It's time for Shattered Soul Stone, featuring the latest news from sanctuary and beyond. Each episode, a heroic party of Neum 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 94 of Shattered Soul Stone, your Diablo Community podcast. This episode is called Everything's Great. It is January 20th, 2023. And this is Jen.
I'm gonna start off with something that is probably great. Um, there's an article here from M M O R P G and it's about proletariat. It's titled Proletariat. Unionization Will Hold Anonymous Vote Via the N l Rrb New statement released about worker talks. This is written by Christina Gonzalez on January 17th, there have been some new developments in the unionization effort by Proletariat, which was acquired by Blizzard last year.
After announcing the intention to unionize the full studio last month, a dispute on how many members of the studio wanted to vote for unionization came about declining to unionize outright an anonymous vote through the National Labor Relations Board. And LRB is coming.
A statement from proletariat from January 9th confirms that the Communications Workers of America CWA filed a petition to represent some proletariat workers in December with the intent of organizing them and representing those employees in unionization. This update was titled Everyone Deserves a Vote. I think I read that on my last show. So, um, you, you may have heard it if you've been keeping up. If not, it's there. You can check it out.
Everything I talk about on the show will be linked into the show notes@shatteredsoulstone.com. So, to skip ahead a little bit, there were reports last week that Activision Blizzard did not want to voluntarily rec, uh, recognize a proletariat union. Yet there were questions about how many members of the studio actually intended or desired to Union unionize and whether some felt pressured. This right here, my friends, is union busting.
The CWA representing the organization committee responded saying Our proletariat leadership and upper management at Activision have refused to request our talk to talk about neutrality, and they are forcing us through an NLRB election even though a super majority of our bargaining union have signed union cards. Yet, the anonymous voting process looks to go ahead. Um, and there's a little bit more today. There was a new update today being the 17th of January with a new statement
highlighting discussions between the workers. The previous, previous tweets were the statements of our organizing committee and did not represent, uh, and are not representative of all proletariat workers. There continues to be ongoing and healthy conversations amongst the proposed bargaining unit and the workers look forward to collaborating together. A Blizzard spokesperson. These people are never named. It's just an anonymous spokesperson. Who knows who could that that could be anyone. Right?
A Blizzard spokesperson shared the following statement on the latest update to the process quote, we appreciate the acknowledgement and agree that the CWAs previous tweets of the statements were, were the statements of the organizing committee and not representative of all proletariat workers. This is one of the main reasons why many employees requested an anonymous vote shortly after the CWA filed the petition.
Some employees also said they felt pressured to sign union cards were inadequately informed about what they were signing and what it meant when they signed. Given this, we strongly feel a vote is the fairest option. We want to ensure that all employees can make their voices heard as this is their decision. This is also union busting because one of the things that bad companies do when they don't wanna recognize a union is try to push more people into that
group that could vote on the union. So it sounds to me like, you know, anonymous, unnamed, whoever this, uh, blizzard spokesperson is, maybe it's a team of them and they take turns. I don't know, it sounds like a terrible job.
But what bad companies do when they wanna avoid uh, accepting a union or acknowledging a union is they start with the group that is trying to actively form the union, which in Proletariat's case and in the case of like Raven and there's another one, Albany Blizzard, Albany, they try to push additional people into that group that can decide if they want to have a union or not. And these people are unrelated to,
in this case, proletariat workers. So when you do that, you could potentially poison the well basically because you're gonna overwhelm the number of people that are in this small group from proletariat with a ton of people from Blizzard. And if those people don't care about being in a union or don't really know what, what they're signing or this sort of thing, that could really make it hard for proletariat to get enough votes to actually
have the union. That's what they're doing. This is union busting. So I'm teaching you all this in case this kind of shit happens at your workplace. So you can, you know, point it out and hopefully make it stop. Then there's things where everything's just great, it's fine, no problems, nothing wrong at all. Uh, we'll start with Reuters here. They have an article from January 18 called World of Warcraft. Battle heats up as NetEase rejects Blizzard's offer.
