Lots of changes in World of Warcraft

 

Last Wednesday the pre-patch to WoW Shadowlands hit and changed everything. Well, most things anyway. The big level squish hit, dividing character levels with 2.4, the new starting zone Exile's Reach is here, plenty of new character customization options and more.

Some things are still very much missing however, but I really do think they'll be added later. Some of the advertised customization options were not implemented, like being able to choose straight backed trolls and orcs and a few other quality of life things are still missing. Time will tell if and when they'll be added later.

Blizzard did say that leveling your characters will be faster than before, and they were not kidding. At least to me it doesn't really feel that fast, but that is only because my brain doesn't yet understand what the new levels mean. A level 10 is 24 in the old system and a 25 is 60 in the old way. I got my new warrior to 25 in two evenings. It used to take months to get to 60, not two evenings! So yeah, you level up crazy fast, believe me.

I had expected some server issues and Blizzard did not disappoint. On both Wednesday and Thursday evenings it was almost impossible to log in, the queues were that bad, and when the authentication servers got full you got booted just as you were about to log in. Sit in queue, check. Load times, check. Get in, nope – out you go!

These issues are now solved by and large, it just amazes me that after 16 years, Blizzard still hasn't learned to avoid this. Back in '04 it was understandable. Blizzard were new at the whole mmorpg thing, server technology was still pretty raw, there were no where near as many IT-techs as there are now, but still for some reason, the servers seem to be held together with bubblegum and scotch tape.

There is one major thing I want to bring up. For quite a while now, Blizzard has pushed the whole Exile's Reach and straight to Battle for Azeroth (previous expansion) thing. New players don't even get a choice. New and free players must do the Exile's Reach area and then straight to BfA, but I can't see how they are going to make it there.

I sent a level 10 to Kul Tiras, the Alliance part of BfA, and was shocked to find that everything the local vendors sell is level 45! All the food, the potions, everything you could perhaps craft is 45. So unless you play a class that can heal, you are utterly screwed in BfA. You can only equip quest rewards and what happens to drop as loot and you get 0% healing. I had to relog to a character in another part of the game in order to go buy food, which I could send over to my “stranded” alt.

I get Blizzards idea that this is a good story line for new players, and at least Kul Tiras is incredibly pretty and atmospheric, but why have they left everything at the old top levels? This goes for all other expansion areas as well, but the discrepancy between your character and the local consumables isn't that big, and you can choose where to go. You can get supplies elsewhere as long as you are not new. Blizzard, fix this, please!

It may seem that I'm incredibly negative towards the new changes, but I'm not. It really is a lot of fun and the new systems will be good, when they're properly done. But that's enough rambling for now. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

Has Blizzard completely lost its mind?

Well, Activision-Blizzard has gone and done it again. You'd think they would, after all the trouble they had last year, try to stay calm and keep quiet...

Back in 2018, during the ill-received Blizzcon where they announced Diablo Immortal on mobile, which by the way still hasn't been released, Blizzard also announced a remaster of one of their all time best selling and beloved games: Warcraft III.

With all the scorn heaped upon them for their misguided way of announcing Diablo Immortal and their flippant comments of “don't you guys have phones”, this remaster announcement went a bit under the radar.

Until this last week when Warcraft III: Reforged released. The shock and outrage was immense as stunned players saw what they had received. The previews and teasers had been good, with new fully animated cut-scenes and updated graphics and UI, but what they ultimately got was not good.

Apparently, in several cases, the graphics look worse, and the beautifully rendered cut-scenes are now in game models just standing there with animated portraits talking in the corner of the screen. The UI is apparently just the old one.

Old and beloved custom maps and mods no longer function in Reforged, and the new EULA is rewritten to allow Blizzard to claim ownership of any and all mods and maps created for it. To make it even more ludicrous, a map maker tried to make a battle map based on the goblin run pirate town of Booty Bay only to be informed by Battlenet that the word booty is not allowed as it is considered dirty. Keep in mind that Blizzard themselves have created Booty Bay...

Angry gamers immediately tried to refund the game only to be met with considerable difficulties. Most have been denied refunds altogether, with Blizzard even lying to keep the money. One player reports that he hadn't even started the game when he heard how bad it was, only to be told by Blizzard Customer Service that he was ineligible for refund because he had played too long.

And all of this isn't even the worst part. The most ridiculous part is that Blizzard has nuked the old version of Warcraft III! So if you owned the old version, with no interest in Reforged , they have auto-updated it so that Reforged is the only one that works.

As if that wasn't enough, strong rumors are swirling around that players who are too vocal about refunds or helping others to get one, are being banned from the official forums. Yes, this is a rumor, but several news outlets have picked up the banning story so it may well be true.

