“WoW!”
November 3, 2017 8:40 PM   Subscribe

All the News and Trailers From Blizzcon 2017's Opening Ceremony [IGN] New characters, new expansions, and much more. Blizzcon kicked off today with an opening ceremony full of new announcements for StarCraft 2, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft. Below you'll find all the news and trailers from Blizzcon 2017's opening ceremony.

• Overwatch is getting a mad scientist hero and a Blizzard theme park map [The Verge]
“At BlizzCon today, Blizzard unveiled two big new updates coming to its hero shooter Overwatch. To start, the game will be getting a new character: a mad scientist-type support hero called Moira. [...] In addition to that, Overwatch is also getting an exciting new map called “Blizzard World.” Essentially, it’s a virtual imagining of what a Blizzard theme park would look like, complete with areas based on games like Hearthstone, StarCraft, and Diablo. Unfortunately, it’ll be a while before you can play it; “Blizzard World” won’t be available until early 2018.” [Introducing Moira][YouTube] [New Hybrid Map][YouTube]
• Overwatch’s New Reinhardt-Themed Short Brings All the Feels [Twinfinite]
“If you’re a Reinhardt fan, you may want to get some tissues ready. The latest Overwatch cinematic short made its debut during BlizzCon 2017’s opening ceremony livestream today, and it brought together a particularly moving tale featuring Reinhardt in his youth, explaining some of his backstory and intentions as he grew into a member of Overwatch. The very entertaining short, which you can watch below, features a different Reinhardt than you may be used to seeing, a prideful and often arrogant, boastful and brash young man who wasn’t always cut out for the team. But things change, as they do, and life gets in the way sometimes.” [Overwatch Animated Short][YouTube]
• World Of Warcraft's Next Expansion Is Battle For Azeroth [Kotaku]
“During today’s Blizzcon 2017 keynote, Blizzard announced Battle for Azeroth, the seventh expansion pack for World of Warcraft, rekindling the war between the Alliance and Horde. Now that the Horde and Alliance are finished teaming up against the demon invasion, it’s time to get back to the conflict at the heart of World of Warcraft. The expansion introduces two new continents where the factions will seek out new allies—Kul Tiras for the Alliance and Zandalar for the Horde. Players will gather aid from allied races, fight for domination of battlefronts and plunder uncharted islands for treasure as they level from 110 to the new cap of 120. Here’s the opening cinematic for Battle for Azeroth.” [World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth Cinematic Trailer][YouTube]
• World of Warcraft Classic is an official vanilla server [Polygon]
“Blizzard Entertainment announced that World of Warcraft will receive an official classic-style “vanilla” server. The news comes from the opening ceremony of this year’s BlizzCon event. World of Warcraft Classic is Blizzard’s response to fans who have long begged for a server based on the original version of World of Warcraft. “We want to reproduce the game experience that we all enjoyed from the original, classic WOW,” said executive producer J. Allen Brack, following a trailer that revealed the server. Fans have worked on making their own vanilla servers over the years, some of which Blizzard Entertainment has shut down over copyright and other issues. But that hasn’t stopped players from wanting to return to the classic World of Warcraft experience.” [World of Warcraft Classic Announcement][YouTube]
• Hanzo and Alextrasza confirmed as the next Heroes of the Storm characters [PC Gamer]
“Now you can be a Hanzo main in two games. At BlizzCon 2017 today, Blizzard announced officially that Overwatch's Hanzo and World of Warcraft's Alextrasza are the next heroes coming to the MOBA, along with a new event, Dragons of the Nexus. Alextrasza is a "versatile ranged support who manipulates her life energy to heal her allies," and can transform into a dragon with her 'Dragon Queen' ability. If you aren't familiar with the character, she's a big part of WoW lore. Hanzo, meanwhile, is of course a "nimble ranged assassin" as he is in Overwatch. In addition, general improvements are coming to HotS in 2018, including "performance-based matchmaking," which takes into account individual match performances rather than just which team won or lost.” [Dragons of the Nexus–Hero Trailer][YouTube]
• Hearthstone's next expansion is a love letter to classic dungeon crawlers [Eurogamer]
“Blizzard has announced this year's final Hearthstone expansion, Kobolds & Catacombs. Kobolds & Catacombs is, says Blizzard, a love letter to classic fantasy dungeon crawlers, and harks "back to the roots of classic fantasy, full of monsters, treasures, and traps". It will add a total of 135 new cards, including brand-new legendary weapons. Legendary weapons will be available for all nine of Hearthstone's classes - even ones that have never had weapons before. One of these, Dragon Soul, belongs to the priest, and enables you to summon a huge dragon once you've cast three spells in a turn. Other revealed cards include Crushing Walls - which will destroy your opponent's left and right-most minions - and Marin the Fox. Marin is a legendary adventurer who will summon a treasure chest when played. Successfully opening the chest will reward "crazy" cards like Tolin's Goblet, which lets you draw a card and then fill your hand with copies of it. Marin the Fox will be available for free to everyone that logs into Hearthstone from Monday.” [Hearthstone: Kobolds & Catacombs][YouTube]
• StarCraft 2 Will Soon Be Free To Play [Gamespot]
“Despite launching seven years go, StarCraft II remains one of Blizzard's most popular and successful titles, and those who have yet to play it or have since fallen out will soon be able to jump in for no cost at all. During BlizzCon's opening ceremony today, Blizzard announced that the real-time strategy game is going free-to-play. Beginning November 14, PC players will be able to play through the entirety of StarCraft II's Wings of Liberty campaign for free. Players will also be able to access the ranked multiplayer ladder; in order to unlock it, you'll have to earn 10 First Wins of the Day in Unranked or Versus AI play. Additionally, all current and upcoming commanders will be free to play up to level five, while the co-op commanders Raynor, Kerrigan, and Artanis will remain free to level up as much as you want.” [StarCraft II: Free to Play Overview][YouTube]
posted by Fizz (40 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
I was at opening ceremony today in the main hall. The cheers for vanilla were deafening. I thought the whole "look at how MC sucks" throwback put a bullet in that whole idea. I wonder if it'll be pure vanilla or they'll refine the specs as they were intended in vanilla to make them playable. A lot of the off-class roles were next to useless in vanilla and I think some people are going to get a very rude awakening.
posted by Talez at 8:52 PM on November 3, 2017 [8 favorites]


