Gamescom Predictions and The Grand Tournament

Well met!

Just like the lead up to PAX East and Blizzcon, the days leading up to Gamescom this year give something to be excited about as Blizzard fans. In the past few years Diablo has been Blizzard's main focus, announcing Reaper of Souls there in 2013. This year however, Blizzard has a lot more going on and therefore a lot more to expect. Let's work through the games and see what we can expect.

Diablo 3: Originally I had expected an expansion2 announcement at this years Gamescom primarily because years past have set the precedent. However, this year it seems that Diablo will not have a gameplay area. When Reaper of Souls was announced, Blizzard had an area set up for people to try out the Crusader class and run through Westmarch. I can't imagine Blizzard would announce an expansion without having a least a simple demo area. On top of that, they seem to be hitting their stride when it comes to the patch cycle. Patches 2.2 and 2.3 have brought not only new items and sets that have created new play styles, but also some sweeping changes to the way the game works. I'll probably get into the details of that after 2.3 releases, but there are a ton of changes coming including huge changes to bounties and rifts. I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted to take their time on an expansion, since the patch content is providing a decent amount of replay-ability in the meantime. At this point I would be shocked if we didn't get an expansion announcement at Blizzcon.

Starcraft: Legacy of the Void is listed as one of the playable games in Blizzard's section. I don't think there is much new we can see in terms of gameplay or missions that we haven't already seen in the beta or prologue missions, but this would be a great time to reveal the opening cinematic for the expansion. We all know Blizzard's cinematics are top of the line and they pretty much sell copies of the game my themselves. Get people excited with that and then let them play with new units and all that jazz in the pit.

Heroes of the Storm: With Leoric being released last week, we are nearing the end of the Eternal Conflict event. The two things on the Conflict website that we haven't see yet are the Monk and a second Diablo themed battleground. I would expect to see an in-depth preview of the Monk and his kit, and at least a flyover look at the battleground. Blizzard has been claiming a 3-4 week per hero time frame, so by the time Gamescom rolls around we will only be a week or two away from the Monk rolling out. As far as the battleground goes, this is pure speculation but perhaps we'll see some kind of Tristram tile set. Maybe demons/zombies invade the town every few minutes and your team or your minions get a buff based on how many of the bad guys your team kills. Just a thought. Maybe we will see another hero announced for after the Eternal Conflict winds down, but they may not want to distract from the event by making players look past it.

Overwatch: Things have been quite since Soldier 76 was revealed, but I think we are primed for a PAX East level preview in Germany. Blizzard teased a tourism poster on Friday for a fictional city called Numbani. The tag line "City of Harmony" has a very Zenyatta feel to it, and the robot silhouettes back that up. If you stop the Soldier 76 story trailer at 34 seconds in, you can see that Numbani is a city in the Ghana or Nigeria region of Africa and is one of the "Active Threats" in Overwatch's system. These breadcrumbs seem to be leading us to another battleground. We still don't know who the two characters are in the Overwatch poster whom the community have named "Green Ninja" and "Fat Bane". In addition to all of that, a few community members and content creators have been invited back to Blizzard HQ. A similar showing/playtest session was held prior to PAX East and it allowed them to get videos and reactions ready to go as soon as the official announcement was made. We got a bunch of videos about their impressions of McCree and Zarya after PAX and I'm fully expecting the same at Gamescom. There is a small chance we will get a beta start date, but thats only if Fall 2015 means early Fall 2015. If not I expect to wait until around Blizzcon.

World of Warcraft: In a post I wrote in March I went through my Blizzcon predictions and I was adamant that we were getting an expansion announcement just like every other expansion. Given the state of WoW and the discontent of the player base as of late, I don't think they can afford to wait that long. Blizzard has been inviting notable WoW community members to a invitation-only event at Gamescom. They did something similar back in 2013 when they were announcing Reaper of Souls. They gave the expansion announcement it's own event rather than tacking it on to their overall panel. I don't know what happened from the time they came up with the idea of Warlords of Draenor, to the time they got it implemented and out to players. I don't know if it was a learning curve of new developers and designers to the team. I don't know if they just bit off more than they could chew, but Warlords clearly wasn't what they envisioned it to be. There was potential in the story of this expansion and it could have been handled better, but something went wrong along the way and they had to change the path they were heading down and here we are. As a result, I think they want to move into the next expansion as quickly as they can. There was a supposed "leak" detailing a Dark Prophet expansion dealing with the South Seas, the Zandalari under new leadership, and Azshara making her grand return.  Some of the things in that post would be great directions for the game to go. I like the story ideas and think that despite some people's hatred for Troll content, there is a decent story to be told there. People have been asking for a South Seas expansion for years and tying in the Tomb of Sargeras is a nice way to bring the Legion threat full circle after the events of Warlords of Draenor. I could do without us having a ship and recruiting pirates or whatever, primarily because Garrisons are leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Whether or not the leak is legitimate doesn't really matter. There is a chance it is and there is an even bigger chance that it isn't. Either way I think we see an expansion annoucement and hopefully with it, something players can truly be excited about. We need it.