As of writing this, Warcraft III: Reforged has a Metacritic score of 63 for official critics (incredibly bad for a Blizzard game) and 0.5 for Fans with 18353 players leaving feedback. This makes it the lowest rated game in Metacritic's history. It's no wonder the Internet has redubbed the game Warcraft III: Refunded.

That's that. Until next time, have a really good week!

Blizzard apology and more

Well, the AAA game world keeps on keeping on.

First up, EA is returning to Steam. Starting with Jedi the Fallen Order, they will slowly expand their catalog on Steam. There has been speculation whether you will still need an EA Origins account to play their games there, and the jury is still out, but the best guess is that it will vary from game to game.

Leaks suggest that Bethesda has made good money on Fallout 1^st and are now looking to expand their vile service even further. New items on the Atom shop for subscribers only, new gear (though no info on what is meant by that), and so on. I wouldn't be surprised if they hide the Wastelander's expansion behind F1st, or at least some important part of it.

A sad state of affairs for a once beloved company. To go from designing games that top the lists to putting up paywalls behind paywalls in a desperate effort to monetize just a couple of bucks more is rank. I once held great faith in their future games, but now it has gone from “Must Have” to “Wait and See”. I do not trust this company or anything they say anymore.

Blizzcon 2019 was this past weekend and there have been some interesting developments. Games wise, they did announce Diablo IV with a truly amazing cinematic. No joke, it was super cool. Too bad the game itself doesn't even have a release date yet, it's that far away. After last years scandalous “Don't you guys have phones” fiasco, they did have to out up something and they did.

World of Warcraft gets a new expansion, Shadowlands, all as expected. It had a cool cinematic too, but nowhere near as good as Diablo.

There was some other announcements, but I really didn't pay those any mind. What was interesting was the opening speech by CEO J. Allen Brack.

He started by looking sad and referring to the Blitzchung scandal, but without actually mentioning either Blitzchung, NetEase or China. He then went on about missed opportunities and failing to live up to standards and apologizing for reacting too fast and then being to slow to respond to people. This is pretty much a non-apology. Like being accused of stealing your neighbor’s lawnmower and then saying “Your lawn looks awful and for that, I'm sorry.” Way to dodge the point there J.

Yesterday, PC Gamers Steven Messner interviewed Brack by phone. It's an interesting read, but for me the biggest takeaway is that he confirms that the “defending the pride of China” comment came from NetEase, with no involvement or approval from Blizzard. Seems they can't do anything in China without going through a Chinese partner. In other words, Blizzard is in business with a company that can say and do whatever they want with no input from Blizzard in their name. Must be lucrative to make that worth it.

Check it out if you're interested:

Brack's “apology”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcOblZYHxFg

PC Gamer article: https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-president-clarifies-decision-to-ban-hearthstone-player-and-two-casters-over-hong-kong-controversy/

That's it for me this time. See you again next Monday and until then, have a great week!

Big does not mean Smart

It's been a tumultuous start of 2019 for the biggest boys in the video game playground.

EA's flagship Battlefield V had undersold like crazy, with pre-orders lagging 85% behind its main competitor Call of Duty, and that's only the start of that games problems, as player numbers are reportedly abysmal.

Bethesda keeps floundering about like a drunk elephant. Back in December, I talked about the bag controversy, their refund issues and their accidental leak of sensitive customer information.

Now, it keeps going. In the new years patch, they broke essential parts of the game, though they are now fixed, but not before tired players dubbed it Y2K19.

Then there is the Nuka Dark issue. In Fallout there exists a drink called Nuka Dark, which is essentially a 35% alcoholic coke, and in November (I believe), they announced the real world Nuka Dark product, a bottle of rum that looked like the in-game bottle. Together with shipping it clocked in at about $100, but when fans finally got it, they were outraged to find that it was a cheap plastic shell around a normal bottle, containing an equally cheap rum. Maybe not a case of false advertising, but certainly misleading. It wasn't stated anywhere that this was the products true nature, so in the absence of contradicting information, it was natural for people to assume the bottle itself would be glass in the iconic Nuka-Cola shape. Needless to say, but I'm saying it anyway, no one is happy about this.

Then we turn to Blizzard-Activision. Within a week (more or less) both parts of the game giant lost their Chief Financial Officers. The Activision CFO left to take up the same position at Netflix and shortly thereafter, the Blizzard CFO also quit. One wonders why?

Then came the big shocker: Bungie split with Activision and took the Destiny IP with them. In case you didn't know, Bungie developed the (mostly) beloved Halo franchise with Microsoft, before starting their multiplayer sci-fi shooter Destiny. They then partnered with Activision, and the controversies started rolling in.

