Christian Thoma

Dragonflight patch 10.2 added a lot of new content to the game, so it may be a surprise for you to learn that one of the minor additions was a gold-sink vendor in the Valdrakken Black Market Auction House.

Yesterday’s Nintendo Indie and Partner Directs were full of a lot of cool announcements, but the one I’m most pumped for is Coffee Talk Tokyo. Coming out on Steam as well as on Switch, XBox and Playstation 5, the third entry in one of my favorite indie series is heading overseas to a café in Tokyo to make drinks, talk to the locals, and maybe change someone’s fate if you get an ingredient wrong. It’s a charming and wholesome series and it’ll be a day one purchase for me.

That said, I am concerned that this may be the second sequel in a row where Freya — my absolute favorite character — will be largely or completely absent. Hopefully she finds her way to Japan for this entry but I’m guessing we’ll need to cross our fingers that the new characters can match her presence.

While I try to remember the ingredients for the STMJ let’s answer some questions! I hear there may be exciting stuff happening in World of Warcraft this week? Let’s find out together!

The War Within is World of Warcraft's latest expansion and as with all previous expansions we'll be operating out of a major city that provides most of the services and NPCs a player needs.

As is traditional in World of Warcraft, the pre-patch prior to The War Within expansion came with a limited-time event with gear and collectibles: Radiant Echoes.

World of Warcraft's latest expansion The War Within will take players through the depths of Khaz Algar into the realm of Azj-Kahet where we'll battle against the machinations of the Harbinger of the Void Xal'atath.

The World of Warcraft development team released a new blog post yesterday on Hero Talents, and while it didn't go as in-depth as previous articles it does a nice job of summarizing all 39 flavors of new class fantasies.

There’s a lot happening next week:

The end of ReMists.

The release of the next Guild Wars 2 expansion Janthir Wilds.

Gamescom — Europe’s biggest gaming convention — starts on Tuesday with an opening night show featuring who else but Geoff Keighley.

Oh, and there’s a little thing called The War Within releasing in early access.

So even though I had earmarked this week for in-game cleanup, I knew I had to get out last weekend and take in the sunshine while I still could. So I drove on up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopped at many places on the Virginia portion south of Roanoke. Mabry Mill (pictured in the header) is one of the more iconic sites on the BRP so it was nice to see the water flowing and the wheel turning. Unfortunately the sun was high up in the sky when I arrived so the picture looks pretty washed out, but that’s ok — it’s a memory, not a piece of artwork. I saw a deer grazing on the side of the road, hawks riding the thermals, and lots of pretty butterflies. It was a nice trip, and hopefully I’ve stored up enough air and sunlight and mountain music to last me these next few weeks.

While I feverishly plan my next trip outdoors, let’s answer some questions!

Next week is the early access launch of The War Within, the latest expansion for World of Warcraft.

The newest expansion for Guild Wars 2 is out later this month, and Janthir Wilds is bringing new maps, the exciting new Homestead feature, and giving all professions the use of the Spear, a weapon previously only available for some professions underwater.

We're two weeks away from The War Within early access and many World of Warcraft players are finishing up their WoW Remix: Mists of Pandaria plans while fighting off the Radiant Echoes for gear and collectibles.