In this episode, Berzerker and Jez are joined by special guest Ali to get you ready for this week's launch of World of Warcraft: Forever! The basics you need to know, the ins and outs, the VIBE, and all the rest that so many are so excited for. So pull up a chair, join the queue, and get ready to roll in the best of new old times!
[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.
[00:01:03] While retail lumbers on in the void, we are focusing our attention this week on the only Warcraft anyone's talking about. Now and forever. So welcome back for episode 188 of your Uncensored Home for World of Warcraft news and opinions on Unshackled Fury. I'm your host Berserker and with me once again is the man who could never leave WoW no matter how it treats him, Mr. Jez Corden. Welcome back again good sir.
[00:01:33] That is absolutely true. I mean, I've been getting my ass kicked by Ulitech all evening and I'm still hungry for more. Bring it on, Ulitech. You bloody snake. Stupid snake. Don't love that snake. A true man of Warcraft, if ever there was one. And for those on the video, you already know, there's not just the two of us this week.
[00:02:02] We have brought along a guest for some super-sized forever fun. Welcome back to the show, friend of the show, long-time podcaster, Ali Andrus K to you and me, but Ali around these parts. Welcome back. Thanks. Thanks. I am super excited to be back. You should be. I am. This is the only place that anyone wants to be right now. And I'd rather be here than finding Ulitech because, uh, yeah.
[00:02:32] And dodging a million poison tornadoes. Because why not throw more tornadoes in there for us to dodge? I gave all that up. It's so bad. Jez has taken one for all of us. I'm never going back to that. But, um, glad to have, uh, both of you and, uh, thanks to everybody for joining up, uh, as a, as a, a little update here.
[00:03:01] Um, I don't know how much longer this is going to keep going on. I've been having some tech issues and I had a backup plan for how I was going to record the show. And then the backup didn't work, which you're going to be surprised that it didn't work when I tell you this. So, um, you may notice from time to time, my video glitches and my audio cuts out. Um, it's cause I'm having problems with this 11 year old PC that I, there it goes. It's 11 year old PC that I have, but I keep trying to replace.
[00:03:31] But every time I get ready, something happens and prices explode and gear changes and whatever else. So I went out and I got myself the cheapest piece of shit laptop I could possibly find. And lo and behold, I had it already and everything was working and I had everything wired into this. So I was going to, I was going to have everything running off of here, but like the camera and everything's still the same.
[00:03:54] So like the, the quality would be shitty on the camera, like three 60, like as low as the camera could possibly go. Um, and then when I fired it up trying to prep for today, uh, the microphone wouldn't work. So you're stuck with the glitchy shit for at least this one more episode. And then you'll have bad quality after that. I don't know. I got to figure out what to do. I know you got another podcast with a, with a tech guy who builds computers. I need, I need his help. Something. Yeah, man.
[00:04:23] We can, we can just count code. A 50, 80. Somebody's hidden a bin. Yeah. He just gave away a Warcraft theme PC on the streaming. Well, it does the 3d printing and all the, the custom plastic stuff. That's cool. But does he take a friends and family? Discount commission. I mean, yeah, probably knock off like 50 bucks or something. All right. Robi tech.
[00:04:52] We'll, we'll be, we'll be calling. Maybe, maybe we'll have to have him on as a guest and then tell his life story. And then he'll be so enamored with our, our questions that he'll be like, all right, berserker. Let's, let's hook you up. But it's a PC. It's not as old as this show. It's a PC is as old as the show. That's pretty much right. I, I did the first couple episodes on my old rig and then I got this one. And I was like, Oh, problem solved.
[00:05:20] Cause I, I promised my wife 10 years. I would get 10 years out of this PC and have, and I feel like I've, I've lived up to my part. Now it's old, but is it as old as the chocolate, uh, that Jez keeps from promotional materials from Blizzard? I don't know. How long ago did battle for Azeroth come out? Jez 2018, apparently, apparently artificial intelligence. Yeah. Pretty close.
[00:05:50] Almost 10 years. Yeah. Eight years, eight years chocolate. I was like yesterday. It was Saturday. My girlfriend was my fiance was at work. Ah, and I was, I got up at, you know, pretty early in the morning about, you know, two in the afternoon, I suppose. Uh, that's early for me. And I thought, you know what I'm going to do with my day getting up this early? Uh, I'm going to do some tidying up and decluttering. So I've been decluttering, throwing away junk.
[00:06:18] And in the bottom, at the bottom of the shelf underneath the table, I found this dusty box with a Warcraft logo on it. I was like, what the hell's in this box? I was, I was expecting like pins or badges or something like that, you know, and I opened it up and it's just like a slab of battle for Azeroth themed chocolate. And I was like, Oh, that's, that's what that is.
[00:06:44] And it was, it was, yeah, it was sitting on top of a promotional crate for pub G player knows backgrounds. So that came out in 2018 ish as well. So I think I just put all the, all the promo stuff I got that year into the shelf. The 2018 box. Wow. Yeah. It's just, it's just full of junk. You just, apparently you just have a bunch of promotional snacks just sitting around in your, in your office.
[00:07:09] I've got, I also found, Oh, actually speaking of promotional snacks, you might like this one. Um, I got this, this is even older. This is even older. This is even older. This is cider punk, cyberpunk cider. Wow. From also 2018. That was your year. Apparently. Yeah, apparently. But at least this one is sealed. Yeah.
[00:07:39] There's something growing in it at the bottom of the bar. Oh my God. So you gave it a little shake. Does it like dissolve? Yeah, it's dissolved. I don't know. It's probably just congealed sugar. It's just protein. It's good for you. It's just protein. What was that? What was that? What was that for a promotion? It's it was for, it was promoting cyberpunk 2077. Oh, okay. Cider punk, you know, cider punk.
[00:08:09] And, um, from CD project red. Uh, and it says on the bottle, fuck the system. You deserve some apple sauce. This drink is a motherfucking riot. Every apple squeezed in this bottle has matured listening to at least six, six, six hours of Johnny silver. So if you feel like chipping in twist the cap off and drink like there's no fucking future ingredients fermented apple sugar water yeast and guts. It's warnings.
[00:08:40] It's warnings. Life short and the edges narrow. Don't overdo it. Kiddo from CD project red with the logo. Wow. Yeah. Look at that. That's so cool. Well, you know, I should, I should, I should, I wouldn't drink it. I should mention that between the three of us, you, we, we may have the best unofficial cyberpunk podcast potential here as another cyberpunk head here, uh, with Ali. So I'm wearing my samurai shirt actually.
[00:09:09] See, well, uh, before we get to, uh, all the usual nonsense, which today is all going to be while forever as, as this, this episode will come out the day before it releases. So that's all generally we're going to be talking about today, but, uh, catching up with Ali. We haven't seen you in a little bit. And I think last most people saw you, you were wrapping up the live, laugh, lore, or world of Warcraft lore podcast with episode 200 with the homie Jen.
[00:09:39] Yeah. And, uh, what have you been up to since that intervening time? Cause that was back in February. That was February, which feels like forever ago. Yeah. So it just took some time to recover from that. I keep saying I'm going to start streaming again. I have not. Maybe I will. Who says, who knows? I did start a new podcast with my friends, Seraphis and stone stone grasp. Let's see.
[00:10:04] Seraphis is known for the sundering and the creator of calm before the storm, which hasn't been around since 2019, but that was awesome. Bring it back. Lizcon is not the same without it. Let's see what the future holds. And then stone grasp did behind the avatar forever ago. And one of the creators of wild challenges back in the day. Yes. Right. But we're doing, it's called after raid monthly.
[00:10:33] So that's a good amount, but basically it's just three friends with shenanigans. Sounding like we're just talking after a raid, just, just hanging out, talking about Warcraft. I talk about lore a little bit. Stone talks about mounts a little bit. We all talk about the news a little bit and we just goof off basically. That's it. Yeah. That's any good podcast. Yeah. So yeah. So that's been a lot of fun, but I've been doing a lot of, I've hit the season really hard.
[00:11:02] Cause we lost a couple of our big hitters for raid. So I've been trying to pick up some of that slack. I've been pugging mythic plus. I have the highest mythic plus score I've ever had in my life. I guess it's 30, 40 or something like that. Nice. And pugging heroic bosses here and there as I can. Like Kithix, for example. Oh yeah. I mean, I have a raid and we are an AOTC raid, but we're not, we're not there yet.
