that it is filling up quickly. It may have already sold out. So, uh... I'm glad... Glad I put mine in while I got a chance. Uh... Total fluke deal there. But that's what's going on there. And then... I don't know. I don't know of anything else going on. We're just gonna be walking the halls and going to panels. And... Do you... Do you have any interviews you can cop to yet?

[01:02:50] Or any official media action you can... You can divulge or is that later? Uh... I don't know if I've... I think we find out this week. Okay. Like what offers we've got for behind closed... Stores kind of things. I know... I am meeting with some Xbox people there. Um... But that... I think that's just gonna be... Informal kind of hanging out. Uh... Well, uh... Make sure... Other than that, I'm just hopefully just gonna...

[01:03:21] Write some articles, I guess. When you... When you... Uh... When you find... When you find the people... Or the people find you... Make sure you tell them about this little podcast. Make sure you tell them about Unshackled Fury. Gotta tell them you're part of a Warcraft podcast too. Not just this Xbox, Microsoft nonsense. They gotta... They gotta know the full picture... Of the... Of the jazz pantheon of... Of work. You know. Definitely. Uh... And on that note... One last thing before we get to Q&A.

[01:03:49] We are gonna try to record something. I've got the microphones. I've got the thing. I got the gear. So... I don't know. I doubt it's gonna be live. But we're gonna try to do something. We'll... Maybe we'll do it from the hotel. Maybe we'll do it from... Somewhere on the third floor media room. I... I'm not sure yet. But... Uh... Jez and I did talk a little bit before. And... Uh... Just messaged a little bit. We'll... We'll try to get something out. Even if it's just... 20-30 minute catch up.

[01:04:19] That was some insane shit today. What do we think? Um... We'll try to get some... Some quick hits out. Just so... You folks can... Ride along. I don't know. Maybe I'll catch a bug. And I'll start doing some kind of vlog. Or... Some travel video. Or some shit. Just cause... I can't help myself. And... I bought this equipment. Now I gotta use it. You know. I bought... But... I bought equipment. Means that I got... Uh... What's some... What's... You know... Them shits. These little... Road... Wireless... Fuckers.

[01:04:49] Oh yeah. I got some of those as well. I don't know how that worked though. Yeah. I'm... I'm testing everything out tomorrow. I'm drafting the... Uh... I'm drafting the boy... To... Help me do some stuff. So... I'll have... A little bit of practice before we get down there. So... Uh... So that's BlizzCon. That's what we're looking forward to. Those are the... Kind of schedules and other things that are getting... Uh... Uh... Posted right now. And... I... Like Jez said. I have high expectations... Of what we're gonna see.

[01:05:19] And it's been three years. And we're kind of in the midst of some stuff. And it's a great time for them to drop a lot of things. And... Get us pumped. Because that's what they do. That's... That's what BlizzCon is. Every time. It's... There's a bunch of shit. Now get... Get rowdy. So... I... I assume it's going to be... A very... Uh... A good time. And with that being said... Let's see... Let's see if I can remember... Where... My... Q&A sounder is. Let's try it out.

[01:05:47] I did it. Alright. First question from... Snowpina Discord. It's likely that we'll learn more about... 12.2 at BlizzCon. We might even get an early look at Last Titan. The Last Titan. The former wraps up midnight... While the latter is the World Soul Saga's big finale. What would turn... Uh... Let's see... What would turn one of... Or both of these epic conclusions...

[01:06:16] Into an epic concussion? Uh... Jez, I would say peace in the valley. If... If... If this all resulted in some sort of hunky-dory... Hands class walking together... Arm in arm... Towards a bright sunny future... I feel like... Even I would be like... Oh no... That... That's... That's the wrong idea. That's a bad call. Yeah... I'll be honest...

[01:06:45] I've just kind of... Given up... On WoW's story. I mean... The... The way Zuljan has been handled... And the Amani... And just all the Horde stuff in general... I've just... I've just like... I'm not interested anymore. Blizzard's killed my interest in the story. So... You know... Not to be overly negative... But if there's... If... If even... If there's even like... Something vaguely satisfying out of it... I will take that as a win... Because my expectations...

