The price won't be revealed until the console is added to your cart, but for $80 off, this is a deal you won't want to miss before Black Friday. The deal also includes free 2-day shipping, so right now is the perfect time to find a good hiding spot for all your holiday gifts.
This storm grey Xbox One S console comes packaged with a matching controller, 500 GB of storage space, and a copy of Battlefield 1. This bundle released last October with the launch of the WWI shooter; a similar 1TB bundle was released simultaneously.
With Paris Games Week at its end, and BlizzCon still going strong, lots of new announcements dropped this week for PS4 and more. Aside from all the new games announced at Paris Games Week, we're seeing a lot of different updates and some early Black Friday deals.
Sony Exec Defends That Very Violent The Last Of Us 2 Trailer: The Last of Us 2 saw its latest trailer revealed at Paris Games Week but was criticized for its graphic violence against women. PlayStation executive Jim Ryan claims that the title is M rated for a reason.
This Week's PS4, PS3, And PS Vita Deals Detailed: This week features a limited-time double discount, so if you're a PlayStation Plus subscriber, you'll get double the savings on all of this week's deals.
Grab A PS Plus One-Year Membership For Only $40: Amazon and GameStop are offering $20 off deal on a year-long PlayStation Plus membership. But like all good things, it's limited, so grab it before you miss it.
BlizzCon 2017: New Overwatch Hero Moira Announced: Blizzard opened its annual convention with a bang. The title's character roster is still expanding with a new face: Moira, a healer/DPS hybrid character.
World of Warcraft has a new expansion on the way, but even though this is the seventh major addition to Blizzard's MMO, it still might be a good place for newbies to join. At Blizzcon 2017, we talked with WoW production director John Hight about that new player experience and what features will be introduced in the newly announced expansion.
The transcript below has been edited for content and clarity.
I feel like the Horde and the Alliance have actually been getting closer and closer together, but Battle for Azeroth pushes the two sides apart again. It's really focusing on that original faction experience. But what was the impetus to separate the two again?
John Hight: As they have been historically right? They'll come together, they'll fight a common foe, and then their rift will form. And this is a pretty big rift that occurred during Legion. It was kind of an uncomfortable alliance between the Alliance and Horde to defeat a common foe, the Legion. But now that the Legion is defeated--spoilers but I think everyone knows that at some point we're going to end the expansion--things happen that left scars between the two sides. And then things happen in the opening of Battle for Azeroth that cement it. Some of the imagery that you'll see is the scene is with Sylvanas standing in front Teldrassil on fire. Then with the opening cinematic, that event was right before the Alliance finally says, "Okay, we've had it" before they assault Lordaeron. So some pretty heavy stuff is going to happen between them. And we just felt like this would be a really cool time to go back into that age old battle between Alliance and Horde.
Having two new continents...are the cartographers in Azeroth just really, really bad at their job? How do these new landmasses keep popping up?
You know, it's pretty rough out there. I mean we've only got seafaring ships and blimps. You can't possibly see everything. [laughs] They're pretty much crossing known channels.
Is it going to be something like Pandaria where it's been hidden in the mists of time?
No. I mean this was talked about in some of the fiction, and it's an area that we've avoided in the game itself. But it was in an area that's completely unknown. The whole point of it is that both sides are reaching out and trying to pull together additional allies in this big battle. And the last thing they want to do is to have one of these new areas, and people that inhabit them, fall into the hands of the other side.
I've always been more of an Alliance player. But story-wise, I get a lot of flak from Horde friends who say their lore is better. The Horde has that fall from grace, which makes them feel a little bit more relatable in some ways, whereas the humans can kind of seem like the nice guys who end up being dicks.
You know that's interesting. I play Horde more, but I try to play both sides so I have a max level character on each side. And I think I go back and forth on the story myself. I feel like ... sometimes I feel like, "Ah! The Alliance is such a better story! The Horde should have this!"
It's whatever resonates with you, I think. We don't purposefully try to make the Alliance into...whatever you said [laughs]. I think that the characters are pretty powerful. Anduin, in this expansion, is really coming in to his own. He's now stepping up to be the king, and there's a rite of passage. Even in the cinematic that we showed, there's this discovery on his part where he basically kills off a lot of Horde people around him. And then you realize, is that really his shtick or not. And he ends up doing this big mass heal, which is more what he's about. So I think he's incorporating a little bit of his father, the Alliance, and his own identity into this.
By the same token you're gonna see a lot of the evolution of Sylvanas. We saw some of her in Legion. We told some of her story--she's the chieftain of the Horde--but you're gonna see a lot more of her in Battle for Azeroth. Obviously these stories are less about this one common foe as in Legion but more about the two sides.
In that way, it seems like it's going to be a more personal story, because we've already done these kind of world ending, huge narratives.
Absolutely. It's not a big giant monster or a titan like Sargeras. Now, it's about the greatest enemy that you could possibly have. Well, it's the other guy, the other faction.
In some ways, this feels like going back to the beginning, to the original conflict of orcs versus humans. Do you feel like this is gonna be a good place for new players to start?
