Cross-Faction Instances Coming Soon TM

Cross-Faction Instances Coming Soon TM

After years of people asking the wow team has finally announced they will be adding cross-faction instances to World of Warcraft. Starting with the 9.2.5 PTR they will test this option for premade groups for raids, dungeons, and rated PVP.

This will be completely optional by just checking a box when looking for a group or looking for people in premade group finder. This also will not be like mercenary mode for battlegrounds where you change factions and races. This is true cross-faction, you can be a human and group up with an orc.

Now with this said the blue post that was posted today did note that some legacy raids would not work with a cross-faction group. They all seemed to make sense like Battle of dazar'alor which heavily relies on the faction divide. ICC is another one that will not work because of the gunship battle, and Trial of the Crusader. Pretty much if the faction divide is the core piler of the content then it will take more time to get cross-faction play to work.

All this being said, this will not change anything in the open world of the game. So if you have war mode on the opposite faction is still game. Cross faction play is more for the end-user, not lore. The Horde and Alliance still have their uneasy armistice and the drums of war will once again thunder. But for you and me if we need an extra body for raid our friends on the opposite faction can help us out.

Maybe one day the Horde and Alliance will find true peace, for now, the faction divide is still a pillar of Warcraft but for gameplay sake, the developers will make a slite change of course and allow us to play together.

Shadowlands Meh…

Shadowlands Meh…

I keep wanting to write this post and I keep backing off because I really don't know how I feel about Shadowlands. It's been a very confusing time for me in WoW. It's end of the expansion and we have months until pre-patch, and even when I hear things about shadowlands I just feel meh about it.

It started back at BlizzCon when they announced Shadowlands as the next expansion. I was excited like everyone else until the featured part of the trailer came up and it showed ”level cap 60”. Up until that point it had only been rumored that a level squish might happen. I really didn't think much of it just silently hoping it would get shutdown internally. 

But it didn't and I told myself it really didn't matter and tried to move on with my life. Over the coming months as Alpha became available and more information kept coming out about the game nothing felt exciting to me. I couldn't explain it. Normally I would be all over that news and looking at whatever spoilers I could find on wowhead. 

But I really just felt indifferent to it all. They tested the new starting leveling experience for new players and I liked it and it was something needed for the game, but when I thought about it more I felt disappointed about the leveling experience after that and the fact that all my years of playing is going to boil back down to level 60. 

I know the number doesn't mean really anything at all. But psychologically it bugs me to no end. I'm not one to get up and arms about things in wow even if I don't agree with it. I didn't agree in Warlords when they scrapped the major faction city's in favor of ashran. I didn't like it but I lived with it. I didn't mind garrisons in wod. I felt like if they had kept the city's garrisons would be remembered a bit more fondly. In legion when people complained the that the artifact weapon system wasn't alt friendly,  didn't bother me I felt like it was more of a reason to play my alts.  Even the heart of azeroth system wasn't my favorite thing but I lived with it and even enjoyed things like island expeditions. 

Part of me it feels pointless to do a level squish. I know they are doing it for new players so it's a less jaring number. With no context of how long a level is it might seem like a lot to do 120+ levels. But in reality I feel like it isn't a factor with how fast leveling is even with out heirlooms gear it doesn't take long. Unlike say the stat squishes where there was a tenincally thing. We where getting numbers so big that the wow engine couldn't handle any bigger numbers. So I can live with that. The level situation could have been fixed in other ways. A level squish will be a temporary fix cause at some point we will be back to level 100+ again and we will be doing this all over again. The true fix to all this is really whole new game either WoW 2 or something else.

My point is there have been plenty of things the WoW team has done that I may not have liked but I've always found a silver lining. But with the level squish I just can't do it. Chances are when Shadowlands comes out or if I get beta access I’ll look be able to look beyond it, but in the mean time when I hear shadowlands subconsciously I think of the level squish and almost every-time I just feel meh about the expansion. 

WOWOTL_Logo_v10.jpeg

NYXL VS Spitfire Kingsrow Screenshots

Comment

NYXL VS Spitfire Kingsrow Screenshots

Last weekend Overwatch League started for the 2020 season and I did some stylized screenshots of the NYXL VS Spitfire matches. I use the Overwatch League viewer and Lightroom CC to edit the screenshots. If you want the images for backgrounds or whatever you can download them here.

