There have been many tales told about me, but I'll tell you the
truth no one living has heard. Once, long, long ago, I was
mortal like you. Victory for the Forsaken.
For Lauderon, for the Kieran Tour, for Pandaria.
For calendar to. The burning region for Gilnaeus
that has not died, for the Lich King, for the Sindora, for the
Alliance, for the Horde, for Azeroth.
Hello and welcome to another episode of For Azeroth.
We are doing a dynamic duo today because Sean is taking a well
deserved break as we lead into this upcoming convention that
we're throwing. So for those of you who have not
heard from the last episode, Northrend Live is a it's a
combination of creators who've come together to put, put this
together, including Sean and myself, as well as some great
backing from Blizzard. So this is the Canadian chapter
of the like housing thing that they did in Germany and they've
done one in UK and so now we're doing one in Canada as well, on
top of which a bunch of collaborators coming together.
So we've got people from all over the world.
We've got dark lady coming up from Florida to lead with some
cosplay. We've got Mr. GM coming in from
the UK all all over. We've got people who are going
to be linking in and supporting from home.
So we've got like Talias and Never Tell and we've got Soul So
Breezy that'll be competing in some stuff and that's going to
be really cool. But tickets have sold out.
I'm going to tell you now, tickets have sold out.
So if you are interested in this and you haven't gotten a ticket,
don't worry you can watch online.
This will be on pika.tv or the official Blizzard Twitch as
well. We'll be streaming the main
event in its entirety and that is February 21st.
For those who don't know, but let's let's go past all of that.
That my entire self indulgent advertising.
Self advertising. It's my show.
I get to do that, friends. I think if you just think really
cool and exciting and big, especially when it affects the
community and it sells out, I think that you deserve to have a
little bit of a little moment of like, hey yo, I did a really
cool, big, exciting thing and it's coming up soon and you guys
should watch. I think the pad in the back
happens once it's done. I think it can happen multiple
times. I think that if you're doing
hard work for multiple moments, you're allowed to have multiple
moments where you're like, I'm doing hard stuff and it's cool,
yeah. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just milking
the fact that Sean is has been working himself senseless.
And so that's why he needed the day off.
But that is that's one big thing this week.
It's been kind of a slow week. And so I guess this is a tilted
question. Lex, how's the World of Warcraft
been treating you? I watched fun videos and then I
misunderstood the fun videos and argued with my Guild about them
for like an entire day and then rewatched the videos and
realized I miswatched the videos so that's why I was treating me
a little stupid. But it's not the World of
Warcraft's fault. I mean, that is our first story.
The big the big news of the week is that we got a cool cinematic.
This was kind of Warbringer style, that 2 1/2 D animation.
And this one showed a lot of things.
It it showed the subjugation of the ethereals King salad bar
decides to bend the knee to Zalitath and throw in her throw
in his lot with with her the harbinger.
But we also got like a little bit of the motivations hints
towards the motivations of Zalitath and a little bit of
mystery back story of that. But I I love this Lex.
Lex did you? What were your thoughts about
this trailer? I thought it was really cool.
So I at first misunderstood the timeline because there's a
moment in Salvador's past where he like right, right at the fall
of Koresh, where he he give basically gives up to the void,
right and pulls down the defenses and like lets the void
in. And in the the Wow pedia and
Stafa was saying like we don't fully understand why he'd like
he's the only one who knows why he did that.
So I in my head thought that this was showing that moment way
back when. And so I was making a little
snarky comments like she wasn't actually the blade of the black
empire at that point. And also she wouldn't have had
that form. But after rewatching, I think
it's it's pretty obvious. It's in the dark heart.
Like this is immediately after when he's been sucked in.
So now that that's a side, and I do actually know that World of
Warcraft knows the war better than me.
Surprise, surprise. I thought it was really cool.
I have been getting a little bit into the different theories that
people are putting out, so the one that I find the most
interesting and probably the most probable.
When Zalatoth is talking, I'm assuming we can spoil things.
Right. Oh yeah.
Oh yeah, Like spoiler alert. Just the official spoiler alert.
If you haven't watched this, go ahead, go out there and watch
this, then come back to this episode.
I don't know how long we're going to be diving into theories
and spoilers, but we are going to be analyzing what we saw out
there and coming up with our own little tinfoil hats.
So that's out of the way. All right, you guys pause, come
back. All right, let's go into this.
Yeah, so I basically when Zalitath is talking about her
life is immortal, that put that pushed her towards being
Zalitath as we know her. She chose herself as a kid right
in. And they're like the the cameras
coming down to her and it's all like bright lights.
And then everything kind of like turns to ash.
And the argument that I've heard the most that I think is
probably true is that this is showing Zalitath and her world
being destroyed by the Light, which would explain why she then
turns to the void, right? If if you see your entire
homeland just utterly decimated by this horrible, overwhelming
power, you turn to its opposite, right?
OK. Yeah.
So that's my best guess. I do.
I know there's also a lot of debate because one thing that
Zalitas says, what she says to bring Saldadar over to her is
what's important is survival for you and your people, right?
For like, for like me and my people and you are all creatures
of the void. And therefore I will like, we
will survive together, right? Like my job is to take care of
all of us together. And I think she's probably kind
of telling the truth. I know a lot of people are
saying, oh, it's Alatas, she lies.
I think she is purposely leaving out the fact that the void is
all consuming. And so yeah, like taking all of
the beings of the void into this one self, right?
The the one existence of the void.
If you believe in the void, you could argue that that is
survival for them. You're incorporating them into
the one hole. But I, I, I think she, she very
obviously, in my opinion, does not mean it the way that
Salhadar thinks. She means it, which is I am
going to protect you all and you are all going to cut out of
this, OK, Because we are in the void together.
I I am on an opposite track to you.
Interesting. Yeah, I think 1 some of it could
be true. And we've got people in chat,
Snoop saying that like you can absolutely manipulate people
with information. That's true.
After all, that's the beauty of this cinematic, because part of
it is her tale. And like, hey, I was once just
like you. I lost everything too.
And what I learned was the important thing is survival.
And I think survival is true. She wants to survive.
