WoW Midnight Hearthsteel Controversy — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:00] Hello Internet, Tali Etten here, and welcome to another episode of the Weekly Reset. Tali Etten and Evertel's Wondrous Wisdom Show.

[00:13] In a week where... I'm sorry, I have to talk about heart feel. I don't like it any more than you do, but it's my job, and I have to do it. So while I go prepare myself by downing the whole bottle of something,

[00:25] please enjoy Evertel with this news rundown. Welcome to Evi's News Rundown. Let's run, Dad! The beta goes live this week, which means anyone who had pre-purchased the epic edition of Midnight will now get to play Midnight.

[00:40] Test. I mean, test. Sorry. All the testing and reporting and the feedback and stuff. You get to do that. So, you get to test player housing. Test it for hours. Every day.

[00:53] I do. Test how awesome and cozy you can make your house. Test the new skybox rooms and test that the new player housing music works by listening to it as you do player housing into the early hours of the morning.

[01:07] Test doing awesome stuff like Marvel's literal cave network or Brown Mars troll exterior. Just test it. Make sure it works is what I'm saying.

[01:19] You can test Silver Moon and all the zone stories. You can test the new dungeons and delve and prey system. You can test all the new class changes, but that won't take so long, because seriously, how long can it possibly take to test three whole buttons per spec?

[01:35] Test Midnight so much that you are well and truly sick of Midnight by the time it comes out. Congrats! You now know what it's like to be a content creator. I'm only joking. The alpha-beta cycle has never managed to make me any less hyped for a new expansion.

[01:51] Always quite the opposite, in fact. Oh, maybe you'll also be able to test the new damage meters, too. Currently on the Alpha, they are not functional, but you can see them, and new options get added all the time.

[02:03] Most recently, the ability to track interrupts and dispels. So, still not details-level stuff, but getting there. Like, we all know the most important feature Blizz needs to include in its damage meters

[02:16] is the ability to change how your character name appears on the damage meters. Like, if I can't appear as I like big crits and I cannot lie, then Blizz really have dropped the ball on the whole add-on thing.

[02:28] On that subject, actually, Blizz have told add-on makers that when Midnight goes live, add-ons that haven't been updated specifically for Midnight will not be able to load at all. So you won't get the usual day one pop-up asking if you want to load out of day add-ons,

[02:44] because there will be no out-of-day add-ons on day one of midnight, and by day one, I'm assuming that means day one of pre-patch. This makes sense with the amount of changes to how some add-ons work with the game, and it actually feels pretty good to know that I'm not going to have to go through

[02:59] and figure out which add-ons work myself. That's what I'm telling myself anyway, to hide the fact that it's also terrifying to think about what add-ons might not exist anymore. mount news, and Wildhead had datamined loads of cute new rides in the final alpha build,

[03:15] like Anushala, a purple firebird who is the reward for the new insurmountable achievement for obtaining 600 mounts. Wildhead can't tell us if druids can use this mount as their front

[03:27] form like they could the fiery emerald dream OG. I suspect probably not, but stop complaining. You got your 600 mount mounts. Other mounts we can now see are this ugly piece of shit for the Midnight Delve Gloria

[03:40] Teeth. And yeah, I'm sorry, it is ugly, even if I do respect its feather ribs. There's another Pango available from Zulamon Rares, the Vibrant Petal Wing from Herondar

[03:52] Rares, the Rootstalker Grimlynx, also from Herondar Rares, and the Augmented Stingray from Voidstorm Rares. As always, we are linking all this stuff and more in Wild Head articles in the description,

[04:04] so you can peruse these mounts at your leisure, as well as the hex eagle mount from Zulamon Treasures, this cool bear from we don't know what, but I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say Zulamon,

[04:16] oh, and a sneak peek at a chapter of the new Christy Golden midnight novel, Blood Ties. I would join you in reading that snippet, but I just got the full review copy through, So, yeah, I'm going to leave you with your tally ramp while I crack on.

[04:32] And so, to the big controversy of the week. That of the new real money housing decor currency, Half Steel, and actually the other problem, which is way bigger than Half Steel.

