PAX East Predictions

In my best Annoy-O-Tron voice; HELLO! HELLO! HELLO!

One of my favorite things about games, TV shows, movie sequels, and anything else like that, is trying to predict the future. The things you can come up with about future of the games you play and the shows you watch can sometimes even outdo the actual result. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought, as soon as they completed the Curse of Naxxramas adventure, "I can't wait to see what the next one is!". Or perhaps as you finished the Reaper of Souls Act V story mode, "Am I going to get to put Imperius in his place? I've saved the world twice now why does he still have to act like such a jerk?". I know for me that can often times be the most exciting part of completing a play through  or quest chain. Sometimes even, the things I come up with in my head will be better than what actually comes about.

This will be something I frequently bring up as I create posts here. What I want to see, what I think we might actually see, and sometimes even the things we didn't get to see. PAX East begins tomorrow, and at 10:30 EST Blizzard will reveal some new information regarding Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, and Overwatch. So let's dive in and speculated

Heroes of the Storm:
I think Heroes is the game we're going to see the least new information on. We were already shown early footage of a battleground called Tomb of the Spider Queen at Blizzcon.

I expect to see an updated version of that map and for that map to possibly be playable at PAX East. As far as playable heroes are concerned, Sylvanas should be up next for release since we also saw an early version of her at Blizzcon. Past that we don't have very much to go on. There have been model previews of a ton of characters. Kael'thas, Cho'gall, D3 Crusader, Skeleton King, The Butcher, Rexxar, and a ton more. Any of those characters and more could be up next after Sylvanas, and it will all depend on who Blizzard is the most confident with rolling out.

However, the hero pool at the moment is in need of a few things. The two most glaring holes, in my opinion, are a Diablo Support, and a Starcraft Warrior. Monk is the first thing that pops to mind as a Diablo Support for me. Mantras as group buffs, some movement speed abilities, and who knows what else. To my  knowledge, we haven't seen a model for a Monk yet, but that shouldn't affect the likelihood much. For a Starcraft Warrior there are a ton of options. The two most popular suggestions seem to be Dehaka and Fenix. Dehaka is the Primal Zerg from the Heart of the Swarm campaign who joins Kerrigan's party. His kit could contain a "devour essence" type ability where minion and hero kills buff  Dehaka similar to how Diablo collects Souls to increase his health and mana regeneration. Fenix seems to be by far the most requested Starcraft hero. He is a Protoss Zealot who has some serious badass moments in the SC1 and Brood War campaigns. He appears in game as both a Zealot unit and a Dragoon and I've seen great kit suggestions on the official forums for both forms.

Heroes has a unique ability to hype me up with every new hero they release, and I don't doubt whatever comes at PAX tomorrow will do the same.

Hearthstone:
Everyone's favorite digital card game has been doing a fair bit of teasing about whats coming down the line. @PlayHearthstone posted a picture to Twitter simply saying "Adventure awaits!". Since they announced Curse of Naxxramas at PAX East last year, it's not much of a stretch to assume that the next adventure gets announced this year. Some strings for card backs were recently datamined that pertain to Molten Core and Ragnaros, and some which contained a BRM acronym. The main Hearthstone page has also changed the cards in their rotating gallery to Twilight Drake, Dark Iron Dwarf, Magma Rager, and Leeroy Jenkins. All of these mobs and NPCs are found somewhere in Blackrock Mountain. I don't think its much of a stretch to conclude our card collections are heading to Searing Gorge. I'm curious which bosses we will be seeing since between Blackrock Depths, Blackrock Spire, Blackrock Caverns, Molten Core, Blackwing Descent, and Blackwing Lair we've got 61 bosses. Expect between 10-15 of the more recognizable and non-optional bosses to be the ones used in game.

Curse of Naxxramas used Deathrattle as the theme for most of its cards or at least interacted with dying minions in some way. The theme for Blackrock Mountain is less defined. I originally predicted Karazhan as our next adventure with Spell Power and "Faerie Dragon spell immunity" as the main themes. Blackrock Mountain could go with Taunt, or even Battle Cry and have the card flavor feel right.

Overwatch:
Overwatch is topping most peoples list of things they want to see out of tomorrows announcement and for good reason. After Blizzcon the hype for the future Earth shooter was off the charts. Since then, news on the game has really died down and left people starved for something, anything to light that fire again. Perhaps we could see a Beta start date? Maybe? Please?

@PlayOverwatch also took to Twitter to tease some potential announcements. The first was a news channel-esque clip of a mountainside outpost with the look of a 4th battleground. Second was a mock-up magazine cover referencing a retired weight lifter. Obviously, this points to Blizzard showcasing a previously unannounced hero. There is an image from the Blizzcon announcement trailer that has a character who could pass for a body builder and could fit the silhouette from the Twitter post, but I can't track it down at the moment. However, they later posted a newspaper column style article using words like "Gunsmoke" and "vigilante" that some have used to point to the teased Cowboy hero also from the Blizzcon trailer.

Either way anything announced at PAX about Overwatch will likely receive Superbowl level hype from people like me. I will be throwing up another post next week to see what I got right, what I got wrong, and maybe even to just toss out a few "wouldn't it be awesome if"s.

Till next time.

Chris