Gamescom 2024 in Cologne, Germany, is about to begin with Geoff Keighley’s Opening Night Live spectacle, a two-hour parade of trailers, advertisements, and ideally, new game announcements that kick off the show and set the stage for the event… oh yeah, and give those of us back home some distraction. Thanks to public hints and […]

It’s time for Gamescom, friendos. Geoff Keighley is back to host another big video game showcase, and this time it’s the Opening Night Live presentation before Gamescom. The German event is taking place from August 21 to 25 in Cologne, but before fans, press, and developers explore the showfloor, we get to see a big…

Read more...

Blizzard had a few things happen in the last week or so, which means it is probably time for a quick catch up.

I don’t even have much of a side story for the opener.  It is raining here.  That is something, though it is hardly a Blizzard.  Also, “first Friday” is a thing with some groups, a day to go out and have dinner or just hang around with pals.  Sometimes it is a civic thing.  Not something that I have ever observed, but it was either that or a Groundhog Day reference, so let’s move on.

• A New Blizzard President

After the blood letting of last week Microsoft has announced a new leader over at Blizzard to replace the mediocre Mike Ybarra who either jumped or was pushed, depending on who is telling the tale, from the pinnacle at the company.  Either way, he had a golden parachute to soften the blow considerably and is gamely talking about exciting new opportunities as though his caretaker stewardship of Blizz was a monumental achievement.

Replacing him will be Johanna Faries, who starts in the position on Monday, but who has already sent out an anodyne and artificially upbeat company-wide email heralding her arrival.

Faries previously headed the Call of Duty franchise on the Activision side of the house so, while I know nothing about her, she at least knows how to deliver content more than once every other year, something Blizzard and the WoW team could likely learn from.  There are a bunch of new articles about this, but I was most amused by the Venture Beat entry which breathlessly asks if she can save the studio!  SAVE THE STUDIO that is probably still bringing in close to a billion dollars annually.

Save us Johanna Faries, you’re our only hope!

I for one welcome our new Call of Duty overlord!  Please don’t make me regret that statement.

Also, I do wonder if she is getting the Mike Ybarra or the Jen Oneal compensation package, because Mike’s compensation was high than Jen’s.

• A Pet from Prime Gaming

Blizzard once more has something for you in retail WoW over at Amazon’s Prime Gaming.  This time it is a companion pet.

Once claimed on your account you can summon your new pet and interact with it.

Sail the seas of Azeroth with Cap’n Crackers. Just don’t say anything you wouldn’t want repeated for the next 20 years. Cap’n Crackers is interactable: if you /whistle at this pet, Cap’n Crackers will sit upon your character’s shoulder. This pet is summonable at any level.

Now, is it any good at pet battles?  Or is it just another generic avian?

WoW Instructions page for collecting this pet.

• Season of Discovery Update February 8th

We already knew that phase 2 of WoW Classic Season of Discovery was coming up in February… next Thursday to be exact… and some of the more general information about it, like Gnomeregan being converted to a raid, but Blizz now has a post with much greater details and it is up on PTR which means the data miners are going crazy.

Josh Greenfeld has some words about the data mining over on Twitter:

I wanted to take a moment to talk about datamining and the PTR.

You will see many things in datamining if you seek it out, some of it is real, some of it is experimental things that will never see the light of day. I’d take all of it with many grains of salt. Additionally, any stats or abilities are subject to change at any time.

Re: PTR – The only thing testable normally on the 1.15.1 PTR is non-seasonal Era and Hardcore, and you may be wondering “Why did you put 1.15.1 on the PTR at all?” and that’s a fair question. The full and real answer is that by having no PTR for the SoD content itself, we put a lot of pressure and stress on our live operations and support teams that help us run the game as we may have increased live support requirements around our launch for any issues that may escape to live.

Having no Era PTR for the patch at all compounds this further because then we can’t catch systemic problems such as server issues and crashes that will affect all versions of vanilla classic, and we run the risk of making the launch unstable for many players.

So don’t believe everything you read I guess… or just don’t go digging into that stuff if you don’t want spoilers or disappointment when things seen do not come to pass.

Meanwhile, in emphasizing the raid-centric view of the WoW team, Blizz was all over social media about how phase 2 would not allow GDKP for raids going forward.  That led me to two questions.  First, what is GDKP and, and second, what is Blizz going to do about it?

Google answered the first, at least somewhat generically.  Blizz, on the other hand, has been less than informative.  But there assumption up front seems to be we all know what it means, what they’re on about, and what they’re going to do.

It is one of those things where Blizz reveals what they care about and who they are really communicating with.  If you don’t raid you aren’t on their radar.

Anyway, even once somebody explained it to me in a jargon free way, I was still kind of “so what?”  But PC Gamer, they assert that this change has SET THE COMMUNITY ON FIRE!

Save us Johanna Faries, you’re our only hope!

• Which Diablo is This Diablo?

In a surprisingly low key announcement Blizzard announced that the first two Warcraft titles, Warcraft: Orcs & Humans and Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, were now available in the Battle.net online store, along with the original Diablo.

And I have questions.  We got versions of those, including the original Diablo from GoG.com a few years back.  Is this the same version of the game as that, including the same issues and limitations?  Is this something new and better, or at least something that has updated compatibility.  But over at the Battle.net store it is as quiet as the Sphinx, posing a riddle it will not answer:  What am I getting for my ten bucks?

