The BlizzCon schedule has been released. Start the wild speculation!

0:00Hello and welcome to the Blizzard Watch Podcast where we talk about Blizzard Entertainment in its many games and its yearly sometimes conventions and other stuff. They do a lot of things. With me this week are as always the EIC of the site. Liz Harper, hello Liz. Hello. Special guest Liz Pat who is not Liz Harper nor is she a replicant from another dimension seeking to kill Liz to gain her powers. I would never kill Liz, she's my friend. Yes, exactly. You have not come to this dimension, assume to different guys and attempt to kill her in a kung fu fight. Yeah, of course not. That would just be weird. And finally Joe Perez who also isn't doing that but I wouldn't be surprised if he was. I've decided that I want my unofficial title to be for the site director of podcast

1:03audio editing. All right. Don't care. It sounds like it's all space. It sounds like we give Liz a title. That's why I said unofficial. It's quite unofficial since I can feel I can feel Liz face bombing right now. Yeah. I want to point out that this is a strange time for Blizzard news because of reasons involving a convention happening. So we're just going to do the best we can and we've got a bunch of stuff to talk about there. I mean, it's sort of big news on its own, man. It's pretty big speculation too though. That's what people listen to us for. I feel uncomfortable speculating. I don't do it very much. I'm sorry. Who are you and what have you done with Matt Rossi? I'm very confused. I'm very confused. Who are any of us and why are we here?

2:03Who are we? What is love? Baby don't hurt me. All right. No more. No more. No more. No more. What's talk about Blizzcon 2026? The Diablo does not have a big space. I think we should. Diablo? Lead with the fact that there is now a schedule for Blizzcon 2026 and a show floor map and all of the things which we have been wondering when are you good to tell us what's happening at Blizzcon guys win. Well, the answer is now for at least a month now, I think. I mean, you got to wonder where's the schedule? Where's the schedule? The schedule is now and here. Unfortunately, the schedule is in one of those really annoying running things where I get track with. It's not the easiest to read. It's the, it's, it's, it will try your patience. But the most important thing that we have note here is that at least we know that for everything on September 12th, which is a Saturday at 1.30 p.m. Eastern, the opening ceremonies

3:08begin across the board, which is a matter of where you stream or where you're watching or I think where you are at Blizzcon or indeed where you are in the world. You're going to be at home and fed and suddenly boom right in your prefrontal cortex, the opening ceremonies from Blizzcon. Like this is the cyberpunk future of what they are owned by Microsoft now and we did pass, you know, the Magic Sky Net day. Now boy, it's going to be fantastic. But okay. So let's ask like seriously though, before we talk about the Diablo thing, let's actually talk about how to get to watch this at home because some, some people like the majority of people who care about Blizzard games aren't going to be able to go to Blizzcon. This is just a fact. So it's free. We should put that out there right now. You don't have to pay extra to watch Blizzcon from your device of choice. Yay. That's a good thing. However, I've read this four times and I'm still having trouble with exactly how I'm

4:10going to do this. So I'm going to turn to Liz and Liz, both of them, I'm sure I understand it better than me and say, how do we do this again, please? Well, it's both very simple and also needlessly complicated because if you follow your favorite Blizzard games on Twitch or YouTube, that's where it's going to be. Except if you say you want to follow Warcraft and Diablo, those are going to be on two different channels. So everything should be streaming onto the specific game, YouTube and or Twitch channels. But if you're wanting to watch Warcraft, you're going to have to switch to the Warcraft channel. If you want to watch Diablo, you're going to have to switch the Diablo channel. If you're going to want to cheerose of the storm, you got to switch to the heroes of the storm channel. So it's not like there's just one big place where everything is anymore because back in the day when Blizzard did its own sort of streaming thing, it was just you went to the streaming thing and you click the panel, you want to watch it, you were there.

5:12Well, you had a hand drop down. You had the handy drop down and now it's on Twitch and YouTube, very simple services we're already used to using. But yes, it's going to be scattered across different channels. If you just want to follow Warcraft, great turn on the Warcraft stream done. If you want to follow anything else, you're going to have to poke around and find where it is. But this is good. This is good. And there are a whole lot of drops for this. If you do Twitch drops thing, if you do YouTube drops, many drops for all of this. And if you want to get them all, I don't know. I don't even know what to tell you because there are a bunch of them and their individual for each game stream. Well, it's the multiple drops are not going to require you to do dedicated all weekend because this is a weekend event now, the 12th and 13th, or Saturday and Sunday.

6:16You're not going to have to watch the dedicated channel the whole weekend. But depending on the content, there might not be a ton going on on that channel other than the fact that there are the competitive events. So for example, there's an overlap between World Warcraft, Archives, and the AWC 2026 and finals between Echo and TBD. And that's Saturday at OK. So if I want to watch Archives, does that mean I can't watch AWC or vice versa? So I wonder how much of that they've, or are you just not able to watch the events at the competitive events at all anymore? Because that would be kind of a shame because there's some cool stuff on the classic cup

7:17schedule. And I think more than likely because of the way they're doing this stuff that they're probably going to be available, especially with YouTube being one of the streaming sources, that stuff usually gets shuffled away as a video of its own segment later afterwards. So you'll still be able to go back and watch the stuff I'm sure. So you're like just like in years past, it's the biggest problem is it's going to be slightly decentralized compared to what we were used to before. But the good news is compared to the other ones, the last time I remember doing a Blizzcon like hardcore watch and everything through their app, they were gone after like a week. And like you couldn't get them anymore. But with the stuff going on YouTube, presumably they'll be available for you long after that week is up. So if you are traveling the world for work or sick or some reason can't sit and watch your favorite things and you're not going to be able to get to it within that that

