Overwatch Story Stuff

Welcome back Soldiers!

This week I wanted to take some time off from all the Hearthstone stuff I've been doing. Spoilers for Whispers of the Old Gods are trickling out and I think it would be better to wait until I've got a decent number to talk about rather than discuss them as they come out regardless of how interesting they may be. Instead I want to toss out a couple ideas of where I think they might be going with some of the Overwatch story.

First I want to talk about Soldier 76. He very strongly resembles Captain America. Not only is he an enhanced super soldier with the original task of wiping out the world greatest threats, but his story is also looking a lot like the Winter Soldier movie plot. Everything is great when you are saving the world, but when things quiet down and someone needs to be held accountable for the damage, it's the hero who takes the blame because he's different. But who is the Hydra of the Overwatch universe? We know someone got Overwatch shut down and turned the public against them and this is what caused Jack Morrison to go into hiding. My theory is that The Vishkar corporation may have had something to do with it. According to Symmetra's character page, Vishkar helped restore the world following the Omnic crisis by building new homes and communities for those made homeless by the conflict. It also says that they sent Symmetra abroad on "clandestine missions around the world to uphold it's corporate interests." If that doesn't sound a little sketchy I don't know what does. What if after the Omnic crisis was over the people in charge of the Vishkar corporation were worried that their role of post robot war FEMA didn't have the longevity they were looking for. What if they decided to remove Overwatch from the picture and leave themselves as the people's only option to turn to for the comfort of safety and peace. They could have used their corporate influence to twist the media and public perception of Overwatch in the same way Hydra turned SHIELD against Captain America. Then this theory could get even deeper. What if Reaper, then known as Gabriel Reyes, was in league with Vishkar. If he resented 76 for being chosen over him to lead Overwatch perhaps he sought out someone with the means to bring down the organization he no longer felt a part of. And then in order to prevent their involvement from ever becoming known to the public, Vishkar made sure Reaper was among the casualties of the Overwatch base's destruction. To bring it all back to 76, now he needs to find Reyes and confirm what he already suspects to be true. And in doing so Overwatch is reformed and tasked with taking down the corrupt Vishkar corporation and in the process redeeming Reaper. Because we all know that Blizzard is a sucker for a redemption story. (cough: Kerrigan, Grommash :cough)

The other character I want to look at is Genji. He was greatly anticipated since the original Overwatch poster was shown at Blizzcon 2014 and he remains a fan favorite since his official announcement in November. I love all the story beats Blizzard is laying down for this cybernetic ninja. He started as a spoiled son of a powerful crime family and was nearly killed by his own brother. THEN he was rescued by Overwatch had to make him into a cyborg in order to save his life. The reasoning is slightly different but this reminds me a lot of how Wolverine got his adamantium skeleton in the whole Weapon X story line. But the cool stuff doesn't stop there. While working with Overwatch on the ultimate revenge plot to take down his own family's crime syndicate he resents himself for his robotic half and goes into hiding. This is where the tin-foil hat stuff comes in. We know he eventually met up our favorite robot monk Zenyatta with whom he eventually comes to accept his new body and the gift it can be. However, what I am interested in is how we get there. The fact that he goes into self-imposed exile feels a lot like the Batman Begins story. Rich guy experiences loss and resents the life he once had. While he is gone he meets up with someone or something who teaches him to turn his past into a strength and put it to use. I want to see what happens in that process. What happens in his time with Zenyatta? Is his training in Tibet more based around focusing his mind? They could go with the expected route where he seeks out Hanzo, the brother who nearly killed him. Or does the Omnic monk teach himthat the fault doesn't lay with Hanzo but with the corrupt family who raised them heartlessly? And how does Genji fit into the plans Overwatch has to reform. Genji is front and center in the "We Are Overwatch" trailer so it would seem that Blizzard is moving forward under the assumption Genji is still a member. Harmony could mean balancing out the injustice done to Genji, but it could mean reconciliation. And I for one welcome a Double Dragon reboot featuring Genji and Hanzo!

I can't wait to see what Blizzard has to offer as they continue to build this world. These two are two of the more prominent characters but there is plenty more to get excited about. Characters who seem secondary for now like Zarya and Mei could have to wait until the second round of cinematic shorts and comics but I'm excited for their stories grow and mesh with the overall lore.

This week may not be up to par with what I normally write up but I find myself thinking more and more about Overwatch as we get closer to release. Thanks as always for taking the time to check it out anyway!

Until next time,
Chris

Whispers of the Old Gods

Greetings Travelers!

