Tracer stirred up some emotions // rip Carrie Fisher

While i was writing this post i read that Carrie Fisher died from what it looks like right now complications as result of a earlier hearth attack, So let me pay my respects to the first lady of Star Wars. While i have no personal connection to Carrie Fisher, her work both as an actor and outside have been a inspiration to me and many others. She will be missed but it is in a way fitting that she ended her career working on the same franchise that catapulted her in to the spotlight and in the long run gave her a platform (and that maybe in it´s own way claimed her life in the end) Rest In Peace. 

Now back to your regular scheduled programming

I held off on making this post because i wanted to get a better image of any impact it might have. You see in it´s latest free comic for Overwatch Blizzard presented us with Tracers girlfriend. This in it self should not raise many eyebrows, after all characters are presented as having partner all the time in the entertainment medium. But you see, Tracer is ofc a girl. So this is political in many ways. Not only is it a pretty much unseen example of representation, a character that is not only well established and given a rich backstory but that is also the face of the brand. Tracer is the de facto poster girl for Overwatch, having been not only in the initial marketing material but also on the standard box art. Now i am a very cynical human being that honestly do not trust humanity at large to handle anything more dangerous then a sponge without trying to hurt them self or someone else. So i walked in to the Blizzards and other forums expecting to see a full and utter shitstorm... And to my delight and surprise i found very little of that (if one does a signal/noise analysis) sure you had some trolls trying to fan the flames and some people who seemed outright sad. But for the most of it people where either indifferent or positive. Most felt that the introduction by the way of a comic with family as the theme was fitting and not forced. Many like me also felt that the act it self carry a lot of weight but that it does not really change the character. Tracer is still Tracer. 

So Blizzard have issued a challenge of sort, proving that you can make someones sexuality a non-issue even if it breaks the typical mold. Tracer is not defined by her sexuality, she is defined by her personality (and that she is sort of unglued from time... As one tends to be. ). Who she dates is at the same time not important but also very important from the perspective of representation. Because the more exposure something gets, the more "normal" it becomes. This is an aspect i feel some people miss when they say thing like "we do not need the Pride movement" or "why can´t we just keep things like that in our homes." 

Rocking the boat is always going to create people who want to get back to status quo. Even if they are part of the community doing the rocking. But if nobody ever rock the boat, people in general will never know they are actually on the boat. 

So thank you Blizzard for doing this and... well... Cheers luv, the cavalry is here. 

Blizzcon 2016 my take

                          

So Blizzcon have come and gone. This was as expected a sort of off-year with no really big reveals on the horizon. I would assume that people who care by now have digested the recaps and info dumps sp i am not going to go through it all. I will mainly focus on WoW and Overwatch as these are the Blizzard games that i currently play but i will touch on things i found interesting for other games and beyond. 

Let me first touch upon what might have been the biggest reveal, Overwatch League, a bit like Premier league just way smaller and for a digital shooter game. So Blizzard just slapped a foot of prime meat on the table and asked the rest of the esports scene what they have done so far to advance the.., well.. sport. In short it is a organized league that if it actually reaches what it set out to do will have proper teams and formal contracts, making it look more legit. In reality it will not be much different from how it is today but appearance as we know is key. If people feel a connection to the event they will be more invested, and Blizzards idea to have local teams tied to towns and regions  (not only on a national level) fits very nice in to this. After all i´d love to see the Gothenburg Guthooks take on Kiruna Pickaxes for a spot in the regionals. Time will tell what this will pan out in too and how many teams it can support. But the idea i feel is really fresh and interesting. 

So beyond that Overwatch saw mostly tweaks and QoL stuff beyond the new hero Sombra. Now i had the chance to play as and against Sombra on the PTR today and i think she will be very fun and Tracer levels of irritating in the right hands. But she also seems to have a very high skill bar, being both squishy and fairly low on damage DPS hero. Her strengths ofc lies in  her ability to control the field of battle. Also i like to see that Blizzard continue it´s new path of making female heroes that look badass and kick arse without needing to dip in to the "battle dental floss" outfit category. She will most likely see some serious rounds of nerfing and buffing in the coming weeks. Personally i was more happy to see Torbjörns scrap resource now having a slow auto generation to accompany the usual kill drop way, that way one does not have to suicide dive in to the enemy team to get some packs made. 