[04:45] But I do want to preface this entire segment by saying I think Midnight looks really good. I am legitimately hopeful and excited about it, and player housing in particular, which I think is a great secret, at least the equal of player housing in any other current MMO in my opinion,

[05:03] and honestly, probably better. This video has taken ages to write, because every time I spend time thinking about player housing for this script, that makes me want to go and play player housing, and I keep f***ing off my script to log into the alpha and dick around in there for an hour,

[05:17] because it just feels so good to be in a little room with the new lovely music and that sound of placing stuff in the space. Don't laugh, you know the one I mean.

[05:41] The team that worked on the feature are awesome, honest people who care very much about what they are making and so yes I am pissed off that they have to deal with this overshadowing their cool stuff this week But it is what it is and it is half steel

[05:58] So this first popped up on Wowhead Datamining a week and a half ago as being a new currency for buying player housing decor, and instantly alarm bells started ringing because, I mean, just the look of these icons for the currency was very... I don't want to say free-to-play

[06:14] mobile game dog shit, but I mean... Now, obviously there was much speculation about this online, and obviously much of that speculation tended towards the worst case scenario,

[06:27] which is, of course, that Hearthsteel was a new store currency to basically replace Battle.net balance, and would be the way that you now buy stuff on the in-game cash slot instead of with straight cash. And, you know,

[06:40] those icons, in my opinion, definitely did suggest that that could be the case. And so it was, on Thursday night, when Blizzard released a new post finally clarifying what this was all about, and good news, it wasn't quite the worst case scenario.

[06:57] Halfsteel is a new virtual currency for World of Warcraft being added in the Midnight Expansion. It's purchased with real money using your Battle.net balance, and used in turn to buy housing items from the Battle.net shop and in-game shop.

[07:11] Ah, well, let's do this properly and go through all of the main points before we get too heated, okay? I'm sure it's fine. The vast majority of housing items are, and will continue to be, earnable in-game.

[07:25] Okay, well, you know this, I do actually believe. It's very easy to see how decor on the shop is going to be comparable to mounts and transmog on the shop, in that, yeah, the stuff in-game is by far the most plentiful,

[07:39] and the shop items are very much occasional extras. And yeah, I guess the amount of mounts and transmog appearing on the store has increased greatly in the last year or so, to the extent that I, a professional World of Warcraft YouTuber,

[07:54] totally lost track of the shop releases, because there were just so many of them. Seriously, there's like a new bundle every month or some shit. So perhaps occasional isn't really the correct term to use anymore.

[08:06] Perhaps the correct term would be very plentiful. But in principle, sure, I'd buy this line. This is a good start. This is definitely going to be fine. Housing items tied to core fantasies of a player's race or class,

[08:19] or that already exists in Azeroth, won't be sold in the shop. Simatically important decor that players know and love will also not appear in the shop. I will, frankly, believe this one when I see it. It does kind of track with the way transmog amounts are presented on the store.

[08:34] Those items don't usually fit within the theme of the current expansion or patch, or even game world, as much as they exist in their own store cinematic universe, in a sense. And I think that's the right way of doing it, but I think it's a pretty vague line with decor.

[08:50] We know, for example, that these beautiful blossom trees will be on the store next year, part of a spring-themed bundle. But I don't know, man. If I'm a Pandaren, or a monk in general, or even just a player that knows and loves the cherry blossom trees from Pandaria,

[09:05] I might argue that actually this is something very much tied to my core race or class fantasy, and it is very much on the store. But, okay, the principle of what they're saying here is good. I'm sceptical, but I'd just about buy it.

[09:20] All housing items in the shop will be available for individual purchase. While we'll sometimes offer sales on bundles of items for a limited time, you shouldn't feel like you have to spend money now or risk missing something you want.

[09:32] Good. Blizz working hard here to downplay some of the more distasteful aspects of the store and the reassurance that items won't be available purely in bundles with other stuff that you might not want. But individually, this is fine.

