UESPWiki:Podcast/2 17

News

Bethesda/Zenimax:

Zenimax Media was bought by Microsoft for $7.2 Billion
Todd Howard On Joining Xbox
Why Microsoft Is the Perfect Fit
Statement from Matt Firor, Director of Zenimax Online Studios about ESO: 
An interesting analogy I heard to describe this was that Microsoft just paid slightly less than two Star Wars for this deal. (From AKB)
2nd largest software media acquisition in history.
Announcements mentioned that there will be no major changes to ESO as part of this.
The purchase should be finalized next year pending governing body approvals.

UESP:

Site Update: A failing hard drive on squid1 is being replaced. All cache services on the server have been redirected to content1 via DNS so no service interruption is expected.

ESO:

Markarth details revealed in a live stream last Saturday! More later.
The DLC is now available for testing on the PTS.
Some of us (mostly Jeancey) are already adding lorebooks to the wiki!
The Markarth Prologue quest was released sneakily on Friday prior to the live stream and is available for all players on the Live servers.
Patch today - 6.1.7 - not very exciting, fixes a number of combat-related issues, including mount stamina draining too quickly. Hopefully fixes the issue of Leaps/Charges failing to work on occasion in PvP areas. (Apparently it was caused by passing through Immunity areas?!) Also fixes character animations breaking while using a personality, a couple of crashes, and an “issue that prevented you from dueling in Stillwaters Retreat.”
Also a hotfix today “on all platforms and megaservers where some effects could remain stuck on your character through unintended means”.
The 3rd Cyrodiil PvP test has begun and will run until September 28: No cooldown on AoEs, but instead each AoE cast will have a global ramping cost applied via a debuff which lasts for 5 seconds. Players in Cyrodiil will earn double AP, which also goes towards end of campaign rewards and leaderboard positions.   

Legends:

The Campfire Gauntlet has just finished!
Campfire lane, when you summon a creature there, you give its keywords to friendly creatures in the lane. It also had reduced deck sizes, 40 for standard and 60 for tri-attribute decks. 
For once we can actually tell you about an event in advance: “the details for September's Grand Melee will be posted later this week”. 
Grand Melee is the big, anything goes, "bring your best decks" competition that usually has alternative art and higher rewards.

Blades:

*crickets*?

Call to Arms:

Dev Diary-esque story of early solo Delve in CtA 

Other:

Skyrim Creation Club: Currently the Elven Hunter armor is being offered for free to anyone who redeems it. By redeeming it during this period, it will be permanently unlocked to your account, even after the current sale ends. Additionally, the Civil War Champions, the Dwarven Bundle, the Expanded Crossbow Pack, Wild Horses, and the Elianora Home Bundle are on sale.
Based on observed trends, Creation Club offers are usually refreshed every two weeks on a Thursday, so be sure to grab these before October 1st.

Supporters

Patreon:

Joseph Williams
John Thomas
Djstephysteph731
Meat_Swets
Kim So-Ra
Lildagoth190
Benefactor

Twitch Subs:

qiqjoe
Drifterella
Edana_tv x 10

iTunes:


Wiki:



Scholarly Pursuits
I will ask our guests what they have been working on in the world of TES! This can be game play, wiki work, discord things, anything relevant to UESP/TES that you’ve been working on the past couple weeks / when you were last on the show.

Pylawn
baratron
It’s been a week.
Ran Vet Moon Hunter Keep and Vet Moongrave Fane with a UESP group. Now have all of the Hollowfang Thirst set EXCEPT a Lightning Staff.
Bizarrely, I still need a Lightning Staff of the Worm Cult. Need to farm both of those.
Watched the ESO livestream and livetweeted it, two hours, was almost falling asleep by the end.
BUT NO I couldn’t fall asleep because I was due to run Vet Maw of Lorkhaj with UESP! Spoiler alert: We did not complete, but did get past the Twins!
My phone fell on the floor and smashed during this Trial, thanks to my Collectible Coin: Ouroboros which was under a pile of junk, thus preventing it from being a completely horizontal pile of junk.
Ran Normal Cloudrest a couple of times followed by Normal Sunspire with my EU guild. Had to teach the Trials to new people so we weren’t able to do the nCR+3 which we were expecting to do.

Topic: Markarth Mead!

