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S3 Ep251: Diablo IV, the One Ring, and Milk
76 Plays3 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk about Diablo IV beta impressions, how much caffeine is too much, and whether we should throw the rarest Magic the Gathering card ever printed into an active volcano and more in this week's episode!
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Intro:
- No More Heroes - N.M.H.
- No More Heroes - Pleather for Breakfast
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Transcript
Introduction and Recording Challenges
00:00:30
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? Yeah. It's a yeah. Good day. Hmm. I'm sorry. Kind of slow. Not too bad, though. How about you?
00:00:47
Speaker
It's going faster than I anticipated. Like I hit the start recording button and then it immediately jumped into the recording.
Late Night Work and Management Perspectives
00:00:55
Speaker
And I should have expected that because we're using a different platform, but I wasn't ready for it. So I still kind of like froze like a deer in the headlights and then like a deer in the headlights jumped in front of the podcast. Um, went through the intro, but.
00:01:12
Speaker
That's my joke intro. Actual answer is I'm a little bit tired. Uh, I had a long, uh, shift for work yesterday where there was like an issue and I was like, I can even put this on my team or just kind of freaking work on it. And I never get to touch development work. So, um, I just volunteered to work on it and was working on it till like midnight, but it was fun. I got it done and now I'll run. So.
00:01:43
Speaker
The dream. What's crazy to me is you're like, I opted in for work and then I worked until midnight and I'm like, this is a terrible idea.
00:01:54
Speaker
Well, it's like, you know, how, if you haven't like done anything really in a particular space for a while, cause it's not like I don't do anything, but like if you haven't touched a particular product, in this case, like development work is very different from like management.
00:02:16
Speaker
type work right like I don't get to open visual studio most days not because I'm like disallowed to but because there's no reason for me to oh no but I got to do that I'm like for a completely new project
Caffeine and Beverage Preferences
00:02:30
Speaker
It was just very open-ended, kind of like a one-off sort of hacky thing. And I mean, my, my opinion of this would have been completely different if I worked till midnight and it wasn't done, but I got it working. And so I'm like, yeah, success. I wouldn't want to do that all the time.
00:02:53
Speaker
No, it does feel good to pick up a thing, especially if you're not the most comfortable with it and then see it through to the end and you're like, aha, I can still do things. Yes, exactly. I still got it. Yeah. So the price I pay for that was I was a bit tired today.
00:03:16
Speaker
It's kind of funny, actually, because it's not even that I went to sleep later because of that. But if you work late, I find that I just get tired. Right. It's not even like construction work. I'm not building like, you know, it's just your brain kind of stops at a point like, hey, I'm good. Which is why typically when you get home, like, oh, I'm going to unwind, have dinner, kick up your legs on the dog and just like watch something, you know? Yeah.
00:03:45
Speaker
I think your body is just typically expecting that so going past that back in the day when we had like later things you're like oh caffeine though this will help drive me up the hill yes I was actually pretty caffeinated yesterday too I had my my standard coffee and then I got a not a refresher one of the whips from sheets which is like um
00:04:12
Speaker
It's it's kind of like a cold brew plus some flurry of flavor or something like that I'm not sure exactly but it's pretty much like an iced coffee easiest way to think about it Got like banana flavor like some peanut butter Just in case Dave tried to try any of it. He would die immediately instantly You know me always going around to steal people's iced coffees
00:04:33
Speaker
Kicking in my ugg boots Uh-huh. That's why it's hard for me to chase after people steal the rice coffees because I'm not as agile or mobile in the ugg boots Great Scrum, I can't say I tried their coffee though Some of them are good
00:04:52
Speaker
Yeah, I will okay. I'm gonna clarify. I don't really have standards for most things Listen I've never done any research on the subject but like now I have to be that just discontinue everything you've had to say uh-huh you enjoy how they taste though I do like them and they have they have some that are more on the coffee side like
00:05:18
Speaker
I'm not saying this is going to compete with any sort of hipster brand, whatever, like the stuff you got me for my birthday. Like it's not going to taste good like coffee like that, but they had, um, uh, they have like a, uh, essentially like a red bowl fusion thing where it's just like a red bowl plus some likes fruit juice or whatever the crap that put it together and mix it and it's like delicious.
00:05:40
Speaker
So, on the energy side, they have that, and they also have nitro coffee. I have to remind myself, it's not nitrous oxide, it's nitrogen, but nitrogen makes coffee, which if you've never tried it, nitrogen coffee is delicious. It is the smoothest nonsense.
Lifestyle Choices and Beverage Costs
00:06:05
Speaker
I mean, I agree that it tastes good. From my experience at Sheetsaw, I feel like a lot of their stuff is haphazardly putting like, in your case, like a can of Red Bull, some produce, some ice, maybe some extra sugar, and then charging you like five bucks for it. I don't get as much out of it. I'd rather just buy the energy drink that has all of those same ingredients in it anyway, and then I have a cool can.
00:06:32
Speaker
That's true, but like that also is just the price of Red Bull now. All right, so it's around the same. I wish it was cheaper. But thankfully, like my caffeine intake ability has definitely gone down because I can have like maybe 100 grams and my throat starts to get like a little bit scratchy or I get like a little bit twitchy. I'm like, oh, no, I've had too much of a substance, which was has never been a problem. Right. Yeah.
00:07:01
Speaker
I've never met anyone as straight-edged as Dave. I believe that's the term. Or at least it was the term in the 90s. Yeah, in the early 2000s. Very much when I was growing up and a Christian youth, I was straight-edged. People were like, that's cool, I respect that.
00:07:23
Speaker
Okay, I don't know what to do with that It's like it's like when you're playing a game and you get titles and it's like the first title you get You're just like well, I'm good. I guess I'm glad I have one
00:07:38
Speaker
But it also doesn't really describe anything, right? Like whatever. It's not like it's an achievement to not do drugs at a certain phase in your life, right? Like I was homeschooled. So if I was called straight edge, that's not an accomplishment. Like the impressive thing would have been if I did have drugs and I was able to obtain them in any way. I was high in class all the time. Teacher had no idea. Yeah.
00:08:08
Speaker
Um, but now their stuff, their stuff's okay. I would, I would definitely give it a shot, but similar, similar situation. I usually tap out at like two coffees these days. Um.
00:08:22
Speaker
And I do have decaf. I was going to say on tap, but I can't use that phrase for things that could actually be on tap plausibly. I have it accessible and not too far away. Exactly. Yeah. And decaf kind of tastes like sadness, but it also fills the habit of drinking coffee. And that's the reason to do it. It's like, oh, I want a warm beverage. Coffee sounds really good. It's 7 PM.