Here's a little bit from that. From January 18, Chinese games publisher Net E said on Wednesday, it has rejected a proposal from Activision Blizzard Inc to extend their longtime partnership for six months as the US game developer looks for a new partner, net E said the proposal was commercially illogical. That's a phrase I've never heard before and accuse the US firm of seeking a divorce but still remaining attached.
In a rare public display of acrimony between the two gaming giants, blizzard said in November it would end its 14 year partnership with NetEase sending shockwaves across the industry. As the partnership was widely seen as one of the most lucrative in video games, the companies had been unable to agree on key terms of cooperation and hits such as World of Warcraft will not be available in China.
The world's largest gaming market from January 23rd, net East said Blizzard reached out last week with an offer to extend the partnership for six months, but also made it clear that it would not stop negotiating with other potential partners. Considering the non reciprocity unfairness and other strict conditions attached to the co the cooperation,
the parties could not reach an agreement. In the end, China's second largest gaming company said in a statement the exact sticking points that soured the deal, which started in 2008 and was renewed in 2019 remain unclear. A person close to Blizzard who of course is a good nameless said the dispute that scuttled the renewal revolved around commercial terms rather than
data issues. As some media had reported, the person who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue said Net Ease had proposed to make structural changes to the partnership that would affect Blizzard's control over its int intellectual property IP in its statement, late LA late on Tuesday net ees said it had never requested control over IP from Blizzard or any other partners as a publishing company over the past 14
years. Quote, any usage and licensing of licensing of Blizzard's IP were done in accordance with contract terms and with blizzard's consent and approval. It said Activision Blizzard did not immediately respond to Avoiders request for comment with the demise of their partnership. Blizzard is currently without a Chinese publisher. Unlike other countries, foreign gaming companies typically need a Chinese publisher before they can
release games in China. Net ease Rose to become a gaming giant, partly by publishing Blizzards games in China. It has since accelerated its own game development capability with in-house games now accounting for more than 60% of revenue. So that's kind of a problem. And then we have uh, IGN and IGN wrote this on also the 17th Activision Blizzard says Net Ease declined and offer to extend publishing deal in China.
Written by Ryan Dinsdale, Overwatch two and World of Warcraft publisher Activision Buzzard has claimed NetEase declined an offer to extend its publishing deal in China as reported by Reuters, which I've already said. Um, and I'm gonna skip ahead a a bit cuz I've already read you the Reuters part quote. It is a pity that Net Ease is not willing to extend services for our of our game for another six months on the basis of existing terms as we look for a new partner.
Blizzard China said there's a blizzard China I did not know that the company claimed in November it was looking for alternative ways to bring its games to China, but no concrete information regarding how it might do so had been revealed. World of Warcraft, Hearthstone Warcraft two Reforged, Overwatch two, the StarCraft series, Diablo three and Heroes of the Storm will therefore all be unplayable as of January 23 in China.
Diablo Mortal Blizzard's controversial mobile game is published under a separate agreement and is therefore unaffected at the moment. Wow. Right? That's just like you're losing all these things there it goes. Right? The next one is from Game Per. I don't know much about Game Per but they do seem to write some good things once in a while that relate to this stuff. This one is also written on January 17 by Matthew Fuller.
The title is World of Warcraft, Overwatch two and More Activision Blizzard titles will go dark overseas after a declined deal.
I'm not sure if there's anything new in here but I'm gonna skim it really quick and see okay, it's got the writer's thing in there so I've already kind of read that to you and it's just kind of reiterating that stuff cuz this is what game companies are sites that write about video games and stuff kind of do it's, it's normal but you can pick whichever one you like best to read and go for that. Wow. Head has a couple of things here.
One is titled Blizzard China Update extension denied Net Ease Dissolves Blizzard Team posted three days ago by Arro trios. I hope I said that right. Here's some of that Blizzard. China has released a lengthy statement noting their failure to negotiate a six month extension to the impending shutdown of Blizzard Games Services in China on January 23rd, along with an update for Chinese players to back up their game progress and the continued search for a new publishing partner.
