It is time for Shattered Soul Stone, featuring the latest news from Sanctuary and beyond. Each episode, a heroic party of Nephilim Band together to help keep you informed on everything in the Diablo universe. And now your Diablo Community podcast. Coming to you from somewhere in sanctuary. This is episode 4 2 9 of Shattered Soul Stone, your Diablo Community podcast. This episode is called Boss versus Boss. It is October 6th, 2023. And this is Jen.
I've got a lot of news to talk about. Some of it's ridiculous, some of it's interesting, some of it I don't know what you'll think about. So here goes, uh, Gizmodo has an article titled Microsoft Reportedly Hopes to Close Activision Deal Next week the company is seeking an October 13th closure date, depending on final approval from the UK's Competition and Markets Authority. That's written by Kevin Hurler. It was published yesterday from the time I'm reading this to you.
Here's a little bit of this. The biggest acquisition in video game history appears to be coming to a close after Microsoft offered to buy Activision Blizzard nearly two years ago and faced a barrage of government hurdles along the way. The tech company is reportedly readying to close the sale sources told The Verge, which I'll get to in a minute. Um, I'm gonna skip that paragraph 'cause I've got the Virgin here as well. Um, Microsoft did not immediately return Gizmodos request for comment.
Microsoft has experienced plenty of turbulence throughout its quest to acquire Activision Blizzard, a video game holding company whose titles include World of Warcraft Call of Duty and Diablo three UK regulators initially blocked the acquisition last spring with Microsoft scrambling to tweak the acquisition terms and submitting a restructured transaction in August. Under the revision, Microsoft will forfeit the purchase of cloud gaming rights held by Activision,
which will instead be purchased by Ubisoft. Meanwhile, EU regulators gave the acquisition a stamp of approval with Little Friction. So we've also got, uh, games Industry biz that wrote about this. This one's written by who wrote this one? James Bachelor. And here's the title. Microsoft reportedly aiming to complete Activision Blizzard acquisition next week. Reports suggest deal will close on Friday, October 13,
ahead of an October 18 deadline. And, uh, there's a bunch of characters from Activision Blizzard games with like an Xbox Green sort of logo with an X over it, you know, kind of thing. So, uh, this one also points to the Verge. So I'll get to the verge in a minute here. And uh, so this one is, let's see. I think this is really pulling from the ver the Verge quite a bit. Uh, there's a little bit more in here though that might not, uh,
be in the Verge one, which everyone's pointing at. Uh, okay. In September, the C m A stated that this addressed most of the issues. What were those issues?
The C M A originally blocked the acquisition earlier this year, but Microsoft submitted a modified version in July that aimed to address the regulator's concerns about dominance in the cloud gaming space, primarily by selling cloud gaming rights to all Activision Blizzard titles, including any release over the next 15 years to Ubisoft in September.
The C M A stated this addressed most of the issues it had with the deal granting provisional approval, but added that it still had residual concerns for which Microsoft proposed further remedies. Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard was originally due to be closed on July 18th, 2023, but the two companies agreed to extend this to October 18, while the remaining issues with the C M A were resolved.
If the deal does not complete by that date, Microsoft must pay Activision Blizzard a fee of $4.5 billion and rego renegotiate the terms. The only other regulator to oppose the acquisition is the US Federal Trade Commission, which failed to block the deal in court back in July. The F T C is appealing this decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals with a decision due in December.
It's also still planning its own internal administrative hearing, but this will not take place until 21 days after the ninth Circuit's verdict. I g N has one written by Wesley ypo. This probably pulls from the other articles as well. I'm not saying they're plagiarizing each other, but the news is the news is the news. You're gonna get this kind of stuff.
Like if you're looking for, you know, non-gaming news and you go to like, I don't know, um, the Guardian or a b C News or whatever, they're all gonna have similar things and that's why this is coming up this way. Um, so here's a little bit from I G N uh, let's see. It is worth noting the F T C has an appeal lodged with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the us but the decision isn't due until early December.
The F T C also has an administrative case if its own waiting in the wings, but that won't kick off until 21 days after the ninth Circuit makes a call on the appeal. The F T C appears to intend to undo the merger after the fact.
Although experts say such a move would be unprecedented, thoughts have already turned to Microsoft's integration of the Activision Blizzard business and the future of games such as Call of Duty in an August interview with I G N Xbox Boss Phil Spencer indicated work would need to be done to get Activision Blizzards games on the game pass. Once the deal closes, I want to make sure people know that there's work to actually move games to Game
Pass. Spencer said quote so forth, the people who think the deal is going to close and then everything's available. That's not true and it hasn't been true in other acquisitions that we've done. There's work for us to go do just mechanical work for us to go do. So it'll take us time, definitely time to get the games in the portfolio. So that's good to know. And here's the Verge. They wrote this, this is written by who wrote this one? Tom Warren, Microsoft Eyes closing.