I also love and adore the new hero "limit" in quick play. Only one version of each hero per side stops the *insert very foul words here* cheesing that is a two Torbjörn and two Bastion with a tank and a healer point capture or any of the other insane troll builds. I was for a very long time a strong opponent to the limit and had a live and let live attitude. But at this point i have had enough with humanity and its so called right to free will. It will be a joy to play once this patch drops live. 

But no big expansions planned for Overwatch.. Or any other game in reality. 

As for WoW, well we will be taking the fight to the *more bad words* Eredar in their own back yard and trust me you that i will be very happy about that. Because i am so sick of the burning legion that i will even put up with Illidan to get the job done I wish we will get to shot them up once and for all. This would also set up for a new and final expansion next where we shut the door on the last remnants of old gods and titans. A worthy end to the story so to speak. I also like the idea of class mounts. 

Beyond that not much to report, this Blizzcon was mostly a retrospect on Legion. 

Now it was a bit sad to not have Chris Metzen there as he retired before the con, but all in all the quality was as high as it used to be and it was nice to see that games like Overwatch  have gained some real traction now. 

Not sure it is a good idea to teach a AI to play StarCraft... Once it get a taste of the sort of smack talk that accompanies competitive games have it will be ready to go SkyNet on us... But at least it will have a brilliant comeback to the claim that it is botting =P 

But looking forward there are a ton of fun things to enjoy if you like Blizzard games. 

Happy halloween Terror.. Overwatch halloween event

So my favorite non-diplomatic solution to inter-personal conslicts OverWatch just got its first proper seasonal event. It is a spooky tale of a mad scientist and his abominabel creation. This event brings more themed costumes and other in-game goodies. But it also give us a taste of some proper PvE gameplay as we are presented with a horde mode. Now i would love to tell you how it works but so far the cue is infinite and the gameplay is scarce. I´l have to get back with more info at a later date.

Now the skins are a good mix of new models and re-colored regular skins. But unlike the previous summer games event you can actually buy these with in-game gold (for now it seems) making the grind a little less painful. And there are some wicked skins.  I´l show them off below. But for now this seem to be a massive step up from the summer games and unless the brawl is a down right bust it will be setting a nice bar for the coming seasonal events to follow.








Skin spoilers incoming













Ana - Ghoul (re-color)

Bastion - Tombstone (re-color)

Hanzo - Demon (re-color)

Junkrat - Dr Junkenstein (new model)

Mercy - Witch (new model)

Pharah - Possesed (re-color)

Reaper - Pumpkin (new model)

Reinhardt - Coldheardt (re-color)

Roadhog - the Monster (new model)

Soldier 76 - Immortal (re-color)

Symetra - Vampire (re-color)

Zenyatta - Skullyatta (re-color)

Enjoy and take care.

Calling all units on the Crew

So I was planning to talk about this earlier but my driving  game of choice is getting a expansion. Last time it was crazy car meets, this time it is centered around the blue lightning, the fuzz, the 5-0, the bear... Yeah.. The cops are getting some well needed reinforcement from the players. Take to the road as one of the boys and girls in blue, busting racerns and issuing fines like there is no tomorrow.  I am not going to rehash the info we have so far, just read up about it on the homepage for the Crew. 

I am sort of underwhelmed, it is not the expansion i was hoping for, not is it really one I feel the game needs, But then again in know it is a popular feature with many other players and it is fairly optional so I guess I will live with it. Also it give mes a chance to turn my Nissan Fairlady Z in to Prowl, expanding my lineup of Transformers inspired cars. 

With this expansion we will also get the Nissan GTR, the lovely computer on four wheels. That will make a bunch of people happy, but since it is a expansion exclusive car... it will make people angry. Ubisoft gives and Ubisoft takes away I guess. 

Beyond that i am waiting for the next Overwatch hero and looking towards Blizzcon. I think Blizzcon is the closest i get get to actually having a annual event that I watch. My Superbowl experience so to speak. Not as much that I feel I have to go to it but to sit down and watch it. This year is a odd one and i look forward to see what they will show off. 