I'm back as promised to discuss the newly announced Whispers of the Old Gods Hearthstone Expansion! Blizzard had a nice little presentation prior to the start of the Americas Winter Championship today, but unfortunately they were forced to show up late to their own party. Earlier this week a bunch of Hearthstone content creators and professional players were flown to California for a sneak preview of the announcement. The information was put under embargo, but that didn't stop a Spanish website from posting basically all of the information we got today. This kind of thing happens a lot more than it should in the gaming industry and it really sucks when an announcement like this gets a lot of wind taken out of it's sails on the eve of the event. Sure, they got a ton of traffic to their site in the last 24 hours, but they have basically assured that they won't be invited to a similar event in the future. The worst-case scenario is Blizzard just decides not have similar things take place going forward, and that sucks for everyone. We get less content from our favorite community members and we get it later than we would with these kinds of invitations going out. But enough about the shitty actions of a few jerks. Let's get to the good stuff!

Whispers of the Old Gods is a 134 card expansion based around the idea of the awakened Old Gods messing with things all over Azeroth including our beloved Inn, and it is set to release in late April/early May. This is a little later than a lot of people expected, but I can't say I'm surprised. In addition to a new set of cards we are also getting a new format and with it Blizzard has to review quite a few base set cards and rebalance them according to the current state of the game. Most players agree that things like Big Game Hunter, Knife Juggler, and Force of Nature/Savage Roar are the primary offenders but I'm sure they want to make sure that they hit everything they need to in this pass. They need to ensure these cards are where they want them when the formats hit initially or they risk turning off a portion of the player base if things are too far out of whack and require a second set of changes.

If I'm being honest, I was a little underwhelmed by the announcement as a whole. We only got 6 cards previewed along with the pre-order card back (which the picture above does no justice. the animations are awesome). No game board, no talk of mechanics outside of the Old Gods themselves, and the presentation itself was a lot shorter than I expected. I thought we'd get something more along the lines of the Grand Tournament event. Show off the mechanics and have a few show matches to showcase them. It's not like they didn't have dozens of community members and pro players on site for the event anyway. I don't know maybe I'm just spoiled at this point. But anyway, let's take a look at the cards we did see today.

The first two cards were described as corrupted versions of cards we have seen before. In this case Loot Hoarder and Antique Healbot. Polluted Hoarder seems underwhelming on the surface but we also have to remember we will be in a post Piloted Shredder world. Depending on what other 4 drops we see in Whispers this guy could find a place despite an underwhelming 2 health. Corrupted Healbot is basically a mid-game version of Zombie Chow which seems a bit odd. Chow was at it's best while picking off early game minions and ignoring the drawback of giving your opponent health. Corrupted Healbot is certainly going to be bigger than most things on the board before turn 5 but chances are the opponent has taken more damage by then and the drawback becomes more relevant. It may not matter and controlling the board is the primary goal the deck this is in, but I'll have to see it when the time comes. I do love the idea of playing an Auchenai Soulpriest then trading off my own Corrupted Healbot for the equivalent of a Ragnaros hit to the face.

The other 3 cards I want to talk about are the most interesting by far. (Validated Doomsayer is not a good card and I am spiteful that it was one of the cards previewed.) The Old Gods are the face of the expansion so they need to either be really impressive, or create new and interesting ways to play the game ala Reno Jackson or even Sir Finley. C'Thun and his cohorts clearly are aiming to do the latter. The example Blizzard gave of a late game 14/14 C'Thun wiping out an entire opposing board may be hyperbolic but the possibility is certainly there. What I really like about the two God buffing cards we have here is that the stat distribution is right where you want it to be. A 2/3 for 2 and 3/4 for 4 has become the standard for a playable minion. Because of that these minions are capable of holding their own despite the fact that the game may not reach the point of casting the Old God or you may just not draw it at all. It is a small sample size but I like what we have so far with these 3 cards. There is a lot of potential design-wise if the other 3 Old Gods and their followers are made in this vein. Perhaps we will see a minion that reduces the cost of the God or maybe a minion that gives the Yogg-Saron a Battlecry that spawns a tentacle minion. There are a lot of possibilities and with the limited information about what is in the set this is what has me the most intrigued. As more cards get previewed I'll be sure to review them as best I can. It would be cool to nail down some predictions.

That's it for Hearthstone talk this week but speaking of predictions, I have been doing some thinking about the inevitable Overwatch story content and want to do a probably short post sometime soon with some fun tin foil hat theories I've been cooking up. So chew on that!

Thanks as always for reading team! Until next time,

Chris

The Dangers of Hearthstone's Formats

Welcome back team!


It's been a few weeks since the announcement of Hearthstone's changes revolving around a new rotating Standard format. All the pros and content creators have had their say and expressed how great the changes are for the game. And they are right. I wrote a post a few months back suggestion precontructed decks as a solution to the eventual issues for new players that a larger card pool would bring. The Standard format solves all the same problems and then some. New players have a much smaller barrier to entry. Competitive players will get to experiment with more cards because they will no longer need to justify removing Piloted Shredder for another 4 drop. There are a few points for the new format system that I haven't seen touched on so I want to talk about those before I move into some of my concerns.