There's a lot of kaji here that I cannot read, but someone has um, possibly translated it. So, uh, here's a little bit. According to the lengthy statement, blizzard reached out to net Ease about a possible six month extension to their licensing agreement and although we don't know the details of the extension, it was turned down.
Blizzard China said we approached NetEase again last week for assistance in exploring a six month extension of our existing agreement, which is based on terms NetEase has agreed to in 2019 to allow everyone to continue playing without disruption and for Blizzard to continue exploring a reasonable and long-term path forward in the China region.
Unfortunately, net E did not accept our proposal to extend the existing game service agreement following last week's or last week's extension negotiations. We will the therefore have to comply with Net E'S offer, therefore we will have to follow net E'S suspension announcement to discontinue the game service in China on January 23.
Perhaps related the article goes on, we also learned that net ees has already disbanded the loyal team working on titles license from Blizzard Entertainment as reported by the South China Morning post via w CCC Tech. It is my understanding South China Morning Post might be state driven, but I'm not a hundred percent sure about that. So take this however you will with those employees already laid off or reassigned, leaving only a skeleton crew of 10 to cover customer service and technical issues.
It's unclear whether that had anything to do with Net E'S decision to turn down Blizzard blizzard's extension. It's also possible that the terms of the deal were not favorable for them or Net Ease was simply tired of dealing with Blizzard as some other sources have suggested and they're talking about backing up your game. So part of this from Blizzard China says this about players Progressive archive. It is important for everyone at Blizzard to properly save your game's,
progress items and memories. Memories . Okay. We create these worlds so that you can feel you are a part of them. We want you to be able to move on from where you left off. We hope that net Ease will follow its previous end of service announcement and properly seal all players game data to give CN World of Warcraft players an additional peace of mind. In addition to the game data sealing provided by NetEase.
Blizzard will also launch a feature tomorrow January 18 aging time that will allow CN World of Warcraft players to download their game progress for the future. When the game comes back online in the future, you will be able to upload your saved game history in order to continue playing. This feature will continue to be available until the game ends service in China. We will share more information about the World of Warcraft Progress archive with
you on webo and they are searching for a new partner. Uh, blizzard China is. Um, and here's a little bit about that. The writer of this article, what's the name? Let me go back. Arros uh, posted this description under searching for a new partner. Finally, the release ends with another note that Blizzard is continuing to search for a new local licensing partner. Again pointing to net ease for failing to extend the existing agreement.
How long it might take to find a partner and get everything thing set up is still unknown though it doesn't bode well for China players. The last time Blizzard changed licensing partners from the nine to net ease. In 2009, Chinese players were stuck in the burning crusade for nearly a year after the rest of the world had moved on to wrath of the Lich King. And there's a little blurb here from, uh, blizzard China about that.
There's another article from WOW head titled Net Ease Response to Blizzard Entertainment Local or Statue Torn Down. This is a also written by AR Miros. I'm hoping I got that right. I'm trying. Um, there's this picture here at the top and it says Blizzard Entertainment. It has a logo on a wall and next to it it's got some conk and net ease and some numbers underneath that and off to the side you can see this room that has like glass doors and behind it is a bunch of rubble that might
have been where the OR statue was. It's gone now apparently. So here's a little bit about this following blizzard's update on the situation in China, which bemoaned their inability to secure a six month extension prior to the shutdown of Blizzard's game services in China.
Net Ease has issued a fiery response to the implication that they are at fault for the breakdown of negotiations and tore down their local org statue live on stream, they are not playing around Net Eve said today, blizzard China published a blizzard on the China region player community update note through its official weebo.
Like they said they were gonna do some of the news directly pointed to net E and because of the content triggered a lot of market and media criticism, we would like to explain the following First about quote NetEase refused the six month service extension proposed by Blizzard explanation on November 17th, 2022. Activision Blizzard announced that it would suspend the service of Blizzard games distributed by Shanghai NetEase in mainland China effective at 0 0 0 0 on January 24th, 2023.
