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World Of Warcraft's 'Shadowlands' expansion arrives on November 23rd
You can check out a pre-launch event on November 10th.
Blue's new Yeti X microphone can make you sound like a 'World of Warcraft' hero
Blue’s microphones are already popular with streamers for their high-quality and relative simplicity, but its latest model is appealing to a very specific gaming segment. The Yeti X World of Warcraft Edition not only has WoW aesthetics with a a “battle grey” finish and engraved runes on the base, but comes with tech that allows players to alter their voices to sound like characters from the world of Azeroth.
WoW's 'Shadowlands' expansion is delayed until later this year
World of Warcraft Shadowlands won’t make its October 26th release date.
BlizzCon will return as an online-only event in February 2021
After cancelling this year’s BlizzCon convention due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Blizzard has announced that it will hold a replacement show online. BlizzConline (yep) will be held on February 19th-20th, 2021 with all the latest news around its popular franchises including World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, Hearthstone and Starcraft.
WoW's 'Shadowlands' expansion starts rolling out on October 26th
World of Warcraft's eighth expansion comes out this fall.
Blizzard makes it free to change gender in 'World of Warcraft'
When World of Warcraft: Shadowlands comes out later this year, Blizzard plans to stop charging players a $15 fee to change the gender of one of their characters.
'World of Warcraft' keeps players indoors with a 100 percent XP bonus
If the world of Azeroth has been the place you've turned to find some time away from all the news about the coronavirus pandemic, Blizzard has something that should make your stay more productive. From now until April 20th, your World of Warcraft character will receive a bonus called "Winds of Wisdom," which will increase the amount of experience they gain by 100 percent. The buff is available to Battle for Azeroth, Legion and Starter Edition players -- alas, no love for those of us grinding it out in World of Warcraft Classic.
Activision Blizzard pulls its games from GeForce Now
GeForce Now, NVIDIA's game streaming service, went live for everyone last week. It allows you to play hundreds of games from dozens of publishers in the cloud, but Activision Blizzard's titles are no longer among the options after the publisher asked NVIDIA to remove its titles from the service. "While unfortunate, we hope to work together with Activision Blizzard to reenable these games and more in the future," an NVIDIA staff member wrote on the GeForce Now forums.
'WoW' Shadowlands expansion will revamp the leveling system
While World of Warcraft Classic has been great for a lot of players, the modern version of the MMO is still going strong. At Blizzcon 2019, the team announced it's eighth expansion, Shadowlands, which will follow Battle for Azeroth. After characters die, and before they are revived, the world they see is the Shadowlands, and in this pack "Azeroth's heroes will confront the wonders and horrors of the afterlife."
'World of Warcraft Classic' debuts on August 26th
You now have a date to add to your calendar if you're hankering to revisit World of Warcraft's early days. Blizzard plans to launch World of Warcraft Classic on August 26th in the Americas and the UK (August 27th in most other places). It'll be available to all regular WoW subscribers at no extra cost. If you missed the demo, you'll have more chances to play ahead of launch. "Select" WoW subscribers will get into a closed beta test that starts May 15th, while a trio of "focused" stress tests will begin May 22nd for veteran players who opt in.
'World of Warcraft Classic' will gradually introduce PvP combat
When World of Warcraft Classic arrives in the summer, how will player-versus-player combat work? Just like it did when the original game launched, apparently. Blizzard has outlined a gradual introduction for PvP fights that will mimic the initial rollout. To start, there will be no kill tracking or reward system -- if you take down other players, it's mostly for the thrill of it. You'll have to wait for a second phase before an honor system and rank rewards kick in.
'Warcraft' and 'Warcraft 2' are now available on GOG.com
Blizzard just re-released Warcraft: Orcs & Humans and Warcraft 2 through online gaming marketplace GOG.com. First released in the mid-nineties, the pair of real-time strategy games are now available for the first time digitally. In the first game, players return to the original Azeroth and must raise an army of humans or orcs to fight their enemies. The second Warcraft game, Tides of Darkness, takes place on the high seas, and sees humans and orcs joining forces with elves, trolls, dwarves, and other creatures.
Windows 7's first DirectX 12 game is 'World of Warcraft'
Gamers who remain on Windows 7 can now play World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth with the added boost of DirectX 12. Microsoft announced that Blizzard would be the first game developer to offer DirectX 12 support for Windows 7. This will be good news for stubborn Windows 7 users who still haven't upgraded to Windows 10. Thanks to the API's support for multi-threading, players can expect a framerate boost even on the older OS.
Blizzard blocks 'World of Warcraft' and 'Diablo 3' in Crimea
Players in Crimea can no longer access Battle.net, the service that houses Blizzard games World of Warcraft, Diablo 3, Hearthstone and others, The Moscow Times reports. Blizzard blocked its games in response to US sanctions against Crimea -- Google, Apple, PayPal and Valve have also suspended service to the region, the site says. The Moscow Times pulled its Blizzard report from Russian site Geektimes.ru, which published an email sent to Crimean Battle.net users. "In accordance with current trade regulations relating to the region of Crimea, we are legally required to suspend access to your Battle.net account," a translation reads.
