Blizzard Watch Weekly Wrap-up: The wonderful world of Diablo 4

We’ve made it through another week, which means we have another week’s news backlog to get through. This week all of us at team Blizzard Watch are super hyped about the Diablo 4 beta, but if you aren’t interested in Diablo, I have a bit of Hearthstone and WoW news for you too.

Here’s what you need to know from the world of Blizzard Entertainment this week:

Now live

• The Diablo 4 early access beta is live through Monday, March 20, at 12pm pacific, and it’s available to everyone who pre-purchased the game. If you can beat back the server queues — which were running around an hour and a half on Friday afternoon — you’ll be able to play a Barbarian, Sorcerer, or Rogue, and earn some titles plus a cute wolf cosmetic if you get to level 20. This is a beta and the first big stress test for the Diablo 4 servers, so expect a bit of wonkiness.
• For anyone who likes playing Diablo on the couch, Diablo 4’s couch co-op feature is live in the early access beta. Give it a try and let me know what you think, would you?
• Buddies are back in Hearthstone Battlegrounds with a far more interesting — and interactive — method of getting them on the board. Just like minions, your Buddies have tiers of quality and you can buy them with gold at any time, giving you a lot more control over how and when to put your Buddy on the board.

Coming soon

• WoW patch 10.0.7 goes live on Tuesday, March 21, and I am super excited to get to play with the big Paladin rework on the live servers. With the survivability improvements my Holydin will be getting, I hope to outheal all of my compatriots by outliving them. But there’s a lot more happening: we’ll get to visit the Forbidden Reach again, collect new pets and mounts, and nab an upgradeable ring from the Zskera Vaults.
• Next week you can get your own disco ball toy in WoW via Twitch drops.
• If you didn’t pre-purchase Diablo 4, you can get in on the action next weekend. Diablo 4’s open beta runs from Friday, March 24 at 9am pacific to Monday, March 28 at 12pm pacific. Open beta is also the first time we’ll get to play the Druid and Necromancer, which I’m pretty excited about.

The latest on WoW patch 10.1

Patch 10.1 probably won’t be live until May, but it’s live on the PTR right now so we’re getting a lot of info. Here’s what I think is most interesting so far!

• For Worgen who don’t like being Worgen, you’ll soon be able to automatically shift from Worgen form to Human form when you leave combat — much like Dracthyr can switch from dragon form to Human form automatically.
• We have some details on Fyrakk Assaults, the new invasion events coming in the patch. They feel a bit “same old, same old” to me, but they should have a good slate of rewards.
• A hardcore mode might be coming to WoW in patch 10.1. I did not expect this one.

File under “surprise announcements”

• WoW Classic has banned 120,000 bot accounts, and is restricting Death Knight character creations to make it harder for bots. We’ll see how much this actually curtails the game’s botting problem.

And a footnote: my recent solo runs through Ahn’Qiraj for transmog inspired my cohort Phil to write about the ugliest transmogs in WoW. The fact that he doesn’t approve of my new bright orange bug-themed armor just means I have to fit it into a great transmog set.

And that’s all for now, everyone. Have a good weekend and perhaps I’ll see you in Sanctuary!