There just aren’t enough hours in the day. Plus, sometimes you have to go to work so you can afford to live and buy food and stuff.

If only I had time powers like the Bronze Dragonflight. I’d probably waste them, but it would be fun!

While I try to travel through time, it’s time for our daily question and answer column — The Queue!

MOVEOVER NO SECOND BILLING ‘CAUSE YOU’RE A STAR NOW

Q4TQ: Has there been any talk about Blizzard adding player housing to Warcraft Forever? If they did they’d really have me hooked Forever!

Our Answer:

There has been a mention of it in one interview at BlizzCon! Lead Developer Tim Jones, talking to Windows Central, had this to say:

That’s really a never-say-never, but we haven’t done any real work on it, kind of answer. I would like to see the campfires brought over into mainline Warcraft , though. That’s a fun thing that’s popped up, and while the need to share buffs that way isn’t there, I still love seeing the weird conversations that have come about as a part of it.

HEY, SO GLAD YOU COULD MAKE IT RED

there are THREE people on my friends list playing Heroes of the Storm at the moment.

somewhere, Cory is looking down from heaven and smiling.

Our Answer:

I’m not dead yet! (Just like Heroes of the Storm!)

I’m right here, still playing games and appreciating Heroes of the Storm! Sure, I’ve been playing a lot of Diablo this week too, but that’s because Diablo is having a really good season right now, and I haven’t gotten into all of the secret stuff yet. There’s a surprising amount of secret stuff!

Isn’t the Heroes resurgence heartwarming, though? I mean, I did tell everyone it was coming back. Multiple times, even. It is still nice to be proven right. Sometimes hoping for the long shot pays off!

If everybody that commented “wait, Heroes isn’t dead?” after every patch announcement plays just a few games, maybe they’ll show there’s enough support to keep it alive!

RED YEAH, NOW YOU’VE REALLY MADE IT

Q4TQ: why is Xal’atath operating a Black Market in Hearthstone?

Our Answer:

God forbid a woman have hobbies.

Bacardi has found the leftover penne Alfredo; it’s basically the perfect bait for a cat — butter and cheese. He’s a fuzzy thief, but I guess I’ll allow it. It’s not like he got into the Krispy Kreme box next to the Alfredo, which could’ve been bad for y’all’s loot this week. A cat going through a sugar crash is not gonna want to provide shiny loot.

Would you rather

Be a contestant on an adventure reality tv show like Amazing Race or Survivor

Or

Be a contestant on a gameshow like Wheel of Fortune or Jeapardy

Today’s Anna Earworm™: Celebrity Skin

Have an excellent week, friendos! Make sure to leave lots of questions for Anna tomorrow so she also has an excellent week.

Many of the people playing in the World of Warcraft: Forever beta have been asking what happens to their characters and progress after the beta — and there sure are a lot of them. The Forever beta is hotter than a Pyroblast. Everyone from hardcore veterans to folks who haven’t played a video game since college are jumping in to revisit Azeroth through a new lens.

The numbers that the Forever beta is pulling are apparently ludicrous, even for developers who have been working on World of Warcraft for decades. On its first night, login queues served as a nostalgic if a bit on-the-nose throwback for those who were there for other hugely popular times such as expansion releases of The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King. While it’s not unusual for player numbers to peak at certain times, the fact that there is this level of interest in a beta test has many of the behind-the-scenes programmers at Blizzard tickled pink.

While many of the absolute mob of level 1 Dwarves and Gnomes that surrounded me in Coldridge Valley last night were long-time players rolling their 200th character, there are bound to be a fair number who have never participated in a beta test before (or even really know what that designation means). The most common question, by far, among that particular crowd has been: what happens to my characters and their progress when the beta test ends on October 21 and World of Warcraft: Forever launches on November 4?

When the beta test ends, all characters will be deleted and all progress will be wiped. Gather ye Peacebloom while ye may on this particular iteration of original Azeroth, because on launch day everyone will be right back in Coldridge Valley (and the other starting zones) at level 1. This also includes all your character names, but if you have access to the beta, you will also be able to claim your character names early, starting on October 27, prior to the game’s full release.

The reason for the beta wipe lies in the very purpose of the beta: it is a test of the game’s systems, mechanics, hardware, performance, and even style. Those participating shouldn’t even be considered players. They are beta testers. As each tester progresses through the game, they can find and report bugs that have made it through all previous rounds of development and testing so they can be weeded out before launch.

While asking this question might seem absurd to long-time gamers, there have been other recent beta tests of games that have indeed offered testers the option to carry over their progress from the beta to the live version, such as Marvel Snap and Diablo: Immortal’s PC beta. Whether these should be labeled beta tests or sneaky early access periods is beyond the scope of this article.

The version of the game that exists in the Forever beta test isn’t final. It is, in fact, constantly changing. The ultimate polished project will resemble what is playable now in the beta, but it will be distinct enough that all players will be starting as completely green adventurers on launch day. So enjoy your time in the beta, but mark your calendars for the November 4 official launch.

Last week was a relatively quiet week, as we continue to shake off the excitement of BlizzCon, and this week may be a quiet one too — though we’re certain to hear about the October WoW Trading Post and perhaps a get a confirmed release date for WoW patch 12.1.5. But with BlizzCon in the rear view mirror, we aren’t expecting any major surprises (just yet). So to help you stay on top of the latest, here’s what’s been happening in the world of Blizzard games, and what’s coming up.

What happened last week?

• Somehow BlizzCon was two weeks ago, but it was so packed with information that we rounded up every video from the convention for those of you who don’t want to miss a minute.
• Brewfest is back in World of Warcraft and in Midnight you can now pick up decor rewards — and earn some extra tickets by helping out with the bar tabs around Azeroth.
• We aren’t even at World of Warcraft patch 12.1.5 (which is probably coming soon), but we’re already thinking about what we want most in patch 12.2 (which is not coming soon).
• We’re still just a little bit obsessed with World of Warcraft: Forever, including its reworked professions. Here’s what we know about the new enchants that will be in WoW: Forever.
• This week’s Hearthstone Tavern Brawl is A Peak to the Past, challenging you to make a deck with from only the Basic and Classic sets, with no epics or legendaries. It makes for a pretty limited card pool, but fortunately we have some deck suggestions for you.

What’s happening this week (and beyond)

• Live until it isn’t: World of Warcraft: Forever beta test
• September 28: Xal’atath in Heroes of the Storm
• Through October 6: Brewfest in World of Warcraft
• October 6: Overwatch Season 5 with new hero Doctrine
• October 6 (estimate): WoW patch 12.1.5
• October 20: Hearthstone: Reign of the Black Empire expansion
• November 4:  WoW: Forever launches
• November 17: World of Warcraft D&D book launches

Other things we’re playing, watching, and more

In the latest episode of our actual play of The Séance of Blake Manor we have a suspicious priest, a surprising seer, and a ghost who didn’t even hang around long enough to answer our questions. Well, no one said playing detective in a haunted house would be easy. You can watch all of the episodes of Blake Manor (so far) on YouTube or catch us streaming indie games live Thursday at 8pm eastern (and follow us on Twitch to get notifications), and watch Liz and Mitch’s latest run through the manor here:

This week we have two freebies in the Epic Games Store: narrative deckbuilder (dice builder?) Astrea: Six Sided Oracle and Mechabellum, which is what StarCraft would be like if it was an auto battler.

Our latest podcasts

• Blizzard Watch Podcast: The episode where Cory says I told you so
• Lore Watch Podcast: The never-ending faction war in World of Warcraft: Forever
• Tavern Watch Podcast: Gods (and patrons), Paizo in PDF, big stompy mechs, and more TTRPG news

That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading, and I’ll be back next week with another weekly news recap!

