Towelliee
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09-16-2026 · 9h 14m
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and
are you back
to some from the top the back
of one of the ones that you guys tell me so
the back of the pool
and some of
Happy BlizzCon everybody. Welcome to world building and world of Warcraft.
Wait, what panel? Wait.
So we're going to take you through how we build the world of Azeroth starting from the first 2D maps to the gorgeous forests and cities that you folks get to explore in.
Hold on. I didn't even see this panel. Oh, this panel looks fucking tight.
Is this for is this for the RTS or is this for actual Wow?
What the fuck then damn did I miss this panel?
Anyway, alright, let me know if you guys can hear the volume. Okay, I'm gonna see see
and I'm going to be. on 2019
last time Kristine I were on
stage we were showing off
revendreth and maldraxxus ahead
of the shadowland is this
loud enough for you guys
wait to give you another
behind the scenes look just
like okay so let's start with
some introductions Kristine
take it away hi I'm Kristine
Moray I'm one of the
world building leads on the
team and I've been here
since 2017 I've worked on
zones such as storm song
you guys are awesome I'll
see you guys in a few
hours of Valdrakhan and
many more currently I'm
hands off providing career guidance and feedback to my awesome team. But enough
about me, let's learn about you Vic. Hey everybody I'm Victor Quarters, I'm the
associate world building director on World of Warcraft. I joined the team during
Legion getting my start on Stormheim, Suramar and Suramar City. Also had the
pleasure working on Terragard Sound and the pirate dungeon Freehold which we
debuted here at BlizzCon on our demo stations that are now live with
World of Warcraft forever. Also contribute to Revendreth, Arden
the Dragon Isles and the Nerobean Kingdom of Oshka have.
What a journey we've had working on.
Wow, let's go ahead and meet our panelists.
Jesterie, tell the people who you are.
Everybody, I'm Jesterie.
I'm a senior two world builder
on the World of Warcraft team.
Over the last decade, I've had the pleasure
of working on zones like Zulizar,
Nazjatar and Azure span.
My latest efforts, I was in charge
of the world building efforts for the Mysara dungeon.
And I want to show you a little bit about that process today.
All right, thanks, Jesterie.
We'll check back in with you in just a little bit.
Up next, we have Esther.
Hello, I'm Esther Love.
I'm a senior world artist, and I've been here for four years.
And during that time, I've worked on the Emerald Dreams
from Dragon Flight, Zera Lett Caverns, The Ringing Deep,
and most recently, Ever Song Woods.
I was lucky to be the zone point for that area,
so I'm excited to share with you today a little bit of how
we remade that zone for midnight.
I'm sure folks can't wait to hear about that, Esther.
Can you believe seven years ago Esther was actually in the audience asking questions at this panel and now she's up here on stage
Speaking of people who work magic Jeff tell us about yourself. Hi. I'm Jeff Miller
I've been on the wild team for four years now. I've been world design point on
zoned
I'll doren the two housing neighborhoods razor wind shores and founders point as well as coiled aisle in our recent patch
12.1, the curse of Lulutek.
All right, give it up for all our panelists' faults.
Now we are eager to dive right in, but first a little bit more
about the world-building team.
We're split up into two disciplines.
We have world design and world art.
And while the majority of our work
is shared across both disciplines,
they each have their own specialties.
World design is really focused on the gameplay space,
the size, spatial relationships,
how the players move in and between points of interest,
or as we like to call them, POIs.
And our world artists are more focused on composition
and really beautifying those areas.
They're building all those little detailed nooks and crannies
that you're really drawn in to explore.
So let's kick things off with some live demos.
I'm so glad you said kick off, Christy.
That's actually the first step of development
in our pre-production phase,
which is all focused on gaining early cross-discipline
alignment for the vision of a space.
Jester, can you tell us a bit about that
in midnight and my Sarah Cavillstone, Jim?
Yeah, thanks, Vic.
So the first thing that we do
is start off with the narrative.
What you see here is the first draft of the R2D map.
The narrative in this particular dungeon
is that the Vile Branch trolls are capturing
the Wither Bart trolls,
taking them down in their subterranean village
that lies just beneath Zulamon.
And that's what's represented here with this light green.
It also represents the highest point in elevation.
As you can see here, that there's a lighter gray
and that represents where you go into the cave section
and start heading your way down.
The last one there, this dark gray represents
the deepest part and where they bring these souls
to Raktul.
This very darkest is, it represents non-passable areas
whether it's mountains or chasms, in this case it's chasms.
If you fall into that, your player's dead,
so it's bad news.
And then this last light, this lime green
represents acid pools, although it never really made it
into the dungeon, it was just a pitch,
like this will divide this space up a little bit.
So, once the first draft is done,
we get into what we call a kickoff meeting
with all the disciplines, and then we look at this map
and say, how can we make this the best possible map?
This is what came from that.
As you can see, we went away from the linear design
and went with this C shape.
What that allowed us to do is foreshadow,
in some cases, when you defeat boss one,
you get a really cool look at the final throne,
it's really nice, leads you up,
it makes you want to go down. You'll also see some of these other things marked on
here, boss one, two, and three. Ultimately we ended up moving boss two down here.
And then finally you'll see some just notes for report and all the other
stuff. One more thing I want to mention is the squares here. It represents a
world chunk in our editor while edit. That way we know the scale
right off the bat. We have a good idea. How big is this dungeon? So at the
We begin this meeting, hey, we're all happy with this map.
And then we go into our editor.
So what I have here is a tool called,
or copy and paste tool, and I'm going to
lay this thing down right here.
Wow, it gets a little camera shy sometimes.
Give her a sec.
There we go. And then if I show you the grid, you'll notice that it lines up perfectly.
So what we talked about with that scale, it's right on.
Alright, so it's in. Now what we're ready to do is explore some of that elevation that
I talked to you about in the 2D map. I'm opening up our terrain tool and I'm going
to grab a hill brush and what that does is it aggressively moves up terrain. So
We know we want this to be the highest section.
I'm going to go ahead and move that up.
And this is our plateau tool.
And what that does is grabs the point of the cursor
and pulls all the terrain up to that first click spot.
So I'll do that there.
And we know we descend here.
I'm going to pull that up a little bit.
Plateau that as well.
And then start to use things like our strong smooth brush, and that eases that transition
between the two.
And I'm going to continue messing around with this height while the next artist shows you
some cool stuff.
All right.
Thanks, Gesture.
Now that we've got our 2D map translated into the editor and we're adjusting the
elevations, we're moving into the next step of pre-production, which is the RUF
Rough 3D is all about setting the foundation of a space.
It's making big macro moves to set up your sightlines,
the spacing of your points of interest,
and making sure you've got a good topography to work from.
Let's take a look at Jeff's Rough 3D of Founder's Point.
Hey, so what we have here is Founder's Point in Rough 3D,
right after we've paced it down the 2D map,
and I've started to adjust some of the heights and elevations,
and turn off the world grid there.
And Founder's Point was inspired by the zones
outside of Stormwind City, Elwyn Forest, Duskwood,
and Westfall.
And they each feature rolling hills, rock outcroppings,
small cliffs, and some foothills that threshold
and create vis blockings between zones.
I'm going to show you how to build one of those right now.
So I'm going to go ahead and turn on our terrain grid.
Gives a little bit more definition.
I'm going to open up the terrain tool.
And I'm just going to start pulling up some of the terrain
pretty quick, because this is all about being rough.
I just want to get the idea of a kind of a mountain here,
a little foothill.
And once I kind of get the shape in,
I'm going to also turn on my impassable terrain.
And what this allows me to see is where players can and can't
go.
And so.
Allegedly.
Allegedly.
So I'm going to kind of use that.
And this, because it's still rough,
This just gives our world artists and world designers
to go ahead and work on the mountains later on
in different phases.
So once I have this kind of set up,
I'm going to swap over to my texture tool
and use my vertex color.
I'm going to paint this rock color
that I have already in the zone.
I'm just going to sample the color that I have already
and just start painting this just to kind of show
that this is going to be a big mountain created
with rocks and stuff.
We'll just do that really quickly.
Gonna connect it over here.
There we go.
The other thing we like to do during rough 3D
is focus on our roads.
And a cool tool that we have for that
is our gradient tool.
So I'm gonna open that up
and we get this nice little window here.
I'm gonna swap to my mouse.
And I'm just gonna middle click
on this section of the road
and I get this little handle here.
But I need the second handle.
So I click there and I get this nice grid here.
And I can grab these handles and move them around
and the terrain dynamically changes.
And I can also change the width,
which is really nice and helpful.
So once I'm kind of happy with that, I'll just hit apply.
And I'll swap back to my brushes here,
go to my smooth one,
and kind of smooth some of these really harsh jaggies
so they're not so harsh anymore.
But my terrain colors are all messed up.
So swap back over to vertex color,
pick my road color here and just kind of paint that
to connect it to this one.
And then we have these greens
and these greens represent the different biomes of the zone.
They come with different textures and different props.
And as I continue to work on this,
our world artists are working on
some other really cool things.
All right, thanks, Jeff.
Housing neighborhoods were so fun to design.
He continues to refine that rough 3D.
Our world artist is going to start their first step
of pre-production called the Vertical Slice.
And the Vertical Slice is really key
to establishing the visual look of a zone.
It's where all of our teams get together,
and we decide, yes, that's it.
That's what I want the whole zone to look like.
And Esther's going to create just a little slice
to give us an example of that.
Esther, can you show us the Everson Woods Vertical
Slice?
Yeah, of course.
But first, I want to show everyone here the demos
worked on that led to the vertical slice. So this expansion was unique because unlike most new zones,
we already had a lot to reference from. So right here, we've got a tree from Burning Crusade,
and just looking at this, you can tell just how extremely manicured that forest was. We had one
tree and a few bushes. So that detail was not unnoticed. Over here, when we remade that
cluster with the new assets from the environment team, we kept it quite minimal, and we added
just a little bit more on the bottom here to bring it to the fidelity that we
have now for modern worlds. And then conversely over here with the corrupted
trees that used to be in ghost lands, well we brought that back to life. We
healed it using the passing of time and maybe a little unexpected help from the
Sunwell. So these trees now were fresh and because they were growing further
away from Silver Moon's magic of eternal spring, they instead got to
grow fuller and wilder.
And you can see that down here with the lush vegetation
that we added.
And same over here.
And so the plants weren't the only things
that we looked at when we were doing this.
We also looked at the ground itself.
I'm sure many of you remember these old mountains.
And this was awesome, because this
was a very common style in early World of Warcraft.
And everything here was done with just texture painting.
And a lot of the details were
implied with that painting.
So if I turn on the grid, you
you can see these rocks were just in the texture.
So when we remade it, we decided to give those rocks actual geo
and use that tool that Jeff was just talking about
with the vertex paint tool to give it some depth.
Let me show you by flipping this on and off.
You can see how much that lighting added to it.
So we took all those learnings
and then we put it here in that vertical size
that Christy was mentioning.
So you see I got the trees in the back,
the bushes I was working on,
But these mountains over here aren't quite done.
So I want to show you what it looked like to fill these in.
I'm going to open up here my texture tool.
Bring that over here.
So these mountains were really cool
because they were built using a texture that
had height map in them.
So when I'm painting down these dirt paintings here
that are coming on a little bit strong,
you can see that there's still some dirt in the cracks.
So if I press down really hard,
I can see I'm actually removing a lot of that in,
but I'm going to put it back.
And I'm going to start feathering this down.
And then I'm going to start using that vertex tool that I was
just talking about over here.
And then we're going to start adding some of those highlights.
I'm going to pick this color, and I'm going to paint this in.
And what's really cool about doing it this way
is that in our engine, and wow, the sun only ever
comes up from one direction.
So when I'm painting it like this,
I know that this will look good at any time of the day.
This is also a very similar technique
that we used in Wow Forever to enhance
a lot of those classic qualities
that you remember from vanilla.
All right, now I'm gonna start adding in some shadows.
You can really start to see that definition
come to life here just by doing it this way.
This is something that many artists will use when hand-painting their assets.
And look for us, our asset is Azeroth herself.
All right, I'm going to add just one last touch.
I'm going to choose this brown color here to start filling in these cracks just a little bit lightly
to help it blend into the environment a little bit more.
And yeah, this is pretty much it.
But I will keep working on this to finish it off, but this is what it looks like to start
that vertical slice.
Thank you, Esther.
It was really important to us when we were revisiting a zone that is beloved as ever
song that we treated it with respect and we looked back on the pieces of nostalgia
that resonated with people and we really tried to preserve that.
So as you can see, you know, Esther and the environment team and the artists all
working together, really we're taking that into consideration.
And while Esther is working on her vertical slice here, our world builders are moving
on to their first pass.
Yeah, first pass is really where we're finding the gameplay space, working hand in hand with
our encounter and quest designers to support their content while establishing strong visual
landmarks that are going to help direct and guide the player through the map.
JR, what are some of the considerations that you took with Mysara?
Yeah, so here we are in Mysara, first pass.
A couple of things to point out right off the bat.
This is our establishing shots, and as you can see here, we're using this god ray.
That's shining down in that idle exactly where that boss space is.
So there's a visual cue no matter which path you take.
You know that's where I'm going, that's the boss area.
You'll also notice two different paths.
That gives variation when you're going to run this quite a few times possibly, and
you know, that you can go different ways.
It also helps if you have a particular group that maybe favors the left side, we can
go a little quicker.
So mythic pluses, you know, in that case you might choose a certain path based on that.
The other thing we'll see here, these 18 yard radiuses, 18 yards is our agro radius on mobs.
So we're laying this out to work with Encounter Design to show.
This is kind of where we're planning on putting things where mobs might be anchored.
So I'm going to go ahead and lay one of those down with our doodad tool here.
So we're laying this down to keep the path and not have mobs particularly right on
that path but also to guard and make sure that players don't go through this
without encountering moms. Some other things we use early on these are finished
buildings at this point but we put down a gray box or something like this to say
hey this is that village we talked about where the vial branch trolls are
capturing the litter bar trolls they'd probably be in these places and
maybe have some prisons over here and and something like this in one of
these little tents. Oh, another thing I wanted to point out was we have a tool
that's easily able to tell us the run distance. So if I click on this point and
let's say click over here, you'll notice that it says 35 seconds. We're trying to
curate both of those paths. We don't want one to be way longer than the
other, so that helps us get a good idea of what normal run speed might be.
Where these two paths converge at the bottom, as we were going through first
pass. We had one staircase here, one staircase here. We like that idea. We wanted everything
to go back to one unified path. So I'm going to go ahead and move this over here and rotate
it and line it right up on that boss space. So no matter which path you take, it's a
clear shot right in there. As we go down into this boss space, you'll notice a much
bigger radius. This is our 50 yard radius. This is for any of the boss encounters.
So any of the mechanics that you normally encounter in a boss, it fits inside of this.
So I can lay this down with confidence and then come back in here with walls or what
have you and close this in artistically.
And then finally, while the walls aren't right up to this gate, we do things like
this to corral players, so to speak.
You don't want to go unintentionally off onto the boss too or just explore things
that you're not meant to.
So we use things like this, like this gate, where you can't get past this area until the
boss is defeated and boom, there you go, it's down.
And what I told you about earlier in the 2D map, this is the shot setup.
We're seeing the shot, we're seeing where we're ultimately going, but we don't want
to jump there.
And if you're a demon hunter, you know for sure that you could glide right over this.
So we do something like these fences right here.
So it's believable.
I can't go past here because there's a fence, but physically what we do is something called invisible collision, so
You're not getting through that
But we it allows us to see right through this and get that really nice view and that's our establishing shot for this
All right
Thanks, justry set up some really powerful visual compositions at those thresholds are gonna really drive the player through the map
Now while he continues to refine the gameplay space our world artists are going to be referencing the map and their vertical slice
to start creating the art building blocks that are going to be applied to the layout later.
That's right, and we call those building blocks propagation pieces,
and there are a lot of different types, and Esther's going to show us if you have them now.
Yeah, so I have here the finished vertical slice. You can see with all the trees in,
got a little bit of facts in the back, but like Rissy said, I'm going to get this ready
for propagation. And so what that will include is me taking these clusters here,
and I'm going to put them aside to save them for later. So I'm going to grab this,
put this here, and I'm going to also grab this one,
put it down here.
And now you can see I have what is
the beginning of a cluster kit.
And what that is are pre-arranged groups of assets
that any world builder can use to add into the world,
or add into the zone to add some plant life quickly.
And what's really cool about this
is if we need to spin up something really quickly,
like I need a different color tree,
we do have tools for that, such as if I were to click
this and then alt click into this, we now have a different color tree and we can do this on the
spot. So this is useful for example if say we need to turn all the trees red because this cluster
is going into the Windrunner Village. Some other things that we can do too is use these modularly.
So if I were to say grab this cluster here and then put it next to this one, if I needed this
to fit around the base of another tree I can just actually combine these here and then
create a nice little shape that will allow it to be used for that specific reason.
And this works because when we create these clusters, we make sure that each one of them
have a unique shape for any purpose.
And we also have these nice tiering to these clusters.
So you see I have a large, middle, and small size groups.
And so what I can do with this is if I drag this over, take these shrubs, put
them here, and grab these middle shapes with the bushes and put them around.
It gives that bush, or sorry, that cluster some directionality.
And then I'll take these smaller shapes here and then I'll put them around.
This helps the clusters to feel more like they're a part of the environment and feel
grounded.
So while this is very quick and easy to do, imagine having to do this multiple times
across the entire zone.
That would just take too much time.
So this is not the only thing that we would take from the vertical slice.
We also have the ground itself.
So you can see over here, this is actually a copy from the original burning crusade.
I used this as reference when I was working on my vertical slice.
But I didn't stop there.
I had to make sure that this was tile-able.
So what I mean by that, I'm going to take this copy-paste tool here, I'm going to
grab this, and if I paste it side-by-side, we should have one continuous ground.
And this is really nice because if we need to spin up a whole new area, well, the ground
is already taken care of.
And if I get really closer, you can see that this has all the information that any of the
world builders need.
It has a height, you can see from the undulations in here.
It has the texture, of course.
And then, once again, it has that vertex color in there to add that depth.
And so these aren't the only things.
We have one more thing that we like to work on.
We have what we call the mountain kit.
And while sculpting these mountains would be really fun, they would take forever to do.
And I don't think we would be done with that expansion if we had to craft them one by one.
So we often start with a kit like this and then use it as a starting point to build
off of.
Or if we need to, we can actually copy this, put them side by side, rotate them, and then
we can have a mountain range that will cover up a lot of the zone.
So yeah, it's propagation tools like this because we need this.
a lot of the environment, it's not only hand-painted,
it is handcrafted and hand-placed by people like us.
Exactly, thank you, Esther.
It's really important that we have all these pieces
because there's often four to five people working on a zone.
And so when you have all of these to pull from,
it feels really cohesive.
It feels like everybody is creating the same space
and you can connect a mountain range that you've pasted in.
You've got your reference
of what you're trying to hit right there.
It's really handy.
This ensures we can build zones quickly.
Yeah, it's so true.
The more robust the propagation methods,
the quicker it is to fill out the map.
We're actually gonna see an example of this now
with our finished first pass neighborhood map
as it moves into second pass,
which is all about using those propagation techniques
that you just saw.
It's always an exciting time of development.
Jeff, can you show us how it's done?
Yeah, totally.
So here we're back at Founders.
I'm gonna basically paste that brain that you saw,
that Esther created across the entire map all at once.
And to do that, I'm going to open our copy-paste tool here.
I'm going to use this import section down here.
And well, first I need to actually get some information
for the copy-paste tools.
Let me do that really quick.
Copy.
Cool.
OK, so now we have these three different options here.
I'm going to first bring in the height.
So I'm going to go ahead and hit Import.
Then I'm going to find where I have it.
Just a normal part of the elements.
Yep.
So I have this texture here.
This is all the height information
across where the brain is going to get pasted down.
That's where the grasses are going to be, not the mountains.
So I'm going to select this, open it.
It'll sink a little bit, and then I'll hit Paste.
And you'll see some height information get in there.
Don't worry, I'll zoom in closer
after I get a few of the other textures in.
So I'm going to select Vertex Color now and do the same thing.
Select this Vertex Color file.
And then I'll paste it across the map.
And it put in all that Vertex Color.
And finally, I'm going to do the Textures.
So I'm going to go ahead and import.
And the Textures show up in a folder.
I have to select this folder because there's
different masks for the different biomes,
the different regions with the Westfall and Ellen.
And Duskwood all have different Textures.
So I'm going to go ahead and select that folder.
It'll sink a little bit more and then I'll paste that in
and you should see that propagate across the entire zone.
There you go, so I'll turn this off
and I'll turn off the world grid as well
and go in here and show you what it looks like.
There's still gonna be some cleanup to do
but you can kinda see the brain got pasted in.
I have the height information, the small hills.
I have the textures and the vertex color in there.
Once the brain is in,
we will go ahead and paint in the rock kit.
So here we have a Founder's Point map
with the brain and the rock kit pasted in
and fully smoothed out and looking great.
So the next step, I'm gonna go ahead and turn on
all the large props across the zone
and some minor ones that are already in here.
And we're gonna show you kind of how we use
the collection system to quickly propagate.
So I'm gonna open up my doodad tool here.
And I have this favorites list that was already created with these clusters,
and I can quickly just grab one and middle click,
and here we go.
We have this giant cluster in here with a bunch of trees and bushes.
I can, well, it's using terrain normal.
Let me turn that off really quick.
It'll follow the terrain's height,
so it'll move around as I rotate and translate it.
So I kind of like this one,
maybe just in front of these rocks a little bit right there,
and then maybe I'll pick a different one over here,
grab this one, it'll all work the same way.
Then once we have these in and I want to put
some bushes in some other places,
I can quickly just grab one and duplicate it over by holding space,
and just maybe moving it over here by these trees,
grab another one,
and this is how we'll work when creating a zone.
I'll just start grabbing some more of these to continue to propagate out the environment.
Okay. Thanks, Jeff.
Always amazed me how quick the map seems to come together during
second pass utilizing all those propagation methods.
It leaves us a lot more time for our last stage of development,
which we call third pass or polish.
Polished is my personal favorite part of development.
I call it the cherry on top phase.
It's where you're really putting those finishing touches,
all the little vignettes,
the tiny details, and all of those nixing crannies I was talking about earlier.
So Esther, how did you infuse some blood elf personality and culture into Silver Moon?
Yeah, well, so working with the blood elf culture kit was awesome because what started off as just like
200 props from Burning Crusade, well we ended up with over a thousand for midnight and what I'm
showing you here, this is just a sample of the decorations that we had and you know I'm
I'm going to show you some of my favorites actually from this.
So over here, I don't know if you've seen all of these,
but these paintings were created by the prop team.
And what's really cool is that a lot of them
were painted with, like, onsite.
So these are actually places that exist in the game.
They're almost like little plein air paintings.
And, OK, my next favorite, this.
Yes, the eating utensils.
If you can believe that before this expansion,
the blood elves did not have any eating utensils at all.
So this whole time they were sitting in their fancy towers
eating cake with their hands.
That was not a story we were going to keep telling.
So we were very happy to get these.
And speaking of stories, well, we take these props
and we actually use them to help tell
stories within the interiors.
And we use that by creating what we call branched kits.
So you might notice here that there's actually
a few buildings that are just being duplicated
multiple times. But within those duplicates, there is a different story being told, and
you can get a hint of that from their names. So we save each of those stories into layers
that we can turn on and off depending on the need of the building. So I'm going to fly
back over here to what I was working on and show you what I mean by those stories.
If you can imagine, I'm going to set the stage here. We've got a shopkeeper who
got some mysterious light bloom seeds, and he decided to plant them. Well, we know
how that's going to turn out. This is the kind of prompt that we might get from the
Quest design team to build out as one of these stories. But we don't always get a prompt.
So oftentimes we will start with what we have as a base. We have our shelves, we have
our tables, and if I go in here, you can start to formulate ideas of what this could
possibly be. This could be a shop or maybe a laboratory. But you know what? I mentioned
layers and I'm going to show you what that looks like in practice. So in this
cut out here from Silver Moon, we have a house that's actually not being used. So I'm going
to click into this and we're going to go on inside. The door itself is a layer that we
can turn off. All right, we're inside now. Let's turn on some lights. There we go. Well,
the next layer that we have is actually a home. So very quickly we can populate this
room with what looks like a really cozy house. And while it would be nice to live
right in the middle of Silver Moon.
That's not the story we want to tell right now.
So let me go down.
Well, actually, we have the shop here.
So this is the base layer that I was just talking about.
And we can fill this with different types of themes.
So let's see what else we have here.
See tailoring?
All right, so very nice.
The buttocks love their nice fabric.
But let's see what else we have.
Turn that off and see down here.
Oh, I love pets.
So you can see we've got the house for the dogs.
We've got some crates, some fish jumping.
Very quickly, we now have a pet shop.
But what if I want something completely different?
I'm going to turn these two layers off
and scroll all the way down.
See, what do we have?
Oh, I see something.
Yeah, this is a vibe.
We're going to keep this, leaving it right here.
But if you can imagine, all those houses
that you see in Silver Moon and all over Eversong
was populated using this technique.
So it's the tools like this and the propagation kits
that we made that I showed off earlier,
and the stories that we got to tell
that I think made Midnight a Memorable One.
Absolutely, and thank you Esther.
I really love seeing all of the different types of stories
that we can tell, the personality of all these pieces.
Our art teams are incredible for supporting us
with all this stuff.
It reminds me a lot of the blueprint system
we just got for housing.
So you can like mix and match and decide
how you wanna build all of these cool things together.
And speaking of housing, we still need to add some unique themes and some visual storytelling
details to our outdoor neighborhoods based to make it feel like home.
And Jeff, how did you approach that?
Yeah, so in third pass, it was really important for us to make sure that plots continued
to be unique for all different types of players.
And so even in our last stages, we decided to make some big changes.
And one of those was, let's put some plots into some of our theme POIs.
This is our farm POI and we decided to throw a plot over here.
So I'm just going to show you what that looked like.
So I'll open up my doodad tool,
and we don't need this house anymore,
so I'll just delete it. He's gone.
I do want to keep this big tree to keep the Elwin forest vibes and the coziness.
I'll just move that over here.
It already has a little bit of path,
so I think we're good.
That's about the size of a plot.
So say you didn't want to live in a full-themed plot like this.
So we also wanted to make sure that there were others plots that had smaller, maybe subtle themes.
So over here we have kind of just an open-ended plot here with maybe some water on the back.
Let's see. I think we're going to turn this into like a little fishing theme with a dock.
So I'm going to grab this dock here, there we go.
I'm going to middle click that down and put it on this rock.
It's moving with the terrain, so I'm going to turn that off.
And what's really cool is I can quickly duplicate this like I did earlier if it'll listen.
Janet live folks, that's how you know it's a real good job.
There it goes.
Cool, so I have the second one and the reason why I did that is it keeps the same orientation on this axis here.
here and I can quickly swap this to my stairs and it keeps that access and I can quickly
just kind of lower it in there and then grab both of these and move them forward a little
bit and there we go.
So now we need some sort of support on the end here of the dock, so I'm going to grab
these guys.
You can see what Jeff is doing here is what we call kit bashing and that's when
you take a bunch of different pieces sometimes from different kits, sometimes from the
the same kit and you use it to build something unique.
We see a lot of this in your housing plots
and you guys are extremely creative, we love it.
So I'll continue to get some of these smaller props
to add a little bit of a theme.
I got a fishing pole here and quickly get this leaned up
against the posts that I put in.
And then I got a bucket here and some fish,
some fish in there, really quick.
And if you've noticed, some of these doodads on my right here have this blue background.
Those are really cool.
These are leaving world assets and they are affected by different things.
These ones in particular are affected by proximity to the player.
So these birds, I'm going to go ahead and make it look like they're trying to get
the fish.
orient this here, maybe put this one up here, and to test these all I got to do
is move the camera close and you'll see them kind of fly away. Busted. And then
when I come back they come back into position. I also have these butterflies
here which work very similarly so I'll maybe throw them in this grass here and
when I get close you can kind of see them fly away and then when I pull
back they will eventually come back to their spawn point we have other living
world assets that are very similar to this we have assets that turn on based
on time of day like fireflies and we also have assets that turn on when it's
storming outside like lightning strikes that hit the ground so I'm gonna
continue to add some of this just to spice up these plots here in the
neighborhood all right thanks Jeff you did a great job adding in all those
special little details that made the housing neighborhoods feel so cozy. Those
living rule props are really cool. Now with everything else settling into place
we're down to our final stage of polish. That's lighting and fog. Lighting and fog
are super important for establishing mood and tone. There's a lot of powerful
tools that we have and so Jester here is going to give us a little preview of
some of the things that we can do with our lighting and atmospherics.
Yeah let's bring it all home shall we? So here we go. You're looking at that
that very first spot I showed you.
Before we put our cherry on top,
our amazing environment team gives us something
that's called a lighting and atmospheric volume.
I'll add that to the scene right now
and wow, that's looking pretty cool.
What that does, it allows us to transition
from this upper space like this
down to that cave space like this
and get that really cool vibe.
Okay, I'm gonna turn off that fog for a second
and show you what we do next.
So every one of these little flames that you see here
in any type of light source, we need to add a light to it.
So this is our lighting tool right here.
I noticed there's not one right here,
so let's go ahead and add that in.
Okay, so as you see, it comes in as a bright white light.
I'm going to turn it to something really pronounced
so that we can see it.
So this tool is pretty robust,
but I'll show you a few of the things.
Firstly, like this intensity, wow,
I mean, that's really blown out right now,
but it'll be helpful to show you this next tool,
which is our starting end.
So as you can see right there, it's a really hard cutoff.
That's where the most intense portion of the light ends.
And then if you take this end tool and spread it out,
you can see it does a really nice fall off.
Okay, so that's not the color we need.
So let's go back in here and fine tune that a little bit.
right about there, I think.
The intensity is way too hot.
We'll take that down a little bit.
Falloff seems about right.
OK, so that's that.
But this is a flame.
So we want it to dance.
We want to see that flicker.
So this tool also has a noise option, among others.
And let me play with those parameters a bit.
And as you can see, if I zoom in here a little bit,
it's flickering and behaving like a flame.
We don't need those changes.
OK.
So the last thing is, you'll notice this mist that's
in here that plays around with the overall ambient fog.
I'm going to show you a little bit with that tool as well.
Let's grab this fog over here.
All right, so this tool has a lot of options,
and I'll just show you a few of them.
You're able to play around with the overall scale of it,
left, right, up, down.
So in this case, the Z-axis represents up and down.
It's 500.
What if we raise it to 1,000?
You'll see that that goes way up into the ceiling.
That's not what we wanted to do.
We wanted to kind of end right at that bridge.
So I'll bring those parameters back down to 500, like it was.
Another thing that we can do, this
is the really, really powerful one.
You can play around with the colors
and really change that vibe a great deal.
Any color you wanted.
Let's get off of that and cruise down to,
I'll show you the fog density as well.
So the fog density is very tricky.
It's 0.015.
So let's put it at 0.5 and you can see
it's quite a bit of a change already.
I'm going to put it back down to 0.5.
All right, and revert that.
Everything is back to normal.
I am going to turn back on the fog
that the environment team gave us.
And there you go.
This is how we brought you my Sara Dungeons.
Beautiful and what a shot to end on.
You know, it's really neat to see those tools in action
because they feel very technical.
There's a lot of numbers you saw just reentering there,
but our engineers are very kind to us.
They know that we're still artists.
And so as you saw all of that stuff updates very quickly
and live to our eyes,
we're super excited about all of the updates
to lighting and volume fogs.
And you'll see that used to great effect
in midnight eclipse.
Hopefully you got a chance to catch that trailer
during the opening ceremonies.
but if not, it should be online by now.
And if you want to learn more about how we build the world,
there's a really great panel coming up later this afternoon.
It's about evolving a timeless world.
And it's all about the visual updates
to Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimandor
and World of Warcraft forever.
All the panelists, Christie, myself,
will also be available soon in the hallway.
If you want to join us for some Q&A after this panel
ends, we want to thank everyone
for being here in attendance and for watching along
at home.
Happy BlizzCon.
Have a good time.
I'm the most cinematic director for the real-time cut scenes in World of Warcraft.
And today, together with my friends here on stage,
We're going to be talking to you about how we build cutscenes in WoW, and we're going
to show you how we develop those scenes from initial idea all the way to your screen.
And not just are we going to be talking about it, we're doing it live.
We'll be building cutscenes live in real time with a little help from all of you.
Now we've done a little prep work before because these scenes can take anywhere from
days to weeks, even months to complete depending on complexity and the type of scene.
So please join me as we equip our helms of realistic expectations.
Have some fun and get our cinematic designers rolling.
Hey John, take it away.
Hello, howdy plus god!
Woo!
I'm John Giratana, I'm a cinematic producer here at Blizzard.
I've been here for five years working at the story and franchise development team,
working all those things.
Yeah, shout out to SD!
Woo!
I work almost exclusively on real-time cinematics for World of Warcraft.
I am playing kind of sideline reporter here today. I have the in-ear.
And I am very excited to introduce two very important people who are not currently on stage.
We've got our two cinematic designers who will be making two scenes for you live!
We've got Sherman Ohms and Cat Research. Come on out, guys!
Sherman, introduce yourself.
Hi everybody. I am Sherman Ohms.
I've been at Blizzard for 16 years and
a cinematic designer for about 10 of those.
The first cutscene I ever did was
the Volpera racial intro in Battle for Azeroth.
Since then, I've done work in Dragonflight in
the Azure span with all the blue dragons.
And most recently in midnight, I worked on the four Amani Loa temple scenes that you went
through in Zulamon.
Woo!
Well done!
And Sherman, what are you going to be making for us today?
So I'm going to be working with your current Delve companion, Valera Sanguinar, and everyone's
orb-shaped cryptid of the moment, Jimmethy.
So she and her little raccoon friend are going to go on a heist and they're going to rob the
Veldrakon Bank.
Woo-hoo!
Sounds intense.
Non-canon.
Yes.
Non-canon.
Cat, tell us about yourself.
Hey, BlizzCon.
My name's Cat Reeser.
I'm a senior cinematic designer and for the past five years, I've created cutscenes
for Overwatch, Diablo 4, and World of Warcraft.
recently for WoW Midnight, I had the great honor of creating the hair and ear intro cut scene,
and I built the epilogue scene The Dawnwell in which the elf factions gather to purify the dark
well. Very cool and what? Yeah! And what are you making for us today? For you today BlizzCon,
I have built scene CTU, a car chase through Undermine. In this scene, Hogger has wandered
from Elwin Forest all the way down to Undermine and is giving Chase in a stolen hot rod while
our player character and their companion are trying to make it get away. Now this scene is only
partially finished and with your direction Blizzcon, I'd like your help to finish it.
All right guys, let's uh let's get to work. Oh actually wait oh my god we have a very crucial
part. We need your help Blizzcon. Okay for JLA Sherman's scene we need your help who for the
loudest cheer what will Valera be stealing? Is it this, you know, hourglass? Or is it this ornate?
Claret, Jug? Chalice? Chalice, thank you. So which one? Is it the hourglass?
Or is it the braille? It sounds like it's the grail Sherman. That answers that.
Holy grail.
And next, for Katzi and CTU, who is riding on the chopper?
Is it Thrall or Sylvanas?
Oh!
Can I hear anyone for Sylvanas?
Oh!
Thrall?
Oh!
I... Kat?
It's so close. It's funny.
It's like this side wants Thrall,
but this side wants Sylvanas.
Which one do we do?
I think it's through all I think you're right. I think it must have been through all
Cheer them on as they go literally to the back and are working on computers in which you'll be seeing them work live
Thank you guys. All right as cat and Sherman gets set up backstage
And we'll be checking in with them throughout the presentation. You'll be able to see their screen
streamed up here live as they're working and get a little peek into the process
and the tools they're using. But as we wait for them to settle in, let's talk
about real-time. You know, why real-time cutscenes? As many of you know, we have a
handful of different flavors of cinematic content in World of Warcraft.
From our, you know, high-end cinematic trailers, just like this, our
our wonderful erotour, real flashy,
and then to our 2D animation as well
as our 2.5D animation scenes to tell longer stories.
And finally, our tried and true in-game cinematic content
that have taken us all the way from the Rathgate
to the Gate of the World Core,
and so many epic moments in between, and beyond.
I got to direct that one, yeah.
I know it's not real-time, it's okay, don't worry about it,
we're not talking about it today.
But why real-time?
There's always a desire for more action, more story,
and of course, more romance.
And this is where real-time scenes come into play.
They give us levels of production, flexibility,
and player immersion that we just don't get
from our high-end cinematic content
that have to be rendered out as final movies.
Over the last few years, we've expanded our real-time capabilities thanks to the development
of our pipeline and our in-engine cinematic tool for World of Warcraft, the timeline editor.
If you were here for the TrailerCraft presentation previously, you've got a little taste of this.
You'll be seeing our Simec designers use this throughout the presentation.
You might look at all of this and think, where do we start?
There's so many bars.
There's so many dots.
What do we do?
Well, because real-time cutscenes have to live in this world that we're all actively
questing through, a lot of the first conversations that we have about real-time scenes, about
the how and the where of how they're happening, start with quest design.
And with that, I'm going to hand it off to our quest designer, Matt.
Let's give him a hand.
Thank you.
Hi.
My name is Mateusz Adrybski.
I am one of the quest designers here at Blizzard.
And I want to spend a few minutes talking about why
and how we use cutscenes in our quest lines.
So I just want to start off by saying how tempting it
is to put every important story moment in a cutscene.
They are awesome.
They let us focus your attention, control the pacing,
and land the story beats just fine.
But we try to look at it and ask ourselves,
hey, should this be a cutscene, right?
And we try to reserve these for things like a major reveal
or very emotional conversation
or things that are just impossible
to show during gameplay.
And that actually takes us to the next thing,
which is we gotta find the right moment
when we're gonna play you that cutscene.
We think about where you are in the world,
where you look and how would it feel
if we would interrupt your game play right now
and play you this very pretty cutscene.
So perhaps you just defeated an enemy as a big enemy
and you're gonna see consequences of that
or perhaps there's a new location that you just entered
And we're going to do a nice 360 for you
to get the feel of that location.
And overall, the main rule that we have
is it should never feel like the cut scene
interrupted to your game.
So moving to a bit of the nitty-gritty of the stuff.
But before I do, I want to answer
one of the questions that we often get.
And that is, hey, why my character just stands there
to decide why they're not doing anything
and what's going on?