I'm going to use my background in Magic in order to make a few of these points so apologies if these comparisons go over some of your heads. I will try my best to make the point clear without them. Magic right now works with a block release schedule. Twice a year they release a new "block" with a new theme and new keyword abilities spread throughout the sets in that particular block. Then every time a new block begins the older of the two in the standard format is no longer playable. What you see happen is a blending of mechanics throughout the 2 blocks in standard in a way that allows one aspect of one block to mesh well with an aspect of the other block in the format. Then this process continues throughout rotations so that certain parts of a standard format remain familiar. Very rarely will a new set in Standard come in and turn the format completely on it's head. To put this in Hearthstone terms think of how Blackrock Mountain led into The Grand Tournament. BRM had cards like Twilight Welp and Blackwing Corruptor and Chromaggus that had the potential to be very strong cards given a good suite of cards to play alongside them. But it wasn't until The Grand Tournament brought cards like Twilight Guardian and Chillmaw completed the picture and made a base Dragon deck possible. Now imagine if League of Explorers or the new set on the horizon brought in more cards that emphasized use of your hero power and the Inspire ability. All of a sudden the cards from TGT like Coldarra Drake and Nexus-Champion Saraad that previously seemed underwhelming may have a complete deck that they can really shine in. This allows Blizzard to push a theme they really want to explore without having to force everything into a single set. And a smaller format let'e more of those types of cards find a place in decks without needing to compete with individually strong cards.

Small rotating formats also allows Blizzard to take more risks in card design. Given the current format rotation rules, League of Explorers will be rotating out of Standard with the first release of 2017. That will give it about 15 months of playability in Hearthstones primary game mode. In the grand scheme of things that's not very long in the lifespan of a card game. If Reno Jackson proved to be overly oppressive to aggro decks then Blizzard has more options of how to address the problem. They can wait to see if the community solves the problem on their own, which seems to be their first choice in the past and rightfully so. They can go in and make changes like they have done in the past with Unleash the Hounds and Warsong Commander. Say what you want about what changes they chose to make, but the fact that they have the option to do so is one of the biggest advantages to being a solely digital game and it's something I hope they do more liberally going forward. However, format rotation also gives them the option to leave things alone and let the rotation take care of the issue for them. This may sound like a bad idea but every issue is going to be unique. The Warsong Commander nerf happened shortly before Blizzcon after months of community issue with Patron Warrior. But Blizzard had stated throughout that the win rate data on the deck led them to believe that the deck wasn't as much of a problem as people believed. It was and still is a very difficult deck to play correctly, but the times where you lost to a ton of damage from an empty board felt awful. I wonder if the situation was different, and Grim Patron and or Death's Bite were set to rotate out within 4-6 months, if Blizz may have decided not to make any changes at all and let the rotation take care of it. Similarly, Mysterious Challenger gets a lot of attention from the community currently as a nerf candidate. I wouldn't be surprised if Secret Paladin goes by the wayside when this first rotation takes place and pushes Shielded Mini-bot and Muster for Battle out of the format. The "wait till rotation" method won't be correct every time, but it does give Blizzard one more answer to potential problems and should give them that much more confidence to take some risks.

Now for my main concern with our new Hearthstone. Right now MTG has two major formats for constructed play; Standard and Modern. The Modern format is pretty much the same as Wild. New cards are legal in Modern as they are released but nothing ever rotates out. Standard in Magic is the default version of the game. It's the format with a majority of the events. And recently, there has been an outcry from some players to even remove the one major non-standard event of the year, a single Modern Pro Tour that takes place shortly after the winter set release. Because there is only the one Pro Tour event and only a handful of other major events in Modern throughout the year, Pros have decided that the format doesn't warrant their attention and become frustrated when they need to focus on it for a few weeks for the Pro Tour. As a result a lot of work gets put into the larger format for a brief period, then it's tossed aside for most of the year and it gets the reputation as a bad or broken format. And as with all card games the player base follows the lead of the professional players and they neglect Modern as well. This is what I am worried about for Hearthstone. By making all of the Hearthstone Championship Tour events Standard format only, Blizzard is forcing the professional player's hand into focusing on Standard primarily as not doing so would hinder their preparation for the most important events for them. And without the professional scene tweaking and innovating on the Wild format it too will fall by the wayside as a pseudo casual mode. It's disingenuous on Blizzard's part to claim that the Wild format will be Hearthstone as we know it now and we are gaining Standard as a new second equal format. For that to be the case they have to set the precedent that both formats are important in their eyes. They need to show the community and other tournament organizers that Wild will be relevant and worth their time to support.

