Blizzard Watch Weekly: Pumpkin Spice Roundup

It’s that time of year when everyone starts advertising stuff for fall, but it’s still like, 85 degrees out where I live. I am wearing shorts and sweating and my hair is still summer frizzy, but I’m not going to pass up this opportunity for a nutmeg-flavored drink and apple cider donuts.

While I drop the AC another degree and warm up my flat iron, let’s look back at what happened this week, what we have to look forward to next week, plus some stuff you may have missed.

What happened this week?

• Overwatch 2 season 18 begins August 26
• Eastern Kingdoms Skyriding Cup, August 26 – September 8
• This week’s Hearthstone Tavern Brawl: Ragnaros Fire Festival Tavern Brawl (Wild, Constructed)
• Active Twitch Drop campaigns
• Epic Games Store free game of the week: Make Way and Machinarium

With all the new Midnight information coming out, and the Race to World First over, it kinda feels like we’re on our way to the last patch doldrums. One thing that might make you feel better is finding a transmog appearance for your Reshii Wraps so you can make them look like your tier gear, and since transmog is the true end game, we have a guide for that.

The Eastern Kingdoms Cup began this week, and will run until September 8. We have a guide to gold each race, just in case.

Plus, this weekend is the last one to get your August Trading Post stuff, and then on Monday you’ll get to start in on September’s Trading Post.

On a slightly different note, the productivity aid-slash-game Spirit City, which we probably couldn’t run the site without, just released a new expansion. All Aboard features cozy vehicles, like submarines, spaceships, and schooners, though my favorite are the trains that go clickity-clack.

 What’s Happening Next Week (and beyond)

• Hearthstone miniset Day of Rebirth releases September 2
• Diablo 4 season 10 starts September 25

This week the Hearthstone team announced their upcoming midseason miniset, Day of Rebirth, which will be launching on Tuesday. It brings the new card mechanic Ancient Masks, and a ton more cards to add to your Lost City of Un’Goro pile.

The Midnight announcements and discussion continued this week. We started off by untangling the terrible knot of confusion about what’s changing about transmog in Midnight. Cory really hopes he gets to have more cool Druid forms while we’re talking transmog. We also saw a lot of new stuff about talents in the developer panel from gamescom.

Midnight also allows us to play the Haranir as an Allied Race, and their tank form was revealed to be a pangolin. If you aren’t sure what a pangolin is, this week Liz wrote our Cute column about it, because they are very cute.

And if you’re tired of hearing about Midnight and just want to play already, we suggest you sign up for the beta.

This week’s podcasts

• Blizzard Watch Podcast: Transmog is not free, and other Gamescom disappointments
• Lore Watch: The weird similarities shared by the Kirin Tor and the Jedi Order
• Tavern Watch Plays Rebel Scum, Episode 3: Fighting fascism with the power of friendship (and a blaster)

This week’s Blizzard Watch Podcast mostly discussed the announcements out of gamescom. After the relative high of the cinematic — which many of our hosts weren’t all that jazzed about — the general disorganization of the event and the confusion that followed really put a damper on everyone’s enthusiasm.

Lore Watch and Tavern Watch both had Star Wars angles this week, as Tavern Watch wrapped up their playthrough of Rebel Scum, and Lore Watch discussed the parallels between the Kirin Tor in WoW and the Jedi Council.

That’s it for us for this week. We’ll see you back here on Monday.