The Grand Tournament

Transitioning from things that might be announced to things that were announced, we got our second Hearthstone expansion announcement with The Grand Tournament. 132 new cards, a new game board, and a new mechanic. The Inspire mechanic is an ability that triggers when you activate your hero power, which is a theme throughout most of the cards we have seen so far. Many of the cards tie into the hero power, whether they reduce the cost, remove the once per turn limitation, or change it entirely. This seems to be this expansions version of mechs from GvG. Some of the cards previewed so far definitely seem playable, but I'll wait until we have the entire set previewed before I do any kind of review. I will say that I like the Inspire mechanic, and I'm sure there will be at least a few cards with the ability that make a big splash in constructed.

The timing of this expansion is a little strange however. Coming from a card game background that included Magic the Gathering, I believe there is a strong need for consistency with expansion releases. I know this may be an unpopular opinion, but I would be fine with a release schedule where every Spring we get a new adventure, and every Fall we get a full expansion. Anything more than that and I worry about what the game looks like in 2-3 years. It's important, when setting expectations for Hearthstone versus a physical card game, to remember the key differences. With each new set that is released it becomes harder and harder for new players to acquire cards for truly competitive decks, and because we cannot trade cards with other players, the only viable answer is to buy packs. And while it should be Blizzard's goal to make money, they long term health of the game is what truly allows Hearthstone to become a cash cow. Sure it's a free to play game, and players can earn gold from just playing over time, but they amount of time to acquire a collection gets bigger and bigger with every set. If players feel the only way to compete is to spend money and sometimes a lot of money for some decks, then they get turned off from the game. The goal needs to be to give new players the feeling that given the right investment of time or money they can get a continued level of enjoyment out of the game. And when you can provide that then you have that player hooked. It's not the tournament player we need to worry about. They are going to spend whatever they need to in order to get the cards they need to play on a competitive level. I think most tournament players would be content with 2 adventures and 1 expansion annually. Naxxramas and Blackrock Mountain have proven that a small release can have just as strong of an influence on the metagame as a full blown set.

Another problem with 2-3 sets being released yearly is power creep. Power creep is a problem for all card games. In order to make new cards exciting they need to be better than older cards to a certain extent. Chillwind Yeti was a reasonably strong card before we had any expansions. It was the best stats we could get on a 4 drop. GvG came out and we got Piloted Shredder. On the surface a 4/3 is worse than a 4/5, but when you consider the average 2 drop that comes out of a Shredder is a 2/3 all of a sudden we have 6 attack 6 health versus 4 attack 5 health in our 4 drop spot. As a result Chillwind Yeti ends up on the sidelines while Piloted Shredder is the universal best 4 drop. The way Magic combats this problem is primarily through rotating formats. To put it simply, every time a new set comes out a set from a year or two ago is no longer legal in that format. This way they can make different aspects of cards more powerful at different points. If one set has particularly strong creatures, then the next sets they may tone down the power level of creatures and raise the power level of spells to create this sort of see-saw effect. This way the overall power level is never too high, but certain aspects feel strong and create excitement. Sometimes the occasional card breaks the mold and sets a new standard (think Dr. Boom) but for the most part the process works. The issue with this process in Hearthstone is we have a digital card game. What would happen if when Grand Tournament was released, you could no longer queue for ranked if your deck contained cards from the original set. Those cards would cease to have in-game value outside of what they could be disenchanted for, but they were still purchased with real money or real time. In Magic there is a secondary market for cards, so when a new set is released players have the option to sell off the cards they can't play with anymore, usually for less than they were worth when they were legal to play. In Hearthstone the only "price" associated with any one card is the amount of dust it costs to craft. So if Hearthstone were to introduce a rotating format to prevent power creep, they would need to do something to dust prices for older cards to compensate. I know this became a wall of text, but my main point is by a slower release schedule, Blizzard has more time to decide how to tackle the power creep problem, as well as how to keep the game somewhat accessible to new players or players returning to the game. I for one would like to avoid any kind of rotating format for Hearthstone, but it does making the design and balancing of new cards far more difficult.

