Unpacking Beta Launch ft. @Xaryu | Episode 1 - The WoW: Forever Podcast transcript

Okay. Hello. Here we are. Uh, welcome to the very first Wow Forever podcast. So, we've got some awesome people here. We've got Josh Corbett, Countdown to Classic. Uh, Tim Jones, lead classic designer. >> Very excited to be here. Thanks for having me, Josh. >> Heck yeah. Awesome. And we've got another Joshua. Hey. >> Hey, Josh. Thanks for having me, guys. >> Yeah, we we're Tim. I'm sorry you're outnumbered. We got We got a lot of Joshes.

It's a Joshon up in here. I don't know what to do. I'm outnumbered. >> Yeah. >> Well, I think we were going to have uh Mr. Countdown to Classic Josh Corbett kind of MC this thing for us and kick us off. So, why don't you uh get it going, Josh. >> Absolutely. Thank you, Josh. Look, guys, I figured that we'd start with talking about I know. Oh, it's going to get cringe real quick. Don't you worry about that. >> In the pre-show, the guy they're talking in our ears saying Josh and I'm like, I don't know who they're talking to either.

This is great. >> It's the world's it's the world's worst who's on first bit, but um guys, look, let's talk about what we're doing in game real quick just to get into this one. Um I know that we've all been loving the heck out of this beta. You know, I've got a warrior to 20. I've got like four level 10s. I'm getting into everything. I love it. Zaryu, tell us what you've been doing, buddy. >> I've been doing little else besides playing the beta.

I'm actually logged in right now in Iron Forge. I don't know if I should say that. a gamer. >> Um, but yeah. Yeah, I just need to make sure, you know, my auctions are selling. Check the mailbox. You know, it is what it is. But I've been playing a lot. I've been loving it. My character's almost full blues. Uh, I have like one one green cloak I still need to replace cuz Mr. Sodapoppin is always like trying to get me to inspect his gear and tell him how good I think his gear is.

So, it's I've got to catch up to him. So, that's that's what I've been doing. It's been a blast. I think we're legally obliged to say how good is Soda's gear on this stream. >> He made me say it. He like He's like, "Uh, bro, you should come up and uh inspect my gear." I'm like, "Okay, man. Sure." Wow. Really impressive, dude. Cool. >> Very good. >> Very good. Now, look, the onto the devs. Like I was saying to you guys before we started recording, like you've been so busy making this game, surely you haven't had the time to play.

And Agrand was like, "H, not so fast." What have you been doing, Agrand? >> Uh, yeah, I've been I've got a couple characters going. I got a druid got to level 20 last night. That's been really fun. I've run all the dungeons. I I snuck into ruins of Lorderon with an intrepid band of uh in adventures. I'm playing Alliance. I'm sorry for Horde Enjoyers, but uh yeah, did Dead Mines, did uh Hall of Fames, which man man, what a banger.

So good. So good. But yeah, been having a lot of fun. also working on an undead paladin now as well. >> Yeah. >> Right. So Tim, does that mean we can't like start we hold back our slings and arrows and now we can't accuse our grand of all the paladin bias and now it's droid bias or what's going on? >> Yeah, he drew he drew the the short straw. So it's all right. >> We won't tell you that you said that. >> Um yeah, I've been I've been keeping myself busy, too.

You know, I on our internal alpha, I I leveled um a bunch of characters. I got a hunter to level 60. >> Um played hundreds of hours. Yeah. On on our alpha. >> Oh, so during during the beta now, I've I've I've managed to get a human Warlock to 20. Uh have run Hall of Fames, got my got my spell damage dagger. Um and uh no, I I've just been really enjoying watching people engage with the game. I've I'm I'm I've I've run these zones so many times internally that I know all the quests back and forth.

Um so I'm really excited to just like watch people um find rare mobs that we've placed in the world. Um find quests that uh that we've added. Um sat down at campsites with people. It's like, "Hello, fellow gamers. How are you doing? Would you like to uh benefit from this buff that I'm putting down? How about we form a group together?" Um >> he really talks like that, too. Yeah. No, it's it's it's really awkward and cringe, but no, it's it's it's awesome seeing um seeing people engage with all these systems that that we've we've made.

It's it's uh it's been a lot of fun. >> Campsites are working. >> I love >> Yeah, >> people are actually like sitting taking the time to sit there before a dungeon like, oh, make sure to get all your buffs. It's like cool. That's that's what they're supposed to do and they're actually doing that. So, I'm happy with them. >> Yeah, we did this like internal study thing. It was like the first time we'd really had a large group of people playing.

And I remember whenever uh I was looking at I was like on a GM account watching it and I was looking at the uh local Chad and Ellwin Forest and it's like hey I've got a I've got a sharpening stone here if somebody wants to come put this thing down outside like oh I'll be right over I'll drop a fishbowl and it was just like yes it's working and it's like this at a macro scale now. It's it's incredible. >> It's kind of like a little microcosm of world buffs. you know, everyone would gather together in Oramar, but now it's like >> you got your little your little shanty town in Goldshshire now that people uh congregate in and it's it's really fun. >> I've loved it.

I've loved it. We we'll definitely touch on that again um if we can later on, but um I did love Tim. We'll get to the first topic, but I did love Tim's, you know, sly little humble brag/flex there. Was he running around the office doing world first 60? >> No, I was third. We have some extremely passionate people at at our at our company um who've like I think >> someone has like four level 60s that they got on the alpha >> probably Cedarquist.

Yeah, >> shout out to Matt Cedarquist. >> Matt Matt Cedarquist, lead uh producer on Diablo uh Diablo Legacy. Yeah, >> very good. Very good. All right, guys. Look, we'll we'll bring up the first topic that I wanted to sink our teeth in to here on this first episode um of the WoW Forever podcast. Um, look, the skyborn, we would be remiss not to lead off with such a huge topic. Everybody's discussing this thing. Um, opinions are left, right, up, down.

A lot of people are loving it. A lot of people have a lot of feedback on it as well. Um, it's been really hard to kind of miss this discussion that's been going on. And it really is reminiscent of what happened many, many years ago with the introduction of the Dranai and everything. If you were around back then, you'd be seeing a lot of parallels. Agrand, if I can get you to kick us off and just say, you know, I'll I'll start with you because I believe the Skyborn are kind of near and dear to your heart.

Um, what's been your uh reception of all the feedback so far? >> You know, it's it's kind of like this full circle moment because I remember when the Draan Eye came out, I was I was just a wee lad, you know, just a normal kind of didn't work at Blizzard. I was I was just a player. I kind of refused to call them Draani for like the first year. I'm like, "No, they're Aridar. They're not Draina. They're Aeridar." You know, and so it's it's it's definitely a full circle moment to see people kind of be a little divided on this.

