breaking
Latest
WildStar reveals its last pre-launch trailer
It's the last week before WildStar's launch. Head start kicks off on Saturday. And Carbine Studios wants you to buy the game, if for no other reason than the simple fact that the developers would like the game to do well so they can continue to pay their rent. So if you've been on the fence, if you're not sure about the game, or you seriously haven't heard about it until just today, the last trailer is for you. After many years of trailers, DevSpeaks, and various other promotional bits, this trailer just lays it all out on the trailer, showing off the game's many features in total and what you can expect from the game. Whether you need a refresher course or just want to see what the game will look like before the head start, um, starts, you can check out the full trailer past the break. [Source: Carbine Studios press release]
Heroes of the Storm alpha patch notes
A huge patch for Heroes of the Storm has dropped today. In fact, it's so big that you'll need to uninstall your current Heroes and reinstall the game completely. You might find this odd, but in a alpha test, anything is game (and remember this is still an alpha test). There are an absolute ton of UI and character changes. It's clear that Blizzard is working hard behind the scenes to make this game as friendly and competitive as possible. There really isn't a stone that they don't turn over and do something with. You can find the complete patch notes after the break, and look at the hero changes over on Blizzard's site.
Patch 5.4.8 hotfixes for May 21
World of Warcraft community manager Rygarius released the latest round of hotfixes this evening. Tonight's fixes include: Battlegrounds and Arenas Resolved an issue where the Rated Battleground flag carrier debuff functioned incorrectly. Characters in a Tanking specialization should now correctly take 50% additional damage while carrying a flag in a Rated Battleground. Items Replica General's Leather Treads no longer increases the duration of Sprint in Arenas or Rated Battlegrounds. Burdens of Eternity may no longer be used while inside a Heroic Dungeon, Raid, or Scenario. Bug Fixes Resolved an issue where Feats of Strength for Collector's Edition: Dread Raven and Collector's Edition: Dread Hatchling were not being correctly awarded to players. Resolved an issue where players transitioning from Eastern Plaguelands into Ghostlands while on certain flying mounts would be unable to resummon the mount until the they relog back in. The issues around the Going to Need a Bigger Bag achievement has not yet been resolved, but we are assured that a fix is in the works.
Patch 5.4.8 Patch notes
The official patch notes for patch 5.4.8 have now been released and posted to the official blog. While the latest patch is a small one, it contains some pretty important updates to the gear upgrade system, and valor point acquisition. In addition, a few changes have been made to the Siege of Orgrimmar on Raid Finder difficulty. Mistweaver Ai on the Timeless Isle now sells the Deeds of Valor token for 3000 Timeless Coins. Using the token will grant the player 100 valor points, up to the 1000 valor weekly limit. Heirloom weapons awarded by Garrosh Hellscream have been increased by 8 item levels. All upgradeable epic quality items from patch 5.4 are now eligible to be upgraded an additional two times with valor. It appears that two of the datamined items, Heart of the Valorous and Gaze of the Black Prince, will not actually be introduced with this patch, according to a tweet by Rygarius. .@ShadesofBlak Additional info for Heart of the Valorous and Gaze of the Black Prince coming later; not going to be active with the patch.- Rygarius (@Rygarius) May 20, 2014 Read on for the full patch notes.
YouTube reportedly acquiring Twitch for $1 billion
YouTube is set to acquire Twitch.tv for $1 billion, according to sources at Variety. At the moment, there are few details about the deal, but the acquisition would make sense. Since Twitch's launch, it has become the de facto livestreaming service for gamers. Gaming channels are also some of YouTube's most popular content, but their own attempts at provided a livestream service have left something to be desired in comparison to Twitch. Joining the services rather than attempting to compete is the obvious choice for YouTube. With this acquisition, Google will become an even more dominant force, owning the largest video sharing site on the internet in addition to the largest streaming service, combined with their marketshare in smartphones. The news of the acquisition has raised some concerns about potential Google+ integration. There has been no word about that happening as of yet, but the gaming audience considers its integration with YouTube a nuisance at best. Maintaining a separation of real identities and online identities has long been a sticking point for gamers, as displayed by the Real ID incident back in 2010, when Blizzard intended for real names to be used on the Battle.net forums, a decision that the company reversed before it went live. How this acquisition impacts Twitch, for better or for worse, will be interesting to watch. Many games released in recent years, Blizzard's Hearthstone among them, owe at least a portion of their popularity to Twitch streamers. With 45 million unique viewers per month as of January 2014, Twitch's impact on gaming is substantial.
