WoW Weekly Reset: Scandal & Leaks — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:07] >> Hello internet, Taliesin here and welcome to another episode of the weekly reset Taliesin and Evitel's wondrous wisdom show in a week, which is super extra packed with news, reveals, controversy, and drama. We have the GM

[00:24] streamer Mythic plus scandal, one of the juiciest and most buckwild conspiracies juiciest and most buckwild conspiracies in like the last 10 years of wow. We have a jam-packed new PTR build. We have not one, but two accidental leaks for

[00:39] future story and content. So, enough of all this yapping. Let's start with Evitel's news rundown. >> Welcome to Evie's news rundown. We have proper news, I promise, but we

[00:53] have to talk about how the wow community experienced peak drama this past week as we were treated to a saga of truly epic proportions. This was a story of wayward

[01:05] men and women, of a harrowing journey against overpowering foes who could only be toppled with the help of divine intervention. This is the story of some big old cheaters. >> According to a burner Reddit account and

[01:19] now confirmed by Blizzard itself, a QA employee with GM privileges who had been on the job for all of two months, by the way, was chilling with his buds in the way, was chilling with his buds in the dungeon and in a Discord and when asked

[01:32] to "Do me a solid, bro." insta-killed Lothraxion as a flex for his friends, granting them important title rating along the way. Whoops. This was only discovered by the community in the first place by people noticing the one shot in

[01:47] the logs with suspicion that someone in the group, probably the pug tank, leaked it on purpose. But, it was confirmed by a member of the team on Yummy's stream joke. >> And then I'm I'm like oh I'm I go to my

[02:03] GM friend I'm like bro bro please can you do me a solid and just like like let this be a 20 mil bro. Can you please just one shot? >> One time for the one time. [laughter] >> Bro

[02:15] Personally, I think it was harmless. I didn't expect him to like do it. He was just like doing me a solid because I hate >> And after a day or so, Blizzard got involved. A blue post confirming that

[02:32] the incident took place, [music] that it was logged, that it was a flagrant abuse of privileges, and that the employee in question was terminated immediately. And that the player accounts complicit in this unfortunate debacle will likely

[02:45] have action taken against them, too. There is repeated reassurance in the statement that this was the action of a single employee, isolated to one individual, but it begs the question was it an isolated event? Best case

[03:00] scenario, this is just a tragically misjudged flex, an absolute doofus move from someone looking to impress his bros and bras who should have known better than to try. Worst case, this is just the tip of an nefarious real money

[03:15] transaction conspiracy iceberg [music] in which power-hungry GMs insta complete keys for their ring of boosting buddies and take a cut of their real money fees because let's be real, they're probably not getting paid enough in the first

[03:28] place. Let's be real. When people get caught for something like cheating, it's happened, is it? Oh, and if you're wondering why we aren't mentioning any because one of the group in question is a small female streamer, and frankly,

[03:44] everyone's fun with this story in the exact ways everyone else can already imagine. Anyway, enough of that because 12.1 Curse of Ulutec is definitely most

[03:56] certainly dropping on August 11th, we think. The current build is now a release candidate on the PTR, meaning it is effectively ready and raring to be released upon us. And release candidates typically appear 2 to 3 weeks before the

[04:09] corresponding patch drops, so this tracks with the 11th. Also, the tracks with the 11th. Also, the Tidebound Grotto instanced boss raid layer with its uber old-school fantasy art is marked as starting on August 18th

[04:23] in the in-game calendar, which again would line up neatly with a patch better get started on that patch guide. There is a lot to look forward to in 12.1, but one thing you won't find in

[04:35] the next patch is Decor Duels. That's right, your favorite additional game mode is soon to be obsolete. There's some debate as to whether this was always known to be a limited event like Dastardly Duos. Sorry for mentioning

[04:50] Dastardly Duos, or whether it was initially implied to be a permanent evergreen feature like Nightfall. Regardless, these next couple of weeks will be your last chance to win illusionary coins and spend them on the

[05:03] toys, mount, and more importantly, awesome weapon appearances that Games Master Flurryand sells. Do not spend them on Chair Guy's decor items as these will all be available after the event for Void Light Marla. Get those glaives.

