Welcome back everyone! It's Saturday, which means it's time for the WoW News. With a fresh patch launched, we've got an absolute ton to get through. I can actually get started with an unannounced feature that launched in 10.0.7, which kind of snuck in and blew me away. It's actually really smart, just like how we can blow you away with The Pale Beyond. Okay, that may not be my most subtle bit of self-promo ever, but it's actually been one month and one day since we released our first game, The Pale Beyond, a narrative survival role-playing game. It's gone down an absolute treat on Steam. I think we're currently at 91. If you want to support us, I'd say check the game out. We also have a multi-part documentary on making the game over in our Studios Channel. Suffice to say, the launch quirks and stuff Dev team have totally got those sorted. But that's actually not the end of development, and you know, maybe it would be fun to do a victory lap anyway. So now that I've done a little bit of self-promo and a little bit of teasing, let's get stuck into our first story: The Zul'Gurub Secret.
10.0.7 had a ton of stuff in the patch notes, it had plenty announced, but also there was quite a lot in datamining that we were expecting but never got, or so we thought. Because it took a few days of digging, but people discovered the new secret in Zul'Gurub, and it allows players to craft items that were actually removed from the game entirely in Cataclysm. So, kudos of course to the WoWhead for their post and to Epic for their research. Here's how it works, and actually, it's way cooler than it needed to be.
In a side entrance to the pyramid, Jindo is found on there is a Gong that's surrounded by ghosts. Just under the gong is the shattered carry baiju. You need to combine this with the fragmented Hikari baju, which is in the same location but in the spirit realm. Now, to get to the spirit realm, you need to kill any two bosses and then activate Jindo. Then you know to activate Ginto and then start the fight. Blast them down to one HP so that he phases you into the spirit realm, and then you can go pick up the shattered by you and leave the two items together. Make a quest item, and that quest item is turned into this NPC at Rinwoosho in Dazar'alor. And now that you've done that, the thing is actually unlocked account-wide, allowing you to farm Hikari baijos from the trash and the bosses in Zul'Gurub.
Different types of baijo are traded with Ruin Washo for different sorts of things, though he will have actually moved to the entrance of Zul'Gurub for a little bit of convenience. You can also fish where Gazranka was. You can get basically one blue cash per day, and they give you a bunch of baijos and a chance of some old items.
There's also a new toy that you can pick up here, which has a bit of a secret attached to it. Classic skilled Alchemists can read this tablet to learn how to make the Mojo Madness, and using that potion on the Brazier gives you an hour-long buff that makes mobs in Zul'Gurub friendly to you. And then that lets you turn in those baijos into the blood piles across Zul'Gurab.
An anniversary event this year? No, it's actually a feature so awesome, just like this next thing. Speaking of insane Blizzard, they put this in the game and they actually hadn't told anyone to get it, but we were all pretty sure. Yes, it turns out that finishing the Bane Bloodhoof questline gets you this toy, but if you're a Tauren, you also get this cloak, a set of twin totems to carry around which, I mean, it's like peak box art Tauren, which is great.
Now, while they don't unfortunately give you any extra jump height after wearing them for a while, it should maybe give you some sort of an extra jump height because, I mean, damn, that sure is leg day. But they look awesome, and there's also a really badass totem weapon, which is technically a two-handed mace.
So currently, it's believed that it only drops for characters who can wield those two-handed maces, which means Tauren who are warriors, Paladins, DKs, Druids, and Shamans can go and pick it up, but anyone else is excluded. It's also technically a main-hand only two-hander somehow, and that means that Enhancement Shamans are left out, and Fury Warriors can't rock two of them, which kind of sucks. So hopefully Blizzard hears the feedback there and opens these up a little bit, maybe to be dual-wieldable or you know, something like that, maybe even a staff or a polearm version for casters and Hunters. TLDR though, yeah, that's sick.
