SPEAKER_01 0:02

This is Break Yo Bales coming to you from my Sanctuary on the D2R Discord. On this episode, why does a 20-year-old game still have players obsessing over every stat, every drop, and every system? Today we're digging into that with someone who's spent years breaking those systems down. Enjoy. Welcome. Today we are joined by Tyriel and Crude Sash and our very special guest, Macro BioBoy. If you spent any time in the Diablo community, chances are you've come across his work. Mac is known for his deep dives into game mechanics, build theory, and systems analysis across Diablo 2 Resurrected and Diablo 4. And he's also part of the team at Mac's role helping put together a lot of guides players rely on. But beyond the guides and the numbers, he's also just someone who spent a lot of time thinking about these games and why they work the way they do. So today, we're going to talk about his Diablo story, how he approaches breaking down these systems, and get his perspective on where things might go from here. So with that, welcome, Mac. How are you?

SPEAKER_06 1:20

I'm doing really well. I feel like I'm about to watch a history channel exclusive about myself, and that's pretty hyphy. No, thank you guys very much for uh for having me here. I'm excited to talk with y'all.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Awesome. And we're very happy to have you. Thank you for being head.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yeah, for real. Thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

So with that, let's just get right into it. How did you get started with Diablo?

SPEAKER_06 1:41

Uh well, so I'm a I'm a pretty 35 years young. I think uh most of the people who either are consuming this, playing the game are either my age and older. And I just I started playing off a burnt copy of Diablo 1 from one of my dad's friends when I was like what like seven or eight years old. Got really into it, had no idea what I was doing, found out you could dupe stuff with gold, so I thought I was a god king. Uh after that, got a copy of Diablo 2 and then just kept playing it, I guess. I just I never really stopped playing that game at any given point. There was a couple lulls, you know. At some point, I guess I went to college and got a degree, but even then I was still kind of playing it in my off time. And now uh it's basically the only thing that I do, which is not a bad life to be living, I'm not gonna lie to you. But I kind of I started when it started and it hasn't stopped, so I haven't stopped.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

What about Diablo 2 Resurrected? Um, I assume that you were playing that from day one.

SPEAKER_06 2:37

Oh, for sure, yeah. So I mean, yeah, the the by the time Diablo 2 resurrected was coming out, I had basically gotten my start in speedrunning. So I guess that's that's the point where people on the internet found out who I was. I was watching an AGDQ while I was playing a terrible fury druid with like half IK set on, and I was following the Super Mario speedrunner named Grand Pooh Bear, and I was like, Oh, I like playing old games. Maybe people speedrun old games too. And I came across Mr. Lama SC's run where he was in chainmail. I was like, oh, wait a minute, I'm a 20-something-year-old Italian American that owns chain mail. I also like playing Diablo 2. Uh it it turns out there's a lot of overlap with anybody making content right now in the Diablo 2 space and whether or not they own a suit of chain mail. By the time Diablo 2, sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

I just I don't think I don't think a lot of folks that do that start out thinking that's what they're gonna do. And it's just kind of a thing that happens, right? And and it, you know, it maybe it either takes off or it doesn't, but uh I don't think it's anything anyone plans.

SPEAKER_06 3:45

No, and there wasn't even like a is this gonna take off. It was it was a hobby. I just I thought I was good at Diablo 2. I wasn't, turns out. I didn't know anything about this game. And I sat down and I, you know, I watched a couple of his videos. I wrote down, I used to have the piece of paper at my desk still that had like all the maps and when to turn left and when to go straight and which way to go from the waypoint. I had a little crappy diagram of the tombs in act two, and uh I just you have to record it to upload it, so I figured I might as well stream it. And then there was a like a two or three year period where I'd come home from working my office job in my little suit and then sit down, do a single speed run. And uh at some point other people took notice, and then uh that's when it spun off. But there was there was no intent of like being a streamer. I was I worked in pharmaceuticals as a account manager, so there was not really a lot of overlap with it.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

That's quite the switch up there.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Yeah, that's yeah, that's wild, but awesome. Like it's amazing when when uh the unexpected happens and you have that uh the opportunity opens up for you.

SPEAKER_06 4:58

Yeah, I'm definitely I'm I'm blessed or cursed either way you want to look at it, but no, it was it was it was a pretty amazing opportunity. I had a really good support structure around me at the time. My girlfriend was a doctor, and I wanted to get out of the company I was in. And I kind of had this thing I was doing on the side, like at night, and I went, well, you know, you know, we we have enough time. I've put away enough money. I was gonna take a month or two off. And I was like, let me let me try kind of doing this full time, see what that looks like. Uh and then oddly enough, this weird thing happened where there was this weird time skip. Something about a pandemic happened, and then a lot of people had a lot of time not only to be doing stuff, but to be watching Twitch. And that was kind of a I was in a very again kind of bless curse scenario where it's like this all sucks, but a lot of people are into watching Twitch right now, so I guess I'm doing this.

SPEAKER_03 5:47

You took advantage of an opportunity. I mean, you know, you there was a window there, and you just hit it then, you know, you hit it right there, and you know, that's that's serendipity that you know you can appreciate later in life, too. And you'd be like, Man, you know, I I was just in the right place at the right time, and that's awesome. Yeah, it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

As in many situations in life, timing is everything, and so uh sounds like you just were in the right place at the right time, as Krude had said. So when exactly did you start streaming? It it was during like 2021.

SPEAKER_06 6:22

So I I started in like 2018. Uh I started I started I started in 2018. You know, I started getting to know some of the other speedrunners. Uh, you know, I I generally met a lot of them, but probably like the one of the first ones I really met and kind of developed a relationship with is a great guy named Gymnasium. You've almost certainly seen him. Uh he's you know, he's he's a he's a really great guy. And then I kind of had this like little tutelage, this little apprenticeship to a pretty prolific speedrunner at the time by the name of Indrick. There was a point where he was like the undisputed sorceress runner, and then from there I met some of the OGs and I kind of got into their eight-man practices, it just kind of kept building out from there. Nowadays, you know, these are all as far as I'm concerned. I'm like, oh, I've been friends with these people now for like six or seven years. But yeah, it was around two thousand eight, twenty nineteen is when I quit my job, 2020 is when the world shut down, and then I would say the point where I was I had you know made it, whatever made it means, being able to support your lifestyle off the income that you generate was probably around like 2022. So I was it I had a day job up until last August still, just to make sure that there was no financial stress while I was doing this, even with the relationships I've made since then.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Yeah, I mean, I think I think uh we're probably all still a little traumatized from from uh the COVID years.

SPEAKER_06 7:49

Oh, yeah, it was not great, boss.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

No, no.

SPEAKER_06 7:52

Being in healthcare, my my girlfriend was a doctor at the time. It was it was a it was a rough time. I for everybody, I think we can all agree on that.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yeah, yep. And I just I I always go back to like the early days when we didn't know anything, not to get too far into it, but like we're we're like washing down our vegetables, right? Like sanitizing packaging when you get it from the store, like it was wild.

SPEAKER_03 8:19

I worked, uh I still do for a logistics company and we delivered pharmaceuticals, so we were essential essential frontline people. We had the documents from the government that all the drivers had just in case there were gonna be checkpoints. You know, I live in Las Vegas and it was abandoned for most for the for some for like a week or so and nobody was anywhere. And yeah, just going around and driving in empty streets was such an eerie sensation. But every night I'd come home and take off all my clothes and they'd go in the washer and I'd get you know sanitizing. Yeah, it was it was crazy.

SPEAKER_06 8:52

I think everybody still just has like a chair on their front porch. I don't know if anybody else still has the no-contact chair on the front porch, but you know that that that chair put in a lot of work over the years now.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

I missed the traffic from back then though, because I was just running ship DoorDash, you know, making a killing and having wide open streets. I I would give a lot to have that back.

SPEAKER_06 9:18

There was I because I was doing food oddly enough, I was also doing food delivery during that time. Uh, I worked with like a non-profit that did food delivery to the elderly and like people with disabilities. So yeah, I would I wouldn't mind going back to literally nobody else on the road at any given time. That was uh uh one of the rare benefits of working in that time.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Yeah, so shifting gears real quick. Your role at Max Roll. So when did that come about? And uh I guess could you give us a little background there?

SPEAKER_06 9:50

Yeah, so that was that was when Diablo 2 Resurrected was rolling out. So Max Roll was kind of it was already on the scene in one of the leading guide sites for Diablo 3. They had an amazing cast of writers for that. And when Diablo 2 Resurrected was announced, they were looking to create a site for D2R, and they had originally reached out to my friend BT Neanderthal and a couple other people. Dobrunsky was originally part of it. Uh, you know, I was friends with BT. I wasn't really like an endgame build guide player at that time. Remember, I was bad at the game, and then I started doing normal speed runs, so I had a very specific set of knowledge, and I was much more into mechanics than you know, like what's the best setup on physical Bow is on? I didn't know. They were like, Okay, we're trying to stand up this team, we want a lot of different kinds of writers, and everybody was really excited about doing build guides, but nobody wanted to do mechanics, right? Who wants to write an article about how poison damage worked in Diablo 2? Uh apparently me was the answer. So they they brought me on for that team. I was originally just doing resources, that's why like the attack modifiers resource and the how does old school attack speed resource, those types of things, were all originally under my name. And then that team shifted around a lot, responsibilities changed a lot, there was a lot of crunch, and uh, I guess now I have to like know how endgame builds work. I mostly focused on necromancer, oddly enough, that's kind of in my my wheelhouse, kind of in my brand. But working with Max Roll from that point really, really opened up the doors. It wasn't just about like, oh, people found out who I was or like viewership. It's you know, that's where I developed some of my most important relationships with people kind of across this part of the industry, opened up a lot of different doors, and uh has now taught me a lot about what it takes to be a responsible resource for a community, as opposed to just kind of putting out videos about topics that I think are interesting. Because those are two very, very different, those are two very different sets of responsibilities, is how I would put it.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yeah, so like you know, going from just making videos on things you think that are cool to something that that is a little bit bigger and uh I guess more um more planned. Uh uh, maybe that's not the right way to put it. Yeah, like it's something something like like appeals to a broader audience.

SPEAKER_06 12:20

The thing, the the way I try to give it to people is if you're gonna be quoted on Reddit to win somebody's argument, you better not make them look silly.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

That's a fair point, but also people say silly stuff on Reddit all the time.

SPEAKER_06 12:36

Oh yeah, oh yeah. Shoutouts to Reddit, shout outs to like the six people who I know are super cool on Reddit, and uh shout outs to everybody else trying their best out there, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

I I did recently come come across a post, I don't even remember what it was, on our Reddit. And you you had like jumped on and you like said hi, and someone was like, Oh my gosh, it's you. I thought that was kind of cool.

SPEAKER_06 13:02

That's always deeply, deeply humbling. Like it so a great example. Uh Pavke, an amazing community member, just put out you know his dissertation on how the Heralds work. And like Pavke is who I go to to learn stuff, Warren is who I go to to learn stuff, Amazon Mason is who I go to to learn stuff, and I'm I'm glad people like my things. Never forget, I am standing on the shoulders of giants at any given moment.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Yeah, for sure. Shout out to Pavke. He's yes, he's uh he's amazing. Um, and that his write-up on the Heralds is going to be going on our Reddit wiki. Um, I already talked to him about it. From Max Roll, then then you I guess leverage that into becoming a Diablo uh and Twitch partner.

