blizzcon

Blizzard’s sometimes-annual convention in Anaheim. Official site: BlizzCon

Blizzard teases ‘multiple Diablo projects in the works,’ with reveals ‘later this year’

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It’s not exactly a secret that Blizzard has been working on something Diablo-related for a while as we’ve been tracking the company as it posts job openings for new Diablo games and fended off rumors about D3 mobile and Switch ports. That D2 remaster is still floating in my memory too. But confirmation is good, and we’ve got some of that on tap.

“We’d also like to let you know that the forges here at Blizzard are burning hot, and we have multiple Diablo projects in the works,” Blizzard Community Manager Brandy Camel teased in a brief video the studio posted today on Twitter. “Some of them are going to take longer than others, but we may have some things to show you later this year.”

So, BlizzCon is finally going to bring the Diablo love! Got any speculation?

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BlizzCon 2018 has a date: The weekend of November 2nd

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Blizzard fans, this year’s BlizzCon has a date, and that day is November 2nd and 3rd, almost three months after the launch of World of Warcraft’s Battle for Azeroth, meaning you won’t even be missing much grinding time to attend, and you can count on lots of post-mortemy-type panels rather than endless teasers. On the other hand? E-sports, e-sports, e-sports.

“This year’s event will again commence with the esports action of BlizzCon Opening Week, taking place at Blizzard Arena Los Angeles from October 25 to 29, where the initial rounds of the StarCraft II World Championship Series Global Finals, the Heroes of the Storm Global Championship Finals, and World of Warcraft Arena World Championship Finals will unfold. The competitions will culminate in Anaheim on November 2 and 3, where the champions of these tournaments along with those of the Overwatch World Cup and Hearthstone Global Games will be crowned.”

Last year’s event was sold out, so if you’re aiming to go, jot down these even more important dates: May 9th and 12th, when tickets will go on sale.

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World of Warcraft Classic progresses: ‘This is the right decision’

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Desperate for some World of Warcraft Classic news now that the BlizzCon high has faded? Forbes has an interview up with Blizzard Executive Producer J. Allen Brack and Senior Game Designer Jeremy Feasel that at least touches on the challenges that lay ahead in bringing a legacy server to the gaming population.

The two don’t mince words about the technical challenge, but say that there is a plan to minimize the complexity of such a project and move forward. The studio said that “lots of decisions to make” and many things to do, such as to partner with the community and get feedback about the formation of Classic.

Brack emphasized that Blizzard wants to structure this so that it will not be managing two MMOs at the same time. He said that headaches aside, it’s a project worth pursuing: “We’re convinced, through the desire of those folks, the desire of our internal folks, and the desire to preserve what WoW was, that this is the right decision.”

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Overwatch’s BlizzardWorld map and skin bonanza are live

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As I type this, my husband is sitting in an Overwatch queue grumbling over “unexpected server error occurred”: Yep, it’s a Blizzard patch day!

Assuming you folks can defeat the login server boss, you’ll eventually be treated to the long-awaited and wonderfully goofy BlizzardWorld map (access it straight off by playing in arcade mode). As originally teased at BlizzCon 2017, the map is effectively a themepark stuffed full of artifacts and settings from Blizzard’s multiple franchises – in fact, it pretty much looks like a partial replica of Stormwind with rollercoasters. May as well re-use those assets, right?

Blizz is also touting “over 100 new items” and a mech-ton of legendary and epic skins, including Black Cat D.Va. I will never see my husband again. Sizzle reel inc!

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Michele Morrow calls out BlizzCon gender pay inequality

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Michele Morrow, one of the most recognizable faces in gaming thanks to her long career as a show host and actress and World of Warcraft player, has seemingly accused BlizzCon organizers of gender discrimination when it comes to BlizzCon hosting pay. Morrow has hosted Blizzard’s outrageously popular annual convention since 2014, last year with Geoff Keighley Alex Albrecht and Malik Forte. As she began on Twitter,

“Glad the #GoldenGlobes are calling out discrimination. I’d like to point out gender & POC pay disparity happens in gaming, too. This has happened to me. Has it happened to you?”

She followed up her statements by referring to her treatment by BlizzCon organizers specifically, suggesting that she didn’t know ahead of BlizzCon 2017 that she had been paid less than her male co-hosts.

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What are the odds that Blizzard is making a Diablo MMORPG?

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Over at MMORPG.com, one of the writers has formulated an intriguing theory that Blizzard is actually in the process of creating a Diablo MMORPG which will be announced next year.

The hypothesis mostly is based on a few factors from last month’s BlizzCon, including the lack of a Diablo presence at all and the seemingly rushed announcement of World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth. The author argues that Blizzard originally wanted to announce the Diablo MMO, but since it wasn’t quite ready, it hurried the announcement of Battle for Azeroth before it intended to share that with the community.

When you throw in other elements such as Blizzard leeching WoW members for other projects and hiring devs with “massively multiplayer” experience, it’s enough to make you pause and go “hm.”

