Hello and happy Blizzcon. This is Will Harrison with Essence of Azeroth coming to you from the Night of Night 1 at Blizzcon 2023. It is 9 o'clock Eastern time. All of the reveals have been laid bare in front of us for every game, but especially World Warcraft, which if you, as I balanced my audio here, if you were following along, then you were hit with a treasure trove of new information,
good news. If you were worried about the speculation of tall dwarves, have no fear, these dwarves are normal size and nowhere to be seen except as an allied race. And instead we had new daddy of daddies, replacement daddy for daddy Jeff Kaplan. Daddy Chris Mezzler coming out telling everybody a good good good night story, swaging our fears and giving us not one but three expansions to World of Warcraft, dear God. And it's very funny because I was writing about this stuff for my day job
at esports.gg. So I kind of had two hats on because I'm trying to enjoy the press conference and just the day-load of information that's coming out. But at the same time, I'm very quickly trying to like roll back multiple YouTube video feeds of the ceremony to transcribe stuff and write things down and to keep track of all of it. And guess what? That's all really hard to juggle and I wrote a lot
today. But on the plus side, that means we have a lot to talk about in regards to war. So if you need a catch up real quick, I'll just blaze through the finer points and then we'll talk about the things that I think are interesting. And the first being that as Chris Mezzin described it, we are coming to the end of
the first 20 years of World of Warcraft as a story. How he described it that these next three expansions which have been dubbed the World Soul saga are going to close that chapter of wow and introduce us to a new chapter that will cover the next 20 years because we're going to be playing this fucking game until we are old and decrepit which actually made a reference to which we love. And what we were revealed to see was more information than I think I was expecting. We have three
flavors of World of Warcraft available at the tap. The first being World of Warcraft, the war within which will be the next expansion and will take us to a brand new continent to the west of Pandaria. So if you were looking to figure out where this new content takes place for chunk number one, there you go. I'm sure we'll get a I wouldn't be surprised if we got an updated map by the end of the
weekend, which would be great. And in this expansion, we will be going to war with the Neroobians, the last Neroobians who had laid dormant since the fall of the Black Empire, biting their time deep underground the earth and have been rallied by none other than our former friend of a dagger
turned enemy of a Nizofriir, Zalatoth, who has arisen as the first Arbenger for the void lords and has used the Black Blood of the Old Gods to offer the Neroobians much in the way that Azhar was offered, a chance to rule once again and has offered them evolution in the form of alchemical mixture
made with the blood of the Old Gods to morph them. And in most cases, it turns them kind of similar to the Naga, and the fact that they are brought to be very humanoid, you can actually check out some of the sketches from the Deep Dive earlier today, which I highly recommend because they did like size comparisons for some of the new enemies that are all in the Rubian based, and that stuff is
very cool. So we will be going to war with the Neroobians who are beginning to rise up from their former slumber deep down in the final zone of war within the max level zone of... I can tell you here, I had my stuff pulled up and then I lost it. Hi, do you want to make a podcast? Then Spotify has got a platform that lets you make one super easily, all in one place, and they handle everything, and hey, you can even make money on it.
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Most vapes contain high levels of nicotine and disappointment. Brought to you by the real cost and the FDA. We'll get to eventually Oz Cahet, our Oz Cahet, which if you are familiar with Narubian naming conventions is very similar to what we saw in Northrend. And what's interesting is that the society built by the Narubians is quite advanced. You know, their capital city is
literally built on top of the ruins and remains of each generation when it begins to crumble. So they've essentially built this ever growing spire that has created a cast system where the lowest Narubians, the scavengers, toil, and the grime and the filth and the muck at the bottom at the top are the ones who are wealthy or in power. They specifically said during the ceremony that these are wealthy Narubians. They have made their living in the the bazaars of
of Oz Cahet. So it is an extremely advanced society. One that is advanced over time. And as we know about the Narubians from the Arthas episode, have always tended to flee but we're actually quite organized and quite plentiful and we're always more like it's entirely possible that if they had a different mindset, they could have over ran as Aroth by themselves. And now they've been given that power to help further the void lords through Zalatoth who has come back. She has
full form. She honestly looks a lot like the windrunner sisters, which makes sense in this case because of the three characters that are highlighted as the heroes of this story. One of them is Aliria Windrunner, the windrunner sister who isn't undead or covered in the power of the void. The former alliance general has risen up once more to take her place and to bring Andwin back to
the fold. And I cannot recommend enough to go check out the cinematic for a war with them. It is hands down the best looking thing that the Blizzard team has ever done and is probably the best cinematic only second to the initial wrath of the Lich King cinematic. And I cannot give them enough credit for how beautifully this all comes together. Andwin has aged in this time and he's looking like a very... Why so one person described him as a rough looking him's worth brother? I think he
looks kind of like Chris Pine from the Star Trek reboots. But he's got some age on him. He's seen some things. He's been wandering the world and we see him. He's sitting out in Silifus. Still very much erect from what happened to him in Shadowlands where he was possessed by the Jailer and forced to do awful things and felt the power of the Holy Light leave him. And as he tells Thrall who appears, Thrall returns. As he tries to bring Andwin back to the fold and he tells him
the light left me. And that part is really interesting but what's also interesting is that they are both seeing visions from an unknown entity which obviously we the reader, the viewer, know that it's the world soul of Azeroth trying to speak out to them because Azeroth is sensing true danger for its well-being. Because ultimately the thing that the void lords and zalatoth want to accomplish is the corruption of the Azerothian world soul. That is the goal because that soul turned into a
dark titan will be unstoppable and will usher in the end of everything. So go check out the the cinematic. It's fantastic. And speaking of fantastic everything they showed just looks amazing.