You know, it's it's one of those things that's like it would be disingenuous to say that we didn't expect a little bit of a little bit of uh a divided opinions on it, right? But like, you know, I don't know. We have a really cool story to tell. The team really believes in it. You know, uh kind of the our our narrative leadership like Chris Mson, all those guys really believe in it. And like it's it's one of those things that's like it's easy to say trust me, but I you know it's it's it's going to go in a really awesome place and I think uh over time it people will will kind of come to understand what we're where we're going with it. >> Well Tim, we were laughing because giving the presentation on stage at Blizzcon and Grand was there presenting everything.

Um, we were laughing about, oh no, they they've broke the glass and ripped out the Metson seal of approval on this one. Tell us a little bit more about how that came about. >> You know, I there's there was initial ideas of of playing it safe and and going with like well of there's the obvious locations that we want to expand our our world into. Like you saw my slide at Blizzcon where I outline different sections of the world like and Gilaeas is on there, Olum is on there, Qualos is is on there and those are places that we do want to go to.

Um but you know I think we we've said that there's there's different types of content that we want to make for this game. There's the the expected, the the new but familiar, and then there's the more um unexpected or or exotic type of content. Um and Metson really challenged us to uh you know not play it safe um with with the Skyborn and uh you know we we really wanted to put w with that permission and and guidance from from Chris um we really wanted to make it feel like a race that um truly belonged in in the classic world.

And I think people are realizing that, you know, after after watching the deep dive panel that Josh did and the and the found photographs um panel and then actually playing it on beta, they can see like, wow, this story is really rich. Who are these characters that have connections to other versions of of of Warcraft? And I think uh people are are are getting a little more comfortable with with the skyborn. >> Yeah. I think when also just to kind of add on to that like I think whenever we started like when we were looking at what content we wanted to do first it's like >> yeah I mean like we could totally just check all the boxes right like you know I think we've all anyone who's sort of been a classic plus wisher for years and years has all their sort of things like like what he mentioned like Gila Qualas uh you know Ash is crater all these different things and you know it's like we're going to get to all that stuff eventually and we could have started by just checking all the boxes but I think one of the things we realized really early on is we're going to run out of that content if we do that, if we if we go too aggressively at it.

And so it's like, you know, let's let's take a swing for the fences here, like right out the gate. Um, you know, and and I think whenever you sort of look at the the sort of entire tapestry of whatever everything we've got in the game, it's like a pretty small portion of it is the skyorn, you know what I mean? And they're they have a starter zone. You kind of go, you level to 12 and you're sort of done. And that was important to us, too.

We wanted to make sure that it wasn't something that was really like you had to go there every week to farm materials or to raid or anything like that. Um and uh yeah, you know, it's one of those things that that uh we really hope kind of everybody ends up kind of growing on them and it they come around to it and I don't know like like like what Tim said as as people more people play through it, I'm getting a lot more messages.

They're like, "Okay, you know what, man? I was a little skeptical, but I kind of get it now." It's like, "All right." >> And honestly, it's it's okay if not everyone is completely enthused. I would rather there be people that are extremely excited and passionate or just like it's not for them rather than for them to be like meh I don't really care. So having people that have extreme positions either way like that's a good sign to me. >> Totally. >> Zou if I can throw it to you and just say look I think Tim raises a really good sort of key catchphrase there in terms of playing it safe.

Mate, have you had the opportunity to play through the Skyborn starting zone? And did you get the get the impression that they weren't quote unquote playing it safe with that zone? >> Okay, Skyborn. This is a >> Oh boy. Okay, >> this is a Yeah, this is a big one. So, I'm streaming all day and I'm hearing lots of stuff from both ends. People love them, hate them, their opinions, this and that. Um, I guess we'll go for like the the the positive first.

Like what I really appreciate is that and you guys talked about this in one of your I think it was you a grand I won't say Josh because it's confusing um on one of your panels and you talked about the lore basis of WoW Forever and it's like this isn't going to affect mainline. isn't going any of the lore decisions we make here isn't going to just shatter the world and in um reccon everything that we've learned from Warcraft 3 or from you know going into retail.

So it's like that is like the first really cool thing. It's like you now have creative freedom to do stuff and something like this shows that okay we can actually just like create a story and you know you saw that you showed those original like Metson drawings and like creating a really cool story. It's like that's why we're all WoW fans after all. It's a really great story. It's a really great game. So I think that's the positive side.

Um you know just a there has been some negative with it too. Uh, I think the big one for a lot of people is the blue, right? The blue kind of brings them to Kyrion. It brings them to Shadowlands. It brings them kind of like a little Shadowlands PTSD of like, oh no, you know, retconing and this and that. And I think that's where people are, you know, maybe shying away is literally just like the blue visual. I was actually talking to my chat.

I was like, what if they didn't make them blue? And everyone's like, oh, that'd be better. And I was like, really? I was like the blue. Um, and then and then the there's the SDHD thing too, right? A lot of people play SD. The world is SD, so you know, the HD model. But I'd say I'd say that's more of like the negative side, but as people have been playing it and checking it out, I've been hearing it less and less. So, I think it is very similar to this Draw Eye situation uh that you brought up, Countdown, where it's like this like knee-jerk response to like something new that you're not used to.

It's like that's not WoW lore. And then and then a grand, you know, you brought it up. like well actually like these are a highborn variant and this is how they got there and like we can tell new stories and it's like oh okay right so I think it's kind of like settling in but you know so there there I'm hearing a lot on both sides me personally I really like elves um I'm not as big of like an ogre fan I think el like I always I played a blood elf for a long time on retail um I've had a lot of like just blood elf characters I think they look cool So, I was really happy.

Um, but I I definitely am like an SD character model enjoyer and you know I >> you know I do like high elves and stuff too. So like I I I'm kind of like okay I see I see both sides here, right? Um >> you know if I can just if I can frame this to you sorry just piggybacking off of that but encapsulating it in this question sort of saying throwing it to you grand that what Zu just said is so um is something that we're hearing so much about fit.

It's all about does this fit in this world? And so many people were expecting, you know, oh, they're just going to rip off that, you know, they're going to send out the high elves and the goblins or something that quote unquote fits in the classic world. >> Talk to us about this decision and the fit. >> Yeah, you know, like I was just honestly, you took the words out of my mouth. I was about to cut in with this, but like uh no, the uh one of the things that we spend a lot of time on is we have a really great lore team um that has is essentially has encyclopedic knowledge of of all things Warcraft lore.

