It's time for Shattered Soul Stone, featuring the latest news from sanctuary and beyond. Each episode a heroic party of Nlo 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 3 99 of Shattered Soul Stone, your Diablo Community podcast. This episode is called Deals. It is February 24th, 2023. And this is Jen.
I'm gonna start you off with an article from The Verge from a couple days ago, I think, and it's titled Microsoft and Sony Square off in EU Showdown Over Activision and Call of Duty. This is not the only thing Microsoft has done in the last week or so. There's a lot, so I'll just kind of run through it as quickly as possible. So this article says Microsoft and Sony's Gaming Chiefs are both preparing to meet with EU regulators today. This was post John the uh,
February 21st. So today was February 21st. This is already done by now, but if, if you missed it cuz a lot of news went by this week. Uh, here it is in a showdown over Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The closed door hearing in Brussels will see Xbox Chief Phil Spencer, and other senior Microsoft executives argue the case for the 68.7 billion D dollar deal. To proceed with PlayStation Chief Jim Ryan attending to voice Sony's concerns over the deal.
It is a pivotal moment for Microsoft's proposed acquisition, which has already seen opposition from regulators in the UK and us. The FTC is suing Microsoft to block its ACT Division Blizzard purchase while the CMA published its provisional findings of its investigation earlier this month. Warning that the deal could harm UK gamers, the CMA has offered up possible remedies that include Microsoft being forced to sell off Activision Blizzard's business associated with Call of
Duty. Today's, and again it was a few days ago, a closed door meeting will feature a stack of executives from Microsoft, including President Brad Smith alongside Activision CEO Bobby Codick Rotor's reports that representatives from Google, Nvidia Valve Electronic Arts and the European Games Developer Federation will all be present alongside half a dozen different national competition watchdogs.
Microsoft's Smith revealed earlier today that the company has now signed a legally binding contract with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty and other and potentially other Xbox Games tune Nintendo consoles. Smith tweeted the announcement this morning before a meeting with reporters where he said Microsoft is willing to accept regulatory undertakings to get the deal approved in Europe. That's probably all you need from this particular article.
Koku also wrote an article I, uh, recently about this. Uh, it says Microsoft President is carrying that giant Sony Call of Duty deal in pocket. Weirdly, I don't know if that's sarcasm or if that's what he did . So, uh, this is written by Zach wheen and here's the article Earlier today, Microsoft President Brad Smith and Xbox Boss, Phil Spencer talked briefly to the media about its ongoing attempt to consume Activision Blizzard King.
Continuing once again to act like the larger spat is mostly about Call of Duty. At one point Smith said he was carrying a contract with him that would keep Call of Duty on PlayStation after the sale goes through, claiming that it all came down to Sony actually signing the thing. Conveniently he was ignoring that the holdup on the contract was happening because you know the deal itself, which could potentially have an industry-wide impact that far outstrips Call of
Duty. For those of you just tuning in, Microsoft has spent the last 12 months trying to buy Activision Blizzard for the
astoundingly large amount of 69 billion. However, almost since the moment the deal was announced, regulators and governments around the world as well as rival companies like Sony have voiced opposition to the deal These entities don't want the deal to go through because it could give Xbox too much power over the industry by owning many of the biggest brands in gaming such as Starfield and Minecraft among other issues.
And Microsoft has spent the last year jumping from courtroom to courtroom and country to country trying to convince everyone that one massive corporation buying up another massive corporation is totally good for the industry and not horrible at all. It also keeps trying to get Sony to sign a deal on Call of Duty as part of these
efforts. So today, as part of this ongoing worldwide tour of courtrooms and regulatory councils, Microsoft execs were in Brussels, Belgium as part of a behind closed doors hearing with the European Commission, which like many other groups had concerns about the division deal. After hearing after that hearing Smith and Spencer held a brief media briefing and there's a little parenthesis that says ha in there like it's, that's kind of funny phrase the way it was printed, but whatever.
And mostly went over the same things they've said about how Sony is already dominating the game industry and how Microsoft needs Activision Blizzard to comp to compete.