8:20week time frame, chances are good. It's still going to be there. We don't know again, it's speculation, but it would be very surprising if it wasn't. Yeah, they can they can and have because they've done this once or twice before pull stuff down like for example, Diablo Vods from the the dev live streams would come down. Yeah. And then get re listed on the YouTube channel. So I think we're going to have to see honestly, which doesn't feel great. I mean, but I think I think on the low end, it's going to be as good as it was before. I mean, I don't think these things are going to immediately disappear and for Twitch streams, even if you don't Twitch streams automatically stay around for two weeks. So I think that's your absolute low low bar is that we're going to at least have everything for a couple of weeks. And on the high end, it could be archived forever on YouTube because YouTube doesn't clear

9:23these things out. So it's it's good. All it all, it's good. It's maybe the schedule, maybe a little confusing because of this because of how they're doing it. It kind of makes sense. And if you're just following Warcraft, you know, I know we have we talk about Diablo, we talk about Overwatch, we talk about other games, but I think most of us are primarily here for Warcraft. We play a lot of World of Warcraft. And if all you want to do is follow World of Warcraft, you just have to turn on the Warcraft stream and you're done. You're good. Yeah, the only place where this isn't kind of fits into what we're going to talk about with Diablo and that Diablo Immortals got some kind of long battle between people for the cross server bout of realms, which is a jelly massive PVP thing. Go ahead, Liz. That's been a known event, although it's not been widely publicized. They announced it last week. Registration was open August 27th to August 30th.

10:23And they're in the preliminary stages now. They'll be running the finals next week so that they can do the elimination stage. It almost said on prem on state. I just want to laugh at me for very specific reasons. The job shows up in weird ways. So it is a PVP of it's basically a tournament. And they didn't really broadly publicize it. And the gameplay windows are not huge either. So you're talking a couple of days. So this is a format that they've done before. But it does make me wonder. I don't think that takes two full days of stage ownership, barring. There is an art panel, I think.

11:24Well, there's also a developer update. But it's not on the main stage. It's not on the Diablo stage. The main stage is kind of the exception to the old. If you want to just see Warcraft, just watch Warcraft. But that's not it won't put that remain stage stuff on the Warcraft channel. But I'm going to put the Diablo one there. They're going to put the Diablo one on the Diablo channel. It's not going to be there's not any place you just watch the main stage. I'm sorry. I have to comment this because every time you guys say Diablo and I don't know why, but specifically with Blizzcon, I just hear Deckard Keane in my head. Diablo every time I'm sorry. Are you Obelisk? Yes. Are you are you K Jo? No, not even real. Not even real. Oh, I'm sorry that now you've caused me to have to tell this story. My wife and I have been playing video games, especially Blizzcon video games, for the entirety of our relationship before we were even married. I proposed to my wife in a molten core run. After she actually, she proposed to me and I didn't catch it.

12:27And then in the middle of like molten core and I was like, wait a minute. Was that what you didn't say you wanted to get married? Was that what that was? So anyway, we've been playing Diablo. We played Diablo two each of us play separately. Diablo three we played together to this day in the year of the fell. You know, the Lord of Terror, 2026. We still played Diablo three together. I play a lot of Diablo four as well on my own. She doesn't play Diablo four. She doesn't like it because it doesn't have demon hunters. Regardless. Whenever we see a treasure goblin, my wife immediately goes, your Bob low. That's what we call Diablo. The game Diablo is Diablo for us. And it's a treasure goblin. And because of this, Liz once said, hey, Matt, do you think you could write an article about treasure goblins? And she, this was on through text. So she didn't hear me make the noise. And we do Bob lows because that's called the treasure goblin's, the Bob lows.

13:27So there's an article on the site called Always Be Hitting Goblins. And you made this out to Bob lows. Yeah, it's about to Bob lows. It is. Well, the job. And the job was Diablo. It's just that's what I hear anytime anyone says Diablo is I hear Diablo. So out myself. I will, I will note, I will note because yes, where I think we're kind of disappointed. And like the, especially because they, you know, I feel like the developers have been saying, make sure you make it to blues con with the same tone. They said, make sure you make it to the game awards last year. And I don't, I don't feel like they've stressed it quite that much. And also they have gotten bitten by this before by overhapping a bliss. But it's important, it's important to note. I know it's not nearly as lengthy of a franchise. They have the exact same panel amount as Harstone.

14:31So they have two art panels and two dev panels. Harstone is the exact same balance. So and honestly, Overwatch only has five. So and honestly, Overwatch only has five. So I really, the, it's, it's wow that's getting the big, the big eyeballs. So to speak and blizzard, which makes sense, right? Because like of all the games that they're producing right now. Literally the one that is the most consistent and has the biggest road map right now is World of Warcraft. Absolutely. Yeah. Like we know what the next expansion is at least in name. There's like tons of stuff to talk about with it. The design philosophy has shifted between just the last expansion from the war within to midnight. And even within midnight, they have so much art direction change that they've done storytelling.

15:33Like there's literally a panel about collaborative storytelling through their games, right? These are the same by accident. God. That one seems really interesting to me because I am not the biggest fan of Warcraft stories, but I also think the biggest challenge. I mean, that part, that's part of the genre and the biggest challenge that this phases is, it's a big collaborative story that's been told over decades by hundreds or thousands of different people contributing to this story. And it's hard. It's hard to keep it together like that. So I'm very curious about that panel in particular. Yeah. And in storytelling has shifted for it because of sensibilities, right? It's an MMO. And like we've gone from story being primarily done through outside the game, which was early, early while like you had your books, you had your comics, you had all of these things that informed the story of the world and the game sort of caught up afterwards to the focus being shifted to primarily being driven by in game events and in game storytelling,

16:35then to a hybrid model. And then now we're sort of back to like this thing where it's all one consistent vision across all media. Successful or unsuccessful as a whole other story. But the game informs the books, the books act as bridges for the games, other media that potentially gets made for it will do the same thing. And like in it involves a whole group of people now that it wasn't just like one person in the early days of wow going, I really want this to be the story. And then another guy going, yeah, let's do that. And then somebody else going, well, what if we do this story too? It's a huge team. And it's also sort of, I don't want to say decentralized, but it switched right like they have their historians, I think still I don't remember correctly, but a lot of the people that started his historians have moved on to like quest team and storytelling and like it's integrated in the quest teams now as well. There's a lot of shift in it.