And I spend probably too much of my time uh badgering them uh for answers and and clarifications and making sure that I'm not about to write ourselves into a narrative hole. And they were they were incredible for this. and we we worked with them super closely to make sure that this really was something that that if you you know take the time to read the quests, read the lure lore books if you can find them. They're kind of hidden, but they're there.

Um it's it's something that we we wanted to make sure that we weren't just kind of throwing darts at a wall to see what would stick. This is something we invested a significant amount of time and effort into making fit into the lore. And especially I mentioned in the Q&A the other day that you know we kind of jokingly were joking about Thunder Fury the Windseeker but uh no like like there are original WoW stories that we really want to expand on.

I think that's the great like kind of promise of classic plus is being able to sort of >> finish some of those those unfinished bits tidbits of of World of Warcraft history and expand upon them in ways that are exciting and and give them really satisfying payoffs and and I think again I don't want to spoil it too much. I think we've probably already kind of tipped our hat a little bit, but like like where it goes, I think it's going to have a really satisfying sort of payoff.

And again, I'm a lore nerd. I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a narrative nerd. You know, this stuff I really dig. And uh I'm excited. And uh I don't know. I think that's that's the best I can say is I'm really excited. I don't know. I think you guys are are in for a ride. It's going to be it's going to be really cool when it all pays off. But in terms of like the the visuals and stuff like that, like Yeah, totally. Like I think whenever we wrote it as well, like I think it was like we didn't really I don't think I actually intended for the blue elves to be such a big part of it, but it's so striking visually that it's like oh yeah, let's let's show a lot of blue elves and it's like maybe that wasn't the right call.

I don't know. But uh you know you know Yeah. So it's just one of those like you know you know maybe if we had a time machine we might have done that a little bit differently but uh I think it uh it's going to play out. Yeah. Okay, Tim, if I can get you to piggyback just as we round this one out. Um, one of the bigger talking points on the Skyborn as well is the decision to make them, you know, the have the ability to choose the faction that they play on.

So, like what tell tell us about a little bit about the background of the development. Was there a conversation about, oh, we'll roll out two races and one's Horde, one's alliance, or was it always, no, we'll just do the one to save content for later and give them the split decision? It's been slightly controversial, the split decision tree. Talk to us about that. You know, I I think like if you look at our team and you look at the history of the the classic World of Warcraft team, we we try to do a lot with with very little.

And you can see that gradually over the projects that we've worked on and and had responsibility over like from Season of Mastery to the original Burning Crusade Classic um to Hardcore Season of Discovery Wrath um our anniversary servers uh Season of Discovery um we're we're slowly increasing the um the amount that we can add to the game um with the with the resources that we have. And so I think Wow Forever has turned into something amazing and gigantic, but it it comes from humble beginnings.

Uh and and I think it's it's in terms of coming up with the the reasons why we would do um Horde and Alliance for for the Skyborn. I think that there there was coming at it from like a a class perspective. I think we part of the narrative that was really compelling to us was that um part of these people are are divided on on their beliefs and and the type of magic that they feel comfortable using. And we really thought it was compelling to have that divide between these elves that are are more in tune with using arcane magic to to solve their problems and these elves that are more naturalists um that are that are more in tune with with shamanistic uh side of things.

And so we thought that that was really cool to I mean that that I don't think that that's ever been done in World of Warcraft before is is divide um uh a race um and and restrict the classes that they can be based off of um their uh whether they're Horde or Alliance. So um yeah, kind of ran with that. >> Yeah. When we uh when we are also talking about uh the faction split too, it was really important that we hit a certain tone.

You know, I think um uh I'll just being honest like when I was playing through like Mrs. Pandaria just sort of at a kind of high level. It it was always a little I never really quite understood the faction divide between the the two Pandaran factions, but for this it's like really ingrained in the story that like these guys do not get along. There's like one point in the story I don't want to like spoil it, but there's one point where you as Alliance, you have to go talk to the Horde faction leader and she's like, "Oh, hey, thanks for the message.

By the way, if we see you in the world when we leave, we're going to kill you." And like we really wanted to play up that sort of like, you know, war in Warcraft kind of thing with these guys. And that was something that was really exciting for us as well. >> It it also let us I mean it obviously it's it's useful for us to offload the the Horde um the Wind Shaper Skyborn into the the new Earth and Ring area in in Mulore >> but and and the Alliance into Deleran.

But it it gives us an opportunity to play up those factions, too. Like the Earth and Ring and the Kieran Tour weren't really that big of of factions um with with quests and content and reputations and and attaching those uh reps to the Skyorn. Really, it it opens up we're always looking for opportunities to open up new gameplay avenues. And if we don't necessarily capitalize that at the launch, then it opens it up to to future patch content.

So, >> okay. >> I think a lot of >> Yeah, you guys go. >> Yeah, I was going to say I think a lot of the stuff with the Skyborn when you start talking about it and you start getting into the lore and you start doing the quests and you start like understanding it, it makes like so much sense. It's like, okay, got it. But I think a lot of it is just like this. You look at it, knejerk response, >> sticker shot, >> blue elves, >> right? sticker and I think it's it's very easy to just like instantly pick on and be like, "Oh, >> you know, I don't like that." And, you know, it's like fair enough, but once you actually start to play it, I think it does feel a little bit different, which is cool.

Um, and I think a lot of it is just visual for people. Like I said, with the Kieran Kyrion, the blue Kyrion um zone and uh with the with the HD models, like it's just purely visual, right? And besides that, like I think a lot of the lore and a lot of the story is like really cool and and the fact that they're high alarium. So it's like Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of people are pretty happy with that stuff and especially as you play more. >> If if I can keep you rolling on that, Zary, I'm glad you jumped in because I was going to get you to to finish us up on this one on that visual note that you've just brought up.

Um, you know, I'll tell a funny story again from pre-recording. Zagu was asking us like, "Hey guys, like, can I be honest on this podcast?" And we were laughing going no you have to lie. Um so in in the interest of in the interest of brutal honesty zu the druid forms is something that a lot of people are talking about. Tell us what do you think in all honesty of the druid forms. >> Okay that I mean great question. Um, so from what I've heard uh you guys talk about at Gren and Tim is that the Druid forms like you basically like have taken it to your artists and and you made them basically like make them look less pretty and like like make the edges sharper and stuff like that so it looks like it fits in the classic world and then you've gone back a few times and you've done this process which is really cool.