The Inky Black Potion is magnificent. You can make space look like actual space. You can imagine that your character is staring into the vast darkness and pondering their insignificance before it all. (My headcanon is that every Draenei does that every once in a while.)

This is The Queue, our daily Q&A column where there’s a spacecraft blocking out the sky, and there’s nowhere to hide. You run to the back and you cover your ears, but it’s the loudest sound you’ve ever heard, and all we trapped, rag-doll, cloth people, we are helpless to resist into our darkest hour.

MOVEOVER

Q4TQ: My Night Elf’s first trip between Stormwind and Ironforge was very cool. I found the tram ride was very nice. I’ve always wondered why Blizzard hasn’t added other tram rides like that to WoW?

Our Answer:

It’s weird because they did add a ton of boat and zeppelin rides to the game, and both of those operate on a similar “you have to wait for the transport to arrive” fashion. But tram rides are slightly more inconvenient than those, because you also have to wait for the actual ride to happen, in full. Meanwhile, the boats and zeppelins just “teleport” to the destination with a loading screen in-between.

In addition to that, the tram requires all of that instanced space to exist in the game. The full extension of the Deeprun Tram physically exists; you could jump off the tram and go on foot if you wanted. It’s more work, more data. I guess the Ironforge-Stormwind tram was a cool experiment or one-off thing, but nothing that the WoW devs actually wanted to repeat, probably.

That said, I’d be okay with more trams in the game if they simply disappeared shortly after departure and got the same loading screen treatment as other transports, transitioning to a loading screen and then “teleporting” to a point near their destination.

ARTHONOS

Q4tQ: Less of an idea I’m in favor of and more of a devil’s advocate question, but what would you think if Blizzard removed leveling from modern WoW after the Last Titan? Blizzard did say that they aim for WoW Forever to be the starting experience for new and returning players, so without levels modern WoW could just focus on gearing, the various endgame content (Delves/M+/raiding), and telling it’s story through zone campaign quests.

Our Answer:

Being fully honest, I’d hate that.

I get the devil’s advocate argument you’re making that Forever is meant to be more about the journey, while modern/retail is more about the endgame push. I can see several elements that point in that direction, but I certainly don’t think the contrast needs to be that high. Removing all the “enjoy the journey” elements from modern is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and the same would be true for removing all endgame progression from Forever (trust me, a lot of players will be doing raids or pushing hard on endgame PVP in Forever).

Some players will argue that leveling is “just an annoyance on the way to the ‘real’ game” — I’ve been hearing that for decades at this point. But player experiences are incredibly diverse. I know quite a lot of players who are more than happy to play WoW as nothing but a leveling game, simply taking as many alts as possible through the content, leveling in different ways, enjoying that journey over and over. And rest assured that a lot of those players want to continue doing that, and not everyone, no matter how casual, is willing to simply abandon their existing characters, or guilds, or friends, or collections from Retail to start over in Forever.

MUSEDMOOSE

Q4tQ: we’ve got a lot of big-name releases coming up in the next six months, but what indie games are you looking forward to?

Our Answer:

There are four games on my Steam wishlist right now that qualify!

Penguin Colony. Apparently it’s a cosmic horror game where you play as a penguin. You have to explore and piece together what happened to an expedition. For some reason, they use the Neon Genesis Evangelion font for their title. I’m intrigued.

Detained: Too Good for School is a 2D beat-em-up RPG where you control a delinquent schoolgirl, kinda like River City Girls. I mean, sign me up. Sign me the F up.

Blighted is a Metroidvania from the creators of Guacamelee!, which is a fantastic game, and the visuals remind me of Hades, but with a darker vibe. They describe it as a “psychedelic Western nightmare,” and that sounds super compelling.

Theos: Cities Of Myth is a city builder where you create a city dedicated to one of seven Greek deities. Sim City meets Age of Mythology? At least in theory, that’s the angle, and it’s an angle that appeals a lot to me.

BRAINSTRAIN

What’s your most specific and fiercely held pet peeve? I’ll go first.

The way Jeopardy questions and answers are worded doesn’t make sense. If you flip them around you sound like a crazy person. I do not understand the point of it.

Our Answer:

When people use question marks on sentences that aren’t actually questions, purely for emphasis.

Like, it’s so weird? Those people are crazy?? I literally can’t even???

KALCHEUS

Q4tQ What is an underrated song by one of your favorite bands that you think more people should know?

Our Answer:

There’s a song called Decks Dark by Radiohead which might be the most gut-wrenching song I’ve ever heard. I legit can’t even listen to it sometimes, if I’m in a more depressed mood, because it’s like it takes your soul and grinds it into a paste. It’s one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard, between the piano, the RIDICULOUS bassline, the vocalizations, and the way the whole mood shifts around the 3:25 mark.

I legitimately think it’s one of the most sorrowful songs ever written. But it’s so gorgeous. And apparently a lot of people got to know it because it was used in the final scene of the first episode of the show Ozark. Some people claim that particular scene + music combo was so powerful that it got them to start listening to Radiohead.

Have a great weekend, friends, and try not to crash land your spaceships!

This week marks 600 episodes of the Blizzard Watch Podcast, so instead of just one guest host, Cory, Liz Patt, and Mitch all joined Liz Harper, Joe, and Matt to celebrate. One of our guest hosts in particular had a lot to celebrate, as Cory proceeded to rub it in all our faces that he was right, that Heroes of the Storm is so incredibly back with new hero Xal’atath, and he takes his accolades for being RIGHT in the form of a cash payout. We find out later in the show that Liz P. was less enthused about various BlizzCon announcements, but I don’t want to spoil that for you.

Then we move on to the actual new hotness, WoW Forever, which Liz H. was playing during the livestreamed recording. The crew talks beta access, and whether it ruins the experience. Liz says it wears the shine off, while Joe doesn’t have any problem playing the beta and then the live game.

Plus, the crew has some ideas for Diablo 5. Don’t we all.

You can listen to the podcast directly from this post or click on “Follow” in the player below to follow the podcast in your podcast player of choice and download directly to your device.

Or catch up with recent episodes on our playlist to be sure you haven’t missed any of the latest news.

If you’d like to catch up on previous Blizzard Watch podcasts, our weekly Lore Watch podcast, or our ongoing TTRPG podcasts, check out our podcast page. You can also search for any of these programs in your favorite podcast player to subscribe and be notified when a new one is released.

And finally, if you subscribe to our Patreon Tier 2 or above you will not only get the uncut version of the Blizzard Watch podcast with a bonus 30 minute pre-show, but you will also be able to listen to the Blizzard Watch and Lore Watch podcasts before they’re released to the public.

Thanks for your support and enjoy the show!

Do you remember your first trip to Ironforge? If you were a Gnome or a Dwarf, you were probably sent there around level 5 on one errand quest or another, your whole game life to date spent trekking through the snow of Dun Morogh. You can’t even see Ironforge from down there; the city is nestled in the mountains, up a steep hill, and you trek up, through the snow on foot, and the entrance slowly comes into view. And there it is, massive, so much bigger than you.

There’s a sense of grand scale that, somehow doesn’t come across in the modern game, where we would take a flight path or ride a mount or use a hearthstone to get to Ironforge without much thought. We wouldn’t trudge up to it on foot; how tedious! But there’s something to be said for the sense of scale and wonder as you walk up for the first time, or for the first time in a long time, and think about how small you are, and how large this Dwarven city is.

But I digress. This is the Queue, our daily Q&A column where you ask questions and I do my best to answer them. Here we go.

FALLANGER ASKED:

QftQ: how probable is that Blizz release a Linux version of battle.net?
On one hand in the US linux is around 20% now, on the other hand Blizzard is owned by Microslop.