SPEAKER_06 13:51

Yeah, so yeah, Max Roll, Maxwell really opened up Max Roll opened up both of those doors for me. One, obviously, uh all of the fan guide sites have a working relationship with Blizzard. Um, there's a partner program, it's you know very public knowledge at this point, and a lot of people get a lot of great opportunities to interface with the developers, share their feedback, bring community versus you know, community concerns to them, and be able to lobby for the the considerations of people playing the game. Because regardless of the number of heuristics that the company has, that's very different than so-and-so playing the game a couple sessions a week and being like, hey, I'm not having a good time, or maybe I'm having a great time. Either way, that kind of interfaces there. So working on Diablo 2, because we're on the site, uh, working with the developers back when it was still Vicarious Visions, who was building it, and eventually they moved in-house and got you know absorbed by Blizzard.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

Yeah, they're Blizzard Albany now, right?

SPEAKER_06 14:50

Yeah, basically. Yeah, so having the opportunity to like work literally hand in hand with them when they were first looking to do the balance patch that was going to come, uh 2.4, right? I think is when like the majority of the balance changes happened. And you know, being in a room with them and some other, you know, really smart, really great people who represent a good amount of the community being like, hey, these rune words, yes or no. What you know, what what should these things look like? What do we need to be considering? They were a really awesome team. You know, I'm glad they didn't just get dissolved. It looks like you know, they've been fully brought in-house from there. Started working on Diablo 4 for Max Roll. That also got me into the same realm with the Diablo 4 developers. So it's it's been a really, really I mean, an amazing. It's an it's an amazing scenario to find yourself in the room of people developing a game that you've been playing since you were nine, right? It's it's wildly humbling, but like not only that, there's a very big responsibility there, and I I try to take it as seriously as I possibly can. But they are not to glaze them too much, and and I get I get told that I'm a blizzard shill, but like I mean, that's perfectly fine. I've been playing their game since I was nine. I'm I'm I'm okay with liking them a lot. It's they're some of the most passionate and like smartest video game people I've talked to. The the the debates I've gotten into with developers and how much they it they they're not just like in there swapping numbers for no reason, which I think is like a big consideration. And like, oh man, they don't know what they're doing. I'm like, these people literally eat, breathe, and and sleep game design.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Yeah, if you read Reddit, they they would have you believing otherwise, but yeah, you know, I I think the other thing to recognize again, not to glaze them too much.

SPEAKER_06 16:38

I think another thing to recognize about Blizzard is uh sometimes they really miss the mark. And I think the important thing is they at least to me have shown the the potential for recognizing that and then correcting course, as opposed to just being like, No, you guys are wrong, and it's like, well, all right, I guess we won't buy your games anymore, idiots. So yeah, it it's it's been it's been very eye-opening, it's helped me to understand what goes into making a game so much more, while only really scratching the surface, right? I go, like, hey, this is broken. I don't know why it's broken, I just know it's broken. But there's people out there that do know why it's broken, and then yeah, eventually they get it fixed.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

And I will say, and I think I said this on one of the previous episodes. Um, no matter what Blizzard does, there will be people that won't be happy. Sure. Um, you know, it it you you can't you can't make changes to something without upsetting somebody. Um and if if you spend any time on Reddit or on the Blizzard forums, you'll see uh all the anguish with this latest one, but uh you know, I I don't focus on that. Like I'm I'm having a great time playing with the new expansion, so I've just been laughing at those people mostly.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Like you guys realize they didn't have to do anything. You know, this this game is a game that's been remade. They could have thrown this in maintenance mode, and they finally give you a bunch of stuff and you still want to complain. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Uh I think there are tweaks that need to be made. Oh, but uh, but overall, I think it's amazing. You know, after what a year and a half, two years of of virtually silence, expansion drop is just crazy. So, real quick, BlizzCon. So I know that recently you attended the most recent BlizzCon. Yes. Um you were center stage, right? Like you had like a special segment, right?

SPEAKER_06 18:48

Yeah, so and don't let Blizzard hear this episode. Uh please. Don't let them when they when they when they brought me out for last BlizzCon, I think they thought I was a lot more famous than I am or something. So I they I I I was offered a lot of different opportunities. I had the opportunity to sit down with um then leave live uh lead live uh game designer or class designer uh Adam Jackson. He's a phenomenal dude. At this point, he has left the company. Um, he's working on another title right now. I'm really excited to see what uh what he comes up with because that man had an insane passion for game design. And uh mostly due to a scheduling conflict where Darth Micro microtransaction was supposed to be there, but he he got into some kind of medical issue. Luckily, he's doing better. Shouts to DM. I ended up being in like a a meetup panel where it was Riker, Amaranth, and me. And the and the number and they put me at the end because they recognized I'm nobody, right? I think I'm at like 40,000 subs at that point. I don't really have like a TikTok or like Twitter following. I don't really do shorts at that point. Hell, I don't really do shorts now, and I should. If anybody wants to be my editor, please reach out to me. And I'm sitting at the end, and the number of just guys who just kept walking by, being super stoked to see Riker, just you know, like being blown away by the fact that Amaranth is there, and then they would walk up to me with their little poster and a sharpie, and I just had dudes look at me and go, Who are you? And I'd be like, hi, I'm hi, I'm Macrobi. You don't know me. And they're like, Oh, okay, thank you for the autograph. And I'm like, Yeah, no problem, man. Uh, but like, you know, I've I have a couple people who hang out in the stream who did know like that it was me and that I was there. Uh so shoutouts to them. I actually met one of the uh, I think at the time, like a Diablo 3 dev who also liked to watch my stream and he and he hangs out in chat. So there were a couple people, uh, but yeah, I had a I had a pretty cool opportunity for the interview. Um, we also got to go out there a little bit early and see the campus and got to kind of work on some of the things that would come in the future. So, like at that point, we got to play the gauntlet before it came out and some of the other changes, and or I'm sorry, that might have been no uh abattoir of year, not the gauntlet. But yeah, so it was as far as I understand for that year, it was like the least BlizzCon of BlizzCons. They didn't necessarily have a ton to roll out, you know. Obviously, we had like expansion news, which is very exciting, but there wasn't a lot going on in the other games, and that's why they've kind of taken this time because the whole company, I mean, there was a merger coming up, uh, which was still in talks back then, and I don't know anything about BlizzCon coming up. I need to, I this is not me being tongue in cheek cute. From the people that I've talked to who have told me nothing about it, they have told me that this is going to be the best BlizzCon in a very long time. Based off of what they're rolling out this early into the year, the fact that they think that they have anything to show us at BlizzCon is like insane to consider. I don't want to overhype it, but yeah, like imagine that. Like they released they released a DLC and a new class for Diablo to Resurrected in February for fun. Uh we we have the expansion for D4 already coming out, and they're like, no guys, don't worry. BlizzCon is going to rock. I'm like, what is it? What do you mean? Is Diablo going to personally come and like take me to hell? What what like what could you possibly be doing at this event? But I'm very excited to go back. BlizzCon was a ton of fun.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

So are you saying Reign of the Warlock might not be the chaos yet to be unleashed? Because that would be wild.

SPEAKER_06 22:39

It's oh, I think Reign of the Warlock was absolutely the chaos to be unleashed. I am talking, I am I am talking about Blizzard as like a greater whole and the fact that one, I think that Reign of the Warlock has been an amazing success story, and you know, you've already seen people like receiving surveys about what else would you kind of like to see in this game. So I would not be surprised.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Yeah, I got I got that survey. I I didn't see anything about an NDA, so uh I figured it's okay to talk about, but yeah.

SPEAKER_06 23:09

I have seen it on our I have seen it on a Reddit, so that's that's where I'll that's you know like that's my claim to it. They don't send me surveys like that, it's weird. It's like they can like they can DM me if they need to.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Right, because they can always they can always just reach out to you directly.

SPEAKER_06 23:24

Oh, and also real quick, that meant to be like like I'm on a leash, not a flex. That was not like a humble brag. I just realized how like gross that sounded. But the I would not be surprised if we get more news about like, oh hey, you guys love this. What if there was like a whole expansion in D2? Like that that is no longer like an insane speculation at this point. Not at all. Wild to say, not at all.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Yeah, we've we've talked about that uh like amongst the staff of the Discord and and and folks uh as a real possibility, um, you know, obviously pure speculation, yeah, but uh not outside the realm of possibility.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Even before the survey vindication, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

Even before the survey, though, we had talked because when you think about some of the foundational changes that we've seen just from this DLC, it's not a promise, and I'm not suggesting that I have any inside information here, but when I look at that, I think to myself, that is something that is a base for the future and not a capstone to what we already have. And that was really exciting to me. When I thought about how the warlock class came in and the changes they made because of it, that is the thing that really excited me because I feel like that's not just the end. If if it was just the end, we wouldn't have got a new class. There would have been different kinds of changes that were hey, this is a sop to the D2R people, so you'll be quiet. No, this is we see something, we're gonna build on it, we're gonna expand it, and we are gonna blow your minds. And that's exactly what I'm expecting at Bliss time.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Yeah, well, let's let's not set the expectations super high yet. But I, you know, I I guess I would say the fact that they did away with legacy graphics means that they're not held down by that. So that's number one. Number two, and it maybe it's a a small nuance, maybe it's nothing, but the fact that um, and I think this is the same for everybody, like when you're in game, it no longer shows your character name, it just shows your account name. And I pure speculation, um, on my part, I could be wrong. Uh, but it seemed to me that it might be an artifact of of a branch uh that didn't get pushed with with the expansion, meaning uh perhaps that there is an update to how chat works, um, whether that's the lobbies, you know, all that different stuff. But uh perhaps there's an update that they've worked on, but didn't make it in in the most recent release. Um so just you know, there are a few other things like splash damage kind of exists now, whereas it didn't before. So just like some little things that um I think might be breadcrumbs for things to come.

SPEAKER_06 26:30

That is such a deeper level of like I I am literally a person in the know. I've never even considered whether or not a functionality which may or may not be missing would indicate a different build. That's like a that's this is a deep level. This is this is some kind of mystic Oracle of Delphi stuff going on here.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

So this is exactly the kind of analytical stuff that I had done in the past, um, that really led me to believe that we were getting a DLC or expansion, and nobody believed me. Um, so you know, uh, I just I try to keep my ear to the ground, so to speak. Yeah, I I love it.

SPEAKER_06 27:12

I love it. I'm gonna I'm gonna have to let them know that there's people out here thinking like this. They need to up their game. You're gonna see like, hold on, this hold on, this word in this blog post is misspelled, which uh the most likely translation must have come from when they uh localized it from Mandarin. We know that China and just like going off in this weird direction. I love this. This is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Yeah, pure 100% speculation, but uh, but I love it. It's it's uh I've enjoy had enjoyed everything up to the run-up and and you know to have the expansion drop, you know, when when people like I'll send you the the links to to some of the stuff on Reddit that that people were saying in response to to my speculation. It uh it was pretty wild. Um so speaking of Reddit, kind of touched on it already. You you are uh on Reddit. I I've seen you say uh some stuff here and there on on different posts. Um what I guess how do you or do you like leverage Reddit at all currently for anything?

