Do try to go in with an open mind.
Don't go in expecting them not to hit the mark, because they
won't if you expect that. So try to go in with an open
mind and then when they don't hit the mark then you can be
upset. Victory for the Forsaken.
For Lauderon for the Karen tour. For.
Pandaria. For.
Calendar to the burning region. For Gilnaeus, but has not died
for the Lich King. For the.
Sindora for the Alliance, for the Horde, for Azeroth.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of For Azeroth.
I am one of your hosts, the true villain, Manny, or just Manny,
and I am joined by the other two parts of the Triumphant, first
joining us from the woods in the north.
Not quite N we have Lex rants. Hello Manny, how are you and
how's the World of Warcraft treating?
You. I'm doing OK.
I think we decided that every episode we would put you in a
different state. So how are things going in cold,
wintry Puerto Rico? They're going, they're going
amazing down here in Puerto Rico.
I, as I'm sure everyone knows, I'm a Giants fan.
And also this might surprise you guys, play World of Warcraft.
So the fact that Cam Scataboo is officially a World of Warcraft
player is making my entire life. You say funny words, funny man
going to Sean, who might understand what in the world
she's talking about. Hello, Sean.
How are you doing? Hi, Manny.
I'm doing pretty good. Lex, are we friends because I
look like Brian Gable? Well, he's not a giant anymore,
Sean anymore, so I guess we're not friends anymore.
Well, we had a good run. We had a good run.
You, yeah, I can't mean this poor man fell so far like coach
of the year to fire it in like. Three, it'll happen when you
don't win a game. When they started, they started
2 and 8 three years in a row. Not a recipe for success.
This is now an NFL podcast fact for him.
Man, I'm doing good. I think you asked me how the war
crusher treated me. War Crusher treated me good.
Spent a little time on the beta today messing around with my UI.
Have to say, got up to a spot that I'm pretty happy with.
Still. One or two things that I really
would like to see addressed, but overall not displeased with
where we're at. I'm sure we'll talk about the
beta launch after so we won't get into that.
And also special shout out to the FAZ community who took it
upon themselves to start finally, after I don't know how
many episodes of me asking recommending names for what we
call the FAZ community. Can I just give we have a list
running. We have.
We're going to do an official vote now.
Manny hasn't agreed to this yet, but Manny doesn't make all the
rules. We're going to do an official
vote in the FAZ Discord at some point.
We don't know when yet to vote on what we call the FAZ family.
And here's the options we have currently.
Faznatix, I'm gonna try not to give my opinion on any of these.
I don't wanna sway the vote when it happens.
Do you? Do you want me to say it so it's
flat? Yeah, that's, yeah.
That's why, yeah, you say it with the disdain that you've
been reading them for yourself. All No.
No, no, we're gonna, we're gonna call it down the line.
Where where is this again? Is this in our suggestions?
Suggestions. Yeah.
And then I'll pin it, but it's. I I got it already just anybody
who wants to throw in it's in the FAZ discord bit dot LY slash
faz discord and then I'm going to go through this.
The potential listener tags. We have FAZ Natix, FAZA holics,
Fazzers, Fazians, FAZ heads, faz family, Fazarothians, FAZ hands,
which I have earmarked for people that were going to hire
as like support staff. So I maybe I've slightly vetoed
that Faz holes and true villain fazzies.
And so there you go. I did, I, I was very, I was very
neutral on that. I may have put a little emphasis
on FAZ hands, but that was not the stain.
That was neutral Fazz hands. Yeah, I'm excited.
So it's been a good day. And we had a good showing on
Monday on the House. The person who came and looked
at it looked at six houses that day.
And I, I threw the Grapevine. Our realtor told us that our
house is their favorite of the ones they looked at.
And today they asked how much our property taxes were, which I
guess is typically a sign that they are considering making an
offer. No offer yet, but house watch is
still a go, but it's in spiritual high right now.
Oh, and actually came to visit it is.
Do you guys not do the little thing where you have like a
little little sheet and it lists out like have you, to your
knowledge, have there ever been rodents?
How much do you like, how do you get your heat?
How much do you pay per month on average?
Do you know of any like history of flooding?
Like do you guys not have that cute little sheet?
No, we do. That's PCDS personal or property
something disclosure, yeah. Or PDCS, maybe PDS, maybe it's
just PDS property, property disclosure sheet.
We do have those. They have not requested 1.
So if they don't ask for one, we don't provide one.
All they asked was yeah, they have to ask for it to get it.
I. Guess I don't know if I I assume
that they were just provided automatically to me, but it
might just be that my like realtor was like.
Your realtor should be asking. That's just genuinely smart.
Anyway, they're good if the person has been sorry, sorry.
Anybody who's here for Warcraft talk, skip ahead to, I don't
know, 13 minutes. I'm sure it'll be there, but we
will certainly be done the house talk by then.
So the disclosure sheets are great if somebody has lived in
the house for a long time because they can answer those
questions. We've been here three years, so
we'd be able to answer a few of them, but we can't go into our
house is 112 years old. So when they're like, has there
been any history of flooding? I, I don't know, there wasn't in
the last three years, but I can't tell you what happened
before that. And then if you're buying a
house that was a flip, if somebody bought it and flipped
it, those are almost entirely useless because they never lived
in the house. They have no way to answer those
questions so well. They are good to get and
definitely good to ask because especially if the person who
lived in the home for a long time, they're not always super
relevant. Yeah, my house was like kind of
iffy because it was being sold by the, the previous owner had
passed away a couple years ago and so it was their kid selling
it. So like some of it obviously
they'd known since like it was their mom and they grew up here.
But some of it they were just like I, I don't know what you
paid for heat in a month like. Yeah, yeah, OK.
All right, man, if you want to, if we want to do the actual
show, it's 100. And yeah, we got so Eppie's in
the chat and he's in the UK, he heard 112 years old and he's
like, oh, you have a new house, 'cause all the houses in Britain
that didn't get destroyed during the World War 2 bombing are like
400 years old. Well, that might be that might
be where you come from. Your mileage may vary.
But let's say we're gonna pat that, put that aside and we're
gonna get into World of Warcraft because there is a lot of news
to talk about. Yes, hard steel is a thing.
Moving on, we are getting the warning overlooked.