Our Answer:

I wouldn’t hold my breath on this one, particularly after the Microsoft acquisition. Even though MusedMoose accurately points out that Blizzard games support Macs, in recent years new titles have only been on Windows. Overwatch, Diablo 4, Diablo 2: Resurrected, Warcraft 3: Reforged, none of them are Mac compatible (even though Diablo 3, Diablo 2, and Warcraft 3 all ran on Mac). And Mac support on World of Warcraft is not always spectacular. World of Warcraft is the only application I have ever run that has caused my Mac to hard crash with a kernel panic, as recently as last week (the Forever beta performs abysmally on Mac).

I don’t think Mac support is going away from current games, as it has too much of a legacy and too many subscribers, but I don’t see Blizzard rolling it out for more games, or adding more operating system support.

However, you can get Blizzard games running on Linux, and I have friends who use Linux for all of their gaming. While I continue to suffer through middling Mac performance, I understand that Bazzite is a good Linux distro for gaming and as Moveover pointed out, there’s SteamOS.

MUSEDMOOSE ASKED:

Q4tQ: what’s the oldest game you’ve played or replayed lately?

I wanted to play something unlike anything I’d played for a while, so I played the original Portal for a bit. Unfortunately, I ran into a puzzle that seemed to require split-second timing, and I was already frustrated by other things, so I just quit. 😖

Our Answer:

Well, there is this game called World of Warcraft that’s over 20 years old now… and I’m thinking about going back to something called Warcraft 3...

But I really don’t go back to old games that often, even if I’m nostalgic for them, sometimes that nostalgia breaks quickly when I actually play them and remember how much games have improved over the years. I do semi-regularly go back and replay Mass Effect, but it’s not that old (ME2 was 2010). I had an inkling recently to go back and play BioShock (2007), but I was quickly frustrated and watched an actual play instead of going in myself. Mostly I’m happy with my rose-tinted glasses staying rose-tinted, and enjoying the fond memories of games past.

RED SAID:

bit the bullet and got Forever. will jump into the beta and check it out.
(will also play Forsaken Kingdom at some point)

Our Answer:

All of that stuff I just said about leaving the past in the past? Apparently complete lies, because I have really been enjoying the World of Warcraft: Forever beta (despite its abysmal Mac performance).

Welcome to the cult, brother. We hand out rose-colored glasses at the door.

DISHSOAP ASKED:

anyone embracing spooky season yet?
it’s still 25c and up here, thanks to the super el nino chap but I am starting to have the spooky shows on.

no decorations yet, well besides the vintage cat thing I bought earlier in the year and didn’t actually put away and just noticed its been on the shelf since late july.

Our Answer:

I am waiting until October 1 to pull out my ghost candleholders for the year.

But October 1 is very fast approaching….

That’s all for today, my friends. Take care of yourself, be kind to one another, and I’ll see you in the comments section.

Every week the Epic Games Store gives away a game or two for free. This week, they’re giving us a whimsical card game and a military auto battler for free.

• Astrea: Six Sided Oracles
  • Release Date: Sepember 21, 2023
  • Game Type: deckbuilder, dice?, narrative adventure
  • POV: 3rd person
  • Party: Single Player
  • DLC: None.
  • This game was previously offered for free during the 2024 daily December giveaway.

Astrea: Six Sided Oracles is a rare card game that hands you a bit of story along with your deck building madness. Usually there’s some kind of framework there, but it’s like the original Mortal Kombat — you need to fight these people, because reasons. Don’t think about it too much. But Astrea tasks the player with saving the world, with cards. But also, the cards are dice, not cards. It’s a little convoluted, but fun when you dig into it.

• Mechabellum
  • Release Date: September 25, 2024
  • Game Type: auto battle, strategy
  • POV: 3rd person
  • Party: Single Player
  • DLC: There are several skins packs for sale.

Mechabellum was one of the first games published by Dreamhaven Games, which is becoming known for doing classic games with a distinct twist. In Mechabellum you’re given a set of tools which is distinctly StarCraft-ish — Terran tanks and such, specifically — but rather than placing them in the midst of a high-APM RTS, Mechabellum is an autobattler. Place everything, then watch your units do battle. It was very well-received on release, so I’m excited to play this one for free.

Nestled among all of the reveal-bombs at BlizzCon’s opening ceremony was a rather ordinary reveal of what’s coming next in Midnight’s patch 12.2. We now have details on the new zone, raid, features, and more, so what are you most looking forward to from the next major content update in World of Warcraft?

Patch 12.2 is titled Eclipse, a fitting name for the events we saw in the cinematic trailer. We’ll be chasing Xal’atath deeper into Azeroth than we’ve ever been before, adventuring through the Mantle Vault, and facing the Harbinger herself in the final battle of the Worldcore raid. While it does seem like we’ve spent two out of every three months with our spelunking boots on since halfway through Dragonflight, the idea of finally making it to the Titan’s personal world soul safe room intrigues me.

I’m the tiniest bit disappointed that we won’t be getting playable Thraegar, but I suppose we can’t add an allied race to the game every time we encounter a new faction. Even if that faction consists of awesome shiny diamond people. The zone-wide Radiant Screams event seems more up my alley than the claustrophobia-inducing Vaults of Atal’Utek, so I’m cautiously optimistic that that will align with my play style.

If legendary weapons are your cup of tea, then the first addition to the game since late 2023 might be what you can’t wait to begin working towards. It’s a caster dagger that looks an awful lot like one particular other famous knife, so gather your guildmates and start strategizing now for how you’ll quickly acquire this cursed cutlery.

A major and unexpected change coming in patch 12.2 is the option for not just Forsaken to finally become Paladins, but Night Elves and Darkspear Trolls as well. I’m predicting that quite a few players will be delaying their journey to the Mantle Vault in order to roll a brand new character on patch day.

Ultimately the reason I’m counting the days until Eclipse is the story. At this point I’m fully invested in the narrative of the Worldsoul Saga, and as the game developers have said, from here on out we’re transitioning from setting up the chess pieces to playing out the game. In the cinematic, Xal’atath taunts the Titan security system by saying, “you know what I am.” Does that mean that we’ll finally find out the answer to that question? How will our climactic confrontation with the Harbinger end, and how will it lead us to Northrend and The Last Titan?

So which aspect of patch 12.2 are you most looking forward to?

A very old Hearthstone Tavern Brawl has returned once again, and because of its ruleset, this one really shows its age. In A Peek to the Past, you’re limited to only using cards from the Basic and Classic sets — that’s those very old cards that were added to the game over a decade ago — and you can’t use any Epics or Legendaries either.

What is this madness?! Yes, this Brawl goes “crazy” not by introducing wacky rules, but rather, by limiting the cards you can use so much that you have to be a little insane to be able to come up with a viable winning strategy. Is it any fun? Let’s find out.

Tavern Brawl basics

Name: A Peek to the Past
Description: Let’s take it down a notch there brawler. Make a deck using only cards from the Basic and Classic sets, but none of those fancy Epics or Legendaries, ya hear?
Fun level: 3/10
Difficulty: 8/10
Replayability: 6/10
Format: Wild
Type: PVP
Rewards: 1 Escape From Violet Hold card pack

This is a very limited format for a Brawl, taking us back to something that is not even quite how Hearthstone was in 2014: it’s even more restrained than that, since you can’t use Epics or Legendaries, and you can’t even use cards from the Core set either — so staples like the Mage Frostbolt are out! You will be doing a lot of grinding, board-based, minion-fighting strategies as you try to setup the better board and slowly overwhelm your opponent, with no combos or fancy plays. Reminds us of Arena in a sense.

