Even though i don't like the plague-style counters (tons and infinite of copy of cards instead of 2-3), i agree with you. There should be counters for that mechanic but they shouldn't be like Helya or there should be counter of that card too in the set as much as it stays in the standard. The game shouldn't be like "one side played a single card and won the game."
I am sided same with other mechanics as well. I don't know why but disruption in this game is just weak. They are even afraid of mill mechanics a lot. They say they think it is uninteractive and such as if "rest of the game" mechanics is fully interactive... If mill is uninteractive and unfun, then all deckbuilding mechanics are uninteractive and unfun because there is not a real counterplay for "rest of the game" effects. That's already why even-odd decks rotated a year early first and single time in the Hearthstone history.
I mean, there isn't already a counterplay mechanic because of the turn system. They try some with cards like Tight-Lipped Witness or old Saboteur etc. but they are usually at unplayable state or there is simply not any counterplays of some mechanics. Like spending some durability for locations, a card that stops "Rest of the game" bonus at least for a turn, some counterplays for aura-like effects etc.
When the team considers about a new-cool mechanic, they should put some counterplays for it too in that set, but those counterplays shouldn't be like Skulking Geist or Steamcleaner. They shouldn't kill a whole deck. Instead, They should give temporary solutions like Freeze, or destroying a weapon or how Beneath the Grounds works.
They just don't know how to balance things (well, they know but it is a bit marketing strategy, i just like to say they don't know because of how they act like as if we are stupid). People like to exploit things, any living-being likes that. They give it to people for a month or two then nerf them or put a counter-card on next set that kills the whole deck instead of releasing a fully balanced set. We are just talking for nothing. It will keep hapening because of marketing is the only real thing here. After they sell those unbalanced stuff and people have fun with it for 1-2 months and nerf them or release counters on next mini/normal set for new unbalanced stuff, who cares ? right ? Hearthstone is just that. They simply tell us "like and buy it or move". I won't do both tho, i just don't care if i stuck in silver/gold rank. I wouldn't care ranked games at all if they didn't close casual mode for standard but hey, it is also a part of the same marketing strategy already. I am not buying and not moving anywhere. I am like a customer who sits on a cafe for 435765 hours and doesn't place any orders at all. They did this to themselves tho, i was buying stuff until they close casual and some other bad decisions. I will keep doing it.
I don't understand the premise of your question. This article is one person's opinion (my own), not a declaration that Out of Games is cutting ties. I don't speak for everyone. The others (and I) will still report on the game, until such a time as it closes shop for good or something happens where we can truly no longer support them.
I may not play the game anymore - and frankly believe other players must take a hard look as to whether or not they should do the same - but I'm still gonna do my job.
Interesting article! Glad i found it and read it. I can only say that i fully agree having quit HS several years ago for the same reasons, more or less.
The company is not worth it anymore. Only cash grabing gigs without proper direction (look at diablo mobile, sc2, etc).
I'd much rather pay for single player games i can play endlessly than enter a stupidity loop similar to what gambling is.
Here comes We are football 2024, Order of battle, Headquarters ww2, manor lords, against the storm etc!
Honestly the more I think about it, the more this move makes sense. Last year I noticed the Blizzcon tickets weren't sold out at all (prior to Covid, they'd be sold out in hours). The price of the tickets also went up I think*, could be wrong though. Also when watching the main presenation, when they'd pan over the audience, you could see a lot of empty seats, even though they did some raffle thing for seating arragements. WRT the presentations themselves, I feel only the WoW presentation had real excitement purely coz of Chris Metzen. Super sad we got to this point but Covid wasn't the only factor why last year's Blizzcon didn't do so well.
That is probably their ongoing consideration as well. For consistency sake, I expect that only one of these two implementations will survive in the end. At this moment, I expect these Standard highlander cards will get their texts reverted when they rotate to Wild. There should be some kind of counterplay against these highlander decks.
Very happy with the first impressions from around 1.000 on Wild EU. This might be the best patch for Wild ever, surpassing even the last major one that killed Big Priest.
The changes to the Highlander condition are a very cool bonus, would make for an interesting discussion if the old cards like Reno and Zeph should be adjusted as well. Consistency basically demands but I wonder if that wouldn't make them too strong as you can't counter them anymore with cards like Curse of Agony, The Darkness or Plagues.