[09:44] See, I told you this was going to be fine. Costs in the shop are clearly defined. the ratios of half-steal to real money are fixed and easily understood at a glance. You should be able to obtain an amount that makes sense for the purchases you want to make.

[10:01] This is an interesting X for doubt. Those here are basically saying, oh yes, the main reason games companies like to use a store currency instead of straight-up cash sales, as in, for example, I want to buy a bundle which costs like 900 half-steal,

[10:15] but the closest bundle I can purchase is 1,000 half steel. So I'm only left with 100 half steel, which is completely useless and represents wasted money in my brain, which can only be rectified by buying more half steel

[10:27] to bump it up to a level where I can buy more stuff with it, even though I initially wasn't planning on buying anything else at all. That reason? Yeah, don't worry, fam. We're not going to do that. Trust me, though. To which I would respond,

[10:39] Well, then why bother doing the currency at all, then? Basically, I don't believe them. But for the sake of argument, let's feel now in this post and assume that they are telling the truth. This is good. It's true. Half Steel should integrate cleanly into the existing Battle.net economy.

[10:53] This means not just being able to purchase it in-game, on the web, or in the launcher, but it should also be compatible with the normal flow of the WoW token, letting you earn gold in-game and then use that gold to ultimately purchase Half Steel via the WoW token.

[11:07] This, sincerely, is a relief. A low-key, very good feature of WoW, in comparison to other MMOs, is the way that the WoW token interacts with the store. Before this economy-ruining bad boy was introduced, there were mounts in this game that could only be obtained through extra real-life money from the store.

[11:25] Since the WoW token was born, everything on the store is technically earnable in-game because you can buy any of it with in-game gold, albeit in a roundabout way. But still the fact that you will still be able to purchase housing store items with pretend gold that you get for killing dragons in a video game albeit in an even more round that way now this is an important one and yeah I getting hopeful again

[11:48] This is gonna be fine! Half-Deal is for housing. We currently have no plans to use it for the Trading Post, mounts, transmogs, or pets. And yeah, sure, like, I currently have no plans to go for massive shit,

[12:02] but I'm pretty sure I will at some point in the very near future. Literally no one believes this, but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Okay, so far, so good words from Blizz, and good words on the forums too,

[12:15] who pointed out that if you do want to take Blizz at their word, and the last two expansions have been so good that you might feel they've earned that to a degree, and fair enough, then there's genuinely not too much to be concerned with here.

[12:28] In fact, when I looked, it was basically post after post, praising Blizz for their progressive and consumer-friendly approach to the new store-exclusive currency, with many players hailing Blizz as trailblazers in a new era of consumer-focused thinking

[12:42] that benefits all of us, and everybody clapped. Now, it was a shitshow, obviously. Disgusting! Son of a vomit! Clown company! Lick my ass with this utter BS! And in case you think I'm mocking these responses,

[12:55] my own reaction was, this can f*** right off into the sea. But for the sake of balanced reporting, it needs to be pointed out that although these were very common reactions, there were equally large amounts of responses which were basically bemusement at all of this last.

[13:11] Don't know why people are surprised that Blizz is going to monetize housing decor. And to me this touches on the most frustrating thing. But not the worst thing. Oh, don't worry, we'll get to the worst thing. This comment is right. No one should be surprised that Blizz are putting player housing on the store.

[13:28] Obviously, they're going to. They said they were going to from the very first player housing blue post. In the very first playtest of the feature, which I was lucky enough to be invited to Boston to take part in, I noticed that there was a button directly linking to the online store

[13:43] on the decor finder UI in-game, which I then brought up in the feedback session as feeling over-prominent, a little bit grimy, and they went and took it out in the next build. No one is surprised that Blizz are putting Deco on the store.

[13:58] In fact, everyone was, like, really cool with the idea. There have basically been no pushbacks on that idea at all. We are all frogs that have been successfully boiled in the microtransaction water over the years,

[14:10] and overall, as a community, we were unusually fine with the idea that the store would be part of this new feature. Blizz had won. They had invented an excuse to basically print money forever, but also completely avoided the shit show they might have expected.