The community is focused on the beta, but there is 11 point 2.7
coming in under the radar. So that is going to be titled
the Midnight Prologue, The Warning, and that is due out
December 2nd in NA and December 3rd in the EU.
It's got a number of things including a Quest storyline that
includes Varissa Windrunner. Apparently they're just
inventing Windrunner sisters all of a sudden.
Said of the two that we know and Eritor investigating Visions and
Prophecies. As part of that content update,
we're going to be allowed to get into housing in Live, which
means all those people who are fuming about her steal will
suddenly open up their wallets and not care anymore.
We will be getting an updated new player experience, which is
good for returning players or new players alike.
It's going to get you up to speed.
That includes A revamped Exiles. What is it called?
Exiles Aisle. Reach.
Exiles Reach Thank you. The story through Dragonflight,
the revamped experience of going through the war within all of
that is going to be available. We will also be getting access
early access to housing. Like I said, the new lore
walking quests have been updated where we get 2 new quests that
are about stuff irrelevant to midnight.
So we've got the Lich King and his assault on the Sun well, the
last time the Sun well was assaulted.
And we've got the tainting of the Sun well by Illyria,
Windrunner and the creation of the Void Elves.
So there's there's a lot of things there.
Pandyrians, you're finally getting your heritage armor and
I believe that is all of the races now with here to Jarmer
with the pandarians completed. You guys could double check, but
I I believe that to be the case. Time walking turbulent time ways
is returning 10 weeks of time walking folks, set your
calendars from December 2nd, do 10 weeks and you know we're not
getting the new expansion before then.
That includes 6 new dungeons that are going to be in from
Shadowlands and you reward. So we'll get the new mounts that
come from shadow lands and and such from there.
If you like transmog pets and such, that'll be there.
And something near and dear to my heart, the Brawlers Guild is
coming back. It is a delayed release on that
time gating whatever buzzword you want to use that is coming
on December 9th. There will be some new bosses,
there will be a revised encounter order and they're
going to be a new rewards including a new rendition of
Bruce. I'm hoping the old rendition of
Bruce will come back because I missed, I missed one of those
Bruce versions and housing decor as well.
Housing Decor rewards already being put into stuff.
So that's a lot of things to tie this over in the winter
holidays. Are you guys excited for this or
is your mind squarely focused on beta right now?
Let's start with you, Lex. I am really excited about this I
so I think I might have mentioned on the show when I do
beta, I'm trying very hard to avoid story.
I want that to be something like I I, I understand that I'm going
to experience spoilers as a creator, but I would like the
actual experience of the story to be something that I
experience live with my friends. So I, I have, there's not a ton
that I do on the beta. Like I log in to test individual
things feel like, oh, I'm curious about Prey or like, oh,
I want to see how this system's going to work or how this
system's going to work. But it's not like I'm spending
hours on beta. I'm kind of just, yeah, I
suppose obviously more so alpha, but that's the mindset I'm going
to bring into beta. It's like, oh, if I'm curious
about something I want to be able to talk about with my
friends, we'll talk about on for Azeroth with my friends, then I
should pop into beta. So I am really feeling the
content content Well right now, right?
I, I don't have a ton of like gathering or side things I do.
I'm really pretty hyper fixated on AOTC and we got AOTC.
And so I'm finding it harder and harder to convince myself to log
in and having story and beginning to access housing and
then do things like that and feel like World of Warcraft is
alive again. I think it's going to be really
good. And I do also know this is going
to be a long lull and it always is before expansions.
I mean, just because, you know, if we're saying at least 10
weeks, that's mid February, it's mid November.
So that's what Oh my God why can't I do basic math like 3
months at least? Yeah.
Like we'll count the mid February and mid mid November is
one month, then you add December and January in there and you're
three months. Yeah, yeah.
There you go. There you go.
Yeah. So I mean, it'll be the
holidays, it'll be there'll be plenty to do.
But I am really happy that we're going to be getting some fun
stuff relatively soon. Yeah.
I like that it is all pick up experiences.
It's not something that I need to work weeks on weeks on.
So in that way, like as I'm away for holidays and visiting
friends and family, more friends and family, I will definitely be
less scheduled with my wow time, with my play time and video
games in general. And so like, yeah, being able to
be like, hey, I got some time. Let me jump in and do Brawlers
Guild or one of these law walking is I think this this is
the right content for the time if you're focused on life, Sean,
any, any impressions on your end?
I'm really excited for the lore walking experience.
I enjoyed the three that we got at launch of Lore Walking and I
anytime we get a chance to talk about the sun, well and Arthus
and the elves, I'm all for that. I am the opposite.
I feel like we're moving at breakneck speeds.
I can't believe you think there's a lull right now.
I feel like 10 point, not ten. I feel like 11 point 2.5 just
came out and maybe that's because of the weird gating or
sorry, the weird delay on turbo boost being unlocked and yeah, I
just feel like you guys like, oh, it's you know, we're we're
moving so. Fast.
I was neutral. I didn't say anything Intel.
Sorry, but Lex Lex saying we're in a lull right now.
I just don't I feel that at all. I am actively engaged in the
beta so maybe that helps to why I don't feel that way.
You also. Do Legion Remix, which I haven't
been doing. Yeah, that's true.
But that's like an hour 4 * 3 to 4.
Times a week you can help me drag myself through Legion
Remix. Man do I need help.
Anyways, keep going. So I don't know.
I'm just there's still a lot of work that needs to happen on the
add on situation in UI and beta and I don't think three months
is enough time. Sorry, let me let me let me make
one clarification to what I said.
There is a lull that is healthy and normal between expansions in
fact and I, I I do agree that content is coming out really
quickly and I think probably too fast.
I am still deeply on team, but be realistic with yourself
delay. You know, a, a late release is
better than a bad release like Bazdev.
Do not, do not go to Ian Hasacosta.
So I'm sure cares deeply about what I say and be like Lex said
that she feels like there's a lull.
We got to push it up. Like I, I, I, I stand by
everything I've said before. I think this is moving too
quickly. I worry about how much they
intend to do in the next few months.
I I worry about how quickly they're putting out content in
general. And I based on my playstyle and
what I'm focusing on, I don't really see a ton.
You're not. You're not jumping on housing.
I, so I am excited about 11 point 2.7.
