Guaranteed people will start calling me a Blizzard apologist
when I have these takes, but if you go into a conversation and
you don't believe a word coming out of their mouth, you're no
longer having a conversation. Victory for the Forsaken.
For Lauderon. For the Karen tour.
For Pandaria. For calendar to the.
Burning region for Gilneus. I have 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 simply Manny.
And of course, we are joined by the lovely Rhea.
Rhea, how are you and how has Lex been treating you this week?
She she doesn't have anything to say to you, Manny, OK.
She had a lot to type, but all. Right.
She has a lot to type, but she has nothing to say.
No, she she's feeling like chewing on my desk.
Does that help? OK, well then we'll we'll swap
over to you. Lex.
Lex, how are you and how's the World of Warcraft been treating
you? I am good.
I've gotten to play some alpha. We did not get IOTC last week,
but we are very hopeful. We were consistently getting
into phase three. It was kind of the type of thing
where like frankly, I, I think we probably would have had it
with a couple more polls, but we tried very hard not to be the
like just because we have a bunch of parents and stuff.
We try not to be like, oh, we can do it in a couple more polls
cuz we want to stay up a little bit later.
So my guess is knock on a lot of wood that we haven't this week.
OK. I mean, well, this week there's
an extra 3% power for those who are pushing the Rep.
That means 12% overall. So that should definitely help.
Actually, if you guys are locking out, are you getting the
different, what are they called, ranks?
So that is part of the issue we are thinking about right now is
that we are, we are probably gonna still hold for Mondays for
a while. We've been doing Mythic.
We did Mythic plus last week. This week we did, we did heroic
to because we wanted to get our cartel trips.
But we have been encouraging the team to do LFR and that might
become a consideration if I think as of now, it seems like
most people are doing LFR on their off time to get up to
those ranks and at least kind of keep up.
But then that is part of the issue, right is that most of our
team, not maybe not most, but a lot of our significant portion
of our team really do have a limited amount of World of
Warcraft time and are primarily playing on raid night.
And so when we do lockout, we do have to think about that a
little bit of like who we are potentially saying that, you
know, subsection of our team is only going to do dementias for
the next however many weeks. So I guess that is a quandary.
Are you guys like going to police that at some point or is
it just like a suggestion? Guys like this will definitely
give us the the power we need and then let people go by carrot
rather than whip. We have historically policed it
and this is what I was talking about a little bit last week
with if it feel if we're hitting a boss and it feels like I
fundamentally do not understand how we are possibly supposed to
get out through this because it's so painful and so
overwhelming. That's when we start thinking
it's a gear issue. It's a like a, you know, just a
raw number issue and we need to start talking about whether or
not we need to sit people to move forward right now because
we're consistently getting into phase three.
And it really feels feels like the issue is we've also been
having just an absurd number of bugs.
Like almost every time we do the flying section of Devencius.
We've had one person get hard bugged out, which means we have
to res them because they die, which means that we waste a
battle of rez, which means that when we get into phase 3, when
you really need to be able to pump that DPS, we are one battle
of rez down. And somebody might have run
through some somebody, I don't know, some Demon Hunter idiot
probably ran through one of those stars that's dead without
remembering that you're not supposed to do that.
Who does that? Who fell rushes through those?
We are just like if we we don't have that ability to push up the
DPS. So because it doesn't feel like
we're hitting a hard wall so much as we just really need to
like clean things up and perfect them.
We try not to sit people when it's dance versus numbers.
All right, well, I I'm sorry to kept you waiting.
Sean. I I know that you, unlike me,
wait till you're introduced before saying anything.
But hello Sean, How are you and how's the World of Warcraft
treating you? Hi Manny, I'm doing great.
Warcraft has been awesome on retail.
I am shifted into full maintenance mode which basically
means I'll be raid logging for the foreseeable future.
As we are now into our this, this Thursday will be our first
night of official farm. So assuming everything goes
smoothly I I have no reason to believe it won't.
It'll be just, I'll most likely just be raid logging on retail
other than my remix dailies. I have hit Max item level on
remix and I am now starting the power climb.
I've also purchased all of the transmog, all of the mounts
except for two, and most of the toys.
And so I've been enjoying that. And so my so I'm actually now in
like I've completed all the quests as well.
So I'm now also in maintenance mode for remix so I'm literally
just read. But remix raid logging means I
still have to log in every day because it's every day.
And I've mostly shifted in my focus into the alpha and testing
add-ons. Trying to find add-ons to test.
If you are an add on developer and you have an add on that you
want tested on the alpha that you've been working on or one
that you wrote for retail you want to see if it works on the
alpha, shoot me a message. Jump into the discord at bit dot
LY slash faz discord. Let me know I will test your
add-ons. I've been spending my days on
hunts for things that will allow me to reskin the cooldown
manager mask works, but it doesn't fix the main major
issues I have, which is you can't reduce the spacing to 0
and you can't center center justify the icons they left or
right justify. So if you have one with five and
one with four, it looks awful. I don't.
Yeah, it's. These are the major issues
plaguing add-ons right now. Yeah, I mean, we're going to
talk about the rest of the stuff later, but that's those are the
things, the visual things I want to I want to look pretty right.
You look good, you play good. So that's that's basically, but
no, Warcrafts are treating me good.
I've been feeling good about it and I'm I'm I wanted to say I'm
ready for midnight, but we have a lot of work to do, so I'm not.
What I am ready for is phase six of alpha, which was not on the
road map but which was was announced to the add on
developer Discord. I see, I see Well, I mean, I
guess we should get right into it.
Let's talk about these add-ons because Blizzard took the Time,
Team two took the time to address add-ons and what
Midnight is going to do to the combat add-ons.
Now with this, they spoke about what their initial logic was for
their API, how that was the most restrictive version.
And then that the team had an expectation that the community,
the the add on developers would come back with feedback and
guide them to where they needed to loosen their restrictions.
Which I'm going to say is the way you would do it in a
professional environment where you start at a baseline and then
you open up things because you are worried about security risk.
However, I feel like in game development, in a development
with a community like the World of Warcraft, this seems like
something that needs to be explicitly communicated ahead of
time so that they do not get the reaction that they got that they
so that they do not. They do not 'cause the
conversation to be so soured so fast.
So I feel like Blizzard dropped the ball flat out in
communication. This article that we're
referring to in my mind is 3 to 4 weeks late.