Its giant Activision Blizzard deal next week. Here's some stuff Microsoft is planning to finalize. Its $68.7 billion proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard next week. A source familiar with Microsoft's plans tells the verge that the company is eyeing up Friday, October 13th as the closing date. So all of this kind of matches the other ones. The date will still depend on the UK's competition and markets authority. Though a regulator that blocked Microsoft's deal earlier this year,
Microsoft restructured the deal. We kind of know how that went. Uh, 'cause I've been telling you this with the other articles. The C M A has a deadline that expires today, uh, meaning October 6th today on gathering opinions over whether it should grant consent to Microsoft to proceed with the merger. A final decision from the C M A is expected next week. And barring any surprise, last minute changes should allow Microsoft to close its deal.
Microsoft and Activision extended their deal deadline to October 18th recently. But if Microsoft is able to close the deal next week, then it will bring a close to a 20 month process of regulatory approvals and battles across Europe and the US a little earlier than expected. Um, the F T C of course is still trying to do some shenanigans. That's not what the Verge wrote, but that's basically what's going on with that. So that brings us up to date on how this is going.
It certainly seems like this merger is gonna go through or acquisition or whatever they want to call it. And yeah, it's gonna be a little while before you can expect all of you know, Activision and Blizzards games on say your Xbox or your PlayStation, but, or your computer even. Some of them probably run on a computer. But anyway, um, that's what's going on with that stuff. Wow. Head has some stuff about BlizzCon 2023.
It's titled Hell's Ink Rises again at BlizzCon 2023 posted three days ago by Arcane. And this is about the Diablo Hell's Ink stuff that we've seen on social media with people lining up to get tattoos, like actual real tattoos from people that actually know how to give good tattoos at different places across the United States and a few outside of the United States. That's what this is. They're going to be there for that.
So here's what you need to know. Uh, this week Blizzard has released the floor plan for BlizzCon 2023. The details for Hall A mentions Hell's Ink, a pop-up tattoo event that has appeared in multiple cities twice now for the release of Diablo two Resurrected and Diablo four. There is definitely a floor plan in this article for those who attended.
Those who attended back then were given free Diablo themed flash tattoos such as Diablo Skull, the class icons, the her Roger Cube or Terrio Rod Ferguson Diablo General Manager has now confirmed that this year at B BlizzCon you will also be able to get your own eternal or just temporary proof of allegiance to the Diablo franchise. Yeah, so somebody asked uh, rod Ferguson about that. I wonder if the tattoos at BlizzCon will be permanent or temporary. And Rod Ferguson Res responded on X with both.
Then we've got flash tattoo is real tattoo, like these small one perfect for beginners and there's from a Vatican Studios a bunch of different, uh, class things and stuff like that. And Rod Ferguson replies with correct designs for the show haven't been revealed yet.
So it'd be like those but not actually those maybe as it appears fans will have to wait until later or perhaps the day of the convention to find out what designs will be available when Hell's Inc. Made its rounds last time, each location had its own designs and those who got one were given the mother's inked title in Diablo four. It's not known currently if BlizzCon attendees who receive a tattoo will also be able to claim the endgame title for themselves.
Hopefully attendees will be able to gain the title for themselves, but will have to wait and see. If you're curious about zinc, there's a thing in the wow head article, um, about the Pittsburgh tour where people came in and got tattoos. There's a new thing out and I'm not sure what it's supposed to do, but it's a mobile game, uh, called Warcraft Rumble. It's gonna launch on November 3rd, 2023. It is designed as a mobile action strategy game and it is
free to play. If this is your thing, then you can download it on the app store or get it on Google Play, but you can also pre-register with Battlenet and it's like a phone game kind of thing. So here's what it's um about. Warcraft Rumble is a mobile action strategy game set within the Warcraft universe where collectible minis come to life to battle in frantic melee.
Skirmishes play in multiple modes, including the single player campaign going head-to-head in epic p v p battles and more experienced the true meaning of joyful something. There's a fig, there's a, there's sort of an, uh, a weapon blocking the last of that word. So I don't know, joyful chance maybe they're trying to say. And uh, yeah, a lot of this actually sort of covers up the stuff I'm trying to read to you. So that's fun. Um, yeah.
So you have a Warcraft Rumble brings you frantic mobile action strategy filled with fun characters and unique stages. It's got P V E and P V P and you can assemble your team. You can collect over 65 Warcraft, Warcraft minis and build multiple armies good strategies. The key to victory, there's uh, factions basically. So the Alliance, it says Alliance leaders support defense healing and stealth tactics as well as heavy use of spells.