SPEAKER_06 28:17

Yeah, so I mean, you know, the first time that I was really looking to like quote unquote leverage Reddit, uh, because I I I just I don't actually leverage Reddit anymore, but you know, there there was I was an up-and-coming content creator, there are rules about when and where you can self-advertise. And one of the things that I really wanted to set out to do was one, get some brand recognition, make sure that I'm posting enough and trying to be as like part of the community enough where if I am going to do any forms of self-promo, it's not, you know, it's not seen as me just like literally abusing the fact that like people are going to see this. Nowadays, I don't I don't really like post videos or anything like that. If I do a good write-up on a new system that I think people would be, you know, would care to think about, I will post that kind of stuff. Like, hey, I've done this analysis, here are my findings. There is a video because people do like video media over written media sometimes, or they don't like looking at an Excel sheet or don't want to extract it themselves and do their own analysis. Nowadays, I do just like educating people. I do just like answering questions, and I do just like being helpful. So that's really what I do on the Reddit. Also, I needed to stop looking at short form content because it was it was just bad for me. I was just like on TikTok all day whenever I had free time, and that just wasn't good. So I kind of replaced that with scrolling through the various questions on on the on the various subreddits and seeing if I could be helpful. I I have a real I have a real love-hate relationship with Reddit because it feels like it feels like Reddit has become a place where people go to unwell actually each other to death and to be more technically be more technically right about something than someone else. And this isn't coming from like I love fighting, I love arguing, I love debating. I come I come from like a very, you know, like a emotionally like violent kind of uh city. So like I I I come I come from a place where people feel very strongly and fight very strongly. If I could just hey hey Reddit, how's it going? I'm gonna take a quick moment in this podcast. Somebody disagreeing with you or sharing other information isn't a personal attack on you, and you don't have to call them slurs, that doesn't have to happen, it's not that serious. We're all just talking about a video game from 26 years ago, and not everybody remembers every single bug. It's okay, guys. We're we're not out to get each other. Or if you are, get off Reddit. That's weird, that's weirdo behavior. All right, that's that's my little quickest side.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

We're gonna get comments on this uh now about how you attack people on Reddit for saying that.

SPEAKER_06 30:59

So and like, but that's just it. Like, I'm I'm not above it, right? Like, I am also a human, and somebody says something, I'm like, no, dumbass. Or I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

I like okay, no, that's okay. You can say that.

SPEAKER_06 31:10

Yeah, no, no, no, no, idiot. And they're like, and then I go, wait a minute, why am I being a Reddit bro? Calm down, like, this is not that serious, yeah. You know, but it's it's it's very interesting. I've been I've been trying to see it through the lens where there's this thing in RPG players where we have this like anxiety that we've made a bad decision and we've ruined something because we've come from playing games where you only get one master ball or you run out of health potions or you only get so many Phoenix downs, right? So I see just like a lot of anxiety, I see like a lot of decision paralysis, I see a lot of oh no, did I mess up? Which I think is just very harmful. Not to get like weirdly psychiatric about it, I think it's just very harmful, and and I just I want to offer people the opportunity to have somebody confidently let them know it's okay, and here's some info if you want it, but like it's okay, it really is just a video game, and you're gonna keep playing it for the next 20 years, you're gonna mess up, you're gonna trade for that triangular set and not realize you're getting screwed over when you're 12 years old, or maybe that was just me. So, yeah, the I I have a really interesting relationship with Reddit where half of the time I'm just like, Yeah, man, here's just some info, and that's like really cool. And then other times, I don't know, you know. I I guess it just comes along with being somebody who also has like a public persona, not a persona, but like a public presence, and people like ah, I'm going to, I'm gonna prove that I'm the Diablo man. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm I'm very proud of you. This is good information. Did you have to call my mother mentally handicapped? I don't think that had to happen.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Yeah, like uh just a quick aside, um like the Reddit was blowing up like with anger towards towards Llama. Um after the expansion, yeah, that's uh blaming him for stuff. And he did a vid he had to do an a video to kind of dispel some of the rumors and things, and like I just I I Reddit is great because it brings people together, but also Reddit sucks because it brings people together. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

It brings the number one cause together.

SPEAKER_06 33:21

Yeah, yeah, you know, like the number one cause of war is people living near each other. You know, it's the the number one cause of uh of divorces is getting married. The number one cause of somebody who you're pretty sure is either a Russian bot or is like a 13-year-old with something to prove, uh, calling you something very mean as you went on Reddit. These are just cosmic truths.

SPEAKER_03 33:42

Yeah, it's interesting. You spoke to something I had been thinking of recently when you mentioned that you know, the the anxiety about being right and everything, you know, for how long? For 20 years, what did every D2R player learn at some point? You do not put points into energy, you don't, you just don't. Well, I want to normalize putting points into energy for a specific reason. Preach. You you get a free respec right away. Preach. You can use that thing at any point and stop limiting yourself. I played the warlock, I love Ring of Fire, but it drains your mana so quickly. And I said, you know what? I'm gonna build a warlock, it's low level, and I'm gonna put points in energy, and I'm gonna play them that way until I get a chance to respec when I have the gear to sustain the spells. Because I don't want to sit there and go, I'm warlock, I do stabby. I was watching the animation, and if you watch the animation of when the warlock holds a dagger, it looks like he's trying to shake a piece of paper off his hand that got stuck there.

SPEAKER_07 34:49

He sure does.

SPEAKER_03 34:50

Yeah, yeah, he's just like shaking it, and I I looked at it and I thought it was really funny.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

Um it feels like he's disinterested, is what it like he's just like, I don't care. Yeah, like get out of my way.

SPEAKER_03 35:03

Yeah, and and I'm like, you know, I really want to normalize using mana early, you know, and then okay, when you get to level whatever, feel free. And also for newer players, it's okay to make mistakes in your skills, it's okay to make mistakes in your points because that's how you learn, and it's not a crime. And let's be honest, if you played Diablo 20 years ago, like we all did, you knew what happened. If you put a wrong skill point in, your your character was done. Yeah, you it had to be very specific, and you didn't know that at first. My first barbarian, he had points all over the place. He was a frenzy barb that had points in whirlwind, you know, because why not? You you try everything out, you see how it goes, and then you learn. But now we are given the opportunity to be more creative, and that that's the thing I'd like to see. And it speaks right to what you were saying. It's okay to mess up, it's okay to not be perfect, and it's okay to you know to to make changes or or evolve and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

I put mana points in mine when I started because I was like you said, I was running through my mana too fast, so I put points in the energy just so I could cover myself.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

Yeah, you don't like in life, you don't need to min-max immediately. You you can just you can just take it easy and and uh don't feel like you have to be perfect immediately.

SPEAKER_06 36:27

This is beautiful. I love I love this. Also, on the on the leveling guide, we do recommend putting in 15 points to energy just off the rip because it is just easier. Yeah, just to just to toss that out there, shut you know, just a self-plug maxel real quick. Like, we got you covered, like we did mana sucks. Don't deal with it. Just you know, we're we're we're we're tired here. Yeah, but yeah, you have you have a completely right. Also, the I like to think of it as a future investment in the drops that I get from bosses. You know, if I use all my respects right now, I love dropping essences later because now they have more value to me. I'm not trying to trade off 16 yellows and blues for one green, you know what I mean? Like now I want them, I want them for for me, for me to have. Shouts to Token of Absolution, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

And and like it taking a step back, it is we've talked about this before, but it is wild to think about if if we still only had one, or if there were no respects. Do you remember that? When when like you literally had to plan your gear and your character out in advance, and if if like you literally there was there was no room for mistakes in order to um build a character correctly, you'd have to start over.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Yeah, yeah. See what I did because I back then, you know, internet wasn't what it is today. I would go to school and they you know, we weren't supposed to print off a lot of stuff, and I would find like the gear guides, so it had everything from like the normal to exceptional to elite on all of the weapons, and I printed that entire thing off. And I might wait a couple of days and I'd print off the sorceress, then I'd wait a few days and I'd print off, you know, this, that, and the other. And I had this full binder of multiple websites just so that I could, you know, when I wanted to create my character, I'd be like, Alright, let's try a sorcerer. So I'd pull out my sorceress, I'd pull out like my set items, you know, print out my uniques, and I'd be looking at it, and I'd be reading the synergies on the skills and stuff, and I would sit there and like plot it on paper so that I didn't mess up my characters.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

So, what you're saying is a uh compendium, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Yeah, I had a physical compendium that I had printed off.

SPEAKER_03 38:47

Tyriel, I gotta tell you, I'm just sitting here thinking about the poor lady in the office who's sitting there, and the assistant principal comes in and Norma, what happened to all the goddamn paper?

SPEAKER_06 39:00

And it's like, gosh dang Tyriel. He's out, he's out here playing the devil's game. That's what he's doing.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

See, my thought is uh the toner, because uh I actually did get in trouble for toner at one point in high school. So, you know, where's all the toner?

SPEAKER_01 39:18

Real quickly before we get to the break, comparing D2 and D4, uh, you know, maybe D3 as well, if you can. Um and and why do you think this 20-year-old plus game still matters?

SPEAKER_06 39:32

Yeah, that's that's kind of the the golden question, you know. Diablo 2 both invented and has now mastered and then destroyed so that nobody else could ever the longevity of an ARPG, really, right? It's it there's some kind of magic to the game. I I try to answer this question all of the time. So uh I I have especially recently been much more involved in Diablo 4. Why? Well, because nothing has happened in Diablo 2 resurrected for a long time, and I have carpal tunnel now, so speedrunning kind of sucks for me. Shoutouts to getting world first 99 and PD2 that nobody remembers happened. Uh that literally ruined me pushing an eight-player team to world first 99 across all the classes. That one is a flex. I'm very proud of that. Uh shout out to somebody and something in team. They were, I mean, they've they've done an amazing job over there. My boy Kenite as well. So, what what makes like D2 special, right? And can you compare it to D4? I I think it's very fair to say that recently is when Diablo 4, I think, can stand on its own legs as a legitimately good ARPG, and you either like it or don't like it, especially with the expansion coming up, answering a lot of the questions that are left lingering about what does it mean to have you know an endgame gear grind and end game progression in Diablo 4. Diablo 2, how why does it still matter? Uh, one part, a lot of us grew up on it, and not only that, it was formative in the early understandings of people who are older than myself as well. We we like to think that it's like, oh, millennials grew up with the game and it's just like pure nostalgia. It wasn't just that, right? It was, you know, my father who was Gen X, it was people even older than that. Diablo 2 was at a formative point when online video gaming was real and accessible, at a point where more and more people actually had access to the internet and were transferring a lot of their potentials for relationships, their time spent, and their recreation into this hobby. Diablo 2 had successfully accomplished something that other games had not yet at that time. So not only was it ahead of the time, it was in a perfect time. If we want to make the argument that uh my kind of opportunity at a career was at a perfect time with the pandemic, Diablo 2 was at a perfect time where you could be trying the wildest stuff with a video game, get it out there, and make a name for yourself. Uh, it also helped helps that the game itself was designed from the understanding that anybody, and you know, they'll prototypically, you know, point to like even the mom in the house could pick up the game, have no idea what's going on, but within like five or six minutes, at least understand that if I keep going forward and clicking these monsters, stuff will fall on the ground. The sound design was amazing, the art design at the time was amazing, and what it allowed you to do and I think what it hid from the player and what was able to be discovered in the kind of uh cult-like uh obsession with figuring out how this very archaic thing worked is what created like the initial nest eggs of like the massive European, mostly German uh like culture around the game. But um, not only that, Blizzard is coming up, you have Starcraft, you have like the first understanding of like what is an esport. Well, if they did Starcraft and they're in Warcraft is similar to this, then also any other games that they're making are also going to be great. But nowadays, like what makes Diablo 2 good? There is something uh very powerful about you learning the secret and then you being the one who knows how to do the thing, and I think that describes uh Diablo 2. I'm gonna say something fairly controversial. Diablo 2 is an incredibly easy game to master, but nothing about the game educates you on how to master it.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

Yeah, there's no hand holding. We've talked about that. That's one of the things that I really like about it.