17:35So like it's, it makes sense that it just has so many panels. And if I don't see it on stage at some point, I will be very sad. I'm looking at the way I think we all will. I don't want to make it too financial, but it was recently, I think we talked about this last week or the week before. Right now World of Warcraft is considered the standout for Blizzard and the Xbox games. Oh, you made money for us thing they did. Blizzard, Blizzard's biggest game, the one that, and by the way, when I say Xbox games, I don't mean games on the Xbox. That's what Microsoft called our games. Yeah, yeah. But that's their, that's the big, Blizzard entertainment game. It's, it's wow. Wow is generating the most revenue. I mean, the upload for and hard, not hard so, oh my god. And Overwatch both did good years last year because of like, you know, this 2026 had. Overwatch was wildly successful. Yeah, so it's not saying other games aren't successful, but wow is the one that successful.

18:37Like a, like a truck that just keeps making deliveries on time. Yeah, as you pointed this out that it's got, you know, it's been regular year over year now. Possibly the most regular game aside from heartstone, which is their most, again, heartstone is straight up just on clockwork. Oh, yeah, Warcraft is astonishingly consistent in content rollouts to the point where I think a lot of us are maybe a little tired about getting patch every eight weeks. Not that I don't want to say getting new content is bad, but sometimes it hits eight weeks. And I'm like, I didn't need another event where I collect bobbles of void to make new void currencies to buy a cosmetic that's the same as a cosmetic I already have except now it's purple. And I did spend weeks and weeks gathering up tens of thousands of void light moral to buy every class set in purple.

19:37And I kind of regret, regret those hours that I will never see again. But yes, they've, they've really nailed a consistent eight week schedule for content. I don't know if that's always the best for the game, but they are consistent and doing that consistent schedules means he keeps subscribers. It means he keep people in game spending money. And I mean, that's what's that's why it's so good for heartstone has, you know, three expansions a year. That means three battle passes plus their three battlegrounds battle passes, which is totally different game on with its own battle pass. And there are three sets of class sets that used to do many sets, but now they're doing class sets, which are giving you kind of specific cards, but they seem to be doing that on the same timetable. So it's all about the consistency and of course in Diablo four. We do see a new season every about once a quarter every three months.

20:40Roughly it's it's and she'd been variable lately. It has been a little variable, but it's pretty consistent. And with that, you have a new battle pass and you always have new cosmetics and new collapse. And of course, even between that schedule, it gets a little erratic here when you look at new cosmetic rollouts because those can kind of happen anytime. I haven't seen kind of a rhyme or a reason to that schedule. Maybe it's there and I haven't divined it, but it's all about continuing to put stuff out continuing to keep players in the game and if players are in the game, they're thinking about spending money in the game. That's that's how you get them. Yeah, it's okay because you know, we've got a club coming up that I suspect will be associated with possibly Matt's favorite panel of the coming Blizzcon because it's 30 years of battle net with special guest CD project red.

21:44And that one, we all kind of understand that there's at least some of it we understand we know that they're doing a thing with the oblo for you. Oh, when we they're doing a thing with the Witcher. Yeah, and the Witcher is also going to the Witcher is the Diablo skins as well. Yeah, but we have Witcher the new complete Witcher remaster and the DLC when it comes out. But actually the DLC's out, isn't it? No, it's not. It's. I think it's early next year. So sorry, yes, thank you. Where's the heart? The DLC's coming out next year and then some future date we're going to have the Witcher 4. Yeah, yours guesses because my book and that comes out it's going to be on the battle net launcher. They have not said that. Yeah, that's. I mean, no, I thought they had said that. Oh, I might be wrong, but I can't. I said it would be in the battle net launcher. I know they said three. The remaster would be they didn't say anything. Yeah, four. The remaster because it's part of the whole bit with the DLC is also part of that.

22:45We are we are speculating with good within good reason to believe that four will be on the launcher of three is. Yeah. Good clarification. Yeah, I mean, it's. They did hint strongly that more to come. We've got more to come. Well, we, which is we, I mean, we know that they're going to be at Blizzcon, right? They're going to be part of the 30 years of battle. There's a panel with their name in it and it seems. This is such a weird one to me that it's 30 years of battle net with the CD project red CD project red hasn't. We're not actually part of the years, but 30 years it seems it seems odd that we're celebrating the 30th anniversary for someone who's just come and joined us this year. Yeah, well, I mean, we did this cool thing for 30 years and as a treat, you can have some CD project red, you know, as a treat. I want to just make sure I went and looked in it's on the the battle net page that this will be happening.

23:47The three not four, but the complete thing three and three with the expansion, both on there are both there right now. I don't think you can get them yet because they're not out yet, but I believe the three remasters on September 27. So into the month. But regardless, I like that panel, the idea of it, but the only reason I like it is because I'm hoping desperately they will endowance that cyberpunk is getting a DLC at Blizzcon. Because why not at this point? I don't care who tell me. I just want to do it to me. They're more, but you know, Matt, they're more likely to announce that, hey, here's another platform on which you can buy cyberpunk 2077, because you're not going to be able to play a steam copy on battle net. You're going to have to buy an all new copy, which is also where they get you with the outlook. Well, to be fair, though, the CD project red anything you enter it like you install for them, like even when you install on steam, it launches their launcher.

