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, 7, 5 of shattered soul stone. Your Diablo community podcast. This episode is called Microsoft.
It is September 2nd, 2022. And this is Jen, as you may have guessed, I'm gonna talk a lot about Microsoft in this episode, because it's been all over the news in the last week. So here we go on September 1st, Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft gaming, posted on the Microsoft on the issues blog post that they have. And it's titled gaming for everyone everywhere. Colon our view on the Activision blizzard acquisition. Now I have not read all of this yet.
I skimmed it the other day to see if this was like a good thing or a bad thing. I'm not sure. And, uh, there are some regulators in various countries wondering if this merger between Microsoft and Activision blizzard king is a good idea. So I'm just gonna start reading this to you to see what Phil Spencer CEO of Microsoft gaming had to say about this. And he's got a picture at the top.
It says Xbox plus Activision blizzard king, and it's got pictures of characters from Overwatch Diablo, call of duty, world of Warcraft candy crush. Literally just a pile of candy and StarCraft game developers around the world are creating innovative and groundbreaking games. We think that we can do more to bring those experiences to the billions of players everywhere. Our announcement in January that we intend to acquire Activision blizzard was an important milestone in our journey to do so.
Since then regulators game developers and players have been asking what the acquisition means for the industry. And more importantly for players while we love consoles, we recognize they are not the only way that people play games today. The largest and fastest growing segment of gaming is mobile platforms to reach the billions of players where they are. And no matter what device they play on, we need to embrace choice.
Giving players choice in how they play their games makes gaming more accessible and leads to larger, more vibrant communities of players. Choice is equally important to developers. Developers benefit from having a diversity of distribution and business models for their games, choice, unlocks opportunities for innovation and enables the industry to grow. Phil Spencer continues. We are expanding choice in two ways through the creation of game pass, which gives players a subscription option.
And by bringing more games to mobile platforms, including through our cloud game streaming technology subscription services like game pass, make gaming more affordable and help players from all over the world. Find their next favorite game game pass empowers developers to bring more games to more players, not fewer. We intend to make act division blizzards, much loved library of games, including Overwatch, Diablo, and call of duty available in game pass to grow those gaming communities by
delivering even more value to players. We hope to continue growing game pass, extending its appeal to mobile phones and connected devices. Now I'm gonna stop here for a minute and um, you give you my take on this right now. It is my understanding that if you wanna play call of duty, you have to do this on PlayStation. I think, I don't think it's on Xbox. There's been some back and forth about whether or not that was gonna stay
exclusive to PlayStation. If I'm right about that, I may be wrong. You know, maybe you know, better than me, but this makes it sound as though people working on PlayStation or in charge, you know, the company that makes it, they think is Sony, right? They might be getting nervous here because here's Xbox saying, yeah, we're gonna do this merger. And we're gonna have call of duty, come over to Xbox as well. Not taking it from Sony PlayStation, but that it'll be here too.
And I figure maybe those two companies are gonna butt heads along the way as this comes through. We'll just have to see what happens. There's a bit more in here that's, uh, worth knowing about, cause I figure start with the source, right? Who's better than the CEO of Microsoft to tell you what's gonna go on with Microsoft stuff. Okay. To pick up where I left off, bringing more games to mobile platforms, however, requires new capabilities.
The expertise that the teams at Activision blizzard bring in developing games for mobile platforms will help us understand how to create games that engage players around the world. In addition, we hope that players will be eager to play traditional console games from Activision blizzard on other platforms via our cloud game streaming technology.
This promises to open up mobile gaming, creating new distribution opportunities for game developers outside of mobile app stores while delivering compelling and immersive experiences for players by using the power of the cloud. And we can extend the joy of playing to devices that people already own, including smart TVs and laptops. Personally, we don't have a smart TV here, cuz we just kind of don't want one right now.
And I know smart TVs tend to in general report back what you've been watching, what ads you've seen, this sort of thing. So I don't really want one of those, but if you're someone that likes to play on a smart TV, okay. Um, laptop's fine. Whatever. But the thing that I think is gonna bother some people, at least with what I've read so far in this, uh, piece here from, uh, Phil Spencer is there's a lot of talk about mobile and we know as Diablo players, that that didn't hit well right.