SPEAKER_06 43:31

You know, people like, oh man, like I'm you know, the challenge of hell. And I go, oh, you actually just skipped those monsters. But that's all word of mouth stuff. Like somebody every day on the Reddit, somebody goes, How do I deal with fireimmunes? And people are like, Oh, you just don't. And they're like, What what? I have to kill all the monsters. Like, actually, you don't. And in fact, this is a game about killing very specific monsters very efficiently. And then people like, oh, now I know how to get past this, and oh, I can like teach this other person, and oh. Now I know where the items drop. Now I can teach this other person. Or oh, I finally learned how to get there from the waypoint. Now I can teach this other person. It's I think that the reason why the game is important is because a community of people decided that it was, and part of the tradition of that community is perpetuating this desire to master the game.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

That's well put, I think. Um like the Discord, right? You know, we'll do a little plug for the Discord. Like we have people coming in all the time that are new to the game. Um, and it always feels so good to see uh uh the community that we've built here to be so willing to help people um you know discover the game for the first time. And and like I I always say when I when I see stuff, I always try to chime in and be like, don't be so quick to try to get to the end game. Like get through normal or maybe even nightmare on your own. Don't don't look up guides, like you can do it. It's not not super challenging, but but there will be some points where like durial, like that's a normal, that's always a hard first one. But but like you never get to unlearn the stuff, right? Discover it on your own for the first time. Then when you truly get stuck, then then maybe turn to a guide or something. Don't don't ruin your experience by getting rushed immediately and throwing all the rest of the experience away.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

Then wonder why you're bored, you know? Like enjoy it and ask the people, and that's you know, again, throwing back to our Discord, the hive mind that we have is incredible. You know, people ask a question and they'll get an answer, and it'll be a sufficient answer, and then somebody who knows a little bit more will be like also blah blah blah blah blah, and then you know, a third, fourth, fifth person might chime and be like, just so you're aware, in these situations, blah blah blah blah. And it's great to see that for all these new people, and to see even some people who are veterans, such as you know, all of us, we're still learning. Like someone will say something will be like, wait a minute, that that's a thing, and then we'll get a link or a video, you know, or uh a table, whatever the case may be. And it's great to see that, or someone will have a question, be like, Oh, in fact, Pavkey or Tim did this great write-up on it, or we have actually something about that in our wiki, and it's it's just this beautiful amalgamation of minds that is furthering the entire community, it's not just trying to better one person or a small group of people. It doesn't matter if it's a day one or day, you know, million player, so to speak, and we're all there helping each other reach these new heights, and it's a beautiful thing to see.

SPEAKER_03 46:56

I was talking to a co-worker of my wife's who's 23 years old, and he's into gaming. And I asked him what games he played, and he said Valorant and League of Legends and a couple others. And I said to him, Well, why don't you try D2R? And he kind of looked at me and he goes, It's old. And I said, Hold on. I said, first of all, I'm not I'm old, but I'm also very well seasoned. I said, that's one thing. And two, two, you have no idea how great it is. And when I started talking to him, I said, let me explain something to you. I said, Diablo 2 will not challenge your physical dexterity, it will not challenge how fast you can WASD or how you can move your mouse or how many clicks in your rotation you can put together. I said, but it will challenge you on how you build your character, how you handle it in uh in you know uh harder difficulties. And it's funny that you mentioned about skipping mobs and stuff like that. I've kind of become famous in my own mind for the fact that I never ever skip mobs. I don't care how hard they are, I don't care how crazy it is. I have relented, I don't clear every single zone fully all the time. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. But if I'm on my way to a quest point or you know, to a certain boss, everything that's in my way must die. And it must die. And if it's like a physical immune and I happen to have a character that's only physical, well, I'm gonna have to come up with some creative solutions. I think I think I've I've ditched one pack that I can recall in a game. It was uh I was on a paladin and the group was magic and or magic immune, and I was on my hammered in and I just could not kill them. It was out in Lost City, and they were just driving me nuts, and I had no solution, and I said, I I can't do this. I there's no way around these guys, and I gotta give it up. And it chafed for weeks.

SPEAKER_06 48:51

I uh I I I do salute you. I have done uh a P8 Iron Man run on a double throw bar back uh back in LOD. So I feel you, I feel your pain.

SPEAKER_03 49:03

Oh my god, respect, respect for that.

SPEAKER_06 49:05

If it was it was it was a lot, it was a lot of fun repairing weapons every two seconds. But no, but like sincerely, it was it was interesting re-engaging with the game in a way where I go, I'm in this way, I'm not going to use the game knowledge that I've cultivated, I'm going to use other game knowledge to instead engage with it in a different way. And I I thought I think that is also like a very the the one other feather I would put in the Diablo 2 cap is just there's no wrong way to play the game, there is sure a whole hell of a very interesting ways to play the game, and each one of them teaches you a very, very different thing about it that you otherwise never would have come across.

SPEAKER_03 49:46

And without trying to make a comparison and say D4 is this and D2 is that, and this is better and that's better, and get into that kind of class war thing. You know, a lot of D2 fans have a lot of negative things to say about D4. Um, I was a huge D4 supporter. I I was at the uh the pre-party, got all the stuff, you know. I was in the NDA alpha, all that fun stuff. I really liked it at first. I I my it didn't hold my interest as long as I wanted it to. You know, it and D3, they both have their own strengths. And so without, like I said, without trying to like pit one against the other, what do you when you look at D4, how do you see it comp you know, either compare to or in the same kind of class as D2? Like, like what do you take from it?

SPEAKER_06 50:29

Yeah, so you know, one one part about Diablo 4 is that I was incredibly invested in seeing it be a success because as much as I love playing Diablo 2, uh, I've been playing I had at that point, I've been playing Diablo 2 for 21 years, and I haven't done everything you could possibly do in it, but I've done damn near just about everything you can do. So, other than just kind of doing it because I like it, I I would like to see another game. While Diablo 3 didn't click with me, and you know, whenever we're talking about D2, Diablo 3 to D2 Die Hards was an utter failure. It was one of the most successful games that Blizzard has ever put out ever, and it's like this weird revisionist history because it looked more like World of Warcraft, which seemingly would have been a winning, uh, you know, a winning art design to go with because World of Warcraft was the biggest game on the planet. So, like, you know, I was also there buying it midnight when Diablo 3 came out. I played it for a week and I went, you know what, this isn't for me, but it didn't turn it didn't make it a bad game, it just wasn't for me, and that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 51:32

Oh, just real quick before you keep going. Uh, I will say for me, Kane's still alive, you know. Just uh I'm yeah I'm personally retconning. I'm personally retconning that uh Kane is still alive.

SPEAKER_06 51:45

Let me let me throw a couple things out there, right? Just so that like everybody knows I'm not like an inside agent trying to trying to whitewash Diablo history. Killing off Kane with a butterfly mom, the lamest shit they could have done on the what was that? Who is this lady? I I just went and spanked her after that. So, like, what do you mean she killed the one of the last of the Herodrum? Are you a lunatic?

SPEAKER_01 52:08

It was it was Magda, right?

SPEAKER_06 52:09

If I know Magda, it was Magda, and you kill her like an hour of gameplay later, like it was so anticlimactic. Uh, also, uh, just real quick, like Diablo Immortal, right? And before anybody like gets out their pitchfork, I'm gonna say another controversial thing. One of the best mobile games that's ever existed. If only they didn't lie to us as if we weren't adults that deserve to be told the truth uh about monetization, I would have been fine with it. But they lied to us. So literally don't give that game any money and like don't play it, right? Like that's that's where that's where I draw like my hard line of of boycotting stuff. But Diablo 4, when it launched, launched in a horrid state, not because of the developers, they were trying their best, and it has taken a very long time for it to be a game where I think it fully respects your time and is legitimately offering you a good gameplay experience. I think around season, I would say around like season five is when I went, okay, this is at least a game where now it's just a choice of like, do you like it or not? And then every season after that has just been better and better. And this most recent season showed what Diablo 4 could look like with an actual endgame item grind that was interesting enough for people to keep sinking their teeth into. And from what they have shown us from the expansion, I think that's when if you are like still a Diablo 4 hater, it better be because you hate playing the game when you play it and not because uh you're just a D2 like diehard and it's just fun to hate every other Diablo game that's ever existed, but for some reason, keep pretending like Diablo 1 was the best game ever. Like, you know, I I also love D1. I I truly, truly do. I've gone back and played it multiple times. I have a lot of nostalgia for it, but I think we need to start looking at these different medias and these different pieces of art for what they do offer and not just what they I was trying to explain this recently, or not recently, but like throughout the history of Diablo 4 being out. Diablo 4 needed to do a lot of things because I want you to know you can go look up articles. When Diablo 2 came out, it was hated by a lot of Diablo 1 diehards. It was fast, it wasn't as dark, it was like they were like it's too bright and colorful, an insane thing to say about Diablo 2, right? But in comparison to Diablo 1, it's like somebody was walking around with a disco ball for all intents and purposes.

SPEAKER_01 54:32

Yeah, the lighting, big big difference.

SPEAKER_06 54:35

The the lighting, the no real like cursed items, you know, uh you know, every all this power is just handed to you. There were articles saying Diablo 2 was a bad game, which was insane. And then those same articles existed for Diablo 3, which is insane because look at it, it's still a very, very good game. And Diablo 4 needed to be the sequel to Diablo 1 that the Diablo 1 diehards never got in their mind. It needed to be the sequel to Diablo 2 for the Diablo 2 Diehards who never got the sequel that they wanted. It needed to be the sequel to Diablo 3, and then the Diablo 3 players who walk into Diablo 4 are like, where's my WoW graphics? Where's my super fast combat? Where's all of my like you know, like my wild sets? Where where are my set items at all? Diablo 4 needed to be the sequel to so many groups of players who felt like their personal baby game, like their or not baby game, but like their their personal favorite game never got the respect it deserved. And it's like expectations, the expectations were very high, and it did it really didn't deliver, I'd argue, on really any of that, but I think what it was trying to do, like what it was trying to offer as a base game, was very good, and that's what kept me hooked. And I feel like I've I feel like I've had my patience paid off, but I'm also a blizzard shill, right? Like I I had more than one incentive to care about this thing. I'm not trying to pretend like that's not a truth, it's just like it's fun now. It's it just like is now a fun game to play with a lot of different stuff to go do and some interesting mechanics, and I'm really, really excited for the expansion to finally offer basically people like me a thing to actually do in the end game because and I guess to me, I just always found it interesting to call a game Diablo, but not even we're like I get they're kind of working their way through it, but then not have Diablo in it at all.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

Sure.

SPEAKER_06 56:25

I I I I get that, like I truly do. Like I'm not I'm not an idiot, right? Like, yeah, of course we're gonna fight Diablo.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

Yeah, it's there's another expansion coming at some point that'll have sure.

SPEAKER_06 56:37

I was excited to do something else. I don't know, man. Like, like again, like I've I've killed Diablo a lot, I've killed a lot of Diablo, but you know what? I never really learned anything other than the voice line of Mephisto when he's like, Oh, you just missed Diablo. And I'm like, uh man, that's really all I get from this guy, huh? So you're too late. Exactly. And in you know, in his chest never gives me a high rune, but everybody else gets one. No, I was just I was personally excited to explore something else. I like the story that they were offering up. There's also a little bit of revisionist history going on where like the one thing Diablo 4 had going for it when it launched, and the one thing it was lauded for was its campaign and the cool story with Lilith. People are like, I don't know, like misremembering that all of a sudden. Like, I've I've people come up just like, man, all the campaigns were garbage. This is all trash. I was like, Well, hold on, that was like the one thing it did good, it had a cool campaign, and that was it. So at least at least let it have that, like, at least let its history have that.