24:54So I'm fairly confident that it'll be essentially the same thing where like your battle.net account, you can integrate it with your CD project red account, probably something like that. But when it's on the launcher when you go to play the game, it's not going to launch from battle that it's going to launch the CD project red launcher and then you'll go into the game. That's how the way is how both steam and God work. I have God galaxy. I don't have I actually do have steam now. Right. I do. Steve both steam and God pull up the battle, the launcher. CD project red, which is just like the Larry and launcher in that it is very heavily influenced by battle net. Let's just say that. It's kind of like launchers and then more launchers and yet more launchers look how many launchers do I need to be fair. I'm also pretty confident that people that were developers for Blizzard at one point that worked on the battle.net team that existed 10 years ago may or may not have worked for both of those companies at some point. Oh, I'm sure I know for a fact that he is origin launcher. Remember that thing. That was my fight like the first that was by the team said that we're let go by the lizard.

26:04Well, here crazy crazy 10 foil hat. 10 foil hat out out out. Wherever it comes out of 30 years. I'm going to say out the wazoo and there's a line from future. I'm a that that is integrates that word up but could they be facing out CD project reds dedicated launcher. No, I don't think it just seems so weird to have them in 30 years of net. It is weird, but it's just a way to get more people that both games are can can get something out of this or CD project red. It's just more people looking at it. I also I agree with that. I agree with that whole hardly. And I also think that it's it's also a show of solidarity because one of the things that I think we've talked about before and I think Larry and in CD project red as companies are likely on board with this is that things shouldn't be isolated.

27:07Because you buy your games on steam or play your games on one particular launcher doesn't mean you should be locked out of accessing it through other ways. And so integrating with other services like potentially battle.net and like in your accounts and having your progress follow you opens it up for everybody right in it makes it more viable for it. And also allows you to do crossover stuff a lot more easily right like also I will share since Matt chair a partner story. I'm going to share a partner story real quick. So we're all sitting here discussing 30 years of battle net and my partner was was in the kitchen came over to me and said this is direct quote with intonation. Did you just say 30 years of battle net and then I saw the light leave their eyes. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry 1997. So no, don't I don't think it worse.

28:13Maybe not actually 30 years yet, but within close to minus one. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, I actually think it was 96 now that I think about so I think 30 years is actually accurate. Oh boy, I've backed just popped anyway. We talked a lot about this and it's cool and we didn't none of us have actually speculated on what we're going to see. So we're around the thing here and we're going to get some speculation going. I'm going to go first to Liz P. Which one I kiss me. Yeah, I don't have to Liz P's don't do this to me. The other ones lose prime. She's I would have said prime. She's Liz to misprime. I'm pausing for a moment. Okay, so my speculation is that we are going to get the the world's most last minute review of Diablo 4 season 15 details, including the reveal of the skins for the Witcher collab.

29:18Okay, Liz Prime. I mean, I think that's a pretty easy guess because you know, there was a lot of wondering, okay, is there going to be a Diablo 5? There's not going to be the apple 5 announcement guys. Not in two different streams. There's not. Yes, so they're just aren't they don't have enough hours on the schedule. What I think is really missing from the schedule and what I think we are going to see slotted in quietly somewhere is wow classic. There's nothing really specific to classic on the schedule and the rumors are swirling big about a classic plus coming to the game. So I think it's pretty typical when we have a blizzcon we get the schedule and it's like well, you know, there's space where you could do some other things I can see some panels that you might want to do that aren't here.

30:18I have a feeling that this is actually going to be even more work craft heavy than it looks right now and we're going to get some more some panels talking about classic plus or that some of the panels that are generic world work out panels are going to be about classic. So that's that's my prediction and that's it's an easy prediction. So I don't feel like I'm showing a lot of foresight but I think if anything we're going to see more work crafts this year and I am a little disappointed that there's not something something for Diablo but it seems like yeah we're just going to get the next season because the season starts two days after blizzcon. We only know a lot about it. Yeah, I think one of those dev panels will be the surprise because there's you don't need to dev panels for one season but yeah absolutely. But but I do wonder if they have a secret they're holding out is it a secret I actually care about I don't know.

31:20Let's just want the Amazon's I just want Amazon's I want a shadow drop of Amazon's like they did with Paladin's you do that you do that and I will be very happy but I'm not going to hold my breath because I need to breathe to live. That's fair for everyone listening you do need to breathe to live if it's only for a human. I know that there are fish technically they they breathe in a different way but regardless now Joe prime. I was going to say Amazon are going to get announced because that feels like something that would be in line with blizzcon doesn't need a whole lot of dev panel time and would be just amount of much excitement but I think that's going to be part of the opening ceremonies. And then they'll and then they'll likely talk about it later mostly because I think everybody was very surprised that Amazon's weren't announced on the Amazon expansion. Yeah and like it feels it feels like it was a deliberate choice.

32:21So I wouldn't be surprised if that's the big Diablo announcement for blizzcon world of warcraft is going to be the darling as we've all talked about. It's one of those things where I agree with you I think we're going to get some wild classic stuff that's going to come out of nowhere. And I think that's intentional I think that there it's a level of anticipatory hype they've learned their lesson in the past about trying to over hype something in advance and they don't know how it's going to be received but also the the speculation of a classic plus is not exactly without merit. And it would fall in line with the Dev cycle that we've seen for a while classic and some of the things they've been testing with it so would not be terribly surprising especially because it is a popular product. And as far as the regular world of warcraft stuff goes I think a couple things are going to happen. One we're going to get a preview of the next tier that's just something that is going to happen where it's inevitable but I do think there's going to be a lot of emphasis on two things in particular.

33:29One we're going to see a lot of stuff in particular about the wow housing system and the nuts and bolts of it mostly how it's worked the failures successes upcoming changes to it and how they're going to add stuff to it and improve upon it there is literally a whole panels at a side for like that it's like cozy corner something I can't remember the exact name event I don't feel like pulling up the schedule again but it feels like it's perfectly aligned with that. But I do think we're going to see like big changes coming to it because I think that's a huge part of player experience now and I'm not just saying that as somebody who is sunk a million gold into their housing plot. But I do think that that's something that's coming and I do think that we're also going to get a lot of stuff on the last Titan at least the opening cell will for it what it's going to be about the like things that they're going to talk about moving into it. I don't think they're going to do a whole ton of it like they're not going to do with the big reveal but they are going to talk about it where they want this expansion to end and where they want to move into the next expansion.