I think yes, in terms of the story but also in terms of what we're doing in the game itself. For a while, the level up experience hasn't gotten as much love from us as other aspects of the game. So we're going through and we're actually using the technology that we developed for Legion where you can go in to any zone. You can be at 109, I could be at 100, and yet we could have a great play experience together. So we can essentially build our areas in such a way that it's almost level independent, right?
What we're doing is going back and deploying this scaling technology across all the existing areas in Azeroth. And you'll actually be able to make choices too. For instance, as you're leveling up from one to 110, and ultimately 120 in Battle for Azeroth, you'll be able to make a decision: "Do I want to go up to Northrend and experience that content? Or do I want to go over to Burning Crusade?" There's a lot of content to cover, but we want you to have a nice, smooth leveling experience. So we're busily at that right now. We're not getting rid of any of the old quest content, so you're not gonna lose out on your favorite moments. They'll still be there.
But we just want to make sure that it's a smooth and cool experience. If you go in and play a dungeon, or if you go into quest content in a given area, you're not gonna out level it.
For someone coming in cold, we're still gonna have the beginning, one to 20 acclimation zones that get you used your spells, weapons, and abilities. And then around 20, that's when you're out in the world and you start making choices about where you want to go.
And then ally factions are gonna be really cool for both people that are new to the game and people that have played the game for a while. There are three new allied races for each side. You're gonna go through some kind of unlock content, and then once you do that you can go and create, for instance--if you're playing Horde side--you can create a Nightborn. And play from level 20 all the way up to 110. If you do that you unlock a pretty cool heritage armor set for your Nightborn.
If you don't want to do that, if you say, "Hey. I've done the unlock but now I want to start playing as a Nightborn Warlock, whatever." You can boost and go right to that, but we're trying to give that little extra incentive to people that want to go through the level-up experience again.
Those aren't entirely new races though, right?
Yeah. We call them allied races, they're an elf, for instance, in the case of the Nightborn. They're gonna have, for the most part, the same armor, the same talent tree as an elf, depending on what class you pick. There are gonna be some unique racials for those. So it's largely cosmetic. Obviously some bragging rights if you level up from the beginning and get the heritage armor set, which you can trans-mog into any armor piece. And then the Racial Abilities go on with it.
Thinking about jumping into World of Warcraft now, in some ways it's like a really long-running TV show. Like Doctor Who--you have people who are really into it, and they've been with it from the beginning. But that can be intimidating for someone to jump in from the beginning. Especially as you keep adding more and more content, that increases that barrier to entry. What is your answer to that type of person, who would be down for this kind of experience, but who feel there's too much to catch up on?
Yeah, our expectation isn't that everybody coming to the game new is gonna wanna go from the beginning. That was why we introduced the boost way back with Warlord of Draenor. It's a way for you, if you're new to the game but you wanna play with a friend but they're already at max level, you can upgrade immediately and level together. So if that's what you want to do, that's cool.
We actually have a new boost experience. You saw a taste of it with Legion, and we're gonna be updating it for Battle for Azeroth. Effectively what that does is, if you decide to boost, we are gonna run you through a scenario that teaches you about your class. But we do wanna prepare you so you aren't just completely unaware on what you need to do.
I'd actually stepped away for a while before Legion. But while that tutorial was helpful, I felt like I still had to go online to read up on the best rotations, that I needed some outside help to get a real feel for the best build for my class. Will there be more of that kind of explanation in-game?
Well, there are people that want to be max and are looking for, "I gotta make sure I get the most DPS!" And I think that there's always gonna be a large number of our fanbase that are out there doing an analysis and trying to figure out how can they can get the absolute most out of their class. But I don't think anyone should feel like they have to do that. You can be very successful in our dungeons, in our raids, without having to get the absolute last drop of best-in-slot gear possible.
In terms of the way we make the game, we're always cognoscent of new players coming in. We still have a substantial number of new players every time we roll out an expansion, which is kind of hard to believe. There's people out there that haven't played World of Warcraft! And so every time we roll out an expansion, every time we roll out a patch, we try to fine-tune it, make it a little bit easier for new folks coming in.
It's always a trade off, because we don't want to leave behind our experienced players, but we also don't want to segregate our noobs to the point where they don't get to enjoy the broader community. We are fine-tuning. You'll see little traits and features here and there, but we do have an eye on them.
Thinking about all the changes, how do you approach all these new things that you're adding with Battle for Azeroth balanced against the features and things you've added previously?
It's fun! We always earmark a feature or two in an expansion as, I don't want to call it experimental, but something that we're willing to let go the next expansion. Like, we looked at Garrisons. People wanted some form of their own, customizable space. We learned a lot from that, and I think some of those features made their way forward into order halls and the missions and followers that we had in Legion. But the notion of being cooped up in your garrison and not being out in the world--we decided that's not something we want to incorporate and make part of core WoW.
So that's what's fun about expansions. We can experiment; we keep evolving and making it better. And the stuff that was just okay but that doesn't have enough legs for us to want to stick with it.
For the second year in a row, South Korea earned the top spot in the Overwatch World Cup, beating out Team Canada in the finals this year. The South Korean team was the favorite to win going into the tournament, and their performance did not disappoint.