[05:18] Rip to anyone who dropped those coins on Decor recently. Liz has doubled the amount of illusionary coins that drop from Decor Duels, which means that if you complete Propagandist Nicera's daily quest to complete two events, you will

[05:30] receive at least 170 coins per day, enough for a single weapon appearance and change. Get hiding. For the player housing enthusiasts out there, that's all of you, right? We have some further updates coming our way in 12.1, namely

[05:46] the decor storage limit, which is now over 9,000. It's it's 10,000. That's a full 2 and 1/2 thousand more than the current limit. Quite a few people have been bumping up against this limit, especially for those with both Horde and

[06:01] Alliance houses to deck out. So, this is a very welcome change indeed. All we need now is to hit another funny number and we're golden. What funny numbers are there after 9,000? Oh, no. Have we done all the

[06:14] funny numbers now? The pet limit, that is the total number of pets allowed to wander the inside of your home, has been bumped from 10 to 100. That's up to 100 Cadgar heads bobbing in agreement with your lame jokes. That's 100 Alarm-o-Bots

[06:31] beautifully keeping spoilers at bay. 100 Handies for You know what, Evie, that's enough. That's enough. But, perhaps even more exciting than 100 Handies is the news around a new batch of Westfall-themed decor. Ooh. A number of

[06:46] housing decor items that had previously been speculated to be shop items, including quilts, cornrows, and perfectly formed pumpkins, are now being vendored on the PTR for community coupons. These are now labeled as

[07:01] Westfall-themed decor, and the Artisanal Room Seller, who you can get all of those beautiful pre-made interiors from, like the Bellamef Temple Room and the Orgrimmar Theater, is now also selling exterior designs, like the autumnal and

[07:17] springtime Westfall barn facades. To be clear, this is a whole-ass house exterior type, meaning we will now have human, orc, night elf, [music] blood human, orc, night elf, [music] blood elf, and Westfall barn exterior types,

[07:32] which can be placed in both the Alliance and Horde neighborhoods. Does this suggest any future Westfall-adjacent content? Maybe. Does it give us some neat new exteriors that aren't on the shop and that will hopefully herald more

[07:46] racial exteriors in the near future? That's my dream. That and 100 handies. >> Oh, wow. Anyway, here are some other words I couldn't even conceive of saying until just now. The viral malformed raccoon

[08:00] sensation known as Jimothy is coming to World of Warcraft. [music] I'm told this is a raccoon-like creature with a fused spine that roams the neighborhoods of Seattle, apparently to the delight of its residents and a huge swathe of the

[08:13] internet. He's also coming to WoW in some capacity and will be earnable in experience reading this segment has more out of touch with the online space than just now. Thank you. And lastly, as

[08:28] we were about to start recording, it was accidentally leaked in a Roll 20 blog post that D&D's next major crossover release will be Dungeons and Dragons

[08:40] release will be Dungeons and Dragons World of Warcraft. This is big, fellas. This is huge. We are already part of a D&D homebrew game set in the Warcraft universe, but making it official? It seems like pre-orders are planned to go

[08:53] [music] live very soon. They might even be live by the time you watch this. And on this later. >> And now to the reveals. Reveals about

[09:05] the plans of World Soul Saga's biggest baddies. Reveals as to upcoming cinematics. Reveals [music] as to returning characters. And these are my absolute favorite type of WoW reveals. Accidental ones. That's right, fam. We

[09:20] have two instances today of pretty huge spoilers being dropped completely by mistake. And needless to say, there is a red bot spoiler bot up for all of this. what future me has decided to put in the thumbnail yet, but believe me, it's much

[09:37] more spoilery than that. First up, the end of midnight and Xal'atath's ultimate plan. The last two expansions now have been skating this very thin line of simultaneously making it pretty obvious what main antagonist Xal'atath wants.