One of the reasons that Magic focuses on Standard is to move product. It's a bit cynical but it's true. But this is where Blizzard is at another advantage. Once a set is out of print in Magic, that's it Wizards of the Coast doesn't sell any more and they have have to switch over to relying on sales of new sets to make money. Meanwhile secondary markets have some say in dictating prices of individual cards whether they are in print or not. Magic players generally have the choice of buying packs until they open the card they need or buying the cards individually from a vendor. Hearthstone doesn't have that option. With the exception of Adventures your options are open them from packs or crafting them with dust. The good thing is there is no secondary market for Hearthstone cards. Supply and demand don't mean a damn thing. So a Legendary is going to cost 1600 dust and a pack is going to be 100 gold presumably forever. So why wouldn't Blizzard support Wild when 40 packs of GvG makes them the same amount of money as 40 packs of whatever the most recent set is. Sell what you can for as long as you can and take advantage of the perks of being a digital product. Add a tab to the store and label it Non-Standard and move Curse of Naxxramas and Goblins vs Gnomes to it. Then either split the major events and make them alternate between formats, or even better, require them both for the highest level events. Make players competing for hundreds of thousands of dollars be proficient in both formats and truly test their mastery of the game. New players still get the benefit of a decreased barrier of entry, but there is also another carrot on a stick to lead them into expanding their collection and investing in the competitive scene. One thing to remember is that regardless of when a player starts playing, there will be a point where a rotation frustrates them. Day 1 players now are upset they invested in Sludge Belchers, Death's Bite, and Dr. Boom. Players who started last year will be upset when Imp Gang Boss, Flamewaker, and Reno Jackson rotate out. And new players who start with the new standard will be frustrated when this upcoming set rotates out. Keeping Wild interesting and relevant helps soften the blow and eases the concerns of all players who hope to make Hearthstone a long term investment whether that be as a hobby or a career.

I'm excited to see what the upcoming release will bring to Hearthstone not only because of our new formats but also because new cards are always exciting regardless of the size of the card pool. Perhaps we will end up in a similar place where Standard gets figured out and becomes a bit stale within a few weeks of release, but if nothing else, more people will be able to take part in the fun.

I'm hoping to get back into a habit of regular posts. Thanks as always for reading! Until next time,
Chris

Hey, I'm back! PvE content in more games?

Greetings friends! Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. The holidays, along with a fluctuating work schedule and lack of real news have caused me to fall way behind on my self-imposed writing duties. But now I'm back and ready to get back in the swing of things.

This week I want to talk about something that I've been thinking about on and off for a long time. As much as I enjoy Hearthstone for it's ladder experience, I have the most fun when a new adventure is released. League of Explorers continued a trend of interesting twists on WoW boss fights with a fun narrative and just enough of a challenge if you go for Heroic mode. This got me wondering if there is an opportunity for a similar mode in some of Blizzard's other games. World of Warcraft has always been primarily a PvE game. Starcraft has a strong campaign (despite what you may think of how Legacy of the Void ended), and the Allied Commanders mode has added an awesome co-op mode as well. Diablo 3 only ever teased a PvP component that never saw the light of day. That leaves Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch as the only games without any sort of PvE content and that has got me thinking.

Overwatch has barely scratched the surface of the world they are creating, so it's more difficult to speculate on a PvE mode. However, we do have continued references to the Doomfist character. Starting in the opening cinematic where Widowmaker and Reaper are looking to steal Doomfist's gauntlet from the museum, and continuing on the Numbani map where you are escorting the same gauntlet for an exhibit on the mysterious character.

These posters are found on the Numbani map and point to an interesting progression of the character. In an interview with PC Gamer, Chris Metzen talked about how Doomfist could be a title and role passed down from generation to generation as needed.  The first Doomfist was the savior aiding in the Omnic crisis. The second maybe had something to do with Talon or maybe the downfall of Overwatch. And with the silhouette of the successor blacked out perhaps we are still waiting for the next Doomfist to emerge and Widowmaker is after the gauntlet to ensure that Talon controls who he or she might be. This could be where our PvE game mode comes in. Doomfist becomes the big bad of the Overwatch universe and the character is too strong to be a playable character. Instead we get a mode where a team of 6 players goes up against an AI or 5 players go up against a 6th player controlling Doomfist. This could work similar to how Evolve plays, but we could forego the need to lock people into specific roles. Give Doomfist a crazy high health pool and a few really strong abilities and we could end up with a really cool game mode with a pretty good replay value. I know it's not a necessarily a PvE only mode but the possibility is there. 