Blizzcon is the yearly culmination of several of Blizzard's major online gaming franchises, and other esports winners from the convention included:
Hearthstone Inn-vitational: Team Grimestreet Grifters
Blizzcon 2017 had some amazing surprises for almost every Blizzard game, but there were still a few absences, most notably Diablo. We put together a video discussing what was missing from Blizzcon 2017, which you can watch here.
This year at Blizzcon, Blizzard announced that Heroes of the Storm will add two new characters to its roster, Hanzo from Overwatch and Alexstrasza from Warcraft. But what exactly do the new heroes and other upcoming changes mean for the game? Heroes of the Storm production director Kaeo Milker walked us through what to expect from HotS over the next year, including how the matchmaking process is getting a revamp, the fate of Hanamura, and how Alexstrasza's dragon powers will work.
The following interview was edited for content and clarity.
GameSpot: I was curious about Alexstraza. It's not the first big character, but I can't imagine that you're just going to be able to switch between dragon form and her human-like form back, at will.
Kaeo Milker: Yeah, for access to her big, old dragon form, you use her trait called Dragon Queen. It's an activatable ability that only stays on for 15 seconds. So it's not like she's in dragon mode all the time; it is a delicate balance in having this gigantic dragon on the battlefield. We have body blocking, and there's a lot of things that she would interfere with. The art and design team spent a long time trying to make sure that she was this imposing force and felt really big and mighty, but didn't break the game.
So there's a balance there between her animation, the poses she's in, and also the fact that she's only in this mode for 15 seconds. But, those are a very powerful 15 seconds. It amps her health and all of her abilities get amplified as well, so you're kind of like in mega-dragon mode when you go into that.
Why was now the time to introduce a character like Alexstraza?
It's interesting. This game, we're pulling from 25-plus years of Blizzard games, and we have this giant list of all the potential heroes we could be making. There are literally hundreds of them, and they're all awesome. So we're always trying to pick, "What does the game need at this moment? What feels good? What is a role, or a niche that we haven't really filled yet, that would be a good addition, and provide players with a new, interesting choice and new strategies?"
So for Alexstraza, we knew we wanted to go with something that was a dragon aspect again. We get asked for Deathwing all the time. Deathwing is something that we'd want to be this big dragon all the time, which is just really, really difficult. So Alexstraza let us get the balance of fulfilling that dragon fantasy, and at the same time introducing a really interesting new support mechanic.
She's our first percentage-based healer. So, her Q ability takes a percentage of her health, and it gives 150% to the targeted ally. She's basically trading her own health for her ally's health. Then her W ability is an AoE heal that heals everybody who's in it, including herself. So the balance with her is trading her health for an ally's health, and then healing herself and her allies so that she keeps her health up. She can keep doing this dance of healing, losing life, gaining life. But it's a totally different mechanic we haven't had in the game before.
Thinking about adding new characters, is it based on what people are playing, or are you just looking at the overall spread of what's already created?
It's a combination--what does the game offer in general, and then a subset of that is what are people really playing now or what's getting used the most? Then we try to make sure we're just adding new things to it that feel different.
When Hanzo comes out in December, that'll be 75 heroes. It's a lot of heroes, and our goal is to make them all feel different and unique. We're looking for where's a new opportunity, what's an interesting idea we have that would fulfill a cool new fantasy that hasn't existed in the game before?
What about for maps? How do you decide, "Now's the time to introduce a new map with this kind of different mechanic"?
Battlegrounds are something that is interesting for Heroes, because it's something very unique about our game. We have all these different battlegrounds that you get to play on, and each one has totally different mechanics. They drive not only the way you play the game in that match, but it's also dictating things like which heroes are more or less powerful.
So the same thing, really, has come into play. We're balancing, fantasy-wise, creative, visually, all the things we want to bring to the game. So this year, we brought two Overwatch battlegrounds to the game for the first time, joining Diablo and Starcraft. Before that, we were making Nexus-themed battlegrounds that weren't really tied to any Blizzard worlds. But there's definitely a strong desire to bring interesting visuals that look different. And from a design standpoint, we always want the mechanics to be vastly different as well.
Our first Overwatch battleground in the last year was Hanamura, and that one introduced so many things that it was almost too much. We had to pull the battleground. Now we're reworking it, because they were just doing so many different things on it that it got a little confusing. We're taking a step back to clarify what we're doing with that one.
The second battleground we introduced was Volskaya Foundry, and that one's been awesome. It's feeling really good. It's much more focused on some core mechanics of holding a capture point, taking over a two-player boss vehicle that you get to control and wreak havoc with. It also introduced conveyor belts to the game around our capture points, and they really create some interesting moments in team fights.
What is the status of Hanamura now? Is that something you're still kind of tweaking and working on?
Yeah, we're doing a major rework on it. When it comes back, it will be dramatically different than it was. Visually a lot of the elements will still be there, but the map design, the layout, the way we're interacting with mechanics--we really liked the payload mechanic, but we had lot of other things going on in the battleground that were just causing it to take longer than we wanted it to. It just wasn't as clean as we would like it to be. So when it comes back it will be some familiar elements but distilled down to the coolest parts of what we liked about that battleground before.