We have a series of new zones that are kind of stacked up on top of one another and they'll be connected in the same way that you could travel through Zerlet caverns and we'll be using a new form of the dragon writing because now they're going to be opening those mechanics up to more mounts and added bonus if you pre-ordered the heroic or epic edition of War Within like I did today. You get the allgarian storm writer mount which allows you to use dragon writing. Like I immediately
popped it open in Valdraken and boom was right there. It had a limited number of figures but I think it's because I hadn't spectacred yet but otherwise it works just like a dragon writing mount does and that's really cool. It didn't work in old world yet though. I don't know if
that's something they're going to open up or not but I guess we'll see. And on top of that and these this very cool stacking of zones and you'll be going down and down deeper with the main capital being the Isle of Dorn which is ran by the Titan Forged Earthen who I think were originally the rumored a tall dwarves so to speak. Instead we will get an allied race for the I don't know if it's just for the alliance or if it's for the alliance and the
word but we will be playing as the earthen which is fascinating. These are the Titan Forged creations who are not affected by the curse of the flesh. The ones who went to Dune all gays and came out unscathed and that is really interesting but I also hope this means that we're going to be getting a second allied race. My true hope is that the Naurubians will become the second allied race for the Horde because the story being told is a story of class divide. And much like how Azhar's rule
in Nasjatar was fought against by the undersea goblins. Here not all the Naurubians are on board with this alchemical mixture and evolution and it's created a spuntered group that is fighting back against this queen who will be the main raid boss of the eight boss raid facing players
when they make their way to Azghahet which will cap off the first chunk of expansion. And along the way we also get eight new dungeons that are all set in the in the new areas and also a new open world dungeon crawl mechanic that's being called adelves which will feature story driven evergreen NPC characters who you will level up and will tell a story as you go and also help you. The first one's going to be I believe they said Bran, Bran's bronze beer and you'll be able to have his own
talent tree. Finally and that also came on the heels of the new war band feature which I think is probably the most exciting thing for a lot of us where all of your characters will basically share their items. Transmogs, banks, crafting materials, achievements, reputations, finally after 20 years you will not have to individually grind the netherwing race, faction, ever again, with multiple characters, it's done, we're good to go. That is all extremely exciting.
And the last thing which is something I actually called in our discord for Essence of Azeroth would you can join. If you go subscribe at any level to our patreon and you can get access and talk to me whenever you want. Doesn't that sound great? Isn't that worth money? Clearly you can go subscribe over at patreon.com slash Essence of Azeroth and one of the things I was talking about is that I really wish that they had a hero class function for each class and we're
kind of getting that. There's going to be a new hero talents tree available in three specs for each class. Do you want to turn your hunter into a dark ranger? You can do that. They gave some other examples I believe they mentioned a dark seer and there's other things going on. Considering that wow classic is getting warlocks as tanks that might be something we see for warlocks too. They also mentioned mages as healers so they're trying new things with the classes and I think that's
really interesting. So we're going to have that to look at and if that would have been all they showed and announced that would have been happy but we also get to see further into the future of what this world so saga is going to be and Metson mentions that the release schedule for content going forward is going to be much faster and snappier so I wonder if these expansions are actually going to be truncated and probably release quicker but they won't have as long of a shelf life.
Dragonflight might actually be a really good example where Dragonflight got about a year and then we're on to the next and speaking of on to the next we will next for the second part of the world so saga be going to world of warcraft midnight and the first of really exciting news.