Okay, okay, next, some items with teeth, because speaking of items, Tan one's PTR recently got an update and it added an effect to a very rare item that is absolutely cracked. Now, it's a very rare item, so these functions like a little quasi-legendaries. I think they're mostly there to be just some odd, wacky fun, and a little bit of power.
It's nice to have, but this one's mad. It's called the Voice of the Silent Star, and believe me, there are definitely lore things to talk about with that, but anyway, it's a cloak, and it's caused a bit of terror amongst the community because unlike most cloaks, it has an effect that steals secondary stats from your allies and gives them to you. It also doesn't have any stamina on it, which means that wearing it is actually kind of dangerous to you, which is unhinged.
And honestly, this is unhinged, so I kind of love it. Now, the downsides are immediately obvious here, like you're going to die and be called a scrub. Like, if you're progging in this and there's a big healing check, and you're the person that goes down because you're wearing the cloak that gives you more power, then yeah, that's all on you. Your group is going to hate you for using this, although depending on the social situation of your guild, maybe it's fine.
I know for my guild, it will be a bunch of banter. I mean, imagine if it procs and takes haste away from somebody. Jerk their cooldowns. Ow, maybe they'll protect it against that. And it's a bit of a weird thing because I can totally see how this is like sort of mad disruptive chaos, right? But also, this is a very rare item, which means that it's not exactly intended to be something that everyone gets. And I think it's just them having fun with a pretty strong item that's just a bit cracked and unhinged.
Your thoughts are on this kind of game one versus game two thing next, though I think something uncontroversially good, the lack of Battlegrounds is honestly atrocious, and it's actually something that may be resolved.
Now, sadly, I can't just come here and tell you they're definitely coming and I know when, but Blizzard commenting this is good because there is a forum thread right in the community council with Thiksha basically posting, asking for more maps without necessarily new modes. Just the simple idea of adding in more capture the flags and more domination maps that would be fine by players.
Blizzard obviously has the team size to get that sorted. Personally, I wholeheartedly agree. Whenever a new Battleground comes out, like, I don't need it to be in a new game mode gimmick. Actually, I really, I mean, in some cases, I don't even want that, you know? Like with the bizarre patch 7.3.5, as a right Battleground, actually just give me loads of capture the flags. Give me some one flag CTF, some two flags CTF. And in the same way that playing Halo on loads of different CTF maps is fun, I think that would be fun in World of Warcraft. And the good news is, the devs from the WoW development team responded saying 'we agree with the sentiments expressed here, and we're working on it.
Unfortunately, nothing to share or announce today. We love Battlegrounds too.' So, hell yeah, that's a confirmation that people in the WoW Dev team are working on more Battlegrounds, which is good. And speaking of good, Warlock certainly did have a few good days. This is more of a PSA than anything, but if you see this image from Wowhead's recent post about raid damage going around, don't pay much attention because basically, it turns out there was a bug with Warlock talents that gave them an absolutely massive amount of extra damage, and it has since been fixed by Blizzard.
So, if anyone is sharing that image without context, trying to say that Warlocks are insane or popping off, give them an info slap on the wrist about reading context instead of just looking at pictures because the words are important too. It shows how much an accidental five percent extra damage can massively tilt rankings though, doesn't it? Tuning sure is a complicated thing.
I'll talk about that in a bit, but first, a little bit of I guess a PSA. If you want to give Daddy Blizzard some more money, there's a sale on Faction changes, which I would hope are a lot less um needed for social reasons anyway once cross-action guilds come in.
But yeah, there's a sale in faction changes, on character transfers, our name and race changes, they're all 30% off. So, if you don't feel like leveling a new character for the Tauren totem or Heritage armor quests, then I guess race change, give Blizzard money, maybe that's the plan, who knows? But I suppose it is well timed given the whole cross-faction Guild thing.
