Hello and welcome back to another episode of For Azeroth.
We have yet another special as we are moving closer to episode
400. This is a little bit of a more
casual thing. I'm sitting down with a special
guest each time. And today we have the amazing,
the astonishing, the queen of Lore herself, Ali.
Hello Ali, how are you? Hello, you and your intros.
Thank you, Sir. Hi, I'm happy to be back.
Warcraft's been it's been an interesting, good, interesting
with this patch this with this, not this patch of season.
It, it's been there's so much to do, but I also have been playing
a little bit less because I've been taking more time to do
things like work out and take more care of myself.
So I'm finding myself having to fight off the FOMO because I
want to do all the things, but all the things could also be a
little grindy sometimes and I don't necessarily want to always
do the grindy. But then like, I haven't even
I'm ashamed, so ashamed to say I haven't even finished all the
side question stuff. So, so right, so ashamed.
But I'll log on. I'm like, I'm going to chill and
do side quests. I'm like, oh, but I need to
delve so I can get my more mythic crests and I need to work
on some more pray because I do genuinely still enjoy pray.
But there's just all these other things like OK, we had rituals.
I like ritual sites guy get that up too.
So there's just, I keep getting distracted because there's so
many other little things to do that I haven't just let myself
just sit down and just enjoy the side quest because there's
always something else because FOMO, FOMO.
Wow, OK, we found somebody who likes ritual sites.
Thank God we're we've been looking.
We've. Been.
Looking. Like I I the whole the void
assault thing where you know, you go to the different sites in
the zone and like fill up the bar and go.
That's boring as hell. I don't like that at all.
That's I did a couple times. I'm like, I have no desire to do
this again. The FOMO be dancing damned.
I don't care. I I don't know.
It's I also am one of those people that still enjoy Dells.
Once I get to Villalair 60, which is probably going to be by
next weekend, if not sooner, then I might be done.
But I, I don't know ritual sites.
I just I, I go in, I can zone out.
It's a way for Taylor's to get an amazing amount of cloth.
So there's that going right and yeah, and I'm done.
And then I move on my life. It's definitely going to get to
a point where I don't feel the need to do it anymore.
Probably pretty soon, let's be honest, like in the next couple
of weeks probably. But I, I don't know why I just,
I put on music and I chill and I do them.
I don't know. Nice, right?
So for those of the audience that may not know you or need a
little bit of a reintroduction, Ali, you are a content creator,
a lap streamer like myself, and you have done many shows.
I first came across you doing a nice little podcast and you've
gone through and done many things, I guess.
So tell us a little bit about your history in content
creation. Oh gosh, I'm actually come up on
some kind of anniversary for that.
I think something I don't know, I started about this time in
June 2018, so it's been a bit, but I started with Dungeon
Fables, which was that solo lore exploration through dungeons and
Braids episode, the episode podcast, which was a lot of
work, but a lot of fun. And then I also joined all
things as Roth with Metros and Toasty did that for quite a long
time. And then I also started doing
Jen from Morley Gray and I band together and we did Liv La floor
and then I realized I can't do three podcasts.
That's just too much. So eventually, like I cut back
and cut back and now and then it's Morley Gray for not Morley
Gray Live La floor for a while, which was fantastic.
And Jen and I had a great time doing that for many years, got
guide each other through COVID doing that and it was a lot of
fun. But it was time to hang that one
up just this year back in February and now I just started
doing a show called after raid with A2 guildies of mine,
Seraphis and Stone Grasp. It's it's just a monthly show,
but it's it's basically the vibe of three friends sitting around
after raid chit chatting. I think there's a little bit of
Wow news in there, Stone from back in the days of Wow
challenges and behind the Avatar.
I think he did that one for a little bit, but he does a lot of
mount collecting, so he talks about that.
I get a little little segment talk about the lore, really
random crap that just three friends sitting around on
Discord would talk about after Array was done.
And it's just a fun little monthly get together that we
just started. So that streams over on
twitch.tv slash Seraphis and I think about it like we're doing
the center of your service. Yeah.
So it's on Seraphis channel, but you can also find it wherever
you get your podcasts. I'm gonna eventually get back
into streaming cause I've, I've done some streaming here and
there and it's fun. I have to have the drive and I
haven't quite had the drive, but I've been thinking about it.
So might be returning to streaming at some point in a
very very casual manner here and there over on
twitch.tv/alexandros. There you go.
Well, I I think that most most of us know that you are like I
introduced. It's very much about like the
lore and the story of World of Warcraft.
How have you been enjoying Midnight Story thus far?
I've been enjoying it. It's I'm a little weirded out
because as a heroic Raider, which we almost got IOTC 3.5%
wipe last week, we're like a breath away from it.
