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Anthem Showcases the Everlasting Disconnect Between Executive Leadership and Reality (Bonus: 5 Worst Launches Ever)

Editorials
anthem lol

Anthem’s constant downtime, glitches, errors and bugs showcase the issues that modern video game companies have. Leadership, a term that I will use to include investors, stakeholders and big decision makers are disconnected from reality and continue, year after year, to repeat the same errors like: Releasing a game early.Having a process in place to test a game to determine if it would be released early.Having the strength to say no, we will hold off releasing and fixing the bugs.Not listening to their staff when they say the game isn’t ready yet. Anthem’s terrible launch has dragged BioWare’s name through the mud day after day since the free open beta test where this behavior was so rampant that no one talked about being a cool Iron Man, they talked about how they got disconnected or couldn’t load or couldn’t see their menus or their game crashed to desktop or or…

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World of Warcraft: Classic – A Look Back and a Look Ahead

Editorials
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A molten Dwarven fortress atop cold, snowy mountains; a jungle of merciless danger and adventure; and people of all types to be found in every corner of the world, partaking in a cultural phenomenon unlike any other. In 2004, this was some of what awaited those who entered Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, a game that changed the landscape of online role-playing games forever. Since its launch as an immediate hit and cementing its spot in popular nomenclature, the game’s content has only grown in scope. What started as an ambitious project into unknown territory has become a perennial king of the industry that set the example for others for years to come. Now, fresh off the heels of WoW’s latest content expansion, Battle for Azeroth, Blizzard is preparing a new kind of journey — this summer, players will get to go back to where it all began in World of Warcraft:…

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What’s so Wrong About Being Elitist?

Editorials
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No doubt about it: “elitist” is an ugly world. Its connotation brings to mind concepts such as exclusion, snobbery, gatekeeping, and general nastiness… … okay, so maybe there’s a lot wrong with being elitist. It might be worth taking a look beyond the obvious negatives and examine what makes someone elitist in the first place, though. It can clearly be an ugly behavior, but there are two sides to every coin, so what could possibly make elitism sympathetic, and what can cause it in gaming? Across any form of media, but often games, there are people who will shut out others if they don’t feel like they are “true fans” of a franchise in question. We have probably all been guilty of this, to some level, but when it’s taken to an outspoken measure that aims to block a sizable audience from enjoying the product, that’s when the elitism issue…

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The Journey is More Important than the End – An Open Letter

Editorials
assassins creed odyssey

We get caught up playing games to finish them or achieve something or score some victory or some win. Some amount of points, some kind of achievements; these are things that we crave in order to drive us to play games but really, the journey to do these things are so important. I’ve been playing Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and I noticed something. Moving between objectives was far more fun than actually completing them. Seeing the world, listening to the sea, watching the ships move in the distance while mountains lumbered over the horizon; the views in the game are beyond gorgeous. The combat, while enthralling and the story, while good creates a world that really makes your time in it exciting and fun. In games we often think about the goals, often listed directly on the screen and of little more. Games like Shadow of the Colossus really brought the…

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Imperius’ Voice Lines Leaked – Awesome and Hilarious

News
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Data miners have ripped out Imperius’ (no one has has the plural figured out yet) voice lines and they’re awesome. You can listen to them over at the Heroes of the Storm Wiki, but they really shine. Heroes of the Storm is one of the few outlets we get to dive deeper into some of the character’s personal stories and with Imperius we get a lot. His disdain for mortals and the Nephalem (Diablo III’s player character) is well observed. One thing that gets me is he says “Your kind are an abomination!” to Diablo II player character heroes (like Xul). This is interesting to me because we know that Diablo I’s player characters were basically villains in Diablo II (Blood Raven, The Summoner and Spoiler: Diablo). They weren’t assigned on any special quest or notable outside of the fact the three of them went and slayed Diablo. In Diablo…

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Activision Blizzard is Being Weird

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acti blizzard why

Activision Blizzard is just outright being weird. It started many years ago when Activision bought Blizzard. At that point everyone declared Blizzard dead and that profits will rule the kingdom. That wasn’t… true you could say? Blizzard, under Mike Morhaime one of the co-founders of Blizzard, continued to prosper and be the one game launcher (Blizzard App, previously Battle.net) that no one complained about, Then 2018 hit and like many things, Activision Blizzard got weird. Mike Morhaime left the company, the CFO was poached twice and they basically began mothballing their very popular game Heroes of the Storm. All the while they spent most of the year being besieged by positive press about their profits. Then, there was BlizzCon where they announced the Diablo: Immortal game to basically people pausing and going what. Why did this happen? There is a lot to it, with many moving parts. If I had…

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Heroes of the Storm’s New Hero – Imperius Announced

News
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Not a lot is known about Heroes of the Storm’s next champion, other than he’s from Diablo 3 and was heavily featured in the expansion. We first met Imperius back in 2011’s Blizzcon, where the above concept art was introduced. It’s interesting that they’re moving for an Angel from Diablo 3 when we already have Auriel and Malthael. Andariel is a pretty popular request as she was the only female Evil until Diablo 3’s Diablo went and got a sex change. Of course, Imperius is a fan favorite too so this isn’t a giant upset. It’s just interesting that they’re expanding Heroes with more angels on the heels of announcing the reorganization of the Heroes of the Storm support team. Since we don’t know much about his abilities until January 2nd, let’s talk a little about who he is. Imperius is the archangel of Valor. He’s basically the greatest warrior…

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