And the answer to this question is quite simple.
That character belongs to you.
And it should always and always feel like your character.
And it's present, and it's participating.
But we don't want to take away that ownership.
And that's the reason why you're just casually
standing on the side.
Moving on, as you're watching the cutscenes,
we actually do a bunch of things behind the curtain.
Sometimes we will change the spawning
as you are still watching it.
So we will replace the monsters that are around you
or we will change the NPCs.
Sometimes, for example, if you actually walk through a portal,
we have to manually take you from point A and pop you at point B.
And sometimes we just get the next part of the quest ready for you.
So when that cutscene ends, you can just carry on.
And ideally, none of you will ever notice it,
and it's all very seamless.
OK, that's my favorite topic, because there are essentially
two groups of players.
We have the group that will always
watch everything that we will put in front of them.
They will listen to every say a while,
and they want to just digest that story, right?
But there are also these who skip it.
The second that stream starts fading, escape, gone.
Or maybe you've already seen it.
And the way I look at it is that both are totally
valid ways to play the game.
And because of that, we must always design for both audiences.
So if you choose to skip that cutscene,
you don't lose anything.
And the quest, as you resume, you
should be able to still be able to find yourself
in that story.
You should still know what's going on.
And now let's talk about playtesting.
This is actually interesting because the moment we decide that we know that we're going to have a cutscene in this questline,
we stub it in.
We find a place where that cutscene is going to play,
and in our internal playtesting we have two tools that we use.
One is a bit more fancy, it's a nice strolling text if you ever saw Star Wars,
and it's just simply explaining,
hey, in this cutscene, so and so is doing this and that, right?
Or if you played on our PTRs, we spawn Captain Exposition and you just click on the guy and
the guy is going to tell you what's happening in that questline.
And this allows us to check the flow, to check the pacing and see if there was enough
gameplay before and if there's enough gameplay afterwards, so then we can take that pause,
that moment and play you the cutscene.
Okay, and so ultimately we don't think of cutscenes
as rewards or interruptions.
For us it's a storytelling tool and we use them.
Oh, I know, I know, I know.
We use them when they improve clarity, emotion,
Emotion and overall make your experiences better so if you finish a questline and
You're feeling emotionally invested while also feeling like you were the one driving the adventure
Then we've done our job
Take it away on hi guys. How you doing? I'm Ann Stigney senior narrative designer on World of Warcraft
Which kind of leads us to our first question right what does narrative design do there's a there's a short answer
And the longer answer to that is a little more complicated.
I like to think of the World of Warcraft team as kind of like an orchestra.
Everybody plays an instrument.
They're all experts at what they do.
Narrative design acts as the conductors.
We make sure that everybody is playing the same song.
We make sure that everybody is playing to the best of their ability.
And that concert totally kicks butt.
For cinematics, narrative works with quest design.
We work with cinematics and we also work with sound.
But sometimes we actually work with the Encounters team if it's going to be a dungeon or a raid
scene, we like doing those.
We do a lot of writing, but the direction for that writing comes from StoryCorps, which
leads to our next question.
What the heck is StoryCorps?
So our StoryCorps team steers the ship and they tell us where the story should go,
what major beats should be hit, any characters that need to be involved in what the overall
story is going to be of any patch or expansion.
and narrative, take that broad outline and we fill it out with quests, dialogue, character
moments and more. And in making all of those quests, narrative works with quest design
to find the moments where an RTC is needed, like Matt was talking about, right? Either
for mechanic reasons or for any pivotal story moments that just need an extra spotlight,
right? Writing is every bit as much of a collaborative process as everything else
that we do. Everybody does writing on the wow team. Narrative will usually do a
first draft of a cut scene and then I like to take that first draft and take it to my quest designer
to get their feedback on it and then see if it hits what they like to hit. Once we're good with that,
we've gone back and forth and we're good with that, I'll pop the script over to StoryCorps
for review and then once again we go back and forth until everybody is happy with it and once
we've got that we take it to Cinematics and then Cinematics takes all that stuff that we jotted
down and makes it come to life in amazing ways.
Other stuff that we do,
things to remember. So scripts,
they aren't just dialogue,
they also include stuff like stage directions.
We try not to be too exact with those directions,
because cinematic knows what can and can't be done.
For example, I was writing the script for
Pelagos becoming the arbiter back in Shadowlands,
and I added a stage direction.
The stage direction just said,
can they hug? Is that a thing? Because in all of the years that we've had World of Warcraft,
we've never had people hug. They've known each other for thousands of years, but they
haven't shown any affection for each other. I didn't think it was possible. And Robin
comes back with this blocked out hug, and it was developed, and it turned into this
absolutely beautiful scene where the two characters hugged, and suddenly we have affection
technology, folks. They can kiss. It's fantastic. All right. The other place that we work is
with Sound. We'll sit in on voiceover recording sessions. We don't direct. We have amazing
directors that like to handle that. But we're just there to provide context. So basically,
we fill in actors like Darren DePaul so that he knows that the reason that the orc he's
playing is super upset is because he just lost his beloved puppy and the guy he's
about to fight is the one who called Orghermar's animal control, Root. We'll also let
sound though if we need anything interesting like specific creature sounds or any unusual
processing like if somebody I don't know is it a pile of garbage underground they need a specific
set of processing to sound like they sound like that right or stuff like crowd noises we get like
big groups of people to come in and do the crowd noises stuff for us you heard part of that and
undermine anyway that's about it for narrative john I want to know what they're doing you know
actually just so you all know if you haven't noticed already we have been watching them work
live. The footage that we've been having is them working. Wait, I'm sorry, what was that?
Oh, I'm getting a signal from the StoryCorps team. Taren and Metzen would like BlizzCon to make the
next choice of what we'll see in the cutscene for Sherman's sequence, JLA, Sherman and StoryCorps
would like to know what is Jimmethy stealing? Is he stealing this plushie sold out in the
the bulls gonna snore. Or this hot dog. Can I hear plushie? Can I hear hot dog? It sounds like
hot dog. Everybody's hungry. And next, for cats. CTU chase through under mine. Cat, she thinks any
good car chase should have a car crash. So what is a hogger going to be crashing into? Is it
the dark portal or is my slide broken? Wait, or is it that sword? Dark portal?
Oh, I think we know what they want. That sword? Sounds like that sword. I catch her when you
know what to do. I'm gonna throw it to Rob.
Thanks, John. And hello, BlizzCon! It's so good to be here. I've been at Blizzard for
more than 10 years, and BlizzCon is my favorite part of it, just to be real. I started my time
on World of Warcraft with the Warlock Order Hall Mount cutscene, if any of you ever reached
the end of your Order Hall campaign, that was kind of the capper. And more recently,
might recognize my work from the void storm with my favorite
dominar buddy, Decimus.
So the question I get asked every time I go home for the
holidays is, what is a cinematic designer exactly?
And I guess what you could say is we wear a lot of hats.
You can call us generalists, but we really specialize in
making sure that cut scenes look and feel good to players.
We're experts at making smooth transitions in and out of
gameplay, and we're pros at animating cameras.
When we're lucky, we get to work with amazing specialists
who build pieces for us to play with.
Your animators, effects artists, prop artists.
But really, we can build a cutscene from the ground up
just using whatever's in the game already.
And on wow, we start every project
with a kickoff meeting.
So our quest and narrative designer buddies
will come to us hungry for a cutscene.
And sort of like your waiter at a restaurant,
we'll present to them kind of a menu of options
that we can serve up.
So we'll start with kind of your appetizer course.
We call these stay a while and listen.
This is kind of a relatively new type of cut scene for us,
but it's meant to give major lore characters a chance
to kind of pause the action
and have a conversation with one another.
This can be made with just simple designer tools
and looping animations,
or we can punch them up with our cinematic tools
to create bespoke moments.
So the main tool in our toolkit for this
is called animation blending.
Sherman will talk a little bit more about it, but it really allows us to break our animations
up and play them on different parts of the body.
And this is especially handy when you've only got two talking animations in your library
and you have a long conversation to cover.
So there's no camera in these scenes, but players can really park themselves and enjoy
the action or walk around and enjoy it from any angle they like.
There's a lot of these, but we tend to stick to just spending a day or two on
them.
And then our next kind of scene, a real-time cut scene, Ann refers to it as an RTC, that's
kind of our shop talk.
These are kind of varying in complexity, but this is your order-at-the-counter kind of
meal.
The general rule is that they feature a cinematic camera and scripted action, and they use
assets that already exist in the game.
Most of the time, we're going to be providing storyboard screenshots to an expert video
editor who's going to really help us lock in our timing.
And that way, when we actually get into the work of scripting it, we have a
a lot of the answers in front of us already.
We'll also record our own voices,
or our friends from around Blizzard,
and do some kickass Zalatath VO for us.
Claudia, does that better?
I try.
But we'll get our friends to do it first,
and then we'll prove out our scripts,
make sure there's no tongue twisters in there
before we call in the pros.
And finally, we bring in all the effects,
lighting, voice lines,
and use our animation blending to tell our story.
Next up, animated real-time cutscenes.
These are sort of like your sit-down restaurant
anniversary kind of meal.
These are really pivotal narrative moments,
and they have all the benefits of being a real-time cutscene
while featuring high-quality custom animation.
So this lets us, our cinematic designers,
leverage the game assets to fill out our frames
and even feature your player character.
So sometimes the Cinematics Department
will task specialists to make these standout moments
like storyboard artists.
They might be called in to dial in the emotional tone
for the performance or to nail some tricky blocking.
Modelers and rigging artists will take a pass
at each character and they'll start with the game asset,
but we like to spend a lot of time making sure
that there's high texture resolution and geometric fidelity,
especially in the faces and the hands,
because we're really gonna get our cameras
close up on them.
Next up, layout artists are going to create simple post animations with basic cameras using temp models to indicate where game assets should go that won't be received in custom animation.
And sweet, sassy, molassy, I love those temp models.
Shout out Anthony for that temp model.
Yeah, our layout artist Anthony builds us a great one every time.
The same animators who actually brought us all the high quality pre-rendered cinematics you saw at opening ceremony today work on these assets as well, bringing all of our shots to life.
to live. And then technical artists will maintain our pipeline that brings all these assets back together into a format that the WoW client can read.
And then it's up to us, the cinematic designers, to kind of stitch everything back together, dial in the cameras, and spend a lot of attention on lighting, effects, and set dressing.
The cinematic designers will get started with the game plan. This is kind of our comfortable place. And it's going to look familiar because it's the same client you guys use,
that you guys use, but with some special dev cheats enabled.
So you might see us flying around here as a Volpira.
We like being short characters.
We can get our cameras close to the ground.
And then we'll use the dev tools to go shopping for assets.
You can see me highlighting different assets
here so that I can bring them into my cinematic tool later.
And once we've got things prepped,
we'll take a look at some of those assets
in our internal model viewer called WoW Creator.
So WoW Creator, you can search for any asset in the game,
any character, and cycle through any animation
that they can play.
And this is kind of where we start getting our heads
around the script that Ann's team has provided for us,
and think about what our characters have access
to in terms of animations, and how we can tell that story.
Can they hug?
They can hug.
If you've got the carry, you know,
we have like a carry animation for crates.
So if you get two characters doing that
with their upper body, you can kind of make it work.
It's the ex-agent.
So let me take you back in time a little bit.
This was our first tool for making cutscenes.
It was developed back in Pandaria,
but we used it all the way up through Legion, which
is when our team really came in and started working with it.
And LuaScript is great.
It's really powerful.
You've got all kinds of programmatic logic,
so you can spawn a whole army
and give them instructions all at once.
But for all that power, it's also
kind of limited in terms of the kind of fidelity you can reach
with your animation blending, with your camera animation.
And I'll tell you, it was a pain in the butt,
because every time you wanted to change one thing
in your scene, you had to watch the whole thing play out.
And this is just a series of commands.
It's just like, Magni, stand here.
Magni, walk over here.
Wait three seconds.
So yeah, it would take all day to make small changes.
So enter the timeline editor.
Somewhere around Battle for Azeroth,
Team 2, you know, WoW Team Engineer took pity on us
and created a front end for our Lua script.
So this actually runs live in the client
and it should look familiar to anyone
who's done video editing.
You can pause, you can rewind,
you can turn your assets on and off
to kind of, you know, get, check out your cameras,
you can place down movement points
to move characters through the world
and basically anything the game can do, we can do too.
So if you need a fireball,
We can cast a fireball spell, any kind of spell visual.
You need to make a character glow.
We can also drop in lights and anything else that might be handy.
So I think this is probably a pretty good time
to check in with our cinematic designers backstage.
See how they're doing?
Yeah.
Yeah, I think we're going to check in with first Sherman.
I believe, Sherman, do I have you?
Do you hear me?
Yes, I do, John.
Do you hear me?
I don't hear Sherman over the PA.
Oh, no.
Can we get Sherman on the speakers here?
They're working on it.
Hey, this is live production.
We're doing a live.
I'm so good at this thing.
They'll get there.
I think that the Dark Portals already
sucked them into oblivion.
Or the sword has just enveloped the entire back room there.
The sword is very large.
And Timothy took him.
Oh, oh, do we hear?
Oh, we heard something.
Yeah, there we go.
Hey.
We've done it.
Wow.
All right.
Huge.
All right, Sherman, can you tell us a little bit?
We are not looking at Sherman's screen either.
Yeah, we are.
Oh, there we go.
There we go.
There we go.
Yeah.
OK, so this is Sherman's screen.
Sherman, can you tell us a little bit
about what you're doing?
Yeah.
So at this point, I have Valera and Timothy.
they have broken into the vaults,
on the notes of the dragons.
And I am trying to get a little bit of a better silhouette
for Valera, because she's a little bit crouched,
a little hard to see.
So I'm gonna try to add a little bit of an upper body anime.
Yeah.
So now she's fully crouched, like a blood elf.
But if I add a ready weapon, she gets much more upright,
so ready for action, but way more readable.
And that really helps.
Yeah, and Robin, that was the animation blending
you were talking about with putting the hands on.
Yeah, we have access to a couple of different bones
that we can play animations on.
So here he's playing on the upper body.
We also could play an animation on just an arm
or just a head.
Sometimes we even do just the jaw
we need to just simulate some talking.
Yeah, super cool.
Thanks, Sherman.
Absolutely.
All right.
Cat, do you hear me?
Hey there, John.
Whoa!
Love it.
All right, Cat, what are you working on here?
I was just adding a move spline to my poor chopper
here in the final shot.
So this, so here we go, we got a couple of move splines.
We got one in our car, we got one on the chopper.
So move splines are pathways, and we
We can use them to make cameras move.
We can use them to make characters walk or run from place to place.
And in this scene, as you can see, I'm using them to make our cars drive around.
Now by default, when you create a move spline, your actor will be facing in the direction
that they are traveling.
If your character is walking forward, you kind of want them to face forward.
But I can change this setting to make it so that they don't have to face in
the direction they're traveling.
by this, we can make our character drift to a stop.
Cat, I don't think you heard it,
but there was a literal ooh and ah to that.
Very cool stuff, Cat.
Thank you so much.
You know, I look at this, and it's nearly complete.
It looks so lovely, and just everything's there,
but there's something missing.
When I see those tires moving in that direction,
what's missing?
Is it the sound of tires screeching?
Jay, do you want to tell us a little bit about sound
in real-time cut scenes?
I'm glad you asked.
I've been waiting patiently.
It's time.
So hi, my name is Jay McGuire.
I'm a lead producer and department manager
for our amazing sound team on the World of Warcraft.
So I'm going to do a bit of a speed run,
talk you through the team, some of the work,
and a few of the goals that we have
whenever we're approaching this kind of content.
So like I said, we have an absolutely incredible audio
team at Blizzard.
And it's made up of several different very specialized crafts.
We have composers.
They're obviously, they're working on the music.
We have a voiceover team.
They're working on casting, recording,
and adding effects to the dialogue.
We have sound designers.
They're the ones that are working in the tool.
They're also adding sound effects
and doing the final mix on these scenes.
And then we have producers.
The producers are the ones that are planning
and scheduling and making sure that we have, you know,
covering all of this work.
So kind of like this presentation, our moment comes at the end.
I like to think of audio as kind of like the last leg
in a relay.
The clock is ultimately who we're racing.
The time is always short.
I'm looking at the clock here, and it's short.
So time is always short.
It certainly feels that way.
And so we have gotten good at figuring out
how to move quickly.
And there's some things that we
need to do to be as efficient as we can. And, you know, mainly I think we need to make sure
that we understand what the director's vision is. We need to know what they want to hear.
And so even though a lot of our work is happening at the end, we are working throughout to try
and make sure that we are in sync and understand what the work needs to be. You know, if
there's opportunities for us to get ahead of something. We're also working with
all of the teams that are represented up here on stage to make sure that, you know, there's
a lot of connective tissue between the cinematics and what's happening in the game. And so we
need to, we need to be planning for and finding those opportunities to work, you know, make
the best use of our time. What that might look like for sound design is that we're
actually in the timeline editor, like you see Kat and Sherman doing. We have sound
designers in there. They're, they're adding events and sound, sound hooks might
be moving them around the world. Or it might make more sense for us to take a more traditional
approach. So we'll do one file and all the sound effects is baked into it and it's timed
out to the visuals that you see. Now this can be pretty quick, but it's a trade-off.
We actually have to wait until all the visuals are done and locked down. And as you can
just see by kind of watching this be built, there's a lot of moving pieces that can
be pretty challenging. If we take the real-time approach, it works really well
for a quick scene like what we're making today.
It's also, it's great for more conditional content,
kind of like what Robin was talking about.
You know, imagine a player character showing up in screen.
It gives us, it gives us a lot of power over that.
But there is a time cost when things start to get
more complicated or longer,
or even if we have a whole bunch of scenes to cover.
You know, we have to be making a plan
so that, you know, we can make the best use
of the time that we have, you know,
for the right scene at the right time with the right tools.
So whenever we're talking about cut scene audio,
I think the chief rule or goal is that dialogue
must be intelligible.
You have to be able to hear what they're saying.
The way that we do that in WoW is we
have the ability through each line of dialogue to duck
or reduce the volume of sound effects and music
and effectively carve out this valley
that kind of moves everything else out of the way
and lets that line of dialogue kind of stand on its own.
And so, while we're talking about the mix, dialogue is king,
but sound superpower really is in unspoken language,
storytelling.
You know, a cinematic has a different perspective
than normal gameplay.
And what that means for sound is that, you know,
We might be creating a custom sound effect,
something that only really makes sense
in terms of that cinematic content.
Or we might just be plusing up an existing sound
in the game.
So a good example of this is in the War Within,
there was a scene where arcane magic was used
to lift several boats up into the sky.
And these boats had the memories of souls
that we had lost in Dalaran.
And as we were thinking, how do we cover this moment?
We were looking at the arcane magic kit
and we didn't have the appropriate kind of coverage.
There wasn't something that really,
that evoked the right feeling.
And so we had to go in and actually build
that language for arcane that had a little bit more
of a gentle touch to it
and made sense in that cinematic.
And now I mentioned feelings
and I think feeling is the operative word
when we're talking about audio.
You know, I like to think of audio
as everything that's in between the visuals
and the words that you see on the screen.
It can be abstract, you know,
even at times almost an intangible art form.
You know, think of music that's tugging on your emotions
or sound that's immersing you into the space.
You know, it might even be a very specific sound cue
It's drawing your attention to something on screen
that the director wants you to focus on.
All of this coordination from the beginning
to when we're doing the work, all of the different parts
of audio, when everything is working in Ann's concert,
it is kind of, audio can be this really effective tool
to help guide us through these important narrative moments.
So the last thing that I want to actually do
is I'm going to plug the next panel in here is some of our sound designers from different
teams.
They're going to be doing, talking about some of their work, they're going to be demonstrating
it.
I've seen some of the things that they're bringing out.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
There's some wild stuff back there, y'all.
It's actually annoying.
It looks so cool.
It's always a good time.
So yeah, if you can make it, I hope you check it out.
Awesome.
Thank you so much, Jay.
Our cinematic designers are putting the finishing touches, I think they're actually done, but
we want to welcome you to a sacred thing that we do in the cinematic design world, which
is daily, is what it's called.
So our cinematic designers, they aren't working on one scene at a given time.
They could be working between 8 to 15 scenes at any given time.
And it's not like they make them once and it's done, no.
This is all about iterative development.
We are constantly working to show the best image
and get the best performance out of what we are trying to convey.
And all of the things, all of the elements here
play such a crucial role.
And we're constantly tuning these scenes.
Dailies is a literal daily meeting
that we have in which we look at that scene work.
So we're going to do a version of that here,
where we pull up the sequences and take a look at them.
I think I would first like to,
I don't know if they're here yet,
Sherman and Cat are going to come out, I think after we take a look at the scene.
So, I think, let's take a look at the scenes if we got them ready to roll.
Sherman, are you there?
Let's go.
Let's queue them up, folks.
While we give them time.
Okay.
Alright, let's watch scene number two.
Let's go!
That's me in ten minutes after the show.
this mean? Can we please have Cat and Sherman? Oh my god, they're not there. They're all their way.
All right, we're gonna give Cat and Sherman a moment to get back to the stage. And in this point,
I'm gonna return back to this question of why real-time? And really, like, better yet,
why do I love directing real-time cutscenes? For me, I love the creativity that comes with
the technical challenges that you get with real-time when you can't just fix it in post.
I also love the deep collaboration that I get to have with all these talented folks here
and so many people that aren't on the stage here today.
Huge shout out to DFXSoups, animators, modelers, and every single member of the WoW team that
we always have to poke and send messages over Slack and be like, can we do this?
Is it okay?
And then finally, I love directing this world because directing cutscenes in WoW was truly
a childhood dream of mine.
This universe has been a part of my life ever since Warcraft 2 and the days of dialogue.
And seeing these early cutscenes set me on the course to where I am today.
And it's an absolute honor to be part of the team bringing this world to life.
And finally, as a player, I love directing these real-time scenes because they get
to include something the rendered movies can't.
And that's you guys, our players.
that brings me so much joy to see what you guys bring
to this amazing world.
These are absolutely some of my favorite screenshots
to ever see whenever we release new content.
Bring them on.
And now that Cat and Sherman are back,
let's give them a huge hand.
Very great.
Give a hand for our panelists please.
And also, let's give a hand to you guys,
our directors of the day.
Thank you so much.
We want to thank you all for making the trek up here to join us.
We hope you enjoyed dipping your toes into our little corner of wow.
You can track us down later at the signing tables in Hall C.
And our sound team friends will be hopping on stage next right after us.
Thank you all, and have a great BlizzCon.
See you Strolling Halls.
Welcome to go again, the past, present, and future of Hardcore.
My name is Nora Mills.
I'm a lead software engineer on Wow Forever and of course the classic team.
Joining me today is these two awesome dudes, Chris Dearhut, principal game designer and
Honestly, guy who knows just about everything there is to know about World of Warcraft, seriously,
he's like an encyclopedia.
And also none other than Aggrand, Josh Greenfield.
I didn't even get to his title yet.
Senior game designer.
Wow.
So the format of this panel is very laid back.
This is honestly not scripted.
I just wrote down a bunch of bullet points
to make sure I pulled the right information
out of these two guys.
Basically, we're gonna talk about how hardcore went
from really community-driven idea, concept,
to something our team kind of like got in there
and started saying, hey, we're interested
in maybe talking about this thing
and working with the community toward an eventual pitch
and then that launch moment, how it was received
and how our team even kind of received it
and reacted to it.
And then finally, we're going to maybe share
a little bit of what to expect in, wow, forever hardcore.
So yeah, to kick things off,
for anybody who hasn't played hardcore
or who isn't familiar with the concept
as it relates to World of Warcraft,
You might be wondering like, all right, does hard core just mean, I don't know, they crank
up the game difficulty, everything has a lot of health, everything hits really hard?
Like what does it mean for world of Warcraft to be hardcore?
So to kick things off, Chris, why don't you explain to the audience what is hardcore?
So hardcore is a really kind of overloaded term in gaming these days, especially in
World of Warcraft.
Does it mean you're doing mythic raider, myth of progression, high end arena like
Let me just witness here, but that's really not what hardcore is about in World of Warcraft
Classic.
Hardcore comes back to something a little further back in Blizzard's history when we first
launched Diablo II.
It had a new mode where you could choose to go to hardcore instead of normal mode.
And when your character died, that was it.
They're dead.
You can't play anymore.
They're gone.
Start over.
And I remember back then when that came out.
I had some friends that really like to play hardcore and I kind of tease them about it like
something's going to call you in the middle of the night when you're playing,
boop, offline, you're dead, right.
But, well hardcore ended up being a very, very different thing than that,
even though it took the inspiration from that.
It was inspired by what the community did, the add-ons you built,
and the ideas that came from you, the influencers and streamers,
and turned into something really great.
Yeah, awesome.
I really love the story of honestly how it came from the community
and then turned into a kind of a collaboration between our team and the community.
As you must have heard on our other panels, we are very interested in working with y'all
to make this thing the best thing it can be.
And so we really look forward to collaborating with our players for hardcore and also into
the future forever.
So for those who don't know, Josh was really at the forefront of a lot of our conversations
in the very beginning with players in the hard core community. And so, Josh, why don't you explain
how did this whole thing start? Where did it all begin? Take us back to the beginning.
Well, it's a bit of a long story, so I'll try not to bore everybody, but essentially kind of the
way it started. I mean, it started when 2019 classics started. And even before that, there's
always been groups of people who want to do like the one life challenge where you have
one shot and leveling a character to 60 without dying.
For us, where we really got involved in it
was in our season of mastery server.
So season of mastery was essentially a special rule set,
fresh vanilla WoW realm that we spun up in 2022,
or 2021, excuse me.
And whenever we announced it,
there was a lot of people that were really excited
to kind of do fresh vanilla again.
And the hardcore community self-organized an event
called the Road to Ragnarows.
Yeah, exactly.
And by the time we kind of saw information about that,
it was a couple months before we were gonna launch,
but we were kind of locking down the build.
We were like getting ready to be done with Season of Mastery
or at least getting ready to ship it.
But we were like, man, that is really cool.
like that would be super fun to support in some way,
but we didn't have very much time left.
And ultimately there was one of our designers on the team,
Tony Trejo, who is now an encounter designer
on World of Warcraft, he does a great job.
He was like, guys, I think I can slam something in
to like just give a little wink and a nod
to the community on this.
And so he created a system called the Soul of Iron,
which Soul of Iron is pretty simple.
You go and talk to an NPC in town
And they'll give you a buff that says you've never known defeat.
And then obviously if you die, you lose it.
And so we put that in, we put the server out,
and you know, Road to Ragnaros was a great success.
A lot of people had a lot of fun with it.
You know, a bunch of groups made it to 60.
They got through Molten Core with 40 other friends
who made it to 60 without dying,
and they killed Ragnaros.
And so we just had so much fun with that,
not just kind of like watching it, but also playing it.
A lot of us leveled through that with them.
And so it always kind of stuck with us.
So fast forward to about a year later,
we had just launched Raph of the Lich King
and the hardcore community had kind of spun down
on Season of Mastery and they ended up kind of setting up
shop on one of our era realms on an RP realm
called Blood Cell Buccaneers.
Yeah, big shout to blood cell. Yeah.
And at this point, they've gotten very sophisticated.
Nara mentioned the add on and all of the kind of kept you honest.
It talked to each other and it gave you a death notification in chat.
It was really, really cool.
And that's when a lot of us started kind of going hard at it.
I know Nora, I know you went really hard at it.
You know, I, I, I leveled a bunch of characters or well tried to anyway.
But around that time, we just were like, you know what?
This needs to be a real thing.
We need to make this a real thing.
And so I was a producer at the time,
and so I spent a lot of time kind of looking at metrics
and numbers and stuff like that as part of my kind of job.
And I started keeping track of what we call the daily peak
concurrency, which is essentially the high watermark
each day of how many people are online on average.
And when I first started tracking this,
It was probably 150 to 200 people online at once on any given day, which isn't much, but
it was a couple of pretty full guilds worth of people that were doing it.
So week over week, I'm tracking this and this is like towards the end of the year in 2022,
and yeah, 2022, and the once we got close to our holiday break, it had gone from like
like 200, 350, 500, a thousand.
And it was like getting really close to a thousand.
And so we went on our holiday break,
came back from the break and it was like 1500.
It had jumped in a week that much.
And it's like, this is real.
We need to do something with this.
And so we kind of put our heads together.
We put together a pitch and we took it to the kind of
upper blizzard leadership and said,
hey, we'd really like to do this.
Here's kind of the, here's the graph, you know,
the really fancy looking spiky graph.
And I kinda wanna say initially
there were a little lukewarm on it.
You know, it was like, I don't know guys,
it takes a long time to level it, wow.
It seems a little risky, you know?
And it's like, trust me, it will be cool, trust me.
Yeah, trust me bro, kinda thing.
But so Holly Longale was our executive producer
producer and she was probably like 60 or 70% sold on it and she's like, Josh, I got to
go on vacation, I'll be gone for two weeks. Let me think about it. Let me think about it.
And so I'm like, okay, you know, I walked out of it. I was a little despondent, but
so Holly used to refer to our team as team finger guns, you know, and so we went and
we talked to one of our engineers, Chase McGuire, who ended up doing a lot of the
implementation for the final launch version and we're like hey you think you can maybe
put together a prototype in two weeks and he's like yeah sure let's do it and so we we finger
guns the prototype together in about two weeks and I mean it wasn't it wasn't ship ready but it was
it was hardcore you died you stayed dead you couldn't use res you couldn't use on you know
stuff like that and so she comes back from her vacation she's like all right let's let's talk
about this thing and it's like well actually we've kind of already built it. Here it is.
And she she kind of did the Jean-Luc Picard like facepalm like oh yeah all right cool let's do it
let's do it and that was the green light and so we were off to the races at that point and as
soon as we kind of got that sort of green light we kind of immediately went and engaged with the
community. We had already been I've been in a discord chat for a long time with some people
who are really at the spearhead of the kind of hardcore community. I'm talking about people like
tactics, only black smoke, winky, car guys, Sarth, you know, a bunch of guys like that, really,
really great people who are kind of really pushing this way of playing. And, you know, I was like,
I kind of was had to be a little coy with them. I'm like, well, you know, if we were to do
this, like, you know, here, you know, people kite Tarmus to the tower to Stormwind,
how would we, you know, maybe here's our idea for this, like, what do you think of that?
And they're like, yeah, that's pretty cool, I guess.
And they give us feedback and we'd kind of iterate on that
and stuff.
And so we got, we knew we were going to launch it.
We figured out what our release date was.
It was going to be in August, and we needed to announce it.
And around the time this was all going,
something that I think kind of helped us push over the edge
was there was an event called the Hardcore All-Stars
that was happening.
Shout out to anybody who participated in that or watched
it.
And the it was about to have its finale and a lot of the same people who were in that chat with us
were working on that and we're just like hey
Could it be cool if we just like went on there real quick and just said something and they're like gee
I wonder what you're gonna say and you know, so it was kind of a not very well kept secret
I guess but so yeah, they were gracious enough to let us go on to the show and we announced
I think that was the first
wow classic hardcore was coming.
And I got to say that was kind
of like the highlight of my time.
I've been a blizzard for 17 years,
and that was that was a that was a
pretty big moment to be able to get
on and go on there and do that.
But you know, ultimately this is a
thing that was it was by you guys
and for you guys like we just
kind of were along for the ride.
And it's it's it's one of the
most special things I think I've
way to play vanilla. Wow. We can never go back to the where we
were at our lives in 2004 2006 or wherever we started playing. Wow. But and it's hard
for us to turn our brains off as gamers. You know what I mean. But this is one of those
things that it like forces you to play like you played back then like you were clueless.
but you do have a clue now, but it still just forces you to slow down and super special.
So anyway, that's the story.
Well, what are some of the design implications of implementing hardcore in a game that wasn't
originally designed for it? Those things had to come up. How did that kind of come up?
How did we approach those problems?
Yeah, I mean, it's a lot of times it's just like how does it work?
What are the logistics of doing certain things?
Like obviously it's a really big game and even those of us who have worked on WoW for 15 plus years,
there's things about the game that we even sometimes kind of forget.
And so we had to do a lot of testing like remember all of those little things that would kill you
and what weren't fair and try and create solutions for them.
And also sometimes make a difficult decision
on what not to do.
It's like Velistraz.
It's like, well, good luck.
Figure it out.
And people did figure it out.
You can hear out in the middle of it and stuff like that.
So it's just a lot of looking at the game top down
and trying to understand what needs to happen
to reinforce it for this style of play.
And also UI and things like that.
like guilds, like what happens when your guild leader dies?
You know, so like we have to communicate that,
hey, you need to hand over your guild to somebody else,
you're dead, and stuff like that.
And also like the considerations for,
this isn't Diablo, right?
This isn't like your character is done and gets deleted.
Like letting you go to the normal servers,
the normal era realms after you die is something
that we think is a great kind of middle ground for like,
oh man, I've spent 200 hours playing this character,
like suck if it was gone forever.
It's like, well, you know, you're done on the hardcore server,
but you can go over to one of the normal realms if you'd like.
Right.
Awesome.
So hardcore was something that the community believed in,
we believed in, and for the first time ever,
we were about to ship official hardcore realms.
And that was, you know, anytime you shift a new product,
while forever, there's a certain amount of nervousness.
There's this anticipation.
But we, I don't think that, well,
I don't know if our team was fully prepared
for what that launch moment would be like.
We actually have a clip from a couple of players
who would like to share some of what their experience
was like playing hardcore.
I don't know if my friend backstage
could put the clip up on the fancy screens.
The red act aspect?
You're just saying it because of this.
Okay, like...
OH!
Hardcore is a game mode in World of Warcraft, means a lot to me, because it rekindled my
joy and my excitement for the game as a whole.
Only having one life kind of forces you to take it slow and just enjoy the journey,
which I think is great, because the journey is the fantastic and most amazing part about
Classic World.
Can I even kill two searing ghouls? Yeah I'm gonna kill them. I'm gonna use a health pot.
I can't- OH MY GOSH NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO! I'M DEAD! I'M ACTUALLY-
Oh my gosh, bro.
What does hardcore mean to me?
It's the closest thing you can get to playing the game back in 2004.
Hardcore forces you to go slow, enjoy the process,
not just go, go, go, do all your chores and log off,
but let me just sit here and game and build up my character.
And I love that.
So what did you guys think?
How did the launch live up to your expectations?
Like, did you expect it to be this big?
I was really surprised by one thing about hardcore.
I talked to her earlier about how I kind of didn't take it seriously.
Like, you're just going to die.
You're going to get disconnected on the phone whatsoever.
And it ended up being a very, very different thing
because World of Warcraft, unlike Diablo, is an MMO.
And you don't just play it by yourself.
You play it with your friends.
and you don't go in a cave by yourself, remember cave equals grave, you you want to go with
other people so when that moment happens and you get disconnected and Nora's disconnected
something like Josh and I we would hang around and protect her until she goes offline to
keep her alive so the experience changed a lot because now people are depending on
each other if the world wants to kill you and it's you and your friends and new
strangers that are now your friends against the world. So you're working together in cooperative
and ways really don't happen in all of World Warcraft. And I think it results in hardcore
having the very best community and social experience in all of World Warcraft and all
of our history.
Well, as Chris mentioned, the world is out to kill you.
And that's not just players who are losing their characters in hardcore.
As a matter of fact, some of our beloved team members had moments of their own.
I don't know if my friend backstage can roll the special clip I have provided in honor
of aggrand here.
Just a shortcut.
You're not going to be able to do that.
I'm going to try to do this.
To be fair, to be fair, my key
I'm not about you guys, but I'm hearing a lot of excuses.
Yeah, right, yes.
I remember one night after I read Josh started telling the story about how that happened.
You're not alone.
I did one fateful morning on my, I think my age was like level 52.
I got up, I hadn't had my coffee yet, and I just, I was like, oh, I had time for
a little bit of hardcore before work.
I went to do some, oh, yeah.
I went to do some quests and I entered a barn filled
with undead, it was a bad move.
Don't do the barn.
Yeah, but the thing that actually kind of surprised me
was just the overwhelming amount of people at like,
well, 6 a.m. California time anyway,
bombarding me with whispers and just messages,
guild messages too, just saying like,
you know, any mixture of go again
or my least favorite was, what happened?
And in the moment, you know, I'm like,
I just lost my hardcore character.
So I was just, I was a little mad.
I was like, hmm, just don't ask questions.
But like, it's a really powerful community moment
when someone loses their character
because it hurts emotionally.
I almost called out sick that day
because I was so upset.
But the community rising up to support each other
and to egg each other on,
just say like, yeah, try again.
Like, you know what I mean?
I mean, like, you know, like be more careful next time,
maybe have your coffee before going into that bar.
And I don't know.
It really is a compelling, I think, moment.
Now, that's probably a pretty good place
to start thinking about what new fun and exciting things
we have coming to wow forever hardcore.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, we're really excited for when we get to hardcore
and World Warcraft forever.
We won't have it launched, but soon, when we get to it,
all these new systems and changes we've introduced
and how they'll impact your hardcore experience.
Because we know in hardcore,
you like to put in a lot of extra effort
to make sure you're extra safe and not gonna die.
So everything we've changed in trade skills,
where there's new recipes, new things to craft,
new consumables, better food,
And all those things you can do to be better prepared
and the extra effort you can put in,
over 600 new crafting recipes to help you
be better prepared.
And the camping system, so you can get together your friends,
get a few buffs, be a little bit more durable
when you go into that cave together.
And so there's a lot of opportunities
for a whole new experience in hardcore
and more dedication you can put into it.
Really excited about that.
Do you think the itemization changes that we've made
could, you know, yeah?
So, like again, hundreds of new crafted items,
better drops from dungeons.
So maybe it's worth the risk to go in there
and get those drops and help your journey.
Silver elites that drop new items
that they never dropped before, right?
All kinds of new stuff to collect.
Awesome.
Well, I just realized, I skipped your story.
Do you have a story to share about a death?
I feel like I just made fun of Josh.
I just kind of made fun of myself.
I need to make fun of you too.
I'm an easy target.
It's okay.
But I want to tell a story about my family and how much World of Warcraft hardcore means
to one of my family members.
So my younger sister is really into hardcore.
She plays in the Fiest Villager, I believe the guild's called Phoenix that she's in.
And she played World of Warcraft with my two nephews.
They grew up with their uncle working at Blizzard, working on World of Warcraft and
absolutely worshiped the idea and desperately wanted to play the game.