Sorry to go all wall of text on you there. But this is something  I have been curious about that the announcement of the Grand Tournament brought to the forefront, and it's something I haven't heard much discussion on from the community. Let me know what you guys think.

Well that's gonna do it for this week. As always, thanks for reading.

Till next time, Chris

The Overwatch Story Puzzle

Welcome back soldiers!

All things considered, it's a great time to be a Blizzard fan. Despite the shortcomings of World of Warcraft lately, they announced Warcraft: Chronicle which is a 3 part series laying down the history of Warcraft. Patch 2.3 for Diablo is currently in testing and will bring with it some changes and features that will undoubtedly make the game better (and that's ignoring any potential expansion talk). Starcraft 2's conclusion is almost here with the conclusion of an epic story. Hearthstone is hyping up some sort Argent Tournament style event or release. Heroes of the Storm keeps rolling out Heroes in a way that makes you forget the one that just released because there's another one coming. And then there is Overwatch.

With the gameplay previews for all the known heroes wrapping up, we were left to wonder if Blizzard would have anything to show last Wednesday. They did not disappoint. We got the background story and gameplay videos for Jack Morrison aka Soldier 76. 76 was the leader of Overwatch throughout the Omnic crisis up until their dismantling. The video paints him as a vengeful and somewhat spiteful vigilante seeking to take down those responsible for taking down Overwatch and attempting to kill him in the process. We already had some idea that OW was taken down from the inside via the Blizzcon panel last year, but now we're starting to get the pieces to the puzzle. The news article by Olympia Shaw gave us more insight into the days before Overwatch went dark. The combination of that and the Soldier 76 video present some interesting possibilities.

We got a nice shot of some of the original Overwatch members. Morrison, Reinhardt minus the helmet, Torbjorn, Pharah's mom, and who I assume is  Gabriel Reyes based on the article by Shaw. I don't know about you, but Reyes' shotgun sure look EXACTLY like Reaper's to me. That little touch is awesome because it lets us start to put together our own version of the story. Reyes could be the guy that took out Overwatch from the inside after being passed up for a promotion in favor of Morrison. Is Reyes rocking the Reaper outfit to hide his identity the same way Morrison is hiding his as Soldier 76? How does Talon, Reaper's current affiliation, fit into the equation? We know from the Widowmaker character page that Talon was responsible for brainwashing her and forcing her to kill her own husband. It's possible that Talon convinced Reyes to turn against Overwatch and in return he was enhanced to become the ultimate killing machine? As I said in my first OW lore post, one of the best parts about watching a new IP develop is having all of these questions and finding out the answers. There is something awesome about learning about the world outside of a wiki page.

Blizzard announced an upcoming graphic novel detailing the early days of Overwatch at Comic Con. In my opinion this is more exiting than any hero reveal we get between now and the beta. There is an opportunity to answer so many questions leading into the game. What was in Omnic crisis actually like? What made Reinhardt go a little cooky? What did Overwatch look like at it's peak? What actually happened to bring it down? And most importantly to me, what are the relationships between all of these characters that we will undoubtedly become attatched to in the years to come? We have a chance to feel he same regret when we see Reaper as we do when we see Arthas in Icecrown Citadel and Illidan in Black Temple. Jack Morrison could be a sympathetic hero in the same way as Sarah Kerrigan, screwed over by the people he trusted and seeking redemption. One day Tracer may have the same kind of fan base and following as Sylvanas, and we get to watch it happen from day one.

Every time Blizzard gives us something new from the Overwatch universe I get more and more excited. Let me know what your theories on the story or characters are, or just let me know what you want to see from Overwatch.

As always, thanks for reading. Until next time,
Chris

Warcraft's Content Pacing

Welcome back friends!