It's painfully close, it hurts. But that aside, it's weird and
that with my love for lore, you would think, oh, cool, the rays
were designed to be more focused on the lower and there's
different locations for lower reasons, and I don't like it.
I don't like having the different locations.
It makes trying to lead a ray really wonky.
I no, and they're adding another one.
Just just no. But that aside, it's definitely
been intriguing. I, I don't quite feel the doom
and gloom that I was expecting like I did for a little while in
the beginning, especially, you know, the intro, everything was
all voiding. The void was attacking.
We got through all the intro stuff.
And yes, once we got through raid and got all that and the
sun well turned into the void well, and then all the sky was
purple and it's doom and gloom. But that felt so short lived
that I don't know if I had a chance to really sit with the
doom and gloom and be like, Oh my God, we lost.
Midnight's still young. We still have lots of seasons.
Well, not lots, a couple at least.
So I might still feel more of that later.
But it it cleared itself up much quicker than I was thinking.
And sure, we don't know, like, is a Larry and Charlene alive?
We don't know. There are times it's just about
done. Anyways, I'm not feeling the
doom and gloom from the at this moment, but I don't know it's
that's how I'm feeling. What do you feel about the doom
and gloom of that we're supposed to feel for Midnight?
I I don't want to focus on doom and gloom as much as the story
beats don't have impact like you just said, like the doom and
gloom didn't last long enough for you to really feel it.
I think that's the thing. There's the entire, oh,
Terralian slashed his own son and like it.
We don't really feel him living with that.
He, we, we see him be like, I'm not going to talk about that
right now. But there wasn't like really him
feeling the guilt and, and that or the strain between his
relationship and aerator, right? Like I thought like, oh, maybe
they would do do more of that, but they just quickly skip to
Oh, and then Leilaria finds out right before we have to fight,
which just throws her off balance.
And it's like background voice lines that if you were
concentrating on mechanics you're going to miss and if you
are doing just story mode you don't have any chance of
catching that. To me is is like disastrous.
Like I yes I understand that the raid was split into three parts
and therefore story mode covers like 2 important parts and dream
rift is there right like. For some reason well.
We'll, we'll, we'll circle back to Dream Rift, We'll circle back
to Dream Rift. But really the crux of the major
story is carried in the Void Spire into the March of Quelfos
and on March on Quelfos. And then we have a two week
period or two week in that it was like Raid opened up the
second week. There was the second part of the
story in between, as well as the release of the raid, and to me,
getting the elves together felt rushed.
It did, yeah. Right, and I feel like this
isn't spoiler ish, but even after the raid is completed, the
epilogue sort of story that comes up comes after it, which I
won't go into details because I don't want to ruin that for you.
Right, Also felt like it was lacking impact because they're
because they said, OK, well, this is the result.
It's like, OK, but what does that even mean to to like the
citizens, the people that are involved, that sort of stuff.
There's one, there's one or two things that like happened in the
raid and you're like, oh, that was a cool cinematic, but like
nobody talks about it afterwards.
No, they didn't at all. And so that that to me is what
has been very strange. I have been used to World of
Warcraft at least making the end of a raid kind of have a bit
more of an impact and like, oh, wait for the next patch or like
this is what we're doing and go into into the next expansion.
And I feel like that has been lacking in the course of just
this tear. I I don't feel like the
levelling was missing that kind of thing because when trialing
did slash down air tour, there was that cool cinematic and
everything. And then you go off and do air
tours story. And yeah, the wound isn't there
anymore, but he's still like, I don't even know.
My dad went off the the the deep end here.
Like, let's what in the world is it about?
So I yeah, it's not that doom and gloom didn't feel it.
It's that I didn't get the chance to feel much of anything
before. They have quickly moved on.
Yeah. With that in mind, though, where
do you think generally that the story is going next in?
Because we are now sorry at the time of this recording, 12 point
O .7 will be coming out this coming week and then I expect
fairly quickly we'll get 12.1 on the PTR.
But where do you feel the story is going to be going into the
next patch? I would like to say something
with horror and darks. I feel between some of the rift
of on stuff, the some of the comments about the cradle and
the Goddess and all this, it just it left some little
question marks here and there that my tinfoil mind wanted to
kind of spiral about and really dive into be like, oh, what does
this mean? So I feel like there's still
some pieces that could fit in with Harandar and make Harandar
matter more. Whole of the more whole than.
Yeah, yeah. So there's that, but I think
Blizzard has an interesting opportunity to continue to use
the lore of the past like they have here and there to wrap up
some loose ends. But with a lot of you know, we
know there's some troll stuff coming up right with twelve O 7.
They've they've already announced that.
I think it's interesting and a Lor bit that a lot of people
don't know is that the corpse of Kithic is around, like Zola man
was basically built on the corpse of Kithic.
