Gamescom pt2: Legion

Welcome back friends!

I had originally planned to write this post Thursday, but the amount of information unloaded on us was staggering. We knew we were getting an expansion announced, but the amount of detail we go on some of the features was really surprising. I'm going to go through this post with the assumption that you have either seen or read most of the information released, and I'll touch on each of the features point by point. Let's dive right in to World of Warcraft: Legion.

The Demon Hunter Hero Class:

 

The Demon Hunter has probably been the most requested new class since Burning Crusade. Leading up to the announcement of every expansion you could count on multiple posts on Warcraft fan sites speculating on that it was time for them to make their appearance. Well here they are and we got a decent amount of detail on them. They are going to be a Leather wearing class, with one Melee DPS spec; Havoc, and one Tanking spec; Vengeance. The pictures above are of their respective Metamorphosis form. They are available only to Night Elves and Blood Elves unfortunately. And they will apparently work on a Demonic Fury resource, but we don't have the details of exactly how that will work. We don't know yet what level they will be starting at, but if I had to venture a guess I would say 90-95. We will probably level as we go through the Hero Class starting experience, and have that join up with the end of Warlords at level 100.

Back when people were predicting Demon Hunters regularly,  I was one of the naysayers. Too many of the iconic abilities had been given to other classes (Metamorphosis!), and they always looked too farfetched when compared to the classes we already had. While I have no problem admitting I was wrong (since they are here), but those same reasons have me less excited about this new class. Right now, classes are differentiated visually primarily by gear. When you see a Troll in Skyshatter you know its a Shaman, and the same is true of a Paladin in Judgement. Demon Hunters break that mold in a huge way. As you walk through Dalaran in Legion amidst the player models you have seen for years, will be things with giant horns and wings. I guess I am just more of a traditionalist, and the Demon Hunter has broken the mold a little too far. It's also a little disappointing  that they are reserved strictly for Elven races. I play primarily Horde and I've never been a fan of Blood Elves mostly because they seem to be overpopulated. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to come off as totally against the class. I will absolutely roll a Demon Hunter and give it an honest try, but I don't think it will be replacing my main anytime soon. PS: Why are people so excited about double jump? Maybe I'm out of the loop but it doesn't really seem to accomplish anything other than look cool.

Artifact Weapons:

Artifact Weapons are really exciting to me. They seem to be a lot of things rolled into one feature. At their core, Artifacts are powerful named weapons specific to a individual spec. Underneath that, they are a player progression system and potentially an epic class quest rolled into one. Shortly after we begin our journey to the Broken Isles we will be given a unique quest that leads to us receiving our unique weapon. I imagine this will be a smaller version of the Warlock green fire quest. That quest line was really well done and delivered not only some cool lore, but also a really unique experience. I don't think Blizzard will go into that level of depth 36 times for these weapons, but there is a chance and even something half as epic would be pretty cool.

After we earn our weapon, we unlock the player progression path in the image above. Throughout our leveling process, and as we complete level 110 content, we will power up our weapon and unlock points to spend on its unique talent tree to earn various spell buffs and other effects. Eventually you will be able to unlock all of the bonuses and earn various model changes and color tints. I think this is a really nice way to reward the leveling process and max level progression on an individual basis. I think of it as a vastly improved version of the Draenor perks we got this expansion. Instead of every two levels getting a spell buff that you then forget about since it's baked into the spell, we get a choice of how to augment our character as we go on. I honestly don't remember what any of the perks I earned were leveling through Draenor. I have no doubt this system will feel infinitely better.

Another subtle side of the Artifact Weapons is that they seem to replace the system that the more negative side of the community would call "welfare legendaries". I admit I have grown tired of the expansion long process of grinding out assorted items in order to eventually earn a legendary that everyone else has. And while this system will no doubt have the same issue to an extent, I would rather have an item that is at least unique to my spec rather than specific to all casters or all tanks. The shift from Legendary to Ancient also opens Blizzard up to bring back traditional legendaries that can make a select few players truly feel special and unique. A new legendary would need to be in a non-weapon slot, but that doesn't seem like too big of a hurdle. Maybe a legendary Skull of Guldan trinket. At this point this is probably the feature I am most excited about from what we have seen so far.