34:35I do think that's going to be something because again keeping that sort of consistent trickle of hype going for the content especially when we're you know we are exactly midway through if this is the second of a third rate here in the current expansion we are exactly midway through the trilogy of expansions right it's the first time we're going to see that. Perfect time to really start talking about that because that's what they did with with midnight we got to patch we got to the second rate here and they started talking about midnight and so we're on the second rate here I suspect we're going to start hearing about that and then one last thing that i'm going to throw out there because I can feel Corey vibrating through the ather with with the hope and the hope is strong and connects us. I do think that they're going to talk about their games that are in maintenance mode. I think that we're going to hear more about plans for that moving forward because it seems like they've been putting more dev time into those games and we would have expected and I don't think that's without a reason.

35:35And I think that maybe at Microsoft's behest which i'm not going to be mad at if it is but I would not be surprised if we hear more about and i'm just going to call them specialty games at this point because I think that fits better. Especially with League of Legends getting to resurgence I could see them saying by the way active development has begun again on heroes of the storm welcome heroes of the storm 2.0 and then moving on. I know you should 3.0 sorry if you're going to talk about this you should mention that they're doing a classic cup for heroes of the storm and there's doing custodian of legacy games yes talking about development communities for. For these various games so they are talking more about it i'm going to throw in my predictions and it they're kind of simple. Remember we just got done talking about how weird it was that we're having a 30 years of battle that and they're doing a Witcher tie in to Diablo and maybe the Witcher game on the launcher.

36:38I'm going to point out a game that actually has a real reason to be discussed in a 30 years of battle net namely the original Diablo which launched with the battle net in January of 1997. 30th anniversary of Diablo the original Diablo is going to be the 30th anniversary of battle net which is going to be January of 2027. And there is not currently a version of Diablo that will run natively on modern computers without some serious problems and I say this is the guy who owns the version that god put out a couple years back and it for the most part runs fine every so often my computer forgets that it is compared to the computer from 1997. It is an alien god and runs the thing at like 3000 frames per second occasionally like I've actually had the game get stuck in a loop where it like ends and begins and ends and begins because the computer is too fast for it yeah no at some point you figure something might get done with the Diablo the original Diablo something like a remaster.

37:58On its 30th anniversary it would make a lot of sense I agree that would make a whole lot of sense I am I would also be wildly exciting for a lot of people I think I am not confident enough to say this because quite frankly I think it's an amazingly good idea. Microsoft is not a place I go to for amazingly good ideas but I will say that if they don't do this they're not just leaving money on the table they're leaving this would pop. People would go insane this would be the opposite of a certain blizzcon reveal of a Diablo game from a few years back we all know what you're going to talk about I agree if they said it was downloadable on playable for free on battle.net. Yeah imagine how crazy Diablo.net. We know to be even even better by the way here's a remaster it's free by the way remember that expansion that we planned and never actually released here you go. Yeah you just have the balls for it.

38:59They know we know they have the files of it fans had him forever Sierra had it right yeah so you know could you could totally see a remaster and Blizzard I mean Blizzard when it. You know before Microsoft bought it they went and bought vicarious visions to do remasters yeah that's absolutely to resurrected you vicarious visions those guys that's the team you know they could do Diablo. It's in every way it would be easier to do not just could do but what else have they been working on lately yeah that's a good question I don't have an answer for it so that's my kind of pulling it out of my butt but that's my thing. That is what I mean we're here don't do it they should have done it we're here for speculation at this point because we have we have a little bit of time before comes out and then we do our blizzcon post show because we will we always do and it will be a glorious multi hour thing because that's what we do. We'll be seeing how right we are because again I'm like there's there's there's dead space and I understand the conventions have dead space but there's a lot of it versus what they're usually is.

40:07The Diablo stage in particular feels like almost like tumble across the diablo sharing space though isn't it yeah let me let me cut in here because while they say Diablo has a stage imagine the quotation marks around that if I did not make them sufficiently obvious well it has a stage it is. It is not a stage it is smaller than the heroes it's it's it's here's the storm but for heroes of the stone thirds of the space in that. Wait a minute shares of the right yeah and the storm two thirds of the. I will say that the Diablo stage is about the same size as the heroes of the storm demo area which you can take that in which have. I take that in whichever direction you want but it doesn't say much for the size of the Diablo stage the Diablo area is incredibly small for a main line blizzard game and she wants to have a little.

41:14The stage is almost entirely devoted to this immortal event which on you know Liz you talking about a minute ago that's more than I had any knowledge of. It says on on the blizzcon schedule it just says immortal event that's it what honest I can honest I can honest I can honest I can what if it's not actually about Diablo immortal. I mean we do know that they have an event though right still on a it's even if it's not about Diablo immortal it is still on an itty bitty teeny tiny stage the size of a folding table. I mean you're saying that but that's not actually the case like it is a small stage but it is not a folding table it's it may be two folding tables I mean you know when we think about those they're sharing they're sharing whole. What be be right it's the same size as the classic up if you look at it it's not as big as world of work which is deeper but I remember the anti convention center it's about the same size as the classic up stage.

42:16So like it's not it's not it's not because it's not on the stage. Okay. I mean it has its own little area but it's not it's not on the big stage in the hall. It's just a little yeah well it's a little it's a little space out out in the home not on the big stage in the hall it's yeah I'm just looking at the footprint so for those of you at home. If you look at the map and I believe we have it posted on the website it looks like the footprint of it is it definitely bleeds out into the main hall or the main like thoroughfare area which is not uncommon. But I guess we'll see when it happens I'm really curious because it looks like good. I'm not going to say interestingly enough if you look at the classic cup Paul a section there are spots for Diablo one two and three demo Diablo one two and three demo work have three demo here's the storm demo storm.