The entire thing that we're now learning about the void is that
like, you know, this all devouring thing, like the entire
hierarchy is just like praying upon the weak, devouring,
consuming all and becoming stronger through that process.
And in that way, it's a survival of the fittest.
So that's kind of the survival. And I look at Zalitath in that
story and it is her as a young child.
She like the the roundness of the face, the large eyes and
everything that is Zalitath as a young child.
But she also has like she's clutching on to little keepsake
when everything happens. I'm sorry about the phone
clutching on to a little keepsake.
Well, everything's happening and to to me means that she's old
enough to have a recognition, right, to have vague memories of
that world that we just see grey ash behind her.
It's enough for her to resent what destroyed that world.
And so in my mind, that's the void.
The void destroyed her world. She is resentful that like what
she knew what like might have been a maybe a good childhood.
You don't know right was all taken away from her and she was
thrown into this dog eat dog dogma of of the of the void of
the entity. And so she's she's young enough
that that's what she was. She grew up in just you've got
to survive. Everybody is either a stepping
stone or a stick and you need to and you need to convert 1 to the
other and use them both. And then that logic and that
sort of like, hey, like you're in a tough bind.
You everybody wants to survive. Like assume everybody wants to
survive except the most nihilistic sort of thing, which
makes it funny that she works with like the cult that's like,
yeah, let's end the world anyways.
And she preys upon that in in King Saladar, but that's also
her giving a bit of the truth in there, too.
She's like, I hate this. This is a horrible world, but
this is the world that we're in. Let's like, so like, join with
me and we'll be the ones that survive, right?
Don't worry about fighting me. Yeah, yeah.
Things are being screwed up. But together we can win.
And then, you know, she's going to betray.
She's going to backstab. She's going to like it's we're
going to be 6 bosses deep into like into whatever raid and
Salivar is going to be like, Dang it, why didn't I see it
coming? And we're all going to roll our
eyes. But that's the beauty of it.
She uses the bit of the truth she to like connect with with
Saladar and like see the plate because she's been through that
plate and then twist him to to the cause.
Yeah, I will say so the more I, I, I, I do I, I, sorry, I have
like 20 thoughts at once and I tried to say them all at the
same moment. I can see that and a long thread
in Zalitas history is that she is consistently subjugated by
the void and then kind of takes over, right?
That happens with Demensius and that happens with the old gods
and that happens with Demensius again.
Like she consistently is put under yokes by more powerful
creatures of the void and then uses that like resentment and
and hatred of the fact that she is put in enslaved essentially
to then give her the power to push out.
Right. So I, I still think it's the
light is, is what destroyed her homeland, especially because I
think there are little tidbits in other stories that suggest
that that's kind of one thing that the team is looking at,
which I mean, I'm, I'm like meta story in here, right?
That it it seems like the World of Warcraft writing team wants
to explore the idea of the light as a destructive force as well
as the void as an destructive force.
And I think that could be a really interesting story.
But I see I, I, I don't necessarily know that I believe
that like, so strongly that I think you're wrong, right?
Like, I, I think that what you're saying is also
potentially really true, right? That, yeah, that could just be
another example of Zalotaph being subjugated under the void
and being more powerful. It could even be how she got
taken over by Demencius, right? To become the Harbinger in
general. I will also say the more I both
think through her history and also read through her history
and researching before this, there is a part of me that's a
little sad that Zalitov had such a very interesting story of
constantly being like subjugated and getting out.
And I think I wish that we could explore and maybe we will, that
mindset of like, what would happen?
Like, what would it look like for someone for Zalitath or for
someone like Zalitath who's constantly subjugated to instead
harness the void with more like awareness and compassion, right?
Like it is kind of silly, like not crappy in the sense of like,
I think they're like bad storytelling or anything.
I think this is the thing that happens very frequently in the
world, but sad to see her constantly go through this, you
know, cycle of abuse, for lack of a better word, and then
continue it. That's the beauty of it though.
I love that she is both victim and victimizer.
I I love that like especially when you see that she like was
brought into that world at such a young age where she wasn't
socialized on like that original planet.
She wasn't like a young adult and then got and said, screw it,
I'm gonna join the void. She, she was like a small child,
right? And then it's just like dementia
comes and says, listen, I will have my minions eat you for, for
a meal or you can come serve me right.
And you can have good stories along that line where she's
like, listen, like, listen, if I don't do this, I'm on the
chopping block. So rather your head than mine.
And that is a mentality that is so real, right?
And I think that from there, her ultimate defeat will come from
somebody who is willing to do the self sacrifice.
And that will make that such a poignant play where she's so
good at playing on people's own motivations.
And then she comes across somebody or somebody is finally
willing to give up their own personal survival for the
greater good. And that's the one thing that
she won't be able to to like plan for or understand or or
figure out. And like that to me is so done,
is like something that can be played to like an amazing effect
based on the character that they've been showing us.
I do think Zaltath is really well developed.
I think her back story is, is one of the stronger ones that
I've seen in in World of Warcraft and I I, yeah, I mean,
I think the video had a lot of interesting potentials.
I think it's kind of fun to have a character who lies a lot and
who manipulates a lot because it does mean, you know, usually
when we're given information, it's pretty straight up like
here is what happened here is why you believe me.
Like what I am telling you is what is true.
And I think the fact that now we have a a character who's very
hard to pin down and who we know.
Most unreliable narrator? Exactly.
Thank you. That was the phrase that I was
looking for such an unreliable narrator.
It means that these little tidbits of information are so
much more interesting because, you know, there's probably some
lie to it. You know, there's probably a lot
of truth to it, right? You know, if the even just on
again to meta story this, if the Blizzard team was like,
actually, everything in that video was true, not true.
Like that would be bad storytelling, right?
Like it would make us sad. And so they're probably not
going to do that. So it's it's piercing together.
You know what's true and what's not true.
That makes it a very fun and engaging and exciting story.
And I am I'm really excited for midnight.
I think that there's going to be a lot of, there's a lot of signs
that the story is going in a really interesting direction and
in a direction that I personally have wanted it to go for a
while. Yeah, and I think that this
storyline in the time that it's released really does line up
because like, you're not the only one, Lex.
