Patch 12.0.5 Is HERE! Lingering Shadows Complete Guide

[00:02] days brought you to my attention. A massive void energy has appeared at the Right, I've had enough of this. I've got to get some answers.

[00:30] >> And we are here with Paul Cubitt. Hello everybody. Nice to chat with you. Um first of all, do you mind us asking about the rollout of uh the latest patch 12.0.5? For sure. Yeah, yeah. So we we put out a

[00:44] recording this, we put out a little message last night uh just talking about uh how, you know, there were more bugs than we thought was acceptable in this patch. And so, we heard loud and clear from players. Uh we agree. Uh I know I

[00:57] as well. I come from a background in QA, and so I you know, I um I don't like seeing bugs. And and uh we we we've been taking it really seriously. Uh the team has been focused on making sure that we uh address issues as as

[01:11] the the large issues that the community with. And so, um you again, we uh take this really seriously. And uh when these issues tend to come up, the

[01:24] best thing we can do is we'll fix them quick, and then identify the potholes that we you know, fell into, and pave them over so that we don't fall into team is focused on now is identifying where some of these issues came up, and

[01:36] then uh and then not let them happen again. I love the 8-week patch cadence wow, um it's always gives us something to look forward to. Do you think there's an element of the very fast release of of content, and

[01:50] that kind of affects the QA of that a bit? I mean, right now what we're doing is we're doing a lot of data gathering. So, a lot of these these bugs um we uh uh pretty quickly and others were sort of doing the deep dive to figure out

[02:03] into the conversation. We we're looking into everything to see how can we make a less uh you know, have fewer bugs escape. You know, we get gave some examples. This might be getting a little bit into like the nitty-gritty of uh

[02:15] example sort of sort of shares like um how we ended up with one of these the Void Forge. There was a case where the Void Forge was giving uh duplicate items. You know, you're supposed to be able to give the same items. And this

[02:28] was a bug which the way that we have our uh testing and PTR set up right now was actually sort of like unfindable in QA and unfindable in PTR because the way it code. It happens sometimes, you know, humans write code, they they create bugs

[02:41] sometimes. Uh there's a a bug where the punch card, which saves what you have gotten from a particular boss, is being saved to a realm as opposed to the entire realm list, the entire region. And so, uh in test, our PTR realms, our

[02:55] PTR is just one realm on one realm list. In our QA setup, our QA is one realm on one realm list. On live, it's many realms on a realm list. And so, this is sort of where that bug came from. Um we identified it pretty quickly and uh and

[03:07] put a stop to it. Um but in the future, what we need to make sure is like, well, found before we get to a live environment, right? And so, and this is in that sort of class of bug. So, this is the type of thing that we're looking

[03:19] at in in a lot of these cases is um making sure that okay, that was an escape. It's unfortunate. Uh make it right with the players and then move have it again. Yeah, I wonder if there's something to do with the um

[03:32] I cuz I know a lot of people who view the PTR as just kind of or beta as like early access as opposed to reporting bugs, right? So, yeah, I wonder if that requires maybe a bit of like also a perception shift in kind of the

[03:46] community being like, oh wait, actually, we we do need to keep our eyes peeled I mean, for a a lot folks it's okay to use PTR is early access a little bit too and and also point out we have a lot of really good testers among our

[04:01] our our community of of players who like do report a lot of stuff on PTR. So we continue to keep running PTR is because we see a lot of good results. But have happened on PTR because of the architecture of how it's built and

[04:13] address. And just for the record I I would accept multiple puzzle boxes if that were to happen, you know, like I I'd take it. Noted. How do you view the 0.5 patch in terms of a season because I kind of see it as the halfway point I

[04:29] guess and It's all right. It's like the 1/3 halfway point for sure. Yeah, it's story drops, right? So and that's not even necessarily the case for midnight because we've had stuff sort of rolling out every week almost up

[04:43] until till 12:05. Yeah, we've had a couple different raids. We've had story final raid ended with a little bit of an epilogue as well. So we've we've tried this feel like next week at World of Warcraft you have something to look look

[04:56] forward to. At 12:05 is where you get that next big beat happening and so this more you know, the void assaults and also beaten path with things like the core tools and stuff like that. So

[05:11] 0.5s, 0.7s are always sort of fun opportunities to just sort of continue to push with the raids and dungeons and delves that you've been playing with and play with some fun new toys as well. And looking back on on season 1 so far,

[05:26] how is the the general feeling in the team about you know, the the three raids structure of it of it and the and the way that released? How how did that go about the three raids. I think that we saw when this was sort of pitched

[05:39] me and the counter team they said we want to make three raids. At first we Don about it was like no, that's actually really cool." these raids are split as well. You know, there's the Void bind versus Lady Jaina,