I liked that the amusement park food stand was called "Snaxxramas"
posted by aubilenon at 9:02 PM on November 3, 2017 [11 favorites]


I'm excited about a new Overwatch hero and a new map. But everyone at my office was mostly talking about World of Warcraft Classic/'Vanilla'. You know that saying, 'You can't go home again', I'm thinking about that phrase quite a bit. I wonder how people are going to feel going backwards in time. I think I like the idea of 'Classic' more than what 'Classic' actually was. But we'll see.
posted by Fizz at 9:06 PM on November 3, 2017


An interesting thing about the new Overwatch hero is that she apparently needs to do damage to enemies in order to charge up her healing beam. As someone who usually plays Mercy or Zarya, she sounds like a fun hybrid of the two.

The Reinhardt animated short is funny in that it serves as a primer on how not to play Reinhardt. It also has some nicely coincidental parallels with another funny movie released today, Thor: Ragnarok.
posted by ejs at 9:22 PM on November 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


blond hanzo is almost enough to destroy my epic thirst
posted by poffin boffin at 9:36 PM on November 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


The cheers for vanilla were deafening. I thought the whole "look at how MC sucks" throwback put a bullet in that whole idea. I wonder if it'll be pure vanilla or they'll refine the specs as they were intended in vanilla to make them playable.

Now might be a good time to invest in adult diapers.
posted by Literaryhero at 10:14 PM on November 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


poffin boffin: blond hanzo

NO. I REFUSE THIS.

(where are you seeing that, though?)
posted by pseudonymph at 10:33 PM on November 3, 2017


That trailer for the new xpac - Blizzard always does such a great job with their cinematics. This was true back in the Orcs V Humans days, and its true now.