Or right away when this happened. So, um, I don't know. I mean, there are a lot of people playing Diablo, mortal, I'm playing Diablo mortal. I'm really slow at every game I play because I just don't have the energy for everything. It's just, it's chronic illness stuff. It is what it is. But other people can zoom through this much faster than me and be like, where's more or something like that. And some have quit playing entirely because they just didn't like the
monetization thing. I've never put money into Diablo mortal. So I'm just kind of doing what I do. But if you are one of the people that went, I'm never playing a mobile game, those are dumb. I don't like them. That's not my thing. And here's Microsoft talking about, oh, we can do all this mobile stuff. I think there's gonna be a group of angry players at some point that might just
not opt into this or whatever. On the other hand, people who do have physical disabilities may find it easier to play on a mobile device instead of on a computer or however that works for them. So that does open things up for like accessibility. But I don't know. Um, it's, it's a little strange. I'm not sure every gamer wants to play with the cloud going on. Cuz like I don't like doing that. I know some of it probably is doing it anyway on me, but um,
I really like things to be like in house sort of stuff. So I don't know. And there's more here focusing on call of duty. Here's what Phil Spencer wrote. So going back, he just finished talking about smart TVs and laptops and this is the next part in doing so we will pursue a principled path. We have heard that this deal might take franchises, like call of duty away from the places where people currently play them. That's why. And this next part is underlined with a link to somewhere.
As we've said before, we are committed to making the same version of call of duty available on PlayStation on the same day, the game launches elsewhere. We will continue to enable people to play with each other across platforms and across devices.
We know players benefit from this approach because we've done it with Minecraft, which continues to be available on multiple platforms and has expanded to even to even more, since Mojang joined Microsoft in 2014, as we extend our gaming storefront across new devices and platforms, we will make sure. And this next part is underlined with a link that we do.
So in a manner that protects the ability of developers to choose how to distribute their games, uh, they can, uh, it's continuing here with, we will continue to engage with regulators in a spirit of transparency and openness as they review this acquisition, we respect and welcome. The hard questions that are being asked.
The gaming industry today is robust and dynamic industry leaders, including Tencent and Sony, continue to expand their deep and extensive libraries of games as well as other entertainment, brands and franchises, which are enjoyed by players everywhere.
We believe that a thorough review will show that the combination of Microsoft and Activision blizzard will benefit the industry and players for all the players and game developers out there, you remain at the center of everything we do and we will continue to listen to your feedback and do everything we can to nurture this industry. We all love now. It was kind of long, but this is the starting point of what I'm talking about in this episode.
Then we get a press release from Bobby Kotek. Uh, I'm assuming maybe he wrote this, but we do have a history of Bobby Ko tech, uh, writing words for other people and putting their name on it and stuff. So I don't know his name's at the top of this. So I'm gonna read you this press release following up the thing I just read you. It is titled a letter from CEO, Bobby Ko tech regarding act division blizzards merger with Microsoft.
And it starts out with team question mark. So this, it appears to be a letter, uh, that is specifically for the people working under act division blizzard king, but it's also public because probably shareholders, I don't know, this is what it says. I wanted to provide a brief update on our progress toward the completion of our merger with Microsoft. As we said from the outset, this is a long process with the number of government approvals required.
We still believe the deal is most likely to close in Microsoft's fiscal year ending June of next year. We are fortunate to have already received approvals from a couple of countries and the process with all the regulation. Regulators is generally moving along. As we expected this week, we heard from the United Kingdom where we have more employees than anywhere except north America.
We have entered the second phase of our review there and we will continue to fully cooperate with the regulators there and everywhere approvals are required. As our industry continues to see numerous companies investing aggressively in gaming, including many of the world's largest technology and media companies, government regulators are taking appropriate and deliberate steps to better understand our industry and the growing competition from around the world.
Beginning in its September, I meaning Bobby co tech is going to initiate town halls to keep everyone informed of our continuing progress towards our future. As part of one of the world's most admired companies, we have a very exciting fall ahead of us with anticipation building for our new games. Thank you all for working so hard to continue to connect, engage with enter and, and entertain our players around the world with appreciation Bobby,
and then there's statements underneath. That's all the, you know, legalese of, if this is wrong, you know, that kind of thing. But the thing here is they definite, you know, Bobby's letter here definitely signaled out the UK that has been trying to, you know, look at regulations from their country and whether or not this merger's a good idea and this sort of thing. So I'm gonna get into that over here. Um, so the, the UK one is the competition and markets authority. It's CMA.
