Legion-aires

So, the new WoW expac is called Legion, and will focus on the Burning Legion's massive invasion of Azeroth.

After having seen the highlights (Illidan?  Really?), I can only say one thing:

Why didn't they do this instead of Warlords of Draenor?

It would have made a LOT more sense to tinker with a few things and keep a normal timeline rather than going Azeroth-2 like they did with Warlords.

As it is, I do see that Blizzard seems to have finally gotten a kick in the pants as far as putting the story in-game as opposed to in books and other media. Still, the damage there has been done. They can't put old story back into the game, and since they're not interested in fixing the previous storylines it's kind of a moot point.

But I am still shaking my head, wondering at the change of venue for the presentation. Blizzard has always done their own thing, and their customers have loved them for it. Why decide to abandon their current business model now?

Perhaps there's more to the subscriber drop than Blizzard is letting on, but what I think is more likely is that the rest of the industry is threatening to pass Blizzard by. Blizzard finds itself in an unusual position with MOBAs in having to play catch-up, and they can't seem to get that mojo back in holding onto their WoW subscriber base. On the Activision side of things there's Skylanders, but Disney is muscling into that space with their own version*. I get the feeling that Activision/Blizzard sees the other game houses as more of a threat than before, and to stay relevant they can no longer afford to isolate themselves from the rest of the gaming populace.



*And they've got the Marvel and Star Wars properties to attract buyers of Disney Infinity as well.

A Post Gen Con Teaser

Gen Con 2015 has come and gone, and all I've got left are the memories.

And the abs.

What abs, you ask?

Oh, these abs:

The only thing that was fake was the spray tan.
That was NOT a body suit.

I'm still decompressing, and I've got another, longer post on the way, but I figured I'd at least provide the pic above and this one below:

And, naturally, I drew a blank at the name.
"You're that... that Brit woman from the new Blizzard game!"
I was grateful she was excited I knew she was Tracer from Overwatch.

Soon....

In a short time, this will be swamped.
From GenCon's Facebook page.

Unlike, say, San Diego Comic Con, Gen Con is all about the games.

I know that some people have been around since yesterday, playing games and going to pre-Con parties, but Gen Con officially begins Thursday morning.

There's a livestream set up for Gen Con, and Boardgame Geek/RPG Geek has their own streaming set up for Gen Con right here.

Time to play the games...



EtA: The GenCon livestream doesn't seem to be active, so I replaced it with the BGG livestream. I'll update that info as more comes available.

Happy Gary Gygax Day!!

Courtesy of D20 Monkey

Today is the birthday of Gary Gygax, who with Dave Arneson created Dungeons and Dragons. Were it not for Gary and Dave, the RPG* as we know it would not exist.


Go out and play some games in Gary's honor today.




*Video games as well as pencil and paper.

Don't Blink

No, I'm not channeling my inner Whovian.

(But I couldn't resist putting this in!)

Okay, now that my computer seems to have recovered from a surprising crash, I can finish this post.

The week of free WoW came and went, and I really didn't end up doing much. I didn't check out the new areas because that'd take money, and I tried and failed several times to get into AV. After the 50 minute mark crossed each time, I would give up and start over.

I did mine some low level ore while waiting for AV to pop, but it never did.

After the week, I'd weathered the initial emotional surge of nostalgia and did some number crunching. The result: our budget really couldn't afford it right now.

So the week of Free WoW didn't have it's intended effect.

***

Instead of WoW, I decided to revive the long standing goal of finishing the (original) class stories for SWTOR.

As of this mark, I've got 6 of 8 of the class stories completed, having recently finished the Sith Warrior's story back in June.

I revived the Jedi Knight I'd created back in the first few months of SWTOR --and last seen somewhere on Balmorra-- and have pushed him along up into Chapter 3.

The Knight's story is interesting to me mainly because of it's eventual impact on the current expansion. I'd wondered a little bit about some of the storyline's direction with Shadow of Revan, and now I know where some of it came from. I guess from the big picture perspective you could say that the Knight and the Warrior are the two primary storylines for SWTOR, since much of the main storyline flows through them.

Obviously, not being finished with the Knight's story I don't know how it will eventually pan out, but I've my suspicions.

And when I've finished the Knight, I have to look once more at the Agent's story and decide what to do.*

***

Gen Con comes early this year, and next week the entire family will head over to Indianapolis for a day of immersion in gamer culture. If you happen to be there and see a brood of redheads around, it just might be us.

I'll file a full report when I get the chance.




*The chorus of people yelling "Do it!! It's awesome!!" notwithstanding.

Meanwhile, on As the World Turns....

Remember Colin Cowherd, the ESPN personality who got immensely ticked off by his network carrying Heroes of the Dorm?

Well, Colin Cowherd has now left the building. He quit ESPN for a rumored deal with FOX Sports.

Not that they needed his approval or anything, but having one less critic on staff means that ESPN doesn't have to worry about their own staff potentially sabotaging their eSports initiatives.

Cards vs. Raids

While it's not explicitly MMO related, Blizz is going to have a big Hearthstone announcement on July 22nd. The expectation is that it's more than just a card pack, and my guess is that it means an eSports deal with a league and/or television coverage (see: Heroes of the Dorm, broadcast by ESPN).

I did say "explicitly" for one reason: Blizz has a finite number of devs, and the more devs that work on other projects such as Hearthstone and HotS mean fewer devs working on WoW. Hearthstone and HotS are getting a lot of the press from Blizz these days, and for good reason: their customer base is growing and profits are up. Even Overwatch is getting a lot of love, given the videos coming out about gameplay and whatnot. But if the devs are working on these three titles, what about the others?

It's likely that the "big three" Blizz properties are on a much lower priority track these days.

Sure, WoW will have a new expac announced at BlizzCon, but that also means that people will have to lower their expectations a bit. With 6.2 the last major content patch of Warlords, Blizz is obviously shifting focus in-house.

And WoW just might be on maintenance mode for a while.

Unless, of course, Blizz can figure out how to extract the BGs and Arenas from WoW and make them playable in a standard MOBA format.