[01:07:15] Couldn't possibly be lower anymore... By the way they've been handling the story... But uh... Make sure you ask them about that... When you get your big interview... With somebody... Make sure you tell them this. I did last time... I... I did last time... And I've wrote a bunch of editorials... About the direction... Yeah... I think they're probably just sick of me... Bringing it up now... Um... So I just kind of like... Take WoW as a gameplay first... Kind of game now... Um... I suppose like... What would be a concussion for me...

[01:07:45] I suppose... Is like... If... The last Titan is just... Just... More of the same... Kind of like... You know... Because I was talking about earlier... About how I want... I want to see more ambition out of... Out of these things... Yeah... Like since Dragonflight... Um... Yeah they had a dragon riding... Which was cool... But like since Dragonflight... I feel like... It hasn't been that... Ambitious or shocking... Since... Really... Um... You know... Dragonflight... We got dragon riding...

[01:08:14] We got a new class... Uh... Very very very big... Continent... Out of it... But Midnight like... Hasn't been that impressive to me... Um... You know... It's still fun... It's still WoW... But... I feel like a lot of the stuff in... In this... Could have just been... A content patch... Yeah... Frankly... Yeah... Um... So... That would be my concussion... Is like... If it's just more of the same... I suppose... Well then maybe on the heels of that one...

[01:08:44] Uh... Next up from Allie... We've got... What is your pipe dream announcement for Warcraft? I've got mine but... What... What would... What would... I mean... I kind of have a guess of what you might say... But what is... What is your pipe dream announcement? What's a bit for Warcraft... At this point in time? Um... I suppose like... And you know... I did say that I haven't been ambitious... But like they did do player housing... Which to be fair was pretty ambitious... Even if it's something...

[01:09:11] That I ended up not being that interested in... Um... But I suppose like just for me personally... If they did something really cool like... Add multiple new classes or... We did... Every class did get a fourth spec... Or... You know... One of the... One of the popular... One of the popular sort of... Fan ideas... For a long time has been this idea of class skinning... Or class theming... You know... Like... Can we have...

[01:09:40] Instead of having like a full-blown new class... Could they just not... Give us a class theme for Warlocks... That... They play the same... But maybe now they're themed... To be more like a Necromancer... And... Instead of summoning a demon... They summon a little zombie... And... You know... Because half the abilities like... Drain life and... You know... Mortal Coil... Which used to be called Death Coil... If you remember... Long... Go back far enough in the Warcraft spellbook...

[01:10:11] And then Death Knights came... And stole Death Coil from Warlocks Death Coil... And then Blizzard rebranded Warlock Death Coil... To Mortal Coil... But Death Coil of course was originally... A Necromancer ability from Warcraft 3... So on so forth... Blah blah blah blah blah... So... You know... It kind of... The idea of class skinning... Does... Right itself for some classes... Especially Warlock... Um... So I really like that idea... But... Yeah... I'll just... Anything like...

[01:10:41] That sort of wows me... Is more ambitious... You know... I really... I really loved... When Blizzard did the... Um... Augmentation Evoker... Because it was like... That's really interesting... This concept of like... Uh... A fourth... Role... And I know that... Augmentation is like... DPS officially... But... They're... DPS with a twist... You know... I'd really love them to explore that more... You know... Maybe add a different damage...

[01:11:10] Number type... For that kind of role... Maybe add... Some kind of new resource... For that kind of role... And... You know... And then maybe add a class... Maybe... That revolves around... That kind of role... I think that'd be cool... So just... Just something more ambitious... For the core of the game... From like... Class perspective... And that kind of thing... I'd be really happy to see... Something like that... Much like Player Housing... And Player Housing was great... For the core of the game...