It’s not exactly a super fun Brawl, if I’m being honest. You’ll want to make good trades, always “trading up” (that is, make sure your lower health minions can take down things that are “bigger” than them whenever possible, and make sure your big minions kill smaller enemy minions and survive to fight again, even if they only have 1 health left). Make good use of your limited card draw options (Acolyte of Pain, Loot Hoarder), and board manipulation effects like buffs (Abusive Sergeant, Defender of Argus, Dark Iron Dwarf), and depending on your strategy, perhaps also consider things like Silence (Ironbeak Owl) and board manipulation (Mind Control Tech).

For your “battle-oriented” minions, pick things that have Divine Shield (Argent Squire, Scarlet Crusader, Sunwalker), and things that will allow you to close the game with big damage (Argent Commander, perhaps Stranglethorn Tiger, and class-specific threats like Doomguard for Warlock and Savannah Highmane for Hunter). There’s no escaping a lot of those staples, since each class has such a limited pool of options, so you’ll be seeing a lot of those same minions on each game.

The decks you need to win Hearthstone’s A Peek to the Past Tavern Brawl

Here are some good decks for you to try this week, under this very limited card set. If you don’t know how to use deck codes, we have a handy guide for that.

Zoo Warlock

• Deck code:

  AAEBAYrmBwAPkwHyAaIC3ALhBPcE3gX1BfsFigaWBtkH4gexCMIIAAA=

• Your goal with this deck is to flood the board with small minions that will stick, taking down enemy minions and slowly dealing damage to the opponent. Use Shadowflame to clear the opponent’s board when you need, and remember that you can combine it with temporary buffs from Abusive Sergeant or Dark Iron Dwarf. Close the game with your Doomguards.

Face/Beast Hunter

• Deck code:

  AAEBAcvwBgAPmQKiAtwCigOHBIIF9QXZB+IHsQjbCe0JgQrbCv4MAAA=

• The limited card pool didn’t allow us to build neither a proper Face Hunter nor a proper Beast Hunter, so a hybrid of sorts will have to do. Knife Juggler + Unleash the Hounds is pretty good combo when your opponent has a lot of minions. Your Eaglehorn Bow can let you either clear minions on your way or damage face, especially if you have an active Freezing Trap to give it more charges. Savannah Highmane and Argent Commander are your endgame tools to win.

Secret Mage

• Deck code:

  AAEBAYv/BwAPRHHDAfsBmQLcApUDrgPJA+EE5gTtBOwF9wX7DAAA

• It’s a bit tough to play Mage without core spells like Frostbolt or Fireball, so you’ll want a strategy based on setting up Secrets instead. You have spells like Cone of Cold and Blizzard to control the opponent’s board, but try to save them for when they’ll really make a splash. Draw cards with Loot Hoarder and Acolyte of Pain (which you can ping yourself with your Hero Power if needed), and utilize your endgame cards like Sunwalker and Argent Commander to close the deal.

Enrage Warrior

• Deck code:

  AAEBAYb/BwAPFpkCogKQA5oE1ASOBd4F9QWWBoIIsgjUCIMJ+wwAAA==

• Your minions will benefit from taking damage: Amani Berserker, Armorsmith, Frothing Berserker, and Raging Worgen, among others, are your core tools to gain lots of armor and lots of attack, with Frothing Berserker in particular being a major threat to your opponent that you want to protect. Use cards like Commanding Shout and Arathi Weaponsmith to control the opponent’s board from a safe position, and remember you have your own “pings” like Inner Rage and even Slam to activate your “on damage” effects. Battle Rage is a great card draw tool, so use it wisely.

Whichever deck you decide to play, may your pack come swift!

I last used that header image in 2015. I think it was due a comeback.

That is a ridiculously cute stab at Borophagus diversidens by paleoartist Charles R. Knight. However, based on the animal’s actual skull, it likely had a much shorter muzzle and bigger lower jaw for more bone crushing power. Still, I love the detail in Knight’s sketch and he was in line with what other artists were doing when he sketched it.

ARTHONOS

Thinking of physical media, one thing that always gets brought up is the risk it could get destroyed, and with CD’s they mention disk rot. Has anyone here ever encountered that? The only issues I’ve had with CD’s is the occasional scratch, but provided you ripped a copy when it was brand new, you can always just burn a new disk.

Our Answer:

Issues I’ve had with CD’s as media over the past years

• Scratches — As you mentioned above. I’ve had this happen pretty frequently — let’s say I’ve lost the ability to play something like 65 games, from obscure titles even I don’t quite remember to games like Warcraft 2, Diablo, Jade Empire, and the one that haunts me most, Planescape Torment.
• Melting — it happened twice, once to my Pools of Radiance discs (the one using D&D 3rd Edition) and once to Sid Meier’s Pirates. In both cases I left them in a black CD carrier which I then left in the sun during a particularly hot summer. IO regret them both, but in both cases I accept responsinility. (I also lost a lot of my music.)
• Fire — I left a lot of my stuff in my grandmother’s house and my cousin set the basement on fire. I lost everything. Every picture of my mom, my Petoskey Stone, and a collection of CD’s including video games (Shenmue, a collection of PlayStation and PS2 games that included Xenogears, Final Fantasy 7, and the original Silent Hill)  and my baby shoes.
• They just stopped working and I still don’t know why — My original discs for Fable, Fable 2 and Fable 3 just don’t work. No scratches, no fire, no melting, just no earthly reason for why none of them work. Tried them in multiple consoles, they just stopped. Replaced all three with newer discs, they all still work. No idea what happened.
• Dogs — Dogs can destroy a lot of things in a lot of ways. Chewing is always a favorite while also forcing you to go to the vet in sweaty panic afraid they’ve swallowed disc fragments that will chew up their insides, but do not sleep on the potency of urine as a means to burn information off of a CD
• The Disk Drive is apparently possessed by Satan — That’s the only excuse I have for it. It just wouldn’t read anything. and multiple discs I placed inside it ended up overwritten with gibberish.

SPENCER MORGAN

Q4tQ: I collect mogs, and mounts when they interest me. I play the tourist version of raids for the cutscenes. I’m not interested in the story, and have no social group in game to show my mogs off to. Why do I still play Queue?

Our Answer:

The Queue is not a game. We are not playing, it’s a super serious…

Wait, did you mean why are you still playing World of Warcraft? Either you enjoy the things you are doing — whatever they are, for all I know you’re obsessed with cooking recipes — or the game has downloaded a powerful addictive mental conditioning, like that episode of STTNG with Ashley Judd and Wil Wheaton and the hypnotic eye game that honestly looked pretty boring to me. I mean, Candy Crush would be preferable.

Either way, I hope you enjoy your time playing WoW or you succeed in giving the Enterprise to aliens.

RED

Is Jason Mraz related to Jason Buttons

Our Answer:

Without a DNA test or a dedicated genealogical deep dive into records, it’s hard for me to definitely say no, but if they are related it’s distantly at best.

TELWAR

I’ve always had the suspicion that our weather in the DC area somehow affects inbound volume, and today is one of those days that makes me think it’s true. It’s rainy, and the phones are dead, as is the fax queue.

Our Answer:

I lived in DC during Grad School. I don’t remember much — I was in the throes of a crippling bout of alcoholism and had just been cheated on and dumped by someone I had expected to spend my life with. However, I do remember a flash freeze that left the trees coated in ice that was completely transparent, and a dog that followed me around Tenleytown trying to steal my phone.

Probably not related but maybe he ended up as a minor demigod of keeping people from using their phones?

MUSEDMOOSE

I’m so tired I’ve already prepared my bed for the inevitable post-work nap.

So, how’s your Tuesday going?

Our Answer:

I have less blood tentacles in my eye and I recorded a podcast. 

