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BlizzCon 2021 announcements/trailers/etc
Figured I'd start putting together a thread as the flood of announcements and articles start coming out from this year's BlizzCon.
The site, where you can pick which streaming "channel" to watch: https://blizzcon.com/
Full schedule: https://blizzcon.com/en-us/schedule
Opening ceremony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyApQc-ZmSA
Diablo IV
- Blizzard on Diablo 4's Rogue and how PvP works within the open world
- Diablo IV: What's Next: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO3LQqpiBvQ
Diablo II: Resurrected
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRP62MGOrUo
- Interview on Eurogamer: The big Diablo 2 Resurrected interview
- Some more details on Ars: Diablo II Resurrected tops BlizzCon announcement flurry
- Diablo II: Resurrected - Deep Dive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3dL7ZeIAsE
World of Warcraft
- World of Warcraft Classic will be extended to include first expansion The Burning Crusade this year, along with paid character cloning and boosts, and "pre-nerf" raid bosses.
Overwatch 2
- Behind the Scenes of Overwatch 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRj-GotnNaQ
Diablo II Resurrected: "on pc and consoles with cross progression"
I'm going to buy this game at least twice more...how many times am I going to do this in my life oh my god my brother and I had like 3 or 4 copies of it between the original release and several battle chests aaaaAAAAAAa
I am wary of Blizzard's remasters after WC3. Hoping for the best, but my expectations are pretty low. Which is a damn shame the bar is even that low given how great the original WC3 was. If Blizzard can mess that up, they can absolutely mess up Diablo 2.
Help me understand: It looks like a reskinned version of the exact same game I sunk 1000+ hours into over many years. Is there new gameplay? New options? Why are people so eager to throw money at Blizzard to buy the same game again? Is it just nostalgia?
It's just that it's Diablo 2. Getting to play that exact game we spent so much time in on Switch is really really exciting. The thing is practically built for shit like that.
Yeah I don’t get it man. For some games for sure like I’ll play the Mass Effect Trilogy again but if you’re nostalgic for DII you must be older now and who has time to play a game like that again? Pass, give me something new.
Also Blizzard as we knew it is kinda just dead. It’s like getting excited for a BioWare game in 2021...you’re gonna be disappointed.
I have a really hard time getting excited about anything Blizzard releases after WC3 Reforged. I never played D2 that much, so if this turns out good, I will check it out. But I'm gonna wait a month or five after launch.
I'm excited for Diablo IV. I'm trying not to learn too much about the game before it releases because I find that a better way to enjoy games. I liked the dagger approach to the rogue because melee is my thing and am curious about how they will incorporate open world elements.
I don't quite know why, but whenever I think about Hearthstone I want to play it. However usually once I open it up I lose interest relatively quickly. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Is there a particular thing that throws you off? If it's deck building, you may want to try a solo adventure, the Battlegrounds mode, or crafting Whizbang the Wonderful as he gives you a random premade deck. Be warned that it's a Wild card, so it's already been rotated and not something you can play in standard ranked mode.
Instead of immediately replying, I decided to download the game again and give it a try.
I tried one of the solo adventures and while it's not too bad, it does seem like the randomness is a little off putting for me. I got to a round where I got destroyed twice in a row, but then did really well the third time. So either I'm not skilled enough to play my cards well or the randomness causes swings in balance so much that the game looses it's appeal to me a little. I'm not done with it yet, so we'll see how long I keep coming back to it.
I also tried a ranked game thinking that since I'm at the bottom of the rank the match will be fairly even. Again I got demolished. My opponent had several rare and legendary cards and I just don't have any of that many of those I could incorporate into my deck because I never put that much time in. This is one of the things I liked about Rocket League - even at the lowest ranks, I always felt like it was a fairly balanced match. I don't get the same impression with this. I'll try a few more times and we'll see...
Overall, I'm glad I gave it a try. Thanks for inspiring me :)
Glad you enjoyed it, I know that the core set should be dropping in April-ish, so that would help with putting everyone on an equal footing as far as collections go.