43:18Those are also very small spots on the map they are very small spots but it's very interesting like if you have that there you could just as easily say hey we're actually over here. And we're talking about small relative to space allocated for other things it's still a huge location and a huge event right so yeah for anyone that hasn't been to the at a high convention center which I think at the point all of us have you know these and and let's con has grown over the years to the point where they actually are taking up a good chunk of the second floor now to well this is a large space. The convention center has expanded since they started. Yeah that's what I said. That's what I meant the convention center is expanded and they've also expanded with it sorry. So it's it's definitely there's you know there's some. Confusion of scale here I would say.

44:18Interestingly enough there's also a battle net 30th anniversary photo application yeah I that could just. I think this is going to be a wild bliss cond of weird stuff that are that's unexpected I just I have that feeling. Yeah like again. The new management right it is yes it is. And frankly because of the new management I've I personally suspect this last bull is con we'll see. Because we're part of Microsoft now Microsoft is cutting costs and cutting corners and Blizzcon is a big expensive event. And I think to see Blizzcons after this Blizzcon either needs to be co-opted by other things so it can be bigger than Blizzard. Or it needs to get a lot smaller and cheaper to run because this is this is even charging what they do for tickets. This is a massive expense for Blizzard it is the charts it is and we know it is but also I think some of the argument can be made to that it's a.

45:18It was at one time some of their best marketing tools. Oh yeah this is a big marketing expense. It is a huge marketing expense but it we know it works how many people went to a Blizzcon that had zero interest in Overwatch. But then it was announced that if you had a year long subscription to world of work right you got Overwatch for free. How many people how many people got excited about that and then immediately went over to try Overwatch in the demo area that weren't planning on before I remember that Blizzcon. And the Overwatch area was completely dead except for a handful of people until that was announced and then the line was out the bloody door. Right? Like and it's the same thing for the Starcraft when Starcraft 2 was announced and it first of all how many people had never played a Starcraft game before. Never even really considered it but it was announced and all of a sudden the stations went online. Like I literally remember the boot up sound of the battleships rate like really across the conventions that are as the booths went live as they made that announcement.

46:23And people who had never played an RTS before never played Starcraft or had any inkling of it wet and played it like it there is a case we may afford but I think you're you are also right and I think that in order for Blizzcon to continue to expand. The CD project red stuff is not going to become abnormal you are going to see Blizzcon I think if it stays around becoming a flagship event for Microsoft games that are partnered with Blizzard games as well as other partnerships with them in general. I'm going to also point this out. Easily. You know what you're talking about. I've noticed that a lot of games that seem to get weird attention from the Blizzard launcher are ones that are also currently moved into the game pass. Yeah. I'm broke. Yes. And cyberpunk is the first one that caught my attention but right now there's a lot of stuff like a CD project red's current releases.

47:27I believe the Witcher 3 is on there now. And it's like okay wait a minute. I wouldn't be surprised to see stuff that goes to you know game pass being on the launcher. Because once it goes on to game pass they've got a contractual relationship with with with with with Microsoft. And yes I can't confirm that I'm looking at it right now the Witcher 3 Wild Hunt Remastered is on the launcher as of right now. Yeah. So. So I think I think I did a good for just started out there. I don't know or I spain to cut for it like Spyro's got a new game coming out that's got nothing to do with anything. Stop the talk before you think about too much. Um, I just I think that there's something to be said for the idea that if Blizzcon continues to exist it will not be as a Blizzard specific convention but rather as an Xbox games portal. And I could absolutely see that. I mean. I wish Microsoft a big event. And they don't, yeah. They Microsoft doesn't do a darn thing for Xbox games

48:30at their main event of the year. Like they send them out. They don't host. So easily. And I think that's also interesting too for the consideration for them from a monetary standpoint is going to those events is not cheap either. And especially when you're going and traveling to another country and like from the United States to like let's say any of the European countries or any of those events, you are not only just having to worry about work visas for everybody working the event, not you have to worry about what is actually being approved for your advertising and what you are allowed to and not to advertise. And I'm not saying this is a negative because they're good things that they have to, they're required to think about it. But that's expensive and time consuming and it involves a lot of people. And I know from my personal experience working with our marketing team at the company I'm at where when we go to other countries, it is a nightmare of logistics to get everything sorted.

49:33And with stuff like this, even if you are not paying for the event space, you are paying to be there. There is, you are contributing and buying a slot. It's not free. You're not invited there out of goodwill. You are paying for that event to happen, right? And so if they could use BlizzCon as a homegrown event to become a draw for all the Microsoft Xbox games, why wouldn't they? It's ultimately cheaper than going to 18 conventions and 18 game events across the globe. You don't have to worry about work visas for most of your stuff. And if you do, it's likely less and easier to get people from the European Union to here, if you need to pro somebody here, because it's gonna be one or two people, not an entire team, right? And you're, these are just my thoughts. This could be a yes inexpensive marketing tool, but also a cost saving marketing tool if they run the numbers right.

50:35Just depends on what they do. Yeah, unlike most places, you've got a team already that has a lot of experience launching. You have experienced doing this. Running this convention. And the weirdest part is it's not a team that initially signed up to be experts on running conventions. They got Dragoon into it. And then they now they have, you know, it's 2007 to now, you've been running this thing. It's getting to be 20 years. So yeah, but at this point, I do think we need to talk about I'll go ahead and do this, but we do. I want to bring up one more thing about BlizzCon, which is in the past week, they rolled out the BlizzCon merchandise on the Blizzard Watch. At the Blizz Blizzard Gear Store, which it's okay, I'm gonna say, I think it's a little bland. It's key art, but what I do notice is that it also, it's got the BlizzCon key art or the BlizzCon logo, and it says the next chapter.