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WoW Factor: Reconsidering the next few months of World of Warcraft

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There’s a lot of information coming out about patch 7.3.5 at this point. Not everything, of course, and a lot of it is based more on datamining than actual stuff that has been announced. But it seems fair to say that World of Warcraft’s immediate future for the next lengthy expansion gap is on the test servers right now, and some of it is obvious while some pieces are… less so. And, if I might be so bold, it even gives us a pretty clear picture of the next few months right out of the gate.

Right now the live game is, obviously, focused on Antorus. That’s the focus for the actual gameplay, and the slow trickle of wings into the group finder are the big thing to do and look forward to until the whole of the content is available by January. For that matter, I think that part of the goal of the next month or so is to give people all the reason in the world to run and explore Antorus and see the story for themselves if they’re interested in having a personal stake in what happens next.

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Hearthstone: Kobolds and Catacombs is live today with free card packs

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Today, Hearthstone players across the world will, indeed, take candle.

Blizzard’s popular card game launched its newest expansion today, Kobolds and Catacombs. First revealed at this past November’s BlizzCon, the expansion adds 135 new cards, the recruit keyword, spellstone and unidentified items card types, and the intriguing dungeon run. This single-player experience offers adventurers choices as they progress through a dungeon to the final conclusion.

It’s a good time to log back into the game, too, since Blizzard is giving all players three free expansion card packs and a random legendary weapon card to promote the update. We’ve got the new Hearthstone animated short for you after the break as well as a rundown of the top five most underrated and overrated Kobolds and Catacombs cards.

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Perfect Ten: The biggest MMO stories of 2017

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One thing you can say for the MMO industry: It never ceases to surprise all of us. No matter what predictions we may make at the beginning of a year, by December we will all be proven fools who lack vision and foresight.

Although 2017 isn’t quite over yet, we here at Massively Overpowered wanted to count down the biggest news stories that crossed over into our neck of the woods so far this year. We witnessed controversies and delights, shockers and sadness. We saw launches and shutdowns, expansions and bugs.

So before we move into 2018, let’s take a look at the year that was and remember the biggest stories that dominated headlines.

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MassivelyOP’s 2017 gift guide for the Blizzard fanatic

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With the new expansion, official vanilla servers, and all of the other news from BlizzCon this year, it’s a great time to be a World of Warcraft fan. But Blizzard has other games too!

This year, our sales team has once again put together a couple of gift guides pertinent to our MMO readers. Please note that Amazon links are affiliate links and may grant a small commission to us, which is very much appreciated. Read to see some of the fun stuff you can get for the Blizzard-lover in your life!

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The Daily Grind: Are you thinking of WoW Classic as a totally new MMO?

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Early on in all the WoW Classic hoopla, I’d been thinking of World of Warcraft legacy servers as the sort of gimmick servers that a lot of older games put up. Ultima Online, EverQuest, RuneScape – their hardcore servers, progression servers, old-school servers are sort of sideshows, literally, to the “real” game in the center ring.

But the day the Classic WoW subreddit went up and I watched the playerbase neatly conduct its semi-orderly self-partition, my thinking changed, such that I don’t really think it’s just a gimmick anymore. WoW Classic is going to be a whole new game. I’m not even sure Blizzard realizes it yet, given how weird and slapdash the BlizzCon announcement was, but if WoW Classic releases in the next couple of years, it’ll easily be one of the largest and most successful “new” AAA MMORPGs to come out in quite a while. It’ll be up there with AIR and New World. That’s a sobering thought – but maybe not all that surprising.

Are you thinking of WoW Classic as a totally new MMO? How will you be approaching it?

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World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth sets a world record for its diorama

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Turns out that World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth is already setting records well before it releases. How? Well, it had a very nice diorama at BlizzCon. A very nice, very big diorama, one that featured a huge number of attendee characters individually printed in 3-D and arranged on the sprawling battleground between the Horde and the Alliance. And said “very big diorama” apparently qualified as the largest video game diorama ever at 1,300 square feet. That is a lot of individual characters in a single diorama.

No, your characters were not in the mix if you were not at BlizzCon. We’re sorry.

Meanwhile, StarCraft II has gone more or less completely free-to-play, and the team behind it has decided to take the opportunity to rather thoroughly troll the people behind Star Wars: Battlefront II’s notably less-than-free business model. This segues nicely into the game’s newest commercial, which couldn’t possibly have been made just to joke about that… but is still pretty funny all the same.

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StarCraft 2 unlocks free-to-play options, but it’s not completely free

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First announced at BlizzCon earlier this month, StarCraft 2 is now free-to-play for anyone who would like to engage in Blizzard’s hit real-time strategy title.

This is free* with an asterisk, however; only the Wings of Liberty single-player campaign, all of its multiplayer content, and co-op commanders are included in this statement. The other three single-player campaigns have to be purchased separately**, although this comes with a double-asterisk to indicate that those who previously purchased Wings of Liberty can get Heart of the Swarm for free through December 8th.

Some players have noted that this isn’t technically the first time that StarCraft 2 offered a free-to-play option. The StarCraft 2 Arcade, which includes a fan-made MMO mod of the game, has cost nothing to use for quite some time now.

Source: Blizzard via Blizzard Watch

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