Tyrion Forgering Ma Shadow song and Jayna Proud more devote their skills to the alliance. The Horde hoard leaders like Grom, hell screams Snead and Karin blood hoof encourage building momentum through earning additional gold, fast attacking troops and enemy control with area of effect stuns there are beasts. Uh, so that includes, uh, beast leaders like Charla Razor Flank and can disable enemy defenses, helping your numerous bestial all allies stampede and overwhelm them quickly.
Others like Hager are right at home with the flurry fast troops swarming your enemies. There's a BlackRock thing, there's an undead thing that might be fun. Um, , I kinda like that stuff. I don't know if I'll play this game. Um, I was playing Diablo immortal a while back and then kind of like lost track or probably got sick again and couldn't do it for a while and I had a computer
issue. So I don't know. But this could be a fun little thing to play when you're like, you know, waiting in line at the grocery store or something I suppose, or you're just bored or you really, really, really like Warcraft. I mean that could be it. Um, I don't think it's a bad thing. I don't think it's something I'm gonna immediately wanna jump into though. Okay, so this is from PC Gamer. It's written by Tyler Culp. It was, it was published two days ago and it's titled Diablo Fours.
Season two Patch Fixes almost every problem I've had with it since launch. There are so many changes. You could almost call it Diablo four, uh, four 2.0. And here's part of what he wrote.
There are 51 quality of life changes in the Diablo four season two patch notes that address some of the major RPGs, most glaring issues, major parts of the game like leveling speed mounts and dungeon layouts have been so dramatically changed that you could almost call this update Diablo four 2.0. A dramatic overhaul for a game that's just four months old.
Starting on October 17. When the season of blood begins, your seasonal and non-seasonal characters will level up faster, have cleaner inventories, finish dungeons more easily, ride their mouths faster and find better gear than in season one. Just about everything that got in the way of jumping around sanctuary and
slaying demons has been smoothed out. Quote, season two really represents the first release where we've had a bit of time to really read all the feedback from players, watch the videos, and watch players play and play a lot ourselves in a more live environment with our friends Associate game director Joe Priya Pura said in a group interview with PC Gamer, uh, the best live service games are ones where there's a healthy dialogue between the player base and the development team.
He said explaining how the new patch targets some of the community's most requested changes, particularly with the end game or post level 50 experience. And it goes on from there, uh, everyone can skip the campaign. Apparently it's easy to miss one of Diablo four season two's biggest changes for new players in the huge list of patch notes. Now once you complete the prologue, you can skip the campaign on new characters.
Blizzard really said the cataclysmic feud between Lilith and Denarius can wait. Do the campaign on your own time as long as you finish the roughly hour long prologue on one character, you can skip the other 20 hours of the story and jump straight into seasonal quests from now on. Hallelujah. 'cause I didn't think I'd ever get into a season with the,
the way it was going before. Uh, to continue, uh, let's see, the patch note doesn't specify it, but I'd assume eternal Realm characters will be able to skip the campaign too. And leveling to 100 is significantly faster. Dungeons won't waste your time anymore. Blizzards says it's massively reduced. Backtracking in Dungeons by plotting their required objectives on the critical
path. Dungeons will also be quote, more procedurally generated and random to break up the monotony of running the same one several times a week. These changes are listed under Nightmare Dungeons, the high level version of Diablo four's regular dungeons. But they should affect both versions and save everyone the pain of reaching a dead end. And best of all, in my opinion,
inventory and stash management is much easier. Uh, it will be easier and faster with the changes coming in Diablo four, season two as previously announced, GEMS will finally skip your inventory and count as crafting resources that you'll need to take to a jeweler in one of the major cities. To use that alone would do a lot to keep your inventory clean, but now the three lowest tiers of items in world tiers three and four will drop as crafting resources to saving you a trip to town.
Blizzard has also added a search bar and filter to your stash. You could simply type the name of the item you want or use a filter to highlight a specific category of items. And any town with a waypoint, we'll now have a stash as well. Mounts are better in just every way. Uh, the Diablo forests, horses hit the gym for season two and are just better all around their normal normal speed is 15% faster. They're less prone to getting stuck in the environment and slowing to ac crawl.
Their boosted speed with Spur lasts longer and breaks through barriers and the cooldowns for summoning them after dismounting has been cut in half. The same Cooldown reduction applies to the unique amount skills for each class. And you don't have to move your mouse to the edge of the screen anymore to reach full spur speed and it is now relative to where your mouse started when you
activate the ability. If this isn't Diablo four two, uh, four 2.0, it's definitely Diablo four horses 2.0 and the renowned rewards are finally permanent. So the renowned thing, um, you might know what that is. Diablo four's worst grind is finally over.