Um I the from the feedback I'm hearing is that they're still a bit um high fidelity for the SD world. Like people still want it more like classic looking. Um when I look at it though, like I don't know if it bothers me like a ton, but yeah, a lot some some of it might be a little bit on the on the HD end. Um, of course the world is standard defin like it has the classic assets which by the way man the lighting guys every time I'm playing every two minutes I just I literally just stop running and I just sit there and I like I've had moments where I just want to like cry and I just see the the like the the the light shining through the rays the water I'm just like oh my gosh and like I glaze it on stream every two minutes.

Anyway, um uh yeah, I I think I think maybe it does feel like a tad out of place, but um I've heard you guys talk about like you've you've already taken it back a couple notches. I think people would appreciate like maybe even more, but >> um yeah, I think that's about how I feel with those. >> Yeah, you know, it's one of those things, too. It's like we're we're looking at a lot of feedback on that. Whenever we sat out, uh you know, we did I did several interviews at BlizzCon with Jeff Parrot, our art director.

Um, and man, he and he and I have spent too many hours in calls talking and looking at pictures and looking at renders and stuff like that. And you know, we we really did try to downres them quite a bit, like essentially get classify uh the models to make sure that, you know, the the the the amount of like the texture fidelity really matched. And I think if you look at it side by side, it does. But I think really what a lot of a lot of the concerns are about is like the geometry.

There's extra geometry. There's extra stuff sticking out of it. And it's like, you know, may maybe that was something that uh that's something that I think we can look at and we can take feedback on. And we're really taking a lot of that feedback to heart. Nothing to like announce or anything right now, but it's definitely something we're talking about. And I think too, one of the things about WoW Forever is like when we first started developing it, our sort of like our interpretation of what like the target art style was or target art fidelity was has sort of changed over time.

And so like something like like Skyborn, that was actually one of the first things we started working on. And so I think as we've gotten deeper into the development process, we've sort of found that range. We've sort of we've sort of dialed in what the right kind of fidelity range is. And it's one of those things that we're really excited about for the future because we know that anything else we create, every time we create a new asset, it's going to be closer and closer to really what that ideal is.

And you know, again, the feedback and stuff we're getting is excellent to help us really figure out what because you know, you get spend so much time with it, you kind of like get inured to it. You sort of like you're like, "Oh, it looks fine." But it's like, "Oh, you know, actually, we do need to dial back a little bit more." And that's that's awesome. That's the best part. >> And and I'm no artist. >> Oh, I I'm no artist, but we our artists are getting better at making content that that looks older and matches the the classic style.

Like Josh said, it's it's been a journey. And um you know it's we don't have the same tools that we had back in 2004. The technology doesn't even exist anymore that that the original artists were using. So it we're going to continue trying to to to make stuff better. We're relying on people to to give their feedback on the on the beta and we'll we'll do our best to respond to it. >> Yeah. >> Absolutely. >> That was just what I was going to piggyback on.

I think I listened to another one of those uh either panels or interviews and I find it really fascinating. It's like when you tell an artist like, "Oh, we want it to look like, yeah, it was made in 2004, but like we don't have the tools that we made it on back then because the software doesn't exist anymore, but we still want it to look like that." And like the artist is probably sitting there like scratching their head like, "Okay." And then so my wife is actually an artist and I was talking to her about this and she's like that would be really hard, you know, like to make it look like that.

But I think from a player perspective it's like >> yeah guys just just make it look like it it was always meant to be there, you know, and you know I think that's what people that you know want is just so it cohesively fits in the world, right? That's the That's the end goal, but it's it seems tough to to >> There was a There was a tweet that I read from someone who kind of did their They're an artist that did their own rendition of what like a skyorn bear form could look like, and he was like, "Man, this is actually really difficult to do.

It's actually like very difficult like to to design down, you know?" >> Yeah. >> Funny enough, on that, >> you sorry. >> Okay. Okay. No, no, you go. I was uh I was um trying to put myself in the shoes of a class designer because I I think mage mage is really fun, but I think it needs like maybe maybe a little bit of uh tweaking. And I was like, okay, so if I'm the class designer, what do I do? And I was just sitting there thinking and it's like 48 hours later, 72 hours later, I'm still just like, I don't know.

Like it's like this is hard. a good thing I'm not a class designer because like I I it made me have a lot of respect for them because it it is tough finding just the perfect spell rotation and I was brainstorming on stream like do you guys have any ideas cuz I know it needs something but I can't quite figure it out you know. >> Yeah, it's construct ideas. It's harder to build them yourself for sure. >> Yeah, that's right.

Last last last uh serious point before I move on to our second topic of the day guys please I don't know if you've even remotely considered if the skyborn could be priests on the at least you know horde are screaming for another priest option I I'm I'm being very this is this is deep from my community like screaming please consider it please consider it anyway um >> I will say now I can say I've said it >> one thing I'll add to that Josh just so you uh is I I think I probably made a mistake narratively whenever cuz like the the whole shtick with priests with the skyborn is like they're it's actually priestly like like religion is bad to them.

That's like the alleth cult are priests and so it's like you know in retrospect it's like damn >> I should have done something different >> maybe I shouldn't have made them atheists. >> Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Whoops. But yeah, I don't you never say never, honestly. Like that's the thing about a video game. It's malleable. Like I hear you, Horde. I hear you, Horde. Yeah. >> Very good. Very good. Guys, let's move on to the second big topic.

Um, and I want to talk a lot about of the tech that we're seeing in the WoW Forever beta, which has been, you know, you guys have some lofty um ideas, some lofty goals. We're seeing some new things, and a lot of it's really cool. Some of it's a bit wonky, but hey, it's a beta that's literally doing what it's supposed to do. and get people testing, get it breaking, and get people reporting. That's fantastic. Um, Zu, actually, if I can get you to kick us off with this because, um, I was really pleased to see what you and some of the the guys and girls did the other day on stream in terms of just organizing a really big world PVP battle.

Now look, I think it's fair to say that historically over the last few years, Classic WoW has, you know, somewhat struggled with large scale world PVP, but this one looked brilliant. Tell us what you saw and did. Okay, lots to deconstruct here with the tech. Um, so yeah, we we we invited a ton of people onto one layer on Alliance and on Horde and we just had a clash in Ashenfale. We kind of wanted like this Battle for Ashenfale season of discovery remix and we just like met at the two cities and clashed in the middle.

First of all, it was epic. Um, Horde did win, but we're going to get into the specifics as to why here in a sec. That's not okay. Alliance. Yeah, it was it was tough. It's not the point. We're talking about tech right now. Um >> I'm going to need you alliance to sweat. Come on. Get it together, guys. >> Yeah, this is crazy. I don't know what happened. It was it was rough. Um regardless though, um okay, so the battle itself had the least amount of lag for the massive large scale group of people that we had there.

