Good evening and welcome to Azeroth After Dark. Tonight is a WoW Forever night, and we have two beta stories for you: Blizzard adjusting the Tauren Cultivation racial to fight herb bots, and a tiny quest in Duskwood that hands you a torch. With me on the couch, Durgan Stoutbrew, who has been picking herbs since before some of you had accounts, Morwen Ashgrave, who trusts a patch note only after she reads it twice, and Grukk, who can smell loot through a loading screen.

Evening. I once walked to Winterspring for a single flower and it took me four hours. I'm here, I'm dead, and I have questions about every number tonight. And I'm here for a torch. Let's start with the bots, Lyra. Then let's. Icy Veins reports that on the WoW Forever beta, bots have been using the new Tauren Cultivation racial to farm high level herbs, and Blizzard has adjusted it in the game's latest update.

Here's the daft part. The beta level cap is 20, and these bots death ran all the way to Winterspring for Mountain Silversage, Icecap and Black Lotus. Corpse running past yetis to duplicate flowers you cannot use. As an undead, I respect the commitment to dying repeatedly. That's my whole career. Wait, Durgan, the herbs are useless at level 20? Basically useless, aye, that's how Icy Veins puts it. The point is that botters will go that far to manipulate the economy later.

Okay, Lyra, the actual change. What does the patch note say, word for word? Cultivation now has a player level requirement for every herb, equal to the herb's required picking level divided by five. Herbs needing more than 300 Herbalism skill can be cultivated at player level 60. So the Black Lotus club is level 60 only now. Good. And there's a sweetener. The cooldown went from 23 hours to one hour, which Icy Veins says is meant to encourage players to use the ability more often.

That one I'll happily call good. Twenty three hours down to one is a real change, and this is beta, so it can still move. Icy Veins is fair about it too. They say it's unlikely to completely extinguish botting, but it's progress in a never ending war. Speaking of things worth running across a continent for, Grukk, tell them what you found in Duskwood. Also WoW Forever beta, also Icy Veins. In Raven Hill, behind the biggest building, next to an outhouse, there's sometimes the corpse of a slain Night Watch Guard.

Interacting with him starts a quick quest called An Unfortunate End, and the reward is the Night Watchman's Torch. Fair warning, the guard may not always be up. So the loot pinata is a dead guard behind a toilet. Grukk, is this your best find of the week? Morwen, it's a torch you hold. Purely cosmetic, five minutes, thirty second cooldown, and it's mine. And it's a real light source, which matters in Duskwood.

Back in my day we lit the place with sheer panic. Two restrictions worth knowing: you cannot use it in cities, and the torch goes away if you start combat. A light that abandons you the second something attacks. Deeply relatable. So tonight: WoW Forever beta bots got their flowers gated, and the rest of us got a torch from a corpse. Both stories come from Icy Veins, and the full posts are linked with the episode.

My plan is simple. Die repeatedly on the way to Winterspring, but do it holding the torch. Elune give me patience. Good night from all of us, and mind the outhouse.