[00:11:31] We're working on Sizarak on heroic, which is a bit of a challenge as we found out on Thursday. So I'm trying to, on my own time, pick up some of the slack so I can kind of help carrying whether I'm DPSing or healing, depending on what the raid needs. And doing a lot of delves and labyrinths. Cause labyrinths are pretty fun. Labyrinths are cool. How many, how many mythic crests do you get for a full labyrinth run?
[00:11:58] Well, full labyrinths are, cause it takes three chambers to equal one delve. So, I don't know. Cause it felt like the first week I got a ton. Cause as you go through those initial quests and stuff, you get more. And you open those extra chests in the different rooms, like the lower blocked rooms or whatever. And that gave more mythic crests. But now that that's done and you're just doing normal runs, it's basically equivalent of three delves.
[00:12:26] And I think like five or 10 more at the end, we beat what's his face at the end. I'm gonna, I need to roll up on some of them. I got like a bunch of, I got a bunch of pieces that need upgrades, man. It's bad. Pretty bad. But yeah, we're, we're also ahead of the curve and we are smashing our faces against Ula Tech right now. I'm scared of our Gafar breaking to that point.
[00:12:52] Oh man, we got, we, we got the, we're in the last phase now. Got the heart down to like 4% or something. Nice. And then, then Ula Tech in rages and just laser beams everyone. So it's like, it's just like, oh God. Goddamn. Like the way they do modern raids is so, it's so weird. It's like most of, most of the bosses are just like, you know, pretty simple mechanically. But just like require gear. Yeah.
[00:13:21] And then like the last two bosses of the raids recently are just like, there's such a stress check. Yeah. It's like, how, how much, how much cognition, how many brain cells do you need me to have, Blizzard? There's little room for error. Like there's like, you can't be human. Like there's no room for human error. Cause like, I know at least on Sizerak, I know on Coilflame Altar too, like it's going to be the same thing. And I know when we get to Ula Tech, like you can't mess up.
[00:13:47] If you're tired, you're going to mess up this one thing or you're in a clipper tornado or you're going to like whatever. And, and it's instigate, but like you're dead. Like it just, no error. Not allowed. Yeah. Which is a lot for heroic. Like mythic I get, but heroic, I feel like it's been a little over tuned still. It's a bloody way. You think you've got all the, all the, all the tactics down and then it's like, oh, and here's a wave coming at you from behind the camera that you can't see. Yeah. Thanks man.
[00:14:18] A green wave. A green wave that looks the same as green fire. So I can't even see it if I wanted to. It's a green pool surrounding it. It's just, it's another raid where like, it's just too much green. Like back in Legion, by the end of Legion, everyone was really tired of green. Yes. I am once again, really tired of green. Yeah. I'm tired of green. Keep all that. Keep all that. Well, uh, glad to have you all here, both of you in one piece.
[00:14:47] And, uh, and maybe I've got something, maybe I've got something that'll help you, uh, power through, uh, for the metal album of the week. And I, I have, I think, I think I've found the, the, the sweet spot where I've, I've found an album that I think is going to check off a lot of boxes here. Um, so let's see what we've got here. This is from, this is from August 17th of 2018.
[00:15:14] This one came out and it is by the, the queen of metal herself, Doro. And it is called, let's see if I can pull this up here. There it is. There it is. There it is. Yep. There it is. There we are. Forever warriors forever united. Ooh, not only awesome. Is it warriors? Not only is it forever.
[00:15:40] If this is a German woman who is like the all time metal bad-ass. So we've got the Germany representation. We got the female representation. We got the warrior representation and forever on a banner. So there it is. I've, I have, I have found something that represents it. And there's a wolf. And there's a wolf. Yes. And it looks like a bit of a pirate flag there.
[00:16:04] So, uh, so those that don't know Doro and you should, because she's, she's been around. Uh, she's, she's, I think she's in her sixties now. Um, she's been in the metal scene for a super long time. She still sounds fucking amazing. And if anything, the thing I liked about this album the most was the first song right out of the gate is called all for metal.
[00:16:28] And there's like all of these metal artists who are doing background vocals on this thing. Um, you've got, uh, the, the album itself is dedicated to let me kill Meister, uh, of motorhead. So folks should know who that is. Um, but you've got Johan Hegg from, uh, Amona Marth. You've got Sabaton. You've got, uh, Chuck Billy, uh, who's been around in the thrash metal scene forever. There's like all of these artists that are just doing random background vocals.
[00:16:58] Um, but it, it is just solid metal all the way through, you know, it's, it's jazz is probably still a little too happy for you. Uh, but it is, it is just pretty ripping tunes all the way through. It's a, it's a double album. So if you listen to it all the way through, it's like 25 tracks. Um, and it's just good. It's just good hype music.
[00:17:20] So I needed to, I needed to find something that, uh, I thought, I thought folks would, would enjoy as we launch into wow forever. And so, so here you go. So if you haven't heard of Doro, check out, check out the queen of metal. Well, she's, um, she's pretty bad-ass and she seems like a cool person and, uh, there's been a lot of bands and there you go. It's part of your metal education. So I wrote it down.
[00:17:50] I'm going to listen to it this week. Okay. I probably won't, but congratulations. I'm going to keep trying jazz. One of these days, one of these days, I'll get one that you might've known, but for the rest of you, uh, forever warriors, forever united by, uh, the queen of metal Doro. So get out there and check it out. And now let's see. Yep. There we did it. Yep. It went back. All right. There we go.
[00:18:16] Uh, I got a very topical as always rage, uh, uh, uh, uh, portion here that, um, this, uh, piece of shit laptop that I have, uh, plays a role. So let's go. Let's rage. So Tuesday, this episode comes out on a Monday. So tomorrow, theoretically, while forever comes out, we'll get more of that later.
[00:18:47] Uh, everybody very excited about this coming out. And in the lead up, we had a very important event tied to this. That, uh, globally, not everybody. Uh, I don't know what the participation was. It sounds like there might've been some hijinks, but if you pre-purchased special version of wow forever, you were able to get in and reserve up to three names of your choosing.
[00:19:17] Uh, starting at, I believe it was one, 1 PM West coast time, Pacific time. And I was not home last week. I was up in the mountains. I was on my yearly vision quest alone by the lake when nobody's around. Although there were actually too many people around doing construction.
[00:19:42] And so it was actually very noising and it was a poorly chosen week on my part of that, but that is not what this is about. But I needed something. And so, yay, piece of shit. Laptop. Huzzah. I brought it with me so I could, I could, you know, get up there and get my names reserved. I had a list, right? You know, I think most people had an idea of what they wanted to do. And I was able to run it on this piece of shit.
[00:20:09] I don't know if I can actually play it, but I could at least fire it up. That was impressive. Get, get to something. So, right. Everything's turned down, right? So we got to get there. What do we do? We start loading it up. And we're waiting. Block's getting closer. Getting closer. Getting closer. One o'clock rolls around. What happens? Disconnect. Furiously. Logging back in. Connecting. Disconnect.
[00:20:37] And for 40 fucking minutes, it was on the wheel of doom. Connecting. Disconnecting. Connecting. Disconnecting. I was in every Discord server I knew. Everybody's seeing the same shit. But then some people are getting in. And other people aren't getting in. And it was just total luck and random luck of the draw. And I have to ask, how can you charge me money? Good, hard-earned, theoretically, money.
[00:21:05] And then say, hey, you got to log in at this time if you want to get your thing. And then you can't even let me log in. That just seems wrong. And I am shocked, appalled, and surprised that this very popular thing was not easy breezy cover girl as soon as I tried to log into it at the time that it was most crucial.
[00:21:32] Jez, Ali, I know you felt that pain. Jez, I'm not even sure you could log in. And I think Oceanic Realms or somebody got cut off. I wasn't even sure. But did you also feel the pain of getting swindled, hornswoggled by this name, check, early reservation, disconnect, god of doom? Nope. Because it was flawlessly executed in Europe. Son of a bitch.
[00:21:59] And once again, proving without a shadow of doubt that Europe is superior to America. But, you know, yeah, I had no issues. I locked in, made more characters. Son of a bitch. And we walked out of there, baby. Son of a bitch. I had no issues. I think, I don't know if it was because I did mine at the crack of dawn, maybe. So, I was still awake and I was like, oh yeah, you can name reserve now.
[00:22:27] Oh yeah, I'm just going to casually log in, get it done. No problem. It went live for Europe at like one in the morning. Oh my god. So, I think there was just nobody online to overwhelm the server. That makes sense. Yeah, so people had to go to work and stuff. So, maybe that's why. But yeah, no issues. Reserve three names. Two on RP PVP and one on RP in case I get salty about PVP.
