Episode 187: It Goes to 11! - 11th Anniversary Show, Major Spoilers, & WoW Forever

[00:00:05] 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.

[00:00:34] For 11 years, greatest little WoW podcast in the world. It's carried on through the good times and the bad. We are now on YouTube, bringing it to you live and there's no volume, but there will be. Don't worry. There it is. Now he's saving us.

[00:01:34] So welcome back for episode 187 of your Uncensored Home for World of Warcraft news and opinions on Unshackled Fury. I'm your host, Berzerker, and with me once again is the man who always says, fuck it. Let's do it. Let's do it live. Mr. Jez Corden. Welcome back again, good sir. Yo, welcome. Hello, everyone. Live YouTube is dangerous. It is dangerous.

[00:02:00] There's no editing now. No, there's no benefit of, oops, I spoiled that or oops, I said something I shouldn't have said. I gave something away. Oops, I did it again. Is that the metal album of the week? Britney Spears? Get lost in the game. Oh, baby. Copyright claim now. Did you?

[00:02:29] Yeah, now I'm going to have to edit that out, but there's no editing. So they'll just track this whole episode. Now we're free. This is like a free play in football where there's a penalty and you can just do whatever the fuck you want because you know there's no repercussions. So I think we're good now. Free Britney. Be free by Britney.

[00:02:50] You know, they did. And then I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, welcome. Welcome to the live 11th anniversary edition of Unshackled Fury.

[00:03:05] I had very little planned actually for this. I just wanted to do a live show because I tried to do something for these anniversary gigs. And here we are. There's a nice setup through the platform that Jez and I use to record that's supposed to go right into YouTube. And I see Ali. I see your comments in here. So I know that at least the comments are working. So that's good. So if we get the hordes to send upon us and tell, you know, tell me what a piece of shit this show is.

[00:03:35] Listen, you wouldn't be the first, but at least we can see it. And apparently I can put people on timeout. So if I put myself in here and start saying a bunch of stuff, Jez, I can put myself on a timeout. But it's going to be a loose one. It's going to be a loose one. This is going to be a little less regimented. And I think people are kind of used to because the mechanism for a live show is a little bit different.

[00:04:03] And I did do some little things yesterday where I was kind of fucking around and seeing how this works. So I don't know. Maybe we throw up a random poll later. Yesterday I asked whoever was checking in, does ketchup belong on a hot dog? And nobody showed up. So I don't know. I'll never know the answer to that, whether or not ketchup belongs on a hot dog.

[00:04:29] Some people say nothing but mustard, but I say cram everything on that fucker you can because at those prices, get all the condiments you can. Because when you're paying, you know, $10, $12 for a hot dog, you got to get as much relish as that fucker can hold. But that's my thing. I don't know. What do you eat at football games out there or sporting events? What's the big to do? Big chunky chips. Well, fries.

[00:04:59] We don't call them fries. We call them chips because they're like chunky fries. I don't know what you call them in America. Potato veggies maybe? We have a lot of different kinds of potato fries, a lot of potato products. There's wedges, there's steak fries, there's crinkle cut fries, there's waffle cut fries, there's all kinds of crazy shit.

[00:05:24] In my region in England, we're kind of famous for double frying our fries or our chips. We fry them and then we batter them. They're like battered fries in a sort of spicy paprika batter and they go kind of orange. Tangy. Now I'm getting hungry. You know what? You know what? I do have it.

[00:05:49] And see, because this is live, now you have to see things like later I'm going to eat this delicious cliff bar because this is the only snack I have. And so I'm going to try to like sneakily eat this thing and mute myself while Jez is talking at some point. And despite how late it is and Jez is being a trooper coming through for us at the late hour, I know we got the big topic that's going to get you all fired up today. So, because you've had plenty of ink to spill about it. So I'm going to get you.

[00:06:19] And Ali, thank you for being on board with Ketchup on a Hot Dog. That helps. We're up to two whole viewers now, Jez. I don't know if you've ever seen a viewer count this low. I don't know. I don't know if you're used to the likes of YouTube live like we do around here. But you got to start somewhere. You got to start somewhere. You do, man. I think a good place to start, Jez. I got a metal album of the week.

[00:06:44] And it jumps off of a previous album in a way that you might not expect. And for this one, got to go back to June 2nd, 2017. So it's almost nine years old now. But it is the album Apex by a band you may or may not have heard of called Unleash the Archers. Which is a great fucking name. Canadian power metal band.

[00:07:13] They've been around for a while. They've been around for about 20 years. And they have who I think is one of the greatest metal front women of all time. In Britney Slays. She has just that amazing, commanding, powerful metal voice. That when... There are a lot of dudes. There are a lot of dudes out there. Lead singers, the whole thing. Power metal, right? You can sing. You can soar and do the whole thing.

[00:07:42] But there is something about a woman's voice that has a quality. That if they do it right, it's just like a whole other level of epic. And it makes you feel like you're walking on the glorious field of battle. And you're going to do some real heroic shit. But... And the connection here is that I'd mentioned before about the 40th anniversary of the Transformers album. And... The reformatted album that they did.

[00:08:09] She is the singer on the updated Transformers theme song. Which just... She fucking killed it. And you can see a live performance. I think they did it down at Comic Con this year. And it was pretty badass. And you know what I'm realizing, Jez? While I'm here and we're talking about this. There's... There's something actually that we're missing. And this is part of doing the... Kind of the live show aspect of this. Is...

[00:08:39] I know that you listen back to every show that we do. Um... But if you... If you... If you haven't listened before. There's something missing from this broadcast. And that's our background music. That, uh... I'd love to get on here at some point. But I can't remember how to get it going in a way that doesn't blast out my fucking ears. Which... I have a plan for myself here. And I gotta remember how to put it through.

[00:09:08] And I might have done it. And I might have done it too loud. And... Oh, well. That's just... That's just how we're gonna have to deal with this. Um... I'll keep fucking with this. I'll figure it out at some point. It's so loud. Oh, my God. It was so fucking loud. Uh... I'll figure this out. Somewhere. Somewhere. I know. I know. I got it. I got it. I got it, Jez. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. Uh... Let's try. Let's try this. Let's see if this works. Hold on.

[00:09:40] Uh... No, that might not be it. Where's the... I need the... I need the audience participation. You hear it? Does the audience hear it? Yep. I hear it. Relying on the audience. Oh, my God. You hear it. Okay. It's working. All right. Good. Good. All right. And that's the real copyright strike, by the way.

[00:10:10] Um... Every episode that we upload, I get something from Spotify that says, Hey, uh... You... You have music that you're not authorized to play. And I always have to go on and say, Actually, yes, we... We have permission from Blizzard to use it. And I have to do it for every single episode, every time we upload. And it's... Oh, I didn't know. Annoying as fuck. Yeah. All these things that you don't know that I do over here. My guy.

[00:10:40] All this fine work I'm putting into this scrappy little program of ours. So, yeah. So, uh... You'll have to keep an ear out for this, folks. And if it starts going wonky, I apologize. But, um... Anyway. Uh... Unleash the Archers. Great Canadian metal album. Great metal album. Uh... Or metal bands. And, uh... If you haven't... Um... If you haven't ever checked them out, They've put out a variety of albums over the years. They're all pretty good. They put out a really sweet concept album.

[00:11:09] I think it was last year? Or two years ago? And it's basically about, like, AI uprising and shit. I mean, it's... It's real topical. Um... But, uh... They're a great band. Have you... Have you ever come across Unleash the Archers? No, I haven't. Travels. But, uh... I'm not a big power metal dude. As you know. As I've established. But I'll check them out, man. You should check them out. You should check them out. I think... All right. Um... All that being said,

[00:11:38] And we'll see if... Again, we'll see if I can... Maneuver these things, uh... Correctly here on this... On this gimmick. On this live deal. Uh... Got a rage topic. Uh... Not the one... Not the... Not the other one. Not the other one that we'll get to for you. Uh... Which we'll have some... Some good conversation about. Um... I got another one. That's also very topical. Also something we're gonna talk about, uh... Later on. So... Uh... Let's... Let's hit into this rage. And hopefully this button works.

[00:12:09] Let's rage. Let's rage. Maybe it works. I don't know. I'm gonna have to rely on the comments on this one. We're up to three viewers now, Jess. That's three. All right. And I turned it all the way up, too. So it's like super loud. I have no... I have no way of controlling any of the volume on this... On the YouTube end. So I have no idea how any of this is working out. So I apologize. Um... All right. So, listen. I see a lot of things. I've established this over the years.

[00:12:39] Like, I may not engage with all of the Twitter stuff... And all of the social media stuff... And the TikToks... And this and that. But I see it. I... I spend more time on it still than I'd like to admit. And so I do see a lot of these things. And... Oh, Lord. Have I seen... All the Johnny-come-latelys. All the newbies. All these people coming out of the woodwork for WOW Forever.

[00:13:09] All this... Oh, look. Wow. Wow Forever. My wow is back. I got my millennial retirement plan. I've got all these things going. Um... New shows. New concepts. New... Uh... Uh... Accounts. I mean, all these people coming out of the woodwork. You know? And for... And there were those of us who stuck around. Through the good times and the bad. Through the thick and the thin. Whether it was then, now, forever, whatever. And I got one thing to say to all you...