All of these arguments were trotted out while also pointing out that Nintendo had just signed a 10 year deal with the company to bring Call of Duty to switch a deal that's come across as Microsoft trying to prove it won't keep some of its biggest franchises to itself should the deal go through and if it's willing to put forth a decade long deal on Call of Duty, the thinking goes. Microsoft is clearly not trying to build a monopoly through this deal.
It was during this part of the briefing as reported by games industry biz that Smith revealed he was actually carrying the contract for a similar deal that would keep Call of Duty on PlayStation consoles. It was in an envelope in his pocket quote. We haven't agreed on a deal with Sony, but I hope we will. Smith said, I hope today is a day that will advance our industry and regulation in a
responsible way. Sony can spend all its energy trying to block this deal, which will reduce competition and slow the evolution of the market. Or they can sit down with us and hammer out a deal. It goes on from there. But that's the main points out of that one. There was essentially a press release posted on Microsoft News titled Microsoft and Avidia announced expansive new gaming deal. This was on February 21st. So they've been busy, they've been real busy and this isn't even the end of it.
So the blurb says Partnership will bring blockbuster lineup of Xbox Games including Minecraft and Activision. Titles like Call of Duty to Nvidia GForce now Cloud Gaming Service. Here's the presser. On Tuesday, Microsoft and Nvidia announced to the companies have agreed to a 10 year partnership to bring Xbox PC games to the Nvidia GForce now cloud gaming service, which has more than 25 million members in over 100 countries.
The agreement will enable gamers to stream Xbox PC titles from GForce now to PCs, Mac os, Chromebooks, SmartBooks and other devices. It will also enable Activision Blizzard PC titles such as Call of Duty to be streamed on GForce. Now after Microsoft acquisition of Activision closes, Xbox remains committed to giving people more choice and finding ways to expand how people play. Said Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer.
This partnership will help grow NVIDIA's catalog of titles to include games like Call of Duty while giving developers more ways to offer streaming games. We're excited to offer gamers more ways to play the games they love.
And then, uh, the next paragraph is not from Phil Spencer. Quote, combining the incredibly rich catalog of Xbox first party games with GForce Now's high performance streaming capabilities will propel cloud gaming into a mainstream offering that appeals to gamers at all levels of interest and experience. Said Jeff Fisher, senior vice president at GForce four GForce Nvidia, I hope I'm pronouncing that right. Quote though this partnership.
Through this partnership, more of the world's most popular titles will be will now be available from the cloud with just a click playable by millions more gamers. The partnership delivers increased choice to gamers and resolves NVIDIA's concerns with Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Nvidia therefore is offering its full support for regulatory approval of the acquisition.
Microsoft and Nvidia will begin work immediately to integrate Xbox PC games into GForce now so that GForce now members can stream PC games they buy in the window store, including third party partner titles where the publisher has granted streaming rights to Nvidia Xbox PC games currently available in third party stores like Steam or Epic Games store will also be able to be streamed through through GForce.
Now visit the GForce now website for more information about on the service and follow along every GFN Thursday for the latest news, including release dates for upcoming Microsoft game titles Coming to the GForce Now service, the agreement was announced today at a Microsoft press conference in Brussels, Belgium. Microsoft also shared today that it finalized a 10 year agreement to bring the latest version of Call of Duty to the Nintendo platform following the merger
with Activision. That phrase, following the merger with Activision is really holding a lot of weight here because we don't know for sure if that's gonna work or not. CN b c wrote to Nvidia supports Microsoft Activision merger after Xbox deal to add games to cloud service. It's probably saying similar things that uh, you know, we're in the presser cuz that's generally how these things work. But you can read this if you want.
Everything that I talk about on the show will be in the show notes@chattersoulstone.com. Polygon wrote to Microsoft Science deal with Nvidia to bring Xboxs PC games to GForce. Now I'm not sure if they have anything new in here, uh, other than the presser they do. There is a little bit of news in here.
