Olivia Grace
Articles by Olivia Grace
Challenge mode rewards clarified for "end of season"
Blizzard has posted a blog detailing changes to the proposed "end-of-season" challenge mode rewards. They had previously posted a rather firm policy, detailing how this season's rewards would remain limited to those who'd previously earned them, and not be account wide. However, it seems they've changed their mind. Hit the break for the full post, as ever, but let's summarise the key points here: The "Undaunted" title for all bronze medals will be account wide, so useable on any character. The Pandaren Phoenix mounts earned with a full set of Silver medals will become account-wide. If any character on your account has a full set of Silver medals, all four of the Pandaren Phoenixes (Crimson, Ashen, Violet, and Emerald) will become available to all characters. Cosmetic sets will not be account wide. If you have all nine Gold medals, you can still buy the sets after the season ends on the character that earned the medals. The "Challenger's Path" spells will be retained. Realm Best titles will be permanently removed. Hit the break for the full post.
Rating issues for Arena and RBG wins
There is a strange issue taking place at the moment with rating. Rating itself is a tricky thing to wrap your head around, especially as it's recently gone thorough something of a shift. Right now, your character has two ratings for every bracket of arena, and for RBGs. One is the MMR, the matchmaking rating. This is the rating the system uses to match you up against similar level players. It's shown at the bottom right of the scoreboard after every match, as an average of your group's character MMRs. The other type of rating is CR, Current Rating. This is the rating that your character earns by winning and losing matches, the one that's shown in green and red letters in the main part of the scoreboard. It's also the rating that gets you titles and mounts. Every season CR is reset to 0, while MMR remains what it was last season. So, if you ended season 14 on an MMR of 1800 and a CR of 1880, you'd have begun season 15 with an MMR of 1800 and a CR of 0. What happens next is that as you win games, your CR increases towards your MMR. You should expect it to stabilize as you reach a CR that's near your MMR. As you win and lose games, your MMR will also shift. Your MMR aims to give you a 50/50 win-loss rate, as when that's achieved you're being pretty evenly matched.
April Fools: Patch 6.0 notes revealed
In what can only be a completely serious and legitimate forum post, Community Manager Bashiok has shared the first set of patch notes for Warlords of Draenor. As ever with patch notes, we've pulled some of the most notable ones here, and the full list is after the break. Warlock -- All spells and abilities have been significantly revamped. Again. You'll figure it out. Warriors have been nerfed because reasons. Due to recent acquisitions, The Oculus is temporarily inaccessible. Despite concerns over workers' rights violations due to unreasonable weather conditions, Arthas has stated that people should let it go, and that he will indeed remain the final boss of Icecrown Citadel. The cold never bothered him anyway. We give up. Shaman is now spelled "Shawmun." Monk -- The amount healed by Healing Sphere has been increased by 1000%, because RUN OVER THE HEALING SPHERES.
How to stop clicking
Before we get started, let's make one thing very clear. I'm not saying there's anything inherently wrong with clicking. If you want to click, that's just fine, this article isn't for you. If you're someone who clicks and is perfectly happy about it, then skip over all this and tell me about it in the comments. But, if you are a clicker who wants to change, then read on. As an aside, now's a great time to make the switch, we've got a while without new content... So what is a clicker? Without this key piece of information, the above won't be that relevant. A clicker is a term for someone who uses mouse-clicks to hit their abilities rather than keybinding them. There is an assumption made that people who are clicking their abilities are also using their keyboard to move. Their mouse is tied up with moving around the screen to hit abilities, and therefore only occasionally has the time to move their character. It's not necessarily true, but it seems a reasonable position. Why does clicking get a bad reputation? Well, a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's slower. It is slower to move your mouse across your screen and hit different abilities than it is to move your hand across a keyboard. If you don't believe me, here's an experiment: head over to this keyboard site, and type a simple sentence by clicking the keys. Now try it with your keyboard. Unless there's something else at play, the latter should be faster. What's more, turn a full circle on the spot with your keyboard, and do the same with your mouse. One's a lot faster than the other.