[14:25] It's almost like they were disappointed that they hadn't upset their player base more. It's almost like when the community was generally fine with Deku on the store, someone at Blizzard HQ was like, oh really, they're fine with it?

[14:38] Huh, that's a shame. What do we have to do to piss these guys off? Ooh, how about a new store currency? And, like, yeah, mission successful, because Blizzard have snatched failure out of the jaws of victory and managed to piss everyone off about decor on the store.

[14:52] After all, with this grubby, grimy, s***y little currency, which if Blizzard had taken out their blue post word, it's completely pointless anyway, because they aren't going to be doing any of the exploitative, predatory bullshit things that bullshit store currency facilitates.

[15:04] Honestly though, double pinky promise, for real though. It's like if you were at a party and you shat your pants, and you were like, oh no, I shat my pants, but miraculously no one notices. In fact, they're all just dancing and saying stuff like,

[15:17] This party is so great and smells awesome. And then, instead of just keeping your head down and not drawing attention to the fact that you just shat your pants, you punch the DJ, you take the mic, and you shout, I just shat my pants! It's running down my leg right now!

[15:29] That shit on the floor? That's mine! But don't worry, I promise it won't stain the carpet. That's kind of what it's like. Basically, it's cringe. This currency, these mobile game-looking icons, it's just all very... cringe.

[15:42] It makes me just a little bit more embarrassed to be a WoW player. It makes me feel just a little bit more stupid that this is my hobby, you know? It makes it just a little bit less likely that I will recommend the game to others.

[15:56] Because it's cringe. And you might be thinking, okay, sure, Tally, it is a bit grimy and stinky and cringe, and yeah, obviously, it would be better if there was no store currency. But it's not the biggest deal, is it? It doesn't damage player housing as a feature or wow as a game, does it?

[16:11] And I don't entirely agree with you. I would argue that any decision which is so clearly made with exploiting, befuddling, obfuscating, and ultimately cynically milking your loyal player base, which currencies like these definitely are,

[16:25] is going to be bad for the long-term health of a game that only exists thanks to the long-term goodwill of its player base. But yeah, let's steelman this and say yes, you're right. Player housing still rocks.

[16:38] This weekend, I've been playing with a Skybox room and making an entrance area with outside zones leading off from it, in which I build a whole other house for each of my alts. The idea being, of course, that my alts can have their own small, standalone home

[16:52] within my player home. And it's still in the proof-of-concept phase, but I do know it's really cool, and it's been extremely fun to experiment with, and I have an absolute blast wasting hours of my literal life on that.

[17:05] Currency or no currency. But here's the thing. The city credit tree currency is not the worst thing about what this blue post reveals. Because, in trying to explain to us why half steel

[17:18] and by the way, that's a really shit name, but whatever is so important for removing friction for decor store purchases, they let this slip. Smaller housing items in the shop are often low cost and players will want to purchase multiples of them to complete a set As example you may want a full set of chairs to place around a dining table

[17:36] multiple place settings for your invited guests, or even many candles to help decorate the room for a complete look. Using an in-game currency can help make the process of obtaining many of these types of inexpensive items more efficient.

[17:49] okay so to be clear when you buy decor on the store you buy the one individual item when you

[18:01] buy a cool unique chair you buy one chair or one table or one cushion so if you want two of those cushions on your sofa you need to buy two of them from the store you want two in your alliance house

[18:17] and two in your hoard house, you need to buy four of them from the store. And yeah, okay, that's how it works when you buy non-store items in-game through vendors too. You buy every individual item you want to be able to use,

[18:30] and in that context, in the game, it makes total sense. But as a store purchase, what the actual f*** are we thinking here? Like, imagine you buy a mount from the store, and then you have to buy it again for any alt that you want to be able to have it on their bars at the same time.