I'm, I, I think that and I actually do think housing is
probably going to be one of my, I think that it's going to be my
legion or my, my remix where I kept saying I'm not going to be
interested. I'm not going to be interested
in it. And I think that once I have
more things that hopefully fit together better and, and that
are more stable like that, it feels like I'm building
something versus just like going in and like playing with stuff,
knowing that I'm going to, it's going to be deleted and, you
know, a month. I think that that is going to be
very exciting for me. And I think I'm going to have a
lot of fun organizing, sprucing things up.
OK, Epidemi in Chad is saying that like housing might be what
brings them back to retail. I've, I've seen some people who
have been playing on the beta and and so forth really be like,
Oh my goodness, this is, this is my Wow now in its entirety.
So there's definitely some people who are super excited
about it. I've got to try it.
Like I had like Full disclosure guys, I have played all of 0
seconds of housing throughout alpha and beta and like I had
people like pushing and asking questions and stuff and I, I
just could not be bothered. Maybe, but unlikely.
I try it and I go, Oh my goodness, this is everything.
But we'll see. Again, different, different
strokes for different folks. But that leads us to the thing
that has been pulling more of my time and definitely more of
Sean's time. We have the midnight beta itself
which was released this week on the masses because the servers
definitely couldn't handle it. So there was a mass of something
going on and that was unleashed to everybody who had
pre-ordered. Your accounts were flagged over
the course of the day and I believe everybody who has
ordered should be in now. If not, do contact Blizzard.
If you pre-ordered the digital edition.
Correct. Yes, if you pre-ordered the
digital edition, if you have pre-ordered the collectors or
physical edition, I don't believe that they've done any
way of sending them those codes out in time.
We also did a giveaway right here on Faraz Roth.
We had three lucky winners that one on our Twitter account, on
the YouTube comments and of course on Instagram as well.
And considering how successful it is, we will be doing another
one of those again. So if you are not currently in
the midnight beta, if you are looking to get yourself a
digital code, we'll we'll definitely be doing another
giveaway soon before the end of the year.
So stay tuned for that. With that said, let's talk about
the beta. Sean, let's hand this out to
you. Yeah, so the beta launched on
Tuesday to fanfare. Servers got bodied.
There was a lot of issues with lag with disconnections and I
didn't be able to get in character copies were non
functional at the beginning. Workaround started to develop,
Blizzard rolled out a number of hot fixes and the latency ensued
even through to today. There's been a couple of rolling
restarts on the realms and they've been applying servers
stuff for the servers to try and fix it.
Folks are still, if you get through the intro portion, the
the Sumwell intro portion to get through that, which I, I mean I,
I did with almost like I had some lag, but it wasn't
unplayable for me. But there are people who it's
unplayable for. But as soon as you get through
the intro version, go back to Orgemar, Stormwind or Dorngal,
turn on war mode and then go back to Sunwell because there's
only like 6 of us with war mode on and then the latency is gone
basically. So that's what I did.
I got that tip from Mr. GM which worked out really well.
On a side note to that, if you're running around the beta
in war mode attacking people who are questing in the Eversong
Woods, you can get launched into the sun big.
No, no, no. If you're in war mode, do your
war mode like fly. You fly.
You do what you want when you do what makes you.
Infiltrating. You're the ones infiltrating war
mode for your own purposes and taking it away from the people
who want to do war mode. When they deserve.
Their war mode spaces don't gentrify them.
When people are actively using war mode as a way to bypass the
latency, and you know that they are.
They can get stabbed and there's 04K and 120 frames baby and.
Even on top of that, if you're in war mode because you love PvP
and you love the fight and you attack somebody who doesn't
attack you back. Big honor, Big honor.
Farm that honor. You're gonna need it for the end
game. I if I was Homelander, I would
fly to each of those people's homes and I-beam them that.
Seems like a lot of PvP war mode for somebody who's speaking so
fastest. Are you sure that you wouldn't
jump down at them in your little cloud car?
Jump out and use these Insignia on your belly to Care Bears.
Stare at them. Listen to Care Bears where
gangsters are right. I won't take less than that
anyway. War mode will get rid of some of
their latency, but lots of stuff is going on.
Transmog is turned off currently, so the new transmog
systems coming into place. And before anybody panics, if
you happen to have the script that lets you look at the
transmog window and see the current placeholder for what the
cost of a single transmog outfit is, please keep in mind it is
just a placeholder and Blizzard hasn't officially said that it
will cost us 40,000 gold or outfit.
You know, they likely did that to prevent people or like, even
if people found it, to deter them from activating a system
that they don't want. Yeah, like I.
Said it's just a placeholder so please don't panic if you see
that it hasn't been reported anywhere yet, so hopefully we
can avoid the pissing of blood that we normally see when people
get information that is is only half of the story.
I got to ask. I got to ask though, what would
you say is a fair fair price considering the transformer
system is like almost set it and forget it.
Yeah, I think between 5 and 10,000 is probably fair per
outfit, especially because you're not slot per outfit,
yeah. Because you're outfits.
I can see that. All right, Yeah.
Yeah, because you're going to want like you can have a
separate outfit for for war band, You can have a separate
open for war band screen, You can have a separate outfit for
housing. You can have a separate outfit
for in major cities because of this reason.
People are going to want to have and like I have, if you go look
through right now through my transmog, I have like 32 outfits
just on my paladin, like just my paladin and then every other
character I have a lot of them. So I, I, I think between 5 and
10,000 is probably reasonable. If you go through the like an
experience of questing, you're going to be upgrading your
transmog more often typically. So, you know, even if you look
at say between 5 and 800 gold per transmog, it's like that you
do every time you change an outfit between 500 gold.
I think 10,000 feels reasonable. That's like the equivalent of, I
don't know, 20 different times of fully transmogging.
I, I think 40,000 is cost prohibitive.
I think that's, that's awful. I think, I think 40,000 would be
an awful choice personally, but it's just a placeholder for now.
That just feels like a year. So now if you want to have one
of the transmog for each of the four different ways that you can
have it now we're looking at like 160,000 gold like just for
just for transmog like it doesn't, it would never, it
would cost, it would take you would have to transmog so often
to get to that value, you know what I mean?
So I think I think between 5 and 10,000 per outfit is fair.
So, but there I think it's on a slot basis by it's per slot
basis or whatever the equivalent of that breaks down to
personally that's what I think. Yeah, I agree with Sean as the
resident doesn't actually make money, girl.