[01:11:38] I want to see another system... As ambitious as that... For the core of the game... That would be my pick... What's your pick? Well... Well... We've already touched on it... Playable for iCool... I've wanted to be... I've wanted to have that option... Since... Wrath... It's just... You know... It's the... It's part of the... You know... Berserker... Fury Warrior... Triumvirate... Kind of thing... It's like... Okay... Now I get to be... Like a huge Viking... Essentially...

[01:12:08] And just going around... And ripping shit up... Like it is... I don't know... I don't... I could see ways... In which it makes sense... For a lot of different classes... I don't know for all of them... But like... You've seen different types... Of Raikul out there... And they have the models for them... So they... Like... To me... It seems conceivable... But at the same time... Like... As we've talked about... You know... Like... Added these other playable races... That nobody really seems to be asking for... So for all I know... We're going to get out there... Back in Northrend... And... I don't know...

[01:12:37] We're going to get... Some third party cast... Off race... That nobody really wants to play... And... You know... You get it to be... I mean... It could be interesting... I suppose... But like a Nerubian... You know... And it's like... I mean... I mean... Some people probably want to do that... But I don't know... I don't know how many people... I've seen Climber for that... But... I don't know... It... That would be my... Pipe dream announcement there... Um... Next up from... Wookie BH...

[01:13:07] Who you also may remember out there... Folks from... Torn and Goblin podcast... And also... Wow Talk podcast... These were both very good... Podcasts... Uh... When they were going... My sir... Uh... First time attending... Have a question... About what to wear... They say you shouldn't wear a band's shirt... To their concert... Is it the same type of social faux pas... To wear Blizzard slash WoW... Merch to BlizzCon... Would I be better served... Wearing old wrestling and metal... Uh... Parenthetical Pearl Jam...... Shirts...

[01:13:36] And I think that's... Uh... That might be... That might be in reference to... Uh... The metal... Family tree from... Uh... The previous... Uh... Episode that we put out there... Um... Here's what I'll say... And... Uh... Wrestling fans... And I know that you are one sir... That you will understand is... This is the place to be a mark... Like... 100%... Through and through... First of all... You can wear anything... Practically at this thing... When you see... How many people are there... And all the different vibes going on...

[01:14:06] Nobody gives a shit... As long as you're wearing deodorant... I think that's the only thing... That really matters... If you're gonna wear anything... Wear deodorant... Otherwise... You got... Every kind of costume... You got people in short pants... Long pants... Socks and sandals... You got people rocking the... The tie-dye... You got people wearing the band shirts... You got people wearing the merch shirts... You got people wearing no shirts... You got everything... It... It... It truly does not matter... Comfortable shoes...

[01:14:35] And whatever else you wanna jam on... Along with deodorant... That... That's it... That's really it... Um... I... I... I wear this shirt a lot... This is my... 20th anniversary Warcraft shirt... I really like this one... It's comfy... And it's got Varian on the back... And the... Version of him that I like the most... In the art style... Um... I don't know that I have a lot of other... Wow merch that I'm gonna wear... But if there's some cool stuff there to buy... I probably would... Rock that... Um...

[01:15:04] It's also gonna be hot... If you haven't noticed folks... Uh... Jez... I don't know what the Celsius conversion is... I apologize... But it's gonna be like 90 degrees Fahrenheit... So... It's... Oh boy... It's gonna be warm... So I just recommend that whatever you do... Be prepared for some warm weather... You know... Evenings it'll probably get down... 15-20 degrees cooler than that... Uh... But in the height of the day... It's gonna be about 90 degrees... High 80s... Um... Is there air conditioning in there? There is a lot of air conditioning... The convention center is well cooled...

[01:15:33] I will say that... Um... It typically has been very well cooled... So you're... You're served well in there... The... The hotel lobbies... Very well cooled... So those are good places to be... But when you're walking around outside... Or getting back and forth... When you're out at the food trucks... In the center court area... It's gonna be warm... It's gonna be warm... So I... That... That is... That is... That would be my suggestion... Um... And all that to wear... Um... Yeah... So... Be a mark... It's okay... This is the place to be a fan... Feel the vibe...