[05:53] two different places to go, but then there's also that extra raid which comes or two weeks later depending on which difficulty you're talking about with the Those were both experiments in and of themselves where we were trying to see

[06:06] of them. And I think they both went pretty well. Like early uh designs for actually had it coming a week later. We had some more story that we wanted to cram in in between the two, but then as we sort of we shared our our ideas

[06:20] what we're doing. We heard a lot of feedback that like, "I hope they're not know, harm the pacing of my own raid's which a lot of people care about as well. And so, uh and that ended up

[06:34] adjusting sort of the the tuning of that. So, um lots of uh positive looking at is like how could we do even better if we decide to do split raids in to do it again in the future? I don't see why not. I mean, nothing specific to

[06:48] announce at this point. We're still only in 12.0.5, um but uh but yeah, I don't to like it. So, yeah, if it if the story On a purely personal level, I think you made the absolute right decision by

[07:02] Icecrown come out when it did. I think like from our raid's point of view, and kind of urgency with it all, which is fantastic. >> There was also something really magical about seeing the world change like after

[07:14] the environment change and the music change and everything. Do you have kind of more plans on seeing that in the future in the game? Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, that this was all sort of I I mentioned it earlier, but that next week

[07:27] on World of Warcraft feeling is something that I I think um means a lot people interacting in a social space, interacting in a shared space, and you all progress through content together or just time passes together.

[07:40] because a lot of players can be really sensitive to what feels like, "Well, I can't I play it now, right?" It feels a little bit arbitrary. But if it's if into some of the the spectacle like you're talking about with the skybox

[07:53] changing and the beam of war between the Sunwell and the and the void storm going off in in between that it that it it sort of rationalizes the decision to say like, "No, actually like the whole serial rollout of this content

[08:06] doesn't feel arbitrary." At least for now not not not for most players. Not for the raid for sure, yeah. What about gear? Um I Generally the gear progression in in this season has been the fastest, the the most efficient, you

[08:20] could say, of of any season I can remember ever, you know? And with so much potential for gear coming from Mythic Plus and the way that affects kind of what you get from from raid and how relevant that would

[08:33] on on how that's gone? Yeah, um it's gone it's gone a little faster than we expected. Not a whole lot faster than we break it down, you can see that players who are at like the highest end aren't

[08:46] have in the past, but players sort of in the the middle sort of middle of the average item level are going a little bit faster. And so and what that means is people are getting to their item level goals a

[08:58] little bit quicker. And so as we roll into things like 4.5, we have things is where we want to make sure that like, "Well, if if you're motivated by I want to get stronger gear, I want to make my numbers go up, then having opportunities

[09:10] like the void forge to make your gear stronger feels more valuable." And also a new feature called housing, which is also like adds another sort of like as you get to that point where like if you aren't someone who is as

[09:24] motivated by by gear or is as equally motivated by gear as say like your collections or decoration or whatnot, that that point and later on in the item level goals is a really great opportunity to say like, "Actually, you

[09:37] work on now." And I know a lot of people, myself included, feel like, first before I can play with those those toys." Um and so, um having opportunity to gear a little bit faster may open up some

[09:49] bit differently. It sounds interesting that player housing. I'll have to check How do you feel about that, Evie? Cuz I I for me, the gear progression and the speed of it has been one of those things where on paper, I don't like it. Yeah.

[10:02] it. >> As a player who typically doesn't run as like an open world enjoyer, as like a delve enjoyer, it's been really exciting to get to a point where I feel like I

[10:14] can actually jump in and start doing higher level level keys, not necessarily So, that kind of like gear progression has been really I found it really empowering. And I think a lot of people who might dabble in more like casual

[10:28] opened the doors for them. Maybe it's like a stepping stone into something a little bit more challenging or difficult. Yeah. Um but thinking about should check it out. >> yeah.

[10:41] coming. Um and that just feels like a feature that was maybe born out of like, "Hey, we have housing and we have PvP. Like, how

[10:54] two very disparate communities together?" Can you talk a little bit about decor duels? And then also, um are there any ways, maybe unexpected ways, that player housing has kind of affected systems or development in wow?