And we have an article here on games, industry.biz by Danielle par. The news editor. This article is titled CMA recommends second phase of Microsoft act vision investigation. And then there's an update act division blizzard CEO, Bobby Kotex says regulatory approval is quote, generally moving along as we expected, which I just said there now, is it really, is it really going along as he expected? Or is this all like smoke and mirrors to make it sound like
things are going well? I don't know because he's given, uh, a lot of people, a lot of reason, not to trust a word out of his mouth, so I'm not sure, but that's, that's what it, you know, that's what's going on. So here's more information from, uh, this article on games, industry.biz, which has to do of course with the UK regulators. The competition in markets authority has decided that Microsoft's record breaking acquisition of Activision blizzard may affect competition within the UK.
The phase one ruling issued September 1st said that the merger quote may be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition within a market or markets in the United Kingdom. As a result, the deal is expected to be referred for an in-depth phase two investigation, unless both Microsoft and Activision offer acceptable undertakings to address these competition concerns.
The UK regulator gathered thousands of internal documents and data from both parties to understand its businesses and concluded that the completion of the merger could affect the competition. In two ways, the deal could see Microsoft quote withholding or degrading end quote, active vision blizzards content from the other, from other consoles or subscription services.
And Microsoft could leverage its broader ecosystem together with active vision's catalog to quote, raise barriers to entry and foreclose rivals in cloud gaming services end quote, the ruling also highlights that Microsoft having control franchises such as call
of there's a word missing in there. I think, uh, such as call of duty world of Warcraft and candy crush may result in the firm harming consumers by impairing Sony's slash Microsoft's closest gaming rival dash ability to compete and quote as well as other existing and potential future rivals that could bring healthy competition to the,
to the gaming market. From here, Microsoft InVision blizzard have until September eight today, as I'm recording, this is September two to offer an undertaking to the CMA that proves the deal won't result in a substantial lessoning of competition. If substantial evidence is not provided or the undertaking is not accepted by the CMA, the investigation will move into phase two. And there's a little bit here from, uh, Brad Smith, Microsoft president,
and vice chair saying, they're happy to go through with this basically. Uh, there's an update talking about the letter that Bobby posted and there we are with that one windows central. Hmm windows central is probably not connected to Microsoft specifically. It's there's a lot of these sites. There's like apple news or not apple news, but apple something nine to five apple, things like that, that pick a company they like and just tell you all about it.
So that's what this is from this one is titled Microsoft response to UK concerns over the vision blizzard deal for Xbox. I'm not sure who wrote this. So there's a little bit here. Uh, there's a blurb. What you need to know, Microsoft is in the process of purchasing call of duty maker act division blizzard for 72 billion. The deal needs to be approved by competition's regulators in every country. These businesses operate in the UK competition's authority.
They CMA signals its intent for an advanced investigation into the deal. Microsoft president, Brad Smith issued a statement, signaling its intent to work with the CMA to address any concerns. There's not a whole lot more here. Um, really, except for this, the, um, no, that's in the other article. So I think that's pretty much all we've got here. There's an opinion piece section of this as well. Uh, oh, this is written by Jordon who is a senior editor for windows central.
It's at the bottom of the page. So after all the things that I've already read to you, Jordon writes in my view, the CMAs findings are at odds with the intentions. Microsoft has signaled for franchises like call of duty and world, world of Warcraft expressing the intent to bring them to additional platforms like the intend switch in light of that. This step is potentially simply to formalize getting Microsoft on the legal record with the UK authority,
committing to bringing those games to more platforms. For example, to ensure that consumers are given more options and better value rather than less and jazz Gordon continues to me, it seems like this merger is the only real way active vision investors will get a return on their investment in a company that has seemed dwindling monthly active users in recent years faced with intense competition from other major service companies like Tencent division has struggled to deliver innovation in
some of its key franchises. The company has also struggled to retain some of its developer talent faced with repeated scandals surrounding its corporate culture for consumers act active. Vision is notorious for pricing its games at $70 while charging a $10 fee to unlock resolution bumps on new generation consoles. Putting these titles into Xbox game pass at $10 per month would bring undeniable value for consumers. And I'm not sure how one could argue against this point with honesty.