Short post this week. 

But take care and be safe. 

So about that ARK DLC..

Wild Card, the studio behind famed  (and still in development) survival game ARK recently released the aptly named scorched earth expansion... Normally this would not be cause for any rising of eyebrows. 

But seeing how the core game is still not released, a paid expansion does sound a bit weird. Especially as this can look like using money people paid to develop the game to make something people need to pay for again. Creating a interesting double dip effect. Now i do not think it is quite as heinous as some very (very very very) vocal fans on the games steam page, but rather i feel it is a short term publicity suicide and a future thorn in the side of the games marketing. A really unfortunate move seeing as the game up to this point had done pretty much everything right... Or as right as one can when one is crowdfunded. Now this will be mostly forgotten in a few months but will also be one of these things that detractors will bring up every time they need something to bash the game over. 

Now this i just my own theory but i think they might have needed the fresh cash that this expansion might bring, and that this injection was worth losing some customers over. The game as a pretty fanatical core fan base and many will get this no matter what, So it will absolutely do good things for the company coffers. It will be interesting to see if this will be but a fart in space or something that will slowly erode the fans trust, the next couple of moves from Wild Card will be crucial and i hope they have a plan for this. Because if they did this unaware of what the backlash would be (seeing the name of the expansion i doubt that) they are in deep shit right now. 

Time will tell. 

I am going to round off with saying that i will miss Chris Metzen on the upcoming BlizzCon but that i do not feel that his retirement is not earned. Heck he created such wondrous worlds. 

So Chris, enjoy the good life with the family. 

Take care and be safe. 

What is next for Blizzard...

First an update on the potential giveaway… turned out anything worthwhile was used up or given away already. But I promise I will make it up at the next milestone of 10k views.

Now with that out of the way I am going to delve in to the topic of today.

For many years we have seen Blizzard go from strength to strength.  From the original RTS games through Diablo and WoW and now with the trio of Hearthstone, HotS and Overwatch. Especially Overwatch have been a really good game in my opinion. Sure it suffers from the same balance issues as any non-symmetrical PvP. But it is still fun and it hits that really sweet spot of rewarding but not over time-consuming.  

But as Buffy and the gang asked… Where do we go from here..? With the upcoming Blizzcon the question of what will Blizzard do next is a hot potato indeed, The Star Craft 2 saga have concluded and due to its weird position as a E-Sport I think Blizzard are reluctant to muck around too much with it or start a new chapter in the saga. Also where do you go next, keeping things fresh but still being true to what people know as Star Craft? As for the old dog on the porch… World of Warcraft is really on its last leg… We can all see the sunset and while it is pretty and I am sure we will see at least another expansion. It is still walking well threaded ground. Hearthstone and HotS do not really make for grand expansion and to Overwatch, being a PvP arena shooter the idea of a paid expansion is pretty much anathema… (take note EA and your insane reliance on splitting the BF player base over and over again) That leaves us with Diablo… And the internet have been abuzz with some theories that Blizzard will reveal a new Diablo this year. Now this is not a dumb idea and while I am not a big fan of the Diablo games I find them fun enough. There is also as noted above nothing else I can really see being the big ticket item for this year´s Blizzcon.

So what would I like to see from a new Diablo game… Well I would like to see them jump the timeline so to speak. Push things a generation or two forward. A returning evil after a time of peace (cliché I know) maybe a slightly more Elizabethan-ish design… Or why not go all fantasy steampunk. They have flirted with it before with the Warcraft games. Not too bothered with classes but for what it is worth i´d love to see an elemental gunslinger replace the classic mage… Even if the gun mage is becoming as strong of a thing as the staple I suggest it replace. Also I would really like to see a class that is based around a quarter staff… Much like the monk i´d like it to be agile and mobile. As for the rest I think they have it nailed down now for regular game, I have heard that running the ladder get a bit grindey after a while but it is a non-essential part of the games for me.

But time will tell and personally I am much more interested in seeing some more Overwatch stuff, not only for the current game but some spin-off titles exploring the rich but mostly hidden world surrounding the game. That is what would make my Blizzcon.. That and getting one of those swagbags for free… But I do not think that Blizzard would prioritize sending one of those to a blog that scrapes up less than 250 views a month. =P

Well… That will be it for now.