World of Warcraft outlines February's events
There are a lot of holiday events in World of Warcraft this month. February contains the Lunar Festival, Love is in the Air, the Darkmoon Faire... heck, it's also going to be the month that the next major raid opens up. Luckily for avid World of Warcraft players, the official site has put together a comprehensive schedule of the month's festivities, starting with the Valentine's Day event and the new raid opening tomorrow. Astute readers will note that Blizzard suggests players prepare for patch 6.1 with no hints about when it's coming out. Whether this means it's going to be later in the month or won't be dropping until March remains to be seen. Then again, the raiding crowd will have plenty to do through the month with Blackrock Foundry, and if you like holiday events, you've got several of those coming around as well.
Know Your Lore, TFH Edition: Unraveling Azeroth
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. What a map, huh? I've gotten plenty of mileage out of it -- only it was an older edition of the map, before we took Mists of Pandaria into account. Now the map has slightly changed, along with the meaning involved, and I guess there's sort of a star, although it's six pointed, now -- which means we've got another puzzle to unravel, one I've been trying to untangle for a very long time. And while I don't have all the answers (I never seem to, in these articles), we have enough information to ask some really interesting questions, and come up with some really crazy theories. Not just about Azeroth, about the Warcraft cosmos -- that strange expanse of universe that involves a mighty battle we still don't quite understand. Draenor's involved, Azeroth's involved -- according to Algalon, there are millions of worlds that have been involved -- but how do they interlink? When I first created this map, oh so long ago, it was under the presumption that there were five old gods, which correlated to the five Dragon Aspects of Azeroth. I wasn't quite wrong, as I discovered in Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects, but I wasn't quite right either. We have a sixth star, in Pandaria. I'm a fan of correlation -- so else what do we have six of? But before we get into that, let's talk about the naaru. Because that seems like a good place to begin. Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition. The following contains speculation based on known material. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore.
Games of a Lifetime: Sam's Picks
After more than ten years devoted to video games and the people who make them, Joystiq is closing its doors. We won't be reporting on the best games of 2015, so join us for one last hurrah as the Joystiq family reveals their Games of a Lifetime. Some days, it seems like cynicism and derision earn more applause than kindness and optimism, and the things we love most can feel like they're the most neglected. So it can go with games, as we see hatred and vitriol spread online, watch quality of games dip and companies utilize decidedly unfriendly business practices on consumers. But there's a reason I got into this hobby, and there's a reason I got into this job: I love games. I want to see games continue to evolve, change and grow. I want my enthusiasm for them to never die, for my joy and sense of camaraderie in my fellow gamers to always persist. And so, at a time when it would be very easy to be jaded, we've decided to instead continue talking about why we love games. These are my picks for games of a lifetime.
Rumor: Leak suggests the next WoW expansion is nearly feature-complete
So, ready to jump on the rumor mill? Because it's churning out big stuff about Blizzard today. An anonymous source from inside the company has apparently claimed that World of Warcraft's next expansion has quadrupled its art outsourcing and is nearly feature-complete. The source also claimed that Hearthstone is doing banner business, with its next expansion set to release in April with a heavier PvE focus. Darker news was revealed for the other franchises under the company's banner. The next part of StarCraft II is done but with no release date. Overwatch is in the midst of debates over business model and payment plans, with the studio pushing for a 2015 release but most likely going for 2016. Meanwhile, Heroes of the Storm has low expectations among the upper management and the Diablo III team has been "completely gutted." It's up to you you believe the rumors, of course, although come April, they might look rather plausible.
39 Things About Patch 6.1 with TradeChat
When a new patch is on the horizon, news is fast, furious, and ever-changing. So we couldn't blame you if you're having trouble keeping up with all the patch 6.1 news (and the changes to that news). Fortunately for all of us, TradeChat has pulled together a list of 39 things you should know about patch 6.1 to get you up to speed on everything that's coming to the game in the next patch. Sure, it could all change at a moment's notice, but you'll be caught up for now. If you enjoyed the show, make sure to subscribe to TradeChat, leave a comment, and come back next week for the next episode!
WoW community comes together to help a father
We've all had bad days in World of Warcraft. Your group wipes, the tank yells at the DPS, the DPS yells at the healer... and before you know it everyone is yelling at everyone, turning what should be fun into pure misery. We've all had game days like that. So why do we keep coming back to the game when it can be so frustrating? It's probably because the people we play with can be really amazing, too, as when Senna logged on to Reddit to ask for help: So im older (late 50's) and my son used to play lots of WOW while he was recovering after getting hit by a mortar in iraq. Recently he passed away and I decided that I wanted to connect with areas of my sons life I never understood. WOW is one of those areas. The response? The WoW community has banded together to offer sympathy and assistance with a thread over 700 comments long. It's the sort of thing that reminds you why you're still part of this game after more than a decade -- and want to reach out a helping hand to your fellow players.