[09:53] at the same time they've been kind of vague about how or why or what or who or when or anything else about her plan and intentions. Well, that has suddenly got

[10:05] intentions. Well, that has suddenly got a whole lot less vague with a new data mined script for an in-game [music] cutscene which will play after the story of the Coiled Isle. So, literally at the very end of patch 12.1 or 12.1.5 or even

[10:20] likely 12.1.7. Now, this was originally shared on Reddit, but don't let that fool you. This is legitimate data from an actual This is legitimate data from an actual build and it also looks like this. So,

[10:33] allow us to put it all together before you in a way that is slightly easier to digest with me doing the voices and Evitel the stage directions. >> Lor'themar steps out to find that Liadrin is standing by Zul'jara, [music]

[10:46] but they are surrounded by city guards. >> An Amani leader visits Silvermoon. This is unprecedented. An Amani leader who not only led the assault on Ulatek, but also directed her forces to prevent any of Ulatek's serpent children from

[11:01] escaping, sparing Eversong entirely. >> Desperate, Liadrin takes the dagger, casts it to the ground, and destroys it. >> Then, we owe you a debt of gratitude. That is not needed. It was the Amani who first unleashed [music] Ulatek. We were

[11:16] responsible. Are there not parts of your people's history that you regret? Or would you like me to remind you of some? >> Liadrin chokes a moment, eyes darting to Zul'jara like, "Dang, girl, did you really say that?" The moment is rescued

[11:29] from its discomfort by the approach of Aeritor and Orwenna. saw. >> They've reached her. There's nothing left between her and the dark. She's changing, not extinguishing. She's

[11:43] fighting back, holding on, but she can't win. Xal'atath has reached the world, so we have to move now. We have to find a way down there. Blast open the coreway, way down there. Blast open the coreway, anything, or Xal'atath will consume her?

[11:56] No, Xal'atath will become her. thinking, "But Tally, I thought you said this leak was definitely legit." And you really say that?" >> in there, which makes me think it's not

[12:11] legit, actually, or even worse, is legit and is the exact reason wow sucks now. Great, now all that's missing is some finger snapping to really put Lorthemar in his place. Oh god, I hope they change this ASAP. Oh no, I thought this was a

[12:25] shitpost when I saw it somewhere else. The writing is so abysmal. Lol. Weeks of can blame them, right? This is basically the wow equivalent of She-Hulk twerking with Megan Thee Stallion. Another thing that people were very normal about. And

[12:40] we don't want this kind of modern immersion-breaking line in World of Warcraft. Can you imagine the proper old-school story writers pulling this [ __ ] >> You are not prepared.

[12:52] >> Dang, girl, did you really say that? >> By fire be purged. >> No king rules forever. >> Dang, girl, did you really say that? >> Dang, girl. >> This world is a prison.

[13:08] >> There is, of course, one crucial difference, obviously, in that She-Hulk difference, obviously, in that She-Hulk twerking was actually a thing on screen that we saw, and this "Dang, girl" line is a stage direction to help the

[13:23] animator understand what is needed that will never be seen by an audience and won't be seen by us unless we were purposely using development tools to cinematics that are not meant to be seen by the players, which is what we're

[13:36] [ __ ] up when you put it like that, doesn't it? Honestly, this entire script is for a cutscene so early on in its creation and development. It hasn't even been decided what patch it's going to be in yet. It wouldn't surprise me if at

[13:50] least some of these lines change, and even if they don't, no, Dangle is not a part of the script. No one says that. And for those who would say something along the lines of, "Well, no wonder the finished cinematics feel so

[14:04] underwhelming when this is the level of eloquence devs have. Colloquialisms are fine, but" I'm assuming they meant to write not not when making a high fantasy game like wow. I think this is a fair criticism.