SPEAKER_01 57:37

Yeah, I remember like when when they dropped the trailer for like the full intro to Lilith. Oh, yeah, like my my mouth, my jaw was on the floor, right? Like, that was so crazy and like dark and and like everything you would expect. Yep, like that was that was awesome.

SPEAKER_03 58:01

I was at BlissCon that year, that was my first BlissCon when that came out, and I gotta tell you, that place was shaking. It was incredible. It is incredible. What what a cinematic moment. I mean, I was raving about that. I was telling people, this thing is literally Hollywood movie quality. There is no ifs, ands, or buts. It is without question the greatest cinematic I think that's ever been made. That's that's I'm just gonna leave it out there. And the the Lich King cinematic from World of Warcraft is really high up there. Maybe it's number two, but for the entire the way the story is put together, the way they do everything, man, when Elias sits there and you see his eyes and he says, There is no light here. Oh my god, amazing. And that you were right, that campaign was fantastic. The story with Lorath, the the the beats and the the the shout outs to Diablo 2 in the game. We're we're just like I'm like my son. Uh he's he's on the Discord, he's a community supporter, great, you know, of course he's a great kid, he's my son. But uh he uh you know he and I, you know, we're playing it alongside him, we're just like texting back and forth, you know, or messaging him. Like, he's like, oh my god, like did you see this? And I'm like, yeah, you know, it's like it was so awesome. And you know, like I said, I just you know, the end game and the the the way it was designed didn't didn't hit me, unfortunately. But yeah, I can imagine. I just yeah. Well, you know, for me, I don't want to, I don't want to beat up the game. It was just for me, it was an overload of systems, and for me, I felt the the whole skill system was just too complex, possibly just for the sake of complexity to give somebody, you know, perhaps you know, a certain player base that that meat to sink into. For me, it was just a tedious exercise. So, you know, but like I said, it's you know, different strokes for different folks. Uh, love the campaign, just thought it was fantastic. Did not like the vessel campaign, and yeah, I am going to get the expansion, I am going to play it at some point, uh, because I I need to continue the story. I have been with Diablo for 25 years, I'm not going away. And and I'll give it a try, you know, for sure. I will absolutely you know see what happens. So, you know, Blizzard, you got my money too.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:14

Um, and and I guess uh to cap that all off, I'll say for me, that like obviously the whole trailer was like amazing, but the moment she like comes down after the blood, you know, creates that portal and she comes through, and like the moment she looks down, to me, that was just I was just like, holy shit, this is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:36

Yeah, that whole cinematic was a masterpiece.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:41

We've gone we've gone an hour for a half hour segment, so let's take a quick break, and when we come back, we shall continue. This episode is brought to you by our D2R Discord and subreddit. Come join our community of over a hundred thousand combined members. Ask questions, interact with other players, get real-time updates on Diablo clone and terror zones, join voice channels and kill hordes together, enter our giveaways, or just hang out and chat. If you love D2R as much as we do, be sure to check it out. Links in the description. Alright, and we are back. So, uh, to kick off this segment of the pod, I thought uh we kind of already talked a little bit about Wrath of the Warlock, but I thought maybe we could dive a little deeper, just get maybe your some of your general thoughts, as well as maybe if you have any anything specific that you think is important to discuss.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:46

Yeah, so I felt I felt like Ice Crown Citadel was a really good raid, and I really liked the first boss. Sorry, you just said Wrath of the Warlock, and I thought that was dope.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:55

Yes, oh no, oh no, I can't.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:58

No, I'm I'm just playing with Rain of the Warlock.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:02

Uh yeah, so second, second great bit. Yeah, I hate it. You know, they ruined my game, they changed everything. How do no, so uh I'm I'm definitely of the camp of if I want to go play LOD, it is right there. I can you know I can load up Plug-E, which was just a strictly better experience of LOD, or I could go play PD2 if I want to play a you know a strictly better version of LOD in my mind. But I'm I'm here for the developers to if they're willing to do it, keep iterating on this game and keep showing us what Diablo 2 could look like in a different lens. If you want to play Legacy, you could play Legacy. Now, if you want to play D2R, you can play D2R, and now you can play Reign of the Warlock. And I'm not going to pretend like splitting up the player base, even though it's like a very, very small percentage, but splitting up the player base at all does negatively impact some people. You know, there are some people where I see the argument being made like, dude, if you don't want to play the you know the DLC, don't buy it and just keep playing D2R. That's okay. 90% of the player base is now playing the DLC, so they're not making games. There aren't as many bail runs, right? So that that is a choice where something has been changed for you that you did not necessarily elect for. That being said, for my own personal enjoyment of the game, I'm down with a new class. I'm down with 10 new classes, I'm down with 50 new items, I'm down with a complete overhaul of rune words, I'm I'm down with them uh adding 20 more sets. Anything that allows me to enjoy this game in new ways that I've never been able to do over the past nearly three decades of playing in this space. So I like the idea of the DLC and what it offers. I have some problems with how it has changed the availability of the end game for the casual player in a way that I don't feel like is necessarily a benefit. Um, mostly when it comes down to how difficult it is to make a herald spawn in a game when if I had to make a guess, I don't have these numbers, but if I had to make a guess, the number of people who just kind of get in a couple Mephisto runs before they run off to work, or maybe they're on break and they have it, you know, they have it set up on, you know, like on a mobile gaming device, or you know, oh snap, I'm gonna have some free time on Saturday. Let me get some bail runs in, let me get some experience. Maybe I'm gonna try to level up a new character. I don't think these people have time to terrorize an entire act and kill every monster in it and not get a sunder charm at the end of that. Uh, there's there's a couple different divided opinions on this. Some people love the rarity. I like rare things, I like chasing things. I I've been playing this game for 20 plus years, right? Like I I I get it, I get the grind, but I don't I don't need to have more grind given to my character to stop somebody else from being able to farm something other than Mephisto and Indarial on their Hydra Sorg. There there's there's different things going on here. I think it just needs a little bit of tweaking. One, warlock is just too strong, it doesn't really have any problems. Like, you don't have to solve any problems on the class. Every other class has to solve problems, this one doesn't. I think that's a little bit too strong. And my best guess is that some of that will be approached in a bounce patch after this ladder. I don't know that, but I assume that. The the way that Heralds spawn and how this inherently ties into how long do you have to play before you can actually farm in other places is too long for me. The uncertainty, because like I I terrorized act five. I was on an echoing strike warlock with an Enigma at the 125 FCR breakpoint. I killed every monster in Act 5, other than the Halls of Nilithac. I did not spawn a single herald. Now that is very, very low, low odds of that happening. That is very Very bad odds. But it did happen to me. And I play this game professionally. I can't imagine you finally get a Worldstone Shard. You're finally, you know, you finally grinded it out in the small handful of zones you can farm in because you're playing a build that had the audacity of only doing one or maybe two elements worth of damage, and you finally terrorize like act two, and you're not at the fastest FCR breakpoint, you don't have an Enigma, it takes you two hours to clear out act two, and you don't even see a sunder charm. That's insane to me. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:36

That's a fair point. I I agree.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:38

That's an interesting take on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:41

Even just today, there's there was a lot of conversation about that. Um, I do think like I kind of gave the person a hard time, but I do enjoy the grind, but you know, when you look at it from that perspective, it certainly does feel bad. Um I think the they do need to tweak it a little bit. Uh like however, whatever the mechanics are that and and I know Pavke put up a a good uh write-up about that, but um not to get in too deep into it, but but I think that they do need to tweak uh the mechanics on on the spawn rates, for sure.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:22

Yeah, it's and you know, I I I think it it even goes like a bit deeper than that. So the idea of the grind, right? What what what is the grind in Diablo 2 before there were terror zones? Right, because we we played a game, hell, we played a game before there was infinity. So, like let's remember there have been stages of this game opening up to more classes and more builds over the history of its of it of its existence. There used to not be Enigma. The best you could do was a Naja's puzzler, and before that was a spell steal, and before that was like a teleport staff you bought from Ormus. Um you want to play your build, and in Diablo 2, you find out very quickly your build sucks. Even if you're playing the best build, it sucks somewhere. Yeah, there's an inequality to where it sucks. Hammered ins suck in very few places, uh, fire builds suck in many places, but they have different strengths, and that's okay. But when you go, okay, well, we have introduced like super endgame chase items that allow you to be a sorceress for all intents and purposes. You can get your conviction aura and you can get teleport. Okay, that opens up more of the game, but that's super endgame. Then we get into D2R and we get terror zones at all. What is the purpose of a terror zone? The purpose of a terror zone was twofold. It was to one, make it so that there was a legitimate route to being able to reach level 99 without having to hyper-efficiently spawn multiple games of having a single character kill Diablo, the thing that we did for like the world first 99 on um to you know to pay homage to our friend who had passed away unsullied. We pushed Teo to 99 in the first ladder, and it was 30 plus people opening up and clearing out uh P8 Chaos Sanctuary and having him walk in and kill Diablo and then immediately jump to the next game. So that sucked. It was 20 hour plus game days, but now you could go farm other places. So more than just TC, you know, more than just area level 85 zones mattered. Oh, it also added a little bit of difficulty, so the endgame was a little bit harder. Okay, this is very interesting. But people can't just go farm random zones. You can only farm where your elements are good. Are you playing a blizzard sork? Man, you m you better really love killing Mephisto in the ancient tunnels, uh, because that's what you're gonna be doing for a very long time. Oh, you're playing any fire build, you must really love Stony Tomb in Act 2 that you can't even find easily. Enjoy doing that. So on and so forth. So they add sunder charms. The point of the sunder charm? Well, if you can kill things in a terror zone, you eventually get a little thing that says monsters aren't immune to your damage. Doesn't say you could just do infinite damage to them, but now they're not immune to your damage. To me, while you could argue that this like broke something about the game, right? Like it invalidated some game knowledge or however you want to try to, you know, lay a very large responsibility on it. I personally saw it as more people get to play the build that they like sooner and not feel bad. That's what I thought the the the grand sin of Sunder Charms was people get to play the build that they like sooner and not feel bad. And I like the idea of adding a grind to them where let's say sunder charms are heinous, like they break monsters down to 99 and it's minus 150 res. That's heinous, but at least you could charm in places, and then let's say beating these high heralds is where you get the materials that are necessary to craft a good sunder charm so that you can actually get to an endgame character, or maybe it's only with like the good sunder charm so you're actually able to go do the ancients fight. And since the ancients is where everybody wants to get their jewels, it adds it. There's a different way of introducing this chase that isn't there. Even though they have been actively attempting to farm one.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:05

Yeah, and I mean I I I wouldn't say I've been actively trying, excuse me, actively trying to farm one. I've just been doing the using the shards and you know, killing stuff, right? Uh I haven't seen one yet. And I probably play more than a lot of folks, but probably not as much as others. But but yeah, I mean I I just I think the mechanic needs tweaking. Is it is it perfect? No. Um, but I think it's it's nice that it's not just uh something that is given to you.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:40

Sure. And oh yeah, and by the way, like the old sender drop rates were insane. Like especially when they especially when they first started, it was like every monster you kill dropped one. It was like, okay, well, that's probably not good. And then you know they they fixed that a bit, and it was still I would argue, still far too easy. Like, I don't I don't think that just killing an elite mob in a terror zone when you randomly hit one that you can kill mobs in is an accomplishment, and I don't think that you should be rewarded with something that was basically like infinity level powerful, right? But I don't I don't think nobody getting one is the answer to that. Like, I don't I don't think that that's like where the pendulum should swing to, right? But other than that, I'm I'm beyond ecstatic that this exists and that they're trying things, like they're trying to answer questions about a game in 2026. That's yeah, that that's like my that's that's like a D2 players like most perfect dream. Holy crap, there's a dev team working on this game. So I would I I would never seek to like bite the hand that feeds. A little bit of tweaking.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:44