[01:16:03] Do the thing... Um... Last question... From... Professor Rigg... Uh... Also known as... Uh... Lorebytes out there... On the Tiki Taki... Uh... Jez... I want you to take the first crack at this... Because I think I know... Would you like to see an expansion... That was focused again... On strong faction identity... But without... The conflict war... Like in BFA... But instead focused on... Separate journeys... About what it meant... To be Horde...

[01:16:32] Or Alliance... Each zone could have its own... Each faction could have its own zones again... But no war... How could you see something like this working? I mean... That was... Almost kind of like... You know... Vanilla... And the Burning Crusade... Really... Like... The Horn Alliance... Were kind of working together... In the Burning Crusade... Sort of... Like the Shad Sun Offensive... And that kind of thing... But they still had separate quest chains...

[01:17:01] Um... With separate outcomes... And... I don't even like... I think most people... Want that back... Like... I don't... I don't think most people want like... A full scale... We've got to have like... A fourth war... A fifth war... A sixth war... Yeah... Uh... Every expansion... But... The way they've... Retreated from all that stuff... Is really... Really tiring... And I know they've done it to cut costs... Because in BFA... They... Had two full storylines...

[01:17:31] For... Different factions... And... If you are a telemetry-driven company... And you're like... Well... Half of our players didn't play this content... Because it was locked out by faction... And... It's much cheaper... If we just have one big storyline... But... And I'm sure that's... Probably what drove... All of these decisions... But World of Warcraft's lost some of its soul... In the process... And part of me is just wondering like... Is this not why the game is sort of stagnated...

[01:18:00] And has this sort of sense of decline now... People have... The game's lost its identity... The core hasn't been served very well... And what made the whole franchise exciting... Has been eroded... So... Yeah... I'd totally be down for that idea... I think like... I don't think... There need to be an open war... I think like having these little pockets... Of skirmishes and stuff... I think that was the healthy way to do it... Exactly... Maybe some zones... They're fighting a little bit more than others...

[01:18:29] Like in Ashenvale... Or Arathi Islands for example... Back in the day... Yeah... Those are the places where you have a battleground... But like... Keep the official peace treaty in place... Make it a proxy war... Is kind of like... The way I've thought... PvP should be handled... It's like... A horde and alliance... Are in this weird proxy war system... Where... They're not in open warfare... Against each other... But they're not... Shying away from... Factions that want to support... The horde's interests for example... You know... That kind of thing... Much like...

[01:18:58] The way we see this shit in real life... Um... But will we get that again? I don't think we will... With the current... Writing team... I don't know... I'm holding out hope... Because there... There does seem to be... This... This foreshadowing... Of... Whatever comes after the world soul saga... Is kind of like... A soft reset of some type... Like... You know... They've used... Different language to describe... What's coming... But... I...

[01:19:27] I think this is a great idea... You know... This is exactly the kind of thing... To your point... Where... You have... Even if it was not necessarily... Centered on... What it means to be horde... Or alliance... Like... You know... I think that would be a cool concept... Um... Because there is... I think some identity issues... Even within the factions themselves... Let alone... You know... What they mean to each other... Um... To be able to have... That kind of separate journey... I've always enjoyed that... Aspect... Of... Those lines that I've played...

[01:19:57] And then to have... You know... It's great for all... It's two... I've only played half the game... I admit it... Like... There's so much of the game... That I have not seen... Because I've not... Rolled horde... I mean... I have some... Somewhere... Because I've needed them... For different things... But... Like... There's a whole... Aspect of the story... That I've only read... Or watched videos about... Or whatever... I never experienced... First hand... And... You know... I've... I've always enjoyed... Just...

[01:20:26] Kind of the... Blissful ignorance... In that way... Of like... I'm loyal to the one faction... And that's what I do... And... Um... I've totally been fine with that... I've written like... Articles about this... But... Sometimes... It's the quest... The quests that you don't do... Also matter... You know... Like... In Mass Effect... For example... Like... In Mass Effect... You can choose to be a Paragon... Or a Renegade... Like... You're Paragon... And... I remember... There was an interview... With the EA...