Comment

Danm it Daniel

Danm it Daniel

Earlier today I posted the last part of my let’s play of Life is Strange episode 3. There are a few more episodes to play threw but I’m not going to play them. I’m just done with this game.

I wanted to like Life is Strange 2 as much as the first one or before the storm. I thought the first episode was good and set things up well but by midway threw episode 2 I was tired of Daniel. He’s just so annoying and I know he is supposed to be, cause he’s the little brother but fuck by this point in the game he should grow up just a bit.

Most of the game sees to boil down to Shawn: Shawn please don’t do that. Daniel: DoN’t TeLl Me WhAt To Do I’m A gRoWn Up NoW!. He’s 9. You would think with them on the run from the police and with everything going on he would mature just a little bit. But of course, we have to protect him cause he’s family and he’s the one with the powers. But if they had given me the option I would have just little the kid next door beat him up or just turn the little shit over to the police at the start. I like Shawns character though, I wish the game had centered on him and his best friend. He should be the one with the powers. It could have focused on him dealing with his sudden new powers and maybe him looking for his runaway mother. She could have something to do with the powers in this version.

Though I do have to commend them for doing something different rather just do what would make them the most money. They could have easily done Life is Strange 2: Max goes to College and printed money. But the game we got just doesn't do it for me and I have to stress that it is just not for ME. Lots of people like it but

I just can't get into it. I just wanted to get this off my chest and explain why I'm probably not going to finish the game.

Rise of 8.2

Comment

Rise of 8.2

The WoW team dropped a big info dump about the 8.2 patch coming to the PTR. This patch is a mega patch that will not just add to the story of Battle for Azeroth but will even change one of its most hated systems. The Twitch stream they did was hosted by Senior Game Designer Jeremy Feasel. Now let’s try to squeeze all the information into a signal post.


In 8.2 we will be exploring the two new lands of Nazjatar and Mechagon Island. Nazjatar will be the focus of the patch. Like any new area we will be building up forces, and making new allies. They are adding a new system called Combat Allies. These allies will be powerful friends to have along side you and will gain experience. You will be exploring and questing threw the now risen city of Nazjatar the home of the Naga. You will be teaming up with one of two factions to make your way to the Eternal Palace. This will be the raid for 8.2 where we will confront Queen Azshara. This area will have new world quest, and rare spawns that act kind of like mini world bosses. 


Mechagon is a long-lost island of the Mechagnomes. The gnomes here are half gnome half robot. They are led by King Mechagon. This area is a gnomish island where you will be helping to rebuild a mechagnome town. This area will have its own new world quests and have special rare spawns, like the old Timeless Island in Pandaria. The island will also have a new mega dungeon, much like return to Karazan in legion this will be an 8 boss mythic only dungeon. In the dungeon you will be making your way to King Mechagon to stop his plan to detonate a bomb that will turn everyone into robots.


One of the biggest changes coming to the game will be a change to the much hated Heart of Azeroth. You will be helping to rebuild the chamber of hearts. The Heart Forge will be the new focal point of the necklace. Like in legion where you had some kind of place to put your artifact when you added power to it. Now you will be doing this with your Heart of Azeroth. Once you place it there you can unlock traits with some passive abilities and some will have active abilities. From their description of this new system it seems like artifact system 2.0. 

For PVP players you will be getting a new arena called the Robodome. PVPers will also be getting Ashran as epic battle ground, and mounts for season 3 of Battle for Azeroth. They will be adding new content for war mode as well.


We are not done yet because in 8.2 you will be able to unlock flying in both Kul’Tiras and Zandalar, when you complete path finder part II you will be rewarded with a new robot parrot mount. On the subject of mounts they are adding something new called mount equipment. These items can be equipped to your mount journal and can give your mounts special abilities. One of those abilities being water walking. Any mount can walk on water or many other things. If you are a fan of island expeditions, they will be adding two new islands. 