Blizzard China issued an updated statement today, January 17th, 2023, stating that during this period Blizzard has initiated a search for a new partner for unknowable reasons. Last week, blizzard re sought net ease with an offer of a so-called six month extension of the game service and other conditions and made it clear that it would not stop continuing negotiations with other potential partners during the contract
extension. As far as we know, blizzard's negotiations with other companies during the same period. Were all based on a three year contract period considering the non-res reciprocity, unfairness and other conditions attached to the cooperation corporations, sorry. Therefore, the parties could not reach an agreement in the end. In our view, Blizzard's proposal, including today's surprise announcement, is brash, unseemly and commercially illogical.
It's overconfidence does not take into account where players and Annette ees have been placed in this kind of demand and this by this kind of demand, everything riding a mule while looking for a horse and divorce but still try to live together behavior. It's a little wonky, but you get the the main point. Second, the media reported that net E wants to control the IP statement. We are concerned that some media has received rumors that Net Eze wants to
control Blizzard ip. In the past 14 years of long-term cooperation, net Eze has used in licensed any Blizzard IP in accordance with the terms of the contract and has obtained blizzard's consent and approval.
All IP cooperation with other partners is also based on this principle. Uh, there's some tips about just kind of skimming ahead here that it's talking about like downloading your World of Warcraft stuff for Chinese players and uh, we are obliged Net East says to remind all players this feature by Blizzard is unilaterally proposed and developed online without NetEase side testing use. There may be unknown security risks.
If this feature causes loss of virtual property or inability to play, blizzard shall bear full responsibility, which is kind of a lot. In addition, there's a thing on, uh, the last point touching on Blizzard's untested archive feature may have proved prophetic as some though not all players have reported issues with the service resulting in an inability to log in or download their information and servers were hastily taken offline to try to address the issue.
Others have been able to back up their accounts successfully, but with less than a week remaining, hopefully it will get sorted before time runs out. And the net e literally cut ties. Okay, so there's like a, looks like a TikTok video kind of thing. Uh, they have completely dismantled their Blizzard offices going so far as to dismantled their local org statue and an event which was live streamed for around 30,000 people at the time and has been shared across Chinese social media since.
And there's a guy out here with like a sledgehammer or something and I'm not really sure what's going on there. And then this last one is about a drink. So those who participated in the deconstruction efforts were rewarded with a brand new drink from net E'S coffee shop called Blizzard Green Tea. While this may seem odd, green tea is a modern Chinese slur referring to a manipulative person who tries to appear wholesome, innocent or traditional, but is decidedly not.
So that's the nice way of putting it. Says the writer clearly Net Ease has very strong feelings toward their recent negotiations with a Blizzard Entertainment and there's literally a drink sitting here, kind of looks like a Starbucks sort of thing. It's definitely green tea, so things are fine, things are totally fine.
Moving on from that courthouse News service, which does provide some pretty good information Every once in a while on January 17, they wrote Activision Beats shareholder lawsuit over workplace discrimination. There's been more than one lawsuit about this kind of thing as far as I know, but let's see what this one's about. It's written by Edvard Peterson. Um,
and here we go. Uh, BLI Activision Blizzard defeated a lawsuit by shareholders who claimed the video game makers board of directors failed for years to remedy discrimination against women employees.
Even though they had been made aware of the illegal hiring and pay practices US district Judge Percy Anderson on Monday dismissed the shareholder's third attempt to jump the hurdle that requires them to explain why they didn't directly demand the board to fix the problem as the law requires before they went to court. Anderson didn't allow the shareholders to remedy their complaint a fourth time and closed the case.
The judge specifically rejected the shareholder's argument that it would have been futile for them to first request action from the board because as they claimed, the directors faced a substantial likelihood of liability for their purported oversight failures. The amended complaint the judge said didn't make a plausible case that the directors faced such a substantial likelihood of liability. Continuing violations do not automatically give rise to an inference
of bad faith. Indifference Anderson said, though plaintiffs allege violations continued occurring, there are no facts showing. Defendants knew their internal controls were deficient. Attorneys for the shareholders didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling from Courthouse News. Um, there's a little bit here about the Fair Employment Act and this sort of stuff that I know I've mentioned a bunch of times on this show.