00:08:50
Speaker
there's a really bad decision I could make right now, or I could have decaf or tea, right? See, I think you're one of those people who, when they first made Diet Coke, you're like, well, it's Diet Coke, and this is still when the recipe tasted like ass, and you're like, no, no, no, it's the same because it's close enough, and I'm like, mm-mm, no. I need it to be as close as possible with the current recipe of Coke Zero,
00:09:17
Speaker
As far as my mind remembers, that is coke, but it doesn't actively feel like my teeth are falling out. But if it got to the point where it's just like, hey, like Diet Mountain Dew, I don't know if they've ever improved on, it has always just sucked ass as far as I'm aware. I just won't drink that. Right. I'd rather have something else that I do enjoy, whether that be tea or
00:09:41
Speaker
I do enjoy things besides tea, right? What do I have that doesn't have caffeine? It was water. Do you drink water? No, you don't drink water. Occasionally. I don't know if you've reformed, but I remember some years back that was literally the case. You're like talking about beverages and stuff like that. You're like, I grabbed something and it's just like water was
Water, Exercise, and Health Struggles
00:10:02
Speaker
never on the table. It was never an option. You were just going to drink water. It was always caffeine.
00:10:10
Speaker
Which is kind of funny if the ice would hold my mouth in the shower Yeah Disgusting I do make an effort more so now Yeah, like I do have water on the table next to me like I go to the gym I will put water in it mainly because putting a carbonated beverage in a sealed container Not the best No But yeah, I just I haven't had milk in so many years
00:10:40
Speaker
I mean that's normal. Nobody drinks milk anymore. Juice? Eh? It's expensive. Full of calories. That tastes good. But like...
00:10:51
Speaker
We're just gonna be where this is beverage elimination round basically cuz like Milk is pointless as an adult It's like I mean I say that I'm saying traditional dairy milk It's like those that's for babies, right? Just put the baby up against the cow But no, I mean like If God wanted us to drink milk, he would not have us be lactose intolerant if you just stopped drinking it for like a day
00:11:21
Speaker
Your body loses the ability to process it Not my excellent by the way, it's like leaving the church. Oh Are you leaving? No, no your ex communicated. You can never come back You've had your chance and you blew it buster. Mm-hmm
00:11:38
Speaker
I mean, that's probably where I'm at. I haven't actively tried testing, having a lot of dairy. I'll still have cheese with stuff, but... I mean, I'd never like to go with cheese. I don't think that's what I really just have, cheese. I could be deathly allergic to cheese, and that would, the only thing that would inform is how I die. So. Yeah. A grilled cheese. I'm told there's bread somewhere in this. 30 layers of cheese. Stacks, American singles. Tomato bisque.
Food Preferences and Dining Out Experiences
00:12:07
Speaker
I will say that I'm slightly, if I do have standards in anything, cheese food product is the line. And like American singles and stuff like that. Because when we got a bulk retail card thing, I don't know why I'm not just claiming Sam's Club, but when we started going to Sam's Club, I was like, oh, I can just buy a bunch of whatever. So I bought like a bunch of hot dogs.
00:12:33
Speaker
that mostly worked out eventually hot dogs get like a little bit slimy and crap and i'm like yeah i don't actually like this anymore um but cheese i can buy a bunch of cheese that's not where it's going about i eat tons of cheese so i got like the singles and if you have like pre-sliced cheddar that's fine but like any of the craft stuff that's basically just solidified cheese whiz
00:13:00
Speaker
Like, I just, I was like, this just doesn't taste good anymore. I used to think this was awesome as a kid. I don't even, don't even like it.
00:13:08
Speaker
It's really the difference of just trying anything else and then realizing that what you were used to is shit. In the same way, I grew up on Easy Mac. And I'm like, yeah, Easy Mac. It's easy. It's macaroni and cheese. What could be better? And then in later years, at some point of being an adult, I'm like, oh, let me make some. There's no, there's no milk in this.
00:13:32
Speaker
It's cheese powder, water, and the noodles, and you just put it in the microwave. I'm like, how can that possibly be good? And I try to, I'm like, oh, it's not. Oh, it's not. I would rather do cheese whiz on any type of baked something, like a bagel or like some toast.
00:13:53
Speaker
Sure. I'm like, I know it's a fake cheese product, but I can like lean into it. Yeah. Yes. Pretty much. It's a spread and I'm okay with that. But like with the singles, if I have to like peel it open, like I ordered a Pokemon card from Amazon, like, you know, that's not good cheese.
00:14:11
Speaker
And if I have to, like I do like some of the pre-sliced, um, honestly the best stuff, like you just get a wedge of cheese and then you fresh shave it and it's just mwah. Oh my gosh. Like if I make homemade mac and cheese, I end up spending way too much money on just the cheese part. And like the noodles is like $2!
00:14:31
Speaker
Uh-huh. But I have to have, you know, like four different types of cheese, and they have to be fancy, and then like each of them are like ten bucks. And then I spent fifty dollars on a tray of cheese noodles for myself. And I'm like, why? Yeah, it can, it can definitely add up.
00:14:47
Speaker
Cheese is cheese is a place where like I was saying I have that lower bound I don't want to eat this But I also am very cognizant that I never want to breach the upper bound of what's available for cheese It's like it can get very expensive. There's very fancy things. It's a food
00:15:06
Speaker
My philosophy is that if I'm going to spend a lot of money on something, it should persist like at least a little while. And just based off prior experiences, I've never had that relationship with food. If it's near me, it ceases to exist rapidly. So. I say that, but it's kind of expensive now. You got to eat it slow. There is like a certain joy, though, in
00:15:33
Speaker
Like I like going out every so often. Like if I could do it like exactly once a week, like, Oh, it's Friday night. Let's go out and grab dinner somewhere. And you don't have to worry about anything. You'd like grab a nice drink, have a nice meal, cook for you, maybe try something new. And like you have that experience, you just put all that out there, spend the money, sink the time and you're like, Oh, that was nice. Nice treat.
00:15:59
Speaker
At the same time, I can also eat cold beef roni from a can. Like, right. Yeah. There is the difference, but like, I really like the going out and doing something special, but because it is expensive, does not happen super frequently. But do you mean like that or is that for you? Like, uh,
00:16:18
Speaker
You feel the weight of like oh, this is I could be doing this cheaper at home and get the same. Oh, no sustenance I don't generally think that way It's funnier to just kind of be like the poor college freshman like meme Character that just eats ramen and like eventually discovered you could add an egg to it but like that's a
00:16:43
Speaker
I don't eat like that that often It helps being married because like mango actually She'll make good healthy home-cooked food sometimes and I'm like, mm-hmm this is nice that this just immediately magically exists and Nothing happened prior to this it just exists in front of me. I can acknowledge it I'm just like this tastes really good. I should stop like ordering fast food or whatever the crap
00:17:12
Speaker
But to your question, I like it occasionally. I think it's nice. I put more of the influence or more of the weight on the social aspect, right?