It could be a long time before the Microsoft and Activision deal is fully realized, but this deal of, but a deal of this magnitude was always going to be subjected to additional scrutiny. And so it should be, it goes on from there. We've got one from Forbes that says why Microsoft's active vision blizzard. Exclusivity claims appear hypocritical written by Paul Tassie, a senior contributor to Forbes. And this was from yesterday. Um, and I'll read you a little bit of that.
This does start out talking about the UK's competition and markets authority and Phil Spencer's statement. And I'm going to read you a paragraph from this, from the writer who says, and yet it is easy to question Microsoft here, given that in their $7.5 billion purchase of Bethesda, we have already seen them move to make big upcoming games like Starfield exclusive to Xbox game pass and PC keeping them off PlayStation.
Now this 10 K this 10 times larger purchase of act division blizzard will not do that because reasons just so Microsoft can avoid regulatory scrutiny. Microsoft's Brad Smith says we want people to have more access to games, not less, but that seems it only applies when they can get away with exclusivity in cases like Bethesda franchises, but something like call of duty is apparently impossible to ignore because regulators have actually heard of it.
So there's a take and then we have the verge and it's probably got some of the same stuff in here. It's talking about the UK's CMA. It's talking about how much the active vision blizzard merger deal thing is gonna cost, uh, talks about everything Phil Spencer said. Yeah. So there's another one in here. The verge wrote while the FTC that's the American reg regulators basically CMA that's the UK and the European commission are still analyzing Microsoft's act division blizzard deal.
Saudi Arabia became the first country to approve the acquisition last month. And this writer who is, let's see who the writer is, you are, uh, Tom Warren. I understand Microsoft still expects the deal to close fully in spring of 2023 with many months ahead for competitors to voice concerns and Microsoft who argue for this giant acquisition, Spencer says he's open and ready for the thorough reviews ahead.
And there's a quote from what I already read to you from Phil Spencer Bloomberg wrote Microsoft act dash act division deal faces in, in dash depth, UK antitrust probe. And so we're obviously talking about the competition and markets authority and everything that's been written in the previous ones. Uh, it's kind of a lot of these sites, uh, do pull from what appears to be the site that has the scoop or the original source.
That's like why I started with the Phil Spencer thing, because that's kind of the source of some of these. And it just kind of all gets shoveled in together sometimes with a little bit of personal opinion in there. So here's a little bit that I don't don't think was in the other stuff. This is from Bloomberg written by mm. Who wrote this? Catherine Gemmel let's see the CMA joins other global regulators, including the us federal trade federal trade commission in examining the deal.
And previously said it was working collaboratively to review the tie up reg tie up, meaning like the merger. I think regulators are likely to look closely at how Microsoft's ownership of act division could harm rivals by limiting their access to the company's biggest games. The deal will be automatically referred to an in depth investigation.
If Microsoft doesn't offer any suitable proposals, a CMA phase two review allows for more thorough investigation of internal information and document requests. So there's that one moving on the Diablo podcast is just moving right along and they're on episode four, that's released fairly recently. It looks like it has, uh, HC Z nine ball and bang on this one. Again, I've been really super busy all through August. I haven't had a chance to listen to these,
but I'm gonna try to work on that tonight. And I'm sure it'll be interesting. And this one, uh, this week, the team looks at the worst aspects of the di Diablo franchise. Do you agree with the choices? You'd have to listen to see that one. I'm always thrilled when there's a new Diablo podcast, that's actively being produced because there were more of us at one point and it's kind of slowed down in different ways, but the more the barrier, you know, we're all into the same games, it's all good.
And I will highlight this as much as I can because I want there to be a lot of Diablo podcasts out there. It's a good thing. Blizzard has posted a thing called a fishing scam with the pH of course, and it is relevant to apparently all of their products. They have every little icon you could possibly see at the top of this thing. And, uh, so here's some common problems that have happened. It's in a box here. One is I got a text message saying my account was locked, but when I logged in,
there was nothing wrong. Got a text, me, got a message from a GM in game that a Mount had been won and it, and it needed to be claimed, received an email which threatened to close my account. If I didn't respond, they go on outside of the box to say, phishing scams can take many forms, fake websites, suspicious emails and threatening in game whispers are the most common. And there's a box here to select your issue, uh, websites, email chat, SMS. That's what you have there.