I will agree. Um, I want to add a flip side to that. I the other day, um, you know, it takes time to bind the right D and it's it was disappointing. I was running, I don't remember if I had the shard going or whatever it was. I was in the TZ and I drew Ayer. Like, okay, so I'm looking for it, and then I drew Ayer again, and I still haven't seen this Herald. Then I draw Ayer a third time, and I'm like, okay, where the hell are these heralds? And I'm teleporting. I ended up telestomping myself because all three Heralds spawned on top of each other. Oh, jeez, yeah. So I teleported in and I went from full health to nothing dead in half a second. So there's definitely tweaks that need to be made because drawing IR three times and then telestomping myself by running into them is no better than, you know, like you said, running two hours and not seeing a single one. Yeah. So there definitely needs to be some tweaks made in there from many different directions.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:49

Yeah, I mean, and like, but beyond beyond like the mechanics and and you know, some of these things we've talked about, like all of the other features that they've introduced, like just beautiful. Just absolutely beautiful. I I couldn't couldn't be happier.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:07

Oh, the stash is like a just like somebody came down and said, What would make you happy, macrobio boy? And I said, What about a good stash in Diablo 2? And they went, Your wish is my command. Like, I'm I'm staring at this stash and I'm like, hi Diablo 4 developers, how are you doing today? So I don't know if you guys have heard of Diablo 2 Resurrected, but they have a good stash over there, and y'all should steal it. Y'all should use their stash. It is a thing of beauty, isn't it? It's it it it it truly truly is. I did see people I already saw people complain like oh man, it only goes up to 99. And I'm like, homie, yeah, used your P gems. What are what are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:50

Yeah, use them better than that. What were you doing before with your six mules? You just cleared you cleared all these mules. What are you complaining about?

SPEAKER_06 1:14:59

Homie, go go imbue a diadem and re-roll it, and then hit two skills, some all res and no sockets, posted to Reddit and ask if you hit gold. The answer is no, but do it, like go spend your P gems. Yeah, damn.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:13

All right, I just no matter what it is, it's always charcy food.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:16

It is charsey food, but that's you know, if you hit 99, that's a that's a that's a you problem now. That's where I'm at. If you hit 99 and you're like, man, they should solve this for me. Nah, dog, use your Phoenix downs. The game, you've beaten the game. You don't need to like just go use these things, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:34

Like, I know it's probably nothing, but um, the first thing that I got to 99 in my stash was full rejuves, and I felt really good about that. Yeah, I did that 98 perfect diamonds. You don't need you don't need a full character of rejuves anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:52

I then got bothered by the fact that they had regular Jews right next to it, and I had none. So I'm not gonna lie, I farm myself up to 99 regular Jeeves now, so I have 99 of both.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:04

Can we get can I can we see a little little OCD kicking in there? I was just gonna say, can we be can we be honest and vulnerable in this moment? Absolutely. Hey, hey man, are you okay? How's it going? Are you doing all right? 99 regular Jews right next to it. I get it, I totally do. I also want to fill everything in, but like you had to go out of your way to accomplish that. Do you know what I mean? Like you're you're out here scrounging, you're like, damn it, another full rejuve.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:31

It's funny that you say that because I was because it's like Jew full, damn it. Yep, I'm looking for the lesser ones, give them to me.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:40

My non-ladder has 57 soul runes because I'm too lazy to farm chip top hasn't upgrade them to end. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:49

I mean it definitely adds another thing for completionists, you know, aside from the obviously the compendium, the built-in grail, awesome. Um, but like I don't know if it's even feasible, but my my goal is to get everything up to 99. Maybe not the statues and the shards. That feels like maybe a little crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:08

You do realize that includes organs too.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:11

Oh, yeah, probably not those.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:13

And keys.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:14

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:16

Look, I probably probably won't get there. That's just that's something that you'll accrue over time, and eventually we'll get a really awesome picture that's like shared across social media where it's like, uh, this this one diehard Diablo 2 fan actually won 100% of the game, including their stash, and it'll be beautiful, you know. This will be wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:35

Oh god, I just thought of a new speed run for you. Hundred 100% in your stash, you're welcome. Insane.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:44

I guess anything else on the expansion before we move on.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:48

No, I just I I guess I I just hope this did really well for them, and they they look at more and more opportunities to do something like this. And hopefully it's not, you know, three years down the line, it's without any crunch for the developers. It's like, you know, maybe there's a a yearly roll-up, maybe we see balance patches again, and maybe we we finally start answering some of those questions. Like, what do you do with all these mid-tier set items that literally nobody equips other than like one or two pieces? What what does it look like if the game continues to develop and and seeks to uh make every part of it as valuable as the other pieces without you know ruining it?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:29

Yeah, I I definitely think they will be uh continuing to be sensitive about power creep, but the fact that there's such a huge difference between uh the elite sets, uh class sets, the gap between those and rune words is so huge. Oh yeah, uh that that maybe they don't need they shouldn't be, and we've talked about this on previous episodes, they shouldn't still be uh as powerful of uh as rune words because to be honest, a lot of the rune words include multiple high runes that'll take a long time to get, but they do need buffed a little bit to to make it so that it's at least viable to get you started in hell, and you don't have to go to the rune words. Um a little bit more staging. Uh I guess that's my hope. But but certainly I think uh at least from my perspective, you know, obviously we don't have the numbers uh you know and Blizzard doesn't release that, but I I think it from what I've seen it's been successful. Um and I hope it was. And I hope we continue to get iterations. Um I'd like to see there's a lot of things. But certainly like top of the list is new zones, you know, maybe an act six or more to act four, or you know, whatever that might look like. Um certainly the survey will probably give them some direction on what what the players are looking for. I'll just be glad to be part of it. If you were, and we kind of talked about this already, but if you were sitting in a blizzard design meeting, what's one of the systems you'd advocate revisiting?

SPEAKER_06 1:20:14

Endgame auction house. The idea that this game is like so embroiled in trade being so relevant to the endgame experience. Trade is the reason why people think that endgame rune words need to be nerfed, and it's like, hey man, fun fact if you were playing solo, you'd never have you would never make a breath of the dying, or you would you would never make a phoenix, you would never make double dragon. One, I think that the current system, which has a lot of nostalgia tied to it of name, you know, need XYZ offer descript, and in the descript you write out the stats on your jewel, and then you just kind of farm in there until one dude shows up and he doesn't have what you want, and then you have to go game two. I also have that nostalgia. I'm 35, I can't sit and trade games all day like I did when I was, you know, 15 uh over summer vacation. So a way of in-game trading. Uh, I also want to see this in Diablo 4 as well. Just like uh oddly enough, World of Warcraft figured it out. Uh, auction house kicks ass and being able to trade asynchronous asynchronously is a very, very good experience for people, and it allows more people to onboard, it allows people to better educate themselves about that what the value of items are. If you could just search it up and you're like, Oh, interesting, nobody's uh trading this wand with bad stats on it. Maybe that wand is bad, and it it just has so many great opportunities. So that is the thing that I would I would I would waive in.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:40

I agree. I mean, obviously, I'll be careful about how I say this here because because like people would be very sensitive to like wow fine D2, but but the fact that that in World of Warcraft you can go to the auction house and just look at what's listed, buy it or not. Maybe the price is too high at that time, someone already bought stuff out, whatever the case might be. Maybe it's not exactly like that, but but having a place where you can go to look at what everyone has listed, and you can just get it there, that that takes out mostly all external currency. To me, to me, like currencies that exist outside the game devalue the experience. Uh, I know a lot of people have different feelings on that. That's that's just mine. If there was a way to kind of bring that stuff in-house again, I feel like that would be that would be awesome. And so I guess I I agree with you.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:40

I think the the the experiment of Diablo 3 probably scarred Blizzard and left scars a long time. The real money auction house was a failure in a lot of ways. Um, it one of the biggest problems, and this was right at the really right at the beginning. If you remember when the game launched, they waited about, I don't know, a month or so, three weeks, something like that, before the auction houses were actually available. And when you're out there playing, the the grind was really hard. It was harder to find items in D3 than D2. Way harder. So when you got into Inferno, and you're you know, you're max level and you're out there grinding, and you're coming up against these walls, and the best you're coming up with is you know a semi-decent rare item. When they launched that auction house, and within a day, there were 13 pages of Squorms and 12 pages of Storm Shields, and everybody's selling them for 25 bucks, it felt horrible. And it felt like it honestly felt like the fix was in. It felt like like this was a rigged system. And you know, people made the the silly, you know, you know, the lazy thing of oh blizzard selling them themselves. No, that's not it. It created a bad perception and it stuck. And for a lot of people, I know a lot, a lot of people just stopped playing it because they felt like they were going up against a stacked deck. They didn't want to spend, you know, five, ten, twenty, whatever bucks it was on these items. But the gold auction house was a good idea, and it worked. Now, obviously in D2, gold is a kind of a meaningless currency, but we can still have a barter system where you know I put up my you know Tal Rosh's mask, and what do I want for it? Well, uh, I'll take you know three perfect amethysts, or I'll take two hell runes or whatever, you know, whatever I happen to put in that I want for that item, you know, and let it be out there like you know, that will work in Diablo 2, and it will work without the the dark uh shadow of you know nefarious doings, you know, are just out there right now. They've always been out there, and they may not go away even with an in-game trading system, but I can't help feel like that would be something that the player base would just absolutely, absolutely love. And like you said, it gets you back to playing the game and you're not sitting there wasting an hour every night trying to find someone, you know, with four os, you know, wire fleece, or you know, uh, you know, you finally get the rune for wearing fleeces.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:03

I do wire fleece are wire fleece are cool, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:06

I'm just we I'm just I'm just ribbing them a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:09

Hey, I wear great Halberks. Am I saying it right? Halberk or Hallberg? Um I wear them and I'll wear them proudly. I have no problem with that armor.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:17

Yeah, there's there's like two things here. One, I just like to remind people Diablo 3 came out May 15th of 2012. So I think we're all big boys and big girls and big in-betweens, and I think we can uh eschew our fears of it being a real money auction house. That was 14 years ago. I don't even remember what I was doing 14 years ago, and also, yeah, you know, it's not gonna be like a goblin uh sitting on a box doing a little, you know, like Mickey Mouse back in the 50s dance. You know, it doesn't it doesn't need to be ridiculous, yeah. But I do think it's wild that you have to go outside of the game to efficiently trade when trade is so incredibly built into the fabric of the experience of the game. Yeah, yeah, and for some reason, Blizzard, the preeminent game development studio and the giant in the industry, is like, I don't know, man, I don't know if we could do it. I'm like, wow, did it? And they go, I don't know if we could do it. I'm like, I actually I do think that you could I believe in you, I believe in your power. I believe in you realizing your truth. It it just gives people in the game an opportunity to keep playing the game, and I think that's that that at the end of the day has an inherent value to it. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:28

I think it'd be a lot of fun, yeah, for sure. And I really um I what do you think about this? Would it be good or bad to have it so that you could trade like on an official like website outside of the game? Oh, like like a PO like a P like a PoE website kind of deal for I guess I I don't play PoE, but if if that's a thing, then yeah, like um yeah, yeah. In addition to being able to trade in game to actually be able to trade outside of the game.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:56

Oh, so yeah, so so like Wow Wow kind of had like an armory auction house thing where you could like move stuff to the auction house from like a companion app or something like that. Um, uh I I don't hate that idea. I do think you know it's kind of funny. Like, I just said like that. Don't worry, it's not gonna be like wow. I'm like, actually, I do think that moves it a little bit too far away from Diablo, okay. Uh, which is like such a a weirdly purist thing to say. Like, I don't care, I don't care how they do it. I just want to be able to trade in the game.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:22