Magic: The Gathering and Game Economics
00:17:21
Speaker
If we go to like a nice place and it's a social thing, then the social interactions are subsidizing the cost of the food. For the record, for the record, anytime you hang out with people, it is a social thing. Every single time.
00:17:39
Speaker
Like there's never a time where I'd go out to like damn it people be like Listen, uh, keep the chatter down to a minimum. Thanks. I'm trying to focus on my food here Right, right. I'm just saying like it's if you were to itemize the evening Just base and then also kind of compare that in your spreadsheet to like what you got from it I would say like the I'm paying for food. I'm paying for drinks whatever the crap and It's worth it because I'm there with friends
00:18:09
Speaker
Now, if I were to go there on my own, I would absolutely think it's a waste of money and time. But that's just where I'm at. I understand. If you're in a higher financial bracket than me too, maybe that's not the case for you. But I still think that relatively it scales. Everybody has something where they think it's cheap and something where they think it's expensive.
00:18:37
Speaker
You mentioned something I think everybody's with you there. What did I mention? You mentioned something I can use to segue off of and what you mentioned was a couple minutes ago I think or I mean, I don't know time is relative geologically a short time ago
00:18:52
Speaker
You mentioned peeling a card off of Amazon, like you've ordered a card on Amazon. And this made me think of both friend of the show and special guest, Mike, who posted to Discord recently a story.
00:19:10
Speaker
about a certain Magic the Gathering card. Did you read this, the story? Did you read this? You see this? You hear about this? What's the deal with that? Does anybody else? Does anyone else? I did not see the latest update, but I am aware of the situation.
00:19:27
Speaker
Okay, gotcha. Well, let me let me lay the groundwork a little bit then Because we talked about this a little bit I think we talked about perhaps the Lord. I don't know if we were recording at the time, but we usually are NSA loves us But
00:19:43
Speaker
Magic the Gathering is doing a limited print of Lord of the Rings special cards because they're doing crossovers with everyone right now. I think literally everyone. They had Godzilla at some point. They've done a bunch of other weird ones.
00:19:59
Speaker
But in particular there's one that's printed in black speech, which is the speech of Mordor that was not racist it was the speech of Mordor of the one ring and They're printing exactly one of this card. So it's like zero zero one out of zero zero one, right? That's what's on the card Or at least in collectors information for it
00:20:23
Speaker
and someone had a bounty out, he's like, hey, I will give anyone who finds this $100,000 if they sell me the card for that amount and they don't post publicly that they found it first, basically. So someone's just trying to, you know, saw Iran, essentially, the situation up.
00:20:44
Speaker
Uh, but they had a revised update, which I thought was excellent and even better and a little bit less anti-capitalist, which was, uh, rather than that, rather than a hundred thousand dollars, if you find the card, I will give you $50,000. So not a strong open, but I will get us both out to a volcano and we can throw it in the volcano together, which I think is great.
00:21:12
Speaker
Yeah, I like that last bit more so Mainly because it's again in the in the spirit of the movie And also I hate the idea like for theming I get it ha ha very cool But I do not like the idea for a trading card game I was talking about this with the move to the gym for like 40 minutes yesterday so
00:21:36
Speaker
I really hate the idea of you can just, oh, I have a cardboard thing. Okay. But I have like 200 of them. Okay. And it's a game. Okay. And now it's popularized. What? And now that person makes billions of dollars and you can just print anything else with it and it just generates money, right? So let's say it's just economically successful, like once it takes off and you really can do no wrong. You just print and reset. Fucking go bananas, right?
00:22:05
Speaker
And then you're like, hey, uh, what if, you know, we did that whole supply versus demand, but we only made the supply one. Do you think the demand would go up? Yeah, you dumb bitch. Of course it's going to. So it's going to skyrocket in value.
00:22:21
Speaker
I don't think Wizards directly benefits from that, but like they can again just do the same thing in a fucking month or a year. Yeah. And I just hate that it's upsetting the the magic of the gathering economy versus usually what drives at the price of cards outside of like limited supply and demand.
00:22:40
Speaker
is the demand really goes up when certain formats or certain cards are legal in the most played formats, like modern. So yeah, those things can go up. And a lot of those cards are old or not printed anymore. That makes sense. That's usually how things work in trading card games. But just having a one of one, you're like, huh? Yes. Because the person who offered 100K and is like, PS, don't tell anybody about this. It'll be our little secret.
00:23:10
Speaker
Why do you think he's doing that? Because 100k is wildly undervaluing the card. Because there's only one. Well, there was a clause there. I want to give him credit. He's like, 100k or I'll beat an offer by another reputable person who wants to get it. So if someone else is doing the eBay thing and they're like, plus $1 or whatever, he's like,
00:23:34
Speaker
I'll beat whatever their price is, as long as it's someone who's recognized and reputable within the community so that you can't get one of your friends. You got the card. Say, I got the card, but I called up Dave. And I was like, Dave, offer me $10 million for this, because we can get $10 million in $1, which I will then split 50-50. And then we go over to this guy. Which, I don't know why we haven't sold more things online more often. That'd be a great idea, him.
00:23:58
Speaker
Yeah, I mean there's been a strong outcry for merch, but we're resisting its inner strength on our part You think it's gonna be something nice like t-shirts, but it's primarily thongs and it's really hard to get a lot of text on that. Yeah Just for men men's thongs. That's the only thing Yeah, I think I think part of it is the psychology of it's kind of funny to see outrage in this right because it is also just literally
00:24:27
Speaker
It's just the way magic kind of works in general, right? Like there's cards with higher rarity and there's like one, what, like one mythic per pack or something like that. I guaranteed rare. Is that what it is?
00:24:44
Speaker
Every pack of any trading card thing ever will always have at least a rare or better. Yeah. And so like some of that already exists just not to this extent, right? Like if you got a pack, you probably wouldn't get the rare card that you wanted, but you could, but you might get, you would always get a rare card. But if you wanted one particular card,
00:25:09
Speaker
you might need to buy a lot of packs. You might need to buy a booster box or something like that. I don't know what the ratio is, it probably depends on the set, but it was always a little bit further than what you probably wanted to spend at one time on your card game.
