Will there be a 9.3? When's the next expansion? What about Blizzcon? We've looked at some past dates, and thought about the production realities of the game - so we have some pretty good estimates.
Hope you enjoy this one - but here's a question for you, Patrons. Would you rather WoW take a 'hiatus' to get a bigger and better expansion, or would you rather have regular patches, faster expansions, and have the game keep rolling?
2021-09-29 18:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Netflix step up gaming investment with Night School Studio acquisition
The studio, which is best known for developing narrative-driven titles like Oxenfree, will create original gaming content for Netflix's own foray into gaming. Writing in a blog post confirming the acquisition, Night School Studio founder Sean Krankel said that the Netflix move will not affect the development of Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals, which is currently slated for an early 2022 release on PlayStation 4, PlayStati...
2021-09-29 14:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Activision Blizzard agree $18m settlement with employment commission
Earlier this week, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a complaint against Activision Blizzard. The filing, the culmination of a three-year investigation into the company, alleged that Activision Blizzard subjected employees to sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. The EEOC notified Activision Blizzard of their findings back in June and last week it emerged that the two parties w...
2021-09-28 14:01:02 +0000 UTC
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Boosting as an activity is ruining WoW, but it's not the actual disease - merely a symptom. The root cause, and the cure, is Blizzard. Here's what we think.
2021-09-28 02:00:02 +0000 UTC
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THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING! Or so we usually say, anytime a big lore thing happens. When, though, were we actually right? These are the events in WoW that actually changed everything about the lore.
2021-09-27 20:58:28 +0000 UTC
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Naughty Dog say that Last of Us multiplayer thing is still coming
Things have been pretty quiet on the project since it was (sort of) announced a while back but, speaking in a new blog posted to the official Naughty Dog website, senior communications manager Rochelle Snyder says that work is still well underway and that the studio will show off the game "when it's ready." Snyder was writing in response to what must just be waves of fan questions as to what's going on with the game.
2021-09-27 13:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Deathloop! Splitgate! Halo! Resident Evil! Horizon Zero Dawn! Ender Lilies! Nier Replicant!
We've been playing games, and figured we might as well talk about them. The first portion of this podcast is an insightful 25-minute discussion on Deathloop... but the rest is us riffing on a bunch of different games.
Plus, we get into an important topic often overlooked: the true experience of a game. Basically, Matt goes off on Japanese indies and the Nier series for a while.
...
2021-09-27 11:02:00 +0000 UTC
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Diablo II: Resurrection is having a pretty rough time with servers
Diablo II: Resurrected released this week and, like any Blizzard game worth its salt, was immediately beset by server issues. Twitter and Reddit were full of reports of crashes, lag, and general connection issues. Blizzard quickly announced that they would be taking the game offline for maintenance but issues seemed to persist for a lot of people even after that.
- These server issues reportedly range from pl...
2021-09-24 14:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Who does Azeroth, and the lore, belong to? Is it Bobby? Ion? The writing team? Or does it actually belong to us, the players?
This is an important conversation for us to have. How has the lore changed, and... why?
2021-09-24 10:45:01 +0000 UTC
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Fortnite effectively "blacklisted" from Apple devices
Following a ruling finally being passed in the dramatic Epic v. Apple lawsuit not so long ago, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says that Apple will blacklist Fortnite from their development ecosystem until the end of the appeals process. This could be anything up to five years, which is a pretty long time for Fortnite to be put in time out.
- Speaking on Twitter, Sweeney said that “Apple spent a year telling the world, the c...
2021-09-23 13:01:03 +0000 UTC
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Overwatch 2 boss leaves Activision Blizzard
Chacko Sonny joined Blizzard back in 2016 and served first as executive producer on Overwatch and then as development head on Overwatch 2. Sonny announced his departure in a letter to staff last week in which he said that working at Blizzard "has been an absolute privilege and one of the best experiences of my career." His letter didn't make any mention of the ongoing state and federal investigations into Activision Blizzard, or the recent l...