I was actually shocked on how it was happening. So, we've done this a ton in the past. We did this on Sod beta. We've done this on like all the betas where bunch of streamers get together. We invite like thousands of people. Hopefully guys, we don't ruin the servers or crash the servers. Sorry if we do. We try to have fun. Um we stress we we're we're beta testing by stress testing in fact. Um so we get everyone together and it was it was the least amount of lag ever.

So, normally when that happens, you press like arcane explosion and your hands just glow and you can't do anything and we're like, "Oh, this sucks because there's too many people and it's still kind of fun." But then everyone just kind of leaves and it is what it is. But this time, you know, don't get me wrong that, you know, you still had low frames. Uh there was a lot of people thou like literally thousand plus or whatever but there was like no like lag in the sense if I pressed arcane explosion it would go off and I was like >> oh this is the first time I've ever had a large scale battle in WoW maybe ever where I didn't actually lag.

So, I don't know what the like how the tech works behind that, but we were all like a sav I was on a call, Savic, Sodapoppin, EZ fan, myself, uh, couple other people, and it was like we were all just like, how is how is this possible? This is really cool. >> Um, >> I have a lot more to say about layering, too. But, we'll get there. We'll get there for sure. No, no, we'll get there. I've got it. I've got it. Hey, just rough roughly how many people do you think I know it's hard to guesstimate.

How many people do you think you had in that battle? I mean, I would guess at least a thousand. I mean, we each have So, Hort Horde had five, six raids. We probably had >> I mean, yeah, you're making me do quick math on the spot. I don't know. >> I'm going to give him a spoiler. It wasn't a thousand, but it was >> less. It had to be less. >> Couple hundred at least. Yeah, >> couple hundred at least. It felt like a thousand.

Okay. Good. Good. >> Um, >> yeah. >> I'm assuming, right? >> Yeah. Honestly, you know, this is one of those things that I think we it's one of those things we were hoping it would kind of organically happen, but we didn't like there's still going to be a maximum amount of people you can have in a zone. That's just it just is what it is. And uh you know, you're going to hit that number at some point. And it's like if we I think if we had gone out and said, "Yeah, we nailed it, guys.

Like this is this is it. Go do world PVP." Uh, you know, I think the first experience we we weren't sure how it was going to be. We really wanted it to be kind of organic so that we could get that organic data. Yeah. And honestly, like, you know, we talk about betas and stuff and when there's instability, it's like guys, like we'll get more good data in six hours of a beta than we will in six months of internal like automated testing, right?

And so, you know, seeing this stuff play out kind of how we hoped it would is is excellent. and and uh you know obviously like you're always like you kind of like twist you're like you kind of like like cross your fingers it's going to work and and this time it man it's it's incredible. It is incredible. It's the best I've ever seen of any version of World of Warcraft I've worked on and I've worked on all of them at this point basically.

So yeah, really really good. >> Are we allowed to know >> how many uh people are allowed on a layer? Is that is that public info or no? It's it depends on the zone. The we have it configured per zone. Like we would rather we >> but it is per zone now. Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was always kind of per zone. Like that was when that was what would trigger a layer spinning up before is if you had if you hit a threshold of a certain amount of people in a certain area zone essentially, that's when a layer would spin up.

And we still kind of have that kind of a system. But yeah, each zone depending on the size of it, depending on where it is, if it's, you know, likely to be a PVP flash point, all these things kind of go into it. just to keep you rolling a grand um you know another system that's come in that that I have noticed that I am very very happy with that I believe you've been very happy with as well as somewhat of a new feature >> is the familiar faces popping up on your layer >> and like you know I I've blatantly seeing the same names turn up and I I as soon as you guys said that on the presentation I was just like >> yes it's so simple and so brilliant talk to tell us a bit more about how it's been working and your reception of that on on the Blizzard end at Grand. >> I mean, it it's incredible and honestly, it's one of those things that you you know, you always kind of like hope it'll work out the way that you you you you think it will.

And I, you know, I I think the the first two like three days of the beta, I ran into a guy in in Thind Grove, which was the like the Skyborn one through five newbie zone. I friended him to kill the the fly queen or whatever. And uh I saw him every probably six hours all through, you know, Zephris, then Westfall, then Dark, you know, I ran to him at Dark Darkshshire, you know, it's just like and it's it it it works. It actually just works.

And uh I think in a world where you are playing the game and you end up repeatedly running into your your social circles, either the ones you've sort of your sort of adopted social circles of people you've grouped with or your guild or your friends list, that is going to make the game feel so alive and rich in a way that it it never really has been able to before. Um and and it's it's strange that, you know, we live in a world where we we kind of do have different server technology than we had back in back in 2004. and and you know, we're always really worried about losing some of that some of that kind of community.

And it's like I think we've actually managed to create a tool that is maybe the best most pure version of sort of that community uh building atmosphere and and it's I don't know. I'm I'm I'm over the moon. Our engineers are actual literal wizards >> and uh they killed it. >> Very good. Very good. Tim mate, if I can throw it to you just on again leaning into this whole technical side of things. Um, one thing and I'd love to hear from Zou on this as well once you've spoken to us Tim, but one thing that has been noticeable from my guild and everyone that I deal with in my community is the technical demand just that the application has on your system.

Um, something uh, you know, whether or not this is a beta issue or this is going to be something that forever asks of your computing requirements. um the frame rates have been noticeably different. Um can you speak to us a little bit about uh the team the work that the team is doing on implementing everything visually that like Zaryu said is looking fantastic while keeping that Blizzard famous this thing will run on any system ethos going. >> Sure.

Um I mean this is why we have a beta and this is why we're going to run the beta for for multiple weeks, right? We we want people to get on there with different types of hardware. Um we want to stress test our our servers as much as possible, see where the performance issues are and actively fix them. Like I I don't know if the launch was was a little shaky at first, but we immediately were able to to fix issues um and and get people online with less lag. um issues with uh our European folks logging into to the beta.

There there's going to be issues because there's one beta, right? And and everyone globally is logging into to a single server. That's not going to be representative of how our live servers are architected. But um uh even for them like identifying um issues that are that are causing uh performance problems for them and and solving those and getting fixes out, restarting our servers and then people aren't experiencing those things anymore and they can go back to complaining about something else.