Over 600 down, and that’s just for the Blizzard Watch podcast, not even Lore Watch, Tavern Watch, or one of the Tavern Watch Plays I’ve been in.

Then I ate some hot dogs.

Okay, that’s the Wednesday Queue. See y’all next week.

World of Warcraft: Forever is the hottest title in Blizzard’s catalogue, so of course we’re diving in to some of the lore of Forever in this first post-BlizzCon episode. We start with a question on the war between the Alliance and the Horde, which makes for a great excuse to recap a lot of the conflict through the whole Warcraft series. From the moment the Dark Portal opened, Orcs and Humans have had conflict — but is that conflict truly inescapable? But that’s just the start of the rabbit hole. There’s Trolls and Night Elves and Stranglethorn Vale and the Forsaken, and all of them have their part to play in the lore that makes up the rich world we’ll be encountering again for the first time in Forever.

Then, the loremasters address the whole elf-shaped elephant in the room thing. Are the Skyborne being added really less farfetched than just plunking down Blood Elves or High Elves or whatever and calling it good? Is there even a good justification for these guys? Joe, Matt, and Eric run down the lore bedrock behind the new race.

If you want even more background story, we also have a guide to every Warcraft book in chronological order (for those of you who prefer reading that way).

You can listen to the podcast directly from this post or click on “Follow” in the player below to follow the podcast in your podcast player of choice.

Or catch up with recent episodes on our playlist to be sure you haven’t missed any of the latest discussion of video game lore.

The Lore Watch podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. If you’d like to catch up on previous Lore Watch podcasts, our weekly Blizzard Watch podcast, or our ongoing TTRPG podcasts, check out our podcast page. You can also search for any of these programs in your favorite podcast player to subscribe and be notified when a new episode is released.

And finally, if you subscribe to our Patreon Tier 2 or above you can listen to the Lore Watch and Blizzard Watch podcasts early and ad free!

Have lore questions for Matt and Joe? Email us at podcast@blizzardwatch.com to get them answered!

Thanks for listening and enjoy the show!

Please support us on Patreon by subscribing or increasing your Patreon tier. 

The leaves are changing color, the temperatures are dropping, and it’s time for Brewfest in World of Warcraft: Midnight! This yearly celebration of potent potables is returning in 2026 with a handful of all-new rewards in the transmog and Player Housing decor categories. Read on for details on new cosmetics and the best way to rack up enough Brewfest Prize Tokens to earn your fill.

Great news for aspiring brewpub owners: two of the Player Housing decor items are purchasable for gold and bypass the event currency entirely. You can pick up as many copies of Traditional Brewfest Stein and Brewfest Crate as you’d like for 100 gold apiece.

The other new decor pieces will require quite a bit of chugging, as they can be bought for the event currency, Brewfest Prize Token. While these are fairly easy to come by and are Warband-wide, stocking your home pub with multiple copies of these calls for several pony kegs overflowing with event currency.

• Brewfest Fence – 50 Brewfest Prize Token
• Brewfest Fencepost – 50 Brewfest Prize Token
• Traditional Brewfest Banner – 125 Brewfest Prize Token
• Hanging Brewfest Wreath – 50 Brewfest Prize Token

All of these rewards are sold at the Brewfest grounds outside of Orgrimmar and Ironforge. Head to the back of either party and look for a tent with multiple vendors.

The best way to fill your purse with event currency is to go wide. Each member of your Warband can complete a number of once-per-year quests and earn about 150 tokens in less than half an hour. Start by queuing for the holiday boss, Coren Direbrew, which will give each toon on your account 40 tokens (not to mention a daily chance at the holiday mount drops). Head to Orgrimmar or Ironforge to turn them in and look for quests like Chug and Chuck! or Pink Elekks on Parade.

You can pick and choose which of these quests you’d like to repeat across your characters, and fairly quickly you’ll be earning enough tokens to buy plenty of decor as well as dig into the extensive backlog of cosmetic rewards from years past. Horde alts will have a significantly easier time getting to their festival in Orgrimmar so focus on those characters first. If you’re Alliance-heavy, don’t be like me and forget the Ironforge portal in Boralus. One more note: Legion: Remix characters are very likely to have the entire event broken as of right now due to phasing issues, so don’t fret if the festival looks abandoned.

The one new achievement added this year is A Round on the House in Midnight, where you can earn 10 Brewfest Prize Tokens at each of 8 taverns across the zones of Midnight. Repeat completions across your account give five tokens per bar. If you don’t mind a bit of travel time, this is another way to fill your pockets with enough event currency for a Brewfest shopping spree.

Last year’s addition of several color schemes worth of fancy kilt/beret combo is bolstered by two new ensembles. While you can spend your hard-earned Brewfest Prize Tokens on the blue, brown, black, and green outfits, the new red and purple versions can be obtained piece by piece from completing the Brewfest Banquet event. If you haven’t jumped into that aspect of Brewfest, check out our guide on unlocking and completing that event.

• Brewer’s Red Beret
• Brewer’s Red Shoulder Cape
• Brewer’s Red Belt
• Brewer’s Red Kilt
• Brewer’s Purple Beret
• Brewer’s Purple Shoulder Cape
• Brewer’s Purple Belt
• Brewer’s Purple Kilt

Brewfest runs until October 6 this year, so raise your stein and get collecting.

With the amount of help — “help” — the Old Gods have given me in Battlegrounds over the years, as Anomalies release today, I feel like I might owe them something. I just made Rice Krispies treats. Do you think Yogg will go for that?

This is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us questions, but one at a time, based on this little handmade book of coupons we made. You can redeem for one answer, one hug, or even one load of laundry done. Do you think that would be enough for like, cosmos-spanning dark power? No? Shoot.

CORY

Q4tQ: How would you make a variation on the Undead race in Warcraft to make it a new allied race? We have lots of flavours of the other original races but none of the Undead.

Our Answer:

I’m really surprised that we don’t have playable non-Human Undead by now. They set it up during the Battle for Lordaeron, when Sylvanas blighted everything and raised all the casualties to her side. Sure, it was a war crime or whatever, but we do those like twice an expansion or so. Not every one of the New-Undead would have to be survivors of that battle, but I figure if they had the tech to do that kind of thing then, before we went to the Shadowlands and Maldraxxus, we could probably piece together how to raise an Orc or Gnome into unlife now.

I’m not going to say it would be trivial to add a couple skin tones, eye options, and decay options to every race, but it’s probably in line with something like a new Troll tribe or blue Elves.

VALENCEMAGI

Are we sure there isn’t some higher-up at Blizz deciding which races become playable, and that they didn’t work at NaBisCo’s Oreo division?

Our Answer:

They’re just going to delete every race that isn’t a Troll or descended from Trolls so you might as well pick your favorite color.

MUSEDMOOSE

Q4tQ: can you give your character the same first and last name as a NPC in WoW Forever? I don’t mean someone like Jaina Proudmoore or Thrall Maincharacter, but ordinary ones like the profession people in this article. Are those blocked just like the big names?

Our Answer:

I can’t give an ironclad yes or no here, but I would guess yes, because this has been a thing for a long time, where certain NPCs names are verboten even if they’re not a lore figure. Obviously the first name “Amber” in Amber Kearnen isn’t going to be disallowed, but some are. I can’t swear to this, but I haven’t been able to start a new character called Lio in a while (though, to be fair, I haven’t rolled an alt on live servers in a very long time).

I’m sorry if you wanted to wear some engineering goggles and tell people to keep their feet on the ground, Dungar Longdrink.

CORY

Q4tQ: are you still streaming all of your music, or are you going back to more physical media? My cd collection has been growing a lot the last couple of years.