They dumped a lot of information on us today. For those of you who want to see this content before released you can hop on to the PTR and try it out next week. An official launch date for the patch was not mentioned. You can watch todays stream in its entirety here. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/409517953?t=29m44s 

WoW_CrucibleOfStorms_3840x2160.jpg

Comment

Lightborn Undead

Comment

Lightborn Undead

The other day was April fools and many places did joke posts. The wow team had there April Fools patch notes and even Wowhead got into the spirit with fake 8.2 PTR data mining. One of the things that were “found” in this data was a new allied race light bound undead.


Now as far as I know this is an April Fools joke and light bound undead is not coming to the game as an allied race in 8.2, but they might be coming to the game someday soon. For those of you who don’t know in the book Before the Storm Calia Menethil (whom you might remember from the priest order hall in Legion) was killed in the chaos of the undead and human get together in the Arathi Highlands. She was then taken to the priest order hall where Saa’ra rises Calia back to life as the first ever light bound undead.


The light born has been referenced recently in game. The 8.1 War campaign ends with you doing the quest fate of Jaina where you attend a meeting about the aftermath of the raid. At one point Anduin askes asks Jaina how she is doing and she says " So much transpired while I was away. Anduin... I've heard rumors about an old friend of mine-- Calia Menethil. What happened in Arathi?"  All of this could only mean that the light bound undead will be a major faction going into the future of the game. My guess we will be introduced to the light bound undead by the end of Battle for Azeroth. Of course in the book, Caila Menethil was the only one but some time has passed and there could be more now.


With all that being said, what would light bound undead be like in WoW? Well, I would think they would be like the light forged Draenei, where they look just like Draenei but they have cool looking light tattoos. But what if the WoW team wanted to do something different and made light bound undead a neutral allied race. Much like the Pandaren, you would get to choose to side with the Horde or the Alliance.


This would make sense for the narrative they explored in legion where light and void are not necessarily good or evil. Thus the light bound undead not be Horde or Alliance and would choose. Before you say “but horde already has undead why would they have light undead too” well the Alliance already had Draenei but we still got Light Forged Draenei as an allied race.


Now I’m going to go one step further, what if light forged undead became a normal race attached to a new hero class. They could be some kind of super priest or light mage. They could say being risen as an undead by the light caused their powers to become stronger. They would still be neutral. Now I know this is unlikely but since we just got Deamon Hunters in Legion so getting another Hero Class is unlikely plus it would just add to the growing problem of class balance. I just really want a range Hero Class.


8.2 could hit the PTR anytime now and I'm sure we will not see light born undead. I truly think we will see them soon in the game and then further in the future we will be able to play them. They might even be the key to saving Azeroth herself.

Comment

A Case for Mega Timewalking Week

Comment

A Case for Mega Timewalking Week

Another timewalking week has come and gone. Once again I find myself thinking of the same thing I think of every time this event comes up. Why can’t I queue for the timewalking I want. What I want to propose is having a mega timewalking event.

When timewalking came out we had two events, Burning Crusade, and Lich King. It made sense to have one when the event came up. Now we those two, Cataclysm, Mist of Pandaria, and Warlords of Draenor coming soon. That makes five different timewalking events. With five different events it can be months before the one you want comes up again. It’s nice that they use a standard currency with time-warped badges. If you want a toy or a pet from the mist event and Burning Crusade is coming up, you will be waiting at least a month or more before you can redeem your badges.

I would love it if they combined all the timewalking events into one event. When the timewalking event happens, all the vendors would be up. You would be able to pick the timewalking dungeon you want to do. Most importantly you would be able to spend your badges the way you want to spend them.

I don’t feel like this would be a hard change to make for Blizzard, and I feel like it would make a lot of people happy. I’m sure they will be adding more timewalking raids, and this one week would allow for more choice. I would like to see them make this change sooner rather than later. I feel like it will get to a point they won’t have a choice.

Comment

The Sims4 StrangerVille

Comment

The Sims4 StrangerVille

A mystery is a foot in the Sims world, and our sims need to solve it. Today the sims announced The Sims 4 StrangerVille. Which will be available Tuesday, February 26th. We don't know a whole lot right now about this game pack. We know we are getting new items, clothing, and the town of Strangerville. If you remember in the sims 2 Strangertown was one one of the towns you could play. It had a strange story to go along with it. “Truth-seekers move to Strangetown hoping to discover the secrets the town holds. Do aliens live among us? Do missing Sims mysteriously appear here? In this town, nothing is what it seems.”

