Hearthstone's most recent update has sped up Shudderwock's animations and rebalanced arena once again
- By Ash
- in News
While Shudderwock is by no means an overpowered card, it's overly-long animations are often a complete waste of time. As such, I am very glad to say that Hearthstone's latest update has now not only doubled the speed of Shudderwock's Battlecry animation, but doubled the speed of Lifedrinker's Battlecry animation as well! While this will prevent you from going for a sandwich every time someone plays Shudderwock, it will at least make the card a lot more fun to play against for those that might not be hungry at the moment.
On a similar note, Blizzard has now implemented a variety of changes to Arena in order to improve class balance. Unfortunately, they've done so in the classic Blizzard fashion, by which I mean they've given us absolutely no information or statistics to work with. The only thing I can tell you for certain is that Paladin's absurd winrate will be going down, though by how much and due to which changes I'm afraid I don't know.
Pillars of Eternity 2 has recently arrived on PC alongside some extremely favorable reviews
- By Ash
- in News
After going through a highly successful Fig crowdfunding campaign and a refreshingly smooth development process, Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire has now finally made its way to PC. Besides continuing on with the original's storyline, Pillars of Eternity 2 features player-controlled ships that you can use to explore a gigantic world, plenty of uncharted islands with treasure to loot and danger to overcome, a whole bunch of new enemies to battle against, and perhaps most importantly, a variety of interesting companions to chat up.
If you're interested in a sneak peak of what all of this might look like in-game, allow me to share with you the recently posted launch trailer. It won't exactly tell you what Pillars of Eternity 2 is all about, but it will at least help you get into the right mood. Have a look:
Blizzard and the Breast Cancer Reaserch Foundation have teamed up to release a new charity-focused Pink Mercy skin
- By Ash
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Continuing their long-standing tradition of incentivizing charity donations via in-game items, Blizzard has now teamed up with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation in order to release a brand new and rather fancy Pink Mercy skin. The skin will set you back $15 and will only be available until May 21st, though more importantly, all of the proceeds from the Pink Mercy sales will be going directly to the BCRF, with a guaranteed minimum donation of $250,000 from Blizzard themselves.
As for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, I am very glad to say that it not one of those useless charities that spend more on marketing than anything else. According to Charity Navigator, BCRF spends 90.1% of its donations to support a variety of medical institutions, and only 2.7% on its own administration. Those are some pretty darn impressive numbers, so don't feel bad about donating to them.
Total War: Warhammer 2's upcoming update will add a brand new starting position for the Dwarfs, among other changes
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[Update] The patch is now live. You can find the full patch notes, as well as more about the accompanying "The Queen and the Crone" DLC over here.
Creative Assembly has been teasing a whole bunch of Total War: Warhammer 2 changes and additions over the past few weeks. So far they've announced Giant Slayers as a new Dwarf unit, a major rework of the infamous Skaven food mechanic, as well as four new Monster Hunts for Norsca.
While all of these new features are quite welcome, the latest announcement is by far the most exciting one - Ungrim Ironfist is soon going to be starting from Karak Kadrin, the Slayers Keep! This might not sound like much on first glance, but when you consider that Creative Assembly recently said they're planning on updating the Old World races, things start becoming a lot more interesting. Could this upcoming update also add brand new starting positions for the Empire, Greenskins and Vampire Counts as well? I sure hope so, because these factions have an ton of Legendary Lords that are all crammed into one location, Legendary Lords that could really spice up the campaign map if they were spread across the world!
Hearthstone will be getting a balance patch later this month, after the HTC playoffs
- By Ash
- in News
Hearthstone's The Witchwood expansion arrived about a month ago, bringing with it 135 new cards to toy around with. Unfortunately, while some of these new cards are quite interesting, they proved to be no match to some of the best cards from the previous expansions. And so, instead of the current meta being shaped by all of the brand new cards, it's pretty much a repeat of decks and strategies we've already seen time and time again.
With that in mind, I am very glad to say that the Hearthstone team will soon be stepping in with some much-needed balance changes. While the exact tweaks haven't been announced just yet, I can tell you that the update will be coming after the HTC playoffs finish on May 20th. Much like the changes themselves, the exact release date for the patch hasn't been revealed just yet, so don't be surprised if it arrives a bit later than expected.
Overwatch devs have shared a behind-the-scenes video of the creation of Watchpoint Gibraltar
- By Ash
- in News
While they might look simple on the outset, there is a ton of work that goes into the creation of FPS maps, especially for those that are going to be used for competitive play. As such, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that Overwatch's Watchpoint Gibraltar map underwent an absolute ton of changes before finally becoming the map we know and (sometimes) love today.
If you're wondering what that journey was like, as well as what some of the earliest versions of the map looked like, allow me to share with you the recently posted behind-the scenes video. It's fairly short, totaling at around 2 minutes, so I would definitely recommend you give it a look if you're even remotely interested in game design. Here's the video:
Terraria: Otherworld has been canceled, though development on Terraria still continues
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Terraria: Otherworld was going to be a spin-off game with a variety of experimental ideas that would set the gameplay apart from the original Terraria. Unfortunately, it looks like we're never going to find out what those experimental ideas are all about because Terraria: Otherworld has now been canceled.
"Our team has a clear vision for this game – one that we shared with all of you with much shared excitement – and, in spite of all of our efforts, the current state of the game remains equal parts far from that vision and beyond behind schedule from our initial planning when we shared Otherworld with all of you three years ago," reads the official announcement. "Progress has absolutely been made during that time – but unfortunately, a very thorough status review of the game versus its intended design showed both the Re-Logic and 505/Pipeworks teams that things were quite a bit further away from the finish line than we had imagined."