It should have been ahead of time and saying like, hey,
you're going to be getting the the alpha.
What you will find is this what we are looking for?
Is this right? And going from there.
But that said, Blizzard has been providing detailed technical
updates to add on developers. We saw with weak ORS there was
two weeks of videos of like this is what it is and This is why we
can't do it. And then another one being like,
they've made these changes but like this isn't good enough.
And then afterwards we saw a different developers even
showing like the notes that the layman probably has no
understanding of, right, that Blizzard is putting forward to
them. That shows not only what is
coming up, what will be coming soon, and what's intended for
the future as well. So there seems to be some
communication. I just don't know how back and
forth it is because obviously I'm not part of that
communication. Not to be an eternal hater who
can always pull the bat out of anything.
That's good. There was a little bit of me
when I read that post that was like, oh, you're doing the thing
that like you're defender. Like I, I don't know, it felt
like a lot of people were saying like, no, guys, maybe they're
just going to like make it super tight now and then, like loosen
it up later. And Blizzard's like, yeah, we're
we're just like it. It was going to.
We were always intending to do this, you guys.
It wasn't like, it's not like we didn't understand what was going
on and suddenly are startled by it.
Because I agree, like it just it's so obvious to me that if
this is what you were gonna do, the first thing you do is you
write to the add on authors and be like, hey, guys, we're gonna
start really tense, like really intense.
We are gonna loosen restrictions.
So don't, for example, make a major post the day after we tell
people that a weak auras are gonna stay around saying the
weak auras are gone. It's gonna be OK.
We're gonna talk about it. We're gonna keep communicating.
So it's either that they communicated so poorly that they
missed a very obvious thing they needed to do if they were gonna
start with the most stringent restrictions and loosen them, or
this was what they wanted to do, like they they wanted really
stringent restrictions. Everyone started freaking out
and they are currently trying to backtrack to save face.
And I don't know which one I'm more stressed about, but I don't
really see a world where this was well done.
I have a lot of feelings. I have a lot of feelings about
this post and I'm trying to temper myself.
This is a 15 paragraph post that they made and it isn't until the
12th paragraph that we get any new information.
All of all of what you just said, both of you the that
Blizzard coming out. You know, obviously this
communication should have happened weeks ago, but it did
this if you go back and watch the first video that they did
with Max and Ratnos where Ian breaks the news that we're going
to be losing add-ons and then says don't worry, we're going to
launch them simultaneously and ignore that part.
But if you go back to that video where he announces what they're
doing, he says in that video, their intention is to make it so
that people can still reskin their offerings so that add-ons
don't lose functionality for accessibility to the people.
Like literally everything that the 1st 11 paragraphs of this
post that came out is almost word for word what he says in
that video from four months ago. So they're not telling us
anything that we didn't already know and that they haven't
already said and they've actually done nothing.
We, I've said multiple times on the show, like it would be
really great if we, if they would give us specifics.
They keep saying, oh, combat related things, combat related
stuff. But what does that mean?
Does that mean I can't track my own, my own abilities?
Does that mean that I can't change the name plate color of a
different mob? Because right now I can't.
Those those are locked out. You cannot do it.
Anyway, this post is four months too late.
It tells us nothing that they haven't already told us until we
get to the portion about raid frames, which is a shining
nugget in this post. Their their post they're,
they're mentioning of raid frames.
We're happy to talk about, but everything up to that point,
there's like there's no, it's, it's literally just the same
buzzwords. We're locking out combat
abilities, add on abilities to make combat calculations for
you. We expect that add-ons will be
able to rescan stuff in the way that they want, which they've
been saying since day one, which we're still not seeing come to
full fruition yet. And it's still just, I just want
somebody at Blizzard to tell us what functionality that we have
now. Do you not want us to have so we
can stop wasting our so we can stop I almost said the F word so
we can stop wasting our energy on it because I'm tired of
asking for the ability to change the colour of a nameplate based
on the mob type. If you're never planning to give
it to us, just tell us you're not going to give it to us and I
can move on. But if I if we don't know and we
don't because all this says is we don't want you to be able to
have combat calculation functionality, but we do want
you to be able to customize the look.
Give us a specific please. I beg you.
Somebody tell us something of substance, OK?
The raid frames look great. I can't wait till we talk about
those. OK.
I will say from what they have put out that something like
being able to have lieutenants or casters categorically
distinguished on nameplates, whether that be that, that all
casters have a different color, whether that be lieutenants have
additional markings to show that they are lieutenants.
That seems like something from what they have said that would
not be allowed with the with their goals, because that that
would be looking into unit IDs, interpreting something that is
considered a secret value. And so from what I've read on
this, and I only have like barest technical knowledge, I
don't think that's that's something that is intended to
happen. Now, obviously they've gone back
on some things that that previously didn't look like they
were going to happen, right. So again, we're back to that
guessing game that you hate you hate so much.
That said, what they have put forward after multiple
paragraphs is some new information about the things
before we get to rate frames. I do believe that one thing that
they should have said previously that they added into it was the
focus on accessibility. This is something that wasn't
really in the conversation many months ago.
I believe that that was in April that came into here.
There was a focus on text to speech so that you wouldn't be
relying on visual cues to track all the addons, or rather all
the cooldowns. Those cooldowns, of course, are
much less because of the pruning, though.
You've seen them attack that from different directions and
there are a number of ways for you to get alerts on that.
So gaining stacks of of an ability or it coming off of
cooldown or it reaching the pandemic window or a number of
different things. You can get either through text
to speech or through various alerts.
Going through those alerts on the alpha, they are pretty
limited in terms of like what sounds you can get their stuff
from Warcraft three, Warcraft 2, which are like games from nearly
20 years ago and therefore didn't have the largest catalog
of sounds. And even still I don't think
that there is all of them. I really want them to open that
up so that so that you can have very distinctive sounds instead
of four different animal noises that I have to recognize which
animal that is. Go ahead, not to be an eternal
hater that can always spin the negative out of a positive, but
I don't think you can call it a focus on accessibility when you
didn't talk to a disabled person until they made a very popular
post on Reddit. Like that's not a focus on
accessibility, that's like, oh shit right, we told everyone we
were focusing on accessibility, we have to do that.