Be nice and play fair, and I will see you again next week.

T

Box over box over Overwatch

So a bunch of people are angry at Blizzard.. again....

And i guess it is kind of justified this time. You see Blizzard have taken the whole Loot Box scheme they have to a new level. Usually you get "gold" that you can use to buy any stuff you do not win form the boxes.

But for the Olympics Blizzard have a new box, with some new skins, sprays, victory poses and stuff. You get these as usual when you level up but here is the kicker. The event is just three weeks long and then the box goes in to the vault until next summer (potentially) and seeing as there is one hundred-ish new items one could understand that people get antsy.

Especially as you can ofc also buy these boxes for the regular price.

Now as someone who have done the seasonal grinds in WoW... I´d gladly pay to be able to get around that. But now for kicker number two. remember how I mentioned that you can use gold to unlock stuff... Not this time... The seasonal items can only be won by the grace of RNGsus.

This last detail is what I guess pushed the most vocal people over the edge as these are generally the same people that invest the most money in the game and by that token have the most "gold" to spend. NOw all that gold have to sit pretty until the next hero is released.

This is of course a calculated move by Blizzard, had people been able to use the gold it would have made a deep cut in to the number of boxes bought. Cynical as it might seem, Blizzard is not anyone's pal... bro... BFF... They are in the habit of trying to make money. You do not make money by giving away all your stuff for free. It would be the morally right choice seeing as we paid full price for the game (but on the flip side... Artist have to eat too., =P )

Now full disclosure, i bought five boxes and i was lucky enough to get exactly what i was looking for. The Torbjörn "IKEA" (in reality called Tre Kronor) skin. So for me the minimal investment i have made compared to the amount of enjoyment i get from using that skin is not even measurable. But i can understand that some people spent a lot and did not get what they wanted and the lack of an option to buy it via the "gold" store just pile on to that frustration. It also i would guess hurts that a new player starting now  or a low level player will have a way easier time to get the new stuff as the XP needed to level up is a lot less before level 20 i think.

Any way, me personally i can not give a flying fuck about any feathers this have ruffled or any slippery slopes people say this is the start of. Sure it is cynical and very much a sign of the times but at the same time i get quality entertainment for pretty much peanuts.

If this is a deal breaker for you, by all means quit and hit up your bank for a charge back... Me i am going to play a short hairy man from Gothenburg dressed as if he feel asleep at a IKEA company Christmas party.

//Peace

My watch is over.. Overwatch.

So I... Like pretty much all of humanity it seems. Have now had some solid time with Overwatch, Blizzards new hero shooter is about as solid as one would expect. But for me it ticks a much more important box.

Ain´t he the most adorable little crazy mercenary you ever seen.

You see... I suck at shooter games. Used to be fairly good back in the old days of BF 1942... Then things just kept getting faster and I kept getting slower, Then came the era of the sniper and i pretty much said... Fuck this... 

Now this is where the gameplay of OverWatch is so bloody brilliant. It is the epitome of the Blizzard idea of having something for everyone. No longer do I need to fear being useless to my team because i can not hit the broad side of Roadhog. I can go in and tank the living crap out of things as a over sized German knight with a power-armor and a freaking energy shield... As in a honest to god, carried on your arm shield. Simply put i can feel useful.

Now the game is at it´s core a fairly standard online arena shooter. You are part of as team and try to shoot the face of the opposing team. The maps are well designed but the game lacks game modes and while the ones we get a point capture mode and a escort mode that is very well designed and offer a ton of fun and action. They are also all we get. And it does get a bit repetitive after a while.

Now the core of OverWatch is the heroes, taking ideas from the moba space and giving us 21 (at the moment) unique heroes that as I mentioned before has something for everyone but without it feeling forced. We will see more heroes added as time goes by. But for now we have a good solid mix of wonderfully colorful and cheesy.

And that i think is the games strongest point. The art style is just so vibrant and lively. It is like a Pixar movie dialed up to 11.