[14:18] scripts work, I don't work in the games industry and never have. And frankly, would never want to considering I unironically get more job security being a small-scale YouTuber, which is insane. But I was a professional actor for over

[14:33] 10 years before this. That's just how a lot of stage directions in scripts are written, even for serious fantasy stuff. So when I read the script, that direction didn't get a second glance from me because [music] it's basically

[14:45] par for the course. Of the lines that will be heard by the audience, are there not parts of your people's history that you regret? Or would you like me to remind you of some? It's an absolute zinger in my humble opinion. And yes,

[14:59] the way that Arator and Wayner run into the scene and suddenly explain what the scene and suddenly explain what Zalathras is doing is clumsy by itself. But remember, the vision that Awaena has seen of what's happening down at the

[15:13] world soul that she explains to the characters here, when players see this cutscene, they will have already seen that vision in its own cinematic. We describing. I will bet you anything you like. So, yeah, this cutscene out of

[15:29] context, it feels like rushed exposition. [music] But, in the context of Alleria's vision is its own cinematic before this one, not so much. My main take is it's kind of pointless judging the quality of any writing by a

[15:42] purposely unpublished early draft. And anyway, I'm much more interested in what it reveals of Xal'atath's plan at the [music] end of the expansion. Because, while the specific lines and words being said will change in coming builds, in

[15:57] a minute before I started recording this piece to camera, this file was updated in the data to include a note that says, "This script is out of date. It is not

[16:09] being used." A note that feels very much like it was put there for us rather than for any devs. So, this will change, but it's highly unlikely that [music] the basic events happening in the script will or can be changed. Like, the big

[16:24] plot points and story beats that this scene was supposed to be leading to can't really change. They are basically immutable at this point. They've reached her. There's nothing left between her and the dark. Xal'atath has reached the

[16:36] world-soul. We have to move now. We have to find a way down there. Blast open the coreway. Anything. It certainly appears from all of this that we will be heading to the coreway, or at least through the coreway to the world-soul itself, or at

[16:51] least the area surrounding the world-soul and her titan prison. That's channel because we've been telling you that would be the setting for 12.2 since before Midnight even launched. And I would expect the 12.2 zone to be a vast

[17:08] underground space possibly [music] with the world-soul in view the whole time, populated by Xal'atath's void forces who have had time during 12.1 to really take over and establish themselves and give us something to

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[18:59] >> Potentially very cool, spectacular, and with a possible extremely epic raid and final couple of encounters defending or even fighting that world soul. But like

[19:11] I say, we worked all that out ages ago. So, the only big reveal here is with regard to Xal'atath's plan. She doesn't want to destroy the world's soul. She She doesn't want to capture the world's soul. She doesn't even want to save the

[19:26] world's soul. Xal'atath will become her. Well, probably not that she wants to become a lovely big ball of light singing a lovely song and looking after all the races on her planet. Probably

[19:40] more like, "I'm a super mega powerful world's soul version of me and everything that entails." We know that Aman'Thul likes to nurse world's souls into being born as titans. We know that the void fired out a whole bunch of old

[19:55] gods into our reality specifically to try and corrupt world's souls so that they could eventually be born as void entities. So powerful that Sargeras thought it would be better to destroy all life in the universe rather than

[20:09] risk that happening. So, if Xal'atath wants to become the world's soul, it's probably because she really wants to become what the world's soul will be become what the world's soul will be born as, a god-like version of herself

[20:24] unaligned to any cosmological force. Holy [ __ ] think how big her feet would be. Sargeras is going to [ __ ] himself. This obviously answers only a tiny part of the question players have had about her motivation though. The main one

[20:39] being, "Why? Why does she want all of this power? What is she hoping to achieve? Is she going to go on a huge revenge arc against the forces that destroyed her home planet? Or maybe try and remake her home planet? Maybe as a

[20:53] victim under the control of others through much of her formative existence, does she just basically want to be untouchable by being so powerful that no one can control or harm her ever again? Does she maybe want to basically rule

[21:07] the entire universe as a total badass? Does she just really not like Azshara's music choices and is doing all of this just to replace the radiant song with a cheesy 80s hair metal that is definitely Zally's favorite tunes. Or, I mean, the

[21:21] Jailer also wanted the Azeroth world soul. He specifically wanted to use it soul. He specifically wanted to use it to unmake all of reality because of what is to come. Does Xal'atath know what that is? Does