Renowned rewards are permanent once you've earned them once, instead of having to hunt down the same altars of Lilith, complete the same dungeons finish the same side quests, and re-explore all of sanctuary every single time you start a new character. All of the rewards from maximizing your renowned per region will persist forever. All the skill points, potion, capacity upgrades, max Bels upgrades and Paragon points will be available from the start of any new
character you make. If you're a sicko, you could redo it all for the XP and Gold Rewards, but this writer that wrote this article says, I wouldn't recommend it unique and Uber unique items will be farmable. I'm gonna keep going here. And that's probably about it, but that's pretty exciting that they're doing all this cool stuff and I'll probably jump back in when I have time and energy to do it.
Here's an article from Wow Head Lilith is coming to Overwatch two when season seven Rise of Darkness launches on October 10th, posted by Popular Popular on Wow head Lilith, the mother of sanctuary, daughter of Hatred, and Diablo Force's Final Boss will appear in Overwatch two when season seven Rise of Darkness releases on October 10th. And there's a, I wanna say tweet on x, I don't, I can't quite make that work, uh, from Overwatch kind of talking about that.
The President of Blizzard Entertainment, Mike Ybarra followed up to confirm that this depiction of Lilith, which is in the Wow Head article and everything I talk about will be in the show notes@shatteredsoulstone.com when I'm done talking about all of them with all of you people. Um, so Mikey Barr followed up to confirm that this depiction of Lilith will be an
upcoming cosmetic skin for the support hero. Moira, which kind of, when you look at it like, yeah, that looks like that character frame and it's got like Lilith's face and the horns and the whole thing. Uh, Overwatch two, season seven Rise of Darkness will be available on October 10th and one week later, Diablo four season of Blood will release on October 17th.
So you can just have all Lilith all the time. I guess over on Max Roll Dready, who writes such detailed wonderful things that tell you everything you could possibly want to know about, uh, things in Diablo four in this case. So this was actually posted today, uh, last updated anyway, today, October 6th, new end game Bosses season of blood, uh, season two, season of blood. And he's written this, there were a lot of topics covered during the developer livestream.
One major edition are the new end game bosses. The Diablo team talked about how this edition is to give players more to do in world tiers three and four, giving players more challenging fights and the ability to target farm uniques and even Uber uniques. The best part is that this is a permanent addition to the base game. Let's zone in and kill some baddies. And there's a, a list of these like there's, they're all grouped together and um, the names of these are echoes of Varsha Durel,
king of Maggots, the Beast in Ice. Gr Gore, the Galvanic Saint and Dark Master. Lord Zeer hard version in the front there. Okay, end game boss information. There are five new end game bosses to fight come the release of Patch 1.2. A few important things to understand before we get into each boss. Summoning components are tradable. The items required to summon these bosses are tradable between players. Also, only one player is required to have them in a party. Elemental themed.
While talking about grigore, the galvanic saint the dev team stated that each one would have an associated element attached to them. It is highly advised to keep this in mind when preparing to fight any particular one differing loot tables. Each boss has a distinct loot table geared towards allowing the player to target farm specific cosmetics items and even Uber uniques.
Dural only with that one. In regard to Uber uniques, it was stated that you will definitely know people that have these items. So they're probably going to, you know, be there. There's a progression, uh, chart here put together very nicely by dread site. Uh, one to 50, here's what you got. 50 to 70, there's some more and then 71 to 100. It's the full activity flow chart displaying the end game bosses and linked activities, specific requirements.
Each bus requires you to do differing activities that start in either world tier three or four. Whether it's doing hell tide running, nightmare dungeons, or challenging world bosses. Each part of the game is tied to one of the new bosses. With this information,
let's tackle what you need to know to fight each one. So the echoes of Varsha, I'm not gonna read all of this to you, but I highly recommend you read it if you're interested in this stuff because I don't wanna like just go through all of this. Dready does an amazing job but I uh, you know, I'll tell you a little bit more and you can look up the rest for yourself on shattered soul stone.com. So Echoes of Han is a world's tier minimum requirement.
World tier three activity required complete whispers of the dead. That's probably a quest cosmetic reward. The flesh weld rod trophy in order to summon Han defeat grotesque debtors while completing grims grim favors in uh, world tier three or four. This has a chance to drop a malignant body part when you turn in 10 grim favors to the tree of whispers. There is a guaranteed malignant body part in the collection.
