Book and Ladder – Episode 447

In this episode, I talked about Phil Spencer wanting more layoffs; Blizzard Watch wrote about player faith in Diablo IV; Diablo II

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Episode Transcript

(00:04):
- It is time for Shattered Soul Stone,
featuring the latest newsfrom Sanctuary and beyond.
Each episode, a heroic partyof Nephilim Band together
to help keep you informed on everything in
the Diablo universe.

(00:28):
And now your Diablo Community podcast
- Coming to you fromsomewhere in sanctuary.
This is episode 4, 4 7of Shattered Soul Stone,
your Diablo Community podcast.
This episode is called Book and Ladder.
It is February 24th, 2024. And here we go.

(00:49):
I'm gonna start you off withan article from Game Developer,
which was actually posted on February 21,
which honestly isn't that far away.
It is titled Phil Spencer
Xbox Layoffs Will EnsureCompany has quote enough
of the right people endquote to Succeed written
by Chris Carr
or Care KERR Xbox has been busysince the turn of the year.

(01:12):
The company has announced1,900 layoffs across its
gaming divisions, includingits recently merged Activision
Blizzard Business andDetailed a multi-platform push
that will eventually bringXbox Game Studio Studios titles
to players beyond its own ecosystem.
When announcing thosejobs cuts internally.

(01:34):
Xbox Boss Phil Spencer,said the company needed
to marry a quote strategy
and an execution plan witha sustainable cost structure
and quote to enable future growth,
while also eliminatingquote overlap, end quote,
following its purchaseof Activision Blizzard.
The suggestion was that Xbox needed

(01:54):
to downsize in order to level up.
Spencer has now doubleddown on that framing
during a recent interview with Game File
and explained that his overridingcommitment to Microsoft is
to ensure Xbox is aprofitable business, even if
that means laying off employees.
Quote, I need to putus in the best position
for long-term growth.

(02:15):
Said Spencer quote, most of
that is about building great products
that exceed their expectations
and find millions of customers.
But honestly, you know thecost of building the products,
inclusive of the people who work on them.
I need to make sure we havethe enough of the right people
and the right number ofpeople in the right places
for us to succeed.

(02:36):
End quote, since Microsoftannounced the cuts,
there have been reports oflayoffs at Key Activision
Blizzard Studios like Toysfor Bob Sledgehammer Games
and Infinity Ward.
It also appears that atleast one major project in
development at Blizzard has been canned.
That's probably thatwilderness kind of thing
that they were working on.
And it's not gonna seethe light of day now.

(02:57):
So, uh, yeah, there's alittle bit more in there.
Everything I talk about onthis in this episode will
[e-mail].
Blizzard watch has aninteresting article titled,
what Does Blizzard need to do
to Regain Player Faith in Diablo four?
This is written by SarahHansen on February 20.
There aren't a lot of gamefranchises with fan bases

(03:18):
as dedicated as theDiablo player base was.
Come Diablo four launch day in 2023
with 12 million unitssold in the first month.
It was blizzard's fastest selling game
and players finished theextremely polished campaign
and found nothing waitingfor them at the other end.
Diablo four nearly felt likeit was two separate games from

(03:40):
two development houses.
One was a highly polished,
largely single player story-based RPG.
The other was a clunky ARPG using outdated designs
with the number of poorlythought out system architecture
decisions that limited theways devs could address issues
raised through player feedback.
These two games made an awkward match
and many players seemto lose interest quickly

(04:01):
around Level 50 when the gamemakes a hard transition from
single player RPG to A RPG gear grind.
The seasonal model only accelerated this
as gameplay feelssuperficial, particularly
after the strong initial story campaign
and less impactful than the previous
Diablo three seasonal play.
But there are otherfrustrations with Diablo.
Four after years of callingout for a new version of Diablo

(04:25):
that harked back to thegrim world of Diablo two
and away from the brightlycolored world of Diablo.
Three players found the new world grim
and unrelenting justas they had asked for,
but found that they missed the sparks
of neon joy they hadfound in Diablo three.
And while Blizzard has keptits word about not being able
to pay for power upgradesthrough the online store,

(04:46):
it is hard to ignore that thegame has a never ending stream
of shiny new high resolutionappearances in the
store at hefty prices.
As the store cycles,
we watch player complaintsabout game systems
and balance go unaddressed
and it continues a little bit more here,
but this is a good point.
I didn't go completely through the, uh,
single player stuff on my own.

