Tag: activision blizzard

The first new Diablo class in nearly 10 years is coming to Immortal

The Blood Knight, the first new Diablo class in over a decade, is coming to the Diablo Immortal mobile game soon, with brand-new skills

The Blood Knight, the first new Diablo class in almost a decade, is coming to Diablo Immortal, the series’ mobile game spinoff, soon. Blizzard announced the Blood Knight during a new livestream that, despite being devoted to Diablo 4’s first season, had plenty of information about the new class ahead of it’s debut on July 13, 2023.

The story behind the Blood Knight is that they were once bitten by a vampire, but halted the curse before they became fully enthralled. Now they exist in limbo, part monster and part human, but the bright side is they get a nice mix of powers to take down monsters with.

The Blood Knight uses a polearm for close-range melee attacks, and they also have a suite of shadow and blood abilities to attack foes from afar. Blizzard says their one drawback is the Blood Knight’s limited mobility, but you can make up for that with legendary essences that modify their standard abilities.

Some of them give the Blood Knight a leaping attack, for example, while others bestow life-stealing abilities on them so the Knight can stay alive longer.

You have the usual choice of two ultimates for the Blood Knight. One is a 3-hit polearm combo followed by a 5-hit combo that stuns foes at the end. The second uses a slashing attack up close or a dagger throw when you’re further away, and you can augment the attack so it deals more damage or ricochets.

Finally is the Abomination meter. This charges similarly to the ultimate meter and, when full, gives the Blood Knight a new primary attack, a blood rush skill that covers a lot of ground quickly, and a 3-hit combo that launches, slams, and stuns foes.

You can check the Diablo Immortal blog site for all the details.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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Fans think rats will lead them to better Diablo 4 gear

Fans always on the hunt for high-level Diablo 4 gear have taken to following rodents around in the hope of finding rare drops

Fans always on the hunt for high-level Diablo 4 gear have taken to following rodents around in the hope of finding rare drops. The method first showed up on the Diablo 4 subreddit after user zerger45 published a post called “FOLLOW THE RATS,” with a preamble about how unhinged the method sounds before reassuring everyone that following rats is a guaranteed way to find Legendary-grade loot (thanks, PC Gamer).

“Okay this is going to sound really bizarre, but you need to follow the rats for good loot,” zerger45 said. “Don’t follow the predetermined path in any dungeon, instead, just follow the rats. The rats smell the cheese! I’m telling you it’s real and I feel like I’m crazy but I found multiple legendaries doing this within a span of maybe 10 minutes.”

FOLLOW THE RATS
by u/zerger45 in diablo4

A few other Redditers said they tried the method and found it actually worked, and several said they wouldn’t be surprised if Blizzard quietly hid some special feature in the humble rodent. Diablo has a history of stashing secrets in unlikely places, hence the fact that, despite Blizzard saying there’s no cow level in Diablo 4, players are still following Sanctuary’s cows around in the hopes of finding it anyway. 

One commenter pointed out it’s likely just a coincidence. The rats seem to lead players to enemy mobs in dungeons, and if you defeat every enemy mob every time, you’re bound to walk away with at least some Legendary gear.

Finding Legendaries becomes a fair bit easier if you’re challenging Nightmare Dungeons on World Tier 3 or higher as well, unlike finding Unique items, which can take hours of play to find, if not days. Zerger didn’t say whether their Unique drop rate improved.

The first Diablo 4 season is coming up later in July 2023, so you might want to hold off investing too much time in your gear hunt anyway. You’ll just have to find more later.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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Blizzard says most Diablo 4 players haven’t finished the game yet

Diablo 4 is almost a month old, but Blizzard says most of the people playing the RPG haven’t even finished the campaign yet

Diablo 4 is almost a month old, but Blizzard says most of the people playing the RPG haven’t even finished the campaign yet. Diablo 4 director Joe Shely made the comments during a recent Campfire Chat segment, Blizzard’s video updates on Diablo’s future, while discussing planned changes for Nightmare Dungeons, Diablo 4’s most important endgame challenge (thanks, PC Gamer).

It turns out most players haven’t even unlocked them yet, even with the highly publicized “race to 100” competition.

“The significant majority of our players haven’t finished the game yet,” Shely said. “But many of the people who are watching this stream, and our dedicated players, play through content much more quickly and have been experiencing this situation with the dungeons.”

“This situation with the dungeons” Shely mentions is a balance problem where Nightmare Dungeons – the only reliable way to get plenty of XP in the endgame – aren’t giving enough XP. Shely said players are just grinding the dungeons’ regular variants instead. The lower difficulty level means they can clear regular dungeons more quickly, so the XP gains end up being higher for the time spent.