00:25:24
Speaker
but this is like that but so far out in left field right it's like highlighted to the extreme there's only literally one of these cards if you want to get this card you got to be out there like charlie and willy wonka like eating candy bars asap right like your uncle is fake
00:25:43
Speaker
sick he's actually fine he's gonna hop out of bed when he should have been providing for the family for years but he doesn't want to so he's pretending to be sick and if you don't get that one ring just kind of an asshole yeah right it's well-established fact but it reminds me a lot of
00:26:03
Speaker
Kind of the gotcha mechanics and loot boxes actually, which I don't think was what Wizards really wanted the association to be made. Right. I get why they did it, right? There's a thematic reason that there should be one of this card, but they also know in the background, there's going to be a subsection of the population that spends more than they otherwise would have because they're like, what if I get it? Right.
00:26:28
Speaker
Well, it's not like it's, it's the only one of that kind. So like the one ring is a card that's in being printed as a part of that set. It's not the only copy of that card for what it does mechanically and how the text is printed.
00:26:44
Speaker
But for the one that has the black text, as Jake, Jake put it. Black speech. You have to say it like that, because that's the proper noun.
Game Pricing and Consumer Fatigue
00:26:53
Speaker
So for the card that has black Twitter on it, it's even styled differently art art wise. Like there's like some burning gold. Like that's the only one of its kind. Yeah. But there are other ones of that. Right. But so the whole situation just feels
00:27:13
Speaker
It's it's not an easy problem to solve the devil's advocate for a second because you know the devil needs it Because like it's such it is a really cool idea But I think you'd have to be naive to say that Blizzard hasn't put Blizzard who wizards topic jumping Wizards haven't factored in that like more people might buy the set because they're excited to get the one of I
00:27:45
Speaker
And so if it was unacceptable in other sets, what about this makes it more acceptable, right?
00:27:52
Speaker
This is literally how loot boxes ended up getting banned in other countries that ended up banning them, by the way, was like literally the fear of missing out, literally the pursuit of something that probably you're not going to get. If that jump is too far, it becomes psychologically dangerous. It can become something that people spend more money on than they should, or that they even really want to because of like addiction disorder and things like that. So.
00:28:20
Speaker
Yeah, look at any video game that has cosmetics. I played CSGO recently. I'm sad that I did. I was just playing with people for like 20 minutes before I'm like, fuck this. But even in that, it's like there's so much stuff with the, I don't wanna say loot boxes, like the gun cases.
00:28:39
Speaker
and what you can get out of it, and how much money some of those things go for. Again, just for the possibility of, hey, it could have this in it, which is just something that's highly rated or appraised. But yeah, if you need that to push your game, your game sucks, Overwatch. It should be able to stand on its own legs and not need to have microtransactions to carry it.
00:29:08
Speaker
I say the same thing for Dota as well. It has stuff for the Battle Pass every time. They'll have, here's your little treasure trove. You can possibly get these skins. And if you get them for free, cool, awesome, love it. But if you're spending 25, 50 bucks on something just for, again, what is basically just a file or a skin asset in a video game,
00:29:32
Speaker
That's really what it boils down to. It's just a single file or a flag that gets flipped and you're like, I get enjoyment out of this, I guess. Yeah. I'm a little bit less attached to the idea of like, whether it's digital or not, I think that kind of doesn't matter, right? Cause it's whether you spend time with it or not, right? If I spent a lot of resources or money or whatever the crap time to get something that I never use or see in a game, then obviously it's kind of a waste.
00:30:01
Speaker
But I mean, if I bought a really nice, expensive magic deck, it would be an equivalent waste to me because I wouldn't use it at all. Unless I actually used it. If I made that jump, then yes, it's more valuable.
00:30:16
Speaker
It is yeah, it's not easy Because like companies do need to make money too But I just don't think they need to make money on the tier of this ever increasing We must have profitability above all else that they're pursuing
00:30:32
Speaker
Yeah. I think another thing with wizards right now is that they're actively, I think coming up with sets way faster than I remember in the past. Cause like, I was playing Phyrexia in Magic the Gathering was like, Oh, cool. They have a new thing. Yada, yada. And like two months pass and they're like, are you ready for the next set? I'm like, what happened? There used to be like two or three a year and it just feels like it keeps ticking up.
00:31:00
Speaker
But it is funny how like I can make this judgment on loot boxes and gambling, but in other areas like I do not care about monetary value of things.
00:31:15
Speaker
I just yeah, I guess that's like me exercising my right to decide on this is like I don't care if I'm losing money in this or I don't care if I'm spending money on this because I have the option versus somebody kind of being a predator towards a consumer saying wouldn't you like this stuff?
00:31:35
Speaker
Right. Opens part of a cloak. Not cloak. Jesus. Like trench coat. Trench coat. How are we losing these words? I don't know. No, I know what you're talking about. I actually read, we can switch to the next topic soon, but I read an article or a quip or someone had a thought and somehow I got it about how it feels like magic is releasing all of these things. It might have been a Kotaku article.
00:32:05
Speaker
But like in reality the main sets that they're releasing is actually not that extensive It's still basically like four core sets a year and it has been for like forever but what they're doing is they're doing a lot of promotions and They're marketing around those promotions a lot. So
00:32:23
Speaker
There was actually like fatigue in the community among like content creators and people like that who are like we're not really sure what to cover because Like it seems like you guys are constantly pushing something all the time Upcoming all of this like and we don't know what the importance is about all of this so in the past when maybe you had a friend who could call you up and be like Oh my gosh, there's a new thing at the store like
00:32:48
Speaker
Different scenario compared to they have your email address and they will use it right so Maybe in a side effect of the always-on system, but
00:33:01
Speaker
Yeah, it doesn't need to be as much as there is. Again, I feel like it's a bit of capitalism chasing the dragon, or it's just always we have to be producing something so that people can constantly consume. Dude, chill. Like, let me catch up on some things from time to time. I don't know. Maybe you got a show you want to watch, something you want to play.
00:33:24
Speaker
Maybe you have dinner plans with family. You gotta balance it. So it sucks to be like, I'm always constantly missing out, because they're never stopping the generation. Yeah. Right. It's like you know there's someone in a board meeting that's just like, we only have captured the engagement of our player base for eight hours a day. How do we improve upon these dismal numbers?
Diablo 4 Beta Impressions
00:33:49
Speaker
Right?
00:33:51
Speaker
The reality is variety is better. I wanted to mention in particular another piece of news I heard recently from someone close to the podcast. Apparently vampire survivors want a BAFTA.
00:34:09
Speaker
Yeah, that was me. Okay, cool. It was me. I said it because it's true. I watched it happen. I was on Discord with some people and they were streaming it because they had a Twitch stream for the BAFTA Game Awards.