Yeah, no BlizzCon for WoW 30 feels so weird. I get it though:
Hearthstone will just have an expansion, and some esports people generally no longer care about.
Diablo IV expansion is coming out later this year, probably before a scheduled BlizzCon.
Realistically they could talk about the next season at BlizzCon, eh.
StarCraft lol
Heroes of the storm lol
Overwatch 2 lol
Warcraft Rumble lol
I wish this wasn't the case, it's been pretty fun and I haven't felt the need to pay to play. Game seems quite dead though.
World of Warcraft seems like the only game that actually has anything going on, so doing WoW-specific events does make sense and if they can truly do global Blizzard-run events, then that's even better for more players as BlizzCon is quite out of reach.
WoW Classic has two big things coming up for that November area though. By the time we get there, Season of Discovery should be close to being done if it isn't already. It would be a great time to announce their next seasonal endevours. For Cataclysm on the Classic-proper timeline, we're talking about Rage of the Firelands making its debut in October so it could be time to announce Mists of Pandaria, even though the later Dragonflight patch isn't coming until January.
WoW proper, we don't have an exact release date yet for The War Within but it should already be out by then so talking about the next couple of patches would make for great BlizzCon content. However, with that said, I don't think you'd get people as hyped as we all were for when the trio of expansions was announced last year. That's the biggest problem with BlizzCon; You just can't time all the games around it to have a really killer show.
Which sucks because covering BlizzCon is always a ton of fun. Chaotic fun.
I don't think any of this has any direction from Microsoft though. Their communications have been that Blizzard needs to be allowed to be Blizzard and honestly, it would be really bad to not allow that to happen and BlizzCon, and the overall Blizzard community is a very important part of that. Yes, BlizzCon is expensive to run, but it's run as a marketing tool. The reach online is massive. If people aren't at the show they tune in online, if not on streams then they consume all the news through social media, Blizzard's blogs, other gaming blogs and channels. Having one big show about all things Blizzard turns the weekend into seeing Blizzard everywhere, which can be very powerful for a brand.
I think about all the posts I see places and how you'll see maybe a dozen articles come out in a 10 minute period in the afternoon, how many people never actually caught the first ones that went up for some indie title and how had they of just scheduled their release better, they could have had a better timeslot of promotion. It blows my mind how people hit that same 12-1pm area (eastern). It's certainly friendly for of North America and Europe, but everyone else has the same train of thought so it's less noticable.
BlizzCon though? That's their weekend! Everyone is going to see Blizzard.
If it isn't hapenning on 30th anniversary of Warcraft, it won't happen anymore.
I guess microsoft pulled the plug. It was so much investment for so less gain and so little people to adress. It might be microsoft's saying to blizzard "know your place" too like an internal feud as they want blizzard to be like any other game company and go to the "general game expo" (Gamescom) instead of holding your own and just adress their own community.
Seems like microsoft wants them to adress all gaming community instead of fanboys and tries to expand it (which is ideal instead of an echo chamber). They just don't want Blizzcult.
Good changes for the meta, despite the fact that I'll miss Poofing all minions with my non-highlander Odyn deck.
All highlander cards in the set get the same text change but only Reno is available for refund. Another chance to do right by the playerbase scoffed at by Bli$$avision.
I was expecting something to be done ( like wheel to 10) to mess with the tentacles decks. This however I think hurts more than helps. GALAXY ORB also looses its 10 cost target.
Also think the Treasure Pirate is gonna be too much gaining attack on summon. Well see how quick that winds up.
I dislike the change to Highlander cards. I get the intent to make plague DK feel less mandatory but I hate that it removes the counter play from your opponent outside of plagues (4/5 snakeoil card, Badluck Albatros).
I'm glad their making changes. Some things definitely need a once per game limit (Waygate). Very useful text to have in the Dev's pockets.
Well, that means orc-estra is basically dead which I don't mind. And I'm glad Puddle Prancer is getting a buff he always felt kind of disappointingly weak for what he did compared to your other options for murlocs.