(05:07):
I had to get some help with that
before I could get into a season.
So I completely missed season one.
Season two, uh, was season ofblood and that was hella fun.
I had a great time in that.
I'm currently in the processof putting the videos
that I made that I thoughtwere the best of the best
that I had used for that season
or made for that season,um, are going up on YouTube

(05:27):
and will be on, uh, my blogpost later this season.
I decided to play a sorcerer,which I think I've mentioned
before, and I'm startingto get sort of good at it,
but I'm also kind of feelinglike, didn't I just do some
of this stuff last season?
You know, only without the magic
shooting from my character's hands.
So I don't know. I mean,I'm, I'm trying to play it.
I'm sort of having fun.
I'm having a bit of difficulty

(05:48):
because I had no idea how to source her,
but it's getting better.
So I don't know.
I mean, I think people just,you know, my opinion here,
not anything on the articleitself, which is a good article.
I think people are startingto feel like it's getting kind
of samey, you know?
Because when you have a newcharacter for a new season,
you go wherever youwant to go in the world.
Ideally you're going to try

(06:09):
to find the actual seasonal content
and, you know, level up yourseason journey and all that.
But I don't know. I mean,some of these it's like, oh,
I've did this quest before.
Oh, I did that questbefore I've done this one.
And so I'm gonna try harder this time to
actually get in thereand focus on just the
seasonal stuff if possible.
But I don't know how well that's gonna go.

(06:29):
I'm just giving it a try.
And uh, since this one was called Book
and Ladder, here's the latterpart, um, Diablo posted on,
uh, Twitter or X, whicheveryou wanna call it,
that the Diablo two resurrected ladder
season six is now live.
So if that's interesting to you
and something you play, Idid play a little bit of uh,

(06:50):
Diablo two a while backand it was kind of fun.
I kind of liked it. Um, I'llprobably get there eventually,
depending on whatever.
Right now I'm fighting thepollen count, which maybe some
of you can relate to Diablo,IM Mortal has a bunch of stuff
that they stuck on X slash Twitter
and there's four littlefamiliars here to look at.
So one of them is the Quake strider.
It is the behemoth of the desert.

(07:12):
Its calling is to eat, sleepand bask in the sunlight.
And it looks kind of like an armadillo ish
sort of kind of thing.
There's another one called Brood Talon,
which looks like a birdwith very large wings.
Uh, it's described as wing to damnation.
It's calling is to feedand to muse itself.
There's also the ash sweeper,which it looks like sort

(07:34):
of a mechanized giant skull
with something like a brain-likething in the top of it.
And it has little arms withsome kind of spikes on it.
It is described asconservator of knowledge.
It's calling is to curateand protect knowledge.
And then the last one is storm lost.
And it is a sort of aghostly looking thing

(07:54):
with a metal mask on itthat it is looking through.
It is described as embodiment of the storm
and its calling is to consume and destroy.
In addition, survivors Bainis back in Diablo Mortal
and this one is a limited time event
that can be played either horizontally
or vertically on yourmobile devices opening up a
whole new world of Diablo.

(08:15):
I mortal, can you stay alive?
Survivor's Bane is availablenow, meaning today,
now till March 1st.
So you gotta get in there and do that.
I think I tried it oncebefore, you know, I go in
and outta these games as as I can.
And the other thing here,we have a little tiny video,
a 15 second video fromDiablo Mortal that says,
celebrate Lunar New Year

(08:35):
with our new phantom marketfeaturing the reigning
harmony cosmetic set.
Try your luck now beforeit's gone on February 28th,
only in Diablo Mortal andthere's a little video there.
Yeah, I mean it sounds interesting to me.
I dunno how much time Ihave in the day to do stuff.
'cause you know, yougotta work sometimes too,
but I'll check it out.
And then we have the Diablofour patch notes, the,