Like I just feel like they're saying everything way too late
for it to matter. So there was a conversation in
the FAZ the like the conversation between the three,
three of us that wasn't public and it was somewhat related to
this in terms of who is in the room and and who is speaking to
to issues, but it wasn't talking about accessibility.
And we call it the Faz universe. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but
I think we should at this point we're, I think we're big enough
that we can call it the Faz verse.
So the conversation was between the three of us, not the broader
FAZ community, the FAZ universe as you're calling it.
And there is obviously a, there should be a priority, there
should be a, a goal to get knowledgeable, experienced
voices in the room whenever you're dealing with, with
something, right. And there was a conversation
about people who aren't knowledgeable or don't have
experience how they should de prioritize their own voices.
Right to the point. Another conversation you're
talking. About, you know the point,
right? Yeah, to the point where it was
like if I don't have experience in a category, my opinion is
basically invalid. Now there was a there was a push
back about how invalid or if it is so binary.
But some of this stuff could have been worked on based on
previous work in that space, right?
And previous advice that they have been given, right, without
somebody giving them fresh advice in that space.
So I don't want to say just because they didn't have people
from Undaunted, because Undaunted, Undaunted was part of
that thread in the short term that they started working on the
these features does not mean that people with the with
similar experience to those in an Undaunted hadn't given them
stuff to inform them. Now they're pulling in
Undaunted, which is objectively better.
And they should have pulled in people with experience in both
World of Warcraft and with different capabilities in terms
of vision, in terms of hearing, in terms of just capability,
because that is objectively better to have that confluence
of experiences to inform them when they're doing this.
And so I'm glad that they're doing it now.
But again, we're worried about time limit when they are rushing
towards a release sometime early next year.
That's fair. And I guess to be honest, I
started this entire conversation saying I don't know which one
would be worse if they're like, you know, just really bad at
communicating or lying to us. And I think I think one of my
biggest frustrations with the World of Warcraft team right now
is I just feel like chronically gaslit by them.
Like I kind of do wish that one of them like did somebody.
And Ian has said similar things, but he's kind of like masked it
in professional language. I want a member of Blizzard to
just come out and be like, hey, guys, we really did not realize
how big it was going to be to take on add-ons.
And we're kind of stuck in it right now.
But we're really, we understand it's been stressful and we we
didn't know what we were doing early on and we're kind of
scrambling a little bit. And so if it feels like we're a
little overwhelmed right now, it's because we're a little
overwhelmed right now and we're doing our best and we're trying
to play catch up. Or if somebody would come out
and say. That to me, I would be like, OK,
at least we're getting somewhere, right?
At least I actually know that I can trust you when you're speak
versus if you put out a thing where you're like, oh, yeah.
We always knew you guys were going to be really mad about
this and we were just waiting for your feedback, which is why
we didn't tell anyone that we wanted feedback and the things
were going to change. And also, like we always knew
accessibility was going to be a good a big thing and we're
really focused on it, which is why we didn't start bringing
people in until after we got yelled out on Reddit.
Like I just don't believe I believe you anymore.
And any, any of these things could be true, right?
Like it very well could be true that that was their plan all
along to get feedback and they just didn't communicate it well.
It could be super true that they have been having really in depth
conversations about accessibility and they just
become obvious to me. But they've been doing this to
me for so long that at this point when they say something,
I'm like, all right, what's next?
Like I just don't believe them anymore.
They have lost my trust. And I feel like you don't
appreciate snarky Lex as much as I do.
I deal with I deal with not snarky Lex, but customer faith
and integrity a lot. There becomes a point where
people just believe you're talking in bad faith and it's
impossible to hold a conversation anymore.
People will guarantee people will start calling me a Blizzard
apologist when I have these takes.
But if you go into a conversation and you don't
believe a word coming out of their mouth, you're no longer
having a conversation, right? There is there is no way that
they can convince you unless they are placating you.
And I do not want to be placated, right?
I would rather that I scrutinize and criticize everything that
comes out of Blizzard's mouth for the grain of truth that I
want to believe is there. Then to say everything they're
throwing at me is lies. And that's hard.
Sometimes that's really hard when you see frustrating things
coming. I think that if you had your
wish, Lex and somebody came out and said, oh man, this was a lot
more than than we thought it would be, and we're really
struggling right now. You wouldn't get the reaction
that you're hoping for. The it's you would get people
who are also thinking that Blizzard is like eternally
gaslighting, use that as ammunition and go further than
you would blacks, because I believe you're you're a
reasonable person, right? And that's not me gaslighting
you. That's just the general truth of
it, right. But there are people who are
just bad faith that are going to be like, yeah, Blizzard doesn't.
It has never know what they're talking about.
Now they're finally admitting it.
And I've heard this and this and this and then you.
And then because you have now said, you know what, guys, we
were lying. You, you throw out any chance
of, of, of truth, right? I think that if you after the
fact, you go, you know what? Look, thinking back and there
were these conversations and that, and we decided to go, go
like this. And this is where it went
through. There's a time for that, but I
don't think it's the time right now.
It's a question of tact at this point, right?
And so like, like you have to be honest.
I have a solution, FAS dev. FAS dev, you can send us Adm if
you're already in the discord at bit dot LY slash fas discord,
you can message any one of us and just say, yo, it's a lot.
That's all I got to say. Just let us know.
Hey. Oh yeah, it's a lot.
Message me personally, I will. I'll 100% start.
Everyone call me a blessed apologist if you're like, kind
of. Nice to me yeah that's right.
All it takes is for FAZ there to send like 1 message that says
it's a lot. And, and really anybody listen
if you're in the if you're part of the FAZ, you if you're a FAZ
head and you want to make Lex happy, just send her a message
from the discord that says it's a lot.
In fact, all listeners who are in the FAZ Discord, I would like
all of you to message Lex. Just send her Adm 2 words. 3
words. It's a lot if you say if.
It's hyphenated and you say it's a lot.
I think you can squeeze. At it.
That's, that's the goal. OK.
Fazz Fazzies. Fazz heads.
Fazz. Faz folk.
Oh my goodness. Fazzers.
Is about to be bombarded by the. Fazzers send Lex and the amateur
says it's a lot so that Lex knows that you know, and that
maybe one of you is Fazdev, and then we'll really never know the
truth. No marriage proposals don't send
that's weird that don't do that, that's weird.