Shoutout to MUSE, Evanescence, and The Pretty Reckless for top three albums of the year — in a three way tie, of course.

Our Answer:

I have a good amount of physical media. My minivan is on the older side, so we have a built in DVD player. We’ve grown from Disney to The Princess Bride and Star Wars, and I have Twilight and Lord of the Rings waiting for next trip. I also have a disc changer and lots of CDs from back in the day, but I haven’t sought any out.

I will admit, as An Old, it’s pretty nice to be able to put a piece of plastic in a hole and just get music instead of messing around with my phone, and then the phone plays like one song I wanted to hear and then a whole lot of nonsense I don’t. I will never again download Spotify after one weekend where I was on a road trip and after every other song, it played Jason Mraz’s I’m Yours. I listened to it the first time, and then skipped it enough times that I “ran out” of skips, and then it just kept playing, over and over again. It was clearly either some kind of caching issue and I’m sure it’s very resolved by now, but it was like being in a circle of hell.

However, my 15 year old is very into CDs now. Apparently it’s a whole thing among kids their age to own physical media simply because of the retro cool clout a CD case offers. We’ve spent a few weekends at the used CD store of late.

There have been a few signifiers of late that I’m old now, and this is one.

BlizzCon is over. The Darkmoon Faire has packed up, the crowds have gone home, and another celebration of all things Blizzard is in the books, but the hype lives on, in VOD form. Every panel from BlizzCon 2026 is available to watch on YouTube, and we’ve collected them all here so you can see the show for yourself.

Across two packed days of panels, announcements, interviews, and presentations, there’s one simple truth: even if you were watching all weekend, you didn’t get to see everything. Whether two panels overlapped or you simply needed a break, chances are something slipped past you.

You can read our highlights from this year’s BlizzCon, but if you want all of the details Blizzard has posted most presentations to YouTube, and we’ve gathered them here for you, so settle in. BlizzCon may be over, but there’s still plenty left to watch. Here are all of the panels from BlizzCon 2026.

BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony

World of Warcraft at BlizzCon 2026

World of Warcraft split it’s videos between Midnight and Forever with a What’s Next for each– What’s Next Midnight, What’s Next Forever— as well as a Deep Dive on Forever. For those with a housing focus, there was the Crafting Coziness panel. Forever had more panels including the Creator Showcase, Evolving a Timeless world, a look at Hardcore, as well as Found Photographs to explain how the lore of Forever fits. Spoiler: it doesn’t.

Diablo at BlizzCon 2026

Diablo‘s Biggest Bombshell was the announcement of Diablo 5 and it jumped right in on that with Forging the Next Era. Of course, this did not mean the end of Diablo 4 with a What’s Next panel as well as a look at the cinematics of Diablo 4.

Overwatch at BlizzCon 2026

Overwatch‘s 2026 continues with a brand new hero, the vampire Doctrine. His arrival to the game and reworks were discussed in the Overwatch panel. There was also a panel on the lore, the alternate universe of Dokiwatch, and the epic Matt Mercer-led tabletop Overwatch adventure — Questwatch.

Hearthstone at BlizzCon 2026

Hearthstone‘s Old God themed expansion dominated its news as well as as a look at designing Battlegrounds, the card backs Hearthstone is known for, as well as a draw along of murlocs to make you go mrrgl-mrrgl-mrrgl.

Warcraft 3: Forsaken Kingdom at BlizzCon 2026

After over 20 years, we were not expecting any panels on Warcraft 3, but Forsaken Kingdom did have a deep dive.

Everything else at BlizzCon 2026

Many fun panels covered several games at once or just the core of Blizzard Entertainment in general — including the Community Night above.

• Trailercraft discussed making trailers that Blizzard is known for.
• 30 years of Battle.net was dedicated to the launcher system and a the addition of CD Projekt Red games.
• Collaborative Storytelling brought together writers across different games to discuss their experiences writing for long running franchises.
• Villains of Blizzard goes a step further to discuss the iconic baddies we all love.
• The Voice Actor panel is the returning delight that covers the actors across  all of the franchises explaining their experiences making your favorite characters.
• This was immediately followed by the brief closing remarks to end out the weekend.

And that’s it! Well… not exactly. There are still several hours of competition to catch, including the Overwatch World Cup, World of Warcraft Mythic Dungeon International and StarCraft 2 tournaments. We haven’t included all of those here, but if esports are your thing — or you simply haven’t had enough Blizzard — you can find the full matches and broadcasts on their respective YouTube channels.

It’s been a while since we’ve had such a short WoW maintenance, but today’s World of Warcraft downtime is as quick as it gets with just an hour of maintenance scheduled for all realms.

Here’s the WoW maintenance schedule for Tuesday, September 22:

• Midnight: Offline from 7am – 8am pacific (10am – 11am eastern)
• Mists of Pandaria Classic: Offline from 7am – 8am pacific (10am – 11am eastern)
• WoW Classic (including Classic Era, Season of Discovery, and Hardcore realms): Offline from 7am – 8am pacific (10am – 11am eastern)
• The Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary realms: Offline from 7am – 8am pacific (10am – 11am eastern)

All World of Warcraft realms are back online.

As you might expect from such a short maintenance, there’s nothing major scheduled to happen today. A few hotfixes will be going live on Midnight realms, including minor changes to the Ula’tek encounter in Venomous Abyss and some additional class tuning. There are no launches or new content scheduled on any realms.

It’s likely that the World of Warcraft: Forever servers will remain online during typical maintenance hours, so if you absolutely need your Warcraft fix, you could try there — here’s how to sign up for the beta, if you’re interested.

All servers are back online, so I’ll see you in Azeroth soon.

There will be new recipes for each profession in World of Warcraft: Forever as part of the game modes system revamp and upgrade, and one that can be really beneficial to commit to early is Enchanting. These new Enchanting recipes in WoW: Forever include recipes for different item slots and recipes for items you can learn as part of the Campfire system. While not “new” the recipes from Season of Discovery will also be available and of course, so will all of the enchants from Classic Era realms.

Learning how to enchant hasn’t changed: you can learn from different trainers as you level up your Enchanting skill, grab recipes from faction vendors as you earn reputation with their group, or get recipes as quest rewards or loot drops. We’ll be able to pin more down as the Forever beta continues and when Forever launches on November 4 but it’s important to keep in mind that until launch, some of these enchants can change. These may also not be all of the new enchants going into launch and some could be hidden from datamining or added later in WoW: Forever’s release cycle.

We’ll be keeping this list updated as a reference guide as more develops. For now, here are the new Enchanting recipes you can learn in World of Warcraft: Forever.

