Welcome back friends! It's been a little while since my last post but I'm excited to get something on the web. News has been slow outside of Whispers of the Old Gods turning Hearthstone upside down and World of Warcraft starting the Legion beta. I wasn't invited to the beta yet so I don't have any insight into what is going on there and I don't want to give my opinions without getting my hands on it. I have some thoughts on what Legion is bringing to the game, some positive and some negative, but I'll save that for a post I have more time to really give a lot of thought to. Whispers has breathed new life into Hearthstone but I am worried that writing too much about it while playing it as much as I do will burn me out and I don't want to do that.
Instead I wanted to repeat what I did last year and take a shot in the dark at what we might see at Blizzcon this year. After trying and failing to get tickets for the last 4 years, I was lucky enough to make it happen this year. Needless to say I'm absolutely thrilled and it got me thinking about what I'll get to see in person as opposed to on my couch via the virtual ticket. This year marks the 10th Blizzcon and the 25th anniversary of Blizzard so I have to imagine there is going to be some kind of celebration for both of those milestones outside of the normal festivities. It may just be some extra special loot in the goody bag but there is going to be something. Ok enough with the vague nonsense predictions and let's get to the fun stuff.
World of Warcraft:
We will be just over two months into Legion when Blizzcon happens so regardless of how good the expansion ends up being in the grand scheme of things we will still be in the honeymoon period. The success of Legion has a lot to do with what the patch release cycle looks like. I expect Blizzard to take the opportunity to preview a solid amount of post release content. The 7.1 patch should be previewed heavily and we should get a least a mention of what the second/final tier of Legion will be. In the past we have been fooled by strong content releases closely following a launch. The Isle of Thunder was outstanding and I probably don't need to bring up Ulduar, but they are consistently failing to continue that pace throughout an expansion. WoW is slipping from it's place at the forefront of Blizzard and that's ok. But we have to hope that things can start to trend upward again for the game as a whole. We won't see 10 million subscribers ever again but the goal is a great game more so than high sub numbers.
Hearthstone:
Blizzcon's Hearthstone news is going to depend on team 5 and how they decide they want the new format rotations to play out in the long run. If the plan is to release 2 full expansions and 1 adventure every year there are positives and negatives to releasing both a smaller and larger set at the end of the year. Releasing an adventure at the end of the year means that the smaller percentage of cards has the shortest amount of time in the standard format. Because the entirety of the Year of the Kraken will rotate out when 2018's first set is released, whatever set released late this year will only have 12-18 months in standard. The upside of getting a larger set at the end of the year is the players have more time in between them to build up gold/dust/money to acquire the new goodies. I guess the size of whatever they announce at Blizzcon isn't as fun as the theme of whatever they release. The Year of the Kraken wasn't chosen as a name for no reason. Whispers is full of Old Gods and everything has tentacles so the next expansion should at least dabble in some of the same themes. Ok, now don't run when you read this, but something like "The Dark Below" could work for both. I know it was a fake leak way back when it would really work and be a wink and a nod to the community. I mean just looks at the Eye of Azshara dungeon in Legion. The oceans are N'Zoth's place of business and areas like Deepholm and Silithus have tons of Old God influence if they just want to continue where Whispers left off. Likewise, Grim Batol, Throne of Tides, and even Halls of Stone/Lightning all have something to do with the Old Gods and could all be combined into a really cool Adventure. Seriously what says "Year of the Kraken" more than fighting Ozumat?!
Heroes of the Storm:
Heroes is a game that is constantly being updated and as such doesn't have a true expansion or sequel to announce. We should see a few new heroes and a map or two previewed but it is almost impossible to predict which heroes they will be. Everyone predicted Cho'Gall but no one knew exactly what we were getting. I still think Deckard Cain is high on the list of possibilities along with Kel'Thuzad and Gul'dan. If we don't have them in the game by December then count them as my picks. Maps are a bit more shaky. I'm not sure Blizzard doesn't regret releasing so many maps so quickly. And with Haunted Mines slated to return I have a feeling they are going to pump the brakes a bit when it comes to battlegrounds. The recently announced Ranked Play update would have gotten a ton of applause as a Blizzcon announcement but there was no way they could afford to wait that long to implement them. Dustin Browder recently said that Arena mode, which was previewed at the con last year, is getting reworked internally so we may have to wait until November for an announce date for that game mode. The Arena will probably be a mode that most players dabble in as a chance of pace so it isn't something they need to rush out the door by any means. We've settled into a good release schedule for new content in the Nexus so Blizzcon should remain a look a few months ahead and a chance for people on the show floor to get their hands on the new goodies.
Overwatch:
We will learn a lot about what to expect in the 3-4 months after Overwatch's release. They have said that new heroes and maps will be free and there are rumors going around that Sunday's Launch Celebration will give a glimpse at the first post-release character. If that's true then the next question becomes how are these heroes going to be released. I'd like to see Blizzard go with a plan similar to how they announced Genji, Mei, and D.Va at last years Blizzcon. Give us 2-3 heroes at a time every 6 months and I'd be happy. If there are a couple characters ready to ship within a few months of launch then Blizzcon would be right on time to announce wave 2. I love the idea of releasing multiple characters at once primarily because of the hero switching mechanic. It's bad in Heroes of the Storm where you have to wait forever to play games with the new hero on release day, but Overwatch would have the exact opposite problem. 5-6 copies of the new character in every game because everyone wants to play the new stuff regardless of how it effects the strategy of the game. Giving everyone 3 new options at least gives a little bit of variety for the first couple weeks. The story of Overwatch is also getting a lot of press with all of the animated shorts. There is going to be more coming for this world and I think Blizzcon will be where we see the next phase of that master plan.
Starcraft and Diablo:
These 2 are mysteries to me. I know Blizzard is going to continue to support both of these games for a while. The time has passed for a Diablo 3 expansion in my opinion so we may just have to wait and see what all these mysterious Diablo hires are working on and we may be waiting a while. The Nova missions were a nice little campaign add on so more things like that would be great. The co-op missions seem like they offer a ton of new and interesting ways to play that can keep people somewhat interested. Other than that, I have no idea what they have in store. Maybe there are some new Diablo armor sets or some cool new Kanai's Cube-esque features we aren't even thinking about, but we won't know until we see it. After a disappointing BC2015 another lackluster Diablo year would make me a little sad though.
Alright. to wrap things up let's work down a list and to hell with it I'll make some set in stone, by name predictions. Hold me to them. Don't let me cop out and gloss over them like I did last year :P
WoW: 7.1 and tier 20 raid at least partially on Argus
Hearthstone: The Dark Below style expansion/adventure
Heroes: Kel'Thuzad, Gul'dan, Deckard Cain, and Arena release date
Overwatch: 3 new heroes, 2 new maps, story content plans revealed
Diablo: Bunch of legendaries
Starcraft: Zerg/Protoss mission pack, new Co-op/Allied Commander characters
Ohh and one more thing......no explanation needed. WARCRAFT 3 AND DIABLO 2 REMASTERED AND FREE TO ALL BATTLE.NET ACCOUNTS TO CELEBRATE 25 YEARS OF BLIZZARD.
:Drops mic:
Thanks as always for reading. Until next time,
Chris