[00:13:39] All you Johnny-come-latelys. Welcome back. Welcome back. It's nice to have you. And, um... I think that there are... I think I see, uh... You know? A few... A few people out there... That, um... You know? Have been encouraged by WOW Forever. And... And suddenly... Kind of just bypassing the last so many years. And I think it would be really easy... Uh...

[00:14:09] I think it would be really easy to... Have a certain... Have a certain sense of... I don't know. We're retail. You're WOW Forever. You're this. We're that. Different... Different fandoms. Because... Sections of the fandom. Because we do this, right? There's the classic folks. I mean, they are... You know, they are a little something. There's the PVP folks. And they are a little something. But I think... I think WOW Forever is for everybody. I think that's something that all of us can kind of jive with. So I just want to say... Welcome.

[00:14:38] Welcome back. Maybe a little irritated. But, uh... You know. It's good to have more people in the fold. I guess. At the end of the day. And Cardboardist, I see you. Welcome. Thank you. Uh... It is a great album, isn't it? Yeah. That was a great album. Um... See? I got another vote. Now we get live feedback on whether these albums are shit. Or, you know, what have you. Uh... But that was... That was my... That was my... Sort of...

[00:15:08] Rage topic that was in the back of my mind. I was like, man. I'm seeing every motherfucker in the world coming out. I'd be like, oh, WOW Forever. WOW Forever. Oh, it's got me... Maybe I'm taking the month of November off. Whoop! I got the... You know, the... The Warcraft Widows, uh... Uh... Facebook page is gonna have to fire back up now. You know, they used to have this back in the day. The... The Warcraft Widows. And, you know, all the people that lost their spouses or significant others to World of Warcraft. And then...

[00:15:37] They kind of died out for a while. Now it's coming back. Let's see all these people posted on... But, you know... To my love... I saw this one. It was like a guy in the military. He's like, to my... To my love, I will be gone. And I won't be... I will be on this long mission. But I have left you supplies. Like, all this stuff. This is fucking ridiculous. Um... But I do love it. And, uh... It's nice to see... Um... It's nice to see that... That... That... Energy coming back. And... You know, I've...

[00:16:07] I've tried my best. We'll talk about WoW forever in a little bit. And I've... I've tried my best to kind of stay away from it. Just because I know what's gonna happen. Um... But for now... I guess... I will, uh... We'll welcome all of these other people into the fold. Whatever small... Way... That I... That I do that I can. So... Welcome back. Uh... I guess... With that... Out of the way. Because I'm the only one who cares. Let's talk about...

[00:16:37] Let's talk about the news. Let's talk about the recent stuff. Because holy lord... And I'm... Stepped in it again. Swig of ghosts for the working man here. Let's... Let's... Let's... Let's do it. Uh... What are my comments at? There we go.

[00:17:07] So... So... This past week... We're not even a weekend. That's 12.1.5. Went live. And... It has some stuff in it. Uh... But the main thing... The big thing... Stuff that... Getting... Leaving Jez up late in the middle of the night. Worried about the future. Past. Present. All of it. Is the main storyline. And we're gonna be talking major spoilers here. So if you haven't played through it... Please don't listen to this. Shit's everywhere.

[00:17:37] I don't know how you avoid it. It's everywhere. It's possible to miss. Um... But the main storyline essentially... Is that you have... Zuljara. You have... Your... Your... Your one-eyed homie. Um... Orthramar. You have Liadrin. And then you have some assorted forces. And us. Finding our way... Essentially to Kithix.

[00:18:07] And it involves us going and... You know... Grabbing Lorthramar. And he wants to go stomp through Zulamon again. And oh god... Please don't... You know... This is not a good idea. But... You know... Talk him off that ledge. And then we kind of make our way together... Through it. And... Get all the way to the end. We fight back through the crypts and the things. And we get to Kithix. And we fight Kithix. And... Liadrin turns herself into a giant flashlight.

[00:18:37] And... And... At the end... She dies. That's the big... That's the big to do. It's longer than that. You gotta... You know... Play through the whole storyline. See the whole thing. And I hadn't even yet played through it. But all I had seen was how upset... How angry... How perturbed... Everyone was. I saw... Your article first. Jez. I'm gonna... I'm gonna pull it up here.

[00:19:07] I've written two on it now. Backlash grows... As... What's that? I've written two articles. You have two. I've got both of them. Backlash grows as World of Warcraft Midnight continues to represent the most painfully, miserably weak writing in all of Blizzard. 12.1.5. Spoilers. Your new best friend, Belular, loved it. Hey, all these other internet dwellers. They all loved it. I was pretty salty when I wrote that. You were very salty when you wrote it. And then, yes.

[00:19:36] And then even earlier today... Dear Blizzard, it's time to kill World of Warcraft's eight-week patch cadence. End the bug's weak story and filler content, I beg. So, Jez is coming out. It's coming out hot. So, I am expecting just the worst drivel of all time. I am expecting the most insane thing that I have ever seen.

[00:20:02] So, I admit, I played through the quest line with a little bit of foreknowledge about where it was going. Because, again, it was hard to miss. And so, I think maybe it helped me pay a little bit more attention to, like, what was going on, perhaps. But, before I get to my thoughts on it, you're the paid writer here. You're the journalist. You got... You got... You're stirring the pot along with everybody else.

[00:20:33] Where did you fall on this? And, if you can, enlighten the crowd on... On... Why you are so upset. It was just... So... Anti-climactic. I think that's what, like... That's the kind of feeling I got from it. It was like... Kithix... Has had no real build-up. He's... He didn't... He doesn't even have any voice lines in the boss fight.

[00:21:02] He's not really... He's like... An old gods general. Like... He's a law figure, but he's like... A small law figure, you know. And... Liadrin is like... She's been there for a long time now. A long time. I want to say since the Burning Crusade. Maybe even earlier. And it's just kind of like... What are we doing? What are we doing out here, man?

[00:21:33] I feel like... If they wanted to have... Some kind of character death... That... Sort of... Because clearly, like... One aspect of it was... The light channels through her... And she goes Super Saiyan or whatever. And she expires. If it was me... Right? I would have had some other smaller character take that hit. Because then you could have... You could have told... You could have made the spectacle... Oh, this is what...

[00:22:03] The light used up... The light channeled through her... And, you know... Um... Used her up or whatever. And that... That could have been the narrative. And they could have used like... I don't know. That last one, The War Within or something. Um... I can't remember her name. The one from... The Arathi last. Anduin's girlfriend. I suppose now. And then Anduin...

[00:22:32] Then Anduin could have been like... No... Not my girlfriend. Or something. I don't know. I can't remember her name. But, um... It's kind of employed, right? That they're getting together. But anyways... It just felt like a waste. Thank you, Alan. Yeah. I can't remember. Um... Feren, that's right. So... It could have been like... It just... Just... I... There's a conspiracy theory that like... It's gonna be used in another storyline. Like the Undead Paladin stuff, right? Yeah.

[00:23:03] So there's a conspiracy theory that it's sort of like... It's kind of ham-fisted. It's been forced through. But I think even that like... Feren would have been a better fit for that as well. You know? Or it could have been... It could have been... It could have been... Callie Amenathil herself, maybe. Or just... Some other character. Because it could... It should have been like... Leandrin's busy with Zalatath. You know? And then it was like... Someone else could have taken over. And that could... It could have been a more minor character. I don't know. It just felt like a waste. It felt like another Horde figure...

[00:23:32] Being wasted. For no real reason. No real payoff. Even if we assume that... It's gonna be used as some sort of ham-fisted... Lore injection for... To make Undead Paladins in retail. It just... Felt bad. Man. And... My reaction was pure. I hadn't seen any of the online discourse. I didn't see the video on Wellhead. I played the quest myself. In the early morning. Right after maintenance. I went to my vault. I got my loot.

[00:24:02] I did the quest. I was like... Is that it? And then I went... I went to... I went to the internet to see if I was crazy. And... Everyone else had the same kind of reaction. Right? So... Um... I don't know. But I just... It also just kind of makes me feel like... I'm not even surprised anymore. Because I feel like the retail writing has been so bad now. And it's not... The first time I've written about this.

[00:24:32] Because... The 8 week patch cadence... Is... Destroying the setting. They're rushing everything. All the characters feel homogenous. They have no conviction. Because they can't have any conviction. Because everything has to fit within this 8 week... Soap opera kind of... Stay tuned for next week. Kind of patch cadence. They can't plan things out over time. Because they can't like... They've got to...

[00:25:01] Got to fit to a... A strict deadline. So it's like... You know like South Park for example. In South Park... They make the... They make the episodes on a weekly basis. Right? Crazy. And... But they'll be about a new topic every week. But... But then they'll have like a... A story arc... That kind of maybe... Carries over like a few episodes... Or something like that. Now because WoW... Is like...