The Broken Isles:

Possibly the most overlooked part of every expansion, the new continents and zones are one of the things I end up looking forward to the most. After you have seen a few expansions, the new areas can quickly become something you just expect to see and then dismiss just as quickly. But I think there is something to be gained from looking ahead to the zones we will be immersing ourselves in for at least a year. This time around the new continent has a lot that veteran players can be excited about. Highmountain in the north is the home of the Highmountain Tauren who to this point have only been mentioned in game. Tauren lore has been somewhat lacking since the Cataclysm brought the Grimtotem back into the fray so getting a real look at ancient Tauren civilization would be really fun. Stormheim is a zone that will remind players a lot of Wrath of the Lich King. Early screenshots remind me a lot of less snowy Borean Tundra. Here will learn more about what happened to the Vrykul that left Northrend, what the origin of the Val'kyr is, and what's going on with the two warring Titan keepers. With the Val'kyr playing a role, expect this to be the main reason for Slyvanas' interest in coming along to the Broken Isles. Val'Sharah is where Malfurion became the first Druid, and it is where we will be confronted by Xavius and the forces coming through from the Emerald Nightmare. Much of what happened in the Emerald Dream was dealt with in the novel Stormrage, but the initial raid of this expansion will be a nice way to close out that story and let players see an area they have been asking for since classic WoW. The last two major zones are linked together in what's going on, and I think both zones will have a lot of story for us to explore. Suramar is the ancient capitol of the Kaldorei and now houses a race of Night Elves that have continued to embrace the use of arcane magic and have flourished with it. To the west of Suramar is Azsuna, which is home to the spirits of ancient Night Elves in addition to a sect of elves called the Nightfallen who were exiled from Suramar. While we don't know exactly what the story is between these two zones, but we do know that Queen Azshara will at least make an appearance as we progress through them. Azshara is the most threatening being on Azeroth besides the Legion and the Old Gods, so if she is getting involved it's definitely worth paying attention to. The potential for amazing story threads on top of Ancient Night Elf architecture should make these two zones great. I'm really looking forward to leveling through these zones to 110, especially if Blizzard carries the process over from Warlords of Draenor since it was one of Warlords' few strong points.

Class Order Halls:

The last feature I want to talk about is the one we've gotten the least amount of detail on. Class order halls will apparently be instanced areas that players will go and share with other players of the same class similar to how Acherus works for Death Knights now. This is where we are going to upgrade and tweak our Artifact Weapons, and it will apparently be a altered form of Garrisons. We will act as the leader of the order for our class, and we will recruit and lead notable characters of the same class to go on new forms of missions for us. Unlike Warlords however, these recruits will unlock content for us rather than be names and rewards on a mission table. The example the developers gave was that we send them out to a zone, and while they are there they discover a cave or a disturbance and they come back and tell us about it so that we can handle it. This sounds great in theory but I really want to see the process in action in the beta. Garrisons have left a really sour taste in peoples mouths so going back to that well may end up doing more harm than good. 