I think that that's a level that does actually like you will get
that amount just doing general content.
So it's going to be enough that people aren't like switching
every 10 minutes. I mean, unless they have a ton
of gold, but you know, it, it'll feel like you did something like
you paid for something, but it won't feel like, Oh my God, I
guess I can't transmog this season.
Like I honestly, yeah, 40,000 I would be seriously considering
whether I wanted to send a transmog 5 to 8, whatever.
Like I I again, I wouldn't do what I do right now where I
change my transmog every single, you know, rain night.
But yeah, I totally have a few going with that.
Yeah, yeah. So that's happening right now in
the beta. There's no level 90 prebuilt
characters yet, so you are going to have to level through the
story. If you're somebody who's wanting
to avoid that, get to level 81 and then you can just farm
follower dungeons for experience.
It will take you longer, but you can do it.
They have improved the follower dungeon AI, it seems like, in
this build from what it was on the previous alpha builds.
So that's good. And they made some more damage
meter adjustments. We can now see damage taken as
one of the items track. The damage meter itself is still
not functional, but we we can see the things that it will
track. And then we just have to assume
we're going to be able to drill down on those RAID frames not
yet implemented and still the external defensives tracker not
functioning the way everybody thought it was going to
function, still functioning just as a, as a tracker, still no
debuff tracking. Hopefully all that stuff comes
in, in a later build. And I would, I know it's not in
the show, but I would like to talk about Ian because we talked
about last week, some of the AI, the, the UI stuff, and Ian made
a post on Reddit replying to comments from the interview that
he had with, or the meeting that he had with DBN and bigwigs.
I'd like to talk about that just for a second because I think it
sort of fits here in with the beta and the UI stuff.
And that's Ian. So we had talked about last week
that the, that Ian had stated that they didn't want to have an
audio counter counting down from 5:00 to 1:00 when a a mechanic
was happening because they they didn't want, sorry, Ian didn't
want add-ons to have that functionality because it would
feel mandatory. He felt that if we were going to
have an audio counter counting down from 5:00 to 1:00 that it
should be built into the game. But they currently don't intend
to do that because they plan to have it so that their own visual
and audio cues in the terms of the boss speaking should be
enough to to give you this information without needing that
countdown. And then if it's not, if it's
not working, the team you know is always has the option to
include it. And I do want to get your
thoughts on it. I I am bewildered by that
statement because the combat warning timer literally gives us
a countdown from 5 to one for the abilities in visual format
on the screen. So I don't understand the
difference between letting us read it and letting us hear it,
and how one is an advantage and 1 isn't.
Audio noise is different than visual noise if I had to go with
anything. If you have multiple counter
down timers going like the bars, you can look at 1 and isolate
and be like OK, that's the one going through.
If you have multiple voices going off that are all counting
down, being able to figure out which one is which is is too
much audio noise. So that's one thing they would
need to then change it to be like this one actually talks,
but this one doesn't. In such a situation, which which
is in my mind then becoming a Pandora's box and that might be
why they're doing it. That said, if that is the
reason, I would rather they say that and then we deal with the
realities of that confusion rather than the what was put
forward. But like there are different
levels of information that people can absorb that differs
based on not only the person that is getting that
information, but the type of of way that it is coming at you.
So whereas some people are visual learners, some people are
tactile learners, some people are auditory learners.
All of that also factors into the way that UI sometimes
screams at you if it is a boss ability.
And this is sometimes harder to do in a in a council fight than
in a single boss encounter. Like I can still remember in my
dreams, in my nightmares, right where where somebody would be
like, break yourself upon my body.
And I go like, OK, I better throw a dot on so it gets
bounced back to me. Like I know that immediately.
I can't name that boss, but that what that that one voice line.
I can say that was stone core. I can say it was the the big
giant. I, I can say that he throws up
the a shield at that point and then I, and then you need to
reflect damage on yourself because you've been given a
debuff that after a certain period of time petrifies you.
And if you don't take damage to break that debuff you, you won't
be able to run out and he'll one shot you.
And I know that. And I've never needed a
countdown timer for that. I've never needed a visual thing
for that because I can immediately link that voice
line. And if they can design things
like that, then I guess I don't need a countdown timer.
But that is 100% Blizzard putting the onus on themselves
and the accessibility conversations sometimes get lost
in that. And I guess as an aside, flat
out anybody who is in The Who can hear me now, OK, we talk
about ideals, we talk about accessibility and making sure
that point of views are considered, that people who have
those point of views, as many point of views as possible and
perspectives as possible are in the room having that
conversation. But I also need to ask people
not to fall for a Nirvana complex, OK?
It is ideal that we have as many perspectives in the room as as
possible. We often fall short of the
ideal. Sean, Lex and myself Will always
say that we want you to get your opinion out there because every
point of view should be there. This entire show is built to
have different points of view. Get your perspective regardless
of how you play to the developers, but also get it to
us. I would love to have a more
informed perspective based on what somebody says to me.
That is like, OK, hey, you know what?
I hadn't considered that. And I'll think about that going
in the in the future. And that will give me a just a
far more informed opinion. I'll be thankful for it.
But I need people to stop trying to say that hey, because this
can't be done perfectly. We shouldn't have this
conversation at all. If you want to push and say
like, Hey, this is a better way of doing doing it that helps
this perspective. That's a constructive
conversation. If you try and shut down the
conversation because it doesn't perfectly aligned with your
perspective, I don't want to have that conversation.
And that's that's what I want to preface this with.
That said, I think there's a lot of different things that they
need to consider, including how much in information overload
they put in there. If we've got 20 different timers
going off and all these spell effects, they all get lost.
That's why we started turning down spell effects on people
that weren't us or the boss. Same thing with audio cues.
I cannot have 5 different countdown timers going at the
same time. I will lose it.
And so I, I'm looking for something cleaner and I think
just distinctive voice lines that I can then go like that's,
that's that ability or that's 5 seconds ahead of that ability.
And I can sort of learn that. I think that is something
strong. Otherwise they're going to have
to, and they do that as voice lines anyways.
But I don't think that works with a a generic encounter
timer. That's a fairpoint.
I don't know exactly how I'd fix it.
I think the first. So I have a few points I'm going
to probably make in in relatively rapid succession, as
I love to. Do I'm monologued?