Markarth coming to PC/Mac/Stadia November 2nd, XB/PS Nov 10th.
Vateshran Hollows - Solo Arena! Where Reachmen go to prove themselves. Three “wings”, each dedicated to one of the Daedric Princes.
The Wounding - Molag Bal
Hunter's Grotto - Hircine
Brimstone Den - Mehrunes Dagon
Can be run on Normal or Veteran, at any level.
Unlike previous arenas, you will be traveling through an area with sections restricted by gatekeepers you must destroy, instead of waiting for enemies to spawn. 
You can enter the wings in any order you desire. However, the second wing will be harder than the first, and the third harder still. (So you will probably want to ensure that you tackle the wing you find hardest first).
Once you clear all three you will unlock the currently unannounced final boss.
Lots of fan rumours about who this might be - including the three Daedric Princes already mentioned and a few others.
The DLC will focus on Rada al-Saran and the Gray Host
Return of Sai and Lyris together again!
A major secret about Verandis Ravenwatch will be revealed. 
Lots of fan rumours about what this will be too.
We will discover that Blackreach goes right under Western Skyrim, and visit a Dwemer library. 
Reachmen are allies, not bad guys.
Some combat changes as ever. Best to read the forum post for details:  
EXCITING: Changes to allow Ice staffs to work for Damage again, not just Tanking!
Items
17 new item sets (including the arena sets).
20 new Antiquities, including an update of the existing Reach style, and 2 new mythic items. There's also a new Dwemer Scarab pet collected through fragments.
They showed off the Mythic item Ring of the Pale Order - Restore 15% of the damage you deal as health. You cannot be healed by anyone but yourself. Might be good for the new solo arena.
ITEM SET COLLECTIONS OMG
New “sticker book” interface in the Collections menu which shows all non-crafted Item Sets in the game, where they drop, and their combat bonuses.
No more storing hundreds and hundreds of Item Set pieces on bank alts.
Once an Item Set piece has been collected, Transmute Stations will allow you to reconstruct an infinite amount of copies of that piece.
Equip an item to Bind it - Bound set pieces are automatically added to the sticker book.
You choose the trait when you reconstruct the item. But you can only choose from traits that your character can craft!
YES, IT WORKS WITH MAELSTROM WEAPONS.
Costs Transmute Crystals and appropriate mats to reconstruct.
As you collect more pieces of each set, the progress bars will slowly increase and the Transmute Crystal cost to reconstruct them will decrease.
Currently it costs 75 Transmute Crystals when you only have 1 piece of that Item Set, and 25 Transmute Crystals once you have collected every single piece of that Item Set.
NOT STORAGE. 
“Reconstructed” items cannot be traded or sold, but can be deconstructed to give 25 Transmute Crystals.
Lost Treasures of Skyrim starts on Wednesday, September 23 at 10am EDT/2pm GMT, and will run until October 5 at 10am EDT.
Like the Summerfall event of a few years ago, the ESO community must work together to unlock the final reward, the Antiquarian's Alpine Gallery house. 
Requires owning Greymoor. 
All Western Skyrim resource nodes will provide double rewards (not including fishing holes or crafting materials obtained from monsters). 
All Western Skyrim world bosses, delve bosses, and Kyne’s Aegis trial bosses will have a chance to drop additional loot when defeated.
All Western Skyrim daily quests will award double reward boxes when completed.
3 Event Tickets for 1 Western Skyrim daily quest (or Kyne’s Aegis weekly quest) per day.
ANTIQUITIES:
Digging up Antiquities throughout the entirety of Tamriel. IF WE DIG UP ENOUGH WE’RE GETTING A HOUSE.
Tier 1: Horror Within Face and Body Markings
Tier 2: Orchidfall Vale Fawn Pet
Tier 3: Antiquarian’s Alpine Gallery home AND Antiquarian Phedre Houseguest
This is the first Houseguest ever introduced to ESO!
Battleground Group Queues returning! Single queues will still exist. 
There will be a Solo Queue, and then a Group Queue for groups of any size from 1-4 players. (Yes, you can queue solo in the Group Queue if you really want to.) But you won't be able to choose Battleground type.
Good for getting all those transmute crystals for set collections
New Craftable Consumable: Alliance War Skill Boosters 
We've introduced a new set of consumables: the Colovian War Torte, the Molten War Torte, and the White-Gold War Torte. These items increase the rate at which you advance your Alliance War Skill Lines by 50%, 100%, or 150%, respectively.  

The War Tortes can be used by any character Level 10 or above. 
The boost applies only towards advancing your Alliance War Skill Lines. They do not help you earn more AP, become Emperor, or gain a place in the Leaderboard.

Housing
Character Pathing “Align to Terrain” Option.
New Homes
Shalidor's Shrouded Realm
Stone Eagle Aerie
About 100 new furnishings of which 40 are crafted.
New music boxes!