Wowcraft Episode 1
CarBot Animations, the creator of the StarCrafts series and the recent Diablols episode, as well as the Heroes of the Storm cartoon trailer, has turned his hand to World of Warcraft cartoon creation. And, as you can see from the video above he began at the beginning of the character's life, with the inevitable issue of name creation. CarBot is well-known in the Starcraft II community for his video work, and the Blizzard gear store even sells his designs with official Blizzard branding. They're adorable, and I can only hope that the same trend emerges with his WoW work, so I can have cute cartoon WoW characters on a t-shirt! What did you think of the video? It seems like a great introduction, and made me chuckle. Orcs and Gnomes don't seem to mix. But maybe we'll see more gnomish participation in CarBot's video work than we usually do in Blizzard's!
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls book and Blizzard's Augmented Reality app
Blizzard makes amazing art books, and the Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Collector's Edition book is no exception. But, it comes with a little something extra, too. If you head to the Android Play Store, running Android 4.0 or higher, you can download the Blizzard AR Viewer. It's on the iOS App Store too, requiring iOS 6.0 or later, still called the Blizzard AR Viewer. Once you have that, you'll need to search through the book, and maybe even images of the book pages, for the little mask symbol shown to the right. Then use the viewer to scan the page. No need to push buttons, on Android at least, it recognizes the pages automatically. And then enjoy as the beautifully drawn images are converted to animated 3D models with sound in front of your eyes! Amaze your friends with your desk full of monsters! Poke them with your finger... carefully. I was wide-eyed with childish wonder at this, and maybe I'm behind the times, but this is a very cool feature. I hope to see it for many more art books in future!
Heroes of the Storm: Senior Designer talks Tyrael
Tyrael, Archangel of Justice, is under the spotlight for Heroes of the Storm this week. Senior Game Designer Richard Khoo sat down with Community Manager Trikslyr to discuss this Hero's not-so-angelic leanings. It's a great interview, touching on the importance of using the Heroes game world and mechanics to create a hero that fits with the traits and feel of well-known lore figures. Tyrael, as the Archangel, is a hybrid between a warrior and a support class, meaning he can charge in and flatten his foes, but also assist his allies with powerful shields, even sacrificing his own health to help them. The designers felt this was fitting with his righteous, angelic qualities in the Diablo universe. He also caters to the angelic "speed of light" idea with his teleportation abilities that base themselves off his sword. They also comment on the post-mortem gameplay that Tyrael, along with a couple of other heroes, features. Hit the break for the full interview!
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls launch party
Central LA venue Vibiana, a converted chapel, played host to the Diablo III: Reaper of Souls launch event on Monday night, and I was lucky enough to be invited along. The venue was incredibly well-done, eerie red lighting shifting in color through the evening, and key quotes from the game's opening monologue projected onto the vaulted ceiling, along with the circular motifs you see above. The evening began with activities, guests were issued with Bounty cards, where they could collect Blood Shards -- a new Reaper of Souls currency -- from visiting the art gallery, having their photo taken, getting a caricature or a temporary tattoo. All the activities were completely free, and handing in Blood Shards rewarded a poster, t-shirt or backpack. Along with the activities were cos-players, specially re-named versions of classic drinks, and at 9pm a toast with Game Director Josh Mosqueira, which then turned into a live stream as Day 9 took to the stage. Those of us who were attending as Influencers were then offered a free Collector's Edition, which could be signed by the developers from the team. Hit the break for more images.
Patch 5.4.7 Hotfixes for March 25
A small but perfectly formed set of hotfixes have just been published on the official World of Warcraft website. There's just a few minor fixes, but significant bug fixes to boosted level 90s and to priest healing in PvP. Blizzard Character Boost Resolved an issue where some boosted characters were unable to see the portal to Pandaria in capital cities. Classes Priest General Resolved an issue where the amount of healing received from Prayer of Mending was not benefitting from PvP Power. Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios Throne of Thunder Reduced the health and damage of Gurubashi, Amani, Drakkari, and Farraki adds during the Horridon encounter by 20% on Raid Finder difficulty. source
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.