[00:25:29] Sort of going for the same kind of thing... In a way... Because they have to give us something new... To fight. Like Ula Tech... Kind of came out of nowhere. And... Kithix... Also kind of came out of nowhere... With no kind of build up. But they... It doesn't work as well. Because... It's not a sort of like... Monster of the week kind of storyline. They're trying to tell it. It's got to sort of lead up...

[00:25:58] To a big climactic battle... That feels like it's got stakes... And all that kind of stuff. They can't just do a topic of the week... Like South Park can. Yeah. But it feels like they're... Trying to fit... An epic storyline around that sort of... Monster of the week kind of structure. And I just don't think it works man. It's um... It's just disappointing. And it's just um... Making me... Care less about the game in general. You know. Do the same thing season in season out.

[00:26:27] Get ahead of the curve. Do some invasions. Get my transmog. And the thing that should... Immerse me in that... Is the story. In my view. Um... I've got a really great guild. And a really great group of friends... That I play with. So that keeps me in the game. But... When you sort of... When the story delivery is so immersion breaking... It makes the content...

[00:26:57] Start to feel arbitrary I think. So... Yeah. I... Think it's symptomatic of a larger problem with modern... With retail. And I think like... I do think World of Warcraft Forever... Where it uses... It does a lot of environmental storytelling. Instead of trying to... Show you everything. It gives you hints. And then your imagination fills in the gaps. Which is kind of what they do in Dark Souls and Elden Ring. And what WoW used to do in Vanilla as well.

[00:27:27] A lot of speculation. A lot of imagination. You know like... If you're not... If you're not well versed in the lore... You can go to like... Black Rock Mountain... And infer quite a lot about... The setting. Just from looking at the environment. Right? You can't really do that in modern WoW to the same degree. And I know like in... In the Coiled R... There's like lore tablets and stuff. But... It's uh... Everything just feels rushed. And a little bit soulless.

[00:27:57] And the fact that like... They show us everything. And everything has to be choreographed. And I think... This whole Kithix thing... Didn't need any story quests attached to it. I don't think. It didn't need any invasions. It didn't even need to be Kithix. It could have just been like... You know... We kill the snake. And then it unleashes some kind of... You know... Unnamed... Old God abomination. Like... Uh... Oh God.

[00:28:26] What was his name? The first boss of Battle for Azeroth. That rot dude. G'huun? G'huun. Yeah. But it's just been some random... Old God monstrosity under there. It didn't have to be... A story beat. I feel like. You know... Like um... That other... That Naga... One shot boss. Or that... Under that... Rockmire dude. It's just... The whole thing just felt rushed. And it kind of reminded me of that...

[00:28:56] Mid-season patch. Um... With the... Arathi... Arathi dudes. In Arathi Highlands. Where all... It was just super rushed. I don't know. Theme of this whole segment is... Rushed. And I'm tired of it man. I would have... I would have preferred this patch... Just didn't happen. Yeah. Yeah. Uh... Alright. So two parts here. Uh... Well I guess first. Hello. Chat Van.

[00:29:26] Human head. I like your point about uh... The Adrin. I don't know. Maybe she gets raised by Anduin. That would be some shit. Um... And Allie... Uh... Allie agrees with you about the eight-week pattern. I think we all do. Uh... And um... Kithix being a kind of a smaller figure. Should have gotten more buildup. And... I guess here's... Here's the lens that I look at this through. I agree. The Kithix thing...

[00:29:51] It almost didn't matter in a way because... Oh hey. Slick. That's your actual name. Oh good. Now I know. Mm-hmm. Um... The... The thing that I got out of it was... You know. It was the... It was the end of Leadrin's story. Which we'd been going with her all the way through Midnight Ride. From the cinematic opening cinematic.

[00:30:20] All the way through all the questing we've done. All the places that we've been. And... Really the point of her death. And I... I bought in. I don't have as big a problem as everybody else. It seems to. Because... To me. What the point of it all was. Was to find... A way to get to the stalemate. Between... Silvermoon... And Zulamon. And... There's a bunch of different ways you can go about it. People want to keep the war. They understand that.

[00:30:51] Um... I understand that it is unsatisfying to a lot of people. But I think that what they needed to do. Or they decided that they needed to do. Was find a way to make it. So they're not allies. And they say that explicitly. But they're also not like actively engaged in fucking each other up. Acknowledging in a very real sense. Because this... I mean as... As... As... As a... As a citizen of the United States of America.

[00:31:19] The language about stolen land. Is something that is very prescient. And... And kicking people out of their homes. And times that go back. And like... What do we do about it now? And we're here. And you're here. And there's... Bad blood. And bad history. And shit that doesn't get recognized. And like... This is all very real world stuff. And so a lot of that language... It really resonated. And it's tough to tell that in this format. Because it is nuanced.

[00:31:49] And it has a lot of real world impact. But I appreciated that they were trying to touch on that. And so... It was trying to find a way to... Okay. How do we... How do we have a commonality here? That brings them together. Gets them to a point of peace. Or at least to a point where they're not actively at war. And... Having Liadrin get to the point where you've seen her in doubt. You've seen her trying to force the light to do stuff. You've seen her... You know... In these positions of fear. Where she became like the Green Lantern.

[00:32:19] No fear. I give myself over to it. I am fully a vessel here. And I'm just... I'm just doing the thing. I don't fear death. And... I am having it. And so to have that kind of... Clarity moment for her. I thought was rad. Would it have been cool if she lived? Yeah, it would have been cool if she lived. Having turned into that kind of paladin. And then carrying forward. That would have been cool to see. Absolutely. But...

[00:32:49] This is the thing about it. Like, you know... It has... That whole segment where the light channels through her. And then she dies. That is like... It's quite kind of dark, right? And I think it's kind of glossed over. It's kind of glossed over a little bit. It could have fed into the whole sort of narrative of like... The light's actually a little bit cooked. You know, like... Yeah. They tried to force it on Illidan.

[00:33:18] And I think that was a really important moment in the narrative. And probably an underrated moment in the narrative. Where it was like... You know... Oh, actually... The light has this... Almost fascististic streak. Where it's like... Wants to bend people to their will. Yeah. I don't know if you did the... The Maghar... Orc... Heritage Quest Chain. Where you sort of like... What becomes of that whole situation? You see... Yeah.

[00:33:46] You see the army of light go full-blown. You know... You will accept the light. You know... Kind of thing. And it's just kind of like... I think that's quite an interesting angle to explore. You know... Absolutely. But... For sure. And we've had the light bloom as well. So like... There are interesting elements in... Sort of hidden among this. Potentially. If they're... If they're fleshed out. But it's like... You know... What is the cost of being a champion of the light? And it does seem like...

[00:34:15] You can literally burn out. You know... Yeah. You know... Alonso's Fowl... Can't even walk into the sun well without catching on fire. And I suppose like... The whole... Yeah. Like... That's a theme in even the new lore with the undead paladins. And... Wow. Forever. You know... So... There is like... Underneath... How lame it was... In terms of his delivery. There was some potentially cool stuff here. Right. It just felt like...

[00:34:45] We're sort of having to... We're having to sort of... Almost... I don't know... Speculate... The value into it. You know... Because... What I'm saying about like... All the implications of her literally... Expiring... By channeling the light. That might not even be what Blizzard's kind of going for. I'm just kind of imagining that it's cooler than it potentially is. It could have just been like... Yeah. It could have just been like... Oh... Let's... Let's have a... Do some...

[00:35:13] Do some weird shit and then die and then move on. You know? Yeah. But the problem is like... Because I've been... The payloads... In the modern WoW writing... Just haven't been there. The payoffs... You know? I think it's so easy to flood... Flood the lack of knowledge with negativity. Like... Shadowlands trauma, man. Like... The whole expansion like... Which is very real. Yeah. She must have had a reason for burning down the tree. She...

[00:35:42] No... She's supposed to be a master tactician. She wouldn't get tricked by the jailer. There must be some more... Something more to it. You know? And... And then... And then she just... She just randomly changes her mind at one point. And go... Actually... Maybe I was a bit... Of a... Of a... A meanie pie. Yeah. You know? So it's like... You also understand like... There were real world interferences there that... You know? And I think... I think that's part of what you're talking about too. And I see... Mr. Covington. Welcome. Long time follower. Good work out there.

[00:36:13] And agree. I think we all agree. Eight weeks is not happening. It's just... It's just not the jam. It... It's... Understand... It must be on the story right, man. There's just so many bugs too with the labyrinth. You know? It's beyond the story. It's bugging. Yeah. Blizzard... Like... Nobody likes it. It's just... I mean... Just like six... Nobody likes it. I think that's the only thing we all agree on. It's just... Eight weeks is no good. Six...

[00:36:40] Six months ago, Blizzard issued an apology for the start of the game. Based on how rushed one of the patches was. 12.0.5. Yeah. Yeah. And they put an apology up and said, We'll do better. We'll do better. And it's just like... Bros. Just... Delay it a week or two. You know? Or three. Or four even. And... Yeah. And I know it's like... They want to prevent churn. They want to prevent people unsubscribing. That kind of stuff. Well, throw in another store mount or something.