Just here, keep those public on the YouTube.
That said, go ahead. So yeah, so in in seriousness
that that is a fairpoint. I think my immediate
counterpoint is like, yeah, and whose fault is it that I don't
trust Blizzard anymore? Like, it's not mine.
I wasn't the one making shit up. But that's sorry.
I'm I'll stop. You're assuming that they're
making you're, they're making stuff up again.
That's like part of like what's happened.
Like there's this like loss of faith in any, in any of the
communication. And therefore, like the the
conversation is you going like, what are you going to lie to me
about this time? So even if there is something in
there that's true, or if it's like, hey, we're going to share
this with you early and then we're going to change your mind,
then you're going to think, hey, when they change their mind,
they're lying to us. That's fair.
I mean, I, I, I, I can't stop thinking about this time last
expansion when all three of us were like so over the moon with
everything Blizzard was doing and getting really, really hype
and talking about how we and, and like scolding and
reprimanding people who we felt online were being unfair and not
giving them good faith. And so there's a love.
Like, it's not like Blizzard is not capable of having my faith,
but trust is built slowly and lost quickly.
And, and like, I hear what you say that like maybe I, I am
assuming bad faith and I've been, you know, I mean, I know I
am assuming bad faith. Maybe I've been assuming bad
faith for longer than I should have been.
And I've been like suspicious of Blizzard for a while.
You know, that's become part of my, you know, persona.
I suppose on the show is always assuming the Blizzard is
overworking their employees, for example.
But yeah, yeah. And like, I guess ultimately
also who cares what I think, right?
Like, they're going to do what they're going to do.
And I can yell into the void to the best of my ability, but
like, they can do it and they can delete the game.
They can delete the game tomorrow.
And there's nothing I could do about.
It. They would never do that, Lex.
If they were going to delete the game, they would do it alongside
another game to replace it. It would never happen all at
once, like a Band-Aid right off. They wouldn't stop one thing
without having something else already ramped up and to replace
it and some time together. Yeah, they're, and they're gonna
make sure that they talk to the other game developers, like
really carefully because they understand they have a lot of
information that Blizzard, World of Warcraft doesn't have before
they delete the game. Exactly Manny.
I also. I also feel like you don't
appreciate snarky Sean enough. No, no, it's, it's a, it's a,
it's a, it's a conspiracy. They have like timed this
perfectly with the release of fellowship.
So that and they've been like putting like putting their own
personal money in. So like when fellowship blows
up, their stocks are going to go like through the roof.
Blizzard employees. They're they're screwing you
over and you're falling for it. All of you.
ANYWAYS, back to a back in serious conversation.
But just for the record, I like Snarky Manny too.
I just like snark. Dude we should start a snark
podcast. We're just mean.
Yeah. So OK, I would like, if you
actually care what Lex says, feel free to message her so that
she doesn't keep saying nobody cares what she likes or what she
thinks about because I'm tired of hearing about it.
Maybe you are too. That said, they went through and
they did healing frames, raid frames and the updates on that.
And that is something that showed up right after we
finished the recording in the last episode with a bunch of new
information. Now this is an iteration.
This only shows one version. There are apparently 3 versions
coming out. But it is a step in the right
direction. And hopefully, with additional
feedback, we'll get further iteration on that.
Sean, tell us about this. OK, so they're redoing the raid
frames, just what Manny said. It looks first, offering looks
good. Now what we are looking at, if
you're reading the article, which you can find I assume in
the show description or online Google Wow raid frames or
something. I don't know how Google works
obviously, but the image they showed is a Photoshop.
So this is not in game functioning.
It is a Photoshop. There are a couple of very clear
signs that it is a Photoshop #1 being that all of the characters
are named after Brazilian soap stars #2 is that there is a
healer hunter who's marked as a healer, which isn't a
possibility. Which does consume a little bit
back up through like whatever levels of review.
Yeah, that's a hunter. That's a hunter cuz which one
the. Light greens.
Felix yeah, on the right hand. Oh, Yep, Yep, Yep.
Yep, Yep. But it looks great.
It's a good first offering. So they've addressed some things
that they're they and they specifically mentioned that
they're pulling from some very popular raid frame add-ons.
I have to assume cell because they're using a cell like
overlay to show how poisons look.
So they have, there's a raid raid frame glow and then like an
opaque overlay and then an icon in the top right corner when
somebody has a dispel on them. In this case it's poison.
We don't see any other types other than poison, but I have to
assume that a curse would be purple, a magic would be blue or
something like that. That's a great change, very
positive. They have said they're going to
highlight and make bigger to indicate tank swap mechanics,
which is great if I'm forced to use the raid frames to identify
tank swap mechanics. But if I am forced to use the
raid frames to identify tank swap mechanics, I'll probably
stop playing Warcraft. I would really really like for
an option if that's the only way to do it.
Right now every tank that's any good uses a week or other tracks
Their tanks, their code tank stacks of whatever D buff it is.
If we lose that ability, we need to have some way to pop out
specific frames from the raid frames which they don't mention,
but that's feedback that they can use because no tank is
staring at raid frames trying to find out how many stacks our
code tank has. But that's one change we're
making. They are putting all of our
buffs and stuff in places so it it looks it looks good.
There is one thing I want to call out which looks to be an
out of. So right now it already you
could already have frames grey out that are out of range, but
this looks to be showing a line of sight indicator.
And honestly, this article came out October 23rd, so seven days
ago, six days ago as of this recording.
And everybody on the planet has theorized that that I with a
line through it is a line of sight indicator to say that this
person is not just out of range, which great, a great out raid
frame now means out of range. But this has an eye with a line
through it. Everybody that I know has
surmised that to mean it's a new line of sight indicator which
doesn't currently exist. And if it's not if, if, if it
has been guessed and theorized for six days that this is a line
of sight indicator and it's not, and Blizzard hasn't come out to
say, hey, no, no, say hey, we hear you.
And we know that that would be awesome.
That technology doesn't exist. It just means they're out of
range. If they haven't corrected people
and it's not a line of sight indicator, you're going to have
a lot of very angry people, a lot of angry healers.
I would love. I think it should be both.
I think it should be that through either line of sight or
range. You can't target this person.
Just put it as one symbol that covers both.