You can look this up again on the website@shatteredsoulstone.com if you want to. Uh, two ACT division shareholders filed a so-called derivative lawsuit in which they sued on behalf of the company against the board in 2021, claiming that the directors failed their fiduciary duty because they knew since 2018 that California was investigating the company for gender discrimination and failed to take any steps in spite of these red flags goes on from here.
Among the remedies the shareholders requested was that longtime CEO Bobby Kotick, who also sits on the board and other culpable executives be terminated for cause and that the directors payback any compensation and benefits they received from the company. And it goes on from here, but that's kind of the main idea. Windows Central has an article titled Microsoft to Likely Receive EU Antitrust Warning Over Activision Blizzard Purchase written by Sean
Endicott about five days ago. Here's what you need to know. The European Commission EU will likely issue a warning to Microsoft regarding the tech Giant's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. According to Reuters, Microsoft's 69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard has been under heavy scrutiny. We know this, uh, several governing governing bodies by the United States Federal Trade Commission, ftc, the UK Competition and Markets Authority CMA and the European Union's European Commission.
Now it appears that Microsoft will receive a list of concerns about the deal. The the European Commission will share a statement of objections with Microsoft that outlines what the governing body believes are issues with the purchase. Reuters stated that the commission is preparing the charge sheet now and is expected to send it to Microsoft in the coming weeks.
A deadline of April 11th, 2023 has been set by the European Commission to reach a decision about Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard. It's generally believed that the EU decision will affect how the FTC moves forward about the same deal. So that's a thing.
It is expected that Microsoft will present several concessionary quote remedies, end quote to the eu and cma, the company has also entered a 10 year commitment to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo Switch and Steam, which was likely made in an effort to sway regulators. Microsoft President Brad Smith offered to make a similar deal with Sony as well as to have the popular gaming franchise remain available on PlayStation and it just goes on from there. So that's just fine. That's totally fine,
no problems there at all. Absolutely fine. IGN says European Union reportedly preparing to challenge Microsoft's Activision Blizzard deal. It's probably got some of the same stuff it is pulling from Reuters, so you can skim through that if you like to. Uh, window Central, again, another major trade organization is backing Microsoft Microsoft's Activision Blizzard deal. The E G D F reportedly supports Microsoft's big a BK deal for xbox. Here's what you need to know.
This one is written by Jazz Cordon. In a piece of good news from Microsoft's acquisition, hopes a major trade federation in Europe has thrown its weight in support of the Activision Blizzard deal. Microsoft is aiming to acquire Activision Blizzard King. We kind of know this, I'm skipping ahead. Sony and other companies have complained about the deal, citing without evidence the possibility that Microsoft may withhold call of duty from competing platforms.
Despite the fact Xbox has offered to commit in writing to maintaining multi-platform access for Call of Duty and other TI titles, the US FTC UK C M A and European Union are all debating whether or not to let the deal go ahead right now as regulators ramp up oversight on so-called big tech firms after years of half-hearted regulation overseeing Amazon, Google, and Meta, all of whom have been fined for abuses of various types.
Microsoft two famously Fella Foul of regulators in the late nineties with the so-called browser wars, which saw Microsoft forced to offer competing browsers against its bundled Internet Explorer. Despite concerns Microsoft has won the backing of various unions across the world for its friendliness toward employee self-determination, Microsoft became the first of the big tech companies to acknowledge a large scale game developer union found within zm Max's QA department.
To that end, a major European Trade Federation has also backed the deal according to a report from M Lex via Indie sloth. Here's a quote, the E G D F supports Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition as its potential positive impacts on the competition in-game markets in general outweigh the limited console and subscription market specific competition concerns. Furthermore, in the console game Mar Markets, Sony is a clear market leader with its PlayStation platform and Microsoft is
still in a challenger position. The E G D F, however also claimed that Microsoft inconsistently respected assurances and quote of providing acquired content on other platforms. Without citing an example, the FTC also made the same claim but was slapped down by the European Union who noted that Microsoft never actually offered assurances of preventing Zeta Max games upcoming Xbox games such as Starfield or Elder Scrolls for from hitting other platforms.