And when they got old enough, she let them play on her account
and bought another computer so that she could play with them
with her older son, Sage.
And eventually, her younger son actually took over her accounts,
even renamed it after himself, Jeffrey.
And Sage and Jeffrey played together
and really had these great adventures amongst the three
of them and a way they bonded together as a family.
Unfortunate tragedy happened seven years ago,
and my nephew, Jeffrey, died.
And since then, my sister reclaimed her accounts
and logging into Hardcore and playing in that community
has become really important and special to her.
Again, that's a tight-knit community
where everyone supports each other.
When you die, it's go again.
When you need help, yeah, come.
We'll send some people over to help you get out
of that cave.
When you have trouble, there's somebody
who can help you through a hard quest.
People can give you gold and items to get restarted.
It's such a welcoming and supportive community.
And she gets strength and support
and a little therapy and some joy
and logs into that account with a name is still Jeffrey
every day to feel close to her son.
And it's just an amazing thing for our family.
Well, that was...
Oh!
Well, I guess I'll have to make fun of you later.
That was a hard-working story.
Thank you for sharing.
Well, hardcore has all sorts of perils out in the open world.
There are certain types of perils that are perhaps less,
I don't know how I would describe it,
fun, fair feeling than others.
Can you tell us a little bit about what I'm?
Yes, so I'll tell you a story when I almost died
as a illustration of this new principle.
I actually haven't died in hardcore, but it'd be fair.
I stopped playing at level 50
because Season of Discovery came out.
Haven't been back yet.
But my friend, Sharif and I were playing a duo in Laqubadan.
I was playing a mage, he was playing a paladin.
And there's this quest called
in defense of the king's lands.
We are trying to go fight frogs.
You're going higher and higher up into the hills,
getting to risky and riskier spots
to find these frogs to complete the quest.
So we're going up in the hills
and it was a Saturday morning,
so it was super crowded.
people everywhere, every single trog in the place it's not like was dead.
So we go further and further up looking for more trogs.
And suddenly, some of the players around us disappeared.
Some other new players appeared, and every single location where there could be
trogs was fully respawned with every trog there could be.
And we're right in the middle of it.
And I just yell run over Discord.
So I'm running down the hill as fast as I can, but
I'm like, Sharif's the paladin, so he bubbled and he's taking his time.
but I'm running like crazy as a mage,
jumping the nil and pack the trods and frost it over
to lock them down, jump off a cliff, blink at the bottom,
finally get away.
And while that's a great story,
we really don't like the experience that represents
where because there are too many or too few players
in the area where you are,
we need to refresh the world around you.
And when we do that refresh,
suddenly creatures respawn or creatures are there
that weren't there before.
So we've added a new feature that we wanted to get into world of work forever,
specifically for hardcore. You'll have it in the whole game,
but it's for hardcore.
When we need to do that world refresh around you,
a new UI won't pop up and give you a warning. Say, okay, in three minutes,
two minutes, 59, two minutes, 58, et cetera,
we're going to refresh the world around you, get to somewhere safe.
And there's a button you could wish to say, I'm somewhere safe.
It's good to go ahead and move me now.
So no more are you going to lose your characters
to this sudden change of the world around you.
And the game will feel a lot more fair.
Awesome.
Shout out to our engineer, Daniel Schneider,
for working on that system.
I can't wait for you guys to check it out.
Again, beta this Thursday.
Hope to see you all there, at least for non-hardcore.
But you could, I guess, impose your own hardcore rules
if you wanted to have a little bit of fun,
a little bit of the player imposed hardcore.
We will be testing that system in the day.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Well, are there any other interesting, compelling
differences that players can expect in WoW Forever
that they may not have had in regular hardcore?
So this is mentioned on another panel earlier today,
but it's worth repeating here.
In the past, when you died in hardcore,
Your only choice was to transfer to PDE.
Now, when you die in hardcore, you
can transfer to PDE, normal, or RP rules set.
So we know people like that tension in the world.
That's part of what makes hardcore so fun,
is having to pay attention all the time.
And that tension is maintained when they go to PDE.
A lot of players are going to be excited to do that.
We've got this new world, this unsolved game
We've been talking about new talents, new abilities, new items,
new trade skills, so much new stuff
if we're in New Zealand, you quest.
So it's a problem to solve all over again.
So your old routes to go through the world
aren't necessarily going to be the best,
or even the right ones to follow.
There are new rare spawns all over the world
that have items that only drop off those rare spawns.
There's new world drops, things to craft,
the camping system to help you get to buffs,
to help each other and work together in camps.
And one thing I'm really excited about
is the application of the legacy system to Hardcore.
So you're playing Hardcore and maybe you get to level 26
and you die.
In the past, okay, I lost everything, that's sad.
But now you're in a legacy point
when you get to 25 on that class.
So your next run is just a little bit better.
Maybe you get a little bit more rest XP.
Maybe you pick a little bit more resources
from your urban mineral nodes.
And so we start to tap into the gameplay you see in roguelike games, which I love a lot.
Where, you know, you didn't quite make it to the surface this time, but you'll be better
for the next time and do more.
So a legacy system opens up that opportunity for progression, even when you don't make
it to level 16.
I love how the legacy system sort of allows you to, I don't know, re-experience that
journey, I mean, in hardcore and non-hardcore, because depending, you know, on how many
points you earn, where you're spending them, you know, things could be a little bit different,
right? Make it a little bit easier on you, right? Right. How does it work again with the
transferring between hardcore and other rulesets, those legacy system points? So Anna talked about
this this morning, but the legacy points you earn outside of hardcore, in fact all of your
collections outside of hardcore, mounts, pets, legacy points, all that do not transfer into
a hardcore. So hardcore gets its maintenance pristine progression separate from the rest
of the game. But if you earn them in hardcore, they do go to the others. So if you can transfer
with them and bring them with you when you inevitably die.
Yeah, death is pretty inevitable in hardcore. I love the little screen captured on the
graphic of the game. Another thing, Chris, too, is, you know, there's, if you look
Look at the legacy trees, there's a PVP one.
What happens in hardcore?
Right, so there's a bunch of legacy challenges about PVP,
and you can't really do PVP in hardcore.
So what we are planning on doing when hardcore launches
is there are a bunch of hardcore-specific
legacy challenges to do.
And we're thinking about even more expansion
to that system in the future of hardcore,
where we add new challenges
and new ways to get perks that are hardcore specific.
Well, we love hardcore a lot.
It sounds like you guys do too.
What else haven't we covered that we should talk about
or should share?
What interesting tidbits do we wanna share?
I think one of the things that I'm most excited about
with Wow Forever Hardcore is, you know,
Part of the skill expression of Hardcore
is knowing the world and knowing what quests are deadly,
what caves are deadly, what every cave is deadly,
but you know what I mean.
And while forever, we're going to continue
to make content at all level ranges.
It's not just low level content.
And so for those who really want
to kind of challenge themselves,
we're gonna have lots of new content coming
over update after update after update,
then you'll have maybe different routes
or different ways to go for those who are kind of enterprising.
And you get to have even more skill expression
of learning the optimal ways to level through
the river glades and what is dangerous and what isn't.
And creating like anything can get stale
if you do it long enough.
And if you get a certain level of mastery,
so being able to continue to add to opportunities
to achieve mastery is a good thing.
And that's something that we're super excited about
with WoW Forever.
We kind of have this commitment to continue to add content
at all different level ranges.
It's really an opportunity for you to develop
a new mastery of the game.
We play hardcore to show what you know,
what you've learned, how much,
how good you are at World of Warcraft.
You know where this quest is,
where this monster patrols.
And now there's new things to master
instead of just what we have from 22 years ago.
That sounds good.
So it's, you know, unsolved game now with Wild Forever.
I'm particularly excited about the hardcore community.
Anytime I've jumped in,
I've found players who are helpful, kind, encouraging,
willing to help me out, help me survive, really.
And I've had a blast in the hardcore classic,
just jumping in with my friends.
Shout out to Oath to Order.
if you're watching this right now.
I also joined up with like a fun little build called
H.C. Cuties and they were very fun and awesome.
Oh, there's some of them.
Yeah, I'm just an amazing community
and I really look forward to jumping in there again,
making new friends, perhaps some of you in the crowd
and you know, just, I don't know,
hopefully surviving, hopefully not going into a barn,
jumping off of a cliff, forgetting my bubble.
Just bring a friend when you go in the barn.
Yeah.
just a different kind of cave.
You mind if I give one tiny little tease?
A tease?
Yeah, so we haven't forgotten about Makaral.
Obviously Makaral has been a,
I would say unexpectedly popular part of hardcore,
but I think we can all appreciate a good duel for the death.
And something that has been asked of us
for a really long time is like,
What if we had a dedicated space for Makaraw contests?
Could be kind of cool.
Could be something we're working on for a future update.
Maybe, maybe.
There you go.
Wow.
That was completely off script.
I might get in trouble for that later.
That feels like a pretty good place to wrap things up.
I just want to say thank you everyone for taking this journey with us.
Thank you for even just today, just letting us kind of walk through memory lane, share
a couple tidbits about what we're excited to encounter and wow forever hardcore.
If you are, you know, watching this from home also, obviously thank you again.
If you're here in person, however, please consider sticking around for the Arena World
championship brand finals right after this.
It's time to discover the creative vision behind World of Warcraft forever.
Well, hello, BlizzCon.
We're going to get a little cozy for this one.
Yeah.
So welcome to the Found Photographs panel.
My name is Josh Greenfield, and I help lead the content
content and narrative direction for WoW Forever.
My name is Evan, and I'm the lead content designer
on the World of Warcraft Classic team.
Today, we're going to dive into our team's approach
for developing the content, stories, and characters
within this world.
We'll kick things off by talking about the setting
of WoW Forever and how it fits into the larger
World of Warcraft narrative.
Simply put, WoW Forever begins at the same time
begins. The game contains all of the original quest content from the original game and builds
on top of it. We will expand upon events, characters, and locations that exist, or could exist, in
the original WoW timeframe to further flesh out the original world. This is before Kazek
reopened the Dark Portal at the start of the Burning Crusade and before we traveled
to Northrend to stop Arthas and Wrath of the Lich King. We are focused on this
year one period of WoW's history and we intend to occupy this space and expand upon it indefinitely.
So this panel is called Found Photographs. What do we mean by that? Well, this was a term that was
coined by Chris Metzen in our earliest conversations talking about adding new stories in our Season of
Discovery game mode of WoW Classic. The simple idea behind Found Photographs is that most
of these new stories are things that could have happened feasibly during the vanilla era of Azeroth's
history or again year one of World of Warcraft. For the classic team, it also refers to how we
approach the stories as well. For many of those stories we also want to maintain original
WoW's focus on what we call local stories. This is things along the lines of unraveling the
mysteries and motivations of the defiest brotherhood and helping Tyrion fordring
rediscover his lost purpose.
This ground level view of localized stories
is what makes the world of Azeroth feel large and textured.
We are building these stories just like we used to
in the early days of World of Warcraft.
We will have big epic narratives,
but we'll tell these stories at the ground level.
And large linear campaigns that focus
on major Warcraft characters aren't really our focus.
So, what opportunities does found photographs approach afford us?
The first big opportunity, and my favorite as a long time wow Lord nerd, is the ability
to glow up existing but perhaps underutilized characters and giving them an interesting
story.
Take the former Paladin, Gregory the Truthbearer, raised in the service of the Scourge of
the Death Knight.
In Warcraft 3 he was a minor named Paladin NPC that went by the honorific title
of Sage Truthbearer and was only featured in a single mission in the Scourge campaign.
We continued his story in Season of Discovery and fleshed him out as a character greatly,
bringing him full circle back to the light.
This is the kind of glow up we'd like to pursue for other characters in WoW Forever as well.
We'll also be able to see characters who were active but off screen during vanilla.
What were they doing at this time?
Mole and Earth Fury of the Earth and Ring is a great example here.
He was the leader of the Earthen Ring but was largely absent from original WoW.
He will be present in WoW Forever and have a role to play in new stories.
We also get to visit places that may have been hinted at or mentioned but never got screen
time or maybe we go to places that we maybe have seen in a version of WoW but were presented
in a much different way than we plan to feature them in WoW Forever.
The magical city of Dalaran is a great example here.
has always been seen as a flying city in the sky in World of Warcraft, but it wasn't always
flying in the sky. After being destroyed in Warcraft 3, Dalaran was rebuilt but existed
underneath its protective magical barrier nestled in the Arthurac Mountains for several
years. And while forever, we'll get to see Dalaran in all of its freshly rebuilt glory
as part of the world. And maybe we'll explore why the protective barrier around it is
no longer present. This segues into talking about the continuity of wow forever. The million
gold question I'm sure a lot of people have when it comes to wow forever is how does it
fit into the larger wow continuity and time line? And the short answer is that wow forever
does not exist in the same continuity as modern world of warcraft. Metz and likes
to call this our little time bubble.
So why do we do this?
Well, the main impetus of this approach
is to ensure that we have the creative freedom
to do what we want to do with the game
without creating problematic situations that
require a direct response in the modern game.
This does not mean that we are going
to completely upend the foundational lore,
especially the established events from the RTS games.
We aren't going to suddenly say, in this universe,
Jaina was a dreadlord all along, or Arthas never became the Lich King.
Our approach to the new stories we add is to paint inside the lines of established foundational
lore as much as possible, but also to build on what comes next in a way that makes sense
first and foremost, for a while forever.
And to continue on to that thread, let's take a look at our content goals for this
project.
When we're looking at the world and discussing what content to pursue, we tend to break down
the content into three categories.
The first is the anticipated.
These are the types of things that you may be aware of, the things that did not exist
in the original release or may have been inaccessible at the time.
The example shown here is Mount Hygel, which we've added as a new experience, as a new
zone, for you to explore at higher levels.
More on that in a minute.
These are the company and the expected, the wish fulfillment
of seeing some of these places that you
were aware of in the original release,
but we haven't been able to explore yet.
If there's a piece of well-known content
you really want to see, the chances are pretty good.
It's on a whiteboard back at the office,
or perhaps even in production right now.
The second type is something we call New But Familiar.
These are the areas with new concepts or stories
that are grounded in locations or with characters
that hearken back to the original WoW
in our early RTS games.
These types of content are the things
that may surprise players, but really feel
like they could have been here all along.
Our goal with this type of content
is to craft experiences that add depth to the world,
but fit seamlessly with taking inspiration
from the rich history of Warcraft.
The third type is something we call the unexpected.
These are new concepts and often involve places
or characters that exist within the Warcraft narrative
but have not been explored previously.
This is also a category of content
we plan to introduce sparingly.
When looking at this category,
we want to be very mindful of what we're adding
so not to upend the world, the stories, or the characters,
while still creating the experiences
that players want to enjoy.
One of our goals for this type of content
is to ensure that it makes sense
within the greater fabric of wow forever.
So to continue building on that a little bit more,
we've talked about where this idea of found photographs
comes from, the types of content
we discuss as a team and the inspirations in our approach
to developing these experiences.
So let's take a deeper look at some of the new content
that you can play on WoW Forever.
Whether you're starting your journey as an orc
in the Valley of Trials or a night elf in Shadow Blend,
there's something new just for you.
New NPCs might greet you in your journey.
They might offer you quests.
And others may offer you training and skills
and recipes and professions.
And that's only the beginning.
Part of our team's journey throughout this development
was to incorporate flavorful additions
without, as Josh mentioned,
taking away from the classic experiences we all know and love.
Overall, we've added dozens of new quests,
characters and stories to each of our new starting zones,
along with additional content in every zone for your journey.
And of course, with new stories and new adventures,
comes new rewards.
Each of these moments along the way was hand-pasted
by an incredibly passionate team of individuals
with the same love of this world as each of you.
Let's talk a little bit about world travel.
Once you've leveled up beyond your starting zones,
you'll find not only new content,
but new means of world travel throughout the world.
This is an area our team spent a lot of time discussing.
We really wanted to maintain the exploration and your journey
as you navigate the world,
but we also wanted to offer you ways to explore and change the way that you play.
So what do we do here?
As you can see on the screens, some of these locations might seem familiar.
In total, we've added three new ship routes,
encouraging exploration,
questing in new areas throughout the world
and really leaning into the opportunities for social play,
which is an incredibly important pillar for this project.
The first image you see here is a connection from Stormwind Harbor to Albertine.
Humans and night elves and eudwars and gnomes in the audience
who are deep-run tram enthusiasts, now you can rejoice.
You can now play with your friends throughout starting zones together,
whether spending hours or perhaps avoiding several corpse runs reaching one another.
The next we have is a three-part stop.
This new route begins from Menethil and then on to South Shore
before arriving in Aberdeen.
The last here is located in Steam Weedle
along the eastern shores of Teneres.
Now, when Josh was talking about found photographs,
we're often asking questions about the world itself,
the characters, and locations.
These can be questions like, what
has the Steam Weedle carts held been up to?
Are they expanding their operations?
And where might the ship take us?
And perhaps the ship takes us to somewhere new.
So thanks to our friends in Seamweedle,
our new adventures await across the sea in a brand-new zone.
And today, our team is very excited to welcome all of you
to the River Glades.
The River Glades is an expansive new zone, roughly the size of Stranglerhorn Veil, with
an expected level range in the mid-30s to mid-40s.
The zone itself was built in an area that existed in the classic world but was previously
inaccessible, and so we decided to fix that.
When you enter the zone, the first thing that you'll notice
is the incredible level of detail
are artists and world builders and sound designers
put into creating a zone that fits seamlessly in the world.
For those of you who have played through Red Ridge Mountains,
a new fork to the burning steps awaits your new journey
into the River Glades.
While this zone has diverse biomes and creatures throughout,
it also blends seamlessly between each of the nearby
connecting zones.
These null camps that you see on the screen here,
They're not just a presence, but a continuation of the world's story.
Now, when we talk about integrating content,
it's not just about caring the stories or creatures over from one zone to the next,
but it also presents opportunities.
This is one of our new POIs,
where an ogre clan has established their presence,
and in questing, you'll meet them and other characters in factions along the way.
In total, we've added nearly 200 new quests to the zone,
with stories for both Horde and Alliance players.
You'll experience new cultures throughout the zone, like the powderfused goblins who run this powderfused port,
and enemies like the Twilight's Hammer, whose presence is felt throughout the zone in areas like Sunnyglade, a callback to Warcraft's history.
And of course, launching your adventures from areas like Rogmar for the Horde and Farhold Keep for the Alliance,
events. We will encounter one faction in particular dating back to early Warcraft, the brotherhood
of the horse. The River Glades is a blending of inspiration
from classic historical events, new beginnings, and stories integrated into our living world.
And most importantly to us, it's a love letter to all of you, to our players, and
to those who brought this world to life more than 20 years ago. But this journey
doesn't stop here.
Beyond our new zones, our team spent a considerable amount of time going back to our roots, examining
zones like the wetlands, among many other areas in the world.
Part of this journey was simply to explore the possibilities without taking away from
these areas and what already existed.
And for areas like wetlands, we found opportunities to build on the characters and the stories
within without disrupting what exists.
For wetlands, we've added all new content,
including over 25 new quests,
and providing new opportunities to discover new stories
and characters and new leveling paths
in your leveling journey.
Alongside areas like the wetlands,
we've also updated areas like Desilis,
where new Centaur faction quests await.
Also included new rewards.
And this let us do another discussion
about breathing life into the spaces
that weren't used previously,
but they were waiting for us
for a moment that felt like it was the right time to create something new.
For new stories to be told,
and now, if you continue your center-requesting journey
and make your way all the way down into the south of Desilis,
a new journey awaits.
Chandra Loss.
We've added Chandra Loss to the south of Desilis
through the Valley of Bones.
This new area offers dozens of new quests to explore,
the rich, deep history of Elderful Loss,
its stories and their people.
We felt it was important to bring this zone to life
and the stories we wanted to tell
that made sense within the fabric of wow forever.
We felt it was important to include Mount Hygel
as one of our new zones
and an opportunity to explore new stories
that make sense within this project.
Here, you'll explore the aftermath
of the battle for Mount Hygel.
You'll meet new factions
and build relationships along the way.
You'll work with new allies,
and you'll encounter all new enemies and areas throughout the zone.
Throughout this experience,
you'll start to see where this journey leads you.
So changing gears a bit,
let's talk about one of our new race and class combinations,
the Forsaken Paladins.
So, while Forsaken Paladins are far from our only new race and class combination, we did
want to take a few minutes to give them a bit of special attention.
This is an especially exciting part of the lore for us, and I'll admit, as a paladin
made myself, it's something I've been waiting to jump into for several years.
The story of the Forsaken Paladins rolls directly off of the new Warcraft III campaign, Forsaken
Kingdom.
This campaign deals with the initial struggles for the Forsaken to find their footing as a
people while the threat of the Scourge and the Scarlet Crusade looms.
We don't want to spoil too much of that campaign or the story or the characters,
but suffice to say there's some direct connective tissue here that we will explore
in WoW Forever.
And while forever begins, we find the Forsaken Paladins at a time where they are deeply mistrusted
by the other Forsaken.
You have to imagine that if you were an ordinary Forsaken citizen, the only thing you know of
Paladins are organizations like the Scarlet Crusade who have made it their mission to
torment and destroy all undead, including the Forsaken.
Making matters more complicated is the fact that some former Paladins who are
raised into undeath don't take the transition well. The act of channeling the light is almost
maddeningly painful for the undead, which is part of why it is so hard for some to adjust
to life as a forsaken paladin. Some of these maladjusted souls will lash out, attempting
to destroy or torment other forsaken until they themselves are put down. So when we
find our forsaken paladin heroes at the start of WoW Forever, they are facing an
uphill battle to get the rest of the Forsaken and by extension Sylvanas to fully accept them.
One of the new locations we'll visit in WoW Forever is Banderian Keep. This keep is in the
formerly unreachable northwestern area of the Tirisfil Glades called the Whispering Wood.
Forsaken Paladins will be directed here around level 10 to start familiarizing themselves
with Banderian Keep and will receive most of their class quests from this location.
And, of course, no Paladin is a true Paladin without their trusty steed.
And the Paladins of Banderian Keep are no exception.
Also, Forsaken Paladins will also embark on their very own epic mount quest at level 60
as well.
As the Alliance Paladins claim their Epic Charger in the name of redemption, Paladins
the Forsaken write in the name of retribution.
Now that we've had an awesome look at some examples of that anticipated and a new but
familiar category of content, let's take a look at something new and totally unexpected.
The Skyborne and their home in the clouds, Zephyr Psy.
I think it's best to start by talking
about the history of this new race.
The sky-born are a race of high elves
that call themselves the Shindorai or the Hidden People.
Their history starts in the ancient kingdom of Eldrithalos,
which we now know as the Dire Maul
in the immediate aftermath of the War of the Ancients.
A group of concerned citizens united to oppose
Prince Tortheldrin and his plans
to harness increasingly dangerous amounts
of demonic energy to sustain the highborn of eligible loss.
Having just seen the destruction caused by the War of the Ancients, these rebels rose
up against the prince to try and prevent him from completing his grand design and throwing
the kingdom into darkness forever.
The rebels' interference cost for Theldren dearly and prevented him from realizing
his full plan, but it was a pyrrhic victory, and ultimately the rebellion ended in defeat.
First a fleet calendar to escape the terrible wrath of Tortheldron, these wayward elves spent
years on the open sea, pushing ever westward into the unknown.
Eventually, the rebels ran aground on an undiscovered land ruled by ancient primordial elemental
spirits.
With Tortheldron's fleet close on their heels, the desperate elves were forced to
strike a bargain with a group of wind spirits who lifted an enormous landmass of this
island into the sky in order to escape Azeroth entirely.
Using powerful elemental magic, these wind spirits anchored this floating island in the
realm of air, Skywall.
Safe and hidden from the vengeance of their pursuers, the sky at Lawrence spent thousands
of years building a small but vibrant civilization hidden in a corner of the elemental plane.
The elemental plane has been a core part of Warcraft history since the earliest Warcraft
games, we visited it in various realms and other versions of World of Warcraft as well.
For a while forever, we were excited to go to Skywall and experience this place through
its slightly different lens.
The Shindorai as a people have gone through many changes over the past 10,000 years of
existence and the elemental play.
Much like their high elven cousins who settled in Quel'Thalos, the Skyborn developed their
their own unique physical characteristics after being suffused with the magic of Skyward.
They are more life and agile than their Caldor ancestors and the magic of the elemental plane
has had other effects on their physical characteristics, such as hair color, eye color, as well
as skin tone.
When we find them at the start of WoW Forever, the Skyborn have been thrust abruptly
into crisis. After thousands of years living alongside their elemental benefactors, the
wind spirits have suddenly vanished. For the first time since arriving in Skywall, the
Skyborn must now fend for themselves. The absence of the wind spirits has also thrown
the magic that holds Zephyrus together in turmoil. The ancient pylon structures that
anchors Zephyrus Isle into the realm of Skywall have begun to falter and fall
into disrepair, causing portions of the island to fall into ruin and darkness.
In this period of turmoil, several factions have gained traction and are vying for control
of Zephyr Sile.
The Wind Shapers are the shamanistic spiritual leaders of Zephyr Sile, and they are one
of the playable factions of Skyborne.
This is the faction that will ultimately side with the Horde.
While all Skyborne on both factions can be warriors, druids, hunters, and robes,
Wind Shaper Skyborne may be shaman.
This is to reflect the deep connection that Skyborne shaman have with the elements and
the now departed wind spirits.
By contrast, the High Order are the more pragmatic and forward-thinking faction, and they see
the departure of the wind spirits as an unprecedented opportunity for the Shindorai
people to truly be independent.
And this is the faction that will ultimately side with the Alliance.
The members of the High Order are the proud descendants of the Highborn Magisters who
joined the Rebels when they fled from Elja the Lost.
And thus, the ability to play as a mage is restricted to High Order Skyborne only.
Lastly, we have the Alaketh.
The Alaketh are a cult dedicated to the worship of Alakir the Windlord.
The Windspirits rarely spoke of Alakir in their time with the Skyborne, making
the elemental lords something of a taboo mystery. Some among the skyborn, however, were
able to use their shamanistic sky side to peer across the elemental plane and gain a
glimpse of the terrifying might of this elemental lord. Tempted by power, these Shindorai broke
with the rest of society and dedicated themselves to the service of Alakir. Emboldened by
the departure of the benevolent wind spirits, the Alaketh have risen to prominence,
the crisis to stoke fear and seize control of a large portion of the island.
When we find them in WoW forever, they are an ever-growing threat to the already fragile
peace of Zephyr Sion.
So while we want to keep most stories firmly grounded on Azeroth, we felt it was important
and exciting to be able to explore Skywall a bit more, and it's starting zone is a
great opportunity for that.
Zephyrus is not a major fixture in the world,
and it's very self-contained.
You aren't going to go here every week to raid
or to farm materials.
This is an example of how we plan to sparingly
and respectfully create new
and totally unexpected content in WoW Forever.
So before we wrap up talking about Zephyrus,
I wanna call attention to the screen.
So this is the final in-game map of Zephyrus Eye.
And here is the original sketch that Chris Metzen drew up for Zephyrus after our first
meeting talking about the concept.
He was very stoked, and he sent this to me very excited.
As someone who remembers reading the original blizzard game manuals and seeing Chris's
sketches in these, I can say it was definitely a surreal and geek out moment when he sent
this over to me.
And we thought it would be cool to share with you guys.
Dr. Ackerman!
Thanks, bud.
So speaking of sharing, we thought
it would be fun for us to go on a little adventure together.
So we are going to go off script a little bit.
And we're going to dive into a conversation between the two
of us and a few thousand of our closest friends here
today. And we're going to talk a little bit about the development of WoW Forever.
And so to kick that off, we're going to jump right in with our first question for
Josh. Tell me a little bit about how the learnings from Season of Discovery were
applied to this project. Yeah. So in Season of Discovery, we did a lot of work to
try and tell stories in a very classic way in a way that felt very
diegetic to the world. And you know, I mentioned earlier talking about
blowing up existing characters like, you know, Gregory the Truth Bear and Anna
the Vindicated and, you know, following their stories as they sort of, you know,
there was a backdrop of this Legion invasion and they came together to
rediscover the light together and stave off that adventure. Well, telling
those stories at the ground level, focusing on those two characters, that is
very quintessentially vanilla. And it was something that we leaned into
too heavily. We studied a lot of original WoW. We played through all of these classic
quest chains we knew and loved to create those types of stories. And we want to bring
that forward into WoW Forever. A lot of the quests from Season of Discovery are things
that we are, sorry, a lot of the quest lines in WoW Forever are things that we started
in Season of Discovery and carried forward. You know, speaking of kind of like the journey
that we were talking about earlier.
Like, can you tell us about the development journey
of something like the River Blades?
It's so grounded, it's so vanilla-wow.
Absolutely.
Where do we begin?
I'll take you all on a little bit of a journey,
a little bit of behind the scenes
about our development process.
So when the zone was, we were first looking at zones,
what areas do we want to develop for this project?
And there was this piece of land
on the eastern shores of the Eastern Kingdoms,
And it had never really been developed.
It did exist on the map.
If anybody wants to go look at that, you can find that.
And that started a discussion.
We have a lot of discussions on our team.
And that was, what could we do with this area?
And that led to discussions about how could we have
stories from certain zones tie into this, whether they're
connected or other areas of the world.
And that led us to one of our world builders coming up
with a couple ideas for the zone.
It started as a few different biomes.
We weren't sure if we wanted to have it be one single zone.
It's a very large zone.
It's about 30 chunks, which is roughly the size
of Stranglethorn.
And ultimately, we did land on making it a single zone.
And that led to a lot of other discussions about, well,
now that we have our zone idea, what kinds of stories
do we want to tell?
And that was a very long discussion, a
months and months long discussion.
And we whittled down about 10 or 12 ideas, I would
say, to a handful.
And those ultimately became some of the stories that
all of you will get to experience in the River Glades today.
Yeah, we bounced a lot of those off of Chris Metzen very early on,
and he was really excited to kind of revisit some of these places
that we'd seen in the earliest Warcraft games,
even for a single mission like someplace like Sunny Blade.
Super cool to go back there.
You know, continuing on the topic of the journey,
I want you to tell us about, you know, how we went about
choosing which level bands to include new contenting,
because that was something we really wanted to make sure
that we rounded out the world.
Tell us about that.
No surprise to anybody here.
A lot more discussions.
What we do is we have discussions all day every day.
It's great, because it gets us thinking about,
why do these decisions matter?
How do they impact the player experience?
For something like Riverglades, a lot of it
really came down to that we wanted to provide players
not only a new zone to explore with new stories,
but a new level band so you don't have to stay
in the areas that you're already familiar with.
And that's part of the journey that we wanted everybody to be able to take on their own.
Or, you know, if you want to explore the new areas, you can if you want to stay in the old areas, you can do that as well.
And it was a blending. And the blending of the stories from one zone to the next also coincide with the level bending for the spaces.
So if you're in Stranglehorn, you want to level there, great.
If you want a little bit of a break, you can now go experience an entirely new zone with hundreds of new quests for both factions.
And we're not talking just only about riverglades as well.
When we look at areas like wetlands and spoilers,
there's some areas of northern Kalimdor
that might have new questing as well.
All of this is intended to help give you more opportunities
to not only explore these stories,
but change the way that you level.
This has been somewhat of a solved thing for some time.
And we wanted to give you different opportunities
to play the way that you'd like to play.
Being able to redo that journey and seeing it
in it through a different lens each time
is really exciting.
And it's been a joy to level a bunch of different characters
on our internal tests and kind of take a different route.
I think vanilla players, right?
Like we kind of have our route we like to go.
It's the comfy kind of butt groove in your leveling
process.
And we were able to kind of upend that a little bit.
It was a lot of fun.
So when we're talking about level banding and all the
zones that we want to introduce and all the new
content that we're going to create, tell us a little
bit about how we approach those big story moments.
Yeah.
So, you know, I talked a little bit about telling stories
in a sort of vanilla way or a classic way.
I think one of the things that we all,
I'm gonna speak for everyone a little bit here,
I'm sorry, and say that I think the things most people
agree is awesome about original WoW
is the mysteries it created.
I don't know about you guys,
but I remember in like 2006 watching, you know,
a grainy video of the first guy to go through
Scarlet Monastery with a corrupted aspirator
on his back, right?
That stuck with me.
He talks to Fairbanks.
He learns about Darian Mograine and Outland.
And I spent kind of years, I feel like, wondering where
that was going to go and how that was going to play out.
I think the unfortunate thing about 2026, however,
is that a lot of those questions in the intervening
years have been answered.
And so what we're really trying to do with something
like Wow Forever is create opportunities for new
mysteries for everyone.
How did the brotherhood of the horse end up in river plains?
Like, what was their motivation?
How did the boulder rock ogre clan?
How did they end up, you know, they
were a part of the twilight's hammer, a little bit of a spoiler,
sorry.
And how did they end up on their own?
And what will that mean in their interactions with the Lord?
I don't know.
And so creating those new mysteries
is really important to us.
So when we're talking about all this stuff
and we're in the office and we're talking about ideas
and we're planning for current and release
and future content, it provides us a lot of opportunities.
So the last question I wanted to ask today with Josh,
no pressure, what does the future hold for a while forever?
Oh, boy.
So I think if you're playing the beta next Thursday
and you're feeling a little adventurous,
maybe you might want to try do a little bit of a corpse
run to the entrance of a place called Grimbatal
in Eastern wetlands.
If you end up there, you'll notice a, maybe potentially notice anyway,
a much larger red dragon presence outside of the mountain.
I'm not sure why. I don't know what that's about.
I don't know. Anyone have any opinions about that?
You know, I think you hinted at this a little bit, Evan,
but talking about some zones that we've also added more things to,
such as a Shara.
I haven't talked about it in a lot.
We gave a Shara quite the blow up, too.
There's a lot of new quests there.
I will say, though, there's perhaps a crater-sized hole
in the content of that zone.
And I'm wondering if maybe at some point, we might fill back.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Maybe.
You know, that about reps of the time we have for today.
We hope that all of you enjoyed this discussion,
and we can't wait to invite all of you
to come play this journey with us throughout Azeroth
on behalf of myself and Josh, the classic team,
and the World of Warcraft team.
Thank you all very much.
Enjoy the rest of your BlizzCon.
We can't wait to see you in Azeroth.
Thanks.
Now, follow a hero's journey through World of Warcraft Forever with the development team.
Hello, BlizzCon!
How's everybody doing?
Good weekend so far?
All right. My name is Clay Stone. If you didn't meet yesterday, I'm the Associate
Production Director of the WoW Classic and WoW Forever team. Welcome
to the WoW Forever deep dive panel.
I would just like to call out, this is our
This is our first of four Wow Forever panels today.
If you're looking to hear more about Wow Forever lore,
things like our Skyborn elves
and how they fit into classic vanilla lore,
I urge you to make it to the deep dive panel
on this very stage this afternoon.
So far, we've had the chance to very lightly introduce you
to just some of Wow Forever.
It's new zones, dungeons, a couple systems,
and the pillars by which we are building this game.
And for those of you here at BlizzCon,
I hope you've had the chance to try the demo on the show floor
and experience the start of the leveling journey
of the game's new race, the Skyborne.
Or taken on our all new to classic Wild Dungeons,
the drowned city with a few friends.
And that's a fine introduction to Wild Forever.
But if you are here at this particular panel
or watching from home,
we know that you don't just want the highlights,
you wanna go deep into more of the additions, changes,
and updates, and perhaps the philosophical reasons why
of WoW Forever's massive scope.
Today, we'll take a look at new features,
things like our new camping system,
Additions to trade skills are big improvements
to how our realm infrastructure will work,
as well as combat items, classes, talents, and more.
Now, to get us started, please help me welcome to the stage
someone who needs very little introduction to this crowd.
Our senior designer and narrative point of Wow!
forever. Josh Greenfield or as you know him, Agron.
Hello BlizzCon. Did you guys have a great day one?
Hell yeah, I know I did.
All right, I don't know about you guys, but I'm super excited to get to talk to you about
some of the fine details on how some of the systems and wow forever are going to work.
So let's jump right into it.
Picture this.
You're adventuring in the wilderness and run into another player on your faction.
This is an encounter you should be happy to have.
Sure, sometimes that other player may beat you to an herb note or a mining note
or maybe attack the same mob you're about to attack,
but a core foundation of WoW Forever is serendipitous interactions.
Serendipitous interactions are the foundations of making friends in online games.
So how do we make meeting strangers serendipitous?
In WoW Forever, we've reimagined the simple cooking fire to support these types of interactions.
Your cooking fire has now become the basic campfire.
Placing a campfire creates a camp site.
That allows you and other players to rest and gain benefits,
such as vendors, repairs, trade skill workspaces,
and most importantly, buffs that last one hour.
Sometimes it's important to just slow down a bit
and just take it easy.
So in order to gain your buffs,
you'll need to slash sit by the campfire
for a few moments until you're ready for adventure.
A basic campfire allows up to three special crafted objects
to be placed at the camp by players.
Each player can place one object,
and each trade skill has different objects
they can place for a unique buff or utility
learned at different skill levels.
For example, blacksmiths can place a sharpening wheel
that increases strength.
Tailors can place a faction banner that increases spirit,
and Herbalists can place an incense candle that
increases intellect.
All of these are variants of and exclusive
width buffs provided normally by classes,
such as a paladin's blessing of might
or a mage's arcane intellect.
The first objects are learned at only 20 skill points.
More advanced objects can be learned via blueprint recipes
you'll need to find in your adventures.
All of these objects add more depth and purpose
to trade skills in WoW Forever.
Overall, we've been having a ton of fun with camping
as we've been testing it internally,
and we can't wait to arrive in Elwin Forest or Duratar
and see people sitting around the fire
getting ready for battle.
So on the topic of trade skills,
this is an area that has been given a massive amount
of love in WoW Forever.
even outside of what I just described with the camping additions.
There are over 600 new recipes across all professions and level ranges in
a while forever.
Thank you.
Yeah. In addition, many existing recipes have been
overhauled in some way. Even at low levels, you will feel the impact of
your profession choice in a meaningful way,
and you'll be excited to continue to level your professions as you go.
As a compliment to camping, cooking and food have also received a substantial overhaul.
Almost all crafted food will give some form of a stat boost as well as a small XP buff.
This means you'll always want to go into battle well prepared and well fed.
Philosophically, we want tradesfields to become an important part of your progression
and while forever, and we are planning to continually add new recipes and materials and
crafted items as the game continues to evolve.
So next, let's talk about transmogrification.
As play said, not controversial at all.