Heroes of the Storm has the possibility for something similar. When I log in to heroes I generally have to decide if I am in the mood for Hero League. Sometimes I just don't want to go try hard. After that I look to see who is online on my friends list for quick match games, and if that's not an option I will jump into AI games to get quests done in stress free mode and to mess around with heroes I don't usually play. I would love a mode like what I proposed for Overwatch. A team of 5 players travels to Auir in an attempt to destroy the Overmind. A new map unique to the mode where the enemy creeps and towers are progressively stronger Zerg units and structures. Timed assaults put your structures in danger causing your team to have to pull back to defend. The Overmind can periodically infest mercenary camps and bosses. Tie it into a Starcraft themed event with a new competitive map and a few new Starcraft heroes and I think you've got something that would be very well received. As long as the AI is tuned appropriately it would serve as a fun change of pace. And because Heroes takes from all the Blizzard universes there are dozens of possibilities to revise the mode. If Blizzard decides against adding Deathwing as a playable hero they could instead add a Blackrock Mountain map where waves of fire shut down different lanes periodically. I think there are plenty of possibilities that could present a nice change of pace and explore some unique map mechanics without forcing them into a competitive scenario. 

I'm sure there are plenty of possibilities for some really cool PvE content for both of these games. I honestly don't think we will see it in Overwatch, but Heroes of the Storm is built in the Starcraft 2 engine and lends itself well to that sort of thing. I'm curious what the community thinks of the idea. Let me know!

Thanks as always for reading and sorry for the delay in content. Until next time,

Chris

The Rest of Blizzcon. And a Realization

Welcome back friends!

I'm sorry for the delay in writing this post, but I realized a few things last week when I tried to sit down to write a true "Part 2". I was really struggling to find motivation to go through all of the Heroes and Hearthstone news bit by bit. There are plenty of places where you can get that information in a far better format than I can give you. And if I'm struggling to write it then chances are it's not an enjoyable experience for the people trying to read it. With those things in mind, what I want to do going forward is focus on giving my opinions and talk about the things I found most interesting. With that in mind, lets jump into the Heroes and Hearthstone stuff that got me excited.

Heroes of the Storm got the kind of news you would expect from a game with frequent updates. Lunara and Genn Greymane were announce for future release, and Cho'gall and the Towers of Doom map have, as of now, been released to the masses. I've only had a chance to play a few games on Towers of Doom and so far the map feels really strange. I like that the ultimate goal is different than that of any of the other maps since you don't push for the core in that way, but I still haven't figured it out. You're meant to fight over towers to make your altars fire more shots, but it's VERY easy for the other team to quickly retake a tower. My concern is that the struggle to take the towers isn't worth the effort most of the time, and teams will be better off focusing solely on team fighting over alters. I'm sure there will be situations where you can win a team fight at an alter and then hold off on capping while you take an extra tower or two, but time will tell. I'm really interested in what the competitive scene does with Towers of Doom and what heroes end up shining on it.

Now for one of my favorite parts of Blizzcon! Cho'gall was one of the heroes I predicted we would have announced at the con, but I don't think anyone had any idea that this would be what we ended up with. 2 players on 1 hero is something no other MOBA has done before and continues Blizzard's trend of trying to break the mold of heroes in interesting ways. Abathur is one of my favorite heroes to see in the hands of strong players. Other than the familiarity of the characters, the removal of items and last hitting as mechanics were the things that really drew me into heroes. In my opinion it's the things that Blizzard is doing differently with Heroes of the Storm that are the best parts of the game. Cho'gall follows that trend in a magnificent fashion. I don't remember the last time I laughed out loud this much in a multiplayer game. I had gotten to the point where I would check out the new heroes that came out and if they clicked with me I would get a bunch of games in, but if they didn't I would find myself getting easily distracted by Hearthstone or WoW. Cho'gall has made me want to play Heroes almost exclusively every time I open Battle.net. He's not the most competitive hero in the game but he is absolutely one of the most fun. I have had multiple moments of greatness where both heads were in sync and we managed to kill 3-4 enemy heroes almost single handedly. On top of all that, he was free. I got him because I ordered the Blizzcon Virtual Ticket (which I would have done anyway), but I can also give him to anyone who doesn't have him simply by playing 2 games together. So not only is he an absolute blast to play, he's free to anyone who wants him basically. Both Lunara and Greymane look interesting and I'm sure I'll have more to say about them once they release.

Hearthstone in a way had the exact opposite effect at Blizzcon. People predicted Ulduar, Icecrown, and Karazhan. Every single person was wrong. League of Explorers took everyone by surprise and continued to give Hearthstone an identity independent from Warcraft. We are getting brand new characters like Reno Jackson, Elise Starseeker, and Sir Finley Mrrgglton in addition to a more narrative experience throughout the Adventure. I think Blizzard does a great job when it comes to designing the encounters. League of Explorers is no exception with the Temple Escape and Mine Cart encounters. They are by no means difficult to complete but the flavor make them a fun change of pace. Originally I thought the cards were a little underwhelming. However, cards like Reno Jackson and Tunnel Trogg are having a big impact on the ladder. I'm not sure if I like what Reno Jackson decks are doing to aggressive decks and deck building going forward, but I can't argue with the strength of the card considering I have yet to lose a game at rank 7+ with Reno Warlock. Time will tell how much of a long term impact League of Explorers will have on competitive Hearthstone. What we have so far seems promising.

