The gang is back to talk about some recent bans and Activision-Blizzard's taxes and the Blizzcon Announcement! But first, Rei, Eric, and Harv talk about their experiences with puggers in Battle of Dazar'Alor. Nick, meanwhile, has been focusing on the A Nation United story so he can unlock his Alliance-skinned wolf.

Longtime listener YepX emailed in with two questions! First, he asks about Activision-Blizzard not paying any taxes and actually receiving a rebate. The gang agrees this isn't a good look given the recent layoffs after reporting such a profitable 2018, but they acknowledge that plenty of companies do it and while that's not justification, the problem is bigger than just Activision-Blizzard and needs to be addressed in the political arena. Nick tries to make a comparison to Diablo II.

Second, YepX asks about the recent Blizzard bans for using add-ons that modify the client-side game files. He also looks for opinions on integrating player-generated content into WoW. Everyone agrees this would be cool to see but no one expects Blizzard would be likely to do it anytime soon. They also talk about how Blizzard undid the bans since several people thought they were just making graphics changes and Blizzard would rather issue a warning to those people at this time.

Blizzcon 2019 was finally announced to take place November 1st and 2nd this year. There was a slight price increase for the tickets and the gang talks about the new portal pass. Nick doesn't think it will sell very well. They talk about the statues being given in lieu of goodie bags this year as well.

A recent PTR file change intended to improve Blizzard's database performance has concerned the datamining community. Blizzard files are now given randomized names which make it harder for miners to review them. This especially affects the machinima and cosplay communities as they use these files in their projects.

Blizzard also announced that items in Classic WoW will use their last version, as of patch 1.12.

Lastly, we look back at episode #31, which was right when Patch 6.2 was coming out.

Thank you for listening to WoW! Talk! Our next live show is scheduled for 5/12/19 at 10:30 pm E at twitch.tvmashthosebuttons. For any scheduling updates, please follow us on twitter @wowtalkmtb. Send any emails about your thoughts or feedback on to [email protected].

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