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Heroes of the Storm Balance Updates and Hero Rotation
This week, in celebration of the launch of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, two new skins have been added -- demonic Tyrael and Angelic Valla. What's more, the free-to-play hero rotation has some of the most exciting heroes available for free to players, including the recently added Tychus. The rest of the heroes are as follows: Week of Tuesday, Mar. 25 – April 1, 2014: Tyrande Stitches Diablo Tychus Kerrigan Nova Along with the latest free-to-play hero rotation, we're getting some balance changes to certain heroes. There aren't a huge number of changes but many are significant, including a lot of nerfs to Uther! Hit the break for all the changes.
BlizzCon 2013 in photographs
BlizzCon might be over, but pictures last forever, or at least until something happens to our data center. Don't get any ideas. Hey, where are you going with that tornado?! Enjoy our view of the con! Massively's on the ground in Anaheim during the weekend of November 8th, bringing you all the best news from BlizzCon 2013. Whether you're anticipating World of Warcraft's and Diablo III's next expansions or reveals from Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm, we aim to have it covered!
StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm review: Zerg rushing towards resolution
In music theory, there's a series of notes called a tritone interval. (I'm a writer and a Rock Band player, not a musician, so bear with me, band members.) The tritone consists of three different whole tones: The first sets the stage, marks the spot on the musical scale that our ear can attune itself to. The second note is actually dissonant – it throws off the harmony, and introduces new elements so distasteful that the chord used to be called "The Devil in Music."The third tone, however, finishes off the chord in exactly the right way, and brings resolution to all of the dissonance. Leonard Bernstein famously put the tritone to great use in the song "Maria" from West Side Story: "Ma-" is the beginning tone, "-ri-" shakes things up with some disharmony, and "-a" resolves the melody, justifying the lead couple's forbidden love.Now, using that theory to talk about Blizzard's StarCraft 2 trilogy is a little unfair. The second campaign, Heart of the Swarm, isn't anywhere near "distasteful." But it does introduce plenty of new elements to the series, spinning off the RTS classic into places that Wings of Liberty never dared to go. And like that second note of a tritone, it makes sure to leave plenty of ambiguity and promise out there, making sure we're all ready for the big finale in Legacy of the Void.%Gallery-176756%
StarCraft: Kerrigan -- Hope and Vengeance free on Comixology
This week, we had patch 5.2 to contend with, but next week it's all about the launch of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm for plenty of players. Blizzard has been slowly releasing promotional material for the new game, including a new cinematic and a pretty fascinating viral advertising campaign called Project Blackstone, which is still being updated as the time ticks down to Heart of the Swarm's launch. And now we have another piece -- a comic about Kerrigan and a glimpse at what she's been through that takes place at some point after she was rescued at the end of Wings of Liberty. Kerrigan -- Hope and Vengeance #0 is a relatively short comic, but the art and writing is top-notch. And here's the kicker -- it's absolutely free. You don't have to pay for the comic, you simply plunk it in your cart, checkout and read. The comic is a fairly brisk 8 pages, but with a story by Cameron Dayton and some really stunning art by Zoddd, not to mention the absence of a price tag, this is a nice treat for StarCraft fans. To my knowledge, this is the first time Blizzard's ever offered a free digital comic of this scope. And it does make one wonder.
Mission to evolve StarCraft 2 with 'Heart of the Swarm'
It was nearly five years ago now that we heard Starcraft 2 wouldn't be one game, but three: The long awaited sequel would become a trilogy, cemented into a three-year release schedule, with each iteration following a new race in the series. Though Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty arrived to critical and commercial acclaim in the summer of 2010, Blizzard is only now making its trilogy concept a reality. Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm is almost done, and set to be released this March.Blizzard showed off the first three missions of Heart of the Swarm this past week (and the studio has been running multiplayer beta additions and features for quite some time), and from our experience it's becoming clear the second release in this trilogy isn't a simple expansion pack. With the Zerg-focused Heart of the Swarm, the Irvine-based company has crafted something new within the renowned Starcraft tradition; a game intensely focused on the Zerg, their units and abilities, and of course the story of their Queen, Kerrigan.%Gallery-176756%
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm cinematic revealed
Blizzard revealed the StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm opening cinematic late last night. Sure, it isn't Warcraft material, but it's fair to say we all enjoy the work that comes from the team that made the Mists of Pandaria cinematic. And don't lie -- you pet collectors are going to be picking up the Collector's Edition of Heart of the Swarm for its Baneling pet anyway. The cinematic, which you can view behind the cut below along with its accompanying blue post, depicts a Zerg siege of the Terran Dominion as Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, seeks vengeance against Arcturus Mengsk. We really could have done without the Wilhelm Scream at 1:43 in the cinematic, but to be entirely fair, StarCraft has a long history of using it and other cliché stock sound effects.