Now this game is not for everybody, if you do not like shooters it has noting to offer gameplay wise. Aaaaand it has some micro transactions for stuff like skins and icons. While it does not bother me all to much I know it is a deal breaker for some people. More power to you. That will not change either but compared to EA´s pants-on-head stupid system of locking maps behind paywalls and splitting the player base i feel inclined to urge everyone to at least give Blizzard a pat on the head for not fucking their players over completely. So if you like arena shooters, give this one a try. I am willing to bet you will at least get your 40/60 bucks worth of entertainment out of it.

OverWatch this.

So let´s finally talk about OverWatch. Blizzards first real step in to the first person market. If you have not done so yet take a few moments to check out the cinematic intro (and if you feel you have the time, the gameplay demo) linked here.

So now that we are all on the same page I am going to try to explain why I feel that the hype for this game might be justified. You see I used to be a FPS gamer once, back when I was younger and had way more time and a lot better eyesight. I started like many others on DOOM and Castle Wolfenstein back in the days when an entire game took up less space than your average image. It was fun because it was bloody and violent and so very much not Super Mario, it was also 3d… or well to call it 3d is being very kind. But it was something and it was awesome. Ten came Quake and later Unreal. My friends and I never got all that much in to the scene back then but we kicked some decent butt. We gravitated more towards Co-Op gaming like Rainbow Six and the early Battlefield games against the best of what bots could offer up back then. It was relaxing and we could banter and joke while we rained death and destruction down on digital people. Then the genre sort of got away from me. I tried to keep up with the BF games but failing eyesight and more realistic textures is not a good mix. It was not better on the more arcade side of things as the demands on players increased with weirder and faster gameplay. So I simply resigned from the FPS genre and went over to the slower paced MMO scene.

Now I do of course know that there are both first and third person shooters that are better suited for a scrub like myself. But here is where brand recognition comes in. Blizzard have time and time again produced solid and well supported games and especially with their new games such as Hearthstone and Heroes of the storm they work hard to make the barrier of entry as low as possible. Now I am banking on this with OverWatch too. Making it easy for an old goat such as myself to get back in to a genre of games I always liked but felt was beyond my scope.

Blizzard have said that the goal of OverWatch is to take the design philosophy from World of Warcraft where you bring the player, not the class. For Overwatch this will equal each play style having their place in the game. No matter if you are a tank or an assassin. For people like me you have the typical engineer that build turrets and generally have a slow paced game by the way of area denial and really burst-y but short-ranged damage. Characters like Bastion and Torbjörn(whom I already feel a certain kinship with seeing as he is a short and somewhat portly Gothenburger) fill a less jumpy-shooty niche and focus more on finding a good spot to defend.

So what is OverWatch in the game then? Well we do not really know all that much yet. It would seem that OverWatch was a G-I Joe/Avengers like peacekeeping force that for some reason fell from grace, either they ran out of favor or things to do. After all the world always cry out for heroes in times of dire need, but in times of peace and prosperity the same people with amazing power that once saved you as a unstoppable force will look more and more like a potential threat to the established peace. After all what if they decide to turn on society. It is a bit unclear why OverWatch members are once again going in to action in the game but I am sure that it will be explored further at a later date. The world of OverWatch is set in a version of our own, as I mentioned you can play a Swedish armsdesigner or why not an Egyptian soldier in a flying armor… Or a talking gorilla from the moon.. just for the heck of it.    

And this is a big part of what makes me interested in the new world, there is so much room to expand and explore. This world could hold so many new games, maybe a Dragon Age/Mass Effect type RPG based on the crisis that actually cause the formation of OverWatch to begin with… Of course we will see OverWatch heroes crossing over in to Heroes of the Storm… The opportunities are endless and if you like Blizzard for what they do rather than being a fan of a specific setting this is a very interesting time as we might see what Blizzard does with over 30 years of experience now that they have a blank canvas to work with.

So to sum this rambling mess up.

I look forward to OverWatch as a chance to get back in to the genre since the setting captures me in a way that most others have not, and if you read my blog you might see how a setting with in essence superheroes might be to my liking, but I also think the new world is a very interesting one to build on for a long time to come.

Of gods and… More gods.

 

Ra-merica...

So how do you kill a titan, I guess the answer will come down to who the titan in question is. But it is related to both my musings today.