Trans fog is an important tool for those who want to show off their accomplishments
or express their character in a particular way.
However, we recognize that this system is not for everyone.
Many players appreciate seeing their gear progression
and others reflected in how they actually appear.
So we've done a lot of work to allow you
to engage with the system as little or as much as you'd
like.
Thus, we're allowing you to choose
to opt out of the system in a few different ways.
The first is simply speaking to an NPC
and disabling transmog.
Easy enough?
Additionally, when you log into the game for the first time,
you'll be met with a mode selector.
And that has a preset of a handful of settings, any of which
you can reconfigure later.
But if you select the classic mode,
the visibility of other players' transmog
will be disabled as soon as you enter the game.
The goal here is to allow you to play the game
as if transmog does not exist at all.
and you should be able to do just that.
So while giving you the ability to opt out of the system
is a good first step, we do recognize
that the collection aspect of Transmog
has an impact on the behavior of players as well.
So one thing we asked ourselves when designing this system
is, what happens if I go to Strafholm
and the mask of the unforgiven drops.
It's a sweet-looking leather helm.
It looks like a bandit mask.
Anybody would be stoked to have it
in their trans-mog collection, right?
Do I have to worry about someone
who doesn't need that as an upgrade
but just wants it for the mug to roll against me?
The short answer is no.
Any bind-on pickup, uncommon, or rare deer
that drops in dungeons will grant its appearance
to all eligible looters when it's looted.
So this means that that rogue who just wants the upgrade should never be worried that that
warrior is just going to roll for the mock.
So there's no need to roll against anybody.
Everybody just gets it.
Everybody walks away happy.
For Epic Drops and Raids, we do expect groups to have an organized loot system.
It's been the case in WoW for years.
So the appearance for Epic items will
be granted to the person who looted and binds the item only
to preserve the uniqueness and prestige of Epic appearances.
Awesome.
So for those who do want to fully engage with the system,
the basic functionality should look pretty familiar
if you've played WoW midnight.
with a few slightly more classic modifications and restrictions. Firstly, you may only transmog
your gear to an item of the same type, so plate to plate or cloth to cloth. If you're
a healer paladin and you're wearing like the robes of the exalted, you'll need another
cloth chest to transmog over that. However, to support this, we're adding the ability
to select different armor appearance types per slot, so you can customize a single
save the outfit to have both say a pair of leather and male gloves in that outfit in case
you get an upgrade out in the field that doesn't match what you're currently wearing.
You will not be able to transmog high level items as a low level player either.
We want your silhouette to be relative to your level.
Once you hit max level, however, all level restrictions are removed and any item in your
collection that is valid to be used on your equipped items will be transmogable.
The primary exception of this rule is the case of items like PvP gear that require certain
conditions to be met, such as rank.
So you will need to have the rank required to transmog that item over your equipped items.
If you have the system itself disabled, you'll still be able to configure and display
your own transmog, just in case you want to do something like enable or disable your helm
slot or your cloak, and additionally, if you have the system disabled, Helm and Cloak visibility
of other players is not affected. This preserves the original wow functionality of being able
to hide your helm and cloak for yourself and others, regardless of if either party is
opted out of the system or not.
While we love transmog, it was important to us
to make sure to be respectful to those who do not enjoy it
and make its inclusion have as minimal impact as possible
on the way they play and see the game.
So there is actually a lot more to your transmog,
and this was just part of an overview of the system.
We'll be talking about this more in the coming days
and weeks and blog posts and other communications
leading up to our launch.
And so with that, I am going to hand it over
to Ana Rizendes to talk about some of our server infrastructure
and how you'll be playing with your friends
in WoW Forever.
Hi, everyone. I'm so honored to be here with you. I cannot even describe the feeling this
This is a dream for me come true.
Let's start with it.
I am Anna Resendes, lead software engineer
for the WAF4EVER team.
And I'm here to talk to you about the new legacy system
and some server updates.
So let's start with the legacy system.
When Hardcore came out, we loved
the fact that there were so many people constantly
leveling, going through the journey over and over again.
the tick got inspired by how lively the world felt.
I wanted to find new ways to reward you
for going again in the journey,
maybe without facing the consequences of the daily,
like so deadly of it.
So the legacy system was created as a way
to make leveling arts more exciting,
to emphasize the journey over the destination.
With this new system,
you get to have new challenges you can complete
to earn points for all of your characters.
Each character can use these points to unlock new rewards
in different and exciting ways,
making each of your characters' journeys more unique.
So let's first talk about the legacy points.
You can earn points by completing legacy challenges
across several categories
that you can see on the screen back here.
So let's look at a couple of examples.
For example, leveling a specific class.
You have different milestones from level 25, 45, and 60.
Another example is reaching a particular skill set
like Artisan Engineering.
So the goal of the earning these points
is to force you to do something out of the ordinary.
You know, like killing an enemy player
while singing Happy Birthday or something like that.
Yeah.
The idea is that the system complements
your existing journey and rewards the way
that you already enjoy playing the game.
Well, maybe adding new challenges along the way.
Okay, but what do I do with these points?
Okay, let me introduce you the legacy trees.
The starting trees are three,
professions, adventures, and resourcefulness.
As you earn points, you'll be able to share your journey
through these trees and choose the path
that best fits your play style.
Let's look at an example of each of the different trees
so you can get some idea.
So in the Adventure Tree, as you can see,
we have well rested.
This increases how quickly you can bring
rested experience and increases the cap
of the rested experience bar.
Excellent for leveling all of your else.
An example in the Professions Tree,
you can see the bountiful harvest
that increases how many scarce materials
you get from mining, herbing, or skinning.
And depending on the path you take,
you can unlock some pretty exciting perks.
So as this perk, in the resource ministry,
you can find reagent economy,
where your class ability is no longer required reagents
to make both in easier.
But stay with me.
Some of the more powerful perks like these ones
are very deep in the trees.
So you're gonna have to make some very tough choices.
What makes this system truly unique is that the points you earn
are shared across all of your arts.
Each character you have will be able to spend
the same number of points in their own trees.
Whether if you want to create lots of arts
to earn as many points as possible,
or you really want to have dive and maximize
that particular character that you love,
the choice is yours.
So at lunch, the number of points are going to be capped.
So you're only gonna have 16 points to spend on your legacy trees.
We didn't want people to feel pressure to have to do absolutely all of the challenges.
Or for new players to feel like they have a very long way to catch up.
That said, the number of points is capped.
But to begin with, you can earn up to 65 points even beyond that limit.
But what do you do with those 65 points?
Well, there's introducing now the legacy reward track.
We're here after you continue to create and get
all of these challenges, you will
be able to get some rewards.
Like this one, this very cute little bearer.
I really want to get it.
So these rewards are intended to be cosmetic or prestige
based.
should not provide a competitive gameplay advantage at all.
I do want to add another note about mounts.
In Burning Crusade, the off-rump concept
of getting your mount shifted to the trainer cost.
And in a while forever, we are also making this change.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So in the future, we're going to continue
to add new challenges and new perks you
can spend your points on.
And you can imagine seeing these like maybe new perks
in the existing trees, or maybe completely new trees
in the future.
So we can wait for you to get your hands on this system
and discover all of the different ways to play with it.
I know I already have some idea of cooking.
And I will definitely have an army of alts
to help me shape my journey.
So now moving up to the next topic,
something I'm really, really excited about as an engineer,
especially.
Server infrastructure.
So I want to start with the story.
Yes, let's go.
You know, you know, it's passionate.
I want to start with to share the first time
that I played World of Warcraft.
I was really excited to start playing.
I got this battle chest.
I don't know if anyone also got that battle chest,
but I was so excited.
I come in, yeah.
I come into my house after a mountain of CDs
and just like waiting for all of the updates to finish,
I was finally in and ready to play.
And the first thing I saw logging in was this.
Realm, what realm?
I spent a good amount of time trying to decide
which realm to pick.
I didn't want to make the wrong choice.
Back then I was like, what's Arthas?
Who's Dalaran?
I know better now.
But luckily, I knew I wanted to play with my friends
and meeting from Mexico in our options down pretty quickly
to Dracarri and Ragnaros.
So I called my friends and asked them,
okay, where are we going?
And we decided to roll characters in Dracarri.
I did wanna do a quick shout out
to all of my original Dracari players,
you know, in the crowd, I hear you, yes.
Yeah, so anyways, I jumped into the game.
I probably spent like 30 minutes perfecting
my character's appearance,
and it took me less than five minutes to die.
But you know what, there's a story for a different time.
A few days later though,
I was talking to another group of friends, IRL,
And I told them, hey, I started playing WoW.
Let's play together.
And they told me they played in Ragnaros.
So that was it.
I created an alt in there, but it was not the same.
So as we approach the development of WoW forever,
we didn't just look at our own experiences.
We look at the experiences of countless
of other players like you.
One of the trends we noticed in Classic
was that players naturally gravitated
towards the same realms,
creating these massive realms and potentially long queues.
We get it, in big realms,
you always have people to group up with,
a healthy economy, someone that has the recipe
for that item you really want at any time of the day.
The challenge is that back in 2004,
the game simply couldn't handle
enormous numbers of players
all of them into the same realm at the same time.
Since then, thanks to the incredible work
of our engineering teams, we made huge improvements
to the technology.
And today, we can support far more players
on a single realm than ever before.
With that in mind, and living in a world
that is more connected than ever,
we decided to invest even further
into helping players connect and play with each other.
So in a while forever,
you won't select our realm anymore
because we're going round this.
Yeah, technology, we're doing it.
So, okay, okay, let's not get too crazy.
Yeah, we're not putting everyone in one giant realm.
To start, instead of choosing a realm,
you choose from one of the following rule sets.
You know, it's very similar to the current classic offerings.
You might want to choose normal, or PBE is referred to in classic,
or some players call it like that.
In here, you can focus on exploration
and only fight others when you choose to.
So, let's do a live survey.
Any takers for normal?
Yeah?
Let's go.
Let's go.
It's good.
If you're the kind of player who wants every trip
to contest the territory to come with a little bit of danger and a lot of excitement, then
player versus player or PVPs for you. Do we have any PVPs? There you go. Or perhaps you
really want to dive into the fantasy of the game and look for other like-minded players,
In which case, role-playing might be for you.
Any RP enjoyers in the crowd?
Yes.
Nice.
And finally, once hardcore is available post-launch, if you're looking for the ultimate challenge,
wherever decision matters and that has real consequences, hardcore is your choice.
So let me hear it.
Who's excited for hardcore?
You're so brave, like you're so brave to go into hardcore.
Okay, so once you made your selection, there's one more thing I want to make sure you understand.
Well, what forever makes it easier than ever to play with your friends?
There's still some restrictions. Think about each rule set like a mega-roll.
Here's how it works.
factions are still separate. If you're a whore, my personal favorite. Yeah, for the whore.
You won't be able to group up with the Alliance players. Alliance, too. Okay, let's hear about
the Alliance. Okay. So, you will only be able to group up the dungeons and raids with
the people of your same rule set.
And if you choose hardcore,
you will be completely in close ecosystem.
However, if your character dies,
you'll be able to transfer to another game rule set.
And now for the first time,
you'll be able to transfer to PVP.
Yeah.
Okay.
Moving on.
Collections and the system I just talked about,
legacy system,
are still account-wide and will be across rulesets,
except hardcore.
The things that you earn in hardcore
will be available in the other game rulesets,
but not the other way around.
Yes.
So, I also wanna add another note.
As part of the server updates,
your characters will not have two names.
So you think about it, you can think about it
like maybe a first name and a last name
here in the US, we refer it to.
And now that names are going to be unique per region,
we wanted you to be able to create original names like Anna
forever.
So now you have the choice of getting two last names,
and two names instead of just one.
So going back to my personal story,
I have very fond memories of my time on Dracari.
Those are some original screenshots, by the way,
of like back to 2009.
And we recognize that there are certain benefits and experiences
that come from being part of our realm.
While forever is a reflection of seven years of learning
for our WoW team.
As I mentioned before, playing Scrabby Tays
towards bigger realms, at the same time,
they really care about community and sense of belonging.
So we ask ourselves, why not all of those?
Why not both?
And the result is something we're incredibly excited about.
We have updated the infrastructure
to give you the benefits of large realms
with the goal of capturing the essence of the realm.
So when will you notice this is when you're out in the world
leveling, questing, or exploring,
you may cross paths with the same players again and again.
Maybe you help each other complete a quest,
race for the same mining node, or simply go by these children
as you pass by, maybe throw a buff, or something like that.
And the next day, you might see the same player again
and recognize their name.
Over time, strangers become familiar faces,
and familiar faces become part of your community.
Or maybe think about it like you
wanted to group up for an elite.
As you're coordinating with your guild,
We want you to encounter your skillmates out in the world,
even before you have grouped up.
So one crucial thing for me was joining a server that's
both Spanish, like I do.
And for what, forever, you will get the choice
for your language preference too.
And you will encounter other players
who share that same preference.
I also want to address faction balance.
It is very important for our PPP ruleset.
So we will have mechanisms in place to shoot for a core
and alliance faction balance, just as we introduced
for Season of Discovery.
So with all these changes, we don't
want you to have to make the choice between potentially
longer queue sub-launch or what would not
be your forever realm.
So our goal is to give you the best of both worlds,
the benefits of a large realm, what
We're really excited for new communities to be born, and also for you to bring your own.
So, can't wait to see you in Azeroth.
And now, to talk about the core of the game.
Combat items, classes, and talents.
I'll have things over the 21-year veteran of World of Warcraft, Chris.
Yeah, thank you.
Hello, Bleston!
So it's been two years since we stopped work on Season of Discovery.
What have the class and item designers been up to since then?
We're going to need to move quickly.
I'm going to talk about our combat philosophy, exciting changes to itemization, new racial
abilities. And finally, anyone here play Paladin? A deep dive look at all of our
class and talent changes for the Paladin class to illustrate all of our class
design across the game. First, let's talk about how combat works in World of
Warcraft forever. Our team loves the feel and pacing of combat in World of
work half classic. It's important to us that we do not change how that combat
feels. And that leads to some very important design decisions. First, keep
our classes simple, but with surprising depth. Keep our classes distinct with
each having unique strengths and weaknesses. No homogenization.
Combat pacing is a little slower. It takes you about 15 seconds to kill a creature on your own.
And dungeon gameplay is tactical. That means crowd control matters. You need a polymorph, vanish,
brute, trap, monsters to keep control, to keep your healer from getting killed,
getting killed, can keep the tank from being overrun from too much damage.
And threat matters.
Our tanks can only do threat on three or four targets at once.
You can't pull a whole dungeon all at once.
Moving on to stats, one of the things we wanted to do in World of Warcraft forever was unsolve
the game.
We've all been playing classic for 22 years, and we know everything we know what to do. We know those perfect paths and what items to get
What if all that changes? What if you got to solve it again?
So that end we've made a ton of changes to itemization throughout the game
And we love having many different choices how to gear your character with different stats
And those choices changing based on which class you're playing what con mess here and what where you go
So we're keeping all of the stats from Wild Classic and with a few changes and
also adding more that came in some of the future expansions. Although I'll say
we're not adding resilience. First let's talk about hipchamps. In World of
Workcraft Classic, hip was separate from melee ranged and spells and that was
kind of awkward if you're an enhancement shaman or a rep paladin or even a warrior
who wants your taunts to land.
So with unified hit,
hit is for all types of attacks at once,
which doesn't just benefit those Paladins,
but also rogues landing their poisons,
hunters landing their traps, warriors landing their taunts.
And we've done the exact same thing
with your chance to critical strike.
That is also all merged in the same way.
Now, weapons skill was probably the strongest step,
especially for melee in World of Warcraft Classic,
but it was a little too easy to get and a little too strong.
So you may recall in Bornock or Sage, we removed it.
We want to keep it so we've rebalanced it.
You can't get quite as much on a single item as you used to,
but you can get it. It still works. It's still very valuable.
For our healing classes, one of their problems was you go to next round.
If you get an amazing set of gear, you go out questing
and you can't kill anything, right?
So we've adopted the change that all of our healing items
also come with bonus damage.
So our healers can enjoy the whole game as well.
We're also adding many new stats that didn't exist
in WoW Classic.
You can now reduce the chance for your attacks
to be parried and dodged, which is really great for tanks.
It does double duty.
Spellcaster-oriented weapons now grant bonus spell-damaging healing all the way down to level 10.
Spellcasters will now care about their weapons as much as warriors and rogues who everyone gets
to have a more fun game the whole way along. One big area of change was trinkets. We want
trinkets to be more variety, more different ways to solve problems, so they're all much more
specialized and targeted specific situations, you've got a bag full of tricks you're pulling
out for different encounters and different situations.
The Wargaming Talisman here being a great example.
We also added two whole new classes of effects on items, some that only work or work better
in certain areas, mountains or deserts or cities or caverns, and others that have
bonus effects against different species like Excalibur here does bonus damage against
undead and swine. Whatever that is. We've done a massive
re-itemization across the entire game. Every single Dungeon Boss has had their loot re-examined.
Everything is upgraded to rare quality. Many new items have been added and old items
that maybe weren't up to snuff are better, but the old favorites, the really standout
That ends are also still there.
A new class reward has been added across the board.
A very famous class is well known to Alliance players.
In Duskwood, you get a class to go kill
the undead soldier Morladim.
You're super excited about this.
You get a group together.
You kill him and maybe your mage or a shaman
or priest, whatever.
At the end of the class, you get a two-in-a-sort.
That's great.
If you're a warrior or a paladin,
What about everybody else?
So now Morlandham also hands you back his heirloom family
ring, which is a fantastic spell power rate.
Another great example.
When you finish all of Hemet Nessing
where he's quest in Stranglethorne,
he would give you a Master Hunter's bow
or a Master Hunter's crossbow.
He now also has a Master Hunter's wand.
And this Master Hunter's spell sword,
specifically designed for retpaladins
to do has strength and spell damage on it together.
And there's much more atomization for all of those hybrid
specs across the game than there ever was before.
We've gone through all of our world drop epics,
and they've all been revisited.
When you see an epic drop, it's that exciting moment.
Oh my god, I'm getting an epic.
And they were often really disappointing.
They weren't that great, actually.
So we've gone through them all and made them all much stronger,
much more useful.
So you may see one of these drop.
You'll know you'll want to use it or give it to a friend
or maybe sell it in the auction house.
And even added a few ones like this ranged weapon here,
thrown weapon here.
All right, next up, racial abilities.
One of the things that we like about racial abilities
in Wild Classic is they give you a reason
to make a new character, play a new class,
playing a race, see the game through new eyes.
So we decided to make our racial abilities stronger
and more different than they ever were before.
We also added six new race class combinations,
gnome priests, human hunters, dwarf shamans,
work mages and troll warlocks, and of course,
the undead pal of dead.
with more plan to come in future content.
That would be cool.
Each race now has two active abilities and two passive abilities.
Tune to give each race an equal, similar amount of
offensive power and signature utility and survivability.
I'm going to share details of dwarves and undead
head because of our new options with showman's
impaladence.
Stone form is mostly unchanged.
But you might recall, say you were a dwarf priest.
There were a lot of those.
It increased your armor.
And who cares?
You had no armor.
It wasn't doing anything.
So now it reduces physical damage.
It doesn't care how much armor you have.
Flying Charger was a useful racial ability,
but it conflicted with finding herbs,
tracking beasts, finding minerals.
So now flying charger can be active at the same time
as any of the tracking ability.
So you can look for iron nodes and treasure at the same time.
Inspired by him at nesting wary, dwarves now
have big game hunter, giving 5% increased damage to beasts.
We really like abilities like this
because they give each different character
in your party a rate, a chance to shine
on a different encounter.
There might be a fight where you're fighting human oys
and the rogue is the best.
you're fighting undead and power the best,
and you're fighting a beast,
the dwarves are gonna get a chance to shine.
So there's a reason to bring everybody,
everybody gets their moment in the sun.
Finally, Maze Specialization is a good example
of how we've changed weapon skill.
So weapon skill used to be only good for melee,
and a little too strong,
but now while a dwarf has any kind of Maze equipped,
they get 1% increased crit chance
to their spells, melee, and ranged abilities.
So those shamans and priests will now care about having a basic grip and benefits from
this racial.
Let's move on to the undead.
Willow to forsaken was a little bit too strong.
It gave you immunity to these effects.
Now it simply breaks them.
But we've made up for it by giving them a lot of new stuff.
Cannibalized now doesn't just give you health back, it gives you manna back, particularly
Fantastic for those paladins.
Underwater breathing is, as it always was,
but remember, in wild classic, that breath force
really short.
So that increased amount of time underwater
makes you able to do a lot more.
And finally, the big one, touch of the grave,
this new racial for the undead gives them the increased damage
and survival that they never had before.
Each of your attacks and spells
has a chance to drain health from the target,
doing extra damage, and also healing you
and keeping you alive.
That's just a taste of our ratios.
Go play the demo to see them all.
All right.
Let's talk about classes.
We're going to keep diving to talents.
But first, we want to talk about our philosophy on talents.
All classes still have three talentaries.
They still have seven rows.
They still have those one-point talents at 11, 21, 31,
the gold medal talents.
We called them.
We've even added a fourth gold medal talent at the 16 mark at every single one of the talent trees.
Many talents are exactly the same as they were unchanged from 2006.
But many have been updated and improved and new have been added.
In particular, there were a lot of talents that gave you better buffs, improved battle shell, divine spirit, blessing of kings, improved mark of the wild.
They're all gone.
All of those bonuses are now baseline to the entire class.
You don't need to talented enough.
And what's great about that is it makes room for more cool new stuff.
Our goal was to make sure that every single one of our 27 talent trees
is a viable option to bring to your dungeon or raid group.
Every class, every speck is worthy to come, but no class is so strong or speck is so strong
that you want to sack them.
And they're not equal.
They all have different distinct strengths and weaknesses that they bring to the group.
So we don't have time to look at every class, so let's take a deep dive look at Paladin.
First, what changed for the whole class?
I don't know how many people here played the 2004 beta, probably a few. I did.
But Paladin's back then an ability called Holy Strike that got cut before the game was shipped.
We brought it back. At level six, all Paladins learned Holy Strike.
Giving a little bit more melee damage, doing holy damage based on their weapon to the target.
the 12-second cooldown, and every one of the three Paladin trees has ways to improve Holy
Strike.
Judgment, no longer consumes your seal.
No more seal busy work.
You got better things to do.
We've added a new seal called Seal Fury that is our answer to tanking Paladins.
And yes, you can tank as a Paladin.
three things. First, every time you swing, just like the seal of righteousness, it does
damage to the target, but it doesn't matter how fast your weapon is. So the faster the
weapon you use, the more damage it'll do, the more effective. It creates a small absorb
shield to the Paladin, helping them stay alive a little bit. But most importantly, judgment
of fury is your new taunt. Taunt to the target. And this is particularly interesting
because growl and taunts have a five-yard range and judgment has a ten-yard range.
So, Paladin's got a little bit more reach to reach out and grab something and bring it to the fight
than the other tanks have.
Finally, we had to make some changes to consecration.
Those of you who play Burning Crusade know that Paladin consecration can dominate damaged tanking runs.
And we wanted to maintain that tactical combat I was talking about,
where you can't just pull the whole dungeon at once.
So consecration now does light damage
to every target that enters the consecration
and heavy damage to the first four.
So you're gonna have enough threat
on those first four targets, but not all the rest.
And everybody has to keep respecting your threat
and your ability to control and not pull the whole room.
All right, let's move on to talents.
Starting with Holy Paladin talents.
As I mentioned, everybody has improvements
the Holy Strike, the very first row of holy has improved Holy Strike, reducing its cooldown.
Probably every paladin is going to take this one.
Voice of Truth is their new 11-point gold medal talent, giving some immunity to silence
and interrupts.
Reverence, however, is a big change for paladins.
Yes, paladins will now care about spirit and get regen from it while in combat.
In fact, all of our classes that do damage and healing
via manna will have talents or abilities
that give the manna back based on their spirit.
So spirit is worth having on your gear.
That includes especially holy paladins and rest of shamans.
And finally, divine power used to be a little deeper
in the tree, used to be at 21,
it's moved to 16, sorry, to make room for more stuff.
But basically the same as it ever was.
Moving on.
Infusion of light is a new talent
that solves a problem that Holy Palins had
across multiple expansions,
but either they're casting Flash of Light
all the time and nothing else,
or Holy Light all the time and nothing else.
It's how encouraging you to mix those spells together
and use your whole toolkit.
Holy Shock used to be the 31 point talent
and is now at 21 points in the talentry,
which makes it in reach of a lot of hybrid PVP builds
in particular.
And its cool down has been reduced to 10 seconds.
You can use it a lot more often.
It's going to be key for another billion
about to talk about.
Consecrated ground plays into the whole shock-a-dink
fantasy of holy.
While targets are standing at your consecration,
they take more holy damage from your attacks.
And finally, lights vigil solves several problems
for palatins.
The biggest one is they have no way to heal a whole party at once.
Now we don't want to make them the same as priests and druids
and how they can do that, or Shaman's a chain heal.
So instead, Light's Vigil requires setup.
You put Light's Vigil on a target with one of your friends,
and the next time you Holy Shock them,
the entire party of that target will be healed,
and Holy Shock's cooldown will be reset.
If you're really smart, you put Light's Vigil up
on multiple parties, and then it's Holy Shock,
Holy Shock, Holy Shock, Holy Shock,
and your whole raid group is back to a place
where they can survive the big blast to hit them.
Similarly, you can use it on enemies to do increased damage
and, again, reset the cooldown of Holy Shock
to support that shock it and build.
Moving on to protection palette and talents.
Their new 11-point talent is improved Seal of Fury,
which gives a mana back when Seal of Fury blocks damage.
And shield specialization combines with it
to give them enough mana to sustain combat
for the entire boss.
So every time you block, you're getting mad at back.
And the more things you're blocking,
the more mad you're getting.
Swift judgment solves a problem that all our tanks have.
It's their new 16-point talent.
What are you doing when your taunt misses?
If you're a warrior, you hit mocking blow.
You hit challenging shout.
If you're a druid, you hit challenging roar.
If you're a paladin, Swift judgment
resets the cooled-in on judgment
and lets you use it again to taunt the target again
and get a second chance.
or maybe use it creatively on the pole
to get more judgment debuffs up on the target quickly.
Templars Bullwalk is their new 21-point talent
that plays with their system for forbearance.
It triggers forbearance, it's prevented by forbearance,
but it also grants you an absorbed shield
equal to 100% of your health,
making you a lot more survivable,
but it's a hard choice up against things like divine shield.
Reckoning is an old favorite, it's not going anywhere,
but it's been improved,
like tanks are supposed to be uncritable, right?
So, reckoning now has a chance to trigger
every time you block,
and if you're tanking more things,
you're blocking more things, getting more extra attacks.
Finally, Iron Creed is a deep talent in Prott
that when you use your Holy Strike,
reduces your damage you take for a few seconds by 10%.
So a very careful Paladin can help their healers
keep them alive in those critical moments
by timing their holy strike.
All right, finally, retribution.
Vindication is an old talent that everybody skipped.
What it did was reduce the target's strength and agility.
But in PDE, it had basically no effect.
We've reworked it.
It now works like demoralizing shout and demoralizing roar,
reducing the target's attack power.
And by the way, all three of those
are reduced by the same amount.
Sacred Arbiter is a unique Paladin utility.
When Paladins judge a target,
the way they have to maintain it
is staying close to judge again or mailing that target.
But now with Sacred Arbiter, a rep Paladin
can keep the judgments up for all of the other Paladins
in their party or raid.
So you can benefit from light and wisdom
and crusader at the same time.
Champion of the Light is a new ability deep in the tree
that gives increased spell damage
and healing based on your intellect.
So now those items that increase your manifold,
maybe you don't want to skip those.
Maybe you want those combined with strength or attack power
to do the most damage.
Instrument of the law solves two problems.
One, it makes hand or breath instant
for retribution pollutants.
And second, now that their damage is as good as everyone
else, they need a little threat reduction.
Finally, twist of light is our answer
to seal twisting, which you know you love.
At least some of you do.
So now each time you replace one of your damaging seals
with another seal, you get an echo of the replaced seal.
And then your swing, your melee swings
benefit from both seals at the same time.
If you alternate seal command and seal righteousness,
every swing will benefit from both seals.
But I do know some people do not like seal twisting.
So using that increased spell power from Champion of Light,
drop this talent, go 21 points down holy,
and use holy shock for a shock and build on retribution instead.
So we gave Paladins some new tools that they were solely lacking.
But we left them with significant holes in their toolkit.
We don't want to homogenize our classes.
Paladins still can't interrupt.
They still can't slow the target down,
but they are very, very strong against demons and undead.
They have limited range capabilities.
They have this unique seal and judgment system that no other class has with powerful effects.
They can be very effective tanks.
They deal competitive damage, but as a healer, they have limited ability to heal a party.
They've got a plan ahead.
Use lights vigil.
But they're still the best single target healer in the game, able to maintain their
mana pool longer than any other class can.
I wasn't able to share with you all of our changes for every class I raised today.
go play the demo. Check out the beta when it comes out on Thursday. We will have
videos and blogs and question-answer sessions in the weeks to come. We'll give
you more details and a deeper vision for all these classes and specializations.
I've had a great time up here on Stage View today. Have a great plus con everybody.
you guys are ready to go.
Hello and welcome back here to
BlizzCon 2026. We're so excited
to introduce to you guys our
panel. My name is makes and I'm
joined by two of her awesome
developers for World War crap
forever. Jay and Rowan and
over there we also have Ziko
So, Jay, can you maybe tell us a little bit about what exactly you do?
I would love to.
Hello, BlizzCon.
I am one of the senior encounter designers for the classic team.
Any season of Discovery fans out there?
We are part of the crew who helped make Karazhan Crips and Scarlet Enclave.
We are thrilled to be here and show off some more things we're making for you.
Yeah, Jay's largely stolen my thunder.
Absolutely, it's one of your floor.
My name is Rowan Rada.
Also a senior encounter designer worked primarily
carousel and crypts, Scarlet on the Blade,
and now all the Warcraft forever.
So excited to be here.
Absolutely stoked.
Yeah, we're all really excited to have you guys here
in case you couldn't tell, in case you could hear them
back there.
We could feel the excitement.
We have a lot of people queuing out back there
to get their hands on the demo already, of course.
And we're going to show you part of what
is in the demo.
But we're also going to be showing you something that is exclusive.
You cannot even play here, except the players that are going to be on stage
they will be playing it and we're going to get a first glimpse onto something
that is absolutely exclusive, unshown, unrevealed.
And that is Dalaran St.
A. J.
Yes. I don't know about anybody else in here, but that cinematic got me really
hyped to see more Dalaran.
That bubble coming down was fantastic.
And luckily you get to sneak peek today to see that.
It's a place shrouded in mystery, it's a city of mages and secrets, it's a proud people.
And as you're seeing here, you've got to sneak in a little bit.
You can't just go through the front door because there is some mayhem going on in Dalaran.
And where there is mayhem, there is adventure.
And we'll see how well they handle this up there.
They're going to have to battle some necromancers, some skeletons,
some people who have defected from the Kirin Tor.
Up there they, how would they do that?
You get to fight your way back through some familiar streets.
It's a fun fact, the artist who helped make this originally
wrapped is back to make this one.
And he's hit some new goodies in here for people to go find.
So while you're doing the dungeon,
you'll get to see some new cool things around.
It's under construction.
So some of the places will be gone.
Some will be boarded up.
There'll be guards moving around.
It's exciting and it's full of mayhem.
It's been a long adventure to finally get here
and see this.
I cannot wait to see what sort of chaos
they cause in this city of Pages.
Look how beautiful these streets are.
This is fantastic.
For any of the fans of the rendering update,
this city shows it off very prime.
It is fantastic.
Crassus is landing.
People who like hanging out there
and wrapped in a litchking,
you get to see some unfamiliar sights up here
because like you've seen, this is back on the ground.
Finally, in classic, in the vanilla world,
you get to see the mountains of Dune-Morrow
in the distance.
You get to see, look at all this.
It's so hard to just not get wrapped up
how fantastic this looks right. Yeah, this looks so nostalgic to me. I love what I'm seeing
here and just venturing through the entire city here. I do have a question. Is this a
way to kind of unlock access to this place? Very good question and you are absolutely
correct. For our Alliance fans out there, you are the only faction allowed in this
Oh, you get to unlock this city once you complete this dungeon.
So a couple of firsts going on with this place.
Sorry, Horde. We've got some good stuff for you guys in the future.
Don't worry, but this is Alliance only.
There is some special stuff for mages in here.
This place is fantastic.
So what are some of the things that players might expect to see in there?
Is there something we should be looking out for?
Well, we should be looking out for them potentially wiping up there.
This place has some hands, and it is not holding back.
You can see some elementals that are hanging around.
You can see necromancers and skeletons.
A famous wizard used to be here, Antonitis.
I'm sure you're all familiar with that fellow.
Maybe he's got a remnant hanging around the city.
Maybe there's disruption.
This chaos that is happening is unearthed, something
from the past.
And where there is a powerful wizard,
there is probably somebody who is going
to put you back on the ground.
always somebody seeking their power and I mean I I just love it it's it's so
exciting today has just been I mean I've seen it here as well it's just so
exciting to me as a classic fan I'm a huge classic fan so just to see I'm just
like glued on the screen yeah I can feel it from over here it's just crazy to be
just how awesome it looks you know you mentioned on the cinematic as well
when the purple kind of bubble goes down and you can finally see it, I want to ask you is this and
we say this is a difficult dungeon when you've been through again there you know mid levels. I think
for the first time you go in here it's absolutely going to be a little difficult so some of the
mechanics that we have that the modern version doesn't and we even kind of tame down a little
bit for season discovery or things like resistances of unities, crowd control is a huge thing here
And I think they're missing a lot of that in here.
So they're going to have some trouble.
We're going to run into things that are immune to arcane.
And counterspell does not work when something
is immune to arcane.
So goodbye, interrupts.
And I don't think they have a lot of them.
So their hands are going to be full down here.
That is incredibly exciting.
I love this entrance through the Suriyar
and you mentioned that that's a way to unlock the city.
Can you talk a little bit more about what it means
to the team and you to bring Dalaram?
city with so much history in World of Warcraft to life in this very special way.
Yeah, it's quite remarkable. I think everything involved with Forever is remarkable. This
is one of those things that it's kind of a familiar, but a sort of unfamiliar place.
You've seen it in the distance, you haven't been able to go inside, but now you get
to actually go inside. So we're fulfilling some of those promises that you had back
in the original game, and you're seeing it in a way you've never seen before.
beautiful so it's very dear to our hearts. It's easily one of my most favorite places in all of
Vanilla and it's an absolute pleasure to be up here in front of everybody showing this off for the
first time. Yeah I think we're all super super excited as well and just a little bit we're
going to get a couple of our content creators on the stage to get a first glimpse into this
dungeon. I believe the tech side of things is still preparing so it shouldn't be much longer.
And then we'll maybe see some new things. In those trailers we already got a glimpse of maybe some
new class race combinations that you can play in well class. Well forever.
Yes you did. You got to see the Forsaken Paladins being shown off for the first time.
I believe we'll have that up behind us and we'll have somebody playing that. So you get to
see that. That is going to be rad. Paladins, notoriously good at dealing with the undead.
So this first part is going to be quite a breeze for the Paladin, but once you exit those sewers and you go back to just elementals,
it's going to be a little bit more difficult, but we'll get an opportunity to show off the new Paladin stuff.
Cool. So there's new class combos with races, but there's also a new race, the Skyborn. What is going on with them?
So, very fun fact about this place, when you finally get to unlock it and you go out there,
there is a brand new area that Dalaran has never seen before.
When you go into the Vile Citadel now, all of those doors are now opened up, and that
area that overlooks Lord of Mere Lake is a sky-born exclusive area.
So when you come down from Zephyrus, you get that beautiful sky ship that flies in
and gets to land right there, gorgeous vista, and it's their own little exclusive
home in Azeroth.
It's a way to help tie them back to Azeroth a little bit.
It's... it's rad.
It is rad.
I'm thinking, because I don't think you can be a Skyborne mage.
And I play mage, so I'm thinking, is it worth it to just abandon my mage?
I've been playing it for 20 years.
It's never worth it to abandon your mage.
I might have to.
It sounds like I'm going to miss out otherwise, you know,
hanging out with the Skyborne.
I mean, there's so much time to play.
You're here to play Warcraft Forever.
Did you have so much time to play Skyborn and your mages?
Yeah, that's right.
That's got to look up to that.
Rowan, what's your favorite class race combo that's out now?
I am a huge fan of the Undead Paladin.
I mean, it's a classic.
It's cinematic for a reason.
I'm really bad at Paladins.
So I don't know if it should be my favorite.
And the Dwarf Shaman.
The Dwarf Shaman.
Just an easy winner.
Yeah, I feel the same way.
also about a charm and big role fan.
And I think we're going to see
all mage in here as well, which I believe is you.
Oh, spoiler one, spoiler.
Yeah, sorry.
All right.
We'll be playing the major fan.
I believe we are ready on the stage.
So let's hear it from Aya over there
and see who we got in store for y'all.
Amazing, I'm glad you guys
I'm just as excited as I am.
I don't know about y'all, but I grew up with this game
and watching that trailer this morning
was making me emotional.
I had to have our makeup artist fix my makeup
because there's tears running down my face,
but I'm excited to bring a special guest on with me.
Please welcome Aiden Zireen,
moon senior World of Warcraft game designer,
most recently on Wow Forever.
Yeah.
Oh, BlizzCon.
Yes.
Hello, BlizzCon.
Well, my first question is for you.
What does it mean for you to be a part of WoW forever?
Honestly, it's surreal.
Back in 2004, I played WoW for the first time.
I fell in love with the world.
I fell in love with the players.
And being able, 20 years later, to be able to actually work
on the game that I fell in love with,
with a lot of the same people that helped me fall in love
with the game, it's the honor of a lifetime.
I'm so honored also to be on here on this stage
with you guys sharing this moment with everyone.
So follow up question with our players,
what are you most looking forward to seeing with them?
So as a game designer, you'll play your game
for hundreds of hours, you'll play it internally,
you'll do different talent builds,
you'll think about what could possibly be done
with what you've made.
What I love and what I'm looking forward to today
is I wanna see how they break these things.
When you get the game into the hands of the players,
everything completely changes.
You have emergent gameplay,
You have fun new things come out of it,
and I'm looking forward to being able to see that,
nurture that, and I'm also looking forward
to getting our players out here on stage.