Obviously, some people, you know, maybe they're only the current faction they are because of those Guild things. Now, I would still say the prices in these are outright God damn vile, and this really, really should not be the case for simple services, but in a way, that is a ship that has long since sailed, and you have until April 3rd to make with this what you will. And to quickfire some other information, there's been a few different interviews with Ian Azacosta that have dropped since our last news video because yes, it's a very busy time.
Be empowered to play the game the way that they actually want to and do things that they enjoy, basically what do I want to do today instead of do I have to do today? So far, I think they'll be doing a pretty good, blood goddamn good job of actually heading that. Also, we should not expect a rework to the level of the Retribution Paladin to happen again for the rest of this expansion.
Um, I guess there are some MM Hunter X MM Hunter tiers for me, but anyway, he also said that season four of Shadowlands was successful. I would totally agree - season four was by far the most fun I had in Shadowlands anyway. And they do want to do something similar to that again. They're not sure if they need like the fated affixes to return versus just having all of the raids being available to run through, thought death.
They're going to do something like that. And when I piece in a few things that they said before in past interviews, it also very much seems like whatever version of season four that we get this time around, it's also going to include something for the world content players. Because I mean, yeah, we all know that they were left out of season four.
Also, the team is aware that feedback is coming in the longer raids are actually exhausting to people. So overall, then I think that means that we should be expecting these eight or nine boss raids to actually continue instead of 10 plus boss raids. And you know, there's a bit of me that's like, yeah, you kind of have that thing of like, oh, number lower, less content, sad. But when I think about Vault of the Incarnates, to be honest with you, like I thought they were really good quality bosses. And I definitely didn't find it fatiguing in the way that perhaps some giga long raids would. So, and actually, yeah, I agree.
If you said, hey, you can have a 14 boss raid or an eight boss raid or nine boss, I would go for the eight or nine boss raid. But maybe that's just me. Next, professions are coming, so catch up. Then, Ian talked about ketchup. He basically said that they are discussing it for season two and beyond, where essentially for them, there's a bit of a hard line to draw between players not being permanently, as he put it, hopelessly behind and then of course devaluing the existing work of crafters. So, no, there will not be full catch up and day one crafters will have more options.
But their goal is that if a player really wants a specific recipe, that they will be able to target that as a readily achievable goal. So, it'll be interesting to see how they actually like end up fully going about that. But another cool feature is they actually won't have NPC work orders in the future where basically NPCs will send in work orders instead of the system just lying empty when players aren't using it. There is no ETA on that, and they actually do need a little bit of new tech first, so it's probably not a season two thing.
But yeah, it is something they want to do to just, I guess, keep that part of crafting engaging. The final thing, and I've dropped the little tuning hint earlier, so it's still a developing story, but the new Onyx amulet basically has been interesting. It is being like those effects are being buffed and buffed and buffed and buffed. And really, the explainer here, the fundamental issue is it doesn't have secondary stats.
I would hope that within the first week of tuning, these Buffs would be within a reasonable bracket of their final goal. Most of the pain should be over with, even if it's a bit weak for its item level. It's still a pretty handy catch-up for new players, but the design intent is for it to be a super-strong best thing that you're excited to get. If they miss their design goal, it's a bit problematic for the gameplay loop of the Scara vaults and getting those keys.
There's obviously a focus around the amulets, so if the amulet is broken, it can scupper a little bit of their plan. That's probably why they're being so rapid with all of these Buffs. Moving on to Diablo 4, the open beta is currently ongoing, and both Matt and I recommend that you give it a try. We have an in-depth impression video over in the Bellular News channel, but to put a long story short, the narrative atmosphere and quality of execution in the gameplay during Act One is smashing. The narrative design is really on point, and the immersive world is not what I thought I'd be saying about Diablo.
There is a lot to do across WoW and Diablo, which is not a sentence I expected to be saying. Enjoy your weekend, and if you want to buy the Pale Beyond and have that on top of your gaming repertoire, you can check out the Pale Beyond, the game that we developed on Steam. It launched a month and a day ago - time sure does fly. Have fun, and see you next time.