I don't understand why they worked through a studio for the Warcraft movie, because, really, all they had to do was make the WarcraftII cinematics 1080P and string them together. Ok, the voiceovers were cheesy as fuck. But you get my point.

Anyway, I loved that trailer. WoW is a stupid game that makes you do stupid things - but man, when it shines, it fucking shines.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 10:37 PM on November 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


A lot of the off-class roles were next to useless in vanilla and I think some people are going to get a very rude awakening.

I had that same thought. I leveled not one, but two druids as Feral to level 60, and a Beast Master hunter to max as well, back in Vanilla. I know the pain of off-spec leveling under that old system, and kinda want to read the cries of agony if they do resurrect it more or less faithfully. The tears will be delicious.

I feel a little dirty that I want to level another one too, but I'm weirdly excited about a Vanilla server. Would be fun to revisit that, if only to contrast and compare with the current day. Not sure about the expansion story, but I know I'll level my druid to max regardless. He's nearly old enough for high school now.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 10:59 PM on November 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


(where are you seeing that, though?)

It's probably a reference to young Reinhardt in the new short film.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:04 PM on November 3, 2017


I feel a little dirty that I want to level another one too, but I'm weirdly excited about a Vanilla server.

I am too, but then I remember my occasional desire to revisit Lineage: The Bloodpledge where I login to an 8x server and quickly realize how much of a chore it all is, and that is playing with an order of magnitude more XP and way better drops. You really can't go home again.
posted by Literaryhero at 11:09 PM on November 3, 2017


no it's his new heroes of the storm skin
posted by poffin boffin at 12:44 AM on November 4, 2017


i thought it was linked in the post? but i guess i had another tab open and that was like 100 tabs ago so how am i going to find it now, DESPAIR.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:45 AM on November 4, 2017


BEHOLD
posted by poffin boffin at 12:47 AM on November 4, 2017


I can't go home to WoW as it is after being spoiled by later, better MMOs. I can't imagine going back to vanilla WoW, with its thoroughly broken classes, its interminable grind for end-game content, its rubbish quests past about level 30... and that's not even getting into the things that feel archaic in current WoW, like node-stealing.
posted by Merus at 1:00 AM on November 4, 2017


The only possible way that they'll get me to spend any time and/or money on WoW Classic is if I can unlock the Benediction transmog for my Battle for Azeroth characters by collecting it with a Vanilla priest. If I can get items that have been removed from the game and access their appearance on my "modern" characters, all bets are off.
posted by jsnlxndrlv at 1:06 AM on November 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


Can we have our pre-2.0 mods back too? No? Didn't think so.

I bet the honor system isn't coming back either.
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:41 AM on November 4, 2017


The lack of Diablo news doesn't surprise me. Diablo 3 isn't a cash cow like WoW and Overwatch. I'm just praying they don't put lootboxes in Diablo 3.
posted by Pendragon at 2:15 AM on November 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


I think what people want is vanilla WoW but all characters start at level 60.
posted by dilaudid at 2:48 AM on November 4, 2017


I don't know how Blizzard World will ever hold up to this old piece of fan art.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:49 AM on November 4, 2017


The only possible way that they'll get me to spend any time and/or money on WoW Classic is if I can unlock the Benediction transmog for my Battle for Azeroth characters by collecting it with a Vanilla priest. If I can get items that have been removed from the game and access their appearance on my "modern" characters, all bets are off.

As somebody with Benediction/Anathema, I can assure you that you're talking about stupid amounts of timesink and luck. That questline was bad enough when we were younger and had more free time and less idea of how valuable it was.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:50 AM on November 4, 2017 [3 favorites]


I just want pre-Cataclysm Steamwheedle port back. It was my favorite vista. I didn’t raid back in vanilla so for me it was a long, rambling, self-directed climb to 60. I loved every frustrating minute of it.