Yes, I am as well.
Yeah, so a lot of people, you may not know me,
I used to do some stage stuff back in the day as Irene.
So I'm gonna take my game designer hat off for a second,
and I'm gonna get a hook to our players out here,
all right?
All right.
You guys ready for some fun?
That's right!
All right, let's get our first guy out here now. I've watched the vibe I've reviewed the log
He did not deserve to die to bear and get him. So we're bringing him back
It's the talk of talk the one the only
Tyler
Let's go
All right, and for our next guest, the man who led a gnome-only hard-core molting for
while simultaneously doing a handstand, please welcome Zarya.
our next guest. Our very special guest today is a multi-platinum artist, but he will not
be playing the big bag hunter with a bow. It's baby, no money!
for our next guest.
My personal go probably mobs everyone
with achievement points on this entire stage.
Also made it all the way to level 60 in hardcore
using a console controller.
Please welcome Annie Fuchsia!
Come on!
Come on!
Woo!
And our last guest, but definitely not least.
He says he's from Denmark, but I don't buy it.
From the bottom of Sunken Temple.
It's...
Guzu!
All right, let's hear it one more time for our players here as they get started in.
Want to introduce it?
World of Warcraft Forever.
All right.
Let's play some WoW!
Oh yeah.
place a wow
oh yeah
I'm so far from my body
I spunk that on me
oh god
hold on
uh
I spunk
I'm gonna die
What do we got to do here?
Rod rage, yeah send that.
Let's see what this is.
This is...
Yeah, yeah send it.
Reduce the rate.
Uhhh...
Toughness.
You don't know what you're doing to ya.
Yeah.
How about we read the talents and we try to figure out what's actually good to do here.
I mean that has to be decent.
Me?
Oh wait, what do you have?
Quick, this little guy right there.
Are you thinking truth?
Yeah, no, it should be a scout but it's not.
I'm going to place a bird here.
Oh, you're the new race! It's called Skyborn.
Oh, it's called Skywalker.
Okay, okay, cool.
hear us now I get it what's up everybody
okay yeah so I have no idea what I'm doing right now because new lightning not
an update I know how sky site attempt to draw power from
of elements see the blessing okay nice little movie speed boost am I doing what
am I first girl
yo am I feral first guys
I'm ready to go.
I'm at the last boss guys.
I'm not done at all.
I'm almost cleared everything.
I'm not rushing anything.
I'm reading apologies.
Uh...
How much CC do we think we need here?
I'll handle the CC.
Alright.
Oh, God.
Oh, God.
Oh.
That was a good one.
Yeah, I'm gonna improve charge. I'm ready.
Yeah, I need like 5 or 10 minutes at least.
Maybe 20.
Ah, you're...
You're such a funny guy.
Oh, I already took Resic.
Nice.
I fucked up.
I took Resic.
I'm pissed.
The Resic? Yeah, bro, I died and I was like, 25 minutes away.
Bro, I was like, 20 minutes away!
Ah! Did that fly back?
I don't care.
It was an 8 minute Resic.
Did I hear you?
Really?
That was serious.
You actually died.
Yeah, I died.
All played lizard.
Yo, hey man.
I got a few.
Wait, I have a microphone.
Hell yeah.
I can hear you now.
Awesome.
Okay, my mic is working.
So apparently there's like this thing on the court guys that can mute your mic. It's pretty crazy
Can you guys it might be who's the party leader?
Okay
Wait Tyler's our tank
Yeah, yeah, we're good.
Come on, that's it.
Uh, you missing me. Do you know how to spell it?
Wait, just come here. We're back.
Just right over here. Come here. This way.
Why is it my sprint button working?
What do you mean sprint button?
I think Tonka's inviting everyone right now.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, invite Annie and then...
I know, why not? What's your name?
Uh, BB No.
BB No. Space N-U-L-A.
And BB No Mula.
He's dead, right?
Yeah, oh yeah true. I think you can still invite him though. Oh, no, I'm alive
Can you come here, please?
Participate with the group please bro. Where's mr. Moolah?
Right there it's like that
Yo, give me an alcohol by them right click on me. Yeah
Oh leader. Yeah, don't worry about it. Dude, where did you fly to?
I think I got you. Alright.
Can I get a- Can I get a-
I don't think we have a-
How hard for that?
I need one minute.
It's the journey, you know? That's true.
I'm so far away, bro.
Sometimes it's so hard for dying before we get there.
Unbelievable.
I just teleported, bro.
Oh, no, I gotta miss it.
Why am I not lucking?
Might be a skill thing.
How do I swing?
Oh, you need it.
What do you normally have on an E, bro?
You gotta get key binds there on E.
Let's fight these.
Come here, come here, come here.
Practice, practice.
Okay.
My God.
Where's my DPS meter at?
Uh, we should probably hide the DPS meter for Tyler's sake.
What are you talking about?
I would not show the DPS meter. It's looking bad.
We're all pumped more than you. Are you trolling?
Yeah, I don't think so, buddy.
The tot doesn't work, apparently, you see?
Dude, look at that city behind those guys. What is that?
You don't have tot. Is tot normally at E for you?
I don't know if you're as confused as we were for a second as to how Mr. Bibinos landed
up there in Silver Pine because that's not where he should have been.
However, we have a theory.
We do have a theory.
Perhaps he died to nearby Merlox and he released.
Perhaps something happened before he got on stage.
I don't think someone sabotaged him.
Maybe he sabotaged the group.
But now we're getting a nice emergent situation
in a realistic classic scenario where they have to go rescue
their friend and get them over to the instance portal.
So it's a much more realistic showcase this way, I think.
So thank you, baby, no money.
Yeah.
It's given the, go ahead.
Even with teleporters, even when it's all set up
to everyone, for everyone to be at the dungeon.
There's always one party member who finds a way
to lag behind and then everyone's gotta go get him.
But he has a red sickness, so something, something with that.
Something helped him, something happened.
It might not be his fault is what we're saying.
No, yeah, 100%, 100%.
But the party will blame him.
I think he'll blame someone.
We'll blame him as well.
I think he fell off like a cliff or something
and took red sickness, that's my theory.
It would be impressive to find a cliff nearby here,
But if someone can, he can find it.
He needs to be a bit careful because he is running through areas
where there are monsters.
He might die again.
He's doing some of his settings at the same time.
So I started to get a little bit worried here.
But hopefully the team is onto it.
You know, I saw the move towards him for a little bit.
But I think that might have just been testing of spells.
They're not actually coming to rescue him.
Oh, he's going to make it.
He should be fine.
It's not too far.
He gave us a fantastic opportunity to see some more
of the rendering changes, Silver Pine looks fantastic
with these shadows.
This zone is alive now.
This is great to run around in.
Yeah, the water I noticed as well is very glittery.
Very, yeah, the reflection in the water looks way different.
Wait till you see the waves in the water.
Ooh, I'm excited.
We share some of these beautiful views all the time.
Places look so beautiful now.
Every zone.
And there is a deep dive tomorrow
to go into this in more detail.
So if you're a fan of all these rendering changes, come by tomorrow and see some of that.
Okay, I'll sign me up for that for sure.
I mean, it's so nice also to see their reactions to, you know, like Zarya's face when he's looking at the talents, maybe no money space when he was reading the Druid talents.
He made it though. He's getting closer.
He made it, but he's leaving. He doesn't want to be the dungeon anymore. He just wants to go explore.
We're the rest of the team somebody help this man.
Maybe he's just timing out the rest sickness, you know, just
with the Explorer for a 50 or so more seconds.
I think he's looking for the entrance, but we're getting there.
We're getting there.
He's getting a little bit of an assist there.
And then hopefully he can find that entrance.
They're also not bounded in any way to this place.
If he wanted to, he could just run across as our office.
That would be great.
All right, he is making his way into this dungeon right now, so let's see what our creators
have to say as we go back to them.
All right, game, gamers, let's fucking play!
Hell yeah!
Let's go!
Go, Conn, baby!
Let's go!
Let's go!
Oh, God.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
I'm sorry.
I will maintain, but do you like hold up and I pick it up?
Ooh.
I could
Do you want to do some CC or
I got a Polly? Give me a Polly. What are these?
Falling roost?
Pull the big boy back
Should I charge? Should I charge?
Wait! I'm shooting with my bow! I'm shooting with my bow!
Anywhere are you?
Where are y'all?
Hey! Get no thread! Get no thread!
Yes, I did! I have no thread!
Okay, okay, okay
Anything, anything
Wait, my eyes are wrong
What are you doing?
I'm a pain in the leg.
What are you doing?
What are we doing?
I'll excuse you.
Where are you going?
I'm going to pick up the thread, dude.
I have it.
I have it right now.
Wait a minute.
Right here.
Right here.
Turn around.
What are you looking for?
Where we are?
Yeah.
Uh...
We're forced to die.
We're forced to die.
Let's get it.
Wait.
Where is he?
How about a different instance?
He's in a different instance.
Wait, is he not?
I didn't reset anything.
Why are we claiming me?
I think we need to get out.
Everybody get out.
Everyone get out.
That's easy.
That was good.
I start with charge to get range.
And then I swap.
Charge in. Always charge in. That's the best idea.
we guys energy leaf oh my gosh the water water looks gorgeous yeah so pretty
well wait yeah I'm in it now okay so should we reach my god it is actually
so pretty um yeah yeah we should be able to what are these things what are
these things called sir no do we all get them answers I see baby okay
Oh, we're good. We're good.
Okay, now we can start.
Amazing. Let's play this game.
Okay, let's go.
Wait for me, Mark. Be patient. Stop rushing us.
Is there any point waiting?
If you weren't tanking anyway.
I was taking, you clown!
Here.
Do you need to take a second to put it, or...
It's fine. Just forget it, bro. Just forget it.
I'll just get a full brute force.
Alright, I got a lot.
Sure.
Thank you. I'll get you back in.
Yeah, you're good.
All right, let's ride.
Oh, wait up.
I'll go take a sneak peek down here.
No, stop spoiling. We can't see it yet.
Hey, I'm a rogue. That's what I do.
All right.
Ooh.
I mean, we're really going to add a sprint.
Should we go around, I think?
Probably when I think.
Like this one?
I think you shot Paul.
We're pulling something. We're pulling something.
Yeah.
Come on, that's a nice trick.
Yo, can you do this? Okay, focus the big guys, the big guys.
Here's more bodies, keep out of the lines.
Our tank will pick it up, don't worry.
Yeah, that's good.
How do I clean? How do I go?
Yeah, I'm gonna mark a skull, guys. We'll take the skull.
Good, good, good.
Guys, three people have aggro.
Taking the skull.
Normally the tank is supposed to take the hits, is that helpful?
I keep getting interrupted.
My whole life is ruined.
I have to right now.
Up, up, up, up, up, up.
It's a higher quality.
You can give it a shot.
Hang on, let me check my binds.
Undead college.
I
Hang on let me check my vines
Yeah, I need to find it
Thank you. I was just checking to see if there's anything good and there wasn't so it's all good
Okay, which way
I think we should pull this oh it pulled it pulled I report you
Take damage, take damage, take risk.
That's off.
Yep.
Watch your right, bro. Watch your right.
That's... good.
They gave me add-ons.
Nice.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, need, need, need, need, need, need, need.
Oh my.
I need, I need.
Yes, that's my best, you know all pass because I don't care about Lou
Hold it by yourself!
Oh, here it is, here it is!
What the heck?
Oh, you were looking at me!
You were looking at me!
Oh, man.
Do you need that back view one?
Huh?
You need that cloak view one?
Oh, do you want it?
Yeah.
How do I access my back here?
Here, I got you.
Oh.
Oh.
I'll drop it, I'll drop it.
Had a boss in the middle?
Oh, I forgot to drop the destroyer.
That's crazy.
That is crazy.
I'll pull, I'll pull.
Okay
I think that's a boss
I think that's the boss
I
Will distract guys don't worry about it. Hey, damn it. Look at the meters. Look at the meters. Wait, do we have meters wait?
Okay, I'm gonna look at it. I need to look at them. Oh, you're you're on the meter somewhere
here.
Oh, fuck.
You gotta lock it.
Cancel the mate.
What is this, um...
I don't understand why I don't have...
I'm so good at taking.
You're doing great, man.
Wait a minute, is this a gauntlet?
Are they spawning more? He's saying moves, we need more.
Oh, it could be. Here's the next one.
so maybe we gotta hit this guy first oh I fucking have many talking so many
charge in I'll talk in maybe pull him back like you should bone pull him back
okay give me a second okay I'm pulling yep okay
I'm taking the boss, but we only have one take here.
I heard you got a little lost what happened I died pretty early on when we
had to afk to go do our dope walkouts oh don't need it but I'm needing it
I
Yeah, I died pretty early on and had to walk back like nice beautiful classic vanilla wow experience and
Now I'm at the bottom of the DPS charts because all of these guys
Don't fucking bleed. So it's just the way it goes. I guess
I'm getting interviewed here here, but my guy my guy looks like a bird
He looks sick.
He's fucking beautiful.
Yes, alright, I'll let you get to it. Good luck.
Thank you.
Very good.
Can we start your tanks on the small ones?
No, I'm a Thunder God.
They can do anything.
What do you want me to do?
I don't know, Thunder Clap is good.
Thunder Armor, auto attacks, heroic strike, taunt, AOE taunt.
Anything, any button.
Fine.
Oh, I have more stuff
Good call
Like we're playing hardcore. Yes, but I my buy it's a little bit weird. Oh, I'm doing fine
We want to go up here or do we want to go let's go up here
Yeah, I mean, where's the where we supposed to go? We don't know. I have no idea someone pull someone pull someone pull
Have to do a big pole
You can try it.
Are they able to talk?
I don't have any A.O.E.
Yeah, I have nothing either.
I'm just backstabbing things.
I have a...
I have...
I mean, I could probably handle everything
if we want to do a big pull.
I'm down.
I mean, I'd be down if we want to try.
I can all deal with that.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no.
Ooh, I'm out of mana, man.
I need a second.
Get better.
You really just pulled three
and Zarya was tanking two of them.
Ha ha ha.
Sorry, we're only AoE.
So, oh, I need that, guys.
Oh, this is great.
Yeah, I need that.
Let me think.
I think they're respawning.
We should go up here.
OK.
I'll pass that.
Yeah, man, I'm sorry.
Did you say they're respawning?
I'm like half-manned right now.
All the skitties, yeah.
I think through this corridor should be a boss, maybe.
All right, we saw that.
First boss, we're seeing this sewer area.
Jade, tell us a little bit more about that.
First, I want to highlight how slow they're taking this.
They are properly respecting the dungeon.
They're being nice and cautious.
I hope they don't get a little arrogant
and start getting a little bit faster upstairs,
or we might see some danger.
But to your point, it is full of necromancers,
full of people doing things that you're not supposed
to be doing in Dalaran, which is obviously
why they're in the underbelly.
But we saw one boss summoning some skeletons,
had Thrash, which people are always a fan of Thrash.
Unholy frenzy, Cluelesscraft 3 spell that's made its way back.
Now they're navigating up, down to the streets.
And there is a little bit of secret stuff down here, which they won't get to see, but
for the Horde fans, there is something unique to them and another dungeon that is nearby.
There's usually only a couple of dungeons nearby, so people can probably figure out what dungeon
I'm talking about.
It also has a bed.
It's in a big castle.
It's got some cool stuff.
Is it behind a portal?
Oh, they're all behind portals.
Fair enough.
Yeah, no.
Yeah, that was a great question actually.
Yeah, I know. Yeah, that was a big question actually. I think so far, they are taking it
cautious, they are taking it nice and slow, but I feel like right now they're building
up confidence. Yeah. And I think knowing some of these players, not going to mention any
in the names, but they can get a bit of a confident and the great
achievements and all of a sudden we might see them decided to do like we're
starting to see already, you know, it's looking a little bit sketchy there.
Yeah, we're seeing some health bars move. Yeah, we're seeing the health bars move already.
I think they're gonna go for a little bit bigger poles and and I think
I think actually the group that we have here is actually a really nice mix.
Do you have some offensive players in this group?
Like the Gold Ripper cluster?
Can you have the, you know, like, usually with a little more tactical, a little more
part-hips?
I was like, so we'll see if they get a little bit of the side with you.
I was really excited to see David and I money immediately clock the blades.
Yeah.
The blades, because we, in Well Forever, we're typing in the UDs very seriously.
Mechanical cleat just don't bleed, elemental don't bleed, you'll see soon that Arcane enemies are immune to Arcane damage, fire element is immune to fire damage, etc.
And because maybe nobody's a Pharoah dude, it's probably because I'm a Scrooge.
Which is funny for us, but maybe not for him.
He will have his time to shine. It's not right here, but it'll happen soon.
No, but everything in Sheep Blood too.
a little bit of the sewers. People who've seen this in Wrath, there's something special to
this room that is only here right now. They've probably recognized it on the ground.
I think most people generally look at the instance portal in the water. That's usually
a big highlight, but uh-oh. Oh no. Oh my gosh. The first deck and down goes Zarya. No ice
cold. That's crazy. What? Oh, that's a full vibe. The victor is me. What are you talking
about? What happened here? What did they just walk into here? I think, exactly like
you said, I think they got confident. They walked into a room that they weren't prepared
for and it got the better of them. It is a pretty sketchy room. It's a little
dicey there's a couple of holes nearby
if only he could have done that in Sunket Temple
oh actually I love that boss thing afterwards
which is on the temple for the entire mechanic
just trying to knock you into like the little hole
that was actually the first boss I ever worked at
really?
I love that
I thank you
I love that we need divers or debt groups that we need to use for.
There's more there, yeah, like a little like homage.
All right, do you feel like you're leading your team to victory right now, Tyler?
Well, number one, I'm getting grieved by Yuzaro and Goose here.
You said, you said, let's talk, let's hear it.
I'm the one grieving.
I'm taking half the group and our tank is sitting there just motion out.
That's his plan, man.
He's AOE, Agri, everything.
What is he going to do?
Living by the way he makes his money from this game
All right
I'm gonna leave you to it. All right. I just made things worse
Oh my gosh.
Do you want me to tank?
No, I don't want you to tank.
I'll tank. I'll tank.
This is better already.
Yeah.
Better?
No, Bob.
I'm slow.
Okay, so maybe we have Tyler pull one pack back at a time?
I feel like I'm probably too about to say anything here.
Yes, I'm not.
Yo.
Bro, can you battle shout?
Oh, I don't want to battle shout.
You must have battle shout.
Yeah, I need some box too.
Yeah, battle shout.
No, Andy, definitely can't be with a salve because we might need that.
I'll get Kings, dude.
I'm gonna just side-tag.
We have potions as well in your back, so that's a good one, Chick.
What?
That's fucking crazy
All right
You saff star I will sheep
Moon are they changed are they all changed and then yeah, they are there
Yeah, I'll see moon and then we kill skull and X can you handle that Tyler you get skull and X on you
That doesn't break still
I'll sheep, I'll sheep. Alright, go go go go. Skull next, skull next.
I'm on Skull 3. Yeah, yeah. I'll take X.
Onto the X. Okay, now we're working together. There we go.
That's my guy. There we go. Alright, easy clap.
We're gonna get a charge off. And it missed.
Look at him, he's like, this is way better now.
He's been Tyler's hanking. That's crazy.
I think we just nuked down the necromancer and skew the skeleton skew is spawning, yeah.
Oh this two tank thing is a lot better.
I'm doing the same amount of damage, so...
That's a state bearer, it's fine.
Thank you, Dungeon.
By the way, level?
Level of all?
Oh.
Ha!
Come on!
Damn, the microphone, please!
You're too crazy!
That's for God's sake.
Oh, there's so much air in there!
I don't think there's any bosses here but there's like this little ritual, I'm not sure what it is.
We gotta do something with this later.
I don't think we can activate anything in here so maybe we just keep checking.
Tyler needs to repent.
Huh? What is this portal below in the water?
What?
Yeah, there's like a weird.
Alright guys, I know you're all
totally enjoying this particular room,
but you just shared something with us.
We want to share with the BlizzCon
crowd as well, and that is it is a
secret there is something special about
this room, but they did not figure it out,
and that's OK. We had some laughs at
their expense, but.
You don't put stuff in a place for no reason.
So there is something about that room
that they didn't get to figure out,
but you get to play with wherever you
get the chance to go figure it out yourself.
Yeah, so they're just wasting their time right now. Oh, yeah
For the first time so we don't know, you know, what is the point?
I had an idea they were gonna go down that way and I was like, oh, it's kind of a dark tunnel and I assumed after they had
wife they would you know you know it we had our fill let's go somewhere else quick
persistence they are persistent the cons are a little intense as well I think
they're feeling the difficulty right now yeah they're playing a little loose in
the hallway too there's a lot of patrols coming around here we're not careful
We're in the same situation they just were in.
Pension's already a little high.
Yeah, yeah.
The person will step back.
Just be careful.
I'm sad.
I mean, obviously there's a lot of ops ahead,
but what else is maybe ahead?
Potentially more set for them.
They will fortunately get away from the un-dead, finally.
So look at the sea, Dalaran, in a proper, beautiful form.
I think people who know the streets will see some unfamiliar things, which will be exciting for everybody in the crowd.
I want to ask you something, actually.
In the Rack Battle, there's a giant crow for that.
Yeah?
Is that it, Mary?
That thing's gonna be crazy.
You think I would forget that?
No way, actually. The cock is there.
There's a couple of little goodies that are from Rack that we've brought back.
We've curated them a little bit to make them fit in the world and everything,
everything, but there's some special things hidden all around here.
Now, just in the gun, we're in the city itself.
This place is a treat.
The amount of jump scares that gets given me, I'm excited.
I'm excited to see that.
I hope they went into it.
Oh, we get our first shot of them coming out of the sewers.
Round of applause, maybe.
I'm going to check the landing wing first.
Big five.
Maybe not.
And now they get to explore.
This is a good opportunity to show like how open this dungeon is.
It's not a linear experience.
You kind of get to go wherever you want, curate your own experience.
If you want to go from the beginning straight to the end, you can.
You can do that.
If you want this to be a fast 20-minute experience, we've got you.
If you want to kill a ton of bosses and really take your time, we've got you covered.
Well, I think let's hear back to what the air plan actually is and see where they're going to be headed.
Yeah, I know, taking all the damage.
All my poisons.
Can anyone see, guys, I need to refresh my poisons.
Oh, that boss looks sick.
Damn, alright.
Okay, I'm ready, guys.
I charge in.
Yeah, whenever our main tank is ready, I'm there.
Let's go!
I will say this.
Feels a lot easier than, uh...
Wait, guys, am I...
Oh, Brad!
Oh, level 30!
Oh!
10 hours. Let's go.
Guys, am I staying?
Can you see, like, mountains in the way distance, Spectre?
Oh, yeah, that looks so good!
Somebody actually leveled this character up
by 10 hours every time.
Oh, that is...
Those mountains are really cool. Oh my gosh
That's so sick. Oh
the texture of upgrades
Really nice super pretty. We could probably take them outside of that barrier
The bubble is, uh, bad.
Can we pull it?
Reflection shield.
Extra pat?
Oh, pull one of that, Thunder.
What?
I don't like it.
Go out of the bubble.
Oh, wait.
Yeah, there we go, there we go.
Yeah.
Man, we got the charge off, too.
Yup.
At the offset.
Oh, okay.
Right. Upside.
Nice.
Nice.
Lobbs controlled back, so maybe we want to wait or...
Yeah, do they?
Okay, there we go.
They're moving.
Okay, so we're hitting the skull, or the mob?
I'll walk the skull.
Probably get the trash first, yeah.
Yeah, let's go.
Let's go.
Someone pulled.
Oh, it's fine.
Oh, does it cast her?
Can we interrupt her?
I got it, I got it.
Oh, they're immune. Someone else needs to.
Wait, hold on. Maybe I can keep them.
I'll try. Arcade immune.
Oh, sure.
I'll just get her on it.
I'll kick it. There you go.
Oh, gosh.
Get in the big guy, right?
I'm hitting everything.
On him.
Yes.
Good job, Eddie.
You had great deals, you did a great job keeping it up.
Wow, this is impressive.
I'm serious.
The end is crazy.
Great tanking, Tyler.
Thank you.
I wonder what happened to the doll that we are...
I guess...
Nice.
Okay.
Alright, let me...
What's wrong here?
Alright, let me start with Charged.
You don't know what it does, right?
I think if there's any big bubbles, just move out of the...
Alright, you know, everyone's flashed to ants?
All those ants?
Oh, those are good.
Ants?
Oh.
Ants?
here. Oh, hey, hey, hey. Nice. There.
Go on. Oh, I'm here. I'm here. I'm here.
Immediately pull threat. Watch here.
Oh, no. Wait, what was that? He's doing something.
Oh, not you. Oh, oh, oh. Okay, don't get hit by that.
We see how much damage it does actually put off
This is going great guys keep it up
for science rookie mistake is you on
believe it felt like it was a lot of
that's a lot of that's not a three
extra damage any I don't know yeah I
don't know that doesn't count I'm
passing on this one
I'll pass to right hello I'm sneaking
it again. Hi, Annie. How are we doing? Sorry I didn't hear you. How are we doing? Good.
How are you feeling? A little bit nervous, but excited. Nervous. This game is making
you nervous? No, but I like to know everything and there's so many things. That's very
anti-coded, yes. Say that again. It's very anti-coded to want to know everything. Yes,
it is. I like knowing everything. So it's going to take a bit of time, but we're
getting there. Do you think you're going to approach this game like in a completionist
as well. Oh yeah. Yeah I looked at the interface there's achievements so 100%
achievements coming again. What's your class called? My class? Yeah what are you
playing right now? I'm playing Paladin. Paladin Paladin. Okay I didn't know if it was like a
special current in Paladin. I'm learning this alongside you guys. How do you
feel about it so far and while forever? I feel good. My heels are feeling good as long as Tyler is not the one tanking. Fair. Okay.
Thank you. All right. Good luck. Thank you.
As you hear, so I would assume I got to go towards like the big areas in
Dalaran. So maybe like the bang or like the, I guess like the big pillar, like
where the big, you know, like the mages are. Yeah. I have no idea where the
bosses are, but I will assume they're at the big areas in the zone, like in
the dungeon. Wait, should I have like shield bash or something to cancel? Uh, yeah. She'll slam.
You guys have... Oh, I would be using aura. Zero damage, zero damage, zero damage. Thank you.
All these little guys. I could scout if you guys want me to. Yeah, yeah, go scout, go scout.
Yeah. Okay, yeah. Oh, okay, there's a big boss in the middle, but I think we're gonna take
down a barrier. There's probably like a couple mini bosses in the last one. Oh yeah. There's
some wall lamps that we can click. Wall lamps? Yeah, right over next to me. Next to these
green things. Yeah, I think we're going to activate those lamps. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's
I'm sick.
Someone pulled, guys.
Oh my god.
Yeah, we got it, we got it. Focused a little green, guys.
Maintain problem.
I have a... Listen to this!
Listen to this!
I'm drinking. I'll be ready in a minute here.
you're drinking I'm drinking all right I think I'm ready now
I'll go with flame strike combo
hey it went very well look at this guys I'm gonna crazy aggro here teamwork makes
the dream work guys ever doing a pretty good job
I don't do enough damage this low-level I don't know
I'm looking at him right now. You actually don't have meters on your screen at all
You're actually you're more you're more than our healer
What do these guys do these majors bring the barrier down
Wow.
So we can ask them to take down the barrier.
Oh shit.
We probably have to kill all the bosses before this one.
Oh, safe travel.
Now we've probably got to just walk around.
Down?
Alright, let's pull.
Okay.
I'm gonna go right side.
I'm gonna go right.
Watch out for this room though.
Alright, there's a lot of them.
Alright, I'm charging.
Arcing the NICMA.
Is that a boss or...?
All right.
Let's get back there.
Let's just start pumping here.
Is there an ability to dodge something?
I don't need power.
But I can.
Oh.
Good job.
All right, let's go next.
Something's on there's a bomb.
What, okay.
Send Ignite, the HV is pretty low.
Sorry, sorry, I'm sorry.
My bad, oh, catch it easy.
Sorry!
I think I see a lot of lava in this dungeon.
Yeah, there's like too many.
I got the loot over there.
What are you looting for?
What?
I was tracking, I was tracking.
Is anything good?
There's nothing good.
Yeah, thank you, what's it mean?
The meters need our support to check the meters.
So above.
Oh, you're not.
Whoa!
Whoa!
Whoa!
Five stamina.
That's absolutely the same card.
That's actually pretty good.
Yeah.
All right, I'll get you if you need it.
What else is going on in this loot, man?
We need some mage loot in here.
All right, let's kill this guy over here on the right.
Come on.
What is going on with this loot, man? We need some mage loot in here.
Alright, let's kill this guy over here on the right.
Yep. Going in?
Yep.
I'm going to be playing here.
Nice in here?
Yep.
I'll be right there.
Oh, they have a big silence.
Whoa.
That's a 10 second silence. That's crazy.
Yeah, boss.
It's not an ass as well.
Nice. Big lizard, big lizard.
Yeah, I got aggro instantly.
You're fine, we have a healer, it's one little mob, you'll be fine.
It happens to Blizzard, brother.
I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it.
Do we focus the big guys in?
Yeah, I'm just spreading damage everywhere, I got it.
Battle shot it?
I have a wand here, good damage.
I'll take Venomorph.
I'm a pick.
Ooh, I'm silenced.
I'll try to get these off you.
Yeah, that would be heavy ideal. At least one of our tanks
That's nice that's real nice. Oh, they're spawning more little dudes. How about we kill the big one first?
No, I just thought of that right now
Oh, I'm silent, you're good
You like that?
Here, here, I'm silent
This guy's actually tough
I'm gonna die
Yeah, I'm back, no, no, no, no, you good?
I was high
Nice
I started with Eggro and he died with Eggro
What?
Spirit and attack power
I'm just saying I haven't seen a single item all right we're going straight
Yeah
I'm trying, I'm trying!
Wait!
Stand up, stand up!
Stand up, the thing ever works!
Oh, they fought it!
I feel like I'm thinking of the ground!
Just stand right here!
We're not having any airwaves!
Oh, purple light!
What the fuck?
Yeah, I understand that they're...
They're not having any airwaves!
Oh, purple light!
What the fuck?
Yeah, I understand what they're saying.
Oh, really?
Oh!
Oh!
That's great for you!
Amazing.
It's really good for our pallet, yeah.
Yeah, I think that's really good actually.
Go straight.
Yes.
Wait, did you scout this already?
No, but I think we're going to keep going up and up that big staircase over there.
Yeah, I think we have to do all the zones and the final thing in the middle.
Yeah, makes sense.
This is like a really good parallel, like, dungeon.
There's a lot of mobs in this place.
Yeah, tons.
Oh, we can talk to her.
Oh!
I think we gotta talk to all four, and then they bring the barrier down.
Please dispel the barrier.
Okay, I did it.
Want us to dispel it?
Well, I just talked to the guy.
He just did.
Oh, there we go.
There's the barrier down.
Whoa, big hole, big hole, big hole.
Oh, oh, oh.
Okay, coming, coming ahead.
get in the hands now guys, now I'm cooking
yeah he's back
let it ride, let it ride
we'll be fine, not gonna die
this is fine, I'll be fine
wanna go loose?
oh no, easy
We're good, we're good, and he's like a whole man of it.
Yeah, we're chilling.
Yeah, yeah.
This is fine.
Wait, so maybe we're going to kill all the bosses on the side?
Maybe they empower the gun in the middle.
Maybe.
I mean, he's just kind of standing there right now if you want to.
Okay, one on our right.
Oh, that's a lot of healing.
What?
Oh, I need it.
You need it?
Wait, it's a dagger.
I can't use it.
Oh, that's a lot of smoke power.
I need that, I need that.
got it got it got it got it okay thank you blistered
hey are you guys on a different hack fungus?
what are you replacing it?
you're fighting like some little mob
i got some stuff
ooh classic
nice do you want to go this way? there's another big guy over here
that was a weird looking thing
is it gold?
i'm staking cents in there
oh wait wait wait
are you I'm waiting for some a week right here I'm not hitting the little guys
have the little druid guys whatever whatever I'm gonna run up whatever I'm
on the boss bro function so do
I'm potting I'm potting I'm gonna play I'm potting to build the books first
books first books first I got close everywhere
yeah we study whoa whoa whoa oh my god
still blasted
it's shooting it's shooting it's shooting something that's like an AOV yeah
that's the AOV oh it looks 25 yard range you got to like run out how like
There again and we have to run instead of standing as immediately in the center of the
Do you hope?
We're gonna take a lot of damage guys. We're gonna take a lot of damage.
I can't believe this.
Oh, can you like, oh, it's a range thing.
I can't believe this.
I'm a hoomans fuck, I'm hitting with a stick.
So do we want to stay the next one or run out?
We're running out.
Let me know when he's gasping.
I don't have gasping.
Run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run.
They have your breath on purpose.
Oh, shit.
Oh, you're fine.
are five
are we taking it next one?
what?
we got a six, stick it out
I'm pretty human too but
that's what he wants
I'm a dog
I'm a dog
excuse me I can't
I can't heal anything
help!
Oh my god, I'm so low.
What?
Look at that.
Yeah, what the fuck is that?
That's so insane.
Wait, maybe?
Yeah, honestly, Tyler, just throw that out on tank.
That's a ground-tree weapon.
Are we going this way then?
No, this way around here. Come back here.
I think we're going this way now.
I'm drinking again. Give me some time guys.
I'm a mage. I'm a mage. What do you want from me?
You have to drink.
I'm drinking too.
I guess drink up?
Mm-hmm.
W's in chat.
Yeah, I'm fine.
I'm sneaking down here.
Hi.
Hello.
Okay, how's it going so far from your perspective?
I think we're doing great. We're exploring the dungeon.
Trying to figure out where all the bosses are.
are and I think there's like a boss in the middle that we have to like deactivate all the the
empowerment first. How do you feel about your class so far? Rogue seems fun. I'm enjoying it a lot.
There's a lot of different things with like venom and mutilate and a lot of like poison stuff for
assassination which I think is quite interesting. So far it feels good. I'm enjoying it. Okay,
you put a lot of points in assassination in particular reason. I just wanted to try out
the backstab stuff. Usually I would go like sword or like combat for like PvE, but I just
wanted to test out this build here a little bit. Okay, and then thoughts on how the rest of your
team is performing? Honestly, I think we're doing really good. No one is panicking, we're all just
keeping it calm, cool and collected, and I think we're a great team. Awesome, so positive.
All right, love that. I'll let you get back to it. All right, sleep tight. They did something
already. Uh, maybe we can go around? Overpower. Uh. Are you telling the truth? Did you do that?
I was being very positive. I think we're doing great. Yeah, we're actually doing pretty solid.
Uh, should we walk around here or what? We... You guys talk to this Archmage?
No, it has to be... You were supposed to be leading us, or... Oh, my bad.
It says we're here to clean up your mess. Grandness access to the... Okay.
I clicked it. Oh! It's kind of lit.
Oh, yeah, we probably gotta walk around and move up here. Are we going to kill these guys down here?
I don't know. We're going up. We're going up.
You're bare form actually. So good, by the way.
I know it's really pretty. It's so cool. I kind of look like a
it's that guy at like a
Hey, keep walking behind her. Is that a little bear guy?
The door's locked. The door's locked. I knew it would be.
Oh. Oh, no.
Oh, shit.
There's an FBC.
She's coming. She's coming right here. She's right here.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, hurry it up, lady.
Gotta chop chop. We don't got all day.
Hey, thanks. Gonna be on the other side.
A new car? A Lambo?
Oh.
Where's she going?
What about that green guy? Where are we going now?
Can you jump off? Oh, you definitely can. You definitely can.
You were sure that no
I pulled I pulled you pulled
Help down your Shadow
No, no, or you can just take the portal either way, man.
I'll come back.
Wait, no, I have a girl.
Real tank, real tank here.
I'll charge.
The real tank is taking me.
It's great.
Guys, I'm in the sewers right now.
I'll work my way up.
Oh my God.
Here, we're to safety again.
You got me?
You got me?
You got me?
You got me?
You got me?
You got me?
You got me?
You got me?
You got me?
How do you get out?
What in the world?
Oh, God, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Oh, shoot.
Oh, shoot.
Oh, God.
Come on, guys, I'll be here. I'll save the day.
I do no damage, guys. I'm gonna fuck.
Uh...
Oh, we can just take the portal up.
Wait, we should be doing that.
We'll take that up first.
Oh, my God, it healed you.
Oh, why am I getting good?
Annie, where you going, Annie?
Why did you heal the others?
What are you running?
They're fine.
Oh my god, they're switching.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
I'm dead.
Just run, run, run, run, run, run, I'll take the L.
Jump into this one.
Jump into this one.
Get out of there.
Come here.
Oh!
Get out of the line, guys.
Oh, wow!
Look at that.
Pro play.
Holy shit.
Kill, kill, kill.
Hey, put that gun back this way.
What do we do?
I'll be there in a minute, guys, yeah.
Oh, I'm getting hit.
I'm getting hit. Why am I getting hit?
How am I getting hit? What the fuck?
I'm playing here? What?!
How did you get here? Where have you been?
Bro, look at the city from the top.
The penthouse. She was actually sick up there, bro.
I was looking at everything. It was chill.
Okay, so he died, Cousin died, all because you jumped off the side of the building.
Well played, bro.
No, I never died. Our rogue jumped off. He died.
And then you pulled everything. What do you mean?
Yes, I'll vanish
Come on guys log in
So how many mobs are you guys fighting you guys put over there? Yes, it's like four. Okay
Guys we need to get like a full reset. We need to follow the objective of the team. We need to do
where are you bro? I'm running
I'm on my way back
yeah
it's a long dungeon man
where are my heels Annie?
they're mana burning me
more stuff
big more stuff
oh my god
they mana burned me mid cast
I'm here guys
I'm here guys
okay, heal incoming
boy that mana burn is
mine
Come on, Vanna.
Oh, no!
Just let her die.
Whoa! I stayed with you!
That's crazy.
BB died because I stayed with you.
Yeah, 50 meters. I'm pumping.
You're doing a good job.
That's good.
Okay, so are we staying downstairs then?
No! We're going up!
We're going up!
What was that?
Everything.
The continuation is upstairs.
Yeah, it was cool.
Come guys, my poison's one second.
What is this?
There's something in there.
Yo, Andy, do you want to go check that out?
Wait, we have walking in there?
Oh, still looks hectic.
Oh!
Oh shit.