If you're interested in less clutchy single player content, you might enjoy Doctor Boom's Puzzle Lab, an free older adventure where it gives you a hand of cards and a board, and you have to defeat the opponent, or clear the board, or make it symmetrical, and was a really fun experience that they didn't do a lot more with.
If you like the ideas of Hearthstone but not the game, I'd suggest giving a try to Legends of Runeterra. I played MtG, MtG:A, and tried to get into Hearthstone a couple times a year. In both of those games I had my 1-2 decks I liked to play and I hoped that they were good. Runeterra is infinitely more f2p than either, and I've still sank $50 in the game to complete the collection (pre-new-releases) because almost every card/champion has a deck that seems fun to play, even if it won't climb me up the ladder. They're releasing new cards like crazy (we've got another major release including a new region coming March 3rd). All in all it is hands down the best CCG I've ever played, I can't rave about it enough, the new cards look insane, it is insanely generously f2p, I would strongly suggest it to anyone and everyone.
Here is a reasonable video explaining why people like it as an alternative to hearthstone, but its from early 2020 so there's been a lot of card releases and new keywords added since then so it is by no means comprehensive of the game as it currently stands.
(I'll tag @Good_Apollo as well here since my goal is to convert everyone to LoR >:) )
https://playhearthstone.com/en-gb/news
Hearthstone has its rotation, and it's new expansion. But it also fleshed out the new Core Set of cards it's giving everyone for free, the Classic format with only the original release of cards available to play with, and the new mode, Hearthstone Mercenaries, which appears to be something similar to Slay the Spire, which if it is as successful as Battlegrounds was as cribbing from DotA Auto Chess, could be pretty fun.
I don’t know how people can keep up with Hearthstone. When they were like 4 expansions in I had sunk like $300 just to build a handful of viable or semi-viable decks. Now they’re all rotated out and Wild is a mess. It’s just too much...
I'm the most hardcore hearthstone player on Tildes. I can say this pretty safely: i know very, very few people worldwide who got into it as much as I did. I wrote a simulator for the game. I spent three years of my life building a successful startup around it as well. I collected every single card back, except for the golden one unfortunately. I conquered every single one of its corners, gameplay and technical.
Anyway, it actually got to the point where even I couldn't keep up with the game. And now I just .. skip everything hearthstone related, with a bit of a twinge in the heart when I think about what the game could have been, had it been better managed and not lost its entire leadership.
As someone who is so die-hard into Hearthstone, I'd be super curious to hear if you tried out Legends of Runeterra (and when, since they've been adding to it like crazy) and what your thoughts are. I feel like I'm slowly becoming the opposite of you. LoR is consuming more and more of my brain but Hearthstone just never clicked for me no matter how often I tried.
I know of it and honestly, I'd probably be interested but I think I've reached the age I always dreaded: "I don't have time for games, anymore"
Of course that's not exactly true. I just don't have time for the way I used to play games before. The super-hardcore all-out completionism. And then again that's not true either; I absolutely could find the time to do that, but there's so much more out there that I also enjoy and want to do that I'm not interested in finding something that is so chronovore that I would have far less time to do the other things which are beneficial to me mentally, socially, biologically and financially.
Hopefully giving everyone the Core Set will help alleviate that, and having the vanilla version of the original Classic mode helps alleviate that need to keep up with the meta.
Ideally there would be some sort of Hearthstone pick-up mode where both players can pick a premade deck and go, and Tavern Brawl is sometimes a version of that, but it also means that people wouldn't be dropping $80+ an expansion to get a competitive portion of the set. (They could also introduce Whizbang to the Core Set and allow everyone to try out recommended decks with new cards for free, but they specifically noted that "Whizbang will remain in the Wild format," so idk.)
I deleted my Blizzard account when they banned a tournament participant for voicing support for Hong Kong. Blizzard warned me they'd delete my copy of Starcraft 2, and not issue a refund. I said go for it and never looked back.
I'll never buy another Blizzard title.