Today I want to backseat game developer. We recently heard from Cory Stockton, Lead Content Designer on World of Warcraft, that Hellfire Citadel will in fact be Warlords of Draenor's final raid tier. Given the fact that we are facing off against Archimonde and the raid takes place on Gul'dan's doorstep, I can't say I am that surprised. However, there has been quite a bit of negative feedback around the idea of only 2 major content patches. And one of those patches can hardly be considered "major". Patch 6.1 was largely underwhelming to a lot of players. I personally had no interest in the selfie camera or Twitter integration, and the changes to the garrison only fixed issues and didn't add any new game play.

Patch 6.2 has been enjoyable for me personally up until now. The zone itself is well designed with a decent layout. Hellfire Citadel is beautiful and really calls back to the original 5 man dungeon zone and The Black Temple. The daily quests are a little tedious but the areas are different enough and the rare spawns throughout the zone reward you for being there for a while. Unfortunately it's still more of the same quest design we got from the garrison daily quests where you kill things and pick up items until a blue bar is full and then you leave. This method isn't exactly engaging but if all you are looking to do is unlock flying in a few weeks then it shouldn't be difficult to get the reputation you need in no time. I already completed the necessary achievement this week without doing any farming or grinding outside of dailies.

With all of that being said, the disappointment from the player standpoint stems from the same repetitive issue. Players want a steady flow of content in order to maintain interest in the game. This isn't just a Warlords of Draenor issue. We were unhappy that Icecrown and Siege of Orgrimmar hung around for too long. So if what we want is new things to do at a reasonable pace, then how does Blizzard get into that rhythm? They have forever been the company famous for not releasing anything until it's finished. I think the place for them too look is right there on the Blizzard campus.

Hearthstone was officially released to the public on March 11, 2014 and the game was instantly a hit partly due to a prolonged beta that was available for players to stream and build a following. 4 months later Curse of Naxxramas was released and it brought with it a relatively small number of new cards and a new game mode that would keep players attention for a few weeks. 5 months later Goblins vs Gnomes launched as a true full expansion. The entire metagame changed for everyone, and players of every skill level got a chance to experiment with new cards and interactions. And like clockwork, 5 months later, Blackrock Mountain was released as Hearthstones second adventure. Since the games official launch, Hearthstone has received a steady pace of new content. I understand that developing a card game is on a whole other side of the gaming spectrum as an MMO, but the concept still applies. A lot of players, especially ones who play Hearthstone competitively, would prefer a much faster release schedule, but they have been able to count on new content every 4-5 months. World of Warcraft players have been forever asking for something similar. I think it is possible if things are spread out and planned to hold that schedule. I've got an example of how I think Warlords could have gone to keep players invested. Keep in mind, all of this is from the mind of a casual gamer with hindsight and no development limitations.

- 6.0 launches very similarly to how it actually did in November. The leveling experience was hit out of the park. We familiarize ourselves with Draenor as the story unfolds before us. The launch dungeons are really well done, and Highmaul was fine as a launch raid. The only change I would make, would be to have Highmaul be its own raid tier. There would need to be a couple of extra bosses to fill it out, but we didn't need pre-tier raid. The legendary quest line can begin the same way, but it leads us into a different 6.1

- 6.1 could drop in January only this time it has Khadgar sending us to the isle of Farahlon as part of the legendary quest. It was originally shown on the Draenor world map but was eventually cut before the beta. How about we head there first after gathering our stones from Highmaul. We have to empower them at an ancient ogre waygate on Farahlon that the ogres kept secret from the orcs and we only find out about it by defeating the Imperator. We could add a dungeon or two with art styles similar to the lush purple eco-domes in Netherstorm since those are supposed to be what the zone originally looked like before Draenor exploded. This patch could work just like 5.1 in Mists of Pandaria. We get a new daily quest hub (which would get us out of the garrison way sooner), that progressively tells the story the same way the garrison campaign does. This method gives the zone a longer life and draws the player in. Every step of the quest feels like a reward since the next part isn't automatically there for you to speed through. The garrison campaign can continue as normal so that the player doesn't lose sight of the threat of the Iron Horde.

- 6.2 could hit in March and bring Blackrock Foundry as a new tier. The raid itself was really well done in my opinion. Most of the fights were interesting, and the Foundry itself feels epic. The goal remains the same. We want to cut the Iron Horde off from their supply of weapons and artillery and put all the pressure on Grommash. They could make the same garrison updates as they did in our 6.1 and at this point we have basically the same game only we have an additional zone of content to jump back to to keep things fresh. The legendary quest line continues as normal only we don't have the Killrog cinematic yet. We save that for the next patch.