[21:35] she want to unmake all of reality? We don't know, obviously, because none of that has been revealed yet. Still, even now, but she wants to become the world >> [music] >> we better stop her, I guess. But, what

[21:47] do you think? Let us know in the Oh, no, wait. I promised you two accidental spoilers today, didn't I? And the other is Kil'jaeden and Lex Lang, the voice actor for Kil'jaeden, who posted an Instagram video of him talking about how

[22:02] great it is to play Kil'jaeden and also how but he got killed at one point and [music] now we're >> we're revisiting him. I'm recording next week, as a matter of fact.

[22:14] >> Yeah, it's going to be pretty cool. >> Well, well, well. So, there we go. The final boss in Midnight at the world soul, again Xal'atath, will also somehow feature Kil'jaeden, probably. Well, probably not, but obviously this

[22:29] confirmation that Kil'jaeden will return soonish has got players speculating big time, especially as next expansion, Last Titan, is widely expected to feature

[22:41] Sargeras in a prominent role. Kil'jaeden being, of course, Sargeras' right-hand man. And yeah, okay, so we last saw him blowing up after getting a light touch on the head from [music] Velen at the end of the Tomb of Sargeras

[22:53] raid in Legion. And I think that was definitely supposed to imply that he wouldn't be regenerating like demons usually do, but who knows? A few stars could easily align for it to make sense narratively, like the way that wow in

[23:07] general has been gently ramping up the Legion's return over the last expansion and a bit. Midnight's Magister's Terrace dungeon being rammed with fell and demons and stuff, but also the antagonists in the latest Blood Ties

[23:21] novel being Legion dudes. There was Legion remix of course, and the fact that in Nath'al and Val, we've specifically been going back to planets that we first visited in Legion. Nath'al even has a crashed fell ship as part of

[23:35] the environment. There's also the clue that Draenei stuff has been slowly ramping up again, too. The side quests in Void Storm are literally some of the best space goat content since, well, Legion. And the Nath'al storyline is

[23:49] based around us finding a tomb built by yet another splinter of Draenei survivors. Wowhead even going so far as to speculate that there may be a whole to speculate that there may be a whole new Draenei zone on the horizon, in the

[24:02] article headline at least. So, the story is working very hard in 2026 to remind us that there are way more Draenei groups beyond those that found their way first to Draenor and then to Azeroth. Little pockets of sexy space goats all

[24:17] around the universe just [music] waiting to be discovered. And I know, I know, and you're right. Just because Lex Lang has been in the studio recording new Kil'jaeden voice lines, it doesn't mean that the character is about in the

[24:30] in-game present [music] as an important figure. Far more likely is that if Sargeras does appear in Last Titan, we'll get some flashbacks across [music] his past, which Kil'jaeden would very likely appear in. Especially if Blizzard

[24:43] trying to recontextualize Sargeras's motivations for some reason. Equally, Lex never said he was coming back in this game. It could be as part of an audio drama or nothing wow related at all. It could be for Hearthstone or even

[24:59] Diablo since they worked [music] out that just putting wow stuff in D4 is a license to print money a lot of the time. I think it probably will be wow though. And I for one look forward to seeing my favorite eredar to the point

[25:11] that I modeled my entire warlock after him back in relevancy again. [ __ ] raid fight [music] again obviously. But what do you think? What is the reason for Xal'atath wanting to become the world soul? What will happen

[25:25] in 12.1? Why is Kil'jaeden somehow returning? And why is it wrong to harass people with misogynistic abuse even if they've done something wrong? Let us for joining us today. If you like this

[25:39] video, don't thank us. Thank our patrons who give us their actual real life money to make all of our work happen. And patrons, sincerely, thank [music] you. Because without you, there would be a whole lot less Taliesin & Evitel. If you

[25:52] didn't like it, downvote the [ __ ] out of it. And remember, my name is Lex Lang. No, my name is Taliesin. From me and Evitel, until next time. Evitel, until next time. Cheerio.