The only time Microsoft publicly committed to continuing to support other platforms was in the form of service games that already existed on other platforms such as Fallout 76, elder Scrolls Online and Minecraft, all of which enjoy full support on PlayStation to this day. So there's a little bit of good and a little bit of bad in there I guess.
Then we have this one from ign, it's titled Nvidia Google reportedly voice Concerns over xbox's Activision acquisition, which seems really weird to me, , you know, but okay, this is written by re Rebecca Valentine from the article. Google and Nvidia have both reportedly joined Sony and raising concerns to the Federal Trade Commission FTC regarding Microsoft's planned 69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. According to a Bloomberg report, the Bloomberg report is behind a paywall.
So here we are at ign. The two companies reportedly contend that by acquiring Activision Blizzard, Microsoft would gain an unfair advantage in the cloud subscription and mobile gaming markets. That said, one source told Bloomberg that Nvidia at least is not expressly opposed to the acquisition. Though it did stress the importance of equal access to game titles. The report does not elaborate on either companies other specific concerns.
Microsoft currently is a strong contender in cloud gaming alongside Nvidia with Geo Force. Now with Google's Stadia program having folded last year in mobile gaming, though Microsoft has markedly little presence. In fact, Xbox Head Phil Spencer, previously pointed to ACT division Blizzard's mobile King Division as the keystone of the intended acquisition and filings connected to the deal have revealed that Microsoft wants to use King to create new Xbox mobile platform.
Nvidia and Google joined Sony as major companies bringing issues forward to governing bodies about the acquisition. Though based on the tone, these latter two are coming in notably softer on the issue. Last year, the FTC announced it would sue to block Microsoft's attempted acquisition due to concerns that the deal would harm competition from rival council makers through exclusivity. The UK's competition and Markets authority has also raised similar concerns.
So there's that, and then we have this from the Verge Microsoft set to lay off thousands of employees because everything's fine, everything's great, everything's wonderful. Uh, this is written on January 18th with an update and it's written by Tom Warren. So here we are in a memo issued Wednesday morning, Microsoft confirmed plans to fire over 10,000 employees by the end of March. The original story continues below. Here's some of the original story.
Microsoft is preparing to announce job cuts tomorrow, which apparently they've done. Uh, sky News reports that thousands of roles will be cut with the software Giants said to be looking at cutting around 5% of its workforce with more than 220 employees at Microsoft. That could mean more than 10,000 layoffs while Sky News doesn't name an exact date for the expected cuts.
A a source familiar with Microsoft Plans tells the verge that the company will likely announce layoffs on Wednesday ahead of its quarterly earnings, uh, next week. So there's that, that's happening. Moving on to the Diablo related stuff, you probably came here for, um, , but it, it kind of all goes together. You know, I can't remember who pointed this out, but there is a book called Diablo Legends of the Barbarian BHOs.
It's sitting there on Amazon, it's got the Diablo logo and just like lettering and a black background of this one. It's a hardcover book. It's supposed to appear in July of, uh, July 11th, 2023. And the hardcover is $19 and 95 cents supposedly. And there's a description here that this is about Bocas, the progenitor of the Barbarian class. I don't know if it's ever going to appear really,
because some of these have done right. They have appeared, um, you know, book of Kane, book of Teal, book of Adria, those kind of thing. There's like a monster one I think maybe. But I used to work at a bookstore and I know for a fact that every time a publisher wants to put something, say on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or whatever other bookstore that uses this type of interface, they do need to pick a date for it. That does not mean that's the date is gonna appear.
It's just a placeholder in many cases. So maybe it really will show up on July 11th, 2023, or you might see that release date change. So just so you know, ahead of time, don't uh, you know, set your calendar to walk into your favorite bookstore and be like, I need this book because it might not be there. So Adam Fletcher, aka Pez Radar on Twitter, who is the global community lead for Diablo and Diablo Immortal wrote to this about Diablo two resurrected.