[00:37:11] You know? Bleed the whales. I'll buy another dinosaur if you want. There'll always be another $100 mount for you, Jez. Yeah. Yeah. I'll buy it. There'll always be another one. I know. We talk about this and it is kind of funny that, you know, they have introduced these elements into the game. And if that is really the bottom line on it... Nope. No. I guess pun intended. It does seem a little strange. Other than... I just assume... And we've talked about this a little bit in the past. You know?

[00:37:40] These calendars were set so far ahead that now that it's really coming to fruition, how detrimental this has been. It's too late to pull it back for whatever reason or the deciders, you know, not pulling the trigger on that. But, again, I can't imagine that it continues, like, for too much longer. It just... Nobody likes it. Nobody...

[00:38:09] And this kind of overwhelming agreement on the pace... Like, to me, it's just... I don't know. It's hard to ignore for... Like, disagreements about the story. Disagreements about what happens with Liadrin. Why this happened. How this happened. Was it good, bad, indifferent, whatever. Like, at the end of the day, these are our interpretations of the story and how we feel about it. Some people have their own headcanon that they're married to, like every other fandom, and they can't let go of it.

[00:38:38] And so they'll hate it no matter what happens because it's not the thing that they imagined that they wanted. There are some people... I've yet to see anybody, and I'd love to see it, by the way. Somebody who's like a script supervisor somewhere on a show or a movie or a thing that breaks down why things are bad other than I just feel bad or I just don't like it or whatever. I'd love a real professional oversight of this because I think that might be helpful in sort of delineating what is truly, legitimately good or bad or indifferent or whatever.

[00:39:07] But the pace, man, it's just... I've complained about it before in the sense that, like, I feel like there's just... I can't keep up and then I get burned out and then I'm like, ah, I guess I'll skip this part of it. Or... Well, this is the problem as well. When, like, they rush and things end up being mediocre, it just enhances the burnout, you know? Like, it's like... It's like... I don't know. It's one...

[00:39:37] It'd be one thing if it was an eight-week patch cadence and the content was good, you know? But, like, if you're just constantly feeding mediocre content... I've kind of... I've gotten used to skipping the mid-season content patches now. Yeah, I don't want to see another invasion thing. I... Yeah. I didn't touch that... I don't know, though. Yeah. I didn't touch that planet content that I did. I didn't either. The Legion worlds. I didn't touch that at all. I didn't.

[00:40:07] I wasn't going to really do much with the cold all, but I was really looking forward to the Labyrinth stuff because in my head... Yeah. Like, I think Eon said in one of the... He said in one of the interviews that one of the issues with modern dungeons is that they're designed for Mythic Plus, so they're like this race. They're linear, right? Mm-hmm. And he said with Labyrinth, they want to flex their creative muscles and build something

[00:40:35] that's a little less linear, like a UBRS or a Blackrock Depths or whatever. So I was like, oh, that sounds fantastic. So I wanted to play the Labyrinth because in my head, it was going to be like Blackrock Depths, but really, it's just a bit like a Torghast, isn't it? You know, you got a little pop-up that tells you exactly where to go and, you know, and then it's, you know, it's still quite fun.

[00:41:00] Like, the bosses were fun to do and engaging and, you know, mechanically, it's a little bit interesting, but it's not quite that feeling of Blackrock Depths and getting lost in Blackrock Spire and like, which way do I go now? I think the biggest, I haven't jumped in them yet, but I've already seen what I think might be the biggest problem is I feel like we got lied to about taking it at your own pace and apparently there's no save points. Like, I thought I was going to be able to kind of break this thing down over the course

[00:41:29] of at least a couple of days or a week or something when I'm, you know, banging it out with the homie Rommel. We can kind of, you know, take one part and I can take another and do something, but it doesn't sound like there's any sort of save point type mechanic. And that seems to fly right in the face of what we were told about taking it at our own pace. I don't know how else... It should be on a ride lockout. Yeah, I don't know. It should be on a week or a lockout. I don't know why they did it any differently other than maybe they believe if you had a

[00:41:57] lockout mechanic like that, then it is like a raid and it's too similar or something. But I don't know what the problem with that would be, to be honest. Why not? Army wonders if, like, that was the intention when they did those interviews and because of the eight-week patch cadence, they had to rush it through and didn't get that feature into it. Yeah. If that is... I mean, that would be a damning piece of this if that is true. And it is...

[00:42:26] I mean, you'll be able to tell if it's true if, like, if they come out next week. And say, oh, we've heard your feedback on adding a lockout, a save mechanic. And then all of a sudden there's a save mechanic that's fully fleshed out and added it in a week or something. I don't know. Or maybe that can just Voib code it. I don't know. That's what people do these days. I don't know, man. I don't know. I had a hard time believing that Blizzard is real big on that kind of a thing, considering

[00:42:55] how, you know, anti... You know... AI... They've been pretty adamant, like, on Twitter that they... Nothing in World of Warcraft uses AI. And to be fair, like, there's nothing... It's sometimes it's obvious when it... Like, Battlefield 6 is going through this controversy right now.

[00:43:21] Because they added a bunch of emblems and stuff, which have loads of blurry typos in them. So it's, like, pretty obvious they used AI for some of this stuff. But, like... I love the backlash, by the way. Fuck AI, man. I've said it on this show before. Like, I am not... Nobody learned from Terminator, man. Like, I... Like... What the... What the... What the fuck? Oh... Uh... Oh, co-pilot. All right. All right.

[00:43:51] So listen. Co-pilot. All right. All right. Well, coding auto-completes, like... No. No, no, no. I want to talk about co-pilot. No, no, no, no, no. I got to get into this because this is my own thing at work. Because co-pilot has been foisted upon us. Like, I... I didn't believe it. I didn't believe it. I was like, okay... AI, whatever. There's co-pilot. Okay. I know it's in... You know, I can press the button and I can turn it on if I fucking want to. No.

[00:44:21] Every goddamn thing has got co-pilot integrated into it. So, you know, fair point, I guess, because that shit is everywhere. And I hate it. And I have fights with our IT people, our IT division, all the time where I work about its implementation. And I keep telling them that I don't want any... I have... Because I'm in a position of authority, I don't know who let me do this. MS Paint with co-pilot. Oh, my God. Listen. I...

[00:44:48] Somebody was dumb enough to let me run a division of something in a place. And I have issued the edict that there is no AI to be used in any of our work products. Zero, none. Not to answer an email. Not to pull apart anything to tell you more about it. Not a goddamn thing. And if I find out that any of my people are using it, they're fucking fired early. Someone's going to get in trouble. I can't... Probably can't fire them. But, like, I hate it with a burning passion because I recognize that everything has got it integrated now.

[00:45:18] So, yes, there probably is something that has it in there because you can't get away from it. But, you know, I'd like to believe that most of what is happening, you know, 99.9% of what is happening is, you know, human hands. But, I mean, there's no way for us to know. And it's not like you can PRA Blizzard and be like, all right, I want to see everything. And if I see any AI, I'm fucking suing you.

[00:45:47] I'm taking you to the AG's office. Because... Everything uses AI. But, like, you know, like... I'm a lazy person, right? I would absolutely use AI for my job. I would use it for everything. Don't do that. If I could. You'll put yourself out of a job. That's what I tell my analysts. Don't do it. You'll put yourself out of a job. Great. Great. Put me out of a job. Here's the thing. This is the thing. It's shit. I can't use it for anything. I agree.

[00:46:17] I agree. It's absolutely fucking awful. And it doesn't work for any aspect of my job. Not a single aspect of my job. It doesn't do anything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I tell... That's a big reason why I tell people not to use it in my place. Is because, like, you don't know what it's giving you. You're going to have to check it anyway. So you're just kind of doing the work twice. Plus... What did I try and use it for? I tried to use it for... I was writing a headset review. And I was like... I...

[00:46:46] I screenshot it. Is it Skynet like the headset? Did it make it sound good when they were shooting soldiers? No, no, no. Like, I... I photographed the table on the back of the box. And I was like, turn this table into a HTML table that I can paste into the article. So I didn't have to type it up. And it just added a load of details that weren't in the table. So I had to, like, go through and check it all. And at that point, I was just like...

[00:47:13] I could have just written it out myself in, like, roughly the same amount of time. You know? I remember one time, like... This is what's wrong with an eight-week patch case. Go, chat DPD. Yeah. I remember, like, when I was doing the Diablo 4 review. A load of hatred. I think I put in there, like, when did Vessel of Hatred come out? And it was just like, oh, Vessel of Hatred launched a few weeks ago. Or just something like that. Just completely made up date. I was like, no, it didn't.

[00:47:42] And it was like, oh, yeah, you're right. You got me. You were right to check me on that. It didn't launch a few weeks ago. It's just like, what? What is this? This is the thing people are investing trillions and trillions of dollars into. You can't even answer the most basic question. It's insidious, man. Yeah. So I just stopped using it now. I don't use it for anything. Yeah. Well, tell a lie. Let me open it here. What's the last thing I used it for? I'm going to have a quick look at my co-pilot. Yeah, you won't care about it.