For Volskaya Foundry, what's the reaction been to that, from the community?
That one's been great. I think that has a lot going for it. Structure-wise, it feels familiar enough that I think even new players can get into it and understand what they're doing. It does borrow from some things, like the capture point and holding mechanics in Overwatch, so there's something there that I think parallels really nicely and that players can understand.
Then that two-player vehicle that you get to drive is interesting because anyone who's played Cho'gall has been in this vein a little bit, but if they haven't, it actually is a good training ground for Cho'gall as well. It's like this collaboration between a driver and a gunner inside the vehicle, and it's been awesome. I think we've gotten a lot of great feedback on it.
It was really nice to follow up Hanamura with that one, and say, "All right, this one's awesome." Because at the same time that came in, we pulled out Hanamura. So we gave a little Overwatch, we took a little Overwatch; but Hanamura will be back better than ever.
Ideally we're letting each map have its identity and its own special features that are unique to it. Sometimes we do things, and we think, "Wow, that's really awesome." I think our instinct is let's put that on all the battlegrounds. But, that starts to water them all down. Something we love about the game right now is that diversity. Being able to have unique, calling-card kind of moments. Anytime we start spreading something around, it takes away from that. So, generally we try not to do it.
Thinking about dedicated events, like the Diablo Eternal Conflict, content that's focused around a single game--is that something that you've thought about bringing back?
We talk about it. We're in a world now where we really like bringing together groups of things that are related, whether it's IP specific, like Eternal Conflict, or we did Machines of War, for Starcraft. Or even events like Hallow's End, and Wintervale's coming up here pretty soon. This game's usually about all this wild diversity and crazy stuff happening, but when we take little moment focus on, we're like, "Oh cool, this is where I get to dive in deeper to this one thing that I like a lot." We really enjoy that. The team loves working on things where it's like, "We get to make Christmas skins across all the heroes! Who are we bringing into the mix?" It's a pretty fun process.
Speaking of skins, it's interesting how you have very different Overwatch skins from what we have in the Overwatch game. I was wondering how that design process works--deciding the Heroes of the Storm take on Tracer or D.Va. Do you talk to that team at all? Is it kind of a separate thing where you're like, "No, no, this is now our version of this character. We're going to do what we want"?
With a lot of the games, with Warcraft and Starcraft and Diablo, we have some interaction with the other teams, but we've largely taken them, reinterpreted them, and done what we will. Overwatch is Blizzard's newest IP, and I think it's still developing. People are still forming their opinions and knowledge of who these characters are and what they do. We've been a lot more sensitive with Overwatch about trying to really communicate a lot with the Overwatch team. They've had input on everything from the character design, the models specifically, to our abilities. We're adding a secondary heroic that they don't have in their game, and that's creating something new that hasn't existed before.
So there's a lot of back and forth with them to get that right and make sure that we're not doing anything that's veering from the course they're already trying to establish for their characters in their world. That's been a really fun process too, getting to work so closely with that team and this amazing universe that they're creating right now and still building on.
2018 is, overall, going to be another big year for Heroes of the Storm. What are some of the changes that we'll see coming to the game?
In addition to the heroes, we also introduced the 2018 Game Play Update. This is a collection of changes that are really focused in-game. Before, we were doing out-of-game stuff; this is really core game play. We're changing the way you interact with and play the game. A lot of them are really built around changing the initial phase of the game.
Right now, the game's always designed to have three phases. The initial laning phase; then this big, objective, team fight phase; and then a finale where you get to the point where one team is ready to end it all and win. The laning phase has all been really small in Heroes of the Storm. I've gotten a lot of praise for that, because there's been some who've been like, "In other games you might spend 20 minutes laning, and you're just basically waiting for the game to begin." So that's something that we were very passionate about. We didn't want this long, drawn-out laning phase. We wanted you to get to action very quickly, and I think we've succeeded with that.
But at the same time, our current laning phase was sometimes as short as one minute before an objective was spawned and everyone goes into a team fight. There was just no impact to that, so we're making changes that are really about making that initial laning phase meaningful. It's still going to be fast, it's still going to get you to the action very quickly, but it's going to allow opportunities for players initially, in 1V1 and 2V2 situations, to show their skill and be able to dominate the lane. Or, win in a way that the successes you have in that initial phase are actually to set you up for further success later on as well.
And we're excited to bring in changes where we're making adjustments to mercenaries; we removed ammo from towers. Everything's really built around just changing up that initial phase and making it feel better.
And looking ahead we're going to keep trying to make amazing heroes. Sometimes we pick a hero that might resonate with somebody who hasn't tried Heroes or even a Blizzard game in years, could be decades, and they say, "They have The Lost Vikings in Heroes of the Storm? Awesome, I want to check that out."
Is there anything else you wanted to hit on?
A lot of the changes are really focused on improving stuff that's already in the game. So, something that's big that I talked about at Opening Ceremonies, and they covered a little bit yesterday in our panel, is performance-based matchmaking.