2021-09-22 13:01:04 +0000 UTC
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Ever stop to think what life in Azeroth is like? For many, it wouldn't be so bad... but for certain occupations, it would be torment. We've thought about it, and did the research - what we're going to show might surprise you. The next time you're levelling an orc in Durotar, or wandering around Silvermoon, you might want to think about what you're seeing. Welcome to the worst jobs on Azeroth.
This is the kind of content that's a little bit out there, but it's also stuff we really had a ...
2021-09-21 19:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Activision Blizzard hit by federal investigation
That's according to The Wall Street Journal, who this week reported that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission have launched a full investigation into how Activision Blizzard have handled the ongoing allegations of sexual harassment, discrimination, and misconduct. Citing documentation and sources familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reports that the SEC have subpoenaed Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick al...
2021-09-21 13:00:06 +0000 UTC
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We sat down to talk about 9.1.5 and our plans for it. We ended up talking for almost an hour and a half about World of Warcraft. Again.
We start on 9.1.5, but eventually branch into some other topics: no artifacts in the Mage Tower, Legion Timewalking, Shadowlands design vs Legion, Covenant swapping.... and a weird misunderstood part of Mythic raiding.
This one's mostly unedited due to time constraints - but I hope you enjoy nonetheless!
2021-09-21 10:30:01 +0000 UTC
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Boosting is all over WoW. Trade chat is full, the group finder is full, but no one's really talking about it. So we spoke to boosting communities, ex-boosters, and some people who made a LOT of money from it.
Boosting, RMT, the boosting community's side of the story, and most importantly: Blizzard's role in it all.
Let us know what you think, and look out for part 2 next week where we talk about the impact of boosting on the game, and how the game's design makes boosting hap...
2021-09-21 09:30:01 +0000 UTC
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Blizzard don't want players to buy Diablo II Resurrected...sort of
The much-anticipated remaster will be the first release to come out of Blizzard since the California Department of Fair Housing and Employment's lawsuit was filed back in July of this year. Though the situation is somewhat complicated by the fact the game is being developed by Vicarious Visions, the New York-based developer who weren't actually implicated in the lawsuit. This puts the game in a bit of iffy position in ...
2021-09-20 13:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Digital Foundry say the new PS5 model is no better or worse than the launch model
Following varying reports that the newly-released PS5 model was both superior and inferior to the launch model, a new report by Digital Foundry appears to set things right. In short, it's about the same. Richard Leadbetter writes that, while changes have been made regarding the internal components of the new model, they're "reassuringly non-controversial" and result in "minimal difference" between the tw...
2021-09-17 13:00:08 +0000 UTC
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We have a producer! What does that mean? That means Dackor, our researcher and overall great WoW dude, is now making sure everything runs like a well-oiled machine. But what does that mean for you? Content! More of it! And it'll be better!
In this ep, we talk about the role of a producer, the importance of deep work, and then get a bit philosophical about where good quality content actually comes from.
2021-09-16 19:15:00 +0000 UTC
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Hello all, my name is Adam and I'm a staff writer here at Bellular and one of the people responsible for the Daily Briefing.
Due to a regrettable publication issue there was no Daily Briefing published on Monday or Wednesday of this week, though Tuesday was unaffected. Please rest assured that we are monitoring the issue to ensure that it doesn't happen again.
Please accept a small rundown of the stories we missed, and apologies from myself and the rest of the team.
Thank yo...
2021-09-16 16:01:02 +0000 UTC
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God of War devs don't want to "spend 15 years on a trilogy "
The news that God of War Ragnarök will mark the end of Kratos' Norse saga was met by a little bit of surprise and confusion by fans who were expecting another trilogy. The reasoning for this, according to developers Sony Santa Monica, centres around the sheer amount of time it would take to develop a trilogy of games. Speaking to YouTube channel Kaptain Kuba about the decision, Sony Santa Monica creative director Cory Barlo...
2021-09-16 15:40:04 +0000 UTC
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Nvidia respond to big GeForce Now leak
Earlier this week details emerged of a way to access the database for Nvidia's GeForce Now streaming serve, a series of back-end protocols mostly used by developers to test new builds, especially during remote work. This resulted in the leaking of several unreleased and unannounced games including things like a Resident Evil 4 remake, Half-Life 2 remastered, Kingdom Hearts 4, and a series of PlayStation Studios and Xbox Game Studios releases on P...