[00:48:14] I looked for jeans causing back pain. So is it possible that jeans can give you back pain? And according to co-pilot, yes, they can. Like Levi's? Yeah. If they're not fitted properly, then it suddenly changes your gait. And apparently you don't support your bones properly. This is what it says. It could be all completely made up.

[00:48:42] I mean, it's not going to tell me lose some weight, you fat bastard, is it? I guess it depends on how mean you make it, you know, because you can adjust the personalities on these things to either be your girlfriend or, you know, a drill instructor if you want. So you can run the gamut. Looking ahead now. So we all hate the 8-week patch games. We got this established. But looking forward, all right?

[00:49:11] So looking past the old Liadrin thing that, you know, mixed results. What do you think? Now that we're looking at 12-2 Eclipse, you know, we had it set up. Or Wayne had a vision. We went out on the dock and saw, you know, Nifu talking to dude. And then we got the full, you know, shroud encompassing the world's soul and, you know, shit. Here we go. What is it going to take?

[00:49:40] Like, let's just assume 8 Weeks continues. It's just the shit we got to deal with. What is going to make that a successful patch? What is going to make that a satisfying story? See you. Man, that's a tough one. I mean, Covington is bullying Windows Phone at the moment. I can't abide by this. But what will make it satisfying?

[00:50:10] I think, like, they need to rip the band-aid off and give us, like, Zalatav's full origin, her motivations, and all this kind of stuff. Because it's the whole vague posting and, you know, twirling the mustache and then vanishing. It's kind of getting old now. You know, it's been, like, what, going on for 10 years at this point if we go all the way back to Legion.

[00:50:37] But, you know, I suppose, I don't know. I'd love to see some, like, really good cinematics that are epic. I mean, Blizzard can still really pull them off. I really liked the Zalatav Dalaran cinematic with your boy, what's his name? The Wizard Dude. Is that a Lion's guy? I can't remember his name.

[00:51:06] I'm very tired. Khadgar, yeah. Where she blows him up. That was fantastic. It was a good one. Yeah. And then he does his little turning into energy thing. That was a fantastic... Where Dalaran blows up. I was like, yeah. Yeah. Good. It's an Alliance City in my head. So, you know, I was like, yeah, Zalatav's on the board. But, yeah, I don't know. But, yeah, I don't know.

[00:51:35] Like, a good raid. Interesting story beats. Something that doesn't feel so ham-fisted. Give, like... Give at least one Horde character, like... A compelling... You know, a bit of conviction. Instead of just being introspective and depressed all the time. You know? I'd like to see... At least what... I'd like to see a Horde character have some confidence about him for once. I don't know. It feels like...

[00:52:05] It feels like all the characters in the narrative right now. Like, Anduin. Thrall. Arator. They're all, like... What about Zul'Jara? Depressed and introspective. Like, she's depressed and introspective as well. She's just lost a brother, I suppose. I don't know. She's going to fuck shit up this whole story. The only one who has any kind of conviction in the story right now is... Zul'Jara. And they killed him off. You know? Sorry, boy. I liked him. Yeah. They all liked him. It was great. It was good shit.

[00:52:34] Everyone else is depressed and... You know? I guess then... Maybe to a finer point. Is there a way to make it? You said, you know, sort of not ham-fisting it. Is there a way to do that? With this kind of... We just... We got a Resurrecker rush. I mean, this is not the way of doing it. We need to, like... Sylvanas just needs to come back and say, look... He and my boy Varian are resting in the same ashtray. I don't think they're... As much as I... Oh, which by the way...

[00:53:03] There's still a giant statue that's gonna show up back here for Varian. I called Sideshow the other day and I'm still waiting for that fucker to show up. So you're gonna have to be cursed with that soon. Just FYI. Every time we get on here, you're gonna see him back here. I don't know where... How I'm gonna set it up, but it's coming. Oh, man. Man. Yeah. I mean, Varian had a lot of conviction, you know? And then, like... Even Gangren Man went depressed and went off and retired somewhere.

[00:53:33] Like, god damn. Like, I wanna see someone get... I wanna see someone get angry. Was he just handing over the mantle to step aside because we needed to get some younger players? No, he was depressed, man. He was depressed. He was tired and depressed and he was just like... Wait till you're... Wait till you're older. I'm ready to... I'm ready to give it up, be depressed and go off into the woods. I think I'm gonna do that next week. I wanna see... I wanna see Nathanos come back. I wanna see Garrosh come back. Yeah. You know, bring some, like, actual conviction back to proceedings.

[00:54:01] I wanna see Lothamar go off the deep end and just be like, you know what? We don't need all these alliance scum in our city. Let's evict them. And then kick them out. Kick them all out. I would happily leave. It's a nice city I visited. It's cool. I can leave now. But nah. I don't know. Restrooms. That's time to go. And yeah, like, just like, even Turalyon. Like, Turalyon's depressed. He's like, oh, my shield. I'm so sad about my shield.

[00:54:30] Like, where's everyone's, like, passion gone? You know? It's just... Just... I'm just... I just... All the characters feel the same to me right now. They all feel, like, just sort of homogenous and... You know. I miss when the leaders in the game had some kind of conviction. Even if you didn't agree with the conviction. At least they had it. Yeah. You know? Instead of just being, like, both sides in about it all. And I know, like... There is this sort of, like...

[00:54:59] I know it's an American-developed game. And I know there's a lot of real-world things going on in America right now. There are. But, like... There are. And I know there's a lot of soul-searching, I suppose, going on in America. There is. There should be. Maybe there's some of this being caught in the right. But as a British person who is willfully ignorant of everything outside of my video game,

[00:55:25] I go to my video game or to escape some of that stuff, right? Like, I play Warhammer to escape some of that stuff. Or I watch a TV show to escape some of that stuff. And, you know. And I respect... It's their game. It's their game. And they can write it however they want. But I can also choose to play somewhere else if I feel like it's just gotten lame. And it just feels lame now, I kind of feel like, you know. Yeah.

[00:55:55] And perhaps it is, you know, sort of a separation of the ocean type thing. Because, you know, the kind of things that you're talking about have to deal with on a daily basis. And it sucks.

[00:56:32] It sucks. He's an orc. Huh? He's not real. He's an orc. But it's the same kind of mind space. You know what I mean? Like, when every day you feel like you're running and gunning. And then you've got to come into something else. I can see... Oh, man.

[00:56:55] I can see where that might not be the lens through which they want to view the game at the moment. I'm not saying it's the only way to do it. I'm just saying I can understand. I can understand it, too. But, you know. And it won't last. It won't always be like this. And I'm sure that there is a conversation. There's got to be a conversation happening somewhere from all this feedback. Because it is fairly routine. But...

[00:57:23] And I think there's a point here from... Weren't you a previous Blizzard employee? Are you still there? I can't remember. Dovington. He was. He was. Yeah. All right. So, I mean... He's an excellent quest designer and should still be there. People that know shit more than... You know. My dumb ass is just a player. There is like... You know. This is one of the weird things about being a game journalist. And like having...

[00:57:51] Having access to people who work in the industry. You start to have like... A sort of... A different perspective on things. Like... Things like the business. The spreadsheets. The churn. The money. The real constraints on like... Delivering... Delivering things. You know. And it's easy for me to sit there and say... You know. And I put this in the article. You know. It's easy for me to talk about like... Just switch to a 10 week patch cadence.

[00:58:22] But that has real financial... That has real financial implications, right? We still... Yeah. I mean... Or a 10 week... Maybe two weeks isn't enough to make any kind of meaningful quality change. So maybe you need like... I don't know. A 16 week patch cadence. And that would have serious financial implications. People lose their shit. People might lose their jobs. You know. If there's like... World of Warcraft is an expensive product to make.

[00:58:52] But... I can't... You know. It's like... Covington says like... Linear storytelling requires ebbs and flows. They're difficult to tell in a hero fantasy theme park. People pay to log into. I think... That's kind of like one of the... One of the problems with modern retail is... A player character is like... Too powerful now. God level. I think this is... Yeah. This is why like... We talked about that. This is why like... Wow Forever is so nice. Because you just... You're just a random mercenary guy. You're just a...

[00:59:22] You're just a guy. You're not like... You're not like the advisor to kings and presidents and whatever. And like... So when you step into like the Kithix fight... You're not in the cutscene at the end of the fight. Like... It's Liadrin. It's Lothamar. It's... It's... Zul'Jara. You know... You're not in the cutscene. It ends up feeling like... Oh this wasn't my fight. You know... I prefer it when... I prefer it how it was back in the day. Where there was...

[00:59:52] There was no... There was no hero NPCs there. It was me and my guild. Yeah. And we just killed some dragon. And then we bring the head back to Stormwind. You know... Or... Or Orgrimmar. You know... It's... Oh yeah. Yeah. I think like when you... When the stakes just get exponentially... You know... Power... It's power creep isn't it? You know... Like Dragon Ball Z. Like... Like in Dragon Ball Super now... Goku's like... You know... Battling...