Go ahead. So the first thing I'd say is I,
I, I think that's true about the voice lines.
That could be really useful. I do think the Blizzard has a
tendency to fall into a little bit of a, a trap where they'll
make an accessibility feature. I'd be like, look, it'll work.
It's just harder, right? Like, yeah, you can learn to
countdown from the voice line and figure out exactly how long
it's going to take after the the voice line goes to the spell
cast and learn to count that every single time.
It's totally doable. It is significantly harder than
people who can, you know, have the visual processing at the
level where they could easily look at a countdown timer.
Who's going to have that, you know, the first time they run
in. Although, I mean, and I think
this is kind of Blizzard struggling with the like, like
if, if they're going to cut things, they are putting
themselves like, no, no, if, if, if they're going to say we have
to like we, we, we are not going to give you options to only have
certain timers, like to only announce certain things.
Like you cannot go in and change the voice line for XYZ or, you
know, you can't change how this is presented versus this is
presented. You have to, it's, it's all or
nothing. Or you can maybe get an add on
that's going to like filter a few things out.
But it's really like it's, it's the on or off.
You're kind of right that they are saying, well, if you're
going to do like we, we have to do every single countdown.
And so if there's multiple spells going, you're going to
have one voice doing a 15 second countdown and one voice on the
five second of the last 10 second countdown.
Like like, yeah, that's right. That's going to be a monstrously
chaotic. And I think that they are I I I
kind. Of put the burden on themselves.
Right. And I, I keep falling back on
the same frustration that I think I, I was talking about
last week, sorry to, to preface it, I, I have a tendency to talk
to myself a lot. And so sometimes I forget what I
said on the podcast, what I just said in my mirror.
So if I ever say like, yeah, the thing I said last week and
you're like, Lex, you did not say that.
That's 'cause I, it was all me babes.
But I, I feel like we had this game that was particularly
accessible because we had all of these options.
And I under like, I, I, I understand the argument Blizzard
is making for why they're choosing to take away the
options, but it is taking World of Warcraft from one of the most
accessible games. I, I think arguably ever, right,
due to the sheer customization ability of add-ons to one that
is, is just going to exclude certain people like Eon, Sorry,
Eon Ian openly said that he thinks that being able to like
visual processing is a requirement of rating, right?
That that he, he, he is on not not just him.
It's not like this. He is the only person making
these decisions, but he is the name that we have that that that
is a requirement of high level content, which does mean that
people who historically have been able to play World of
Warcraft are no longer like they are determining that they cannot
do high level content, right? Then there's no way around that
if if that's the determination you're making.
They can no longer do high level content in the way that it is
designed now. Right.
But if they're saying they're unwilling to make a game like
if, if, if they're saying it's a hard line for them, they will
not make a game that doesn't like high level content that
does not require visual processing like blind players
can't. That inherently excludes blind
players. If if visual processing is a
mandatory aspect of rating and of Mythic plus, which they've
stated it, that's part of their ethos that that does just cut
people out. So the game already cuts people
out at A at a certain point the game cuts it cuts you out if you
are like 100% blind. They do not have like the, they
used to have like back in Wrath where it would be these markers
that would be 3D projected and you could tell how close close
you were to something and it would be.
And based on programming now you'd be able to like get some
sort of auditory warning when you're close, when you're facing
something that that sort of thing.
And in and in that way, the programming that we have now
with the limitations that didn't exist back then, the game was
more accessible. But I don't think that is a fair
line to draw because the same people who created that would
use that to utterly trivialize so much of the game that they
would then design around it or lock it out, which they ended up
locking out. They would then design around it
so as not to design A game that would be trivial to somebody
with a certain set of abilities and therefore make it impossible
for somebody else. So like this sort of it becomes
impossible. So for a second of the audience
to play is always a battle back and forth between like the power
of the add-ons, whether for accessibility or just raw power
for other other means. And what do developers have to
do with that power in mind if they bring the baseline and the
highest potential closer together, that variance, right?
Because what basically they've been trying to do, they don't
need to design with so many hoops to jump.
It doesn't need to be that you get an ability and you need to
already have been pre spread. That means that the countdown
timer isn't as necessary. You could get an ability on you
and with some limited vision know that it's upon notice on
you because the graphics are basically unignorable to most to
most vision and then you have time to move away in a
reasonable time. Whereas if you had the the
custom timer and you had the thing that measured how far you
need to be, they'd have to be like, no, no, we need something
to force them to to collapse and they need to pre spread
immediately. As just an example off the top
of my head, again, I'm not a designer and everything, but
like what the game requires of us today is at a different level
than what the game required of us 5-10 years ago.
Because they keep having to. They feel, even if you don't
agree, that they have to escalate according to what tools
the community has embraced. That's that's fair.
And, and, and the other thing that I do want to just like
point out is that I'm speaking for a community I'm not a part
of. And I actually haven't heard
like since the big Undaunted post.
I don't know that I've I've heard specifically from people
who will be affected by this. So I'm kind of speaking vibes
based. And so I think for I don't know,
right, I actually haven't like I haven't read up on on what
people are are feeling right now about the loss of add-ons.
This is my able bodied view of what like how how it looks to
me. But it's possible that if I were
to be, you know, talking with folks in the blind community,
they would be like, no, actually like this.
Yeah, yeah. Like what you're describing,
Manny. Like if somebody was playing
World of Warcraft. Now, if they do, like, nobody's
playing, who wouldn't be able to see, like how we wouldn't have
some visual processing. I, I again, I genuinely do not
know. So I and, and one other thing
that I've, I've said a few times I think is I actually think I'm
going to have more fun with this system.
I'm concerned about how it's going to cut other people out.
But like realistically, yeah, I would rather that, you know,
there's more things that I'm learning and figuring out on my
own time and that we do have the ability to do these like blind
dunge or blind raids that are truly blind.
And it's just like, Oh yeah, like it's blind, but also DBMS
in your ear telling you to spread.
So how blind is it? Right.
Like that, that is actually really fun for me.
That's a fun way to play. And I'm, I'm excited to see how
that's going to, you know, challenge me as a raid leader.
The one other thing I do want to say, though, Sean brought this
up in a YouTube video that is on our page.