[01:20:56] Saying like... Oh... Only 20% of people... Ever played a Renegade... Or whatever... So like... So like... With Mass Effect Andromeda... We've kind of done away... With those kind of decisions... And I'm just sitting there... Thinking like... The point was... That it was your decision... It was your decision... To play Horde... It was your decision... To play Paragon Shepard... In Mass Effect... It was your choice... Even if you didn't... Choose the other thing... The fact that you had a choice... And didn't choose the other thing... Enhanced the feeling...

[01:21:24] Of the thing you did choose... And... I think like... When you are... A company that's developing... With the dollar signs in mind... Rather than... You know... The art in mind... That's when these kind of decisions get made... So I think... It's a fantastic thing... If you've never experienced the other side... Because that's your story... Your role play... You know... And it's a shame... That Blizzard... And other companies... Don't seem to... Care about that anymore... In my view... Maybe they'll come back to it...

[01:21:54] Maybe they'll come back to it... But we'll... We'll find out soon enough... So... Thank you to everybody... Who submitted some late... Questions there... Because I forgot... Forgot to solicit them... In our Discord... So thank you... The four of you... For being quick on that response... And... And that is... That is our... Down and dirty... BlizzCon preview... 2026... And... Jez and I will be there... Please come find us... Please come talk to us... I mean...

[01:22:23] I think more people want to talk to you... Jez... Nobody gives a shit about meeting me... But... Like... Jez will be there... And... We gotta show them a good time... Because this... This is a very rare... Thing... So we gotta get... Good vibes... And taco plates... And whatever the fuck else... We can do... To make sure that Jez... Has a good time out here... Because this... Who knows... This may be the only time... Maybe... Maybe the first of many... But whatever it is... We gotta make sure... It's a good time... So... Between now and then...

[01:22:51] Safe travels to everybody... Don't do anything stupid... Don't get locked up by TSA... Or some other shit... Because you tried to bring your sword on a plane... Just pack that shit... Stole it away... Do whatever you gotta do... But get... Get down to Anaheim safely... Whatever... Whatever it takes... Otherwise... I think we've done enough damage for one episode... My thanks to all of you for tuning in... And Jez... For those that... Don't know where to find you out on the internet... Where can you be located?

[01:23:20] You can find me over on Twitter... And... Blue Sky... Jez Corden... J-E-Z-C-O-R-D-E-N... I've also got a YouTube channel my own... Which is Jez C... I streamed there today... I don't use it very much... But... I wanna try and use it a bit more... I played some Warcraft... And talked about Xbox-y things... There you go... Also got an Xbox podcast... Xbox 2 podcast... On Spotify... And the rest of it... And mostly I'm on... WindowsCentral.com... Forward slash gaming... Writing random articles about...

[01:23:49] Random bullshit... So yeah... Good... Good stuff... Check it out... And... As for me... You can always follow me on Twitter... At Berserker Rage... Where you'll probably see... Some stuff... For BlizzCon... I'm usually more active... On Twitter... During the convention... And... Unshackled underscore Fury... We'll put some stuff there... On Blue Sky... At Berserker and Unshackled Fury... Maybe some stuff on there... But YouTube... At Unshackled underscore Fury... That is where we will definitely be posting... Whatever we're recording... For this show...

[01:24:17] I'll find a way to get that shit... Up onto YouTube... You can also join our Discord... Please do... Links for which are in the profile of the show... On Twitter... And on our website... UnshackledFury.com... Feel free to contact with the show... Feel free... I can speak... To contact the show... With your questions... Comments... Or otherwise... Through any of those resources... Or email us... At UnshackledFuryShow... At gmail.com... And you can find the show... Wherever you get your podcasts... So once again... Thank you for listening... Remember to keep your swords wet...

[01:24:46] And your banners high... And we'll see you at BlizzCon... Farewell...