Um, yeah. No, it's it's just we're we're actively every single day we're we're we're meeting with um we have a meeting at 9:00 a.m. God, I hate 9:00 a.m. meetings, but it's it's important to have um uh and and we we we go over everything that's been happening on the previous day. Um make a plan for for how we're going to address issues um that day. And and we are just it it never ends. We're we're constantly talking with each other on Slack on the weekends um identifying and solving problems and I don't know I I the game is >> the game is going to be in a very very good place um by the time that we finally launch. >> Yeah.

And to add on to that too, like even today, like you know, you mentioned frame rate. Like I think our engineers found an issue today that it was like it was actually people toggling certain settings on and off to test things cuz people are like they're playing around with all these different settings. And they actually found out that doing that in a group with other people can cause issues. And that's the kind of issue you'll like it actually causes that's part of what causes your frame rate to decrease in cities.

So, it's like that's the kind of thing that we like never really would have found organically because it's like literally people just so fascinated with all the fiddly sliders that they're playing around with them in a large group actually causes problems. And so, it's like, hey, you know, great beta, we're doing it. Mission accomplished. So, yeah, we hope to keep getting more stuff like that. >> Well, guilty is charged here, Josh.

I That was the first thing I did when I logged in. I opened the settings. I flipped everything on and off and I wanted to see the difference. All the sliders and then not only that, but then people are like, "Here's a script to turn your fog on or off. I want to see the difference, you know." So then I I just started doing all these scripts and everything and then I'm like, I'm lagging. This is weird. >> So So if your frame rate is bad in the city, blame Josh, are you not this Josh or that Josh? >> Okay, that's that's crazy.

And now now it's my fault. It's just like now it's like I'm streaming just whenever I'm streaming it's my fault too. Um no so yeah I I I think uh so today I actually had much higher FPS than I did like like yesterday the day before. So maybe some fix already went hot went uh live in a hot fix. So I'm looking forward to like you know getting full frames and having that fix. But like Tim said I you know I expect that in a beta.

It's not that hasn't been a big deal. >> Uh to piggy back more on layering though >> uh layering >> go for it. Um, in like streamer stuff, I have like this like one experience and then layering and seeing other faces as just like a player when I'm maybe like right now logged in off stream or if I'm just kind of like questing by myself is like a completely different experience. >> So like when I'm just like playing the game and running around, I'm seeing these familiar faces like you guys have mentioned.

Like there was a priest that helped me on a low-level quest and and his name is like blue for some reason since I've grouped with him. Yeah. >> And I actually think that's kind of cool because I'm like, "Oh, that's the guy that I already grouped with and his name is blue instead of it's like a light blue instead of a dark blue or something >> and I keep running by this light blue named like priest and I've seen him like 20 times and now I've like done a dungeon with him and stuff too and like that's awesome.

That reminds me exactly of like growing up playing on Shout Out to anyone on Garethos realm originally. That was that's where I started. Um and it was cool. It was cool. I still remember like some of the people from that realm and you know 20 years later. So it's cool to like kind of have that small >> uh surfer feeling on a mega realm. So I think I think it's working. I think it's cool. >> Um as a streamer though when I'm Yeah.

We we go so hard until we like break the layers. So, like we're trying to do that massive world PvP battle and then it's like, "All right, the layer's full. We can't get any more people on and you know, but that's stuff that like these are streamer problems. This isn't really like player problems." Like, you're not going to run into it's like, "Oh, we have literal hundreds of people here now. We can't get any more kind of a thing or at least most of the time." But when I'm out in the world and I want to engage in world PvP on just like a normal layer without forcing it against another streamer, it's actually been really fun. you know, sometimes I get owned, but sometimes we're owning and it's like sometimes there's this back and forth.

Um, so from from the PvP side of things, like I want to experience more, but it's it's been okay. It's been kind of fun. So, pretty cool. >> I think just to round it out, there have been some average Joe things coming up, but again, the greatest caveat that lives above all of these conversations is guys, it's a beta. You've heard from the devs multiple times, this is the testing ground. like we know that, you know, things are going to come up that we can report to these guys who can fix it.

That's great. And I feel silly even saying it, but like the obvious things and Zu, I'd love to hear if you've seen this as well and your thoughts on it. Um, you you alluded to maybe you had some some um some constructive criticism for the layering earlier. Um definitely there's been a little bit of a disincentive to group with people because you know that let's say you you find like a um a rare elite or something and you go hey mate you want to kill this mob with me yeah sure let's do it group and the mob just disappears in front of your face but those are the growing pains that I'm sure you guys are sorting out on the back end.

No, that's and that's a great an example of an issue that we really want to catch in a beta like it's you know we we want to make obviously like nurture and protect social experiences is one of our pillars. We want to make sure that it feels good to group with people and if you're randomly getting sort of your world refreshed around you when both of you are in the same place already that's a problem and so that's something that we're we're you know that is that is a bug we will we're going to endeavor to fix that. >> I haven't seen that.

That's crazy. even watching like the PO clips where he's murdering people on the border of Duskwood in Elwin. >> Yeah, >> I saw that. >> And you see you see the person that he's trying to fight like fade in and out. It's like we we recognize like that's an issue. We don't want PvP world organic world PvP to to feel like I don't know if if if my opponent is going to disappear into another layer. So, >> we're taking those issues very seriously.

We're trying to come up with with solutions so that that doesn't happen. So that that it it the illusion of of the of you being able to >> for those facing issues um to happen don't happen. >> Yeah. >> Excellent. Guys, uh last quick point on this and then we'll move on to the final topic for about the last 10 minutes of the show. Um I'll just say it's been coming up again. I would be remiss not to ask you devs. Um has there been any considerations are you this is near and dear to your heart.

Any consideration of some form of classic UI toggle? >> Oh, great question. >> I've never heard you talk about this. >> Yeah, I Yeah, I didn't even know. Sorry. Yeah. Wow. Why don't you tell me more about it? Like, >> okay. My My stream is so tired of me more tired than you guys have me of me saying this. My stream is like, "Zar, shut up. We know you want the toggle. Like, talk about anything else." I'm just like, "But guys, only if >> Zar, I turned your stream on >> I might be the >> I turned your stream on twice today just randomly.

I was going through Twitch and both times you were like, "Man, this is a really sweet uh unit frame. It'd be really cool if >> Yeah, I don't know why. It's a It's a big deal to me." Like, you know, you know, we started the show talking about Skyborn. Honestly, like some people are upset about it and some people like it, whatever. Like, they don't bother me. It's fine. you know, like there's some things that are a big deal for me.