It's a boss, it's a boss, it's a boss!
Wait!
Oh, shade of the arc mage.
Oh, there he is.
Okay, here we go.
Start pumping!
I'm going crazier right now.
Maybe kick, I'll throw a kick.
I'm about to die!
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
I'll pot, I'll pot!
I had a pot!
One pot, and he's gone.
We can take off the pillar so we can light the site to cast if we want.
Or we can just take, we can eat all of them too.
That's fine.
I don't have an intro, I decided not to kill for them.
I think what is this balding manna what does it do?
I put something on the ground.
You're Uub already.
Mass pulleys.
Pulleys!
Pulleys!
Pulleys!
It's fine.
I have bubble.
I have bubble.
It's fine.
I can't play.
Oh god.
Oh god.
Oh god.
Where'd he go?
He sent it.
Oh someone reset the boss by standing outside.
Wow.
Really new mistake. Guys we have to all be inside or the boss resets.
No no, I think that's good.
Oh no no, you did it. Yeah he reset.
What's that?
Tyler pulled a back.
Wait no, Sorrow ran away like a coward.
No no no no no. Everybody inside, come on.
What are you talking about, illilis and running out and stuff like that?
Yeah, sounds like he's going to shoot.
He's part of some game, part of here.
Boom.
I wish I could
Oh really hurts okay it's like a he sent out like a cone
We don't want to stand in a line because he sensed like a thing towards a one person
bounding mana.
Yeah, that hurts.
That hurts.
Okay.
Nice.
Solid.
Aided.
Oh God.
Look at that faster.
I'm ooming.
I'm trying my best.
I mean, yeah.
I'm a battle stance.
Don't forget it.
I literally don't have...
I'm trying my best.
I mean, yeah.
I'm a battle stance.
Don't forget it.
I literally don't have...
I'm trying my best.
I'm trying my best.
I mean, yeah.
I'm a battle stance.
I can't cast anything that's the only thing that really hurts this guy
That's still the trouble.
I'll call it.
Call it, call it.
I'll call it all, Paulie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
At least he gets full mana so he can get his captain stuff.
I have spells.
Whoa, come on.
Hey, what about that?
That's still the trouble.
I don't think it hurts.
Oh, my God.
Got me any?
Oh.
The race looted, huh?
Not really, it was a war.
I mean it's...
Is there any like books?
I have a cure in connection.
A cure, a cure, a cure.
I'm using a two-line letter, so you can take that.
Cure-ee.
Are you fast?
Well, congratulations.
That is a Dalaran City done for them.
Some may say it has also done them,
but we'll see as they jump one more time.
No.
Mr. Invent No Funds, unfortunately,
not going to be making it out of here,
but we are going to be making it out of here because we have other places to go to.
Any final thoughts about Dalaran City from your side, Jay?
I loved how they approached it. I love that there was some danger involved,
their curiosity, they wandered around. A lot of dicey fools, a lot of fleeing a little bit,
maybe leaving their friends behind, but they recovered. It was exciting to see. I love
that they jumped off the purple parlor. That was fantastic. Exactly what we expected players
to do so I'm glad they finally did it. It was an absolute treat to watch them go through this.
Yeah, you just know the loser is, it has to be Guzu who tests that. Like, yeah, I wonder if there's
a wall here or if I can jump. Always finding himself in situations where fall damage is lethal.
But I thought it was, they played well to be honest, they played really well. I think
I think in general, they stuck together pretty nicely and yeah, they got the last boss down.
Who was the MVP though?
Who do you guys think?
Maybe Guzu for me because he did some fun stuff.
It's all about having fun, you know?
You don't have to be the best performer, but he was stealthing around trying to find things.
He was super excited about the ballast.
He was doing exactly what I expect a rogue to actually do inside of a dungeon
So that was for me. He is my MVP and jumping off and dying was fantastic
I think for me, it's gonna be Zarya slow-falling after he jumped up
Yeah, good save pulling off the instance and then
Almost they didn't wipe it. They did not quite but
I mean baby to money was tanking half of the dungeon
So like he kind of carried a lot of the weight. He was doing a lot
Yeah, he was my MVP like it was looking sketchy when it was just Tom cut anything there
It was a lot of mobs hitting Annie baby, no baby. No money. It was he was picking up the slack
You know produce mobs and help him with the healing too. So for me, I was impressed
I feel like Annie was the MVP
Everyone alive even though she was basically constantly monoburned that was very impressive
There were a lot of pulls of air just being constantly burned and I was surprised that they had no deaths than a lot of those
Well, that's it from Dalaran City here, but Rowan, there's another dungeon that we want to showcase to people.
That is the dungeon that people can also play over there in the demo.
Tell us a little bit more about the Drown City.
Well, I'd love to. The Drown City is different from Dalaran and we've talked about the Ruins of Wateron.
These are dungeons where players are familiar with the locations and put a spin on them.
and players could have come in from a new angle.
We tell new stories in a familiar location.
The Drown City is just brand new, brand new location,
completely new World of Warcraft forever.
It is a leveling dungeon, 35 to 40.
At the demo, I think players are 38,
but I think they're a little bit higher today
than the screeners are.
We're going to basically play as venture in
very troll-focused city that's been risen
from the ocean floor.
Oh.
Yeah, it's a bit unusual.
It's off the Western coast in Stranglethorn.
And one of my favorite things about this entire project,
or everything we've done in Welfareva,
is that when we're thinking up a new dungeon,
we're thinking up a lore, thinking up a story we want
to tell, we have to look at the original game.
And we get to kind of pull on these threads
and find things that, you know, stories that
are unfinished or just things that are hinted at.
And if anyone remembers the, I don't actually
name of it but the question strangle from where you have to find these tablets and you read them
you learn these old troll legends there's one that talks about this place it's a city called
bill will lie which i'm almost certainly mispronouncing uh the troll witch doctor who runs it called
meanwhile uh he was at war with the whole plane of water the elemental plane of water which
obviously he lost right uh the city some uh and it plays familiar with the original game
know the vial reef is this little kind of small murloc field place but this is an
extension of that idea we still looked at that we said you know it's a cool
story but it's unfinished what happens next and we've taken that we've run
with it. So yes the vial reef where the elite murlocs are up in the water
kind of in Stranglerhorn Valley I mean I love this I think it's it's always
been like a bit of a mysterious place because you can see even in in the old
WoW that you got these kind of stones there so I'm not sure.
I'm sorry to interrupt you but we're going to be heading over to the stage and
we're going to see a little bit more of the talent setups and here the players
have to say is they're now setting up level 40 characters I believe for that dungeon.
All right, go zoo.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, you're in a duel right now.
Yes.
Yeah.
You beat me.
You went in.
I'm always really.
Well, I want to talk to you a little bit about the road here.
I'm going to give baby no money a little bit of an advantage.
Oh, you like that?
You like you can move with ravager?
I like that. I'm spinning. I can't move that fast though. I gotta cancel it to catch up.
Oh, you are. Wait, where's my spine? Dude, look at the spin though. It's so funny.
Wait, hold on. I got bloodlust. Where's the there? Oh, yeah, we put a personal bloodlust in. We
didn't want to give it to your entire party. It felt like it would be a little too strong.
It would make shaman a little bit too required. So we still felt it was a great thing to have
that roar, that whole like you get larger thing. So how do you feel about that as a 31st talent for
Shaman? I think it's crazy. I mean I think it's good that it's not a whole raid wide because I feel
like relying on the blood plus for everybody is too much especially in vanilla but I mean it can
definitely make enhancement Shaman a lot more viable which I think they definitely will be
looking at these talents. I think enhancement will do very well good now. And I want a little
bit of your feedback on Rogue because you just played that last time. What did you think
about that rogue experience like you have the ear of a designer right now. What is your feedback for that rogue?
Well, can I be honest? Absolutely, absolutely. I don't like that there's no ticks. I like the ticks
personally. I know that there's no ticks on men as well, but I think the rogue feels fun. I think
the the poison stuff will be really interesting to play at 60 as well. It looks like there's
going to be a lot of different rogue specs. They're going to be working now both in PvE and
and PDP, but I definitely do miss the ticks. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Guzoo.
All right, Annie, I want to talk to you a little bit about the Paladin you played last time.
What were you feeling with that Paladin? What's your feedback on it?
It felt pretty good to heal. I'm not normally a main healer, so I may not be the best person
to give the best feedback, but it was good. It was fun to play, and yeah, now I'm excited
to play more paladin as well because as you know if you want to main adps there's always
a time when your friends need a healer right and that's normally when I play paladin so yeah
that was really fun okay and now you're hopping on to the warlock here what's jumped out at you you
looked at those talents just a second ago oh destruction okay okay what's jumping out to you
here uh I want more talents I want more points I mean I think you can go to one of those guys
and respect so you can get incinerate if you wanted.
And the big guys in this area,
they'll also be what teleports you to the dungeon.
Yes, you talk to them and I think there's a respect
available, bottom one, oh, no, no, no, no, don't do that.
That's why they made it a double click.
There you go.
I wish to unlearn.
There you go.
And now, now you can get incinerate.
Perfect, all right.
Also, when you guys are ready, you'll get in a group,
you'll talk to one of these staging area guys
and then they'll teleport you into Drown City.
So once you all get in the group, we'll be good to go.
All right.
Hi, Mr. Frank, the person.
Yeah.
Wait, what?
Hello, baby, no money?
Oh, OK.
How did you feel about Drew at that time?
I saw you tanking a lot.
Yeah, I mean, Tyler is a terrible tank,
so I just have to pick up the slack.
How do you think he's going to do this time with you
healing instead?
I might let him die a couple times, just
for the slack he was pulling.
But no, it was fun.
I mean, unfortunately, everyone doesn't bleed.
So all of my damage was basically negated
because I don't have four-oaches bite yet.
But it was fun.
I actually love the druid.
And I think this chicken is really cute.
It's a nice little travel form.
I wonder, I wonder, yeah, I'm kind of confused
why it's a chicken, but it's really cool.
What if I told you it was a road runner?
That makes sense.
Thank you so much, baby, nobody.
All right, sorry you.
Sorry, my man.
All right, talk to me a little bit about mage.
You just played it.
What's your feedback on the spec you last played?
Okay, so last dungeon I played Frost.
Frost felt really good.
It feels very similar to TBC Frost.
You have Ice Lands.
Oh, cool.
Thank you.
Yeah, we have Ice Lands, which is nice.
The damage felt good, control felt good.
It felt like what you would expect.
This dungeon I'm actually trying Fire.
And I didn't actually realize,
but mages have Frost Fire Vault.
So you can double dip the Fire Talentary
with the Frost Talentary.
similar how you would do in like Wrath or Kata,
which is really, really, really, really fun
if anyone's done that.
In other words, you can like try to get
all of the fire bonus damage from the fire tree
and ice shards and stuff from the frostry.
So I'm really excited to try this dungeon
to check that out.
And yeah, it's been a lot of fun.
So yeah, totally when you can double dip on the ignite
and the ice shards there and get yourself,
the biggest thing I see is get yourself
really big crits, really big ignites.
What do you feel about the new Hot Streak?
OK, so for people that haven't seen the new Hot Streak,
instead of just two crits in a row,
it's a stacking buff that reduces the cast time of Pyro
three times in a row.
So it's kind of like bad luck protection in the sense
that if you get two, if you get one crit,
and then you don't get a crit, and then you get another
crit, then you don't get a crit,
you'll eventually get that instant Pyro, which hopefully
will smooth out the feeling of the RNG of Hot Streak.
So it's pretty nice.
I actually haven't played with it yet,
So I don't know fully, but I feel, but it seems kind of cool.
It seems like it won't feel as bad to knock it a crit.
Yeah, you definitely need a lot more crit.
Classic doesn't have that much crit in it.
So it felt unnatural for us to require two in a row.
Rafa Lich King definitely feels like you get a little higher
in the crit area there.
So we adapted Hot Street for Classic a little bit.
So yeah, now that makes a lot of sense.
Like later in WoW's history, you literally just have
infinite crit, so Hot Street makes sense.
But like early on, I think this is probably
like a better design.
I'll check back with you on how it feels later, all right?
All right.
All right, Tyler.
Tyler, how are you doing, man?
Yeah, I'm going to keep it a bucket.
Don't expect anything from me like that.
I don't know.
I was in a different world.
I'm doing good.
We're having a blast here.
teammates picked up a lot better near the end of that dungeon.
Way too many deaths.
They're playing for fun.
Do you like playing for fun?
I play to win, but.
Absolutely.
All right, so I saw you not
be able to tank much that last time.
Uh, well, I just call it how I see it.
Okay.
Well, he was in bare form a lot.
How do you think about that?
You're rage baiting.
I DPS captain like crazy.
He they're ripping aggro before I had any threat on anything.
That was not on me.
He should have waited for five sunders thing.
They didn't do anything.
So what are you going to do this time to make it better?
Use my buttons.
Press on my stuff.
All right.
Thank you.
And yeah, I recommend defensive stance.
Stop backseating.
I'm fine.
All right.
Thank you very much.
GPS 32, GPS on top of the church right now.
Right guys, we're going to be entering that drowned city very soon.
Tell me a little bit more about the lore of this place, because I know I was cutting you off Seiko,
so let me pick back up and get into that question.
Sure, the lore is one of these cool things, like I was saying, you get to pull on these threads from the original game, right?
And so when we set out to make this dungeon, we looked at the legends from the troll quest
and we said, okay, we've got these characters, we have this setting.
How do we tell the story that comes next?
And so since the city had been flooded and these characters kind of went missing and
they were really interesting characters, we sort of said, you know, what happens
if they just come back up?
The city has been dredged from the ocean's depths to become an island off the coast
of Stranglethorn.
And there's, I'm not going to spoil all of it, you know, there's magic shenet
against the foot, players have to go in here and put a stop to it and investigate to figure
out what's going on.
So there's one thing that I caught in the, like, preview of the dungeon that caught my
eye.
Is it the big shark?
It was the big shark.
So I put a lot of hardcore and that shark is responsible for some unfortunate situations
that I've had to suffer.
What is that demon shark doing in that trailer?
Is that actually something that we're going to see here in the dungeon?
Oh, I'm sure they're going to try it.
They're going to try it.
We have to, right?
Yeah, 100%.
I would want them to try it.
If they're brave enough.
If they're brave enough.
They'll be brave enough.
So that's an actual boss.
Sorry?
That's an actual boss.
Not necessarily a boss.
Oh.
He's a very powerful creature in the dungeon.
But I mean, one of the interesting things about this place is that it's been dredged
up recently.
This isn't like it's been dredged up, you know, weeks ago or whatever.
So creatures that you'd find at the bottom of the ocean are still here and are still alive, and this shark is just kind of caught in a like a bowl in the middle of a cup or something.
Okay.
A poor shark.
I do have an update for you guys, watching and waiting for news on what is going to be happening with that MBI semi-final between mandatory and Team Liquid that we had to push back earlier.
We do have a conclusion for that.
It's going to be happening right after this at 6 p.m.
So make sure you are ready for that.
And we're very excited to see those teams go up
against each other.
But we are going to be hearing from our players right now
and see what they think about their first impressions
in the Drowned City.
You are first, you're pretty first.
You actually are doing two damage, isn't that wild?
Yeah, but I'm very sick.
Look out.
Hey, I am doing nothing.
I made up a build it's not working so yeah I'm like half fire half Ross
Yeah
Now I'm having a blast here of course. I need a two-hand weapon guys
Everybody drink drink your shit
Yeah
Our stop asking to respect but you're not getting favored it. It's okay
Crazy play your bad spec you made by yourself, but okay, I feel like no damage then this is brutal
Ready for chilling. Let's go. Let's go
All give me that ravage a bro come on
It's hard to find over to them is on your magma
Okay, oh
We're spending we're spending we're spending okay
I have a what is it called?
ravager
How did you get that?
I don't know. I don't think so. That's like shaman exclusive
Yeah, I'm gonna start life-tapping but don't panic
Okay, I got it.
I have no aggro.
I have no aggro.
A searing totem.
And then...
Oh!
That never mind, I do have aggro.
I have no aggro.
What is going on with these fireballs?
Oh yeah, I'm running back.
Good, I'm liking Shama.
Oh, okay.
This guy?
This guy?
You're doing so much damage.
It's ridiculous.
Yeah, it's crazy.
I do so much damage, but no aggro.
Hey!
No aggro?
No, I mean, Kuzu!
I think he's doing so much damage, but he's not getting aggro.
Yeah, he's not getting aggro.
The Tartar's holding good, man.
I'm only parsing here.
The Tartar's looking AWP-ing, though.
Fuck off.
The only thing is I'm going oom a lot, though.
That makes sense.
I will say that I feel like Shabbos' breakpoint
is like right around level 40.
Yeah, I'm saying.
Yeah
All right, big juicy deals
That's the boss, right? Yeah, boss. Yep
I will destroy you guys on the meter by the way just the way
Is there any more buffs? Can I mark it arcane? It's a what?
Okay, let's pull
Dude, we're in there
Yeah, they're like so far
Okay, you have no countdown or anything
So my damage is pretty bad here
You're giving me damage!
Oh, I'm spinning, I'm spinning
Actually, I don't think I want to spin on this guy
You're giving me a hundred and eighty
Yeah, that's pretty much it
It's so strong
Okay, nice.
Uh, got an aggro?
Damn!
Woo!
Wow!
What an advantage.
Oh.
Oh.
Read on that.
That obviously...
I like the damage meter actually.
It's really nice.
So much damage, bro.
Oh, the visuals.
I mean, I also like it on top, but like, you know...
Yeah, the damage meter does have a nice UI.
Yeah, it looks good.
My character access baggy thingies
Dude
This looks really cool
Dude look at the shark I see it. Oh my god. I see it. Yeah, water fight
It's level 45
Oh my god
Okay, okay
Okay, follow tell her follow tell her
No way Jose
Good luck. Good luck. Okay
Oh, yeah, I'm down with you guys
Maybe not
Oh
You're taking so much fucking damage. Why is our tank taking literally no damage?
Dude, okay, we're gonna have to we're gonna have to wait until you get a little bit more aggro, bro
It was a very good. I have our team arcane. It's a way. Yeah, I'll get you in a minute, man. I'll get you
I'll get around to it.
No hold on hold on hold on hold on.
I got a trick bro.
Actually now you're good.
I'm spinning.
I'm spinning.
I got aggro.
I got everyone about to come here.
Nice.
Thank you.
I didn't buff you actually.
Everyone else has buffed.
Oh, thank you.
Why are we so salty for heaven and saintees?
You're a warrior, you don't need arcane intellect, man. I was saving my mana.
Wait!
Wait!
Wait!
Wait!
Uh, and not really. You get like weapon skill.
Oh.
Where are we?
Do we look drop down to the shark?
Uh, that shark is level 45 by the way.
You can try.
Alright, I'm dropping down to you these guys up here.
I don't know if we should kill the shark.
Oh, maybe I can make a...
Oh shoot, I can just do this.
Nice.
Yeah?
Are you here?
Oh, he jumped, he jumped.
Yeah, yeah, we're here, we're here.
Oh, shit. Oh!
You never know, I'm not gonna get out of here.
This is rare!
Fuck! We're gonna make a...
Oh, oh!
Oh, that was...
I accidentally used the wrong thing.
Oh, why?
I'm gonna make a street burn.
I'm gonna make a street burn.
I'm gonna make a street burn.
I'm walking in
and you guys look down there, you guys look good, I'll be up here.
Oh, keep it alive!
Thank you!
Oh my...
Oh, we're cooking!
Taking aggro, taking aggro.
Okay, I'm going for the arch.
I'm right about to go.
Yeah, I'm just going up here.
The city's bottom right is in slight, but he can support you.
Wow, I was thought he's making that happen.
No, I passed a thing, like a late path, racial passive.
He's like, walk on air.
Oh, sick.
Is it like a cast?
We have another mob up here, another mob up here.
Oh yeah, okay.
Oh, it's a Ramov, it's a Ramov.
Yeah, super rare, super rare.
No one's ever killed this one.
It's a mega rare, okay.
I'm really enjoying Hans from Chummin.
No loot?
No loot?
No loot?
What the fuck is this?
Lizard.
I don't know.
Left or right?
Let's just keep following the route.
That's the way you're going though.
Alright.
We have 10 minutes.
10 minutes.
10 minutes.
10 minutes.
You wanna kill the shark?
Kill the shark right here.
Let's just play one more battle.
Okay.
You want to kill the shark?
Let's play one more battle.
We're going shark, we're going shark.
I bought a shark.
I'm kicking the guy in the back.
Dude, Druid healing is so much more fun than Feral.
Are you level? Oh my lord.
Dude, you're doing good as well.
I'm surprised I kept this alive last time.
I think we're doing very well.
It's insane how much damage you're doing at the zoo.
Yeah it's like ridiculous.
Hansboschammann seems very strong, he's very nice.
Okay, he's already a bit of a man before we go, I have like no other.
I wonder if all of the fish are going to aggro.
uh...
breaking up there
but if you do is uh... so i can say we have a right
but there's still uh... epic
well that's for the elite year
i think we could jump in kill a fish or two and then
kill the shark
just stay in the corner
just wait here
wait do you want to kill these bottom fish?
yeah i'm here i'm here
i'm in i'm in i'm in
wait wait till it pass
okay we're good
all the shark all
Let's kill these little ones here.
Have I got to breathe, you guys?
I hate, I hate swimming in this game.
Why?
I don't know, it's a weird thing to do.
Okay, these are dead.
We go up here and then we go to the city center.
Yep, have a drink?
Oh yeah?
Nice.
Time is literally ticking man, we don't have time for this.
Wait, I can just buff you guys.
How do you, how do you want to back up there?
We are in combat.
Okay, the shark is going to come around soon. Are we going to pull him?
Yes, we're pulling.
Okay, are we actually pulling him?
Yes, bro.
Here, we got this.
Okay.
We have a copy of the best tank in the world.
Okay, okay.
Oh my god, he's level 45. We're not going to hit anything.
Okay, okay, okay.
Pull it, pull it, because our pull hit me. You want me to pull?
Pull it, pull it, pull it, pull it, pull it, pull it, pull it, pull it.
Pull it pull it.
Oh I got it I got it get it off me get it off me.
Oh god missing spells.
Fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this.
Shit!
Shit!
Oh my god!
I'll keep you calm.
I got one shot.
Oh!
Our tank is troll-
Oh my god this is a big shark!
Goosoo do something!
What do you mean Goosoo do something?
Wait.
Hold on.
I think you're good.
I'm good.
I'm not in combat anymore.
You know, Gooshies just die.
Thanks.
Oh, good shot.
Oh, good shot.
Oh, it's good.
It's good.
Gooshies are going to shoot first.
Oh, get up!
Oh, get up!
Ah!
Ah!
Well, oh my god.
Take anything wrong!
Here.
Ah!
Thank you.
Thank you.
Oh, shit.
Oh, shit.
Oh, shit.
Oh, it's gone.
Oh, no, no, good.
Oh!
Nice.
Oh, my god.
I'm goaded with the sauce.
I'm goaded with the sauce.
I'm goaded with the sauce.
Wait, why did you die? How did you die?
I don't know, I told you, I missed, I turned around this tail smack me, I was dead.
I thought you probably didn't get a horrible pull I think.
We need more gear, more skill, more keybinds,
kind of more everything. Let me just pre-daunt you.
And then, do we have a... No we don't.
I'm pressing, I'm pressing, I'm pressing. Wait, where are you?
Uh, where are you? I'm a little out of here.
Yeah, I was actually doing stuff, kiting the boss and doing the mechanics properly.
Oh, I see, I see, I see.
I got one shot!
Oh, shit!
Shield wall!
Shield wall!
Shield wall!
Let's go!
Yeah, it was down, I'm sure it was.
Oh, you got him!
Yeah, I got him.
Wait, wait, don't rest, don't rest, don't rest.
Wait a bit, wait a bit.
Tell me when, tell me when, tell me when.
You can do it now.
You can.
Anyone want to tell them?
Oh yeah, give it a...
I can't want to tell her.
Anyone else want to...
All right, how y'all doing?
We back.
The alarms had sounded off.
The end and the beginning is near.
born in the morning, good morning.
Oh, God, you guys got to the Tyler one shit, huh?
Thank God I woke up.
Oh, God, I thank God you woke up.
I'm gonna lose my fucking mind man
Praise Jesus, praise Jesus
Good morning, but there we go.
He's her route to Annie.
That's what I was saying bro.
I'm like dude man you gotta chill bruh.
She pregnant.
You need to calm the fuck down.
You can't be getting her fucking blood pressure up while healing.
My man tried to tank fucking dungeons and shit and like full battle stance.
I was like what are you doing?
him like, took him like 50 minutes to figure out to hit defensive stance.
And the sad part is he wasn't pretending.
Missed a wild chat an hour or two ago. Oh no. What do you mean?
I
In our two
this tally you have to choke a bitch
Some dude can tell you about women in a cinematic being femslop, okay?
It is possible that the bear in the cinematic for forever was in fact the female bear.
It is possible.
I don't like it.
My emote's back.
Oh, this one here.
There we go.
There we go.
probably get my emotes back oh yeah today's my chill day after we do our
little sponsor stream today
I
Fucking drop a thong so long it has to be broken up into two pieces. Anyway, let me go do my showering and shit
I mean shit and shower
Let me wake up
Gonna do a couple of dailies and shit and then get it to our a Nemo
Stream and then we get the rust I
Know I know tell you but don't go. I'll be back. I'll be back
this name was dab a mate 420
makes perfect sense
makes perfect sense
dab a mate 420
the lord
I
Got anyway
I'm a headset on is the music on for you guys
Should be a little louder something music
Carry you and get you through the morning. All right, cool. All right, let me go do my shower. Good morning. I'll be right back
Sanctuary, St. St. Claude, Sanctuary, St. St. Claude.
All right, all that's left to finish off the fantastic warning is some kind of...
Oh, that was a good shower.
This is the Tyvan Mountain.
It's from, uh, this is Dragon of Flight Meta.
It's a good old boy.
I'm glad they reverted his size to being big.
I think it was big, right?
And then they made it small and then they made it big again, I guess.
Good boy, Typhon.
Good boy.
Oopsie.
I am on the Illidan server for though someone last a little bit ago there.
So, we can finish this up yesterday, right?
Get a large ship, maybe get a large ship.
Don't even like DK, they get my Kaffee.
Give me Kaffee.
Oh, this looks good to relax today.
I'm probably not even going to be at the computer all day, bro.
It's gonna pay some bills and watch some fucking TV
Just like relax a little workout
To I've actually lost half a pound during this drop-a-thon, which is weird. I thought I thought it would have gained weight, but
It's like when you go on vacation you come out for vacation
and you know you're gonna weigh like 80 pounds fucking heavier than you are so
you don't even check the scale for like a week you know that's what I do you know
yeah betas tomorrow they still haven't released a time frame right
by the way we are going to be on the horde side on beta so
So once I settle in and do what I gotta do, I'm gonna figure out how much it costs to
make the guild which is probably the same as Vanilla and then head to, I guess, Undercity?
I guess head to Undercity and make it happen.
Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
To be fair, every time I played Classic, I was Alliance, so I'm just saying it's
my turn yes because I just woke up and I'm getting my coffee and I haven't started yet
if it's this dark see there's three levels of dark in this channel this is the I just woke
up dark and I'm not ready to turn on the lights because I haven't sent out my Twitter
message saying hello to everybody and there is like the damn but you can still
see me but not fully light that is after 6 p.m. at night after I spent the
entire day in the light and then there's the light
at three three three levels three levels three levels
That's it.
We're going dark, boys.
We're going dark.
You just got the Ulutec.
go in dark, go in dark
let's just take one more thing
caffeinations and hydrations
D-Arc
refreshing
Time to clean the glasses.
Who's ready for tomorrow, dawg?
Yeah, the new race is neutral, by the way.
The blue people, they are neutral.
Okay, I'm ready to I'm ready and then I have to go read tonight. That's my night
Small price to pay I say small price to pay
We're not many other guilds out there are gonna be like cancelling Thursday night raid I
Sure as hope hope we fucking don't cancel
I'll kill these fucking bosses, bro.
Because the faster we kill these bosses, the faster we can play more forever, you know what I'm saying?
I'm not even going to send a hello twitter this morning just because after the sponsors
Streaming like an hour. We're gonna be done. I get the rest up for my nana
Lo and behold, don't you worry tomorrow morning, baby
We gonna be up
We gonna be up 5 a.m. Sharp, you know, just give it all you have no idea when those servers are coming up like at all
I mean anybody treated like a regular beta
Like most betas don't even have a time for while even like retail betas like they just services come up whenever really
Like if the servers are ready to come up at 9 in the morning
They'll just come up at 9 in the morning if they're having issues
They'll wait so you know like the following day or whatnot
for you probably around midnight for you guys more than likely I mean it's
definitely not the servers are going to open up at an early time for you
Yeah, it'll probably be like 3 o'clock, because 3 o'clock is like normally their normal classic
server opening rate of shit most of the time.
There's a saying for Classic Plus, ask 10 players what they want and get 11 different answers.
I love that they're buying into it, you know?
I love that they do recognize that they cannot actually take any of those like crazy surveys,
like, you know, serious.
They probably do take the survey somewhat seriously, but they probably don't say,
Okay, you know
We got to do this this this because they said we need to do this this this but hold on these guys don't like this
This this so what do we do? Whatever the fuck we want apparently
They want to approach design this game from a mixture of having an ear to the ground
Things that they're reading on social media hearing from their gills
Etc to determine what they want to do if they can get 80% of what most
Almost everyone is looking forward that it's a success
It did that with Transmog and HCSD Toggle so that it's your classic plus as much as possible.
SOD was a seasonal experiment mode.
It was always designed to be a pheromole.
A lot of stuff is likely not coming to a forever game mode.
There are probably around 3,000 to 3,500 actual quests in original WoW.
They're adding 1,000 more quests.
are four new zones with between 50 to 200 quests each. Wetlands and Ashara got
many new quests from the little five onwards. You're going to start seeing new
stuff. Original World of Warcraft has many quests that are super memorable and
iconic likely because they explored a world that are relatable level. The
goal for the new zones is to feel similar but new so that a player could
ask did this exist. I know I'm gonna be saying that all day tomorrow I'm
like, is this a vanilla quest? You know, like, that's why that's why I'm you know,
the best add-on that I hope somebody makes is the add-on that tells you whether
the quest that you're doing is a forever quest or is an old-school quest.
Hopefully an add-on author is on that is going to be on that already.
He really designs this guy morning involved talking to Chris Metzen about it.
Oh good, so all the all those fucking people bitching can blame their
lord and savior medicine video early on it was going to be some race of elves as elves
are very popular in the sky while culture kid was underutilized it hasn't been since
cataclysm add-ons will kill forever yeah okay just just like add-ons killed vanilla
Yeah, I
Will play sky board, but I'm gonna leave their starter zone at level one and start leveling to let yourself or tell yourself
Claw design be quest brilliant people are so obnoxious. That's where the God doing
And I was done in my class like
for everyone's UI is going to look fucking insane for for forever
because the game is is built on the infrastructure like literal current
retail and the and all the add-on changes that we got in retail are happening and
forever I mean I think every add-on author that that works on retail is going to also work on forever
Yeah, you won't be able to yeah, they say you won't be able to data mine shit until it's suitable
Yeah
Service I always a piece of a valor and return of the night's wall the tragedy of
Erythria and Laura Grant gave us all point towards it
Yeah, Lord, I think you're gonna have to accept the fact that we're not there bro, and it's not there
Eventually though eventually eventually will be enough it'll be its own expansion and then it will be like just for you dude
So far this race is the only L of classic plus so far everyone wanted high elves for the alliance and ogres for the horror
Instead they give us another blood elf reskin
Aren't the sky more technically like just sky high elves
That's someone already like confirmed that or something
No, please my shaman tank my shaman tank my shaman tank
They are high elves as I'm saying like they're by Lord definition high elves
Like I bet you if they left them blue and
Name them actual word-for-word high elves then they would accept it classic people are weird like that
It's like poor Blizzard has to actually call this game Classic Plus when they're talking
about it verbally like in an interview and not referring to it as like forever, which
is kind of awkward.
Just so like classic people understand that yes, you win, we will refer to it as Classic
Plus, just so you know.
they were carrions. Yeah, people are just people are just fucking weird like that, bro.
I don't know how to I don't know how to like to explain it. They're just awkward with that
shit. Like, I can almost guarantee you Blizzard does not want to refer to as Classic Plus,
but if they don't, then they're like, well, we might lose a bunch of subs if we don't
call it Classic Plus. Yeah, just lie to them or something. Tell them that we have to
Call it forever because of marketing, but we really call it class
Can't wait for my Q UI and classic plus baby, it's gonna be great
I'm still trying to figure out like how E UI Q UI L UI and all the UIs are gonna do like middle buttons like this
I'm pretty sure we're gonna have to create our own fucking like
Like our own personal oras or something, you know
Like I would imagine
It's not the only way I could see it working really
There's this I was gone Twitter man because the armor textures were not classic enough
I mean, there's I mean, there's literally an entire high definition toggle
You know
There's like a high definition toggle
And there is a regular fight, I mean, I don't know
Sometimes you just kind of don't know what to tell those kind of people, you know
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what do you mean you people? What do you mean you people?
about the CD super excited nice glad you got it now people are having trouble getting that
That's shit to begin with.
There's been a bunch of podcasts I'm starting to be a bit concerned for retail.
Almost all the podcasts who are talking about not having enough time to do retail in forever
and are being forced to pick one over the other rather than playing both.
Do you think this is a real concern?
I would reckon I do not
As I clock is off this as official in 49 days really let me see
I don't even know my shoes correct. I'll maybe my dude thought I said a different day
Okay. Let's see. Countdown edit. Boom, boom. Boom.
Oh yeah, he has his sets to like November 1st, not 4th for some reason and I'm gonna
assume it's 3pm that is coming out on that day. So, there you go, buddy. You are now
saved. You are saved from the world. Correct. Forever is an alternate timeline. And it's
own little bubble with all new stories alongside existing ones. Anything can happen in the
game. That's these chord eggs.
Yo, I'll pop on off on both the new Fire Emblem and Trails Remake getting
Nice floors
What game is that
No, there's not gonna be an early access for this game for sure
Yeah, classic is classic and forever and not like retail where early access kind of doesn't matter
It was always funny to see people try and
Try and argue and that early access for retail ruins the economy I might stop it what economy
all at one time.
and retail. Like, who cares?
But yeah, in in the a classic
you literally cannot have like
people starting five days
early as I can say.
Beta Forever isn't going to transfer to release, right?
No.
But my Avril Lavigne...
Why can't the... why can't I play this at the fact that they are spoiled?
All these... all these wow versions in one sub, they can play it way like yet they still complain.
I know, right? Like...
Like, one other fucking game gives you, like, this many versions of their game outside of, like, I don't know, maybe like,
OSRS has two. EverQuest has like two or three.
We're so entitled to spoiled.
Fortnite, choo choo choo.
on Espen's post yesterday that he made respond to some other person making a post.
Poor guy. Poor guy just wants old models, man.
The man just doesn't want retail UI, what can I say?
And when I got their banner drop, well,
Well, I haven't even checked if the banner was there actually
Let me see if dude how many check my twice section it's why is what's it called venomous
Yeah, there it is
My alas pretty cool looking
I
Take something different
That's pretty badass though like that. I don't know what it does. It's just this is there doing things I guess
Yeah, I think people expect most drops nowadays to come in the mail but most drops automatically go straight to your collection area now
Yeah, it's just like a flag right for the venomous abyss raid
He's living in the stone age and times have changed.
Well, we broke down his entire post yesterday.
It's just a situation where like, it seems like a lot of misinformation and just someone
who's very passionate about original WoW and just kind of having a hard time dealing
with HD graphics.
When you think about it, Blizzard probably took the best that they could from retail to make forever more appealing like,
how do we say it, like a worldwide audience, right?
But still kept like but you know kept the original game itself minus the alternate timeline just completely unchanged and probably probably even more grindier and harder than what we played in classic by the way
He likes seal twisting so he can't be trusted
Blizzard devs at BlizzCon on the main stage.
Do we have any seal twisters out there?
One person that yelled out, it was probably him.
it was here, he was like yelling from the fucking back
I mean it was a Twitter post that was made from the heart for concerns but
technically the concerns only really matter were pertaining to him and not
the overall, like, greater good of a possible game.
Like, the one sentence that drove me crazy,
and I was like, it is talking about, like,
the wrong and right choices from retail, you know,
and that to me was like, man, sometimes you gotta put away,
you know, you gotta put aside, you gotta put aside,
like, you know, like, your passion, you know?
And kind of think logically a little bit.
But then again, I mean, to be fair,
Like most people that originate from private servers just have this blind
blind logic about like
vanilla wow, you know
I'm trying to find a sentence that he said where I was like oh now this is this is not good
Yeah, he said we don't want retail wow, we don't even want vanilla wow with a hundred percent no changes
And then he said concerns don't come from having some retail elements. It's about having the wrong retail elements
And remember I do it last time we were like well
I'm like that statement alone is kind of crazy because if what he sees now is the wrong retail elements
And which ones are the right ones and then we listed off all the ones that are left
It's like all right, so HD toggle
right or just a UI that the name the name frame the target frame so what's the
alternative blizzard puts in 8000 world quests that convoluted your map
method plus LFG LFR you know retail combat talentry like you know I'm saying
like at some point you know you gotta give them props for like actually putting in stuff that
they thought was very kind of like unintrusive to the overall player base plus also giving you
an option to turn like 90% of that shit off. Well I have a sponsor stream this morning for uh uh
Animo. It's like uh well I can say it now but it's it's it's like a capture creature game so
So basically like your power world Pokemon kind of game.
I only can compare it during the sponsor stream.
So, but then that, uh, yeah, after that, then I'm shutting down the dropathon for now
and then we continue it tomorrow morning.
I mean, I don't think you have to unfollow the guy.
That's a little harsh.
But I mean, it almost seems like he's pouting and stomping his feet and hoping that,
You know, Blizzard says, okay, big streamer person who's very popular because because
you said so, we're going to do it.
Like, I saw a couple of clips of his, uh, his classic gameplay and he, you know, he was
kind of like, oh, these are the changes that I wanted.
And I'm like, come on, man.
You can't just say shit like that.
These are the changes that I wanted like, come on.
This is what I requested.
Like
Yeah, I think it works that way man, you know, like
This this wasn't on the survey
And you think about it, right, the people that develop forever are the people who develop
classics, which means that they have probably the same, if not more passion for Ramilla
than probably some of us do, or even he does, or we do, or I do, you know?