[11:08] >> For sure. So, yeah, decor duels is absolutely the marriage of two very housing and PvP. But, it's not the first time we've done that. We did We married transmog and PvP first, right? With the travel style. Yes, so which is which is

[11:23] game to this day. >> Ruthless, yeah. Uh uh but uh decor duels gives it a run for its money as well. Yeah, I mean, was born out of the team when folks were looking at like what cool things we can

[11:37] aren't necessarily tied with our battle versus Al'taev or any of the stuff whatnot. And something which it looks like a prop makes a lot of sense particularly in a world where we just added a whole bunch

[11:51] So, yeah, we've seen a lot of people played a bunch throughout this week. Just doing a lot. I'm not very good at it. Um, but I play hunter. It's much easier

[12:03] than I hear. Well, it was for a while. Yes. But not maybe not as much anymore. But yeah, so yeah, this is sort of a passion project coming from the team. As far as housing, I mean, housing has

[12:15] gameplay. I mean, one of the things that I was most happy with was a particular quest which came up I think 2 weeks ago now shows up in the in the main cities which a couple times has been like hey, go

[12:30] deliver and go pick up some pets. This one was like go host or have a party at someone else's house. And we saw so many awesome player stories come out of this I know I was speaking frankly, I hadn't spent a whole lot of time in other

[12:43] people's houses and I was like well, let's just hop into LFG, look for a people who were like come to the guy had an awesome house. Everybody was I love what you did with your dining room. There was one guy who got himself stuck

[12:56] in this fellow's bookcase and I used my priest life grip to pull him right out. I it was very lucky I was there. I must use your life grip every now and then. Yeah, that's me done for the month. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So so

[13:09] sort of like really happy to see those and looking more reasons for people to want to maybe hang out with each other in houses and but I'm not going to share it because it is nightmare fuel. But I also will not

[13:24] They're they're brilliant. There is uh a lot of excitement at the moment about um I'm going to call it the mythic flex one boss raid coming in uh 12.07 um and what kind of doors that could open in the future. Is there Is this

[13:38] like a test bed for that really or is is is there an idea that that could kind of >> like a test bed, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. I mean, we for sure have heard all sorts inside the house. So many people working

[13:51] at Blizzard even say like, "My raid is exactly the right raid for something like this fungarian one boss mythic flex raid where we, you know, complete AOTC just don't quite have the flexibility to either get the extra people or to bench

[14:05] a couple people or we can't we can't reliably seat 20 for what is normally required for mythic. But that difficulty feels right for us and so um yeah, this is an opportunity to say like, "Well, what would that feel like in in a place

[14:17] off-the-beaten-path in that it's like pretty late on in the season where this boss will come in. We'll be able to um see how we can uh you know, build that easy? Does it feel too hard? Does it feel And then assuming players like it,

[14:31] then then who knows where we go from there? That's really good to hear. I So it's like, you know, we can't It's the thing of we can't cut down our team. You couldn't do it, right? So it's like for us we're all really excited about

[14:45] knocking down heroic raids and so they just like and yeah, after the game is telling us, "We want need something a little bit harder than that uh just restriction." So that's what we're looking at with all of them. Um a little

[14:58] little question. You talked about the the story earlier and um there's been uh a little bit of concern um in the kind of corners of the internet in the kind of corners of the internet that I hang out in um about the I don't

[15:12] elves, but the kind of the the teaming together of the elves in the in the season one story and the idea that any kind of like lingering resentments kind of problems that they might still have will be kind of, you know, put to

[15:27] one side as we move on to other parts of the expansion. Uh can you first I have a feeling maybe we hang around in similar corners of the Cuz I've seen I've seen some of that feedback as well. And And for sure I I I

[15:39] think it's well-founded. So, story that's told in campaign Campaign like pretty Linear is not the right word, but like serial, you know, a number of things happening in a particular order. And uh

[15:52] and it's it's meant to show a lot of the big moves and shakes that happen in the moves and shakes happen at the end of this chapter of Midnight where um well, you know, the threat of the Void storm and the threat of the the Darkwell, but

[16:08] also the elves overcome some sort some of their long-held rules, especially in in Silvermoon about, you know, some pretty hard-held beliefs about how close we will allow Void elves to get to the

[16:20] Sunwell itself. Um and also some some ancient sort of not ancient, but old and then again, like hard-held uh difficulty between Silver Covenant and between uh the Sunrivers. Yeah. And And so, um well, if you if you play through sort of

[16:35] sure that like not all of those that tension has been diffused. There's still some like very much insinuations of like, "Okay, we'll light this torch together. We'll We will work together. But if you step over the line, then, you

[16:48] what the campaign is meant to show is that like we've sort of crossed the threshold of like, "Okay, we're going to try to work together." Um but campaign that stuff. And so, I would continue to like if we're looking for nuance in

[17:01] how elves will continue to interact with one another either on positive or this could also be extrapolated not to elves, but to any sort of groups in the stories, look to local stories, look to zone stories, look to those little

[17:15] someone interacts with you in an interesting way. That's where you'll >> Yeah. Did you hear that, guys? Please play your side quests. Exactly, yeah. If you are not sojourners, pause this

[17:27] you're done. Team sojourner. think I was alone. Maybe you noticed this in all corners of the internet as The crushing disappointment I felt when the the promised Armani customizations