Matchmaking is one of these eternal problems in video games. A perfect matchmaking system is ultimately going to make you lose half your games. So I think a lot of people are very critical of matchmaking systems. It's something that you're always trying to improve, but there's no such thing as perfection.
But for Heroes, we've had a lot of feedback from people about, "We're in this team-based game, and your matchmaking system basically says if I lose, my rating goes down, if I win, my rating goes up. It goes up more if I'm playing against people that are more skilled than me. It goes down more if I lose against people who are less skilled than me. But, I feel like I'm awesome. My team wasn't awesome, and I'm getting punished for it."
Performance-based matchmaking is really taking a different look at the way we do our matchmaking adjustments, and it's allowing people's performance in-game to directly influence the rating as it's changing. So, if they're an amazing Li-Ming, and we're actually going to compare their stats in the game against all of the other Li-Mings that are playing the game and be able to determine, "How good are they? Are they an upper echelon person?" We'll be able to adjust their rating accordingly. So, even if they lose, they're not going to be losing as many points as they were losing before. We're going to offset that based on their performance and give them credit for being really good. That's going to allow them to move up faster, and not move down as quickly if they're losing in certain situations. So it'll get them to where their actual skill is a lot faster.
It will also allow them to be matched up against people, both on their team and on the enemy team, that are the right skill with them. This feeling of "Why am I being matched with people who aren't as good as me?" You're very quickly going to be getting matched with people that are as good as you, and we're going to know that definitively now, based on this comparison of your personal stats.
It's an exciting thing. Players have been crying out for it saying, "Hey, I'm awesome. My team's not. What's happening here?" So, here's a really cool solution for that.
Related to that you also have the way the game deals with player toxicity. How are you guys addressing that part of the community?
So much of this game has been about trying to make decisions that minimize that in the first place, and I think we have been successful. It's always challenging with multi-player games, PVP games, and games where it's team-based. So there's always finger pointing. There's always people who have a bad day and bring it into the game and decide to bring everyone else down with them. But a lot of these changes have been about trying to create situations where people can feel good.
Right now, voice chat's coming into the game. Voice chat is something that, it's really critical in a game like this to have good communication so that you can collaborate with your team. There have been challenges with communication, and voice chat is one. And it's an opt-in system, so if you don't ever want to participate in voice chat, you don't have to. If you're in a party with friends, you're going to be automatically in it, but if you just join and are playing a game with people you don't know, you have a choice of whether or not you use it.
But I think the people who are going to use it well, and the way it's intended to be use, are going to be much better prepared to succeed in the game. Of course, if someone is not being good in there, just like everything else in our game, you'll be able to mute, report, and get them off, then not talk to them anymore.
This year's BlizzCon has finally arrived, which means there's a multitude of news for some of Blizzard's biggest games. From the new Overwatch character reveal to the announcement of the new World of Warcraft expansion, there's a whole lot of exciting news and announcements waiting to be revealed. We've compiled all the biggest ones from the show below.
What news and announcements are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments below, and be sure to check back often as we update this article with more news and trailers.
New Overwatch Map Is A Blizzard Theme Park--Alongside a new character, Overwatch is adding a new map that fans of any Blizzard game will likely enjoy, with areas themed after Warcraft, StarCraft, and more.
In our Blizzcon Overwatch interview, the devs talk about addressing player toxicity and whether there's a chance we'd ever see a real-life "Blizzard World."
StarCraft II
StarCraft II Will Soon Be Free To Play--Beginning this month, players will be able to play through StarCraft II's Wings of Liberty campaign and co-op mode for no cost.
The latest UFC title is due out this February, and its cover champion has just been revealed. EA Sports UFC 3 global cover athlete is Connor McGregor.
McGregor is the only UFC athlete to ever hold titles in two different weight classes at the same time. He's also known for the quickest UFC knockout in history, defeating Jose Aldo in just 13 seconds in the 2015 UFC Featherweight Championships.
But fighting legends aside, UFC 3 has a bunch of new features in store. For the first time ever, you'll be able to take on your own path in the UFC scene in the G.O.A.T. career mode. You'll have to promote your fights, gain fans, and even some enemies to claim the title of Greatest of All Time.
Complementing the new career mode is a new animation system dubbed Real Player Motion. EA claims this new system makes every move more fluid and responsive.
If you're a returning UFC fan, UFC 2's Knockout Mode is making a comeback to keep the fists flying with your friends. This multiplayer suite has a number of different ways to play from Stand and Bang, Submission Showdown, and Fight Now Custom.
EA Sports UFC 3 is out on February 2, 2018. You'll be able to catch it on both PS4 and Xbox One.
BlizzCon is always home to amazing cosplay where fans dress up as their favorite characters from Blizzard's most popular games. Check out some of the best cosplayers we saw during the weekend!
And for more Overwatch specific cosplay, check out the outfits we saw at BlizzCon 2017 and BlizzCon 2016.
The news raises a lot of questions, and we talked with World of Warcraft production director John Hight to try and answer some of them. While we didn't get firm details for everything, the biggest takeaway is that the team is approaching the upcoming Classic server carefully. There's going to be a separate sub-team made up of WoW veterans working on this version of the game, but how players will access the content isn't quite clear.