Patch 5.4.7 hotfixes for May 13, 14
This week's bout of information on the upcoming 5.4.8 patch has taken most of the interest this week, but there were still hotfixes released for patch 5.4.7 as well. Most of the changes addressed various bugs, rather than any major adjustments -- given that the next patch is on the PTR, it's likely we won't be seeing much more in the way of major notes until 5.4.8 is released. Rygarius May 14 Classes Paladin Retribution Sword of Light now increases healing done by Word of Glory by 60% (up from 30%). Warlock Armor Set Resolved an issue where Warlocks were able to incorrectly retain their Tier-14 4-piece set bonus when the armor is no longer equipped. May 13 Classes Resolved an issue where players were able to incorrectly stack multiple movement speed buffs. Battlegrounds and Arenas Demonic Gateway can no longer be cast during the Preparation phase in Arenas, Battlegrounds, and Rated Battlegrounds. Ruby Hare is no longer usable in Arenas and Rated Battlegrounds. source
BlizzCon 2014 General Admission tickets officially sold out
The second and last round of tickets for BlizzCon 2014 have now sold out. Eventbrite's sales system gave the notice at 10:39am PDT. As with every BlizzCon past, it didn't take long for the ticket queue to immediately fill up with would-be attendees. There are still tickets available for the BlizzCon Benefit Dinner, however -- the remainder of those tickets will go on sale May 14 at 7pm PDT. Hopefully those of you that were looking for tickets were quick with your clicking and got your orders in -- if so, we'll see you at BlizzCon! If not, there's always the Virtual Ticket, which usually offers the digital goodies and complete coverage of just about every panel and event at BlizzCon. Better still, you can view it all from the comfort of your own home. While Virtual Tickets are not as of yet available for purchase, expect to see them well before November.
World of Warcraft down to 7.6 million subscribers
Today's Activision Blizzard investor call, covering the first quarter of 2014, revealed that World of Warcraft stands at 7.6 million subscribers. That's a 200,000 subscriber drop as of the most recent call, which set subscribers at 7.8 million. All things considered, that seems to be a mild drop for the state of the game -- players collectively waiting for Warlords of Draenor without so much as an ETA.
Christie Golden, Micky Neilson discuss newest novel, War Crimes
War Crimes, Christie Golden's latest Warcraft novel, officially hit the shelves today. The novel details the trial of Garrosh Hellscream for his crimes against Alliance, Horde, and Pandaria alike. We were lucky enough to get a chance to sit down and chat with Christie Golden, as well as Lead Story Developer Micky Neilson, about the novel, the feedback, and even some upcoming projects that are on the way. War Crimes is a different kind of book -- it features a gigantic cast. Can you tell us a little about the challenges involved in writing and keeping track of so many familiar faces? Christie: It definitely is. I had kind of done a run at something like this with The Shattering, that was my first experiencing writing for both Horde and Alliance, trying to weave in various characters and their story lines and still make it fast paced and entertaining. This really was a chance for me to, with the Vision of Time at my disposal, to kind of go through and not just address Garrosh, but sneak in some of the history of Azeroth. What made these factions who they are, how they thought of each other, and a lot of old hurts, as well as new things. I actually just posted on Twitter a picture of the colorful index cards that I laid out on my dining room table at work at one point just to keep track of it!