So go check it out. If you're wondering what I'm
talking about that the way that Ian is talking feels very
similar to shadow lands and the concept of like pulling the
ripcord. And that is something that I
think is, is resonating with me a lot with my like frustrations
with Blizzard right now is I think, and I, I, I said a few
times like, Oh, it's crazy that, you know, a year ago or that an
expansion ago, we were all so excited about what Blizzard was
doing and feeling. They were so responsive and, and
listening so much. And now all of a sudden we're,
you know, flipped. And then Sean and I are talking
about how frustrated we are with everything.
And I think one feeling I am getting is that Blizzard learned
the responsiveness was prized and they've kind of turned it
into the main way that they. Advantage, right?
Like there's a part of me that's like, man, if everyone is
telling you they want audio countdowns, why are we waiting?
And like, why are we like, Oh no, we're going to like put it
in and then we'll figure it out later if we really want it.
As I'm saying this out loud that the thread that I'm drawing is,
is, is less clear, but I think the, the, the core argument I am
feeling is like, I don't feel like we have to Guinea pig
everything. I feel like if the community is
saying very clearly that something matters to them,
telling me, oh, well, we'll look at it later.
Like, let's, let's try it as it is and we'll look at it later.
Doesn't necessarily feel great. Although I'm, I am also hearing
the hypocrisy of the times that I have said, like, I want them
to make firm decisions and not worry about what the people say.
So maybe it's just this is one thing that like I am among the
people saying it and I'm like, no, don't make a firm decision
here. Yeah, a lot of good points, a
lot of good points on both sides.
It'll be interesting to see how it shakes out.
I am curious. We're going to find out very
soon how it shakes out though, because they're also announced
when the beta launch that we'll be getting limited RAID testing
and some ethic plus testing as early as next week.
And we got our RAID schedule with the raid testing schedule
as always, or as has become the norm, we're not going to be
testing end bosses. And I want to get into the raid
schedule here in a second. But just before we do, and I'll
throw it to you, Manny, to to walk us through the raid testing
schedule so we can get some more information on this before we
do. I want to say a huge thank you
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So yeah, we have a raid testing coming up.
So we're going to get in like we're going to see implemented
Blizzards promise that raid fights will be designed with the
new restrictions in place. Can't wait for that.
And we're also going to see what life is like without add-ons,
without weak auras. And we can hopefully, if it's
turned on, it's not currently functional, but hopefully will
be. For raid testing.
We'll get to see combat warnings, the combat timeline,
and the damage meter, which keeps gaining new functionality
every build. Man, do you want to walk us
through the raid testing that's coming up?
Yeah, so looks like they're going to have a lot to show us.
This is Midnight Season 1 raids, which includes 3 different raids
if you recall. Starting on Wednesday, November
19th, we get Heroic, the Dream Rift, Avrazian, Vorazius, and
Saladar. Do you see now why I passed this
off to? You Oh, yeah, Yeah, because of
the names. Don't worry.
Saladar is is salad bar. I guess that's minor, more minor
spoilers, friends, but this, this is going to be a lot of
words. Salad.
Thursday, November 20th, we continue heroic testing.
We've got Belorin, child of Alar.
We've got Valigor and Ezerak. And if you have been on the
alpha for more than a minute, you have already seen these
guys. They are the void Dragons taking
flame to Silver Moon. So just look up, they're there,
they're names, you can see them already.
Then we have the Light Blinded Vanguard.
I'm not going to explain that because that's major spoilers.
Thursday, December 4th we start mythic testing.
Dream Rift will be opened as again and we have the same 3
bosses as the previous Thursday being tested again.
Then on Friday we have again Mythic testing for those same 3
bosses on Mythic difficulty. But in addition to that, Void
Spire Normal will be opened up starting on the Friday and
opened all the way through to the Monday, December 8th.
So a lot of testing, a lot of going through there.
These do not include end bosses for for some of these raids.
Obviously we've got a one rate, sorry, A1 boss raid that's
there. We've got the opening, the
opening raid of the Void Spire and then we have the March on
the Sun. Well, or yes, I'm, I'm not sure
of that name. It's the March on some some.
Queldenas it's thank you. Dream rift is the six boss raid,
Queldenas is the 2 boss raid which has no testing and then
the void Spire as you mentioned. Is that the single boss raid
that'll be open only in normal it looks like for that weekend.
I thought Void Spire was the first one with the raids.
The Dream Rift is the one boss and then March on Queldenas is
the final one. March on Culdenos is definitely
the two boss raid at the end. Yeah is No, you're right, you're
right. Boyd Spire is the six boss raid
and Dream Rift is just one raid. Yeah, just one boss.
And so, yeah, that testing is gonna be open again.
It's not just the bosses that we're excited to see.
It's the fulfillment of a lot of promises because it can only go
so far with the restrictions over the add-ons if they do not
do the work in the encounters to bridge that gap at this point.
So I'm excited, I'm excited for that.
I'm nervous for that. This, there's a lot riding.
This will be coming again mid November and going into December
as well. So it's and I correct that
there's a pretty chunky break there.
So because these days are only one day things, it's not like
the beta where the things that existed already roll over.
Yep, because US Thanksgiving is a thing and they do have that
break in the in between that week.
So yes, you are right to note that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you're like next week,
that's crazy. I can't do that.
Don't worry, babe. Just come.
Into that yeah, it's coming back around in mythic.
I want to talk about, you mentioned your nervous Manny.
I would like to just talk about some of the things that maybe
not necessarily you're nervous about, some of the things that
are not yet implemented in beta that are kind of mandatory for
rating. Yeah.
So just off the top of my head and maybe how should we do this?
Should I, why don't you tell me, is there anything that you could
think of that's currently not yet one of the beta that we
should have for rating? I start Manning or Lex, I don't
care who. I have a couple of things.
I don't want to just list these things.
I mean like RAID frames obviously.
Yeah, we need frames. RAID frames is a big one not yet
implemented. We do have data mining that the
icons are in the files, but the options of different layouts
doesn't exist yet and the RAID frames are still the old RAID
frames. So that's a big one that we
would like to see on for next week.
A transmog that's mandatory for writing.
I mean, if you look good, you play good, right?
That's got to be on there. You know what?
I'm going to throw out that if they are testing it, either we
need to be able to purchase the tier and then be immediately
jumped up to 90 when we get in there or we just need to be able
to be able to make level 90 pre made before we start this.