Whether more people complete the campaign ahead of the first season remains to be seen. Diablo 4 is much bigger than its predecessors, with significantly more to do outside the main story if you’re keen on exploring and questing. Combine that with multiple new releases surrounding Diablo 4 and the fact that people often leave games unfinished, and it’s unsurprising that people haven’t finished the campaign yet.

Those who do reach the endgame will find it rather less of a grind. The dungeon problem and other balance issues are reportedly changing in updates that Blizzard has planned for the near future, which Shely called “the time of buffs,” an indirect nod to the recent patches that made gaining XP more difficult and nerfed classes.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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The FTC has filed an injunction against the Xbox-Activision deal

The FTC is reportedly preparing to file an injunction to block the Microsoft-Activision deal from closing before the August hearing date

Update: June 12, 2023

The FTC has filed its injunction against the Microsoft-Activision deal. Microsoft president Brad Smith issued a short statement in response.

“We welcome the opportunity to present our case in federal court,” Smith said in the statement that Microsoft provided to GLHF. “We believe accelerating the legal process in the U.S. will ultimately bring more choice and competition to the market.”

Original Story

The FTC is reportedly preparing to file an injunction to block the Microsoft-Activision deal from closing, a source familiar with the matter told CNBC. The injunction is intended to stop the deal before its intended July 18, 2023, closing date and ahead of the FTC’s planned evidentiary hearing in August 2023.

The report comes a few weeks after the European Union approved the acquisition, citing Microsoft’s partnerships with several platforms as satisfactory proof that the deal wouldn’t harm cloud gaming. Some of those deals include a partnership with Nvidia GeForce Now, which Microsoft announced will also include support for PC Games Pass during the Xbox Games Showcase, and a 10-year deal to provide Call of Duty on Nintendo platforms. 

It wasn’t enough for the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, however. The CMA blocked the deal in the United Kingdom over concerns that it would give Microsoft too much influence in shaping cloud gaming and may stymie competition.

While seeking injunctions isn’t a strategy the FTC commonly employs, the commission says on its website that it sometimes files injunctions to stop a merger from proceeding until all parties can gather and present evidence – which, if CNBC’s source is correct, is exactly what the FTC will do in this situation.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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Blizzard outlines Overwatch 2 Pride month celebrations

Blizzard announced a few plans for Overwatch 2 Pride celebrations and confirmed a few tidbits about certain heroes’ relationships

Blizzard announced a few plans for Overwatch 2 Pride celebrations and confirmed a few tidbits about certain heroes’ relationships. This is the multiplayer game’s first Pride celebration since the original Overwatch launched in 2016, and while it is, admittedly, a bit sparse, Blizzard is promising more character stories and plans to celebrate Overwatch 2’s LGBTQIA+ community in the coming seasons and PvE content.

“Overwatch 2 is a joyful escape for millions of players worldwide,” Blizzard said in the announcement. “We always set out to create a futuristic world that is worth fighting for, where everyone feels seen and celebrated. This game is only worthy of that hopeful world if people can connect with our heroes and see themselves in the universe. We want Pride to be that for our players.”

Starting June 1, 2023, everyone who logs in to Overwatch 2 will receive a range of nametags and player icons to celebrate Pride month. These include player icons with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and genderfluid flags, among others, alongside nameplates featuring Lifeweaver, Tracer, Soldier 76, Pharah, and Baptiste.

Midtown, the hybrid map based on New York City, is getting a makeover during June, with Pride flags and other decorations indicative of a large Pride parade. Watchpoint: Gibraltar is also getting a small, permanent change: a picture of Tracer and her partner Emily in the barracks. While Blizzard made it known that Tracer is a lesbian years ago, there’s only a random voice line in the King’s Row map to indicate it. 

Soldier 76 is a gay man, though there’s not really anything to indicate that in the game anymore.

Blizzard also confirmed in a new short story that Pharah is a lesbian, Pharmercy (Pharah and Mercy) is an official relationship, and Baptiste is a bisexual man, all of which the Overwatch community speculated to begin with.

Finally is a new range of merchandise in Blizzard’s online shop, curated by the Blizzard LGBT+ Employee Network. Net proceeds from the collection, from May 16, 2023, through June 30, 2023, will go to the National Center for Transgender Equality.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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Blizzard is reportedly using AI for art design and character creation

Blizzard may be planning a future where AI plays a critical role in their multiplayer game designs, including character and art creation

Blizzard may be planning a future where AI plays a critical role in designing art and characters for their multiplayer games. The news comes from an internal email which The New York Times received, where chief design officer Allen Adham said the company will use “Blizzard Diffusion” to generate ideas.