Don't don't think that you were the only one who confused when
this story took place. As soon as it came out, I had a
friend who was mentioning being like, wait, when did this
happen? This seems out of place.
I'm like, no, no. So this happened after the the
penultimate fight, right after the the penultimate fight, you
see that King Saladar gets drained into the the Dark Heart.
And this may actually not be taking place in the Dark Heart,
but the staging grounds of the devouring hosts that Zalitath is
making. Because you can see those
creatures that she's got now and that is something that she
didn't have before. So this is this is her now
seemingly far more powerful, harnessing all the power of
dementia. See those those Wraith like
guys? They look like a mix of like
dementias always look like a super blueberry.
But these look like the the step up of of those guys, the mini
dementias sigh that are less thinking, but they also talk
too, like they are intelligent beings.
And so this is her galvanizing her army.
This is her mustering her forces.
And it's such a that's such a great timing when we are now
only weeks away, less than a month away from release that we
now get a little bit more insight on like what is coming.
So I really do. I really do love that.
One more thing and then we can transition as you I think we're
trying to do. I talked a lot about the
cyclical nature of Zalotax history.
I think one and one thing that made it kind of hard to place
this video is the fact that this is also a cycles for Saladar,
right? He gets the support of his
people and he's about like he, he's right on the edge of making
really good choices and he has a really strong ability to protect
his people and to save his people and to keep them safe.
And then the void comes in and it convinces him and it
convinces him through his love of his people, right?
It it tells him like, no, this is the actual right way to
protect your people. This is how you're going to be a
good king. And he falls for it.
And then it makes things significantly worse for his
people and. I want to say this is at least
the second or maybe arguably the third time that he's done this.
I think it's the second. I take it back.
I I was mixing up two storylines, but he knows, right?
He did this already. This happened.
He was following dementias. He was trying to be, you know,
thinking this is gonna help his people.
And one thing that's really devastating the video is he is
about to help his people escape, right?
He has made a portal. They are about to get away and
he removes that and he re subjugates his people and yeah,
I mean, they're gonna be betrayed and it's it's his own
fault, right? I'm not saying like, oh, poor
Saladar. How could you know?
He's so lied to. Like again, he's been through
this. He knows what's gonna happen.
I have no sympathy for the fact that this is gonna happen again.
It's very Nerzul adjacent, right?
Like. Actually, if I was gonna echo
anything, I would go only as far back as at the beginning of the
War Within when we had the entire thing with the Naurubian
Empire and we had Anserak, who like you hear the whispers.
And same thing with this, like the, the, the, the stick is
there. We talked about sticks.
She's got them beating down and be like, your guys are going to
be devoured and and that and then she just whispers and she
comes in. It's like, hey, hey, hey, I get
it. I get it.
We're actually on the same side. Forget that.
I've got all these minions beating the crap out of you.
Let's work together. And she whispers before she even
shows up, and she's still doing that same creepy thing that she
was doing with Anserak and Anserak's mother, right?
And then she comes in and she talks and she says she says what
she feels he needs to hear. And she comes in at the time
just when he's about to make it, but also when the desperation is
so high, like he hasn't made it through that portal yet.
If he made it through that portal, hope, would we reel it?
He would feel a lot safer. The hope is there.
And then she comes in and she's like, no, no, no, don't.
That's a lie. Even if you go through there,
I'm still coming after you, right?
Still showing the stick, still burying her fangs.
But then she smiles and says, but hey, we're all a family.
We're all void, yes, us void and pulls him in.
And I think that is that's so much just if salad, if Salador
had to have something. And you're talking about his
people like you did, right? Talking about widening that our
people from just the just the subjects that he controls to all
of these void, these voids that are maybe not part of the
greater void beyond reality, but like just trying to survive is
just such a great twist of where he seems to be.
And then, yeah, he he kneels down.
So I think that is a really good point that you make there.
Unless there's anything else. Shall we step forward?
Let's step forward. OK, I do want to contrast this
because with the patch 12.0 point one that hit just this
week, things got reset, add-ons needed to be updated, new
talents for some classes, new new ways that even the abilities
work for some classes have hit. And I opened up my client and I
was once again treated to the cinematic that we first saw at
Gamescon back in the summer. And I don't know if this was the
same for you, Lex, but it hit so much better when I was sitting
in front of my computer watching it.
Not not with any kind of like anticipation, like at games
column, but just in the client. The, the lighting, the events
that happened, even the one liners just hit so much better
for me. Where like, you know, just like
you can't even break one elf. And it's like, yeah, OK, now I
want to fight for Silver Moon. And then she decides to break
like 4 of them. Like just that that that.
And I'm still just so like it was, it was quite the rush
moment for me. And did was it the sort of like
something you skipped by or did you sit down and watch it again?
I did skip by it but now I want to sit down and watch it again.
I actually, I think I probably could even I think I probably
haven't gone into World of Warcraft recently enough to have
had it pop back up. So I I not to make your
appreciation and love of the game turn into a little tater
moment, I will never cease to be disappointed that that cutscene
was revealed to us at Gamescon. I think it was not.
It was not the moon. I think Gamescon, like, I think
that is part of what I want to talk about.
Like I think that Gamescom did not sell that properly
considering how much more I liked it just this week than six
months ago when it was fresh. So, so I would agree with you
there. And of course Gamescon had like
a number of other announcements too.
So it kind of got lost in just like the chaos of it all.
So, so there's that I, I would be interested in see in what you
feel about it, but you have seen it before.
And I think that one thing that now that we are on the eve of
midnight, we're at the like, quote UN quote, 11th hour.
There are some things where when we were looking at the cinematic
in it back in August at Gamescon, we were we were
speculating about being like, oh, like is this the last stand?
Is Silver Moon the last bastion? Now we know it's not.
Now we know like it's she should have beelined, which like gave
me a bit of a conflict one. It feels so like they did this
many amazing characterizations of of like the different actors
in there. Northamar absolute like I I know
Regent, Regent Lord, but I'm going to say it absolute king,
like just new dynasty there. OK, Leadron, really cool
character, but not what who I want to call Leadron her the
desperation like as she's like being very penitent and like
feverishly praying at the beginning, right?