These are part of the people that actually built the world that we've been playing
it for 22 years. We might not trust the judgment of all the decisions they make, but when it
comes to a really intricate situation like this, where the classic community just can't
really figure out what they actually want, they had to make the best choices, and they
actually made the best one. Actual gameplay of vanilla, pacing, all that shit untouched.
that change was a little coding. And that coding can be turned off at any given moment.
Whenever you want, you can just turn off the coding. Like literally when we log in tomorrow,
we're going to be asked, do you want to play in classic, classic mode or do you want to
play in enhanced mode? You know? And then there's the add-on situation where people
are like already because obviously people are hearing that all the add-on authors
from NA are going to be on the beta already making add-ons for forever. Oh they're coming into ruin
our game with with add-ons and I'm like bro the fuck the add-ons were born with the game that you love
you know the game was built with add-ons at the forefront it was like when like if you ever
remember like the magazine advertisers for all the warcraft like customizability was like one of like the feet that was actually like a feature of
Wow that Blizzard wanted to advertise to say that hey
You know we're better than the other ever knows because you can play with our base UI or you know we have
We have you know there's a possibility of customizing the game to better look your you know for your personality or whatever
I mean I'm playing enhanced for sure.
I mean I have been a hater of the default UI for a while since the beginning.
I'm about to gameplay straight up.
Like the second that I found out that add-ons existed from my friends at work, like,
I immediately started downloading...
shit.
I think, I think like, uh...
Everybody, I'm pretty sure pitbull frames were like my first frames.
And then I went with that whole like Titan panel thing or whatever like even back in
Manila my UI never looked like default UI and to this day I've never ever played at
like an ounce of actual retail wow with the default UI since literally like 22 years
ago 20 121 and a half years ago because you know obviously most add-ons weren't all standardized
until like maybe like five or six months after release or at least I didn't find
out a bottom until that long. Yeah, people forget about the pit bull, you know, frames
in plates brush it was legit man but she was absolutely legit
yeah I mean like people are gonna play play it and they're gonna see like very
simply how how vanilla the game is you
might even have classic players saying
why does this feel slower than classic
they're gonna say it watch I fucking
know it the game was already grindy why
is it grindier I don't have time for
this oh x pray x pro was fucking
Awesome dude
But yeah, the other day you got to put like logic together when you make a post kind of like that, you know, it's
I think maybe it might have been said best yesterday and it was like if if Blizzard would have thought that
that pure pure vanilla was the best possible version they could make of wow like you know like all the classic pierce as well then
they should have never gone past the era servers right like and any of the the the things that are saying are true
then classic era would have been an insane success and they would have never actually gone with bc they would have kept with era
and era would have millions of players right now right but that's not it
Like the status of the current classic is the permitting sample of why Blizzard had to make changes to forever
Because that player base, you know the one that like you know someone like Espen speaks for
You know the audience that Blizzard has lost is not really that big
Like they need to get bigger and the only way to get bigger is by going fast
That crowd and kind of trying to attract a more broader audience that even other people from other games can come in and check out like, you know, especially with horizontal progression, right?
The Xbox audience.
Yeah, I saw an entire post about how people are like, oh, this isn't, this isn't classic plus, wow.
We're out here playing with fucking controllers and I'm like really controllers is is is what's pissing you off this morning?
controllers
The retail add-on nerf which one I mean I heard that they were talking about the inter-up tracker, which is fine with me
This model is trying to get the Guild Wars 2 audience. I mean, I think they're trying to get
every audience. I'm pretty sure every single MMORPG player of every MMO out there is probably
going to give forever a try for sure you know
I'll see a mole where am I looking at I don't see a message from you discord
and
I
What is that? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I bracket posted that
Yeah, I do have to log into it's a d4 and buy some of these bogs how much time are then are they in the shop for?
Yeah, I mean, like, like, this is the game that we're gonna play.
No amount of classic player, content creator, classic player, pitching and whining or complaining
or hoping that they're just gonna give you a fresh server and era is gonna make them
rewrite all the hard work they've done in the last, like, one to two years, you know?
Savics let it slip that the creator son of forever didn't have any non HD models
Are you saying that they were playing with HD models on the entire timer without HD models on
Yeah, that that Sabbath's cat seems to slip a lot of things. Let me tell you.
Dude's like a pyromancer waiting to happen.
Supposedly they weren't gonna do SD and the creators told them, oh, you mean like they
We're gonna give you the old and new option
So base of three people who dies first for Claire opening her mouth on the
Identic surgery
Are you in the right channel, bro?
I
What in the fucking mess
I mean to be fair, even I think it would have been a mistake if they didn't have HD and
SD bottle toggles on.
To be fair.
Well now, does that, it's the mount from this area.
There is a, um, there's a quest right next to the corrosive thing, where you redo the
quest every day for five, uh, six days, then you get a mount at the end.
I mean, I'm not even sure if they've sent out beta invites yet for, for forever, because
you wouldn't have heard people saying that a wave went out, right?
It's probably gonna happen tomorrow.
The manufactured angry is old and tiring.
Oh, shit.
There's a lot of questions like, what do they get out of just being angry all the time?
Honestly, you know what Blizzard should do?
Do an experiment.
You know, let's do an experiment.
When Forever launches at the exact same day that Forever launches the Fission of Everforth.
And now it's like you're doing fresh servers for Era and Hardcore.
And let's see what happens.
That's what I would do.
All right, well, this guy's freaking me out.
I think that is a possibility he might have had a surgery and he's high as fuck.
So, let them sit for about 10 minutes or so.
I don't know if anybody was in my email the other day.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure I was told
that there's not gonna be any,
not a lot of giveaway ones.
I know, you know, people have been messaging our mods
with some beta codes from their collections edition
giveaways so I mean tomorrow morning when we start I guess we would call it Drop-a-thon part 2
of 1, 1 of 2, 2 of 2. I might have a couple of codes to give away in chat so we could do a couple
giveaways in the morning, you know.
and
Oh, that was an open beta not in by beta now. It's definitely an invite beta because if you have to opt in then it's definitely invite
of the
C codes are for trial way so the codes that we that were given to us to our mods are just a trial loving but it's a trial of the beta
Because I'm confused now like was it a you a bracket didn't you give us a code or was it somebody else who gave us a code
We'll give us the code mold
All right, so that code is not for tomorrow, okay, then we're not gonna give that shit away because we can't
Yeah, I wish we could go back to the days of doing giveaways for beta codes, but unfortunately after asking Blizzard about it, it's more like without saying they'd rather have the money than give people free giveaways, that's basically what the consensus is, right?
It's like, every time there is a beta for like retail,
for like alpha beta, but like a new expansion,
I always, I always ask just in case, I'm like,
hey, are we gonna be getting any codes in a good way?
And they're like, oh no, if people want to get to the beta,
they can actually pre-order the game.
And they say it's so blunt, like not bluntly,
they say it's so nonchalant without saying, yeah,
I mean, if we give you guys a bunch of free keys
to give away to people,
then they won't pre-order the game to get the beta,
right, so no keys for you.
kind of situation. Yeah, no, no, no freebies, no freebies. Yeah, I think tomorrow, the
first thing we should do, all of us, like if we're if we're going to do hammer squad
on Horde. What we should literally do is gather up together, like everyone just for the sake
of fun, create an undead paladin, right? And then the second we spawn in, instead of taking
the first quest, everyone kill yourselves. And then we're going to do that, that,
that death walk all the way to Grim Batol and see what Agrant was talking about,
like right out the gauges do it like try like they do the best to make our way to the twilight
highlands you guys down because I'm down I'm down to do it like straight up boom right
to start
I'm gonna be fucked up thinking I'm walking from death now the fucking grip
but so are you gonna be pvp or forever I mean I'm a content creator man I'm
gonna be pvp
like when forever Ashley comes out probably I'm probably in my off time on
my own I'm probably gonna create a pvp character and not name him anything
related to my streamer name just so I can play on a PvP server.
Well, like I said, I will be PvPing for sure, but just like battlegrounds and stuff, not like.
Yeah.
Like, I know deep down inside if I wasn't a streamer, like if this would have been like, you know,
2004 me 100%, I'm on a PvP server and I'm hunting some motherfuckers down.
Like a thousand percent.
I don't want to get fucking stream sniped and hunted and be like, you got to kill tally.
You know, whatever the fuck, like, I just want to play.
You can do that to me when you see me in a battleground
Well, I have another team of nine people that could possibly you know back me up and vice versa
Yeah, we're playing for it on release, yeah
of the
way I'm hoping as the gold picks the PDP server
frankly
, but he picks the PDP server
I ain't gonna lie man. I might think about it.
I don't want to be on a server full of like fucking, you know,
general chat talking about fucking like Fox News and CNN 24-7.
I just need to fucking get away from that dude.
I
Because of playing doing RP well, there's no RP realms and
Yeah, there is no RP, wait, is there?
Oh no, there is an RP option, there's just no RPPVP. Yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right.
Yeah, there is RP, just no RPPVP.
In my head, I was thinking, I'm like, where are people bitching about something with RP?
And it was about that there was no PVP to RP.
It was kind of weird because I would figure like, Lord Alliance...
RP...
...would be fucking great.
I don't know why they missed that one.
Like for for monitor technology like
Mega servers are really good, but like we're talking about last night, you know, like I miss server identity so much in a while
Like I missed knowing who everyone was at all times, you know who to talk shit on who to dunk on
But you know those old times are gone, you know, you know like that you can never bring back
So and I guess mega servers are probably better for the overall game
I'm just hoping the layering is not fucking completely busted and broken, you know
I don't like I'm not gonna go into a fucking party to do that
You think those features such as surnames is a test run for 14.0
I mean maybe I mean as long as I get to take a regular name. I'm okay, you know
Like I'm not a big fan of the first name last name thing and wow, I mean, I don't mind it
I just I don't want to be forced into it, you know
Was a requirement to join the guild
Don't be a dick and an idiot I guess and you're good to go
What's the skill going to be called same as always?
I don't need your default last names will be your old server.
if that's the route they go something squad that sounds about right
and let's go to our housing and I guess what I gotta do for this housing
I'm supposed to have like fine pets or some shit.
Lost animals.
In EU, it's better to feel the server mentality because you get language layer.
Yeah, the language layer thing is gonna be pretty good.
I mean, I'm hoping you could actually like turn it off overall, but...
Yeah, I'm probably gonna end up
Probably gonna end up turning on
Just English for now, I guess
Yeah, so what where are all these pets I'm supposed to be finding are they just like all over the ground or something
I forgot how this quest goes
Okay, you just see one your map I guess playing around
I
Lies look for orange cats hoard looks for orange raptors
There's a few over here.
Oh, it's on the roof.
Like, what the hell?
Well, there was those roof 50 days.
I mean, I have a lot of retail to play
so that I don't have to play it for
two, three months after Forever comes out.
I mean honestly for me I feel like the the biggest win is like literally retail players
in in in a way you know
I would figure it and I can tell just from you know like our guild, you know
Our bunch of hardcore retail players and a lot of them want to play forever
And I'm like damn
Because like you know a lot of like no hashtag classic players, you know, they would never even touch filthy retail, right?
But for us, I mean, we get to now play like two games.
Yeah, we get to play two versions of wow, you know, one to chill and
one to, you know, push hardcore on.
Make sure, just let it.
Okay, I just wanted to get a bagel or something.
Yeah, take your time.
I got a sponsored thing today.
Yeah, like we get the benefits, so I'm happy about that.
It's gonna be cool.
That just means I get to stock up on games I'll never play for the next couple of years
and then one of these months I get to play them all in one month.
Like even like Grand Theft Auto 6, even that shit is in jeopardy for me, bro.
You know, like even GTA 6 is in jeopardy for me.
Like I might end up being like a wait for PC.
There's like the rest of you or some of you.
So they keep taking L after L.
I mean, I think the majority of retail players will be retail players and I think forever
will be kind of like a cozy thing they do after they're done, you know, filling out their
vaults for the week and doing their whatever raid with their guild.
For instance, like, there's, you're not going to see a lot of like, Harrow, AOTC, Mythic
Raiding Guilds falling over because of forever, you know?
If you understand how, I guess, horizontal progression works, then you'll know that you
never have to, you know, do that.
But yeah, it's gonna be super cozy, super cool.
And I just see, like, how hard the raids are gonna be.
I wonder if they're gonna go, you know, full blown vanilla and make it so it takes
people like, like a month to clear a raid.
Oh, I want to see if like if Blizzard goes full Wild Star or if they go quasi Wild Star
with everything.
Hardcore, hardcore.
Will raise me higher item level as we progress?
Not really.
I mean, the more I research horizontal progression, the more I tend to realize that it's not like
that.
Like, the Power Creep, I'm not gonna say the Power Creep is non-existent, it's more
along the lines of what can this item do to help me do what I need to do.
like we might encounter a raid a year from now that requires us to like do that
maybe the type of mob that we're fighting are like orcs or whatever or maybe beasts
and then we realize oh shit there is a weapon or a trinket in the raid from
the first month of the game that had that or there's a there's a to the
trinket in this dungeon from launch that has x percentage damage to beasts and then you would
go back and get that and then use it in current content and the power between that item and the
current item a year or two later is not really that much different.
Yeah, ideally there should not be like item level increasing. It's just gonna be stat stat
stuff like there there should there should be times in forever where you know if you
play long enough let's say we survive two three years in forever right though there'll
be a raid that comes out and you still might be wearing the half the gear you're wearing
is still from launch maybe it's possible that's how it is like
Yeah, because we don't know if they're going full horizontal or they're going like quasi-horizontal,
where they kind of do in fact want you to get at least some sort of power increase every
time they come out with something new.
I mean, frankly, the items just have to be cool, you know.
Horizontal progression means the stat budget will remain mostly the same.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what I'm saying, you know, that's the true challenge for the WoW team is having
people accept that style of play and never going past level 60 to level up, you know.
That is a real challenge
Yeah, we gotta put this in the bank because
I don't want to consume it because it's a counter us to fucking cap I
Mean if they add more items they're more powerful than previous ones
It is not horizontal just won't farm item lows. We will farm items with more stats, right? I
Mean there is a power increase. It's just not like we see in retail
Technically speaking ever all the gear that you get starting with like the endgame dungeons and the first two raids and the next year and all that
like
By definition all that gear should technically be viable for almost any raid that they come out with later
Because the next raids gear is not going to be an insane power increase over what you
just got because they want to they want to make a situation where let's say you have to
leave you know you have to leave gaming for like six months like you do the first two
raids you play hardcore you're decked out in full epics or whatever crafted gear whatever
gear you should be able to come back to the game a year later and do the current
content, maybe not destroy it, but you should still be able to do it.
Like am I right?
Or that that's how horizontal progression works, right?
Just like Guild Wars players that, you know, have had the same bestest year for the past
like eight years now, they can literally come back eight years later and do like
the current content and everything's kind of like hunky dory and okay
like that that spring patch that they have coming out for forever like I think it's like
right after hardcore comes out, where it's like new legendary quest line, like that could
be like the very first grindy grindy quest line, kind of like in Guild Wars to get like,
you know, a legendary, you know.
And that might take us like a month to get, maybe two months to get, who knows what the
process is like, we don't know what they're going to do yet, you know, in that sense.
I just said it's a legendary quest line.
They do both horizontal and you will get stronger by new raids, but some old items of older
raids don't drop in value hard like Band of Akiria or Sulfurus, etc.
Well I think it has to be more than just a few items for sure, but yeah.
Man, I'm more concerned about those rare items they're talking about.
I think that's where the grind is going to be if you ask me.
Not really concerned, but I'm kind of scared for that grind.
They said that, they literally said every single boss of every 10 and 20 player raid
has a very rare and unique item and I'm like, oh, oh, oh, oh, I might, I might
That's gonna be spicy, dude.
That's gonna be spicy.
Yeah, the drop rate's probably gonna be like 0.0 something fucking percent or some shit, you know?
Like, oh, man.
Like, this gonna be good.
Wait, hold on.
Did I have...
I thought it was sitting on a big item.
That was mythic.
just kidding
oh that's myth that's hero
I might as well.
Aggrin quoted, you know at the end of the day World of Warcraft was a vertical progression
game and what's part of the power, and that's part of the power fantasy and we're never
really going to take that away but I think having a little bit more nominal power gains
per step up will help. Wait when did he say that? Now I'm confused man so are we vertical
or are we horizontal? I don't like being tangled up dude. Make it make sense. So does
that mean that we're still going to be
it's it's it's circular it's circular it's circular got it
You can't remove a vertical from the game. I guess that's actually true
Where's my pin message for
Nemo, uh-uh-uh Nemo
Why do they gotta why do they gotta pronounce these games all weird?
of
of
No, it confuses how to actually pronounce this name this game
That I'm gonna copy and paste it
But this is how the game is pronounced the name of the game. That's that's on emo, right on emo
Am I saying it right on emo?
Like or would you say on Nemo?
On emo, yeah
I
I
Say an emo, but I don't know. Well, yeah, and you know would be like a H
Animo, I think it's on Nemo. You'd say oh like
Oh
Nemo
Just gonna make a hit 3-3-20 on this guy without spending any more crests.
Nah, I can't do any more fuck.
What's my shi- oh yeah, hold on, I can finally get four piece at now, I think.
Trying to now watch you.
Yeah, we're gonna be playing it in a few minutes here.
And then I get and then I finally get to rest finally get to rest for a day and now I will not be sure me rage tonight
I will be literally on the couch all fucking day today just couch potatoing and catching up on sports and a couple of TV shows
Honeymo yeah
Well you progen soul jam
Yeah, we got back to Twin Fangs last night. We're probably just gonna kill
that tonight quick and then back to Prague. Back to Prague.
Oh, yeah. Are there drops for that game by any chance? I don't even know. Do they
have drops in that game?
They probably do.
Let me see. I see a bunch of drops and titles. Oh, yeah, there is.
Let's see. What do you get?
Uh, credits and the bunch. Oh, damn. They got a bunch of shit.
They got like two hours worth of drops. Okay, cool. So at least I can keep drops in my title. I just can't
Don't need the the sub batch stuff.
Let's see.
Oh, nice. I'm gonna use a llama as an emoji in my title.
I love llamas. Jimmy, I'm a llama. I'm a llama, Jimmy.
I
Want to touch the lava
Good movie good movie Jimmy Neutron
What was the name of that kid that talked like that and Jimmy Neutron? That was like his friend, right?
There we go the rated movie I must say
Carl Carl it
It's got to be Carl
You said some of you guys are in chat are playing at this morning to huh? What do you guys think of the game?
I'm trying it for the first time in like three minutes. I don't know. I'm gonna launch it right now and
At least get the graphical settings going before anything else
Yeah, there's Carl
Well, that's night we'll probably try later. Yep. Hey, man
You gotta you gotta get every gaming sense every game you can get in right now as much as possible before
You know for it all goes down. Oh, it's unpacking. It's unpacking my files
Yeah, I mean like this morning when I woke up I was reading some of the reviews reviews are pretty decent so far
Yeah, my my my sponsored gig mission statement to my team was you know what give me weird stuff to play that you I would
probably never play because the next year of the year and a half to two years of wow is
going to be so time consuming that every now and then I need to play something that's nothing
like wow to set my brain straight.
Yeah, after you spent the last like two months grinding one legendary in forever, you need
to like just kind of take a break and play something else.
The game is free on Game Pass.
Oh, is it a paid game?
I didn't even know.
I didn't even know it was a paid game.
Well, I thought it was free to play. Is it not free to play?
Am I crazy?
Yeah, no, it's a free to play game.
That's free.
For sure.
I guess DX12, right? Enabled.
Let's try it.
We don't know King they haven't really announced it yet. What what the actual time is for it?
No one knows look at that cute little bastard
Something on his head
And a pimple or a sister something. Oh, it's a star. Okay. Never mind just kidding
Just kidding. Yeah, it's probably gonna be three o'clock more than likely which is like the time frame of every launch of theirs
Hope I'm hoping it's earlier because if it's three o'clock I might be able to log in just to create a character then have to raid
It's not a tool
Maybe it's a star pimple patch. Wait, so is this game on mobile devices too?
Correct. That would be East. That would be Six Eastern midnight EU. All that stuff. Why
don't you just not raid that day? It's not my decision. It's not my decision. Even if
it was my decision I would not cancel Raid. I would never cancel Prague Raid. Like, if
we had already killed Ulitzak Mythic and we were like, you know, just re-clearing every
week, then yeah, I would probably make a good argument for, hey, come on, man, but let's
just whatever, fuck this week's raid and let's go next week, you know? Yeah, I'm not,
not gonna let like 19 other people down and force them to change their schedules because
you want to play a beta. Now mind you, you know, I'm putting in my November 4th time,
but I don't care what happens on retail November 4th, I...
Oh my god, this music.
Here, look at this music.
Okay, can we get can we get the Natalia most of chat like that?
The Natalia most of chat
My dad is awesome
Let's do it. Let's do it bro
Can we get some kawaii's in chat, baby?
Let's go.
Oh, dear.
I mean, you gotta give them credit for a good soundtrack, though.
Yes, I would like to play it in English for sure.
Oh, oh yeah.
Now I'm gonna skip the email button.
Oh.
What's APAC?
Europe, America's an APAC.
Well, what's APAC?
Oh Asia Pacific, okay. Wow the graphics look pretty damn good. What do we have for settings
for graphics? Full screen or what I guess full screen. That's our resolution. DLSS,
I guess we'll keep the LSS, because we'll keep it on quality for now, keep the sync off.
For now, let's keep Max Frame Rate off, Frame Generation.
Should we, with a 5090, should I play with Frame Region like on, or to keep it off,
you say?
Off the 5090 just does its own thing, right? Like...
I wouldn't even use DLSS. Really?
What I mean...
What about DLSS though?
What about...
Nemo
I'm just gonna say it quickly on Nemo
So TLDR does not much really to you know like
Go over but playing simple three little points on Nemo is a free-to-play next-gen
Keyword next-gen they like to say next-gen
creature catching open-world RPG
Launched launches officially today
free to play
And if you want to get some free stuff in-game, I believe my pinned message
Has a redeem code in the game that gives you like in-game gifts
There's also drops that gives you a bunch of stuff. I don't know anything about the game. So I'm going completely blind
so
Let's have some fun and see where this goes trying to get the volume right
Holy...
See, that's your the game.
Alright.
Obviously, we're not gonna spend a lot of time. Okay, what would a younger me look like? Are there any chubby kids I could pick?
Because frankly...
Yeah, can we go chubby?
By any chance
What's face blend at face presets, oh, okay
Yeah, this is a little like you can I mean it has customization doesn't like you can actually like make your guys bigger
like body shape wise yeah we're not gonna oh body type body type forms that's just
length that's just measurements there we go yeah you can make a little chunky you
can make a little chunky not too much though it looks like yeah can we give
this guy some calves or something yeah there you go just yeah can we just not
skip leg day. That'd be great. Fixed them chicken legs. I don't think you can. Oh man,
they got mobs. They got mobs, boys. They got mobs. This kid's too skinny. Give this
kid a cheeseburger for Christ's sake. You know, like, G-O-T-Y.
I think it shows this is the optimal distance for filming your behavior.
That must be from when we were up there, right?
Idol is completely different.
Next time, zoom in for close-ups.
Hey there, I'm the special observer from the Polars Institute Expedition Team.
Look, the real continent of Idol is far more incredible than the Hall Escape.
Benny, up on the tree at 10 o'clock.
Zoom in!
Understood.
Elasticis, they say anyone who spots one gets good luck for life.
These little guys are super good at climbing and flying.
I hope I can catch Elasticis and take me flying.
That's right. I'll soon have my own anyway.
So you play as a streamer. Yeah, this guy's like a TikTok creator.
He has his own cameraman.
Shhh.
The little ember pup ahead is asleep.
100% catch rate.
Talk about good luck.
But I still don't have an Annie pod. Can I catch it?
Oh, there she is.
What the hell?
Kinda camera shy
Nicole you're finally back. Thanks for waiting. Your gear's been set up
Once activated you can start your first catch. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna catch that fiery ember pup first
The best is still to come so stay tuned
Okay
Polaris Institute approved exploration gear come and complete your identity verification
So is she like a...
Oh. Oh, okay.
I guess now I put in my name. Let's see.
Upload.
I mean the game looks good. I mean this game actually looks visually insane.
Dude I should have done this stream with my vtuber.
This is the perfect distance
Okay press that to activate camera and record a video of the ember pup
Okay, did it just fall asleep?
Am I like in a live stream within a live stream I am right live TV
So I'm streaming a stream of the stream of the dude in the game streaming and
They're telling me how to play a game
But it's only they're telling me how to play real life of the game of the game that I'm playing
Press right click to answer catch mode
Oh, okay. Aim the crosshair at the ember pup and press left click to throw anibod.
Uh, times 1.5 backstab, times 2 sleep. Why did this just get violent all of a sudden?
Click right at the cat.
Oh, we got it.
Institute arranged for today's shoot Starfall Valley
Humbens so cute
The matrix has you they can't get over there
Yeah, did I already have like chat back seeing me in real life?
I gotta do I gotta be back seated twice as the character to game and with chat
It's fire type ability is perfect for dealing with obstacles like this
Command mode, when commanding an animo to move the animo will use its unique abilities such
as igniting blinds or generating an ice wall to clear obstacles to help you proceed.
Left click to command the ember pump to act.
That's an interesting left click.
So you gotta do.
Get him!
It worked!
Great!
Let's go inside and take a look!
Okay.
Great! Let's go inside and take a look!
Wow! This place is alive with Animo!
With Animo?
I want all the Animo.
Well, Starfall Valley's terrain is very special.
And a dillard trip.
So can I command my little fire dude here to just start attacking others?
Oh, and I guess I can like, hit like number two to swap.
Wow, that's a pretty quick swap, too.
Oh, there's a cooldown. There's an internal cooldown.
What is that?
Goddamn armchair devs in chat not you chat the chat in the chat of the game of me playing the game live streaming or streaming the stream in the chat
56% chance that's not really that good. Let's see tab this to lock in
Ken
So I wonder what one of those little dots at the bottom of my screen and what's that 20 with the water symbol mean
What's this
And honeypaw
Times four good good good
There's more than just cute. They're great at climbing and flying. My Stella is one of the best
Come on, Skippy Celestus got them all let's go find Nicole
Let's see. I like this guy better. Yeah, I like this little guy better
I think we have drops for the game that lasts about two hours, which is about the length
of the stream.
And then there's also in the, uh, Animo, uh, or Animo, uh, Commanders should be a code
too but you could put redeem in game to get like more rewards and stuff I'll
guess I'm dressed sure come over let's sit for a while I want to hit like the
open world part of the game hopefully we can get that within two hours speaking
of rich do you know the purpose of this research expedition to get more
viewers and subscribers for my live TV Institute in game
spectacle in the whole world. Not to mention that a Nemo exposed to Prismana can transform
in unbelievable ways. But no one knows where it comes from or why it causes a Nemo to transform
at all. Truth is, no one even knows how a Nemo first appeared in this world. Idle
is just incredible and incredibly mysterious. Even the Idyllians probably don't fully
I want a badge.
the team awarding a special badge this time a 50th expedition badge for members who've never
missed a single trip right yeah that's right it's super rare only five exist in all of astra
i'd love to see one of clothes there are easier badges to get though see i've got a stargazer
I
Need
Oh
Where are you going? Is this about to get dark bro?
My account my data
Skynet is alive
I
Know my data
We're being hacked we're being hacked. Oh my god, oh did that thing just throw me out
Nicole, are you there, Vinnie?
No, no, no!
Livestream down, I repeat, Livestream down.
What is this place?
Another one has come at last.
Human who prays for the blessings of the sun and moon.
Step forward.
Are we about to ascend?
Explosive mysterious place, oh this is beatrack the target okay there you go you have a little
little star thing to show you where to go what is that? Is that the weird thing that took Benny?
the shape matches this thing looks pretty impressive
these are definitely all an emo a family we've never seen before
Benny zoom in and take a photo darn it the live stream will never believe me
And when I tell them I found this, I'm going to get cancelled.
in character creation when there's outfits it's not outfits for you to wear in game I think it's
just to show you what your character would look like with outfits on I think that's what you're
asking in the character creation these drawings show an email wait an email X the Institute
should have equipment for hatching eggs.
What is this place?
So am I like the Animo like Neo of this game?
Is this place it's covered in murals?
Actually, the girls are glowing.
It's been some time.
She won't.
Paul.
Oh.
I
Finally I can move
Nice work human what I do
What a strange outfit
I've never seen anyone like you before you you're both an emo
Uh, wait, how can you talk?
Because we're not ordinary and move-o.
I'm helium, the embodiment of soul, courage, and light.
And I am Lunara, representing lune and embodying harmony and wisdom.
What should we call you, human?
Tally, live streamer extraordinaire.
Welcome to my armchair dev chat.
chat.
Who'd he say so?
My IQ is pretty low, I might have to go with the Loon on this one.
one, boys. I'm not sure. I think I'm already strong. I think I might need a little more smarts.
Let's see. So this here, light, anemo, a depth to a depth that close combat and striking targets
in a small area with impressive burst potential and then skilled in range. Okay, so it's just
melee versus ranged pretty much. It does say high recovery, enable sustained combat. I mean,
I'm going with the lion, the helion, helion, whatever. I wonder if you can swap between
to this is like one of those like karma changes in the game so this is a bag
stream horse nothing else weren't you going to make my wish come true
I can't really remember all I know is that we've been asleep in here for a long
time the same goes for me how strange after awakening our power and memories
should not be so unclear.
Someone explain how they came out of the wall to me.
Anyway, what's up?
We should be able to help.
You seem anxious.
Have you lost something important?
I lost my terminal.
I got separated from my friend.
Your friend?
Let me help you find them.
Magic to the magic of friendship?
OK, OK, OK.
You stick with one for now, but in the future,
You can unlock the fox, but not till way later.
Okay.
Honestly, other than talking, how much longer to be like this?
I wish there would have been like a warning too, like this is a permanent choice for now.
It doesn't matter though, I mean, I don't like playing ranged.
An earthquake?
Is this place collapsing?
Relax.
This place is very sturdy, but the noise...
It's the big cube!
Why did it suddenly start moving don't tell me it woke up hurry. Let's go take a look
Hurry go see what's happening is the big cube
Big cube you mean
I don't know, but when it gets angry, the ground starts to sink.
Nicole!
Watch out!
Oh my god, it took over my computer.
What the hell?
Oh my god.
Yo, can I have that, Animo?
Can I capture that, dude?
What are you doing here?
Oh my god.
Oh, so I can attack myself. Oh, that's what my middle thing is, is my attacks.
Bro, that is...
Combat's pretty damn good though.
Ain't gonna lie.
I'm going to have to take it down is that my instructor
What do you mean flying with my name? Oh, huh?
Wait what
Get ready to try to I don't want well
My power
This my bump
Why is this place?
Wait the world
The what?
Wait when the other people twined it was instant. Why am I like in a dimensional universe?
Our heart beats as one!
My hand! Did the timing work?
Oh, I get to turn into the, uh, into the enema.
Oh, so you, so you basically...
...can turn into them, okay.
What the hell is happening?
Oh my god.
I mean that's a pretty cool take on these kind of games.
You actually turn into your, you know, capture...
Hanimo.
Hanimo.
I wonder if you actually move faster.
It seemed like he was moving really slow.
Maybe just on melee.
Maybe I should have picked range.
Oh, damn.
I
Had some care bear stuff right there bro
Complete with guitar solo
Can we capture that thing?
Wait, so what is it called when you turn into your Anemo?
An email?
What's it called again?
It's inter-twining or something?
The combined might of helium and lead are finally drained
of a serious twin.
Recently, the Polaris Institute Expedition Team
returned once again to the
International Idol.
During their investigation, a standout special observer
made a significant discovery for the team.
Many scholars believe this finding could greatly deepen
The twining between Asuka and Idle, opening new possibilities for the city's future development.
The expedition team has now temporarily returned to the Polaris Institute.
We'll have to wait and see the outcome.
They're like, where'd you get that little lion from?
Over here!
This is Principal Oswin. I've already filled a minnow on what happened.
Oswin.
Welcome. Nicole has already told me all about you. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Ozm,
principal of the Polaris Institute. The Institute is spearheading exploration and research efforts
to cultivate talent in Astra. As you know, this scientific expedition is being led by
the Institute. I feel like I'm being recruited. I too explored idle in my younger days.
and
Join our coal prop and can't
We're on behalf of the Institute. That's right during your first exploration you demonstrated exceptional talent
You're not only caught numerous in Nemo, but also twined with them and fought flawlessly.
The discoveries you made are of great significance.
Ancient murals, ancient idyllian script, a Nemo capable of speech.
To researchers of ancient idol civilization, that sub-idyllian ruin is a treasure trove.
Yo, they about to experiment on me and my little lion guy or something?
I feel like I'm about to hit the fucking operating table in a few minutes here.
you like to join the Institute? Can I say no? This is kind of sudden. I as a streamer is this
like as a streamer playing a streamer in game? Is this like the equivalent equivalent of being
invited to an eSports team? And now I got to make like a decision.
That's all right. There's no need to answer immediately.
I've already arranged the preliminary procedures my mother get picked into right now. What's happening to visit the Institute's front desk
Before you decide feel free to take a look around the Institute
Nicole I'll leave our new friend in your capable hands. Leave it to me principal
Started a few sold trip. I want to come on. I'll give you the full tour of the Polaris Institute
Right! I almost forgot something!
Beep!
The Laris Institute module loaded to terminal authorization complete!
Beep boop, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep boop.
Module loaded permissions unlocked time since last service 23 hours 17 minutes.
Hello, Tally, B-9 resuming service.
You're back!
Cheney's back!
Saved!
Not eaten by Skynet!
Okay, what's this?
Biny number 9 upgraded.
The upgraded Biny 9 has stronger detection features when it senses something important nearby
it will alert you right away.
Oh, okay.
It's your terminal!
Instructor Lita and her team found it!
It's all fixed now!
Your data and account should both be fine.
Take a look!
Come on!
Let's go get you registered!
Just so you know, you're kind of a huge celebrity now.
See? I'm even a big streamer in this game, too.
You know?
Hello, my name is Soda Tally Poppin. I'm kind of a big deal.
So are there other people around me like in the game or am I not at that part yet?
the
way she didn't tell me what that was just, like
OK
the
last button rolling
verification complete as required I will now ask a question on behalf of the
Polaris Institute please answer carefully are you certainly wish to join the
Polaris Institute
wait so what happens if I choose I just want to live an ordinary life in Astra
does anyone play yet or I don't know gone enough like like what would happen
if I actually didn't choose I'd be honored
This is a hub where people chill at online sorta and then there are small camps around
the world, people can sit and mini-hubs.
Probably false sense of choice, yeah.
I'll just say I'm just gonna go with I'd be honored.
Press that to play since it's two archives.
Is it two title rookie?
Oh, so this is like my character screen.
Congrats on joining Polaris.
Okay, Institute.
So is this like where I equip stuff?
All set! Your enrolment is now complete.
Oh, right. The principal also said that when you have time, you can visit the holographic discovery booth to see what the previous expedition's uncovered.
Huh. That feels different from before we set out.
Yes. The anemology department just added a hologram of Rare Prismana Anemo from the institute's collection.
Since it was one of the expedition's research targets, it should make for an interesting exhibit.
Oh my god, I don't want to catch that. Is that it's Beard? That's it's Beard.
Oh no, they're gonna give me a uniform. I know where this is heading already, bro.
Do I have to wear it? Is there a shop I can buy something that's not this?
I wonder how you heal your your anemo
Like my lion's hp is
Let's see if I can...
There we go.
I just want to kind of like look at the actual inventory.
Badges.
Got none of that.
Oh, there are talents.
Cool.
I'm sure they'll get into this later, right?
Like, should I put a boss breaker increased damage to Alpha and Omega's by 5%.
Alright, so what's the tank build?
Does anyone have a tier list for Animo yet?
Are there tier lists? Is Pekko on the case?
This was actually called Swol Shroom.
I'm sorry. Swol Shroom. I do like the fact that it kind of... yeah that's great.
That actually shows you like the ability and you know like little preview
windows stuff and then mobility skillset. That's all I got. I just got a small shroom.
Let's see is oh that that's actually kind of cool. You can't even see what the other
unlockables of the game are yet. It's just literally like it's like I'll code it out.
Oh, in my inventory I have an, uh, une, uh, unepod.
Oh, that's okay, so pods are what you use for catching, then you have, like, growth flower.
It tells you how to obtain it, okay.
What's this?
A redesign card, okay.
Yo, where do you actually put in, uh, like, the code to redeem for free stuff for the game?
of the
one
of my god I can't take this morning
the usually somewhere in the game like the redemption stuff
the escape or something and it's like redeem here
of the
three download
this game go to settings and account
of the
Select the uniform set issued by the Institute, try it on.
What in the hell?
Use tabs at the bottom to switch between appearances categories.
The left side displays all appearance components, mix it match freely.
You can also equip accessories on an emote gear or change your hairstyle.
The little pop-ups happen way too fast, man.
Like, I'm an old man.
And I can't read that quickly.
Let's see what other stuff's actually happening in the game.
Let's see if anything looks like out of this world.
Cool. No.
Maybe.
What the hell?
Be there.
Be there.
That's probably the most badass I can probably get.
Okay, that's actually kinda cool.
I mean, I couldn't rock those pants like this guy does in real life, but you know you can dream. There we go
Hawaiian Hawaiian shirt Friday
Obviously have to buy it with whatever the currency is. Can you customize the little dudes? Oh you?
Oh dear god
Why is the horn not on his head?
first of all I guess cuz like the enemo is not like standing straight or whatever
oh adjust oh you can adjust where the stuff they wear is on okay I'm gonna
I'm gonna continue with the game because I'm gonna get lost in customization
Stuff as normal?
Verification complete. Welcome.
Welcome to the cult. What is that?
How do I capture that?
Perfect timing. Come this way.
Dr. Lewis, Path-Finding Instructor.
You've met him before, right?
Dr. Lewis is an instructor from the Institute's Path-Finding Department.
He's the one supervising this expedition, uh,
you can just ask him on to give you permission to link it.
I think you just like it. Hi, Dr.
Lewis, I'm here to join the expedition team.
No need to be so formal. By now,
I bet there isn't a single person in Astra who watches the news and doesn't know
your name.
I'm famous.
The principal has already approved your paperwork.
