Greetings Travelers!
This week I have been somewhat distracted by real life things. As a result I haven't been able to give as much though to a full post this week. Next week the plan is to dive into the series of Overwatch videos Blizzard has been releasing over the past few weeks. I want to touch on the gameplay itself as well as the UI elements that have been a hot topic around the internet. For this week, I'll just touch on the few things that have happened across Blizzard's game in the last couple weeks.
World of Warcraft
The much maligned issue of Flying in Draenor was tackled by Blizzard as I'm sure most players are aware. I touched on the subject myself a couple of weeks ago, and I'll just elaborate by saying I am happy with Blizzard's decision to instate flying with 6.2. It will have to be earned through a series of achievements which shouldn't be much trouble for most players who care about flying to accomplish. I myself unlocked all of the achievements necessary up to 6.1 just through leveling and normal daily content. There is an argument that by gating the ability to fly behind a bunch of exploration and questing content, that Blizzard is giving us flying only after making us do all the things we wanted flying for in the first place. I think the argument is fair, but I don't have a problem with developers and designers not wanting content that they spend time creating simply being passed over and potentially ignored for convenience sake. I understand that not all content is for all players and it should be the players choice how they enjoy the game, but I'm fine with trusting a company to create a sense of immersion with their content and allowing that to dictate my gameplay to certain extent.
With that being said, 6.2 hits on Tuesday and along with it Tanaan Jungle and Hellfire Citadel the REMIX! I'll will no doubt write a post detailing my experiences once I've had a chance to dive in. Blizzard posted a developer Q&A on June 13th that touched on some of the changes as well as a variety of other topics. After watching I came away with the opinion that they realize a lot of the missteps of Warlords so far, and are looking to avoid them in the future. There were are few times where their response to a criticism was just simply "we were wrong". I like when a company has the awareness to be able to look past what can often be a loud offensive critical minority of fans, and acknowledge their shortcomings. Don't get me wrong, they have a lot of work to do. And I'm fairly certain that Warlords of Draenor has been somewhat of a nail in the coffin of the prospects of Warcraft returning to its heyday. As someone who enjoys some aspects of the game and finds himself finding other things to do with his gaming time far more often than he used to, I can only hope that Blizzard learns from their mistakes this expansion and can keep me interested going forward.
Starcraft
Last week amidst all the gaming keynotes at E3 there was a PC gaming show which Blizzard attended. Most of the show was sort of dull and slow with only a few real gameplay previews or demos over the course of 3 hours. Blizzard came in toward the end of the show and gave one of the few true presentations. In addition to some Heroes of the Storm stuff that I'll touch on later, Dustin Browder and Chris Sigaty announced Prologue missions for Legacy of the Void that will be free to play for everyone. I think this is a nice touch when paired with the fact that Legacy of the Void won't require players to own the previous Starcraft 2 expansions. This will let those of us who dabble in Starcraft for the story get caught up with what's going on heading in to Legacy without some tie in novel as has been the case previously. I like Christie Golden and recommend her novels to anyone who loves Blizzard lore, but they shouldn't be required for people to get the whole story. I'm excited to see the culmination of this story and I'm glad more people will be able to see part of it for free.
Heroes of the Storm
Along with the Starcraft announcement, Blizzard surprisingly also showed a new trailer for the Eternal Conflict which gave us some new tidbits. We got a full blown preview of the Skeleton King, a new Diablo Warrior, and a look at the model for the Monk, a Diablo Support. Leoric the Skeleton King has a very interesting trait that allows his ghost to stay on the battlefield while he is dead, and his attacks accelerate his resurrection timer. His kit seems pretty strong and his trait is a nice twist on death mechanics. It is somewhat similar to Uther and Tyreal and their traits but it seems like Leoric's can have a lot more of an impact. The Monk fills the Support deficit we are seeing currently and less importantly fills the gap at Diablo Support. What we have yet to see if whether or not the Monk will be a true Support or a hybrid similar to Tassadar and Tyrande. Right now there is a balance issue in matchmaking where a team with Tassadar as a support will be matched against a team with a Brightwing or Uther who fill more a true healer role. Blizzard has mentioned a couple times that they want to recategorize some heroes for this reason, but we haven't been given any details. Blizzard has been knocking it out of the park leading up to this event in Heroes of the Storm. What we originally thought was simply going to be a couple of heroes and new battleground, has become at least 4 heroes, multiple skins, and potentially multiple battlegrounds. I really like the precedent that the Eternal Conflict can set for Heroes going forward. Hopefully we see it expanded to not only Starcraft, Warcraft, and Retro games, but also crossovers and things like that. Blizzard seems to be all-in on Heroes of the Storm and I am excited to see what happens.
Hearthstone
Tavern Brawl launched this past week along with the first 3 new hero portraits. I'm not going to spend any more time on the portraits since they've been talked almost to death. But I do want to talk about Tavern Brawl a little bit. I've seen a lot of criticism that the feature isn't an online tournament mode. I don't think people quite understand the kind of behind the scenes work that a tournament mode requires. I don't doubt that we will see a tournament feature in the Hearthstone client eventually, but it is a completely different set of matchmaking and player pairing system than is currently in place. Blizzard would also need to implement some kind of server side locks prohibiting deck changes or just determining tournament format rules and how to enforce them unilaterally. All in all it is a ton of work and as someone who wants it as much as the next guy, I want it to run correctly once it's here. What we did get in Tavern Brawl is a bit disappointing from the bit I've played so far. Ragnaros vs Nefarious seems a bit lopsided in Nefarion's favor primarily due to his card advantage from his hero power, and his mana advantage from starting with 4 mana crystals. It is not impossible for Ragnaros but he definitely starts on the back foot. I got a good hour of enjoyment out of seeing all the new cards specific to the brawl decks, but after that it gets pretty stale. I'm also a little concerned given the balance issues this week. We can't look past the difficulty of creating a new twist week after week. And if a event for the week of Tavern Brawl isn't properly tested or implimented, people could be turned off quickly. When the main complaint with the game is that there isn't enough to do besides ladder and arena, you can't really afford to have a new mode fizzle out. In all fairness, the could be weeks where whatever mode we are given is exciting and addicting, but for now I'm not sure it has the staying power it needs.
And that should be about it for this week. Next week I'll be going in depth on Overwatch. As always, comments are always appreciated. Thanks for reading.
Till next time,
Chris
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