The much-anticipated launch of World of Warcraft: Forever has driven all of the excitement in the community this week — and so, for the second week in a row, it’s hard to talk about anything else. But we do have some news right here at home, as we’ve launched a new version of the Blizzard Watch website. While things look a lot different to you, readers, the biggest changes are behind the scenes, where we have new writing tools, improved site reliability (it’s at least 25% less haunted), and better security.
We’ve been working on getting this launched for a long time now, and I’m so glad to finally have it (mostly) finished. There are some bugs we’re still working on, the biggest of which is (as of this writing) the lack of comments on the site. The comment switchover wasn’t something we could test in advance, and we’re currently waiting to hear back from support about next steps. (It’s also possible that the comment system just hasn’t registered our updated DNS, and that the problem will resolve itself soon. Let’s hope.) We’re doing our best to fix bugs, and already have plans for new features to add when the core of the site is working perfectly.
If you have any problems with the website, you can contact us on Discord or via social media.
But for now, let’s turn our attention back to the news. This is Blizzard Watch Weekly, where we catch up on what’s been going on in Blizzard games over the last week, and what’s coming up this week.
What happened last week?
- WoW: Forever launched last week, and the buzz for this new/old Warcraft title is off the charts. Despite the crowds, I think the launch went relatively well — there were login queues, lag, and disconnects, but it was playable, and gameplay was pretty smooth within a couple of hours of going live. Since launch we’ve seen some hotfixes to address player issues, as well as a very nice +50% buff to monster XP in dungeons to make them feel more rewarding to run after you’ve finished your quests.
- There’s a new Warcraft Twitch Drop, but this time it’s a unique toy for Forever: the Pouch of Violet Dust is a toy that doubles the duration of your campsite bonuses (to two hours), but you can only get this drop through November 12 and the toy is only useable during the game’s launch celebration, which will end in December. Pick it up for a nice early leveling boost!
- In modern World of Warcraft, Midnight realms got some serious nerfs to the Ula’tek encounter in the Venomous Abyss raid that span all raid difficulties. If you’ve been struggling with this encounter, these nerfs will help players on all difficulties, but particularly work to balance the encounter for smaller groups, which the fight didn’t scale well for.
- Even if card games aren’t really your thing, Hearthstone always goes overboard with great card art for every ridiculous expansion theme. The latest expansion is Reign of the Black Empire, and Eric has compiled some of the best art from the new set.
- This week’s Hearthstone Tavern Brawl is The Void Singularity, in which your board is cleared every round to combine your minions into one ultra-powerful singularity. This takes a bit of creative thinking for deck building, so we have some suggestions on how to play to win.
What’s happening this week (and beyond)
- Through November 12: WoW: Forever Pouch of Violet Dust Twitch Drop available
- November 13: Diablo 2: Resurrected Ladder Season 16 starts
- November 17: World of Warcraft D&D book launches
Other things we’re playing, watching, and more
On our indie game stream this week, Liz and Mitch continue to work through the mysteries of Blake Manor (to varying degrees of success) playing The Séance of Blake Manor. This week, we have somewhat suspicious angels and probably poorly-advised marriage proposals to deal with, things which are of at least equal importance. You can watch the latest episode here, and if you haven’t been following along you can watch all of the episodes of Blake Manor (so far) on YouTube or catch us streaming indie games on Twitch (and follow us to get notifications when we’re live).
This week’s Epic Games Store freebie is Flotsam, a cute little city builder in which you collect resources from the sea to build a city floating on the ocean. It has a unique art style and some Captain Planet vibes, so if that sounds like something you’d love, grab the game for free before Thursday.
Our latest podcasts
- Blizzard Watch Podcast: World of Warcraft: Forever begins now
- Lore Watch Podcast: How modders are improving… game narrative?
- Tavern Watch Plays Pirate Borg, episode 4: That was a load-bearing vampire
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading, and I’ll be back next week with another weekly news recap!