Campfire enchanting items in WoW: Forever

• Enchanted Lute: +28 Armor, exclusive with Mark of the Wild
• Arcane Salvager
• Arcane Forge

New necklace enchants in WoW: Forever

• Enchant Necklace – Agility: +5 Agility
• Enchant Necklace – Deflection: +5 defense skill
• Enchant Necklace – Healing Power: Increase healing up to +11 and spell damage up to +4
• Enchant Necklace – Spell Power: Increase spell damage and healing up to +6
• Enchant Necklace – Strength:+5 Strength

New chest enchants in WoW: Forever

• Enchant Chest – Absorption: 25% chance of 50 damage point absorption per hit

New bracer enchants in WoW: Forever

• Enchant Bracer – Lesser Agility: +4 Agility
• Enchant Bracer – Minor Healing Power: Increases healing up to +8 and damage up to +3
• Enchant Bracer – Lesser Healing Power: Increases healing up to +16 and damage up to +6
• Enchant Bracer – Inferior Stamina: +2 Stamina
• Enchant Bracer – Minor Intellect: +3 Intellect
• Enchant Bracer – Greater Agility: +7 Agility
• Enchant Bracer – Superior Agility: +9 Agility
• Enchant Bracer – Superior Deflection: +9 defense skill
• Enchant Bracer – Superior Intellect: +9 Intellect

New glove enchants in WoW: Forever

• Enchant Gloves – Advanced Skinning: +10 Skinning skill
• Enchant Gloves – Lotus Claw: Small chance to acquire Death Lotus when herb gathering in Hyjal
• Enchant Gloves – Natural Power: Increases Nature Damage by up to 20

New cloak enchants in WoW: Forever

• Enchant Cloak – Agility: +5 Agility

New weapon and item enchants in WoW: Forever

1H Weapons

• Enchant Weapon – Insight: Chance to increase Spirit by 100% for 10 sec
• Enchant Weapon – Recovery: Triggers when Parried or Dodged, healing you for 5% of maximum health
• Enchant Weapon – Revelation: Grants 100% increased critical strike chance to next spell cast, diminishes as critical strike chance increases

2H Weapons

• Enchant 2H Weapon – Lesser Agility: +15 Agility
• Enchant 2H Weapon – Lesser Strength: +15 Strength
• Enchant 2H Weapon – Strength: +25 Strength
• Enchant 2H Weapon – Mighty Healing Power: Increases healing up to +100 and damage up to +34
• Enchant 2H Weapon – Mighty Spell Power: Increases damage and healing up to +55

Off-hand

• Orb of Mystic Insight: +6 Intellect, +7 Spell Power
• Orb of Souls: +6 Spirit, +Damage, +4 Healing
• Twisting Essence Jar: +8 Stamina, +8 Spirit, +6 Damage, +19 Healing

Staves

• Glimmering Staff: +11 Stamina, +11 Intellect
• Soulstaff: +11 Stamina, +11 Intellect
• Dreamstaff: +19 Stamina, +19 Intellect
• Radiant Staff: +19 Stamina, +19 Intellect

Wands

• Twisted Nether Wand: +6 Spell Power
• Dreambough Wand: +7 Spell Power
• Lesser Eternal Wand: +8 Spell Power
• Greater Eternal Wand: +9 Spell Power
• Brilliant Wand: +7 Intellect, +9 Spell Power

Idols

• Mystic Mushroom: Increases Spirit by 5%
• Talons of Wrath: Wrath has a 50% chance to restore 35 Mana
• Idol of Swiftness: Reduces Swiftmend cooldown by 3 sec
• Idol of the Ursine Twins: Lacerate hits have a 10% chance to reset Mangle cooldown
• Idol of the Dream: Increases Rip duration by 2 sec

Totems

• Polished Driftwood Icon: 8% of Mana regeneration continues while casting
• Totem of Ancestral Protection: Reduces Grounding Totem cooldown by 1 sec
• Totem of Urgency: Increases Lesser Healing Wave critical strike chance by 4%
• Totem of Thunder: Increases Lightning Bolt critical strike chance by 1%

Librams

• Tenets of the Silver Hand: Increase damage against Undead by 1%
• Libram of Invocation: Reduces mana cost of Seals by 5%
• Steadfast Libram: Increase block value of shield by 30% while Holy Shield is active
• Libram of Infusion: Increase Holy Shock’s critical strike chance by 6%
• Libram of Holy Alacrity: Holy Shock reduces cast time of Holy Light by 0.2 sec

Trinkets

• Molten Heart of the Mountain: Increases Attack Power by 55 for 15, effect doubled in Volcanic areas
• Frozen Heart of the Mountain: Increases Frost and Shadow spell damage by up to 29 for 15 sec, effect doubled in Snowy areas
• Dormant Heart of the Mountain: Increases Greater Heal, Healing Touch, Healing Wave, or Holy Light combat casts up to +40 healing and +13 damage for 15 sec

Oils

• Blackfathom Mana Oil

Sometimes the muse strikes

no not the rock and roll band

inspiration fool

 

Welcome to the Queue

Our daily question Column

Answers sold out

JALAMENOS DON’T GIVE UP ON ME

Why is it so cold and dark?
There’s frost on the grass.
I want to go back to bed.

Our Answer:

Defrost my windshield

Maybe it won’t be so cold

Frozen beard says no

FUZZYBUNNY EVEN IF I KICK AND SCREAM I’M SAYING ALL THAT I CAN

It is Bacardi Monday here.

Our Answer:

Bacardi Monday

Finally recognition

Rewards for your faith

 

RJAGODA I WISH I COULD SAY IT ALL TO YOU IN IAMBIC PENTAMETER

I now have the resilient 12 achievement. Not a bad week of dungeons. :)

Our Answer:

Keystones fall like wheat

You stride the world a victor

Ranking to the moon

 

I’D IMPROVISE HIGH NOTES LIKE RED WHEN HE’S JAMMING IT

lemonade is an anagram of demon ale

Our Answer:

Life gives you demons

Better blend them into mist

spicy lemonade

ARTHONOS I’D LET IT ALL OUT AND THERE’S NO DOUBT YOU WOULD HELP ME UNDERSTAND

Unfortunately Fortune’s Weave just blew it’s chance at GotY. I doesn’t look like you are able to pet dogs or cats.

Our Answer:

I can’t pet that dog

Virtual pets need love too

Rage against this crime

Perched on the couch

It’s a tiny gargoyle cat

Won’t lose to a bird

 

Boop for the best luck

Real treasure friends made on way

A cliché but true

Would you rather

Speak only in Haiku

Or

Speak only in iambic pentameter

Today’s Anna Earworm­™: Iambic Pentameter

Have a super week

Your mission to improve it

Leave Anna Questions

 

We may have finally recovered from BlizzCon. Maybe. (I still feel like I need a nap.) Over the last week we’ve swept up a little more BlizzCon news and started diving into the World of Warcraft: Forever beta, which is keeping us busy. (There’s always just one more quest to do.)

If you’re out of the loop, you may want to start by catching up on all the news from BlizzCon, and then come back to this post to see what’s happened since. Here’s what’s been happening in the world of Blizzard games, and what’s coming up.

What happened last week?

• The World of Warcraft: Forever beta test is now live, and you can either sign up on the website (for free) or order one of the Forever bundles (not free) to join in. Here’s how to get in to the beta if you want to check the game out early. Just remember: this is a beta test, so you can expect some bugs.
• Looking to play the Skyborne, the new race in WoW: Forever? Here are the details on Skyborne classes, factions, and how to unlock them, as well as a quick BlizzCon glance at the Skyborne starting zone on Zephras Isle.
• While we still don’t have all of the details, we’re already speculating on WoW: Forever’s raid bosses based on the achievements we’ve seen. Take a look for names and a bit of lore guesswork!
• One of the more interesting new systems in WoW: Forever is Campfires, which you can set up all over the world to make a camp to earn tons of different buffs, depending on which professions players use when setting up the camp. It adds interesting new utility to professions, and has a fun social element, too.
• We have all of the vibes from the BlizzCon show floor for you, as well as the excellent cosplay and look at the Last Call at the Arcantina tabletop game,
• One thing we didn’t see at BlizzCon was news about WoW Classic servers, whether it’s Classic Era realms, Anniversary realms, or Mists of Pandaria realms. So what’s next for Classic? We have some speculation.
• BlizzCon may be over, but you can still earn Twitch Drops for World of Warcraft through September 27 by watching anything in the World of Warcraft category, so tune in for the last call on these freebies, including extra Trader’s Tender!
• I admit, we’ve been a little obsessed with WoW: Forever lately, but there’s a lot going on elsewhere: here’s what we have to look forward to on the Midnight roadmap over the next year.
  • One exciting inclusion on that roadmap is definitely Wrath of the Lich King Remix, due out summer 2027.
  • … also Undead, Darkspear Troll, and Night Elf Paladins.
  • … also also details about Midnight Season 3 (though we still have a while to wait).
• Playable Amazons are coming to Diablo 4 and I am just a tiny bit excited. Only a reasonable amount, though, as my enthusiasm tempered by the fact that they aren’t arriving until 2027.
• This week’s Hearthstone Tavern Brawl is the All-Star Squad Tavern Brawl, which is a frustrating one due to the lack of options. Pick one card and your deck will have 22 copies of it plus eight random cards. Pick Pogo-Hopper and you’ll (probably) win (if you go first). Pick anything else and you’ll almost certainly lose.