Patch 5.4.7 hotfixes for May 2
A small batch of hotfixes for patch 5.4.7 were released and posted to the official website yesterday. The hotfixes primarily concern the Garrosh Hellscream encounter on Flexible difficulty -- specifically, breakpoint concerns regarding the encounter should be alleviated with the new adjustments. May 2 Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios Siege of Orgrimmar Garrosh Hellscream [Requires a realm restart.] Garrosh Hellscream now only targets 2 players with Touch of Y'Shaarj and Empowered Touch of Y'Shaarj regardless of raid size on Flexible difficulty. Previously, the number of players targeted by the ability scale from 2 to 4, resulting in a harsh breakpoint for groups with 17-18 players. [Requires a realm restart.] Touch of Y'Shaarj and Empowered Touch of Y'Shaarj cast times have been increased to 3.5 seconds (up from 2.5 seconds) on Flexible difficulty. Battlegrounds and Arenas Resolved an issue that was causing Battleground queues to report incorrect wait times. source
EVE Fanfest 2014: Project Legion brings DUST 514 to the PC
One of the main complaints about DUST 514 since its announcement was the fact that the game was a PlayStation 3 exclusive. DUST was CCP's first attempt to break into the massive console shooter market and its first game to use the free-to-play business model, but things didn't exactly go to plan. The millions of console gamers CCP expected to flood into New Eden failed to materialise, reviews were mixed at best, and DUST quietly fell off the console radar. Players have been asking for a PC release ever since, as the game's unique connection with the EVE Online universe could potentially make it popular with existing EVE players. If you've been hoping for DUST on the PC, your prayers may have just been answered. A few hours ago at EVE Fanfest 2014, CCP demonstrated a prototype of something it calls Project Legion -- an attempt to bring DUST 514's shooter gameplay to the PC but with all-new sandbox gameplay. The project is extremely early in development, but CCP was able to put together a concept demo for Fanfest attendees showing how the game will work. Most of the demo was a slick UI and transition into a DUST planetary environment which has had its graphics significantly improved. DUST 514 is severely limited by the specs of the PS3, so Legion's being on PC means it should actually still look that good when deployed. In addition to signing up for mercenary contracts, players will be able to scan the entire EVE universe for open sandbox salvage zones where resources have been found. These planets have no pre-defined missions, victory conditions, or teams; instead, they're free-for-all PvE zones with open-world PvP, and CCP hopes that this will promote the same kind of emergent gameplay as is seen in EVE. It won't be a true sandbox until you can stab someone in the back, CCP announced to a pleased audience. Little else is known about the project, and the announcement has raised some pretty big questions. Will Legion link in with the EVE universe in any way like DUST? And what will happen to DUST 514 on PS3 if Legion takes off? Whether you're a die-hard fan of internet spaceships or just a gawker on the sidelines, EVE Fanfest is the EVE Online event of the year (and the key source of new DUST 514 and EVE Valkyrie scoops!). Follow Massively's Brendan Drain as he reports back on this year's Fanfest starpower, scheming, and spoilers from exotic Reykjavik, Iceland.
SOE compensates players for All Access issues
Acknowledging that the recent switchover to the new All Access program has been "frustrating," SOE announced today that it will be compensating its playerbase for these issues. The studio will be handing out 50 replay badges to DCUO players, adding an additional week to seven-day Landmark closed beta keys, and triggering double XP weekends for Dragon's Prophet, EverQuest, EverQuest II, and PlanetSide 2. "The implementation of this new membership plan across SOE's game portfolio has been one of the most complicated updates to our billing system to date," SOE apologized in a post. "As fellow gamers, we know that this has been frustrating and we sincerely regret any inconvenience this has caused."
Review of Christie Golden's novel, War Crimes
It's time for Hellscream to pay. Or at least that's what everyone in War Crimes would enjoy seeing, to varying degrees. Christie Golden's latest novel, War Crimes, is due out next week on May 6. It tells the tale of Garrosh Hellscream's trial, an event many players have been waiting to hear about -- and it also serves as a bridge novel, of sorts, between Mists of Pandaria and the upcoming expansion Warlords of Draenor. If you'd like to know how Garrosh wriggled out of his presumably inevitable death and got to Draenor, this is the book you want to read. But it's so much more than that. In War Crimes, the focus is much less on Garrosh, and much more on the people around him -- those called to the witness stand, and those simply observing the trial in progress. It's a sweep of almost every major face in the Alliance and Horde, and their unique individual reactions to what happened during Hellscream's reign. In that, it's a very different kind of novel -- and I think it was just the novel needed to bring this expansion fully to a close. Please note: Because War Crimes has yet to be released, this will be a spoiler-free review. Please refrain from talking about spoilers in the comments -- any spoiler information posted will be deleted.
Patch 5.4.7 hotfixes for April 28
A new round of hotfixes for patch 5.4.7 have been released and posted to the official site. Once again, the list is pretty short and addresses just a few small changes that have been made. However, players that have been dealing with the headache of trying to get Warforged Seals from a dead vendor may be particularly pleased with one of the changes. April 28 Creatures Elder Lin and Elder Liao now have significantly more health. [Requires a realm restart.] Elder Lin and Elder Liao will now respawn much more quickly. Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios Siege of Orgrimmar The Fallen Protectors Resolved an issue where movement-freeing abilities incorrectly forced Mark of Anguish to transfer to another player. Garrosh Hellscream During the Garrosh Hellscream encounter, Eternal Flame no longer generates threat during stages 2 and 3 to address an issue that was making the encounter more difficult than intended for raid groups with Protection Paladin tanks. Battlegrounds and Arenas Matchmaking Ratings for Rated Battlegrounds has been increased by 100 for all players. Additional details for the change could be found in the forum thread titled: Rated Battleground MMR Hotfix. UI Resolved an issue where players continue to be listed on the Raid Browser after accepting an invite from someone in a Flexible difficulty raid. source
Further MMR adjustments for Rated Battlegrounds
You may recall that, a little while back, WoW Insider posted about the changes being made to MMR tolerance in order to repair the ladders after a bug. It seems, unfortunately, that these changes did not go far enough to rectify the issues for players of Rated Battlegrounds. It makes sense that, for this far less played discipline, MMR issues have not self-corrected. As a result of this, matches played are still resulting in 0 point rating gains with wins, which is disheartening at best. So Blizzard has come up with a simple solution that might have been a faster and more popular fix to the initial issue -- increase everyone's rating to get it closer to their current MMR. If these terms are confusing, I made a fair attempt at explaining them in the last post. This, coupled with the initial increased tolerance in MMR to rating parity, should result in everyone gaining points for wins. Hit the break for Lore's full post.