So that's one thing. One thing that I definitely want
to see, I haven't seen like on the alpha, we are able to like
go into the raid and then we go up to go up to 90.
So I'm assuming that is likely to be the case, But I would love
to have those 90s beforehand just so people can get a, a kind
of work working feel for their classes at 90 before we go in.
Beyond that, honestly, I, I, it's a lot of the things that
they've said that I need the fulfillment of.
I need interrupts to well, I guess it's not necessary for
rating, but we've got the, we do have coming in week two and
three of of it. We do have mythic plus coming
in, coming in. Like the changes for that.
Even in this bill, they've made some changes so that healers do
20% more damage. I'd like to see that a little
bit change because I don't think a 20% extra damage on a disc
priest is equal to a 20% more damage on some other classes,
right? Like Monk getting that 20% more
damage? Hell yeah.
But Holy getting 20% more damage, I don't know.
We've seen some very generic changes where they've taken out
the aura changes that they've had.
So you're looking at, if you are looking at the patch notes and
you see your class getting like a 2% overall damage decrease or
a 5 or 8% overall damage swap, it's just because they are
flattening out an aura. You had some weird aura that was
like either decreasing or increasing your damage under the
hood by 8% and they're like, let's just flatten that out and
start fresh. So just calm down guys,
Enhancement shaman, you're not like 2% nerfed.
You're probably about the same, right?
I think death Knights was one that got like 8% or something.
One of the one of the specs, I think it was frost.
It's it's not to like take frost Outback and shoot it.
Don't worry, you're good. And then I'm hoping I'm hoping
that the picking up threat at the beginning and that being an
easier smoothing for for tanks is working as intended because
you just have less buttons, less function to like make up for
those sort of things. So this is like I'm looking for
the fulfillment of a lot of things that they said were were
coming. But in terms of add-ons testing
arrayed, the logs are still there.
So even if I don't have like the direct damage meters in there, I
don't need the I don't need the damage meters.
I can grab logs and be fine for like getting information as I so
as I so need to peruse through that.
We've already talked about rate frames.
I think that that's a big one. I'm hoping that the cooldown
manager in terms of externals is there because I feel like that
is just something that like in terms of coordinating,
especially if these are groups that aren't like set teams, like
the, of course, those guys who erased the world first, they're
going to know to do all the call outs and they're going to be
listening for that and they're not going to be done.
Me stupid me like I might. Actually, yeah, I actually think
we all collectively misunderstood what Blizzard said
when we thought they were giving us what we asked for.
So they took away everybody, our ability to see everybody's, you
know, cooldowns and stuff and healers and DPS and Ray and
tanks as a unit were like, listen, it would be really good
if we could at the very least see when somebody has defensives
available or at at, you know, defensives available, pie in the
sky, but at the very least externals that they can assign
to somebody. And then the next, you know,
within the next week or two, Blizzard came back and today we
thought about it. We're going to let you guys
track external defensives. And we all thought that meant
they're going to let us see when Paint's up is available.
But the implementation in the game is just that, they're.
Going to show you on you. When you have paints up on you,
yeah. So we all collectively were
like, oh, they listened and they're doing this.
They were like, sorry now. I'm gonna give you and Lex the
the I don't just. Mean one. 100% but like, but,
but like, I know you're talking about community wise, but like
literally you and Lex when we were talking last week and I was
just like, Oh yeah. So your personal cooldowns are
now visible. And so like, that would mean
that he, Kelly can run. And you guys were both like, no
Manny, no Manny shaking your your heads because the cooldowns
are still a hidden value. And that means that you cannot
know for sure if something is getting cooldown reduction or
comes back up, that sort of thing.
And it has to be tracked with the internal cooldown manager.
But that's exactly the kind of thing where it's like, hey, I
sent paints up. Is it going to be available in 2
minutes? And because you like, even if
you know your paints up is available, no add on can talk to
each other in combat. Those channels are shut down
when you're in the middle of an instance or when you're in the
middle of an encounter. So you can't send Hey my pain
Subs back up. You can't send.
Blizzard. Blizzard can build it in to tell
us. That's what I thought to do.
And so like that's, that's that's what we're saying.
Like we thought it was there, but you guys said no, no, no,
you cannot do that. Last week, can I?
No, we're talking about two different things.
Can I, can I reveal myself as an, as a surprisingly different
style of idiot? When we were talking about like
you can track external defensives.
I did understand that it was like defensives, you, you can
track them now. I, I did understand that they
just meant that you were gonna like, it was gonna be presented.
And I was like, I'm really surprised you guys were so
excited about that. I thought like, obviously it's
gonna show you and I'll pops up. So I didn't, I didn't understand
what you guys wanted them to. Do yeah.
But I, I will say when I was raiding at when I was pushing
harder in raids and I had a really great raid lead, not to
say that my raid lead is not really great.
They pushed us through mythic and so they are definitely able
to do it. It's just that in this this last
year schedules everything, they were like, no, no, we're only
doing heroic. But having a raid leader or that
21st person who was doing those call outs and and saying like,
hey, Lex, you're sending your cooldown for the next one, blah,
blah, blah, you're on plate. That kind of raid calls that is
now automated. I do kind of miss that.
And I don't think that as long as it's not coming in such a
flurry again, that information overload, right, to have that
come back will distinguish skill even in and especially in guilds
with different abilities. Because when you if you've seen
Undaunted raid, because we did, I've done race world first
coverage where we were doing it with the Dojo when we were
looking at less represented guilt.
And one of those guilds was Undaunted and seeing them do the
calls, the calls and they all have on their screen just like a
little picture in picture. And there's the raid leader and
they are signing and they are doing different things to do
these call outs because they can't rely so much upon other
other things, right. But even at A at home level,
having your raid leader be like Sean, use your defensive
everybody popular, popular defenses for this one.
For the next one, we're using healing tide or spirit loop or
whatever, right? Hey, we're all going to be
sneered. Let's get your roar from druid
#4 shaman #3 you're going to use your wind rush totem on the next
one. That kind of coordination used
to be far more commonplace. It is more automated at the top
end and just less present in general at the lower.
End frack those pugs, they shouldn't get to raid anyway and
I do want to know what. They do with fractose.
Yeah. Well, that won't, that doesn't
get cut. Frack is good.
Oh yeah, Fractose. Yeah.