And you see that doubt in her later on where she's where she
like goes back to pray, like she breaks formation, she goes back
to pray. And then she stopped praying and
says like, you know what? I know I'm not worthy, but like
my people are so like forget me, save my people.
I want to know more about where that came from.
That to me seems like such a like her character could have
gone there. And if we had seen like the
world constantly being defeated by this, this host and her
herself being seeing so many setbacks that it like it broke
what who I felt feel is such a like stalwart, stiff upper lip
kind of person to like to make that I guess to make that moment
more deserved. Like it doesn't feel like she
should be as intimidated as she was.
So two things. The first is so Leodrin's lore
is not something I'm super strong on, so I'm just parroting
what other people said to me. Isn't part of Leodrin's story
that she has historically done this before that like she kind
of gave up on the light and needed to be brought back into
it or something along those lines?
So she is the first of the blood nights, right?
She like she was the one who like worked to like imprison the
the Naru that was eventually sacrificed to reignite the the
sun well. And they forcibly drained that
energy to like retain to gain their power and abilities.
And that was the formation of the blood night, the blood
nights. It's her and coming in this
expansion, the, the person who controls the, the prey system,
right? They are the ones that like
formed the the blood nights and then for through the burning
crusade, the the turn of events and everything and the eventual
coming together of the of the sorry, I'm alive, I'm alive OK,
The eventually coming together of all the all of the forces to
like reignite the sun Well, the same Naru that she captured,
sacrificing itself to reignite the sun.
Well her like enemies at the time, which were the Junai
saying like no, no, no, we will work with you.
That kind of put a shame in her made her realize that she was
wrong in what she was she was doing and that that is part of
it. Like, that's why I would say
like, OK, like she would say like, yes, I'm not worthy, OK.
But like, the the frailty of her conviction, not necessarily her
her faith that she's deserving of the light, but her conviction
of like, I'm gonna stand. I don't care.
Like to me, Leon's the person who says I don't care if I'm
worthy or not. I will die unworthy rather than
like, give up and become worthy. Yeah, so I I'm gonna say before
I say my second point, I do remember in the when I watched
the Angela cutscene, I thought it was confusing and I thought
it it seemed kind of stilted and and sort of shoe horned without,
again, without knowing a ton of Leon, I know my my Leodrin
loving friends loved that cutscene.
So it's quite possible that I part of it is just that I'm
missing old lore contacts. Although I would make the
argument that if you need like all of the lore nuance to
understand a major opening cutscene, that's a problem in
and of itself. But the other argument I would
make is one thing that I was thinking about a lot with this
moment, right? With how did I just forget the
name of the Blood Elf city? Silverman.
Silverman, thank you. Is it Silverman just keeps
getting beaten down? Right?
This has happened so many times. They are constantly the ones
being attacked. They're constantly the ones.
And then, you know, like one of their old heroes comes back and
there's freaking void everywhere and they lost half their one of
their goddamn magisters decide. I mean, I'm not telling this in
order, but like he's oh, I'm going to go explore the void and
all of a sudden he's an alliance and we want to be the alliance,
but then the God damn everything.
And what if we what like this is just like the the life of the
blood elves is just constantly getting beaten down and
constantly having like like being in the repair mode and
getting things better. And then it falls apart and
you're just about to OK. And we're now we have, you know,
these conversations going with the Alliance and it falls apart.
And you know, like we we're like Arthus comes in and decimates
and everything. Like this is the thing they've
been through again and again and again.
And so I can understand some degree of just and as I'm saying
this, I, I do think this might have even been stronger had it
not been Leodrin and not been a specific character.
And more so constantly, like if if this had been more of like
the blood elves as like a like a, a legion of them almost
losing faith. I don't know, I'm thinking on
the fly, but I, I can't imagine being a blood elf is just
feeling like every time I open my eyes, there's another thing.
And every time we're just we finally repaired the city and
it's destroyed again. And like, we damn it, like we
were just getting better and now Zelatad has to come here.
Like out of all we had everything under control.
We were finally dealing with the magic addiction.
And like everything was finally OK.
And she's back. And that just like heart
wrenching. Like, what is the point?
Like, why am I still fighting right if if it's just gonna
happen again and again and again?
And I think that's a really powerful story within the blood
elves. But again, I don't feel like I
know Leodrin well enough to speak to whether or not this is
good for her. And I, I do feel that it wasn't.
Whatever internal conflict was going on is not super well
explained to us. Yeah.
I mean, I think that the plight of the blood elves has been like
a lot of hits, But I would also say that that is true for all of
the races. Like you go night owls and they
had their tree burned down and the other tree they had to
sacrifice to get rid of the demon.
You go orcs. And it's like, how many times
have we seen Jorge Amar? You go, you go.
I don't know the gnomes and it's like we just still don't have
our CD back. We just never got it back and
and the rate that everybody else is getting their city destroyed,
you know what, we'll just leave it just set the default
irradiated. So like it happens, it happens
to all of the races. This is of course, the World of
Warcraft. As much as people want to scream
that it's not the same as it's always been, it's very much
continues in those cycles like the the.
Humans had all these great internment camps and all of a
sudden we have to respect other races.
I mean. Taking heads.
There, there's a there is a lot right?
The yeah, Lord on, of course, getting sacked by the the orcs.
Everybody fled, fled to Stormwind.
They they get it back. Sorry, sorry, sorry, Stormwind
got hit first. They went to Lord Aron.
Lord Aron fought back. Undead plague comes in and no
more Lord Aron. So humans have definitely had it
hard. Gilmayans who like were like, oh
man, this is bad. Let's put up a wall and then
curse of the the wolves. So yes, there's there's been
flights for every every race and I think that there have clearly
been people who have been shaken in every race.
So like, I mean, you don't get nihilistic cults springing up
because everything's been hunky Dory's for so long.
So the fact that you have like the Twilight Blade as they're
called now is is testament to that, that people have been way
more shaken that they are fully on Like, no, no, life is
torture. Let's just end it all, end it
all. I forget what voice line that
is, but that that is a Warcraft voice line.