You choose once you have the correct parts, you can travel to Han's area beneath the tree to summon him specifically on world tier four. You will also require a, uh, malignant heart in addition to the body parts. It is not clear at this time where they come from. Grigor. The galvanic saint is also, uh, requires World three tier. You have to participate in halide. The cosmetic reward is a demon binder. Mount armor cosmetic.
The beast in ice is world tier minimum required world tier four, uh, you have to complete nightmare dungeons up to tier 30 plus. And the cosmetic reward is skull touch and fell steed. Mount trophies Dural king of maggots. Oh, he's green in this one. Look at that. Wow. He's riding away I think, I don't know. Uh, world tier minimum required is world tier four activity required collect components by defeating echoes of VARs and grieger the galvanic saint,
both in world tier four only. The cosmetic reward is smoldering, a brimstone mount and dark master. Lord Zer hard mode world tier, minimum required world tier four activity required collect components by defeating world bosses or completing legion events, both in world tier four only cosmetic reward diatom of the ancient helm. Cosmetic. There's more cosmetic rewards. There's some pictures here of different things. And that's pretty much it for this one.
Diablo four has written something on October 4th that was released titled Bite Down on Darkness in Season of Blood. So this is the vampire season as far as I can tell. Uh, stepping out from the shadows that once obscured them. The dark masters blood seekers swoop in to prey on unsuspecting mortals.
Their ravenous appetites have grown in the season of blood. Uh, the season of blood will soon ooze through sanctuary Diablo four's Second season begins on October 17 at 10:00 AM p d t Dare to look fanged destruction in the face and send it back to hell with a new season journey. Quest line season event. Deadly blood driven enemies battle pass and more. Plus the new Uber end game bosses have arrived in sanctuary to increase the variety of end game activities in Diablo four.
These havoc wreaking bosses are hard to topple but can drop unique items and cosmetics found nowhere else where shedding light on all the grizzly details. Read on for a more comprehensive look at season of blood's contents beginning with season of blood players will have the option to skip the campaign. I think I've mentioned this already. Whole bunch of stuff in here. Turn back Crimson Tides with Aras in a new quest.
At first they targeted small hamlets deciding upon or descending upon in insignificant prey and tearing into their jugular, a most grizzly death to befall someone. But then their ambitions grew and they became sloppy greedy. That's when word of suspicious vampire activity met your ears. Wanderer. Magistrate Orrin, the distraught leader of a town badly plagued by these blood thirsty assailants. Need your help in investigating the recent slew of murders?
Enter sanc sanctuaries vampire infested underbelly in a new quest line. Recruit the skillful vampire hunter heiress to your cause and discover the sinister plot of the dark master behind it. All. Your monstrous new adversaries are not a typical demonic disturbance and require you to harness their vampiric powers. With the aid of a new pact armor, you must unleash your new fold power on its originators in a most ruthless display to put them to rest. Only then may sanctuary be truly safe.
For a bell embark on this new quest line by heading over to Ed bdu. Speak to Oren and he will set you off on the blood money quest. He can also siphon the blood of your foes using vampiric powers, which is interesting. Driving a stake into the heart of the dark Masters plan will require you to wield their same savagery Vampiric powers. What was once a forbidden art shall become sanctuary salvation. But to weld it,
you're going to need blood potent blood. Those words are capitalized, acquired from fallen adversaries. Potent blood can be spent in the Vampire Powers tab with the character menu to unlock a random power or power upgrade. Vampiric powers can also be unlocked by completing the seasonal quest line and from the blood harvest seasonal event. We'll cover the ladder in detail later. And then you have pack armor, packed armor you can use.
There's three types of it. They're called ferocity, divinity, and eternity. Keep your eyes peeled for chest armor, pants, gloves, boots, and helms containing packs that drop. It's P A C T S by the way that drop during season of blood because they are needed to activate your vampiric powers. Once you have both packed armor and vampiric powers equipped, you need to ensure that the armor you're wearing provides packs that match, that activate cost listed on the power.
And then there's some other stuff in here that you need bleed new blood into your build. Now that you've learned of Vampiric powers and Packed Armor, let's look at the 22 Vampiric powers available in Season of Blood. Yeah, I'm not reading all that to you right now, but it's here in this article and it'll be up in shattered soul stone.com when I'm done talking. Wellhead has an article posted by popular Popular who wrote a new Diablo four mount.