The companies did not specify which Xbox PC games would be included as part of the arrangement, but the list would likely include titles like Halo Infinite Fours, a Horizon five, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and other high profile first party offerings. The Deal could also see the return of Bethesda Soft Works, published games to GForce now, which were removed along a host along with Side, a host of Activision Blizzard titles three years ago.
Then it talks about the press conference and uh, what the UK had said about this whole thing. There's an article from ign, Microsoft Strikes Deal to bring all Xbox Games to GForce now. So this went all through the press, all through the press that talks about gaming.
It went through like most of them, the like the big ones. Yeah, a lot of this is just, it's kind of the same as you know, stuff I've already read in here cuz these things all end up being the same if they're all following the same uh, you know, presser I guess right. Press release. Um, let's see. There's a little bit in here about Sony. Okay, Microsoft previously made the same 10 year call of Duty commitment to Valve.
Though Gabe Newell said a formal agreement wasn't necessary, the deal was also extended to Sony. Though the PlayStation parent company has declined to sign it as it continues to push back against the acquisition, these commitments are an appeal to regulator's. Primary concerns about Microsoft making Activision Blizzard's biggest games, namely Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox, A move they argue would stifle competition and therefore harm consu consumers.
The Nvidia commitment was announced earlier today during a press conference in Brussels, during which Microsoft also dismissed the idea of splitting up Activision Blizzard's major subsidiaries, Activision Blizzard and King to push the merger through regulatory reviews, uh, announced over a year ago.
The acquisition is being contested by the US' Federal Trade Commission, UK's competitions and to market authority and most recently the European Union, despite the setbacks xbox's, Phil Spencer told ign he remains confident the deal will go through GeekWire wrote to Microsoft Inc's binding contract with Nintendo for Call of Duty as it defends Activision deal. These probably have similar things, uh, in them as the other ones,
but you can take your pick on what you wanna see it looks like. Yeah, this was talking basically about Nintendo. There's a couple of updates in here, but I think we've already gone over those. Uh, ours Technica, Microsoft and Nintendo signed 10 year deal for Full Call of Duty updated, and I don't know what the update is, probably the same as the other things in here, but this went everywhere. Right?
And then we have IGN again, CWA urges European Commission to approve Microsoft's Activision Blizzard deal. The blurb here says, we hope you approve this merger and help make history in rebalancing power in labor markets. This is written by Anthony Wood, the president of the Communications Workers of America CWA Labor Union Group has asked the European Commission to quote, help make history end quote by approving the proposed Microsoft Activision Blizzard merger.
The request was made by CWA president Christopher Stalton in an email to the European Commission's Executive Vice President Margaret Vestige as reported by something called gi.biz. The two page statement was released earlier this week to coincide with a closed meeting held in Brussels between Microsoft and the European Commission, which is currently investigating the merger over anti-competition concerns.
The CWA had voiced concerns previously that the merger could further aggravate the power imbalance between Activision Blizzard workers and management, which in turn could have led to lower wages and less bargaining power over working conditions. Microsoft sub subsequently held talks with the cwa, which resulted in a labor neutrality agreement designed to ensure Activision Blizzard employees quote, a clear path to collective bargaining if the merger is completed.
The European Commission has an opportunity in this case to take seriously the impact of a major transaction on the video game labor markets at Shelton. Quote, given the clear pathway to enforceable behavioral remedies for potential consumer harms articulated by the European Commission and other regulators, we hope you will approve this merger and help make history in rebalancing power in labor markets.
The CWA has been assisting Activision Blizzard workers to establish unions in order to improve working conditions and accountability Since 2021 though it said in the letter that large tech corporations are often hostile to collective bargaining and workplace protections goes on on from here with some history. But I think we've uh, heard some of that before. And then we have from PC Gamer, the union organizing Activision told the EU that life would be much better under
Microsoft. So it's probably a similar thing here, but you can like read any of them that you choose in the show notes later on. And then we have, uh, game World Observer. This one's new to me. I don't know a lot about this particular website, but they wrote this. Tencent supports Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, at least one Chinese company Express concern expresses concern. So here's this is written by NY abk.
While Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard is under regulatory scrutiny in the west, some Chinese companies have supported the deal. The country's gaming giant Tencent is reported to be one of them. There's some bullet points here, so I'll just read those. Um, two Chinese game companies, including Tencent recently came out in support of the Activision Blizzard
acquisition according to deal reporter via Seeking Alpha. However, there's at least one local firm that has expressed its concerns over the merger to the county's country, sorry, antitrust regulator. State Administration for Market regulations S A M R. The exact ratio of supporters to opponents of the deal among Chinese companies remains undisclosed. Last April, Microsoft filed its bid to acquire Activision Blizzard with the Chinese watchdog under a simplified procedure.
The S A M R later declined the request saying that it will review the deal under normal procedure. The Chinese regulator wanted first to examine the concerns that other global regulators, including the European Commission have over the merger. This includes potential damage to market competition and the possibility of Microsoft making Call of Duty and other Activision Blizzard games exclusive to
Xbox. Tencent hasn't publicly confirmed its support of the 68.7 billion deal, but given it's a long history of acquisitions, it wouldn't be a surprise to see the Chinese tech si siding with Microsoft. So there's that. And now we get to move on to Diablo three , which I understand is alive right now as I am recording this and I'll get in there as soon as I can cuz I think it's gonna be really fun.
One of the things going on every time there is a new Diablo three season is level with the cause happens and Wolf Cryer generally organizes that for streamers. So Wolf Crier tweeted this, looking for streamers to participate in this upcoming weekend's Diablo three community fundraising event supporting Save the Children, uh, that's the 24th through the 27th. If interested in joining as a streamer or just wanna donate to the cause there's
a link in his tweet. Uh, feel free to DM with any questions. And he is got this wonderful graphic with I think that's, it's one of the angels. It's hard to see, it's like backed in red and it says we need you help us make this last Diablo three level with the cause charity event the best ever. Now, this does not mean he's, um, quitting Diablo three forever. It means, or, or that you will or that it's ending after this season.
It just means he's going to probably focus level with the cause on Diablo four at some point. So there's that. I hope there's a bunch of people that are, you know, picking up money for that and handing it over to the charity in whatever fashion that goes in. I've never tried this cuz I'm really slow at this, but a lot of people are really fast and I hope it goes well. The Diablo Twitter account tweeted a little video.
It's a minute and seven seconds long and it's talking about Diablo four's in-Game Cinematics that will showcase your fully customized character, which is really interesting because typically if you are playing any of you know, Blizzard's games, your character doesn't necessarily appear in them,
at least out in the Diablo series that I'm sure of. So you get like a, a little like cinematic to watch about what's happening and then it gives you some lore and some background on why you're doing the thing or why this thing happened. And then you get to go play again. This one, your character is in that initial video or you know,
whatever it is. Um, your character is, you know, and there's been some videos out there from Fan Fest about, uh, you know, showing that your character is like the center point of this. You actually get to see the character you made the way you made that character right there in that graphic, in that video. And I think that's really cool. I've never heard of that happening before. Also, as mentioned before,
season 28 Rights of Sanctuaries is now live. Uh, they've updated the blog from the previous show that I read. It's cuz it wasn't live yet. It is now. And there's all this stuff in here. There's a theme, there's an altar, there's some cool pets and stuff like that. And or at least one cool pet and like a really neat looking, uh, portrait frame.
There's rewards, there's a season conquest thing. Uh, Hay's gift this time around is, um, I think I've read it last time, but if you, if you're, if you haven't started yet, uh, the Barbarian gets hoard of the 90 Savages crusader gets ages of valor.