So yeah, you you're right on that too.
It is, it is interesting. It is Distill Cinematic team
doing such an amazing job pulling together all of those
characters and making it interesting and touching upon
things and hinting at things with these relatively short
moments of time. You're looking at the two
cinematics we talked about and the two of them combined that
that's not even 2015 minutes of of content there.
So that yeah, I agree with you on that.
Moving past the cinematic, if we could, that leads us to of
course 12 point O .1 actually hitting live.
And as I said before, there have been a number of changes.
Lex, you haven't been playing that much.
I've been on every day because for me, it's all about the big
love rocket. Sorry, I apologize.
That's a show that is, that is no longer with us.
I'm talking about the X-45 rocket that comes from the the
love is in the air. Still hunting that on top of
which from previous years they added in the sweeping, the
sweeping broom, which still don't have that also comes from
the heart-shaped box. And this year they've added a
third mount that can drop, which is a butterfly.
So if you haven't gotten any of these amounts, just login.
There are different drop chances.
I'll go through those here for everybody.
The X 45, the original one that is currently on the first chance
each day on each account, you will have a greatly elevated
chance of it dropping. Beyond that, you still have a
chance of it of it dropping from other characters on that same
account, but it's the greatly reduced chance in terms of the
brew mount that one has a chance for the first one each day on
the account, but it also has a increasing bad luck protection
so that eventually you should have a high chance, but not
fully guaranteed. It never hits like you're
guaranteed after so many attempts to have that dropped.
And then this latest one is again, first attempt per account
and the bad luck protection. So if you're, if you're just
trying to not go crazy, make one attempt a day, right, Go get a
tanker a or a healer because you get super fast cues.
Do pick up the potions with the scaling, the, the poisons, the
purple pools and the green pools actually do hurt.
So do pick up that potion just so you're not stressing your
healer. Or if you are the healer that
you don't like, do pay attention to life bars because people will
get trucked and then beyond that.
Just outside of the major towns, there is this entire fairgrounds
that are set up. Once again, you can buy a bunch
of stuff that was in there from last year as well as anything
that you want as well. Now Goblin Graphics asks if
there's any holiday decor. And Lex, have you, have you
pulled that up? Because I actually don't believe
there is, but I can't say with a certainty.
Unfortunately, I don't think so though.
I am not seeing any. I'm seeing it looks like a lot
of butterfly decor this year. So they have like trans mods and
stuff. Was that true last year as well?
I wasn't paying attention. Yeah, if you've.
Missed a year? There's a lot to do.
Yeah, yeah. So it, it does not look like
there's any holiday decor. And I, I feel like I'm saying
that while scrolling to the very bottom of the Wowhead article.
I think if there was holiday decor it would be like for front
and center. Yeah, new, new this year sort of
thing. I think that you're because
we're just ahead of midnight. They didn't add Decor to this.
Same thing with the trading post.
I was like, oh, maybe they'll put in Decor.
It's more likely gonna be a March thing or whatever holidays
we get going forward. Yeah, and to be fair, as much as
I'm like sad that we don't have seasonal decor yet, it's not
like the housing team is sitting down doing nothing, right?
Like they are working very hard. They have put many things in.
We will get our seasonal decor eventually.
Not everything has to be at the start.
I say that mostly to myself, to be clear, because I was the one
who was throwing a little wine fit about how I couldn't
decorate for Christmas. Yeah, yeah.
I I would look for that like last expansion, I think it was
more dragonflight they added in hearthstones into every if
everyone. I really did like that theme.
So decor for midnight would be really awesome.
The Go ahead, Lex. Oh, I was gonna say this is kind
of an interruption because goblin graphics was mentioned in
chat that like, oh, a noble garden holiday accord would be a
fun start and that actually, so I was really I'm I'm a little
confused about the decision this year to make it the spring
butterfly. Maybe it's just that I live very
far up north and so we got like almost half a foot of snow last
night. I'm exaggerating, but still.
So I'm like, what do you mean spring butterfly?
It's February, but I do feel like spring butterfly vibes are
much more noble garden. I'm not, I guess like they're
pink, right? That's a little Valentine's Day,
but I don't I don't know that I fully agree with the decision to
make it the the spring butterfly here.
But I mean, it's pretty. Maybe it's gonna be rabbits.
Rabbits for for noble garden. That's very spring.
Yeah, get a big Bunny mound or. Something I I will say in terms
of Decor, if you are looking for Decor, 3 of the four dungeons
that were locked out in the first pre patch have been
opened. So if you go into Skyreach, if
you go to Algothar Academy and if you go to the pit of Sauron,
turn in your dungeon difficulty to normal and you can run
through the dungeon and you have really high chances.
I, I ran them each once and got the decor.
So like it was less like I if it's not guaranteed, it's
incredibly high, but you will get the you can get the decor
out of that before we get into season 1 and they become part of
the mythic plus rotation. The seed of the triumphant
unfortunately still requires level 90, so you can't get into
that one. I also did look at the in game
Decor guide and that has been updated not only reflecting
stuff that is going to be coming in midnight.
So you'll, you can see what will be there, but also locations and
such of some stuff that is currently available right now.
I while I was going and doing Skyreach, I was finding a decor
vendor that's out in the spies of Iraq in, in Warlizer.
Traynor picked up a bunch of different stuff from from there,
so if you are looking for more decor stuff to like make your
place look great, go ahead and look through that in the in the
game. Has anyone made just like a
list? I'm sure they have.
I'm sure I haven't seen it of like every decor vendor and
where you can find them. So you if you want to just like
grind it out and go pop to every single vendor you could.
Yeah, if you go to there is the Wow database, housing database.
So I think it's like Wow housing DB is the exact, I think that is
the entire site that's dedicated to like here it is.
This is how much cost, this is where you can go for it.
This is the budget for like room budget and so forth.
And you can just like find stuff there.
But so more So what I'm talking about is like has somebody?