I do want to say one thing that we haven't mentioned that is
missing that we can't do yet that I think next to raid frames
is the next most mandatory item that needs to be implemented and
I'm terrified it won't because they're not even talking about
it some way to track debuffs right now, the only way to know
if you have a debuff on you is to look next to your mini map
where all of your other debuffs are and all of your buffs are
moved back. If you have but then but Manny
it it, there's no way to filter it so it tracks time warp it
tracks. If you're a dead knight and you
used purgatory, it tracks all of those things like it's it is a
terrible, terrible, terrible way to track debuffs.
That needs to be the cool down manager has a buff tracker.
Just add another row for debuffs.
OK so here's here's the thing. Add the row for debuffs right?
So I can track my important personal debuffs right?
And then on the debuff things allow me to filter it so it is
only externals. I do not want a duplication,
right? And I want the ability to just
be like in PvP. These are the debuffs that I
have on me from everybody else. I don't care about my own ones
because I'm tracking that in in the cooldown manager, right?
I want just a single bar, even if it's a separate debuff
tracker that is just, or a toggle where I go.
I only want external debuffs to be tracked.
I do not care about about my internal ones because I will
track that separately. I, I think that is another issue
just that's kind of inherent to the ethos that Blizzard was
giving us, because I'm sitting here trying to think of even how
they would give you what you're looking for, Sean and like.
It's not possible. Right, because they they
wouldn't. It would have to list every
possible debuff from every mob in the game, right?
Exactly. Because if they're telling you
they don't want, they don't want it to be possible for these
things to make decisions for you.
I mean, I guess they could, they could do what they love to do,
which is the like, important and less important, which is a bad
system. And like, and if I don't have
granularity control over that, I, I, I frequently disagree with
the DBM makers of what's important and what's not.
And so I, I, I simply do not think I'm going to agree with
Blizzard more. So I, I, I, I, I think what I
was when I was thinking of this, I think the thing they could
probably do the closest to what you're looking for would be to
give you the opportunity to turn, like to go in and manually
turn off. Like you can do a debuff tracker
and then like remove time warp and remove like your internal
debuff. So I I can see that being
possible, but you'd have to do that for every single boss by
hand. Or just have two debuff
trackers. 1 debuff tracker is debuffs that are instituted by
players and items and the other one is debuffs that are applied
by enemies. And then the debuffs applied by
enemies you put down next to your unit frame.
So you can see if you have a debuff on you from a boss or
from a mob or a bleed or a poison or whatever and then
leave the player initiated debuffs.
Your time warp, your forbearance up by the mini map because
they're fine there. That would be the the way to do
it. You need you.
They're going to need to differentiate debuffs from
enemies versus debuffs generated by players.
And there's no, they're not even talking about it.
So the only way you're going to have to know if you have a
debuff is by hoping that whatever they put on your
character in the middle of your screen, you can see.
I hope. Just don't be a melee, I guess.
Don't be a melee player. I can't see them now.
And I have air horns that go off when I get them.
I still, still don't know when I have stuff on me.
You know what I mean? Like.
Yeah, yeah. So like more visible debuffs,
including full screen effects that something that they've
said, right, if it is important that they want you to know about
it, that they want you to deal with it, having a full screen
effect is a damn good way of doing it.
If they want you to know that you need to spread out from
everybody else that that big circle around you, right is a
good one. But I also would like, I think
that's something that that that players have said in in the
discord that I think that they should do is further clarify
spell effects in in the game. I do love how you can tell what
a meteor is right, what to soak in, what to, to avoid what is
going to push you one way or or another, like forced movement in
Final Fantasy 14. It doesn't need to be exactly
like that. Final Fantasy 14.
Every boss looks like you're in a disco floor and not actually
like fighting some mythological creature.
I think there is some there is some immersion breaking that's
happening there. And I, I think that Blizzard has
always said that gameplay is king, that gameplay matters.
And so if I've got to choose between a little immersion break
so that a mechanic is clear and less frustrating, I'm going to
go that way. And so I'd like that.
That said, again, if a debuff is on me and I need to react to it
without like DBM or weak orders or whatever screaming at me 5
minutes before I enter a fight, that I need to watch out for
this. Also being able to have a little
bit of grace to react to it is another part on it.
And that's part of the design that they need to put into into
this. And that's not something that is
going to be just with the the raids that we're testing coming
up in these upcoming weeks, but also going forward.
Because once you do it, you have to keep doing it.
You screw it up in Tier 2 of this expansion or Tier 2 and
five expansions from now. You've made this problem for
yourself, Blizzard, it's on you, right?
And so as much forgiveness or benefit of the doubt, I'm
willing to extend the Blizzard in terms of moving in this
direction. You've put the workload on
yourself. You need to hit it every time
going forward now because you've removed other people's ability
to compensate for your mistakes. We know it can be done.
Dementias is a fantastic fight that requires no weak or like
mythic Dementias, you require no weak gores for it.
Everything is visually clear to understand.
Even though the majority of the mechanics are purple on purple,
it's still very easy to see what is what, where goes where, with
the exception of Gravity's and you're overlapping devourers and
you make those puddles that's even still playable so you can
do it. I don't understand why we live
in a world where you show us that you can do that and then
you still give us Fractus. That is infuriating to me.
It's like, no, I totally get it. It's like your kid coming home
early instead of rate, you know, two hours past their their
curfew. It's like, no, we can do that.
No, no, no. What what it is is that they're
like, oh, I really want to do this.
Like you can't do that anymore. They're like, just give me one
boss. I just want to screw with those
weak or kids one more time and they're like, all right, fine,
you can do Fractalis. And that's what we got friends.
That's what we got. We'll see we're.
Going to find out next week. That's the exciting part.
We're going to find out next week.
Raid testing is next week. Get in there, jump on the beta,
there'll be lots of groups going in.
LFG if you want to get in, there'll be lots of pre made
groups. Actually get in there and have a
look and see if Blizzard does all of the things that they've
told us they're going to do. I'm excited to find out.
I can't wait. Do try to go in with an open
mind. Don't go in expecting them not
to hit the mark, because they won't if you expect that.
So try to go in with an open mind, and then when they don't
hit the mark, then you can be upset.
Yeah. Or be pleasantly surprised when
everything everything was good. Yep.
But with that said, we've been talking for an hour and her
skill is still a thing. So until next time, may all your
hits be crits.