Here are some of the other stores in Strangetown:


Outside of this, we don't know a whole lot about this game pack. Including the most important thing the price. If that information comes out I will update this article but until then like the rest of this pack, it is a mystery.

Comment

Uldir a Review

Comment

Uldir a Review

Oh boy, the first of Battle for Azeroth is in the books now. We are well into the Battle of Dezarlor. Now is a good time to look back and talk about how was the first tire of the expansion.

I have to start off and say this was not my favorite raid ever. I've never cared much for the Uld type raids like Ulduar. They have always seemed like busy work to me and this time it was a little more relevant to the story. They could have started the expiation by doing two different raids. Like have Uldir as horde centered raid and have Crucible of Storms for the Alliance. But that is not what they did.

If you like Old Gods and bugs then this might have been the raid for you. Being the first raid tier we had plenty of game bugs to go with the creepy crawly kind. We had useful ones. Like as a mage being able to use frost orb to reset MOTHER to skip the trash you have to do to open the door to get to her. Some halted progression for some. a big problem they had, was a design problem. Some bosses were designed with certain classes in mind or in some cause required. This is fine when you are doing mythic raiding and have at least one of every class.

QIKSNY87OGPG1536675171807.jpg

I know with the team I raid with, we got to Zul on heroic and we ran into the issue. We felt we needed a Death Knight to pull adds in during the fight. From all the kill videos we saw most of those groups had a Death Night but we didn't and we were hindered by that. I then finally had to team up with another raid team to get past him. Until that point, we had to get more geared and learned other fights. The other bosses went down as they should Zul was the one that had us and others were in our same boat.

UKYLEUIYJP091537884245825.jpg

This was also the first raid tier where we didn't have tier gear sets. Instead, we had Azerite gear, which had its issues. For most people, the problem was grinding out Azerite. Other people have the issue with the traits on the gear. The fact that some of the best in slots came from doing mythic plus dungeons and not from the raid itself.

The mythic world first race took only a week and a day for Method to beat. I mean the where other guilds but come on we all knew Method was going to get it. Though the race in this expansion docent end with world first it's the first 100 this time around. The hall of fame is a new thing the WoW team is trying. Once 100 Horde and 100 Alliance guilds have cleared mythic then cross realm mythic raiding is turned on. It only took the Horde until 10/14/18 to get their 100 but allianced lagged behind not getting their 100 until 11/5/18. So it was 2 months before cross-realm mythic raiding could happen. As a non-mythic raider it docent effect me. But I do feel like this is a bad system. Nowadays with cross-realm normal and heroic raiding, and sharding. Why does it matter if everyone is on the same realm for the hardest raid content. Mythic raiding should be cross realm from the get-go. Though I do like the hall of fame and they should keep it as a bragging rights thing. But lose that as a rule for cross-realm raiding.

Uldir was a mixed bag of problems. But once things had been hot fixed and people got the hang of it, Uldir was an average raid. I doubt anyone will look back at this raid with fond memories of the bosses. It will be the first raid where we got to see the changes from legion to BFA take effect. We are currently in the next raid and I think this one might be the most beloved. But we will have wait and see.

J3VLES3ERBD31537884245828.jpg

Comment

Did The Overwatch League Kill Heroes Stars

Did The Overwatch League Kill Heroes Stars

Three years ago at BlizzCon Overwatch League was announced. That day was a happy day for the esposts and Blizzard community. But I couldn’t help think that things like HGC (The Heros Global Champion) would either change or be axed. A year after Overwatch league launched HGC is no more. I want to say before you read the rest of this. That this is all speculation and my opinion, as to what lead to Activision Blizzard killing off HGC and Heroes of the Dorm.

What Was HGC:

The heroes Global Championship was Heroes of the Storms pro league. Teams from across different regions would compete every weekend to qualify for land events, that where held quarterly. After the regular season was over, the best of the best went to a land event at Blizzcon where the HGC Champion was crowned.