Unless I'm misunderstanding because I'm on the page now, Is
there somebody who's kind of walked through like, here's just
where you like If you wanted to hit up every single decor
vendor, right? Less so like identifying what
decor you. Want so you're like trying to do
a world tour where I like spend as little amount little amount
of time circumnavigating the map to get to every decor vendor?
Exactly. Got it.
I haven't seen that. I have seen some great videos by
Discordian Kitty that kind of breaks it down into like, hey,
if you want to go and do dungeons, here's the dungeons,
here's the delves, here's going around Eastern Kingdoms, right?
And I think that kind of helps a bit.
So like that would be kind of good.
It's sort of like data for Azarov has this entire or no,
might not be data for Azarov. There is a site that I'm
blanking on right now that has an entire like these are the
amounts you're missing. Here's the most effective route
for you to go to all of the places and and go farm them.
And I think that's what you're looking for, but I haven't seen
that for decor. I don't know phasers.
If you know of a site or any sort of resource that gives that
sort of breakdown on where to go and like where to go next, let
us know. We'd love to hear about it.
But yeah, have you, I guess if you're asking that, that's
because you're you're sort of saying like, I want to do this
tour, I'd love to do it as efficiently as possible.
So you haven't started doing this yet, right?
Not really, not really. I still get very overwhelmed
every time we like I think about housing and I know you and I
have talked offline a little bit about like different ways to
potentially tackle that. And every all of it is just
there's just so many stats, right?
Like does everything is like to try to fit even like going on
this wow housing database. It's so cool and there's so many
things and every single thing I'm like, well.
That's the problem. The second thing you said,
there's so many things, it's like, where the hell do I even
start? Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I do think I want to make my house a little bit more
functional. You and I chatted a little bit
about how when I'm on like a phone call with people, I'm
usually just like on World of Warcraft, like jumping around.
And so turning like getting a big room and just turning it
into kind of like a jungle gym, right?
Where I can just like be like on an officer chat, like just try
to like hop up to like 1, you know, little platform up here
and then go over here. Like, you know, that sort of
thing would be really fun for me.
So maybe making housing last just like a set up my house and
make it look pretty. So it's pretty and more so like
how can I use this in the ways that I tend to engage with the
game, But I have not actually started doing that.
I've just talked about it. Yeah, I mean in the Patreon I
did a tour of my house that is now so out of date.
I've I've rebuilt different places.
I think 2 of the rooms are the same, like the entry room and
the kitchen are somewhat the same.
But like, again, Lex and I do talk outside of the show,
apparently. And the the empty room that I
was like that I was saying, oh, I should make this.
You were saying I should make this like a gymnasium or a
training room. I ended up turning it into a sun
room, which like I really do love.
And communities, communities have sprung up about this all
over World of Warcraft that they're doing these housing,
housing communities and stuff like that.
And for me, I wanted to make my house seem like not like
something that is like World of Warcraft sort of thing.
It was just like, it's a house that my adventurer returns to.
It is, it is like the kind of a functional thing, like what
would a house in World of Warcraft do for somebody who
wasn't like like the grand mage of cool terrace or whatever sort
of thing. Not like the Castle Borealis or
whatever, or Borealis, not Borealis, Borealis or whatever.
This was just like a home in the neighborhood.
And I have really enjoyed when I do get that idea, just building
it out and being that I, I geeked over making a laundry
nook where I had like a little washer or dryer and putting in
like the little steam coming out of the right place.
And, and it and one part that I actually jostles around.
So it looks like that's running. And then I found like little
dials that's it's so geeky and so much fun.
And it's stuff that I used to do when I was playing like Animal
Crossing. I never actually played The
Sims. I played like Animal Crossing
and and that and I really enjoy that and I love putting in the
clutter and making it lived in and making it feel like it's
like a actual place instead of just like, here's the fridge and
here's the stove and here and here's some counters and leave
it at that. It's like, no, no, no, like,
hey, like this fridge doors like this cupboard door slightly open
and inside you can see the stuff there.
Like there's there's the wine and one glass is sort of left
out. And like all these little things
in there that like, like we were just talking about with the
cinematics, sort of tell a story in there.
Not like, oh, this place is like showroom ready, but like this
place is, Hey, I you came over there and he had to go rush off
to like fight in the mana vaults.
And so he didn't get a chance to clean up the takeout food.
And so the takeout food was like left there.
And it's like, oh, wow, you better come back and clean that.
Like that to me is this weird little head cannon, not quite
full RP as you have talked about in previous episodes, but like
just making that kind of cool little environment I love to do.
Yeah, Yeah. So I would invite you to do
that. Forget about building the house,
make a room. Be like, I'm going to do the
library and it's got a bunch of the fell tombs and like my Demon
Hunter was like looking for a book here and then zipped over
here and dropped the book down there and then and then couldn't
find it. So like jump double jumped up
here. And so like there's a platform
here for demon hunters to double jump to and the the ladder is
always been left off there. It's got cobwebs because he
never uses it because all he does is he double jumps and like
that becomes like the story and like you build that and and
such. I think that's cool and I really
do love the people who are building these amazing,
fantastical, fantastical buildings and structures that
that are there. Yeah, I do think when I start
more so copy like pulling in from other people, that probably
is what I kind of need to do is spend a little time looking at
other people. Because I was thinking when you
were talking about like playing Animal Crossing and like I did
play The Sims and I was the girl who would just go in and do the
like high money cheat and then just buy up a really nice house
that was pre made. I once tried to make my own
house and it was very distressing for my SIM because I
forgot to make a bathroom. It's got 2 bathrooms in my house
so on. Suite end you got the the one
that I forgot way back. There you go.
Yeah, No, I I would do that. The other thing, just general
advice for anybody. Don't do the big rooms.
My goodness, trying to fill up the big rooms is insanity.
Go small. If you find that you were like,
Oh my goodness, I don't have the room for stuff, then go ahead.
Make the medium room but the largest rooms.
I don't think they'd make any sense in in my mind.
There there are some people who seem to love the really big
spaces, but I'm also very much not.
These are not the skills of mine.
OK. That brings us to kind of link
to this, but also the last story that I want to talk about today.