- 6.2 in June would unlock the western half of Tanaan Jungle. We attempt to take the fight to Grommash and are met with the same resistance we see now when we enter the zone. There are barricades, Iron Horde soldiers, and Gronn fighting us at the gate. We establish a foothold the same way. Only up until this point we still don't know what Gul'dan is up to. The garrison campaign quests give us some interaction with Grom, then they send us to infiltrate the Bleeding Hollow area where we hear about the discontent within the Iron Horde. We find out whats going on with Iskar and the Arrakoa possibly allying themselves with Gul'dan. The first part of the zone gives us hints of what he is working on an what is still to come. Then as we progress through the zone similar to how we handled our version of 6.1, we come to the cinematic we had at the end of Blackrock Foundry's chain of the legendary quest. Grommash is losing leadership over the Iron Horde and Killrog joins with Gul'dan to complete the coup.

- 6.3 opens the rest of Tanaan Jungle in August. We finally get to see what Gul'dan is up to as we work our way through the rest of the zone. We see find out exactly what deal he made with the Legion. Hellfire Citadel opens just as it has now culminating with Archimonde. There would be a few differences. Whether it's a quest or a moment in the raid itself, Grom gets a true redemption arc, not one where everyone just forgets all the terrible things he's done. And after we complete the legendary quest line, we get some amount of content that gives us a sign of whats coming next. It could be Khadgar telling us where he thinks Gul'dan went, or it could be us receiving an urgent message from home letting us know about a new threat. This could conveniently come as a mini-patch as Blizzard releases information about the next expansion at Blizzcon.

Obviously that is just a retrospective of how things could have gone, but I think it speaks to the kind of schedule players are looking for. Every patch doesn't need to be a whole new raid tier, questing zone, dungeon, and battleground all rolled into one. Two of those every 4-5 months would be more than enough for most players, and the ones who that isn't enough for already aren't getting the flow of content they are looking for. It would be a step in the right direction at the very least. Players want to be able to count on some kind of rhythm. We want to be able to know something is on it's way, and occasionally be able to a hint of it ahead of time in the content we already have. At this point Warlords doesn't feel like the completion of a story. It feels like quick answers to unsure questions and it's leaving a bad taste in players mouths. The above layout is a decent outline that I'm sure the folks at Blizzard can do much better than, and I'm hoping they pull it off in the near future.

Well that feels like a bit of a ramble so I'm going to end it there. Let me know what you think about that kind of a content release schedule. Thanks as always for reading.

Till next time,

Chris

Overwatch Gameplay Review

Welcome back agents!

As promised, this week I want to talk about the series of gameplay previews posted on the Overwatch youtube page over the past two months. We have previews for all of the currently known heroes as of this past Thursday, and now it's time to analyze a bit. I recommend watching the videos if you haven't to this point. Most of them are entertaining to watch, although a couple characters have this issue of being somewhat dull to watch without having hands on experience. Keep in mind as we go that I don't have a ton of experience with team based shooters so take my my thoughts with a grain of salt.

First I want to talk about the base UI. These videos are the first time we see a version of the in game interface. As with anything there are some things to like and some things to be improved upon. This is a pre-alpha version of the game obviously, but that doesn't mean that we can't critique and provide feedback on what we are given.

He we have the base UI for Tracer out of combat before the game starts. The targeting reticle is a small circle at the center of the screen. The bottom left side of the screen has the player health bar in white, and armor in blue and the current total health amount larger next to the hero portrait. The bottom right side tracks the current ammo count and cooldown for your on use abilities. Shift usually controls your movement speed ability (in Tracer's case her Blink), and E controls a secondary ability that varies from character to character (her Recall ability). The blue arrows at the center of the screen depict the number of charges of Blink available. And finally the bottom center of the screen tracks progress toward your hero's ultimate ability. Throughout the action you will see the ability charge up based on damage done, damage taken, and for some heroes, damage absorbed or healed. Overall I think the UI is ok for this stage in the game. Vital information is all readily available, and the UI itself helps to explain how the character plays right from the start. I am a fan of a minimalist approach to user interface for most games, but I'm sure there are people out there who want more information. There are a couple of things worth noting. As you can see in the videos, once the game actually starts the timer at the top of the screen lets you know if capture points are currently being taken, and in the case of payload maps, how far along the payload is to a checkpoint, and how many players are actively escorting it. The other is the gun icon at the bottom right, depicting Tracer's Pulse Pistols. This may be nothing of importance, but it may suggest that different weapon types may eventually become available at some point. This could simply be an old aspect of the game that has yet to be removed so it may be nothing, but I think it's worth drawing attention to.

