Blizzard vs Nostlarius

Much controversy has been around Blizzard’s World of Warcraft as of late due to a fan-made private server based on the original version of WoW. Blizzard decided to issue a cease and desist order against the team that helped to develop and maintain the private server known as Nostalrius. Due to this order, the Nostalrius team was forced to take down their servers in order to avoid a lawsuit with Blizzard.

Nostalrius is a private server that allows players to play the original version of WoW as it was released, known as “Vanilla WoW.” Created by dedicated fans who loved the original version of WoW, they maintained and worked on this private server for over a year with an active community playing the game. The private server had over 800,000 registered players with accounts.

The server was a reproduction of the old build that was used for the vanilla version of WoW. “We trained several entire teams: development, software validation, customers service (also named Game Masters), communication, ... as we wanted to be as professional as possible even as a completely volunteer team.” said the Nostalrius team in their petition letter to Mike Morhaime, the CEO of Blizzard. The developers of this private server stated that they chose to work on this team for the love of the game.

Since news has broken about Nostalrius having to shut down their servers, there has been quite a buzz going around with well known Youtubers such as JonTron and boogie2988 becoming involved with the topic and having opinions on the matter. Even players who never played on the server have joined the topic on forums and online speaking about why they think Blizzard is in the wrong or in the right.

Blizzard has defended its position in stating that they are within their legal right to protect their property. It is true when talking in a technical standpoint that private servers are illegal because they are using the name of World of Warcraft which is violating a copyright law. People also still argue that the private server is not making any money so it is there purely for the enjoyment of players and not affect the company in any way.

Blizzard decided to finally meet with the Nostalrius team after having them shut down their servers on May 2 to discuss the current status of the game and the possibility of having “legacy servers” so players can enjoy the original vanilla WoW as they did on Nostalrius."We are very excited to be able to help Blizzard understand the part of their community asking for legacy servers and many other related topics, in the hope that they will eventually make it possible to legally play previous game expansions," wrote the team members.The fact that Blizzard is meeting with the Nostalrius team could be a sign that Blizzard wants to add legitimate legacy servers to be operated externally.

After the meeting the Nostalrius team stated that it won’t release the source code or the database for its servers which is how things were when it originally shut down its servers. The Nostalrius team wants to give back to the emulation community for helping to get the servers up and running in the first place but it seems they may be holding on to that information for future use. For now not much else has been said about the issue and all the community of Nostalrius can do is wait.

Overwatch on the Big Screen

Photo by Adam Spurlock

Coke eSports, Blizzard, and some various theatres are working together to show off some Overwatch trailers and cinematics on the big screen on May 22. The showings are planned to appear across the US, UK, Spain and Poland where they will be showing a special presentation of all the released cinematics so far. Two never before seen cinematics featuring the hero Soldier 76 as well as the Shimada brothers, Genji and Hanzo, will also be shown at the event.

Photo by Adam Spurlock

A trailer has been released for the event happening on May 22, teasing some of the footage of the new cinematics to be revealed as well as clips of the cinematics that have been released so far. The official site displays the details explaining which cinemas they will be showing at. Not all of the listed cinemas might be showing the event depending on if 100 tickets can be booked at the location before May 12.

The event also includes a special developer panel that specifically focuses on the story and lore of the game that goes behind the scenes as well as discussing the multimedia universe that is being constructed. The event is at 9p.m. on May 22 in the US being hosted by Michelle Marrow.

Blizzards Response to Cheating

Photo by Adam Spurlock

Since Blizzard has had it’s most successful beta yet with their game Overwatch, the topic of cheating has popped up with a few alleged incidents happening in the eSports scene for the game. With Overwatch being released later this month, this is an issue that the community management team will have to get ready for. Blizzard takes the stance of responding to cheaters on a no tolerance policy.

On the forums for the game, Stephanie Johnson, a Community Manager, addresses the topic. “If a player is found to be cheating or using hacks, bots, or third-party software that provides any sort of unfair advantage, that player will be permanently banned from the game. Full stop” she said.

This is not the first time that Blizzard has taken a swift hand to cheaters in their games. In the past there had been troubles with cheaters in Diablo III after its launch in 2012 as well as the years that World of Warcraft has been up where the company has enforced massive banhammer waves locking, banning and tagging tens of thousands of accounts for suspicion of cheating and bot use.

Some players do have the concern with being falsely accused of cheating and having their accounts be banned. As was the case for Diablo III when players had complaints about being unfairly banned from the anti-cheat system. Just for these types of situations, Blizzard has set a measure to counter this problem with an appeal process for banned players where they can protest their innocence.