And with Zalatas piercing out. I don't know.
I just, I feel like that could come into play and that brings
in again, some allure from the past for them to utilize, which
I would like. And I want to see because I've
done it a little bit here and there with like Argentina and
some stuff from Tear when we brought him back and then he got
benched already. So like they have an opportunity
to use some stuff from the past. So I want to see what they might
do with that. That's one of my current
theories. What are you thinking?
I mean, there are a lot of flags for more things with Solomon and
that's island off the coast of Solomon.
It's. Very clearly there on the map.
Yeah, the the stuff coming in 12 point O 7 uses some things from
both Solomon and hard and are kind of pulling those two
together. But like I have also seen a lot
of a lot of things in the War Within where it's like, and this
comes out of left field. Yeah, yeah.
So it it just becomes a lot harder to to like take any of
this earmarking when the last expansion was very a very
fragmented story. But assuming that it's not going
to be like that. Yeah, I would think that it's
more of the trolls. It's bringing a bit of stuff
with like with that, I would think that the Haarendar stuff
is being used as a long sort of introduction to stuff.
So we've talked about the Cradle.
We talked about how only two of the raids are really continuing
the main story and if you do the dream rift and you just do the
dream of straight, you don't get any real story.
However, the lead into the dream rift is by doing the HAR and our
weekly quest every week until you get through to the locked
items and then those will eventually lead you into the
raid. So for people who have maybe
ignored that, that raid has no story.
For people who have done that, OK, this is a full lead in more
similar to like older expansions where they did take a while to
lead you into the raid. We'll see how that fits in with
Sporefall coming out pretty soon.
But because they're taking that long burn approach to the harder
stuff that to end because it is so connected with like the world
soul and and what happened there, I think that is going to
be more of a long burn. That's the will come that will
be relevant either in the final patch or even leading into the
last Titan as well. Yeah, Midnight has that awkward
job of being the the middle kid, right?
Because it has to hyperthin and bring Morrison story forward,
but also has to not only continue the story into last
Titan and kind of lay down that foundation for last Titan, but I
also feel like they might be planting, continuing to plant
seeds for life after the last Titan.
So I feel like Midnight has this awkward burden with being that
middle of the saga. So I'm definitely curious to see
where it's going to go. And I absolutely agree with you.
I feel like because of all that unlock stuff, if you haven't
done it yet, go do it. Because it was, it was fun, it
was interesting go read the little things in each of them.
It was really cool. But I, I think you're right, I
think it's going to come into play and be really important.
And I think people just don't expect the long, long burn
because it's definitely harder, has definitely been trashed on a
bit by the community. Honestly, if you want to roll
like a harder, you're like, oh, I'm going to do my harder druid
or whatever thing. You know, you owe it to yourself
to do those weeklies because the harder starting experience
doesn't contain the story of the harder.
It's all in that that weekly thing, which is like a very like
it's unprecedented is what it is that they that they would put
the story of the entirety of like the race and their purpose
and what leads into the raid into this this little weekly
lock lockout. So then talking about the
overarching story, because we we've got the war within.
We're now in midnight, which is basically doing the job of like
the Empire Strikes Back. How do you feel like the at this
point in the world soul saga? How do you feel that it's been
going kind of like quick little like retrospective on the war
within and this first chapter here?
I feel like it's been an interesting endeavour because we
we know they tend to work on expansions, you know, a few
ahead and that kind of thing. This is our first actual like
trilogy saga that was built that way and I feel like it's going
all right. I kind of wonder if doing the
saga this way, having it be this trilogy.
Kind of force them to move certain things around and hold
off on different things and in the end they'll all, you know,
come together nicely. But you know, for example, going
back to the Har N Deer, like we all expected a lot more of them
in the war within. Seems like it got moved over to
Midnight and it feels like they're just covering so many
things and there's so many. There's like plot a plot BA
little like C&D plot off here and there.
And as individual plots, I do find them interesting and I'm
intrigued and I want to know more, but curious know if
they're all going to weave together more eventually or if
we're just going to continue to get all these plots everywhere
that might eventually wrap up. OK, Yeah, yeah, there, there are
a lot of pans in the fire there. There's a lot of plates spinning
and and you're, you wonder if any of them are are being
ignored, if they're all going to come together at some point.
I get that. What would you, what would be
your hope that we get for the conclusion of midnight before
the last time? Where do you think?
Because like it just, I don't think anybody has a good guess
of where they're going to end midnight.
But where, where would you like it to be this sort of like
pinfoil hat on sort of thing like OK, this is this is it.
This is how we're going to do it.
That is a fantastic question. I I want to see the end of
Zalitath, which coming from a shadow priest who's had a lot of
fun with Zalitath over the years.