[17:42] turned out to be hair colors and skin colors. I get it, but I think a lot of us really had our eye on some of those cool kind of like orcish rigs for Is never going to happen? Or could it maybe happen though? We'll keep listening to

[17:57] feedback. I wouldn't hold your breath for anytime super soon. But yeah, this opportunity for us to play with a customization that we don't achievement rewards. We haven't done a lot of this. I mean, you can point to

[18:11] for the Draenei, but that was also its own like specific quest line which was well, what's a cool thing we can do for really said like well, customizations for a particular character or race in

[18:26] unlocked. And so, looking for player feedback on it. It were hoping for a little bit more. >> I don't think I'm alone. No, yeah, for sure. But I just love those those chunky boys.

[18:38] his mind on character customizations, and I think that's fair. But I really really am excited about the new keystone achievements. Yeah. Can I bring up the keystone mythic because

[18:51] I yes, was absolutely like very excited and still am about keystone mythic. I looking for a higher tier of kind of reward in mythic plus I think. A little bit of a tepid reaction to the the mount rewards since they've been announced. I

[19:04] for the title as well, the one for the little bit of disappointment with the keystone myth rewards. Yeah. So, I mean rewards for things like this. And when it comes to mounts in particular, we're

[19:19] that we understand the double-edged for very difficult achievements because there are also mount collectors out like, "Oh, that's actually a huge disappointment for me because I know I'm

[19:32] just not going to or capable of reaching 3,400 or whatever that you know the high-level achievement is. And so, putting something that's unique can can there's there's there's pros and cons to putting something unique versus

[19:45] there are opportunities for players to earn maybe things which felt like they were some legacy mounts that were no longer accessible but now you can get whatnot. So, we're going to continue to listen to feedback. This is the first

[19:57] time that we've done Keystone myth and so we don't necessarily have to have a moving forward. >> It got me to jump back into Mythic Plus again straight away. As soon as I heard about it, I was sort of like pretty much

[20:09] done. I was just doing my vault every week and then yeah, instantly I had that motivation to try and climb again. Yeah, and this is also in response to like we said players hit their itemization goals a little faster than we expected.

[20:22] well. Like we saw either people hitting Keystone Legend or on trajectory a little bit sooner. And so, I I would call this out as sort of a success of looking at this and saying like, "Oh, we can we can do a little bit better. We

[20:36] can actually get this in." And if you've been following PTR, it came at pretty it onto PTR at all this Keystone myth achievement to be able to give you that motivation to say like, "I love playing Mythic Plus. I just sort of hit my goals

[20:51] incentivized or if you want to keep carrot to keep playing before you eventually retire to your house and start decorating that. do you feel about tuning this season? It certainly with

[21:03] than usual maybe or is it is that just actually normal? Cuz there's usually a tank that's way out ahead, but >> Yeah, Brewmaster's a little bit ahead right now. I mean,

[21:16] working on tuning. Typically, what you see in a season is actually like a pretty broad distribution of different healers and And then as you get later on, then then metas

[21:29] know, inevitable and also, you know, arguably healthy for a social game for that we've agreed to play together and whatnot. But, the meta for tanks in particular came out a little earlier this season, and so the the solution,

[21:44] like the the pure absent existing players playing in the game bring Brewmaster down, but I that wouldn't obviously wouldn't be the right glad to see Brewmaster have its moment in the sun, like finally, and be like

[21:58] yeah, please don't do that. >> Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, what what likely ends up happening is we make light touches to Brewmaster. We tanks to bring them closer to within one another, and and aim to do this in a way

[22:12] introduces as little disruption as possible. But, yeah, ultimately, like we we measure success on on tuning based on folks capable of hitting sort of the places that we've set as our major

[22:25] goals for the the game. Am I able to complete mythic tens? Am I able to get this sorry, plus tens? Am I able to get the keystone legend keystone mythic with all of the tank specs, with all of the healer specs, then that you know,

[22:37] that's one of many metrics we use to to do this, but we're going to keep keep tuning in a way that is as non-disruptive as possible. And one last your house, and I don't want to outstay our welcome.

[22:50] our welcome. Lots of speculation about 12.1. anything away about that, but I've I've got a feeling I've just got this feeling it might be a good idea to set our hearthstones in Zul'Aman for

[23:05] that one. Is it Would you Is that advice you'd recommend or Is it because you like what is the >> the view off the coast is really good, >> the view off the coast is really good, really intriguing. Yeah, and yeah, kind

[23:18] of that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I would say if you enjoy the view off the coast, Zul'Aman is a really good place to set it. That's good enough for me. Awesome. Cheers. >> Yeah, thanks everyone.