The the UI toggle is a big deal, but you know, >> don't we all we always don't get what we want, you know? >> Yeah. >> So, >> it's Anyway, >> I I'm just going to say like the the UI for WoW Forever, it's we want WoW Forever to be its own pillar. Um, it's it's separate from classic era. It's it's separate from modern World of Warcraft. And part of what helps people identify immediately if you're not using add-ons and you're watching someone's stream or you see someone just playing it, >> the UI having that that bronze and and weathered look might not be for everyone, but it helps identify the game immediately as something different even if you're in a familiar location like Elwin Forest. >> Um, so we we thought that that was really important.

And the beauty of WoW is that everyone has the ability to customize their UI. And so I think yeah, >> if if it's not satisfying to you or you have a different preference, it's it's going to be like it always has been. People will download add-ons and be able to customize their unit frames, be able to customize um you know, their their mini map or their their spell book or whatever. And we're empowering people to do that. >> Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. >> Fair. You know, fair enough. I think that >> I think the UI add-on solution works. I'm happy that like my biggest problem can be solved by downloading an add-on, right? Like that's that's cool. Um my my big like I actually like the new action bars and the new mini map. I like the bronze eagles, too. I actually like the bronze theme. I think that's cool. Mine mine is the like the more retail unit frames and the cast bar are like my big two.

Like if those were more like bronzified like uh like the other assets, I think I wouldn't mind it as much. But anyway, you know, I I can download an add-on, you know. I I don't want to be that guy. >> It's one of those things. >> This isn't classic. This isn't retail. It's I was saying if the firm but fair answer from Tim, it's not classic. It's not retail. That's not how it looks. Sorry. >> No, it's not to say we're not going to take feedback on it, honestly.

And that's that's the other thing, too. It's like we want to get it to a place where where we're happy with it in the long run and we and it also accomplishes our goals. You know, a lot of times whenever we're you're developing a game, you kind of have to like you kind of have to like make a priority level for what you kind of spend your time on. And uh you know, the add-on solution does exist. So, that's one of those things that kind of impacts that calculus a little bit, but that's not to say we're not listening.

It's totally something that we take to heart. >> All right. All right. Um AR, I'll get you to kick off the last topic. Um the guys, I'm sure every listener wants to hear you go on a little bit of a spiel for this one. I know I'm ready for this. excited. >> Let's talk a little bit about the the the design philosophy behind um the experience changes and how you have now weed so much into dungeon quests and you know we've all Zar you and I have seen it.

We've seen the going into Ruins of Lorderon at 17 and a half and handing you new quests and being 19 and a half and all of that stuff. Um >> people are this is a new experience. tell us why you've done what you've done. >> Yeah, you know, it's I want to I I'll start by saying like this is another one of those maybe like changes that's a little bit of a sticker shock that like when you first uh sort of experience you're like, "Oh my gosh, that's so much.

It's so overpowered." And it's like, you know, I think we were looking at charts today. Yeah. Actually, I'm push my glasses up that aren't on. Like uh we were looking at charts today. Our analytics team gave us a uh uh uh a report basically of like leveling speed and the average leveling time to from 1 to 20 in era is 20.4 hours and the average in in forever is 20.5 hours. It's actually a little bit longer. Um >> that's literally fresh off the presses today.

We were just looking at that data. So it's one of those things that it's it's it actually does even out. But um you know to actually answer the question, I think the big philosophy there and Chris Zerut's a great person. And uh you know, we're going to have him on the show, spoilers, at some point, and we can probably talk about this again, but uh you know, the big intent was really to kind of get you in the world and keep you in the world.

Like, you know, we we want you to do dungeons. We want you to get those quests and have that ritual of I'm going to go for Scarlet Monastery. I'm going to go to I'm going to go to Desolus. I'm going to do the quest in the south southern part of Desolus. Then I'm going to come back and talk to the guy in Southshore and he's going to give me the bone biter. like that whole ritual of doing all those things is great, but you know, part of this game, this protect and not nurture social experiences, we want to keep you in the world as much as possible.

And so, sort of like moving a lot of that experience off of the the uh just the kills and onto the quests really incentivizes you to you really want to do that. You really want to do that those quests. You really want to do it at least once, maybe more times for loot, but at least once. And then, you know, it's not the most efficient thing to do. And that's that's that's good and I think that's healthy. But it's also one of those things that we're gonna kind of like a bunch of things.

Keep an eye on it. You know, it's like if it becomes something that's like, man, I really would like to do more dungeons here. I would like to I would like it if the split was a little bit different. You know, that's a that's a vibe thing that we want to keep an eye on and make sure that we're we're sort of dialing in as time goes by. But for for now, from where we're sitting, it's actually working pretty much perfectly.

Um, and so we're just going to have to kind of keep an eye on it. All right. You made go. >> Yeah. Great. Perfect. You were reading my mind. Um, okay. So, I had a really cool experience where I was playing forever and I was level 14 on a gnome mage and someone in my chat and I was in Westfall and I, you know, started as a gnome and I, someone in my chat was like, "You're leveling so fast." And I was like, "Internesting.

Am I?" So, I I did my slash played and it was like 8 hours and 42 minutes or something and I was like, "Is that fast?" And people were like, "Yeah, that's slow. That's fast. You know, that's way faster, way slower, whatever." And I was like, "I want some data here." And I was like, "Wait a minute. I have a level 14 gnome mage on Era." So I logged over and checked my slashplay. I was like, "Let's bring out the data here.

I have the same gnome on Era and I was like the same exact spot in Westfall on the same exact null camp." And I was like, "Where am I?" It was like 8 hours 47 minutes. like within a few minutes of the exact same spot. I was like, "Guys, look. It's literally the same play time." And people were like, "Oh, okay." And then what I actually did was I did the same um AoE pull. And I have uh some YouTube com content on this where I I went in and I did an AoE pull of four mobs on my forever no mage at 14.

And then I logged over to Era and I did the same exact pull um on the on the no mage at 14. I'm sorry if this isn't as fascinating to you guys. I was nerding out on it, but I uh I did the same poll and >> on Forever it might have been a a touch higher mana. Um but it was very similar. Like the poll looked very similar. The the mana was maybe a little higher on Forever quite at the end of the poll. The health was very similar, but the poll looked by and large almost identical.

And I was like because everyone was like, "Oh, the Forever is way easier." were way easier and I was I was like trying to just alt tab and compare between the two. Anyway, I found this stuff really fascinating with the experience changes um and like the difficulty itself. >> Perceptions are funny. >> I think the fact that there's a lot of spell power on gear now is throwing people for for a bit of a loop. like it's like, "Oh my gosh, I can craft all this spell power gear at low levels on tailoring and it feels good to accumulate all that." But then you realize like >> all of your abilities have been adjusted to account for for that spell power for the purpose of when you get big weapon upgrades now like they actually feel very impactful for casters, which is awesome.