What’s happening this week (and beyond)

• Through September 22: Midnight Winds of Mysterious Fortune buff available, plus bonus Trader’s Tender
• September 28: Xal’atath in Heroes of the Storm
• October 6: Overwatch Season 5 with new hero Doctrine
• October 6 (estimate): WoW patch 12.1.5
• October 20: Hearthstone: Reign of the Black Empire expansion
• November 4:  WoW: Forever launches
• November 17: World of Warcraft D&D book launches

Other things we’re playing, watching, and more

We’re continuing our actual play of The Séance of Blake Manor on Twitch, and this week we’re tossing the rooms of all of our fellow hotel guests, and it’s not like it’s our fault that everyone leaves their journals just sitting in closed drawers inside their locked hotel rooms. If they didn’t want us to read them, they really should have hidden them better. Catch us streaming more Blake Manor and other indie games live Thursday at 8pm eastern (and follow us on Twitch to get notifications), and watch Liz, Liz, and Mitch exploring the manor here:

Our latest podcasts

• Blizzard Watch Podcast: The BlizzCon mega episode
• Lore Watch Podcast: A lore primer for The Green Lantern
• Tavern Watch Plays Fallout, episode 3: Deals with dinosaurs (or just big chickens)

That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading, and I’ll be back next week with another weekly news recap!

It’s Friday! Can you believe it was just BlizzCon last weekend? Honestly, even as someone who was a somewhat disinterested watcher going into the whole thing, it was hard not to get more than a little excited about some of the stuff that we’ve all discussed endlessly all week around here. Now it’s a new weekend, and I have to shift into a tabletop headspace: I have four games scheduled for this weekend. Pray for my poor brain cells, they’re gonna get worn out by Sunday night.

This is the Queue, our daily question and answer question column where the definition of “question” can get pretty broad, but so can the definition of “answer.” Let’s get into it.

RJAGODA

If you are purchasing beta access for Forever, or Midnight, or anything else, why? Assuming you’re not doing it for journalism or min-maxing. I’m not criticizing anyone for doing so, spend your money and time however you want, you earned it. I’m genuinely curious because I don’t see the attraction to an unpolished, unfinished product that wipes my progress when servers go live. Analogously, I wouldn’t be interested in hearing rehearsals for a band I like before their album hits, or the rough cut of a movie before the edits and effects and whatever are added.

Our Answer:

I have purchased a number of things in the past that coincidentally came with beta access, but only once have I purchased beta access for itself: I purchased the collector’s edition of Diablo 3, despite having no interest in Diablo 3, because it came with beta access for Mists of Pandaria. I was coming off of a break from WoW that lasted for basically all of Cataclysm — my guild crashed and burned hard within a month of starting raiding, and I didn’t return until the post-Dragon Soul waiting period — and honestly I wanted to see if the game was going to be fun enough for me to continue playing or if my time in patch 4.3 was a fluke.

On top of uncovering some bugs which I dutifully reported (one of them was that the starting hat for male Pandaren was a blue-and-white checkered cube), I also gave the Monk class a thorough playtesting that led to me playing it for most of that first patch even though it started at level 1, and put the early pet battle system through its paces. So hey, at least the one time I paid for beta access, I at least did beta stuff.

BUNDTCAKE

Q4tQ: Does Blizzard release simultaneous in-game events on purpose for a particular reason, or just to annoy us?

Right now we’ve got Winds of Mysterious Fortune in WoW Retail, a new D4 season, and WoW Forever beta dropping within a week of one another. No one has that kind of time.

Our Answer:

Yes. It’s specifically to annoy you — only you — and give you a sense of FOMO. They’ve got your number, bundtcake.

More serious answer: everything you named lasts for multiple weeks. No one is forcing you to try to make time for all of them at once. In fact, I recommend you don’t. Slow down.

TETSEMI

QFTQ – What Blizzard property would you like to see done as an Cyberpunk 2077-esque style, and which property is ripe for a Stardew Valley treatment?

Our Answer:

So by Cyberpunk 2077 I’m assuming we mean a story-driven, choices-matter action adventure game with multiple playthroughs encouraged to see the whole thing, open world, lots of skills and approaches to challenges. I think I’d want this in the world of Overwatch. I imagine a lot of folks were thinking something like that during the brief, hopeful period of time where we optimistically thought we might get a story mode for Overwatch. It’s one of their franchises where there’s obviously just a lot going on in the background in terms of world-building and it would be nice to get a single-player game that really lets us play in that space.

As for the Stardew Valley treatment: World of Warcraft, but set it in Hillsbrad Foothills. Let me be a Forsaken farmer growing my bumper crop of Humans. Give a gift of a cockroach to that cute, slightly-less-rotten girl in the nearby village. Clean slimes up in the Ruins of Southshore for crafting materials.

KALCHEUS (A TWOFER!)

Q4tQ Any fun plans this weekend?
also
Q4tQ Do you plan on playing the Forever beta?

Our Answer:

Forever beta: I’ll probably play it a little bit if I get in, but I didn’t buy any of the things that guarantee access and I didn’t remember to opt-in until yesterday, so I suspect it will be a while until I get in. After seeing the queue and server stability issues yesterday, I have a feeling Blizzard will be a little wary before they open the next wave of invites.

Weekend plans: as I alluded to in the header, I have four tabletop games this weekend, two as GM and two as a player: running Fabula Ultima tonight, running a game that you’ll find out when it releases for the Tavern Watch Plays tomorrow, Shadowrun Sixth Edition on Sunday morning, and D&D on Sunday evening.

Also trying to decide if I should get the new Fire Emblem. How is it?

LIZ PATT

please provide Carrot picture for all to enjoy, thank you

Our Answer:

Paying the cat tax, as requested.

Happy Friday!

BlizzCon just wrapped, and so there is so much to talk about we couldn’t pack it all into an hour. We spent around an hour on WoW Forever, the new Classic+ that was rumored and is now coming to fruition with a sort-of alternate history. There was a lot of Midnight news too, including Talebound, which is an upcoming alt mode a la Plunderstorm. We got a small tidbit from The Last Titan, we saw Holly Longdale’s impeccable outfit — and that was just all the WoW stuff! No wait, it wasn’t. There’s also going to be Undead Paladins, to tie in to both a Warcraft 3 expansion and Wrath of the Lich King Remix, the portmanteau for which is still up in the air (I lean toward Wremix, but I’ve seen a few ReLiches too).

There were two very long-range reveals for Diablo 5 and StarCraft, not to mention a Netflix Diablo series with no ETA at all. The Hearthstone Battlegrounds new Anomaly family and the next Overwatch season (and next hero Doctrine) release next week though, for a little balance. The Hearthstone expansion Reign of the Black Empire is a bit further off, though, slated for October.

Did I forget anything? Something that a frequent guest host might find terribly exciting, like a new hero for Heroes of the Storm? Eh, probably not. I’d remember something like that.

Oh! Amazons! For Diablo 4! Liz was pretty excited about that. That must’ve been it.

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