Midnight Expansion Reveal: Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:00] This video is sponsored by Squarespace. So they're saying that the Midnight Expansion Reveal was the worst world of all craft expansion reveal, maybe of all time. What do you think about that, Evie?

[00:13] Yeah, pretty much. Hello, Internet. My name's Tali Esson. And I'm Evita. And let's talk Midnight, or more specifically, let's talk the announcement and reveal of

[00:26] Midnight, which has not gone down well, Evie. It hasn't been the best, and I think there are a few reasons as to why, which I'm hoping we can break down for you today. I feel like the internet has been very vocal in its insistence that Midnight was the worst expansion reveal ever.

[00:40] I don't disagree. I think we can probably add to this conversation, seeing as we were at Gamescom, and we talked to a lot of people, including devs, and maybe got some insight that we can impart to you here, and get to the bottom of exactly what went wrong.

[00:53] And spoiler, it's not the shape of Liadrin's jaw. Okay, so let's go over the timeline of events here and exactly what happened. From the opening ceremony of Gamescom onwards.

[01:05] And I would actually go back to a little bit before the opening ceremony to be like the messaging that went out, which was tune in to the opening ceremony to watch the official Midnight Cinematic Drop. This was all over the WoW Warcraft social channels.

[01:20] This was everywhere. This is the kind of call to be like, show up here at this time and you will receive the cinematics. And that's what we did. We actually didn't go to the opening ceremony so that we could go to our hotel room and stream with all our buggies.

[01:34] Just for you. From 8pm onwards and watch it. And it was on at 8pm, wasn't it? And every tick through, like quarter past eight, no. A part past eight, no. Quarter to nine, no. 9pm, came and went.

[01:46] No cinematics. 9.15, 9.30. I believe it was like 9.40 or 9.45. It was 9.45. We were at the point where we were like, okay, there's only like Resident Evil left to announce

[01:59] and WoW and like maybe one other thing. And I was ready to like commit violence at that point. I was ready to just basically give up on the channel, on my marriage, on my kids.

[02:11] You know, and everyone there at the opening night ceremony was like pressed, trained. Oh my goodness, it was completely dead. and you could tell it was affecting every single presenter that came up and started talking. They went up and they were all like chirpy and, you know,

[02:25] excited with life with a glimpse in their eyes. And, you know, after a few seconds, all the life got drained out of them. But anyway, the hour finally came, the midnight cinematic played, and that was all very nice.

[02:37] I'm not saying this has affected people's view of the cinematic. Lots of people really like it. Lots of people don't. And their reasons are, well, some reasons are really objectively bad, but some of them are like, you know, they're subjective reasons that you're allowed to have.

[02:51] Absolutely. And that's absolutely fine. I loved it. I loved seeing Liadrin. Northamar, naturally. You don't think Liadrin's jaw was too strong? You don't think making her look like that famously butch masculine actor Evangeline Lilly?

[03:03] She plays a Mitchell elf in Lord of the Rings. You don't think that was just harassment? Hey, we were even out in Cologne a couple nights later, and there were some, like, teenage guys at the Spatey, at, like, the little kiosk, and they were like, hey, you look so beautiful.

[03:16] I was like, hey, thanks. And he was like, you've got a great job. And I was like, clearly not gamers. Basically what I'm saying is I feel like even if everyone had loved the cinematic, the reveal of Midnight would still be considered to be terrible

[03:30] because I think it's way more than kind of like mixed reactions on the cinematic. It is much more than that. But the night was not lost because, you know, we knew that there was the features trailer coming out. Well, okay, so here's the thing. The original messaging weeks ago had been that there was going to be

[03:45] a live stream from the WoW channel on YouTube and Twitch, which was, it sounded like a WoW Direct or something like that, which would feature, and I swear this is true, It's a real. Chris Metzen, among others, talking about the expansion.

[03:58] That kind of went quiet a little bit in the build-up, but I think a lot of people still had it in their heads that that was going to happen. I definitely did. Now, we learned by the time the reveal night had come around that that wouldn't be happening, and it would in fact just be a features trailer going live on the WoW YouTube channel.