Features will be discussed during first season two live stream. And it says during Diablo four's campfire chat live stream in July. The development team responded to several suggestions made by the community. Some of the suggestions related to the mount system in Diablo four, uh, were to allow mounts to break through bar barricades during their chargeability and the mount cool down after using a ladder or just remove the mount Cool down
altogether. After this campfire chat, Diablo four designer Joe Shelley, confirmed that the team would be implementing some of these features for future Diablo four Seasons. He wrote on X. We are going to allow the mount charge to break through barricades. I realized I didn't state this explicitly during the Diablo four campfire chat
today. That's from July 29. Now, months later it has been announced by Joe Shelley that this topic will be discussed during the first season of Blood Live Stream on October 4th, which some of you have probably seen by now. Uh, someone named Lord Death asks any updates on this and Joe Shelley says yes.
Check out the dev livestream on October four. Todd McFarland, writer, artist, producer, entertainer, and Todd McFarland Farland Toys, uh, together as relevant people Over here on X, there is a sneak peek of McFarland toys with the first wave of Diablo four toys coming in soon. They're basically figures. They look kind of big.
They're not like little teeny things like, you know, ones you can paint up and stuff, but these are like full fledged figures of many of the classes and there's some really awesome looking skeletons in there that I would probably dig, um, . So yeah, it looks cool. It's got the druid and uh, I think that's, that's another skeleton right there. So they have two skeletons, looks like a wizard or something or Sorceress. And then there's this like blood barren with all the blood things coming around
him and they're pretty cool. I have no idea when you get 'em. Uh, they're gonna be at the New York Toy Fair in 2023. I don't know exactly when that's gonna happen, but I think this stuff's kind of neat. On October 2nd to Blizzard watch posted an article titled How to Find The Side Quest You may Have Missed In Diablo Forest is written by Sarah Hanssen. Many people are trying to finish out the last of their Diablo for side quests to
get com to get to complete their renno. Uh, there's a little, I think I'm reading that wrong, but anyway, uh, but finding these side quests can be trickier than it seems. The Renno interface gives you a total count of quests in each zone and how many you have completed. Most side quests you haven't completed will show up on your map as either a blue exclamation mark or a blue diamond marker with a blue outline for the objective if you're currently on them.
But the quests you are most likely to have missed are the hidden quests that are either triggered by a drop aloo drop in the zone. All Quest items, even the ones with Start Quest, have aqua text or are blocked behind story progression. A common complaint is the lack of any sort of in-game log to show you which quests you have completed and which ones are outstanding. This means that finding those last few quests may require you to pound the pavement for a bit.
We hope this list can help you narrow your outstanding quests quickly. Quests have been listed in alphabetical order by zone. Most do not have any prerequisites beyond a minimum character level. But check just in case if you're having trouble locating any of the sub zones. This map below will, uh, allow you to search by sub zone name. So they have frequently missed quests in fractured peaks in, uh, skulls Glen in the dry steps in Azar.
I think I'm saying that right, maybe not. And ke is done. So yeah, I'm gonna hang onto to that 'cause there's probably a lot of quests I haven't finished yet, so I'm gonna try that eventually. And hey, if you think you've missed requests, this is the thing to look for. It's really detailed. So here's Adam Fletcher, also known as Pez Radar on X. He wrote, seen some confusion on hardcore characters and renowned carrying over from our recap blog.
The confusion is justified and so we have updated the blog to correctly address this. So there is part of a blog under miscellaneous improvements and at the bottom it is highlighted in a red box that says, uh, this also applies to hardcore characters. If renowned rewards were earned on a hardcore character in the season of malignant, those earned rewards persist for a new hardcore character in season of blood.
Regardless of whether your previous hardcore character died for hardcore characters, alters of Lilith and map discovery progress still carries over within the hardcore realm. Similar to season of the malignant alters of Lilith and map discovery progress for hardcore characters that died before season of the malignant will not persist for season of blood. So that's something to know if you've been doing that. Uh, wild Head has this funny little tweet here and, um, I,
I'm not really sure you know exactly what this is. I don't think they're joking. So here's wow, head on x new power suggests there may be a twilight crossover with Diablo four's Season two vampire themed patch coming out soon. There's a card here that certainly looks like something that fell out of Diablo four called Vampiric Power, which probably goes along with some of those items that I mentioned before a
little bit. I didn't go into too much detail, but to get the idea and is named Cullen, c u l l e n level one place into the sanguine circle when struck. There is a 10.0% chance to look brooding and sparkle by 50% for 10 seconds gain plus 500% buff to any baseball skills while super massive black hole plays acquired with potent blood. Is this a joke? Is it real? I don't know. , I'm really not sure, but it's, yeah, it's talking about like the Twilight movies, which were okay,
but the books were better. You know, I've, I've got all of 'em 'cause I was working in a bookstore at the time and people kept asking me about them and if it's like, can my kid read this? And I'm like, I better read 'em. So I did most of them. Uh, anyway, moving on. Uh, pure Diablo has a Diablo four season two wishlist, and there's a lot of stuff in here. Um, the seasonal theme is, uh, you pair up with the Vampire Hunter Aris voice by actress Gemma Chun or Chan Searcy from Eternals.