There are a couple other things I want to touch on quickly. First, I am a bit concerned that Overwatch is losing a lot of steam that it gained with the initial beta launch. Outside of a couple dedicated streamers the viewership numbers have plummeted and even an expanded beta weekend seemed to do little to keep the hype train fueled. With Blizzard unsure as to whether or not there will even be more heroes to announce eventually, I'm not sure what will help besides the release of the game and that is still a way off. Secondly, a ton of Legion information is being data mined from the alpha game files. Tons of item models and quest line information are coming out as a result. Be careful where you click if you are looking to avoid major spoilers. We are also getting hints at the Artifact weapon acquisition scenarios as well as every model and color for each weapon. These scenarios are very exciting and as a result I feel like I want to have each class leveled to 100 for the Legion launch for no other reason than to experience each one of these scenarios and story lines first hand. Each one looks like its very own version of the Warlock green fire quest and if that is the case players should be really excited.

Well that will do it for this week. Let me know what you think of a possible format change for the blog and if there is anything specific you want me to talk about.

Thanks as always for reading! Until next time,
Chris

Blizzcon in review part 1

Welcome back friends!

The most magical time of the Blizzard year has come and gone. The hand sanitizer bottles have been emptied, the food trucks have dispersed, and nerds from across the planet have returned to their homes. And what I thought would be an underwhelming Blizzcon, ended up really hyping me up for the next year. It would be silly of me to try and cram two days worth of reveals and information into a single blog post, and if I tried you guys would end up with less information and opinion than this kind of event deserves. So instead I'm going to break it up into two posts over the next few weeks. This week I want to dive into the World of Warcraft: Legion info as well as the Overwatch reveals. Next week I'll do a quick review of the League of Explorers Hearthstone adventure (which caught literally everyone who doesn't work for Blizzard off guard), and the new heroes and battleground in Heroes of the Storm. After that I'll do an early review of patch 2.4 in Diablo once the PTR, which launched last night, has helped get a more complete picture of how those features will work. With so little Diablo coverage at Blizzcon it will be easier to analyze the changes once players have had a chance to see how they work in-game. Alright, with this week's disclaimer out of the way, lets dive into Legion.

In order of appearance, the first thing we got regarding Legion was the opening cinematic at the Blizzcon opening ceremony. We shouldn't be surprised at this point. Every time Blizzard releases a cinematic they set a new standard. This time around we got some story beats mixed in with the usual action scenes similar to Warlords of Draenor. However, for Warlords we knew that Grom was going to turn down Gul'dan's offer of power so that wasn't anything new. This time we are finding out that Varian has come to strive for peace as Anduin does. And while the cinematics team had us thinking Varian might not make it through it alive, there are also some questions that we will hopefully find answers for in the pre-launch event. What made Sylvanas and Varian suddenly cool with working together. The "sup bro" head nod in there didn't have the feel of working together despite our factional disputes. Instead it just feels like a quarterback looking at his receiver before the play. They both know what they have to do and they are almost going to enjoy doing it. In addition to that, when we last left Jaina she was advocating destroying the Horde entirely at the end of Siege of Orgrimmar. If Varian has opted to work with the Horde toward peace, then where does that leave Jaina. The emo white streak of hair is growing by the second I imagine.

The first panel up was the World and Content Overview panel. Here we got a deeper look at the zones of the Broken Isles as well as the first two raids of the expansion. The zones are absolutely gorgeous. I think the environmental design in World of Warcraft has been outstanding since Cataclysm and sometimes it seems like it goes unnoticed. Legion has a ton of zone variety and that goes a long way when we are going to be in these zones for 18 months or more.

Outside of the visuals, we also learned that the leveling experience in Legion will be non-linear. You can start in any zone you want other than Suramar and the content in that zone will scale to your level. This is a nice touch in effort to preserve the freshness of the leveling experience throughout the expansion, but I worry that we won't be able to take advantage of it as much given the Artifact system and how it may push people away from playing alts. I'll get into that a little more later.  Team 2 took a page out of Diablo 3's playbook and the new CMs look a lot like Greater Rifts. Rather than scaling the player down to a certain item level and using a time limit to set the difficulty, they have decided to scale the difficulty of the dungeon up. Where the Diablo comparison comes in is there is a keystone used to begin a Challenge Mode dungeon and the you complete that level of dungeon you are rewarded not only with a loot chest as a reward, but also a higher rank keystone. As you climb in ranks within a dungeon the health, damage, and in some cases number of trash mobs will increase in order to make things for difficult and require new levels of coordination and skill. If that wasn't enough of a challenge, there are also different effects active each week that add a unique variable that will require different answers week by week. 