The email from Adham was reportedly sent in early 2023. Whether Blizzard’s plans have changed since then is uncertain.

At the time, these plans reportedly ranged from concept art for environments and NPCs to clothing options. Adham also mentioned plans to use AI for voice cloning, game coding and “anti-toxicity,” along with the possibility of creating “autonomous, intelligent, in-game NPCs [and] procedurally assisted level design.”

How robust these AI creations would be and what effect these functions may have on existing staff members, the email apparently didn’t mention. Since 2022, two of Activision Blizzard’s studios have successfully formed unions, though only for QA departments – not design.

Blizzard isn’t the first entity in games to push for more AI involvement in development. Ubisoft announced a scheme to help write dialogue using AI, while Riot and Ubisoft are implementing new AI technology to help combat toxicity and hate in online games.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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Blizzard is canceling Overwatch 2 PvE mode – sort of

Blizzard is cancelling its original plans for Overwatch 2 PvE, first shown at 2019’s BlizzCon, though parts of that vision are still alive

Blizzard is canceling its original plans for Overwatch 2 PvE, first shown at 2019’s BlizzCon, though parts of that vision are still alive. Aaron Keller, the multiplayer game’s director, explained the reasons why Overwatch 2 PvE to GameSpot’s Tamoor Hussain in a recent interview and said that the team needs to focus on the live-service components instead.

While scrapped projects usually result in lost jobs, executive producer Jared Neuss said this time, the PvE team was just integrated into the PvP team.

“In the years following our announcement at BlizzCon 2019, we had a really large portion of our team working on the PvE side of that game, and I think players of our live running game could feel that because we eventually stopped making content for it,” Keller said. “It’s been maybe two and a half years since the last hero that we launched, and we don’t want to be back at the point where it’s another three and a half years since launching a PvP map.”

Keller said the team started shifting resources to Overwatch 2’s PvP experience about a year before its October 2022 launch and created a new “value” for developing Overwatch: to always be “putting out fresh, exciting, fun, new experiences” – hence the regular introduction of new maps and heroes.

Keller and Neuss said that, while PvE was originally the main reason Overwatch 2 existed, they hope fans will gradually get used to the idea of Overwatch 2 as a robust, regularly updated multiplayer game instead. Both pointed to plans for the near future, including another new support hero, a new map, modes, and PvE events, along with story missions.

These story missionsare carryovers from the original PvE vision that will reportedly dive into the game’s lore, but they won’t feature the expanded hero talents and other promises from the scrapped game.

Keller and Neuss said that the expansiveness of the vision was part of its downfall. The team was working on something completely new to them, and it changed and grew to the point where it became unmanageable. Why it changed so often, and whether it stemmed from the same management problems Diablo 4 devs said plagued their game and eventually contributed to their union vote, Keller and Neuss naturally didn’t say.

The work on PvE isn’t entirely for naught, though. Keller and Neuss said it maps, mission structures, and other elements can and will be repurposed for PvP events. We apparently got a taste of that with 2022’s Junkerstein event, with more on the way.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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EU commission approves Microsoft’s Activision-Blizzard acquisition

The EU anti-competition commission has approved Microsoft’s purchase of Activision-Blizzard and believes it will boost the cloud sector

The EU anti-competition commission has approved Microsoft’s purchase of Activision-Blizzard. Following the Xbox maker’s commitment to remedies the EU proposed, the commission believes the deal will help spur growth in the cloud gaming sector.

“The Commission’s in-depth market investigation indicated that Microsoft would not be able to harm rival consoles and rival multi-game subscription services,” the commission said in a press release. “At the same time, it confirmed that Microsoft could harm competition in the distribution of games via cloud game streaming services and that its position in the market for PC operating systems would be strengthened.”

One of the EU’s proposed remedies is free license for consumers to stream any Activision-Blizzard game they own on whatever cloud platform they preferred, and a corresponding license for cloud platforms to host these games. The EU said in its statement that this license extends to any provider – not just the handful of cloud businesses that Microsoft made 10-year deals with – and Microsoft agreed to the terms.

“The European Commission has required Microsoft to license popular Activision Blizzard games automatically to competing cloud gaming services,” Microsoft president Brad Smith said on Twitter. “This will apply globally and will empower millions of consumers worldwide to play these games on any device they choose.”