[00:22:56] And yeah, rocking and running. All undead. I'm glad we saved you all those decades ago in those wars of the past. So, you could get these early access, no problem situations. Allie, I know you felt my pain. I know. I saw you in one of these discords being like, hey, what's going on? And people were like, I don't know. It was painful. Painful.
[00:23:22] And, you know, like I was still working and I had to work one side and that and the other side. And it was so painful. And then it would act like it was going to get on and then it would disconnect you again. And then it would get me in finally at like after 40 minutes trying, create my character. And then it would say, oh, you can't on this server. Like I chose like the normal reset. I was like, no, you can't do that. I'm like, okay.
[00:23:52] So, then I have some friends who are going to play on RP PVP. So, I wanted to create at least one character over there. So, I'm like, okay, fine. She's going to go over there. That's fine. Just give me my damn name. So, I got her created. Went to go create another one. Again, like it just was so specific on like I can only in the end do all three on RP PVP. Because all the other ones were closed or something. Oh. And then even then like there was people who. Yeah, they were throttled.
[00:24:19] And then there were people who like it was throttling like how many Skyhiles were being created. And it was throttling like Horde versus Alliance. Because if we had too many on like PVP or whatever, like well, let's do that. And it's just considering that everyone's saying their name now. Like I don't understand all the throttling just to save a damn name. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. The whole system is terrible. Burn it down. Yeah. Cancel the game.
[00:24:48] I mean, I appreciate them trying to keep the populations balanced. Because I presently play on... And that is needed. Yeah. I plan to say that's like 80% Alliance. So, PVP is basically a no-go. Since they added that war mode stuff. That's the only way we win. Yeah. I don't know. But like all the hardcore Horde PVPers go to PVP servers. And all the hardcore RPers want an RP Alliance.
[00:25:17] Because they've got no imagination and only want to play human or elves. So, you know, it's... Guilty. So, yeah. So, we end up in this horribly imbalanced faction. And, yeah. So, I appreciate them trying to balance the faction. Especially on the RP PVP server. Because otherwise, it just wouldn't be fun. You know. But, yeah. I can appreciate that it's probably frustrating if you're trying to register a specific name. Like Berserker, for example. Right.
[00:25:48] Yeah. That's right. What did you call your name? Berserker. Yeah. Right. Seriously? There could be only one. Yeah. Yeah. What, really? Just Berserker? Yeah. That is what he did. Okay. All warriors, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are you going to play on RP? We'll get to my name. We'll get to my name. We'll get there. All my creativity of my human warrior. You know. On the lion's side.
[00:26:19] Yes. There you go. That was my lament of smashing, nearly smashing my $200 laptop into the lake. Because I couldn't reserve my name and I was very upset. But, turns out I got what I wanted anyway. So, maybe I shouldn't be that upset. As it turns out after all. So, alright. Let's talk about WoW forever. Let's get to the news. Let's get to all the good stuff. And, uh, get you ready for day one and beyond.
[00:26:52] Sang along with it that time. That was beautiful. One of these days I'll change. Yeah. That's free will. I just thought, you know what? I'm going to sing along to this. And there's nothing you can do stopping me. Oh. Nah. I can just edit it out after the fact. But why would I do that? That's no fun. That's not fun at all. Why it's... You're singing on back-to-back episodes. I can't let go of that. So, yes. This week, at long last... Wow, forever.
[00:27:21] Just recently announced at BlizzCon. It hasn't even... It's known existence hasn't even been around that long. Uh, when, Jez, you and I were sitting next to each other listening to the, uh, opening ceremony panel. And there it was. And Holly was all excited and dressed to the nines. And wow, forever. Here we go. And lo and behold, November 4th. And I think that was a lot sooner than a lot of us thought it was going to be. Um, but there we were.
[00:27:49] So, for all of you playing at home, uh, here are your global release times. Uh, because they do try to, you know, get us all barely on the same foot here. Um, LA. So, West Coast time, 3 p.m. We get the, I think, choice early afternoon-ish time. So, it's not in the middle of the night. Like, oh, it looks like Europe's at 12 a.m. Um, but Jez, I know you're awake. So, it's all right.
[00:28:19] Uh, that's true. But it is, it is, it is spread across, you know. It is spread across, uh, as you'd expect, the globe. Um, I... Don't recommend anybody plan on that day being, like, smooth and easy. And if the name reservation is any indication. Like, I, I see all these people. I'm going to take the day off. Don't take that day off.
[00:28:49] Don't, don't take that day. Don't take Tuesday off. And then, I don't know if Blizzard wants me to say this or not. I mean, I don't really care. But, like, I don't, I would not take that day off. Now, Jez, you're, you're going to take some time off. I am. I'm taking two days off. But it's later in the week. Yes. But it's also, it's launching at midnight for me. So, there probably won't be that many people on. You know. I mean, there will be people on. But not enough to blow up the servers. Yeah.
[00:29:20] But the thing is, it's weird. It's weird for me. Because I'm going, I'm going to America on Sunday next week. So, I need to have a normal sleep cycle, potentially. So, it kind of, it's kind of complicated things, I suppose. Normal is just sitting on the washer. That's all normal is. Yeah. That's true. I don't know. Let's see what happens.
[00:29:50] We'll figure it out. So, if you're planning on taking some time off, I might give it a day or two. Like Jez. You know, if you're lucky enough to work from home most of the week, like myself, there's probably going to be some extended lunch breaks, potentially. But, you know, we'll see how this rolls out. Allie, any opening day plans for you? Are you also taking the veteran track of waiting? I'm waiting.
[00:30:19] I, so that comes out on, wait, the fourth is Wednesday, right? It's Tuesday. Tuesday. Oh my goodness. I'm off my day. So, yeah. So, Tuesday. So, I'll still be working. No, it's Wednesday. Wednesday's the fourth. Wednesday's the fourth. Oh, it is Wednesday. I'm so used to patches being. True. True. So, yeah. So, I'll still be working when it drops. And then after work, I've got some time with the family and stuff. Take care of the dogs. And then I have a quick dinner before I raid.
[00:30:48] And that's raid night. So, between raid and knowing that it's probably going to be a hot mess. I have Friday off because I work four tens. So, I'll probably play some on Friday. I'll let them get through all their stuff. I might play a little bit after raid if things are going smoothly. But Friday. Yeah, I think the homie Ramo and I for our weekly Thursday night dates. That's leveling together like the old days. Yeah. That sounds like a pretty good plan.
[00:31:18] So, that'll probably be Thursday. So, I might also wait a day because it's Wednesday, not Tuesday. I'm sorry. But as I think the three of us know, there's a lot of fervor around Wild Forever. Like, this isn't just like a regular thing. There's been a lot of, like, it's the new hotness. And you've seen not just the great articles on Windows Central by Jess Gordon and crew. You've also seen a lot of press coverage elsewhere.
[00:31:48] And I thought one of the interesting things that was put out recently was we got to see this. A bunch of beta numbers. Because it does turn out it was pretty popular with almost 9 million beta characters created. That's a lot of damn characters. Yep. And a lot of people checked out the new Skyborne. Almost 2 million made.
[00:32:19] Forsaken Paladins. I honestly thought that percentage of that number was going to be higher. I did too. I expected that to be at least equal to Skyborne. But 612,096 Forsaken Paladins to 1.9 million Skyborne, essentially. A kobold miner being the deadliest creature. I don't doubt that at all because that's the thing that killed me the most when I was trying to get down into Fargo Deep. And I had to pair up with people I didn't know.
[00:32:48] And it was super scary. And it was like the old times where I had to pair up with random folks. And I was like, man, that's what this is all about. I forgot. 1.1 million falling deaths. That's fantastic. Almost 10 million PvP kills. So PvP alive and well over there in a WoW forever beta. That's great. And not surprisingly, zoned with the most PvP. Hillsbred foothills.
[00:33:15] And 1.2 million duels fought. So the beta was very successful by all measure that I know of and can think of. And just the amount of excitement that has been generated during this period. You know, you hear things at BlizzCon. There's a big announcement like, oh, all that rush of energy. But it's really continued on.
[00:33:42] And Jez, I want to ask you about this as the man in the crux of the media. It's not just my imagination, right? Like, this is really the new hotness. And considering that you've got like GTA 6, this mythical beast slumbering out here in the distance. That's also supposed to be coming out here before too long. I thought WoW forever had a pretty good showing and has generated a lot of excitement during this beta period.