Yeah, that works, but everybody has it like so right now the way
RAID frames work, grayed out is out of range and there is
nothing for line of sight. Having that eye on there and not
just grayed out has made people think, oh, hey, this means line
of sight if it's still no line of sight, because if somebody is
in range but out of line of sight, they're fully they look
like they can be healed. So I'm just saying that after
six days of people celebrating what looks to be new
functionality, if it hasn't been like clearly corrected from
Blizzard to say, hey, that's not what this is.
It's going to be really it's going to be a blood path when it
find when it comes out that it's not what it is, but they look
great. So still some concerns.
It's it's a good, it's a really good starting point.
The the overlays for dispels is really nice.
The locked in positions for buffs and debuffs, which they
state in here where those go. That's also really nice to have
there. But there it's not this is not a
finished product. They're going to have three
different versions of this. But we, we still want to see
because right now it said people will be able to add-ons will be
able to manipulate where things are in the frames.
But that doesn't solve the problem of we desperately,
desperately, desperately need to be able to select what buffs and
debuffs are shown in these frames.
Please, please, please let us do that.
I don't need to see, you know, that somebody has sated for the
next 9 minutes on their frame. I don't need to see that.
I don't need to see that, you know, their Hearthstone is on
cooldown or whatever. Like actually, I don't think
it's a debuff, but I just let us whitelist and blacklist buffs
and debuffs please. That is so important on
everything. Like not just the raid frames on
the cool down manager, on the name plates.
That's my number one ask for everything you're doing,
Blizzard, let us select give us that choice because I mean,
there's lots of examples outside of raid frames I want to get
into. But like the outbreak with Death
Knight Luxtos was just talking about it today on Twitter how if
you don't have a certain thing talented, there's no reason to
track outbreak, but you're still tracking it.
And so it's just a pointless information anyway, the rate
frames look good. It's a good starting point, but
we're in phase five. We know there's a phase 6 coming
of the alpha. We don't know if yet if there's
a phase seven this much. Like the damage meters, much
like the debuff tracking, much like the external defensives, is
not yet functional in the game, that's not implemented.
Much like sound alerts on boswangs, not yet implemented.
I would really like to be able to test some of the stuff and
not just look at a picture of it that was done up by AUI guy or
girl person. AUI person.
But while we are waiting, the carnage continues.
We have seen a number of additional add on developers say
that they are pausing support for many popular add-ons.
So we will see how quickly Blizzard can get it up to the
point where they get some of those that support.
But obviously we core said before LVUI now has said that
they they don't believe they can do support going forward.
There have been additional information put out to the devs
that show stuff that is coming with the phase five that we just
got this week that is coming with the reported phase six that
Sean alluded to earlier that we haven't seen an official
confirmation on and beyond that. But at this point, I know the
conversation about add-ons has sort of overshadowed everything.
But this is a big reason why even if you are not currently in
the alpha, you should still get feedback, feedback in.
If you see, and you're like, OK, I won't have this.
It is fair to have your perspective go onto the forum,
say like, hey, like I use this for this reason, or I can't do
this without this. Like all of that is information
and let Blizzard sort it out because they asked for it.
It's their job to to sort it out.
With that said, let's let's move on.
We have heard some other unconfirmed rumors which kind of
got a click bait title from our dear friends at Wowhead.
The Windows Central website speculated about the power of
the next Xbox. It was them going off of some
statements and as well as some of their own insider sources to
talk about what the next Xbox will be capable of, what they
think it will be capable of, and what that might mean for various
functions of this console. And of course, 1 of it was that
this new Xbox is basically going to be a PC, a set PC in a
package that they sell as an Xbox.
And that means that it will be able to run anything that APC
should be able to add, including various game store fronts like
the Steam game front, Epic Store, and of course important
to us, the Blizzard Battle.net. If they can do that, that means
they're going to be able to download and run World of
Warcraft. But that doesn't mean like was
somewhat suggested and all over the Internet was there that Wow
was being reworked. They knew this was coming.
Wow was being reworked for consoles.
Congratulations, all those conspiracy theorists.
You are finally proven right now.
It's just that the next Xbox is APC that they're naming Xbox and
so therefore it should be compatible with Wow.
But yeah, this was a fun, like, I think it was an afternoon of
people just going absolutely wild.
And in the show notes, I have literally linked just Wow and
consoles as a Twitter search, and you can see some of the wild
things that people were saying. It was great.
The Internet pundits did not disappoint.
Lex, if you could get Wow on your console, how happy would
you be? So I'm one of the people who was
dooming a little bit when this came out because.
So I was saying that I did not want World of Warcraft to be a
console game because I thought that changing it to reworking it
in a way that would make it accessible on consoles would
ruin a lot of what made World of Warcraft fun for me.
And I do not play on consoles for a reason.
And one of my friends very nicely in an attempt to calm me
down, said, oh, but Lex, you play Final Fantasy and Final
Fantasy is also console accessible.
Do you think it's a worst game because it's console accessible?
And in that moment, I hadn't really thought I, I don't know
if I didn't realize or hadn't thought deeply about it, but I
didn't, had not really mentally processed that Final Fantasy was
a console game. And I suddenly understood all of
the things I hate about Final Fantasy.
And I'm like like, oh, that's why the mechanics suck.
That's why fight design is terrible, which I'm so sorry.
If you're a final fancy person, you're like, wow, I did not come
into for Aseroth expecting my Yum to be yucked.
Forgive me. I'm glad that you like your gum.
I think it's icky. I I, yeah, I am getting a little
bit convinced by my friends that World of Warcraft is being
worked for consoles. I don't know anything about game
development, so I don't know if that's true.
They've just very much talked me into that side.
But I I don't know how game devs work.
I don't know any of that stuff. But I hope it's not because I
don't think that MO mechanics are fun on consoles.
I think that is bad. This is again, because it is
APC, this allows them to avoid a lot of the hoops that they would
have to jump through to get all those sort of things onto this
system. So that means like all those
PlayStation exclusives that have come out to PC, well now they
can be run on this Xbox through this roundabout way.
If you've played on Steam OS, which can like backlog into the
Linux that it's running on or they have those, I forget what
the company is, you know what it's in the notes.
It is the Xbox Ally and like a number of companies have that.
There's the RG Ally and so forth.
But it is basically a glorified Steam Steam deck.
It's a quote UN quote console first.