Demon hunter gets gears of dread lands, monk gets patterns of justice, which doctor gets angu regalia Wizard gets Typhons veil and Nero Manzer gets masquerade of the Burning Carnival. So maybe you're listening, you know, maybe tomorrow when this goes out, you'll be listening to this and have some idea of what you wanna do. And also with Diablo four, since I mentioned it, there is a guide to the Diablo four, uh, open beta out. It was released on, uh, February 18 on Blizzard News, uh,
meaning the actual company's news. And here's a little bit about that. During both the open beta and early access weekends, players will be able to intimately explore the early game of Diablo four. This includes a first taste of the campaign via the prologue and the entirety of Act one. The first zone fractured peaks is yours to navigate as you please stampede through the rugged landscape and cut down demons for the open beta and early
access weekends. Your character can only level up to 25, but you're welcome to continue ripping through demons until the open beta ends. Make your mark on sanctuary by clearing hellish hoards from Dungeons completing intriguing quests provided by the locals. Okay, um, that sounds kind of interesting. I it is my understanding way back when it was, there were areas you could go to where there were locals and something bad had happened and then you like go fix it kind of thing.
And that sounds really nice to me. Uh, make your mark on sanctuary by clearing hellish hoards from Dungeons Completing intriguing Quest provided by the locals in amassing powerful loot from fallen foes. Simply put, this is your opportunity to combat the might of the burning hells prior to our June 6th release. With that said, the experience is not finalized and you may encounter performance issues, outages, and come across things that simply don't work.
After the open beta concludes, we'll evaluate all feedback we've received and we'll make changes as needed. We look forward to you experiencing this small taste of what Diablo four has to offer. If you've not already pred it, you can, there's a link in this particular blog post, the Early Access Beta Code Redemption. If you have one of those,
it's time to redeem it. If you pre-purchase the game, digitally early access to the open beta will be automatically available on the platform you pre-purchase for no further action is required of you. But for those with an early access code, instructions are listed below and then there's redemption instructions for that. More information on how to download the beta will be available as the beta draws
near. So this to me says if you are playing on a Mac like I am, you do not wanna download or purchase Diablo four through that because you won't be able to play it on that. I'm gonna have to try Xbox for this one and so will many other people. So there's that. And there's a, there's a developer update coming on the 28th and it is going to be live streamed, uh, on Twitch and YouTube.
So this is gonna be about, um, I'm not sure what it's about, but it's got lead world designer, art pov, lead systems designer, Meg song and game designer Joe Shelley on the official Diablo, Twitch and YouTube channels, talking about the game stronghold in armor systems and open beta details. So you can check that out. And of course there is this glorious statue of an naus that's out there,
which you can purchase. Um, I'll come back to how much it costs in just a little bit, but it's, you know, it's an naus chained in hell with his, you know, light, uh, wings going around him and they, they look kind of glowy. It's very well done. If you don't know the lure very shortly, I can like sum this up. Uh, Anaria in Lilith made sanctuary. They brought other demons and angels that didn't wanna fight in the, uh, ever going war. It's not the right name, but basically that's the idea.
And they had babies and eventually an NIUs got the idea that these babies were way too strong and this was dangerous and we really shouldn't do this. And started trying to slaughter them. Lilith tried to stop him. He banished her somewhere. I think he banished his son temporarily. And, um, then the, uh, the angels arrived to see what had happened. They made the world stone that was stolen less powerful. I think Terryl had something to do with that.
And then they bargained with Maisto Lord of Hate, who's Lilith's father, if I remember correctly. And what Maisto wanted was an naus and brought him into hell to be tortured forever apparently. But obviously from the D four cinematics we've seen recently, he's out of, of there and, you know, there's a lot more lord of that, but that's the main idea. So this is why the statue has an arias, uh, in chains not able to move kind of thing. And, and, uh, you know, that's,
that's what that is. It's pretty interesting. It's a well done statue. Am I gonna buy it? I don't think I have room for it, really. It looks cool, but that's, you know, that's pretty much what was going on in the thing I just read you Max Roll, who does such good stuff has, uh, a thing said season saying season 28 begins on February 24th. That's today.
There's all kinds of stuff in here about how to do the altar suggestions as to how we go about how to go about doing that new cube receipt, primordial ashes and curiosity of lath nar, uh, all kinds of stuff in here. Post PTR patches. There's some stuff that they changed around of course. Um, and it's been updated so, you know, check them out. If you're not sure what to do, they'll guide you through it probably better than anyone else will.