[00:34:11] Yeah, I don't think Microsoft really realized what they had on their hands until this beta went up. Because even like Satya Nadella, the Microsoft CEO, he talked about it to shareholders. He never talks about Xbox or gaming to shareholders. Because frankly, they don't give a shit about it. All they care about is business, business, business, AI, office, that kind of stuff, right? They don't even care about Windows anymore. They only care about Azure and Cloud and AI bullshit.
[00:34:41] But yeah, they specifically announced as like some of their, you know, top level things to our list was Call of Duty reviewed well, you know, which is like, who cares? You know, and the other one was it was the biggest beta in World of Warcraft history. So, you know, biggest beta in WoW history means it was a bigger beta than, you know, Wrath or some of these other things.
[00:35:07] And I like back then that they didn't really have like fully open betas like they did this time. And this was kind of like a paid beta. Like you were getting something out of it. You know, you're getting, yeah, you're getting Skyborne access. And, you know, it also closed out BlizzCon and then the beta went live pretty much immediately. So it was very, it was a very well executed hype cycle, I think, which probably had a material impact over like the beta for Wrath or something like that. Back when WoW was like super big.
[00:35:35] But, you know, it's all positive stuff, right? And I suppose Microsoft would have been like pretty worried about the way this quote was going to play out. Because Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 seems to have been reviewed well. And it seems like it's a good game. Like it got like really good writings for its story, which Call of Duty often doesn't get.
[00:36:00] But it's also like people, I think with Call of Duty launching into Gameplay last year, I think that disrupted Call of Duty's business model quite a lot. And Microsoft was probably freaking out that like Call of Duty this year was going to have a bit of a soft launch again. And it does seem like Call of Duty has had a soft launch. And there's like, you know, there's a lot of people who want to play GTA instead. So they're saving their money for that, right?
[00:36:26] But WoW forever is obviously it's a subscription based game, but it's also it's also cheaper. You know, it's not like it's not like, you know, it's it's not like it's a full price game. It comes with the sub, right? So I suppose like it could end up being a case where this ends up saving Microsoft's quarter. And it does seem like there's a lot of hype behind it. Like I've noticed that mainstream press are covering it.
[00:36:54] But oftentimes I feel like the press ignore World of Warcraft almost like completely. But they've been like, you know, our sister sites like PC Gaming, for example, they've been posting about WoW forever nonstop. I don't know because they do a lot of they do a lot of analysis on they do a lot of analysis on the traffic and like what's actually worth posting. So like if those guys are posting about it, that must mean it's got enough hype to justify spending on it.
[00:37:23] Like we we don't do that kind of analysis. We just post whatever we feel like, you know, not nowhere near as professional as those guys. But those guys have like clearly decided it's got enough hype to justify the expenditure. So, yeah, I'd say it's looking pretty high, man. But we'll see what happens, I suppose. We know the Jez spent quite a bit of time in the beta. Ali, how much time did you spend in the beta? I spent some. It was more of a I call it more of a dabble. Like I rolled up.
[00:37:52] So my OG team when I started in BC was my dwarf rogue, my namesake, Ali Andres. So, of course, I had rolled up a dwarf rogue and tooled around Ironforge, which was great. And then I rolled a night elf to play with a friend, which was pretty cool. But none of them got, I think one of them got to 10, one of them got to 8. And that's about it. Like I wanted to say most of the experience, especially the new race, new dungeons or when it actually comes alive.
[00:38:20] I wanted to do more, but I was a little busy. So I didn't. And having said that, seeing that Hall of Thanes is the deadliest dungeon and that was the dungeon I wanted to do the most makes me wonder what's going on in there. So I'm excited to try that hopefully soon, next couple weeks here. I didn't try that one. That's the only one I didn't try. It looks good.
[00:38:47] I also once I got a feel for it, I was like, oh, no. Oh, no. I'm in trouble. Oh, I better. I better wait because and it's and this is how it is to go back to over here. You didn't have me tanking for you. What's that? You didn't have me tanking for you. That's the problem.
[00:39:12] Well, you don't apply prop. I might. Oh, really? I have in the past. You know what I want is gladiator stance, but that's another conversation. It was it was when I was running around, just running around the north end of Elwyn and it was just mining some fucking copper node. And it was. You know, there's all these memories that are like locked in your brain, like way deep in there somewhere.
[00:39:42] And you never know about them until something accesses them and hits that nostalgia bump or whatever it is. And it was just being up there and it was the music and it was the just the visual of it and just the sounds and a whole thing. It's just it all came together and it reemerged something from my brain. And I was like, oh, I remember this from way back. Oh, shit. This is this is why how I lost weekends and months and years. Oh, I think I'm going to wait. I think I'm going to wait.
[00:40:10] So, yeah, I didn't get a lot into it. But I guess it brings us to what are we getting into? Right. What is what is Wow Forever? You know, for those of us that are immersed in this stuff all the time, you know, it almost becomes like a second language. But, you know, for folks coming in, I imagine there's a lot of people searching like Wow Forever. And what is this? And so, like, maybe this is your first time even seeing this podcast because you want to hear about what the fuck is Wow Forever? And why are so many people excited about it? And what is it?
[00:40:39] So and then you all are here to correct me if I'm wrong. So Wow Forever is essentially a version of World of Warcraft that takes place during what they're considering like Wow Year One. And so you're rewinding the clock to before all the expansions, before a bunch of extra stuff other than some things that they've added. Like a lot of the additional things beyond the vanilla days that we know, like all of that, it's thrown out the window.
[00:41:07] But it's not just classic in that sense where it's like, OK, we just go back to baseline. There's all these other enhancements that they've made to it. And so it's it's this sort of classic experience, but with a modern lens sort of cast on it. And some of the intangible stuff I want to get to a little bit later. But basic nuts and bolts, right? It's back to a one through 60 leveling experience. It's, you know, the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. It's the old kind of maps as we know them.
[00:41:37] But with some additional zones, we've got, I believe, four in Mount Hyjal, which was something that you kind of had to find your way into in the old days. You weren't supposed to be in there. And technically there was a spot on the map. But now you've got full Mount Hyjal following the events of Warcraft 3. So you've got Archimonde's skeleton still sitting back there. I love that little nod there. That's awesome. You've got Sendralos. You've got the Riverglades and Zephyrus Isle.
[00:42:06] So these are your new additions that they've made. And I had a description. Yeah, OK. OK, so let's see. Mount Hyjal. Advice you to explore the aftermath of Archimonde's defeat. Journey through Dark Whisper Gorge. Help shape the future of a recovering land.
[00:42:25] In Sendralos, a long hidden mystery between Molgor and Desolus becomes a new adventure tied to that Sendralar, Eldrathalas, Dairamal, and the centaur tribes of the region. That's good because they needed some more stuff. In the Riverglades, you'll discover a rugged frontier of rivers, grasslands, trade routes, struggling communities, and old grudges with more than 150 new quests across much of the mid-30s to mid-40s experience.
[00:42:51] And then Zephyrus Isle, which is the new starting area for the new race that we're getting, the Skyborn. Skyborn Elves, which I know Jez was excited about a neutral race and that neutral race being elves added in. But we are getting a new race. Did either of you try the new race out on the beta? I did.
[00:43:17] I played with a lot of different people and a bunch of my friends were like, I'm going to play Skyborn. And some of these people haven't played WoW in over 20 years, but they're coming back for this. And a lot of them are like, I'm going to be an elf. I paid for this, I'm going to be an elf. I think that's partially contributing to skewing the numbers. If you feel like you're paying for the elf, then you're probably going to want to play it, right?
[00:43:41] But there's also that modern sort of thing where it's like, oh, I only want to play pretty races and stuff. I think that's part of the reason why Undead doesn't do so hot these days or the Horde in general. But yeah, I was trying to get my fiancee into the game and she was like, I will only play Skyborn. So I was like, okie dokie then, let's try the Skyborn out. I knew I liked it even though we've never met.
[00:44:12] My whole thing with it was like, it felt quite retail-y, I kind of feel like. It was very sort of, I don't know. It was sort of, it didn't really fit the understated kind of tones of some of the classic zones. Like the end boss of Tyrannus for Glades is like, it's like a big spot. No, it's a little abomination, I think now. And like the end boss of Elwyn is Hogger or something.
[00:44:39] But this is like an epic sort of god level end boss at the end of the Skyborn thing. And a lot of people, myself included, I kind of felt like this is kind of like a little bit more like what happens in retail. Like in retail when you do the Goblin Star Zone and it ends with Deathwing blowing up the whole island. Right. That's a little bit different than finding some people to kill Hogger with, right? A little bit.