So if you feel like something sketchy's going on, it's possible to, you know, take a step back and not like respond immediately because these are, these are people fishing trying to steal your account or this sort of thing. And so just be careful out there because this could happen to anybody who's not paying attention or tired while they're playing, or just doesn't know about this. So just, you know, protect yourself as best you can from nasty people that wanna hurt you.
Diablo mortal is now in season four, it's called inner light. And there's, you know, it's, it does say on the Diablo mortal Twitter account, you know, it's got a picture, it's got a link to stuff, and it's also got, uh, more rewards with the empowered battle pass, which is the thing you pay for if you want to. And so on August 30th, they posted Diablo immortal content update, find your inner light with the season four battle pass. And it's got a bunch of stuff.
There's a cosmetic preview of the inner light set and a lot of description about that. There's a new Hequa boss, uh, Gish her and Bellay who apparently are twins of some kind that you get to fight at the same time. The hung moon event is going on still. This one's gonna end on September 12th. The scorched sea limited time event, uh, is going to start on September 14 at 3:00 AM, 3:00 AM. Okay. And September 28 at 3:00 AM server time.
That's how long it's gonna last. And you're supposed to, uh, as you complete the daily scorched C tasks, you will receive various rewards for your heroics racking. Up enough, completed tasks will also unlock milestone rewards for you, such as the sand blasted, scorched sea portrait frame, and owed to vanquishing countless demons. And there's a picture here of a Crusader trying to hold off all these nasty demons that are trying to reach him from behind his shield.
There's a mist of Koran Gar limited time event. That one starts September 21st at 3:00 AM and goes until September 30 at 3:00 AM server time. Uh, this will net you a bounty of rewards to age your travels, not actually bounties. This could be confusing, pay special attention to the imagery on the event page for the mist will slowly clear with each completed task, revealing a hint tied to our first upcoming major update. Major update are both capitalized to prepare you for this momentous occasion.
Using the myths of Craig our event, a bonus experience buff will be active for all players who are behind the server Paragon level. This bonus will only be active for you until you've caught up to the server Paragon level. The dangers coming with our first major update will put your skills to the test, ultimately pushing you. We want to give players an opportunity to catch up to the server Paragon level. So they will have a fighting chance against sanctuaries newest threats.
When the time comes, I am never going to catch up to this. I know this, but some people are more adept at this than I am, but that's what's going on with Diablo mortal right now, or soon, I guess there is, um, there's a thing on Reddit on the Reddit Diablo mortal and someone posted it. I'm not sure who it was. It says new crest side by side comparison based on JTS due video. I'm not sure exactly who JT is at this moment.
And it says speculation. There's a link to Reddit, but it got a comment from Wyatt Chang. So I'm gonna read you that he wrote he's of course, the lead designer of Diablo and all of that. He wrote, Hey, all this is artwork we're working on to help differentiate the legendary crest, which will become, which will become to the orange one from an, from the eternal legendary crest, which will remain the purple one in the middle. There was a picture here.
I cannot see it. Uh, I'm using safari. Sometimes it happens like that. So that's what that is. Um, so the purple one in the middle, that yields gems that can be sold on the market. We want to make sure players know exactly what they're getting when they make a purchase, view them in the inventory and use them at the elder rift entrance players should be able to distinguish the two quickly, not only by color, but also by shape for colorblind accessibility. Ooh, that's really good.
We did some usability tests earlier this month to ensure that they can be understood clearly during normal gameplay, such as when shrunk down a small sizes or for new players. In addition, we are adding the market to icon, to the item description of the internal legacy crest to reinforce the difference as part of the update, we will also change the elder rift entrance UI. So you can choose which one you want to use if you own. Uh, if you own both as well as easily,
see how many of each you own from the entrance UI. So that's pretty cool. I like that. They're saying, well, some people are colorblind. How are they gonna differentiate between these things? And then they made 'em a different shape. So you could tell PC gamer has an article titled Diablo, a mortal players are facing massive quote, orb debt end quote, after blizzard cracks down on resellers. It's written by Andy chalk and there is a picture here that's gone around on the
internet. It looks like, uh, a very large wizard sitting on a chair with a hood and a big beard and a glowing orb in front of him. And this has been called pondering the orb kind of thing. And that's kind of funny that they put this here. So I'm gonna read this to you.