So you boot and you play and you it goes right into your library
and you pick the game and you get to play.
Play your game off of it. The controls are typically
preset to be compatible with compatible games, but you can
play incompatible games, but you'll have to do a little bit
more work to set up the controls.
You can put various things onto that that aren't necessarily
meant for meant for it, but are just compatible with the base
hardware that's running in the background.
The Xbox would be much the same way, and that's why it allows
you to play Wow on there, but it doesn't mean that you're going
to be able to properly do half the things that you want to do
on Wow, especially on such a small screen.
I would hate to raid on an ally with a screen about that big
that would have to be hooked up to ATV or something to get the
details I want. Yeah.
And if that's the direction, if it's, if it's more that like,
oh, they're making the Xbox more of APC, so hype like, which is
what I, I want to say. I understand that's what they're
saying in the Wowhead article. I think that's great.
I if, if they were testing, because they did very explicitly
state you can play World of Warcraft through Battle.net.
And if, if that was them testing the waters to see how World of
Warcraft players would feel about World of Warcraft being
reworked to be played on a console, I feel bad about that.
Don't do it. I don't want you to do it.
Please don't don't worry about no thank you or at the very
least, don't you know, design your mechanics for PC players.
If the if the console players want to play the video game and
they want to turn on single button mode and they want to be,
you know, struggle with mechanics, more power to you,
but design it as APC game and who knows?
I don't know. I don't know how dev I I don't
know if it's true that the reason they put in single button
mode was because they were planning on making it go to
consoles eventually. Do I look like I understand how
to develop a video game? That's my take.
I I want to throw it to Sean, but also I do want to say that
like people who are running a Steam Deck have been playing Wow
on the Steam Deck already. Like I believe content creator
Mr. GM has done like even tutorials about how you can set
that up. So like it is possible now, but
obviously that's not the intention or like a evident
attention of the design of World of Warcraft or the developers.
It's just something that you're able to do, much like some
people have gotten the original doom to work on a pregnancy test
or something like that. So it's like just because it's
possible doesn't mean it's intended.
I want to pass it to you, Sean. Anything you want to throw in
there? I was just, I, I can't miss this
opportunity to potentially rile X up a little bit.
So I'm going to Lex. They're very clearly not
designing Warcraft for consoles because if they were, they'd
have to remove add-ons, simplify all the classes, remove
complexity from the the raid mechanics and implement
something that you could just like hold down 1 button and have
attacks happen. So it's very clear that Blizzard
is not developing console, the Warcraft for consoles.
There you go. I, I honestly don't think they
are, but that was a fun tweet that I saw this week and I
thought that it felt fitting because I'm pretty sure Alexa's
convinced they're developing Warcraft Forgotten.
But again, I don't know anything about game development.
My friends who know things about game development have made that
point to me, and I don't know how to like.
Repeat it. It's like a huge huge process to
do a console port from APC game. Like right now there's not even
native controller support in Warcraft for them to port it to
Xbox to make it a console game you'd have to plug in a mouse
and keyboard still. Like otherwise, the only way to
do proper control support is with an add on, which on a
normal console you wouldn't be able to do.
The Blizzard team will never take on a project not fully
understanding how complex it is and like just release it really
rapidly and very under completed.
Has any listened listeners? You have to message Lex just
it's a lot. It's all you have to say.
I'm worried from my friend who is worried for the developers in
this game that we love. So if you don't want to support
Lex with messages of cheer and love, you can support us in a
number of different ways, including through Patreon.
Because nothing says I love you like some money.
At least that's what my mom tells me.
So, Sean, go ahead and tell us about our latest Patreon.
All right, we're staying on the Script this Week chat.
I guarantee it. Before I do any of that, I want
to give a special thanks to our newest Patreon, Dax.
Thank you so much, Dax, for your support.
We really appreciate you and welcome to the FAZ Verse.
Officially FAZ Universe. Although really, if everybody's
part of the Faz Verse, you don't have to be a patron.
That being said, for Azeroth, we'll always be free.
But if you enjoy the content we produce, consider pledging to
our Patreon at patreon.com/FAC. And I think it's a free option
too. You can just go there and hang
out. We are going to now be putting
our unedited full pre show and post show ramble in audio format
on the Patreon. So if you want to know what we
talk about when we're not talking about Warcraft as we get
ready to talk about Warcraft, you could jump on there and and
have a listen. Spoiler alert it's not very
exciting. I thought I mean it's thrilling
edge of your seat stuff. I.
Think it's fun? I think you're fun people.
I think it's fun to hear. I shoot the shit.
Sorry Manny, I did it again. Why do you guys just like, you
know, like stick to the script I just put so much effort into?
These so close. Listen Manny, you copied that
script from Joss. You don't get to take credit for
the Patriot script. I mean the rest of the the rest
of the notes which are really. Good script, just entirely.
Should I only read off the notes?
Manny, do you want no emotion and no thought for me?
Honestly. Actually, probably yes, based on
the number of times I've sworn in this episode and then snarked
at the people who like, no, yeah, Manny's like, yes, in
fact. In fact, why don't you talk to
us about Midnight Alpha Phase five, Lex, with the script right
there in front of you. A little earlier than in weeks
past, the next phase of the Alpha is here.
Level 90 Story and Quest. Level 90 Campaign, Chapter 1.
I regret I regret everything continue in regular.
OK, so Alpha phase 5 is here. Here we got a little sooner than
you expected. We so you can we're up to level
90. Now we have our story.
We're on to the level 90 quest, chapter one.
We have the Argentina visitor cross, which I'm very excited to
talk to you guys about because I did a little bit of that.
We have our weekly quest. You have to either use the the
skip or complete the main campaign if you want to get
access to that. So if you're in alpha and you're
like, oh, what are we going to do?
There you go. And you also have all previous
content. You can access that as well in
housing. Budgets for the room placement
and decor are back to the levels close to about week 3.
I'm gonna be honest, every time I've logged in, housing has been
bugged, so I don't actually know what that means.
Somebody wanna tell me what that means?
So last week they had greatly slashed like the budget that you
had for like placing items in rooms or even the amount of
rooms that you could do. So like remember week 1 where
you're like, I've made 20 rooms and like, oh, I can't decorate
them all. That might not have been
possible last week and in. Fact.
Well, last week there was no housing like.
What I was going to. Say they drastically slashed.
