Phil Xavier

Phil Xavier @harmonicstrike — Phil Xavier, also known as Red, began his Blizzard adventure many years ago, with such titles as Rock N' Roll Racing and Blackthorne -- but it was the one-two punch of Warcraft II and Diablo that really took hold of his nerdy heart. He is also deeply interested in other games, especially for the Switch (but without ignoring the PC and PS4), and in discussions about game design (and game-making) in general. There is a place called rcnsk.com where he writes stuff unrelated to Blizzard Watch, but the truth is that there's nothing really in there yet.

BlizzCon

World of Warcraft Game Director Ion Hazzikostas shares his thoughts on Warbands (and expansion leaks)

by Phil Xavier on November 4, 2023 at 10:11pm @harmonicstrike

Our own Cory Taylor had the opportunity to have an exclusive chat with World of Warcraft Game Director Ion Hazzikostas at BlizzCon 2023, and he shared some of his thoughts on the upcoming WoW expansion, The War Within -- especially about one of its most promising new features, Warbands.

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BlizzCon

Nerub’ar Palace is the first raid in World of Warcraft’s upcoming The War Within expansion

by Phil Xavier on November 4, 2023 at 9:17pm @harmonicstrike

During BlizzCon 2023 we've learned that the first raid in the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, The War Within, will be the Nerub'ar Palace.

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BlizzCon

Hearthstone will introduce Catch-up Packs that can have up to 50 cards

by Phil Xavier on November 3, 2023 at 4:18pm @harmonicstrike

Hearthstone will soon introduce a strong new way for players to catch up with the times: Catch-Up Packs are a new type of Hearthstone pack that can have between five and 50 cards in them.

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BlizzCon

Hearthstone Battlegrounds Duos mode will let you team up with another player

by Phil Xavier on November 3, 2023 at 2:40pm @harmonicstrike

The Hearthstone team has just shared a brand-new game mode on BlizzCon 2023: it's called Battlegrounds Duos, coming "early next year," and it will allow you to play Battlegrounds as a tag team with another player!

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The Queue

The Queue: Long, long queue

by Phil Xavier on November 1, 2023 at 12:00pm @harmonicstrike

The famous “Sakeru Gummy vs. Long Sakeru Gummy” series of commercials — more popularly known as the “Long Long Man” commercials — are some of the greatest commercials ever made. So much that they actually won the top prize (the Silver Lion) at the 2018 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, among other awards.

I’m reminded of that commercial because last night I asked for Queue questions, and you guys delivered (I love you all): I got so many of them that this Queue grew incredibly long. So long that the very first draft already went over the unknown limit where the ghosts in the machine get fed up with our crap and decide to erase the whole thing. So I had to cut some questions, which is really sad.

Alas, much like our hero Tooru-san, This Queue will forever be envious of a longer Queue — the kind of Queue that would make his beloved Chi-chan swoon — but that it’ll never be.

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Off Topic

WRUP: BlizzCon is in seven days!

by Phil Xavier on October 27, 2023 at 6:00pm @harmonicstrike

It's Friday, which means that we're exactly seven days away from the return of BlizzCon!

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Discussion

Which old antagonists would you like to see return to World of Warcraft? How should they return?

by Phil Xavier on October 24, 2023 at 8:00am @harmonicstrike

I'll open by stating that Sire Denathrius had the potential to be an extremely relevant antagonist in World of Warcraft, far beyond just the limited influence he had in the Shadowlands.

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Discussion

Which moments in gaming have made your stomach churn?

by Phil Xavier on October 23, 2023 at 8:00am @harmonicstrike

Games can sometimes affect us and mess with our emotions, in both positive and negative ways -- and among the latter, there are some moments that make us question what we're witnessing, or even doing ourselves.

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The Queue

The Queue: Let the carnage begin!

by Phil Xavier on October 18, 2023 at 12:00pm @harmonicstrike

The stage is set, the green flag drops! We’re about to race, Queue. Bad to the Bone has just started playing. Fasten your seatbelts, and pedal to the metal!

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Diablo