[04:14] Yeah. So we, with all our streams, we moved over there to watch the features trailer, and that popped, and that was all very good, wasn't it? Yeah, it was a quick dose of information. A typical features trailer, really. A trailer. Nice bit of narration at the beginning, with a kind of mood setting, and we fucking had

[04:29] like all the housing and stuff in it. I liked that. That was really nice. And that revealed things about the expansion beyond like some elves fighting, and actually had some features in it, like the zones that we would be questing in, like the prey system,

[04:41] and the new playable Haranir and the new Demon Hunter spec and things like that. Yes. In this time, as we were watching this features trailer, we had also received, via email from Blizzard,

[04:54] a fact sheet with pages and pages of features and updates that were coming with the expansion, some of which were in the features trailer, many, many, many of which obviously weren't.

[05:07] Yeah. As the features trailer was finishing, news from the fact sheet was coming out. You've got people making articles about the fact sheet. So there were things like UI updates that were reported on.

[05:20] There were things like little details about fair housing that were reported on. Little details about the raid, the free raid structure and stuff like that. All of these things, quite big, important things. The health market system as well.

[05:32] The health market system. We have lots to say about that, but let's carry on with the timeline. There was also an article that went out, sort of on the WOW website, which did have some more details, including descriptions of all the zones.

[05:44] Yes. Oh, those were quite interesting, weren't they? Yeah. And they were descriptions of all four zones, but there was basically only one description repeated four times. Yeah. We were going into X with X, and then there was another sentence structure that was exactly the same, repeated at each of them.

[05:59] Yeah. And so when you're reading it, the effect is like you don't absorb any of it. No. If you did absorb it all, you probably went, hmm, that seems a bit like AI. I was problematic. Maybe it was AI, maybe it was Alicor, it was like four different people.

[06:13] In the same way that all Shadowlands raids were just like avoiding swirlies for a while. Because the fights were made by different people and they all came up with the same mechanic. It could have been that, but either way, it wasn't very good, was it?

[06:26] No. It didn't fill one with confidence that this was a slick operation, right? It didn't, it didn't. And so even though that was out there, it was like it didn't feel good. No. We were literally dissecting it on Reddit, being like, what am I reading right now?

[06:40] Then we had that panel with Maria and Ian, and we were like, ah, thank goodness. The camera crew was there filming it. It was absolutely packed at the WOW stage. It was. They did a really good panel.

[06:53] Maria, despite not feeling a little bit under the weather, it turned out later on, a really good presentation about the characters. We got shots of Lortimar's model and the zones and the story behind it. We got some amazing shots of Zulaman and the Miami Trolls.

[07:07] And then Ian came out and he was talking about dungeons and delves and the raid structure. And it felt like a real, proper World of Warcraft panel. And we were like, oh, thank goodness. I'm so glad they're finally doing this live on stream.

[07:22] Yeah. Right? It wasn't live on stream, though. No, it wasn't. They didn't stream it. It wasn't streamed. Well, we were sitting there assuming it was going to be streamed, right? Yeah. Why on earth wouldn't you stream this? You know, and, like, everyone is there, like you say.

[07:34] The camera guys are set up. Everyone's ready. Like, lights are on stage. We've got the whole vibe going. And it is not happening on stream. So I started just frantically tweeting. We realized they weren't streaming it.

[07:46] And we were like, you're going to have to tweet this out. Not that it's really important, because I'm sure that the VOD of this will be up in minutes. That's great. So, you know, there's basically no point in tweeting these things. But we'll give them anyway. So you were kind of like live tweeting it as well as you possibly could.

[08:00] Yeah. And we found out since that Wowhead were like, who had no one there, they were like, yeah, thank God, P&E are there tweeting this out, right? Yeah, yeah. And then there was an article published from Wowhead,

[08:13] and I was like, oh, cool, like they must have had someone there. And it was a summary of all the creators there who were just off the cuff tweeting. And this is no fault of Wowhead. No. It's not their fault in this. No, no. But their initial reporting of this panel was just shit that people like us had written on their Twitter And then we were like okay well at least that pod will be up soon and you know on the WoW YouTube and everyone will know what going on with the expansion Because at that point we felt like it was a proper expansion rule

[08:39] Yes. After two days, after the release of the Cinematic Universe. We got that half hour of trusted talking heads, and we were like, okay, that's it. We got it. This is good. Brilliant. So, like, you know, an hour came and went,

[08:53] had not been released. we went on stream to stream some player housing. Basically, the entire stream was talking about this panel because no one knew what was in it. And so people were asking us questions and we were basically being Ian and Maria,

[09:06] like, asking these questions as best we could, right? It got to the stage, Polly Longdale actually came into our chat and was like, yeah, we're working on it. We're working on it. It'll be ready soon. It's not ready soon.