Before I go, I still want to touch on the subscriber loss of last week. 1.5 million subscribers is a huge number to lose and definitely deserves taking a good hard look at what happened. I don't want to go back down the rabbit hole that is the issues of Warlords. I've touched on that in the past so I don't want to beat the dead horse. The fact of the matter is that World of Warcraft is almost 11 years old and people move on. Warlords of Draenor sparked peoples curiosity through a nostalgic trip down memory lane and that resulted in a huge spike in subscribers that most people didn't think was possible anymore. Once those players came back and saw what the expansion had to offer, many of them probably came to the same realization that others did. There wasn't a lot to do and behind the promise of beloved characters making their return, was the disappointment of dispatching them too early. And with that realization players left once again. THATS OK! If World of Warcraft is no longer a game for you there is nothing wrong with that, and for those of us that still find enjoyment with it, Blizzard will continue to support it even if the numbers continue to decline. I think there are a lot of pieces of Legion that will speak to some of those same players that came back in Warlords. The return of Illidan, a true Burning Legion invasion, the ability to wield Ashbringer and Doomhammer and the like, and even the design of zones like Stormheim with a  very Northrend feel to them, will all appeal to the nostalgic side of gamers. And some of those players will return to the game and we will have another spike in numbers. Maybe we will get back to 7 or 8 million subscribers, but then after people get their fill of what Legion has to offer they will leave again. I think that is that state of the game we love and the cycle will continue and over time the number will slowly continue to drop. I'm fine with that and you should be too. Whether you are the kind of player that logs in every day or you unsubscribe for months at a time, Azeroth will be there for you to escape to.

Well, thanks for reading as always friends! Let me know what you think about the expansion. What are you excited about? What are you hoping for that we maybe haven't heard about yet?

Until next time,
Chris

Gamescom pt1

Greetings Travelers,

Gamescom is here and in the interest of brevity I've decided to split my coverage post into two. If you are like me, you woke up this morning to a ton of new information and announcements for almost all of Blizzard's games. We got hero and battleground announcments for both Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch as well as a preview of Allied Commanders for Legacy of the Void. I want to touch on each of those today, and save the Warcraft expansion announcement for another post tomorrow. There are some things I want to add to that post regarding the drop in subscriber numbers from quarter 2 and I don't want to end up with one giant post that no one wants to read through.

Starcraft:
First, and probably the least exciting for me, we got a preview of the new Allied Commanders game mode coming with Legacy of the Void. From what I can tell it seems like co-op version of specific campaign mission types. You escort the payload/supply train, defend the base from intermittent attacks, and other things along those lines, after choosing your commander (aka Race?) and which units to base your army on. I assume the replay-ability comes from the need to customize your choices based on the different missions, but without a more in-depth look, it just looks like 2 player campaign missions with a few limitations to increase difficulty. I've said it a lot before, but Starcraft is by far the game I am the worst at so I doubt this game mode is enough to get me to devote time to anything beyond the campaign. I do like that Blizzard is adding secondary game modes. The competitive ladder is great, and I love watching competitive Starcraft, but these new game modes appeal to different group of players. Those, along with Legacy of the Void being a stand alone game, definitely broaden the appeal of the game.

Heroes of the Storm:

Blizzard dropped a pretty good amount of info for Heroes as well. We already knew the Monk was coming, but now we have a name. Kharazim. His kit seems relatively strong. His trait is chosen at level one and you get the option to have your melee attacks heal, deal extra damage, or regenerate mana. And his heroic abilities are Seven Sided Strike, a multi-strike attack during which you are invulnerable, and Divine Palm, which heals a friendly hero back to life if they lose all of their health while the ability is active. Kharazim may end up suffering from the same issues as Tassadar and Tyrande where he is labeled a support but straddles the line a bit. From what we know about his talents and abilities, he may be able to be built as a true support, but we will have to see once all the details are released.

In addition to the Monk, we are getting our second map, and final bit of content associated with the Eternal Conflict, Infernal Shrines. It's a three lane map with 3 shrines spread across the map that periodically similar to Sky Temple. Once the shrines activate your team can kill the minions that spawn from it to summon a giant demon to push a lane for you. They have one of three different abilities based off of Diablo 3 elites. Who doesn't love a good Arcane Enchanted monster? Sure, why not lets add it to Heroes too! We didn't get any gameplay footage of the map so we don't have the whole picture of how its going to play.