[00:45:08] So, yeah, it didn't really match the tone for me. And that's not just my elf, anti-elf kind of bias there. It was kind of like, they still, it makes me wonder like, are they still using the retail mindset of like, oh, the player's got to be a hero and the player's got to have a power fantasy. And it's just like, that's not what I want out of this. I want to feel like a nobody who's struggling to overcome the odds. Kind of like how I feel playing a Dark Souls or an Elden Ring.
[00:45:36] And I'm sick of, I'm sick, I'm really tired of this power fantasy thing that the industry kind of foists on us these days. And I don't know if it's like, this is what they're trying to do to target Gen Z or even younger gamers now. Because Gen Z is getting old, man. Like Gen Z is like, Gen Z is pushing 30 now, man. If not 30 already, you know, they're not, they're not young whippersnappers anymore. But like, even like people younger than that, you know,
[00:46:03] do people younger than that want to have a super power fantasy? And I was sitting there like, did I want that when I was, when I was a young whippersnapper in Molk or? I don't think I did. It's different times. It's different times. But yeah, I don't know. We'll see. It's probably like overanalyzing it for the sake of it. But how did you guys feel about the scoreboard if you tried it out? I didn't. Yeah. I wanted to. I was going to save myself for beta. And then towards the end of beta, a friend told me like a little bit about this story.
[00:46:32] And I'm like, oh, now I regret everything. And I kind of wish I had played that. And then beta was over. So nothing for me. I am. My, my issue with them is like, that could have, I saw there was a, I don't know if you've got it there, but there was a viral tweet where someone on Reddit made an alternative model for the skyborne where it was, it was basically like a stretched out. So yeah. It was like a stretched out. Yeah.
[00:47:01] It was like a stretched out skinny sort of halfway between night elf and blood elf. And it, it looked like it still followed the blood elf model, but it was like stretched out and gave it its own unique silhouette, which I felt was far more inventive than what they just came up with, which was like, oh, here's more elves, you know? And I actually interviewed the dev team about this. And I was like, why are we getting more elves guys?
[00:47:30] And they were like, oh, the blood elf model is really popular. And I'm just kind of sitting there like, is it though? Or is it just because there's nothing else like it? Couldn't they have come up with something new? Like, I don't know. I'm sick. I'm sick of blood out the blood elf model, man. I hate the void elves. I think that law is lame and terrible and contrived. And now they've done it again with the Skyborne. But apparently it's money, man. It makes money. So whatever.
[00:48:00] What do I know? Don't worry. Don't worry. Your ogres will come. Yeah, but it's going to be a monkey poor thing. I want ogres in retail and they're going to put them in WoW forever. And they're going to be like, oh, here's your ogres. You wanted them, right? Here they are in WoW forever rather than retail. So I'm going to end up being annoyed about it again. Oh, well. Well, we'll cross that bridge. My steak's too juicy. My steak's too juicy and your lobster's too buttery. I know.
[00:48:32] Someone's got to deal with it and it might as well be you. Beyond our character selection, just sort of race kind of things that we've got. And there are new race class combinations. The undead paladin, right, has been, I think, the one that's gotten the most press, as we mentioned a little bit earlier in the beta statistics. You know, there are a variety of decisions that we have to make generally in Warcraft about what character we play and, you know, what do they look like and this and that.
[00:49:01] But a couple of things that WoW forever is introducing us to, I think, in a more expanded sense is, one, the experience preset where there's going to be a classic and an enhanced where it'll have things like the classic experience is the standard definition character models. You know, you'll have all your bags separate. There's no transmog.
[00:49:30] The UI layout is different. Or the enhanced version, which is, I think, that modern lens on the, you know, old school WoW, which is, you know, higher definition models. The one bag will be in use. Transmog is something that you can do. You know, there's, I think, a few other things right off the bat.
[00:49:49] But I think it's an interesting gamble for them to take to let you have that sort of customized experience within the same thing because it feels like with classic, with retail, you know, there's some customization you can have. But there's a viewpoint that they want you to have when playing, like, that specific version of the game. But now you're going to have people that are going to have kind of two different experiences with the same material.
[00:50:16] I know I'm going with the enhanced version because I like some of the modern amenities on the old school stuff. So I know that's the way that I've been going. Just doing that in the beta, even for the first 10 levels that I did it, I thought it was fantastic. Everything looked great, felt great. And it still triggered that nostalgia bump in my brain. Which one are you going with, Allie? Definitely the enhanced. Like, there's a couple. So I'm weird.
[00:50:46] I don't like the one bag. I like having all my separate bags for just organization's sake. I have way too much shit in them. But at least I can keep my shit organized with a different bag. Everybody's ADHD strikes differently. It's weird. It's really weird. But other than that, other than that, I'm really excited about enhanced. It looked prettier. Like, if I wanted the standard definition, then I could go play other classic games. Like, whatever. Like, it just... It looks prettier. It looks nicer. Runs smoother. At least in my brain.
[00:51:16] So definitely enhanced. What about you, Jez? No, I'm the same boat. I'm going enhanced. Like, the undead models look way better, you know? They do. That's true, yeah. But it's the best of both worlds for me. Because I feel like the classic animations are better. Because I don't know what they... They did something to undead animations when they added all the warlock. You know, the unique classic... The unique class-based animations. They did something...
[00:51:45] They changed something really subtle about the way undead cast. And I've never liked it. I didn't like... I disliked it so much, I went goblin for, like, several years. But now in, like, War Forever, you can have the best of both worlds. It's like the classic, simple, but cool-looking casting animations. But with the new faces and hairstyles and... I can't let go of Transmog, man. You know, I really like that old school... Yeah. It is fun.
[00:52:14] I like that old school feel of WoW where the story's sort of understated and... You know, the story's understated and we're not superheroes. We're just soldiers or mercenaries or whatever. But Transmog is life, baby. And I just... It's colour coordination for me, man. Like, the whole... I remember... Did you guys play Battle... The Burning Crusade? Yes.
[00:52:44] The clown suits. Clown suits, baby. Dude, like... The Burning Crusade was so bad for, like... When you come out of Hellfire Peninsula looking, like, multicolored, like, raincoat... Green and purple and... I've got some great screenshots from those. Yeah, man. That was rough. That was rough. But I was just like... I was so glad to leave that behind. And at least in...
[00:53:11] But I think it was Wrath of Lich King where they started adding the sort of... The sort of colour coordinated levelling sets. When they started adding those. It was like, okay, everything's... Viking-y. And at least it's somewhat coordinated. But yeah, I can't let go of Transmog, personally. No chance. Never. Never. And so along with... Right? Our experience preset. We also have our rule set that you have to pick. And we both... You know, we've all touched on it here a little bit.
[00:53:40] PVE is just called normal. Which... Alright. That's fine with me. PVP. Roleplaying. And roleplaying PVP if you want. I mean... I won't do it. But I admit... I do think that RP PVP is like the... That's the most hardcore... Like, you want to get back to what is... Like, D&D. What is the soul of, like, where this all comes from? It is... Anything can attack you at any time. And you are who you are. Like, that is... It takes a lot of guts. I think to do that.
[00:54:11] I like... I had the best experiences in WoW on RP PVP. Back in Wrath of Lich King. Like, we... We roleplayed the entire story. Walking on foot. In a huge horde, like, group. There was a guy, like, a sub-commander. Like, the orcs... The guild was called Orcs of the Red Blade. And they were like... We're sort of like the sub-command underneath Garrosh. And we did, like, this whole campaign.
[00:54:37] RP walking from Hailing Fjord all across the Dragon Blight. Wow. And people freezing to death. And, you know, doing all this RP. It was the best time I've been having that game. It was just so fun. There you go. So, it's gonna be cool to go back to that. Because War Mode just destroyed all that stuff, man. It just destroyed it all. I never touch any of it. So, I'll have to take your word for it. But in terms of, like, the player experience, right?
[00:55:04] You've already talked about it, Ali, in terms of the namesaving. But they're... I don't know if it's overly aggressive or if it's balanced. But the balance that they are striking for factional balance, right? They don't want to have too much of one thing in any one spot. So, they were throttling character creation in certain ways.
[00:55:28] Do you think that that's gonna cure some of the ills that befell a lot of servers of old? Where you just got way out of whack and then never recovered? I think there is a chance. Since it's not the servers of old. It's these different rule sets, right? So, I think that gives them more ability to control that and throttle that. And I think it's a possibility.
