Pretty light because i like to wait before buying the next "incredible bla bla bla" that's going to become the "best X type of game in the world"
It's always smart to wait and get deals on games. It's crazy at how even just a few weeks after a game launch you can see games at a 10% discount. There are only a few games I will always buy at full price: World of Warcraft and Formula 1. I just can't not play on the launch for them, WoW more so due to it being an online game that is oh so fun with everyone as you're learning new content.
Honestly, I thought it would be more but this is also a bit extreme. I know this doesn't include the couple thousand I almost certainly have spent on Path of Exile cosmetics over the years, since I buy that currency directly from Grinding Gear Games.
16 Years of Service means on average I spend $415 a year on Steam, or about $34 a month. That really puts it into perspective - gaming as a hobby is hella cheap!
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.
I remember traveling to the Ashlands when the game first came out to see in development content. There was not much to be seen, much like the Mistlands at the time, but daaamn they have really leveled it up.
It looks like its in public testing now so full release soon!
This expansion got me to play Hearthstone again, though it didn't last. For the first time in two years I bought a pre-order for an expansion and actually played. A bunch of the cards looked like fun, seeing what was coming back and leaving drove some interest, and it had been a while since I played any digital card game, with much of my time spent elsewhere.
I don't really know why I stopped playing and maybe that's a good thing. I'd hate to feel like I had to play the game or I was going to be missing out on something.
The early access card was certifiable bullshit but I wasn't playing prior to launch so it wasn't a huge deal for me personally, but I do no like the race to the bottom that is early access for pre-ordering; And that includes WoW's 3 days of playing early even if it doesn't really give people much of an advantage. Cosmetics becoming so expensive in Hearthstone is disappointing, especially after asking for them from Blizzard for literal years.
It would be nice if there were more earnable things in the game that weren't just hey complete our rewards track. Stuff that sticks around for more than an expansion period so people had big things to work towards. Wouldn't it be cool if there were signature cards that you could unlock by simply playing with the card itself with each card leveling up with experience? I'm sure they'd find a way to turn it into the chaos that is Marvel Snap's card cosmetic progression system (huge yuck) but one can certainly dream.
I'm not really adding much to this post and just sorta complaining at this point so I'll cut it there. I do wish that there was a card game that was as engaging and visually awesome as Hearthstone with great developer support behind it that didn't go so deep into mobilefication. I've played around with so many iterations of mechanics to create something awesome, but man is it hard to nail the visual perfection that Hearthstone has. So many card games have good mechanics, but their cards, the entire point of the game, look like ass. Blizzard does visuals very well and Warcraft's themes feel so comfortable - though that might be the WoW veteran bias in me.
The quest change is absolute insanity and is not the way you increase engagement in the game. I'd love to know what business unit said we need to make quests take longer and provide rewards that are not inline with the time.
Heya! Our Known Issues thread mentions the card bbcode tags being removed. It was not an intentional change, just when we upgraded the editor all our old plugins no longer worked. The next site update will have this resolved, alongside a bunch of other stuff!
I have added the quote problem to the known issues thread. I missed adding it in the last thread update.
This month I'm planning on playing a bit more of the new Path of Exile Necropolis league. I'm also planning on jumping back onto WoW to participate in the monthly trading post goodies and maybe some of the pre-cataclysm events going on inside Classic.
I also really want to do a few long F1 2023 sessions before the new game comes out this year. I just need to find the time. I also want to finish Far Cry 6 with my friend because we started a playthrough in December and haven't gone back to it since then. Oops.
I couldn't agree more! Passwords are quickly becoming old fashioned and I'll be looking to integrate passkeys support into the site down the line to help with that.
I think I did alright. I haven't played Hearthstone for two years so coming back into it can be a tad overwhelming. Big fan of Battlecry Shaman though so seeing Fairy Tale Forest was pretty sweet.
Similarly, lol at the Incredible Value as golden. YESSS
Not related to recent site issues, but this is definitely a problem! The search system is still using the old forums and not new realm threads.
I've been working on Search 2.0, I started last week and have it nearing completion, so I'm hopeful we can get that out this week which should solve the problem. The new search is a much more pleasant experience and might actually be useful to folks.
It's always smart to wait and get deals on games. It's crazy at how even just a few weeks after a game launch you can see games at a 10% discount. There are only a few games I will always buy at full price: World of Warcraft and Formula 1. I just can't not play on the launch for them, WoW more so due to it being an online game that is oh so fun with everyone as you're learning new content.
