Blizzard Watch Weekly: that decor feeling

Is it any wonder that, since I am in theory so excited about WoW‘s Player Housing, I would fill the gap left by its absence by playing other games where I can decorate things? It’s almost Halloween, and I have a need to festoon something in spooky decorations which, unlike my own house, doesn’t necessitate my first cleaning all the spider webs from under the eaves. Blech.

So while I avoid the joros in style, 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?

• Hearthstone miniset Day of Rebirth released September 2
• Eastern Kingdoms Skyriding Cup, August 26 – September 8
• This week’s Hearthstone Tavern Brawl: Henchmania Tavern Brawl (Wild, Constructed)
• Active Twitch Drop campaigns — nothing right now
• Epic Games Store free game of the week: Monument Valley

We don’t want to get anyone too excited (Cory) and we don’t want to jinx it (Cory) but there is a Heroes of the Storm patch on the PTR right now.

We’re finding the portals in Tazavesh more useful than they seemed at first glance — and they’re portals, so they’re pretty dang useful at first glance.

This week more games than just Silksong released! Can you believe it? Our writer Chris rounded up the brave games that tried to go head to head with the game that literally broke the internet.

And if you just can’t finish out the week without your dose of cute, we have some Amur Leopard cubs on tap just for you.

 What’s Happening Next Week (and beyond)

• Diablo 3 season 36 begins September 12
• Diablo 4 season 10 starts September 23
• Player Housing comes to WoW in patch 11.2.7 before the end of the year

The Midnight info hype train continues to slowly leak into the station — if by slowly leak, we mean fourteen different blog posts published on the WoW news feed at the same time on Tuesday. We thank and praise our writer Liz Patt for rounding them up and summarizing all of these new blog posts. Many contained info we already had from gamescom, but others had a ton of new stuff to break down. Among those is the new zone-based events system I’m calling “soupslike” for their resemblance to the Community Feast event from the Azure Span. The WoW team has acknowledged that perhaps addons are a valuable part of the experience, so they’re adding a whole bunch of QOL stuff to our UI options, so perhaps they won’t be quite so crucial going forward.

Plus, we got a look at some of the new Homestead options coming in Guild Wars 2‘s next expansion, Visions of Eternity.

This week’s podcasts

• Blizzard Watch Podcast: Dual wielding baguettes? Plus more Midnight hijinks
• Lore Watch Podcast: Just a few of the breadcrumbs leading us to Midnight
• Tavern Watch Podcast: Draw Steel is a spiritual successor to D&D 5e, and we’re into it

This week’s Blizzard Watch Podcast discussed a few of the exciting transmog options awaiting us in patch 11.2.5, which will allow us to wield things like carrots and corn and baguettes. Plus, there’s always more info in the Midnight stand, so with Cory along as a cohost, the new Druid forms got a little bit of discussion. This week’s Lore Watch was based on several listener questions, all of which have very interesting implications in terms of the lore which is bringing us to our inevitable Midnight. The Tavern Watch Podcast discussed a few interesting systems, like Draw Steel, plus all the pageantry of the next Critical Role season, which is packed with more talent than we’d expect from any D&D game.

We hope you had a good week and have an even better weekend. We’ll see you back here on Monday.