No plans to make Motes or Spirits of Harmony account wide
Thanks to Chaos Orbs in Cataclysm, which began life as a BoP item, but became BoE with the last patch, and Wrath of the Lich King's Frozen Orbs, many had assumed that Spirits of Harmony would lose their soulbound status towards the end of the expansion. Community Manager Lore has confirmed once and for all that there are no plans to make this change with Spirits of Harmony. @rebrown38 @WoWMonk No plans to make those (or Spirits) account-wide. - Lore (@CM_Lore) March 21, 2014 We're not entirely sure on the reasoning behind this decision, but it might be something of an annoyance for players. Although, with previous expansions at least, the item was largely completely irrelevant by this point. Spirits of Harmony, in so much as they can be traded for items in the Shrine, have at least held some value. So don't stockpile them for an alt's crafting, on the basis that they might become BoA, or for an auction house bonanza that may never come.
How to fix the Censer of Eternal Agony
The Censer of Eternal Agony has been an interesting piece of game design. If you're not aware of just what the Censer is, it's an item purchased on the Timeless Isle for 1,000 Timeless Coins that makes you hostile to all players, including your faction. If you kill players while the Censer is active, you get a currency, Bloody Coins, one per kill, that can be traded for a mount, a pet, and some other items. So what's the problem? What needs fixing? Well, the Timeless Isle is home to three types of character. First up, you've got the intended audience -- new level 90 characters. They're there for the catch-up gear, the easy boost to ilvl 496. There's an influx of them at the moment, thanks to the boosts. The second group is people who are there for the Celestials. They zone in, grab their kill, and leave. Then, there's the third group -- high-geared players who are there with the specific purpose of using the Censer to kill other players. That third group is mostly targeting the first group. Entering the Celestial Court with the Censer up will get you some attention from the guards, so the Censer people are roaming the island, in search of low-geared players to kill. Some servers have it worse than others, and before you dismiss it, this problem caused the devs to hotfix the boosted 90 spawn-in to be the Shrine instead of the Timeless Isle.
Warlords of Draenor: New female dwarf images added
The Warlords of Draenor site has just been updated with some new images of the female Dwarf character models, as Senior Art Director Chris Robinson tweeted: Updated female Dwarf renders on WoD website http://t.co/iakBZc3W1W new renders show different hairstyles/fix some distortion on her face - Chris G. Robinson (@artofcgrobinson) March 20, 2014 What's your take on their new look? The face does look more proportionate than before, but it's no doubt helped by them having drawn her with her mouth closed, and with less overly open eyes. All the new images are in the slideshow below!
Warlords of Draenor: Low level Battlegrounds to drop dungeon-style satchels
Senior PvP Designer Brian Holinka tweeted something yesterday that will be music to the ears of any player who wants to level via PvP. @AllTheTonberrie That's the plan for warlords because @nite_moogle is awesome - Holinka (@holinka) March 19, 2014 Leveling via PvP is a hard-fought battle in WoW, XP gains are unpredictable, and unless you're using heirlooms you risk falling behind in gear gains and gold gains. So this change, put in place by Reward Systems Designer Russ Petersen, allows those players to keep up with their PvE-ing counterparts. It's fantastic news! I'd love to see some improvement to XP gains from battlegrounds, too. And let's not forget that Holinka has previously hinted at Skirmishes being potentially available for leveling, which would be an incredible change. Certainly, the rewards would need to be ironed out, but that they're even thinking about it gives me hope for PvP leveling becoming something that more than just the dedicated or foolhardy undertake.
Heroes of the Storm glossary
Heroes of the Storm is not categorized as a MOBA by its creators, but as a Hero Brawler, and there are definitely big differences between Heroes and other popular MOBAs. Nonetheless, a lot of the players you're going to be seeing in-game will have played MOBAs before, and thanks to the similarities to MOBA play, you're going to be seeing a lot of MOBA jargon. And you might not understand it all, but we're here to help. We're not going to go into every individual phrase that might ever be uttered, but we're going to spell out some of the more common ones. Let us know if there are other things you've heard that you haven't understood, and hit the break for the Glossary!
Heroes of the Storm dev Q&A
The latest Heroes of the Storm dev Q&A is here, and you can watch it above when it goes live at 11am Pacific. This week, as the Tech Alpha runs on, the developers are talking about the talent system. Joining Kevin Johnson this time, we will have Dustin Browder, Game Director, Richard Khoo, Senior Game Designer, and Matt Cooper, Game Designer. As the talent system is a key part of the game that separates it from the Item Shop methodology of other MOBAs, it will be interesting to see the insights and design challenges that the developers have faced. You can send in your questions to the developers on Twitter at @BlizzHeroes by using the hashtag #HeroesQA. Following the dev Q&A, there'll be a live match, shoutcasted by Dustin Browder and Kevin Knocke.