A lot of fun. Made a little too much fun at
times. It feels weird to say that, but
also we've seen the past where if one villain is focused on for
too long, it gets it gets a little long on the tooth, it
gets a little boring. It's like, OK, Yep, Zalatas
scheming. She's doing her thing, she's
playing her 5-10 D chess. Like at some point I want to see
her killed and I also still want to know more about her
background, but that's now they're here or there.
I think the end of midnight needs to see her death and I
think it needs to be epic and awesome.
But I also kind of wonder, because she is playing whatever
game she's playing, if maybe killing her would signal
something really bad and that would bring us into the last
time. And that would be maybe our big
like we really did lose at midnight and not just the the
little bit of a loss we felt in this first year.
How do you want to see it end? OK, this is this is AI think
along the same lines as you, where I don't want Xalataf to
fall into the same vein as the jailer.
And the reason that I felt that the jailer ended up very flat is
that he would show up and be like, ho ho, ho, I'm menacing.
And that'd be like, OK, cool, you're menacing.
And then he would do that five more times.
He'd be like, yeah, I get that you're supposed to be menacing,
but why? And so the why of Zalitaf, I
think needs to be explored sooner than later.
We've yeah, we've already seen like a little bit of her
history, like, oh, she was work. She was there at the at the fall
of this world, and she was there and trapped into the blade.
And that's like, but why was she opposing the Old Gods when she
was there at the fall of the world?
What was she trying to accomplish?
Is that what her goal is now? That stuff, I think needs to
come out. Definitely.
Yeah. And if they could do that, that
to me will validate Zalitath. They, if at that point her plans
get foiled, if at that point she dies, if at that point they say,
oh, OK, well, now we know what her ultimate plan is.
We have to do. We have to go for this.
No more cloak and dagger. This is a straight, this is a
straight out fight. That to me would be enough to
carry Zalitath. Two, I think one of the better
done villains like you, you can have a sort of slow burn with
these villains. Nobody was tired of Zalitaf when
she was in the dagger, right? Nobody was tired of Zalitaf when
she got out of the dagger and disappeared.
I think it's just that she's being stuck in the same state of
like maniacal ho ho, ho. I didn't account for you or I've
accounted for five different things that you haven't.
I'm sorry, you go ho ho ho, and I get this weird image of some
kind of Voity Santa Zalitas combination because my brain's
weird and that was fantastic. There you go.
We'll we'll do a a Zalitas with like a little Christmas hat on.
Yeah. Which you?
Can make it purple, you can make it voity.
Yep, it'll have instead of like the little star on the end,
it'll have like a black hole. Yes, that'd be amazing.
Anyway, sorry. But like she's been stuck in the
I'm trying to be enigmatic phase, unknowable.
Like, oh, what's what? Yeah, for a long time now.
Yeah, and that's why she's getting tiresome.
If you were further exploring her or exploring her quote UN
quote rivalry, because back in the war within they said, oh,
we're going to be talking about the rivalry between Zalitath and
Illyria. And then Illyria, who's now
being sidelined, may be dead or who knows.
Either way, she's missing in action.
The ultimate end to that thread was no, actually, I didn't ever
care about you. It was always about the narrow
inside of you. It's like, well, I wish you had
done a bit more rivalry sort of thing in that and like that to
me would have it would have made the like, why the hell do you
did you think that I cared about you?
Get over yourself would have made that like that much, that
much sweeter. But I guess that falls back
onto, I think that this storyline has a lot of good
ideas in it and a lot of good concepts.
But the exposition, the explanation has been lacking and
the speed has been so has been elevated that the typical story
guys like your yourself haven't had the time to be like, pick a
part and be like, oh, what did this line mean?
What did this line mean? Like Discordian Kitty, I I, I
know, I, I know you want to make like a 27 lore videos, but
they're they got to give you some of the work with Yeah.
That's true. Well, and I also, I feel like
the narrative team's almost taking on too much at this point
because yes, while Mattson talks about wanting to wrap up all the
loose ends, they're still, they still have a ton of loose ends
to wrap up. Like Denathrius, who's still
alive somewhere, Like they have so many loose ends to still wrap
up things that they already built up and then just left it
loose. And they're adding more.
And so I feel like they're just taking on so much and we're not
getting enough answers enough like meaty context for it, you
know? Yeah, I would.
I would really like to. I would really like them to stop
doing the throwaway hench men that they have been doing for
let's say 3 expansions now. If not like the I mean like the
but like. The Army of the Jailer, they
were basically soul powered constructs.
So like you weren't expecting much from them and the those
soul powered constructs were augmented by like the corrupted
or turned versions from every set of the shadow lands.
So there was reasons behind them.