In her first video game role characters will gain special abilities that will transform them into day Walker vampires as they join Aris in the hunt to defeat a powerful vampire. Lord Blizzard has previously announced it'll be updating a number of game systems, including how elemental resistance are handled and as, as well as additional ways to deal damage. Many members of the Diablo community have pointed to the issue of resistances as being the most important problem in the game thus far.
Although this may not adversely impact every player, it does contribute to the strain of leveling from seven to 170 to 100 due to the scaling of enemies, despite the claims from the developers that the game would foster genuine flexibility when building a character. The role of effects like vulnerable damage or critical strike damage are still relatively too large. The devs had promised more options in this area, some of which we should expect when the next, in the next one or two patches,
the renowned carrying over, they're talking about that in here. Target farming, um, stash space. That's one of the best things you could do because I had so many gems, so many gems in my stash that I couldn't like put things in there. Excuse me, I've been talking too much apparently. And then they have a wishlist of what they'd like to see Pur Diablo does. Um, so let's see if there's anything clear in here that's quick to just go over Stash space. They're talking about that quality of life,
they're talking about that. So I recommend you read it, um, because it's got a lot in there. There's a disclaimer at the bottom. They wanna know your opinions on this matter, so sound off in the comments. If you have some opinions for them, I'm sure they'll read them out or put them somewhere and then we have this. Okay, so as you may have heard or maybe you didn't, uh, Elon Musk decided to play Diablo four on Twitter, like as a video,
like a live video. I'm sure it's still out there somewhere, right? And um, I watched some of it. I wasn't, uh, I I missed it the first time around. So I, you know, when I was ready to go back on X, um, I went and looked for that and it was interesting, um, he was sitting in a dark room and you could tell that his computer's in front of him. You couldn't see the monitor or anything, but you could see that. And he's got a camera on him. So in the corner of the game he's, you know, talking to you.
And I think he blew that up a bit to show that he had some candles around just because you know, why not. And then he started going over um, he's playing a druid, he's playing a male druid and he was going over every piece of armor and everything that's that druid is wearing and what it does. And I kind of skimmed through that a little bit 'cause I played a little bit of druid. I'm like, okay, I kind of get that, but can you play, you know, that's what I was thinking.
And he went through a level 69 dungeon. Uh, I don't remember if it was hardcore or not, I don't think it was. And you know, went in and slaughtered a bunch of enemies and things like that. And somewhere before he got really into the dungeon,
he said that his character is named I Will Never Die. And then he said, it's kind of a joke because I have died a few times and I swear to you before this live stream went up on Twitter, I saw a character that looked like a druid that's name was I will Never Die. So I'm thinking Elon's been playing this secretly and then just did a video. And he felt like he was strong enough to show everybody his skills, right? And he also noted, um, that the mobs that you face before you get to the end boss
in these dungeons a level 69 dungeon. 'cause of course he's, that's the number he'll pick, right? The boss itself at the end isn't as difficult as the mobs you have to fight through. And I think that's an accurate assessment. I don't know why it goes that way, but that's what it was. Um, and he played for quite some time.
So I've got an article here from Kotaku about this titled Elon Musk's Diablo Foreplay isn't bad, but his Twitter live stream sure was Twitter or X doesn't look like it will be a Twitch competitor anytime soon. And they have a picture, there's okay, I do a lot of writing for other people's websites and very often lately it's been about Elon Musk and there is just numerous photos of him making strange faces for some reason.
But this time he looks very worried and they've placed a Lilith behind him, which I think is hysterically funny. , it's just like nicely done art here. Um, so here's the article. Elon Musk followed up a September proclamation that he test out video game live streaming on X Twitter with a run through of Diablo four's most difficult tier 100 nightmare dungeon. The October stream was an unprecedented success in the sense that it happened
with, as far as I can tell, zero race baiting. I don't know what that means. Uh, however, pervasive technical difficulties make it unlikely that X will soon be a serious streaming platform. Musk made a burner account at C y b three r g a m e three R four 20. So cyber gamer four 20 to shove, troubleshoot Twitter streaming capacities for an hour, sorry capabilities for an hour. And to debut his lighting, set up a few candles in an otherwise unlit room for atmosphere.
Musk said about the candles his character named, I Will Never Die. That's what it was. I will never die. I will N V r die though Musk died three times in a later Diablo stream on his main account once because he got annihilated by a bursting blood blister, uh, is a werewolf druid. He uses mostly earth skills like claw and earth and bulwark shield. And he wel wields gear that compliments his storm Wolf build. Well, like the great staff of the crone sensible picks Kotaku video lead.
