Blizzard announced earlier today that there would be no BlizzCon this year. BlizzCon in Blue This is a particularly odd announcement as the somewhat regular autumnal event would have been poised to celebrate both 30 years of the Warcraft franchise as well as 20 years of World of Warcraft, the undisputed most profitable and popular title the company has ever produced.  And you could throw in the return to China and the big new expansion… I mean, there was stuff to celebrate. Strange times indeed.  Maybe this is an aspect of being part of Microsoft? Instead they will be doing other e ..read more

So we know Cataclysm Classic is on the way.  We have the timeline, with dates already pinned down for all the major milestones.  In a little over a week the pre-patch will arrive and it will be time to decide if we’re in on another WoW Classic adventure. WoW Classic 2024 Roadmap – April 9 revision I find it a bit amusing that on social media Blizz has been pushing the idea that this will be a speedy experience… as opposed to the original which, in addition to pissing people off by destroying the vanilla world, felt like it languished too long for a five level expansion. Fast Cata ..read more

The next round of WoW Classic is coming up with the Cataclysm Classic patch set to arrive on April 30th, teeing the expansion up for a May 20th launch. Can you re-run a cataclysm? Blizzard announced the launch for the Cataclysm Classic pre-patch yesterday, then followed up with a revised WoW Classic 2024 roadmap that put the world wide expansion launch on May 20, 2024 at 15:00 Pacific time. WoW Classic 2024 Roadmap – April 9 revision Well, the roadmap doesn’t say the time, but you can find that tidbit elsewhere. So what are we getting and when?  With the Pre-patch we will get the foll ..read more

While our group has fallen off of the Season of Discovery wagon… we’re honestly in a bit of a hiatus save for Potshot and I… the world of Azeroth keeps on spinning even while we’re away.  And so Phase 3 of the Season of Discovery experiment arrived yesterday afternoon Pacific time. Now featuring Phase 3 Phase 3 lifts the level cap to 50, though to help people keep up there will remain an 100% xp buff for levels 1-39 and a 50% xp buff for levels 40-49. This also brings the latest “dungeon converted to a raid so only raiders can enjoy it” update, where Sunken Temple, or the Temple of Atal ..read more

The Site By the time you read this I will have turned off ads again.  Yay!  Though, I have always said if you’re a regular reader, you should use ad block.  I want to tax bots for visiting, not you. My relationship with ads on the site is a bit complicated.  I was paying for a hosting level that would let me turn off ads, then opted in for a step up for a few more features, which included the ability to earn money via ads.  So my plan was to use ads to offset the cost of the more expensive plan, which is $100 a year.  I have managed to accomplish that.  In fa ..read more

It is Easter on Sunday, at least western Easter.  Orthodox Easter isn’t until… oh wow, May 5th.  So Cinco de Mayo and Greek Easter together, that should be some fun.  Anyway, all I have today is some updates around a few things I previously covered. DC Universe Online now PlayStation 5 Native As expected, Daybreak/Enad Global 7 has launched a PlayStation 5 version of its popular DC Universe Online title.  DCUO is the biggest revenue earner in the Daybreak catalog of titles and the company blamed a bit of their revenue shortfall in 2023 on the fact that the title wasn’t av ..read more

The 2024 Game Developer’s Conference was up in San Francisco last week, so I have been seeing tidbits of info coming out of it.  There are, of course, still people pushing blockchain there and AI is the big trend of the year because the finance people first and foremost want to eliminate as many expensive creative and development positions as possible.  SSDD. But yesterday Shintar put up a post over on her blog about a chart that has leaked out of a presentation about the first 30 years of the Warcraft franchise.  She has the details on that, so you should go there, but the char ..read more

There was a bit of speculation about the pirate flag entry on the World of Warcraft 2024 roadmap.  It had no details, just “10.2.6” which was assumed (correctly) to be the patch number.  But what it might actually mean… nobody outside of Blizzard knew… or if they did, they weren’t talking. World of Warcraft retail 2024 roadmap We started getting some hints and finally a date for it last week.  And, yesterday morning the patch update went live.  I did not land at 5:50am (that would be ten to six, or 10.2.6), the update took well into the afternoon Pacific time, but news of ..read more

It is a cold Friday in March, I turned a year older this week, and I am in a bit of a mood for no good reason besides being a cranky old guy.  So perhaps it is time for some bullet point bile, broken up into three categories.  Can you put each in its correct place? The New York Times to Impose Its New Wordle Order The self-proclaimed “paper of record” took a bit of time from its nearly non-stop headlines about President Biden’s age to go after anybody who was out there peddling any games that seemed even Wordle adjacent. A bit on the nose, eh Wordle? The New York Times bought the ..read more

I pretty much spent all of February ignoring WoW, Blizzard, or anything related.  The call of Valheim and the need for a break was strong I guess.  I suppose it is time to take a minute to catch up with a new month on hand.  And hey, it is Friday, so bullet points look like the path forward. Season of Discovery Season 2 and XP Boosts WoW Classic: Season of Discovery hit phase 2 early in February, so that is hardly news I suppose, except to acknowlegde that it happened and that I haven’t logged in since before that occured.  I had done the WoW Classic zones already a few t ..read more