The transcript below has been edited for content and clarity.
GameSpot: World of Warcraft Classic was definitely a surprise. What's the overall feeling on the team to go back to creating something like that?
John Hight: Super exciting. We have members on the World of Warcraft team that have been on the game since the very beginning. That in itself is awesome because not many people can say they worked on a game for 13, 14, and in couple cases, 20 years. Luckily enough, some of those are in key engineering areas that are super helpful for us to unravel the differences in the database and the way the game functioned back then.
When was the decision made to work on this?
This has been an ongoing internal debate. I'm sure that this has happened off and on throughout the years, right? But last year this reached a fever pitch, and we really had a lot of internal discussions because we want to make sure that we provide a great experience for our players. And I think our concern was gonna be our ability to execute Blizzard quality going back so many years. You don't want to ruin the experience. It has to be an authentic experience. But by the same token, people don't want some of the funky bugs that we had back then.
Are you working at all with the teams who were trying to create their own classic servers or is this separate?
No, this is all internal. As I said, we're fortunate that a lot of people that worked on the original WoW are on the team right now, and they're super jazzed. We actually have set up a separate, sub- Steam within our main World of Warcraft team to focus just on this so that we're not trying to share resources. And that's always been the challenge for us: there's so many great things that we can do in WoW. Do we go back and do this or do we add this new feature to World of Warcraft? And that was the big decision for us. So we decided we're gonna set up a special team for it. Everybody that is interested, we're gonna have them volunteer or apply or try to get on the team. And we're gonna safeguard that so that they can be successful.
So is this also something that will be separate from main player experience in the game? It's not like an instance or something where your kind of experiencing that as part of your main World of Warcraft journey?
It's its own realm. Now how we're gonna make that available, we haven't announced anything there. We certainly are gonna make it available to our players, but exactly how we're gonna roll it out, how you're gonna end up going to the old Azeroth...those details we haven't completely aired out and we haven't released that information yet.
Do you see this as being something that's part of a main WoW sub? Would this be a separate add on?
That's the part that we haven't really talked about it. We certainly have opinions on it. As all things Blizzard, we go through extensive internal debate before we commit and then announce.
The most obvious absence was one we knew going into the show: no big Diablo news. Both Diablo II Remastered and the unconfirmed (but inevitable) Diablo 4 were no-shows at this year's Blizzcon. But the other things we wished we'd seen were a little more subtle.
In the video above, Erick Tay and I discuss a few of those things we were hoping to see at Blizzcon that didn't make an appearance, including a Blizzard animated movie and Warcraft III remastered.
If you missed any of the announcements that did actually happen at the show, you can catch up with the biggest news and trailers from Blizzcon right here. But is there anything you wish that Blizzard had talked about that didn't end up in this year's convention? Let us know in the comments below!
Overwatch cosplay had a strong presence this year at Blizzcon as fans dressed up as their favorite characters from Blizzard's popular shooter. Check out some of the best cosplayers we saw during the weekend!
Overwatch has had a very busy Blizzcon this year. To help parse through the mountain of announcements (and to get a little more insight into the team's decisions), I interviewed Overwatch principal designer Scott Mercer and technical artist Hak Lee about the biggest reveals at the show.
We cover the inspiration for the newly announced hero Moira, the possibility of the new map Blizzard World becoming a real place, and which Overwatch character probably vapes. In addition, the devs discuss how they're approaching both competitive rank changes and player toxicity.
This transcript has been edited for content and clarity.
How did you you guys keep this a secret? Was that the main goal: "No leaks this year"? Especially after last year when we got so much of the news a little bit early?
Scott Mercer: When you think back to when we announced Overwatch, that was, in terms of secrecy, a huge deal. We were..."paranoid" is maybe too strong a word, but it was definitely a big concern because we wanted to make this huge splash.
With Moira and Blizzard World, it just seemed like, we're announcing at BlizzCon, everything's cool, it's one of those pleasant surprises because, well, things happen. It's been great that everyone got to BlizzCon--it was surprise and they got super excited about it.
Hak Lee: We kept the secret not only for us. When we keep the secret well, it's gonna be giving a big surprise at BlizzCon, and that's a huge energy for us too.
We knew Doomfist existed in the canon, and with Sombra there was an ARG lead-in--you intentionally didn't want to give the community a chance to figure this one out, right?
SM: For Sombra, the ARG made sense since she's the hacker, right? And for this character we didn't really as great of an lead in for that. Everyone knew we were announcing something, but what exactly? That was more of the vibe we were going for. It's like, "Hey, come to Blizzcon you're gonna see all this amazing stuff", and there you go.
When I see Moira, I immediately think "David Bowie meets some kind of anime type character." What was her inspiration?
SM: Well, from the concept art phase, we definitely knew some things. We were looking for another female character, but one that will seems different than a lot of our others. And with any Overwatch character, what's gonna make this character unique? What's gonna make them pop, line up? What's gonna make them easy to see in battle?