On December 13th 2018 Activision Blizzard announced they would not be doing HGC or Heroes of the Dorm in 2019. This came after weeks of teams and fans alike complaining to Blizzard about what was going on with HGC. They finally got their answer and it wasn’t what they wanted to hear. Though I feel like their had been clues before the announcement was made.

IMG_6727.jpg

Clues:

I feel like we had clues that things were a miss be hind the seance. For me my big clue that something might be wrong was when one of the North American announcers was leaving. Now thats not too odd, announcers leave for other leagues and jobs all the time. Something about a video Gillyweed made. Where she said she was not going to be part of HGC for the next season (the season that never happened). She seemed liked she might have known that there was something off with HGC. As far as anyone knows most of the teams and only found out like an hour before the the December 13th message.


The biggest clue to me was the silence after the finals had happen. When the players cant even get a confirmation that the league was going to happen in 2019. That should send off red alert sounds in your head. I of course tried to stay positive though in the back of my head. But I knew when Blizzard did say something it wasn't going to be good news.

Overwatch League:

Overwatch league was announced back at BlizzCon 2016. They then had their Inaugural season last year 2018. In-between the announcement and first match we learned that Overwatch League was going to be whole new beast to the esports seance. Unlike many esports leagues, team owners have to make a significant investment when owning teams. The reported coast for a team spot in the overwatch league is around $30 million. Most other esports you can own a team for around $600K.

With that being said, you can see why Blizzard might want to move the other esports leagues to this model or get rid of them. Lucky for the teams and Activision Blizzard the first season was success. With season 2 starting in a few weeks.

Countdown_to_kickoff.jpg

Overwater League killed the Heroes Star?:

From everything I have seen it seems like OWL is a much safer and financially better than HGC. When it comes down to it that’s what matters to Activision Blizzard, and any company running a esports league. HGC was never the most popular too which I’m sure had something to do with the cancellation of the league.

Luckily for Heroes esports Community run leagues have popped up so they will still have a outlet. But who knows what will happen to blizzards other esports. For now HGC is the only casualty. Maybe they will find ways to make the other leagues more profitable for Activision Blizzard and the teams, so they don’t end up like HGC.

Battle for Lordaeron in Screen Shots

Battle for Lordaeron in Screen Shots

Screen shots of the Battle for Lordaeron. I think it goes with out saying that their are plenty of spoilers here. You have been warned.

Boralus in Screen Shots

Boralus in Screen Shots

These are screen shots of Boralus, being images from alpha their maybe spoilers so you are warned.

Updated: 5/21/18

Some Thoughts on Life is Strange Before the Storm

Some Thoughts on Life is Strange Before the Storm

Today I released the last part of my Life is Strange Before the Storm lets play, and I wanted to take a moment and just look back at the whole game. I want to say I really loved playing threw this game and was just as Emotionally invested as I was in the first Life is Strange. Be warned I will be talking about spoilers in this blog post.

0d16bba0166212bf69c5ed7aa9f10955.PNG

When I started playing in the first chapter it was kind of like watching Titanic or any movie based on real events, you know the ending and your just there for the ride. By the end I was fairly surprised and kind of even forgot about what happens to Rachel in the first game, then at like the last second the rip your hart out. 

Threw out the game you get so attached to Rachel Amber and almost as much as Chloe dose, but Ive also been playing Life is Strange on iOS since it came out for that platform recently and Im reminded she's going to eventually cheat on you with Frank. It just makes the whole relationship feel so hart braking. At the start of Life is Strange Chloe is posting missing posters everywhere like she's a puppy looking for her owner, when in reality her owner just left her at the side of the road. I mean Rachel is dead at the point but even if she was alive she was going to be with Frank not Chloe.