The EU’s investigation concluded that Activision-Blizzard would not have provided its games to cloud services without the acquisition. Cloud providers that the commission surveyed also said they believed access to these games would help boost their business.

The commission also said that, even if Microsoft tied Call of Duty to the Xbox ecosystem, other console makers wouldn’t suffer, as the FPS game series isn’t a significant player in the European Economic Area. That statement seems at odds with Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2’s momentous sales in Europe and the series’ usually strong performance in the region, though.

In April 2023, the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority arrived at the opposite conclusion. The CMA argued the deal would give Microsoft too much influence to dictate how the cloud sector grew, likely in a way that benefited Xbox more than other providers. The CMA posted a short thread on Twitter reaffirming its commitment to that decision. 

The FTC’s lawsuit intended to block the acquisition remains ongoing, with an evidentiary hearing scheduled for Aug. 2, 2023.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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Blizzard outlines what to expect from Diablo 4 seasons, battle pass

Diablo 4’s post-launch content and seasons are meant to be celebrated with friends in the multiplayer game, Blizzard said in a new video

Diablo 4 seasons and post-launch content are meant to be celebrated with friends in the multiplayer game, Blizzard said in a new developer video, and they’re also meant to funnel you through objectives to increase your battle pass level. Blizzard’s latest RPG borrows from Diablo Immortal by adding a free battle pass, a paid battle pass, and a somewhat convoluted system of getting through it all.

Seasons will introduce new challenges, stories, and bosses for everyone, regardless of whether you buy the battle pass. The first one launches in July 2023, and you have to finish the main campaign before you can start it. Each season includes chapters and objectives, things such as collecting a certain number of a specific item, completing a dungeon, or taking part in a local event.

Finishing these will reward you with materials and aspects, along with Favor, which you use to level up your battle pass.

The battle pass gets a little confusing. Favor levels up the free and paid pass. Leveling up the free pass earns you cosmetics and Smouldering Ashes, the latter of which you can spend to get Season Blessings. These blessings grant you extra gold, experience, and obols to make leveling up easier, and you can equip multiple blessings at once.

The paid battle pass is the premium battle pass. It costs $9.99, and you only get cosmetics and platinum currency from it – nothing that actually affects the game. You use platinum currency in another in-game shop to buy yet more exclusive cosmetics. Finally is the accelerated battle pass, which costs $24.99 and gives you 20 tiers on the paid pass and a special emote.

Everything you can buy in the shop, with in-game and real-life money, is cosmetic only. There are no level skips or items that affect your power level.

Diablo 4 launches on June 6, 2023, with another open beta scheduled for the weekend of May 12, 2023.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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The UK CMA has blocked Microsoft’s Activision-Blizzard deal

The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority blocked the Microsoft-Activision deal, citing concerns over cloud gaming

The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority blocked the Microsoft-Activision deal, citing concerns over negative effects the deal might have in the nascent cloud gaming sector. Other concerns the CMA previously outlined, including giving Microsoft too much influence in the console and mobile games spaces, did not factor into the decision.

“The UK cloud gaming market is growing fast,” the CMA said in its statement. “Monthly active users in the UK more than tripled from the start of 2021 to the end of 2022. It is forecast to be worth up to £11 billion globally and £1 billion in the UK by 2026. By way of comparison, sales of recorded music in the UK in 2021 amounted to £1.1billion.”

For reference, consumer spend on video games during 2022 in the United States alone totaled $56.6 billion, substantially more than the forecast global value of cloud gaming.

“Microsoft has a strong position in cloud gaming services and the evidence available to the CMA showed that Microsoft would find it commercially beneficial to make Activision’s games exclusive to its own cloud gaming service.”

The CMA said that evidence suggested Activision would provide its games, including Overwatch and World of Warcraft, via other cloud platforms in the future, though it didn’t name platforms or share what that evidence was.

Microsoft set out to appease regulators with a stream of 10-year deals, promising Call of Duty on Nintendo Switch and Xbox Game Pass and cloud platforms, including Nvidia’s GeForce Now. However, the CMA said these proposed remedies left other important issues unaddressed, such as barring publishers from offering games on non-Windows platforms and standardizing how cloud games were made available – namely, through Microsoft-owned services.

Microsoft and Activision promised to fight the decision and push for a repeal, stating the CMA’s decision will undermine innovation and harm the U.K.’s future as a place of business.

Meanwhile, the European Union has yet to issue its ruling, and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit to block the deal remains ongoing.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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