00:34:25
Speaker
Only caught part of it, but they're their winner for game of the year was vampire survivors Which I thought was funny cuz if you remember the other one it was like Elden Ring versus God of War just got a war and they're like those were really the only big two not to be fair like they were also nominees but
00:34:47
Speaker
Also for the record, God of War also did win some awards. Christopher Judge won for performance and you know, went up on stage again. And it's exactly as you would have expected. So it's fun to meme on that. That's pretty great. This relates to the previous though, in that like Vampire Survivors, like we covered on our previous episode, which obviously you've all listened to as radicalized podcast listeners.
00:35:18
Speaker
Uh, Creator for Vampire Survivors just didn't care, really, about making more money. Cause he's like...
00:35:25
Speaker
I mean, it's priced where it should be. And I was thinking about this recently, where on one hand, you've got people like, I don't know if it was Ubisoft or Square Enix, so I don't want to point the finger at one of them in particular. They're both big enough, they can take it though. Both of these companies, maybe, were trying to push for having $70 price tags on games. And this is something we talked about for a while. And the common counter argument is like,
00:35:51
Speaker
I mean, games are like $50 for like forever. If you factor in inflation, they really should be costing more money. The reality is, games are huge. Tons of people play games. If 100,000 people played, what's the game that came out a long time ago? Doom.
00:36:11
Speaker
That was amazing when it launched, right? That would have like shattered the world. If a hundred thousand people play Call of Duty, it's a dismal fit. Like the company collapses somehow. Like their families are shot. Like it's, it's very desperate if it comes to that. It's in the contract. There's nothing you can do, but like they're making money hand over fist.
00:36:33
Speaker
So going to vampire survivors, he kept the price low. More people will get the game because that's what he wants, right? He has a fashion, a fashion project. That too. Passion project.
00:36:47
Speaker
Um, and knows that if he made this a $50 game, maybe he'd make more money, but people wouldn't play it nearly as much. So you could definitely raise the price to say, Hey, this is a $10 game. And people would be like, yeah, it was worth it. Yeah. So the fact that he made it as cheap as.
00:37:08
Speaker
He did It's a Red Bull. Good on him, honestly. The price of one red one Whips, one sheets. You got the sheets tonight? No, I'm playing vampire survivors. Uh-huh. I just guarantee you that's not something that comes up in these meetings when people are like
00:37:32
Speaker
Hey, could we charge a little bit less for this? I think more people would play the game if we charged a little bit less. Someone's got a spreadsheet that's just like, no, we make fewer dollars.
00:37:43
Speaker
bad that is an evil that is an evil thing you are suggesting and a moral failing that you suggested it as a previous proponent of Cutco knives and just anytime you just interact with people you really see the the weight of
00:38:03
Speaker
I don't wanna say brand loyalty of a consumer, but like we have discussions on Discord a lot about what people are gonna check out, people are gonna play versus like, oh, I'm gonna avoid it for these reasons or something half of the company or like somebody's piece of shit. Like all of these things factor in for what people are gonna choose to consume and enjoy. So if it is like a cheaper price point and like they're nice to the community, like they respond to community feedback and they have that whole thing jiving,
00:38:32
Speaker
okay awesome you're gonna do really well in the indie space uh and it's a lot of good marketing is really just word of mouth because i can see an article i can be linked to youtube video but what i trust most is the opinion of other people i know who play video games and they know what i like
00:38:50
Speaker
Which is why when everybody says like, Hey, Dave, I think you'd really like this. That's what I'm like. Oh, this is truly now an evaluation because it's from the most trusted of sources. I'm now getting this. Okay. Therefore I'll check it out.
00:39:05
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. It's what some people had in reviewers a while back, but there's not that many reviewers. And if it is a reviewer now, it's probably an individual instead of the institution they work for this kind of like trusted take.
00:39:23
Speaker
Um, cause I used to have that some years back. I had a Kevin van ord for, um, games, game stop, game stop. No, game spot game spot was that unfortunately those two names are very close, but, um, I think it works for giant bomb or somewhere else now, but it was just like, he loved the type of games I loved and he was really, he would really dig into things that I also found issue with. Um, but that's not really.
00:39:48
Speaker
I think anymore. Now it's more like, like you said, Dave suggests the game for me. I'm like, Dave never suggests games for me. This probably means something. Someone else suggests the game for me. And they're like, this is akin to common cultural cornerstone that like makes up my identity in gaming. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm probably gonna check that out then. Right. So.
00:40:12
Speaker
Did you just say that you didn't value my opinion versus somebody else's? Is that how I should take that? No. What I intended to say, if I didn't say it, was if Dave says, play this game, I know that it already carries a lot of weight because you don't suggest that many games. If someone else suggests, play the game, I might be like, maybe I'll get to it, whatever. Unless they're like, hey, here's a comparison to something that I know. Like if someone was like,
00:40:41
Speaker
Prey 2. It's a lot like Prey. I would be like, I've quit my job. I bought the game. Maybe not that dramatic, but... I'm doing my best not to recommend to you Marvel Snap.
00:40:58
Speaker
I have already had one person talk to me about it, but they weren't in that inner list of like, this is a game you absolutely need to check out and here's something that it's correlated to. Um, but I've heard really good things about it.
00:41:15
Speaker
I've watched some people play it. It's not something for me. Um, but I know both you and I, and some other people really enjoy the, Oh, I understand what the, the overall thing is. Okay. Let my mind just go into like this place of strategization, where you're just thinking of like certain deck lines. Um, stratosphere.
00:41:39
Speaker
Sorry, there's a way to make a joke out of that. I failed. But yeah, if you like to theory crafts and think about the possibilities of interactions and decks you can build, it's another outlet for that basically. And it seems pretty streamlined for it's not hard to pick up. Um, but I really just, I don't give two fucks about it. It's not in my, not my woodhouse. Yeah. Do you know what is mobile though?
00:42:09
Speaker
I was going to note just real fast that great, great. I'm going to give you points for the self segue, but Ben Broad was the director, I believe at the very top, basically for Hearthstone. He also worked on Marvel snap. And that was during like the, uh, the golden years for Hearthstone before all this stuff with blizzard. But, um, yeah, I just thought that was funny.
00:42:34
Speaker
Yeah, anyway. Anytime that he does games, stuff like that, it's typically received pretty well. I think he really gives a fuck about that space and his work in that. Yeah. Check it out, it might be somebody's thing. But I was gonna say, you know what I am a fan of? Diablo 2. That's fair. Did we play D remaster? No. I did try the Diablo 4 beta though.