Your data has been entered into the terminal and your authorization is
Once confirmed, you may officially join the expedition. Previously, you were only an observer, but now you'll be joining as a full member. For safety purposes, I'll need to confirm with you once more.
I ain't gonna lie, man. Being a Pathfinder or whatever it is requires a lot of paperwork. I spent like the better path of like 20-30 minutes just signing papers and joining this cult.
The real idol is nothing like that safe little starter zone. Are you ready?
That starter zone wasn't all that safe either, of course it's as though I came here.
That's the spirit. No wonder Lita speaks so highly of you. All right, enough talk.
Come with me to the transportation facility. We're heading to Idol.
Hold on. Heading out already.
Indeed. And right on schedule too. Is there something you need, Principal?
Don't worry, I'll be out of your hair in a moment.
I'm only here to present a personal gift to our newest student.
Oh! It's a patch case! You can keep all your badges in it!
Thank you, Principal. I'll learn more badges and fill up every slot.
Huh? There's already one in here. Wait, this is...
The Polaris Institute's rarest and most exceptional honor!
Honour. What?
Printed only to those who achieved truly invaluable accomplishments.
Streamer privilege.
Outside of the game and inside of the game.
I thought I'd never see this day.
A symbol of glory and challenge.
Literal streamer privilege.
The starbound journey badge.
Just getting freebies in here.
First badge obtained.
Adventure badges are a mark of honour.
that recorded Pathfinder's exploration achievements, trading results, and chance encounters.
All badges are reviewed and certified by Polaris Industry before being awarded.
Click badges to unlock exclusive titles and it went away again.
There's got to be an option for that, right?
Like, I'm gonna escape to open the function menu.
Ah, oh yeah, I was on the screen already.
Starbound badge.
Well, I thought you were more composed than this. I mean it's just a decoration, right?
It doesn't have any special. What are you down on this? You can get the link in the pin message or the Anemo
command. It's on Steam and it's free to play, so
My perceptive Anemo friend. To humans rarity itself is a kind of power
However, its value lies only in its rarity
After all it is merely a personal gift from me the honor and history behind it can't be handed to anyone else
I understand that principle
Thank you for your gift. I'll treasure it
But from now on I'll earn badges of my own. There you go. That represent my own achievements
I'll fill this case myself
Excellent. That's the best answer I could ask for
Do your best young pathfinder
I want to see it again. All right, let's go waste any more time you can admire it later
Now proceed to the transportation device and prepare to depart
All right, hold on
You get the title the pathfinder, okay
That's it. Okay, so that's just like
Tells you all your stuff or whatever
option go talk to bore by the holographic discovery booth
so for the idol who's bore
was that this guy right here
hmm Prismana honey mo
who's this guy
perfect timing I've been named to talk to you
What is this dude?
Okay.
What's he wearing, bro?
like test subjects uh-huh once you reach the expedition outpost you'll see some of the
animology department's just one for example the research console and its related analog
whatever is out there
broadly speaking we study an emo ecosystem so people can truly understand idle
education preservation analysis assessment all of it falls to us quite a few members are
Conducting field studies across idle right now. We want everyone to find the anemo that suits them best
To understand them protect them and grow alongside them
So the expedition team so this guy's like the library of all the anemo
Exactly the expedition was jointly initiated by the path finding department and the anemology department
Speaking of which did Nicole mentioned to you why the last expedition was initiated?
Nope.
Ah, yes, yes, yes.
The little...
The flowery thing in the middle of the village or trees, whatever.
Yes.
The Animo in the background is bugging me out, bro.
It's like dancing like tails wiggling in the background.
Can I come along? Luna, I should still be there. I'm sorry. For safety reasons, most members will have to wait until the preliminary investigations are complete.
Do you know who I am?
You and your chatty little friends seem like you're in quite a hurry. Got it! Let's add each other's friends!
Oh no. Dude, what's your Discord ID, bro?
Great. Now I can let you know right away if anything comes up.
Oh, right, right.
I heard there might soon be a chance for outstanding students to receive one of the Prismana Animo eggs on display here.
For an outstanding student like you, the odds might actually be pretty good.
Want to go ahead and fill out an interest form?
Bro, I've already filled out like eight different paperwork's that I've been here.
Think you're a Prismana Animo companion once you reach 40 and promote their title.
The Animo can travel alongside you before you're permanently claiming your Animo.
you can tap to enter animal selection.
Do your acclaimable Prismana animal animal here.
Once you confirm your selection, tap here to set up together.
Your chosen animal will wait for you at this location.
Once you reach 40 and promote your title, this animal can travel alongside you.
OK.
So I'm confused like so what what is this? Is this just like my main dude that I'm picking or
Or do I get this when I hit 40 I
Know I these look badass as hell dude
You're picking something you get for free at 40. Oh, okay. Just make sure that is the case
I want to take to get the 40 in this game
So this one's like a healer. This one's like a DPS. Are there actual tanks or tanks like support?
Luminell
Panpantha. Oh break. Maybe break is like a tank
Yeah, because I've only seen one that says break
Look what is that face dude. Oh wow look at this guy
by magmorex brah brah
Ignite us will be mine turbo blazin thorn blade
so there's only two that you know this one's also a break
I think I'm going to go with the Magmar X, honestly, the Magmar X are the old man.
This guy looks like he has a beard.
His treasure shell has been reshaped by Prismana light into a similar command power surges to
Panpan, Panpantha, fluffing up its fur one pat on its round belly and mighty waves rise
as its side as if awaiting orders.
Oh, wow, it even tells you like all their counters and super effective against fire
and earth not effective against all that.
Great does the white line. Okay, I'll go with this guy.
Upon available upon reaching Wayfinder one can be changed before claiming. Okay, so
I can just go back here if I feel like I've learned more about the game and I
don't even care about getting that guy you could just get whatever else.
Go to Idle.
Pampanza is weak in late game.
Really bro?
Really?
How about the mag break that I just chose?
The Institute will grant rewards based on your points enough doc try reporting months for yourself
Press upload any boa report
Okay
So, I go here for rewards, pretty much.
But you go out, you explore, you catch a bunch of Anemo, and then you come back here and you
get light points for all of this exploration stuff or whatnot or what have you.
So easy planes level 0.
You've obtained an enema with high potential. Congratulations your research console can quickly assess the potential of an enema you caught.
Anema with higher potential typically possess superior abilities. You can review this via an enema management.
I
Think imagine has been loaded you can now manage owned a new mail
Try the ember pup to the loadout slot to deploy
I mean I'm gonna be using that one I want to use the tiger dude
Let's say it looks like we've unlocked more stuff here.
You got events now tutorials.
What is that up there?
I thought it was about the results.
I want his anemo.
Speaking of which, do you know the theme of this expedition?
Not really.
Simply put, it is an extremely rare phenomenon.
The Prismanaflow.
The Prismanaflow is not merely beautiful and rare.
It also carries a unique and mysterious power.
When Anemo are exposed to the Prismanaflow, they may gain special forms.
Even unique powers, Anemo forms are not fixed.
Different terrain and climates can change how they look.
And of course, the Prismanaform is the rarest of all.
keep your eyes open while you're exploring idle discovering the many forms an emo can take
is half the fun thanks uh so dr. louis can he join me on official investigations now
is it butter
about me some bagels join you not yet he's still new here and needs to take things
one step at a time to better understand this world I think you use the controller and keyboard
I just saw a controller setting your first step in the idol yes this simple task should
suit you well come with me
Wow, that's one shot free!
I can show you the world.
Nicole, was that thing that just flew by in Animo too? It's so big!
Huh? An Animo? What did it look like? How big was it?
Uh, it was really, really big, with wings, and it flew past in a flash.
Don't tell me you didn't see it. It went that way.
A large winged Animo? No, I haven't seen anything like that.
But the branch did seem to give off an unusual fluctuation not long ago.
A branch?
And
Hey, what's with the mystery all of a sudden I wasn't done talking you thought you right that huge thing that flew by
Wasn't your imagination?
Looks like we're the only ones who noticed
Explaining it to the others would be a real hassle
So let's keep this between us for now
We can search around the branch later and maybe find some proof this little bastard knows something you're right
First things first, let's get to that dandelion.
That's enough talk.
Come this way.
I'm handing out the next task.
Since you're so curious about the branch,
this task is just right for you.
Head to the branch and earn its recognition.
Awesome.
Just what we were hoping for.
Come on, let's get moving.
Wait a second, Dr. Lewis.
I'm OK with going there, but how do I earn its recognition?
When you arrive there, touch it, and you'll understand.
However, the journey itself is part of the trial.
You'll have to fend for yourself.
I'm not trying to bend the rules here,
but we're allowed to go together, right?
Come on, this way.
Main story, Institute initiation.
Yo, gee.
So do I have to do this
or can I like go around now and just start collecting?
Let me finish with that, I have my bagels.
Wait, she turned into a squirrel?
I think you can intertwine whatever you want, like.
There you go, yeah, you can turn into your anemo.
I'm not sure if there's a reason to do it.
Is there like a timer on this?
I think you just do it for aesthetic, pretty much.
I
Like it is what you you you ever try to do certain things in the world like fly or jump really high or something
He has like pound
map tap to enter the map
try to slide into the justice new level
I
Trying to slide not it's happening
Okay, now that the bloom has been activated you can use it to teleport between veins
Teleport but teleport just by touching it. How does it work? I
Don't really know I guess
Let's go once you see the branch dr. Lewis will explain everything to you
Quick look that and Nemo has been blessed by lumen amber. What's lumen amber?
Is this a crafting and harvesting part of the game the crystal form from overflowing bane energy it holds
Incredible power give it to the branch and you'll receive something special
You can find it anywhere on trees and clouds and water
Sometimes you need to use some special methods to get it to it's hard, but it's also really fun
It's time we hit the jackpot catch that bless and Nemo, and it's yours
Can I can I catch in intertwine mode oh
Oh, wow, that just seamlessly just takes you out of
of
Oh, okay
How do you like
How do you get out of this catch mode? Oh, okay, just right click
Now should we fight it and weaken it or collect uh lumen amber before heading to branch catchy blizzard
Bud claw and collect lumen amber
Oh, this is guaranteed success never mind. So I don't even have to worry about this
I think there's something by the river I'll head over and take a look
There's so many amazing mysterious things in the content of Idol.
Use each of Adi's unique mobility skills to interact with the world and find them out.
Oh, okay.
And that's why you intertwine, huh?
Oh, so let me guess.
Yeah, so we intertwine and then we, what, oh wait, hold on, that's not it at all.
like barrage? Yeah, I think I'm supposed to go on the Tiger dude. Wait, so why did my
Tiger guy like press T
hustle.
Oh, so that's like your special hustle tunnel.
So this guy can get all the chests are like underground kind of thing
This one seems normal.
Okay, so that one has thorns, so it says use fire, so then we get on this guy, and then
what, just...
Ah, there you go.
We're learning boys, we're learning
The serious Pathfinder's message
Trying with ember go cast fire. Oh are these like little messages that people are leaving?
Or whatever like everyone's like up voting this dude
Like that like the dark soul stuff pretty much
I'll give me one second. I got checked something before continuing casing anything from me. Nope. We're good
It's really a tutorial, okay
Because it has like upvotes. I'm thinking oh someone left me a message with the upvotes
That's the man before I enter the branch.
Uh, Lumen, Amber.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
So what's the purpose of capturing multiple, uh, anemo in the game?
the water you'll automatically twine with it and be able to swim like you were born for it
pranky my man's name is pranky
replace with summoning mode to twine with auto replace
See whether you're sleeping doubling your catch chance approach carefully and catch them from
behind for a point one for 1.5 catch chance Oh some legit some will just have like better
or stats or whatever.
Nope, we'll go.
Oh, so this dude does not so when you're able to use the the Nemo then it'll the T ability
will actually be available.
How come this guy can't can't open up this one right here?
Oh, I guess I need that on email.
Oh, because you still have to twine no matter what.
OK.
Like regardless, you have to twine all the time.
of the
test based on the movie, the water
I thought I was already like, I thought I was still like level one or two.
Uh oh. Oh, oh, oh! What, what, what is happening?
Why, why, why are we fighting?
Like I guess I'm already in aggro range of like other anemo.
Hold on where's the um the management window that's where you can put yeah I want my lion
back bro.
Oh, nice.
Is there a way to zoom out more in this game or no?
Words of the wind, the vein brings life, the flow of life never stops.
On the back of a giant turtle, people said no.
Damn, these are leveling quick too.
So even if I don't have like a certain anemo equipped, if I have to traverse something
it will just auto switch if I have it in my inventory.
That's kind of cool.
That that is the case
What is this an incredible egg
Let's say
So I mean technically speaking wouldn't it be like more damage on the enemo to um
to like have you know to command your enemo to attack enemies while you hit it with your
like your your little auto attacks or whatever
Oh, I see. You actually do have to aim at the other anemo. Wait, where'd it go? What the
hell?
Because then it says, like, 73% chance, 40% chance, 20% chance. You're bad at this game.
oh I don't want to die going in there oh we gotta go like all around
it shows at the right hand side of your party if they are good or bad with
thumbs up or down depending on the encounter. Oh, I see. What is this? Collect scattered
Luma challenge started. Oh, oh.
Oh, OK.
So that was like a little event that started.
It's also kind of cool, like when you start an event, it automatically just
kind of puts a little pop up at the bottom.
that can just kind of tells you like which enemo to use to do the event better because
I guess the fire dude has dash or whatnot.
Is there a fall damage?
Let's find out after this MSQ quest.
Let's find out after the quest is over.
I don't know how co-op it is.
I mean, it's supposed to be open world RPG.
Some people said that there's like campsites where you see other people and stuff.
Oh, so this is basically like unlocked like the zone and all the time.
Oh, it tells you the level range too.
So this is like six to 16.
You got Forest of the Falling Stars at 21.
Oh, oh, damn.
by this land. That's right. It is proof that the branch is going to do its blessing,
and this world has welcomed you. Perhaps you've heard people say that Eidol and Astra
are two entirely different worlds. But many Australians believe this is just an exaggeration
regarding the differences in climate and ecology. They assume that adequate gear and
supplies are all they need to thrive here. But now you've experienced what truly makes
this place different. Yeah. Observing an emo twining with them touching the pulse of the
vein. There's also a voice over IP. Oh no. Turning that off as a streamer immediately.
My mind connected with the vein and the whole world looked different.
The world is solo. Same way as Genshin Impact. And when you invite people
and when you invite people to your world, I was like a bug on my screen. Yeah, stupid.
Uh, only the owner of the world can complete quests.
Oh, okay.
This is what it feels like for an outsider to be truly recognized by a new world and become
part of it.
By offering Luminamber, you can help restore more of the branch's energy and deepen your
bond with it.
That's right.
If your bond with the branch keeps growing, the world itself will protect you.
In time, you could even alter the local climate, environment, and flow.
In any case, congratulations.
successfully completed your first task. Welcome to Idle. Your journey officially begins here.
Quick! Get over here! You remember that huge thing we saw flying overhead, right?
I can still sense its presence. It's so warm here by the branch. It's like the land itself
is giving me a hug. Maybe that's what drew it here. You know, I could have sworn I saw
Something fall to the ground when it flew by
That's right over there. I can feel some kind of strange ripple in the wind
It's a feather
Touch
Follow the wind toward the place where flowers bloom
Oh
Yo, we about to fly voice just now was it that huge creature
Does this feather belong to it?
probably
It's huge and it's glowing and so light
Surely, this is no ordinary anemos feather, right?
Then there's definitely something special about it
I wish Lunara were here right now, she's so smart, I bet she'd know exactly what to do.
I know she's asleep inside the mural, but this is the longest we've ever been apart.
I kind of miss her.
Don't worry, you should be re-
Wait, what?
Dr. Lewis, you mean-
you mean exactly the Institute has already launched an investigation into those ruins
professor bore will personally lead the team with lita in charge of security they'll begin very soon
but i'm guessing neither of you wants to just sit around here waiting for the results
of course not lunaris tell us sleep in the mural and i'm the only one who can wake her
yes that's our theory too if we want to do that we'll probably need the ancestor prism
So right now when you invite someone to your group and you're doing a quest for you, it's only yours.
And the other person just doesn't get like any of the...
of the whatever.
Okay.
So definitely, I guess it doesn't really incur...
So someone's basically just helping you and they're just being like cool about it.
The investigation is extremely important.
Even if we leave your companion asleep for now.
I can't bend the rules for newcomer
and risk disrupting the whole operation.
Good, sharp, driven, brave.
That's exactly the kind of question I wanted you to ask.
Then here's my answer.
You guessed right.
Just come to the stage and you'll qualify
to join this investigation.
Thank you, guys, I appreciate a sub.
The process isn't complicated. You'll take a guidance lesson from a senior student.
Once you pass, I'll handle your assessment myself.
Of course, you'll also need to obtain this region's badge for the Nimbus Fields.
It'll serve as proof of your knowledge of Eitel. If all goes according to plan,
we'll arrive right as the investigation begins.
Then you can officially reunite with your friend.
Call it extra trouble, if you like, or call it a challenge.
I'm in.
Excellent. Now we'll...
Oh, look over there.
Actually, the senior student assigned to guide you
ought to be nearby too.
Go find Lana and ask her about it.
A little heads up.
She loves twining with her research subjects.
So finding her might require a little effort on your part.
Kinda like Darcy was co-op, but more free and better.
Got it.
Fly, swim, climb.
Who's the future of Cleveland Press Space to jump in the air and press space again in
the air to fly?
Am I just gonna fly or do I need like an anemo to do it?
Oh, okay.
There you go.
Walk press space a minute to leap upward for a short distance.
There is my stamina.
Oh, I see it.
I should prop.
How do I land?
I'm just falling.
And he almost died.
And I almost died.
I don't know, this game is pretty good.
We weren't all in forever mode for tomorrow that I probably would have actually continued playing
Well, once we're done with today's like
Sponsor stream or whatever, but if you guys do want to play it is free to play doesn't cost you anything. It's on steam
Is this on console 2?
Or no
It doesn't tell me my notes here if it's on console or not
It is okay cool
Yeah, and literally just launched today officially and the pin message has a nice little
Code that you can use in game to redeem goodies
And apparently somebody in the chat linked the wiki that also has other codes so you can get more stuff
Yeah, dude, I'm actually really impressed with like the look of the game like the graphics very sharp
Senior sheepy
You've been circling around me like that non-stop. Did you need something wait? You're a human right senior Lana
And you're that new student right? I've heard so much about you from dr. Lewis
Anyway, dr. Lewis told me about your lesson and your assessment from now on just ask me if you need anything in assessment, huh?
What should I test you on? Oh?
Look there are loads of ember pups over there see the little ember pups over there
They're always circling around that flame ruff.
Hey, baby.
Here's my little Animo right here.
Oni the Animo.
What's up, baby?
What's up?
Sorry.
Puppy needs morning.
Morning.
Morning.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Evolved into flame rocks their gamma stage form, which is also their ultimate goal. All right. No, I really need to know
Could you help me find out what they're planning? Don't forget to twine
Is this like an investigation and you might find out what they're talking about
So at some point can you just like ignore this MSQ and go around just start catching all kinds of an emo
be like are we good we can do this another time you know twine with ember pup blend in
with the ember pup family
oh you guys you know okay
Okay.
Dude, I love the twine.
The twine stuff is actually awesome.
Just being able to, like, turn into your anemo is kind of cool.
Oh, I was supposed to, like, hustle to catch up.
Oh, great.
I just started an event
Awesome isn't that like the same cube that was like trying to kill us with the other anemo in the cave or am I crazy
like
past the Sanctum's trials uh-oh
Are there like raids and dungeons in this game
Anyway, if you pass this trial, you should get something worthwhile.
Should we give the challenge a try?
Alright.
Sometimes like the music during the dialogue just ends up blaring more loudly than like the VA of it all.
I don't know, here we go. I guess we're gonna go into a sanctum trial.
Oh, yeah, my drops command isn't updated for an emo, but it's like two hours for the
drops. Any channel streaming one of the categories you give it to, this is actually cool.
Oh, this is awesome.
Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
Got that rush.
First clear gives you
Lumen Amber Breezy Plane and EXP.
I think it's scorpion animations 10 out of 10 man bun five at its end
Let's see.
Collect chests, reach the depth of the sanctum, and repair the vein of that.
Set up the Anemo Statue to claim a Sanctuary Slice of Anemo.
Burn the Shackles.
Twine with Anemo, then tap and hold Q to aim.
Release the Launched Fireball at the target. Launched Fireballs are playable objects
such as wooden chests and vines can ignite them, okay?
And then what am I aiming at exactly all up there?
I'm assuming every sanctum is like, is like specific to an enema probably?
of the
Because you're able to use the explosive barrel ahead to blast the chest down.
And I think I really wish is that the game had like more zoom out.
If you was like the game like auto zooms in, maybe there's an option for the zooming. Hold on.
Could be a, is there like a camera option or something?
Yeah, there's auto-locking, auto-follow, auto-adjust camera when not locked on is off.
Yeah, there's no way to, like, just zoom out even more.
I look for a way to set FOV next, I'm gonna find it, yeah.
Maybe in the future they'll do something to the game like that.
Ooh, here we go.
This seems to be a chest in the ice ahead.
Yeah, so that's, it looks like this entire sanctum is just based around your ember bup.
Oh, Jesus Christ, it's just like, whoa, it's almost fell down.
Yeah, cool game.
Like, these kind of games are just like taking off now.
It's almost like because of certain games, other games like this are just now being like,
Oh, finally, we can do this, and we have our own way of doing it, but I've always had an idea of, you know.
Thank you, Mr. Carer, appreciate it.
What does try on mean?
Does try on in the top right?
What is it trying to tell me to try on?
I'm sure I don't miss anything like maybe up top or something, I think we're good.
I wonder if in like future sanctums you actually have to like fight your way through
these places. I'm the same way Jen never really played it and I played more other games like
it than not.
The detest for that, uh, anemo, okay.
This is incredible. I can feel the Vaen energy flowing again and those ember pup fighting
moves were really something. Looks like the ember pup family has guarded this place for
generations. They must have discovered it could help them grow stronger. Whoa! Look
over there! That ember point transformed!
energy voltage detected the Emperor was other than going ashore and every change
press to view information about an emo evolve here you can check an emo's
evolution requirements clear sanctum 12
Oh, damn. Flamer Ruff.
It is now a Flamer Ruff.
The final spirit is united in its fist burn like fire.
Oh, wow.
And there's actually like more of it.
Like, you got that look at that one.
That one has like extra heads, like a cerebus or something.
The feet, the alpha score child.
then you get a little 20 and this was complete the journey warrior and little 20 it feels like
evolving your Nemo isn't even like I'm gonna say not that hard but it seems like it can happen pretty
fast you know
basically is uh are there any others that I can evolve or is that just the only one that's
Evolvable
But you also level them up too, I didn't see that so
Oh you use like the use exp item
Cool
And I just wasted all my items on one.
Lana, connection established.
What the hell?
Oh, it's flame ruffs, not flame ruffs.
All right, you pass the wheel arrow. Okay. I've prepared a super tough challenge for you
Listen up the boss of the nimbies around here a turbo is right next to me
This one's seriously strong. So come find me quick. Oh, and you can catch some enema on your way here, too
Let's see
Try catching up letter nim and an iris
Okay
play so did I have any other ones that were
so what's this
I was just like a battle pass or something
all this is like completing the area submit report
Oh, no, no, I don't want to teleport yet. I don't want to do that. I was like a poke at that. So I gotcha gotcha
Okay, so my skippy can evolve right as two arrows
And become a prankie
That's cool
Um, the way it's worded here is that it's a next gen creature catching open world RPG.
People say you can group up, but basically the people grouping up with you are just kind
of helping you finish your quest and it doesn't really count for them.
Is that right?
Did I get that right?
Maybe I don't know if I got that right.
Automatic.
Oh, no.
the
open
those guys is like after a capture everything
I
Catching iris. Oh, we went over here. Oh, this is an iris
What fell is that?
There's a campfire over there, that's that thing.
Thank you Dazzy for subscribing at T2.
Hey, you can post gifts.
Ah, so these are other players, right?
I can tell because the screen is kind of lagging a little bit as I enter this area like I'm
in a different instance.
say hello to Reli.
Oh, this is some, but there's another person.
Okay.
You can see like their ID and everything or whatever.
So while you're out in the open world of the RPG,
you don't see these people, but when you're in a resting area, you like see other people.
cool. So this is just where you would just meet other people, etc. And now when once I leave here it just
you go to a little bubble of going back to the regular game, let's just one up flutter them.
Oh, yeah, that's a turbo. It's the biggest widest fluffiest member of the NIMBY family
Huh you already earned the sky pasture batch that was fast then it's time for the final assessment
Take it down
But first you think I need to explain a few more things
You may have a flame rough now, but turbos are no pushovers
It might look soft and fluffy, but it's temper is a lot worse than other nimbies
Just now flame rough tried to challenge it and it ended up getting seriously hurt
That's because even though flame roughs and ember pups love chasing nimbies around a flame roughs element has no advantage over a
Turbos, that's what we call an elemental counter. Oh, is this where it tries to explain to you like which?
Anemo you need to like face certain kinds of other anemo
It's to party up and run around together in a world and take on the elites.
Oh, okay.
So, pop quiz.
Turbo's a wind type enemo.
What element should you use to take it on?
Easy.
Just use me.
Huh?
Exactly right.
So, even with an elemental advantage, you've got to be mindful of the difference in strength too.
Let's see, Animo and her skills have elemental differences that create counters using WIS to deal more damage.
Any pod it can even improve your chances of catching a powerful alpha anemo like a turbo
If you actually manage to defeat it you might as well try to catch it
Any pod ultra okay, so yeah, obviously this game's gonna have like
Different pods the more powerful pods to capture the more powerful anemo
Higher level anemo gain greater combat stat boosts
Click the button to level up and boost Animo's abilities, which I already did.
So they said that one is wind?
So what's good against wind?
I was at I was at a window earlier that showed like the the chart. Oh
So you are supposed to be using your fire to ignite wind, okay?
Okay, here we go, so we swap to our flame rough recommended level 13. All right, all right
So if I was in that campfire, if I was in that campfire, I could have grouped up with
one of those people to come here and help me with this.
Oh wow, ho ho.
How do I get my stuff to be more powerful?
Some grabbies. Thank you for the party. I appreciate it. Hope you had fun with the game. I just started.
Oh, damn it.
I gotta switch my dodge button so I can be more friendly for the keyboard.
Oh, break.
Oh, so the dodge is a few going in the air.
Yeah, this dude got mechanics, bro.
of
the
death
of
death
So even though, like, my other Anemo aren't good against this Alpha Turbo, I can still
use them, though, right?
Like, I could switch to my Lion dude.
Yes, we'll switch Anemos to heal it.
Wait.
No.
any more different quality, different catch success rates using any part of ultra grants
Uh, okay, wait, what, what, what? It's going too fast.
I want to say like the line probably could have been better. Yeah, use like an ultra, right?
Yeah, the tutorial screens like are too fast, man. Like I just want to read and like
You know, from like one to the other.
was no match for you. Congratulations. Your guidance lesson is complete.
I probably should have started with the lion. It probably would have been like way better.
Good bye to Senior Sheepy or Senior Sheepy.
Yeah, I think so far like the coolest part of the game is the entrance whining and like
just kind of jumping in and out between you and the anemo. I think that's like the
Cool as far as the games so far compared to like other games.
Primagee is a premium currency, yeah?
Not sure I'm anything of a goner.
Congratulations, Freshman. You've passed the guidance course and proven yourself commendably.
Starting today, you are officially a student of the Polaris Institute.
You'll now represent Astra and the expedition team on a brand new journey across Idle.
Man, I thought I was already in the Polaris Institute. I thought that's why I signed like 10 tons of paperwork on my way here.
Congratulations. May you always carry hope and passion in your heart and shine like the stars.
Thank you, instructor. I'll keep working hard.
Congrats on your promotion, press to learn character talents.
Oh, there we go.
Do the hill skill, the heel skill, like, OK, heel, heel,
arrow board and hand.
Well, what's an enhanced whining?
Increase an emo damage by 100% after twining.
Okay, how many talents do I have?
Do I have any yet or five those that have four? Oh, you could be able to reset them. Whatever you want
All right boys, you know, and I'm gonna ask next
Can I get a tier list? What's the bet? What are we doing?
What what what are we doing?
Yeah, we're doing a sponsor stream today. And by the way, thanks to an email for sponsoring the stream today for a couple hours
pretty fun game you know like I told my team just throw at me some games that
you would probably never see me playing and so far pretty good obviously we
haven't gotten deep into the game and probably in the interim we'll both be
but I mean I'm definitely not good point to let's say uninstall this game
from steam. I have one I just need someone to give me access. Let's go with heal because
I never don't have a heal. You sprinkle healing dust on the Engage and Nemo to restore its
HP blur. Arrow board. A hover board that helps you travel faster and does not cost
stamina can be used in Astra. That's pretty cool.
I wonder if eventually you just learned everything.
So there's enhanced whining, enhanced elemental boosts,
an emo experience gain from catching and defeating targets or using experience item increases by 10%,
enable switching between catch mode, attack mode, and defense mode,
and pro catcher unlocks an emo pro in the shop. I don't know what that is. I don't go
with advanced whining. I need to post it in our chat board or
discord for other people that might want to play.
Oh, oh wait, so it's one out of five. I can't let all you need student upgrade two
to get the next one there.
Uh, with elemental boosts.
Real training?
Well, I'm hoping that this tutorial is kind of giving you guys an idea of what the game is like in a way,
Cause you know, you watch me play like, yeah, that's how he's playing your game.
He doesn't know what he's doing, but you know, yeah, I like this.
And it's free to play, though, by the way.
And we do have codes for the game in the thin message and in the Anemo command.
Again, you like free stuff in the game.
If you guys want it.
I've already put together an elite training plan made just for you.
It's on your terminal now.
Go ahead and take a look.
Elite training.
The Elite Training Program makes you stronger and is the best choice to help you explore the world.
So, kind of like a BP, but telling you what to do to unlock more of it?
The right training will help you grow and keep you safe out in idle.
I'll be checking your progress regularly, so don't slack off.
Why is my flame ruff crying?
Explore this beautiful continent and improve yourself.
I look forward to seeing your progress.
Uh, F3 for Elite Training.
Elite Training includes a growth goal so that Pathfinder can complete the goals to claim
lots of Sepharis, complete four requested quests to finish the chapter, and claim chapter
rewards.
Okay.
You can complete required quests and reach the required character level and promote
your title.
Are the training quests also grandly training points?
Save up no points to claim ultra rare, Animo.
Okay.
Go where flowers bloom
Do you know where that might be? Oh?
Then you must have met someone from Bloomville the place where flowers bloom the land blessed by flowers and butterfly shadows
The land of flowing fragrance the Sultan of Swat the Sultan of Swat
It was also one of the first settlements in idle to establish ties with Astra
It's known for its flowers and fragrances and has always enjoyed a close relationship with the party Carter's happy
I'm on the tail end the path down to get ready for tomorrow
Drop a thong part one of two coming to an end
Dia messenger from bloomville. How does she just magically appear there?
You must be our friends from Astra, yes?
I'm Dia, from Bloomville.
Those are the media.
The pleasure's all mine. You must be with the Polaris Institute, right?
Elder Yeager told me about you.
I'm here on behalf of Bloomville to meet our friends from Astra
and pick up the supplies we ordered.
Indeed. I thought you'd be arriving around now.
Everything's set at the outpost, so head over whenever you're ready.
Oh, and this new student of mine has a few questions about Bloomville.
Oh yeah. The place where flowers bloom.
Is that another name for bloomville if you heard that phrase near nimbus fields, and they must have met bloomville
Thank you score plus official. Appreciate it place for flowers bloom land of blossoms and wonderful fragrances
We did go through some troubles before thanks to lady Irelia everything's been peaceful recently once you see the bloom festival
You'll understand what we mean by the place for flowers bloom
That's right. It's bloom those most important celebration held only once every ten years
The bloom festival blessed by flowers and butterfly shadows
Oh, what's a butterfly shadow the elder mentioned in fighting our friends a master to the festival? Thank you
But I have other plans you're more than welcome
But the offering ceremony begins in just a few days, so you want to set out soon if you're planning to attend
Got an invitation gift to bloomville. Oh by the way, do you know the way to bloomville?
Keep following this road, and you'll be there in no time
I'd better hurry to your outpost too, or I won't make it back in time.
Dr. Lewis, what's this all about? Here's the situation.
A rare kind of anemo called the Irisolus makes its home near Bloomville.
That's Lady Irelia, the one she just mentioned.
Every ten years, Bloomville holds a ceremony to honor Irelia with offerings and prayers.
According to legend, she awakens during the ritual, bringing forth the Prismana flow.
He's one of us now.
ceremony and the Prismana flow plus the Nemo we've never seen before but what
about the investigation at the ruins don't worry the bloom festival won't take
long and it overlaps neatly with our preparation time by the time you return
you'll be able to join the investigation directly got it leave it
to me
chasing the clouds so can you just like farm that turbo no I don't want to
I don't want to fight that thing again, bro.
I don't want to fight that thing again. Let me go back to that menu.
So, first step is to emote 4 of the Fallen Stars quest progress, 0 out of 4.
Uh, level cap out to promotion 35. Complete 4 required quests in chapter 1.
Raise your character level to 25. That doesn't even sound that hard.
So this is kind of just like a, like a legacy kind of thing.
You just have to do all these.
I'll be three chests in the world all the currency boys all the currency
There you go some ultra and he pods. Oh
This is like your daily login stuff
Oh
There's like a there's like a dex for like every single one. What's that for?
I call this the exclamation mark game, baby. My kind of games
kind of where we're playing uh blue protocol or whatever. Man, I'm I'm so sad that blue protocol
didn't like kind of make it make it. That game was so good. It's probably like
probably like the
the second most played ebobo I've had in the last two years
What's this for? Oh, you got the monthly pass for 99. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You'll get that.
Okay. What is all that? Oh, I'm in the shop right now. I didn't even know this round.
Like, what is my way? I'm in the shop. What is that? What's on its head? You buy some
You can kick, so you can buy some sneakers.
It's a gumball machine.
Oh, well, I want to go back, I want to go back, I want to go back.
Well, at least it has like a little sword on it is pretty cool.
OK, that's just not my thing.
Yeah, now the ears just don't do it for me.
Yeah, that would do it for me.
Yeah, I mean, the sword doesn't even really have a lot of stuff right now, actually.
There's just a few things here and there, and I'm actually crazy.
And this is how much it costs. Jesus.
It always goes in increments, you know, 5, 15, 30, 50.
I don't know if I paid this game 30 bucks if I'll get a blue race.
Hit the open wins and set off now.
So departure with the wind 84 days, six hours remaining, season overview.
Oh, wow.
So this is like the seasonal hub boys, it has been a long drop of thawing and it's time
to rest up.
Yeah.
Once again.
Thank you for an email for sponsoring today's stream and just showing you guys a little glimpse of something you might like, you know
You know, I'm always I always keep it transparent. I
Might not stay with the game. Obviously we have forever to play this entire month and next month after that
But if you see what you like based on just the small tutorial here, then it's a it's a free-to-play game
Buy it check it out. It's a next-gen creature catching open-roll RPG
You know these games like you know like these games are kind of hot right now, you know
There's no spend too much money, you know try to try to try to play the game and get as much currency as you possibly can I
Think it should be like three months before I ever actually started spending any kind of relevant money in blue protocol when I played it
Let's see how long was it it's got you and it's fine, too
Oh 96 we actually almost hit the hundred hour mark that we had initially set out to do
Yeah, hope you guys like the game though and once again, I'll keep the commands
I'll keep the logo in my information below and
The command of the title overnight in case you guys or honestly just go and watch some other streams
And you know get your drops to there's like all cool rewards from drops
The other creators are also sharing and, uh, yeah, now let us see if you like it.
Play the game.
Don't get played.
That's actually that that's actually really good.
But tomorrow we will be returning to embark on our adventures in forever.
Well, I mean, that's if what depends on what time forever actually comes out.
So I actually have no idea what is going to happen.
But I'm going to rest up myself.
Let's put the countdown timer back up.
somewhere somewhere around here
I just wanna
do do do do do
ba ba ba ba ba ba
heard there's a, I heard the classic cast is back
wait who's in the classic cast? Wasn't that like Zach and the other peeps doing that
or are they doing that again?
Or is it like or or is it now like that's been in a few other people?
You don't know what time now they haven't really said like what time at all it's gonna happen. It's kind of crazy. I
Don't know how they haven't done it yet
So weird oh
Oh
There you go, I was like where's my timer for it?
Where did it go dude? Dude, where's my car dude? Where's my car?
As fun that goosu and Anthony. Oh my god
So basically the three people that are gonna critique every little aspect of a retail bar target frame you could possibly imagine
Or whatever
Yeah, the one thing I never liked about the classic cast in general was that it was just basically like
Anti-retail propaganda, you know pretty much
As you're being a good and kind human being. Thank you appreciate it
Transmogum but classics. I don't like it. I don't like it one bit
it. Get out of here. Get it out of here. Damn it. Let me choose to not be a member of
the Institute. Yeah, I'm pretty sure, like someone said, it's one of those like false,
Uh, you know, it's false sense of illusion kind of thing, you know?
Like, oh, you don't have to join the institute and you know damn well you have to join the goddamn institute, you know?
Yeah, alright, but once again, thank you for the incredible support throughout the entire
BlizzCon Dropathon. You guys are awesome. It has been insane. Once again, we are now ending
Dropathon part one of two. Two of two will be continuing tomorrow morning with the launch of
the Forever Beta. Hope you guys are ready. I'll have all the information in my title for tomorrow,
like, you know, PvE Horde is what we're going to do. So we don't have to no, we no longer have to
give a server name, but yeah, we're going to be PvE Horde and we're just planning to just
play Wow all morning, all day and this and tomorrow's second part of the Dropathon will
will be lasting from Thursday until probably Sunday. So that means the stream will stay
up 24-7 from Thursday to Sunday. Drops are still enabled. 12 hours were the drops for
while. So it'll be cool. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I need to rest. I'll see you
guys tomorrow forever and beyond
I
You leave your coat on the kitchen chair
Blue receipt and broken space small evidence I still belong to you
Let the silence climb a little more
If you want me, don't make me wait
One more second and I'll change my shape
Come closer than disappear
I only want what you want, make clear
Hold me lightly, keep me guessing
If cold hands make the dangerous lesson
I'm closer than disappeared
Leave your perfume on the atmosphere
No promises, no explanation
Just one more beautiful complication