You're like, oh, he got the like the the half the forces in in
one place to turn against each other.
Like when you go to the Necrolords, like they became
they in begin began infighting and their leader was gone.
So he was like, Oh yeah, let me take care of that.
He turned, he turned the half of Bastion against itself.
He had the I don't, I don't want to talk about the trust that
much because they it upsets me that they disappeared, Right.
Yeah, but like the dressed we're following and and that sort of
stuff. But like alongside that, which
those guys I felt were decently fleshed out, you get the like
the I can't even remember their name.
They were the Elementalists or the shamans that follow the
incarnations, right? Right.
They showed up at the free patch in the beginning and there was
no reason behind what the hell they were doing or why they had
come together OK, other than they just wanted a force that
could like fight, fight against us.
And then we go to the war within.
And like, yes, we got a little bit of explanation of the
Nerubians. And obviously with Gazlow's
forces, sure, but the Shadow Guard, which bled into this
expansion, I wanted to know more about like why they're fighting
on Zalataf's side. What what the King Saladar
wanted on on a deal. Like if he got that power, what
was he going to do? What it like those smaller
characters could have been more fleshed out and that to me would
have made me care more about about them or like be more
invested in the fight against them at least.
And through through that, you can sort of explain a bit more
of like Zalitaf. Like it's like, oh, like Zalitaf
isn't just trying to like have everything reduced to nothing,
like the void consumes all. No, she's trying to like save
some people, the people who are willing to do what it takes,
like they'll follow her. And that to me would make make
it be like, oh, like, wait, So what is Zelataf like fighting
against, you know, which is a story for a later expansion sort
of thing. What?
Which character would you want more explored?
Or even a faction would you want more explored before we get to
the end of the world Soul saga? Pardon, dear.
For sure. Just because they have been
around as Roth for so long and they there's just so much that
yeah, there's a lot they probably don't know as they've
just been, you know, in their own place.
But I feel like they could be utilized to learn so much more
about the history of Azeroth. For sure.
Them. That's the first one that came
to mind. I'm sure there's another one,
but I will think about that as you share with me what you're
thinking. OK, so from like the from like
the World Soul Saga, they started on the ervin and dropped
the ervin. And I kind of want them to like
come back in the picture, if not just to be justified in their
inclusion, because at this point it feels so throw away.
And because they're not the Darlings of the new expansion,
they they've been left in the dust.
That to me feels really, really bad.
If I had to go with an OG, like if I had to like continue with
the War within, I guess you've brought every L faction into
play. Do something with, right?
You already talked about the HAR and DAR.
I have I hopes, I still have hopes for the the Armani and the
different tribes in there Do do do go ahead and do those side
quests because I felt that that they did a good job with the
Armani. Strangely I feel like the Blood
Helms are getting decent service in terms of like their story
progression. The void elves are sort of being
brought along with them as like two sides of the same coin even
though they should not be getting equal balance. 1 is a
splinter of of like, I don't know, maybe a couple dozen
people that were part of the the tragic events that turned them
into the void elves. So I don't expect to see like
armies upon armies of void Els. They should be very much of a
small elite force that you could probably get a accounting of
without much without much work. I guess at that, at that point,
that's what I would want for the War Within if I had to like go
and say like, Hey, what's the next, next thing that you should
do? Like the Rathi pushed him off
Like the Rathi? OK, now I was going to actually
just mention the Rathi. Why do you want to push the
Rathi off? I feel like with us going to
North Rend in the last Titan true with us dealing with that
sort of stuff, the Rathi can be a good seed for a post last
Titan world. I would love to go to the Rathi
empire and not have it be like a mini like a middle patch within
the last Titan like we're going to go to north rend.
I'd love the continent or landmass that the Arathi are on
to be a its own world and ecosystem and not just like a
little island where it's like, yeah, we got our castle here and
that's it for the Rathi. It's like what?
No, no, no, no, no. You guys need to rival the
forces of Lord Iran and Storm and combined.
You need to be you need to be like a major player on the
continent. I don't want them fully like
they could be the biggest player on the continent, but I don't
want to be the only player on the continent.
Then there's like, as much as they say, oh, we want to like,
plant seeds for the future, They've already been doing that.
We've had, like, green Dragons that went overseas.
We've had the pirates that, like, somehow travelled the
storm. Yeah.
All of those, like I could
imagine those all having found the continent that the Arathi
Empire was on and being factions and stuff.
I would love if the Arathi were we're fighting against like the
pirate nation as it were kind of bralessy, but like the but like
the pirate nation I would think of as like trade Princess, but
like on the on the coastal lines and stuff would be a great way
of differentiating between forces.
Anyways that's why I that's why I want the Arathi later because
I want more of them than a mid patch faction.