Of course there are also some issues with the UI that may not be as apparent from Tracer's point of view.

Here we have screenshots from Zarya and Winstons perspective. One of the issues that is present throughout these videos is the amount of screen real estate that the character and guns take up. In Zarya's case, Her Particle Cannon and left arm take up nearly a third of the screen and can take even more when she is firing as a beam. Winston meanwhile, has a Tesla Cannon that takes up a decent amount of room, but he also has a left arm that comes into view every step that he takes that blocks vision on that side of the screen. Don't get me wrong, I love the attention to detail that Blizzard is taking when integrating these characters. This is in line with how a gorilla would run so it fits for you to see it in front of you to maintain the fantasy of playing as a giant rage-ape from the moon. However, one of Blizzard's own values is "Gameplay first" and the character models taking up that much of the screen hurts the gameplay in my opinion. There have been countless posts on the Overwatch Reddit with complaints and requests for a field of view slider as is typically present in present day shooters. They have listed issues with nausea and headaches resulted from a FOV that is too small, and as of now the only response we have heard from Blizzard was that they wanted to have a locked FOV in order to create an even playing field for new and experienced shooter players. I understand Blizzard's desire to keep UI aspects consistent among all players, but at the same time I can sympathize with players being concerned about actual medical issues as a result of the current state of things. We have evidence, especially lately with what happened in World of Warcraft surrounding flying, that Blizzard is willing to compromise. I think a fair compromise would be to increase the field of vision, or at the very least scale back the size ratio of the character models, and then lock the FOV and weapon size there.

Some aspects of the combat UI can also feel cluttered once the fighting begins.

Both of these screenshots show both sides of Mercy's channelled ability to empower her targets attacks. From Mercy's point of view, we have a huge health bar in the the center of the screen obviously meant to give information and urge you to switch to her healing channel if your target starts coming under fire. The problem is that the bar appears directly in the center of the screen where your eyes naturally go as you move around the battlefield. As I watched the gameplay video for Mercy I couldn't help but feel like that aspect of her UI was too prominent and distracted from what was actually happening in the fight. It's similar to how players new to healing in WoW can tunnel vision their player frames and end up standing in the fire and dying themselves. I understand this shouldn't be a problem for experienced players, but it could present a problem for new players intrigued by the prospects of healing in a shooter. The second screenshot shows the same power-up being provided to Pharah. It's hard to tell from a still image, but the blue arrows on the outside of the screen scroll by continuously while you are being channelled on. I think the one central blue arrow next to your targeting reticle is enough to let you know you are being powered up. The outside ones are almost a distraction to me. I could be being overly critical of this but it's just another thing on the screen in a fight that I don't think needs to be there.

Outside of the UI, I think there is a lot to be excited about from these previews. The game length seems to be between 7 and 12 minutes depending on how close the game is. This is great for a couple of reasons. First, games that are roughly 10 minutes long lend themselves to short game sessions really well. One of the things that turned me off of League of Legends was playing for 45 minutes to an hour only to lose. The fact that I can log into the game on a lunch break or quickly before I head out for the day and get a few games in is really exciting. Secondly, the 7 and 8 minute games are pretty one sided where one ream doesn't capture the first point or reach the first checkpoint with the payload. Everyone has been in one of those games where you are just getting steamrolled. They aren't fun and if they last too long they can turn people off of the game. The fact that the games are designed to be short makes it easier to shake off a bad loss and also makes the closer games last longer so you have more chances to make plays to come out on top.

The maps themselves are really well designed as well. From what I can tell, there are tons of narrow halls and choke points that lead to a lot of interaction from the start. And Blizzard has done a really good job making the maps seem vertical as well to take advantage of difference heroes mobility. Widowmaker and Hanzo have no shortage of places to set up shop above the fight using their grappling hook and wall climb. Likewise, Torbjorn and Bastion have plenty of places they can strategically set up turrets and siege mode to "safely" hold off the other team. Given my limited shooter experience, there could be some shortcomings I'm missing with these maps that more experienced players can see, but so far I'm very impressed.