[18:45] Imagine you had to buy one individual copy of each transmog for every character that you wanted to equip it on at the same time. Now imagine that you see a plate that you want on the floor, or a table, or, I don't know, a cherry blossom tree, or a light fitting,

[18:58] and you're like, well, that's awesome. I think I'm going to buy that with my actual real money. But it's pointless just having one light fitting, right? I'd better buy, I mean, four at least, probably quick and safe. Actually, the last thing I want is to be decorating the room and find out that I actually need ten,

[19:13] and then I can't get any more because it's not in the store anymore. I'd better buy a ten, which would feel like I was spending a surprising amount of money. But luckily, it doesn't feel that way because I'm actually spending this currency, which doesn't hold the same immediate real-life value in my brain, which is a scientific fact,

[19:25] and literally why shitty currencies like this exist and are evil though. And when I say imagine it, you don't have to imagine it, because that's what's happening. I think this sucks. If this goes live, having to buy each individual item multiple times from the shop with your money, though,

[19:40] then I will sit on this until the day I die. And you might be thinking, well, how else are they supposed to do it, Callie? And I would say, oh, I'm glad you asked. How about the most obvious way that literally 100 out of 100 people would have predicted

[19:53] housing decor in the store would work, that you buy the item once with your money, and then it either appears in your housing inventory to use forever in an unlimited way, like mounts and transmog, and in fact literally anything else in this game,

[20:06] or you buy it from the store, and that then essentially unlocks the item on the neighborhood deco vendor, so you can buy multiples of it for gold as usual when you need it, like all the other deco.

[20:20] I mean, obviously that's how you would do it. This is exploitative and shitty and grimy and dirty, And honestly, it makes me suspect that Bobby Cotick never actually really left. They just keep him in the toilet somewhere, and every now and then, once a year, as a treat,

[20:34] they let him out to come up with a really shitty idea for the cash shop. F***. And I cannot stress this enough. This. I don't like it. It's bad. Let's be clear, though. Here are the people that I do not blame for this shitty idea.

[20:49] I do not blame any of the housing devs. Or, indeed, any of the devs. I don't blame anyone that has ever spent as much as an afternoon actually making World of Warcraft, actually creating a tangible piece in this video game,

[21:03] because guaranteed, this idea was set out by someone that has never written a line of code, never drawn concept art, or made an in-game animation, or painstakingly created an asset or composed music in their entire life.

[21:15] This is a decision made by someone who does not care about video games, or the people who play them, who doesn't care about games being good, or the long-term health of games, and fair enough, honestly, because that's not their job. Their job is to maximise profits for shareholders in the short term.

[21:29] And to that end, yeah, I think we probably will. Well done. That's the economic system we live under, and this isn't a political video, so we're not going to find any solutions here today, because frankly, the only solutions are political, and people don't like hearing that.

[21:42] Other people I do not blame. It's not your fault if you buy stuff from the store, either, because trying to lay the blame at the feet of players who just want to engage in their hobby and live their lives, trying to say that you, if you buy stuff from this shop, are the real problem or the reason this shit happens,

[21:57] it's just another way of copping out from actually facing the real reason this stuff happens. So I'm not grandstanding here when I say this, but I don't think I can, in good faith, engage with Depple on the store if it stays like this.

[22:10] Not even because it's a cringe currency, but because of this terribly tone-deaf needing-to-buy-multiples-of-the-same-store-item thing. It's insane to me, and I implore Blizz to rethink it.

[22:22] And hey, maybe you feel completely different, and that's okay. I'm not trying to convince you of anything, I'm just giving my opinion. And you know what? Housing is still amazing. It's going to completely change the game forever, in a good way.

[22:36] A mostly good way. In December, I love it so much. I love what it's already done for the community, and that's why I may be a little protective of it. Is that a fair way of putting it? But anyway, if you haven't already, let us know your opinion in the comments below.

[22:49] Maybe you'll even keep it to me and I'll change my mind. Who knows? Either way, thanks for joining us today. If you like this video, don't thank us, thank our patrons who give their actual, real-life money to make all of our work happen.

[23:01] And seriously, patrons, thank you, because without you, there would be a whole lot less of Taliesin and Evertel. Ooh, full details about the team, Patreon neighbourhoods on EU and NA coming soon, I promise. If you didn't like it, download the shit out of it.

[23:14] Remember, my name is Marvell. No, my name is Taliesin. From me and Evertel, until next time, cheerio.