My Life As A Gamer: BlizzCon 2018 WrapUp

It's still a two-day convention, with all of the important stuff said on Friday, so today's post is a roundup of what Blizzard and friends announced.

• Before the show started, Bungie made Destiny 2 on PC free for all Bnet users to keep until the 18th.
• They're doubling-down on the esports for as many of their properties as they can pull off.
• Starcraft 2: Zeratul as Co-Op Commander; Google Deep Mind crew is back to show off their AI work.
• Heroes of the Storm: New Heroine, Original Character, Orphea. The game now has enough stand-alone lore to generate original characters. Free to attendees and VT holders.
• World of Warcraft: New boss, John Haidt. BFA updates. Classic Demo live through the 8th. Patch 8.1 info includes Battle of Dazar'alor (raid Zandalari capital), Darkshore Warfront, War Assaults (Legion invasions redux), Classic goes live Summer 2019 and is a client option in your Live sub fee, baby pet charity object for coreorg is SJW bullshit, cinematic to set up Saurfang's resistance to Sylvanus.
• Hearthstone: Audio failure. Come back later.
• Overwatch: New hero, Ashe.
• Classic Games: Warcraft 3 Remastered.
• Hearthstone: Mic fixed. Rastakhan's Rumble, set in Gurabashi Arena in STV. Trolls aplenty.
• Diablo: Immortal, original mobile game. Set after D2. Cross-platform. May God have mercy on their souls.
• WOW: Zandalari Trolls can be Paladins. (Lore change.) Kul Tirans can't be Mages, but can be Shaman. (Ditto.) WOD Timewalking. Nazjatar and Mechagon in 8.2, with likely next set of Allied Races to come with those zones/dungeons. Azshara plot comes in earnest after second raid tier. More Heritage Armor for Classic races. The "fix the expac in X.1+" trend continues.

I'm happy about Classic, and I appreciate getting a $60 game for free, but otherwise I'm hearing "We have nothing going on and don't know what the fuck to do." out of Blizzard with this year's announcements. SC2 is all but dead, Hearthstone is a gimmick-fest, Heroes and Overwatch are not the top-tier games in their genres despite Blizzard tryharding for years on end, and they just gave up on Diablo. The new mobile game is reskin of an existing Chinese game; that's how cynical and lazy this is.

We need something new, something the Blizzard that Mike was there to found would have done, and until that Blizzard comes back from the dead and kills the thing wearing it like a skinsuit this is what we can expect out of the company. I am not impressed, Blizzard, and once you get some serious competition I will see if you once more revitalize back to what you were. As it is, all this retreading is really seeking for the spark you lost.

Git Gud, Blizzard, or GTFO. Stop phoning it in, and stop shitting on the Diablo players in particular. Now for video backup.