Eric Shulkin told me over Slack, where is he streaming from? A crypt , aside from Musk's questionable room lighting, his practice stream looked and sounded all right hi. On his official stream though Musk Musk fretted over whether he sounded like a chipmunk, he did, uh, the stream upped sound frequency by four kilohertz. He said on Twitter the screen flickered lazily like Musk's tail two wick candle making, uh, tall, sorry, tall two wick candle making Musks silent gameplay.
Nearly unwatchable there is, it's still there on on X. Uh, unlike Twitter, YouTube, Twitter doesn't show live comments, which only subscribers can leave on the screen. So Musk would have also sometimes drop the game entirely to giggle at his phone chat. Room two. Full ha ha ha he said at the end of his play streaming, Musk noted that Twitter has a lot of things to improve in its streaming.
You might wonder how Musk finds spare time to grind to level 100 in Diablo, manage his plethora of businesses and find time to be a good father to his 11 or so children. I don't think he does court records. Uh, yeah, there's a court thing going on with his ex-girlfriend and yeah, suing him for parental rights apparently so. Yeah, I didn't know that that character. The I will Never Die. Was it, I think, is that his name? Let me look at this. It's in here somewhere.
I just thought it was funny 'cause I remember I was walking through, uh, like the main town, the starter town basically with a character I was trying to level up and, uh, yeah, the I will Never Die. I remember, you know, I passed that one and then I went, wait a minute, and it came back and I read his name again. So I think he's been playing this game and just not telling anyone until he did
the live stream. So that's kind of, that's kind of a thing, you know. So, you know, the boss of X fought a dungeon boss in Diablo four and streamed it on X Phospho versus Boss, I guess, you know. Uh, we've also got, um, a thing here descendant to the Diablo four developer update live stream. Um, I think this may done already. Uh, there's an article about the season of Blood. There's, um, five new endgame bosses. I think this is kind of same Z but it's in here.
So if you wanna read it without all the pictures, you can do that. And then we have Dexter Row who has an article titled Diablo four GM confirms annual Expansions for the Game. This is written by Patrick Dane on it was September 5th. I just don't think I got there to get this one in, but still it might be interesting. Ever since the launch of Diablo four players have been clamoring for more season of the malignant has helped to tide players over and give them a new chase.
It allows players to go out into the world and roll a new character to hunt down new builds. That said, while these work as seasonal releases, like the upcoming season, two players are hungry for juicier expansions. Diablo Two's Lord of Destruction, expansion, and Diablo three's Reaper of Souls were both very well-liked and they're already mounting expectations for Diablo four to match those, especially with the story left off in the campaign.
Players will be hoping to see that continuation in the future. However, while we've known there are multiple expansions in the works, it's not been clear when we might expect those. However, we may now know in recent interview with Dextero Diablo, general manager, rod Ferguson said the game will be getting annual expansions. Blizzard is planning to support Diablo for, for years into the future. In our interview, we asked Ferguson how long the team is planning ahead with Diablo for and the
exchange. Ferguson referenced quarterly seasons and annual expansions, giving us a glimpse into how Blizzard is considering the Diablo calendar. And he's got a whole like back and forth thing going on here with, with Rod Ferguson and some other stuff. So I'll leave you to read that if you're interested. And then, uh, we've got this thing here from Rex Anex on YouTube and it's titled My Future as a Content Creator. And he posted this two weeks ago in short, and I I do recommend you watch it.
It's only about 12 minutes long. He's, um, pretty much done with Diablo four. He was feeling like there wasn't much left to do. And another thing he talked about is one of the things he's always liked about video games is learning how to play the game well, which he probably has done in Diablo before. And then teaching it to other people so they can play well. And he's just not really found enough stuff to make that work for him.
So he's playing other games and that's absolutely fine. That's, uh, that's a video you should check out. It's not very long. Um, it's well done, obviously. Um, he's right to the point and that's gonna be it for this particular show. So I'm gonna close the show out Now. You've been listening to episode 4 29 of the Shattered Soul Stone. Your Diablo community podcast. Missed an episode. You can find the show blog and listen to the show archives at
www.shatteredsoulstone.com. Come join us in game our in-game community and clan, both named Shattered Soul Stone, are open to anyone who would like to join. You can also join us on Discord for the ultimate team and community-based experience, find the Discord invitation link on our Twitter at shattered stone, as well as the Shattered Soul Stone website. Thank you for listening. It is September 29th, 2023. That's not right, . Ah, I just didn't change it, that's all. Let's try that again.