Giving all enemies an enrage or giving the entire dungeon a passive damage aura add a nice twist that allows for different classes, specs, and talents to shine in different weeks. At the end of the week the team with the highest rank clear will be given additional rewards. I can see these new CMs being a very interesting secondary end game with teams battling for the top spot every week. This also keeps dungeons relevant throughout the expansion since new tiers of raid gear and higher item levels will allow players to clear higher ranks. 

Then we have the first pair of raids! The Emerald Nightmare will serve as this expansions Highmaul. Personally, I'm not a fan of the lower item level introductory raid, but it seems to be a system Blizzard is comfortable with since they have gone back to it every expansion since Mists of Pandaria.  In the Emerald Nightmare we will climb a corrupted World Tree to enter the Emerald Dream in order to cleanse it from it's corruption. The zone looks beautiful since the Dream mirrors our Azeroth and we see corrupted versions of Mulgore and Felwood. We will work our way through the Nightmare in order to stop Xavius, who helped orchestrate the corruption of the Emerald Dream, and to rescue or defeat a corrupted Cenaruis who was tainted by his ties to the Dream. Hopefully the interesting story aspects of the Emerald Nightmare will make up for the fact that it quickly be dismissed once Suramar Palace is released and we have a true tier raid. Suramar Palace is our tier 19 raid and for a reason yet to be explained is Gul'dan's new base of operations. As we venture into the home of the Nightborne elves we will take on 10 bosses of the Demon and Night Elf varieties before we finally take down Gul'dan the green skinned hunchback of Draenor. The only visual depiction we have or the Palace is concept art, but if Legion follows in the footsteps of Draenor raiding I will not be disappointed. 

On Saturday the developers got on stage to tackle the true meat of the expansion and talked about the game systems. Garrisons were very much at the core of Warlords of Draenor and had their hand in a majority of the game systems. Unfortunately this came at the detriment of the expansion and the content suffered as a result. I think the opposite will be true for Legion. Artifact weapons and Class Order Halls seemed to be tied into a majority of the expansion in what seem to be all the best ways. Blizzard has a great page on the WoW site with the story behind each spec's Artifact. Players will get their Artifact weapon through a unique experience for each spec and it will be the only weapon they'll have for the entire expansion. Once they have it they will be able to level it up with Artifact Power earned through questing, dungeons, rare spawns, raids, world bosses, battlegrounds, and arenas......so......everything! As you level up the weapon you unlock new levels of your Artifact's skill tree. 

The weapon tree starts with an active ability fitting thematically with the weapon then expands into a series of choices like ability buffs or passives. Eventually, if you want to, you will be able to get enough artifact power to completely fill out the tree, but they have said it will take months to do so. This is where my comment from earlier comes in. If an Artifact takes that much time and effort to fill out and maintain then it makes alts a lot of work to keep up to par. It's obviously not necessary to fully level a weapon for a second or third character, but it may be enough of a turn off despite Blizzard's efforts to keep the leveling experience fresh. It's a mild concern but I don't want to take away from how awesome Artifact weapons are. In addition to Artifact Power, players will be able to add Relics to their weapon. 

Relics will be acquired in the same ways as artifact power, but rather than unlocking damage buffs or new abilities they increase the item level of your weapon and allow additional ranks of certain weapon ranks. This allows you to specifically target certain traits that you want more of an effect from and eventually add ranks to traits that don't have them at launch. This adds an additional sense of progression throughout the expansion. Subsequent raids can drop Relics that have higher item level increases and stronger effects. Each weapon has two Relic slots with different elemental types associated with them. In the case of the Affliction Warlock weapon above, they have a Shadow slot and a Fel slot. This creates competition between different specs and classes when it comes to looting Relics in a dungeon or raid scenario. For example Destruction Warlocks will also want Fel Relics as well as Fire Relics, and Demon Hunters will likely want Shadow Relics and Fel Relics for one of their specs. More competition for drops increases the shelf time of raid tiers and that can't hurt especially later in the expansion. Artifact Weapons along with Demon Hunters seem to be the major features of this expansion and the weapons are really impressive from what I've seen so far. I can't wait to spend hours of my life leveling different alts just to experience the Artifact quests.

Class Order Halls seem poised to take the place of Garrisons as a directory of sorts guiding players to what they should be doing in Legion. The idea is to have a strong class themed location where all the best heroes of that class can go to team up against the Legion. We'll get class quests, a place to upgrade our Artifacts, and special perks that fit the theme of the class. There are plenty of ways for Blizzard to lead players in gameplay but I think the Order Halls also help to reinforce the thematic class changes that have been touted since Gamescom. Judging by the class previews this week, there is a huge amount of detail put into the class reworks and I expect the Class Halls to showcase that. It's hard to get a real opinion about them without seeing them, but I'm optimistic they have learned from Garrisons how much is too much of a good thing.