Cheating is something that comes with playing a massively multiplayer game online with people from around the world. Although, it is an act that does not go unpunished in Blizzard’s eyes. The company is always urging players to report any suspected cheaters to hacks@blizzard.com to take care of the problem and bring justice to cheaters.

Cheating in Overwatch

Blizzard’s Overwatch beta that recently finished with over 9.7 million players this past tuesday seems to have taken on some alleged cheating. With the Overwatch Police pretty busy with the situation, two professional players of the game have been accused of using an aimlock program to cheat during tournaments. Nothing has been proven yet against the players,but the evidence that has been stacked up against them doesn’t seem to be in their odds.

Timo Kettunen, a French player from Team EnvyUs also known as “Taimou,” is a respected player in the world of eSports. He was one of the first to start playing professionally in Overwatch, having completed a few professional tournaments he always seemed to stand out during his matches and has flashed the interest of the Overwatch Police before. The evidence in question is a clip of Taimou playing as Widowmaker getting off crazy shots that almost seem too good to be true.

The other accused professional Overwatch player is Lane Roberts, a Canadian player in the team Cloud9 who goes by the tag “Surefour.” Known as one of the top North American players in eSports, Surefour is also accused of using aimlock making incredible plays as Tracer and McCree. Surefour was one of the first professional players to be called out for cheating in Overwatch, and although he has denied all of the accusations against him on his live stream, it hasn’t stopped him from gaining the name Surelock instead of Surefour.

Here is the clip of Surefour's McCree gameplay.



The next clip contains footage of Surefour's gameplay with Tracer.



The Overwatch Police is just a community that posts videos on Youtube and the claims are for the people who watch them to decide. In the end, the Overwatch Police do not have a say in the matter and it is up to Blizzard to make a move in this situation.

The Next Blizzard Classic

The numbers are in for how many players joined the free beta test for Blizzard’s new first person team based shooter that started May 5 and ended May 10. On PC, Xbox One, and PS4 combined there were 9.7 million players who logged in to the beta to play. The company is saying that it is the most successful beta they have ever had for a game.

Betas are usually used to help developers gain feedback from testers playing the game so they can fix any bugs or glitches that have to do with the game before its release. The beta also works as a demo for people to try out the game, spread the word and let it be experienced by the public to a certain extent. And by going by how many people participated in the beta, Overwatch has created quite a name in the gaming community before it has even been released.

This game is expected to be a success right off the bat which is good news for Blizzard and shows that it pays off trying new things. This is Blizzard's first new IP that it has had in 17 years since they have always been relying on the classic titles of Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft, renewing the games with continuations to the titles. Overwatch is the newest original work from Blizzard that is different in its setting as well as its genre, becoming the first team based first person shooter that Blizzard has made.

This game has high hopes for gamers in becoming the next classic from Blizzard. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the game becoming the next big eSport followed by millions of fans.

Overwatch's Monster Machine

Since the free open beta for Blizzard’s Overwatch has ended it has given gamers the time to reflect and give their feedback on the game. One thing the beta testers can all agree on is that the hero known as Bastion is an unstoppable force to be reckoned with. Players believe it to be too overpowered in the game and tried to appeal to Blizzard to have the character nerfed for the release of the game.

Bastion is a battle robot that has the ability to run around in a recon mode with a sub-machine gun, transform into a minigun in sentry mode mowing down any opponents and can even turn into a tank blasting away enemies with massive amounts of splash damage. Not to mention it can also repair itself on the go. With all these abilities at its disposal it is a self sustaining hero that causes chaos among the opposing team.

In response to the feedback from beta testers, Blizzard gave tips on how to counter the hero in the game. According to them, countering Bastion only requires hero switching and mobility. What this means is that if players can switch up their heros according to the mode that Bastion is using as well as using highly mobile heros that can get behind Bastion, they should be able to take him down with double the damage.

Blizzard even recommended some heros that would most likely work well in countering Bastion. Apparently Hanzo, Genji, and Widowmaker would make a preferable team in taking out the robot due to their special abilities and mobility.

Blizzard has not announced any changes to Bastion before the release of the game later this month on May 24. This leaves players only with the tips and their skills in being able to take out the monster machine.

Appeasement Behind the Warcraft

Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online experience that is home to many different types of gamers with different play styles, preferences and interests. WoW provides many different ways to play the game with options to do PVP, PVE, role-play, run dungeons, level alts, and even pet battles. When dealing with such a diverse and multifaceted gaming community in one game, it can sometimes prove difficult to appease fans of the game as a whole.

On a forum for WoW, Ion Hazzikostas, an assistant game director, responded to a complaint about the WoW development team not listening to the feedback from players wanting things to be changed. Hazzikostas explains in a long post about the complicated nature of trying to please everyone in the WoW community.