PC gamer says Diablo four's first play tests are coming in just a few weeks. Pre-order customers will be able to play the beta a week ahead of schedule. So this is definitely pushing people to pre-order the game now and not wait until, you know, June or whatever they're, that that's gonna happen. And this of course is information from the fan fest that IGN held and
some of you have probably seen those videos at this point. Yeah. Uh, David A. Rodriguez who is the associate creative director on Diablo four, uh, posted that in-game video with your character running through it. It's obviously not your character cuz you probably don't have access to the game just yet, but, um, it's, it's there, you know, and he says to my amazing team on Diablo four, I'm so proud of this team and what we have accomplished together in the past few
years. It deserves to be shared with the world. And so it shows that video. For a while we have heard that there was going to be released a book called Diablo Legends of the Barbarian Boko. It appears to have been released, I'm not sure. I think you have to pre-order it. So this title will be released on July 11th, 2023. You can pre-order it now from Amazon. And it turns out it's a graphic novel, which is interesting. Um, it's an original graphic novel by John ACU and her Geraldo Borges.
And there's Bocato sitting on the throne with a sword glaring down at the viewer. I suppose there's a little bit of description here at the dawn of sanctuary legends were Born Don't miss this exclusive, original Diablo graphic novel Chronicle in the rise of BHOs, progenitor of the Barbarian class and his ancient charge to defend Mount
Aria. Long before BHOs became known as the father of the barbarians, he was father to his to only two his twin children, Nara and Hiram Nara followed her father's path and became a great fighter. But the ways of their tribe never came naturally to Hira. After years on Walkabout, Hiram returns to his family, having discovered a new way and a new power he seeks to claim with his father's.
Help from the Diablo development team and storied author slash artist duo John Acue and Har Geraldo. Borges comes an unfor, unforgettable, stunningly illustrated tale legends of the barbarian BCAs is at once the myth of a mighty king whose name was forged in battle and the tragedy of a father who
bears a heavy crown. I'm kind of interested in this one. I think it's neat, you know, to hear more about Bocato and it's a graphic novel which makes things a little bit more fun sometimes, especially if you prefer to have pictures instead of like just a block of text to, to figure out as you read. So I think that's pretty cool. It's gonna be 1995, which is, it's a hard cover. I like hard covers.
It's works for me. Um, so I think it's gonna be cool and I'll definitely check this one out when it's, you know, when it releases. You can pre-order now though if you want to for 1995. That's not too bad for a hard cover, especially a hard cover that's got this niche, you know, interest in it. . Okay, a couple more things here. Um, the Diablo Mortal part of Blizzard has added fishing
to the game , which is kind of interesting. Um, yeah, so there's that, uh, feature updates there's gonna be, okay, this is talking about like the gear for all the different classes in the game. There's an roone design, uh, roone system redesign going on. We are simplifying how ROS function by streamlining the overall experience and providing more for uses for your roons. The ROS received from rare and legendary crusts are also increasing to support this reorganization.
Crests will no longer drop at I or a ruins or a large variety of common and magic roons instead rare crest will now drop four a t o ruins and legendary crest will drop one otro as roons can be used to craft bound legendary items at Ceril, the apprentice jeweler just as it's currently done. But now we've also removed the fading ember cost associated with crafting these bound legendary gems fading embers can now be used directly at Ceril to craft random unbound legendary gems.
These gems can be sold in Whittens grand market or used to purchase otros. I'm hoping I'm pronouncing that correctly. Apprentice jewelers will now be the one-stop shop for all your legendary gem needs. There is no longer a need to convert roons to craft legendary gems. The cost for crafting both bound and to unbound legendary gems have changed to the following.
And there's a whole list here of what you need and how many new normal gem attribute normal gems now have an attribute called refinement that increases the base attribute of the equipment slot. The normal gem is socketed into this in the increase from refinement is a fixed percentage based on the rank of the normal gem and scales at a fixed percentage. As your normal gem increases in rank up to a maximum of 10 normal gems of all colors provide the same increase at their respective rank.