[09:18] Just so you know. I think it came out, like, literally about six hours after that. Then, okay, it turns out that wasn't the first thing that WoW would be putting out this is the trailer launch because actually Ian and Paul Cubitt had done interviews on the Xbox stage

[09:31] live at Gamescom which had kind of found its way to YouTube. I learnt about it through a YouTube short. I was watching the YouTube short and Paul Cubitt was there and there was like new footage of player housing features

[09:43] and stuff like that and I was like what's going on? And I tried to find the video and eventually found the video that it was from and it wasn't like particularly insightful but still It was Paul Cubitt and Ian had the class of talking and literally no one had told us about it.

[09:57] But okay, at least the panel has started now. At least it's feeling like an expansion reveal. It's feeling like BlizzCon. Can't wait for the next panel on Saturday. So we went through the whole of Friday, again, with no new panels, no new information.

[10:12] And yet people were doing interviews with devs and putting their interviews out and things like that. And that's great. That's wonderful. Creators doing a sterling job there. But still, Friday, another void of information completely.

[10:24] Very fitting to the scene. Until Ian Adelakis and Paul Kubik's panel on the Saturday, which again was absolutely packed. And this time people were prepared for there being no live stream. And everyone set their phones out like they had to.

[10:38] So it's absolutely insane. And that was another absolutely brilliant panel. Yeah, fantastic. We finally dug deeper into the systems. We talked a bit about the TransMog. talks a bit more about the new talents.

[10:51] Apex talents. Apex talents, which I had heard whispers of like the night before. UI improvements to things like the new nameplates, the new damage meters, the new kind of like basically Desi Boss mods,

[11:05] sort of boss tracking abilities. And we got our first look at them as well, so people could look at like what the features are, what they can play with. You know, it's just a slide, but there's so much to take in there. Loads of clarification on stuff.

[11:17] suddenly, whereas people had been talking after the initial announcement, like, this is a very Features-like trailer, no, finally we had all these Features kind of out there and ready to snack on and talk about and dissect. Well, at least we would do. After that video went up, which, in fairness to Bliss, they did get edited and up on their

[11:34] YouTube way, way quicker than the first panel on the Thursday. Yes. Almost just as quickly. They took that video down, though. It turns out it was, like, frozen for 20 seconds at a time in multiple places in the video.

[11:47] So they took that down. And they eventually re-uploaded it. And it's up there. And look, that is all our information about the Midnight Expansion from Gamescom. Except it's not.

[11:59] No, because actually there were two other panels on the Saturday. A fireside chat with Maria Hamilton and Gabriel Gonzalez, which we took part in and we hosted. So we couldn't live-tweet that one for you, sorry.

[12:11] Which was being recorded, we think, but they still haven't decided what to do with the footage of it, whether to give it to us or put it on their own channel. And we've got loads of juicy news in there. It's so good. We have some really good stuff in there. And likewise, in the evening, there was a panel with Mr. GM and Ian Hazlacostas.

[12:28] The big man. Which also, at the time of recording this, hasn't found its way onto the YouTube or Mr. GM's channel either. So, again, some tasty little tidbits in there, too, which haven't found their way to the public.

[12:41] Oh, another really funny thing about that, by the way, was, like, it came up on the schedule as Fireside Chat with Taliesin and Emmersell. Fireside Chat with Mr. GM. And we're like, OK, we're not the selling point for this Fireside Chat, all right?

[12:54] Like, that's very silly. No, it should be Fireside Chat with Maria Hamilton. And Gabe Gonzalez. It should be Fireside Chat with Ian Hazacost. It's like, it doesn't matter who's who. And then, that was it.

[13:06] That was all the information from Gamescom, probably, I don't know. And interviews. Oh, and interviews are still kind of coming out and stuff like that, and what have you. So, yeah. And, you know, there's information

[13:18] that I haven't seen come out that we learn just from our conversations with people. Stuff like, did you know, Evie, that they are greatly simplifying professions in the next expansion?