I'm glad Wheel of Death's main change was how the turns tick and not how it actually interacts with your deck, so far I haven't even seen the wheel finish when I've been playing with it usually Fantomn kills them or they concede after I throw the sins in the deck. That or the gloop from Wheel blowing up my deck in the first place
Wild Quest Mage is dead... Hell... It's about damn time!
I personally didn`t have a big problem with Quest Mage playing Aggro Priest for myself.
Still I love see this deck dead, because it gave a lot of deck types no chance. Without Quest Mage the meta should be get more diverse therefor I welcome the death of this deck.
Dragon Aggro Priest should probably be "dead" also, because 8 dragons is too much / too slow for an aggro deck I think.
Dragon Combo Priest could still be a thing and Aggro non dragon Priest should be still viable - especially with the buff to the angel.
Lmao, I spontaneously uninstalled hearthstone about a month ago, because I just didn't like the meta, was burnt out from the grind that didn't give me any reward in playing the game since the rotation left hearthstone feeling pretty much the same and because the balance team felt kinda aimless in their decision making (that has been going on for about a year now, maybe even more). I checked what's new yesterday and was glad to see they are making big balance changes addressing exactly my feelings about the meta. But then I start digging deeper and I find out they just made the game even more grindy. No matter how good the balance changes are, the idea of me going back to the game to grind even more is just absurd. So I don't think I'll be installing again, they're just shooting their own leg at this point.
Since uninstalling I started playing valorant again and I just realized how shit hearthstone's grind and daily playing dependency is. I launched valorant and it didn't even feel like it's been 2 years since I last played, just queue and play. No obsessive quest checking, just play whenever you want for however long you want.
So yeah, goodbye hearthstone, I really don't see this game being any better in future. It has been continuously falling apart for a solid year and I think it won't get better from here
I love lots of tabletop games, but sticking to the ones I own myself and favourites I have to recomend:
BANG!
Social deduction western game where a sheriff has to get bandits and renegade with help of the deputy. The thing is, you only know who the sheriff is and have some good mechanics like distance and character abilities that make each game really unique. It is an easy to learn hard to master situation as every character have their strenghts and playstyle.
Betrayal at the house of the hill 3rd edition:
A game where you investigate a randomly generated mansion with your friends because of a reason you select before starting until sth happens. This something can be any of around 50 different scenarios and there is normally a traitor present. It is pretty good for a laugh with friends.
Boss Monster:
You are the boss of a dungeon and have to lure adventurers into it to collect their souls, competing with other fellow boss monsters. Do not be too greedy though or you might take wounds. The 8-bit asthetic is really awesome. It is pretty simple to learn.
Catan was mentioned before but is amazing anyways.
Mision Cumplida:
It is a cooperative game where you have 4 cards in your hand (as well as your fellow players) and have to complete objectives that will be popping as you play. The game mechanics are similar to UNO! where you place cards depending on number and color. You cant tell the other players what you have on your hand and have to play in the same 4 columns to make things such as "All cards are green or orange" "All cards are higher than 4" "There are 2 not adjacent blue cards" etc. until you hit a number that depends on the wanted difficulty level and number of players.
Paleo:
Cooperative modular game where you play as members of a tribe and try to survive each night collecting resources and trying to finish some goals that depend on modules used. Really fun and strategic.
Sushi Go!: (Or Sushi Go Party!)
Fun party game where you pass your hand to the player on your left each time you play a card. Your goal is to have the best sushi combination played but you have to play with the hands of everyone and try to think what they might play or benefit from. Sometimes you play a card to mess with your opponent instead of trying to get lots of points yourself and make him loose in a big combo.
Virus:
Another fun and quick game I play a lot with my wife (as well as mision cumplida). The Goal is to have 4 working organs in your body and there are viruses and other cards used to interact with other bodies as well as organ stealing etc. Really fun
Wingspan
A simple yet deep game where you have to play different birds to gain points. Hard to explain for me without the box near, but it would be a resource management game. Really beautifully made.
Also I saw Pezman mention Unlock! It is a pretty awesome series and made me remember about another game that uses an app called "Chronicles of Crime". In this game you are a detective and use the app to scan cards to find evidence, talk to witnesses, etc. It is pretty fun and have some mechanics like in game time passing each time you do sth that might end up changing how the case moves forward. For example taking too much time to finish might mean another victim, etc. The app logs everything but I recomend bringing a notepad with you.