True. And I'll totally give you that
because I was thinking that we definitely need more Arathi
because it's kind of a big deal. There's this whole Arathi empire
and they brought up enough back story for it in War Within that.
There's got to be more coming to us at some point, but I've been
trying to figure out where it would fit in and how like if
it's just going to be a random patch, just kind of like
Undermine was, or if it is going to be something bigger.
And now that you have said that, I do see and agree with you how
holding on to it is a good thing because it should be a full
patch. I don't, I don't know if it's
interesting enough to have that be what we build for post last
Titan per SE, but I also in general cannot imagine what will
happen after last Titan because for a while there I was thinking
maybe a wrath. He could be during the last
Titan but I can see them possibly pushing it off.
I'm really torn now at what I want from the Arathi.
It's all your fault, Manny. I I'm going to, I'm going to put
my tinfoil hat back on. I'm going to spin you this tail
and. Bring it, bring it.
Let me see. It so just like we travelled to
the Dragon Isles to find the lost homeland of the Dragons, we
travel across the sea, past the storm to the lost Arathi Empire.
There we find the Arathi embroiled in a war of the
throne, because there are different houses in the Arathi.
OK. And so we befriend one house,
which we have our introduction in to.
But then the we also find that we're not the first people from
Calendar and Eastern Kingdoms to arrive.
No, the Red Dawn has collide themselves with one house and
that has caused much of the Rathi to turn a bad eye against
both the Alliance and the Horde. The Horde they are not one of
the pure races of the Rathi, they are neither elf nor nor
human. Meanwhile, the Alliance, they
fraternize with these lesser people, the gnomes, the the,
the, the, the night elves and and even Aradar.
Right. And so we do not have the
warmest welcome. It's a hostile territory.
Meanwhile, the empire they're at, the empire is beset by, like
they're resurging foes from the old days.
And the Dragons are starting to stir.
The, the, the splinter group of the green Dragons are starting
to stir. And in that you can have many
different stories. But what we also find out is
that the Empire is becoming far more powerful because they are
tapping into the light in a way never seen before.
This is when we start seeing more of that harsh light that
has been hinted at at the beginning of midnight.
Yeah, OK, OK. And so that that's where I would
like it to you go. Now that the Titans are dealt
with in the last Titan and they no longer have their
stranglehold upon the world soul.
Now the other powers start to make their move.
Life with these overtaken green Dragons light in the Arathi
empire with like far more direct influence, which causes a crisis
of faith with villain and and all the followers of the light.
This like I think this is there's like a lot of a lot of
things that you can build like the entire expansion about, not
just the patch. OK, I can see it now.
Let me let me ask you a question then.
You're talking about the green Dragons here.
Yeah. We went through that whole thing
in Dragonflight where we empowered our dragon friends.
Well, we helped Azaroth empowered them.
That's fine. We went through the whole thing.
They're empowered every red chron pieced out right through
the Void, Tear, whatever style test, whatever icon is doing.
Do you think that the dragon aspects come back in last Titan
to save the day and Ridicron comes back because he's trying
to fight off the Titans and like you know Amanthol and all them?
Or are they saving the dragon aspects for post last Titan for
your scenario here? I think that Tear and the
dragon, the dragon aspects are going to help in the last I I
would push position them in the last Titan and then I would have
it be an entire thing where it's like, wait a second, the star in
the sky fades away and out come the the Titans themselves.
And they direct the keepers right to to like reinforce the
matrix or whatever they were using the like seal away the
world's world's soul and like and like deal with this because
like the threat of Zalata has become too, too much.
Or even if she dies at the at the end of at the end of
midnight, she breaks part of the Titans mechanism.
And so they're like, OK, no, no, no, we need to we're going to
like flat out like re originate or whatever.
And so now the aspects are like, no, no, no, you, you can't wipe
out all life just to like keep keep the world soul the way you
wanted it. We realize you've been corrupt,
corrupting it. Tear decides to stand with the
dragon aspects and as Ross humanity and people to fight
against that. The Titans fighting against us
and now we're on the wrong side. And the keepers, what side do
they fall on? The rest of the keepers?
They end up fighting against us and that would be like a cool
like throwback to their old. I like it.
But this time, they're not corrupted by an old God.
I can get on board with this. That would work, and that would
be solid stuff for post Last Titan.
What would you name that expansion?
The expansion after Last Titan? What would you name it?
Give it all this Arathi stuff. Give it all.
Give it, give me your whole scenario here that you're coming
up with. Oh man, I what kind of name
would they go with? Like like a New light, The
Empire Strikes Back. The New Empire.
The New Empire, I I think there's I I'm not going to go
into marketing. I'm sure they could work up with
some amazing names. I just feel like I I love I love
spitballing stories and all of this sort of stuff.