BlizzCon 2014 dated, tix on sale next month
BlizzCon 2014 is coming, boys and girls, to a city near you (that is, if you live near Anaheim, California)! Blizzard announced that its sometimes-annual convention will be on November 7th and 8th at the Anaheim Convention Center. Even at two hundred bucks a pop, tickets for BlizzCon will no doubt be sold out within minutes thanks to Blizzard's legion of fans. The studio announced today that it will be putting tickets on sale in two separate batches: one on May 7th and the other on May 10th. There will also be $750 tickets put on sale on May 14th for the benefit dinner. BlizzCon tickets include offer hands-on demos with its games, an e-sports world championship, dev panels, player tournaments, and live admission to the convention. Virtual tickets will also be available at a later point for an unknown fee.
Warlords of Draenor Alpha Patch notes for April 17
A new round of updates have been released for the alpha client of Warlords of Draenor. Included in the patch notes are new sections covering changes and adjustments with Itemization, Movement Speed, Raid Utility Balance, Reforging, and Combat Resurrection. There have also been updates to existing sections as well - many class sections have received a lot of updates and adjustments, as expected for such an early build. Haste % and Crit % bonuses have been streamlined -- no more spell/melee/ranged, it's a universal Haste and Crit % bonus for all. Druids, rejoice -- Ravage no longer requires you to be behind the target. Many glyphs have been removed, and a lot of new glyphs have been added, with some glyphs now being exclusive to a specialization. Movement speed enchants now increase Movement Speed by 10% -- up from 8%. Hunters, there has been a comprehensive sweep over pet abilities -- it's a major list! Paladins, there have been some major tweaks to both Holy and Protection specs. For the full list of updates, check out the official Battle.net site for all the details. New updates are denoted in red for easy reading.
Hearthstone is the most popular app in the world after one day
Apparently we weren't the only ones waiting for Hearthstone to come out on the iPad. According to Business Insider, Hearthstone is the number one app in 34 countries, and the number one game in 36. This includes the United States. Magic: The Gathering and other CCGs also have a large support base on the platform, so it isn't really surprising that Hearthstone would be popular amongst users of the tablet. What is surprising is that it rocketed up the charts so quickly. It is estimated that the game could pull in $30 million in the first year from in-app card sales, which would make this foray into the tablet space quite worthwhile for Blizzard.
Blizzard unveils the Battle.net gift card
Blizzard has announced an EU Battle.net gift card program. These gift cards, which come in the amount of €20, are available throughout many popular retailers around Europe. Upon using the gift card, the user's Battle.net balance goes up and they can purchase what they want. This isn't a bad thing, especially for things Christmas gifts (/cough mom, if you ever read this). Individual items are still giftable via Battle.net as well, that has not gone away. Again, this is for the EU only. The US version, we have to assume, is coming soon™.
Warlords of Draenor: Wowhead digs up Garrison models and more
As a new alpha build hit servers last night, the datamining began again. Wowhead has already turned up a plethora of new models, weapons and more, and has now turned to one of the most hotly anticipated features of Warlords of Draenor, Garrisons. They've put together a detailed list of 70 buildings, along with what exactly all of them do, and what size plot they go on. There's a lot of interesting information one can glean from this data, such as how follower gearing might work and what mission rewards might be, as well as how you get various vendors into your Garrison. Of course, this is datamining, so shouldn't be taken as 100% fact, but it's still really interesting stuff. There's also information showing off small images of the Garrison buildings, and a map. It seems like these may be UI elements that allow you to design your Garrison and set up its layout, but of course, this is just inference from the data that's presented. There is, however, even more information on each building type, that ties in with the aforementioned list. We're slowly getting an idea of what the Garrison progression might look like.