Thanks for the review. I was thinking of playing this, but the blunders/oversights are quite important to me. Unopened loot getting screwed upon leaving an area and monsters respawning? No thanks. Give us infinite inventory then, until these issues get fixed! I'm playing an arpg for the loot and maybe a bit for the story => huge frustration with issues related to this.
wow almost as if when you allow 700 year old lichs (liches? lich's? i dont know) that only care about preserving copyright for the billion dollar companies that pay them to run your government their decisions might not align with the people they're supposed to be serving.
Patch 29.2.2 Launches Today With Changes To Reno, Zarimi, Zilliax, Wheel of Death, and Much More!
Naturally Zok Fogsnout is buffed *after* I commit to stop playing the game lol :/
Patch 29.2.2 Launches Today With Changes To Reno, Zarimi, Zilliax, Wheel of Death, and Much More!
Even though i don't like the plague-style counters (tons and infinite of copy of cards instead of 2-3), i agree with you. There should be counters for that mechanic but they shouldn't be like Helya or there should be counter of that card too in the set as much as it stays in the standard. The game shouldn't be like "one side played a single card and won the game."
I am sided same with other mechanics as well. I don't know why but disruption in this game is just weak. They are even afraid of mill mechanics a lot. They say they think it is uninteractive and such as if "rest of the game" mechanics is fully interactive... If mill is uninteractive and unfun, then all deckbuilding mechanics are uninteractive and unfun because there is not a real counterplay for "rest of the game" effects. That's already why even-odd decks rotated a year early first and single time in the Hearthstone history.
I mean, there isn't already a counterplay mechanic because of the turn system. They try some with cards like Tight-Lipped Witness or old Saboteur etc. but they are usually at unplayable state or there is simply not any counterplays of some mechanics. Like spending some durability for locations, a card that stops "Rest of the game" bonus at least for a turn, some counterplays for aura-like effects etc.
When the team considers about a new-cool mechanic, they should put some counterplays for it too in that set, but those counterplays shouldn't be like Skulking Geist or Steamcleaner. They shouldn't kill a whole deck. Instead, They should give temporary solutions like Freeze, or destroying a weapon or how Beneath the Grounds works.
They just don't know how to balance things (well, they know but it is a bit marketing strategy, i just like to say they don't know because of how they act like as if we are stupid). People like to exploit things, any living-being likes that. They give it to people for a month or two then nerf them or put a counter-card on next set that kills the whole deck instead of releasing a fully balanced set. We are just talking for nothing. It will keep hapening because of marketing is the only real thing here. After they sell those unbalanced stuff and people have fun with it for 1-2 months and nerf them or release counters on next mini/normal set for new unbalanced stuff, who cares ? right ? Hearthstone is just that. They simply tell us "like and buy it or move". I won't do both tho, i just don't care if i stuck in silver/gold rank. I wouldn't care ranked games at all if they didn't close casual mode for standard but hey, it is also a part of the same marketing strategy already. I am not buying and not moving anywhere. I am like a customer who sits on a cafe for 435765 hours and doesn't place any orders at all. They did this to themselves tho, i was buying stuff until they close casual and some other bad decisions. I will keep doing it.
Hearthstone's 10th Anniversary, Negative Player Reception, And Where We Go From Here
I don't understand the premise of your question. This article is one person's opinion (my own), not a declaration that Out of Games is cutting ties. I don't speak for everyone. The others (and I) will still report on the game, until such a time as it closes shop for good or something happens where we can truly no longer support them.
I may not play the game anymore - and frankly believe other players must take a hard look as to whether or not they should do the same - but I'm still gonna do my job.
Hearthstone's 10th Anniversary, Negative Player Reception, And Where We Go From Here
Interesting article! Glad i found it and read it. I can only say that i fully agree having quit HS several years ago for the same reasons, more or less.
The company is not worth it anymore. Only cash grabing gigs without proper direction (look at diablo mobile, sc2, etc).
I'd much rather pay for single player games i can play endlessly than enter a stupidity loop similar to what gambling is.