00:43:04
Speaker
basically the same game. It's not, it's really not a hundred percent. Um, do you, do you want to gush or be critical first? Um, maybe, maybe open with gush or at least high level. Um, I'll let you go first though. Cause I have my own opinions about all of it and they should be tempered by something in reality, which I'm sure you can provide.
00:43:35
Speaker
My face that never holds a smile because it's covered by a mustache. I will have the darker approach. I did check it out at both your and Dan's recommendation. I had some plans that we could spend as much time, but they're like, hey, check it out, three. I was like, okay. So I installed it, played a little bit.
00:43:57
Speaker
Thought it was very pretty as we also saw from those trailers. Pretty much the same there. I had some trouble running it on my machine. I'm not sure if it's latency or just I'm sure there was also a graphical component for it. It's very hard for me to run videos in 4K on YouTube. But I played the necromancer class, explored around a little bit for maybe two, three hours. I thought it was good.
00:44:27
Speaker
Question mark. I enjoyed it enough, but I was not enthralled by it. That's fair. It definitely feels better than Diablo 3, but it still feels a little too streamlined for me. Maybe I didn't get to play around with enough of the builds as much or some of the gear.
00:44:49
Speaker
Again, I just, I don't give a fuck about the story in a lot of these games. I did follow along with it. Thought it was more interesting than normal, but still not really my jam. So it was mainly just, am I going to go around with my skellies? Just holding a left click on something. Um.
00:45:08
Speaker
Also, I was not super crazy about the skill tree so far. Yeah, I have my own opinions on that one too. But I will hard stuff up my opinions.
00:45:22
Speaker
Okay. If you see the rest of your time, I see here that you had another 15 minutes to talk about. I will take those 15 minutes out of to mine. So I really enjoy the game. I think I'm probably, with some contingencies, I'm likely to pick it up on launch. Those contingencies are, they do need to fix the performance.
00:45:45
Speaker
I'm pretty sure it's just because of the quantity of people that were playing this weekend, but why would that be different than if the game had launched? Are they going to have better hardware, something like that? I need some sort of justification for why that's not gonna be the case, because the network issues over the weekend, they did negatively impact the experience. And if you got kicked out, you might see a 30 minute login queue if you had to jump back in.
00:46:13
Speaker
See I want to make a correlation if somebody's listening who for some reason listens, but doesn't follow video games You're like, I don't understand what Jake's talking about or why he's being so like nitpicky Do you remember the one time that like your one relative one of the hosts Thanksgiving? So they tried it one year and then it didn't necessarily go so great Turkey was a little bit overcooked and then they never went back to that person's house for Thanksgiving. That's the same fucking thing Basically, it's just hey
00:46:41
Speaker
What you do on launch, I mean, granted, there's like a little bit of a buffer of obviously not everything is up to up to snuff. They could just be adding more servers, but it feel like they should announce stuff like that because a lot of people say, oh, this is what the experience will be. And then just close the book.
00:47:03
Speaker
And to mutate your analogy a little bit, I'm going to give them even less credit. It's like they have been hosting Thanksgiving year after year after year for a long time. They really have no excuses to have server issues over the weekend. It's Blizzard. It's Activision Blizzard. They are made of money.
00:47:26
Speaker
If this is a problem that could be solved with money and it is not solved it's because they have not spent the money, right? Like there you can logically deduce that And maybe they didn't expect that many people maybe whatever but no, no, it was a bad experience I'm tired of that shit argument for things Because so many games on launch or like in the beta we can like oh we weren't expecting so many people Really? Yeah, really
00:47:51
Speaker
It's Diablo, right? And I think they expected or they wanted it to be huge. So I wouldn't even give them that as an excuse. I would just say if they try to use that, remember the similar opinion, that's not accurate. Fix it, make it right. That's your job as a company.
00:48:12
Speaker
that's the biggest
Diablo 4 Classes, Story, and Customization
00:48:13
Speaker
one that's actually the biggest downside for me was just like there were times where I was if you were in a public space where there's other players or it's there aren't players around you but it is clearly shared instance which is something they're doing with this game like
00:48:29
Speaker
The game just chugged and it took you out of it. It was less fun. You could get some rubber banding. I thought very seriously at one point, I was very glad I was not playing a hardcore character because that would be miserable, right? No one wants to lose a character to lag.
00:48:49
Speaker
Um, but that's the whole caveat. If that part is fixed and I really hope it is. Cause if not, then like shower fives, fours, threes, whatever the crap you want in the game. Cause this is functional gameplay, right? This is compared to Blake. If it was a single player game, this would not be a problem. You should have made it a single player game. That's what people are going to say. If it chugs like this at launch and they're not going to be wrong. Um, so.
00:49:18
Speaker
Anyways, all of that being said, to the game itself, I like the classes. There's a pretty good diverse spread. I also played Necromancer. I didn't try any others, but I got all the way through the beta had act one available. And then they were like, once you reach the end, you can still farm, you can do whatever you want, but you're not going to act two. We don't do that here. I like the story a lot more than three.
00:49:45
Speaker
What no way I don't remember that much about three except for spoilers for three. Nobody cares like Belial was in disguise as a kid. That's it. That's all I've got And then there's a primeval of dance This one like has a lot more kind of character like interesting characters things going on and the world is darker and
00:50:11
Speaker
It seemed like in three it's very much like the forces of light the forces of evil clash clash clash clash clash and in Diablo four like There are a lot of people where it's like I think they're a good guy and they're like So much not so much a little bit of Lilith in there just a little bit It's all nuanced. I will say I'm not
00:50:36
Speaker
Probably just because it's been done before enough times and I've just seen it. I don't think it's bad for like where this story is but it's very much a Hey, wouldn't it feel good to be bad and people like yeah, and it's like I'm just appealing the human nature Well, I I don't think you play as a bad a bad guy in this though You're always pretty much on the side of the forces of light. Yeah
00:51:01
Speaker
But I mean, like, for a lot of the character interactions that people have with evil characters, like, hey, would you like knowledge, forbidden knowledge? Like, that does sound pretty fucking cool. And then, like, they go out and do something fucked up. Or there was, like, a scene where, like, Lilith comes into a church, and she just talks to people in the church after the priest is admonishing people for sinning. And this is a cut scene. Yeah, then they just murder him.
00:51:30
Speaker
and you know the full backstory of people maybe it was built up and justified in a certain way or it's at least believed to be but it just feels very okay she's just going around corrupting people yeah i so i will say later in the act so this is actually lilith um is one of the most
00:51:53
Speaker
I don't know if sympathetic is the right word, but like humanized evils of like any of the prime evils or I can't remember the term for the lesser ones like and are ill and Belial and all of those but They're all like comic book evil for the most part. Yes and Lilith actually has a couple scenes where she's just like a
00:52:20
Speaker
Not, she doesn't cry or anything like that. She's a tremendously powerful, like, she's set up to be like Diablo strength basically for this. But she's like very explicitly not using her disciples just as fuel to add, she's not like the orphan burning machine, right? You're just doing this.