If these videos were meant to get me even more excited for Overwatch then it definitely succeeded. Selfishly I am worried that Wednesday will come and we will have nothing else to view or analyze on this game, but that's what is great about it. This world is all new to us, and every tidbit we get will be brand new. With all that being said, feel free as always to comment with your thoughts or hopes for Overwatch.

Thanks for reading as always,

Chris

A quick trip around the Blizzard landscape

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

The Eternal Conflict

Welcome back friends!

In my "break" from committing and real game time to World of Warcraft, I've been spending a lot of time making another Legend push in Hearthstone, and playing a lot of Heroes of the Storm with friends. The game is a ton of fun, especially when playing with a group you can talk to over Skype or whatever your voice chat of preference is. And this past weekend Blizzard gave us an event that we should have had in London at the actual launch event. But I won't go into that because I want to do a positive post ffs. Blizzard announced their first in what I'm going to assume is a series of in-game events of sorts.

The Eternal Conflict is a series of in-game releases based around the Diablo universe. It began, somewhat unceremoniously with the release of Johanna, and will continue for "a few months". We were shown a preview of the Butcher and our eighth battleground, The Battlefields of Eternity. I like the approach Blizzard is taking by creating an event around its releases. Let's face it, the Diablo and Starcraft universes are heavily overshadowed by Warcraft in Heroes at the moment. We still need a Diablo Support and a Starcraft Warrior. The approach of a theme surrounding releases spices up normal hero releases in comparison to other games. 

The Battlefields of Eternity battleground is our first venture into traditional Blizzard areas making their way into Heroes, and there are some nice changes that could be easily overlooked. There are only two traditional lanes, with the map objective in the center. This puts a huge emphasis on the objective of defeating the enemy's Immortal and controlling your own. On maps like Cursed Hollow and Sky Temple there are times that ignoring the map objective is a viable strategy that allows you to take an enemy fort or keep while the other team focuses on the objective. With only two lanes there is less of an opportunity to gain an experience advantage or to destroy an early keep to strengthen your lane minions. Another nice change is new type of mercenaries. Sky Temple brought a new look to siege giants and bruisers, but with Battlefields of Eternity, we get mercenaries with different abilities. Bruiser camps have two hell hounds and a shaman that will resummon the hounds until his is killed. This is similar to how the web weavers in Tomb of the Spider Queen behave and it's nice to see it transitioned to other maps and minions. 

The Butcher is our next melee Assassin. I was a bit worried he would be another Warrior based solely on his size, so it was a pleasant surprise that he was announced as a damage dealer. His trait is a twist on Diablo's soul gather mechanic. The Butcher collects Fresh Meat from minions and heroes he kills, and those stacks of Fresh Meat buff his attack damage up to 25%, all lost on death. He also comes with what seems to be a strong kit. He has a melee attack with a slow, a debuff effect that causes attacks against that target to heal him, and a long range charge stun. The charge stun seems a little unreliable. He moves pretty slowly so the target should have plenty of time to get away. His heroic abilities seem pretty strong as well. His Furnace Blast is a delayed explosion surrounding the Butcher that can be activated while using his charge ability to set up a sort of combo. But I think his Lamb to the Slaughter ability is insanely strong. He pins an enemy hero to a post and that hero can't move from that location. If they leave the area they are pulled back to the center. The level 20 talent for the ability causes it to chain all enemy heroes in the location. The potential this gives in team fights should be easily exploitable in the late game. 

We also got a glimpse of a new mount that sort of resembles a Kodo from WoW dressed up in Diablo garb. And there a poster for the event gives us a glimpse at some skins we can expect to see.

We saw Amazon Nova in one of the launch videos Blizzard released, but we also have an Angelic Diablo of some sort, and perhaps a preview of the redone Demonic Tyreal we were promised. And obviously we see the Skeleton King Leoric that we saw at Blizzcon last year. Expect him to be the next hero launched after the Butcher sometime in July. After that I would like to see a support from the Diablo universe to round out the event. Auriel could give us our second Angel hero, or we could see a Monk hero. Blizzard also hinted at multiple Diablo themed maps so we could see a second one similar to how Sky Temple and Tomb of the Spider Queen were tied together. I'm excited to see how much content this event brings to the game, as well as what it means for the inevitable Starcraft, Warcraft and Retro versions. While I still think the prices for these items are still too high, a strong amount of content released with this event is at least a show of good faith that the money is being used well. 