[00:55:58] I think you're gonna have a lot of people who are upset by it. Especially, you know, if you start hitting the... Horde versus Alliance and not enough on one side. And you have to roll up on PvP instead of RP PvP. Like, I think there's gonna be some people upset about that. But I think for the health of the... Can't call them servers anymore. Rule set. Whatever. I think it's a possibility. I think this is probably their best chance to do that.
[00:56:26] Because it's just the one world, right? I know there's shards and, like, people get phased and whatever this thing is. That's true. But there's no... There's no servers with this. It's just... Right. You're on the normal... Rule set. There's still regions. Regions. That's... Unfortunately. They're still a thing. But, yeah. But that's the extent of it, right? Yeah. So everybody's theoretically in the same space, give or take, of a region. Which... That seems to have been...
[00:56:54] And, Jez, I think you've even talked about this in some of your articles. Like, that seems to be one of the most hailed aspects of this entire project. Is that sense of oneness. Like, within the player base. Am I right on that? Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. Like, it's... It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out. Because the vibes might not be the same as they were in beta.
[00:57:20] But, like, I had, like, some really cool interactions in the beta. When, like, you know, with the camping system. And people were just, you know, hanging out. And you drop a camp down. You have to sit there for a minute and relax for a second. And just, like, if you want to get the buffs, you have to, like, take a little break. You know? Which is... I think it was a really cool little trick to force people to sit there and talk for a sec. And people were doing it. You know?
[00:57:46] I was sitting down and chilling with some Australian dude who was talking about, you know, his boss or something like that. You know? It was just a really cool experience. But, you know, that might not be what the vibes are, you know, when people get sick of it, you know? It's kind of like... When things are new and shiny, people behave differently towards them.
[00:58:09] And I suppose, like, one of the key things about the nostalgia of WoW in general is that it sort of harkens back to a time when... Before social media existed, people just behave differently on the internet now. You know? Like, I... Yeah. I mean, to say the least, right? But, I mean, just, like... Just in WoW. Like, back in the day in WoW. Like, I'm talking, like, probably up to Burning Crusade.
[00:58:38] It's really when they added the dungeon automatic matchmaking stuff. In Burning Crusade, if you wanted to do, like... I don't know. What was that? What was that? Was it Man of Tombs? It wasn't Man of Tombs. It was Shadow Labyrinth. I think it was called. Was that... Yeah. Get on Shadow Labs. Yeah. Shadow Labs. Like, that dungeon was so... At least before people were geared up or, like, a couple of seasons in. That dungeon was so... Required a lot of coordination.
[00:59:07] A lot of crowd control. And, like, a really good tank who would be patient and all that kind of thing. So, you know? Like, God, this guy really knows how to tank Shadow Labs. I'm going to add him to my friends list. I'm going to befriend this guy. Because if I want to do Shadow Labs efficiently again, I'm going to have to actually be a little bit social, you know? But these days, like, I did a 14 yesterday. Like, a Mythic Plus group. Out of one of these...
[00:59:34] Out of the European Discord for finding Mythic Plus groups. Nobody talked the whole run. Everyone was completely quiet. Just racing through. There's no need to coordinate. There's no crowd control. There's no need to do any tactics or discussion. Because the tactics are pretty simple. And everyone knows what to do. So, it's all about, like, turbo efficiency. Get it done. It's all a race. No talking allowed, you know? And then... That's it.
[01:00:02] And I know it's different if you're in a guild. But, you know... Getting into a guild these days is like... It's not always easy either, you know? Everyone's sort of... But that's the whole internet now. Like, people don't talk to strangers. They're hiding Discord groups. Or Facebook groups. Or whatever they use. Nobody, like, really... When people converse with strangers on the internet, everyone's sort of guarded. Because they know it's probably going to end up in an argument. Unfortunately.
[01:00:32] Yeah. So, yeah. It's different times. But we'll see how it goes. When the full game drops. I mean, that is... If they can bring that back. That vibe. And that's exactly what they've talked about. I think more than anything is... Fostering the community that is sort of this mythical hailed thing from an era gone by. And to that effect, right? It's the region system that we just talked about. This campfire system that they're employing.
[01:00:59] Where I think it's up to three different professions. Can have a buff. You know, you get people sit around a campfire. And up to three different profession-related buffs at a time can be stacked on that campfire. So, if you sit there for a little bit of time, right? You get buffed. And the idea being, right? You see some people. You meet some people. Maybe you're on a quest to go do a thing. And that's how you start to build up kind of those lists of old. Like, hey, I, you know, ran something with this person. And they're a trusted individual. And it seemed like they know what they're doing. Well, we'll see what they're doing again.
[01:01:31] And this, you know, new version of WoW, I guess. But this version of Warcraft, right? It comes with nine new dungeons. So, a lot of opportunity there. There's going to be three raids. One of them being Annexia. So, something that's very familiar to a lot of the old heads from back in the day. And, if I recall correctly, the Annexia raid has an attunement quest line that you have to do before you even can get into it.
[01:01:58] Speaking of, you know, things from way back when, right? Stuff that you've got to do. I'd probably change it up, too. Like, it probably won't be the same. I remember doing the attunement quest for Lady Vash. That dungeon. Kolfang Reservoir. Yeah. And people were like, oh, God, none of the attunement quest. Blah, blah, blah.
[01:02:21] And I remember the arguments that popped off when they were like, okay, we're going to get rid of the attunement quest. And everyone was like, oh, my God, the casuals have won. I remember. And it's like, it's that discussion between casual and hardcore has evolved into, like, retail versus classic, right? Yeah. Where, like, classic players are convinced they're the hardcore players. And retail players are convinced they're the hardcore players. Even though, like, the experiences are, like, different. Sort of.
[01:02:51] I don't know. That's why it goes back to the early discussion. People on the internet want to argue. You know. That's what they want to do, right? That is true. That is true. I, you know, I welcomed a lot of those changes because, you know, being a DPS warrior, it took forever to find groups because DPS filled up quickly. And, you know, those were the times when I was like, okay, do I really want to go protection spec? So that way I can actually do something or be something. But then the drops would be something that I, you know, wouldn't want to play in terms of a spec.
[01:03:21] Like, um, so yeah, it, it, it, I welcome that. But I also have seen the sort of degradation of community. And that's why, um, I think Allie and I were in conversation with somebody at Blizzard in the not too distant past where they talked about how garrisons kind of destroyed the fabric of Warcraft because everybody was just in a silo. And nobody went out and did anything or saw anybody.
[01:03:49] And it just, I'm sure architecture wise, it probably was a lot of headaches, but just in terms of the social fabric, right? That did damage that I think they think still persists. So it's, it's been that bad. And, you know, warlords now has come out so long. People are talking about God, classic fucking warlords, which kill me now.
[01:04:10] Um, but as we look to dungeons and raids and those kinds of things, I am myself, I am in no rush to get to any of that. Right? Like the dungeons, right? That's part of the leveling. You'll see all this stuff, but like the raids and then six level 60 end game stuff. I'm not in any rush to get into any of this. I feel like the whole vibe of this is to take your time like that, that, you know, the, the legacy system that they're putting in. It's another thing that they're, they're swapping out.
[01:04:39] There's not, there's not like an achievement thing. Now it's a legacy system that encourages you to play different characters and different classes and have different, uh, professions. Uh, so that way you can get these sort of points and you can give yourself a little buffs for your account. Um, I am in it solely for the experience. That's why I backed out of the beta. Um, Allie, I'll throw this to you. Do you, do you see yourself?
[01:05:08] Cause we're all retail players here. Do you see yourself dedicating time to leveling and getting to rating and getting to that part of the game? Or is this going to be just, you're going to take your time and whatever comes, it comes as it comes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to take my time. I'm really looking forward to it. Like in retail, it, because the patches are coming out too quickly in my opinion, because I am rating and have to keep up with all of that.
[01:05:36] But I'm looking forward to a space where I can still enjoy Warcraft, but get back to exploring and questing and doing all that. And it really, really are setting up where you can explore and have fun. That's what they want you to do. And so that's going to be my, like my chill Warcraft. I want that in retail still, but they are designing retail to keep us busy and engaged.
[01:06:04] And if you are trying to keep up with any aspect of it, and unless you have a lot of time, it's hard to do that while also enjoying the quests and doing all that. Like there's so many side quests. I haven't done this expansion. Yeah. Because I've just been so busy trying to keep up with everything else. And I don't have tons of time to play like I used to. Whereas I love the quest. I love to slow down and do the story in the quest and just soak that all in. And I can't.
[01:06:33] Whereas in forever, I'm going to get chances to just chill and relax and go hide and play with the games. And I think it does help create some of that community again. Because in retail, for example, I'm a priest. It's fine. I'll randomly buff people with fortitude occasionally. But back in Classic and in Burning Crusade, it was a bigger deal to buff people as they run by.