If it was improved I might consider it.  If it is the same as the one on GoG.com, I already own it and am not keen to buy yet another copy of the game simply to get one that is tied to Blizz directly.

And the same applies to the two Warcraft titles.  I can’t tell if this is deceit or indifference on the part of Blizz.

Blizzard had a few things happen in the last week or so, which means it is probably time for a quick catch up.

I don’t even have much of a side story for the opener.  It is raining here.  That is something, though it is hardly a Blizzard.  Also, “first Friday” is a thing with some groups, a day to go out and have dinner or just hang around with pals.  Sometimes it is a civic thing.  Not something that I have ever observed, but it was either that or a Groundhog Day reference, so let’s move on.

• A New Blizzard President

After the blood letting of last week Microsoft has announced a new leader over at Blizzard to replace the mediocre Mike Ybarra who either jumped or was pushed, depending on who is telling the tale, from the pinnacle at the company.  Either way, he had a golden parachute to soften the blow considerably and is gamely talking about exciting new opportunities as though his caretaker stewardship of Blizz was a monumental achievement.

Replacing him will be Johanna Faries, who starts in the position on Monday, but who has already sent out an anodyne and artificially upbeat company-wide email heralding her arrival.

Faries previously headed the Call of Duty franchise on the Activision side of the house so, while I know nothing about her, she at least knows how to deliver content more than once every other year, something Blizzard and the WoW team could likely learn from.  There are a bunch of new articles about this, but I was most amused by the Venture Beat entry which breathlessly asks if she can save the studio!  SAVE THE STUDIO that is probably still bringing in close to a billion dollars annually.

Save us Johanna Faries, you’re our only hope!

I for one welcome our new Call of Duty overlord!  Please don’t make me regret that statement.

Also, I do wonder if she is getting the Mike Ybarra or the Jen Oneal compensation package, because Mike’s compensation was high than Jen’s.

• A Pet from Prime Gaming

Blizzard once more has something for you in retail WoW over at Amazon’s Prime Gaming.  This time it is a companion pet.

Once claimed on your account you can summon your new pet and interact with it.

Sail the seas of Azeroth with Cap’n Crackers. Just don’t say anything you wouldn’t want repeated for the next 20 years. Cap’n Crackers is interactable: if you /whistle at this pet, Cap’n Crackers will sit upon your character’s shoulder. This pet is summonable at any level.

Now, is it any good at pet battles?  Or is it just another generic avian?

WoW Instructions page for collecting this pet.

• Season of Discovery Update February 8th

We already knew that phase 2 of WoW Classic Season of Discovery was coming up in February… next Thursday to be exact… and some of the more general information about it, like Gnomeregan being converted to a raid, but Blizz now has a post with much greater details and it is up on PTR which means the data miners are going crazy.

Josh Greenfeld has some words about the data mining over on Twitter:

I wanted to take a moment to talk about datamining and the PTR.

You will see many things in datamining if you seek it out, some of it is real, some of it is experimental things that will never see the light of day. I’d take all of it with many grains of salt. Additionally, any stats or abilities are subject to change at any time.

Re: PTR – The only thing testable normally on the 1.15.1 PTR is non-seasonal Era and Hardcore, and you may be wondering “Why did you put 1.15.1 on the PTR at all?” and that’s a fair question. The full and real answer is that by having no PTR for the SoD content itself, we put a lot of pressure and stress on our live operations and support teams that help us run the game as we may have increased live support requirements around our launch for any issues that may escape to live.

Having no Era PTR for the patch at all compounds this further because then we can’t catch systemic problems such as server issues and crashes that will affect all versions of vanilla classic, and we run the risk of making the launch unstable for many players.

So don’t believe everything you read I guess… or just don’t go digging into that stuff if you don’t want spoilers or disappointment when things seen do not come to pass.

Meanwhile, in emphasizing the raid-centric view of the WoW team, Blizz was all over social media about how phase 2 would not allow GDKP for raids going forward.  That led me to two questions.  First, what is GDKP and, and second, what is Blizz going to do about it?

Google answered the first, at least somewhat generically.  Blizz, on the other hand, has been less than informative.  But there assumption up front seems to be we all know what it means, what they’re on about, and what they’re going to do.

It is one of those things where Blizz reveals what they care about and who they are really communicating with.  If you don’t raid you aren’t on their radar.

Anyway, even once somebody explained it to me in a jargon free way, I was still kind of “so what?”  But PC Gamer, they assert that this change has SET THE COMMUNITY ON FIRE!

Save us Johanna Faries, you’re our only hope!

• Which Diablo is This Diablo?

In a surprisingly low key announcement Blizzard announced that the first two Warcraft titles, Warcraft: Orcs & Humans and Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, were now available in the Battle.net online store, along with the original Diablo.

And I have questions.  We got versions of those, including the original Diablo from GoG.com a few years back.  Is this the same version of the game as that, including the same issues and limitations?  Is this something new and better, or at least something that has updated compatibility.  But over at the Battle.net store it is as quiet as the Sphinx, posing a riddle it will not answer:  What am I getting for my ten bucks?

If it was improved I might consider it.  If it is the same as the one on GoG.com, I already own it and am not keen to buy yet another copy of the game simply to get one that is tied to Blizz directly.

And the same applies to the two Warcraft titles.  I can’t tell if this is deceit or indifference on the part of Blizz.