 

Angry not pandas are cool

First off Blizzard have announced that they sold 3.3 million copies of Warlord of Draenor and that they have an active subscription base of about 10 million active subs. Now that is BEFORE they have the numbers from the Asian and Oceanic market. This marks not only the best reaction to any expansion of WoW but also the single largest increase of players in the history of the game. Now these are very impressive numbers but can almost hear some of you muttering in the bushes that a population spike is good but the real proof is in the retention of these new subs.

I agree and we all know that a good chunk of these people will drop from the game over the coming years but I think that enough will stay for long enough that Blizzard will have not only secured the next expansion but also have a little extra to put towards Overwatch. I am generally not a big Shooter fan but that game looks to be fun as heck.

But this does prove that not only are people inclined to return to the game they “started” in but also that peer pressure is a powerful tool. After all Mists of Pandaria was not bad expansion and for some of us war weary veterans it was a nice change of pace in the beginning. But there was a strong “trollolol kung fu panda” attitude among the more serious gamers… and I use the term serious very loosely here. This attitude have been pretty much absent with this new expansion and in fact there has been a opposite effect where a healthy dose of nostalgia and Orcs (who it would seem are a lot cooler then talking pandas.) have as we noted brought back the swing to WoW´s step.

So with WoW gaining more players with an expansion then most games doe in their lifetime I do not think we need to worry much about WoW going away any time soon and with Blizzard broadening their portfolio in the shape of the upcoming Heroes of the storm MOBA and earlier mentioned shooter Overwatch. I think it is safe to say that Blizzard as a company is not going anywhere any time soon. I will get back to Overwatch this weekend, but while Blizzard sits on godlike power and followers in other places god fight to the death to keep the creep going and juggle in the jungle.

Looking forward to Heroes of the storm I decided to dip my toes in to the MOBA scene. Now I never got in to DotA and I have played a grand total of two matches in LoL before it felt that I had better things to do then being verbally abused by people with the social grace of a drunk rhinoceros. But I got a free SMITE character code from Loot Crate so in order to research what I was putting in my loot giveaway pile I got reading up on SMITE.

Smite is a MOBA, in every way and shape but it breaks some new ground by being third person and forcing you to aim your basic attacks as well as your abilities. If you feel a bit fuzzy on what a MOBA is you can click here. The setting is also very funny. Imagine that all the gods of myth and legend decided to duke it out in an arena. So you have Tor teaming up with Osiris and Rama to kick the ass of Sun Wukong and Artemis backed up by Fenris. It is in my mind impossible to dislike the premise. But as I mentioned beyond that it is your standard MOBA with lanes, creeps and hiding in bushes. But the third person view give you a lot more control and lets you act and react to things in a much more dynamic way than the usual point and click top down view.

I have had some very nice fun with it. A lot more then I thought from the start and while I know that HotS is a standard top down MOBA, SMITE will give me a good sense for how a MOBA works without all the annoying click and clack. The gameplay of SMITE plays a lot like a mix between Diablo and a regular third person shooter, especially if you play a range characters. How you use your basic attacks to pummel your opposition and then spice it up with special attacks themed to the god you play, often very flashy and satisfying.

It is also fun to see how much respect they pay to the gods, most designs pull a lot from the mythos around the gods and you can often find small hidden gems if you know the lore of this or that god. It is also fun to see the use of Mayan gods, a mythos often overlooked in this part of the world. Each god is also fairly distinct and visually interesting. Now with that being said there is a lot of divine booty flashing and cleavage deep enough to hide Bacchus in. All hidden behind a flimsy excuse that they actually dressed a lot of the goddesses in more clothes tan they had in their original source material. Now I have nothing against a well-shaped human being and since we are dealing with gods such banalities as armor and other types of proper protection is easier to explain away… Would it hurt to even it out between the male and female characters?

Aphrodite... More dressed then Venus from the sea... But only just.

Neith... I guess she flash less then some ancient art. Still pretty much a pinup.

By comparison... Tor Odinson.

But the game itself is very fun and since it is pretty much free to play (if you do not mind the grind and random access to gods in the beginning.) I see no reason that you would not check it out if you like weird MOBAs or third person brawler games.

That is all today…. Come back Sunday for a trip on the hype train fo