[13:30] They're getting rid of bronze-level stuff. I did not know that. And silver level stuff. I didn't know that. And they're only having gold and platinum level stuff. I thought I was completely unaware of that. Because no one ever wants anything less than gold and platinum, so they're just getting rid of them.

[13:42] Did you know that? I know. That's really good for me. I know. I did. Consider that reported. But no one's actually said it. So that was the timeline. You might well be sitting there, a reasonable human being that you are, going, well, that doesn't sound so bad.

[13:54] That sounds all right. Let me tell you why that's bad. Why is that a terrible expansion reveal? To start with, I think the World of Warcraft community, that includes us, that includes players who don't interact with YouTube or Twitch, that's players who, like, consume the news in all different ways.

[14:11] We have some, like, built-in expectations about how news is presented to us, especially around an expansion reveal. Now, typically, this would happen around BlizzCon. You got everyone in a room, and you can deliver the information, like, really cohesively, and it's out there.

[14:27] And part of that expectation is that we receive news. It's kind of like reported on by YouTubers, streamers, Internet people, actual real-life press.

[14:39] But there was always like an official source. There's always a trusted talking head. It's Ian, it's Chris Metzen, it's Holly telling us what to expect, which we all then share and dissect and talk about.

[14:54] We did not receive that. I think there's a couple of things that went very drastically wrong, more than the Adrien's jaw, more than the fact that Lothar's eyes weren't quite bright enough or whatever. But it didn't go with our original plan, basically, because the expansion cinematic

[15:08] happened, and then instead of what we actually needed, the WoW Direct, with Neil and Azacostas and Chris Metzen and Maria Hamilton pre-recorded with Lynxie just asking some questions and

[15:20] them giving lovely scripted responses where they just tell us and announce the things that are coming. It's like, here's some cool pictures of Zooloman. Here's some cool pictures of, like, the other zones. There's some context there.

[15:32] Yeah, a little brief about how the Hoi Demon Hunter thing is going to work. Here's some pictures of damage meters and housing and some other cool things and professions and the prey system. Let me explain to you

[15:44] what the prey system is so that all you've got to go on isn't Like, literally, three and a half seconds of the features trailer. That's just so great. Where you're just like, yeah, obviously you didn't get that, even though it was originally the plan.

[15:56] You had, like, the cinematic, then you had a features trailer, and then this huge void. It's worse than the void. It would have actually been better if it was a void. Okay? But it wasn't.

[16:08] Because of that fact that that press sheet went out, and Wowhead did that. I think that Wowhead did. Of course they separated out each point into a single article and put it out. But when there's no other source for that, no official source from Blizzard, what that means is it's just, like, overwhelming and bitty.

[16:23] And some people might see one article but not another article. And because there's no centralized source, there is no WoW direct, there is no cast, there is no, like, official Blizz person saying the words out loud, that is confusing, underbaked.

[16:37] Yes, right. And no criticism on any of the creators or on WoWhead or anything. They all did their job. And you might think, well, that's what always happens, Tali. You know, there's always a whole ton of Wowhead articles, there's always a ton of videos coming out, but I wish to point out a slight difference.

[16:50] Usually what you see in the wake of an expansion reveal is news outlets reporting on the Blizzard announcements So like you know there be a Wow direct or there be a panel at BlizzCon or something like that and WoWhead and us and MrGM and stuff will report on that thing So there always that Blizzard source

[17:09] to go back to and check. That didn't happen this time. And the thing is, right, I've heard people say that, you know, that void that came on the Wednesday, that's because of Gamescom and Blizz aren't really in control and stuff. But that's not true.

[17:21] WoW had their own stage at Gamescom, okay? They could have had those panels on their stage literally whenever they wanted. You know, they could have had them on Wednesday morning if they wanted.

[17:33] Presumably. That is what we presume. You know, this huge WoW presence. Yeah, exactly. You know, they have the power to kind of do their own scheduling on their own stage, right? They could have put the panel on whenever they wanted.

[17:45] I know. Even if they couldn't, they definitely could have livestreamed it and put it onto their YouTube. And so that, for me, I don't know if you agree, but that was the main problem, was in many ways it would almost be better

[17:57] if there was no press sheet, and it actually had been a void until those first panels. But I feel like that kind of bitty scattershot reporting from, like, every source imaginable except Blizzard, I feel like it wasn't conducive to a good expansion.