2021-09-14 14:30:01 +0000 UTC
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Sony definitely brought the heat for last night's PlayStation Showcase
Sony held another PlayStation Showcase last night and, while a number of game shows in recent times have been rather tepid affairs full of pre-tempered expectations, Sony decided to go all-in on what turned out to be a bumper show. It was a little light in terms of actual release dates, sadly, but that's probably just the world we live in now where you can only be 100% certain that a game is releasing when you hold...
2021-09-10 13:01:03 +0000 UTC
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Sony acquire Firesprite
The Liverpool-based studio have worked with Sony a number of times in the past across titles like The Playroom, The Playroom VR and Run, Sackboy! Run! In fact, several of the studio's members were actually part of Sony Interactive Entertainment Studio Liverpool back in the day so this recent acquisition has brought things full circle to some extent. Firesprite announced earlier this year that they were working with Cloud Imperium Games on Star Citizen's Theatre...
2021-09-09 13:01:03 +0000 UTC
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Activision branding returns to Call of Duty marketing
Activision's logo has been conspicuously absent from previous pieces of media surrounding the upcoming Call of Duty: Vanguard as the company attempted to slip away into the background in the wake of the devastating sexual harassment lawsuit. The plan was presumably to distance themselves from their flagship franchise in the hope that people would forget it has anything to do with them. At any rate, this restraint (?) only lasted ab...
2021-09-08 13:01:03 +0000 UTC
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Tripwire Interactive CEO steps down following controversial statements
John Gibson, the now-former CEO of Maneater and Killing Floor studio Tripwire Interactive, has "stepped down" from his post following heavy backlash to a statement he made on Twitter regarding the new Texas abortion law. He tweeted his support for the controversial piece of legislation and immediately drew fierce responses from across the industry.
- The fallout prompted a number of Tripwire's collaborato...
2021-09-07 14:31:00 +0000 UTC
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Horizon Forbidden West will get free next-gen upgrade after all
The change in policy, which was officially confirmed by Sony over the weekend, comes in response to some pretty fierce backlash from fans who were unhappy at the game's dual console entitlement being locked behind fancy editions costing upwards of $80. Writing on the official PlayStation Blog, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan outlined that "it's abundantly clear that the offerings we confirmed in our preorder k...
2021-09-06 14:01:03 +0000 UTC
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Sony Announce The Playstation Showcase: "A Sneak Peek At The Future Of PS5"
On Thursday September 9ths, at 1PM PDT/9PM BST, Playstation will show off 40 minutes of updates from Playstation Studios and 'some of the industry's most imaginative developers', for games releasing this holiday and beyond.
- It seems like they are trying to continue to push against the narrative that they are blockbuster-focused - we have no idea what they have in store, but it's certainly exciting!...
2021-09-02 14:01:02 +0000 UTC
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Hey! Michael here again! It seems loads of you enjoyed the Class Order Halls idea that I posted a few days ago, so here's my top level proposal for Patch 9.2. Essentially, it's the direction I'd go in, if I were in charge.
This is all done in a single day, and the intent is to be a video, so extreme depth isn't really a major focus. I'd love any feedback you've got!
Overvi...
2021-09-01 20:34:02 +0000 UTC
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'Traditional' Gambling In Games Is Now 18+ - But Nothing On Lootboxes
PEGI, the European ratings board for games, has updated their criteria so that any game that encourages or teaches gambling is now rated 18+ at a minimum. Specifically, games that “teach and/or glamorise the use of games of chance that are played/carried out as a traditional means of gambling”. This applies to traditional gambling, like playing card games or betting on races. It does not apply to gambling-like m...
2021-09-01 14:00:08 +0000 UTC
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LOOT! Man, I love the Grpyhon! Also, one of our chunkier pins! If you're subscribed at the loot tier for September (which is billed 1st - 4th of October), then we'll send along the pack.
Have a great day!
2021-09-01 13:00:08 +0000 UTC
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