(08:56):
the new ones that justpopped up or is that right?
No, this is the ninth. SoI don't know why exactly
Diablo posted this that way,
but, um, there's some updates here.
I guess. Uh,
let's see if this is even useful'cause it says it's from the ninth.
Okay, well we've got somebug fixes here for season
of the construct, whichis the current one, uh,
fixed an issue wherevisier wasp constructs are,

(09:19):
were not affected by Imimmobilizing effects fixed.
An fixed an issue where the tool tip
for igneous cores was missinginformation, fixed an issue
where journal pages didn't drop
during the cools heart questfixed an issue where the only,
where only the first personin the party would get credit
for looting obis whispers.
That's a problem. I guess they really,

(09:40):
I'm glad they fixed that one.
Uh, fixed an issue wherearcane tremors and Azar
and Skoland could havevol voltaic a braziers
that can't be interactedwith fixed an issue
where attacks from Maluscould still damage players
after he's defeated, fixed an issue
where the season journey objective keeper
of nothing still referencedpearls of wording to,

(10:02):
to summon echo of malusinstead of igneous cores,
which is what you actually need.
The lunar awakening thing is done.
Um, so I'm not gonna read you that.
And then there's a littlebit about game play fixes.
They did fixed an issue wheretreasure goblins could fa fail
to spawn while fighting.
Arvis fixed an issue
where enemies killed viaan execute effort could not
drop loot fixed.

(10:22):
An issue where the melted here, HEAR
of sig was not alwaysrolling the maximum value
for its movement speedeffects fixed an issue
where the Echoing fury aspectdidn't grant bonus fury if
tactical rallying cry waslearned, fixed an issue
where advanced rapid firethat sounds like a rogue thing
to me, would incorrectlyoverride the bonus.

(10:44):
Critical strike damage fromother sources fixed an issue
where the damage increase
and resource reduction cost from Ring
of the Starless skies wasnot calculating correctly,
fixed an issue where thefinal lieutenant failed
to spawn in the Onyx watchtowerpreventing completion
without a reset.
And there's also some stuff fixed.
An issue where addinga friend when playing

(11:06):
with a controller wouldimmediately reopen the
menu for adding Friend.
That seems useful if
you're trying to play with your friends.
I play on an Xbox whenI'm playing Diablo four
and it's, you know, I've,
I think I've had oneperson come in and help me
because I specifically neededsomething in the season, uh,
the like storyline thing.
And, and uh, that was great,
but it was a little bitdifficult to get it together

(11:28):
for a while becausethat, you know, this was
before they, they hadn't fixed it yet.
So finally got it togetherand, and got through stuff
and um, I was able to finish enough stuff
to actually get a horse inthe game, which is important
because not only do you needone in this game if you want
to travel far, but also it means the rest
of your characters also haveaccess to the horses later.

(11:49):
So it's, that's kindof an important thing.
And I'm, I'm babbling a little bit,
but I'm sure other peoplewent through that as well,
like way back when thiswas officially launched.
Okay. Fixed an issue
where setting a note on afriend would open the menu
for adding a friend after adding the note
and fixed an issue where icons
for animus were missingfrom the mini map in the
Betrayers Road dungeon.

(12:11):
And that's pretty much it from this one.
I don't know why they'vereposted that, but it's here.
And now I've got a lotof stuff from Mile Head.
So there's a thing, uh, they'vetitled this one Emanations
of Sanctuary, new quote Beneath the Sands
and quote, music fromBlizzard written by Oxide.
And here's a little description.
Blizzard has yet again

(12:32):
provided SanctuaryDezens with a music video
for their iconic soundtrack experience.
The Sands of Stan
and the Dry Steps, along
with the Darkness emanatingfrom Beneath the Sands
with the latest musicvideo from the Emanations
of Sanctuary series.
This newly released videogives you a musical perspective
of ke astan in the steps from Ked Bdu

(12:54):
and Gaia Cole and back again.
You'll feel the Desert Breeze
and smell the Oasis as you listen
to this latest soundtrack collection.
It appears it is a video.
Um, you could find it on the official
Diablo YouTube channel.
In addition, it says thereare nearly three hours
of music from locations inStan in the dry steps such