[18:14] Yeah, I have no problem with the press sheet. I have no problem with it being kind of, like, disseminated for people to report on. But I think it only works if you have, like, an authoritative source,

[18:26] It's really a video. I mean, that's kind of what we rely on now. That's what we expect from previous expansions. And to be clear, that's what I mean as well. I mean, like, the press sheet existing by itself, naked and vulnerable,

[18:38] like, with no kind of WoW Direct, or, you know, if those panels had happened on Wednesday morning and Wednesday afternoon, the press sheet would have been dandy and great and fine, and press sheets are good.

[18:50] It was the other stuff that was missing, right? Yeah, and it was wild seeing stuff coming. The stuff coming from the WoW channels, namely the social channels, yeah, being these, like, little YouTube clips, Shorts, Instagram Reels, TikToks, just kind of...

[19:04] So much you have to try and keep up with. Yeah, so much information coming from different sources, which would often have something new in it. But then no actual, like, authoritative, like, hub for which I could find the real information.

[19:18] That's how it went wrong. Now let's move on to what went wrong. and this is where like I feel like our insight of being at GameScom we talked to Ian we talked to Holly we talked to Maria we talked to like the people at the stage we talked to the people who

[19:33] were working the camera and stuff like that so I feel like we do have a little bit of insight in this and well there's a couple things I want you all to know hey everyone I don't know about you guys but I have a good feeling about the future I'm manifesting Squarespace is sponsoring today's

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[21:23] That's squarespace.com slash TALIAS and EVITEL. Have you seen that? You've got three seats now. It's working. I was wrong. It's right there. The first is that they know. You know, like when we met Ian for the first time backstage,

[21:38] Like, literally the first thing he said was basically, you know, it hasn't been ideal, bloody blah. And, like, that was the same with pretty much every dev we met. So it was a decision that came from high up, and it was a decision that didn't work.

[21:52] But the other thing I want you to know is that I am 100% certain that the decision was made in good faith, and they genuinely thought it was going to be a good idea.

[22:05] Like, I don't think this is Bobby Kotick on his yacht, like, demanding that no one make it. No, exactly. But, like, what I'm saying is, I don't think it came from Xbox or anything like that. I think it was a genuinely sincere attempt to allow creators and the press and the community

[22:23] to be an important part of delivering information. Yeah, I think you're probably onto something here. And kind of tied in with that, I think, you know, as we're talking about all this, None of this is to disparage any one person's role or job or what they did.

[22:39] Like I say, I think it was a genuine attempt to do something good, which has to be applauded, and it didn't work out in retrospect. Yeah, and I think we were having a nice chat with a friend at the airport on the way home,

[22:51] and he was like, you know what? I can imagine this kind of rollout where they're like, give the power to the creators, give the power to everyone else and see what happens. maybe it could work in a different community

[23:04] like maybe a smaller community online maybe where there's kind of like a more cohesive vision for an announcement that wasn't so important as well yeah or for an announcement that was smaller and I'm like you know what I can see that

[23:16] but I think even yeah like you say the scale of the announcement the way the World of Warcraft community exists on so many different levels the timeline of this all happening over a week yeah I feel like there was like a good intention there

[23:29] I'm certain there was a good intention And why would there be a bad invention? You don't have to pretend that it worked just to be nice or anything like that. No. This did not work. And the other thing is, no creators wanted this. No.

[23:41] We were the same as everyone else. We were like, oh, we are breaking this news. This doesn't feel right. We shouldn't be breaking this news. I think there might be stuff in that fact sheet that's starting to be reported because someone wasn't interested. All the people that had the fact sheet were like, oh, I'm not interested in that.

[23:53] And report the big stuff, right? No one's pretending that it worked. It didn't. I'm not trying to convince you it was a good decision. What I'm trying to convince you of is, in my opinion, it wasn't like a disconnected decision.

[24:05] It wasn't like a thoughtless decision. It was a decision that came from a genuine, I think, I'm convinced, place of wanting to democratize the rollout of information. That's interesting.

[24:17] And I think that's a really, really good intention. It's kind of like how BFA made some really big decisions with its storytelling and with its story kind of delivery and stuff like that,

[24:29] and it didn't always work. And I said all the way through BFA, I was like, I am not going to criticize the effort. I'm not going to criticize the attempt, you know? You should be able to try things and then not work. But, Tally, if I can say, I'm not quite as convinced as you are on that point.