[01:00:20] Literal architects of reality now. I think... Is that what's going on? I mean... Yeah. Like in... In Dragon Ball... Yeah. In Dragon Ball... Like in the 1980s. He's like a little kid... And he's fighting goblins and shit... And... Or little dinosaurs. And now he's like... You know... Then he's fighting like his peers... And he's... His brothers... And... And then he's fighting like... People who can destroy entire planets. And yeah...

[01:00:49] Now he's like fighting... Literal... You know... Eternal entities... Transdimensional beings... You know... It's kind of... That's kind of like where we are now in the story. In WoW. Yeah. We've done that in WoW. Yeah. Yeah. So... Yeah. So I think like you... But some people want that. That's the thing. Is that... I think there's plenty of people who have enjoyed... Being able to have that sort of power. And you know... We've been... Depowered... Or different things have happened... And not all of us explained away...

[01:01:18] Like real... Real smooth... You know... We got... Like our... Our... You know... Our... What... Oh... What the fuck? Oh... You know... Fancy weapons in Legion... What the fuck do we call these things? God damn it. Oh, it fucks. Artifact. I kept wanting to say architect. Artifact. My brain's going... Um... You know... Yeah, we drain their power... And so we have them... You know... It's like... I think we get things like that... Or... You know... The heart of the whatever gets depowered... And that... You know...

[01:01:47] They do these things from time to time... Um... But... There is somewhat of a suspension of disbelief... I guess... When it comes to... Look at the shit we've done... And now we're... Back out in the forest... And we're... You know... Looking... You know... I'm on a beach... Getting hearts from things in the ocean... I gotta get like... Ten of them... When... The powers that I've had in the past... I should be able to... Boil this ocean with a thought... You know... But... I... I can't do that anymore... So...

[01:02:17] It does get a little awkward sometimes... Um... You know... Uh... Covington makes a point here about... Uh... Changing mains every expansion... Uh... To try to avoid that juxtaposition... From saving the world... From world-level threats... To leveling zone wildlife... Uh... Fighting zone... Uh... Wildlife in the next chapter... I... Maybe that's our problem... It doesn't have the same names... You know... A lot of... A lot of it is like... You know... It's kind of a you problem...

[01:02:46] And how you imagine some of this stuff... But... Um... I just... I don't know... I don't... I feel like... The... The hero characters should be used very rarely... Or sparingly... Personally... Um... I think like... The main character should always be the environment... And maybe... The central antagonist... You know... And then... The characters that appear in the story... Are just like... Soldiers...

[01:03:15] Or random NPCs... Which... Maybe they get killed off... Or whatever... When do we become the red boss? Maybe that's the end of the world soul saga... That's... It's us... We're the red boss... And then it's all over... And then it's just wow forever... That's it... That's all we got... Forever... Which... Speaking of... Speaking of... I do... I do want to... I do want to touch on wow forever... A little more directly... Since it is dominating... Everything... These days... And... I think it's something new...

[01:03:46] For... This show... I mean... As I've... Kind of thought about... You know... This podcast... And what it is... Or what it has been... Or what it could be... You know... This being the 11th anniversary show... And it always gives me time to kind of... Reflect on... Where we've been... Where we are... Where we're going... And... Wow forever does... Present... A unique opportunity... Because it is something... That is... It is different... And...

[01:04:14] It is... Resonating clearly... With so many people... And... A lot of changes... Um... Are being made to it... To kind of... You know... Get it through the beta process... We've got... One more episode of this show... Which will be the week... That it launches... Um... So... You know... We'll do... We'll do more of a... Wow forever deep dive... As we get into it... And I do want to... Cover... Wow forever... As it... Comes out...

[01:04:45] Admittedly... I have... Resisted playing a lot... Because... Even in the first 10 levels... That I played... I saw what it was doing... And I'm like... Oh shit... This is... I'm digging this... I'm vibing with this... In a way that I didn't... With classics... So I feel like this is going to be... Something... Um... And I saw you tweet something... Jez... Were you... Were you surprised... That they were gonna wipe... Your beta character? No... No no no... Right...

[01:05:14] Okay... The point... The point of that tweet was... Like I knew they were wiping... The beta characters... And I still put like... 100 hours into the beta... I've never done that with a beta before... That's why... That's... Insane... Like... Um... But... Yeah... WoW Forever is... Is special... You know... I'm the same way... Like with you... Where it was like... I didn't want to play classic... Because I'd been there and done it to death... You know... I've done all those expansions to death... I don't need to do them again...

[01:05:43] But this is like... It's... So... It feels genuinely new... You know... It's kind of like... It's the vibe... So crazy... Yeah... Yeah... It's the... It's the immaculate vibes of classic... But with none of the... Annoying bullshit... Like... Oh... I can't be a rep paladin... Because they're broken... You know... Or I can't be... Like... I don't know... I can't be a prop paladin in raids... Because they don't have a taunt... Like all those kind of... All those kind of things...

[01:06:12] Which I hated about classic... And still hate about classic... And the reason I won't go back to classic... Is because like... There's so much stuff in it... That he does... Just doesn't work by design... Right... And... And this is kind of like... It fixes all that... You know... And then builds on it as well... Like... I love how... It's kind of like... We want... The environment to be the main character... You know... And... There's not going to be any flying... You're not going to be able to fly over the content...

[01:06:42] You have to kind of take it slow... It forces you to take it slow... You know... Um... It forces you to get immersed... You know... Which... And I think like... As a species... We often want things that aren't good for us... You know... Um... You know... I'm 350 pounds... You know... Evidently... So it's kind of like... I know I shouldn't be eating this delicious cheeseburger... But it's like... I'm going to eat it anyway... And I think like... We lose something...

[01:07:11] With a lot of the way we behave online... Like whether it's like... Social media algorithms... Feeding us bullshit all day... Stopping us from doing something more fulfilling... Or you know... Eating badly... Or you know... And whatever... I really think there are... There are many aspects of... The way retail is designed... Which... Make the game less fun... In the long term... And I think flying... Being able to fly... Is one of those things... You don't... You don't immerse in the world... How easy the open world is... Like... I...

[01:07:40] I remember yesterday... Um... I had this juxtaposition... Where I've been playing... Wow forever... And it was like... I was... I was leveling my paladin... I was trying to do that... That quest in... Southern... Um... Silver Pine Forest... Where you have to... You have to go in a cave... And you have to get some item... And there's like... There's like... Yellow and orange level zombies in that cave... Or wizards... I can't remember... But anyway... It's like... You pull two of those... You are dead...

[01:08:09] So you have to like... Make... Have to very carefully... Try and pull them... And kill them fast enough... So they don't spawn on you again... You know... And sort of very... Gingerly make your way through this cave... Or... Or... Force yourself to be social... And make a friend... And then do it in a duo... Or something like that... You know... Whereas like... When I was playing... Um... What quest... When I was doing the... The Liadrin quest chain... One of the quests was like... Um... You know... Kill 20...

[01:08:39] Kill 20 of these snake dudes... I just... See the corruption... Tab targets... See the corruption... 20 of these mobs... And they all just instantly died... Like... You know... Like... Blowing over a pile of leaves... And it's just like... The juxtaposition... And the immersion... And the sense of like... What I'm doing actually has some kind of... Rewarding... Sense of reward at the end of it... You know... Mm-hmm... Retail just doesn't give you that anymore... Like... You... You feed...

[01:09:09] You feed... You get your tier set... For via the catalyst... You don't get anything from the bosses... Like... I... I'm doing... Heroic ratings... For ahead of the curve... I don't think I've used any of the loot... That I've gotten from killing any of the bosses... Hmm... It's all come out of the catalyst... It's all come from... Crafting... Which... You know... You get infinite gold... Just by logging on now... So... I got the... I got mythic level weapon... By doing nothing...

[01:09:37] I got full tier set... By doing nothing... You know... And... The game just hands... Hands loot to you... I remember when I was a kid... And... It took me like all summer... To get my tier 2 shoulders... Yeah... And when I got those tier 2 shoulders... Which... If I remember correctly... Dropped from Cromagus... It was like... A canon moment... In my life... You know... And now it was a different time... And maybe I wouldn't feel like that man...

[01:10:07] Yeah... Yeah... Or when I got like... I got devout shoulders from UBRS... On my priest... You know... Um... I know WoW was all new and shiny back then... So like... And there's a nostalgia factor there... At play... Sure... But... I got that feeling again... Playing WoW forever... Yeah... You know... When I did the new dungeon... In the undersea... And I had a really crappy... White... Quality shield... And then I... We did some... The person... One of the people in the dungeon was like... Oh...

[01:10:37] There's a secret boss here... You have to do this and this... And like... Do something with the statue... Mm-hmm... And... And then we did that... And then the boss spawned... And I got a blue shield... And it felt amazing... And that's just like... This shield... I'm gonna lose the shield... Because it's a beta... And... But it was just... It was just so meaningful... Like when you level in WoW... Retail... None of the greens matter... Nothing in the game matters... None of the loot matters... It's all about the transmog...