(13:14):
as Tarek s uh, Oza Bluffs, Ked bdu,
Ola and Oasis.
Listeners will be transportedinto sanctuary from the
comfort of their own homes
and without those pesky demonsbreathing down their necks.
So that's pretty cool. Um, I tend to sort
of collect up these things'cause I really like the music in
the game and I think they dida great job with that kind

(13:35):
of clipping it to certain areas
and giving it some little like differences
between the music and all that.
I think that's a good idea.
So if you're into thatstuff as much as I am,
you can check it out onthe Diablo uh, channel.
There is also a video about Zol and cool
and it's titled The History of Zol
and Cool Diablo Lore videoreleased, uh, from a siic,

(13:57):
it is titled Zol and Cool,a Homily for Sanctuary.
Blizzard has released a lorevideo about Zoltan Kools
history in Diablo.
Listen to the familiarvoice of Steve Blum,
who has lent his voice tothe maid since Diablo three.
And there's a little description here.
Founder of the Harri, creatorof the Black Soul Stone Genius

(14:18):
madman, Zoltan Kools historyis long and mired in shadow.
Few ancient figures havesuch an extraordinary legacy
and fewer still are.
As reviled throughoutSanctuary now hears Zol
and Kools Dark Tail astold by the maid himself
and the voices, SteveBlum the illustration

(14:39):
and an art adaptation is from Sam Key
and the animator is Duncan Rawlings.
So if you didn't knowanything about So and Cool
or maybe you thought you'd do everything,
maybe you'll learn more in this video.
And I kind of like thatthey do release it on video.
I am hoping with both the videosthat I was um, mentioning,
well I guess just this one,the other one would have music

(15:01):
so it probably wouldn't have voices in it,
but this one might just besomeone sort of reading it out.
Probably the guy who voiced zin. Cool.
So I'm hoping that in thatcase there would be some way
for people who are, who havedisabilities, like have,
you know, maybe they're legally blind
or maybe they're completely blind
and you can't really telljust from the word zol

(15:23):
and cool may or may not besaying what's going on around it.
I'm hoping they did, you know,
consider accessibility in that case.
Another one from Wow Headis an older one from the end
of January titled, who isZoltan Kool, the History
of the Fallen Her RoderickMaj written by Arc tne.
So if you have no idea who Zol
and Kool is, this will goin the show notes again
and you can remember or you canlearn it for the first time.

(15:45):
And then we have the gauntlet.
So this is written by Selictwo days ago on Wow head,
the gauntlet only availableon seasonal realm.
Diablo four, patch 1.3 0.3.
And here we have a,
looks like a roguecharacter staring at a door
that apparently theycan't get into is kind
of the, the look of that.
Yeah, here's a link to the

(16:07):
Diablo thing about it on the forums
and it literally says, let'ssay we have a community manager
named Ric Hana who wroteGauntlet is season only
and won't be playablethrough the Eternal Realm.
There are two replies here.
Someone says, I do notunderstand why you not
support eternal realm.
And then someone else wrotea lot of paragraphs here

(16:30):
and the second personsays the game was sold
as having an eternal realm.
It supposedly caters
to casual audienceswhich are more inclined
to play on the eternal realm.
Seasonal content and theDiablo format is not a casual
format whatsoever.
So what are you guys pulling here?
You neglect casual playerson the eternal realm
and you neglect your coreaudience trying to cater
to casuals on the seasonal realm.

(16:52):
Meaning purposefullydesigning the game in a way
to capture casuals whileunder-delivering on
what a Diablo game is supposed to be.
Which is the only reasonan itemization rework
is being done in the first place.
Your casual audience probablydoesn't have a problem
with the itemization at all.
They're casual people sayingyou guys are out of touches
and understatements, yada, yada yada.
It goes on from there. There's three more

(17:12):
paragraphs as I'm not gonna go through.
So people aren't real happy about that.
But the one sentence justset it all off gauntlet is
seasonal only and won't be
playable through the eternal realm.
So there's that. Good to know.
We've also got sort of a little bit
of information about the nextDiablo four campfire chat
on February 29.
It's titled Tune into OurNext Campfire Chat was posted,

(17:35):
uh, February, 2022.
That's not right. February 22nd, 2024.
Sorry, numbers screwed me up sometimes.
So this is this short littlething that's here about it.
It says, our next campfirechat begins on February 29 at
11:00 AM PST
and we'll give your first lookat trials and the gauntlet.