Now, free from Activision, and popping champagne bottles in the office, Bungie is free to do what they want. However, they would do well to remember that they can't hide behind Activision anymore so any and all screw-ups are theirs to own.

Last year at the controversial Blizzcon, they talked about their E-Sports scene and how well it was doing and how it would grow in 2019. Six weeks later they axed all support for Heroes of the Storm. Preceding this move was a survey that looked at what people felt about the game. Now, a survey is circulating concerning Hearthstone, their Warcraft themed card game. Is Hearthstone next on the chopping block? In either case, Blizzards now former CFO warned before she left, that costs had to be cut. Ominous news for Hearthstone fans.

Finally, fans of the Alien franchise were excited when the official Twitter account started teasing a new game in the franchise. The tease seemed to hint at a sequel to Alien: Isolation, but then the bomb dropped when it was announced that the game in question is Alien Blackout, a mobile game. Naturally, people were pissed again. Apparently 20^th Century Fox is as clueless as Blizzard-Activision when it comes to the western video game market: we don't want mobile games. By all means, sell them in Asia and to whoever else wants them, but stop announcing them as a big deal to PC and console gamers, please.

That's that though. Join me again next time for more Eccentric Spheres and until then, have a great week!

The Blizzard turns into an angry storm

Blizzcon is over and many fans are... disgruntled? Okay, furious is more accurate.

So what happened? Apparently it was a very lackluster con to begin with. This in itself is nothing new, it's a fairly well known fact that about every other Blizzcon has exciting stuff and the others contain filler announcements. This year was pretty much a filler year.

They announced a remaster of Warcraft 3, new heroes for Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm, a new expansion for Hearthstone and that World of Warcraft Classic is coming Summer 2019 and is free with a regular WoW subscription. Basic stuff, right? So far so good.

Then we get to the delicate issue. For a couple of years now, Diablo fans have been asking for news regarding Diablo IV and Blizzards only response has been “sometime in the future”. Then just before Blizzcon 2018 a blog post popped up on the official site that, it seems, was poorly worded.

It did say not to get your hopes up, but that it could also be seen as a teaser. I don't care enough to actually read it, you can probably find it if you want to.

Now, a presentation is a delicate thing, doing it right takes a very specific formula. In a nutshell it goes sort of like this:

1. Mid sized announcement
2. Small announcement
3. Small announcement
4. Medium to big announcement
5. Small announcement
6. BIG FRIKKIN' ANNOUNCEMENT

You layer the not so exciting bits between the hot stuff and finish big. You want the audience to leave the hall feeling pumped and buzzing with hype. Pretty simple right? Not, it seems if you work at Blizzard.

They end their main presentation with an announcement that we are getting a Diablo mobile game. Yupp, at a con that is predominantly full of PC players, they proudly trot out a mobile game as the big finisher. Then during Q&A a guy asks “Is this a delayed April Fools joke?” And the devs say no. The crowd is silent and very displeased. Then first one dev and then the others ask sarcastically “Don't you all have phones?” What a slap in the face to your own fans.

Crowd erupts with boos, and I can't blame them. Unfortunately the more “passionate” members of the fanbase started with the nasty personal comments on social media. You know, the never okay personal attacks and threats. Anger and disappointment is one thing but I wish people would stop with these attacks.

Apart from the disgusting attacks another commenter group appeared. The “how entitled can these people be?” comments. But I don't think it's about entitlement, it's an honest reaction to Blizzards lousy handling of the game. In itself, a mobile game is nothing. Yes, the fans wanted Diablo IV, and eventually they'll get it. The mobile game is not taking away that, but to pull out a mobile game as a big deal is frankly, idiotic.

Back when Bethesda announced Fallout 4 at E3, they also announced Fallout Shelter, a mobile game, and the fans were ecstatic. Why? Because it was announced along with the main game, and it was available on the iOS store that same day. Not in some distant future, but now. At this years E3, Bethesda did it again. Like my formula they had some smaller games up first, announced Elder Scrolls Blades, a mobile game, and then teased Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6. No one was upset, no one got angry, because Bethesda treated the mobile games like they should in front of a PC/Console crowd: like a small, fun extra thing. Very sensible indeed.

And let's not forget, it is usually not the developers who makes the decisions, it's the MBA business suits who neither understand the games nor the gamers. All they care about is money, and yes, a business has to make money, but a game company should also make games. If they make good games, they actually make money, and without cynically doing all they can to force people to pay up extra.

Well, that's it for me, this has gotten long enough and I've said announcement too many times already. Until next time, have yourself a great week!