[24:44] Really? Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, because I feel like, personally, I feel like you can't ignore the huge layoffs they've had at Microsoft recently, which have, like, decimated the comms team, the socials team.

[24:56] Yeah, okay. So I feel, and even in, like, little moments, like, seeing the way the article was written, the futures article, the World Cup fight, like, down to, like, little, even, like, on the granular level,

[25:09] it wasn't quite matching up. And to me, I could see that being as a consequence of, yeah, there being kind of a top-down directive and things just falling apart.

[25:21] And because of those layoffs, because of psych stress on the team, it didn't work out. I don't know. I can buy that. Yeah. But you know like for example the reason the panels weren live was not because they didn have the person to press the button or whatever or they didn have the technology to make it happen or the manpower of the staff to make it happen

[25:40] It was because someone had made a specific decision that it was not to be streamed. So, you know, that's got nothing to do with layoffs or anything like that, is what I'm saying. And that's like a specific choice that has been made,

[25:52] I think, with a good intention at heart, which clearly backfired. Yeah, but I'm still not clear which person or what level made those decisions. And that, I think, could possibly go down to someone being, like, in a new position.

[26:06] Okay, so I think I do know. Okay. For the sake of being, like, not a dickbag online and just speculating and causing hassle, I'm not going to say, but I think I know.

[26:18] Okay. And, like, I'm pretty convinced it came from a really, really good place. Okay. So, again, that's just my vibe from being there. Because I feel like vibes are very important.

[26:30] And, like, vibes are often the way, and just the kind of way devs look at you when they say something and the things they don't say. And, like, that's, like, really important a lot of times. I get that. We've seen things together. Totally. We talked to a lot of devs.

[26:42] We did. And I think it should also be said that, like, the actual Gamescom event was pretty cool. It was a job. If you were on the ground, it was really neat. Like, the production values were super high. everyone we worked with was like an absolute boss like from the team putting it together

[26:57] from the team who organized it to the actual like production team who work magic and who I wish we could bring with us to actually press all the buttons here because oh my god they did amazing

[27:09] stuff if you haven't seen the live episode of the podcast please go and watch it because it will never look that good again like expectations weren't being met and those expectations are there for a reason. That's not just like, you know, Warcraft

[27:21] players, they've grown accustomed to something that they can't possibly cope with change. No, no, no. Those things are established over 20 years because they're the best way of doing it and you want all that information. You want that central source of

[27:34] blizzard information because that's how you get hyped. You might learn about it from a Wowhead article but the first thing in that Wowhead article is going to be a link to the video or the article or whatever that you can go and actually check the source and stuff as well

[27:46] but they weren't able to do that with all this stuff. There was no way. It was literally like you just had to take creator's word for it. You did. And you should never do that. No, that's just been like really rubbish.

[27:58] Well, it feels like a picture, right? Because people are kind of going for each other. They're reporting things differently. Like people are debating kind of the very like subtle nuances of a statement that in the first place was kind of nebulous.

[28:11] And it's just created like really negative sentiments. That's a great example. Do you remember when we asked in our housing interview if there were going to be import-export streams. Yes. And they basically said, no, not at launch.

[28:23] Like, it's a great idea. We love it. We'd like it to happen. Okay, so I was like, okay, shame. Real shame, actually. It was kind of an important feature. But, you know, we were waiting for our plane and I saw a PC Gamer article

[28:35] which was reporting on a Wowhead article which was reporting on an Annie Fuchsia stream where she was reporting on something that someone had said to her where there would be import-export streams, you know?

[28:49] And so this was being reported by PC Gamer as there will be import-export streams in player housing because we read a Wowhead article that watched an Annie Fuchsia stream where she said something that something... And that's like, that's what the reporting of these features is.