The community has been like, "We need a healer, we need a healer, we need a healer!" And we've also been wanting to develop more Talon characters. We have a tremendous number of great heroes, but not as many villains, so that's why I think you saw us working on Doomfist. And we also wanted some sort of, not just a Talon character, but a "bad" healer. She's a scientist, but ethics aren't her concern. She cares about the results; she cares about the discovery and the science. And with Talon, she doesn't have to work around things as she might if she was back in Overwatch.
What do you see her role on a team being? Do you see her as a primary healer?
SM: She definitely can. So her primary healing is her left hand; it's a healing spray. What's great about it is that the spray can hit multiple of teammates. So if you've got a bunch of your teammates that are, this is gonna sound strange, but they're actually on the payload, you can heal them all at the same time, all at once.
Her limitation is that she can only do that for so long. She has this biotic energy meter that drains pretty fast when she's doing that. So with her, she can do that sort of bursting wave, but then to refill it you have to wait some time. Or you can use her other hand, which is the purple damaging beam that not only damages and gives her a little bit of health, but it also refills the biotic energy meter. So there's this nice gameplay cadence of heal, heal, heal and then, "I need to replenish my energy so I'll use damage and maybe help take out someone who's low health and finish them off." Then you sprinkle that in with her other two abilities like Biotic Orb, which again, could be healing or damage. She's very flexible there.
With Biotic Orb she can heal someone pretty far away with it, so she doesn't have to be right next to someone. And maybe Fade's off cooldown, so she just can't teleport over there. She's definitely going to end up being someone you can use as a primary healer, to get back to the base of your question. It's mixed in with a lot of other possibilities in terms of damage and all of her stuff is either healing or damage. The choice of which one to use at the right time is really interesting with her, which is why during play tests she's just been a lot of fun.
HL: The thing that I did a lot was using the fade ability goes behind the enemies and you can damage them at the same time you can throw the healing auras, to heal your allies. So it's not only one way to play Moira, but she can be used in different ways.
Looking at some of the recent buffs to Mercy and Symmetra and then now having a character like this, who can be focused on healing but can also put out pretty good DPS. It seems like you want healers to carry that dual role of both healing and dealing effective damage.
SM: Yeah, we want to have with our healer line up have different game play styles within that. Just like with our tanks, the bunch of them don't all play the same. Some of them are very mobile, some of them are very shieldy. Same thing with all the damage characters. So, we want you to have options when you go, "I want to be able to support my team, and I really feel like playing this particular character." We'll have to see. One of the awesome things about the testing, as players are able to get their hands on her is finding which heroes she really pairs well with.
I was also a little surprised to see Moira announced as a healer when Mercy herself is still going through big changes in PTR. I realize those are completely different roles on the team and you're thinking about different aspects of different characters at different times, but internally, how does that balance work for you guys?
SM: For us, Moira was sort of like sort of a freight train once we started working on her. At the same time we felt like we needed to react to the feedback from the community about Mercy. Which, when you go back to when we first did the major update with her, which was changing her ultimate, no one really liked her gameplay. She just wasn't fun to play. The way to play Mercy should not be, "I'm going to hide."
That's my favorite way to play.
SM: [Laughs] Okay, but most players. It was a great ability, but just the idea that you shouldn't interact with your teammate, your team. You should let them die and your team essentially yells at you for trying to help. There's just something off about that so that's why we decided to change it to a much more dynamic role. I think that fits with Valkyrie, it fits her character.
Mercy's always been gliding around, but now she flies. You see the wings, it just fit so well with the character. She is the big guardian angel at that point, right? So, we're really super excited about that and then we made resurrect an ability, and there's been issues. We've made multiple adjustments, and we're trying to get feedback for those changes. We think we'll make it a little more dangerous to use resurrect because a lot of the feedback we've been getting about Mercy is not just that resurrect is really good, but that it was very easy for Mercy to use and low risk. But now it has a cast time, so you need to make sure to not get stunned, that you don't get interrupted. That you don't get killed while you're doing the rez. There's more risk to it, which has also helped separate the good Mercys from the really good Mercys.
Personally, I'm the worst Mercy. But speaking of community feedback we also hear a lot about wanting changes to the competitive environment. Both the skill rating and in dealing with the unfriendly players. Is that something that's still an ongoing conversation?
Very, very much so. There are things like, "How can we improve the matchmaker to get you better matches"? And a lot of the feedback we've been getting in terms of that are people talking about team composition--getting a lot of Mercy mains on their team or Genji mains. Are there things we can do to make the quality of the matches better? And there's the issue of people harassing other players, all these toxic behavior issues that we need to address in a lot of different ways. And even cheating, there's all these things and we have to address them in different ways.
We've been looking at all those and saying "How can we improve this? How can we improve that?" One of the big things we've been working on is providing better feedback for players. We have a pilot program right now where if you report someone and it ends up resulting in an action, we send an email back to the person saying, "Thank you for the report. You did some good." Pretty soon we're actually going to get that inside the client. It's not even an email, it's something that when log in, you get, "Hey, remember you sent in that report? Good job!" It's like you're part of the solution. The big reason for that is reporting players and giving accurate reports when a bad thing happens, whatever it might be, is the best way for them to help make the community better.