Then again I’ve had a Blood Elf paladin since BC so...not sure if I even could adjust back to original Horde classes.
posted by kimberussell at 6:14 AM on November 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


I want my combat rogue back. Any content, I don't care. Outlaw is rubbish and assassination is no substitute.
posted by crush at 6:51 AM on November 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


I had the advantage of getting my Benediction in Wrath before all those quests were 86d and at that point it wasn’t so bad, since I was farming MC for rep anyway. I even farmed up the piece that dropped off the Blasted Lands demons instead of buying it off the auction house. But doing it at level 60 sounds like a nightmare.

I’ve been out of WoW for a year. The current expansion is ok, there’s plenty of stuff to do on your own, but after being with a decent guild for a while it’s hard to find a replacement when the guild dissolves, and that led to me just checking out. Seeing Kul Tiras finally is a strong incentive to come back, though Blizzard’s treatment of Jaina has been pretty iffy and if they make either her or her mom some sort of cardboard villain I’m out.

Also I’m gonna always use at Magni skin for Torb, and Blondzo is hilarious.
posted by rewil at 8:11 AM on November 4, 2017


I got the Halloween Torbjorn skin and I can't imagine I'll ever use a different skin for him.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:06 AM on November 4, 2017


and that's not even getting into the things that feel archaic in current WoW, like node-stealing.

Not that it really matters, but they did finally address this with the current expansion, and it was long overdue. Accessing a node starts a 10-20 second timer—I don't know how long it really is—within which anyone can access the node before it de-spawns. So much less irritating.

I think what people want is vanilla WoW but all characters start at level 60.

Some of us loss interest once we reached 60. You can't go home again, it's true, but it'd be fun to have a character on a vanilla server to poke at occasionally.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 9:06 AM on November 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


I would regard the modern UI as a necessity for interest in such a server- I'm absolutely not going back to the pre-Appearances/Pets/Mounts/Toys tab interface, for example.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:21 AM on November 4, 2017


I'd like to walk through the vanilla world to see it again (I really was unreasonably upset when Cataclysm destroyed the Night Elf grounds where I leveled my first character,) but like hell do I want to play through it again.

Hit 45 and all you can do is Silithus or the Plaguelands. Oh boy, unrelenting desert nothingness and f@(#*cking bugs or 5 spawns per discrete plaguefarm area, with everybody and Jesus trying to camp them.

And don't get me started on the corpse runs in Ferelas or the ridiculous OPness of Dire Maul. I bet people also forget they didn't get ANY mount until 40 and originally had to bind themselves to a town stone-- ha ha you forgot to rebind and just woke up from dead on the other continent! Enjoy your bird and boat tour, sucker!
posted by headspace at 10:13 AM on November 4, 2017 [5 favorites]


A lot of the off-class roles were next to useless in vanilla and I think some people are going to get a very rude awakening.

It wasn't til Blackwing Lair that you really needed to optimize. My wife played a Feral Druid tank on a laptop with a trackpad and tanked Molten Core for our raid, and she managed just fine. So many of the early dungeons and raids come down to "don't be an idiot," and there are just SOOOO many idiots out there.

I wonder if they're going for the full-on Vanilla experience, or if there will be some refinements. I remember Warlocks (my main class) having to respec for Shadowbolt spam because bosses could only have 8 debuffs.
posted by explosion at 10:26 AM on November 4, 2017


Oh god, imagine trying to do Molten Core at 60 under the original mechanics without multiple healers running Decursive.

...oh god, 5-minute non-party-wide paladin buffs!

I was gonna keep escalating with the OH GODs but honestly there's at least a dozen horrible things about vanilla raiding that I could list, all of which come down to "vanilla was badly designed", and that's before dealing with human players!
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:29 AM on November 4, 2017 [6 favorites]


I never caught the StarCraft fever. For any of you Blizzard fanatics who have a lot of experience with that game, what are your thoughts on just jumping right into 2? I know a remastered 1 has been released, but FREE is a good deal. Is it comparable in any way to Command and Conquer-series? Cuz I played the shit out of Red-Alert.
posted by Fizz at 3:29 PM on November 4, 2017


Oh god, imagine trying to do Molten Core at 60 under the original mechanics without multiple healers running Decursive.