But like, sorry, the the previous week, but then like on
top of that, people were saying that like, hey, with this new
greatly reduced ceiling of what we can put into rooms and how
many rooms we can have the the tutorial show house that they
have on the on the wow launcher wouldn't be possible.
Like it was. That was above these caps.
Like an insane person. Respectfully, if you're one of
the people in my discords, I think discords like it's not
just my guilt discord that I listen to.
OK, OK, I'm caught up. I'm caught up.
Dyes are back too by the way, in housing, so those were re
enabled. We have our delves, we have
Parhelion Plaza, the Dark Way, and we have Torments Rise, which
is our nemesis Delve. Prey is available.
I actually kind of can't believe I haven't tested that before
this game, this show, because I've been talking about it so
much. So I will test Prey and I'll
come back to you guys about if it's good next week.
Have you guys tested Prey? Do you guys know if it's good?
I I was working through most of the day so I did not have a
chance to test it. I didn't test it because I'm so
used to being the predator that I'm not used to being prey.
So this is what's confusing to me, what the prey system is.
I think you are the predator. No, don't you get jumped?
Something jumps you, right, It chases you down.
That's. The thing is, you're getting
jumped, but you're objectively stalking someone.
Oh, we're both the prey, Chat is telling us we're both the prey.
But then does that? Doesn't that make every nobody
the prey? You can't.
What if the real prey was the friends we made along the way?
Yeah, that's why they don't. That's why every time I try to
run Mythic Plus with people they go offline almost.
Like 10 times worse because you rhymed like you're a poet and
you are unaware of the fact that it's just horrible.
Well, that I've ever single handedly ended a show before,
OK. So yes, we'll definitely come
back with our first impressions of Prey 'cause I do think that
it is one of the more interesting things that they've
added, especially as like quasi end game Pillar now that we're
getting gear out of it instead of it being just cosmetic like
they originally thought. I would like, I would like to
make a proposal that at least on the show and in the greater FAZ
verse, we stop calling any solo player content as an end game
pillar because it's just not. It's not why you can't.
Because you, you know, you knew that I was not to open mic Manny
and be like, oh, is it an end game pillar if it's ending at
the same point that most end game pillars start?
Like, I was gonna be a little snarky, a little talk about
that. Yeah okay.
Wait, so you're saying that the only way to be an end game
pillar is to provide the highest loot possible?
Yes, yeah, in order to be an end game pillar, you have to provide
gear that is equivalent to what you can get in the highest
content of the game. So Mythic plus BVP, because it's
a separate loot system and it's own and rating, those are the
three pillars. Yeah, crafting.
Sure, I'll put crafting in there.
Oh, that's no Oh, I see the point man he's about to make.
Because that's solo content. So there is a solo end game
killer. Thank you.
Solo crafting, not solo I I require people who have the
professions to craft the things for me.
Oh, that's a good point. Sean doesn't do his own work.
The crafters can't possibly level up all on their own
without help. Yes, they can tell me you've
never been. Well, I guess alchemists don't
make gear. I obviously know nothing about
crafting and I would like to move on.
Speaking of crafting, you guys, you can test Sparks now, yeah?
They're so good at getting shows back on track.
Yeah, testing that, it doesn't seem like there's much
difference other than like the new changes in quality of items
and what you can craft. I do want to try and reach out
to somebody who is one of those like more in the crafting at
least if not like a serious gold maker to see what they think
things are shaping out. But that's I think it's always
something that I consider more in the beta and such when when
classes are more solidified, so we know what the classes would
be after. And like items haven't randomly
changed. But I I would be the thing about
professions is I would be more interested in them if they
actually counted for something. It's the one thing on Alpha Beta
that like I cannot do, I cannot test because it feels so running
on a hamster wheel, like I'm just doing work for the sake of
does this hamster wheel work rather than just.
Sitting in a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but
you don't get very far. Pretty much, and which is funny
that I don't have that same consideration with any of the
questing any of the like time. I'm like wailing on some poor
practice dummy because I feel like when I do that, the
information that I get helps me when the game goes and
technically this crafting stuff should do that.
I don't know why I just have that mental divide there.
Because you don't think solo activities are really worth your
time. Yeah, but like testing.
That's why he's a cutting edge Raider.
Like I'm testing delves. I mean, we both know you're not
testing any delves, Sir. What I'm testing delves.
I'm enjoying delves anyways. Well, Speaking of Delves, there
is one thing that's not on the show notes that I do want to
bring up because Chad mentioned it and we would be remiss if we
didn't. There's a new Hall of Fame for
the Delve Nemesis. Oh, that's the top.
The 1st 1000 People to Kill question mark.
Question mark. Not Kyvesa.
We'll be in the Delvers Hall of Fame.
How many only Delve players do you think will get that versus
how many CE rank one Raiders will get it because they're
doing it in Week 1. I think that they'll be healthy
mix of them because especially sorry in season 1 I suspect it
will be tilted more towards the people doing a lot of different
content because the gear disparity between where you
start at just hitting level 80 and what you would need to
complete this will be the largest is going to be all
expansion. However in season 2 and season 3
I suspect that a lot of delve only players are going to tear
through it and they're going to have a healthy representation on
on the Hall of Fame board. Especially since the Chi Vesa
stuff doesn't count towards your vault in terms of dropping,
dropping loot like you would get at the end of a normal delve.
And therefore the people who are more focused on raise, the
people who are more focused on M plus and gearing for that are
less likely to push along that mind you, you know, people who
have done funnier stuff for Hall of Fame.
There's a lot of, there's a lot of social and reward aspects
that I think will make this different.
OK, all right, that was a well thought out answer.
I have no snarky reply. OK, I I I will give you a little
snarky thing that you didn't quite consider.
You don't give this same shade to people who get title in M
Plus or who get Hall of Fame in in raid.
Say how many people who just raid get Hall of Fame in raid?
So your bias is showing on that. Just raids get gets Hall of Fame
and and I will actually actually say I do think it's frustrating
as a Raider that I like by definition have to do non raid
things. I'm happier now that I have
Dallas, but I I could throw fit for hours about that back when
the only real way to get a gear outside of raid is with mythic
plus. I reserve all of my mythic plus
title snark for people selling boosts to title.