There's a normal gem drop update. The hidden layer spawn rate will now automatically scale with server population on most servers. This should result in the same amount or more hidden layers. Opening, opening in a day. You could now collect up to nine bound normal gems from bonus objectives and nine unbound normal gems from hi hidden layer guardians. I'll go on from there. There's an essence transfer and extraction improvements. Okay,
good cuz that confuses the heck outta me. , you know, all safe zones will now have an essence transfer merchant within them. The ability to extract multiple legacy items at once can also be performed in the merchant's menu. To do so, click or multi-tap multi extract button. In the upper corner of the menu another menu will appear, which will allow you to select the specific items you want to extract or all of
them at once. There's a change to combat. Uh, the frenzied charged core combat globes, which previously dropped during the defense of Kaar only can now drop during any combat instance in Diablo Immortal. And there's the fishing thing. Uh, new activity fishing. This is not a joke, this is not being silly. They actually put this in the game as far as I know.
I haven't jumped into check yet, but I've seen people. There was, I can't remember who it was, but someone posted a picture of their young child doing the fishing thing in Diablo, mortal . So this is what it says. Cast aside your weapon. Ha ha, weary adventurer. We've sent enough demons home to wriggle in the hells today. A tranquil new pastime is available for you. It's time to go fishing. Starting at level 43, you could travel to the noxious marshes of bien to begin the greatest pastime quest.
The quest will start you on your path to becoming the best angler sanctuary has seen, and most importantly provide you with a fishing rod. Pick your spot to cast a line. There's two characters standing on the bridge there fishing. Once you've completed the introductory quest, you can o fish oli. Oh god, all the puns in here begin your pursuit of sanctuaries.
Underwater dwellers. There are three zones where you can fish ash, world cemetery bien and the frozen tundra and are notated by a fish icon on the zone map. Fishing areas are safe zones and you cannot be attacked by monsters while inside of them. You can only fish within a designated fishing spot. And there's a thing called common bait that you need to get in order to fish it is something you purchase. Um, let's see. Before you attempt to catch any fish you'll want to visit, visit a fisher.
So there's now a fisher's exchange somewhere around these things who will also be safe within the safe zone to purchase some bait. Each attempted fishing will consume one piece of bait. Unlimited bait can be purchased from the fisher and you can hold 99 pieces in your inventory at a time. So budget your bait wisely.
Once you have your rods some bait and a favorite watering hole in mind, it's time to wrangle up some fish by trapping or clicking on the rod icon next to your skill buttons, you'll choose specifically where within the fishing spot to cast your line. After releasing the button, a timer will appear on the top of your screen displaying white,
blue and gold colored fish icons. As your bob arrests among the water, fish will nibble at it periodically, and you'll notice the timer will slowly begin to fill up. Pausing by each of the three affirmation aforementioned fish icons as it does when you decide to reel in a catch is completely up to you.
But the longer you allow your bob to sit in the water, the higher probability you have of catching a rarer species of fish, be sure not to deliberate over when to reel in too long for if the timer fills up, the fish will go rest, grow, restless and disappear. All caught fish will go directly into your inventory. That's interesting because most people's inventories are pretty full, so you have to probably get rid of some stuff before you can go fishing.
Or maybe they gave you more inventory. I'm not sure. There's one here. Um, after you, after you reel in your fish head back to the nearest fisher to exchange your hard caught fish for rewards. Oh good. You don't keep them forever . That's nice. Uh, there are five categories of fish, common, uncommon, rare, legendary and mythic. And each denoted by a different coloring of the fish within your inventory.
The rarer the fish, the greater the rewards You can exchange your catch for, such as items of random rarity and new aesthetics for your fishing rod. And you can fill out the angler's log. It looks a lot like the beastie, but it shows you which fish you've caught and which ones that maybe be still out there. Uh, the, the graphic has a, I think it's called a, a dice or a dse. I'm not sure I've ever heard that word pronounced.