[01:11:07] Isn't it? You know... And... Transmog and housing... That seems to be the... Rule of the day... Yeah... I don't know... Um... Yeah... It'll... It'll be interesting to see... And Covington says... Sometimes quality of life improvements... Don't improve quality of experience... I mean... Monster Hunter Wilds... Is a great example of this... Like Monster Hunter Wilds... Came out this year... And they added tons of quality... Life improvements... They made a lot of it easier... But then it took all the challenge... Out of actually doing the hunt... You know... The game's called...

[01:11:36] Monster Hunter... And you no longer have to... Craft any gear... You no longer have to... Grind any mats... Or... Or get the potions... Or prepare for the hunts... I mean... For the whole game... With the same set of armor... And it was just really... Really easy... It was just like they... Because they think... People wanted quality of life... Improvements... They undermine the... Entire premise of the game... And the gameplay loop... And then... You look on Steam stats... And then... Monsanto World... Has better retention... Than Monsanto Wild... Because...

[01:12:05] They went all in on... Convenience and stuff... So... I don't know... It's um... I think Wild Forever is... Fantastic... And I think it's gonna eat... Retail's launch... I really do... And that... And that's what I was gonna say... It's gonna be interesting to see... In... Coming to him in the comment... Retail versus Forever... Like running on a treadmill... Versus going outside... And hiking through the forest... And I think... Here's the thing... There's both kinds of people... And...

[01:12:34] That's where... That's true... I... Wanna be careful about... This is kinda why I was... You know... On the rage topic... Sort of... Was... What it was... Um... Sort of... Poking fun at it in a way... Is that... Obviously... I've never designed a game... I don't know how any of this works... I... Vaguely have some understanding of it... I'm... I'm a... I'm a... You know... I'm a... Whole different area of... Of... Work... And so...

[01:13:03] I can't pretend to know anything about game design... Or... What anybody else wants... I just know... Like what works for me... And what I wanna see... And those sorts of things... And... A lot of the times... The quality of life improvements... I'm the kind of... Asshole that that stuff is good for... I'm like... Alright... Cool... That... That's fine... Cause I don't... I don't raid anymore... I don't play like I used to... And so getting easy upgrades... Like... My gear is still shit... And they hand me a lot of stuff... But like... I still have to do some things... So I'm... I'm probably part of the problem... To be quite honest... Um...

[01:13:33] But... There are going to be people... For whom... Wow Forever is the new home... And that's great... And that's awesome... And... I think... The way that things are looking... I probably will split... A fair amount of my time there... Just because... That vibe... Is... It's so fucking good... Like... I love... I love how dark it is... It's so dark at night in that game... It's so immersive... And they added the torch...

[01:14:03] Quest... It's... And it's like... Oh my god... It feels like a video game... Yeah... It's nuts... And... It's... It's unfortunate that retail... If it gets it... Is not gonna get that anytime soon... Um... But it is... It is creating a wholly different... Experience... Right? And... I will be very interested to see over time... And it's a shame that we don't get the numbers... That we used to about... Subscriptions and playtime... And where everybody is... Because it would really be interesting to see...

[01:14:33] How that breaks down... And I don't mean right away... Like... Like November... It's gonna be... Wow Forever... Everybody's playing Wow Forever... I wanna see six months down the road... When... You know... People are really into... Okay... There's no... There's no race... You know... This isn't like... Which... Mind you... When a new patch comes out... And people race... They gear up... And clear the raids... And do all of those things... You're deciding to do that... Players are deciding to do that...

[01:15:01] The game doesn't force you... On to that at all... You decide to do that... You and your team... Decide the pace... And what you wanna do... I go... It's a cultural thing... It's a community thing... I get it... I've been part of it... I've done it... But like... It's... It's a wholly... Different... Thing now... Where you're gonna have... Just the environment... And there's no... There is some writing... And there is some stuff... Right? There's nothing... But the...

[01:15:31] The community seems to have decided... That the challenge... And the pacing is different... And so... Once that's actually been... Online for a while... I'm curious to see... How many people stay with it... Because... I think we've... We've come accustomed... To this self-imposed pace... Granted there is an... Eight week patch cadence... That like... Is foisting some of this stuff... Upon us too... So there is some... External stuff here... But... I want... I would be really curious... To see how many people... Stay with it...

[01:16:00] And are just vibing... Versus like... I saw it... It was cool... But like... There wasn't... Enough for me to do... And I want to be overrun... With stuff like... Because there are those players too... That want to just... Hammer that shit out... Every patch... So... I... It's true... Like when... When I log on retail... And like... I go... I can't remember what I was doing... But I had to go to an older zone... For something... Um... And people still do like... Still do those...

[01:16:30] All... A lot of the old events... From like... Dragonflight and stuff... Like people are still grinding the rep... For some of that stuff... And grinding the rewards... And I'm just like... God... Who are these people? I don't know either... All this old stuff... You know... But it's... But it's like... You know... It's like... You know... Alien says in chat... Like... I don't envy Blizz... Trying to balance all the different player types... And... I suppose... Where Forever... And Where Retail... It's just the next permutation... Of the... The casual versus hardcore thing...

[01:16:59] I remember like... I remember when these... These arguments started emerging... Like... During... Uh... The Burning Crusade... I think... When they started adding like... Tokens... To get gear and stuff... And... And... Uh... You know... Even... Plenty of welfare epics... Through PvP... Yeah... Exactly... Welfare epics... That was the whole thing... And I remember when... I remember the uproar... When... They were like... Okay... We're not gonna give you flying up front now... You have to like... Go and explore for it... And people were like... No... I wanna...

[01:17:29] I wanna get everywhere easily... You know... And... And that kind of stuff... And... People hated it... People hated it... You know... And people were really happy... When they brought it back in Dragonflight... Where it was just like... Yeah... Like... Flying is now like... A core feature... And blah blah blah blah... But they even... They even casualized... Dragonflight... You know... Because now... Before it was on like... That token system... Where you had to like... Manage... How much energy you're dragging at... Yes... And that was just like... Oh... Just fly infinitely forever... And I... They've just...

[01:17:58] They even made that easy... You know... And now it feels like... Too easy... You can just like... Instantly go from A to B... No... Classic Dragonwriting... Bring back a server... That just says... Classic Dragonwriting... That's it... Oh yeah... You know... But... I don't know... I think like... One of my issues... With this whole thing is... And this is something I said to... Eon of Blizzcon... I said... You're gonna create... A concentration... Of those...

[01:18:26] Two different player archetypes... And you're gonna split them up... Into different... Universes... Where it's like... I wanna play retail... But now you're gonna... You've got an audience now... That is... Hyper... Hyper casual... And wants the hyper convenience... And all they wanna do... On the upper end... Is grind Mythic Plus... You know... Are we gonna see this like... A concentration of all the things... That I don't like about... Retail... Where it's like...

[01:18:55] The open world is boring and trivial... It's pointless... The open world in retail... Might as well not exist... To be honest... Why is it there? I don't know... You don't need it... For anything... You can just get all the loot... From Mythic Plus... You know... And the Catalyst... You don't have to step into the open world... For any purpose... You know... Which... You know... I think is a problem... And I was... I said to Eon... Like... The leveling experience is...

[01:19:23] Terrible in retail for new players... Is your strategy... Like... To just tell them to go and play WoW forever... You know... And he was like... No... It's... We'd never... We'd never do that... We'd never do that... But... I kind of feel like... It's gonna be inevitable... Because if you get a concentration... Of those kind of players... Who... Who maybe they just buy the token... To skip the leveling experience... Or... You know... They don't read the quest text... They just rush through... They skip all the cutscenes... They haven't even seen the Liadrin cutscene... Because they skip it immediately...

[01:19:53] You know... So... Are they gonna just... Invest even less... In the... In the parts of retail at a week... Because the people who want... That better experience... Are now gonna move over to WoW forever... And you're gonna end up with these... Extremely diverging... Versions of the game... Which diverge... So much... They become... Completely different games... To the point where like... I would never want to play retail again... You know... Or... Or someone might... Never want to play WoW forever... You know... It's...

[01:20:23] So I do... There's a lot of... And clearly WoW forever is gonna be a huge success story... Because I... You know... I've got friends who haven't played the game in 15 years... Who want to come back for it... So it's gonna be... I think it's gonna be absolutely huge... Yeah... But... At the same time... I wonder... About the negative effects it's gonna have on retail... Like... I feel it's gonna drain retail's player base... Probably gonna drain retail's resources... And...

[01:20:52] You know... It makes me wonder like... Are they just eventually just gonna abandon retail completely? Because... I don't think so... No... I don't think so... I... It's the new shiny toy... Like... I've seen so many... Again... So many... People popping out of the woodwork... And articles... And it's the flavor of the month... And you know... A lot of media outlets... That... Not like... Not like you, Jez... You're always on the case... So like... You're... You're... You know... You're one of the tried and true... But like...

[01:21:22] I see publications all over the place now... Talking about WoW forever... It's just... It is... It is the new hotness... And it will be... For at least a little bit... But again... That's why I'm saying... Six months from now... Where are we? I don't think it's gonna be like that... I... I think there will be people who make the transition... They're like... You know what? This is the vibe I want... It's... It's the perfect blend of... Old and new... And you know... This is where I wanna spend my time... And that'll be great... But I don't think it's gonna be...