Honestly, I thought it would be more but this is also a bit extreme. I know this doesn't include the couple thousand I almost certainly have spent on Path of Exile cosmetics over the years, since I buy that currency directly from Grinding Gear Games.
16 Years of Service means on average I spend $415 a year on Steam, or about $34 a month. That really puts it into perspective - gaming as a hobby is hella cheap!
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.
I remember traveling to the Ashlands when the game first came out to see in development content. There was not much to be seen, much like the Mistlands at the time, but daaamn they have really leveled it up.
It looks like its in public testing now so full release soon!
This expansion got me to play Hearthstone again, though it didn't last. For the first time in two years I bought a pre-order for an expansion and actually played. A bunch of the cards looked like fun, seeing what was coming back and leaving drove some interest, and it had been a while since I played any digital card game, with much of my time spent elsewhere.
I don't really know why I stopped playing and maybe that's a good thing. I'd hate to feel like I had to play the game or I was going to be missing out on something.
The early access card was certifiable bullshit but I wasn't playing prior to launch so it wasn't a huge deal for me personally, but I do no like the race to the bottom that is early access for pre-ordering; And that includes WoW's 3 days of playing early even if it doesn't really give people much of an advantage. Cosmetics becoming so expensive in Hearthstone is disappointing, especially after asking for them from Blizzard for literal years.
It would be nice if there were more earnable things in the game that weren't just hey complete our rewards track. Stuff that sticks around for more than an expansion period so people had big things to work towards. Wouldn't it be cool if there were signature cards that you could unlock by simply playing with the card itself with each card leveling up with experience? I'm sure they'd find a way to turn it into the chaos that is Marvel Snap's card cosmetic progression system (huge yuck) but one can certainly dream.
I'm not really adding much to this post and just sorta complaining at this point so I'll cut it there. I do wish that there was a card game that was as engaging and visually awesome as Hearthstone with great developer support behind it that didn't go so deep into mobilefication. I've played around with so many iterations of mechanics to create something awesome, but man is it hard to nail the visual perfection that Hearthstone has. So many card games have good mechanics, but their cards, the entire point of the game, look like ass. Blizzard does visuals very well and Warcraft's themes feel so comfortable - though that might be the WoW veteran bias in me.
The quest change is absolute insanity and is not the way you increase engagement in the game. I'd love to know what business unit said we need to make quests take longer and provide rewards that are not inline with the time.
Heya! Our Known Issues thread mentions the card bbcode tags being removed. It was not an intentional change, just when we upgraded the editor all our old plugins no longer worked. The next site update will have this resolved, alongside a bunch of other stuff!
I have added the quote problem to the known issues thread. I missed adding it in the last thread update.
I'll kick things off here.
This month I'm planning on playing a bit more of the new Path of Exile Necropolis league. I'm also planning on jumping back onto WoW to participate in the monthly trading post goodies and maybe some of the pre-cataclysm events going on inside Classic.
I also really want to do a few long F1 2023 sessions before the new game comes out this year. I just need to find the time. I also want to finish Far Cry 6 with my friend because we started a playthrough in December and haven't gone back to it since then. Oops.
Check your settings pane.
Mercenaries data has an optional download component now (has for a little bit) and maybe that isn't downloaded.
We may or may not have some content planned around it :D
I still haven't logged over to my Windows machine soooo I hope I don't get in too late.
I couldn't agree more! Passwords are quickly becoming old fashioned and I'll be looking to integrate passkeys support into the site down the line to help with that.
Oh yeah, that would be an incredibly amazing pack! Congrats!
I'll kick things off!
I think I did alright. I haven't played Hearthstone for two years so coming back into it can be a tad overwhelming. Big fan of Battlecry Shaman though so seeing Fairy Tale Forest was pretty sweet.
Similarly, lol at the Incredible Value as golden. YESSS
Not related to recent site issues, but this is definitely a problem! The search system is still using the old forums and not new realm threads.
I've been working on Search 2.0, I started last week and have it nearing completion, so I'm hopeful we can get that out this week which should solve the problem. The new search is a much more pleasant experience and might actually be useful to folks.
Running. A test from mobile
Just leaving a testing message here.
Some things that have been fixed:
Some things that are broken:
Comment bait!
I have never seen this game in my life but this definitely fits!