77434c4e4e45a20d75beec0cd430eb55.png


Now the problem I have with the game is the big choice they give you at the end of Before The Storm. In Life is Strange your big choice at the end is to go back to when you first save Chloe from Nathan in the girls bathroom and just let Chloe get shot, thus saving the town from the storm, or Let the storm happen and kill everyone in town but Max and Chloe. Well in Before the Storm the big choice is Let Rachel know what her father was going to do to keep her away from her mother or Lie to her so she can think that her father isn't completely a bad guy. 

c5c661ca3a3a1e9f619b801e803ff007.jpg

I Chose to lie to her and that seemed to have as happy of an ending as that game could have. Now thinking about the events that happen at the end it seems kind of pointless. The events at the end of the game are you figure out that Rachels dad hired Damon to kill off Rachels birth mom and being good buds with Frank was also involved with this plan until he gets stabbed by Damon in the junk yard (might be different with different choices). He then saves the day as Chloe is passed out. We are lead to believe at the end that Frank killed Damon. Now if Rachel is hooking up with Frank after the events of Before the Storm then he could easily tell her what really happened that day and undo our choice. Thus probably sending Rachel down a self destructive road that would probably kill her or at the very least have her end up like her birth mother. After thinking of it like that it makes me wonder if maybe telling Rachel the truth is probably the better choice.

Playing Life is Strange on mobile and seeing notes from Rachel and when you find her body makes that game even more heartbreaking and Emotionally draining as it was the first time I played it. In 3 episodes they made the first game feel new again. I have to also say I love and hate the end (or at least the end I got), where you see how happy Chloe and Rachel are and how in love Chloe seems and it seems like a happy end. Then they cut to the basement studio and Rachels binder and her phone as Chloe is desperately trying to reach her and you just hear the clicks of Mr. Jeffersons camera in the background. Its like aww this is a sweet ending then oh god no I forgot what happens to her, and they just rip your hart out.

Well thats really all I wanted to share about Life is Strange Before the Storm. I couldn't recommend it more if you have played Life is Strange. If you haven't played either I would recommend these games they are certainly a Emotionally ride.

Sad News: RIP Hayven Games

Sad News: RIP Hayven Games

Today we learned something I had a feeling about for awhile now. The last video for Hayven Games was released. The video its self is just a picture of his pally with the end music that he used in all his videos playing in the background. In the description this was written

Hayven passed away on the 18th of Mars 2017, 26 years old.

He was an inspiration to many and someone who cared immensely about his fans and community.

Hayven had fought epithelioid sarcoma, a rare and severe form of cancer that usually affects teenagers and young adults.

You will always be missed Hayven, and although you lost to cancer, you have forever won our hearts.

=======================================

All earnings from Hayvens YouTube channel and Patreon will from now on be donated to cancer research.

=======================================
Music used:
Silent Partner - Yard Sale
— https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVlrHid817I&t=15s

Im glad that he left the password to his youtube channel and other stuff to someone. So many times youtubers go silent suddenly and the community can only speculate as to what happen to them. In Hayvens case he was very open about his cancer so when he went silent I think must of us knew the worst had happen. Thankfully whoever has control of his channel now let us know of his passing.

I found his channel one night when I couldn't sleep, I wanted to find hidden things in wow and I found the goldmine with Hayven Games. I just ended up spending a few hours just watching all the videos he had out at the time. I subscribed that night and have looked forward to new videos up till today. 

I have made a playlist of my 10 favorite videos that he has done. I had to limit myself to 10 or else I would have added just about everything to the list. If you have never seen any of his videos I would recommend going to his channel and checking them out.

 

Happy 2017

1 Comment

Happy 2017

It's finally here 2017, congrats to all those who survived 2016 and condolences to all that did not. Now that it is January I will continue to do more games like sim city, though I need to share something about that in a minute. I also want to keep doing tech news and how to's.


So sim city, I want to keep doing it because I had so much fun playing it for my let's play over the holidays but the problem is some how the server corrupted my save file. From what I can gather there is nothing I can do to fix it, every fix I have tried has not worked and it's just an issue on EAs end that will probably never be fixed. So when I continue it I will have to start over with my city.


Now let's talk about the live stream over the holidays I played halo 2 which was fun and you should check out the VOD of the stream here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmjny8fQikpef4TdBrC04BmPWZn_S3l1D . In that time I have gotten the new final fantasy and I will be playing that soon on stream. It's a final fantasy game so it's going to be a long one. I feel like the stream will be a good place for it.


That's all I have the updates I have for now. Happy new year and have a grate 2017.

1 Comment