Scott Johnson

So things come in and out. They rotate in and out. Sometimes these things end up at cons or other events. And then they come back. They go under glass again. They have all their awards in a special place. Ancient concept art from like the late 90s, mid 90s, this kind of stuff. Really, really cool stuff. And I love that part of the tour. We also got to see the bikes.

Remember the motorcycles they made? Do you remember that whole thing?

Back in like 2013, 14. I think it was a Warlords thing. Speaking of which, the Warlord's gigantic axe, the Gorehowl. Yeah. That is the one that was in a taxi cab in New York for promoting that expansion.

Yeah. That thing's sitting in their main lobby now. And it is, I can't even, a photo doesn't know justice. You could hang 12 gorillas off this thing. It's so big. I don't know why I chose gorillas. Yeah. I like to compare things to how many gorillas could hang off of it. And in this case, a whole hell of a lot of gorillas could fit up there.

but it was really cool to just see all that stuff some things i'd only ever seen from afar and people are probably like well scott you've been going to blizzcon forever did you never do a tour during any of that no i mean i would fly into that santa ana airport that's near wow so this is your first time going to blizzard first time on the blizzard campus

What a treat, man. Oh, it was amazing. I can tell you why I never did though, because everybody was always in Anaheim. And so every time that I could have gone, everything important happening was happening in Anaheim and nobody was there. So it's kind of pointless to go up there on your own if you don't have somebody who can walk you through it or whatever.

So props to my old co-host and pal Randy Jordan, a.k.a. Randy Deluxe. He was my tour, my personal tour guide. And he showed me all kinds of stuff, knew a lot of inside stuff. Went and looked at... like every building has a lobby in this campus, but, but only one has like someone there. And then you got a NDA and sign and get a tag and all that.

That's just the one main one that you're, that you would think of behind the org statue over there. But all the other buildings have space for another one of those if they wanted it. So that was just weird, but it's just a big business park. Right. And so in theory, this is a hundred businesses, not just one taking over the entire, the entire thing. But, um, Anyway, I got to see a few people.

I haven't seen him forever. Some I wish I'd have seen that were either home because of some quarantine that somebody on the Diablo team got COVID. And so some people I wanted to talk to there were all stuck at home, so I didn't get to see him. But I did get to, I saw Ian Hazikosis in the hallway, whipped right past me. He looked busy. Just...

Yeah, he's always busy. I do look forward to having him on here again because he's a great interviewer. But I didn't get to talk to him, though, which is kind of a bummer. But I got to see Bethany, who's awesome in their community outreach department, whatever you want to call it over there. I guess it's just community management, whatever the term is.

I got to see Thist, who's a podcaster in her own right. She does all their social media stuff now. She's awesome. Big thanks to Drew. Of course, Randy, as I mentioned. Steve, my old pal Steve, who sent me this. Should I even tell? I don't even know if I should. It was 2012. It was a long time ago. This guy's the one that sent me this Diablo 3 signed by the dev team skateboard deck. Oh, wow.

Look at that. That never went anywhere else. They were going to maybe make some of these and they didn't do it. And no wheels or anything because I'm never going to ride this. Are you kidding? But look at that. Isn't that awesome? Anyway, Steve, you're the man. You know it. And I got to meet Holly Longdale, which was a really nice treat because I didn't see that coming.

She's essentially in charge of all things Warcraft now, or WoW anyway. Right. And since John Hite left, I think all those responsibilities went to her. And she is the nicest freaking person. And as passionate as anyone I've ever met there, I can't wait to interview her. She was awesome. Awesome. I know people have seen her on stage.

She does BlizzCon stuff, worked mostly in the classic side of things before height left. And so you've seen her, but she's so great in person. Oh my gosh. I just love being around her. So that was awesome. That's my favorite thing about going was getting to see these people. Some I haven't seen forever. Some I've never met before. And knowing that we did something pretty cool.

We were both very sweaty when we did it. Um, maybe Chris was a little sweatier than me. I'm just saying. And that handshake thing at the end where we laugh and kind of crack up, that's like, we did like 10 of those. And that's why we were losing it because it's so awkward and weird. And, and, We wanted a good ending, right?

I'm so glad they put it in because I wanted Blizzard to have fun with this like we were having fun. That being said, there is a ton of stuff that I don't know if it'll ever make it out of there that was super funny, but maybe not good enough for primetime or whatever. Sure. I don't know if we'll ever see it. Maybe some TikToks or some Instagram reels or something.

I don't know what they'll do with it, but... Anyway, that's that. I got a quick question about that whole thing, though. Will wrote in and says, before I ask the question, I have to say how moving it was to see you and Chris back together on a stage. After watching that, I would have brought the three-year sub if one was available. Hey, Blizzard, I hope you're listening.

Anyway, my question is this. Was there anything cut from the interview that you can share or that you found interesting, informative, or important? And follow up any chance for director's cut of the interview. Anyway, amazing to see you guys together again, says Will.

Well, funny you should ask because there were a couple of things that came up that didn't make it, but I think it was mostly for time. These weren't like super secret-y things or anything, but... We had a big, long discussion about class fantasy and why he thinks the Protection Paladin is the coolest class in the game.

It's also mine now. I've been playing a prop pally for a while now, mostly because he told me forever ago about this via text or something. But to hear him say it out loud was super fun. And he just loves righteous, mighty hero stuff. And freaking, you know, the Captain America tie-ins and throwing hammers around and, you know, for justice and all this. That's super his jam.