[01:21:53] That catastrophic to retail... I think it will certainly siphon some people off... But there's plenty of people... I count myself in this group... Is that... While I might not be... A hardcore raider anymore... I still wanna see where the story goes... I still wanna see... You know... Good, bad, or indifferent... Like... What we're doing... And where we're going... And new lands... Or reimagined lands... I mean... Shit... I'm still super pumped about Last Tite... I don't care... Really about what happens at midnight... To an extent... Because... I'm just waiting to get back there... I almost... To be honest...

[01:22:22] I kinda feel like I'm just waiting midnight out... Just so I can get there... Because Northrend is my jam... And whether it's blown up... Or fucked up... Or there's... You know... Older Wars running wild... Or whatever's happening up there... I just wanna get to it... So I can see it... And see what's happening... Do we lose? You know... Is there a catastrophic end to midnight? And... You know... Now we're scrambling... Is it like Diablo 5... Where everything's fucked... And there's no safe place to be... And now we gotta... Start in a cave... And... Like... Hide out in a cave...

[01:22:50] Every time something goes wrong... Like... I mean... I'm... Kinda ready for March... April... Whenever this gonna... In fact... You know what? I did... I did put it in here... Uh... Let's see... Alright... So let's look it up here... Um... So... Yeah... Fucking... If we ever end up in the maug... People are gonna be... That will be the true reform... Um... But you know... We're looking at what? This is early spring... For the last Titan reveal... So that's what? March?

[01:23:21] I mean... Technically it starts in March... In the March, right? So we're looking at somewhere in the March area... And we're looking at summertime... August... You know... So... Nine... Nine... Ten more months... Maybe of this... Expansion... But it will really... You know... Just be leading up to... Last Titan... Going into there... So... Uh... Yeah... About the time that Last Titan launches... Or not the last time it launches...

[01:23:51] When the reveal happens... That's when I'd really like to see... How many people are still sticking around with WoW Forever... When that eclipse patch... Has maybe been out for a little bit... Did people come back to play 12-2? Right? Because there's always a dip... In that time... And we used to see the subscription... Numbers that would kind of bear this out... How many people came back for 12-2... To see how that patch plays out... To see how that raid is... Is it good? Right? You know... A good raid can make a difference... Even if like... Maybe the story sucks...

[01:24:21] But the raid is cool... Or it's got cool lights... Or there's some mechanics that are interesting... Like that'll bring people back... Um... You know... What... What... What... What does it look like then? Um... I hope somebody tells us... Somewhere... Or gives us a sense... But I feel like... It's so guarded now... They don't wanna... They don't wanna fuck anything up... And be like... Well... As a matter of fact... Jez was right... And... Retail... Has just taken a giant shit...

[01:24:50] And it's got like... Eight guys... And two of them are berserker... And everybody else is playing... Wow forever... And... That you know... This is... This is truly gonna be it... Cause... I think we've talked about... A little bit before... After Blizzcon... Is... Wow forever... The future? Like... After the World Soul Saga... What is the plan for retail? Like... We don't... We don't know... We know they're... They're planning more expansions... But... You know... If that swing is big enough... Does the company bail?

[01:25:20] Like... What does that look like? I mean... I... I'd be curious... I'd be really curious to see what those numbers are... And... I know that they've got metrics on metrics... And hopefully they're not using AI... To tease them apart... Fucking co-pilot and stuff... Um... But man... It'll be... It'll be really interesting... And while I'm... Well hey... Make it Jeff... How you doing buddy? Uh... While we're... While we're talking about this... I didn't... Uh... Put in the Discord... Anything about soliciting... Q&A questions... So if you've got...

[01:26:14] Uh... And we'll answer them... So throw them down... And we'll... We'll come back to them... But... Um... Yeah... I... I think we all have... Really... Uh... Really high hopes...

[01:26:45] Um... Yeah... I hope... I hope... I hope... I hope we see nothing but goodness... Yeah... So... Um... Alright... Where are we? Almost coming up on an hour and a half... So it's... My... My... Uh... My... Spinal column is telling me that it's... Uh... It's probably time to... Get towards the end of this... Uh... Ramshackle fucking live... That we did... Jez... I actually saw double digit viewers at one time... Jez... So... For the first... For the first go around... Uh...

[01:27:15] Not... Not... Not too bad... Alright... Let's see... Um... Question right out of the gate... I see... First at the bottom of this list here... From Slick... Hero or Bloodlust... This is... This is... A... Uh... This is a throwback to the interview questions we used to ask in our raid... Because this was the way that... Uh... I used to identify all the people that were truly horrid in their heart... And I'd throw them out! Because we were an Alliance raid! And so if you said anything other than Hero...

[01:27:44] You were banned from our raid... You would not... What about Time Walk? Join that team? That's for posers. Hero... Time Walk's for posers. I was... Only... So... And I... And I'm pretty sure I know the answer. Uh... For you... But uh... I assume it's Bloodlust... Bloodlust is the OG from... Warcraft 3, man... Heroism's made up... It doesn't exist... It's just bad...

[01:28:12] Bloodlust from Warcraft 3, man... Uh... Alright... Let's... Let's look see here... Uh... Allie... Uh... When you started this show... Did you see it continuing 11 years later? No, I did not... Um... This is... This is what happens when you give a stubborn person a project... Um... That occasionally... That occasionally... Provides some rewards... Uh... You know... Getting... Getting a press gig at the last BlizzCon...

[01:28:40] It's probably powered me through the rest of this World Soul Saga... If I'm being real... Um... You know... And there might be some other... Some other perks... Uh... Here and there... But uh... No... Not really... I just... I had no plan... When I did this... It was purely out of ego... Because I thought I could do it... And... Here we are... Any... Any asshole with a microphone... Can put together a podcast... That was...

[01:29:08] That was pretty much the bit... Um... Last piece... This is not a question from Covington... I'm sure the metrics are somewhere to track logins per branch of the game... But with everything on the same subscription... It's harder to compare their business success... Analytically... Trying to pinpoint reasons for subscription bumps and dips... Yeah... I... I don't... I don't envy having to pull all this stuff apart... I really don't... It's... It's... It's... Ridiculous... All right... Uh... Coming up...

[01:29:38] I think we did it... Uh... Last chance for questions... You got about 30 seconds... Uh... Before we're gonna... We're gonna hit the... Yes... Thank you Jeff... Go Sharks... You goddamn right... We're blowing it left and right... Uh... But we're... We're in the mix... That's... That's all... This is the hockey team, Jess... The San Jose Sharks... Um... Took my mom to a game last weekend... Big mistake... Big mistake... Uh... Did anyone fight? Yes... Yes... We got... Uh... We got this guy Truba...

[01:30:08] He likes to fight everybody... And I love him... He's new to the team... So him... And we got another guy... Sherwood... That just likes to... Just put guys in the boards... And just... Check the shit out of them... And it's fucking great... So... Yeah... It's good stuff... All right... All right... Uh... Oh... Last question... Is Jez having fun... Podcasting... As a different creative outlet... From writing... Oh... Yeah man... I mean... I've... I started podcasting... I got an Xbox podcast...

[01:30:37] On the side... I started that about... Eight years ago... And...

[01:31:10] I... That's what you want... That's right... It is... Thank you Ali... Thank you for that question... Uh... And thank you... Uh... Thank you to everyone... For uh... Showing up to this... This... Uh... Live show... And keeping Jez late here... So... Uh... I think we'll call it good here... Uh... For the folks that don't know... Where to find you out... Uh... On the internet... Where can they... Find you good sir? Yeah man... You can find me on Twitter... At Jez Corden... Also on Windows Central dot com...

[01:31:39] I'm also on Xbox 2 Podcast... Talking about... Xbox and Microsoft more generally... And then... Yeah... Rocking out... There you go... Alright... And uh... And my thanks to all of you... Uh... For joining this... Hope that uh... It wasn't uh... Too painful... Uh... Seeing this unedited... Without the magic of all of the... Uh... Editing tools we have here... But generally... Welcome to the live show... And uh... Appreciate everybody for showing up... And if you're uh... New to Unshackled Fury...

[01:32:08] Please consider... Uh... Following us... Uh... Here... And continuing along on... Our adventures... You can follow me... Uh... And this show on Twitter... At Berserker Rage... And Unshackled Underscore Fury... Uh... On Blue Sky... At Berserker and Unshackled Fury... As well as on YouTube... Right here... Hit the... Hit the follow... Help me out... Um... I don't know what it does... I mean... I assume it follows... And then you get notifications... But uh... You know... It's just nonsense like this... So hopefully... If you dig it... Give a follow... We're here every couple of weeks... Uh...

[01:32:38] You can also join our Discord... Links for which are on the profile of the show... On Twitter... And on our website... UnshackledFury.com... Feel free to contact the show with your questions... Comments or otherwise... Through any of those resources... Uh... Or email us at... UnshackledFuryShow... At gmail.com... And you can find this show... Wherever you get your podcasts... So once again... Remember to keep your swords wet... And your banners high... And we will see you... Next time... Farewell... I'll see you... Thank you.