00:52:45
Speaker
Like some of them are just they're all disposable to her. She is evil. I'm not like a Lilith apologist But she doesn't lay it out that way exactly and in some cases like she also just doesn't throw her people away if it's completely Needless, right? She'll use them if the reward is better, but she's more empathetic empathetic in her dealings with humans and part of that is because like
00:53:11
Speaker
This isn't spoilers. This is the backstory since Diablo 2 I think like Lilith and Freakin angel, I can't remember his name. Oh my gosh I'm just gonna change material Not now. It's the when Sanctuary was created. It was Lilith and I think it's Inarius. I think it's his name. Yeah, they created the world basically
00:53:38
Speaker
And so all of the Nephilim and then the people who eventually became like humans, all of them, those are the offspring of Lilith and Inarius in Diablo lore. That's where humanity came from. Yeah, they borrowed some of that from the Bible, the Nephilim idea of humans and demons procreating and that's where the giants came from and things like that.
00:54:05
Speaker
Yeah, her interactions, there's some sympathy in there. And I'm not going to spoil the moments because if people don't want to be spoiled, it would kind of suck to just lose points in the act. But I was more invested and the cut scenes are good. Like I didn't really care about the cut scenes in three because they were kind of this like vignette sort of splashed.
00:54:27
Speaker
ink on canvas Like a comic book still sort of approach, but in this one. It's well animated back to like actual blizzard animations exactly yeah Because I know it doesn't look as good now, but the scene in Diablo 2 when the Yeah, the wanderer is coming into the prison Mm-hmm
00:54:56
Speaker
to get the story from the prisoner who is like the narrator pretty much up to that point. It's like it's such a good scene and it's such a good buildup and all of that. It reminds me a little bit of that. I'm not going to say it's equivalent, but it's closer to that than Diablo 2.
00:55:15
Speaker
Um, so I like the story graphics are amazing. Um, I think they need to optimize some stuff though, or else that might also hit them at launch for the issues you encountered. Some of the stuff I encountered wasn't clear when it wasn't, when it was network, when it wasn't, but yeah, like the game's really nice when it's smooth and when it's not smooth, it's very noticeable. So fix that.
00:55:40
Speaker
Mechanically though, I have to ask, did you play it in necromancer a lot in Diablo two days? Yes. That was like 80% of the time I was on necromancer. Okay. So how did you feel that necromancer is represented in this?
00:55:58
Speaker
So, I don't know if I had any character specific interactions as an necromancer. I don't think they're really doing that here. I do kind of miss that. I don't mean that. I mean, just like mechanically. So for me, the first thing I noticed is like they don't have teeth in the same way. It feels very smooth down. Yeah. Like I understand it's still like a bone spell, but like that and bone spear just felt very unimpactful.
00:56:28
Speaker
Like I kind of feel like I'm just throwing stuff out vaguely. I mean it's nice not to have the dependency on mana potions Because that was the thing where you just you'd hear that sound bite over and over again as you're just mashing things So they have this goes back to what you said with like the formulaic approach. That's what they took for this is every
00:56:48
Speaker
Even more so than three, for good and bad, I think. In Diablo 4, it's very much broken down into you have a basic skill, which is your generator, for whatever your resource is. You have core skills, which spend, and then you have skills that have cooldowns, which take even more resources than your core skills.
00:57:11
Speaker
And sometimes they don't actually have a resource cost there might be a tree option when you're like picking the perks for a skill That changes it from necromancer has one that changes it from a curse that would cost resources into one that builds resources for you
00:57:27
Speaker
I think it's Decrepify or something like that. But for the most part, it's like your left click is going to be your generator, your right click is going to be your standard spammable spender, and then your hot bar is going to be full of whatever skills you kind of like, whether they spend resources or they just have long cooldowns. And it seems like it's like that for everything. They're doing the blizzard thing of
00:57:54
Speaker
Standardizing and streamlining that um, and I don't know if i'm a huge fan of that in particular and It's pretty similar to the way it was in three, but it feels even more obvious because things have keywords Like if you do a keyword search for basic, it'll show you all the skills that are intended to be used As like your left click if you do a keyword search for core you'll see all the skills that's
00:58:22
Speaker
The reason I hate that is like from a gameplay ability standpoint for like new people. Awesome. Great. Very helpful. I have like a here's how you learn how to do stuff. But as somebody who's been playing games for a while,
00:58:39
Speaker
I don't want it to be, alright, you have to pick one of four basic spells, which color do you want? Oh, I pick red. Okay, that's blood instead of bone. I'm like, is this really my level of customization? It's like, I pick one of four things, or one of three things for something?
00:58:54
Speaker
Oh, I can have skeletons. Which type of skeletons do you want? You can only have three or four skeletons unless something modifies it. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know. It feels weird that I'm just doing the customizations. I feel like I'm doing do not seem to be that impactful. Okay.
00:59:11
Speaker
I would definitely agree with that 100% for the early game and I wish they introduced it more later. Later game, then you do get some more customization. So like talking about the skeletons in general, I do think this is the best way that they've handled summons. In Diablo 2, you needed a corpse to summon something.
00:59:31
Speaker
bring a skeleton up. Feasible, makes sense, fits the lore. Corpse, you come skeleton. Diablo 3, I'm pretty sure you could just make them, but I'm not 100% sure. I'm pretty sure you could just like literally summon them from the earth. I know that was it that way for which Dr. Necromancer wasn't added until Reaper of Souls and I didn't play that much after that.
00:59:50
Speaker
In this one, they're going back to the corpses, but some of the generators actually have ways of like, if it's a channeled ability, after it's channeled on an enemy for 2.5 seconds, this is gonna sound a little bit disgusting, like flesh will slough off the enemy and you can resurrect that as a skeleton. And so they actually have corpse generation into the rotation of some of these classes, which is super nice for bosses.
01:00:19
Speaker
That's good, primarily because one of the strongest abilities back in the Diablo 2 days was fucking corpse explosion. Yes, Barbarian had it, right?
01:00:31
Speaker
No, no, no, I think corpse explosion is necromancer oceans. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was a, well, I think it's called loots or something, but yeah, basically it would expend the body for the chance of finding a potion or an item. I swear casting barbarians are some of the most disgusting things I've ever seen. It's very fun.