Here comes We are football 2024, Order of battle, Headquarters ww2, manor lords, against the storm etc!
Blizzard Announced It's Skipping Blizzcon This Year in Favour of Other Events and Conventions, Like Gamescom
Honestly the more I think about it, the more this move makes sense. Last year I noticed the Blizzcon tickets weren't sold out at all (prior to Covid, they'd be sold out in hours). The price of the tickets also went up I think*, could be wrong though. Also when watching the main presenation, when they'd pan over the audience, you could see a lot of empty seats, even though they did some raffle thing for seating arragements. WRT the presentations themselves, I feel only the WoW presentation had real excitement purely coz of Chris Metzen. Super sad we got to this point but Covid wasn't the only factor why last year's Blizzcon didn't do so well.
Patch 29.2.2 Launches Today With Changes To Reno, Zarimi, Zilliax, Wheel of Death, and Much More!
That is probably their ongoing consideration as well. For consistency sake, I expect that only one of these two implementations will survive in the end. At this moment, I expect these Standard highlander cards will get their texts reverted when they rotate to Wild. There should be some kind of counterplay against these highlander decks.
CivilKobold
GAAMESS has over 250 free games in every genre you can imagine.
Hearthstone's 10th Anniversary, Negative Player Reception, And Where We Go From Here
Fantastic.
What is Out of Games main draw now?
Blizzard Announced It's Skipping Blizzcon This Year in Favour of Other Events and Conventions, Like Gamescom
Patch 29.2.2 Launches Today With Changes To Reno, Zarimi, Zilliax, Wheel of Death, and Much More!
Very happy with the first impressions from around 1.000 on Wild EU. This might be the best patch for Wild ever, surpassing even the last major one that killed Big Priest.
The changes to the Highlander condition are a very cool bonus, would make for an interesting discussion if the old cards like Reno and Zeph should be adjusted as well. Consistency basically demands but I wonder if that wouldn't make them too strong as you can't counter them anymore with cards like Curse of Agony, The Darkness or Plagues.
Blizzard Announced It's Skipping Blizzcon This Year in Favour of Other Events and Conventions, Like Gamescom
Yeah, no BlizzCon for WoW 30 feels so weird. I get it though:
World of Warcraft seems like the only game that actually has anything going on, so doing WoW-specific events does make sense and if they can truly do global Blizzard-run events, then that's even better for more players as BlizzCon is quite out of reach.
WoW Classic has two big things coming up for that November area though. By the time we get there, Season of Discovery should be close to being done if it isn't already. It would be a great time to announce their next seasonal endevours. For Cataclysm on the Classic-proper timeline, we're talking about Rage of the Firelands making its debut in October so it could be time to announce Mists of Pandaria, even though the later Dragonflight patch isn't coming until January.
WoW proper, we don't have an exact release date yet for The War Within but it should already be out by then so talking about the next couple of patches would make for great BlizzCon content. However, with that said, I don't think you'd get people as hyped as we all were for when the trio of expansions was announced last year. That's the biggest problem with BlizzCon; You just can't time all the games around it to have a really killer show.
Which sucks because covering BlizzCon is always a ton of fun. Chaotic fun.
I don't think any of this has any direction from Microsoft though. Their communications have been that Blizzard needs to be allowed to be Blizzard and honestly, it would be really bad to not allow that to happen and BlizzCon, and the overall Blizzard community is a very important part of that. Yes, BlizzCon is expensive to run, but it's run as a marketing tool. The reach online is massive. If people aren't at the show they tune in online, if not on streams then they consume all the news through social media, Blizzard's blogs, other gaming blogs and channels. Having one big show about all things Blizzard turns the weekend into seeing Blizzard everywhere, which can be very powerful for a brand.
I think about all the posts I see places and how you'll see maybe a dozen articles come out in a 10 minute period in the afternoon, how many people never actually caught the first ones that went up for some indie title and how had they of just scheduled their release better, they could have had a better timeslot of promotion. It blows my mind how people hit that same 12-1pm area (eastern). It's certainly friendly for of North America and Europe, but everyone else has the same train of thought so it's less noticable.
BlizzCon though? That's their weekend! Everyone is going to see Blizzard.