He starts off with saying that multiple viewpoints are on nearly every topic having to do with the game. “Almost every facet of WoW is an activity that caters to a minority of the playerbase” said Hazzikostas, “And yet, taken together, that collection of minority groups literally IS the World of Warcraft.”

With such a huge amount of people that have many diverse playstyles, the act of pleasing the playerbase becomes a game of take and give. “So when there’s a change, or a feature, that is aimed at a portion of the game that isn’t your personal playstyle, it’s easy and in fact natural to have the sense that ‘everyone’ dislikes it” Said Hazzikostas. The game has such a wide range of playability that it can cause conflicting interests that are too many differing opinions to make a concise decision for the best interest of everyone in the game as a whole.

Blizzard is always walking around eggshells when it comes to WoW. It is an old game that holds many veteran and new players who want to play the game in their own way. As comes with having the largest MMO playerbase, it seems as though Blizzard is stuck in a hole they can not get out of with every decision having a positive and negative consequence.

Diablo IV Possibly in the Works

There seems to be a lot of speculation on Blizzard’s “Hack’n’slash” RPG, Diablo III lately. There is reason to believe among gamers that Blizzard’s Diablo III team is planning on making a Diablo IV rather than another expansion for the title.

The newest season for the game has just recently started but it seems as though it may be the last as there have been reports that allude to the company possibly moving on to the fourth installment of the series. The last expansion for the third installment was “Reaper of Souls,” which was released back in 2014. From that time, only new content patches for the game have been released which added only more difficulty levels, season journeys and a few new locations.

Instead it seems that only a few more small content patches will be released while they work on the next installment of the IP.

Some evidence shows that the team working on Diablo III has lost some important members to the team as well as having less people to work on the game in general. Leonard Boyarsky, a co-founder for Troika Games and lead designer for Diablo III left Blizzard last month to work for Obsidian Entertainment. Rather than leaving, John Yang and Don Vu, members in the development team for Diablo III, switched projects and are now working on “Legion,” the next expansion for Blizzard’s MMORPG World of Warcraft.

Other signs that point towards the possible development of another Diablo game are shown on Blizzard’s website. In their job openings tab under the Diablo team they are looking for Senior character, concept and VFX artists for an “unannounced” project. Normally one would think that it is just another expansion that has not yet been revealed, but it would have already been announced at last years BlizzCon 2015 in November if that was the case.

All of this evidence would not completely rule out another expansion for D3, but it does strongly suggest a new game for the series. Until anything is mentioned by Blizzard, gamers should probably expect the usual updates and patches for the current game.

Overtime

Blizzard recently launched the open beta for their new game in development, Overwatch. The open beta for the game was supposed to be available for free from May 5 to May 9 but due to an overwhelming response from gamers, Blizzard has decided to extend the open beta for one more day.

Lylirra, a community manager on the battle net forums said, “We couldn’t be more grateful. So, as a small way of saying ‘thank you’ to our community and the millions of players who’ve logged in so far, we will be extending the Open Beta by 1 day on all platforms.”

The open beta is now available to May 10 and ends at 10am PDT. This extension of time includes all platforms such as Xbox One, PC and PS4. Overwatch is set for release on May 24 and is available for pre-order.

ASU Dominates the Dorms

Arizona State University wins the Heros of the Dorm tournament going undefeated 3-0 against the University of Texas in the final matches of the tournament. Four teams of college students from Arizona State University, University of Texas, University of Connecticut and University of Tennessee gathered together at the CenturyLink Event Center in Seattle to duke it out for the title of the 2016 Heros of the Storm collegiate champions where ASU came out on top.

The Heros of the Dorm tournament included over 500 college teams who battled for the champion title and grand prize scholarship. ASU did not lose a single game through the entire tournament which is a step up from last year where they came out in second place. The final matches held at CenturyLink Event Center was a sold out event which was streamed live on the internet as well as featured on ESPN.

Prior to the final match between UT-Arlington and ASU, Arlington took advantage of the best of five series order and used their off time in between matches to scout out their opponent. They picked the three top heros that ASU used in their matches to ban in the draft pick before their match. Arlingtons draft strategy was used to throw off ASU by forcing them to play heros they weren’t comfortable with.

Arlington took the lead in the first half of game 1 taking advantage of ASU’s situation, but had the tables turn in the second half when ASU was able to pull themselves together and bring it back, winning the first match. ASU dominated the second match winning every team fight and giving no chances to Arlington. The third match was the closest match of the tournament with ASU almost winning within the first 12 minutes only to be overcome by a comeback from Arlington that almost cost the game but mistakes made by Arlington allowed ASU to come out on top in the end.

The team members of ASU having won The Heros of the Dorm tournament and obtaining the grand prize scholarship no longer have to worry about college expenses since the scholarship covers the rest of their college careers.