And it gives you like where it's found and how many you've caught and the personal record weight of it. And, and there's a haddock next to it and the same kind of thing. , there are 40 unique species of fish populating the waterways of sanctuary. Each species has a preferred habitat and can only be caught there. Make sure to fit to visit all the fishing spots to see which boies you can wrestle up from the water within the beastie area's. Angler's log section is an entry for each fish species,
which lists their preferred habitat. Along with the number you've caught, the highest weight caught by you and the highest weight caught on your server. There's also an angler's log rewards for dedicated adventurers to collect by catching amounts of unique, uh, fish species fishing presents you a new way to play Diablo mortal and experienced sanctuary. Where might your pursuit to take you? That's amazing. And then there's an activity scheduler and calendar coming up so you know when
things are gonna happen outside of the fishing thing. So that's pretty good. Um, there's some graphics in this blog post. Again, everything will be in the show notes. You can check it out for yourselves if you want to. There's gonna be another server merge. Um, east Asia servers are merging and Southeast Asia servers are merging. There's a hungering moon event as always , all this kind of good stuff. There is some, uh, Diablo merchandise that's been released recently.
One of them is of course the an naus, the statue of an Naus. It's 26 inches tall and it costs $1,100. Um, so that's the new thing in here. There's also the Diop four limited collectors' box, which is not connected to the game itself. You can buy this box for $96 and 66 cents, but it won't have the game in it. You have to buy the game separately.
So that's a thing, but it, I think it has some of the stuff or similar stuff to what a lot of streamers got when they were, you know, lighting candles and reading the thing to Lilith and all that. There's a Diablo three 10th anniversary, uh, poster I think. And um, it's got all the, all the classes in it. And at for a while we were seeing pieces of this as the seasons went by. This is the whole thing. So if you really dig that, it's 25 bucks. Lillis statue is 24 inches and uh,
24.5 inches and a $600 right now. There's a Diablo, it's the sanctuary tart deck you can do if you're into that. There's a gaming mat, there's some glasses and hoodies and pins and all these other things in here and t-shirts. Um, so if you're looking for something, it's probably in there. And that's, uh, almost everything I wanted to talk about today. I know that there is a, um, that Valentine's Day sale is still going on. So, um,
I can look at that for a minute here. So that lasts through February 27. It's got a bunch, it's got some Warcraft stuff in it, a bunch of Call of Duty stuff, some random things. But the, the main thing we're looking for here, very likely is the Diablo stuff. So you can get Diablo resurrected or Diablo two resurrected for $13 and 19 cents. You can get Diablo resurrected Prime Evil collection for $19 and 79 cents. You can get the Diablo three game for $9 right now if you haven't started
playing yet. It uh, you could also get the Reaper of Souls for $9 cuz they go together. It's an expansion pack. There's a Diablo three battle chest I don't know much about. There's rise of the Nero answerer. It gives you the Nero answerer stuff for nine bucks at the moment. There's a Diablo three Eternal collection, which gives you the expansion of Reaper of Souls Diablo three and the Nero Baner Pack for 24 49. Uh, Diablo mortals on there, that's play for free.
And the three different versions of Diablo four are there. They don't seem to be on a discount, uh, at all from what I'm seeing right now. So the standard edition is 69 99. The digital deluxe edition is 89 point 99 and the ultimate edition is 99 point 99, which is less than those statues, but, uh, kind of some of them. But anyway, there you are. Uh, that's what we have and that's where I'm going to close out today's show. You have been listening to episode 3 99 of the Shattered Soul Stone.
Your Diablo Community Podcast. Missed an episode. You can find the show blog and listen to the show. Note the show archives at www shattered soul stone.com. Come join us in game. I think a lot of us are probably in game right now as the time I'm recording this. Our in-game community and clan, both named Shattered Soul Stone, are open to anyone who would like to join.
You could also join us on Discord for, for the ultimate team and community based experience, find the Discord invitation link on our Twitter and Facebook page, as well as the Shattered Soul Stone website. Thank you for listening.