Blizzard Watch Podcast

Because Cory has the courage to say that, quote, "bugs are bad. I'm glad they got fixed," that is the theme of this week's Blizzard Watch Podcast. Well, not all of them are really bugs -- is it a bug that five Guardian Druids did an M +20? Well, that bug was fixed. And the bug with Ascendant Voidcores was fixed, and players can use them to upgrade their gear. We had a lengthy discussion on the future of Diablo 4, which is necessarily going to touch on some bugs, even if we try our best to avoid spoilers.Also, there was a list of bug fixes and other changes for Heroes of the Storm this week, so it's a good thing Cory's here.But elevators? There's no fixing the bugs with those bosses.

We're speculating on WoW patch 12.0.7 and beyond, now that the preview for said patch has been released. That leads us to a certain ominous island off the coast of Zul'Aman that we're not allowed to touch yet, plus all the other little details that lead us to guest host Phil Ulrich's favorite thing ever: Troll Raid.But other than that, it's all cosmetics and microtransactions. There are gorgeous new, dyeable WoW crossover appearances in Diablo 4, treehouses for WoW Player Housing, and another of those gatchas we hate in Hearthstone, all for actual cash folding money. But at least we have the glorious Trading Post and all its free hats and mounts to keep us just the tiniest bit happy in this capitalist hellscape.Speaking of hellscapes, The Cow Level is real and it is just as awful to find in Diablo 4 as you probably expect.

This week, Matt, Joe, Liz, and our special guest host Six, are all waiting patiently to talk about Lord of Hatred, the new expansion for Diablo 4 which came out earlier this week. So they'll talk a little bit about World of Warcraft patch 12.0.5 first, kind of like the concept of "eating the frog," where you do the gross thing first to get it out of the way as fast as possible. Patch 12.0.5 probably wasn't that bad -- probably -- but it did have its grossness, with so many bugs that Blizzard apologized in a blog post, and Senior Game Designer Paul Kubit went on our bestie Evitel and some other dude's podcast and did damage control. Oh, and Hearthstone announced a thing. Class minisets, or whatever.But then, they got to talk about Lord of Hatred and oh boy are they excited about it. They thought a lot of the changes revolutionized how the game feels and plays -- maybe not all the way up to a Reaper of Souls for how it made Diablo 3suddenly a classic, but it's close. Skill trees, charms, bears -- and no story spoilers, even though Joe already got spoiled on it.

Liz Patt joins Liz Harper in lifting the embargo on the upcoming Diablo 4 expansion Lord of Hatred. From discussions on balance and the weirdly enchanting land of Skovos to an extended discussion on how fishing (yes, fishing) works, Liz and Liz give us a rundown from their hands-on view of the upcoming expansion. Spoiler: They both quite enjoyed their time there, even if they're both a bit miffed at not getting to play Amazons.Plus, World of Warcraft just released a new little content patch, which includes Decor Duels but doesn't include Player Housing, which was briefly disabled. It's back up now, but it gave all of us a little bit of a panic attack.

This week our hosts mostly focused on everything that's coming soon in WoW and a few other games. Patch 12.0.5 got a release date -- April 21 -- so our cohosts discussed all the stuff coming up in that patch, from Decor Duel to fishing to transmog. All the endgame activities. But WoW isn't the only game with endgame -- there was a new (expensive!) cosmetic gatcha pet in Hearthstone. As always, the first one is free.Plus, a new season and Hero came to Overwatch. Sierra is still not dodging the charges that she's Dollar Store Cammy. In fact, her backstory just makes her seem more like Dollar Store Cammy. Joe is a little irked about it!Cory was cohosting, so there was another edition of Cory's Heroes of the Storm Copium Corner.

We're all about Easter, with both the Noblegarden festival and the Race to World First this week. Liz starts off recounting the epic Race to World First, which started off a little ho hum with a split tier, but took a few wild turns toward the end. Then, we talk Noblegarden, and Joe and Matt wondered whether Liz needed an intervention because she isn't excited about this year's transmog offerings. But Liz had a lot of heavy lifting to do this week, with both a new HearthstoneBattlegrounds season and a new Overwatch hero announced. But admittedly, nothing is as cute as Jeff the Land Shark. Not even Jetpack Cat.

As we begin the March of Quel'Danas this week, we also noted that there seems to be a whole lot of side quests to set the stage for the new raid and its counterpart in Harandar, The Dreamrift. There are also a slew of campaign quests paced in time with the raids, so we discuss how that pacing has felt.But it's not all lore around here -- there's also a new set of transmog and mounts for the April Trading Post, plus Noblegarden is next week, so you get a crack at another color of baby duck. And this time the transmog is also IRL, sort of. Anyone in the market for a new World of Warcraft branded cast iron skillet?

This was the first week of Midnight Season 1, so we started off talking about the new dungeons and raids -- and what we got in our first Great Vault of Midnight. Our hosts that raid also did a bit of a post-mortem on how the addon apocalypse is shaking out in practice. And speaking of the revamps for Midnight, our first Trial of Style since the transmog revamp is now live, and it is not going well. There are plenty of other things to explore, though -- maybe even a little too much? Delves and dungeons and Prey and housing and now a raid, and its accompanying Race to World First? It's kind of a lot.But to slow it down a bit, both the upcoming patch to Mists of Pandaria Classic and the new music video collab with Aurora really hit all those nostalgia buttons.

Liz Patt took a spin in the hosting chair for the first time this week, with Joe and Liz and Cory on board to keep her on her toes. The raid schedule for Midnight is enough to keep anyone on their toes, not to mention Mythic dungeons, Delves, and ABUNDANCE. Not everyone is a fan of ABUNDANCE, for technical reasons, though it's been adjusted a bit to try to cut down on the lag. If that wasn't enough, we also have a ton of new information about patch 12.0.5, including a Dave the Diver-like spearfishing adventure.With Liz Patt hosting, the Diablo franchise was given its due, with season 12 starting, and more information about Lord of Hatred. The crew is bemused at another step Diablo 4 is taking to be more like Diablo 3, which actually has a seasonal rollover coming soon. They remembered to flick the drinky bird.We also had some indie news. The Subnautica 2 lawsuit just wrapped, and the details are so, so stupid. We also talked a bit about former Overwatch developer Jeff Kaplan's new project, The Legend of California. We're also excited to see what dinoflask makes of the announcement of the open world western, and Jeff's 10 hour long "development and chill" stream.