Patch 29.2.2 Launches Today With Changes To Reno, Zarimi, Zilliax, Wheel of Death, and Much More!
Buff a card to nerf a deck, lol.
Sunset Volley
Blizzard Announced It's Skipping Blizzcon This Year in Favour of Other Events and Conventions, Like Gamescom
If it isn't hapenning on 30th anniversary of Warcraft, it won't happen anymore.
I guess microsoft pulled the plug. It was so much investment for so less gain and so little people to adress. It might be microsoft's saying to blizzard "know your place" too like an internal feud as they want blizzard to be like any other game company and go to the "general game expo" (Gamescom) instead of holding your own and just adress their own community.
Seems like microsoft wants them to adress all gaming community instead of fanboys and tries to expand it (which is ideal instead of an echo chamber). They just don't want Blizzcult.
Just a speculation tho.
Patch 29.2.2 Launches Today With Changes To Reno, Zarimi, Zilliax, Wheel of Death, and Much More!
Good changes for the meta, despite the fact that I'll miss Poofing all minions with my non-highlander Odyn deck.
All highlander cards in the set get the same text change but only Reno is available for refund. Another chance to do right by the playerbase scoffed at by Bli$$avision.
Patch 29.2.2 Launches Today With Changes To Reno, Zarimi, Zilliax, Wheel of Death, and Much More!
I was expecting something to be done ( like wheel to 10) to mess with the tentacles decks. This however I think hurts more than helps. GALAXY ORB also looses its 10 cost target.
Also think the Treasure Pirate is gonna be too much gaining attack on summon. Well see how quick that winds up.
I dislike the change to Highlander cards. I get the intent to make plague DK feel less mandatory but I hate that it removes the counter play from your opponent outside of plagues (4/5 snakeoil card, Badluck Albatros).
I'm glad their making changes. Some things definitely need a once per game limit (Waygate). Very useful text to have in the Dev's pockets.
Patch 29.2.2 Launches Today With Changes To Reno, Zarimi, Zilliax, Wheel of Death, and Much More!
Well, that means orc-estra is basically dead which I don't mind. And I'm glad Puddle Prancer is getting a buff he always felt kind of disappointingly weak for what he did compared to your other options for murlocs.
I'm glad Wheel of Death's main change was how the turns tick and not how it actually interacts with your deck, so far I haven't even seen the wheel finish when I've been playing with it usually Fantomn kills them or they concede after I throw the sins in the deck. That or the gloop from Wheel blowing up my deck in the first place
Patch 29.2.2 Launches Today With Changes To Reno, Zarimi, Zilliax, Wheel of Death, and Much More!
I don't know if I like the Nerf/Buff to Reno, +1 cost but it's always playable with no way around it?
I hate that card
Patch 29.2.2 Launches Today With Changes To Reno, Zarimi, Zilliax, Wheel of Death, and Much More!
Wild Quest Mage is dead... Hell... It's about damn time!
I personally didn`t have a big problem with Quest Mage playing Aggro Priest for myself.
Still I love see this deck dead, because it gave a lot of deck types no chance. Without Quest Mage the meta should be get more diverse therefor I welcome the death of this deck.
Dragon Aggro Priest should probably be "dead" also, because 8 dragons is too much / too slow for an aggro deck I think.
Dragon Combo Priest could still be a thing and Aggro non dragon Priest should be still viable - especially with the buff to the angel.
Patch 29.2.2 Launches Today With Changes To Reno, Zarimi, Zilliax, Wheel of Death, and Much More!
Alright, Blizzard, we get it, The Crystal Cove is a reference to The Caverns Below, no need to re-enact its stat changes.
Also, nice "buff" to Sunset Volley, not like that's killing an entire archetype (though it's probably for the best).
Entertainment Software Association Will Not Support Online Game-Preservation Libraries
"Oh, we'll just leave it up to the corporations to preserve their own games." LMAO, that worked great with the early years of movies, didn't it?