People who saw the state of Azeroth, who have seen the
various things that are coming in housing and so forth and are
talking about the quote UN quote Disneyfication of the World of
Warcraft. So this is this is coming from
people who, you know, have been with the game for a long time
and resent that the game is evolving.
They saw the interview where it was Ian Hasekosis and Holly
talking and Holly's talked about like how even Chris Metson
venerated is his name said Like, man, sometimes I wish it was, we
didn't name it Warcraft just so it would be more approachable.
And this caused a backlash on the interwebs because we were
like, what? Chris Metsons portrayed us.
This is Warcraft. Can we?
Just be honest with each other. I don't mean to yuck in my own
Yum. I don't mean to yuck.
I don't mean to be mean to the devs.
Fast dev. If you're listening, you can put
the little cuffs on. With the with the Airbus going
to be talking about Warcraft? It look, it's an amazing game.
I understand like where it all can't having especially like now
that I'm playing the RTS a little bit.
I get the history, I get where it came from.
I'm so happy it exists. Can we not be honest with each
other that the World of Warcraft is a little bit silly of a name?
Like we can again, love the game, Great game, well
developed, incredible. It's a little goofy.
It's a kind of the World of War. It's a It's a slightly goofy
name. It so like, you know, names, so
be it, right? World of Warcraft.
Everybody said they were cribbing notes off of Warhammer,
right? Warcraft itself doesn't seem
silly because like statesmanship Warcraft, that's the, those are
things. So like Warcraft makes sense
always. And then of course, when you
you're like, hey, like let's now do an MMO and we're gonna put
people in the World of Warcraft. It's so very direct.
So I've never considered it silly.
I just considered it maybe perhaps a little unimaginative.
I think, I think Warcraft made sense a lot as a name in the RTS
because that was what you were doing.
I think that's kind of I On the one hand, what else would they
have named it? On the other hand, like, I think
that just doesn't really translate.
To. Yeah, it's so much more epic.
But also, like, I mean, first of all, if you want to transition
from the RTS, that makes sense. And now you're, I'm not like
saying they should rename it. I'm not saying it's bad.
I'm not saying like, Oh my goodness, if you are a World of
Warcraft dev, you should feel so embarrassed.
I feel so like I just, I think we can be honest with ourselves.
I don't know how you could feel in that anyways that this is me
fanboy. If I if I got to work on the
World of Warcraft team, right. But like I'm so into the game,
like I I was a little inside baseball.
I was talking to my, my ex earlier this, this week and I
was talking about like different, different things and
you know, the podcasts, like the, the organizing, the event
and all of that. And I stopped, I stopped for a
second and I said, like you always, you always thought that
like the video games were silly, right?
Because she's not a gamer. Never, never has been.
And her response was, you know what?
It's not for me, but I see the community.
I see like the great things that could come out of it.
And that's, that's amazing, right?
And so even if you are miles away from gaming in general, and
you can say like, hey, like I'm working on a game that's been
out for like 20 years and has been like going strong, a
franchise that's been going for like 30 years with a company
that's been around for like 35 years, right?
Like all of that is, is just objectively like this has been
something with staying power. And so I, yeah.
So I, I don't think people who want to like pinch at like
Warcraft, It's just, it's the name, right.
Like Microsoft is Microsoft's kind of silly when you, when
you're not like indoctrinated into it being a home name.
It's just, it's just a name. Yeah.
Oh. Yeah, I didn't mean that.
It's like a big I I, I still love the game.
And I'm not saying it's a terrible show.
I just when I heard that line from like, you know, Holly
saying Chris Metzen sometimes, like I wish we didn't call it
the World of Warcraft, I'm like, Oh yeah, I could see why.
OK, OK, well that that made Chris Metzen, even though it was
just like an anecdotal sort of thing that he talked about.
And if you get the context, it means basically nothing.
Like we all regret it. There's there's sometimes where
I'm sure, I'm sure like a pair goes and says, man, I kind of
wish we didn't name him Nelson or whatever name.
Like, I'm sorry to all the Nelsons out there.
This is the name that came to me, right?
Just like I kind of wish we named him something else.
Like why did we name our kid like Billy Willy?
Whatever. I don't know, right?
I'm going to stop this before I offend, like every name out
there. We we're already getting
cancelled because I've said the World of Warcraft was a silly
name and Manny's like, let's. Just make sure we're just going
to name them all. Let's.
Get it all out so. Everyone wants to stop
listening. What?
What possessed us to name our kid Lex?
I don't know. As as clearly this is the guppy,
you know the the Rance family really thought that was.
OK, I in terms of names, the 2 ones that always will stick with
me were my friend whose last name was DYKE.
Which doesn't matter if you pronounce it one way or the
other. You should never name your kid
Richard. What are you thinking?
Oh God, yeah, there were. I've done a lot of work with the
public, so I've seen a lot of last names and occasionally I'll
like see a last name and I'm like their parents knew they
could take. The woman's last name, right?
Like there wasn't a law that we had to continue this.
My father was rich and we had to name him after my father.
It's like, just don't marry into that family then.
Anyways. So yeah, we've all had name
regrets. It's really not that thing.
It was a fleeting sort of comment.
And the, IT ignited this, this conversation about like World of
Warcraft and how it's evolving and if it's staying true to what
it was. And I think anybody who's played
World of Warcraft, any version of it knows that it has some
silly weird humor. Before it was the like annoyance
line. When you clicked on a unit
enough they would start saying weird weird strange things like
I'm not that kind of orc or whatever it might be.
It's the quest that have been in there since vanilla that are
poop joke 1275 right? It like World of Warcraft has
always had this sort of silly thing.
Pet battles aren't Warcraft, but they don't they haven't gotten
the same. Or maybe they did and I was just
blissfully unaware like that was that was the straw that broke it
for some people that pet battles have come into my World of
Warcraft and Oh my goodness, now I now I got to go find Pikachu
so I can get into the raid. Who knows, But what do you think
of this Lex? Yeah, I mean, in case I haven't
pissed off our fans enough, I think to some degree we need to
call a spade spade. I think the difference between
poop jokes and, you know, cheering 'cause you got a pretty
piece of decor is that one of it is man jokes and one or like big
air quotes over. This stereotypically
heteronormatively man jokes, Yeah.