I had that app back in the day. I loved playing WoW. I I wish they gave us a world of Diablo personally, and I think that MO MMORPGs have you know done a lot in the genre to that can be inspiring to functionality that we find here. I wouldn't be offended, but I think people might be.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:40

Yeah, I was just floating it. Like, I'm not saying they should do it, I was just wondering what your thoughts were. And and like on the world of Diablo thing, I will say in the past, I would have been all for it, but like now, I just I don't know that you would want to put Diablo up against a white. And and like have them so similar to each other that they're competing.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:05

Yeah. Oh, yeah, they'll they'll never do it. But if they said world of Diablo, I want you to know that's all I'm doing with my life. I now have I now have all the time in the world to play video games. I can finally play an MMO and not and not be, you know, like issuing my social responsibilities. Are you kidding me? I'm I'm dying to find an excuse to be playing WoW every single day on stream.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:31

God, I love that game. And if it had the real Diablo aesthetic, you know, wow, I've been playing WoW since 2006. It's fun. It's I I love it. But imagine I always talk about this, you know, if you watch carefully, when the barbarian hits things, they go boom. And uh even in and you can see it now in D2R, it was hard to see in original LOD because of the graphic limitation. But now you can you can hit a fallen just right and smack his head into the wall. Now trying to picture that in a in a in an MMO setting, you know, uh, you know, kind of like an open world thing where you know your barbarian just has his mighty two-handed axe and just you know cleaves uh you know a demon from you know what's what's that from knave to chops like Macbeth. I mean, that would be everything. I I'm yeah, it would be fantastic.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:19

You should pitch this to you, you and me. We're gonna go in on this pitch and we're gonna pitch it to Blizzard.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:23

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:25

For sure. All right, so I I guess we we couldn't possibly have you on here without asking what's your favorite class spec or playstyle.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:35

I want each of you to take one guess. You're never gonna guess it. I want you to take one guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:40

Well, you did say necro, and I'll just take the easy path and say Nova. Poison Nova Corpse Explosion.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:50

Good guess. Crude.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:51

I'm gonna say traps in.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:53

Okay, okay. Well, hold on. Which traps in? We got two now.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:56

Yeah, you gotta go. You gotta go lightning death century. Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:59

Serial.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:59

I'm gonna throw out Fury Druid.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:01

Oh, I like that a lot. Warcry Barbarian, boys. The barbarians! Yes! Yes! The barbarian is the best class in the game. It's not even close. Nothing even comes vaguely close. And here Oh my god, I want to hug you.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:14

I cannot believe this.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:15

Let's go, baby. I love war cry. I love warcry so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:18

I have been beating the drum for barbarians every episode. I have been yelling and screaming. I am very happy that we got the new expansion and all the fun stuff. I'm really disappointed that they gave my cleave to a warlock. What what is that?

SPEAKER_06 1:30:31

Yeah, but but but here but not only that, they also gave you strictly better Grim Ward, but in the form of a really rare affix you need to get on a rare ring, because you can get charges to lethargy, and now you can shred physical res on your war cry barb and actually be good, baby. Let's go.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:47

So yes, let me let the sons of Ariad are back.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:50

Let's let me let me let me take this moment to educate people. There is a truth about Diablo 2. The strongest build in the game was never Mosaic, it was never Hammerden, it was never Lightning Fury, it was never Blizzard, it was never Nova, it was never any of these. It truly wasn't because Diablo 2 at its core is about generating desired drops per minute. That is what Diablo 2 in the end game is effectively at its core. There are different farming strategies, there are different ways of going about accruing items, and nobody is better at accruing items than a barbarian in any setting ever. It's just the travel call exists, elites exist, and find item exists. And of the barbarians, it's really nice to have a skill that can't miss, and you can spam at 200 FCR if you're a lunatic and just war cry. Warcry is just the dopest. Now, if you have a little bit of aversions to some audio inputs, maybe turn that off and turn on some red hot chili peppers or some system of a down or some EDM and just rock out while your dude stands there holding two spears, screaming into the sky while Trav dies around him. The Warcry Barbarian boys. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:03

Crude's in heaven. He he's died and gone to heaven.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:07

This is so awesome. See, he brought up EDM, which is one of my favorite types of music. So I'm pretty thrilled with him too at the moment. So there you go.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:13

Yeah, I'm a I'm a big I'm a big metal head and I'm a big EDM head and I'm a big uh rap and hip hop head. So I I I I run I run the gambit. Anything at a high enough BPM that I can dance to, I'm here for it. Uh and then and then and then other than that, a little bit less bombastic, like just like kind of across the board, Fishy Mancer is probably my favorite necro, mostly because I've put an insane number of hours into like researching efficiency on that. Um, I really like Plague Jabazon. I really like Fists of the Heavens Paladin uh for Sork, probably gonna be Nova Sork, uh for Druid, and then for the Assassin, I really like Dragon Tail Assassin. And oh, you didn't miss any audio. I just don't like the druid as a class.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:51

I guess it would be I was wondering, I was like, wait, did it cut out? You you just stopped talking. No, I I I picked up on that after.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:59

Uh I and I lied to you. Actually, Assassin's Bladeson, that's probably my favorite. And then uh for for the warlock, actually, I haven't really I haven't picked a favorite one for the warlock yet. I do like, I don't know, you know, it we haven't had 20 years with it, you know. Like saying I have a favorite one is kind of insane to me. But uh yeah, there's there's a lot of cool stuff that you can do there. But I mean, every every class, every build has a purpose, every one of them is good at doing something or something different. But if I could if I could pick, it would be it would be Warcry, Warcry Barbarian all the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:29

And and crude, uh, to kind of touch on on I think we talked on it just a little bit earlier. Excuse me. We talked about it a little bit earlier in in the previous segment. They did introduce cleave, so that that kind of means that the mechanic exists now. Yes, so don't don't rule it out just yet.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:50

No, no, but I want seismic slam. The warlock can have his cleave. I want seismic slam. It's it's a it's such a fun skill. You know, and and the the bones of it are there, you know. You have the uh the Warebears uh shockwave, very similar in in style, and so the bones are there, and I I think I think they can do it. I think they they've shown us with the warlock that they can introduce things. Yeah, I I think that'll be a huge game change.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:14

And and it's all it's still, I mean it's possible, it's on the table now that legacy graphics aren't required to be in the game. Um and I think and I I said this in the previous pod episode. We're kind of getting the D3 that we always wanted, but it's D2R. As we've seen, they they're doing amazing things. Maybe we'll see that. So, any interesting uh community stories or or interactions, maybe recently or in the past, that come to mind? Anything that really stands out for you uh in in regard to interactions with the community?

SPEAKER_06 1:34:58

Yeah, one of the things, uh especially nowadays where I've a bit more like hubbub around me with the rollout on Max Roll and just like the the success with this is I will get asked, has anybody ever recognized you? And I guess technically, like that has technically happened at BlizzCon, right? But has anybody like ever like recognized you in the world? Like, have you ever like ran into a community member, something like this? Uh the the answer is no, except in one particularly interesting uh venue. So uh I'm not nostalgia baiting the listeners here. I still play original EverQuest. I still play original Everquest on a private server called Project 99. I've been playing EverQuest since I was a kid, and I love that game so much. It's like my favorite game ever. And I'll hop on like once a year and I'll play a couple weekends and then I'll log back off. All of this is to say uh one time, if anybody has ever played EverQuest, uh, I've only ever played Dark Elves. I'm playing a Dark Elf Necromancer, and I just made it out uh to East Common Lands, and I had a high quality bear pelt, and I'm trying to sell my high quality bear skin for like 25 plat, so I'll be able to like buy myself some bags and stuff. And I I yell out to trade chat, and in that game, I've made myself Macrobioboy because you got to keep the brand fresh, of course. Uh you know, what if what if somebody sees me in this game? And I get a whisper from a guy, and this is now like maybe like a year or two after I've like sincerely covered the game because I was mostly in d4. And I just get a whisper from a guy, and he's like, Hey, weird question, are you the D2 speedrunner? Which blew my mind, like galaxy level. How would did somebody possibly find me here? And then I realized I was yelling out to trade chat, and I was like, Oh, yeah, actually, like that is me. Uh, he was a really, really cool guy. He's like, Oh man, I play nothing but Everquest, I have a million twinks, you just want a bunch of gear. And I was like, No, I don't I don't want your gear, thank you very much. Uh, but if you have like an alt that you're trying to level, and we just kind of like played Everquest for a few hours, camping out the orc camps and uh Scott and East Commonlands, and just like as far as like somebody finding me in the wild and it being very wholesome, I think I have one of the best somebody recognize me stories out there because I just got to like make a new friend in a video game I've I love just as much as D2. Uh that was very cool. But as far as like just people, you know, people in the typical places where you expect to find them in discords and stuff like that. I I find that people are are very kind, they're very nice, and I I find it so much more interesting where like the outcome of me answering a question on Reddit isn't somebody being like, Oh man, it's you, thanks. It's just somebody just like, oh, thanks for the information. They just move on, right? Because it's no secret, my name is Mako. You actually can't screw up messing up my name because you've called me Macro or Marco. It's it's correct the bull times. And I am also just another 35-year-old white dude uh who's been playing this game since he was a kid, and it just kicks ass being able to be a fan in a community and not somebody up on a pedestal because that's insane to consider. That's absolutely wild to think about. So, my best community stories are when nobody uh cared or knew who I was, because we're all just stoked to be playing a game and sharing information and you know, answering questions, and now somebody's like, Oh, maybe I can go beat Durial now, and you know, they finally figure out you can drink a thawing potion. And so, yeah, I I have an amazing community, I don't want to sell and they stack and they stack 30 second duration, they'll give grant you 50 uh cold resistance, they'll also bring you 10 above cap. Drink your thawing potions, drink your antidote potions, they both work. You know, I I have an amazing community of people around me. I have a I have a really awesome Discord with a bunch of people in it, and it's seeing them answer each other's questions, or it's seeing them pinging each other in the Discord because they've learned that these people have information and they're willing to share. That's that's what I care about. That's what makes me happy. Is like, oh, look at all these nerds, they they have like a place where they get to be nerds together. So that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:52

I guess it doesn't get more wholesome than that.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:55

No, yeah, it's heartwarming, you would call it for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:59

For sure. Regardless of which community you're in, that's one of the things I love about Diablo 2 and D2R uh is the the communities that have popped up around it. Some some maybe not so great, but uh I guess, but a little bit more toxic. But in general, I would say they're they're good. Yeah. So if Blizzard ever revisited D2R with a with narrative editions or side content, what corner of the lore would you hope they build around?

