Blizzard Watch Podcast

This week we started off discussing the announcement of an announcement which has now been actually announced by the time the podcast was produced and published, as a part of Blizzard's 35th anniversary. We still have some announcements coming up for Overwatch, Diablo, and Hearthstone, which we speculated on a bit. But, in terms of the stuff we know is happening in WoW, the team is "whelmed" by the Midnight prepatch event, which just started.

Something we're slightly more whelmed on are the Neighborhood Endeavors, now that Blizzard has boosted some of the rewards and XP gains, making the whole enterprise slightly less daunting.

Also, Player Housing on Zillow? It's more likely than you think.
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Midnight's prepatch kicked off this week, and we're talking Player Housing Neighborhood Endeavors -- in part because we hadn't seen much of them until now. We'll give you the rundown, and then we'll follow it up with our opinions on how the class revamps and addon revamps are going.

Plus, we have some thoughts as to what we'd like to see Remixed next. And when I say "we" I mean the podcasters. Please don't yell at the person just summarizing what they said out loud in front of god and everybody.
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We're waiting on a whole lot this week -- servers to come up for the Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary realms pre-patch, and for the Midnight pre-patch next week, and all the sweeping changes that brings. The team discusses the addons they'll miss and why, which also serves as a bit of a reminder to you to make sure yours are all updated, or they won't work at all come patch 12.0. There was also a really nice technical post about that Burning Crusade Anniversary pre-patch rollover, which Joe and Phil Ulrich team up to try to explain to us less enterprising folks. (That's a pun, because it involves enterprise backups to tape).

Also, oh hey, Guild Halls are coming soon to Player Housing! If you're surprised, don't worry -- so are we. This is the first time this was discussed beyond a far-reaching future possible feature, and now it's just kinda tossed off with a "coming soon," along with several other anticipated features.
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It's 2026, and the more things change, the more they stay the same. We start off with a new Hearthstone gatcha promotion, and follow it up with yet another splinter version of WoW Classic -- this time, WoW Classic Anniversary is splitting into WoW Classic Burning Crusade Anniversary and WoW Classic Classic Era Anniversary. Legion Remix is definitionally a rehash, but it's coming to an end relatively soon.

But it's not all old news! Immediately thereafter is the Midnight pre-patch, with a lot of new events and features, and a prepatch event. A new Diablo 4 expansion was just announced with a release date in the new year as well, even if it sounds very similar to the previous one, even if it does add Paladins. We also talk about all the new games we're looking forward to in 2026.

Plus, since Cory was a cohost, there was another edition of the Heroes of the Storm hopium corner. New year, same old us.
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This week we're looking back at the events of 2025, with our special guest Phil Ulrich. Rather than going at it chronologically, Matt consults a D8, which means we discuss one of our favorite things from the year which actually happened last: player housing! But there were a ton of things that happened in all of Blizzard's games this year, from Plunderstorm's return to Legion Remix, three Hearthstone expansions, and a ton of Diablo 4 seasons (though who can tell the difference between them). We also met new friends like Valentina, the lizard that was a part of a Hearthstonemarketing campaign we would die for, and King Krush, also a Hearthstone-based lizard. Probably a coincidence.

The In Memoriam section this year is Warcraft Rumble. May it rest in peace.

Then, all the other games that had us in a chokehold. But honestly, it's mostly the player housing.
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