At least part of it, a number of Diablo, Myrtle players are suddenly an unexpectedly facing crushing quote, orb debt and quote, following what appears to be a massive revocation of eternal orbs purchased from resellers at cut rate prices. Eternal orbs are an in-game currency in Diablo mortal that can only be earned through the battle pass or with real money purchases. They're important to serious players, and they're not cheap ranging in prices from a dollar for a pack of 60 to $100 for 7,200.
And that's not going to buy you a truckload of cool stuff. 10 legendary quests, which grant you better drops from Diablo mortals loot boxes cost 1,600 orbs while a collector's cosmetic set goes for 1,500 understandably. Some players wanted to avoid playing, paying full price for their orbs. So they turned to third party resellers offering orb bundles at sometimes significant discounts. Resellers typically acquire orbs by purchasing large numbers of them.
Generally with stolen credit cards, then offer them for sale through external websites. Some will actually log into your Diablo mortal account after you give them the login details and purchase the orbs directly on your behalf claiming to be doing so with unused gift cards. Although again, stolen credit cards are usually what's being used, says the writer of this earlier this week. However things seem to go very sideways very quickly.
Here are some quotes quote, half the clan members and I'd guess half the server is reporting that there are massive in massive eternal orbs debts saw screenshots of up to 600 K Redditor pale blood reported on Reddit via PC games. N this is PC games or PC gamer.com. I'm reading it from quote. This is the result of third party purchases, 7,200 orbs for $10, et cetera. As there has been probably some mass coordinated refund wave from those scammer slash stolen slash missing credit cards.
Next one says most of the traders I know have stalled. The sales stating that the platform they use has been suspended by blizzard. They can no longer top up the balance using the method they did either gift cards or stolen credit cards says, okay, underscore support. Bunch of numbers wrote in a separate thread, meaning no cheap orbs for people that wanted to get the edge over regular
buyers. Another one happening right now. Third party orbs, massive refunds Sheron Kay underscore Lovecraft added bought two accounts online and both owners accounts got banned for their third party. Orbs purchased refund. As of now, 5:00 AM GMT, eight searched online three accounts got banned. Two of mine, one in Thailand, D I FB group, maybe more to come as it's midnight. Now on Wednesday player X, uh, E ex P zero.
One said that large numbers of players in the Southeast Asia chat were trying to sell their accounts, presumably because they'd purchased a large numbers of orbs from resellers and were trying to unload their accounts and get their money back before they got hit by the band hammer, Diablo, mortal players have been calling for blizzard to do something about third party resellers, and those who make use of them for quite a while. Prior to this quote, this is a huge issue on eternal conflict.
The leader of GY greedy pie. That's the name in quotes made money off his Guild, knowing the risks of them being banned with these illegal orbs Kasu wrote in an August 22 post on the blizzard forums, quote, other guilds, such as, uh, HOAs participated in illegal activity as well, as well as shadow rising member broski definitely bought cheap orbs. Please check all three of this clans for transaction history, and you'd find a surprise.
They are contributing to the game negatively by driving the market prices down, as well as getting advantages over actual paid players, such as myself, people aren't happy. people are not happy about this. Um, this goes on and on. Yeah, this is there's a lot here. Um, they're not happy about this whole situation. One, one way or the other, uh, one player named Ashia said in an interview with Diablo immoral, streamer, JT, it's all business. Now I know who that is.
That's the guy that spent a ton of money on his character and had a situation where he couldn't get into battle grounds because he was too high of a level or too much overpowered kind of thing. And then they let 'em in. That's who they're talking about. So apparently someone named Shia had an interview with JT it's all business, and let's see that they'd lost nearly 2.5 million eternal orbs with a regular
market value in excess of $30,000. Wow. You know, players with negative orb balances are apparently barred from group activities like joining parties or taking parts in rifts and Dungeons, and also cannot access the in game market. Wow. In the eyes of some players though, that punishment is insufficient because they can still take part in the PVP battleground where they'll still have an advantage. Thanks to the orbs they've already used.