OK, all right, I will. I will say Lex, that I think
that if you are going to play at the highest levels, whether that
is PvP, whether that is title pushing M plus, whether that is
Hall of Fame raids or this Hall of Fame delves, being able to
get the best from all versions of the game should give you an
advantage that that kind of mastery of the entirety of the
game being funneled towards something I think is something
I'm a OK with. Now, I don't think that you as
an AOTC Raider, right, should feel that you need to get 12
pluses to unlock mythic level gear or 10 pluses to get it in
your vault so that you can overpower the heroic raid.
That to me is a struggle That should that that I'm glad that
they are dressing. I, I what's in between there?
That that's where I'm like, OK, I'm not so sure.
That's super fair. I will say, and I've said this
on the show before, I would be more on your side to wimp both
ways if there was nobody pushing mythic plus title.
And maybe I'm wrong. I don't actually really know who
pushes title because I'm not a high level player, but my
understanding is there is a lot of people who push M plus and
only like I I I have never heard any mythic plus player say you
know. What sucks is the fact that I
have to do a minimum of three hours of rating every single
week if I want to be able to push keys.
There are those people, There are definitely, yeah.
And like some very popular content creators who only Mythic
Plus or who are very vocal about the fact that they only raid
because the best trinket or the best cantrip item is in the
raid. J dot B, one of the best healers
in the world, multiple MDI competitor and yeah, hates
raiding. Julie hates it and is very vocal
about the fact that he shouldn't have to raid to just play M plus
and he's not alone. Yeah, there is a lot of people
and there's a there is a lot of Raiders.
You're not alone either Lex there.
Even on our rating there are. There's one in the chat who if
they didn't have to do mythic plus for the gear edge that it
gives them a mythic rating, they wouldn't.
They would never step foot into a mythic plus.
One of them convinced our entire rate team to run normal instead
of LFR this week for the DNR buff just so they wouldn't have
to do 4 dungeons. Which is so valid, just me
convincing people to do heroic. So yes, OK, OK, well, then then
I'm not and that's super fair. And I will own that.
And I guess there is actually give and take and that's you
know, but I OK, I'll I'll I'll buy that Manny that it's valid
to do better in the game if you're able to do all of the
types of the game, then if you just specialize in one thing.
My my dark confession is that I hate pet battling because there
are certain amounts that are behind pet battling and I don't
want to do pet battling to get those mounts.
And so like selfishly I wish that they would change pet
battling so that like pets would even have the pet battle anymore
in future expansions. I'm just going to slip that to
Faz Dev so that maybe I get my way.
How do you hate? Animals.
Can't you just like super squirt day and juice up?
Never touch super squirt day that that seems like getting way
into pet battling than I have any wish to ever do I've done.
Casting for pet babbling and I don't know what you guys, I
actually I only did casting. Because I have to know what
Super Squirt. Listen, if anybody on this
podcast knows Super Squirt Day, Lex, it's you.
You're the pet battler. Surely it's like the power
leveling day for for animals in your Garrison or something.
Yeah, and I, I should also say that I was invited to pet battle
to, to cast pet battles because they wanted somebody who could
kind of like counter the person who understood pet battling and
like explain it to the audience. So I was the idiot, which is,
you know, I'm like, I'm the idiot on another form of, of
content creation that people use to like be the audience.
I don't know. Anyway, because of the episode
relaxed as a hater, how do you guys feel about Argentina?
Oh, I haven't tried it yet, but I guess.
That's why OK, so last last episode, Sean was trying to give
a shout out to the to one of the fast devs was like, hey,
whichever one of you fast dev created that mini game where you
like untie the lines and stuff, love you and everything.
There's an infinite version of that in the Argentina.
Are. You serious?
Yeah, the the one where you switched the pipes around in the
Argentina. End it, I gotta go log.
In Yeah and you get introduced to it as part of the Air Thor
storyline. So it so it is something you can
get pretty quickly. Anybody needs me?
I'm a I'm a line on Tangler Maine now.
Is there a Hall of Fame for this Can I get nothing gear from the
Can I get nothing gear from? It oh wait, we we need gear.
Yeah, we need gear. Otherwise it's not natural end
game. Anyway, I'm a lion on Tangler.
That's my new, my new end game. I'm off the right team.
Somebody tell Barack. Warrior line on Tangler.
That's right. Race the world straight
untangling. Yeah, that's right, world.
Strange. Unfortunate pause.
We'll continue. Yeah, that's probably gonna be,
well, the offensive. We'll get letters.
Yeah, you can send those the bit dot LY slash fast discord.
And then of course, as we are now reaching phase five, they
have been putting in a number of things that are part of the end
game. So as we were talking about the
Argentina Lex, you were talking about Prey.
But there are all of those events that are in the different
areas that allow you to do different things.
So we've got the Legends of the Herrenar, which is the lore
based 1 the Stormarian Citadel, which is the one in the Void
Storm, the Amani Abyss. Again, that's hair and our
abundance is in all of the zones.
And of course the Satharils soiree, which we well one it's
in silver moon, but we believe that is something along the
lines of Ambercord. The other thing that's part of
the end game are class sets. They they had some implemented
with last one. And then this week we've added a
lot more. All of these look very, very
basic. They're just straight flat DPS
increases for particular moves. I think it's, it's worth noting
that all the tank ones were also damage increases.
They're not like defensive increases, which, you know, I, I
like that for a tank sometimes, like you're just survivable
enough and getting a little more damage feels better as a tank.
Yeah, plus one. Plus one for that. 6/7.
No, I'm leaving the show. I don't want to hear that ever
again. Am I doing it right?
Am I? I don't know, I just saw a clip.
Except. Little dear good.
Anyways, do you check out the notes?
There are a lot of class changes still going on, so make sure you
are checking that and we will be back next week with even more.
Manny. Sarah, will you cater about the
Argentina? And I've never heard him change
the topic faster in his life. I have a question.
They've been tuning the class sets like the book class sets in
a few weeks ago. They've been tuning stuff like
that. There's been no end game content
available to test. What are they basing the tuning
on? They were tuning the sets,
they've been adding in the sets, right?
Pretty. Sure, I saw changes to damage
numbers for some of the sets. Well, some of them are based on
the class tuning, which means that the set now needs to
reflect that, right? OK, alright, I'll buy that.
That works. I'll take it now.
You may end. OK, until next time guys, may
all your hits be crits.