SPEAKER_06 1:39:31

That's kind of a that's a rough question. Uh I I am a lore nerd. I don't know nearly as much as like the other like significantly more educated ones. My girlfriend actually has read the Sin War trilogies and I haven't finished reading them yet. So, you know, please, you know, take this with a little bit of a I'm not putting myself out there as some kind of compendium, but I do care very much about the lore. I care about having a storyline that does not retcon and does not seek to like make make a narrative that doesn't then line up with other things that have come after it. So I think there are a lot of places where they could explore more things and have it not have that type of effect. So people people like, oh, act six. They could absolutely make an act six, right? The only issue is the only act six that wouldn't be a retcon would be exploring a thing that something else has already explained. I I think most people won't care because they'll just like more content, but I do think that's very important to like not step on other things' toes. So building out more of hell, introducing some of the like you could put the butcher in act four. The butcher can be in there, he can be in there. The butcher is a class of demon, and he could be in there. So I think those are some places where they could make nods or they can add to the story. There, there, there's a lot of empty space that could similarly be explored. Like, I don't know, it's so rough. I wish I had a better answer for you, but it's just like probably act four is where I'd like to see them go in. I would love to see maybe a little bit more of how Tyriel was how he was interfacing with the council and whether or not they had opinions while we're in the you know, we're in the pandemonium fortress, and we can kind of explore inside of there. Hadriel can do anything. What if Hadriel did something? Wouldn't that be sick? What if you didn't just like find an angel who was just like, by the way, I'm the Flavi of Act Four. You're about to go fight the final boss, so like watch out, bud.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:34

Yeah, I I think initially there was a plan that he like he you couldn't progress into, uh as I understand it, you couldn't progress into the chaos sanctuary without uh some prerequisite quest um that was either removed before launch uh or wasn't fully built out. Um so certainly there are avenues that I think they could go down for that. Very obviously, there's only three quests in act four.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:10

And there is no gate.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:11

And there is no gate. So, like in in act one, for example, all you have to do is kill Indarial, right? You can you can bypass everything, but in every other act, there's some kind of prere prerequisite, some quest that you have to do in order to get to the boss of of that act. Act four doesn't have that, it feels like a natural thing.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:31

So you're telling me at one point Hadriel is gonna look at me and go, you may not pass.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:36

Excuse me, excuse me, essentially correct in in his best best uh Gandalf impression.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:42

They're uh yeah, so it's just uh I I would like to see Act Four expanded on. I I I don't really want a new act. It it I guess I wouldn't care, but I a little bit care. I don't want to see a new act.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:53

Yeah, one thing that they could do is explore there's like 20 years between when Tyriel destroys the world stone and Diablo 3, if I have that right. So so there is a space where they could explore something that happened in between there. I mean, obviously they would they may not have anything that exists story-wise in in D3.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:19

That's the story for Diablo Immortal, though.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:21

Okay, well, then then you got me there because I never touched the game.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:25

Yeah, we could, you know, one of the things about storytelling is you can make a large plot in a small space if you space it correctly. And I think here the the trick would be, you know, in Diablo Immortal, the shards are all over the place. They're doing things, and there's a new demon that comes up, you know, that that's kind of the end game demon. But what if the story for Beyond Act 6, and I think we talked about this in the very first podcast, was what if the story is just how do we how did we get to that point? Where are we with those shards? I I think one of the interesting things they could do is, you know, show how our player power changes a little bit. When the World Stone is broken, there's a change that makes us the magical, incredible killing machines that are in D3 when we become modern-day Nephilim. And having that released, the Worldstone suppressed Nephilim powers for millennia. And now that it's broken, the power creep sets in. And in D3, you have the old barbarian who's stronger than he ever was before. If you're a comics fan, it's very uh good comparison to the Superman in Kingdom Come. And how did we get there? And what takes place there? So there's a story there. I'm kind of with Macro. I think an extenuation of the hell storyline and what happens there would be cool. Kind of a wink to D4. We could have a thing where we try to rescue um the angel I can't stand, Lilith's boyfriend. Um, what a pump. I gotta I spent the in- I uh this true story, spoiler alert if you haven't played D4. I spent the entire campaign thinking that the Inarius in game was a demon that was just gonna be, you know, outed at some point. Ha ha ha ha, I'm this evil thing. And no, it was him all along. Wow, I could not believe it. I just kind of glitched at that. Yeah. So so so but but that would be a cool thing because at the time of D2, Inarius is being endlessly tortured in hell. What if our character in D2 maybe does something that, you know, in D4 helps grease the skids for him to escape? Because they never actually tell you how. It's never revealed. He's just there. So interesting, you know, yeah, interesting, but I don't think you like it. It's okay. It's just it's just a just a thought, you know. I mean, just be only because because we're we're going down into hell and it's like, well, you know, maybe we come across an Arius and try to free him, but for whatever reason, you know, we're unable to. But that's a s maybe that's a story beat that would resonate with with the uh you know with with a larger audience and kind of tie things together.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:07

That's a good thought. No, I do like it. If someone new was picking up D2R, oh, by the way, I s I think I saw you asking about questions from the community on what you think new players should know. Uh so this is kind of timely. And I I came up with this before I even saw that. So if someone new was picking up D2R for the first time, what would you tell them? Oh boy. It doesn't have it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to you don't have to go into every avenue. Just what's one thing?

SPEAKER_06 1:46:36

What is the one bit of wisdom I can give to them? Learn to love drinking potions, they will solve every problem you ever have, and they're very easy to use. You just have to learn to love them, and then you will become a god king amongst players. That's what I got. Sincerely, it's I I I've been I've been going on this little rant on stream. You know, you you you're you're talking about picking up the 99 little juve's too. I had a very funny story from a from a viewer. I was going on my rant about just drink your potions, which is like just drink your water or just eat your broccoli. Somebody said one of the funniest things I've ever heard from viewer. They went, No, Mac, you don't understand it. I fill my four-row belt with full rejuve potions, and I never drink a single potion. In fact, I would rather die than drink a potion and replace it in my belt because I just want to have the aesthetic of having a full belt full of rejuves, and I will never touch them. I was like, I have to respect, I have to respect that. That is a commitment to a thing I think is insane. But you know what? You got me, dude. If you're that committed, you'd rather die than refill your potion belt. The irony being that your potions will drop on the ground and you have to refill them anyways. But I didn't want to kill his role. You know, I didn't want to, I didn't want to harsh his mellow. I don't know. Like, I see people, they're like, Hey, do you think it's worth it for me to make a Phoenix on insert build that doesn't care about Phoenix here? Uh, so that I don't have to do potions anymore. And I was like, Well, first off, that doesn't solve the issue of like if there aren't dead monsters around you, but like also that's such a bad item for your build. What do you mean, Phoenix? I'm like, Oh, I just I don't want to drink potions and I can't use inside on my merc.

SPEAKER_07 1:48:18

And I was like, but with just drink your potions! Like, do you understand how insanely powerful potions are?

SPEAKER_06 1:48:26

I I I even flipped it. I was like, you know what, guys? I've actually just found a way for everybody to optimize their build, regaining sometimes up to like 50% additional damage on their build. There is one simple thing you have to do. There's this thing called a belt slot, and in that belt slot, you can go pick up potions for like 200 gold apiece. That's how cheap these things are. You don't even have to go trade for them. You can just walk up to nearly any town and just buy some of these things. And when you put them in your belt and when you click the button, it literally solves every problem you have effectively for free. It's a new innovation. I'm calling it potions.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:04

It sounds sarcastic, and it I mean, right at the end, you you got you got pretty sarcastic with it, but but like really it it's true.

SPEAKER_07 1:49:14

It's so true.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:15

Okay, here's a fun maybe the fun facts make it happier. Did you know that based off of how much vitality or energy you have, you actually have an increasing chance for your potion to crit, which doubles the rate at which it actually grants you and doubles the amount that, or I'm sorry, it doubles the total amount that it's going to grant you, which inherently uh doubles the rate at which you get the amount of mana that you typically would spend. So you didn't even know this, but potions can crit. How insane is that? Isn't that cool?

SPEAKER_07 1:49:38

Don't you want to click one and see if it happens? Like it's damn, dude, just drink your potions, man.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:45

Yeah. And if you if you learn the secret of just being good at potions, that's half of speed running this game. Half of speed running this game is just really good potion management.

SPEAKER_07 1:49:55

And you are it's you can do things people can't even conceive of with these bad boys.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:00

So you're dead between you and that guy because uh this goes back into it. Like I like having things filled. So I hate not having my belt filled, but I hate dying more. So like I'll I'll use it and then I'm full juice. Where are you at? Like I'm scanning like immediately for them. So I I'm like in between the two of you.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:25

And now with the loot filter, and with the loot filter now, you don't even have to look for them. You can you can just they're just there.

SPEAKER_07 1:50:33

You can pick the ones you want. How about this?

SPEAKER_06 1:50:36

You you love having a full belt, right? Is there anything more is there anything more satisfying than filling a belt?

SPEAKER_07 1:50:42

You can't fill a belt unless you drink your potions. You drink your potions, you get to experience the dopamine of filling your belt every game, dude. It's so good.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:51

You can't have any pudding if you don't eat your meat.

SPEAKER_07 1:50:54

You get to put them, you get to put them in your favorite belt slot.

SPEAKER_06 1:50:57

Me personally, I'm health on one, mana on two, three, four. But if I have rejuves, it's health rejuves, then mana. It's beautiful, it's perfect, it's the exact shape I like it to be.

SPEAKER_07 1:51:06

You can play Tetris with this thing, you can put thong potions in there, and you can feed them to yourself while you're fighting a boss so that you can get rid of the chill effect from Diablo. Potions are so good.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:17

That's what that's one thing that I think not a lot of people realize is that you can put your other potions in there too.

SPEAKER_07 1:51:24

You can even put a uh uh scroll of town portal in there. You can put scrolls of identify on there, yeah. Dude, like the only thing you can't fit in there are your keys, but you don't need to fit them in there. Your keys go in your pocket, the potions go on the belt.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:39

And and if you're if you're uh playing an assassin, you don't even need keys at all.

SPEAKER_07 1:51:45

Need the keys, you got more room for potions.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:49

I honestly hate that it wasn't until either joining this Discord or actually one of our episodes that I found that out. Like when someone was like, Yeah, you don't need keys, and I'm like, hold up, wait a minute, you what?

SPEAKER_01 1:52:03

Yeah, I I I do think I do think that it's interesting that the warlock already has everything under the sun, but I do think it's interesting that they didn't introduce a class specific like little thing where like you know, sorceresses have telekinesis, right? Assassins have the they you know they can open things that are locked. Um, I find it interesting that they didn't introduce anything like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:31

Well, they just gave them level 30 enchant and 350% enhanced damage on their set.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:36

Okay, yeah, fair enough. I guess you can't do that.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:40

Send some assault there. No, I I just I just think it's an it's a really impressive set, and I it it was one of those things where I felt like you know, without you know venturing too far into the power creep thing, if if that's the uh you know the auger for things to come, then you know, we could see you know some relatively good bumps to some of the other sets to kind of bring them in line with that, but we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:04

All right. Well, guys, this has been a really awesome conversation. We've gone way longer than I think we uh all initially intended, but that's okay. That's what this that's what this podcast is for. It's been fantastic. Yeah, for sure. Uh I've really enjoyed it. But before we close things out, I want to give Mac an opportunity to talk about maybe some of his stuff that he's got coming up with that. Mac, go ahead.

SPEAKER_06 1:53:30

Hey everybody, I'm one of the people who's been talking this whole time. Uh, it's impossible to spell my name. I'm so sorry. I'm Macrobioboy. Uh, I am, you know, I work on both the Diablo 2 branch as well as the Diablo 4 branch for Max Roll. I'm on YouTube, I'm on Twitter. As far as like things that are coming up, we're gonna continue to do coverage of uh Diablo 2 Resurrected. We're at this point like doing like a full revamp on all of our legacy guides as well. So if you've been playing something other than the warlock, look forward to those continuing to be updated with the meta. And then obviously, we have the next season of Diablo 4 coming up, and then eventually the expansion. So if you are somebody who also plays that game and you aren't already using our resources, I'd highly recommend it. But other than that, just I I hope you guys are enjoying the game. I hope that everybody is as excited as I am for not only this indeed too, but what the future holds for the game. I don't need to plug anymore. I appreciate y'all having me here. It's been a really, really awesome opportunity, and I love talking with you guys. This was a ton of fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:27

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