It really works, and behind the scenes we're trying to make it work even better. Doing things with data science and all these crazy things to try to determine "Hey, is this person really being bad or not?" What players have noticed is that we are working on it, and they are a part of the solution by giving great reports.
That's just such a hard balance to strike. When you have people who are legitimately reporting things and also people who are just pissed off that somebody's better than them.
SM: Yeah, that's what we have to be careful about it. That's why I would to love be like, "Oh yeah, we're going fix that problem immediately." But it's not like that; it's going to be an ongoing process. It's something we work on over time, continue to make adjustments to it. I'd love to be able to say that we a have a silver bullet to get rid of toxicity on the internet, but that's kind of hard. [laughs] So, what we are working on is making steady improvements. And making sure that players know and understand we're making these.
Another big thing that's come out of BlizzCon are new skins for the characters. What goes into deciding what's going to be an actual skin in the game?
HL: When we decide to make a skin, literally everyone gets together and throws out all these ideas, and we pick those ideas we like most. And then the concept artist tries to quickly sketch it, and we can see them right there. If we really like the skin and we're really into the skins then it's going to be a real skin.
SM: All that comes back to again an artist doing something amazing and the rest of the team going, "That's dope. Let's do it." Most of the time, it's really not more complicated than that.
Some of our guys who are big fans of Heroes of the Storm mentioned wanting some of those Overwatch Heroes of the Storm skins...
SM: They've done some amazing work, and certainly, we've looked at their stuff. They also look at our stuff. We're like, we'll figure stuff out. It's one of the great things about Blizzard, creatively, working on each other's ideas across teams, and that's wonderful to see.
You guys also got a bit of practice making something that is very different in the Blizzard World map. It feels like I'm walking around Disneyland. Is that something that, even in the back of your mind, you're thinking, "Well, maybe we could make a real theme park?"
SM: It sounds crazy, but at this point I can't say that it'll never happen. I don't know. Blizzard has changed so much in twenty-five years. BlizzCon didn't always exist; this is the eleventh BlizzCon. We think of how much it's changed to become like this, this crazy thing that we're all at with all these fans from around the globe coming together having a great time. I can't say that it will never happen; it'd be a lot of work [laughs]. I don't know where it'd be, but if you ask anyone at Blizzard, "Would Blizzard World be cool?" Everyone would be like, "Yeah!"
HL: Definitely.
I assume research for that stage involved a lot of going to theme parks?
SM: Certainly. Certainly. A Lot of different theme parks. [laughs]
Anything else you guys wanted to touch on?
HL: At this BlizzCon, I was really excited to announce Moira. I worked on the rigging part. I mean this kind of thing introducing new heroes or introducing new skins is one of the parts I'm very, very excited about, and to see the reaction from the fans and the feedback from the fans is very, very exciting.
SM: Yeah, I think for me Blizzard World is very exciting. But I've been working a fair amount on the esports side of things--seeing the World Cup and all these changes to try to improve the spectator experience. We know Overwatch is amazing to play. It's this amazing team game that creates this really intense action, these wonderful moments, but it needs to be watchable. So, we really spent all this time working on that. Then walking into the arena and seeing these huge screens, you just get awed. And you see the teams in their uniforms. I don't want to say it's the start of something, but you put in all this work to get to this point, and I feel like we're going to be doing even more in the future, especially when I think about something like Overwatch league. That's another completely crazy level of twelve teams with the best players from around the world. They're all over: London, Seoul, American teams, Shanghai. There's so much to be excited about.
How does that tie into the design philosophy? Traditional sports evolve over time, but not to the degree that a video game does. Whereas with video games you guys are constantly balancing and patching and adding new rules. How does that affect the creation of an esport, where somebody can come in and understand and watch and enjoy it while also having good competitors?
SM: Fortunately a lot of the same principles apply. You want to make it fun. You want to make it exciting. You don't want everything to feel overpowered. Most of all you want to keep it like fresh. And while the game is an important part, Overwatch is just a backdrop where all these teams are playing. It definitely does affect the game in subtle ways, we have to think about where does a patch line up when a tournament is happening. And we have to make` sure that, competitively, we don't like change a meta smack dab in the middle of a tournament, or worse, three weeks before the final. We have to worry about some things like that. But for us it's the exciting part is that it is changing.
And it's also seeing the players and the teams. When you think of any sport, it's really more about actually people and the drama created by them. With the design of the game, the fact that it is changing, in my mind it sort of helps with that. It's part of the story. When you think of traditional sports, teams change. "Oh, this free agent moved to a different team." There's all this team movement, and it's changing. In Overwatch, us making changes is part of that, but I think it's an exciting part.
My last question: do any of the Overwatch characters vape?
SM: [long pause] I have never thought of that.
HL: [laughs] Yeah, even though I vape, I never thought of that. Ask Michael Chu.
We followed up with Overwatch lead writer Michael Chu via email.
Michael Chu: Maybe McCree in a pinch? Like a transatlantic flight. Oh wait, Roadhog has that mask...
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