[01:07:01] It was like a nice just common courtesy. Just you see an Alliance player or someone on your horde for horde. Like you buff them. It's a nice thing to do. And all of a sudden in forever, everyone's doing that again where it's so rare in retail now. And you really. It takes longer to get your gold and it takes longer to do this, that and the other. To get your bags in the beginning. It takes longer to get your bags. Like there in beta, a little night elf that I was playing.
[01:07:29] There was someone in general chat offering to make people bags for free. Just. You know, bring the thread or something like that. And it was just the nicest thing because bags were so hard to come by at that point. Yeah. So just like little things like that. They're like, oh yeah. Like this is kind of how Warcraft used to be when I first fell in love with it. And so I'm looking forward to having that time to just slow down and enjoy it.
[01:07:56] Well, and they've even announced that the patch cycles are going to be four months. I love that so much. So they know. I mean, they have to know. I mean, I think Jez puts out a new article every week about, you know, what's going on with this eight week bullshit nonsense. It's way too much. So we all hate it. And this has to be some acknowledgement. They're like, okay. That Tilebound thing's coming out next week, isn't it?
[01:08:26] Tilebound or something. And it's like. Soon. Some of the rewards from that look great. But I'm just sitting there like. Am I going to have time for it? Like I want to have time for it. I'm really excited about Tilebound. But hopefully by then I'll have time for it. You'll still be in WoW forever. There's WoW forever to play. And there's also GTA coming out. And they're putting out this time limit mode. PC gamer for life, bro. Ain't no GTA for me. Yeah. True. True.
[01:08:56] True. Sometime next year. I'll play Cyberpunk instead. It's fine. Yeah. Cyberpunk got a new patch. 2.5. I just downloaded it. I'm dual wielding Jackie's guns. So that's all I care about. That's all I'm doing now. Oh, that brings me so much joy. It's fun. It's fucked up. But it's fun. So yeah. So it's things like that, right? Like there's a stated intent of pace and community.
[01:09:23] And they're going to try to help build some things around that. But there's, they've talked about the tech side. But there is this other, this is kind of the last thing. There's this other intangible aspect to wow forever that jazz. I know you've written a lot about and you've posted some videos on it. And, you know, those of us that have played in the beta have seen it. There, there is this, you know, it's the lighting. It's the vibe. It's the, it's the, it's the weather.
[01:09:53] It's the environment. It's the, there's, there's these other layers that they've added into wow forever that is not yet in retail. And, and I mean, it's, I, I'd be shocked if they didn't get to it at some point down the road here, but that alone seems to have captured the imagination. Of a large part of the player base because it is the one universal thing I have seen posted about the most talked about the most put in the threads shit.
[01:10:23] When the thing first came out, all I did was make a character and go run out into the bay in storm wind and just stare at the water. It's beautiful. The, the, the, the whole presentation of it is utterly different and it is gorgeous. And it's, and it's, it's just, it's that next level of depth. That seems to be capturing people.
[01:10:45] And so you put that all together and they have a recipe that I don't, I was not expecting. Um, I know I joke about classic and I'm like, eh, never again. This isn't that this is, this is, this is this amalgamation of a bunch of different beautiful things that they've put together to go. Okay. You want the nostalgia bump, but you don't want to have to go that far back.
[01:11:12] And there's some things that we can do that we're kind of free to do. We're not constrained by other timelines. Let's see what we can, can put together. And it's just, that to me seems to be the, the one unifying factor above all else is just this intangible vibe that they've managed to put together. And just, I think we saw it like right away at BlizzCon and it was just like, whoa, this is different. Like way different and it's awesome.
[01:11:44] So I don't know you, you, I, if you got your settings, right, if you, if you got it all figured out when you're out there and, uh, you know, when you got your brand new, you're fresh undead, you got, you got the lighting, right. When you were out there. Uh, yeah, man, I, tears fall just tears fall glad it's just looked incredible, man. And, um, I think like the way blizzard does marketing right now, like there's a lot of focus on wow forever.
[01:12:10] And like that, they want all the, all the marketing spend and all the, all the social stuff, all that's going on well forever. Cause it's the new hotness, right? But I've got to believe that they're bringing some of that stuff to retail. Um, especially, you know, because it is just stunning. Like the fog and the light through the fog, it creates this, it creates this atmosphere of like, this is what I imagined. Wow.
[01:12:37] Looked like in my head when I was playing the game. And I think like, that's like, ultimately, I think the goal of some of this stuff when they do these kinds of remakes and these remasters, it's like, how can we, you know, retain what made the game special in that retro kind of way, but sort of add some of the details that perhaps you had to imagine back in the, back in the day. I don't know if either of you guys have played a Valheim, for example.
[01:13:07] No, but I've seen videos of it. Yeah. Like Valheim is like got these, this gorgeous, like PlayStation one style pixel art and these pixel graphics. So these simplistic kind of models, but then it weaves in modern fog, volumetric lighting and, and ray trace shadows if you've, you know, got the right set up for it. And it's just like, it just looks retro, but better, you know, retro plus.
[01:13:37] And I kind of feel like they've nailed that. Yeah. They're retro plus. Classic plus. It makes sense. Yeah. Classic plus. Exactly. It's, um, but yeah, I love it. I love the way it looks. Two is full. It just looks incredible. You can make it look even better if you like lower the darkness and increase the contrast a way. And I, I think they've got that torch. You can go and grab in, uh, in, uh, the squad, you can go and grab a torch. I'm hoping they bring one to tears for glads.
[01:14:04] Cause it's going to be a pain to go and get that torch on my undead otherwise. Um, but yeah, I think they've absolutely nailed the aspect of it. And I suppose like there's still a big question mark over how I suppose the game will perform over time because while they have nailed the visuals the community stuff seemingly um and we
[01:14:31] like the four month patch cadence on paper i suppose like the the big question mark is going to be like how does progression feel how is it going to feel patch over patch and is it going to be you know something that i suppose dies off after a few weeks which is kind of what happened to season discovery you know so um i suppose uh that's kind of the question but if it if it does
[01:14:58] then you know retail will still be there but man i'm i'm not loving retail at the moment as is well documented um i was gonna ask uh a question about sort of the future of wow forever but we have a q a question that perfectly dovetails uh into that so why don't we wrap up uh this
[01:15:24] episode with our q a and get to some of that all right right out of the gate from cardboardist on our discord story wise what are your limits for forever what would you like to see in the game and how far would you want them to go what
[01:15:53] would you want to have avoided and i'm gonna throw this uh to ali but uh my my short and sweet answer on this is don't go off world just stay stay on azeroth don't go to any planets don't go to no afterlifes don't don't find another pocket universe and some shit stay on azeroth that's
[01:16:18] there's enough there we and if we're kind of hedging around the edges stay on stay on azeroth that's it that's that's my only limit that's it uh but ali how about you where do you fall on some of these uh future questions definitely stay on azeroth and stay like pre-dark portal because i think if you start like oh dark portals here time for the burning crusade then it's gonna start instead of feeling
[01:16:46] like this special warcraft forever it's gonna start feeling like classic yeah and all of that and i don't i don't want that like we have that already don't repeat that stick with just forever just year one the jailer comes out of the portal instead of like orcs a lot of the people who quit during shadowlands who are really effing excited about this will probably quit again so no um i think it'd be
[01:17:14] cool to find ways to explore things maybe that happened then before year one like some of the earlier stuff like through some kind of scenario or something like that like they can find some ways to explore that and i love that they're going to be exploring the the little pockets of the map that just didn't have things before because i know back when i was starting the game this was my first mmo and it was so new
[01:17:41] i always wondered like well there's this area of the map over here why can't i go over there what's going on over here so i want them to do more of that and it sounds like they're going to be and i'm really excited about that about you mr cordon i'm i don't know i'm a little less bullish on don't go
[01:18:02] to outland and i think part of that's my warcraft 3 nostalgia like i want to know how illidan got set up frankly because we don't really get that story in the game like after warcraft 3 it's like oh illidan gets his ass kicked by authors yeah and then when we see him again he's taken over outland or at least
[01:18:26] a huge part of it yeah and and now kaelthas is like having a civil war with him of sorts and you know uh it's it's kind of like how did all this come to be so i don't hate the idea of going to outland yeah if like it comes with stuff that people wanted from outland that we never got like playable broken playable ogres for example i mean it kind of writes itself it's like you get ogres on the
[01:18:55] horde you get broken on the alliance uh the alliance get the tauren model in a way because the broke broken are just tauren with tentacles essentially and um and uh who would get ogres which they should have had all the way back then anyway but um but what i would think of a red line i suppose is um automatic matchmaking systems because that for me even i even knew it back when in wrath of the