There are claims that some accounts with negative orb balances have been permanently banned for failing to pay the balance back. But those reports are currently unverified. What is verified? Is that not a significant number of Diablo? Immortal players have suddenly found themselves in a hole. Some will no doubt quit, but others will fail compelled to spend even more than they already have to stay
in the game, which won't be a good look for blizzard. In fact, at least one ter has accused blizzard of quote, trying to get anyone who is addicted to shell out the money and keep playing blizzard confirmed in a statement sent to PC gamer where I'm reading this from that it has taken action to access third party resellers and warned that it will continue to do so in the future. And so there's that, that's a thing. It just gets weirder and weirder with Diablo mortal.
Every time a new season in Diablo, three starts Wolf crier has a bunch of people raise money for save the children. And that happened this year. He did it. A bunch of other people did it. You could probably have found them talking about it on social media and Wolf crier wrote this and said, thank you to everyone. This is on Twitter who donated during this week's level with the cause charity event. Huge, thanks to all of the participating streamers you make this possible each and
every one of you. The next tweet says, this brings our total raised for charity to over a hundred, $3,000, including over $74,000 for save the children over the last five years. He says, I'm proud to be part of this and thank you all for helping to make hashtag level with the cause as awesome as it is. That's fantastic. It's always good. When you can like use your gaming for good things like that. It's really good.
MCDA den has a YouTube video called God mode, DH imp greater solo build guide season 27, 2 0.7 0.4. You can check that out. He also is. He put, posted a screenshot. He wrote greater rift, 1 36 down rank one EU, which doctor, and there he is. That's his, you could see it in the screenshot. He absolutely did that. That's really cool. Leviathan also known as Steven Stewart, um, asks how's your season 27 going so far. And he made a guide. It is use this tip to maximize your angelic crucibles.
It is a video on YouTube and he also wrote in this tweet, I've been stacking up a nutty amount of angelic crucible and have received quite a few questions about how to optimize, finding and using them. So that's the topic of today's video. So you can check that out if you don't know what you're doing with that, I did start playing Diablo three season 27, and I tried recording it like I typically do, but my computer wasn't happy about that. So I'm gonna just try again.
I didn't get very far, uh, before I needed to give up on that, but I'll try again and see how it goes. I never start the season immediately. I get there when I can. And that's what it is, but I probably will take a look at this video, cause I don't know how to do these things. Levithan also has a strife and pale speed, greater rift build guide that you can check out also on YouTube and everything
I've talked about today. In this episode, there'll be links in the show notes@shatteredsoulstone.com. So if you wanna find this again, I'll make it very easy for you to do that. I'm gonna end this with Somero mat or stuff. Helene M posted a lovely watercolor artwork titled well described on Twitter watercolors practice on Diablo's Nero, Maner, and it is gorgeous. It is a female Nero Maner holding up one of those things where it's like a lit
skull kind of thing. And it has some of the, some of the it's recognizable. The armor that they're wearing behind them is like various shades of black and gray seems to be looking out at you. And that's pretty darn cool. And then there's also from, uh, art of BK, 92 fan art of the Nero Maner from Diablo four. And he's got kind of like an anime style of a Nero Maner in their armor and carrying all the stuff they'd be carrying that kind of stuff. And there's four images here and it's really neat.
Like if you didn't tell me that this was just static art, I would've thought someone made an anime about the, the Nero answer so there it is. It's a really cool, and I always try to highlight cool stuff that the Diablo community is doing. Cause I think that might help them out. And that's where I'm gonna end this one because I've kind of run out of stuff. I'm not really sure what's gonna happen with the Microsoft act division blizzard king deal. There's a lot of regulators,
I guess Saudi Arabia is like, yeah, cool. Do it. We like it. Great. So there's one place that they won't have a problem with, but if it's true that all the countries have to agree, that's gonna make things harder. I don't know exactly what the second level of the UK regulators thing is gonna be like. I'm not sure what the United States thing is gonna do. It appears that Phil Spencer is pretty darn confident that that this thing will
go through. So I'd like to believe him because if it doesn't, that's gonna be a problem for a whole lot of people. And that's where I'm gonna end this show. You have been listening to episode 3 75 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 that's specifically in Diablo three. I have no idea if we have clans in the other ones, I've tried in Diablo mortal, and I can't quite make enough money to do that. So, okay. Uh, you could 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.