...oh god, 5-minute non-party-wide paladin buffs!


Mages will have to decurse again. Also you need six locks for Garr.
posted by Talez at 9:21 PM on November 4, 2017


I never caught the StarCraft fever. For any of you Blizzard fanatics who have a lot of experience with that game, what are your thoughts on just jumping right into 2?

I played SC 1 in the 90's, and just a smidge of BroodWars (the expansion), and then a ton of SC 2: Wings of Liberty, and just a smidge of Heart of the Swarm, and no Legacy of the Void.

My sense was that the single player in SC1 was way better than in SC2. But SC1 has all kinds of idiocy that you don't have to deal with in SC2. The units are dumb, they move badly, you can't rally them the way you want, you can't queue all the things you want, you can't make as big control groups, and you basically just have to fuss over shit a lot more. SC2 is a lot easier to actually play. Which I think means the skill cap is maybe lower which arguably means the tippy top level of competitive play is less interesting, but fuck that, you're not asking which game to watch you're asking which to play.

I think either one is fun. I guess if you're thinking of playing both, start with the one that has the more frustrating UI, so that when you get to SC2 it's a breath of fresh air, rather than everything that happened automatically suddenly being stupid and clumsy.
posted by aubilenon at 11:20 PM on November 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


The old UI was better if you were willing to customize it extensively (and had a lot of RAM to throw at leaking addons). You could hook combat events so HUD, unit frames and action bars, etc could be made entirely contextual.

My screen would go from completely clear to some kind of situation room/ESPN parody depending on what I was up to.

Addons could call /script, select targets, check and act on target status and/or skill usability and exploit fallthrough logic, change keybinds on the fly, etc.

A lot of addons gave rise to the emergent economics and culture around the game too, like Auctioneer or FlagsRSP.

The new UI basically purged all the intelligent addons and inter-addon interfaces in favor of letting you reskin and repackage what Blizzard gives you. Although I understand they eventually improved upon the first "secured UI" in BC.

Class balance also sucked after BC, because it became almost entirely focused on PvP. And if not that, raid utility. With the effect that all of the original pen-and-paper like theorycraft complexity and the uniqueness of class playstyles was drained in favor of rock-paper-scissors logic of interchangeable DPS, CC and heelz, and even that reduced to a list of cookie-cutter strats and counters for the recently-arrived console kids.

That's when it died for me.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:39 AM on November 5, 2017


Also you need six locks for Garr.

And they better have their soul shards farmed up before the raid.
posted by rewil at 9:43 AM on November 5, 2017


I really hope they don't let people get Original Collector's editions pets again. My Mini Diablo and Panda are unique and special dammit.
posted by DigDoug at 11:25 AM on November 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


Snaxxramas is what I started calling the remodeled Blizzard cafeteria when I'd cajole my friends who work there to meet me there for lunch instead of going off-campus. I don't think I was the first to call it that, but it sounds SO much better than 'the cafeteria.'
posted by culfinglin at 1:04 PM on November 6, 2017 [4 favorites]


Man, I just saw today they're gonna have the Horde burn Teldrassil as part of giving each faction a continent and ramping the faction war back up.

I'm a bit bummed at that. Given the crazy factionalism right now IRL and all the problems it's causing, I'd hoped they'd dial it back in game a bit rather than doubling down. I want to escape real life, not play an amped up version of it in Azeroth. I like the idea of actual change in a game that's largely static, but ugh, couldn't they have run some other direction?
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 10:50 PM on November 6, 2017 [4 favorites]


poffin boffin: no it's his new heroes of the storm skin

BEHOLD


Welp. Guess I'm not gonna be reading any McHanzo fic until this absolute horror fades from my mind.
posted by pseudonymph at 2:52 AM on November 8, 2017


Behold, Snaxxramas!
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:54 AM on November 9, 2017


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