51:35And that has me really wondering. That would make a lot of sense. The next chapter of what? Because I did go in, you know, before I saw this, I was thinking, yeah, this is, we're not gonna be seeing much BlizzCon after this, because it's a, because Microsoft. But yes, now there's all these t-shirts and desk mats and hoodies and et cetera, et cetera, that say the next chapter with Blizzard art. And the art is, let's see, it's Thrall, Mephisto, you know, what's vendetta and Rainer. Mm-hmm. So, and that's another thing, on the key art, you've got your Starcraft in on that key art, that's on all of the merchandise. I think we've gotta see something from Starcraft here. There's no way we don't. Yeah, that's the thing is, whether or not you think Starcraft is currently producing anything, because it's not, it's pretty easy to see that they're not currently producing any live games.

52:39The fact that Microsoft has been putting Starcraft on every single time that there's anything, there's a Starcraft character on it, says to me that they want something from Starcraft. We know we know this, we talked about this when Microsoft was circling the acquisition of it, right? They want a RTS that is recognizable that can compete with the other RTSs that are releasing, yes, they're slow and they're like indie games right now, but there's been a call for it, it's a void, it's a void in the market. They recognize there's value in the IP. I think that's, I think it's easy to recognize that, but somehow Blizzard itself has written it off. Well, I think that a lot of that has to do and we really do need to. A lot of the team that does that. Yeah, I just want to say like, it's not even just that though, like a lot of that was also under the Activision brand of leadership, which was, okay, as many devs as you want, but you better make us money.

53:40And also they kind of flubbed some esports oh yeah, relationship like the bad. They and Starcraft lives and dies on esports. So yeah, and I mean, they're bringing Nate, like a named celebrity back specifically for this tournament at BlizzCon. Like you don't invest in an appearance fee for a person who is a, pulling Disney money down to like, to just be there for the, the, the grins of it, right? And one of them's T Payne as well. Oh, yeah. Oh, he's paying. I'll say yes. All right, we're the more craft, Venomus Abyss Raid Finder, Wing 3 is live. We had to put that news out there because quite frankly, as Liz, Liz has talked about this before and I mean Liz Prime or Omega Liz. The thing about Raid Finder's current releases over the past, I wanna say since the war within they've been doing this, right?

54:41Or was it even back to Dragon Flight where they do everything like week by week instead of every two weeks? Definitely war within. They've been compressing it and I think it's been really good for the game. Yeah, so that's out now. If you, I don't think, I think Wing 3 is the last wing, right? Or is there a Wing 4? There's a Wing 4. Oh, there's a Wing 4. Okay, Wing 4 will be next week and then BlizzCon will be next week. So, Mill, I'm hoping that means we're gonna see some of the next patch, at least some ideas about it, but we'll find out. Nevertheless, if you are running Venomus Abyss primarily on Raid Finder, you can do more of it now and if you're using Raid Finder to get your set, which I know people are doing, you can do that now. So yeah, that's good. I have no difficulties with this. I think it is a good thing. Anybody else have any commentary on it before we force Liz to do a lot of reading?

55:42I'd love to hear Liz's voice. Yeah, we all do, especially since it needs the rest of us to get to like, you know, stop and drink, Mark. So yeah, Liz, could you please do the same news? Okay, just wanna say thank you to all of our listeners out there. Thank you so much for tuning in. You guys are what keep us here doing this show rather than just sitting around and talking to ourselves. Sometimes we do that too, but it's nice to have an audience when we're talking to ourselves. So thank you everyone for tuning in. And I do wanna give an extra special shout out to our supporters on Patreon, who tosses few dollars every month to make sure we can keep doing these podcasts and keep publishing things on the website. Big shout out to Anthony who pledged to us this month. And if you also are able to pledge, you can go to patreon.com forward slash Blizzard Watch and tosses a couple dollars for $3 a month.

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57:44but if you haven't, you can follow us. We are Blizzard Watch on Instagram, Facebook, and mastodongamepad.club. We are BlizzardWatch.com on Blue Sky. Blizzard Watch podcasts on YouTube. Blizzard.watch on TikTok. We also record the podcast live every Tuesday at 8 PM Eastern on Twitch, and we have a weekly indie game stream every Thursday at 8 PM Eastern on Twitch. You can follow us there on Twitch TV forward slash Blizzard Watch. So please give us a follow on your platform of choice and share our content, tune in. All that really helps us out. And if you have any questions for this or any of our podcasts, please send them to us at podcastatblizzardwatch.com. Specify the show. That's Blizzard Watch for Blizzard and Journal Game News, lore watch for video game lore, and tavern watch for tabletop talk and questions. So podcastatblizzardwatch.com, specify the show in the subject line and also let us know any special pronunciation of your name.

58:48You can also contact us on Discord. And if you're a Patron subscriber, you can do it through the Patron Queue and Podcast question channel as our little way of saying, little extra things. So thank you everyone for being here and yeah. That's all I have to say. Thank you, Liz. Now go get some water while we talk for a little bit because I know you just had to talk a lot. I want to throw out to the, these are like other games, we usually cover them. I don't know if we'll get through a lot of them, but I really thought we needed to cover the Guild Wars three species spotlights because we said we were going to when we were talking to each other about this. And I am nothing if I'm not a maid of my word and possibly also a galactic conqueror, Jerry Celap. Joe, if you could please talk about these. I'm not going to go into too much detail because we don't have a whole lot of time and we can probably, we can move some of it to next week. But one of the things is that they're really talking about the philosophy of playable characters in Guild Wars. And they, you know, they've highlighted

59:48like in Guild Wars two where they had five different playable races or species, sorry species. Humans assure a norm, char and silvary, silvary being there, would born elf like substitutes assure a being there, gnome like substitutes, norm being your vicarial substitutes and char being your giant cat people that are very warlike and humans being humans. For those of you that have never played Guild Wars and to give you a comparison with World of Warcraft. But one of the things is that they really wanted to do is maintain the quality bar adding another species as a major like point. And because for Guild Wars three, we know that they're adding codans, which are giant bear people. And it's I am, I love this so much. So excited for it. And they really want this thing where it's a, the philosophy of play what you love and giving these things a unique feel that actually feels important or warranted and part of the world.