The thing that I didn't talk about, though, is a Ridicron.
Yeah, and I would put a Ridicron actually post last Titan.
I think that he he got he gets to come in most last time be
like I told you so I told you that as soon as your your ideals
didn't align with the Titans, they were going to turn around
and kick your butt. And you are lucky to have
survived. Now I'm going to lead you to the
proper future. And then we all know that his
proper future is not anything we want and he gets to be the big
bad that he deserve to be. OK, he does deserve that because
I definitely, you know, he, he got a little bit of a build up
there. Then let me let me ask this
then, because you know, he, he pieced out through void terror,
right? Lady Ashara also kind of pieced
out through void terror. When does Lady Ashara come back?
Is Lady Ashara gonna be saved? Or are we randomly going to get
some Lady Ashara soon considering that we had this
whole Not a Presence off the coast of Ever Song?
I would I would like for her to be a post last Titan.
I think that she got to be a mid boss.
I think that there can be an entire not a takeover sort of
thing where where it becomes like a OK like he fled her
eternal palace. Where did she go?
She she hasn't been back there since and she gets to do a big
I'm I'm going to take over ass off now, now that I'm not
shackled by the old gods, right, My people will finally take
their their rightful place sort of thing, and I think that can
be in the future. I'd I like it could be if they
tease it right, like it wouldn't be last Titan.
She could be either like I, I I feel like they've used too much
of her for her to be a full expansion boss, like the the
boss at the end of an expansion like Lich King, like any of
those people before. But I think she could be built
in between things and be like a mid expansion.
Like let's say we've got the Ridicron thing and she's like
Ridicron, like sit down, kid, I'm I'm taking over.
And like, so we have to defeat her first, but then Irriticon is
like, well, thanks for taking care of my competition.
She was the only thing standing in my way.
And then we have to deal with Irriticon afterwards.
Like, I think she can be like that, that level only because I
just don't want. I feel like they've used her too
much and the only reason that they could have her as the final
big bad would have to be after we've given her enough time away
from the spotlight. Yeah, for sure.
And I do agree she's not full expansion baddy kind of level.
I have been trying to figure out if there's reason to get like a
full not a patch again, and that would be when she comes back for
like just that patch and she'd be the final boss of that patch.
But I don't know where a not a patch would fit in.
Yeah, I, I honestly think that you can't even do a not a patch
because we have done a not a patch.
We've had not a in so many different places.
So for me, it would be almost like a dark transformation sort
of thing where she like further evolves the not a into like some
new untested threat where it's like, oh, like she took this
this she took the blade that that fell from Zalitath.
It's like, shoot, yeah, she would know how to use that
because she's been studying it for thousands of years and was
originally going to use it for NASA and stuff.
And so she uses that, does a dark transformation on the, not
A, and now it's like, whoa, wait a second, these are like not a
Plus Plus. I can see so in in your the New
Light expansion, whatever we're going to call it, if we have to
cross the ocean with Night Squaw or whatever to get to the Rathi
Empire, I can see some dark empowered not a causing issues
with that. I don't know if Ashara would
come around at that point but I can see some like new newly
Ashara empowered not a getting in the way of our crossing the
ocean with Night Squaw. I, I think that that's
definitely something, I think another thing you can do is sort
of her finding a different power than the void because she's
always been connected with the old gods.
Or even if it was like, because like, yeah, if he dropped the
void, it was like, oh, I'm free of the void.
And now we're embracing like arcane power.
And so now we've got like not a with constructs where they're
like either using arcane power or something, or like they're
tapping into some font of life and now they're like life
infused so that it changes their theming a bit more.
That would, I think that would also be somewhat cool.
Like I think that it's like what we need to see from them is
either stepping higher into the powers that they're that they're
associated with or changing alignment.
And that would that kind of novelty would adjust them.
Like what would you, what would you have if the not a, instead
of being connected with the old Gods, we're now connected with
order. We're now connected with light.
We're now connected with with like death.
Like, oh wow, the not a are now connected to true death and not
that fact similarly that you know of from the shadow lands,
True death. What does true death look like?
That'd be cool. I like it.
So many things. I could do so many things.
But yeah, I, I'm really glad that I got to sit down with you
and do this kind of talk because we had like a loose idea.
We had a loose, loose plan. And then we just dove right into
so much lore. So much.
And this is being great. I do want to throw a little
curveball question at you just. Before we.
Go. So World of Warcraft is great.
We love it. But Blizzard has a lot of IPS.
And one question that kind of came up in the for Asraw discord
was what if Blizzard farmed out one of its IPS to allow a
different company to create a story based game for it?
What IP would you love to see it's a story based game for from
Blizzard's. From Blizzard's entire catalog
except the World of Warcraft. Can I have two answers?