Poll: RNG gearing or points-based gearing?
There seems to have been something of a shift of late in Blizzard's gearing philosophy. We've moved from a heavily points-based system, where players had to earn currency -- specifically valor -- to buy items. They also had to earn reputation, which was another thing we can compare to points, although they're not a currency you can spend. Now, we've got Valor only used as an upgrade system, players are reliant on drops for the initial item to upgrade. The Timeless Isle does award currency, but you're more likely to rely on RNG-based drops to get gear from there. Not to mention the RNG nature of Warforged gear. And it looks like this is only going to move more towards RNG with Warlords' removal of currencies, removal of reforging, and the addition of sockets and tertiaries as RNG elements on top of the Warforged system. PvP gear remains mercifully points-based, and in a play system where gear equality is so important, we can only hope it remains the case. But in PvE, what's the good and bad of each? Well, points-based gearing is predictable. It gives you certainty and goals to work towards. Just so long as you keep grinding points, you know categorically that you will get that piece of gear. You can see your points build up, and it's satisfying. On the downside that predictability makes it less exciting. In PvP, that's no bad thing -- you certainly don't want the opposition to get their weapon and 4-set first while you get 2 rings, a neck and some bracers!
Breakfast Topic: The Real Money Auction House is gone forever, will you miss it?
If you haven't been marking out the hours, it's March 18. That means that today's the day that the Real Money Auction House in Diablo III closes its doors forever. It's been an interesting feature, for sure, and arguably one that did more harm than good. It's been controversial from the out, causing a rating hike in South Korea. Then there were the days of gold devaluing by the second, of duping bugs running rampage, shutdowns and resets. It seems pretty clear that the RMAH wasn't much of a success. And the community reaction to its then-impending removal, and to loot 2.0 has been overwhelmingly positive. So, will you miss it? I know I won't. In a game like Diablo where there's so much emphasis on loot, being able to fork out real dollars to get your hands on the best bits seemed to cheapen the experience, to use a rather ill-fitting turn of phrase. Now that it's gone, and indeed in the months leading up to its departure, I've felt a sort of freedom with my loot. I'm no longer thinking in terms of trade, instead in terms of fun. And that's a good thing. What's your take on the RMAH experiment? Will you miss it?
Blizzard unveils its PAX East plans
Blizzard has revealed their PAX East schedule, and for attendees of the Boston-based convention, it's going to be quite a weekend. There's something for almost every game the company makes, all to be found at booth #848 from 10am to 6pm Friday through Sunday. On offer at the booth will be: Warlords of Draenor playable demo, with updated models and the intro zone -- likely the same as we saw at BlizzCon. Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft on iPad. A demo for Heroes of the Storm, featuring new Heroes that haven't yet been played anywhere outside of Blizzard. And playable time with Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition, on PlayStation 4. There's also developers standing by to talk to fans, a Heroes of the Storm presentation at the Albatross theatre on Friday, April 11 at 10:30 a.m. EDT, as well as giveaways, prizes and more! We wouldn't be surprised to see some new merchandise debuting, as has previously been the case for PAX conventions. It promises to be an exciting weekend all round!
PvP-Live Armageddon Tournament
Followers of official Blizzard Twitter accounts will certainly have heard about the well-publicized WoW arena "Armageddon" tournament, hosted by PVP Live, that took place this weekend just passed. It was great to see Blizzard get behind a WoW PvP tournament in such a big way, after years of other, less recognized tournaments. After some early issues with audio, which were mostly repaired by the Sunday, the tournament kicked off in style on the Friday night with a face-off to see which of the newer teams would claim the eighth "seed", by which they meant place in the tournament. Following that, the tournament continued, in a bracketed structure, commentated by the ever-outstanding Isaac "Azael" Cummings-Bentley and Jared "vhell" Coulston. They were joined by PvP-Live's "Mackaw" on a beautifully-crafted set to lead viewers through the tournament.