Feel free to let me know what you think of the event or what you would like to see in the future. Thanks as always for reading.

Till next time, Chris

Blizzard's price points are missing their mark

Welcome back friends!

When I started this blog, all I wanted was a place so modestly speculate and discuss the things Blizzard Entertainment had coming our way. I chose the name Blizzard Forecast partly because it was a weather pun, but also because regardless of what they have released over the last few years, I was excited about it. Hearthstone blindsided me as something I did not expect them to foray into. Heroes of the Storm made big changes to many of the things I disliked about the MOBA genre before. And Overwatch was a new IP that has created a level of excitement I haven't had for many games. With all of that in mind, it's disheartening to now have a second post in as many weeks that will be focused on a negative view of decisions made by Blizzard. Last week we talked about the decision to possibly discontinue flying in the future expansion of World of Warcraft. This week we are going to talk about their announcement of new Hearthstone hero skins.

Hearthstone's popularity is right up there with the League of Legends  and WoWs of the world. With that kind of player base comes a microscope, analyzing every decision and release that you make. The outrage surrounding the hero skins was immediate and plentiful. The big arguments seem to be these; "You can't give us deck slots but you can give us this?" and "Holy shit $10 for nothing but a reskin?". While I understand the desire for new deck slots, I don't think the first complaint is legitimate. Deck slots is a UI change, where as hero skins is a art asset change. But I couldn't agree more with the pricing for these to be excessive. While we don't know all the content and changes coming in the patch containing these skins, given the information we have, we can assume that a full set of these reskins will cost us a whopping $90 USD. That's more than 3 full adventures and 75 packs. At $5 each I wouldn't bat an eye at picking these up as they are released. A change of scenery while climbing the ladder, along with another card back, which Blizzard does so well, would be a no brainer to me. At the current price however, I feel guilty about wanting to pick them up. No player should have to be ashamed for spending money on a game they enjoy. But this isn't the only game where Blizzard is "guilty" of these missteps.

Heroes of the Storm has been gaining a ton of momentum since the "launch". Twitch numbers are up and new players are coming in droves. But since the technical alpha one big criticism of the game has been the price of heroes and mounts in the shop. $10 for a mount that you will see maybe half of the game seems excessive. Compare that to $10 for every new hero that is released. At least the heroes come with a new kit of abilities and the team composition changes that come with it. A mount is purely a cosmetic item but cost the same as something that literally changes the game. Even the skin prices are on the high side. I'm not as bothered by the skin prices for two reasons. The more expensive skins come with new ability animations and voice effects, and the overall quality of even the lower level skins, is better than other games offer. Come on, if you play Tychus often, the Infested skin is worth it. That doesn't mean that the prices couldn't stand to be reduced by 20 or 30 percent. $10 for a "Legendary Skin" the quality of Infested Tychus seems about right. But that brings up my biggest issue with how they chose to price all of these items.

Blizzard has backed themselves into a corner in Heroes of the Storm and could potentially do the same with Hearthstone. By setting the price for these items high to start, they prevent themselves from lowering the price later without alienating the portion of the player base that already purchased them. Now their only option is to use sales to lower the prices temporarily. If they had started low on these prices they would have the option to increase them over time. Players who purchased initially feel like they got a deal, and players who didn't are urged (begrudgingly at time) to purchase items they want in the event the prices go up in the future. While increasing price may alienate players who feel like they missed out on their opportunity for the "right price", it's not much different than how Blizzard is removing mounts from the shop entirely. When the mounts return to the shop, player will feel like they need to purchase a mount they want in fear of never being able to obtain it, rather than the alternative of having to pay $2 more for it. The goal for Blizzard is for their free to play titles to earn money and we can't forget that. But I think they have ways to earn that money without alienating  their player base that they didn't take advantage of. Like I said before, we want to be satisfied with our purchases. Part of me wonders if due to their popularity as a company, Blizzard sees the number of purchases coming from their free to play titles and are happy with that number and therefore assume nothing is wrong.

I hope Blizzard sees the reaction to the Hearthstone skin announcement and takes the opportunity to lower the price before they are faced with the same situation as Heroes of the Storm. At the end of the say, we as players want to pay for content they enjoy.

Thanks again for reading. Please leave your thoughts or opinions in the comments. I'd love to discuss it further with the community. Have fun!

Chris