Right. The like, you know, pop culture
references and the, you know, like those were read as more
masculine jokes and the cutscene that some people like to lose
their mind about read is more feminine.
And I think people want, I mean, actually they don't because I've
seen some of the comments and a lot of people are really
explicit about it that they are mad because they feel like this
used to be a man game and now it's a girl game and they don't
play the girl game. They want to play the man game.
And to them I say. Tough, I am sorry like I don't I
think that PvP right, I think that rating, I think that
delving and the upcoming labyrinths are all there for
people who want the exploration, the fighting, the cutthroat
right. None of that has been diminished
by the addition of this stuff that appeals to a wider
audience, not just in terms of tone, but in terms of like play
time and play patterns, in terms of how I want to express my
character. I love that professions have
been like put up to this level where somebody can be like, I am
going to be a blacksmith and like, that's what I'm working
on. And I'm going to like get all
the patterns or I'm going to create my army of of alts and
I'm going to just own the auction house.
And that's my end game. And that isn't something that
might challenge some people's fragile nature of what they feel
is threatening to their sense of what the game should be.
And so it feels, it feels like people are being disingenuous
when something else shows up that just so happens to cater
like it just be like directed to a lighter hearted sort of sort
of thing. Hearthstone has been using the
same light hearted sort of nature before, and just because
the Hearthstone ads haven't prominently featured a female
blood elf in in some of them doesn't mean that this isn't the
exact same sort of like subversion of what Wow is.
Because she is such a fighter in the initial parts and she is
right there slashing and slicing and dicing and then she finds
the piece that she wanted and it's just this euphoric.
Like, yes. And if you don't understand
that, that is wow. You are never have haunted for
your Moby Dick Captain Ahab mount.
You have never been tracking down Decor.
You have never defeated a boss that was eluding you for how
many Poles and not have like that, that moment of euphoria
that is World of Warcraft. That is so much what all of us
experience when we get the good, when it's all about the loot.
As my friend Coltrane used to say constantly on his podcast.
You would get that like that, that great drop.
You'd finally complete your your tear set.
You'd that legendary would be forged, Nerd screams.
You would down the boss, nerd screams.
You would finally kick that team and get that rating and you'd be
like, Oh my goodness, I've reached this rating in PvP.
Yeah, buddy. Hell yeah.
Right. That's that's it.
That's what this is. And I think that's amazing.
And I, I, I do want to make it clear, I'm not saying I think
like you can't critique anything in World of Warcraft or you're
like, I mean, first of all, I am one of the arguably the biggest
haters on this podcast. So like, obviously I will give
critiques. And I, I even think you could,
like, I personally feel that World of Warcraft's writing
style tends to struggle a little bit with differentiating good
characters. And if they want to show a
character's good, they kind of fall into a, a heap of like just
everything has to be perfect. And they're lose a lot of their
like moral greatness because they have to make all the good
person choices, which is a really hard thing to write out,
right? I think most writers who deal
with a lot of stories have a tendency to kind of goodness
sort of becomes like, oh, but to be clear, we have to be like
anything that's important. They have to be good, otherwise
they're evil. So, but like, I, I, I think the,
the point of this is to say, I think there are valid critiques
of certain writing styles in World of Warcraft.
I think there's valid critiques of directions in, in certain
storylines. I think there's valid critiques
of, of ways, things like ways we write out stories.
I'm, I'm not saying if you critique World of Warcraft,
you're a misogynist. I will also say, though, to the
point of like, what if World of Warcraft losing, you know, what
it originally was originally World of Warcraft was really
misogynistic and really racist, right?
Like, and, and, and not like in a, in a like irredeemable, you
know, it was just, they came in and they just wrote, I hate
women, I hate people of color, I hate women.
Like, like obviously there was nuance.
And my understanding is that when it came out, it actually
was among the more progressive of the games for it's time,
right? Like it's complicated.
We're allowed to hold that complication.
And you can love a complicated thing and acknowledge the where
it came from and acknowledge what issues arose and also what
issues continue to exist, right? I think that's, I, I personally
think that's a critical part of loving something is being
capable of, of holding nuance with, of it.
But the idea that the original story writing was unproblematic
and didn't hold biases that were held by the the writers, I think
is provably untrue. And I think that growing through
that is going to mean that some of the things that we expect,
you know, that if you played from the beginning that you
expect from World of Warcraft have to be written out.
And I think that's, that's good, that's growth, that's becoming
something better. That's acknowledging the spaces
where something you were doing was problematic or, or or not
what you thought or like you didn't fully understand
something or you held a belief you didn't, you know, in
retrospect, you find embarrassing, which again, is
true of all of us. I'm really truly not trying to
like decimate the the World of Warcraft team or make like, say
this one person is a bad person, right?
I that's a that that is how you develop and grow.
That's not a loss. That's not a failure.
That is growing up and maturing. I would say that that is 100%
true and you can see that in the character development of Thrall,
who is basically being like Metzen's self insert into the
game where as we got the cataclysm, he got married.
As we moved on, he has kids, he stepped aside and let the next
generation take take their place at the helm.
He has like had to come to terms with like what issues he has
created. Like could it be that like, the
monster that Garage is, is kind of also a monster that Metzen
felt that he created? There's so much analogies of
like how Metzen's life evolved, how his views evolved, and how
the World of Warcraft has evolved.
And that didn't happen overnight in one single thing.
That's been a constant movement and as this game has gone on for
20 plus years, people have come on to the project, people have
left the project, the voice has shifted.
That hasn't been suddenly where they're like, yeah, we're
suddenly throwing out all the old stuff and going in with the
new stuff. This has been the evolution of
Wow for the longest time. I think the same thing is true
that people complaining about the Disney fication of Wow has
been going on for the longest of time.
So nothing new under the sun. I guess just more cycles, much
like Solitas abuse. But we're going to be back with
more stuff next week. If you like this episode, make
sure you join us for the conversations that we have in
the discord. That's bit dot LY slash fast
discord. And until next week, guys, may
all your hits be crit.