Blizzard's Versailles office adorned with infested Kerrigan statue
Blizzard headquarters in Irvine has been lording its orc statue over the other Blizzard foreign offices, smirking and laughing, reigning as king of the statues outside of game companies' buildings. A challenger has finally emerged at the Blizzard offices in Versailles, France -- an amazing sculpture of Sarah Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, from the StarCraft series. The statue looks awesome and there's plenty of pictures up on Blizzard's Facebook page. Check out the pictures and tell us what you think. Will the next statue be Diablo-related and feature the best angel ever, Tyrael? We can only hope.
Blizzard DOTA, coming soon to a new platform called Blizzard Arcade
Blizzard DOTA was back on the floor of BlizzCon 2011 last week, after spending a year away from the spotlight being "completely rebooted." We played the game as soon as we possibly could, finding it to be a much more polished take on the popular multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) gametype. "Last year we had basically the style of the art, and the look that we were going for," says Samwise Didier, Blizzard's Senior Art Director. But as I said when I played the early version of the mod, the game itself wasn't quite as polished as the look and feel. "This year," says Didier, "we really focused on taking the DOTA-style game and really making it our own." Blizzard has done a few interesting things to the gametype that has made League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth so popular. But the most interesting may just be how the company plans to release it. Blizzard is going to make sure everyone has a chance to check it out, even if they don't own StarCraft 2. "We haven't figured out the details," says Didier. "But there will be a free-to-play Blizzard DOTA on our Blizzard Arcade. We don't know how many heroes there will be, or how many maps, but we definitely want to make sure that everyone knows it will be free-to-play." %Gallery-137263%
Blizzard's 2008 Holiday card
The eagle-eyed among you will have caught a glimpse of this yesterday, on the LLS charity post (and how awesome is it that all that money is raised by WoW players?), but here's the whole thing in all of its glory, thanks to the OC Register's Blizzard Blog: Blizzard's holiday art for the year, drawn by Samwise as usual. Looks like the villians of Starcraft, Warcraft and Diablo are celebrating in their own way as well.Unfortunately this is as big a version as we've found so far -- usually, Blizzard releases the art as a wallpaper in their gallery (here's the art from last year), but there's no sign of this one yet. It's too bad -- I especially like Arthas and Illy D trying to get the time of day from Kerrigan and having no luck at all. Hopefully we'll see it in a much larger version on Blizzard's site soon, but in the meantime, happy holidays from Blizzard!Update: Hehut found a slightly better (as in, "not a photograph") version over on Samwise's site.
A sneak peek at the BlizzCon floor
Our good friends at the Orange County Register were lucky enough to be let into BlizzCon yesterday (we'll be on the floor in just a few hours here), and they've got a preview gallery of what it's like in there up on their site right now. There's nothing super revealing in there, but there are lots of pictures of vendors setting up, and the various stages they'll have at the event. The Illidan statue from last year is making a re-appearance, and he's joined by someone Starcraft fans will want to see.We can't wait to get in there -- Diablo 3 will be playable, and of course we'll have coverage from all the panels, tournaments, and booths inside the convention center all day today and tomorrow. The Opening Ceremony starts at 11am PST, so stay tuned here to watch our coverage as it goes down live.
How would a Starcraft MMO work?
Speculation over Blizzard's upcoming MMO continues unabated, even with the lack of anything new to feed upon. The biggest hope, I dare to say, is that it's going to be Starcraft that gets the treatment, even if it's still a long way away from release. Starcraft holds fast in many gamers' hearts, including mine, so it's only natural to want more. But when actually considering the possibility, how would it play out?Our Krystalle has already given this a glance over on WoW Insider, and our recent Ask Massively asked a similar question, but I'd like to take it deeper. Let's take World of Warcraft as a point of comparison and see if we can run down this mythical beast.
The costumes of BlizzCon
Yeah, yeah. It's nice to come to the convention and attend developer panels about how they develop the classes and how they build the dungeons. And sure, it's fun to play brand new, cutting edge, not even close to being released yet content. But the real reason to come to a nerd convention like this is to see all of these crazy people and the incredible costumes they put together.So we've saved you the trip-- here's a gallery of the best costumes we've seen around BlizzCon 2007. This gallery will also be updated throughout the day, so keep checking back to see the latest pictures of people who put a ton of work into bring Blizzard to life (some for the better, like the awesome Rogue above, and some...not so much).%Gallery-5529%
Top 10 most memorable villains
IGN has posted a list that is sure to generate some grumbling. But that's what's to be expected anytime you try to cram the baddest evildoers into a list of ten. Here goes: #10 - Bowser (Super Mario) #9 - Dr. Robotnik (Sonic) #8 - Dracula (Castlevania) #7 - Evil Otto (Berzerk) #6 - Psycho Mantis (MGS) #5 - Kerrigan (Starcraft) #4 - SHODAN (System Shock) #3 - Wesker (Resident Evil) #2 - Sephiroth (FFVII) #1 - The Nazis ("too many games to count") What?! No Ganondorf? Blasphemy. So how does your list compare?