Hearthstone's 10th Anniversary, Negative Player Reception, And Where We Go From Here
Lmao, I spontaneously uninstalled hearthstone about a month ago, because I just didn't like the meta, was burnt out from the grind that didn't give me any reward in playing the game since the rotation left hearthstone feeling pretty much the same and because the balance team felt kinda aimless in their decision making (that has been going on for about a year now, maybe even more). I checked what's new yesterday and was glad to see they are making big balance changes addressing exactly my feelings about the meta. But then I start digging deeper and I find out they just made the game even more grindy. No matter how good the balance changes are, the idea of me going back to the game to grind even more is just absurd. So I don't think I'll be installing again, they're just shooting their own leg at this point.
Since uninstalling I started playing valorant again and I just realized how shit hearthstone's grind and daily playing dependency is. I launched valorant and it didn't even feel like it's been 2 years since I last played, just queue and play. No obsessive quest checking, just play whenever you want for however long you want.
So yeah, goodbye hearthstone, I really don't see this game being any better in future. It has been continuously falling apart for a solid year and I think it won't get better from here
Board Games/Tabletop Games
I love lots of tabletop games, but sticking to the ones I own myself and favourites I have to recomend:
BANG!
Social deduction western game where a sheriff has to get bandits and renegade with help of the deputy. The thing is, you only know who the sheriff is and have some good mechanics like distance and character abilities that make each game really unique. It is an easy to learn hard to master situation as every character have their strenghts and playstyle.
Betrayal at the house of the hill 3rd edition:
A game where you investigate a randomly generated mansion with your friends because of a reason you select before starting until sth happens. This something can be any of around 50 different scenarios and there is normally a traitor present. It is pretty good for a laugh with friends.
Boss Monster:
You are the boss of a dungeon and have to lure adventurers into it to collect their souls, competing with other fellow boss monsters. Do not be too greedy though or you might take wounds. The 8-bit asthetic is really awesome. It is pretty simple to learn.
Catan was mentioned before but is amazing anyways.
Mision Cumplida:
It is a cooperative game where you have 4 cards in your hand (as well as your fellow players) and have to complete objectives that will be popping as you play. The game mechanics are similar to UNO! where you place cards depending on number and color. You cant tell the other players what you have on your hand and have to play in the same 4 columns to make things such as "All cards are green or orange" "All cards are higher than 4" "There are 2 not adjacent blue cards" etc. until you hit a number that depends on the wanted difficulty level and number of players.
Paleo:
Cooperative modular game where you play as members of a tribe and try to survive each night collecting resources and trying to finish some goals that depend on modules used. Really fun and strategic.
Sushi Go!: (Or Sushi Go Party!)
Fun party game where you pass your hand to the player on your left each time you play a card. Your goal is to have the best sushi combination played but you have to play with the hands of everyone and try to think what they might play or benefit from. Sometimes you play a card to mess with your opponent instead of trying to get lots of points yourself and make him loose in a big combo.
Virus:
Another fun and quick game I play a lot with my wife (as well as mision cumplida). The Goal is to have 4 working organs in your body and there are viruses and other cards used to interact with other bodies as well as organ stealing etc. Really fun
Wingspan
A simple yet deep game where you have to play different birds to gain points. Hard to explain for me without the box near, but it would be a resource management game. Really beautifully made.
Also I saw Pezman mention Unlock! It is a pretty awesome series and made me remember about another game that uses an app called "Chronicles of Crime". In this game you are a detective and use the app to scan cards to find evidence, talk to witnesses, etc. It is pretty fun and have some mechanics like in game time passing each time you do sth that might end up changing how the case moves forward. For example taking too much time to finish might mean another victim, etc. The app logs everything but I recomend bringing a notepad with you.
Last Epoch 1.0 Review: Time-Travelling ARPG That Doesn't End
Thanks for the review. I was thinking of playing this, but the blunders/oversights are quite important to me. Unopened loot getting screwed upon leaving an area and monsters respawning? No thanks. Give us infinite inventory then, until these issues get fixed! I'm playing an arpg for the loot and maybe a bit for the story => huge frustration with issues related to this.
Off The Gloop
I'll like update this some more later after I play with it more, but so far glooplock isn't actually doing super horribly
Entertainment Software Association Will Not Support Online Game-Preservation Libraries
wow almost as if when you allow 700 year old lichs (liches? lich's? i dont know) that only care about preserving copyright for the billion dollar companies that pay them to run your government their decisions might not align with the people they're supposed to be serving.
god i hate it here