01:00:53
Speaker
But yeah, I just. I don't know. It felt good to level up bone to like level 20. And then when you shot out your sorry teeth, it would send out this giant fucking shotgun wave of bones. I'm like, oh, hell yeah. Like you felt the impact of leveling something up versus if I level up the whatever little bone shards thing, the damage number goes up. That's it. Yeah.
01:01:24
Speaker
I think that's fair. I saw online somewhere I don't know what the trigger actually is but the abilities do have different visual effects. It might be as you level up or if the skill levels up or something it looks more dramatic and cool. Some of the examples were like
01:01:39
Speaker
I think if the sorcerer slash sorceress is like using a fire ability, it just looks like a flamethrower for a period of time. But if you level up a lot, it's got like blue fire in it. And it's just very visibly emulating things. And as long as it looks better than fucking flamethrower in Diablo 2, I feel like we're doing OK. That's fair. That's fair. Like, do you remember Dota 1 when like Pudge did the hook? It was basically drawing different sprites to have like this is a hook animation as it extends.
01:02:08
Speaker
That's what it felt like with the flames. Yeah, I mean, that's where we were at technically back then. So yeah, the way it works out, I agree 100%. Putting more points in a skill doesn't really feel worth it most of the time. The trees split up between like passives in general that affect things, those skills and then modification perks for the skills themselves. Those ones feel a lot better. I like those more and I wish the game had more of them.
01:02:35
Speaker
because that's where a secondary effect such as getting the extra corpses comes from or Making it so an ability has this other secondary effect or does something cool? So what you're describing to me sounds because I have the same feeling I would like more of the passives anytime I play Anything I'm like, oh I can level up something to have a 2% chance for something cool to happen Yes, give me as many of those as possible.
Speculation on Diablo 4's Success
01:02:59
Speaker
Love the RNG game
01:03:01
Speaker
But it sounds closer to Path of Exile for where, depending on how you build it on the tree, you can have a lot of passive modifiers for things. You can even change around how certain basic things work because of how deep it goes. And I like that level of possible customization. Yeah, I mean, it's not going to be anywhere near Path of Exile. This is still a vertical tree with offshoots.
01:03:28
Speaker
Like, and as you add points to the tree by getting levels or whatever, or completing quests that give you points, like a blood bar fills down the tree, which unlocks the other main nodes that you can explore out into. So for example, if you played to like max level on the beta or really close to it, you would unlock your ultimate abilities, which are like high cooldown, big effects. I didn't use them that much honestly, because I like spamming out stuff more and you only have like,
01:03:53
Speaker
left click right click and I think four slots maybe five so I was like well with what I have with my kit right now I don't actually want to fit a ultimate in here I don't want something on the cooldown for 80 seconds I'm gonna keep cursing people locking them in bone cages and also having the same button break the bone cage that uses is used to create it very nice quality of life unfortunately the guy does say like I can't do that it's on cooldown every time I'm hoping they fix this
01:04:23
Speaker
Because every time you break the bone gates, the guy's just like, I cannot do that. But I think the abilities are
01:04:33
Speaker
They're good, they could be better. But going back to Diablo 2, here's the difference, I'll do a direct comparison. When you're leveling up your skeletons, you'd be putting points into mages. And as you put points in mages, you can get more mages. And you can get, your mages have more health, they do more damage, all that stuff.
01:04:55
Speaker
And they might have had like different points, one for flame, ice, frost, something like, no, not ice and frost, but lightning. I can't remember exactly. There was a way to customize them.
01:05:07
Speaker
And there's pretty much an equivalent here. There's it's called the book of the dead for necromancers but as you level up you unlock first your warrior skeletons and then your your Your mage skeletons and then you get like tank skeletons and then when you complete a class quest for Related to like Rothma who's the first necromancer you get? your golem
01:05:35
Speaker
And there's like three options. And you can just switch between them pretty much at will, but all of your skeletons of that type will die when you switch options. And one of them will be like, they deal more damage or they help you generate resources. Or the last one is always, you no longer have the ability to summon this. Instead, your personal character gets this massive buff.
01:05:58
Speaker
So I don't know exactly how you do it with how I looked at the skills, but it seems like they're like, you could play necromancer as a solo death knight. Essentially where you're just doing your own thing without pets. And I'm like, this is the wrong class. Yeah, I don't know why you would, why you do that at all.
01:06:16
Speaker
But it sounds kind of fun. I know I'm going on about this, so I'm going to cut myself off pretty soon. My standout was for the mages. You could pick their element, and one of them was bone. If you pick bone mages, they essentially hurt themselves with every attack, but the attacks are much stronger.
01:06:42
Speaker
But they'll like literally just kill themselves So either you put somewhere else in your build a way to heal your mages or a way to generate corpses So you can just make more of them throughout the fight But like if you're doing your own thing dodging boss attacks, there's a dodge button now, which is nice I think just monks basically had that before You kind of have more building stuff to play around with and I appreciate that I
01:07:09
Speaker
Overall, I really like it. It's got a lot of the improvements from three. It's got the transmog system. You can steal the legendary affixes off of legendaries and put it on a different item, which is really nice because it kind of sucked in the past to roll something that was a legendary, but like everything that was not the legendary effect was garbage. And you're like, ah.
01:07:32
Speaker
Now you can just be like, I'm going to spend a little bit of money, take that and then put it on my good amulet over here. And now it's an amazing amulet. So I did like that part of three. I think it was the Roger cube related to the Roger cube. Yeah, they had some way where you could like learn them.
01:07:53
Speaker
forever, I think, and I can't remember, I can't recall exactly how that scaled. Um, but yeah, they've kind of expanded on that for four, um, by making it the, I think maybe what you could do is you could reroll that legendary at whatever your level was, um, in the future for like a resource cost. And this one, you literally just take the text and you're like, put on a different item. So that's nice. Um,
01:08:23
Speaker
I have good impressions, I think it'll be good. But yeah, I mean, don't pre-order games anymore. And you can't be disappointed. So I realized I could go on and on because I did put a fair amount of time into it. But you can check out other reviews and previews and stuff. There's a lot of stuff out there for it. The last thing I
Episode Conclusion and Audience Engagement
01:08:48
Speaker
would say that's meta good for Blizzard, not specifically for this.
01:08:52
Speaker
But letting people play your game months ahead of launch is a great sign for that game. Yeah. Yeah.
01:09:07
Speaker
You guys can literally hear Dave take his head's head off. I could hear it too. Which means that we are at time. So if you guys have suggestions about things to talk about that's not Diablo 4, you can feel free to send those in to soapstonepodcast.gmail.com or you can join the discussion on Facebook at facebook.com slash soapstonepodcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good night.