[01:19:24] lich king when they added the lf looking for dungeon stuff i knew it back then they've got to make the game easier for people for randoms who are playing together and they do lfg of any kind no lfg no automatic matchmaking stuff don't take away the emphasis on crowd control keep everything slow and methodical and make people have to think and plan their their route through the dungeon because as
[01:19:50] much as i enjoy mythic plus it's a very different experience to actually like yeah like a blackrock depths or ubrs like i was really hoping like the labyrinth for example that they added labyrinth that they added in um the last patch for example i was hoping this would bring back some of that blackrock depths kind of feel or that ubrs or lbrs or just ubrs feel where it's like i don't know where
[01:20:14] the hell i'm going it the layout is there but it's like there's this little objective tracker telling you where to go and and i i loved that in the new dungeon in ruins of lordaeron i loved not knowing what the hell to do i didn't know where i was going i had to ask people in the group but there was no information online about how to do the dungeon because it was brand new and there was some guy in the group who was like i think you have to do something with this painting and you know there's
[01:20:40] like kind of like a trick to spawn in the boss and it was just like man this is what this is what dungeoneering should be in every game you know this is what being in a dungeon is should be like and as much as i do like mythic plus it's not it's not the experience i want out of every dungeoneering experience in wow and delves gave us a little bit of that back but wow forever is giving us the whole hog and i'm really stoked for that so i hope they preserve that style of dungeoneering in wow
[01:21:10] and if they do start being like oh no we're gonna add the lefty because no one can find a group and no one wants to talk to each other and then i'll be just be like yeah it's becoming retail and i'm probably done with it now yeah we'll see how we'll see how much they believe in sort of the core tenets of what this this whole experiment is supposed to be and i i did see what i believe is a
[01:21:33] is a purported leaked expansion uh for wow forever and i mean you know you could throw a mountain assault at these kinds of things uh what i saw i mean it seemed kind of plausible but i'm not gonna necessarily throw it out here just yet because i don't want to i don't know i want to let people enjoy this at least in the first foray and get into it a little bit um our next question jez i'm just
[01:21:58] going to tell you this next question was 1000 uh in our discord specifically targeted at ali so we're going to make her wait uh to answer this question uh that the torture is the point uh this is coming from uh wookie bh would you rather have the worgen race or a new pirate class added to forever
[01:22:24] you'll understand shortly what do you think jez oh me oh i thought i thought that was valid um it is for her but we're gonna we're gonna make her wait berserkers adding to the torture it's fine i don't know because i hate the worgen as a forsaken who thinks they deserve to die right but
[01:22:45] having a good enemy like that and having like gilneas be a some kind of pvp war zone would be fantastic i can see that and yeah yeah and i absolutely adored the storyline from battle for azaroth where uh cataclysm sorry where you know garage is you know spawning in and telling sylvanis
[01:23:12] you've got to go and take your nants and now and they're gonna say and sylvanis like oh yeah here's how we're making new and dead and i loved all the all the law they added for forsaken in that zone and then as a forsaken going over to gilneas and killing killing mountains of worgens that was fantastic so but a pirate class also sounds pretty cool but it's also not the most original we kind of have
[01:23:37] that in retail now with the rogue um the outlaw spec he's a bit pirate coded so i'm gonna say give us give us crazy feralistic worgen that are even more unhinged than they were in cataclysm and uh i yeah i don't like that idea i'm gonna follow you on that yeah i i i don't actively play
[01:24:03] a worgen i have one that i made a long time ago and i enjoyed for that cataclysm era of learning all about them and so i never played in undead i didn't really know that much about that area so it was really cool learning about all that and seeing that kind of stuff i think gilneas is a is a cool area that in wow forever it should exist right because it's part of the map it's just closed off to some folks um so i have absolutely no interest in a pirate class whatsoever i can't believe anybody
[01:24:32] would have any interest in a pirate class whatsoever i don't even know what a pirate class would do or be or look like or who would even be interested in something like that but i will throw the question over to ali would you rather have the worgen race added or a new pirate class first off wookie bh i thought we were friends so it's wookie bh from from wow talk and from
[01:24:57] torn the goblin days follow lord podcaster um we i thought we were friends man i just so mean i i i already have a worgen i love that now if they bring back worgen with tails and give me some like badass like claw attack then then we'll talk then we'll talk otherwise if i could only pick one
[01:25:23] i'd have to say pirate class because yes okay yeah laws you could roll the bones slightly piratey that's it give if you give me a full on like a gun and you can okay yes you shoot a gun it is kind of cool i'll give you that okay wield a cutlass no yeah cool grappling hook i do i mean well yeah but like that's transmog i can wield one on my priest it's fine well it's dagger size
[01:25:52] because priests are stupid but anyways but at least like if if they were to give me this like some kind of like full-blown cheesy ass pirate class with just all the pirate theme stuff ever i think i'd have to do it i think i already have a worgen arm give me my pirates that'd be cool i'd be so happy
[01:26:19] i'm one of those people now i oh my god i already have i mean we have one already it's like oh my god i'd be so happy like i i i am one of the people that played the hell out of assassin's creed black flag a remaster was released and i haven't had time to play even though i want to i don't know whenever we'll get to it i was so happy i had those sea shanties on my playlist
[01:26:46] like give me pirates give me all that if you're not going to get in retail at least give it in forever it's not going to happen but i can dream i can dream south seas while forever expansion that's where they're going to give it to you and then i'd be happy i'd be very happy never see ali again i might leave retail for that like it'd be a whole thing i mean i love them i love my guildies in retail so probably not but i'd be real tempted
[01:27:12] real tempted it'd be really difficult well i know you i know you'd make that sacrifice for the homies all right well looking about looking at the clock here and uh i think we've done enough damage for one episode and uh you know for the all the wow forever news frankly there's a ton of articles and links and all sorts of stuff out there that'll give you all the deep down dirty details of
[01:27:38] every little thing you need to know um i highly encourage you to go check it out but if nothing else go in blind try it see what happens you might you might surprise yourself just make a character get that first and last name you don't have to be as creative as berserker like i did you could actually have like a fully realized first and last name like i don't know berserker rin which was the
[01:28:02] other one that i got uh and uh you know you could come up with some other cool actually before we go what were your what were your names what were you gonna hit the names what'd you save oh give me one at least my top one a jezerath is my current one that's good i call all my characters jez something so everyone knows it's me um because it's weird when like some people know me as jez because of
[01:28:29] online shenanigans and some people who like who the hell's jez if my character name is something different so i just call everything jez something these days there it is but uh yeah that's i can't remember what the surname my pick was actually i can't remember i think i know what i think i know what allie's was but remind me what was your what was your top what'd you do allie morgan allie morgan yeah there it is yeah so if you see berserker that's me berserker you need a jerk called berserker
[01:28:59] if somebody already got it oh somebody already got it i had to pick i had my top three names uh berserker wild was the other one because you know zach wild is the father of all of this anyway um so there you go all right all right now we've done enough damage for one episode uh special thank you to our guest uh and friend ali and for folks that are looking for you out there in the world
[01:29:22] where can they find you well you can hear me monthly-ish on after raid and you can find me on twitter at ali andrus k and on blue sky at ali andrus and if you do decide to to stream where would they find you on twitch at ali andrus you never know you never know try it man try it and for
[01:29:47] those that uh don't already know where to find you good sir uh where can they find you out on the internet jizz my terrible articles are off on windowscentral.com and uh otherwise Jez Corden on youtube stream there occasionally might stream tomorrow but it's more about xboxy kind of business kind of stuff and otherwise on twitter at jezz cordon again yeah there you go all right my thanks to
[01:30:16] you both for uh hanging out with me today and my thanks to all of you for tuning in and remember you can always follow me and this show on twitter at berserker rage and unshackled underscore fury on blue sky at berserker and unshackled fury as well as on youtube youtube the youtube where we did that live show last time at unshackled underscore fury you can also join our discord please do thanks for which are on the profile of the show on twitter and on our website
[01:30:42] unshackled fury.com you can get all your q a questions feel free to contact the show with your questions comments or otherwise through any of those resources or email us at unshackled fury show at gmail.com and you can find this show wherever you get your podcasts so once again thank you for listening remember to keep your swords wet and your banners high and we'll see you next time farewell well