I felt that when I got like the um the the the dagger from the fire elemental boss in Hall of Th. Um so it's working. Good job, Chris. Um, >> but, uh, yeah, I think people are just adjusting to being like, "Oh, am I actually overpowered or is this the new norm and I'm actually at the same kind of progression path and and pacing as I was um, if I was playing era. If I can keep you rolling on that, Tim, flowing on from this, one of the other big things with the big design changes that you guys have done with Forever is obviously the prevalence of Blue Gear and how early we're obtaining this stuff and how we're obtaining it.

Um, you know, a lot of people are discussing this and and you've got all the points out there. This feels great. Oh my god, all this power, but also if everything is blue, is nothing blue and things like that. Talk to us a bit more about your design choices here. Well, I mean, just to talk philosophically about just classic in general, like it's important that there are certain checkpoints for for characters and that you graduate to certain things like the problems that you deal with when you're questing are very simple at first and they start to open up as as you level up.

You don't really get movement enhancing abilities until you're level 20. That's when you get like Ghostwolf, right? Um, and and in the same way, we want there to be a proper graduation from like white gear until you get hit level 10, then you start getting some greens, and then once you're 20, then you start getting some some blue gear. And this this is something that we're going to to tweak and and play around with.

Like this the fact that everyone is saying like, man, I'm getting so many blues. This kind of feels unnatural. I didn't go through the proper progression of getting greens, appreciating that I had a bunch of greens cuz I I I got more my four quests for Hall of Fames and now I'm decked out in blues in in one single run. And so um playing through that, seeing other people play through that um and experience that, like we're going to make adjustments.

I I think we're already making adjustments that you'll probably see in this next build um of of the beta where we have either clawed we've changed some quests so that they don't have quest rewards anymore other than experience and gold or that we've moved some quest rewards onto others so that you only get one blue instead of four blues and really tried to match the the pacing of what you saw when you ran Wailing Caverns.

I think like only one quest gave you um uh a blue on that or like the quest when you were doing Maradon, you maybe got like two blues from from quests. Um and and so we really want to make sure that the the pacing and graduation um through the different systems of the game stays true to how how classic felt and and this is this is something that we're going to continue to tweak. >> Okay. Does anyone have anything to add to that before I wrap us up?

I just thought that was a great answer to that. >> Thank you, Josh. >> Yeah, I was gonna say I thought that was great. Great work. >> Well, as a as a player, it's it's really cool to hear it, Tim, because I I was I was talking to my chat about this today and I I was playing through um Hall of Fames and I, you know, we got some blues and I was like, you know, the the RFC equivalent of this back in era, like you would mainly get greens and you would appreciate those greens.

So, I had that same feeling and you kind of stole the words right out of my mouth. It's like you didn't really get the time to feel like, okay, you went from the white gear to the green gear for a while. And when you got that first blue, it's like, oh my gosh. Right. Um, so yeah, I don't I don't mind like greens having this spot when you're a lowb and then you get that first blue and it feels good and then you graduate to blues eventually and that's cool, too.

Um, so that's exactly how I felt in terms of like uh we we were having the conversation of quest experience. I I I am a big fan. I'm a big fan of you're incentivized as the player to go through each dungeon at least once because there's a lot of really compelling quests, good rewards and great experience, but you're not incentivized to just sit there and spam the same thing 20 times cuz let's be honest, it can get very boring.

You still can if you want, but like it's not the best way to level anymore. I I love that. I think it's great. Um the community reception seems to be like fairly positive, too. So, I think that's cool. I think some players might want it like dialed back a bit, just like a little bit where it's like the quests are maybe just slightly less and then the XP from the dungeons slightly more. But like I think I think you guys are on the right track with it.

Like it feels it feels good to now that there's nine new dungeons, you can actually hit all of them, do all the quests, get tons of experience and rewards throughout your entire 160 journey. So I'm a big fan there, too. I think too, like that's one of those things too that we want to like there are certain changes that are pretty obvious to us that we want to make, but that's also one that we really do kind of want to let let the beta marinade for a little bit, let let the level cap go up and see how how kind of that feels.

And so that's one of those things that like we like I said, we're going to kind of keep looking at it, but we don't want to make any super hasty changes right now. Um uh and the other thing uh I want to say too is uh the I lost my train of thought. That's going to be the first >> That's okay. I'll pick up the slack here. While you're thinking of that, guys, we're going to start to to wrap it up here. I just want to say one quick thing before we go and zu think of your last little bit of feedback before we let the guys go.

This has been so delightful to do. Thank you so much to you guys for allowing us to have this channel for feedback. Guys, number one, first and foremost, um please maybe consider uh free um respspecing in the beta for the purposes of of testing. That would be fantastic. >> A great idea, Josh. >> Um great idea. Yeah. And um I have a very verbose community member who for some reason wants me to ask if they could possibly have the 255 character limit on bug reports extended so they can write you novels.

But anyway, Zaryu, what what do you what would you like to to to hope for going forward? >> What do you think, guys? What do you think I'm going to say? >> I don't know. What are you going to say? >> I I overall am blown away. I I can't believe like we have this product that like so many of us for like years have been like classic plus hype, you know, like this whole like oh my gosh, it's here and like all like a lot of the big things are right and I'm just I was just nerding out playing today.

Yesterday was my birthday actually and I was like >> happy birthday. >> I get to play WoW on my birthday. >> Happy birthday. >> Thanks. Thanks. Yeah, >> I was like I get to play WoW classic plus WoW forever on my birthday. This is the coolest thing. Like I'm just nerding out, guys. Like, I've played this game my whole life. I love it. Like, I I don't want to be uh, you know, complaining too much because I I just think it's great.

I'm I'm having a good time. But, uh, those unit frames, I definitely think Forever needs their own unit frames, not the ones from Retail, the Casvars, all of the art from retail needs to be classified to look like Forever. That's that's my big that's my big complaint. >> I respect the commitment to the bit. Uh, Josh, >> absolutely. >> Absolutely. Very good. All right, guys. Look, that's been a fantastic first episode.

Everyone watching at home, if you'd like to to continue this show post beta, throw this a like, a comment, tell us your thoughts on what we've said. We'd love to hear from you. Grand Tim, thank you so much, guys. >> Yep. Thank you, guys. >> Yeah. All right, we'll see you next week. We're going to have another couple devs on to talk about classes. It's going to be fun. Tune in. >> Thank you. Bye.