We're going to be going back to the old world we're going to be delving into the Isle of Quellphalos to fight the forces of the void that are now taking over and coming out into the world and looking to find a way to corrupt Azeroth and that's all we got about that other than a really cool looking
logo and some information like going back to Quellphalos I'm hoping that means that we're going to get a revised Sunwell raid and if that had been enough I would have been thrilled but no they weren't done they weren't done cooking the third part the third and final part of the world so saga
world of warcraft the last titan it's finally happening we're going back to Northrend we're going to be seeing a new Northrend post-Rathletlidge Kang and seeing how it's developed and trying to summon back the spirits of the Titans to Old War in order to mount an offensive to save
Azeroth and to keep its corruption from happening as a lore fan that is just like 20 times of exciting and I can't wrap my head around it late I'm gladly announced it but it's almost too much information and on top of that I'm left with another question from the cinematic where Thrall and
Anduin are very clearly out in Sylvester because they reference like hey this sword was thrown at a target but what and that is an interesting hypothesis because that was thrown there by Sargeris who was still alive and kicking and locked away by a friend Illidan so once again I'm gonna call
my shot I said this a couple of episodes ago I said it in the discord I think that the forces of Azeroth facing eradication and corruption are going to have to turn to Sargeris and say hey we don't agree the only thing we agree on is that we don't want to face utter eradication
which is true Sargeris doesn't want the bringing of nothingness he wants to raise the universe to restart it to give it a chance to cleanse the corruption he doesn't want the corruption to win so I can see scenario where the heroes of Azeroth have to go to Sargeris and make a deal
with a devil to keep Azeroth from being corrupted but in turn they may have to show that hey Azeroth hasn't been corrupted yet because that was always Sargeris' thing is like hey it's kind of like the movie minority report he's trying to eliminate thought crime if there's
a potential for being corrupted then he was going to destroy it and he failed but it also brings about an interesting point of how he knew where to throw his giant ass sword and sylifus and has that revealed something are we going to be heading back to sylifus are we going to be
heading into on kiraaj? those are just questions that I have but they're exciting ones nonetheless I completely trust Chris met some vision he is the crafter of wild lore he is its father we are all his children and now daddy is back I did have a brief moment of laughing during all of this
because I think one way or another they probably would have had met some come back to write this thing because ultimately it's his and also as long time fans of the show know I love saying that everything starts with the titans and in this case it literally is starting with and ending with
the titans but the thing that's really interesting about this is this is going to be the end of a chapter for a while and then we're going to move on to something else new adventures or something and we don't know like it was just nice to hear that a commitment to world of warcraft is being made
because this year's blizzcon was definitely all about warcraft in all its forms and that's exciting and sure I didn't get my heroes of the storm announcement but I'm still huffing the copium I think it's going to happen and that's great real quick before we go I asked some of our discord users
their thoughts on today's proceedings and include some comments as art and most recent subscribey calcus who is at blizzcon it is actually procuring some merch for me that you will see in the future that I'm very excited about and he says world so saga is very exciting to me it's
the first time we see an actual plan in place just true hopefully this creates some continuity between expansions then he says I am a little worried that at the conclusion that this will somehow mean the end of wow which they said is not the case so we're good there and that's really exciting
everything is really cool and it was interesting to see zalatoth be brought back like we're not not used to as a recent like a fan of wow in the recent times of story hooks being brought back like that so that feels really good um I'm excited like I think you have to be excited um they also talked greatly about how they don't want expansion features to feel like they get left in the past and how they become antiquated I'm looking at you archaeology so their design philosophy going forward
is things that affect the overall nature of world of warcraft and are things they can carry forward and I'm excited all across the board um we're gonna get more information tomorrow there's lots of blizzcon still going on there's a new character in Overwatch uh mauga the new tank who is actually
playable right freaking now and he's not very good but he's fun so I think we'll take that as a ton of personality is very much Maui from noana even has a quote uh emote where he says you're welcome and flashes the smile and it's very funny um the announcement of duo's play for hearthstone's battle
grounds with chogal being a two-player hero that's really cool um wow classic got some stuff that I will play but I don't really care about uh the season of discovery which is gonna introduce some interesting progressive play and some neat twist and some old things in classic and sadly the
biggest letdown for me is kata classic which had a really good trailer i'll give them that it was interesting I don't know if I want kata close in classic but we'll give it a shot and speaking of giving a shot I'm gonna go play more world more uh Overwatch now so stick around
essence of Azeroth for more information coming up um no rest at xp is monday since we're doing this now and hopefully in the next two weeks new episode covering the DC comics world of warcraft series so be sure to be ready for that if you haven't already follow me on spotify and give us a
five-start rating uh follow us on apple podcast consider giving us a written review there like I see those things and you know what they are a real motivating factor to keeping me engaged and it's nice to see and it helps our placement and we're already one of the top world warcraft podcasts in the world let's keep that motivation going let's let's keep the ball rolling and until then I will see you on the flip side enjoy the rest of blizzcon have a great weekend and we will talk soon