You can have two answers. OK, very first one that comes to
mind because this is something I've wanted for a while and this
is like a huge call back that not everyone even knows is
technically a Blizzard IP. Rock'n'roll Racing, which is
like, I think, if not their first thing, like one of their
first things. Back when it before his Blizzard
was still a synapse, whatever, right?
It was on SESNES, like it was. It was so much fun.
The music was awesome, and I've always wanted a new one of those
with new awesome music and they could do so many things with it.
Granted, I'm easily mused, but give me a new Rock'n'roll
Racing, I'd be so happy. So, so happy.
Wow OK you know like I could see them doing a story mode for
that. I mean they are doing virtual
fighter as a story mode where it's where.
So like if they can do Virtue fighter with a follows along
story, I think they can do Rock'n'roll racing with the
follow along story. Yeah, like you, you build up
your own car along the way and that's they can easily
incorporate story mode for that. And then you have to go into
these races to get more money to do that and whatever.
Like if you ever play the Saints Row games, like you could just
steal cars and do all sorts of things to your cars.
Have fun with it. It'd be great.
I unless the music would just be as long as it has an epic, just
awesome rock'n'roll soundtrack, fantastic.
I'd be so happy, so happy. And then my other answer is
honestly Heroes of the Storm, because there was a like, I
stopped playing after a while just because I, I only have so
many hours in a day and I only have so much gaming time.
But I, I was like, here was the storm and I was sad when it was
done well put into maintenance mode.
And I feel it would be so fun to incorporate some kind of story
mode with that, with all these different Blizzard IPS coming
together. I don't know what that would
look like, but I feel they had so much fun with the voice lines
alone in Heroes of the Storm that they could have a lot of
fun with a story mode kind of thing for it.
Feel like if if it was heroes of the storm I would just want them
to do like a little mini series more than I would want a story
driven game for heroes in the storm.
Fair. Rock'n'roll Racing.
I, I I'm 100% with you. Like, just like you go to the
shop and you're like, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to win the
next race and I'm going to make a name for myself.
And you go up against the characters from Rock'n'roll
Racing while you're making a name for yourself on the scene.
Wow, yeah, those are two great, great ones.
What would you do for me? Yeah, you got to answer too,
man. OK, all right, all right.
If I were to do just a show I would want Overwatch because I'm
tired of waiting for them to do any single player with that
game. And I like those.
Characters look so cool. That would be fun.
I'd play that. I'd totally play that.
I feel like they keep like right now StarCraft feels semi retired
and I think that if they were to do the story of like ghosts or,
or like because like that was a game that never came out right?
Like just like I mean, there's so many 40K games that are just
like I'm a grunt running around and keep that against the entire
thing. Give me that, but just put it in
the StarCraft universe. So yes, it feels retired, but I
feel like StarCraft is kind of heavily featured on the key art
for BlizzCon 2026. I feel like we're getting a
StarCraft announcement. So hold, hold, hold the horses
there with that retirement speak.
What's your favorite candy bar? That's random.
I have so many. I'm going to say Snickers
because that was the first one that came to mind.
OK, there is any StarCraft new title at BlizzCon?
I will buy you Snickers. OK, sounds like a deal.
I'll get your I'll get your address after the show.
What is yours? What is?
What is yours? Oh, man, I don't eat much candy
bars. I'm going to say, man, yeah, I
don't, you know? Chips.
I was going to say Hiroshay, which is not my favorite candy
bar. It's my, it's my partners.
I mean, those are really good. I got it.
Yeah, yeah, my mom loves Bounty. Like honestly, I just don't.
I like, I like, like chocolate bars are cool and everything.
I just don't have like a favorite one that sticks out.
My problems I have too many. I like that's that's a problem
for so many reasons. I got to send you some like
Canadiana like. Problem is shipping the namo
bars out to you would be like Nah impossible.
True. We'll figure it out.
I'm I'll, I'll talk to our mutual friend about about
getting this stuff out to you. But yeah, I'll figure that out
another day. All right, We'll see if we get
any. We'll see see if we get any of
the StarCraft at BlizzCon 2026. I assume you're going to be
there. I am.
Beautiful, so you guys can say hello to Ally at BlizzCon if
you're going, but if they want to see you online, where can
they find you? Well, our next recording of
After Raid is on the 19th at 1:00 PM Eastern over on
twitch.tv/seraphis. That's CERPHU.
Wait, CERAPHUS? Yes, and otherwise I'll
eventually start streaming again over on twitch.tv/alejandros and
whenever I decide to be active again on socials, you can find
me on Twitter at Alejandros K and on Blue Sky at Alejandros.
Go, but until next time guys, may all your hits be goods.