We also got previews of our next two heroes once the Eternal Conflict ends. Rexxar will be our first Ranged Warrior, and Artanis will be our first Starcraft Warrior. Artanis is exciting, but we don't know anything about him other than he is a Warrior and he will be free with the purchase of Legacy of the Void. Rexxar on the other hand, has me so excited. From the looks of it Misha is the actual tank, while Rexxar hangs in the back and throws axes and tosses birds to slow enemies. I'm really interested in the actual play style since having even minor control of two units opens up a ton of possibilities. And I am interested to know what Rexxar's personal health pool looks like if Misha is expected to be the one on the front line.

One concern I have is the release schedule in relation to role. If the hero release schedule remains Kharazim, Rexxar, Artanis, then 4 of the last 6 heroes release will have been Warrior heroes, and that will bring our grand total to 13. Sure, some Warriors like Sonya and to a lesser extent Anub'arak feel more like Assassins. But that is no different than Tassadar and Tyrande being more Assassin than Support, and Kharazim will bring our Support total to 8. The game is in definite need of new Support heroes yet we've gotten 4 Warriors in the same amount of time as 1 Support. This disparity effects not only casual play, where the in-game matchmaker tries to match teams with Supports together, but it also effects the competitive scene. Most tournaments these days are using 2 bans and a common strategy is to try and choke out the other team on supports. I don't like to be the guy who gets an awesome christmas present but still complains about the present he didn't get, but this game is in desperate need of more traditional supports in order for the competitive scene to remain healthy.

Overwatch:
And then we have the game that keeps on giving. Every new thing I see from this game gets me more excited. It doesn't matter if its a fake news story, a hero reveal, or a map fly by. Gamescom didn't disappoint.

Lucio is the latest character to make his debut. Following last weeks article detailing a bit of back story, we got a full reveal and ability preview of the Brazilian DJ. I feel like Blizzard stepped way outside the box with the design of this guy. Between the Jet Set Radio style roller blades, and the sound cannon, Lucio really shows off the kind of unique styles and ability kits we can expect throughout this games lifecycle. His Support kit seems really strong when compared to the other supports we have seen. The versatile effect of his Crossfade auras can have a huge effect on a fight. One mode increases nearby teammates' movement speed allowing you to press an attack, then you have the option to switch modes to provide a passive healing aura once the fight starts. Couple that with his ultimate ability giving everyone on his team a pretty big shield, and you should have the ability to take a team fight decisively. If this is the kind of thing we can expect going forward then we have a lot to look forward to for a long time after the game is finally released.

 

We also got a first look at two new battlegrounds. Volskaya Industries outside of St. Petersburg, Russia, and Numbani, Africa. Our Russian battleground is a factory where Volskaya Industries is manufacturing human-piloted mechs to combat Omnic aggression. And Numbani is a technically advanced city that promotes harmony between man and robot. We didn't see any real gameplay on these maps but they are just another example of how Blizzard is taking areas of the world we are familiar with and changing just enough to make them fresh, I know I say it every time I talk about Overwatch, but I really can't wait to see all this world has to offer.


So far Blizzard has not disappointed with their Gamescom announcements. Here's hoping tomorrow's Warcraft announcement follows suit. WoW players have a lot to be concerned about these days and we can only hope that Blizzard is putting all of their energy into redeeming the game in the next expansion. I'll touch more on it tomorrow after the press conference, but I really hope they impress us.

Thanks as always for reading! Until tomorrow,
Chris

Scheduling Update

Hi Team!

I just want to let people know that I just got a new job after over a year of searching, and the hours are a big change of schedule for me. As a result, I'll be writing new posts mostly on Wednesday or Thursdays. Those are my days off so I will be able to contribute the most coherent thought then. This week I will have a post after the big announcement at Gamescom and I'll cover anything Blizzard reveals in Germany up until that point for any of their games.

Sorry for the delay in content, I know I don't get a ton of readers who aren't friends but I still want to be as transparent as I can about it. I'm not disappearing and if the last 20 posts have taught me anything it's that I really enjoy writing about these games in one way or another.

Thanks for the patience. Until Thursday,

Chris

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