Overwatch also had some news! Blizzard announced a simultaneous release on PC, Xbox One, and PS4 in Spring 2016. The pricing breakdown is this; PC version for $40 which includes all 21 heroes and a Widowmaker skin for preorder, Origins Edition on all 3 platforms for $60 which adds 5 hero skins referencing their past along with the usual goodies for other Blizzard games, then there is the Collectors Edition for a whopping $130 which adds a Soldier 76 statue and the other things we've grown to expect from a CE like the soundtrack and art book. I think this pricing model hits the mark with the exception of the Collector's Edition that seems like a ton of money to add a statue. I love that Overwatch will no be free to play and I don't have to worry about grinding out heroes in a game that asks me to be open to swapping between them. The 5 skins and bonuses for other games are enough for me to warrant a $60 price tag on a game with only one game mode, but I would understand if people felt differently. I've also seen a lot of complaining across the internet that we don't have any information on how we will unlock future heroes. It seems ridiculous to complain about pricing for heroes you don't actually know are even going to come. If we get DLC a month after the game releases that asks for $20 or more for additional characters and maps then I'll be right there complaining with you, but for know it feels like people are crying over milk they might spill in a year.

Three new heroes were announced along with a new map. Mei and D.Va we're both teased in the weeks leading up to Blizzcon, and Genji has been on our minds since the game was announced. I've added links to their character pages to save from spelling out every ability. Mei seems like a remarkably strong character in the right hands. The ability to freeze enemy characters is unlike we've seen in Overwatch outside of Zarya's ultimate, and her Ice Wall will make for some very interesting plays and new vantage points. D.Va is the hardest to judge for me at this point. Her auto attacks while in her mech deal a ton of damage and her ultimate creates a sort of mini-game of timing your Self-Destructs and trying to quickly recharge your mech. The problem for me is that both her Boosters and Defense Matrix seem really underwhelming but that may be because I haven't had a chance to use them myself. And Genji marks the long waited arrival of green robot ninja guy! The developers made an interesting comment during one of the panels in regards to how difficult it was to balance a melee character. They ended up reworking his entire kit to make it more ranged focused with his ultimate causing him to draw his sword and go stab crazy for a few seconds. His mobility is better than most and I think he will truly shine in the hands of really skilled players. I would love to dive into these heroes a bit further but it doesn't make much sense since I haven't had the chance to play the game yet. 

Metzen also announced a few things during the World of Overwatch panel on Saturday. He reiterated on the graphic novel they announced at San Diego Comic Con that details the beginnings of Overwatch. We also saw a preview of a series of cinematic shorts, each independent of each other, that give some insight into the characters and the world. These are so exciting! People have been asking for Blizzard's cinematics department to expand and create more free standing content. I believe this is their first steps and eventually we will see longer and more in depths pieces coming out of that department. However they choose to deliver the story of this world I will be there eating it up. 

Well...

This has by far been my longest post ever,

and it's only covering 2 of the now 6! games in Blizzard's stable.

I'm sure there is more I could say but I don't think anyone wants to read anymore rambling this week. Thanks as always for taking the time to stop by! We've got a bunch more Blizzcon to talk about next week!

Until next time,

Chris

PSA

Hello team!!

With Blizzcon starting tomorrow it seems silly to write a full post now when all the news and excitement is slated to take place over the next two days. I look forward to breaking down all the news here over the next week or two. There are a couple of things I didn't mention in last week's post;

As the rest of the internet is speculating, I think Overwatch will be announced as a Xbox One exclusive given Microsoft's presence at Blizzcon this year and the controller support already built into the early beta builds of the game.

Deckard Cain will be announced as one of the new heroes in HotS. This would follow the trend set last year with Lost Vikings. Blizzard said they felt like they had to get TLV out because of the number of requests they got at Blizzcon 2013. Everyone's favorite deceased Horadrim has been one of the most requested heroes since last years event. I'm sure some of those requests were in jest, but I don't think that will stop Blizzard.

That's all I can think of for now. Enjoy Blizzcon! I'll be watching right along with you.

Until next time,
Chris

CORRECTION: stupid ass GameStop let the cat out of the bag early and opened preorders for Overwatch on Xbox One, PS4, and PC for $59.99. Good news for all console players. I for one am happy to see a price tag as opposed to a free-to-play model. I get nickeled and dimed enough with Hearthstone and HotS. I expect some kind of season pass model eventually unlocking maps and heroes, but I hope they can manage to do it better than Evolve did. GG!