1:00:50Like one of the things that I thought was really interesting is when they were talking about the Asura. So the Asura being gnome like have essentially magitech or tech magic, however you want to call it. And they weren't always like that. At one point in time, they were not essentially living in giant mech, base cities and civilizations. But instead, you know, it's going back and looking at where they started. So their relationship in particular during the Orion golden age of magic essentially. And how that looks for them and how that shaped their life before it became this big tech, tech, no magic society. It's, it's really interesting to see that and also taken into accommodation or accounting like how these species interact with the rest of the world, the veil wardens, if they would join the veil wardens or not.

1:01:52Like it's this big thing where they're every species that's going to be playable in this game has an impact on the development of the world, of or or tearya. So like I'm really excited for it. And it looks like the excitement that I saw from the the devs when they were talking about creating these species was very infectious. Uh, and I believe that there's if I read it or listen to it correctly, there's probably going to be another species that has not been announced yet outside of the ones that have. Because they weren't they weren't subtle. They weren't subtle about that. They've said four and everything I've read and they've only listed three so far. Yeah. And they they were very careful to redact it and the one developer, uh, you know, absolutely got himself muted, uh, which is obviously on purpose. But he's either a really good actor or he's really excited

1:02:54about it and has a hand in it. So I have my guess. I think it's going to be. I'm set as they haven't mentioned the char yet. So well, yeah. But they did say also they were planning on adding more races in the future, which is not something they did for Guild Wars, too. Isn't yes species. I'm sorry. I should just think I'm talking about D&D and then I'll say species more. But the interesting thing is what they're being with them being one of the major storylines in Guild Wars 2 was dealing with the Astral Ward, a group of Astral inhabitants that are like the sort of like the continuation of the Veilguard. And so like we know that there are things like there are Astral cats and sharks and fish jellyfish, worms, things like that, but there are also intelligent races that reside primarily in the Astral realms. And also interestingly enough, there's a lot of references to ancient dwarven ruins in the game in Guild Wars and Guild

1:03:58Wars 2. We've never seen a playable dwarf species in Guild Wars. Having that be something maybe that they bring back would be very exciting, especially because this is a prequel to Guild Wars 1. Options. Many, many options. OK, I think that basically is going to be it for today because we are running pretty close to the borderline even with our late start. So thank you to Liz P for being here and joining us so that we could have one more person joining in the madness. Well, actually, before we do that, I think there's one other thing that we really should talk about because I do want to take the time before we cut it off here. And I want to kick this over to Liz because I read this and I do think it's an interesting but also an important topic. Liz, if you would. Uh, yeah, double fine. You may be familiar with them. They're an indie game studio headed by Tim Schafer who has made

1:04:58some of our most favorite games like Grim Fandango and other games. But once you say Grim Fandango, I can't think of anything else. My head goes blank with the glory of Grim Fandango. So that's, I know he's not other things, but that eclipses all things in my mind. I can't help it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Your resume deserves more than that. But double fine was a subsidiary of Microsoft. It had been bought up in one of those big Xbox studio buying sprees and they recently with the big Xbox layoffs. Double fine has spun off into being an independent studio again. Now, you know, that's, that's rough. Even though Microsoft actually is supporting the best we know, the studios that are spinning off, it's, it's tough being an indie game studio these days. And there were some layoffs at double fine, not great, but it's like, you can't, you can't do all of this on your own. But right now they're running a Kickstarter for what they call amnesia fortnight 2026.

1:06:00This is their yearly sort of game jam that they do. But this year, they're doing this game jam and they're doing it kind of collectively with all of us in the studio audience, which is to say that they're getting their whole team is they're tossing out what they're working on. They're ignoring everything they're supposed to be doing. And they're going to sit down and come up with new ideas and make new games and work on them in a two week game jam. So they have a list of 26 games, people who support their Kickstarter for this can vote on the games that they most want to see. And in the end, I believe they will get, they will narrow this down and they'll actually make four short games off of this. And they're also doing a documentary about it to kind of get into the game developer process. And so we can just see all of this behind the scenes. I think it is super cool to see, you know, really creative professionals who are super passionate about games to, you know, get in there and see what they're

1:07:03doing, see how they're making things and support some of these weird, tiny projects that they have proposed. So it's a really interesting Kickstarter. It is in support of a studio that is trying to find its feet again as an independent studio. They are looking for $400,000 to get this off the ground. And I think they are, they're very easily going to meet this. By the time you listen to this, I think it's, there's a huge chance that they will already be past that. But, um, double fine team right now, they're close, they're close right now, but probably by the time we'll listen to this, they'll be over it. So if you were at all interested in how games are made, if you're interested in playing weird indie games, uh, go and support double fine on kicksters. They're a MNUSHA Fortnite project because this is just, it's going to be interesting. It's going to be really interesting to see both the games that come out of this and how the games work out. So I'm, I'm excited about this one. And yeah, there's, there's a limited time to go up and back them.

1:08:05So if that sounds interesting to you, go do it while you can. Okay. I'm giving you a little time. If so, and else is going to jump in. I could, I could keep talking about things, but, uh, you know, at some point, you got to call it at some point. Then again, thank you to Liz P for being here with us. Thank you for having me. Thank you to Joe and Liz Prime for both being, you know, Primordial's spirit of chaos, just one of them in an extremely orderly way. Which is a, as they say in the book chaos by James Glick, enough chaos is order. I just, you know, I am a Virgo. I am a Virgo and it is Virgo season. So I am coming into the height of my powers at this time of year. So when I know about Virgos, that means it's amazing. You're not already dead.

1:09:05But that's just based on other people. I don't actually study it. But yeah. And also thanks to all of you, our audience of listeners and watchers and so forth who keep this site and podcast existing. This has been the Blizzard Watch podcast and we'll be back next week.