(17:55):
A weekly rotating fixeddungeon coming in season
of the construct.
Join associate director ofcommunity Adam Fletcher,
that's plays Pez radar Associategame director Joseph Ppoa
and lead live class designer Adam Jackson
as they delve into the gauntletleaderboards balance updates

(18:15):
and blood thirsty powerset to make their return.
We'll also have a specialevent to showcase members
of the development teamplaying the gauntlet.
They'll be joined by Diablocreators Macro Bio Boy
and Anna Cake live tocommentate on the action.
We'll also hold a q
and a segment at the endof the stream for players
to field their questionsdirectly to the team.

(18:37):
Visit our official Diablo, Twitch
and YouTube channels
to watch live following theCampfire Chats conclusion.
We'll post another articlewith a video of the chat
so you can still catch up onthe details if you miss them.
So that's coming. And then wehave Braava, for those of you
that don't remember who Brava is,
if you didn't do like you can't miss her,

(18:59):
if you just started, if youstarted playing the game today,
uh, you would run into Prova at some point
because she was the one thatstarted off in the cathedral
and um, she's very devout to Anari.
So there's a book aboutthis now this is, uh,
posted on wow head by SsicSsic SIC four days ago.
And um, it says there's uh,

(19:20):
a new Diablo book calledDiablo Book of Brava
has been listed on Amazonand other websites.
The book is set to releaseon October 15th of this year.
Will this book be a precursor
to the first Diablo fourexpansion vessel of hatred?
The release date of the bookmakes it likely to coincide
with the expansions release that is set

(19:40):
to launch in late 2024.
There is currently noinformation on the book itself
besides the title
and there's some other ones
that they've actuallyBlizzard has actually put out.
There was Book of Canethat was published on
December 13th, 2021.
Book of material was October 1st, 2013
and Book of Loath was publishedon uh, June 6th, 2023.

(20:04):
There's a little picture here of Brava.
It says Brava influentialmember of the Cathedral
of Light saved by anus
and has been faithfullydevoted ever since, believes
that anus could save humanityand lead them to the light.
So there is a book about this, um,
and it looks like from justwhat I've picked up here,

(20:24):
there is a book over onAmazon called Diablo Book
of Brava hardcover October 15th, 2024.
So we will be waiting onthat if we wanna get it.
Um, I don't know what it's said to cost,
but it looks like the Wow headarticle said that at the time
of the publication the price is $29
and 95 cents USD, which isnot necessarily a bad thing.

(20:47):
Uh, if you like to readthis sort of stuff.
I tend to try to collect these when I can,
if I have the money and if I remember.
So that's kind of what'sgoing on in here right now
and I'm not sure whatelse I could really add
to this other than Shadows Bain,
I think our survivor'sBain called the Unworthy
and Survivor's Bain.
Did I get that in here? I think I did.
Okay, so I'm gonna add this to it

(21:08):
because I didn't actually, you know, put
that into the show notes here.
But since we were talkingabout the Survivor's Bain thing
from a link on X
or Twitter from the Diablo Mortal account,
I'm gonna give you a tinylittle bit of exactly
what this is and what it starts.
Since our last content update,
players celebrated thelunar New Year with Tong.

(21:28):
She's renewal slew allies in howler hunt
and devoured the season 23 battle pass.
This content update introduces changes
to the Survivor's Bain event.
42 new legendary items,class balance updates
and a new PVP mode Tower War.
As with previous content updates,
there will be server maintenancestarting on February 20,
which we've already passed.