He wrote D two R ramping up toward a PTR for the 2.6 update. Next week big focus is on new Roone words. We have a few friends that will be giving sneak peaks at the new Roone words this weekend. Here's who they are. Uh, macro bio boy, lucky Luciano 6 1 0 or six 10. Uh, Deb Brunski 1 25 in Keino underscore au. Adam says, team is looking forward to the PTR feedback. Then we have Rod Ferguson,
who is the SVP and GM of all things Diablo at Blizzard. He says, lots of turmoil in the industry right now, but Diablo is still hiring. Please check out our open roles and join us in Sanctuary. So there's a bunch of open roles here in a big old picture engineering type stuff. I'll just read it like that. Uh, open roles for design and production, uh, art rolls and, uh, some other open roles as well for, um, not sure exactly what this is. Oh, it looks like sound, that type of stuff.
And that one's for Diablo Mortal, but the rest are for D four. So if you really wanna work for Blizzard, there's some roles for you. You could give it a try and see what happens. And just today, the 20th Diablo Mortal added to their Diablo Immortal Developer q and and a series and has like a little blurb here. So this is the new stuff that appeared recently. Uh, the top of this says well Met Adventurers. Welcome to our official Diablo Immortal q and a series about once a month,
the development team at both Blizzard and Net Ease. Oh, that's gotta be updated. Uh, we'll select a handful of burning questions from the community to respond to. And so here's what they've answered this time. They actually answered that on January 19. Question, when will players receive the ability to obtain additional stash space? Answer. The need for increased Stash space is a popular request from our community, and we hear you.
There are plans to allow players to expand their stash space, creating the opportunity to store additional sets and legendary items. So it is more convenient to experiment with multiple classes and class built. Another question. How can I easily see which events are currently live in Diablo? Immortal answer,
we have just the thing for you. In the near future, we're planning to add in-game calendar feature and in-game calendar feature accessible through the codex that will allow players to view both current and upcoming events. Question is there new PVP content coming answer, iterating upon Diablo mortals PVP offerings is something we're currently testing. We have a few avenues we're considering and we'll have more details for you
about new modes in the future. That's from the PVP content stuff, but I, I don't know if it was the calendar one that did it. I don't know. Question in the last major update you made tweaks to the Monk class. Are there additional balance changes coming for other classes? Answer Class Health and balance are gameplay elements we're constantly monitoring and evaluating for potential change. The tweaks made to the Monk class were a grand expression of these efforts.
As Diablo Mortal continues to evolve, we'll evaluate the state of our classes to determine if they too could benefit from additional tweaks. Question, are there plans for more comprehensive or engaging events? Answer yes. The fractured plane was our first event that announced all new gameplay. Given the initial success of this event, we have been exploring other events that heavily modify Immortals gameplay. We'll have more information on this for you in the future.
And then there's another one with nine paragon trees in the game. Will we ever be able to activate multiple trees at once? Answer. How we expand Paragon Trees is an active discussion our team is having. Now with the recent expansions to Paragon levels, we see opportunities to also expand the functionality of paragon trees. Multi tree activation has of course come up during our discussions, but we're still early in the design process.
We'll have more specific details for you in the near future, but we're eager to see how we can evolve Paragon trees and that's the end of that one. So that brings you up to date with everything we know about. Not only the games we love to play, but what's going on with, uh, net Ease in China and Blizzard. And it's just, it's fine. Everything's fine, everything's great. And with that, I'm going to close out the show. You have been listening to episode 3 94 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 in our RN game. Community and clan are both named Shattered Soul Stone and 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 and Facebook page,
as well as the Shattered Soul Stone website. Thank you for listening. We have a few avenues we're consider no Siri. Not one moment. , did. You turn that off? Still on it. Wonder what the heck it's thinks it's, it's been asked to do. I. Don't know. I don't know. Something went wrong. Yes, please try again. Oh, it was the word calendar. Oh, maybe that's it. Let me, yeah. That's. Hysterical. Put that at the end. . Okay. Right. Uh, sure. , if you wanna.