[29:04] It's not like doubting Annie's, like, veracity. No, but I haven't watched the stream, so I don't actually need to know what she actually said. The fact is, it comes through like this chain, and that's not good reporting. that's not a good way of like getting to know what's actually happening yeah yeah like you know

[29:21] when that you know it's like oh summary the first panel was up on my head i was like oh thank god i can go and check what i missed and it was just my own tweets and other people's tweets and i was like oh no was it all right though but i'm going to get the summary of our first player housing kind of

[29:35] where i was like player housing to be the biggest thing since rage and it was reported in the summary as talia effing says player housing will be the biggest thing ever in the game. Bigger than Rage,

[29:47] bigger than Mythic Club. That's not what I said. This is just the nature of the beast, right? To some extent. If you can trust anyone, it's Wowhead, okay?

[29:59] If you have to trust anyone with anything, with your life, with your children, trust Wowhead, okay? But, you know, with the best will in the world, nothing is as good as actually just being able to watch a panel. No. Here's the solution,

[30:11] I think. You know, the solution to having this not happen in the way that it happened this time around. It's to literally, like, you drop the cinematic, and like you say, a WoW Direct, some kind of

[30:23] films panel, with an authoritative voice from WoW, from Blizzard, telling us what's going down, and then you can have like another one the next day. That's fine. We're used to that, right? We're used to having

[30:35] a kind of world overview panel and then like a systems panel. They replicated that. It's just a bit spread out. But yeah, I think just the way going forward is like that, and I think you know, learning news for the first time from like a TikTok feels insane.

[30:50] But maybe that is, that's just like the name for the world now. That's just for the old people. Maybe there's like hundreds of thousands of people going, oh, thank goodness. Yeah. I learned to use TikTok just like I always wanted. I'm a bit wary of being too critical of that, right?

[31:03] No, exactly. I'm very aware that like I could just be an old dude. But there's no doubt that sentiment in the community is this was a botched expansion reveal. I'm not just saying this because everything we've actually learned about the expansion

[31:15] the actual content is awesome it feels really good legitimately like I'm even coming around to the idea of the prey system I think if it's done well it could be really really good like all the new delves and raids and zones and like the story beats

[31:28] that they're looking for here I really like the idea of the free raid thing although I'd like to see more of that it's like the new leveling changes and the way they're going about the new player experience and like the recaps of the previous expansion

[31:40] for people coming back the game and stuff like that. Yeah, they've put out the war walking version of War Wings. We did really good, and that's before we even start talking about housing, which is like the biggest feature ever in the game, bigger than Raid or, or, uh, maybe Clash, right?

[31:52] So, like, there's so much coming, which is really, really good, and I feel like, unfortunately, first impressions are so important on the internet that, you know, Midnight has already got a bit of a reputation for being a features-like expansion because of the way it was revealed

[32:05] and because of the way it was, like, announced, which is unrepresentative, I feel, and that's On the plus side, after a week, you know, I finally feel like a lot of the holes have started to be filled.

[32:17] Oh, yeah. And the actual, like, sentiment on the floor was really positive. It was cool. The devs felt really cool, like, positive about it. There was just, like, a really, everyone was like, we're really excited to give this to you.

[32:30] This feels good. In summary, there has been a decision to roll out the information in a way that this time did not work. It just didn't hit. It just didn't hit.

[32:42] Callie, my question for you is, will all of this matter in a few months? Will it help it? Yeah. Well, I think, like, unfortunately, in a way, it does matter. Because, like, you know, internet reactions, the genesis of stuff is so important.

[32:58] Like, you know, you only need to see that by the way, like, one thing about the cinematic can gain traction and be repeated by everyone. one thing about this announcement. You know, like, there's still people that think

[33:10] Transmog is free. It's not free. And they're going to be so disappointed when it's not, right? And because of the supporting of the fact sheet, right? And there's no source to go and check it with. That's why they put so much into the announcements, right?

[33:22] It's because they're massively important. Hopefully we have successfully broken that down for you guys. If you have any questions, put them in the comments. We'll try and go through and answer from our point of view what was going on.

[33:35] Let us know, how are you feeling about it? How are you feeling about the expansion? How are you feeling about this whole announcement cycle? I've got a feeling I know, but let us know anyway. And thank you for joining us today. If you like this video, don't thank us. Thank our patrons, who we've been honoured to meet lots of at Gamescom,

[33:51] and a few that we missed as well, and I'm, like, so, so sorry, and we'll make it up to you, I promise. If you didn't like it, download the shit out of it. Remember, my name is Kamui Cosplay. No, my name is Taliesin. From me... And me, Evisel. Until next time, cheerio.