(21:49):
Here's some updates. Developers note,
we've heard your feedback that the rewards
provided for playing survivor'sBain didn't feel rewarding
enough and that another option
to e exit endless mode otherthan by dying was needed
and that several skills lackedin strength when compared
to their con contemporaries.
The following changes were made
to directly address thesefeedback points while injecting

(22:10):
more fun and flexibility into the event.
We hope you enjoy thisiteration of Survivor's Bane
and we welcome any additionalfeedback you might have.
Rewards will now be basedupon kill count instead
of combat duration.
In endless mode,
players will see a menu option at roughly
12, 17, 22 and 27 minutes.
In that, in that providesthe option to exit

(22:31):
and claim their rewards
or to continue playing enemieswill be stronger if the
player decides to continue.
A variety of skills havebeen strengthened as well.
Ray of frost level twowith increased from 30
to 50% damage increased by 30%.
Level four with increased
by 30% has become distance increased
by 50% damage increased by 30%.

(22:51):
Bone spear skill atlevel eight now consumes
2% of current life.
Instead of maximum lifedamage increased by 100%
multi-shot damage and numberof arrows increased by 30%.
Rain of vengeance whenupgraded damage increase
increases by 30%.
Whirlwind, that's a Barb, uh,
range increase update alsoincreases damage by 30%.

(23:13):
Ground stomp range increases.
Update also increases damage by 30%.
Cool down, decrease from 24 to 16 seconds.
That sounds like a good upgrade.
Arcane torrent condemn deadlyreach, falling Sword, swarm
of bats, wave strike rangeIncrease upgrade also
increases damage by 30%.
Wave of blood based damageincrease by 20% range increase.

(23:35):
Update upgrade alsoincreases damage by 30%.
Magic Missile, whichmakes me think of Dungeons
and Dragons, uh, cooldown, decreased from two
to 1.5 seconds.
And hammer of the ancientbase damage increased by 20%.
So, um, this is an updated version
of Survivor's Bain fromFebruary 23, 3:00 AM

(23:56):
to March one server time.
So we got a little bit of time there.
There's also going on the Tower War, uh,
which I'll read to you a little bit.
The spirit of competitionrings anew through West March.
Assemble your team of eight Warriors
and head to the Battlegroundcaptain for a new limited time.
PVP Mode Tower War.
The Tower War experiencemight feel familiar
to some two teams enter,but only one can capture

(24:18):
and hold the maps fiveeffigies long enough to awaken
and slay the scarred guardianaccruing the needed 1,500
points to secure victory along the way.
You'll experience the sameaction packed gameplay founded in
a cursed tower PVP match, butwith the added ease of access.
Seen and PVP activities such as, such
as battleground like Battleground.
Tower War has rankings for you to climb,

(24:39):
earning rewards like upgradematerials, legendary items
and normal gems on a leaderboard.
You can cement your name in
and it's gonna start, it'salready started on the 20 oh,
it's going to start on the26th through March 25th.
So if that's like, so somethingyou wanna do, there you go.
We've got alley of bloodthat's come back again.
Fire before darkness is looks like kind

(25:00):
of what is this thing?
Let's see. There are fewin sanctuary capable enough
to stand against the darkness
and wager their life for the defenseless.
But you adventurer haveconsigned your days
to thinning out the ranks
of the burning hells ushering in safety
where all hope was once lost your quest
to serve the downtrodand grows in complexity.
Harness the fire within tocontain ever spreading darkness.

(25:21):
Started on today andgoes through March 2nd.
There's an all clans on deck
thing I think I already talked about.
There's some balance changes in here
and that's pretty much allI've got for this episode.
So I'm hoping you're enjoying this.
There's a heck of a lot ofDiablo stuff to look into
and play and, and considerwhen the book comes

(25:42):
out and that sort of thing.
And with this, I'm goingto end this episode.
You have been listening to episode 4, 4 7
of the Shattered Soul Stone,your Diablo Community podcast.
Miss an episode. Youcould find the show blog
and listen to the show archives at
www.shatteredsoulstone.com.
Come join us in game our in game community

(26:03):
and clan, both namedShattered Soul Stone, are open
to anyone who would like to join.
You can also join us onDiscord for the ultimate team
and community based experience,
find the Discord invitationlink on our Twitter at shattered
stone, as well as theShattered Soul Stone website.
Thank you for listening.